My Take on Kony 2012

Is it the perfect message?  No.  Is it way better than the alternative?  Yes. First, if you haven't seen the Kony 2012 video, check it out here.  Now that you've seen it, you may have also heard some of the arguments against it: It oversimplifies the issue. There are more bad guys than Kony to worry about, it can't be solved so simply, etc.  And the nuanced version resonated how much?  That is, how much did people know/care about any of this before the video. It's out of date. Kony isn't even in Uganda any more, and Uganda is a really nice place.  Uganda may be doing well, but Kony and his buddies...

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Eric Cantor is a Waste of Space

Representatives are supposed to balance leadership with representing the will of their districts.  Eric Cantor does none of these. I was going to title this one "Eric Cantor is a hair cut," but honestly, I don't even like the hair cut that much.  And besides, I think waste of space is more appropriate.  This is a guy who, when Republicans controlled the House, voted for every single spending increase that he could get his hands on and supported enormous incursions of the state into personal liberty. Later, when the Tea Party showed itself to be a real political force and fiscal responsibility became the topic du jour, he...

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Teach the Controversy

It doesn't work to simply scream "THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY!" - so let's arm ourselves and our kids with the ability to actively defend our beliefs. "Teach the Controversy": One of the soundbites from the creationist camp in an effort to get their ideas more exposure is "Teach the Controversy" - the idea being that even if you don't believe in creationism, you should at least accept the possibility that you are wrong and teach another view.  Their hope is that a) by being taught in schools, the perceived credibility of the idea increases, and b) by exposing more people to the idea, you can win converts.  Well, that, and they believe they are right, so why shouldn't you teach something that is right? There is No Controversy?: It is precisely for these reasons (except...

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Welcome to my Blog!

I have had a Judo blog for a while now, and recently had the desire to start a non-Judo blog.  So that's what this is - a non-Judo blog.  It won't get more well-defined than that, I suspect...  Politics, science, grammar, philosophy, pop culture, weird crap that I am interested in... Whatever.  I'll post it here.  I do have an objective, in general, though - I am going to try to be interesting, to offer food for thought, and hopfully make some contribution.  It may not be a unique contribution, but I'll try.  And as a personal objective, I want to help flesh out my own thinking on some things. Maybe nobody will be interested, in and in that case, I'll probably stop writing.  But if folks are interested, I invite comment and debate - I readily...

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