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John Howard |
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Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 02:55:14 AM EST |
John Howard's RSS Feed
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Sat Sep 04, 2010 at 17:57:51 PM EDT
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Hey, the meme is spreading, people are beginning to notice the Libertarian Transhumanists and their outsized influence on the politics of today. Alternet has a great article by Brad Reed entitled "The Ultimate Escape: The Bizarre Libertarian Plan of Uploading Brains into Robots to Escape Society" and Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society picks up on it and connects it to the New Yorker's revelation of Billionaire Libertarian David Koch's covert steering of the Tea Party activism into a Libertarian movement, which means a Transhumanist movement also. The Tea Party's opposition to "death panels" is a seed planted to grow into but a demand for funding life-extension and transhumanism research, who cares about plain old medicine for everybody?
Update: Just discovered another Darnovsky must-read: Libertarians Diss Democracy
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Thu May 13, 2010 at 15:20:30 PM EDT
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So it looks like the Transgender Bill is stalled in the State House and causing lots of headaches and wasting time for the Representatives who are looking for a way to resolve this, not to mention the activists working for and against this important bill.
Well, there is a way to resolve this, by specifying in the bill that nothing in the bill implies a right to conceive children as the other gender, and affirming that people only have the right to conceive children as the sex which they would be most likely able to conceive children as, using their natural unmodified genes.
This would achieve all the stated aims of the trans activists, while eliminating fears about being forced to pay for transgender reproduction and surgery.
It is worth a try, is it not?
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Fri Feb 19, 2010 at 14:39:02 PM EST
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It should be obvious from the words themselves that Transhumanism and Conservatism are essentially completely opposite and mutually exclusive enemies of each other: Conservatism (Latin: conservare, "to preserve") is a political attitude that advocates institutions and traditional practices that have developed organically, thus emphasizing stability and continuity. Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes.
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Sat Jan 30, 2010 at 19:36:48 PM EST
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Get up early at 7AM in the morning on Thursday to celebrate the Alphabetic New Year! That's right, here in the Eastern Time Zone, 7AM on February 4th is the time when the World Time Format (WTF?) Alphabetic Date will roll over from FJRZZ to FJSAA, marking the start of Alphabetic year S. We're going to have a celebration at the Diesel Cafe in Somerville where the Alphabet Clock and WTF were born, if we can actually get up that early in the morning (if only we lived in England, it would happen at Noon).
An Alphabetic Year consists of 26 Alphabetic Months, which are each 26 Days, so a new Alphabetic Year happens every 676 days. After this one Thursday, February 4th, the next one will be Monday, Dec 12 2011. (We decided to skip Alphabetic "Weeks", since 26 days is close to a lunar month. Alpha Centuries last approximately 48 years (that is, 48 orbits around the Sun), and Alpha Millenia last about 1251 years. The next Alphabetic New Century (FKAAA:) is on Mon Nov 25 2024, so make your New Alphabetic Century breakfast reservations now.
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Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 17:23:16 PM EST
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One example of the kind of bipartisan cooperation toward needed results that I am hoping this blog will foster on all sorts of issues, is of course the compromise to resolve the marriage debate that I've been pushing for all over the internet and at my own blog EggAndSperm since 2004.
In The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise, the extreme libertarians that have been protracting the debate are rejected, while the responsible moderates in each party agree to what they both agree about already: preserving marriage as a man and a woman while giving the same benefits and protections to same-sex couples in the form of Civil Unions.
Been there, tried that, you say? True, and there are many reasons why we haven't been able to settle on Civil Unions already, and courts in California and Massachusetts have ruled they are an unconstitutional solution. The key to the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise that makes it different from a "marriage-in-all-but-name" Civil Union compromise is (of course) the "Egg and Sperm" part that would prohibit attempting to procreate with someone of the same sex using modified genes, and then explicitly defining the Civil Unions as not having a right to procreate together, using the couple's own genes. Also, for good measure, the Compromise would affirm in federal law that all marriages must protect the right of the couple to procreate together, using the couple's own genes. This preserves marriage's essential meaning as well as reserves it for a man and a woman, while federally recognizing uniform state civil unions that provide all the other rights and benefits.
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Fri Dec 18, 2009 at 18:14:57 PM EST
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The ever-confusing Transhumanist critic Dale Carrico offers up another great rant against Transhumanists over at his amor mundi blog, melding Jim Kunstler's poetic commentary on the epic disaster about to happen with Dale's unique understanding of the addled sci-fi delusions plaguing the thinking of Transhumanists.
The Future's So Bright You Gotta Wear Shades
I truly worry that this was the last chance for democratic push-back, peer-to-peer, against a neo-feudal corporate-militarist America, and we may well be blowing it, right here, right now. Longer term education-agitation-organization may well be trending away from Movement Republicanism, not to mention ramifying pressures from post-US-hegemonic players, but it isn't at all clear that unraveling neoliberal ponzi-schemes, climate change, energy and resource descent, arms proliferation, global destabilization among other planetary problems are waiting around to give us time to become sane enough soon enough to be equal to them. The United States could very easily become in no time flat a hopelessly diseased distressed debt-ridden ignorant gun-saturated backwater neck deep in Greenhouse storms and riven with ethnic and ideological hatreds, while moneyed and incumbent interests retreat to walled enclaves with their loot to watch the show and pluck out the occasionally photogenic slave.
That's Dale echoing Kunstler, but with his peer-to-peer/education fixation replacing Kunster's clarion call for "re-scaling, re-localizing, and de-globalizing of our daily activities."
Below the flip, Dale eviscerates the Transhumanists for contributing to this epic collapse, but um, not really...
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Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 21:05:49 PM EST
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Our nation's factory farmed food supply is a public health hazard, responsible for many deaths from bacterial infections, rampant diabetes and poor nutrition, new influenzas, contaminated ground water, etc. There is a growing understanding among the public, thanks to books like Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Eating Animals, and movies like Food Inc and King Corn, that factory farming has got to go, and be replaced by local sustainable agriculture.
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Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 20:34:59 PM EST
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You may have noticed that PurpleMassGroup is not purple, it is green! That's because the responsible democrats and republicans who this blog is intended to serve desire "green" public policies and lifestyles, and the green color scheme helps remind us of our goals and our responsibilities. Besides, purple would have been really really ugly, and it's a sort of frivolous color. So we're green, literally.
Update: On the advice of Brock at RMG, I'm trying out this deep Tyrian purple. He says PurpleMassGroup should be purple, and if this color was good enough for Roman Emperors and early Christian art, it should fit a blog dedicated to respect for government authority and morality. I'm still not sure its a good idea, but at least on a blog it's just a number (Hex: #66023C), it's not derived from snails like the real Tyrian Purple dye was.
Update: Patrick had a good idea to try blue on the left, red on the right, and maybe purple in the middle, to convey the bi-partisan mission. I like this, it looks like the French flag and also like a pair of pants I had in 1976. Update to this update: Patrick actually suggested red on the left and blue on the right, I think to signify the meeting in the middle between conservative Democrats in the right of their party and responsible Republicans in the left of their party. So now it's not like the French flag anymore, as far as I can tell, Red White Blue vertical stripes aren't any country's flag, they're just "red, white, and blue."
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Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 19:07:22 PM EST
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PurpleMassGroup is for thoughtful sharing of ideas from a non-partisan, we're-all-in-this-together, let's-get-things-done perspective. Contributors from all parties are encouraged to participate in order to implore responsible leadership within their parties and at all levels of government.
Respectful debate is an important means to opening hearts and minds and achieving consensus. We welcome deviations from established party lines.
Insults and personal attacks are not permitted.
Users are encouraged to register with the same user names they use at the Red, Gold and Blue Mass Groups if possible.
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Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 18:25:17 PM EST
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And just as GoldMassGroup has their candidate in the Senate race, so too does PurpleMassGroup. It was easy to decide who to endorse, as I am not only the only editor and owner but also running in the race myself, for the same reason I am starting this blog: in order to get the country to address the same issues that I hope this blog and community will help bring attention to. I started blogging about one of those issues five years ago at my blog EggAndSperm, to enact a federal law to stop human cloning, same-sex procreation, and genetic engineering of people, and raised awareness of the issue all over the internet. Now I'm trying to raise the issue in the Senate race, and running a write-in campaign to go to Washington myself and introduce the bill to resolve the marriage debate and get to work on huge issues that we face as a nation.
But this blog isn't a campaign blog or intended to be about me, it is not mere self-promotion. This blog is intended to and will hopefully grow with more editors and contributors who want to meet in the responsible middle ground and form a community dedicated to bringing the two parties together by rejecting libertarian extremism. As the editor, I will try to promote posts to the front page that come from that responsible perspective and seek to form that middle ground. Libertarians are welcome to join in the discussion, but probably won't be promoted to the front page very often, unless it shows they're trying.
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Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 18:07:42 PM EST
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Welcome to PurpleMassGroup! As the name suggests, this site is intended to provide a forum for both Republicans and Democrats who are seeking a return to responsible effective government, who reject the libertarian influence that has been pushing both parties toward the extreme left and right. Libertarians now have their own blog at GoldMassGroup.com and their own candidate in the Senate race, so this blog completes the new alignment that will help the two main parties reclaim their true identities, unburdened by the selfish influence of libertarianism.
Socially conservative Democrats and socially responsible Republicans are encouraged to join PurpleMassGroup and forge a new coalition to bring Americans together to address the urgent issues that we face as a nation. Of course, PurpleMassGroup will be focused on Massachusetts, but not selfishly focused on it. Massachusetts has neighbors and exists in a larger community, just like people do.
So if you are an anti-government, anti-healthcare, anti-regulation, free market, globalist Republican, or an anti-government, laws-off-my-body, reproductive freedom, anti-regulation, globalist Democrat, there is a party, a candidate, and a blog, just for you (you'll have plenty of inherent contradictions to argue about, so get started right away). But if you believe in social responsibility and individual responsibility, respect government and religion and traditional morality, and are sick of extremists paralyzing the parties with outrageous and embarrassing positions and want the parties to come together to get things done, then this blog is for you.
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