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Just picking up the Spirit Level again, and finding great stuff to share.
As a way of creating a more egalitarian society, employee ownership and control have many advantages. First, it enables a process of social emancipation as people become members of a team. Second, it puts the scale of earning differentials ultimately under democratic control:if the body of employees want big income differentials they could choose to keep them. Third it involves a very substantial redistribution of wealth from external share holders to employees and a simultaneous redistribution of the income from that wealth. In this context, that is a particularly important advantage. Fourth, it improves productivity and so has a competitive advantage. Fifth, it increases the likelihood that people will regain the experience of community. And sixth, it is likely to improve sociability in the wider society.
The real reward however, is not simply to have a few employee-owned companies in a society still dominated by hierarchical ideology and status-seeking, but to have a society of people freer those divisions.
– The Spirit Level:Why Equality is Better for Everyone. p.260-261.
Yes, gentle readers, a more a egalitarian society is better for everyone. What a concept eh? :)
Teaching fairy tales and assorted religious mumbo-jumbo since 1996 with public funds!
Teaching religion in public schools as a serious “subject” is just wrong. Religious studies are acceptable, but this is not what this is. Would you want to subject your child to graded learning on how the tooth fairy or easter bunny makes their rounds? Some people do, and want to continue to do so on the public schools educational funds. Christianity teaches hate, it teaches ostracism it teaches xenophobia. My point is affirmed with this breaking news story about how the dear christians are being put upon because:
“However, if the policy developed . (it) means that our Logos teachers and principals would no longer be able to express freely in their classrooms that the homosexual lifestyle is not in accord with their Christian beliefs, and that they would be required to ‘affirm’ homosexual lifestyle as acceptable to traditional Christian family values, then we cannot accept this,” the two-page notice says in bold lettering.
Then my dear deluded friends, you can simply frack the hell off and take your despicable fairy tales with you. Like some of the religiously-challenged the facts of the matter have little sway when it comes to their magic book, this is from their website:
“Certainly, as followers of Jesus, we believe that every child should be free from bullying, whether it is because of his or her physical appearance or their sexual orientation, or for any other reason, and that all persons and families should be treated with respect and dignity. To that extent we support the School Trustees’ concern about bullying. (Yet, if the Trustees would insist that their already-existing policies on bullying were strictly enforced by the Superintendent and school principals, there would be no need for an additional policy at all).”
But wait, let’s see why this program is being enacted…
“There is considerable evidence that sexual-minority youth are at greater risk for harassment, persecution, bullying, suicide attempts and feeling unsafe, Colburn said. Research has also shown generic anti-bullying policies do nothing on their own to protect those kids, he said.
“It’s only when stand-alone policies specifically addressing (sexual minority) populations are in place that the school environment changes dramatically.”
Well I’m completely surprised that the LOGOS program would ignore research and fact when it comes to facing the realization that yes, your hate filled fairy tale hurts children and does not deserve the blind reverence you seemingly give it. I encourage the concerned christians to make more persecution (of the majority) noises about this grievous policy of having to affirm that the homosexual lifestyles are okay. It further highlights the bigotry, ignorance and irrelevance of christian religion in the 21st century and makes the strong case that the taint of religion has no place within the public school system.
Darkmatter 2525 is quickly becoming one of my favourite youtube video producers.
When the religious compare their dogma of choice to science it is almost always a grand misrepresentation of what science actually is. One can break it down for them categorically for instance:
religion – requires a belief in magic and the supernatural
science – requires a dedication to finding the evidence and testable facts about our existence.
As a person who is solidly in the second camp let me assure you, I have no need to “believe” in science. One cannot believe in science as one does religion, it is a false equivocation from the outset. My belief in gravity has no effect on whether gravity applies to me or not, and as hard as I might pray to the gravity gods, I will still be attracted toward the center of the Earth(this works for religious prayer to as well in terms of efficacy).
But what would happen if science was actually a religion. Dr.Dawkins investigates this premise in this video
Snipped from a Pharyngula Thread –cowalker says:
“It has long been one of my patented rants that all the poor menz who are out there weeping over aborted embryos and picketing women’s clinics should instead be policing their brother’s dicks. All this time they’ve been whining about the perfidy of women, the solution has been within their power.
Why don’t they start a movement to get all men everywhere to stop having sex with women who won’t carry any resulting babies to term? It wouldn’t be difficult. All a guy has to do is spend months and months getting to know a woman’s character and ethical beliefs, her family and friends, her plans for the future and her reactions under stress. Then he can be sure how she will react if he goes ahead and has sex with her. If she wouldn’t have the baby, he can end the relationship.
Or he can just get a vasectomy.
Abortion problem solved.
Any men who behave otherwise should be shunned by other men instead of lauded as “players.” Shoot, they’ve already got a role model in Edward, in the “Twilight” series.”
Ah yes, as the shoe is now on the other foot, will the pro-life hordes pour their energies to contain the men? It might encroach a bit on the Patriarchy, but I’m sure that Pro-life Men for the Sake of the CHILDREN would make this sacrifice….
Its so frakking funny it hurts.
Religion is one of the factors that constantly works against civilization and the values of the Enlightenment. Belief in magic and the supernatural, a wish to return to the Dark Ages is remarkable exercise in puerile wish-fulfillment. Strong argumentation, relentless morality and ridicule are the only answers to the plague of religion. The purulent immorality of religion, the suppurating chest wound of humanity, must be expunged.
Christopher Hitchens stands against religion, and in this video shows what must be done, and redone to combat the forces of the anti-rational.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…