Obama is about to unveil his selection for Secretary of Agriculture Agribusiness. It's Tom Vilsack, Democratic governor of Iowa, a man that The Organic Consumers Association said "has a glowing reputation as being a schill for agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto." That's exactly what I don't want to hear.

In principle, I am not opposed to genetically modified organisms. That said, I think that our proclivity at manipulating our environments has led us to think that because we can manipulate the environment that we should. We are ambitious animals gifted with foresight but crippled by impatience and a lack of humility. The unintended ecological consequences of GMOs and agribusiness and agriscience are easily overlooked and ignored.

This is for the people who have been coming out from under rocks to proophesy about Obama. They slung some mud on one of my earlier posts so here you go. Have fun revelling in this madness.

These are so good I can hardly stand it. I guess that some Biblically-*COUGH!!-informed people out there believe that Sarah Palin was prophesied to come to us because of some lady in Glasgow, Scotland. Yeah. It's nutty. Read it all in "Sharon Stone and Cindy Jacobs: 'Prophetic Words about the Current Economic System and POLITICAL CRISIS'". That emphasis is not mine.

“September is a turning point and a sign of the times. It is all about those who have made Godly alignments in this season being blessed with revelation and information in the midst of world crisis.

Dear Barack Obama,

Thank you for running for president of the United States of America.

When I think of the kind of person that I would like to run for president, I think that a person much like you is who I hope for. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for me to say that you almost fit an ideal type: someone who is broadly experienced in both abstract and practical matters, someone who knows how to deftly deal with difficult or ambiguous circumstances, someone who exercises judgment based on dignity and evidence, and someone who has come from a background that few of us have had but that shows us what we ought to want the United States to be.

When I saw you speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, I was awestruck. No speaker in my lifetime (I was 28 then) had stirred in me such incredible passion for national issues. Even now, as I watch that speech I am struck by your ability to include people at the table. This is truly terrifying to people who find this message a light in the dark and terrifying for those who fear that same light. As Louis Brandeis wrote, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.” You, my friend, are some sunlight.

The First Amendment requires that expressions of faith be neither prohibited nor preferred. We should not banish religion from the public square, but should guarantee access to all voices and views. We should share and debate our faith, but never seek to impose it. When discussing faith and politics, we should honor the "candid" in candidate - I have much more respect for an honest atheist than a disingenuous believer.

That's because "the new atheism" is not particularly new. It belongs to an intellectual genealogy stretching back hundreds of years, to a moment when atheist thought split into two traditions: one primarily concerned with the dispassionate pursuit of truth, the other driven by a visceral contempt for the personal faith of others.

There are a few more updates on the Texas Education Agency's theocratic actions. The Austin American Statesman has released this chilling article.

Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said that reminders to be unbiased are not unusual before curriculum reviews and that staffers' computer slide presentations have been looked at in advance since this summer to ensure that they were consistent.

She said charges of misconduct against Comer were prompted by a lack of professionalism and not by politics associated with the hiring of a former Bush administration employee as Comer's boss or the appointment of a self-avowed creationist to chair the State Board of Education.

Over at Climate Ethics they have an interesting post regarding how we have perceived and do perceive climate change and global warming. Three Eras of Climate Change and the Emergence of Concern for Global Justice by Saleem Huq and Camilla Toumlin of International Institute for Environment and Development.
They state that the first stage began in 1988 with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) first convention and report and ended around 2000 following the last big push to change policy and behavior via the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. During this time, the problem was seen as an environmental problem. The second phase began in roughly 2001 and the formulation of the Marrakech Accords. This time began to see global warming and climate change largely as a threat to development and poorer countries ability to adapt to potentially dramatic climate change.
I am most interested in the third phase which is where they allege we are now. I have a couple of excerpts and some brief responses.

Heard this charge before? Think of the reviews for The God Delusion, Harris's End of Faith, and Hitchens' God is Not Great and the "fleas" that pester them. These volleys back and forth are the natural skirmishes in a "culture war." We should expect them. What I am tired of is the allegation by some that we, the "New Atheists," are fundamentalists.
First, so that you know I'm not setting up a straw man, let me get some examples.

From the the blog 7leper:

Not unlike the religious simpletons he claims to disdain, Dawkins sees the world in terms of a battle of Good vs. Evil, cloaked here as Science vs. Religion.