The Church’s War On Contraception and Freedom.
First I do think the church does have a say in what services it should provide, as a religious institution it has it’s own set of values. Save the unborn child, but when the child suffers from a priest pedophile the church will protect the priest & not the child!
The political and fundamentalist war on women and contraception is right up there with any other fanatical religious teaching. Morals and ethics may come from many different sources, not just religion.
Religious teaching was supposed to be a guide on how to live your life; not tell everyone else how to live theirs. Religious freedom is freedom to practice your religion, what other people are doing is none of your business.
Women need access to contraception for many other reasons other than just procreation. Planned Parent Hood and clinics like it, do many screening’s and check ups that save lives. To attack these institutions in the name of religious freedom is more akin to the Taliban than a free society. To indoctrinate in the name of religious freedom is in fact Theocracy in the making.
Respect & Freedom need to return to the United States, that means freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
The un-United States of America
When I look at recent politics in the USA, it has become so polarized by factions on both sides. Most vocal would be the far right who have taken control of the GOP. Forcing moderates out of the picture.
This makes compromise almost impossible. And without change it’s only going to stagnate our farce of a democracy. The Democrats have never been very good at selling what they offer. Don’t take credit when they do good things.
There there is so much corporate influence I’m beginning to question whether any individual’s vote really counts any more.
I believe that this is about to change. As the individuals selling fear to the crowd has just about run its course. Those trying to make the USA a Theocracy won’t succeed.
The religion of Jesus was about forgiveness not hate. The church’s of two thousand years ago can’t keep up with a changing world.
I am very critical of the catholic church, that puts its own welfare above a abused child.
I’m critical of Pastors who preach hate as much as Imams preach hate, they are in fact still worshipping the same God; as are the Jews.
The religious divide between bible thumpers in the south & progressives in the west & east coasts is creating almost two Americas.
I was raised with Religion & a respect for science. These two things don’t have to be at odds all the time. Science is not a religion but a process to acquire knowledge. To put down science is to say I don’t believe what I see.
In this divided America it’s only through change and growth that progress is made. I see the lies told by our politicians who have been paid for.
Religious Theocracy isn’t freedom & I’m very much for freedom of choice. And freedom of opportunity.
We see what happens when there is no compromise. Maybe the United States should break up. Let those states who think women shouldn’t have a voice, a vote, form their own theocracy in the south. And let the progressives who believe in freedom and individual choice alone!
This is my opinion, open for discussion, any nasty comments will not be posted!
AT&T data throttling.
A co-worker received a mail regarding data usage. He had gone over 2GB on a unlimited plan. He was told his connection would be slowed down if he didn’t purchase a plan with specific data.
On AT&T other people have had their data speeds reduced because they went over a specific boundary.
I believe AT&T will learn very quickly this is not the way to go. When you sell a unlimited data plan it should be unlimited. Verizon will slow data speeds on towers during high traffic periods. And you know people will get that; we can understand!
If I spend too long on the phone, I don’t want the operator to come on and tell me it’s time to hang up. Phone calls and data travel along the same cables. If traffic gets heavy you may have trouble. But you shouldn’t expect to get an angry mail from the company.
We live in a mobile world, I write my blogs on my phone. In this world it’s just not cool to treat customers badly who use your service too much. And AT&T need to learn this if they want to keep their customers.
End of rant!
Religious freedom
I believe in religious freedom, being free to practice your religious beliefs without external interference. Unless your beliefs run counter to the laws of the land. Because laws are to protect all society & not specific groups.
Separation of church & state is also to protect all society, and not allow one group of believers to dictate to all.
This is in the constitution of the united states, but social conservatives seem to have forgotten this. If I am to believe the current GOP contenders.
When church’s fund political change I believe you lose your religious status and should be taxed like any other business. A church’s congregation is who it should preach to, not the people who don’t attend.
Religious belief is a personal choice. It’s a choice I wish to be free to make without external interference. This includes people who have a different religion, & not just state.
Telling other people how to live their lives is called fascism. But personally I prefer freedom.
Have a wonderful day.
Digital Privacy in a Mobile World.
There are changes going on in our society. In the news we are focused on the religious political battle. But there are other changes going on, just a bit more subtle.
The tech revolution started more than a decade ago. It moves in slow steady increments for a few years, then something happens & we have a leap forward.
Windows 95 was a leap, as was windows NT for the tech administrator. Mac OS X was a leap, as was the iMac.
In recent years the leap was created by the iPhone.
In 2007 the phone industry in the US was given CPR and we moved forward about four years. Up until then I would look in awe at Japan and the wonderful phones that we would never see in north America.
So here came the iPhone. Whether you are Apple, Android, the iPhone was the start of the biggest change in how we use tech in the last fifteen years.
Now tech is much more mobile, the network providers have been led by necessity, kicking & screaming to spend vast sums of money improving their networks.
With improved web access we have Facebook, Google + and other social networks at our fingertips. These social networks have in the past, been questioned & accused of not looking after our personal information properly. Over years systems have been developed to protect our data.
The weird thing is although I see people worry about their personal data, very personal things are uploaded to these social networks. It makes me wonder what a person who grew up with these networks considers personal data. Is it just account settings.
Personally I have always felt that anything posted on the web should be considered public. Because if you feel that strongly you should probably not post it in the first place.
As more of our info becomes fodder for advertising & targeted selling. Where is the line now? I know it’s moved recently. Every time I accept a new user agreement I’m sure it’s to facilitate the control & use of my data. As a modern connected people, are many even aware of the lack of privacy. Or even the fact that to enjoy the new social technological world, it is necessary to give up so much privacy. Don’t get me wrong, I love tech & I hope the social networks continue to keep us connected to friends & family. But we need to be more responsible for our web presence. It can’t just be left to the networks.
The latest trend is cloud computing. Which does seem to be a natural next step in mobile computing. There are many advantages. Smaller networked devices that don’t need large storage capabilities with access to large amounts of data.
But as we have seen, what happens when the network has a problem. I am a big believer in backing up. Learned the hard way many years ago. And today with reasonably priced external drives it’s very easy. Technology is always in a state of transition. Only when something becomes so normal that we no longer think about it is the transformation complete.
Have a nice day!