Someone on a Facebook discussion recently told me that Gary North of the von Mises institute, former campaign worker for Ron Paul, former writer for Ron Paul's newsletter, and regular contributer to Lew Rockwell, is not representative of Libertarianism or Austrian economics...he's an anarchist.

Huh.

So...why did he write this?

http://www.reformed.org/social/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/social/let_2_paul_hill.html

The guy may be a stark barking loony...but he's no anarchist.

Basically, the guy I was talking to pulled the "no good scottsman" bit on me.  Not buyin' it.  Gary North's Austrian economics and Libertarian cred is solid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_North_(Christian_Reconstructionist)

 You don't get to back away from it and dismiss him as an anarchist just because he's also insane.

Just as an aside, if you follow that first link and read North's long screed about why the guy should not have killed the abortion doctor, do this thought experiment:  Think about what would happen if we somehow magically managed to address all the reasons that people choose abortion.  Think about if education and government assistance, and community support and in-utero surgery and genetic medicine made it possible for there to never be another abortion in our country...

In Gary North's morality, even if there was never another abortion in the U.S. EVER...we would still be under God's judgement for keeping it as a legal option.  However, if we made it illegal and instituted the death penalty for it, and then just neglected people who might need to have options and they sought out illegal ones, we wouldn't even have to work real hard to enforce the law, and we'd have done enough to clear ourselves of his wrath.

Duuuuuuudes!  Like, everyone has been down on libs for so long.  Like, harshing our mellow to the max, and all because we're like, lame and stuff.

But don't dispair mon frare...we're back baby!

'cause we totally went back in time and took over the Bible.  We're like rocken spiritual time-pirates.

You thought Bill and Ted had a great adventure?  Nu-uh!  Team lib totally went back in time and snuck the lovey-forgivy-sharey crap into the Bible! 

Uh-huh!  BAM!!  Yeah, take that, in yer face  Mr. Judgy-Mcvitriol Christian guys!

But uh-oh...Andrew Schlaffly's gonna take it back with an army of homeschool kids!  Bogus!

http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

Get back in the funkey time-travel phone booth dudes!  We have to save the wimpy social gospel or we won't get to have a modern government or health care reform!

You gotta go over to 4simpsons real quick and scan down the front page looking for Neil's "multiverse" post, or google it if it has already rolled off.  I don't want to trigger his paranoia with too many links but this is amazing!

Neil actually thinks that the multi-verse theories were proposed to counter Intelligent Design Theory.

Um.  The Multiverse Theory pre-dates the Intelligent Design political movement.

The Multiverse theory is described by mathematics.  The Intelligent Design political movement cannot be described according to any coherent organizational model.

But theoretical Physicists are just scrambling to scratch up something to answer Intelligent Design with.

Uh huh.  Whatever helps you sleep at night, Neil baby.

But I'd like to point out that the only way that the Multi-verse theories could have been created to respond to Intelligent Design is if the scientists developed them after 1992 (When ID was created) and then went back in time a significant amount, and then introduced a progressive series of theoretical models beginning with when the term was coined in the late 1800.

Of course, the only way that time travel would be even remotely possible is if one of the multiple universe theories were true... (since going back in time and changing events would create another alternate universe, and an alternate time-line).

And furthermore, why are we to believe that scientists are desperately flailing around to discount the arguments of ID proponents when ID proponents seem to have to be always making statements like this?:

[Update]  about not provoking his paranoia:  Too late. Neil is already Jonseing on how persecuted he is that people disagree with him and find his lunacy entertaining.  He only listed three people this time.  Usually he goes on much longer about how important an Godly he must be because people disagree with him.

Pcomeau put this video on my Facebook:

 It lead me to This Link.

Sometimes the stupid burns.  Sometimes the stupid clings and burns. Like Napalm. Von Mesis Institute: napalm for the brain.

A while back, Ben (the once and future Eclectic Anonymous...if I have anything to say about it)...recommended The Authoritarians to me...and even sent me a copy.  I am finally ready to start reading it...although I am still in the middle of three other books.  The total is down below 6 so I am ready to start another book. 

Anyway, I'll probably be talking about it, so if anyone is interested, go out an gitchya a copy:  http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

...

My friend Eric sent me the link for this video.  It is pretty good.  Leave it to a guy with a degree in economics to find something like this.

Sure, it seems pretty bad.  We got a Governor of Illinois whose corruption and fecklessness defy gravity, and he's a Democrat.

Obama can't seem to find a Democrat that has a clean tax history.

And there are items in the stimulus package that not even FDR would consider to be legitamate stimulus items...

...yeah...little bit of ice-water to bring down the swelling on the hope-change bubble...

But it could be worse.

These people could still be running the joint.

(Hat Tip: Erudite Redneck)

Not long ago, I got a mailing from the Republican party, begging me for money to help Norm Coleman in his noble and brave attempt to deny Minnesota half of their representation in the U.S. Senate during the time when Obama would benefit from having as many Democrats as possible.

I declined to contribute, and boy am I glad I did!  Assuming thats where the money would really go, you couldn't ask for a bunch of lawyers less worth the money.

Apparently, the Coleman team can't make unaltered copies that they are going to introduce into evidence, and have trouble vetting voters who didn't committ some sort of transgression that amounts to voter fraud.

So THAT'S the nefarious plot of Democrats to "steal the election"!  Trick Coleman into putting properly rejected voters on the stand, and introducing inaccurate evidence!

They're sooo sneaky!

All is right with the world.  Democrats are running the show, and Republicans are doing what they do best...finding every chink in the armor of the ruling party, and exploiting the hell out of it.

I am enjoying watching the Republicans slap the nominee for Secretary of Treasury around like a teatherball over his tax difficulties.  Hopefully, it will make them feel better about themselves, and it will bring home to Obama that he will not be allowed to over-look a single screw-up of any person anywhere on his staff.  The watchword of this administration had better be "tight ship".

Just as it should be.  Democrats:  please take careful notes.  You might need this information in the future.  You sure as hell could have used it in the recent past.

I also assume that since they must have known this was coming, there must be some pretty high confidence in this guy despite his drawbacks.

It's a good thing.

Rocky was telling me a story about a conversation he was in the other day.

A guy was talking about how we are in this financial mess because banks were forced by federal regulation to give out tons and tons of loans to people who didn't deserve it.

Rocky made many points counter to this, but I think the best one was pointing out that when businesses are "forced" to do something, they do it grudgingly.  They minimize it, and do as little of it as possible. 

And in reality, we have spent the last several years enduring ad after ad after ad on TV, in newspapers, on the internet, BEGGING people with bad credit to take out loans with this company or that.  People with bad credit were heavily lobbied to re-finance loans, and roll their other bad debt into their new loans on their houses.

I know some of these people.  Some of them owe us money that will never be returned, as the houses are gone and they still have massive debt to people with more power than we have, and more ruthlessness when it comes to getting it back.

I occasionally would complain about how these predatory lenders were sleazy scum-bags who should be against the law.

Naturally, I was sometimes denounced as a commie being against innocent capitalists just wanting to make an honest buck.

Anyway, Rocky had a pleasant, passing conversation with this guy, and seemed to have at least made some impression on him.

But later, in another conversation involving some of the same people, a new player came into the mix.  A guy who had worked for one of these companies.

"Well, you can blame me at least a little bit for this whole mess.  I used to work for one of these companies, and they told us to write to the government and tell them that they needed to deregulate us so we could do these loans." (Obviously, this is an approximation of what I remember Rocky saying he remembered the guy saying...not a real quote.)

The first guy got a stunned look on his face, like the rug had been pulled out from under him.

And, as much fun as it might be to smugly leave it there with a sense of superiority...

...none of us have all the answers all of the time.  Sometimes we need a reality check.  The best people recognize them when they see them and learn from them.  I got the feeling that Rocky thought this guy was that sort of people.

When self-lobotomized educated people clash with people who never developed their brains at all:

I'll never be able to respect Ben Stein again...but at least he can still be entertaining:

I think the Ori have slipped one of their Priors undercover as a Democrat in the Oklahoma government...

Here's what she's up to...

But to be fair, that is probably a really bad picture, and she has now claimed that she was just woolgathering when she made the comments. And there's no evidence I can find of her preaching Origin...

[Update:  She says it was a joke.]

(Hat Tip: Erudite Redneck)

To come up with an unimaginable litany of corruption from the Bush administration...

But Roxeanne de Luca predicts that an Obama presidency will far exceed even our current level of what we consider to be imaginable corruption.

Amazing. 

Let's play a fun game.  Let's list all of the corruption we can think of in the Bush administraion, just so we can know where to set the bar for Obama. 

If nothing else, Obama has made it easier to be an American overseas.

Rocky and I were just in Spain.

From our hotel window on the 10th floor of the AC Barcelona on Diagonal Ave, we could see this:

(although, from that angle, it looked like a characature of Richard Prior...this is a much better perspective)

Here's the story:  http://www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1509947

If you read it, you will see that originally, it was intended to question the out-sized expectations and exceitment that is Obamamania.

You will also see that the creator of the piece is an Obama "fan"...but a cautious one.  Remembering that he is just a man.

The right has tried to inflate him to some out-sized anti-Christ, saying somehow he will march down our streets and collect our guns and Bibles, and have his Kenyan relatives put a witch -curse on us.

Some in the left seem to have forgotten that most of his campaign promises came with a "we will" in front of them, not an "I will".

But for one week I enjoyed walking around in Spain getting friendly smiles and thumbs-ups from strangers saying "Obama!".  Having strangers tell me over beer that America has a history of doing things that no other country would do, and now once again, we have done something that no other country would do, and it is good.

It was described to me as a return to greatness, a rise in the moral mandate of America in the world...a leader (America) showing the way into a better future.  It could have been the beer, but this recent election was spoken of with admiration and happiness to me by British, Norwegian and Spanish people.  They couldn't stop telling me about how great America was (and is), though they were a little worried about us for a while there.

A waitress with no English at all tried to give me a newspaper with Obama on the cover, announcing his election.  Everywhere I went, people asked me how I voted.  Even though Obama was not my first choice way back at the beginning, I was happy to be able to say I voted for him...but when the hype dies down, I hope that people remember how he talked about how this was going to be difficult, and not everyone would be happy with every decision, and how we were going to have to do it together, and something would be asked of all of us, and it would be more than just "take a trip to Disney World" or "buy yourself a flat-screened TV for Christmas."

(BTW, does everyone remember when the conservative perscription to fix the economy was "go out and buy stuff"...and now suddenly it's the liberals' fault that people were buying too much damn stuff?  What is up with that?)

Update #1 courtesy of Alan:

Speaking of going forward and not going back, vote with your wallet!  You can go here to find out which businesses and business owners contributed money to pass "Proposition 8".  In this way, you can then decide if you want your money to go to a business that will take some of the profits and turn it into funding for a divided, unequal America.

Given the chest-beating going on over in Russia right now...I thought a little distraction would be nice:

Roxeanne had a contest over at Haemet.  The idea was to do a summary of that would happen in a Barak Obama presidency using the two cows” economic model.

You know(quote from Haemet follows in italics): 

Democrat: You have two cows.  Your neighbor has none.  You feel guilty for being successful.  You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.

Republican: You have two cows.  Your neighbor has none.  So?

Socialist: You have two cows.  The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.  You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

Etc.

            Mine was a little long, so I trimmed it somewhat over there.  I’m not happy with the shorter version though so I thought I would post it here and invite you to come up with your own.  Also, you could do a “Palin” model (McCain’s probably would have ended up being fine, he would have gotten some sensible advisors and not done any of the hair-brained things he said in the campaign…until they killed him to make her president)

American capitalism actually seems to work a lot more like this:
You have two cows, but the distributer for your area doesn’t want to do business with low-volume suppliers anymore, so they tell you that you’d better increase your herd. In order to do so, you issue an IPO and sell stock in your cows, use it to increase your heard (using the bull method would take too long).
Through hard work and careful management, you build up a modest farm that is able to compete.
But then one day you endorse a candidate that some right-wing bunch of nuts doesn’t like, and they organize a boycott. Your board forces you to resign, as well as probably forces you to sell your stock, and you walk away without your cows. You have to get a crappy plumber job working for a guy named Joe who can’t stop telling you how great it will be when he finally is making a quarter of a million dollars and can finally benefit from the Bush tax cuts (it's working for Joe that makes the job crappy...not the actual work which is essential and respectable).

(at least, that’s what happened to this guy…well, not the working for Joe the plumber part): http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-30-gun-ceo-ousted_N.htm?csp=34

Under a Barak Obama presidency, you have two cows. You get a tax cut that helps you re-invest on your own and build up your herd. The much larger competitors and the distributor who were getting enormous tax breaks get their tax breaks rolled back, and have to pay a little more. They decide that they should pare down their business overhead somewhat, because they were using their tax breaks to maximize short-term profits and move as much of their operations as they could out of the country rather than actually investing in the stability of their businesses (or hiring workers) and now they want to trim the fat a little.  You are able to buy more cows from them at an advantageous price. You are beholden to no one and can make your own business and personal decisions.

Your competitors don’t mind too much, because their overseas businesses profits are safe from taxation in an account in the Canary Islands and they just have to wait until they get a Republican president in the White House again to declare another “job-building tax amnesty” when they can bring that money home tax free and use it to pay the expenses of “repositioning” more jobs and assets overseas…and buying a few nice things here for themselves.

Now that we have all come together, Democrats, Moderates, Independents, and elected a president that speaks to us...it is time to decide to stay united.  To commit to it, and to realize who benefits when we fight amongst ourselves.

Take a listen to David Duke addressing his faithful followers about the Obama presidency. (you have to click on the "MP3") He says that it is "time to stand up and fight, now."

Between Joe the Plumber howling about how Obama is the assured destruction of Israel...and David Duke howling about how Obama is the servant/tool of Israel...

You can hear the truth.  Neither of these guys (Joe or Dave) want a secure Israel at peace with her neighbors.  To them, Israel is not a potential partner in peace someday, a friend whose prosperity we can celebrate when the goal of peaceful co-existence is finally realized.

It is a tool to them.  A wedge, a threat, a bludgeon, a cudgel…or worse in the cases of the apocalypse-ready like Palin and her crowd…an important pawn in the endgame of the total destruction of the world.

I hope that Obama sees Israel as I do…as a nation that has problems to solve and a hard road to walk towards a peace that seems sometimes like it’ll never come…but something to strive for.

It’s on that ever-shrinking list of things we say we believe is possible, but don’t really think will ever happen…

…you know, like the cold war ending, the Berlin wall crumbling, an African-American president of the United States.

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, maybe not in the next four years, but…

Yes, we can!

And David Duke can pull his Nazi arm-band out of the closet, dust it off, starch it real good, fold it until it is all sharp corners and…well…

Update:  Roxeanne's not too happy either...and if the Obama/Biden ticket in my reality bore any resemblance to the Obama/Biden ticket in her reality...I wouldn't be either.  Fortunatly, my reality doesn't rest on a few cherry-picked facts shown with the lights off and a flashlight tucked under their chins.  And fortunatly, in my world, a gain in equality for one person is a gain in equality for all.  (plus, I don't recall any black people whining about how women were being jumped ahead of when the first major-ticket female VP candidate was put forward before any major-ticket black VP candidate.  there may have been some, but I didn't hear about them)

The timeing of milestones might be different, but the gains are of benefit to all of us.  Squabbeling over order is petty.  And feeling sorry for Hillary Clinton is like feeling sorry for the Eagle that missed the fish.

In the mean-time, we've got more work to do...so?  A couple of days to celebrate and yell that America is great is not too much to ask.  Yes, we have more to do.  Prop 8 is waiting for our attention, for instance.

CEO forced out of position with gun company that bears his name.

Basically, the guy made a donation to Obama and publically supported Obama, so a bunch of nutty gun-wackos organized a boycott of his company to force him to resign as CEO and possibly, he might have to sell his shares to save the company and protect his employees.

Nice.

Sure, he has a right to endorse whoever he wants, and the mob of goons has a right to organize a boycott if they don't like who he chooses...

...but WTF?  Why the heck SHOULD they?  It's just useless meanness.  Obama's record on guns is OK.  It isn't perfect, he's soft on assault rifles.  So I can see if you really, really, really want to have an assault rifle and you don't want to have to have a collector's license in order to own one, it matters to you if he gets elected.  Seriously, is it worth threatening a whole company, a guy's livelihood, and the livelihoods of nearly forty people because you don't want to have to buy a collector's license to own an assault rifle?

It's just senseless, stupid, mean, herd mentality.

The fact that many sportsmen scorn no-skill-half-wits who need an assault rifle to bring down a deer has made them anathema to the gun lobby.  The NRA and related thug operations have been cutting the nose off of second amendment defense to spite its face, and they are eventually going to pay the penalty.

Sensible people with guns are leaving them or being thrown out.  And eventually, they'll be out in the cold where they belong...and good riddance.

Oh, and the company that asked Cooper to leave?  Apparently they put up a statement claiming that he also gave money to McCain, and only gave money to Obama to defeat Hillary...but then took it down later.  The article says there is no indication that Cooper gave any money to McCain.  Lovely.  Anyone want to take bets on the longevity of a company with that kind of leadership at the helm?

They'll be regretting turning on Cooper before the shouting is over about this election, I'll bet.

Talk about unhinged...

American Flag

At an Ohio campaign stop last week Obama gave a speech with a background of American flags which is quite common. However, if you look closely some of the flags are not American flags. The blue field has been changed to show an Obama seal. Yes, there are also stars but have no pattern and they do not add up to 50. With Obama making his own seal and now this it looks like maybe he is putting some credence to the recent article by Stanley Kurtz in the National Review. Is he planning on creating an African county within the US. I think the presence of these flags should be viewed with alarm. And I don't want to hear any looney left comments that they are only decoration. They ARE a modification of the American Flag.

Yes...let's not hear any excuses from the "loony left" about how these flags are not a sign that Obama is planning to create an African nation within the US...I guess the "Real Americans" over at Townhall.com have us over a barrel guys.  They have exposed the ancient liberal plot that is Ohio...

Jezuz

We can haz votes now?

(Hat Tip:  Majikthise, and Erudite Redneck)

This is pretty much what I hear when I hear Coleman, Franken, and Barkley debate:

Coleman:  "Franken, the things I say you'll do as U.S. Senator are despicable!"

Franken:  "Coleman, the things you did as U.S. Senator are despicable!"

Barkley:  "Tut-tut...so negative."

Coleman:  "You made mistakes on your taxes!"

Franken:  "You've got some donor problems!"

Coleman:  "Leave my wife alone!"

Barkley:    "Tut-tut.  You'll excuse me while I sit here and smirk."

Me:   "AAARrgghhh!!   Shut it off!  Shut it off!"

Common Cause of Colorado, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and the Service Employees International Union sued Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, alleging that his office had violated the National Voter Registration Act by illegally purging about 31,000 eligible voters from the rolls 90 days before the election.

The state insists the actual number is smaller.

OK, I finished The Big Sort, and I have to say that while I agree with the observations of the author and his collegues, and I understand their point, I think that in the scope of their exploration they have missed an important factor.

Far be it from me to nit-pick people much smarter than myself, but they have thoroughly explored the results of insulating yourself from the "sanity check"...you and your little group become progressivly more extreme.  (Sanity check: compareing your perceptions of the world to those of others as a way to moderate your opinions).

But they don't seem to address at all the power of the reality check.

Granted, the reality check takes longer, because the conflict of an erroneous position with reality generally has to build up consequences to the point where you can no longer ignore them.

However, we have been here before.  There was a time when the world-view of most people was one completely inconsistant with reality...and eventually people began to depart from the demon-haunted view of the world, and turn toward a more reasoned approach.  Some people require a much more strenuous thump-on-the-head than others...but eventually, most people come around.

I'm not sure how much off the track our society has to become before we reach that tipping-point when we return to sense...but I'd like to think we are approaching it right now.

I guess we'll find out soon.

This paragraph from The Big Sort beautifully sums up what I have been trying to say about why I think religious conservatives and corporations are so interested in pushing "Libertarianism"...

"The continued distrust of government, however, has reduced the size and scope of public life.  Democracy has become so balky that the normal processes of representative government are being replaced by systems of issue brokering that are only quasi-representative.  In Austin, public policy is often negotiated among interest groups, with government only ratifying decisions behind the scenes."

It shrinks the power of the individual to influence government, and increases the reliance on what Bill Bishop calls "tribes".

Most alarming, for instance, is the "tribe" that brought Palin to the front of the line for VP...when there were so many more mainstream, and more qualified options.  (I believe that I have heard the name Olympia Snow bandied about).

Here's another excerpt from the book to let you know what happens to REAL mavericks in the Republican party:

"Hey Sheila, it's time for you to become a true independent."  With that, Minnesota senate minority leader Dick Day told state senator Sheila Kiscaden that she would have to vacate her office, the one she had shared for twelve years with other Republican state senators.  Day called a sergent at arms, and Kiscaden was escorted out of her office and out of the Republican Party."

In other words, they get RINO hunted.  Sheila ran as a fiscal conservative in 1992...but she wasn't socially conservative enough, and didn't kiss the NRA's ass enough.

So...

"In 2002, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and a conservative education organization jammed the local nominating caucus in Rochester.  "I went to the endorsing convention, and the gun guys were out," Kiscaden recalled.  "Some came up and said, "We gotcha.  We've got rid of you."

Fortunatly, she ran as an independant and won in 2002...and caucused with the Republicans until the day she was thrown out of the office...and told that the Republicans would spend $200,000 to beat her if she ran again.

Nice.

Some people ask why the Republican party no longer represents "get the government off my back" values?  They can thank, in part, the NRA.

I’ve read more than one conservative commentator who points out that McCain surrounds himself in his campaign with many more accomplished and capable women, and thus is better on wage parity and opportunity for women than Obama.

However, given McCain’s history with women, it looks to me more like a case of Lazarus Long syndrome rather than being a beacon of equality and opportunity.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a guy wanting to be surrounded by accomplished women who are dedicated to his success and vision, I just suspect that it is more for the benefit of McCain than for the benefit of the campaign or the women, and it should not be assumed that McCain’s public policies will follow from any sort of feminist thought or dedication to a feminist outlook…liberal or conservative.

Dump Bachmann is in overdrive.

Take a look at this article detailing her "close associations" with unsavory radical leftists from the '60's.

The first one was part of a group called “O” which apparently took over a warehouse with an army of thugs armed with pipes, firebombed a truck, and reportedly had a large weapons cache in Minneapolis.  Then he worked closely with Bachmann trying to promote PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) and then went to prison for taking bribes as a Minneapolis City Councilman.

I didn't fact check it, but I’m sure someone will.  In the mean-time, just treat it like entertainment.  And really, read the whole thing because the story of the second "Radical" is hilarious. (Hint:  It's Norm Coleman and evidentally he used to smoke a LOT of pot)

Ya know, I’m re-thinking my position.  I now think Bachmann is right.  Perhaps we SHOULD do an exhaustive search into the histories and associations of our nation’s leadership.  Not to ferret out any “un-American” views…but just because what the country needs right now is a good, hearty belly laugh…

I think that all of the Minnesota politicians from both parties should get together in the same place and denounce the people who vandalized the homes of six Minnesota politicians.

There is no reason to suspect that anyone from either party was the culprit, since representatives from both parties were attacked.  Also, political moderates like Amy Klobuchar and Jim Ramstad were hit in addition to more divisive figures like Michelle Bachmann and Keith Ellison.

And while they are at it they can also decry the vandalizm to the Obama and Franken campaign headquarters.  (I haven't heard of anything happening to the McCain headquarters here, will someone let me know if they have heard anything?)

They should then all step forward and personally vow to keep their rhetoric to the issues, and to their opponents positions on the issues.  They should vow to avoid character assassination and dehumanizing rhetoric.

And I hope the police catch these maniacs who did this. There is no place in Minnesota for acts of political terroristic threat in the dark of night.

Then again, sometimes the Ori are hilarious.

This website warns that Barak Obama's "tribe" in Kenya is working round the clock to cast witch spells to make McCain look like a doddering old coot, and calls on Christians to do constant spiritual warfare over McCain and Palin.

(Hat Tip:  Pharyngula)

Palin on the 700 Club:

Why she doesn’t give many interviews:

"Well, sometimes it just doesn't do any good. I mean, you set yourself up just to continually be mocked, you know, so sometimes that doesn't do any good, but what I have done in this campaign is in reaching out to the American voters through our rallies, through the one-on-ones, through the small meetings that we've had trying to get our message out, our plans for this country out there minus the filter of some of the filter of the mainstream media because, because that filter as, as we see every day when we turn on the news, too often there is this, this opaqueness, there is this, this spin, this contortion of a person's words and intentions and that does more harm than good, so it's a greater challenge for me and for John McCain to try to get our message out there without that filter of I think some of the world's media. It's a greater challenge, but again, it does make us work harder and try to reach more people. That's why we're traveling around so hard and fast and aggressively across the U.S. is to reach more people."

Not knowing how to get your message out effectively through the media is a basic Presidential skill in our day-and-age.  Hell, even “W” could do it.  In fact, while he couldn’t handle a pretzel while laying on a couch…he somehow managed to find some people who could manage him managing the media, and quite frankly, they were brilliant at it.  They had a lap-dog press for six whole years.  How hard could it be?

"And it's not just that question, but it was some of the other questions that she asked me also and, and it was, I guess, my being such an outsider from the Washington elite and the media elite is the questions she kept asking me were, I kept thinking why aren't you asking me things that really, really matter right now about our economy and about how we're going to win the war and about protecting our constitutional rights in this country, some of the questions that were being fired at me, I was kind of impatient and I think that showed, it's like come on, Katie, let's talk about the things that really matter. And two, the other part of that was I knew that whatever I threw out there, whether it's the USA Today, or New York Times or whatever I said, that's just more fodder for someone to not only mock, but tear apart and presume to at least claim that that is a reflection of my own beliefs, so you know, so I just felt like, let's just move on to the next question."

Oh for real?  You were afraid to answer the question because you were afraid you would be mocked, and your words would be torn apart and spread around and made to seem to mean something different than what you meant?  Now come on.  There are any number of policy publications out there that you could have been reading as Governor that would be completely respectable.  Even something like the Cato Journal would probably have been found interesting, if partisan.  I hear that Cambridge has a public policy Journal , Duke, Cornell, Harvard…they all have public policy Journals.  Vanity Fair has some snappy politcal stuff in it.  There's the National Review....Harpers would have been a nice politically ecumenical touch, Reason magazine would have netted you interest from the Ron Paul crowd... I mean if you had said “The USA Today” I can see your point but…oh God...you would have said “The USA Today” wouldn’t you?

And I totally get drawing a blank trying to find the best answer.  I get it…really.  If Katie Couric was there with a microphone asking for my reading list, I’d freeze up too, and I have a whole lot of leather-bound books with really little print in my library.

But YOU are running for Vice President of the country!  Holy crap woman!  You froze up because you didn’t think it was important to give examples of where you get your decision-making information, and you didn’t want to say anything because you were afraid they would pick on you?  This is not High School.  You don’t get to do that.  You were given an opportunity to show that you are prepared, and you failed.  You were given an opportunity to explain in a mature and meaningful way WHY you failed…and you failed.

Jesus. And this is how she comes across in the FAVORABLE, friendly media.  The 700 Club!  It doesn’t get any less “Gotcha” than that!

There’s also a clip of her talking about religion.  It was not interesting.  I was hoping that she would say that she is just your normal, every-day garden variety Pentecostal.  I don’t care if she’s rolling around on the floor or whatever while she’s praying…but I would like for her to denounce the Third Wave Movement that she seems to be associated with.  I’d like to hear her say she has nothing to do with Joel’s Army, and I’d like to hear her say that she can govern our country with an eye towards the future, and not to affect some apocalyptic end-times milestones.  It would be great to know that she wasn’t looking forward to and working to hasten an end-of-times blood-bath that would kill most of her constituents:

Brody: There have been some shots taken at you…regarding your Christian faith…The Pentecostal stuff, the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to clear up exactly what you believe in and so that the record can be set straight a little bit? Because there have been some editorials and others taking shots at you regarding --

Palin: Yeah, and I think the saddest part of that is that faith, not just my faith, faith and God in general has been mocked through this campaign, and that breaks my heart and that is unfair for others who share a faith in God and chose to worship our Lord in whatever private manner that they deem fit and my faith has always been pretty personal. I haven't really worn it on my sleeve. I haven't been out there preaching it. I've always been of the mind that you caalk the walk. You just don't have to be talking the talk about your beliefs, so just wanting maybe my life to be able to reflect my faith. So it's always been pretty personal and that was kind of a surprise in the last couple of months that people would misconstrue and spin anything that has to do with my faith or anybody else's and turn it into something to be mocked. That's very sad. I don't think that there's anything that I can do about it, so you know, I won't, I won't whine or complain about it, but nobody is going to convince me that my foundation of faith is not good for me and for my family no matter the mocking, no matter what anybody says about it, I'm going to keep plugging away at this and I'm going to keep seeking God's guidance and His wisdom and His favor and His grace, for me, for my family, for this campaign, for our nation. Again no matter what anybody else says about it it's between me and God, and I am so thankful that that he has strengthened me with this understanding and this belief that I can count on Him. I can reach out to Him asking for that strength, asking for the blessings that He so freely gives and I don't know how anybody would want to do this if they didn't have real strong faith in God that He's got it all under control.

I don’t  feel reassured.  Sarah, it is between you and the voters whether or not you believe that it is your job to work to bring about God’s rule on Earth…whether you believe, as some say THEY believe, that you are modern day Esther brought forth to renew the nation for God.  In absence of a denial when you’ve had plenty of opportunity to set the record straight and explain the massive amount of video out there of you  with people linked to the Third Wave Movement (considered a Heresy by main-stream Pentecostals, by the way), and some pretty despicable actions…I’m left wondering and I don’t care for it.  At least Obama gave a big speech about his pastor and his faith.  It helped me understand the ties.

Anyway, there’s a LOT more video at this site.  Go check it out if you have the stomach.

And here's a video where they call here a "Modern Day Esther"

Colin "anthrax" Powell has endorsed Barak Obama.

What next?

He was there at the precipitous push to get us into Iraq, and now he'll be there for the precipitous push to get us out?

Dude changes direction quicker than a raquetball.

And speaking of things that change direction suddenly...I've mentioned that I'm disappointed in McCain, right?  He missed the boat with that "Joe the fake Plumber" guy.

The old McCain would have gone with someone more like "Sheriff Billy McGee".

I don't think McCain realized that what he was saying to most Americans was:

"Feel sorry for Joe. Poor Joe only makes somewhere between two and thirty times more than you do, and he wants that tax cut so that he can hire one or two of you to pay the crappy wages that he used to make and dreamed of escaping and make more money for himself.

Now, you may want to take the opportunity of Obama's tax cuts and incentives and start a business so you can work for yourself and make the full amount off of your own labors, but Joe needs that money more than you, so he can grow crappy jobs for you to have.  Joe made his nut, and now he wants to reap the benefits, by protecting his position and interest in holding down those beneath him.

Vote for me,and I'll make sure that Joe can hire you to work a crappy low-paid job like the one he dreamed of getting out of so long ago.

So just say 'OK, Joe, you need that tax break more than I do, you go ahead and have it instead of me.'  vote for me, my friends, and I'll make sure that Joe's taken care of.  And I'll balance the budget too, by taking a hatchet to the programs and projects that benefit you."

From this day on, I think that all tetherballs should be called "Joe the Plumber"...because they get batted around back and forth almost as much as "Joe" did tonight.  If I were Joe, and nobody but John McCain and Barak Obama knew who I was, I'd keep it a secret.  Joe was subjected to so much pity and pandering from both candidates that if his identity was known, he'd have to turn in his "man card".

Prediction:

The News will be over-run with the sound-bite of Obama saying that Joe Biden worked hard on the "violence against womens act".

My McCain impressions:  Did he fire his speech-writer, or does he think his base can't read?  He keeps re-iterating the same tired, debunked charges over and over again.  Nothing but old lies repeated, complaining about unfair negative campaigning (huh?).  Strange that almost-slip about finding the best people in the worl...uh, the US for the Supreme Court.  I don't think it really means anything, it was just a slip...but it was funny.

Obama impressions:  Cool, collected, represented himself well.  Didn't get rattled by McCain lying about him not disavowing that John Lewis' characterizations of the Palin crowds.  A little light on specifics...but better than the past.  He's no Adlai Stevenson...but then again, Adlai lost because he trusted the American people to be interested in detailed and complete discussion of the issues, and he lost to a guy with a catchy tune written by a composer of candy jingles.

McCain mockingly dismisses the idea of the "health" if the mother in the abortion question.  Nice.  Apparently, he's never heard of women diagnosed with arterial weaknesses or fast-growing cancers that need immediate treatment, or any number of other conditions.

WRT the education thing:  Why does it have to be a choice between pillaging the public trust to give public money to religious schools or forcing kids to stay in failing schools?  Minnesota has school choice...you can go to any publicly funded school that you can get into...including college your last two years of High School. 

McCain is for vouchers - in otherwords, stealing public money for private profit.

McCain takes a petty snarky parting shot.  You'd think he was running for King of the Internet bloggers, not POTUS.

Ending statements: McCain:  "We have to make health care avoid...affordable..." LOL.  No, I don't think it's telling, but it's funny!

Obama:  Remembers to thank McCain and moderator (did McCain do that?  I missed it if he did) -politness points!  If he says "change" one more time, I'm going to scream.  Love the "promise" hesitation...followed by a sort of dithering platitude.  It's almost like he was going to say something really bold, but then chickened out.

[Update:  Jenny informs me that McCain thanked The college, the moderator, and Obama.  Also, I liked a comment that one of the guys over at Erudite Redneck said.  Joe the plumber makes as much in a day as he makes in a month.  My comment is, why doesn't Joe think it's in his best interest to pay to help maintain the society that benefits him above most of his fellow countrymen?  It seems weird to me that people standing at the top of the ladder always seem to want to kick the bottom of the ladder.

I mean, I dont think anyone resents people who work hard to make thirty times as much as they do...but if they're working hard and paying their own bills, I think it's a little bit of a stretch to ask them to feel pity for some guy whose makeing thrity times as much and say "Oh no...no...YOU take the tax cut instead, you need it so much more than I do.]

Here's a picture of what 50% of Americans look like to a conservative.

I think this might be what Robert Beal would say if he was capable of stringing words together that made sense.

It is probably a lot like the opinions held by such "top producers" as Tom Petters.

Seems like something "top producers" William and Shirley Pierce might have taught their students.

It sound like it would be right in line with the philosophy of intelligent, moral people like Fort Mill Mayor Danny Funderburk.  Now THAT'S a guy with a complex mental life who must certainly feel the moral weight of responsibility.

That mean government, always interfering with innocent, hard-working rich people.  Oh!  Those evil liberals who want to burden these bastions of virtue with government interference and regulation!

I think it's great that these poor put-upon assets to our country have someone to stand up and speak for them.

[off-topic update- Rocky just came back from a professional function, and reported that someone told him in conversation tonight that the reason we are in this economic mess is because the Democrats were helping the blacks buy houses.  Wow.  Rocky said he just walked away.  Probably the best response.  Really, the only safe and sane response.  The guy was probably armed.  Our friend Blake was there as well.  It will be interesting to get his take on it.]

[on-topic update] There's little news of this in the conservative MSM, but apparently the good Chrsitian morality says it's OK to gas babies and children if they are Muslim.  Dont you liberals wish that you had that kind of clarity and sanity?  You'd never be able to vote for Obama if you had these kind of rock-solid values.

(Hat Tip:  Pharyngula)

Oh, and this is fun:

Someone was getting tired of having their Obama/Biden sign stolen, so they put a camera on it to watch it 24/7

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/obama-sign-cctv-1

Fun stuff.

Michele Bachmann says that Sarah Palin is the victim of "The biggest hissy-fit of modern times" is "comfortable in her skin" and "represents normal people".

"The biggest hissy-fit in modern times"? Wow...bigger than Watergate? For real? The press is hounding Sarah Palin more than they hounded Nixon? They're spending more time on Palin than they did on the Monica Lewinski thing? Really? The avid coverage of Gerald Ford's gaffs were more fair than criticism of Palins attempts to ban books at her local library and fire the librarian? The press's coverage of the "bunny attack" on President Carter was more relevant than questions about whether or not Sarah's claims about giving back federal money were true? Really? This is the biggest deal that the press has ever made about a political candidate? Wow. Those bastards.

And Sarah Palin is "comfortable in her skin". What does THAT mean? Presumably, she doesn't have any dermatological problems, or what with the press going all ga-ga over her, we'd know about it (along with how "spunky" she is to overcome it, and how much her faith has sustained her through it). That may seem like a strange choice of words, especially for someone like Michele Bachmann, who is more the type to say something less imaginative like "she is comfortable with herself". But in order to properly understand what she means, you have to use the Republican lexicon. See, Barak Obama pointed out that McCain was just recyceling Bush's failed policies and calling them something else...and he called it "putting lipstick on a pig" To the Republicans, Sarah Palin was, at that time, most famous for saying the word "lipstick"...so "McCain's policies" must have been code for Sarah and that ment that McCain was Sarah's make-up man, and...uh...actually, I'm not sure how the logic train ran...but it started with McCain's policies actually representing Sarah herself and ended with Obama calling Sarah a "pig" because they both used the word "lipstick". So, if you use Republican logic to interpret Ms. Bachmann's words, you can clearly see that when Republicans are backed into a corner where they have to say something nice about Obama or they will look like dicks, Obama is usually noted for being the first Black candidate for President. So "comfortable in her skin", means that Ms.Palin and her family are comfortable being white people. So what Bachmann is REALLY saying is "white pride"! Yeah, it doesnt make any sense, but what can you do? They're Republicans; no attempt to figure out what they're "really" saying makes any sense.

Kind of like what does Bahchmann mean by "normal people"? Well, Ms. Palin represents "normal people". Therefore, "normal people" are White, Protestant Evangelicals who also speak in tongues and roll around on the floor in church, are in the top 1% income bracket and have large quantities of their wealth invested in energy and defense companies. And don't we all live next door to one of those guys?

But then again, Michele Bachmann may not make sense, but she certainly has balls!  Just look at the way she handles a face-to-face confrontation with Lord Voldemort!

I can't imagine how brave she must be to talk over him, falsely accuse him of sexism when he has made legitamate critisms, and generally behave like a deisel-powered, socially inept bulldozer towards him. Michele Bachmann has balls of steel!

She just looked him in his face and said what she thinks;  It is demeaning to women to suggest that there are more qualified women out there than Sarah Palin.  You just can't expect that much from women, you sexist pig.  The only way it would have been ballsier is if she's said it to him in Parseltongue!

Now, stop demeaning women by discussing their qualifications.  Straighten up, fly right, and rally behind a candidate that knows how to treat women!

Didja hear about how all of the homes that were raided by police were full of bomb-throwing radicals intending to riot?

Yeah.  Funny Story.  Some of them were actually Legal Observers crashing at a home of a former millitary policeman.

oops.

Obama on private matters of Sarah Palins family life:

"Let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president."

"And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that's off limits."

And as for the whole "theory" about her supposedly faking her last pregnancy to cover another pregnancy by her daughter...

1) What? Somebody has too much time on their hands.  Sure, anything is possible...but there's just too many stilts on a story that DOESN'T MATTER. (In other words, I dont see any reason to believe it, and even if true, its unimportant.  Boot to the head.)

2)You can say it matters because Palin runs on "Traditional Family Values".  But that would mean that you are assuming that a mother faking a pregnancy and miraculously "delivering' a baby while her daughter is convelescing from a mysteriously convenently timed prolongued "illness" ISN'T "Traditional Family Values".

False assumption, epic fail. Try again, or better yet...pay attention to the possibility that Palin might be an anti-intellectual religious nut opposed to science-based policy instead.

(Hat Tip:  Pharyngula)

Gary and Isa are here from Britain!  Grasshopper is home from orchestra camp!  Jay-the-dog is about to turn himself inside out.  Today, we are taking Gary and Isa to a good old-fashioned pancake breakfast and an airshow.

Last night we went to a party thrown by a friend/neighbor.  We left, but not until after I got into a “fight” with a republican.

No, not really.  It was fun for both of us.  It all started when I left our table in the pleasant back garden to find somewhere else to be.

We were having a great conversation when a guy standing right behind me launched into a diatribe about how the press was burying the “Johhny” Edwards story, and this was proof of a liberal bias in the press. 

What?  First of all, it was all over the place, and if they didn’t have Olympic coverage to run, they’d still be riding that horse until we ALL wanted to scream.  Secondly, if the press DID cover it to their satisfaction, they’d make it into a complaint about how he’s such a pretty-boy media whore he’ll even use an affair to get attention.  Seriously, John Edwards was so far out of the news until this erupted that they were practically on different planets.

So here’s a general drift of the conversation.  I don’t remember it exactly, but its my best recollection”

Rep. man #1 “What do you think of this Johnny Edwards situation?”

Rep. man #2 “What a slime-ball he fathered that baby AFTER she was sick again with cancer.”

Rep. woman:  “What is his WIFE still doing with him?  Doesn’t she have any self-respect?”

Rep. man” 1:  “She doesn’t have any choice, she’s not going to live much longer.  She’s stuck.”

(Just an aside here, does anyone actually believe that Elizabeth Edwards could be forced , by circumstances or anything else, to do something that she did not want to do?  I mean, wasn’t the Republican line on her that she was a brazen hussy who wore the pants in the family, feminized her husband, and didn’t know her place, or when to keep her mouth shut?  Like, wasn’t that just a few weeks ago?  And I would also like to point out that when Democrat women stand by their philandering men, they have no self-respect, but when Republican women stand behind their philandering men, they have family values.)

Rep. woman:  “They won’t let him speak at the convention now”

Rep.  Man#1:  “Oh, they MigHT.  How do you know they won’t?  You never know what they’ll do.”

Rep. woman:” Ugh.  He’s such a slime-ball.”

Rep. man #1:  “And they’re not covering it at all!  If it were a Republican, you know they’d find out everything and we’d hear about it, believe me.”

I DIDN’T get up and point out that the reason Republican affairs have gotten more coverage recently  is:

1)      Larry Craig was an out spoken homophobe (in other words, someone expressing unreasonable fear of homosexuality) who worked tirelessly to link homosexuality with pedophilia, libeled homosexuals as a group relentlessly, and pretty much made “traditional values” his calling card.  That made him a story.

2)      He broke a law in trying to solicit sex.  There was an arrest, and he pleaded guilty hoping to keep it quiet and avoid public consequences, then regretted and retracted his plea when there were public consequences.

3)      He was the latest in a long string of prominent homophobes caught in the act of engaging in the behaviors that they attribute to the homosexual community at large. (public sex, prostitution, drugs (Haggard), pedophilia  (that one senator in the page scandal), etc.

4)      Craig was arrested, and there was an arrest report, so the media could jump all over it.  The Edwards story was broken by the National Enquirer.  Running a false lead from the National Inquirer is probably a lot like getting duped into publishing false papers involving the President…a career killer.

5)      Craig was arrested on a slow news week, the Edwards thing blew up in the advance of the Olympics coverage.

I’ll cut out a few minutes of topic jumping and complaining about how rich Edwards is (I thought Republicans admired rich people),taxes and how the Dems just want to spend willy-nilly on all of these “entitlements” and things that don’t do us any good…the one that made me have to get up and leave was this:

Rep. Man #1: ”Just think about typhoid and diseases like that.  I just saw a show on it, and can you believe how many people they used to kill?  I mean, wow.”

Rep. woman: (awe in her voice) “Yeah.  Wow.”

And then they lapsed into profound silence.

*groan*  Yeah…”wow”.

But I guess the Fox News commentators that write all of their lines hadn’t put any words into their brains to describe things like robust public health infrastructure,  reality-based policy decisions, evolution-based genetics research that allows for analysis of mutations in diseases to create new vaccines to keep up with the rapid evolution of viruses.

I got up and left, ‘cause I was having trouble not saying anything, and these were not people you could talk to.  They were possessed by John Gibson.  Total Fox-bots.

And our host immediately introduced me to his “Republican friend” and left.

And one of the first things the “Republican friend” said was that the Dem’s didn’t provide funding for the 35W bridge, but were trying to blame the collapse of the bridge on Pawlenty.

Me: “Actually, there was funding specifically to brace those girders in the budget, and Pawlenty specifically vetoed the roads and bridges line item in the budget that would have provided the funds to fix the bridge, until it could be rebuilt”.

There ensued a lively and intelligent conversation where the guy didn’t dismiss my facts out of hand, while still challenging me to support them, and it was fun ‘cause he wasn’t a Fox-box idiot.

Thank God for the occasional Republican who is not a Fox-bot idiot.  Cause talking to people who only agree with you can get boring, but talking to idiots is self abuse…and not the fun kind.

One of his points was that it was possible that bracing the girders would not have prevented the tragedy.  Which is true enough…but IF everything that could reasonably have been done, HAD been done…and if Pawlenty hadn’t stood in the way of reasonable preventive action, I would merely disagree with some of his other policy decisions…but as it is, he DID stand in the way of reasonable action to prevent the tragedy, and a tragedy DID occur, and he is trying to somehow make it the fault of the congress.

If you don't think that it's a big deal that the government can seize lap-tops, books, magazines, or any other information media from people when they are traveling, and don't need a compelling reason to do so-

-I assume this might be because you don't travel and won't be inconvenienced, or you think you have nothing to hide.

If that's the case, I'd just like to point you to Denialism.com, were they point out that your doctor probably travels - and he could possibly have some of your private information on his laptop. 

I gotta feel for the guy.   First, a surrogate says something controversial .  Then, McCain gets ambushed about it and hadn't had time to figured out which way was up yet...and it got caught on camera and put on you-tube, and the Daily Show picked it up.

Now, remember, he didn't just have to figure out what he thought about the subject, he had to figure out how to say it such that it could not be misconstrued...both by people of good will (difficult enough) or people who want to make him look bad no matter what he says (almost impossible without prep-time and a team of handlers).

I'm sure this has happened to every presidential candidate since high-speed communication...but now we have You Tube.

It sux to be MaCain right now.  He looks like a total idiot on that video...but then again, so would most people I know....under the circumstances.

Here's the video for referance:

Just remember...he's not trying to figure out what he thinks.  He's trying to figure out how to say what he thinks without either losing the women vote or the votes of the people who want to make birth control illegal/unavailable, etc.  Hes on thin ice with those folks as it is, and they're the ones who put in crazy hours making sure Republican candidates win.  Also, you definately want to reassure the Corporatist vote that you're not going to make the corporations do anything communist, like require Health Insurance Companies to cover preventive medicine.

Remember how the Mayor of Birmingham (Larry Langford; D)was praying in sackcloth and ashes for God to reduce the crime rate of his fair city?

Well, it looks like Birmingham might soon be less one alleged criminal already...the Mayor of Birmingham! (don't forget, innocent until proven guilty)

(Hat tip and link:  Pharyngula)

Welcome to Sunday morning prostration.

(which, as Vala observed, is not nearly as much fun as it sounds)

Hallowed are the Ori!

Hallowed are the Ori!

Hallowed are the Ori (Bemidji is still an Ori strong-hold)

Hallowed are the Ori! (Jesus still hates taxes)

And speaking of the Ori...go take a look at this guy, and tell me he isn't one of their priors.  AllI can say is, we're in trouble when a man named Kahn allignes hiself with enemies of earth. 

Kah-h-h-hn!!!!!!  LOL

[Update:  I think Ben Stein is angling for a priorship]

(Hat tips:  Pharyngula and Denialism)

Those darned intellectual elite...

Alway putting down the plucky dissenters who challenge the academic "consensus":

"The so called 'intelligentsia' always looks down with a really limitless condescension on anyone who has not been dragged through the obligatory schools and had the necessary knowledge pumped into him. The question has never been: What are the man's abilities? but: What has he learned? To these 'educated' people the biggest empty-head, if he is wrapped in enough diplomas,is worth more than the brightest boy who happens to lack these costly envelopes.And so it was easy for me to imagine how this ' educated ' world would confront me, and in this I erred only in so far as even then I still regarded people as better than in cold reality they for the most part unfortunately are.  As they are, to be sure, the exceptions, as everywhere else, shine all themore brightly. Thereby, however, I learned always to distinguish between the eternal students and the men of real ability."

                                                                       --Adolph Hilter:  Mein Kampf (all quotes from Mein Kampf taken from this link)

"Not the smallest blame for the none too delectable religiousconditions must be borne by those who encumber the religious idea with toomany things of a purely earthly nature and thus often bring it into a totallyunnecessary conflict with so-called exact science. In this victory willalmost always fall to the latter, though perhaps after a hard struggle,and religion will suffer serious damage in the eyes of all those who areunable to raise themselves above a purely superficial knowledge."

                                                                     --Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

And as for the materialists with the economic solutions based on facts and knowledge...don't even get him started!  That leads to atheism, and even Hitler knows that's not good!

"In proportion as economic life grew to be the dominant mistress of the state, money became the god whom all had to serve and to whom eachman had to bow down. More and more, the gods of heaven were put into the corner as obsolete and outmoded, and in their stead incense was burned tothe idol Mammon. A truly malignant degeneration set in; what made it most malignant was that it began at a time when the nation, in a presumably menacing and critical hour, needed the highest heroic attitude. Germany had to accustom herself to the idea that some day her attempt to secure her daily bread by means of 'peaceful economic labor' would have to be defended by the sword."

(also Adolph Hitler, also Mein Kampf)

And I'd love to hear a conservative debate Hitler on the traitorous nature of the liberal press in war-time:

"The so-called liberal press was actively engaged in digging the grave of the German people and the German Reich."

                                      (also Adolph Hitler, also mein Kampf)

I'm sure they would have a very nice counter-argument for how opposition to ill-concieved millitarism is a primary function of the press, a national duty, really to preserve a nation's honor and treasure.  THEY'D give old Hitler what-for!

But they'd probably agree with him about the horrors of "safe sex". (link about the inventor of the latex condom)

"Particularly with regard to syphilis, the attitude of the leadership of the nation and the state can only be designated as total capitulation.To fight it seriously, they would have had to take somewhat broader measures than was actually the case. The invention of a remedy of questionable characterand its commercial exploitation can no longer help much against this plague.Here again it was only the fight against causes that mattered and not the elimination of the symptoms. The cause lies, primarily, in our prostitution of love. Even if its result were not this frightful plague, it would nevertheless be profoundly injurious to man, since the moral devastations which accompany this degeneracy suffice to destroy a people slowly but surely. This Jewification of our spiritual life and mammonization of our mating instinct will sooner or later destroy our entire offspring, for the powerful children of a natural emotion will be replaced by the miserable creatures of financial expediency which is becoming more and more the basis and sole prerequisite of our marriages.Love finds its outlet elsewhere."

(Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf)

Feeling a little down after so much time with no new "The Show"s with Ze Frank?

My friend Eric (who mostly limits his comments to e-mail) sent me a link to a new important news source:

Now, there is no excuse for being ignorant about current events.  You've got the Daily Show, and "Unlce Jay"...how can you lose?

Volume I:

Chapter 1:  Life story, lots of whining and bragging about how tough and smart his dad was, and how tough and smart he was.

Chapter 2:  Says that as a Christian, he had a hard time accepting anti-Sematism, but then started to read the works of REAL CHRISTIANS ™ and  came to understand that it was his Christian duty to oppose the Jews and their Marxist plot to destroy humanity.  He also says he  figured out that the secular Jews were only pretending to oppose the Zionist Jews and they were all actually in cahoots together.

Chapter 3:  He says reason Germany was great was because there were mostly just Germans there, the reason Austria was having so much trouble was because of cultural pluralism and liberal acceptance of other people’s and cultures and languages.  Germans should have been running things in the German language, and all other ethnic groups should have been educated into a German identity and required to conform to German norms.

Also, it was a bad idea to let everyone vote.  Representative government is a big joke, because everyone gets to talk.  In a representative government, great men are always burdened by what most of the people want.  Real leaders can’t really express themselves fully with the great mass holding them back.

The Liberal Press fools people into thinking representative government is good, when it is really just a way to avoid personal responsibility.

The Pan-German movement failed because it tried to defeat representative democracy from within, when it should have been trying to destroy it at it’s foundations.  Also, it tried to win over the middle class when it should have exploited the Proletariat.

The Christian Social Movement was successful because it properly exploited the lower class,  and won over the Catholic Church.

Chapter IV:

He says that God has created nature such that it is essential for the survival of a group to have numerous offspring.  Any attempt to limit the number of births is a crime against God and nature.  God has shown us through his creation that the strong produce many offspring, and then they over-run the resources, and have to struggle with other groups for resources.    Eternal struggle is God’s way of increasing the human race.  Attempts to try to help the unfit survive, attempts to manage resources for the future, or to limit population within the bounds of resources will end in the extinction of “our” race.  Also, it is an unpious attempt to thwart the will of God.

Refers to a person who interferes with God’s plan as a”dear little ape of an almighty father”.  In other words, such a person thinks he’s an ape and he thinks he’s God all at once.

The German policy of “internal colonization”…that is, encouraging German people to move to other areas of Germany to provide labor for agriculture and to shore up ethnic German presence in areas dominated by other ethnic groups is short-sighted, because it implies that Germany can secure its survival through work and not through conquest.  Other European countries make the mistake of creating far-flung empires around the world which are difficult to maintain, and expend too much effort for the gain they provide.  If would be more efficient to expand German territory to neighboring countries.  Expresses admiration for America's position as having enough land-mass to expolite for quite some time and grow strong before having to join the struggle.  Notes that America had no need of colonies, because they could efficiently expand into their own land mass.

He says that a leader should embody the religious values of his people.  If he can't do that, he should be a religious reformer. 

Chapter V:  Contempt for pacifism.  Contempt for international commerce.  Contempt for social doctrine stressing pacifism.  Expresses happiness about the Boer War, because it is a “heroic struggle”.  Describes relative peace as “morbid decedance”.  Favores isolationism and expansionism.

Expresses joy at the outbreak of WWI because now Germany could (in his view)fight for its existence without limiting its consumption to the limits of its borders, or gaining the difference through trade.  Celebrates the end to peace efforts  as salvation for the German people.

“And if this struggle should bring us victory our people will again rank foremost among the great nations. Only then could the German Empire assert itself as the mighty champion of peace, without the necessity of restricting the daily bread of its children for the sake of maintaining the peace.”

Describes his transformation into a battle-hardened soldier, and expresses his contempt for “politicians” who were talking about peace, and “the press” who were, in his mind, dampening the citizens zeal for war.

“Shortly after our first series of victories a certain section of the Press already began to throw cold water, drip by drip, on the enthusiasm of the public. At first this was not obvious to many people. It was done under the mask of good intentions and a spirit of anxious care…Instead of catching these fellows by their long ears and dragging them to some ditch and looping a cord around their necks, so that the victorious enthusiasm of the nation should no longer offend the aesthetic sensibilities of these knights of the pen, a general Press campaign was now allowed to go on against what was called ‘unbecoming’ and ‘undignified’ forms of victorious celebration.”

Expresses contempt for “Marxist” (Jewish) intellectuals who had been preaching the liberal ideas to people.  Rejoices that they had to retreat in fear at the uprising in national pride.  Laments that they were not rooted out and killed while public sentiment would have allowed it.

He advances the idea that the only way to completely eliminate a world view (in this case, what he describes as the Jewish Marxism; pacifism, population control, resource management, commerce, diplomacy) is to kill every last person who adheres to the world-view.

But in order for it to work it has to: 1) have a spiritual and moral basis to get the support of the people (already established earlier that the moral basis should be the prevailing religion of the people, and the most fundimental doctrinal foundation should be stricktly adhered to). 2) advance a positive message of self-defense and talking about what is being preserved more than what is being destroyed.  People need to know what they are fighting against, but they should be kept more aware of what they are fighting for. 3) the movement to eradicate the world-view must be absolutely consistent, and there must be NO ideological compromise with the enemy, no room for moral confusion, no grey area, and no hesitancy.  There must never be a show of weakness, indecision, or error.

Theobromophile has asked me for some links illustrating the “Neo-Nazi” support that cause me to cast a jaundiced eye toward the possibility of a Ron Paul presidency.

As Reason magazine points out, it’s a little weird that numerous racist statements appeared in Ron Paul’s newsletter, with his name on them, and yet he seems to have been unaware of the content of his newsletters, and unaware of who wrote them.  You don't find a lot of strenuous opposition to Ron Paul there - but occasionally you can find an opinion piece there or two with some tepid dithering about how much the Neo-nazis love Ron Paul, or the theocrats, or racist statements appearing under his name in his publication that he controls.

For instance Ron Paul on Dr. King Then vs. Now

But, even if you accept his assertions that he isn’t a racist, didn’t write the racist literature, and doesn’t know who wrote it…that’s not a ringing qualification for the presidency…then again, given the Reagan presidency, maybe it IS.  Maybe “I didn’t know what was happening on my watch, and I don’t know who did what, and I can’t tell you who is responsible” is a presidential trait. (Some publications have alluded, based on confidential sources that the writer of the racist statements was Lew Rockwell, whose online website Ron Paul has written numerous articles for…and who WAS Ron Paul’s ghostwriter for a time).

There’s no way to know as long as Ron Paul doesn’t know who did it, or won’t say.  Generally, an overview of the comments found on the internet has been a flurry of fingers all pointing different directions.  Nobody who is in a position to know who wrote a number of racist statements over a period of years under Ron Paul’s name seems to want to go on record as saying who did it.  At lease, not that I’ve been able to find.  And who can blame them? Given the calumny and invective directed against anyone who says anything about it?

But even though racist statements appearing on his newsletter, under his name, going without retraction or correction would be sufficient to nail a liberal…the assertion that he didn’t know what was going on, and didn’t know who did it, seems to be enough for his supporters. On maybe it’s just that the people who would care haven’t given it a lot of thought because they don’t think he’ll actually win, they just want him to keep pounding away at whatever issues specifically affect them.

If you read the comments thread here, you can see that the Nazis expect Ron to do it for them.  He has publicly spoken on almost all of their issues, and come out smelling great to them.  The only thing he has NOT come out and said is the magic 14 words.

Orcinus also covers some of the extra curricular activities of Randy Gray, Ron Paul's Midland County coordinator.  You can see a chummy picture of Ron with him there too.  Randy Gray doesn't seem to mind that Ron Paul hasn't said the 14 words out loud in public.  He's all in.

The promotion of Ron Paul by David Duke don’t seem to get any detraction among his supporters, even with authentic pictures of Old Duke as a young man in a Nazi uniform, and his close personal friendship with George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi party.

It’s difficult to impress conservatives with references to the “codes” employed by Ron Paul to convince White Nationalists to extend to him this kind of ardent support:

After all, many people who oppose “multi-culturalism” have a laundry list of reasons that have nothing explicitly to do with “race”.

After all, going after the Federal Reserve and the banking system is a favorite of conservatives of all stripes…it’s just the Nazis and neo-confederates who think he really means “The Jewish Monetary Conspiracy”.

And being against our involvement in the U.N. doesn’t necessarily mean that he believes that it is secretly run by a Zionist conspiracy like the Nazis do.  So when he talks against the “New World Order” the fact that THEY think they know what he means is not proof that he means it.

And wanting our government to stop supporting Israel isn’t inherently anti-semitic, lots of people what to stop supporting Israel and have a long list of reasons they can give that doesn’t include the fact that Israel is full of Jews.

And refusing to return the Nazi money (he hasn’t yet, has he?) or donate it to some good cause certainly doesn’t seem like the action of a person who wouldn’t be their man on issues important to him, but it can be explained away if you want to explain it away.

Come on, that’s WHY they call it “code” and “pandering”…because you CAN’T pin a specific attitude on someone with legalistic precision.

But don’t take it from me (following quote from Orcinus):

If you doubt that Paul has the support of our proto-fascists, don't take my word for it -- take theirs. This endorsement, for example, recently appeared on national KKK leader David Duke's website. And I'll let an anonymous commenter from Stormfront, the far right's favorite Web watering hole, have the final word:

Anyone who doesn't vote for Paul on this site is an assclown. Sure he doesn't come right out and say he is a WN [white nationalist], who cares! He promotes agendas and ideas that allow Nationalism to flourish. If we "get there" without having to raise hell, who cares; aslong as we finally get what we want. I don't understand why some people do not support this man, Hitler is dead, and we shall probably never see another man like him.

Pat Buchanan's book "Where the Right Went Wrong" is a prime example of getting the point across without having the book banned for anti semitism. The chapters about the war in Iraq sound like a BarMitzvah, but he doesn't have to put the Star of David next to each name for us to know what he means. We are running out of options at this point, and I will take someone is 90% with us versus any of the other choices.

Not to mention if Paul makes a serious run, he legitimizes White Nationalism and Stormfront, for God's sake David Duke is behind this guy!

After all, Hillary’s claim that she can take gobs of corporate money and never give them preference makes me chuckle a wry, mirthless chuckle.  Why should I feel any different about a guy who does not repudiate the ardent support of neo-nazis?

Her simultaneous pandering to the looniest left of the party and to already over-blown corporate interests is CODE for “I’ll keep running things the same way we ran things before” which to me means that and in eight or twelve years we’ll lose the country to an expansionist Republican government again….and it will be because we pandered half-heartedly to the loony left, without fixing the over-reaching by the right…and the middle where all the work is done and where all the bills are paid gets left out in the cold again.

Yeah, I realize that this is circumstantial evidence, and that it wouldn’t convict someone in a court of law, but a person can’t deny that it seems a little cavalier to shrug and say, as I have heard people say “Nazis have a right to express their opinions too.”

Well…of COURSE they do, and I’m glad.  Otherwise, how would we know what they’re up to?  And when they say “This guy stands for almost everything we want”…I get nervous and think “I’m pretty sure that things that give Nazis hope are not things I want in a candidate.”

But as one commenter said here: http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/026647.php

So maybe George F. and Lew Rockwell are "anti-state" collectivists, just as Sam Francis, Neo-Confederates and Neo-Nazis are anti-government statists. So what? They are still not individualists, and therefor NO FRIEND OF MINE, despite George F.'s crude "Jedi Mind Tricks" to prove otherwise.

Now are George F. or Lew Rockwell racist or bigots or just pretending to be racist in order to make allies with racists to achieve a political end? Does it matter?

Is Ron Paul accepting the endorsements and money and promotion of Nazis and neo-confederates and the like without repudiation because he agrees with them?  Or because they will support him in his candidacy, and he needs all the support he can get?  Does it matter?

Does Hillary Clinton unapologetically dismiss her huge corporate contributions as not important because she is a corporatist, or merely needs their help to win?  Does it matter?

So anyway, Theo, you asked for my reasons and I’ve given them.  You have no doubt heard all of this before, and you obviously don’t interpret it as I do, but I guess that’s the way our country works.

I’m glad that Ron Paul can run for president, and get in the debate, and hold the ideas up for scrutiny.  And I’m glad that most people look, and go;  “Oh good lord” and  look for just about anyone else.

At least for now.

When you're a State Representative, and you have to apologize for calling single moms "sluts" in public...you just might be a Republican.

LOL!  I like that he apologized publicly with this little number:

"The derogatory term I used was offensive and inappropriate, and I would like to apologize for using it," the Colorado Springs Republican said in a statement. "Because of my unfortunate choice of language, the message that I was trying to get across about personal responsibility and parental responsibility has been overshadowed.

"I certainly regret using the term I did," he said.

Of course, having spent about the last twenty-five years listening to politicians, and knowing the Republican philosophy as I do...

I can translate it into normal person language quite easily:

"I'm sorry I used words to accuratly represent what I really think.  It's unfortunate that I can no longer pawn off my hostility to harm-reduction efforts as frienliness toward "personal responsibility".  People will always be able to point to this quote and show that my real attitude is one of enjoying seeing women and their children suffer as retribution for their lack of submissivness to the patriarchy."

You know, it just seems like those Muslim fundies have it easier.  You don't see THEM having to bow and scrape and apologize...no, the WOMEN do all of that, when they appear in court.

Gee, it just sort of makes you long for the ideal, Republican America, doesn't it?  Where Abortion (and birth control as soon as they can swing it)is illegal, and all of the government aid is regulated by "Faith-based initiatives" that see things the way old Larry Liston does.  Then, he could call them sluts, and who would care?  Nobody, that's who.  Because if there was one thing Jesus would never have stood for...it was an unwed teenaged mother.

And first prize in the "just not gettin' it" catagory goes to...

Michele "jerk for Jesus" Bachman

Who brags about how great Minnesota is because of all the people working long hours and multiple jobs.

Just keep doing what your doing Michele, and pretty soon, by your standards, America will be the greatest country in the world!

You still have a lot to do, though.  I know if you keep at it and don't give up, some day our seven-year-olds can acheive the dream or working 12 -hour shifts like their lucky Bangladeshi counterparts today!

(Hat Tip: Pharyngula)

So Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to line up with Biblical priciples?

At least he's honest.

Sure he's the Republican front-runner and everything but I'm not worried...

...but mostly that's because I live a mere eight-our drive from the Canadian border.

Less if I don't like my car too much.

And I don't think I'll have to rush.  We can get everything packed up and have a leisurly drive into the neighboring country long before they run out of homosexuals and witches.

(Hat Tip: Pharyngula)

Best. Ron Paul. Description. Ever.

" I'm also not a particular fan of Ron Paul, who mostly seems to be a Rorschach test for the politically disaffected."

I think we might have a bit of a communication issue with the right.

Lewedandlascivious posts a link to this article citing it as an example of the"propagandist" bias of the “Liberal media”.

So the article is in a San Francisco based paper… but it is generally a glowing report of Bush’s political successes this past year, and notes that the Democrats are generally ineffective.

It’s neutral in the advisability of Bush’s policies, but portrays him as a strong leader who is politically effective.

It portrays Dems. As a bunch of dumb-asses who can’t seem to get their shit together.

It seems to me to perfectly reflect reality.

I’m a little stumped.

Oh no you don't, Media.

You don't get to spend the whole LAST presidential election saying that Kerry would be a bad president because he's a stiff, due to his complete LACK of a sense of humor, and because his penchant for precisely answering the question can be percieved as "waffeling"...

...and then turn around and say Huckabee isn't "Presidential" because he's hilarious and has a shoot-from-the hip style.

Pile on one for being academic and humerless, and then turn around and pile on another because he has a quick come-back for almost everything?  Sheesh.

Huckabee wouldn't make a terrible president because he is funny, quick-witted, charming, and takes rhetorical risks.

Huckabee would make a terrible president because his approach to the world is trapped in the middle ages, because he thinks that he has a little man trapped in a book who will give him all the answers, and because he thinks that Chuck Norris (who, despite being a terrible actor, and a horrible judge of politics, is STILL the guy who I looked up to as a young Karateka) is a cherry political endorcement. 

Guess they didn't want to hand the election to Hillary wrapped up in a bow.

Sucks to be you.

Still, being a Republican fall-guy has it's upside.

Look at Ollie North.  Worked out OK for him.

Just hang in there one more year, and all that can be yours!

Sing it Snidey!

I was just watching a History Channel special on China yesterday.  I had to laugh out loud when a Chinese Communist Party Official was shown talking about certain economic woes in his province.  He said:

"What we need is some sort of Social Security System".

I had to pause the DVR because I was laughing so hard.

See?  The conservatives are right!  Social Security IS communist! If it weren't Communist, the Communists wouldn't be thinking about maybe someday getting around to having it!

Now, you HAVE to respect his commitment to libertarian ideals.  Fighting for the right to lie to the public in his quest to destroy public education.  THAT’S commitment.  And hey the genius is, that if you destroy public education, it will be sooooo much easier to lie!  Oh yeah.  He's crazy all right, crazy like a fox.

How DID Ron Paul manage to get ahold of this guy?

[UPDATE:  But maybe I'm being unfair.  Maybe I should let Paul Dorr tell you himself.]

I know I said I was done with Ron Paul, but this has been bugging me ever since I read it.

To solve the problem of frivolous lawsuits, which admittedly do happen, Ron Paul propses that we simply have people insure THEMSELVES against malpractice by their doctors.

That way, the doctors don't get sued and get to keep their money, the insurance companies get more business and more money, people harmed by doctors get compensated eventually after they sue the insurance company to get the money out of them after the insurance company denies the claim based on trumped-up excuses.  Everyone wins except the trial lawyers, who get a career set-back after they have to change specialties from suing doctors to suing claims-denying insurance companies.

Sure...except those who can't afford all the insurance premiums that are already required to just live in our society.  They get screwed some more.

Plus, how does this serve the much-vaunted Libertarian value of personal responsibility?  I have to pay money to insure myself so that someone else doesn't have to pay for their mistakes?

Pardon me, but that's F$%#!ed up.

You know what would help doctors out a lot?  Paying more attention to their patients, listening to them when they describe their symptoms, and not dismissing their concerns about specific health problems out of arrogance.  Also, hospitals could help by better managing their staff and not exhausting them with Bataan death-march shifts that lead to fatigue errors.

One of the things I've noticed is an increased reliance on Hospitalists.  Would hospitals and doctors be motivated to innovate improvements in patient care if accidents and mistakes just became the patient's problem?  Having a doctor around who is familiar with all aspects of a patient's care (where patients might have more than one or two conditions that need to be considered in care), as well as making sure that hospital procedures and policies are followed will go a long way to preventing medical malpractice and the suits that go with them.  Who knows what other improvements hospitals and doctors can make to help them provide more consistantly better care?

When I think about all the stuff that we've gone through in our lives due to negligence and summary judgements of medical professionals not paying attention to their patients, being dismissive and arrogant, not following hospital procedures, etc, it makes me just MAD that someone would suggest that we should have to pay out of our own pockets to protect other people and institutions from their own mistakes.

The Preamble as I see it:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

From what I can tell, this is the Preamble as Ron Paul sees it:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, (forming a more perfect union involves too many activities that could infringe on state’s rights) establish justice, (that’s a state issue) insure domestic tranquility, (too much infringement when you try this)provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare,  (Collectivism!!)and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity (to not have any significant responsibilities as citizens), do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

I've read pages and pages and pages of Ron Paul, now.  I've read pages and pages and pages written by his supporters, and by his detractors.

I've done what Mark asked and seriously considered Ron Paul for President.

I've read about how politicians should do what the Pope says, because he's just saying what God says, and how the church should rule America.  Pretty much, if you just read what Ron Paul himself has written about religion and government, and then go read what Gary North and R.J. Rushdoony have written about it, you'll pretty much see why the theocrats LOVE him to peices.

I've read about how rectifying specific injustices against particular groups so that they can exercise their full rights as citizens is descrimination against those who already exercise their full rights...and anyway it's a states issue if they want to guarantee human rights to their citizens or not. 

Or even ammend the Constitution to deny historic conditions of citizenship as a matter of convenience.

I've read how he describes the Constitutional investment of interpretation of the constitution, as well as the concept that Equity in the Law is invested in the Federal Courts as recent inventions. (and as an aside supports the rights of states to regulate private sexual activity)

I've read about how people getting together with others who have similar issues and trying to solve them together is "collectivism", and bad. (see pretty much any of the above cited articles).

And I've decided that I'd sooner choke on moose vomit than vote for Ron Paul, who goes beyond being "anti-Socialist" to just being plain anti-social.  And though his public face is much more palitable than the views of his most ardent and vocal supporters...it would be, wouldn't it?  He's the politician who represents the constituancy after all.  He'll put the nicest face on it.

So, Ron Paul is out, and Hillary is out.  And All three Republicans who raised their hands when asked the question about creationism are out.  Romny's out because he's just too damned smug.  Time to move on.

“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals . . . By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racists . . . we should understand that racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual liberty.”

                          --Ron Paul

OK...so...when you say "Not all black people are a certain way, and it's wrong for someone to judge them due to their race.  Let's come up with some stratagies that disinsent people from barring people from the opportunities of our society based on race."

What we are actually saying, according to Ron Paul, is that all black people are a certain way, and must be treated all alike.

So, Ron Paul's solution is to remove all disincentives for judging people on race.  Stop keeping track of statistics that show how people are barred from the opportunities of our society based on race, and the problem will just disappear.

Interesting.  If you stop reporting on a problem, it will go away.  The attempt at solution contains the root of the problem...it's all a matter of perception you see...what is real is unreal.  The idea that we can all exsist as individuals in society on our own terms rather than having to conform to some sort of culturally-enforced norm (diversity) is actually the cause of racism and collectivism.  You see what you see only because you create the image with your eye.

gosh.

Who knew Ron Paul was a Zen Master?

And now, I suppose he will go on to prove that black is white and get killed at the next pedestrian crossing (apologies to Douglas Adams)

Federal Money going to religious group to destroy science?

The fact that he can even TRY this shows you how far above the law theocrats think they are, and how much apathy they expect from the rest of us.

How much audacity does this take?

(Double Hat Tip: Pharyngula and The Austringer)

Here is an extensive quote of the relevant information of our common law regarding use of deadly force in self defense.  It is from This document.

Obviously, this doesn't constitute legal advice from me, as I'm not a lawyer, and am merely quoting a document.

Self-defense

·    Most important of the justifications.

·    Nothing controversial about self-defense itself, but it comes up in controversial and sensitive contexts.

A victim can use non-deadly force any time that victim reasonably believes that force is about to be used on him.

Common Law Elements for Use of Deadly Force in Self-defense

(1) unlawful threatener, i.e. aggressor is wrongdoer and you are innocent agent;

(2) honest and reasonabe belief that you are subject to imminent harm, (reasonable because you need to be innocent and if not reasonable then negligent; imminent because if not you have a chance to get away. Subjective approach would allow everyone to claim justification at all times.);

(3) force used must be proportionate (because the balance of evils must be positive)

(4) Actor is not the original aggressor.

Classic common law says if you are initial provoker you lose self-defense unless you communicate withdrawal.

(5) No retreat requirement in most jurisdictions.

Where retreat requirement exists it only holds if actor knows of a place to which he could retreat in complete safety.

MPC Elements for Use of Deadly Force in Self-defense

(1) Force is immediately necessary to protect against unlawful force by another on the present occassion.

(2) Unlawful force threated is death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping or rape.

(3) Actor did not initially provoke for the purpose of using deadly force.

If you provoked with the use of non-deadly force and the other party responds with deadly force, MPC allows justified use of deadly force. (Still liable for initial battery.)

(4) Duty to retreat if actor knows he can avoid the need to use deadly force with complete safety to himself.  Minority Rule.  Three exceptions: don’t have to retreat from home, or if victim of rape or robbery, or if you’re a cop.

(5) Belief must be honest.

(6) Estimate of using force must not be negligent or reckless, if it is guilty of reckless or negligent crime.

Texas version of the Castle Law (copied from here):

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 AN ACT
 relating to the use of force or deadly force in defense of a person.
        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
        SECTION 1.  Section 9.01, Penal Code, is amended by adding 
 Subdivisions (4) and (5) to read as follows:
              (4)  "Habitation" has the meaning assigned by Section 
 30.01.
              (5)  "Vehicle" has the meaning assigned by Section 
 30.01.
        SECTION 2.  Section 9.31, Penal Code, is amended by amending 
 Subsection (a) and adding Subsections (e) and (f) to read as 
 follows:
        (a)  Except as provided in Subsection (b), a person is 
 justified in using force against another when and to the degree the 
 actor [he] reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary 
 to protect the actor [himself] against the other's use or attempted 
 use of unlawful force.  The actor's belief that the force was 
 immediately necessary as described by this subsection is presumed 
 to be reasonable if the actor knew or had reason to believe that the 
 person against whom the force was used:
              (1)  unlawfully entered, or was attempting to enter 
 unlawfully, the actor's habitation, vehicle, or place of business 
 or employment;
              (2)  unlawfully removed, or was attempting to remove 
 unlawfully, the actor from the actor's habitation, vehicle, or 
 place of business or employment; or
              (3)  was committing or attempting to commit aggravated 
 kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, 
 robbery, or aggravated robbery.
        (e)  A person who has a right to be present at the location 
 where the force is used, who has not provoked the person against 
 whom the force is used, and who is not engaged in criminal activity 
 at the time the force is used is not required to retreat before 
 using force as described by this section.
        (f)  For purposes of Subsection (a), in determining whether 
 an actor described by Subsection (e) reasonably believed that the 
 use of force was necessary, a finder of fact may not consider 
 whether the actor failed to retreat.
        SECTION 3.  Section 9.32, Penal Code, is amended to read as 
 follows:
        Sec. 9.32.  DEADLY FORCE IN DEFENSE OF PERSON.  (a)  A person 
 is justified in using deadly force against another:
              (1)  if the actor [he] would be justified in using force 
 against the other under Section 9.31; and
              (2)  [if a reasonable person in the actor's situation 
 would not have retreated; and 
              [(3)]  when and to the degree the actor [he] reasonably 
 believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:
                    (A)  to protect the actor [himself] against the 
 other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force; or
                    (B)  to prevent the other's imminent commission of 
 aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual 
 assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery.
        (b)  The actor's belief under Subsection (a)(2) that the 
 deadly force was immediately necessary as described by that 
 subdivision is presumed to be reasonable if the actor knew or had 
 reason to believe that the person against whom the deadly force was 
 used:
              (1)  unlawfully entered, or was attempting to enter 
 unlawfully, the actor's habitation, vehicle, or place of business 
 or employment;
              (2)  unlawfully removed, or was attempting to remove 
 unlawfully, the actor from the actor's habitation, vehicle, or 
 place of business or employment of the actor; or
              (3)  was committing or attempting to commit an offense 
 described by Subsection (a)(2)(B) [The requirement imposed by 
 Subsection (a)(2) does not apply to an actor who uses force against 
 a person who is at the time of the use of force committing an offense 
 of unlawful entry in the habitation of the actor].
        (c)  A person who has a right to be present at the location 
 where the deadly force is used, who has not provoked the person 
 against whom the deadly force is used, and who is not engaged in 
 criminal activity at the time the deadly force is used is not 
 required to retreat before using deadly force as described by this 
 section.
        (d)  For purposes of Subsection (a)(2), in determining 
 whether an actor described by Subsection (c) reasonably believed 
 that the use of deadly force was necessary, a finder of fact may not 
 consider whether the actor failed to retreat.
        SECTION 4.  Section 83.001, Civil Practice and Remedies 
 Code, is amended to read as follows:
        Sec. 83.001.  AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE.  It is an affirmative 
 defense to a civil action for damages for personal injury or death 
 that the defendant, at the time the cause of action arose, was 
 justified in using force or deadly force under Subchapter C, 
 Chapter 9 [Section 9.32], Penal Code[, against a person who at the 
 time of the use of force was committing an offense of unlawful entry 
 in the habitation of the defendant].
        SECTION 5.  Chapter 83, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, is 
 amended by adding Section 83.002 to read as follows:
        Sec. 83.002.  COURT COSTS, ATTORNEY'S FEES, AND OTHER 
 EXPENSES.  A defendant who prevails in asserting the affirmative 
 defense described by Section 83.001 may recover from the plaintiff 
 all court costs, reasonable attorney's fees, earned income that was 
 lost as a result of the suit, and other reasonable expenses.
        SECTION 6.  (a)  Sections 9.31 and 9.32, Penal Code, as 
 amended by this Act, apply only to an offense committed on or after 
 the effective date of this Act.  An offense committed before the 
 effective date of this Act is covered by the law in effect when the 
 offense was committed, and the former law is continued in effect for 
 this purpose.  For the purposes of this subsection, an offense is 
 committed before the effective date of this Act if any element of 
 the offense occurs before the effective date.
        (b)  Section 83.001, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, as 
 amended by this Act, and Section 83.002, Civil Practice and 
 Remedies Code, as added by this Act, apply only to a cause of action 
 that accrues on or after the effective date of this Act.  An action 
 that accrued before the effective date of this Act is governed by 
 the law in effect at the time the action accrued, and that law is 
 continued in effect for that purpose.
        SECTION 7.  This Act takes effect September 1, 2007.

Townhall.com panics.

Aaleena has commentary.

Just let them have the damned papers already.

Yes, it's a fishing expidition.  Yes, even if you haven't done anything wrong or embarassing, they will find something that they can make into something they can use (and who really thinks you got where you are by being a saint?).

But either turn the damn papers over or drop out of the race.  Didn't you learn anything from Bill's debacle?

Stalling doesn't help Democrats.  When a Democrat does it it is seen as weak and sneaky.

When Republicans do it, it is strong and decisive.

Because of the liberal media.

If you don't address whatever it is now, people won't be tired about hearing it by election time.  If they don't have something by election time, they'll do like they did to Kerry and make something up, and it'll be too late to disprove it.

I wouldn't care how it affects you either way, but all the talk is splashing over onto any candidate whose not a Republican.

And besides, any papers about the public's business should be available to the public.

Neil at 4Simpsons.com asks an excellent question:

If they think we’re so “radical,” why don’t they just use their faux majority to elect legislators to legalize partial-birth abortion and such?  Then they wouldn’t need judges to ignore their duties and make up their own laws. 

Thanks Neil!

Ignoring for the moment the confusion between interpreting the laws in line with the spirit of the Constitution and “ignor[ing] their duties and make[ing] up their own laws”…

Well, the answer is to reflect the question back to you.  If the religious right really had a lock on the sentiments of mainstream America…why would we have quotes from the leaders of your beloved movement feeling the need to say things like this:

"It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. You've got two choices: You can wear cammies and shimmy along on your belly, or you can put on a red coat and stand up for everyone to see. It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic was more effective."--Ralph Reed Los Angeles Times, 3/22/92

Or these:

With the apathy that exists today, a small, well-organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree.  –Pat Robertson in The Millenium

The apathy of other Americans can become a blessing and advantage to Christians who choose to get involved and fill the void of leadership. –America’s Providential History (A popular Christian homeschooling  textbook)

"We don't have to worry about convincing a majority of Americans to agree with us.  Most of them are staying home and watching Falcon Crest." ,"  --Guy Rodgers

As a tactic for a short-run defense of the independent Christian school movement, the appeal to religious liberty is legitimate. Everyone who is attempting to impose a world-and-life view on a majority (or on a ruling minority) always uses some version of the liberty doctrine to buy himself and his movement some time, some organizational freedom, and some power. . . . So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God. --- Gary North

Combined with direct mailings and telephone whisper campaigns perfected by Richard Viguerie, for example, the combination of cultivating voter apathy and then using “churches”, direct mail and other “alternative media” to motivate “the troops” has been very successful.  So successful that Viguerie couldn’t help but crow about it in a book;
America’s Right Turn.  He calls direct mail, church voter guides, and other “alternative media” “secret weapons”.

This is probably why it is so important for them to constantly beat the drums of impending doom with regard to government.  The constant sense that nothing good can come of government, that government can’t do anything right, that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and only God can stop it, no effort of mere mortals can affect it.

How else do you account for the constant conservative serenade of how moral decline in our country has lead to the terrible crime and violence of our culture, despite the fact that violent crime has been on a decline since the early 1980’s and reached an all-time low in 2005?

There’s nothing you can do, the world is falling apart.  Come to Jesus, and for God’s sake make sure you have a conceal-and-carry permit.  The end is coming.  There’s nothing the government can do.  God and vigilante justice are the only answer.

(never mind that the greatest drop happened during the Clinton Presidency, a time when, presumably, American morals were most out of control, and continues through much of the Bush Presidency, when the “invading hordes of illegal immigrants” have supposedly been importing unprecedented social ills).

In 2005 the UN Development Program Report pegged the United States Literacy Rate at 99.9%

Which means that 99.9 out of every 100 Americans can read and understand the Townhall.com articles urging them to dismantle their “failing” school systems, rather than invest in fixing their few shortcomings.

 This is actually quite good when you add in the consideration that the skills required for “basic” literacy have continued to expand.  You need a progressively higher degree of literacy to be considered “basically” literate as time goes on.  For instance, my mother in-law gave her grammar-school readers to my children as a gift.   Given the formula provided by the teacher, my mother-in-law’s third-grade reader was at a beginning first –grade level by today’s standards.

 Having volunteered as a reading tutor for some of the remaining .1% I can tell you that the reasons many of them were unable to learn to read in school had little to do with the school system, and more to do with severe disabilities, crippling home-lives and moving around a lot due to economic instability.  Things that “conservatives” have continuously said are none of the governments business to address.  The Church, private charities faith-based initiatives are the only answers to such ills.

WHY is the extreme right so invested in this sense of failure, decay and hopelessness?  I suppose they want us to admit that “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves”.  There is nothing we can do on our own, nothing that we can do through our government, unless it is a “Godly” administration like the current one, in which case, there is also nothing for us to do. 

Just go to church and get your voter guide, or stay home and despair.

Screw that, get out and vote.  Register to vote.  If you can’t vote for a candidate you want, vote AGAINST a candidate you don’t want or just “throw your vote away” writing in Bill and/or Opus.  At least that sends a message that the votes are there to be won, by the party that fields the right candidates.

Gene Chapman was running for President.  He was seeking the nomination of “The Alliance” (Libertarian, Constitution and Southern Parties) nomination for President.

He has since withdrawn.

Which is a darned shame because it has no doubt disappointed a very talented young man who was going to be his “Intellignet Design Advisor”.  R. Josiah Magnuson.

You’ll be happy to know the little trooper took it well.  He posted a nice, polite letter on the internet and has decided to support Ron Paul for president instead. 

It’s nice to know he was able to find a suitable candidate to take second place to Gene.  Let’s not be too hard of Ron Paul, now.  It’s difficult, after all, to fill the shoes of a Gandhi-impersonatin’  failed-self-immolant tax protestor.  After all, the Federal Reserve has got to come down and if Gene’s not the guy to do it, Ron Paul will have to do.

Josiah isn’t daunted.

In fact, he went on to be the finalist in the Answers In Genesis Research Paper Challenge.  I’m not sure what that’s all about, but it appears to be a sort of talent show where homeschoolers compete to show who does the best Ken Ham impersonation.  The girl who won got a $50, 000 scholarship to Liberty University.

It sounds like a lot, but you have to remember the conversion.  Maybe somebody knows the exact exchange rate, but I believe that $50,000 worth of education from Liberty converts roughly to what you learn from a Monday morning conversation over a coffee and bagel breakfast at the student union of a public university…if the conversation is with one of those creepy people who hang out in the student union and strike up conversations about how they quit college to preserve their Christianity, and they would be happy to stop by your house and pick you up and drive you to a Bible study in another town if you just give them your contact information.

But not to worry, those kids will do fine as long as they don’t try to cash out of the system.  If they stay in,  however,  that education can be cashed in for a lifetime of paychecks from a think-tank, and endless speaking engagements funded by various fundamentalist Sugar-Daddies.

The laugh is on the AiG winner, though, because Josiah has leap-frogged her into the realm of involvement with organizations requiring the money of rich fundamentalists.  While some teens in his situation would flounder.  He’s a founder!

Just keep on truckin’ there Josiah!  Remember the Ant and the Rubber Tree plant (if that’s not too secular, if so, I apologize) You’ll have the constitution whittled back down the Articles of Confederation in no time!

You gotta go check this out.  I’m going to reproduce it in its entirety here, with commentary, but you should go see for yourself just to make sure I’m not changing it up on you or anything.  Because you WILL suspect me of such before the blog entry is over.  Also, although at least one of these people self-identifies as "Libertarian", I'm not going to make abig deal out of it, becasue I've just buzzed Mark enough lately and I don't think it's fun for either of us right at the moment.  Also, even most of the wacky Libertarians I know would recognize that these guys are off their nuts).

I’ll let you judge if my translations are accurate, by giving you a link to the original language (of Whoop whoop crazy talk).

Federation of States, January 3, 2005 - -  Gene Chapman had planned to martyr himself as a protest in front of  the IRS  office  in  Greenville, SC today,  but was apprehended by police and taken to a mental ward.

Gene Chapman is apparently a good man in his heart and he seemingly tries to be a Christian.  However, not only does Gene Chapman try to combine his apparently confused and misguided concept of Christianity with the Hindu non-violent starvation approach of Mahatma Ghandi in confronting civil government, but he now also admits to embracing the Buddhist idea of self-immolation (suicide) as a terroristic threat and similar to a weapon used by the Islamic (Moslem or Mohammedan) suicide bombers, except that he does not intend to kill others. 

These Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism and Mohammedanism) are alien in America and a combining of some of those alien teachings with those of Christianity can result in teachings and understandings that are a corruption of the teachings and examples of Jesus Christ.  These tactics smack of a form of terrorism as Chapman attempts to hold himself as hostage in an attempt to create publicity against the IRS.  Anyhow, he has been arrested and removed to medical/mental facilities where he will be treated and perhaps released in a couple of months.

(translation:  Gene, what were you thinking?  Don’t let those other religions make you crazy!  Let The One True Religion make you crazy!  What, being Jesus crazy isn’t good enough for you? Just having the faith to bash gays and hate the government isn’t good enough for you?  You want to join those Buddhist Monks with their freaky power to meditate while burning to death? Or the Hindu ability to go without food until looking at your skinny ass forces people to  overcome their human stubbornness and selfishness?  You’d give up being able to do meth and hire gay hookers and then blame it on the devil for THAT?)

Chapman’s hunger strikes of protest against the IRS and especially his suicide threat was a tragedy in the making since he should have been talked out of this loose-cannon, alien and defeatist approach to his problems.  Perhaps he was just overwhelmed with the realization of the totality of occupation and control by the Federal Empire of the U.S.A. and the evil forces behind it and maybe he had no other plan to fight it.  There are far better ways to expose the IRS and the occupation in general to gain liberty and freedom.

(I understand that you want reality to conform to the images that you confused and carefully disordered mind creates, heck, we ALL do.  Which is why I have to shake my head and make ‘tut-tutting’ noises. I realize that we’ve both completely rejected the consensual reality of our fellow humans and therefore have no real model for behavior except for a string of irrational and self-contradictory proclamations from people who had just learned how to write things down…but YOUR ambiguous and inarticulate thought-shapes cause you to act differently than mine say you should, so you’re not being rational).

Seeking self inflicted suicide for a cause is seeking martyrdom, but really amounts to seeking glory for one’s self rather than for our Father in Heaven.  Suicidal terrorism is morally wrong on several grounds and certainly was never advocated by Jesus Christ.  The difference is that Christ taught the truth and a gospel of love, charity and of life eternal.  He and His disciples taught and practiced His teachings in the presence of the bureaucrats and the corrupt civil and religious  rulers.  Jesus taught that the Father’s Kingdom shall come on Earth as it is in Heaven and, to this end, His disciples also worked.

(That selfish bastard.  How dare he be insane?  That’s just misguided.  He’s being crazy for himself now.  He really needs to refocus and give himself a good checking-over and realize that he’s a danger to himself on HIS OWN BEHALF.  And he needs to become a danger to himself on GOD’s behalf.)

It was the corrupt scheming and conspiring of evil Satan-inspired men to terminate the life of Jesus with crucifixion and it was they who were responsible for His death.  And likewise these evil men sought to kill His disciples to stop them from teaching the truth, the laws God gave unto Moses,  and of  requiring repentance and a new birth in the spirit by Baptism that they might go forth likewise with love and charity with a message of hope of life eternal for mankind.  These Christian teachings have proven to produce wonderful communities, not perfect, but still a civilized, just and peaceful society full of mostly happy people.  Such communities are a beginning of His Kingdom on Earth.

(If I could just find a country where everyone was exactly like me, I’d be so happy.  Why oh why do the people who are most like me have to be so WEIRD and MISGUIDED?  I could have been happy living with a whole bunch of Gene Chapman as my society if he just changed a little bit.  Man, back in the days when ergot poisoning was endemic, things were perfect.  Why oh why can’t things be like that again?  Damned medical and agricultural science progress.  Ruined everything.)

Christ did not ask His followers to kill themselves in some spectacular way in a useless effort to force the Roman Empire to submit.  He instead taught a Gospel of love and forgiveness, even for tax collectors.  Yet Jesus was not completely non-violent.   He over turned the tables of the money changers and used a whip to drive them out of the Temple.  

(Jesus forgave even the commie tax collectors, but he drove the evil opportunistic capitalists using religion for profit out of the temple and…wait, what was I saying?  I feel dizzy.  Did I put my keys out on the doormat and put the cat in the freezer and hang the groceries on the keyhook by the door again?  I can’t remember.  What are these pills doing on the counter?  My daughter says I have to take them, but I don’t do anything she says since that night she went to sleep without her tinfoil hat on and the Alien Jews that secretly run the government started controlling her brain with lazers.)

It is true that many of the followers of Jesus were killed by evil and conspiring men who were against their teaching of love,  charity  and forgiveness which was against their form of corrupt rule and also was alien to the various false gods of the Romans, Greeks and money changers.  Jesus did not self-immolate to make some kind of point.  While it is likely that Jesus could have avoided arrest by the corrupt authorities, He had to fulfill the prophecies and was thus arrested, falsely accused and slain by evil men so, among other things, He could show the world that death was not final nor an end of existence.

(See, where Gene got it wrong was in trying to do the deed HIMSELF.  Look at Jesus.  He did it right.  He planned it all out with God before he was even born, used his infallible and almighty power to make sure that it would happen exactly the way they wanted it to, made someone else do the dirty work, and then punished them in hell for eternity.  All he had to do was not pussy out himself, and it was all sewn up.  He had it fixed so it couldn’t fail, and then he made a constant series of decisions to not stop it, and it just happened.

Because of man’s sinful nature.

 Praise God.)

Let us not be caught up in false and divergent religious, civil or political movements.  The Confederacy was and shall again be  mostly a Christian nation.  The peaceful and political restoration and liberation of the Confederate States of America is the real answer for the people of the South.  Join us in that worthy cause and live to build a better society and do not chase after false doctrines nor tangents.

(In summation, Don’t let other Gods make you crazy.  Let the One True God make you crazy.  Don’t participate in government unless you can do some real damage.  Don’t kill yourself, let God do it.

The south shall rise again.

Here, have some wheat, I grew it myself.)

Vance J. Beaudreau

(Translation by Teresa)

Courtesy of Conrad Zero,

A link to the story of AT&T deciding for their customers what they should and should not hear.

Don't like it?  "Just" boycott AT&T.  LOL!

They claim it was a one-time mistake, but others disagree.

Conrad recommends that you tune in to this organization for news of what is happening in the music business.

It will no doubt soon be denounced for it's communist content.

Ya know, I used to like John McCain.  I didn't agree with him all the time, but I liked and respected him, especially for the service to the country and what he endured for his comittment to and belief in our country - and I thought he did some good work.  Then he pussied over and let BushCo walk all over him, impugn his service to the country, call him a traitor, insult his family, lie about his daughter and imply that either he or his wife had had an extra-marital-affair with a person of another race to appeal to the racist vote...and then he pimped their lies and cover-ups to the American public.

I used to like Mike Huckabee.  I saw him in numerous interviews and found him charming and affable and likable.  Then he announced he was standing for election to the office of the President, opened his mouth and started talking politics and the most bizzare and unsupportable crap imaginable started coming out of his mouth.

I used to like Ben Stein.  Didn't agree with him on anything to speak of, but he was clever and entertaining and funny and played these adorable character roles (Beauler?). and now he gets involved with something like this.

What's next?  We're going to find out that Arlan Spector eats puppies?

Come On you guys!  I used to have at least a dozen Republicans that I liked and could vote for or at least root for on occasion!  WORK WITH ME HERE!

Maybe this Expelled movie is a spoof?  Yeah.  That's it.  It's a spoof.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Bob Wagner describes the actions of what I have begun to think of as representative of the "Libertarian" philosophy.  This guy has appeares to have pretty much deliberately shit on and sabotaged every single, solitary protection his workers had,all the while running their livelyhood into the ground.

And after all, why shouldn't he?  He's got no responsibility for anyone but himself.  He can do whatever he wants to with HIS company right? 

And just because he had to pay for unemployment, why should his employees get to collect?  And why should he send out the paperwork for them to pay their own money to extend the benefits they THOUGHT they were getting, but weren't because he'd stopped paying for them?Because he laid them off?  Screw that! 

Drug laws, gun laws?  Professional ethics boards?  Taxes? Screw 'em.  Bunch of nanny-state cry-baby whiney crap.

Buyer (and employee) beware. 

Ah yes...if everyone could do what this guy has done and not face any social sanction for it at all, it would be "libertarian" paradise! 

Hey Grover,

I just wanted to send you a quick note thanking you for your tax activism.  I can tell you, having our governor work so hard to keep his no tax pledge and work so hard for you and your out-of-state organization has really benefitted this state.

We didn't need that I-35W bridge anyway.

Say!  I have an idea, you know how it's going to cost our state so much more to rebuild it than it would have to fix it in the first place?  Maybe you can convince Pawlenty to not fix it!

I hear he's rethinking his vetos for increased spending in transportation, road, and infrastructure maintenance, though, so you'd better lean on him real good.  You let one guy get away with it and next thing you know, ALL the people who signed your little pledge will have caved in to the namby-pamby "safe road huggers".

I bet we could get an EVEN BIGGER tax cut than the one we got after he "balanced the budget" by cutting services and infrastructure expendatures to avoid raising taxes!  I mean, sure our local taxes will go through the roof *again* as local governments have to take up the slack...but hey...one bridge at a time, right?

Sarcastically yours,

Teresa

P.S. Rush Limbaugh called Pawlenty a "liberal Democrat".  You'd better check yer Boyee, Grover baby.  Make sure he's not on the pills again.

Meet Christian Exodus:

They are big supporters of the Constitution Party:

From the Christian Exodus FAQ on their website:

Is your organization a part of the Constitution Party, or it's Platform? If not, have you heard of the Constitution Party based in PA? They are a Party running on Christian Beliefs.

All of our Board members are Constitution Party members, and approximately 2/3 of our membership. Certainly the Constitution Party shares our beliefs and principles more than any other political party, and Christian Exodus will work diligently to promote and support the Constitution Party.

Check out their Position Statement.  Just in case you decided not to follow the link, here’s a couple of things you shouldn’t miss:

Immigration:

We hold that the power to enact uniform naturalization rules rests with Congress as specified in Article 8 of The Constitution. We also believe that the various States retain the right to restrict and control immigration into the State as had been exercised under the Union until 1875. No person residing in a State contrary to the laws and regulations of that State attains the expectation of rights, privileges or immunities held by citizens.

The 14th Amendment:

ChristianExodus.org holds that the 14th Amendment was enacted rather than being properly ratified. The history of this amendment is fraught with scandal and unscrupulous actions. The Amendment was properly voted on and properly rejected; only after the dissenting states were not allowed a vote was the Amendment passed.

This fraudulent act redefined the Federal government and its relationship to "The People". We hold that it is the right of the various States to nullify this Amendment and all laws and court rulings arising from it.

16th Amendment:

We hold that the various States should repeal the 16th Amendment, which grants Congress the power to directly tax the people. Direct taxation of the people is contrary to the original intent of the Union and deprives the States of a powerful check on federal excess.

17th Amendment:

We hold that the various States should repeal the 17th Amendment, which provides for the direct election of Senators. The manner in which Senators are elected or selected is a matter that should be left to the States as the original Constitution intended. Direct elections have resulted in a marked reduction in the power of the States to influence Federal actions and policies.

Check out their plan of action.

Here’s what FOX News says about them.  Imagine the treatment they would get if they were a LIBERAL organization that had secessionist leanings.  Also note that they are too extreme even the Bob Jones University.

Here’s a Testimonial from a true believer

And another blog passionately about the world they are leaving and the world they will create.

Don’t miss that last link…really.  He hits every note in the Conservative scale.  If he doesn’t write for Townhall.com, he should.  He's a very articulate, expressive, and orderly communicator, expecially when compared to Devvy Kidd.

I might point out that the referance to the Book of Exodus in their name implies that they believe that they are fleeing slavery and oppression in America (which they as much as say in their website.  Remember what the people in the original Exodus did to Egypt?  I wonder what plagues the people of the Christian Exodus have planned for us?

It’s time to meet some of the more well-known boosters of the Constitution Party.  Just my little helping hand to Mark…who seemed a little grumbly about having to look into it more deeperer on his own.

Of course, being a free-thinker, Mark will also have to double-check the information that I provide*…but  hey.  It’s just the cost of being a responsible member of society that you find things out for yourself.

So, without further ado…let’s take a look at today’s profiled Constitutional Party booster:

Devvy Kidd is a writer writer and speaker.  In addition to an apparent fondness for randomly doubling consonants, she seems to be an advocate for the Constitution Party.

Quatloos!  Featured Devvy Kidd on their website, focusing on her apparent insistence that the 16^th Amendment is illegal.

The World Net Daily seems to believe her.

Somehow, the Courts beg to differ (below copied from the Quatloos website link provided above):

Miller v. United States, 868 F.2d 236, 241 (7 th Cir. 1989) (per curiam) - the court stated, "We find it hard to understand why the long and unbroken line of cases upholding the constitutionality of the sixteenth amendment generally, Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Company . . . and those specifically rejecting the argument advanced in The Law That Never Was, have not persuaded Miller and his compatriots to seek a more effective forum for airing their attack on the federal income tax structure." The court imposed sanctions on them for having advanced a "patently frivolous" position.

United States v. Stahl, 792 F.2d 1438, 1441 (9 th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1036 (1987) - stating that "the Secretary of State's certification under authority of Congress that the sixteenth amendment has been ratified by the requisite number of states and has become part of the Constitution is conclusive upon the courts," the court upheld Stahl's conviction for failure to file returns and for making a false statement.

Knoblauch v. Commissioner, 749 F.2d 200, 201 (5 th Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 830 (1986) - the court rejected the contention that the Sixteenth Amendment was not constitutionally adopted as "totally without merit" and imposed monetary sanctions against Knoblauch based on the frivolousness of his appeal. "Every court that has considered this argument has rejected it," the court observed.

United States v. Foster, 789 F.2d 457 (7 th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 883 (1986) - the court affirmed Foster's conviction for tax evasion, failing to file a return, and filing a false W-4 statement, rejecting his claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was never properly ratified.

(copied from the Quatloos! Website)

Check out Devvy’s reading list for becoming an informed citizen.  Of course, when you are done, you will believe that the Illuminate are out to kill you…

Devy Kidd endorses El Doroado Discount Gold, Inc.  You can count on an internet sales site like ElDorado Discount Gold inc.  Especially if someone as sane and well-balanced as Devvy endorses them.  After all, she’s one smart cookie.  She isn’t fooled by the Shriners’ helping treat all those kids with disabilities.

Devvy Kidd was the Freedom Drive Manager for We The People; a grass-roots organization determined to defend honesty, integrity and legality and….uh…

Oops.

Oh yeah, if your head is still spinning from her insistence that the 16^th amendment isn’t legal, how about her apparent insistence that the local county sheriff can legally refuse to enforce Federal laws?

And check out this jeremiad. If America’s schools were ACTUALLY anything like Devvy describes, I would want to abolish the Department of Education too.  Of course, if schools were as bad as Devvy says they are, it would also explain the lack of focus and coherence in her essay.  But when my kids come home and I say “What did you learn today?”…they have never answered “Sodomy, Communism and America Hatin’!!”

Sigh.  Oh well, at least I can go to bed tonight secure that Devvy Kidd is out there fighting tirelessly for my right to join an armed compound with my Sheriff’s support, make sure my kids have a ignorant terror that gay people will convert them, and selectively decide which constitutional amendments I’ll observe.  Vote Constitution party!

*         You should be aware that this is a capriciously written narrative intended to connect the dots of various things I’ve found on the web, and is NOT intended to inform you in anyway about Devvy Kidd.  The “facts” are unchecked.  As is always the case, the commentary provided by me is intended to entertain (mostly myself) rather than inform, and the conclusions drawn are not necessarily carefully considered.

This is great and all...I just wish that I could believe that their fervor has nothing to do with the upcoming election.  Then again, THIS is the checks and balances in action.  The legislature putting the check on the Executive.  Perhaps too little, perhaps too late...but it's something we need.  Finally!

Newt Gingrich apparently finds all of these calls for transparency, scruitiny, and accountability too be tedious, however.  And partisan.  Shamefully, shamefully partizan.  Imagine!  Democrats using the machinery of government to represent their interests! It's unAmerican.  Chortle.  Somehow, people seem to forgeth that the framers KNEW that it is difficult, if not impossible to get people to act altruistically in a manner consistant enough to run a government.  So they gave us a government where everyone could get involved and use the tools of government to represent their own interests and nobody could (in theory) get the other over a barrel.

[update:  I had to leave this entry for a while to go run a kid to a class]

One problem is, too many people are abstaining from government and politics because for some reason they think it should be pure and nobel and altruistic and idealistic and the fact that it is not alienates them.  Hey, I'd like that too.  And when someone is being partizan or merely looking after themselves it's appropriate to point that out, but come on, it IS good for the country to have Gonzales questioned.

Doesn't it seem that Newt is saying that Gonzales merely has the APPERANCE of being a big lying cheat...and that it is the unhinged Democrats CREATING that perception completely unfairly?  I read Newts statement as being "It's too bad that the Democrats have ruined this man's reputation, but since they have, he should step down for the good of the country and the party."

Yeah.  So they can put in some other guy to pull the same dirty tricks and we have to go through this whole process again while nothing changes?

Yes, American politics require the constant struggle for accountability...but I'd like the efforts to cause the corruption to at least miss a beat.

(Double Hat Tip:  Frecklescassie)

It is remarkable in the extreme, to me, that people actually argue that we should have no such thing as "hate crime" laws.

There are really people who think that there is no difference between beating a child for being "brown" as part of a recruiting drive for the KKK, than to beat any child for no reason at all.

The would argue that demanding an extra penalty for participating in a Klan activity intended to inflame the passions of other people who would like to beat "brown" children, with the intent of recruiting them to advance the cause of being able to beat "brown" children any time they feel they want to, to incite more people to abuse minorities somehow minimizes the horrible nature of beating any child.

They don't think that using the beating of a child to inflame passions against minorities, promote membership in a hate organization, make a political statement, and incite and embolden further violence adds any kind of demension to the crime that should change the nature of the punishment.

In fact, to suggest that it does, in fact add a new demension to the crime has become extremely politically incorrect.

In which case, one wonders why they don't view terrorism as "simple murder".

Go read Ben's summary of Gonzales' testimony.

I laughed out loud...

...and then I went and wept silently into a pillow.

I think my favorite part of Convergence was our friend "Saveau's" "motivational" posters.  Here is a sample:

Unfortunatly, someone didn't get the jokes and left snarky post-it notes on the Battlestar Gallactica posters...but that's what Con is all about.  Fans getting together and getting their obnoxious on in a safe environment.

Well, that's ONE of the things that Con is all about.  Other's include seeing friends, and drinking and geeking out over stuff that would normally get you locked away in the real world...like the Great Luke Ski, for instance.

Adventure Boy came to Con for his second time, and Grasshopper joined us as a nubee.  Also joining us was Padewan...Adventure Boy's bestest friend in the whole world...who is moving to Montreal in just a couple of weeks.

The boys had cell phones, so we kept in contact with them and more-or-less let them roam the Con during the day.  They attended a surprising number of panels, and seemed to have every day scheduled tight as a drum.

Here are some of my other favorite posters:

Much is being made of this video.  Some people think that it is a bunch of rude, obnoxious, theocratic extremeists trying to silence a religious blessing upon our government from a holy man from a significant minority group who contributes greatly to the richness of our society.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  The truth is that our Deist founders who didn't believe in organized religion, nevertheless decreed that the United States was a Christian nation.  Sure, natural law was a good enough way for them to live THIER lives, but for the country, they thought that bronze age morality was the cure and they said no other religion could be practiced publicly.

And don't quote me Jefferson's letter to the Baptist convention about the "Wall of Seperation" malarky.  That was just a ruse to lull the non-Christians into a false sense of security.

Anyway.  What's going on here is that the Christians are exersising both their RIGHT to use their free speech to silence other religions, and their SACRED OBLIGATION to harass non-Christian in the country.  And by non Christians, I mean non- Protestants.

Protestants are the REAL church...no matter what the Pope says.

I mean, who does this Hindu holy man think he is anyway?  What makes him think that we WANT to ask to be guided by the supreme deity who created and runs the universe, and have our deliberations and decisions and actions subject to his laws?  What makes him think that we have any obligation to remember that we are part of a country that is part of a planet, that is part of a universal system whose reality we are subject to, and whithin which we are called to function with the best possible expression of our nature?

Oh. Wait.  I guess this must explain something that someone has called to my attention:  Some Christians think that liberal Christians are actually Hindus.  LOL.  Maybe we should re-think the percentage of Hindues that make up the population.  Maybe we need to add more Hindu chaplains.

It seems almost futile for religion to call people to humility anymore.

(double Hat Tip:  Eclecticsanonymous)

Also, Jason Bock has commentary on this.

Little bit of catch-up.

The fourth was fun, for the most part.  We got together with the extended family and did some camping and BBQing and water-skiing and stuff.  There was a parade and fireworks and all that jazz.  Rocky, the kids and the dog all had a fabulous time.

I behaved myself for the most part.  At one point we were in the livingroom watching  the travel channel and there was a show on Niagara Falls.  One of the bits was about the history of the falls as related to the underground railroad.  The show described run-away slaves crossing an ice bridge that formed over the falls, as well as a suspension bridge that went over the river into Canada.  One tour you can take traces the route of escaped slaves over the (now modern) bridge into Canada.

The relative we were visiting was not pleased by the description of people escaping the US to find freedom in Canada.

So he proceeded to tell the children that the slaves brought to America from Africa were better off as slaves in America than they were as free people in Africa.  He asserted that slavery was not as bad as some people claimed, and also, that modern black people should be GRATEFUL that their ancestors were slaves because if they weren’t they’d be over in Africa with all the disease and genocide.

Now, this relative is a Conservative older man, living in a rural area, and is unlikely to change his opinion or outlook in anyway, and is unlikely to actually be able to harm anyone with his opinion either.  So I left and took a little walk and later talked with the kids about the conversation, making sure I let them know where this relative was in error.

Later, back home, we had some other relatives as houseguests, and discussion of the health care system ensued.

Let’s just say that I was called ignorant, and stupid, mocked derided, talked over, interrupted, and my ideas completely re-interpreted and misrepresented and scoffed at.  When I tried to explain how the relative was going off in a completely different direction, he raised his voice and said “Let me finish.”

I got very upset.  I was tired from the first day and night of CONvergence, so I teared up and had trouble speaking.  It is something that sometimes happens when I get really angry and I am exhausted.  I was practically speechless to be treated this way in my own house…and by someone I actually like a lot and respect, but whose personal manner changed dramatically on this particular topic.  It was a bit shocking to me.

What was it that made me stupid and ignorant?  I don’t really know, but the relative in question argued that a basic national health care system that only covered standard treatment for routine medical problems would stifle innovation, because people would not buy catastrophic or “Cadillac” healthcare plans if they had the basic national plan available for free.  I wanted to point out that I never proposed it be automatically free for everyone…but that was one of the times I was waved off as “interrupting” before I could get the clarification out.  I suppose it would be overly snarky of me to point out that the clarification would have been unnecessary if I hadn’t been interrupted.  So the person continued to completely demolish the point he thought I had made rather than the one I was actually trying to make.

 I wanted to point out that the plan I was trying to discuss would actually add consumers to the health care system because people currently going without care would be getting it, whereas people who currently have great coverage would choose to use their great coverage and this would drive innovation just as much as it ever has.  No go.

The person insisted that nobody would spend money for insurance to provide state-of-the-art treatments if they could get the insurance for cheaper less innovative treatments for free.

I said “So you don’t think people can be trusted to understand that they need to pay for better coverage to get better treatment?”

Apparently, this is a terrible thing to say to a Republican with Libertarian leanings.

But it seems to me that the average American understands this.  If you have better coverage…you get better treatment.  If you have crappy coverage, you get crappy treatment.  A minimally adequate coverage will get you treatment that is effective for most of the things that most people encounter in life…and no coverage at all is a recipe for disaster.

I assume that, like now, people will try to get the best coverage they have access to.

All I was trying to say is, wouldn’t it be possible for us to have a program to move the people who have no coverage and crappy, inadequate coverage into the category of having minimally adequate coverage?  While it might not be that great if you get cancer…you’ll love it if you get a broken leg or a sinus infection.

The person responded that it would just cost too much to overhaul a system as big as our health care system for what is essentially an incidental segment of the population.  He asserted that it is really very exceptional cases where people cannot afford insurance and are unable to pay for treatment.

I asserted that the overhaul of the system is coming one way or another.  We can either let it break down its present form and change on its own…hoping the magic of the market fairies will pull a better system from the chaos…or we can plan it and manage it so that hopefully it doesn’t lead to radical disruption of our society.

My discussion partner expressed incredulity at that assertion, and told me that people should just bring down costs by buying generics and such.

I said good luck with that since you have an entire industry built around “motivating” doctors to prescribe new formulations of existing drugs, presenting the new formulations as “innovations”, and fostering the perception that generics are inferior to brand-name drugs (I personally know a drug rep who flat out told me – on several occasions – that I should, under no circumstances buy generic drugs as there was just too much variance in their manufacture and performance…for instance.  I didn't listen to him.  I buy my meds at Costco and go genaric whenever there is one available.  Ther are usually cheap enough to cost me a fraction of my co-pay.)

He countered snidely that I didn’t trust people to be able to make rational decisions on their own.  My attempts to explain the difference between a general understanding of levels of coverage and people making a choice when there is a multi-billion-dollar industry focused on shaping their perception with the complicity of the people who are supposed to be their health advocates fell on deaf ears as he condescendingly explained to me that I had employed a double-edged sword when I invoked personal choice and responsibility.

I guess I had to be punished for defiling said deities by using them in a "liberal" argument.  The Conservative Libertarians have claimed them as their own and nobody else can use them.

Apparently, the magic of the Wonder-Twin Magic Market Fairies of Personal Choice and Personal Responsibility work the same whether you have access to high-quality information from reliable sources or not.  I guess I know better now.

Needless to say, the rest of the conversation is kind of a blur.  I wish I’d walked away from that conversation as well.

Fortunately, CONvergence was in full swing and things can never go that wrong when CONvergence is going on.   I’ll talk about that more in my next entry.

He sure seems to.

You can judge the level of douchbaggery yourself.  I post.  You decide.

I thought CNN could stoop no lower than exploiting Nancy Grace's need to broadcast her pain and rage at the nation's accused criminals and their defense attornys.  I guess I was wrong.  They added Glenn Beck.

The below video is a little disturbing.  Mostly for the statements made by Glenn Beck, but Kucinnich's adoring fans also weird me out a little.  But at least they are humerous and...um...how do I put it?  Oh yeah. NOT VISIBLY ENGAGING IN DOUCHBAGGERY.

grump.

Oh yeah, and aren't these the guys who are supposed to RESPECT marriage?  I'd like to know how same-sex marriage supposedly defiles marriage, but looking at another man's beautiful wife, and conjecturing that their marriage is based on drug-assisted rape is RESPECTFUL of it.

I bet God just looks down at some of his "followers" and wishes he could sleep so he could cry himself to sleep at night.

As is often the case: (Hat Tip: Pharyngula)

With a power vacuum left by the steady descent of Pat Robertson into irrelevancy and senility, Mike S. Adams has made his move and grabbed the religious pundit’s position as the head of the Feminist movement.

While Adam’s move to gain control over setting the agenda was bold and groundbreaking, the agenda we can expect him to set has been  a rather tepid facsimile of Robertson’s more bold agenda.

Far from introducing anything new to a membership that has been straining to make headway in the areas of social justice, human rights, rape prevention, health care, reproductive rights and economic justice,  Adams has instead declared a narrowing of the original Robertson approach.

While Robertson declared the goals of the feminist agenda along a number of lines;

 “[Feminism is] a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Mr. Adams has, in fact narrowed the focus to simply being the murder of children.

While the membership of the Feminist movement is happy to say good-by to the mandatory socialism, lesbianism (although 1/10 seems fine with it), witchcraft (3/4 feminists don’t like touching desscated newt eye), the destruction of capitalism (nearly 1/5 say “Capitalism worked for me…why destroy it?”) and those polled asserted 100% that they were against the murder of children (+/- a margin of error of .5%), there is some disappointment that the agenda wasn’t expanded to include more practical matters germane to the welfare of women.

 There seems as though there is little reason to expect rape prevention, parity in education, economic achievement and health care to see any movement forward.

When asked about it, Adams mumbled something that sounded like;

“The membership may not like it, but what can they do about it?  After all, they’re just women.  Don’t worry, they’ll have a big hysterical moment and then they’ll get together, have a good cry in front of Lifetime with a bowl of ice cream.  After they’ve had a hot bath and a nap, they’ll be right as rain again.  We’ll have ‘em back on the streets bludgeoning school children to death in no time….and for much less money than it would cost to get men to do it.”

The Taliban military likes to bomb Buddhist monuments.

The U.S. military wants to bomb fossils.

See?  Challenges to your ideological blinders CAN be effectivly addressed by heavy weaponry.  It’s nice to see two so-different governments able to come together on common ground.

Reader Ben (and blogger at Eclecticsanonymous) recommended this video.  He wasn't wrong.  It comes in five parts on Your Tube.  Here they are:

CDC facts about the HPV vaccine.

Here, you can explore the Epidemiology of the various strains of the HPV virus.  Note that strains #s 16 and 18 are the most common strains found in new-borns.  The HPV vaccine covers those strains.  Yet the religious right still opposes the use of the vaccine under the argument that contracting HPV is a “Lifestyle choice”  While a person might make that judgment on the mother, it seems a rather harsh one to make on her innocent infant. (never mind that 1 in 4 women will be raped in their lifetime, and 22% of these will be raped under the age of 12…lifestyle choice?  Who “chooses” to have a spouse cheat (26 – 50% depending on if you buy the conservative estimate or the liberal one) on them and bring an STD home?  

It is estimated that 50% of the sexually active population is infected with HPV at some time in their lives.  It is estimated that 90% of all cervical cancer is caused by HPV, which is the second leading cause of death in women world-wide.  HPV is also implicated in a number of other urogenital cancers which affect men and women…as well as genital warts.

Transmission possibilities include: sexual transmission (most likely) transmission from mother to infant, between children who have been the victims of sexual abuse, and non-sexual contact with infected urogenital secretions ( no confirmed cases, but the possibility exists unlike with some other viruses)

Still, control of this virus on a epidemiological level is portrayed as inconsequential to public health, and the equivalent of heart disease, despite is ubiquity and links to several types of cancer…and despite the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing not only contraction of the virus, but  also in reducing the risks of lesions in already infected women.

Cost is another argument, but estimates on the opposing side merely pit the cost of mandatory vaccination against a single life (the absolute highest I’ve heard in cost per life saved is $1M.  I’ve also heard the cost estimated as low as $81,000 per life saved).  Since estimates of value of lives saved to society are frequently in the multiple millions, it seems fair enough.

After all, Religious Conservatives celebrated the Supreme Court decision that would save an estimated 3,000 unborn recently.  Yet an expected 3,700 women not dying of cervical cancer in the country is considered negligible., and not worthwhile.

They don’t talk about the money saved in pre-cancerous lesions that needn’t be treated, in transmissions that don’t occur.   Plus, those figures fail to mention if they took into account incidences of other potentially fatal and/or life-shortening urogenital cancers which have been linked to HPV (some of them affect men as well).

Add to this the number of different strains of HPV, and the dangers of allowing them to spread unchecked through the population, recombining to create new strains with greater ability for transmission, infection, and a greater possibility of affecting long-term health (risks which would be lowered by control of the virus); and you make a pretty good case for mandatory vaccinations.

Maybe it’s not a slam-dunk, but aspersions about “life-style choice”, and assertions about lowering the resistance of young girls to having sex seems more than a little trivial.

I DID find a JAMA article about mandatory HPV vaccinations.  It recommends against mandatory vaccinations.  Why? Because backlash from the anti-vaccine crowd could politically endanger the mandatory status of already mandatory vaccines.

 Cowards. “Oh, the anti-science people will get us if there’s anything remotely disappointing about the policy.  Run away Run away.”

One of their other arguments is that they haven’t seen suggestions as to who would pay for it.  Although legislation usually covers that…and it really isn’t the purview of the doctors.  Finally, they say that public funding of the vaccine would likely lower the amount of money spent in other areas.  That is an interesting question, and it would be interesting if we could see how public funding of the vaccine for poor people might actually lower the cost of treating conditions caused by HPV.

I notice that all of the objections raised in the JAMA article were political in nature, and not medical nor even went into any depth to really look at the epidemiological effect of mass vaccination.

The JAMA article is in response to the ACIP recommendations for girls 9-12 years of age.

[UPDATE:  I found a reason why the fundies might now rally behind the HPV vaccine.  Apparently, there was a study that showed that it is possible that having the virus might inhibilt the implantation of zygotes into the uterus.  In other words...HPV could cause "abortions".  They won't do it to save women, or babies that are born (since it's a "lifestyle choice") but maybe they will do it to save teh unborn babies]

This is the Christian Right I know. Anti-Semitic, promoting the execution of homosexuals, saying that God does not hear the prayers of Jews, defending child abusers and child abuse because parents "own" their children by God's ordination. 

I know also have come to know a lot of really nice Right-wing fundamentalists. They wouldn't hurt a fly except in self-defense. But they don't have to. They just have to defend and support and send money to and vote for the craven, manipulative, cynical, censorous, hypocritical leaders. As long as good people stand behind these dogs, we are in danger from them.

(Hat Tip:  Jason Bock)

The story behind South Dakota’s abortion ban. Click on this link, and go read the whole thing.  Whether you approve of abortion or not, is this how you want your laws being made?

  If the “pro-life lobby is so righteous, how come they have to delete testimony:

The dissenters--Linda Holcomb, a family therapist; Dr. Maria Bell, the sole gynecologist on the committee; Senator Stanford Adelstein; and Looby--say the final report distorts the information and testimony the task force surveyed. Though the testimony was evenly divided between citizen and expert witnesses in favor of legal abortion and against it, most of the testimony in favor of legal abortion was omitted from the final report or discredited to what Looby considers a libelous degree.

Claim not to remember the testimony they are deleting:

Hunt is evasive when questioned about this omission. "There were a lot of statements made that didn't make it into the report," he said. "I don't remember that many doctors making that kind of a statement." But an examination of the testimony sheds light on the contention: Of the nine physicians who testified, eight claimed it was not medically advisable to create an environment where abortion was illegal.

Falsely represent testimony, skew testimony,

Missing testimony isn't the only troubling aspect of the report; the witnesses were routinely misrepresented. For instance, the report claims that "close to 2,000 women who have had abortions made statements detailing their experience...over 99 percent of them testified that abortion is destructive of the rights, interests, and health of women." These figures actually refer to 1,500 affidavits originally collected as part of an Internet campaign, brought in by a Texas-based litigation firm, The Justice Foundation, and its antiabortion offspring, Operation Outcry, during the October 21 meeting of the task force. There were also seven out-of-state Operation Outcry representatives invited to testify before the task force, even though the day was reserved for South Dakotan testimony only. Though Hunt says he can't remember who had invited Operation Outcry, Allison, the self-identified "pro-life" chair of the committee who often voted with the prochoice minority, says that Hunt was responsible for bringing in all the pro-life witnesses. "He may not remember, but I'm guessing he knows," she added.

Just plain lie about science

Looby says that she and the other minority members spent hours trying to correct errors in the report during the final meeting but were routinely voted down. The final straw was the report's contention that there is a link between breast cancer and abortion. The report claimed that "reasons to suspect such a link are sufficiently sound," though nearly all the evidence the group had accumulated supported the contrary. Looby and Bell made a motion to amend the claim, which was tabled without discussion. At that point, Looby, Adelstein, Holcomb and Bell left the meeting in protest. The final report was then endorsed nine to one, with Allison the lone dissenter.

And deny responsibility for writing the resulting legislation?

No one claimed specific authorship of the report. "We were supposed to sit down, go through it, critique it, make motions, and we didn't know who wrote it because no one would say," Allison recollects. "I think there were several authors, but the only knowledge I have of who authored it is what I've read in the paper, honestly, because no one would 'fess up during our meeting." Hunt, whose statement on the report's authorship is "I wasn't necessarily part of any of the drafting," contends that it was a group effort and that several members had been e-mailing drafts back and forth before the final meeting. "There were probably six or seven members who wrote different sections of it and then pooled their information," he says. "I know that there were three or four other members who kind of went through the draft trying to tie it all together." Neither Looby nor the other surprised members were privy to the alleged e-mail drafts. "We got the feeling there was a lot of national-level professional input," Looby says.

Unless something changes, California's prison budget is set to top it's spending on Universities within five years.

Go read this article about HPV vaccine:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/pollitt

Here’s the money quote:

I remember when people rolled their eyeballs if you suggested that opposition to abortion was less about "life" than about sex, especially sex for women. You have to admit that thesis is looking pretty solid these days. No matter what the consequences of sex--pregnancy, disease, death--abstinence for singles is the only answer. Just as it's better for gays to get AIDS than use condoms, it's better for a woman to get cancer than have sex before marriage. It's honor killing on the installment plan.

And another one:

As they flex their political muscle, right-wing Christians increasingly reveal their condescending view of women as moral children who need to be kept in line sexually by fear. That's why antichoicers will never answer the call of prochoicers to join them in reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available: They want it to be less available. Their real interest goes way beyond protecting fetuses--it's in keeping sex tied to reproduction to keep women in their place.

Here is another article for the layman, but more science-oriented about the virus, the vaccine, and the reasoning of the people opposing it:

http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/05/11/texas_where_the_living_is_cont.php

Here, you can get the facts about HPV Vaccine: http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/57/1/7#SEC5

It’s the answer!  All we have to do is wait until the “right” smears, defames, harasses, and sets their troll posse out with threats against the children of all the conservatives in the country.  The answer is so obvious.  Unleash Bill O’Reilly  and Bill Donohue, and let them do their damage.  One by one, people will wake up when their little liberal child is the one standing in the crosshairs of a fallafel-weilding maniac. I just don’t know if the country has time to let them completely discredit themselves.

The Daily Kos has more about the strange case of Amanda Marcotte.

“Her parents didn’t know what to do, either. "It was interesting to see, because they’re Fox News-watchers; they buy into the whole thing," Amanda says. "So I don’t think it ever occurred to them, the human face of someone Bill O’Reilly will slander for political gain. They didn’t stop to consider how much he slants things, and lies, until it happened to someone they knew."

Plus, if they keep this up, they are going to do real number on the state of morality in this country by forcing them out of their jobs:

Today, Marcotte is unemployed and—since she gave up her apartment for the abortive move to North Carolina—without her own place. But she’s doing alright. She recently signed a contract to write a book for Seal Press, called Not Your Darling (due out in Spring 2008) and has moved in with her boyfriend — who agreed to support her for a year while she writes. (The catch: she has to do the same for him next year). In the meantime, you can find her on Pandagon.net.

Minnesota ranked # 3 in the nation for volunteerism.

Minnesota ranked #1 for youth voter turnout.

Minnesota ranked #5 for median family income.

Minnesota ranked #4 for students ranked as advanced in 4^th grade math

Minnesota ranked #1 for high school graduation rates (per capita)

Minnesota ranked #10 for residents with a Bachelor’s degree or higher (33% of pop)

Minnestoa ranked #13 for percent of children with all parents in the labor force

Minnesota ranked # 21 for welfare caseloads (per capita #17 in real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #11 for Patents issued

Minnesota ranked #19 for Employment

Minnesota ranked #22 for abortion rate (for real numbers, but #20 for out-of state non-residents, so Minnesotans who have abortions are less common)

Minnesota ranked #18 for % of women who never marry (#19 for men)

Minnesota ranked #42 for divorce rate

Minnesota ranked # 39 for violent crime per capita.

Minnesota ranked #29 for bankruptcy filings (real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #4 for over-all health index

Minnesota ranked # 43 for child death rate (real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #45 for Infant death rate (real numbers)

Minnesota ranked #40 for Chlamidia (per capita)

Minnesota ranked #41 for suicides (per capita)

Minnesota is #2 for accepting refugees (per capita #4 for real numbers)

Not surprisingly:

Minnesota ranked  #8 for tax rate pre $ GDP

Minnesota ranked #4 for tax rate per capita

Minnesota ranked #12 for total tax burden

Strangely, enough, I’d rather live in Minnesota than some low-tax, conservative, “family values” state.  I like living in a state that actually values people, families  and civic life.

One of my favorite religious conservative sites has gone into an abortion discussion again.

I threw out a few comments and was ignored, except for one case where my argument was intentionally misrepresented.  Same old same old tired, worn-out just-so stories about what constitutes "personhood" that ultimately just throws up it's hands and admits that the whole argument is based on faith, nothing can be proven so we must "err on the side of life".  Even if it means that then we have to define an unborn fetus that never developed a brain as a person.

LA-la-la-la-la-thumbs-in-the-ears self-congradulatory wanking, and ignoring very real questions about the debate, and implications about their positions.

It's so unusual for this site, but I guess we all reach a point where reason fails us, and we pull something out of our ears and stick with it.

It's just that most of us don't try to turn that into legislation and public policy.

Especially public policy that will burdon the person we are making the decision for, and will cost us nothing.

Abortion discussions are inherantly pointless.  Both sides have too many thoughtless and dishonest people in the ranks.  Neither of them want to talk to anyone.  They just want to scream insanely at each other.  The main difference is that the pro-life side has crazy people with guns and bombs.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula  has a link up to this fun little gem of a list on Radar Magazine Online.  The ten dumbest congresscritters of2006.

There’s lots of good stuff, but my favorite was this:

1.    Representative Katherine Harris (R-FL) If dumb Congress members were the X-Men, Harris would be their Wolverine—a mutant possessing fearsome skills, the product of a demented government experiment gone horribly wrong.

Fun.

For the conservatives here, don’t think they just pick on the Republicans.  There are some Democrats too, but they are more toward the bottom.

PZ also provides a link to a Radar Magazine Online countdown of the Holiest Congresscritters.  Chin up Minnesota!  Our very own "hot for Jesus", and apparent President-molester (what can I say, she seems to like men of power)Michelle Bachman is the winner!

Taking a page from a certain High School English teacher, who used grammar exercises to promote his conservative political opinions, I have come up with a little activity for any of you who wish to attempt it:

 Identify the similes and metaphors.

1)       I’d be all over that like Michelle Malkin on a new justification for the Japanese-American internment in WWII.

2)      The air was as thick with tension as Rumsfeld’s press conferences are with folksy affectations.

3)      With the rainfall and precipitous drop in temperature, the road became as slick as Wolfowitz’ comb.

4)      Dinesh Dsousa’s writing is a thundering rain of self-serving incivility.

5)      Hubris fills the holes in Wolfowitz’ socks.

6)      The flaws in the pre-Iraq justifications were as apparent as Ann Coulter’s knobby shoulder bones.

7)      The Discovery Institute is an actor that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Sorry Bill.  (Shakespeare, not Dembski)

8)      The sentiments in Ann Coulter’s columns are a confusion of angry bees in the middle of an episode of Colony Collapse Syndrome.  Each buzzing off in its own direction for no apparent reason.

9)      Knut is like the whole question of man’s impact on the environment.  One we can feel slightly guilty about, and yet embrace with warm fuzzies at the same time…and then let someone else worry about it until we need to blame them for the outcome later.

10)   Bill O’Reilly is the “eccentric” uncle at the family picnic that everyone secretly waits to see what he’ll do next, but nobody wants to talk to.

Yes, Mark, This one’s for you.  J  Please don’t take it personally, as I am only poking fun.  And after all, you DID call me a socialist.  More than once.  Kind of like being called a dyke, I don’t really take it as an insult…it just doesn’t really fit.  And if it is clearly meant as a jab (even a good natured one, which I take yours as) I feel almost obligated to jab back.  Plus, I enjoy our little chats too much to let it sit.

As you may have guessed, I threw out the previous Quote of the Day to give you a chance to get your rhetoric on a little bit…but then I remembered that you had never heard of Grover Norquist…so I went to find an article about him so I could make it easy to find out about him.

Then, I read the article.

Up until then, the only link I had between Anti-Tax activists and terrorism was that one creepy neighbor back in the Northern Minnesota countryside with the two VERY quiet little girls and the wife we nicknamed “Mrs. Frankenstein” because of her salt-and-pepper bouffant and ugly temper.

Nobody did anything when she got on the school bus and threatened the bus driver’s life because she felt her children were not being treated properly.

Then, one day, the FBI showed up and hauled lots and lots and lots of military weaponry from his property.  The good stuff, too.  Let’s just say, that the kind of deer you would need this sort of arsenal for would spit running chainsaws for their opening act.  He was an anti-government tax evader.  And he was SERIOUS.

As the years went by, I began to think of anti-government tax protestors as being more like Kent Hovind (AKA Dr.Dino).  You know, sort of a crazy old crank with a cheap rip-off tourist trap creation museum and an argument that, because he is a servant of God, he doesn’t have to pay any taxes.  You can read his prison blog here.

And, of course, there’s Grover Norquist.  Other than his attempts to use his national organization to affect local politician’s decisions regarding taxes(which have nothing to do with HIM), and his super-chummy associations with the power-elite of the Republican party, you wouldn’t think there was that much amiss about him.  But then I came across this little gem in the article linked to for Mark’s edification about a major leader in a cause he feels so strongly about:

During the second half of the 1980s, Norquist detoured from his tax work to engage in a series of safaris to far-off battlegrounds in support of anti-Soviet guerrilla armies, visiting war zones from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to southern Africa. Working alongside Col. Oliver North's freelance support network for the Nicaraguan contras and other Reagan Doctrine-allied insurgencies, Norquist promoted US support for groups like Mozambique's RENAMO and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA in Angola, both of which were backed by South Africa's apartheid regime (Norquist represented UNITA as a registered lobbyist in the early 1990s).

“In support of anti-Soviet guerrilla armies”  What guerilla armies were operating along the Afghan-Pakistan border?  Wasn’t it *gasp* the Taliban?  Grover Norquist supported terrorism?  Say it isn’t so!

Information on RENAMO (those of you with an aversion to Wikipedia, don’t worry, just follow the links to their citations.)

Information on UNITA (repeat of Wikipedia disclaimer above)

I especially liked this little line here:

As Savimbi gained ground despite the forces aligned against him, American conservatives pointed to his success, and that of Afghan mujahideen, both of which, with U.S. support, were successfully opposing Soviet-sponsored governments, as evidence that the U.S. was beginning to gain an upper hand in the Cold War conflict. Critics responded that the support given Savimbi and mujahideen, which came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, was inflaming regional conflicts at great expense to these nations and even risking the potential of nuclear war between the superpowers. (The bolding is mine, for emphasis.)

So, in Grover Norquist’s mind, it appears that spending tax dollars arming and training terrorists warlords freedom fighters that we will have to go back and spend even more money defeating two decades later is a GOOD use for American tax dollars, while spending it ensuring a decent education and welfare for trailer park kids in some rural backwater so that we won’t have to spend a lot more imprisoning them two decades later is a BAD use of tax dollars.

By the way, what is one of the best places for American “patriot”  skinhead  neo-nazi terrorist organizations to recruit new members?  Prison.

Don’t even get me started on the discovery that Norquist’s organization Americans for Tax Reform allegedly served as a conduit for some of Abramoff’s dirty money to astroturf grassroots lobbying efforts.

According to Ben, at EclecticsAnonymous, there is a move on to censor millitary blogs. (Link to the Danger Room)

My Schwan's guy was one of the first bunch of troops to go into Iraq.  His special area of training had something to do with weapons of mass destruction.  I won't go on to tell you what he told me about his feelings regarding the necessity of his skills in that mission (or lack of necessity, as is more accurate).  This is a family blog.

But I WILL tell you his opinion on the necessity of these guys staying connected with the non-war world.  Letters and such are good, but blogs and IM are better, because they are things that the soldiers can indulge themselves in at THEIR leisure...which is not that great of an amount of time, but it IS an area of outlet and something they control themselves, and it is contact with the "normal".

He assures me that it's hard enough to come back and "get back to normal" with such contact.

So anyway, I would urge those of you who read sixty-six and other blogs done by the troops, to speak out for their ability to speak out. (I just realized it wasn't in my blogroll.  I thought I'd put it there.  Have to fix that)

And visit sixty-six while you have a chance.  I know some of the men serving with the writer of Sixty-six.  I'm related to one of them.  When I IM with my relative over there, I can talk to him about what I read on sixty-six, and he knows I'm thinking of him. 

You will most likely find something there to offend you.  The guy uses course language (wouldn't you) and he uses bigoted epithets against the native population (hey, if a certain type of person were shooting at me everyday, and had killed friends of mine, I couldn't tell the baddies from the goodies, I might do the same.)  Also, he sometimes expresses frustration with the war and the millitary and the situation in general. (I've seen some conservatives get really mad at veterans of the war airing their feelings.  Have you heard the things they say about Jessica Lynch just because she didn't go along with the whole "hero" story the government cooked up for her?)

But just remember, he's a regular guy from somewhere in Minnesota who signed up to protect his country and ended up pulled out of his regular life to go get shot at half-way around the world.  Attempts to stay oriented in those situations are not always pretty.  You wouldn't do any better, no matter what criticism you might want to level, and chances are good you would do worse.

So, conservative rabid pro-war, or liberal rabid anti-war, or wherever you are in between, please go read sixty-six.  Don't judge.  Just listen.  If you don't have something nice to say, at least be kind enough to keep quiet. And also, speak out for their right to stay connected, and to have a voice.

My darling husband took me out for lunch today.  We went to The Wanderer's Garden in Minnetonka.  The have pretty good food and excellent service and really nice people working there, so it has become our default place to go for Chinese food.

The waiterss we got was not someone I know, so I did not attempt to speak Chinese.

We had a nice lunch, and enjoyed each other's company.

My fortune cookie read:  "You have enough energy and enthusiasm for two people."

Rocky's read:                "You have a great deal of energy and self-reliance."

And now I must prepare to go to the dentist and get three fillings.

Pro-life forces are trumpeting their victory.  The Supreme Court has ruled, sustaining a ban on a procedure that is reportedly performed 10 times per day in the US (estimated).

I was recently involved in an internet discussion on a blog, and was surprised that the "partial-birth abortions" that I had heard so much about were the pro-lifer's name for the D & X procedure.

People go on and on about the "Partial Birth Abortions", but their descriptions of it were so outlandish that I thought they were making it up.  Turns out, they kind of were...as the descriptions of PBA that I was told (admittedly by rank-and-file pro-lifers) bear only a passing resemblance to the reality of D&X.

Apparently, the procedure is primarily used to remove babies from the mother's womb after fetal death in-utero, to remove fetus' from the womb who are so deformed that they cannot live outside the mother's womb, or when a continued pregnancy would endanger the mother's life, or vital bodily functions.

I've just really started looking into this, but it does not appear that this decision will actually prevent any abortions, as there is another procedure that is still legal which can be used if a late-term abortion is necessary for the woman's health, so it is unlikely that this ruling by itself will prevent any abortions.

The main reason why I question if this is a victory for anybody is just what I've learned from reading up on this subject over the last day or so.

From what I can tell, the situations under which women find themselves considering a late-term abortion are situations that leave a word like "choice" sounding hollow and meaningless.  The "choice" to abort the baby you wanted to save or prolong your own life, the "choice" to forgo a treatment that the doctors can't give you if you are pregnant, the "Choice" to try to live as long as you can with your pregnancy, but very likely not survive?  Some "choice".

And what about "life"?  The situations described seem to offer very little in the way of "life" for either the mother or the fetus.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to inject themselves or their politics into the kinds of decisions these women and their families have to face, or why anyone would call gaining public involvement into a terrible and private decision like this a "victory".

Go to Townhall.com and read this article that was the first article that I have been able to legitimately view at Townhall.com in several weeks.

Jon Sanders is getting his outrage on that a school district staged a mock emergency with the mock premise that Fundamentalist Christian Militants were storming the school.

For the record, Jay Sekulow is also outraged.

I realize that most of the “school burning” rhetoric on the right is hyperbole and such, but the fact remains that the lunatic fringe of the radical religionist right emits “lone nuts” with enough frequency that it isn’t unreasonable to assume that it could happen.  A person would have to be crazy to take “The Turner Diaries” seriously…and yet…Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.  The Christianism of the KKK seems so wacky and fringy, and yet you have Lynx and Lamb Gaede making a living for their family singing their hate songs heavily laced with Christian Identity themes taught to them by their home-schooling mother and swastika-wearing grandfather.

In a country where Ann Coulter goes to college campuses and urges students to terrorize their professors, and some students do just that…why is it unreasonable to assume that Right-wing religionists who refer to public schools as an enemy to be destroyed might spawn a couple of crazed gunmen?

When the rhetoric of Randall Terry can cause a “lone nut” to assassinate an abortion doctor, or another “lone nut” to get a gun and go off to “rescue” Terri Schaivo, what makes it so nutty to think that the violent anti-public school rhetoric of the far-right loony fundamentalists could result in a violent school attack?

In his article, Mr. Sanders makes the remarkable assumption that educators are “leftist academics”.  I don’t know what school Mr. Sanders went to.  Maybe HIS teachers were all leftists, but there were very few in our school.  In particular, I’d like to introduce him to a certain English teacher at Bemidji High School in the ‘80’s who would rant and rave about immorality of today’s youth, teenage pregnancy, the immorality of union labor and the value of the profit motive, and the inherent moral supremacy of the capitalist system; a man who physically threatened my sister when she objected to him using the “N” word in class to refer to one of the few black kids in our school.  He didn’t preach his religion in the classroom the way he preached “patriotism” and capitalism…but he didn’t make any secret of his religiosity either.

Actually, come to think of it…Mr. Sanders would probably think of that guy as a flaming leftist too.

Anyway, Mr. Sanders does a whole lot of tortured rhetoric to make sure he hits all of the talking points about what “conservatives” want to believe “liberals” think…and then ends with this sentence:

“Oh, and if they teach the kids to fear Christians, that'd just be gravy.”

As if it isn’t “Christians” that teach people to fear Christians.  I know that everything I know about Christianity was taught to me by Christians…both the good and the devastatingly, painfully, terrifyingly bad.

That said, the school should have known better than to portray the gunman as anything other than generically anonymous bad guys.  They should have remembered the fact that, as public servants, they can’t do ANYTHING without being subjected to any possible criticism. (Ask my dad, who was constantly swamped with equal complaints that he was always just sitting around at his desk (and thus, obviously, not working) and that he was never in his office and available (and thus, obviously, not working), or that he was a power-drunk busybody running around forcing communities to adhere to Minnesota State public health standards…(and thus, obviously, working too much.)

Additionally, they should have remembered the “ten percent turkey” rule.  In any population, no matter how you divide people up, by hobbies, interests, political affiliation, religious belief, etc.  There will always be the disgruntled few who believe that their group is the most hated and despised group in the planet.  They will be looking for signs of persecution and unfairness, and (surprise, surprise) seeing them everywhere.

Picking any group would just add grist for the persecutionist mill of whatever group you have picked.

“Oh look, they’re picking in the Christians/Jews/Muslims/Chess Club/Dog Fanciers again.”

It’s not as though it matters WHY the nutty gunmen are shooting up your school.  You don’t need their motivations to act out your simulated strategy.  Just keep it generic and get the job done…and try not to feel persecuted that the wacky right-wing Christian Militants can openly call you the enemy and vow to destroy you, but you have to be non-specific and general when it comes to identifying an enemy when doing a self-defense exercise.

You don’t want to develop a persecution complex.  It isn’t healthy.

Or at least show her that it helps her target when she does...

Thanks, Ben, for the link.

good grief, I just heard a story on MPR that gave my ears that "not so fresh feeling".

Some Dems want to put Johnson on a committee!  This man should not be given ANY more responsibility until he is cleared of all suspicion in the Abramoff thing.

ugh.  I'm gonna research up and be writing a letter of two today.  We didn't give them a majority so they could pull bone-headed stuff like this.

Oh yeah, and now I need to irrigate my ear canals

Ever go to a kid’s hockey game?  Not the little kids who can barely stand up on their skates, but the kids who know the skills, and know the game, but don’t have the maturity for a lot of discipline yet?

If you know hockey, you know that everyone  has a job to do.  Some people are there to keep the puck from getting to the net, and some are there to catch and send passes to move the puck forward, and some are there to skate up the middle and score.

Sometimes you have a strategic job to do, the coach will say “watch that guy, and stay on him”.

Anyway, if everyone does their job, the team works like a charm.  But there’s always those kids.  You know the ones I mean…the puck chasers.  They aren’t worried about where they are supposed to be, or what they’re supposed to be doing.  They chase the puck.  Where it goes, they go, their mind is on following the puck, not on doing their job.  Rather positioning themselves where they know they’re supposed to be, and doing their job, they are always in just the wrong spot to be of use to anyone but themselves.

I think Hillary Clinton is a puck chaser.

Barak Obama?  I’d like to see him get a little more time off the bench first.  I like him, but on the other hand, he's gotten Sue to read a political book.  So it MIGHT be that he is the Anti-Christ after all.

I’m thinking about taking a real close look at Edwards and Richardson.

Remember a while back when an entry by Karen prompted me to ask why The Smithsonian Museums were feeling the need to whore themselves out with semi-exclusive contracts to private companies?

Well, this might be part of the answer. (via PZ Myers over at Pharyngula)

If you liked that one, here’s another from the Washington Post.

I seriously doubt that even the most besotted staffers could manage to drink a budget like the Smithsonian’s into submission, but  it seems likely that if he’s lavishing such expenses on his wife and underlings, he is playing fast and loose in other ways with the money entrusted to him.

Even his own kind are balking at turning a blind eye to his excesses (quote from the WP article):

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who had requested the inspector general's review when he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee last year, expressed outrage at the audit committee's response.

"I am shocked at what the Smithsonian is spending its money on when it comes to food, flowers, alcohol and other items," Grassley said in a letter last week to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who chairs the Board of Regents. Grassley criticized "what appears to be an 'anything goes' culture by the Smithsonian secretary and his staff, which views that his champagne lifestyle should be subsidized by the taxpayer."

While $90,00 may seem like a LOT in personal expenses, and while looting the budget for the Smithsonian Institute might seem merely selfish and thoughtless, there appears to be a darker political agenda to the actions of our intrepid candidate for “besht boshhh in the whole worrrrrlll…”

This headline from the NYT on May 28^th of 2005 might shed some light on some of the more damaging reasons Bush might have appointed Mr. Small to the office he so thoroughly enjoys.

Via Pharyngula, I get a link to this letter-to-the editor of a New Zealand newspaper:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=301&objectid=10424908

Its from an Anglican priest arguing against nameing New Zealand a "Christian Nation".  Why?  Because he's an American ex-pat who says he left America because of the intolerance and bigotry of the religious right, and it's influence on the government.

It is a very measured and cogent letter.

I'm sure everyone has heard of the strange case of how two young bloggers got hired by John Edwards to blog for his campaign, and the right-wing smear machine kicked into high gear.

In the case of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen, the right-wing blow-hard cry that saying the Pope and other religious leaders obstruct gay rights is “anti-catholic”.  Hey!  You can’t say something that is true but unflattering of the Pope!  That’s anti-Catholic!  Plus, these women use bad language and are independant Freethinkers.  The religious right couldn't have that.  So they round up their posse to send out rape threats and death threats to two young women to show their Godly support of The Church.

Eventually, the young women resign from the Edwards campaign.

We’re getting dangerously close to mob rule rather than rule of law, here people.

So I’ll leave you with a little quote from Black Sabbath.  Just call it a little consolation for the fact that bands like Black Sabbath were seen as the CAUSE of the destruction of civilization, rather than prophetic foretellers of it: and  that their  “Christian” accusers are the ones carrying the torches and pitchforks.

Close the city and tell the people that something's coming to call
Death and darkness are rushing forward to take a bite from the wall, oh

You've nothing to say
They're breaking away
If you listen to fools...
The Mob Rules
The Mob Rules

Kill the spirit and you'll be blinded, the end is always the same
Play with fire, you burn your fingers and lose your hold of the flame, oh

It's over, it's done
the end is begun
If you listen to fools...
The Mob Rules

You've nothing to say
Oh, They're breaking away
If you listen to fools...

Break the circle and stop the movement, the wheel is thrown to the ground
Just remember it might start rolling and take you right back around

You're all fools!
The Mob Rules!

--Black Sabbath “The Mob Rules”

via Ben at EclecticsAnonymous, I get this link to an op/ed piece in the Washington Post.

Eric Fair may be haunted by the memories of what he did, against his better judgement, and against his concience.  He rightly holds that simply following orders is not an excuse.

But, excuse or not...the uncomfortable fact remains that he WAS following orders.  That ultimately come back to us, the citizens in whose name those orders were issued.

Eric has to pay the price for what we allowed, what we let our government get away with, and what we continue to let them get away with.

(Thanks to Ben for that link as well.)

In a conversation with my Schwan’s representative today, I discovered that I know yet another military person who was against the war in Iraq, and yet went to proudly serve his country when he was called.

The Schwan’s guy is a grandfather who went to Iraq  in 2003.  He has a special skill somewhere in the area of chemical/biological/nuclear weapons.

He is proud of his service, and he should be.  Our military personnel display the ultimate in selflessness and trust when they agree to waive a large portion of their rights in order to serve.  He seems to  feel that since we are there,  we should make the best of what we have the opportunity to accomplish, and wants us to get out of there as soon as we can without leaving it worse than we found it.

Like Karen’s friend, “Jassim” he thinks we should come up with a special operation to insure the “unfortunate” deaths of the known insurgent leaders,.

Further, he feels we should take advantage of the lull in leadership for the insurgency to strengthen the  interim  government, and begin the strategic re-deployment and withdrawal of troops.

He opposes the “surge” concept.

This is by no means a slam-dunk evaluation.  Just one more everyday guy who did his part and has his opinion.

Personally, I’m against assassinations of political figures…but then again, they are insurgent leaders, aren’t they?  It’s not like any of them are recognized leaders of sovereign nations, and it is war.

Anyone with a little more international policy acumen (or just an opposing argument) want to weigh in?

He has an article in the Washington Post.

Ya know, I heard him on MPR just today.  I was listening as I put the second coat of paint on the walls of the guest room.  I didn't agree with everything he said, but at the very least, he was speaking more-or-less reasonable and measured and refrained from acting anything like Ann Coulter.  And I actually agreed with some of his basic ideas.

So I followed the link at Pharyngula to the WP article, and to my surprise, he comes off as a megalomaniacal nut in print:

The second reason can be gleaned from the common theme in the reviews: that mine is a dangerous book. But if a book says things that are obviously untrue and can be disproved, then it is not dangerous -- it is merely fiction and should be ignored. A book is dangerous only if it exposes something in the culture that some people are eager to keep hidden.

And what is that? It is that the far left seems to hate Bush nearly as much as it hates bin Laden. Bin Laden may want sharia, or Islamic law, in Baghdad, they reason, but Bush wants sharia in Boston. Indeed, leftists routinely portray Bush's war on terrorism as a battle of competing fundamentalisms, Islamic vs. Christian. It is Bush, more than bin Laden, they say, who threatens abortion rights and same-sex marriage and the entire social liberal agenda in the United States. So leftist activists such as Michael Moore and Howard Zinn and Cindy Sheehan seem willing to let the enemy win in Iraq so they can use that defeat in 2008 to rout Bush -- their enemy at home.

When I began writing my new book, this concern was largely theoretical, because the left was outside the corridors of power. Now I fear that the extreme cultural left is whispering into the ears of the Democratic Congress. Cut off the funding. Block the increase in troops. Shut down Guantanamo Bay. Lose the war on terrorism -- and blame Bush.

Pointing this out is what makes me dangerous.

He must have given that part of the speech while I was out of the room replenishing the paint in my paint tray.

He's all, you know, ooooh look at me, I'm a big scary subversive.  As if opposing a Gold Star Mother best known for camping in a field, a documentary maker, and a Poly-sci professor while supporting the guy who has all the trained troops under his command is soooo subversive.

Here's another quote:

 One radical sheik even told a European television station a few years ago that although Europe is more decadent than America, the United States is the more vital target because it is U.S. culture -- not Swedish culture or French culture -- that is spreading throughout the world.

It's dangerous to say that American Culture is pernicious, infectious and offensive to religious fundamentalists?  Well, maybe.  It might inspire some Eric Rudolph wanna-be to set of a dirty bomb in L.A.

But I have to wonder, how is it that WE get saddled with the pop culture?  I mean, when I list the five or so people who I personally know who don't own televisions; only one considers himself a conservative - and he's not opposed to gay marriage, thinks Bush botched the handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, and is disgusted at the management of the war in Iraq despite the fact that he was all for it before it happened (I think he just doesn't like to pay taxes).

Most of the liberals I know consume very little mainstream culure.  Most of them are voracious readers of books across a wide spectrum of subjects and styles.  Almost all of them are married and in bed by ten o'clock most nights.

They still think Brittney Spears is the current teeney-bopper pop star.  Many could not pick Brittney Spears out of a Tiger Beat line-up.

Seriously, make up your mind people, are we the "Intellectual Elite" in our Ivory Towers with our tweed jackets and plether elbow patches, or are we the mainstream heartbeat of America’s decedent culture?  Or are we just everyone you don't like lumped into a big stew pot you call "liberal" and there's really no reason to it at all?

Seriously, I think you should all just get together, have a meeting, decide once and for all who the "liberals" are, and what their REAL agenda is (we can't build the fire while we're pouring the water, now, can we?)

At any rate, the one that burns me up is this: how is it that "liberals" want us to lose in Iraq so that we can defeat Bush at home?  Who do these people think we are?  Do they think we don't have friends and family fighting that damned war?  No, we may not have wanted it to begin with, and we might want it to be over as soon as possible…but we DO NOT want to lose this war.

And, intellectual elite that we are, we would know that it was a bad deal to sell out our men and women in uniform to defeat a guy who can't even stand for re-election.

I heard Dinesh D'Souza on MPR and I was surprised to hear him called a "conservative" commentator.  Except for his inflamatory title of his book, and the fact that he blames "liberals" for all our troubles with Millitant Islam, he sounds "liberal".

1) He says that Millitant Muslims make up a small percentage of the Muslim world.

2) He doesn't insist on calling Islam "Islamofascism".

3) He characterizes the situation for most traditional Muslims in the world today as a defacto choice between Secular tyranny and Religious tyranny without implying that either are inherant failings of Arabs or Islam.

4) He talks about how the U.S. is a liberal country, and has been liberal from it's founding.  He also claims that conservatives guard that foundation.  And he's right.  REAL conservatives do.  There used to be a lot of progressive conservatives in this country.  There's still a few of them left.  I may not agree with them all the time, but at least when we argue, we argue from the correct foundation.

The one thing I had a problem with is his reasoning for the tenacity of the insurgents.   He blames their perception that if Democrats are in charge, we will leave Iraq without an orderly exit stratagy that provides for a stable Iraq. 

I agree that that is a major factor, but I don't think the Democrats are responsible for that perception.  I think the Republicans are.  They are the ones who have been useing the words "cut and run"  The democrats are talking about strategy change, about stepping up the pace of achieving the goals, about ways to bring the Iraqi government up to speed, and asking when we can expect these things.

OK, Dennis Kuchinich and a handful of others with little or no real leverage have said stupid stuff, but they just get air-time because the MSM love to play clips of them saying stuff and watch Rush Limbaugh's face get all red and puffy.  Then he says stuff that makes some dipshit "liberal" pundit's face get all red and puffy.  The John Stewart makes fun of whoever acted like the biggest dick.  Then I laugh...but I digress.

There's no way we're getting out until the job is done.  So let's get on that.

You want another 20,000 troops, let's hear about how the way your going to use them is going to be more effective than the way you use the one's you've got there now.  Let's hear how the "surge" is going to get us out of there faster.  And I want to hear real retired generals say they think it'll work.

Hey, I don't even need to hear the words "slam dunk".  I'd settle for it passing the sniff test, which, by the way "we'll be greeted as liberators" never did.  And neither did the WMD thing either.

Which is one other problem I have with Mr. D'Souza:  He says that President Bush made the best decision he could based on the intel. he had about the WMD.  Not true.  There was tons of information that Iraq had no real WMD capability.  People were all over the place talking about it.  You might remember the names Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, for instance?  There were many people saying that it just wasn't likely at all.  The Pres. just didn't listen to them.

Anne over at Boker Tov had this nifty cartoon.

Cox & Forkum, March 27, 2003

Of course, if it was "Rightists in space" it would read:

"Don't just stand there!  Round up our Kleenor crew members and passengers and blow them out an airlock!  That'll show 'em!...except for the ones in the Carlyle group, get them private safety pods."

I KNEW it would only be a matter of time before they started burning books.  The anti-immigrant rhetoric, the "Liberals hate America and Western Culture" rhetoric, the T.V. Presenters saying "We need more white babies" as if that sort of crap is OK and mainstream, The promotion of the assumption that "we" need to defend ourselves violently against "bad ideas"...all the repugnant "Christian Identity" crap that normal everyday people have picked up and parroted as though it made any sort of sense at all...

...it all creats an environment that emboldens these guys and leads directly to this.  Bastards.

Neo-Nazi group's plan to burn Jewish books in the Twin Cities draws protests

BY EMILY GURNON

Pioneer Press

A group of religious leaders and government officials are denouncing plans by a neo-Nazi group to burn copies of Jewish books in the Minneapolis area.

The book-burning will take place Saturday at an undisclosed place and time, according to website of the Minneapolis-based National Socialist Movement.

Alan Silver, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said the choice of Saturday for the book burning was obviously no accident, since it is the anniversary of the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. The day is now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Attorney General Lori Swanson said only a concerted effort by those who oppose hatred and prejudice would quell the efforts of neo-Nazi and similar groups. She wanted to participate in that, she said.

"I think it's important for public officials to stand up and say, in our Minnesota, we don't tolerate hatred and bigotry," she said.

The neo-Nazi group's site states participants in the "Great Minnesota Book Burning" will "torch degenerate books such as the Talmud, and other anti-American and/or anti-White books."

Quote sent to my by my friend, Paula, from the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

The state should stop giving money to nonprofit organizations until it gets better at tracking its grants, a Republican Minnesota House member proposed Thursday.

"Until state agencies enact better controls and procedural safeguards, the only responsible course of action is to enact a moratorium," said Rep. Chris DeLaForest, R-Andover.

Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie, also wants the state to create a publicly accessible Web site to make it easy to see how the annual $4.7 billion the state pays to nonprofits is used.

The proposals come on the heels of a state report released earlier this month that found Minnesota has a "fragmented and inconsistent" approach to tracking grants to nonprofits and doesn't do needed checking to see how well the money is used.

"Taxpayers deserve to know where their money is spent," Paulsen said.

— Rachel E. Stassen-Berger

Much is being made of Michelle Bachman's apparently needy and worshipful insistance on touching, kissing, and prolonging contact with President Bush on Tuesday.

I'd hate to be a famous person whose every moment is recorded for posterity and parsed for signs of my secret nature.

Hey, we all have moments where we forget where we are and what we're supposed to be doing.  While this is embarassing for Ms. Bachmann, and entertaining for those of us who don't like her, I think it's only right to keep it in perspective.  It was a heady time, it was probably the biggest night of her life up to this point, and she got carried away.

Of more concern is what Ms. Bachman does when she is focused on doing her job.  This woman wants creationism taught in science classes.  She opposes equal rights for and, promotes fear and hatred of, gay people.  She wants to institutinalize a particular religious viewpoint into our government.

While it might be fun for the moment to mock her human frailties (which we all have), that's not the best use of our time, is it?

Huge WTF? via Pharyngula

See, a University of Minnesota Professor sent out an e-mail to a number of people asking them to help out with Al Franken's campaign.

Cue the hue and cry.  Those damn liberal intellectual elites wasting tax-payer money on behalf of a liberal candidate!

I mean really, do you know how much it COSTS to send an e-mail?

Furthermore, it might look bad, like an endorsement of a party by someone who holds a public trust, which would be a BIG no-no.

David Schultz, an ethics expert at Hamline University, said "what's bad about it is that it lends credence to the perception that academics and professors are all liberal and using college resources to help Democrats. ... You shouldn't use your e-mail or your title or your position to leverage help for particular candidates."

Absolutely!!!  I mean, it's not like Senators endorse other candidates, or do fund raising, or distribute the proceeds from extortion and money laundering in exchange for political leverage to boost key members of their party, and thus earn a nickname like "the hammer".  You don't see George Bush leveraging HIS position of public trust to promote candidates HE favors.  It's not like he flies into a town, spends half-an-hour on a flash visit to a grade school or a meat-packing plant or whatever so he can ride Air Force One to a $1000 a plate fundraiser for one of his pet legislators.

College professors should be held to AT LEAST that high of a standard when it comes to their e-mail accounts.  From now on, the good professor should be sure to put, at the top of her e-mails "Reminder:  My office hours are 1:00PM-3:00PM.  Anyone needing to consult with me on their academic work should contact me at that time.  Oh, and by the way, if you want to help Franken out, give me a call."

I mean , who does she think she is?

Hangin's too good for her.  Burnin's to good for her.  She should be torn into itty-bitty little pieces, and buried alive. (Ten brownie points to the first person to correctly identify the source of the preceding passage).

If gold is such a great investment "in these troubleing times" - How come Monex can't afford to update their marketing campaign?

It's the same as it was the LAST time we had a Republican president with an incompetent economic policy.