Learn From It

It's a strange tack to take, not only pigeonholing the infinite, but then having the audacity to speak on behalf of His Holy Infinity, but Pat Roberts has managed to do just that. Again.

Now, before I launch into this, I should put Pat in some perspective. He's not the only Christian who does this sort of thing. Many other Christians climb their bully pulpits every Sunday and remind their fellow Christians that heathens and the profane should fear the Christians. Not only fear the Wrath of God, but fear, in earthly and malevolent ways, Christians.

And to also be fair, there are an enormous number of Christians, who, despite the hubris and pomposity of claiming to know their Creator's wishes in the first place, are really rather decent, mild, meek, helpful people.

But these days, those people remain silent. Perhaps they've bought into being afraid of not toeing the Christian party line, too?

So Pat Robertson, the sore loser (at least ideologically) in Dover, PA, not only tells the fine, smart folks of Dover, PA—who rightly punished those who wanted to suborn science by removing them from power—that they've turned from God (hey, I thought “Intelligent Design” wasn't about God!), but that God has turned from them:

I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city...And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there.

Well! How about that, Dover? You're up shit's creek without a Deity.

<sarcasm>And then there's my good buddy, Bill O'Reilly</sarcasm>.

So miffed was he over Prop I, or rather, miffed over the fact that we San Franciscans approved Prop I, that he's handing us over to the terrorists. It takes him just a little bit of time to get there. First he leads with what each and every one of us who voted in favor of Prop I knew could be the consequences:

You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, “Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds.”

That's how our government forces schools to permit military recruiters: by paying them to do so, or at least threatening to starve them of funding if they don't. I suppose patriotism and sense of duty should be the driving factors, but, whatever.

But then he becomes his usual insane self. You can almost hear the wheels fall off the wagon of his sanity:

Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead...And if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

Didn't he just commit an act of treason? And more to the point, isn't he going to get stretchmarks? All this from the man who wants his values pushed in schools and will do anything, no matter how unsavory, to make that happen, ranting at a bunch of people who want their values reflected in schools and actually go through a constitutionally-approved, let-the-voters-decide procedure to make that happen? Why, Bill, one might think you're a hypocrite, if you're not careful.

So Pat Robertson hands Dover, PA over to the forces of Hell, and Bill O'Reilly encourages terrorists to blow up San Francisco.

Where are the hoody's and the Vigilante Papists and the Aquinas-brown-nosers and the teen-age martinet-marionettes railing about God's love and how these people should be punished for their moral relativism? Probably we'll hear apologies, excuses, rationalizations, because clearly sacrificing people for their own agenda is more important than the pro-life agenda itself.

Watch, world. Watch how the theocrats decry nothing.

You didn't hear it here first.

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Posted by Jeff at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBacks (0)

The huge corporations Republicans One-Terminator has pushed for this expensive special election, putting any number of propositions on the ballot to further entrench big businesses, take away money from schools and actually attempt to create activist judges in state politics.

Isn't it strange that he spends so much time and money putting things in front of the people to know what they are thinking, but vetoes without a second thought, the legislature-approved same-sex marriage bill based on five year old data? Why didn't he put it on the ballot this year, during the special election, so he—a true man of the American people—could find out what the people thought?

He figures that most liberals will not bother voting, but I saw in the paper this morning that voter turnout is expected to be nearly 7 million. I'm going to be sure to get out and vote down some of these heinous things. I love how the Republicans accuse the liberals of social engineering, then crap out things like Prop 73. Stupid, duplicitous assholes.

So get your ass out and vote! Don't let them win because decent people did nothing to stop them.

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Posted by Jeff at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Never mind Iraq my low approval numbers Scooter Libby KKKarl Rove Scalito Harriet “Quag” Miers that I'm a moron Fitzmas day the man behind the curtain [ibid. Rove], says our feckless leader, George W. (where dubya is the long form of 'duh') Bush, we have a freakin' pandemic! to worry about!

Well, ok, we don't actually have a pandemic yet, but gull durn it, we will! And after all, the Republicans have an amazing track record on paying attention to the science of epidemiology, population mechanics and the like. Right? Riiiiiight? (is this thing on?)

The idea of being ready for a flu outbreak is a terrific idea, don't get me wrong. But I have trouble believing President Bush on this one, because he's being alarmist at the same time. I mean, it makes a certain amount of sense that if the smoking gun of a viral outbreak is found, then in some sense it's already “too late”. Wait. No. Mushroom cloud. Too Late. Smoking Gun. Prettybirdprettybird!

Ahem.

So he keeps using the word “pandemic”, which actually means:

pan•dem•ic
adjective
(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.
noun
an outbreak of such a disease.

Whereas “epidemic” means:

ep•i•dem•ic
noun
a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time : a flu epidemic.
• a disease occurring in such a way.
• a sudden, widespread occurrence of a particular undesirable phenomenon : an epidemic of violent crime.

The built-in Dictionary.app in Mac OS X Tiger (10.4)—which I believe uses these sources, even goes so far, in notes for the definition of “epidemic”, to make the distinction among “pandemic”, “epidemic” and “endemic”:

USAGE A disease that quickly and severely affects a large number of people and then subsides is an epidemic: throughout the Middle Ages, successive epidemics of the plague killed millions. Epidemic is also used as an adjective: | she studied the causes of epidemic cholera. A disease that is continually present in an area and affects a relatively small number of people is endemic: malaria is endemic in (or | to ) | hot, moist climates. A pandemic is a widespread epidemic that may affect entire continents or even the world: | the pandemic of 1918 ushered in a period of frequent epidemics of gradually diminishing severity. Thus, from an epidemiologist’s point of view, the Black Death in Europe and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa are pandemics rather than epidemics.

And so I have to wonder why the President would use pandemic when clearly it isn't even an epidemic yet? Did he feel the need to politically elevate a potential epidemic to a full epidemic to a full pandemic?

From cnn.com:

“A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire,” Bush said. “If caught early, it might be extinguished with limited damage; if allowed to smolder undetected, it can grow to an inferno that spreads quickly beyond our ability to control it.”

WHAT?

Forgiving for a moment the alarmist misuse of the word, why aren't the Reagan asskissers out there taking Bush to task for insulting the former President's public health policies?

It all reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon, where Linus overhears Lucy telling someone that “Indian Summer” was a ruse created by Native Americans to lull the pilgrims into a false sense of complacency. Linus, tongue out, can only say, “I think I'm going to be sick.”

Is that what you're doing to the pilgrims, Mr. Bush?

Don't get me wrong, I think something like this should be in place. But I also think it should be motivated by people wanting to protect other people, gunning for the ounce of prevention instead of the pound of cure. But this isn't that. This is grandstanding and panic-inducing. This is the same tactic he used to get us into a war. This is motivating by Bush imploding.

When are the pilgrims going to realize he just doesn't care about anything but himself? More to the point, that he can and will climb over the backs of any American to get the brass ring for himself?

When?

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Posted by Jeff at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

You came to this country to show off ornanamental muscles. Style over substance, form over function. Aesthetics over athletics.

Like the cuckoo among nobler, more honest birds, you deceived your way into place. You hooked yourself into the glam slam no-work no-talent ironic celebrity and milked and bilked millions to make your own millions.

Like the cuckoo, you did no real work yourself—you tricked others into building your future for you. And counting on the baser instincts of the mob mentality, you took your recognizability and co-opted yourself an executive position. Still on no-talent. Still with no-work. Still by subverting someone else's machinery.

You, the man who got so much on so little, you who came to this country as an alien but were welcome and were lavished with abundance, see fit to pass the buck, pass the responsibility of fairness, of balance, of equality, back off to the mob of people out there who stab and swipe at fear with their torches and their pitchforks.

But then again, you haven't vetoed such profoundly, humanly important legislation yet, so you may yet do the right thing. Such an in-kind act on your part may open up a bright world for yourself and the rest of us.

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Posted by Jeff at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by Jeff at 03:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I hear lines like, “It flies in the the face of natural selection (any hereditary gene for homosexuality would have selected itself out many generations ago). Therefore I ask again, where is the SCIENCE that supports homosexuality?”

Siiiigh.

Maybe I should start a little series of lessons to let these ignorant-yet-bellicose folks in on science's dirty little secrets?

Til then, don't give them too much credit, folks. Don't assume that they've taken basic science plowshares and perverted them into swords of christian kindness. No, they don't even know where to find the plowshares in the first place.

It gets worse, though. They won't actually go look up what 'natural selection' might be, in fact, instead pushing the legwork onto those of us under the onslaught of this kind of stupidity. Ironically, they know there are those who old fact and scientific truth on a bit of a pedestal, so they exploit our care and rigor to keep us busy while they just continue to blather utter nonsense.

Last time I checked, one typically challenged what they knew to be incorrect, not what they didn't bother to understand in the first place.

I guess they figure, if it works for secular conservatives, why not us?

Wait...did I just say “secular conservatives”? Are there any left?

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Posted by Jeff at 03:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Praying works!

I prayed for Tucson in my day, because I was told to by a billboard. Prayed that Tucson—or at least the rest of Arizona—would trade in the stick for a carrot (carrots, at the minimum, are more soft-tissue-friendly!) and stop turning the entire state into one giant prison for all sinners criminals great and small.

Well, I haven't gotten that wish yet, but small steps, right? What I have gotten is this:

From the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson:

Finally, we've decided that syndicated columnist Ann Coulter has worn out her welcome. Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives.

Now, it turns out that she's being replaced by one of the martinets fuckheads Murdoch's chattel “journalists” of FOXNews, Tony Snow, but...small steps, right?

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Posted by Jeff at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Nods to him for the pointer on this one.

Seems the Pro-Life Pat Robertson is calling for the assassination of another human being.

Think the “@%#$@#$% liberal media” is at it again, making trouble for a humble man of god? Think again. The New York Times starts off its article with this line:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming “a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.”

“Suggests!” you say! Clearly it's a witch-hunt! Well, it might be, if the Times hadn't quoted Robertson directly, just three paragraphs later:

“We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,” he [Pat Robertson] continued. “It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

So where's the moral outrage from those self-appointed absolutists? Catholic brown-nosers? Little Calvinists in Papist clothing?

Maybe the Catholics are too busy dissecting the threat of—wait for it—hand-holding during Mass!—to be bothered with calling out murder-threats made by one of their god-ridden own.

But, I suppose, there's too much political loss associated with in-fighting to be bothered with things like a call for murder.

Speak up, folks. Tell us how Pro-Life you are, and what you're going to do, quite publically, to defend that stance.

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Posted by Jeff at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

We live in a time of Fear. Not because the world is inherently scary or bad—or good or joyous, for that matter—but because the prevailing politickers are solving for their own gain by subtracting from others. And the only way to rob emotionally is to play the vampire, using fear to snare, fear to compel, threat to swoon and then, prey immobilized, take from them all that you need to survive without ever putting something back into the system.

Multi-color alerts (bad guys are bad and imminent!), rainbow alerts (gay are bad!), amber alerts (the world is bad! we must protect the children as they are our main fund-raising, fear-raising mechanism!), soul alerts (we don't hate you, but we know you're going to hell!) all remind us that you can never be too frightened.

The be-afraiders want you to read books that spell out a future of gloom and doom. They've become parasitic to an End of Days kind of future because only that kind of future supports their current raison d'être.

Paint the future as a Wonder of the Possible, though, and you're a hippie or a communist or a—gasp!—liberal. Paint humanity as something that can achieve, that can find a balance and have respect and all that good stuff all on its own without the Republican Party's help or God's Help, and you're Evil. And they'll call you worse things as time goes on, make you lesser and lesser all the time, make themselves more and more superior all the time—for who isn't superior with god almighty on their side?—and eventually, they'll find a reason to call you soulless. Not human anymore.

That's why Utopian literature is so subversive. Isn't is so sad that things are so bad that utopian dreams are undermining to the establishment?

So, onward, christian lurkers and get thee to a bookstore to get

“The Fifth Sacred Thing” (Starhawk)

If you're not afraid of having your worldview disrupted.

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Posted by Jeff at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I love Gary Trudeau. He's one of those guys who knows that “nice” is different than “good”, that polite doesn't begin to make up for material transgressions, and that the stink of hate cannot be covered by a perfume of politesse.

Apparently a bunch of newspapers pulled Doonesbury because one of Trudeau's character's said that Karl Rove's nickname was “Turd Blossom”.

If Trudeau were a self-described Christian and 99 44/100% god-ridden and he'd aimed his intellect at us Evil Liberals, the conservatives would be praising him for using “words of strength” and “calling a spade a spade”.

Christians will tell you they don't hate you, they won't call you a “Turd Blossom”, but off they'll go, trying to hurt anyone who thinks or feels or believes different to what they tell you is god's honest truth.

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Posted by Jeff at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's oddly comforting to know that even a Pope gets treated, in death, no differently than anyone else. First they make you a Saint (or a Devil) and take away your humanity. Nuance goes to black or to white. And then they pile portent and pith on what you've spoken, or they resuscitate what's settled in order to change the nature of the Truth that was Your Life.

When Allen died—it will have been ten years ago next Wednesday—he was canonized by friends and family. It pissed me off that all those subtleties, the thousand things he thought about, the million little nuances that annoyed and delighted me, were all gone with the absolute stamp of a monoclonal remembrance.

And so the Roman Catholic Church herself turns what I'm sure at one point was a somewhat nuanced and quite human creature and manufactures a new Saint. And on a more personal note, Cardinal Poopyhead Schönhorn reverses a clear statement by Pope John Paul II and attempts to refute clarify it in more triumphal formalist fideist politically-expedient hardline terms. Yes, folks, John Paul II, the Pope of the Papists Worldwide, was not hardline enough for today's Romans—and he just died a few months ago!

Evolution is what is at stake. Again. Good, strong Science is at stake. Again. God blessed Kansas with Holy Ignorance and the Church wants a piece of that Blessing for Herself. By drawing such a fine point on the entire matter, Schönhorn undoes what JP2 ostensibly infallibly set out to do—while preserving the ex cathedra infallability of the Office Itself. Pope Panzer must be proud, the Pernicious turned Perspicacious on his watch.

That's a lot of alliteration by a bald Barbose blogging by blathering balefully!

No matter. If I sound bitter, it is perhaps that I have been arguing the wrong side of science, assigning the absolutist moniker to the wrong team: look at the Catholics, the Conservative Christians! They are the real relativists, redefining Science Itself to mean what they want, stealing fact and shwagging it up as ideology, and taking ideology and peddling it as Truth. Except when it doesn't suit. Then they change the nature of Truth itself and call it Absolute while absolving themselves of their own arrogance—all in the name of Jesus.

Life is funny; there oughta be a two-drink minimum.

You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal - except my life, except my life.

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Posted by Jeff at 05:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Jackson is innocent of all charges.

Not a surprise to me, because it seemed like all the evidence was circumstantial. Plus, I'm not a dad (well, not a parent...rrrrrrrr), but I know that even if someone was suspected of child molestation, I would not let my kids be alone with that someone. I wouldn't deny him or her work, or human rights, or even friendship, but I wouldn't take that kind of chance with my own kids in leaving them alone and overnight with the guy.

Those parents are all fucks. Why didn't they just name their kids “Paycheck” and get it over with?

Congratulations to Michael Jackson on his acquittal.

Now, how long before foxnews and the other crazies start talking about 'activist judges' and start making blanket statements about how liberals must all be child molestors?

Those crazies are all fucks, too.

Posted by Jeff at 02:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Prezzie Bush isn't having a very good time of it, lately. The numbers can lie, of course, but generally speaking they can't lie very big. Some of the interesting numbers so far:

• 66% of the public opposes the Republican attempt to change fundamental Senate rules just to suit their agenda...
• ...only 22% support it. That's a three-fold difference.
• 48% (vs 36%) think the Democrats are right to block some of the nominations
• 70% of all Americans think that judges are either too conservative or are just about right...
• ...while only 26% say that judges are too liberal. Is W. inhaling again?
• for privatization of Social Security, in mid-March, the numbers were 56-44 in favor of W's plan. A month later? 51-46 opposed. That's a 15-point loss, chil'ren.

There are a couple of spots where W. is still doing well-ish. The public still thinks he's doing a good job on terror (well, a against terror), but then again, terrorism is no longer the public's number-1 concern. So is it any surprise that there's a giant suckin'-sound with W.'s numbers?

There is one number, however, that's held steady as a rock so far: the number of WMDs found is still a big fat zero. And, apparently, will remain that way because they've finally decided to stop looking.

Posted by Jeff at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

• I coined the phrase “Culture of Life”
• I wrote about the dignity and rights of those who work
• I spoke out against the widening gap between the world's rich and poor
• I opposed the Gulf Wars—both of them
• I expressed my outrage at the abuse at Abu Ghraib
• I have spoken out against the death penalty, calling it “cruel and unnecessary”

Who am I?

Posted by Jeff at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

I get accused all the time of being one of those evil, evil moral relativists.

Truth be told (ha, say the accusers, God of Biscuits, you wouldn't know Truth if Jesus bit you on the ass with it!), I am. I think morals are a personal thing, to be decided by each individual, or, lacking a significant personality, by the Church to which said lightweight belongs.

The irony here—and let's face it, irony is the sauce that makes the dry, gritty meatloaf of dogma the least bit digestable—is that the Christians out there seem to be the ones who have forgotten their Moral Absolutes.

Yes, kiddies, I'm talking about Satan. Remember him? Remember when he was the Father of Lies?

Evil used to have such high production values. No less than the fate of the Universe Entire was at stake. The good old days, heh?

But the Conservative Christians discovered one of the plays from our liberal playbook—not that we liberals actually have an official playbook and even if we did we wouldn't hide it cuz we're just like that—is that we can rightly point out that the Christians' Absentee God the Father is a convenience for a Host (get it, Catholics?) of Righteously Indignant Party Planks. They can go on and on about God says this and God says that, and give all manner of credit to God for what is actually the hard work of the individuals of His Flock: overcoming adversity, cleaning one's self up from drugs and alcohol abuse, avoiding any manner of recidivism really.

God gets the Win, or at least the Assist, in all things. This has the interesting added benefit to the Saved of being able to proudly, forcefully proclaim their Humility to all who will listen, and many who won't.

So Whither the Tempter? Where has Satan gone? Why do you not see the Christians still crediting The Prince of Darkness for all that is wrong with the world?

Why, isn't it obvious that they've belied Belial for the exact same reasons they've played up Jesus? The answer is this: credit and blame.

Crediting God for what is really human triumph creates the Saved, the Chosen. Blaming Satan for what is really just the human condition would be a politically wasteful disapprobation!

No, instead, such politically-motivated Christians must turn their backs on the teachings of their Bible and point fingers at far more available targets: humans. Humans are the bad guys—most notably, those who are not of the Saved. The Liberals, you see? Godless humans are Evil, while Satan-less Theists get to have their cake, eat their cake, and rub it on their junk because, dammit, buttercream just feels good.

For if Evil is assigned to the Big Baddy with Horns and Hooves and Tail (poor Pan, dissed by the Church for so long) and the red satin suit and the Perdition and the Flames and the Iraqi Lover, how would Christians build their Earthly Empire?

Speaking of Earthly Empires, didn't there used to be a Second Coming—darling, that's a busy night!—somewhere in there, led by the Antichrist? The Antichrist being someone who was believed by the masses to be the Real Savior, but was instead the Exact Opposite?

Naah, that would never happen. Christians aren't a credulous bunch, really.

Now I must leave, my evil self is taking my evil boyfriend—with whom I live in sin and with whom I carry out perverse, unnatural acts—out to go evil-dancing (Footloose, anyone?) with other like-minded evil-faggots, to dance our E-vil asses off.

Posted by Jeff at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There is no law that requires the President of the United States to appear before a full congress, nor to do so annually, biannually or once a term.

The Constitution simply states that the President “shall from time to time, give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.” That's it. Nothing more is said about it. In fact, because there is no law even requiring the President to walk into Congress to give an address, Congress is also not required to make accommodation to the President. Therefore, the President must be invited.

It's an interesting little tidbit, for the illustration of how it's often the case that tradition is a more natural, even more universal thing than law. Traditions—maybe because of built-in restrictions or maybe because they exist solely by fiat—tend to be immune to the interpretational whim of a changing culture.

Interesting then, that most political organizations these days—and by political organizations, I include corporations (politics of greed), governments (politics of society) and even religions (politics of the soul)—tend to drive any situation towards the letter of law, seemingly in order to remove interpretability.

But law will always be subject to interpretation, and traditions supposedly not. Look and see how the conservatives, who are supposed to be in favor of the smallest government possible, has no problem passing law after law that grows and grows the government to provide an umbrella over their supposedly strong morals, strong faith.

The strict father of government gets a bigger belt, a longer arm, a more powerful fist and far better eyesight. The Fatherland gets to take the locks off the children's doors, to chase after women who insist on the right to choose, to slap down weakness, where weakness is defined by Bubba America.

It's never strong to discuss, instead to dictate; never strong to recognize nuance, instead to broadside with simplistic pablum; never Athens, only Sparta.

Tradition isn't supposed to be fucked with; moralists always rely on tradition. Morals are relative, morals are subject to Time, morals are a personal matter. Say this to the intravenous aphorism junkies who mainline Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity, and you'll be called a Liberal or a Traitor or you'll just have your mike cut off.

These are people with no respect for law, only tradition, even as they deconstruct tradition to suit their Ascendancy.

Posted by Jeff at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You'll see all the Bushies out there screaming at us progressives when it comes to the military. You'll hear them tell you that us Liberals don't give a damn about American soldiers lives, but that's just a silly obstructionist tack.

It's like in that Stephen King movie, The Dead Zone, where Martin Sheen is up at a podium, stumping for his candidacy. He lifts a baby to kiss it (photo ops, y'know), when gunfire breaks out. Rather than protecting the baby or caring at all about anyone but himself, Sheen's character uses the infant as a shield to block any bullets fired his way.

The conservatives do this kind of thing all the time in politics. “For the children”, they say, when they can't defend their extremism. Nothing they do is for the children. They do it for themselves. They denounced Hillary Rodham Clinton's “It takes a village to raise a child” and turn around and attempt to force personal moralities into law just so they can be sure that the state educational system—and by extension, the state itself—instills their children with the proper values.

But I digress. For all their blathering about supporting the troops, for all the dogmatic bleating about valuing the sacrifices the young men and women of the armed forces have made, our own esteemed Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, a man who has time to hunt and fish and read poetry, can't be bothered to put pen to paper to sign his own goddamned name to letters of condolence sent out to families of soldiers who have died in the service of their country.

Watch the crazy no-one-but-Republicans! crowd scramble to cover Rummy's ass on this one. Watch them go find a a handful of soldiers to give “informed” opinions on service being its own reward and then offer this up as proof-positive that Rummy's not so bad and the troops are so goddamned selfless.

Watch, as Bush's so-called political capital gets nickel-and-dimed to death by the administration's own selfishness and hubris.

Watch the baby get sprayed by bullets in order to save the President.

Just watch.

Posted by Jeff at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (0)

Believe it or not, there is more to the congealed blog of conservatives than the sweeping vengeance of their hive-mind.

No, seriously. I mean it. There are christians who are Republicans who can't stand that the rest of us don't fall in line behind their dogma and accept jesus. There are nationalists who are Republicans who can't stand that there is a world outside of America that doesn't esteem our Great Nation as much as the they “should”. There are poor and middle-class people who are Republicans who have perverted the Great American Dream of Prosperity into a lottery ticket, throwing away good money on a bet with losing odds. There are gay people who are Republican who keep saving up their lunch money towards membership dues in Club Normal. Then there are just plain miserable people who are Republicans because the only way they know to close the gap between themselves and happy people is to contribute to the general misery of the world around them.

And they said multiculturalism is dead!

Posted by Jeff at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The US debt ceiling has been raised another $800 BILLION.

See, if the Republicans were in power, they'd never let those crazy Democrats spend like—oh, wait...

Anyhoo, the new borrowing cap will be $8.18 TRILLION.

Let's do some math here. $8.18T - $800B = $7.38T. We as a country are approaching a $7.4 TRILLION dollar deficit.

And President Bush wants to give tax cuts to the very rich. Sorry...tax relief.

Let's do some more math. This time it's a word problem:

Mr. & Mrs. Podunk Poorfolk pay taxes. Mr. & Mrs. GeorgeDick BushCheneyRichmotherfucker pay taxes. Mr. & Mr. Adam N. Steve live next door to Podunk and his Poorfolk brood. Our President and Congress are spending us all into a debt from which we will not recover from in a time considered short by mammals. If the BushCheneyRichmotherfucker's are paying less taxes, and the debt must still be spent down...

1. the Podunks will have to pay more
2. the Republicans can't do math
3. Who cares? We got faggots livin' next door!
4. All of the above.

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Poorfolk and the last stragglers of what's left of the American Middle Class who voted Republican this time around: when a Democrat or other Progressive President finally comes to the Whitehouse to clean up this unconscionable mess that the current batch of folks you voted into office have made, remember that it was your own fault.

Flaming faggot and liberal that I have been called, I won't even point at you and laugh at your destitution when that day arrives, even though your bankrupt finances will finally match your bankrupt ethics. I'll probably try to find ways to help you, to save our society, even from your own short-sighted, dogmatic insanity.

Posted by Jeff at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Here it is, y'all.

1. Make shit up.
2. Get your toadies to repeat it without question.
3. Declare it a 'story'.
4. If dissenters get in on the game, alter their statements without notice.
5. Get your toadies' toadies to chime in with "it's everywhere, so it must be true!"
6. Force enemy to expend energy fending off mindless toadies and toadies' toadies.
7. Sit back and enjoy the mayhem, taking all credit and no blame.
8. Before mayhem is over, lather-rinse-repeat before people have time to notice what you've done. Again.

Republicans, FoxNews or Blogging Nematodes? You decide.

Posted by Jeff at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So today the Republicans in congress decided to preemptively shield Tom DeLay's job, you know, just in case he gets indicted.

So that's the motivation for changing the rules, which until today would have put DeLay's position in jeopardy if he were indicted.

But who put that rule in place in the first place? Oh yeah, the Republicans, back in 1993, when they wanted to specifically remove key Democrats (the GOP was in a minority then).

Hypocrites. Cowards. Fuckwits.

Posted by Jeff at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

I learned a new thing today. I learned about the most successful Third Political Party in the USA ever—except, of course, for Lincoln's Republican Party (arguably, the Party of Lincoln no longer exists, just the name does): the Know-Nothings. It was a party established to champion the rights and values of White Protestant [male] voters who were feeling threatened in the face of immigrants who might overturn their comfortable applecart. Sound familiar?

Ok, and I learned a new thing yesterday: the word fideism. Dictionary.com's definition is tame enough, at first blush: "Reliance on faith alone rather than scientific reasoning or philosophy in questions of religion". Neat, tidy, and most importantly, well-applied solely to religion. Good so far.

You'll see around the web all this claptrap about the so-called Party of Lincoln. Back then it was about bringing freedom to those who didn't have it. It was about course-correcting the country in favor of the spirit of the United States Constitution so that later this revised, more splendid spirit could be codified into the letters of the document itself. The Republicans of that day were responsible for the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, which abolish slavery, guarantee civil rights and also suffrage, respectively. Nice job, guys.

And especially nice job, Mr. Lincoln. Which brings me back to the Know-Nothings. Of them, he wrote:

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except Negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

This was written before the Civil War, mind you. This was President Lincoln's worldview—regardless of the law. There's an irony here, in that a certain Martin Luther said the exact same thing, only far more tersely: "Sin Bravely."

For you literalist, right-wing moonbats out there, of course the father of Protestantism wasn't advocating sinning. At the least, he was cautioning against claiming self-righteousness. At best, I like to think he was insisting that one not compound a sin by also refusing to take responsibility for the sin in the first place.

The Know-Nothings were not brave in their sinning. They hid behind a curtain of public fear; they undermined good will and individual security just to accomplish their fevered, self-involved goals.

Today's version of the Know-Nothings are, sadly, the Republicans. This is what has become of the Party of Lincoln.

The general populace who support the Republicans these days not only volunteer victimhood to the Republicans in power, they have become their footsoldiers. Look at the arguments those people have made for choosing ineptitude for four more years: "moral values", "I just know he's a good guy" and "he's one of us". All considerations that have nothing to do with, well, consideration. Or with thinking or with reasoning or even with philosophy. They are today's fideists.

They argue that their faith alone is valid to any argument. They don't argue, come to think of it, they merely state. And there is no disagreement, because there is nothing to agree with. You are simply wrong and they're right because Jesus told them so. Jesus also apparently has told President Bush he's doing good work. Hard work.

I cannot underestimate the damage that fideism can do once it has taken root in bureaucratic bodies. Even the Catholics understood this, still understand this:

Fideism owes its origin to distrust in human reason, and the logical sequence of such an attitude is scepticism. It is to escape from this conclusion that some philosophers, accepting as a principle the impotency of reason, have emphasized the need of belief on the part of human nature, either asserting the primacy of belief over reason or else affirming a radical separation between reason and belief, that is, between science and philosophy on the one hand and religion on the other.

Example: witness Andrew Sullivan, a practicing Catholic, prattling about faith and Jesus being valid rhetorical method. He's basically saying that a person's faith is not to be discounted when having an argument (and here I take argument to mean 'a discourse intended to change the nature of a truth') about worldly things. Even the Catholics disagree with this kind of thing.

But if the Know-Nothings have their way this time around, the Catholics won't matter, either.

Posted by Jeff at 01:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBacks (1)

Appeasement.

The other night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Andrew Sullivan suggested—almost insisted!—that the "Hollywood left" are to blame for handing the election to the Right:

ANDREW SULLIVAN: Well, Bill, Bill, congratulations to you because you did your bit to help George Bush win the election. And so did the entire Hollywood left, who galvanized people in the middle of the country who are tired of being patronized, condescended to and demeaned. I mean, if you want—

As Sterling said in Jeffrey, "Ooooh! Get her!"

Naturally, it's not the fault of the Bush-approved messages that rained on Ohio, Pennsylvania and all those Crazy Swingers about the gore of a partial-birth abortion and of gay people bringing the hell-rains down on hopeful and decent society.

Nor is it the fault of the Republican machine that starts with a message-of-the-day and ends with the myriad voices of the rageful right aping the message without thought, without consideration and certainly without regard for decency, veracity or even plausibility.

No, Andrew, it's none of that. It is we; we who demean the christians and their unnatural lifestyle unprovokedly? We must agree to respect those who take comfort in irrefutable delusion; who imagine an Absentee Father in Heaven who's waiting for them after they've spent a lifetime in a lifestyle dedicated to bringing pain and disadvantage to those who don't accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour (that spelling was for you, Andrew)?

SULLIVAN: --as people in Hollywood who demean people of religious faith. We’re getting into this cycle in which one side is continually polarizing the other until we have no discourse left at all.

Being the Thatcher-lover and Reagan-buttboy that he is, Mr. Sullivan seems to forget that it was the Reagan Right in the late 1980s who latched onto the word 'liberal' and turned it into 'Liberal', who convinced followers that a media that was increasingly being governed by large-corporate interests was actually a bunch of hippies, who convinced everyone that unchecked corporate and government aggression was the key to clean air and clean water, a full belly and a full wallet.

And Mr. Sullivan wonders why we associate being dogmatically and rabidly christian with being learning-impaired.

No, Mr. Sullivan, our salvation doesn't come from making sure they don't think we're hate them. They've already convinced themselves of that. Our salvation comes from making them grow up. Our salvation comes from making them aware of how much they have benefited and will continue to benefit from our efforts. Oh, we already know the good works they've done for all of us; their christian humility insists they let us know at every turn how full of grace and full of decency they are.

And they'll tell us when we aren't paying enough attention. Whether we are or not.

Those who can fabricate a Hand of God can fabricate just about anything.

Posted by Jeff at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

I see what the Republicans don't like. They're happy to tell you what they don't like. They're happy when they're telling you what they don't like. They don't like John Kerry. They don't like Liberals (so much so, that they capitalize the word much of the time). They don't like anyone who enjoins. They don't like anyone who opposes. They don't like the world as it is. They don't like the world as it could be. They only like the past. And only a version of the past which never existed.

They don't accept that the past is changeable, even as they bend and warp it to support their own Rightness. They don't accept that contradiction, paradox, irony, inference and induction are valuable tools for expanding knowledge.

They can't tell you why they're right, because they only measure it by their perceived wrongness of others.

That's why Others are Always Bad. Always Wrong. Always Ridiculous. Always Credulous.

They believe in a government just small enough to fit inside your bedroom, just small enough to fit in what they insist is the empty headspace of the Others.

They imagine that there's nothing to imagine. They assume that their assumptions are rock solid. They insist that the borders they have mapped out map out all of existence. They don't allow for unprovable truths nor refutable falsehoods.

So when Others talk about a brighter future, or a nobler purpose, or a more companionable co-existence with other nations, they assign insanity to Us Others, because we're talking about things they Know to be impossible fancies. And they're Never Wrong.

So the next time your friendly neighborhood Republican starts telling you why John Kerry is either so weak-willed as to be dangerous, or so strong-willed as to be dangerous, ask him or her what their vision of the future is. And ask them directly what President George W. Bush offers to the world besides jingoism and plutocracy.

If they decide to honor your request, you'll be greeted with silence. It's the Right Answer.

Posted by Jeff at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)