Another actor in the White House?

16.8.05 15:04


Better to light a candle, but not tonight


There's a candlight vigil at the War Memorial tonight in Milwaukee in support of Cindy Sheehan. I'll be at the Oriental Theatre, watching The Aristocrats.

I had a choice between pissing off the neo-cons by supporting Cindy Sheehan, or pissing off James Dobson by watching a movie about the dirtiest joke ever told. I chose the movie because I'd rather laugh than cry.

I still think the Dems would be making a mistake by hitching their cart to Sheehan. There's something not quite right about that whole protest. She seems a little too vulnerable to me, and maybe too innocent to recognize when she is being used. The longer she hangs around Crawford, the more her message will become co-opted and twisted beyond recognition. Sheehan already opened her mouth about the Palestinian crisis, and that brought down the wrath of the neo-con Jews. She also risked alienating folks like me who are pro-Israel and anti-Bush. Plus, for every grieving, anti-war mother the Dems can trot out for the cameras, the Republicans can find a gold-star mom who is proud that her son was turned into hamburger by an IED. That's not a confrontation we can win.

For now, Sheehan is an embarrassment to Bush, and I'm digging the hell out of that. Eventually, she'll embarrass herself, and then the Dems. That's no reflection on Cindy Sheehan, or the anti-war cause. There's a right tool for every job, and a wrong tool. I just think Cindy Sheehan falls into the latter category.
18.8.05 15:45


America's most popular senators


Check out Survey USA's approval ratings for all 100 US senators. At the top of the list, Maine's two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Survey USA ranks orders the senators by net approval, which is approval minus disapproval.

Bring up the rear, so to speak, is Sen. Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum, with a Santorumish -4%.

The takeaway: 7 of the lowest 10 are Republicans, including three senators up for re-election in 2006(Burns, Santorum, Dewine).

Seven of the highest 10 are Dems. The three Republicans are moderates: Collins, McCain, and Snowe.
19.8.05 23:47


When wantwits attack




Senator Bill Frist (R-Quack), says intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. "I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith," Frist told reporters. He said it is wrong to force just one theory on students.

President Bush recently told a group of Texas reporters that intelligent design and evolution should both be taught in schools "so people can understand what the debate is about."

Frist, a Harvard trained heart transplant surgeon, is obviously dumbing down in preparation for his 2008 run for the GOP nomination for President. The Republican base gets a warm, mushy feeling when it hears politicians dis scientists and their fancy book learnin'.

But Bush is onto something. Americans do need to understand "what the debate is about" between the rock-solid scientific theory of evolution, and the biblical story of creation. And make ngvgµ?©nbkbvbjgkbkbgjcgµ¬˜cgjklgnknkno mistake, ID is nothing more than creationism with a pocket protector and a lab coat.

Jerry Coyne, a University of Chicago professor of ecology and evolution, helps us "understand what the debate is about" in a lengthy New Republic piece, "The Faith That Dares Not Speak Its Name", published this week. Coyne writes:
The real issues behind intelligent design ? and much of creationism--are purpose and morality: specifically, the fear that if evolution is true, then we are no different from other animals, not the special objects of God's creation but a contingent product of natural selection, and so we lack real purpose, and our morality is just the law of the jungle. Tom DeLay furnished a colorful example of this view on the floor of the House of Representatives on June 16, 1999. Explaining the causes of the massacre at Columbine High School, he read a sarcastic letter in a Texas newspaper that suggested that "it couldn't have been because our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud."
I'd propose going a step further, beyond merely teaching "what the debate is about", and even teaching public school students that faith and science can co-exist. The connection between evolution and morality is political, not logical. It's about controlling humans, and limiting freedom, for the purpose of creating a Christian fundamentalist caliphate.

Let President Bush's New Enlightenment begin!
20.8.05 18:36


New science breakthrough


Using a small patch of skin taken from an aborted fetus, Swiss scientists have reportedly "grown" additional skin that was then grafted onto eight children with second and third degree burns. It is estimated that 15 square centimeters of fetal skin is enough to send little puffs of smoke out of James Dobson's ears.

In addition to Iraq, oil shock, and galloping corruption, the Republicans will also be running against horribly scarred children in 2006. That's an image that Karl Rove would be proud of.

h/t Majikthise.


When the American media operates independently of the US government, the terrorists win

Cliff Kincaid at GOPUSA says the Washington Post and other major news outlets need to start doing what the government tells them to do. An independent press is, apparently, anathema to the freedom we are fighting to encourage.
The American people have to wise up to the media's tricks. We are involved in a propaganda war that may be more important than what happens on the battlefield. Newsweek's false "Koran in the toilet" story was only one example of how we are losing the media war. It caused violent protests across the Middle East and 17 deaths. The new prisoner abuse images, obtained by an Army soldier who helped uncover the scandal, is not "false" in the Newsweek sense. But it will be exploited to give a false or warped perception of what U.S. military personnel are doing in Iraq.
GOPUSA is, of course, an internet-based propoganda tool of the White House, and as such, is entitled to make up whatever it wants in order to score a point. And that's what separates media whores like Cliff Kincaid and GOPUSA from credible news organizations like the ones Kincaid demonizes.
21.8.05 17:14


Why do pollsters hate America?


When the margin of error is less than 15 percent, the terrorists win:
George W. Bush's overall job approval ratings have dropped from a month ago even as Americans who approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president are turning more optimistic about their personal financial situations according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. Among all Americans, 36% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 58% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 33% approve and 62% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 38% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 56% disapprove, and 36% approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 60% disapprove.
How low can he go? As long as he keeps dissin' Darwin, and fighting for the rights of Blastocyst-Americans, one in four Americans will love him. If you add a few more points for violence junkies, and the Bush twins' party posse, I'd say the President's approval rating will bottom out right around 32 percent.

It could go lower, of course, if those wacky Iraqis declare an Islamic Republic. If there's one thing that pisses of Christian fundamentalists more than Charles Darwin, it's people who can't be converted.
22.8.05 20:36


Our kind of people


I wonder how much of this goes on?
Staff Sgt. Jason Rivera, 26, a Marine recruiter in Pittsburgh, went to the home of a high school student who had expressed interest in joining the Marine Reserve to talk to his parents.

It was a large home in a well-to-do suburb north of the city. Two American flags adorned the yard. The prospect's mom greeted him wearing an American flag T-shirt.

"I want you to know we support you," she gushed.

Rivera soon reached the limits of her support.

"Military service isn't for our son. It isn't for our kind of people," she told him.
What do you want to bet the family had a couple of SUVs parked in their driveway?

If Americans aren't serious about war in Iraq, then it's time to get out.
23.8.05 21:50


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