The Staton Jones Report

December 02, 2007

Don't Like the Commercialization of Christmas? Blame the Atheists!

The Dallas Morning News ran this opinion piece that attacks the commercialization of Christmas, yet repeatedly attacks atheists. The piece implies that atheists are behind the commercialization of Christmas, when it's actually blamed on Christians in the body of the article.

This straw-man attack on non-believers (as opposed to non-Christians?) shows how paranoid Christian faith is these days. It's not enough to have a government recognized holiday, to have outlets at every major intersection in America with Christmas nativity scenes (in front of Roman execution hardware) garishly illuminated, to have endless hours of public airwave time devoted to their holiday; now they have to actively attack atheists to deflect the shame for their slavish devotion to buying stuff for the holiday instead of actually following the philosophy of Christ and be charitable instead. Let us not forget that this 'religious observance' at the Malls accounts for nearly all the profits that the big box retailers earn during the year. So much for piety, eh?

So leave the atheists out of it. We didn't create this mess, and we don't care if you want to pursue this religious holiday on your own time, own property and with your own money. All we ask is that you recognized that the sentence "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." means you can't use public land, nor public money to recognize this holiday (nor Hanukkah, nor Kwanza, not even Festivus). Seems pretty straightforward and one would think that limited-government, no taxation Republicans could get behind that idea. One would think ...

Posted by Steven at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2006

Dennis Prager is a Complete Moron

On November 28th, 2006, radio show host Dennis Prager published an op-ed at Townhall.com expressing his belief that the First Amendment of the Constitution shouldn't apply to uppity negroes. Well, more specifically, he said that newly-elected congressman, Keith Ellison, should be the only American citizen who isn't entitled to choose which holy book he can hold during a photo-op. At issue is the fact that Ellison is a Muslim and planned to hold a copy of the Q'ran.

In response to outcry from many different corners, including a denunciation from the ADL (Prager, by the way, is Jewish), Dennis published a jaw-dropping follow-up response to critics. He notably cited the profanity used on the left-wing blogs and the fact that they called him a bigot. I, myself, called him a "dick" and a "fucking asshole" — "whiny fucking asshole" is more accurate.

Dennis is back today, which an incoherent and fact-free rant clarifying the importance of the Bible to everyone except bad people. What was interesting to me was that in Prager's second column — his response to critics — he claims to believe that all events in public political life should use a Christian Bible and that he disagrees with fellow Jews who would just use an Old Testament (Torah). In this latest column, he bases his moralizing on the idea that the first five books of the Old Testament — the ones that comprise the Torah — are considered "divine" (he doesn't explain what that means) by Jews, Catholics, Protestants and even them there Mormons. So, now he's backed off from the importance of the entire Christian Bible and is now hiding behind the supposed universal authority of the Torah.

Resident Theologian, Sister Weasle explained to me that although all the aforementioned religions include the Torah in their Bibles, none of them use the same text. The Jews who consider the Torah to be divine, such as the Hasidim, goes as far as considering the sequence of Hebrew characters in the text itself to be sacred. To them, a book like the King James Bible, used by Protestants or the Catholic Septuagint is a blaphemy. Also, good luck getting any of these groups to agree on the proper interpretation of the books. Prager sees no potential disagreement:

And they line up together on virtually every major social/moral issue.

Name the issue: same-sex marriage; the morality of medically unnecessary abortions; capital punishment for murder; the willingness to label certain actions, regimes, even people "evil"; skepticism regarding the United Nations and the World Court; strong support for Israel; or a willingness to criticize the moral state of Islamic societies. While there are exceptions -- there are, for example, secular conservatives who share the Bible-believers' social views -- belief in a God-based authority of the Torah is as close to a predictable dividing line as exists.

According to Sister Weasle, this claim is entirely false. Good Catholics are not supposed to take Communion unless they oppose capital punishment. Many Hasidim oppose the state of Israel. The list goes on.

Then there is Prager's inexplicable claim that the books of the Torah are "over 2,500 years" old. That is technically true, but a more accurate — and knowledgeable — statement would be that the Torah dates back over 4,500 years. It seems odd that a religious Jew who claims to have some kind of broad knowledge about world religions, and teaches the Torah at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, doesn't seem to know when his own holy books were written.

The only answer is that Dennis Prager is also... a complete moron.

Posted by Winston Smith at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2006

Georgia's Obsession with Dick Sucking

In 1986, the Supreme Court agreed with the Attorney General of Georgia that no one has a right to get a blow job from a consenting partner. You'd think that this would be a lesson for everybody, but no, some poor 17-year-old kid is now facing 10 years in prison — and life as a sex offender — for getting a blow job from a consenting 15-year-old.

"Oh!" you say, "This isn't about blow jobs! It's about underage sex!" Well, actually it's about blow jobs. You see, if the guilty party had actually had sexual intercourse with his young partner, he would have been guilty of committing a misdemeanor. Since he got a blow job, he's subject to a minimum sentencing guideline of 10 years in prison.

Justice is served — and it tastes like manmeat.

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:29 AM | Comments (1)

December 13, 2006

Pentacostalgon

Today Salon published a piece about the infusion of Fundamental Christians into the armed forces, and how one group is pushing back.

But I can tell you that I get -- I don't think I'm in double digits, but it started at about 10 o'clock last night; after the press conference in the morning, I've had nine death threats since about 10 o'clock last night. I usually get about two or three a week. They're very grotesque, everything from wanting to gas all the Jews in America and send the corpses back to Israel to threatening to blow me up, threatening my house will be blown up, raping my wife, blowing up my house. We've had our tires slashed, we've had feces and beer bottles thrown at the house, we've had dead animals placed on the front door of the house.

I was in Topeka, on a book tour, and the local Episcopal priest came out to support me and five hours later his church was burned down. And the local synagogue in Topeka, where I was to speak that night, was desecrated with spray paint saying, "Fuck you, Jews" and "KKK," all that stuff.

So if this is a nice, Christian response, my response is take a number, pack a picnic lunch and stand in line, because we're not going to stop, we're not going to ever stop, we're going to lay down a withering field of fire and leave sucking chest wounds on these people that are trying to destroy our Constitution. This is not a Christian-Jewish issue, and it's also not a political spectrum, left or right issue, it's a Constitutional right and wrong issue. These officers, and what's happening in that video, simply by appearing in a video that is blatantly and vociferously sectarian, by simply doing three things in that video, they should be court-martialed. That would be circulating blood, reflecting light and breathing.

Good luck with that! If, as Harper's Magazine implied in an article this summer, the military is being slowly taken over by a mass of people devoted to a "higher power" than the Constitution, then this problem is much, much scarier than I currently think it is.

Posted by Steven at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2006

An Essay on the Abortion Wars

The New York Times Select has published an essay by the son of the Upstate NY physician who worked with Bernard Slepian, the Ob-Gyn wh o was murdered seven years ago by an anti-abortion nutcase. His essay carries us through the history of that event, the times and the place of Buffalo, NY. He finishes with a strikingly clear insight to the whole problem.

Why abortion doesn't play such a divisive role in countries like France and Italy may have something to do with the fact that, as The Economist pointed out in an article on the 30th anniversary of Roe, these nations didn't legalize the procedure by declaring it a constitutional right. Most European countries did so "through new legislation and, occasionally, referenda," decriminalizing abortion on the grounds of health rather than rights and leaving open the possibility that, should popular opinion back them, right-to-life advocates could reverse the status quo through conventional political channels.

Not a few commentators lately, including some who support abortion rights, have suggested that it would not be the worst thing if the availability of abortion were left to state legislatures to decide, which is what will happen if Roe is overturned. Overnight, they note, middle-class women who take their reproductive freedom for granted no longer would. Republicans who tailor their rhetoric to the religious right would have to consider whether, in a country where 70 to 80 percent of people favor keeping abortion legal all or some of the time, they really want to endorse a blanket ban on the procedure. At the same time, Democrats would have to contemplate what, in light of medical advances and popular opinion, reasonable limits on abortion are. (Most European countries have implemented limitations that in America would be deemed unconstitutional because of Roe.) A debate currently framed in absolute terms - the right to choose versus the rights of the unborn - may begin to reflect what polls suggest most Americans, including a majority of Buffalonians, believe, which is that abortion should be legal but regulated.

It might even become possible for Americans to have a more practical conversation about how to create a society in which fewer unplanned crisis pregnancies happen in the first place. According to Stanley Henshaw, an analyst at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the one exception to the trend of declining abortion rates in America is women below the poverty level, among whom the numbers have actually increased. Grappling with the reason for this, and how it might be addressed, would force both sides in the abortion debate to wrestle with things they might not like to. Among advocates of reproductive rights, it would mean acknowledging that in an ideal world, having an abortion is something that most women would prefer to avoid, and that the decision to raise a child is often the one that seems most impracticable to those who are disadvantaged. Among opponents of abortion, it would mean dropping the puritanical crusade against over-the-counter contraceptives and for abstinence-only sex education, as well as thinking seriously about whether they should support policies like those tucked into the recent Republican budget, which will leave states with billions of dollars less than what experts estimate they'll need to maintain child care for low-income working families in the years to come.

I'm dreading Alito ascending to the bench. It means my daughter will be losing reproductive rights just as she enters adulthood, a condition I equate with a third-world, backward nation hell-bent on fundamentalism. But Eyal Press may be right; millions of Republican women may (finally) leave the Hezbollah (Party of God: GOP) in reaction to their finally getting their cake and eating it in the Culture Wars.

As for me, I'm moving to a more enlightened nation when my kids leave for college. This nation cares not for it's women nor it's secular technologists. Time to move on.

Posted by Steven at 02:47 PM | Comments (1)

December 14, 2005

War On Xmas Hits Plano, Texas

Today the Dallas Morning News ran a headline in the Metro section about how the Plano ISD is hitting back at The O'Reilly Factor (on Faux News, where else?) for accusing it of being part of the anti-Christian crowd attacking Christmas. I found it particularly hilarious that the PISD lawyer, a known super-conservative, was attacking Bill O'Reilly for attacking the PISD. It doesn't get any better when these guys go after each other. You get to see the bare-knuckled attack first hand, without actually being on the receiving end.

The New York Times is also running an editorial on the "War on Xmas" and had this to add about the Plano dispute:

For the most part, Mr. Gibson's book is a dull recitation of run-of-the-mill examples of government officials trying to live up to the Supreme Court's decisions on the First Amendment's establishment clause precedents. Not only does he present no evidence that Christmas is in any danger. The "victims" he presents do not elicit much sympathy.

Mr. Gibson takes up the cause of Sherrie Versher, the mother of a 10 1/2-year-old public school student in Plano, Texas. For her daughter Stephanie's birthday, Ms. Versher brought 24 brownies to school, to which she wanted to attach pencils that contained the message: "Jesus Loves Me This I Know Because the Bible Tells Me So." When the principal asked her not to distribute the pencils, she walked through the school building saying, "Satan is in the building."

It is hard not to take the side of the school in this case, which is trying to prevent its classroom from becoming a forum for parents to proselytize 10-year-old children without their parents' permission. But whatever the merits of the dispute, it is quite a stretch to say that the school's policy is part of a "War on Christmas."

So now mad-man Gibson is in the midst of it. Why the Christians, who by all accounts control the government, hold the majority of wealth and own much of the prime, untaxed real estate in this nation think they are under seige is just bizarre. Perhaps it's true: religion really does make you crazy.

Posted by Steven at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2005

Merry Fucking Christmas

On the Randi Rhodes Show on Air America, Randi has been discussing a new ad promoting the confirmation of Alito. The ad raises the specter of supposed "attacks" on Christmas, pandering to the wingnuts who are going batty over retailers using "Happy Holidays."

I guess the fact that the White House sent out a "Holiday Card" has hit a nerve, because — according to a caller to the show &mdash White House Cheif of Staff Andrew "It's a Christmas" Card has reportedly sent out a memo to staffers dictating that all phone calls start and end with a cherry, "Merry Christmas."

Bah, humbug.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:57 PM | Comments (1)

December 02, 2005

State Murders 1000th Citizen

I don't know any other way to characterize this. The United States murdered its 1000th citizen (since the 1976 ruling reinstating the death penalty). Since that ruling, 1000 (almost entirely) men have been murdered by their own government, and yet DNA evidence is starting to reveal just how many were falsely accused, convicted and killed. No other first world nation kills it's citizens as aggressively, and we're the shame of the "advanced nations" for it.

Ruben Cantu is long gone, executed by Texas authorities in 1993 after he was convicted of murdering a man during a San Antonio robbery when he was 17 years old. To the end, Cantu insisted he had been framed, and now his co-defendant and the sole surviving witness both say he was telling the truth.

A state legislator called for an investigation this week as prosecutors moved to study the 20-year-old case. Opponents of the death penalty suspect that Cantu may be what they have long expected to find: an innocent person put to death. Houston law professor David Dow said the case shows that "we make mistakes in death penalty cases, too."

The nation's 1,000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 took place Friday morning at 2:15. The execution of Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina for murdering his wife and her father comes at a time of growing misgivings over the death penalty, as reflected in jury verdicts, opinion polls and the actions of courts and state legislatures.

Death sentences have declined to their lowest level in three decades, with juries sentencing 125 people to death last year, compared with an average of 290 per year in the 1990s. The number of inmates executed last year was the lowest since 1996, and the Supreme Court has twice in the past three years limited who can be punished with death.

In Virginia, which has executed more people since 1976 than any state but Texas, Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) commuted the death sentence of Robin M. Lovitt this week because the state had thrown out what may have been conclusive evidence, making this the first year since 1983 that Virginia will not have had an execution.

In Maryland, Cardinal William H. Keeler, the archbishop of Baltimore, prayed with Wesley E. Baker this week and said he would appeal to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to commute his death sentence to life without parole. Baker is on death row for murdering teacher's aide Jane Tyson during a robbery outside a Catonsville mall.

Public opinion polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty, but that is a significant drop from the peak, in 1994, when 80 percent of respondents told Gallup pollsters they were in favor of capital punishment. When asked if they would endorse executions if the alternative sentence of life without parole were available, support fell to 50 percent.

Amid the refinement of DNA techniques and the sporadic release of inmates from death row because of uncertain guilt, a growing number of people tell pollsters they believe that innocent prisoners have been executed. Although the majority of cases over the past three decades have been upheld, legal errors and sometimes poor defense work revealed during layers of appeals have convinced many Americans that the system is imperfect.

Tell you what. I'll endorse the death penalty when there is a way to reverse the decision after the fact.

Posted by Steven at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2005

Welcome To The Neighborhood, Indeed

Remember the "reality" (or perhaps in this case, "realty") television show, Welcome To The Neighborhood? Possibly not; it never was broadcast. Some of the nuttier members of the religious right raised their usual indignant hue and cry and got ABC to kibosh it. The show was officially cancelled about a week before it was scheduled to premiere, though the production was finished.

The premise was typically simple -- it was a competition. The production company bought a house in the Circle C development on the outskirts of Austin. Three neighboring families on the cul-de-sac were conscripted as the judges, winnowing seven candidate families down to one, which was awarded the house. The upshot? Circle C has the reputation (not unfairly earned) of being affluent, white, broadly Christian, and uptight, and the seven families were all demographically unaligned. Among them: a Latino family, a Korean family, a Wiccan-practicing family, a pierced and tattooed family, a white gay male couple with an adopted black son, a black family, and a family with a stripper mom.

This is no spoiler: the gay couple won.

One of the loftier outcomes from the show was that the judging families learned a great deal about these many people so different in some ways, so alike in others, and became better, or at least deeper, people for the experience. Some of them found their lives to be better afterwards; one neighbor, in particular, was able to more closely reconcile with his son, who came out to him a few years ago:

Jim Stewart, one of the Circle C residents on the show who helped select the Wrights, says he used to be "fearful and ignorant of gays" but has undergone a dramatic change as a result of filming the series last January. Now, he not only embraces his new neighbors, but he also has opened his heart to older son Jason, who — unknown to neighbors and producers during filming — is gay.

Oh horrors, cannot expose America to that sort of thing!

Apparently it never will broadcast, but maybe we'll see a DVD release someday.

The Austin American-Statesman had a long article about it this past Sunday. It's really good. I like this story because it's in Austin, but it's closer to me. The Wrights' son, Eli, is a classmate of my daughter at her daycare. I've been able, sketchily, to watch Eli evolve from a nervous li'l guy (and they're pretty much all nervous in the early days -- new environment and such) to an open, playful, rambunctious tyke. I'm sorry to see him leave (he'll be attending a daycare closer to his new home). I've had the opportunity to talk with his papa, Steve, and the story is even better in person (I've suggested they write a book, but they're under nondisclosure agreements for two years). Welcome To The Neighborhood tells a good and positive story, and it is a damn shame that ABC totally caved to the religious right's narrow-minded, hateful agenda.

When I was a child, my father had a former student, Mike, who became his lifelong friend. Mike, an only child, was gay. His father took his coming out pretty hard, but eventually paternal love won out over bigotry. Now, granted, I was sufficiently young that Mike being "gay" meant practically nothing to me -- that someone would "like boys" was immaterial, since the complimentary notion of "liking girls" was inconceivable (cooties! ick!). Anyway, Mike never scared me, frightened me, weirded me out. He was a gentle, thoughtful man. He was also something of a doofus, but those come from all walks of life. My parents did not raise me to hate, and by knowing Mike, my lack of hatred (for gays, at least) was completely validated. I've known a number of gay people, some in college who fairly could be considered "flaming". Many have been doofi, but none have been despicable.

I'm pleased and proud to know Steve and John, and wish them and Eli well in their new home. We'll try to keep in touch.

Posted by Tom White at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Conservative's Kiddie Books

The one thing you must never do in a culture war is let down your guard. So, the good folks in Values Land have put together a wonderful example of children's mind fuckery: Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed" is the latest salvo from the Powers That Be, to warn the children of the Red States to fear, literally fear, the Left.

Although its official publication date is still a week away, "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed" has already made waves in the typically staid world of children's publishing. The announcement of the book caused an uproar among liberal commentators, with many claiming the book teaches children to hate. The full-color illustrated story tells of two brothers who open a lemonade stand only to encounter a Ted Kennedy character who taxes away their profits and a pants-suit clad Hillary Clinton look-alike who outlaws sugary drinks.

"Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed" will be available in bookstores nationwide on September 20.

I guess this posting constitutes promotion of a stupid book, but for goodness' sake, don't actually buy this piece of shit.

Posted by Steven at 09:56 PM | Comments (0)

September 04, 2005

A Disturbance in the Force

Rhenquest died yesterday, at the age of 80. His "leadership" of the court has been during one of the most fractious eras of the SCOTUS, and he will most definitely not be missed by humanists, liberals, moderates, and other citzens of planet Earth.

We can only wonder (with dread) what monster President Bush will nominate to take the fallen Sith Lord's place.

Posted by Steven at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

August 25, 2005

Fatest Nation Getting Fatter, Faster

Good news America! There's more of you every year! According to the Trust for America's Health, the rate of adult obesity increased last year..

In the past year, the adult obesity rate rose in 48 of America's states, and nationally from 23.7% to 24.5%, Trust for America's Health found.

In 10 states, over a quarter of adults are now obese, despite campaigns alerting people to the dangers of over-eating.

Mississippi, famous for its calorific mud pie, ranked the highest, followed by Alabama and West Virginia.

The non-profit organisation said the situation had reached crisis point and current policies were failing.

Currently, about 119 million, or 64.5%, of US adults are either overweight or obese.

According to projections, 73% of US adults could be overweight or obese by 2008, Trust for America's Health warned.

Super size this!

Posted by Steven at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

What's on the Agenda?

In July of 2003, former Ambassador Joe Wilson published an essay claiming that Iraq had not been trying to rekindle its nuclear program — at least not by obtaining raw Uranium from Niger. The usual swarm of Rabid Right mouthpieces predictably branded him a liar. Another prominent talking point is that Wilson was an active member of the Kerry campaign team, and, obviously, a political opponent of Bush. This supposedly reveals a damning aspect of Wilson's agenda: it exists.

Having an agenda is a bad thing because it provides a motivation to distort public opinion — among other crimes — in service of that agenda. Thus, the people who eagerly impart an inexplicably-detailed knowledge of Joe Wilson's unstated agenda are doing so as a public service, because, they certainly don't have an agenda or anything.

In Latin, the of strategy focusing on the messenger instead of the message is called ad hominem, meaning "towards the man." As a result of the ad hominem attacks on Wilson, we find the debate being focused on Wilson's general integrity, and not that his assessment about Iraq's activities in Niger was a factual and accurate.

The bulk of current political debate is composed of ad hominem attacks. Witness conservative attempts to reconcile the hypocrisy evident in their opposition to Clinton's military actions in Kosovo and their support of Bush's invasion of Iraq. These apologetics reliably mention — if not focus on — the claim that Clinton was receiving a blow job from Monica Lewinsky during a phone conversation about the impending operation.

Never mind that the claims supporting the case for the Kosovo engagement were true, and the claims about Iraq were false, the important thing is that Clinton got a blow job. What if we found out that Lincoln has been getting a blow job when he ordered the attack that started the Civil War? It would totally change things! We'd probably restore slavery! Were it discovered that Roosevelt had been getting a hummer one December 7th, 1941, we would undoubtedly surrender retro-actively to the Japanese in shame. Yes, America, the blow jobs are the most important aspect of public policy and always will be.

Suffice to say, that whatever the topic, conservative criticism of Clinton's Presidency will invariably make reference to blow jobs. As silly as it is, the "Clinton got a blow job" gambit a "winning" ad hominem. The current leading ad hominem is the "Bush Hater" accusation. Even worse than Bush Hater is a politically-motivated Bush Hater.

In an enormous percentage of the attacks on Cindy Sheehan, the reader is accosted with lurid evidence supporting the accusation that Cindy Sheehan not only Hates George W. Bush, but wants to see him lose political power. OK, everyone gasp in shock and horror!

A perfect example is this smug, revelatory post at Free Republic. This "investigative report" uncovers the shocking secret that there is a left-leaning P.R. firm working to get Cindy Sheehan in the media spotlight! These people weren't concerned about the fact that the "Swift Boat Veterans" campaign was invented by a right-wing P.R. firm, but now they are shocked — shocked! — that there is a left-wing P.R. firm promoting Cindy Sheehan anti-wat message. A P.R. firm?! That's, like, worse than the Khmer Rouge!

The reason that it's an issue now is that its part of the shocking truth that... Cindy Sheehan has a political agenda! [Gasp!] Not only that, but Cindy Sheehan wants to get her message out to as many people as possible! ["Please! Not in front of the children!] So there you have it! Cindy Sheehan wants people to hear her opinions and share her opposition to Bush's policies! How anti-American can you get?

You see, the Smear Boat Veterans pretended that they were trying to do a public service, and weren't actually endorsing any particular candidate. This was probably to avoid new campaign financing laws, but it also helped deflect claims that they were just a bunch of Bush partisans who would say anything they could to hurt Kerry's election chances. The fact that so many of their claims were thoroughly debunked suggested that they were just a bunch of Bush partisans who would say anything they could to hurt Kerry's election chances, but the people who continued to believe them also continued to believe in their claims of being apolitical. Hence, the smug moralizing about "agendas."

By making no secret of her opposition to Bush, Cindy Sheehan has opened herself to accusations that she is exploiting her son's death to further her anti-Bush agenda. Rush Limbaugh went as far as to compare her to Bill Burkett, the man who submitted the fake memos about Bush's National Guard service to CBS. Rush claimed that her "story was fake," leading many to wonder if he meant that her son Casey wasn't real or didn't actually die. Rush explained himself two days later by denying having said that. Sure, it's a stupid rebuttal, but consider the intelligence level of Rush's audience.

The American Left needs to learn from the success Sheehan has had in bringing the anti-war issues to the forefront. The thing they need to learn — and I'm not the first to say it — is that one needn't deny having a agenda, especially the agenda you actually have. Wanting to end the war in Iraq is a political agenda. So what? So what if those of us who have that agenda would like to see it publicized and popularized? Does a political agenda become more legitimate if you politely refrain from expressing it publicly?

I would like to be among the first to toss the Bush-Hater epithet into the trash bin with "freedom fries." Yes, I hate Bush, but why does that matter? Would assertions that the Iraq invasion was an ill-conceived scheme, promoted with cynical propaganda be any more true if issued by someone who clearly loves George W. Bush? When I say that the situation in Iraq is a disaster, am I just saying that because I hate President Bush, or is the fact that it is an accurate assessment also a factor? I say: why not both?

Again, when did hating George W. Bush become evidence of irrationality? Is there some reason that I shouldn't hate President Bush? Is there some fabulous thing that he's done that should make me like him, or at least, not hate him? Even a lot of people who still view the decision to invade Iraq as justified, are admitting that the execution of that decision is a tragedy of errors. When someone screws up and a bunch of people die, am I supposed to like them anyway?

You never, ever, see a conservative attack on Bill Clinton start with, "Although I generally like and respect Bill Clinton, I have to disagree with..." No, you never see that. Disclaiming any dislike or political opposition to Bush, obviates any criticism that follows. Some would take it as a tacit admission that one's anti-Bush agenda is discrediting, hence the attempts to obscure it. The more obvious subtext is, "We have been beaten into submission."

That's certainly true of most Congressional Democrats. At this point, why doesn't Joe Lieberman simply start every utterance with, "Although I would never question the perfect wisdom of my Republican overlords..."?

Let's not be beaten into submission. Remember, these guys make a lot of bold statements about war, but given the chance, they all avoided actually fighting in one. Let's get 'em. They're not so tough

Posted by Winston Smith at 12:22 PM | Comments (2)

August 23, 2005

Pat Robertson's Foot Tastes Better Than Ever

How does he do it?

Evangelical leader Pat Robertson just cannot keep his foot out of his mouth. His must be the longest recorded case of self-cannibalism on record (and believe us when we say "it's on the record", because this idiot's statements are almost always well publicized). Today he suggested the United States assassinate Venezulan President Chavez, to avoid another "$200B war." At least we agree with him about not starting another war, but to suggest on a broadcast network that the U.S. kill a democratically elected leader is just so, oh, 1950ish. Didn't we learn from Iran in 1953 not to kill the democratically elected leader?

Now Mr. Robertson has set off an international firestorm by saying on his television show that the United States should kill the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, a leftist whose country has the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East.

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Mr. Robertson said Monday on his show, "The 700 Club." "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Pat, if we "rub out" Chavez, the first repercussion will be a 6m bbl./day drop in oil imports to the United States. This will trigger a recession the likes of which you haven't seen since the Great One (do you miss it all that much?). We're already burning all the oil that hits the shore, and Venezula is a major provider to the U.S. I'd go as far as to say your statement endangers the United States and borders on treason.

Shove that up your Jesus Tower and smoke it.

Posted by Steven at 10:24 PM | Comments (1)

"Unintelligent Design"

For a nice send up of the ID sponsors in the White House, check out this link.

How does one explain all the misguided, unwise, sometimes outright boneheaded things the Bush administration has done since taking over nearly five years ago, and continues to do on a pretty much daily basis? How is it possible for a group of supposedly intelligent, experienced individuals to take this many wrong turns? Wouldn't you think that once in a while, even by accident, that George W. Bush and his advisers would make a decision that made sense?

Can this much mismanagement happen totally at random? Would the occupants of the Bush White House have us believe that all these things, these missteps, these miscalculations, these attempts to deceive, that they all, you know, just kind of happened?

I'm not so sure. And I'm not the only one starting to ask questions. More and more, it seems unlikely that mere human beings could make this many mistakes without some sort of misguiding force, a kind of supernatural entity that has trouble remembering where it put its car keys.

That's where unintelligent design comes in.

Follow the link to read more; it gets better.

Kudos to high school friend Terri for pointing out the piece.

Posted by Steven at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2005

Jesus and the Me Generation

Harper's has an excellent essay this month on Being Christian in America. The main thrust of the piece is that self-proclaimed "Christians" in America are more selfish and narcissist that ever and that this runs counter to the core tenets of Christianity.

This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners). Having been told to turn the other cheek, we’re the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus’ strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate—just over half—that compares poorly with the European Union’s average of about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Teenage pregnancy? We’re at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline—like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?

Joe Bob sez, "Buy the magazine to get the other story about election fraud in Ohio."

Posted by Steven at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

July 03, 2005

Not All Right Wingers Love Gonzales

Word up! Not all Conservatives think Alberto Gonzales, George Bush's ass-tampon and current AG, would make a great Supreme Court Justice.

Within hours after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's announced retirement from the Supreme Court, members of conservative groups around the country convened in five national conference calls in which, participants said, they shared one big concern: heading off any effort by President Bush to nominate his attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, to replace her.

Late last week, a delegation of conservative lawyers led by C. Boyden Gray and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III met with the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to warn that appointing Mr. Gonzales would splinter conservative support.

And Paul M. Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, said he had told administration officials that nominating Mr. Gonzales, whose views on abortion are considered suspect by religious conservatives, would fracture the president's conservative backers.

The groundswell of opposition to Mr. Gonzales was just one sign of the conflicting forces suddenly swirling around Mr. Bush this weekend as he headed to Camp David to begin considering a replacement for Justice O'Connor, a decision his aides said would not be announced before he returned from a trip to Europe at the end of next week.

It makes me sick to think that Bush will nominate -- and get -- a Supreme Court Justice who will make Clarence Thomas look like a scholar. Gonzales would fit the bill perfectly -- this man authorized torture.

Posted by Steven at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)

Founder of Earth Day Dies

Sen. Gaylord Nelson passed away this weekend. He was a true humanitarian, who helped formulate the Clear Air Act and form the Environmental Protection Agency (expect both of these to be driven to extinction soon by the GOP). Who is the GOP equivalent? No such human exists.

Posted by Steven at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

The Right's Time?

With Sandra Day O'Connor resigning from the Supreme Court, the hard right factions in the United States are poised to deliver their coup de grace against liberalism.

With the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the conservative movement has within its grasp the prize it has sought for more than 40 years: the control of all levers of the federal government.

From the ashes of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, conservatives have built an enduring governing majority, with Republicans winning seven of 10 presidential contests and holding unified control of Congress for 11 years.

The judiciary has until now been alone in clinging to liberalism and the remnants of the Democratic New Deal coalition. A series of Republican appointments to the Supreme Court -- John Paul Stevens, O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter -- have disappointed conservatives by frequently siding with the court's liberal bloc.

That could well happen again with O'Connor's replacement, but conservatives are cautiously hopeful it will not. President Bush has indicated that he will appoint a justice in the tradition of Antonin Scalia, a conservative stalwart. And the conservative movement has something it lacked during its losing battle for the confirmation of Robert H. Bork to the court 18 years ago: a highly coordinated movement that has fused the big dollars of economic conservatives with the grass-roots clout of millions of religious conservatives.

This, conservatives say, will prevent the defeat of another nominee such as Bork and will inoculate Bush from pressure to appoint a moderate such as Kennedy or Souter. And if it works with O'Connor's replacement, conservatives say, they will have found a formula that will allow them gradually to control the judiciary and revisit the full range of precedents regarding abortion, affirmative action, church-state matters and regulations of business and the environment.

"It is a moment of conclusion after years [in which] the conservative movement has moved very far," said Manuel Miranda, a former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) who leads a coalition of groups pushing for conservative jurists. "The resources on the right are so overwhelmingly different from what they were 11 years ago," when there was last a court vacancy.

Connie Mackey, of the conservative Family Research Council, said at a news conference Friday she sees "a tremendous amount of organization, unlike I'd ever seen" in past confirmation fights. "The social-issue groups as well as the fiscal conservative groups are determined that they're not going to see a Borking of any nominee that would be a good constitutionalist." That was a reference to the effective campaign by Democrats to demonize Bork and defeat his nomination by President Ronald Reagan to the high court.

The conservative bid to reshape the federal judiciary has been years in the making. Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision -- widely condemned by conservative legal thinkers -- groups such as the Federalist Society have sought to expand the ranks of young conservative lawyers. Dozens of conservative judicial appointments by Reagan and President George H.W. Bush have given the current president a broad pool of judges from which to choose for the high court.

The prospect of a new Supreme Court vacancy has accelerated this campaign. With the blessings of the Bush White House, a team of conservative leaders self-dubbed "the four horsemen" formed in 2002 and has taken over much of the planning for the nomination fight.

These men are C. Boyden Gray, an establishment lawyer who chairs the Committee for Justice; Jay Alan Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice; Leonard A. Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society; and Edwin A. Meese III, attorney general during part of the Reagan administration.

It's appalling to me that the men the White House has hand picked to deliver the deathblow to Liberalism in this country call themselves "the Four Horsemen". Doesn't that strike you as a very bad sign?

The end of this nation as we know it is nigh.

Posted by Steven at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2005

Canada Passes Gay Marriage Law

It's official, Canada is enlightened and the U.S. isn't.

Posted by Steven at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2005

Gov. Bush Punishes Schiavo

In the endless war to make all politics personal, the Bushes launched another salvo this weekend by asking a Florida state prosecutor to "look into charges against Schiavo" over possible spousal abuse that he alleges the autopsy implies.

Gov. Jeb Bush asked a state prosecutor on Friday to investigate the circumstances of Terri Schiavo's collapse, saying a new autopsy report revealed a possible gap between when Ms. Schiavo fell unconscious and when her husband called paramedics.

"It's a significant question that during this entire ordeal was never brought up," Governor Bush told reporters in Tallahassee after faxing a letter to Bernie McCabe, the state attorney in Pinellas County, where Ms. Schiavo suffered extreme brain damage when her heart temporarily stopped beating in 1990.

In a statement on Friday, Ms. Schiavo's husband, Michael, called Governor Bush's actions "sickening" and said he had called 911 promptly.

The governor's letter could further prolong an exhaustively fought case that even many of his fellow Republicans said it was time to close after the autopsy found no evidence of foul play in Ms. Schiavo's collapse nor any sign that further treatment would have restored the functions of her withered brain.

Governor Bush, who vehemently fought the court-ordered removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube, said he decided to seek an investigation after speaking with Dr. Jon R. Thogmartin, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, on Tuesday, a day before his report was released. According to records, the report says, a 911 call was placed about 5:40 a.m. on Feb. 25, 1990.

State Senator Michael S. Bennett, of Bradenton, was among nine Republican senators who helped block legislation in March that could have stopped the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. He said he was shocked that Mr. McCabe agreed to review the case, adding that any impropriety would have been discovered during the prodigious court review.

"What evidence was there ever presented by anybody," Mr. Bennett asked, "that would even cause them to go on this escapade?"

Governor Bush is a Catholic and abortion opponent. Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said he thought the governor's latest move was "a product of his own personal beliefs" but also, possibly, an attempt to win political points.

What a fucking prick. Bush is beating this dead woman's carcass to gain "points" with the so-called "Culture of Life" crowd. Sick, sick, sick. They're a cult of Death, not a culture of Life.

Afterword

Isn't it amazing that only now, fifteen years later, and only after her final physical death, does this become an issue, and one that is so blatantly political? God I hope this bites Bush in the ass -- the scumball doesn't deserve to be garbage collector.

Posted by Steven at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Schiavo Really Was Brain Dead

Mrs. Schiavo's autopsy is in, and like Micheal Joe Jackson's verdict, few on the right will be pleased.

An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.

So when Frist said she was not a veg, he was giving a grossly incorrect diagnosis in violation of his medical license. Not that breaking the law matters to the GOP.

Posted by Steven at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2005

The Great Theocracy of Texas

Kevin Drum pointed out a family tragedy that only Texas could create.

This is the intersection of stupid kids, stupid laws, mendacious legislators, and fanatical prosecutors. It's what happens when states ban access to otherwise legal abortions and kids don't know where to turn. And if circumstances and the law had been slightly different, Bauereiss probably would have prosecuted Erica Basoria too and sought the death penalty for both.

It's like living under the Ayatollahs in Iran. It's simple barbarism.

Read the article to see what he is talking about. It's not for the squeemish, but it's 100% Texas horror, legislative style.

I'm so ashamed of my home state; this is truely becoming a Theocracy.

Posted by Steven at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

June 03, 2005

Required Reading

No doubt pausing to wipe copious quantities of foam from their mouths, the right-wing brain trust at Human Events Online has compile a list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries."

Some of them are relatively uncontroversial. Mein Kampf? Harmful. Das Capital? Certainly, not helpful. Mao's little red book? Well, Mao was an asshole, but hold on a second. Not everything in that book is monsterous. The HEO blurb provides this Mao quote as evidence of his great harmfulness: "It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism." What an awful guy. Everyone knows that it's the task of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism. Now if leftists like Mao would just sit back and let them take care of it...

Anyway, some of the books are controversial, and some are a bit dated (Freud's original work, comes to mind), but many of them have done good — often much more good — as well as harm. Some of them haven't even done any harm, such as Darwin's books, unless you consider advancing our scientific understanding of the world to be harmful.

Posted by Winston Smith at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 31, 2005

Romney Eats It

As expected, the Massachusetts Legislature promptly overrode Governor Romney's veto of the Stem Cell Research bill, and it wasn't even close. The veto was about politics, not policy. Good ol' GOP; they'll stay on message even as they head over a cliff.

The Massachusetts legislature on Tuesday swiftly overturned Gov. Mitt Romney's veto and approved a bill designed to propel Massachusetts to the forefront of embryonic stem cell research.

The bill immediately became law over Romney's objections, after both chambers exceeded the two-thirds vote needed to override a veto. The vote was 112 to 42 in the House and 35 to 2 in the Senate, four days after Romney's veto.

Way to go, Massachusetts!

In 2006, vote Pro-Cure.

Posted by at 09:58 PM | Comments (1)

Soldiers of Christ

I've been telling everyone I know to read this article in Harper's. Well, they posted it on their website, so tuck in! I won't bother quoting from this piece ... the whole thing is just jaw-droppingly terrifying, you'll hardly believe what comes out of these guys' mouths.

Posted by Steven at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

May 30, 2005

Sleeping With The Enemy

The crackpots at the Diskuverry Institoot, increasingly desperate to have their drivel gain any respect, have resorted to deception. Tsk-tsk; I find their utter lack of faith disturbing. They've rented out a lecture hall at the Smithsonian -- a space available to the public -- in order to disseminate some of their propaganda, but have decided to spin it to appear that the Smithsonian endorses such mindrot.

Fossils at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History have been used to prove the theory of evolution. Next month the museum will play host to a film intended to undercut evolution.

The Discovery Institute, a group in Seattle that supports an alternative theory, "intelligent design," is announcing on its Web site that it and the director of the museum "are happy to announce the national premiere and private evening reception" on June 23 for the movie, "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe."

...

News of the Discovery Institute's announcement appeared on a blog maintained by Denyse O'Leary, a proponent of the intelligent design theory, who called it "a stunning development." But a museum spokesman, Randall Kremer, said the event should not be taken as support for the views expressed in the film. "It is incorrect for anyone to infer that we are somehow endorsing the video or the content of the video," he said.

The museum, he said, offers its Baird Auditorium to many organizations and corporations in return for contributions - in the case of the Discovery Institute, $16,000.

When the language of the Discovery Institute's Web site was read to him, with its suggestion of support, Mr. Kremer said, "We'll have to look into that."

He added, "We're happy to receive this contribution from the Discovery Institute to further our scientific research."

You Can't Spell "Idiot" Without "ID".

Posted by at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

Still Not Getting A Clue

Republican governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney vetoed a bill that would have expanded stem cell research in his state. Despite the enormous and promising potential that SCR holds for many devastating illnesses and conditions, growing popularity for such research in national polls, and increasing success overseas (and, to be certain, this writer doesn't care who comes up with various cures or therapies, but SCR is an expanding field which, to date, has been largely abandoned to other nations by the ideological bent of the sitting powers), and even despite the Massachusetts Legislature's vote being sufficient to override his veto, Romney stomped on it. How did this doofus become governor anyway? Ah well, at least it earned him GOP brownie points.

The Texas state legislature is farting around on whether to fund SCR, and unless and until funding is approved, lots of good jobs are being held in abeyance, and researchers may go elsewhere. Stupid, stupid, stupid ideologies are impeding good (or at least progressive and popular) governance.

Posted by at 01:12 AM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2005

Brooks: Karl's New Manifesto

David Brooks' surprisingly honest essay on the real underpinnings of Class War in America rings true to me.

The educated class has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and reduced it to a mere factory for the production of little meritocrats. Members of the educated elites are more and more likely to marry each other, which the experts call assortative mating, but which is really a ceaseless effort to refortify class solidarity and magnify social isolation. Children are turned into workaholic knowledge workers - trained, tutored, tested and prepped to strengthen class dominance.

The educated elites are the first elites in all of history to work longer hours per year than the exploited masses, so voracious is their greed for second homes. They congregate in exclusive communities walled in by the invisible fence of real estate prices, then congratulate themselves for sending their children to public schools. They parade their enlightened racial attitudes by supporting immigration policies that guarantee inexpensive lawn care. They send their children off to Penn, Wisconsin and Berkeley, bastions of privilege for the children of the professional class, where they are given the social and other skills to extend class hegemony.

The information society is the only society in which false consciousness is at the top. For it is an iron rule of any university that the higher the tuition and more exclusive the admissions, the more loudly the denizens profess their solidarity with the oppressed. The more they objectively serve the right, the more they articulate the views of the left.

As I and Mr. Jones both live in these Information Age communes, I know for a fact the sorry truths behind Brooks' commentary on current class war. The only thing missing is how the Information class uses religion to further it's control.

Posted by Steven at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)

Right Wing Foundation Closes Doors

the John M. Olin Foundation is closing its doors, ending a nearly $20M cash river that funded many a conservative organization.

Without it, the Federalist Society might not exist, nor its network of 35,000 conservative lawyers. Economic analysis might hold less sway in American courts. The premier idea factories of the right, from the Hoover Institution to the Heritage Foundation, would have lost millions of dollars in core support. And some classics of the conservative canon would have lost their financier, including Allan Bloom's lament of academic decline and Charles Murray's attacks on welfare.

Part Medici, part venture capitalist, the John M. Olin Foundation has spent three decades financing the intellectual rise of the right and exciting the envy of the left. Now the foundation is closing its doors. In telling the organization to spend his money within a generation, John M. Olin, a Midwestern ammunition and chemical magnate, sought to maximize his fortune's influence and keep it from falling into hostile - that is, liberal - hands.

In the budget offices of the right, the loss of Olin, though long anticipated, is bringing a stab of anxiety, as total annual giving of up to $20 million disappears from policy organizations, journals and academic aeries. Yet it is a measure of the foundation's success that the anxiety has not been greater. While a generation ago just three or four major foundations operated on the right, today's conservatism has no shortage of institutions, donors or brio.

Good fucking riddance.

Posted by Steven at 05:50 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2005

Owen Moves to 5th Circuit Court

The Senate voted 56-43 to approve Bush's selection of Pricilla Owen to the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans.

Before calling for the vote on Owen, Frist said she "has withstood an orchestrated partisan attack on her record" that has included "continuous and sometimes vicious criticism." He described Owen as "a distinguished mainstream jurist."

Democrats denounced her as an "extremist" who has sought to use the bench to advance right-wing political views, regardless of legal precedents.

As the debate raged, critics of Owen pointed to a poll issued last week by the Houston Bar Association, which reported that its members rated Owen as the worst of the six Texas Supreme Court justices. The poll, in which attorneys rated justices on several criteria, found that 45.3 percent of the responding lawyers who had practiced before Owen considered her "poor" overall, compared to 39.5 percent who said she was "outstanding" and 15.2 percent who deemed her "acceptable."

Owen's rating was the worst (46.3 percent "poor") of the six on the question of whether her opinions were well-reasoned, clearly written and properly applied the law. She was rated second worst (48.8 percent "poor") on the question of whether she was "impartial and open-minded with respect to determining the legal issues."

I still think the 7x7 compromise will turn out to be like the "deal" offered by Darth Vader to Lando Calrissian. This woman is wildly unqualified so of course Bush nominated her twice. Why anyone thinks he chooses people based on their skill is beyond me.

Posted by Steven at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2005

At Least "Dr." Science Only Wanted To Move To His "New Science" Methodology

Granted, the seer from Duck's Breath Mystery Theater was a quack, but at least he had direction. Preznit Bush wants to do away with science and technology altogether, unless it can be used to kill heathens.

Down With Science!

President Bush has condemned stem cell research advances in South Korea and said he worried about living in a world in which human cloning was condoned. He said he would veto any legislation aimed at loosening limits on federal support in the United States.

"I'm very concerned about cloning," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable."

While I fully endorse any R&D plan that doesn't inflict copies of any Bush scion on the rest of us, the entire cloning angle is pointless. SCR is aimed at curing afflictions, not some Dr. Evil nonsense. (Not that cloning wouldn't be interesting stuff as well.) Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancers, diabetes, the list of conditions that could be attacked is long indeed.

"I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life is I'm against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it."

Exactly what has all the monies poured into Iraq achieved yet, besides endless promotion of a Culture Of Death?

Republicans in Congress are sharply divided over the stem cell issue, which could lead to the first veto of Bush's presidency. The president's comments were aimed at putting the brakes on a bill gaining momentum on Capitol Hill.

Does everyone know that this fraction of a man has never yet vetoed a bill? Hasn't yet met the spending measure he didn't like.

That bill would lift Bush's ban on using federal dollars to do research on embryonic stem cell lines developed after August 2001. The president's veto threat drew immediate reaction from sponsors of the bipartisan bill, Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Castle said the legislation would not allow the cloning of embryos or embryo destruction. Instead, it would let government-funded researchers work with stem cells culled from embryos left over from fertility treatments.

"The bottom line is when a couple has decided to discard their excess embryos, they are either going to be discarded as medical waste or they can be donated for research," Castle said.

DeGette protested too. "It's disappointing that the president would threaten to use his first veto on a bill that holds promise for cures to diseases that affect millions of Americans," DeGette said. "Support for expanding federal stem cell research in an ethical manner remains strong in Congress."

Even in these dark and ignorance-rising times, science can shine through. People tend to support anything that promises relief to the pains of themselves and their loved ones -- God knows there's been more than enough snake oil sold throughout the ages. SCR really does hold enormous promise for real cures and mediative therapies. But, heck, polls clearly stating that 82% of Americans were against federal interference in the Terri Schiavo case were used to support that interference, so the spinning is shameless, and will continue to be.

Talking point to throw at people: "Stem cell research could have saved Terri Schiavo." See what happens.

Bush began Friday at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he reaffirmation his position on sensitive issues such as abortion and stem cell research. He urged people to "pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life." And he recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II, saying "The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak."

I maintain: death is a natural and inevitable part of life (the very last part, of course). Holding any dialogue on "life issues" without including the death aspect is disingenuous, short-sighted, and stupid. It's very sad that too many of us, particularly those in power, are as yet far too immature to deal with death. (They're pretty good at dealing death, which is a different topic, one with a long and inexplicably proud history.)

Citing JP2, who roundly condemned the Iraq war, is just another cheap political move, but one that tickles the cockles of the black and stony hearts of the religious right puppetmasters.

Talking point: "Move past His death. Start living His life."

Posted by at 09:13 AM | Comments (2)

May 21, 2005

Gonzales Proves He Can Lie On Camera, Too

Alberto Gonzales' famous assessment of Bush judicial nominee Owens is his political Achilles' Heel, but he went on camera this week to stump for Owens and prove he can shill with the best of them.

Gonzales weighed in on the issue yesterday, saying at a news conference that his position in the Texas case has been mischaracterized and that he strongly supports Owen. One of Gonzales's lieutenants made similar arguments in an unusual letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

"I think that there's a lot of misinformation about this," Gonzales said at the National Press Club. "I would not have recommended her to the president if I didn't fully support her."

But Gonzales's comments are unlikely to settle the issue, in part because he has offered a variety of explanations for the opinion and because the comment remains useful fodder for Democrats. Paul Rosenzweig, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, called the quotation "a convenient debater's point. I expect you will continue to hear it used repeatedly."

'an unconscionable act of judicial activism' - Gonzales

In case you missed it the first time: he's a lying sack of shit. Oh, and the Attorney General.

Posted by Steven at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2005

Take The Test!

The Pew Research Center has an online test to determine where your political, social, and cultural stripes lie. Generally it's a blue/red (never say "red/blue"; always say "blue/red") thing, but there's more nuance and detail than that. It's a bit of fun. Go, do. Please, post your typology results in the comments.

I nailed "liberal" when I took it.

Posted by at 05:12 AM | Comments (4)

Kansas, Filled With Irony

This is a magnificent blog post about the ancient and fossil-rich chalk resources in Kansas and some of the tiny, misdirected humans who walk above it. The creationists and IDers can rant all they want; their arguments have no legs upon which to stand. Creationism is a slightly interesting story, but it's not science -- it's nowhere near science -- and it doesn't belong in any worthwhile educational curriculum outside of a theology department.

The truth will triumph.

Posted by at 04:25 AM | Comments (1)

What's In A Name?

The Social Security Administration, when not being coerced into partisan politics, compiles statistics on the top 1000 personal names for newborns filed for SS numbers by calendar year. The SSA provides a search engine, which can be good for a few minutes of amusement, actually. Note the 2004 Top 10 list; no block quote this time, as we add line-item comments on the males Top 10 list, in relation to appearing in the Bible.

1. Jacob -- in Genesis and a lot more;
2. Michael -- shows up a couple of times, including as an archangel;
3. Joshua -- entire Old Testament book;
4. Matthew -- entire New Testament book;
5. Ethan -- shows up a little bit;
6. Andrew -- all over the Matthew, Mark, Luke & John gospels;
7. Daniel -- entire Old Testament book;
8. William -- no
9. Joseph -- several times, including Genesis ("technicolor dreamcoat") and the MML&J gospels as Mary's husband;
10. Christopher -- doesn't appear anywhere, but the root is pretty obvious.

One out of the Top 10 doesn't appear anywhere in the book (well, two, but Christopher is a giveaway). And there's more Bible referents in the next 10, and so on. All of which is fine; it's still quite the popular book, some families have naming traditions, there's plenty of reasons why these names bubbled to the top in recent years. These Top 10 names may not have been so popular last year (and in preceeding years) deliberately because of the Bible, but the influence at some point in the past is clear.

So, two points to consider.

One, despite assorted caterwauling from various fronts, there's still a majority -- a significant majority -- in the US that is grounded, however deeply or tenuously, in general Christianity; at least among those who have borne a son in the past year. (I didn't review the female Top 10 list because I was certain "Madison" didn't represent in the Bible; in fact, it doesn't.)

Two, these people, at least to some degree, like Social Security, enough so to file on behalf of their children, who are at least 64 years away from gaining retirement benefits.

So, if you voted for the current in-power party based upon their projected image of faith and are in favor of Social Security, you should feel very, very deceived.

If you were voted for based upon your projected image of faith and are still trying to dismantle Social Security, you should feel very, very ashamed, enough so to resign (or take the historical Other Way Out).

Not that someone of either potential group is reading this.

Edit 5/20: added the SSA search engine link (correctly, that is).

Posted by at 03:49 AM | Comments (1)

May 19, 2005

Why Does This Woman Get To Choose Who Gets Sex Ed?

A Mormon stay-at-home mom is distorting the sex education of a Maryland school district, all to satisfy her own selfish interests in keeping her children hopelessly clueless about human sexuality, all in the name of religion.

Michelle Turner, mother of four public school students in Montgomery County, said it is her job, her responsibility, her life's purpose to shield her sons and daughters from corrupting influences. And the world, in her view, is teeming with them.

Which was why she decided long ago to be a stay-at-home mom; preserving "strong, traditional family values" and raising her children "to be good people" is a full-time undertaking, she said. It demands tireless vigilance.

The Turners' devout beliefs used to hold sway only around the dinner table, where the family gathers nightly for meals. Then Turner, 50, helped organize, and became president of, Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, one of two groups that recently succeeded in derailing, at least temporarily, the Montgomery school board's plan to revise sex education in eighth and 10th grades.

The board wants to foster discussions of homosexuality, portraying same-sex attraction as natural and involuntary for gay people, as something that is common and acceptable. But Turner and other opponents said science has not proved that homosexuality is genetic, that more likely it's a choice. They said that the curriculum ought to present their beliefs, as well, and that students should be taught that it is possible to avoid, or to get out of, the gay lifestyle.

How the revised curriculum deals with sexual identities, abstinence, condom use and other issues appears headed for months of debate by the two sides, including in court, where the sex-ed plan is the subject of a lawsuit by Turner's group and the Virginia-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, which has chapters nationwide. While the dispute continues, officials said, the curriculum will stay shelved at least through December.

Why do the self-righteous assholes have to make everyone else conform to their bizarre, and frankly, unhealthy, world view?

Posted by Steven at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2005

Widely Spotted: Frist Making an Ass of Himself

Today's GOP gaffe du jour has to be Sen. Bill Frist being confronted by Sen. Schumer over voting to fillibuster a Clinton judicial appointee back in 2000.

This morning on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer asked Majority Leader Bill Frist a simple question:

SEN. SCHUMER: Isn’t it correct that on March 8, 2000, my colleague [Sen. Frist] voted to uphold the filibuster of Judge Richard Paez?

Here was Frist’s response:

The president, the um, in response, uh, the Paez nomination - we’ll come back and discuss this further. … Actually I’d like to, and it really brings to what I believe - a point - and it really brings to, oddly, a point, what is the issue. The issue is we have leadership-led partisan filibusters that have, um, obstructed, not one nominee, but two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, in a routine way.

These guys apparently don't think we're watching them at all anymore.

Posted by Steven at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2005

Intelligent Storks

Posted by Steven at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2005

Do It "Ann Coulter Style"

A student at UT Austin was arrested after he asked Ann Coulter her preference in sodomy.

Incessant heckling and shouting culminated in an arrest Tuesday night during a speech by Ann Coulter, an extreme right-wing pundit, at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.

Shouts became so pervasive during the question-and-answer session that Coulter informed the organizers she would no longer take questions if the hecklers were not silenced. For a time, the shouts were considerably lessened, until the issue of gay marriage was broached.

Coulter said she supported the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman on the basis that a good woman civilizes and inspires a man to strive for something better, leading to a question that was met with a stunned silence.

"You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage," said Ajai Raj, an English sophomore. "How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but fuck his wife up the ass?"

UT Police officers approached Raj to arrest him, resulting in a mass exodus of protesters chanting, "Let him go."

Posted by Steven at 04:50 PM | Comments (1)

80 Years of Stupid

Lifted from The Daily Rotton

May 5, 1925

High school teacher John T. Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution by authorities in Dayton, Tennessee, as part of a publicity stunt to make the town famous. Since Scopes admitted teaching the theory, he was found guity, and the law remained on the books in the backward state until 1967.

You'd think we'd be done with this shit by now.

Posted by Winston Smith at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2005

Florida Judge Rules 13 Year-old May Not Abort

Once again, Florida wins the nation's "Most Cruel State" award. A Florida judge ruled that a 13 year old girl, who is a ward of the state, is "too immature" to decide if she can ask for an abortion.

A state court granted an injunction which prevents the girl from terminating her pregnancy.

She is three months pregnant and had planned to have an abortion on Tuesday of this week.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will launch an urgent appeal against the ruling.

'Too young to chose'

Florida's department of children and families intervened and took the matter to court, arguing the teenager, who is under the care of the state, is too young and immature to make an informed medical decision. Judge Ronald Alvarez in Palm Beach accepted that argument and has granted a temporary injunction and psychological evaluation, which effectively blocks her from terminating the pregnancy.

It is a case which, once again, plays into the heated and divisive debate about abortion in America.

The judge's ruling comes in spite of Florida state law which specifically does not require a minor to seek parental consent before an abortion.

Its executive director in Florida, Howard Simon, said forcing a 13-year-old to carry on an unwanted pregnancy to term, against her wishes, is not only illegal and unconstitutional, it is cruel.

Posted by Steven at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

A "Person of Pander"

The Party that panders together, stays together. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post offers a simple and clear opinion of Senator Frist, who seeks the GOP nomination in 2008: a person of pander.

"The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith," the telecast's sponsoring organization has declared. Among the participants are some, if not all, who believe that any abortion is wrong, that a stem cell is an inviolate human life, that homosexuality is a sin, that sex before marriage is both a mistake and a sin (don't even ask about homosexual sex before marriage), and that the rights of both Terri Schiavo and her husband should have been brushed aside -- along with a couple of hundred years of allowing state courts to settle such matters.

I am pausing now to wonder if the phrase "people of faith" is meant to include Muslims with several wives, Hindus with several deities or even the odd person here and there who believes, as I am sometimes tempted to, that God can be found in a pint of Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. But I think somehow that "people of faith" is meant to embrace only conservative Christians and maybe Orthodox Jews, who are sometimes lumped together as Judeo-Christians. People of faith, you may rest assured, are people of their faith. All others need not apply.

I don't think a gay Presbyterian would be considered a person of faith, no matter how devout, nor, for that matter, a pro-choice Methodist -- say, someone such as Hillary Clinton. The category would certainly not include a Baptist such as Husband Bill or a Jew such as Chuck Schumer or, I venture to say, an Episcopalian such as John McCain, whose faith sustained him in a Vietnamese prison. As for a Roman Catholic such as Ted Kennedy, whose faith informs his liberalism, take it on faith that he would not be considered a person of faith. The phrase would also exclude anyone of any faith who believes in a limited role for religion in public life, especially the schools, if only on the pragmatic grounds that otherwise we will be at each other's throats. This is a lesson of history.

The invocation of the phrase "people of" is no different when preceding "faith" than it is when preceding "color." It's a bold signal of mushy thinking, a corralling of people who have nothing in common other than a perceived -- and often fictionalized -- enemy. "People of faith" mischaracterizes what the political debate is all about. What Senate Democrats lack is not faith but 50 votes. Frist knows this, of course, but his mad pursuit of the presidency requires him to prove to the Christian right, the core of the Republican Party, that its cause comes before his principles.

He did this with Terri Schiavo, going so far as to use his medical bona fides (he's a heart surgeon) to view a neurologist's videotape of the poor woman and pronounce her somewhat alert. Now he is lending his name and his fast-diminishing prestige to this reprehensible effort to enlist faith on the side of a single political issue. This sort of stuff will not, as he hopes, make him the next president of the United States. Instead, it shows what raw ambition has made him: a person of pander.

Posted by Steven at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2005

Pope Benedict

And in this corner, representing the 17th century ... The College of Cardinals picked Ratzinger to be the first new Pope of the 21st century. Fortunately for conservative Catholics, he's upholding all the traditions of the 17th century. So much for a progressive Catholic Church ...

As a cardinal, Ratzinger was a close associate of John Paul and dean of the College of Cardinals, and known for his strict support of church doctrine. On Monday, he delivered a passionate defense of orthodoxy at a pre-conclave Mass attended by the cardinals.

Since 1981, Ratzinger was head of the Vatican's influential Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he played a leading role disciplining dissidents and resisting liberal proposals for change.

Ratzinger was elected on the second day of voting. The announcement was made by Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez of Chile, the senior cardinal deacon, before thousands of cheering spectators in St. Peter's Square.

Sigh. Just what Earth needs, another hard ass old man in charge. God help the poor and God help women -- the Church certainly won't.

Oh ... just read that Ratzinger wanted to deny John Kerry communion ... so that puts him squarely in the crowd who are politicizing religion. He joins Tom DeLay, President Bush and Pat Robertson on the first day ... nice shoot'n, Tex.

Posted by Steven at 02:09 PM | Comments (1)

April 15, 2005

Texas School District Takes it up the Ass

Don't Whisper, Don't Get Sued. Aren't whisper campaigns a wonder to behold? Like, the one in Bloomburg, TX. A HS basketball coach who happens to be a lesbian took her team to champion status. Her reward, she got sacked after a whisper campaign began to discredit her.

Then she did the unthinkable (in the Red States) -- she fought back. She sued and won $100K in pay in exchange for not suing more. My guess is that Bloomburg, TX is about to get a LOT of bad press, which will cost even more than the $100K.

Moral of the story? Don't participate in a whisper campaign unless you want your taxes to go up.

Posted by Steven at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2005

Living Will (Sample, Red State)

From an old friend now a Rabbi in San Francisco.

I, _________________(fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.

Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerwood ethically challenged politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a cold beer, it should be presumed that I won't ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

Under no circumstances shall the hypocritical members of the Legislature (State or Federal) enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren't in a permanent coma.

Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case.

I don't care how many fundamentalist votes they're trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else's life and leave me alone to die in peace.

I couldn't care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don't know these people, and I certainly haven't authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf.They should mind their own business, too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.

________________________________ DATE__________
Signature

________________________________ DATE__________
Witness

Posted by Steven at 05:03 PM | Comments (2)

Shocking Artwork in Chicago!

From the Associated Press:

An artwork containing mock 37-cent stamps showing President Bush with a revolver pointed at his head is part of an exhibit at Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery titled "Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin" Tuesday, April, 12, 2005 in Chicago. The exhibit captured the attention of the Secret Service who sent agents to inspect the works last week, according to gallery officials.

The SJR is shocked, Shocked! What a terrible affront to President Bush. Can you imagine someone though that the image below was worthy of display?

Posted by at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2005

Andrea Dworkin is Dead

A classic example of ill bedfellows, if ever. Andrea Dworkin died on Sunday. I saw her speak at RPI in 1984. She was ascendant at the time, and her message was rubbing all the wrong people the right way. She was essentially a kook and a loner whose Messianic zeal made her ideal for the anti-porn Christians to use as a tool, and they did. Her message was simply that sexual intercourse was always equivalent to rape, and it should be banned. After a few decades of this, the human species would be extinct -- great plan.

Susie Bright wrote a very good eulogy that I recommend if you want to understand this woman's impact on our culture.

Posted by Steven at 08:52 AM | Comments (2)

April 11, 2005

Christian Reconstructionism

This is your country on Fundamentalism. Salon is publishing a story on a movement to replace civil rights law with Biblical Law (first question: which Bible? second question: which set of rules?).

According to David Gibbs, the attorney for Terri Schiavo's parents, Terri sobbed in her mother's arms after the courts condemned her to death. "Terri Schiavo was as alive as any person sitting here," he said. "Anything you saw on the videos, multiply times two hundred. I mean completely animated, completely responsive, desperately trying to talk." Schiavo, said Gibbs, would struggle to repeat the word "love" after her mother, and managed to get out something like "loooo."

Gibbs was speaking to a banquet of religious right activists and conservative operatives last Thursday, the first night of the Confronting the Judicial War on Faith conference in Washington. The 100 or so people in the audience had converged on the Washington Marriott from 25 states. Many cried as they listened.

"America needs a healing," Gibbs said, and the crowd murmured its assent. "We're sitting here desperately as a nation needing to adopt the heart of God … We're on the eve of a real major decision. Are we going to do it God's way, or are we going to head down the path of whatever these judges think is best? Terri was alive. The courts killed her. The courts killed her in a barbaric fashion. Others are already facing and will face a similar fate if we don't do something."
...
Having won control of two branches of the federal government, the activists of the religious right have come to see the courts as the intolerable obstacle thwarting their dream of a reborn Christian nation. They believe in a revisionist history, taught in Christian schools and spread through Christian media, which claims biblical law as the source of the Constitution. Thus any ruling that contradicts their theology seems to them to be de facto unconstitutional, and its enforcement tyrannical.

Some believe that the problem can be rectified by replacing liberal judges with conservative ones. Others, noting that even judges appointed by Republicans often rule against them, have become convinced that they must destroy the federal judiciary itself. Thus, ideas offered at the conference ranged from ending the filibuster and impeaching all but the most right-wing judges to abolishing all federal courts below the Supreme Court altogether. At least one panelist dropped coy hints about murder.

I think the Muslims call this Sharia law, but whatever we call it, sectarian law is never, ever a good idea. The rules are always arbitrary, and often intolerably cruel by modern standards. I for one don't want to see a single wife or daugther murdered by the State in the name of God by "Culture of Life" fundamentalists for the crime of being raped. Leave that to the Saudis and the Taliban.

There is a phrase that was abused in the sixties but which I think applies, in a whole new light, here. America, love it or leave it. If you want religious law, go to the Middle East, and suffer the consequences.

Posted by Steven at 01:14 PM | Comments (2)

April 05, 2005

Scholars Disagree

On the GOP, that is. Paul Krugman's column today tries to explain why so few in academia are Republican. Maybe it's because they carry a dogmatic world-view that runs counter to Science, Reason and Critical Thinking (aren't those, along with Secular Humanism, the Great Sins of our times?).

Think of the message this sends: today's Republican Party - increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research - doesn't respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn't be surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the Republican Party.

Conservatives should be worried by the alienation of the universities; they should at least wonder if some of the fault lies not in the professors, but in themselves. Instead, they're seeking a Lysenkoist solution that would have politics determine courses' content.

And it wouldn't just be a matter of demanding that historians play down the role of slavery in early America, or that economists give the macroeconomic theories of Friedrich Hayek as much respect as those of John Maynard Keynes. Soon, biology professors who don't give creationism equal time with evolution and geology professors who dismiss the view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old might face lawsuits.

If it got that far, universities would probably find ways to cope - by, say, requiring that all entering students sign waivers. But political pressure will nonetheless have a chilling effect on scholarship. And that, of course, is its purpose.

All I ask is that if you reject Science, that you give up the benefits of it, too. Like technology, and learning. And civilization "as we know it". It can't be that hard to follow your cold, dogmatic heart on this, can it?

Posted by Steven at 03:10 PM | Comments (1)

April 04, 2005

Ann Coulter Almost Starts Riot

Can't take even a mild warm front, let alone the real heat. Ann Coulter gave a lecture at Kansas University and was heckled by "liberals" in the audience (like this never happens when Michael Moore speaks publically). Her response? She asked for ten "college Republicans" to remove the hecklers, in effect, she deputized thugs to stifle free speech. Good thing she doesn't rely on free speech herself to get her message of violence out to the GOP.

Posted by Steven at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2005

Jeb Bush's Florida

Meanwhile, across the peninsula... This story is nothing but a stupid tragedy, but it struck me as being a microcosm, a snapshot of the Florida that Jeb governs and the America that his prodigal brother oversees.

As her parents lay mortally wounded, a 5-year-old girl called 911, telling an emergency dispatcher, "I think they're dead." Police said Aeneas and Julie Hernlen were shot to death early Monday by a man who mistakenly believed the couple had turned him in for drug possession. Their daughter, Tia, was not harmed.

Investigators said the gunman, David Edward Johnson, 33, committed suicide later Monday. The Hernlens had nothing to do with his drug arrest late last year, authorities said.

It's got it all -- death (double homicide style, with a side of suicide), drugs (not mentioned in this article, but including steroids), bad intel, and a child's life ruined in a moment of rage (brought on by suspicion that the victims were upholding the law) manifested through gunfire.

Young Tia Hernlen is now in the care of relatives, but her life is shattered; here's hoping she continues to show the strength and courage, and receive the love, needed to endure.

All this, in Jeb Bush's Florida.

Where's the massive, public displays of outrage? Where's the demand that something be done for this young survivor? Probably in the same place where the political value of this situation lies: nowhere, since there is none.

Heartfelt condolences, and hopes for better days, for Tia Hernlen.

Shifting a bit, I'd like to see a national awareness campaign, and really it'd require the NRA to lead it, to stave off the massive, wholesale slaughters of people by deranged gunmen who later take their own lives. The promotional angle is this: Thinking of going on a killing spree with firearms? Shoot yourself first. The benefits are many; no need to face off against the police; valuable police time not needed to track you down; many fewer lives and families destroyed. Saves time and effort all around, since you (the gunman) are going to cap yourself anyway; skip ahead to the big finish.

Think of it as going postal with a SASE.

Posted by at 01:19 AM | Comments (2)

March 31, 2005

RIP: Terri Schiavo

The New York Times offers a solumn editorial/obit of Terri Schiavo.

Posted by Steven at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

Terri's War

Is there a scarier place to live than in Florida right now? This is terrifying (are they, then, terrorists?).

Norm Olson, senior adviser to the Michigan militia and pastor of a strong right-to-life church in Wolverine, said Tuesday he had put together an unarmed coalition of state militias that were prepared to storm the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo has been left to die, and take her to a safe house.

And then do what? Watch her die in private? She's got that already.

Olson said he needed only the OK from Schiavo's father, Robert Schindler, either directly or through his attorney David Gibbs, to put the plan, called "Operation Resurrection," into action on Sunday.

But Olson said Gibbs contacted the FBI instead of passing his message on to Schindler.

Olson said the FBI had been monitoring e-mails within militia groups and on Tuesday, March 29, sent an agent from Traverse City to his home in Alanson and other agents to militia leaders in the South to question them about the plan.

The FBI was unavailable for comment.

Olson said that last Thursday he phoned Gibbs' secretary with a message that he had organized 1,500 to 2,000 militia members from Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia and Michigan, who were ready to remove Schiavo from the hospice and take her in a convoy to a safe house.

Olson said he never was able to speak directly to the Schindlers or Gibbs.

"Gibbs probably told the Schindlers not to get the militia involved. That's why Schindler came out with statement that he did not want any civil disobedience. Now they're begging for someone to do something, but it's too late," Olson said.

Olson said the militias needed time to arrange for an ambulance, medical support staff and a safe house before the plan could be put into action.

"We would have overwhelmed the local law enforcement," Olson said, adding the militias would not have been armed.

Uh-huh. 2000 private militia, allegedly unarmed; local law enforcement, already established as determined to uphold the court order, and definitely armed. This would not have been confused with the annual July 4th parade and barbecue in the town square.

Olson said the other reason for the plan was to put Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, the brother of the U.S. president, on the spot.

"He would have had to send in state police or the National Guard to turn us away," Olson said. "None of us believe that he is helpless. He is the chief officer of the state and has the power of executive clemency. (Jeb) Bush was a liar when he said he couldn't do it. He knows his office has to represent the people. And judges have to know they are not infallible. All this was thwarted by Gibbs."

I like the bit about Bush being a liar. I don't know if there's any judges who consider themselves infallible.

He said the march to the hospice would have been similar to the massive March on Washington led by Martin Luther King in 1963.

What bullshit.

"We were just going to push people out of the way. It was the mood and the heartbeat of America," he said.

Yeah. Right. No risk of escalation here. This would have been a battlefront on Florida soil.

"In reality there are four branches of government in America, and we the people are the fourth. That's what our march was going to do: Show the American people that we were still in control."

"We the people are the final judges, not the black-robed demons. I do not believe that 70 percent of the American people thought it was wrong for government to get involved. They turned around when they believed Terri Schiavo's was a lost cause and wanted to be on the winning side."

OK, three points.
1. Nice comment on judges. That's the way to conduct a useful dialogue. Not.
2. Polls indicated 82% of Americans thought that the federal government should stay out of this affair. But, faith ("...I do not believe...") is a very powerful thing.
3. Um, you just said that people were the fourth branch of government -- so, should you be getting involved, or not? Just searching for the consistency here.

"America has lost hope because, where there's life there's hope, but it is the black-robed devils who are deciding who lives and dies."

"We should all err on the side of life, whether it's an unborn American or someone facing the end of life. The feeding tube is like an umbilical cord or premature babies in an ICU (intensive care unit).

Life, invariably, inevitably, comes with death. We know this. There's not many who are seeking to embrace this actively, but the incapacity of people merely to acknowledge this is exasperating. A "culture of life" without practical, pragmatic, sensible limits robs the dying of their remaining dignity, and that's a very bad tradeoff.

"The case of Terri Schiavo is tragic, macabre, dark and evil," Olson said.

The circus surrounding her final days certainly isn't helping improve matters.

I never could teach Joshua the most important lesson.

What's that?

Futility. That there's a time when you should just give up.

I maintain that someone in this sordid mess needs to recognize this.

I don't know the Schindlers personally and cannot honestly hold an opinion on the sort of people they are. But I do appreciate that they did not accept this appalling offer.

Posted by at 12:26 AM | Comments (1)

March 30, 2005

Viva El Pappa

Oops, I'm sorry. "El Pappa" means "The Potato" (without the 'e', sorry Mr. Quayle). I meant to say "El Papa," which means "The Pope." The potato is a vegetable, and the Pope is... well, hold on a minute.

According to this AP report (posted on Salon.com), the Pope is now being fed through a tube.

So, how long before thousands of Catholics and attendant nutcases march on the Vatican calling them murderers for allowing an ailing old man to proceed to his exist interview with his Boss?

Posted by at 07:45 AM | Comments (1)

March 29, 2005

Right To Torture ... er ... Lifers

Maybe the Schiavo pro-lifers have skeletons in their closets? Check out this set of quotes from a man who is holding vigil over Terri Schiavo, a scant month after he held Iraqis in buckets of water and electrocuted their nuts. These people make me sick, but they are the face of America overseas.

Posted by Steven at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2005

DeLay: Been There, Did That

Guess who also put a relative to death via feeding tube? DeLay let his injured, comatose father die without life-support in 1988, and now he's taking his personal guilt out on Michael Schiavo and his brain-dead wife Terri.

A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.

Then, freshly reelected to a third term in the House, the 41-year-old DeLay waited, all but helpless, for the verdict of doctors.

Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with his Senate counterpart, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to champion political intervention in the Schiavo case. They pushed emergency legislation through Congress to shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.

And DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls "an act of barbarism" in removing the tube.

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

When his father's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do not resuscitate."

On Dec. 14, 1988, the DeLay patriarch "expired with his family in attendance."

Do you need any more proof that this sick bastard is a hypocrite? By his own "evolving" standards, he murdered his own father. Now he's washing the guilt off on another man whom he has never met and who did nothing to deserve this depraved treatment. "Follow the money," said 'Deep Throat'. We say, "follow the guilt."

Posted by Steven at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2005

Schiavo For Dummies

It's just another anti-abortion debate. Read Ed Kilgore's commentary on the Schiavo case to get a sense of what is really at stake, legally.

Posted by Steven at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

Beyond McCarthyism

Frank Rich's column in The New York Times offers several startling insights into this growing jihad against our secular society and Rule of Law.

As Congress and the president scurried to play God in the lives of Terri Schiavo and her family last weekend, ABC kicked off Holy Week with its perennial ritual: a rebroadcast of the 1956 Hollywood blockbuster, "The Ten Commandments."

Cecil B. DeMille's epic is known for the parting of its Technicolor Red Sea, for the religiosity of its dialogue (Anne Baxter's Nefretiri to Charlton Heston's Moses: "You can worship any God you like as long as I can worship you.") and for a Golden Calf scene that DeMille himself described as "an orgy Sunday-school children can watch." But this year the lovable old war horse has a relevance that transcends camp. At a time when government, culture, science, medicine and the rule of law are all under threat from an emboldened religious minority out to remake America according to its dogma, the half-forgotten show business history of "The Ten Commandments" provides a telling back story.

As DeMille readied his costly Paramount production for release a half-century ago, he seized on an ingenious publicity scheme. In partnership with the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nationwide association of civic-minded clubs founded by theater owners, he sponsored the construction of several thousand Ten Commandments monuments throughout the country to hype his product. The Pharaoh himself - that would be Yul Brynner - participated in the gala unveiling of the Milwaukee slab. Heston did the same in North Dakota. Bizarrely enough, all these years later, it is another of these DeMille-inspired granite monuments, on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin, that is a focus of the Ten Commandments case that the United States Supreme Court heard this month.

...

All this is happening while polls consistently show that at most a fifth of the country subscribes to the religious views of those in the Republican base whom even George Will, speaking last Sunday on ABC's "This Week," acknowledged may be considered "extremists." In that famous Election Day exit poll, "moral values" voters amounted to only 22 percent. Similarly, an ABC News survey last weekend found that only 27 percent of Americans thought it was "appropriate" for Congress to "get involved" in the Schiavo case and only 16 percent said it would want to be kept alive in her condition. But a majority of American colonists didn't believe in witches during the Salem trials either - any more than the Taliban reflected the views of a majority of Afghans. At a certain point - and we seem to be at that point - fear takes over, allowing a mob to bully the majority over the short term. (Of course, if you believe the end is near, there is no long term.)

...

Next to what's happening now, official displays of DeMille's o