The Staton Jones Report

December 28, 2006

Freeper QOTD

"Mr. Silverback" comments on Bob Woodwards revelation that Gerald Ford was opposed to the Iraq war:

I would also submit that if war against Iraq was not justified--even without the WMDs--then there is no justification for war by American forces anywhere at any time.

That's all he says on the subject.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2006

A Very Freeper Xmas

Yesterday, writer33 as Free Republic, wished his (her?) fellow Freepers a "Very FReeper Christmas." In the beginning of this ode to Freepism, the author notes:

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, "Free Republic has some of the finest minds I’ll ever know."

Whoa. What qualifies as a "fine mind" for writer33?

And a special thanks to Rush Limbaugh. You have galvanized the conservative movement, enacted the "New Media," and given hope and optimism to so many people. You ardently support Americans and give us daily doses of truths. Thank you for keeping “The Passion” alive. Merry Christmas, Rush Limbaugh.

Ah. Well. With Rush Limbaugh as the top of the find mind list, let's see some other fine minds at work:

Condor7: "Aha. Now the treasonous nature of the Dmocrat Party comes flying to the fore. I wonder how many of the liberal socialist crowd have back channels to Zahwhari? It is likely the prime reason they were caterwalling so loudly about the Presidents telephone surveillance program."
Responding to Al Qaeda's message about the American elections

bray: "These people were shields for the terrorists and our Marines are getting railroaded. We have to make sure they get a fair and OPEN trial. Pray for W and Our Marines
In chorus with others that the charges against the Marines in Haditha must be completely false. Why we need to pray for President Bush is beyond me. Maybe so he doesn't get tried for his war crimes either.

all the best: "Progressive is to keep moving, moving, moving in a leftward direction. Moving and never arriving. No matter how far we go they want to take us a little bit farther. I wish that all liberal/progressives would have the guts to come out and say what their desired end result is. And then they will tell us the shocking truth and we will all know. Or they will lie and then we can hold them to the limit of their lie."
This was on a thread about Air America Radio in Madison, WI. Not sure what it was getting at.

King Moonracer: "I'm sure Al-Quaeda loves Gore too."
Responding to a 3-year-old article about Al Gore joining the Apple board of directors.

chiefqc: "This judge can sleep well knowing he just enabled this horrific doctor to continue to murder babies for money."
Responding to a story about a judge who threw out a baseless case against an abortion provider. The case had been brought by an anti-abortion crusading DA in Kansas.

Yeah. Free Republic, what a brain trust.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2006

Bigot Ex-Judge Speaks! (Well, Grunts...)

WorldNutDaily is sure on a tear. Today, they've brought us a cheery essay by ex-Judge Roy Moore. Moore, you may remember, was a justice on the Alabama Supreme Court who used his governmental authority to place a marble monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments in front of his courthouse. Moore had somehow made it to a rather distinguished legal position without ever encountering the U.S. Constitution, which strictly forbids the government from making such an explicit religious endorsement.

You'd think that after losing his job due to his unfamiliarity with this important legal document, he might take a gander at it — see what else it had to say about things. Apparently not. In this article Moore asks the question, "Can a true believer in the Islamic doctrine found in the Quran swear allegiance to our Constitution?"

Moore explores a variety of sources to answer this question, none of them having any bearing on the question. He quotes the founding fathers as if they were royalty, setting policy by fiat. Once again, he doesn't check that pesky Constitution for an answer.

The answer is right in Article IV: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." So the answer is yes. A true believer (or unbeliever) in anything can take the oath of office.

What a stupid asshole.

Denis Prager, who stepped in this shit several weeks ago, noted that "For the record, because I deem this a significant statement about most of the Left, I found virtually no left-wing blog that was not filled with obscenity-laced descriptions of me." Actually, Dennis there's a possibility that it's a statement about you: maybe there's no better way to describe you than "fucking asshole." I have a pretty extensive vocabulary and I'm at a loss for a more accurate depiction of someone who thinks that Ellison has some legal or moral requirement to swear on any holy book, whether his or Pragers. Read the Constitution, fucknut. Oh no! Obscenity again!

OK, OK, what has Prager got to say about this, really? "My belief that the Bible should be present at any oath (or affirmation) of office has nothing whatsoever to do with the religion of the office holder." He goes on to explain that the Holy Book of choice is up to the government (and where does it say the government can't mandate a Holy Book? Huh?!), not the office holder. It's OK, you see, because they don't have to believe it. They just have to hold it. No shit, he writes this.

What. A. Dick.

How much longer do we have to put up with an atmosphere where people feel comfortable saying things like this in public and major networks (not just Faux News, but CNN), feel comfortable giving them a microphone and a few million viewers to say it in front of?

Posted by Winston Smith at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2006

Soy Makes you Gay

John at AMERICABlog noticed that WorldNetDaily published something stupid. That's really not news, John, but props for finding such a cornucopia of stupidity.

It's totally worth clicking through to the Megashit Ministries' site.

EVIDENCE ANNOUNCED IN MEGASHIFT: a surge of documented miracles, unprecedented in scope, including resurrections in 49 countries just in the last 15-20 years!

Evidence, huh? I guess I missed that issue of WorldNetDaily.

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2006

Oh, Too Perfect

No postings recently. It's not that there's nothing to say, but rather too much. It's already covered on, like, 18,000 other blogs anyway.

As I was waiting around for something original to say, I found this post at Bitch, PhD. If you read no other blog post this year, read this one (and the ones it links to).

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2006

Profit the Prophet

SJR readers are, no doubt, painfully aware that a rather vocal segment of the wingnut right wants to you know that there is a monster under your bed and that monster is Islam. Boo! Scared yet? They are, and they want you to be scared, too, so you'll support their campaigns of hatred and hostility against Muslim populations. I know it's asking a lot for a wingnut to think past the end of his own dick — or whatever — but I have to wonder, "To what end?"

Saddam Hussein, as rotten as he was, did, at least, have a secular state where women enjoyed unprecedented civil rights for the Arab world. While it may be just as well that Hussein has been deposed, is it really progress — in the eyes of wingnuts — that his regime is being replaced with an Islamic Republic, dedicated to Shari'a law? I don't have the frothing hatred and fear of Islam that they do, but I don't particuarly like theocracies, Muslim or otherwise.

I agree with my ideological opponents that the worst thing Iran has going for it, is that its government is in the grip of backwards, fundamentalist mullahs. So what are we supposed to do about that? Most of them, as I understand it, advocate "regime change" in Iran, mirroring our spectacularly successful "regime change" in Iraq.

But even in some neo-con fantasy, where a few well-placed tactical nukes trigger the rise of Jeffersonian democracy in Iran, does anyone expect Iran to stop being a predominantly shi'ite country? Was America supposedly populated by muslims who converted to Christianity the moment John Hancock signed the Declaration? No. We've largely kept the religious tradition that set settlers brought over.

According to the rabid wingnuts who descended a couple of days ago and their ilk, there's no such thing as a peaceful muslim country and no such thing as a peaceful muslim. What, exactly does one do about that? Genocide? If you buy their heated rhetoric, where else can you go?

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:29 PM | Comments (1)

May 21, 2006

Apes, Tuxedos and the Functioning Alcoholics

I would like to start out by denying that I am an "Ape in a Tuxedo" as charged by the ambulatory schizophrenic running the "Sigmund Carl and Alfred" blog. I am not wearing a tuxedo.

Nothing rattles ignorant xenophobes more than being caught in a lie. Over the past few days, I've written about about a particular lie that was floated by a bitter Iranian ex-patriot, and then trumpeted by the wingnut blogosphere. In the course of this, I tried to make a point about levelling unfounded accusations by satirically calling another blogger a "Nazi." This, and the fact that I am not filled with irrational hatred of Muslims has been the focus of the response.

I shouldn't bandy about the word "focus" too carelessly, because the most extended response, from "Siggy" is an incoherent expectoration of ignornace, fear and hatred. Of course, it is rife with the requisite ad hominems, particular that of calling me an ape — an epithet I don't really mind. Siggy is so proud of his puerile jab he repeats it incessantly. Such hostility. Finally, there is little need to mention the army of strawmen Siggy erects in the course of his rambling bombinations.

[Winston Smith] concedes there may be some anti Semitic acts, but not condoned by the regimes.

I never said this. I said that the poor treatment of Jews and Christians is proscribed in Islamic law (Hadith), although not necessarily seen in practice. There isn't any debate that the Iranian regime is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. The debate is whether the Iranian regime passed a law requiring non-Muslims to wear badges (it hasn't even considered passing such a law) and whether the President of Iran declared a desire to "wipe Irael off the map" (he didn't).

Meanwhile, Siggy whips himself into a lather and barks out — are these supposed to be counterpoints? — non-sequitors like these:

The civilized world is waiting for Muslim outrage and mass, violent protests against the beheading of non combatants in Iraq and elsewhere.

...

The civilized world is waiting for outrage at the GIA, Algerian fundamentalists that raped children (before dismembering them), as a matter of religious policy (apparently, the Prophet would be more incensed at his portrayal in newspaper cartoons than he would be at the rape of children).

...

The civilized world is waiting for outrage at the ongoing Arab slave traders in Mauritania.

...

No word yet at Muslim outrage at the slaughter by the Arab tribal Janjaweed of Christians and animist in Darfur (so much fun that the Muslim women sing as their 'men' rape women).

...

The civilized world is waiting for the outrage at children being executed in Iran.

There's a bunch of these and I have to agree that they are outrages — at least the ones that are true; Siggy trots out the "wipe off the map" canard, again. The civilized world is waiting for Turkish outrage over the extermination of 85% fo the Armenians, Japanese outrage over the rape of Nanking and Indonesian outrage over the genocide against the East Timorese, too. Of course, Siggy was talking about outrageous acts in the muslim world, not elsewhere. Then again, I was just talking about a specific act within Iran, so there's something to be said for sticking to the fucking subject.

On that note, one of Siggy's calls for outrage was this little gem:

The civilized world is waiting for outrage at the 100 million women that have suffered Female Genital Mutilation.

Is it really that many? Hmmm... well, whatever the case, female genital mutilation is an African practice, not part of Islam. If the civilized is wondering why muslims aren't any more outraged than anyone else, then perhaps the civilized world needs to get out more. I'm really curious to see if Siggy is willing to call "Africans" on the carpet or not. It's not clear if he hates ordinary niggers as much as he hates sand niggers.

What I find most telling about Siggy's article is the repetition of the "chest-beating ape" image to describe me as someone trying to drown out reason with heated rhetoric. Ironically, in the entire course of a rather long, original essay, he doesn't address a single thing I actually said. Siggy claims to be a psycho-therapist, so I assume he's familiar with the term "projection." If he nees a functional definition, he should look in a mirror.

Update: Apparently, Siggy isn't content to keep his simian chest-beating bigotry in his own sty; no, he has to pollute our comments section with it. Read it yourselves. The guy is a raving lunatic and somewhat of a liar, too. From his comment:

Further, although I never mentioned the 'wipe of the map' remark (reread my post), I don't have to.

From his post:

No word yet of Muslim outrage at Iran's Almadinejad's Holocaust denial or his stated aim of 'wiping Israel off the map.'

I'm supposed to re-read what now? Oh, and he misspelled Ahmadinejad.

There are between 1.5 and 2 billion muslims on the planet. If Islam is really this unified force for world domination, then I guess we're pretty much fucked already. Fortunately, the vast majority of muslims want nothing to do with war and don't particularly hate Jews and Christians, although there is a pretty widespread dislike of Israel.

Finally, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do about these atrocities other than what I'm doing now, which is to support peace and freedom and oppose hatred. I think that latter part is the problem. I don't hate the Global Muslim Conspiracy™ as much as people like Siggy think I should. (Is this guy really a psycho-therapist? I'll beleive that he's a psycho, but therapy for what? Being too content?) But really, I know where this is going: "bomb Iran." Yeah, that will solve everything, demonstrate our moral superiority and enlighten the miserable Islamists as to the benefits of democracy.

Oh yeah, Iranian democracy. Mossadeq. Look it up.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:32 PM | Comments (7)

May 20, 2006

All Things Blithering

Ask any war-happy wingnut, and they will gleefully inform you that Iranian President Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Ask them for a direct quote and you're highly unlike to get this:

و امام عزيز ما فرمودند كه اين رژيم اشغالگر قدس بايد از صفحه روزگار محو شود

You won't get this for two reasons. First, most wingnuts speak only one language — and frequently badly, at that — English, and those who speak more than one almost never speak Farsi or Arabic. Second, anyone who speaks Farsi fluently wouldn't claim that this was a call to "wipe Israel off the map," especially in the context of the entire speech.

Out-of-context mistranslation is the bread and butter of anyone who ever quotes the King James Bible, and most wingnuts will quote it abundantly, some not even realizing that Bible wasn't written in 17th Century English. Also, we're talking about wingnuts and truth isn't a big part of "being right" for them — more on this later.

Yesterday, I wrote an entry about a big fat hairy lie bouncing around the wingnut echo chamber and I "trackbacked" to several of the blogs peddling this lie. Gibbering mouthbreather, Alexandra, of "All Things Beautiful" was kind enough to respond to my post and invite further ridicule. Here it is.

In case you need some more ammunition to insult, I have written another long article about it today.

Thankyou, Alexandra, and thank you for making it so fucking easy.

The post is long and includes a lot of bullshit including some out-of-context quotes from 10th-14th Century imams, and best of all, a lengthy citation from Amir Taheri's article. She claims that Taheri "confirms today in the New York Post," apparently blissfully unaware that the Post is merely running the article that that invented this story in the first place. I linked to Taheri's article yesterday, but apparently the slow-witted Alexandra didn't pick up on the fact that Taheri is, in fact, the only person in the world who claimed that Iran had passed a law requiring non-muslims to wear identifying badges.

Inability to comprehend sourcing is another wingnut trait. If one person makes a claim and 99 other people repeat it, then 100 people said it — as long as it fits their preconceived world view. 100 eye-witnesses who disagree with their personal religion are "biased" or even "liars."

Alexandra's lengthy cut-n-paste-laden essay is intended to support a premise that made my jaw literally drop open: truth doesn't matter. In her own words:

It really doesn't matter whether or not the Iranian Mullahs actually have passed the law forcing Iranian Jews and Christians to wear colored badges identifying them as non-Muslims.

OK, so it doesn't really matter whether claims she makes about what the Iranians do are true or not. Um, why?

What matters is, that they are not only perfectly capable of passing such a law, but that Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad and his cohort Mullahs are most certainly breathlessly awaiting the day when such laws are testament to their progress towards establishing the Caliphat, complete with Shari'a laws imposing segregation of first class, i.e. Muslims and second class citizens, otherwise known as Dhimmis, whose right to live depends at best on their ability to pay 'protection tax', or Jizya poll tax.

See? It doesn't really matter what they do because we know what they're capable of. Nevermind that this characterization of Islam is provably false.

Christians and Jews living in Islamic Republics are not second-class citizens. It is expressly forbidden to treat them as such — they are fellow "people of the book."

Now, you can easily come up with plenty of examples where Jews and Christians are treated shabily in Islamic countries, but law and practice are two different things. For example, it became illegal to treat blacks as second class citizens in the United States in the late 1860's, but it wasn't until the 1960's that anyone made a good-faith effort to put that into practice; in fact, we're still working the bugs out of it today.

Ironically, during the periods from which the ominous Imams' quotes are taken, the safest place in the Western Hemisphere for Jews was in Islamic countries. They paid their tax and were left alone. Meanwhile, back in Europe, Alexandra's ancestors were burning Jews at the stake and destroying their temples in pogrom after bloody pogrom. Alexandra's family hails from the former Yugoslavia where there were no fewer than three concentration camps located in Jasenovac, Rab and Sajmiste. In nearly 4000 years of recorded history, the Persians (Iranians) have never hosted a concentration camp. Ever. Not a single one. In fact, many of the Armenians who survived the 1915 genocide were shielded from the Turks because they lived in Persia.

But lets get back to the Nazis.

Alexandra's gross mischaracterizations should sound familiar to anyone who has studied the Holocaust. Similar mischaracterizations were made of Jews and Romany Gypsies (who hail from her ancestral homeland). Any Nazi of good standing could level an accusation against a Jew or a Romany and the accused would be presumed guilty and possibly sumarily executed for the crime. The truth of the accusation was irrelevant because Jews and Gypsies were of such low character — as "everyone knew" — that the accusation might as well be true. In any case, if they weren't guilty of the specific crime, it could be assumed that they were guilty of some other crime or would be guilty in the future, so why waste the opportunity to cleanse the fatherland (or Yugoslavia, as the case may be)?

So Alexandra sounds like a Nazi. She sure looks like a Nazi (if that's an accurate image of her). Is she a Nazi? Sure, why not? After all, it doesn't really matter whether or not she claims to be a Nazi, what matters is that in my fevered imagination, she's ready to don a Gestapo uniform the minute the UPS guy delivers it to her doorstep.

Finally, a note "towards the person"; she wrote:

So many ad hominems on one page, are you always this prolific?

You tell me. You (potential) Nazi!

Update: Well, from the "that dead horse wouldn't be moving if you weren't still flogging it department", Alexandra shared a rather involved essay from one of her readers (it's in the comments). This guy gets a silver star for knowing Farsi. He would get a gold star, but I believe the correct translation of the remark is "...must vanish from..." not "must be erased," but close enough. He still takes the quote out of context. Big surprise. In any case, I doubt we'll be seeing the wingnuts change their charge to "Ahmadinejad said that the Jerusalem-occupying regime must be obliterated from the page of time!" because that is a political goal, not a military goal, and wingnuts don't like anything that doesn't have a body count. (Also, nice brag that he knows Turkish, a language with two irregular verbs, it's not that hard to learn.) Interestingly, the commenter directs me to MEMRI for futher instruction, although their translation of Ahmadinejad's line jives with mine, not his.

I guess I'm supposed to be learned a great deal about the awfulness of the Iranian government, if not Iranians, Arabs and Muslims in general. Of course, there was yet another deluge of blather about Ahmadinejad's anti-Zionism, which is brazen and unforgivable and which I never denied. The author appears to be trying to establish that "Like John Kerry, Mr. Jones seems to be constitutionally incapable of realizing that some things are, indeed, lucidly clear." I think Mr. Jones will be very hurt by this allegation as he hasn't posted on this blog for over a year.

I haven't spoken to Mr. Jones on this subject, but I think he would find it lucidly clear that Amir Taheri manufactured a lie about the Iranian government, Alexandra and her ilk heralded it all over the blogosphere, and once it had become clear that it was false, have refused to admit that, choosing, instead, to fill my inbox with infantile rants. There are a lot of reasons to hate the regime in Iran, but I'm not going to swallow a conflation of anecdotes and shit out hatred for all Persians, Arabs and Muslims, which is what my critics are all about — and as much as I find them vile, I'm going to leave their words in the comments section as testament to their frothing hatred of all things not like them.

As far as the traffic goes, we at the SJR couldn't care less. We don't run ads, we run the truth, albiet with toungue-in-cheek. Deal with it, you big babies. Oh, and nice with the "lawyer" comment, that really raises your credibility, fucknut. It's the Internet equivalent of "I know karate!"

Posted by Winston Smith at 07:07 PM | Comments (6)

Gullible Perspective

The right-wingnut blogs are all atwitter about a new law in "Islamofascist" Iran requiring Jews and Christians to wear identifying badges. The real problem here is that this story isn't remotely true; it is another big, fat, hairy lie from serial liar and bitter ex-Iranian propagandist Amir Taheri.

Taheri is a big celebrity on the right wing blogs for his article telling the wingnuts everything they ever wanted to hear about how great Iraq is going. Apparently, the "MSM" is hiding the truth, as are — I pointed this out yesterday — the Iraqis blogging live from Iraq. Damn, it seems that no one but Amir Taheri and a hoard of sedentary pee-pee-pants conservative cowards know how great things are going. Didn't the MSM listen to Rumsfeld? We've turned the corner in Iraq! This time we're really gonna make it! You'll see!

Anyway, the "Vital Perspective" blog breathlessly reported that "Iran Parliament Passes Law Requiring Nazi Style Badges for Jews, Christians". Oh my god! Where did they get that?! It came from an article in the Canadian National Post. Did they verify it? Sure! They asked some Iranians — Iranians who live in Canada. One of those Iranians? Amir Taheri.

Maurice Motammed, a Jewish MP in Iran vociferously denied that any such law had been passed. So has the Iranian Embassy. In this second story, a follow-up run by the National Post, someone actually speaks to Jews in Iran:

Sam Kermanian, of the U.S.-based Iranian-American Jewish Federation, said in an interview from Los Angeles that he had contacted members of the Jewish community in Iran -- including the lone Jewish member of the Iranian parliament.

They denied any such measure was in place.

Hmmmm, I dunno. Maybe we should invade Iran just to make sure. I mean, that has worked so well in neighboring Iraq.

I really don't know what else I can say.

Oh yeah, wingnuts are reprehensible liars and morons, but that should be obvious.

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:23 PM | Comments (2)

May 19, 2006

Dr. Idiot

An imbecile calling herself "Dr. Sanity" — a play on her name "Santy," I believe — has posted another Kaloogianesque bit claiming that Iraq is doing really great and that the "MSM" is making it look bad because, well, because they're pootyheads.

What is the good doctor's proof that the editors of America's largest newspapers are unfairly trashing our efforts in Iraq? Well, she's found an article written by the former editor of the largest Iranian newspaper. I kid you not.

Amir Taheri, Dr. Santy's "expert," lost or fled his position during the 1979 Islamic revolution, so it would be ignorant to accuse him of supporting the mullahs that taunt us from Tehran nowadays. No, Taheri lived and worked as the mouthpiece for brutal dictatorship of Shah Reza Palahvi. So someone skilled at running a propaganda operation is being held up as a foil to the press of the entire Western world. This genius of using this guy just strengthens the irony of using an op-ed peice by a fixture of the MSM to "prove" that the fact-checked news articles of the MSM are dishonest.

Taheri isn't the first Iranian stooge to figure out that a "rah-rah Bush" story would get them the good graces of the neo-conservatives. Taxpayers shelled out $350,000 a month to Ahmed Chalabi to have him spoonfeed the Bush Administration whatever his Iranian handlers wanted him to. And a "rah-rah" piece it is, too. In the first paragraph, Teheri trots out the bogus wingnut talking point that "journalists don't leave their hotel rooms." Tell that to Jill Carroll. If the journalists are "cocooned in hotels in Baghdad" as Taheri puts it, how is it that more journalists have died in 3 years of covering Iraq than died in 8 years of covering Vietnam (which, as any wingnut will tell you, was a much worse conflict than Iraq).

You see, Amir Taheri knows something that zombies like Dr. Santy and her drooling herded fan base don't know. It isn't that the beloved Bush puppet regime in Iraq is is doing well, it's that the hated Iranian regime is doing well. Very well. If there's a clear winner in America's Iraq adventure, its the mullahs in Tehran. How do I know this? Did I consult the MSM or the New York Times? No, I can get this information from Iraqi bloggers such as Riverbend:

We constantly hear our new puppets rant and rave against Syria, against Saudi Arabia, against Turkey, even against the country they have to thank for their rise to power- America… But no one dares to talk about the role Iran is planning in the country.

The last few days we’ve been hearing about Iranian attacks on northern Iraq- parts of Kurdistan that are on the Iranian border. Several sites were bombed and various news sources are reporting Iranian troops by the thousand standing ready at the Iraqi border. Prior to this, there has been talk of Iranian revolutionary guard infiltrating areas like Diyala and even parts of Baghdad.

Even over at the pro-war Iraqi blog, Iraq The Model, Bush's Iraqi cheerleaders have to admit that Iran is infiltrating Iraq militarily. One commenter at Dr. Santy's blog posted a quote from Omar at Iraq the Model to demonstrate how upbeat they are:

Can you imagine what things will be like when Baghdad becomes a safe place where diplomats are not afraid to come, businessmen are not afraid to invest their money, people are not afraid to go to work, passenger flights are not afraid to land like they do in other airports in this world?

I can, and it's a vision of beauty that can become a reality.

How touching. You must read the rest of the article where Omar laments the complete lack of security in the capital. Better yet, read Mohammed's post from a week later which wraps up with a more defeated tone:

Anyway, promises about an improvement in power production and supplies by 2008 is not largely convincing to people living under the burning sun of Baghdad under which promises evaporate and dreams of a cool A/C breeze evaporate as well.

Apparently we are destined to have more rough summers.

Getting back to the Iranians, though, why not just say, "Hey, if we don't win in Iraq, then it will fall — or parts of it will fall — to Iran." I've been against this war since day zero, and I find that a compelling argument against "cut and run." The reason that this sensible argument won't be heard coming from the Dr. Sanity's or Amir Tahari's of the world is simple. In order to make this argument, you must admit what a terrible, terrible bunch of fuck-ups Bush and his crew have been. If Iraq does, indeed, need an international military presence to help it stabilize, it's clear that the US and the UK aren't the right nations to provide that military presence. There's no way in hell that the Bush Decidership is going to turn all that oil over to the UN or the Arab league.

So more innocent Iraqis will die for oil and ignorance and smug assholes like Pat Santy will sit on their fat asses in places like Ann Arbor and talk about how great everything must be going in Iraq.

Update: Gateway pundit is also screeching full blast into the wingnut echo chamber. In addition to the source-du-jour, Amir Taheri, he cites data from the oh-so-unbias U.S. commanders of the MNF. They've been tracking refugees and can't seem to find very many. Hmmm... maybe because refugees don't want to be associated with the army that's destroying their homeland? Just a guess.

Posted by Winston Smith at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2006

Shamelessly Playing the Shame Card

The mouthbreathers at the Jawa Report are whining that Cynthia McKinney hasn't already been whupped in the public square for murdering assaulting a police officer. According to the incident report, McKinney stabbed Officer McKenna — with a cell phone. Cell phone wounds can be very serious; during the 90's, I was attacked with a pager — not a regular one, a SkyTel™ two-way! — and I still wake up screaming at night.

There's no doubt that McKinney is in some hot water, but it's just not getting hot enough fast enough for "Bluto":

A little person would already have their trial date set, but when you're Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), accused of assaulting a Capitol Police officer, and willing to shamelessly play the race card, things go a bit slower.

Yeah, well power has its privileges these days. If a "little person" shot someone in the face, they wouldn't have the option of telling the police to come back 14 hours later to investigate, but that's not how it worked for Dick Cheney. The rabid right has become such unwavering cheerleaders for the Imperial Federal Government — I didn't know the Jawas sided the the Empire, but there ya go — that you'd think they'd be defending McKinney's right to have the NSA tap officer McKenna's phone, if not have the poor guy shipped to "Gitmo" for a little lesson in how justice works these days.

But McKinney isn't Cheney. She's not as Republican, not as male and not as white.

Damn! I just shamelessly played the race card. I just don't know why I hate our freedom sometimes.

Posted by Winston Smith at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2006

Racist Republic

You know why there are so many Mexicans in the American southwest? Because it used to be in Mexico. That entire section became "ours" thanks to the Mexican-American war, famously lamented by Ulysees S. Grant as, "the most unjust war ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker." That's all water under the security fence now, but it should serve to remind everyone that the status of Mexicans in our country has a long history, and the United States isn't exactly in the best position, morally, in this story.

If you Google for "Mexican American War," many of the top-ranking links have nothing to do with that history. Instead, they have to do with wingnuts who are trying to spread fear. They aim to recruit the pee-pee-pants conservative coward base into their racist stance against Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal.

The first "defense" you will get is that they are only against illegal immigrants, not legal ones. Right after issuing this clarification, they are likely to lump every single one of the millions of protesters into the "illegal camp."

I attended the march in Dallas last Sunday, and I saw a predominantly middle class crowd largely composed of families. If the parents were not citizens, it's likely that their children are. Whatever the case, I saw people who are clearly established residents and members of the community. Whether or not they are undocumented aliens or not wasn't immediately apparent. The fact that they were standing against the terribly misguided H.R. 4437 means only that they have a conscience; they may also have a green card.

They also bristle at being called racist. The Dallas Morning News reported the words of one of the few counter-protesters:

Miles Walters, 16, a sophomore at Richardson High School, said he was scared when people started throwing water bottles and hunkered under a building for protection. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad,” he said. “Because we take pride in our country they hate us and call us racist.”

Poor racist baby. What the fuck does it mean to "take pride in our country" by trying to tell a crowd of people who you don't know, who are peacefully exercising American freedoms, that they don't belong here? I haven't proud to be an American since Bush took office, but when I saw those thousands of people rising up against the country-club fuckers who have taken power in this nation, I was proud again. Sorry, kid, you can't make racism acceptable by wrapping it in the flag.

Over at Free Racist Republic, prominent Freeper "Doug From Upland" shared one of his celebrated wingnut song parodies:

With them they're bringing a boatload of drugs
In our streets, you can see grandma get mugged
Leaders, hey --- we are really getting bugged

Oh, Mexico
The country is a hellhole of corruption, we know
We'll be so screwed if we don't stop the flow
Illegals from Mexico

An estimated 350,000 to 500,000 people gathered in downtown Dallas. One — that's right, one — person was arrested for public intoxication. There was no other incident. No violence, no property damage. Despite counter-protesters' attempts to egg on the crowd, nothing happened. Nothing — unless you're a pee-pee-pants conservative coward who thinks having a flyweight empty plastic water bottle tossed at you "violence." Even if you do, this is a far cry from the image "Doug From Upland" paints.

The Freepers and their ilk are swimming in Nazi-era rhetoric, talking about how "certain ethnic groups" are undermining our "national heritage," and "destroying our society." They compare these people to vermin (usually cockroaches). They talk about how there is a "war" — virtual and literal. It's all right out of the Joseph Goebbels playbook.

The racists have come home to roost — and their publisher is Regnery.

Update:
The stench of the racist right has apparently wafted under many nostrils lately. To see a rather alarming survey of it, check out this post at the incomparable Firedoglake blog.

Posted by Winston Smith at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)

April 05, 2006

DHS Pervert Found Innocent by Freepers

By now, you've undoubtedly heard about Brian J. Doyle, the criminal — and criminally stupid — Dept. of Homeland Security official who was busted for attempting to seduce a 14-year-old girl who he'd met online. Of course, the Freepers and their ilk have never met a Republican criminal they didn't love. So, predictably, several Freepers are declaring him innocent by reason of "I Say So."

But strictly speaking I do not see where he used a computer to seduce a child.

Looks to me like he used a computer to seduce a detective.
Age of Reason

I'm curious what crime was committed? Flirting with a role playing detective?
Dead Dog

Um, yeah. What does the term "personal responsibily" mean when these people chant it incessantly?

Posted by Winston Smith at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

Bwahahahaha

It happened so fast, I didn't even really have a chance to blog it.

The whine-wing blogosphere rallied around Ben Domenech, wingnut douchebag and, as we discovered in a short period of time, rampant plagiarist.

Ben's tantrumosphere final word was true to wingnut form. He blames everyone but himself. His fawning admirers join in, either ignoring his misdeeds, or rationalizing them.

What I find most interesting are the number of apologists who take the position that plagiarism isn't so bad (even for a writer, I guess) because not only did they plagiarize in their youth, but did much worse things. Newsflash: excluding victimless crimes like illegal drug use, I didn't do anything as bad or worse than plagiarism. Why doesn't it surprise me that Domenech's fan club would be chock full of people who were irresponsible and unethical for a major portion of their lives?

What makes this worse, is that William and Mary — the venue at which the bulk of Domenech's unethical behavior has been uncovered — has a much-touted honor code. Young Domenech was pledged to live by this code, and given the volume of plagiarism discovered in the last 24 hours alone, he couldn't possibly have been unaware of the fact that he was violating it.

In the piece linked above, Domenech claims:

My critics have also accused me of plagiarism in multiple movie reviews for the college paper. I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned. Before that, insertions had been routinely made in my copy, which I did not question. I did not even at that time read the publications from which I am now alleged to have lifted material. When these insertions were made, I assumed, like most disgruntled writers would, that they were unnecessary but legitimate editorial additions.

But all these specifics are beside the point. Considering that all of this happened almost eight years ago, and that there are no files or notes that I've kept from that brief stint, it is simply my word against the liberal blogosphere on these examples. It becomes a matter of who you believe.

Oh my, the "liberal blogosphere"! Well, who, other than "moonbats" would trust them as a source?

Who care? The editor of the paper, the FlatHat, wrote to Atrios:

Hi --

This all seems to have happened really fast. I hadn't really checked the news til midday today when I saw all of this happened. It might be kind of moot now, but I was Domenech's editor at The Flat Hat when he was writing the reviews. Four people, including me, would have handled his copy, the others being my assistant section editor, the managing editor and the editor.

This should seem obvious, but no one on the editorial staff was going into Salon (or wherever) and pasting whole sections into his reviews. We were more concerned about getting the paper done so we could get home at 2 in the morning instead of 5. We may have put additional words in the story, but it would never have been completely foreign content. It was just editing.

So: boo hoo hoo for the right-wing kleptocracy, and kudos to those mean ol' liberals who keep harrassing them with the ugly facts of their own words and actions.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2006

Freeper Proves Saddam Had WMDs... in 1987

An unusually talented Freeper has been translating some of the secret Iraqi documents recently released by the Bush Administration. The latest revelation? Saddam Hussein had WMDs... over a decade ago. The Freepers commenting on this the news are gleeful that there is finally proof that Saddam Hussayn had chemical weapons and used them on the Kurds. But, who said he didn't?

Well, mainly the Reagan Administration, which was in power at the time.

In 1991, the first Bush Adminstration took advantage of an opportunity to denude Iraq of most of its WMDs. A final revelation in 1996 allowed U.N. teams to remove the last of Iraq's arsenal. When we invaded in 2003, there weren't any WMDs. If we'd invaded in 1987, these documents might have been interesting. But we didn't invade in 1987 because Iraq was our ally.

Freepers are retards.

Posted by Winston Smith at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2006

GOPUSA Bashes Gays, Which is Weird

The Freaks are Running the Sideshow warns a frothing anti-gay piece at fake news and propaganda site, GOPUSA. Why is that weird? Well, because GOPUSA was the home site of Jeff "The Canon" Gannon (aka Jim Guckert), a gay male prostitute.

Make up your mind GOPUSA. Is homosexuality bad, or is it something so great you should charge money for it?

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2006

Pee-pee Pants Conservative Cowards

Saddam Hussein has a nuclear bomb hidden in Osama bin Laden's butt! And he's going to set it off in New York and kill all the stupid rednecks in the United States! Quick! Somebody suspend our Constitutional liberties and send our troops to start a civil war in Iraq! Whatever you do, do not — under any circumstances — say anything that might hurt George W. Bush's feelings or he won't protect us from the "terrists"!

Or so goes the subtext of the pee-pee pants conservative cowards. This is a broad group that contains chickenhawks — people who "support" the troops, but wouldn't dream of joining the military or letting their kids enlist — but it covers a lot more. The PPCC's are consumed with fear, mostly fear of stupid things.

I've been reading NewsMax a lot recently, and it occured to me that the psychology of its target audience can, in part, be determined by the banner ads targetted at that audience. Below are all but one of the banner ad images that I found running down the left side a NewsMax page:

Get rich quick schemes, tips for strength, fighting, and longevity... crap. What kind of imbecile would actually pursue the secret for defending themselved by flinging paperclips? The short answer is this: insecure, pathetic pee-pee pants conservative cowards.

Jeebus! Secrets for bagging hot chicks that the "Liberal Media" doesn't want you to know?! Isn't promiscuity supposed to be a liberal vice? Well, if the ads on NewsMax are any indication, the typical NewsMax reader is someone who's desperately afraid of everything — including girls!

Really, it's not a big surprise.

But do they actually wet their pants at the mere mention of the word "terrist"? Well, yes, I'm almost — almost! — certain that they do.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2006

Oh, Those Pesky Pro-War Imbeciles

It's not fair to call someone an imbecile for making a mistake — or even several mistakes. It is however fair to call someone an imbecile for ceaselessly repeating a thoroughly discreditted claim. Of course, no pro-war rationale is ever thoroughly discreditted enough for the wingnuts, hence the fanstasy-based community forges on with false crap they desperately wish was true.

Recently, I've started a daily series re-visiting NewsMax articles to highlight how incredibly wrong their pro-war prognostications were. I challenge the wingnuts (any reading this blog) to try the same thing with Truthout.org or Alternet.org. I'm sure that there are a few bad calls that you could dig up, but not several each day.

One stinker that I overlooked a couple of days ago was U.S.:Syrians Hiding Iraqi Weapons for Cash. This article trots out what has become a favorite wingnut talking point for the last three years: Saddam Hussein had WMDs, he just moved them to Syria. This particular claim has attracted a mob of imbeciles who think it counters the sad reality that we went to war in Iraq over an entirely fictional threat. "If only Saddam did have WMDs!" say the Wingnuts, becoming slightly aroused by the mere thought.

As the NewsMax article points out, even the Bush Administration doubted this claim. Many analysts — including those in the Bush White House — thought that the Israeli-sourced story was an attempt to aim Bush's mindless war machine at Israel's bitter enemy in Damascus. There were satellite images showing people leaving Iraq for Syria, but there isn't a single shred of evidence that they were shipping WMDs; in fact, the opposite it true.

This "weapons to Syria" claim has come back with a fury, due to "new evidence." I'll get to that in a bit, because I'm going to review a a post on the appropriately-named "Right Wing Nuthouse", in which the author reviews the old evidence and crows about the latest "revelations". Note that this blog lists NewsMax in its "media" links, so we're talking about someone who is woefully misinformed in the first place.

Ranking imbecile, Rick Moran, first trots out this canard:

But something always bothered me about this conclusion, a nagging itch at the back of my mind. And that is the overwhelmingly belief by the world’s best intelligence agencies that Saddam did indeed have stockpiles of WMD in the six months leading up to the war. The French, the British, the Germans, The Israeli’s, the United Nations (UNSCOM and IAEA), not to mention the CIA, DIA, and most politicians here in this country.

That’s quite a number of people to be dead wrong about such a huge issue.

Actually, the really hard-to-believe thing was summarized nicely by Peter Daou:

There we were, more than a decade after the first gulf war, two years after 9/11, and Saddam hadn’t attacked us, he hadn’t threatened to attack us. And then suddenly, he was the biggest threat to America. A threat that required a massive invasion. A bigger threat than Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, Bin Laden. A HUGE, IMMEDIATE threat. It simply defied belief.

The simplistic claim that "everyone" believed the WMD myth is demonstrably false. Daou obviates that issue with this nicely succinct counter-point from THE STRAW MEN OF IRAQ: Ten Pro-War Fallacies:

The issue is not whether people believed Saddam had WMD (many did), or whether there was any evidence that he had WMD (there was), it's the fact that Bush and his administration made an absolute, unconditional case with the evidence at hand, brooking no dissent and dismissing doubters inside and outside the government as cowardly or treasonous. That's what "manipulating the intelligence" and "misleading the public" refers to, the knowing exaggeration of the case for war (whether by cherry-picking intel or using defunct intel or by speaking about ambiguous intel in alarming absolutes).

Off to a bad start, Moran's arguments actually get weaker from there.

It bothered Charles Duelfer also, the fair minded and thorough former CIA and State Department expert who also took a turn as an inspector for UNSCOM. In his report on WMD, one little noticed caveat that Duelfer mentioned appeared in an addendum to the document:

Moran goes on to cite — not the report itself — but the Washington Times:

The CIA’s chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing "sufficiently credible" evidence that WMDs may have been moved there.

This statement would come as a total surprise to anyone who'd actually read the actual report adenda.

ISG formed a working group to investigate the possibility of the evacuation of WMD-related material from Iraq prior to the 2003 war.

...

Whether Syria received military items from Iraq for safekeeping or other reasons has yet to be determined.

It should be noted that no information from debriefing of Iraqis in custody supports this possibility. ISG found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD. Indeed, they uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria.

...

Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place. However, ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials.

So, basically, the Duelfer report says that there is "sufficiently credible" evidence to warrant "further investigation," but he specifically states that there is no evidence to substantiate the claim.

Importantly, the addendum casts serious doubt that the any Iraqi official ordered any material transfer. It doesn't rule of the possibility that some stashes were looted and moved to Syria — a possibility underscored by the fact that the investigation was halted due to the deteriorating security in the country (Iraq, a country "liberated" and held by U.S. forces was too dangerous for a military survey group to operate!).

The fact that the Duelfer Report Addendum makes is explicitly clear that no Iraqi official ordered a transfer of material is significant in the context of another of Moran's supporting sources:

And now we have a former Iraqi Air Force General who says that massive amounts of WMD was flown to Syria prior to the invasion.

Apparently, "the fair minded and thorough former CIA and State Department expert who also took a turn as an inspector for UNSCOM" somehow forgot to talk to this guy. Right.

The idea that dangerous material was looted in the botched post-war occupation was raised by former UNMOVIC head, Hans Blix last year. Dual-use equipment remained in the country, subject to UN inspection, and since the invasion, Blix and his collegues have collected satellite imagery suggesting that this equipment was missing. Had we not invaded, the UN teams would still have been monitoring those sites. At the very least, we could have sent in sufficient forces to secure them before they were looted.

Startlingly, Moran cites an AP article explaining this Bush Iraq War embarassment. Why? I'll let him explain:

Finally, there was this story about the UN losing track of WMD prior to the war and what satellite imagery showed:

What Moran's citation proves is that he and all the wingnuts praising his article have the reading comprehension of hampsters. Right beneath this characterization, Moran quotes the following from the article:

U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.

First of all, this article isn't talking about WMDs, it's talking about dual-use equipment, but that's not the most retarded thing about Moran's description of the article.

This article is about material being removed after the war. After. Not before. After.

But, wait, there's more.

What really qualifies Moran ask a high-level imbecile is found in the section entitled "Update III: The Saddam Tapes." This is the "new evidence" mentioned in the beginning of this post. Apparently, someone has unearthed recordings of Hussein talking on the phone and there is a claim that he discusses his WMD programs.

These tapes have just come to light, and contain over a dozen hours of phone calls. Saddam Hussein can't speak English, so they are undoubtedly entirely in Arabic. This means that it will be weeks, possibly months, before they have been fully transcribed, translated and analyzed for authenticity. Bottom line: we have no idea what's on those tapes, or whether it's even credible.

I'm sure that the wingnuts are defrosting the crow that we anti-war bloggers were supposed to eat after Saddam's WMD stockpiles were exposed to the world. My prediction, based on the fact that the pro-war side has yet to get anything right, is that the crow dinner will be going back in the icebox again. That, however, is not why I label Moran a particularly acute imbecile: it's the fact that he popped a woody over this Syria story before he knew why it was back in vogue. He didn't know there was any new evidence... he was just clinging to the old, discreditted talking points.

The article has a lengthy set of comments and track-backs demonstrating the vacancy of the wingnut echo chamber. I don't have time to go after all their bullshit, but maybe I will if some of them respond here.

Posted by Winston Smith at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)

Free Speech Includes Hate Speech

Do you love free speech? Who doesn't? Do you hate muslims? Well, that's pretty popular, too!

Why not advertise both political stands with a shirt from a conservative t-shirt vendor? It's the perfect t-shirt to wear while writing blog entries about how glad you are that Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing a t-shirt.

Posted by Winston Smith at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

February 07, 2006

How to Shock a Freeper: Endorse Peace and Freedom

I've noticed that Free Republic is on a downward spiral, but this latest post has changed my mind. It's not a downward spiral, it's a nosedive.

OK, ready for the "money quote"?

Deciding to desecrate the funeral of Coretta Scott King , the former president decided to ignore the grief of the King Family, to throw away the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., and focused his speech on attacking the President of the United States. Why? Because he could so he did.

This is the essence of hate.. Why the Left Wing is so bereft of leadership, bereft of a path, bereft of morals. Their whole platform is simple hate."I hate the President", "I hate the USA", "I hate Children", "I hate the fact you have more money then me".. That is their platform.

"Jimmy Carter" and "essence of hate" don't really connect for me, so I looked around for a transcript of Carter's speech. I couldn't find one, but the New York Times reported some of the comments:

Former President Jimmy Carter talked about the nonviolent struggle for justice that the Kings tried to promote, a veiled reference to the war in Iraq. "They overcame one of the greatest challenges of life, which is to be able to wage a fierce struggle for freedom and justice and to do it peacefully," he said.

He also noted that Dr. King had been the subject of wiretapping by the F.B.I., a reference that recalls the Bush administration's controversial decision not to seek warrants for eavesdropping on some electronic communications related to the efforts against Al Qaeda.

"It was difficult for them personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance," Mr. Carter, a Democrat, said of the Kings.

The former president also said that if anyone believed that the civil rights struggle was over, "we only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."

Let's see: Carter praised effective, peaceful demonstration. Why would that be hate for Bush? Just because Dubya launched an expensive and botched military campaign against a threat that didn't exist doesn't mean we don't totally love every little bit of him!

What about those snide remarks about illegal domestic spying? Well, it's a historical fact that the Kings were the subjects of illegal domestic spying. In contrast, Bush has made it very clear that he didn't break the law because he didn't like the law that he broke. I don't see how these comment could apply to Chimpy!

Finally, Carter highlighted to ongoing struggle of African-American by reminding us that the people floating face down in New Orleans were black people. Again, why would that apply to President Bush? Bush didn't drown those people! He was on vacation, playing guitar and riding his mountain bike around his pig farm in Crawford.

Whatever the case, haven't the Freepers already concluded that everything that went wrong during hurricane Katrina was Clinton's fault?

Oh, methinks thou doth protest to much, Mr. Freeper! Carter's words were meant to highlight the importance of Corretta Scott King's efforts on behalf of civil rights. The fact that they burn the wingnuts so severely is just evidence that they too know they are guilty of helping to erode the rights that Mrs. King fought for.

The Freeper finishes with this demand:

I Demand that Ex-President Jimmy Carter immediately apologize to the King Family and to Apologize to the American People for his hate speech!

What an imbecile. There isn't any evidence that the King family objected to anything Carter said. It's their job to demand an apology if they did. In fact, the man who originally joined forces to launch Dr. King's civil rights movement was even more explicit in his anti-Bush message:

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. King, was even more pointed in remarks he had put in verse form.

"She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war," he said. "She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar.

"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," he said. "But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here.

In your face, Freepers!

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)

Freeper Weirdness of the Day

There was an odd post on Free Republic today:

Anyone know if LGF is experiencing another Denial of Service attack from the muslims again today?

"LGF" refers to wingnut site "Little Green Footballs." Apparently, they're being cyber-terrorized by "muslims." Hmmmm.

Methinks it's time they added another layer of tinfoil to their hats.

Posted by Winston Smith at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2005

Dear Mr. Frist...

...it wasn't a slap in the face, it was a spanking.

Posted by Winston Smith at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2005

Forget Nixon! We've Got Bigger Problems!

OK, move along, nothing to see here. Nixon resigned over 30 years ago and it's about time we got back to dealing with the crisis that looms over America today.

Of course, I'm talking about homosexuals.

The good ol' American Family Association, headed by Dr. Donald "Evil" Wildmon, has finally lifted their boycott on Disney. I'm not sure why, because as far as I can tell, Disney hasn't budged on their gay-friendly policies. The AFA is now setting their sites — with what we can only hope will be an equally failed initiative — on the venerable Ford Motor Company.

Buy American? Nah! Boycott Ford!

My prediction is that the AFA's most visible legacy will be that "fucktard" makes it into the dictionary.

Posted by Winston Smith at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 26, 2005

A Monument to Monumental Stupidity

You may have seen Skates' Monday posting linking to a web site full of all sorts of anti-scientific bunk. You might as well get some amusement value from these sites, because there's a pretty low barrier of entry to the web. There will always be wingnut sites as long as there are wingnuts to craft them.

Physical sites are a different story. That takes work. That takes money.

When I read that someone is building a museum full of creationist exhibits in Northern Kentucky, it demonstrated the depth of conviction that some creationists possess. These beliefs are not even the dressed-up "Intelligent Design" version of creationism, even. In fact, these guys claim that Noah's ark was not only real but all the species of dinosaur were on it along with everything else.

None of this bullshit would have surprised me if the museum was going to be in a trailer, or some guy was "converting his home." Much to the contrary, it's going to be a $25 million attraction right over the border from Cincinnati, Ohio. It's already getting attention from prominent, successful wingnuts:

"When that museum is finished, it's going to be Cincinnati's No. 1 tourist attraction," says the Rev. Jerry Falwell, nationally known Baptist evangelist and chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. "It's going to be a mini-Disney World."

Actually, Falwell makes a good point. The museum will inform visitors about the origins of life on earth that people in much the same way that "Space Mountain" informs people about space travel. The new museum will present a world where humans and dinosaurs co-existed, which people should find every bit as convincing and realistic as Disney's depiction of a world where humans and cartoon characters co-exist.

The goal of the Disney parks was to create a place where people could escape the demands and challenges of day-to-day life and immerse themselves in a fantasy world; Disney knew that this was an attractive enough scenario that people would pay him money for providing it. I'm glad to see that Falwell has finally admitted the similarity between Disney's services and his.

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:06 AM | Comments (2)

May 23, 2005

The Earth Is Not Moving

Leave it to our good friend Mike W. to locate yet another fabulous example of anti-Science. He must have a nose for this stuff!

The Earth is not rotating...nor is it going around the sun.

The universe is not one ten trillionth the size we are told.

Today’s cosmology fulfills an anti-Bible religious plan disguised as "science".

The whole scheme from Copernicanism to Big Bangism is a factless lie.

Those lies have planted the Truth-killing virus of evolutionism in every aspect of man’s "knowledge" about the Universe, the Earth, and Himself.

The list of technology that these guys can't explain would go on for pages, given their model of the Universe. Warning: their site is rather hard on the rationalist's stomach.

Posted by Steven at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2005

Happy Illuminatus! Day

Fans of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's classic The Illuminatus Trilogy will appreciate that today is the 5th day of the 5th month of the 5th year ... 05-05-05.

I wonder if Leviathan will rise from the ocean and consume Washington, D.C.?

Posted by Steven at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2005

How Stupid Are They

How stupid is the religious right? Well, pretty fucking stupid, but sometimes they outdo themselves. Recently the musician Moby made comments which were clearly satirizing the anti-gay hysteria of the religious right:

I was talking to my friend, Laura, who sings on my latest record, and we are both getting to the point where we want to start families. We are convinced that if we have children, we are going to do everything in our power to make them gay. Like maybe drinking a lot of extra soy milk while she is pregnant, or anything that would work to make that happen.

Well, Moby did a really good job of aping the rabid right's twisting theories, because the Center for Reclaiming America trumpeted Moby's comments as an obvious "smoking gun" of the gay agenda.

Apparently, advocates of homosexuality only believe in the �gay gene� when it suits their purposes.

Apparently, the Center for Reclaiming America thinks Moby actually plans to "turn" his child gay by feeding soy milk to the mother.

Soy milk!

What stupid, stupid fucks.

Posted by at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

Vegetable Purée

This is making the rounds in email. It's a nice summary of Schiavo debacle, so I thought I'd post here:

What we learned from the Schiavo mess:

1. Jeb Bush, George W. Bush, and Tom Delay are all world renowned neurologists.
   
2. 22 successive court battles that all ended in exactly the same way means there is something wrong with the courts, not the Schindler's case.
   
3. Mike is after money which is why he turned down 1 million dollars and 10 million dollars to sign over guardianship.
   
4. Congress and the State Legislature of Florida has nothing better to do than pry into the private medical affairs of others.
   
5. Pulling life support is bad in Florida when authorized by the legal next-of-kin, but pulling life support is good in Texas when you run out of money and the mother pleads not to pull the plug on her baby.
   
6. Medical diagnoses are best performed by watching highly edited videotape made by Randall Terry rather than in person by trained physicians.
   
7. Minimum wage making nursing assistants are more qualified to diagnose a persistent vegetative state than experienced neurologists.
   
8. Cerebral spinal fluid is a magical potion that can mimic the entire functions of a missing cerebral cortex.
   
9. 15 years in the same persistent state is not really enough time to make an accurate diagnosis.
   
10. A feeding tube that infuses yellow nutritional goop is not really "life support".
    
11. Jesus was wrong when he said that a man and woman should leave their parents and cleave only to each other.
    
12. Marriage is the most sacred of all unions, except when it isn't.
    
13. Interfering in a family's private tragedy is a great reason to cut short a vacation, but getting a memo that warns a known terrorist is determine to strike inside the US is cause to relax and finish up some R&R.
    
14. Pro-lifers are really compassionate people; which is why they are hoping that Michael Schiavo dies a horrible painful death.
    
15. The Supreme Court of the United States and the State Supreme Court of Florida mean "Maybe" when they are saying "No!".
    
16. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a bleeding heart liberal.
    
17. 7 Supreme Court Justices were appointed by republican presidents, so it's Clinton's fault.
    
18. A judge who makes rulings based on the law is obviously an atheist, liberal, democratic activist even though he is a conservative, republican, Southern Baptist.
    

Posted by at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2005

American Jihad

Gentlemen, start your jihads! Bill Frist is joining other "prominent Christian conservatives" in declaring Democrats "against people of faith" for blocking Bush's extreme, activist judicial nominees.

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

Organizers say they hope to reach more than a million people by distributing the telecast to churches around the country, over the Internet and over Christian television and radio networks and stations.

Dr. Frist's spokesman said the senator's speech in the telecast would reflect his previous remarks on judicial appointments. In the past he has consistently balanced a determination "not to yield" on the president's nominees with appeals to the Democrats for compromise. He has distanced himself from the statements of others like the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, who have attacked the courts, saying they are too liberal, "run amok" or are hostile to Christianity.

The telecast, however, will put Dr. Frist in a very different context. Asked about Dr. Frist's participation in an event describing the filibuster "as against people of faith," his spokesman, Bob Stevenson, did not answer the question directly.

"Senator Frist is doing everything he can to ensure judicial nominees are treated fairly and that every senator has the opportunity to give the president their advice and consent through an up or down vote," Mr. Stevenson said, adding, "He has spoken to groups all across the nation to press that point, and as long as a minority of Democrats continue to block a vote, he will continue to do so."

Some of the nation's most influential evangelical Protestants are participating in the teleconference in Louisville, including Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The event is taking place as Democrats and Republicans alike are escalating their public relations campaigns in anticipation of an imminent confrontation. The Democratic minority has blocked confirmation of 10 of President Bush's judicial nominees by preventing Republicans from gaining the 60 votes needed to close debate, using the filibuster tactic often used by political minorities and most notoriously employed by opponents of civil rights.

So the GOP is now openly saying that Democrats are anti-Christian because they didn't support an open attack on the Constitution by religious fundamentalists? Sectarian war has broken out in the Congress, and I fear for my nation now. This can only go downhill, fast.

Posted by Steven at 11:13 PM | Comments (2)

April 11, 2005

The True Face of Conservatism

In my monitoring of Free Republic, I've noticed an increase in brain function amongst the "Freepers." Resolute condemnations of false science (e.g. "Inteligent Design") being taught in the schools, dissent on the Terri Schiavo issue, and admissions of being wrong about the "Schiavo Memo."

I was starting to worry: might the Republican party rid itself of wingnuts? Well, those fears proved unfounded.

Interstingly enough, an item about the aforementioned "Stop Hillary Now" campaign was posted to Free Republic this morning. I was looking through the comments to see if anyone mentioned Arthur Finkelstein's gay marriage, but alas, there were none. Instead, I saw the danger of yelling "Hillary Clinton" in a crowded assholium. This almost got "Post of the day":

I agree with you [on immigration].I have a daughter who has had a terrible time trying to get a decent job. Everywhere she has worked has been taken over by illegals. The Samalians and turban heads is running rampant.This one place she worked,they had to take a complete restroom to make a place for these people to pray in.I think it's appalling. If they want to come here and live,then they should live by OUR rules and way of life.Don't come over here and expect us to change everything to suit them. I also think they should learn to speak English before they come here. It's nerve wracking to hear all this jibberish,not knowing what they are saying. You don't know if they are talking about you or what the heck they are talking about.

But it was beaten out by this one (excerpt):

Even Rush got it wrong

No! Not Rush!

Posted by at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

Put the Hammer Down!

Could "Boot to Head" be far away for the Hammer? Word is that Karl Rove is pulling the trap door on DeLay:

Private GOP tensions over Tom DeLay�s ethics controversy spilled into public Sunday, as a Senate leader called on DeLay to explain his actions and one House Republican demanded the majority leader�s resignation.

�Tom�s conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election,� Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., told The Associated Press in an interview, calling for DeLay to step down as majority leader.

Well, if he's hurting the Republican party by exposing them for what they are, then I'm all for that. In fact, I'll raise a glass of DDT-laced beverage to the bug man for that little bit of community service.

Posted by at 10:14 AM | Comments (3)

April 04, 2005

DeLay Continues to DeNy

It's always about DeLay. Tom DeLay continues to slap the stain of corruption and malefeasance on his party by forcing the GOP to defend him even as he compares his plight to the recently deceased Terri Schiavo and others who had the misfortune to make headlines while he slowly sinks.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has launched a characteristically defiant response to attacks on his ethics and leadership, even as the controversy threatens to compete with the Republican legislative agenda when Congress returns this week from spring recess.

As criticism of the 57-year-old Texan intensified last week with a blast from the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board and the unveiling of an anti-DeLay television ad campaign by nonprofit groups, he began a counterattack designed to shore up his backing in the Republican House caucus and among social conservatives.

In a meeting with the heads of several social conservative organizations, DeLay sought support in a fight that he said was aimed at ending the GOP majority in Congress and thwarting the social conservative movement. Some responded immediately.

"The only fire behind all that smoke generated by the leftist attacks is their burning hatred of a good man," wrote Morton C. Blackwell, a prominent conservative, in a posting on the American Conservative Union's website. "You and I must do all we can to make sure any politician who hopes to have conservative support � had better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay."

Democrats are promising to quickly bring up ethical questions surrounding DeLay when Congress returns to work Monday. And the concern among some Republicans is that DeLay may step into a political trap by fiercely responding.

Democrats, Republicans say, are determined to further raise DeLay's national political profile. And DeLay is not the sort of politician to seek to lower his profile in the face of conflict.

"He draws energy from these fights," said one GOP strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He sees this in terms of good and evil: He is all good and his opponents are all evil."

Of course, seeing everything as "good and evil" where you are automatically the "good" and everything else is "evil" is, I believe, a classic example of moral relativism, which I thought these "evil fuckers" were against.

They don't stand tall for a single virtue or principal they claim -- it's all about power, power, POWER. Like Capitalism, all they are about is the money.

Talk about evil.

Posted by Steven at 12:13 PM | Comments (1)

March 24, 2005

More Ayatollah DeLay

DeLay's gone bonkers. Check out this little screed by Tom "The Hammer" DeLay.

"It is more than just Terri Schiavo. This is a critical issue for people in this position, and it is also a critical issue to fight that fight for life, whether it be euthanasia or abortion. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, one thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America. That Americans would be so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks. I mean, in America that's going to happen if we don't win this fight.

"And so it's bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo and anybody else that may be in this kind of position, and let me just finish with this:

"This is exactly the kind of issue that's going on in America, that attacks against the conservative moment, against me and against many others. The point is, the other side has figured out how to win and to defeat the conservative movement, and that is to go after people personally, charge them with frivolous charges, link up with all these do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros, and then get the national media on their side. That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to destroy the conservative movement. It is to destroy conservative leaders, and not just in elected office, but leading. I mean, Ed Feulner, of the Heritage Foundation today was under attack in the National Journal. This is a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in. And you need to look at this, and what's going on and participate in fighting back.

"You know, one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon Johnson, who passed a law that said you couldn't get in politics or you're going to lose your tax-exempt status, because they were all opposed to him when he was running for President. That law we're trying to repeal. It's very difficult to do that, but the point is, when they can knock out a leader, then no other leader will step forward for a while, because they don't want to go through the same thing. If they go after and get a pastor, then other pastors shrink from what they should be doing. It forces Christians back into the church. That's what's going on in America. The world is too bad and I'm going to get inside this building and I'm not going to play in the world. That's not what Christ asked us to do.

"And so they understand that. It is a political maneuver, and they are going to try to destroy the conservative movement, and we have to fight back, so please, this afternoon, each and every one of you, if you know a senator, give them a call. They'll say our bill can pass in the House. Tell them, okay, your bill is fine, but the House bill is better, and I want the House bill. Particularly if you know Democrats. Don't let them get off the hook by hiding behind one House and the other is adjourned. We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass."

Sure sounds like someone at the end of a very, very long cocaine overdose. Can this guy sound any more PARANOID?

I think it's hilarious when a conservative thug like "The Hammer" whines that his political agenda is being thwarted, and that worse, there's a conspiracy to destroy him. There is no conspiracy, just a general goal of all Progressives to check his unstopped power. And to whine about the same techniques used to destroy Bill Clinton's Presidency (turn about is NOT fair play to these bullies) is just pathetic.

Finally, to compare his situation to Terri Schiavo's is just disgusting. Perhaps if he were to suffer severe brain trauma and be put in a coma, I might feel some sympathy. But until then, Mr. DeLay, go fuck your awful self.

Posted by Steven at 03:44 PM | Comments (2)

Vegetables and Nuts

By the time you read this, someone at Free Republic who's still taking his meds will probably have deleted this post from their user-driven "discussion forum" blog.

If you look at the posting volume in Free Republic, it is clearly waning, but it has acheived some notoriety as a voice of the organized far-right. For that reason, it's worth seeing what comes slithering out when you pick up a rock in their front yard. Here's the post:

According to a NY times news report, Judge Greer directed state sheriffs to take whatever actions were necessary to enforce his order.

It is imperative, in our e-mails and phone calls to the office of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, that we specify that he should call out a unit of the Florida National Guard to save Terri's life by taking her into protective custody. He has this authority under Florida Statute 250.28.

Greer's order forces the all of the State Sherrif's to prevent the Governor from utilizing *any* attempt by *any* state agency (DCF, etc.) to take Terri into protective custody. THE JUDGE IS PRE-EMPTIVELY THWARTING ANY ACTION BY THE GOVERNOR!

The Sherrifs do not have the firepower and training to stand up to the Guard, and will have no choice but to submit.

I'm sure that Jeb Bush is anxious to be remembered as the first Governor to order state militia to fire on state law enforcement. I guess it's lucky for the Sherrifs that the Florida National Guard is in Iraq.

Posted by at 09:59 AM | Comments (1)

March 02, 2005

Bill Gates to be K-nighted

Stupid English K-nig-its! Gates will be tapped an "honorary Knight of the Order" by QE2 herself today. Since he's not a British citizen, he'll not be "Sir Bill" (oi!). Nonetheless, the "powers-that-be" are recognizing one of their own.

Posted by Steven at 09:15 AM | Comments (1)

October 29, 2004

Is Bush an R/C Toy?

Salon has a great article about Bush's bulge.

We report, you can see the frigging obvious. Either Bush was wired, or he's a radio-controlled toy.

Posted by Steven at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2004

What Do You Have To Do To Be Labeled A Terrorist?

CNN has a story about "bombing suspect" Eric Rudolph, who's laywers are trying to get him released on a technicality because (I presume) they discovered some abortion clinics he missed firebombing. But this post isn't about that. It's about labels.

Eric Rudolph is a terrorist. That's the label I apply to him.

CNN says he's a "bombing suspect". Not a terrorist. Look, he doesn't have to be convicted of anything to be called a terrorist. The American media has labeled all sorts of unindicted individuals "terrorists" with only John Ashcroft's say-so, so why not Rudolph?

Could it be that he blows up women and first responders for Jesus?

If he suddenly sprouted a turban, would CNN start calling him what they call everyone else who wears Middle East garb and blows things up a terrorist?

He's on record saying things that a terrorist says, and he clearly believes he's on a mission from God, which in my book makes him a Grade A terrorist. Just like the cracker who blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. And the two little shits who shot up Columbine HS. And the SLA. Manson's crowd. And so on. TERRORISTS. Not "bombing suspects".

Some one explain it to me so my head will stop throbbing.

Posted by Steven at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2004

American Film Renaissance festival

Dallas' Hotel Intercontinental hosted the inaugural American Film Renaissance festival this week. Salon's Michelle Goldberg courageously reviewed it for us.

Like so many of the people at the inaugural American Film Renaissance festival, Medved spoke with an easygoing Rotary Club ordinariness that belied the seething anger underneath. There was none of Zell Miller's fire and brimstone in his voice as he blandly called for more demeaning portrayals of gay people in the mass media, saying, "Every single image of homosexuality you see on TV is positive. It's not only positive, it's glowing. It's saintly. When was the last time you saw a nasty gay character? A degraded gay character?"

Medved is a bigot, but he's also on to something. Many people on the coasts haven't reckoned with the true cultural complexion of vast swaths of this country. They tend to make movies and write articles and produce albums as if their fellow citizens inhabited the same reality that they do. But there is another world in America, a through-the-looking-glass universe in which conservative Christians, despite dominating all the branches of government, feel persecuted by the state, in which gun control is seen as the natural precursor to genocide and Bill Clinton is suspected of covering up Iraqi responsibility for the Oklahoma City bombings. Residents of this febrile realm believe they're the majority and that sinister, cringing liberals are denying them their cultural due. Convinced that the film industry is conspiring against them, they want to create a cornfed Hollywood of their very own, from the grassroots up.

According to the story that festival founder Jim Hubbard, 35, told repeatedly to journalists and attendees, he was inspired to create the American Film Renaissance after he and his wife, a pretty, bouffant blonde named Ellen, went to an art house theater one night and were distressed to find that their only choices were Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" and the Frida Kahlo biopic "Frida," about "a communist artist."

"Where are the films for normal people?" he asked.

The American Film Renaissance was created to give films for "normal people" -- in this iteration, the far right -- an outlet. It was held at Dallas' Studio Movie Grill, a theater with waiter service where audiences can order burgers, pizza, nachos and other greasy snacks while they watch movies. According to Hubbard, the timing wasn't intentional, but Sept. 11 was invoked over and over again in the festival's selections, the burning towers shown to punctuate all sorts of arguments about liberal treachery.

Posted by Steven at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)