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Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion, Law and Culture
Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
Ed Brayton also blogs at Positive Liberty and The Panda's Thumb
March 11, 2010
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On today's Declaring Independence (unless Rachel calls again):
On today's show, just a single guest for the full hour: Paul Krassner. Founder of the Yippies (Youth International Party), member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, publisher of The Realist, and the world's only investigative satirist. Oh, and did I mention that he dropped acid with Groucho Marx? This should be a most entertaining show.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:23 PM • 0 Comments
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At the American Independent News Network, we focus on what we call impact journalism -- stories that can lead to some positive action to change something for the better. And what more impact could you get than this?
On Feb. 23, I broke a story about how the Senate Armed Services Committee determined that Blackwater employees in Afghanistan signed for hundreds of AK-47s and pistols using the name "Eric Cartman," evidently a reference to the popular "South Park" character.On March 17 -- which Dave Weigel tells me is the season premiere -- "South Park" will show Eric Cartman signing for the guns.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:16 PM • 12 Comments
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I was preparing to write something just like this post by James Joyner after seeing the right wing blogosphere declare that the man who opened fire at the Pentagon Metro stop, John Patrick Bedell, was a left wing extremist -- and the left wing blogosphere declare that he was a right wing extremist. But since he beat me to it, I'll just use what he wrote instead.
The liberal bloggers called him a "Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist" who "Worshipped Private Property Rights" and "Denounced Government 'Schemes' Like Public Education." Obviously he was a right wing extremist, right?
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:09 PM • 66 Comments
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Facing harsh criticism from both right and left over the organization he helped found along with Liz Cheney, Keep America Safe, taking out ads questioning the loyalty of attorneys who defended detainees from Gitmo, Bill Kristol takes to the pages of his magazine -- and promptly ignores the substance of that criticism and tries to change the subject.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:02 PM • 15 Comments
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In the grand tradition of Rich Lowry's masturbatory reaction to Palin's winking, I give you Republican consultant Michael Goldfarb talking about Liz Cheney:
"I was excited about Palin; I'm more excited about Liz," he says. "The same sort of excitement you get when you hear her father, except she's this petite blonde with five kids ... There's just something about her. You see that response across the activist portion of the party. It's the response you saw to Palin ... She gets people worked up. She connects to people. She is in harmony with where the base seems to be. She's right on the issues."You have a little crush on her," he gushes. "It's hard not to."
Okay, seriously. Try typing with one hand. I bet there's more DNA in his keyboard than in the OJ trial.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:30 AM • 25 Comments
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I recently wrote about an amusing article I'd read about people who bury statues of St. Joseph, the patron saint of real estate, in order to make their home sell. I got an email from a guy named Phil Cates, founder of St. Joseph Statue LLC, a company that sells those statues. And despite the fact that I roundly mocked him and every customer he has ever had, he pretends to have liked my article and comes on all friendly in the email. This is so reality averse as to be almost creepy. Here's the full email:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:23 AM • 28 Comments
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Worldnutdaily grand poobah Joseph Farah is taking another one of his "you are dead to me forever" stands, this time over CPAC -- which he just spoke at a couple weeks ago. But as usual, he's claiming that he really decided this before going there. He complains about one of the CPAC organizers dissing the birthers in an interview before the conference took place and how he decided on the spot to take a bold moral stand against the group:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:16 AM • 10 Comments
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A Texas state judge shocked the world last week by declaring the death penalty in that state unconstitutional. Now he explains that ruling:
A Houston judge who declared the death penalty unconstitutional Thursday clarified his ruling in an impromptu hearing Friday, saying he ruled the procedures surrounding the process in Texas are illegal.During Friday's hearing, prosecutors filed motions asking state District Judge Kevin Fine to reconsider his ruling and also to proceed with April's death penalty trial of John Edward Green Jr. Fine maintained at the hearing that he believes innocent people have been executed.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:09 AM • 25 Comments
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The incredible thing is that even after scandal after scandal, Blackwater (now Xe) is still being considered for and given huge contracts by the government. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan is trying to prevent that from happening again in Afghanistan:
A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater, now called Xe Services, from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of "serious questions" about the contractor's conduct.The comments by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin suggests thinning patience in Congress for the Pentagon's heavy reliance on contractors on the battlefield.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:02 AM • 30 Comments
March 10, 2010
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How embarrassing should it be for this country that Iran -- Iran, for god's sake -- puts its officials on trial for torture and we don't?
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:32 PM • 19 Comments
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The New York Times has an article about lots of former Scientologists, including some very high ranking members, leaving the church and making accusations of abuse and corruption all the way to the top:
Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.They signed a contract for a billion years -- in keeping with the church's belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.
But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:23 PM • 27 Comments
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I hate press secretaries, especially White House press secretaries. Their job is to look into the camera, or speak to the reporter, and with an absolutely straight face repeat something they know is a lie -- and that they know you know is a lie. Press secretaries are disgusting people.
But Dana Perino, the last of several people to hold that position in the Bush administration, seems to want to separate herself even from that vile pack and distinguish herself as a particularly ridiculous specimen by continuing to tell ridiculous lies even when she's not getting paid to do it anymore. Here's what she said on Fox News this weekend:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:16 PM • 15 Comments
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A reader sent me a press release sent out by a Republican candidate for Congress from Ohio named Paul Schiffer that is chock full of demagoguery on the entirely fake issue of "czars" in the White House.
Paul Schiffer, Republican Candidate for Congress in Ohio's 16th Congressional District, has written legislation to outlaw Barack Obama's dozens of 'CZARS' in the White House. Schiffer promises to introduce this legislation in Congress after election to Congress. Schiffer explained:"I believe 'Czars' are un-American. It started out as almost an inside-the-Beltway joke under Republican Administrations -- calling a Presidential adviser a 'Czar.' But the idea of Presidential 'Czars' has become a worrying trend. If we continue on this path, Presidential over-use of White House 'Czars' threatens to weaken America's democratic system."
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:09 PM • 32 Comments
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It's no wonder judges keep hammering Orly Taitz for not following proper court procedure -- she can't even fill out a simple form correctly. She has indeed filed to run for California Secretary of State, but she screwed it up. She didn't even put her address on the form; in the space for her address she wrote "Secretary of State." You can see a photo of her form at the link above.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:02 PM • 25 Comments
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Ed Morrissey of the extremely popular Hot Air blog, who can sometimes be a perfectly reasonable guy -- he recently wrote that the GOP needs to get over its obsession with gays -- and sometimes can be downright irrational, goes the irrational route in this post containing rather blatant distortions about ACORN and prosecutions of its canvassers.
First of all, he does what conservatives always do and conflates voter registration fraud with voter fraud. They are not the same thing. If a canvasser turns in a registration with Mickey Mouse's name, or 25 canvassers all turn in a registration for the same name, that doesn't mean Mickey Mouse is showing up to vote or that the person registered 25 times gets to vote 25 times. That's why we have well-defined procedures for county clerks to follow before someone goes in to the state's Qualified Voter File.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:30 AM • 28 Comments
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The heat is being turned up even more on Liz Cheney, who has gone from someone I'd never heard of to someone I utterly despise in only a few short months. A group of very prominent legal scholars, including conservatives like Ken Starr, have issued a statement condemning her for attacking attorneys who defended Gitmo detainees and suggesting that they are on the side of terrorists. I'll reproduce the whole thing below the fold.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:23 AM • 12 Comments
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After putting out that appalling ad, Liz Cheney is now flat out lying and claiming that it doesn't question anyone's loyalties.
CHENEY: Well, what the ad does -- and actually it doesn't question anybody's loyalty. What the ad does is it says that there are nine lawyers in the Justice Department who used to represent al Qaeda terrorists and the Attorney General will only tell us who two of them are and we want the American people to have the right to know who the others are.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:16 AM • 15 Comments
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Red light cameras are becoming more and more popular all over the country, which is appalling enough. Here's another reason to hate them: Some cities are now shortening the yellow portion of the light in order to boost revenue.
Short yellow light times at intersections have been shown to increase the number of traffic violations and accidents. Conversely, increasing the yellow light duration can dramatically reduce red-light violations at an intersection.Some local governments have ignored the safety benefit of increasing the yellow light time and decided to install red-light cameras, shorten the yellow light duration, and collect the profits instead.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:09 AM • 58 Comments
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It seems to me that it may be time to give all school administrators a course in remedial thinking. Here's another absolutely ridiculous case where a student was suspended from school after turning down drugs from another student.
The parents of a Kentuckiana seventh grade student say their young daughter was suspended from school for doing exactly what she's been taught to do for years - to just say no to drugs.The girl did not bring the prescription drug to her Jeffersonville, IN school, nor did she take it, but she admits that she touched it and in Greater Clark County Schools that is drug possession.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:02 AM • 131 Comments
March 9, 2010
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Sen. Lindsey Graham told a ridiculous lie Sunday on Face the Nation, claiming that while Republicans had used reconciliation to pass lots of bills in the past, they'd only done so when the bill had clear majority support - at least a 12 vote advantage.
"And when it comes to the Republicans, you all don't matter anymore. You just need a simple majority. So reconciliation will empower a bill that was very partisan. We've had reconciliation votes, but all of them had received bipartisan support. The least was 12 when we did reconciliation with tax cuts."
Posted by Ed Brayton at 12:16 PM • 11 Comments
