Conservatives
mikethemadbiologist | December 7, 2006...find anything the government does that works and break it. I really never thought that we would be debating lead standards:
The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.
Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.
A preliminary staff review released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The…
mikethemadbiologist | December 6, 2006
Snuggles McCain demonstrating his vaunted 'independence'
It seems more and more people are finally paying close attention to Mitt Romney and John McCain. While I've talked about Romney's idiocy before, The Boston Phoenix did a great job of skewering McCain, so I'll turn it over to them:
Arizona senator John McCain appears to be the nation's most popular Republican. That, at least, is what most polls show. It's not entirely clear why. He has authored little noteworthy legislation during his 20 years in the Senate and, in fact, has accomplished almost nothing beyond co-sponsoring the McCain-…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2006
For those of you just joining tonight's program, the Nazis are the bad guys
Just when you think the Peter Pan Right can't possibly get any daffier, they just manage to do so. By way of Crooked Timber comes this synopsis of a Michael Novak article in the Standard:
Josh Marshall links to a Michael Novak piece in the Standard - a piece that is surely the apotheosis of Green Lantern foreign policy (well, until next week); complete with vulnerability to the hideous yellow streak that is the MSM.
It begins ... horribly:
Today, the purpose of war is sharply political, not military; psychological…
mikethemadbiologist | December 4, 2006Massachusetts' Gov. Mitt Romney's ongoing effort to turn Massachusetts into Mississippi has entered a new phase: embryonic stem cell research. In Romney's last-ditch desperate attempt to buff up his Republican credentials, he has appointed a budget planner to be executive director of a board overseeing state funding for stem cell research. From the AP:
Aaron D'Elia, a 35-year-old assistant secretary in the Executive Office of Administration and Finance, was approved Thursday by the board by a 4-1 margin to head the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. The post pays $125,000 annually.…
mikethemadbiologist | December 4, 2006The story about Kenyan religious leaders who are attempting to stifle evolutionary biology at the Kenyan National Museum is making the rounds of the progressive political blogs (interesting, how the right-wing blogs aren't covering this...). Within this story, there is a real tragedy: Kenya has a serious problem in treating certain types of bacterial dysentery due to the evolution of antibiotic resistance.
mikethemadbiologist | December 3, 2006While my theological beliefs (which have very little to do with my religious observance) tend towards that 'ol time agnostic monism, Nicholas Kristof, in one of the daffiest columns he's ever written, has decided that the Christopath Right "has largely retreated from the culture wars." Therefore, any resumption of said wars must be squarely laid at the feet of "the Atheist Left."
No, Special K, the Right didn't "retreat", they were driven off the battlefield. There is a huge difference.
Kristof's column is nothing more than Compulsive Centrist Disorder rearing its head in the culture wars…
mikethemadbiologist | November 30, 2006A while ago, I posted about the Missouri legislative committee that claimed that abortion had led to a shortage of workers which then resulted in illegal immigration. Really. I can't make this garbage up. Now, Nehomee over at Shakespeare's Sister has observed the same thing in Georgia:
Rep. Franklin manages to muddy the fundamentalist waters even further by revealing his true intentions in Section 1, a(15): "The practice of abortion has caused the citizens of this state an inestimable amount economically, including, but not limited to, the costs and tax burden of having to care for…
mikethemadbiologist | November 29, 2006There was a time when think tanks on occasion actually thought. Not so, at the conservative Hoover Institute, where Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer slimed Pelosi, claiming she had to explain why her family's vineyard does not use union employees. Schweizer claimed Pelosi was a hypocrite.
Two things to note:
1) Pelosi pays better wages than the union vineyards.
2) By law, Pelosi is not allowed to even suggest to her workers that they organize. She can only negotiate with a union once it is formed.
When confronted with this by a TV news station, Schweizer refused to return phone…
mikethemadbiologist | November 29, 2006The other title of this post could have been "The War on Christmas and the Politics of Failed Withdrawl." Regardless, Tuesday, the Catholic League launched the first salvo in its ongoing War Against the Jews On Christmas with a large ad on the op-ed page of the NY Times. Here's what the Catholic League had to say:
(larger version here)
I think the charge of "cultural facists" is more than a little overblown. I live in Boston, a bastion of liberalism, not to mention the dreaded 'Homofascist Hordes', and nobody is ripping down the Christmas lights on Newbury Street or Comm Ave. The Boston…
mikethemadbiologist | November 28, 2006Thank you, Dennis Prager for your anti-Muslim bigotry: at least we know where the modern conservatives really stand. Despite Article IV of the U.S. Constitution which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States", Prager has his knickers in a twist over Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison's intention to use a copy of the Koran instead of a Christian Bible while being sworn into office. Prager spews:
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not…
mikethemadbiologist | November 28, 2006Sounds like a civil war to me. And as civil wars go, it's pretty awful. A year ago, I was comparing it to Northern Ireland. Actually, comparison is the wrong word, since Iraq is far more brutal than Northern Ireland ever was.
This is not something 'that happened.' Those who supported the war, for whatever reason, are responsible for it. Many of us warned you this would happen, and instead of listening, we were derided as traitors and weaklings. We were not viewed as 'serious' people. Now, it's too late. I can see no way to fix this problem. So thank you for dragging our nation…
mikethemadbiologist | November 27, 2006
To avoid possible brain damage, the Surgeon General recommends that Sebastian Mallaby's columns only be read using the StupidVu 9000
Someone needs to tell Bush that when I wrote a post titled "Democrats Crush GOP; Bush Declares 'Mandate'", I was joking. Now that El Jefe Maximo has psychologically disinvested from the Iraqi Occupation, he has decided that the message the American electorate sent in the 2006 elections was "You've done such a great job with foreign policy, FEMA, and the budget deficit, we would really like you to screw up Social Security."
Really, Bush is once again, after…
mikethemadbiologist | November 27, 2006It's nice to see that even in the midst of two overseas conflicts, the U.S. military can find time to obsess about homosexuality. The military has downgraded homosexuality from a "disorder" to a "circumstance." This means homosexuality is considered equivalent to stammering or stuttering, dyslexia, sleepwalking, motion sickness, obesity, and insect venom allergies. Our government is still run by crazy people.
mikethemadbiologist | November 26, 2006There are reports that the U.S. has cut a deal with Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, so he can negotiate with the Sunni insurgents:
According to the Iraqi newspaper Al- Quds al-Arabi, James Baker, the Bush family's Mr. Fixit, recently met with one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers in Amman, Jordan, and told him that the former deputy prime minister of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, would be released from detention by December in order to negotiate with the US on behalf of factions of the Iraqi resistance movement still controlled by old Ba'ath Party leaders. Sources in Jordan tell me that the…
mikethemadbiologist | November 21, 2006Some brilliant Republican solons from the great state of Missouri have released an official state report that argues that abortion has led to illegal immigration. The 'argument?'
Abortion has eliminated U.S. workers, leading to a need for illegal immigrants.
Clearly, these brilliant minds have never heard of the meat-packing industry. The meat-packing industry used to be unionized, and, consequently, virtually all of its workers were either legal residents or citizens. Then the unions were busted, resulting in crappy pay and dangerous conditions, and many people--rightfully so--did not…
mikethemadbiologist | November 17, 2006Actually, the post title is unfair: Romney is quite capable of screwing over thousands of people at once. In order to further his Republican presidential bonafides by cutting spending, any spending, MA Governor Mitt Romney playing bookkeeping games so he could declare a fiscal state of emergency and unilaterally cut budget items.
During the 2006 election, what with all the fuss about Republican Sen. George "Macacawitz" Allen, I never got around to describing what first tipped me off to his being a complete asshole. When Allen was governor of VA, he vetoed all spending for Meals on Wheels…
mikethemadbiologist | November 15, 2006
(from here)
That's gotta hurt
Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon discusses a shocking development--a majority of voters view Democrats as the fiscally responsible party:
There is a shocking poll that should be a wake-up call to conservatives and Republicans nationwide. If I were a Republican strategist today, my heart would be in my throat.
From The Corner at the conservative National Review Online:
A survey of 1200 likely voters taken in 12 swing districts this past Sunday and Monday might explain why Republicans might have a long night ahead of them. The veteran GOP pollster says he…
mikethemadbiologist | November 14, 2006
I appreciate all of you (well, except for a couple of conservatroll assholes), but this comment by "The Teachers Union" in response to a rightwing screed left in the comments is brilliant. First, the rightwing screed:
Ha. You're full of shit. The gay baiting (Foster, Haggard, Mehlman), race baiting (Steele, Harry Belafonte Calls Black Republicans tyrants, Gov. Blackwell) and hyporcisy (e.g., Michael Moore and Al Gore not practicing what they teach) comes from the democrap side.
Special interests? How about Teachers Union, Abortion death mills and welfare frauds? Why should money that I have…
mikethemadbiologist | November 13, 2006A while ago, I wrote about the effect that the rise of certain forms of Christianity was having on the military. To summarize: certain ideological or religious views mean that you might not be able to do your job very well. Bob Broughton carries the analysis over to the White House staff. His surprising finding?
The number one academic recruiting ground for the White House interns is Patrick Henry College (italics mine):
At about 35 minutes into this program, Harris said that the main source of White House interns is not Harvard, MIT, Stanford, or Bush's alma mater Yale. Instead, they…
mikethemadbiologist | November 11, 2006Whiskey Fire explains the 2006 election very cogently:
A lot has been said already about the '06 elections, and a lot more will be said. Most of this will be crap. So let me just be clear:
The Republicans lost the '06 elections because they are crazy people with shitty policies that have all failed.
Crucial to any analysis of yesterday's results must be the fact that they started a war based on bullshit, and then they quite literally made a bloody mess of it.
Also, they're completely corrupt and incompetent, self-righteously religious, willing to gay bait and race bait, and generally all they…