Fucking Morons
mikethemadbiologist | October 19, 2006
Some stupid is so powerful that it can only be viewed safely through the StupidViewer 9000
(from here)
Here's a joke: a Republican staffer of a conservative Christian Republican goes into a synagogue and tells the congregation that his candidate is more Jewish than they are. It's not very funny, and, sadly, it's true. You see, Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona has a slight Jewish problem.
It started when he supported Henry Ford's Americanization program, claiming that Ford's program was only trying to get immigrants to speak English. What is the Americanization program?…
mikethemadbiologist | October 18, 2006Did you ever think in 1999 that Congress would pass a bill, and that a President would sign a bill that eliminates habeas corpus at the whim of the president? I sure as hell didn't. This is why the utter warping of our political system by the mindless Christopath Uruk-hai, the anti-gay bigots, and the blastula liberationists is so devastating: because it allows other forms of extremism such as the Federalist Society and those who believe in the 'unitary executive' to flourish unchecked.
From Keith Olbermann:
OLBERMANN: Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping…
mikethemadbiologist | October 17, 2006While there's been a lot of discussion about David Kuo's book Tempting Faith, the wee lil' Mad Biologist seems to be the only one who has viewed the intentional rejection of proposals from non-Christian religious organizations as religious discrimination ('no Jews need apply'). This discrimination is why funding faith-based organizations based on their religiosity and not on what they would to do advance the interest of the Republic is so odious.
At a personal level, it represents the failure of individual conservatives: certain people thought it was appropriate to discriminate against…
mikethemadbiologist | October 17, 2006Howard Friedman has a nice roundup of the Boston Globe series of articles, "Exporting Faith", which is all about how the intrusion of sectarian dogma is screwing up our foreign spending. It's a good read.
mikethemadbiologist | October 16, 2006I was reading this LA Times story about the quashing of intelligent design creationism in Michigan, and I was stunned by this (italics mine):
Richard Thompson, leader of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, said intelligent design should have a home in science classes. The center describes its mission as defending the religious freedom of Christians.
"It would make students more knowledgeable about science and more interested in science," he said in a phone interview. "Evolution is a theory. It's not a fact."
Evolution is a theory--in the scientific sense of the word. I am certain…
mikethemadbiologist | October 15, 2006Everything Paul the Spud says (italics mine):
We're actually starting to hear a lot of this lately. Republicans/"real" Conservatives are fed up with the out-of-control Bush administration, and they're ready to vote for the Dems, just to get them out of office. Well gee and gosh guys, that's all honorable and cool of you, but I just have one question for you. Where the hell were you guys during the last election?
This editorial, in particular, takes the cake. His finger wagging and scolding is just so much hot air, for the simple fact that the Bush Administration has been completely out of…
mikethemadbiologist | October 13, 2006
And don't forget TEH GAY!
(from oldamericancentury.org)
Because, you see, some conservatives 'discovered' that TEH GAY KONSPIRACIE is actually a covert op by the Democrats to infiltrate the Republican Party. Really. Even with top-notch pharmaceuticals, I couldn't make this lunacy up. Said lunacy belongs to the rightwing group Accuracy in Media:
The complex nature of the "dirty trick" against the Republicans over the Mark Foley scandal is beginning to emerge. It doesn't involve a George Soros-funded group or emails that had been in the possession of the media or shopped around by…
mikethemadbiologist | October 12, 2006Or maybe this post should have been titled "Faith-based initiatives = anti-Semitism." (I'll get to that) Keith Olbermann has a story about David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith. Kuo worked in the Office of Faith Based initiatives in the White House and has impecable evangelical credentials. Essentially, Kuo's book details the White House's cynical use of the 'religious' right, supporting what Tucker Carlson previously claimed.
Watch the whole clip. But this quote jumped out at me:
Kuo says they tried to prove their political value by turning the once-bipartisan faith-based initiatives…
mikethemadbiologist | October 11, 2006
(from here)
GrrlScientist is wearing yellow...
GrrlScientist was trying to understand how 26% of Americans could think Dennis Hastert should suffer no consequences for covering Foleygate. I had some thoughts on the matter. Tonight, after looking through my neighborhood newspaper, The Beacon Hill Times, I propose an alternative hypothesis: they're batshit crazy.
I've reprinted a letter to the Times, with all of the original language and grammar (such as it is). It's about a councilman's proposal to cover up the giant Citgo sign in Boston because Venezualan president Hugo Chavez insulted…
mikethemadbiologist | October 10, 2006You know the wheels are coming off the Republican Wurlitzer when Republicans, as opposed to Democrats, are engaging in public 'soul-searching.' From MSNBC, by way of Atrios:
CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in...
MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?
CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has…
mikethemadbiologist | October 10, 2006There has been an argument by some liberal hawks that once we entered Iraq, it was our obligation to fix it (the whole "Pottery Barn" metaphor). This always honked me off because I knew from the get-go that this whole thing would go sideways. Nonetheless, there was a brief window after the fall of Saddam Hussein to get things to a stable enough point where we could declare Democracy and leave.
If we Bush had prevented the looting of Baghdad, restored some basic services, and held elections when Gen. Garner (ret.) had wanted (over a year before they were actually held), mabye this whole…
mikethemadbiologist | October 10, 2006I'm no fan of tax expenditures. I'm not even particularly fond of most tax deductions regardless of whether or not they're based on religion. Taxes should be about raising revenue, and a complex tax code just makes inserting more loopholes--as well as outright cheating--even more possible. If conservatives were actually serious about shrinking government, they would make the Treasury write checks rather than give tax rebates.
Anyway, the Republicans have decided how they will tackle the deficit: they're going to remove the NCAA's tax-exempt status. It's not clear that the NCAA should be…
mikethemadbiologist | October 10, 2006That's what GrrlScientist asks about the 26% who don't think Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert should resign and/or lose the Speakership over Foleygate. I think most of that 26% falls into a declarative mindset. In other words, once Hastert is defined as a Good Person, he can do no wrong. I'm actually pleasantly surprised the percentage isn't higher.
We see examples of this way of thinking (such as it is) all the time. As a White House staffer told a potential candidate for a position on the National Drug Abuse Council, when the candidate said he supported needle exchange:…
mikethemadbiologist | October 9, 2006One of the things about growing up a few decades ago as a Jewish liberal Democrat in Virginia is that I was forced to meet people who were very different from me (this is a good thing). Thus, I always find it astonishing, simply because it is so foreign to my own experience, how some people can have so little actual contact with those who are different from them.
Over at DailyKos, diarist Geiiga describes what happened while she was interviewing her fellow congregants at her Topeka, KS church--the subject was "what do you pray for?" (italics mine):
Yesterday, in the late morning, I was out…
mikethemadbiologist | October 7, 2006I may get Mad, but then there's just out-and-out mean. The scandal involving former Rep. Foley could take a really nasty turn. Before I get started, let me make something clear: the Foley scandal has as much to do with homosexuality as pedophillia has to do with heterosexuality. Which is to say, nothing at all. Nonetheless, in the social conservative mindset, pedophillia and homosexuality are linked, and, in terms of the political dynamic, that idiocy does matter. It would be kinda like thinking Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11, even though he didn't.
One of the dirty…
mikethemadbiologist | October 6, 2006According to Time Magazine's Christine Gorman, China and Japan are trying to bribe the voters who will decide the next W.H.O. president. It's disgusting that an organization which can be critical in saving lives and combatting infectious disease can be so easily corrupted. Gorman writes:
It's been an open secret for years that the race for Director-General at the World Health Organization is subject to a lot of horse-trading among the so-called member states of the United Nations. But this year's election-in which there are now 13 candidates-is shaping up to be the most unseemly to date.…
mikethemadbiologist | October 6, 2006What's truly terrifying about the Bush phenomenon--at this point, it really can't be called a presidency like any other--is that the 36-40% that think he's doing a good job can vote and own firearms. Seriously, my conception--and I would argue most liberals, moderates, and some conservatives--of what a president should do fundamentally differs from the diehard Bush base. Take it away Jon Stewart (the part at 2:30 is brlliant):
mikethemadbiologist | September 28, 2006...if for no other reason than Henry Fucking Kissinger is once again disastrously advising another president. From 60 Minutes (italics mine):
In [Mike] Wallace's interview with Woodward, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT, the reporter also claims that Henry Kissenger is among those advising Mr. Bush.
According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. "It's getting to the point now where there are eight-, nine-hundred attacks a week. That's more than 100 a…
mikethemadbiologist | September 28, 2006
This transcends absurd: Republican Rep. John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, stated on national television that Al-Queda and Saddam Hussein were linked, even though President Bush himself has admitted no connection. Keep in mind, Boehner isn't some councilman in a podunk little town. He is one of the most influential members of Congress. And he is utterly delusional. On behalf of the Coalition of the Sane, I ask, can we please have our country back?
mikethemadbiologist | September 27, 2006Sen. George "Macaca" Allen (R-VA) is quite possibly one sick puppy:
Shelton said he also remembers a disturbing deer hunting trip with Allen on land that was owned by the family of Billy Lanahan, a wide receiver on the team. After they had killed a deer, Shelton said he remembers Allen asking Lanahan where the local black residents lived. Shelton said Allen then drove the three of them to that neighborhood with the severed head of the deer. "He proceeded to take the doe's head and stuff it into a mailbox," Shelton said.
If this is substantiated further, it's clear the man is missing circuits…