Fucking Morons
mikethemadbiologist | August 13, 2006So quipped John Aravosis. He posted the following email:
The horror the horror.
Just got the following email from my friend Cate:
"Yesterday, the TSA was confiscating MAKE UP at America's airports. Yes, MAKE UP. What kind of make up, you ask? LIP GLOSS. Yesterday, a friend of mine informed me that a girlfriend of hers waited in line for FIVE HOURS yesterday at National Airport.. and if you got out of line, to um, I don't know, TAKE A PISS, you had to go to the back of the line. Then the TSA made her hand over her Chanel lip gloss. Apparently Chanel Lip Gloss is a massive threat to national…
mikethemadbiologist | August 12, 2006By now, you might have heard about the Science article examining the acceptance of evolution in 34 countries. I don't have much else to say that PZ, Shelley, John, and Nick Matzke haven't said already. But I have some additional good news and bad news. The bad news is that we're even more stupid that we thought: 30% of Americans don't know what year the 9/11 attacks were, and five percent can't identify the month and the day of the 9/11 attacks.
The good news is that I was at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory to give a lecture about antibiotic resistance to high school teachers…
mikethemadbiologist | August 10, 2006In my stream of consciousness post about Joe Lieberman, I noted that Lieberman's loss reveals just how inept the Democratic consultant and advisor class is. Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon picks up on this theme:
This was never our race to win. It was Joe Lieberman's to lose. More specifically, it was the DLC's to lose.
And, as usual, the DLC lost. Again. With that ever familiar 48% number staring them in the face.
Let's face some cold, hard facts, people. We didn't do this, because what we supposedly DID was impossible to do--in any politcal climate.
In one corner, you had a…
mikethemadbiologist | August 8, 2006So says the Hartford Courant. Lieberman is precisely why the Democratic Establishment perpetually has its collective head up its collective backside: an incumbent senator loses to a no-name challenger whose only previous political experience was in local government. The challenger was massively outspent and did not have over a decade's worth of political favors to call upon. And Lieberman still lost. Instead of taking the hint, he plows on in the name of a cause I can't fathom. Overwhelmingly, his party and the country reject his stands on Iraq, social security, and popular culture,…
mikethemadbiologist | August 6, 2006
Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post writes:
George Pyle , an editorial writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, complains in the Tribune's editorial blog that I did not include his paper's Sunday editorial in my Wednesday column about editorials from all over the country expressing outrage about Bush's signing statements.
The Tribune wrote: "Congress and the courts must rein in this presidential power grab. To do otherwise would be to court tyranny."
And yes, in 2004, the Tribune endorsed Bush.
Of course, if the Salt Lake Tribune had actually done some critical reporting (along with any other…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2006It appears that some Lieberman supporters are so frustrated by the internet support for Ned Lamont, they are not only attempting to provoke violence at Lamont events, but are actually behaving violently. From Matt Stoller (italics mine):
A large man, around 50 years old or so, then started screaming at Ned, "Are you an Al Sharpton Democrat, or a Bill Clinton Democrat?" Ned was trying to answer, and the gentleman kept yelling. The Lamont press secretary tried to intervene, and meanwhile, the people behind the counter who owned the restaurant were horrified and embarrassed. Then Ned Lamont…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2006The Mel Gibson anti-Semitic tirade is turning into quite the teachable moment. I've never understood the 'sanctity of marriage arguments.' To me, they always sounded analogous to the arguments against interracial marriage: underneath it all was only squalid and ugly hate. Here's what Gibson said about homosexuality in 1992 (it's below the fold because it's pretty vile):
Heartthrob actor Mel Gibson, asked by one of Spain's leading magazines what he thinks of homosexuals, launched into a tirade against gay men.
"They take it up the ass," Gibson told El Pais as he got out of his chair, bent…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2006Blood red that is. At DailyKos, Hunter elegantly describes the Peter Pan Right:
No beating around the bush, here: with talk of "World War III" and the blessed "opportunity" of the expanded bloodshed, conservatives and neoconservatives are positively giddy in their proclamations of who else -- which cities, which people -- need to die next, in the service of the city on the hill that can be built on their bones.
A Larger War is, as I have said before, a monkey's paw. Fuck the devil; there are wishes here to be granted, if you ask for them properly. There are political futures to be determined…
mikethemadbiologist | August 2, 2006In response to a CT newspaper editorial that opposed ANWR drilling, Daniel Kish, a senior advisor to the Republican Chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Pombo, spewed some serious bile:
"Connecticut should have its statehood taken away from it. The foolishness of its pampered residents should be demonstrated to others by a government program to bulldoze the entire state, salt the land and construct a windfarm to supply NYC with electricity. And its residents should be relocated to Guantanamo Bay where they can take a number behind the 3 who hung themselves this weekend, since they…
mikethemadbiologist | August 2, 2006Sen. Conrad Burns (R) has to be one of the dumber rocks out there. Who in his right mind insults firefighters who travelled a couple of thousand miles to help your state? Maybe my 'Firefighting Dems' idea wasn't so ridiculous after all...
mikethemadbiologist | August 2, 2006It looks like supporters of reason won out over sectarian ideologues in Kansas. Josh at Thoughts from Kansas writes:
The Board is back in moderate hands no matter what. The night is, on balance, a victory. It'd be nice to further marginalize the extremists by winning the remaining races in November, but we've got a majority that will implement the science standards recommended by the scientists, educators and parents of the science standards committee. The Board can focus on bigger issues. They can dig into ways to address the special challenges of rural districts, and to find solutions to…
mikethemadbiologist | August 1, 2006maha agrees with me that the current Republican leadership is suffering from Peter Pan syndrome:
If there's one thing I'm sure of about our President, it's that he has never encountered his limitations. He is as oblivious to his limitations as a spoon is oblivious to soup. He's oblivious to his dark side; the dragon has been bought off; he mistakes his own inhumanity for virtue. He's still a boy, in other words. And I believe the same is true of Dick and Rummy.
And while we're on the subject of Big Famous Bloggers who agree with me, Matt Yglesias also thinks that Little Lord Pontchartrain's…
mikethemadbiologist | August 1, 2006...that conservatives don't have to face reality, they can just invent their own? DeLong writes about one delusional tax 'plan' (italics mine):
There is a serious issue here: When one does policy evaluation of the proposals of an administration, does one evaluate the effects of the policies that the administration has proposed? Or does one evaluate the effects of the policies that the administration has proposed plus policies that the administration has not proposed, shows no inclination to propose, but that one wishes it would propose?
I think the italicized part explains how so many have…
mikethemadbiologist | July 31, 2006
...the neocons had to betray it? Granted, Rolling Stone also published crap by RFK, Jr. But there are some public-domain facts to back up the Rolling Stone article's claim that several neocons tried to prevent a detente with Iran by leaking classified information to Israel (including several indictments). From the Rolling Stone:
At the far end of that room, on the morning of February 12th, 2003, a small group of eavesdroppers were listening intently for evidence of a treacherous crime. At the very moment that American forces were massing for an invasion of Iraq, there were indications…
mikethemadbiologist | July 30, 2006Can we please have one leader in the Middle East who isn't thoroughly corrupt or nutty bonkers? Iranian President Ahmadinejad has now declared a war against foreign words:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves," state media reported Saturday.
The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the…
mikethemadbiologist | July 30, 2006
And if a lot of people actually take charlatan Kevin Trudeau seriously, we'll be seeing a lot of dead people. Stupid, dead people. Christopher Wanjek and Orac take down the fraud Kevin Trudeau's new book More Natural Cures Revealed. Writes Wanjek:
Bacteria and viruses don't cause disease, which is why you don't "catch" cancer or diabetes; disease is caused by an imbalance of vital energy. Here Trudeau mixes the concept of communicable and non-communicable disease. First, Trudeau needs to visit Uganda with his balanced vital energy and avoid malaria. This denial of pathogens as the cause…
mikethemadbiologist | July 28, 2006
(from firedoglake)
By way of Pam at Pandagon comes this story of the moral values of the 'heartland', which is apparently a place where gays are considered to be the moral equivalent of Nazis. A store owner hung a rainbow flag outside of his inn/restaurant. He had purchased the flag for his son at a Wizard of Oz museum, because his son thought it reminded him of "somewhere over the rainbow." Up rose the good Christians of Meade, KS (italics mine):
Knight says the radio station has called him threatening to remove the restaurant's commercials if he does not remove the flag. A local pastor…
mikethemadbiologist | July 25, 2006
Yes, I know. Saying this is like picking on the stupid kid. But that's the whole point. Cenk Uygur writes:
If someone is this ignorant, they're usually embarrassed and try not to talk much. But this guy is so dumb he has no idea how dumb he is. This sounds like a conversation you might have with a child, a mentally challenged child. Johnny, do you know how big Russia is? How about China?
This would all be unfortunate if George was your dentist, or worse yet, your accountant. But he is the leader of the free world. This man makes life or death decisions every day. If you say you're not…
mikethemadbiologist | July 24, 2006Apparently, the Iraqis have moved to "Plan B", which is the dissolution of the Iraqi state. From the Independent:
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, meets Tony Blair in London today as violence in Iraq reaches a new crescendo and senior Iraqi officials say the break up of the country is inevitable.
A car bomb in a market in the Shia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad yesterday killed 34 people and wounded a further 60 and was followed by a second bomb in the same area two hours later that left a further eight dead. Another car bomb outside a court house in Kirkuk killed a further 20…
mikethemadbiologist | July 24, 2006
Former enthusiastic neocon supporters running for cover heroically deploying towards a rearward area.
Perhaps it's just human nature, but I've always disliked Johnny-Come-Latelys. It's never made sense to me how those of us who figured out that the Iraq War was going to become a pandimensional clusterfuck (and didn't require special intel or brilliant intellect to do so) are still denigrated and not taken seriously, while those who got it wrong and now admit their mistake are still considered 'serious' thinkers. And not in the sense of 'seriously stupid.'
Billmon nails exactly what I…