Fucking Morons
mikethemadbiologist | January 25, 2009I'm becoming more enthusiatic about Eric Holder as Attorney General. It's nice to see some clarity about waterboarding--that is, partial drowning interrogation. From Steve Benen:
The exchange was helpful in learning about both the senator and the nominee. [Republican Senator] Cornyn wanted Holder to admit that he'd torture a terrorist in a "ticking-time-bomb scenario," in order to "save perhaps tens of thousands of lives." Holder responded sensibly, noting that we have interrogation methods that aren't torture, and that torture wouldn't produce reliable intelligence anyway.
Cornyn was…
mikethemadbiologist | January 18, 2009If you haven't heard by now, some theopolitical conservatives are angry at the Krispy Kreme doughnut chain because they used "doughnut of choice" in an ad campaign. I think Amanda's take on why these wackaloons fear TEH DONUTZ is right on target:
What made reading this move from the "merely hilarious" column to the "fucking scary" column for me, though, is that I'm currently reading Matt Taibbi's latest book The Great Derangement, and he spends a good deal of his time in the book pretending to be a Christian attending James Hagee's church in San Antonio....what Taibbi explains is something…
mikethemadbiologist | January 15, 2009WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!
One of the most popular posts from the old site was a post about two right wing nutjobs who anointed Justice Alito's chair before his Senate confirmation hearing (AND IT WORKED!!11!!). Well, we have more scent marking for Jesus, this time courtesy of a Republican congressman:
On January 7, second-term Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia and two friends prayed over a door. It was not just any door, but the entranceway beneath the Capitol that President-elect Barack Obama will pass through as he walks onto the inaugural stage to take the oath of office. "I hope and…
mikethemadbiologist | January 13, 2009...or dead. Compulsive Centrist Disorder is a malady that strikes many pundits who think that the ideal policy is always between two opposing points of view, even if one of those viewpoints is really fucking stupid. Sadly, Compulsive Centrist Disorder, when applied to healthcare, can harm the health of innocent bystanders (italics original; boldface mine):
Pete Stark's bill, the most left-wing of the lot (it's sort of a "Medicare for many more" proposal) covers the most people....
Stark's is the best again. And yet there's no chance whatsoever that we'll actually do this because his plan,…
mikethemadbiologist | January 10, 2009Did I mention how idiotic it is for Democrats to be negotiating against themselves regarding the porntax stimulus? Josh Marshall thinks so too (italics mine):
It would be far better on many counts to bring in substantial Republican support for this bill. And I don't just mean that in the BS sense in which President Bush usually meant it, which was to say essentially, 'Of course we'd like you to vote for exactly what we want. More the merrier. But if you don't want to vote for our ideal bill, tough luck.' No, I think there's a real logic in not going the 51 votes model President Bush followed…
mikethemadbiologist | January 5, 2009Democrats won the election handily. Why are we rolling ourselves? I thought Obama would be smarter than the usual Democrat and not negotiate against his own position on behalf of the Republicans. Apparently, I was wrong, since that seems to be the impetus behind making 40% of the 'stimulus' tax cuts:
Obama strategists say he wants to get 80 or more votes in the 100-member Senate, and the emphasis on tax cuts is a way to defuse conservative criticism and enlist Republican support.
Why 80? He needs 60 votes to get cloture in the Senate. As Krugman noted, this is nothing more than a sign of…
mikethemadbiologist | December 23, 2008By way of Steve Benen, we read that, in response to Lou Dobbs' question of "What is dominant in terms of influencing weather?", CNN meterologist Chad Myers responds:
To think we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant. Mother nature is so big. The world is so big. The oceans are so big. I think we're going to die from a lack of fresh water or die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure. But this is like you said, in your career; my career has been 22 years long. That's a good career in TV. But in talking about climate, it is like having a car for…
mikethemadbiologist | December 18, 2008It's truly odd to hear a creationist make a population genetics argument--an idiotic one no less. Rick Warren, evangelist and who will be leading the invocation at Obama's inauguration, says the following about homosexuality:
Warren, a creationist, believes that homosexuality disproves evolution; he told CNN's Larry King in 2005, "If Darwin was right, which is survival of the fittest then homosexuality would be a recessive gene because it doesn't reproduce and you would think that over thousands of years that homosexuality would work itself out of the gene pool."
The stupidity permeates…
mikethemadbiologist | December 11, 2008This couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of assholes:
The collapse of the sale of publisher Reed Elsevier's business information unit was inevitable. It's what happens next that's crucial.
Reed was planning to use the sale proceeds to pay down debt from its $4.1 billion acquisition of U.S. personal data firm Choicepoint earlier this year. If it doesn't find another solution, it risks losing its A- credit rating.
So now it faces a choice. Most likely, it will launch a $2 billion bond issue in January ahead of the first tranche of Choicepoint debt falling due in March - a move likely to…
mikethemadbiologist | December 9, 2008The Surgeon General urges that creationist dumbitude only be viewed through the StupidVu 9000 or other approved viewing device
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson is a very ignorant man. Sorry, he might get offended by that. Allow me to be more accurate: he's a creationist. Oh boy:
Johnson -- not a Ph.D. scientist -- received his bachelor of arts degree in biology from Taylor University, "an evangelical, interdenominational covenant community committed to advancing life-long learning and ministering the redemptive love of Jesus Christ to a world in need." His…
mikethemadbiologist | December 4, 2008While I'm waiting for our next What's New in Life Science Research topic, here's something about 'school reform' by Bob Somerby (who does great work on this topic):
When it comes to Obama's education secretary, the Post favors "reform"--it wants someone who's "willing to experiment." Meanwhile, everyone knows what these words mean when mainstream journalists discuss public schools. "Reform" means cracking down on teachers and teacher groups through ideas like merit pay and the ending of tenure. There may be some merit to these ideas--but few others seem to get mentioned.
...it's the type of…
mikethemadbiologist | December 1, 2008Apparently, humanism is selfish. That would have been news to Albert Camus, Nobel Laureate and resistance fighter. This is from a military chaplain's presentation about suicide prevention that apparently is cribbed directly from evangelical preacher Rick Warren:
In March 2008, this presentation, titled "A New Approach To Suicide Prevention: Developing Purpose-Driven Airmen," was shown at a commander's call that was mandatory for an estimated 1,000 of Lakenheath's Air Force personnel, and sent out by email to the entire base of over 5,000 the following day. As the use of the phrase "Purpose-…
mikethemadbiologist | November 19, 2008I haven't a clue as to how to proceed about the potential auto industry bailout, and anyone who can say with confidence about how the largest industrial bailout in U.S. history will play out is kidding themselves. My instinct is not to lose U.S. controlled industrial capacity on national security grounds. But to follow on something driftglass discussed, there seems to be one group of people who aren't getting blamed.
-link to driftglass
-list as questions the three fuckups
Are salaries and benefits relatively 'high' for auto workers?
Sure (although nobody cares to comment on the 'high'…
mikethemadbiologist | November 15, 2008By way of Amanda, I came across this letter sent to employees of a company that had installed a hand scanner to replace punch-card system for workers checking in and out of work (boldface original; italics mine):
Header: Recognition Systems Inc
To Whom it May concern: It has come to the attention of Recognition Systems that some people have a particular concern about using our hand scanners which relates to their religious beliefs. The concern revolves around the detection or placement of what is described in the Scriptures as the mark of the Beast".
We at Recognition Systems wish to first…
mikethemadbiologist | November 10, 2008At least if you work for the National Review's The Corner. Because the Peace Corps is as horrific as the mass murder of European Jewry. By way of Spencer Ackermann:
Oh good, for a moment I thought the Second Holocaust was off. In response to this plan put forward from Obama --
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation's challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy…
mikethemadbiologist | November 9, 2008Glenn Greenwald describes how a noxious combo of thin skin and blogger criticism can send smart reporters and pundits down the path of obstinancy:
Everything changed when he turned himself into the chief defender of the original Paulson plan and thus became the target of substantial criticism from bloggers and their readers. Once that happened, the comment sections to his columns and his weekly chats became filled with negative feedback -- most of it substantive, some of it pure invective -- while Google searches of his name now produce conspicuous and aggressive critiques of his work.…
mikethemadbiologist | November 8, 2008Soon it will be the War on Christmas season wherein a bunch of assholes shriek hither and yon complaining that someone somewhere tried to remove a Christmas tree, and that said removal will lead to the Destruction of Judeo-Christian Civilization As We Know It.
As far as I'm concerned, it's the last gasp of conservative white Protestants who have suddenly realized that now they are those people. So my question is, given the political shift this country has undergone, how do you think John Gibson's attempt to use religious tribalism to sell really bad books the War on Christmas will play out?…
mikethemadbiologist | November 6, 2008You just can't make this stuff up. From Fox News reporter Carl Cameron (italics mine):
I wish I could have told you more at the time but all of it was put off the record until after the election. There was great concern in the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin lack the degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, and a heartbeat away from the presidency. We're told by folks that she didn't know what countries that were in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that being the Canada, the US, and Mexico. We're told she didn't understand that Africa was a…
mikethemadbiologist | November 3, 2008The Republican Party really is dipping into the dregs, as this Pitch story describes. One wonderful vignette is the phone canvasser who yells at people who aren't voting for Republicans.
I phone canvass, and, erm, you don't yell at people. But onto the Jewish outreach program:
Nuclear holocaust could be part of the divine plan, and you don't fight the divine plan.
"I was in a chat room yesterday explaining how I'd just learned the definition of the word holocaust," she [Linda, a volunteer] told me. "It's a burning sacrifice to God, where none of the rabbis get the meat; it just goes…
mikethemadbiologist | November 2, 2008If you're trying to convince black voters to vote Republican, this probably isn't the best way to do it:
Interesting anecdote and probably a testament to ground organization. I have no idea what this means. Friday night (which happens to be the start of our Sabbath) my wife answered the phone to hear a man stating he was from the McCain-Palin campaign. He asked who she was supporting. She replied that we will vote for Obama. He replied with "but he's a f-----g n---er!". Before I get to my wife's response I'll first have to say that I understand desperation and I also understand that this…