Archives 2008

Aiding the Terrorists

Remember the 2004 election, when partisans from both major parties
were arguing that Osama bin Laden wanted the other guy to win? Well,
this time around,
wonder no more:

“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.

The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers.

KC Star Endorses Sean Tevis

One race that I’ll be interested in on election night, even though it
doesn’t affect me directly, is that of
Sean Tevis,
who’s running for State Representative in Kansas’s 15th district
(Olathe, just outside Kansas City). You may have seen his
XKCD-style webcomic asking for donations.

He was recently
endorsed
by the Kansas City Star. Good luck to him. Let’s hope this helps.

Don’t Apologize for Disagreeing

Tonight, a few of us got together at an airport hotel bar to socialize, watch the debate, and have some beers. At some point we were joined by a business traveler, with whom we had a nice conversation slash bull session about a wide array of topics.

One thing that struck me was that every so often, he’d say something none of us agreed with, like “Wouldn’t it be better to just stop following the news for six months?

Wouldn’t you be much more relaxed?” We’d argue with that, and he’d put up his hands and say “Look, I’m just throwing it out there.” That struck me as odd, but I was too distracted at the time to offer a proper reply. What I should have told him was:

“Don’t apologize. What you’re doing is forcing me to examine my beliefs, and see whether they’re well supported. If there are sound reasons for believing what I do, I ought to be able to find them. And if you uncover a flaw in my reasoning, then you’re doing me a favor; I can stop believing something that isn’t true.” Read More

Unselfconscious Statement O’ the Day

Found at Dembski’s House of Evolution Denialism:

Uncommon Descent has been debunking anthropogenic global warming since the website began 3.5 years ago. We have a keen nose for bogus science here, folks.

Good thing there’s now a Micro Center in town, ‘cos I need a new keyboard.

The Adorable Bill Donohue

Thanks to Fez for pointing out this
video
of Bill Donohue complaining about eucharist desecration, and YouTube
not pulling videos of people doing same:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLP2fHGHX7c&hl=en&fs=1]

Isn’t he adorable? Don’t you just want to pinch his chubby little
cheeks?

Read More

Religulous

I just got back from an advance screening of Bill Maher’s new film,
Religulous,
(via the
Beltway Atheists, who
get a shout-out for it).

If you’ve seen the trailer, you know what to expect: Bill Maher
travels around the world, interviewing people about religion, and
basically letting them show how ridiculous their beliefs are. And
that’s basically it, plus some film clips thrown in for comic effect,
and some lines that you’d expect to hear on Real Time or
in his stand-up routine, rather than in a serious documentary.

The film does slow down in the last third, but not enough (IMHO) to
drag, and ends on a down note. In the meantime, it does manage to
raise some important questions about religion, though probably not the
ones one might expect.

Spoilers and ranting below the fold.

Read More

Caribou Barbie, Flintstones Barbie

K-Lo at NRO
relays
a bit from the Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview:

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

I can understand a politician trying to dodge a question like “Did you
have sex with that person?”, “What happened to the missing funds?”,
“What’s your plan for getting us out of this mess?” and the like.

But “Which newspapers were you reading two months ago?”?! FFSMS,
woman, even if you’re a terminally oblivious clothhead who pays no
attention to anything in the news that isn’t about you, you can still
make up something plausible: “Well, I get the Wasilla Journal and
Juneau Times delivered at home [if true; subscription lists can be
checked], but I also subscribe to the NY Times, WaPo, and dozen other
news sources in my RSS reader. And of course I’m always adding Google
News alerts.” See? Simple, plausible, and hard to disprove.

Dinosaurs and humans coexisting
But speaking of newspapers, the LA Times
passes on
the story of a Wasilla resident who asked Palin about her religious
beliefs:

Palin told him that “dinosaurs and humans walked the
Earth at the same time,” Munger said. When he asked her about
prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin
said “she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the
tracks,”

It sounds like she’s talking about the
Paluxy River tracks,
about which young-earth creationist organization Answers In Genesis
wrote:

Some prominent creationist promoters of these tracks
have long since withdrawn their support. Some of the allegedly human
tracks may be artifacts of erosion of dinosaur tracks obscuring the
claw marks. There is a need for properly documented research on the
tracks before we would use them to argue the coexistence of humans and
dinosaurs.

Caribou Flintstones Barbie: more ignorant than AiG. That’s impressive.

Wednesday Playlist (Financial Meltdown Edition)
  1. God Spoke Through A Burning Bush, Klutæ
  2. Sleeper in Metropolis, Anne Clark
  3. King Money, ABC
  4. Take the Money and Run, Steve Miller Band
  5. Money for Nothing, Dire Straits
  6. Money Changes Everything, The Smiths
  7. Alarm Call, Anne Clark
  8. Wots… Uh the Deal, Pink Floyd
  9. Start of the Breakdown, Tears for Fears
  10. Don’t Bring Me Down, Electric Light Orchestra
  11. Don’t Fall, The Chameleons
  12. I Fall Down, U2
  13. Falling Free, Tom Smith
  14. Free Falling Divisions, Wire
  15. Crashing, Gravity Kills
  16. Burn, Deep Purple
  17. Crash and Burn, Ministry
  18. Where’s the Money?, Holger Czukay, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit
  19. Self Destruct, Anne Clark
  20. Shot Down in Flames, AC/DC
  21. Drag it Down, New Model Army
  22. Mr. Self Destruct, Nine Inch Nails
  23. House Burning Down, Jimi Hendrix
  24. Babylon’s Burning, The Ruts
  25. Dreams Burn Down, Ride
  26. Burn Your Money, Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper
  27. The Deal (No Deal), Chess: Soundtrack
  28. You Never Give Me Your Money, The Beatles
  29. I Do Not Want This, Nine Inch Nails
  30. Don’t Argue, Cabaret Voltaire
  31. Black Market Dealers, Funker Vogt
  32. When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around, The Police
A Nation Party of Whiners

Unfuckingbelievable.
Literally. If I hadn’t seen the video myself, I would’ve thought this
was the left-wing spin machine blowing things out of proportion.

Yeah, I know C&L is on the left, but ignore the title and
commentary and just watch the video.

Summary: House GOP leaders said that the bailout bill failed because
of a “partisan speech” by Nancy Pelosi. Quoth John Boehner:

I do believe that we could have gotten there today had it
not been for this partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor
of the House. … The speaker had to give a partisan voice that
poisoned our conference

Roy Blunt:

We worked together well to try to come up with a
compromise that could pass today, that the president could sign, that
would do what needs to be done on the economy, but every time you’d
turn on television or read an article about the press reports of what
the other side was saying, it was all about how either Republicans
were unpatriotic, were there too late, or whatever.

Mommy, they’re saying bad things about me in the papers! Make them
stop!

Eric Cantor:

Right here is the reason, I believe, why this vote
failed. This is speaker Pelosi’s speech

What do you think they served at their cheese-and-whine party? I’m
guessing Waahmontillado.

The sooner these crybabies join the Federalist and Whig parties in the
dustbin of American politics, the happier I’ll be. They can cry all
the way to the bank if they like, but they’d better hurry before the
bank collapses.

Political Photoshop O’ the Day

McCain Defeats Truman

Creative Commons License

(Explanation for anyone who isn’t a political wonk with no life and doesn’t get it. And for those who don’t remember history.)