Thomas Friedman - Class Clown

How does this man have a column at the New York Times?:

There is now, for the first time, a chance — still only a chance — that a reasonably stable democratizing government, though no doubt corrupt in places, can take root in the Iraqi political space.

It's bad enough the column is an unthinking load of sugar toward the "democracy" in Iraq, but it's based on the above faulty premise that it's something new for the Iraqis. They had a democracy. We helped the Baath Party over-throw it because Iraq threatened to nationalize the oil interests.

Ultimately, we're the root cause of Saddam and the 40-years of misery the Iraqi's suffered under the Baath Party and Saddam. Without our help and support the Baath Party destroyed the crappy democracy the Iraqi's had started after they'd over-threw the puppet king the British put on the throne of Iraq following WWII.

Does this man not understand 'the google' and how to look up the history of Iraq from 1958 through 1963?

The Pretenders - I go to Sleep

This was, at times, such a brilliant band. Self-destructive as hell. But brilliant.

Melamine update...

Smells like BS to me:

FDA sets safe level for melamine in infant formula

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators set a safety threshold Friday for the industrial chemical melamine that is greater than the amount of contamination found so far in U.S.-made infant formula.

Food and Drug Administration officials set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in formula, provided a related chemical isn't present. They insisted the formulas are safe.

The setting of the standard comes days after The Associated Press reported that FDA tests had found traces of melamine in the infant formula of one major U.S. manufacturer and cyanuric acid, a chemical relative, in the formula of a second major maker. The contaminated samples, which both measured at levels below the new standard, had been analyzed several weeks ago.

Smells like rolling over for corporate interests. Like many of the drug approvals coming in on cooked and/or crappy self-regulated tests.

First China, now the U.S.

The Chinese have had tens of thousands of infants get sick, some die, and a large number suffer permanent, life-threatening kidney damage due to melamine poisoning in infant formula. Now we, too, can look forward to contaminated formula the the spectre of sick babies:

Demands For Baby Formula Recall Mount

Disclosure that laboratory tests have detected traces of contamination in several major brands of infant formula generated concern and confusion Wednesday, with a national consumer group and the Illinois attorney general demanding a Food and Drug Administration recall.

The FDA shunned those calls, but admitted it had released inaccurate information on what chemicals were found in which top selling products.

As worried parents called manufacturers looking for guidance about the presence of melamine and a key byproduct in U.S.-made formula, the FDA reiterated its position that the baby food is safe and parents should continue feeding it to their babies, contending the extremely low levels of contamination do not present a health danger.

Also, a spokesman for one major manufacturer criticized the FDA for its release of the inaccurate information.

"We're getting inundated by calls from moms confused about the situation," said Pete Paradossi, a spokesman for Mead Johnson, one of the three major manufacturers of U.S.-made formula involved in the problem detections.

Melamine is the industrial chemical found in Chinese infant formula - in far larger concentrations - that has been blamed for killing at least three babies and making at least 50,000 others ill."The levels that we are detecting are extremely low," said Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. "They should not be changing the diet. If they've been feeding a particular product, they should continue to feed that product. That's in the best interest of the baby."

Part of the confusion Wednesday stemmed from the FDA's own statements.

While proclaiming that the very low concentrations detected of melamine and a similar compound called cyanuric acid pose no health danger to infants, the FDA has maintained it is unable to identify any exposure level of melamine in infant formula "that does not raise public health concerns."

So it's dangerous. Unless US manufacturers contaminate the formula. Then it's not so bad...

I'm so glad the littlest monkey is 12 and this is a non-issue for us. I feel sorry for anyone who has an infant and can't breast feed... What a horrible thing to have to go through.

All we have do is avoid certain non-US foods and shop in the organic section for foods that contain processed milk or flour, I'm not "Joe Organic," in the way that many people are, but because of the requirements for "organic" labeling, I think it's rational to go that was as they are not as likely to be contaminated with Chinese-source food products.

No doubt the Libertarians have an answer for this which includes destroying what little protection the gutted FDA can still provide.

WKRP EXTENDED Thanksgiving Turkey Drop Scene from

Happy Thanksgiving.

Rachel Maddow Show: Turley on Torture Prosecutions

Worth watching.

Cooler than Cool - Fiction Predicting Reality

Cool, but astronomers need not give up their night jobs:

First visible planet was predicted by the game 'Frontier'

The first ever visible planet has just been discovered orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 light years away.

Incredibly, this was predicted by David Braben's computer game “Frontier” (which the company is named after), released in 1993. The game shows the gas giant planet in almost the same orbit, with a mass of one and a half times that of Jupiter, an orbital period of 989 years and a surface temperature of -217 C.

The game uses a planetary formation simulation that was intended to match reality as closely as possible, and it predicts the Fomalhaut system would have a large number of other planets and moons in addition to this one, including a potentially habitable planet.

There are other planets predicted by the game that should be readily visible to Hubble if it were pointed that way, including one in orbit around our nearest start system, Alpha Centauri, at a distance of 27 AU in the L1 Lagrange Point of the binary stars at the centre of the system, with a temperature of -208 C. Sadly, whether it is there or not, it would be far from habitable. But if Hubble were to be pointed in that direction we've a hunch they won't be dissapointed..

There's another article on the discovery here on bbc.co.uk.

On the other hand, game developers need to not take their serendipitous result quite so seriously...

Butthole Surfers - Dracula from Houston

Enjoy

Leroy Jenkins in Return of the King

Enjoy!

Monty Python and The Holy Grail Killer Rabbit Lego

Enjoy!!!!

Candace Gingrich - A letter to her brother Newt...

In all its glory:

Dear Newt,

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O'Reilly on FOX News. I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, "There you go, again."

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.

The truth is that you're living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as -- and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

Welcome to the 21st century, big bro. I can understand why you're so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign. I can see why you're sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.

This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality. They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever -- and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don't roll that way. 18-24 year olds voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8 and overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. And the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, about 23 million 18-29 year olds voted on Nov. 4, 2008 -- the most young voters ever to cast a ballot in a presidential election. That's an increase of 3 million more voters compared to 2004.

These are the same people who helped elect Barack Obama and sent a decisive message to your party. These young people are the future and their energy will continue to drive our country forward. Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years.

This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It's a movement of progress -- and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.

Then again, we've seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first. You give a pass to a religious group -- one that looks down upon minorities and women -- when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us "fascists" when we fight back. You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of "traditional" marriage. And, of course, you've also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes. I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of "historic Christianity" you claim to champion.

Again, nothing new here. This is just more of the blatant hypocrisy we're used to hearing.

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions. That's really so '90s, Newt. In this day and age, it's embarrassing to watch you talk like that. You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.

Newt's a pretty horrible asshole. And, frankly, he has no business discussing anyone's marriage.

The Night Santa Went Crazy

Just to get us in the holiday spirit...

"Defenders of Marriage" by Roy Zimmerman

Enjoy.

Oh noes! X-Men to get even more trashed...

I'm not a big X-Men fan. Though I did enjoy the first two movies. The third was a big commercial success, though I only saw it much later on TV and I pretty much thought the series was dead after I saw it. Surprise, I see this bit, which, upon further reading, seems to promise to kill the franchise off in a teen-age angst fest:

Professor X and Magneto. Wolverine and Sabretooh. Serena and Blair?

It was announced on Wednesday that Josh Schwartz, the creator of the TV teen dramas "The O.C." and "Gossip Girl," will be writing "X-Men: First Class," another installment of the superhero franchise. Variety reports that the new film will focus on the students at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, rather than the adults like Wolverine and Storm.

On paper the deal seems to make sense: Schwartz is a writer with a proven track record for soapy high school angst; the comic book was originally envisioned by Stan Lee to be focused on mutant teenagers and their issues; and assembling the actors from the first three films has likely become too complicated and expensive to do again. But will the younger-skewing take alienate the true fans?

The previous movie, 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand," was the most financially successful of the series, bringing in over $234 million in the U.S. Some fans of the comic book, however, weren't happy with the liberties the script took with the source material. Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News spoke out on how the "Dark Phoenix" story from the book was shortchanged in the movie, writing, "I truly truly truly hate how they treated it." Others took exception to how major characters were killed off without much fanfare. David Cornelius at efilmcritic.com went so far as to call it "one of the very worst comic book films ever made."

That was me... And I didn't watch it, even though I'd seen the first two, until it hit the boob-tube. I honestly wish I hadn't. The the film's preoccupation of just willy-nilly killing off main characters came across like a shark-jumping fest. It left me cold and I felt the film sucked beyond any bad or stilted acting by some of the characters. Killing Xavier and Cyclops would be like Jackson killing off Gandalf and Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings to "put a twist on it..."

It was just stupid. And they won't, once again, be getting my money. I refuse to pay for shark-jumping or teenage-angst crap.

Putting on a show for her hubby...

Sexy Dance Disaster | Girls | SPIKE.com

Wait till the end...

Cat Herders

Enjoy!

US officials flunk test of American history, economics, civics

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

"It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI.
"How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don't understand the American experience?" he added.



Bite me Washington: You answered 31 out of 33 correctly — 93.94 %


Have to say that one answer was definitely wrong, I haven't read the Gettysburg Address since I memorized it for a Boy Scout merit badge at twelve. The other was a crappy definition of a public good and I had to guess between two bad definitions.

Alizee - I am fed up

Enjoy!

Massive frozen water reservoirs discovered on Mars

So much for Guillermo Gonzalez and the other anthropomorphic earth supporters amongst the creationists as one of their key arguments, the lack of water in the rest of the universe is, once again, disproved:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – NASA scientists have discovered enormous underground reservoirs of frozen water on Mars, away from its polar caps, in the latest sign that life might be sustainable on the Red planet.

Ground-penetrating radar used by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals numerous huge glaciers up to one half-mile thick buried beneath layers of rock and debris. Researchers said one glacier is three time the size of Los Angeles in area.

The rest is here. Including some discussion of the possibilities of finding forensic signs of extra-terrestrial life.

Take Off - Bob and Doug McKenzie + Geddy Lee

Novelty hit from the 80's.

CNN Reports on President Bush - Where's the Love?

CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez: Bush looks like "the most unpopular kid in high school that nobody liked."

Perfect justice. You treat people like crap when you're on the top, they'll treat you like crap when you're on the way down.

NUNS AWARDS

Enjoy!

I knew it!

http://www.heyquiz.com/quiz/cat_kill

Always Look On The Bright Side of Life

For my daughter.

The Monty Python Channel on YouTube

Oh yeah!!!!

Who Killed The Electric Car_1of10

Something to think about when GM is now begging for billions and we were just so recently paying $4.00 a gallon for gas.

Part 1 of 10.

So, I'm thinking "no way..."

This site claims to be able to analyze a blog and determine its "type." I'm thinking "no way," but as a lark I plugged the blog in and it spat back this:

INTP - The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications. They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

Holy crap! INTP is the most likely result when I take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. I also come up INTX (this is where I split J and P because while I'm very INT, my J and P have not, historically, been particularly unbalanced in relationship to each other). Still, in this part of my life I'm more P than X and definitely not trending J and am stunned that it came up exactly the same.

Really, I am jaw-dropping stunned. There was no way I was, coming into this blind, believing this would come even slightly close to who I am as a person. And yet in under a second it nailed me.

And, yes, I damn well know I'm impatient with dullards and people who can't grasp the reality that we live in a complex world without easy, jingoistic-driven answers. And, of course, the know-nothings who seek stupid, simplistic solutions based an overly-simplified world view while we live in a complex, chaotic universe.

And, no, I don't care if it offends the non-thinkers. You don't want me running rough-shod on your stupid ideas, stop thinking them.

Shelby Steele - a man full of hate...

... who can't see things really have moved on... Not completely, and I'll be more than happy to grant him that. But substantially, none the less:

Everywhere I went on my book tour, young people would come up. “We’re beyond your generation,” they would tell me. “We grew up differently than you did.” No, I tell them, you didn’t. You did not. You are now obsessed with race. Race is the only thing that’s driving your interest in Barack Obama. You couldn’t even tell me what his policies are. You’re never critical of him in any way. If you were free of race you would not judge him culturally. You would judge him politically. You just—you are consumed by race.

Poor, bitter loser who sees the specter of hidden anti-racism everywhere.

Sarah Palin Family Meeting

Enjoy!!!

PCS Destroys Intelligent Design in 10 seconds

Enjoy.

Focus in the Family -- Doing the Slow Crash...

Dobson is one of America's biggest hate peddlers, so I'm happy that his hate-group is falling on hard times. I torn on the employees. I'm sure most of them are not as hateful as their leader, but they did choose to work for a hate-based group. And if you do that, I just don't think I can scare up the empathy for your plight:

Focus on the Family announced this afternoon that 202 jobs will be cut companywide — an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. Initial reports bring the total number of remaining employees to around 950.

...

This is the third year that Focus has laid off employees due to budget cuts. In its heyday, the ministry, which relocated to Colorado Springs from Arcadia, Calif., in 1991, employed more than 1,500 people. Many of those employees worked in mailroom and line assembly jobs, processing so much incoming and outgoing correspondences that the U.S. Postal Service gave Focus its own ZIP code.

Especially after this:

In all, Focus pumped $539,000 in cash and another $83,000 worth of non-monetary support into the measure to overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that allowed gays and lesbians to marry in that state.

Which translates to this:

The cash contributions are equal to the salaries of 19 Coloradans earning the 2008 per capita income of $29,133.

No word if Dobson took a pay cut to "help his Family"...

Another 'Market Failure'

We have known for almost a year now that you can't use Chinese source materials in making Heparin. So

As part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ongoing efforts to ensure that heparin for patients remains safe, the government today seized 11 lots of heparin from Celsus Laboratories Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The five lots of Heparin Sodium Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) and six lots of Heparin Lithium were seized at the FDA's request by U.S. Marshals. These products, which were manufactured from material imported from China, had been found by the agency to be contaminated with over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS), a substance that mimics heparin's anticoagulant activity.

“This action will help prevent this contaminated heparin from finding its way into the marketplace," said Mike Chappell, acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, FDA.

Heparin is a blood-thinning drug. An API is a substance or mixture of substances that, when delivered in a finished drug product, directly affects the structure or function of the body. Heparin Sodium USP is an API that may be incorporated into finished drug products. Heparin Lithium is used in certain medical devices including vacutainer blood collection tubes, some in vitro diagnostic assays, and as a coating for capillary tubes. Celsus has distributed Heparin Sodium USP and Heparin Lithium to manufacturers in both the United States and abroad.

OSCS contaminant in injectable drug products containing heparin has been linked to multiple adverse events and deaths initially reported to the FDA in January 2008. Since then, the FDA has put in place a comprehensive inspection and import controls program and has acted to remove from the market heparin materials and products contaminated with OSCS. The seized Celsus heparin – which had entered the United States before the establishment of import controls for the drug – was tested for the presence of OSCS as part of this FDA effort.

To date, the agency has initiated 13 recalls of multiple contaminated medical products containing heparin from several companies.

The FDA informed Celsus Laboratories during an April 2008 inspection and again in a May 8, 2008, letter that the company's actions to notify customers about a contaminant in its heparin were insufficient to assure an effective recall. The agency advises manufacturers who may have purchased heparin from Celsus to contact the company to make certain they are not using any heparin from the seized lots because the product does not meet acceptable quality standards.

The FDA has notified Japanese, Canadian, Australian, European Union, and other international authorities of shipments of contaminated heparin from Celsus.

Honestly, the executives involved in this lackadaisical approach to patient safety should be charged with reckless endangerment for putting profits ahead of the health and safety of the people who could easily die from these dangerous products.

I guess the AFA didn't notice...

...it looks like a burning cross. Well, it's sure to be popular in some circles...

Decorate this holiday season with the Original Christmas Cross to remind your friends, family, neighbors, and all who drive by your home, office, or church of the real meaning of Christmas. You won't find the Original Christmas Cross in stores, so order online today!

I'm going to have to grade this marketing idea a big, fat FAIL. Right up there with Billy Beer.

Pictures at an Exhibition...

I thought the Apple people were supposed to be smarter than this. From Apple Support:

Please help! I took my husband's i-phone and found a raunchy picture of him attached to an e-mail to a woman in his sent e-mail file (a Yahoo account). When I approached him about this (I think that he is cheating on me) he admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him that it is an i-phone glitch: that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent. Has anyone ever heard of this happening? The future of my marriage depends on this answer!

I'm a PC!

Events move forward and after much "no, this can't happen:"

Well, if you must know ... it was a close-up shot of him pleasuring himself taken at the exact moment of maximum pleasure. (I'm trying to remain G-rated here.) It's such a good shot that one must wonder if he actually practiced it a few times before getting it right!

Add that picture to the late night phone calls and some other miscellaneous texts and e-mails that I found ... and this is not the first woman ... and let's just say that my atty is working on the divorce complaint.

Nonetheless, I wanted to remain open to the possibility that it was all some big mistake (I think that he is the big mistake) and thank everyone who provided input on this discussion.

Thread locked. End of amusement.

The Five Trillion Dollar Bailout

Oh boy:

For all the fury over Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion emergency economic relief fund, it seems downright puny when compared to the running total of the government's response to the credit crisis.

According to CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, the U.S. government has put itself on the hook for some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of the financial system.

For the past three decades, too many Americans were suckered by the bankrupt ideology that a free market requires nearly complete deregulation of banks and other financial institutions and a government should be hands-off with its approach to enforcement. Despite the lessons in deregulation we SHOULD have learned with the Savings and Loan crises. Despite the lessons in deregulation we SHOULD have learned with the failure of Long Term Capital Management.

Instead, we had the ever failing "We can regulate ourselves," mantra as a substitute. Something we still hear today, despite the accounting scandals of World Com and Enron, plus over 300 of the Fortune 500 Companies "seeing the light" and restating (almost uniformly downward) their financial statements once the SEC started scrutinizing them.

And when the attorneys general of all 50 states sought to investigate sub-prime lending, believing that some lending practices might be toxic, the major banks, Republicans in Congress and the Bush administration blocked them. The Bush administration and Republican Congress claimed that it had the situation under control and that the inquiry was unnecessary. Everything is fine, trust us, we have the situation in hand and the market's invisible hand will work.

Those that raised red flags about this were scoffed at for failing to understand or even believe in "the market." Those of us that said "regulated capitalism works best" were called socialists and communists. Even though we pointed out the sins of the past and how our system of regulated capitalism worked so much better than the laissez-faire capitalism of the Gilded Age.

The truth is, those who truly understand economics, as did Adam Smith, do not preach an absence of government participation. In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith wrote:

"people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in
some contrivance to raise prices."

Smith, when he wrote his opus, fully recognized the flaw of greed in mankind. And how those that were the greediest and of the lowest moral fiber would always drive the market to the extreme. Smith fully understood how the market needed to be protected from this unrestrained greed in order to function at its best. Because, truthfully, a properly regulated market IS the best way to spread wealth. Not because it is perfect and worthy of worship. But because all other methods of spreading wealth are even more inefficient.

Adam Smith recognized that a market doesn't exist in a vacuum. Rather, the market, as we know it, is a product of a civilization made possible by governments. The market is a product of laws, rules and enforcement. It needs transparency, capital requirements and fidelity to fiduciary duty. And without a strong central government to provide that function, you have the equivalent of Somalia where the markets do not exist because there is, frankly, little in the way of rule-of-law.

The alternative with an absence of governmental over-sight, as we are seeing in the markets and economy, is financial anarchy. And the result is of this anarchy, this unrestrained greed, is that we, the American taxpayer, are now on the hook $15,000 a person for every man, woman and child.

So the next time you hear one of laissez-faire guys proffer their insights into capitalism. Interrupt them and ask for your $15,000 back. They sold you their snake-oil philosophy and the bankrupt government of enablers to go with it. You should demand a refund.

Siouxsie and The Banshees - Face To Face

Post-punk. Enjoy.

The Strange World of Rick Moran

Rick Moran at the, apparently, inappropriately named "The American Thinker" misses the point:

Beware: The Gay Enemies List

Opponents of gay marriage in California are suffering the effects of a childish tantrum thrown by those who lost on Proposition 8. There have been attacks on Mormons for leading the fight for the ballot initiative as well as racial epithets hurled at African Americans because 70% of them voted "Yes" to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Now these activists have taken their derangement to another level; they are publishing lists of ordinary people who donated to the "Yes on 8" coalition:

A childish tantrum? No. A childish tantrum would involve laying on the floor of the five-and-dime and screaming because your grandmother wouldn't buy you the $2.00 red-plastic firetruck when you were four. That's a tantrum.

Engaging in the political process is, well, politics. And, if you don't want to suffer the consequences of engaging in the political process, then don't.

But if you do play politics, don't cry about it because you get blow-back and have to suffer the consequences of your actions. Be an adult and suffer the slings and arrows of your bigotry with a smile. After all you won.

This is stupid and self defeating. Rather than trying to change their opinion, they are making these people enemies for life. And carrying out pogroms like this against people who oppose gay marriage based on their religious beliefs borders on bigotry.

There are other means of protest to make your displeasure known than targeting individuals. All the gay marriage advocates are doing is sealing their fate the next time such a measure goes before the votes.

Ah, some one wants to win the "Most Ironic Blog Post of the Year" award. Proposition 8 was about Constitutionalizing bigotry based on nothing more than religious principles.

I think it also bears mention that under Mr. Moran's logic, Civil Rights Activists in the 1960's were bordering on "bigotry" because they were demanding equal rights under the law and speaking out against the KKK. What a strange world Mr. Moran lives in, where the victims of bigotry fight back and are, therefore, the shrieking bigots. While the bigots are the hapless victims, akin to the poor persecuted KKK.

Up is down. Right is wrong. Good is bad. Slavery is freedom.

Orwell would be proud.

As an addendum, I should point out two things:

1. The Mormons have initially been on the wrong side of nearly every social issue of our time, and remain there for decades after it's obvious to everyone else they are wrong. Slavery and racism in general, polygamy, sexual repression, women's rights, and now gay rights, just to name a few.

2. During the campaign, the Yes on 8 crowd threatened opponents that their names would be published. The price for non-disclosure was to buy-off the Yes on 8 crowd with an equal contribution. Those that didn't, were exposed.

Fish Heads Fish Heads

Enjoy.

Just for the heck of it...

"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."

Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory" Science and Creationism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 118.

Church officials lie to police

There's been a big hoo-hah over an alleged event where Prop 8 people allegedly went into a Church, assaulted some parishioners, pulled the fire alarm and engaged in all kinds of illegal acts of intimidation. Seems that was a LIE in the small:

However, a spokesman for the Delta Township Fire Department, which covers fire issues in the area, said today the department had not received any fire alarm calls nor did they respond to one in the area of the church on Sunday.

So, no fire alarm.What about the assault. The disruption of services, surely those radical, left-wing commie-homo-hippies went after those poor, god-fearing-salt-of-the-earth bigots, er I mean, victims. After all, why would they make these claims if it weren't true, yet lies even in the large:

According to the City Pulse, the protest involved two different groups of protesters, an inside team and an outside team. The outside team held a legitimate protest, holding signs and chanting; the inside team, according to the report, dressed to blend in so they could disrupt the service:

A gay anarchist group infiltrated the Mt. Hope Church in Eaton County Sunday morning, disrupting a service by pulling a fire alarm, dropping leaflets and yelling at parishioners, a pastor said.

The group, Bash Back, was simultaneously picketing outside the church, beating on buckets and using a megaphone to shout “Jesus was a homo” and other slogans as confused churchgoers continued to enter the building.

Members of Bash Back issued a press release Tuesday saying that it targeted Mt. Hope, a church that claims a flock of around 5,000, because it is, “complicit in the repression of homosexuals in Michigan and beyond.”

Here. Or continue to claim "victim" status:

Also, a church press release stated that "The Eaton County Sheriff's office was called and the illegal demonstration ceased." In a follow-up email, Mount Hope Church communications director David Williams asserted that "the demonstration is under investigation."

What really happened according to Eaton County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Warder:

"They were picketing," Warder said. "The church security people came out, the pastor contacted the deputies and told us we want them off our property. We had to tell them they [the protesters] were on public property."

After further discussion with protesters, it was determined some had parked in the church's parking lot. Officers directed that the vehicles be removed from the lot, or the owners could face trespassing charges for retrieving them if police had to return. The protest broke up as a result of that, according to the sheriff.

ZOMG! SOME of them parked in the parking lot. And removed their cars. And went home.

No crime. No assault. No service disruption. Just a picket of a bigoted church who engaged in politics and made themselves fair game. And there is NO investigation. Everything was legal except the parking and they removed their cars when ordered so there not even a trespassing charge.

Instead, what we have is just another case of lying Christians lying to advance their bigotry and cry foul when people peacefully push their hatred back to them. I, for one, am not surprised because these hypocrites do that all the time about almost everything when it comes to social issues and/or their perceived martyrdom.

Just like the Catholic Church that constantly potrays itself as "victim" in the peodophile Priest cover-up.

This Is Radio Clash

Enjoy!

The Who - Behind Blue Eyes

The song is one of the most well-known of The Who's recordings. It starts off with a solo voice singing over an arpeggiated guitar, later adds in bass guitar and ethereal harmonies, eventually breaks out into full-scale rock anthem when a second theme is introduced near the end, and wraps up by a brief reprise of the quieter first theme. Songs written in alternating sections were something of a trademark of Townshend's writing of the period, going back at least to Tommy, where it was used in "Christmas" and "Go to the Mirror!" The guitar riff at the end of the rock anthem section is also used after the bridge during the song "Won't Get Fooled Again," perhaps serving as a link between the two songs when Who's Next was intended to be a rock opera. (Some musical themes from Tommy and Quadrophenia appear in multiple places.)

The lyrics are a first-person lament from a man in the Lifehouse story, variously identified as 'Brick' or 'Jumbo', who is always angry and full of angst because of all the pressure and temptation that surrounds him, and the song was intended to be his "theme song" had the project been successful. (The lyrics of the rocking section near the end were actually written by Townshend as a prayer when he was a disciple of Meher Baba after being tempted by a groupie, and incorporated into the song when it was written.) In the incarnation of Lifehouse that was officially released as a part of Pete Townshend's solo box set, The Lifehouse Chronicles the song's meaning changes to the theme song of the story's protagonist, Ray.

The version of "Behind Blue Eyes" on the original Who's Next album was actually the second version the band recorded; the earlier version appears as a bonus track on the remastered CD release, which features Al Kooper on Hammond Organ. Pete Townshend has also recorded two solo versions, one (the original demo of the song) was featured on the Scoop album. The demo along with a newer recording of the song featuring an orchestral backing was featured in The Lifehouse Chronicles.

The Who - Pinball Wizard

Wow. Been years...

Tone Loc - Wild Thing

Old school.

Candle In The Wind: A Princess Diana Tribute

Number One.

A little less conversation.-Elvis

Number two of all time, Elvis' best selling single of all time. One of the few Elvis songs I like.

3 Doors Down - Kryptonite

And yet I like this one so, so, so much better...

3 Doors Down - Here Without You

Number three US single.

Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives me Crazy

Enjoy.

Obama and Hitler

You'd have to be a madman not to see that Barack Obama is incredibly similar to Hitler.

Imaginary Gay/Black Warfare

The senseless and escalating imaginary war between blacks and gays is tearing our great nation apart. (02:38)

TPMtv: Late Senate Race Update

Sixty Democratic Senators is a long-shot now. But 59 Senators is looking possible.

No, it's management...

Megan McArdle at The Atlantic writes:

Labor's love lost
11 Nov 2008

One of the things you hear over and over again from critics of Detroit, especially ones from the left, is that their current woes are all management's fault because they kept making big cars.

Management has made a lot of mistakes. But making big cars wasn't one of them. That's because they couldn't profitably make small cars in the United States. And the reason they couldn't is that their labor costs were too high. All in, Detroit was paying about $30 more an hour than other companies to make cars. At that kind of differential, you have to concentrate on large cars with big profit margins, not economy cars where consumers fight to save $15 on the headlight bezels.

Sorry Megan. The management of those Companies negotiated those bad labor contracts. While the Japanese negotiated better labor contracts.

Bottom-line is that blaming the Unions for being better at business than the businessmen is grossly unfair, if not down-right "un-American." GM could have done as Caterpillar and weathered a 17-month strike. But they didn't. They folded every time because they were too busy worrying about their quarterly bonuses instead of the long-term health of their company.

Caterpillar out-lasted the UAW and forced them to come back with a decent wage ($18/hour), decent benefits, but low enough that Caterpillar can compete with the Europeans and Japanese in the global market place. All while building excellent equipment and dealing with a crappy exchange rate due to an over-inflated dollar. And while labor isn't making a ton of money, it's a darn good job. And, unlike GM, Caterpillar management isn't grossly over-paid to make stupid decisions and bad products.

GM could have gone in this direction, as well. But they didn't. They ignored everything for quick profits on crappy designed and built products.

And they've been this way since the 1970's.

That's why I own Caterpillar stock and will never own GM or Ford stock.

In The Know: Has Halloween Become Over-Commercialized?

Just getting you ready for the War on Christmas... :)

This is why I've linked

...Not Exactly Rocket Science:

Space Invader DNA jumped across mammalian genomes

Mammals like ourselves pass our genes 'vertically' from parent to child. But bacteria aren't quite so limited; they have mastered the art of gene-swapping and regularly transfer DNA 'horizontally' from one cell to another. This "horizontal gene transfer" has been largely viewed as a trademark of single-celled organisms, with few examples among animals and plants. That is, until now.

A group of American researchers have discovered a group of genetic sequences that have clearly jumped around the genomes of several mammals, one reptile and one amphibian. It's the most dramatic example yet that horizontal genetic transfer outside of the bacterial realm is more common than we thought, and has helped to shape the evolution of animals. Meet the Space Invaders, genetic hitchhikers coming soon to a genome near you.

John Pace from the University of Texas originally discovered the sequences he named Space Invaders (or SPIN elements) by looking at the genome of a small primate called a bushbaby. He was searching for transposons, a group of parasitic DNA sequences that can cut themselves out of genomes and jump to new locations of their own accord. One sequence in particular stood out and Pace searched for it in all other vertebrates whose full genomes have been sequenced.

To his surprise, he found a large number of matches among the DNA of seven very distantly related species - the green anole (a lizard), African clawed frog, little brown bat, mouse, rat, opossum and tenrec , a small animal that looks like a hedgehog but is more closely related to elephants, manatees and aardvarks.

While these animals come from very diverse lineages, their SPIN sequences were incredibly similar; compare those of any two species and you'd get an average match of 96%. That is a remarkable resemblance; even genes for some of the most vital, unchanging proteins within the vertebrate repertoire aren't that similar between different species.

The widespread but patchy distribution of SPIN sequences means that it is extremely unlikely that the seven species inherited these sequences from the same common ancestor. They each have close relatives with completely sequenced genomes that lack any SPINS; they're in tenrecs but not elephants, in mice and rats but not squirrels, and in bushbabies but not macaques or humans.

There is more evidence. None of the SPIN elements (except for those in the rat and mouse) were found at the same locations in their respective genomes. And while the Space Invaders, like all transposons of their ilk, have characteristic sequences at their ends, theirs all differ in a small but consistent way - a single change to their sequence that always shows up in the same position and sets them apart from other transposons.

It's strong evidence that they all of these species picked up their SPIN passengers independently. All the modern sequences are descended from a common ancestor, a transposon forefather that jumped across the genomes of all these species and left its descendents in its wake. They aren't closely related to any other transposons so they don't tell us the identity of the 'Patient Zero' species that was the source of the ancestral sequence, or how said sequence managed to jump into so many different vertebrates.

But Pace has some ideas on those fronts; he suggests that the Space Invaders may have infiltrated the genomes of vertebrates by stowing away aboard certain viruses. There is precedent for that - last year, scientists discovered a piece of DNA that hitched a ride from the genome of a carpet viper into that of a gerbil, by hitching a ride onboard a poxvirus that infected both species. And four of the species that harbour SPINs - bats, opossums, mice and rats - are rich reservoirs of poxviruses that could act as vehicles for mobile DNA.

Regardless of their origins, the SPINs have been busy in their new hosts. Each genome typically contains many copies of the full-length versions and even more shorter variants that do not have the ability to jump around themselves. Together, these short versions (known as MITEs) and the full-length originals can number in their thousands. The frog has 4,000 of them and the tenrec has around 99,000, making SPINs some of the most successful transposons known.

In one case, within the genomes of mice and rats, a SPIN element appears to have given rise to a new gene. It's not clear what it does, but it appears to be functional and dates back to the time before mice and rats diverged from each other. But for the most part, natural selection has turned a blind eye to these sequences, and they have simply drifted through evolutionary time, picking up the odd neutral mutation.

Based on this steady drift, Pace estimated that the majority of SPINs spread through the genomes of vertebrates between 31 and 46 million years ago, with a possible second burst about 15 million years ago that affected the bat and opossum. That's a very narrow period of time in evolutionary terms and during it, the elements managed to 'infect' the DNA of very unrelated species living in distant parts of the world. It was effectively a global pandemic that left lasting consequences.

Reference: J. K. Pace, C. Gilbert, M. S. Clark, C. Feschotte (2008). Repeated horizontal transfer of a DNA transposon in mammals and other tetrapods Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0806548105

No politics. No ranting. Just well explained science.

Mars Phoenix Lander Finishes Successful Work on Red Planet

From NASA:

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments.

Mission engineers last received a signal from the lander on Nov. 2. Phoenix, in addition to shorter daylight, has encountered a dustier sky, more clouds and colder temperatures as the northern Mars summer approaches autumn. The mission exceeded its planned operational life of three months to conduct and return science data.

The project team will be listening carefully during the next few weeks to hear if Phoenix revives and phones home. However, engineers now believe that is unlikely because of the worsening weather conditions on Mars. While the spacecraft's work has ended, the analysis of data from the instruments is in its earliest stages.

The rest is here.

Freepers to boycott Faux News

Here's what happens when you play with matches and create ideological litmus tests for your true believers who will not tolerate any deviation from the hate-rhetoric:

I am with you all the way my friend...i hope FOX goes off the air...hate em now...
MountainWoman

It would be easy. Nearly every show on FNC is unwatchable these days. ....for quite a while, in fact.
Mr. Mojo

At least this one gets it right, finally (though for the wrong reasons):

fauxNEWS - We Distort, You Comply
TV Dinners

Anyway, it's a great thread if you have a puckish sense of irony. Faux News has to move slightly toward the center and the wing-nuts are feeling betrayed that Obama is no longer being portrayed as a Muslim Terrorist Sleeper Agent Commie Babykiller....

The Mormon's Whine Me a River...

The LDS Church can dish it out, but can't take it:

It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election.

Gee whiz, if you're going to spread hatred and bigotry, expect a little blow-back.

Members of the Church in California and millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation who voted for Proposition 8 exercised the most sacrosanct and individual rights in the United States - that of free expression and voting.

And free expression also includes point out that you're a bunch of bronze-age cultists with a phony religion made up by a con man.

While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.

Yet the Church felt it necessary to inflict its religious beliefs outside the confines of its sacred places of worship. Really, if you'd have remained in your sacred religious place, nobody would be protesting you. But you didn't.

Once again, we call on those involved in the debate over same-sex marriage to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other. No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information.

When you respect the rights of others to practice their beliefs, including gay marriage, without you attacking them in any way, shape or form. Sure. Not a problem.

In fact, respecting the rights of others to live their lives as they see fit could be the very ticket for which you're searching. Let's face it, people who don't run to the side of intolerance and hatred aren't being protested by their victims. Case in point, look to the Unitarians. Is anyone protesting them because they run around being hostile and intolerant to the lives of others who don't follow their views?

No. Because they engage in that behavior.

The people being protested are only those who try to force, and this time succeeded, in deny basic human and civil rights to a vulnerable and, relatively, impotent minority. So, until you mind your manners and keep your religious views inside your churches, you can save the hypocrisy and whining for the Rush Limbaugh show. Those clowns eat your pseudo-victimization up.

The rest of us... Hey, it's politics. You don't want to called out for being asshats, don't act like asshats.

Another Wing-Nut Jumps the Shark

You know, I thought with the Obama is a "Muslim-terrorist-commie" the right wing had bottomed out. I didn't actually believe anyone could come up with something stupider than that train of thought. Was I ever wrong:

You know, I was thinking about this. You know, if you were a slave in the old South, what did you get as a slave? You got free room and board, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children because that was just, you know, tomorrow's slave. So, you got a free house, you got free money, and you got rewarded for having children. Can I ask a question? How's that different from welfare? You get a free house, you get free food, and you get rewarded for having children. Oh, wait a minute, hold on a second. There is a difference: The slave had to work for it.

No matter how low I think the right-wing can go, they always prove me wrong by going lower. And he's not the only one. Michael Medved has been excusing slavery for years. It's a tragedy that this is what passes for thought, or humanity, in the right-wing circles.

And my parents wonder why I left the Republican Party 8-years ago and have becoming increasingly critical and repelled by them and the rest of the self-identified "conservatives." The conservative movement has devolved into Jim Crow and they are, almost universally, shit stains on the underwear of life.

More here.

Obama - Iraq and Iran

Obama's election is already paying dividends:

BAGHDAD — Barack Obama's victory is already beginning to shift the political ground in Iraq and the region.

Iraqi Shiite politicians are indicating that they will move faster toward a new security agreement about U.S. troops, and a Bush administration official said he believed that Iraqis could ratify the agreement as early as the middle of this month.

It's not "security." It's a withdrawal plan.

Obama has said that he favors a 16-month schedule for withdrawing combat brigades, a timetable about twice as fast as that provided for in the draft U.S. and Iraqi accord.

Which is a good thing. The British are leaving in the middle of next year. With or without us. We'll be spread even thinner than we are.

Many Shiite politicians had been under intense pressure from Iranian leaders not to sign a security agreement. Iran, which has close ties to Shiite politicians, has feared the agreement would lay the groundwork for a permanent U.S. troop presence in Iraq that would threaten Iran.

Now the Iraqis appear to be feeling less pressure from Iran, perhaps because the Iranians are less worried that an Obama government will try to force a regime change in their country.

Amazing. A country that doesn't feel like it has its back against the wall from the biggest, hypocritical, war-mongering bully on the planet can relax and not interfere with it's neighbors when they no longer feel their next on the middle-east hit-list...

I suspect they'll also be a lot more open on the nuclear issue, too.

And, of course, it's the final repudiation of the Neocons and other right wingers who could never figure out that Iran acts the way they act because of what we've done to them in the past. We funded the over-throw of their democracy. We put the brutal, tyrannical Shah in power. We exploited their country for decades. So, yes, they were pissed at us. I know if someone did that to us, I'd be pissed too.

But now we have a way forward to stability.

Obama Win Causes Obsessed Backers To See How Empty Lives Are

The Onion nails it...

Obama's Mandate

In 2004, President Bush was re-elected with 286 electoral votes, defeating Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) by 3.3 million votes. The significance of this victory is that it was the second smallest popular-vote margin since 1976 and the lowest electoral vote count for an incumbent president's re-election since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

And yet, the Republicans were clear that it was a mandate. And the worthless press, who are now almost uniformly calling for "bi-partisanship" seem to not understand Obama's victory was far greater in scope than either of Bush's. Whom they supported as an autocratic, one-party ruler with a "mandate."

So, let us remember Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that "the nation" gave Bush "a mandate" in 2004. With a much narrower win. And govern accordingly with the larger majority won by Obama. It, of course, will be interesting to see if any of these lap-dogs will apply the same standards to Obama's much more significant victory:

Paula Zahn, CNN host: "A president with a mandate, a 10-seat majority in the Senate, at least 25 seats in the House. So everything should be smooth sailing for Republicans, right? Well, maybe not." [CNN's Paula Zahn Now, 11/8/04]

Chicago Tribune editorial board: "In trying to advance an ambitious second-term agenda, President Bush has made it clear he intends to make every use he can of the assets at his disposal, starting with the electoral mandate he got last week." [Chicago Tribune, "Memo to Bush: Just say 'no,' " 11/8/04]

John Roberts, CBS News chief White House correspondent (now with CNN): "With the majority of the popular vote behind him [Bush], with the Electoral College win, with a mandate that perhaps many people didn't allow him to have in the first term, can he afford to be more magnanimous with the press?" [CNN's Reliable Sources, 11/7/04]

Andy Serwer, CNN host and Fortune magazine editor-at-large: "Interesting time for the president, obviously, he [Bush] seems to have a mandate from the people to go ahead and do what he wants to, his bidding. Where do you think this is going to take him?" [CNN's In the Money, 11/7/04]

Christine Romans, CNN anchor: "When I talk to Democrats and people who watch the Democratic machine, they're furious that this was so close again and that now the president has a mandate." [In the Money, 11/6/04]

Michele Kelemen, National Public Radio diplomatic correspondent: "Others doubt President Bush will change much given his election mandate and his strong convictions in foreign policy." [NPR's Weekend All Things Considered, 11/6/04]

Carol Costello, CNN anchor and reporter: "To American politics now and the mandate. President Bush is promising to use his election mandate to push his agenda forward." [CNN Daybreak, 11/5/04]

Ceci Connolly, Washington Post staff writer: "Well, I certainly think that there is a mandate [for Bush]. I think we have to go a little bit careful in terms of what specifically it is a mandate for. I mean as we've all agreed, a lot was discussed in this campaign. Interestingly, what you heard President Bush focus on was tax reform, Social Security changes, partial privatization. And continuing what he calls the war on terrorism." [Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, 11/5/04]

David Sanger, New York Times White House correspondent: "But Mr. Bush no longer has to pretend that he possesses a clear electoral mandate. Because for the first time in his presidency, he can argue that he has the real thing." [The New York Times, "Relaxed, Certainly, but Keeping One Eye on the Clock," 11/5/04]

Dan Chapman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution global economics and business reporter: "Bush, buoyed by a popular mandate and a more Republican Congress, will probably receive the financial and military wherewithal to fight the insurgency and rebuild Iraq." [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Bush gets voters' nod on Iraq, but outlook risky," 11/4/04]

Keith Miller, NBC News correspondent: "Bush, who won by more than three and a half million votes, has a solid mandate that will force the attention of America's enemies and allies." [NBC's Nightly News, 11/3/04]

Rafael Lorente, Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) Washington bureau: "Americans not only gave President Bush a mandate, they also gave him the necessary tools in the form of more Republican House and Senate colleagues to push through his conservative agenda." [Sun-Sentinel, "Bush now has the tools to energize his priority programs," 11/4/04, syndicated by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services]

Doyle McManus and Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times staff writers: "Four years ago, George W. Bush won his first term with fewer votes than his opponent, but governed as if the nation had granted him a clear mandate to pursue conservative policies. This time, Bush can claim a solid mandate of 51% of the vote, which made him the first presidential candidate to win a clear majority since 1988 -- a point Bush aides made repeatedly Wednesday." [Los Angeles Times, "Majority Win Could Make Second Term More Partisan," 11/4/04]

Tony Karon, Time magazine columnist and senior editor: "George W. Bush took the reins of power with the confidence and certainty of one who had carried a landslide mandate to implement his own agenda. This time, of course, his claim of a popular mandate is incontrovertible. His party has strengthened its grip on both branches of the legislature, and freed of any first-term restraints that might be thrown up by reelection concerns, President George W. Bush is well positioned to even more vigorously pursue his agenda." [Time, "Victorious Bush Reaches Out," 11/3/04]

Wolf Blitzer, CNN anchor: "My sense is that the president will see this as a mandate on his policies, because the Republicans also did very well in the House of Representatives, did very well in the U.S. Senate, picking up seats in both. He gets over 50 percent, 51 percent. And he's going to see this as a mandate in the next four years to try and move the country in the direction he wants it to move. He will try to bring the country together in the short term, but he's going to say, he's got a mandate from the American people, and by all accounts he does." [CNN election coverage, 11/3/04]

Renee Montagne, NPR host: "Well, as you say, the president's people are calling this a mandate. By any definition I think you could call this a mandate. How will he govern?" [Morning Edition, 11/3/04]

Chris Matthews, MSNBC host: "Good evening. I'm Chris Matthews. And welcome to MSNBC's post-election coverage live from Democracy Plaza in New York's Rockefeller Plaza. Yesterday voters went to the polls and reelected President George Bush, giving him a mandate in his second term." [MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, 11/3/04]

Several conservative media figures and outlets also quickly declared Bush's narrow victory a "mandate":

Wall Street Journal editorial board: "The voters did [decide the election] -- including millions of conservative first-timers whom the exit polls and media missed -- emerging from the pews and exurban driveways to give President Bush what by any measure is a decisive mandate for a second term. ... Just because an election is close doesn't mean it isn't decisive. ... ... that Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive." [Wall Street Journal editorial, "The Bush Mandate," 11/4/04]

Bill Bennett, conservative author and nationally syndicated radio host: "Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it." [National Review Online, "The Great Relearning," 11/3/04]

Then-CNN host Tucker Carlson: "[N]obody has done it since 1988. The president wins reelection with a majority of the vote. It is a mandate. What will he do with it now? [CNN's Crossfire, 11/3/04]

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal contributing editor: "He [Bush] has, I would argue, a mandate now. You can bet he's going forward boldly. He announced it today in his victory speech. He said, 'Honey, I'm not just going to lower your taxes. I am transforming the tax system.' " [Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, 11/3/04]

Pat Buchanan, MSNBC political analyst: "There's no doubt about it, this was a vote against, by the red-state folks who gave the victory to George Bush, it was a rejection of blue-state America. It was a rejection of their values, their attacks on the president. ... And the idea, it seems to me, that somehow the folks who won should now surrender part of whatever mandate they have to the folks who lost -- I can tell you, what we're hearing on this panel, people out there in red-state America are finding it very offensive." [Hardball with Chris Matthews, 11/3/04]

William Kristol, Weekly Standard executive editor: "The hair-pullers and teeth-gnashers won't like it, of course, but we're nevertheless inclined to call this a Mandate. Indeed, in one sense, we think it an even larger and clearer mandate than those won in the landslide reelection campaigns of Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984, and Clinton in 1996." [The Weekly Standard, "Misunderestimated," 11/15/04 issue]

If I was Obama, I'd tell them to STFU. I'd have my Press Secretary read them their words. I might even use any excess cash to buy commercial time and make any of them who suddenly get converted to "bi-partisanship" eat them in public.

Blue Shift

Karl Rove and the conservatives in the K Street projected dreamed of creating a "permanent Republican majority." After 2004's election, where they made further inroads by terrorizing the American voting public with a series of phony terrorist threat alerts, they smugly declared this to be true.

But the Republicans missed one key point: winning elections is fine, you still have to govern well.

And that they haven't done. Today, with the stock market off 5,000 points over the year and the US suffering from the biggest financial crisis since the great depression, we've seen, very clearly, the Republicans can't govern. With the national debt soaring to record heights, we can clearly see the Republicans can't govern. In Iraq, the Iraqi's are kicking us out and cozying up to Iran. In Afghanistan the Taliban are on the warpath and winning the country back. The rest of Mid-east is even more of a powder keg than before as we rattle our sabres and the despots laugh. Clearly, even in their former strength of foreign policy, the Republicans can't govern.

And now that they've been made a minority party. Just four short years from when they lorded their "permanent Republican majority" theme, all they can do now is energize the theocrats, racists and hillbillies. While the rest of America looks to the Democrats to govern.

Fox News: Palin didn't know Africa was a continent

Holy crap!

Goodbye IE????

The Internet is for porn... The Internet is for porn...

Firefox 'Porn Mode' Private Browsing Arrives

Pre-release versions of Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 now include Private Browsing, according to Firefox programmer Ehsan Akhgar.

"Private Browsing aims to help you make sure that your Web browsing activities don't leave any trace on your own computer," Akhgar explained in a blog post. "It is very important to note that Private Browsing is not a tool to keep you anonymous from Web sites or your ISP, or for example protect you from all kinds of spyware applications which use sophisticated techniques to intercept your online traffic. Private Browsing is only about making sure that Firefox doesn't store any data which can be used to trace your online activities, no more, no less."

So, I'm wondering what the market penetration will be for this browser. And if it will be a death blow to IE.

Personally, I'm not a Firefox fan. It crashed too much and I got tired of it. IE may not be the most cutting edge, but it's the most stable. and I'm not a frills kind of guy.

God hates Libby Dole

After mudslinging her opponent as an atheist when, in fact, she is a Sunday School teacher among other things, in a desperate attempt to keep her seat, we must conclude that (if he existed) God hates Libby Dole. Congratulations to Kay Hagen on her win over Dole. May you better than the very odious Libby Dole.

In other post election news, New England doesn't have a single Republican congressman. And, with the ouster of many Republican moderates, I'm not sure if the Republicans can, any time soon, become a mainstream, national party instead of the coalition/regional party they've become.

So much for the "permanent Republican majority" vision of DeLay and Rove. Idiots. You have to govern as well as you campaign, otherwise the bill becomes due. And the public WILL collect.

Watch Expelled with subtitles correcting the lies!

Now subtitled with the truth...

Backfire - How the Right-Wing Hate Machine Failed

We have seen over the past month one of the worst, most dog-whistle racist, and generally hateful negative campaigns ever waged in a modern Presidential race. And yet the Rovian politics behind it failed:

Obama's favorable rating is 62% -- the highest that any presidential candidate has registered in Gallup's final pre-election polls going back to 1992.

From the same article:

Biden has a favorable-unfavorable rating of 53%-32%. Palin has a favorable-unfavorable rating of 42%-49%.

The message of hate was so putrid that they even managed to make Joe Biden look good. And that was a lot of work.

I'd like to say it also wrecked that nut-bag Palin, darling of the right-wing nut-bags. But considering the near fatal case of 'foot-in-mouth disease' she is demonstrating, Palin's problem is more of a self-inflicted gun-shot wound than anything else... Seriously, she's stupid, bigoted, hateful and an example of the kind of Christianity that is closer to radical Islam than it is to anything New Testament Christ-like.

Reagan's Chief of Staff on Palin's lack of qualifications

Says former Reagan Chief of Staff and longtime GOP insider Ken Duberstein of John McCain's VP selection: "Even at McDonalds, you're interviewed three times before you're given a job."

Duberstein is a close friend of Colin Powell, but it's still striking that such a Republican stalwart would openly support the Democratic nominee.