Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Short and sweet today, my darlings. It's not just because I have to pack for the trip, but also because the stupid's not quite as thick on the ground as usual. I think the right tired itself out frothing over Judge Sotomayor this week.

But there are still a few Cons out there keeping up appearances.

Let us begin with John Yoo, who apparently has the self-awareness of a shrubbery:

From John Yoo, who seems intent on setting a Guiness world record for total lack of self-awareness:

Conservatives should defend the Supreme Court as a place where cases are decided by a faithful application of the Constitution, not personal politics, backgrounds, and feelings. Republican senators will have to conduct thorough questioning in the confirmation hearings to make sure that she will not be a results-oriented voter, voting her emotions and politics rather than the law.

This from the same man who twisted the law into pretzels to justify Bush's torture regime.

I owe the shrubberies of the world an apology. Comparing John Yoo's self-awareness to theirs was a grave insult, and I'm deeply sorry.

Perhaps we could compare him to Bill O instead, whose self-awareness is so infinitesimal that electron microscopes have difficulty spotting it:

Yes, Bill O'Reilly, it really is a crappy thing when major public figures -- or pissant ankle-biters -- can outrageously smear other public figures as "racist" and do so with impunity and repeatedly. That's what BillO was on about last night, anyway.

But no, he wasn't talking about Sonia Sotomayor. She's just a minor figure, after all. O'Reilly was talking about his own august self. Of course.

It was really quite the stomach-churning whinefest. He started off ranting that "my civil rights" and "my rights as an American" had been violated because he's been branded a "racist" on numerous occasions, which he claims is "libel." Then he indulged one of his periodic bully-the-women routines ("My rights were violated here!"), where he had on two female lawyers who proceeded to explain to him that he was full of crap. This, of course, did not sit well with O'Reilly, who ended up shaking his finger at them and accusing them of enabling the destruction of America.

Along the way, he managed to emit some momentous howlers:

If I were a minority, they couldn't do this to me. You know it. You know it, Tonia. If I were African-American like you are, and they started to do all this kind of stuff, I could kill 'em. And that's my point now. White Americans, Miss California, their rights are being violated, at least the spirit of their rights, by these unbelievable attacks, personal attacks.

...

They're attacking people who disagree with them in very personal ways. That's what they're doing. Don't dodge it.

Then, when they pointed out that the same could be said of his own behavior, he flew into a barely contained rage:

Wait a minute! Hold it! Tonia, keep quiet. I don't dish it out, madam. I don't do that stuff. Don't sit here and say I do. ... We don't do that here. Ever.

And then, at the end of the show? His usual segment of "Pinheads and Patriots."

You know, I'm starting to feel sympathy for Bill. It's hard to blame brain-damaged individuals for their lack of brain function.

Speaking of brain damage, I'm not quite sure what Sarah Palin was thinking:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will appear on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" next month in a pre-taped message, the GOP governor said Friday.

On her Twitter page, Palin announced she'd make a cameo on the satirical news show, known for skewering lawmakers and sending-up bombastic conservative television hosts.

Palin tweeted Friday:

Getting ready to tape shout-out for our awesome US troops serving overseas! Will be on 'Colbert Report' next month, broadcast from Iraq…

Um. Sarah? The location was supposed to be a secret. And, also, Stephen's not really a conservative pundit. Just ask George Bush, who found that out the hard way.

While I'm passing out advice, I'll give some to Michael Steele for free. Michael, you may really want to rethink babbling praise for G. Gordon Liddy:

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that former Watergate crook and current hate radio host G. Gordon Liddy had launched perhaps the most offensive attack against Judge Sonia Sotomayor yet. “Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something,” said Liddy, adding that she speaks “illegal alien.”

One day after Liddy put his over the top sexism and racism on display, RNC Chairman Michael Steele called on conservatives to quit “slammin’ and rammin’” Sotomayor with personal attacks. Presumably, Liddy’s offensive rant is exactly the message Steele wants to cease, which raises the question of whether Steele will continue to associate himself with Liddy.

As ThinkProgress reported in March, Steele appeared on the Feb. 5, 2009 edition of Liddy’s radio show and told the hardline right-winger that he follows in his footsteps:

STEELE: So, I, you know, I follow the footsteps of guys like you who, you know, who, you know, set the bar and pushed and pushed and pushed and made sure that we could obtain the results that would benefit people in communities, fighting for the rights of individuals and making sure that, you know, we don’t back down. Our opponents don’t back down. Why do we?

Wow. Just... wow. And the fact that the chairman of the RNC fawns over this radioactive fucktard should tell you all you need to know about the GOP.

What Hilzoy Said

Hilzoy explores Obama's recent bit of political aikido, and gets right down to the heart of things:

Seriously: Obama is a serious student of the civil rights movement, which in turn drew a lot of inspiration from Gandhi. Both Gandhi and the Civil Rights movement made brilliant use of the following method: you do something right, which you suspect might lead your opponents to do something wrong. If you are right about them, they discredit themselves, without your having to lift a finger. If you're wrong, you are pleasantly surprised. But you do not have to do anything wrong or underhanded yourself, nor do you in any way have to hope that your opponents are bad people.

That's what he's doing now. He has chosen a judge who is by any standard exceptionally qualified, and who has, in addition, a fairly conservative judicial temperament. She sticks close to the law; she follows precedent; having read several of her opinions, if I have any criticism of her, it's that not seen much evidence of an overarching judicial philosophy other than restraint. (To be clear: if a judge has to lack something, I'd rather it be an overarching philosophy than devotion to the law as written. But I'd rather have both.)

But she is also a Puerto Rican woman. If the Republican Party were led by sane and decent people, this would not matter. But they aren't. As a result, they seem to be unable to see anything about her besides her ethnicity and her gender. The idea that she must be a practitioner of identity politics, a person whose every success is due to preferential treatment, etc., is apparently one they absolutely cannot resist.

All Obama had to do was nominate an excellent justice, and all that is made plain.

And I hate it. I want to have a reasonable opposition party. I also don't want people of color, and especially kids, to have to listen to all this bigotry. We should be better than this.

She's right. We should.

Incidentally, if you find yourself debating a snookered Independent or one of those rare Cons who can actually process facts and might possibly let go of Faux News-style talking points, Hilzoy had a piece up linking to SCOTUS blog, where Tom Goldstein combed through Sotomayor's opinions and managed to thoroughly maim, annihilate, and otherwise debunk the current right wing blather about how her race means she'll toss out the law and side with the icky brown people. Upshot:

Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals.

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.

Good luck hammering that through their thick skulls.

Bush: Still Stupid After All These Months

Yes, I admit it. I sometimes miss Bush bashing. He possessed a quality of stupid that was one step above the rest.

He's still got it:

President Bush — in contrast to Dick Cheney — has insisted that President Obama “deserves my silence.” Yesterday, in his largest domestic speech since leaving office, however, Bush would not rule out whether Obama is a socialist, saying that “people are waiting to see what all this means.” In the same breath, Bush defended his own massive intervention in the financial system:

[snip]

Bush was asked what he thinks about conservative pundits who claim the Obama administration’s fiscal policies are opening the door to socialism. “I’ve heard talk about that,” he said. “I think the verdict is out. I think people are waiting to see what all this means.”

[snip]

Note to Bush: the correct use of the phrase is “the jury is out,” not “the verdict is out.”

Glorious. And here I was afraid we'd left the Age of Bushisms behind.

He's also still happily ensconced in his bubble:

Throughout George W. Bush’s presidency, his handlers always made a special effort to ensure his appearances with regular Americans were scripted in such a way that shined the best possible light on Bush and his polices. Whether he was meeting troops in Iraq, leading “Ask President Bush” re-election campaign events, or trying to sell his (failed) Social Security reform plan, Bush always had a friend in the audience ready to ask a softball question or heap praise on the president. It appears that old habits die hard, as those attending Bush’s upcoming speech in Michigan will be forced to submit their questions ahead of time:

Former President George W. Bush will make a stop in Michiana on Thursday. He is scheduled to speak to the Economic Club in Benton Harbor this evening. Mister Bush will answer questions that have been submitted.

Poor Georgie. Still afraid to answer unfriendly questions. I hope they remembered to bring his security blankie and binky.

Consequences

So, what have all the grandstanding NIMBYs accomplished? Looks like they've inspired others to follow their lead:

It appears that our European allies have noticed the rhetoric -- and recent bipartisan votes -- from Congress on Gitmo.

The Obama administration's push to resettle at least 50 Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Europe is meeting fresh resistance as European officials demand that the United States first give asylum to some inmates before they will do the same.

Rising opposition in the U.S. Congress to allowing Guantanamo prisoners on American soil has not gone over well in Europe. Officials from countries that previously indicated they were willing to accept inmates now say it may be politically impossible for them to do so if the United States does not reciprocate.

"If the U.S. refuses to take these people, why should we?" said Thomas Silberhorn, a member of the German Parliament from Bavaria, where the White House wants to relocate nine Chinese Uighur prisoners. "If all 50 states in America say, 'Sorry, we can't take them,' this is not very convincing."

Imagine that. These European governments were largely inclined to help out when they assumed a wide variety of nations would share the detention burden. But now that these foreign officials have heard U.S. lawmakers -- from both parties -- suddenly come to believe that Guantanamo detainees are far too dangerous for U.S. soil, their willingness to cooperate is waning.

America's acting like a spoiled little brat that's refusing to clean its room. You can't blame the rest of the world for not wanting to clean it for us.

This is something those assclowns should think about, but of course, they've proven themselves incapable of thought.

Wikipedia PWNS Scientology

Heh heh heh. Awesome:

Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology and its members from editing its site after discovering that members of the church were editing articles in order to give the church favorable coverage.

The move is being hailed as "an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits," and it is the first instance in which Wikipedia has banned a group as large as the Church of Scientology.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I'm sure all of you have noticed by now that the right's come completely unhinged. Well, more completely unhinged. Sonia Sotomayor's nomination's released liberated them from the last thread of restraint.

Some of you may point out a few of the right-wing voices denouncing the right-wing fucktards. And to that I say: bunkum. At least so far as official Cons are concerned. Do I believe Cornyn's found his last remaining drops of decency and decorum in a forgotten corner of his sock drawer? Do I think Michael Steele's had an epiphany? Do I think Karl Rove's suddenly on the side of angels because he's lost his stomach for ugly smears?

Simply put: not no but fuck no. After all, the handwringers were merrily bashing Sotomayor for all they're worth just a few days ago. Rove insulted her intelligence, Steele insulted her job performance, and Cornyn's still got Gingrich fundraising for him. Convincing outrage: FAIL.

Besides, it's a little hard to take their mild fussing seriously when they're administering gentle rebukes in the face of inflamed rhetoric like this:

And here I thought Tom Tancredo, Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh would be the most offensive conservative critics of Sonia Sotomayor. How could I forget this clown?

Yesterday on his radio show, conservative host G. Gordon Liddy continued the right wing's all-out assault on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. [...]

"I understand that they found out today that Miss Sotomayor is a member of La Raza, which means in illegal alien, 'the race.' And that should not surprise anyone because she's already on record with a number of racist comments." [...]

"Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."

So, according to this prominent conservative media personality, the Spanish language is synonymous with "illegal alien," and women are, by nature, poorly suited to serving as justices.

Do I hear anybody denouncing their good buddy Liddy? Going once? Going twice?

Right.

The right's problem is that Sotomayor's incredibly hard to attack. So they're reduced, as per GOPSOP, to totally making shit up:

Here's [Weekly Standard's Michael] Goldfarb:

Stuart Taylor digs up another example from Sotomayor's Princeton days:

In October 1974, Princeton allowed Sotomayor and two other students to initiate a seminar, for full credit and with the university's blessings, on the Puerto Rican experience and its relation to contemporary America.

I went to Princeton but somehow I never got to teach my own class, or grade my own work. One wonders how Sotomayor judged her work in that class, and whether the grade helped or hindered her efforts to graduate with honors.

And here's the Princeton press release Taylor cites:

So they [Sotomayor and two other students] did what scores of other Princeton Students have been able to do for the past six years: they initiated their own seminar ... The seminar is being taught by Dr. Peter E. Winn, Assistant Professor of History and a specialist in Latin American affairs. Under a plan adopted by Princeton in 1968 students are free to propose seminars on special topics to a faculty Committee on Course of Study. ... In the past 12 terms 132 such courses have been approved and offered."

The release also makes clear that the seminar Sotomayor initiated had been offered twice before.

So Goldfarb's snide comments about Sotomayor teaching her own class and grading her own work seem to be completely baseless: she didn't teach the class.

Stuart Taylor, just for the record, is the genius who said that Paula Jones had a strong case. A person with a functioning brain might have fact-checked him before swallowing his bullshit. Goldfarb didn't. Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my own case.

I encourage the right-wing frothers to stay on the attack. It's always amusing when Nooners starts calling people in her own party idiots and tells them to start playing grownup. And I'd like to see how long it takes before Hispanic support for the GOP completely vanishes:

Top-ranking Republican strategists who specialize in Hispanic outreach say they are outraged, disturbed and concerned by the type of reception Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court has received from conservative activists.

[snip]

The rhetoric has been enough to make Republican strategists in heavily Latino states cringe -- concerned that such slights could cement Democrats advantages among a growing and increasingly influential political constituency.

"Of course this disturbs me," said Lionel Sosa, one of the more influential Hispanic media advisers in the GOP. "I'm not surprised at Rush Limbaugh but I'm very surprised at Speaker Gingrich because he is one of the key people who knows the importance of the Latino vote to the Republican Party. He must realize how his rhetoric, if it does influence any Hispanics, how damaging it could be. This [confirmation] is something that is going to happen anyway. For a senator to have strong opposition to her, they are either not aware of the impact Latinos will have on the next election or they don't care."

I'd say both, actually.

Another right-wing smear against Sotomayor is her supposed abrasiveness. Christie Hardin Smith has the right quote for the occasion:

I'll let Kevin Russell, who was on a WH-sponsored call I sat in on the other day, speak for me with his manly wisdom:

I understand that she has the reputation for being tough and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

I understand some of those fools may not be happy about that.

Indeed.

What Did We Tell You?

Remember how Brian and PZ and about twenty bajillion other science bloggers warned us that all the hype over Ida was going to become a creationist field day? It did:

Right on cue, the Worldnutdaily shows us why what the scientists, PR people and media outlets who overhyped the find of an early primate fossil did was detrimental to the public's understanding of science. Such exaggerations and overblown statements are easily turned around and made to cast doubt on the validity of science and the theory of evolution.

[snip]

Of course, the Worldnutdaily also has to add their own distortions to the list:

History is replete with discoveries initially proclaimed as some sort of missing link, but later proved to be hoaxes.

And then, of course, they can only name two - Archaeoraptor and Piltdown Man. The Archaeoraptor hoax was perpetrated by a Chinese farmer, not by a scientist, and the Piltdown Man hoax was nearly a century ago - and was discovered by scientists.

Ironically, the article also mentions Nebraska Man, which was another textbook example of the media overhyping a fossil find and building far too much out of a simple tooth. The scientist who actually reported the find, HF Osborn, authored a careful and tentative identification of the find; it was a popular British magazine that turned that into a picture of an ape man, complete with wife and child.

But in this case, the scientists themselves have been caught up in the hype and participating in the very thing that destroys their credibility. I hope this will serve as a warning to other scientists not to do the same thing, but I fear it won't.

Probably not. But for once, just once, I'd like to see people learn from boneheaded mistakes.

Hell, while I'm wishing, I'd like a ranch with horsies, too.

Erick Erickson Loses the Last of His Marbles

And I know he's lost them, because only a mableless man would compare Rush Limbaugh to Jesus.

That's right. Jesus. Christ.

Peter, under pressure and fear, denied Christ not just once, but three times. Peter, though, feared death. The strain on Peter was great. The rest of us, though, typically fear the opinions of others.

...

The incidents of late with Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Dick Cheney, and others is why I raise this. Putting it bluntly, were these guys on the left, their fellow leftists would at best be cheering them on and at worst silently nodding along. There wouldn’t be any on that side rushing to the nearest microphone to condemn them.

It gets much worse.

I'm sure it does, but I'm too busy barfing through the gales of laughter to go look. If you guys survive it, let me know how bad it was.

Kitteh's Thowing His Life Away

It's so sad when it comes to this:

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Today is a day filled with OMFG moments. It's a day when you risk shattering your skull, because there's only so many times your head can hit a desk before structural weaknesses emerge.

Let's begin with perhaps the biggest *headdesk* moment so we can just get it out of the way:

Seizing the opportunity to vilify a female, Hispanic Supreme Court nominee, noted bigot Tom Tancredo has emerged from obscurity to denounce Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Earlier this week, Tancredo declared her to be a “racist” who should be “disqualified” from serving on the bench.

This afternoon on CNN, he went further, attacking her affiliation with the National Council of La Raza as equivalent to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan:

TANCREDO: If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino — it’s a counterpart — a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses. If you belong to something like that in a way that’s going to convince me and a lot of other people that it’s got nothing to do with race. Even though the logo of La Raza is “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.”

[snip]

Of course, the characterizations are wildly false. La Raza is the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization that focuses on such nefarious issues as “civil rights/immigration, education, employment and economic status, and health.” Used to these attacks, La Raza has a long fact-sheet debunking the unhinged claims of the right, including pointing out that “La Raza” translates as “the people,” not “the race,” as the right wing suggests.

And, of course, he's got their slogan completely fucking wrong. What a disgusting douchebag.

Then we have Jon Kyl, Arizona's eternal shame, wanting to delay Sotomayor's confirmation because - well, just because he's a dumbshit Con:

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is now saying the confirmation process for Sonia Sotomayor will likely have to wait much longer than President Obama wants -- going into September rather than happening before the August recess.

"My guess is that if you apply the same general standards as were applied to the Roberts and Alito nominations that probably it goes into the first part of September," Kyl told Fox News.

Simply put, this is baloney on multiple levels. For one thing, John Roberts was first nominated for the Supreme Court in late July 2005, then confirmed as Chief Justice in late September 2005 -- a period of just over two months. Alito took a bit longer, being nominated in late October 2005, and confirmed in late January 2006 -- a period of three months. Kyl is using these two examples to justify a period of nearly four months.

Sometimes, I'm tempted to move back to Arizona just so I can help vote his sorry ass out of the Senate.

Another major *headdesk* moment came when I caught wind of the latest and greatest right wing conspiracy theory about Obama:

A whole lot of right-wing blogs are worked up today over a report about the political affiliations of Chrysler dealers who've been shut down.

Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Repubicans [sic]. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty.

The basic issue raised here is this: How do we account for the fact millions of dollars were contributed to GOP candidates by Chrysler who are being closed by the government, but only one has been found so far that is being closed that contributed to the Obama campaign in 2008?

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who has a dealership that will close, called this "an outrage." A variety of far-right bloggers chose more colorful language.

And what is the "evidence" of a partisan conspiracy that "appears to be mounting"? As you might have guessed, like most conservative theories, this one is extremely thin. The argument, in a nutshell, is that Chrysler dealers owned by a variety of Republican donors are being closed, the government is now involved with Chrysler's restructuring, so that points to "evidence" that the Obama administration is deliberately punishing GOP contributors.

As per usual with Cons, they haven't the slightest bloody clue how to evaluate "evidence." Nate Silver did them the favor, and discovered a possible reason. When looking at dealerships overall, he discovered that the vast majority of them donate to Cons. Let me put it this way, in simple words they might be able to understand: if you have 27,000 red apples and 4 green apples in a barrel, and you remove a bunch of bad apples, chances are most of the bad apples will be red, simply because you had more red apples to start with.

I know. I know. They probably won't get that analogy, either. Look, I tried.

By the way, the next time a Con tells you they have a health care policy position, tell them Republican Rob Portman's called them a bit fat bunch of fucking liars:

Whoops. Rob Portman, a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, has now admitted in an interview that the GOP doesn’t have a position on health care. Worse, he says he came to that conclusion after multiple discussions with GOP Congressional leaders about the issue.
Check out this nugget buried in a National Journal article (subscription only) about Portman:

Republicans have also taken some heat nationally for not focusing on health care in their campaigns in recent years, but Portman already has been speaking on the issue frequently.“We have to have an alternative. … I will tell you, I don’t think there is a Republican alternative at this point,” he said. He said he reached that conclusion after talking to Senate leaders and lawmakers about the GOP’s position. “There isn’t one,” he said. “There’s a task force, and I applaud them for that.”

Oh, well, a task force. Well. That changes everything. They're thinking about thinking of maybe eventually coming up with some ideas. Wonder how new those will be?

And, finally, some kind soul needs to be dispatched to take Mark Krikorian's shovel away from him asap:

The National Review's Mark Krikorian received quite a bit of criticism yesterday (including some from me) following a couple of posts about the pronunciation of Sonia Sotomayor's name. Krikorian argued that the proper pronunciation, preferred by the judge and her family, is "unnatural in English," and "something we shouldn't be giving in to." It wasn't clear which group of people constituted "we."

[snip]

Today, after noting the variety of responses to his argument -- Olbermann labeled him the Worst Person in the World last night -- Krikorian thought it wise to return to the subject again today.

[F]or those actually interested in the point, here's what I was trying to get across: While in the past there may well have been too much social pressure for what sociologists call Anglo-conformity, now there isn't enough. I think that's a concern that most Americans share at some level, which is the root of the angst over excessive immigration, bilingual education, official English, etc.

I'm not sure how this helps.

I think it only helps if the poor fucker's trying to dig his way to China.

Excuse me, please, my darlings. It's time for my MRI to see how much permanent damage my skull's sustained.

Last Day to Bring Me Yer Treasures

Well, I be gettin' ahead o' meself, since I haven't got much o' yer booty yet. Be gettin' those links in to elitistbastardscarnival@gmail.com by the end o' the day Friday. I plan to have this ship's hold full o' Elitist Bastardry. Don't make me sail over to yer blog and raid ye, now!

For those o' ye wondering what ye should submit, here be the simple requirements:

1. Pick a blog post o' yours that hits the stupid where it hurts.

2. Send it in.

That be it. And I don't want to hear yer excuses - I been readin' yer blogs, and I know each and every one o' ye's already posted some fine elitist bastardry.

I'll see ye all aboard come Saturday, or I'll be boarding ye come Saturday, whichever's required.

Look Who Made the London Times

Yes, my darlings, that's right: Brian Switek his own self. He's been doing some incredible work on Ida, putting her in proper perspective and exploring her true significance, and it's awesome to see him get a prestigious venue from which to dial back the hype and teach folks a little something about how evolution really works:

There is some irony in calling Ida the missing link. She was named Darwinius in honour of Charles Darwin, but the phrase “missing link” harkens back to a pre-evolutionary idea of nature. Called the Great Chain of Being, this interpreted all life as forming an immutable hierarchy, ordained by God, from “lower” to “higher”. Scholars believed that God favoured a full creation and each rank connected to the next, but “missing links” presented a problem. The link between humans and lower animals was the most elusive of all.

Our understanding of evolution could scarcely be more different. There is no evolutionary end point or fore-ordained hierarchy of beasts. Life is better understood from Darwin's perspective - as a wildly branching bush constantly being pruned and sending out new shoots through evolution. Calling Ida a missing link may grab attention, but it is incongruous with what Darwin proposed.

It's a great article, and it's wonderful to see him get the recognition he deserves. Pop on over and give Brian some love, then stay tuned for his upcoming Ida Carnival (contributions welcome).

Congratulations, Brian!


(Tip o' the shot glass to John Pieret, who knew Brian when.)

They're On About Food Again

Some kind soul needs to sit the Cons down with a good psychiatrist. They clearly have serious issues. Remember when they freaked out over mustard (not to mention the arugula and, well, pretty much everything Obama ever ate)? The food fanatics are at it again, this time attacking Judge Sotomayor for - wait for it - liking Puerto Rican food:

According to Hill reporter Alexander Bolton, "This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo -- pigs' tongue and ears -- would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench."

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn't certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

Slightly gobsmacked, I called Bolton earlier today and asked him whether this was for real--whether any conservatives were genuinely raising this issue. He confirmed, saying, "a source I spoke to said people were discussing that her [speech] had brought attention...she intimates that what she eats somehow helps her decide cases better."

Bolton said the source was drawing, "a deductive link," between Sotomayor's thoughts on Puerto Rican food and her other statements. And I guess the chain goes something like this: 1). Sotomayor implied that her Latina identity informs her jurisprudence, 2). She also implied that Puerto Rican cuisine is a crucial part of her Latina identity, 3). Ergo, her gastronomical proclivities will be a non-negligible factor for her when she's considering cases before the Supreme Court.

Got it? Good. This is the conservative opposition to Sotomayor.

You know, when my mother went clinically insane - and I don't mean metaphorical insane, I mean actual talk-to-the-toaster, end-up-committed-to-a-mental-institution, genuinely psychotic insane - one of the first signs she was going whacko was a pathological fixation on food.

Now, I'm not sure we can Title 36 every Con exhibiting symptoms, considering the sheer numbers involved, but I'm starting to believe it may be necessary for their safety and ours. Maybe we can turn Gitmo into a psychiatric hospital. I hear the Cons sure do envy detainees those awesome tropical breezes.

Best LOL Evah

This LOL combines two of my great loves, and is therefore the best ever from my POV:


Genius.

Our Captain's Down, but We Sail Yet!

Most o' ye know our Captain George had a wee mishap. He be on the mend, but the doctors have yet to pronounce him fit for duty. That means yer Admiral's taking the helm this voyage. We'll have to be quick about it - I be headin' to Arizona this weekend, and that be no place to sail a ship from!

Get yer Elitist Bastard links to me at elitistbastardscarnival@gmail.com by end o' day Friday. I know it be short notice, but I also know ye've got plenty o' elitist bastardry already posted this month, so ye've nothing to worry about.

See ye on board, me hearties!

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I've been in training all afternoon, so I haven't had much chance to burn up my eyeballs with teh stoopid. But America's Cons were obliging enough to make sure I had plenty of it to choose from.

The raving right's been attacking Judge Sonia Sotomayor from every angle they can think of. But you know their case is truly pathetic when they're reduced to this:

One of the low points in the right's criticism of Obama during the presidential campaign came in October, when some conservatives started complaining about the Democrat's pronunciation of "Pakistan," with a soft "a."

The National Review's Mark Stein complained at the time that Obama prefers the "exotic pronunciation." He added, "[O]ne thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says 'Eye-raq'." The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez posted an email that argued, "[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It's annoying."

Keeping this spirit alive, the National Review's Mark Krikorian argued that the proper pronunciation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's name doesn't work for him, and he'd like to see other join him in rejecting it. Krikorian started this yesterday...

So, are we supposed to use the Spanish pronunciation, so-toe-my-OR, or the natural English pronunciation, SO-tuh-my-er, like Niedermeyer?

...and expanded on this today.

Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference) ... and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to. [...]

ZOMG, American civilization will end if we're forced to pronounce people's names correctly!!1!!11!

Pretty potent stuff, that. But I'm afraid it's all for naught. You see, Judge Sotomayor saved baseball:

As you know, I'm a huge baseball fan, and even Major League Baseball is saying that Sonia Sotomayor ended the strike that almost destroyed the game under the idiot, Bud Selig.

It was Sotomayor's ruling that forced Major League Baseball players and owners to resume the national pastime in 1995 after a 234-day player strike wiped out the final six weeks of the regular season and the entire postseason in 1994.

That's it. It's over. There's no way they can get around that, no matter what arguments they invent. She could rape kittens while eating baby kabobs, and still, she's in. She's on the court. The woman saved baseball. That's about equivalent to saving Mom and apple pie.

So, right, put a fucking sock in it.

Moving on.

Anti-gay marriage frothers are having a harder time than usual staying coherent. Here's the latest example of white-hot stupidity:

Last night, C-SPAN aired the lasted segment of Students & Leaders series, with Rep. John Culberson (R-TX). Addressing a group of D.C. students, he repeatedly emphasized the need for less government interference in Americans’ lives. “I’m very focused on eliminating — shutting down as much of the federal government’s functions as I can,” Culberson said, while espousing state and local control.

However, when a student asked Culberson about state control over gay marriage, Culberson rapidly descended into incoherence. He began by declaring, “It’s up to the states.” But by the end of his rambling answer, he tried to explain why the federal government “cannot permit” a state like Vermont to make its own rules. All this while repeating that people’s “privacy is fundamental”:

CULBERSON: Well under the 10th amendment, the states have a first responsibility for providing for public safety, public health, public morality. All issues that just affect the people within that state. It’s up to the states. And you either follow the constitution or you don’t. [...]

Federal law cannot permit — if one state, Vermont, wants to do that, you can’t let that cross state lines. You’ve got to let — frankly, a lot of these issues have got to be left up to the states. But the federal government cannot permit for example — The federal government has a legitimate role in interstate commerce. And that’s where the federal government comes in. I think the federal government can’t recognize — shouldn’t recognize it, it’s just a bad idea. And uh — But fundamentally, the right of privacy’s fundamental. I’m not interested — what people do at home’s their own business.

So, federal law should stay the hell out of people's private lives and let the states decide what's what, but because of interstate commerce, it can tell states and couples who can and cannot get married? Am I parsing this right? Is anything that incoherent even parsable?

The idea of gays getting married really does reduce these people to the worst kind of babbling morons, doesn't it just?

Speaking of things reducing people to the level of babbling moron...

Rep. Paul Broun, R-GA, was on Fox and Friends yesterday touting his proposal to have Congress officially designate 2010 "The Year of the Bible", and he had an interesting rationale for it:

Broun: Well, it's all about freedom, actually. The Bible was the basis of our laws, it was the basis of the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence -- the Bible was the founding source.Hmmmmm. Well, some of us have heard otherwise, but OK, whatever.

You may remember Rep. Broun. Last November he won lots of friends on both sides of the aisle and in the White House when he warned that Obama was preparing a Hitler-like dictatorship with his civilian-youth-corps proposal: "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did ... When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

My best friend likes to tell me that certain people have prayed and thumped their Bibles so hard they've melted their melons. I believe Rep. Broun is a perfect Exhibit A.

If the level of pathetic on the right keeps increasing at this exponential rate, we'll soon run out of room for it in this finite universe of ours.

Sick, Twisted Fucktards

Since the right likes to bash liberals as freedom-hating fascists, since they love to moan about how cruel and mean and what a blight on the national discourse we are, I'd like to know how they explain this:

Here is some rightwing loon named Ralph Peters:

Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.

Sounds crazy, right? Beyond the pale, right? Deliberately killing journalists? That's something we would never do, that's NoKo/Saddam-level totalitarianism, plain and simple.

Well, Mr. and Ms. America, I got some news for you. It's already happened.

No one will be surprised to learn it's the Bush regime that killed journalists. And no one will be surprised that Ralph Peters is the kind of whackaloon, murderous fuckhead that Faux News loves to parade around as an august figure of authority:

Update: from digby

This wasn't the only wacko thing the sick piece of work Ralph Peters said today on Fox. Get this:

"We're dealing with people who aren't human anymore. They're monsters. And monsters deserve to die."

So, advocating wholesale murder of journalists and the dehumanization and murder of Gitmo detainees isn't beyond the pale in the right's opinion. Something we should keep in mind come election season. If America puts the right back in charge of the country, what little moral authority we have left is dead.

They have no moral authority. None.

Hannity, the Defiant Coward

Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm getting rather ambivalent about having celebrities get waterboarded, even when it changes their opinion like Erich "Mancow" Mueller. It's torture, now he knows it. But the more it is done the more it becomes a parlor trick in too many eyes. It's torture, it's a crime not a game of Cranium.

And you still have a result like this from moral degenerates:

Mancow also revealed that his friend Sean Hannity "called me and said 'it's still not torture.'"

So more evidence that Sean Hannity is an a-hole.

So, he's still too much of a despicable coward to put his money where his mouth is, but he thinks he's right and Mancow's wrong.

I don't even have the words for what a disgusting piece of yellow shit he is.

Prop 8: It's Only a Setback

You've probably already seen the news: California's Supreme Court upheld Prop 8. They've tossed the ball back to our side of the court, practically begging us to score:

The court’s majority concluded “that if there is to be a change to the state constitutional rule embodied in that measure, it must ‘find its expression at the ballot box.’”

That means those of us who support same-sex couples' right to get married have a job o' work ahead of us:

In response to the court's decision, the Courage Campaign will hit the California airwaves in the next 72 hours with a 60-second TV ad version of "Fidelity"—the heartbreaking online video viewed by more than 1.2 million people, making it the most-watched video ever in the history of California politics.

We are launching this provocative new TV ad in the spirit of Harvey Milk's call to "come out, come out wherever you are" and proudly tell the stories of the people most affected by the passage of Prop 8—in moving images set to the beat of Regina Spektor's beautiful song.

More than 700,000 Courage Campaign members are ready to restore marriage equality to California. Will you help us get to "1 Million for Marriage Equality"? Watch our powerful new 60-second "Fidelity" TV ad and sign the pledge.

If you like TV ad, please contribute to put it on the air in Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco.

Let's get it done. We can't have California falling too far behind Iowa, now, can we?

Kristol Ball Breaking

Note to Bill Kristol: don't start a second career as a psychic anytime soon.

Today, President Obama picked Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. On Fox News Sunday this past week, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol (ie “Kristol Ball”) confidently predicted that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) would be the next Supreme Court nominee:

KRISTOL: I think he has made up his mind, and I think it’s going to be Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan, for this reason. Obama gave that interview Friday which we saw the snippet from. In that interview, he uses the term practical seven times — I want someone with a practical sense of how the world works, I want someone with practical experience. Obama knows what he’s doing, and I think he wants to say, I’m putting on someone who went to Harvard Law School, clerked at an appellate level, was attorney general of Michigan, has good quotes from Republicans and Democrats about their conduct of that legal office, but who really understands the effect on real-world decisions.

The man has the predictive power of a melted Magic 8 ball.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Obama announced his pick for the Supreme Court today. And the Cons sprang into action, giving us a superb view of their racism, sexism, and various and sundry other isms.

Inhofe was perhaps the most obvious of the lot:

A whole lot of senators issued statements today in response to Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination, and most were polite and inconsequential. Sen. James Inhofe's (R-Okla.) press release, however, stood out.

"Without doubt, Judge Sotomayor's personal life story is truly inspiring. I congratulate her on being nominated. As the U.S. Senate begins the confirmation process, I look forward to looking closer at her recent rulings and her judicial philosophy.
"Of primary concern to me is whether or not Judge Sotomayor follows the proper role of judges and refrains from legislating from the bench. Some of her recent comments on this matter have given me cause for great concern. In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh her qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences." [emphasis added]

[snip]

Put it this way: when was the last time James Inhofe questioned whether a white nominee for the federal bench had an ability to rule "without undue influence" from his race? Would he worry about the Vatican having "undue influence" over a Roman Catholic nominee? Has he ever checked to make sure a male nominee was not overly influenced by his gender?

I somehow doubt it.

Of course, the whole chorus line of right-wing blowhards is belting out the tune:

Leading conservative commentators and news outlets have jumped on the 2001 Sonia Sotomayor quote I noted below to make the (wrong) claim that she has said that Latinas are better than white men.

In that 2001 speech, Sotomayor didn’t say that. Rather, she said this:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Rush Limbaugh, in an apparent reaction to the quote, said that Sotomayor is a “reverse racist” who “has put down white men in favor of Latina women.” Fox News’ Megyn Kelly said it shows Sotomayor thinks “that Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges.”

Michelle Malkin, meanwhile, said it shows that Sotomayor wants her personal experiences to “cloud her jurisprudence.”

The full text of her 2001 speech is right here. It shows that these readings are complete fabrications.

Yes, I know. Super totally unbelievable they'd take something utterly out of context and use it to paint Sotomayor as some sort of uber-liberal activist judge who just wants to bust white men's balls, right?

But they're not stopping there. Oh, no. They're slamming her intellect:

Attacking Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for being insufficiently right-wing makes perfect sense. Attacking her intelligence is not only ridiculous, it's offensive.

Sotomayor, a lower-court nominee of both the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, has a background that should shield her from such nonsense: top of her class at Princeton, Yale Law School (editor of the Yale Law Journal), successful big-city prosecutor, corporate litigator, trial judge, district court judge, appeals court judge. She's earned the respect and admiration of her clerks, colleagues, and the lawyers who've argued before her. Sotomayor's intellect is not in doubt.
And yet, it's the issue some of the far-right's leading activists have decided to hang their hat on.

This morning on Fox News, Karl Rove questioned whether she was smart enough to be on the Supreme Court. "I'm not really certain how intellectually strong she would be, she has not been very strong on the second circuit," he said. Citing Rosen, Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes said that Sotomayor was "not the smartest."

This is, alas, not new. Two of the guys on the National Review's crew said Sotomayor is "dumb." In a now-infamous piece, Jeffrey Rosen quoted unnamed sources arguing that the judge is "not that smart." This morning, Curt Levey, executive director of the right-wing Committee for Justice, said Harriet Miers was an "intellectual lightweight" -- and Sotomayor is like Miers.

Because, you know, brown people can't be smart. Even if they're brilliant:

Coming from a housing project in the Bronx, Sotomayor ended up graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton. She also was a co-recipient of the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, the highest honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate. Sotomayor then went to Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) said on Fox News this morning that of all the nominees, Sotomayor “brings the most in terms of judicial experience — in terms of serving on a federal court — in 100 years.”

SCOTUS Blog has pointed out that women and minority candidates for the Supreme Court are often portrayed as not being smart enough for the job. As Matt Yglesias has also written, underscoring this point, “I recall a lot of issues being raised during the Samuel Alito confirmation fight, but at that time I don’t remember anyone raising questions about the intelligence of a Princeton/Yale Law graduate who’d done time on an Appeals Court.”

Their bias may or may not be unconscious, but it extends even into refusing to pay her the simple courtesy of calling her judge:

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has some thoughts on Sotomayor, too. "Of primary importance," he says, "we must determine if Ms. Sotomayor understands that the proper role of a judge is to act as a neutral umpire of the law, calling balls and strikes fairly without regard to one's own personal preferences or political views." [emphasis added]

[snip]

Just as a point of reference, when Roberts and Alito were under consideration in the Senate, Sessions took care to refer to both men as judges in his press releases.

I do believe they need to be taking the advice of some rather high-ranking Republicans and knocking the sexist, racist bullshit off before it explodes in their faces. It's not likely to sit well with the broader public. Happily for those of us who enjoy watching GOP train wrecks, wiser heads aren't likely to prevail.

The idiocy continues with Rush Limbaugh, who added Sotomayor to his list of people he most wants to see fail:

Reacting to Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court today, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor a “horrible pick,” said that Republicans should “go to the mat” in their efforts to oppose her confirmation in the Senate, and — echoing his hopes for Obama’s failure — declared that he wanted Sotomayor to “fail”:

LIMBAUGH: Do I want her to fail? Yeah. Do I want her to fail to get on the court? Yes! She’d be a disaster on the court.

He then reiterated his hopes for Obama's failure. Same ol' fatuous gasbag.

But I think the most amusing thing to come out of this nomination is Norm Coleman's idea that he's still relevant in any way:

Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has released a statement on the Sotomayor nomination, promising to make a thorough review of her record -- as soon as he's re-elected:

ST. PAUL - Senator Norm Coleman today released the following statement in response to President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court.

"When debating judges, I was firm that I would use the same standard to evaluate judges under a Democrat President as I would a Republican President. Are they intellectually competent, do they have a record of integrity, and most importantly, are they committed to following the Constitution rather than creating new law and policy. When I am re-elected, I intend to review Judge Sotomayor's record using this process. Certainly, the nomination of a Hispanic woman to the nation's highest court is something all American's should applaud."

Isn't that adorable? He sounds just like he doesn't realize the election already happened and he lost.

Interesting fantasy world the Cons inhabit. It'll be adorable to watch them suffer apoplexy when Judge Sotomayor's confirmed.

Memorial Day Roundup

A lot of bloggers had good Memorial Day posts up today. Just in case you missed them, here they are.

Think Progress has stats showing that America's failing her vets.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars reminds us: For Every Death, A Hole in the World

DarkSyde at Daily Kos takes us Beyond Memorial Day, and reminds us that there are all too many veterans we're forgetting.

And Digby celebrates the moral Heroes, who deserve just as much praise as the physical variety.

We may not always support the war these men and women are sent to fight. But we will always support them.

Seriously? This is The Case Against Gay Marriage?

Isaac Chotiner at TNR's The Plank tears apart an article arguing against gay marriage that is so egregiously stupid, so delusional, and so incoherent that one would be tempted to believe we've been Poe'd. Alas, that is not the case. Sam Schulman appears to believe his own schlock.

A sampling:

As part of the "kinship system," marriage has, according to Schulman, four effects. The first is too poorly presented to be summarized coherently or cogently. The second has to do with, yes, incest:

Incest prohibition and other kinship rules that dictate one's few permissible and many impermissible sweethearts are part of traditional marriage. Gay marriage is blissfully free of these constraints. There is no particular reason to ban sexual intercourse between brothers, a father and a son of consenting age, or mother and daughter...A same-sex marriage fails utterly to create forbidden relationships.

[snip]

Uh huh. Schulman goes on to fret about children losing their "status as nonsexual beings" once all the gays are allowed to marry. He also informs the reader that he has been married three times.

Shortly thereafter, Isaac unloads with both barrels. This is all to the good. It gives me time to look up a good therapist for poor Schulman. He desperately needs one.

(Tip o' the shot glass to Steve Benen. Sorry it's empty, Steve - I spilled it when I read the article.)

Look! Up in the Sky! Is That a Pale Horse?

Because I swear to fuck it's Armageddon. I mean, we've got Helene Cooper blathering senselessly in the New York Times, comparing Obama to Bush, trying to claim Obama's knocking down straw men, and offering this as her proof:

“There are those who say these plans are too ambitious, that we should be trying to do less, not more,” Mr. Obama told a town-hall-style meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., on March 18. “Well, I say our challenges are too large to ignore.”

Mr. Obama did not specify who, exactly, was saying America should ignore its challenges.

I mean, really? This is an example of the commanding political intellect and keen powers of observation at work at the NYT? Every right wing knock on Obama for the first hundred days always insinuated "he's doing too much." I find 37,000 examples in one quick search. (Publius has a fine collection, too.)

But that's not what's got us in pale horse territory. This does:

And it's not like this was some selective observation of the left. Here's Rammesh Ponurru at The Corner:

I suspect that I will not have many opportunities to defend President Obama from New York Times reporters, so I will seize this one. The related notions that Obama has too much on his plate, that he is overloading the political system, and that he is spending too little time on the economy and too much on health and the environment are staples of centrist and center-right commentary about the president, and have been for months.

Um....


When someone at the fucking Corner is defending Obama, you know a hole's just been ripped in the space-time continuum. I hope Helene's happy. Her lazy, ignorant, flat-out wrong reporting might very well have just brought on the Apocalypse.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Well, my darlings, 'tis the last day of ye olde holiday weekend. I hope you're coming back rested, refreshed, and ready for the onslaught of the burning stupid.

That said, it's time to introduce you to the new savior of the Republican party:

Let's see, Liz Cheney practically lives on cable news. She also lies routinely, accuses the president of helping terrorists, and is so mindless in her attacks on the nation's elected leadership, she's something of a national embarrassment.

And for Republican recruiters, apparently she's perfect.

The hottest Republican property out there isn't former Vice President Dick Cheney but his daughter Liz, who has taken to the airwaves to defend her dad and the whole Bush administration on national security and Guantánamo Bay issues. Liz Cheney, who followed the former veep's hard-hitting speech criticizing President Obama's policies with a CNN appearance, is becoming so popular in conservative circles that some want her to run for office. "She's awesome. Everyone wants her to run," said a close friend.

[snip]

A forceful defender of the administration and her dad, Liz Cheney has been appearing on TV with greater regularity. She brings to the screen a combination of her dad's steely focus and her mom's softer touch. "It's a two-fer. She comes off a bit better than he does sometimes," a conservative consultant said.

[snip]

I can't help but find all of this rather ridiculous. For one thing, Liz Cheney's penchant for dishonesty rivals that of her father's. For another, the "Cheney" name is not exactly a strong political "brand" right now.

I think I just did myself an injury. Gales of laughter are a tougher workout than you might think.

But Liz Cheney's not the GOP's only hope for salvation. They may also turn to a Newt:

Unctuous doesn't begin to describe Newt Gingrich's "serious look" at a 2012 presidential run.

Isn't that a fine "how do you do" to return to from a nice vacation:

The Republican defeats in the last two election cycles have presented an opportunity for Gingrich to return to prominence, noted more than one Republican strategist.

"Since Republicans don't hold power, there's a void of leadership," said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist. "And Newt Gingrich is trying to take advantage of this opportunity as much as possible and try to assert himself as one of the leading voices of the Republican Party."

...That could include, the strategist said, the possibility running for president in 2012.

I don't care what sort of convenient "wipe myself clean with the spirit of the Lord" conversion Newt Gingrich claims to have made just before the next election cycle.

There is no stain remover strong enough to get rid of his self-inflicted pit stains. None.

I'm sorry. You're right. I should've told you to have a barf bag handy.

They also seem to be working on their winning strategy for 2010 and 2012, which consists entirely of trying to scare us shitless. LithiumCola at Daily Kos has a possible explanation for that:

We can see some of what is going on here, I think, by taking a look at the Pew report on "Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2009":

The proportion of independents now equals its highest level in 70 years. Owing to defections from the Republican Party, independents are more conservative on several key issues than in the past. While they like and approve of Barack Obama, as a group independents are more skittish than they were two years ago about expanding the social safety net and are reluctant backers of greater government involvement in the private sector. Yet at the same time, they continue to more closely parallel the views of Democrats rather than Republicans on the most divisive core beliefs on social values, religion and national security.

There are many more independents than Republicans, right now; but more independents than usual are leaning right in every area other than national security. That is to say, the weirdness gets deeper: if Republicans want to win back some of these independents they are decidedly not going with their best play. They should be going with the economy; they are going with war. This is puzzling, but it seems to me that it admits of an obvious, if troubling, interpretation.

Perhaps the Republican strategy is not to win over these burgeoning independents by enlarging the Republican tent, but rather to scare them into voting R even if they remain too disgusted with the GOP to actually join the party. The Republican party, with a strategy so understood, need take no heed of moderation or of ordinary political practice at all.

Considering the other two issues they and Independents diverge on - social values and religion - I can see why they're going for the pants-pissing terror option. If they're successful, they get to pander to their base and win Independents. The strategy often worked for them in the past.

At this time, I would like to refer them to the story of the boy who cried wolf. That is, if the lessons contained within fairy tales aren't too complicated for them to comprehend. I fear they might be.

Rounding out our firmament of GOP shining stars, I present you one of the only people in the Known Universe who liked Michael Steele's "change in a teabag" speech. Ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Palin:

Although Michael Steele's "Change in a teabag" speech (highlights) was widely mocked for its signature line ("change is being delivered in a teabag, and that's a wonderful thing"), Sarah Palin is now saying it was absolutely fabulous.

Politico's Andy Barr reports:

GOP Gov. Sarah Palin weighed in with a statement from Alaska.

"Today, we have a friend in RNC Chairman Michael Steele, and his bold and courageous speech defines his leadership goals that will guide us all through this most difficult time for our nation."

And that's probably all we ever need know about Sarah Palin's judgement. Well, lack thereof.

As far as guides through the political wilderness the Cons have found themselves in, I think they'd have been better off with a Garmin.

Let's take a brief detour to catch up with the "Nancy Pelosi's mean to the CIA. Oh, and she lies, too!1!!11!" crowd. How's that storyline working out for them? Oh, dear:

GOP Senator Richard Shelby appears to have botched a key fact about the CIA torture briefing he received in September 2002, claiming that he was in such a briefing along with Nancy Pelosi, Porter Goss, and Bob Graham.

In fact, the CIA briefing docs show that he was only briefed with Graham, while Pelosi and Goss had been briefed earlier that month.

Shelby is the only Congressional official briefed on interrogations who has been willing to say explicitly that he’d been told torture and waterboarding had been used. So anything that raises questions about the accuracy of his memory on this is key.

On a scale of believability, we can travel a pretty steep line from credible (Bob Graham) through fairly credible (Pelosi), down toward take-with-a-kilogram-sized-salt-grain (Goss) and bottoming out towards you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me territory (the CIA). Shelby and the rest of the Cons fall somewhere below that, in territory the graph is unable to measure.

Still, he didn't quite make asshole of the day:

To the surprise of well, no one, the conservatives of the Senate have announced their standards for a good Supreme Court Justice:

Sen. Jon Kyl made clear he would use the procedural delay if Obama follows through on his pledge to nominate someone who takes into account human suffering and employs empathy from the bench.

Boy I sure hope Obama asked potential nominees which they enjoyed more, drowning kittens or puppies? Kyl is going to want to know.

Have I told you lately just how happy I am these fucktards are no longer in charge?

"Intense Discovery"

Does the image to the left bring you to tears? No? What if I told you those little black blotches were nanodiamonds, and they provided evidence for theories that a comet might have helped bring the age of the sabretooth and mammoth to an end 12,900 years ago?

Imagine sitting in front of a computer screen and electron microscope, waiting for the moment that would make or break your theory. You're sampling glacial deposits from three time periods: the Younger Dryas Boundary, and the layers immediately above and below. You think a comet broke into fragments (think Shoemaker-Levy) and hit the Earth, leaving no discernible impact crater but doing a serious disservice to the gigantic mammals running about. You're at the make-or-break moment: if nanodiamonds, which would help confirm your theory, are found sprinkled liberally in the layers above and below the Younger Dryas Boundary, your theory is good as dead. Have you made a true discovery? Were you on the wrong track?

The moment of truth comes. You see those glorious black speck scattered throughout the Younger Dryas Boundary - and only the Younger Dryas Boundary.

I'll let geologist James Kennett describe that moment when a breakthrough is made:

Moments of intense discovery are very emotional for scientists. when scientists make discoveries that they think are really important - breakthroughs, if you like, eureka moments - there's an elation - there's an elation, an emotion. These are emotional moments.

-from Nova, "Last Extinction"

So much for scientists being emotionless drones, and science itself being boring ol' number-crunching, eh?

The story of their search for evidence for their impact theory was interesting enough, but I loved that Nova episode more for what it showed about science. It's hard work, sometimes dull work, and there are no guarantees. But when it all comes together, it's glorious. And it can move you to tears.



Pretty amazing. There's interviews with the discoverers and other info at this link, if you're interested.

Catching Up with Ecstathy

The problem with not subscribing to blogs is that you miss a blogger's return from an absence. Which means you miss some awesome stuff. And if you haven't been over to Ecstathy lately, you've really missed some awesome stuff.

Like infinite cake.

And a quote that should shut down any "you can't be moral without God" arguments, at least as long as it take the religious blatherer to pick his/her jaw up off the floor:

In a comment by Ian Spedding at John Wilkins blog, he said: "Ask them if they believe their chosen deity is a capricious being or one of reason and order. If the former, why follow a moral code that was thought up on a whim, if the latter, what is to prevent us from reasoning to the same conclusions all by ourselves."

You missed a delightful Ida LOL:



And a link to a thought-provoking opinion piece by The Age columnist Michael Coulter:

It's a puzzling thing about religion that its words, which generally urge us to bolster our better natures and remedy our faults, so rarely match its actions. It seems to me that while an individual's faith can be a profound personal journey that might even make them a better person, a society's faith is akin to mass psychosis.

It's good to have you back, Efrique.

Classy

Laughing too hard right now to come up with a suitably snarky intro:

I'm actually sympathetic to the wingnuts who are angry about the national GOP "clearing the field" for Charlie Crist for the senate seat from Florida. I think people have a right to run in primaries and the political establishment should be more respectful of democracy. The grassroots of both parties are growing increasingly resistant to their party establishmenst steamrolling them into accepting politicians who don't reflect their values and philosophy and it's going to be a challenge for some time to come.

Having said that, I have to admit that the way the movement conservatives are going about this is so puerile and stupid that you can't really blame the establishment for stepping in. Ed Kilgore reports:

The "Not One Red Cent" webpage is quite a piece of work. It features a sort of manifesto with the shouting headline: NOT ONE RED CENT FOR RINO SELLOUTS! (the exclamation point is a bit redundant, but I guess that's a stylistic decision).

Yesterday the site included a post by Richard McEnroe, entitled "A Florida Parable!" and with a subtitle that I cannot reprint in a family-friendly blog, that played off a bizarre news story about two Russian tourists who got caught in Florida having sex with a porcupiine. McEnroe "revealed" the identity of the tourists by displaying photos of Michael Steele and Charlie Crist.

Nice, eh?

But remember, we liberals are the ones who're poisoning the national discourse with our dirty, disgusting diatribes.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

It's a holiday weekend, but stupid never sleeps. And there are few things more stupid in today's political landscape than the birthers:

If the left were drawing up a script for the right to follow, which would make conservatives look hopelessly ridiculous, they might come up with something like this. (via John Cole)

The electoral system has failed to satisfy lingering questions about Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president.
The press has failed to satisfy those questions. The courts have failed to satisfy those questions. The Congress has failed to satisfy those questions.

But the people are still asking.

That's how Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, explains the petition he initiated several months ago that has collected nearly 400,000 names of Americans demanding answers as to Obama's elidibility [sic] as well as the outpouring of financial support for his new campaign to erect billboards around the country asking the simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

In just five days, the billboard campaign has been backed by about $45,000 in donations.

Obviously, the Birthers' argument is nuts. But the fact that they're still at it, seven months after the election, is extraordinary.

The birth certificate, for their information, is in Hawaii, where it's always been. But if they want to tilt at windmills, that's fine. Maybe it'll keep them out of other kinds of trouble.

Meanwhile, remedial math classes are in order for certain wingnuts:

On Thursday, Vets for Freedom Chairman Pete Hegseth went onto the Corner to criticize President Obama for his speech on national security. Not surprisingly, he praised Vice President Cheney’s address, calling it a “gutsy, straightforward, and yet sophisticated approach.” To underscore his point, he wrote, “Laying aside the debate over what is and what isn’t ‘torture,’ it’s hard to argue with 8+ years of safety since 9/11.” The problem, as the site Best of Both Worlds points out, is that it hasn’t been eight years since 9/11:

9/11 happened on 9/11/2001. We’re in 5/22/2009. That’s less than 8 years. In his mind, George Bush kept the country safe for 2 presidential terms. Some other dude was President right up till 9/11.

Atrios adds, “NRO contributor attempts to count to 8, fails.”

Indeed.

In case you were wondering if the age-old question "Would Jesus torture?" has been answered, it has:

Here's a Red State comment, via John Cole:

It’s likely even Jesus would have OK’d water boarding if it would have saved his Mom. He would’ve done the same to save his Dad, or any one of His disciples. For that matter, He even died to save all humans.

[snip]

I wonder where Jesus stood on crucifixion? Was he for it in the case of a ticking time bomb?

We breathlessly anticipate the answer.

I do believe it's time for Ben Nelson to make it official. He's Con through and through:

This morning, Fox News Sunday hosted a debate on national security between Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), but it turned out that the two senators agreed on most issues. Nelson declared that trials of Guantanamo detainees should not take place in the United States and detainees should not be imprisoned here. He distinguished between terrorists like the Blind Sheikh — who “committed violations of American law” — and those at Guantanamo to say the latter should be kept out of the U.S.:

NELSON: I think the tribunals can occur anywhere, and I prefer not to see them occur in America, within the continental United States. Once they’re convicted, I’m assuming they will be, then I think we need to work out with their countries an arrangement where they’re incarcerated there. [...]

But for those detainees who have violated the rules of war, we don’t have to worry about bringing them here. I think they need to be kept elsewhere, wherever that is. I don’t want to see them come on American soil.

Nelson also seemed to suggest that torture — or “enhanced techniques,” as he called it — could be used in the future:

NELSON: What we need to do is make sure that the intelligence information that’s gathered is accurate, that we do everything within our power to get good intelligence, and it may or may not consist of coming from enhanced techniques.

Maybe we could trade him for Colin Powell.

And, finally, if you want to get an understanding of what's behind the gun frenzy, this Daily Kos post has a pretty good idea. Here's a teaser:

There is no impending bill before Congress that would increase taxes on ammunition or guns. There's been no suggestion from the President of such a move. So why would people believe it?

This weekend, NRA leaders were keen to lay out in stark terms the threat they see in the Obama administration. Gun owners face "the slickest, most aggressive anti-gun White House in history," said CEO Wayne Lapierre.

Other NRA brass predict that the Second Amendment could be repealed within the next five years.

Starting well before the election, the NRA has waged a campaign designed to instill fear in the heart of any gun owner. Throughout the campaign, President Obama made it clear that he was a supporter of individual gun rights. There has been no move to restrict access to guns. In fact, the passage of the new rule allowing loaded weapons into National Parks -- reversing a rule signed by Ronald Reagan -- demonstrates that the gun lobby has the power in Washington not just to hold the line, but extend gun rights in nearly any way they can imagine. Not only that, recent Supreme Court rulings have put gun ownership on more solid Constitutional ground than, well, ever.

The NRA should be celebrating. Instead...

Despite these successes, Mr. Lapierre, the NRA CEO, spoke almost in doomsday terms this weekend about opponents of the Second Amendment. "The bomb is armed and the fuse is lit," he said. "They are going to come at us with everything they've got, and we are going to be ready for them. If they want to fight, we will fight."

As gun rights are victorious in court, as gun ownership clears every hurdle in Congress, and with no prospect of restrictions on the horizon, the NRA is still screaming that the end is nigh.

As the post title says, "You have the right to be played for a fool." And, alas, there are plenty of fools to be played.

Sunday Sensational Science

Overselling Ida: A Cautionary Tale

Brian Switek's Brilliant Discovery

If you haven't heard of Ida, the perfectly preserved Darwinius masillae, you've been living in a box. Plenty of information about this remarkable but not utterly revolutionary fossil shall follow. But first, I want to share an illustrative personal anecdote.

A couple of day ago, my coworker, whom I shall call C, asked me if I'd seen the doodle on Google. Indeed I had. And I'd had a brief moment of the warm fuzzies, because it was nice to see that cute little sketch of Ida there in place of the usual logo. Those warm fuzzies turned to the cold ohforfucksakes when C started babbling about her being a "missing link."

This is a normally intelligent man. I rolled my eyes. "No, she's not."

"Yes, she is!"

I was in the midst of Brian Switek's wonderful post on the hype, which will be highlighted below. I'd read several ScienceBlogs posts by then, dissecting the discovery, and I attempted to explain to C that while Ida was awesome, she wasn't the missing link. Indeed, "missing link" is complete bullshit. His response was to inform me that he'd take the word of scientists published in a peer-reviewed journal over what bloggers said any day, and oh yes there are missing links! It didn't matter to him that the peer-reviewed paper had major, major problems, that the whole process had been tainted by publicity stunts, or that the bloggers in question were scientists who know the peer-review process intimately. To him, that process is infallible. Therefore, Ida is the missing link.

So this edition of Sunday Sensational Science is dedicated to C, who reminds me that scientists must resist overhyping their finds in order to score History Channel documentaries, not all peer-reviewed science journals are created equal (although the public doesn't know that), and that having a stable of scientists manning the blogs is a sovereign remedy against sensationalism. Now if we could just get the general public to realize that...

Let's begin with missing links. As in, there are no "missing links":

Again, the press are talking about "the missing link". Let's get one thing clear. There is no missing link. Rather, there are an indefinite number of missing branches. To have a missing link, you need to visualise evolution as a chain. If there's a gap in the chain, then you have a missing link. But evolution, at least at the scale of animals and plants, is mostly a tree.

Keep that in mind as the History Channel, other press outlets, and hysterical creationists endlessly repeat the "missing link" crap. THERE IS NO MISSING LINK. Tattoo it on your hand if you have to.

Now. On to Ida.

Ida has been presented as a near-miraculous superfossil. Our first clue that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark probably should've been the email Brian Switek received:

Late last week I received a rather curious e-mail. It read;

WORLD RENOWNED SCIENTISTS REVEAL A REVOLUTIONARY SCIENTIFIC FIND THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING

Ground-Breaking Global Announcement

What: An international press conference to unveil a major historic scientific find. After two years of research a team of world-renowned scientists will announce their findings, which address a long-standing scientific puzzle.

The find is lauded as the most significant scientific discovery of recent times. History brings this momentous find to America and will follow with the premiere of a major television special on Monday, May 25 at 9 pm ET/PT chronicling the discovery and investigation.

Who: Mayor Michael Bloomberg; International team of scientists who researched the find; Abbe Raven, President and CEO, A&E Television Networks; Nancy Dubuc, Executive Vice President and General Manager, History; Ellen Futter, President, American Museum of Natural History

"The most significant scientific discovery of recent times", eh? What could it be? Life on Mars? Time-travel? Teleportation? The Higgs Boson? A diet cola that doesn't taste absolutely awful? Well, no. It's all about a little primate from Germany.

When a paper is released in conjunction with a documentary, everybody should put their skeptic's hats on and brace for the worst.

Brian engaged in a bit of prediction:

Consider, for example, the grand claims made about finds like Darwinius. It is being heavily promoted but scientists have not yet had a chance to see the fossil or read the paper describing it. When they get a call from a journalist or are asked their opinion on it, then, it can be difficult to discuss the find because they do not know the details. This can be harmful as it can not only lead to the spread of overblown assertions but it can also make us look foolish if these finds do not turn out to be all they were cracked up to be. This could especially be the case with Darwinius. Though heralded in documentaries and in the news as one of our direct ancestors, it is probably a very interesting lemur-like primate on a different evolutionary branch. I can only imagine the field day creationists are going to have if this is the case, and I am frustrated by the way mass media outlets manage to bungle genuinely interesting scientific discoveries.

He was so right.

The paper was published to a media frenzy. The drama got so bad that some science bloggers were forced to resort to emergency satire:

Yesterday, the entire world changed noticeably as the media, accompanied by some scientists, unveiled a stunning fossilised primate. The creature has been named Darwinius masillae, but also goes by Ida, the Link, the Chosen One and She Who Will Save Us All.

The new fossil is remarkably complete and well-preserved, although the media glossed over these facts in favour of the creature's ability to cure swine flu. Ida was hailed as a "missing link" in human evolution, beautifully illustrating our transition from leaping about in trees to rampant mass-media sensationalism.

No one's disputing that Ida's a remarkable find. PZ sang her praises thusly:

What's so cool about it?

Age. It's 47 million years old. That's interestingly old…it puts us deep into the primate family tree.

Preservation. This is an awesome fossil: it's almost perfectly complete, with all the bones in place, preserved in its death posture. There is a halo of darkly stained material around it; this is a remnant of the flesh and fur that rotted in place, and allows us to see a rough outline of the body and make estimates of muscle size. Furthermore, the guts and stomach contents are preserved. Ida's last meal was fruit and leaves, in case you wanted to know.

Life stage. Ida is a young juvenile, estimate to be right on the transition from requiring parental care to independent living. That means she has a mix of baby teeth and adult teeth — she's a two-fer, giving us information about both.

Finds like Ida are extremely rare, and she's justly being celebrated as an important find. But the overselling is, ironically, selling her short. It's like promising someone a Ferrari and delivering them an Altima. That's where buyer beware comes in handy, and Brian Switek's done an excellent job kicking tires on this one:

Some researchers have long maintained that adapids are better candidates for the ancestors of anthropoids, with Philip Gingerich (one of the authors of the Darwinius paper) being a vocal proponent of this view. It is not terribly surprising, then, that the authors of the Darwinius paper posit that adapids are more closely related to anthropoids than tarsiers and omomyids, and they rely on two tactics to make their case.

The authors of the paper try to frame their hypothesis in a historical manner. They claim that adapids have been barred from a close anthropoid relationship on the basis of soft-tissue characteristics that do not fossilize. This would mean that the association between omomyids, tarsiers, and anthropoids would hang by a nose, but this is not true. As reviewed in popular books like Chris Beard's The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey and technical volumes like Anthropoid Origins, the relationship between omomyids, tarsiers, and anthropoids is based upon a wide array of fossil and neontological data. I can't imagine why the authors of the new paper would suggest otherwise unless they were trying to construct a false historiography in order to show their fossil in a better light.

This shoddy scholarship is matched by a weak attempt to show that Darwinius has more anthropoid-like traits than tarsiers or omomyids do. In order for the authors of the paper to make a convincing case they would have to undertake a careful, systematic analysis of the anatomy of Darwinius in comparison to other primates, yet they did not do this. Instead they combed the literature for 30 traits that might help ascertain the placement of Darwinius in the primate family tree and filled in whether each trait was present or absent in Ida's skeleton.

That's the post I was reading when C started spouting off about peer-review vs. bloggers. I sent him the link. Really, when you think about it, science bloggers engaging in research blogging are peer-reviewers. And then you have Carl Zimmer, one of our best science journalists, engaging in a little peer review of his own:

It finally got to the point where I found myself dispatching emails to two prominent primatologists–John Fleagle of SUNY Stony Brook and Chris Beard of the Carnegie Museum–to see what they thought.

Both researchers agreed that it was a lovely fossil, in terms of its exquisite preservation. “It’s really wonderful,” Fleagle said. It’s got bones, fur, and even its last meal in its stomach. Fleagle observed that it will be possible to learn many details about the biology of early primates from Darwinius, down to the stages by which it teeth erupted.

[snip]

...I asked what Fleagle and Beard thought about the actual argument in the paper, which has to do with where humans, apes, and monkeys (known as anthropoids) fit in the primate family tree. Some of the co-authors on the new paper have argued in the past that an extinct group of primates called adapiforms gave rise to anthropoids. Others have favored a common ancestry with small primates known as tarsiers. (Laelaps has a nice history of the debate.) The authors of the new paper argue that Darwinius is an adapiform, but it also has traits that link it with anthropoids. So, according to them, it’s an early relative of our own anthropoid lineage.

Both Fleagle and Beard were not impressed with this argument. Fleagle observed that, ironically, most of the evidence presented in the paper is old news. Except for the ankle and a few other traits, most of the traits offered to link adapiforms to anthropoids “have been known for decades,” said Fleagle. It’s nice to have those traits all in one primate fossil, but they don’t advance the debate. Fleagle is intrigued by the anthropoid-like ankle of the fossil, but he also notes that it’s “roadkill,” flattened down to a 2-millimeter pancake. He wonders whether their interpretation of the ankle will hold up to scrutiny.

Beard has similar things to say via email.

I’ve been deluged today by journalists regarding this. It is a marketing campaign for the ages. The fossil is nice because it is so complete, but it is a rather vanilla-flavored adapiform that does not differ appreciably from other members of that well-known group of Eocene primates…

Beard was also puzzled that the authors did not compare Darwinius to an important early anthropoid fossil Beard found, known as Eosimias. In fact, he was underwhelmed by the entire comparison of Darwinius to other primates (a phylogenetic analysis):

The phylogenetic analysis is not very complete, and I would certainly interpret many of the characters they do cite very differently than they do. But one of the most shocking things of all about the technical paper is that they found room to cite 89 references, but there is not one mention of Eosimias to be found there. This is bizarre indeed. In a paper that purports to tell us something about anthropoid origins, the authors have conveniently ignored the single most significant fossil that has been published to date. Incomprehensible.

From all available evidence, it seems the authors of the paper were more interested in trimming facts to fit their theories than in good science, and a lot of that motivation probably came from their chance at fame and fortune. It's a shame. Carl's right: science is being held hostage:

So, to recap: it appears that both PLOS and Atlantic Productions did not give journalists any time to consult with outside experts before launching a major press conference with a huge blitz of media attention. In other words, science writers who were trying to do their job well and responsibly were actively hindered. Those who declared ridiculous things, such as claiming that human origins were now solved once and for all, were not.

This, my friends, is not the way to do science. PZ points out some of the many issues:

This is not helping. It is inflating a good discovery beyond all reason, and when the public hears the creationists declare that it's one fossil of a monkey-like creature, and they're right, it's going to damage the credibility of science.

Seed Media has a bit of a scoop: they've got an interview with a PLoS One editor, a History Channel executive, and Jørn Hurum, the scientist behind all the promotion. It's appalling. They're bragging about how a "production company got in on the ground floor". Shall we anticipate the brave new world when paleontologists have to beg for McDonald's happy meal tie-ins to get funding?

Ida deserved better than this. She's an amazing little creature, and she's getting lost in hype. Thankfully, Brian Switek's rescuing her from the frenzy, and helping her demonstrate what she has to teach us:

First, how do we know that Ida was a female? It all comes down to a missing penis bone, or baculum. Many, if not most, mammals have a penis bone, and in fact our species is one of the "oddballs" in that males of our species do not. Take a look at the restoration of the transitional pinniped, Puijila, that was announced a few weeks ago. See that long bone sticking out from in front of its pelvis? That's a baculum, and the presence of such a bone indicates that this specimen of Puijila was a male.

While our species might not have a baculum, other primates do, including fossil ones. Darwinius lived alongside another kind of lemur-like adapid primate called Europolemur, and fossils from the same Messel shales show that male Europolemur had large baculums. Given their close evolutionary relationship between Europolemur and Darwinius it can be reasonably assumed that male Darwinius had baculums, too, but Ida's skeleton does not have a penis bone. Is it possible that this specimen of Darwinius could have been, pardon the expression, dis-membered sometime after death and before fossilization? It is possible, but given the exceptional preservation of the fossil, including gut contents and a body outline created by bacteria, it is doubtful. The lack of a baculum attached to this fossil makes it highly probable that Ida was indeed a female.

[snip]

Even though I have been critical of the way this entire "primate roll-out" has been handled, I have tried to stress how amazing a fossil Darwinius is. The sex and age of a fossil might seem like unimportant matters, but how often do we get such a clear window into the biology of an extinct species? Right now the public is still being deluged with the message that Ida is the "missing link", but I hope that what Ida's skeleton can actually tell us about how she lived and died receive greater attention as we continue to discuss her bones.

Scientists like Brian will ensure that Ida doesn't get lost in the hubub. And maybe, just maybe, this is a precious teachable moment. Wouldn't it be lovely Ida not only taught us about the evolution of primates, but helped the general public understand good science versus bad or biased science? She might even save us from PZ's nightmare of McDonalds-sponsered paleontology.

That would make her a miracle indeed.

Olbermann to Hannity: "You Are Now Unnecessary"

Keith Olbermann has pronounced Sean Hannity a superfluous piece of shit:

Last night on Countdown, Olbermann announced that he was rescinding the offer to Hannity, and instead giving $10,000 to charity following radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller’s waterboarding attempt. Olbermann promised to donate to the charity Veterans of Valor, founded by Sgt. Klay South, who administered the waterboarding to Muller. Olbermann revealed that Mancow’s publicist had contacted Olbermann’s show yesterday to see whether Olbermann would make a similar offer to Mancow as he did for Hannity:

OLBERMANN: Mancow Muller had the guts to put his mouth where his mouth was, and the guts to admit he was dead wrong. As you saw, he not only said it is torture, but that he had nearly drowned as a boy, and it is drowning, and that he would have admitted to anything to make it stop.

So the offer to the coward Hannity — a thousand dollars a second he lasted on the waterboard — is withdrawn.

And to Mr. Muller, whose station’s publicity person contacted us yesterday saying she’d heard I’d offered ten thousand dollars to anybody who would do what he did –

You got it. Ten thousand dollars to the military-families charity of the man who did the waterboarding, Veterans Of Valor. [...]

As to Hannity, you are now unnecessary.

Not that he was necessary to begin with, o' course.

And so ends this chapter of the Waterboard Hannity chronicles. Skeptic Kitteh was right:



Bookie Kitteh's now taking bets on how long it is before Hannity feels brave enough to spout off about waterboarding again.

Frank PWNS Beck

Poor Glenn Beck. He's had an awful week. First, the ladies on the View spanked his ass, which led to a bad case of the View Flu (which he tried to pass off, and I'm not kidding, as "the 24-hour swine flu"). Now he's having another health crisis, because his little roving producer Griff Jenkins ended up with his ass in a sling:

The Glenn Beck show tried to sandbag Barney Frank with one of their roving reporters or producers or whatever they are, but they messed with the wrong guy. ACORN is Beck's villain of the hour and Biff Jenkins asked Frank if he'd hold hearings on ACORN because the right hates them. He got an answer he didn't expect.

Frank: As you know, the Bush administration, every year of the eight years of the Bush administration gave them well over a million dollars for housing counseling, and nobody has shown me any sign that any of that federal money was misspent. You know, I think people are being somewhat unfair to President Bush and his secretaries of HUD who consistently funded ACORN for, as I said, for a total of about 14 million dollars during the Bush years. If someone has evidence that the money that President Bush made available was misspent -- that's what I have jurisdiction over, I don't have jurisdiction over election activities by another ACORN organization -- but if anyone has any evidence, and no one has sent it to me yet, that the Bush administration ignored the misspending of that $14 million, I'll look into it.

Biff: Yes, sir, but would you hold hearings or an investigation ...?

Frank: I think you're being very unfair to President Bush.

OK, his name is not Biff, it's Griff. Frank used this against Michelle Bachmann and when you hit them with facts like this, they really have no response other than to ignore what Barney Frank said and continue with their smears.

Have I told you lately how much I love Barney Frank?

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

We're late today because, well, it's a holiday weekend. Pretty slim pickings, alas. But you'll be glad to know there's a reason why you've seen so much Dick on your teevee:

So, why has Dick Cheney been so desperate to hit the airwaves as part of his crusade against the White House? Explanations differ, but his desire to sell a memoir to publishers might have at least something to do with his efforts.

With his sustained blitz of television appearances and speeches, former Vice President Dick Cheney has established himself as perhaps the leading Republican voice against President Obama.

Not a bad time, then, to be in the market for a multimillion-dollar book contract.... A person familiar with discussions Mr. Cheney has had with publishers said he was seeking more than $2 million for his advance. That sum may prove hard to get in this economic climate, especially given his generally low approval ratings, which publishers view as a potential -- but not certain -- harbinger for sales.

Reports indicate Cheney may end up with a deal with Simon & Schuster, because it's home to an imprint run by Mary Matalin, who is also publishing Karl Rove's book.

This might offer at least some hints about Cheney's recent motivations. A book written by a failed former vice president may not compel publishers to pay the big bucks, but a book written by one of the leaders of the modern Republican Party, and the GOP's leading attack dog of the nation's elected leadership, might generate a more sizable advance.

What I don't quite understand is why anyone would expect Cheney's book to be successful. After all, the former vice president has a well-deserved reputation for almost comical dishonesty. Who's going to pony up $29.95 for a book written by someone who routinely blurs the line between fact and fiction?

The only market likely to pay $29.95 for the privilege, after all, doesn't really read big, thick, serious books. Unless this one's co-written by Rush Limbaugh, I'm afraid Dick'll be out of luck.

Angling for a bigger advance may only be a part of Dick's motives. His daughter seems to be implying her daddy's trying to stay out of prison:

Last night on CNN, however, Cheney’s daughter Liz revealed that fear of prosecution is indeed a motivating factor in the former vice president’s current media campaign:

L. CHENEY: I don’t think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January. But I think, as it became clear that President Obama was not only going to be stopping some of these policies, that he was going to be doing things like releasing the — the techniques themselves, so that the terrorists could now train to them, that he was suggesting that perhaps we would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration.

And that would be such a terrible tragedy. But it might also help with the advance amount problem. After all, a book of lies by a convicted war criminal would be so much more interesting than a book of lies by a despised former VP.

Speaking of lies, Arizona's enduring shame (no, not McCain - the other one) is fully aware of the fact that if people heard the truth about the Cons' plans for health care, they'd laugh them out of the debate:

In an interview posted online by the National Review, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) candidly explained how his party would try to deceive the public during the coming health care debate. Kyl said that although Republicans believe in a “free market” approach to health care, to describe it honestly to the “people we have to convince” would not be “persuasive.” Instead, Kyl boasts that he and his colleagues will use the “hollow buzzwords” prescribed by GOP language consultant Frank Luntz:

KYL: We of course believe the free market can provide the incentives for everyone to be covered with good insurance but to talk about it in terms of the free market is not to be persuasive with the people we have to convince.

Shorter Jon Kyl: We know that the electorate knows we're full of shit on this, so we'd best lie about it.

The Cons' problem is that Americans have already been fooled twice, and they may not be inclined to strike out:

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write at Salon.com:

Way, way back in the 1970's Americans were riled up over the rising costs of health care. As a presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter started talking about the government clamping down. When he got to the White House, drug makers, insurance companies, hospitals and doctors -- the very people who only a decade earlier had done everything they could to strangle Medicare in the cradle -- seemed uncharacteristically humble and cooperative. "You don't have to make us cut costs," they promised. "We'll do it voluntarily."

So Uncle Sam backed down, and you guessed it. Pretty soon medical costs were soaring higher than ever.

By the early '90s, the public was once again hurting in the pocketbook. Feeling our pain, Bill and Hillary Clinton tried again, coming up with a plan only slightly more complicated than the schematics for an F-18 fighter jet.

This time the health industry acted more like Tony Soprano than Mother Teresa. It bludgeoned the Clinton reforms with one of the most expensive and deceitful public relations and advertising campaigns ever conceived -- paid for, of course, from the industry's swollen profits.

As the drug and insurance companies, hospitals and doctors dumped the mangled carcass of reform into the Potomac, securely encased in concrete, once again they said don't worry; they would cut costs voluntarily.

If you believed that, we've got a toll-free bridge to the Mayo Clinic we'd like to sell you.

So anyone with any memory left could be excused for raising their eyebrows at the healthcare industry's latest promises. As if on cue, hardly had their pledge of volunteerism rung out across the land than Jay Gellert, chief executive of Health Net Inc. and chair of the lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans, assured his pals not to worry about the voluntary reductions.

You can see why Jon Kyl and his buddies might be worried about the results if they start yawping about the "free market" again.

Meanwhile, Steve Benen and Publius take up the eternal question: are Cons playing cynical partisan games, or are they really that fucking stupid? The context this time is the pants-pissing fear campaign they're waging against Gitmo. Steve's conclusion:

It's hard to say with any certainty, and there's no doubt some variety within the group -- some liars and some fools -- but for what it's worth, there's ample evidence to support the "blatant dishonesty for partisan gain" theory. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Republicans see the debate over Gitmo as "the culmination of a carefully developed GOP strategy," which they hope to use as "the beginning of a political comeback."

The goal, apparently, was to identify a "favorable issue" on which the party could go on the offensive; "tarnish" Democratic leaders; and attack until the criticisms "begin to seem counterproductive."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) concluded more than a year ago that Mr. Obama might be vulnerable on Guantanamo -- and the unease voters would have over the prospect of transferring suspected terrorists to U.S. soil. Since April 20 he has delivered 17 floor speeches on the issue. Mr. McConnell beat back party dissent over his strategy, as some argued it was a losing battle when the president enjoyed such high poll numbers.

The attacks, in other words, are largely a cynical ploy, predicated on Republican hopes that public fear will outweigh public reason, and that most Americans won't realize how spectacularly dishonest the whole argument is.

That beats widespread stupidity, I suppose.

I say it's a photo finish, possibly a dead heat. Either way, we're dealing with a bunch of inane fucktards some of my fellow citizens are sadly stupid enough to vote for.

Of course, if the GOP keeps up their dumbfuckery, especially with antics like equating Nancy Pelosi with Pussy Galore, at least one set of citizens won't be stupid enough to keep voting for them:

Yeah, I know. The GOP stereotype of a bunch of sniggering frat boys pointing their fingers and screaming "boobies" is rarely unfair. The fact that the Republican party leadership (such as it is) has no better strategy than provoking feminist outrage to delight its drooling extremist base puts its limitations on full display.

A Drudge headline this week indicates the method to their madness:

Blue collar males lose more ground; unemployment rate surges past national average...

Blame the betties for the lost jobs, we're the new Mexicans. Nancy Pelosi is a stand in for us all. It's reliable lizard brain trope.

But are they burning the brand with women in the process? From the latest Daily Kos poll:

	Favorable	Unfavorable	No Opinion
Barack Obama	70	24	6
Nancy Pelosi	39	44	17
Mitch McConnell	16	65	19
John Boehner	9	71	20
Congressional Democrats	46	45	9
Congressional Republicans	5	80	15
Democratic Party	54	37	9
Republican Party	14	78	8

I'm not a statistics expert by any means but in the last election, women cast 53% of the Presidential vote. Obama got 56% of the female vote, while McCain drew 49%.

Lessee... they've lost the vast majority of minorites, women, and other miscellaneous sane people. Not much left, now, is there?

Finally, we'll end with a game Suzie at Crooks and Liars came up with. Click here for the answer:

The Congressional GOPers (Party of Corporate Pork) are so, so upset when the wrong people are on the losing end in government bailouts. See if you can spot the delicious irony!

Dozens of lawmakers are challenging the authority of President Obama's auto task force, saying its swift restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler is unjust to investors, dealers and others.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner yesterday, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) said the auto task force is waging a "war on capital" by favoring the United Auto Workers, who are being offered a 39 percent equity stake in the new GM, over bondholders, many of them small investors and retirees, who are being offered 10 percent.

"Choosing sides between equal classes of creditors sets a terrible precedent -- one that could cause serious long term challenges to the financing marketplace by eroding investor confidence at the worst time in our recessionary period," Hensarling wrote in a letter signed by 20 other House members.

They're so precious when they pound their little fists into the carpet like that...

Torture Apologists on Parade: Flying Cow Edition

Unlike Sean Hannity, Mancow isn't afraid to put his water where his mouth is. Alas, as he discovered, empirical evidence trumps ideology:

On his radio show this morning, “conservative libertarian” talker Eric “Mancow” Muller set out to prove that waterboarding isn’t torture by having himself waterboarded. But instead, after enduring “6 or 7 seconds” of the interrogation technique, Mancow admitted that it was “absolutely torture”:

Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’”

He stated that the sensation brought on by waterboarding was exactly the same as drowning. He should know - he drowned as a child. No wonder the cow went flying the second the water hit him.

Jury's out on whether he goes back to trying to wish the truth away, but still, I respect him. He actually tested his beliefs. He admitted he was dead fucking wrong. And he didn't use weasel words. He may not be able to make it thirty seconds under the waterboard, but he's already kicked the collective asses of Hannity et al. Good on him.

Now we'll see how long it takes before the Cons and their media darlings start scoffing at the whole thing. If you watch the video, it doesn't look that bad - guy gets some water on the face, freaks out, turns pasty white and starts babbling "It's torture! It's torture!" The lack of screaming, blood and breaking bones deceive. That's why people without the imagination to realize just what suffocating under a stream of water does to your mind and body need to undergo this themselves.

I'd like to request Lou Dobbs volunteer next:

Lou Dobbs calls out Chuck Schumer for his waffling on whether Americans would accept torture being used in the phony ticking time bomb scenario. He then asks his audience to participate in an on line poll and asks whether they would "personally employ torture to save American lives and prevent an attack on this country?" And surprise, surprise...the overwhelming answer is...YES! Looks like all that fear mongering is paying off well for you. What's next Lou? You going to ask them if they'd like to shoot Mexicans to put an end to illegal immigration?

I'm tempted to head out to the streets with a board, a bucket of water, and a towel, and see just how many of my torture-loving fellow Americans are willing to enjoy some torture themselves. Even in Seattle, I'm likely to find a few fuckwits who are still under the illusion that 24 is a documentary and they're so tough they could outlast Mancow.

Fuck. Let's turn it into a reality show. And let's take our buckets to Congress, where I'm sure we'll find plenty of volunteers in the minority party, along with a select few in the majority.

What's that? They all ran away? Gee, I'm shocked. After all, it's just a little splash of water. Don't they want to keep America safe?

(Tip o' the shotglass to the folks I filched the images from. Please forgive my lack of Photoshop-fu - I did the best I could.)

Perhaps It'll Ask WolframAlpha Instead

A couple of years ago, I wrote a scene wherein Dusty, my FBI agent character, is given a Miraldian "PDA" - a semi-sentient little alien device that makes the iPhone look like an actual big dumb brick, and is only called a PDA by my Earthling characters because, well, people use old names for new things. It provided an opportunity for a moment of levity:

"Go on," August said. "Ask it a question. Any question."

She cupped the PDA in her hands and looked down at it. Ultra-advanced alien technology was roughly the size and shape of a cosmetic compact, and shiny metalic pastel peach in color. She would have preferred black, with a lot of LED buttons and flashing lights and something, anything, to say this wasn't just a little hollow lump of metal. The whole situation was surreal. DVDs traded for technology that might as well have been magic? She couldn't help herself. "What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?"

"Forty-two," an androgynous little voice promptly said.

She nearly dropped the PDA. And then she shot an accusing stare at August. "You're winding me up."

"No, it Googled it." August bent over her computer and typed the question in. "That's what it's trained to do when it's not sure what the answer is. If you ask for detail, it'll tell you how it got the result."

He showed her the search results on her screen. He was right. If you asked Google, it came up with Douglas Adams's answer.

And, indeed, if you Google that question, the top results refer to Douglas Adams.

With this background, you'll understand why this tidbit from Kevin Drum caught my attention:

...I tried out the WolframAlpha search engine today for the first time. It's been getting generally panned, but it sure did an impressively good job on my test drive query. Check it out:

You'll also understand why I promptly scampered over and asked the self-same question Dusty had asked. And why I burst out in such peals of delighted laughter that the cat nearly suffered cardiac arrest:



It's too bad "It WolframAlphaed it" doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily as Googled, eh?

The search engine isn't perfect, o' course. I stumped it with "Does Dana Hunter drink tequila?" which should've been a cakewalk (yes, Dana Hunter drinks tequila. Duh). But it's an awesome concept, I'm sure it'll improve with age, and I think it'll quickly become my boon companion on the research front.

Go forth and have fun with it.

LOLZ Travel Tips

Happy Memorial Day weekend! For those of you with travel plans, have a fabulously fun and safe trip.

O' course, the journey of a thousand miles always begins with a complication or two:


Remember to treat your car with the respect it deserves:


And don't forget to photograph the interesting sights at roadside attractions:



Above all, enjoy yourselves, my darlings.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Sorry we're late, my darlings. Was out running errands, getting my hair cut, and fitting the cat with a harness. Hilarious pictures of a pissed-off feline on a bungee leash will no doubt follow in the next few days. You should have seen her dear little face when I took her to PetSmart. (For those of you whose cats tend to self-destruct when they're on a leash, I recommend the Come with Me Kitty Harness & Bungee Leash Set, available online and at Target. Most kitties will fit into a medium, but if your cat is fat, plump for the large. Take it from someone who just learned that her cat is, indeed, fat. Aside from that, the design is perfect for preventing your pet from strangling itself.)

Anyway. I've only now gotten home and digested the ginormous pile of stupid awaiting me upon my return. Ye fucking gods. It being a holiday weekend, I guess everybody was packing the dumbfuckery into their Friday.

First up is a potential new segment we can call "Don't Wanna Know Dick:"

With Dick Cheney positioning himself as one of the de facto leaders of the nation in the post-Bush/Cheney era, it's not unreasonable to ask Republican incumbents a straightforward question: do you want to campaign alongside the former vice president?

A few GOP leaders are willing to put on a brave face, but those who may face competitive races next year are a little cagey on the subject.

Asked whether he'd like Cheney to campaign with him, Utah Sen. Robert Bennett -- who faces a primary challenge in 2010 -- said: "The most powerful national politician in Utah is Mitt Romney, and he's already come to Utah to campaign for me. And I think I'll leave it at that."

Asked if he'd want Cheney on the campaign trail for him, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said: "I'm not going to go there yet." Pressed on the matter, Burr -- a top target for Democrats -- said Cheney is "trying to set the record straight on his administration." But Burr said he didn't want to discuss "what's going to happen in my campaign. I don't even have an opponent."

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told reporters yesterday that he'd be "proud to appear with the vice president anywhere, anytime." When pressed on whether they share that view, Florida's Charlie Crist, Ohio's Rob Portman, and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski said they didn't want to talk about it. Arizona John McCain, who's also seeking another term next year, responded, "I don't have the time or energy to discuss that -- or the inclination."

I don't think I need to expand on that. Some things are perfectly amusing exactly as they are.

On the misnomer front, Liberty University might want to consider changing its name:

Liberty University has announced that it will no longer recognize its student-run Democratic club. The university, founded by televangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell, states that officials “are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by” the university. Liberty’s College Democrats have been barred from using the university’s name, holding campus meetings, or advertising events. Liberty’s Vice President of Student Affairs claims “we are in no way attempting to stifle free speech.”

[ed. note: go on, pull the other. it's got bells on.]

[snip]

Brian Diaz, President of Liberty’s College Democrats, notes that the Liberty College Republicans continue to operate on campus.

Liberty, my arse.

On the "didn't think that one through" front, we have this spiffy new ad from the RNC:

No doubt somebody at the RNC thought it would be a clever idea, since Nancy Pelosi is feuding with the CIA, to run an ad comparing Pelosi to a James Bond villainess up against the superspy -- as in Bond's many screen-credit sequences wherein he blasts away at various villains.

You would think, somewhere, someone would have suggested that maybe having a sequence where we look at Pelosi down the barrel of a gun, hear shots fired, and then watch blood drip down our screens wasn't exactly the smartest or most responsible way to

Alas, the completion of that sentence is left to our imaginations. I think the supreme fucktardednes left poor David Neiwart momentarily speechless. Mind you, this ad was created by the same alleged grown-ups who are currently whining about how mean and uncivilized those librul bloggers are.

They just scored a -10,242,111 on the Self Awareness Scale.

Next up, we have a special section devoted to Governors Who Can't Fucking Govern. First up, Rick "Secession" Perry, who just wants the feds to stay the hell away from Texas - except when he needs cash for a remodel:

So what do you do when you're an anti-spending, pro-secession conservative governor whose publicly-owned mansion needs $21 million in repairs to recover from fire damage?

Apparently, you do something like this (via diarist gsadamb [update: and also Velvet Revolution]):

AUSTIN, Texas – While Gov. Rick Perry is criticizing Washington bailouts, state lawmakers are planning to use $11 million in federal stimulus money to help rebuild the badly burned Texas Governor's Mansion.

Approximately $10 million in state tax money will also be spent on a renovation, which is expected to cost about $20 million, officials said Thursday.

This, of course, is the same Rick Perry who, along with a handful of other Republican extremists, rejected stimulus money for jobless Texans, and recently said that Texas would consider seceding if the federal government didn't dramatically cut spending.

Speaking of governors who rejected stimulus funds...

And then there's South Carolina:

Gov. Mark Sanford is taking the General Assembly to court after lawmakers required him to accept $350 million in disputed federal money by overriding his budget vetoes.

Sanford quickly announced the federal suit after the Senate voted 34-11 on a state budget that forces him to accept the money.

"We know a suit will be filed against us on this issue, and as such we've filed a suit tonight in response," Sanford said in a prepared statement. "We believe the Legislature's end-around move won't pass constitutional muster."

Yes, the governor would rather sue his legislature than accept federal funding that would go to bolster schools and public safety.

Something tells me that might come back to bite him come Election Day. By then, there'll only be about 27 faithful Cons left in the country. Everybody else will have figured out that it's best to vote for the people who want to make sure you have a job, healthcare and food.

And finally, another fine example of democracy in action:

It didn't get much play, but earlier in the week, the Connecticut state senate voted to ban the death penalty earlier in the week. Now,

Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell vowed Friday to veto a newly approved bill banning the death penalty as soon as she receives it, saying capital punishment is appropriate for certain heinous crimes.

The measure, approved early Friday by the state Senate and last week by the state House of Representatives, would replace capital punishment with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

At least two-thirds of the members of each chambers would have to vote to override a veto. But achieving that margin is in doubt, given the tight 19-17 vote in the Democrat-led Senate. The bill passed 90-56 in the House, which also led by Democrats.

At the Orange Satan, they've got contact info. for Rell.

Interesting that we haven't heard a peep from "pro-life" Catholic trolls like Gingrich, Bennett, Steele, K-Lo, Keyes, etc. demanding Rell "accept the will of the people" isn't it?

To these fuckwits, it appears a "natural" death includes death by lethal injection. Interesting, that. And it's ever so heartwarming to see a governor use her veto power to ensure the state gets to keep killing people.

And, finally, after all that stupidity, let's have a little fun. First, I'm going to rip off Steve Benen's title of a couple of days ago, because I want you all chanting "Go, Speed Reader, Go!"

Ready? In 3...2...1...

Go, Speed Reader, Go!

Faced with the possibility that the GOP minority might require the committee's clerks to read aloud the 900-page Waxman-Markey climate change bill, or many of its 400-plus proposed amendments, the committee's chairman, Henry Waxman (D-CA), hired a speed reader. A quick tongued, acting-clerk, if you will.

His services may ultimately not be necessary, but earlier today, to break the tension between battling factions, the committee's ranking member Joe Barton (R-TX) asked the "speed reader clerk" to read part of one measly little amendment. Watch:

Sheer awesome. As you can see from the video, Rep. Joe Barton did not, in fact, have committee chair Henry Waxman by the nuts. Quite the opposite, in fact. Click that last link if you need a stiff chaser of silly Con tough-guy posturing followed by the inevitable silly Con whining about getting his arse kicked. And then celebrate a victory for a cleaner, cooler Earth.

Nice way to start a holiday weekend, isn't it just?

Something to Keep in Mind

The next time someone yawps at you about the extraordinary accomplishments of the Bush regime, you might want to drop this little tidbit on them (h/t):

Former Congresswoman and prosecutor Liz Holtzman makes a good point:

The criminal justice system identified and convicted some of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. By contrast, not one person has been prosecuted for the 9/11 attacks, although seven and a half years have gone by. Even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the masterminds of 9/11, is unlikely ever to be convicted in US courts because he was repeatedly subjected to torture. Significantly, the cruel and torturous methods used on detainees never yielded enough information to capture Osama Bin Laden or his chief deputy. So much for the claims of torture's efficacy.

So what the fuck have we done for the last nearly 8 years? Oh. That's right. Invaded the wrong fucking country so that a bunch of pathetic losers could play out their War President fantasies.

Anyone who still thinks the Bush regime was good for this country after clicking these three links is so terminally stupid that further conversation is useless.

They, Too, Bravely Ran Away

David Broder's latest atrocity column included this little gem:

...Democrats really are isolated from the military. Harry Truman had been an artillery captain; John Kennedy and Carter, Navy officers. But Bill Clinton did everything possible to avoid the draft, and Obama, motivated as he was to public service, never gave a thought to volunteering for the military.

I do so love it when Cons try to paint Dems as lily-livered military-hating cowards. It gives Steve Benen the opportunity to point out a few salient facts:

Consider a slightly different take. George W. Bush avoided Vietnam and failed to complete his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard, while Dick Cheney sought and received five deferments. In the House, neither the Minority Leader nor the Minority Whip served in the military. In the Senate, neither the Minority Leader nor the Minority Whip served in the military. Prominent Republican governors eyeing the 2012 presidential race -- Jindal, Sanford, Palin, Romney, Crist -- have no military background. Leading Republican voices outside government -- Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck -- chose to never wear the uniform.

That, my darlings, is why we call them Yellow Elephants. They like to talk the tough talk, but when it comes to walking the walk, they pull a Sir Robin instead.

This is why I believe the Dems should vote on a resolution asking the Cons to rename their party the Pathetic Hypocrite Party. After all, labels matter. And there's nothing more important than bringing the truth to bear on the craven cowardice behind the Cons' tough talk.

What Does Torchwood Have To Do With DADT?

So glad you asked. Cujo's got your answer.

I love it when pop culture and political news can be combined into teachable moments, don't you?

Obama Announces The Ultimate Marvel Team-Up

There's been a lot of pants-pissing Con hysteria over the impending closure of Guantanamo. We liberals have been quick to dismiss their concerns, but we may have been a little over-hasty. A closer reading of history proves there's good cause for concern:

Today, Glenn Greenwald makes a completely incorrect assertion:

Take note, Chris Cillizza and friends: while it's true that "not a single prisoner has escaped from Gitmo since it was created," it's also true that no Muslim Terrorists have escaped from American prisons and our SuperMax prison "has had no escapes or serious attempts to escape." Actually, the only person to even make an escape attempt from a SuperMax is Green Arrow, who hasn't succeeded despite the help of Joker and Lex Luthor.

Greenwald clearly doesn't remember the Magneto incident of 2003, in which the mutant supervillain escaped from his glass prison facility after Mystique increased the iron content in his guard's blood, which Magneto extracted using his ferrokinetic powers and then used to destroy his cell. Obviously, we need to discover if Gitmo inmates do have mutant abilities, which will undoubtedly require more waterboarding, and this has to be done before the administration gets a dime to close Guantanamo. In fact, I'm pretty sure Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the subject in 2002.

Whether or not Nancy Pelosi was accurately briefed, the imaginary threat is real. We can't dismiss the danger of terrorists being superpowered mutants just because there's no evidence for it. That's why it's so heartening to see President Obama taking immediate action to counter this dire threat (h/t):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC – Seeking to quell fears of terrorists somehow breaking out of America's top-security prisons and wreaking havoc on the defenseless heartland, President Barack Obama moved quickly to announce an Anti-Terrorist Strike Force headed by veteran counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer and mutant superhero Wolverine. Already dubbed a "dream team," their appointment is seen by experts as a crucial step in reducing the mounting incidents of national conservatives and congressional Democrats crapping their pants.

"I believe a fictional threat is best met with decisive fictional force," explained President Obama. "Jack Bauer and Wolverine are among the very best we have when in comes to combating fantasy foes." Mr. Bauer said, "We're quite certain that our prisons are secure. Osama bin Laden and his agents wouldn't dare attempt a break-out, and would fail miserably if they tried. But I love this country. And should Lex Luthor, Magneto or the Loch Ness Monster attack, we'll be there to stop them."

[snip]

Some critics have expressed concerns as to whether Mr. Bauer is the best choice to counter the potential threat of a super-villain such as Magneto, a dinosaur stampede or an alien invasion. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded that while Bauer lacks conventional super-powers, he can withstand extreme amounts of pain, has near infallible judgment, can teleport across Los Angeles and Washington D.C. at will, and can go 24 hours without sleep or relieving his bladder.

Should the task of protecting the country prove too difficult for the super-agent and super-hero on their own, Crime-Fightin' Jesus has offered to lend a hand "in a pinch," although he says he would rather spend his time helping the poor "if at all possible." Republicans insist that a law-enforcement approach to terrorism is ineffective.

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation, manufacturers of Depends adult diapers, has already come out strongly against the announcement of the Bauer-Wolverine dream team, claiming that their increased sales are helping spur the nation's economic recovery...

These advances are always so difficult for major corporations to adjust to, aren't they? But I'm sure there won't be any reduction in demand for Depends. David Vitter's still healthy enough for sexual activity, right? And sales of Kleenex brand tissues, another Kimberly-Clark product, have increased dramatically since the press release, possibly due to the equally dramatic increase in despairing tears as Cons realize their usual gloom-and-doom scenarios are impotent in the face of this Wolverine-Bauer team-up.

Prominent Cons could not be reached for comment. Sources say they're meeting in an undisclosed location, frantically trying to manufacture the next Big Scare. We wish them luck with that.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Note to Cons: the equine is thoroughly deceased. You can stop beating it any time:

Maybe it's just me, but when I saw another story about a new round of Republican attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), my first reaction was, "Wait, they're still talking about that?"

A member of the House Republican Conference will offer a resolution on the House floor Thursday calling for a bipartisan investigation into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA misled her on the use of waterboarding, two Republican sources tell CNN.

"The speaker has had a full week now to either produce the evidence or retract and apologize, and she's done neither," a senior Republican aide told CNN. "There is no choice now. A bipartisan investigation is needed to get to the facts."

Just so we're clear, if a Democrat says, in reference to credible allegations of widespread Bush administration wrongdoing, "There is no choice now. A bipartisan investigation is needed to get to the facts," that Democrat is a bitter partisan, stuck in the past, anxious to undermine national security. If a Republican says the same thing about Pelosi, he/she is simply supporting accountability.

Riiight.

Most of you are probably aware that today was Dick's day to try to upstage the President of the United States. It didn't go all that well. For one thing, Cheney proved he has no idea what American values actually are:

From Dick Cheney's remarks at AEI this morning:

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

Anything is permissible in defense of the Fatherland Homeland.

Not according to the Constitution, Dick.

And as for comparison to the President, well, let's just say that anyone who's not a hopeless Con wasn't too terribly impressed:

Most of Joe Klein's take on this morning's speeches struck me as persuasive.

"From the very first -- the notion that those who oppose his policies saw 9/11 as a "one-off" -- Cheney proceeded to mischaracterize, oversimplify and distort the views of those who saw his policies as extreme and unconstitutional, to say nothing of the views of the current Administration. This is the habit of demagogues. Cheney's snarling performance was revelatory and valuable: it showed exactly the sort of man Cheney is, and the sort of advice he gave, when his location was disclosed. I hope he continues to speak out. We need his voice to remind us what we've happily escaped.

"Contrast that with the President. He spoke with reason and dignity. He treated his audience -- the American people -- as adults, capable of assimilating a difficult argument. He presented the views of his opponents, on both sides, fairly. His speech acknowledged the difficulty in balancing our democratic values against our very real national security needs."

Now, when it comes to Klein's take on the appropriate "balance" between security and values, I'd put the fulcrum in a different place.

But his larger point sounds right to me. Watching Cheney's speech, the one phrase that kept coming to mind was, "He must think we're idiots."

Indeed he must. I suppose it's what comes of having been stuffed away in an undisclosed location for so long.

Cheney does have one big fan, though. Mittens lurved him some ex-VP:

Blogging at The Corner today, Mitt Romney panned President Obama’s speech on national security, saying that Vice President Cheney’s “response” to Obama was “direct, well-reasoned, and convincing.” Romney mocked Obama’s speech condemning torture as being worse than Bush’s torture tactics:

He struggles to explain how he is keeping faith with the liberal advocates who promoted his campaign but in doing so, he breaks faith with the interests of the American people. When it comes to protecting the nation, we have a conflicted president. And his address today was more tortured than the enhanced interrogation techniques he decries.

Obama “said that the last thing he thinks about when he goes to sleep at night is keeping America safe. That’s a big difference with Vice President Cheney — when it came to protecting Americans, he never went to sleep,” Romney concluded. This would be news to Cheney. In October 2007, Cheney dozed off during a briefing on the California wildfires and also during his boss’s farewell address in January 2009.

So much for the Man Who Never Sleeps motif. And so much for the former Vice President convincing everyone that he's right and Obama's wrong. Repetition of tired old right-wing talking points only gets you so far.

In other news, some fuckwits think Huntsman's ambassadorship to China is a prime opportunity to proselytize:

I knew this was going to come out of Utah as soon as I heard the announcement that Jon Huntsman was going to China. I emailed Howie about it.

Ben Smith:

This, from the blog of a Utah State Rep. Craig Frank, may not be quite what Huntsman and Obama were thinking:

This is a big deal for the Governor, Utah, the United States, and…the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Although the LDS church’s missionary program has an ecclesiastical presence throughout many parts of the world, the countries with the largest population bases (China and India) are not currently open to the church’s missionary efforts. Huntsman served his LDS mission as a 19 year old young man in the Taiwan Taipei Mission in the early 1980’s. He has since been back to the Far East on a number of occasions. Huntsman not only takes to China his political acumen but also a lifetime of membership in the LDS church. This should bode well for the LDS church’s mission to spread the gospel throughout the world, since all members of the LDS faith are under divine mandate to…”Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” (Matt 28:19)

Huntsman’s ambassadorship not only puts him in an excellent position to address US-China relations, it puts him in an even better position to teach the gospel…in Mandarin.

The blog has since been scrubbed, GOP 12 reports, but it lives on on Google.

Some folks seem to think there's no such thing as separation between church and state, there. I hope Huntsman isn't laboring under the same delusion.

And, finally, I can't leave you without these pearls of wisdom from Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum:

Last night on Fox News, former senator Rick Santorum told Greta Van Susteren that the Republican party “has to stand up for conservative principles.” They have to support the “patrimony” against “a guy named Barack Obama” who wants to upend “our social structure”:

SANTORUM: The other thing we have to do is we have to stand up and say, look, America — Conservatives believe in the stewardship of patrimony. In other words, there are things in America that are really good, that work, have worked for 200 years. And we have a guy named Barack Obama who’s trying to fundamentally rewrite everything, change our economy, change our social structure, change our economy to something new.

Santorum also praised the 75 percent of Californians who did not vote in yesterday’s special election, “because they knew enough that they didn’t know enough to vote.”

Rick hasn't quite made Bachmann territory on the crazy, there, but give him points for trying.

Back in the Blogosphere

Huzzah! George is back!


And the Intertoobz breathed a collective sigh of relief. It's just not been the same without him.

Welcome back, mi amigo! Good to see you recovering so nicely.

Methinks It's Time to Repeal DADT

In case no one noticed, we're in the midst of two fucking wars, here. The military's so desperate they're letting convicted criminals serve. But they're still enforcing DADT - WTF?

Rachel Maddow's introduction of the segment on Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach last night told a rather remarkable story.

"[Fehrenbach is] an F-15 fighter pilot, 18-year veteran of the United States Air Force," Rachel explained. "On Sept. 11, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach was picked to be part of the initial alert crew immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The following years, in 2002, he deployed to Kuwait, where he flew combat missions over Afghanistan, attacking Taliban and al Qaeda targets. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach deployed there, flying combat missions in support of mission Iraqi Freedom.

"Over the span of his career, he has flown 88 combat missions, including missions that were the longest mission sorties in the history of his squadron. He's logged more than 2,000 flying hours, nearly 1,500 fighting hours, 400 combat hours. Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is also highly decorated -- he's received nine air medals, including one for heroism. After 18 years of active duty in the Air Force, this experienced, decorated fighter pilot says he is ready and willing to deploy again. He's ready to do what his country and the United States Air Force ask of him."

Except, Fehrenbach will no longer able to serve, because the Air Force is kicking him out of the military because he's gay. This genuine American war hero, who's put his life on the line over and over again, and who the U.S. government has invested $25 million in training, is two years from retirement. Instead of thanking him for his extraordinary service, the country he's served with honor and distinction is firing him for his sexual orientation.

Just once, I wanted to hear someone explain why the United States is stronger, safer, and more secure with Lt. Col. Fehrenbach out of the military.

So do I.

*crickets*

So if we're not safer, can we just get the fuck on with repealing this bloody stupid law? Why are we coddling a handful of homophobes? Tell them to grow the fuck up or get the fuck out. And while we're waiting for the repeal, Obama's got plenty of options for end-runs around this bullshit. Steve's got a short rundown at the above link.

It's not like soldiers like Fehrenbach have to be drummed out. It's time for Obama to stop pretending there's no alternative.

The Demands for Arlen Specter's Head Begin in 3...2...1...

Dear, oh dear. It looks like Arlen's break with the Cons is nearly complete:

Yes, I'm glad that Arlen "the Scrapple formerly known as Haggis" Specter has come out in support of Nancy Pelosi's suggestion that CIA misled her in her September 2002 briefing.

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say 'candid'; that's too mild — to honesty," Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lunch address to the American Law Institute. He cited misleading information about the agency's involvement in mining harbors in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair."Director [Leon] Panetta says the agency does not make it a habit to misinform Congress. I believe that is true. It is not the policy of the Central Intelligence Agency to misinform Congress," Specter said. "But that doesn't mean that they're all giving out the information."

Because of leaks that have come from Congress, Specter said, he understands the agency's hesitancy to disclose all its information.

"The current controversy involving Speaker Pelosi and the CIA is very unfortunate, in my opinion, because it politicizes the issue and it takes away attention from ... how does the Congress get accurate information from the CIA?" Specter said. "For political gain, people are making headlines."

The howls for his blood, already loud, will shatter eardrums now. Because only Cons are allowed to call the CIA a bunch of liars. So either Arlen forgot he's a Dem again, or he's decided to hell with it and decided to take a flamethrower to a few bridges.

Either way works for me.

Evolution in Action

So I'm watching Mythbusters, and they're doing a myth about a skydiver falling on a seesaw. While gathering data for the experiment, they calculate the terminal velocity of a skydiver wearing a camera suit.

For those who have no fucking clue what the difference is between a regular skydiving suit and a camera suit, welcome to the club. I'd not known there was a difference either.

















Normal suits, like those on the right, ain't got wings. Camera suits, on the other hand, do. Well, flaps, anyway. And those itsy-bitsy wings have a measurable effect. The terminal velocity of a skydiver is roughly 124 mph. But the Mythbusters measured the terminal velocity of a skydiver in a camera suit as 114 mph. What good is a 10 mph difference? Well, it opens up some additional options:

If you plan on spending a great deal of time in the air, you should consider a skydiving suit called a camera suit. This kind of suit has an added feature: wings that give you more control to slow down your descent when desired. This is especially desirable if you decide to strap a camera on your helmet for videotaping the experience, since you can slow down and pan when you want to.

That makes skydiving in a camera suit a rather dramatic demonstration of the principles of evolution in action. Think of flying. The most usual objection raised is, "What good is half a wing?" Camera suits don't even include half a wing. It's a pathetic little flap that looks totally useless. Yet it conveys greater control over airspeed. And when you're falling out of a plane trying to film other people falling out of planes, that's a critical advantage. Extrapolate that to falling out of trees, and you can get a better understanding of the incremental change that can lead from skin flap to full wing and powered flight.

Richard Dawkins puts it this way in Climbing Mount Improbable:

The way to think of the gradual evolution of a flying squirrel is this. To begin with, an ancestor like an ordinary squirrel, living up trees but without any special gliding membrane, leaps across short gaps. However far it can leap without the aid of any special flaps of skin, it could leap a few inches further - and hence save its life when it encounters a gap of critical distance - if it had a very slight flap of skin, or a very slightly increased bushiness of the tail. So natural selection favours individuals with slightly pouchy skin around the arm or leg joints, and this becomes the norm. The normal leaping distance of an average member of the population has thereby been increased by a few inches. Now, any individuals with an even larger skin web can leap a few inches further. So in later generations this extension of skin becomes the norm. For any given size of membrane, there exists a critical gap such that a marginal increase in the membrane makes all the difference between life and death.

And what the fuck do flying squirrels have to do with birds, you ask? Excellent question. Meet Microraptor:

Some scientists believe that bird flight evolved when ground-dwelling dinosaurs began to take to the skies. In contrast to this ‘ground-up’ theory, the ‘trees-down’ camp believes that tree-dwelling dinosaurs evolved flight to glide from tree to tree.

And this is exactly what Microraptor did. It lacked the muscles for a ground take-off and couldn’t get a running start for fear of damaging its leg feathers. But a computer simulation showed that Microraptor could successfully fly between treetops, covering over forty metres in an undulating glide.

It is unclear if Microraptor could truly fly or was just an exceptional glider. Certainly, its body plan shows many features that would make its avian descendants such great aeronauts. It had a large sternum for attaching powerful flight muscles and strengthened ribs to withstand the heavy pressures of a flight stroke.

Its long, feathered tail acted a stabiliser and rudder and its tibia (shin bone) was covered in smaller, backwards-facing feathers. Modern birds of prey carry similar feather ‘trousers’ and Chatterjee believes that they helped to reduce drag by breaking up turbulent airflow behind the animal’s leg.

It could be that Microraptor’s biplane design was just a failed evolutionary experiment. But Chatterjee thinks otherwise. He believes that the biplane model was a stepping stone to the two-wing flight of modern birds. As the front pair of wings grew larger and produced more lift, they eventually took over the responsibilities formerly shared with the hind pair.

You can easily imagine the gradual progression. Dinosaur feathers evolved to keep the little buggers warm. Some of the little buggers hung about in trees. The little buggers who hung about in trees and developed feathered skin flaps were better gliders, meaning better hunters and escape artists. And so it goes, generation by generation, until you end up with something like this guy:


Pretty awesome, innit?

So we've gone from camera suits to squirrels to dinosaurs to falcons. Bet you never thought skydiving could demonstrate the principles of evolution so well (aside from in the strict Darwin Award sense, o' course). Were I a science teacher, I'd be taking definite advantage of that. Talk about your sense of wonder!

Tip o' the shot glass to the Discovery Channel for airing both The Dinosaur Feather Mystery and Mythbusters. They haven't got clips of Grant and Tory's adventures with camera suits up yet, but they've been kind enough not to have YouTube pull down the vids from their documentary on dinosaur feathers. Catch Microraptor on the wing at the 5 minute mark:

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

For those of you who might be going through Michael Steele Dumbfuckery withdrawl, here's your fix:

This past weekend, RNC Chairman Michael Steele made headlines when he delivered a speech at the Georgia Republican convention, in which he argued that same-sex marriage would be a huge burden on small businesses. But that wasn’t the only controversial claim Steele made in the speech. According to Human Events’ Martha Zoller, Steele also declared that “liberalism will kill you“:

He went on to say, “The Republican Party’s credibility as the reliably conservative choice has been damaged, and it’s up to us to fix it. Faith, freedom, personal responsibility, respect for life and prosperity” Then he added, “Like a bad diet, liberalism will kill you. It’s a drug we don’t need to be hooked on. We are what stand between an America of prosperity or dependency. Which one do you want?”

I'll take liberalism, thank you. It'll kill me a lot slower than Con ineptitude will.

For those of you going through Con hypocrisy withdrawl, I've got some hits of that, too:

The Nevada legislature has successfully passed two gay rights bills, one that outlaws job discrimination based on sexual orientation, and another that establishes domestic partnerships for gay couples.

But Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons has said he will veto the domestic partnership bill, which would give same-sex couples equal rights to married partners in areas like estate planning, medical decisions, community property and child custody.

"The governor believes that government has no business in your medicine chest or your bedroom," spokesperson Daniel Burns said. With good reason: Gibbons who filed for divorce in 2008, allegedly had having an affair with playboy model Leslie Durant, as well as sending more than 860 text messages to another woman, Kathy Karrasch, from his state-owned cell phone. When Gibbons was running for governor, he was accused of sexually assaulting a cocktail waitress.

Yup. Just the man to defend "traditional" marriage. It's a good thing the Cons have such upright defenders of the institution, innit?

In the Freudian Ballgown department, I've got this choice tidbit:

Today, conservative extremist Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) engaged in a one-man debate whether corporate America is good or evil. The Republican Party’s attempts to characterize the Waxman-Markey green economy legislation as economic catastrophe have been neutered, as the bill has gained the support of a broad coalition of corporate America, poverty advocates, labor unions, and environmentalists.

In a confused monologue, Shimkus attempts to follow new Republican talking points and portray himself as a defender of the little guy against corporate greed. But he can’t stop himself from also praising the corporations as his friends:

We’re fighting for the ratepayer. This debate is: “Who protects the ratepayer?” The corporate titans are my friends!

Now, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if you're blathering about protecting ratepayers (i.e., regular ol' people), the next sentence out of your mouth should not be "The corporate titans are my friends!" It rather damages the defender-o'-regular-folk illusion.

In fact, it's kinda like a guy making $10 million a year yawping about how middle-class he is. Does not compute.

In other talking points that don't compute, there's the "big bad unions" bullshit, which is rather dramatically contradicted by the fact that corporations are bigger, badder bullies:

We hear it again and again, big corporations like Walmart paying lobbyists a fortune and running campaigns about union thuggery on behalf of their fat corporate clients in an effort to defeat Employee Free Choice (EFCA). Because they care so very much about their workers.
If they're worried about thuggery, maybe they ought to be looking in the mirror:

Compared to the 1990s, employers are more than twice as likely to use 10 or more tactics in their anti-union campaigns, with a greater focus on more coercive and punitive tactics designed to intensely monitor and punish union activity.
It has become standard practice for workers to be subjected by corporations to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for supporting a union. An analysis of the 1999-2003 data on NLRB election campaigns finds that:

• 63%of employers interrogate workers in mandatory one-on-one meetings with their supervisors about support for the union;
• 54% of employers threaten workers in such meetings;
• 57% of employers threaten to close the worksite;
• 47% of employers threaten to cut wages and benefits; and
• 34% of employers fire workers.

So... tell me again how awful unions are. Go on, I dare ya. I'll believe that just about as soon as I believe Inhofe's interesting description of terrorists held domestically as "just criminals":

Today the Senate is expected to pass an amendment banning the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States, even U.S. prisons. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) explained yesterday, “Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.”

This morning on CNN, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), author of the amendment, declared that moving detainees to maximum-security prisons or military bases would make those facilities “magnets to terrorism.” He claimed that the U.S. is “not set up to handle terrorist detainees”:

CHETRY: You don’t think that those facilities could keep some of these detainees secure, at the same time, protecting the surrounding communities?

INHOFE: No, I don’t, Kiran. [...]

CHETRY: There has been, though, here in the United States a number of people who have been convicted on terrorism-related charges in U.S. courts. … They’ve been held in our U.S. prisons. Why can’t that be replicated with the Guantanamo Bay detainees?

INHOFE: Because those individuals who are actually criminals, they actually committed crimes and were not involved in the type of — in the type of terrorist activity as we’ve been experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Try telling McVeigh's victims he was "just a criminal." Go on. I dare you.

Finally, in the double-dog dare you department, the Dems have come up with a cunning plan to defeat Con obstructionism on climate change:

Conservative Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have threatened to do everything imaginable, and perhaps a few measures beyond imaginable, to delay progress on a Democratic climate-change bill. Most notably, Rep. Joe Barton (R) of Texas, arguably Congress' most enthusiastic fan of pollution, has raised the specter of forcing the committee to consider several hundred proposed amendments, all of which will fail, and all of which would be introduced solely to slow down the process.

To their credit, the committee's majority came up with a clever idea.

Democrats in the House Energy and Commerce Committee have taken a novel step to head off Republican efforts to slow action this week on a sweeping climate bill: Hiring a speed reader.

Committee Republicans, who largely oppose the measure, have said they may force the reading of the entire 946-page bill, as well as major amendments totaling several hundred pages. So far, Republicans have decided not to use the procedural maneuver, but Chairman Henry Waxman of California is prepared. [...]

A committee spokeswoman said the young man, who's doing door duty at the hearing as he awaits his possible call to the microphone, was hired to help career staff. After years of practice, the panel's clerks can certainly read rapidly, but she says the speed reader is a lot faster.

"A lot" is key here. Those of you who know me personally know that I tend to speak pretty quickly. But I'm a rank amateur compared to this guy, who speed reads professionally.

That's just awesome. I hope they shoot a video and post it on YouTube. At least our leadership is finally coming up with creative ways to get around Cons.

More of this, please.

Harry Reid, Craven Dumbfuck

Can we please, please primary this son of a bitch? We'd be better off with Bozo the Clown as Senate Majority Leader:

Oh, and Harry Reid? Try showing some courage. Try leadership. You never know; it just might suit you. This certainly doesn't:

"QUESTION: If the United States -- if the United States thinks that these people should be held, why shouldn't they be held in the United States? Why shouldn't the U.S. take those risks, the attendant risk of holding them, since it's the one that says they should be held?

REID: I think there's a general feeling, as I've already said, that the American people, and certainly the Senate, overwhelmingly doesn't want terrorists to be released in the United States. And I think we're going to stick with that.

QUESTION: What about in imprisoned in the United States?

REID: If you're...

(CROSSTALK)

REID: If people are -- if terrorists are released in the United States, part of what we don't want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don't want them around the United States."

Um, Harry? Some Americans do want them around the United States:

A frequent attack on the closure of Guantanamo is the claim that no one in the U.S. wants detainees housed in their backyard. Last Sunday, Dick Cheney remarked, “I don’t know a single congressional district in this country that is going to say, gee, great, they’re sending us 20 Al Qaida terrorists.” But Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports that the town of Hardin, MT requesting that 100 detainees be sent to its empty prison:

Earlier this month, Hardin’s town council voted unanimously to offer the US government a deal: Send Hardin the detainees that most foreign countries and other cities the US are afraid to take.

“Why not us?” [Greg Smith, Hardin's economic development director] asks. “They’ve got to go somewhere.” He dismisses security concerns over housing inmates former Bush administration officials famously described as “the worst of the worst”. “We have some very hardened criminals in our own country that have committed some heinous crimes, and they are in communities all across this country,” Smith argues. [...]

[snip]

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) has said that detainees could be tried in his Alexandria, VA district.

There are plenty of Americans who aren't the craven cowards that you and your Yellow Elephant friends are, Sen. Reid. Grow a fucking backbone already.

Torture Apologists on Parade: WWF Smackdown Edition

I'm ashamed to admit I didn't have much respect for Jesse Ventura. Mind you, I rooted for him when he won the Minnesota elections and became a governor - mostly because the media et al had been such dismissive fucks, and it was fun to see them shocked that a lowly wrestler from a third party was now chief executive of a state. But still, didn't really consider him to be anything more than a showman.

Opinions can change in the face of evidence (unless you're a Con or creationist, o' course). And there is something glorious about watching a former pro-wrestler and Navy SEAL who survived Vietnam slam pro-torture wingnuts into the mat:

Jesse Ventura's been making the rounds lately by taking on all comers on the issue of torture, which has left little quivering wingnuts like Joe Scarborough having to resort to attacking him out of his immediate presence.

Because as Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends found out this morning, doing so in person can be extremely unpleasant. Especially if you try pulling the lamestain right-wing crap we've gotten accustomed to, namely, accusing their interlocutors of not wanting to keep us safe, you're not patriotic enough, blah blah blah.

That's what Kilmeade tries pulling right off the bat, and it makes for possibly the best of the Ventura smackdowns yet:

Ventura: I have been waterboarded. It is torture. I can speak from experience. It was part of SERE training that I went through as a Navy SEAL.

Kilmeade: And are you OK now?

Ventura: I'm fine.

Kilmeade: So is Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He's about 60 pounds overweight, having a great time --

Ventura: It doesn't matter. If it was OK, then why don't we do it to criminals? Like, if we've got gang members in L.A., OK? We know that their gangs are gonna do bad things. When we arrest them, why don't we waterboard them so we can get information out of them? Because it's against the law.

Kilmeade: Do you want us not to be safe from attack?

Ventura: Don't come after me with that nonsense.

[Debate over its efficacy -- "ticking time bomb"]

Ventura: OK, why didn't we waterboard McVeigh and Nichols, then? There were more people that they thought involved at Oklahoma City. Why weren't they waterboarded to get more information? Because it's against the law.

Wait -- and if we're not going to be a country that goes by the rule of law when it's convenient or not convenient, then what do we stand for?

...

But what about the difference -- you bring up Timothy McVeigh and maybe gang members, and maybe those threats weren't as imminent as the threats --

Ventura: I don't think these threats are imminent.

You didn't think after 9/11, that America felt threats were imminent, that more could be coming?

Ventura: Maybe. But I think our behavior has caused us to be in more trouble. Now they won't release these photos. Why? Because they know the Muslim world will go irate. They're all after Nancy Pelosi -- when did she know? When dah dah dah -- Well, if we hadn't of tortured, it would be a dead issue, wouldn't it?

Let's go to the real issue: It's called torture.

I think I'm in love.

No wonder Joe Scarborough was too shit-scared to have Jesse in the studio when he launched this ridiculous rant (h/t):

This is unbelievable. Joe Scarborough, who publicly lectured/tattled on me for not engaging in civilized debate, talking about Jesse Ventura:

"Perhaps Jesse should stop smoking whatever Jesse's been smoking and keep his mouth shut about things he knows absolutely nothing about. This is a guy who, by the way -- I must continue to say this -- that got paid two million dollars by this network, did one show and sucked so bad that they sent him back to Minnesota and said "we never want to see you again."

I wish I was that bad. Perhaps I am. Maybe they'll fire me and I'll take my money and go to Florida. [...] Seriously, that's the sort of stupidity -- it's just -- it should seriously be a crime to be that dumb and on TV. [mocking Jesse's voice] We only waterboard Muslims. Oh God.

Let's bring in Rudy Giuliani. Former Republican mayor of New York City, former presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani. This seems like a great place to start. [begin douchey sarcastic voice] Why is it that people like Jesse Ventura are so concerned about how we treat people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Why is that?"

Jesse Ventura was a Navy Seal who survived the SERE program and served in Vietnam. He "knows nothing" about torture and war, Joe? And you do? That's rich.

Isn't it awesome how all these Yellow Elephants think they're more expert than veterans? I notice Sean Hannity still hasn't set a date for his waterboarding-for-charity. We'll have to add a Scarborough-dissing-Ventura-to-his-face watch to our calendars.

Speaking of smackdowns, Marcy Wheeler's compiled a handy little guide to the CIA's briefing list errors. Cons keep whining about that awful Nancy Pelosi being soooo mean to the CIA. This list gives them a choice: either the CIA's a bunch of lying asshats, or the CIA's a bunch of bumbling buffoons who can't even compile a simple list. My question for the Cons is, which explanation do they prefer?

And when will they demand Pete Hoekstra apologize for impugning the CIA's integrity?

Hoekstra’s repeated objections to Pelosi accusing the CIA of having lied to Congress is quite odd given the fact that he’s made nearly identical claims on multiple occasions. As Marcy Wheeler first noted, Hoekstra wrote a letter to President Bush in 2006 accusing the intelligence community of withholding information on their activities from Congress. “I have learned of some alleged Intelligence Community activities about which our committee has not been briefed,” Hoekstra wrote. He said that he believed the Bush administration’s failure to fully brief his committee could constitute “a violation of law“:

Similarly, in 2007, Hoekstra described a closed-door briefing by representatives from the intelligence community (including CIA) on the National Intelligence Estimate of Iran’s nuclear capability, saying that the members “didn’t find [the briefers] forthcoming.” More recently, in November 2008, Hoekstra concluded that the CIA “may have been lying or concealing part of the truth” in testimony to Congress regarding a 2001 incident in which the CIA mistakenly killed an American citizen in Peru. “We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress,” Hoekstra said of the incident.

My goodness, Pete. Who would have ever guessed you're a ginormous fucking hypocrite? What a shock.

Why, it's almost as shocking as learning the CIA would lie to cover their asses, and that torture apologists can get totally pwnd by a former SEAL. If you'll excuse me, I think I need to go to the hospital. I believe I'm having a heart attack from not surprised.

No Wonder There's Global Warming

Shorter Joe Barton: Coke has carbon dioxide in it. Polar bears drink Coke. Therefore, carbon dioxide isn't dangerous. Whee!

Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe Joe Barton wants to win the Most Fucktarded Congressman of the Year award:

Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began its markup of the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The work is expected to continue through the week, as Republicans plan to stall movement on the bill by offering more than 400 amendments.

Discussing the bill on C-Span’s Washington Journal this morning, Rep. “Smokey Joe” Barton (R-TX) defended his head-in-the-sand approach to climate change by fundamentally misunderstanding the science, misstating the reality of carbon dioxide emissions, and mocking fuel-efficient cars. Some highlights:

– “I would also point out that CO2, carbon dioxide, is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term. … I am creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola, you’re Dr. Pepper, your Perrier water. It is necessary for human life. It is odorless, colorless, tasteless, does not cause cancer, does not cause asthma.”

– “And something that the Democrat sponsors do not point out, a lot of the CO2 that is created in the United States is naturally created. You can’t regulate God. Not even the Democratic majority in the US Congress can regulate God.”

I'm at a loss for words. All I can say is, with reps like this, it's no wonder we've got global warming problems. The burning stupidity alone is enough to raise the Earth's temperature by at least 1° C.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

It's been a busy day for Michael Steele. He's piling on the stupid so fast and thick it's hard to keep up with him.

He gave a big speech in which he demonstrated his propensity for generating inane soundbites:

RNC Chairman Michael Steele's speech to committee members was this afternoon, and I believe it was aired live on all three cable networks. Viewers got to hear Steele's Greatest Hits, including an attack on ACORN, a shot at EFCA, and even a reference to the Fairness Doctrine. I wish I were kidding.

But here's the quote that you're likely to see quite a bit more of:

"Those of you who actually attend Lincoln Day dinners, and county party events, those of you who toil in the vineyards, spending time in communities, in diners, in barber shops, and in coffee shops where real, every day people can be found. You know it is real. You can see it and feel it.

"This change, my friends, is being delivered in a tea bag. And that's a wonderful thing."

Remember when Steele recently described himself as "the gift that keeps on giving"? He wasn't kidding.

On a more serious note, the RNC chairman also vowed, "The Republican Party is again going to emerge as the party of new ideas." He then proceeded to note exactly zero new ideas.

Kinda hard to deliver change in a teabag when you've got no change, innit?

And what if the Cons try to shut him the hell up to preserve the infintesimal remnant of their dignity? He ain't shuttin':

Today in an interview with Fox News, Steele suggested that if too much of his power is taken away, he may resign:

They can contemplate all they want to, but the reality is if they want a figurehead chairman you can have a figurehead chairman, but it won’t be Michael Steele.

I wonder how many Cons shouted "Halleluja!" when he said that. Talk about your easy way to rid yourself of an embarrassment.

It's not just speeches or interviews on Faux News, either. No. Steele had far more to offer today. Such as an op-ed:

As part of the gathering, RNC Chairman Michael Steele has a new column in the Politico arguing that "Republicans are turning a corner." (As I recall, Steele said the exact same thing right before the GOP lost the special election in New York's 20th.)

[T]he Republican Party will be forward-looking -- it is time to stop looking backward. Republicans have spent ample time re-examining the past. It has been a healthy and necessary task. But I believe it is now time for Republicans to focus all of our energies on winning the future by emerging as the party of new ideas.

As part of the Republicans' new-found commitment to a "forward-looking" approach, Steele explains, "The Republican Party has turned a corner, and as we move forward Republicans should take a lesson from Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan always believed Republicans should apply our conservative principles to current and future challenges facing America. . For Reagan's conservatism to take root...."

I love how every time Cons talk about looking forward, they cast their gazes back over twenty years. Something tells me they don't quite grasp the "looking forward" concept.

It's also kinda hard to declare a honeymoon's over when there never was a honeymoon:

Do-dooo-dooo-do. Do-doo. Do-doo.

[snip]

"The second turning point for our party is this. We are going to take the president head-on. The honeymoon is over,'' he said, addressing President Barack Obama's popularity, an "Obama phenomenon'' which the GOP should no longer fear. "The two-party system is making a comeback, and that comeback starts today.''

Since "the honeymoon" consisted of party-line rejection of pretty much everything Obama does, while calling him the "Democrat Socialist" Messiahitler, I can't wait to see this new "head-on" approach.

"We're going to take this president on with class. We're going to take this president on with dignity,'' he said, deriding the "classless and shabby way'' that Democrats challenged former President George W. Bush.

Chris pointed that last little gem out this morning. I just about fell out of my chair laughing. Put it this way: if the Cons manage to do an about-face and take Obama on with "class" and "dignity," I'll eat all your hats with horseradish.

As far as the survival of the GOP, with or without Steele at the helm, things aren't looking too good:

There have been plenty of recent polls showing the number of Americans willing to identify themselves as Republican dropping to lows unseen in decades. But late yesterday, Gallup released a more detailed look at this decline, noting that the GOP has lost ground with practically every demographic in the country.

The decline in Republican Party affiliation among Americans in recent years is well documented, but a Gallup analysis now shows that this movement away from the GOP has occurred among nearly every major demographic subgroup. Since the first year of George W. Bush's presidency in 2001, the Republican Party has maintained its support only among frequent churchgoers, with conservatives and senior citizens showing minimal decline.

The results, taken from months of surveys totaling 7,000 adult respondents, are striking. The Republican Party has lost ground in every region, every age group, every ethnicity, every income level, every educational level, every ideology, and both genders. The drop off was strongest among college graduates (down 10%), Americans under 30 (down 9%), Americans making under $75,000, Midwesterners, and self-identified moderates.

Among frequent churchgoers, the GOP broke even, maintaining the same level of support from 2001. The drop off among African Americans and Latinos was modest, but only because Republicans fared poorly with these voters before and limited room to drop further.

Which groups showed GOP gains? There weren't any.

Gee. I can't imagine why.

Holy War

So, I'm assuming most of you have seen that delicious GQ article that takes Rummy apart from tip to toe. If not, go read. It's definitely an education.

One of Rummy's favorite tricks was putting Bible verses on fancy war pictures to whet Monkey Boy George's appetite for playing Holy War President. Here's one of those cover sheets, which disgraced the President's daily intelligence briefing:



Tristero puts this together with a few choice Bush quotes and comes to the logical conclusion:

Genuinely sickening. It makes you realize that this remark from September '01 was no idle slip of the tongue:

On Sunday, Bush warned Americans that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile."

And also:

In the programmeElusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, which starts on Monday, the former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath says Mr Bush told him and Mahmoud Abbas, former prime minister and now Palestinian President: "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."

We must never, ever forget: for eight long years, this country was run by delusional, paranoid idiots. Whenever they took a break from the hard work of lining the plush coffers of their already-wealthy pals, they thought they were on a mission from God.

He's right. We must remember. And we must remind our fellow voters that this is the kind of shit that happens when you let a hyper-religious fucktard with an entitlement complex and delusions of world domination take the reins of the world's biggest spender on military toys.

Let's not make that mistake again.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Sometimes, little events have unexpected consequences. MoDo plagiarizes TPM blogger extraordinaire Josh Marshall, which leads to a lame-ass excuse from her, which leads Digby down memory lane (who was it who accused Joe Biden of plagiarism, eh?). Glenn Greenwald asks, "Who's the parasite now, bitches?" and TPM blogger Boyd Reed muses, "Hmm, wonder if I've ever been plagarized by the MSM? Well, well, whaddya know!"

So, I started using teh Google on some of my older blog titles. About five minutes later, I found a case of out-and-out, wholesale plagiarism of one of my own pieces.

I wrote the blog entry "Michele Bachmann - Unstable AND Unable" here on TPM on February 20, 2009.

A writer on Salem-News.com, Dorsett Bennett, wrote this article on February 27. To conserve space, I won't quote it here.

The first half of Bennett's article is, well, my blog. With only a few cosmetic changes, he essentially lifted my piece and made it part of his own. Of course, I am not cited anywhere in the article, nor is TPM.

My, how things change when a newspaper's caught in flagrante plagiarizo:


Shorter, sweeter, and salted liberally with paens to the TPM source they ripped off. However, dear old Bennett apparently does not know the power of teh Google cache. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you before:


The frantic credits have been growing all day. They started simply, with just a little mention right at the end, as caught by commenter Winslow:


Cute how he tried to sneak that in without noting it's an update, innit? Alas, teh Google knows all, and knows he wasn't giving Boyd one iota of credit before he got his ass caught:


Apparently, plagiarism is this paper's area of expertise, and Bennett is their grand-master. Shameless flatterers, they are. Something tells me that after this, they shall be obsessive about giving credit where it's due. And cursing Maureen Dowd for ruining their fun all the while.

Funny how one thing leads to another, innit? And I'm sure the story won't end here. One small comments section in TPM, together with Greenwald's piece, demonstrate that filching from bloggers without attribution is a favorite trick of the very same news outlets who bitch about bloggers quoting their work. Perhaps it's because we, y'know, actually credit them.

All of this has given me an idea for the next iPhone app: maybe they can create one called iBeenPlagiarized, making it simple for us to search the intertoobz for instances where "original reporting" is MSM code for "I ripped it off from a blogger."

Ways to Annoy Your Cat

Annoying your cat is simple, fun and hazardous. You can either imitate the techniques contained within this video, or simply play this video. Either way, you end up with an annoyed feline. At least, I did.



Now if you'll excuse me, I must tend to my wounds before they turn septic.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

If you want to know just how ridiculous Cons are getting over this whole Pelosi-dissed-the-CIA!!1!!11! thing, look no further than Mike Huckabee's poem calling for her resignation.

That's right. A poem.

I refuse to reprint the damned thing here. I've read some hideous poetry in my lifetime, but that one left my eyes bleeding. I'd thought my respect for the GOP didn't have any bottom left to hit, but I was wrong. We are now in negative numbers that can only be measured in scientific notation, my darlings.

The same goes for my respect for Michael Steele:

This weekend on “Meet the Press,” David Gregory asked RNC Chairman Michael Steele whether health care reform could pass this year. Invoking his party’s preferred reply, Steele responded, “Noooooo”:

GREGORY: Do you think it’s going to happen? Chairman, do you think it’s going to pass this year?

TEELE: No.

GREGORY: You don’t think it will pass?

STEELE: Noooooo. No, no. no.

Reinforcing the fact that Republicans have no health care plan of their own, Steele could only repeatedly insist on “tort reform.”

Can somebody stick a sock in him, please? My head hurts from repeatedly hitting the desk.

Con cheerleaders on Faux News need some health care reform. They obviously need to see a doctor about their hearing problems:

In a May 18 washingtonpost.com discussion, Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson falsely asserted that President Obama was "afraid to use the word" "abortion" during his May 17 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. In fact, Obama used the word several times during the speech.

During the discussion, a reader asked Carlson and Air America Radio national correspondent Ana Marie Cox, who was also answering questions: "How do you both think Obama did at Notre Dame yesterday? Do we move forward with a dialogue on abortion or did Obama just say what people at ND wanted to hear?" Carlson replied:

You can't have a real conversation about abortion if you're afraid to use the word.

Pro-choice? Pro-life? Those are slogans designed to obscure rather than illuminate.

The debate is about whether abortion ought to be legal, not about whether you respect "life," whatever that is, or whether you think people ought to have "choices," whatever those may be.

So let's call it what it is. That'd be a good first step. Obama, who's deeply interested in language, knows this but not surprisingly failed to mention it.

In fact, Obama did not "fail[] to mention" the word "abortion" -- he used it several times during the course of his speech.

I counted seven times in just the short snippet Media Matters excerpted. Funny. I don't remember being told 0 is equivalent to 7 in math class.

Some Con strategists are looking at the dumbfucks leading the party and the dumbfucks pumping the party in the press, and developing a decided sense of despair:

Just a few weeks ago, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) added Republican strategist John Weaver, a long-time John McCain confidant, onto his team. It was a move that signaled Huntsman's interest in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Now, of course, Huntsman is headed to Beijing as the Obama administration's ambassador to China, and Weaver is left to wonder what could have been. In the meantime, Weaver spoke to Byron York about their party's future.

The Republican strategist who helped Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman prepare for a possible presidential run says the Republican party is in for a devastating defeat if its guiding lights are Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. "If it's 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we're headed for a blowout," says strategist John Weaver, who advised Huntsman and was for years a close adviser to Sen. John McCain. "That's just the truth." [...]

"I firmly believe that Huntsman and people like him are the prescription for what ails us," says Weaver. "But I have the feeling that our party maybe won't order that prescription in 2012."

This, not surprisingly, has not gone over well among many conservatives, including the blog at the Weekly Standard.

Unfortunately for sane Republicans like Weaver, the lunatics are still very much in charge of the asylum.

Let us end on a more amusing note. Let's see the Cons' take on Maureen Dowd's little brush with plagarism:

In the meantime, the MoDo flap gives Bill Kristol's lapdog, Michael Goldfarb, an opportunity to pose a profound and interesting question:

Imagine if Kristol had plagiarized a RedState post in his NYTimes column.

This must be what it felt like when man first conceived of the atom; that matter is made up of smaller units forming a greater whole. The idea that Bill Kristol could possibly lift something that was dumber and wronger than anything he could write or has written is to stare into the infinite abyss only to see Kristol smirky face staring back.

You can get dizzy just thinking about it.

Indeed you can.

Speak Out for Stem Cell Research

We've got until May 29th to beat out the floods of anti-stem cell research hysterics and let the government know we'd really, really like to get the science going:

From Don Reed, national stem cell research advocate:

The next 12 days are crucial in the stem cell research struggle.

Here's why.

Remember when President Obama signed that document removing the Bush stem
cell restrictions? That same day he called upon the National Institutes of Health to draft a new set of guidelines for scientists wanting federal
funding.

Those guidelines have just been issued. see
http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/2009draft.htm

The next 14 days are the comment period for the new guidelines for stem cell research, which American scientists will have to live with if they want federal funding. This is the public's only chance to shape those guidelines, which can be improved-or made worse.

Unfortunately, there are problems with the proposed guidelines!

Not only are the guidelines far more conservative than we had hoped, but
opponents of the research are systematically flooding the comment process.

Conservative religious bodies, have launched a national campaign to attack early stem cell research by mass emails to the NIH.

Go to this page and leave your comments.

Stem cell research is one of our best hopes for curing diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and a myriad of other horrors. Yet frothing fundies would prefer we just incinerate unused embryos rather than use them to save lives. Go fucking figure.

Let's make sure the NIH knows there's plenty of support for stem cell research. You can come up with your own wording, or filch the following:

P.S. Here is a sample letter from Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR)

You can copy and paste into Comment section of NIH comment form and edit as appropriate for you.

Embryonic stem cell research holds great promise for millions of Americans suffering from many diseases and disorders. I am not a scientist, but I have been following progress in this field with great interest. Significant strides have been made over the past decade, and the final guidelines issued by NIH must build on this progress so that cures and new therapies can get to patients as quickly as possible. The final guidelines should not create new bureaucratic hurdles that will slow the pace of progress.

I am pleased that these draft guidelines -- in Section II B -- would appear to permit federal funding of stem cell lines previously not eligible for federal funding and for new lines created in the future from surplus embryos at fertility clinics. However, as drafted, Section II B does not ensure that any current stem cell line will meet the criteria outlined and thus be eligible for federal funding. It will be important for the final guidelines to allow federal funds for research using all stem cell lines created by following ethical practices at the time they were derived. This will ensure that the final guidelines build on progress that has already been made.

I also believe that the final guidelines should permit federal funding for
stem cell lines derived from sources other than excess IVF embryos, such as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Sections II B and IV of the draft
guidelines do not permit such federal funding and I recommend that the final guidelines provide federal funding using stem cell lines derived in other ways. If not, it is essential that the NIH continue to monitor developments in this exciting research area and to update these guidelines as the research progresses.

Thank you!

Let's put discarded embryos to good use and get some diseases cured, shall we?

Torture Apologists on Parade: Freudian Slip Edition

Most of you have probably already seen David Waldman's masterful performance on CNN. If not, here ye go:



You'll notice a Center for American Progress representative spouting Con talking points there. Glenn Greenwald gave her a spanking:

This is what she said:

The American people right now are actually not interested in this sideshow and this discussion. The American people are interested in looking forward -- nobody is concerned anymore with what the Bush administration was doing and did. We decided it was torture. Conservatives may or may not disagree. None of that matters at this point and time.

I wonder how Williams reconciles her claims about what "the American people" are and are not interested in with this:

That poll was from February, and while some subsequent polls have produced different results, all polls -- even the most recent ones with the most anti-investigation findings -- find that, at minimum, roughly 40% of Americans believe there must be some form of investigations in Bush crimes. That's a lot of people to be dismissing away as "nobody."

Since then, she's posted a mea culpa. It's appreciated, but... um... Well, let me preface with a suitable joke, oft told among my circle of friends:

Sometimes, when you mean to say one thing, it comes out a little bit different than you intended. Like the other morning, I was having breakfast with my wife, and what I meant to say was, "Honey, could you please pass the marmalade?" but what I actually said was, "Bitch, you ruined my life!"

Erica Williams's apology reminded me of that joke:

When the conversation veered slightly off topic and turned into a yelling match about torture between two other bloggers, making it difficult for me to jump in, my talking point about “moving forward and taking the American people’s attention off Obama’s ambitious legislative agenda” (which I intended to say only in reference to the Pelosi/CIA who-dunnit) somehow came out as the following –

The American people right now are actually not interested in this sideshow and this discussion. The American people are interested in looking forward -- nobody is concerned anymore with what the Bush administration was doing and did. We decided it was torture. Conservatives may or may not disagree. None of that matters at this point and time.

What the heck did I just say? Dear God – A TORTURE APOLOGIST TOOK OVER MY BODY.

That's not a Freudian slip. That's a Freudian ballgown.

Talking about torture seems to bring on the insanity in quite a few people. Just look at Faux News and the Con party, who've completely lost their heads:

There are more than a few annoying angles to the recent Republican attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, related to the CIA interrogation briefings she received in 2002 and 2003. Most notably, the GOP's goal is transparent: don't investigate officials from our team, they're telling Democrats, or we'll want an investigation of officials on your team.

With that in mind, Faiz Shakir did a nice job pulling together some Fox News coverage from this week, in which this very dynamic is discussed rather candidly. The goal, the reports indicated, is to create a "Mexican standoff," in which both sides back off in some kind of mutually-assured-destruction scenario. Looking at accountability for possible war crimes through this lens seems crazy, but here we are anyway.

[snip]

To be sure, there are legitimate questions about the briefings. If Pelosi was told about torture and failed to raise objections, that warrants criticism. If there's evidence that Pelosi was less than candid about what she was told -- there isn't -- that's a political problem.

But in general, this entire "controversy" is a ridiculous GOP stunt, which the media is falling for. We've effectively been told that the only person who should face real scrutiny for the Bush/Cheney torture scandal is the liberal, powerless, then-House Minority Leader who opposes torture.

As A.L. noted the other day, "The level of hypocrisy and incoherence it takes for Republicans to point to Pelosi as being some sort of key figure in this scandal is astounding. And the fact that the press corps would latch on to this rather ridiculous diversion is telling."

It is indeed.

This is what happens when people try to justify the unjustifiable. Pathetic, innit?

¡Se echó un pedo!

Things I've learned about abdominal surgery this week: no fart, no food. It's not often you see a collection of commenters rooting for farts. But there we all were, holding our breaths not from self-preservation, but from anticipation.

And on the seventh day, George farted.

With that, he's on his way to solid food and a more enjoyable recovery. Congratulations, George! Good to see ye getting better!

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I love how politicians forget their firmly-held principles when the shoe's on the other foot. Cons are especially good at it:

Remember when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) believed filibustering a president's judicial nominee was just about the worst thing a senator could do? When McConnell was prepared to change the rules, execute the "nuclear option," and declare judicial filibusters unconstitutional?

Well, never mind that now.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday that he would not rule out employing a filibuster to block Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee despite having vehemently opposed the use of the parliamentary procedure over judicial appointments four years ago.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the Kentucky Republican said that, per the rules of the Senate, "all things are possible" when it came to the vote on Obama's choice for the Court. When reminded that he threatened to resort to the "nuclear option" when Democrats were threatening to filibuster George W. Bush's Court appointments, McConnell largely embraced his 180 degree turn in position.

"The Senate rejected my advice," he reminded host Chris Wallace. "And the Senate is a place that frequently operates on precedent. So I think the Senate deliberately decided not to take a position one way or the other."

Mind you, he's talking about filibustering Obama's Supreme Court pick before there's even a pick. And he's basically throwing a tantrum saying that if the Senate doesn't want to play his way, he'll fuck up everyone's fun. So typical.

Meanwhile, the Cons' Big Tent's now so small they have to point to people who refuse to come near it as examples of what a loving, inclusive party they are:

David Gregory asked Michael Steele for an example of the GOP being as inclusive a party as the Democrats since Kaine is pro-life. Steele uses Christie Todd Whitman as his example to show America how "Big Tent" they really are.

Gregory: Is the Republican Party open to pro-abortion right candidates in the way that Gov. Kaine has survived in the Democratic Party?

Steele: We've had wonderful pro-choice candidates. Gov. Christie Todd Whitman for example was a very successful republican Governor...

She was so happy with the GOP that she quit the Republicans in 2003 after she was picked to lead the EPA in 2001 by Bush and then refused to do their bidding.

Is it just me, or is Michael Steele getting more pathetic by the minute? I kinda feel sorry for him, in a way - it's not like he's got much to work with. Then again, he's dumbshit enough to put himself in this situation and keep talking...

Speaking of dumbshits, Chuck Norris is definitely holding himself up as a shining example of fuckwittery:

It's been a heck of a week, what with the revelations about how Nancy Pelosi personally ran the Bush torture program and so forth. Amazing news! Besides that, Chuck Norris wrote something and got paid for it, which is, in its own way, also amazing.

And, shazam! Chuck Norris informs us that he is pretty pleased with the story of a Croatian bakery that put up a poster of him to frighten off robbers. Apparently this actually worked, proving, I suppose, that people who rob Croatian bakeries are easily intimidated by images of superannuated action movie stars who never learned to read lines convincingly and who also hate gay people. What we are do with this information, I am uncertain, as it seems (a) to be criminological information of strictly local utility, and (b) stupid. Besides that, Chuck Norris tells us that the poster is "life sized," which is I guess possible, though as per the newspaper photograph of it, if so, that means he's a whole lot smaller than I thought. I got a Norris in my pocket...

He's not much brighter or saner than I'd imagined, anyhow. His overall thesis is something about how America is the greatest nation on earth because of God, but it's also a total cesspit because Nancy Pelosi wants government thugs to replace Jesus with pedophiles, or something. It's not very clear. For instance, Chuck Norris informs us of this fascinating statistic: "Teenage pregnancies in the U.S. (52.1 for every 1,000 of those ages 15-19) are the highest in the developed world (four times what they are in the European Union)." Well, you know, let's hear it for abortion on demand and socialized medicine, then! Or not; Chuck instead seems to be recommending not what's worked for the Krauts and Wops and Frogs in regard to taking home the gold in the Fewer-Knocked-Up-Teen-Olympics, but instead MORE GOD. Jesus, in this sense, is the ultimate steroid and the ultimate prophylactic.

Look up delusional in the DSM-IV, and I'll bet the list of symptoms fits Chuck Norris to a T. Look at the "life-size" poster in the window of that Croation bakery, and you'll learn that Chuck is roughly 22" tall. They must have done some exciting things with camera angles to make him look average sized in Walker, Texas Ranger.

Columnist Maureen Dowd, in the meantime, wins first prize for plagarism:

These are the professionals we're supposed to be mourning and scrambling to save, the ones whose work all the rest of us are supposedly sponging off of. You know, the ones a democracy can't function without.

Maureen Dowd, Pulitizer Prize winner. Today. New York Times:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Josh Marshall. Blogger. Last Thursday. Talking Points Memo:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Maureen sez she was just repeating a friend of hers who told her that the above point would be a good one to make. Apparently, her friend read it out with all of the commas intact. But Maureen thought it was "spontaneous." Riiiight.

Finally, Steve Benen leaves us with a horrifying thought:

Much to the disappointment of the DNC, Dick Cheney did not appear on any of the Sunday morning talk shows. Instead, his daughter, torture apologist Liz Cheney, went on ABC News' "This Week."

It promoted Time's Karen Tumulty to tweet a clever-but-scary idea.

Does anyone else think that what the Cheneys are really after here is their own reality show?

That would explain a few things.

I'm admittedly out of my depth talking about reality shows, but looking over the Wiki page for the genre, there's a subset of reality programming involving well-known personalities. It seems, though, that most of these "celebrities" get reality shows, not when their careers are in ascendance, but when they're past their prime and have limited career options. The Osbornes, Hulk Hogan, MC Hammer, Corey Feldman, Vanilla Ice -- these folks seemed to go the reality-show route after their public notoriety had severely waned.

In this sense, the Cheneys would be perfect.

If a show like that ever ends up on teevee, and I stumble across it switching channels, I'm afraid I'm going to have to stab my eyes out with a fork. Guess I'd better tape one to the remote.

Oh, how I wish I could live in a sane country....

Sunday Sensational Science

Celebrating Hubble

The Hubble Space Telescope's been sending back spectacular images since April 1990. It's coming to the end of its life - it'll be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2014 if the best-laid plans o' mice and men don't gang aft agley - but that doesn't mean NASA's given up on upgrades. The Atlantis crew's up in space as we speak, tweaking, replacing, and fixing up various bits to ensure HST continues to contribute astonishing images and amazing science for years to come.

Today's Sunday Sensational Science is a salud to HST, and a gallery of the glorious images its provided us with these last 19 years.


Spacewalking. You think repairs on old equipment on land are tough, just try replacing parts that were never meant to be replaced while floating around in hostile space without gravity.

Cujo's got a good description of what it's like:

On Earth, when an electronics tech yanks a circuit board out of a computer, gravity is holding his feet to the floor, or his butt to the chair, and his muscles can counteract the force being applied to his hands in reaction to the force he's applying to the board. In Earth orbit, there's no gravity. To get an idea what that's like, imagine you're underwater in a pool that's too deep to stand in. Push against the side of the pool with one hand. You'll spin around, because the force is being applied to your hand, and your body in turn.

The astronauts on this mission deserve the title of supermechanics. Somebody give them capes. Underwear worn outside the clothes optional.


We all know HST's awesome, but a good majority of us probably haven't the faintest idea how it works. That's why there's websites like HowStuffWorks.com:

Like any telescope, the HST has a long tube that is open at one end to let in light. It has mirrors to gather and bring the light to a focus where its "eyes" are located. The HST has several types of "eyes" in the form of various instruments. Just as insects can see ultraviolet light or we humans can see visible light, Hubble must also be able to see the various types of light raining down from the heavens.­

Specifically, Hubble is a Cassegrain reflector telescope. That just means that light enters the device through the opening and bounces off the primary mirror to a secondary mirror. The secondary mirror in turn reflects the light through a hole in the center of the primary mirror to a focal point behind the primary mirror. If you drew the path of the incoming light, it would like the letter "W," except with three downward humps instead of two....

After you've gotten to know your Hubble anatomy, take a moment to appreciate the last sight of one of the instruments the crew of the Atlantis is replacing:

The Hubble community bids farewell to the soon-to-be decommissioned Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. In tribute to Hubble's longest-running optical camera, a planetary nebula has been imaged as WFPC2's final "pretty picture."

This planetary nebula is known as Kohoutek 4-55 (or K 4-55). It is one of a series of planetary nebulae that were named after their discoverer, Czech astronomer Lubos Kohoutek. A planetary nebula contains the outer layers of a red giant star that were expelled into interstellar space when the star was in the late stages of its life. Ultraviolet radiation emitted from the remaining hot core of the star ionizes the ejected gas shells, causing them to glow.

In the specific case of K 4-55, a bright inner ring is surrounded by a bipolar structure. The entire system is then surrounded by a faint red halo, seen in the emission by nitrogen gas. This multi-shell structure is fairly uncommon in planetary nebulae.

This Hubble image was taken by WFPC2 on May 4, 2009. The colors represent the makeup of the various emission clouds in the nebula: red represents nitrogen, green represents hydrogen, and blue represents oxygen. K 4-55 is nearly 4,600 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.

The WFPC2 instrument, which was installed in 1993 to replace the original Wide Field/Planetary Camera, will be removed to make room for Wide Field Camera 3 during the upcoming Hubble Servicing Mission.

During the camera's amazing, nearly 16-year run, WFPC2 provided outstanding science and spectacular images of the cosmos. Some of its best-remembered images are of the Eagle Nebula pillars, Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9's impacts on Jupiter's atmosphere, and the 1995 Hubble Deep Field — the longest and deepest Hubble optical image of its time.

Incredible.

And Hubble's mission won't be over when the telescope stops peering into the far ends of the universe. As a recent discovery shows us, the data it's gathered will provide new insights for long decades to come:

Well, if you place a coronagraph over a distant star, you can see a whole plethora of much fainter objects orbiting that star. Well, someone was going through some old photos from 1998, and look at what they found using a coronagraph on a dusty young star, HR 8799, where they discovered planets in 2008:

So not only could we have found this planet 10 years earlier than we actually did, but by going back to the old data, we can learn a whole lot about this planet's orbit, and hence the mass of the star that it orbits. Is it not just outstanding that the Hubble Space Telescope, in addition to all the other things it does, functions as perhaps the most accurate stellar scale we've ever built?

How neat is this? We've got over 200 stars that have been imaged with a coronagraph by the Hubble Space Telescope, and now we can start looking for planets around them just by looking at the data we already have!

Hubble doesn't just provide us science, but works of art. The following images are a great reminder that science, especially seen through the eyes of Hubble, is beautiful:

Obama's Masterful Dispatch of a Potential Rival

Got to admit, our President Obama plays some damned good political chess:

When it comes to the political chessboard, this is an intriguing move.

Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. (R) will be introduced today as President Obama's choice as ambassador to China, a source familiar with the decision said last night. [...]

Several Salt Lake City media outlets reported last night that Huntsman had accepted the offer to head the U.S. mission in Beijing, and that Lt. Gov. Gary R. Herbert would replace him as governor. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Huntsman was in Washington last night, but that calls to his spokeswoman and various staffers were not returned.

Huntsman was elected in November to a second term as Utah's governor, drawing 70 percent of the vote. He served in the George W. Bush administration as deputy U.S. trade representative from 2001 to 2004 and, for President George H.W. Bush, was ambassador to Singapore. He is an expert on China, and he speaks Mandarin Chinese fluently.

David Plouffe, who managed the Obama campaign, conceded recently that he saw Huntsman as one of the few Republicans on presidential caliber, and hinted that, for Democrats' sake, he hoped Huntsman doesn't run in 2012.

Now, that probably won't be an issue.

By tapping Huntsman for the job, Obama gets a Mandarin-speaking official -- something Chinese leaders will no doubt appreciate -- while also removing a credible re-election challenger. The president also boosts his bipartisan cred by adding another high-profile Republican to his administration.

And Huntsman? He gets the opportunity to escape the country, perhaps to return when the batshit insane wing of the Con party's no longer in control:

I was speaking earlier with Michael Cohen via email, and he compared Huntsman's move to Arlen Specter's party switch.

"Specter is a hack who switched parties for his own cynical reasons -- but for a guy like Huntsman in a safe state with a bright political future to basically say, 'To hell with the GOP. I'll spend a few years carrying water for a Democratic President' ... well, it just speaks volumes.

"Not only does it suggest that the GOP is alienating non-dogmatic conservative politicians, but it suggests that Huntsman basically considers the Republican Party, in the near-term, a lost cause. This is the kind of guy who could move Republicans to a more sensible middle ground and he doesn't seem to have any interest at all. It's the political equivalent (sort of) of Bill Clinton joining the Bush Administration in 1989."

[snip]

Seeing Huntsman alongside President Obama this morning at the White House, I kept thinking about an incident from a couple of weeks ago. Huntsman had scheduled several campaign-style stops in Michigan, apparently to help lay the groundwork for future support. Republican leaders in one key Michigan county abruptly withdrew Huntsman's invitation, however, when local officials learned that the Utah governor had the nerve to support civil unions for gay couples.

[snip]

It was a ridiculous move, of course, but it also sent a signal to Huntsman about the level of maturity in his party -- or in this case, the lack thereof. It's certainly possible the response from this county and other GOP activists made clear to Huntsman that it's not worth even trying to take the lead in the party, at least not in the near future.

So, for now he's teaming up with Obama, perhaps wondering if Republicans will have grown up by 2016.

Not too sure about that, but I guess a lot can happen in eight years. For instance, we went from popular, prosperous superpower to loathed, bankrupted superpower. Then again, it's always easier to destroy than to rebuild.

Regardless, I'm rather pleased by this move. Not least because I think Steve Benen's right: this guy was a credible challenger. I doubt any Republican's going to have a shot at the presidency in 2012. But knowing my fellow Americans, they'll be stupid enough to elect another Con by the time Obama's out of terms. At least Huntsman isn't a Con along the lines of Huckabee. Look, the man even speaks Mandarin - he's not a backwoods hick. Who knows, he might even make a decent president.

Unless, of course, the Cons spend the next eight years becoming so out-of-control insane that Americans wouldn't risk electing one no matter how sick they are of Dems. In which case, I have a feeling we'll be welcoming Jon Huntsman into the Democratic party.

Too Many Cons Spoil the Broth

Apparently, poor people are supposed to survive on hardtack and swill:

Tonight I read a post by DougJ at balloon-juice, who linked to a post by Matt Yglesias at Thinkprogress complaining about a post by Julie Gunlock on the National Review. (that's a lot of blogospheric navelgazing, but bear with me).

So what does Julie Gunlock, a former Republican congressional staffer who is now on the wingnut welfare circuit, complain about?

Let's just quote Matt:

Julie Gunlock complains at NRO that "food snobs" are ruining America by serving unduly fancy food at soup kitchens. It’s actually rare that conservatives get to combined their hatred of poor people with their hatred of "cultural elites" in a single argument, so Gunlock gets so busy dishing out the sarcasm that she can’t quite seem to deliver the "so what?" point where we see who is being harmed by this alleged trend.

And one of the arguments Julie makes is:

This attitude is not limited to the shelters in our nation’s capital. A recent meal served at the Meet Each Need with Dignity (MEND) kitchen in Pacoima, Calif., included pumpkin soup seasoned with browned butter and sage, red-wine barbecue beef on handmade puff pastry, artichoke hearts with meatballs marinara, roasted-garlic-and-turnip mashed potatoes, all topped off with fresh blueberries and sour cream. No wonder these places need a bailout.

Of course research is not the wingnuts' strongest point, since that involves education and logic and sciency stuff, so a quick trip by poster Zuzu's Petals to the MEND website tells us that MEND is

Privately funded - NO government grants

So much for needing a bailout, then.

This culinary miracle of gourmet-on-a-budget is made possible by Richard Weinroth, a former restaurant chef who uses ingredients donated from local markets to whip up decent meals for the less fortunate among us. Despite what the Cons think, just because you're down on your luck doesn't mean you have to eat shit. Especially not when there's someone like Richard there to whip up a little something nice.

The whole diary's worth reading, but I just want to carry the motion of the diarist and one of the commenters. They pointed out that the ingredients involved aren't expensive. We're talking simple stuff - chicken, garlic, pumpkins, and so on. Wine good enough to cook with is super cheap. Spices, ditto. Give me twenty bucks, and I can cook for an army. Okay, merely a platoon. But still. It doesn't take a lot of money to make good, wholesome food that'll fill a lot of bellies, even without the generosity of the local food markets. There's no economic reason a food kitchen can't serve really tasty meals. It takes a little extra effort at the stove, but a caring, compassionate cook like Richard doesn't mind putting in the time.

So. Privately-funded kitchen. Private charity, not government welfare, just like the wingnuts tell us it's supposed to happen. So why so pissed off? The only possible reason I can fathom is that they believe poor people don't deserve tasty food.

Way to show off that Christian compassion, Cons.

Gawd-Awful Teevee

Back when I was just a young 'un, walking to school in my bare feet uphill both ways with the snow knee-deep even in May, there was this show called Battlestar Galactica. It warn't the same show you kids watch, now. This 'un had unicorns and pig-ignorant Cylons and really awful space battles, and every inhabited planet had humans what spoke the same language as the heroes.

Yup.

Even the Teevee Guide channel described it as a "Big-budget sci-fi flop that was more than a bit reminiscent of Star Wars."

Wal, I dunno 'bout that. If you're comparing it to Episode II, mebbe.

But we loved us that show. We loved it like we love a big ol' tub of horrible stinky cheese. Sometimes, ain't nuthin better than a heaping helping of stinky cheese. Besides, we didn't have all them reality teevee shows to load up on. We had to get our gawd-awful teevee where we could, and we was grateful for what the good lords at ABC gave us. Grateful, I tells ya.

You kids these days just don't have no appreciation for classic cheese.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

It's a glorious spring day here in Seattle. I even got to take a long walk in the sunshine, complete with singing birds and a cute little bunny. Oh, and construction equipment smack in the path along the levees (eat your heart out, New Orleans), the delightful odor of old trash from the fill they're apparently using to build up said levees, and the fish oil scent of old salmon in stagnant water. But I digress. Sunshine, green leaves, and wildlife, with nary a raincloud in sight.

Makes coming home to the political stupidity that much harder. You'd think they could stop being morons for just one short day. I'll make a deal with any one of our merry band of fucktards in D.C.: I'll quit both smoking and caffeine for 24 hours if they can refrain from outrageous idiocy for the same amount of time.

I know. I'd better keep stocked up on the Camels and the Cokes, right?

You know what I'll settle for? Not paying for the Cons' inane rebranding efforts:

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wants to help lead a "rebranding" effort for his party. Fine. He wants to hold outside-the-Beltway events inside the Beltway. No problem. He wants to argue that his National Council for a New America is and isn't launching a "listening tour." Whatever.

It's more problematic, though, when Cantor asks taxpayers to foot the bill for the whole endeavor.

As Roll Call reported on Monday, Cantor staff and GOP ethics attorney Jan Baran have walked a very fine line to comply with House rules in funding, publicizing and staffing the new organization.

But we think that the whole endeavor ought to be paid for out of political contributions.

The NCNA's original launch letter carefully -- though disingenuously -- declared "this is not a Republican-only forum."

Leading Republicans are hosting events to talk about Republican ideas in the hopes of Republican renewal. Calling this "bipartisan" and worthy of taxpayer investment is foolish, even for Cantor.

To be fair, the first NCNA event was paid for with Cantor's campaign funds. The problem is that the NCNA is staffed by Cantor's aides, who are paid by taxpayers. In this sense, we're paying Republican staffers to work on the Republican Party's rebranding efforts, as compared to those funds coming from the RNC, political action committees, or the party's campaign committees.

Their efforts are "bipartisan" in the same way torture is "legal." Only a complete fucking idiot believes that lip service.

Speaking of complete fucking idiots, the gun nuts are gathered in Arizona for a good dose of paranoia and lead. The National Rifle Association's having its annual convention down in Phoenix, which makes me glad I didn't plan my vacation for this week. Steele stirred 'em up yesterday with plenty of dumbfuck statements about how Obama's planning to take their guns with one hand while siccing terrorists on them with the other. Of course, that's a hard act to follow. McCain did his best by continuing the scary brown people theme:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who once proposed cracking down on gun show sales, today told the National Rifle Association that he will oppose any "separate agenda" to rein in gun-owners' rights as part of an effort to stop illegal gunrunning to violent Mexican drug cartels.

"We can and should do more to crack down on the illegal transfer to Mexico of weapons acquired in the United States, which is a violation of both U.S. and Mexican law. But that doesn’t require us to restrict the rights of law-abiding American gun owners," McCain said to applause at the NRA's 138th annual meeting at U.S. Airways Center in downtown Phoenix. "Again, the United States must do all it can to assist (Mexican) President (Felipe) Calderon in his war against the drug cartels. And I know the NRA will continue to work with the Administration, Congress, and the states to prevent flow of illegal weapons into Mexico by continuing to promote legal gun ownership and sales in the United States while fighting against any limitation on Americans’ Second Amendment rights."

You know what would really help out ol' Felipe, there, John? Closing down that fucking gun show loophole that allows people to waltz off with all the weapons they want. Y'know, that one you promised to close lo these many years ago:

Unsurprisingly, McCain didn’t discuss his 2001 position on eliminating the so-called gunshow loophole:

In 2001, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., rattled the gun-rights lobby by collaborating with Sen. Joe Lieberman, then-D-Conn., on a bill to eliminate the so-called Brady law “loophole” that allows gun sales at shows without background checks.

“Criminals and gun traffickers have figured this out,” McCain said in a May 15, 2001, Senate floor speech announcing the ultimately unsuccessful measure. “Gun shows are the second leading source of illegal guns recovered in gun trafficking investigations. According to a recent report by Americans for Gun Safety, ‘the states that do not require background checks at gun shows are flooding the rest of the nation with crime guns.’ While 95 percent of buyers are cleared within two hours, the 5 percent who are not are 20 times more likely to be a prohibited purchaser. Background checks are an essential part of keeping guns from criminals and other prohibited individuals.”

McCain said he has “no plans” to revive his old legislation.

This flip-flop earned him a standing ovation from the paranoid lead-poisoned fuckwits at the show, of course. They seem to have a pathological need to believe someone's out to get them. Perhaps they're not happy in their gun ownership without the constant sense of persecution.

You can tell these assclowns have been feeding themselves on Glenn Beck's bullshit:

Now that it's embraced its inner right-wing populist by sponsoring all those 'Tea Parties,' Fox News is going straight for the moonshine by promoting "state sovereignty" advocates who, as we mentioned yesterday, are the "Patriot" movement activists who were promoting militias in the 1990s.

Glenn Beck featured an entire hour devoted to the subject yesterday, while Neil Cavuto warmed up the subject for him by featuring a segment on the subject as well. And both of them featured people who have been heavily involved in promoting "Patriot" belief systems for years.

The most striking, of course, was Beck's hourlong "The Civilest War" program, which early on featured Beck adapting Martin Niemoller's famous "First they came" poem -- about the Nazis and the Holocaust -- to our present-day circumstances:

I think this is the problem. First they came for the banks. I wasn't a banker, I didn't really care. I didn't stand up and say anything. Then they came for the AIG executives. Then they came for the car companies. Until it gets down to you. Most people don't see -- they are coming for you at some point! You're on the list! Everybody's on the list. You may not be rich -- as currently defined.

Because, of course, bailing out failing banks and insurance companies and auto manufacturers is just like rounding up minorities and hauling them away to death camps.

They air this batshit insane crap, and yet they like to pretend they're a "news" outlet. They're a news outlet in the same way my cat is a stay-at-home mom. Mind you, she's spayed, and we have no other animals in the house. Draw your conclusions accordingly.

Someday, psychiatrists are going to get around to studying why people actually listen to this shit. Then, hopefully, they'll develop a cure.

Michael Steele's got his yap flapping in overdrive again. Today, he's decided that same-sex marriage is a terrible burden on poor, innocent small business owners:

This morning, RNC chairman Michael Steele delivered a speech to the delegates of the Georgia Republican convention. Steele made opening the GOP to more voices a theme of his remarks, declaring that Republicans need to “be relevant” and “engage.” However, in that same address, Steele spoke out against same-sex marriage, saying that such spouses become a huge burden on small businesses:

In a breakfast speech to delegates of the Georgia Republican convention, Steele put himself in the shoes of a small business owner having to pay for health care and life insurance for a same-sex couple.

“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele said. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

Presumably, Steele is still in favor of “opposite marriage.” Those spouses also claim health care and life insurance and put no less a burden on businesses than same-sex spouses.

Here's a thought: what if government paid for health care, like they do in sane industrialized nations? Then the businesses would have no burden. It's like magic!

I know, I know. You can't reason with fucktards who say stupid shit like this:

Steele actually used his small-business example as a way to appeal to a broader base of the public without changing the GOP platform. “You don’t have to wear your pants cut down here or the big bling,” Steele said. “It’s a metaphor for taking this party to places and to people that we’ve either forgotten about, ignored or feel don’t want to engage with us.”

He then went on to blame conservatism's woes on liberals making them look too far right. Seriously. No wonder they have such a hard time making new friends. They have exactly 0 insight.

They won't be making any friends in the environmental movement anytime soon, that's for sure:

The Party of No is considering doing the only thing they know how to do with any legislation ... obstruct:

Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce committee are considering introducing about 450 amendments during the mark-up of climate change legislation next week, according to a working list obtained by POLITICO. Many of the potential amendments would lower the environmental standards set forth in the bill, or could make it more difficult for Democrats to vote to support it.

This, my darlings, is a perfect example of why Americans hate them so. All they know how to do is destroy. They spent eight years destroying the country, and when America finally shouted "Enough of your shit!" and kicked them out, they decided the answer was, of course, more destruction.

Remember how excited they all were when that little shit got caned in Singapore for vandalism? Remember how they thought it was the greatest idea ever and America's problem was it didn't discipline its kids, so maybe we should emulate Singapore? Maybe the Cons were right. Let's cane us some vandals and see if their behavior improves.

Which Con should we start with?

Torture Apologists on Parade: Who's Afraid of Nancy Pelosi? Edition

I do believe Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has hit a nerve.

Newtie's outraged:

The other day, I compared Newt Gingrich to an erupting popcorn maker, spewing incoherent talking points in every direction. Today, he offered a good example of what I was talking about.

[snip]

"I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal. I don't think the Speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters," Gingrich said.

He continued: "I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime."

"She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior."

I see. The Bush administration engaged in systematic torture, but our disgraced former House Speaker is outraged that Nancy Pelosi did what members of Congress have been doing for decades: she questioned the veracity of a CIA briefing.

How dare she! Doesn't she know how sensitive CIA agents are?

The hysteria has reached new heights by FOX News as they spin the Pelosi outrage as far as it can go. How far is that? The CIA will just stop working and America may be attacked because of her. Wingnut Du Jour, ex-CIA agent and FOX Newser Wayne Simmons said that Pelosi has. What is the impact of Nancy Pelosi saying that the CIA lied to her and members of Congress? We're doomed!!!

Simmons: The best thing about not being a diplomat or a politician is that I can tell you that first and foremost Nancy Pelosi, the woman whose third in line to be President of the United States, the Speaker of the House is a pathological liar and her attacks on the CIA, the release of the CIA memos has so sent a chill through the CIA to guys like me who were not only interrogated in our entire careers, but ran interrogations and interviews that I can assure you that we are not going to go the extra mile EVER in this climate to secure information and intelligence that's going to protect the Untied States so understand that the American people need to, this has directly affected the National Security of the United States.

[snip]

Simmons paints the CIA as one big chickenshit outfit that can't take a little criticism from the big bad Nancy Pelosi. They will even abandon their posts and let terrorists attack the country because their itty-bitty feelings are so hurt. I say they should all quit right now if Simmons is correct.

I second that. If they're so easily butt-hurt by Pelosi, there's no way they're tough enough to protect us from terrorists.

As Cons screamed over that mean ol' Nancy Pelosi saying awful things about the CIA which they'd never ever say (oops), they rather forgot their Shakespeare. There is such a thing as protesting too much. And you know you're protesting way too much when it shocks some sanity into Hannity's show:

Sean Hannity couldn't have been too pleased last night when his "All American Panel" -- which he usually manages to keep nicely docile -- took a decidedly liberal detour on the subject of Nancy Pelosi's charge that the CIA lied to her.

First, Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, pointed out the obvious:

Why do we think that she is the liar?

Regina Calcaterra, a Democratic consultant, promptly chimed in:

It's a smokescreen. I think this is a smokescreen by Republicans, because Republicans are concerned about Congress holding the Truth Commission, which you know is going to be the parallel to the 9/11 Commission.

Later, Hostin raises the really relevant point:

The issue here is that everybody knows that waterboarding is torture. And that was an approved policy. It is torture! Everyone knows that. And that was the policy of the Bush administration. Why don't we talk about that?

Indeed. Because on Planet Wingnuttia, claiming that "Nancy Pelosi knew about it too" justifies the policy.

Aha. No wonder they're so upset by evidence the CIA, y'know, didn't quite manage to inform Pelosi about their hijinks. So now they have to paint Pelosi as a big fat liar and hope that nobody gets a calendar.

Oh, and on the ticking time bomb front... this is just utterly pathetic:

The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer received some well-deserved flak after his pro-torture column a couple of weeks ago. He argued at the time, that "the ticking time bomb" is a reasonable excuse for torture. "An innocent's life is at stake," Krauthammer said. "The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy."

The general response to this is that the proverbial ticking time bomb is a fantasy scenario, best left to action shows on television. Today, the conservative columnist responds by pointing to a specific example, that actually happened, to help bolster his point.

On Oct. 9, 1994, Israeli Cpl. Nachshon Waxman was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis captured the driver of the car. He was interrogated with methods so brutal that they violated Israel's existing 1987 interrogation guidelines, which themselves were revoked in 1999 by the Israeli Supreme Court as unconscionably harsh. The Israeli prime minister who ordered this enhanced interrogation (as we now say) explained without apology: "If we'd been so careful to follow the [1987] Landau Commission [guidelines], we would never have found out where Waxman was being held."

Who was that prime minister? Yitzhak Rabin, Nobel Peace laureate. The fact that Waxman died in the rescue raid compounds the tragedy but changes nothing of Rabin's moral calculus.

Krauthammer had weeks to come up with a real-world scenario to help prove his case for justifiable torture, and this was the best he could do.

Wow. Torture apologetics and Christian apologetics have something in common: they both cause the people engaging in them to look like a right bunch of nitwits.

A Skeptic in the Science Section

Going to the bookstore is becoming a painful experience. I have unreasonable expectations. When I browse the science section, I expect to find science. Barnes and Noble, however, insists on including pseudoscience. Gah. After seeing Denyse O'Leary's atrocity shelved with the biology books, I almost fled.

Here's a condensed version of the experience:

Crap. Crap. Eh. Whothefuckisthis? Crap. Read it. Read it. Do people really read this shit? Crap. Why are there so many books on God over here? Crap. Read it. Enough with God already! Crap. Where the fuck are they hiding the science?

In that ridiculous all-day training class I suffered through last Tuesday, our supervisor showed a video about MIT's Media Lab where they'd developed some doodad that would display Amazon reviews of the book you were looking at. I need a doodad that'll display reviews from ScienceBlogs bloggers. Because the main problem in sorting the wheat from the chaff is not knowing who's chaff and who's wheat. I know a few reliable science writers, but I don't know them all. The frauds don't always advertise as DIsco fellows - that may hurt their sales. And Amazon's reviews, while useful, aren't exactly 100% reliable. It's not a pure population of scientists writing the things, ye know.

Publishers are no help. They print the endorsements from newspapers and magazines, as if that's a good indicator of the reliability of the science. What I'd rather see is a crap ton of blurbs from actual scientists. No such luck. And they apparently don't send advance copies off to peer-reviewed journals. Bastards.

This left me in an agony of indecision. I initially took the safe route and chose Richard Dawkins's Unweaving the Rainbow, which I've meant to read for ages. But I also wanted somebody new. Somebody fun. Somebody informative. I stumbled on Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee. Foreward by Oliver Sacks. He probably wouldn't write a foreward if the book was crap, right? And I could always return the damned thing if I got home and found it widely panned on ScienceBlogs.

It's not.

And, scanning the Recommended Reading list in the back, I see a reassuring number of books by Dawkins, Dennett, Gleick, Gould, Luria, Pinker, and Sacks - science writers I trust. No trace of Behe, Dembski, or O'Leary. This tells me we're likely safe on solid scientific ground.

Things weren't always this way. There was a time I'd have picked up O'Leary's The Spiritual Brain simply because it talked about neuroscience and souls, something on my mind quite a bit considering I have to invent some sort of semi-plausible science for such things for my fiction writing (no, we can't get rid of the souls - they're too integral to the plot, alas). I wouldn't have known any better. I'd never really learned that when it comes to the science section, you still have to consider the source. It's the damned science section. You'd think bookstores would care enough for their customers to keep the pseudoscience out.

They don't.

They're trying to sell books. And there's plenty of people who'll snap up any bullshit written by someone with M.D. after their name. Like, y'know, Dr. Michael Egnor. Not that he's written a book yet, but when he does, you can be sure it'll be prominently shelved in the science section, because he's ostensibly a neurosurgeon, and that somehow magically transforms pseudoscientific bullshit into something sciencey enough to be shelved alongside the likes of Dawkins.

I feel sorry for the innocent people who want to learn more about science, but haven't learned enough about it to know when someone's perpetrating pseudoscience on them. They have no defense. It's like the most recent version of swine flu, which our immune systems weren't equipped to recognize as evil shit that would really fuck us up, and therefore allowed in, only later to go "Oops. Oshit."

The only good thing is, sometimes pseudoscience leads you to good science. Probably not often enough, but in my case, it did. I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm the only one who's ever experienced this. My road to complete skepticism was paved with Intelligent Design. Seriously. I discovered Pharyngula and from there the rest of the excellent ScienceBlogs stable because one night, half-dead from the flu (non-swine variety) and incapable of creative thought, I started browsing the intertoobz for some science. Figured I might as well find some useful stuff for research. I stumbled across Barbara Forrest's Creationism's Trojan Horse. I'd known since The Demon-Haunted World and various dust-ups in the news that religious people had a problem with evolution, but I'd never realized just how sneaky they could be in trying to attack it. It intrigued me. So I started seeking out more information. I discovered Pharyngula and a treasure-trove of other sites for science and skepticism, and I was totally hooked.

Seeing scientists deconstruct pseudoscience has taught me more about science than I've ever learned from pure science books. I learned how to think more critically. I became a better skeptic. I learned how to evaluate claims. I found out that a medical degree isn't a shield against ignorance. And I fell totally in love with biology, a subject that until then had failed to fascinate me. It's much more interesting when biologists are using their formidable knowledge to beat the ever-living shit out of some poor IDiot. I consider those sessions my gateway drug to evolution, which I can now enjoy without the Creationism-bashing chaser.

Granted, all this has made visiting the bookstore a far more painful experience than previously. It really, really hurts to see so much woo, misinformation, and outright lying hackery shelved alongside legitimate science, as if the two were somehow equal. They had Dembski's latest crime against science shelved face-out, for fuck's sake. It makes one weep for a paper shredder and immunity from prosecution. But the pain's good. It means I won't get suckered in by some absolute IDiot. I'm not an expert in sorting the wheat from the chaff at a glance, but I've now got a plethora of scientists, skeptics and other wise folk assisting, just a Google away.

I've got skepticism, damn it. And I'm not afraid to use it.

Now all I need is someone to run interference with the staff while I reshelve O'Leary, Dembski, and Behe's drivel in the New Age section, where it belongs....


Bonus Video - See, even scientists and skeptics get to enjoy a sixth sense!

Obama Better Do Better

This week isn't going down as one of the more inspiring of Obama's young presidency.

First, he's flirting with continuing Bush's indefinite detention policy:

Haven't we already seen this movie? Didn't we already reject this policy with Obama's election? I didn't vote for him because I wanted him to embrace Bush's policies, and if he does, I want a damned good legal explanation:

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil -- indefinitely and without trial -- as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

[snip]

[...] Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who met this week with White House Counsel Greg Craig to discuss the administration's plans, said among the proposals being studied is seeking authority for indefinite detentions, with the imprimatur of some type of national-security court.

Sen. Graham said he wants to work with the administration to pass legislation to increase judicial oversight of military commissions, but noted the legal difficulties that would arise.

"This is a difficult question. How do you hold someone in prison without a trial indefinitely?" Sen. Graham said.

You don't. You either try them or let them go. This indefinite detention bullshit is almost as outrageous as torture.

Speaking of trials, this doesn't cut it:

Bmaz hit this latest chapter in the “Yes we can, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to” tour on Saturday (and Spencer hit it again this morning), but today, the White House made it official—Bush’s military commissions have now become Obama’s military commissions:

Military commissions have a long tradition in the United States. They are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war, provided that they are properly structured and administered. In the past, I have supported the use of military commissions as one avenue to try detainees, in addition to prosecution in Article III courts. In 2006, I voted in favor of the use of military commissions. But I objected strongly to the Military Commissions Act that was drafted by the Bush Administration and passed by Congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework and undermined our capability to ensure swift and certain justice against those detainees that we were holding at the time. Indeed, the system of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay had only succeeded in prosecuting three suspected terrorists in more than seven years.

Let me see if I’ve got this right: The previous extra-legal system wasn’t up to snuff because it wasn’t codified enough? The new! improved! Obama-era secret trials will be better because they are swifter and more certain? Seriously?

If this is the kind of shit America wanted, we would've elected McCain in a landslide. I don't care how many sparkles you sprinkle on military commissions, they're still pure bullshit. Our courts are more than capable of trying terrorists. We've got plenty of terrorists locked up who enjoyed the full protection of our laws. We didn't need kangaroo courts to convict them.

As far as new directions go, don't we have someone whose history doesn't include this?

General McChrystal, leader of the Joint Special Operations Command, is the man just put in charge of the war in Afghanistan. Fred Kaplan has more:

[snip]

This appointment will not be without controversy. McChrystal's command also provided the personnel for Task Force 6-26, an elite unit of 1,000 special-ops forces that engaged in harsh interrogation of detainees in Camp Nama as far back as 2003. The interrogations were so harsh that five Army officers were convicted on charges of abuse. (McChrystal himself was not implicated in the excesses, but the unit's slogan, which set the tone for its practices, was "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it.")

Kaplan says the replacement of McKiernan with McChrystal means this is now unequivocally "Obama's war" and that this decision could make or break the Obama presidency. The fact that he's just appointed a man who supports torture is not a good sign.

Andrew Sullivan has a piece on this guy that gives one some serious doubts about his fitness for command. Is our military really so bereft of talented leadership that McChrystal's the least worst choice? I somehow doubt it.

And, for the toxic cherry on top, check out this genius nomination:

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation’s largest toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. On Tuesday, Obama “announced his intent to nominate” Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, “America’s #1 Superfund Polluter“...

[snip]

This February, General Electric lost an eight-year battle to “prove that parts of the Superfund law are unconstitutional.” One of the 600-person DOJ environmental division’s “primary responsibilities is to enforce federal civil and criminal environmental laws such as” the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.

Obama hasn't been a perfect president, but this is the first time since the inauguration he's been this unrelentingly stupid. It's almost as if his brain has been replaced with a hash of Bush, Cheney, and William Kristol.

Mr. President, you have to do better than this.

Mah Current Sitooashun

Ah can't even reach mah soda.

Halp.