Poem o' the Day

All right, I know we've done W.H. Auden, but this poem came up while I searched for something else, and it delighted me. Therefore, more Auden.

If I could tell you

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

-W.H. Auden

The days are getting lovely. Thankfully, Orhan Veli Kantk's got a poem for that.

Fine Days

These fine days have been my ruin.
On this kind of day I resigned
My job in "Pious Foundations"
On this kind of day I started to smoke
On this kind of day I fell in love
On this kind of day I forgot
To bring home bread and salt
On this kind of day I had a relapse
Into my versifying disease.
These fine days have been my ruin.

-Orhan Veli Kantk

Sunday Sensational Science

Doctors in the Blogosphere

So, we have an outbreak of swine influenza in Mexico, a chronic infestation of "healers" who wow with woo, and loads of health misinformation everywhere we turn. It's turning critical. Someone call a doctor-blogger!

In this edition of Sunday Science, we'll be making the medical rounds. And don't forget to refer us to your favorite physician in the comments.

Dr. PalMD, The White Coat Underground

A practicing physician in Detroit, MI, PalMD is many things: a delighted dad, a devoted doctor, and a relentless foe of woo. He's become one of my favorite Science Bloggers. And if I lived in Detroit, he'd be my physician. Like the other bloggers I'm highlighting, he really knows his stuff. He's also got a snarky sense of humor and isn't afraid of the word "fuck." If he's accepting new patients, I think we'll just have to make him the official doctor of En Tequila Es Verdad.

In this recent post, he takes down another woo pusher:

The other day, I wrote about the fake health experts at the Huffington Post. Prominent among them is "Dr" Patricia Fitzgerald. Now, we already talked about how writing a health piece in a major media outlet and using the title of "Dr" can be deceptive; the reader is likely to assume you are a medical doctor. In Fitzgerald's case, she isn't anything resembling a medical doctor, or even a health expert.

Like many of HuffPo's so-called health experts, she's selling something. While I'm all for capitalism, she presents herself as something she is not---a legitimate doctor. Let's examine what she is and is not.

Patricia Fitzgerald is a licensed acupuncturist, certified clinical nutritionist, and a homeopath. She has a Master's Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and a Doctorate in Homeopathic Medicine.

There are two types of "real" doctors licensed to practice medicine in the US: Medical Doctors (MDs), and Doctors of Osteopathy (DOs). Anyone else claiming to treat common medical conditions is often practicing unlicensed care, or is licensed in a limited way to provide some health-related services.

None of the qualifications listed make her an expert in immunology, infectious disease, toxicology---all topics she has addressed at HuffPo. I'll have to take her on her word that she is Doctor of Homeopathy---most doctors would give a little more information, like what the hell this doctorate is and what institution and board granted it. This is pretty important given that homeopathy is seen as a fringe cult-like practice by anyone who understands science.

The Doctors Revere, Effect Measure

No bloggers do better work on pandemic disease and the CDC than the Reveres. They know their stuff, being senior public health officials and practitioners. They're currently on top of the swine flu outbreak, so head on over there if you've got questions needing answers. The post I'm highlighting here discusses some of the most recent research on influenza:

Every day, it seems, we find out that what we thought we knew about flu isn't the case. As one noted flu expert said to me once, "I knew much more about flu 20 years ago than I do now." So it's good to remember that we are also finding out a lot about flu that we never knew or even thought we knew. A case in point is an extremely important new paper in PLoS Medicine ( Khurana S, Suguitan AL Jr., Rivera Y, Simmons CP, Lanzavecchia A, et al.(2009) Antigenic Fingerprinting of H5N1 Avian Influenza Using Convalescent Sera and Monoclonal Antibodies Reveals Potential Vaccine and Diagnostic Targets. PLoS Med 6(4): e1000049; online as of last night). This work makes a major advance in the science of antibody response to avian influenza/H5N1 ("bird flu"). The advance has two aspects. One is the information the work generated. Even more important is the second part: opening up specific new questions for further research.

Unlike much H5N1 work, this isn't based on experiments in mice, as important and fruitful as such work is and has been. Instead it examines the antibody response of victims of a 2004 bird flu outbreak in Vietnam. Of 18, 13 died. Blood samples were obtained from the survivors during their recoveries. These patients lived long enough to get a response from the part of their immune system that makes antibodies.

Orac, Respectful Insolence

Orac's a surgeon and equally-gifted writer who's expert in taking down anti-vaccine fanatics. I do believe we're going to have to press-gang him on board the HMS Elitist Bastard one of these days. In the meantime, you can enjoy a break from the anti-vacciners with him, and beat up on the Brassagers instead:

This time around, it's not just any woo. In fact, it's woo that relates to my area of expertise. As you may recall, I do a lot of breast cancer surgery, and I run a lab the focus of whose research is breast cancer. And what woo it is! it's a shame that it may now be off the market. Well, not really, and it's not even clear to me that it is off the market. After all, you can still buy Airborne, even though the company was fined millions for making exaggerated and false advertising claims. I still occasionally see Enzyte "male enhancement" commercials even though the company that makes Enzyte was similarly fined big time and its CEO is facing a prison term. So, I'm not surprised that I'm still seeing the website for the Brassage pushing the same woo. What is the Brassage, you ask?

It's serious, serious woo. Indeed, it claims to be able to "stimulate" lymphatic flow in the breasts and thereby--well, why don't you take a guess what "stimulation" of lymphatic flow in the breasts will do, ignoring for the moment that a bra isn't going to stimulate lymphatic flow in the breasts?

Dr. Steven Novella, Neurologica Blog

He teaches at Yale. That's our first clue that he's good. The proof, however, is in the writing, and Dr. Novella delivers the evidence. His blog covers all things woo, not to mention kneecapping creationists and teaching science. In this post, he sets the record straight on what studies show about homeopathy:

The Cochrane Collaboration, an organization dedicated to evidence-based medicine, has published a review of studies of homeopathic treatments for side effects of radiation therapy and chemotherapy for cancer. The results are unimpressive - consistent with the null-hypothesis that homeopathic remedies have no effect. And yet the review is being distorted to promote a very misleading bottom-line to the press - that homeopathic remedies have a role to play in cancer therapy.

One point has been made clear - the treatments under study are not for cancer itself, but for the side effects of standard cancer therapies: radiation and chemotherapy. However, the results are being presented as if they support the efficacy of homeopathic remedies, when they do not.

Other blogs of note.

Due to the lateness of the hour, the increasing length of this post, and the fact that I want to get back to drooling over Dr. Chase watching House, I'm alas out of time. But that doesn't mean I'm out of medical blogs. All of them are well worth a read.

ERV: What you need to know about the cutting-edge of HIV research, ERV's got, along with some of the best smackdowns in the blogosphere.

Neurotopia: What's better than a neuroscience blog written by a guy called the Evil Monkey? Nothing. Start with this post.

DrugMonkey: Home of both DrugMonkey and PhysioProf. I don't need to say any more, now, do I?

Science-Based Medicine: This site is a veritible cornucopia of doctors writing excellent posts on medicine. It's even got a veternarian contributing. Pseudoscience, beware!

(Sorry, no pics this time - I'll make it up to you next week.)

Haters Freak Over Hate Crimes Legislation

Hate crimes legislation is on the way to becoming a reality, and the right-wing haters are livid:

We're finally making progress on passing a federal hate-crimes bill: On Thursday, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Protection Act passed out of the House Judiciary Committee.

Sure enough, as Kyle at RightWingWatch predicted, the right-wing freakout has begun. Unsurprisingly, Glenn Beck is already leading the way.

He invited on wingnut talk-show host Sandi Rios, who promptly declared hate crimes "thought crimes" (uh-huh, right). She also attacked Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, who was defending the bill from Republican attempts to nullify it by adding categories or victims by claiming:

Rios: Well, she's saying that anybody that's killed or harmed is not a real victim -- unless they're homosexual or gay or Jewish. Then they're real victims. So you can murder more severely if they happen to homosexual or Jewish. It makes no sense.

Beck: Whatever happened to equal protection under the law? If you kill someone, you should go to jail!

Well, Glenn, that's true. And people do in fact go to jail for killing people - unless of course they're rich, powerful, and killing folks under the aegis of "national security" or poisonous corporations. What you fucktards don't seem to get is that under law, there are aggravating factors to a crime. Kill someone in legitimate self-defense, and you don't get treated the same way as someone who kills for monetary gain. Kill someone in a particularly heinous way, and you're likely to get a harsher sentence. What this legislation says is that there's another aggravating factor when you kill someone because you don't like their religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. The majority of us think that people who kill other people for those reasons are dangerous enough to be treated a little bit more harshly under the law. Society's also sending the message that certain crimes are more serious when they're used to terrorize people for those factors.

Not that you Cons are sane enough to understand this.

Shoulda Been a Con: Ben Nelson Edition

Can someone please remind Ben Nelson which party he joined?

Greg Sargent reports that centrist Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) -- who voted to confirm both Sam Alito and John Roberts -- will oppose Dawn Johnsen's nomination to lead the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Nelson says he opposes Johnsen, a noted legal scholar and outspoken critic of the Bush administration's torture program, because of her pro-choice views:

Senator Nelson is very concerned about the nomination of Dawn Johnson, based on her previous position as Counsel for NARAL. He believes that the Office of Legal Counsel is a position in which personal views can have an impact and is concerned about her outspoken pro-choice views on abortion.

When I first scanned this, I didn't catch the name, just the statement. I had to do a double-take when I saw the fucktard behind this choice bit of Con talking point obstructionism.

Ben, I hate to tell you this, but you're a Democrat, dear. You knew what the party platform was when you signed on. If you wanted to obstruct Presidential nominees because they support abortion, there's a minority party across the aisle that's much more in keeping with your views. To be clear, I'm not saying you can't be pro-life and a Dem, but for fuck's sake, the Office of Legal Counsel has nothing to do with abortion, you fuckwit. All you're doing is playing Con games.

What a mook.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Yesterday, the Cons got their asses handed to them in a district they should've won easily. Today, they try to put the best possible face on a humiliating defeat:

It's the job of the parties' campaign committees to put as positive a spin on election results as possible. But now that the results are final in the special election in New York's 20th, I think the NRCC will have to do better than this.

Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that although Tedisco came up short that his message of fiscal discipline provided GOPers a blueprint on which to run next year.

"Since Election Day, we continue to hear the growing chorus of frustrated and concerned citizens who demand more from their government than profligate spending and mountains of debt that will be paid for in higher taxes by our children and grandchildren," said Sessions. "Although Jim was unsuccessful in his hope to change Washington, he has shed light on our Party's efforts to win back the majority in the House."

Frankly, if I worked for the NRCC, I'm not sure what I would have come up with, but suggesting a failed strategy in a Republican district can be duplicated for success elsewhere seems rather foolish.

Is that all they've got? I'm disappointed. Where's the conspiracy theories? Where's the howls of voter fraud? Where's Michael Steele with his zany crazy talk? I guess we'll have to wait for Monday.

One thing we do have is the fact that Michael Steele's gonna have 'splainin' to do:

Before the election, RNC Chairman Michael Steele boasted, "Our game is not up...our message still rings true with countless Americans, specifically with those in the 20th congressional district."

The New York special election was held on March 31, 2009. Wasting absolutely no time, the very next day, Steele wrote an audacious -- and foolish -- op-ed in Politico, triumphantly declaring the outcome a defeat for President Obama's agenda:

Tedisco’s victory will be a credible repudiation of the spending spree that Obama and Congress have been on since January. Even the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee acknowledged over the weekend that the race was “a referendum on the Economic Recovery Act and Barack Obama’s policies.” Well, the DCCC is right — this likely Republican victory is a referendum on the president. [...]

Well, the voters have spoken, and while the results are still pending, Republicans are confident that the final vote tallies will show those voters have rejected the president’s approach. [...]

The ground has shifted, and is shifting, as the voters become increasingly worried about Obamanomics. [...]

Tuesday’s election was a vote of "no confidence" in the Democrats’ tax, spend and borrow approach. I hope Obama and congressional Democrats are listening.

Nostradamus he ain't.

They're not in full freak-out mode over this loss just yet, and that could be because they're busy frothing at the mouth over that DHS report on right-wing extremeism. Yes, still. And it's Michele Bachmann, she of the revolutionary talk, who's leading the charge:

With this in mind, I found it rather ... what's the word ... amusing when Bachmann took to the floor of the House this week to ask whether Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has gone "absolutely stark raving mad."

Seriously, sometimes these clowns make it a little too easy.

Bachmann then jumped into the paranoid waters, head first. "What's going to happen now?" she asked. "Will the federal government start IDing returning veterans? Start IDing gun owners? Start IDing prolifers -- and then pull us out of the line for special searches at the airports before we're allowed to get on the plane because we could be considered a rightwing domestic terrorist while we would see Osama bin Laden and his friends skate by because they're not...?"

I also loved this line: "It is intriguing to me, we have a report now that says ... 80 percent of the American people would be classified as 'right-wing extremists' under this report. Couple that with a statement made by President Obama during the campaign that we need to have a federal police force the size of the military. Add it up."

"Add it up," as in, there's a conspiracy afoot that Bachmann sees and the rest of us don't. Indeed, in the next breath, Bachmann added that it's "no wonder" people are stockpiling weapons and ammunition, since they see "the handwriting on the wall," and need to be prepared for the Obama administration, which is "looking at weapon bans."

Remember, she thinks others have gone "absolutely stark raving mad."

We can always count on Michele to bring on the batshit fucking insanity. I wonder if this woman can so much as order a meal without launching into a rant against the oppressive forces in Washington that are coming to take her equally insane supporters away?

I somehow doubt it.

Meanwhile, Pat Buchanan is busy proving that even the most well-behaved Cons believe the most outrageous things:

In addition to his frequent MSNBC appearances, where he plays a mostly well-mannered, if hardline, conservative, Buchanan also writes a column for the far-right web magazine, Human Events. And that's where he gets himself into trouble.

His most recent effort, "The Rooted and The Rootless," takes as its premise the notion that there's a "blood-and-soil, family-and-faith, God-and-country kind of nation" that's competing with a minority represented by the "rootless" Obama and his "aides with advanced degrees from elite colleges who react just like him."

Already, we're in National Socialist territory here, but let's leave that aside (with Buchanan, once you start down this path, it can be hard to stop...). What jumped out at us was Buchanan's contention that the "blood-and-soil" part of America...

does not comprehend how the president could sit in Trinidad and listen to the scrub stock of the hemisphere trash our country -- and say nothing. (our itals)

Scrub stock? We weren't familiar with that phrase. So we looked it up.

There's no record of it appearing in the New York Times since 1943. (Hey, no one ever called Buchanan hip!) Until then, it was almost exclusively used to refer to an inferior breed of farm animal, usually cattle or horses, as when the paper reported in 1907: "Financial Disturbance Forces Cattlemen to Sell "Scrub" Stock to Hold Prime Grades."

In 1934, a federal official writing in the Times about measures being taken in response to the drought of the period, used the phrase in a similar way: "In some cases the drought cattle are being exchanged for scrub stock. The scrub stock is canned and the good stock is used to replace it..."

In other words, "scrub stock" essentially means an inferior breed.

It's worse than that, though. There's evidence that theorists of racial and genetic superiority -- an area of pseudo-scientific "scholarship" that was in vogue even among mainstream intellectuals in the late 19th and early 20th century -- explicitly extended the use of the phrase beyond animals and into humans. In short, the phrase has been used by both eugenicists and racial segregationists to argue for the superiority of the white race.

And this assclown is still considered mainstream enough for MSNBC? I think it's time for the network to reevaluate that relationship.

It's hard to hold a national discourse with people this fucking stupid, prone to insanity, and unaware that racism is no longer acceptable. So it's good to see that Dems have given up trying:

Ha ha. Remember those dumbass RNC members pushing a party resolution demanding the Democrats rename themselves the "Democrat Socialist Party" because, well, Republicans have nothing left to offer the political debate except for insults? The DNC responds:

"I'm going to pass on marketing advice from folks who hadn't fully thought out the implications of using tea bags as a brand," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan. "But what's clear is that when you're devoid of leadership, devoid of ideas and your only answer is to say 'no' to change, it's not surprising that angry, fringe elements take center stage at the Republican Party."

Remember when people used to take the Republican Party seriously? And remember when Democrats used to cower in fear? Now everyone mocks them with impunity.

Yeah. Those days, kinda over. And as Kos points out, there's even voices within the party joining in the mockery. Some Cons are just about sane enough to realize that the party took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and headed straight over a cliff. Cons like McCain strategist Michael Schmidt, in fact:

Schmidt also criticized his party’s political performance in the early days of the Obama presidency.

“As a matter of reality, in the first 100 days, [the Republican Party] has not done anything to improve its political position with regards to the fact that it has been a shrinking entity,” he said.

Maybe those occasional squeaks of reason from the terminally unreasonable are a good sign. Maybe they mean we'll someday have a Republican party that can almost be taken seriously again.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Poem o' the Day

All right, here it is, the moment none of you have been waiting for: a Dana Hunter original that didn't come from an NP writing assignment.

This poor piece has been ripped from its context as part of a poetry war. But I like to flatter myself by thinking it stands fairly well on its own. Well, aside from the whole hooves thing, which is what happens when you're writing a poem from the point of view of a character with hooves rather than tootsies.

Nothing lasts, eternal
Unchanged
Yesterday long past
Someone cooled their hooves in the mud of a stream
Where today you carve a line
Which holds greater worth:
That moment of coolness
Those lasting words?
I know what each of you would say

Nothing lasts

Things become separate
That side of the stream or this
This elevation or that
Mountains rise, plains fall
And it is often forgotten
That this mountain was a plain once
That this plain washed down from a peak

Things separate
Not really separate

Need for divisions
Divides us
Without boundaries we would be no different

We need divisions
Remember the places between

Rant of the Week

HuffPo's Jason Linkins puts the Smack-o-Matic 3000 with optional Sarcasm Boost. I had to share with you all.

Stupid statement:

Via Media Monitor LaRay B., comes video of a segment between Phil Musser and Lawrence O'Donnell, hosted by Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC. The discussion centered on the torture memos, with Lawrence O'Donnell explaining how the pursuit of al Qaeda-Iraq links is a classic example of the sorts of fallacies that underpin the logic of those who think torture is effective. Musser, for his part, defended the leadership and judgment of Dick Cheney. And then, Musser's line of thought veered very sharply into the scarily phrenological.

MUSSER: The bottom line is he's a guy that I watched up close in action and I have great respect for his judgment and wisdom in this regard. And having seen the face of terror, you know I've walked through Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay when I was serving in the government, and it changes your nature of the threat to look at the people an the other sides of those fences.

Masterful takedown:

My question is this: while Phil Musser was wandering around Camp Zero, just gazing at folks with his super-powered Eyeballs of Guilt Discernment, why didn't he stand up, right then and there, and demand that the five prisoners of Uighur descent, who the Pentagon says are a threat to no one, be released? Why couldn't he have trained his all-knowing Peepers of Justice on Abassin Roshan, who was mistakenly placed into U.S. custody in Afghanstan, and insist that he be let go? CBS News even reports that there is a ninety year old man imprisoned there! I don't need Musser's magical goddamn powers to know that is plainly ridiculous.

Smackdown of an absolute ass, scathing indictment of our indefinite detentions, all in one short paragraph. Outstanding.

Oh, and Lawrence O'Donnell got in a good whack himself:

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: I think we just got a real window into the Bush administration's view of how to approach these problems. Just by walking through Guantanamo bay and looking at prisoners, I could tell! And we didn't get a full answer to what you could tell. But that is very similar to President Bush saying I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw an honest man that I could deal with.

The best response Musser could muster? "That's not fair."

That, my friends, is the pathetic whine of someone who just got his ass soundly beaten.

The Necessity of Knowledge

It's cliché time at the cantina, my darlings, because I want to talk about a simple truth: knowledge is power.

In observing politics and religion, you soon notice a distinct abundance of stupidity. And I call it stupidity, not ignorance, because refusing knowledge is stupid. Everyone at times refuses knowledge, but some people raise it to an art form. It's a constant in their lives. They can't be bothered to think.

I thought of it watching the teabaggers get manipulated by the corporate lobbyists. These people were tools, and they were too stupid to realize it. It's not that they were ignorant of what was going on - the information was out there in abundance. They had it in their own hands.

There's a tradition in religion and conservatism that says, "Don't question authority. Trust received pronouncements." Therefore, you get people who can be told that Obama's leading the country into socialism. They know this not because they've seen evidence, not because they know what socialism is, but because they've been told Obama's a socialist, socialism is bad, and therefore Obama is bad:


A little bit of knowledge would've gone a long way, there. Knowing what these social programs are, how they can work, and why being a selfish stupid git isn't the best survival strategy would completely disarm GOP attacks.

If people bothered to gain a bit of knowledge, they wouldn't be snookered by Newtie's latest "green coal" blabbering. They wouldn't elect ignorant fools like Michele Bachmann and John Boehner who don't know the difference between necessary and toxic levels of carbon dioxide, and exactly which greenhouse gas it is that cows emit. Note to Boehner: it's not CO2.

A little bit of knowledge combined with an ocean of ignorance is a dangerous thing. Michele Bachmann's statement that carbon dioxide is a vital part of life on earth may sound persuasive if all you know is that CO2 is what plants eat. If you didn't know other things, such as what happens when too much of a good thing gets into the atmosphere, then you'd think she had a good point. Alas, too many ignorant and willfully stupid people do. And so the planet boils.

Speaking of global warming, Sen. James Inhofe has "a list of 700 prominent scientists who oppose global warming." Wow! With that many scientists saying global warming doesn't exist, there must really be doubts, right? Here's where knowledge gives us the power to resist fake science, though, because knowing who those "scientists" are changes everything:

Like the Discovery Institute's similar list involving evolution, there are some real laughers on the list. Like this one:

One of the listed prominent scientists is Chris Allen, who holds no college degree, believes in creationism and belongs to a Southern Baptist church.

Allen is a weatherman at the FOX-affiliated TV station in Bowling Green, Ky.

[snip]

The list also includes a retired professor with no training in climate science who says that the earth "couldn't be more than 10,000 years old." And these names were listed as "prominent scientists" in an actual Senate report.

Outrageous fucktards can get away with this shit only because people don't know any better. They haven't bothered to learn. They don't know how to verify claims. They don't know how to think critically. If all of us had knowledge and knew how to apply it, the Senate wouldn't be disgraced by idiots like Inhofe, because they wouldn't get voted in there in the first place.

Given enough knowledge, people wouldn't fall prey to vitamin pushers. They wouldn't get taken in by fake medicine. And they sure as shit wouldn't get snookered by priests trying to use science to shore up their homophobia. No wonder the powerful religious, political and corporate interests hate knowledge so.

Knowledge is necessary to keep us from falling prey. Knowledge is our power. I suggest that as Elitist Bastards, we teach a lot more folks how to use it.

The Stalker Becomes the Stalked

Isn't it fun to see Bill O's attack dog getting a hefty dose of his own medicine?

Gawker has some questions for Jesse B. Watters, the Fox News producer that Bill O'Reilly likes to send out to ambush his enemies. So we're outside his building in Long Island. Right now. (Hi, Jesse!)

[snip]

If you see him, snap a camera phone picture and send it to us. Or better yet, ask him why he stalks and ambushes people that his boss disagrees with, and tell us what he says. Two years ago, during an on-air celebration of Watters' ambushes, O'Reilly had this to say about his young charge: "Jesse Watters, everybody. He's becoming a big star all over the world."

Let's make that happen.

Heh heh, gorgeous. And if you want a rundown of Watters's infamous ambushes and all the reasons why turnabout's glorious fair play, that Gawker article does a stellar job.

Then, if you're appetite's whetted for more Bill Bashing, head on over to C & L, where they're enjoying themselves immensely at his expense.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Congratulations Rep. Scott Murphy! Norm Coleman take note: when the votes don't go your way, it's generally a good idea to gracefully concede.

There are times when I seriously wonder if the Cons are ingesting some sort of toxins that cause acute stupidity, insanity and hypocrisy. Today's one of those days.

There's been a lot of talk about Cons going to war lately (rather than merely sending soldiers to live out their fantasies for them). They've talked about becoming an insurgency like the Taliban. They've threatened to go nuclear over various and sundry nominations, the budget reconciliation process, and formed a mob demanding the head of Janet Napolitano. Now they're threatening war over war crimes prosecutions:

New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.

King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should "shut down [legislative] activity across the board" if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court.

"We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war," he told POLITICO.

Is it just me, or do these fucktards seem to be starting more wars than they have the troops to fight? They've got a rather bad habit of doing that.

Rep. King didn't just stop there, though. He's decided Jay "Torture Memo" Bybee doesn't deserve impeachment, but a medal.

Cons have a funny way of thinking about war crimes. Now, apparently, if we prosecute officials for war crimes, we'll be turning America into a banana republic. Cons have been so delighted with this meme that it's filtered up to Sens. Bond and McCain, forcing Steve Benen to school them on the true meaning of "banana republic:"

One of the distinguishing characteristics of a "Banana Republic" is an unaccountable chief executive who ignores the rule of law when it suits his/her purposes. The ruling junta in a "Banana Republic" eschews accountability, commits heinous acts in secret, tolerates widespread corruption, and generally embraces a totalitarian attitude in which the leader can break laws whenever he/she feels it's justified to protect the state.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Rove, McCain, Bond, Hannity, Beck, et al are so caught up in their partisan rage, they've failed to realize they have the story backwards. They're so far gone, they're so blinded by their rigid ideology, they have no idea that they're projecting. It's genuinely pathetic.

If our goal is to avoid looking like a "Banana Republic," then we would investigate those responsible for torture, which is, not incidentally, illegal. The accused would enjoy the presumption of innocence and due process rights. The process would be transparent, and those who act (and have acted) in our name would be held accountable.

It's the hallmark of a great and stable democracy: we honor the rule of law, even when it's inconvenient, and even when it meets the cries of small men with sad ideas.

To do otherwise, to retreat because a right-wing minority whines incessantly, would do more to make us look like a "Banana Republic" than anything else.

You've got that right. I wonder if any of them will ever wake up to that little fact? Nah, you're right. They can't even understand simple concepts, such as "the dose is the poison:"

On the House floor on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) argued that threat of manmade global warming doesn't make any sense because "carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature":

Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that's on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that -- that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.

That's right, Michele. It is fundamental. So is water, but people drown if there's too much. The dose is the poison. Thinking like yours is what leads people to give themselves vitamin toxcity and destroy their organs with overdoses of herbal supplements because "it's necessary to life/it's natural, therefore we should take as much of it as possible."

Morons.

Cherrypicking facts and evidence has become something of a Con specialty. You've got people like Bachmann latching on to the fact that CO2 is a necessary gas while ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence that says too much of a good thing is bad. And you've got Cons like Dick Cheney requesting proof that torture works - all two documents' worth:

Two things that are immediately striking about the request Dick Cheney submitted for classified documents that would allegedly prove that torture worked:

(1) He only asked for a total of two documents, a total of 21 pages — meaning this is likely the grand total of proof Cheney himself is able to point to supporting his claims about the torture program.

(2) Despite the charge that Obama cherry-picked from the torture memos, it seems pretty clear that Cheney himself did some serious cherry-picking from the intel files.

This, at least, is the immediate takeaway of ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer, who’s been following this stuff as closely as anyone.

Something tells me that if torture were truly effective, there'd be more than two documents proving it so. This also conveniently ignores the fact that whether or not torture's effective, it's completely fucking illegal. Look at it this way: I could claim that shooting my neighbor is an efficient, effective way to get them to stop playing loud music. Even if we ignored the messy clean-up, the wailing of relatives, and the fact that the apartment complex may be a little upset at losing a paying tenant in this manner, we'd still be SOL advocating shooting as an effective method to enforce the hours of quiet rules because murder is morally and legally wrong.

Cons in general yawp loudly about morality, but let's just look at one final bit of Con thinking to see how moral they might be:

I predicted a freak-out about Plan B, but I didn’t think it would be this funny:

So guys, if you screw a 17-year-old and “forget” to use a condom, remember: Nothing says “thanks a lot, you cheap whore” like the gift of Plan B!

Alternately, your readers could stop screwing minors.

Striking that never occurred to them, innit? I'd like to offer a word of advice: whatever Cons are ingesting that's causing this rampant dumbfuckery, it's probably time they started rehab for it.

Woozle and Mike Debate Thread

It's a banner day, my darlings. This is the first time on this blog that a thread's filled up to the point where it has to be closed and a new one opened. They've requested a new forum, and their wish is my command.

Of course, I'm sure neither of them will object if anyone else wishes to join the debate. They're currently discussing reality vs. fantasy in sex ed.

Enjoy!

Last Day in Port

Out o' the taverns and onto the ship wi' ye! Submit yer posts for the Carnival of the Elitist Bastards by the end o' tonight, or we be sailin' without ye. And none o' us want that, now, do we?

Poem o' the Day

Every once in a while, synchronicity happens.

I've got a scene coalescing in my head for this current story, in which the stark contrasts between beauty and horror come up. My folks are warriors. They see the worst. But they've also seen extraordinary beauty, which just about makes the ugliness they have to deal with worthwhile.

Today, looking for Zen poems to post, I ended up on A View on Buddhism, and found this wonderful one by Ryokan:

Where beauty is, then there is ugliness;
where right is, also there is wrong.
Knowledge and ignorance are interdependent;
delusion and enlightenment condition each other.
Since olden times it has been so.
How could it be otherwise now?
Wanting to get rid of one and grab the other
is merely realizing a scene of stupidity.
Even if you speak of the wonder of it all,
how do you deal with each thing changing?

And that just about sums it up right there. It's utterly perfect for that scene.

One of the things I adore about Zen is the acceptance of the world as it is. Another thing I like is the acceptance of change. Layman P'ang, one of my absolute favorite Zen sages, put it like this:

The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.

From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.

Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.

With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.

When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.

With a philosophy like that - basically saying the scriptures are meaningless - even an atheist can practice Zen.

After all, this Zen poem by Master Seung Sahn just about could've been written by one of us:

Good and evil have no self nature;
Holy and unholy are empty names;
In front of the door is the land of stillness and quiet;
Spring comes, grass grows by itself.

Bashing Bill

It's Friday. It's time to have some fun. And Bill O'Reilly's just begging for a beating.

I mean, check out what his producer's been up to lately:

It's no secret that Fox News host Bill O'Reilly can't stand MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. In fact, when a caller into his radio show had the gall to mention Olbermann's name on air in March 2006, O'Reilly threatened to turn his personal information over to "Fox security."

Yesterday, O'Reilly took his rivalry a step further. He sent his top henchman, producer Jesse Watters, to infiltrate the GE shareholders meeting and press executives on why MSNBC has a "leftward political slant":

But one of those questions came from Jesse Waters [sic], a producer on "The O'Reilly Factor" whose criticisms were cut short when his microphone was cut off, according to several attendees. Waters apparently did not publicly identify himself as a Fox employee. [...]

GE pointed out that Waters had Fox News cameras waiting outside the Orlando meeting.

Attendees who spoke to THR said shareholders asked about 10 politically charged questions concerning MSNBC as well as one about CNBC. [...]

Thoroughly unhinged? Behavior unbecoming to a purported news station? I should bloody well think so. Remind me to keep a dart gun loaded with horse tranquilizers handy just in case I can bull-bait the bastard into stalking me.

Hm. Wonder what happens when you mix horse tranqs with capsaicin and hit a douchebag producer in a major vein? But I digress...

Bill O's a complete prick. We all knew that. We also know he runs his show like his own little totalitarian state and usually only has on guests who are slavering sycophants or easily intimidated. It's nice to see a dissenter with a backbone of steel slip through sometimes:

Newsday columnist Ellis Henican took on Bill O'Reilly last night to talk about President Obama's decision to leave the door open for prosecutions of Bush administration officials for creating its now-defunct torture regime.

And frankly, he did as well I've ever seen anyone do in the canned, no-win setup that is The O'Reilly Factor. He went toe-to-toe with O'Reilly on the factual points -- and in fact started scoring so well that O'Reilly was reduced to blurting out increasingly outrageous pronouncements.

Crooks and Liars has the video and the transcript. It'll warm your heart.

Best. Help. Wanted. Ad. Ever.

If you're a political junkie with mad blogging skillz and don't mind living in D.C., I think you'd better take a look at this:

ThinkProgress is hiring a reporter/blogger to join our team at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. We're looking for enthusiastic applicants who slave away at a keyboard have strong research/writing experience, don't sleep have a desire to consume large amounts of news, beat the media at their own game have a passion for researching and reporting online, and don't mind being stalked by Bill O'Reilly's crew.

Glorious. I'd go for it if I were a better researcher and didn't hate the East coast so (nothing personal, my dear denizens of the east - it's just not my geography). That's the greatest want ad in the known universe.*

(I know some wag's going to come up with something even funnier, so let me qualify that statement: it's the greatest want ad in the known universe written by staffers at a professional enterprise that I've personally seen.)