Sarah Palin is Dumber Than.....

A few days ago I mentioned that I hope I don't get called an anti-woman woman for calling Sarah Palin dumber than a box of rocks. Since then I've come across several uses of this same colloquialism for Sarah's endumberment. So I thought, as a public service to both of you reading this that I would google up a list of instances where other bloggers call Sarah dumber than something. And the results are:

Sarah Palin is dumber than Bush
Sarah Palin is dumber than a box of rocks (also plain rocks, a bunch of rocks, a bag of rocks)
Sarah Palin is dumber than a sack of doorknobs
Sarah Palin is dumber than me
Sarah Palin is dumber than a sack of hammers
Sarah Palin is dumber than we thought
Sarah Palin is dumber than John McCain's daughter
Sarah Palin is dumber than a stick
Sarah Palin is dumber than a moose
Sarah Palin is dumber than a snail
Sarah Palin is dumber than a seventh grader
Sarah Palin is dumber than a doornail (yikes!)
Sarah Palin is dumber than a dumb thing from dumbsville
Sarah Palin is dumber than a fence post
Sarah Palin is dumber than a tub of Elmers Paste
Sarah Palin is dumber than a box of Sarah Palins
Sarah Palin is dumber than a bag of cat shit
Sarah Palin is dumber than a pile of bricks

My two faves? Sarah Palin is dumber than a dumb thing from dumbsville and Sarah Palin is dumber than a box of Sarah Palins.

The High Road? Oh, Really?

Yeah, let's play nice. That's a great idea. Cuz, you know, the other side is nothing but honorable.

Man Upset About Loss of Food Stamps Hates on Libruls

Most of the places I've seen this on the interwebs has noted that a man shot up a Unitarian Universalist church because of his hatred for their liberal stance. Gays and liberals seem to be taking all the good jobs. (Insert hairdresser/ decorator/ congressman joke here). Yet the other straw cracking this camel's back is that his allotment of food stamps was cut back. Because conservatives would've given him more? Whack.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - A man who opened fire inside a church, killing two people with a shotgun hidden in a guitar case, was frustrated at being unable to find a job and blamed liberals and gays, police said on Monday.


"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred of the liberal movement," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen told reporters of Sunday's incident at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Suspect Jim Adkisson, 58, who was being held on $1 million bond, had previously worked as a mechanical engineer in several states. He described his violent plans in a four-page letter found at his home, which also explained that his age and "liberals and gays" taking jobs had worked against him.

Another recent setback was that Adkisson's allotment of government-issued food stamps had been reduced, Owen said.

Tight Pussy Loose Shoes and a Warm Place to Shit

A Made in America Update.

Really.

Yes, we are still working on the made in America challenge. We've done pretty well, although we have purposely failed at times and accidentally failed at others. Nonetheless, I'd say 98.5% of the discretionary dollars our family has spent since the beginning of the year has been from domestic products.

After the year is over I swear I won't go back to shopping at regular clothing stores again. Part of our deal was that we could buy any clothes made anywhere as long as we bought them at second-hand stores. Within walking distance from my house is a children's clothing store that is a dream. And I discovered Savers which is set up like a big store but it's like a resale store for Easter Seals. If you spend a little time looking, many things in the store are like new.

Having said that, shoes are a major problem. Children shouldn't wear second hand shoes because their feet are still developing and I shouldn't wear second hand shoes because eww gross.

Last weekend I was at a party and was explaining this whole thing to my cousin. I said "please note that's why everyone in my family has on shabby looking shoes".

"Why's that?" she asked, and I said that almost all shoes are now made in China. She took her sandal off to check the label. "Not this one" she said. "It says 'Made in USA'".

After I stopped crying, she told me she bought her sandals at REI so that's where I went this week to buy my first new pair of shoes since January. Some of you may say 'big deal'. Some of you may wonder how I've survived this long.

Not only did the $95 price tag not deter me, neither did the post-graduate degree required to put on the damn shoes. (Yeah, Ben. That's what I spent. See me for excuses justifications. The shoes are called Chacos. They come with a diagram, just in case you miss the six times the patient salesman tries to show you. If that doesn't work there's a video on their website.

I thought I had my shoes properly adjusted at the store. Then I left and ran some other errands. The toe started to feel really tight - humidity was making my feet swell- and without instructions I desperately tried to adjust my shoes in the grocery store. You know those carnival prizes called 'Chinese handcuffs' where the more you try to pull out of them the tighter they become? That was my toe in these shoes.

I spent an hour or two this morning, and now I think I'm pretty well set.


Oh, and my label says "Assembled With Pride in Colorado USA". How cool is that? (Beware that some of their products are made in China if you're thinking about buying some).

BTW in case you were wondering, the title of this post came from a racist remark made by Earl Butz, Nixon and Ford's Secretary of Agriculture. It also influence my cuss-o-meter nicely. However, I learned the saying from a movie I saw when I was 11 or 12. The whole movie was made up of fake movie trailers, and this song was from a trailer for the fake movie "Darktown after Dark". I had no idea what a 'tight pussy' was, but I used to go around singing the song. It's catchy. Thanks to YouTube I can link to it here. (I had to take the actual video off my page because something was causing my whole layout to shift. Whack.)

Keep Dr. Dobson OUT of the Hall of Fame

Focus on the Family kindly sent me an e-mail letting me know that Dr. James Dobson is up for a National Radio Hall of Fame award. Would I kindly cast my vote?

Sure enough, and I would like to ask you to kindly do the same. Please pass this along to anyone you know who would also like to cast a vote against Dr. Dobson.

Dr. Dobson's fellow nominees are Bob Costas, Dr. Laura, and Howard Stern.

I briefly considered voting for Howard Stern, since having Stern defeat Dobson seems the most fitting, but I couldn't do it primarily because I despise Howard Stern. These days "misogynist" gets bandied about to the point of losing all meaning. Howard Stern fills up that empty-meaning cup and lets his demeaning drivel overflow.

I voted for Bob Costas. Mostly because he is the only professional the National Radio Hall of Fame put up for nomination this year anyway.

The whole thing seems rather sad. Nonetheless, if there is a God you will help to ensure that Dr. Dobson goes home from the banquet empty-handed and cursing the Lord who hath forsaken him.

Te he.

Here's the link. There's extra bullshitty signing up stuff involved, but remember: it's us against the fundies. You know they'll all be working hard to get him in. They won't let a little registration whoo-ha stop them. Go the extra mile. Tell your friends. Start a campaign. Tell 'em Jess sent you.

In the Whatever Happened To...Column

I am so glad that the Philadelphia Inquirer signed Rick Santorum on as a columnist. This way, we can continue to be amused at his batshit crazy fundamentalist logic. I mean, what's Mark Foley been up to? Who knows?

Now that California has said that creating separate language in the state constitution for a group of individuals amounts to discrimination, thus opening the doors for gay marriage, Rick is all 'uh hum, toldya the world would end' in his Inky column.

I plucked some bon mots:

First, he says his alarm! went unheeded. It's right in the title:

The Elephant in the Room: A wake-up call on gay marriage after '03 alarm went unheeded

One could just say you lost, Rick.

He says:

Five years later, do I regret sounding the alarm about marriage? No.

I'm just saddened that time has proved right those of us who worried about the future of marriage as the union of husband and wife, deeply rooted not only in our traditions, our faiths, but in the facts of human nature: as Pope Benedict said, "The cradle of life and love," connecting mothers and fathers to their children.

Okay, he's upfront in admitting that his notion of what is marriage comes from his faith. But then, get this and try not to giggle, he says that it's due to the facts of human nature that only men and only women should marry. His source? An anthropolgist? A genetic scientist? A biologist (known to Santorum as a Darwinist, btw). Nope. The Pope. Yeah, all us non-religious types who believe in equality and separation of church and state should look to that man of science and reason for our stand on human nature. The Pope. Who, I don't think, gets peer reviewed.

Then he raises the clouding of a spurious correlation to a high art. In Norway, he says, gay marriage was legalized in 1990 and then all hell broke loose. (If it's Norway, does that mean that Hell has frozen over? Just Wondering^TM)

Look at Norway. It began allowing same-sex marriage in the 1990s. In just the last decade, its heterosexual-marriage rates have nose-dived and its out-of-wedlock birthrate skyrocketed to 80 percent for firstborn children. Too bad for those kids who probably won't have a dad around, but we can't let the welfare of children stand in the way of social affirmation, can we?

How is this related to gay marriage? I haven't the foggiest idea and Santorum doesn't bother to explain. How does he know these children are growing up without father? Maybe some of them are growing up with two dads? Further, does he really want to use Norway as an example of a place where they suffer the little children? Norway has, since adopting the gay marriage law also raised itself to the top spot in standard of living among all countries of the world - a feat it has been repeating year after year. Since adopting the gay marriage law, Norway's infant mortality rate has steadily dropped every year. It currently stands at 3.64/1000 births compared to the US who's rate is 6.4/1000.

Okay, but that's the disingenuous part. What of the batshit crazy stuff? Well lookie here:

But what about love? That's the question a student asked this winter when I spoke at Georgetown University.

Is anyone saying same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too? Marriage is and always has been more than the acknowledgment of the love between two people.

What about the constitutional right to equal protection under the law? Marriage is not an inalienable right; it is a privilege, a license granted by government conferring certain governmental benefits.

There is a constitutional right that is under threat: the free exercise of religion.

Let me go out on another limb here and make another crazy prediction. Within 10 years, clergy will be sued or indicted for preaching on certain Bible passages dealing with homosexuality and churches, and church-related organizations will lose government contracts and even their tax-exempt status.

Wha? Where to begin?

Let's look at Santorum's Syllogism, shall we? (As if he didn't get enough abuse from his man-on-dog comments)

I love my brother. Marriage=Love. Therefore I have married my brother

I know the Appalachians run up through Pennsylvania, Rick. But really.

He rightly assigns the governance of marriage to the government. It is after all the government that issues the license. But then he goes on to say that it's a privilege. Then he collapses all sanity by saying that only the government is allowed to confer privilege on people and it can do so by saying which ones deserve the privilege. Which is exactly the point the Supreme Court of California made.

Going into foaming at the mouth mode, he claims that if two people in California get married my free expression of religion is going to be infringed upon. Again, we don't get the mechanics of how this works. Yes, if my religion says that I'm going to hell for casting my eyes upon an elderly gay couple sitting in a hospital room kissing each other goodbye on the day that death do them part, then yeah. But what kind of religion is that? Makes you want to run to your nearest atheist temple and lie prostrate upon the ground, doesn't it? Oh, I kid. There are no atheist temples. Maybe universities, or libraries, or possibly Unitarian churches. But we're not much into organization.

Then he says he's going to make a crazy prediction. (Oh, Rick? They've all been crazy, this isn't your first). All of his predictions center around Churches losing their federal advantages for promoting bigotry. And my response is: yeah, so?

Here's the deal. If you want to have a church that doesn't allow gay marriage go right ahead. But do it without the federal grants and the federal tax exemptions. In other words, religions, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. No one says you have to go out of existence. We're just saying our tax dollars don't have to support you.

That's a position you ought to understand.

O'Reilly and the Winnebago ManSeparated at Birth?

In case you have never seen the Winnebago Man, herezat.

I Wonder What His First Clue Was

that this might be a somewhat racist affair.

Shame on Ben Stein

All cultures have their creation myths - the ancient Egyptians believed that the god Atum, deity of the solar disk and the sun itself, masturbated himself, exploding a life-giving burst of energy that seeded the dark unformed void with countless galazies. In the land of the pyramids there was no impropriety in the concept that 'self abuse' created the universe, although millennia later Victorian archaeologists wer predictably shocked to the core by the ancient Egyptians' melding of sex and divinity.

In the first act of creation, Aten was perceived as an androgynous figure, the hand that made the world being the female aspect, while his phallus represented the equal and opposite male principle. As the eminent American scholar Professor Karl Luckert writes: 'The entire system can be visualized as a flow of creative vitality, emanating outward from the godhead, thinning out as it flows further from the source.'

However, this apparently primitive - if somewhat explicit - tale actually encompasses a highly sophisticated understanding of the cosmology...It literally describes the 'Big Bang', in which all matter explodes from a point of singularity and then expands and unfolds, becoming more complex as fundamental forces come into being and interact, finally reaching the level of elemental matter.

-From Lynn Picknett's Secret History of Lucifer.

Ben Stein has a new movie coming out. Seeing the trailer I thought that maybe the movie was a gentle castigation of his comrades on the right who persist in their victim fantasies and pout about how schools don't teach their religion. Well, flip that on its head.

Stein's movie 'Expelled' is a screed against science, though the people who work in science related industries, laboratories and classrooms are not labeled 'scientists' by Stein. They are 'Darwinists'. I guess that's probably all you need to know to ascertain that there won't be much even-handed discussion of the current debate between science (particularly any science related to evolution) versus intelligent design.

Though the movie's not out yet, its producers have invited people like Richard Dawkins and the editorial board of Scientific American to preview it. According to John Rennie at Scientific American

No one could have been more surprised than I when the producers called, unbidden, offering Scientific American's editors a private screening. Given that our magazine's positions on evolution and intelligent design (ID) creationism reflect those of the scientific mainstream (that is, evolution: good science; ID: not science), you have to wonder why they would bother. It's not as though anything in Expelled would have been likely to change our views. And they can't have been looking for a critique of the science in the movie, because there isn't much to speak of.

Rather, it seems a safe bet that the producers hope a whipping from us would be useful for publicity: further proof that any mention of ID outrages the close-minded establishment. (Picture Ben Stein as Jack Nicholson, shouting, "You can't handle the truth!") Knowing this, we could simply ignore the movie—which might also suit their purposes, come to think of it.

A quick look at the Expelled website shows Rennie has pegged their motivation. Headlines show a particular taunting of Dawkins, not even worth looking into. You can guess what's there.

Wouldn't you think that a movie that is all about how Intelligent Design isn't being given its props as a science might try to spend a little time trying to establish its own scientific underpinnings? You and I might. I don't understand why Stein doesn't. It's as if he has a stake in the dumbing down of America.

Alonzo Fyfe, who writes the blog "The Atheist Ethicist" begins his open letter of critique to Stein of the movie (which he acknowledges not to have seen) this way:

I want to begin by pointing that your legacy, as a result of your work on this particular project, will be the suffering and early death of countless people who otherwise could have been saved or benefited from advances in science.

No punches pulled there.

Fyfe offers up such a simple rebuttal to the nonsense that intelligent design has to be accepted as science in our schools and colleges:

I am going to have to say something about the nature of science to demonstrate this point. Science is involved in explaining and predicting real-world events. This includes real-world events that cause real-world death and suffering. The better we are at understanding the real world, the better we will be at avoiding the death and suffering that nature would otherwise inflict on us.

Science does this by comparing theories. Theory A predicts that under conditions C, that R will result. Theory B predicts that under conditions C, S will result. Scientists then set up or observe conditions C, and see if they detect R or S. If they detect R, they go with theory A. If they detect S, they go with Theory B. [snip]

Now, please, try for me to put the concept of intelligent design into the description that I wrote above about how to compare scientific theories. Come up with a condition C, and a result R1 or R2, that will tell us whether or not to accept Theory A or Theory B, where Theory B is intelligent design.

You will fail.

No scientist has yet been able to present a “Theory B” that includes a God variable that produces more accurate results under Conditions C than any comparable theory that lacks a God variable.

If it seems that Fyfe is over-the-top in saying that Stein's Expelled will lead to human suffering consider that one of Stein's claims in the movie is that 'Darwinism' led to the Holocaust!

The movie claims to show several Americans who have been persecuted for trying to bring about an open and honest debate between intelligent design and evolution. The problem is that in each case major parts of the victims case are left out.

Rennie describes the situation of one such victim:

Expelled then trots out some of the people whom it claims have been persecuted by the Darwinist establishment. First among them is Richard Sternberg*, former editor of the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, who published an article on ID by Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute. Sternberg tells Stein that he subsequently lost his editorship, his old position at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and his original office. Looking a bit smug in his self-martyrdom, Sternberg also reports that a colleague compared him with an "intellectual terrorist."

What most viewers of Expelled may not realize—because the film doesn't even hint at it—is that Sternberg's case is not quite what it sounds. Biologists criticized Sternberg's choice to publish the paper not only because it supported ID but also because Sternberg approved it by himself rather than sending it out for independent expert review. He didn't lose his editorship; he published the paper in what was already scheduled to be his last issue as editor. He didn't lose his job at the Smithsonian; his appointment there as an unpaid research associate had a limited term, and when it was over he was given a new one. His office move was scheduled before the paper ever appeared.

Michael Schermer who is the publisher of Skeptic and who is interviewed for the movie says that the film opens with Stein giving a lecture to a group of enthusiastic Pepperdine students who adoringly approve of his anti-evolutionary jeremiad. Problem: those students presented on the film are extras. The film production company paid for the use of the auditorium and filled it with paid shills. A provost at the university estimates that there may have been three or four actual students in attendance.


Shermer's article describes what it was like to be interviewed for this movie. I don't need to go into it. You can guess that it involved being duped. I would encourage you to read it.



Back to our jack-off theory of the origin of the cosmos: If Stein is really interested in promoting the idea that God created the universe maybe we should press him to explain why, with thousands and thousands of creation theories to choose from, we can't accept the early Egyptians as true science. It melds much more closely with actual scientific theory than the story that goes 'And God said...'.

Just wondering.

P.S. for a beautiful take on the cosmos by my favorite mathmetician head over to mattyboy's ponderance of the galaxies

UPDATE: PZ Meyers at Pharyngula has asked that bloggers post a link to the site that is devoted to debunking the movie so that it moves up in technorati and google authoritay. Here is that link . Click away like you're Atum creating the universe, my friends!

Calling Bullshit on Bitter

By now you've heard:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not."

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

And though he's responded and though this has been a theme of Barack's: the divisive anger bitterness and fear that the republicans spoon out like fake potatoes in the school lunch line; Hillary has gone to full pearl clutching mode over Barack Obama's 'elitism'.

Bullshit, Ms. Wellesley College. Can she get more republican than she has over the last few weeks? How are you going to run against John McCain by becoming John McCain? Rumors are that she's already calling Bill a 'cunt'. Okay, I made that up just to keep my cuss meter rating high. But really.

Here's your response to Obama's statement:

For the last eight years we've been given a steady diet of fear, fear, fear. And when people are afraid they grab for the things that make them feel safe. For some that is religion, for some that is guns. I say get rid of the fear, keep the religion and yes, keep the guns. But this country divided against itself, divided against those who look different or worship different cannot stand.

I Can't Tell the Snark from the Real Anymore

I was reading the Rude Pundit yesterday when I came across this quote that I thought only the Rude would have the balls to make up:

"This time Gen. Petraeus returns to Washington having led one of the most remarkably successful military operations in American history."

But have you seen who really said it? Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. Honest to pete they really did. And then the Wall Street Journal published it with a straight face.

So, I guess suck it Jimmy Doolittle, or for that matter anyone who survived the Normandy Invasion.

I'm off to google the word "hyperbole".

John Asscroft Can't Say "Obama"

John Asscroft former AG (the one who didn't love torture as much those who came after him, and who saved his special ire for titties on statues - remember?) "accidently" called Barack Obama "Osama". Then he said we all make little slips like that.

We sure do, Asscroft.

BTW, whoever he was speaking to soundly booed him for being such an...ass.

You can watch it. Warning: this video contains scenes of John Asscroft. Who's better off forgotten.

In case you want to check out Senator oBama's floor statement on the Patriot Act Reauthorization bill you can look at it here. Lest you forget that oBama wasn't in the Senate when the first Patriot Act was pASSed.

What I like about Spring Break

Well, today is the last day of spring break for my kids. First grade and preschool. Thank goodness they give the preschoolers a little spring break, what with all the stress of not having potty accidents at school, of bringing acceptable yet mildly healthy snacks that dodge the thirty-eight allergy criteria, of finding your special square on the group rug. I think she's looking well rested and ready to return to the rat race.

It just dawned on me that what I like about spring break is that I have had zero contact with any other parents for two full weeks. DCup is my icon, my moral compass in the navigational sea chart of dealing with other parents. Her attitude, I believe, is to mostly avoid other parents if at all possible.

I am on the board of directors at my daughter's preschool with an UberMom (not Milf - there can be only one!). Her daughter also has ballet with my daughter so we spend a good deal of time around each other.

Once we had a chat about discussing politics with people you don't know that well. I said that personally, I am a very political person but I NEVER begin a political conversation with anyone. I am frequently engaged in political conversations by other people who know my leanings and I don't really mind that. (Essentially, I would never sit in an airport lobby and tell whoever was seating nearby that George W. Bush is a dry drunk delusional poop stain and that Dick Cheney is evil incarnate, even if 78% of the country now agrees with me.)

She said that she felt the same, but then gave up the ghost on her own leanings when she told me that a co-worker of hers was acting downright silly the day after Bush was given a second term. 'I mean, really,' she said. 'That lady thought the world would go to hell in a handbasket'. I wanted to say 'hasn't it?' but I did not.

Then one day we were talking about enrollment at our children's elementary schools. She was complaining about having to check the box that indicates her children's race. "Why do they have to know that?" she wondered. I said that it helps in a myriad of ways, particularly now that we have NCLB and so on. I did not mention that my children are enrolled as hispanic, easily forgettable since I am as pasty white as they come. Her daughter's school has about five non-caucasian non-christian children. My daughter's school (same school district) is about 40% minority.

Then she launched into a racist screed. I won't even go into details here, it was just banal, empty-headed, they are not like us thinking. I felt like the top of my head was going to roll back like a sardine can and my brain would just plop out. The things she was saying were not quite overt. Think of the scene between Mame and the Upsons in the film 'Auntie Mame' and you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge, nudge.

You know what the problem is? I must not look liberal enough. If any of you have some cast-off hippy togs (preferably that reek of pot smoke, hemp and patchouli) send them my way. I might need to knit up a Cesar Chavez handbag. I could use a Kucinich pin if anyone has one of those.

Hurry though, the next dance class is Tuesday.

Alert the "Bong Hits for Jesus" Kid

This is about legislation in Oklahoma. Good luck getting into good colleges, young Okies. (And by "Good" I do not mean Bob Jones or Liberty.)

From the Edmond Sun:

The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student’s religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student’s incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.

The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student’s belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct. Science education becomes absurd under such a situation.

There is something seriously wrong here

Now if you watch this and don't get what the problem is, let me slightly revise the dialogue:

“You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Jew?” Kroft asked Sen. Clinton.

“Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that. I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that,” she replied.

“You said you'd take Senator Obama at his word that he's not…a Jew. You don't believe that he's…,” Kroft said.

“No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know,” she said.

Makes my skin crawl. For the record, Kroft's sort of smarmy sneer at the word 'muslim' is probably the worst moment for me. Hillary Clinton, if she were Bill Clinton, would've given Kroft the smack down for incipient bigotry. Rather she plays into it.

Why Can't Republicans Get Behind Anyone

Until they've become a victim?



There's a sickness with these people.

(Actually, Pensito Review has a good bunch of theorizin' as to whose "Mitts" are all over this story.)

Not Making This Up:

Count Rush Limbaugh among the voters confused by Palm Beach County’s touch-screen machines.

"On his syndicated talk show this afternoon, Limbaugh said he was trying to vote in today’s primary when the screen seemed to freeze or “stick” on the list of presidential candidates.

“I hit ‘Next’ and it didn’t go there,” said Limbaugh, who lives in Palm Beach and often recounts the county’s electoral foibles on his show.

Then he hit the “Back” button and “got my candidate page again with the vote already recorded there. So I said ‘hmmmmm, I wonder if this is going to count twice.”

So he unclicked his favored candidate, clicked that candidate again and hit “Next” a second time - and it worked.

“I don’t know if I voted twice,” he said. “Probably not.”"

via Buzzflash and Bradblog. Photo credit About.com

Well, that backfired. In Florida only poor people, black people, old liberal jewish people and democrats should have slight difficulties voting. And even that is made up because they're all so whiny.

He's a Moran. But you knew that

There's a petition. But be careful, if you sign it O'Reilly might come to your home and stick a camera up your nose.

The Cheerleaders are always with us

From John Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley"

While I was still in Texas late in 1960 , the incident most reported and pictured in the newspapers was the matriculation of a couple of tiny Negro children in a New Orleans school. Behind these small dark mites were the law's majesty and the law's power to enforce--both the scales and the sword were allied with the infants--while against them were three hundred years of fear and anger and terror of change in a changing world. I had seen photographs in the papers every day and motion pictures on the television screen. What made the newsmen love the story was a group of stout middle-aged women who, by some curious definition of the word "mother," gathered every day to scream invectives at children. Further, a small group of them had become so expert that they were known as the Cheerleaders, and a crowd gathered every day to enjoy and to applaud their performance.

Last week I mentioned that I heard a brief snippet on Bill O'Reilly's radio program of a frightened woman asking O'Reilly if it were true that Barack Obama is a muslim who insisted on being sworn into the senate on a Koran.

The very next day I received an e-mail from a woman who is the wife of one of my husband's high school friends. I'll post the entire e-mail in comments. I'm guessing that it was the radio woman's source for her Obama misinformation, since it not only contains the Koran/swearing in nugget, but claims that Obama refuses to say the pledge of allegiance and turns his back to the flag and slouches when it is being said in his presence.

It ends like this

"The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!!
----Remember he only move [sic] to this country three years ago. It is scary. Who is funding his campaign? Who is pushing to get him in!!
How did he rise so high in 3 years?"

I was really angry after I read the entire e-mail. I thought of about eight different ways to respond to the e-mail. The first three started with 'fuck you, moron'. Instead, I put it away for a few days. Yesterday I wrote my answer. Here it is:

Snopes.com has a decent rebuttal of the claims made in this e-mail. You can read it here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

Without even going to Snopes for clarification, I should think a few glaring errors would have shown this e-mail to be highly flawed, such as the declaration that Obama has only been in the US for only 3 years, or that a United States' senator would refuse to say the pledge of allegiance.

I am saddened that this piece of bigoted misinformation is making the rounds. I respect anyone's right to make an informed choice about candidates-preferably based on their stand on the issues. But this hatchet piece reeks of the same kind of religious hatred used against John F. Kennedy in 1960.

The tenor of anti-muslim hatred in this country is fast approaching the German hatred for the Jews in the 1930s. I would like to think that if I were a German living then I'd have spoken up per the words of Reverend Neimoller who said
"First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me." Well, as an American in the new millenium, I will speak up for the muslims. This e-mail is just wrong.

I would like to point out that much of the misinformation printed here came from a piece in the Washington Times - owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, just so you know your sources.

In the mean time, Mike Huckabee was hosted yesterday by a southern baptist minister who wrote the following:

"I'm going to submit to you that as believers in Christ Jesus, we are not even of America," Wilton said. "We march according to a different drumbeat. Ours is not the Constitution of America; ours is the constitution of the Almighty God."

http://www.biblicalrecorder.org/content/news/2006/06_14_2006/ne140606sc.shtml

That frightens me a whole lot more than a Harvard Law graduate community activist member of the United Church of Christ (Obama) running the country. That is a christian saying that christians are above the constitution. I imagine that if those words were uttered by a muslim you'd realize how frightening they are to those of us who aren't christian.

I tried to send my e-mail to everyone this woman had sent it to, but my e-mail editor doesn't allow me to do a batch mailing unless I set it up putting everyone in my address book. I would do it, but you can't change idiots with such complicated devices as the facts. I'm afraid I would be wasting my time.

If you get this e-mail and you would like to reply, feel free to use mine. And thank you internet lords for Snopes.

Bass Practice

Jesus sent me this video. We're like, total im bff's.