Near Outer Heaven

KoL Item Entry

2006-08-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

Since the full description of this item runs quite a few pages, I've opted to post it here and link to it. I won't get into all the references here, but I'll answer questions about them.

Deck of Some Various Things - The player may draw three cards per day, randomly selected from the below (Exception: The Lucky Man).

The Luchador - Gain Muscle subpoints
The Psychic - Gain Mysticality subpoints
The Hipster - Gain Moxie subpoints
The Slasher - Gain Meat
The Addled Sysadmin - 15 adventures of a random buff
The Grinning Bear - Increases familiar experience
The Invisible Man - Creates useless powder
The Obvious Man - Creates worthless trinkets
The Unpleasant Doctor - Heals HP/MP
The Football Hooligan - 3 adventurs of Beaten Up
The Moocher - Lose Meat
The Men in Black - Lose 2-4 Adventures
The Strange Artist - Gain 2-4 Adventures
The Party Animals - Gain 3 drunkenness
The Dancing Fool - Lose main stat subpoints and must draw again
The Pink Elephant - Gain a random base booze
The Ur-Hippy - 15 adventurers of a random hippy buff
The Wizard of Yendor - Forces a random adventure
The Zinc Saucier - 5 adventurers of a random hi mein buff
The Daysleeper - Removes all effects
The RNG - Gain a barbed-wire fence
The Lucky Man - Choose any effect (10-leaf clover)

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You draw the LUCHADOR. A well-muscled man in a red-and-blue mask leers out at you.

Looking up, you find yourself surrounded by masked wrestlers. You manage to blurt out "Can I help y..." before one of them leaps off a nearby turnbuckle and lands on you. Seconds later, the rest pile on, fighting each other to see who gets the honor of beating you down.

After a few minutes, you struggle free from the pile, sneaking away without any of them realizing that you'd gone. (And imagine, you thought that only worked on TV!) You'll be sore in the morning, but it was quite a workout.

*Player gains level-dependent Muscle subpoints.

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You draw the PSYCHIC. A mystical-looking man with a crystal ball adorns this card.

Looking up, you find yourself standing before an unassuming man in a dark sweater. "I sense that you've lost someone dear to you," says the man.

"Not really," you reply. "Now get out of my way, you phony."

Enraged, he challenges you to a psychic thumb-wrestling match. Not only do you beat him, but you proceed to delight the audience by bending every spoon and key in the room. Magic, baby.

*Player gains level-dependent Mysticality subpoints.

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You draw the HIPSTER. The card shows a man with a goatee and really tiny glasses.

Looking up, you see the man depicted on the card. "The Seal Clubbers are fine, if you go for sellouts," he says in a snobbish tone. "But everyone with taste listens to Labratories of Knobgoblyna."

You have no idea what this idiot is talking about, but you play along. "Oh yeah, Labratories of Knobgoblyna are great...if you're a Philistine who hasn't heard River of Marmalade."

The hipster, taken aback, runs off to find out about Riven of Marmalade, not knowing that you made the name up on the spot. Stupid snob.

*Player gains level-dependent Moxie subpoints.

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You draw the SLASHER. The card depicts a masked maniac with a big knife.

Suddenly, you hear squeaky laughter and the sound of a meat-powered chainsaw revving up behind you. You twist around and scream in terror, watching as the horrible weapon draws nearer to your flesh...

...When it runs out of meat. The maniac runs off crying, dropping a bloody sack. You scrounge around in the sack, retrieving some meat. Score!

*Gain 400-500 meat.

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You draw the ADDLED SYSADMIN. The guy on this card looks awfully familiar...

Suddenly, you hear a voice in your head: "Yeah, there have been some...problems with the database. Um...sorry about that. Let me make it up to you somehow."

You have no idea what just happened, but...funny, you feel more powerful.

*15 Adventures of a random buff.

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You draw the GRINNING BEAR. At least that's what the creator of the deck called it - to you, it looks more like a horrible sphere with fangs and eyes.

You drop the card, and the creature springs into existence with a fanfare of alternative rock. It snarls and runs about, looking creepy and hyper at the same time.

After a minute, you get tired of its antics. $familiarname grabs the "bear" and swallows it whole. (Yes, even if it didn't have a mouth. Don't ask) $familiarname seems quite satisfied with him/her/itself, and it seems a bit larger as well.

*Current familiar gains 10 XP.

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You draw the INVISIBLE MAN. Or, as we laymen call it, a blank card.

Oddly, nothing happens when you draw this card. You say some magic words and fire a pistol in the air, hoping that maybe it will activate the card, but nothing happens. Apparently, it really is just a blank card.

A few seconds later, the card crumbles into powder. That's...that's great.

*Gain 5-10 piles of useless powder.

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You draw the OBVIOUS MAN. One side of this card is solid black. Huh.

The card vanishes, and a few seconds later a man wearing a garish suit and carrying a boombox walks up to you. "I'm standing right here," he says.

"I see that," you reply.

"These are actually useful," says the man over his shoulder. Before you ask him what he means, you realize some items have appeared at your feet.

*Gain 3-5 Worthless Trinkets.

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You draw the UNPLEASANT DOCTOR. It depicts a really sickly-looking man with several days' worth of stubble.

Looking to your left, you see that the man is sitting next to you. "So, you're a doctor?" you ask. "Could you fix me up?"

The man swallows a handful of pills and sneers up at you. "Oh, what? You think a highly educated doctor like myself should waste my time bandaging you up when there are lives to save? Sure pal. I'll 'fix you up' just as soon as you stop being an idiot."

Infuriated, you beat the daylights out of the "doctor" and take his medicine bag. After sifting through dozens of half-empty bottles of pain killers, you find some gauze and medical tape and do a little self-repair.

*Restores 40-50 HP and MP.

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You draw the FOOTBALL HOOLIGAN. The card features an angry-looking bald man with bruises.

As you look at the card, the hooligan springs to life and begins shouting at you. "Whu'r yhu don e mah fayze, yeh manky shulva-bulva?"

You scratch your head as you try to deduce what the hooligan said. You're about to ask him to repeat himself when he gives you a Glasgow Kiss. It's easily the second-most unpleasant kiss you've ever had.

*3 adventurers of Beaten Up.

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You draw the MOOCHER. The card is covered with drawings of outstretched hands.

You hear a door slam behind you and catch a glimpse of a tall, lanky gnoll walking into your campground. Entering the campground, you see the gnoll with his head in your refridgerator. (You didn't know you had a refridgerator?) You pull him away from the fridge, but he still won't leave. Reaching into your pouch, you produce a few slabs of meat and pay him off.

Hold on, did you just bribe someone to leave your own campground? Damn.

*Lose 100-150 meat.

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You draw the MEN IN BLACK. An ominous eye looks back from the surface of the card. There's also a word on the edge of the card, in very small letters...F...N...

Before you can finish reading it, two men in dark suits appear before you. One grabs the card, the other flashes a red light in your face.

...Odd, it feels later now. Didn't you draw a card? Hmm.

*Lose 2-4 adventures.

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You draw the STRANGE ARTIST. This card features an artistic depiction of a young man. As you observe it, you hear a bloodcurdling scream. What?

Looking up, you see an artist. "Oh, don't mind that," he says. "That was just a previous subject who didn't follow my directions. Say, would you like me to draw you? Free of charge."

Never one to turn down something free, you strike a pose. A few minutes later, he produces a card which you assume has your drawing on it. However, he shoves it back into the deck before you can see it.

Well, that was rude. Strange...you feel younger.

*Gain 2-4 adventures.

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You draw the PARTY ANIMALS. This card bears the image and recipe of a tasty cocktail.

As you stare at the delicious drink, you feel a dream-like state come over you. Standing before you are a moose, a giraffe, a black bear and a chimpanzee. All four of them are dancing and drinking martinis. The chimp (who is particularly drunk) yells, "Come party with us!"

The pun hits you like a ton of bricks. You realize that you need alcohol to make sense of the situation. You have a seat at the ethereal bar and down cocktail after cocktail. Before long, you're dancing with the other critters, having the time of your life.

The next thing you know, you're lying on the ground, back in reality. I guess that ghostly liquor affects you more than you thought.

*Gain 3 drunkenness.

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You draw the DANCING FOOL. The card depicts a Disco Bandit wannabe, trying (and failing) to steal the funk.

Magically, the image on the card begins to dance (if that's what you want to call it). It's...eugh. You feel yourself growing (nauseous/dumber/more square).
Subconsciously, you feel your hand drift to the Deck. Before you regain your senses, you see that you've drawn another card...

*Lose level-dependant substats to your main stat. You automatically draw another card, which does not count against your daily limit.

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You draw the PINK ELEPHANT. This card seems to have been hastily illustrated by someone who was, in all likelihood, drunk at the time.

You catch a flash of color out of the corner of your eye. Wait, could it be...? It's Pinky! You wave hello to him as he sails over your head.

The great elephant winks as he leaves your sight. In his wake, you can see a bubble drifting slowly towards the ground. It pops at your feet, revealing a present!

*Gain a random base booze (bottle of whiskey/vodka/tequilla/rum/gin/boxed wine).

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You draw the UR-HIPPY. It looks like a regular hippy, only it's surrounded by Mother Earth's glowing radiance rather than a cloud of stench.

Looking up, you see a flash of light as the Ur-Hippy appears before you, hovering in midair. "Whoa! It's an adventurer. Like, wow. You look like you're in need of enlightenment, man. Come with me - I'll take to another dimension."

The Ur-Hippy touches you on the shoulder and you are transported via a beam of light to Sahn Frahn Siz Coe, the Outer Plane of Mellowness. You meditate there for a while before departing.

You return to the Kingdom feeling at ease and...funny. Like ha ha funny. Hee hee...

*Gain 15 adventures of a random "hippy buff" (Sleepy, Confused, Embarassed)

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You draw the WIZARD OF YENDOR. It features a copyright symbol - you know, that symbol that's like an "a" inside a circle which...wait, what?

Looking up, you see the Wizard standing (Floating? Dangling?) before you. "Fool!" he bellows. "Did you really think...hold on, what the hell are you?"

You look him straight in the eye (you think) and strike your best Sergio Leone stance. "There's only room for one graphics-light RPG on this network," you mutter. "Now draw!"

"Oh, please!" replies the Wizard. With a flick of his finger (Toe? Tendril?), he sends you hurdling to another part of the Kingdom...

*Forces an adventure in a random area (as with Teleportitis).

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You draw the ZINC SAUCIER. A tiny saucer of an odd-looking substance adorns the front of the card.

The saucer is so realistic that you feel like you could hold it in your hand - so you do. Huh, that's some weird looking sauce...

Without warning, the sauce leaps from the saucer and into your mouth. Gack! Huh! Eugh!

Actually, it doesn't taste that bad. Still, it'll make your breath smell funny for a while.

*5 adventures of a random hi mein buff (hot/cold/stinky/spooky/sleazy breath).

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You draw the DAYSLEEPER. An illustration of a man in headache grey gazes up from the card.

As you stare at the card, you have a vision. Great skyscrapers appear all around you, stretching as high as you can see. Suddenly, one of them grows a face, leans over and swallows you. Next thing you know, you're sitting in a colorless building, with sad-looking people running about at impossible speeds.

You're not sure what to do, so you do nothing for a few hours. Eventually, a whistle sounds and you snap out of the vision. You feel more boring for having lived through that.

*Removes all non-intrinsic effects.

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You draw the RNG. Hey! It's ASCII art.

When you look up, you find yourself sitting in a dimly-lit room opposite an unassuming man in conservative business casual dress. Funny, you always pictured him with acid-dripping fangs and big bat wings.

"I've called you here to answer a few questions," says the man. It seems he's interviewing you. "Why does everyone hate me so much? I'm just doing my job. I don't TRY to screw people over, it just happens sometimes. What's wrong with that?"

"Well, it's not really you per se, it's the quests," you reply. "Like the Mad Cow. Do you know how much it sucks to be on a really good Hardcore run and hit that thing?"

"I don't know anything about that!" says the RNG. "I just come up with numbers. Hell, you want a barbed-wire fence? Take one, I've got loads of them!"

Well, that was easy.

*Gain a barbed-wire fence.

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You catch a whiff of burning clover as you draw the LUCKY MAN. That guy's holding your ten-leaf clover. Hey - that's your brother! Oh, wait...no it's not. Never mind.

It looks like this card can do pretty much whatever you want. So, what do you want?

*Becomes the card of the drawer's choice.

Sayonara

2004-08-04T15:02:00.000-06:00

I've been officially inducted into the Political Strategy family. From now on, I will be doing my blogging there (under my real name, Drew Johnston).

That leaves the question of the fate of this site. I've been thinking about keeping it. Why? Well, the name is kickass, for one. Also, I won't be posting as frequently at Political Strategy as I did here. They have some posting rules, one of which is that we don't just post stories and call that blogging (AKA the Glenn Reynolds method). So I'll only be writing about the most important and/or ridiculous stories that I find. I admit that in the past I've indulged in my fair share of Instablogging, something I won't be doing any more.

Getting to the point: I've had a few ideas for this site. Stay tuned . . .

Little Blogger In The Big City

2004-07-21T08:16:00.000-06:00

Will be blogging on Political Strategy until next Wednesday. In all likelihood, nothing will be posted here during that time. Go to that site and check out Drew's posts.

Respectfully Yours

2004-07-20T20:53:00.000-06:00

The image of the moment:

Ah, sweet maturity.

Things I Think About

2004-07-20T10:50:00.000-06:00

Why is it that the right-wing moralizers seem to associate enjoyment of sex with "uncontrolable animalistic behavior"? Is non-procreative intercourse really so awful? Obviously AIDS is a problem, but is wagging your finger at people and telling them "Don't do it!" really the solution?

I hate to fling around Orwellian references, but it does occur to me that the "absolutely abstinence only" crowd seems to have some similarities to the "Junior Anti-Sex League" from 1984.

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After a reporter for the Chicago Times erroneously referred to Instapundit as a liberal blog, Glenn responded thusly: "Some readers are amused at seeing InstaPundit called "liberal," when so many journalists have called it "conservative." One's just about as accurate as the other, I'd say." Excuse me? If Glenn isn't a conservative, just what is he? More importantly, if Glenn isn't a conservative, who is?

Why is it that so many high-profile conservatives deny their own affiliation? Our most visible celebrities and pundits (Michael Moore, Al Franken, etc.) are more than willing to identify themselves as liberals. So why won't Bill O'Reilly admit to being a conservative? Do these people think by pretending to be independent (or liberal, in Mickey Kaus's case) they gain some journalistic superiority? It just offends me more. In fact, I think that if Roger Ailes would just admit that Fox News has a right-wing tilt and drop that "Fair and Balanced" BS, I wouldn't be so pissed off with them.

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I watched part of "The Grid" last night because the advertising made it look like it little more than propaganda. As it turns out, that's not true; it's just really, really boring. Two things that aren't entertaining: boardroom meeting sequences and keeping a list to remember the names of the 10,000 main characters. Also, one word of advice - having Middle Eastern characters switch back and forth between English and Arabic isn't clever. It's annoying.

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I think the GOP needs to have a press conference or issue a memorandum on just what exactly counts as obscene language. I'm somewhat confused.

Governor calls a reporter an "asshole" on national TV when he thinks his mike is off: not obscene

Senator says "the F-word" in a Rolling Stone interview: obscene

Vice Prez tells a senator to "f--- off": not obscene

Dennis Miller swears and generally acts like an ass at an event: never, ever obscene

Margaret Cho makes repeated use of profanity at a fundraiser: obscene enough to warrant a flood of racist e-mails

Whoopi Goldberg makes a joke about Bush's name at an event: obscene enough to warrant an apology

I need some clarification.

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This has been a trip through my scattered thoughts. Thank you.

The "W" Stands For "Washington"

2004-07-19T08:57:00.000-06:00

You probably don't pay too much attention to that banner at the top of my page. I'd suggest you do. For the non-bloggers among you, let me explain: in order to run this blog for free, I submit to having that banner placed on my site. The Blogger computers read my site and place ads on that banner that conform to the material I publish. However, because computers are responsible for those ads and not human beings, the ads aren't always spot-on. For instance, if I mention Bill O'Reilly, I might end up with a link leading to the Conservative Book Club, which carries O'Reilly's book. The ads are usually political, but they are also pretty bipartisan.

Why am I prattling on about this, you may be asking yourself? While I was checking the site (which I do after every post so I know that I haven't screwed something up, which I have done), I noticed this site being advertised on my banner. I followed the link, and here's what I found:

You don’t support Democrats.
Why should your ketchup?

W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA.

A portion of every sale is donated to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for the children of active duty service members killed in the line of duty.

W Ketchup is America’s Ketchup™

Yep.

So, is there anything else we need to know about "W"?

W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA.

The leading competitor not only has 57 varieties, but has 57 foreign factories as well. W Ketchup comes in one flavor: American.

In side-by-side taste tests of five leading brands, we found that W Ketchup is second to none. You'll never go back to Heinz again!

The taste of America, complete with such unique ingredients as: Tomato Concentrate (Water and Tomato Paste), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Vinegar, Salt, Dehydrated Onion, Spice and Natural Flavoring. Wow

Choose Heinz and you're supporting Teresa Heinz and her liberal causes, such as Kerry for President.

Choose W Ketchup and you support the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to the children of our brave heroes who have fallen in battle.

Choose George "W" Bush and you support policies that have resulted in cutting back pay and benefits for our brave heroes, including schools for their children. Word.

UPDATE: I thought that "57 factories" canard sounded a bit familiar, so I hit Snopes:

Heinz is a U.S.-based global business which sells its products in dozens of other countries, and like other food companies it has to localize some of its production at factories located in its foreign market areas. (It makes little sense from either an economic or a freshness standpoint to be shipping fruits and vegetables and/or finished food products halfway around the world rather than producing them locally.) One wouldn't expect, for example, every can and bottle of Coca-Cola sold anywhere in the world — whether it be Australia, China, or Portugal — to be produced by U.S. bottlers.)

Varmints

2004-07-19T08:40:00.000-06:00

Mike S. Adams writes a lot of columns. Perhaps I should clarify that - he produces a lot of columns. Lately, his columns have been comprised mostly of "letters" he "received" (except, of course, the "Too Hot for TownHall" bit he did on his own site). Today, however . . . was not much different. Instead of discussing, you know, politics, today's piece was on the joy of buying guns:

Ruger 10/22 rifle-This was not the first gun I bought, but it should have been. The .22 is cheap and fun to shoot. There is nothing more fun than picking up an economy pack of 550 Federal hollow points (for less than $10 at Wal-mart) on a boring Saturday afternoon. But beware: you can empty the whole carton in less than half a day, if you get carried away. Also, if you know a really strident anti-gun liberal, see if you can get him to fire a few rounds through your 10/22. If you can, chances are he’ll be voting Republican by the end of the year.

Remington 870 Express shotgun-This is another fun gun to shoot and it is versatile. I bought my first 870 with an 18-inch open choke barrel for home defense. My second 870 came with a 26-inch barrel and a modified choke, good for varmint hunting and well-suited to deliver buckshot. The 870 can also be purchased with a 20-inch fully rifled slug barrel for deer hunting. Whichever version you purchase, extra barrels can also be bought, ready for quick interchange. It should only take a novice about 30 seconds to change barrels. Needless to say, I recommend this gun in 12-gauge.

Yes, that really is from his column. At least he's not a red mister.

Let's skip to the bottom:

Well, thanks for listening to my opinions. I have to go read the hundreds of emails from hunters and gun owners who have different ideas about brands, calibers, and ammunition. I also have to read all of my hate mail from PETA. There’s nothing quite like a little Second Amendment diversity.

So, to wrap up, here's what Mike is looking for (remember, his e-mail is adams_mike@hotmail.com):

1. Pornography
2. People calling him an "@$$hole" to give him an excuse to buy more guns
3. People who disagree with him on his gun selections (hey, he needs material for his next column!)
4. PETA people

Feel free to contribute.

Elevating The Public Discourse

2004-07-19T08:23:00.000-06:00

Right now:

A bumper sticker being circulated in Louisville that reads "Kerry is bin Laden's Man/Bush is Mine" was applauded by a Republican leader yesterday but decried by Democrats.
Jack Richardson IV, chairman of the Jefferson County GOP, said he didn't know the bumper sticker's origins, but agreed with its message.
"If bin Laden could vote based on Kerry's voting record in the Senate -- where he has decimated our national security and defense -- is there anybody that can honestly say bin Laden wouldn't prefer Kerry over Bush? Of course he would," Richardson said in a telephone interview.

March 18:

The statement tells American voters that Abu Hafs al-Masri supports the re-election campaign of President Bush: "We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections."
The statement said Abu Hafs al-Masri needs what it called Bush's "idiocy and religious fanaticism" because they would "wake up" the Islamic world.

Discuss.

Ten Habits Of Highly Effective Lunatics

2004-07-18T08:07:00.000-06:00

It's Sunday, and that means it's time for Douggie Giles's weekly sermon. This week, the Dougster found a topic so expansive he had to do it as a two-parter. That's right: politics.

Let's get the ridiculous analogies out of the way first:

. . .so we don't end up knocking on the pearly gates castrated, in a Star Trek uniform wearing Nikes and asking where the hell the Hale-Bop comet went.

. . .eternally roasting on Dante's Viking Grill.

. . .dole out clichés like an over-medicated Oprah Winfrey[.]

Now, to Doug's thesis. It's a big list of religous politics, of which only the first three entries are shown this week. (He didn't even do a ClashPoint! *shudder*) Number the first:

If you purport to be a man of "the cloth", then your regard for God and his opinion must trump the trepidation of the creature he created from spit and mud. Come on, man of God . . . don't fear us. We're ants with cell phones who'll shoot Botox into our foreheads. We're friggin' weird and fickle weather vanes of the modern media. Lead us . . . don't just follow us!

So, number one is: laws of God trump laws of man. In context, it's basically a call for preachers to talk about politics instead of issues of faith. Of course, if they do that then they'll have their tax-exempt status revoked, but my guess is that Doug doesn't want them to pay taxes either. I'd suggest that preachers discuss this with the congregation, because my guess is that most people don't want to get killed or arrested because their pastor had an ego trip.

Number the second:

Most people are not bold in areas where they are ignorant ... always excepting Michael Moore, of course. I know keeping up with all the pressing political issues is maddening but that's life, Dinky, and if you want to be a voice in society and not an echo, you have got to be in the know. Staying briefed, running each political issue through the gauntlet of the scripture and determining God's mind on a certain subject is par for the course, for the hardy world changer. It's the information age. Get informed and watch your boldness increase.

Number two: be informed (read: check everything against the Bible). My only question is how Doug would handle situations in which the Bible seems to contradict itself. For instance, death is mandated for adultery in the old testament (Lev. 20:10), but in the new testament, Jesus stops a mob from slaying an adulteress (John 8:3-11). I wonder how Doug would handle something like this? My guess is that he'd support the death penalty for adulterers, because based on his previous columns, he apparently doesn't think that the teachings of Christ are all that important to Christianity.

All I can say is that I'd find his beliefs more palatable if he was consistent enough to call Red Lobster on their abominable sins.

Number the third:

I hate the current non-essential divisions in the church as much as the next acerbic Christian columnist. Squabblin’ over the color of the carpet, who’ll play the organ next Sunday or who the Beast of Revelation is? Puhleese!

Number three: The Church shouldn't be divided. Normally when someone refers to the division of the Church, they are talking about Protestants vs. Catholics, or Old Vatican vs. New Vatican, or any of the factions of the Protestant church. In this case, it sounds like Doug didn't like the choice of carpet the congregation chose for the Children's Church room. Don't worry Doug: next time, you'll get your way.

That's Doug for this week. Next time, he'll have the last seven rules for pastoral politics. As we conclude, I'll take a half-assed stab at guessing what they will be:

4. Return to Basics. Recapture the spirit of the wild man. See if you can survive in the wilds of the cities of Texas, like Doug did.

5. Stop praying for peace. Start throwing around imprecatory prayers. Pray that John Kerry gets inoperable cancer and that John Edwards dies in a tragic street sweeper accident.

6. Put a leash on your church women. If 1 Corinthians was followed and women were made to know their place, we wouldn't have to worry about all those lesbos telling kids that women are equal to men when they clearly aren't.

7. Form groups to watch mosques and deal out righteous punishment if those Islamicists step out of line. After all the Koran is a violent book - I've never read it, but Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter assure me that it's horrible.

8. Spice up your sermons with nonsensical and over-extended idioms, metaphors and similes. Let's face it: the only reason people read my column is to see how I've managed to mangle pop culture this week.

9. Forget all that garbage about 'love' and 'compassion'. The Old Testament wasn't a book of love! And if you must preach about that one guy who's name escapes me, point out that he was a real manslayer Himself. Pat Robertson told me that.

10. Ten? Geez, this list is longer than Pinnochio's nose would be if we put W's brain in it and shot it full of cocaine.

Blogination

2004-07-16T22:19:00.000-06:00

Starting Wednesday, I'll be competing with fifteen other bloggers for a writing position at Political Strategy. Check out the site next week and see if you can guess which one is me.

Non-Political Friday - Spamination Edition

2004-07-16T06:19:00.000-06:00

-Greasnin at Something Awful reviews "Speed Demon", a flick about obscure racing deities. Yes, you read that right. Be sure to read this one twice - the plot holes will make your head spin.

-Matt at X-E has not one, but two features on commercials from the '80s. That's ten whole minutes of lunacy featuring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, the Power Glove, Andre the Giant, the Fry Guys, and the legendary McRib.

-Have you ever wondered how many times something has been referred to as the "new black"? Well, now you know.

-If you really want to feel insignificant, contemplate Viagra and all the ways spammers can alter the name. Have a number in your head? It's even higher than that.

Penance

2004-07-15T07:44:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't done a take-down of Ann Coulter in a while. This is because I can't stand her. You also probably noticed that I didn't blog yesterday. That's because I was lazy. Now it's time for penance, and what better way than by reviewing a column by a woman who makes me want to flog myself with a length of chain?

Let's get this over with:

Another high-profile John Kerry supporter was outed as a nutcase this week: Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Walter Mitty of conspiracy theorists.

[. . .]

Wilson was shocked because, in 2002, he had been sent on an unpaid make-work job to Niger to "investigate" whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger. Wilson's method of investigating consisted of asking African potentates questions like: Did you commit a horrible crime, which, if so, would ruin your country's relationship with the United States? I have no independent means of corroborating this, so be honest!

And of course, Ann knows this, because she used her secret powers of remote viewing to sit in with Joe Wilson.

But let's not dwell on the petty. Instead, let's focus ont he miraculous - Ann Coulter used facts!

I'm not sure we were waiting for any more evidence on whether Wilson was an idiot, but this week we found out he's a liar, too. The Senate report on the CIA's intelligence gathering concluded that, contrary to Wilson's statements about his own report, his findings had bolstered rather than undermined the case that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger.

The cynic in me wants to ask why Annthrax believes this claim from the Senate report when she denies the rest of it, but I'm not that petty. OK, I am that petty, but I have facts, too. You see, that claim from the Senate report appears to be based largely on the British equivalent. Here's what they had to say (courtesy of Matt Yglesias):

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

OK, so the British report is a bit wishy-washy, but it still affirms Satann's claims, right?

Maybe not. Let's see what Laura Rozen has to say:

One observation I share with Matt: as helpfully searchable as the Butler report is (unlike the version of the report the Senate released), the Butler report sheds little light on what were the Brits' actual sources on the Africa uranium issue. Indeed, the sourcing seems deliberately obscured. [Of course, intelligence agencies try to protect sources and methods; but our Senate report did at least indicate if sources were "a foreign government," Curve Ball, INC defectors, etc., without naming them.]

Why would the sourcing be obscured? I suspect for three reasons. A possible one, as I have mentioned, is to protect sources. Secondly, because it seems there was an echo chamber among four governments at issue: Britain, France, Italy and the US. In other words, what seemed like multiple independent sources for the Niger uranium claim actually turned out to be the echo of one source multiple times, plus perhaps another source [but the Butler report, frustratingly, won't make this clear.] And then it turned out that the one source that echoed through four governments was content in documents that were later deemed counterfeit. And three, the sensitivity for the British government that it was the named source of the information the US president cited - and later his staff recanted - on the Niger uranium issue.

Therein lies the problem. The British report claims the forged documents weren't available to the government, and were therefore irrelevant. However, it appears that the intelligence agencies all cited each other to each other, so if anyone had the forged documents, it might have thrown off the whole system.

Sorry Ann. You were so close that time.

What The &$%#ing Sh!t?

2004-07-15T06:52:00.000-06:00

Can't you guys take a joke?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comedian Whoopi Goldberg will no longer appear in ads for diet aid maker Slim-Fast following her lewd riff on President Bush (news - web sites)'s name at a fund-raiser last week, the company said on Wednesday.

Florida-based Slim-Fast said it was "disappointed" in Goldberg's remarks at last Thursday's $7.5 million star-studded fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

[. . .]

Republicans have expressed outrage over the fund-raiser for presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry and his vice presidential running mate, John Edwards (news - web sites), in which entertainers lined up to skewer the president. (Emphasis added)

Excuse me, outrage? Are your memories that short? Less than a month ago, the Vice President stood on the floor of the Senate - one of the most dignified forums in these United States - and uttered the most vile curse word in the English language. Do you remember what happened? Was there any outrage from your side of the aisle? No, you defended him. And now you're feigning outrage because Whoopi Goldberg used the President's name in an inappropriate manner? &$%#ing great.

Changing The Rules

2004-07-15T06:12:00.000-06:00

Apparently, the GOP is so desperate to stop the horror that is gay marriage that one of them has drafted plans to rearrange the government to push it through:

Realizing that a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage faces little chance of passing soon, if ever, House Republicans yesterday discussed alternative approaches, including stripping federal courts of jurisdiction over the issue, passing a federal law to define marriage and using the appropriations process to ban gay marriage in Washington.

All the legislative action on gay marriage is currently in the Senate, but the House GOP is rapidly developing its own tactics. Leaders will take their first step next week when they take up Rep. John Hostettler’s (R-Ind.) “jurisdiction stripping” bill. This would bar federal courts from hearing lawsuits related to gay sex and marriage.

It's interesting how the Republican mindset is when it comes to homosexuals. Can't pass a law that bans gay marriage? Change the Constitution to allow it. Courts not allowing you to change the Constitution? Change their jurisdiction. Can't do what you want? Change the rules!

But wait - there's more . . .

Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) told reporters yesterday that he plans to use “jurisdiction stripping” measures to achieve other social policy goals as well.

For example, he will push legislation to stop federal courts from hearing lawsuits related to the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

At this rate, there are only going to be two branches.

Perhaps We Were A Bit Hasty . . .

2004-07-13T15:43:00.000-06:00

TownHall Abridged, Vol. III

2004-07-13T13:23:00.000-06:00

David Limbaugh:

Bush might have lied about WMD, but the Democrats are lying about the lies, which is just as bad as the original lie, if not worse. Also, John Kerry lied about WMD, because even though he never talked about WMD, he voted on a proposition to conduct war in a manner that wasn't carried out in the way that Bush said it would be, so he's a double liar.

Dennis Prager:

1.) The New York Times is liberal; 2.) Allawi may be prepared to instigate martial law and cut off hands and heads, but he says he doesn't like Saddam, so he's one of the bestest leaders in the world right now; 3.) In one school, they aren't letting the clergy talk about why gay marriage is wrong, which proves that the whole public education is nothing more than liberal brainwashing; 4.) "[N]early every totalitarian regime in the 20th century was of the Left", which proves that all liberals are dirty fascists and conservatives are the defenders of the constitution; 5.) Quite a few Canadians think we're evil, which is the fault of liberals somehow.

Thomas Sowell:

Poor black people shouldn't complain about Bill Cosby's remarks. I picked myself up and made something of myself, and all I had was an admission to Harvard.

Phyllis Schlafly:

The Supreme Court wants to channel porn into your home and make your kids look so they'll turn gay and have abortions. We need to take steps to get rid of all the porn on the Internet, which is totally possible. After all, if something offends me, no one should be able to see it, even if that requires the installation of a nation-wide, Saudi Arabia-style blockware system that probably won't work.

Cal Thomas:

If we got bad intelligence before the war, it's the fault of Congress, because they fund the CIA. Of course, the CIA didn't think that Iraq was a threat, and all the bogus evidence was contributed by Cheney's alternate intelligence apparatus, but . . . hold on, I lost my train of thought.

I Was NOT Duped

2004-07-13T09:46:00.000-06:00

I don't know what to say, other than "Go read this thread". There's something seriously wrong with politics when we normal folks do more research about policies we can't affect than the politicians that can.

The Peaceful Plant

2004-07-13T09:32:00.000-06:00

It seems I was a bit hasty when I badmouthed Pfc. Hammer and the Pentagon. There is some positive news coming out of Iraq:

Patrolling in Iraq a couple of months ago, Army Spec. Carlos Arellano, a reservist and rapper from California, happened upon what he called "this beauty waving in the wind" -- a marijuana plant just starting to blossom. He resisted the temptation to "confiscate" and smoke the weed, he says, but was pleased to pose for a photo that's just hit the cover of High Times's spinoff magazine Grow America with the headline, "Buds Over Baghdad." This week the pro-pot publication is sending the image to all members of Congress, saying it's proud to finally provide lawmakers with an uplifting picture from Iraq.

"It's a life-affirming shot as opposed to a death-affirming shot," says Rick Cusick, ad director of Grow America. "He's happy to be there with that bud. It's also in counterpoint to those photos of our soldiers holding Iraqis by dog leashes. This is a psychic relief in a lot of ways."

Even in the harshest climates, even when death is being sown all around, it seems that cannabis still finds a way to thrive. It really is a sign of hope. Maybe one day, our boys will be able to sit down with the insurgents and share a bong and some potato chips. Because, let's face it, weed is peace.

Discordia Talks Campaign Strategy

2004-07-13T08:41:00.000-06:00

According to a recent AP poll:

President Bush is viewed by more American voters as decisive and arrogant than Democratic rival John Kerry . . . Voters are more likely to see Kerry as intelligent.

I suppose I understand that. The Bush people have been running his "decisiveness" into the ground, especially with the nonsense "flip-flopper" charges they've been making about Kerry.

So the real question is: How can Kerry benefit from this? A few people at DU have pointed out that intelligence can be made to be a liability, as it was for Gore in 2000. However, I don't think that's necessarily so. The GOP alters their strategy to conform to the candidates. In '92 and '96, they made out Clinton to be an Arkansas hayseed. In those elections, the "regular folks" card wasn't in their deck, so they used it against Clinton.

Kerry's campaign people need to use this. They need to point to Iraq as an example of what happens when "decisiveness" isn't backed up by reason and planning. They need to take advantage of the fact that more people think Bush is "arrogant" than Kerry.

Let's see what else AP has for us:

But when voters were asked which of the candidates makes them feel more optimistic about America, Bush had an edge. Half, 50 percent, chose Bush and 44 percent chose Kerry.

Here's where we start feeding their words back to them. The public face of the War on Terror has actually been pretty pessimistic. Think of all the times that Ridge came out and talked about how screwed we are. (His most recent showing, for example) Grab some of these quotes and make them visible. Point out the high terror alert level. Remind everyone that there is no sign of it ever falling below yellow. Then bring up the contrived terrorist threats, such as the French airplanes they grounded on what turned out to be totally bogus grounds. Throw in some quotes from Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz, and you've got a campaign ad.

And remember above all else that terrorism is a double-edged sword for the Administration. If terrorism is no longer a threat (either because the government is doing such a good job of fighting it, or because the threat was more-or-less nonexistent), then they can't use it, and will have to run on domestic issues. If it is a threat, it means they haven't been doing their jobs. Either way, you've got talking points ready to fly.

Your Liberal Media Responds To F9/11

2004-07-13T08:29:00.000-06:00

Apparently, they don't want you to see it, and if you do, know that it's all lies:

"My complaint was not with the criticism. I don't complain about anything he has said. My concern is that this not be taken as journalism," ABC "Nightline" host Ted Koppel said Monday. "It is journalism in the sense that an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times is journalism, but that's opinion journalism. It's a different sort of thing.

"I worry that too many people are going to start taking that as gospel when indeed I know for a fact that there are things in that movie that a little bit of careful reporting could have corrected. But I don't think [Moore] was altogether interested in getting it straight down the middle. He was interested in making a political statement, and he did it very well.

"It's a terrific piece of entertainment. There are even some interesting facts in it, but it is to the documentary what [Oliver Stone's] 'JFK' film was to history."

Brokaw seemed particularly peeved by "9/11." When asked about the film by a West Coast TV critic, he asked if the critic thought Moore's movie to be an accurate portrayal. The critic said yes. "Of what?" Brokaw shot back.

"It's really easy to turn back the clock now and say, 'Oh, it was the fault [of the media], especially of the electronic media, that we went to war because they jumped on the bandwagon,' " Brokaw said. "If you do a fair review, we gave a very vigorous accounting of what was known and what was not known at the time. ... The American news networks and the newspapers, for the most part, did as well as they could under the circumstances."

I especially like that last line by Brokaw. A good investigative journalist will tell you that the circumstances are what you make of them. If the media had stood up to the Administration prior to the war, we might not be screwing around with issues like this right now. But that's just my opinion.

Stranger By The Day

2004-07-13T08:02:00.000-06:00

Everyone, meet Private First Class Hammer, latest addition to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team:

Yes, that's a cat. Yes, he has a military rank. Why? Because apparently, the Pentagon is so desperate to paint the war in a positive light that they're actually using cats as a promotion. Why is this a newsworthy item? I don't know. All I know is that there is a cat that possesses a higher rank than I do.

The whole world's a madhouse, the sane are locked in with the crazies, and the lunatics are running the show. It may not be good for some people, but it's great for bloggers.

Everquest Anarchy Online Ultima

2004-07-11T14:44:00.000-06:00

An update on my referrer situation: I'm now getting hits from people searching for "Terra World Online". I think I need to talk about MMORPG's on this site more often. It's good for my hit counter.

The George Will Word Hunt

2004-07-11T14:29:00.000-06:00

Sunday is one of the worst days to blog. No real news and very few columns to mock. Usually I'll just disassemble Douggie Giles's column, but this week it was just boring. So I decided to read George Will's column and play a little "Find the Thesaurus-inspired word". In case you're wondering, today's word is "inapposite":

Main Entry: in·ap·po·site
Pronunciation: (")i-'na-p&-z&t
Function: adjective
: not apposite

Main Entry: ap·po·site
Pronunciation: 'a-p&-z&t
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin appositus, from past participle of apponere to place near, from ad- + ponere to put -- more at POSITION
: highly pertinent or appropriate : APT
synonym see RELEVANT

So why didn't he just say "inappropriate"? Because he's George Will, dammit.

"...[P]eople who think Michael Moore is an idiot, a communist and should go live in France are not promoting censorship"

2004-07-11T14:08:00.000-06:00

Last week, a columnist for the Wichita Eagle wrote an article praising F9/11. Surprise, surprise, he received hate mail.

Here's my favorite:

"Bush is such a great president that people like you have to 'invent' reasons to hate him, then you're so desperate, you have to put those 'inventions' up on the big screen.... If people like you... hate the US so much, then get out, don't come back, we don't want you."

I wish I could just dismiss every charge against a politician, pundit, author, or activist aligned with my beliefs by calling them "inventions". It would save me a lot of time each day if I didn't have to do all this "research" and deal with all these "facts".

Here's the conclusion:

When Moore says that we may have sent our men and women off to die for a questionable cause and then his critics start talking about his waistline, that just tells me that they don't want to address the weighty social, political and economic issues in the movie.

Indeed.

CAPtivating Satire

2004-07-11T14:03:00.000-06:00

Anyone care for a game of Contractopoly?

When you're done, check out the Claims vs. Facts Database. Given time, this could become the ultimate resourse for the thoughtful liberal. Feel free to contribute - Ann Coulter's section is a bit scant.

Hypocrisy Theater: "F***, That's Dirty Language!"

2004-07-11T13:48:00.000-06:00

Apparently, the conservative tolerance for foul language has lapsed yet again. From the New York Post:

Whoopi Goldberg delivered an X-rated rant full of sexual innuendoes against President Bush last night at a Radio City gala that raised $7.5 million for the newly minted Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards.
Waving a bottle of wine, she fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia, and boasted that she'd refused to let Team Kerry clear her material.

"I Xeroxed my behind and I folded it up in an envelope and I sent it back with a big kiss mark on because we're Democrats - we're not afraid to laugh," she said.

[...]

Kerry could be seen laughing uproariously during part of Goldberg's tirade - and neither he nor Edwards voiced a single objection to its tone when they spoke to the crowd.

Here's a bit of literary background: In Orwell's 1984, there was a concept called "doublethink". That term referred to the ability of the party to believe in two totally contradictory concepts, and use whichever benefitted them at the time.

Last week's GOP: "Obscenity isn't a big deal."

This week, next week and every week until a GOP politician swears again: "Obscenity is a clear sign of moral weakness."

Non-Political Friday - Cheap Crap Edition

2004-07-09T07:28:00.000-06:00

--Lowtax of Something Awful reviews Terra World Online. It's a crappy MMORPG with incomprehensible graphics, extremely limited customization and no story to speak of, but it's FREE!

--Matt at X-E takes an Independence Day look at cheap, small fireworks. Enjoy these Poppers, Cobras, Tanks, Smoke Bombs, and whatever the hell the Strobe is.

--In case you need more evidence that you can find anything online; welcome to the official home of the Rock Paper Scissors Society.

--Finally, enjoy this pictography of India's many colorful trash cans.

No Comments Required

2004-07-08T10:10:00.000-06:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words:

US President George W. Bush walks away from a briefing with the media, refusing to answer questions after he was asked about Enron and the reported indictment of former CEO Kenneth Lay, who was a close adviser and fund-raiser for Bush and his father, earning him the presidential nickname of 'Kenny Boy.

The Doctor Is In, Or . . . With Sexy Results

2004-07-08T09:22:00.000-06:00

Via World O' Crap, we learn that the right Dr. Adams has penned a column that's too hot for TownHall. Yes, the good doctor takes on UNC-Greensboro and their stance on porn. Before we start reading, make sure the kids are out of the room. Now, let's samba:

Author’s Note: Because it discusses life at UNC-Greensboro, the following editorial contains extremely offensive language. It also contains satire that may be lost upon some Gulliver readers and registered Democrats.

I don't know about you, but I'm hot already.

I should warn you that I’m not in a very good mood right now. Last night, my wife confiscated my Ann Coulter action figure.

Given the nature of the article, I would have avoided the reference.

And this morning I can’t seem to find any free pornography on the UNC-Greensboro (UNCG) website. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this difficult time.

I first became familiar with the UNCG website after university officials publicly declared their abhorrence of pornography in March. That was shortly after they paid a porn star $3000 to lecture as a sexual health expert.

Here we see the crux of the article; porn is abound on the UNCG website and campus. Consider it a case study for the kind of depravity no doubt found on many other campuses.

After the administration declared its abhorrence of pornography, I logged on to www.uncg.edu and immediately discovered that it was a reliable source for locating all kinds of hard core pornography. With the help of the UNCG search engine, anyone could find the right kind of porn, regardless of their demographics. The porn selection was so diverse that it included “blond porn,” “lesbian porn,” “interracial porn,” “cartoon porn,” “teen porn,” “gay porn,” “Asian porn,” and even “Canadian amateur porn.” Canadian porn stars seem to do a lot of porn movies for free. I guess that’s because they have national health insurance.

So the UNCG search engine turned up quite a bit of porn, although I don't know how diverse it is when it didn't find anything on furries, plushies, vores, inflationists, cast fetishists, or masking. (If you don't know what those are, consider yourself lucky. I know, and I've already lost all faith in mankind) I followed the link Adams provided and did a quick search using the provided search engine (I searched for "Hentai", or anime porn, which is about ten times more depraved than traditional porn and actually features something called "tentacle rape"). No hits. Which is good, because I couldn't defend someone who'd willingly carry incestuous pedophilic demon rape porn on their site. So, instead I did a more general search for "porn". Here's what I found:

Big Bad Chinese Mama
A mock-Asian mail-order bride/porn site that humorusly deconstructs colonialist, patriarchal beliefs about Asian women.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't wait another second http://www.tbig.cjb.net/fred durst stained web buttons 3ddd red blue glasses nude pics industrial design images opening directory reading files perl to parent directory cumshot jpg guitar industrial design intellect contest austin incest pics briefcase javascript move window manga of blue eyes dogpiss miss d tits galleries windows in javascript css font text properties spawn mr obersmith toyota celica gts 2000 sabre mcfarlane physical education activities manga 02 jpg adult davinci ornithopter index parent directory cum 02 mpg 2001 toyota celica gts60 mile flash examples and scroll austin texas bmx transparent animated bullet nudist colony porn matrix,mpeg movie,full download knight rider pontiac pictures 1024*768 futurama pics javascript redirection change link color html table link kid01 jpg and sex paper mache creature texas strike anywhere shirt 1973 celica mpeg car wrecks 4runners html drop down boxes cream pie pictures enter cascading style sheets font golfclub beatles mcfarlane toys series 1 stairs rails putting up a web page women farting video clips pilsbury oven evil aerodynamic reciprocity at the drive in song wild background textures scooter band big lebowski wallpaper wav 1 mpg free chines tattoos bmx austin texas link new window insane download game gto rear axle 1965 shooting stars austin, tx micro halfpipe project skateboard spiderman mpeg 1967 gto value secret photos submarine creedence clearwater revival mp3 download south padre island texas best tattooists in the world mcfarlane toys com %ef%bc%b0%ef%bc%b5%ef%bc%ae%ef%bc%ab suped up ninja bikes pictures yahoo briefcase photos shane macgowan haunted tab how to tell alcoholic you want a divorce index of * mpg sex parent directory html mail link javascript new image nosferatu gallery mov dog mpg html parent directory mpg 07 jpg
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response to Debate 1 Chapter 10 Violence and Porn.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The porn industry caters, I imagine, mostly to men and
so these are the selling points for such materials.

A satiric link, a few discussions on pornography in society, and some message board posts that look like spam mail. But wait! Doc Adams said he did a search for "lesbian porn" and found disgusting things. So I did a search for lesbian porn. You want to know what I found, don't you? I can tell.

Now, the link Adams mentioned led to a 404, like Adams said. However, take a look at the address: [www.uncg.edu/cbt/courses/ anfragol/cgi/wwwboard/messages1/92.html] It's a link to a messageboard. Youd think the good doctor would've noticed that, but I imagine he's too busy making up fan mail to check addresses.

Adams continues:

Anyone who knows me is aware that I don’t give up so easily. After a series of disappointments with the UNCG search engine, I just picked up a copy of the UNCG student newspaper (The Carolinian) to get a sample of their weekly soft core porn. And what an educational experience it was! Don’t take my word for it, just read the following front page excerpt:

What follows is a column on anal sex. Is it racy, titilating, the kind of thing you don't read to your grandmother? Yes. Is is pornographic? Not really.

Anyway, that's the "too hot for TownHall" column for the day. Feel free to send Adams some porn at "adams_mike@hotmail.com". I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

Sunshine And Lollipops

2004-07-07T07:59:00.000-06:00

BAGHDAD, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Street clashes broke out in central Baghdad on Wednesday as insurgents opened fire with their assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at US troops and Iraqi security forces, witnesses said.

The clashes erupted when the Iraqi National Defence soldiers started to search Saddamiyat al-Karkh neighborhood near Haifa Street in central Baghdad to look for weapons and insurgents, Xinhua correspondent at the scene said.

Gunfire and explosions rocked central Baghdad as fighters from the both sides traded fire at the neighborhood.

US troops rushed to the scene to back the Iraqi forces, but they were forced to withdraw immediatly after being fired by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Baghdad - Three devices exploded near the Baghdad residence of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Wednesday morning, wounding three men and a woman, an Iraqi police officer on the site said.

"This happened at between 9:00 and 9:15 when we heard three explosions caused by flying objects," said police Lieutenant Safaa.

Allawi was not present at the home at the time, an official said.

The US military had no immediate word on what caused the blasts.

The attacks came only hours Allawi was set to unveil a long-anticipated law giving him the authority to impose emergency measures to safeguard the country's security.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A heavy gunbattle broke out on the streets of central Baghad as insurgents shot at Iraqi national guards and US soldiers, supported by helicopters, minutes before the announcement of new security laws by the Iraqi government, witnesses said.

Two national guards were killed and 10 wounded in the battle on Haifa Street, next to Al-Talaya Square on the western side of the Tigris River, a national guard lieutenant told AFP from Al-Karkh hospital.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Black smoke poured from a building in Haifa Street hit by US helicopters during the clash with rebels, a Reuters photographer said.

At least two Iraqi national guards were killed in the fighting, said officials.

Earlier, several people were hurt when mortar shells landed near the offices of the Iraqi prime minister's party.

The latest attacks came a day after four US marines were killed in clashes with rebels near Baghdad.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, at least six people were killed in a suicide car bombing north of the capital.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four more United States marines have been killed in action in Iraq's restive Al-Anbar province, the US military said, taking its death toll in the region to 14 in just over one week.

US officials suspect alleged Al Qaida militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and his supporters are operating in Fallujah and surrounding Al-Anbar province.

"Four marines assigned to First Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in action July 6 in the Al-Anbar province while conducting security and stability operations," the US military said in a statement.

Optimism

2004-07-07T07:47:00.000-06:00

Speaking of John Edwards, MMFA caught Neil Cavuto in a bit of spin doctoring:

CAVUTO: Well they're calling it the Edwards Dip. Good morning everybody, I'm Neil Cavuto and this is the FOX Morning Market Report. Expect stocks to open on the negative this morning in just about 20 seconds as activity begins after a shortened holiday week, which commences today because of the July 5th holiday. But this is the same rule of thumb we've been seeing in the markets lately, anything that looks good for the Democratic ticket generally does not look good for the guys at Wall and Broad. I'm not really casting politic aspersions here, one way or the other, the simple fact of the matter is that Wall Street is largely -- largely, I stress -- a Republican bastion, so anything that makes the Democratic ticket look good -- and obviously this is deemed good news for the Democrats here, this Kerry-Edwards ticket -- will be deemed bad for the corner of Wall and Broad.

Cavuto did not say who was calling the market decline the "Edwards Dip." Also, his assertion that political maneuverings affect the stock market in the short-term flies in the face of Ailes's public apology, which Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz reported on July 22, 2002. Following White House complaints, Ailes said that FOX had made "a mistake" on July 15, 2002, when it used a split screen to juxtapose a graphic showing market indexes with live coverage of President George W. Bush delivering a speech designed to restore investor confidence in the wake of a series of corporate scandals that summer. "'It did give a false impression,' he [Ailes] says. 'We shouldn't have done it. If the market goes down 400 points while the president is speaking, that doesn't mean he drove it down 400 points. There are too many other factors,'" Kurtz reported.

Atticus Finch: Enemy Of The People?

2004-07-07T07:05:00.000-06:00

Good post by Slacktivist regarding the attacks on Edwards. Here's a bit of background:

The defining case in Edwards' legal career wrapped up that same year. In 1993, a five-year-old girl named Valerie Lakey had been playing in a Wake County, N.C., wading pool when she became caught in an uncovered drain so forcefully that the suction pulled out most of her intestines. She survived but for the rest of her life will need to be hooked up to feeding tubes for 12 hours each night.

Edwards filed suit on the Lakeys' behalf against Sta-Rite Industries, the Wisconsin corporation that manufactured the drain. Attorneys describe his handling of the case as a virtuoso example of a trial layer bringing a negligent corporation to heel. Sta-Rite offered the Lakeys $100,000 to settle the case. Edwards passed.

Before trial, he discovered that 12 other children had suffered similar injuries from Sta-Rite drains. The company raised its offer to $1.25 million. Two weeks into the trial, they upped the figure to $8.5 million. Edwards declined the offer and asked for their insurance policy limit of $22.5 million. The day before the trial resumed from Christmas break, Sta-Rite countered with $17.5 million. Again, Edwards said no.

On January 10, 1997, lawyers from across the state packed the courtroom to hear Edwards' closing argument, "the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen," recalls [Mike] Dayton [editor of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly]. Three days later, the jury found Sta-Rite guilty and liable for $25 million in economic damages (by state law, punitive damages could have tripled that amount). The company immediately settled for $25 million, the largest verdict in state history. For their part, Edwards and [law partner David] Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's national award for public service.

That ambulance-chasing bastard.

Mu guess is the attacks on Edwards for being a trial lawyer will continue for quite some time. The GOP is playing off the public's hatred of lawyers (as Fred puts it, "It is true that Americans despise lawyers, but only until they need a good one on their side."), and ever more so of trial lawyers, who have been painted by the Repubs as the one true evil that's destroying the glorious capitalist machine. Of course, this line of attack is a risky one, as the GOP is banking on the fact that the American people will side with corporations over the lawyers. Get a few more stories like this circulating, and it will ruin a good portion of the Bush re-election strategy.

Mike's Blog

2004-07-07T07:03:00.000-06:00

Michael Moore just activated his blog. Check it out.

Oh, Ann

2004-07-05T07:43:00.000-06:00

Five distortions in one article - I think she's working on some sort of record.

2nd Amendment Rights

2004-07-05T07:36:00.000-06:00

Nothing I can say will make this any more absurd:

A Hampton man was charged with terrorism Sunday after he reportedly fired a shotgun in the vicinity of people on his property.

Darrell Slagle was being held in the Hampton City Jail Sunday night in connection with an incident that occurred at 2109 Raven Avenue in Hampton at about 3:30 p.m., police said.

The Franklin County sheriff’s department received a call of a man with a gun. When they arrived, they determined that Slagle had apparently fired the shotgun in the air to scare two men who were on his property, a report from the sheriff’s department said.

Officers charged him with terrorism, which is a felony.

There were no injuries. No other details of the incident were released.

Are you hearing this Freepers? Firing a gun is now terrorism. Just goes to show that when you abridge one right, more will soon follow.

I'm Taking My Toys And Going Home!

2004-07-05T07:18:00.000-06:00

Is this really a surprise to anyone?

As cinema-goers across America queue up to see Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, demoralised Republican film-makers are planning to counter-attack by staging the first conservative film festival.

The film, which became the first documentary to win the Palme d'Or when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival this year, is showing to record audiences in the US. The American Film Renaissance, to be held in Dallas between September 9 and 11, will showcase more than two dozen feature films that, according to festival organisers, deal forthrightly with the "war on terror" for the first time in US cinema. A series of documentaries will also be shown which take on prominent critics of President George W. Bush, such as Moore, whose film has sold out in cinemas across the United States.

In the beleaguered ranks of Bush-supporting film-makers, where a supposed liberal domination of Hollywood is a standing complaint, the festival is being optimistically viewed as the start of a cultural counter-revolution.

More than 100 directors have already sent videotapes to Dallas in the hope of gaining a festival slot. Writers and producers from films such as Apocalypse Now, Jaws and Conan the Barbarian have agreed to attend showings, and there are also rumours that Mel Gibson, a cult hero among conservative Christians after the success of The Passion of the Christ, will make an appearance.

They announce the construction of a Bill Clinton Library; the conservatives build an anti-Clinton library. Michael Moore makes a film; conservatives make an anti-Moore film. Moore wins at Cannes; conservatives start an anti-Cannes. Really, it's hard to see these conservatives as anything but knee-jerk reactionaries.

This reminds me of a point David Brock made in The Republican Noise Machine. He wrote that right-wing news portals and think tanks offer jobs to third-rate columnists who couldn't make it on the mainstream market, and that this practice runs contrary to the Republican belief of the market as the ultimate arbiter of quality. Although this "conservative Cannes" festival is a step in the right direction (they are creating their own films rather than tearing ours down), I can't help but think that most of these films would never make it on the market.

Dick Cheney Has Met His Match

2004-07-05T06:58:00.000-06:00

Criminals, villains, and corporate thieves beware; for you have something new to fear. . .

The Hallibot!

(An explaination can be found here)

Rewriting The Bible With Doug "Luscious Tree" Giles

2004-07-04T15:18:00.000-06:00

I haven't read TownHall for quite some time, and what better way to get back on the wagon than by watching Doug Giles butcher the New Testament?

Today, we're going to do a little Perform & Respond. I'll quote Doug, then follow if with a passage from the King James Version of the Bible (gathered via the University of Virginia's Electronic Text Center). Let's go:

That said, what do we, Christians in particular, do when faced with an implacable radical enemy? Just sit around sing “Kum Ba Yah” and hope these bad guys will leave us alone? That’s what a lot of five-watt light bulb, spiritually neutered believers are doing.

Matthew 5:9 - Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

I, for one, will not take a passive stance against this aggressive enemy. You cannot be lame and win this game with these guys.

Psalms 25:10 - All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.

Picture this when you step into the voting booth this November: some fluctuating, “wait-on-the-U.N.” type of guy in the Oval Office while one of Osama’s droogies is arming a nuclear suitcase in your back yard. Take that image with you to the polls.

Psalms 37:14-15 - The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.

Two: Push for cinching our borders tighter than a fat guy's belt after an “All-You-Can-Eat” beef rib blow out at Tony Roma’s.

Three: Aggressively support the rooting out of the multitudinous terrorist cells that are concocting their villainous crap in our very own cul de sacs.

Leviticus 19:33-34 - And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

“Break the teeth in their mouths, O God; tear out, O Lord, the fangs of the lions! Let them vanish like water that flows away; when they draw the bow, let their arrows be blunted. Like a slug melting away as it moves along, like a still born child, may they not see the sun… The righteous will be glad when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.” Psalm 58.6-10.

Psalms 120:5-7 - Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

“Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them. May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents. For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those you hurt. Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation. May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.” Psalm 69.24-28.

Psalms 37:11 - But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

If my assumption regarding your typical congregation and clergy is true, then this is sad, unbiblical and a prime reason why militant Islam continues to march on. We are not using the spiritual big guns of imprecatory prayer against the beast of militant Islam.

Matthew 5:7 - Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

My ClashPoint is this: Most religious people are familiar with Christ telling us to “bless our enemies” in prayer and to “love our enemies.” We should do both. But seldom to never do we hear about “the other” prayers for our enemies, prayers to be prayed when our enemies become gun-, bomb- and airplane- wielding idiots.

Matthew 5:39 - But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

It's simple: when our enemies move from being foes who have personally wronged us, or have made fun of our bad combover, or have flamed us in a TBN chat room, to becoming jihadic death jockeys wanting to eradicate our memory from the earth, then it is time to stop praying the “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” stuff and start asking God to thwart and stamp out these bug eyed terrorists who want to hijack the planet and make it conform to their jacked up view of “life.”

Matthew 5:21-22 - Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment . . .

So… start tossing imprecatory prayers heavenward and watch what God does to militant implacable Islam. The celestial spanking of terrorists is no big deal for God. And our prayers could save thousands of our soldiers’ lives, our citizens’ lives and the lives of innocent, moderate Muslims and others who get caught in the freak boys’ villainous crossfire.

Psalms 22:26 - The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

Let us pray.

Psalms 34:14 - Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

Non-Political Friday - Spiderman Without Borders Edition

2004-07-02T08:01:00.000-06:00

-I Work With Fools: The blog of choice for anyone who's ever worked for or with incompetent folks. Drop in and share your stories. If you get mentioned, you'll be as famous as I am! [/sarcasm]

-Dog Toy or Marital Aid?: It may not be in good taste, but it's still a good way to kill five minutes. Dog lovers and dildo afficionados alike will appreciate it.

-Greasnin at Something Awful reviews an '80s Romero knock-off called "Dawn of the Mummy". Screaming and noisy celebrations ensue.

-Marvel Comics takes the Amazing Radioactive Web-Slinger to India. Check out the new artwork - very stylish. But this isn't the first time foreigners have given their unique take on Spidey. That honor goes to . . .

- . . . Turkey! RoG at I-Mockery reviews "3 Dev Adam". Captain America and a wrestler named Santo fight an astoundingly crappy Spiderman. Yes, Spidey's a villain. And while he lacks the strength and web-swinging abilities of his American counterpart, he does have. . . a, uh, switchblade, plus one very unique ability that has to be seen to be believed.(WARNING: Ability may be a continuity error)

He's Also Responsible For Forest Fires, Pauly Shore, And Duke Nukem's Delays

2004-06-30T14:39:00.000-06:00

It's official: someone has actually blamed Bill Clinton for the Iraqi quagmire. Via Pandagon:

BEGALA: Bob, the Army today is calling up 5,600 reservists, folks who have been discharged. Isn't that proof that President Bush has overstretched our military?

(BELL RINGING)

WALKER: Well, the problem is that the military did not get the sufficient support during the years of the administration before, and we are living with that at the present time.

Yep. According to Bob Walker, the only reason that Bush is overextending our military so badly that he has to use reservists is because Clinton didn't draft enough soldiers. Excuse me, not draft, but. . . uh. . . draft. Hmm.

I think this might be a good time to take stock of all the things that Republicans/conservatives have pinned on Clinton. Here's the short list:

-9/11
-Job losses during this Administration
-AIDS (That one's Limbaugh, in case you were wondering)
-The '93 World Trade Center bombing
-The Cole bombing
-The Embassy bombings
-The murders of various people
-The rise in teen pregnancy, drug use, and violent crime (which aren't really going up, but whatever)
-Abortion
-Divorce
-Gay marriage (guess someone forgot about the Defense of Marriage Act)
-Illiteracy (because of the NEA)
-Enron
-Every highly publicised act of crime in the past 10 years
-The Superbowl halftime show

There'd be more, but when I started to search for Clinton stories, I zoned out. When I came to, I realised that, for the sake of brevity, I should instead make a list of things Clinton is not responsible for. Here's what I came up with:

-Earthquakes
-The Ludlow massacre of 1914
-New York Minute featuring the Olsen twins
-The end of Calvin & Hobbes
-Anything good that has ever or will ever happen under any President until the end of time

I'm An Independant. No, Really.

2004-06-30T07:04:00.000-06:00

I know I've been picking on Bill O'Reilly lately, but he makes it so very, very easy, doesn't he? Anyway, the latest O'Reilly kerfuffle involved New York Daily News Jack Mathews, who rightly accused O'Reilly of lying on air and avoiding MMFA:

Example 1: In an April 27 radio debate with a Canadian journalist, you threatened to lead a boycott of Canadian goods if Canada didn't deport two American military deserters, saying that a previous O'Reilly-led boycott of French goods cost that country billions in lost export business. You cited the Paris Business Review as your source for those losses.

In fact, Media Matters found no evidence that a Paris Business Review even exists, and France's export business with the U.S. actually increased during the run-up to the Iraq war.

Example 2: In discrediting philanthropist and John Kerry supporter George Soros, you distorted his account of his feelings about his father's death, deliberately misquoting him from a 1995 New Yorker article to make it appear that he had callous disregard for his father's life.

Example 3: On May 4, in announcing his acquisition of a cable TV channel, Al Gore said: "This is not going to be a liberal network or a Democratic network or a political network in any way, shape or form."

On "The O'Reilly Factor" that night, you said: "Al Gore has announced that he is starting up a new cable channel exclusively devoted to liberal stuff. We wish Mr. Gore good luck. And he'll need it."

Now, a reasonable person would acknowledge these errors and, at the very least, give a statement to MMFA. So what did O'Reilly do?

O'REILLY: [T]he new Far Left tactic is to distort the record of anyone who challenges. Every week day we do three hours of commentary, two on the radio, and an hour on TV. The bomb-throwers are now recording all of that with an eye on finding so-called lies.

Now anybody can find something in three hours to challenge. But it is the straight press who is enabling the propaganda. Today in the New York Daily News, for example, writer Jack Mathews quotes a Far Left website in questioning my honesty. It's all a bunch of baloney.

[...]

That Mathews isn't really worth the time. But the overall dishonesty of the Far Left is very important. They are giving all liberals a very, very bad name. And that's ridiculous. These people.

Okay, let me see if I can break down O'Reilly's logic:

1.) Everyone lies on the air. It just happens. That's not an issue.
2.) The straight press is enabling people who think those lies are an issue, those unreasonable bastards.
3.) Any information given by a "far left" organization must be ignored by default.
4.) Apparently, not all liberals are bad. I'll have to remember that next time I hear O'Reilly ranting about them.

No Comment

2004-06-29T08:33:00.000-06:00

No, really, I'm not going to make a joke about this:

With thousands of Republicans set to invade the city this summer, high-priced escorts and strippers are preparing for one grand old party.
Agencies are flying in extra call girls from around the globe to meet the expected demand during the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 gathering at Madison Square Garden.

"We have girls from London, Seattle, California, all coming in for that week," said a madam at a Manhattan escort service. "It's the week everyone wants to work."

"It's going to be big," agreed one operator at a midtown escort service.

Must . . . not . . . make smart-ass remark . . .

. . . Okay, just one: Do you figure this is an example of free-market values at work?

Where's Tom Ridge When You Really Need Him?

2004-06-29T08:08:00.000-06:00

Remember Neal Horsley? You know, the guy who got into deep trouble when he put up information about abortion providers - including the names of their spouses and children - and crossed them off as they were killed? Yeah, that guy. Anyway, courtesy of Something Awful, we see that Neal is back, and he's actually managed to top himself:

The thought of secession via nuclear weapons must startle intelligent people. If ever there was a threatening string of syllables that is it; if ever there was a more powerful recipe for change and, possibly, destruction, it has not been uttered in this generation. And if you think this is just young kids blowing off steam, read this article published by Reuters on Nov 7, 1997 reporting the government's nuclear weapons security upgrade.

If this is such a dangerous subject, then why talk about it?

The recent debacle involving the "Republic of Texas" proves conclusively that people who resist the government of these presently united States of America, yet lack a strategy with sufficient power to overrule that government, make themselves appear very foolish and end up either in prison or dead.
The secession movement advocated by The Creator's Rights Party is no half-baked indulgance in military fantasy but includes within it the power to overrule, if necessary, the government of the United States of America. And the strategy is perfectly legal today!

[...]

Only two prerequisites are required to realize the scenario just mentioned, (1) nuclear weapons must be available to a seceding State Government or Governments, (2) a seceded State Government must have the will to use them.

With the exception of Secession itself, both conditions are presently in place. Condition One: Availability. Nuclear weapons are siloed, armoried, or secreted in virtually every State in these presently United States of America. One of the first acts a seceding State militia must accomplish will be the seizing of those nuclear weapons. Once in hand, that seceding State will have the power to force the rest of the citizens of the USA to choose between accepting secession as a fait accompli--a done deal--or launching nuclear civil war in the heretofore United States of America. Condition Two: Will. I represent a Political Party (The Creator's Rights Party) that would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons in defense of a State's Right to secede in order to restore God's plan for government.

I know this will come as an absolutely mind boggling idea to many citizens of the United States of America, but there are people here--lots of them--who are willing to live and die in defense of the Rights of the Creator. If you don't believe it now, unless the desecration of God's authority is arrested in the USA, you'll have the opportunity to see these people demonstrate their willingness to see God's authority restored or die trying.

Yes, you read that right. Neal Horsley wants to get the Governorship of Georgia (something he is seriously trying to do) and use its nuclear weaponry to force the nation into a state of submission. He is openly declaring his intent to wage war against the United States (an act of treason) and possibly murdering millions of people in the single greatest terrorist action the U.S. will have ever seen.

If Peace Fresno is worthy of infiltration, then this nut should be under 24/7 watch.

A Fair And Balanced Look

2004-06-29T07:33:00.000-06:00

Juan Cole saw F9/11 and decided to do some fact checking.

I consider it a good thing that my colleagues don't march in lockstep, but I can't agree with all of Juan's points. Here's my take on it:

-Juan doesn't understand why Turkmenistan wanting to sell its gas is a bad thing. Of course, it isn't. Here's the problem: the Taliban (for whatever reason) didn't want to allow the pipeline to go through their country. The new interim leader was actually involved in the planning of the pipeline. Taken together with what we know about the Afghanistan campaign, it looks like Bush had other motives for war.

-I don't know of any Democrats who were calling for war against Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. There were Democrats who asked why we invaded a country that had nothing to do with September 11th (Iraq) rather than a country that might have (Saudi Arabia).

Talking Out Of A Certain Orifice

2004-06-28T13:29:00.000-06:00

My old arch-nemesis Jonah Goldberg has reviewed Fahrenheit 9/11. We know he didn't like it, but how much of it did he watch? Go on, guess.

. . . That's right, he hasn't seen one minute of the film, but he doesn't have a problem with that for reasons I'll get into later. He does take a different approach than most of his colleagues who haven't seen it - while they are content to make up assumptions, Jonah takes it a step further and creates a column composed of other people's opinions. That's right, he didn't even have the wherewithal to make up his own assumptions.

So how's it look? Let's go to the videotape:

Now that is not to say that if you think Moore is useful or coming from the "right direction" or some such that you aren't a serious person. One liberal friend (a prominent journalist) who went to the premiere noted that while Moore is for the most part a fraud and a hack, he serves the "cause" by pulling the debate back toward the left; he keeps people on their toes; he raises useful issues, etc. After all, Moore was the one who reintroduced the whole Bush-is-a-deserter canard, which may have torpedoed Wesley Clark's already sinking ship but buoyed the Democrats generally. I have some sincere problems with this sort of "side of the angels" argument one that is frequently heard on the right about some of our own embarrassments, by the way. But it's certainly true that you can be intellectually honest and serious and hold such opinions.

Ah yes, the classic blind quote of a well-known but totally anonymous "liberal". What else do we have?

Now, I have no doubt that I will be getting some e-mail from someone or other shouting "What about Limbaugh!?" or Robertson, or Coulter, or Michael Savage. These are different people each deserving different defenses (and different criticisms). But whatever these guys may or may not be guilty of is beside the point. The point is that the Moore-lovers themselves think there are absolutely no redeeming qualities to the alleged monsters in the right-wing parade of horribles, and yet they hypocritically create their own Frankenstein just so they can have a brazen liar of their own. In other words, if you think Rush Limbaugh is a hateful liar who is destroying America, you do not defend Michael Moore or yourself by saying "Moore is our Limbaugh!" Fighting fire with fire is fine in war, but in debates fighting perceived lies with willful ones wins you few points.

A few things: First, no honest-to-God liberal would ever refer to Michael Moore as "Our Limbaugh", so Jonah is clearly talking out of his ass. Second, I don't think a man that's too lazy to do his own research should be making judgment calls on other people's honesty. He could have devoted a column to debunking F911, but apparently that would be too much work.

What's worse is that most conservatives, including myself, do not think Limbaugh is a brazen liar. Most of the Washington liberals celebrating Moore outside the DNC where he is simply a hero concede that Moore is a liar, a propagandist, a crafty fool.

Who are these liberals who are acknowledging that Moore is a liar? Not me - I can defend just about every claim he's ever made. Not any of my friends, nor my fellow bloggers, nor any leftist authors, pundits or politicians. What this indicates is that either Jonah is too lazy to learn how to use Lexis-Nexis or he's talking out of his ass again. Probably a combination of the two.

Moreover, Limbaugh can answer a question about what he believes without changing the subject or reaching down his pants for a fistful of red-herrings.

Do you remember what happened when Rush agreed to an interview on a late-night program? The audience started questioning him on his stance regarding AIDS, and Rush got so flustered that he refused to finish the interview unless the audience was removed. The point of this little anecdote is that in this reality, you'd have about as much luck pinning Rush down for a Q&A session as you would getting Roger Ailes to admit that the slogan "Fair and Balanced" is inaccurate.

What else do you expect from a guy whose response to questions about his accuracy are met with threats of lawsuits?

Michael Moore threatened to sue someone? News to me. I suppose he sued to get his movie rerated, but that hardly has anything to do with the accuracy of his facts. Either Jonah knows something I don't or. . . well, you know the rest.

But there are two things to keep in mind about this. First, to the extent that Moore's depictions of grieving mothers and remorseful soldiers are accurate, they are true of pretty much every war ever fought. The notion that the Iraq war is somehow unique because some American soldiers did not want to fight it or because some mothers didn't think it was worth losing their sons to it is bunkum. All things being equal, it would be easy easier in fact to show similar grief and remorse about World War II or the Civil War (and I have little doubt that had Moore been given the opportunity, he would have). But that is not a persuasive argument against fighting those wars. It would merely be an indication of the very real costs of those wars.

Of course, anyone who's actually seen the movie knows that there's a difference. Many of the mothers and soldiers depicted had harsh words for Bush for sending them into war. And therein lies the difference. World War II was a necessary war (incidentally, one in which liberals were criticized for hating Hitler too early), and you could argue the same about the American Civil War. But Iraq is different. This is a war that many people (including the previously mentioned mothers and soldiers) feel was not necessary. I'll believe Jonah's argument when he finds quotes from people criticizing FDR and Lincoln for the same reason.

Which brings us to point number two. The powerful emotions unleashed in Moore's film have nothing to do with the slanderous, fact-free arguments he makes.

In fact — hold on a minute — he doesn't make arguments. Arguments require the marshalling of facts under the yoke of reason. Moore makes claims and assertions. He offers visual innuendo. He raises your passions about X so that you will believe Y must be true. He is a whispering Loki who values passion over persuasion, which is one reason he's changed his claims against Bush so many times.

Those are some strong words for a man who hasn't seen the movie he's attacking. Again, if these "claims and assertions" are so obviously false, why didn't Jonah pen a column debunking them? Hmm. Incidentally, it's my opinion (as someone who actually saw the film) that the film contains many actual factuals, such as the information about the Bush-Saud connections, the Harkin non-starter, the mysteriously redacted war records, etc.

But let's call Moore's concatenation of half-truths an "argument." Also, let's stipulate that the Iraq war is terrible, horrendous, mistaken, and evil (it is none of those things).

. . . And Jonah immediately makes an ass of himself by claiming an assertation as fact. Nice.

How does any of that prove it was launched to obscure Bush's ties to the bin Ladens? It doesn't and neither does Moore.

No, Moore never proved that claim - because he never made it. He did introduce a theory that the Afghanistan campaign was orchistrated to make it seem like he was actually pursuing bin Laden, but his own beliefs are totally different.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, let's go back to Jonah's introductory comments, where he explains why he doesn't need to see a movie to judge it:

I haven't seen Fahrenheit 9/11 and I have no intention to. So, if you want to make one of those pious declarations about how you can't judge the movie unless you've seen it, be my guest. It's a fair response as far as it goes. But just for the record, I haven't seen the Bare Wench Project either. But few would argue I need to see it before I can form any opinions about porn movies. Such opinions might include: bad lighting, too many fat hairy guys getting in the camera's way, etc.

Now, temporarily ignoring the fact that "Bare Wench Project" is, I'm told, lesbian porn and therefore features very few fat hairy guys, there's still the issue of Jonah's own honesty in reviewing a documentary he hasn't seen. According to Jonah, it's okay because he's already made up his mind about it. So is it fair? Let's find out:

Write Like the Right: Jonah Goldberg's Dishonest Reviewing Technique

Today, I'll be reviewing Ann Coulter's as-yet unreleased book, Those Fucking Liberals And Their Shitty-Ass Ideas.* No, that's not the actual title, so if you want to make one of those pious declarations about how you shouldn't fact-check a book if you don't even know its title for certain, be my guest. It's fair as fair goes. But I can't name all of the depraved porn I've made fun of, but I can tell you that the names were probably either parodies of popular movies and/or TV series or shockingly candid descriptions of the sexual act featured followed by a number that indicates that this is, disturbingly enough, part of a series.

Which brings me to Ann's book. She is one of those rare figures that has the ability to promote a combination of rage and pity in anyone who sees her. I don't need to know much about you to know that if you think Ann is more honest and more civil than Michael Moore, then you're either the hypocritical, sub-intelligent spawn of a walking promotion for eugenics, or you're Jonah Goldberg. But I repeat myself.

Anyway, I've seen the dust jacket for Ann's latest, and I've read some debunkings of her previous books, so I consider myself fully qualified to review a book I've never read as if I have.

By my estimation, the book consists of the following:

30% misattributed, out of context, or doctored quotes;
35% borderline libelous personal attacks on various public figures;
2% absolutely libelous personal attacks on various private figures;
15% assertations besed on claims by right-wingers who are clearly not experts in the fields they are being cited for (e.g. Ann misquoting the Koran because she used Jerry Falwell as her sole source);
10% "facts" she outright made up;
20% horrible, horrible statements about Muslims, Democrats, or whoever she was pissed about when she wrote it.

Yes, I know that adds up to more than 100% percent, which may be a problem to the more pious among you. But in my opinion, she lies too much to stop at 100%.

It also contains the following:

-No fewer than 15 references to the Clintons
-Three uses of the word "stupid" to describe her political opponents
-One chapter on why liberals can't get over the Lewinski scandal
-One chapter on why killing all the Arabs doesn't count as genocide
-A passage in which she expresses admiration towards Augusto Pinochet for showing us all the benefits of fascism
-Two instances of oddly out-of-place anti-Semitism
-A full three pages containing nothing but obscenities and racial slurs, including some she made up specifically for the book.

Actually, that's not bad. I might have to try and get that published.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* I know I promised to keep this blog clean, but as I see it, if a sitting Vice President can drop the F-bomb in what is supposed to be one of the most dignified forums in the United States, I should be allowed to do the same on an obscure website with a readership consisting mostly of confused Googlers.

Blast From The Past

2004-06-28T07:24:00.000-06:00

Shorter Dennis Prager, 01/27/04:

Swearing is always bad, no matter where it is done, but if the word is used to describe a bad person, it's all right.

Bombs Over Baghdad

2004-06-27T17:01:00.000-06:00

It never ends - now, the Iraqi police force we trained is starting to turn on us:

With american fighter jets and helicopters buzzing the skies overhead, an officer in Iraq's new police force approaches a group of fighters on Fallujah's front lines with an urgent call to arms.

"I need a man who can use an RPG," says Omar, who wears the uniform of a first lieutenant. Four hands shoot up and a cry rings out: "We are ready." He chooses a young man, Bilal, and they drive to an underpass on the outskirts of the city.

There, on Highway One, an American Humvee is driving east. Bilal aims and fires his rocket propelled grenade, turning the vehicle into a smoking, twisted, metal carcass. The fate of its occupants is unknown.

First Lt Omar is sworn to uphold the law and fight the insurgency that threatens Iraq's evolution into a free and democratic state. Instead, he is exploiting his knowledge of US tactics to help the rebel cause in Fallujah.

The article goes on to say that the Iraqi police force is beginning to side with the insurgents because they face less resistance. The end result is that our troops are now up against a force that is well-armed and knows all our strategies.

Yeah, we're ready for this handover.

Lying Assholes

2004-06-27T16:00:00.000-06:00

First things first: Michael Moore made it clear that the Saudis and Binladens left on the 13th, and he was equally clear about the fact that one congressman has a child in Iraq.

With that out of the way, here's my take on Fahrenheit 9/11. It's basically a summary of four years worth of scandal and dishonesty. Although the flow of F911 is similar to Bowling for Columbine, they are still different movies. F911 is more low key, with more file footage and interviews. Maybe it's just because it's more topical, but I actually liked F911 more than Bowling for Columbine.

A few notes:

-Moore had some interesting new revelations regarding Bush's military records. It's worth seeing for that reason alone.

-The 9/11 attacks were never shown: the audio was played over a black screen. I think it was actually more impactful that way.

-Moore talked to a mother who lost her son in Iraq. They were planning to go to the White House to get as close to Bush as possible. On the way, they passed a woman selling anti-Bush merchandise on the street. They stopped to talk to her, and another woman walked into the shot and said something along the lines of, "This is all staged". The mother stopped to tell her about her son, and the woman asked her why she was mad at Bush and not al Qaeda. Of course Bush sent him into Iraq, not al Qaeda, but that's not the point. That someone would stop to argue with a woman who'd lost her son is going a bit far in my opinion.

-There was some footage of a beheading that took place in Saudi Arabia. The executioner used a sword, and it took him more than one swing to kill the man. This was apparently done as part of a celebration. Now, the Israeli government has certainly done some ugly things that I don't agree with, but comparing their relationship with the United States to the Bush family's relationship with the House of Saud is disingenuous at best.

-There is also footage of John Ashcroft singing "Let the Eagle Soar". Fair warning.

At The Flicks

2004-06-27T09:10:00.000-06:00

Going to see Fahrenheit 9/11 this afternoon; will be back and posting in a few hours.

Non-Political Friday - Webcomic Madness Edition

2004-06-25T07:31:00.000-06:00

-Instant Classic: This webcomic follows the exploits of several groups of people (such as a pair of indie filmmakers and a bootlegging team), all united by a movie theater. They make fun of the name in the comic, but it's not totally inaccurate.

-Fallen: A more serious webcomic, Fallen follows a woman who inadvertently becomes the caretaker for a fallen angel seeking redemption. The comic takes place in a fleshed-out world with a substantial backstory, its own mytologies, and a variety of fantastic creatures. It's well worth checking out.

-If you want more webcomic goodness, start with these: 8-Bit Theatre, Sluggy Freelance, VG Cats.

-In honor of my working two D.N.A. references into this week's posting, here's an online version of Hitchhiker's Guide: the Game, the classic text adventure game. Consider it an accomplishment if you get out of the bedroom without dying. (Hint: take the dressing gown first)

-Bad Candy: The sitemasters of Bad Candy have been subjecting themselves to the worst candies in the world since 1997, all for you. You owe it to them to visit their site.

-Dr. Boogie of I-Mockery has dug up one of the most surreal movies to come out of the Japanese cinema organ. It's called "The Story of Ricky", and the good doctor has five pages of gut-splattering goodness.

-And finally, here's one for all you gamers: this week's Comedy Goldmine features video game PR buzzphrases and what they really mean. Enjoy.

What Is The Matter With Kansas, Anyway?

2004-06-24T19:52:00.000-06:00

I recently picked up "What's the Matter with Kansas?" It's about the rise of conservativism in Kansas, and why people here in the Heartland vote against their own economic self-interests. I always knew that the Repubs controlled the Midwest by campaigning on wedge issues - abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action, the Ten Commandments, etc. They can only use economic issues as soundbites, because their Reaganite economic plans would fall apart under any real scrutiny. But what I didn't consider until I began reading is that they really need to lose the so-called culture war if they want to keep winning the Midwest. Consider this: Republicans control all three branches of the government, yet Roe v. Wade is still intact, anti-sodomy rules have been overruled, school prayer is still "illegal" (i.e. not mandatory), and Roy Moore is still out of a job. The only bills passed to amend these "problems" are obviously designed to fail, such as the bill that would have given Congress the power to overturn actions of the "activist" Judiciary. In the meantime, the conservatives that basically control the government are stilll searching for oppression by the elite, even as they become the elite. Why? Because if the conservatives win the culture war, they won't have anything to run on. A hero is nothing without a villain, and moral outrage is worthless without a good target.

I wrote that having read seven pages. Damn, that's a good book.

What Was It They Said About MoveOn.org Again?

2004-06-24T16:44:00.000-06:00

Take a look at Bush's new campaign ad, "Kerry's Coalition of the Wild-Eyed".

Dear God.

AS long as you've dirtied yourself by visiting W's site, check out the other features, such as a Ronald Reagan video montage that's just dying to be parodied, an all-Kerry page that shows that Bush spits in the faces of those who say an incumbent can't run a negative campaign, and an extensive photo gallery complete with many many photos of Bush with black children.

Objectively Pro-Saddam

2004-06-24T07:03:00.000-06:00

Let's play a little game. Who wrote the following?

The fact that I have been taking issue with assertions about Saddam Hussein that I believe to be false has made me something of a pariah in political circles.

[...]

My clients, who have been reading my analytics for years, at least know that I do not publish material I have not thoroughly vetted, have been nice about their recommendations. I get plenty of unsolicited e-mails from folks who think I am a "f****** traitor and demand I admit Saddam should be boiled in oil and the burn in Hell forever. I finally decided to write this memo when a regular thorn in my side wrote last week that it is well known Saddam puts children in foul and filthy prisons and treats them with unspeakable cruelty. As I try to answer all e-mails, I responded that this is good news to me, as I had earlier heard Saddam executes children who displease him. Last month, I read in London's DailyTelegraph that Saddam's favorite weekend hobby is drowning kittens. I subsequently remembered that the Telegraph is an anti-war paper and was surely making a joke, but one never knows.

[...]

On the other hand, Saddam Hussein has been complaining for years that the US Air Force and the British Air Force have been flying war planes over his country and, when they get the urge, drop some bombs or fire some missiles at Iraqi installations. The United States say they are only firing and bombing in self-defense, because the Iraqis either fire at them, or train their radars on them, which is a signal they might fire. The United States has been saying they have been doing this under UN Resolution 688 which was passed in 1991 to protect Iraqi citizens from military attacks by their government. Now I have checked into this and discovered that the "no-fly zones" we have been bombing all these years have been for "humanitarian reasons." France, which in 1991 participated in the aerial protection of the Kurds in the north and the Shi-ites in the southern "no-fly zone" decided to stop when there was no evidence that Iraq was engaging in military attacks and if they did, there would be more than no-fly zones. I've also learned that UN General Secretary Kofi Annan has stated on several occasions that there is NO authority by the United Nations for the US and Brits to be flying around in Iraqi air space, let alone bombing Iraq, destroying Iraqi property and killing Iraqi citizens.

Surprise! It's this man, who, among other things, is a TownHall member.

Remember: in the world of right-wing assery, protesting the war = objectively pro-Saddam, arguing that Saddam is innocent and should be set free = true patriot.

Bill O'Reilly: Stand-Up Comic?

2004-06-23T10:26:00.000-06:00

Seriously, this statement has to be a joke:

O'REILLY: I -- I can't tell you, you know, I -- I just can't tell you how much I despise the Far Left. I despise the Far Right, too. ... But the Far Left, I mean -- let -- let me just give you an analogy. Michael Savage is a far-right guy, a radio guy. A lot of you guys listen to him. He's on some of the same stations. He comes out with some outlandish stuff, I mean there's no question. But he doesn't lie. I mean, I can't -- I can't listen to him and -- and say oh, Savage is lying. He doesn't do that. And -- and if he does, I don't know it, you know, it's not been brought to my attention.

I don't know Savage. I've never met him. OK? And I listen to all the radio competition. But when I listen to him, sometimes I go, "Ahh, come on." You know, I'm sure you guys do that to me. But he doesn't lie. He doesn't attack someone and just -- and -- and make up stuff about them. Malicious stuff. Slanderous stuff. And I -- I -- even in -- in Limbaugh, I never heard him do that. Never heard Limbaugh do that.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, Bill.

You know, if Bill is going to say that Al Franken (and let's face it, that is who Bill is talking about) is worse than Limbaugh and Savage, he might to put some time into finding Franken saying that Republicans have no souls or that the staff of the National Review needs to be put in Abu Ghraib, or at least fabricate some.

A Splitting Headache And No Tea

2004-06-22T13:58:00.000-06:00

As long as we're briefly off the subject of politics, here's something cool: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Doug Adams's classic satirical sci-fi novel, is getting the film treatment.

As expected, there are already complaints (namely about the fact that this man will be playing Ford Prefect). The production team seems pretty dedicated to preserving the ordered insanity of DNA's book, so the only thing that troubles me is how they will handle some of the less concrete moments (such as the interior of the Impropability Drive).

From The "Reality Is Now A Stranger Place To Be" Department

2004-06-22T13:14:00.000-06:00

Potato growers are pitching a reduced-carb potato. Yes, you read that right.

The Atkins diet might be horrible for your heart and impossible to stick to, but it's a boon for comedy. Every day, our glorious capitalist economy creates stranger and stranger low-carb products. Low-carb ice cream. Low-carb bread. Low-carb light beer (chalk that one up to marketing - it would be like selling fat free water). I swear our local Subway sells something they call the "breadless sub." And every week I swear thay'll never be able to devise a more messed up low-carb product, and every week I'm proven wrong. Next thing you know, they'll be selling carb-watchers exercise equipment and furniture, and I'll know our society has finally gone totally insane. Oh well.

TownHall Abridged: Even More Shorter. . .

2004-06-22T10:50:00.000-06:00

Dennis Prager:

Anti-Semites hate the Jews, even though they are by and large a good people. Therefore, all those Muslims who hate us are obviously evil because the U.S. government has never done anything that might be construed as bad (*cough* South America *cough* East Timor *cough*).

David Limbaugh:

Anyone who calls Bush a liar is lying, because although he implied that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and though many members of his cabinet insist that there's a connection, he never actually said "Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for 9/11." Also, all his other lies were just "misstatements", even when he repeated them on more than one occasion. Oh, and all that for my brother and I, too.

Debra Saunders:

The Clintons may have been exonerated in the Whitewater case, Vince Foster conspiracy, etc., but I swear that they are guilty anyway.

Bruce Bartlett:

Conservatives are watching more Fox, which proves the existence of left-wing media bias. Also, I have no problem with a study that considers the Drudge Report to be "objective".

Phyllis Schlafly:

The ACLU wants Los Angeles to remove a cross from its seal, and that's not cool with me. That's not an unreasonable opinion. But I'm Phyllis f---ing Schlafly, so I'm going to throw in some Orwellian terminology and conspiracy theories to assure everyone that, yes, I'm still quite mad.

Mike S. Adams:

I found a letter from a GLBT group at Duke University. It's not particularly hateful, obscene, or unreasonable, but let's all pretend it is so I don't have to do any actual writing this week.

Rich Lowry:

If the Democrats are mad that we tried to impeach Clinton, thay should know that it's their fault for pursuing justice in the Watergate scandal. If those unreasonable hypocrites would have just let Nixon spy on their headquarters, none of this would ever have happened. And while the Clintons were fully exonerated in the Whitewater scandal, there were other people who were convicted, so I'm going to keep bringing it up as though it had some relevance.

Joel Mowbray:

I wrote the same column as Limbaugh. We really need to coordinate these things better. Anyway, there's this book that shows evidence of a connection between bin Laden and Saddam. I don't know if any of the presented evidence is real, but the sheer volume of accusations is much more important than their veracity.

Bonus! The Definitive Shorter Ann Coulter (with apologies to the late Doug Adams):

I am always right. Reality is often flawed.

Compare And Contrast

2004-06-20T09:26:00.000-06:00

Doug Giles's latest column.

Doug Giles's column, translated to Dutch and back via Babelfish.

You make the call on which makes more sense.

Appeasement and Restraint

2004-06-19T14:38:00.000-06:00

You know, it is becomins increasing clear that wingnuts are having a hard time distinguishing between "appeasement" and "restraint". So, as a courtesy to the general blogging community, I present the following. Feel free to use it in your daily happenings.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Right-Wing Guide To Understanding Political Concepts: Appeasement vs. Restraint
------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.) Understanding the definitions. The appplicable definition is emphasized in each passage.

a.)Main Entry: ap·pease
Pronunciation: &-'pEz
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): ap·peased; ap·peas·ing
Etymology: Middle English appesen, from Middle French apaisier, from a- (from Latin ad-) + pais peace -- more at PEACE
1 : to bring to a state of peace or quiet : CALM
2 : to cause to subside : ALLAY
3 : PACIFY, CONCILIATE; especially : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles

b.)Main Entry: re·straint
Pronunciation: ri-'strAnt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French restrainte, from restraindre
1 a : an act of restraining : the state of being restrained b (1) : a means of restraining : a restraining force or influence (2) : a device that restricts movement
2 : a control over the expression of one's emotions or thoughts

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.) Use in real-life situations.

Example 1: A seven year old is being threatened by a bully.
Appeasement: The kid gives the bully his allowance.
Restraint: The kid does not take a gun and shoot the bully.

Example 2: A politician is being blackmailed by an unknown individual.
Appeasement: The politician pays the blackmailer.
Restraint: He does not use his connections to hire a hitman to kill the blackmailer.

Example 3: Misha makes a posts that offends me deeply.
Appeasement: I send him gifts in an attempt to make him stop postings such awful things.
Restraint: I do not track him down and do not use various drugs to destroy his mind, reducing him to a childlike state in which he clings to me, doing my will in exchange for the drugs that temporarily dull the nigh endless horror that is his existence. . .I'm sorry, what was I saying?

Example 4: A Middle Eastern dictator is not doing anything in particular.
Appeasement: We give him weapons and money so he will continue doing nothing.
Restraint: We do not invade his country on trumped-up and falsified evidence.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.) Conclusion.

As I have demonstrated, appeasement requires two things: an imminent threat and an effort to allay that threat through payment in services and/or material goods. As neither of these factors were present in the arguments of the anti-war left, we were not proposing appeasement, but rather restraint.

Michael Moore vs. The World

2004-06-19T08:52:00.000-06:00

Even Bradbury is against him.

Ray Bradbury is demanding an apology from filmmaker Michael Moore for lifting the title from his classic science-fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451" without permission and wants the new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" to be renamed.

"He didn't ask my permission," Bradbury, 83, told The Associated Press on Friday. "That's not his novel, that's not his title, so he shouldn't have done it."

If I were Ray Bradbury, I'd be honored. After all, the title is a homage to a classic book, not a mockery. I consider it a tip of the hat to his legacy, not an offense.

Tin Foil Tiara

2004-06-19T08:39:00.000-06:00

Man, this is a weird story:

A sweeping mental health initiative will be unveiled by President George W Bush in July. The plan promises to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," according to a March 2004 progress report entitled New Freedom Initiative (www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/toc-2004.html).

[...]

The president's commission found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children. According to the commission, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and emotional disorders." Schools, wrote the commission, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

Let's put on our tin foil hats for a minute, shall we?

A while back, I read a story about something called ODD (oppositional defiance disorder). The story made mention of a politically-active 16-year old who was diagnosed with ODD and essentially kidnapped at his parents behest and taken to a Mormon "education" camp. It was a very creepy incident, but what was even worse was the fact that the symptoms of ODD were so broad that they could probably be applied to 95% of high school students.

I've heard about how physicians overdiagnose ADD/ADHD to put energetic (but mentally healthy) children on Ritalin. Now, the president is initiating a universal mental health screening. Maybe it's just paranoia, but I don't think I want the Bush Administration deciding who's sane and insane.

I'm just glad I'm out of the public school system.

Venusians Unite!

2004-06-19T08:19:00.000-06:00

The 9/11 Panel challenges Cheney on al Qaeda/Saddam claims:

The leaders of the Sept. 11 commission called on Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday to turn over any intelligence reports that would support the White House's insistence that there was a close relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

The commission's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, and its vice chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, said they wanted to see any additional information in the administration's possession after Mr. Cheney, in a television interview on Thursday, was asked whether he knew things about Iraq's links to terrorists that the commission did not know.

"Probably," Mr. Cheney replied.

"Probably". What a schmuck. But wait - there's more:

Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton said that, in particular, they wanted any information available to back Mr. Cheney's suggestion that one of the hijackers might have met in Prague in April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence agent, a meeting that the panel's staff believes did not take place. Mr. Cheney said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday that the administration had never been able to prove the meeting took place but was not able to disprove it either.

"We just don't know," Mr. Cheney said.

That's right - per Cheney, although we can't prove that there were any al Qaeda connections, we can't prove there weren't any connections! Brilliant! On a similar note, I can't prove that Cheney is a reanimated corpse being controlled by Venusians in a galactic battle against the soil-dwelling Plutonians, but I can't disprove it either, so let's just assume it's true.

Connect The Dots

2004-06-18T21:17:00.000-06:00

A few of Pandagon's readers want to know why Jesse screws around with John Cole and his ilk.

It's amusing for one, but there's actually a more important reason. You see, like many of my compatriots in Blogovia, I've been reading David Brock's new book. Much of it deals with the structure of the conservative media apparatus, from the lowliest bloggers and small town op-ed writers to Rush Limbaugh and Tony Snow. The whole system feeds on itself. Here's a theoretical example:

1.) A random conservative blogger makes a post about John Kerry.

2.) Glenn Raynolds links to that post. The blogger receives a massive (but temporary) boost in hits.

3.) Sully, Volokh, Kaus, and the rest of the major right-wing Blogosphere links to Instapundit.

4.) One of the lesser lights at TownHall reads one of the blogs. He writes a column about it.

5.) Ann Coulter hears about the column. She rewrites it with more invective.

6.) Tony Snow reads the column. He talks about it on Fox.

7.) The next day, Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest of the Fox crew talk about it.

8.) Rush Limbaugh hears about the meme. He devotes an hour to it.

9.) The meme, now widely known, seeps into the Washington think tanks.

10.) A random blogger makes a post about the meme. He throws in a comment on Hillary Clinton, and the whole process begins anew.

That's an extreme example, granted. But this is how it works. Even the most insignificant conservapundit can contribute if he gets noticed. It's really quite beautiful, in a sad sort of way.

Your Liberal Media At Work

2004-06-18T21:06:00.000-06:00

Atrios wonders when the Bush Administration will be referred to as "scandal plagued".

Remember this - Of all the allegations lodged against the Clinton Administration (Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, the Vincent Foster conspiracy, the assorted rape/sexual misconduct accusations), only one had any substance to it.

With how many scandals have the Bushies been charged? There's the Valerie Plame scandal, the 9/11 intelligence failures, the Iraq "intelligence failures", the 2000 voter purge, Cheney's Halliburton connections, and that's not even counting things that happened before Bush was elected. When are they going to be called "the scandal-plagued Bush Administration"?

Who's Looking Out For You (Unless You're A Muslim)?

2004-06-18T20:44:00.000-06:00

Bill O'Reilly says all the really crazy crap on his radio program, it seems. From Media Matters:

O'REILLY: Because look ... when 2 percent of the population feels that you're doing them a favor, just forget it, you're not going to win. You're not going to win. And I don't have any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric group that is -- yeah, there's excuses.

Sure, they're terrorized, they've never known freedom, all of that. There's excuses. I understand. But I don't have to respect them because you know when you have Americans dying trying to you know institute some kind of democracy there, and 2 percent of the people appreciate it, you know, it's time to -- time to wise up.

And this teaches us a big lesson, that we cannot intervene in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do is bomb the living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans. Just as we did in the Balkans. Bomb the living daylights out of them. But no more ground troops, no more hearts and minds, ain't going to work.

[...]

They're just people who are primitive.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: referring to people with terms like "primitive" is a mechanic to dehumanize them. If the Iraqis aren't people, then our killing them isn't really murder, but a solution to a problem. The fact is, the Iraqis aren't primitive. They are highly educated people that could probably do a better job of rebuilding their own country than a bunch of crooks like Halliburton ever could. Just because they dress in a different manner than Mr. O'Reilly is accustomed to doesn't make them primitive, inferior, unworthy or stupid.

It's also worth analyzing the "ungrateful Iraqi" meme. The bulk of the Iraqi people never asked for a war. This is like shooting a dog that looked like it was attacking your neighbor, then calling him an ingrate when he gets pissed because you killed his dog.

They Know Not What They Do

2004-06-17T20:18:00.000-06:00

In his latest column, Jonah Goldberg takes the conservative punditocracy one step further into the mire of moral relativism:

But if you think the Geneva Convention is a wonderful thing, I don't understand why you would want to weaken it by saying there's no advantage to signing it. Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents defy all the rules enshrined and symbolized by the Geneva Convention (and, often, the Koran), and yet administration critics piously demand that these thugs should be given all the benefits that come with being a signatory to it.

Jonah, like many conservative columnists, seems to have misplaced the concept of moral superiority. Morality, like honor, is not itself an advantage - in fact, quite often it's a hindrance. If we allowed our troops to employ human shields, or execute people in public, or commit local genocide, it would probably give us an advantage. But we will never permit Americans to do these things, not because of the Geneva accords, but because those acts are immoral. That's why we can say that we're better than them.

What Jonah is describing here - some sort of twisted moral relativism where we can stoop to our enemy's level so long as we remain one iota better than them - is completely anathema to the ideals of the United States. It's in opposition to the Bill of Rights, a set of ideals that bind our hands to keep our hearts pure. It's in opposition to the religious doctrine that Jonah's party is supposed to represent.

I can only hope that this meme is due to ignorance and not malice.

Ch-Check It Out

2004-06-17T19:48:00.000-06:00

Apparently, the new Beastie Boys CD had an ugly surprise waiting for fans who put them into their computers.

I buy all my music, but I still think copy protection is ridiculous. It hinders the playback, stops people from making mixes and copies for legit reasons, and is so ineffective that it can generally be beaten by pressing a single key. Ironically, the hassle caused by copy protection is causing more people to seek pirated copies that don't have copy protection.

Non-Political Friday - Foreign Flops Edition

2004-06-17T19:03:00.000-06:00

I'll be busy tomorrow, so this week's NPF is actually being posted on Thursday. I apologize if that causes any distortions in the space-time continuum.

-Greasnin of Something Awful sets his sights on Europe and finds Junior, a Dutch "horror" film featuring the longest stretch of nothing in the history of cinema.

-Per Arne reviewed Superargo contro Diabolikus, thus answering the question: what would Superman be like if he was Italian, wore a wrestling costume all the time, and really, really sucked?

-RoG and the I-Mockery gang show us their latest find - the Hostess Snack Cake oven, an Easy Bake with everything you need to make your own Twinkies and Cupcakes. Did the treats they made turn out as good as the real thing? Take a guess.

Fun Time Hypocrisy Hour With Bill O'Reilly

2004-06-16T13:15:00.000-06:00

Remember when O'Reilly was getting into a snit over a pair of MoveOn.org ads that compared Bush to Hitler? Guess what?

One week after right-wing radio host Michael Savage compared progressive financier, philanthropist, and political activist George Soros to Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, TV and radio host Bill O'Reilly compared both author/documentarian Michael Moore and radio host Al Franken to Goebbels. O'Reilly also likened a group of Hollywood celebrities who attended a recent premier of Moore's new film, Fahrenheit 9/11, to the Nazi faithful. In the process, O'Reilly falsely accused Franken of lying.

Some quick research turned up a bevy of additional Nazi comparisons from the spinmaster:

8 Mar 2002 - At the end of a discussion about violence against women on The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly tells Professor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: "All right. Well, I think that's an offensive comment, but that's all right. You're entitled to it. This is America. And we have freedom here to say that. But if we didn't fight for that freedom, professor, you would be going like this: 'Heil Hitler.' And we appreciate your time."

Apr 2002 - During a discussion on The O'Reilly Factor about Harmful to Minors, a book about pedophilia, Bill O'Reilly badgers journalist Kristin Tillotson: "Adolf Hitler wrote a book too! It was called Mein Kampf!"

27 Aug 2002 - During a discussion with Dr. Robert Kirkpatrick about assigning the book Approaching the Koran: The Early Revelations on The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly draws a parallel with being forced to read Adolf Hitler's autobiography in 1941: "I wouldn't read the book. And I'll tell you why I wouldn't have read Mein Kampf either. If I were going to UNC in 1941, and you, professor, said, 'Read Mein Kampf,' I would have said, 'Hey, professor -- with all due respect, shove it. I ain't reading it.'" [Note - O'reilly lied about this quote at the infamous book expo]

19 Nov 2003 - During a discussion of Michael Jackson on The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly chides Us magazine reporter Ian Drew by asking: "Would you tell both sides of the story for Hitler? I mean, would you say 'Oh gee, he had a bad childhood...' Come on, a monster!"

9 Jan 2004 - On The Radio Factor, Bill O'Reilly declares: “The ACLU is the most fascist organization I have seen in decades. They want to tell you how to live. They don’t want to abide by the Constitution. They want to go around the Constitution. They’re intellectual fascists, and they use the courts as their Panzer divisions.”

Remember this when you hear Republicans bitch about the loss of civility in the American political discourse.

Erratic Posting. . .

2004-06-15T20:48:00.000-06:00

. . .for a few days, as I'll be away and busy.

In the meantime, I have something to keep you occupied. Some of you oldskool gamers may remember Maniac Mansion, a classic LucasArts adventure game created originally for the PC and converted to NES. It's probably most remembered for the butcher job Nintendo did on it, as it was forced to conforn to the Big N's strict content regulations. Anyway, the good folks at LucasFan Games have re-made Maniac Mansion, uncut and in 256 colors. Enjoy, and here's the walkthrough in case you need it (and you will).

Slowly And Loudly

2004-06-15T09:24:00.000-06:00

Cal Thomas:

Most school choice advocates believe the poor would be the first to head for the exit should vouchers be approved for the parents of government school children. Numerous surveys have shown that lack of money is the only reason most poor children remain trapped in government schools and that if money were no longer a concern, poor parents would place their children in private schools. Liberal Democrats, who claim to be advocates for the poor, have failed them on this important issue because they like getting contributions from the National Education Association. While such contributions help keep them in office, poor children continue to starve intellectually and morally.

Discordia, explaining "school choice":

Private schools, unlike public schools, DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT EVERYONE. This is how they maintain high standards. If you give out school vouchers, everyone will apply to private schools, BUT MOST WOULD NOT BE ACCEPTED. Only the MOST INTELLIGENT or MOST ATHLETIC or otherwise MOST GIFTED would be accepted. The remaining students would have LESS MONEY THAN EVER. The majority of students WOULD NOT BENEFIT and would, in fact, BE HURT. Using the NEA as a liberal boogeyman MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A JACKHOLE.

FOX News To BBC: Pot, Kettle, Black

2004-06-15T09:10:00.000-06:00

John Gibson accuses BBC of "frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism", gets in deep with the British government.

Television regulators said the broadcaster failed to show "respect for truth" in a strongly worded opinion item, broadcast on the day the Hutton report was published, which also accused BBC executives of giving reporters a "right to lie".

Ofcom, which licenses commercial channels shown in Britain regardless of where they are based, received 24 complaints about the remarks. In a ruling published yesterday, it described the offending item as a "damning critique" but said it did not stand up to scrutiny.

There's a certain irony in Fox News accusing someone else of editorializing, isn't there?

Coordination

2004-06-14T15:55:00.000-06:00

The Administration really needs to get a handle on Cheney. His contradicting Shrub's official positions can't look good:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al Qaida, an assertion that has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers.

"He was a patron of terrorism," Cheney of Hussein during a speech before The James Madison Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Florida. "He had long established ties with al Qaida."

Cheney offered no details backing up his claim of a link between Hussein and al Qaida.

There's a really strange dichotomy going on here. Bush has been going to great lenghts to distance himself from the supposed al-Qaeda/Saddam connection, as has his whole cabinet - but not Cheney. It's been going on for too long to be a simple coordination problem.

Hypocrites Anonymous

2004-06-14T15:23:00.000-06:00

Hello, my name is Bob, and I don't practice what I preach.

Former Rep. Bob Barr cannot bring a $30 million defamation suit against former President Clinton, Democratic political adviser James Carville and publisher Larry Flynt, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The Georgia Republican alleged that the three conspired to smear him by publishing information about his private life as retaliation for his outspoken role in the impeachment proceedings against Clinton.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Barr failed to make his conspiracy claim against Clinton and Carville within the three years permitted by law.

As to Flynt, the panel ruled that Barr's claim is barred by the First Amendment because he failed to show that the information printed in a one-time issue called "The Flynt Report" was false or was published with knowledge that it was false.

Ah yes, another Republican practicing the fine art of the Frivolous Lawsuit.

Note that, while Barr was too late to charge Clinton and Carville, he couldn't sue Flynt because he never proved that Flynt was lying. Funny, that.

Dubya Stomps On Reagan's Grave

2004-06-14T15:14:00.000-06:00

For all the praise and adulation, Bush has been quick to shoot down the one request Reagan's family has made of him:

The White House is rejecting calls by former President Reagan's family to change its policy on stem cell research.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan says flatly, "The policy remains the same." He adds, "We are looking at other ways to combat disease."

Reagan's widow Nancy and his daughter Patti Davis have been outspoken advocates of expanding medical research using embryonic stem cells.

That's not fair. Bush shouldn't be able to wear the mantle of Reagan and then turn around and reject his widow. But then again, if I had a buck for each time Bush did something he shouldn't have been able to, well, this site would probably be called "Win One For The Gipper" and I'd still be pissed at Bush.

Supply-Side Prophets

2004-06-14T07:47:00.000-06:00

In honor of the increasingly surreal efforts to name everything in the United States after St. Ronnie of Reagan, I present the second part of my expose on the Reagan legacy. Last time we examined the impact of Reaganite policy on other countries. This week, we set our sights inward. . .

--------------------------------------------
2. The Forgotten Tax Hikes
--------------------------------------------

The gospel of Supply-Side Economics reads as follows; if you give money to corporations, they will invest that money in smaller businesses, who will be able to hire more workers. It was with this theory in mind that President Reagan, shortly after his election, authorized the single largest tax cut in the history of the United States. This cut was followed immediately by a big spike in unemployment, during which the unemployment rate topped 10%.

By 1984, the unemployment rate had returned to 1980 levels, and remained in decline for the rest of the Reagan administration. So Reaganomics had some benefit, right? Wrong. Anyone who makes that claim is unaware of (or deliberately ignoring) TEFRA.

TEFRA, or the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, increased taxes by 1% of GDP, making it the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. History. And it was followed by more tax hikes, including one which increased taxes by .5% of GDP.

The following year, unemployment began to fall.

Head to Head: Reagan vs. Clinton
	Reagan 81-88	Clinton 93-00
Median family income	+$3,900	+$7,418
Average unemployment	7.54%	5.20%
Average annual change in unemployment	-.25%	-.43%
Change in poverty	-1%	-3.8%
Corporate profits (in billions)	+$143.5	+$326.6

Urban Legend Round-Up

2004-06-12T16:29:00.000-06:00

All information courtesy of Snopes.

--Tags on Tom Bihn bags carry a hidden message in French. On the washing instruction tags on certain items by Tom Bihn, the French instructions have an extra line: "NOUS SOMMES DESOLES QUE NOTRE PRESIDENT SOIT UN IDIOT. NOUS N'AVONS PAS VOTE POUR LUI." (Translated: "We're sorry our president is an idiot. We didn't vote for him.") The company swear up and down that it's a reference to the company president, but the similarity to the line on the American Traveler International Apology Shirt (along with the fact that the 'wingers have apparently been referring to them as 'treason tags') makes me skeptical.

--Photo of Shrub hugging the daughter of a 9/11 victim. The picture is real, but the headline is a huge ass-kisser; Bush Photo with Teen Shows Conviction and Compassion. Ugh.

--Picture of a statue made by an Iraqi sculptor. The photo is real, but the people who sent it apparently didn't think the picture was pro-Bush enough, so they made up a story about the sculptor being forced to make statues of Saddam, and how he crafted the one in the picture out of gratitude.

Non-Political Friday - Super-Duper Edition

2004-06-11T07:11:00.000-06:00

I forgot last week's NPF, so this week I'll make it up with an double-long edition.

--Let Them Sing It For You: Punch in a phrase, hit "Let Them Sing It", and your entry will be sang back to you via clips from various songs. The site owner is always looking for help finding more words, so give him a hand.

--H*Y*B*R*I*D: Best of the web, meet worst of the web: this is one of the goofiest sites I've ever seen. Hybrid is an insanely convoluted role-playing system, composed mainly of strings of symbols and numbers that look like they were generated by computers. Here's a sample - Rule #225, on time travel:

Almost same as in RULE # 224, except here use it for time travel, meaning for a 100 C2 DP object to time travel, a force of [(100)^2] or 10,000 C2 DP would need to act upon that 100 C2 DP object. So, a WWII 19 C1 DP aircraft carrier @ 43.17 C2 DP by 19^LOG10(19) = 43.17 C2 DP would need a force of [(43.17)^2] = 1,863.90 C2 DP to act upon it to for that 43.17 C2 DP WWII aircraft carrier to time travel, where 64.3326 C1 DP in 64.3326^LOG10(64.3326) = 1,863.90 C2 DP which is accurate if you consider the fictional storyline that of Yamato (of ‘Star Blazers’ of the ‘80s).

The best part about this site is that the author frequently tries to apply his formulas to real life. The results are goofy rants about various topics, including his assertation that X2 proved that Xavier was a pedophile. Seriously.

--Possibly the most worthless (but amusing) link I'll ever feature: a program to generate Metal Gear/Mega Man X style codenames. Say hello to "Shotgun Gerbil"!

--Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music: There are over 150 types of electronic music. Learn more about the subtle (and often non-existent) differences between them with this interactive Flash guide, complete with clips.

--Thanks to the magic of Java, we can, for the first time, simulate a zombie attack on a panicked metropolis.

--More evidence that you can find information on anything online: a complete catalog of ACME products as seen in cartoons.

--Moviepoopers: You always kenw it existed, even if you couldn't find it: a site dedicated to spoiling the ends of movies. Useful for when you want to ruin a co-worker's day.

--Remember "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon"? Well, here's a program that allows you to connect anyone to anyone else. This is an amazingly addictive little game - don't be surprised when you spend hours trying to connect unlikely people to Jerry Falwell.

--For your daily dose of insanity, there's no better place than Wiolawa Press, where snake men rule the world and Big Dog, Crashcart, and Shrub are involved in a satanic plot to kill the site master's daughter.

--Think you can make a better budget than the present administration? With this simulator, you can sure try.

ObVoxious Behavior

2004-06-10T06:41:00.000-06:00

Apparently, Vox Day was so very proud of his response - and so certain that I needed to see it - that he sent it directly to me. And golly gosh, am I impressed.

They did not predict falling wages, but then, I haven't read a single anti-suffragist document focused on the economic aspects, as opposed to the social, so that's hardly surprising. Indeed, I don't know that I've ever read anything specifically linking the entry of women into the work force with falling real wages even after the fact; I'm under no illusion that I'm the first to make such a link, but let's face it, real wages and century-old political debates are common subjects for popular reading these days. As for other predictions, those happend to be the ones that I recall. I'm sure there were others, but not so many that their success rate is not astounding eighty plus years on.

Missing the point entirely, Vox. The point I was making was that these anti-suffragists could have claimed that a wide variety of social aspects would have worsened (poverty, theft, adultery, fraud, etc.). It would then be a matter of picking only the predictions that came true.

No, Vox thinks that voting should be restricted to an elite capable of thinking beyond their immediate personal interest and willing to avoid the temptation to vote themselves largesse taken by force from others. There is plenty of room for disagreement within those bounds. If voting is not restricted to this relatively broad elite, demagogues will purchase the favor of the short-sighted mob using the powerful mechanisms of government and a very much smaller oligarchical elite will impose its rule. Choose your poison.

Ah, but follow my logic: In his previous comments, Vox has said that, while we do not have a direct democracy and don't vote directly for issues, he can predict how women will vote because the party that depends on then (Democrats) supposts these issues. On his blog, Vox admitted that he does not reject the idea of restricting the voting rights of other groups. Libertarians tend to lean rightward. Based on this and his arguments, my conclusion is that since Democrats do not vote "beyond their immediate personal interest", and because of this, any group that votes Democratic needs to have their voting rights restricted.

I call myself a libertarian I support the concept of my rights ending where yours begin. This is antithetically opposed to democracy, which can be rightly equated to two wolves and one sheep deciding what to have for lunch. I'd much rather be free to live my life free of government control of my behavior, speech and property than be permitted to vote while being forced to endure countless violations of individual liberty. In case this is hard to follow, I will spell it out. Voting is not freedom. Voting is an act, freedom is the ability to act as one wills. Voting was mandatory in the Soviet Union, was the Soviet Union therefore free?

No, voting does not automatically make a democracy, but a democracy cannot exist without free voting rights. That's the definition of democracy. U.S.-style representative democracy strives to protect the rights of the minority. That's why we have elected leaders - it prevents us from becoming the mobocracy Vox is describing. If that's not happening, it's the fault of the people in charge, not the system.

It is disingenuous to posit a strong link between welfare and illegitimacy?

Yes.
1. Divorce
2. Death
3. Plain ol' poverty.

I am not saying that women shouldn't be able to work, only that barring the burden of government spending partially created by women's suffrage, more women would be able to choose to stay home with their children should they so desire. I am quite confident that most would.

OK, so if women can't vote, more of them will stay home because the government won't be burdened by spending caused by ensuring voting rights for all. And he calls my logic disingenuous?

This is only because Eris is still operating under the misconception that the universal vote is conducive to human freedom. He equates voting with freedom, which I have already demonstrated is obviously fallacious. A connection between universal suffrage and freedom has never been proved anywhere, indeed, everyone from the Founding Fathers to the Algerian Army to the present administrators of the Iraqi Occupation believes precisely the opposite. Vox is saying that the voting franchise should be curtailed in order to prevent people from exerting control over other people, which in the long run will also be to their benefit, but more importantly will benefit those who only want to live their lives as they see fit, in freedom.

The Founders also didn't think it was antithecal to freedom to allow people to own other human beings. Times change; ideals change. Vox is still saying that certain people's rights should be curtailed because they vote incorrectly, and no amount of quasi-intellectual obfuscation can change that fact. And frankly, the ideal system of government Vox is describing seems more akin to anarchy than democracy.

Which of us sounds as if he knows whereof he speaks? That question, dear reader, I leave to you.

Are you sure they'll be able to make the right decision, Vox? Maybe you should decide for them. It will be better for them in the long run.

Too Important To Be Left To The Will Of The People

2004-06-09T17:35:00.000-06:00

With help from Pete M., I was finally able to see Vox's response to my message. Chris was right - he is talking out of his haircut.

Let's do a point-by-point, shall we?

Vox starts off by talking about how useless casual correlations are - basically restating the obvious for his slower readers. Then he starts in on the argument:

Despite this daunting improbability, the opponents of women's suffrage were able, prior to 1920, to correctly predict the increase in divorce, illegitimacy and even homosexuality that we have seen realized 80 years later. As late as the mid-1980s, newspapers like the Star Tribune were mocking these old anti-suffragist predictions as being Neanderthalian lunacy disproved by subsequent events. (This was around the time of the introduction of the Susan B. Anthony dollar and I remember thinking what a bizarre concept it was, given the obvious increases in divorce and illegitimacy - although clearly we hadn't seen anything yet.) Now, these accurate predictions do not prove the causal relationship, but they either indicate that a) the anti-suffragists were wildly and improbably lucky, or b) there is in fact a relationship of some sort, possibly causal.

The problem I have with this line of argument is that I have to assume that what Vox is saying about these 80-year old articles is true, since those kinds of things aren't easy to find. Now, I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, as nothing he's said or done thus far has indicated that he is dishonest (asshole, yes; liar, no). Still, I can see some signs of confirmation bias poking through.

Here's the thing; during my younger years (yes, college students can have younger years), I did some work and research with the skeptical/freethinker community. One of the fallacies held up as an example of confirmation bias is the full moon theory. Proponents claim that the full moon drives people into a lunacy, and that said lunacy can be measured by an increase in assault, spousal abuse, robbery etc. The problem is, the things that experienced an increase were typically two or three totally unconnected crimes (arson, domestic violence, and petty theft, for instance). Why those three in particular? Why not muggings, manslaughter, and rape? Or vandalism, card sharping, and cattle rustling? The explanation is that theorists were searching for any statistical deviances occuring during the full moon and ignoring crimes that didn't fit their theory.

I see a similar problem with Vox's argument. Even if I assume that people in the 1920's predicted that illegitimacy, divorce, and homosexuality went up, I don't know if they predicted other things that didn't happen. And did they predict falling wages? If so, Vox didn't mention it.

Second, Eris appears to suggest that there is no link between voting and social changes This is shallow and silly, so I suspect mild disingenuousness here. No, one seldom votes for no-fault divorce, but one votes for the judges and state politicians who create the institution. The easiest way to demonstrate the probability of a historically causal link is to note who is defending such ills and attempting to perpetuate them. Unilateral divorce is initiated about 80 percent of the time by women and women are 40 percent more likely to live in poverty (and presumably receive welfare - no stats on that). Welfare reform, anti-abortion laws and divorce reform are all bitterly opposed by women's groups and the political party that is primarily dependent on women; it would seem most strange to argue that these groups now defending existing laws did not support enacting them in the first place, and even stranger to suggest those now opposing such laws were originally in favor of them.

Disingenuous, huh? Let me see if I'm following Vox's logic: Women are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. Per Vox, Democrats support the various issues that cause those social ills. Ergo, we should curtail women's voting rights because they vote Democratic. Going a step further, we should also deny the vote to any group that is predominately Democratic - and if you read Vox's posts, you'll know that he does not rule out disenfranchising other groups. The conclusion that I draw from all this is that Vox thinks voting should be restricted to a specific elite consisting of people who agree with him.

And he calls himself a libertarian.

Note how he stops talking about homosexuality and illegitimacy at this point. I think the points about welfare are supposed to be about illegitimacy, but since out-of-wedlock births are not the only circumstances under which one would have cause to go on welfare, that point is a bit - dare I say it? - disingenuous.

However, relevant law is not the only influence. The huge 250 percent jump in American divorce began in 1960, while the first no-fault law was not passed until 1969, halfway through that 20-year period. (The law was signed by Ronald Reagan, ironically enough). The salient factor was the massive entry of women into the workplace that began in 1950 - AFTER the war, before anyone starts up with that misguided line - and the direct connection between women voting and women working was made by both suffragists and anti-suffragists prior to 1920. I've already written on falling real wages, you can read that here if you like.

I must be misreading this. He seems to be arguing that the mere fact that women are allowed to vote is contributing to divorce, but more than that, to these eyes, he's saying that women shouldn't be able to work either. At this point, I'm starting to question Vox's libertarian cred. In my opinion, women should be allowed to vote and work, even if it does increase divorce, because people in a free society should be free to make mistakes. Vox, on the other hand, seems to be saying that the government should curtail freedoms to prevent people from making bad decisions. Now honestly, which of us sounds like the starry-eyed libertarian and which sounds like the big government, para-socialistic left-liberal?

You know, what the hell. Here's his blog. Hit F11 and scroll down to a post called "Mailvox: chopping the apple". Read it and make your own conclusions. And here's some info on the post hoc fallacy, for your benefit.

Terra Terra Terra

2004-06-09T14:18:00.000-06:00

Another Bush Admin myth, shot to hell.

WASHINGTON — The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003, amid charges that the document is inaccurate and was politically manipulated by the Bush administration.

. . .With A Little Help From My Friends

2004-06-09T13:24:00.000-06:00

So I go to Vox Day's blog because I heard from Chris Vosberg that he finally responded and that he was "talking through his haircut". I go to the main page and scroll down through the posts. Finally reaching the bottom of the screen, I find an unpleasant surprise. You'll know what this is if you've been there - for the lucky ones, let me explain. I don't know if Vox tried to change the template without saving a copy or what, but the site ends abruptly at the end of the blogroll. Guess what? That's where my response is right now. (You can just see the top of my original e-mail.) I proceeded to spend entirely too much time trying to find a readable copy, to no avail. His archives are set to monthly updates, so I'll have to wait until July to see my response (and even then, it might get cut off again if he hasn't fixed the problem). Needless to say, I'm pissed.

Here's where you can help.

If anyone out there knows where I can obtain a copy of the post, or better yet, the permalink, leave it in the comments or e-mail me. Thank you in advance.

Architect Of Peace, Indeed

2004-06-09T10:31:00.000-06:00

I made a promise to myself that as much as I wanted to, I would not do a takedown of Reagan's "legacy" unless the 'wingers tried to use it to their advantage. Guess what? They did.

I'm going to do a series of posts on Reagan, starting with one for the sake of everyone's favorite phony intellectual, George F. Will, and everyone else who referred to the man as an "architect of peace".
-------------------------------------------------------
1. Dictators, Dictatorial Regimes, and Terrorists supported by Ronald Reagan during and before his presidency.
-------------------------------------------------------
Rios Montt: Dictator of Guatemala, known as "The Saddam Hussein of Central America". Responsible for the slaughter of 200,000 Mayan Indians. Reagan claimed he was "getting a bad deal" and a "bum rap" and granted him the maximum allowable support.

El Salvador: The Salvadoran security forces were responsible for as many as 200 murders per week. Among the victims were four American missionaries. Reagan claimed that the murders were being staged by the opposition forces to make the government look bad.

The Contras: Infamously referred to by Reagan as "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers", the Contras were implicated on more than one occasion for drug smuggling. In 1983, Contra frogmen were caught with 430 lbs. of cocaine. The Justice Department later returned $36,800 seized in the raid to the Contras.

General Augusto Pinochet: Dictator of Chile, he was arrested for crimes against humanity, including genocide and terrorism. Responsible for the deaths of at least 3,000 people during his military coup. Reagan praised him for the so-called "Chile Miracle" for efforts to bring capitalism to Chile. Here was the effect of Pinochet's economic "miracle":

-In 10 years, unemployment went from 4.3% to 22%.
-Real wages dropped by 40%.
-By the time Pinochet left office, the poverty rate had doubled to 40%.
-In 1982 and '83, gross domestic output dropped 19%.

Ferdinand Marcos: Dictator of the Phillippines. Stole as much as $35 billion dollars from his country before fleeing. Was known to be a friend of Reagan's, may have supported him in 1980 (he didn't think Carter could protect him). His wife Imelda offered a wreath for Reagan at a recent memorial.

Mohamed Suharto: Dictator of Indonesia. Responsible for around 500,000 deaths during his coup; 250,000 more would die when he invaded East Timor. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger promised backing to Suharto during the invasion, and Reagan refused to ban the use of U.S. made weaponry in East Timor.

Saddam Hussein: I don't think I really need to explain this one.

The Mujahidin: A group of Afghani rebels trained by the CIA to fight the Soviets - Reagan greatly increased their funding. Were known to skin POWs alive and throw acid in the faces of women who didn't wear the veil. Would later go on to form the Taliban. A splinter group would eventually form al-Qaeda.
-----------------------------------------------------------

The really sad thing is, that probably not even all of them. It appears that Reagan supported every regime that was anti-Communist, no matter how cruel and murderous they may have been. Doing this research really made me sad - I mean that.

If you want more, check out these articles.

"Paranoid Of A Public That No Longer Trusts His Policies"

2004-06-09T09:58:00.000-06:00

This is some scary stuff, my friends.

President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.

In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”

". . .the media, Democrats and others he classifies as 'enemies of the state'". This might actually make the wingnuts like him more.

God Help Us All

2004-06-08T12:19:00.000-06:00

This is not a drill. I repeat: this is NOT a drill.

For a little history on the Reaganite movement, check out this Working For Change article. Shudder at the fact that, but for the grace of God, Ronnie would be on Mt. Rushmore.

I Write Letters

2004-06-07T15:24:00.000-06:00

For those of you who have arrived at this blog via World O' Crap (or are readers of Wo'C) might remember that I once sent an e-mail to Kyle Williams. Here's the recap: Kyle makes a blog post in which he complains about being judged based on his age (which, admittedly, is a stupid thing to do). S.Z. pointed out that Kyle beats people over the head with his age all the time, and that given his seriously limited writing and fact-checking skills, he probably wouldn't be where he was unless he did this. I sent him a message on this topic, and invited him to a) start writing under a nom de plume, therefore preventing people from being able to judge him, and/or b) debate me in a neutral forum to prove that what I said about his skills was wrong. He responded with the following insight: "Who are you?"

After that intellectual exchange, I vowed to stay away from conservative pundits. But the need to debate burned within, and as soon as I saw this, I know that it was time to return from retirement.

This is my second e-mail endeavor (well, third if you count the time I tried to trick Glenn Reynolds into publishing bogus quotes). My message is as follows. I'll be sure to keep you up to date:

I realize that you have received numerous complaints regarding your assertation that women's sufferage is bad for democracy. I also know that you have put forth a challenge to prove that assertation wrong. Allow me to toss my hat into the ring.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "post hoc ergo propter hoc"? It's a fallacy that states that because A happens after B, then it stands to reason that B caused A. I haven't yet seen any actual concrete evidence that women's sufferage actually caused any of the things you claim it did. Do you have any, and if so, can I see it?

That's not all. You seem to be arguing that women's sufferage has caused "divorce, illegitimacy, homosexuality and falling real wages". How is this possible? You yourself point out that we don't have a pure democracy, but a representative one. No one could selectively vote to relax divorce laws, or vote on a specific series of economic plans to cause a drop in wages. Furthermore, I don't even know how one would go about voting for illegitimacy or homosexuality. You have fallen prey to another fallacy - confirmation bias. In order to prove that sufferage is bad for America, you selected four things that have (at least in your opinion) worsened since. Again, can you actually prove that any of these things are connected to women's voting rights?

"Discordia"

Update: Vox responds:

Hello Eris, [he got the reference. Superb. ed]

That's a much more reasonable reply. I'm blogged out for the day, but stop by tomorrow and I'll have a response for you. But yes, I have heard of the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" concept.

Regards,
Vox

Tontification

2004-06-07T07:25:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned previously, I've been getting a lot of hits from people searching for information on EyeMaze games. Since I am always striving to improve reader satisfaction, I will dedicate this post to my knowledge on the subject. I'll make a link somewhere on the page, so this information will always be available.

-First, the site is actually Eyezmaze (with a Z), in case you've been having trouble finding it.

Tontie

-I don't know what the gun does. Since Tontie is still in early beta, my guess is that its a feature that hasn't been implemented yet.

-The wings increase the speed with which the hammer swings.

-The bronze hammer allows you to destroy the spiked balls without taking damage, and allows you to destroy red monsters in one hit. The silver hammer allows you to destroy bombheads in one hit and coin thieves in two hits (you'll make a profit of one coin). The gold hammer allows you to destroy coin thieves in one hit (two coin profit).

-My personal record is 45670.

-The highest score I've ever seen is 227515, as verified in this screencap.

Grow

-The order to earn a perfect score is as follows: metal box, ladder, egg, orange sphere, blue hill, rotor, small pipe, sprocket/cog, tornado, satellite dish, rocket booster, monitor.

Vanilla

-The only thing I have to say about Vanilla is that my personal record is 29.5 feet.

"E Pluribus Pluribus"

2004-06-06T10:45:00.000-06:00

I was going to do a takedown of the good Doug Giles's latest column, but it turned out to be so mind-numbingly moronic that to mock it for its flaws would be redundant. So I'm just going to post a few of the better parts, with no comments or emphasis. I hope you appreciate this.

And we are totally cool with you doing whatever to whomever you want, and worshipping whomever or whatever you choose. It’s all right with us if you believe in nothing at all, or all of nothing.

------------------------------

. . .if what you want to smoke the same philosophical crack that Caligula, Nero, Alistair Crowley or Vladimir Lenin freebased, we’ll accommodate you. Because, you see, WE ARE OPEN!

------------------------------

The Xtreme sport of the Xtreme left is Christian-suppression, and man, are they getting good at it.

------------------------------

Liberal, hypocritical activist judges, tanked up on triple espresso no-foam lattes and Al Franken-stein’s latest blog, zealously misinterpret and misapply the Constitution to rid from American government and public life, any semblance of Christian thought. They do this with masturbatory preening glee, congratulating themselves for being Titans of religious freedom … protectors of their envisioned nuevo nation.

------------------------------

Will Christianity ruin your narcissistic fantasy starring you as the center of the universe …

or, for you, would that be multiverse?

------------------------------

. . .times are going to get tougher than Joan Rivers’ elbows before they get any better in the United States of Liberal Acrimony. . .

Normally, I'd make a snide comment about how sad it is to see an American with such a minimal understanding of the Constitution, but I'm going to avoid that because its even sadder that Doug is a youth minister who apparently doesn't understand Genesis.

For What It's Worth. . .

2004-06-05T11:57:00.000-06:00

. . .I turned up as one of the top sources for info on this NewsMax story, an honor which has directed a small amount of traffic here. I'm apparently the first liberal blogger to show up on the list, right under a few incredibly obnoxious right-wing blogs that remind me why I avoid that part of Blogistan.

Also, I'd just like to point out that my #1 source of hits appears to be people searching for information on Eyemaze games. Kudos to Google for that one.

Freeper-Proofing The DU

2004-06-05T10:49:00.000-06:00

By now, you've probably heard about Ronnie Reagan and his medical condition. I was initially planning on doing a tinfoil hat post on the coincidental timing of the story, but I think I can serve the liberal community better if I do some Freeper-proofing.

I recently visited the Democratic Underground message boards. Usually the DU posters are pretty reasonable, but whenever a conservative dies (or approaches death), the boards tend to fall into Freeper territory. It's in these threads that conservative bloggers get ammo to "prove" that all liberals/progressives/Democrats are hateful, lowbrow, hypocritical, etc.

So I'm gonna do a little pre-emptive DU defense. All of the following posts are real and appeared originally on the Democratic Underground forums, and I refuse to defend any of them:

An in the case of Nancy, Im sorry but she deserves every single thing she has had to deal with over these past 20 years. My Father -in-law just passed away last month after having Alzheimer's for the past 10 years so I have a pretty good understanding of whats involved. Yeah, it is a living hell not only for the person but for those in the family. I'll say it again, she got everything she deserved.

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Raygun was scum. I hope his Kharma hits him hard.

He made millions suffer.

Fuck the lot of them.

I'll save my compassion for those that deserve it, thankyou.

And we ARE better than the lowlife scum, of which the rayguns are.

I will have a "the wicked witch is dead" party.

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Every single person who hates this piece of scum and could care less that he's suffering has ample justified reasons for doing so.

Get over it.

Deal with it.

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I hope the fucker is in severe pain, but I doubt it.

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Many union members and their families suffered because of your intervention.I say good riddance to bad rubbish.

Having posted these, no one can claim that I am trying to deny the existence of these comments. That being done, the following comments also appeared on DU, and all evidence indicates that they are from Democrats/liberals:

As human beings, they deserve everyone's empathy. The freepers will try to once again use his passing to get his face on Mt. Rushmore and further their own agenda's by deifying "The Great Man."

But whatever they do, don't gloat. Alzheimer's is a human tragedy not to be wished on anyone. And whatever animosity I have held toward Nancy Reagan in the past, she has gone through a living hell for the past 20 or so years. Leave it alone.

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[In response to the above post]

...that's both the strength and weakness of liberals.

Compassion.

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I never voted for him. I didn't like him. He still needs our prayers.

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Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

If prayer lifts Reagan out of his suffering and into the next world, I would pray for him as I would pray for anyone. And I hope to be prayed for someday as well.

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I never thought I'd see this kind of vicious, unadulterated bile, hatred and pure meanness of spirit on DU. Much of this is what you'd expect on FreeRepublic. Wake up people. If you think like this, you're becoming THEM.

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He's an old man going through what a lot of people are going through.

Okay so you may not have liked him politically but that is no reason to want him dead or take joy in his passing. Whatever you think of THEM there is no doubt that he and Nancy loved each other very much and had a long loving life together.

I expect to see some of these responses read on the RW media as an example of how "deluded" DU is.

He is a human being whose time has come, let him pass in peace and wish he and his family well.

Let me add that while I feel Reagan was a horrible man, I don't piss on people's graves. That's for the other side of the spectrum. Don't expect any "wicked witch" celebrations here.

Immune To Logic

2004-06-03T06:48:00.000-06:00

It's Thursday, and that means the Coultergeist's column is up over at TownHall. Fortunately for me, S.Z. has saved me some trouble by including Ann in the TownHall review.

But since Annthrax's columns are too much for any one person to fully handle, I think I can still find enough to justify this post. For instance, there's this:

To refresh everyone's recollection, before the war began, the Democrats' argument was that Iraq was not an "imminent" threat to the United States. The Republicans' argument was: By the time the threat is imminent, Chicago will be gone.

At this point, it's not even worth pointing out that invading a country on the pretense that it may eventually become a threat is a violation of international war crimes laws. Instead, I'm just going to mock Ann derisively.

Logical Extentions: Ann Coulter

1. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were clearly justified as a pre-emptive strike on the enemies of the Islamic world.

2. The annexation of Austria by Hitler, the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini and the attack on Pearl Harbor by Hirohito were all similarly justified, pre-emptive strikes.

3. All cases of manslaughter and many cases of pre-meditated murder can be justified as pre-emptive actions. According to the prosecution, I shot an innocent man. In my defense, if I had waited for him to become a threat, part of my head would be gone.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, because in a month you'll be reading a TownHall column about an anonymous liberal blogger who supports Nazis and terrorists and apparently shot someone, and you'll be able to say, "Hey, I know the guy they're misrepresenting."

Acting The Fool

2004-06-02T06:23:00.000-06:00

I find it hard to believe that anyone can claim NewsMax is a serious news organization when they insist on publishing articles like this.

Kerry 'Flips Off' Vietnam Vet

Democratic senator - and certain presidential nominee - John F. Kerry gave the middle finger to a Vietnam veteran at the Vietnam Memorial Wall on Memorial Day morning, NewsMax.com has learned.

I don't know if this story is true (it is NewsMax, after all), but even if it is, the headline leaves a few things out. For instance, do we know this veteran's name?

Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam. . .

Ah. I see. In case you don't know, Ted Sampley is the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, the organization that's been smearing Kerry's record for months (and previously gave the same treatment to John McCain). As one of Pandagon's readers said, "Ted Sampley is to most veterans what Fred Phelps is to most Christians."

Let's continue. Could it be that Sampley did something to provoke Kerry's ire?

Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam, spotted Kerry and his Secret Service detail at about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning at the Wall. Sampley walked up to Kerry, extended his hand and said, "Senator, I am Ted Sampley, the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and I am here to escort you away from the Wall because you do not belong here."

OK, so Sampley was politicising Memorial Day. But it's not like he did anything really crass, right?

At that point a Secret Service officer told Sampley to back away from Kerry. Sampley moved about 6 feet away and opened his jacket to reveal a HANOI JOHN T-shirt.

All right, that was pretty disrespectful. But come on, it's not like he did anything so bad that. . .

Kerry then began talking to a group of schoolchildren. Sampley then showed the T-shirt to the children and said, "Kerry does not belong at the Wall because he betrayed the brave soldiers who fought in Vietnam."

Oh, for the love of God. This article could have just as easily been "Sampley disrespects veterans at momorial", with all that behavior.

Try And Withstand The Coffee Palm Attack!

2004-06-01T19:58:00.000-06:00

Prepare to face. . .the 1000 Styles of Rumsfeld!

Black Tie Affair, or Holy Straw Men, Batman!

2004-06-01T08:06:00.000-06:00

Shorter Dennis Prager -

People don't dress up like they used to. Somehow, this is all because of those damn liberals.

Longer Dennis Prager -

Apparently Dennis couldn't think of any ways to make Iraq look sunny, so he spent an entire column talking about how people don't dress up to go out anymore.

Last week, the producer of my radio show, Allen Estrin, attended his niece's graduation at a public high school in St. Louis. At a certain point in the proceedings, he noticed that he was the only man in the audience wearing a jacket and tie; and only three other men wore a tie without a jacket.

This story exemplifies yet another aspect of the age in which we live, the Age of Stupidity. Only in an age that rejects wisdom could most people believe that clothing is unimportant. Callers to my radio show have often told me, for example, that it is entirely unimportant what people wear even to church -- after all, God sees people's hearts, not their clothing, right?

A more cynical person would point out that referring to large groups of people as "stupid" is a trifle elitist (plus, it goes against the Coultergeist's claim that only liberals call people "stupid").

But let's not waste time on petty arguments. We haven't reached the fun paart yet!

Clothing has come to have no other purpose than providing comfort to the wearer. Fewer and fewer people appreciate how much what we wear affects both us and the people around us.
That is why the dummies who award and receive doctorates in education almost universally reject school uniforms. They don't (or don't want to) realize how much the clothing that students and teachers wear affects the way students and teachers act and regard school.
Until very recently (specifically since the Stupid Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s), every elevated civilization has placed great emphasis on what people wear. Judeo-Christian civilization, for example, teaches that God Himself made the first clothes.

Since I just finished reviewing Genesis to take down Douggie Giles, I can say that Adam and Eve made the first clothes to cover themselves after they ate of the Tree of Knowledge. ("And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." Gen. 3:7, KJV)

Let me skip to the real reason I'm highlighting this column: the worst straw men this side of a Jack Chick tract:

Liberal secular society has two primary concerns before wisdom -- health and equality.

Health: It was a non-issue to most everyone at the graduation that people came in shorts and T-shirts. But imagine the reaction if one person had lit up a cigarette. Panic and screams of hatred would have been unleashed. The poor soul would have been rushed out of the building as if he were a terrorist -- which is precisely how the smoker would have been viewed thanks to the mind-numbing propaganda of how fatal a whiff of secondhand smoke is. In every preceding generation, however, when wisdom was valued, a man or woman who wore shorts to a graduation would have been regarded as out of place as a smoker would today.

I remember once I sat next to someone in a restaurant who was smoking. The second I saw that whisp of smoke, I freaked out. I dunked my napkin into a glass of water and wrapped it around my face so I wouldn't get cancer. Then I pulled out my 9mm (which I carry bacause I am a hypocrite) and ordered that cigarette terrorist to get out of my sight. I mean, really - just because it was the smoking section doesn't mean she had to smoke.

Equality: A word that is often used to describe formal clothing is "classy," a word which itself derives from "class." Because of its derivation, however, the word is rarely used today -- it conflicts with one of our era's dominant values, egalitarianism. Therefore more and more people dress and act . . . classless, such as when they all wear T-shirts. That is also why so many teachers don't dress up to teach -- the egalitarians who run American education don't want students to regard teachers as being of a higher class than students.

That's right. We think everyone should be exactly the same. That's why we oppose school uniforms, just like Dennis said.

Hey, hold on - that doesn't make sense. If we really wanted everyone to look the same, we'd support school uniforms. But we don't, so does that mean. . .Dennis is. . .wrong? ERROR - DOES NOT COMPUTE. . .

A Very Peculiar Aside

2004-06-01T07:45:00.000-06:00

So I'm playing City of Heroes the other day and I find a most interesting character.

Now, I usually try to keep gaming and politics separate (unlike this guy), so what I saw was just that much more alarming. I found a character named "Your Messiah". Yes, that right: "Your Messiah". The only way to descibe his appearance properly would be "hippie Jesus" - purple beard, strangely trippy clothing, etc. By itself, this would be strange enough. Then I read his profile.

Wow.

I wish I'd made a copy of this guy's profile. It was one long string of jingoist catchphrases. He said that America was "One Nation Under God, not One Nation Under Allah" and called the U.S. the real holy land. I'm not making this up. Start a character on the Freedom server if you don't believe me.

Anyway, now all I want to do is create an ultra-liberal superhero. Why not? There was an Objectivist superhero once (I'm still not making this up), why not have representatives of other political ideologies? Anyway, if there are any CoH players or comic book afficionados out there, I'd like to hear your ideas. E-mail them to me or leave them in the comics. The Amazing ACLU Man awaits your responses.

Gleaming The Blogosphere

2004-06-01T07:29:00.000-06:00

Ezra Klein made an interesting post regarding this article in the American Journalism Review. I've yet to read it, but I'm told it's very good. Anyway, Ezra points out a flaw in the article:

There are the rock stars of political blogging--Glenn H. Reynolds (www.instapundit.com), Andrew Sullivan (www.andrewsullivan.com), Joshua Micah Marshall (www.talkingpointsmemo.com) and Mickey Kaus (www.kausfiles.com)--moody maestros who stroke their keyboards more quietly but no less fervently than Coldplay's Chris Martin.

As Ezra points out, Sully, Josh and Micah are all journalists; only Reynolds is a true blogger.

Per Ezra, this happens because journalists are viewing the blogging community through a lens; they try to find bloggers who are also journalists because it helps them understand. That's probably valid, but I think it might just be laziness. How often have you seen these bloggers mentioned in articles? Atrios and Kos regularly get more traffic than Sully and everyone but InstaHack (and lately, Kos is even beating Glenn). My guess is that some of the people who write these articles are too lazy to dig into the blogosphere, so they pick some of the more visible ones.

The Wild Man

2004-05-30T08:20:00.000-06:00

It's Sunday, and that means it's time for Douggie Giles's weekly sermon. This week, Doug talks about how we've all become weak and civil. . .sort of like he's done before. Seriously, what is it with TownHall columnists rehashing old columns? First Annthrax, now this.

Anyway, this column is funny because, for a youth minister, Doug manages to mess up the Bible. Roll the tape:

Please also note that when Adam was created, God didn’t throw up a Double Tree Inn next to the spot where he was fashioned. There were no 7-Elevens. No Blockbusters. No A/C. Neither Sushi bars nor SuperCuts. And this one’s really going to hurt … no McDonalds. Adam was placed, purposefully, in the wild. The wild brought out something in this leader that your favorite shopping mall simply couldn’t provide. God’s second in command was directly connected with the Spirit of the Wild.

Hmm. Well, a glance at his biography doesn't show anything about Doug living in the deserts and prairies of Texas, so I'm kind of at a loss. Incidentally, I have a few words to say about Doug's bio - more on that later.

Adam, the wild man, drew directly from the earth. Fast food for Adam was the fleet-a-foot Antelope he was trying to smack with a rock.

Doug, Doug, Doug. Apparently it's been a while since he read his Bible. Anyone who's read Genesis knows that there was no death in the Garden of Eden until the fall of man. Prior to that, Adam, Eve, and all the animals were vegans by design. ("And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." Genesis 1:29-30, KJV) And even after Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, they were farmers. ("Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." Gen. 3:23)

What did he do, or rather not do, to lose this NRA Xanadu-like existence? And what lesson from creation can we learn?

Here it is: Adam’s reticence to be the wild man God called him to be cost him the sweet haven of Eden’s crib. He refused to rule righteously and conquer the serpent, which put him on the outs with his Creator and demoted him to somewhere east of Eden.

Of course, some might argue that the fall of man was caused by disobedience and not weakness, as Doug seems to believe. ("But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Gen. 2:17) But I think there's a more important question: is Douggie a moral relativist? Here's the thing - there was no such thing as good or evil in the Garden until the fall of man. Combine that with Doug's "wild man" ideal lifestyle which emphasizes survival over morality and you really start to wonder.

What happens when the Wild Man motif is gone, smothered, and vilified? Well, the snakes take over. That’s how it originally was; that’s how it has always been.

Of course, if Doug had bothered to actually read Genesis, he'd know that the serpent was punished as well. ("And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" Gen. 3:14) At this point I'm beginning to wonder what Bible Doug is reading, because it ain't the King James version.

So, Douggie, just how can we reclaim that wild man spirit?

The Wild Man is a person, according to one writer, “Who has a solid connection to God defined by his standards plus a deep understanding and appreciation of creation in all of its wildness, beauty, complexity and austerity.” He’s the person who is god-smacked watching a wicked thunderstorm, who trips watching an eclipse, who sweats and is weirdly exited when riding out an earthquake and who is both terrified and overjoyed beholding a tornado. The Wild Man feels one with God and with the wild. This sends him in search of “Eden” -- the way it must have been. The Wild Man understands both the fundamentals of God and the funk of nature.

In other words, a person who completely ignores his survival instinct. Sounds like a real winner. Also, "the funk of nature"?

So, that's Doug for this week. Perhaps next week, Doug, having gotten the "wild man" out of his system, will actually read his Bible and pen a column on following the ways of the Jesus fellow you hear so much about. And perhaps a midget riding a talking duck will fly through my window and give me a pot of gold. Both are equally likely.

Now, about Doug's bio. Here's an excerpt:

He brings a wealth of real-life experience to his well-seasoned views of the world:

Drug user and dealer as a teenager
Burglary arrest, aged 16
High School expulsion, aged 18
College expulsion, aged 19
Convert to Christianity at 21
Successful businessman at 23

Wow. He's clearly had quite a life, if we believe TownHall. (And really, what reason do we have to doubt them?)

Yes, Doug apparently abused drugs. (Make up your own joke about how that explains a lot) But what really stood out for me were those two expulsions. Let me see if I understand - Doug gets kicked out of of high school. He takes his equivalency test, passes it, and goes on to get kicked out of college somehow. Isn't that something?

Endgame

2004-05-28T18:00:00.000-06:00

Bushgame: Can you undo the President's misdeeds?

This isn't necessarily the best Flash game I've ever played, but I'm giving it props because:

-It features Mr. T and Voltron, so you know it's one of the best games ever right there;

-Donald Rumsfeld dresses up like Darth Vader;

-You can play as Howard Dean, who has a special 'Dean Scream' attack;

-It's educational - The action scenes are interspersed with info on the Bushco bilking of America.

Fair warning: This game is in very poor taste at times, so don't play if you are one of those easily offended types.

Non-Political Friday!

2004-05-28T09:11:00.000-06:00

-How Much Is Inside?: Have you ever wondered how many glasses of beer are in a keg, or how long batteries really last? How Much Is Inside details the relative content of a variety of things - from the average length of a Ramen noodle to a visual representation of the amount of blood in the human body using syrup and punch mix.

-Cinemorgue: If you need to know something - no matter how trivial - someone has researched it and dedicated a web site to it. DeMan has catalogued the number of times a wide variety of actors and actresses have died on screen. It's surprisingly fascinating - go browse it.

-RPG World: A web comic for all you Console RPG nuts. RPG World is a running parody of Final Fantasy and its kin. The author seems to be in a transition phase, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the four years worth of archived strips.

-Matt at X-E just finished the fourth and final volume of his series on Shrek crap. You need to see this one.

Everything Is Super. No, Really.

2004-05-27T10:07:00.000-06:00

You know how the economy is supposedly in such great shape, and how everything is just super all across the country? Well, are across the board spending cuts a sign that the economy is good or bad?

Washington -- The White House put government agencies on notice this month that if President Bush is re-elected, his budget for 2006 may include spending cuts for virtually all agencies in charge of domestic programs, including education, homeland security and others that the president backed in this campaign year.

He's cutting homeland security! Why does the President hate America?

Also notice that the cuts inculde programs that Bush has publically supported. This is no surprise - the Bush publicity shot has almost invariably preceeded massive cuts to the group involved. Remember that.