Once again, the Republicans are ditching another black debate forum, this one on Fox News.
When you consider how prominent the racist vote is in the Republican Party, Evangelicals as a movement developed from rulings that forbade tax exempt status whites only religious schools, not Roe v. Wade, this comes as no surprise.
The party of Abraham Lincoln is now the party of Jefferson Davis.
Well, religious nutbag Mike Huckabee claimed that most of the signers of the declaration of were clergy, which means that according according to Republican math, 1 out of 56 equals most. John Witherspoon* was the only active clergymen. The right wing Heritage Foundation claims that there were two signers who were former clergymen, and Adherents.com said four signers of the declaration were current or former full-time preachers.
George Washington was probably a deist, who refused communion. All indications are that he was more involved with Masonic theology (God as creator and now not involved on a day to day basis with the world). He rarely if ever, referred to Jesus.
John Adams became a Unitarian, rejecting fundamental doctrines of conventional Christianity, such as the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus
In his, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” [1787-1788], John Adams wrote:
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
“. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”
Jefferson believed in materialism, reason, and science. He never admitted to any religion but his own. In a letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, 25 June 1819, he wrote, “You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.”
James Madison found established religion pernicious.
In 1785, Madison wrote in his Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments:
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”
Then there is the treaty of Tripoli, ratified in 1979
As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen†; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
What is clear is that however spiritual the founding fathers were, they were disdainful of organized religion, considering it to be ignorant superstition.
*Who is an ancestor of the delectable Reese Witherspoon.
†An archaic term referring to Moslems.
David Frum, the Canadian former Bush speech writer whose phrase Axis of Evil is probably responsible for a thousand or so American deaths had an essay on Marketplace, yesterday, and while I expect right wingers to lie, this is the first time in my not so young (I’m 45) life that literally every word out of his mouth was not the truth.
So, I’m sending them the following letter:
Subject: Re: No defense for Europe’s protectionism
In listening to Mr. Frum’s essay on defense procurement, the F-35, and the Eurofighter, I had a unique experience. This is the first time in my life in which I have heard a commentary where I know that literally every fact stated is incorrect. I am not suggesting that there is deliberate deception involved, but the only alternative is a complete ignorance of the subject involved.
Cases in point:
* The NATO allies will soon reach a crucial decision about their next-generation air-to-ground fighter plane. Two candidates have emerged as finalists: the US-UK-Dutch-Italian-Norwegian F-35, or an update of the Franco-German “Eurofighter.”
While the F-35 is intended to a large degree, perhaps primarily, for air to ground operations, the Eurofighter Typhoon is primarily an air defense fighter, though an air-to-ground capability is being developed for the plane in later tranches.
The Eurofighter is not a Franco-German endeavor. The French are not involved at all, having built the Dassault Rafale. The partner nations are the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The F-35 is not a US-UK-Dutch-Italian-Norwegian project. Only the UK qualifies a very junior partner, and they have still not been given the information necessary to properly maintain the aircraft. The rest of the countries are simply customers.
* Just about everybody agrees that the F-35 is the better — and probably cheaper — plane.
When comparing the two aircraft, the Eurofighter is more agile, with a higher thrust to weight ratio and lower wing loading, and faster, it supercruises, and has a higher ceiling, much like the F-35’s big brother, the F-22, though the F-35 is stealthy, and the Eurofighter is not.
Additionally, the Typhoon can accommodate the Meteor, the long-range missile being developed in Europe, which has superior kinematics to the US AMRAAM, while the F-35, with its internal weapons stowage cannot.
Furthermore, the current prices are nearly the same, but you are comparing a design that is in production (Typhooon) with one that is still in development (F-35), and whose price is still escalating, so it to predict anything beyond parity in cost is simply wrong.
* It’s the plane that will be bought by the Israelis, who tend to be choosy about things bearing on national survival.
The Israelis will not be able to buy the Eurofighter, as political considerations of of the Typhoon’s sale to Saudi Arabia preclude this. Additionally, it will be purchased with significant US military aid, which requires that US equipment be purchased with these funds.
Additionally, the cancellation of significant defense purchases of French aircraft and British tanks in the 1960s, the Israelis do not feel that they can rely on the Europeans as a reliable source of supply.
* The Eurofighter is built on four separate assembly lines in four Western European nations. This redundancy creates more jobs, but at very high cost. High cost, in turn, reduces the number of aircraft the European allies can afford to purchase.
This applies to final assembly lines only , and it is, in fact not very costly. The evidence is in examining the F-16 program, the least expensive, and most numerious, of the previous generation of Western combat aircraft, where it has been assembled in the US, Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
I would note that given the facts to support his thesis are all wrong, his thesis itself is suspect.
As Atrios would put it, wanker of the day*.
*The “wanker” bit is not going in the letter.
When a Fox News anchor criticizes Bush on S-CHIP, pigs are flying. In this case, the person launching the pigs is Mort Kondracke.
You have George Bush, who promised in 2004 at the Republican National Convention that he was going to cover millions of children who were not covered by SCHIP if he was reelected? And what does he do? He proposes a bill that would result in almost a million kids losing their coverage from the level it’s at. It’s no wonder Bush’s approval ratings is in the 30’s.
Truth be told, they are in the twenties. 25% when I last checked.
The only things less popular than him are hemorrhoids and Dick Cheney.
A Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution The object of this story, the Phoenix New Times, got the hed for this story correct when they called it Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution. The story begins a few years back, when the The Phoenix New Times, a Phoenix, AZ alternative newspaper began looking into the affairs of the very prominent, and very controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio*, and found that since his election as sheriff, he has accumulated millions of dollars in real estate investments on a $78,000 sheriff’s salary, and he used “an arcane statute meant to conceal home addresses of law enforcement officials to shield his investments.” In commenting on Arpaio’s extensive real estate holdings, the New Times published his home address in an OP/ED on their web page, to show how this information was already publicly available, and the Arpaio filed a criminal complaint with the DA, Andrew Thomas†, who appointed one of his cronies, Dennis Wilenchik, as special prosecutors, to see if there was a violation of the law in publishing this information. ‡ Then, in a stunning abuse of the grand jury process, Wilenchik issued a grand jury subpoena to the Phoenix New Times, requesting:
The publishers of the paper, published that they had been subpoenaed, along with this analysis of the entire affair:
The seemingly picayune matter of Sheriff Arpaio’s home address getting printed at the bottom of an opinion column on our Internet site — and the very real issue of commercial property investments the sheriff hid from public view — have now erupted into a courtroom donnybrook against a backdrop of illegal immigration disputes, Mexican drug cartels, the Minutemen, political ambition, and turf disputes between prosecutors and the judiciary.
What’s more, the special prosecutor attempted to use a third party to set up an ex parte meeting with the judge supervising the grand jury, in direct violation of the most basic canons of legal ethics. Well, the newspaper, or more specifically its founders Michael Lacey, the executive editor, and Jim Larkin, chief executive, had had enough, so they published about the secret grand jury subpoena, and they were promptly arrested. Well, if they wanted news of the subpoena, and abuse of the grand jury process, covered up, they got it wrong, because, it got coverage from the New York Times here, and here, Slate, and (FINALLY) the Arizona Republic, to name a few. At this point, realizing that they were completely screwed, Thomas ended the investigation, with much press coverage. As an poster on the New Times web site said, “Not surprising. Cockroaches never do like being exposed to daylight.” *He has created a jail tent city, and sold himself as the “America’s toughest sheriff”. †Who appears to be so close to Arpaio that they could share a bathroom stall with Senator Larry Craig. ‡No, there wasn’t. You know the first amendment allows for reporting stuff like this. It’s news, and furthermore, it is germane, as they are covering the corrupt sheriff’s real estate holdings, which include his house, which he has covered up by misusing a that refers only to his home.
Stephen Colbert is running for president.
It appears that he is trying really be on the primary ballot for both parties in his native South Carolina.
I’m a bumming a bit, I wanted to see Jon Stewart at the top of the ticket.
Well, it was movie night again, and this time, it was my choice (it rotates), obviously, I have to choose appropriate to an 8 year old and a 10 year old. I chose The Last Mimzy.
Chris O’Neil: Noah Wilder
Rhiannon Leigh Wryn: Emma Wilder
Joely Richardson: Jo Wilder
Timothy Hutton: David Wilder
Rainn Wilson: Larry White
Kathryn Hahn: Naomi Schwartz
Michael Clarke Duncan: Nathanial Broadman
First a spoiler warning, not about my plot synopsis, but about the first scene of the movie. It portends everything that is going to happen, and could have been left out, adding more dramatic tension to the film.
The film is based on the 1940s classic SF short story, written by husband and wife Henry Kutter and C.L. Moore, Mimsy Were the Borogoves.
The roles of the children, Noah and Emma, are clearly front and center, are well acted, and the adult roles are minor, even as potential nemisis.
Joely Richardson is a bit wooden, and Timothy Hutton is a bit underused (This may be influenced by my seeing his magnificent Archie Goodwin in the A&E Nero Wolfe series) as parents.
Rainn Wilson and Kathryn Hahn (who is probably best known for her role on Crossing Jordan) do rather well as the new-age science teacher and his live-in girlfriend as slightly kooky, if very earnest, comic relief.
It is a science fiction time travel story, which weaves in current events (Department of Homeland Security, Intel, etc.)
It was a decent movie, my son was dead set against it, but agreed afterwards that it was good. It’s a pity that the first 30 seconds of the film make it far less interesting than it would have been.
Additionally, there are some unrealistic bits (Homeland Security is remarkably nice and accommodating) that are clearly there because it was sold as a kids picture.
Highly recommended. This guy is the one on NPR. Comcast must DIE! dot com
Actually, I have no deathwish for Comcast or any other gigantic, blundering, greedy, arrogant corporate monstrosity, What I do have is the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways. This site offers an opportunity — for you to vent your grievances (civilly, please) and for Comcast to pay close attention.
I advise you to include your customer number in your post; this will give Comcast the chance to contact you and work on your problem. If it does so, I encourage you to post an update, giving credit where credit is due. Meantime, be aware you may be the target of online fishers trying to get personal information from you. DO NOT REPLY TO EMAILS CLAIMING TO BE FROM COMCAST. Deal with them only by phone.
Congratulations. You are no longer just an angry, mistreated customer. Nor, I hope, are you just part of an e-mob. But you are a revolutionary, wresting control from the oligarchs, and claiming it for the consumer. Your power is enormous. Use it wisely.
— Bob Garfield
The FCC is proposing changes to media ownership rules. Among other things, it proposes waiving the cross-ownership restrictions.
All you need to know is that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing to implement this in 30 days, in order to facilitate the sale of Tribune Company to real estate magnate Sam Zell.
You know the drill, http://www.fcc.gov/, and tell them that their idea sucks wet farts from dead pigeons (be more polite than I am).
I thought that thistranscript from: On The Media warrented some comments:
RON ROSENBAUM: Yes, and the many repercussions for the many layers of flunkies and lackeys that this cold had. You can learn more from an investigative reporter who doesn’t speak to the person. I’ve called investigative reporters “sociopaths for truth” —
BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]
RON ROSENBAUM: — because they’re a different breed of cat. They’re not afraid to hurt feelings if it means telling the truth about someone.
I think that this is very true. Investigative reporters are there to make people uncomfortable, and they delight in doing so. They are generally not acceptable in polite society.
Unfortunately, the increasing professionalization of reporting, by which I mean the Journalism degrees and the whole “w(h)ine and cheese” mentality that goes along with this* has led to a snark replacing insight, and cocktail party chat replacing investigations.
*Best exemplified by the white, pampered, Ivy League staff of The New Republic.
I’ve been posting off and on (here, here, here, and here) about the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray wars, and I have not really covered what might be an increasingly likely outcome, that both formats may lose.
While I think that HD-DVD may do better in the long fun, given Sony’s (and not Disney’s) anal retentive and counter productive licensing and marketing strategies, it may very well be that these will be irrelevant in a home entertainment context, though they might still duke it out in areas like backup formats and software distribution.
Given technologies out there, I got FIOS a month ago, and one of the side benefits is a digital TV tuner which allows for on-demand content, which is about the same price as going to the Video store, I’m wondering whether online high definition will be the eventual winner.
Given that the additional resolution is hard to notice on a typical TV, and that much of the motivation for the higher definition DVD formats is content control, which from an end user perspective is basically screwing the consumer, perhaps these two formats will simply be bumps on the road to digital distribution.
While there are a lot of people on without online access, or on dialup, who have DVDs, the overwhelming majority of those who would go with a high def DVD format already have broadband, so why bother with media at all. One can go with a digital library.
I posted this on June 7 about she who must not be named (I will still write about the city of light as I see fit), and now I am extending this to Britney and OJ.
Absent some sort of political activity, such as endorsements, running for office (PLEASE GOD NO!!), or their attempting to assassinate someone, they will not be mentioned here.
That is all.
Today In New Hampshire Edwards Outlines Agenda To Return The Power In Washington To Regular People
First indent is the Edwards bullet point, following are my assessments of pros and cons of the specifics
The only one I truly disagree on is the ban on lobbyist contributions, which I think is just plain wrong. Everyone should be able to contribute, but it is rather blue sky.
That sound that you hear ius wingnut heads exploding at the news. Heh.
Maybe they will turn their guns away from the Frost Family now, at least a bit.
That being said, I sand by my earlier prediction: Albert Gore will not be running for president in 2008. He’s happy doing what he’s doing right now, and he knows that the presstitutes will come after him if he runs.
Here is the picture, taken before the award, that convinced me that he is not running. This is not the face of Gore running for president:
She said the following on Olbermann:
Maddow: “Twelve year old Graeme Frost, meet Cindy Sheehan, meet 9/11 widows, meet Staff Sgt. Brian McGough, meet Michael J. Fox, meet the kids who were targeted by Mark Foley, meet Jack Murtha. I mean, Graeme Frost as a twelve year old now joins an esteemed list of Americans who have been personally attacked, personally slimed, called liars and cowards and frauds, and threatened for daring to publicly espouse a view that the right disagrees with. I mean, just when you think you’ve found the person who they can’t possibly slime, I don’t know, say a twelve year old kid just out of a coma, turns out yeah, the bar does actually go that low, it’s just astonishing.”
We need to realize that there are elements on the right wing who are simply psychotic, and that they are very much in the mainstream.
Let’s see, Olbermann is nearly beating Billo, and all of MSNBC’s demographics (Fox vierers are somewhere north of 65 years old) are better, so they drop MSNBC. You have to love that. Details here.
Anyone else spot this elsewhere in the country? I have been a former Comcast customer for about 4 weeks, since moving to Verizon FIOS.
SITE Intelligence Group, a small private security firm, got an advanced copy of an Osama bin Laden tape. They tipped the Bush Administration at 10:00am , on the condition that the information not be released in order to protect their sources and mentods.
By mid afternoon of September 7, the tape had been leaked to Fox News.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
“Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,” said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE’s methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.
The precise source of the leak remains unknown. Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz’s version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government’s ability to anticipate attacks.
Except for the fact that private entities who come across this won’t share the information again, and that SITE’s operation has been more compromised than Brewster Jennings.
They burnt this company, and their intelligence methods, because the Bush administration wanted to get the lead on the news, or frighten Congress into doing what they wanted.
Evil.
I guess that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, this time the clock has stopped to dispell myths about “Sick Old Europe”.
It’s a good article, and much better than what we’ve been led to expect from the Post OP/Ed section.
So says the GAO, which reports that FCC meeting agendas were leaked to industry stakeholders in advance of their being made public.
This allowed industry players to lobby the FCC prior to the official release of the agenda, after which lobbying is prohibited.
More corruption to shut out public interest by Bush and His Evil Minions™.
Ezra Klein answers the question of why liberal war hawks are lumped with the Neocons.
The answer is, simply enough, that they are indistinguishable from Neocons so long as they continue to enable Bush’s war.
I do not care what the internal machinations are of wankers like Richard Cohen’s mind. I care about the actions of wankers like Richard Cohen, and they are providing as least much aid and comfort to the supporters of Bush’s war as people like William Kristal.
Cohen may not, personally, think like Bill Kristol. But he certainly writes like him. “Neocon, for many, has become shorthand for neocon-Zionist conspiracy,” he says, naming no names, and instead offering a simple, generalized accusation of anti-semitism against all those who question the neoconservatives. “Baghdad is closer to Sarajevo than the left has allowed,” he writes, obliterating the difference between a bombing campaign undertaken to end an ongoing genocide and a ground invasion undertaken to unearth weapons that didn’t exist, overturn a regime we couldn’t replace, and forcibly impose a system of governance that lacked foundations. “MoveOn.org is the Petraeus-insulting face of never-set-foot-in-a-war-zone liberalism,” he scoffs, having never, himself, fought in a war, but nevertheless adopting the authority of those who have.
These are not arguments. They are smears. They are attacks aimed at degrading the credibility, rather than the beliefs, of the coalition that opposes the Iraq War. And in intent and effect, they are indistinguishable from Bill Kristol’s worst columns, save for the possibility that they are more effective, because they ostensibly come from within the Left, rather than outside of it.