7/30/09

Against Stupidity The Gods Themselves Struggle in Vain








I was reminded of the above Freidrich von Schiller quote from 18th century when I was blog walking and read an attack on Bill Maher on Eye of Polyphemus.

Eye of Polyphemus is one of the few conservative blogs I can read. The author Jamie Jeffords does know how to use the shift key instead of writing in all caps unlike most of the other conservative sites I’ve visited and he does actually try to make sense out of the Republican talking points. But there is only so far you can polish a turd.

Plus he puts lots of pictures of scantily clad starlets on his blog.

The post was about if the United States is a stupid country, so I responded with a few examples of stupid political movements that highlight the stupid.

1) Birthers.


People who don’t believe that President Obama was born. These people make up nearly a third of the Republicans and they are bat-shit crazy. In an earlier post I compared them to both the Moon Hoax people and the South Park Underwear Gnomes.

Basically they have a lot in common with the Moon Hoax people in that they will ignore any and all evidence presented to them.

2) Tea-Baggers


The Fox News sponsored Tea-Bagging Movement is a great place for nut-jobs to meet.

The premise behind the Tea-Bagging movement is they are protesting the fact that President Obama is shifting the $900 Billion that the Republicans had been giving out to corporations in no-bid contracts for non-existent services, into things like job programs and healthcare.

The idea seems to be that government should only rob the poor to help the wealthy, not help citizens for the common good.

Naturally when you get a group of people together to support such a wacky idea you are going to attract the super crazies, like the Neo-Nazis who look at these events as recruiting grounds and the people who want to burn books because they contain liberal things like facts.

3) Intelligent Design Supporters.



These are people that think schools should throw out hundreds of years of logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence in favor of a scientific theory that relies on “Because I say so.” As its major point.

Confronted with overwhelming observable evidence of evolution isn’t a problem for these people they simply make up a different enemy, “Darwinists”.

They claim only Darwinists are allowed to teach in Universities, which is odd considering no Biology Professor that I’ve ever met has called themselves a “Darwinist”. One would think if Universities only hire “Darwinists” that you could find a “Darwinist” University Professor.

Now, if you want to claim that Universities hire science Professors that teach theories based on hundreds of years of logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence like, gravity, entropy, and evolution then they have a point as that is what science is.

4) Climate Change Deniers



These are people that think just because the world burns enough oil every day that if it were put into barrels and they were laid end to end they would circle the globe 2 and half times, it can’t have any impact on the environment.

They simply ignore the observable facts about climate change.
A. The troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere is getting warmer, while the Stratosphere, the atmospheric layer above it is getting colder.

This is because carbon dioxide in the troposphere traps the heat and doesn’t allow it to rise into the stratosphere and then be dissipated into space.

B. The temperature is rising at the poles.
As air warms at the equator it spreads out across the planet, as it does this the troposphere loses heat to the stratosphere making the temperature at the poles much cooler. (This is a gross simplification of the process but it illustrates the concept). Carbon Dioxide traps this heat so it transfers more efficiently to the poles.

On the planet and Moon in the solar system that have a runaway greenhouse effect, Venus and Titan there is little change in temperature from the equator to the poles. This is the tell-tale sign of the greenhouse effect.

Now as to the effects that Global Warming will bring to the planet there is a lot of room for debate. In fact I’ve written a post on it. “3 of the greatest imaginary threats to our Nation.”

At the time I wrote that the data showing that the poles are warming up faster than predicted was classified for National Security under the Bush Administration so I will raise my prediction to a 4-degree change over the next 100 years.

The fact that climate change is happening is impossible to deny.





It’s pretty clear what these groups all have in common, the ability to deny overwhelming evidence that is right in front of their face and claim any evidence is part of a liberal conspiracy, or as Stephen Colbert put it, “Part of the liberal bias of reality”.

The worst part of the stupidity of these groups is not that they are stupid in the sense of diminished mental capacity, but that they are stupid by choice. And since they are stupid by choice they feel that everyone around them should make the same choice and embrace the stupid.

The weird thing is they are against the “Intellectual elite” which should mean they would think being called the opposite “Stupid” is a compliment, but they get mad at being called that.

7/23/09

The Soviet plot to turn the country Socialist and let Osama bin Laden sell yellow-cake uranium to unwed teen-age mothers while baby raping with Hitler






Conservative Objections to Healthcare Reform

In order to be objective I’ve scoured the blogosphere looking for objections to Healthcare Reform and here is what I’ve come up with. I present them here in their best possible light.

Obama isn’t an American citizen.
Apparently, in a trial run of their scheme to fake the Moon Landings, NASA and the Illuminati faked Obama’s birth. Birthers claim Obama was born on a soundstage made to look like the Moon. As evidence they point to how his birth certificate clearly moves like a breeze is catching it.

NASA and the Illuminati faked this evidence 47 years ago so that in 2009 he would push through legislation to make healthcare affordable, which leads to step four: World Domination. As the bullet points below clearly illustrate.

Step 1: Fake Barack Obama’s birth.

Step 2: Have him win US Presidency in 2008 with the pledge to reform healthcare.

Step 3: ?

Step 4: World Domination.

It’s all so obvious.

If there is a Government Option, 119 Million people will leave bad private insurance plans.


This will happen because Private Industry is completely defenseless against the Free Market. There is no way for Private Insurers to stop denying people coverage and not allowing them to keep their coverage when they switch jobs. Of course there is no way for Private Insurers to cut costs in their billing procedures.

The idea of making the Health insurance companies compete is totally anti-free market.

Doctor’s offices will be like going to the DMV, giving the Milkman time to score with your wife.


Everyone knows the horror of having their drivers license renewed, having to go up to the counter, give them your old license and having your picture taken, then paying them.

In that 3-minute time span the Milkman will teleport through time from 1950 and seduce your wife into an afternoon quickie.

The whole Healthcare thing is just a rouse by the Milkman’s Union to score with your wife.

The horror.

There are 47 million crazy liberals wandering around.


The people who don’t have healthcare are just bums living off the backs of hard working people. The self-employed aren’t being turned away from Healthcare, it’s all in their heads. Why these people probably have health insurance right now but are too delusional to know it.

Betsy McCaughey, a Republican former lieutenant governor of New York, claims that the bill creates a "new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology." That will tell doctors what treatments to give patients.

It will do this by mandating Congress to build a time machine and send thugs back in time to the year 2004 and they will force President Bush to create that office. It’s true that the office was created by Bush in 2004 to help the health IT system to transmit information by updating hospital’s computer systems, but with the Democratic Congress having access to a time machine who knows what other sinister purposes they might use it for.

It’s a Soviet plot to turn the country Socialist and let Osama bin Laden sell yellow-cake uranium to unwed teen-age mothers while baby raping with Hitler and eating puppies.


It’s a threat so huge that we must all go to tea-bagging rallies and burn books.

7/22/09

Ben Franklin and the single payer healthcare plan


In the Healthcare “Debate” conservatives like to use an appeal to authority saying that the founding fathers would want us to have a system where only those working for large corporations can receive healthcare.

Being a Progressive I decided to look at the history of one of our founding fathers. (I realize a Progressive’s view on history, that history is a bunch of stuff that actually happened and was recorded at the time, and a Conservative’s view on history, that history is stuff they pull out of their ass to justify whatever nonsense they are spouting off at the time, are different but I’ll go with the actual truth just for the hell of it.)

As far as Ben Franklin’s views on medicine I’d have to say that as founder of the Pennsylvania Hospital that was established by the Pennsylvania Legislature to care for the sick-poor and insane who wander the streets of Philadelphia. He might be a little inclined to disagree that only people who work for large corporations are entitled to healthcare.

The quote he helped pick for the official seal “Take Care of Him and I will repay Thee” might give a clue as to his feeling on social responsibility.

But what can you expect from the founder of such socialist concepts as “The Post Office” and founded “Penn State” a state run university.

Looking at the history of the founding fathers it’s very hard to see how any of them would be for a system where a person’s healthcare makes them a slave to large corporations and denies healthcare to the self-employed and workers of small companies.

It’s even harder to see where any of them would favor a system that forces even those who have health insurance, to have everything they have worked for all their lives taken away with one bad illness.

7/15/09

Shut up and put your mouth to a better use.


Talking is something she shouldn’t use her mouth for

Beauty and Brains don’t have to be incompatible, and I do appreciate when a female uses her natural beauty to attain celebrity status and then carefully researches an issue and uses her status to raise awareness on an issue. Look at Angelina Jolie:


Ok, that was a pleasant 5 minutes, and a great excuse to stare at Angelina. Oh, and her work on raising awareness on refugees is admirable.

But then there are woman that use their celebrity status and looks to espouse the silliest ideas that if it weren’t for the fact that most of the people talking to them are too busy staring at their breasts they would be laughed off the stage. The number one chick who should shut up and put her mouth to a better use is Jenny McCarthy:


In the early stages of her career she was determined to give all males who were between the ages of 12 and 123 stronger forearm muscles. A noble goal in itself, I know she strengthened my left forearm considerably.

She moved on to show the world her range of funny faces:


Then she took on a cause, Autism. That seems like a laudable cause and would be if she took the time to research what the hell she was talking about, but instead she plunged head-first into it giving out advise that is actually more dangerous for kids than the chances of getting Autism.

For those of you that don’t know Autism is a mental condition makes the person’s brain tune to a completely different reality, in mild forms it can make a person totally unable to recognize social patterns, in severe forms it will leave the person unable to speak.

The causes of Autism is unknown but extensive research has shown that there is no link between Autism and Vaccines, Center for Disease Control

But that doesn’t stop Jenny from going on all the media outlets and saying that vaccines cause Autism. The worst part is people who listen to Jenny’s advice might end up aggravating a mild case of Autism into a full-blown case.

PERTUSSIS (WHOOPING COUGH) is a nasty disease that leaves the victim coughing out all the air in their lungs; it can go on for weeks. The victim can turn blue from lack of oxygen and pass out.

Vaccines have nearly wiped out this disease so emergency room doctors rarely see it and aren’t trained to deal with it.

If a parent follows Jenny’s advice and doesn’t have their child vaccinated they can get this disease and the lack of oxygen can cause brain damage, aggravating a mild form of Autism into a crippling one. And chances are the Emergency Room techs won’t have a clue as to what it is since vaccines have made it a very rare disease.

So Jenny please shut the fuck up! If you need something else to do with your mouth I can think of something, I’ll even dress up like Santa.


The next group of chicks that should do something better with their mouths, are the actresses that support PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), not People Eating Tasty Animals.



PETA sounds like a good cause, end killing animals for their fur and treat them as humanely. But the PETA people have taken it way to far, like this quote:

"Pet ownership is an abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation."

-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, Washingtonian, August 1986

No it’s not. Cats have evolved with humans, as we starting gathering food and storing it in a permanent place, rats took advantage of that. Then Cats took advantage of having the Rats in a convenient place.

As we evolved together cats and humans developed a symbiotic relationship and cats even developed a language that humans react to. That’s why a purring cat puts people at ease.

The cat has evolved to experience a greater emotional bond with humans than with other cats, it’s stray cats that get emotionally deprived.

It’s a similar situation with dogs.

They also want to end ALL laboratory use of animals.

I agree with the Humane Society that their should be standards to keep pain and suffering of lab animals down to a minimum and oversight to see if a test needs to be done on an lab animal, but in the end animal testing is necessary to help both humans and animals.

So for the PETA celebrities that go nude rather than wear fur, while you’re nude I’ll put something in your mouth to keep you from repeating the propaganda from these misguided fucks.



BTW: If you are legitimately concerned about animal welfare the ASPCA and Humane Society are good organizations with rational thinking.

Finally Gwyneth Paltrow, claims that Shampoo Causes Cancer.



At least not using shampoo will only hurt someone’s social life and not their actual life, but it’s a dumb comment and her mouth could be put to better uses.

7/14/09

Stuff I missed, I've been busy. Sorry

It’s been a few days since I posted as I have been dealing with Bank of America trying to get my house out of foreclosure.

I’ve racked up a total of 6 hours on the phone with them trying to get them to answer 3 very simple questions.
1) Why didn’t they fulfill their obligations under the Mortgage Agreement?
2) Why are they lying to me?
3) Why are they breaking the law?

For some reason they don’t seem to want to answer these questions. They just keep passing me off to someone else. Their lawyer is supposed to call me maybe she can answer my questions.

But enough about those evil scum-sucking bastards.

Great News:

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)'s Falcon I successfully launched a satellite into orbit. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090714/sc_nm/us_space_business;_ylt=Aj0DwK8Vtrb3h5xDsTDzr0QPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTJra203ZXJkBGFzc2V0Ay9ubS8yMDA5MDcxNC9



Even though the Falcon I isn’t technologically superior to the Atlas V it does offer a competing way to get objects into space. At $8 million per ½ ton flight it is the cheapest way to get into space.

Also SpaceX can start making these expendable rocket launches on a semi-routine basis freeing up resources for their work on the Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 heavy. These are the rockets that SpaceX hopes to use to take over the servicing of the ISS after the Shuttle is discontinued.

If the Falcon 9 is successful it will free up NASA to work on the Orion/Constellation Project and return humans to Moon.

Hopefully NASA can contract out all their Low Earth Orbit duties to private companies like SpaceX and turn their energies back to what they are good at pushing the envelope of space technology and expand the human frontier.

Bad News:

The International Space Station the massive spacecraft that is as big as a football field, cost $100 billion to build and is a key component to many private space companies long term plans, is scheduled to be scrapped in 2016.

It took over a decade to build the thing and now it’s going to be junked in less than half that time. That doesn’t make much sense to me.

Good News:

Obama proposes $12 Billion in Community College Funding.

Finally a good proposal to get some long-term benefit out of the Great Depression 2.0.

With unemployment nearing 10% it is damn near impossible for someone fresh out of high school to get a job. Let’s face it if you were the manager of a restaurant and you had two applicants for a waiter. One fresh out of high school with no work experience and one former Securities Broker who ran a multi-million company who would you hire?

By sending as many high school graduates through community college as possible right now it will ease the demand for entry level jobs giving the vastly over qualified workers a way to survive until the economy picks back up.

In 2 years when these students come out of college with their Associates Degrees, America will have better skilled workforce that can seriously compete with other nations.

It’s a solution that gives both short term relief and long term benefit.

Bad News:

This proposal doesn’t do anything to fix the Educational/Banking Complex that has turned into a vampire sucking the benefits of higher education out of the average American worker.

Nothing is being done about the fact that the Higher Education System rewards banks that default graduates on their student loans, even if the graduate is paying back the loan as promised.

Good News:

Healthcare reform with a public option, which 72% of Americans want, is moving forward.

Bad News:

7 Democrats, Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad, Mary Landrieu, Dianne Feinstein, Jeff Bingaman, and Blanche Lincoln, are gladly taking some of the $1.4 million a day that Insurance companies are using to fight the public option.



The stupidest argument against the public option (you are welcome to disagree as there are a lot of stupid arguments against it) is that if people making more than $500,000 a year are taxed 1% to cover the cost they will take their ball and leave the country.

Oh no, What will America do without the people who gave us invaluable products like Default Credit Swaps, and Sub-prime Mortgage Backed Securities?

Good News:

Sarah Palin resigned as Governor so she can help candidates that share her lunatic vision for America. Now we have a quick way to Identify the wackos.

Bad News:

sarah palin
see more Political Pictures

The poster pretty much says it all.

7/2/09

Republicans: Fighting Back against Reality

The Republicans have come up with a new strategy recently, and that is to try and get their supporters to avoid the US Census.



On many Progressive Blogs the question has come up, Why?

Why would they pursue a strategy that gets them purposely underrepresented?

It’s all about having something to explain why their views still get airtime.

They are currently the small minority party, 58-40 in the Senate, and only 20% of the American people identify themselves as Republican, yet they get 8 times as much airtime as the Democrats on TV.

Their main newspaper the Weekly Standard has a readership of 80,000 as opposed to The Huffington Post with a viewership of millions. Yet the views expressed in the Weekly Standard get more coverage in the Mainstream Media.

Their big fear is the census will show that their base the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) are now a minority in the country.

Back in the 80s they had some claim that evangelicals like the Moral Majority should have some say in the country as some 60% of America belonged to White Protestant Churches. (Of course the evangelicals only made up a small percentage of that group, but why let the truth get in the way of a silly argument.)

The latest Poll numbers have Protestants making up approximately 51% of America. 10% of that is made up of Black Churches and for some reason Black tend not to support policies that legalize discrimination.

These poll numbers have been pretty consistent and the number of Protestants in America has been dropping at a rate of almost 1% per year over the last decade.

No one has a crystal ball and can say exactly what percentage the 2010 census will show but even if the amount of Protestants hasn’t slid and the 2010 census shows that the number is 50% plus a small fraction of a percent the Argument that “Christian” policies should be put into effect to please the majority becomes silly when the “majority” is a majority by less than 1%.

It also makes it hard for people like Dobson to demand something because Christians “Meaning only Protestants” are the majority when some branches of Protestants like Unitarians are 100% opposed to what he says. If you take their 2% out of the Protestant mix you are left with 48-49% (not a majority).

After the next census the argument that the Protestant 10 commandments should be taught in school to please the majority won’t hold up as less than 49% of Americans are part of a religion that recognizes the Protestant version. (Catholics and Jews have their own and Unitarians don’t believe god takes time out of his busy schedule to have individual talks with people, therefore no personal delivery of the 10 commandments).

Likewise, Prayer in school is a dead issue.

To counter the fact that the reality is that America no longer has a Protestant majority, they will try to get their base to not be part of the census, that way they can say they were underrepresented.

It’s all a strategy so they can hold their fingers in their ears and say “La-La-La-La I can’t hear you.” For the next 10 years. Instead of adapting to the new reality and embracing the separation of church and state mentioned in the 1st amendment.

I can’t wait to see the strategy for ignoring reality after the 2020 census, when Protestants are expected to be less than 40%.