Another friend of DoG is making headlines. Enjoy this column by Scott Korb and Leon Morris about the lack of Christ in Christmas, particularly among its self-appointed warriors.
They've got a book coming out someday; stay tuned for the plug.
Please make your way to this column by erstwhile associate of these pages, first-time contributor to the New York Times, and arguably the svengali behind the inception of your Delusions of Grandeur.
Note the (not so) subtle shout out, which I'm told was intentional. Then mourn the loss of a New York landmark.
Some defensive right-wing homeowners’ association overlords board members in Denver declared a wreath shaped like a peace symbol to be a crime against Christmas and imposed a $25/day fine on its displayers last week.
Well, peace won -- this time -- and the board members resigned. Inside sources tell us the allegedly Christian board members were handed a bible and were shocked to discover that when Christmas was first invented, it wasn’t to feed the engine of soul-sucking mass consumerism, but in fact to celebrate the birth of a noted hippy peace activist.
They may have capitulated in this instance but on their way home from their final board meeting, they drew the line at a ghastly tune on the radio in which herald angels declare peace on earth and a merciful God reconciles with sinners. “Not while I’m around, He’s not!” and immediately proceeded to the nearest Christian book store to buy the hottest video game in red state America so they could “waste some heathens.”
Through Wonkette, I came across this hilarious story about a poor Polish exchange student who came to North Carolina for a year, only to find out that his host family was drunk on the Jesus. They forced him to go to church at 6 in the morning, forbade him coffee, declared that the devil lived in his heart because he liked wine (didn’t Jesus like wine?), and so on.
Oh, and they were just using him to help them open a church in Krakow in the first place. How Christlike. God, I love examples of the hypocrisy and cruelty of Christians. It’s like crucifying fish in a barrel.
...I guess it's Trent Lott. Apparently he's not racist anymore, so he's got that going for him.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME):
We understand what happened. There’s no point going over. It’s in the past now, you know, and he has expressed, you know, his deep regret, as he should.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ):
I think most people think he paid a pretty heavy price for the mistake that he made. We all believe in redemption, thank God.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE):
Everyone has an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves if they want to do it, and I admire Trent Lott for coming back and offering himself. The conference spoke, and we go forward.
Hey, guess who finally visited Vietnam? He was about 38 years too late, but who's counting, right? So what lessons did The President, who bravely fought to keep Charlie out of Houston (at least when he felt like it) take away from his experience? Uh...
President Bush said Friday the United States' unsuccessful war in Vietnam three decades ago offered lessons for the American-led struggle in
Iraq. "We'll succeed unless we quit," Bush said shortly after arriving in this one-time war capital.
Bush said that "the world that we live in today is one where they want things to happen immediately and it's hard work in Iraq."
Bush said he assured Howard that "we will get the job done" and will stand with the embattled government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"We'll succeed unless we quit," Bush said. "The Maliki government is going to make it unless the coalition leaves before they have a chance to make it."
We missed it again! We here at DoG HQ would like to belatedly wish ourselves a very happy second birthday.
Back after Bush stole the White House for the second time, who could possibly have imagined that we’d be able to maintain the consistent level of low-quality writing mixed with childlike attention to detail and obsessive need for vulgarity for two whole years? Add a splash of plagiarism, a pinch of righteous indignation, fill to the rim with your favorite brand of whiskey, shake vigorously, and pour -- careful to strain out the nuance and insight -- et voila! Enjoy your delicious Delusions of Grandeur cocktail on the rocks or straight up. Either way, it’s sure to give you a throbbing headache in the morning.
Thanks for reading, everyone! You might prefer to keep silent, but we know you’re out there. And we love you all... (Not in that way! Seriously - hands off, Plano, Texas.)
OJ is a murderer and an asshole. Duh. But now he's got a new confessional and a TV special brought to you by the bringers of other winners like Sluts on an Island and the paranoia-induced War on the Most Popular Holiday in the History of Humanity.
Well look, America - this attention-starved criminal doesn't make a dime if you don't buy the book and if you don't watch the show. You showed me that my faith in you is well placed after the 2006 elections. Don't let me down.
By the way, it's worth noting that not only is this show on Fox, but the book is published by a nice young lady who used to have her own show on FoxNews, and her publishing house is a subsidiary of News Corp - also known as Fox. If you're looking for an attack on down home "American Values" you need look no further than that.
How great was yesterday? We awake to find the Democrats have taken the House, the Senate, the majority of governorships, Rummy’s out and Bush is runnin’ scared like a little bitch. I even saw CNN correct someone when they used the term “dissemble” to describe how Bush was for Rumsfeld before he was against him. “You know, I think we could even call that a lie, don’t you think?”
Boy, Democrats take congress and now they’re finally allowed to call Bush a liar? What a bunch of cowards.
Anyway… There’s this one thing about Bush’s little press conference yesterday that bothers me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m practically drowning in schadenfreude over here. But yesterday in trying to explain why he lied about Rummy, Bush said, “I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign.” I know, I know, he says stupid things all the time, but holy shit, that’s a whopper! He didn’t want to inject a major decision into a campaign? How about insisting that the Saddam Hussein kangaroo court release its prix fixe verdict on Sunday before election day. How about all the false terror alerts in 2004? I mean, give me a break. He meant to say, “I didn’t want to release something that might hurt Republicans during the campaign.”
The irony is, that’s the one thing that actually might have helped – if he could admit he was wrong about something. Anything.
Oh well… Sucks to your ass-mar!
Rumsfeld resigns, effective immediately.
AP: Tester wins Montana.
Come on, Virginia!!
UPDATE: Something occurred to me. Doesn’t Rumsfeld quitting his job like two seconds after the Democrats take the House look a little fishy to you? Like the way that speed-freak gay homophobe preacher went down -- I’m completely innocent of the charges!!! I have this voice mail. I quit!
It’s like that.
Bush: “I have complete faith in Rumsfeld and he will stay with me for the remainder of my term in office”Or something like that…
Prez aide: “The Democrats took the House and now they have subpoena power.”
Bush: “Shit! Rummy, pack your bags and get on the first boat the hell out of here! Do not look at me on your way out.”
...
Bush: “I will fucking cut the eyes out of your head with this butter knife! Get out of my office!”
Wow! What a beautiful morning. The Democrats take the House, and it’s down to Montana and Virginia in the Senate.
I guess Karl Rove’s GOTV/voter suppression plan wasn’t quite good enough.
Now, think about this – we held every seat we needed to, and we also took Ohio, Rhode Island, Missouri, and Pennsylvania (go fuck a dog, Santorum!). And the best part is when the recounting starts in VA and MT, the Democrats are slightly ahead in the polls. It may not sound like much but I’d rather be ahead, hoping to hold than to be behind and hoping for a miracle.
Can we solve the hunger crisis? Fresh, clean water for all? Social Security? War? Crime? Drugs? We could if half the effort went into those issues as goes into cheating to win elections. Damn, no stone will go unturned.
Northern California radio stations got something extra Monday with the monthly emergency alert system test transmitted by fellow station KFBK and at least one of them was none too happy about it.And as Salon goes on to point out:
The test, complete with raspy alarm and tone, didn't end with the familiar words, "This concludes the test of the Emergency Alert System..."
Instead, it segued into a political advertisement by former state Sen. Dick Mountjoy, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein, and another spot for a mortgage company.
…
As a result, KFBK's regular programming -- in this case, the ads -- took over the airwaves at radio stations in 17 Northern California counties, and perhaps even the audio of some television stations.
…
Edward Martinet, general manager at non-profit community station KDVS in Davis, said he was skeptical of the explanation.
"It would have to be some amazingly egregious negligence to not notice it for two minutes," he said.
KFBK, owned by Clear Channel Communications, is the station that gave birth to Rush Limbaugh's radio show.I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Here we are - election day. Yippee!! Today is the day we all go to the polls and hope that our vote is one of the percentage that actually gets counted. Or in some cases, from the looks of it, we go to the polls, wait an hour in the rain and go home pissed off that after 200 years, we can’t find a fucking way to reliably count the votes.
This bothers me. I don’t know how you feel, but this doesn’t seem like democracy to me. The Republicans are pulling every trick in the book to suppress the vote and nobody cares. It’s par for the course in a democracy, right?
No!
It is not the point of democracy to allow the system to devolve into a battle of who cheats better. It’s supposed to be a polling of the people in order to choose their new leaders. We shouldn’t have to place our “faith” in the words of a voting machine manufacturer that the booth works, or to assume that the Republican and Democratic parties would not cheat and change the votes because well, that would be like something Saddam Hussein would do. These people are paid to win; nothing short of victory will suffice. We shouldn’t have to “trust” these people and institutions. We should have absolute scientific proof of the accuracy of the count, whatever the count happens to be. Anything less than that is not democracy. Without democracy, we have nothing. Without a real vote, our leaders cannot be held accountable for their actions. Hey, maybe that worked for Augustus Caesar and Louis XIV, but how’d it go with Nero and Napoleon? Not so much.
No matter what happens tonight -- and Spaghetti Monster-willing enough of you Democrats will go to the polls to overcome the eight ball of gerrymandering and voting fraud the Republicans have put us behind -- I won’t honestly trust the vote. Our politicians have to wake up and fix this their very next day in office. Voting machines that accurately count the votes and can be verified. More voting machines in all districts, not just in the rich ones. Accountability in advertising and immediate shutdown of illegal election tampering operations. Most importantly, we need public financing of elections to get the corruption out of government. Oh, and also I need a rocket ship to the moon, and Natalie Portman to stop by my place tonight after she votes.
So what do you think? Do we live in the United States of America or a South American junta? Maybe we find out tonight…
Happy voting!
Ladies, it’s time to loosen up and let your freak flag fly. Australian researchers have shown that if you whore yourself around town, you’ll have babies with like super strength or something. I paraphrase…
Scientists at the Australian National University said they had proven for the first time that frequent sex with multiple partners increased the survival rate of offspring in an animal species.So there you have it, girls. Break out Tuesday’s slutstume, find yourself a human male and get to it. I mean, you don’t want to have puny little weakling babies, do you?
The team's reproductive revelation comes after two years spent probing the sex life of the brown antechinus, a small mouse-sized carnivorous marsupial found in forests in southeastern Australia, which is related to the Tasmanian Devil.
Despite the advantages to the species from free love, males usually died after a short and intense single mating season due to exhaustion and aggressive encounters with other males.Oh… Uh… Ladies? Hold on a sec. Let’s be reasonable here. The game is on, for crying out loud!
Nathanial Frank busts out the old Psych 101 textbook for some thoughtful analysis:
What are we to make of a reigning conservative regime that lists the following inglorious claims to fame: Strom Thurmond, a notoriously racist senator who turned out to have a black lover; a Republican indictment of President Clinton's sexual license headed up by a team of philanderers; a Congress full of divorces passing an anti-gay law known as the "Defense of Marriage Act"? In the pundit corner, we recently saw three giants of conservative moralizing unmasked as incapable of restraining their own vices: William Bennett turned out to be addicted to gambling, Rush Limbaugh to drugs. Meanwhile, Ralph Reed, the hand-picked youthful leader of the religious right, was quietly helping the corrupt lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, enable everything that religious conservatives oppose: casinos on Indian reservations and compelled abortions and sex slavery in the Northern Mariana Islands, an American territory. And this is not even to mention the Catholic Church's strident indictment of sexual freedom as it shuffled its own cadre of child-molesting priests from parish to parish.Bush has a word or two about terrorists and Islamic fascists, doesn’t he? What are you covering up, Mr. President?!
…
For answers to the puzzles that seem to infest the conservative worldview, we might dust off our old Freud texts. From the father of psychoanalysis, we learn the concept of "reaction formation" which describes how we react to our own unacceptable impulses. Reaction formation is a classic "defense mechanism"-an unconscious behavior designed to ward off uncomfortable feelings. Sometimes we react to our discomfort with ourselves in harmless ways, such as when a man cheats on his wife and brings her flowers to ease his guilt. Other times, the reactions can be punitive-we judge and condemn others who exhibit the very impulses that we, ourselves, cannot control. This is frequently the case when dealing with lust or greed. "Sooner or later," writes Michael Warner, a Professor of English at Rutgers and a leading theorist of sexuality and politics, "we all lose control over our sex life. As a result, we try to control someone else's sex life."
Don’t you love the poetic justice of an evil motherfucker brought down by the very thing that makes him evil? Maybe you have spent your life judging others’ vices, when it turns out you spend weekends at a time gambling away millions. Or perhaps you enjoy talking about the sanctity of marriage, but then run off with your 23 year old mistress leaving your cancer-stricken wife to fend for herself, alone in the hospital. Maybe you run a presidential campaign based on compassion and preside over the most sadistic administration in American history.
Or maybe, just maybe, you are a messianic figure with tens of thousands of zealous vassals in the movement to wipe those dirty faggots off the face of the earth and it turns out that you’ve been taking it up the ass on a regular basis for some time now.
Ted Haggard, seen to your right demonstrating how he likes to receive his creamy white prize, is an evangelical leader who just happens to be the cowboy-boot wearin’, brush clearin’, manly sort of religonut who gets the president’s ear. So much so that they had a weekly conference call to coordinate their attack on people’s civil rights. I’m guessing Bush won’t be taking those calls no more.
Michael Forest Jones, 49, of Denver alleges he had sex on a monthly basis with Haggard over three years. Jones claimed Haggard used the name "Art," admitted he was married and used meth before the two had sex.Oh well. Just leave your career on the nightstand and sneak back home to your beard and kids…
...
Late Thursday, The Associated Press reported that the acting senior pastor at New Life, Ross Parsley, told KKTV-TV of Colorado Springs that Haggard admitted some of the accusations were true, but Parsley didn't elaborate.
The timing of the disclosure has stirred controversy, coming days before Colorado voters will decide on two measures related to gay rights and marriage. Haggard is a chief supporter of Amendment 43, which would define marriage as only between a man and a woman, and he has taken no position on Referendum I, which would grant domestic- partnership rights to same-sex couples.
Haggard is unquestionably a national figure. Since founding New Life Church in his basement in the 1980s, the son of an Indiana veterinarian has ascended the ranks of evangelical leaders, taking part in White House conference calls, counseling foreign leaders and being named by Time magazine as one of the nation's 25 most influential evangelicals.
...
They met at least once a month at Jones' Denver apartment, and Haggard paid cash, Jones said. "He was very nice and very soft-spoken," Jones said. "We never talked about anything heavy-duty."
Jones alleged Haggard snorted a small amount of methamphetamine that he brought with him at least a dozen times to enhance the sexual pleasure.
I’m sure it’s too soon to measure the Kerry never met an election he couldn’t blow effect, and we all know how it’s really gonna turn out. Nevertheless, I shall continue to raise my hopes ever higher -- all the more reason to drink myself stupid Tuesday and call in sick Wednesday.
50-49 lead in the Senate, with Missouri too close to call. Missouri, eh? Damn! I hate the fucking Cardinals, but now I’m pinning my hopes on those Eckstein loving assholes? Hmmn… I’m opposed to your Cardinals supporting policy; but I’m in favor of your Budweiser drinking policy! Let’s go with that.
And now they’re saying a 48 seat lead in the house. Polls go up and down, but hey, I’d rather have them say we have a lead than have them say we’re behind.
Look at that over there… No, not there. There! Yeah, that. New polls are in, and by the judgment of the good people at electoral-vote.com, the senate is tied at 50-50, and in the house the Dems had a nice surge since yesterday and now lead by 44 seats. I’m writing it down so we can track it over the next seven days. Yeah, I’m exactly that lame.
It should be noted, however, that these polls fail to take into account the security-free electronic voting booths; vote burning, shredding, tossing, or hiding by the GOP; voter disenfranchisement, intimidation, or ID card requirements; and John Kerry failing to keep his fucking trap shut.
In other words, they’re meaningless.
As I’m sure you are all aware, the steel cage match that is the 2006 midterm elections are but a week and a half away. Because we love our readers at DoG, I’ve added an exciting new feature. Which is to say I’ve cut and paste an exciting new feature from somewhere else.
To your left, stage right, you will find an up to the minute electoral results summary provided by the good men and women at www.electoral-vote.com. They read poll results all day, compile them and whatnot and whozit and poof! post a result. I hardly trust polls, and as I’ve said in the past, I officially predict that the Democrats will take neither house of congress.
But it’s always fun to dream… and read promising poll data. Just remember to vote on the 7th, OK?
When I started reading Patrick Smith’s column Ask the Pilot a few years back, it was primarily a place to send in questions about the more arcane and curious aspects of air travel. “What do all those controls do?” “What’s a flap?” “Are pilots really up to their elbows in poontang?” etc. But more recently -- the last year or two -- he has focused his ire and engaging writing style toward the TSA and their absurd notion of “security.” Today, he perfectly describes how ridiculous and inevitably damaging the security procedures are in the United States these days.
There you have it: Tiny containers of hand sanitizer in zip-lock bags are harmless and approved. Those not in zip-lock bags are dangerous contraband. Meanwhile, the TSA still cannot justify its methods of confiscation: If certain liquids and gels are taken from a passenger, the assumption has to be that those materials are potentially hazardous. If so, why are they tossed unceremoniously into the trash? At every checkpoint you'll see a bin or barrel brimming with illegal containers. They are not quarantined or handed over to the bomb squad; they are thrown away. In effect, the agency readily admits that it knows these things are harmless. But it's going to steal them anyway, and either you like it or you don't fly.Or as I’ve said a million times (probably copying Mr. Smith) – it’s more important for them to do something (anything) as opposed to something good. It’s a symptom of Bush’s larger disease of feel-good policy as opposed to good policy. (You like how I keep doing that? No? Fine.)
…the madness has become patently abject, and people need to realize they are subsidizing it. More than 2 million Americans experience the carnival of airport security every day. An apparatus that big takes a lot of dough to keep it running. First, our taxes pay for the salaries of thousands of airport screeners, and for all the many overpriced accouterments demanded of a bureaucracy. Then come the trickle-down costs of delays, missed flights and broken appointments, along with the intangibles of widespread tension and anxiety. Last but not least, every dollar fed to the TSA furnace in a bid to keep shampoo off airplanes is a dollar that could have been spent more effectively elsewhere in the security chain. The bill for that one comes later, possibly in the guise of catastrophe.
This just in: Republicans like to beat on the handicapped.
During a debate Sunday that also included Democrat Gary Trauner, Cubin and Rankin had a testy exchange over campaign contributions Cubin received from former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.Rankin’s lucky he wasn’t debating Cheney or he’d be picking birdshot out of his face by now.
Rankin, who has multiple sclerosis and uses an electric wheelchair, said Monday night in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that the confrontation occurred immediately after the debate.
"My aide and I were packing up to leave the debate, and Barbara walked over to me and said, 'If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face.' That's quote-unquote," Rankin said.
...
During her tenure, Cubin received $22,520 in campaign contributions from Delay's Americans for a Republican Majority PAC. She has said she would not return the money unless DeLay was convicted of a crime.
Directly from the Ministry of Truth, here is your Two Minutes Hate for the day:
Q: Is there a change in the administration "stay the course" policy? Bartlett this morning said that wasn't ever the policy.OH! NOT stay the course. It’s weird, because I was under the impression that you guys were in favor of staying the course.
Tony Snow: … So what you have is not "stay the course," but, in fact, a study in constant motion by the administration and by the Iraqi government, and, frankly, also by the enemy, because there are constant shifts, and you constantly have to adjust to what the other side is doing.
BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]So, let me get this straight - he wants to cut and run, then?
SNOW: The second thing you do is you stay the course. [7/10/06]
SNOW: But on the other hand, you also cannot be a President in a wartime and not realize that you’ve got to stay the course. [8/17/06]
BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]
BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]
BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4/13/04]
SNOW: People are going to want more of it, and that’s why the President is determined to stay the course. April. [8/16/06]
BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4/16/04]
BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]
I am thrilled to hear the news that Donald Rumsfeld has hired a new advisor. It takes real courage to admit that you need help.
The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.What’s great about this is that we know God is one badass motherfucking killing machine. By one count, God has over 2.2 million confirmed kills. And hey, that’s not even counting the Great Flood or the razing of Sodom and Gomorrah. So, to know that God is talking directly to Rummy telling him how to wipe those fucking towelheads off the face of the earth, well, shit – we are gonna turn this thing around!
"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Blah. Everyone says the Democrats are gonna win. I know they aren’t because I have a memory and frankly it all bores me right now.
What does not bore me is this incident from the Crips vs. Bloods Miami vs. FIU game over the weekend. Helmets flying, three Miami players stomping the living shit out of some dude curled up in a fetal position like they’re in the parking lot of a strip club with their posse, and a commentator wildly cheering the proceedings on declaring that one does not come into the “OB” without getting a proper beatdown. Oh, the life of a thug, indeed.
But wait, there’s one more little twist of brilliance in this tale of honor and dignity. The University of Miami joined forces with the Miami-Dade police department to start the Join-a-Team, Not-a-Gang program and sent some 700 children to that very game to show them how a real man or woman doesn’t need violence and thuggery to “keep it real.”
Now the kids know that if they go to Miami, they don't need to choose.
I guess I will harp on it a little, but hey, I'm effing pumped for tonight!!
In the era of the Super Bowl Shuffle, and yes – New England, the Patriots and We was a lesser known video for the Detroit Tigers from 1984 – Bless You Boys, (This Is The Year). Courtesy of the good men and women at Deadspin, enjoy:
Does the fact that I used to actually sing this song out loud automatically make me gay?
I loves me the politics, and I loves me the sports too. I won’t harp on it, but big ups to my hometown Detroit Tigers for beating the Yankees in four and advancing to the ALCS against the A’s.
This victory is triple-sweet for us Tigers fans. For starters, we advance in the playoffs for the first time since the magical 1984 season. Secondly, literally everybody said the Tigers never had a chance. And, not best of all, but pretty close – it’s the fucking Yankees! Man, I hate those guys! And now they’re in full-on tailspin panic mode and they’ll probably make another bunch of harebrained moves like trade one of the best players in baseball (ARod), fire one of the best coaches the Yankees have ever had, and pick up a bunch of overpriced, past-their-prime free agents for a lumbering $300 million dollar payroll next year. And they’ll lose again!
Way to go, Tigers! Bring on the A's!
I don’t normally do this, but when I saw this picture, I just couldn’t resist blatantly stealing it and posting it without attribution. That’s just how I roll.
(l to r - Brownie, Satan, Rep. Pedophile (R-FL))
By request from our good friends over at PatRoW, watch Mark Foley predict the future on America's Most Wanted:
Hmmn... I bet they can find some DNA samples in Foley's congressional office.
Republican Representative Mark Foley was caught up in a possibly innocent -- if creepy -- scandal earlier.
Foley sent a series of messages in which he asked the former page how old he was, what he'd like for his birthday and "what stuff" he liked "to do."Foley, of course, denied that there was anything untoward, that that’s just how he always is with all the pages, and railed against this despicable partisan smear. Even if the page in question did use the word “sick” to describe the emails like 16 times. Whatever. Moving on, ABC News calls the Foley people with an update - we have some IMs to ask you about. Foley’s response?
While the e-mail messages were vague enough that Foley might have explained them away successfully, ABC News says it has obtained instant-messaging text he sent to other underage male pages in which the congressman "made repeated references to sexual organs and acts." ABC says Foley's resignation came shortly after it questioned him about the IM content.So, um, is it still a big partisan smear campaign? No?
It occurred to me today that it’s quite possible that everything Bush has ever said is completely true, or at least contains a logical thread.
Exhibit A: Bush claims that the terrorists hate us for our freedom, (not for our policies of propping up brutal dictators in exchange for cheap oil and for the dereliction of our duty to broker peace between Israel and Palistine).
Exhibit B: Bush eliminates habeas corpus. Without cause or explanation, Bush can name anyone in the world an enemy combatant and send him to a secret prison with neither rights nor voice nor access to attorney nor the right to answer or even to know the charges that are being brought against him. Oh yeah, and Bush can legally beat the living shit out of him too.
Therefore, we have no freedom.
Therefore, the terrorists don’t hate us.
Whew! I’m glad that’s all over. Well played, W. I smell a peace prize!
Well played on the part of the cowardly Democrats, by the way, to step aside and twiddle their fucking thumbs and do nothing while Bush strips every last provision from the Constitution. For a minute there, I thought they might actually stand up for something they believe in. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. Fuck Washington. I’m done.
How can anyone win on a pro-torture agenda for Christ’s sake?! Where am I? What is going on?? If the Democrats were pro-torture, with the GOP against, every campaign commercial would be some guy with his fingernails being torn off with the creepy voice asking if the next to go would be you. Pictures of concentration camp victims and piles of burning naked bodies. What the fuck? Grow a pair, Democrats. Call them on their brutality! Call them the vicious heartless bastards they are. And if you lose, at least you lost with your principles, instead of just losing your principles, which is what has happened.
Sorry for the rambling; it just builds up sometimes and you gotta let it out.
Fourteen Year-Old Girl: Dad?
Dad: Yes, honey?
FYOG: Can I go to an all-weekend party/sleepover at the captain of the football team’s house while his parents are out of town?
Dad: Abolutely NOT!!
FYOG: Dad! You’re so square! Well, can I go to the senior prom and after-party with the captain of the football team?
Dad: Well, I guess that’s ok. Have fun, sweetie!
-- scene --
Now, substitute “all-weekend sleepover party” with “detain and torture whomever the president chooses without oversight or legal protection for the prisoner.” And substitute “senior prom and after-party” with “detain and torture whomever the president chooses without oversight or legal protection for the prisoner.” And there you have the “compromise” that has been reached by the so-called maverick Republicans who “stood up to” the president.
But virtually no attention has been paid to this radical and wildly unjust provision, because as bad as the McCain-Graham-Warner proposal is, the president's was slightly worse. And by masquerading as the principled opponents to a handful of the most extreme provisions in the president's proposals, these "dissident Republican senators" were depicted as the moderates in the debate, as the reasonable, serious thinkers who would carefully balance the need for strong antiterrorist measures with the need to safeguard our basic liberties.We should have seen this coming a mile away. I think it’s really gotten to the point that there is honest to God, not a single person in political office with any sense of decency or even a soul.
Bush finally figured out how to run the country with literally no oversight. The congress is vapid and cowering, the judiciary is full of Bush sycophants, the only thing left for Bush to worry about were those pesky good-for-nothing voters.
Problem solved!
Diebold is a company headed by crooks and Bush cronies. They also make the electronic voting machines, and guess what? They don't work for shit. Princeton University (a.k.a. - liberal elite training camp) conducted an independent study on the machines and found
a computer virus can be implanted on an electronic voting machine that, in turn, could result in votes flipped for opposing candidates. According to the study, a vote for George Washington could be easily converted to a vote for Benedict Arnold, and neither the voter, nor the election officials administering the election, would ever know what happened. The virus could also be written to spread from one machine to the next and the malfeasance would likely never be discovered...Oh yeah. Or as one insider put it:
"If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it."But don't worry, hard-working American voter. We have nothing to fear. As Diebold explains:
"[Our critics are] throwing out a 'what if' that's premised on a basis of an evil, nefarious person breaking the law," Bear told Newsweek after the March Emery County study. "For there to be a problem here," he further explained to the New York Times, "you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software … I don't believe these evil elections people exist."Whew! For a minute there I was worried that our electoral process could easily be hijacked by a 13 year old home-schooled Jesus freak with a PC. But it turns out no one like that really exists. I sure am happy that there is no one in America who would do anything dirty, underhanded, or illegal in order to win an election at all costs.
Racially challenged senator and Bush clone George Allen held a rally recently. His website posted some photos. You may notice in the URL that the rally had a name – The Ethnic Rally.
How cute. In one of the pictures, you can almost make out a thought balloon that says, “See? I’m completely comfortable being around negroes and celestials!” Think about it - he was at The Ethnic Rally all day and didn't lynch a single person. I smell the Oval Office!
(P.S. - Thanks, Josh!)
It’s the fifth anniversary of 9/11/01. I mention it in case you left a cave just this moment, and the first media you come across is DoG. Otherwise, as long as you have eyes and ears, you’ve read/heard/seen about a billion things about it. As an aside – if we only had eight fingers instead of ten, we’d have been doing this last year.
That’s not to say I’m cynical about 9/11. I was here in NYC, living downtown as a matter of fact. I woke up that day to the burning towers, and watched them collapse from the roof of my building. I smelled that god-forsaken stench of burning plastic and rubber for weeks afterwards. I’m not above remembrance and reflection. What I don’t care for is the callous manipulation by the media and by our politicians to win viewers and/or votes. In any case, I found it interesting that al Qaeda is as sentimental as we are and has as many fingers.
A lengthy video statement from Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued on the eve of the fifth anniversary of al Qaeda's attacks on the United States, calls on Muslims to step up their resistance to the United States and warns that "new events" are on the way.Hey, I’m just glad we’re in their thoughts today. He goes on to say,
"Your leaders are hiding from you the true extent of the disaster," the fugitive deputy to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden says in the video, which appeared on Islamist Web sites late Sunday. "And the days are pregnant and giving birth to new events, with Allah's permission and guidance."”And the placenta of our plans shall rain down from above like blood from the prophets. We will cut through your defenses like an episiotomy from the scalpel of Allah, Himself.”
Clay Aiken is not only a member of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, he’s also a client.
Ah, the Detroit Lions. To call them a hapless bunch of lovable losers is to put a positive spin on it. Another way to describe them would be an embarrassingly awful abortion of a mismanaged franchise. And that would be a less positive -- but still positive -- spin.
The latest news doesn’t involve Matt Millen or any of his “Most Terrible Decision Made Since the Last Time Matt Millen Made a Decision.” This time it’s about some assistant coach.
...a Dearborn police ticket describes the coach as "driving on public street without any clothes on. (NUDE)."Drunk driving. For shame, Cullen! I can’t…
...
Court records say the nudity incident happened Aug. 24 about 11:15 p.m., the night before the Lions flew to the West Coast for an exhibition game against the Oakland Raiders. Police stopped Cullen in his car, which was traveling eastbound on Michigan near Lapham Street. The ticket does not provide any other information about why Cullen allegedly was nude. The Lions said alcohol was involved.
A week later, Dearborn police again arrested Cullen, this time Sept. 1 about 11:48 p.m., the night after the Lions lost their final exhibition to Buffalo at Ford Field. Court records show Cullen had a blood alcohol content of .12 after police stopped his 2006 Ford Explorer as it traveled west on Michigan near Tenny.
Ted Stevens, corrupt douchebag extraordinaire, admits that he’s the self-absorbed asshole who hates America, the Constitution and representative government, and if you read between the lines – eats babies and may very well be responsible for unusual rock formations in northern Europe.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
In a “true” democracy, everyone votes on every issue. If we need a new road from Athens to Sparta, we all get together in the town square and vote on it. In today’s United States of America, there are roughly 300 million people, and unfortunately, there’s no town square big enough for all that. Instead, we have representative democracy, which entails that we send elected officials who we trust to vote in our interests off to Washington, and we go to sleep comfortably knowing that they are looking out for us.
Or… so we would like to think. A bill was passed through committee that would establish the creation of a public database so that we could search from home and find out where OUR tax dollars are being spent. It looked as though the bill was on the fast track to being passed on the floor of the senate as a whole. I mean who could possibly vote publicly against a bill which mandated that the government reports to its constituents (you and me) what the government does with our money?
Well, as luck would have it, no one has to! Instead, a senator has put a super-secret hold on the bill, not allowing it to come for a vote, and no one knows who placed the hold. Thanks to some actual investigative reporting, we do know who didn’t place the hold. Perhaps after a few more calls, they will have the list narrowed down thereby outing the corrupt senator who feels that pork barrel spending is his right as a public servant, and the yokels who voted him (or her) into office don’t deserve more than the fucking sack of oranges he’d like to beat us with.
Speaking of dropping science in favor of religion, check it:
Evolution Major Vanishes From Approved Federal List
God bless the USA.
I told you so. Why do they even need these conferences? If these astronomers and cosmologists would just come up to Astoria, we could kick it in my crib, solve the problems of the universe and hell, I even know a few chicks. Open invite, fellas.
In the meantime, that bitch Pluto knows who’s boss now. Luckily, it shouldn’t be too hard to rewrite textbooks since half the country has dropped their science books in favor of Bibles – so no harm done.
Hey Pluto! Your atmosphere so thin Nicole Richie asked it for dieting tips!
Hey Pluto! Your gravity so weak, when I jumped outta yo’ momma’s bed, I drifted into space!
Hey Pluto! Your orbit so unstable, they kicked it outta the methadone clinic for scaring the other patients!
Hey Pluto! Your year is so long you spent your last birthday in the Mesozoic Era!
Hey Pluto! You so cold, your ice cubes got frostbite!
Hey Pluto! You so far from the sun, uh… we can’t see you with the naked eye!
Take that!
DoG invites you to submit your own Pluto snaps. And if you can actually make them funny, all the better...
Guess what? Another dead white chick. Problem is, this one has been dead for a fucking decade! I was just going to say shut the fuck up about it, but Rebecca Traister says it better.
This wasn’t important when it was on the “news” 24/7 ten years ago, and considering, oh I don’t know - war, devastation, death, terrorism, global warming, a fascist regime in Washington, and so on, it is even less important today. That guy is like a total creepshow, Kevin Spacey in Se7en kinda whackjob, but he also didn’t do it, and oh yeah - who the FUCK cares?! People die every single day. Imagine if they covered every civilian death in Iraq with such fervor.
Are you happy, Pluto-huggers? Because of your sentimentality and your unhealthy marriage to your mnemonic device, they’ve gone and redefined the definition of planet to appease you. Thanks to you, there are currently twelve planets identified, including one in the Asteroid Belt.
A fucking asteroid!! Mnemonic that, bitches!
Furthermore, they’ve classified Pluto’s “moon” as a new planet, as well as another Kuiper Belt object (of which Pluto and Charon are members) which is bigger than Pluto. And guess what? There are at least dozens more we’ve already discovered, and undoubtedly hundreds more we haven’t yet.
This is what we have now. Because of these idiots’ childlike attachment to this stupid comet called Pluto, our Solar System has thousands of “planets.” Hold on, what’s that? Is it a bird or a planet! Call fucking Prague!!
Racists that is. It doesn’t matter if you’re a senator from typically cosmopolitan and forward-thinking Virginia or if you go to Klan rallies in Alabama, a racist is a racist. George Allen used to hang a confederate flag in his Senate office. That’s enough for me. But if it’s not enough for you, there’s his racial slur from the other day.
"This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt -- Macaca, or whatever his name is -- he's with my opponent," Allen said. After suggesting that Webb was spending more time with "Hollywood movie moguls" than with real Virginians, Allen turned back to the subject of Sidarth. "Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."Not convinced that was a slur? Try this on for size:
Felix raised Allen's mother, Etty, in Tunisia, a French protectorate in North Africa. As a child, Allen's grandparents lived near the family home, and Etty spoke five languages around the house.We know he didn’t blurt it out as a means of calling Sidarth a silly name because he said it twice, and he damned well knew what the word meant. The guy is a racist pure and simple. That plays in Virginia, so he’ll get reelected. Let’s make sure he doesn’t get to the White House.
…
In North Africa, the word "macaca," often spelled "macaco" or "macaque," is far more than a string of random syllables. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word dates back to the mid-1600s, as a Flemish approximation of the Bantu word for monkey in the Congo and southern Gabon. The word migrated north, taking on all the racist connotations that followed African colonization. By the early 1800s, Jacko Maccacco, a famous fighting monkey, could be found on display in Westminster Pit, a notorious London arena for dog fights. The word had entered the common vernacular, and it eventually became a racist shorthand for blacks.
”I do apologize if he's offended”It reminds me of another apology quite common in Virginia between redneck and wife: “I’m sorry you made me hit you.”
Independent senate candidate and crazy-ass sore loser (CASL™) Joe Lieberman is transforming into a Republican before our very eyes, as in a poorly made werewolf movie. Or perhaps I should say that his Republican stripes are finally plain for all to see. Exhibit A – he clamed it was a victory when he lost on Tuesday. Exhibit B – Karl Rove is working for him. Exhibit C – the guy is making spurious connections between a terrorist threat from British citizens and the war on Iraq instead of seeing that the war in Iraq is what is inciting the violence against us. He’s too far gone from the Democratic party to understand a thought that involves a layer of complexity.
Pop quiz! Match these quotes to their author, Cheney or Liberman?
”If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them, and they will strike again.”and
”Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups were counting on Americans to adopt a weaker military posture. Mr. Lamont’s victory … favored that weaker approach.”Answer – do you really care? One was Dick and one was Joe.
Mr. Cheney also lamented Mr. Lieberman’s primary defeat; the two men have been on good terms in the past.Why, I declare! I am overcome with surprise!!
I had a taste of blogging yesterday, and boy it felt good. I feel the need to release all the demons at once, so I'll just plop it down in these pages as quickly as possible and let you sort through the flotsam.
So, I'm reading this article about the total cluelessness of the Bush foreign policy, and I came across something interesting. You know how whenever they're challenged with facts about how much worse things are in Iraq since we invaded, all the right-wingers point their purple-stained fingers to the Iraqi elections and say that's the only evidence needed that things are a million times better? Well, here's a nice response to that bullcrap:
The main thing Iraqis expressed at the ballot box was that Sunnis wanted Sunnis to rule, Shiites wanted Shiites to rule, and Kurds wanted to secede. The election, inspiring as it was to behold, served as little more than an ethnic census. In the absence of democratic institutions to mediate disputes and legitimize outcomes, it might even have hardened the social, political, and religious conflicts that are now—by the testimony of Bush's own top generals—erupting into civil war.
The emergence of democracy marks the starting point of politics. Politics by nature involves conflicts. A democracy thrives or crumbles on how well it deals with those conflicts. There is nothing inherently civilizing about holding elections—nothing unusual, much less contradictory, about a putatively democratic government embroiled in war, civil war, or chaos.
A woman in Wisconsin is about to be excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church for -- get this -- being too into it.
A 64-year-old woman faces excommunication for seeking the priesthood in an unsanctioned ordination ceremony in Pittsburgh last month, the Milwaukee Archibishop said.See, I didn’t know you could get excommunicated so easily. I thought the only things that could get one excommunicated was making ridiculous claims like the earth goes around the sun or totally coveting your neighbor’s Xbox 360. The big things. Obviously diddling little Bobby Jr. for 8 years doesn’t cross the excommunication threshold.
The Roman Catholic Church prohibits women from becoming priests, and Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan said in a statement that it was his duty to notify the Vatican of her action.
Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg and 11 other women took part in an ordination ceremony July 31 conducted by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests -- eight to become priests and four to become deacons.
"That doesn't mean I'm excluded from the church. Only I can exclude myself," she said.Holy shit. She did not just say that! Listen here, little chickee, if you’re trying to say that your relationship with God is your own, and that the Bishop or Pope Benny can’t affect it in any way, then you have absolutely no place in the Roman Catholic church. Pick up your microscope and your critical thoughts and all the scientific mumbo-jumbo that you’ve probably been picking up over the years, and get the hell outta my cathedral!!
Glenn Greenwald, guest blogging in Salon’s War Room, waxes philosophical about the big Lamont/Lieberman showdown tomorrow.
The supremacy of incumbency has given birth to a more or less permanent Beltway class that views its power as an entitlement, something that its members have the divine right to possess until they choose to relinquish it. It is that aristocratic mindset that explains the bizarre sense of anger and offense triggered among the political and pundit classes -- and within Lieberman himself -- by Ned Lamont's aggressive primary challenge. The effort to defeat Joe Lieberman was considered to be improper, uncouth, even somehow undemocratic by those most entrenched in our stagnant, plodding, virtually immovable political structures.Without going on too long -- since as you know, I barely have time for anything these days -- this harkens back a bit to what a colleague of mine was hopelessly attempting to say last week which is that democracy is super cool and what we have today is doubleplus uncool because it is merely a hazy facsimile of democracy when 98% of incumbents are reelected; when money equals electoral success; when the people are so uninspired such that only 30% of us actually bother to vote; when the votes in congress are controlled by special interest groups and lobbyists; when government contracts are awarded to cronies and insiders instead of the cheapest or most qualified vendors… And so on and so forth...
Beyond striking a blow against the Iraq war and the neoconservatives who are responsible for it, a Lamont victory would deal a hard blow to the power of incumbency and the entitlement mindset it has spawned. It would be seen, rightfully so, as a repudiation of the Beltway pundit and political classes that, from the start and with virtual unanimity, viewed the Lamont challenge with scorn, as a distasteful rebellion by the crazed, dirty, unenlightened masses. The most important impact of a Lamont win is that it would shake the foundations of a self-contained Beltway political structure that is as unresponsive as it is corrupt at its core.
My new favorite thing in the world - the videos at I Humped Your Hummer. In case you are wondering, this a gang of brave vigilantes who roam the city and hump your Hummer against its will and put it on film.
Fucking hilarious.
They're takin' it to the streets in Iraq today. Unfortunately, it's to support Hezbollah:
Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Baghdad on Friday, enthusiastically voicing support for Lebanon's Hezbollah militia.
Angry protesters chanted slogans, burned Israeli flags and waved Lebanese and Hezbollah flags in the Iraqi capital's densely populated Shiite enclave of Sadr City. They also held up placards with the portrait of Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah.
Look, Arianna. I love you, you know that. We go way back. But if you’re going to flagrantly rip off the DoG from a year ago, can we at least get a link on the HuffPo or something? Like, seriously…
In the meantime, is that Mel Gibson a fucking asshole or what? Sugartits? Who says that?!
Check out the hot new video from George W. covering an old-school U2 track.
When that song came out, Bush was still spending his mornings cleaning the vomit off his face and trying to figure out where to tell the limo to come pick him up.
The always brilliant Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post from yesterday wondering how it is that the conventional wisdom was and remains that Howard Dean was a flakey looney-toon peacenik who couldn’t be trusted with our national security despite the fact that has been proven right on every single fucking point he made about Iraq before the war started.
And the tough guy no-nonsense ass-kickers were all wrong.
In case you’re wondering, yours truly lives in the area of Queens that ConEd couldn’t fucking care less about where the power has been off for the last two days.
How is he writing this?
Ever heard of magic?
Anyway, at least according to some dude who wrote into Gothamist, I won’t have power until “next week maybe.” Great. And this was the weekend when I was going to invite ConEd over for cognac and cheese. Fuck them, then. The cheese has gone rotten anyway.
Assholes.
President George W. Bush: *chomp* *chomp* "What they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit, and it’s over." *chomp* *chomp*
Lapdog Tony Blair: "Huh, huh... Yeah... Hmn huh huh..."
So, ignoring that Bush’s quote completely and totally exposes Bush’s ignorance and lack of curiosity in the midst of disaster (brought on by his own follies) in the Middle East as well as his baldfaced stupidity, I have a separate issue to discuss. I think he knew the mic was open.
That’s right. I think he did it on purpose. It’s exactly the sort of shit thing Karl Rove likes to pull. Here’s what it accomplishes:
I am going to reprint this real blog post in its entirety because I fear if I don’t, the mouthbreathing author will remove it once the number of comments reaches 1000, which at this rate should be later this hour. Enjoy!
Murder without conscience
Click here for our blog homepage
Here are some quotes from a pro-abortion person, Miss Caroline Weber, who wrote an article at The Onion online magazine.
The Onion Article
When referring to the killing of her child she said:"I am totally psyched for this abortion!"Who does Miss Weber blame her abortion on? The pro-life movement.
"Those pro-life activists made it pretty clear that, unlike me, they actually think abortion is bad and to be avoided. Are they nuts? Abortion is the best!"
"It wasn't until now that I was lucky enough to be pregnant with a child I had no means to support."
"I just know it's going to be the best non-anesthetized invasive uterine surgery ever!""The funny thing is, I actually have the pro-life movement to thank for this opportunity."It's our fault? She says:"If my HMO wouldn't have bowed to their pressure not to cover oral contraceptives, I never would've gotten pregnant in the first place."Sorry ma'am, if you hadn't had sex you wouldn't have gotten pregnant, it's not the HMO's fault for not supporting your promiscuity while not married.
To sum it up, Miss Weber said:”I realize there are people who will criticize me, calling me selfish and immature because I took "the easy way out." I realize there are those who will condemn me to hell for what I'm about to do. Well, I don't care what they say: It's worth it for all the fun and laughs I'm going to have at the clinic. So listen up, world: I'm pro-abortion... and I love it! See you at my post-abortion party, everybody!"Miss Weber, you have killed your child, which you admit is a baby/human being, intentionally. That does make you an admitted murderer. I'm not going to "condemn you to hell", I'm going to pray for your forgiveness and for the suffering which you will endure when you realize what you have done. Every baby you see from that moment on is going to wake you up to the realization that you killed your child.
Speak out against abortion. Don't just complain about it. Join the Monthly Call for Life at MonthlyCallForLife.com. We call, email and/or march to let our representatives know that we will not stop until they stop the killing of innocent human beings!
United we stand - Divided they die - Pass it on
posted by Pete at 7:38 AM
A torture story on the front page of the Times is always a tiny reminder of how far we’ve fallen as a nation. This one is different, however. This one is about how the administration is backing away from their all-torture, all-the-time policy, and falling in line with the Geneva conventions. I, for one, consider this story to be another version of a presidential signing statement. It’s like a cheating husband who gets caught. He promises his wife that he’s not going to cheat on her any more. But in his head he’s already planning better ways to cover his tracks. And Bush wouldn’t even do that if there wasn’t an election coming up.
Which brings me to my point. The election year cynicism of Bush’s new “America’s sweetheart, smear some Vaseline on the-lens” persona does tell us a couple of things. First - that for the time being, we do have some simulacrum of democracy. Hitler certainly didn’t give a shit who found out about all the shit he was up to. In fact, it was vital for his plans that people did know what a fucked up psycho he was. So our elections are close to real. We can still vote and as long as the election isn’t too close, we can be assured that the results are authentic.
And in case you were worried I was going soft on you, secondly – it tells us how fucking ignorant our elected politicians think we are. They think that Bush can go around stripping away our civil rights, tapping our phones, throwing citizens in secret prisons and torturing them to death, and then a few months before an election go, “I just keeeeding!” and expect us to forget the whole thing. And they’re right, aren’t they? Hell, how are you even paying attention to me when the Tom Cruise spawn might be a hoax?
Rest assured – come December, the electrodes will be firmly and publicly back in place on the Iraqi peoples’ metaphorical and literal testicles.
Or maybe it was just so blindingly obvious. From The Onion, in 2001:
Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."
"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."
Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"
Slate’s Michael Kinsley has an excellent piece today about the moral inconsistency in the arguments of the anti-stem cell research people. A point, I might add, that too often goes ignored in the media and in Washington. The point being that if you believe embryos are people then you have no logical alternative but to consider in-vitro fertilization clinics to be the most barbarous form of mass murder in the history of mankind.
In any particular case, fertility clinics try to produce more embryos than they intend to implant. Then—like the Yale admissions office (only more accurately)—they pick and choose among the candidates, looking for qualities that make for a better human being. If you don't get into Yale, you have to attend a different college. If the fertility clinic rejects you, you get flushed away—or maybe frozen until the day you can be discarded without controversy.I just wanted to put this up on DoG once and for all. It really pisses me off when this point is overlooked, because at the end of the day, it’s truly the only point. The researchers aren’t forcing a couple to have unprotected sex, stashing the woman away in some Matrix-like cocoon, removing her unborn child and picking it apart with fiendish laughter. They’re taking a few of these literally millions of frozen embryos that would be thrown out in any event.
And fate isn't much kinder to the embryos that make this first cut. Usually several of them are implanted in the hope that one will survive. Or, to put it another way, in the hope that all but one will not survive. And fertility doctors do their ruthless best to make these hopes come true.
In short, if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility clinics are death camps—with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics. No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly think otherwise.
