JABbering Stooge

Shortly after using abusing his recess appointment power to install as U.N. Ambassador jam John "Short Temper Theater" Bolton down the U.N.’s throat, Bush addressed a gathering of reporters for various Texas newspapers. During the round-table conference, he was asked for his opinion on the teaching of evolution in school. The Most Holy decreed "You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

Never mind that "Intelligent Design" does not provide testable predictions that can be verified via the scientific method (and therefore, not scientific, and thus not valid for inclusion in kids’ science classes!). Never mind that the vast majority of scientists and peer-reviewed journals have outright rejected "Intelligent Design" as unscientific. One decree from The Most Holy, coupled with massive legislative lobbying efforts by the anti-science crowd, and there goes the teaching of one of the most important theories of the last couple of centuries - RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW!

Hopefully, Paul Hackett will be elected and will serve as a sign that America is mad as hell about this misadministration that has declared war on half the country, and we’re not gonna take it anymore. Maybe then we can finally do something about the train wreck this country has become.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Aug. 2, 2005 5:44 PM)

The following represents my depiction of how Bush’s end run around the Senate would’ve gone if he’d been on truth serum at the time.

Note: Marked out text is, with the exception of one case, original text that has been changed/removed. Red italic text is text replacing the relevant marked out text, or added to make the "translation" make sense.

There was an interesting article on MSRNC today about a potential cancer treatment being developed at MIT (Forgive me while I pause to grumble about MIT getting all the cool discoveries - remnants of my time as a Carnegie Mellon student). I’ll let you peruse the article without further comment, except to say that this sort of thing would not be possible without the kids who have become the MIT researchers being taught all the things that the anti-science crowd want thrown out of science.

(By the way, if you really believe the claptrap that "evolution hasn’t produced any useful advances," I suggest you Google "genetic algorithms" or even "antibiotic resistance". Study of evolution helps explain a lot about both topics.)

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 28, 2005 1:08 AM)

Those of you who were watching Beat the Press on July 17 saw Tim Russert limply try to extract from GOP spokesman Ken Mehlman a promise that the GOP would respect (Republican) federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s decision, even if it meant indictments for those involved in Traitor-gate. I think that now it should be obvious why Mehlman danced around the issue: the Rethuglican attack dogs have come out in force to smear not only Fitzgerald, but also former CIA agent (and also a Republican) Larry Johnson, who gave the Democratic Radio address over the weekend.

According to the Brad Blog, both Jeffy Lube and Gary Schmitt of the Project for the New American Century were first out of the gate to attack Johnson with near verbatim recitation of the new talking point that…um…Johnson had a "9/10 mindset" regarding terrorism.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t help the right, since all one has to do is look back a few years to see who was really interested in fighting terrorism, and who was more interested in rooting around inside the President’s zipper and sniffing the First Lady’s panties (Okay - shameless self-promotion, I know - I’m sorry).

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald’s investigation is itself being investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Now why on earth would the Republican-dominated Senate Select Committee on (Lack of) Intelligence want to probe someone who is investigating treason on the part of a Republican administration? Something stinks to high heaven here.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 28, 2005 12:18 AM)

Though it pains me to admit this, the true human cost of Bush’s Iraq quagmire has been something of an abstract excercise for me and those don’t yet know someone who knows someone who was killed for the giant pack of lies that Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were willing to commit treason for. Sure, I could shout from the rooftops about all the hell this was causing the families left behind, torn apart by blood and distance; those soldiers who did make it back scarred physically and/or mentally having to pick up the pieces of their lives, but it never really impinged on me the way it does for those with more direct experience of war and loss - until today.

Buried in the Metro and State section of today’s Austin American-Statesman was an article about a local Marine who was killed - Cpl. Steven Gill, who was killed by an IED in Iraq last week. I first heard his name mentioned on the news the other night, but for some reason the name didn’t register in my mind until I read that he was a fellow Westwood High School graduate (though a year behind me) and that he had received a black belt in Kuk Sool Won, the very same martial art that I study. It all came back to me; he was a good friend of one of my friends - they often went to the same Kuk Sool class. I last saw him back in October (I remember it because it was the night of a total lunar eclipse), when he, some other acquaintences and I hung out at my friend’s place after my friend and I had gotten off of work for the evening.

Although I didn’t know him very well, I was around him enough to know that he was definately someone worth knowing, and that (at least to my perception) he always carried a boundless energy, engaging sense of humor and strong sense of personal honor wherever he went. His death is a tragedy that should not have happened, and probably wouldn’t have happened if Bush had kept his eye on the ball and gone after bin Laden like he’d promised in the aftermath of 9/11.

I would not presume to speak for his family and friends. However, in my eyes, the blood of Steven Gill and all the other soldiers who have died and will continue to die needlessly in this war, along with the thousands of injured soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians will be on the hands of Karl Rove, "Scooter" Libby and anyone else involved in the illegal, treasonous outing of Ambassador Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative. Furthermore, if any American citizen dies at the hands of a suitcase nuke that would’ve been otherwise stopped had Valerie Plame’s cover not been blown, their blood will also be on the hands of the traitors that Bush and his GOP flunkies continue to protect.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 27, 2005 10:37 PM)

A younger James Doohan as "Scotty" (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

James Doohan in later years (AP file photo courtesy of CNN)

James Doohan, a World War II vet better known for his role as Scotty on Star Trek, died early this morning at 5:30 Pacific Time after a long bout with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 85 years old.

We here at JABbering Stooge wish him godspeed in whatever awaits him beyond the veil of death, and wish to give our condolences to his family and friends.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 20, 2005 11:57 AM)

Wow. Bush’s choice of nominee certainly was a dog-and-pony show worthy of Karl "I’m a Traitor and I’m O.K." Rove. For the benefit of those who had something better to do the last week, at 9 P.M. Eastern Time last night, President Bush announced, after a day of allowing the press to speculate that he would tap the slightly less wacko Edith Clement to replace retiring justice Sandra Day O’Connor, that he had decided instead to nominate Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. to replace O’Connor.

Senator John McCain (R - AZ) was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. During the interview, he happened to repeat the Tom Friedman/Tucker Carlson talking point that no Muslim group has ever declared a fatwa against Osama bin Forgotten.

Unfortunately for McCain, the facts tell a different story. As I mentioned before, Spain’s leading Muslim clerics issued a fatwa against bin Laden on the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings. Furthermore, University of Michigan History Professor Juan Cole pointed out on his blog several instances of prominent Muslims either condemning or outright declaring fatwas against bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda terrorists. And last, but not least, we learn from the McPaper (by way of AMERICAblog) that, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, "three-quarters of those in Morocco and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia said Islamic extremism posed a threat to their countries." Granted, there are still some disturbing trends in some Muslim countries, particularly in regards to support for Osama bin Laden. Still, if the trend continues, we may yet see some positive change in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, it may all come to naught if Westerners perceptions of Muslims don’t change. In particular, I would like to point out the following. According to the article, "fears about radical Islam were tied to perceptions of Muslim communities within those countries. Resident Muslims were seen as having a strong and growing sense of Islamic identity, a situation most of those surveyed saw as a bad thing." Yet strangely enough, "in the United States and most Western nations majorities said they had favorable views of Muslims."

In other words, we like Muslims, just as long as they shut up about their religion and don’t wear it on their sleeves - we’d like it even more if they stopped being Muslim and started acting Christian. Meanwhile the American Inquisition gets to be as loud and proud as it wants to be.

I’m sure the Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 19, 2005 1:36 AM)

Before we dive into a special edition of what Stephanie Miller refers to as "Right Wing World," I would like to add a brief disclaimer. Notice that the word "Christian" is in quotes, and that I refer to them as "Pharisees" - as I believe that the theocrats who have hijacked the GOP are actually undermining the message of a certain Nazarene carpenter, rather than promoting it as they claim. In particular, I’d like to focus on a couple of recent remarks that made the news cycle.

Unrepentant Rudolph Issues Pro-Terrorism Rant

From the AP wire via MSRNC:

Defiant serial bomber gets expected life term
Injured nurse wishes death sentence on convicted abortion clinic attacker

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - An unrepentant Eric Rudolph declared Monday that abortion must be fought with "deadly force" as a judge sentenced him to life in prison for setting off a remote-controlled bomb at an abortion clinic that killed an off-duty police officer and maimed a nurse.

*snip*

"What they did was participate in the murder of 50 children a week," he said, shackled at the ankles and wearing a red jail uniform. "Abortion is murder and because it is murder I believe deadly force is needed to stop it."

Assuming his life sentence came with the option for parole, the above two bolded sentences ought to make any parole board worth its salt say "No parole for you! Come back, one year!" as it indicates that, should he ever be released back into society, he would be a likely repeat offender.

So tell me, why haven’t Mullah Falwell, Ayatollah Robertson, Imam Dobson and the rest of the American Inquisition issued a fatwa against this unrepentant terrorist? Do they, by their silence, embrace religious terrorism as readily as they claim that each and every last Muslim supposedly embraces terrorism?

(Haraz Ghanbari/AP file photo courtesy of MSNBC)

Unrepentant terrorist Eric Rudolph smirks as he contemplates the many "abortionists" and "fags" he’ll get to murder the instant some moronic parole board sets him free.

Colorado Rethuglican Declares Jihad Against Muslims

As I’m sure you’ve probably read from AMERICAblog by now, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R - CO) told Florida talk radio host Pat Campbell that if Al-Qaeda or any other Muslim extremist group nukes us, we should play tit-for-tat and "take out their holy sites" (i.e., Mecca).

You know, it’s bad enough that we’re turning our military into an arm of the theocrats who have hijacked the GOP, but nutty statements like this only serve to convince the Arab/Muslim world that we really have declared jihad against them. Not that that matters to the Ann Coulters of the world…

Welcome to Bizarro World America - Where Muslims are the New Jews…

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 19, 2005 12:52 AM)

Last night on MSRNC’s The Situation with Tucker Carlson, Carlson was interviewing Sabiha Khan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations regarding a California National Guardsman’s viciously anti-Muslim flyer. In the interview, Carlson had this to say about the Muslim world’s opinion of Osama bin Forgotten:

CARLSON: OK, OK, well, to some extent, I think you’re right. That reminds me of a fascinating column by Tom Friedman the other day in the “New York Times” in which he pointed out that no Muslim group in the world — and I think you researched this — has issued a fatwa against Usama bin Laden yet.

I guess that in the minds of Carlson and Thomas Friedman, the Spanish imams who issued a fatwa against bin Forgotten on the one-year anniversary of the Madrid train bombings don’t count as "a Muslim group."

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jul. 14, 2005 1:11 PM)