JABbering Stooge

I thought I should share with you these images that I think will tell you louder than words what I think of some of the recent goings on.

Chris Matthews on the latest tape of Osama bin Laden:

Saddam’s new legal tactic:

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jan. 31, 2006 5:38 PM)

Some random thoughts before I start in on my State of Our Democracy essay:

• I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the very instant Scalito is seated in Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat at least one case aimed at overturning Roe v. Wade and/or Griswold v. Connecticut will start working its way through the courts.

• Michael Kinsley had a funny column in today’s Statesman: "Let’s kick the Democrats," which mocks the double standards that are almost omnipresent in the Republican punditry.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jan. 31, 2006 8:43 AM)

Okay, I’ve been rather lax on keeping my promise to discuss the state of democracy in this country (between time commitments with work and school, and the video/audio crack that is World of Warcraft, I haven’t gotten around to it until now). But now, over one month after I first promised, and just in time for the Liar-in-Chief’s State of the Union Address, I will indeed be devoting the next several posts to delivering my own State of Our Democracy. Here’s how it will work:

• Introduction: Is America Headed for Fascism? - An overview of what I think is the current state of American democracy, complete with specifying how I will lay out my argument.

• Part One: The First Seven Characteristics of Fascism - This covers the first seven characteristics of fascist regimes, as defined by Laurence Britt: Powerful and Continuing Nationalism, Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights, Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause, Supremacy of the Military, Rampant Sexism, Controlled Mass Media and Obsession with National Security.

• Part Two: The Last Seven Characteristics of Fascism - Self-explanatory. These seven characteristics are: Religion and Government are Intertwined, Corporate Power is Protected, Labor Power is Suppressed, Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts, Obsession with Crime and Punishment, Rampant Cronyism and Corruption and Fraudulent Elections.

• Part Three: Raging Against the Dying of the Light - This section details what we liberals need to do to restore America to what it once was.

• Conclusion: There is nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America. - Says all you need to know. This section contains my final thoughts on the subject.

If all goes according to plan, I should have the introduction up by the time I go to work today. Part One will go up later tonight, if not overnight due to the State of the Union. Part Two will go up tomorrow after I get home from my internship. Part Three will go up Thursday after I get home from work, and the conclusion will go up after I get home from my internship on Friday.

After that, I plan on discussing Orson Scott Card. That should take me into my first anniversary as a blogger.

From there, I will start formulating and articulating a positive liberal agenda for the Dems to run on in ‘06.

Note: Obviously, I have done absolutely nothing on this project. I have since decided to completely re-work the idea from scratch. This and the whole Democratic Contract With America thing will take top priority when I finish moving my posts over, along with the Orson Scott Card thing.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jan. 31, 2006 2:33 AM)

To hear the Kool-Aid™-drinkers tell it, Senator Lindsey Graham Nikita Krushchev (R - SC) "highlighted the exaggerated absurdity" of the "mean-spirited" Democrats and their presumption that they had the right to ask questions of Bush’s Litmus Test-Approved nominee, Judge Sam Alito.

In channeling the former Soviet Union leader, Graham said, "I’ll just tell you right now we welcome that debate on our side…We’ll clean your clock."

Allow me to run that by you again, for full effect:

The only thing that was missing was the completely unhinged banging of the South Carolina senator’s genuine fake leather footwear on the table.

Naturally, in an attempt to justify their massive circle-jerk wankery over anything less than an "up-or-up" vote over the Alito nomination, conservatives will inevitably cite the elevation of Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, claiming that because Republicans "rolled over" for these two, Democrats should sit down, shut up and forget about things like "checks and balances" and "advise and consent" - only Republicans are allowed those things.

Yes, that’s right, to be a good conservative these days, you have to believe that every single Clinton appointee was always given timely hearings and that the vote was always 100-0 in favor of confirmation. (Jesse "Senator No" Helms? Who’s he? Senator Hatch abused the "blue slip" rule? Pshaw! That’s another "librul" lie!)

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jan. 26, 2006 12:51 AM)

For those of you who missed it, Penn State beat Florida State in this year’s Orange Bowl 26-23 in, get this, TRIPLE OVERTIME. The game was defined almost as much by miscues and missed opportunities as it was by the coaches who lead their respective teams. However, the Forever Game is finally over, and Bobby Bowden’s FSU Seminoles went down in flames in the end.

Frankly, given Bowden’s self-righteous asshattery regarding the hostile takeover at the Air Force Academy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he blamed the loss on "anti-Christian" referees. If so, he can eat it for all I care.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jan. 4, 2006 5:52 AM)

Warning: The following post requires Japanese-compatible fonts installed for your browser.

I know I’ve been remiss in posting - especially since I promised a reaction to recent events (forthcoming in a future post about the state of democracy in America).

In the meantime I just wanted to wish everyone (even the NSA spies) a happy new year, or in Japanese, 明けまして おめでとう ございます(Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu)!

One of my biggest hopes for the new year is that the Democrats win back the House and/or the Senate so that we can finally start putting some checks on this criminal administration and cleaning out the crooks in congress (starting with Tom DeLay).

Furthermore, I would like to start seeing liberal Christians like those in the Christian Alliance for Progress taking back their religion from the whackos in the Taliban Wing of the Republican Party. From what I can tell, they’re already off to a good start.

And while we’re on the subject of religion, I recently took the "Belief-o-Matic" quiz linked to by our firends at the Clue Factory. Here are my results:

1. Unitarian Universalism - 100%

2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants - 92%

3. Liberal Quakers - 91%

4. Secular Humanism - 89%

5. Neo-Pagan - 79%

6. New Age - 69% (W00t!)

7. Theravada Buddhism - 68%

8. Reform Judaism - 65%

9. Nontheist - 62%

10. Baha’i Faith - 62%

11. Taoism - 56%

12. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) - 56%

13. New Thought - 55%

14. Mahayana Buddhism - 50%

15. Scientology - 48% (Apparently, I don’t know the history of psychology like Tom Cruise does)

16. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) - 43% (Orson Scott Card’s religion - more on that later)

17. Orthodox Quaker - 40%

18. Sikhism - 38%

19. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant - 36%

20. Orthodox Judaism - 30%

21. Jainism - 28%

22. Islam - 23%

23. Jehovah’s Witness - 22%

24. Seventh Day Adventist - 18%

25. Hinduism - 16%

26. Eastern Orthodox - 15%

27. Roman Catholic - 15%

Okay…I’ll accept that on the face of it. However, I do have one complaint. The quiz does not seem to distinguish among branches of Islam the way it does Christian, Jewish or even Buddhist sects. If Iraq’s demographics are any indication, Islam is hardly as monolithic as its detractors make it out to be.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jan. 2, 2006 11:35 PM)

As of 8:35 PM tonight, that’s how long I will have been living on this planet, struggling to find my place in this crazy, mixed up world.

In other news, I plan on posting my reaction to recent revelations (Snoopgate, etc.) in the next day or so. I think the two readers who read this blog (one of whom almost assuredly works for the NSA) will find it rather interesting.

And speaking of interesting, MSRNC reports that one of the FISA court judges has resigned in protest over Bush’s illegal domestic spying activities. More to come on that as well.

But for now, I’m off to party!

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Dec. 21, 2005 3:21 PM)

I took a good look at the picture I just posted a few minutes ago. The billboard space is owned by Lamar Advertising - the same company that violated their contract with the DNC to put up billboards critical of Rep. Jean Schmidt’s cowardly attack on Rep. John Murtha in strategically located places in Ohio’s 2nd district.

Must be nice to have double standards.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Dec. 12, 2005 5:45 AM)

I know that John Aravosis over at AMERICAblog has already touched on this, but I just wanted to get my two cents in. MSRNC and the Washington Post are both reporting that some psychologists are considering draft guidelines declaring extreme pathological bias as a mental illness.

Rebellious Peasant’s T. Harris makes an excellent point about the pros and cons of the idea, but I can’t help but worry that, should the draft guidelines be accepted, they will quickly be abused by the political establishment against their pet scapegoats. Just look at the rhetoric of the right wing today. Michael Savage regularly calls liberalism "a mental disorder," even devoting a book-length screed to the idea - this just feeds his fantasies. One can easily imagine a scenario where one of his fellow travellers in a position of power within the Republican party, say Tom DeLay, gets legislation passed having liberals committed to mental institutions for "pathological anti-American, anti-Christian and anti-Capitalist biases." And I’m sure Stalin would be laughing his ass off from hell watching the whole thing go down.

This doesn’t help conservatives, either, because the abuses can run both ways. If I’m "pathologically biased against conservatives, etc." because I dare to hold opinions the GOP doesn’t like, then the bozo who erected this billboard

could just as easily be declared "pathologically biased against non-Christians."

So no, I don’t think that this is a good idea.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Dec. 12, 2005 5:34 AM)

A very revealing Flash animation can be found here.

Combined with the antics of "The God Warrior" on a recent episode of Trading Spouses, and you can see why I get nervous everytime the Taliban Wing of the Republican Party mutters darkly about "godly fumigations" of the "termites" in America.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Dec. 7, 2005 1:03 PM)