JABbering Stooge

Via P. Z. Myers:

It’s a pretty effective smackdown of Stein’s more ludicrous arguments, both about the “evils of science” and the need for America to “throw some random (typically Muslim) country against the wall” every Friedman Unit or so. However, I think I am due royalties for the Catwoman comparison, seeing as how (AFAIK) I came up with it first.

Ground your irony meters, because this latest from Bill O’Reilly will cause them to explode! Here’s his insipid “Name-calling Orgy” “Talking Points Memo” segment from last night:

Earlier this week I was listening to a talk radio program hosted by a man named Joe Madison, aka “The Black Eagle.” And a caller said that I, your humble correspondent, had been unfair to Barack Obama, apparently for reporting the Rev. Wright stuff.

This from the man who is always having kittens over his exact words being quoted back to him by Media Matters.

Tony Seybert at Mushtown Media Corp. has an excellent review of Expelled. The coda of the piece:

There’s more, much more. A stinking pile of conservative sophistry at its most transparent and dishonest. Good, decent, honest conservatives - if such exist - will protest this film for its great disservice in making both Chrisitans and conservatives look delusional, dishonest and wicked.

(Don’t hold your breath.)

Indeed.

I’ve got a bit of a secret. I’ve long been a fan of Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. His articles are always very well-written, thoughtful explorations of the issues that he chooses to write about. His latest column is no exception.

I came away struck, as I often am, by this singular ability of sports to make people say “we.” It happens much less often in other areas of civic life. No one says “we” when they talk about homelessness or hunger, no “our” enters the discussion of fatherless families or abortion rights, “us” is a stranger to the debate over failing schools and crime. Those conversations are framed by words like “them” and “they.”

I have no bone to pick with sports. Still, I find myself thinking a healthier society would find common cause beyond the ball field and the basketball court, would regard working toward great and ambitious goals as a civic obligation. Am I the only one who remembers a time when rallying the people together was considered the very embodiment of leadership?

Indeed. And there’s more:

This is not sacrificing for “us.” It is not pulling together for “we.” But again, we don’t say those words so much anymore. We say “them” and “they” and “red” and “blue” and if that has been politically useful for some of us, it has come at a cost for all of us: fragmentation, polarization, balkanization … disconnection.

Sadly, at the moment, we can’t all just get along. The far right has made damn sure of that, because they can’t gain power on a level playing field. Simply put, they lose on the issues, so their answer is to make our politics about ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE ISSUES. As Adlai Stevenson once put it:

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends… that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them

Vaffanculo!*

Incidentally, if you want a good smackdown of Scalia’s judicial activism in Bush v. Gore, go here.

Via ThinkProgress

* Cf.

The Blackwater of the seas may have committed an act of war:

WASHINGTON - A ship contracted by the U.S Military Sealift Command has fired at least one shot toward an Iranian boat, a U.S. defense official said Friday.

“It was an MSC vessel,” the official said, confirming the ship fired on an Iranian boat.

What was that you were saying, Kosh?

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Yeah, that seems about right…

Last time I did this, I looked at WingNutDaily’s “news” section. This time, I go after the calumnists columnists.

Shorter Jack Cashill: Believe it or not, Ben Stein could’ve been even more egregious with the Darwin = Hitler nonsense.

Shorter Burt Prelutsky: Conservatives are from Mars, liberals are pond scum from Zeta Reticuli.

Shorter Dennis Prager: Time magazine’s cover shows how liberals have become faggoty Quislings who only care about sapping our precious bodily fluids. Oh, and they make the baby Jesus cry.

Shorter David Limbaugh: The fact is, Senator Obama is a far-left Marxist Muslim utopian elitist who shouldn’t even have citizenship in this country, much less be a candidate for president.

Shorter Chuck Norris: Watch me use Expelled as a vehicle to whine about how Christians are being persecuted in academia, and to suggest that a few roundhouse kicks will straighten things out.

Shorter Vox Day: As much as I hate Mormons, I hate the government even more. Pfft! Stopping child molestation and rape! Sounds like a lame excuse to take away my guns!

Shorter Roy Moore: War is peace, ignorance is strength, homosexuals’ demands to be treated as human beings is intolerance.

Shorter Rebecca Hagelin: I’m cuckoo for ReaganPuffs™®©!!11!!1!1!11!one!eleventy!!one!

This appeared in my inbox this morning:

What will you do with your check?

The federal government is sending each and everyone of us a $300 — $600 rebate.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China.

If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs.

If we purchase a computer it will go to India.

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala.

If we purchase a good car it will go to Japan.

If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan … and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to buy prostitutes, weed, beer, and tattoos, since these are the only products still produced in the USA.

Thank you for your help & please support the US.

Your Republican government at work, folks!

New home sales for March hit a low not seen since the days of Poppy Bush.

Certainly not Obama, who denounced Ayers’ actions from forty years ago (when Obama was EIGHT YEARS OLD!).

SEN. OBAMA: George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about.

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.

If we were to use the hot air that passes for “logic” from Newt Gingrich, here’s a list of American terrorists that the right wing of the Republican party “kind of adores”:

• Eric Rudolph

• William Krar

• Jacob Robida

• Timothy McVeigh

• Clayton Waagner

• Paul Hill

• James Kopp

Do I really need to go on?