Chaos Theory

Just Wow.

Santa Meets the Cheney Doctrine

Death Parties III - Rest in Hell Oral Roberts

Drink up!

Glory be to the gods, the evil spreader of hate, dissension, and stupidity in the name of Jesus, Oral Roberts is dead. If there is a hell there's a special pit of molten lead waiting for his eternal soul. Unfortunately his influence will continue to corrupt and destroy this world we live in. Fuck you Oral Roberts, you should have died fifty years ago.



This is the beginning of a list those who have died and whose death is reason to at the very least drink a toast to their absence. I'm keeping this list to people who would be less than a hundred if they hadn't died:

April 15 - Pol Pot
April 22 - Richard Nixon
June 5 - Ronald Reagan
September 13 - George Wallace
September 17 - Spiro Agnew
Novemeber 9 - John Mitchell
December 15 - Oral Roberts

This is the updated list of people whose death will be a reason for celebration (new additions are in bold). Each of these people has made the world a worse place and their departure from it cannot come soon enough as they will continue to do damage through existing:

John Ashcroft
Robert Bork
Pat Buchanan
Barbara Bush
George H.W. Bush
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
Ann Coulter
Newt Gingrich
Alberto Gonzales
Billy Graham
Ted Haggard
John Hagee
Sean Hannity
Henry Kissinger
G. Gordon Liddy
Rush Limbaugh
Chris Matthews
Rupert Murdoch
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Donald Rumsfeld
Michael Savage
Justice Antonin Scalia
Jimmy Swaggart
Robert Tilton
Paul Wolfowitz

The Shrill Voices in the Week's "News"

Incitement 5 - "Watering the Tree of Liberty"

When even former Bush speech writer and all around conservative shill David Frum warns against incitement, shouldn't the right wingers listen? The very idea that the man pictured above is not threatening violence is ludicrous. The quote is from a letter by Thomas Jefferson about the threat of violent revolution (not necessarily in support of it, but that goes right over these peoples' heads). If his gun isn't enough to clue you into his threatening nature then how about this guy? Looks like a threat to me.


Media Matters published a great piece about this and other crazed right wing tactics. How long 'til they start bombing Democratic offices (or, knowing them, bombing GOP offices and blaiming Democrats)?

It's About Joe

Actual ad from Boldprogressive.org. Yes, that guy really is the head of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party. A little clarification from a Bold Progressive e-mail helps:

The Connecticut for Lieberman Party was taken over by progressives after Lieberman failed to maintain it. Today's tongue-in-cheek ad holds Lieberman accountable for putting his ego ahead of his constituents.

Car Crash Meme Bubbles Back For a Moment

It's been a long time since a good car wreck metaphor in a cartoon. I wonder why. Of course I am not counting the Tiger Woods cartoons.

Much Ado About Nothing

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Thinky Prez Done Thinking

What's Important?

Why American journalism is dying and why it deserves to die:

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Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Still ignoring habeus corpus, still detaining prisoners without trial, still maintaining a notorious prison in Bagram where we continue to torture people, still failing to give more than lip service to reducing our consumption of fossil fuels, and still failing to find Osama Bin Laden while throwing tens of thousands of young American troops at an enemy that never attacked us directly until we invaded their country (and gave them the support to rise up from near oblivion). At least when Carter failed we could blame the Congress or the George H.W. Bush led CIA.

Confusion Never Helps Scientific Discussions

A.P. London December 1, 2009 [Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, t]he leading British climate change economist says the science of climate change is based on sound scientific methods and those who doubt the science of global warming are 'muddled and confused.' Hackers broke into the computer systems of the University of East Anglia climate research unit last month and posted documents online. Some bloggers claim the document shows scientists have overstated the case for global warming and have attempted to manipulate data.

So surely you've heard of these e-mails that show scientists actively worked to block publication of bogus climate studies in peer reviewed journals. If you're like most scientifically literate folks (as we all should be to some degree) you probably thought nothing of it, just some new meaningless tidbit the climate change deniers have glommed onto. And you would be right except the amplification level has been cranked up to the "let's make shit up about this" level.

Even George Will is lying about the e-mails. Read about it here for yourself.

PAUL KRUGMAN (New York Times columnist): That's not -- it's, you know, part -- all those emails -- people have never seen what academic discussion looks like. They don't -- there's not a single smoking gun in there. There's nothing in there. And the travesty is that people are not able to explain why the fact that 1998 was a very warm year doesn't actually mean that global warming has stopped.

The fact is that peer reviewed means just that: a group of scientific peers reads your article, runs your experiments, adds up your numbers, and on and on and on and if none of them can disprove your study's conclusions it gets published. Sometimes this does not compensate for the rare unethical scientist or errors in underlying principles but corrections are continually being made and science moves forward. That's how it works. The thing is, even the things that are in error usually are very close to being right. Science does not consider "close" to be correct unlike the religious ilk for whom belief is absolutely right. Science is not some nerdy guys you hate sitting around in a room making shit up. That's Fox News. That's the Rush Limbaugh show.

The problem here is with the news media and the way it has decided to approach problems like climate change and war. They are too chickenshit to ignore the bullshit or at least report on it as bullshit. When the conclusions reached from hundreds of millions of points of data from centuries of time, from all over the globe, studied by hundreds of thousands of scientists all looking at different aspects of the data with the most powerful computers on earth is called into question because one guy with a PHD questions it you've got to wonder what is wrong with this country. When CBS News is playing an entire clip from a climate denier/lunatic like Senator James Inhofe as if he has the faintest idea what he's talking about you have to wonder if they were awake during journalism school. You don't print something that ain't true unless it's in big quotes and is described as being false. If it's false it's false and the idea the earth is cooling is FALSE. You really don't need to have two opposing guests in the room when the difference is ten million to one. You don't have David Duke on every time you have Barack Obama on but I'd bet David Duke got some votes from Klan members last Presidential election... more votes in proportion than there is evidence contradicting climate change.

I can find you a guy with a doctorate from Oral Roberts University that believes the sun rotates around the earth. But that guy doesn't have the backing of the energy industry so he's not going to bully his way onto every 24 hour news channel show every time astronomy is discussed. And he most assuredly does not go from Fox & Friends to NBC News like climate change deniers. It's like if you always had a Scientologist on when you discussed psychiatry. There is not one scientific organization that disagrees that the world is getting warmer. NOT ONE. The last organization to switch sides changed back in 2007. Guess which organization was last: The Society of Petroleum Engineers. That's right, even the scientists that drill for oil agree we are changing the climate by our actions.

So one of the scientists whose e-mails is involved, Phil Jones, head of a research center at the University of East Anglia, has stepped down. Temporarily. Again something completely unlike that which goes on in the faith based universe. I do believe Marc Sanford is still in office because he is like unto King David. Rubbish.

"It has created confusion and confusion never helps scientific discussions," Nicholas Stern told reporters in London Tuesday. "The degree of skepticism among real scientists is very small."

Yes, Nicholas, confusion does not help scientific discussions but it is exactly what the energy industry depends on to keep us from forcing them to change and put their immense short term profits into keeping the earth livable for humanity. And god forbid we should force people to alter their lifestyles. What kind of madman would require us to conserve energy?

So True

Been There

Bat Shit Crazy: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (A Reminder)

Just thought I'd throw this great caricature up here. Every time I hear her on the news it's always something so wacky it sounds like a satirical send-up of wingnuts. She's part of the Beck/Family/Palin right so despite being batshitcrazy she may very well stay in office because they know how to speak code to the lunatic religious fringe while merely coming off as sincere and poorly spoken to the idiot middle of American voters.

Hanging Death of Census Worker Ruled Suicide

It would appear that census worker Bill Sparkman faked his own murder. Truly excellent thread here* on this subject with great arguments and tons of links. Multiple law agencies agree he staged this, taping his hands shoulder length apart so he could complete the plan, wrote from the bottom to the top, taped his glasses to his face, was able to stand, and had just taken out two large accidental death insurance policies on himself. And there was no other DNA or other forensic evidence at the scene than his.

There are a few conspiracy grumbles but without massive collusion between several different crime labs, police forces, etc. on what they knew was going to be a closely watched case none of them holds up. Sometimes desperate people do really desperate things.

The only thing this negates about my rant on this subject is the name of the person killed/building bombed. More awful things will happen spurred on by the vast right wing echo box.

The original story has gone from scary to sad. I guess that's an improvement?

*Thanks, John.

The Milky Way

So when you look up at the night sky in a really dark place like in a desert the number of stars is simply overwhelming. Now with the aid of really good telescopes and digital technology, over 3,000 pictures of the entire night sky have been stitched together to display this incredible mosaic. Here* is a zoomable version that lets you see stars not visible to the human eye. Pick a dark spot and zoom in, for instance the lower right hand corner. Amazingly enough there are thousands of points of light, mostly red. Almost all of these are extremely distant Galaxies which are collections of billions of stars. Billions of stars in each galaxy. The bright band across the full picture is our view of the Milky Way from inside. Again, billions of stars.

So what kind of god makes a universe of this magnitude and age just to fuck with some humans and test their belief? A True Believer knows from the Bible that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around the earth. They are not allowed to question.

via
*This site is slow to load but worth the wait.

Incitement 4 - Rape - Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, Boortz, Steele

First seen on the Rachel Maddow Show. more

KKK Booed off Ole Miss Campus

Apparently the little group of bigots was inaudible above the shouts of the students. The above video starts midway but reports are the Klan members left after less than 10 minutes. They march out at around 7:00 in the vid. Kudos for the kids though it seems a shame these bastards were given a large police escort in riot gear. Let the hateful bastards fend for themselves. I bet the African American soldiers at the school might like to teach them a thing or two about supremacy.

One thing I heard, "This shit pisses me off [inaudible] it will be all over CBS ... Ole Miss." I hate to tell ya, buddy, but there's a big bunch of Ole Miss sports fans that agree with the Klan. Open your eyes to the world outside your campus. Every Confederate flag bumper sticker, t-shirt, or beer huggie is another bit of that good ole Deep South rot and hate.

Incitement 3 - Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8

"Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8"

There’s a new slogan making its way onto car bumpers and across the Internet. It reads simply: "Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8"

A nice sentiment?

Maybe not.

The psalm reads, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office."

Presidential criticism through witty slogans is nothing new. Bumper stickers, t-shirts, and hats with "1/20/09" commemorated President Bush’s last day in office.

But the verse immediately following the psalm referenced is a bit more ominous: "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." more

Incitement 2 - Bill O'Reilly against Dr. Tiller

OK. So, I'm the fascist, I'm the bad guy, I'm the problem. Not Tiller. No, he -- no, no, no. He's a good guy. Now, Tiller's pumping all kinds of money into obviously the attorney general race. He wants the guy that's gonna let him off the hook to win. Those of you listening in Kansas, you ought to know that. You know, I don't -- I'm not gonna tell you who to vote for. You guys know these guys better than I do, but I tell you what, anything Tiller wants, I'm voting the other way. And if I could get my hands on Tiller -- well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech. But despicable? Oh, my God. Oh, it doesn't get worse. Does it get worse? No
--Bill O'Reilly

Right Winger's Guide to International Etiquette

Pre-Existing Condition

Incitement 1 - Limbaugh Incites Terrorism

Those of the far right have been inciting their lunatic followers (the McVeighists) to violence for years now, but the din of wingnut pundits has never been so loud or continuous as it is today. Some examples of what I consider to be incitement would be Bill O'Reilly's ruthless verbal attacks on Dr. Tiller which led to his death, Glenn Beck crying about how "we" need to "take our country back," and (in addition to his already vociferous and vile attacks on immigrants) Lou Dobbs's howling accusations that an illegal alien tried to assassinate him (thus inciting his gun crazy, xenophobic, racist followers to protect him). To me this all echoes the propaganda campaign that resulted in Kristallnacht; an increasingly vitriolic rhetoric composed of inuendo and belief, attribution of all negatives to the opponent even if the negative is a result of their actions, inventing facts to fit their argument, and inventing incidents that prove the guilt of the enemy. It doesn't take a lot of armed zealots to fuck things up in a big way.

So I will now begin a list of language that I consider to be an incitement to violence. Each post in this series will be named "Incitement #" and will link back to here. When I have time I will go into the past and dig up some specific language for the above examples as well as other examples.

We begin this series with the King of Hate:

...what's happening here -- this is an in-our-face weakening of our security, which means that if a civilian target is hit again, particularly New York City, Obama is toast. He's done. The American people will tolerate a lot, but not a grotesque mishandling of security based on a contempt for your own country. -- Rush Limbaugh 11-16-2009

This sounds to me like he's prodding someone out there to hit a civilian target. There are more McVeighists out there than we care to think about.

Screw Apple

Fucking brilliant:

Charlie Brooker in the Sydney Morning Herald:
I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful. Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's grim, it's slow, everything's badly designed and nothing works properly: using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And I wouldn't change it for the world, because I'm an abject bloody idiot and I hate myself, and this is what I deserve: to be sentenced to Windows for life... -Better the broken Windows than life with the Mac monks

Lou Dobbs, Will He Rise Again?

I don't think very highly of Lou Dobbs. He's an angry, opinionated bigot with a cable television show. Since the 70's he has moved from a poverty advocate and young journalist to a xenophobic, creationist, birther

As of today he no longer has a job at CNN. I'm sure this is in large part due to his hateful attitude, big angry mouth, racist talk, and wingnut beliefs like supporting the "birther movement."

The problem is that this won't shut him up. He still has a radio show. It is vaguely reported that he may be moving to Fox Noise. I guess it will make it even easier for him to be ignored but in a way it will amplify his angry, hateful message to the True Believers out there. Are people like him still listened to just because they're listened to? Does being a celebrity make increasingly offensive and ignorant opinion still worth attention? More importantly, what value do people like him actually bring to our society that warrants the astonishing amount of money they are paid?

Odd that this video ties nicely into the preceding post about Glenn Beck as well as our boy Lou Dobbs:

The Born Identity

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It's All His Fault!

Another Reason to Hate the South

After living in Savannah, Georgia for a year, the stupidity of Southerners is no surprise to me. I'm perhaps more surprised at the Midwest numbers which I would have expected to be closer to even (I'm not sure if they're counting Kentucky in the Midwest or South). Can the GOP widen their appeal to more than just the ignorant bigots that support them now? Do they even realize their support is now limited to inbred southern whites? Or have they gone so far down the path of whoring to the ultra-right wing zealots of the country that they have begun believing their own rhetoric? This is, after all, the party that called a fraction of a percent, hotly contested victory "a mandate." More than a few times I heard Republicans refer to Bush's "election" as a vote by "the vast majority of Americans." The last I heard, 50.2% is not a "vast majority" of anything. Personally I'm just fine with the GOP continuing to become further right, more white, and more stupid. Now if the Democrats would just grow some balls and get to work.

[I posted this a few weeks ago on Facebook before I realized it's a worthless forum for political musings. I prefer to type to myself.]

BRAAAAINS!!!

The Rape and Pillage Agenda

I just cannot understand why any real news organization would defend Fox Noise for two tenths of a second. They are no more a legitimate news organization than The Weekly World News or Mad Magazine and nobody's worried whether or not they get interviews from the White House.

The Vaccination "Debate"

Let's ignore the hundreds of thousands of doctors and scientists who have analyzed millions of pieces of actual data and pay attention to the blathering of paranoid contrarians instead.

Just Watch This, Fox Noise Fans

I Hate Apple Software

I don't use iTunes but once in a blue moon if I need to buy something. I don't use it to play music on my computer, I don't use it to organize music on my computer, I don't use it at all. I don't play Quicktime videos more than once every two or three months. I don't want Quicktime to play videos in my browser (it's particularly crappy for that purpose but apparently the designers think it's so great it automatically forces itself into the position of default in-browser player and you can't change it ever), I don't want Quicktime to play anything, ever, but of course Apple being the assholes they are won't let any other player handle their formats.

Now I don't mind installing a program that I rarely use if it will sit there quietly waiting for me to use it. The shitbags at Apple have insured their software has a hidden updating software that won't leave me the fuck alone and cannot be removed! On top of that they regularly try to sneak in new shit I will never use (like iPhone software or the Safari browser). If I could just find the update program and kill it that would be fine but this shit runs in the background and doesn't appear anywhere in the start-up menu. I actually use my computer for more than putzing around with an iPod and I don't want any program running that I didn't start, especially when I'm getting ready to work on a big recording session. Having a goddamned pop-up window appear telling me iTunes and Quicktime (neither program has been opened in well over two months) have an update ever is bad enough but randomly and daily is infuriating. Tell me when and if I use the program, don't hide an update notification program on my computer that I can't control, you assholes.

As soon as I uninstall iTunes and Quicktime I'll need one or the other of them and apparently you can't get one without the other. They won't sit there quietly until I need them (when I do need them I don't mind updating, but today, for instance, I don't need them, I'm not going to use them, and I don't want them to tell me they've got a motherfucking update ready!!!) and if I uninstall them I'm going to run into a .m4a file I want to watch or I'll hear some album that's only available as an iTunes download.

I'd just like to say to Apple software designers, "Fuck every last one of you shitbags in the ass with a sand coated pine cone." Any software designer that believes their programs are the most important thing users will have on their computer is a fucking douchebag. Fuck you, Apple. Just because you can design "modern" looking crap for pedestrians doesn't mean everyone needs or wants your shit. Open your formats so I can view Quicktime movies and .m4a files with Winamp and make the iTunes site for purchasing music browser based instead of its own obnoxious program. They won't which is why I hate Apple. You're worse than Microsoft you pricks.

Republicans Support Rape

If, to protect Haliburton, you have to side against rape victims, you might want to rethink your allegiances. - John Stewart

Rape-Nuts

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Swine Flu Danger v. Vaccine Danger

Anti-Abortion Stupidity

Dan Savage cuts loose about a Mormon couple who used fertility treatments to get pregnant but then refused to reduce the number of fetuses from six because of their stupid religious beliefs:

...What? If you were gonna let God do what He's going to do, you shouldn't have sought out fertility treatments. Here's what God was gonna do: God was gonna make you infertile. God did that, actually, and then you thwarted God's plan for you—that you be infertile—and availed yourselves of the latest medical technologies and sought the help fertility specialists. Then you ignored the advice of your doctors and refused to reduce the number of fetuses you were carrying and now four premature infants have died in great pain and two more will very likely die—but, hey, you'll get another smug, self-satisfied, just-letting-God-do-what-he's-gonna-do photo op out of it, so it's not a total loss. And it's all material for the blog you're writing about "your journey," and there'll probably be a book deal in it for you when it's all over ("Thom & Amanda Minus 6")... read it all

About the Flu Vaccine

or
Open Letter to Bill Maher

Dear Bill Maher,

Let me start with a little brown nosing: I almost always agree with you, politically and socially, and even when your teleprompter reading is at its most obvious and awkward you make me laugh, and I was one of those that was totally behind you after 9/11. Had to get that out of the way so you know I’m not just some random lunatic hater and thus will go on to read this lengthy diatribe.

You have been a very bad atheist of late. You are making decisions and statements based on your beliefs and not science. I am, of course, referring to your irrational opposition to the flu vaccines. You are listening to your gut, and not the facts. You are also completely misunderstanding the way the immune system works and you then use your beliefs to convince you you are right about it.

You are acting like a True Believer, Bill. Even the evangelical Bill Frist who has faith he can diagnose a woman’s mental condition by watching a video told you that it’s what you believe but it’s not true. Your conviction that eating a pure diet and exercise will keep you safer than getting a flu shot and that, in fact, the shot itself is dangerous is belief. It is not logical nor rational. I’ll come back to this repeatedly. You are a man that spits at the idea of the “True Believer” but here you are behaving like one.

Here’s how the immune system works. Something invades the body, the immune system wakes up and detects it, attacks it and attacks and attacks until it figures out the antibody it needs to make to get rid of the attacker, body wins, and we feel better. What makes a completely new type of virus dangerous to us is that our immune system has none of the building blocks it needs for creating antibodies because our immune system has never seen anything like it. I don’t care how pure your food and lifestyle, when your body is attacked by a virulent, completely new type of virus you are going to be sick as runny shit. And that’s what makes the swine flu so dangerous, the immune systems of the healthy and young launch such a vicious attack against this totally new invader that it backfires and kills them. So far it appears a healthy older person might have been exposed to something similar in the 70’s so we may be fine. But nothing you eat, no amount of exercise or pure spring water colonics you, uh, enjoy as it were will prevent you from getting the flu if you haven’t already been exposed to that virus. You’re fucking screwed, basically, if you’ve never had something close to this year’s flu. The danger is in believing that getting any kind of flu isn’t really fucking awful.

A vaccine gives your immune system the information it needs to fight these viruses. That’s a fact, not a belief. Scientists (hundreds of thousands of them) have been creating, administering, and testing vaccines for over a century. They’re really good at it and only getting better. What you believe is being told to you by a few dozen blowhards and True Believers who are convinced by coincidence that vaccines are bad. It’s insulting to scientists everywhere to believe like you do. If there were some huge cover-up and sinister aspect to the vaccination programs, do you really think all those scientists are so corrupt they’ll kill people to stick with the program? Do you believe all the scientists and doctors working with vaccines are just making up the published numbers? That’s just fucked up, man. Those are far better people than fucking performers and politicians, don’t you think? And they’re especially better people than those that come up with these conspiracy theories.

And you should know about conspiracy theorists, Bill, considering how they regularly heckle you during your show. You’re acting just like them. You are acting on your beliefs and not the facts. Just as Fox News believers are convinced that the “balanced” perspective they are fed has a bearing on reality, you are getting your information from a very small group of very loud people and not listening to an incredibly large group of scientists and doctors that work on these vaccines around the world. You are not using logic, you are using belief.

The risk of side effects from the flu vaccines is vanishingly small. So small, in fact, that on the scale these vaccines are delivered, the correlative, non-causative events far outweigh actual problems. For instance, some guy dies right after getting vaccinated, but he would have had a heart attack that day regardless. That kind of event happens far more often than someone getting sick from the vaccine itself, which almost never happens, and in many years it doesn’t. People that continue to believe these correlative but non-causative events were caused by the vaccine rather than occurred coincidentally with it (causation, not correlation, remember that from your first science class?) are ignoring the facts and following their feelings and beliefs.

There is a risk to the vaccine. By any rational, logical process of thought and learning you should only come to the conclusion that the risks to you from getting the flu is much higher than any risks from the vaccine. Why would you think otherwise? Because of belief. If you haven’t had the flu in the last few years you’re lucky. If you had the flu a lot when you were younger your body may not be seeing anything really new. You may very well have had the sniffles a few times and didn’t realize you had a very mild flu because you were sick as holy shit fifteen years ago and this flu was very similar. But the H1N1 virus is completely new to most people and if you didn’t have the swine flu during Carter’s days then your souped up immune system may not be able to see this invader until you’re a sick, sorry mother fucker. I really think you’re putting many people in jeopardy of missing ten days of work because they didn’t get the vaccine. Try to imagine the loss of ten days of work for someone who is barely able to make ends meet and has no cushion or savings. It’s hard when you’re making millions to remember that the one in one billion chance of getting hurt by a vaccine has no comparison to the damage of getting sick and missing a week of work.

So anyway, get with being logical. This batshit conspiracy crap is for the birds. And don’t forget, it is the conservative mind that can not change.

Sincerely,

Alan Miller

[full address and phone number removed]

Ignorance v. Stupidity

What Is It Good For?

Our Founding Fathers

Married to the Sea

Polanski Channels Obama

Pee Wee is Back!

Jet Powered Merry Go Round

This Modern World: Language is a Virus

Comparing America to the Nazis

Michael Vick

Michael Vick not only fought dogs but his compound was used for the dog fights.
Dog fighting is fundamentally a gambling activity, just as cock fighting and boxing.
If Vick had bet on an NFL game he would be banned for life.
Vick actually ran a gambling organization on his property but as soon as he got out of prison he was back on the field.
What is wrong with this picture?

Thanks Beck, Bachmann, Dobbs, et. al.

AP source: Census worker hanged with 'fed' on body

By DEVLIN BARRETT and JEFFREY McMURRAY (AP) – 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest.

The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.

Investigators have said little about the case. The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, said Wednesday the man was found hanging from a tree and the word "fed" was written on the dead man's chest. The official did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word.

Who fanned the flames that resulted in this murder? I'm going to blame Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Fox Noise, Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Ann Coulter, and every other hate baiting shitbag fouling up our radios and televisions. This is not the first time they have had blood on their hands and it won't be the last. They don't care as long as they're good and rich. These people have done more to destroy what is good in America than any terrorist or communist. Congratulations, fuckers.

Protect Insurance Companies

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Racism??

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt anymore.

The Race Card and Joe Wilson

Or "Of Course It's Racism You Idiot"

During President Obama’s speech before the Congress last week, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson (R), could no longer stand it as his and his associates’ lies were called lies by Mr. Obama. Mr. Wilson shouted out, “You lie!” when Mr. Obama repeated that healthcare reform did not include illegal aliens. I'm pretty sure he yelled it the first time the President made this statement but the second time he was shouting into a relatively quiet hall.

This is the most egregious break in decorum ever heard during a Presidential speech before both branches of Congress. There actually are rules of decorum and calling the President a liar on the floor of the House is definitely against those rules. In typical form the Republicans try to equivocate Wilson’s outburst with George W. Bush being booed (which also happened to Obama during this speech) but this is similar to them comparing La Raza to the KKK (more on that in a future post). It is false, like most of what comes from the right these days.

Now the accusation has been made that Wilson’s outburst was a sign of racism. Jimmy Carter is perhaps the highest profile individual to make this claim. Let me join him and others by saying, “Of Course it’s racism.” Joe Wilson is a wealthy, southern, Repbulican, white man and the chances of him not being a racist are so small an angel would have trouble dancing on them. If you haven’t lived in South Caronlina, Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi and you disagree with me I can tell you that you have no idea what you’re talking about. The plantation mentality is alive and well in the Deep South. It is still common in Joe Wilson’s hometown for one white man to start a conversation with another by saying, “God I hate a nigger” just like a northeasterner might say, “Looks like it might rain.” Don’t believe me? Go live down there and spend some time with “regular folks” that are white. You tell me how long it is before you hear someone say about a recently deceased black person, “Just another dead nigger.” I can guarantee you that was said millions of times about Michael Jackson.

But Wilson’s crassness was not 100% racist, I’ll admit. A small amount of his anger was personal, a small amount was political, but the part that boiled him over was the fact that a black man was calling him out for his bullshit. His obsession with illegal immigration is inherently racist, his support for keeping the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina State House is inherently racist, but some of his opposition to Obama is simple partisanship. The thing is, his frothing fury is fueled by his racism. He hates the fact that a black man is his superior and his anger and loathing is race based much more than any concerns about socialism or border security.

The “tea party” protests are vitriolic racist hatred under a very thin veil of political protest. Much offense is taken by the right wing when this is suggested (they protest too much, perhaps?) and they immediately claim that the same kind of protests were made against Bush. This is false equivalency. Bush was an idiot, his policies were evil, and he fucked this country up worse than any President in history. Like all Republican Presidents (with the slight exception of Reagan) he left the country in worse shape than when he started (Reagan’s GDP was only slightly higher in the end than under Carter and it was worse than under any other Democratic President), he left us less safe as we are hated by more of the world than ever before and our infrastructure decayed horribly under his watch while we pissed away our wealth in stupid wars.

There were legitimate reasons to protest Bush, and people did protest and loudly. If you go back and look at the pictures of anti-Bush protests, there were a few mean posters with him and a chimp or him and with a Hitler mustache, but most were topical like “No More War” or whatever or “Torture is Wrong” or like that. With these “teabagger” protests, however, the signs are mostly offensive, and deeply so. There are many Confederate flags (an absolutely racist emblem), signs accusing him of not being a citizen (stupidity rooted in racist mistrust), etc. There were a few assholes mixed in with the liberal protestors against Bush. There are a few non-racist conservative protestors mixed in with the racist shitbags at these “tea party” protests. It really bothers me that anyone can stand alongside someone shouting that the President should go back to Kenya and not hang their head in shame… that is, anyone that’s not a racist.

The same arguments are being made against the Obama administration in general that were made against desegregation in the 60’s. “Communist” and “Socialist” are descriptives hurled at anything suggested by Obama and these same words were used to describe the abolition of Jim Crow laws in the South. These “teabaggers” are the same people. They cannot see they are gaining more than they are losing. All they can see is they have lost power to people that would vote for a nigger* and that is more than they can stand.

I don’t know that Joe Wilson dresses up in white robes and burns crosses on the weekend. I’ll even go out on a limb and say he hasn’t done this in the last 30 years, and may never have. I’m not going to say that he regularly goes out with his Confederate friends and salutes a Confederate flag, the emblem of slavery and violence against blacks. He might even have some black acquaintances with whom he is civil. But I’ll betchya he’s been a member of an all white country club. I’ll bet he has no black neighbors. I’ll bet he uses the word “nigger” in private. I’ll make these bets because I’ve lived in the Deep South and from personal experience I know that most wealthy southerners are racist through and through. Racist in that casual way that is easy to hide until you are forced to sit there and be called a liar by a black man.

*their word, not mine.

Space Junk

"It keeps falling! It keeps falling!" - Devo

Climate Change as Art

What Can You Say?

I'm going to write something here about Representative Joe Wilson SC (R)...

It has to be something other than "Joe Wilson is a dick." But what? What else can one write about such a typical, childish, racist, xenophobic, Republican asshole? And what could I write that hasn't already been written about him somewhere else already? Not much. Even if I tell you my personal reaction to the man screaming out, "You lie!" at our President as he was speaking before Congress, it wouldn't be something that hasn't been written somewhere else. My thought was, "What a dick!" I'm sure that's been written in many places, like on that twitter thing that all the kids are using. Because, when it comes right down to it, Representative Joe Wilson of the lovely state of South Carolina is a dick. Read up on him. Any rational adult would find him to be a dick.

So if you want facts about this (like that he broke the House Rules of Decorum or that John McCain immediately condemned Wilson) just look around the old internets. The Huffington Post alone already has over five grammar free and spelling challenged full length articles less than 18 hours after Wilson's resounding dick move. Here at Me Talk Big Noise you will only hear my opinion of the man, and that opinion is that he is a dick.

Is It Just Me Or Are They Mostly Republicans?

There used to be video here but the "embed" feature was disabled by CBS for reasons I don't understand. Here's a link to the video: http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=113582@kcbs.dayport.com

Yet another "family values" Republican is caught fucking around.

September 9, 2009

DUVALL RESIGNS OVER SEX BLAB FLAP Michael Duvall has resigned from the California State Assembly after a local TV news station reported his remarks about sexual escapades with two lobbyists. Duvall was unaware that a live mic was picking up his hanky-spanky talk.

America in Cheney's Mind

Goofus and Gallant

"Horseshit" Says Brokaw over Obama Speech to Schools

Is Our Healthcare Be Learning?

Is there anyone out there that thinks healthcare in this country is working properly? Please take a look at this and then tell me why you would think that:

Tyranny! Tyranny! Everywhere!

The Yin and the Yang - It's Universal

Al Franken, Man of Reason

The former satirist and comedian puts his communication skills to good use calming down "tea baggers" (this still makes me snicker) and then explaining the healthcare "debate" as clearly and succinctly as is possible.

What does it say about the current state of politics in this country that one side argues facts and figures and reports and studies and science while the other is reduced to having its leaders spout lies in order to defeat any kind of healthcare reform? And yes, I mean liars. Michael Steele, the "head" of the GOP said that people should be very afraid of the death panels. There are no death panels. The section of the (still unwritten) law they are lying about was originally written by a Republican and added to Medicare legislation... under Bush! Senator Grassley, the lead Republican on the healthcare committee has said his job is to defeat reform... and he also lied and said there were death panels at one point or that people should be afraid of the bill as if it had death panels in it... whatever. I see little rhetorical difference between the two. Each is an attempt to scare the stupid... and it seems to work.

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