The Commentariat -- Feb. 15, 2015
Science is not a body of facts. Science is a method for deciding whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not. -- Marcia McNutt, Science editor & geophysicist
** Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post on why so many people are skeptical of scientific findings. CW: If you want to understand your neighbors, crazy Uncle Fred & yourself, this essay will help.
What Does a Terrorist Look Like? Steven Rosenfeld of Alternet, in the Raw Story: "A 2001-2015 'Homegrown Extremism' analysis by the New America Foundation parsed the 'ethnicity, age, gender and citizenship' of people who killed or violently attacked others, whether they were motivated by jihadist philosophies or other 'right wing, left wing or idiosyncratic beliefs.' Of 448 extremists counted, white men who were U.S. citizens outnumbered every other demographic by wide margins. 'Quite a few reports agree, that more Americans have been killed by the radical right since 9/11 than by jihadists,' said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes and focuses on the radical right.
Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "... the spectacle voters are witnessing right now is a Democratic President who is busy getting things done while Congress is gridlocked and [Mitch] McConnell whines that Democrats in the Senate won't let him get anything done. In other words, you're blowing it McConnell ... big time!"
Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "Millions of immigrants benefiting from President Barack Obama's executive actions could get a windfall from the IRS, a reversal of fortune after years of paying taxes to help fund government programs they were banned from receiving. Armed with new Social Security numbers, many of these immigrants who were living in the U.S. illegally will now be able to claim up to four years' worth of tax credits designed to benefit the working poor. For big families, that's a maximum of nearly $24,000, as long as they can document their earnings during those years. Some Republicans are labeling the payments 'amnesty bonuses,' one more reason they oppose Obama's program shielding millions of immigrants from deportation."
Caitlin Dickson of Yahoo! News: "Outgoing senior Obama adviser John Podesta reflected on his latest White House stint Friday, listing his favorite moments and biggest regrets from the past year. Chief among them: depriving the American people of the truth about UFOs." CW: I thought this was snark, but it isn't. I would like to know "the truth."
CW: If somebody could read & report on Ross Douthat's column today, I'd appreciate it. I can't bear to read his self-righteous church-lady admonishments, but he's writing about sex today, so it must be hilarious. ...
... This is for Akhilleus. Maybe he'll want to share with Marvin S. & JJG.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Patrick Cockburn in the (U.K.) Independent: "Brian Williams's vainglorious boasting looks likes destroying his career, but those who purvey the most destructive lies in the media will seldom be identified or punished."Thanks to safari for the link. ...
Manuel Roig-Franzia, et al., of the Washington Post have a good rundown of Williams' propensity to embellish & overdramatize a story, a trait that served him well, until it didn't. ...
... CW: AND, yes, I think these on-air comments by Tom Brokaw are as egregious -- and potentially far more damaging to the country's well-being than Brian Williams' pumped-up stories. As Heather of Crooks & Liars pointed out, Brokaw was a repeat offender. Schmuck.
Ken Stone of the Times of San Diego: "In a stroke of Friday the 13th bad luck, Fox 5 San Diego briefly portrayed President Obama as a sex-assault suspect on its 10 o'clock news. At 10:04 p.m., viewers heard anchor Kathleen Bade say: 'The only suspect in a sex assault at SDSU will not be charged.' At the same time, a picture of Obama appeared with the legend 'NO CHARGES.'... Asked why there was no on-air acknowledgment or apology for the error, [assignment editor Mike] Wille said: 'They really don't do that when it's a small thing like that.'" CW: Especially since President Obama was in California that day, I'm sure a least of couple of FoxBots are spreading the news that the President beat a rape rap.
God News
AP: "The top aide to retired Pope Benedict XVI is insisting he resigned freely, amid conspiracy theories that Benedict's resignation was forced and the election of Pope Francis was thus invalid."
David Gibson of Religion News Service: "Pope Francis on Saturday (Feb. 14) added 20 new members to the College of Cardinals.... Rather than seeing themselves as a priestly elite maneuvering among themselves, Francis said, the cardinals should be models of love and humility. Above all, he said, they should avoid 'that smoldering anger which makes us brood over wrongs we have received.'" ...
... Packing the College. David Gibson: "Pope Francis' new cardinals ... represent everything the pope says he wants for the future of Catholicism: a church that reaches out to the periphery and the margins, and one that represents those frontiers more than the central administration in Rome.... The breadth and depth of the transformation in the College of Cardinals is remarkable.... Archbishop John Dew of New Zealand, one of the newly minted 'princes of the church,' argued that Francis has already shifted 'the balance of power' away from Europe by appointing leaders from 'the end of the world,' as Francis referred to himself at his election."
Rafael Minder of the New York Times: A case in Granada, Spain, "which includes allegations of a sex ring and a cover-up involving as many as 10 priests -- accusations supported by one other plaintiff as well as by several witnesses -- has become one of the most serious sexual abuse scandals to emerge under Pope Francis."
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Three women plan to name Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, a venerated imam in Elgin, Ill., in a lawsuit accusing him of decades of assault and sexual abuse, according to their lawyer."
The Sins of the Brother. Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch: Evangelical minister John Hagee, who campaigned for John McCain in 2008, is warning that God will destroy the U.S. for President Obama's decision not to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu "'I am a student of world history,' Hagee said, "and ... the nations that blessed Israel prospered and the nations that cursed Israel were destroyed by the hand of God.... 'If America turns its back on Israel, God will turn his back on America. And that's a fact. It's proven by history...." Via Steve Benen.
Presidential Race
Maureen Dowd lays into the Clinton campaign, Hillary Clinton & rainmaker David Brock: Hillary is "busy polling more than 200 policy experts on how to show that she really cares about the poor while courting the banks. Yet her shadow campaign is already in a déjà-vu-all-over-again shark fight over control of the candidate and her money. It's the same old story: The killer organization that, even with all its ruthless hired guns, can't quite shoot straight." CW: Particulars aside, I think MoDo may be on the right track. Dissing the Clintons is what MoDo cut her teeth on, & she is viciously good at it. ...
... CW: If you want a snapshot of what Hillary Clinton faces in a presidential run, take a look at this article in the New York Post by Maureen Callahan. (Speaking of snapshots, that one of Bill with the prostitutes [credit Facebook] looks Photoshopped to me.) Even if Callahan's accusations are only 10 percent true, stories like these -- whatever the media outlet -- get more attention that do, say, Hillary's education policy. Voters whose main criterion is "character" are going to think twice about letting Bill back into the White House.
** Steve Eder & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "For the 12 years that his father held national elective office, [Jeb] Bush used his unique access to the highest reaches of government to seek favors for Republican allies, push his views and burnish his political profile in his home state, a review of presidential library records shows. In the process, Mr. Bush carefully constructed an elaborate and enduring network of relationships in Florida that helped lead to his election as governor in 1998 and, now, to his place as a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016." CW: This is what "entitlement" means to me.
Beyond the Beltway
Jonathan Cooper of the AP: "Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced his resignation Friday ...on the same day the U.S. Attorney's Office issued a subpoena demanding records and electronic communications pertaining to the pair. The subpoena was the first acknowledgment of a federal investigation against Kitzhaber and Cylvia Hayes. It marks yet another turn in a scandal that brought down Oregon's longest-serving chief executive."
Extremely Important Workout News: Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: Montona state Rep. David Moore (R) now says he was just kidding when he told an AP reporter, "Yoga pants should be illegal in public anyway." Now, however, he says, "The whole was a off-the-cuff remark in the hallway, and the whole thing just exploded." The Associated Press, however, disputes that characterization. 'Our reporter spoke to him at length,' Associated Press media director Paul Colford said about the interview, which took place on Tuesday. 'She asked him about that statement twice.'"
News Ledes
Reuters: "Philip Levine, a former poet laureate of the United States who won a Pulitzer Prize, has died at age 87...."
New York Times: "Louis Jourdan, a handsome, sad-eyed French actor who worked steadily in films and on television in Europe and the United States for better than five decades, as a romantic hero in movies like 'Gigi' and later as a suave villain in movies like 'Octopussy,' died on Friday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was'93."
New York Times: "David Carr, the New York Times media columnist who died unexpectedly Thursday night, had lung cancer, and died of complications from the disease, according to the results of an autopsy released Saturday evening.... According to the office of the chief medical examiner of New York City, which conducted an autopsy, Mr. Carr died of complications of metastatic small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the lung. Heart disease was a contributing factor...."
Washington Post: "An arch-conservative member of the Iranian parliament and outspoken critic of the country's centrist president has claimed that there is an 'espionage case' against imprisoned Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and his wife."
Los Angeles Times: "With idled cargo ships piling up along the coastline, President Obama ordered his labor secretary [Tom Perez] to California to try to head off a costly shutdown of 29 West Coast ports."
Los Angeles Times: "A grisly video surfaced Sunday night on YouTube and militant social media that appeared to show the beheadings of a group of Egyptian Christians seized by Islamic extremists in Libya in the last two months. The episode may signal a determination to expand Islamic State's footprint beyond Iraq and Syria, the two countries where it has made its greatest military gains."
New York Times: "The Copenhagen police said on Sunday that they had shot and killed a man they believed carried out two attacks that left two people dead, one at a cafe and one outside a synagogue, and wounded at least five policemen. The first attack took place on Saturday, when a gunman sprayed bullets into the cafe where a Swedish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad was speaking, killing one man. Hours later, early Sunday, a man was shot and killed outside the city's main synagogue, according to the police." ...
... Los Angeles Times UPDATE: "The gunman believed to have carried out two deadly attacks in Copenhagen was on the intelligence service's radar and may have been inspired by the Islamic State, Danish officials said Sunday."
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Reader Comments (27)
Apparently that student of world history, Hagee, never heard of Google. So Russia, Iran and Turkey don't exist and the UK, the country with Europe's lowest level of anti-semitism is on its way out.
The article on why people are skeptical of science is interesting. My view overlaps but is much shorter. Fear, greed and weak logic capability.
Patrick Cockburn from The Independent has a good entry for the "Annals of Journalism" but in this case it's actually practiced properly.
In a wide ranging essay on journalistic practices, he details the folly of Brian Williams's downfall and why the media's resurrection against his "inventive" journalism (if we can call it that) is fools gold in a mine field of irresponsible journalism that would self-implode if it took the same critical stance of media integrity toward each major story, most notably the delayed, half-apology of fomenting the Iraq War that still boils and festers within most if not all of America's leading media institutions.
The unaccountability and proof that nearly nothing was learned was exposed front and center with the release of the Torture Report and the appearance of miserable Dick Cheney on the major TV networks continuing to spew misinformation and downright lies into the public debate without a serious rebuttal from any of the actors playing the role of journalists that corporate media plants in front of us.
Cockburn then gives some personal examples of his years as a foreign correspondent trying to find the truth compared to the "journalists" who simply arrive, pick up on some hearsay to blend with sensationalism and run with it.
His comments about the difficulty discovering and then properly revealing the "truth" versus simply relying on "truthfulness" by cherrypicking facts to build your pre-conceived ideas is especially poignant and seems to be a lost art given today's 24/7 mass media machine, besides a few old school journalists consistently linked here at RC.
"My father, Claud Cockburn, an author and journalist, got into trouble for attacking what he called “the heresy of the facts”, making the point that there are not a finite number of facts lying around like nuggets of gold ore in the Yukon until they are picked up by some journalistic prospector. He argued that, on the contrary, there are an infinite number of facts and it is the judgement of the journalist that decides which are significant or insignificant. He explained that, in a sense, all stories are written backwards, beginning with the writer’s “take” on what matters and only then proceeding to a search for facts that he or she judges to be important."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/its-the-little-lies-that-torpedo-the-news-stars--as-brian-williams-has-found-to-his-cost-last-week-10046685.html
Also Marcia McNutt....
" I believe it is time to move forward on the Keystone XL pipeline to transport crude oil from the tar sands deposits of Alberta, Canada, and from the Williston Basin in Montana and North Dakota to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast."
McNutt M (2014) Keystone XL. Science 343(6173):815.
@Nancy: Wow! Thanks. McNutt's editorial in Science is firewalled. But here's a rebuttal that includes the essence of her arguments.
Am I naive, or is she?
Marie
Achenbach's essay on why so many people are skeptical of scientific findings is very well written–-love the way he starts out with the scene from Doctor Strangelove––the precious bodily fluid speech that is so hilarious and not at all outrageous given the crack pots that still believe that fluoride in our water is somehow a government plan to what? Poison us slowly? That, however, was one of the reasons the Ebola virus spread like crazy in Liberia. Many of the population, profoundly estranged from their government, assumed it was lying to them and believed their President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Bush the Younger called her Ellen, she called him George) invented the crisis so she could dupe foreign aid donors into sending her money. Others, mostly the very poor, believed she was trying to poison them. Granted her reign has not been without serious problems especially around corruption, but the sheer mistrust and ignorance of many of its people is alarming and has resulted as we have seen in a monumental health crisis.
Imagine my surprise when I clicked on R.C. today and noticed the date of the 16th––for just a moment I thought somehow I had lost a day and didn't even realize it. Since we just got another snow storm here plus have been unable to do my daily walking because of the ice and snow my mind has become a little addled from being cooped up.Lose a day, gain a day–-all on a Sunday Morning.
@PD Pepe: Thanks for the catch on the date. Hey, once I got the month wrong.
Marie
So by Hagee's reasoning, Israel can do no wrong. Israel could do anything, including committing genocide, and the Christian world would have to support it. And that raises the next question: what does "support" mean. It seems that attending a speech by a leader that has not been properly invited qualifies in Hagee's eyes. The man is no logician; but of course partisan hacks rarely apply logic to their arguments.
Speaking of Israel, James Fallows has an excellent piece detailing the reasons for Democrats to skip the speech.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/the-case-for-democrats-skipping/385415/
Yes, Wow! is right re: Nancy's McNutt's (what's in a name) positive spin on the Keystone Pipeline and the rebuttal article Marie gave us. After I finished reading I googled "list of pipeline explosions that have sullied our environment: the listing goes on for pages and pages starting in 2000. According to Maddow who covers this periodically the latest explosion was in a a pipeline only four years old and had NEVER been inspected.
People might call you a lot of things, Marie, but I'll bet naive is not one of them. ; )
When I read the McNutt quotation this morning on RC, I remembered this blog post last year from Pharyngula from whence I got her Keystone view.
McNutt seems to think if TransCanada is really, really, really careful, everything will be fine. Hard to believe she could be that naive.
One of the comments in the Pharyngula thread linked to this article about the trustworthiness of TransCanada.
But I'm sure they'll be really, really, extra careful this time.
Marie, I tried to read Ross Douthat's piece but it made me a little dizzy. I did read comments. Basically he picks and chooses bits of history to proclaim the immorality of today's world. Again, under no circumstances is the world allowed to change (as if it has not until yesterday). Anyway the comments repeatedly kicked his ass by reminding him of the sexual morality of the Catholic Church.
McNutt is a geophysicist. So she knows this (from an enlightening report by the Natural Resources Defense Council & others):
"DilBit [diluted bitumen, which is the form in which the tar sands heavy crude is transported thru pipelines] pipelines, which require higher operating temperatures and pressures to move the thick material through a pipe, appear to pose new and significant risks of pipeline leaks or ruptures due to corrosion, as well as problems with leak detection and safety problems from the instability of DilBit." (page 6).
Even if McNutt were right (I don't know that she is) that oil companies will extract & transport exactly the same amount of tar sands oil whether or not the Keystone XL pipeline is built, she doesn't bother to consider the unique safety hazards the pipeline would pose.
It's as if she decided one morning that since she doesn't live near a pipeline, she won't be personally affected by accidents or undetected leaks; so what-the-hell, she'll drive her Prius to work, proud in the knowledge that she's doing her bit for the environment. Yikes!
Marie
@Marvin Schwalb: Thanks. I owe you.
Marie
Re: McNutt editorial; you’ve got to ask yourself what is going on behind the scenes. Of course McNutt is aware of the issues. She starts by claiming to have made all of the right lifestyle decisions to protect the environment. She is also likely aware that all of the petro-extraction companies have funded basic research into alternative energy, maybe not for righteous motivations, but they have kept projects afloat in period of across the board federal research funding cuts since sequestration. So, one wonders whether her opinion will generate rewards (awards).
In my state our legislature just passed a Carbon Pollution Accountability Act, which taxes entities based on their emissions to pay for budget shortfalls in transportation and public education. BP and Shell are among the top polluters. Sounds good, right? Except that the state also invests millions in these companies to support public employee’s pension obligations. So, when you step back from this it looks kind of sick…like prostituting yourself to pay for your kids school supplies.
Funnily enough, I heard Macia McNutt in a soundbite on an NPR story about the XL the other day. In an interview with David Greene, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council discussed some of the economic as well as environmental problems of moving tar sands oil. Greene mentioned that some scientists, notably Marcia McNutt, editor of "Science", had changed her mind about the pipeline. Here's the McNutt bite:
"MARCIA MCNUTT: Rather than putting the oil in a pipeline, they are now putting the oil on trucks and railway cars. And trucks and trains actually use more fossil fuels themselves to get that crude oil to market than a pipeline."
Casey-Lefkowitz, who has been working on the tar sands issues for nearly 15 years, responded that moving the dirtiest, most viscous oil in the world via trucks and railway cars is not really being done very much because of the special technologies required. She goes on to suggest that perhaps McNutt may have been thinking this was the case because other forms of oil, from the Bakken fields for instance, were being transported using trucks and trains.
Nonetheless, it sounds as if McNutt is now supporting the XL because of the additional imposition of carbon emissions from transportation, which would probably be significant, until one weighs them against the possibility of catastrophic damage from even a small leak that spews thousands of gallons an hour could cause.
According to Tar Sands Solutions Network, "In the summer of 2010, one million gallons of tar sands oil gushed from an Enbridge pipeline near Marshall, Michigan. The oil contaminated a 30-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River, which required unprecedented clean-up efforts that cost upwards of $1 billion. It also led to widespread health problems in neighboring communities."
And that's just 30 miles. Imagine a contamination field across the US plains states of 100 or 200 miles. It would be cheaper to move the stuff using rickshaws at that rate. But as with all of these deals, it's a crap shoot. The oil barons are betting that there will be few enough leaks (they never expect zero) that, like BP, they can accept a small drop in yearly profits to quiet the locals after destroying their environment, and continue on with business as usual. Some GOP congressperson will be happy to stand up and apologize for the inconvenience to the oil companies.
Anyway, I thought it would be useful to hear McNutt's rationale for changing her opinion on the XL.
Okay. I did it. And now I want something in return. At least a nice big chocolate chip cookie.
I read Douthat's Dreck. I broke my vow never to read that little shit again, but I sensed a special opportunity to hoist that (permanently flaccid) prick on his own petard. I didn't bother to read the comments 'cause my screen was starting to melt, and besides, after about the 3rd graf the obvious retorts were startlingly clear.
The most insulting thing about Douthat is not that he's a bad writer. He is. Very bad. But worse than that, he's a bad thinker. He willfully, intentionally ignores enormous holes in his arguments. Pretends they're not even there. And rather than examine each problem as it appears and applying a rational, and morally and philosophically consistent and organic thought process, he, as almost all wingnut "thinkers" do with such depressing regularity, approaches it with his conclusion intact from the start, looking only for the bits and pieces that will fit his preconceived notions. It's like a 16th C explorer looking for the best route to India and instead, when hitting the shores of the Americas, pretending that two entire continents don't exist, or that they can be refashioned into his initial destination, thereby maintaining the original premise as irrefutable.
In this case, he needs to connect any modern interest with outré forms of sexual expression with pre-Christian Romans because, god--and Rossie-poo--both know that there has never been a whiff of kinkiness or illicit or illegal sex during the reign of Christianity.
My favorite part is him turning up his nose at pornography as a horrible expression of misogyny. Well, well. He must have forgotten his own (embarrassingly awful) attempts at Puritan Misogyny porn as he described his complete contempt and disgust with a woman who evinced a sexual interest in him as a college student (I can only imagine the woman in question was langers as they say in Ireland--shitfaced out of her mind, as we say here). His disgust rises off the page in waves of misogyny.
Also, here again we have more logical fallacies. I haven't bothered to read 50 Shades and I have no intention of seeing the movie. Not because, like Douthat, I'm a prig, but because if I prefer my literary and filmic sex to be genuinely interesting, well done, and at least moderately erotic. And for little Ross to worry his prissy little head about how B&D is a an especially 21st century form of prurience, currently contaminating the culture, I would remind him that the Marquis De Sade wrote some pretty explicit stuff several hundred years ago and if he had every read any of Sappho's poems, his little weiner would have fallen off.
But to get back to Little Ross's elision of Church salaciousness and sexual viciousness, we don't have to go back nearly as far as ancient Rome or 18th C France. At least De Sade never portrayed himself as a choir boy or priest as those who have been raping children have been doing for generations, under the cloak of protection from the Church and people like ROSS FUCKING DOUTHAT.
Now where's my cookie?
Re. Ross dross; I read it and read the article referred to in the article and watched the video accompanying the article on the article.
Missionary style.
Good for the mission,good for the canary.
The scene from " Mony Python's " holy grail" Sir Lancealot
in the nunnery and all of the nuns in need of a good spanking.
Takes a lot a cars to fill the freeways.
He's against it.
Just to take sexual morality one step further, I read the article about the Grenada Spain accusations which fit the Ross story perfectly. More than 10 priests playing with each other as well as children. I have to wonder just what percentage of priests are gay. And I am sure that according to Douthat it all stated in the 1960's. I have always thought that the worst of the Church's rules was celibacy.
And just to make it clear, I fully support the equal rights of people regardless of their sexual orientation. However we have to deal with the reality that regardless of who they are some percentage are going to violate the rights of others. I have always wondered if the priesthood has been an attraction to gays because it took them out of the cultural environment that they felt uncomfortable with.
believed://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/13/1364254/-South-Carolina-Republican-Women-are-a-lesser-cut-of-meat#comments
I went to school with Mormons who believed that males have one less rib than females, despite the fact that this is easy to disprove.
If man came first, why is the default sex in humans female? Why do men have nipples? It seems an intelligent designer wouldn't have given males something they don't need. "as useless as tits on a boar hog", as my grandpa used to say.
Marvin,
I forwarded your query to David Brooks about when and how the sexual profligacy, criminality, and wanton raping of children began in the Church.
He knows who's to blame:
Hippies.
Barbarossa, in case you're really interested:
health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/parts/why-men-have-
nipples.htm
More God News...
What would we do without the Re(ligio)tards like Pastor John Hagee?
This guy is a self-contained ocean of stupid, with roiling waves of stupid that overturn anything that tries to sail over or under him.
So tell us, Pastor Hagee, what will cause the world to end this week?
The good man goes into his study, picks up a round black object and begins his search for the Truth with these words:
"Oh Magic 8 Ball..."
And so far, the world, according to the Hagee Man, should have been destroyed about 78 time so far, just in the last 9 years.
Let's see...Ebola was sent by god to kill us all because Obama. Okay, well that didn't work. What else?
Harry Potter and books like "Heather Has Two Mommies" were supposed to have ended the world, like, right the fuck away. Yeah....that didn't work either.
What else?
Oh yeah, that blood moon last summer? God wanted to kill us all. Musta forgot.
Five Signs God Will Kill America:
Extra chunky peanut butter, "Modern Family", "Modern Family" re-runs, movies without Jesus as the star, and Obama. Sounded pretty good to me, but sorry, no end of world.
Atheism can't heal diseases so we're all gonna die any day now. Whew.....glad that didn't come true.
John McCain, while out stumping for president, gave Hagee thumbs up as a man of godliness bullshit something something. But then again he did the same for Sarah Palin. Ooops.
Next week's end of the world reason? Salsa made in New York City.
And down in Alabama, good news!
Roy Moore, scofflaw Chief Justice of Ala-neanderthal-abama is being backed to the hilt by the KKK in the guise of United Dixie White Knights something, something (man, why couldn't I have thought of a cool name like that?), who are helping ol' Roy to stave off control by the imperialist, communist, fascist, vaccination loving, atheist tree hugging, polysyllabic-capable, non mouth-breathing, humanist supporters of the Martian, raggedy pink bedroom slippers, crack pipe, gay agenda (oh no, not that one again!).
Good thing. For a minute there, I was afraid Roy might have been trying to make a serious point.
Marie,
Yum. Cookies look good. Everyone can have some, I'm not a glutton. Unless they're as good as they look...
Okay, one more thing on this day after Valentine's Day.
You want to know what the GOP really thinks of women?
And really, there's no use trying to pretend that this guy is the ONE bad apple in all of the Confederacy.
South Carolina State Senator, Thomas Corbin has thrown his hat into the ring of Master of Misogyny with this statement, made, by the way to the face of a female colleague in the SC senate:
“I see it only took me two years to get you wearing shoes,” his point being she should have been at home, in the kitchen....etc...you know how this crap goes.
Now most people, when asked to clarify such jaw dropping fatuity might thankfully grab a-hold of any lifeline within swimming distance and hope to hell no one reports shit like that in the press.
Not this asshole. Here's his "explanation":
“Well, you know God created man first,” Corbin said, reportedly smirking at Shealy. “Then he took the rib out of man to make woman. And you know, a rib is a lesser cut of meat.”
Woman=Lesser Cut of Meat.
And no attempt to paint this as a "mistake" will wash. One of his staffers says "“He makes comments like that all the time..."
Really?
Charlie Pierce routinely confesses that he despairs of the rebranding of the GOP. This sort of thing proves that rebranding is a waste of time; an impossibility. These dickheads need a complete genetic overhaul. D&C of the DNA. And if you don't think that dozens of wingers now wasting oxygen in DC don't think exactly the same as this pig, you ain't been paying attention.
We deserve the government we get.
Christ. I don't even feel like that cookie now.
@ Akhilleus; I suspect McNutt isn't changing her position because of some new calculation about the net reduction in the carbon footprint by pumping oil through pipelines, although she might use that to her advantage. She is getting pressure to endorse this policy perspective because...well, we can't have our fast tracked trans pacific trade deals being hampered because US products would be slow to move to west coast seaports if rail lines clogged with petro. It doesn't matter what the net carbon footprint calculation is. And, I'll bet there has been a back room agreement that the petro companies will dump some of their dollars into federally sponsored research if the editor makes the pitch for Keystone.
I came up with an answer re: male nipples, male ribs, etc.
Genesis doesn't say how many ribs Adam had BEFORE Eve came along.
Adam was Human.0; Eve was Human.1; i.e. A bug fix.
Well, I'd say with gusto that all you guys deserve those cookies. I took the plunge myself and indulged the Dough-nut, but can't add anything significant to the conversation except to say maybe Ross, being scared shitless of anything that smacks of kicky sex, (I'm thinking here what our man Huckabee would have to say about all those Shades of Gray) tries like the dickens to sound all philosophical about how all this sex business is going to besmirch our fine upstanding Christian ethics. Good heavens!
And a note to Senator Corbin and his lesser cuts of meat remark:
For centuries, the image of Eve and her apple served as a memento mori and an emblem of sin. As Nina Simone sang in her joyous and bitter song, "Forbidden Fruit," "You went ahead and et it, now you're gonna get it." But NOW––in this day and age we seem to have arrived at a moment when we are able to see the apple as a source less of sin than of knowledge. Instead of cursing Eve for tasting the apple or making the rib joke, now we are beginning to ask: What did she find out? Walk in my shoes, she screams and lets you have it between those skinny ribs you hide underneath all those fine bespoke suits of yours.
What a dunderhead this guy is.
Well isn't this interesting: Bo-ner admits to keeping his invitation to Netanyahu secret from the White House to avoid "interference." Too bad the creep can't be court martialled. This should be enough to get any Democrat with a spine to boycott the lecture, one would hope.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/boehner-netanyahu-speech-white-house
I am thinking a lot about freedom of speech at the moment. I found the remarks made by Dr. Einat Wilf in this interview very worrying. It seems to me that these arguments enable any criticism to be shut down as "hate speech". Perhaps my understanding is wrong. I thought it was a very weak interview.
P.D., that's exactly the point, the apple is religions' forbidden fruit because it is a symbol of knowledge.