MetaFilter posts by troutfishing.
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US Army acknowledges "Peak Oil" - Jay Hanson has been beating the Peak Oil drum for years now. Well, "dieoff" scenarios aside, the US Army has now joined in : “The days of inexpensive, convenient, abundant energy sources are quickly drawing to a close". Indeed. "Mexico's giant Cantarell oilfield, which has financed government spending and held down U.S. gasoline prices for 20 years, is facing a production decline, a prospect that could heighten U.S. dependence on Middle East oil.". There's even a community discussion site on "Peak Oil"
Well, HELLO reality.
posted on Mar-25-06 at 9:58 PM
"Faith-Based Homeland Security" ? - the "Stealth Presidency" To scant media coverage, George W. Bush has signed an executiver order establishing a "Faith-Based" office within the DHC. The Washington Post depicted this as relating mainly to the Katrina relief effort. But is this The Stealth Presidency" ?: Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, "confirmed [ to Esther Kaplan, author of "With God on Their side..." ] that no direct federal grants from his program had gone to a non-Christian religious group" . Prior to 2000, many Christian right groups were on the skids, says Kaplan, but many are now riding high on wave of [ largely unaudited and untracked ] faith based federal and state $. How much ? Bill Berkowitz ventures an asessment. TheocracyWatch has a compendium of all things "Faith Based". Prisons, science, sex ed....
posted on Mar-9-06 at 10:08 AM
USAF Changes Guidelines to Allow Religious Discrimination Apparently, mainstream media considers this close to a non-story : "The Air Force released new guidelines for religious expression, dropping a requirement for chaplains to respect others' rights to their own beliefs and no longer cautioning top officers about promoting their personal religious views." ( AP ) The NYT carried a a one paragraph AP release on this. Forbes carried an extended AP story. Other coverage ? Well, there's the Daily Kos, Metafilter...
posted on Feb-10-06 at 9:33 AM
Media outraced by Bloggers, Kerry appeal to netroots galvanizes suprise drive against Alito On Google News, you'll read how US Democratic Senators Obama and Biden are against a filibuster. Old news. They've agreed to support it. Encouraged by direct appeals by Senators. Kerry and Kennedy to internet activists, a blizzard of calls, emails, and faxes, organized via the Daily Kos and other blogs - with tactical direction from Kennedy - have helped flip the positions of several Democratic senators, and as of Saturday some claimed the push was already within 2 votes of forcing continued Senate debate on the Alito nomination. In fact, the pro-filibuster bloc might have started with 37 votes Meanwhile, today, Morning Edition, which declined to run the filibuster push as a top story and failed to mention the internet effort, asked Senator Kennedy on Senator Hillary Clinton's opposition to the filibuster: actually, she joined the effort last Friday [ see main link ] : D'oh !
posted on Jan-30-06 at 7:07 AM
What Do You Know About The Separation of Church and State ? The Freedom From Religion Foundation has created this handy 21 question online multiple choice test. How good are your church/state separation Constitutional knowledge chops ? Could influential GOP member, Bush 2004 campaign consultant, and "America was founded as a Christian Nation" cheerleader David Barton pass ?
posted on Jan-27-06 at 7:58 AM
"Culture of life" vs. Culture of Profit ? Today, by phone, George W. Bush addressed the anti - Roe v. Wade protestors gathered at the Washington D.C. mall : in support of the crowd gathered in expectation that Samuel Alito - if nominated - would vote to overturn Roe. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush's administration is proposing EPA rules that would allow testing of pesticides on pregnant women and children. How very curious.
posted on Jan-23-06 at 8:18 PM
Congressional Resolution To "Defend Christmas" meets The History Channel... H. RES. 579: "Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion....Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives-- (1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas; (2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and (3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions.". The bizarreness of that statement aside, what were US Christmas traditions at the time of the "framers" ? : see the History Channel for the real story of [ American ] Christmas.
posted on Dec-16-05 at 1:55 PM
Gay hating Ford exec led push for Roberts nomination, meanwhile..... The scandal [ see mefi 47306] lurches in new directions as antigay Ford exec caught "running secret meetings out of Ford's own offices in support of Bush's far-right Supreme Court nominees." The Ford / Nazi link is bad enough, and the leader of the largest branch of American Judaism has recently said, in a speech, "when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations", now a new Am. Judaic alliance to oppose ( viciously anti-gay ) Christian theocratic nationalism ?
posted on Dec-6-05 at 4:39 PM
"The wackos get their information through the Christian right" "The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." - Mssrs. Scanlon and Abramoff betray GOP attitudes concerning the Republican base ?
posted on Nov-3-05 at 9:49 PM
World's 2nd Conference on Dominionism "Dominionism is an influential form of fundamentalist religion that believes that in order to fulfill biblical prophecy, "godly Christians" must take control of the levers of political and judicial power in America in the near future....The goal of this seminar is to examine the power and influence of a religious and political movement that questions the separation of church and state, and that aims to establish a biblical society governed by biblical laws." NYC's CUNY Open Center holds the 2nd ever conference of Domionism this weekend, Friday Oct. 21 through Saturday Oct. 22. Be there or be, well, dominated !
posted on Oct-20-05 at 3:29 PM
"Undeclared Global Weather War" : you're now living in a bad James Bond flick Yeah, I know: a Hoagland morass.'Cept there's that damn pending weather mod bill in Congress, the anomalous "tuning fork" patterns that seem to guide recent hurricanes ( see main link, esp. Ophelia footage ) , the USAF document, "Weather as a Force Multiplier", the '97 quote by Secretary of defense William Cohen..... Is somebody lobbing Hurricanes at the US ? Weather sure has been weird, I'll say that. Could it be......TeslaFinger™ ?
posted on Oct-19-05 at 9:58 AM
"Killer in Our Midst : Methane Catastrophes in Earth's Past and Near Future" (a free net book) - During the greatest extinction pulse known to have happened in the history of life on Earth - the Permian catastrophe - 90% of then existing species perished. This astonishingly well written, authoritative, free book may be the most important thing you will ever read on the net or off of it : it explains in great detail an inevitable Methane catastrophe, if humans do not stop adding CO2 to the Earth's atmosphere, during which "not only would a considerable percentage of existing plants and animals be killed off, but a large percentage of the human population as well" (or the whole species). In the worst scenarios the atmosphere itself could become poisonous to Oxygen breathing life. Mundane laws of physics, expressed in impending Methane Hydrate release, dictate to humanity : cut CO2 release or perish. Simple.
posted on Oct-13-05 at 8:22 AM
Dobson vs. the miniature Dachshund : the musical ( subtitle : "The Will To Whip" ) OK, it's not really a musical. But it should be : in a slice 'o life piece of high camp from "Focus on the Family" head and author of numerous books on parenting, including "Dare to Discipline" and "The New Dare To Discipline", Dr. James Dobson recounts an epic battle, belt in hand, to dislodge his 12 lb Dachshund from atop a fuzzy toilet seat cover. Dobson also advocates the disciplinary beating of chidren, but not those younger than 15 months. The Dachshund has sinced passed away, ending "a fifteen-year-love affair between man and dog".
posted on Oct-8-05 at 10:29 AM
Downhill Battle Labs: One "poorly paid" coder vs. the powers that be. previously mentioned, nonprofit Downhill Battle, having spun off the Participatory Culture Foundation/DTV TV Project ( "DTV is a new, free and open-source platform for internet television and video." ) has many other open source projects underway. DownHill Battle Labs projects include "Local Ink": "Enter your zip code, write a letter, and send it to the op-ed pages of newspapers in your area, and/or your representatives in Congress.", "Battle Cart": "...shopping cart for small operations. The catalog and the cart sit on the same screen....With a PayPal account, you can start selling things on a website in just a few minutes." Blog Torrent ( see: Metafilter 37204) a P2P Legal Defense Fund, and a Local Wi-Fi filesharing package. And more.
posted on Oct-6-05 at 8:14 AM
Oliver North's advance publicity for a US war on Iran : Over 25 years have passed since the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, accusations that the organization fosters a Theology of War, call attention to SBC head Bobby Welch's new campaign to "baptize a million people in one year and develop “warrior leaders”. This conflation of Christian faith with military terminology is - some feel - quite intentional. Will "Christian soldiers" once more go into battle with Bibles in hand ? And, is faith best advanced by the bayonette point of "discipleship" ?
posted on Oct-1-05 at 9:24 PM
Simputer : High tech meets extreme poverty
posted on Sep-29-05 at 9:10 PM
The death of Roe v. Wade from a thousand cuts "Two weeks ago Paul Pressler, the architect of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, described how the Religious Right intended to deal with Roe v. Wade. After expressing his elation with the selection of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court he said, "Roe v. Wade won't be revoked, it will die the death of a thousand cuts and qualifications and regulations until it gradually disappears."
- Dr. Bruce Prescott, from the eyewall of America's religious wars (Executive Director of "Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists"), notes the culmination of long-laid plans.
posted on Sep-23-05 at 8:21 PM
On live TV, irate Miss. man tells Cheney to "self-copulate" Thus turns the karmic wheel ? Recall: over a year ago VP Cheney said ' "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it," after he told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahey - on the floor of the US Senate - to "Go f_ck" himself. Today, during Cheney's tour of storm damaged Miss., a resident approached Cheney's press meeting and shouted: "Go f_ck yourself, Mr. Cheney!! Go f_ck yourself!!!". The exhortation was aired on at least one national cable channel. Here is the video ( ALT ). The LA Times,CNN, and FOX are carrying the story.
posted on Sep-8-05 at 3:34 PM
Birth of Clinton Cargo Cult [ wikipedia: what's a cargo cult ? In short, yearning for Clinton-era economic prosperity got cultified. ]...OK. Here's the rap : Any day, Jesus Christ will return in a space ship bringing news that Bill Clinton signed a secret law in 2000 abolishing the IRS. The law, NESARA , "would expose the "Republican Party" for what they are: literally reptile space aliens posing as fiscal conservatives......And thus was a new religion born....Some people have asked, 'Why does Jesus need a spaceship'?". There's a NESARA documentary, and NESARA holds its own DC rallies. Story courtesy of John Gorenfeld, a noted authority on Lunar anomalies.
posted on Jul-27-05 at 10:23 PM
Hate pays: The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" have - it seems - never quite died, and Bartholomew's Notes on Religion details the recrudescence of the Russian Orthodox anti-Semitic right. Meanwhile, in the USA, talk show host MSNBC rewards Jay Severin for his apparent call for the slaughter of American Muslim citizens with a spot alongside bowtie-sporting Tucker Carlson. Hate pays.
posted on Jul-26-05 at 9:20 PM
"Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week" First mentioned on Friday, Sunday brought confirmation : "E-mails surrendered by Time magazine to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity show that a top White House aide, Karl Rove, was one of the sources, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday." Is Karl Rove in trouble ? Read between the lines.
posted on Jul-4-05 at 11:36 AM
The Civic Action Network : Firefox meets Le Resistance ! Introduced at this year's DemocracyFest 2005, CAN's idea of "Civic Action Teams" ( not too different from corporate "teams" ) - was made into a 50's era camp movie short. [Watch it:
Quicktime, Windows Media Viewer appr. 10-11 MB]. The real goal : weaning liberals from their fractious ways and convincing them that small group teamwork can be effective, fun, and difficult to infiltrate. "We admired the organizational strength of the right-wing and noted much of it was built on small, church-based structures.". Download their "Small Groups, Big Victories" as a pdf ( 1.8 MB).
posted on Jun-26-05 at 11:53 AM
Southern Baptist Convention targets gays "[ The SBC ] passed a resolution urging parents and churches to investigate whether their community schools promote homosexuality....It encourages Southern Baptists to “investigate diligently the curricula, textbooks and programs in our community schools and to demand discontinuation of offensive material and programs. ....It added a commendation for “godly teachers and students who feel a call from God to take a stand for Christ at secular schools to be a light shining in the darkness.” ” ( via Mainstream Baptist )
posted on Jun-23-05 at 11:14 AM
How "USA" became a dirty word "Small c" conservative Ferdinand Mount, for the UK Telegraph, describes the rise of anti-american sentiment among British soccer fans: "And what 30,000 Arsenal supporters were chanting for two hours....was 'USA! USA!' This was apparently the most offensive chant they could think of....How deeply peculiar it is that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave should now be the rudest word in the vast lexicon of football insults."
posted on Jun-7-05 at 11:46 AM
Molluscan Glossary Do mollusks have feet ? Build your own molluscan expressions - "the fluviatile, equivalved ciliated mollusks of the circumboreal...." Get your fill of molluscan terminology now, before a Leviticus-based juggernaut bans your briny joy.
posted on May-23-05 at 5:16 PM
eXtreme Democracy : While at the Rocking Personal Democracy Forum last Monday ( what is Personal Democracy ? scroll down ), I ran into none other than Adam Greenfield, at a PDF breakout session on "Extreme Democracy". The conference was notable but the book is a really great read on - well - the future of democracy. Edited by Jon Lebkowsky and Mitch Ratcliffe.
posted on May-21-05 at 3:16 PM
Turtles, monks, money, and magic "Secretary of State for the Ministry of Cults and Religions, Chhorn Iem, said he had lost count of the number of fraudulent monks and gods that came to his ministry's attention....Police said the turtle was confiscated from the elderly woman, whom they did not name, and taken into protective custody....The monk was released with a caution" - A monk and an old woman tussle over a magic turtle.
posted on May-5-05 at 1:47 PM
MyGastricBypass.com "This doctor feels that I have 25 to 30 lbs of excess flesh to come off. All the dieting the world won't remove that, so now I have some major decisions to make....Never did I think that this would be happening to me....Granted, it's better than weighing 500 lbs, but it's pretty nasty looking....The frightening thing is what happens to this skin when I get in the pool. OMG! It floats!!" - A long and actually heroic saga of self-disclosure, somehow Zen too, of one woman's successful attempt to remake her body and so her life - this rises at times to sublime heights : "I believe in a force called the Cosmic Shoe....Moorings are loosened and our boat feels adrift. When that doesn't get us moving, the Cosmic Shoe finally KICKS our ass into the direction he was trying to nudge us in the first place."
posted on Apr-26-05 at 6:26 AM
Teen steals corpse head for use as bong ? : "Police at first could not believe what they had heard" - some reporters just have a gift for understatement.
posted on Apr-15-05 at 9:15 PM
The babbling of baby birds "Hear a baby wren and the author"s own daughter babble as each learns its local dialect. Listen to the mockingbird by night and by day and count how many different songs he can sing. Marvel at the exquisite harmony in the duet of a wood thrush as he uses his two voice boxes to accompany himself." The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong, by Donald Kroodsma, with accompanying audio CD.
posted on Apr-4-05 at 10:29 AM
Sanchez Perjury Proof ? That depends on the meaning of "never" Mainstream media once again caught with pants down asblogger citizen-journalist notes apparent perjury by Gen. Sanchez during testimony before the US Congress concerning whether he authorized torture or not. The Globe and Mail noticed the ACLU release of a FOIA-obtained memo showing that Sanchez did in fact authorize torture, but the implication of perjury seems to have escaped MSM notice, to be pointed out by a blogger Metafilter's own citizen journalist Mark Kraft, who declares : "Sanchez is clearly guilty of perjury, and should face the wrath of Congress... and the Senate should determine the guilt of his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, while they're at it."
The case all hinges on the meaning of the word "never" which - rumor holds - is much more flexible in Sanchez' native "Never-never Land" where - as with the rumored numerous Eskimo terms for different kinds of snow - denizens of that realm have many different meanings for "never", some of which in fact mean "sometimes" or "occasionally" !
posted on Mar-30-05 at 5:53 AM
Sails to harness Vox Populi winds : "Technology is changing politics" [ not to mention journalism ] intones the well connected Personal Democracy Forum, and everybody's leaping into the "Blogging vs. Journalism" fray. Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media, has quit his job after receiving seed money from Mitch Kapor and from Omidyar Networks, to found the for-profit "Grassroots Media Inc." : Gillmor's got a hand, as well, in the noble and name studded OurMedia.org : "We'll host your media forever — for free.....Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads"
Meanwhile, SusanG - in her most recent recently released investigative piece into the Jeff Gannon/fake journalism scandal notes her research group's effort "now encompasses so much more than Gannon" and announces future stories will post under the organizational name of ePluribus Media
"We're the People ! No you're not, we're the People ! No way ! We're the...."
posted on Mar-28-05 at 5:24 PM
A Child's View of the Army "....Like every other boy he was going through the little green army men phase....Gabe is roughly five years old and very articulate. Thus it should have come as little surprise when he began having one army man in charge, and the rest start building something. "Sir, we're ready to build the rocket." " : Five year old Gabe explains - via stacked creamers and table bricabrac, at an IHOP breakfast - the ramifications of mindless subservience to authority.
posted on Mar-26-05 at 6:43 AM
Fake name. Fake reporter. Fake news agency....Fake Marine ! Latest tasty research treat from Propagannon Group : Guckert lied re military service. Whips 'n chains and web based military theme escort services ? Whatever. Hey, I'm a social libertarian. But lying about being in the marines? - Tacky.
posted on Mar-24-05 at 11:01 AM
Lakoff say - mellow frames sooth savage Thanksgiving : The guru of framing offers a handy free excerpt from his all-the-rage book, just in time to defuse tense Thanksgiving dinner situations ( All fall asleep - Lakoff or the turkey ? ). Says Penny Kolb, on the practical magic of Lakoff's approach : "....By last night, the chat room was civil. An amazing (to me) number of posters turned off their capitalization and we were actually having conversations."
posted on Nov-23-04 at 2:53 PM
Yale Law School Dean : "I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud" Ian H. Solomon's belated realization : "Could we have been so naive?....by my presence, along with other Democratic lawyers, I lent an air of legitimacy to the voting process....We should have had trained observers - computer scientists, not lawyers! - verifying the integrity of polling data from machine upload through the tabulation of countywide and statewide results. Somehow we neglected the most vulnerable step....I realized that I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud....The time is now for voters from all states that used electronic voting machines to request an audit of results and a manual recount of ballots if possible."
posted on Nov-16-04 at 7:00 AM
A bizzare pattern of impossible anomalies This has long been known : the welter of financial ties of Diebold and ES&S to the radical religious right (with stakeholders currently, it seems, on the secretive CNP) and Bob Fitrakis notes : "Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow." Howard Ahmanson was the original funder for Bob and Todd Urosevich's Data Mark,which became ES&S, Bob later left to head Diebold ,maker of HAVA Act mandated touch screen voting machines used in Ohio and Florida and elsewhere....Ahmanson is a Christian Reconstructionist (a form of Dominionism ) who has talked of imposing Biblical law on the US - including the death penalty for gays and drunkards - and is also a main funder of the Chalcedon Foundation. However, the most bizzare patterns of anomalies in Florida came not from touch-screen but optical scan machines. Florida's central vote tabulator also is Diebold made, raising questions on the a bizzare pattern of anomalies in which a large number of counties in Florida had increases in Republicans votes over expected levels - by an overall average of 50% to 100% and - in one county, as high as 700%. Meanhwhile, here are graphs of variance between exit poll results for battleground states.
posted on Nov-5-04 at 1:13 PM
Early exit polling shows strong Kerry battleground states edge : lots of variables in play, and these numbers do not include early voting. Further, early exit polling has in the past tended to favor Republicans. This election, though, that trend may no longer hold. We'll see. Get out and vote! Vote vote vote! (more inside).
posted on Nov-2-04 at 11:44 AM
Get Ready For WW4 : FOIA document details SSS preparations for a widespread draft to start with a callup of 36,000 doctors and nurses : an in depth analysis with a detailed timeline : "...the SSS is in fact preparing for the real possibility of a Skills, Medical and Combat Draft for 2005. Congress of course must still pass a 1-page trigger resolution reauthorizing current conscription law, but the Selective Service will by early 2005 have geared up the entire draft system and be prepared to register more than 40 million Americans for a new Skills Draft and the Medical Draft....The NY Times on Oct. 19 published a long article on a subcontractor, Widemeyer Communications, that over the summer consulted the SSS on how a Medical Draft could be started up with minimal attention. The SSS said 36,000 doctors and nurses would be taken in the first batch of draftees. Why would Bush need so many? 36,000 is a huge number....Wesley Clark charges in his book Winning Modern Wars, that a senior Pentagon official told him in 2001 that there was a 5-year plan to topple 7 countries" Here's the Seattle PI's take : "Administration's own actions fuel rumors of draft" Here's a Feb. 2003 document (~500k pdf) obtained under the FOIA, on the SSS plans for a widespread draft. (more inside)
posted on Oct-31-04 at 11:20 AM
"There there, little voters, Papa Ashcroft and Daddy Bush will sort out those nasty little vote fraud disputes." - Bush Adm. sues to give Ashcroft authority over voting disputes under the HAVA Act. "...Bush administration lawyers argued....that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights set out in the Help America Vote Act.....would reverse decades of precedent..... Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote.....in legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration's lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions." I'm reminded of Andrew Card's September 1, 2004 comment "that President Bush views America as a ''10-year-old child" in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent."
posted on Oct-30-04 at 10:30 AM
"I have become more and more aware of the Stalinist tactics and mentality of much of the American Right..... Relentless insistence on unity, on the existence of an unprecedented and overwhelming external threat, and on the total moral depravity of political opposition were all integral to Stalinist propaganda, and they are a growing part of conservative rhetoric in the United States today.....[Hateful] rhetoric was the prelude to a terrific acceleration of state murder in the Soviet Union....when I read posts on right-wing websites and blogs such as Free Republic or Little Green Footballs, I am reminded strongly of the rage and rhetoric of the young Communist Party activists in the late 1920s....The drive to sustain the administration's alternative world, and the blind hatred and rage of many of President Bush's supporters, may well have disastrous consequences for America." [ Matthew Lenoe, author of Closer To The Masses. Stalinist Culture,Social Revolution, And Soviet Newpapers. Harvard University Press, 2004 ] An op-ed, by someone who knows a bit about totalitarianism, it reminds me of Metafilters 36201, 32747 24363....
posted on Oct-28-04 at 8:48 AM
PIPA : who's your daddy ? " "The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information....very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters"
posted on Oct-24-04 at 8:58 PM
Becoming what you hate : Nathan Sproul, case study in moral relativism on the Religious Right "former head of the Arizona Republican Party and of the Arizona Christian Coalition....Sproul is connected with the Republican National Committee-funded voter registration organization, Voters' Outreach of America Inc." - Sproul's firm is accused of fraud and the destruction of voter registration forms. He also failed to pay his workers and his office rent. Rick Perlstein, in the Village Voice, comments on the Sproul scandal : "Both sides are not equally bad, and any reporters who don't recognize that conservatism's very core has become shot through with a culture of mendacity should turn in their press badge..... It used to be that we could count on the conscience of conservatives to protect our democratic institutions."
posted on Oct-22-04 at 3:08 PM
Don't they teach these kids anything in school ? History ? Punctuation ? And what's that smell ? - Conservative Adam Yoshida steps in it, inadvertently calls for reversal of 1965 Civil Rights bill, arguing for the disenfranchisement of 20% of the voting public through the reinstitution of poll tests (outlawed in 1965). Plus, his punctuation is awful ! : " we should consider maintaining (or even increasing) their benefits while, at the exact same time, making it harder for them to vote (I recommend modern and simple literacy tests for this purpose.
From my extensive time spent examining present and future members of our underclass, I'mquite convinced that a series of simple language and math questions would be enough to discourage them from voting). "
posted on Oct-21-04 at 10:33 AM
Same Sex Relationships in The Bible "The Bible describes three emotionally close relationships between two people of the same gender. They appear to have progressed well beyond a casual friendship."
posted on Oct-19-04 at 9:46 AM
FORCE Ministries "IN 1998....the Lord began opening doors to the SEAL Team community and to military installations nationwide." : "[ Our] Defining passage : "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it." ( Matthew 11:12 NIV ) : An all consuming fire for Dominion. "They are My Special Forces Unit. They are called by My Name. They are called Kingdom Warriors. They are those I have been grooming since birth. They will be sent out against satan's hoard." (more inside)
posted on Oct-18-04 at 5:20 AM
You will be conquered by Stealth and Deception : in the swift advance of a long-planned coup against secular society, to launch an American theocracy, "the Dominionists are succeeding in their quest for national control and world power" - Kathleen Yurica, founder of the Yurica Report which, like Theocracy Watch, monitors the American religious right writes "Since the writing and posting of my essay, The Despoiling of America in February 2004, there is more and more evidence that not only has a cultural war been launched, but that the plotters are winning it....First the hard right dominionists took over the Southern Baptist Convention with its 16 million members and a fortune in corporate businesses. Then they took over the Republican Party...they are moving to limit the power of the Supreme Court. Now there is evidence dominionists are trying to take over the U. S. military
....Americans and the mainstream media have been very slow in catching on to the fact that we are in a war — a war that is cultural, religious and political, a war that uses stealth and deception and the rules of engagement written by the enemies to representative democracy. Unless Americans wake up, we could lose that war."
posted on Oct-14-04 at 4:00 PM
The Hell House Outreach Kit Behold : "in-your-face, high-flyin', no denyin', death-defyin', Satan-be-cryin', keep-ya-from-fryin', theatrical stylin', no holds barred, cutting-edge” evangelism tool of the new millennium!....Outreaches average a 33% salvation and rededication decision rate!...Churches are using this resource as a dynamic evangelism tool!.....Churches use realistic depictions of sin's consequences to send message of hope to the nation's youth"....Domestic Abuse, Rave Scene (" hell's demons rejoice "), Teen Suicide, "Mother's Womb Abortion", Drunk Driving, Gay Wedding ( "Satan wouldn't have it any other way" ), and "Hell — The eternal fury and fire of hell is portrayed as the hell-dwellers, gate keeper and Satan declare that every person there is destined to burn forever in constant pain and agony."
Bonus - 2.5mb flash cartoon : Elisha the Cruel's curse brings she-bears to eat the 42 little children ! (2Kings:24) Disturbed ? Behold Saint Clinton : "His timeless sympathetic words, "I feel your pain", echo in his reassuring expression!"
posted on Oct-11-04 at 9:23 PM
"Q: What is the % likelihood that the US might Invade Iran in the Next Decade ?.... What kind of process did you go through to answer the question ?" - from a recent Powerpoint presentation on future trends given to ExxonMobil executives. (see also : Low fat Humanized Pigs)
posted on Oct-6-04 at 10:02 PM
Pederasts of the mind: Of kids, lies and Oil. The American Petroleum Institute partners (in 2004) with The National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA) and Scholastic (see: Scholastic's creedo) to provide K-12 lesson plans, on energy and oil, which resemble the API's own "Teacher Lesson Plans" and snappy flash presentations such as Progress Through Petroleum! which are bundled with fun stuff and cool facts. The NSTA/API lessons teach all about energy and oil except the global environmental impacts. Didactic bonus from NSTA's oil-friendly curriculum : a surrealistic gallery of oil industry imagery for kids to download.
Recent glacial melt speedup in Greenland and Antarctica shocks researchers, while the Pentagon games scenarios of Abrupt Climate Change : Don't worry, says the DOE's Energy Ant - oil's good, like cows, m'kay ? . Extra credit : Play the Oil and natural Gas Crossword Puzzle, or the "Industry Lesson Plan Game" (that, and more, inside)
posted on Oct-5-04 at 8:04 AM
Well, HELLO reality.
posted on Mar-25-06 at 9:58 PM
"Faith-Based Homeland Security" ? - the "Stealth Presidency" To scant media coverage, George W. Bush has signed an executiver order establishing a "Faith-Based" office within the DHC. The Washington Post depicted this as relating mainly to the Katrina relief effort. But is this The Stealth Presidency" ?: Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, "confirmed [ to Esther Kaplan, author of "With God on Their side..." ] that no direct federal grants from his program had gone to a non-Christian religious group" . Prior to 2000, many Christian right groups were on the skids, says Kaplan, but many are now riding high on wave of [ largely unaudited and untracked ] faith based federal and state $. How much ? Bill Berkowitz ventures an asessment. TheocracyWatch has a compendium of all things "Faith Based". Prisons, science, sex ed....
posted on Mar-9-06 at 10:08 AM
USAF Changes Guidelines to Allow Religious Discrimination Apparently, mainstream media considers this close to a non-story : "The Air Force released new guidelines for religious expression, dropping a requirement for chaplains to respect others' rights to their own beliefs and no longer cautioning top officers about promoting their personal religious views." ( AP ) The NYT carried a a one paragraph AP release on this. Forbes carried an extended AP story. Other coverage ? Well, there's the Daily Kos, Metafilter...
posted on Feb-10-06 at 9:33 AM
Media outraced by Bloggers, Kerry appeal to netroots galvanizes suprise drive against Alito On Google News, you'll read how US Democratic Senators Obama and Biden are against a filibuster. Old news. They've agreed to support it. Encouraged by direct appeals by Senators. Kerry and Kennedy to internet activists, a blizzard of calls, emails, and faxes, organized via the Daily Kos and other blogs - with tactical direction from Kennedy - have helped flip the positions of several Democratic senators, and as of Saturday some claimed the push was already within 2 votes of forcing continued Senate debate on the Alito nomination. In fact, the pro-filibuster bloc might have started with 37 votes Meanwhile, today, Morning Edition, which declined to run the filibuster push as a top story and failed to mention the internet effort, asked Senator Kennedy on Senator Hillary Clinton's opposition to the filibuster: actually, she joined the effort last Friday [ see main link ] : D'oh !
posted on Jan-30-06 at 7:07 AM
What Do You Know About The Separation of Church and State ? The Freedom From Religion Foundation has created this handy 21 question online multiple choice test. How good are your church/state separation Constitutional knowledge chops ? Could influential GOP member, Bush 2004 campaign consultant, and "America was founded as a Christian Nation" cheerleader David Barton pass ?
posted on Jan-27-06 at 7:58 AM
"Culture of life" vs. Culture of Profit ? Today, by phone, George W. Bush addressed the anti - Roe v. Wade protestors gathered at the Washington D.C. mall : in support of the crowd gathered in expectation that Samuel Alito - if nominated - would vote to overturn Roe. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush's administration is proposing EPA rules that would allow testing of pesticides on pregnant women and children. How very curious.
posted on Jan-23-06 at 8:18 PM
Congressional Resolution To "Defend Christmas" meets The History Channel... H. RES. 579: "Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion....Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives-- (1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas; (2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and (3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions.". The bizarreness of that statement aside, what were US Christmas traditions at the time of the "framers" ? : see the History Channel for the real story of [ American ] Christmas.
posted on Dec-16-05 at 1:55 PM
Gay hating Ford exec led push for Roberts nomination, meanwhile..... The scandal [ see mefi 47306] lurches in new directions as antigay Ford exec caught "running secret meetings out of Ford's own offices in support of Bush's far-right Supreme Court nominees." The Ford / Nazi link is bad enough, and the leader of the largest branch of American Judaism has recently said, in a speech, "when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations", now a new Am. Judaic alliance to oppose ( viciously anti-gay ) Christian theocratic nationalism ?
posted on Dec-6-05 at 4:39 PM
"The wackos get their information through the Christian right" "The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." - Mssrs. Scanlon and Abramoff betray GOP attitudes concerning the Republican base ?
posted on Nov-3-05 at 9:49 PM
World's 2nd Conference on Dominionism "Dominionism is an influential form of fundamentalist religion that believes that in order to fulfill biblical prophecy, "godly Christians" must take control of the levers of political and judicial power in America in the near future....The goal of this seminar is to examine the power and influence of a religious and political movement that questions the separation of church and state, and that aims to establish a biblical society governed by biblical laws." NYC's CUNY Open Center holds the 2nd ever conference of Domionism this weekend, Friday Oct. 21 through Saturday Oct. 22. Be there or be, well, dominated !
posted on Oct-20-05 at 3:29 PM
"Undeclared Global Weather War" : you're now living in a bad James Bond flick Yeah, I know: a Hoagland morass.'Cept there's that damn pending weather mod bill in Congress, the anomalous "tuning fork" patterns that seem to guide recent hurricanes ( see main link, esp. Ophelia footage ) , the USAF document, "Weather as a Force Multiplier", the '97 quote by Secretary of defense William Cohen..... Is somebody lobbing Hurricanes at the US ? Weather sure has been weird, I'll say that. Could it be......TeslaFinger™ ?
posted on Oct-19-05 at 9:58 AM
"Killer in Our Midst : Methane Catastrophes in Earth's Past and Near Future" (a free net book) - During the greatest extinction pulse known to have happened in the history of life on Earth - the Permian catastrophe - 90% of then existing species perished. This astonishingly well written, authoritative, free book may be the most important thing you will ever read on the net or off of it : it explains in great detail an inevitable Methane catastrophe, if humans do not stop adding CO2 to the Earth's atmosphere, during which "not only would a considerable percentage of existing plants and animals be killed off, but a large percentage of the human population as well" (or the whole species). In the worst scenarios the atmosphere itself could become poisonous to Oxygen breathing life. Mundane laws of physics, expressed in impending Methane Hydrate release, dictate to humanity : cut CO2 release or perish. Simple.
posted on Oct-13-05 at 8:22 AM
Dobson vs. the miniature Dachshund : the musical ( subtitle : "The Will To Whip" ) OK, it's not really a musical. But it should be : in a slice 'o life piece of high camp from "Focus on the Family" head and author of numerous books on parenting, including "Dare to Discipline" and "The New Dare To Discipline", Dr. James Dobson recounts an epic battle, belt in hand, to dislodge his 12 lb Dachshund from atop a fuzzy toilet seat cover. Dobson also advocates the disciplinary beating of chidren, but not those younger than 15 months. The Dachshund has sinced passed away, ending "a fifteen-year-love affair between man and dog".
posted on Oct-8-05 at 10:29 AM
Downhill Battle Labs: One "poorly paid" coder vs. the powers that be. previously mentioned, nonprofit Downhill Battle, having spun off the Participatory Culture Foundation/DTV TV Project ( "DTV is a new, free and open-source platform for internet television and video." ) has many other open source projects underway. DownHill Battle Labs projects include "Local Ink": "Enter your zip code, write a letter, and send it to the op-ed pages of newspapers in your area, and/or your representatives in Congress.", "Battle Cart": "...shopping cart for small operations. The catalog and the cart sit on the same screen....With a PayPal account, you can start selling things on a website in just a few minutes." Blog Torrent ( see: Metafilter 37204) a P2P Legal Defense Fund, and a Local Wi-Fi filesharing package. And more.
posted on Oct-6-05 at 8:14 AM
Oliver North's advance publicity for a US war on Iran : Over 25 years have passed since the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, accusations that the organization fosters a Theology of War, call attention to SBC head Bobby Welch's new campaign to "baptize a million people in one year and develop “warrior leaders”. This conflation of Christian faith with military terminology is - some feel - quite intentional. Will "Christian soldiers" once more go into battle with Bibles in hand ? And, is faith best advanced by the bayonette point of "discipleship" ?
posted on Oct-1-05 at 9:24 PM
Simputer : High tech meets extreme poverty
posted on Sep-29-05 at 9:10 PM
The death of Roe v. Wade from a thousand cuts "Two weeks ago Paul Pressler, the architect of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, described how the Religious Right intended to deal with Roe v. Wade. After expressing his elation with the selection of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court he said, "Roe v. Wade won't be revoked, it will die the death of a thousand cuts and qualifications and regulations until it gradually disappears."
- Dr. Bruce Prescott, from the eyewall of America's religious wars (Executive Director of "Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists"), notes the culmination of long-laid plans.
posted on Sep-23-05 at 8:21 PM
On live TV, irate Miss. man tells Cheney to "self-copulate" Thus turns the karmic wheel ? Recall: over a year ago VP Cheney said ' "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it," after he told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahey - on the floor of the US Senate - to "Go f_ck" himself. Today, during Cheney's tour of storm damaged Miss., a resident approached Cheney's press meeting and shouted: "Go f_ck yourself, Mr. Cheney!! Go f_ck yourself!!!". The exhortation was aired on at least one national cable channel. Here is the video ( ALT ). The LA Times,CNN, and FOX are carrying the story.
posted on Sep-8-05 at 3:34 PM
Birth of Clinton Cargo Cult [ wikipedia: what's a cargo cult ? In short, yearning for Clinton-era economic prosperity got cultified. ]...OK. Here's the rap : Any day, Jesus Christ will return in a space ship bringing news that Bill Clinton signed a secret law in 2000 abolishing the IRS. The law, NESARA , "would expose the "Republican Party" for what they are: literally reptile space aliens posing as fiscal conservatives......And thus was a new religion born....Some people have asked, 'Why does Jesus need a spaceship'?". There's a NESARA documentary, and NESARA holds its own DC rallies. Story courtesy of John Gorenfeld, a noted authority on Lunar anomalies.
posted on Jul-27-05 at 10:23 PM
Hate pays: The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" have - it seems - never quite died, and Bartholomew's Notes on Religion details the recrudescence of the Russian Orthodox anti-Semitic right. Meanwhile, in the USA, talk show host MSNBC rewards Jay Severin for his apparent call for the slaughter of American Muslim citizens with a spot alongside bowtie-sporting Tucker Carlson. Hate pays.
posted on Jul-26-05 at 9:20 PM
"Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week" First mentioned on Friday, Sunday brought confirmation : "E-mails surrendered by Time magazine to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity show that a top White House aide, Karl Rove, was one of the sources, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday." Is Karl Rove in trouble ? Read between the lines.
posted on Jul-4-05 at 11:36 AM
The Civic Action Network : Firefox meets Le Resistance ! Introduced at this year's DemocracyFest 2005, CAN's idea of "Civic Action Teams" ( not too different from corporate "teams" ) - was made into a 50's era camp movie short. [Watch it:
Quicktime, Windows Media Viewer appr. 10-11 MB]. The real goal : weaning liberals from their fractious ways and convincing them that small group teamwork can be effective, fun, and difficult to infiltrate. "We admired the organizational strength of the right-wing and noted much of it was built on small, church-based structures.". Download their "Small Groups, Big Victories" as a pdf ( 1.8 MB).
posted on Jun-26-05 at 11:53 AM
Southern Baptist Convention targets gays "[ The SBC ] passed a resolution urging parents and churches to investigate whether their community schools promote homosexuality....It encourages Southern Baptists to “investigate diligently the curricula, textbooks and programs in our community schools and to demand discontinuation of offensive material and programs. ....It added a commendation for “godly teachers and students who feel a call from God to take a stand for Christ at secular schools to be a light shining in the darkness.” ” ( via Mainstream Baptist )
posted on Jun-23-05 at 11:14 AM
How "USA" became a dirty word "Small c" conservative Ferdinand Mount, for the UK Telegraph, describes the rise of anti-american sentiment among British soccer fans: "And what 30,000 Arsenal supporters were chanting for two hours....was 'USA! USA!' This was apparently the most offensive chant they could think of....How deeply peculiar it is that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave should now be the rudest word in the vast lexicon of football insults."
posted on Jun-7-05 at 11:46 AM
Molluscan Glossary Do mollusks have feet ? Build your own molluscan expressions - "the fluviatile, equivalved ciliated mollusks of the circumboreal...." Get your fill of molluscan terminology now, before a Leviticus-based juggernaut bans your briny joy.
posted on May-23-05 at 5:16 PM
eXtreme Democracy : While at the Rocking Personal Democracy Forum last Monday ( what is Personal Democracy ? scroll down ), I ran into none other than Adam Greenfield, at a PDF breakout session on "Extreme Democracy". The conference was notable but the book is a really great read on - well - the future of democracy. Edited by Jon Lebkowsky and Mitch Ratcliffe.
posted on May-21-05 at 3:16 PM
Turtles, monks, money, and magic "Secretary of State for the Ministry of Cults and Religions, Chhorn Iem, said he had lost count of the number of fraudulent monks and gods that came to his ministry's attention....Police said the turtle was confiscated from the elderly woman, whom they did not name, and taken into protective custody....The monk was released with a caution" - A monk and an old woman tussle over a magic turtle.
posted on May-5-05 at 1:47 PM
MyGastricBypass.com "This doctor feels that I have 25 to 30 lbs of excess flesh to come off. All the dieting the world won't remove that, so now I have some major decisions to make....Never did I think that this would be happening to me....Granted, it's better than weighing 500 lbs, but it's pretty nasty looking....The frightening thing is what happens to this skin when I get in the pool. OMG! It floats!!" - A long and actually heroic saga of self-disclosure, somehow Zen too, of one woman's successful attempt to remake her body and so her life - this rises at times to sublime heights : "I believe in a force called the Cosmic Shoe....Moorings are loosened and our boat feels adrift. When that doesn't get us moving, the Cosmic Shoe finally KICKS our ass into the direction he was trying to nudge us in the first place."
posted on Apr-26-05 at 6:26 AM
Teen steals corpse head for use as bong ? : "Police at first could not believe what they had heard" - some reporters just have a gift for understatement.
posted on Apr-15-05 at 9:15 PM
The babbling of baby birds "Hear a baby wren and the author"s own daughter babble as each learns its local dialect. Listen to the mockingbird by night and by day and count how many different songs he can sing. Marvel at the exquisite harmony in the duet of a wood thrush as he uses his two voice boxes to accompany himself." The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong, by Donald Kroodsma, with accompanying audio CD.
posted on Apr-4-05 at 10:29 AM
Sanchez Perjury Proof ? That depends on the meaning of "never" Mainstream media once again caught with pants down as
The case all hinges on the meaning of the word "never" which - rumor holds - is much more flexible in Sanchez' native "Never-never Land" where - as with the rumored numerous Eskimo terms for different kinds of snow - denizens of that realm have many different meanings for "never", some of which in fact mean "sometimes" or "occasionally" !
posted on Mar-30-05 at 5:53 AM
Sails to harness Vox Populi winds : "Technology is changing politics" [ not to mention journalism ] intones the well connected Personal Democracy Forum, and everybody's leaping into the "Blogging vs. Journalism" fray. Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media, has quit his job after receiving seed money from Mitch Kapor and from Omidyar Networks, to found the for-profit "Grassroots Media Inc." : Gillmor's got a hand, as well, in the noble and name studded OurMedia.org : "We'll host your media forever — for free.....Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads"
Meanwhile, SusanG - in her most recent recently released investigative piece into the Jeff Gannon/fake journalism scandal notes her research group's effort "now encompasses so much more than Gannon" and announces future stories will post under the organizational name of ePluribus Media
"We're the People ! No you're not, we're the People ! No way ! We're the...."
posted on Mar-28-05 at 5:24 PM
A Child's View of the Army "....Like every other boy he was going through the little green army men phase....Gabe is roughly five years old and very articulate. Thus it should have come as little surprise when he began having one army man in charge, and the rest start building something. "Sir, we're ready to build the rocket." " : Five year old Gabe explains - via stacked creamers and table bricabrac, at an IHOP breakfast - the ramifications of mindless subservience to authority.
posted on Mar-26-05 at 6:43 AM
Fake name. Fake reporter. Fake news agency....Fake Marine ! Latest tasty research treat from Propagannon Group : Guckert lied re military service. Whips 'n chains and web based military theme escort services ? Whatever. Hey, I'm a social libertarian. But lying about being in the marines? - Tacky.
posted on Mar-24-05 at 11:01 AM
Lakoff say - mellow frames sooth savage Thanksgiving : The guru of framing offers a handy free excerpt from his all-the-rage book, just in time to defuse tense Thanksgiving dinner situations ( All fall asleep - Lakoff or the turkey ? ). Says Penny Kolb, on the practical magic of Lakoff's approach : "....By last night, the chat room was civil. An amazing (to me) number of posters turned off their capitalization and we were actually having conversations."
posted on Nov-23-04 at 2:53 PM
Yale Law School Dean : "I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud" Ian H. Solomon's belated realization : "Could we have been so naive?....by my presence, along with other Democratic lawyers, I lent an air of legitimacy to the voting process....We should have had trained observers - computer scientists, not lawyers! - verifying the integrity of polling data from machine upload through the tabulation of countywide and statewide results. Somehow we neglected the most vulnerable step....I realized that I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud....The time is now for voters from all states that used electronic voting machines to request an audit of results and a manual recount of ballots if possible."
posted on Nov-16-04 at 7:00 AM
A bizzare pattern of impossible anomalies This has long been known : the welter of financial ties of Diebold and ES&S to the radical religious right (with stakeholders currently, it seems, on the secretive CNP) and Bob Fitrakis notes : "Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow." Howard Ahmanson was the original funder for Bob and Todd Urosevich's Data Mark,which became ES&S, Bob later left to head Diebold ,maker of HAVA Act mandated touch screen voting machines used in Ohio and Florida and elsewhere....Ahmanson is a Christian Reconstructionist (a form of Dominionism ) who has talked of imposing Biblical law on the US - including the death penalty for gays and drunkards - and is also a main funder of the Chalcedon Foundation. However, the most bizzare patterns of anomalies in Florida came not from touch-screen but optical scan machines. Florida's central vote tabulator also is Diebold made, raising questions on the a bizzare pattern of anomalies in which a large number of counties in Florida had increases in Republicans votes over expected levels - by an overall average of 50% to 100% and - in one county, as high as 700%. Meanhwhile, here are graphs of variance between exit poll results for battleground states.
posted on Nov-5-04 at 1:13 PM
Early exit polling shows strong Kerry battleground states edge : lots of variables in play, and these numbers do not include early voting. Further, early exit polling has in the past tended to favor Republicans. This election, though, that trend may no longer hold. We'll see. Get out and vote! Vote vote vote! (more inside).
posted on Nov-2-04 at 11:44 AM
Get Ready For WW4 : FOIA document details SSS preparations for a widespread draft to start with a callup of 36,000 doctors and nurses : an in depth analysis with a detailed timeline : "...the SSS is in fact preparing for the real possibility of a Skills, Medical and Combat Draft for 2005. Congress of course must still pass a 1-page trigger resolution reauthorizing current conscription law, but the Selective Service will by early 2005 have geared up the entire draft system and be prepared to register more than 40 million Americans for a new Skills Draft and the Medical Draft....The NY Times on Oct. 19 published a long article on a subcontractor, Widemeyer Communications, that over the summer consulted the SSS on how a Medical Draft could be started up with minimal attention. The SSS said 36,000 doctors and nurses would be taken in the first batch of draftees. Why would Bush need so many? 36,000 is a huge number....Wesley Clark charges in his book Winning Modern Wars, that a senior Pentagon official told him in 2001 that there was a 5-year plan to topple 7 countries" Here's the Seattle PI's take : "Administration's own actions fuel rumors of draft" Here's a Feb. 2003 document (~500k pdf) obtained under the FOIA, on the SSS plans for a widespread draft. (more inside)
posted on Oct-31-04 at 11:20 AM
"There there, little voters, Papa Ashcroft and Daddy Bush will sort out those nasty little vote fraud disputes." - Bush Adm. sues to give Ashcroft authority over voting disputes under the HAVA Act. "...Bush administration lawyers argued....that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights set out in the Help America Vote Act.....would reverse decades of precedent..... Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote.....in legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration's lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions." I'm reminded of Andrew Card's September 1, 2004 comment "that President Bush views America as a ''10-year-old child" in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent."
posted on Oct-30-04 at 10:30 AM
"I have become more and more aware of the Stalinist tactics and mentality of much of the American Right..... Relentless insistence on unity, on the existence of an unprecedented and overwhelming external threat, and on the total moral depravity of political opposition were all integral to Stalinist propaganda, and they are a growing part of conservative rhetoric in the United States today.....[Hateful] rhetoric was the prelude to a terrific acceleration of state murder in the Soviet Union....when I read posts on right-wing websites and blogs such as Free Republic or Little Green Footballs, I am reminded strongly of the rage and rhetoric of the young Communist Party activists in the late 1920s....The drive to sustain the administration's alternative world, and the blind hatred and rage of many of President Bush's supporters, may well have disastrous consequences for America." [ Matthew Lenoe, author of Closer To The Masses. Stalinist Culture,Social Revolution, And Soviet Newpapers. Harvard University Press, 2004 ] An op-ed, by someone who knows a bit about totalitarianism, it reminds me of Metafilters 36201, 32747 24363....
posted on Oct-28-04 at 8:48 AM
PIPA : who's your daddy ? " "The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information....very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters"
posted on Oct-24-04 at 8:58 PM
Becoming what you hate : Nathan Sproul, case study in moral relativism on the Religious Right "former head of the Arizona Republican Party and of the Arizona Christian Coalition....Sproul is connected with the Republican National Committee-funded voter registration organization, Voters' Outreach of America Inc." - Sproul's firm is accused of fraud and the destruction of voter registration forms. He also failed to pay his workers and his office rent. Rick Perlstein, in the Village Voice, comments on the Sproul scandal : "Both sides are not equally bad, and any reporters who don't recognize that conservatism's very core has become shot through with a culture of mendacity should turn in their press badge..... It used to be that we could count on the conscience of conservatives to protect our democratic institutions."
posted on Oct-22-04 at 3:08 PM
Don't they teach these kids anything in school ? History ? Punctuation ? And what's that smell ? - Conservative Adam Yoshida steps in it, inadvertently calls for reversal of 1965 Civil Rights bill, arguing for the disenfranchisement of 20% of the voting public through the reinstitution of poll tests (outlawed in 1965). Plus, his punctuation is awful ! : " we should consider maintaining (or even increasing) their benefits while, at the exact same time, making it harder for them to vote (I recommend modern and simple literacy tests for this purpose.
From my extensive time spent examining present and future members of our underclass, I'mquite convinced that a series of simple language and math questions would be enough to discourage them from voting). "
posted on Oct-21-04 at 10:33 AM
Same Sex Relationships in The Bible "The Bible describes three emotionally close relationships between two people of the same gender. They appear to have progressed well beyond a casual friendship."
posted on Oct-19-04 at 9:46 AM
FORCE Ministries "IN 1998....the Lord began opening doors to the SEAL Team community and to military installations nationwide." : "[ Our] Defining passage : "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it." ( Matthew 11:12 NIV ) : An all consuming fire for Dominion. "They are My Special Forces Unit. They are called by My Name. They are called Kingdom Warriors. They are those I have been grooming since birth. They will be sent out against satan's hoard." (more inside)
posted on Oct-18-04 at 5:20 AM
You will be conquered by Stealth and Deception : in the swift advance of a long-planned coup against secular society, to launch an American theocracy, "the Dominionists are succeeding in their quest for national control and world power" - Kathleen Yurica, founder of the Yurica Report which, like Theocracy Watch, monitors the American religious right writes "Since the writing and posting of my essay, The Despoiling of America in February 2004, there is more and more evidence that not only has a cultural war been launched, but that the plotters are winning it....First the hard right dominionists took over the Southern Baptist Convention with its 16 million members and a fortune in corporate businesses. Then they took over the Republican Party...they are moving to limit the power of the Supreme Court. Now there is evidence dominionists are trying to take over the U. S. military
....Americans and the mainstream media have been very slow in catching on to the fact that we are in a war — a war that is cultural, religious and political, a war that uses stealth and deception and the rules of engagement written by the enemies to representative democracy. Unless Americans wake up, we could lose that war."
posted on Oct-14-04 at 4:00 PM
The Hell House Outreach Kit Behold : "in-your-face, high-flyin', no denyin', death-defyin', Satan-be-cryin', keep-ya-from-fryin', theatrical stylin', no holds barred, cutting-edge” evangelism tool of the new millennium!....Outreaches average a 33% salvation and rededication decision rate!...Churches are using this resource as a dynamic evangelism tool!.....Churches use realistic depictions of sin's consequences to send message of hope to the nation's youth"....Domestic Abuse, Rave Scene (" hell's demons rejoice "), Teen Suicide, "Mother's Womb Abortion", Drunk Driving, Gay Wedding ( "Satan wouldn't have it any other way" ), and "Hell — The eternal fury and fire of hell is portrayed as the hell-dwellers, gate keeper and Satan declare that every person there is destined to burn forever in constant pain and agony."
Bonus - 2.5mb flash cartoon : Elisha the Cruel's curse brings she-bears to eat the 42 little children ! (2Kings:24) Disturbed ? Behold Saint Clinton : "His timeless sympathetic words, "I feel your pain", echo in his reassuring expression!"
posted on Oct-11-04 at 9:23 PM
"Q: What is the % likelihood that the US might Invade Iran in the Next Decade ?.... What kind of process did you go through to answer the question ?" - from a recent Powerpoint presentation on future trends given to ExxonMobil executives. (see also : Low fat Humanized Pigs)
posted on Oct-6-04 at 10:02 PM
Pederasts of the mind: Of kids, lies and Oil. The American Petroleum Institute partners (in 2004) with The National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA) and Scholastic (see: Scholastic's creedo) to provide K-12 lesson plans, on energy and oil, which resemble the API's own "Teacher Lesson Plans" and snappy flash presentations such as Progress Through Petroleum! which are bundled with fun stuff and cool facts. The NSTA/API lessons teach all about energy and oil except the global environmental impacts. Didactic bonus from NSTA's oil-friendly curriculum : a surrealistic gallery of oil industry imagery for kids to download.
Recent glacial melt speedup in Greenland and Antarctica shocks researchers, while the Pentagon games scenarios of Abrupt Climate Change : Don't worry, says the DOE's Energy Ant - oil's good, like cows, m'kay ? . Extra credit : Play the Oil and natural Gas Crossword Puzzle, or the "Industry Lesson Plan Game" (that, and more, inside)
posted on Oct-5-04 at 8:04 AM