Having failed to beat their own into submission by labeling them “elitists.” The White House has tried a different tact: they’re sexist.
Category: religion and politics
Church and State should be separate in the body politic, but never in individuals.
Ahh, the Rapture. At last!
The Late, Great Planet Earth from Zondervan
Thanks to Pat Robertson, I have been told to prepare for the Second Coming. The fact that this Catholic knows about the rapture is an unfortunate byproduct of a paying too much attention at evangelical summer camps and an taking too much Latin to avoid my high school language requirement.
I suppose if I wasn’t blessed with an analytical mind, I’d find it comforting to find out that the frequency and devastation wrought by hurricanes has nothing to do with global warming. Tell me, Pat, should I be sacrificing my children now?
Fox Snooze
Amusing Ourselves to Death from Penguin Books
Former Fox news correspondent, David Shuster explains how Fox distorted the news to right editorially. While this is normally so obvious that it doesn’t deserve mention, there was an interesting quote from him:
“Editorially, I had issues with story selection,” Shuster went on. “But the bigger issue was that there wasn’t a tradition or track record of honoring journalistic integrity. I found some reporters at Fox would cut corners or steal information from other sources or in some cases, just make things up. Management would either look the other way or just wouldn’t care to take a closer look. I had serious issues with that.”
Preaching against a non-existent Left
In Kenneth Woodward’s Op-Ed in the New York Times, he talks about Intelligent Design, which is an attempt to get creationism taught in public schools by stating evolution is “just a theory.” The premise of his argument is that science and religion need not conflict.
Well, duh!
He undercuts counter argument by engaging in a reverse ad hominem: mounting his high horse as “a religious believer who recognizes evolution and does not think intelligent design theory belongs in any school’s science curriculum.”
Hmm, I’m all that and a scientist to boot.
My reading list…
Bridge to Terabithia from HarperTrophy
In light of it being Banned Books Week, I went back to the ALA’s list of most challenged books in the last decade and I was surprised to see Bridge to Terabithia made the top 10. This book was first published in 1977 and was one of my favorite books growing up. A quick net search told me it was challenged (and banned) because of offensive language and satanism.
What a laugh!
The only thing satanic about this book is the number of reviews on Amazon. Since the “satanic worship” done in the book is a bunch of children play acting Narnia, one of the most pro-Christian fantasy pieces of all time, the irony is stunning.Continue reading
The cost of two iPods…
This article merges two favorites of mine—politics and gratuitous references to Apple:
The public’s reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods [$600] to the administration’s attempt to offer citizens “a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq” has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.
The English are funny.
Jon Stewart Emmy Speech
John Stewart’s two things uploaded by tychay.
Dru pointed me to an excellent Jon Stewart presentation of an award at the Emmy’s.
It’s quintessential Daily Show. He definitely wouldn’t have gotten away with this on CBS two years ago.
Another interesting thing is to see that the liberal blog linked got the video from a right-wing blog. It’s amusing to note that the amount of peer pressue that accompanies the vitriol in these right wing blogs—Ad hominems have more weight than logic, and if you aren’t a hard to the right you are barraged with threats of excommunication.
I wonder what will happen now that it is no longer “in” to be an idiotic right winger? Looks like we’re getting as fed up with this as we were with Political Correctness.
(The quality of the video sucks shit because it is transcoded from Windows Media. Some people have no pride in their piracy.)
Just what the country needs right now: more tax cuts
A bill for hurricane relief passed the house at 422 to 0. This is all well and good, but tax breaks aren’t an efficient way of distributing goods to the needy. Economically, the only difference between giving a tax break for hurricane-related charitable donations and just raising taxes and giving the money directly is the fact that in the former case you can tax future generations through deficit spending. What ever happened to just giving them aid? I’m confused.
Is the problem really the lack of funds? After all, we are burning food aid from Great Britain and sending ice trucks in the wrong direction, it sounds like the problem has been due to too little logistics and too much red-tape.
Of course, I don’t know what a rich person can do with things like food and water. But a tax cut…
Guess what the South needs is more corporate welfare programs.
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A one party country
Paul Krugman writes about cronyism rampant in this administration. For me, the problem isn’t that cronyism is occurring (every administration is guilty of being partisan in their appointments), but that the appointments are unqualified and incompetent. I find it hard to believe that either side can’t find partisans that are competent.
This seems a natural continuation of the steady establishment of the Right Wing dominance on American’s politics. What little states identity and power there was left after the Democratic control from the Great Depression to 1968 has become eviscerated as the Right Wing has moved control from grass roots to the national level. The Republicans have done a great job burning their bridges in their march to Washington.
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A joke Blake sent me
Q. What is the difference between Iraq and Vietnam?