A Series of Small Acts

Pietist, Phony, Fake

2011-12-13T10:18:00.000-05:00

reuters.com

Blinkered Historian; Drama Queen, Sociopath

Savannah, GA. A life in the Theatre pays many surprising dividends. Not the least of which is the ability to recognize an overweening ego in a fellow actor. The rehearsal hall can be very revealing in this regard. In short order it becomes abundantly clear the modesty-challenged are in it only for themselves. Collaboration is not a word in their vocabulary. It is a sad spectacle. We're now in the rehearsal stage of the Teapublican presidential nominating process. What is true in the theatre is especially so respecting the juvenile named Newt now in the running for the nomination.

This boy-man will say anything so long as it self-promotes. He is sneaky and slick. Incapable of fidelity to vows, he'll lie directly into the lens of a camera or the eyes of a spouse. He revels in the creation of chaos. Challenge him, he'll call you a traitor. Call him out, he'll spout whatever bullshit pops into his head. He has no pole star; he utterly lacks any sense of empathy. He is empty, no core. Gingrich has a many phases to the truth as the Moon has aspects of shadows to the Earth.

And this lunatic wishes to be our President.

Sarah: Shut Your Pie Hole

2010-12-01T11:13:00.004-05:00

The Twit Who Tweets

Savannah, GA. When the thin-skinned diva isn't quitting her elected responsibilities, 'aw-shuckin' her blue collar roots, (my grandfather was a commercial fisherman for 40 years--purse seiner, not gill-netter; the step-father a pulp and paper mill worker--yet we all somehow managed to pronounce our final "g's"--note to Todd: I'm part Yup'ik, too) she's dragging her family before reality TV cameras only to complain about a lack of privacy, coyly showing up to upstage others at political events, and very quick to quip and criticize. What she seems incapable of doing, however, is offering up any solution(s) to the problem(s) or issue(s) about which she bloviates.

Burning down the boathouse is the easy one, Sarah. Destruction comes with the strike of match. Constructive stick-with-it leadership is an elusive trait and a measure of true leadership so clearly beyond your grasp. Until such time you have some productive solutions beyond bromides posted to social networks, do America the blessed favor of keeping your gaping pie hole shut.

LGBT to Dems at Midterm: Fuggedaboutit

2010-10-25T11:06:00.005-04:00

Fed Up With Being Taken for Granted

Savannah, GA. Do you hear us, Democrats? Your feckless, spineless approach to employment security, DADT--even marriage--has earned you the apathy you so justly deserve from gay and lesbian voters at these midterm elections. Our 'enthusiasm deficit' is the fruit of your lack of progress on the issues near and dear to us. You have no one to blame but yourselves. The timidity from most, and indifference from the rest, is the driving force behind our collective dispassion towards all things Democrat. Your dilly-dally/shilly-shally with your elected majorities in Congress has been a waste of time and has squandered the goodwill and Hope of 2008. Your palpable lack of courage has let all of the air out of the room.

And don't fool yourselves; make no mistake: we'll vote--just not for you.

Sue, Shirley, Sue

2010-07-21T13:15:00.008-04:00

Bust Breitbart's Balls

Savannah, GA. As a fellow Georgian, I am so very proud of how Ms. Sherrod has handled this grotesque, right-wing, oddly Soviet-esque smear and defamation campaign against her. Shirley hasn't backed down and gone whimperingly into the night. She's fought back (and many, many citizens hope she continues to fight on in the courts) against the blatantly false aspersions claimed in an edited video (worthy of a Kremlin Wall doctored photograph), promulgated by the creature called Breitbart. I'm no attorney, but it would certainly appear to this civilian that the injuries and wrongs Ms. Sherrod has suffered at the hands of the mucosal Breitbart (and the unnamed 'source' who purportedly performed the sly and duplicitous video editing) are actionable conduct. Court action would also reveal Breibart's mysterious 'source'--standard procedure when Journalists(*cough*) splash about in the wading pool of fraud.

Shirley also had a few choice words for the NAACP which unceremoniously dropped any support of her once the video became the story-of-the-day for media-outlet-but-not-real-news-organization, FOX. The NAACP has since flip-flopped, issued an apology and moved on. A little learnin' is a good thing.

If anybody needs a lesson on properly handling racial accusations it's this White House. The Right says, "jump" and the Obama Administration says, "in which pair of shoes?" How many more times will this White House make the same mistake assuming their political adversaries are honorable and interested in trustworthy discourse?

Free Market Hogwash

2010-05-22T09:51:00.021-04:00

Conservative Hypocrisy

Savannah, GA. Conservatives--lately teapublicans--love to trumpet the benefits of a free market sans Marxist (gasp!) Socialist (horrors!) governmental intervention.

We won't even address the bizarro-world/Cloud Cuckooland and altered reality of the so-called libertarians--those blinkered fools who especially like to post comments on the government R&D'd internet, or who won't admit that capitalism always resorts to government in the end: gotta have government laws to protect those free market business contracts and government courts to enforce the free market contract laws, and police to remove squatters from your free market land and water--those rights to something you didn't make, couldn't create (the water, the land) but were awarded nonetheless through an exchange by the (yet, again) government--but that's grist for another column, another day.

A truly free market would scare the panties off of these breathless conservatives. Shall we discuss farm subsidies? Or BP's (hell, every oil company's) liability limitations in the Gulf of Mexico? Conservatives are all over the free market like out-of-town Baptists in a whorehouse at convention time. Yet these 'all for one; all for me' Free Marketeers do love themselves a little squeeze of big, ole, bad, guv'ment when it comes to socializing risk and privatizing profit. They'll switch and pitch for the other team if it means some actual public money--all the while inveighing against socialist handouts. They'll quote their Ayn Rand and get all moist at the mention of the "invisible hand."

In an actual Free Market, the hailstorm that flattens your crop before harvest would ruin the farm. One bad year, one major disaster, and you lose the enterprise. That's the nature of the REAL Free Market at work. I have yet to hear one of these Teapublicans advocating anything close to true laissez faire capitalism. Like the little boy who, when told masturbating would make him go blind, opined, "Can I just do it until I need glasses?" These so-called conservatives want just enough socialism to keep themselves in the green. Little boys, indeed.

Greed does strange things to an otherwise orderly mind.

Soviet Arizona: Present Your Papers!

2010-04-23T17:25:00.003-04:00

image courtesy of Village Voice

No Profiling. Not here. Not nohow.

Savannah, GA. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed into law an Orwellian measure compelling police to determine the legal immigration status of any individual they encounter. In typical Red-Fascist fashion, this--to quote the President here--"misguided" law of the land "threatens to undermine basic notions of fairness." But let's not be coy about this, Mr. President. This kind of reactionary law not only encourages wanton racial profiling--as if that fact alone were't bad enough--this measure places a tremendous amount of raw, arbitrary, power into the hands of the State. In reality, this law will force all citizens to keep such information handy as to determine they're legal to move about in AZ country. "Let me see your papers. All Hail Arizona."

Greene v. County of Sonoma et al.

2010-04-18T14:56:00.003-04:00

Sue The Bastards

Savannah, GA. In the name of equal protection under the law, read this "issues & cases" item from the NCLR website:

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health
One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.
Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.
What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.
Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life.
With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O'Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O'Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.

Thanks to SLOG

It's All About the Math

2010-04-16T11:24:00.004-04:00

The Cruel, Cruel, Heartless, World

2010-02-19T12:44:00.007-05:00

Humorless

Savannah, GA. Aw. Inside the Reality Distortion Field that is Sarah Palin's singular universe, Seth MacFarlane has hurt her feelings. Fox's sunday night episode of "Family Guy" included a scene where Chris Griffin (voiced by Seth Green) dates a fellow student with Down Syndrome, named Ellen (voiced by Andrea Fay Friedman), who has a line, My dad’s an accountant and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.

Silence is never a virtue when it comes to the former Gov., so Professional Victim Sarah (voiced by Sarah Palin) dashed down the hall of her new employer--which had aired the episode--onto the set and into the welcoming arms of the testosterone-challenged O'Reilly in order to unload. This world is full of cruel, cold-hearted people who would do such a thing, said Palin.

Based on some of her own political and religious beliefs, Palin is no stranger to 'cruel and cold-hearted' territory. But that's another story.

What Sarah didn't know is that the actor referenced above, Ms. Friedman, is not only accomplished voice talent, but a person with Down Syndrome. (Andrea also works at a law firm between acting gigs, and has done so for the past 20 years.) Moreover, she is an individual with a great sense of humor.

I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line "I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska" was very funny. I think the word is "sarcasm." In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.

How's that pouty, hurty, thing workin' out for ya, Palin?

Happy Solstice 2009

2009-12-22T11:43:00.004-05:00

"...people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Health Care Reform 2009: DOA

2009-12-17T09:33:00.004-05:00

Time to Reveal that Elephant Tattoo on your Ass, Joe

Savannah, Ga. Those feckless wonders currently holding majority status in the U.S. Senate have made this bed--now crawl under the covers and spoon with Joseph Isadore Lieberman.

Reid and his flaccid captaincy should have done any number of things regarding the Hypocrite from Connecticut. The Nevadan could have demanded complete and total obeisance from Sen. Droopy Dog in exchange for keeping his former Democratic party seniority. He didn't. He could have better courted the Mainers--Sens. Snowe or Collins; he didn't. He could have employed reconciliation, (despite foot-stomping from Sens. Byrd and Feingold) necessitating only 50 votes and quickly setting the Senate on a path to better match the House Bill. Again, Reid didn't.

So here we are. A whole lot of nothing. Something much, much less than a majority of us thought we were voting for a year ago. Oh, and about that November vote: where's the President in all of this? Cogitating. Collating. We may have thought we were voting for an FDR, but we got another Clinton after all. And not the better one.

Today the Tiger of the House, Speaker Pelosi, says Congress might have something for Obama to sign in time for the January State of the Union Address, again thanks to Reid's pussy-footing in the Senate. We also hear rumors that Leiberman may finally remove that rubber-mask of Independence and officially join the GOP.

Happy Holidays.

Bill O'Reilly: Spinning Into Butter

2009-12-12T12:22:00.004-05:00

Summon Old Scrotum, the Wrinkled Retainer

Savannah, GA. Bill O'Reilly's brain is liquid at room temperature. Like the toxic element Mercury his cranial gruel sloshes about from one perceived injustice after another--when it isn't arguing with the voices inside his head. A self-appointed grunt ("traditionalist") in the Ragnarok of "the secular-progressive movement (also known as the S-P Crew)", he fights his adversaries with "superior analysis", if not humility. He likes to brag and spin tales about his so-called humble beginnings; he dodges a sex harassment suit while confusing loofahs with ground, spiced, chickpeas rolled into little balls, something he's certainly familiar with through suffering the indignities of TMM (Tiny Meat Madness). Classic symptom: Anger basted in self-importance.

Billo seems to currently have his moob tits in a wringer over a recent episode of 'Law & Order: SUV'--a primetime entertainment fictional drama, mind you--where a make-believe character said, "Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, all of 'em, they are like a cancer spreading ignorance and hate… They've convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system."

Lordy. Can't you just see that silver metal rushing up into Billo's bald, penile-shaped little head? To O'Reilly, the program's producer is, "a despicable human being" and the fictional TV program is "out of control." His feelings really smarting now, BO goes on to opine, "[the clip was] defamatory and outrageous". Ouch! Cue Mommie; make it better!! He's bound to have burbled something along the lines of some of his best friends are poor. He's angry. Again. Surprise.

But then, without his 'anger schtick' he's just another empty sack. Gelded. And, time for his fruit cup and diaper change.

1% War Tax on Incomes over $200,000

2009-12-02T14:08:00.007-05:00

Obama's War is no Free Lunch

Savannah, GA. Now that the President has laid out his plans for the next few years regarding the war in Afghanistan, it's time to revisit the 'guns vs. butter' model of production possibilities.

The Troglodytes on the Right have been insisting the approximately 900 Billion dollar cost of passing health care is a price too high, a burden which will increase the deficit, punish future generations and must of necessity pay for itself down to the dime. The Beck's, the baggers, the blowhards, the birdbrains, the boobs and boneheads have been bleating about this for months.

Let's see if we can make them squeal like little piggies: Tax the Rich.

General McChrystal's Afghan Strategy asks for 30,000 additional troops and support for a long-term commitment, costing about 900 Billion dollars,

Time to make the Birthers/Freepers/Jeepers/Creepers pay for their plan, too. A 1% War Surtax on incomes over $200,000 annually would go a goodly way to redress this inequity. Especially since so precious few offspring of the elite monied class have seen fit to make the sacrifice by volunteering to serve. Most of the burden of our Iraq/Afghanistan ventures are carried on the backs of America's less wealthy.

Make the rich kids serve, or make them pay for the privilege of sitting on their hands in the stands. This is a war, after all.

DIE, Suckers!

2009-09-30T12:48:00.005-04:00

punkboi via photobucket

The Republican Health Plan

Savannah, GA. Finally a member of the House of Representatives tells it like it is:

But, we knew this already.

via Towleroad

Making a Fetish of Democracy, Cont'd

2009-09-11T23:47:00.004-04:00

Let's vote, shall we?

Savannah, GA. The god-fearing followers of the evil god of Abraham may have to confront their 'majority-rules and I deserve a vote on everything' dogma in ways they never considered.

It's a pretty sure bet at the voter's craps table that many of the opponents of gay marriage are still smarting over the fact the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the wishes of the majority in 1967. In that year--in fact, up until the early '90's--a majority of Americans were opposed to interracial marriage. Right up to the SCOTUS decision majority-vote-holding Americans supported varying miscegenation statutes in locales around the country.

And wouldn't you know it--they used scripture to justify the bigotry:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with this arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. -- Virginia trial judge Leon Bazile, January 6, 1959, sentencing the Lovings to a one year prison term.

Loving vs. Virginia put an end to all of that democratic chauvinism.

But people in CA, and now in WA and ME, are demanding votes on the rights of a minority vs. the greater number.

Since we're making a fetish of majority rule, let's vote on a few more topics, eh?

How about: Is Scientology a religion? (Or just bad science fiction with 501c3 tax-exempt status?)

How about the great cult of the 19th Century: The Latter-Day Saints? Is Mormonism for real? You just know a majority of Americans--deep down--don't really believe it's a legitimate branch of Christianity. Let's put it up for a vote--but not in Utah--and find out, shall we?

Heck, the First Amendment only guarantees Freedom of Religion; it says absolutely nothing about that freedom extending to taxes on the generation of income. We'll even be magnanimous: Houses of Worship--tax exempt. Everything else, to every property, every strip mall, and to every apartment complex owned by these religions--well--meet your friendly I.R.S. auditor. Let's vote on it!

Follow CA's lead (again) with their recently filed, "2010 California Marriage Protection Act" which would outlaw nearly all divorces. "Every divorce is the death of a traditional marriage." Vote. Vote. Vote.

Making a Fetish of Democracy

2009-09-05T13:03:00.003-04:00

Erik S. Lesser for the New York Times

The Majority is Always Right

Savannah, GA. Let us be perfectly clear: The rights--the civil rights--of the minority should never be subjected to the tyranny of the majority. Full stop.

No tax-paying, law-abiding, American should be forced to ask permission of another if they may have equality under the law. See Proposition 8 in California, Referendum 71 in Washington, Question 1 in Maine, for example. Another example:

Yet this is exactly what is occurring within our Republic, today. An entitled majority is demanding and being allowed to vote on the rights of a disenfranchised minority, all in the name of democracy. This is wrong, this is perverse, this is evil.

It is time for America to accept civil marriages between two gay women, or two gay men.

Religious arguments against civil marriage for homosexuals absent a theocracy are irrelevant. Religious leaders and their followers have no place writing State or Federal law. Their freedom to believe in deities of their choosing is guaranteed by Amendment I, of The Bill of Rights, of the United States Constitution. That freedom does not allow forcing nonbelievers to have to live by the same.

Democracy has limits; it is not absolute. Majority dominion without restraint is nothing but rabble, gangs, mob rule.

We're better than that.

via gayrights.change.org

Senator Inhofe Loses It

2009-09-03T11:45:00.005-04:00

Okey Dopey

Savannah, GA. One of the most humorous comments made by Independent presidential candidate John Anderson in the 1980 election was the charge Ronald Reagan's ideas were so old, so out-of-touch, the actor surely must have worked for 19th Century Fox.

Cue Senator James Mountain ("Senior Moments") Inhofe R-Oklahoma. This paleolithic reactionary relic hasn't quite made it into the Holocene. A former real estate developer and failed insurance company president, this man lives in the past and legislates by hyperbole.

Inhofe's purple prose and pufferies include:

[There is] compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax. That conclusion is supported by the painstaking work of the nation's top climate scientists.

[Global warming is] the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state.

Still battling the Axis Powers in his head, Inhofe has compared the Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo and Clinton-era EPA Administrator Carol Browner to Tokyo Rose. He probably tries to buy Slim Jim's at his local 7-11 with WW II food ration stamps. Jim must toss and turn at night knowing President Obama appointed Browner Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change last January.

No friend of college-bound students, he was one of 12 Senators who voted to oppose lowering interest rates for student loans. He lost: 72-12.

In June of 2006, on the Senate floor, pointing to a large photograph of his family he trumpeted, ...As you see here, and I think this is maybe the most important prop we’ll have during the entire debate, my wife and I have been married 47 years. We have 20 kids and grandkids. I'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we've never had a divorce or any kind of homosexual relationship. (Nothing cheerful about the Inhofes.) The Senate was debating the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States. He lost: 49-48 on a cloture motion.

The Idiot from Oklahoma wants to drill for oil EVERYWHERE, (the contributions Inhofe has received from the energy and natural resource sector since taking office have exceeded one million dollars); he wants to make English the Official Language, complete with an English Proficiency Test for immigrants, and as a member of the Armed Services Committee, he was outraged by the outrage over the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. You get the picture.

But it's his recent comments at a town hall meeting, reported by the Tulsa World that garners him several advanced dementia points:

Gitmo: There has never been a case of torture there. The people there are treated better than in the federal prisons.

I don’t know why President Obama is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America.

Despite the fact the President has requested more military spending: Barack Obama is disarming America. (A pet pork project of Inhofe's--a cannon to be built in OK was scrapped.)

I never dreamed I would see an administration try to disavow all the things that have made this country different from all others...

I have never seen so many things happening at one time so disheartening to America.

Every institution that has made this country the greatest nation in the world is under attack.

Those of you who think like I do hope this country can hang on another 16 months.

Will someone wipe the drool from Inhofe's chin and give the poor man another pudding cup?

GOP: Incentive to Kill

2009-08-29T13:35:00.008-04:00

No Friend of the Elderly

Savannah, GA Health Rationing. Euthanasia. Death Panels. "Pull the plug on grandma." It's no wonder the Republicans get so frothy at the mouth over the current debate on Health care reform: they've already enacted into law motivation to kill seniors.

According to Newsweek writer Jacob Weisberg it's "been the Republican policy for years."

No less a Senator than Captain Chickensh*t himself, Charles Ernest ("Chuck") Grassley (R) of Iowa devised the death stimulus in the GOP 2001 tax cut. As Weisberg writes:

The estate-tax revision he championed will reduce the estate tax to zero next year. But when it expires at year's end, the tax will jump back up to its previous level of 55 percent. Grassley's exploding tax break has an entirely foreseeable, if unintended, consequence: it incentivizes ailing, elderly rich people to end their lives—paging Dr. Kevorkian—before midnight on Dec. 31, 2010. It also gives their children an incentive to sign DNR orders and switch off respirators in time for the deadline. This would be a great plot for a P. D. James novel if it weren't an actual piece of legislation.

With friends like these...

Birthers: F**k Off

2009-08-06T14:14:00.003-04:00

Conspiracy Wingnuttery

Savannah, GA. In the so-called Birthers' Cloud Cuckoo land of perfectly sealed birth certificates, everyone has a copy of, or access to, their "original sealed birth certificate." To those who are Adoptees--either by one or both parents--know this is not the case. They have amended certificates. Amended certificates listing the adoptive parent(s) at the top of the "Certificate of Live Birth", not their birthparent(s). In fact, the birthparent(s) has/have been eliminated from the document.

Example: In Washington State, if a step-father adopts a child in their early teens, the new Certificate of Live Birth issued will list the step-father as simply the "father" and show the date of his marriage to the birthmother. As there may be a number of years between the child's birth and the birthmother's subsequent marriage to the step-father, the child has the onus of officially becoming an illegitimate birth in the eyes of the State, until such time of the new marriage. This could be a period of several years. This official, State-issued document is now blatantly inaccurate, insulting, and embarrassing.

My question to the conspiracy fetishists known as 'Birthers' is this: Are these individuals fully-fledged citizens? Are they some kind of demi-American because their birth certificate has been altered by the State?

If Birthers--and their GOP handlers--want to accomplish something good out of all this, press for the truth on ALL birth certificates, help the cause of ALL adoptees to finally, at last, be provided with verity, accuracy, and fact-based information about the most important day of their lives: The Day They Were Born.

The Quisling Right Wing

2009-06-05T11:30:00.003-04:00

The Axis Powers

Savannah, GA. Our last President preferred engagement with the Muslim world through unilateral enmity, using guns, bombs and warfare. A group of wingnut al-Qaeda jihadists, lead by a wealthy member of a Saudi royal family killed over 3,000 in lower Manhattan and so Cheney attacked Iraq. Patriotic Americans questioning the reasoning behind this action were quickly vilified and branded traitorous. Chubby-Tubby Limbaugh, his 'anally poisoned' butt-boy Hannity and the Drama Queen Known As Beck, were quick, oh so quick--even eager--to attack fellow countrymen who didn't goose-step to the party line.

Now President Obama delivers a major policy speech in a major Muslim capitol, seeking comity among the less radicalized in the region, and the well-upholstered balloonicle Limbaugh, along with the talking pointed-heads on FOX have gone all Vidkun Quisling on us, collaborating with al-Qaeda in a mutual wish for American failure in these efforts of association to mutual benefit.

Their hatred for and shrill rhetoric against the best interests of America are shocking in their magnitude, if only for the sheer weight of the overlying hypocrisy.

Benedict Arnold, meet your 21st century counterpart: the Quisling Right Wing.

GOP and Rick Perry: Why Do They Hate America?

2009-05-05T08:32:00.004-04:00

A New Confederacy of Dunces: THE REPUBLICAN SUCCESSIONIST ANTI-AMERICAN TREASON FLAG

Savannah, GA. Too wonderful for words.

Completely the courtesy of Hebiclens/WMxdesign's Photostream on flickr

Hysterical Bigots

2009-05-02T21:33:00.004-04:00

They Just Don't Get It

Savannah, GA. This organization seeks to destroy marriage. Pure and simple. They are an abomination. They would willingly split up families, remove children from loving parents, deny equality within American society. For these miscreants, committed relationships between consenting adults must pass a litmus test of some Christer Purity.

Let us be clear: Followers of the evil god of Abraham may teach and preach wholly what they wish within their churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, tents and parking lots. Within their homes and apartments they may certainly raise their children to believe as they see fit. Welcome to America. What they may not do--and yet desperately seek--is to do the same in the public square. To reduce the "other" to secondary or demi-status. Too bad for them, but that's both outside of their homes and certainly, by virtue of definition, not their place of worship. Besides, I pay full taxes too; so I get to sit at the big table. Ride at the front of the bus. Enjoy equal rights under the law. Intolerant spiritual chauvinists, they can only see a binary universe; a sad existence of naughty and nice, black and white, right vs. wrong.

They are hysterical and bigoted.

TwitterTwaddle

2009-04-19T13:43:00.007-04:00

It's total bullsh*t

Savannah, GA. Finally, for the utterly ego-challenged we have another way to waste time and socially network. Yet another tool and outlet for "All Things ME Right Now." Twitter: for the self-centered, self-obsessed, and their sycophants. As if the creepy adolescence of Facebook (writing on 'walls', 'poking' others, meaninglessly long lists of 'friends') weren't unserious enough, the collective self-importance of Twits can let many, many people know everything and anything their twitter-pated self-esteem deems share worthy. Twits are tweeting the trivial, the trifling, the truly incidental. As Katie Couric so eloquently put it, Nobody gives a rat's ass if I'm about to eat a Tuna fish sandwich.

You're not that important, folks.

The Bunghole

2009-04-04T19:55:00.004-04:00

Rusty Limbaugh

Savannah, GA Often gripped by wretched rectal references, Jabba the Rush outdid himself the other day when he pinched a load on Prime Minister Gordon Brown's compliments of President Obama

So here is a full-fledged, committed global socialist praising the president of the United States for all of his achievements in the first 70 days -- a global socialist happy with the changes Obama has made, and 'you have changed America's relationship with the world,' which is why all of the losers that make up the protesters are breaking bank windows, but the slobbering, the slobbering - this guy, folks I'm telling you - if he keeps this up throughout the G20, Gordon Brown will come down with anal poisoning and may die from it.

Classy.

He may be number one with his regularly listening audience, but for most of us, he's simply number two.

Lifetime Portrait of Shakespeare Discovered

2009-03-09T18:54:00.004-04:00

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

Wow.

Savannah, Ga. From the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust website: Professor Stanley Wells, Chairman of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and one of the world’s leading experts on Shakespearean studies, today announced the discovery of a portrait of William Shakespeare, which he believes is almost certainly the only authentic image of Shakespeare made from life.

Read on...

Note to GOP: Reagan is Dead

2009-03-08T12:47:00.005-04:00

He's Not Coming Back

Savannah, GA. A focus and measure of a sane mind is living in the present. The unhinged dwell in the past, not content with learning the lessons to be found in history in an effort to move forward. Obstinate, mentally brittle, they cling to bygone days, to yesteryears, faithful the solutions of former times will solve the conundrums of the here and now. This is a description of the GOP of 2009. The perpetually tanned House Minority Leader John Boehner convinced every GOP member of the House (and eight Quisling Democrats) to support a spending freeze in the middle of a recession.

New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks said in an appearance on Sunday's "The Week with George Stephanopoulos" that it was "insane" for Congressional Republicans to propose such a thing.

"The problem with them and the problem with Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they are stuck with Reagan. They are stuck with the idea that government is always the problem. A lot of Republicans up in Capitol Hill right now are calling for a spending freeze in a middle of a recession/depression. That is insane. But they are thinking the way they thought in 1982, if we can only think that way again, that is just insane. And there are a lot of Republicans like David Frum ... who are trying to say Reagan was right for his era, but it is time to move on. And there are just not a lot of them on Capitol Hill right now, and I think the party is looking for that kind of Republican."

Amazing.

Gods Bless The Daily Show

2009-03-05T10:05:00.003-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes

Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor

Joke of the Day

Thank you, Jon Stewart

Savannah, GA. It's been pointed out many times before, but bears repeating: what a comment on our society, and how sad for the media, when the truth only appears in a faux news* comedy program.

*not to be confused with the abomination and abortion of certitude that is "Fox News".

Limbaugh: Falloon Inflation

2009-03-03T11:20:00.002-05:00

Bull's Eye

Savannah, GA. Last night, David Letterman nailed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloonicle that is Rush Limbaugh. (A man who really needs to stop channeling Dickens' Oliver "Please, sir, can I have some more?" at public eateries. The oxycontin chompin' Viagra poppin' artiste has clearly never met a pork chop he didn't like.)

Letterman refers to The Head of the GOP as a "bonehead" and openly wonders about Kingpin's open-at-the-top black silk shirt. (Easy, stomach.) Watch and enjoy.

As for RH, it's hard to take a sighted man seriously who has to pee by Braille.

Hat tip to The Huffington Post

CNBC: Clueless

2009-02-24T19:11:00.004-05:00

Savannah, Ga. "You Can't Handle the Truth," said Col. Nathan R. Jessep in Rob Reiner's 1992 film, A Few Good Men. The same should be said of the vapid idiots on CNBC--those cretins tub-thumping for Wall Street, Chicago Traders, et alii. You know the type: the Clueless Wonders who got us into this economic mess. The ones who taught us that hard, honest, work doesn't get anyone ahead--gaming the system does.

But that's a digression.

Let's draw our attentions back to the mentally and economically challenged savants of CNBC when confronted with knowledgeable experts on the current situation:

Cue: CNBC Pointed Heads

Truly amazing, yes?

Hat tip to SLOG

Sam Adams Should Resign

2009-01-25T11:24:00.004-05:00

photo: Ross William Hamilton

Portland Mayor Sam Adams

Savannah, Ga. Newly elected Portland, OR Mayor Sam Adams should resign his office. He has lost that ineffable quality so necessary for successful politics: Trustworthiness. The honesty and truthfulness exhibited as a Portland City Commissioner where Mr. Adams sought media publicity, scrutiny, column inches, was supplanted by mendacity over a personal relationship in his past, during his mayoral campaign. He lied to voters--and to that same media covering his election, on several occasions. A mentoring relationship with a young man had turned romantic once the 18-year-old legal threshold of consent had been crossed. Legal niceties aside, the articulate, bright, Mr. Adams knew full well that just because an action is licit, it doesn't of necessity make it right. A political reputation built on transparency and openness was set aside because candidate Adams felt the public couldn't handle the truth and elect him to office at the same time. Mr. Adams' assessment may be a sad certitude, but that same public has every prerogative to wonder what uncomfortable fact in the future this Mayor may also deem necessary to keep from them.

Sam Adams should resign.

RNC: Goat Rodeo

2008-12-30T12:16:00.006-05:00

gop.com

Savannah, Ga. The Republican National Committee, a cruft organization if ever there was, has 'had all it can stand, and it can't stands no more.' While Group Leader wannabes are gifting fellow goppers 7th grade study hall CD's about "magic negroes," current party bosses are fighting the Grand Cause of Relevancy in the dark times between presidential elections, that interval when their own elected pols relegate them to the children's table and go about doing what grownups do.

According to an "exclusive" in today's Moonie News, RNC Vice Chairman Jim Bopp, Jr., has penned a resolution opposing the Federal bailouts of Wall Street and Car Makers. Further, he breaks Great Leader Unca Ronnie's 1966 directive by trashing Congressional Republicans, and even Dubya, by invoking the "S" word: Socialism. These Quislings are using Big Government and Socialist Tactics to attack capitalism. We're just a hop, skip, and jump away from losing our individual liberties and freedoms.

Oh, those kids.

The Polite Bigotry of Peter LaBarbera

2008-11-26T13:24:00.005-05:00

photo: Todd Winters

“I sincerely believe that nobody has to be ‘gay."

Savannah, Ga. Peter LaBarbera lives for conflict. For all of the neo-Puritans, there is always an ongoing battle in the cosmic war for Gideon against the forces of Satan and Hell. His crusade pour la vie is against the Leviathan Homosexual, homosexual activists, homosexual agenda, homosexual fanatics, and anything smacking of "normalizing homosexuality in the culture."

LaBarbera really puts himself out there as the go-to guy for All Things Considered Homosexual. From his website: "He has done over a thousand interviews on the [homosexual activist movement] and written extensively on most aspects of the homosexual, bisexual, and--(in quotes)--"transgender" agenda--with special focus on the inroads that the pro-homosexuality movement has made among America's youth." Further, his website states: "LaBarbera has debated the top[sic] homosexual advocates while appearing on hundreds of TV and radio news programs." Despite this veritable trove of exposure, LaBarbera politely demures that he is not in any way "obsessed" about homosexuality. Far from the fact. The site points out that "LaBarbera has been falsely accused of being a repressed homosexual more times than he can remember." Might this be selective memory loss? For a man who writes "thousands" of articles and appears on "hundreds" of on-air media programs all addressing a homosexual agenda, and at the same juncture claiming a non-fixation of the subject, then perhaps topic hobbyist would be a better choice of words, or homosexual dilettante a better turn of phrase. In any event, Peter the 'pro-family' activist spends quite a bit of time away from Le Mme et cinq enfants trying to pin scarlet Lambda's on homosexual chests in Op-Ed pages and TV/Radio studios across the land.

No "liberal caricature of the angry 'homophobe'" he, LaBarbera prides himself in damning homosexuals with civility. He's even dinged Fred Phelps for having an "unChristian message." Bully. Phelps is a bit too flamboyant, too red-meated, for the muted LaBarbera, who nonetheless believes that "homosexual practice is always wrong," "rejects the notion of inborn "gay" identity," denies the idea of transgender issues, and believes a radical, harmful, homosexual agenda is a force of evil to be engaged in holy struggle. Like the title of Bernard Henri-Levy's 1977 book, Barbarism with Human Face, the very mannerly and always civil Peter LaBarbera prefers to show all of us his affable facade. But mistake him not: LaBarbera is a barbarian, a modern Cromwell, who in the name of his god and the ego of his belief will force compliance, his order, and his radical religious agenda upon us all.

The battle is enjoined.

Great Balls O' Fire!

2008-11-18T19:19:00.007-05:00

James Hartline and Prop.8

Savannah, Ga. There he goes again; Hartline's god likes to torch things in California. According to self-professed prophet Jimmy:

Today, people are running for their lives as 800 California homes have burned down and the firestorm is spreading like a nuclear holocaust. Yet, the radical homosexual anarchists rampage upon the streets of this state demanding the destruction of marriage and family, and the establishment of their socialistic dark vision for society.

This bluster is par for the course when it comes to the sybyl of San Diego. In October of 2007, the seer that Doth Protest Too Much breathlessly wrote:

Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law the heinous SB777 which bans the use of "mom" and "dad" in the text books and promotes homosexuality to all school children in California.

And then the wildfires of Southern California engulfed the land like a raging judgment against the radicalized anti-christian California rebels.

Eeek. Fire, fire, faggots cause fires and make a cranky desert god play with matches.

For the less belittling and more pure of heart among us wishing to engage the vociferating sooth-sayer in a dialectical discourse within ideology, wily James will likely say something like this:

I have taken a number of courses in Biblical studies at a well-respected Christian college.... you clearly have not had any systematic theology training from which you could form a trustworthy conclusion on these important matters. The Bible teaches believers that YOU CANNOT discern the teachings of God as He has conveyed in the Bible unless you have a divine encounter with His Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches that the Word of God is foolishness to those who are devoid of His Spirit. You cannot put God's laws and teachings into their proper context unless you have been filled with the very Spirit of God who inspired men to write those matters God deemed important to communicate with mankind.

Fair enough. And fair is fair. To freely use his own reasoning--and some of his own words--James Hartline demonstrates time and time again that his particular spiritual education and knowledge regarding the construct of same-sex relationships is based on biblical reasoning, as well as being devoid of any real, current, correct same-sex partnership. He clearly lacks any present systematic, committed, loving, homosexual experience from which he could form a trustworthy conclusion on this important manner.

His problem is that he is working from a foundational place of seeking to discredit homosexuality so that his radical agenda of promoting and accepting his lifestyle choice of faith can occur without secular challenge. Hartline's sad sin in his endeavors is that he is eliminating the critical and eternal role that love provides mankind to help resolve the issues of ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, and hate.

via the always steamin' Pam's House Blend and the incomparable Towleroad

The American Experiment Reboots

2008-11-06T09:28:00.003-05:00

For Future Generations: A Brave New World

Shall We Leave the Gods Out of it, for Chrissakes?

2008-11-02T18:24:00.005-05:00

Crabby race-baiting HIV-denying hysteric vs. Nutbar witch-hunting self-proclaimed prophet

Savannah, GA One full day to go until this never-ending campaign finally turns into a pumpkin, and the Republicans in the fullness of time are at last running ads in Pennsylvania (at least) targeting Sen. Obama's decades-old association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. So it's officially fair game in the faith department. The Reverend Wright's rhetoric gives me the heebeegeebies, but the Rapture-tastic, Pentecostal, witch-hunter Thomas Muthee takes the whole Halloween cake.

For the less superstitious, there is very little time, and even less tolerance, to listen to believers debate the merits of cranky desert gods, but Sarah Palin--surprise!--has the gall to say,

"[Obama] sat in the pews for 20 years and heard Rev. Wright say some things that most people would find a bit concerning."

Gov. Palin may be correct in her assumption. But Sarah was raised a Pentecostal, and bathed in issues regarding the 'End of Times.' Care to wager even more Americans might be even more concerned to know her answers to these questions?

Gov. Palin:

1. Do you believe in the anti-Christ?
2. Do you believe we're living in the end times?
3. Do you believe that Jesus will return in your lifetime?
4. Do you believe that true Christians have to battle Satanic agents in the End Times?
5. Do you see yourself as a warrior for Christ as part of a new Apostolic movement?

via Talk To Action

Oh, and that distant beat you hear? Sen. McCain's 72 year-old heart...

A Minute on the Lips; Forever on your Hips

2008-11-02T12:34:00.004-05:00

Sometimes these spots just write themselves

via Sullivan

Christian Drama Queens

2008-10-29T09:57:00.004-04:00

Chicken Littles

Savannah, Ga. Holy jeebus. What is it with these Ichthysians? Something drives the Fundamentalists--American Christians in this case--to melodrama. Histrionics. Hyperbole. They are hammy, campy, overacting drama queens; the hyperactive children of all things spiritual. Click on the clip above to see for yourself.

Hell must be a theatre workshop run by these people.

P.S. Somebody give the V.O. talent in this spot a throat lozenge...

Tracy Kerlee: The antichrist?

2008-10-22T19:19:00.005-04:00

Pray for the husband. Pray for all of us.

To Hell With Taffey Anderson

2008-10-21T16:42:00.004-04:00

David Patton/Democrat-Herald

'Bad Book, BAD BOOK!'

Savannah, Ga. It must be genetic. There is a mutant variant of homo sapiens sapiens out and about in this land. They are crippled by the lack of an Irony Gene and infected with the 'I'll-Decide-What's-Best-For-Everybody' virus.

They are to be avoided whenever possible. Grim and determined, they are bent on making people see the world as the same pinched, humorless environment in which they live and breed. They are preternaturally drawn to libraries, making lists and checking them twice; all books fall into one of two categories: naughty or nice. Not content with sucking the satire out of their own lives they seek to spread the grey paste of righteousness throughout the community.

Taffey Anderson of Halsey, Oregon is so stricken. Her 13-year-old son checked out Andy Riley's black-humored 2003 book from the Central Linn High School Library. She took one look at it and decided it was not for her son. Fair enough. Mothers have every right to decide what's appropriate for their offspring in the home. But Taffey's not finished.

According to the Albany Democrat Herald:

“It is a comic book, but that’s not funny. Not at all,” Anderson said. “I don’t care if your kid is 16, 17, 18. It’s wrong. They’re not getting this book back. [if the library replaces it] I’ll have somebody else check it out and I’ll keep that one. I’m just disgusted by the whole ordeal.”

In fact, she plans to torch it.

If you'd like, consider having Amazon.com (or Powellsbooks.com, if you like to shop more locally) send them a replacement copy of the book Taffey's bent on burning:

Central Linn High School
32433 Highway 228
Halsey, OR 97348
T: 541-369-2811

Bibliophiles of the world will thank you. (So, too, will U.K. author Mr. Riley and his publishers.)

Trust, But Verify

2008-09-20T10:24:00.003-04:00

Chuck Kennedy / McClatchy Newspapers

Meet the New Socialists: Bernanke, Bush, Paulson, Cox

Savannah, Ga. Trust, but verify. Although not coined by the man, it was a phrase used often by Ronald Reagan whenever he was discussing relations with the Soviet Union. It's time to re-use this locution with respect to the proposal made by the four men in the Kremlin Wall photo above.

Yesterday--September 19, 2008--these same individuals drove the final nail into the coffin of Free Market Capitalism in America. If it was a myth before, it is dead now. "Socialism for the bankers; capitalism for the taxpayers" is no longer the rhetoric of populist politics, it is the simple truth.

In the largest governmental intervention into the markets in over 80 years, the Bush administration asked taxpayers to pay for the greedy excesses of financial institutions to the tune of nearly THREE QUARTERS OF A TRILLION DOLLARS. Our neo-Soviet leadership hopes to have Congress rubber-stamp the proposal as early as next week.

Among the financial reforms created during the Great Depression 85 years ago were the two Glass-Steagall Acts of 1933. The FDIC was established, providing a degree of insurance for bank deposits; currency was allowed for use by the federal reserve; the surfeits of speculation were curbed by separating banks by their business type and model--commercial and investment. A large degree and measure of equity and stability returned, all part of FDR's First One Hundred Days. Conservatives have had their gun sights set on repealing Roosevelt's New Deal, in general, and this regulation of banking, specifically, since its inception. For election cycle after cycle they touted the wonders and marvels of Free Markets, lambasting this "socialist" or "communist" intrusion by the government. Cro-Magnons on the Right have used this strategy to beat up liberals ever since. Rightists won their battle against Glass-Steagall when the republican-controlled Congress passed the veto-proof Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, and these progressive banking reforms were finally removed. As they say in the Olympics, the quest for gold had begun.

Nine short years of unfettered avarice have brought us to the events of the past few days.

We are faced with a classic dilemma; Congress will likely channel the Politburo and quickly approve Bush's plan. America's money-grubbing problem is also the world's. What we do--or don't--profoundly affects other governments, other markets. Our meltdown would likely produce a global chain-reaction.

But because Wall Street has so nakedly revealed what ordinary taxpayers have so long suspected--that it has much more to do with entitlement, privilege, power, rapacity, than it does with Adam Smithsonian Free Markets--we need some assurances, along with our good cash, that regulations will return to the financial institutions to better check against a recurrence of this crisis again. As it presently stands, the Bush Administration bailout only pours our money into a gaping mouth; if we write Wall Street this check, we need some concrete insurance we're not being suckered more than we already are.

Trust, but verify.

A Third Rail Touched

2008-08-20T19:00:00.006-04:00

How Do You Spell Motivated Youth Vote? D-R-A-F-T

Savannah, Ga. Today at a Sen. McCain rally in Las Cruces, NM, at the end of a heart-felt and poignant statement made by a member of the audience concerning our Nation's disgraceful treatment of our Veterans, a raw nugget of political plutonium flared into life and entered the Presidential contest. Given the abusive treatment extended to our all-volunteer military vets in health care, housing and access to same, the attendee asked the Arizona Senator how we will fight in the future absent a draft? McCain's response:

"Let me say, [applause] I don't disagree with anything you said."

See for yourself:

I'm just barely old enough to have sweated the Vietnam draft. Few events focused a (then) young man's mind and motivations than the prospect of being sent to war. The generation subsequent--not to mention their parents--has never faced such an imperative or obligation. We are content to allow others--'volunteers'--to fulfill our national security military needs. Contentment will morph into resentment, protestation and civic disobedience dormant and unseen in America for 40 years. There is no single issue or precipitating event which carries with it the potential for societal upheaval as does a return to a military draft.

I wonder if John "Bomb, bomb Iran" McCain was really listening to what was being said.

Fairytales meet Reality

2008-08-19T09:18:00.014-04:00

Idiots

Savannah, GA. Fundamentalist Christian soldiers within education just don't get it. Their bible may be the unerring word of god for themselves and their ilk, but for ordinary civilians, it is just one of many Good Books. This week that fact was never truer than when U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles rejected claims of religious discrimination, siding with the University of California's decision to deny certain high school credits from certain Christian schools whose textbooks reject the theory of evolution and declare the bible infallible.

Thanks be to Odin, Zeus, and Vishnu for some common sense.

Attorney Jennifer Monk of Advocates for Faith and Freedom huffed:

"It appears the UC is attempting to secularize private religious schools."

Actually, it appears the good lawyer and AFF expect their high school graduates to enter real-world secular college biology courses believing mankind walked amongst the dinosaurs. What next? Flat-Earthers demanding credit for UC geography classes? Fundamentalist xtian geology students claiming--with a straight face--the Grand Canyon was the result of Noah's Flood?

Called on their bullshit, Charles Robinson, the university's vice president for legal affairs, said the ruling:

"Confirms that UC may apply the same admissions standards to all students and to all high schools without regard to their religious affiliations. What the plaintiffs seek, is a religious exemption from regular admissions standards."

According to Judge Otero's ruling, one of the rejected texts, Biology for Christian Schools, states on the first page:

"if [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong."

Welcome to the fundamentals of Science, Fundamentalists.

NSFW! WTF?

2008-08-08T14:47:00.009-04:00

Get a clue

Savannah, GA. Casually viewing blog offerings out there in Web-log Land, I'm often surprised by the warning proviso: "NSFW" or the less emphatic: "caution--may be NSFW" before a particular YouTube video or .jpeg. This is usually a guarantee that after the break, something salacious is coming down the pike. The thing I love about this is the fact all the players are in on the game and know what's up. The poster knows; the reader knows--you are about to view something your boss (or Ms./Mr. Tight-Sphincter over in the next cubicle) ain't gonna find appropriate. It's something that's, well, Not Safe for Work.

This beggars the critical question: Why aren't these slackers, well, working? Why are they on company time (or company servers, for that matter) flitting about in the snarkosphere, when they presumably should be earning their pay? My favorite bit of delightful idleness is when some sluggard pitches a self-righteous fit in the comments section when one of these NSFW posts unzips itself unlabeled. "Dude, I could get fired!" One could only hope.

Facebook and MySpace? Shopping? Let's not even go there.

And, btw, regarding the computer I use at work--I haven't, don't and won't. That's why god made personal computers and personal smartphones.

Second Amendment Fetishism Con't...

2008-07-24T22:00:00.003-04:00

Vitaly Alex Kovtun Doesn't like Mustard

Savannah, GA. One of the assurances we're given by people like GA State Rep. Tim Bearden, and John Monroe, Esq. (plaintiff and attorney in a lawsuit against Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for the right of Handgun Activists like themselves to walk packin' through the Terminal) and organizations such as--real name--GeorgiaPacking.org, and the NRA is that permitted, law-abiding, citizens are thoroughly vetted by their States, using tools such as the National Instant Check System (NICS) before granting a license. (The NICS process takes between a minute to 3 days to complete.) Although this process is certainly better than nothing, it does nothing to see if the applicant is a nutbar who is about to be a fruitcake with a concealed weapon permit.

Although most anything--state regulated or no--can be turned into a weapon used in a felonious assault, hammers, screwdrivers, knives, automobiles do not have as their sole design and function a fatal purpose. The same claim is not an easy sell when it comes to semiautomatic handguns. Inner rage translates into deadly force so quickly, so easily, so readily, when there is a handgun handy. Which brings us to the vetted and formerly law-abiding gentleman above.

Last month, three teenagers cruising about in the 'burbs of Salt Lake City, pulled up next to a vehicle at a stoplight and one of the passengers, Stephen Cox, thought he'd joke around, and straight out of Wayne's World, straight from a well-known series of TV ads in the late '80's, asked, "Excuse me, sir... do you have any Grey Poupon?" In response, 22-year old Kovtun pulled a handgun from the glove compartment, cocked it, pointed it at the passengers in the other vehicle and said, "Here's your Grey Poupon. Roll your fucking windows up." Later caught and arrested, Mr. Kovtun has been charged with aggravated assault--a third-degree felony--in violation of Utah Code 76-5-102. According to court documents, Vitaly admitted to pulling the semiautomatic weapon, cocking the slide and pointing it at the people in the other vehicle.

Now common sense would dictate this man has forfeited any right to continue holding any concealed weapons permit. Obsessed, fixated, Guns Rights Activists will be happy to learn that the State of Utah has merely suspended--not canceled--his permit for the present.

So-called law-abiding citizens, legally armed with a concealed weapons permit is no guarantee of anything except wishful thinking and the hope that these strangers, granted the right to carry concealed deadly force won't have a bad day and a handy pistol to make it all better.

I feel safer, don't you?

Unintended Circumstances: Malaria vs. HIV

2008-07-19T17:44:00.002-04:00

HIV virus

Savannah, GA. A gene evolved to specifically protect Africans and their descendants against an ancient form of malaria has been revealed to convey a vulnerability to HIV infection by as much as 40 per cent.

The University of Texas Health Science Center led the research, published in the July 17th issue of Cell Host and Microbe.

For HIV, considered by my some to be everything from a punishment by a punishing deity to a CIA racist plot, a genetic reason may finally explain why the virus is so insidiously present among certain populations. The gene variant is found only in individuals of African descent, and within those descendants, present in nearly 90 per cent of the population.

"It's well-known that individuals vary in their susceptibility to HIV and that after infection occurs, the disease progresses at variable rates," said co-author Sunil Ahuja of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System.

"The mystery of variable infection and progression was originally thought to be mainly the result of viral characteristics, but in recent years it has become evident that there is a strong host genetic component."

Science: 1; Religious opinion: 0

South Carolina Continues to Bat 1000

2008-07-18T14:22:00.006-04:00

Sparing the Rod and Spoiling the Child

Savannah, GA. Just days after S.C. Rep. Dave Thomas became hysterical over "gays," some 49-year old father in Anderson, S.C. apparently took after his 18-year old son after the young man returned home from a gay pride parade. As reported in the Independent Mail and the blog Towleroad, daddy went batshit crazy and "tried to cast the demon of homosexuality out [of his son.]" Cussin' and screamin,' this poor excuse for a mature adult allegedly assaulted his son with a Louisville Slugger. According to Deputy S.C. Weymouth, the teenager told deputies his father--let's use the term lightly--"has a problem with him being gay and that is why he hit him with the baseball bat." Really? A problem?

As usual, the comments section of the story in the online version of the paper carry some real nuggets of enlightenment. Someone using the handle 'Mom2Shelties' [sic] referred to parts of the story as "sensationalism" and a "so-called crime." I'll wager ole Mom has those Shelties well in line. My favorite was "scmom" [sic] posting, "how do you know his son hadn't done anything before that? how do you know he wasn't defending himself? you don't." Well, that may be technically true, but we've a pretty good idea that, along with the teenager's father, you're a horse's ass.

South Carolina: The Hits Just Keep on Coming

Eeek! Gay Beaches in South Carolina?

2008-07-14T17:08:00.007-04:00

Bad for David Thomas

Savannah, GA. "Somebody has to be responsible for this, and we'll demand responsibility." So said a breathless S.C. Republican State Senator David Thomas regarding the ad campaign shown above. "This is absolutely a subject matter that adheres to a social position and it's simply improper for the state to be going after one social position." Right. This from a state that peddles "In God We Trust" and "Shag" auto license plates. "From my own perspective, it's bad for the state to make such statements about the state, to assert that South Carolina has gay beaches." Nope. Just a state with more than its fair share of politicians in the closet. Oops.

As mentioned on Pam's House Blend and Towleroad, it turns out some hapless advertising agency manager in contract contact with the South Carolina Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department signed off on the campaign, which was tied to London's gay pride festivities. Besides shrieking--shrinking--away from the whole affair, South Carolina will also stiff the Amro Worldwide London Travel Agency's $5,000 fee to participate in the ad campaign.

South Carolina: Homophobic and classy, all at the same time.

Sign Your Real Name

2008-07-04T13:13:00.003-04:00

Savannah, GA. Anonymity on the internet in comments sections tends to be the refuge of the Dark Side: the fearful, the snarky, the grammar and syntax-challenged, the cruel. It lowers the standards of discourse and plays into a lower denominator. It should be said that anonymous sources are not created equally. Anonymity definitely serves a purpose--it is useful, even vital at times, in law enforcement or in news reporting. But the opinions/comments/editorials of strangers on the web on any given subject are something much, much less. Anonymous posting in comments sections--be they blogs or online periodicals--are the equivalent of gossip tacked to a utility pole three blocks down the street. Is this written by committee or an individual? A bureaucratic hack with an agenda, the neighborhood Mr. Crabbyappleton, or a precociously bright 14-year old? An actual name or moniker leaves a trail. One may use a search engine and possibly see if this individual actually exists, and if the seeming reasonableness of their message is routine or a fluke. Am I reading the thoughts of a fellow traveler or the agenda of a political/corporate scheme filtered through an anonymous mouthpiece? There are no guarantees here, but it certainly helps.

Search with an actual, real name and the result is potentially far more specific, revealing and conclusive. It most certainly does not speciously boost the importance of any idea I may share in any manner, but it does allow any interested reader to know there's a better chance I truly stand behind the words I write. It also affords individuals (supporters of my ideas, or no) a clearer pathway to continue the discussion, even dialogue, off-site, privately and anonymously to others.

Two Clowns

2008-07-01T23:40:00.006-04:00

Rep. Tim Bearden and John Monroe, esq.?

Savannah, GA. One day into Georgia's new rootin' tootin' gun law, the Second Amendment Fetishists are shocked, shocked they may not bring their permitted handguns into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Ben DeCosta, airport general manager and advocate of common sense said, "My message is simple: Leave your firearms at home." With their tighty whiteys in a pinch and their feelings in a lather, gun rights attorney Mr. John Monroe has filed a lawsuit to allow the gun-fixated to stride the Terminal with a holstered weapon--something the law doesn't permit in the airport parking lot. The newly enacted law allows people to carry guns on public transit, in state parks and into restaurants. Monroe argues the Atlanta airport is just the type of public transportation for which the law provides. As everyone knows, there are also restaurants within the terminal, so by Monroe's reckoning.... you get the picture.

A man with a fellow fascination with firearms in public spaces, Rep. Tim Bearden--a state legislator and sponsor of the new law--is named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Apparently this brainiac called a newspaper to inform everyone he would be carrying a concealed weapon to the airport on Tuesday when he went to pick up his family. Perhaps the public servant could have the courtesy to inform us all when and wherever he ventures out into public?

Second Amendment Fetishists

2008-07-01T00:16:00.004-04:00

Savannah, GA. Today, it will be legal for Georgians with carry permits to take their firearms aboard buses, light rail, within state parks and into liquor-serving restaurants.

I feel safer; don't you?

A bunch of nutbar state legislators thought this would be a good idea and an even better regulation. Somehow we're supposed to be reassured that the 300,000 permitted gun owners who will soon be packing where they couldn't before will have undergone a criminal background check. Wonderful. Hospitalized as an inpatient in a mental hospital or alcohol or drug treatment center as little as six years ago? No problem--Georgia's only concerned about the last five. How about a drug test for current unlawful use of a controlled substance? Nope; we'll take your word on that. Schizophrenic off your meds? Beats me. Mature enough to pack a pistol into the local steak house and keep it holstered after a third cocktail in the midst of a heated argument? Well, that's none of your business, partner.

Idiocy.

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

2008-06-16T22:43:00.006-04:00

(Diane Olson, l; Robin Tyler, r.)

Savannah, GA. We announced the lawsuit on Feb. 12, 2004, at 9 AM in front of the Beverly Hills Courthouse. -- Robin Tyler, plaintiff (along with partner Diane Olson) in the case that has led to legal same-sex marriage in California. They met decades ago, and were friends for over a quarter century before becoming a couple. In 1979 they were active in the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

Today, at 5:01pm PDT, by order of the California Supreme Court, same-sex couples were legally entitled to all of the rights and privileges afforded opposite-sex married couples. Contrary to the fears (and hopes--let's be honest) of some Xtians, the sky is still intact, the rivers do not run with blood, and sulfur emissions in California have actually declined.

There are a few bureaucratic changes, naturally. There will be one marriage certificate form for everyone, and secular--not religious--civil ceremonies conducted by the State will be gender-neutral. The wording recommended from the County Clerks Assn. of California goes thusly: "By virtue of the authority vested in me, as a Deputy Commissioner of Marriages for the County of XXX, I now pronounce this couple united in marriage under the laws of the state of California."

Ms. Tyler and Ms. Olson became legal spouses early this evening. Congratulations.

Somewhere my friends Jean and Marilyn are very, very happy...

African Vampire

2008-06-16T11:19:00.010-04:00

Savannah, GA. We are not going to give up our country for a mere 'X' on a ballot. How can a ball point pen fight with a gun? With those words, President-apparently-for-life Robert Mugabe today officially shut the door on any pretense of representative democracy in Zimbabwe. The Jesuit-trained racist homophobe has not finished his murderous blood meal of fellow countrymen, especially the Ndebele. Clearly, there are more opposition members to be shot, more printing presses to bomb, more journalists to be tortured.

The West (when not actively pouring accolades on his shoulders--this means you Edinburgh University, University of Massachusetts, Michigan State University--and all during the time when people were being raped, beaten, 'disappeared,' publicly executed, or burned alive in their huts.) will do its usual cluck and twitter, look askance, look away, and go back to worrying about $150 barrels of oil

Another Murderous African Clown

2008-06-11T12:41:00.008-04:00

Shortly after the Coup

Savannah, GA. Yahya Jammeh's brain is the size of a goober. So Is it surprising the chief export of his so-called Republic is peanuts? He is yet another extreme example of the nutbars that make up so many of the planet's religious extremists.

He goes by the official title "President Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh, Commander In Chief of The Armed Forces and the Chief Custodian of the Sacred Constitution of The Gambia." He also holds the title of "Secretary of State for Defense and holds responsibility over several Departments..." Departments such as the Cabinet, Legislature, Auditor General, Constitutional Matters--you get the idea. Dictatorship 101. He came power in a military putsch in 1994, returning Gambia to constitutional rule--his constitution--two years later and winning that presidential election. Surprise!

Unfortunately his Excellency's policies are anything but peanuts: When not "disappearing" members of the press or opposition, this dog of a man traipses about in white civilian drag, concocts personal herbal cures for HIV, and sidles up to the pig-trough for a tasty share of U.S. Foreign Aid ($100 million since the takeover alone.) Now this 21st Century despot has decided to go all religiously medieval on LGBT folks saying he will, "cut off the head" of any homosexual caught in his country. All homosexuals have been ordered to leave his plantation further stating that legislation "stricter than those in Iran" concerning homosexuality would be introduced soon. He should know; the Gambian Legislature is listed on his c.v.

"Excuse me" UPDATE

2008-06-05T10:35:00.008-04:00

http://view.break.com/513310 - Watch more free videos

Savannah, Ga. This didn't happen locally, but nevertheless could have taken place in just about any office setting, anywhere. The tinder: one too many assessments; one too many helpful suggestions; one too many forms to fill out; one too many papers to post; one too many deadlines placed on top of deadlines by managements more accustomed to delegating than doing. The precipitating event: an accidental knocking of a paper to the floor. T + PE = TNT.

No excuses here for this behavior; just observation... And the additional comment that when adults behave in this manner--in the office, on the road, even in their own homes, it shouldn't be called 'rage;' it should be called what it is: the temper-tantrum of a child. Monkey Madness.

UPDATE --"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." 43rd President of these United States.

Oops. Seems like this is a viral video stunt for an upcoming film... Clever dogs, they.

Real Change

2008-06-04T00:36:00.004-04:00

Savannah, GA. No, it wasn't sexism and misogyny that ended Senator Clinton's attempt at securing the Democratic Presidential nomination--she made choices establishing that on her own--but if people wish to be brutally honest about the discussion, then gender bias, chauvinism, and the hatred of women played a very, very, large role in her defeat. Racism remains America's open wound, but gender prejudice is the raging sepsis beneath our skin. As a society we are so quick to hold contemptuousness toward the feminine. One of the most damning accusations that can be made to a boy is to accuse him of being a girl. When some male sports coaches want to completely shame their teams, they denounce them as female. If they need fortitude on the field, they don't need 'guts' or a 'spine'--they need to 'grow a pair.' They must be men. (Homophobia is the ugly sibling to this execration and enmity.) When women do wrong or make mistakes they are witches, bitches, whores; skanks, twats, cunts, sluts. The comments sections of most political blogs are rife with such sneering descriptions of the junior Senator from N.Y.

I celebrate the fact that 43 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act we now have a national presidential candidate who is Black. I also celebrate the fact that 88 years after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution we came very close to having a Woman do the same.

Our Story Thus Far...

2008-01-27T19:29:00.000-05:00

Savannah, GA. Senator Obama has the support of this voter in the General - should he be the Dem's nominee. For someone who wrote in Mo Udall on my November '76 ballot, when everyone else was all moist, heated and crossing their legs over a peanut farmer from my newly adopted State, that is saying a lot. I have never viewed my vote as a bet on a horse race. My candidate on this visit of the Circus will soon be bowing out - the one candidate who really strikes fear in the hearts of GOP planners when they close the door at night and tuck their pointed heads into bed: John Edwards. His blue-collar, populist roots are genuine; his rise to wealthy trial attorney built on the strength of courtroom skills which struck deimos and phobos into the heart of every prosecuting attorney who ever faced him. These are the strengths we need after the Ragnarok of W and the decadal dominance of the repugs in the national legislature. We're still dealing with excrement Unca Ronnie set up and left for us all; Bill Clinton only succeeded - despite the destructive nature of his personal angels - by emulating Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in terms of governance and approach. (Speaking of and to the Former President in this Presidential Primary Season: Mr. Clinton - the time has come for you to respectfully shut the fuck up.) For all of you good people tired of the partisan battles of D.C., wishing for hope to replace cynicism - I say 'saddle up;' the ride is just beginning. H.L. Mencken said it best: "Cynicism is merely an ugly way of telling the truth." In 2008, the Dem's need a Spartan warrior, not an Athenian philosopher. This Republic needs an active colonic, not the soaring rhetoric of a black Adlai Stevenson. (A favorite quote - after a rousing speech in '52 a supporter called out, "Governor Stevenson, all thinking people are for you!" Stevenson replied, "That's not enough; I need a majority.")

In my fifties, I'm very pleased and proud we've matured as Americans to point where we're seriously considering a Senator Who Happens to be a White Woman, and a Senator Who Happens to be a Black Man as Chief Executive material. So I'm not surprised the good Sen. from Illinois won the S. Carolina Primary. Over 50% of registered Dem voters are Black. Neither am I surprised that most Southern White males couldn't stomach a vote for the good carpetbagging Sen. from New York. If McCain - gods help us - is the GOP nominee, I'm afraid he'll blow Obama out of the water over security and military issues alone, if nothing else. Especially so if he really thinks about it and chooses for his running mate an evangelical female. The old fart is a cagey survivor, if nothing else. I also predict that the instant Obama gets the nomination, the press and pundits will turn on him. The same national media already hates Hillary; you can only accuse her of fucking and killing Vince Foster while rafting with lesbian friends down Whitewater thinking about socialized medicine a limited number of times before bloviator/pundit fatigue sets in... In a Clinton/McCain fight, I"m counting on a gender war.

Happy Anniversary, You Turkey

2007-12-02T13:53:00.000-05:00

Sapelo Island, GA - One of the many joys of relocating across the continent is the discovery of new places, new people, and new local lore. Sapelo Island, pronounced SAP-uh-low by the black descendants - still in residence - of Thomas (Father of Georgia's sugar industry) Spalding's slaves, is a beautiful Island 11 miles long by 2 to 3 miles wide, and reached only by a passenger ferry. A succession of White ownership after the great 'Late Unpleasantness' (my favorite local term for the "War of Attempted Secession") eventually lead to the island being sold in 1934 to tobacco magnate RJ Reynolds, Jr. Among the many tasks Mr. Reynolds undertook on Sapelo was to "consolidate" the existing Black communities of Hog Hammock, Raccoon Bluff and Shell Hammock into a single settlement at HH. But there was a whimsy to this chain-smoker. He added to the existing mansion and farm, but also built a movie theater on the second floor of the main dairy barn. (Forget about any smell of freshly-popped corn.) He hired Athos Menaboni to paint murals in his 'Circus Room' and pirate scenes in his basement. But it is a special commission for a special spouse that catches most visitor's eyes and fancies. By all accounts, there was precious little love lost between RJ Reynolds, Jr., and his third wife Muriel Marston Reynolds. RJ Jr., who died of emphysema in 1964 - he loved his Winstons, if not Muriel - presented his tertiary spouse one anniversary day with a specially designed commission by Fritz Zimmer: A Real Turkey of a Fountain. Little wonder then, that the divorce proceedings between the two were described as "bitter." When the divorce was finalized, Reynolds married a fourth wife, Annemarie Schmidt, and died before the end of the year. Muriel - that anniversary gift (and probably other insults) still in mind - continued to fight the divorce even with Jr's. remarriage and death. She lost, but the fountain - albeit dry - still stands today: a monument to traditional marriage and family values.

Go East, Young Man, Go East

2007-11-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

Put your money where your bubble-gum is, Mr. Johnson; enlist in our Armed Forces, enlist.

The brisk breeze of a National Draft would blow most of these young elitists into the arms of the antiwar activists they find so divisive. What this nation needs - now more than ever - is not a specific military draft, but a two-year National Service requirement. No deferments. No excuses. Rich and poor; Left and Right. Everyone out of high school contributes. You may join the Armed Services, or rehabilitate our National Parks, or prepare and deliver hot meals to the elderly - but you will serve our Nation.

Silly Savannah Sunday

2007-11-04T11:23:00.000-05:00

In honor of Steve Ditko's 80th! Birthday

Find your inner super hero!

(I was a card-carrying member of the M.M.M.S. - if you have to ask, you're too young...)

Your results:

You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man		90%
Green Lantern		70%
Iron Man		70%
Superman		55%
Batman		55%
Hulk		55%
Catwoman		50%
Supergirl		40%
Robin		40%
The Flash		40%
Wonder Woman		30%

You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

The Bible Tells Me So

2007-07-18T14:00:00.000-04:00

Former Senator John Edwards has said his Southern Baptist background influences his stance on gay marriage: The Presidential candidate is opposed. For others, the Constitution also influences their stance on the same issue.

As a new arrival to the South - Savannah - I am pleased to see sensible, rational, compassionate thought flourishing still in North Carolina - namely within the heart and mind of the good Rev. Reggie Longcrier, pastor of Exodus Missionary Outreach Church in Hickory.

This Holy Man nails it.

Are you listening, Senator? America?

Monsters from the Deep

2007-06-23T20:17:00.001-04:00

Some diseases are caused by bacterial monsters, and now we learn some of these creatures may have come to us from miles beneath the ocean's surface.

Recent Japanese oceanographic research at hydrothermal vents in the Pacific has revealed a striking genetic similarity between bacteria engaged in chemosynthesis at deep-sea vents and mammalian bacterial pathogens. This points to a direct evolutionary link between the bugs that make us sick and the bugs on the bottom of the sea.

Satoshi Nakagawa of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology said his team has revealed that vent bacteria in the pitch-black, superheated, methane and sulphide infused environment have developed the ability to be rather facile, free and loose with genes - dropping some, gaining others, mutating quickly to adapt to the extreme conditions at these volcanic hot-spots - exactly the traits a pathogenic invader would need to survive the ravages of a host's immune response. According to the evidence in the genome, some of these bacteria may have left life at the hydrothermal vents for a new one as a pathogen on the planet's surface.

And in our bodies.

How Lucky Do You Feel?

2007-06-23T19:47:00.000-04:00

One from 'Column A', please.

A succinct, concise, lecture on the ramifications of our global discussion and actions regarding global warming. What this video lacks in snazzy graphics and eye-candied-mind-numbing editing is a terrifying glimpse at our future beyond current truths, however inconvenient.

Our Ally in Weight Loss

2007-06-17T14:46:00.000-04:00

Never fear; Alli's here.

An OTC version of the prescription drug, Xenical, brought to us by the good folks at GlaxoSmithKline, is flying off the shelves at drugstores everywhere. FDA approved, this diet drug packs a punch for the women to whom it is clearly marketed, along with some nasty possible side affects - or "treatment effects" as the drug's website explains in understated detail. The chemical works by blocking the absorption of about a quarter of any fat consumed. This may lead to "bowel changes" described on the company's website as diarrhea, uncontrollable bowel movements and oily flatulence.

The excess fat that passes out of your body is not harmful. In fact, you may recognize it as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza. (emphasis mine.)

Ok.

Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.

Terrific.

Remember: these comments are from their commercial website - presumably putting the brightest gloss on a fabulous product, and all in the name of easy weight loss for the great American Herd.

Olestra, anyone?

Cognitive Illusions

2007-04-06T22:53:00.000-04:00

Believe none that you hear and only half what you see - a phrase often preached throughout my childhood by my parents, yet seldom practiced. The underlying lesson nonetheless: beware gossip; your eyes can deceive you. Avoiding mouthy busybodies was the easy part; the concept of an elasticity to reality - in any present moment - was unsettling.

Your eyes can deceive you. Optical Illusions. Visually perceived images which are deceptive and misleading. Mirages. Phantasms misguiding the mind, often leading to a cognitive illusion.

In his book, Inevitable Illusions : How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini writes:

In the world of perception an [optical] illusion is to reality what a fallacy is to reasoning: an argument that is not true but has the appearance of being so. There is always some truth in any illusion; there is always some persuasion in a fallacy. Our business is to distinguish between angels and devils.

Wow. Ariel or Caliban, indeed. This Principal Research Associate for the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT is suddenly sounding like a teacher of acting. The statement referencing some 'truth in any illusion' is a koan for every actor. As artists in the theatre, one of our primary tasks is nothing less than verisimilitude - making out of a fallacy, some reason. A tricky business. It's easy to get in the way of this process, to block the path. In rehearsals we have to be keenly aware of our own perceptions, our own given circumstances, assumptions, intuitions, 'gut-feelings'. By clocking all of that maybe then we can better focus on the character's perception, reality.

Piattelli-Palmarini also writes:

It seems that all of us employ, and pursue to their end, some genuine and easy (as well as fallacious) shortcuts in our minds. Finding a shortcut is usually a good thing, but in these cases the shortcuts serve to render our thinking accessible to correction; they lead us to quite different destinations from that at which we intended to arrive.

If you think you're free of cognitive illusions, answer these questions:

1) Reno is east or west of Los Angeles? (West)

2) Rome is north or south of New York? (North)

3) When you fly south from Detroit, what is the first country you encounter? (Canada)

4) The arch in St. Louis is higher than taller or taller than higher or equal? (Equal)

Finally, this quote from Piattelli-Palmarini:

This study, as well as others, shows that the discrepancy between correctness of response and overconfidence increases as the respondent is more knowledgeable. Those who know less have a reduced level of overconfidence. On the other hand, when the answer is more elaborate, requires considerable reasoning, and is based on specialized knowledge, the level of accuracy increases, yes, but the level of overconfidence increases to a far greater degree.

To amuse and demonstrate the power of optical or cognitive illusions, watch this:

Love of Our Money

2007-03-26T13:24:00.000-04:00

Christ and the Rich Young Ruler by Heinrich Hofmann (1824-1912)

My, oh my, to be the Giberts.

Ben and Chariesse Gibert, to be exact, pastor and co-pastor of the 4,000 member Detroit World Outreach Church in the township of Redford, MI. The elders of this "church" - apostles of 'health and wealth' theology - have seen fit to purchase a 11,000 square foot, $3.65 million mansion, complete with 12 acres overlooking Maybury State Park, for the sermonizers. Removing the humble abode from the assessment rolls will cost the Township $40,000 annually in taxes. This in addition to the Gibert's $50,000 Cadillac Escalade, purchased earlier for the couple and their four little Giberts. So much for rendering unto Caesar...

Elder Marvin Wilder, a lawyer and general counsel for the church says,

In this country we value rock stars, movie stars and athletes. They can have a lavish lifestyle, and a pastor who restores lives that were broken shouldn’t? When our value system elevates a man who can put a ball in a hole and not a man who does God’s work, something is wrong.

What's wrong is that rock stars, movie stars, athletes, and people like you and me all pay taxes. Unlike this cult.

A suggestion for next Sunday's sermon: 1 Timothy 6:3-10.

Katie Couric: Bottom Feeder

2007-03-26T02:28:00.000-04:00

Using the time-honored ploy of desperate journalists, Katie Couric CBS anchor and 60 Minutes reporter interviewed herself in a grilling of the Edwards' decision to stay in the 2008 Presidential sweepstakes despite the recent return of Elizabeth Edwards cancer. Throwing editorial comments willy-nilly, like a poor-man's radio shock jock, she peppered her comments with the tell-tale catch-all, "Some people..." Listen for yourself. Only 19 more months of this to go.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Flyover Animation

2007-03-26T00:09:00.000-04:00

High-resolution images from NASA's MRO have been combined to provide this animated hypothetical flyover of Victoria Crater in Mars' Meridiani Planum region where the Mars Rover Opportunity has been exploring since September 2006. Opportunity has been examining the crater rim in a clockwise direction.

Victoria is about 800 meters (one-half mile) in diameter. This flyover approaches from the south, moving counterclockwise around part of the rim. Look for an enhanced glimpse of Opportunity where the rover was seen by the HRISE camera orbiting overhead.

Child Abuse: When adults do bad things to good children

2007-03-25T16:49:00.000-04:00

Deuteronomy 5:8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Somehow bible-thumpers find the most convoluted ways to ignore the most basic admonitions in their sacred text.

In a scene out of today's North Korea, or the Stalinist years, or '38 Munich - gaze upon and gasp at Jesus Camp:

Leave Well Enough Alone

2007-03-08T00:17:00.000-05:00

I've wanted George W. Bush impeached by the House and convicted by trial in the Senate since shortly after 9/11, and especially since our invasion of Iraq. But now in our seventh year of George The Lesser, I've changed my mind. The time for such an undertaking has past us by. After the mid-term elections, the dirty snow left on the Nation's shoulders from the Bush blizzard is rapidly melting away, and those craven democrats who sniveled their opposition to and enabled Gulf War II need to resist now the partisan urge to poke a stick into the wasp's nest of impeachment.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, (R. Neb.) in the current issue of Esquire:

The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore, he's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes.

Surprising words from a Reagan Republican in a safe seat. So why is impeachment a bad strategy? Again, Sen. Hagel:

[Unlike Vietnam] You don't have the draft, so you don't have that many people touched. This is a more sophisticated political divisiveness. It divides people from their government....You can't do anything about the president. He's gone. But you can do something about your congressman. That's why all these Republicans are so nervous.

Exactly. Impeaching this Chief Executive - let alone enduring the Senate trial to convict him - would be folly. It will hand the GOP exactly the ammunition they need to reload the Rovian Spin Cycle and shore up their coming vulnerability at the polls in 2008. Flushing away this excrement will be difficult enough if the democrats nominate Sen. Clinton as their standard bearer next year.

Leave well enough alone.

Welcome to the National ID Card

2007-03-05T11:46:00.000-05:00

Ronald Reagan famously campaigned with the joke about the "10 most frightening words in the English language: I'm from the federal government and I'm here to help." Conservatives demonized the Federal Government for decades as inefficient, incompetent, even evil - but once in power and controlling both the executive and legislative branches of the same, they've given us the REAL ID Act of 2005. Homeland Security is attempting to pre-empt state-issued driver's licenses (and non-driver's identification cards) with a new, national standard. Like Russia under the Czar, we're about to create our own version of the internal passport. As a citizen of the United States of America (or as a non-citizen working here) you'll soon need a federally approved ID to board an aircraft, open a bank account, collect S.S. payments, access or use most government services. These electronically readable ID cards will be issued through our state motor vehicle agencies and most likely replace our driver's licenses. In addition to our new national ID number, Homeland Security is permitted to add additional identification and security requirements, such as a fingerprint or retinal scan. This is not sitting well in many corners. Check out the clip above for a protest in the Granite State, to prevent New Hampshire from participating in the plot. The new ID's are scheduled to be required by May 2008.

Conservative Hootenanny

2007-03-05T01:14:00.000-05:00

Observe closely as The Nation's Max Blumenthal ("a goodlookin' fella") takes us on a trip through the Looking Glass with a tour of the Conservative Political Action Conference. Featuring Michelle Malkin, Grover Norquist, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, Ann Coulter, and many more. Watch and listen to the corrosive remnants of the Conservative movement.

Alien World; So Familiar

2007-03-03T11:45:00.000-05:00

Upstaged by this week's beauty shots of its parent, Saturn, the largest moon of the same, Titan, continues to reveal wonders truly all its own.

Larger than our own Moon, larger than the first planet, Mercury, this moon of Saturn with its dense atmosphere of Nitrogen - so thick that if you could stand on Titan's surface it would feel like standing on the bottom of a swimming pool - has the only open bodies of liquid, besides Earth, yet discovered. Lakes and lakes of methane. Which means that Titan is also far, far colder than Antarctica. The island in the radar image above is roughly the size of the Big Island of Hawaii. These are some very large bodies of liquid methane.

Drainage streams, valleys, mile-high mountains, volcanoes - cryo-volcanoes, spewing ices - rocks made not of silicates, like here at home, but of water ice, and dunes, dunes, dunes, for thousands of miles.

What a world.

Cronos, Father of Zeus

2007-03-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

After more than a year of study, the Cassini spacecraft has been climbing higher and higher (not to mention lower and lower) in its orbital plane with respect to the glorious sixth planet. With each orbit of Saturn, Cassini speeds past the ring plane and the cameras are able to look down (and up) providing images and perspectives high above - about 40 degrees - and below the same.

“Finally, here are the views that we've waited years for,” said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. “Sailing high above Saturn and seeing the rings spread out beneath us like a giant, copper medallion is like exploring an alien world we've never seen before. It just doesn't look like the same place. It's so utterly breath-taking, it almost gives you vertigo.”

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO.

George Washington

2007-02-20T09:40:00.000-05:00

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

--- George Washington, (signed by John Adams in 1796) Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11, 1797

It is worth noting the "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, Barbary" when sent to the Senate for ratification, passed unanimously. Only the third such unanimous vote in the young Senate's history. The vote was unanimous without debate or dissent. Imagine the hew and cry by the present crop of American Puritans if such a vote, containing such language, were held today.

As we celebrate the birthday of our first President, at a time when wearing one's religion on one's sleeve is all the rage - NeoPuritans and Politicians alike - observe the death of the Father of our Country:

It is interesting to note that the Father of our Country spoke no words of a religious nature on his deathbed, although fully aware that he was dying, and did not ask for a man of God to be present; his last act was to take his own pulse, the consummate gesture of a creature of the age of scientific rationalism.
-- Brooke Allen, The Nation

If only we had leaders of such private and sterner stuff today. Happy birthday, Mr. President.

My Afternoon with a Poet Laureate

2007-02-19T09:12:00.001-05:00

Mother of Georgia

I’ll always be grateful I had wine with lunch that day. Just enough wine, in fact, to loosen and relax my inhibitions sufficient unto gregariousness. Otherwise I’d never have walked up and simply presented myself to the poet laureate of the USSR. Let alone wind up spending the afternoon with him.

It’s early April 1990, Tbilisi, Georgia. Back when Georgia was still a Republic in a Soviet Socialist Union of the same. As my companion and I return from our repast to the InTourist (don’t ask) Hotel, I suddenly recognize the lanky figure unfolding himself from the cramped confines of the car stopped in front of us. “Oh my God,” I thought to myself, “that is the first poet to criticize Stalin, the artist who demanded literature should be judged by aesthetic, not political standards. The author of Babi Yar, the poem which inspired Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony!” Well - maybe if I’d been sober I’d have thought all of that. What really came into my mind and right out of my mouth was, “It’s him!” I dashed over to the thin, quiet man at the curb side, “Mr. Yevtushenko, I just want to shake your hand!” I exclaimed, extending my arm.

Looking up into those kind eyes, I remember thinking to myself how elfish he looked for a man so tall. He focused his attention on me for a second a two, broke into a smile, and in perfect English replied, “An American, how delightful; whatever brings you to Tbilisi?” And he shook my hand. I stammered something about being an actor in town shooting a children’s film in conjunction with Kartuli Telefilmi, with a cast of Georgians and Americans. Another, broader, smile, “These are remarkable times,” he said, “if you’ve finished filming for the day, why don’t you join me in my room for a glass of splendid Georgian wine?”

And I did. We scrupulously avoided any talk of politics – being an approved hotel for non-Soviets, the rooms were most likely bugged – this was confirmed as we entered the suite and he silently pointed to the ceiling, placing an index finger to his lips. Georgian independence was thick in the air all around Tbilisi during my time there, and I followed Yevtushenko’s lead. We spent the better part of an hour sipping a delightful vintage and discussing art, poetry and the indigenous people of Siberia (he was especially intrigued by my Yupik heritage.)

It was a meeting and an afternoon I shall never forget.

Public Profession; Private Man

2007-02-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

We confuse celebrity with talent and artistry with commodity. This is somewhat understandable in the world of cinema where actors and performers are literally larger than life; arguably so in the weird, cool, bluish light of television; flat-assed wrong for people working on the stage.

In a universe where bottom-feeders like Perez Hilton [sic] shriek, "Why did you become an actor, then?!" - where preadolescent girls are answering career queries with the response, "I want to be a celebrity." - Where older, injury-challenged professional sports players muse into microphones, "I guess I'll become an actor." - it's time to draw a line in the sand.

As a successful stage actor, I live out in the Kuiper Belt of somebody-ness, yet even here in the cold, dark region of attention-getting the feature writers and publicity managers of our newspapers and theaters want to know more. About. Me.

That makes it considerably harder to do my job. My job is to sublimate myself and allow the character to step forward. I become a vessel - hopefully - where the ghosts of these varied creatures I portray may inhabit, allowing us to become a spokesman for the creator - the playwright. The less known about me, the better to suspend your disbelief and convince you I'm the character you're listening to and watching. I want your attentions to center on the ideas of the play, not on my comments to a journalist. It isn't about me.

And, yes, I am aware that blogging is a profoundly public and revealing act; but I'm in control here and this is as far down the beach as you may go...

On Climbing In Trees

2007-02-18T03:11:00.000-05:00

1

And when you rise from water in the evening
(For you must all be naked, with soft skin)
Climb up your big trees while a very gentle
Wind blows; and the sky should be quite pale.
Seek out the bigger trees with tops that rock
Slowly and blackly in the evening air.
And in their foliage await the nightfall
With wraith and bat hovering about your brows.

2

The little leaves of the undergrowth are brittle.
They’ll cut and scratch your backs which you must heave
Up through the branches; thus it is you clamber
Not without groaning, higher up the tree.
To rock oneself on the tree is quite delightful.
But do not flex your knees to do this! No,
Let the tree be to you what it is to the treetop:
Each evening, for centuries, it has rocked it.

-- Bertolt Brecht

Critics and Theatre

2007-02-18T02:27:00.000-05:00

Critics and artists are binary star systems, circling in tight orbit, one the other. In some creative fields a gravitational symmetry is struck, but it is in the theatre where the greatest unbalance and distance between the circling partners occurs. Reviewers are White Dwarfs using their exigence to diminish the Gas Giants of theatre people, seeking to occasionally shine more brightly than the artists they're covering. American Theatre does not suffer a lack of gifted artists or a lessened level of thoughtfulness or proceed with immature silliness. The Theatre is haunted by illiterate, apathetic, and unsupported criticism. To quote Robert Brustein,

I am not talking about boosterism or cheerleading; I am speaking of the kind of intelligent support that F. R. Leavis once gave to D. H. Lawrence, Edmund Wilson gave to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and George Jean Nathan gave to Eugene O’Neill, the intelligent mentoring that helped these writers to learn and to grow. What we have instead today is something I have come to call Himalaya criticism, after Danny Kaye’s famous rejoinder, when he was asked how he liked the Himalayas: "Loved him, hated her." In other words, thumbs up, thumbs down. Judgments based on ignorance, arrogance, and relentless opinionating.

We return then to the Colosseum where the Emperor’s mood, whim, or agenda on any given time and day determines worth. The focus is no longer on the performer, but rather on the celebrity nastiness, ego and attentional needs of the destroying angel – the White Dwarf – of the Reviewer. It becomes all about them and not about the art.

Friends and Relationships

2007-02-04T01:06:00.000-05:00

Trust is not commanded, it is an act of creation. It is earned. Just as the accretion of trust over time is a gradual affair, like some stalactite growing in a cavern chamber deep within, its abrupt loss can be seismic; great chunks of inner strata suddenly fracture, smash to the floor and the very bedrock of one’s soul may shift and realign. Old bridges collapse; new cracks and faultlines appear.

It can break your heart.