Items to Make You Queen of the Watercooler Next Week

Tags

brain, dinosaurs, education, evolution, GOP, humans, life, meaning, philosophers, physics, quantum mechanics, teabaggers, War, what you should read, words

See that’s me. I mean, imagine a woman instead of a man, and that’s me. I’m spend hours reading just so that you don’t have to. I mean you can if you want to of course. God forbid that fine education goes to waste, but I have burned up the Intertubes in an effort to find all the news that you missed.

And I read it all. And some of it was crap upon further inspection, and so I ditched it. And the rest, well you gotta know this stuff. Especially if you want all your friends and aunt Tilde to think you are just a real smart ass. (meant in the kindest way of course)

So, let’s get to it, in no particular order.

Paul Krugman has a fine op-ed in the NYTimes detailing the crazy party, AKA, the GOP. What he says is very true. The GOP argument for deliberately toying with the very health of our economy goes something like this: I have put a gun to your head and demanded your money or your life. If you refuse to give me your money, it’s your fault that you’re dead. I gave you the option to live after all!

On the other hand, this may all go to prove that one can actually get admitted to Harvard and get through it with flying colors and still be utterly and profoundly stupid. Ted Cruz may be set to be one of the most spectacular blazing super nova that sputtered out in record time in the history of horses asses, err, super novae.

¶

If it is true that humans have an individualized predisposition to violence, is it equally true that humans in community have a predisposition to violence in the form of war? It seems many assume this to be true. But evolutionary biologist, David P. Barash argues that this may in fact not be true. The latter may be only a capacity rather than an adaptation. Want to learn more? If you don’t think it matters, think again. We base our defense systems on assumptions of what other groups are likely to do. If we assume all people are driven to war to achieve ends, we build a different defense system than if we do not. And we’ve sure got the tax bills to reflect that.

¶

I know that most of you are just thrilled every time you get a chance to read about quantum mechanics, I mean what self-respecting grease monkey or grocery check out lady  isn’t obsessed with the working of the universe at the extra-tiny scale? Ever heard of an aplituhedron? I bet not. It all means that all the complicated mathematical twists and turns are eliminated as well as the super computer to do the computations. Now little Bobby can explain the most complicated sub-particle interaction with nothing more than a pencil and paper again!

If you are going, uhh, okay so what? Well, you all know that physicists have been since the beginning of time, trying to join the big universe with the small universe (macro and micro forces?) and it has just never fit well, and well, the don’t call it the elegant universe for nothing. Everybody who knows this stuff figured the answer would eventually be simple. This might be it. I’m not a physicist as you might have guessed by now.

I mean this is simply delicious early fall reading. Get to it.  🙂

¶

Now I know you will love this one. There is a new book out there that you probably will want to get. I can imagine about half a dozen of you will be on Amazon in moments. It’s called Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing, by Melissa Mohr. Colin Burrows review of the book is worth the reading. Now read it your grouthead gnat snapper!

Steven Pinker from Harvard has written a book that details how we are becoming less violent as societies over time. He also argues that the world would be better led by science than by the humanities. Some beg to differ. A great essay from The Berlin Review of Books, and Gloria Origgi, A Reply to Steven Picker’s Scientific Manifesto.

¶

Love words? Lots of words? Okay.

The American Scholar has a fun essay called Is There a Word for That? Words are being made up all the time, but you knew that. Want to know who created some words we now take for granted? Who is responsible for katydid? Or neologize ? Or Anglophobia? Blurb? Gerrymander? Bromide? Oh I bet I got your attention now.

Similarly, if you have ever remembered the quote but not the quoter, and the more you looked the harder it got? Who Really Sad That? You would be surprised at how often we get the attribution wrong. Amaze your friends by correcting their quotes!

“Whoever is not a socialist when he is 20 has no heart; whoever is not a conservative when he is 30 has no brain.” Usually attributed to Churchill. Actually? Nobody knows.

Enter the fine world of WAS–Wrongly Attributed Statements.

¶

I betcha thought that the human mind created the gear, that round thingie that has “teeth” and meshes with other objects similarly constructed? That together makes things turn and other things go up and down and maybe side to side? You would be wrong. Scientists have found a gear in nature for the very first time. And YOU are some of the first non-specialists to know that, so don’t you feel so very proud?

A cute little guy called a planthopper (he has a very important scientific name you need not memorize) has a couple of gears in his back legs that mesh together and then when he calls on them to, spin backward sending him off on a leap across the earth that looks pretty fun. I’m sure it made sense to him too in terms of escaping predators or getting up as high as he wanted to feed. It’s called evolution folks. There is a little embedded video so you can watch him go!

¶

Must a life be meaningful in order to be happy? Do we prefer meaningfulness over happiness if we can’t have both? They are not the same by the way. Happiness in part is getting what you want or need in life. Meaningfulness can have zero to do with this. Similarly happy people report that health is essential, yet health has nothing to do with meaningful lives. Happiness is apparent in the now, while meaningfulness tends to be a future assessment. This is a long article but one that raises lots of questions to think about. Well worth your time.

¶

Nautilus brings us the ever-beloved essay on dinosaurs. The discovery and explanation of our bird predecessors have had a varied history as scientists working from small numbers of bones, continually revised their thinking of these creatures over time. As is usual, it is the unsung tiny dinosaurs that have done the most to correct our understanding over time of what these cuties looked like and how they lived. For the kid in all of us, this article will satisfy. I still wish there had been Brontosaurus, they were so neat!

¶

With the advent of all the cute devices we have now from phones to tablets to readers to computers, all with calendars and reminders of one sort or another, there is less and less reason to have to memorize things. Nobody has to write down a phone number or address. The call is registered, switch it to contacts and it’s saved forever. Enter an address in your Google maps app, and you don’t need to record that address again. And maybe, just maybe that’s a good thing. Memorization may be a much over-rated thing. Curious? Read on.

¶

How many late night gab fests have lingered long into the night over the ever-present question– Why was Spinoza excommunicated anyway? I mean this guy was ostracized with a big O, like in members of the congregation being order to be no closer that four cubits to the man. That’s some serious excommunication! Worse, payment of a fine served to dissolve most bans. Spinoza’s was life long. Spinoza himself never spoke of the harem, most of his works and fame came long after it. What is as interesting as why is by whom: Jews who had escaped forced Catholicism in Spain and Portugal and once free in Amsterdam, practiced a form of Judaism that was anything but normative. All in all, quite fascinating.

Happy reading everyone, and to all a good day!

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I’m Arabically Dsylexic He Cried

Tags

GOP, Jim DeMint, Mitch McConnell, science, stupid people, unions, What's up? time

We start with the faux reality that time is and ever was and not a function of space. After all, it is called the SPACE-TIME continuum is it not? This is the reality that the Contrarian lives within, where time has always existed. This somehow makes him comfortable rather than the TRUTH which is that time has no meaning unless it has something to relate to like MATTER and SPACE!

Okay, calm yourself. That is hardly the story here.

You see, it is the Contrarian’s JOB to get up in the morning, turn on my coffee and wake me gently at 5:45 a.m. so that I can have a few sips of coffee with Morning Joe before I am hauled into the desert for romping with Diego. Simple enough, right?

So, this morning, I turn over in my usual, half-dream state and just start to settle into my favorite left-leg over right leg and head snuggled into the pillow supported by my right arm which is at a 85° angle to my shoulder. Too much information? Oh, well okay.

So, just as I am settling, as I said, I hear, “babe, it’s 5:45!”

After cursing my birth, the universe, and time itself I start to roll to a sitting position, whereupon I am assaulted with the slobbery kisses of aforementioned dog, who whines quite clearly, “let’s not be late, I have bushes to pee on!”

I thereafter engage in all the processes of which you are no doubt not interested, until I have reached the point of making the bed, whereupon said Contrarian shuffles into the bedroom and whispers, “I was a little off,  about an hour,” and scurries away ducking and dodging to avoid being hit in the head with whatever might be at hand.

I curse. I fume. I cry.

I look at the clock for the first time, having until now been confident that a 62-year-old-man can be entrusted to so simple a task. Yes, it is now, 4:50 a.m.

So I endured an hour of the dog, “is it time yet?”

I got more than a few sips of coffee.

I got to see more of Morning Joe than I’ve seen in months.

As I prepared to take the walk, I wandered into his office.

“You owe me big time you know,” I assured him.

“But it’s not my fault. I’m Arabically dyslexic! I had all the numbers right, just in the wrong order.”

“The numbers are 5:45, and you woke me at 4:40 to be exact, how is that the same numbers?” I queried.

“Well, dyslexia is like that you know, it’s a most mysterious syndrome. I can’t be held responsible for such a troublesome malady.” He actually smiled at this, figuring that once again, he’d managed to come up with an air-tight excuse for his mistake.

“Find me flash cards online! I’m starting Diego’s number recognition training as soon as possible,” I sighed.

The halo GOD, if you please!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.

Or, at least meanwhile.

Las Cruces, while incredibly sane and rational as cities go, has its supply of idiots, managing to exist within its environs. Take this little ditty from the local Sun-News. A man called police to report a crime. The crime? The prostitute he had hired stiffed (oh please) him out of ten minutes. Police calmly sympathized and got his location. They sent a car. Imagine his surprise when the cuffs went on him.

Meanwhile, government forces sprayed the crowd that had accumulated at the capital. Cairo? Damascus? Um, no. Try Lansing, Michigan.

It seems the GOP, unable as usual to read the tea leaves, handwriting on the wall, or any other metaphor for JUST PLAIN FRACKING STUPID, are trying to pass right to work legislation in a state that is pretty much noted for its unions. So when people came out to protest this action, the Governor ordered, first the capital closed, and then when that didn’t disperse the crowds of protestors, he had them sprayed. Yeah, the GOP has nothing left in the tank but stupid.

Meanwhile, somebody did a study and decided where the best place to be born is. Hint: it ain’t the US of A. In fact, the US is not even in the top 10. It used to be. But no more. I’m sure the far-right will blame that on the black guy in the White House. But of course we know better.

By the by, if you think all search engines are the same? No they are not. I did a search on the above story because I heard it on the news. Ask.com provided me with NO good links. Google gave me three immediately. I have no clue about Bing? Do you have a favorite search engine? Why? Grades will be given so show your work.

If you ask me, the best place to be born right this minute is Washington state. The legalization of pot went into effect at midnight or something, and well, the whole state looked pretty darn happy to me. Just sayin’.

See, I’m a big mouth. I gotta waste your time with my chatter. I think you NEED my opinion. Squatlo Rant just gives you the cartoons and lets your think for yourself. Go and enjoy yourself. I’ll stay here and keep talking.

Jim DeMint is leaving the Senate. Hurrah, Goodbye, Don’t let the door hit you in the rear. Another Tea NUT gone. Slight uptick in the IQ of the Senate. I didn’t know it was possible for the Heritage Foundation to sink to a lower low, but it has.

Speaking of people who can’t count–Mitch “The Turtle” McConnell pops to the fore. Seems the dope called for an up or down vote on the president having the authority to raise the debt ceiling on his own. Except that when he finished counting, he didn’t have the votes to win. So when Harry Reid called for the vote, Mitchy Mucho Muttonhead filibustered his own motion. And they say animals are stupid. I bet a few species could give old Mitch a run for his money.

Okay, I’ll shut up.

Until tomorrow.

When my mouth runneth over once more.

Related articles

• DeMint tells Rush how to fix GOP (politico.com)
• DeMint to Leave U.S. Senate to Head Heritage Foundation (bloomberg.com)
• The Paradox of Infinite Time (blogtruth.wordpress.com)

What Time is It?

Tags

Congress, convention, cosmology, Election 2012, GOP, Mitt Romney, science, Texas insanity, time

 

 

If you want to start a fight in my house, just mention TIME. Yes, you heard me, I said time.

While neither the Contrarian nor myself have a degree in astrophysics or quantum physics or even the Dummies Diploma of Basic Astronomy, just mention the issue of whether time is real or not, and the feathers start to fly. (or fur)

Now Einstein said time was relative–it moved faster or slower depending on how close one approached the speed of light. And time slows down at the event horizon of a black hole. Every knows that. Steven Hawking wrote a book called the History of Time, though I’m not sure which side of the fence he sits on regarding the reality of the concept.

I would suggest that the Contrarian lacks the imagination to see the possibility that time is a human construct. It is a way of measuring change and movement in sequential bits. Before the Big Bang, (if you posit the non-existence of parallel or multiple universes), there was NOTHING, so no way to measure it.

Think of it this way: You die. In ten years you are dead. In three million years you are dead. To you, it is irrelevant. You are just as dead.

So to me, it seems realistic to imagine a “time” of no time, and a future of “no time” when our universe ceases to exist. I don’t have any problem with it.

The Contrarian, on the contrary, (*snicker*) sees time as independent of anything, and that it goes blithely on regardless of whether there is anyone there to notice.

Now scientists of the physicist persuasion, differ on this issue themselves. Some see an infinite growth of universes, such that time is eternal. Others see it the right way, as I do. No judgment of course.

So anyways that is my take on the issue. I want to be sure that my opinion is noted for the future when all this is sorted out. I’m sure that it will matter which side you are on.

∩

It appears that when you take the stupidity of your constituents for granted, that well, you might as well go all the way.

If you recall, the Willard and his merry men of mincemeat, decided to take a Obama remark completely out of context a few weeks ago. “You didn’t build this” was said in the context of reminding us all, that the infrastructure that supports us all in our daily lives from roads and bridges to sewers, water pipes and so forth were things that helped business owners in their growth and prosperity. Most businesses could not in fact have built their businesses if they had to pay for roads to carry their goods, and sewer systems and so forth.

Willard, dependent as he is on lies, distorted that and claims that Obama actually said, that people didn’t in fact build their own businesses, but others built it for them. Of course that’s not true, and would be a ludicrous thing to claim. But no matter.

The GOP has decided to use “We Built This” as their theme. Of course the stadium they are going to do this in, was . . . wait for it. . .built by government funds.

Dontcha just love the irony?

∩

It pretty much defies explanation. Why in all the world would sensible people want to hand the reins of governing over to a group of people who deliberately and with malice aforethought, set out to destroy a presidency before it even was sworn in?

“. . . secret meetings led by House GOPWhip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) where they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular president-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”

And we elect these people for what reason?

∩

Gosh, I almost forgot the other wingnut of the day. This one from Texas, big surprise. You see, if you take a map of the US and you circle it on itself to create a funnel, well, as it is well known that stupid is heavier than intelligence, stupid slides southward into you know where–TEXAS. This is all a pain in the keister to regular Texans who find their state infested with vermin who should all be shipped to Alaska, where there is more room for idiots, and frankly, idiots seem more or less welcome there anyway.

So, where was I?

Yes. Texas. Lubbock County Judge, Tom Head (the surname is an old English one denoting lack of brains–play on words ya see), he figures that if President Obama is re-elected, good folks like himself cannot sit still.

He would like the good people (there must be some) of Lubbock to drop some money in the county coffers to beef up law enforcement.

Why you ask? To combat lawless protestors?

No, no. This is Texas remember, where Longhorns are more plentiful than IQ points.

Good ole Judge Tom says that beefin’ up is necessary, because he’s quite sure that civil war will ensue–Lexington and Concord kinda violence to “take this guy out”, and he is also quite sure that the President will hand over sovereignty to the UN. When the peacekeeping forces are sent in, Judge Tom swears he will be on the front lines to oppose them, musket in hand.

After receiving assurances by the PO-lice chief that he would “back him” Judge Tom advised that he wanted some “seasoned veterans” who were well armed, hence the need for a new property tax.

Yes, and you thought that fairy tales were only for children. Welcome to America–Land of the seriously stupid.

∩

Now go out there and do something good for your fellow sane person.

Related articles

• Lubbock County Judge Predicts Civil War if Obama is Re-elected, Proposes Tax Hike (blogs.dallasobserver.com)
• Lubbock County Texas Judge Tom Head: “Obama reelection means civil war” (amarillo.com)
• Texas judge thwarted in civil war preparations (salon.com)
• Dumbshit GOP Judge in Texas asks for tax increase to ‘fight back’ against Obama’s ‘U.N. army’! (dangerousminds.net)
• The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama (swampland.time.com)
• George Voinovich on Grover Norquist, Citizens United, and the American Dream (communities.washingtontimes.com)
• Obama Tax Cuts Fail To Get Senate Vote After Republicans Balk (huffingtonpost.com)

 

Existential Mindtwisting

Tags

AHCA, astronomy, Health care, Johnny Depp, Mitt Romney, physics, Reince Priebus, Rick Perry, RNC, tea party, Women's issues

You can drive yourself quite silly if you spend much time wondering how something came from nothing, and what came before the “big bang” and how where some atomic particles are concerned at least, they can be in more than one place at the same time, and that the very act of observing alters reality.

And then there is always tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes to worry about.

To say nothing of whether it’s safe to drink the milk when it’s a day past its expiration date.  That last one bothers the Contrarian to no end.

Anyway, I’m really glad it ain’t my job to think about that stuff. It is one of the main reasons I didn’t mark an X next to particle physicist on the “what I want to be when I grow up” form that I filled out in kindergarten, or maybe first grade.

That and the fact that they pretty much track you away from physics as a major if you think that Alice and Wonderland was silly fantasy claptrap and not worthy of the human mind. (Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the movie–the one with Johnny Depp, for who in their right-thinking female mind would NOT like anything starring the most gorgeous, adept, magnificent, actor in the entire universe, which is saying a lot given that I have familiarity with only one stinkin’ planet in the entire universe which must contain billions and billions as Carl Sagan used to say.)

Which is all a very long way around to saying that you might like to take a look at this book if you do like to waste lazy Sunday afternoons in a hammock thinking about these types of things. It is written by a guy named Jim Holt, and is called “Why Does the World Exist?” You can read a nice review about it here.

Frankly I think that it exists because Satan knew we would have to think about it, and that would drive us crazy, and thus provide the “in” he needs to work his evil machinations. Or on the other hand, it might be because there had to be a good place to put fruit cakes that the other universes banned as uneatable. One or the other, I am sure.

(I can hear the applause from here–connecting Johnny Depp and fruitcake is a difficult task to be sure. There must be a Pulitzer out there with my name on it.)

¤

I’m not sure any human being has spent as much time reproving again and again that he is a horse’s ass than the ubiquitous Texas Governor, Rick Perry. Think about it. Can you come up with a better candidate for permanent court jester?

Mr. I-can-only-think-of-two Perry, assures America that he will have no truck with that socialistic Affordable HCA, no matter what the Supremes have to say. Dumbo says he ain’t gonna set up no exchanges, which is odd, given the fact that the Federal Government will then set them up for him. Hardly the hands-off my medicare approach that one would think he would favor. But having only left-over oatmeal in the brain-case does apparently lend to such anomalies.

¤

I know I heard this in passing. I was passing through one room and into another, gathering all the belongings–all the important ones that is. It’s called a bug-out bag, and smart folks who know that disaster is just around every corner, always have one. And to listen to Rinsed Penis surely you must know that that disaster is set for the day after election day this November such (horrors), President Obama be re-elected.

The man claims that our very nation is at stake.We must elect Willard to “save America” to preserve “our way of life.” Read all kinds of white racist crap into that of course.

I think Rinsed has swapped some DNA with Michele Bachmann. Makes ya shiver.

¤

Okay, I’m all for adding a new sub-unit of humanity–men or women who don’t claim they are transgender, but exhibit a hatred of their own sex that is damaging to the sex. I wish to call them butt-faced Pygmalions infused with cactus-juice blood, my term. Feel free to call them what you like, as long as you keep a long stick handy.

A “woman” called Janis Lane is head of the Central Mississippi Tea Party. Not the entire Mississippi Tea Party mind you, but only the central part. She’s a really important person. Well here is here take on women–herself:

Lane: Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I’d much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them.

Because women have the right to vote, I am active, because I want to make sure there is some sanity for women in the political world. It is up to the Christian rednecks and patriots to stand up for our country.

Now, given her “Christian” feelings, mightn’t her HUsssband, step in and shut this thing up and get her back to cookin’ his breakfast? Just a thought.

¤

Have a wild one. Adios

Related articles

• Still Confused About the Higgs Boson? Read This. (theatlantic.com)
• Will Higgs lead us to Star Trek transporter? (msnbc.msn.com)

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Tags

Election 2012, God Particle, GOP, Higgs-Boson particle, Islamophobia, Phyllis Schlafly, right-wing hate, rightwing nuts, teabaggers

 I’ve said this before. In a manner of speaking. I’ve theorized that the GOP elite is basically throwing this election by giving the extremists within the party control. Of course this presupposes that they will flame up and then die.

Some are starting to agree with me, albeit from a completely different angle.

They see the landscape, and they wonder: why in the world is the GOP intent on killing itself? They are on the wrong side of so many issues that it is barely possible to remember them all. They are out of touch with mainstream America.
They conclude that this is a party that is basically re-living the Goldwater years. They argue that Goldwater and his insiders did not seriously expect to win the election, but they were fighting for control of the party.

This is what some now see as going on with the GOP. Rather than the insiders letting the TeaNutz® run the party over the cliff, and then picking up the pieces and going on as usual, they see the TeaNutz® ignoring a mainstream electorate precisely because it has yet to be educated in the finer points of Teanuttery. Like Goldwater, they believe that this is a process, and they must suffer the loss in order to solidify their control, and grow.

So says Jeffrey Toobin. He argues that the madness might be explained by looking at the Goldwater election and it’s deeply embedded goal of turning this country away from New Deal policies and toward the kinds of policies favored by Tea folk today, namely a restructuring or elimination of social programs designed to provide safety nets to citizens.

Paul Waldman makes essentially the same argument. He, however, nuances it in suggesting that the delusion of some in the GOP is such that they really think that what they believe is so obviously correct, than any candidate they nominate will surely get that across to the public.

In any event, these theories do work to explain, from one side or the other what has otherwise been inexplicable: why the GOP seems determined to remain utterly out of touch with the opinions of most in the country.

♦

Hey, think fast. What has the mass of 125 hydrogen atoms?

Give up?

Hint: God is watching!

It’s the Higgs-Boson. Yep physicists think they may have located the elusive bugger.

Life will never be the same.

I’m may have to take the day off just to figure out how my life will be changing.

I can’t wait to find out. But don’t forget, they still don’t have the 3-sigma statistical significance, so we still have time to shop for Christmas!

♦

And then there are those who do not seek irrelevance, but have it thrust upon them. Sometimes they seek it too.

WorldNetDaily, that bastion of true-blue Christianist bible-thumping rectitude, decided to beat a dead horse publicly with a banner fly over a football stadium during a game. The subject: why, the imposter in the White House: the non-citizen, one Obama.

Zee problem?

God forgot to tell them the dome was closed.

Oh Drat!

Foiled again!

God knows a good joke when He sees one.

Refund?

Oh, don’t forget to order your “freedom seeds” for your “freedom garden” and get your “freedom gold” from Beck’s gold meisters.

Armageddon is a comin’ doncha know.

♦

Speakin’ of hate, old (and I do mean that, she is OLD) Phyllis Schlafly’s new group, Eagle Forum, has a manifesto it is asking Congressional candidates to sign, ala Grover Norquist. Oh the list is so precious. Come take a look. (From Joe.My.)

1. Will you vote to protect the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)?
2. Will you vote for federal school appropriations to require informed, written parental consent for curricula, surveys, classes or books that may be privacy-invading or offensive to religion or conscience?
3. Will you support legislation for Congress to use its Article III power vote to deny jurisdiction to the federal courts over areas where we don’t trust them, namely, the definition of marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the Cross on veterans’ memorials, and the Boy Scouts?
4. Will you vote to prohibit the federal courts from hearing challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or similar state laws respecting the definition of marriage?
5. Will you oppose federal hate crimes laws?
6. Will you vote against any legislation to help Puerto Rico to become a state?
7. Will you vote against any legislation to pretend that the District of Columbia is a state or entitled to a state’s representation in Congress?
8. Will you vote to end federal funding of so-called bilingual education (teaching immigrant children in their native languages) which the voters of CA, AZ, and MA have rejected?
9. Will you vote to revoke the citizenship of naturalized citizens who betray their oath of U.S. citizenship by claiming “dual citizenship” with their native country?
10. Will you support federal funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

There are more, just suppress your gag reflex.

♦

Yesterday, we reported on the withdrawal by some 65 or more companies of ads for a Muslim reality show. We have located a full list of all those companies that withdrew their ads. While it may be hard to withdraw your patronage from them all, please do the best you can, and let them know via e-mail or in person your displeasure at those who help to foment hatred in this country.

♦

Enjoy your day.

Into the Belly of the Beast

Tags

abortion rights, astronomy, cosmology, Election 2012, GOP, Herman Cain, Italy, life in the meadow, Politics, theoretical physics, Women's issues

We drove into the belly of the beast 130 miles to a courthouse in up-state Iowa.  We came, we saw, we think we conquered. Meaning the judge will issue his findings and order within thirty days.

We have been involved in a claim for money. It was claimed we (my husband actually) owed almost all of a legal debt going back THIRTY YEARS. We claimed and provided documents to prove that every single penny had been paid. The other side provided no documents to the contrary. Confronted with this, admissions were made that we were correct. The claim is now, “Well, I want so more anyway” or words to that effect.

The questions of the judge make it quite clear to me that we will be fully vindicated.  Phrases about “woman scorned” and “filthy lucre” and “money-grubbing” and so forth would be inappropriate, unless you choose to use them by reading between the lines. It’s not worth further explanation.

These things happen to us all, usually more than once in a lifetime. We are happily going along our merry way, when somebody or some entity (usually some government bureaucracy) stands up between us and our goal and demands we spend time, and often money to prove what we know to be true, and what we often believe the other person does as well. It amounts to using legal means to exact retribution emotionally. It’s call harassment.

As I said, whatever happens, we are done with it. And I have a confidence (as does our lawyer whose documents and law went in unopposed) that we will be completely vindicated. We are feeling as if a burden has been removed. We turn our attention to plans for our future.

♦

Well, it was a busy day in the world of politics. We returned to the home front and dashed off to vote for our state senate race. This was a critical one because if our candidate didn’t win, the Senate in Iowa would be tied between the two parties. Happily, the Democratic candidate did win.

The Mississippi referendum to declare a fetus a “person” was defeated. The draconian laws passed in Ohio to take away the rights of unions was soundly recalled. The  Republican creator of the Arizonan immigration act, Russell Pearce,  was recalled in a special election. In New Jersey, voters increased the majority of the Democrats in the Jersey legislature. In Maine, voters restored a “same-day” registration to vote that had been repealed by the GOP controlled legislature.  All in all, a pretty good night for the cause of right (left) versus wrong (right).

♦

Speaking of the Mississippi referendum, the wackos on the extreme right are already promising “God’s wrath.” So I guess we should be looking for earthquakes, off-season hurricanes and other such “natural” disasters to befall the Mississippian populace. Or perhaps only the 58% of them that soundly defeated the act.

♦

Perhaps it might be fun to recall what one can get away with saying today but would have cost you your head in centuries past?  Such a thing happened to one Dominican friar Giordano Bruno in 1600 who dared to suggest that our sun was likely no different from other stars, and that they too might well have planets about them. The Inquisition did not tolerate such obvious claptrap.

Nowadays, we talk about multiverses, dark matter, string theory, and inflation (not the money kind!). A nice article in Discovery Magazine, should you be sick and tired of politics.

♦

Notorious womanizer and all-around harass-master, Herman Cain, Silvio Berlusconi is set to resign as Italian Prime Minister. Un-named sources claim that Mr. Cain, sent  a telegram to the beleaguered Italian Stallion-in-his-own-mind: “Dude you are screwed. Stop.”

♦

Let me just say this about that. The that? The Penn State scandal. What the f**k were you ADULT men thinking? How many wrongs does it take before you step up and PROTECT CHILDREN? And I don’t care how big an idol that Joe Paterno is. Simply advising somebody of the problem (don’t tell ME any details) is not enough. Did anybody ever think to call the POLICE? This reminds me for all the world like the hideous scandal in my own Church and its utter failure to act immediately to stop the abuse.

♦

It appears that Herm Cain’s defense to sexual harassment charges are quite simple. “Her claims were found baseless because she was unable to bring forth any corroborating witness.” Yes, every time that a man has tried to man-handle me, he waited until there were plenty of witnesses around. You are a pig Herm.

♦

And that’s all I got today. So you know you got it all. HA!

 

 

Annual Grifters Conference Held in Shangri-La

Tags

feminism, GOP, Grifters, Humor, liberalism, science, teabaggers

Grifters from around the world are gathering in Shangri-La for their annual conference.

This years attendees seem to be particularly numerous especially from the “dictatorship” category, as many now deposed autocrats are looking for a refresher course in “how to dupe all the people all the time.”

We scurried in and grabbed a program of seminars that are hot this conference:

• Dissembling: The Art of the Dodge
• Slight of Hand: as in Where are the Jobs?
• Perfecting the Non-Answer and Redirecting the Discussion to Banalities
• How to Spot the Lazy Mark
• Methodology in Fear Tactics and Creation of the Other to Blame
• Developing and Massaging the Greedy Publisher: Lies Sell!
• Staying on Message: The Art of Lying

Prominent speakers at this conference are listed as:

• Sarah Palin “How I Turned My Lack of Knowledge into Big Bucks”
• Newt Gingrich: “Creating Nice Sounding Organizations that Pay YOUR Bills!”
• David Barton: “You Too Can Re-Create Your Country’s History with These Easy Steps” CD’s and books available!
• Muammar Qadaffi: “Secreting Billions for That Future Retirement”.
• Brian Fischer: “Finding the Target: Who to Hate?”
• Panel Discussion by perennial favorites: Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh–“How to be Svengali At the Workplace or Any Where You Want Control”

Yes folks, and a time will be had by all.

♦

I suppose it was inevitable. That little report from CERN that perhaps a certain type of neutrino might, (possible) go faster than the speed of light, long believed to be as fast as anything could go, has brought out the usual crazies.

Climate change deniers ponder, if Einstein might be wrong about relativity, then perhaps plug in your favorite scientists might be wrong about plug in your favorite “wrong” science.

This has led to the Twitter hash tweet: #WSJscience, where in, the WSJ stands for Wall Street Journal and the idiot Robert Bryce. Apparently all manner of funny tweets have been produced, so head over to Twitter and look it up and enjoy the fun.

Samples include:

“If serious scientists think that Einstein might be wrong about relativity, then we might have to rethink whether the sun revolves around the earth.”

Enjoy.

Which all suggested to me that it might be fun to visit the antithesis of rational thought, Conservapedia and see some of these items of misinformation.

• The scientific evidence points to a young age of the earth and the universe. The biblical creation organization Creation Ministries International published an article entitled 101 evidences for a young age of the earth and the universe, that provides much of the scientific evidence in support of a young Earth. (prominently cited as proofs are St. Irenaeus and Arthur C. Clark, the science FICTION writer.)
• Creationist research is having a global effect that is worrying the atheists and secularists of this world. They have had it all their own way for over a century but things are slowly changing. For almost twenty-five years now, Journal of Creation has been publishing cutting-edge creationist research that has been fueling the war against evolution, creating little fires all around the world, including Great Britain. (This from Creation Ministries Int’n, and references to “Evolutionists Stumped Confused and Dumbfounded by 15 questions!” a YouTube entry)

• Creation science shows that dinosaurs lived in harmony with other animals, (probably including in the Garden of Eden) eating only plants^[4]; that pairs of each dinosaur kind were taken onto Noah’s Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning^[5]; that many of the fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood^[6]; and that possibly some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark are still around today. (Yep, you just turn left at Albuquerque, and head to Middle Earth. Watch for Hobbits crossing!)

• Modern feminists:
  • never wanted gender equality; they want power for the female left^[4]
  • in movies, falsely portray the men as inherently evil, dumb or incompetent, and the women as inherently good, smart or competent (note that this conflicts with gender equality)
  • pretend that there are no meaningful differences between men and women when that advances liberal causes (e.g., women and men equally in military combat, to weaken the U.S. military), but reject equality when that results in more money to women (e.g., VAWA funding of women’s groups)
  • oppose chivalry and even feign insult at harmless displays of it (see battle between the sexes)
  • view traditional marriage as unacceptably patriarchal
  • belittle and mock other women who desire to have children or raise a family^[5][6]
  • shirk traditional gender activities, like baking^[7]
  • support affirmative action for women
  • prefer that women wear pants rather than dresses, presumably because men do^[8][9]
  • seek women in combat in the military just like men, and coed submarines
  • refuse to take her husband’s last name when marrying^[10]
  • believe marriage implies female servitude when it is in fact a mutual bond
  • distort historical focus onto female figures, often overshadowing important events (Eg: Henry VIII’s wives take precedence in common knowledge to his actual reign.)
  • often condemn the God-Given order of gender roles, as laid out in the Holy Bible
  • object to being addressed as “ma’am,” or feminine nicknames such as “sweetheart” or “honey”;^[11] object to other female-only names, such as “temptress”
  • take offense at grammatical rules of the English language, like using the pronoun “he” when referring to a hypothetical/anonymous person, or phrases like ‘fireman’ and ‘stewardess.’
  • support of the homosexual agenda (why I’m sending in my KitchenAid mixer this very moment. The stuff about men being inherently dumb is mostly true, but I will change my name back to my maiden name. What WAS I thinking. Dusting off my Feminist membership card even as we speak.)
• Liberal creep is liberal biasthat gradually creeps or distorts an entry, definition, explanation, description, or historical account.Former Utah state Sen. Bill Wright may have been the first to coin this term in spring 2008 when he “warned of liberal creep — the ‘education of indoctrination‘ — in which the media peddle “socialism and programs. We have been so dumbed-down, so indoctrinated with all this information we’re in a haze; we can’t see through it. We must find out for ourselves.”^[1]Examples of liberal creep include:

• Ronald Reagan left the White House with the best approval ratings of any president, up to that time, at the end of his term, yet the media and history books have since relentlessly tried to downplay and distort his political achievements.
• Reverse to the above example, Bill Clinton ^[2] left office after a failed impeachment attempt on perjury charges, yet liberal creep ensures that this is downplayed and distorted.
• Many early scientists such as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei were heavily influenced by Christianity and would never have made their important discoveries without their faith in the Lord Almighty, yet that faith has since been downplayed in liberal atheistic public school textbooks and Wikipedia.^{[3] [4]}
• The ferocity and savageness of the Native Americans towards American settlers has gradually been downplayed, while the relocation of the Cherokee has been gradually inflated to the point that some liberal textbooks treat it as an atrocity comparable to the Holocaust. Similarly, there has been an increase in denial of the many technological and spiritual improvements the settlers brought to previous inhabitants. (gosh I feel all creepy now. The antithesis of Liberal Creep: Conservative Hate)

New Conservative Terms:

• Drive-by media: liberal MSM assault on Conservative and GOP values and principles, deceitful attacks
• fleebaggers: deceitful Democrats who deny their sworn duties for political gain.
• Hoax and Chains: Keynesian economics (as opposed to trickle down)
• manufactured outrage: fake Democratic anger used to pursue an agenda
• schlockumentary: documentaries based on half-truths and lies
• refudiate: combination of refute and repudiate as “coined” by Sarah in 2010

Oh gosh, one could go on, but my sides are splitting. Is it any wonder the right-wing TeaNutz® are ignorant? Enjoy your Saturday.