What’s Up? 07/20/10

Tags

Darwin, David Barton, Elena Kagan, evolution, Glenn Beck, Harriet Miers, Obama, Photography, Plato, racism, religious freedom, religious right, right wing wackos, Sarah Palin, SCOTUS

Here I come to save the day. . .That means that Mighty Mouse is on the way! Oh, ‘scuse me, I get carried away with childhood memories sometimes. You gotta be OLD to remember that cartoon.

Anyways, here I am to give you the scoop on what ya oughta be readin’ today. How’s that for chutzpah? I KNOW what you NEED to read!

I suffer from delusions of grandeur once in a while. Actually I’m very humble. You know that. I want you to believe that–it’s my blog persona. Humility. Yep.

I have others. I’m sybileen in that respect. I can call out the “others.” But don’t make me. I can be not so pretty. A very nice lady at our church said I was a “sweet person.” God love her, but she ain’t talked to the Contrarian–who would give her a different take. I am sweet, but well, let’s not go there okay?

If the wacko right doesn’t like being called racist, they oughta pay more attention to what they are critical of. I mean, Obama was in office a minute and one half when they started making it sound positively EVIL that he used a teleprompter. Like that was something new in politics. I mean they had nothing more but they HAD to criticize. When you criticize EVERYTHING down to the whether he’s a boxer versus briefs kinda guy, it’s pretty obvious you got something else  going on  in your pea brain see?

And just go and refudiate that Ms. Sarah (that woman is an Idiot!) Palin. And Pluleeeeez don’t refer to yourself and the Bard in the same breath. If you have actually read or attended a Shakespearean play, well I’ll eat my left ear.  Steve Benen has some choice words to drop on the Grizzly Mama. It’s delicious!

And don’t miss Sarah Posner’s great lament at the lunatic boy, Glenny Beck who would not, I swear, know the truth if it arrived at his front porch in letters twelve feet high and identified itself as God Almighty come to give revelation directly to the Becky one. David Barton, lap dog, who is usually on his leash when he appears with the padded cell bound Glenn, is also treated for his usual maladjustments of history.

More moaning from Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition. She claims that Elena Kagan got a pass where similarly situated Harriet Miers got crucified. She claims the left is unfair. Except of course the truth is available and the main thrust of anti-Mier ranting is documented as coming from the right itself who thought her not conservative enough. It’s just the usual say it and it will be so to the drooling NASCAR/WWF/TRAILER TRASH who read? have it read to them.

Similarly, Family Research Council finds something sinister in Obama’s use of the term freedom to worship on a couple of occasions. It’s the beginning of the end of religion in Merika they squeak. Yeah, except that Obama has used the term freedom of religion 124 versus 9 times for freedom to worship and  Dubya numbers on the two are 124 and  33 respectively. As I said, lying comes as second nature to these RELIGIOUS  claimers.

Okay, I know that music and math are related. How, I don’t know, but some really smarty guy says that he has cracked Plato’s “codes” and well, there was, like a whole lot of new information called symbolic messages. It explains why Aristotle called Plato a student of Pythagoras when scholars can find no reason to agree. And it seems he forecast that the universe would be found to be governed by mathematical principles and not Zeus. Interesting little article.

Someone is suggesting that Darwin did not gather by happenstance a lot of material and then see a pattern which he deduced or inducted into natural selection. Rather, he may have had the hypothesis all along and gathered material in view of that belief. Hey a doctoral thesis has to come from somewhere, here you go.  Heavy reading here.

Just leaving a comment over at Blisterinas. Have you seen here photography? You really should. I was telling her I collect animal skulls. Ones from animals our dogs murder and bring home and deposit. I really like my raccoon skull. The jaw works and everything. I would collect mouse skulls but Spencer the Impaler Cat loves the heads, he leaves the rest of the body for me. I warn them about wrinkles and toss them out.

Speaking of which, why the hell are some people not making their full feeds available? I have a tough time downloading sites as it is. It would surprise you no doubt to know that I READ most of you guys blogs pretty thoroughly, though I don’t comment as much, but I read most of all you write since it’s in my READER. I thought the point of writing was to be read? Yet some folks only give titles and I have to go there just to see if it’s something I wanna read. So I don’t go as often sad to say. Some sites take me a good five minutes to download. Can’t do too many at that rate. Rant complete.

Well I’m pooped. See ya tomorrow.

What’s Up? 06/30/10

Tags

Elena Kagan, GOP, Rand Paul, right wing nuttery, Sarah Palin, SCOTUS, temptations, Thurgood Marshall, will power

I don’t know about you, but opening my reader each day is like opening a Christmas present. I hope for something fantastic, and am usually happily rewarded. Here and there I get a piece of coal-a day where nobody is saying anything interesting to me.

But that seldom happens, and on a glorious day such as today with the sun shining brightly, the birds singing with exuberance, and the breeze so gentle as a adolescent kiss, I open it with anticipation.

Let’s see what we find!

I heard about this days ago. Mostly it was about the open mike and the audience members who made fun of  Sarah (that woman is an idiot) Palinator’s lack of ummm intelligence? But, speaking to a California college assembly (why in God’s earth would anyone invite her?), she gaffed as only our Sarah could. Sarah has a penchant for hiring old high school buds (equally stupid as herself, which goes without saying. Apparently one is her FACT checker.

The lunacy continues with Rand Paul refusing to answer how old the earth is. By refusing of course, he admits that he is crazy as a mop head. Rand, my man, we don’t care if you are off by even a few million  years, reasonable minds may differ. But if you refuse, we suspect you are off by a few billion, and that my dizzy friend makes you a no brainer. Unless of course you are merely trying to fake your way into gaining support from people you don’t really agree with. Sorta like you faked a board certification?

I’m feeling a trip to Washington as in DC is in order. Those GOP senators who are “interrogating” Elena Kagan must be in need of more bullets to shoot themselves in the foot. The constant barrage of “Justice Thurgood Marshall was not a proper judge” at Kagan who clerked for him, is suicidal at best. Well, a worst it is still suicidal. Apparently there will be a sign at all future voting booths–only white people can vote for Republicans. All else, vote for the Dems. I will take that as a good thing.

Temptation! Yikes. We all face it, whether it be food, drugs, booze, men, women, gambling. Whatever the thing that calls to you, beckons with seductive winking, luring you into danger, well we all face it or them. Balance in Me has some good ideas for meeting and beating your temptations.

Enjoy the day and see ya!

What’s Up? 06/29/10

Tags

Congress, day dreaming, Elena Kagan, Human Biology, psychology, SCOTUS

I’ve been reading Dorothy Parker the last few weeks. Enjoying short snippets of short stories, poetry, and some of her book and play reviews.

Especially as to her reviews, she was wont to do a lot of (dontcha just love this?) parenthetical asides like I just did there. I recognized it right away, since I do a whole lot of them. Usually and especially when I’m being witty.

I am being witty, in case you weren’t sufficiently IQish enough to notice. Anyway, it struck me that I might be channelling Dot, since I swear I was doing it before I learned that she did it.

That is problematical since she died in 1967, when I was 17, so it can’t fairly be said that she reincarnated in little ole me. Which I would have liked mind you. But perhaps she looked around and slipped her little shadowy ghostly self in me a little, just like sprinkling a bit of pixie dust as she floated ever upward. If so, she knew me better than I know myself.

I have watched a bit of the Kagan confirmation and she’s making the right wing GOP look silly. That’s unbiased I assure you. If you want to read what the really really really wacko crazies are sayin’ bout the soon to be Associate Justice, then go here, and find out that she signals in her own person, evidence of the END TIMES. Scary. I’m getting ready to be twinkled up!

If you would like a really excellent treatment of the history of confirmation by the Senate, then Meredith Hindley has a fine article at the Humanties, which takes a look at the entire issue of when and why the Congress get involved in the type of hearings we have today.

I don’t believe in coincidences a lot. I think that when we are open, we “see” connections, we draw them to us, or more technically, our true Spirit does. So it doesn’t surprise me after yabbering about dreaming and my preference, day dreaming, there should be a neat article in the NYTimes about the values of day dreaming. Freud be damned, as I said. I told ya, you can always count on me to be right. You heard that from the horses mouth. (Psst, I’m not sure what that is, since, I’ve not met a talking horse, AND since I am suspicious that Mr. Ed was not REAL in that sense.)

Well, I have volunteer stuff today, and some errands to run, so I must scoot. Have a fabulous day, and we’ll be back tomorrow with more good stuff.

Sneakin’ A Peek at ALIENS!!!

Tags

African American, conspiracy theories, Elena Kagan, GOP, immigration, Left, Nazism, Politics, poverty issues, SCOTUS, socialism, South Carolina, voters

At great peril to moi, I have put my sanity on the line for you.

I mean, day in and day out, I link you up to bewitching sites that offer up all manner of intellectual tidbits and naughty amusements to keep you in the know.

But, there are days, when little strikes my professional palate and I, horror of horrors, have nary a thoughtful philosophical insight to prod you with.

What to do? Well, I determined that it was time to return you, kicking and screaming if I must, to the real world. This ladies and gents is why we continue the good fight. For the enemy is all around. It nips at our heels and smacks its lips in anticipation of destroying our right to freedom.

Yikes, that sounded a bit teabaggerish did it not?

But frankly, although they claim freedom as their aim, in reality they would have us adhere to a set of principles defined by them as “Judeo-Christian” in origin. I say origin, since they have interpreted it in their own selfish fashion to support what makes them comfortable in their homophobic, work ethicy, racist, bigoted symbolistic way. And just in case you weren’t aware, the use of Judeo is only offered as lip service since we all know the only good Jew is one who is trying hard to bring about that Armageddony thingie by which the Christian Kingdom of God will descend.

So, with no little trepidation and packing on of extra undies (Depends, I need Depends!), I have with military precision entered into the realm of the nuttier than a fruitcake and retrieved a few symbols of their insanity. All so, you will be renewed in your vigilance, and ever ready to defend our way of life.

Victor David Hansen lambastes the Obama administration for its failures to uphold the law on immigration and swears we are on the verge of civil insurrection.

Other states and even cities are now marching in lockstep to boycott Arizona. Meanwhile, the president of Mexico recently blasted Arizonans from the White House Rose Garden, no less, apparently counting on the president of the United States to go along with this demonization of one of his own states. All this is eerie; it has a whiff of the climate of the late 1850s, when the federal government was in perpetual conflict with the states, which in turn were in conflict with one another, and which often appealed to foreign nations for support.

Jonah Goldberg informs us that it’s just our imagination that the poor are suffering more today than before. Why HDTV’s and IPods and all that junk are coming down fast! The only real areas where costs are going up?

So, what has gotten more expensive? According to St. Lawrence University economist Steven Horwitz, there are only four areas that have become more expensive over the last century as measured in their “labor price”: housing, cars, higher education, and medical care. With the arguable exception of a college degree, all are marked with wildly improved quality. And the main reason for rising medical and college costs (and to a lesser degree housing costs) is that the government has distorted the market by “helping.”

Abigail Thernstrom is all agog over the fact that South Carolina recutelicans nominated a BLACK man to run in the November elections for Congress. See, she says, we are so reformed her, not a bit of racism in us! But then she said this:

The site [the candidates] also contains a video of Scott talking to voters. Not a trace of a southern accent — in sharp contrast to the state’s GOP gubernatorial candidate, Nikki Haley. Indeed, just listening to him, not knowing his color, one might think he was a northern white. His race- and region-neutral voice will likely be an asset should he seek higher office in the future.

Thomas Sowell tells us that democracy is being destroyed apparently because Obama is reaching out to Americans who have often not participated in the political process. They are dangerous says Sowell:

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler’s rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.

Pete Winn reports that over 800 Orthodox Rabbis say Elena Kagan is “Not kosher” and thus not fit to sit on any court.

. . . that she will function as a flame-throwing radical, hastening society’s already steep decline into Sodom and Gomorrah,” the rabbis said in the statement. [. . .]We’re waiting for the more courageous, decent senators – whether it’s a (Sen.) Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) or a (Sen.) Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) or a (Sen.) Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) – we’re looking for them to stand up and filibuster this embarrassing endangerment of a nomination,” Levin said.

And WND tells us what the sneaky left has really been up to!

Indeed, today in the age of Obama, millions of Americans are “waking up” to the stealth infiltration and subversion of their beloved country and are appalled at what they see: Not only is their government in the hands of the left, but virtually all of our nation’s major institutions – from the public education system to our colleges and universities, from the news media to the entertainment industry, from the unions to our major philanthropic foundations, even many of our churches – have also been captivated by this same destructive ideology.

Phew, I but scratched the surface and I think I’m contaminated, so I got hose off now with plenty of vinegar and baking soda. My eyes burn and I’m feeling queasy. I am hoping that a strong dose of Rachel Maddow or Keith will revive me. But if you see a VOTE REPUBLICAN sign at my drive, well, you know I’ve paid the ultimate price. Be kind. Kill me quick!

Breathe IN and Smile

Tags

atheists, Charles Grassley, denialism, elections, Elena Kagan, fundamentalism, gay rights, GOP, Mark Souter, Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul, SCOTUS

Truthfully, I feel a weight has been lifted. I, a few days ago, mentioned that I was done with arguing with fundies and atheists, finding it utterly unproductive, since both operated from some psychological need, on the closed mind theory. No controversial idea shall pass here!

And, as part of that commitment to sanity, I’ve rather ruthlessly deleted most all blogs of folks that adhere to such strangling ideology. A couple, I have hesitated, since they tend toward actual intellectual curiosity and I’m holding them a bit.

One, I thought might be worthwhile was a blog called SharperIron, mistaken by me with SharpIron, a very legitimate mainstream religious blog. Anyway, SharperIron was engaged in a multi-part series I wasn’t particularly interested in, and so, I was awaiting what might come next.

The next was a post about a tea party partisan, and I read it, and then thought to comment on a point or two. Going to the comments, I found I have to sign up–annoying but acceptable, so I clicked to do so, and then. . . well what a surprise. I was required to sign some oath that I believed in the utter inerrancy of the Word along with other such bull crap, and well, I deleted that blog rather soon after.

Just goes to show ya, I guess, just how closed a mind can be. No comments are allowed that don’t agree with the blog owner in principle at least. Some kinda dialog there!

***

I read a delicious post on denialism yesterday, and you can read it at NewScientist.  The upshot was that it’s pretty much impossible to get them to listen. It’s all very psychological and such, which they don’t of course perceive in the first place. It gets all conspiratorial and then of course the leeches who pray on folks like this, fill them with all kinds of pseudo-science swill and we are then off to the races.  The best advice is to calmly make your case with truth and verifiable facts and don’t get personally involved in a debate.

A few great poster on FB especially have kept me adding one great blog after another to my reader, which has made it unmanageable in terms of size.  Which has led to a major clearing out it, discarding blogs I never read. I took the total down below 200 again, and that is somewhat manageable at least. Hopefully I can bring you the best in reliable links.

***

The elections yesterday were interesting and frankly, I think the Dems are in pretty good shape. The Murtha seat was the critical won, and the Dem won handily there, which was somewhat of a surprise to the GOP I think. The Kentucky election, well, it seems the Teabaggers took that one, but Mr. Paul seems rather intent on destroying himself before November.

Guess our own Senator Grassley doesn’t quite get the message yet. He says voters are unhappy with their politicians, but not him of course. He claims his mail is generally not critical of what he has been saying and doing. Guess he doesn’t read mine.

***

I’m surely not the only one who is highly pissed at the right wing attack on Elena Kagan for speculating on her sexual orientation. It has zero to do with anything, although they try to couch it in such. Don’t we have a right to know how her sexuality might impact her opinion on Don’t ask, don’t tell they whine? NO. No more than it would have been right to  burrow into the Negroness of Clarance Thomas, since he might have to look at affirmative action cases. It’s just an attempt to raise some public outcry from the homophobic right wing bigot machine, disguised as necessary inquiry. Shaddup already and crawl back under the rock please. Btw, Elizabeth Keaton has a great post on this today at her blog, Telling Secrets.

***

Don’t know about you guys, but spring is in full swing, and we are busy planting everything not nailed down. Dogs and cats stay outta the way! We have nearly all the garden in, and I’m working on flowers. I bought 2 flats of assorted lovelies today and will plant Saturday. Getting a touch of rain tonight possibly and cool tomorrow, and then up into the 80’s! Hurrah!

***

And the hypocritical ass award for the week goes to that great purveyor of abstinence only and anti AIDS info, homophobe,  and all around creationist nut: Indiana ReThug Rep. Mark Souter! (Drum roll, trumpets and all around clapping!). Doin’ the nasty with an aide, not his wifey. When will these self-styled “soooo goodly paragons of virtue” learn to shut the phuck up! And they wonder why the atheists have such a field day against ’em.

And speaking of which, Newt, the thrice married, twice divorced, I just discovered religion can be my ally in being important, Gingrich, has been vilified by those that usually like him. Seems his new book which just excoriates the Obama administration as a “secular socialist machine” heading straight for Nazi Germany, has enraged even the right.

And the oil slick still threatens to destroy the Gulf Coast and much of the marine life in the ocean. McCain continues to backtrack and support more and more repressive racist behavior in AZ. AZ keeps doing what its doin, which is hating everything not white. The sun keeps shining and the stars keep converting hydrogen to helium at fantastical rates. I’ll be back with more tomorrow, mostly likely. Meanwhile, listen to the birds and plant some radishes.