The Walking on Water Shall Commence at Any Moment Now…

Compared to the last eight years of never-ending idiocy, seeing things change this fast is practically miraculous:

According to John McCain, Sarah Palin, Joe Liebermann, the Neocons and Joe the Plumber, the election of Barack Obama was supposed to “embolden our enemies”, epsecially Iran. Well, according to the Jerusalem Post, it ain’t really working out that way.

Despite this message, the conservative hard-line camp in Iran is worried about the overwhelming enthusiasm and support for the US that Obama’s election has created around the world. A popular American president who talks about peace and wants to negotiate with Iran would take away their justification for leading the anti-American front in the Middle East. Furthermore, increased international support and credibility for the United States represents a more serious challenge to Iran, especially if the international community initiates new sanctions against Teheran. All this while oil prices are falling.

This is why efforts are already efforts under way in the Iranian press to tarnish Obama’s image.

Apparently, despite our dearly deluded rabid right fucktards’ certainty that Obama is the antichrist, he doesn’t make a convincing poster boy for the Great Satan.

So. Our standing in the world turned 180 degrees from abysmal to awesome literally overnight. What other miracles would President-Elect Obama care to perform today?

Oh, you know. Nothing big. Just making absolutely clear that the evil that is Guantanamo Bay is as good as gone:

Members of Barack Obama’s team have already indicated policies the new White House plans to tackle early on in 2009, but let’s not overlook Obama’s efforts to reverse the Guantanamo nightmare.

President-elect Obama’s advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a “sad chapter in American history” and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama’s camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren’t final.

The initiative is not, of course, without controversy. Most notably, the approach under consideration would include a new “hybrid” system for suspected terrorists that is short of Americans’ due process rights but more expansive than Bush’s military commissions. It’s a proposal burdened by, shall we say, kinks.

That said, the AP report noted that Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and Obama legal adviser, believes that the closing of the detention facility would be a top priority of the new administration and the plan being crafted by Obama’s team “has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties.”

Spencer Ackerman added, “[C]onsider not only that this is one of the first initiatives that Obama is pursuing — it’s one of the first that he’s leaking, as well. This is as clear a signal as can be sent that the Bush era isn’t just over, it will be actively rolled back.”

Kinks I can deal with. Kinks can be worked out. After all, I’ve got this Smack-o-Matic lying nearly idle, and this fire sadly lacking feet. I’d much rather be bawling Obama out for a harebrained idea to create some Frankenstein court system than for ignoring solemn campaign pledges to close Guantanamo Bay. Not to mention that nagging sense I have that the “hybrid” bullshit is merely a squeak toy to distract the rabid right.

(This is the problem with having a President-Elect who’s demonstrated a penchant for careful, reasoned, and intelligent thought: I can’t discard the possibility of a smart political manuever and instantly start screaming “YOU FUCKING FUCKTARD!!” instead, as I could with Bush’s outrageous ideas.)

Nothing is going to be easy. But signs are pointing in the right direction for America. At fucking last.

The Walking on Water Shall Commence at Any Moment Now…
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Bush Administration Forged Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program; In Other Shocking News, Dog Bites Man

You know what depresses me most? That this kind of fuckery isn’t shocking:

Almost four years ago today, Colin Powell presented some dodgy intelligence suggesting Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons. Powell’s announcement had all the trappings of Bush propaganda: sketchy exiles, the pre-emption of IAEA counter-evidence, technical specs that make a known civilian application look like a nuclear weapon, and, of course, Powell himself.

Does it surprise you to learn, via Juan Cole, that that intelligence may well have been forged?

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.

The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source — most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.

Nope, it doesn’t surprise me either.

The Bush Regime is a case study in what happens when fuckwits who think they’re living in a Robert Ludlum novel get their hands on the reins of power. They’re running around playing super secret agent, fabricating evidence because it fits a narrative and reality doesn’t. They turned the CIA and the Justice Department into an episode of 24, complete with torture, because they love to be part of a storyline wherein they’re the big, tough heroes breaking heads and breaking rules to “get the job done.” The damage they’ve done to this country so that they could live their little fantasies is apalling.

And it’s not shocking anymore. The only time I’m shocked now is when Bush does something semi-decent. I can’t tell you how angry that makes me, and how glad I am that we voted for four years of competent leadership rather than four more years of neocon playacting.

I can’t believe these fucktards get two more months to play their self-aggrandizing games with our government. They should have nothing to look forward to but life in a Supermax, getting their dinners shoved through a hole in the door. I’d say they should be sentenced to a life of cleaning up the bedpans on an Iraqi hospital ward so they’re forced to face what they’ve done in the most stark way possible, but that would be a terrible thing to do to people we’ve harmed enough. Maybe if we made them wear candystriper outfits, maybe the humiliation would be a balm to wounded Iraqis…

There’s only two months left, but I imagine we’re going to see a lot more stories of Bush’s forged evidence, incompetence, and cronyism.

In other news, dog bites man:


Apparently, Bush’s contempt for the press corps has rubbed off on his dog.

Bush Administration Forged Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program; In Other Shocking News, Dog Bites Man

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Can we please just kick Joe Lieberman out now? The little bastard gets more ridiculous with every passing day:

Joe Lieberman, who is locked in a fight to hold onto his Senate Homeland Security Committee chairmanship, is lending his name to a lurid sequel of the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West. That film, which was distributed through newspaper inserts
and mass mailings to 28 million swing-state households during the campaign, was
denounced by religious leaders for painting all Muslims with the same broad brush and for its cartoonish portrayal of Islamic terrorism.

The new documentary, called The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision For America, focuses on the “hidden war against the freedom and values we all take for granted” being waged by radical Islamists trying to take down America from within. Among other things, the film warns of the “subtle dangers of non-violent cultural jihad and its influence in America’s universities.”


If this was a documentary by reputable folks who actually did serious research and weren’t simply scaremongering, it might be forgivable. But this is just more “Moozlimz iz eviilll!” malarkey that has no place in our national discourse. And Joe Liberman wants to put his name to it, and claim he’s our valliant defender on national security?

Please. He’s just a fucking Bush clone.

Which is why I think Obama’s wrong to defend him:

President-elect Barack Obama has informed party officials that he wants Joe Lieberman to continue caucusing with the Democrats in the 111th Congress, Senate aides tell the Huffington Post.

Obama’s decision could tie the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been negotiating to remove Lieberman as chair of the Homeland Security and Government Reform committee while keeping him within the caucus. Lieberman has insisted that he will split from the Democrats if his homeland security position is stripped.

Aides to the president-elect did not return requests for comment. Senate officials were unclear whether Obama would be comfortable
with Lieberman maintaining his current committee post.


Really, I understand the let-bygones-be-bygones mentality, but do we really need to keep some insane little shit in the caucus? I breathlesslessly await the reasoning. (And, yes, there are a few wee things I don’t see eye-to-eye with Obama on. This one isn’t desperately important, but it’s bloody irritating.)

Speaking of self-important, insane little shits

Disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) has an item in the far-right Washington Times today last week, acknowledging how impressed he is with “liberal infrastructure,” which he believes now “dwarfs conservatism’s in size, scope, and sophistication,” and will be “setting and helping to impose the national agenda for the coming years.” It’s a remarkable turn of events, given the head-start conservatives had in establishing an intellectual infrastructure
over the years.

He notes that progressive groups and Barack Obama’s impressive fundraising operation is “impressive,” but for the right, it’s also “intimidating.” DeLay, however, has a suggestion on how the right can and should proceed.

Between now and [2012], Republicans must come to terms with their organizational shortcomings and finally become gain the kind of dynamic political party that won stirring victories in 1994 and 2000. Our party must expand its organization to include our coalition groups in the ways Democrats have with theirs. The Coalition for a Conservative Majority, an organization I helped start in 2006, is trying to pull conservative organizations back together after too many years of internecine squabbling. Only under conservative government will groups like the National Rifle Association,
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and National Right to Life Committee receive a fair hearing of their views; it’s time they started working together.

Conservatism’s leading donors must look beyond contributing only to traditional channels like the RNC or campaign committees, and open up to also funding outside organizations that can do what the Democrats’ Shadow Party is already doing. New resources must be tapped, and just as importantly, coordinated…. We need now a new, 21st-century political coalition to remind them of that fact, and to restore its faith in actual conservatives.


Is it me, or is this shamelessly self-serving, even by DeLay’s standards? He has an 800-word op-ed in the Times, the point of which seems to be that his organization is the key vehicle for conservatives to get back on track. Indeed, DeLay seems to argue that conservative donors should worry less about investing in the Republican party and candidates, and concentrate on financing a coordinating entity … like the one he just happens to run.


Corruption marches on. I think Delay in his greediness is missing a key point here: progressive groups like Move-on succeeded because they didn’t funnel their contributions to the pockets of greedy assholes. But good luck with your movement, there, Tom.

Republicons keep looking for hope in all the wrong places:

It looks like Bill Kristol may be making good on his threat to revive the Project for the New American Century. Since May, visitors to PNAC’s website were informed that “this account has been suspended,” but
now the
website is back up, though it does not seem to have been updated with any new material.

PNAC’s militaristic ultra-nationalism is implicated in some of the worst mischief of the Bush years, from the “global
war on terror
” to the invasion of Iraq to President Bush’s support for Israel’s refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians. Many of its members served as advisers to John McCain’s presidential campaign. Bill Kristol is still listed as PNAC’s chairman, and is known to be “exceptionally close” to the senator.

McCain’s top foreign policy aide, Randy Scheunemann, serves as PNAC’s project director. McCain spokesperson Michael Goldfarb is also listed as a PNAC research associate.


Fantastic idea. When Americans want change, revive the group that helped bring about the last eight years of misery. That’s sure to be a winning effort, there.

And Cons certainly aren’t getting any saner:

Yesterday, Meet The Press moderator Tom Brokaw asked Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) if a “massive overhaul of the American healthcare system” is possible “given the state of the economy.” Before Clyburn could answer, Brokaw’s other guest, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), injected that health care reform “is precisely what we should not be doing” and suggested that the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) “was one of the most divisive issues of the last Congress“:

SEN. MARTINEZ: Well, it, it just can’t be. I mean, this is precisely what we should not be doing. SCHIP was one of the most divisive issues of the last Congress, where there was no consensus, there was no common ground.

[snip]


As Clyburn correctly pointed out, SCHIP is “not a divisive program.” In fact, before President Bush vetoed two separate bills that would have expanded children’s health insurance, Congress passed the program by overwhelming majorities.


If that’s their idea of a divisive issue… wow. Just, wow.

So my question is this: how the fuck do you possibly work with people this detached from reality?

Happy Hour Discurso

Progress Report

8060.

One of those nights when the words wouldn’t flow, alas. But progress none the less.

I came up with an interesting exercise:

If you and I sat down and made lists of things that are important to us, there would be a lot of duplicate items. Why don’t we try an exercise? Take a pen and paper right now, and list out ten things that are important to you. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

Ready? Here’s mine, in no particular order of importance:

  1. Family
  2. Friends
  3. My community
  4. My country and the world
  5. The environment
  6. Financial security
  7. Literacy and education
  8. Science
  9. Constitutional issues
  10. Writing

How many things do we have in common? Probably quite a few. If we got into specifics, we’d probably notice quite a few differences in the details, some of them superficial, some of them more serious. But there’s enough there to work with, isn’t there?

This is just a little warm-up, to show you that we really do have enough interests in common to talk about. Most of us share common concerns. We want clean water to drink and clean air to breathe. We want kids to be healthy, and we want our communities to be vibrant. We want to make sure our economy’s strong so that we all have a chance to work and support ourselves and our families. We want a better world.

Together, we can find ways to make that happen. Even when we disagree.

It’s kind of sad to think we might be reduced to making lists and checking them twice in order to find things to talk about, but hey. Considering that some religious folk seem to think we have nothing at all we agree on, at least it would be one way of demonstrating otherwise.

As I’m writing this, I’m conscious of the fact that there are some religious folk buried so deep in the dogma that there’s no possible way we could hold a useful discussion, so I’m trying to aim this book away from them and at those who either want to talk to us, but aren’t quite sure how, or those who never really considered we’d have anything to talk about but are willing to be surprised.

For those of you who might be afraid I’m getting too toothless here, I do get more confrontational later in the chapter. That’s where I explain in no uncertain terms what the world would be like if atheists had never existed. Some folks might be a mite surprised.

It seems to me important to get across one metatheme in this book: Atheists are here to stay, and the world needs us like it or not, so you might as well learn how to get along with us.

Striking the right balance between friendly and firm has proven a bit difficult. We’ll see how it turns out.

Your comments on this project thus far have been invaluable. I haven’t incorporated your ideas and suggestions just yet, simply because NaNo demands looking forward rather than back, but most of what you guys said yesterday is going to end up tweaking the book considerably in revision. We’ll hold a few discussions on specific points later. Right now, I just want to say thank you a thousand times THANK YOU, everybody drinks on the house (how I wish I could actually give you guys real live free drinks!), and keep the commentary coming. I don’t care if you don’t think you have something useful to add: I want to hear your thoughts. No, I NEED to hear your thoughts.

This book is for all of us. Without you, it’s not going to be a very useful book at all. So: thoughts, links, quibbles, anything you want to toss at me, bring it on.

Muchos gracias, mis amigos. Salud!

Progress Report

Lean, Mean Defense Machine

I really need to stop worrying:

Of course, it isn’t as if Obama hasn’t prepared himself for the enormous task ahead. Back in June, he assembled a stellar national security advisory team; the thirteen members include former Secretaries of State Madeline Albright and Warren Christopher, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, who is leading the team.

Inside Defense fills in many of the blanks in a lengthy subscription-only article. We are looking at, yes, a lot of change:

The Obama transition team, according to a briefing paper prepared for the campaign’s national security advisory team, may consider a number of organizational changes to the Defense Department’s civilian leadership that signal a break with priorities of the last eight years and point to the ascendancy of new issues that will affect defense strategy.

The incoming administration, according to the paper, may retool the intelligence under secretary office established by Donald Rumsfeld; create a new high-level energy security post; and divide the substantial portfolio of the assistant secretary for special operations/low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities.

It will also mull cuts to high-profile weapon systems, the paper states, naming three: national missile defense, the Airborne Laser and the Army’s Future Combat Systems program.

I like it. Creating an energy security post would make campaign rhetoric reality. In fact, Obama has literally been saying “energy security is national security” for over two years.

Now, about cutting funding to national missile defense: bravo. Let’s turn to Lt. Gen. Robert Gard (yes, the same guy who’s been posting here at dailyKos, as part of Vets for Obama). He’s been talking about missile defense for a while now, and his latest analysis came out about three weeks ago.

Despite the Bush administration’s investment of an estimated $60 billion since 2001, U.S. national missile defense continues to be an unnecessary and counterproductive enterprise. Testing objectives consistently are not met, cost overruns and scheduling delays are rampant, and relations between the United States and Russia are worse than at any time since the end of the Cold War, thanks in no small part to squabbling over the proposed third missile defense site in Europe.

He recommends three basic changes. Please click the link above for the details; basically, shift spending to systems countering existing threats, dissolve the Missile Defense Agency, and “spend political capital” on diplomacy.

You know, I’ve spent the last couple of days careening between the pinnacle of hope and the valley of despair. Obama made a lot of promises, and I know he won’t be able to keep them all – no president can keep every campaign promise. But there are times I worry he won’t be able to keep any, what with the way things are. The challenges and opposition seem too insurmountable.

Then more information comes out that shows me he’s got this thing covered. He’s had brilliant staff assigned to every conceivable issue, and the way things are presented, it seems we may indeed get to have our cake and eat it, too. So maybe there won’t be icing on it. Oh fucking well.

This, though, is just astounding. In my wildest fantasies, I never considered he’d go after wasteful defense spending while at the same time turning the U.S. Military into a more effective force. And yet, that’s precisely what he’s aiming for.

Obama’s proving with every day that he understands the hell he’s getting in to, and that he’s more than prepared to handle it. The Smack-0-Matic and I can only stand by helplessly. The fire I must hold his feet to remains unstoked. Every time I go to light the damned thing, I notice he’s already gotten his feet roasting in a bonfire of his own.

It’s a good thing there’s still some Blue Dog Dems and some Con fuckwits left to kick around, or the Smack-0-Matic and I would be totally superfluous.

Lean, Mean Defense Machine

This Shit Has to Stop

One of the first things Obama’s going to have to do as President is teach our public servants that this sort of behavior is no longer acceptable:

Here’s a disturbing story:

“The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration’s request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious. Some congressional staff members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper tailspin.

“Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this? I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no,” said George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan congressional authority on taxes. “They basically repealed a 22-year-old law that Congress passed as a backdoor way of providing aid to banks.” (…)

[snip]

Here’s the relevant section of the Internal Revenue Code. It provides that “The Secretary shall prescribe such regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to carry out the purposes of this section and section 383”. I am not a lawyer, still less a tax lawyer, but offhand, I would not have thought that rescinding a law counts as promulgating a regulation necessary or appropriate to carry out its purposes. And if it doesn’t, it’s not clear where Secretary Paulson gets the authority to give banks a twelve-figure tax break.

We handed Congress and our President-Elect the paddle. They’re going to have a fuck of a lot of spanking to do.

This Shit Has to Stop

Somebody Write Joe Lieberman A Reality Check

No wonder he’s taken to running with Republicons – he lives in their same little paranoid fantasy world wherein his delusions of grandeur can run wild:

Lots of people have already chewed over this article in the Hartford Courant, which reports that Chris Dodd is, disappointingly, suggesting that Barack Obama doesn’t want a fight over Joe Lieberman’s fate.

But I wanted to draw your attention to this little nugget buried in the article, in which the Lieberman camp makes a rather startling argument in favor of his being allowed to hang on to his Homeland Security committee slot:

“Sen. Lieberman prefers to remain in the Democratic caucus,” the aide said. “However, he believes he should remain as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. … He thinks that political retribution should not go ahead of homeland security.”

Can the Lieberman camp really be arguing that stripping Lieberman of his committee slot is tantamount to putting politics ahead of our safety, because we’re so defenseless without him there to protect us?

I’m trying. I’m really trying to imagine Holy Joe as the great defender of America, and it’s just not happening. I keep dissolving into helpless laughter.

Apparently, Harry Reid is having no such difficulty. He’s all misty-eyed over Joey’s progressive creds:

“Joe Lieberman is not some right-wing nutcase,” he said. “Joe Lieberman is one of the most progressive people ever to come from the state of Connecticut.”

Progressive Democrats didn’t support John McCain for President.

Progressive Democrats didn’t undermine our party’s nominee by agreeing that it was a good question to ask whether he was a socialist.

Progressive Democrats didn’t campaign for downticket Republicans — Joe Lieberman wrote an op-ed for Norm Coleman! He raised money for Susan Collins! Joe Lieberman took affirmative steps to increase the size of the Republican Senate caucus.

[snip]

From where Harry Reid sits, as an anti-choice Democrat, every single member of the Democratic caucus looks like a progressive. That doesn’t make Joe Lieberman a progressive. It doesn’t make him a Democrat, either.

No, he’s an Independent. And I do believe it’s time to give him his independence.

Somebody Write Joe Lieberman A Reality Check

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

It feels good to call these fuckers completely irrelevant (h/t):

“It’s schadenfreudey fun to read the ongoing psychotic meltdowns at various far-right sites like the Corner, I agree. But there’s little need to take the really bad-faith conservatives seriously now. For the last eight years, we’ve had to take them somewhat seriously because they had access to political power. You had to listen to the hack complaints about academia from endlessly manipulative writers because it was perfectly plausible that whatever axe they were grinding was going to end up as a priority agenda item coming out of Margaret Spelling’s office or get incorporated into legislation by right-wing state legislators. You had to listen to and reply to even the most laughably incoherent, goalpost-moving, anti-reality-based neoconservative writer talking about Iraq or terrorism because there was an even-money chance that you were hearing actual sentiments going back and forth between Dick Cheney’s office and the Pentagon. You had to answer back to Jonah
Goldberg not just because making that answer was
arguably our responsibility as academics, but also because left alone, some of the aggressively bad-faith caricatures he and others served up had a reasonable chance to gain even further strength through incorporation into federal policy.

There are plenty of thoughtful, good-faith conservatives who need to be taken seriously. And the actual conservatism of many communities and constituencies (in Appalachia and elsewhere) remains, as always, a social fact that it would be perilous to ignore or dismiss. (…)

But I think we can all make things just ever so slightly better, make the air less poisonous, by pushing to the margins of our consciousness the crazy, bad, gutter-dwelling, two-faced, tendentious high-school debator kinds of voices out there in the public sphere, including and especially in blogs. Let them stew in their own juices, without the dignity of a reply, now that their pipelines to people with real political power have
been significantly cut.”

It’s a wonderful thought, and I’m sure most of our focus from here will switch from the rabid right-wing blowhards to the somewhat saner conservatives, but I don’t plan to take my eye off of the batshit insane faction until I’m positive they can’t get their grubby hands on power ever again.

There are wonderful signs, at least, that the freaks and fanatics like Limbaugh have lost the respect of everyone aside from the die-hard freaks and fanatics who tune into their shows. The MSM seem to be finding the courage to call these people what they are – digusting, dirty liars:

The Los Angeles Times’ media journalist James Rainey take a look at how right-wing pundits Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are dealing with Barack Obama’s victory. “[W]hen he is demonizing Barack Obama, fabricating Obama policies, blaming Obama for single-handedly causing the recession and the stock market crash,” Rainey writes of Limbaugh, “he doesn’t pretend to be fair.” The LAT then offers this fact-check:

In a time when the nation calls out for cool leadership and national discussion, Limbaugh stirs the caldron, a tendency he proved in a particularly grotesque way last week when he accused Obama’s party of plotting a government takeover of 401(k) retirement plans.

“They’re going to take your 401(k), put it in the Social Security trust fund, whatever the hell that is,” Limbaugh woofed. Trust
fund, my rear end.”

A slight problem with Limbaugh’s report: Obama and the Democrats have proposed no such thing.


Rainey then proceeds to call Limbaugh a shameless liar. Outright. No quibbling. It’s quite the sight to see. I love seeing words like “woofed” and “grotesque” applied to Limbaugh by one of the nation’s newspapers.

More, please.

It’s also nice to see the current incarnation of the Republicon party being called out for their blatant anti-intellectualism:

Rich Lowry briefly referenced the party’s “intellectual exhaustion” in a piece this morning, but that’s incomplete — it suggests Republicans have grown tired after an aggressive battle of ideas. That’s false. Republicans have come to think of reason, evidence, and scholarship as necessarily flawed, to be reviled as an enemy.

Columbia University’s Mark Lilla, a former editor of the Public Interest, lamented with conspicuous sadness what has become of conservative thought (or, in this case, the opposition to thought), punctuated with Republican glee over a vice presidential candidate “whose ignorance, provinciality and populist demagoguery represent everything older conservative thinkers once stood against.”

It’s a sad tale that began in the ’80s, when leading conservatives frustrated with the left-leaning press and university establishment began to speak of an “adversary culture of intellectuals.” … The die was cast. Over the next 25 years there grew up a new generation of conservative writers who cultivated none of their elders’ intellectual virtues — indeed, who saw themselves as counter-intellectuals. Most are well-educated and many have attended Ivy League universities; in fact, one of the masterminds of the Palin nomination was once a Harvard professor. But their function within the conservative movement is no longer to educate and ennoble a populist political tendency, it is to defend that tendency against the supposedly monolithic and uniformly hostile educated classes. They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them. […]

Writing recently in the New York Times, David Brooks noted correctly (if belatedly) that conservatives’ “disdain for liberal intellectuals” had slipped into “disdain for the educated class as a whole,” and worried that the Republican Party was alienating educated voters. I couldn’t care less about the future of the Republican Party, but I do care about the quality of political thinking and judgment in the country as a whole. There was a time when conservative intellectuals raised the level of American public debate and helped to keep it
sober. Thos
e days are gone. As for political judgment, the promotion
of Sarah Palin as a possible world leader speaks for itself. The Republican Party and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead.

Lilla’s concerns obviously ring true for any observer who’s watched the Republican Party in good faith. This is a party that seems to embrace ignorance for ignorance’s sake, as if “facts and figures” are inconvenient annoyances better left to eggheads who read books. Stephen Colbert’s parody of modern Republican leader rings true for a reason.


This election will do one of two things: it will either cause the Republicon party to become even more anti-intellectual, thus condemning them to a slow and painful death, or it will force them to actually start thinking. Either way works for me, but for my country’s sake, I hope they kick the ignoramuses out of power.

In cheerier news, Russ Feingold may be getting his hands all over the reins of power:

A few days ago, The Hill ran an item that I can’t quite wrap my head around.Vice President-elect Joe Biden leaves an open chairmanship on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that could end up being filled by one of the most outspoken critics of the Iraq war.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), among the chamber’s most liberal members, is the fourth Democrat in line on the committee, behind Biden, Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (Mass.).

Dodd said Thursday he plans to stay on as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Kerry is reportedly lobbying to be
President-elect Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.

That leaves Feingold, an unapologetic champion of civil liberties and a staunch opponent of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, next in line. Feingold opposed the war from the start and was the first senator to call for a U.S. troop withdrawal timetable.

Democrats could bypass the Wisconsin senator and choose a more centrist member, such as Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.), who initially supported the war and could be more open to compromise. But that would rile the party’s left wing.

Ordinarily, seniority dictates the next in line for the chairmanship, and if Kerry does leave for an Obama administration, it’s Feingold’s gavel. Except, maybe it won’t be, because he’s a “liberal” who, like Obama, was right about the war in Iraq when most were wrong.

In fact, The Hill quotes Dan Senor, the former Bush administration
spokesman in Iraq, saying Feingold would be “a hard-left chairman,” while Nelson “is basically supportive of Obama but not with the ideological purity that Feingold has.” Why Democrats would take advice from Senor is unclear.


Fuck Senor. I can’t think of anyone better than Feingold to take the reigns. The man’s a scrapper, he’s smart as hell, and he actually thinks. He’s not afraid to face reality. I think he’d be fantastic. (And yes, disclaimer: I do love him almost as much as I love Obama. And Russ has the added bonus of standing up against the FISA fuckery, so in a way I love him more.)

We need more reality-based people in charge. Give those boys (and girls) a mandate.

Oh, wait. We did. Heh.

Happy Hour Discurso

Sunday Sensational Science

Science on the Web

Back in the bad old days, when we had to walk barefoot to work uphill both ways in the snow, science could be hard to access. If you lived in a city, you might have been lucky enough to have science museums and planetariums to visit, and a large library that carried a good selection of the latest books and journals. Smaller towns weren’t so lucky. To get cutting-edge science news, you had to subscribe to expensive journals, buy expensive books that were out-of-date within a couple of years, and hope like hell that your teevee stations would eventually air something informative.

It’s a little different now. All you need for a world o’ science is a computer and an internet connection.

Here’s just a smattering of some of the awesome science available free on the Web:

USGS Evening Public Lecture Series


Don’t live in Menlo Park, CA, but still want to attend some of the most awesome public lectures available? Look no further! The United States Geological Survey posts its lectures to the toobz, and it’s awesome stuff. They bring science to the public in amazing ways. It’s like having the National Geographic research teams pop into your living room for an evening of Q & A.

TED


Ideas worth spreading indeed! If you’re starving for more lectures after watching the USGS series, TED has some gorgeous talks on evolution by some amazing speakers. You can hear Steven Pinker talk of the blank slate, or Louise Leakey delve into human origins, or David Gallo rhapsodize on the deep oceans, or… just go! You’ll be in great company – Dawkins and Dennet have talks up, too!

NASA’s JPL Solar System Simulator

Ever wanted to know what the view was like from other worlds? On this site, you can choose what planet or spacecraft you want to watch from, the angle of view, and a whole host of other factors. Voila! You’re own personal solar system vista.

Encyclopedia of Life


This ain’t the encyclopedia set you grew up with. Not many homes could afford a set comprising of 1.8 million pages – one for each of the known species on Earth. And these pages contain up-to-the-minute information, tons of color pics, and additional resources – all for free.

PLoS

Need a scientific paper? Can’t afford to pay out the nose? At the Public Library of Science, science is indeed free! All papers are published under an open access license, and delivers high-quality, cutting-edge science right into the public’s hands. This is what science should be – free and ours for the asking.

There’s a World Wide Web of science out there, complete with interactive features, animations, and all sorts of other brilliant ways to bring science straight to you. Go forth, explore, and enjoy!

Sunday Sensational Science

YES, I'm STILL Doing NaNo. Honestly

All right, so I got derailed for nearly a week by President-Elect Obama becoming President-Elect Obama, and I’m still a political junkie, and blah blah excuses blah, but I’m back on it.

Really.

See? 6,923 words. Considering I was at 1,700 at the start of last night, that’s not so bad, now, is it?

I’ll be sending chapters out to all of you who requested them quite soon. For now, content yourselves with a snippet. This comes from Chapter One: Right. What’s An Atheist? We’re talking here about atheists in action, and it’s my sad little attempt at categories:

Hidden atheists: Those who are flying under the radar for fear of what their friends, families, and communities will do to them if anyone ever discovers they’re atheists. Hidden atheists are, shall we say, atheists with the potential to act on their atheism, even though at the moment they’re not speaking out.

Trailblazing atheists: They’ve found the courage to speak out: on blogs, in communities, founding organizations, and in a myriad of other ways. Their example makes it possible for the hidden atheists to emerge, throw off the shame they’ve been made to feel at their lack of belief, and start putting their atheism to good use. The trailblazers prove it’s possible to live a full and happy life without belief in the supernatural or the afterlife. They debunk a lot of the myths just by living openly as atheists, doing good works, taking care of others through love and shared humanity, and showing that losing faith doesn’t mean you lose your sense of wonder at the beauty of the world. Every atheist who’s not hidden in a trailblazer in some fashion.

Atheist Ambassadors: These atheists are natural mediators, who work to foster understanding and cooperation between the religious and godless. You’ll find a lot of them in the ranks of organizations like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. They strike a fairly moderate tone with the faithful. They’re skilled at finding and emphasizing common ground. They often work to overcome the fear so many of the faithful feel when confronted with atheists.

Militant atheists: I hate that term, but a lot of them own it proudly, so in the book it goes. These are the atheists who work actively against religion: they try to deconvert the religious, tirelessly point out the dangers of religion, and argue passionately against the irrationality of faith. They may not go so far as to think of religion as an evil – although many do – but they envision a world where, if religion isn’t eradicated, it’s at least greatly reduced in importance. And they have an arsenal of evidence to show you that religion is uniquely capable of getting good people to do horrible things.

And yes, my darlings, those categories are prefaced AND followed by disclaimers explaining that this is a spectrum, and no one atheist is likely to fit only one category and no other, and I’ll even whip up a nice little illustration to drive the point home when I’m done whipping out 50,000 words. I’m not trying to stuff us into restrictive little boxes, just make us somewhat comprehensible.

pleasedon’thitme.

Actually, do. If you see the categories of atheists-in-action differently, by all means say so. Just remember I’m trying to keep it to four broad categories, not four thousand precise ones. While that would do wonders for my word count, it would really defeat the purpose of the book.

Keep in mind that the three broad types of atheist – Natural, Apathetic, and Dissonant, as enumerated here – have already been defined earlier in the chapter.

Right? Good. Then me and my aching brain are going to bed.

YES, I'm STILL Doing NaNo. Honestly