I can’t possibly be the only one to have noticed the similarity.
Leave it to the Republicans to consider nominating a thuggish, evil alien to run the country.
Separated at birth?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
That’s a cruel and thoughtless thing to suggest that these innocent aliens are related to a Republican.
I know this isn’t strictly relevant, but a 250kg squid washed up on a Tasmanian beach:
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/11/1975801.htm?section=justin
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=277970
The invasion continues!
This is priceless.
Definitely. I’ve also noticed that Bush is really the great Richard Grieco. Republicans sure do love them thar movies. Or at least are easily pegged as such.
..maybe he’ll push the red button
I am a fan of PZ but I don’t find it good humor to make fun of people’s physical appearances (or maybe I am having a bad mood today).
Just consider the classless Dembski once compared Jerry Coyne to Herman Munster, which really infuriated me.
Shame on you PZ
These aliens weren’t evil it was just their way they fought and died and tried to earn enough to feed their wains. I’ve known a few folk who had no other way to go but fight and well I do understand that, after all you do what you can.
However the Oldman character was truly evil in that he had other ways to go but chose not to. While Fred does not physically resemble Gary’s character mentally well there lies the rub.
I think its more a matter of demeanor…
If you recall, they were really, really stupid, too. Remember the red button?
PZ says; “Leave it to the Republicans to consider nominating a thuggish, evil alien to run the country.”
Nothing new there, Cheney is a villain straight from a James Bond film.
Wait isn’t that the guy from Law & Order trail by jury?
Wait, he is. Whoa mindfuck.
“No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to shut up and do as I say!”
Why don’t the Republicans stop pussyfooting around and just go ahead and nominate Kiefer Sutherland?
What’s with all these second-tier TV actors? At least get someone like Tom Selleck. Or do it right, change the constitution and get Arnold (with Sly as his running mate).
If Thompson gets elected, I promise, I will do everything in my power to get The Hoff in the running as German Chancellor in 2009 ;)
Maybe Fred put in an uncredited appearance.
The latter part would equate turning the Republicans into a conservative party. Maybe Conan the Destroyer could accomplish such a feat, having fought and vanquished an evil god with his bare hands, but it won’t be easy.
The latter part would equate turning the Republicans into a conservative party. Maybe Conan the Destroyer could accomplish such a feat, having fought and vanquished an evil god with his bare hands, but it won’t be easy.
“Why don’t the Republicans stop pussyfooting around and just go ahead and nominate Kiefer Sutherland?”
Thankfully, not only is Kiefer Sutherland a Canadian, he is very much a liberal.
There you go PZ, feeding the frenzy. You’re spreading rumors that Mangalors are Republicans while others are saying Fred Thompson is gay.
I understand that PZ is unhappy with the way the government is working. I also have no pony in this race (I’m Australian and of course have no say in who you Yanks elect). I am horrified by what your government is doing. But – I must say that from my external point of observation, categorising someone as a Fepublican or a Democrat is and then riduculing by stereotype is unbecoming. I’m sure that there are people who think independently aside from “The Party-line”
Now when are you guys going to impeach your Administration? It seems overdue.
Shame on PZ! Picking on poor ickle lobbyists like that. ;-)
By the way, did you hear about the recently-released tapes and records of conversations Nixon had with his inner circle about Thompson? They all thought he was a brainless buffoon who had to be walked through everything. (Considering how John Dean made him crap his pants at one point, it’s not surprising they felt that way.) But he was THEIR brainless buffoon, and he was illegally tipping them off about every damn thing the Senate Watergate Committee knew, so they stuck with him.
Andrew: Impeachment and removal won’t happen because it needs two-thirds of the Senate to vote for it. Right now, the Senate chamber, though technically in Democratic hands, actually has a Republican vote majority as Tim Johnson is still at home recovering from a burst blood vessel in his brain and Joe Lieberman votes to back Bush whenever it counts. We’d need at least twenty Republican Senators to be willing to kiss their careers goodbye for impeachment to work. That ain’t gonna happen.
Why would impeaching Bush doom these guys? Because that’s what happened to the Rockefeller-Republican contingent that signaled their intent to vote with the Senate Democrats in 1974 to impeach, convict and remove Richard M. Nixon from the presidency. (Nixon was persuaded to resign rather than face a vote he knew he would lose.) This was the last straw for the GOP’s ultra-conservative faction that had been largely shoved aside after Joe McCarthy’s downfall in the early 1950s; they moved to take over the party, get one of their own elected as president in 1980, and purge the party one by one of anyone who was the least bit sane or decent.
But even though it won’t happen, that’s not to say that the Dems shouldn’t use the concept — and the Republicans’ unwillingness to clean house — to score points in the run-up to ’08.
How can you criticize a trained lawyer and a member of the
legal extortion racket. So he took money from his clients and worked behind their backs to give them a screwing. He is trained in da LAW. Nixon, Mitchell, Dean, Bill, Hillary, Edwards, Leiberman, Obama, Abramhoff, Libby, Feith, all judges…
There are more than one million lawyers in Supernation. They need your money, and they will take your blood too.
ROFLMAO!
What size tin foil hat do you wear?
Well, Chris Matthews thinks Fred’s sexy.
MATTHEWS: Gene, do you think there’s a sex appeal for this guy, this sort of mature, older man, you know? He looks sort of seasoned and in charge of himself. What is this appeal? Because I keep star quality. You were throwing the word out, shining star, Ana Marie, before I checked you on it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19226375/
“I’m sure that there are people who think independently aside from “The Party-line””
In the Republican camp? Are you kidding? You can count them on one hand. The rest have been assimilated.
The best part is you know Fred would DEFINITELY push the button!
Tin foil posta keep the space aliens away from one’s precious brain cells. Ain’t no way to avoid lawyers and courtroom. It’s a monopoly. Michael Chertoff, Fred Thompson, Jack Abramhoff, Scooter Libby, and Dick Nixon were well trained in da LAW.
While I might ordinarily agree with the concept of not stereotyping individuals, in this case the stereotype is pretty accurate. Republicans are evil, and regrettably, Dems – the ones in Congress anyway – are spineless. (Wait – did I just insult cephalopods?)
But we don’t even have to rely on the stereotype for Fred. We have his actual Senate record, and his worst character flaw, IMHO, is that he’s lazy. After the last 6+ years of Bush League, the last thing this country needs is another lazy president.
David Whorehouse Vitter stands tall for family values and da LAW.
He scribbled at Harvard and Tulane. Another lawyer in the govmint.
“Republicans are evil”
Sadly Rational Jen reflects the barometer of discourse in this country. As a (self-defined) open minded republican, I take some umbrage at the above statement. There is a principled position related to limited government concerning lower taxes and minimal government interference. This is the libertarian wing of the republican party.
Politicians are dirty because democratic government promotes hypocritical pandering. Whether Hillary’s about-face on any issue that matters, or Bush’s sad legacy, both parties are hard-pressed to find champions in office. Nonetheless, my experience has been that both parties have a good many people with noble, idealistic goals at the grass roots with sad, power hungry old men at the top.
“This is the PURELY IMAGINARY libertarian wing of the republican party.” [correction mine]
“Anyone else wanna negotiate?”
Tuck wrote:
Unfortunately, the current Republican party is only willing to extend these concepts to corporations. When you allow corporations to profit at the expense of Americans, individually and collectively, that is evil.
Not separated at birth.
It’s the same guy. He just has his “human” mask on in the photo on the left.
I bet Icke thinks he’s a reptilian too.
Bush’s immigration bill seemed to go as far or farther than most any democrat in limiting government meddling in private individuals choice to better their lives. Unfortunately, the dems and (most) republicans watered it down and bastardized it, making it a fortunate failure.
Otherwise, accross the board, the republicans have been basically like democrats the last 8 years, substituting the war machine and corporate subsidies for social programs and foreign aid its curious new-found love of big govt solutions.
There is small and (mostly) non-vocal dissent, however, centering primarily around the unelectable but hopefully soon-to-be relevant Ron Paul.
“There is a principled position related to limited government concerning lower taxes and minimal government interference.”
If you hold those positions and are still a registered republican, then you’re a hypocrite or a fool.
And it doesn’t even require the fact that the party’s behavior is 180 degrees from your professed views to make it hypocritical for you to remain a republican.
The Bush administration and the president himself is guilty of repeated violations of the law. They have claimed powers that even conservative experts have termed preposterous. They are dismantling the constitution. They have committed treason.
The GOP leadership and all elected Republican representatives, rather than try to restrain those in their membership that would commit these crimes, has lined up in uniform support of them. The had a choice to make, and it chose power over integrity. It chose to become a criminal, anti-american organization.
There is room in American politics for a conservative party. The GOP is not it. I am against the death penalty for people, but not for political parties. After the crimes they have committed, the GOP deserves nothing.
You don’t fight the mafia by trying to “change it from within.”
Leave the GOP and form a legitimate conservative party, or you are simply an accomplice to their crimes.
I hate Republicans, too narrow-minded. I’ll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough.
Why I could be a republican: Low taxes, small government, free trade, free markets, anti-regulation.
Why I can’t be a republican: Anti death penalty, athiest, socially liberal, anti war.
Goes both ways: pro immigration.
craig is right, though clearly overstating. I’m not a registered republican, but unfortunately I find my beliefs incompatible with either of the two party platforms. It seems there are only two options: liberal socially/fiscally or conservative socially/fiscally. Some combination thereof cannot be found in this country. So I promote voting for the non-incumabant or minority party.
Gridlock is the best option I see.
What we need, to guide this country ,are more pseudo-intellectual bloggers.
You seem not to have noticed that the present-day Republican Party doesn’t actually stand for those things anymore. Not even anti-regulation. They’re pro-regulation, as long as the regulations are written by their campaign contributors (some of them pretty damn anticompetitive, too, IIRC).
I think views like yours deserve a voice and a place at the bargaining table in American politics, if for no other reason than that social engineering really needs someone to say “Hey, that won’t work” or “Who’s going to pay for that?” once in a while. (Like any larger-than-life endeavor, it tends to attract enthusiasts, who may be more enthusiastic than realistic.)
But the party of fear, nativism, theocracy and the cult of blind loyalty we’ve got isn’t going to represent that kind of principled conservatism (or classical liberalism, or small-L libertarianism, or whatever you want to call it), unless it has an internal counter-revolution to undo everything that has happened to it since Nixon and the Dixiecrats. The current leadership is only interested in power for its own sake, keeping its friends (OK, toadies) out of jail and its enemies tortured.
I understand your lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic Party – I share it too, if for slightly different reasons. But we need *someone* to stop the Fear and Ignorance Party, and they seem to be the only game in town, just at the moment.
I think you should read John Dean’s Conservatives without Conscience. Your principles seem to match up pretty well with Dean’s, but it seems like you could benefit from his research on the state of the party as it is today. (Well, a couple years ago now. But the trends he identified are still in force.)
Hey, Fred can’t be that bad. Chris Matthews sure seems to want to sleep with him (due to his animal magnetism and manly odor).