Comments

  1. Gordy says

    I don’t know who’s more terrifying – rapture-ready Sarah or trigger-happy John…?

  2. Brian G says

    I dunno, but they’re both pretty scary to me. One’s a bumbling fool and the other’s the governor of alaska.

  3. Robert Byers says

    America does need a cool hand. Ronald Reagan is not here.
    This Obama guy is incompetent and lacking intelligence in the great issues. I can see he’s just some municapal politician without a clue of what to do. He staggers like President Bush to give answers beyong talking points. He was pushed by a liberal establishment that wanted a Black nominee. He was not more worthy then the others in Democratic circles. He is a quota. He is another President Bush. Someone who doesn’t reflect beyong the establishments presumptions and much conclusions.
    This McCain is worse. He is totally under the spell of neo conservative Jews to use American blood and treasure for the gain of Israel. Start wars, even nuclear war perhaps, against innocent Arab/Persian states on important matters. There is no hope with this person for justice, Judgement, and American know how on these serious times in foreign affairs and likewise domestic.
    It would be better for Obama to win because of the great conspiracy of the establishment to involve America in Israels agenda under the guise of American interests which would most be pushed by McCain.
    its a disaster. its been a mess since Reagan.
    Truly the Man for good steering would of been Pat Buchanan.
    Observations from Canada

  4. says

    This Obama guy is incompetent and lacking intelligence in the great issues.

    Ladies and gentlemen – Robert Byers criticises another for being incompetent and lacking in intelligence…

  5. Tilman says

    From abroad (Germany) you tend to think that the US Americans are plain crazy while the smart Canadians stand back and smile sardonically. Well done, Rob from Canada, I see clearer now. Tell me do you also have an east coast in Canada where you store away your smart people?

  6. Chris Davis says

    Have Mr. Byers and Quentin Letts ever been seen in the same room?

    Because I’m developing an hypothesis…

    CD

  7. says

    Sorry guys and gals but, assuming it’s the same person, Byers is real. He used to be a fairly regular visitor to IIDB and is a barely coherent and entirely unapologetic racist. He is also known for barely sane contributions to the evolution/creation debate. Here is his explanation for “Post-flood marsupial migration”

    http://www.rae.org/marsupials.html

  8. SteveN says

    From the article “Post-Flood Marsupial Migration Explained” referred to by SteveF in #10:

    “The same body type is the evidence of ancestry and not minor matters as reproduction. The present attempt of science to group animals and their relationships by reproduction methods or minor bone structures has been the error of modern evolutionary biology and palaeontology. ”

    Good grief!

    SteveN

  9. Marc Buhler says

    Latest Paris Hilton video:

    Paris Hilton Gets Presidential with Martin Sheen

    McDude started this, of course, so that is one thing he did right!

  10. maxamillion says

    #10
    Here is his explanation for “Post-flood marsupial migration”
    FMD!

    Read it and well it was difficult to say the least, some punctuation would not go astray.

    #3 …would *have* been
    Seems to be a continuing problem
    These changes would of affected 10/19/2005

    The essay seems to be more of an exercise in circumlocution than presenting some hypotheis.

    I like this bit

    The marsupial creatures are not related to each other because they are marsupial. (That’s irrelevant). That is just an adaptation or a continuation of some ancient adaptation due to the environment

  11. secularguy says

    Obama isn’t ideal as a candidate.
    But who took Sarah Palin as his running mate?
    McCain isn’t fit to be the head of state.

  12. Fernando Magyar says

    Kel @ 12,

    It’s all well and good getting marsupials to Australia, but what about to South America too?

    Then again I couldn’t find any mention about Stagodontid marsupials from the Late Cretaceous of Canada in the Bible either,go figure.
    app.pan.pl/article/item/app51-013.html?pdf=39

    I’m begining to wonder if there might not be a whole portion of natural history that precedes the Bible.

    Oh, never mind this explains it:

    The marsupial nature of Australia is not an anomaly but rather a revelation of the true history of animal migration and adaptation after leaving the Ark. It suits creationists fine.

  13. says

    I feel the need to defend my country at this point… some of us Canadians do stand back and smile sardonically (although often it is a sad smile as well), so I’m glad that gets noticed (yay Germans!). However, we do have our own set of ignorant louts… please don’t judge us too harshly. We don’t really like them, either.

  14. says

    no style here, but I have seen and cuddled a few marsupials in my time, and now, the fate of the world’s endangered pouchies is more secure, compared to when Homo sapiens had free slather, the glory days…as long as there was no human flesh in those dry Pacific days…

  15. says

    special message to other time zoner Pharyngulites

    To all yall ferners who are awake right now. If you are awake at 10:30pm Central Time, USA 16hrs and 30 minutes from this post, PZ and Phil Plaitt will be joining me on the air and we’ll get to the bottom of this pork barrel spending for overhead projectors, and we’ll get to the bottom of everything else too.

    Here’s a direct streaming link:
    http://stream.kpft.org/streamkpft.m3u

  16. Fernando Magyar says

    We do need a “cool hand on the tiller”

    WTF for? That only matters when the rudder is still attached to the stern of your boat. Oh, and more importantly when your boat is still afloat.

  17. says

    I guarantee you, Robert Byers is not representative of Canada’s viewpoint any more than those intolerant fools cutting Liberals’ brake lines in Toronto are representative of Canada’s political persuasion. I’m working hard to keep the Conservatives in a minority government at absolute worst, knowing full well what kind of destruction Republicans have wrought over the past eight years in your once-incomparable country.

    I’m pulling for Obama, because though I don’t have a direct stake in the results of your elections, we’ll certainly feel any ripple effect before much of the rest of the world.

    @7: And I’m on the East Coast.

  18. Molly, NYC says

    Aside from everything else, I think you can reasonably assume that they’d run their administrations like they’ve run their campaigns.

    So, let’s see, you’ve got one candidate who’s managed to anticipate and/or sidestep pitfall after pitfall for more than a year of running for president, who invariably treats voters like they were thoughtful, intelligent and grown-up, and who is apparently devoid of impulsive behavior. He also has the best-organized ground game in national politics I’ve ever seen–like Karl Rove without the evil.

    The other candidate can’t seem to avoid tripping over his own dick.

    Anyway, it’s what I think about when one of the candidates (or his surrogates) starts yammering about the other’s lack of experience.

    Past = Prologue.

  19. says

    Re: Robert Byers: don’t blame us Canadians. Most of us are as you believe — stable, kindly, reasonable, conservative* and trustworthy. Except for the ones who aren’t.

    Noni

    * But not Conservative

  20. varlo says

    I don’t have an especially touchy gag reflex, but it went into high gear after reading perhaps a fifth of the marsupial migration link. Unless osme sane person can give a 100-word summary I will never know how this one played out.

  21. says

    Posted by: Brian G | October 9, 2008 4:27 AM

    I dunno, but they’re both pretty scary to me. One’s a bumbling fool and the other’s the governor of alaska.

    Those aren’t mutually exclusive, either.

    And, Molly, I think that’s probably the best assessment I’ve seen for a while. I’ll have to remember the phrase, “like Karl Rove without the evil”.

  22. says

    Robert Byers @ 3

    Ronald Rea….. ummm the original deficit spen….

    ummmm
    WWII draft dodger?

    McCarthy witch hunt squealer…

    conservative revolution spent more money than all previous presidents combined????

    Tha… that wasn’t Ronald Reagan running the country, it was Steve Bechtel.

    Byron knows nothing about Reagan, we interviewed him in a tell all interview from his coffin:

    http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner12.mp3 go 10 minutes in.

  23. Eric says

    @25
    You’re using the National Review as a source? Where they quote the man who said, “Geneticists are female, genomicists are male. Imagine you are walking down a corridor in a research institute, looking in through the glass panels in doors. In one lab you see a young woman of nontrivial attractiveness carefully adding drops to a Petri dish from a pipette. That’s a geneticist. A couple of doors along you look into another lab and there are two young guys arguing about some long string of numbers displayed on a computer screen. Those are genomicists…”

  24. says

    WTF for? That only matters when the rudder is still attached to the stern of your boat. Oh, and more importantly when your boat is still afloat.

    Proposed revisions:

    ‘We need someone who’s real, real fast with hull repair.’

    ‘We need a vigorous hand on the bilge pump.’

    ‘We need several more bilge pumps.’

    ‘We need someone to fire the damn flare gun.’

    ‘We need off this boat.’

  25. says

    Okay… having now watched the video, I must confess, I couldn’t help laughing…

    No, no. I’m taking it seriously. Yes, if Senator McCain ever did wind up with his finger on the button, that would scare me. I get that it matters… And sure, it’s absolutely not funny if he’s gonna push people around as is described. Not nice, and okay, sure, serious…

    But it was the line about him poking people in the chest when he gets steamed… Seriously, that was a chortle.

    I mean, John McCain is what? 5’7? And didn’t I hear somewhere he has trouble raising his arms, due to injuries. So whose chest can he actually reach?

    I’m trying to picture this happening to anyone of more than average height, and I’m getting this image of a guy standing there with this bewildered expression. And he’s asking himself: ‘Why is there an angry dwarf poking me in the stomach?’

  26. secularguy says

    Obama isn’t ideal as a candidate.
    But who took Sarah Palin as his running mate?
    McCain isn’t fit to be the head of state.

    better

  27. Father Nature says

    PZ, thanks for posting this. I’m sending the link to people who will pass it on to more people, etc. I hope the Obama campaign uses it in their TV ads.

  28. bunnycatch3r says

    John McCain is the worst of two terrible candidates. I get the impression that there will be more joy in these forums over McCain losing than Obama winning the election.

  29. Sean says

    And he’s asking himself: ‘Why is there an angry dwarf poking me in the stomach?’

    MENTAL PYGMIES + DWARFS!!!

  30. BobbyEarle says

    AJ @32…

    We need a vigorous hand on the bilge pump.

    That does it…I will never again try eating my frugal breakfast of Post Toasties and orange juice while reading.

    /spending way too much time swabbing cereal from my nose and keyboard

  31. JBlilie says

    We must elect Obama for the following reasons:
    1. He can control his temper
    2. Supreme court justices
    3. He’s right on the issues
    4. He won’t surround himself with neo cons and lobbyists (we now see how wonderful the neo con program is: Iraq, the economy. The ruling of history on W will be: EPIC FAIL. McCain is Bush redux.)
    5. He gives a damn about the people who make less than $1M per year.
    6. He didn’t choose Palin as a running mate
    7. He won’t stand for and will reverse the erosion of our constitutional rights that has occurred under Bush.

    I’ve already done my patriotic duty and voted absentee for Obama. One of the proudest votes I’ve cast.

  32. bunnycatch3r says

    @40 This is all too short sighted. We need to think bigger.
    “What if”… Carl Sagan were alive today and in his 50’s and he were running for president. I’m embarrased that I can’t think of anyone of Carl’s calibre, alive now, to point to and say “We need candidates like these!” But instead we always end up with the worst sort -politicians.

  33. Andrew says

    Re #3: Take that, Americans! You guys think you’re so good with your global leadership, space program, world influence and collection of nutbars second to none! Well, Robert Byers is proof we Canucks have idiots that are just as dim as anything you can pony up!

    Our idiots are world class! We house them mostly in what we still call our Conservative party.

  34. The Petey says

    so the difference is anal invasion followed by explosive diarrhea or eating shit???

  35. Mark Mattern says

    OBAMA DUZZZNT GET TEH ANGREEZ!!!111! I VOWT 4 HIM.

    Seriously. You’re defending this video? Seriously? I can’t believe you are buying into this propaganda. On both side, that is. I don’t like McCain. But I’m not going to vote based on ridiculous attack ads, or give them any attention whatsoever. The voting records are out there. Their stances are well documented. Use facts, not biased bullshit ads.

    Oh, and fuck McCain.

  36. Santoki says

    I agree with Mark: don’t show this stuff PZ.

    You’re against McCain, and so am I. But this ad is pure hate. If you want to attack McCain, attack his policies, attack his economics. I’m against him, for example, because he will refinance mortgages nationwide. That means that people who bought houses they can’t afford will get to keep them, and the feds – which means you and me – will pay the difference. And fuck that.

  37. Rasyek says

    This ad is not hateful. The man is known for his temper by both parties. I for one do not want a president who will go red in the face this first time someone disagrees with him. The first debate demonstrated that.

  38. truth machine, OM says

    If this video were about Obama you would call it propaganda.

    If you had a non-ad hominem argument against this video, you would make it.

    Use facts, not biased bullshit ads.

    What isn’t factual about the ad? As for “biased” — all advocacy is biased. Duh.

  39. truth machine, OM says

    this ad is pure hate

    Perhaps you’re writing in a different language that only superficially resembles English but in which the words “pure hate” have a very different meaning. Perhaps it’s the language that Bill Donohue and other Catholics were using when they absurdly accused PZ of the same.

  40. truth machine, OM says

    OBAMA DUZZZNT GET TEH ANGREEZ!!!111! I VOWT 4 HIM.

    Look, this is a science blog. We have before us evidence that McCain has a dangerously hot temper — incompatible with his own admonition that we need a steady hand at the tiller — did you not bother to read the article title? It isn’t adequate to imply that the other guy gets angry too. That smacks of the logic behind “teach the controversy” and the Intelligent Design fundie’s claims that, if only research wasn’t being suppressed by the establishment, it would surely show that their theory was just as well supported by the evidence as the ToE. Sorry, but unless you can provide counter evidence, the point that, by his own criterion, McCain is the wrong guy for the job stands. And really, that’s the point — to rebut McCain’s statement with his own behavior. This single article and video were not intended as a complete summary of the candidate’s pros and cons. Sheesh.

  41. The Petey says

    Telling PZ not to put stuff like this on his blog is the same as whackoes telling him not to post about driving a nail through a cracker. It HIS blog, as long as his posts are with in the law he can put what ever the hell he wants on it – even if you disgree.

  42. Voltaire Kinison says

    I was thinking the video was a little mean spirited, until the part where he hits a woman in the face.
    Throw the old hot headed fart in the slammer.
    I wonder if he’d take a swing at Sarah?
    (She is armed and very dangerous)

  43. Qwerty says

    I heard on the radio that McCain used the phrase “fellow prisoners” while addressing a rally.

    A little PTSD perhaps?

    Heaven help us if he does get elected and imagines he is in the Hanoi Hilton while residing in the White House.

  44. dutchvigilante says

    Hmm… if only he got big and green and dumb if he got angry, the hulk would so have my vote. If I was an American. And not be dissallowed to vote thanks to insanity.

  45. Zar says

    McCain once got physical with a woman in a wheelchair. Ick.

    Ghost Of Paul Newman 08: a Cool Hand at the tiller!

  46. abb3w says

    Ronald Reagan is in his coffin; this means he’s probably about 290 Kelvin. Hard to come up with a cooler leader than that, I admit.

  47. Nomad says

    abb3w @62 (unless the numbers change and I look like a fool again…)

    I don’t think the phrase “cold dead hand at the tiller” carries quite the same impact as just “cool hand”.

    Although I have to say, the image of America as a sailing vessel captained by the corpse of Ronald Reagan is indeed interesting.

  48. Walton says

    I would still contend that McCain is better for the job. This doesn’t mean that I think he’s perfect or that Obama is a poor candidate. However, I would base my disagreement on substantive policy.

    In the midst of an economic crisis like the present one, there is an inevitable temptation to extend the role of the state in the economy. Short-term emergency measures turn into long-term statist programmes which, once entrenched, are very difficult to get rid of – just as happened with much of Roosevelt’s New Deal. More than a century ago, Frederic Bastiat in The Law warned that any major government interference with the free market, however well-intentioned – ranging from subsidies, to tariffs, to welfare programmes – ends up restricting individual freedom, costing taxpayers a fortune and ruining the economy in the long run.

    We shouldn’t forget that the present crisis is not a failure of the market – it was caused, all down the line, by state intervention. The creation of Fannie Mae as a federal institution in 1938 was where the rot set in; even when it was privatised in the 60s, it still had “Federal” in its name, and gave the false impression to many investors that it was backed by the federal government. More recently, the Clinton administration in the 90s pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give out mortgages to anyone and everyone – including people on unemployment benefits – to increase levels of home ownership in poor urban areas. Well-intentioned, but it self-evidently contributed to the subprime mortgage mess. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; and Democrats, from FDR to LBJ to Bill Clinton, have shown that, while trying to improve society, they end up creating big-government statist solutions that store up problems for future generations. A small-government, free market approach is the solution to virtually all of today’s problems.

    I apologise for going off on a tangent about the economy – but the economy, particularly at present, is the number one political issue, and no discussion of the election ought to ignore it. Obama, in his pro-union and protectionist rhetoric in the primaries, gave indications that he is amenable to statist solutions. I fear that, as president, he could end up enacting trade tariffs to “protect American jobs” or expanding the reach of government bailouts in the financial sector – and such measures would set the world on a path to destruction. Virtually all the prosperity we enjoy today has been created by global capitalism; let’s not kill it for the sake of short-term expediency.

  49. Tulse says

    the Clinton administration in the 90s pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give out mortgages to anyone and everyone – including people on unemployment benefits – to increase levels of home ownership in poor urban areas. Well-intentioned, but it self-evidently contributed to the subprime mortgage mess.

    All reputable economists and analysts agree that Fannie and Freddie mortgages were not the major cause of the subprime meltdown, which was overwhelmingly led by private lenders consumed by greed and giving out loans like drunken sailors.

  50. David Marjanović, OM says

    Diagnosis of Robert Byers: 0.5 Tc.

    Mark @43
    If that video were about Obama it would be untrue, there´s a difference.

    “If the Republicans will stop telling lies about us, we’ll stop telling the truth about them.”
    — Adlai Stevenson

    Although I have to say, the image of America as a sailing vessel captained by the corpse of Ronald Reagan is indeed interesting.

    It fits very well — one word: Reaganomics.

    Virtually all the prosperity we enjoy today has been created by global capitalism; let’s not kill it for the sake of short-term expediency.

    Indeed not. Instead, let’s distribute that prosperity — remember who’s going to buy Henry Ford’s products? And let’s protect it from chaotic behavior such as crashes caused by people who buy and sell bundles of mortgage debts as if those were sacks of rice.

    (That said, the simplest and probably most effective means of doing that would be the Tobin Tax, and that would have to be introduced by the whole world at the local beginning of the same day, which isn’t going to happen anytime soon.)

  51. Rubster says

    Walton said:

    “In the midst of an economic crisis like the present one, there is an inevitable temptation to extend the role of the state in the economy. Short-term emergency measures turn into long-term statist programmes which, once entrenched, are very difficult to get rid of – just as happened with much of Roosevelt’s New Deal.”

    Which was followed by the greatest economic expansion in the history of the world… what’s your point?

  52. Tulse says

    Short-term emergency measures turn into long-term statist programmes which, once entrenched, are very difficult to get rid of – just as happened with much of Roosevelt’s New Deal.

    Which was followed by the greatest economic expansion in the history of the world… what’s your point?

    I think it’s something like “OH NOES ITZ SOSHALIZM! CAN I HAS LAZZY FARE?”

    Or perhaps it was “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”. (Although technically I suppose that prisons and workhouses are themselves long-term statist programs,)

  53. Walton says

    To David Marjanovic, re the Tobin tax: See this article in the Guardian (hardly a right-wing paper).

    http:// http://www.guardian.co.uk / business /2001/aug/30/11

    (spaces added so that my comment won’t go into moderation).

    As it says, currency speculators, while they may appear to do nothing productive, actually provide liquidity and play a vital part in the global capitalist economy. A tax which penalised them would be entirely counter-productive and would end up damaging the global economy and hurting everyone. Plus, note the names of some of those who’ve supported it: wingnuts like Chavez of Venezuela.

  54. Dan L. says

    All reputable economists and analysts agree that Fannie and Freddie mortgages were not the major cause of the subprime meltdown, which was overwhelmingly led by private lenders consumed by greed and giving out loans like drunken sailors.

    Not to mention that most of the paper money that imploded in the credit crisis was due to the 3% margins that investment banks were trading on. The mortgages wouldn’t have been a problem if they weren’t being used to underwrite assets worth more than thirty times the market value of the mortgage-backed securities themselves. Restricting investment banks to smaller margins and allowing some small deviation in value before allowing margin calls.

    Of course, that would be regulation. Maybe all these free trade guys are…you know…wrong about regulation always causing problems. The market in the 1920s was much less regulated than it is today, and if you want to see where that went, I’d suggest checking out the year 1929 in any U.S. history text book.

  55. negentropyeater says

    Walton,

    The road to hell is paved with good intentions; and Democrats, from FDR to LBJ to Bill Clinton, have shown that, while trying to improve society, they end up creating big-government statist solutions that store up problems for future generations. A small-government, free market approach is the solution to virtually all of today’s problems.

    the solution to virtually all of today’s problems, you probably mean the cause ?

    We should never have allowed an ultra-capitalist system to prevail. We should have reconized early on that there are specific areas that cannot be left to “free markets” to auto regulate themselves and find the best response (ie to a tiny % of individuals who control those so called free markets).
    Banking is one such areas. By letting a small group of private bankers define the monetary policy, that means letting them decide to pump as much money as possible into the economy so as to make as much profit as possible out of the amounts that they provide as loans to consumers who are stimulated to take credit by the manufacturers of goods and providers of services who also profit from this system.

    Free markets in our financial institutions, the bloodline of our econmy, has genereated this mountain of debt on which has been buit the last 25 years of accelerated growth. It has made bankers and industrialists, owners of capital, ten times richer then they were before. Meanwhile, the middle class has gotten squeezed and its net worth, after this huge corection on the value of its assets (houses, 401ks…etc) minus its hude burden of debt, will have actually decreased over this last quarter century.

    So good for free markets. They just aren’t a panacea for everything. Education, healthcare, banking, energy, these are areas that cannot be left to them only to self regulate, because they will always end up serving the interests of a few and not those of the vast majority.

    “Free markets” are just an illusion. They are not “free”. Even if they are not in the hands of government, they are still in the hands of someone else. Be it a group of public individuals elected by the people or a group of bankers and board members of the fortune 500 companies, humans will always have some element of influence on the markets. “Freedom” is just an illusion that some clever capitalists have sold to the masses.

    I’ll leave you with this :

    “The appearance of periodically recurring economic crises is the necessary consequence of repeatedly renewed attempts to reduce the ‘natural’ rates of interest on the market by means of banking policy. The crises will never disappear so long as men have not learned to avoid such pump-priming, because an artificially stimulated boom must inevitably lead to crisis and depression….

    Yeah, it’s a bit old, it’s from Ludwig von Mises’s “The causes of the economc crisis”, publ. 1931.

  56. Sili says

    Well, I’m scared. But I’ve learned a new word.

    Reagan as the flying Dutchman? But who’ll be his Senta?