As if Romney needed a bigger credibility problem

From the annals of if-you-wrote-this-down no one would believe it, Romney is now singing a new tune on the auto bailout. When last we left Mittens, he was on his high horse putting all that Bain Cap scavenger expertise claiming the auto bailout would never work and claiming Obama should have let the companies go through an imaginary managed bankruptcy that his own firm and everyone else on passed on. But sinking poll numbers has prompted a different whopper: the successful bailout was Romney’s idea all along! [Read more…]

The Amish make me sick

I haven’t had much time to provide new content these last couple of days. For that I apologize. But it hasn’t been all work. In the background and during breaks the cable was tuned to the NatGeo channel and their specials on the Amish. Up til now they seemed a little weird, fairly harmless, and in some ways worthy of respect: for they truly live their beliefs. After learning more, though, I am appalled. [Read more…]

Don McElroy: Young Earth Creationist

This is Don McElroy, the guy who used to run the Texas Schoolboard, stating he believes dinosaurs and humans walked side by side. Technically, he might be right — if one accepts that modern birds evolved from raptorial dinosaurs. A view McElroy would have a hard time accomodating. But what’s more interesting are McElroy’s reasons for believing this. Intelligent design creationists make a big dog and pony show about how empirical evidence is the sole crtieria in their rejection of evolutionary biology, or the age of the earth. But so many of them, like McElroy, just can’t keep their yaps shut about the real reason: his specific, narrow religious beliefs.

When is an attack on religious freedom merely a good spirited difference of opinion among the faithful?

Trick question, easy answer: whenever Paul Ryan needs it to be. Back when Obama weakened the original Romneycare requirement so that it only covered birth control pills and not terminal pregnancies, it was a full-scale war on religion, over ruling the view of the Catholic Church, ZOMG, Jefferson wept! In a moment of unadulterated satire even Romney tried to jump on that bucking bronco before being thrown. But when a Republican capo pushes legislation against the core beliefs of the exact same church, that’s totaalllly different! [Read more…]

More on Planetary Resources as the USS Enterprise wows onlookers

Today a shuttle that barely flew draws the faithful like believers to a shrine. The shuttle Enterprise is making low altitude passes from DC to New York City on the way to JFK airport and its retirement on the deck of the USS Interpid. The nation’s love affair with the adventure of space travel is on full display on malls in our capital and the streets of the Big Apple. I share that, like so many of you, having imprinted on NASA’s astonishing endeavors from earliest memory as surely as a baby duck on its mother. Sadly, we find ourselves without ground to orbit capability even as the sleek Enterprise wows onlookers one last time. Hopefully, that’s not permanent. And in that spirit of optimism, a little more info on Planetary Resources, the asteroid miners featured here last week, came out: [Read more…]

Dan Senor: the man who was too wrong to fail

The symptoms of the Great American Demise are all around me. In the end, when we have finally reached full-blown third-world status and our grandkids compete in contests for best rat trap, we’ll be able to look back and know we did it entirely to ourselves. One beautiful example of how we managed to blow a massive US lead in wealth and technology can be found in one Dan Samuel Senor, a man too wrong to fail. [Read more…]

For our readers down under, and all over

It struck me today, going through comments and posts, that we have a healthy international contingent at the big Z, and for those participants, the daily twists and turns of US politics may seem bewildering. Or at least a bit fuzzy; understandable, especially if you aren’t directly affected by them and don’t follow the insane drama 24/7. You all have my eternal envy if you fall into the latter category. Australia seems to have a strong skeptic community, plus they speak English! So, in the spirit of turn-about is fair play, I did a virtual walk-about through the political landscape down under. [Read more…]