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Over at the oddly-named blog “Christ Matters”, Timmy aka ‘Highboy’ just told a whopper of a lie about a blogger named Steve Cohen:
Only a liberal would state that his family’s worth is less than that of terrorists and dress it up as something good and noble, and even an American value.
I challenged widdle Timmy to produce proof that Mr. Cohen had said such a thing. Widdle Timmy has, of course, failed utterly:
Absolutely: “Yes Tim, it’s true, my American values are more important to me than my life and it’s quite pathetic that you don’t hold yours in such esteem”
“I want my children to have all the rights and privileges that I have, and I may say, that is more important than any one person’s safety.”
Notice that neither of Mr. Cohen’s statements mentions terrorists. Neither statement mentions anyone’s “worth”. Mr. Cohen is discussing values and rights, not the relative “worth” of any particular people.
Widdle Timmy is like so many others of his kind: he is utterly incapable of constructing a rational, fact-based argument, and so chooses to fall back on lies that are ludicrously easy to expose.
Way to show Christian values, imbecile.
The great thing about the Internet is the endless entertainment it affords us. As a shining example, I give you Andrew ‘Dipshit’ Richardson.
In yet another tour-de-force of gormless burbling, Dipshit cheers the death of the right of habeas corpus and the dawning of the American Age of Torture:
This legislation, although flawed, gives the CIA and military interrogators the tools that they need in order to conduct affective interrogation of high profile detainees.
What is “affective interrogation”, dipshit? Jeee-ZUS, would you kindly learn the English language before you try to make an argument in it?
My disappointment is in the fact water boarding will no longer be permitted under the new guidelines.
Oh, NO! You mean brown people aren’t going to be tortured for your amusement and entertainment any more? Oh, the HORROR! You poor baby! Sit down, Dipshit, and I’ll get you a glass of water and a crying towel.
And by the way, Dipshit — where in these “guidelines” has waterboarding been explicitly prohibited?
But yet, we are forbidden to use this affective mode of pressured interrogation because a few uneducated individuals who have no idea what true torture is have labeled water boarding as torture.
You have no room to label other people as “uneducated”, Mr. “affective mode”. Good Christ, this is what happens when you let submorons near a keyboard… Read the rest of this entry »
Stirling Newberry describes exactly and accurately what has happened to the rule of law in the United States, and why:
A paranoid fear of “terrorism” has now joined this elect list of overriding mandates in American history. Americans have decided, by narrow but successive majorities, ratified by members of both parties repeatedly, that the stock market crash of 2000 and the attacks of 9/11 justify a complete dismantling of their structure of rights, and the absolute and permanent change in their status.
Since the Federal government already defines “terrorism” to include domestic acts of vandalism, and the NIE which has been partially declassified declares “leftists” and “anti-globalists” to be on the list of potential terrorists, this is not about catching the perpetrators of a series of terrorist attacks – embassy bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, 9/11, M-11 and 7/7 – but an unlimited and unchallengeable right to detain, try and punish anyone who is deemed to be “an unlawful combatant”.
This is not, in short a bureaucratic red tape cutting exercise, but, in essence, and Amendment to the Constitution that reads: “All other rights are superceded by the needs of the state, under the sole discretion of the executive.”
StopTheACLU.com has found another ill-informed mouth-breather to post lies at their site. This one calls himself “davef”, and he brays in a post entitled “ACLU renews attacks on SWIFT”:
If you remember SWIFT is NSA program to track financial exchanges to find links with terrorist funding. It is the same program that the New York Times leaked in late June.
The claim that the New York Times “leaked” the existence of this program was a lie back in June, and it’s still a lie today. The existence of the SWIFT program was not “leaked” by the Times, because it was already public knowledge.
- FACT: A UN report published in December 2002 stated:
“The settlement of international transactions is usually handled through correspondent banking relationships or large-value message and payment systems, such as the SWIFT, Fedwire or CHIPS systems in the United States of America. Such international clearance centres are critical to processing international banking transactions and are rich with payment information. The United States has begun to apply new monitoring techniques to spot and verify suspicious transactions. The Group recommends the adoption of similar mechanisms by other countries.”
- FACT: An August 1998 Washington Post story entitled “Bin Laden’s Finances Are a Moving Target” revealed that:
“The CIA and agents with Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network also will try to lay tripwires to find out when bin Laden moves funds by plugging into the computerized systems of bank transaction monitoring services — operated by the Federal Reserve and private organizations called SWIFT and CHIPS— that record the billions of dollars coursing through the global banking system daily.”
The lying dimwits at StopTheACLU.com simply cannot get it through their useless skulls that repeating a lie does not magically transform it into the truth.
Jay “rope + tree + ACLU lawyer = pinata” Stephenson proves once again what kind of hypocritical moron he truly is. Commenting on a recent New York Times story about a group that has formed to protest the actions of the leadership of the ACLU, Jay says:
I really think the ACLU are entirely too corrupt to be saved. Whatever people within the organization that stand up on principle have had efforts to silence them or they have been voted out.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Jay Stephenson is notorious for silencing anyone who dares criticize him in the comments on his site. Disagree with Jay, and the comment gets deleted—poof! Jay Stephenson is utterly incapable of taking part in an open and honest discussion. He doesn’t even try.
Jay, get off your damn high horse and learn to discuss your views, instead of trying to silence people who disagree with you. Then and only then will you have earned the right to criticize anyone else for doing what you yourself have long been doing on a daily basis.
Just answer one question, Jay: If it is wrong to silence others, why do you do it?
UPDATE 09/26 10:10 PM: This is Jay’s hard-hitting response, which he emailed to me (he still lacks the balls the conduct a discussion in public):
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:44:39
From: “John Stephenson”
To: meatbrain@thinkingmeat.net
Subject: Re: Jay Stephenson: idiot hypocrite
You are not a very nice person.
Well, boo freaking hoo, little man. Do you need a tissue? You made a complete ass of yourself by howling about other people allegedly doing something that we know you do all the time. Take care of that nasty-looking beam in your own eye, bubba, before you start screeching about the mote in your neighbor’s eye.
UPDATE 09/27 07:50 AM: YESSSSSSS! Jay never fails to cooperate with any attempt to illustrate how craven and intellectually bankrupt he truly is. I left comments at his site yesterday, and today Jay has deleted them — thus proving my point about his cowardice and hypocrisy.
Thanks, Jay!
I have officially renamed renowned net-liar Andrew ‘Gribbit’ Richardson. He is now to be referred to as ‘Gribbit the Dipshit’, and I’ll explain why.
In his latest puddle of mental vomit, Gribbit the Dipshit burbles as follows:
FORMER President William Jefferson Clinton once wagged his finger to the entire press corps over the Monica Lewinsky affair, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” Remember? Well, he’s finger wagging again. This time over the ineptitude of his ineffective attempts to stop Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
Dipshit seems to be awful eager to call Clinton “inept” and “ineffective”. He has apparently chosen to disregard the fact that when it comes to catching Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush has deliberately given up the chase: Read the rest of this entry »
Heidi Thiess, gullible racist, applauds a recent outbreak of vigilante violence in Houston.
Laws don’t matter to Heidi. Standards of civilized behavior don’t matter to Heidi. All that matters to Heidi is that when someone is merely suspected of a crime, they can freely assaulted by anyone — no trial necessary. See, it’s OK to throw the rules out the window when Heidi is upset about something. She’s just that important.
Gads… Heidi and her kind are exactly what is most wrong with this country: self-centered, self-righteous, and ignorant beyond words. God save us from the Heidi Thiesses of this world.
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has been started to combat what its founder, Richard Dawkins, sees as a societal backlash against (you guessed it) reason and science:
The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America. I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance. We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity. But it must be a positive attack, for science and reason have so much to give. They are not just useful, they enrich our lives in the same kind of way as the arts do. Promoting science as poetry was one of the things that Carl Sagan did so well, and I aspire to continue his tradition.
Dawkins is doing good work here, fighting the forces of ignorance, bigotry, and dogmatism. Visit the site, donate if you can, and join the battle.
[Via Pharyngula]
Those brave commentators and bloggers of the radical right who say that we have to employ torture to protect the American people are absolutely correct. Other nations use this technique, and it is clearly effective:
Four of the foreign health workers told Human Rights Watch that [Libyan] interrogators subjected them to electric shocks, beatings to the body with cables and wooden sticks, and beatings on the soles of their feet, in order to extract their confessions. In May, Human Rights Watch interviewed the foreign health workers in Tripoli’s Jadida prison.
“I confessed during torture with electricity. They put small wires on my toes and on my thumbs. Sometimes they put one on my thumb and another on either my tongue, neck or ear,” Valentina Siropulo, one of the Bulgarian defendants, told Human Rights Watch. “They had two kinds of machines, one with a crank and one with buttons.”
Another Bulgarian defendant, Kristiana Valceva, said interrogators used a small machine with cables and a handle that produced electricity.
“During the shocks and torture they asked me where the AIDS came from and what is your role,” she told Human Rights Watch. She said that Libyan interrogators subjected her to electric shocks on her breasts and genitals.
“My confession was all in Arabic without translation,” she said. “We were ready to sign anything just to stop the torture.”
The Libyans, the North Koreans, the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — all knew clearly the value of torture for extracting intelligence or confessions, and all used it to do what had to be done in the defense of their homelands. Congress should stop dithering and give President Bush what he needs to protect our precious, innocent children from the ravening monsters that threaten our lives, our homes, and our very way of life. Future generations will fall to their knees in gratitude for the bravery and foresight of George W. Bush and his administration, and for the President’s tireless efforts to viciously protect and preserve the very soul and essence of what America stands for.
[Opprobrious hat tip to Respectful Insolence]
Biology teacher ‘Ms. SuperScience’ has a brand-new blog and a wonderfully direct message for the anti-science mouth-breathers:
Okay, folks, here we go. Once and for all…
I TEACH SCIENCE.
Therefore, I am going to teach evolution.
And I am getting completely and totally fed up with people who assume otherwise. Over the last few years, it has gotten to the point where I am just hoping some kid will start to challenge me — because there is nothing better than being able to back your position up with overwhelming evidence, and then actually TEACH someone why evolution is real and important. I don’t even live in a red-state area — but these people are so mindlessly following their blissfully ignorant leaders that they are making my job a whole lot bigger and harder.
Let’s make a deal: Your kids are in my public school classroom. They are going to learn science.
If my kids ever set foot in your fundie church (not likely, since we’re quite happy with our open-minded church, thank you very much), then you can start in on your opinions — which you are entitled to, as they are opinions — but they are not science.
You tell ‘em, Ms. S. No science teacher anywhere should ever have to apologize for teaching the facts.
The radical rightwing bedwetters are having a mass hissyfit because some Republican senators have found the balls to insist that the US live by the rules.
One such hysterical screech-monkey goes by the pseudonym “Oak Leaf”, over at StopTheACLU.com. He demands that…
Congress must clarify certain terms within Article 3
Why? Because, claims “Oak Leaf”...
If Congress does not define “cruel treatment, torture, outrages upon personal dignity, humiliating and degrading treatment” they will be defined by ACLU Lawyers in concert with liberal Judges.
Wait a minute. The Geneva Conventions didn’t just spring into being a week ago last Tuesday. They’ve been in effect for decades. Why, suddenly, do they need to be redefined right now? “Oak Leaf” doesn’t seem able to explain the sudden urgency.
Screech-monkey Number Two is our old pal Jay "rope + tree + ACLU lawyer = pinata" Stephenson. Jay gets it exactly backwards, and shows us just how amoral the bedwetters on the right can be: Read the rest of this entry »
This is priceless. Over at StopTheACLU.com, Jay Stephenson posted this:
However, I will point out that the ACLU do have a history of distorting the facts.
Of course, Jay Stephenson himself has a history of being an out-and-out liar. How, exactly, he finds the gall to accuse other people of his own favorite tactic is beyond me.
Andrew:
It is said that ignorance is curable, but one would not know it to look at you. You are ignorant, happy to be ignorant, and determined to stay ignorant.
In your latest puddle of linguistic vomit, you ask the following question about the NSA warrantless wiretapping program:
What makes this illegal? Because they [the ACLU] say so?
No, you deliberate ignoramus. It’s illegal because it violates the law. That’s the definition of illegal. Read the rest of this entry »
- Five years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, RJ Eskow reminds us that…
More Americans have now died in Iraq than died on 9/11. Iraq didn’t attack us on that day, and our misguided policy there has now taken more American lives than Al Qaeda. Here are the numbers: 3,015 Americans have died in Iraq as of September 9. 2,666 of these were military deaths and 349 were civilians.
- Adam Kotsko explores the rhetorical shenanigans of the right (via A Blog Around the Clock):
There are some central rhetorical strategies I’ve noticed that seem to be closely associated with the right wing. In the spirit, though not precisely the style, of Mark Kaplan’s Notes on Rhetoric, I’d like to catalogue a few of them here.
- Video games have evolved since the days of Pong, and so have the purposes that those games can serve. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reviews the serious uses of games (via 3 Quarks Daily):
The serious games moniker provides a catchall for simulations that transcend traditional video and computer game fodder (gunplay, slick cars, and sports) and delve into heftier issues (responding to genocide, promoting democracy, and training first responders). Already neatly segmented, serious games exist for science, defense, health, conflict resolution, and social change. Their sophistication, target audience, and message vary. FAS developed Immune Attack to allow high school students to experience the challenge of defending the human body against invading antigens; PeaceMaker, a game created by students at Carnegie Mellon University, lets Palestinians and Israelis switch roles to better understand each other’s plight; and the U.N. World Food Programme’s Food Force teaches kids about the difficulties of delivering aid to the developing world.
- As always, Tom Tomorrow nails the rightwing nuttiness of The Path to 9/11, which of course bills itself as The absolutely true story of Bill Clinton and 9/11!
A few weeks ago, I asked if anyone had seen Jay Stephenson’s integrity. I am sorry to report that it is still missing, and that whatever honesty and courage Jay may once have possessed have deserted him as well.
Last Tuesday, while reporting on the Fratboy-In-Chief’s latest sputterings about terror and terrorists, Jay made the following statement:
The best line and wise words that Democrats need to get through their skull:
“It is Foolish to think you can negotiate with them.”
‘Them’, of course, refers to terrorists. I posted a comment, timestamped September 5th 9:19 pm, that included a simple challenge to Jay:
Can you cite documented examples of any Democrats advocating negotiation with Osama bin Laden and his fellow terrorists, Jay?
Go and look at the page now; you won’t find any comment with that timestamp, because Jay deleted it. It is a common tactic of far right bloggers to delete uncomfortable questions. Here is a mirror of the page as it existed after I posted my initial comment. Read the rest of this entry »
- Ed Brayton points to a post at the Cato Institute blog showing that six years ago, while Clinton was still President, the hysterics over at Free Republic were terrified that wiretap warrants granted by FISA would facilitate “absolute tyranny” and a “shadow government”:
Isn’t it fascinating how when the tables turn, they really turn? When Clinton was in office, this was an unprecedented grab for power, using a secret court to rubber stamp their destruction of our freedoms. Now, that secret court is an obstructionist body that stands in the way of Bush as he tries to protect our freedom, and anyone who questions that is obviously a communist and a lover of terrorists.
- Juan Cole reports that a prominent Islamic cleric in Cairo has declared that the Islamic religious concept of “jihad” is not to be construed as permitting aggression:
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar Seminary in Cairo, perhaps the foremost Sunni Arab authority, has issued a statement that jihad or “holy war” was legislated in Islam for the defense of the persons and honor of Muslims, and is not to be used as a threat or a form of aggression against the innocent.
...
Grand Sheikh Tantawi denied that there is any clash of civilizations or religions, affirmed that members of the religions cooperate with one another, and mere difference in religion does not prevent that.
He quoted the Quran verse, “There is no compulsion in religion,” saying that it demonstrates that freedom of belief is delegated (to human beings), and any practices that contradict that principle are considered departures from true Islam.
- "Faith In America, Inc. is a national organization dedicated to the emancipation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from bigotry disguised as religious truth. Such religion-based bigotry has been used throughout history to justify discrimination against other groups of people, including women, racial and ethnic minorities, and people of minority religious beliefs. Faith In America is committed to ending this misuse of religion."
- Robert L. Park explains The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science.
- Rocky Anderson, mayor of Salt Lake City, served the truth straight up in a tall frosty glass at a recent protest rally:
Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.
The full text of his speech is available [PDF], as is a short video of the rally. Anderson was interviewed afterwards by Keith Olbermann on Countdown.
A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.
That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a sycophant. That person is a member of a frightening culture of obedience – a culture where falling in line with authority is more important than choosing what is right, even if it is not easy, safe, or popular. And, I suspect, that person is afraid – afraid we are right, afraid of the truth (even to the point of denying it), afraid he or she has put in with an oppressive, inhumane, regime that does not respect the laws and traditions of our country, and that history will rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.
- I wrote earlier about the need for some perspective in the discussion of terrorism. grumpypilgrim at Dangerous Intersection makes a very cogent point about the terror hysteria promoted by the right:
After reading the Cato report about terrorism, I suddenly realized why Republicans have been so gung-ho to declare “war” against terrorism: because it’s the easiest war in town. The odds that any American will die from a terrorist attack are microscopic, so what better thing to declare “war” against than something that is extremely unlikely to happen anyway? It’s a bit like declaring war against fatal tooth decay or war against bathtub drownings.
Much, much harder (politically, socially and scientifically) is to declare war against the things that actually kill Americans in large numbers: cigarettes, obesity (heart disease, stroke, etc.), auto accidents, drunk driving, cancer, etc. Unlike terrorism, many of these causes of death, though significantly more lethal than terrorism, have many large and powerful corporations advocating (and paying very large bribes…er, I mean, political contributions) on their behalf: tobacco companies, fast food and soft drink companies, auto makers, liquor distributors and tavern owners, etc. Compared to getting tobacco off store shelves, McDonalds to serve more healthy food, or drunk drivers off our roads, declaring “war” against a tiny number of terrorists in Third-World countries is trivially easy.
- Over at Daily Kos, Bill in Portland has compiled a comprehensive timeline that shows, without doubt, that the Bush administration sold the war in Iraq to the American people by conflating Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Now, Bush has turned around and lied to the American people about having used the 9/11 attacks to sell the war:
...nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.
- Sadly, Shakespeare’s Sister seems to be right on the money with her jeremiad on the self-centeredness of far too many Americans:
Nothing seems to matter to Americans until it directly affects them, and, by then, it’s almost always too late.
Instead, they will suffer all manner of indignity being imposed upon others to preserve themselves. Wiretapping other people without a warrant is fine. Holding other people indefinitely without access to an attorney or due process is fine. Torturing other people is fine. Maligning other people for dissent is fine. Disenfranchising other voters is fine. Rewarding corporations for moving jobs filled by other people offshore is fine. Destroying the environment for other generations is fine. Cutting federal funding for programs that benefit other people is fine. Denying equal rights to other people is fine. Using other people as a wedge issue is fine. Denying bodily autonomy to other people is fine. It’s all fair play as long as it’s not being done to me, and you tell me it’s keeping me safe and happy.
I was, happily, a pretty decent student when in college… but I knew a few who had this list of Top Ten No Sympathy Lines down pat, and would pull one or more out as an excuse for a poor grade in a class, or a plea for a better grade:
I Studied for Hours
How many? A college credit is defined as three hours’ work per week; one in class and two outside. That’s why adding a three-hour lab to a class only results in one additional credit.
This means that 12 credits translates to an average of 36 hours’ work a week. That’s why 12 credits is considered full time; it’s the equivalent of a full-time job.
If you have a course that meets three hours a week for 3 credits but doesn’t require six hours of outside work a week to keep up, consider yourself lucky. Other courses may require more time. Also, individual students require different amounts of study time. It does no good to complain that three hours a week per credit is excessive, any more than it does to complain that 26 miles is too long for a marathon. They are what they are.
The one thing you can count on is that a few hours of cramming before the final will not give good results. I recently heard from a student who lamented that she stayed up until 2 A.M. studying, then got up at 6 A.M. and studied some more, and did poorly. And she was surprised? She’d have been better off getting a decent night’s sleep.
Suck it up, kids. College is tough, but real life is much, much tougher.
Hat tip to John Scalzi.
