Archive for February, 2007

Just when I think I’ve seen it all from the conservo-God-freak end of the gene pool, they go out of the way to set new examples of ignorance that shame the species. I thought the word Decepticon was rather fitting as conservatives are becoming the champions of deceiving themselves while attempting to deceive others. I’m left to wonder who, then, is Megatron? Cheney? Robertson? (But it should be obvious to everyone that Ann Coulter is definitely Starscream.)

What I want you to note is my use of the Wikipedia link in the above reference. There’s a reason for this. It has just come to my attention that conservatives of the Bible-thumping variety have decided that Wikipedia is liberally biased. I can only assume that they mean “liberally real” and not “conservative made-up” because their answer is Conservapedia.com. I shit you not — they actually started a new site because these pesky filters and reality-based editors keep correcting their blatant attempts to bend facts.

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian “C.E.” instead of “A.D.”, which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance.

Yeah, like the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades…great advances in thought.

I joke, but let’s test this “no credit” thing with something I know for a fact. Actually it’s about the Big Bang Theory…

In 1927, the Belgian Catholic priest Georges Lemaître made one of the first modern proposition of the occurrence the Big Bang theory for the origin of the universe, although he called it his “hypothesis of the primeval atom”. He based his theory, published between 1927 and 1933, on the work of Einstein, among others, as well as ancient cosmological-philosophical traditions. Einstein, however, believed in a steady-state model of the universe. Lemaître independently derived the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker equations and proposed, on the basis of the recession of spiral nebulae, that the universe began with the “explosion” of a “primeval atom”—what was later called the Big Bang. Lemaître took cosmic rays to be the remnants of the event, although it is now known that they originate within the local galaxy.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble provided an observational basis for Lemaître’s theory. Hubble discovered a redshift of galaxies.

Hmm. So it wasn’t Hubble that came up with the Big Bang? It was a Catholic Priest? AND WIKIPEDIA ALLOWED THIS?! Well, so much for that “anti-Christian” theory; it’s kind of like that Intelligent Design theory in that it’s all posturing and no substance. The problem that these folks have is that Jesus isn’t given credit for everything. Interesting that they don’t see how selectively they apply the same rule. Had a bumper crop of oranges this year? Praise Jesus! 9/11? You can’t understand the workings of God. Some things are only a test of our faith.

To quote the late Bill Hicks: “I think God put you here to test my faith, dude.” Autobots — transform and roll out!

For anyone who wants to know why I’m not supporting Hillary or Barack in 2008, here’s all the reason you need.

And this is why I supported John Edwards as far back as 2004, and why I will be supporting him in 2008.

Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe was speaking at the National Press Club the other night and he was talking about blogs being critical. “A lot of the blogs are unduly devoted to media criticism,” he whined. “In my humble view,” he said without a trace of humility, “I think the press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards and covering politics in general.” Think Progress quotes the rest of his pithy complaint from there (emphasis theirs).

Richard Wolffe, White House correspondent for Newsweek:

“They want us to play a role that isn’t really our role. Our role is to ask questions and get information. … It’s not a chance for the opposition to take on the government and grill them to a point where they throw their hands up and surrender. … It’s not a political exercise, it’s a journalistic exercise. And I think often the blogs are looking for us to be political advocates more than journalistic ones.”

You’ll have to excuse me for sounding a bit confused, Richard, for our media – the American media that you just ass-kissed like a false idol – may have rays of hope every now and then, but the fact is that they’ve fucked up a LOT over the past decade or two. Had the media been doing it’s job of asking questions and getting information, as you suggest they have, we wouldn’t be in Iraq. Bottom line. Is that too simple for you to understand?

So please forgive us bloggers if we’re a bit too rough and tumble for your taste, but enough blood has been spilled in a conflict that never should’ve happened in the first place because a group of reporters like you fall over one another to see who can most effectively kiss the White House Press Secretary’s signet ring to get the unabridged Republican talking point.

Here’s a clue: If the White House is refusing to speak to you because you ask too many questions, you’re doing your fucking job.

So I’m sorry that Tony Snow is feeling a bit slighted by, “imaginative hateful stuff that comes flying out” and I’m sorry that David Gregory feels pressured by blogs to actually get politicians to answer a question every now and then. Gregory, I might add, realizes there’s “nothing personal” in doing this job – he just gets to decide when he’ll do it, I guess. (Dear David – to people who have lost loved ones in Iraq, the fact that the press regularly drops the ball on any number of stories is entirely personal.) The press simply has not been holding up their end of the bargain.

And this is not a new phenomena. Press and former press have written books about how poorly the media handled the run up to the Iraq war, among other things, so if you’re feeling a bit burned by what I or any other blogger has to say about your quirky observations about the state of the PressSec’s bare knees, get used it. If you won’t do your job and ask the questions that need to be asked, we the people now have a medium to do just that so that you can have more time to make nice-nice with all the pols on the Hill and in the White House and drift into obscurity.

Dear Heath,

My apologies for not writing sooner. Life has been fairly busy for me and I just haven’t had the time to tear away from ever-mounting day-to-day things that have to be done. Rest assured that my wife is keeping me up on what’s going on with your life. As I understand it, you and Michelle got married away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi — good job and congrats — and this is driving both the paparazzi and your fans into sheer madness that you’d dare do something without making a public event of it.

The reason I wanted to write today is because I wanted your insight on this whole mess with Britney Spears. As you know, I try to stay out of the personal lives of celebrities, but recent events with Britney have really caused me a lot of concern for her welfare. It’s not that I’ve ever really been a fan of hers; I just care about people.

I don’t know if you caught it, but Craig Ferguson’s opening monologue the other night was apparently something of a dirge upon those who love to make fun of people like Britney Spears; IE, celebrities with chemical addictions. It was brilliant.

My wife caught most of it and was shocked that Ferguson would spend his opening monologue in such serious overtones. I told her I was impressed that someone of public personality would defend Britney and she agreed, conveniently forgetting all the times that I’ve castigated people for making fun of people like Britney. Oh well…lord knows all the things I’ve forgotten.

It wasn’t until today that I finally googled pictures of the now-bald Britney and I have to say that it’s not a bad look. I’ve seen uglier bald people. As a person who has shaved his head on more than one occasion, I have to wonder what brought on this rather drastic cosmetic move. Regardless, I’m happy that she’s readmitted for chemical addiction treatment and hope that she can stick to it. I’ve seen what people go through to clean up their lives and can only imagine in my worst nightmares what it must be like to try to clean up under the thousands of unblinking eyes of paparazzi lenses.

I guess I really don’t understand why people get so bent out of shape when it comes to Britney. When she first burst unto the scene, she was every young boy’s fantasy, every young girl’s idol and every parent’s nightmare — much the same as any other teen pop music star. I never really got her music though I did listen to it enough to know that it was destined to be popular. But as all stars that burn bright and fast into the celebrity world, it was only a matter of time before people would begin to find any and all reasons to hate her. And nothing capped that hatred off more than her marriage to Kevin Federline. Britney may as well have decorated herself in colored paper mache and attached a string to her waist to dangle from the ceiling — she was a giant pinata for the world to beat with whatever sticks they could find. She lost her balance once while carrying her child and the rags went nuts calling her a bad parent and so forth.

All this time I’ve sat back and let people have their schadenfreude. Most folks say that celebrities somehow deserve this kind of treatment as, in their minds, celebrities have everything handed to them on a platter. But the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to believe that nobody should be subjected to that kind of personal scrutiny, regardless of what celebrity they may possess.

Well, I hope you, Michelle and Matilda are well. I’ll write again soon.

Best regards,
Nicho

P.S. The wife tells me that she’s amicable to me having Kate Winslet if I have to give her up for you. So if you see Kate, tell her Nicho says “hi” if she likes me to check this box. â–¡

I’ve removed Robert from my links. I wanted to take a moment to explain why and expand on it a bit.

While I grew to know Robert as a semi-intellectually honest person at Moxie’s site, the past year and Republican defeats have caused Robert’s posts to become nothing more than typical conservative hype and hypocrisy. It can be no more plain than his continual parroting of the latest conservative talking point without even the most basic fact-checking. I have tried to correct his righteous indignation by pointing out the flaws of the Republi-hype and attempted to bring him back to earth. But I’m afraid it’s Kool-Aid poisoning and I think the effects are becoming irreversible.

I present as my example a shameless display of Limbaugh-like echo chambering of the following quote:

“Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs who should be arrested, exiled or hanged.”

- Abraham Lincoln

That was it – that was the whole post. Ironically, his next post was called “Leftists Ignore Relevant History” because, as anyone with historical knowledge of Lincoln, or even Google searching at their fingertips, knows, Abraham Lincoln never said it. To date, Robert has yet to issue any kind of correction or apology to his readers.

I’m very careful with my quotes. I want to make sure that I have the proper context when using them. I want to credit the correct person I am quoting not only to give the appearance that I know what I’m talking about and avoid being accused of plagiarism. I don’t do this because I want to be a journalist, I do this because that way I don’t feel guilty about misleading people into believing a prominent figure said something they never said just to score cheap points.

This isn’t to say that I’m perfect, but I will maintain my own personal integrity and standards even if it means going against fellow liberals.

The Oracle at Delphi maintained a simple doctrine:
Know thyself, judge thyself, discipline thyself.

I’m now again on the search for a conservative who can.