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Fukushima Radiation Causes Serious Loss of Mental Capacity

October 13th, 2015 Comments off

I get real tired of alarmist reports of Fukushima mutations. A recent one: ‘Mutant flowers’ found near Fukushima. The Mirror warns about how someone in Tochigi Prefecture found “mutated” flowers. Such reports are quickly spread across the Internet by Fukushima-themed anti-nuclear web sites.

The problem: one can find such mutations nearly anywhere in the world. There’s even a name for it: Fasciation. While it can be caused by radiation, it can also be caused by “bacterial infection, mite or insect attack, or chemical or mechanical damage.”

There’s rarely proof that these were found where they claimed to be, and one can find identical photos taken throughout the world by normal people in normal places. Make no mistake: Fukushima was a horrific disaster, with powerful effects. However, nothing is helped by jumping at every shadow and then running around with your hair on fire.

In effect, this “mutant flower” is little different from a four-leaf clover, something with identical causes but which we usually find delightful. It’s pretty much certain that the exact same mutations were happening in those places before Fukushima, but now people jump to conclusions when they see them.

Here’s an idiot intrepid reporter who actually blames Fukushima for mutations in birds and flowers found in Michigan and Massachusetts. You see the problem: these places probably have about a thousand times more radiation from natural background sources than from Fukushima radiation (if there is any Fukushima radiation in these locations at all).

Nor is it just online hacks; there was a medical study published back in June 2011, just 3 months after the disaster, which claimed that there was a “35 per cent spike in infant mortality in northwest cities” that “may well” be due to Fukushima radiation. Naturally, the study was a crock, cherry-picking random spikes in specific cities to produce the desired conclusion.

One thing that you can be sure is caused by Fukushima radiation: hysteria.

Oh, You Finally Realize It Now, Do You?

February 8th, 2015 2 comments

Because his insistence, his lawlessness, of he, trying to get his way, it tramples our constitution—so—from debt—and I won’t even get into all the details of everything. But from debt.

—Sarah Palin, Freedom Summit, Jan. 24, 2015

C-SPAN has the video and transcript. It’s pretty breathtaking. Jon Stewart did a great job making fun of it. It’s not just the bits like you see above where her sentences were incoherent; it’s also where her entire train of thought just rambles aimlessly around. It was reported that her teleprompter broke—well, that’s happened to Obama, who did fine, and Clinton, who just sailed through magnificently. And considering how much Palin has utterly sneered at Obama for using a teleprompter at all, I don’t think she really deserves a break for this, if the teleprompter indeed broke.

The thing is, when I heard it, I laughed, but was not in any way surprised. It was simply what I expected from her. Palin’s word salad and rhetorical wandering is nothing new. No, what surprised me was how some conservatives, after six years of so much exposure to Palin, only now recognize that she is a moron.

Matt Lewis wrote a piece which got a lot of attention, admitting that finally, after years and years, he has realized that Palin is a schmuck. Noting her nearly incomprehensible speech at the summit, he conceded, “Demosthenes, she is not.” Ya think?

Lewis, despite writing a contrite retreat from Palin, nevertheless attempts throughout to excuse, rationalize, and justify the support given to Palin by him and others. He stresses the times she did not sound like an idiot. He makes it sound like almost all conservatives abandoned Palin as quickly as possible in late 2008. He dredges up samples of his writings which were not entirely supportive. You come away with the impression that he and almost all other conservatives realized long ago she was unworthy of support, despite the fact that he is trying to explain why the exact opposite was in fact true. In short, he does not so much explain why it took him so long to see the obvious as much as he tries to whitewash the fact that he did in fact miss the obvious, for more than half a decade.

And obvious it was. Incredibly obvious. It so happens that I have a blog, and I can look back at my reporting from that time. And yes, it became quickly clear that from the very beginning, Palin was a morass of scandal, idiocy, and nonsense. Anyone with a shred of sense could have seen it immediately.

It only took a day after McCain announced her as his running mate to catch her in her first big lie—that she had opposed the “Bridge to Nowhere.” Two days in, another lie—that, as mayor, she had not terminated the Wasilla librarian and the police chief; it was later revealed that she fired the police chief for trying to curb drunk driving and promote gun safety, and the librarian for refusing to ban certain books. By day three, we were learning a lot about the state trooper scandal. By day four, the McCain campaign was lying not just about her Bridge to Nowhere lie, but also about how she never supported Ted Stevens, when she clearly had. Five days in, we heard Palin’s utterly bizarre story about how she delayed a high-risk childbirth after her water broke so she could give a political speech and then take a slow series of flights and car travel to a small local hospital in Wasilla. That and the Palins’ associations with a secessionist movement.

So, it did not take long to see that Palin was failing miserably in the role of vice presidential candidacy, the major part of which is making the ticket look good, or at least not worse. She was nothing but embarrassment from day one, and it never stopped. In fact, Palin had not even displayed her worst skills as a speaking representative for her campaign.

It was only two weeks after joining the campaign that Palin touted Alaska’s proximity to Russia as good reason to believe she would make a capable leader:

PALIN: … And, Charlie, you’re in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors. We need to have a good relationship with them. They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

She then tried to dodge by pivoting to energy policy; Gibson hauled her back, asking if she had met with any foreign leaders, to which she replied that “international trade activities bring in many leaders of other countries.” After a minute more of dodging, she admitted that she had never met any of them.

Later in the interview, her lack of political knowledge was further revealed:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: [pause] In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

She obviously had no clue what the “Bush Doctrine” was; her “in what respect” response was clearly an attempt to get the interviewer to fish her out of hot water by telling her. Gibson almost fell for it, but caught himself and did not give her a break on that.

By now, any self-respecting sentient being would realize that Palin was way out of her depth. But hey, let’s give her a chance. Give her two weeks to prep and drill, to take the crash course in Politics 101, so she could have a lightweight interview without looking foolish. Not to mention, come up with a halfway decent way to deal with the foreign policy question.

Here’s how she did, just 4 weeks after joining the ticket, two weeks after the Russia comment:

COURIC: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don’t know, you know … reporters.

COURIC: Mocked?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

COURIC: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

COURIC: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

Seriously. She not only doubled down on the whole “Russia is next door to Alaska, therefore I am strong in foreign policy” idea, but she then claims that Vladimir Putin flying over her head gives her foreign policy credentials as well. Despite the fact that a quick check of air routes makes it clear that flights from Moscow fly over the Atlantic and come nowhere near Alaska. But hey, let’s say that a few times Putin came to the U.S. via, say South Korea. In such a case, as his plane flew over Alaska, one can be assured that Palin’s staff instantly alerted her to the fact, at which time she went into deep meditation and all that foreign policy expertise just seeped into her head as the Aeroflot craft flew several miles over her head. Because that’s how it works.

Additionally, you can see that her word salad style of speaking is not just a recent thing, you can see clear elements of it in her speaking shown above. Really, read that last paragraph, check out the wording, try to figure out what the hell she means when she says “we send those out.”

No, the audacious stupidity Palin demonstrated was immediately apparent—so much so that Tina Fey, to get outrageous laughs from her audience, only had to quote Sarah Palin verbatim.

I really cannot stress enough how breathtakingly manifest it was that Palin was an idiot. I wrote and asked aloud many times in the years since then how conservatives could possibly listen to this person and still take her seriously.

But no, instead of cringing, they actually gushed. They loved her winking and folksy expressions, as if the gibberish she spouted was somehow astutely charming.

Seriously, if Obama had chosen the Democratic twin of Palin, there would have been cries of outrage and despair from the faithful from day one. Possibly some would hold out for a few weeks, but few if any would stay beyond the whole Russia thing.

Conservatives, however, not only stayed on with her through that, some of them actually came to like her better than McCain! And while some let go after the failed election bid, most kept on giving her love and support. She maintained her position as a popular movement figure for years—even well after it became clear that her first priority was to cash in.

And although that popularity waned quite a bit over time, the fact remains that she was still invited to speak at the Freedom Summit, and has appeared at numerous high-level conservative events—hell, she was the keynote speaker at the 2014 CPAC conference, and still appears to be slated for the 2015 CPAC coming later this month.

It is not really so amazing that Palin has retained so much support for six years; what really takes your breath away is that she kept support for six months. Six years is so inconceivable that you cannot register astonishment simply due to the numbness of such long-sustained shock.

To Matt Lewis, I can only say, nice attempt to cover up the fact that you championed an obvious lunatic for several years. It still does not explain how you somehow overlooked the obvious for so long.

People Are Stupid

November 5th, 2014 10 comments

It’s not like the Republicans really fooled anyone. It’s pretty damn clear that the stimulus did more good than bad, and at the very least staved off a depression. That Obama did more than most to help save the auto industry. It’s just as clear that Obamacare is a good thing. And that the economy, however tepid, is improving. Gas prices are even lower. Obama and the Democrats are trying to give most Americans a raise and to serve their interests in many other ways.

But it is outrageously clear that Republicans had nothing to do with any of this, have been fighting against the people’s interests, and have only been trying to run things into the ground. Holding the economy hostage and damaging our credit rating. Obstructing and stonewalling for the sake of obstructing and stonewalling. Blaming even the most bizarre things on Obama, like Ebola or Katrina, things he clearly had no effect on.

What is most bizarre, however, is that the Republican claims are clearly false, and their motives are clearly harmful. They suppress voting on the claim of voter fraud when it is strikingly clear they are suppressing the opposition vote. They state openly that it is their intent to ruin Obama. They state unashamedly that they will obstruct while saying it’s Obama’s fault.

All that they blame Obama for and so much more that is at the heart of our nation’s problems is clearly their fault.

So how do the people react? Things really stink… so let’s reward Republicans!

The blind stupidity is breathtaking.

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“Bendygate”

September 26th, 2014 6 comments

Really? People buy giant-screen phones, put them in their back pockets, and sit on them? Then get upset at the manufacturer when the phones get bent out of shape?

I’m sorry, but that sounds really, really stupid. Two days ago, I broke a pair of glasses by sitting on them. I had laid them on the bed and forgotten where they were. Twenty minutes later, I come back to sit down, and crack! Oops. I felt a bit careless, but these things happen. (Got them fixed, by the way—Japanese glasses shops do that for free, so long as the damage isn’t too great.)

But I didn’t put them in my back pocket and then sit on them. That would have made me feel stupid. Also, I would not have gone to the glasses shop and complained to them if I had done this. It would be like going to a car dealer and saying, “I drove my new car into a brick wall at 30 mph, and now look at it! What are you going to do about it?”

Seriously, I would feel nervous about sitting on my iPhone 5 in my back pocket, and that’s a much sturdier phone.

A general rule of thumb: don’t sit on electronic devices.

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GOP Motto: Vote Against Democrats Because We Turned the Country to Crap

August 15th, 2014 2 comments

From a New York Times article:

Voters’ deep frustration with both sides explains why few election analysts, including people in both parties, predict a wave that would wipe out Democrats like in the 2010 midterms (or like 2006, when George W. Bush was president and Republicans lost their House and Senate majorities).

That’s not a good analogy: Republicans lost in 2006 because they had held almost total control for six years and had made a huge mess of things. Democrats were more or less bystanders there, and were the alternative. None of that applies to Republicans under the current situation: most of the bad stuff that has been happening has been their fault; all they can do is say, “Hey, look how much we were able to screw things up while Obama was in the White House!”

Look, I’m no huge fan of what Obama has been doing, and while Republicans are even more of an obstacle for Democrats in Congress, Congressional Democrats—especially those in the Senate—have not taken the drastic action made necessary by conservative intransigence.

So does that mean I’m going to refrain from voting in the upcoming elections, or that I’m going to vote for anyone opposing Democrats?

Hell, no!!

When one party is merely lame and unwilling to act forcefully, but the other party is going batshit insane, you don’t vote for the batshit insane people! When a president has gone too far trying to accommodate diehard hacks bent on ruining the country to make that president look bad, you do not reward the ones who have driven us into the ground just because they can make you unhappy.

Now is exactly the time for all Democrats or fellow travelers, anyone who feels that the past 6 years of gridlock and sabotage is a horrendously bad thing, to vote Democratic across the board.

Think that voter suppression and Jim Crow 2014 is bad? Then vote out the Republicans in state houses nationwide, who made all of this happen.

Think that gridlock in Congress is bad? Then vote out the Republicans who have made that obstruction and inaction their mainstay policy.

Think that Democrats are the ones who ran up the debt? Then get your head out of your ass and look at the facts and figures, and then vote out the lying blowhards who actually put us in this mess.

Think that Citizens United or Hobby Lobby are travesties of justice? Then don’t let the people who want that kind of crap expanded a hundred times win any more elections, or vote in the next Supreme Court justices.

I could go on and on, but it should be clear to anyone who sees and thinks.

But here’s the key: so many people don’t vote that a surge in Democratic turnout could win elections.

Rewarding Republican politicians for any reason is the most disastrously insane solution anyone could possibly dream up. They are dying anyway; put them out of their misery now before they add to the astonishingly catastrophic devastation they have already wrought upon this nation. The sooner we stop their policy of ruin, the more we can salvage.

Who?

August 12th, 2014 Comments off

I was going to write a post about Sarah Palin’s most recent cringe-inducing statement—and then I realized that, no, I shouldn’t. Because commenting on Sarah Palin is like commenting on Ann Coulter. Getting pissed off at their outrageous ejaculations is kinda what they want you to do. Insulting them feeds their egos. If one could identify a thesis statement representing everything they say, it could be expressed as, “Pay attention to me!”

So, no.

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Operation American Spring

May 18th, 2014 1 comment

Is “Operation American Spring” a joke or something? On the one hand, I get the impression that it’s a thing made up by some nobody group that liberals are touting just to make fun of it—but then I see just enough conservatives making noise about it to give me the impression that it is, somehow, “for real.”

It is now famous, of course, for projecting “millions, as many as ten million” patriots to descend on Washington D.C., after which a million will camp out in the capital, thus leading to a revolution.

How this could be taken seriously by anyone is rather beyond me. Just the logistics alone would crash the event within hours—assuming, of course, that even minimal expectations were met. Reading the event’s web site show that they pretty much toe the line on every piece of hyperbolic, paranoid, conspiracy-theory conservative tripe imaginable.

But here is what really convinced me the whole thing was a joke: their site’s HTML. Look at this snippet:

<h1><strong><font size=“3”><font face=“Times New Roman”><font face=“Verdana” size=“5”><font color=“#FFCC00” size=“6”>This
is the OFFICIAL Operation American Spring</font></font> </font></font></strong></h1>

Yes, that is the long-ago-deprecated “font” tag. I’m surprised their tags aren’t all-caps. Looking through the code, it is hard to say what caused all of this. The competing font tags declaring different faces and sizes, not to mention multiple font tags around a single snippet of text, suggests a likely old WYSIWYG app where the font was changed back and forth. However, applying a “strong” tag within an “h1” tag? Alternating between “b” and “strong” further down in the code? Either it was a really bad app, or someone tinkered. Usually apps declare themselves in the meta tags in the head, but not here. Heck, maybe this was hand-coded by a really stupid person.

Anyway, the event, as has been reported with no little hilarity, has turned out “tens” of people. The event’s organizer made some pretty bizarre claims about the reasons for the turnout:

“We were getting over two inches of rain in hour in parts of Virginia this morning,” Mr. Milton said. “Now it’s a nice sunny day. But this is a very poor turnout.” … The weather likely delayed some from showing, he said. But as the sun comes out, and the weekend weather dawns balmy, more could show, he said. …

He also said the some of the planned Operation American Spring members who were planning to head to Washington, D.C., instead traveled to Nevada, to give support to cattle rancher Cliven Bundy in his fight against the federal government over grazing fees.

“A lot that were supposed to come here went there instead,” Mr. Milton said.

Yes, I remember all ten million showing up at Bundy’s ranch. I’m sure they left after the racist press conferences, and are now just held up in traffic somewhere.

Ah, wingnuts. They’re destroying the country, but they’re so funny when they do it.

The Republican Mindset

April 20th, 2014 1 comment

This article crystallizes the mindset of the Republican party extremely well.

Common Core is a set of K-12 educational standards that would delineate what any student should know at the end of a grade level in English and Math. It was created by the National Governor’s Association as a state-driven initiative. It had bipartisan backing and strong Republican support. Only a few crazies on the wingnut fringe opposed it.

Then Obama got behind it too, offering a few incentives for states to adopt it.

Suddenly, conservatives have abandoned it en masse and now call it “Obamacore,” saying it is a vile overreach by the federal government to warp the minds of youngsters.

Like Obamacare itself, and so many other ideas that actually were conservative to begin with and had major right-wing support, all it takes is for Obama to voice support for it, and suddenly the bulk of the Republican Party and conservatives everywhere make a 180-degree turn and call it treachery.

The Republican revolt against the Common Core can be traced to President Obama’s embrace of it, particularly his linking the adoption of similar standards to states’ eligibility for federal education grants and to waivers from No Child Left Behind, the national education law enacted by President George W. Bush.

The comparison to Obamacare is not coincidental; now that the ACA has flopped as a political war cry, conservatives appear to be desperate for anything they can grab ahold of to win elections with, and if that means sabotaging what they believed was an important improvement to children’s education, well, so be it.

A few Republicans stand in defense of the program, but are kind of being drowned out by the rush of Republicans turning tail.

Jeb Bush said the pivot seemed more like pandering. In remarks this month during an event at his father’s presidential library, he affirmed his support for the Common Core. “I guess I’ve been out of office for a while, so the idea that something that I support — because people are opposed to it means that I have to stop supporting it if there’s not any reason based on fact to do that?” he said. “I just don’t feel compelled to run for cover when I think this is the right thing to do for our country.”

With a knowing grin, he added, “Others that supported the standards all the sudden now are opposed to it.”

Some other former Republican governors who pushed the adoption of the Common Core agree with Mr. Bush. “There is a great deal of paranoia in the country today,” said Sonny Perdue, a former governor of Georgia, who was also instrumental in creating the program. “It’s the two P’s, polarization and paranoia.”

“Polarization and paranoia,” well-put. But there’s one more P: Politics.

Supporters of the Common Core, which outlines skills that students in each grade should master but leaves actual decisions about curriculum to states and districts, say that it was not created by the federal government and that it was up to the states to decide whether to adopt the standards.

But opponents say Mr. Obama’s attempt to reward states that adopt the standards with grants and waivers amounts to a backdoor grab for federal control over what is taught in schools.

The only meager silver lining I see in this is the generation of idiotic utterances to support a completely hypocritical and empty opposition to something purely on political grounds. Cue Ted Cruz:

“Standards inevitably influence the curricula being taught to meet those standards,” Mr. Cruz said.

Ya think? Never mind that educational standards were a big Republican idea until just recently.

Or, if you recall, this dilly from a Republican candidate for governor of Arizona:

Melvin’s comments led Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson, to ask him whether he’s actually read the Common Core standards, which have been adopted by 45 states.

“I’ve been exposed to them,” Melvin responded.

Pressed by Bradley for specifics, Melvin said he understands “some of the reading material is borderline pornographic.” And he said the program uses “fuzzy math,” substituting letters for numbers in some examples.

Stay classy, Republicans.

Anti-Vaccers

April 5th, 2014 Comments off

An excellent summary of all the reasons why vaccination is a must, and why the anti-vaccination argument is more conspiracy theory than it has anything to do with reason.

However, there is one anti-vaccer argument which I think was not sufficiently replied to:

They say that if other people’s children are vaccinated, there’s no need for their children to get vaccinated.

The response in the article was that this is “one of the most despicable arguments” to be heard on the subject, which is true, but there was one aspect not covered.

Effectively, this one argument expresses the contemptibly selfish nature of the anti-vaccers.

It admits that there are benefits to vaccines (contrary to some of their own arguments), benefits which they believe are won at the cost of the risks they falsely perceive.

It admits that “herd immunity” exists, something which is put at risk, often severe risk, by the anti-vaccers themselves.

But here’s the particularly reprehensible part: even from their own perspective, the anti-vaccers are willing to let all the other kids take all the risks so that their kids can be safe, while at the same time weakening the herd immunity and placing all children at greater risk.

If I were an anti-vaccer, I would probably skip making this argument.

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On That Note

February 6th, 2013 Comments off

Ann Coulter said yesterday, “Universal background check means universal registration, universal registration means universal confiscation, universal extermination. That is how it goes in history.”

Oh, and my dog crapped this morning.

Dog Lover

February 1st, 2013 2 comments

This is apparently true: in Jackson, TN, a man had a cute little bulldog—no name or age given—and handed him over to the local Rabies Control shelter to be euthanized. Not because he was violent; by all accounts, he’s a sweet little pup. Not because he chewed or tore up the house. Not because the owner was allergic.

No, it was because the owner was an ignorant ass.

The owner, as it is reported, found his dog “hunched over” another male dog, humping. Concluding the dog was gay, he sent him to the shelter to be killed.

Now, a suspicious person might see that and believe that the story could have been made up in order to garner sympathy to save the dog’s life. Which is what it did, as countless Facebook users and many others flooded the shelter with calls, with numerous people and organizations volunteering to rescue the dog.

But I don’t know, the story has just the right ring of stupid to it.

No that there would be anything wrong with a gay dog, but any idiot knows that dogs will hump anythingpeople, people’s legs, other dogs’ legs, toys, cats, barnyard animals, dead animals… even birds. Yes, birds. Puppies hump. Female dogs hump. Pretty much all dogs hump, and they hump pretty much anything and everything. It’s a dog thing.

So, assuming the story is true, we have a man somewhere in Jackson, TN, who is both homophobic and stupid. But I repeat myself.

And, to be quite serious and honest, things worked out best for the dog.

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Merry War on Christmas!

November 22nd, 2012 1 comment

Yes, it’s that time. Halloween is over and Thanksgiving is yet to come, so it’s time for Fox News to put up the decorative articles of outrage and sing carols of victimization. It has become a tradition unto itself, in a way; it is now years old, as certain to come as death and tax revolts, and has a central theme: to establish the dominance of Christianity and integrate as much as possible the institutions of Church and State.

What’s the latest outrage that allows the ruling class with the most power and privilege to feel like they are discriminated against and trampled upon? What else? A fight over a public nativity display! Did those nasty Grinch-like Atheists wage a war to bar them again? Well, no, it is established law that you can have nativity displays on public grounds—but only if all belief groups are also allowed similar displays! What’s this? Equality of expression? In the two months preceding Christmas? How vile!

The evil Atheists did not take down the Nativity in Palisades Park in the city of Santa Monica, but they did something even worse: they displayed their own holiday message. The message of spite and hate? “Religions are all alike – founded on fables and mythologies.” What an outrage! A quote from Thomas Jefferson, here in America? Jefferson is supposed to stand in the background and pretend to be a fundamentalist!

The real problem came when nasty secularists submitted more than one proposal for a spot in the park’s display, and the rules of the lottery system granted them 18 of the 21 spaces (or 11 of 14, reports vary). Well, random chance (or possibly the lack of submissions by Christians, but let’s not focus on that) is obviously at war with Christianity! Christians among the Santa Monica officials, in the meantime, decided that if the Mean Evil Nasty Atheists got more than they did for one year, they would scrap the whole game and take the ball home with them. So, under the excuse of turf erosion and obstructed views, which were never problems for the 60 previous years when Christian messages dominated, they shut down the whole display.

The Atheists did it! By expressing themselves!! To the point where Christians couldn’t stand it and shut down everything!! How dare they!!! As Fox nobly reminds us:

“It’s a sad, sad commentary on the attitudes of the day that a nearly 60-year-old Christmas tradition is now having to hunt for a home, something like our savior had to hunt for a place to be born because the world was not interested,” said Hunter Jameson, head of the nonprofit Santa Monica Nativity Scene Committee that is suing.

Yes, religious groups have no choice but to “hunt for a home” for their nativity displays. But where? Where could these poor, down-and-out, rich and powerful victims possibly move their displays? After all, they are limited to ONLY 12 other parks in the city, or on the front lawns of dozens of churches in the immediate area, or in any of tens of thousands of private lawns or open spaces. Or even in the same park where the nativity displays have traditionally been, so long as the park is open and the displays are attended. But not in that one park, at least when it is closed! Christian voices are being STRANGLED!! Atheists are killing CHRISTMAS!!

Coming up next on Fox’s hit series War on Christmas: “We find something to bitch about in the Obama White House ‘Holiday’ cards!” There are only wrapped presents, a poinsettia, and a Christmas wreath! No tree! And they don’t use the word “Christmas”! And they don’t write “We hate Muslims and Atheists!” on the card!

Don’t they know that the whole idea of Christmas Spirit is to exclude everyone else?!?

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Windows 8: Upgrade to Confusion

October 22nd, 2012 Comments off

Windows 8 will be released very soon, and when it comes out, we’ll see if Microsoft is completely stupid or not.

The test: whether or not Microsoft has added a tutorial to Windows 8. One which pops up immediately and tells people how things have changed, and how to get around the OS.

With Windows 8, the Start Menu is gone, cannot be brought back, and has been replaced with the now-infamous start screen. Going from one place to another now requires new actions which are not apparent because they are not visible on the screen. It is anything but intuitive to figure out that moving your cursor to a corner will bring up a screen you are looking for.

When I first downloaded Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I was hopelessly confused. I could not figure out how to get around—and I’m no n00b to Windows, either. There are bound to be lots of people who will be stymied when they see Windows 8, and who will hate the transition. “What?! I can’t bring back the Start menu? Why not?!?”

As I noted previously, Microsoft itself, when making a case for how it was better than the Mac OS, used as one of their key points, repeatedly, that Windows was better because people were familiar with it, and would have to spend time and effort readjusting to the Mac OS.

When I downloaded the Consumer Preview for Windows 8, however, there was no tutorial. Nothing to prepare you for things being different.

That astounded me. You completely change the UI and you leave users completely in the dark about how to operate things? Not even an apparent “Help” icon? Are you kidding me?

When Windows 8 comes up for the first time, it should have a tutorial (which can be dismissed, of course) which points out all the new UI features and the ways users can operate them. Once finished, the tutorial should then shrink to a small question-mark button on the Start screen, and stay there, with a note to users that they can disable the button if they wish.

Anything short of that will be, in my mind, proof positive that Microsoft is being run by morons. Even with it, Microsoft is throwing away one of their key advantages as they themselves define it. Without it, they are virtually begging for another Vista-level migration to the Mac.

Seriously, they have had eight months to realize that people are being stumped and aggravated by the lack of instruction. It should have been obvious before the Consumer Preview; it should be positively glaring by now. And there’s not shame in a tutorial; lots of people do it, it’s considered a feature, not to mention a necessity often times. Without it, people will be lost.

And then there’s the “What For?” effect: Windows 8 is mostly an upgrade for tablets. The new UI is the only notable new feature, aside possibly from the App Store—excuse me, the “Windows Store.” (Really, Microsoft—if you absolutely have to integrate mobile and desktop operating systems into one, why not make the desktop features dominant on desktop machines, and tablet features dominant on tablets, and have both set of features accessible on both? Why force desktop users to use an OS which is not appropriate for a desktop?)

This means that people who “upgrade” to Windows 8 on a laptop or Desktop will be getting a new and confusing user interface designed for something different than their current device, while at the same time, they get to be confused by a new and unexplained interface setup and lose the one tool they have spent most of a lifetime getting accustomed to—the Start Menu.

That’s pretty much it. A few other bells and whistles, like having a USB-based version of the OS, a new backup system (strikingly similar to Apple’s), and a smattering of other changes they won’t notice because they’ll be spending too much time trying to figure out how the hell to do even the most basic things.

So, Microsoft. Tutorial? Or not?

And Steve Jobs Invented Computers

June 19th, 2012 2 comments

I was reading up on the new Microsoft tablet, and found this paragraph in a story from one of the major networks:

The company has been hit and miss in the hardware market, and when the company misses, it does so epically — remember the Zune? But Microsoft’s hardware successes have become billion-dollar innovations, such as the Xbox or the mouse, which Microsoft pioneered.

Yes. Microsoft pioneered the mouse.

Forget about Douglas Engelbart inventing it in the 60’s. Forget about Xerox being the first major company to design a GUI computer using one. Forget about Apple being the first to successfully deploy it, putting it in the public consciousness. Forget about Microsoft not even being in the hardware business until much, much later.

The Xbox has seen success, but if you pile up Microsoft’s successes and failures in hardware, it’s kind of hard not to notice the dominance of the latter category.

Then I saw who published the story. If they get everything else wrong, why not this? Small wonder they don’t allow comments on their stories….

Categories: People Can Be Idiots, Technology Tags:

Didn’t Take Long for Microsoft to Screw Up Skype

June 14th, 2012 1 comment

First it was the “Skype Home,” an unnecessary screen with data most people have no need for. When you use Skype, the primary task is to contact someone–not to check who has been seen in the last two months (I know already) or have to dismiss annoying ads. And yet Microsoft made the “Skype Home” the default screen, and you can’t change that. Going on line, I found a lot of people like me who hate the damned thing.

Then there was that fracking awful “rate your call” screen at the end of calls, like I want to spend a minute every time doing that–especially when most problem occur due to bandwidth glitches, which Microsoft can do little or nothing about. No way to stop that either, as far as I can tell.

And now? Microsoft figures it’s a great idea to put giant ads in the middle of your Skype call. Not banner ads, which would be annoying enough. Not text ads, like Google. Nope. They want to shove your contact’s image to the side and present an ad as big as they are, like you’re talking to two people, but one of them is an annoying ad.

What happened to Skype making money from people on paid accounts? Probably it just wasn’t enough for Microsoft, they probably figured that there was an untapped revenue stream, so screw the users and screw the app itself.

They claim that you can get rid of the ads, but only by going to a web page and opting out (seems simple, but I’ll bet good money it doesn’t work like you expect), but you can count on the fact that eventually, it’ll become a non-dismissible “feature.”

They already are trying to gold-plate the turd of an idea by claiming that the ads will give users something to talk about. They are even calling these things Conversations Ads:

We’re excited to introduce Conversations Ads as an opportunity for marketers to reach our hundreds of millions of connected users in a place where they can have meaningful conversations about brands in a highly engaging environment.

What does it look like?

Conv Ad Screenshot For Pr With Unilever Magnum Ad-Thumb-485X351-22183

Well, they’re right in that it will spur discussion. “Goddammit, another fracking ad!” “Yeah, me too. Frack Microsoft. Let’s get a different chat program, one that doesn’t suck.”

Seriously, I am considering switching to FaceTime on the Mac, or maybe Google’s GMail video chat. It’s probably as good as Skype if not better, it’s just that Skype is what everybody has been using. But if I continue to get frustrated, annoyed, and pissed off every time I use it, then I won’t give a damn if I have to drag people over to FaceTime, I’ll just do it.

Checkmate!

June 9th, 2012 7 comments

A Tumblr page called “Checkmate, Pro-Choicers!” run by someone calling herself “Rebecca,” asserts that it is “Taking down Baby Murderers with Logic!” It is, actually, a fairly representative look at the level of “logic” used by many, if not a majority, in the fundie pro-life community. This person seems to have, at the very least, a very shaky understanding of what exactly is involved in “logic” (not to mention an equally shaky understanding of color schemes in web design); her points are mostly emotional in nature, and when not, are, well, laughable. Here are some examples, from the most recent:

Pro-lifers care about ALL WOMEN, not just the born ones.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

A simple statement to a certain effect is not a fact, and the details of “caring” can include harsh treatment “for their own good.” In such cases, “caring” treatment may be something you would definitely want to avoid. Case in point: mandatory vaginal ultrasounds using a manually-operated wand. While an objective observer might call it a form of state-mandated rape, a pro-lifer may rationalize that it saves a woman from making a choice that could scar her emotionally, and since it saves the life of the fetus, it prevents her from becoming a murderer and going to hell. See how much we care? You’re welcome!

It’s funny that “women’s rights” suddenly end when sex-selective abortion comes into play.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

An assertion which only makes sense if one assumes that a fetus is a “woman,” which essentially means that for a pro-lifer, the debate on whether abortion is murder begins with the assumption that human life begins at conception.

Beyond that, this asserts that pro-choicers don’t care about whether abortion is used as a form of sex selection, which is also untrue. It is seen as a terrible abuse of the procedure, and is very worrisome to those concerned with women’s rights. While it is not seen as a women’s rights abuse against the fetus, it is seen as a greater abuse against the gender itself. It is possibly one of the only criteria under which pro-choicers would agree to restrict abortion–save for the fact that it would rely on people getting abortions to truthfully state their intended purpose, which they would not do if it prevented them from doing as they wished.

One may suppose that pro-lifers would then say that this is a reason to outlaw abortion in general, to prevent the minority abuse, but that is incorrect. Many parents value and treat daughters far worse than sons without resorting to physical abuse, also an affront to women’s rights–but we cannot legislate and end to that, and it would not make sense to make parenting in general illegal in order to stop it.

If your mothers had aborted you, there would be no abortion movement at all.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

This ignores the name of the movement: Pro-Choice, not Pro-Abortion. Ergo, change the assertion to “If your mothers had been given a choice whether or not to abort you, …” and it falls apart, as they obviously did choose not to abort. If the argument is saying that abortion would be 100% amongst people who believed in pro-choice, it would not keep children of pro-lifers from being pro-choice. If the argument is against every mother having an abortion (which is the assertion made in an earlier post), then there would be no pro-life movement, either–the race would end after a generation. This demonstrates another incorrect assumption by pro-lifers: that people who are pro-choice want every woman to have an abortion every time they get pregnant.

If you cared so much about women, where were your Pre-Roe Crisis Pregnancy Centers?
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Since the term “Crisis Pregnancy Center” refers to a pro-life organization trying to persuade, trick, cajole, or frighten women into not having an abortion (usually presenting false information as a means to do so), this question bizarrely seems to be an attack against pro-lifers, not pro-choicers. Indeed, if you cared so much about women, pro-lifers, where were your Crisis Pregnancy Centers before Roe v. Wade?

Casey Anthony was just making a choice about her family and her life. She just wasn’t ready to be a mother, and she made a mistake. Oh wait, she’s in jail for that.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Again, it assumes an equivalency between abortion and child murder, in effect that a pre-requisite for any debate is to first accept the pro-life assertions as inarguable fact.

If you have time to have sex, then you have time to get a job and support your new baby.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Really? Fifteen minutes a day (assuming daily sex of moderate length) is enough time to work and support a child? These people must be organizational geniuses. Either that, or they think that pro-choicers spend ten to twelve hours a day having sex.

I don’t hear you complaining about Christian principles making the murder of teenagers illegal.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

First of all, exactly which Christian principles would specifically refer to teenagers? At the very least, this is oddly worded. But, once again, it starts from the assumption that abortion and the murder of born human beings is equivalent. From here, I’ll ignore all “arguments” based on this fallacy (which is a good number of the total posts).

If abortion is as normal and acceptable as you claim, why are there so few movies and TV shows that show it?
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Same reason why there are so few TV shows which display live birth in detail. Unless the contention is why more TV shows and movies don’t deal with the general idea of abortion, in which case it is because mainstream entertainment tends to shy away from issues that would normally receive vehement protest from any significant segment of society, whether it is a minority or not. Which is one reason why not many TV shows depict the Prophet Muhammed. This question may as well ask, “If abortion is as normal and acceptable as you claim, why are there so few pro-lifers which accept it?”

Mary was a 12-year-old single mother who didn’t decide to have sex. She chose life.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

First of all, I am beginning to wonder if this person actually understands what the word “checkmate” means.

Presumably, this refers to the biblical Mary, mother of Jesus. I’m sure that in this person’s mind, this somehow argues for the pro-life side. Ironically, however, it makes the case for choice. Mary, after all, chose to give birth, right? That’s what this person is saying. Possibly, this person does not even understand the meaning of the word “choose.”


They go on and on like this. “We used to think it was okay to burn people at the stake. We learned our lesson. Checkmate, Pro-Choicers!” Hunh?

One of my favorites: “Steve Jobs’ mom didn’t want him, but he invented computers. Checkmate, Pro-Choicers!” Yeah, Steve Jobs invented computers.

As every single assertion this person makes has at least one glaring logical flaw and/or false assertion, and most of them betray a breathtaking misunderstanding of what “winning an argument” means, this could end up being a very long post. Suffice it to say that they’re pretty much all like this.

I’ll just end with this one, because it speaks to the heart of the whole debate:

If a “zygote” is not a person at conception, but a baby is at birth, when does the magic Personhood Fairy come along?
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Indeed. That is the very question at the heart of the debate, and one which cannot be objectively answered. Conception is just as “magic” a delineation as any other.

And this is what, ironically, makes abortion, at its core, a First Amendment issue–not one of privacy (though that also applies), but of religious choice. Deciding when human life begins before the fetus is fully developed is, in a very real way, a matter of faith. One has the personal freedom to choose what one believes; since whether abortion is murder or not is a matter of personal belief, it must be a choice made by the individual, as a matter of religious freedom.

People like this want to impose their own religious beliefs on everyone, a direct violation of religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. But for people like this, “religious freedom” means “the freedom to believe what we tell you to believe.”

Suing for Overtime

June 1st, 2012 Comments off

I wrote this a few months ago, and it fell through the cracks. Here it is, though.


Apparently, more and more American workers are suing employers for unpaid overtime pay:

Americans were pushed to their limit in the recession and its aftermath as they worked longer hours, often for the same or less pay, after businesses laid off almost 9 million employees.

Now, many are striking back in court. Since the height of the recession in 2008, more workers across the nation have been suing employers under federal and state wage-and-hour laws. The number of lawsuits filed last year was up 32% vs. 2008, an increase that some experts partly attribute to a post-downturn austerity that pervaded the American workplace and artificially inflated U.S. productivity.

Workers’ main grievance is that they had to put in more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay through various practices:

• They were forced to work off the clock.

I noted this story because my one experience in court was exactly this. It was back in 1984, if I am not mistaken. I worked at a movie theater for a couple of certifiable douchebags, perhaps the two most unpleasant and dishonest people I have personally known.

They came across as convincingly earnest at first, as douchebags often do. When they took over the theater, they told all the people who were already working there about their dreams to make that theater a terrific place. However, they needed to build up capital, and could not afford everything at the start. They said that they could guarantee us a good health care plan later on, for example, if we would be willing to forgo overtime pay for a while at the beginning. We thought that an actual health care package was way more than we could expect, and didn’t think that overtime would matter much, so we agreed.

Of course, the no-overtime policy never disappeared, and the promised health care plan never materialized.

At one point, one of the workers left and sued the theater for unpaid overtime pay. At that point, the owners told everybody that before they would accept our timecards, we would have to re-write them–falsifying the records, spreading the hours around so that they would never go over 8 hours a day or 40 per week.

Soon afterwards, I quit the theater. The overtime issue was not the only reason, of course. These guys made the place a horrible place to work, and really pushed the limits on what you could even stand by and watch. Someday I’ll go into detail perhaps, but right now it’s beside the point. Suffice to say they disgusted me and I wanted nothing to do with them.

Afterwards, I decided to sue for the overtime pay. I had copied all of my timecards, and decided not to try to make a point of the falsified records; I just sued for what was on the books, which came out to a bit more than $500.

I served them by registered mail and showed up in court, armed with all the documents to prove my case. They did not show, and got away with it. These guys were not new to being served (again, stories for another time), and the dominant douchebag of the pair signed the registered mail as “Rob Roy.” While I’m sure signing that way is illegal, there was no way to pin it on him, and without a valid signature, the registered mail was not sufficient to show the guy had been served. The judge told me I’d have to re-file.

This time I had someone I knew serve them (in exchange for a few six-packs of beer). The day for the court case came, and again they did not show. The judge ruled in my favor by default.

At that point, they had, if I recall correctly, thirty days to appeal, which I was sure they would do. They never did. I think they just figured that they didn’t need to; they were already deep in debt, and figured that they could just refuse to claim, maybe use some more tricks to keep from coughing up the judgment (plus fees and costs).

I don’t think they realized that I knew which bank they used.

All I needed to do was to hire a county deputy sheriff to go to the bank and get the money; all he needed was the bank name and the name of the account holder. A few days later, I got every penny.

I did say these guys were scummy; I did not say that they were particularly bright.

Categories: People Can Be Idiots Tags:

The Truth

May 18th, 2012 4 comments

Precisely. I’ve also been reading Thomas Frank’s Pity the Billionaire, which deals with the same topic from a different perspective.

The frustrating thing is, this should be so obvious, as obvious as the fact that the Laffer curve was full of crap. And yet millions, even a majority, buy into the bull.

Money naturally circulates upward; in order for an economy to work well, there must be some kind of mechanism to circulate the money back down. Conservatives think that jobs will perform this function all by themselves, even as they try to destroy unions, deny workers benefits, and otherwise minimize that precise flow downwards. In fact, a healthily progressive tax system and good working conditions are what create jobs and a prosperous economy.

The best way to stimulate the economy is to inject the money into the lower half of the economic cycle; injecting it into the upper half is counter-productive.

Taxing the rich is not only a good thing, it is a necessary thing. Government spending on infrastructure, education, and supporting the poorest among us is not just a good thing, it is a necessary thing. If you truly wish to have a robust economy.

But just as we still prosecute the same old drug war despite decades of studies telling us that decriminalization and treatment would be light-years better, we still bridle against the bloody obvious in economics.

We know it’s a fact that dollar for dollar, food stamps are the most effective stimulus mechanism, followed closely by unemployment benefits and infrastructure spending, and yet most of the nation seems to accept Republican whining about how that will destroy the economy.

It is just as solid a fact that dividend & capital tax gain tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, and the billionaire-slanted Bush tax cuts are among the absolute worst stimulators–and yet we somehow allow right-wingers to insist that these be given a priority.

We’ve tried it the Republican way for 30 years and we have nearly destroyed our economy. So now right-winger shrieks about how they have never gotten a chance and how liberals have ruined everything.

When You Think about It, the Lack of Reasoning Makes Perfect Sense

May 7th, 2012 3 comments

Heartlandboard

The Heartland Institute is a conservative “think tank” (read: propaganda engine) set upon supporting conservative and corporate agendas. Aside from denying global warming, the institute has famously challenged the adverse effects of cigarette smoke, opposes public health care and education, and essentially supports privatizing almost everything government does. So one cannot expect them to exactly come from a place of reason if their purpose is so deeply set in supporting positions not achieved by reason. When you are so invested in issues that deny the obvious because they fail to benefit the political and economic agenda you want to believe in, basic logic tends to fly out the window.

Even so, the billboards on climate change had me puzzled for a while, in that they seemed so stupid, so nonsensical, that I figured I was missing the point. I mean, a fifth-grader could figure out that even bad people can believe in true things. Adolph Hitler believed that pi equals 3.14159! Do you?

Seriously, that does not even pass the laugh test. Trying to apply guilt-by-association to common-sense facts is, well, stupid. It truly puts on display how divorced from basic logic people like those at Heartland really are.

The Cry of the Oppressor

January 28th, 2012 3 comments

Newt Gingrich, in the latest debate:

…one of the reasons I am running is there has been an increasingly aggressive war against religion and in particular against Christianity in this country, largely by a secular elite and the academic news media and judicial areas. And I frankly believe it’s important to have some leadership that stands up and says, enough; we are truly guaranteed the right of religious freedom, not religious suppression by the state.

The general claim is nothing new, but Newt’s statement is notable in two ways: how comprehensive it is, and where it was said.

Usually, such claims are made in specific circumstances. For example, Jessica Ahlquist, a high school student and atheist in Rhode Island, successfully sued her school to remove a prayer that it had displayed prominently in the school auditorium for nearly half a century. Her objection was proper, and, as the courts recognized, the entirely legal thing to do. A public school using public funds to deliver a religious message is absolutely illegal; that it happens so often is not an expression of the founders’ wishes, but a daily abrogation of one of their highest principles. That the case took down an infringement which had hung for so long, far from being a slap in the face to tradition, was a refreshing sign that perhaps other similar infringements–such as religious statements on currency or in a pledge children are forced to recite–may also someday be rectified.

However, the Christianists believe that “separation of church and state” means, if anything, that the state cannot interfere with whatever religion wants to do, including proselytizing from public office using taxpayer money; and that the prohibition of Congress against making laws “respecting an establishment of religion” means the state cannot create a religion from scratch all by itself. Thus, they see the accurate reading of the law as being not just wrong, but an actual assault against their freedom to express religion wherever and whenever they please.

As a result, you’ll hear Christianists complaining about a “war on Christianity” in that context, with the atheist or religious secularist getting bashed and smeared as some hooligan trying to rob people of their religious freedom.

Or else you’ll hear Christianists getting all upset whenever “Christmas” is referred to as a “holiday,” in the horrific context of other religious or secular celebrations being held equal to the Christian one. To the Christianist right, “Happy Holidays” is now a slur, a godless curse, an insult to their beliefs and an attempt to deprive them of their rights.

Gingrich, however, piled on the whole list of grievances in one short, clearly scripted utterance. Let’s look at it in chunks:

…there has been an increasingly aggressive war against religion and in particular against Christianity in this country…

First of all, we get the “War on Christianity” claim. This is a catch-all which includes the exclusion of school-directed prayer (individual prayer in schools is completely OK), Christian displays on public property required to share the stage with other beliefs, and the generalization of religious celebrations into a generic holiday description. The former two are often the result of lawsuits, which are focused on sharply as a primary source of attack.

What’s fascinating here, however, is Newt’s claim that not just Christianity, but religion in general is being attacked. Why is that fascinating? Because the people attacking religions other than Christianity are not the secularists, but the Christians themselves. When was the last time you heard of an atheist filing a lawsuit against an Islamic prayer? Almost never–and not because they favor other religions (which Christianists sometimes claim), but because no other religion is ever in a dominant enough position to infringe on the rights of others.

What is truly hypocritical is the fact that Christianists are the only ones who actually try to deny others the right to freedom of belief and legal expression. They openly discriminate against people who believe differently from them. They refuse to serve atheists or Muslims in their businesses. They clamor to take down atheist billboards and actually fight to prevent Islamic mosques from being opened, even in remote rural areas with no one else around. They’re the ones that howl in protest when any other religion aside from Christianity gets to deliver an invocation or inaugural prayer. They vote down anyone who is not Cristian from getting into public office. Even Gingrich himself has said he would not allow anyone who is non-religious to even serve in government, and you know he would shut out most non-Christians in the same way.

And the Christian claim to persecution? Despite being the dominant religion with their beliefs almost everywhere, including on the currency, in prayers before public sessions, in the Pledge of Allegiance and nearly all other public oaths, etc. etc.–the persecution against them is horrific because they don’t get to slather their religion in every last nook and cranny of society. Not because they’re actually being shut out, but because they are not allowed to dominate everywhere.

Who is doing this dastardly shutting out?

…largely by a secular elite and the academic news media and judicial areas.

This one prepositional phrase carries an amazing load of trumped-up and untruthful invective against innocent and even imaginary non-Christians.

First, the “secular elite.” Exactly who, pray tell, would that consist of? This is as false and dishonest a boogeyman as the “liberal elite” from which Gingrich pawned it off. According to Gingrich, there is some secret cabal of atheists out there plotting to destroy religious liberty in America. Boogah boogah.

Second, the “academic news media.” Academic? What, is there a news media made up of college professors and researchers that I haven’t heard of? Apparently, education, schools, and teachers are just as evil to Gingrich as “moderates” are, to the point where just saying “academic” (where it even makes no sense) is somehow a justifiable slur. As for the “news media,” that is, of course, the “liberal media.” But wait–how is the news media attacking religion? Truth be told, I hadn’t heard that one before. Is it because they report news Gingrich doesn’t like? That’s the only thing I can think of.

And finally–and this is the scary part when it comes to Gingrich–the judiciary. Long libeled and slandered by the right wing for deciding cases according to law rather then by far-right ideology, the judiciary has the utter gall to follow the Constitution as it was written and intended by the founders. Even conservative judges, like the Bush 43 appointee who ruled against Intelligent Design in Dover, PA, more often rule by the law rather than by their personal political preferences (although that balance is disturbingly migrating in the other direction).

Why is Gingrich’s focus scary? Because Gingrich himself actually suggested that judges could be arrested and hauled before Congress if they dared rule cases in a way that displeased the far right.

So, we come to:

And I frankly believe it’s important to have some leadership that stands up and says, enough; we are truly guaranteed the right of religious freedom, not religious suppression by the state.

“Suppression.” What he means is, Christians (just like everyone else) cannot promulgate religious doctrine using government funds, or via the office of public representatives. That is the only way Christianity (in the exact same way as every other belief system, including atheism) is “suppressed”–and it is that way for the sole purpose of protecting religious liberty, to keep a single religious sect from acquiring power and thus actually suppressing all other religious beliefs in all avenues of life, as it has in so many countries which marry church and state.

This protection of the freedom of belief is called “suppression.” Which makes me wonder how, exactly, Christianists like Gingrich define “suppression.”

Is it like when Christians suppress the right of Muslims to build a mosque? When was the last time Christians were barred from building a church in America?

Like when Christians suppress the right of atheists to erect a billboard? When was the last time an American Christian organization was harassed into taking down a billboard with an inoffensive message?

Like when Christians run a Jewish family out of their Delaware town for protesting when their kids are singled out in Christian prayer at school? When was the last time a Christian family was run out of town after an Imam, preaching in a public school, singled out the Christian child, surrounded by Muslims, and prayed for her to convert?

Like every single election in America, when, with only rare exceptions, you can only get elected if you profess your Christianity? When was the last time a candidate lost for being mainstream Christian? Christians are so vehement about this kind of suppression that even other Christians (today, Mormons, earlier, Catholics) are heavily disfavored?

I wanted to say that Christians suppress religion far more than others in America–but even that’s not true. Outside of church and state issues, as far as I am aware, Christians are the only ones suppressing the freedom of belief in America.

Gingrich is partaking in the long-favored conservative practice of accusing people he is persecuting of persecuting him.