Mike's Blog

Hmm, I wonder how well "let's convert the USA to Islam starting in Alabama and build madrasses" would go over? About as well as this idea?

Bush's solution is for the Arab countries to be more like Israel. I could  hardly believe he said that when I saw this. The quote from the article is below. He actually said this.

                  Bush tells Iraqis to act more like Israel                   
by John Aravosis (DC)                   ·  6/28/2007 03:19:00 PM ET
  Discuss this post here: Comments (111) ·  digg it · reddit · FARK ·  · Link

So our secret plan for democratizing Arab countries is to remake them in the image of their mortal enemy, Israel?  That's gonna go over well. (link AMERICAblog)

                       

Bush cites Israel as model for Iraq                

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours,  17 minutes ago

NEWPORT, R.I. - President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.

...
He suggested Israel, the frequent target of terrorist attacks and a country in a decades-long, intractable and often violent dispute with Palestinians, as a standard to strive for.
... (link)

The Anti-Christ Speaks at Regent University

I didn't think Catholics were too popular at 4th tier "universities" like this. But I guess sucking up to hate groups and delusional loons is all part of running for President. I hope all of the 700 Club sickos get firmly behind Giuliani. I can't think of anyone more fitting for them to throw support to, excepting of course the current idiot in office or of course any of the other GOP'ers running. If you want to be known as a firm supporter of bigotry, hatred, homophobia, ignorance, Muslim style theocracy and evil there is certainly no one better to align with, and now there's one less top tier hate group since Mr. Tinky Falwell is finally gone.

Giuliani To Regent University: ‘The Amount Of Influence You Have Is Really, Really Terrific’

Today, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. In the opening of his speech, he congratulated Robertson for the “influence” Regent has:

Thank you very, very much, Pat. Thank you for the very kind words and the introduction. And thank you for having me here.

I am very, very impressed with Regent University, when I consider that it was founded just a short while ago. The number of graduates that you have and the amount of influence that you have is really, really terrific.

And of all the many things that you’ve done — and there have been many, and many contributions…

Regent is ranked a “tier four” school by US News & World Report, “the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place.” Yet approximately one in six Regent graduates are employed in government work, and 150 serve in the Bush administration. ... (link)

      

"And Then I Saw These" - Alan Chin Photojournalist

I was reading through lots of news and blog posts on recent events which don't even need help from joke writers, they can just be copy/pasted for Leno or Letterman to read. Then I came across this photo set and post on BAG news Notes. Very sad, very graphic photos, in black and white of the Katrina disaster. Alan Chin is a frequent contributor to the BAG.
 

Sep 27, 2005

Katrina Aftermath: And Then I Saw These

(Update: 7.28.05 12:31 a.m. PST:  Due to the keen interest in this series, all the photos have been reposted at a larger size, and numbered for easier reference. Also, Alan Chin welcomes all questions via the comment thread -- critical or otherwise.)

1

...more...

Values Voters - Christian Values

The Social Dysfunction of Red States

Category:
Posted on: June 22, 2007  9:30 AM, by Ed Brayton

Pam Spaulding links to this post at PERRspectives, which focuses mostly on health care but also includes this little gem:

The same dismal pattern applies to a wide array of measures of social dysfunction and pathology. 8 of the top 10 states with the highest murder rates are squarely in Red America. 7 of the 10 states with the lowest murder rates were in the Kerry column. (Interestingly, six of those states have no death penalty statute.) The 10 states with the highest divorce rates in 1998 all went for Bush in 2004. Red states constituted 9 on the top 10 in terms of out-of-wedlock births. And the Bible Belt has the greatest percentage of births to women under age 20, with the worst 15 states nationwide all among in the GOP ranks. By almost any measure of societal breakdown that so-called Republican "values voters" decry, it is Red State America where moral failure is greatest. ...(link Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

This is the Bush that many think was and would be a better president

Update: To clarify a bit. Yes, it's Bush Senior who says that I am not an American because I don't believe in the correct version of the tooth fairy. As bad as that is, he would make a better president than the current Bush.

---

To understand how bad the current Bush is, we shouldn't forget that this is the Bush we would rather have in power. As an atheist,  I also would rather have this asshole in power ever though he really has no more concept of what the Constitution or America is about than the current idiot asshole and his bunch of cronies who may or may not have a clue but are dead set on destroying what the Constitution and America stand for. In my mind he's just a stupid bigoted asshole, a category which many people can easily fit in. To be a true danger to all humans not just Americans, takes a special kind of evil of which there is plenty of in the GOP. (via Amused Muse)

George Bush states that atheists are not citizens or patriots
...
There Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American Atheist news journal, fully accredited by the state of Illinois and by invitation a participating member of the press corps covering the national candidates had the following exchange with then Vice President Bush.

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?

Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in god is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?

Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.

...confrontation with Ed Murnane, cochairman of the Bush-Quayle '88 Illinois campaign oficial...

Sherman: American Atheists filed the Pledge of Allegiance lawsuit yesterday. Does the Bush campaign have an ofresponse to this filing?

Murnane: It's bullshit.

Sherman: What is bullshit?

Murnane: Everything that American Atheists does, Rob, is bullshit.

Sherman: Thank you for telling me what the official position of the Bush campaign is on this issue.

Murnane: You're welcome

...Ed Derwinski, the secretary of the Department of Veteran's Affairs...

"What you should do for me is what you should do for everybody: Believe in God.  Get off our backs."... (link)

George Bush talks more better than Nancy Pelosi?

That's pretty bad when it can be said that Bush comes across as a better speaker than someone else. What kind of stupid nonsense has to come out of someone's mouth when it can be said that Bush has a better way with words.

From Nancy Pelosi, who should know better, for heaven's sakes:

“Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, arguing for the bill’s passage. “And that is the embryonic stem cell research.”

One: This is a gratuitous insult to all thinking persons. Science is a process of inquiry that has enabled us to understand something about the nature of physical reality in a detailed fashion. It has taken centuries of hard, meticulous, and often backbreaking work to acquire this knowledge; the history of science is filled with failure, frustration, and fragmentary, provisional understandings. The relatively rare breakthroughs - Newton's laws, Darwin's natural selection, Einstein's theory of relativity - are achieved only through enormous effort, not miracles. This is no gift from God but a quintessentially human endeavor.

Secondly, the kind of pandering, meaningless bullshit Pelosi mouthed will convince no one.
...

Pelosi's breathtakingly stupid comment merely indicates how far behind, still, Democrats are in developing a modern political rhetoric for their values and ideas. Here, for example, is a sentence from Bush's statement opposing the stem cell bill:

Recent scientific developments have reinforced my conviction that stem cell science can progress in ethical ways.

The following discussion is not about the quality of the actual ideas, but their presentation; of course, any 1/4 way normal person - even Nancy Reagan - supports stem cell research. Nevertheless, Bush's statement is quite sophisticated.*

Note the implicit, casual, natural-sounding assumption of the moral high ground, neatly embedded in the second half of the sentence. Note the assumption, further, that stem cell research inherently contains an ethical dimension. It is taken as axiomatic that this research has a moral component rather than being morally neutral like, say, the development of a more efficient tcp/ip would be.** And note the further assumption of a duality - either morally pursued or immorally pursued with no middle ground...(link Hullabaloo)

Paperclips on a rubber band ...

Very good explanations for 4 common misconceptions about the universe.

...
1) The Big Bang was an explosion
This seems to be a really big one. I’ve been told that I contradict myself because I point out that the Big Bang wasn’t an explosion so I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about. The term “Big Bang” was originally given to the theory (originally called “primeval atom”) by Fred Hoyle on a radio program in which he was mocking the theory. However, the misnomer stuck and has been causing confusion ever since.
...
The frequent picture people seem to have is matter flying outwards from a single point (like an explosion). However, the matter is all actually standing still while space itself expands dragging the matter with it.

The general analogy for this is having a series of paperclips on a rubber band. As the rubber band is stretched, the paperclips appear to move away from one another even though they are in fact holding still with regard to the rubber band. Similarly, galaxies hold still more or less (there are small movements due to gravitational interactions) while they are carried by the expanding universe.

So again, there was no “explosion” but instead, an expansion which is carrying all the rest of the universe away from us. ...(link Angry Astronomer)

Of course she believes in the one true god so it's understandable

Pareidolia: part n + 6    

                    

It's been awhile since I've seen an article of faces appear on muffins or trees but it's happened again.

But this time, it's not Jesus. It's the ghost of a small town mayor.

But not everyone is convinced it looks like Stephens.

"I see Jesus," said Cathy Sansone, the membership director at the health club who says any resemblance to the late mayor is simply the "power of suggestion."

May He be known by His works

Watch to the end and read the final text on the screen. Normally I don't do the silly religious capitalization thing. Note above in the subject line I do to make sure this is no mistake as to what I'm talking about. Randy Newman via Pharyngula

And yet another proof for god and ID!

The evidence keeps mounting. First bananas, then peanut butter, then the movie Pirates of the Carribean, and now the Ford Pinto! I hadn't seen this before and I guess it's been around for a while, here's the link to Carl Zimmer's article in The Loom where I encountered it.

Here's the Discovery Institute article

...
(a) Firstly, Zimmer's claim that an eye is not designed because our retinas may become detached after "a sharp punch to the head" is not a scientific argument: intelligent design doesn't require "perfection," nor does it require that a system always survive malicious physical attacks. Was the Ford Pinto, with all its imperfections revealed in crash tests, not designed?