Political Connotations

Shankar Vedantam talks about studies of both campaigns from the 2008 presidential election:

The researchers found that when they subliminally flashed the name Obama before [McCain] volunteers—the flashes were so brief that the volunteers did not notice the flash—this unconsciously activated words such as Arab, turban, and mosque in the minds of McCain supporters. Likewise, subliminally flashing the word McCain unconsciously activated words such as senile, dementia, and Alzheimer's in the minds of Obama supporters. The same thing did not happen when volunteers were flashed the name of the candidate they supported. The slur-related words were activated only by unconsciously reminding them about the candidate they opposed.

This is why I always say that "both sides do bad things" and that if anyone says that their side does not that they are inveterate liars. But I also say that "one side is better at saying bad things and making them stick". Ask yourself which is more likely to be true: that John McCain is losing control of his mental faculties because he's growing old or that Barack Obama hates America because he's a secret Muslim?

(via)

What Else Is Near Ground Zero?

New Yorker Daryl Lang takes some photos of other structures and businesses in his neighborhood, including strip clubs, bars, McDonalds and curbside souvenir hockers, located the same distance from the Ground Zero site as the proposed Muslim community center:

What’s my point? A month ago, I wrote about my support for a group of Muslim New Yorkers—whom I consider my neighbors—and their right to put a religious building on a piece of private property in Lower Manhattan. Since then, the debate over the Park51 community center, inaccurately nicknamed the “Ground Zero Mosque,” has jumped from talk radio to mainstream conversation, and turned nasty in the process. Sarah Palin wrote that, “it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground.”

Look at the photos. This neighborhood is not hallowed. The people who live and work here are not obsessed with 9/11. The blocks around Ground Zero are like every other hard-working neighborhood in New York, where Muslims are just another thread of the city fabric.

At this point the only argument against this project is fear, specifically fear of Muslims, and that’s a bigoted, cowardly and completely indefensible position.

I'm glad that Sarah Palin was able to put aside her disdain for big city liberal elitists long enough to tell them how to run their own town (for their own good, of course). As far as the outrage over the proposed community center located two and a half blocks away from the World Trade Center site being too close I still have three questions that no right-winger can or will answer: 1) How many blocks would then be far enough away to show proper respect for the victims on 9/11? 2) What system or formula did you use to arrive at that number? 3) Why would being even one block closer than the number you chose be so much worse? The reason these questions can't be answered is because this isn't about proximity to Ground Zero or respect for those victims, it's about not liking Muslims and conflating religious tolerance with national weakness to score cheap political points in an election year.

The "Ground Zero" Mosque

This looks about right but hey, fear can win elections.

(via)

Lowering The Drinking Age To 18

I've long been a fan of doing this even after I turned twenty-one. Under my plan every American who is both eighteen-years-old and a high school graduate would automatically be of legal drinking age and able to purchase and consume alcohol. Just being eighteen wouldn't work because we would experience the same outcome we do in colleges: students who are old enough to drink would constantly be buying alcohol for those who are not. It would also be a great incentive for kids to stay in school and get their degree or pass a high school equivalency exam (all of those who do not do so would have to wait until they turn twenty-one to drink lawfully). We allow eighteen-year-olds to be tried as adults, vote, own guns and serve in the military yet when it comes to consuming alcohol they are treated as second-class citizens. I say that if someone can risk their life for their country they should be able to enjoy a beer after work. What do you think?

American Power And Arrogant Prosthelytizing

This is getting old. I understand now why most of my liberal/nihilist/whatever friends have stopped trying to engage my conservative counterpart Donald Douglas of American Power on pretty much every level of civilized discourse. It's not just his delusions that he constantly gets the better of me in our little back and forths (I see no need to beat my chest about it, you can judge that for yourselves) or his rank hypocrisy and faux outrage about anything he dislikes or disagrees with (you name it, and everything he includes in this category is always egregious and atrocious and his assessment of such is of course beyond dispute) or even the fact that he selectively refuses to allow comments on any thread in which he mentions me (what kind of blogger who's worth a damn even does that and expects to be taken seriously?) that annoy me.

It's the level of tone-deafness he displays in the face of any and all logic and reason. Case in point, "Living by Faith in God". I'm busy with other things at the moment so I'm going to make this quick:

I thought I'd postpone some of the JBW blog wars for a few days, but I have to say, for an Easter holiday, this guy packs some wicked demonic heat. Thankfully, Serr8d's on the case and has been peppering JBW with covering fire. And as you can see, the Brain Rage posts have become more whiny and impotent with each iteration, so the higher power's getting to this human defect, fallen temporarily though he may be.

Shorter Don: I'm bad, Don's winning, his god's helping him win.

JBW's responded as well to Stogie's photoshop, but my comments on that will go live tomorrow or Tuesday or whenever. Here I just want to elaborate the differences between myself and JBW, and perhaps he'll think through the scathing fires of the perturbations tormenting him.

Shorter Don: I'm bad, Don's good, maybe I'll realize that.

The differences are of faith, and that which sustains me, and the absence of The Good, which inflicts JBW for want of meaning and fulfillment. Here's a passage from The Strategy of Satan: How to Detect and Defeat Him, which is a pocket handbook for the Christian (blog) warrior, "Living by Faith in God": [A bunch of religious cut and pasting I'm not going to waste time addressing.]

Shorter Don: Don's good because he believes in a god, I'm bad because I don't, bible verses.

At seeing JBW's Easter sacrilege today my heart skipped at Satan's breath, and I fear the JBW knows not of his wayward travels to the underworld of death. He thinks he's cool -- that I'm an old man, a tubby has been -- and that he's got nothing to learn of the ways of grief and hardship and perseverance to the life of goodness in The One. Serr8d, in his rough manner, repudiates JBW's demonology, and that's when JBW recoils and pleads his divine tormentors off. We might say in regular terminology: "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen." So, in fact it's JBW who should call it a day when beaten silly.

Shorter Don: I'm bad and in league with Satan(?), I'm young and naive, I'm still losing and I think there was something about Neo from The Matrix in there.

But however it's assessed, the boy has lost his faith, and thus he's lost his way in this world. (I know this from JBW's confessions of his parents love and values, and his rejection of them.) Perhaps a further comeuppance is due before change can be effected, but mysterious are the ways of the Lord.

More tomorrow, dear readers ...

OK, I'll spend a few moments on this last part: I've never had faith in any type of god so I had nothing to lose, and I reject the arrogant notion that a person is somehow "lost" without it. The values my parents taught me (which Don apparently completely missed the gist of in my comment) were to question everything in this world with a critical eye and to err on the side of logic and knowledge rather than that of superstition and wishful thinking. Rather than reject these values, I've embraced them as an intellectual philosophy. Oh, shorter Don: Don's not through beating me, his god is helping him do it, this ain't over yet. Jesus...

Hume: "Tiger Should Convert To Christianity"

Former FOX News anchor Brit Hume knows better than Tiger Woods which religion Tiger Woods should follow:


The balls on this guy, huh? This is one of the reasons so many people are getting tired of the Evangelical Christian schtick George W. Bush tossed around over the course of the last decade: I know better than you do how you should live your life because I pray to the "right" god. Do you think Christians would have still approved of this statement if Tiger was Jewish? How about if he was a Christian and a Muslim was stating that he should convert to Islam? You crazy people and those nutty religions of yours...

(via)

[Update: A Daily Dish reader adds:

I am Christian who has taught Comparative Religion and attempted to present these religions not from a Christian perspective, but from within each of their own religious worldviews. Having done so, I can affirm that Buddhists do have concept of redemption - but, not surprisingly, it is not like the Christian conception. The Buddhist concept is called nirvana, itself a very misunderstood concept by many Christians. Additionally, since awareness of suffering is one of the Four Noble Truths, then forgiveness is an important dimension of overcoming suffering. Brit Hume could have found this out in about thirty seconds by just Googling it (wonderful thing, those internets).

But Hume knows that the redemption won't take if Jesus isn't the one doing it. Also, that you have to ask for it in English or else He won't be able to understand what the hell you're saying.]

Texas Police Ticket For Not Speaking English

Really, Texas?:

Police officials say they have uncovered 38 cases where Dallas officers improperly cited drivers for not being able to speak English.

Chief David Kunkle said Friday the discovery came after a woman was pulled over earlier this month for making an illegal U-turn and was given a ticket for being a "non-English speaking driver."

Ed Morrisy has the definitive comment:

This is Texas, of course. And if English was good enough for the Lord Jesus Christ, it's good enough for them.

English, motherfucker! Do you speak it!? You better.

TDS: So You Think You Can Douche

You've got to do better than just douche if you want to compete with the demonizing crazies in the right-wing media:

Douche hard or go home! I don't know about Lou Dobbs but I recently read that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity make 25 and 40 million dollars a year respectively, just for calling President Obama a radical, racist Socialist-Marxist. Translate those dollars into people and you get an inkling as to how many wingnuts we actually have walking around this country right now. Chilling.

(via)

Picture Of The Day

Is it true what they say about Klingons? Yes , they have massive photon torpedoes. Oh, and their cocks are huge too. Those brow ridges can still be a bit off putting though, huh?

Right America: Feeling Wronged

I just watched Alexandra Pelosi's documentary Right America: Feeling Wronged last night in which she follows the McCain/Palin campaign to a series of events in mostly Southern states during the last presidential election. Wow. These people are really pissed off. Pissed off at the government, the news media, Hollywood, Democrats, homosexuals, liberals, Muslims, minorities and especially Barack Hussein Obama. And yes, the number "666" even came up a number of times (ah, memories...). I've posted video of McCain supporters saying some incredibly nasty/stupid things about then candidate Obama in the past but the degree to which many of the people in this film had drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid was fairly disturbing.

I hesitate to recommend this flick for the simple reason that I didn't really learn anything new from watching it. It didn't really offer anything fresh or interesting and I certainly already saw enough despicable behavior from the right during the campaign. Pelosi's previous documentary Journeys with George about Bush's 2000 presidential run was a lot more charming and fun to watch but of course that was all before the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war debacle cast a pall over this country and it's politics. Pelosi is likable enough as an interviewer and she seems to have some talent as a filmmaker so perhaps it's just the subject matter in this film but I'm not encouraging any of you to put this one at the top of your Netflix queue anytime soon.

[Update: Just watched this clip from the Daily Show last night and had to add it here:















(hat tip: Reza)]

Paging Dr. Richard Kimble...

Remember when society found it acceptable to hide all of its "freaks" away behind closed doors so that nobody would have to sully their precious eyes by gazing upon their twisted forms? It appears that many in England would be quite happy with a return to that era:

A disabled CBeebies presenter has been the victim of a disturbing campaign after parents complained that she was scaring toddlers.

They claimed that host Cerrie Burnell - who was born with one arm - is not suitable to appear on the digital children's channel.

Miss Burnell and co-presenter Alex Winters took over the popular Do and Discover slot and The Bedtime Hour programme last month.

But the decision to hire her has prompted a flurry of complaints to the BBC and on parenting message boards, with some of the posts on the CBeebies website becoming so vicious that they had to be removed.

Incredibly, one father said he wanted to ban his daughter from watching the channel because he feared it would give her nightmares.

Others claimed that they were forced to discuss difficult issues with their young children before they were ready.

One blogger wrote: 'Is it just me, or does anyone else think the new woman presenter on CBeebies may scare the kids because of her disability?

'I didn't want to let my children watch the filler bits on The Bedtime Hour last night because I know it would have played on my eldest daughter's mind and possibly caused sleep problems. And yes, this is a serious post.'

Some even accused the BBC of hiring Miss Burnell, 29, because of 'political correctness' and solely to meet employment quotas.

One notice board comment read: 'What is scary is the BBC's determination to show " minorities" on CBeebies at every available opportunity!

I don't know what disturbs me more about this story: the outright prejudice directed towards this woman because of her disability or the fact that so many of these parents find it so difficult to have an honest conversation with their children about the human body and other people who are different from them. And before you dismiss them as a bunch of uptight Brits ask yourself this question: were we Americans any less hysterical when Janet Jackson's dirty, dirty tittie flopped out during her Super Bowl halftime show a few years back? We as a society need Tyler Durden and his penis pictures now more than ever before.

Hitler's Birthday Cake

I guess as long as we let racists continue to reproduce we're going to have people like this amongst us but it doesn't make this any less sad:

HOLLAND TWP. | In a living room decorated with war books, German combat knives and swastikas, a 2-year-old boy, blond and blue-eyed, played with a plastic dinner set.

The boy, asked his name, put down a tiny plate and ran behind his father's leg. He flashed a shy smile but wouldn't answer. Heath Campbell, 35, the boy's father, encouraged him.

"Say Adolf," said Campbell, a Holocaust denier who has three children named for Nazism.

Again, the boy wouldn't answer. It wasn't the first time the name caused hesitation.

Adolf Hitler Campbell -- it's indeed the name on his birth certificate -- turns 3 today, and the Campbell family believes the boy has been mistreated. A local supermarket refused to make a birthday cake with "Adolf Hitler" on it.

The ShopRite in Greenwich Township has also refused to make a cake bearing the name of Campbell's daughter, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who turns 2 in February.

Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, a girl named for Schutzstaffel head Heinrich Himmler, turns 1 in April.

Now personally, I would have made the cake for the kid; sure, his parents are obviously racist douchebags but he's only 3: let the kid have his birthday cake. Because this will almost definitely be the case someday:

An Allentown psychologist said the names would cause problems for the children later in life.

Ya think!? That Barack Obama presidency win is looking even more miraculous when you factor in how many idiots like this we still have living in this country.

Savage On Straight Marriage

This story has been all over the news out here in the Bay Area but for those of you not familiar with it, here's a recap:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A husband and wife have been charged with torture and other counts after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday.

Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, were arrested late Monday, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for police in Tracy.

They had been taken into custody for questioning earlier in the day at their home in Tracy, where the emaciated boy was allegedly held against his will. A search of the home turned up evidence implicating the couple, Robinson said. Tracy is about 60 miles east of San Francisco.

They were charged with torture, kidnapping and child abuse, and were set to appear in court Thursday, officials said. Bail was set at $1.2 million for Michael Schumacher but his wife's bail had not been set, authorities said.

Dan Savage over at The Stranger is understandably pissed off and makes a lot of sense to boot:

Kelly and Michael Schumacher are legally married—and they can stay legally married, even if they're found to be guilty of this horrendous crime. They can stay legally married even if the decomposing remains of twenty other teenagers are found buried in their backyard. Their marriage license cannot be revoked. If Michael dies in prison, Kelly can remarry—even if she's serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If Kelly decides to divorce Michael, he can remarry—even if he's sitting on death row. He can remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce until he runs out of prison pen pals. Because the courts have declared that marriage is so fundamental a right that it cannot be denied to convicted rapists or to serial killers.

But it's a right that's denied to me and my boyfriend. Because we're both men and that ain't right.

You are correct, sir: that indeed ain't right.

Why We'll Win

Because they have this guy on their side:

Some of the dissenters get a little rowdy but I think it's understandable.

Something Racist Someone Else Said

"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.” -Lynn Westmoreland, Republican Representative from Georgia when asked to Compare Sarah Palin to Michelle Obama

I recently posted another of Westmoreland's greatest hits here.

Black Communists

When smearing a prominent black politician with racial slurs and stereotypes isn't enough, thank the gods that there's always the evil specter of communism to fall back on; Andrew Sullivan puts together some telling quotes from the right, including one from this recently deceased douchebag. Was there ever a time when American politics wasn't this dirty and malicious?

Goodbye Jesse Helms

Regular readers might notice the lack of my usual RIP; from Dispatches From The Culture Wars:

Jesse Helms died on the 4th of July and the nation celebrated with fireworks, BBQs and a day off for everyone. I can't think of a single nice to thing to say about him so I'll say accurate things instead. It is a matter of some dispute whether Helms' most obvious and prominent attribute was his ignorance or his bigotry. He was a malevolent voice for obscurantism and anti-modernism in every conceivable way. This was a man who, as late as 1995, was declaring that the Washington Post and the New York Times were "infested with homosexuals" and called gays "morally sick wretches." This is also the man who called the University of North Carolina the "university of negroes and communists" and who said, in response to vigils on college campuses by students in the wake of Martin Luther King's death, "They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro." No, I won't miss him, nor will the world. Rot in peace.

I've never had any problem speaking ill of the dead when they deserve it and I still don't, so fuck you, Jesse Helms; we're all better off as a race without this hateful bastard. Amen.

Baracknophobia

The audacity of fear! Heard any good rumors about Barack Obama lately? No? Well then, you probably just don't watch the news. Or open your email. Or discuss politics with anyone, anywhere, ever. With folks like yourself in mind, Jon Stewart recaps some of the better ones out there, by focusing on some of the worst "journalists" in the media:

Break's Over

OK, I tried. Texas, why do you keep doing shit like this?

At the Republican state convention, a booth hosted by Republicanmarket was selling a pin Saturday that says: If Obama is President will we still call it the White House.

There were other pins that weren't necessarily conveying the positive, inclusive, united front that has been portrayed during the convention. One said, "Press 1 for English. Press 2 for Deportation" and another, "I will hold my nose when I vote for McCain"

I'm still taking a break from watching too much news but stuff like this is all over the Internets; I have to say something about it.

An Obama Monkey? Really?

Look, I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next guy, and I pride myself on not conforming to the over-arching, liberal standards of political-correctness that have infiltrated parts of the American left in this country. But if you lack the historical perspective and cultural awareness to know why this doll is so offensive to so many people on so many levels, then I feel sorry for you and those around you. And if you do understand the cultural and societal repercussions of creating a doll such as this, and yet you still choose to do it anyway, well then I have no respect for you or your views on the world. And everything that you say or do subsequent to these actions are no longer of any relevance to an open debate of ideas in a free-minded, civilized society. Word.

[Note: this post was created prior to my decision to take a break from politics.]