Tell Us How You Really Feel

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

Curbstone Critic, citing Will Durst:

I don’t know about you guys, but I am so sick and tired of these lying, thieving, holier-than-thou, right-wing, cruel, crude, rude, gauche, coarse, crass, cocky, corrupt, dishonest, debauched, degenerate, dissolute, swaggering, lawyer shooting, bullhorn shouting, infrastructure destroying, hysterical, history defying, finger-pointing, puppy stomping, roommate appointing, pretzel choking, collateral damaging, aspersion casting, wedding party bombing, clear cutting, torturing, jobs outsourcing, torture outsourcing, "so-called" compassionate-conservative, women’s rights eradicating, Medicare cutting, uncouth, spiteful, boorish, vengeful, noxious, homophobic, xenophobic, xylophonic, racist, sexist, ageist, fascist, cashist, audaciously stupid, brazenly selfish, lethally ignorant, journalist purchasing, genocide ignoring, corporation kissing, poverty inducing, crooked, coercive, autocratic, primitive, uppity, high-handed, domineering, arrogant, inhuman, inhumane, insolent, know-it-all, snotty, pompous, contemptuous, supercilious, gutless, spineless, shameless, avaricious, poisonous, imperious, merciless, graceless, tactless, brutish, brutal, Karl Roving, backward thinking, persistent vegetative state grandstanding, nuclear option threatening, evolution denying, irony deprived, depraved, insincere, conceited, perverted, pre-emptory invading of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 911, 35 day vacation taking, bribe soliciting, incapable, inbred, hellish, proud for no apparent reason, smarty pants, loudmouth, bullying, swell headed, ethnic cleansing, ethics eluding, domestic spying, medical marijuana busting, kick backing, Halliburtoning, New Deal disintegrating, narcissistic, undiplomatic, blustering, malevolent, demonizing, baby seal clubbing, Duke Cunninghamming, hectoring, verbally flatulent, pro-bad, anti-good, Moslem baiting, photo-op arranging, hurricane disregarding, oil company hugging, judge packing, science disputing, faith based mathematics advocating, armament selling, nonsense spewing, education ravaging, whiny, unscrupulous, greedy exponential factor fifteen, fraudulent, CIA outing, redistricting, anybody who disagrees with them slandering, fact twisting, ally alienating, betraying, god and flag waving, scare mongering, Cindy Sheehan libeling, phony question asking, just won’t get off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling, two-faced, inept, callous, menacing, oppressive, vulgar, antagonistic, brush clearing, suck-up, showboating, tyrannizing, peace hating, water and air and ground and media polluting — which is pretty much all the polluting you can get — deadly, illegal, pernicious, lethal, haughty, venomous, virulent, ineffectual, mephitic, egotistic, bloodthirsty, incompetent, hypocritical, did I say evil, I’m not sure if I said evil, because I want to make sure I say evil… EVIL, cretinous, fool, toad, buttwipe, lizardstick, cowardly, lackey imperialistic tool slime buckets in the Bush Administration that I could just spit.

Friday iPod Random Ten

Ken AshfordRandom Musings1 Comment

ColorbirdieFurther proof that having an iPod really doesn’t make you hip and trendy:

  1. Takin’ Care Of Business – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
  2. Mama Used To Say – Junior
  3. America – Simon & Garfunkel
  4. Overture from "Jesus Christ Superstar"
  5. Where In The World Is Carmen Santiago – Rockapella
  6. Kung Fu Fighting – Fatboy Slim
  7. One Last Kiss – "Bye Bye Birdie"
  8. Sexual Healing – The Nylons
  9. Breaking Us In Two – Mandy Moore
  10. Touching Once (Is So Hard To Keep) – Renaissance

By the way, whatever happened to Dick Gautier?

Red State Education

Ken AshfordEducation, GodstuffLeave a Comment

In this article, a public high school teacher in Arkansas reports that teachers are not allowed to use the "e" word (meaning "evolution").  He also says:

“I am instructed NOT to use hard numbers when telling kids how old rocks are. I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD … but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.”

Arkansas is ranked 37 in public education rankings, but it clearly has its sites set on number 50.

RELATED:  A music teacher in Colorado — a woman with two Christian music CDs to her credit — gets suspended because she showed a video of sock puppets singing the opera "Faust":

The video clip, narrated by opera star Joan Sutherland, featured sock puppets singing in French from the 16th-century morality tale.

Several parents complained that the video, which Waggoner got from the school library, contained references to abortion and Satan worship.

Interesting.  Especially when you read this:

Faust, a legendary character in music and literature, dates back to a medieval morality tale of a deeply depressed man who sells his soul to the devil.

In all versions of the Faust story, the man obtains power and knowledge, but suffers dire and eternal consequences.

Early Christian teachers used the story to show the horrors that befall those who give in to the devil’s temptations.  Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Copy Cat

Ken AshfordRight Wing and Inept MediaLeave a Comment

Uh, oh.

Looks like Ben Domenech, the new conservative blogger hired by WaPo to give it "balance", has a bit of a plagiarism problem.

Like this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this…

As of my latest update to this post (1:30 pm),  Red America (Domenech’s Washington Post blog) — as well as WaPo itself — have been silent on the plagiarism charges.  It’s been nearly 24 hours since Ben’s last post.

UPDATE:  Blogometer has the most complete list to date:

Here’s an as-complete-as-we-can-manage list of alleged incidents:

There’s also the problem of Ben making shit up.

UPDATE:  Irony alert — please read what Ben Domenech wrote regarding Jason Blair (who was fired from the New York Times for not, you know, doing the work) back in May 2003, :

Jayson Blair is just one more journalistic pezzonovante amidst a crowd of his peers. The only difference is, he’s unashamed of his pretty little lies. In fact, he’s proud of them.

And even more ironically, this comment from his blog in February 2002:

And who says there’s no fallout from plagiarism?

Indeed, Ben.

UPDATE:  You know it’s bad when Michelle Malkin writes:

I cheered for Ben, the editor of my last book at Regnery, when he announced his new position. I criticized unhinged bloggers on the Left who leveled vicious ad hominem attacks against him. It’s clear, as the good folks at Red State (which Ben co-founded) note, that his detractors were on a search-and-destroy mission from the get-go.

But now the determined moonbat hordes have exposed multiple instances of what clearly appear to me to be blatant lifting of entire, unique passages by Ben from other writers.

***

The bottom line is: I know it when I see it. And, painfully, Domenech’s detractors, are right. He should own up to it and step down. Then, the Left should cease its sick gloating and leave him and his family alone.\

UPDATE:  Looks like lots of the right blogosphere is jumping off the Ben bus, all except Redstate (Ben’s former blog "home"), which is spewing out hyperventilating posts like "We Must Defend" and "We Must Attack".

UPDATE:  Ezra provides some bigger thoughts:

In some ways, the most interesting thing about Ben Domenech’s plagiarism is its discovery. If you’re a young writer reading this blog, tattoo this on your typing fingers: The internet never forgets.

***

A California political operative I know had a maxim he liked to repeat: Don’t ever write it if you can say it, don’t ever say it if you can whisper it, don’t ever whisper it if you can imply it, don’t ever imply it if you can nudge it, don’t ever nudge it if you can wink it, and don’t ever wink it if you can help it. I thought it a pretty ugly piece of advice, but spot-on if you wanted to enter politics. It’s why I decided to become a writer instead. But man is my generation, packed full of LiveJournals and MySpaces and blogs and e-mails and messageboards, going to get bit in the ass by that aphorism.

Headlines Of The Day

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

’99 Red Balloons’ Video to Air for an Hour: Ooooh.  Fire up the TIVOs!!

One Dead in French Chemistry School Blast:  Brie and camembert don’t mix

No Crying for Big Baby: LSU Takes Out Duke:  Around the office this morning, you’d think someone died.

Why Fidel Castro Burns His Underwear: File under "TMI".

‘The Simpsons’ to Show Live-Action Opening:  I’ve seen it.  So should you.

Endless Arousal Can Cripple A Woman’s Life:

Paris – A health journal on Friday describes a newly-identified syndrome affecting women – non-stop sexual arousal that can last for months and cannot be satisfied regardless of the number of orgasms.

Oh . . . nah.  Too easy.  Write your own joke.

And finally . . . two headlines from today’s CNN:

Tom Cruise Jumping On Furniture Again

Cruise Fire Leaves One Dead, Several Injured

Man, that Tom is outta control!!!

And speaking of headline news, have a laugh at this video from CNN’s Headline News from Tuesday, when the anchors react to a fire in their studio.

Pro-Life Art

Ken AshfordPopular Culture, Sex/Morality/Family Values, Women's Issues1 Comment

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This sculpture is entitled "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston", by Daniel Edwards.  It is being hailed as the first sculpture honoring the pro-life movement, and was funded in part by the Manhattan Right To Life Committee.

Sean Preston, for those not in the know, is the son of pop icon Britney Spears, and yes, that is Britney giving birth to him on a bearskin rug (which totally ruins bearskin rugs for me now). 

According to the press release:

Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean’s head.

Now, I’m a pretty anything-goes person — especially when it comes to the arts.  But even I’m put off by this sculpture a little bit.  I have a hard time believing that American Family Foundation and the rest of the religious right are going to get, um, behind this.

Paul Explains It All

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Here’s Paul at Powerline:

According to ABC News, the documents show that the Iraqis were, at a minimum, interested in exploring a potential relationship and prepared to show good faith by broadcasting the speeches of al Ouda, the radical cleric who was also a bin Laden mentor. The documents do not establish that the two parties did in fact enter into an operational relationship. But Iraq’s position was that further "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties [should] be left according to what’s open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation."

Got that?  They were interested in exploring a potential relationship, but didn’t actually have one.

Now, here’s Paul, two paragraphs later:

These documents further undermine the claim that ideological differences precluded a relationship between secular Saddam and fundamentalist bin Laden. The documents show that they had a relationship and that Iraq was prepared to cooperate with al Qaeda to the extent that it would be beneficial to do so. Whether or to what extent such coooperation occurred is still not known.

So to summarize, Saddam and bin Laden had a relationship to explore a potential relationship at some point in the future . .  but only if it was beneficial for them to do so . . . but it’s not clear if that future day ever came.

So, in other words, the documents prove nothing.  Then, to save himself, Paul writes:

But the documents support the view that Saddam, who was almost universally thought to have WMD and clearly had the capability of producing them, might well cooperate with al Qaeda in future attacks on the U.S. or its interests. That’s something we don’t have to worry about anymore.

Right.  And by the same tortured logic, Paul has the potential to kill me one day, if he hooks up with bad elements at some point in the future and might well find it beneficial for him to do so.  So I should kill him so I won’t have to worry about it anymore.

Seriously, Paul seems to think that a joint Saddam-bin Laden attack on the U.S. would have been more destructive than 9/11.  Seeing as how Saddam and his country was inert, locked down, and flown over, I wonder how much Saddam could have hoped to contribute to such an effort.   In fact, given the bureaucratic nature of Iraq under Saddam — not to mention Saddam’s propensity for, well, lying — it’s quite easy to see how such an unholy alliance would simply prevent such an attack from ever taking place.  (Hey, this spekulatin’ thing is fun!!!)

The Block Study – A Closer Look

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

Conservatives in the right blogosphere are apparently put off by the Block study, and are making efforts to punch holes in it.

So having made the study available, I decided to take a closer look.

Most of the criticism from the right focuses around the fact that the research was done at Berkeley, and Berkeley is a hot-bed of liberalism.   

This, of course, is a pretty weak criticism.  The study does not purport to talk about the general numbers of conservatives versus liberals in the general population.  Nor does it attempt (as some critics apparently believe) to lump all conservatives and liberals into one pile.  Instead, the study acknowledges that there is a continuum of political orientations from "liberal" to "conservative", and as one progresses to either end of the spectrum, it is more likely that they exhibited certain personality characteristics as a child.

Even when you look at some of the study’s conclusions, I don’t think many will find it alarming.  Take, for example, this excerpt:

Whinystudyexcerpt_1

Is the characteristic of conservo-children as being "moralistic" or "conventional" something that conservatives are likely to disagree with?   And how can they complain about liberals being the "intellectual elite" while denying that liberals (as children) are "bright" and "complicate the simple"?

And what about the women?  Before I give you the study’s conclusion, let me give you two mental images: Jane Fonda, and June Cleaver.

Whinyexcerpt2

Well, well, well.  Seems like the study pegged them pretty good.

So what, I ask, is offensive — or even controversial — about the study?

People Getting Better Informed

Ken AshfordSex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

That’s my headline, but it’s just as fitting as the actual headline: "Poll: opposition to gay marriage declining".

51% still oppose it, but that’s down from 63% in February 2004.

And even among those who oppose gay marriage, the opposition is weaker:

The number of people who say they strongly oppose gay marriage has dropped from 42 percent in early 2004 to 28 percent now. Strong opposition has dropped sharply among senior citizens and Republicans.

The Straw That Broke The Conservative’s Back

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

Discussing the Georgia v. Randolph case (which I touched upon here), A-list blogger John Cole – a staple in the right blogosphere – announces that he has had enough:

My 20 year affair with the Republican party is coming to an end. I am not voting for any Republican in 2006 at any level, and I will be hard pressed to vote for this party in 2008- unless, of course, Cindy Sheehan is the Democratic candidate. These ‘conservatives’ need abut 10-15 years in the wilderness.

Cole comes from the small-government wing of the Republican Party, so it’s easy to see why he is outraged:

[T]he modern ‘conservatives’ are clearly nothing more than statists who, rather than redistributing wealth like their brethern on the left, instead have decided that the state must have excessive rights in order to ‘protect’ us all from whatever the imagined fear du jour might be. Meanwhile, no one is left protecting us from the religionists and the the state itself.

In the new Republican era, only fetuses , tax shelters, and ‘traditional’ marriage deserve protection. According to the actions of the current Republican party, the rest of us need to be wiretapped, monitored, have our homes inspected for whatever reason without warrants, and are incapable of making decisions on our own.

On Cole’s defection, Glenn Greenwald writes:

Cole is not some fringe theory-libertarian or doctrainaire Goldwater conservative whose numbers are quite small. Instead, he represents a type which makes up a big bulk of the Republican Party. He’s a common sense conservative who basically believes that the Government should, when possible, stay out of our lives and that we should err on the side of restrained Federal Government intervention.

As the NSA scandal among many other things illustrates (and, from what I can tell, the real wake-up call for Cole was the Schiavo travesty), the Bush Administration has been operating for many years from the opposite premise, and conservatives like Cole are feeling extremely alienated from the comprehensively non-conservative Republican Party.

The Democratic tent just got bigger.  Welcome John.

The War On Non-Belief

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

While fundamentalist Christians want the world to think that Christianity is a minority religion constantly under attack, nothing could be further from the truth.

And all you have to do is realize the truth is answer this question: Could an atheist be elected to office?

The truth is that religion – espcially Christianity – is alive and well and the majority viewpoint in this country.  And everyone knows it.

So if anything is "under attack", it’s atheism.

American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

And here’s the not surprising part:

The researchers also found acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation—with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.

I Heart Fire Thunder

Ken AshfordWomen's IssuesLeave a Comment

Paul The Spud has it right: these people get an A+ for creativity.

What did a South Dakota Indian Tribe do in response to the South Dakota ban on abortion?  They opened up a Planned Parenthood clinic:

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

UPDATE: If you want to mail donations to the reservation, you may do so at:

Oglala Sioux Tribe
ATTN: President Fire Thunder
P. O. Box 2070
Pine Ridge, SD 57770

OR: and this may be preferred, due to mail volume:

ATTN: PRESIDENT FIRE THUNDER
PO BOX 990
Martin, SD 57751

Cheney’s “Performance Contract”

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

Thinking of hiring Dick Cheney to come to your speaking event?

Here’s his list of demands (click to enlarge):

0322061cheney1_01

"All lights turned on"?  What’s the matter?  He can’t do this for himself?   

And "extra lamps" (in handwriting at the bottom)?  He’s probably going to do some interrogatin’.  Maybe a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling would be best.

"All Televisions turned to FOX News"?  Why does that not surprise me?

And Wonkette (from whom I got this), makes fun of Cheney’s pussy request for "Diet Caffeine Free Sprite".

Funeral Picketing

Ken AshfordConstitutionLeave a Comment

180pxphelps_child_picketFred Phelps, a supposed "Christian", has made a name for himself by leading a band of degenerates.  Together, they protest at funerals across the country, usually of fallen soldiers.  They shout and carry signs that say "Thank God for 9/11" and "Thank God For Dead Soldiers" — all to spotlight their belief that these things are God’s way of punishing America because of our "endorsement" of homosexuality. [For more on Phelps, read this]

Larfely in response to Phelps, states are considering legislation that would limit (although not ban) protests at funerals.  Wisconsin, in fact, passed a law, keeping protesters 500 feet away from the funeral, and not letting them protest within an hour of the funeral.

Obviously, an admirable law, but it raises serious constitutional concerns.

Eugene Volokh has a nice primer on the current state of First Amendment law as it applies to protests.  Like me, he’s skeptical of the legislation.  But I think such laws ultimately pass constitutional muster.