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The Religion of the Left

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Roger Ebert has an interesting article in his journal pointing out the hypocrisy of people who think it is in bad taste to discuss religion in public, but have no problem talking about New-Age beliefs such as astrology, psychics, reincarnation and past lives, healing crystals, Tarot cards, or Feng Shui. As Ebert puts it:

If you were attending a dinner party of community leaders in Dallas, Atlanta, Omaha or Colorado Springs and the conversation turned to religion, a chill might fall on the room if you confessed yourself an atheist. Yet at a dinner party of the nicest and brightest in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and (especially) Los Angeles, if the hostess began to confide about past lives, her Sign and yours, and her healing crystals, it might not go over so well if you confessed you thought she was full of it.

I do find it funny that some people who condemn religious conservatives as wing-nuts have no problem with equally nonsensical new-age beliefs.

But I think that Ebert goes a little too far when he says that anyone on either side who believes any of this nonsense should not be elected president. Ebert even says:

And if a candidate counts among close friends and advisors anyone in communication with the spirit world, that candidate should not be elected President.

And yet, Mary Lincoln held seances in the White House attended by Abe, Nancy Reagan had her own astrologer/psychic, and astrologer Jean Dixon spent lots of time at the White House hanging out with the Kennedy boys, to name but a few examples.

As Ebert himself points out, the important issue is whether one’s beliefs affect how they do their job. I remember when JFK was running for president and many people screamed that his being a Catholic would put the Pope in charge of America. But “There’s no indication that JFK’s Catholicism affected his political positions. … On the other hand, Bush’s beliefs did have an obvious influence on him in such science-related areas as stem cell research, global warming and conservation.”

So when a candidate says something should be outlawed, and their main reason is because the Bible says so, I have a problem with that. But until a candidate proposes rebuilding Washington DC according to the principles of Feng Shui, I don’t really care what nutty things they privately believe in (as long as they don’t affect their public decisions).

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Godawful Decisions

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Matt Bors
© Matt Bors

Despite the fact that I find this comic pretty funny, I have to admit that it does make me feel better that Obama was actually listening to people and doing research when coming to the decision about what to do in Afghanistan. Could you imagine the same thing from the previous occupant?

And considering that most of us gave Dubya the benefit of the doubt when he invaded Afghanistan and created this mess in the first place, it seems only fair to give Obama an equal chance to screw up. But as people have pointed out, this decision officially makes this Obama’s war now (it doesn’t matter that he didn’t start it, just like LBJ didn’t start VietNam). If things aren’t looking up by 2011, then he will at the very least have to share the blame with Dubya.

UPDATE: Here’s a comic that pretty much sums up how I feel about Obama’s plan for Afghanistan:

Scott Stantis
© Scott Stantis

UPDATE 2: Here is a provocative view of what is wrong with our approach to Afghanistan, and what we can do to fix it.

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ClimateGate? Hardly

Saturday, December 5, 2009

The news media has been reporting on something they are calling “ClimateGate” — some internal emails from the Climatic Research Unit in England that were hacked and leaked. Some climate change skeptics are claiming that these emails prove that climate change is bogus.

Hardly. I’ve looked into the emails and the code, and there just isn’t any there there. No smoking gun. As a computer scientist who has worked extensively with simulations, I can say that it is common practice to play around with data to test out different scenarios, but the key point here is that none of the fudged data was ever published as real data. None.

But what is really hypocritical is that back in 2007, a likewise leaked internal document revealed that ExxonMobil was spending $16 million on an extensive PR campaign to confuse the public on global warming science. To do this, they employed some of the same organizations and people who had spent 40 years helping the tobacco companies sow doubt about whether their product caused lung cancer. One of the things they had done was to “recruit and train a team of five independent scientists to participate in media outreach”. If they are recruited and trained by the oil company, how can they be independent?

So on one hand, you have a large corporation spending millions of dollars to spread lies about climate change. On the other hand, you have some internal emails from some scientists playing with their data, even though this data was never actually published. So, which story does the mainstream media jump on? Guess.

UPDATE: FireDogLake has more about the hypocrisy of “ClimateGate”.

UPDATE 2: An independent investigation of the “ClimateGate” emails has concluded that there is no evidence that data supporting global warming was faked.

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The Best News Money Can Buy

Saturday, December 5, 2009

According to an article in the NY Times, The Dallas Morning News has restructured its management so that news editors now report directly to the executives who mange ad sales. According to the Times this “overturns longstanding traditions in American newspapers aimed at shielding news judgments from business concerns.”

Does this make you want to laugh? Does anyone actually believe that American newspapers (including the Times) report the news independently of business concerns?

Heck, even progressives recently had a campaign to get advertisers to pull their sponsorship of certain news shows on Fox News, in an effort to affect their reporting.

Maybe I’m cynical, but American newspapers were bought and paid for a very long time ago. The Times’ professed indignation just seems a bit ironic to me.

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Late Night Political Humor

Saturday, December 5, 2009

“After three months of will he or won’t he, the president went on all the major networks and NBC to finally reveal what he is going to do about Afghanistan. And for critics who say Americans haven’t sacrificed for these wars, well, they have now. Because last night, the president’s speech actually preempted the annual showing of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas.’ Good grief, it’s literally a war on Christmas.” – Stephen Colbert

“Everybody’s talking about President Obama’s speech last night. He’s sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Right now, in Scandinavia, the Nobel Committee is really rethinking the whole peace prize.” – Craig Ferguson

“President Obama last night ordered 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, but on an 18-month timetable. In a related story, the Taliban announced they are on a 19-month timetable.” – Jay Leno

“Last night, Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly said that President Obama’s speech was ‘no Gettysburg address.’ When he heard this, Larry King said: ‘How would you know? I don’t remember seeing you there.'” – Conan O’Brien

“The good news, Obama said he expects to start bringing our troops home in two years. The bad news, Bush said the same thing seven years ago.” – Jay Leno

“Anyway, the good news is the first people Obama sends to Afghanistan are those White House party crashers, so it’s not all bad.” – Craig Ferguson

“President Obama gave his speech last night at West Point. He was going to give it at the White House, but he wanted some place with better security.” – Jay Leno

“Last night, President Obama gave a speech at West Point. Right in the middle, they cut to a cadet who was sleeping. That cadet was immediately assigned to work security at the next White House state dinner.” – Conan O’Brien

“You know what we should do? Get rid of the Secret Service, bring in some nightclub bouncers.” – Jay Leno

“But this is serious, because that couple who crashed the White House state dinner ended up meeting the president. Did you see that? There’s a photo of them meeting face-to-face with President Obama, which is amazing when you realize that even Fox News had not met face-to-face with President Obama.” – Jay Leno

“And The Washington Post suggested today that this party-crashing couple may have a long history of deceiving people. Well, no wonder they fit in at the White House.” – Jay Leno

“This Tiger Woods thing has had an effect on a lot of people. In fact, earlier today, Elizabeth Edwards went out and bought a new set of golf clubs.” – Jay Leno

“A group has now filed papers to nominate Dick Cheney to run for president of the United States in 2012. You may have heard of the group, Halliburton.” – Jay Leno

“New reports on Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’ bus tour. They say she’s been traveling on private planes to various stops and then just hops in the bus at the local town. So, let’s see what you got. You have Sarah Palin, who’s no longer governor, who’s promoting a book she didn’t actually write by going on a bus tour which is not really a bus. Her big complaint? Politicians who aren’t real.” – Jay Leno

“I watched Oprah interview Sarah Palin a couple weeks ago. Spent a whole hour talking to her. And I realized, if John McCain had done that, we never would have heard of Sarah Palin.” – Jay Leno

“Time magazine plans to announce its ‘Person of the Year’ next week. And top contenders include President Obama and Steve Jobs. The other top contender? The one guy who still reads Time magazine.” – Conan O’Brien

“This is interesting. A list of this year’s 15 most commonly used words has been released. And it includes H1N1, deficit and health care. Not making the list this year, Chrysler-mania.” – Conan O’Brien

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You Always Hurt the One You Love

Friday, December 4, 2009

Glenn McCoy
© Glenn McCoy

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Late Night Political Humor

Friday, December 4, 2009

“After months of deliberation, our president, President Obama, tonight revealed his much-anticipated plans for Afghanistan. Turns out he’s decided to pave it over and make a Wal-Mart out of it.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Some people are upset about President Obama’s prime time speech tonight because it bumped ABC’s airing of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ or as Fox News reported it, ‘Obama ruins Christmas for a depressed bald kid.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Speaking from West Point, NY, the President announced he will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next six months and 2,000 additional troops to Tiger Woods’s mansion in Orlando — peacekeeping forces.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“As you know, Afghanistan is strategically important to the United States because they control, like, 90 percent of the world’s supply of rubble, and we need that.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The Secret Service just announced that due to that couple crashing the White House state dinner last week, they will change some of their screening policies. For example, the password to get into the White House will no longer be, ‘Seriously, they said we could come.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Congratulations, I want to say, to former President Bill and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Their daughter, Chelsea, got engaged over the weekend. You know when you have to decide whether or not to invite the bride’s father to the bachelor party? That’s going to be a tough call.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Chelsea will marry her longtime boyfriend, investment banker Marc Mezvinsky. She must really love him, because Chelsea Mezvinsky doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.” – Jimmy Kimmel

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Conservatives Remaking God In Their Own Image

Friday, December 4, 2009

Conservatives Republicans have decided that the world must be remade to match their ideology. First they proposed a “purity test” — a ten-point checklist of conservative positions. In order for a candidate to receive funding from the national Republican Party, they must be able to prove that they support at least eight items on the checklist. Unfortunately, it isn’t clear whether Reagan would have passed this test.

But if that isn’t bad enough, the Conservative Bible Project is attempting to rewrite the Bible to put it more in line with conservative principles. Led by Andy Schlafly, the son of Phyllis Schlafly and founder of Conservapedia.com (the conservative answer to wikipedia.org), they eschew current translations of the Bible because they were all translated by professors, and as we all know “Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world.”

Some of the changes they are making are relatively minor, such as removing gender neutral language. So instead of Jesus calling his disciples “fishers of people”, they want to change it to “fishers of men”. They also don’t like words like “comrade” so it is being replaced by “volunteer”.

But some of the changes are bigger. For example, virtually every translation of the Bible in existence has Jesus on the cross praying for his killers, saying “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” But apparently forgiveness must not be a conservative trait, because the project’s authors claim that liberals put that in — and are removing it.

I’m curious what other changes will be necessary in order to be in line with modern conservative positions (you know, like supporting torture, permanent war, homophobia, racism, etc.).

UPDATE: Stephen Colbert will be interviewing Andrew Schlafly next Tuesday. Also, he did a hilarious report on the conservative rewrite of the bible back in October:

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Reality in the age of Reality TV

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Jen Sorensen
© Jen Sorensen

Next we’ll be hearing that the whole Tiger Woods brouhaha is a publicity stunt.

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The Party of NO, now with 100% added NO

Thursday, December 3, 2009

So this week, the Senate was supposed to start debating health care reform, but arcane Senate rules are allowing Republicans to bring the Senate to a grinding halt. In fact, Senator Judd Gregg just sent out a memo to the Republicans with 15 parliamentary techniques that can be used to shut everything down.

The Republicans aren’t just obstructing the health care bill, they are obstructing the entire legislative process. They are even delaying votes on their own amendments. How can Republicans claim to be for health care reform when they won’t allow any debate at all to happen in the Senate? Their goal is to kill any reform at all, which is what the large insurance corporations want.

Remember back when the Democrats were in the minority, and the Republicans kept screaming that the Dems needed to allow an “up or down vote” on bills, including the Bush tax cuts in 2001? Or remember when the Democrats objected to using the budget reconciliation process (which only requires 51 votes) to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling? Back then Gregg called their objections “inappropriate” and said “We are using rules of the Senate here. Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so.”

But now, Gregg is not so hot on “majority rules”. His memo says “We, the minority party, must use the tools we have under Senate rules to insist on a full, complete and fully informed debate on the health care legislation – as well as all legislation – coming before the Senate.” He even says that these parliamentary maneuvers are designed to “impede — if not actually stop — health care legislation.”

The “parliamentary maneuvers” Gregg is proposing include such obvious time wasters as requiring “hard” quorum calls, forcing the reading of legislation in its entirety, and offering “unlimited number of amendments — germane or non-germane — on any subject.”

At least it is now clear: if we don’t get health care reform, and people keep dying (45,000 a year) because of our horribly broken health insurance system, you know who to blame.

UPDATE: Majority Leader Harry Reid responds to Gregg’s memo.

[T]he Republican plan we’ve waited weeks and months to see [is] not even about health care at all. The first and only plan Senate Republicans could be bothered to write up is an instruction manual on how to bring the Senate to a screeching halt.

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Right or Wrong?

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Two days ago, conservative blogger Charles Johnson posted “Why I Parted Ways With The Right” — a concise explanation of why he “won’t be going over the cliff” with the American right-wing-nuts. He names names, including a list of fascists, racists, bigots, white supremacists, homophobes, misogynists, anti-science luddites, anti-govermnent lunatics, conspiracy theorists, and promoters of violence and genocide who have escaped from the radical fringe loony bin and have largely become the mainstream right, including many of its leaders and major pundits. What passes for dialog in the right wing has become “universally dominated by raging hate speech”. Not surprisingly, the right-wing blogosphere responded to his post with more raging hate speech.

Then today, an even better-known conservative blogger, Andrew Sullivan, agreed in his post “Leaving the Right” that criticizes the “rhetorical septic system” of the “conservative degeneracy in front of us”. Sullivan gives even more specific reasons why he left the right, saying he cannot support a movement that:

  • disregards the rule of law
  • uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power
  • is deeply homophobic, regarding gay people as a threat to their own families
  • believes any tactic can and should be used to fight political warfare, including lies and deliberate misinformation
  • sees permanent war as compatible with the goal of limited government
  • criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs
  • does not accept evolution as fact
  • sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as a core plank of an energy policy
  • embraces demagogues like Rush Limbaugh or nutjobs like Glenn Beck
  • sees violence as a primary tool for international relations and holds torture as a core value

These two stories struck a chord with me, and not because they were bashing the right. This blog has sometimes been accused of being left-wing, but I don’t feel like someone on the far left. I agree strongly with many things that (at least in the past) were associated with the right: limited government, fiscal conservatism, gun rights, free markets, and capitalism. On the other hand, I am a social liberal, like the libertarians (who are also considered to be right-wing).

Above all I am a pragmatist, which makes me a moderate. I supported (and still support) Obama because he is a moderate and a pragmatist. I support single-payer health insurance because it just works so much better than what we have (or what Congress is now proposing). I am pro-choice not because I think abortion is ok (it isn’t), but because it is none of the government’s damn business. The same thing goes for recreational drugs. Interestingly, even though these might be considered left-wing positions, the majority (or at least a plurality) of Americans agree with me on these issues.

What struck a chord was that the big problems with the conservative movement are hatred and stupidity. While I agree with many conservative principles, I abhor the intentional lies, hostility, and slavish devotion to power that now characterize the right. So while I may attack the hypocrisy of the right in this blog, I do so not to destroy the right. In fact, I fervently hope that the right can be saved.

But I don’t think this can happen while people such as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove, Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter, and Fox News represent modern conservative thought. In fact, not only are they destroying the right, they just might destroy the rest of the country in the process.

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If Glenn Beck is the answer, this must be the question

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Tom Tomorrow
© Tom Tomorrow

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Late Night Political Humor

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

“Did you hear about that uninvited couple who crashed the state dinner at the White House? Unbelievable. They even had their picture taken with Vice President Joe Biden, which is kind of radical because Biden was also an uninvited guest.” – Jay Leno

“The Secret Service is in a lot of hot water after what happened. But I think give the Secret Service a break. When the Secret Service heard there was a crazy couple in White House, they just assumed it was the Bidens.” – Craig Ferguson

“The man who crashed the White House state dinner, his name is Tareq Salahi. You know, just with that name alone, you think they would have strip-searched the guy.” – Jay Leno

“The official White House Christmas tree was unveiled today on the South Lawn. Actually, it turned out to be a regular tree, but it snuck in through the White House security.” – Craig Ferguson

“This Friday, the official Christmas tree was delivered to the White House. Unfortunately, the Secret Service had already let in three other trees that claimed they were on the list.” – Conan O’Brien

“Of course you’ve been hearing about them, the couple who crashed the White House state dinner. They were supposed to be on ‘Larry King Live’ tonight, but they canceled their appearance. Apparently, they didn’t feel right showing up to a place where they were actually invited.” – Conan O’Brien

“And at the White House state dinner the other night, Nancy Pelosi rolled her eyes and blew off a reporter when they asked her who made her gown. It was a huge deal. Not the question, the fact that Nancy Pelosi changed her facial expression.” – Jay Leno

“There’s a new children’s book that’s coming out that features Sarah Palin as a hero. I don’t want to give away the ending, but we finally find out who shot Bambi’s mother.” – Conan O’Brien

“Kind of an awkward Thanksgiving for John Edwards. I guess his relatives asked him to bring his favorite side dish and he showed up with a cocktail waitress.” – Jay Leno

“Hey, this is absolutely true. There’s an organization now called ‘Draft Dick Cheney for President, 2012.’ Yeah. Good luck with that. They tried to draft Dick Cheney five times during Vietnam. That didn’t work.” – Jay Leno

“A top Iranian official says Iran had no intention of building new nuclear facilities until they were recently criticized by the U.N. It’s all a part of the country’s official motto, ‘Iran, we’re 5 years old!'” – Conan O’Brien

“Hey, congratulations. Chelsea Clinton just got engaged to her longtime boyfriend. That’s very exciting. And I understand Bill is already planning the bachelor party.” – Jay Leno

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Really want to protect the sanctity of marriage?

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

What’s the number one threat to marriage? Gays? Hah! Clearly, the biggest threat by far to marriage is divorce. In the USA, 48% of all marriages end in divorce. Not to mention the terrible things that divorce does to children. So if you really want to save marriage (and unless you hate families) the solution is simple:

Ban Divorce.

Why not? If we can ban gay marriage, why can’t we ban divorce? Unfortunately, groups that claim to support marriage are too chicken. Ron Prentice, the director of the California Family Council, says that everyone would like to see fewer divorces, but making them illegal would be “impractical”. The California Family Council led the fight to ban gay marriage in California, so you might think they wouldn’t let details like “practicality” stand in the way of fighting to protect families.

So it falls on the capable shoulders of John Marcotte, who wants to put a measure on the ballot next to ban divorce in California. Being a comedian, Marcotte’s instinct for irony helped him realize that if banning gay marriage was so important to protecting the sanctity of marriage, that voters should have no problem banning divorce.

Incidentally, Marcotte’s website, BadMouth.net, has some interesting things to say about the health care debate. Like:

Well reasoned health-care policy can only be reached through the careful application of shouting. Shouting masks the mind-control techniques favored by secular death-panel advocates everywhere.

UPDATE: The more I think about it, the more I believe this proposed new law against divorce doesn’t go far enough. After all, if you ban divorce then some people won’t get married in the first place and will just live together. We can’t have that. The real solution is to outlaw people living together, unless they are married or part of a legal family. I mean, California went to all the trouble of banning gay marriage, but did that cause any gay couples to stop living together in (double) sin? No way! So we have to ban everyone who is not married or is not part of a family from living together. That is the only real solution.

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Leadership of the Republican Party

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Just what they need to resurrect their party!


From The Onion.

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