Month: June 2008

The Consolation of Faithlessness

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PZ Myers recently posted an email on Pharyngula that reminded me of all I left behind:

I’m tormented.

I appreciate the struggle many creationists are having about evolutionary science. I find myself tormented as I observe the world around me.

Quite the cri de coeur, isn’t it? I recognize it well. Now mind you, I was never tormented over evolutionary biology – even in my very brief period of true belief, evolution didn’t bother me overmuch. Thought God was great, didn’t I? Clever enough bugger to have used evolution to create lil ol’ us. My problem with evolution was exactly the same as it is now – I don’t know half as much about it as I’d like.

But trust me when I say I was tormented.

Hard not to be, really, when you’re a thinking person. I observed the world around me, and found a lot of fuckery that tended to disprove the notion of a loving, personal God. Awful lot of killing, raping, stealing, and so forth going on. Too many Christian sects fighting each other tooth and nail over ridiculous bits of doctrine. Too many other religions out there that had good ideas and good people believing in them. Too many contradictions between the evidence of the Bible and the evidence of my eyes.

Those pat answers about things all being part of God’s plan, sometimes the answer to a prayer is “no,” bad things happening because of some kind of sin, none of that sat well with me. I couldn’t swallow it.

One of the reasons was that my paternal grandmother died in terrible pain. And the more religious I got, the more it didn’t make sense. Live a good life and you’ll be rewarded. God will take care of you if you only believe. Well, she lived a good life. Never smoked, never drank, never blasphemed. A kind, generous Christian woman got eaten alive by breast cancer. I remember one of her arms swelled up to grotesque proportions because her cancer had metasticized. I remember her pain and hot flashes. And yet she bore it all, and as far as I know never wavered in her faith. How to reconcile that with a God who can perform miracles? I know others manage to explain it away as part of a mysterious Plan, but when I thought about it, I couldn’t put my faith in a God who would allow a good woman to die hard.

It wasn’t just her.

I had Hindu friends. Fantastic people whom I loved very much. And according to my church, God would condemn them to everlasting torment for worshipping the wrong gods.

My life was suddenly constricted to a list of outmoded moral prohibitions that made about as much sense as putting child rapists in a position of authority over alter boys. Set a foot wrong, and I’d piss off God. And really, who knew what pissed God off? It seemed God was awfully fickle in what was allowed and what wasn’t.

We’re told to pray about things, and God will provide. Let go and let God. Put your trust in the Lord. Well, that works better if you’re getting unequivocal answers. Was it coincidence or God’s will that what I prayed for happened? Was it God’s will or just the way of things that what I prayed for didn’t happen? How the fuck was I supposed to know when the bastard didn’t have the decency to tell me outright? Why speak to some people, but not all of us?

I could go on, but any of you who’ve ever flirted with being a true believer knows exactly what happened. It was probably my writing that saved me from years of torment and cognitive dissonance. You see, I had to study up on science for the worldbuilding, and the more science I read, the more rational my thinking became. Answers I couldn’t find through prayer, I could find through science.

It wasn’t just science. I wasn’t writing a Christian series, and it wasn’t like aliens were likely to have heard the gospel of Christ anyway, so I had to study comparative religion to get an idea of what their faith might look like. And a lot of those religions made more sense to me than Christianity. Many didn’t claim an omnipotent Creator who liked to poke his nose in and occasionally cock the finger to smite. The Divine suddenly seemed a lot bigger than expected, a lot more remote, and a lot more comfortable.

So some of the torment vanished when I became agnostic. It still didn’t go completely away. All religions make claims that you can’t prove, many of which don’t make any sense. And the more science I read, the more I started seeing that every religion was a set of human ideas. Neurobiology explained a fuck of a lot about why we believe what we do. And that prepared me to finally let go of the need for the Divine.

It’s amazing what happened next.

When I lost my faith completely, when I stopped looking for something supernatural behind the curtain, I stopped feeling tormented. The faint worry that I’d earned myself a ticket to a place hotter than Phoenix went away. The conflict between a benevolent Divinity and a harsh world vanished. When there was nothing in my world that wasn’t natural, when there wasn’t a single thing people did that couldn’t be explained by how the brain functions (or doesn’t, depending on who you’re talking about), things were suddenly easier to take. The evil of the world isn’t down to an angry deity or some variety of sin, but is simply a result of humans being humans. And if it’s humans, not demons, not Satan, doing the evil, it’s humans that can stop it.

We don’t have to rely on a deity. We can rely on ourselves.

Some people find that terrifying. They can’t take responsibility. But I’m not one of them. I’m fine with it all being down to our own choices. I think we’ll do a hell of a lot better doing for ourselves rather than expecting God to do for us. It’s too easy to give up when you have a god to rely on. It’s too easy to act the child and expect your deity to take care of you when you should be taking care of yourself.

I got to grow up when I accepted the fact that not once scintilla of evidence proved that some sort of Divine Presence existed. I got to take responsibility. It doesn’t always work out, but at least I have only myself to blame. It’s far, far easier than trying not to blame God.

Not relying on magical thinking gets me to solutions a lot faster. I could do a ritual something to ensure the result I want, or I could take the concrete steps to make it possible. Concrete steps, it turns out, work a fuck of a lot better than magical thinking.

I’ve discovered a confidence I’ve never had before, being an atheist. I’m not constantly pestered by a niggling fear that God doesn’t want me to know, do or understand something. The limits are gone. Since I no longer believe anything’s possible as long as my faith is strong enough, I don’t end up doubting myself half as much. Some things aren’t possible. Some things are vaguely possible. And some things are probable, especially if I take steps to make them so. If something doesn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, I’m not doubting the strength of my faith: I’m

laughing at the ineptness of my planning, or the way that life throws up variables that you never even considered, but which turned out to be rather important. There’s no faith to be shaken, so I’m not asking “Why?” There’s no angry god behind the whys and wherefores, just the vagaries of life.

You can get irritated and angered by, but not at, vagaries of life. Makes it a lot less personal and a lot easier to let go of, that. “I’ll know better next time” has become something of a mantra. There’s a lot more laughter involved with that way of thinking. A lot more confidence that what fucked up my cunning scheme this time won’t happen the next.

There’s no more torment. I’m not locked in to a single path with no alternative routes if something goes wrong. That’s liberating, that is. And that’s why I laugh when people try to tell me I have to have faith.

What possible reason would I have to give up the consolation of my faithlessness? I haven’t found one yet. I doubt I ever will.


The Consolation of Faithlessness
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Happy Hour Discurso

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Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Before we get to the blood and the bone, a follow-up on my post regarding the AP’s inane ideas about how fair use works. I didn’t think they’d descend into outrageous stupidity, but they did:

The AP’s disharmony with bloggers may have only just begun, as the alternative it’s now offering to being served with takedown notices involves paying an up-front sum for excerpting online articles — as few as five words.

A meeting between the Associated Press’ Vice President for Strategic Planning Jim Kennedy and Robert Cox, who heads the Media Bloggers Association, is now planned for Thursday of this week. The subject at hand is the AP’s attempt to find a new way of sharing AP content, which now involves a fee per excerpt based on its word length.


Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake echoes your cantinero in saying, “12.50 For Five Words? ‘Bite Me’ Indeed, AP.” I, myself, am still recovering from the fact that I read a Michelle Malkin post and didn’t have to reach for an airsick bag once. I even agree with that insane bitch in this one instance. And I hope she gets the $132,135 the AP now owes her for their use of her own work.

But I think my favorite of all is the sharp middle finger Markos over at Daily Kos is shoving in their eye:

Lots of blogs are calling for boycotts of AP content. Not me. I’m going to keep using it. I will copy and paste as many words as I feel necessary to make my points and that I feel are within bounds of copyright law (and remember, I’ve got a JD and specialized in media law, so I know the rules pretty well). And I will keep doing so if I get an AP takedown notice (which I will make a big public show of ignoring). And then, either the AP — an organization famous for taking its members work without credit — will either back down and shut the hell up, or we’ll have a judge resolve the easiest question of law in the history of copyright jurisprudence.

The AP doesn’t get to negotiate copyright law. But now, perhaps, they’ll threaten someone who can afford to fight back, instead of cowardly going after small bloggers.


Tell ’em, Kos!

Look for me to be quoting extensively from an AP article in the very near future. I could use the publicity.

In other news from people who don’t understand how the law works, Carpetbagger reports that MSNBC’s political blog posed a question by ultra-moron Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard: “Would bin Laden get habeas rights?” The Anonymous Liberal answers: duh-huh.

First, of course Bin Laden would get habeas rights if he were held at Guantanamo. Since when do rights vary based on your name? But more importantly, why should anyone find it troubling that Osama would have such a right? If he sought to petition a court, it would result in the easiest and most predictable judicial decision ever. Habeas corpus just means that you have the opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of your detention. The evidence against Bin Laden is overwhelming. He would have the right to challenge his detention, but he would lose, quickly and decisively.

But beyond that obvious point, there’s a deeper ignorance at work here. Embedded in Hayes question is the bizarre and completely unamerican notion that your legal rights should somehow depend on how “bad” a person you are. The more serious the crimes for which you stand accused, the less rights you should have under the law. But that’s quite obviously not how any system of rights is supposed to operate. Hayes’ question is like asking whether a serial killer has the right to counsel or the right to a jury trial. Of course he does. The whole point of due process is to determine whether someone is guilty. It’s the punishment that is supposed to vary depending on the seriousness of the crime, not the process.


And that’s what I used to love the most about this country: at one time, we tried to make sure they laws applied equally to everybody, no matter how popular or unpopular the people in question were. But our nation’s fucktarded far right just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that laws aren’t supposed to play favorites. They’re in good company with the AP, here, thinking they can define the law to mean what they want it to mean. Maybe the AP’s just come under the influence of the Bush Regime, which has repeatedly demonstrated a propensity for making up interpretations of the law as they go along.

We come now to the shining example of just how outrageous, how immoral and evil, these people are, and how they believe the law is theirs to break into any shape they wish:

For those still concerned about U.S. torture policy, yesterday was not an encouraging day.

A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the
use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to documents released yesterday by congressional
investigators.

Torture “is basically subject to perception,” CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.” [emphasis added]


Mr. Fredman. You just turned the torture and murder of a human being into an LOL caption. That is how fucking sick and depraved this country’s political leaders and their eager lackeys have become.

“If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”

Well, you did it wrong, then, didn’t you?

At today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have
died in
U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides:

NADLER: Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in
detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?

WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108.


Like Carpetbagger said: “I liked it so much more when we were the good guys.”

Happy Hour Discurso

More FISA Fuckery – And a Chance to Act

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I feel like we’re battling a zombie in a bad horror film – every time I think that odious FISA bill with its free pass for lawbreakers is dead, here it comes again.

If you’re just tuning in, here’s the blood and the bones: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has a wee little loophole that needs fixing. When the Act was first passed (in the wake of Watergate, after America learned just how far a President with warrantless wiretapping powers can go), technology wasn’t quite what it is today. So there’s no provision exempting foreign-to-foreign calls that route through American switches from the warrant requirement. That’s it. That’s the sum total of what needs to be fixed. A little bit o’ language needs to be bunged in there saying “No warrant needed for eavesdropping on foreign-to-foreign calls routing through American switches.” That’s it.

Now, mind you, as much as I like the idea of law, order and safety, I’m still a little chary about that exception – why the fuck should foreigners get to have the spooks listen in with impunity? Why not require oversight even when the calls are made by foreigners only? – but realistically speaking, extending a warrant requirement to all just ain’t going to happen in the current political climate. So an exemption for foreign-to-foreign calls there should be.

Of course it can’t be that simple. This is Washington, under the Bush Regime, we’re talking about.

Bush took it upon himself to create a gargantuan, very illegal warrantless wiretapping program after September 11th. Now he wants that program made legal, and he wants immunity for all his good buddies, the telecom giants, who overstepped their authority, shat on the law, and spied on American citizens at his behest.

I work for one of those telecom giants. I can tell you that of all the things they need, immunity from the consequences of their own illegal actions isn’t one of them.

The House Dems finally showed some backbone, and shot down the Senate’s yellow-bellied attempt to insert immunity language into the current FISA bill. However, like a zombie in a bad horror film, the damned thing keeps rising from the dead. Glenn Greenwald reports:

It is now definitively clear that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is the driving force behind a bill — written by GOP Sen. Kit Bond — to vest the President with vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to vest lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty. Even as his office dishonestly denies that he is doing so, still more reports yesterday — this one from the NYT and this one from Roll Call (sub req’d) — confirm that a so-called “compromise” is being spearheaded by Hoyer and the House Democratic leadership. The ACLU and EFF are holding a joint call tomorrow to denounce Hoyer’s “compromise” as nothing more than disguised guaranteed immunity for telecoms and, further, because “the proposed deal could be used to authorize dragnet surveillance of Americans’ communications in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

As a result, there is a major new campaign beginning today aimed at Hoyer and a handful of other key members of Congress who enable telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping. In order to raise as much money as possible for this campaign — far more than the $85,000 raised (and still being spent) in Chris Carney’s district as a result of his support for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty — we are working to create an alliance with numerous organizations and factions across the ideological spectrum which oppose civil liberties erosions, as well as with as many blogs as possible (modeled vaguely after the ideologically diverse alliance that has arisen in Britain in opposition to the sprawling and lawless surveillance state there).

And even though that coalition has had a mere day to start forming, even though there’s no shape to it yet, they’ve managed to raise $144,750 by 4:15 a.m. Pacific. That’s huge. That tells me there are a lot of very fed-up people who are ready to brawl.

I, like Glenn Greenwald, will have further updates as the coalition of the more-than-willing comes together to defeat this FISA monstrosity. And in a few moments, after I’ve had a smoke and fetched my trusty credit card, you’ll see this amount go right the fuck up, because, my darlings, I have fucking had it with these slimy bastards who think they can get away with carving out a whole separate law for corporations. What they are saying is this: If you and I and a mom-and-pop shop break the law, we’re burnt toast. If AT&T, Verizon and Comcast do it, it’s patriotic.

Bull fucking shit.

While I smoke and fetch plastic, you can amuse yourself with some history of the FISA fuckery here, here, and here. Especially consider that last: why are Dems so eager to cave now when they succeeded so spectacularly at defying Bush without political penalty just a few months ago? Have some lobbyists been whispering sweet nothings into select ears? It can’t possibly be because they fear a public backlash – the public isn’t willing and eager to have Bush & Buddies listening in on their private calls.

What fucktards.

***

Right. Back. And the total now is: $145,020 as of 4:38 am Pacific.

Do you want to get in on the fun? You know you do. First off, here’s a little something you can do even if you don’t have funds: Tell your members of Congress to reject a sham immunity “compromise.” The ACLU has a letter all ready to go for you.

And here’s Act Blue’s page for donations:

Accountability is one of the most important foundations of democracy. It is time we start holding our elected representatives responsible for rubber stamping the most grievous aspects of the Bush Regime’s agenda. Surely the plans for retroactive immunity for Bush cronies inside his regime and for cronies in the telecom corporations who broke the law by spying on American citizens without warrants, is outrageous and needs to be brought before the bar of Justice. All the money raised on this page will go to fund accountability for congressmembers supporting retroactive immunity and warrantless wiretaps. You can read more about the campaign here, here and here.

After Dick Gephart betrayed the majority of House Democrats and plotted with Bush, Cheney and some Blue Dogs to thwart the will of the majority and rubber stamp Bush’s decision to attack and occupy Iraq, he was forced out of his role as Democratic Leader. Steny Hoyer deserves the exact same fate.


Yes, he does. And everyone who’s willing to compromise the Fourth Amendment and flush American civil rights and values down the toilet deserves the same. If you’ve got a bit o’ cash to spare, drop it in Act Blue’s kitty and let them go to town.

We’ve been used, abused, and lied to long enough. Take a stand. No amnesty for lawbreakers. No warrantless wiretapping powers for Bush. Protect your Constitution and your rights.

Kill this zombie for good.

$145,270 and counting… We’re coming for you.

More FISA Fuckery – And a Chance to Act

Muster Up, Ye Elitist Bastards!

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We’re coming down to the wire. The HMS Elitist Bastard is straining at its anchor-chain. Time to load the ammunition, muster the crew, and find a bloody captain.

I’ve asked Cameron Lee (aka Chaos) to take the helm for June, but haven’t heard back from him yet, so if any of you other volunteers wants to edge him out, there’s still time! Notify me via dhunterauthor at yahoo dot com if you want the command this sailing.

We’ve got submissions, but we need more. Get them in to [email protected]! Deadline is end of day, June 27th – only nine days! And if you’d be so kind, put out the call on your own blogs. The more crew we have, the merrier this voyage will be.

I’ll have the schedule for future sailings posted here soon. Muchos Gracias to all those who volunteered! We have a fine compliment of captains, and I can’t wait to see what you all at the wheel.

Muster Up, Ye Elitist Bastards!

Pathetic "Proofs" God Exists

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PZ Myers gets some truly ridiculous email. He’s got one now from a woman with 50 “proofs” of God’s existence. A few hours on Talk Origins and other assorted sites would allow me to answer all 50 in great, exact and obliterating detail, but what with the potential FISA compromise bill, McCain’s constant fuckery, a new Carnival of the Elitist Bastards I’m trying to man the June helm for, and research to do on more than one book, I haven’t got time to answer such pathetic drivel. I’m just going to hit the highlights. If any of you are bored enough to take on the full list, by all means, have away.

And head on over to Pharyngula to see PZ’s short, sharp retort to this mountain of drivel.

Right. Let’s amuse ourselves a wee bit, shall we?

1. Whilst agreeing that random patterns occur naturally by chance, DNA however, consists of code, which requires a designer.

Here we go with another one confusing biology with computer science. That’s the problem with metaphors and analogies: there’s always someone who thinks that because a word like “code” is used, that means there’s a computer code in a cell. What else can we expect from Biblical literalists, though, eh?

3. Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?

None. All you’re talking about with prayer is pattern recognition, selective attention, and wishful thinking.

10. Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don’t believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don’t they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don’t they leave this ‘God nonsense’ alone?

Nothing would make us happier if people like you would just shut the fuck up and stop trying to impose your magic sky daddy on the real world. We spend so much time “ranting and raving” about this bullshit because of you God-botherers.

25. Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we’ve no-one to be accountable to.

Why are you so morally bankrupt that you have to have a god to hold you accountable?

29. Look at the date/year on our calender – 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus’ existence.

The calendar is a social convention, you silly bitch. Ask the Jews or the Muslims what year it is, why don’t you? I’d say ask the Mayans, but the Christians murdered their civilization.

30. Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!

Many have. Lessee, off the top of my head: Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, Branch Davidians…

34. The evidence from liturature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.

I suppose someone who can’t spell “literature” also hasn’t read many novels that base the story around real, verifiable places and events. If we went by your standards of proof, nearly every book I’ve read is literally true. Hooray, there really is a Lord Morpheus!

42. Albert Einstein said; “A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind”.

And someone needs to go look up what Einstein meant by “religion.” Hint: it wasn’t anything that had a personal god in it.

50. Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.

Or he didn’t exist except as an embellished figure. Or he was mentally ill. Or you’re absolutely right: he’s a con. Be careful with your either/or statements: there are people who happily believe the “or.”

The only thing this list convinced me of was it’s better to be an atheist. I’m too old for the mental gymnastics one has to engage in to make God work. What’s sad about this is, even the supposedly “sophisticated” arguments for God don’t rise much above the intellectual level of this tripe.

And people wonder why I don’t believe…

Update: Cousinavi has an eye-popping post up exploring yet more McCain fuckery. If this useless assclown gets elected, I am so leaving the United States.

Pathetic "Proofs" God Exists

Happy Hour Discurso

jacob2 Comments

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Continuing our theme of racist fuckwits from my previous post, I think this should lay to rest any doubts that Republicons are going to play the “White Men Are Scared Shitless of Teh Black Man” card this fall:

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.


The Dallas Morning News has a charming photo of the button, which is – what else? – black with white lettering.

Wee bit overtly racist, innit? And these stupid assclowns wonder why so many of us don’t want them in charge of the country anymore.

And continuing on with our racist, lying fuckwit theme, recall the “prominent Democrats” switching from Clinton to McCain? Yeah. There’s a problem: Carpetbagger found out a lot of them aren’t Dems:

My estimable friends at TPM, Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld, decided to take a closer look at the group. Oddly enough, they discovered that the list is “a bit of a sham.”

Wait, you men Joe Lieberman and John McCain would create a phony organization/fundraising gimmick and then release a spurious list to generate some cheap publicity? I’m shocked. Just shocked.

It’s quite a motley crew of “Democrats,” many of whom have been voting for Republicans for quite a while now. One is an independent who endorsed Mitt Romney. Another is a Bush appointee in the Department of Agriculture. Another is a religious right activist who wrote a book accusing Democrats of becoming “the enemy of my religion.” Another publicly endorsed Bush in 2000 and 2004.


At least I can feel somewhat better about my party now. And it’s a beautiful example of what we’d be in for should McLame be elected: four more years of lying, obfuscating, reality-denying, complete fuckwittery – with a hefty dose of racism thrown in. Oh, and anti-gay. And anti-women’s rights. And anti-democracy. Anti-American, anyone?

Republicons like to play “Choose Your Own Reality,” and there’s nowhere they’re doing it better than in California right now. Remember that whole gays are now allowed to marry thing? Remember that whole “If gays are allowed to marry, it will destroy marriage!” thing? Yepper – the Republicons were indeed right, because they’re the ones destroying marriage:

….the Butte County clerk-recorder issued a June 11 news release saying her office will stop performing wedding ceremonies altogether — for gay and heterosexual couples. The Kern County clerk issued a June 4 release that she would do the same.


Calaveras county has decided to follow Butte’s and Kern’s lead, and will also stop performing marriages altogether.

It never occurred to me that conservatives would actually find a way to make marriages between gay couples affect marriages between straight couples. Kudos to their right-wing, hate-filled creativity!

Keep in mind, some conservatives in California are considering additional steps.

While the Kern Co Clerk has faced suspicion from gay marriage supporters for her timing in deciding to stop all marriage ceremonies, others are backing her actions.

“The California Family code still says that marriage is between a man and a woman. They’ve created legal confusion,” says Ken Mettler of the Bakersfield
Republican Assembly.

Many people are trying to get the Kern County Board of Supervisors to approve an ordinance that would ban the clerk from even issuing marriage licenses. Supervisors will look at that proposal next week. [emphasis added]


You know, I’m starting to get the sense that there are some people out there who have an irrational hatred of gay people.


You don’t say? Myself, I think a self-fulfilling prophecy is an invalid one. Un-fucking-believable, the lengths these people will go to in order to prevent adults from marrying. I’m sure all the heteros in those counties are just thrilled to pieces over this development. I see a backlash – and if there’s even a few sane people left in those counties, it won’t be an anti-gay amendment.

But before you’re terribly shocked at the lengths these fucktards will go to in order to keep gays single, consider the moral fibre it takes to turn our nation’s veterans into test subjects:

We’ve seen more than a few breathtaking stories in recent years about the kind of treatment veterans receive when they return from Iraq, but this is just astounding.

Mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects, an investigation by ABC News and The Washington Times has found. […]

In one of the human experiments, involving the anti-smoking drug Chantix, Veterans Administration doctors waited more than three months before warning veterans about the possible serious side effects, including suicide and neuropsychiatric behavior.

“Lab rat, guinea pig, disposable hero,” said former US Army sniper James Elliott in
describing how he felt he was betrayed by the Veterans Administration.


Elliott served a 15-month tour in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, and was diagnosed with PTSD upon his return. Three years later, he was recruited for the Chantix anti-smoking study, and a few months later, Elliot suffered a breakdown that led to a violent confrontation with police officers.


We need to kick these people out of office and keep kicking until they’re a forlorn, impotent voice from the fringe. They do not deserve power. They need to be kept as far away from decent human beings as possible in a democracy. Our right-wing “conservative” movement isn’t just morally bankrupt – they’re no better than
s
erial killers. They’re utter psychopaths who don’t care who they hurt.

Keep that in mind if you still have any doubts about who to vote for this fall.

Happy Hour Discurso

Are People Seriously This Stupid and Racist?

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No, I’m not talking about the rabid right – I know a good number of them are stupid and racist. They’ve happily demonstrated that for many years now. But I don’t expect frothing dumbfuckery with a heaping helping of latent (or blatant) racism from Dems. We’re the enlightened party, right?

I guess I’m about to get my illusions rudely shattered:

And as long as we’re talking about McCain’s associations, Ben Smith has an interesting item today, Paulie Abeles, a woman helping organize Clinton supporters for McCain, who has a provocative background.

A key organizer of John McCain’s meeting Saturday with former supporters of Hillary Clinton is best known for her role in another bitter American fight: The effort by some white descendants of Thomas Jefferson to keep his possible African-American descendants out of family gatherings.

Paula Abeles emailed Politico yesterday to complain that her group had gotten short shrift in a blog item, writing, “I initiated the teleconference with McCain on Saturday and was
solely responsible for the guest list.” Another Clinton backer at the event, Will Bower, confirmed that she was “integral” to assembling the group.


Abeles is best known for having masqueraded as a 67-year-old black woman online in order to argue against Sally Hemings’ African-American descendants being welcome at family gatherings. Abeles said her deception was necessary to make sure family reunions were “calm and
civilized.”


Yeah, because everybody knows those black folk don’t know how to behave decently. Just ask Bill O’Reilly.

Holy fucking shit, this woman’s a fucktard. And now the stupid, silly, racist bitch is so incensed over her pet candidate losing that she’s actively trying to organize crossover voters for McCain? This is behavior seriously unbecoming to a Democrat.

Carpetbagger’s report was bad enough, but here comes Ames with the salt:

One of my regular commenters recently noted the upswing in pro-Hillary, anti-Obama rhetoric among WordPress’ politics blogs (thanks for the tip!). That’s a disappointing trend, but the actual sites he pointed to are even more disappointing, ranging from the racist to the delusional. I’ve noted before – just click that little “previous post” button above you – that it’s partly worrying, but mostly confusing, to see so many people turn from the Democrats upon Obama’s nomination. It suggests to me that the Clinton supporters who cling to her candidacy were never really about the issues in the first place.


You’re not kidding.

And these fuckwits are the ones whining about misogyny. Apparently, in their world, it’s better to be a racist dipshit than a misogynist.

Here’s what I don’t get. Their meme is, “The evil Democratic party hates on women! Look what they did to Hillary!” It doesn’t matter to them that their precious candidate fucked her own chances right up the ass by being a lying, mud-slinging, ruthless politics-as-usual pol: she lost, even if by a whisker, ergo Dems hate women. Fine. Be as pissy as you want. But if you’re pissed off at people who, in your view, obviously hate women, then why the fuck are you now supporting a candidate whose party despises women?

Is this either-or? If we can’t have a woman as President, we’d prefer to give up our rights to birth control, abortion, and equal opportunity by voting for another fucking Republicon? How fucking stupid can you possibly be?

Are you just that racist? You’d take a white man over a black one any day of the week, no matter how noxious the white boy’s politics?

Are you just that infantile, that you’ll destroy everybody’s happiness (including your own) just because you didn’t get your way?

Are you that batshit insane?

I often joke about being a misogynist – yes, I’m a woman and a liberal and so that shouldn’t technically be possible, but for fuck’s sake, women can act like rampaging idiots sometimes. The women who’d rather vote for McCain than Obama just because Obama beat their precious in a fair fight are going to tip me right over the edge. It won’t be a joke anymore. They make me ashamed of my gender.

And as for the men who used to support Hillary and are now engaging in this petulant, destructive bullshit: they’re making me ashamed to be a human being. As if the right wing hadn’t made me ashamed enough.

Are People Seriously This Stupid and Racist?

Dear Associated Press: Bite Me

jacob3 Comments

Warning to all of you who like to quote long stretches of Associated Press articles: they’re gunning for you (h/t Carpetbagger):

For a blog to feature news content from an Associated Press article is about as common as the sunrise, so it came as something of a surprise last week when the news agency went after a prominent liberal blog for what seemed like a minor excerpting issue.

Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.

On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed” and that The A.P. was going
to rethink its policies toward bloggers.

The quick about-face came, he said, because a number of
well-known bloggers started criticizing its policy, claiming it would undercut the active discussion of the news that rages on sites, big and small, across the Internet.


Well, of course it would. The AP is one of the most commonly linked to news outlets on the planet. If bloggers can’t excerpt 79 words from an article, it’s going to have an effect. It was encouraging that the AP realized that its aggressive posturing towards the Drudge Retort was, in fact, “heavy-handed.”

The result, according to the NYT, is an effort on the part of the Associated Press to “define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without
infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”


I think it’s time for the AP to join the real world. First off, trying to impose ridiculously strict standards on bloggers’ use of their content is going to be like trying to put out a 100,000 acre crown fire with a garden hose. They’re going to be spending far more in legal fees than they’ll recoup from protecting their copyright.

It’s a losing battle: those thousands upon thousands of blogs, many run by amateurs who don’t know the first fucking thing about copyright law and who could give a shit anyway, aren’t going to be intimidated by the AP going after a few prominent sites, so the long-winded excerpts will continue apace. I wouldn’t put it past a good number of bloggers to start exerpting 80 words just out of spite. It’s a lawless digital frontier, my friends, and I don’t see Dodge being cleaned up anytime soon.

There’s going to come a time when copyright law will have to catch up with the internet, no question. And I think it’s going to have to stretch the definition of “fair use” here to include longer excerpts. What these clowns don’t seem to get is that the internet’s a different animal than print media. In print, a long excerpt can mean that folks won’t go to the original source to obtain the rest of the work, simply because it’s too much of a pain in the arse. Online, if the excerpt intrigues you, all it takes is a click, and voila – the original copyright holder gets some love they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Clicks are gold out here.

Restrictive standards will mean that bloggers will either ignore you and excerpt anyway, comfortable in the knowledge that the AP can’t go after everybody, or that bloggers will simply say, “Fine, then, fuck you and your little dog, too” and excerpt someone else. I doubt the AP has such a monopoly on news that bloggers can’t find other sources to work with. And this “say a few words and then link to our story” position they seem to be taking is just silly – I can’t speak for the rest of the blogosphere, but I’m not willing to show restrictive assholes any love. When I link someone, I’m basically giving them free advertising. I’m not going to do that if I’m not getting anything in return – in this case, a decent chunk of text to riff off of.

Have to admit, though: I haven’t really given this much thought. As a writer, I’m of course interested in copyright and protections for the originator of a work, but I also realize that what goes up online is pretty much fair game. I personally am delighted when folks filch a chunk of my blathering for their own blog, because of the link love – as long as they’re not copying the whole of a post, they’re giving credit where due, and I get more traffic out of the deal, it’s all good. When I quote other sources, I try not to take more than a third or so of the article or post in question – just enough to get the point across, and, hopefully, get a click through to the source’s site, so they can feel the love. After all, I enjoyed reading the damned thing: my readers might as well. And everybody gets the attention they deserve.

I know corporations don’t think that way. But there’s got to be some sort of happy medium here. What’s fair use on the digital frontier? How much of an excerpt is too much? Is copyright law even going to survive in the digital age?

The floor is open.

Dear Associated Press: Bite Me

Happy Hour Discurso

jacob

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

I have just one thing to say about this: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

A new World Public Opinion poll of 20 nations finds that just 2 percent say that they have “a lot” or “some” confidence that President Bush will do “the right thing regarding world affairs.” Bush ranks below Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but just edges out Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf…

That’s incredible. The president of Iran is more trusted than our own Fearless Leader. As sad as that is, it actually makes me feel kind of good – at least I know it’s not just my liberal imagination telling me what a gawdawful fucktard Monkey Boy George is.

In more LOL news, it looks like progress is finally being made on the combating rampant corruption front:

Remember the U.S. Attorney purge scandal? The travesty in which the White House and the Justice Department politicized federal law enforcement? It was, for my money, among the biggest Bush-related domestic scandals of the last eight years (top three, at least). It is not, however, quite over yet.

Justice Department lawyers have filed a grand-jury referral stemming from the 2006 U.S. attorneys scandal, according to people familiar with the probe, a move indicating that the yearlong investigation may be entering a new phase.

The grand-jury referral, the first time the probe has moved beyond the investigative phase, relates to allegations of political meddling in the Justice Department’s civil-rights division, these people say. Specifically, it focuses on possible perjury by Bradley Schlozman, who served a year as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo.

Mr. Schlozman left the Justice Department last year after he was challenged over his hiring of conservative lawyers at the civil-rights division and his decision later as U.S. attorney to bring voter-fraud charges against members of a left-leaning voter-registration group days before the 2006 election.

Schlozman, an inept character who’s almost amusing in his clumsiness, has a very serious problem on his hands, which will not only lead to the likely criminal prosecution of a former top official in Bush’s Justice Department, but once again bring into focus how the Bush administration operated.

It’s easy to get confused over which comically corrupt Bushie is which, so let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane. It’s a funny story, actually….

When it comes to the politicization of the Justice Department, Schlozman was actually at the heart of two scandals. The first was Schlozman’s decision as the former U.S. Attorney for Kansas City, to bring highly dubious indictments against a left-leaning voter-registration group shortly before the ‘06 midterm elections.

The other deals with Schlozman’s responsibilities as the deputy head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. He assured the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that his employment decisions were entirely above-board, and not at all based on political considerations.

If senators were able to peak below his witness table, they might have noticed that his pants were on fire.


I’m delighted. It seems as though the last several months of Bush’s term will be filled with interesting revelations of just how far his poison spread. I was afraid these things wouldn’t come to light until he was out of office, when he’d be just enough out of the public eye for the public to shrug it off. Let the fucker try to keep his approval rating above 20% with this kind of fuckery coming to light.

Of course, Bush’ll probably just say that those exposing corruption are “slandering America,” which is apparently what anyone who criticizes his torture policies is doing:

During an interview with President Bush on Britain’s Sky News yesterday, Sky political editor Adam Boulton noted that while Bush talks “a lot about freedom,” there are many who say that some of the Bush administration’s torture and detention policies represent “the complete opposite of freedom.” But Bush quickly snapped back, saying those criticizing his policies are slandering America:

BOULTON: There are those who would say look, lets take Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and rendition and all those things and to them that is the complete opposite of freedom.

BUSH: Of course, if you want to slander America.


Think Progress has a nice list of the people who’ve slandered America by these standards, starting with the Supreme Court. Those traitors!

I’d just like to point out to Georgie Boy that the people who’re really slandering America are the ones who say it’s just fine to torture people, hold them indefinitely without charge, and attack every country in sight without even dubiously adequate provocation. People, like, you know, George W. Bush.

I hope this fucker gets his ass handed to him on the way out the White House doors. Even that’s giving him more than he deserves.

Happy Hour Discurso

Hangover Discurso

jacob2 Comments

Supreme Sillyness Edition

The far-right outcry over the Supreme Court (narrowly) restoring habeas rights to the poor buggers the Bush regime has stuffed into cells at Guantanamo Bay has exceeded even my expectations – and I expected them to get really fucking irrational. They’re outdoing themselves. Calling them the “rabid right” now seems a little… mild. I don’t think there are words in the English language that can succinctly sum up just how paranoid, delusional, and sensationally stupid they are.

Exhibit A: Bill Kristol, neocon columnist and remarkable dumbshit:

Today on Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol revealed that “very soon” — likely as early as next week — McCain and Graham will be introducing legislation to undermine the Supreme Court decision by setting up a “national security court”:

And I think you will see Senator Graham, accompanied by Senator McCain, come to the floor of the Senate very soon, like next week, and say, We cannot let chaos obtain here. We can’t let 200 different federal district judges on their own whim call this CIA agent here, say, ‘I don’t believe this soldier here who said this guy was doing this,’ you have to release someone,’ or, ‘Let’s build up — let’s compromise sources and methods with a bunch of trials. I mean, it’s ridiculous.


Yes, Billy, how dare a country founded on the ideals of law, justice and equality possibly allow such horrible things as trials. Where judges, of all horrible people, get to tell honest CIA agents to fuck off and stop torturing innocent people. The horror! It’s totally ridiculous that we can’t have a perfect little police state, wherein any atrocity can be ushered safely under a rug because, well, you know, the truth might come out and compromise brutal police-state tactics.

How he must pine for the good ol‘ days of Star Chambers and show trials. Good times, good times. Never mind that the Center for American Progress thinks a National Security Court is a dumbfuck idea:

Adopting a national security court system would send the United States down another unproven path prone to repeat the same mistakes. It would not further justice or American legitimacy. Rather, it would risk creating American courts that more resemble the tribunals of dictators than those of democracies. And that would be a strategic victory for Al Qaeda, not for Americans. […]


Because Billy wants nothing so much as he wants to live under a dictatorship. I don’t imagine he’d be unhappy about a strategic victory for al Qaeda, either: after all, Public Enemy #1’s been looking a little peaked lately. Can’t keep the fear screwed to a fever-pitch, thus allowing conservatives to get away with any outrageous infringement on constitutional liberty they want, if the populace isn’t quivering in terror over teh terrarists.

Exhibit B: Newt Gingrich returns to his own true self and demonstrates that, for all he wants to be seen as a rational, reasonable politician, he’s still a frothing insane wingnut at heart:

On Face the Nation this morning, former House speaker Newt Gingrich echoed the extreme rhetoric of the right wing to decry the Supreme Court’s recent decision restoring the right of habeas corpus petitions to Guantanamo detainees, charging the decision would “cost us a city”:

This court decision is a disaster, which could cost us a city. And the debate ought to be about whether you’re prepared to lose an American city on behalf of five lawyers — it was a five to four decision. … That ought to be a principled argument between McCain and Obama, about whether or not you’re prepared to allow any random, nutcake district judge who has no knowledge of national security to set the rules for terrorists.


Oh, yes. Restore habeas corpus rights, and the next thing you know, BOOM! There goes Los Angeles. That’s just what the terrorists have been waiting for. At least there’s one grain of truth in Newt’s screeching: he should know all about “random, nutcake district” judges, considering it’s his hero Georgie who’s stocked our nation’s courts with random nutcakes.

And speaking of nutcake judges… you know how Justice Antonin Scalia is completely batshit insane? He doesn’t disappoint: he’s our Exhibit C – Extreme Fucktard Extaordinaire:

In his dissenting opinion, he devoted an entire section to “a description of the disastrous consequences of what the Court has done today,” a procedure “contrary to my usual practice,” he admitted. Scalia a
dopted extreme rhetoric about the impacts of the decision, calling it a “self-invited…incursion into military affairs” that would “almost certainly” kill Americans. Some lowlights:

– “America is at war with radical Islamists. … Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

– “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

– “Today the Court warps our Constitution.”

– “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”


Please remember that John McCain thinks the world of this man and wants to pack our Supreme Court with many more like him. Look upon that vision of the future and consider what our country would be like, but I’d suggest you acquire yourself a bucket first. And lock up any sharp objects that might be used to put your own eyes out.

But what about it? Aren’t these guys at Gitmo the worst of the worst? I mean, we’re talking pure-D, explosive-vest wearing, “Death to America!” screaming, rabid fanatics with all kinds of super-dooper al Qaeda terrorist camp training here, right? Right?

An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and,
according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.

McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.

This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.


Heh heh heh whoops.

And here we have one of the premier reasons our right wing ravers don’t want these poor, abused buggers to ever see the light of day: along with the fact that their precious house of cards will collapse like a burning straw man, there’s the innate fear of the bully that the people he bullied might just break his nose if he ever lets go of ’em. Do you know how galling it will be for these warmongers to have to apologize to the people whose lives they’ve completely fucked over? I think that, more than the fear that some of these once-witless and now-radicalized prisoners might exit their military prison cells and head straight for an al Qaeda training facility, the right wing is terrified that they’ll have to actually say “I’m sorry” to some Muslims.

The fragile yet outsized neocon male ego wasn’t built to handle such horrific abuse. Expect a lot more hue, cry and hyperbole from these fucktards. It’s all they’ve got left.

Ginormous tip o’ the shot glass to Think Progress and Digby’s Hullaballoo, which both kept me simultaneously entertained and horrified for hours. They need the drink.

Hangover Discurso