While Revere is showing a rerun of that glorious anti-religion riff (it’s worth listening to again!), here’s another clip of Marcus Brigstocke being right in every particular once more.
By the addition of a new candidate who actually believes in God. Yes, everyone, Alan Keyes has entered the race.
Dear jebus, why is the race for the election of the president of the most militarily powerful country on earth such a ludicrous joke? Shouldn’t this be an office for serious people with serious plans and serious expertise, and shouldn’t certifiable lunatics like Keyes be given the cold shoulder? (Oh, right: they can’t do that, because if sanity were a prerequisite, the entire Republican slate would evaporate.)
Our country seems to have killed at least a million Iraqis at the whim of George W. Bush and his cabal of neocons.
I know that his former friends have started disowning him — he’s no True Conservative now — but since he is officially a mass-murdering monster, can we also expect them to retroactively declare him an atheist?
Mark Hoofnagle is urging everyone to get behind a simple, non-partisan goal that would greatly benefit science policy: bring back the Office of Technology Assessment.
It used to be, for about 30 years (from 1974 to 1995), there was an office on the Hill, named the Office of Technology Assessment, which worked for the legislative branch and provided non-partisan scientific reports relevant to policy discussions. It was a critical office, one that through thorough and complete analysis of the scientific literature gave politicians common facts from which to decide policy debates. In 1994, with the new Republican congress, the office was eliminated for the sake of budget cuts, but the cost in terms of damage to the quality of scientific debate on policy has been incalculable. Chris Mooney described it as Congress engaging in “a stunning act of self-lobotomy” in his book the Republican War on Science.
Spread the word. Build a drumbeat of support for this idea in the blogs. Write to your congresspeople. Write op-eds for your newspaper. It’s a simple idea that everyone should agree on: we want our government to be well-informed and to be able to make decisions based on evidence, and having an advisory office dedicated to providing information from the scientific community would be a real boon.
It’s not happy Roy, but cynical Roy … but then, these are cynical times.
Now, can we give the troops some real support? Like, by bringing them back home?
Here’s another online petition you can sign — this one is to censure Kathy Griffin’s censorship. Go ahead and sign, although I’m beginning to wonder if the reason people aren’t marching in the streets and fending off flying teargas canisters and roaring angrily in person at the bad guys is that they’re too damned busy filling out all these forms on their computers, instead.
Maybe I need to create a new category here: “futile, impotent political posturing” or something. But at least it feels a little bit good.
(via Greg Laden)
The appropriate testimonial would be to disband the thugs at TSA.
While we’re at it, impeaching Bush/Cheney and repealing their damage to our civil liberties would also be a good start.
I’m not impressed with moments of silence or candlelight vigils or noble rhetoric about this event. If you want to do something to remember that tragedy, the best thing to do is to simply stop living your life in fear.
Daniel Cooper knows how to properly evaluate what’s important. He’s George W. Bush’s undersecretary for benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs. We’re in the middle of a bloody, wasteful war, and we’ve got lots of veterans who deserve support and, you know, benefits, so I think Mr Cooper’s job is fairly important.
What does Mr Cooper think is important? He’s made a video for Campus Crusade for Christ in which he plainly spells out where his priorities lie.
Friends for a Non-Violent World (FNVW)
Presents:
Leaving Iraq Now
Why it’s the best chance for peace & security and why September is our best
chance to make it happen.
Phil Steger
In Morris on
Saturday, September 8
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Morris Public Library
America needs an “end the war” push in
the last months of 2007 to equal the “no
to war” push of 2003. Bring friends, neigh-
bors, family members. Learn why leaving
is the best, most just, most secure choice
for Iraqis and Americans. Learn why Sep-
tember is a must-act month for ending the
war and what YOU can do.
Phil Steger is a three-time traveler to Iraq and has
been one of Minnesota’s most prominent, widely
seen and best received voices explaining, opposing,
and proposing solutions to the U.S. war in Iraq. He
was executive director of FNVW from 2002 to 2007.
Our president has been away in Australia. Who knew? Who cares? I only care because Australia has some of the most venomous wildlife around, and because anything that sends the asshole-in-chief to the other side of the planet is a good thing.
Anyway, the Australians waste $A165 million on security, rather than giving Bush a few hundred dollars and telling him to go play with the stingrays up around the Great Barrier Reef, and look what happens: a comedy troupe gussies up a few cars to look officially Canadian, and drove an Osama bin Laden imitator right up to the president’s hotel. They simultaneously showed that all this anti-terrorist security nonsense is pure performance art made to inflate the egos of the government and instill fear in our citizens, and made a sharp jab at our president’s priorities and accomplishments.
Bravo. Brilliant.
Now, please, can we impeach the incompetent boob? He’s an evil joke. We really need to end the long national embarrassment.
