Bomb Throwing Pacifist
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
And in other news...
The time is now
Brad Turner
February 25, 2007
It has been quite a while since I have written a column, but I have enjoyed the free for all that is American politics. You see, the game is never over and the end of one election is the beginning of another.
Or as mack-daddy pimp and continual perveyor of street-seasoned, authentically American wisdom Pope Sweet Jesus might say "That's a violation, sucka! A pimp may be on sabbatical, but he ain't never out of the game, y'understandwhatimsayin?"
The wrapper says 'Ribbed for her pleasure' but turn it inside out and it's ribbed for YOUR pleasure.
True dat, dawg. True dat.
I have noticed the number of candidates that have thrown their hats into the ring to lead this country in 2008. I am still waiting on one to wow me, but that hasn't happened yet.
Five bucks says we encounter a Ronald Reagan reference in the next 2 1/2 inches of column. C'mon, I've never played Dungeons and Dragons, but I know a random encounter when I see one.
For some reason we do not have a clear cut, Ronald Reagan conservative to push to the front.
That particular reason being, of course, the fact that he's a dead, buried, and rotting corpse whose brain has deteriorated to the point where if by some chance a wandering necromancer stumbled across his grave, dug him up, and turned him into a zombie, the reanimated Reagan would probably speak in more coherent sentences and with a stronger grasp on reality than he did when he was actually alive.
We have allowed ourselves to be put on the defensive by the anti-America crowd and we won't swing back. We have been labeled as "mean-spirited," "radicals," "warmongers," and the like. We have lost our fight and we need to regain it before it is 2008.
Right. Because if there's one thing Republicans haven't done enough of, it's playing hardball (cuclear option, anyone? AMazing how important that filibuster power is now tha tyour party is in the minority).
Hannity: "[O]nly liberals" (like Orrin Hatch) "could think of" DREAM Act
Savage on Sawyer: a "lying whore" who "in essence, is agreeing that the Holocaust didn't occur"
O'Reilly: Abducted child "liked ... his circumstances," had "a lot more fun" than usual
More "Freak Show"-- John Harris discussed the Clintons' sleeping arrangements on Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck touted slanted poll on whether U.S. should stay in Iraq
Wash. Times' Pierce reprinted GOP talking points (literally)
CNN and Hotline on McCain: Is the "maverick" back?
And that's just since Friday.
I think that leader is right here in our midst. I think that leader is right here in our midst. We all know him, we all respect him, and we all would follow him. I want to encourage Dr. Alan Keyes to consider setting up an exploratory committee to run for President of the United States.
Let's just dwell on the geologically significant stupidity of that for a moment, and try again.
I think that leader is right here in our midst. I think that leader is right here in our midst. We all know him, we all respect him, and we all would follow him. I want to encourage Dr. Alan Keyes to consider setting up an exploratory committee to run for President of the United States.
My thoughts exactly.
From your mouth to God's ears, Brad Turner.
Dr. Keyes is the cure for what currently ails America. We are at a crossroad of moral decay and human secular arrogance, and that movement has people in the highest levels of power.
Translation: the problem with America is that we're not conservative enough, and that's just pissing God off.
It WILL NOT get any better under individuals like Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Henry Waxman setting the secular agenda for our children and grandchildren for the next 10 years.
Because if you will allow me to remind you of our glorious Constitution's first ammendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; unless of course the aforementioned religion is evangelical Christianity as practiced by white conservative males, in which case it is the exception and must be invoked continuously in order to better secure the creator's almighty divine approval and sanction.
Folks, we have judges ordering homosexuality to be taught to Christian children at the age of 9, we have the homosexual movement roaring full steam ahead, yet we sit and do nothing. It's time to fight.
Y'know, I should hope that most kids have a basic idea of what happens during sex by age 6 or 7, let alone 9. Hate to break it to you, but if you think your kid isn't going around the school playground calling other kids "fags" and homework "gay," you've got a serious case of whisful thinking going on.
I watched Dr. Keyes on television when he was speaking at a recent event and was re-energized by his commitment and his ideas.
Not to mention his bald-faced hypocrisy and complete lack of scruples and principle. As a Republican candidate, he'd do great.
Our foundation is based on truth and strong moral fiber.
Which is why nominating Alan Keyes to be your candidate is like putting your life savings on having a bowling ball win the Kentucky derby: fucking retarded, but oddly appropriate at the same time.
We lean towards becoming Rome if we don't do something now. I cringe when I think of what we could have if a secular liberal is elected to lead our country for the next 4 years.
Because when you get right down to it, I can't think of a better example of how a secular liberal leader lead a great nation to destruction than that provided by that notrious atheist and textbook marxist Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian.
I understand his concerns[...]
Like the fact that he's never broken 38% in an election (all of 20 years ago) and won a whopping 27% of the vote against Obama.
the demand away from his family[...]
Especially his lesbian daughter.
the grueling hours spent on the campaign trail[...]
Something he should know a lot about, considering how fast he had to move from Maryland to Illinois in order to qualify to lose to Obama in '04.
but America is at a crisis point.
Namely, the Republican party is about to implode and go the same way as the Federalists and the Anti-Masons.
The leadership Dr. Keyes can provide will evoke the ghosts of our Founding Fathers.
So can any basic practicioner of Vodun when armed with the appropriate ingredients (chilli powder, some red string, a flint knife, and a live white rooster). That doesn't mean I want Papa Doc Duvalier running my country though.
The Constitution has been perverted by secular agendas and individuals. We all know church and state is a myth perpetuated by the ACLU and other anti-Christian organizations.
And who says Americans are the world's stupidest people?
Dr. Keyes is one of the few leaders who understand how the country was established to be governed, and we need it now more than ever. I encourage others to contact Dr. Keyes and tell him that America needs his leadership!
Considering the fact that Keyes' last opinion peice on his OWN FREAKING WEBSITE predates the '06 elections, I think it's easy enough to see how seriously Alan takes his committment to the people he pays to shill for him at the "grassroots" level.
You might think this is an attempt to curry favor with Dr. Keyes, because this is his site.
Perish the thought (and in all seriousness, I haven't read ahead). Can't imagine how anyone could get that idea (thanks Armstrong "I love No Child Left Behind, now where my money at?" Williams).
Believe me, it is not.
"Brad, have you been eating cookies before dinner?"
*Mmmph-mmph* "Nuh-uh!"
It is a cry for real reform. It is a cry for limited government. It is a cry for a return to what made this country strong.
It's a cry for something, I'll give you that.
Dr. Alan Keyes can provide that necessary leadership to turn this country around and stand against radical Islam, rogue dictators, and secular movements designed to harm America.
The first of which to be addressed shall be bowl movements. I for one cannot think of a more insiduous menace to the people of these United States, or indeed, anywhere.
I encourage those who read this article to forward it on to those of a like mind. My e-mail address is available at the top of the column, and let's let Dr. Keyes know the time is now for his return to the forefront of the conservative movement.
"Return," of course, implying a position he never actually held originally. But hey, since when has that stopped Republicans from claiming to be something they're not. Just look at "Tailgunner" Joe McCarthy.
Dr. Keyes, think about it. Pray about it.....................and let's all picture America if we don't do our best to try and change her from the current path. That should be enough to stir our hearts and minds into action. Our children's future is at stake, so how could we do anything less than fight?
And I think that on that note, we'll just let this column fade quietly into the night as I quietly dream of Obama-Keyes '08: The Rematch. Oh please God, let it be so.
Monday, February 26, 2007
And now for a story...
And what an ugly bastard he was, what with itty bitty legs, turkey-like jowls, spaghetti for hair, and about 15 years' worth of untrimmed nostril fur. For years he had never understood why his kingdom was so poor and his citizens so generous. Time and time again he'd go around the land, handing out coins with his manly profile stamped on the side, only to see children run home screaming, beggars politely walk away, and monks quietly shuffling across the street and refusing to meet his gaze every time he came along with a bag full o'money. Eventually he just gave up and kept it himself, spending it with the only people who'd accept his currency: designers of vaguely phallic footwear and artists fixated with the idea of painting the purple nurple on every shield they saw. In other words, the insane.
Who also shared with him a fascination with silly hats, screaming infants, suspisciously-shaped huts-and-cloud formations, and the glorious purple nurple device.
C'mon, you can't convince me I'm the only one reading a fruedian subtext here.
Much like our current president, he was happiest when surrounded by people of minimal intelligence, child-like simplicity, single-minded obsessiveness, and an unflagging will to tell him whatever it was he wanted to hear. It's good to be the king, even if your villagers do have to eat babies to survive and live in penis-shaped huts.
The quickest and most effective method of course was usually with an noxious-smelling odor/sound combination. Juggling chainsaws never really seemed to work, unless of course it ended in the dismemberment of a trio of adorable, fluffy baby animals (man, the parallels are uncannily similar).
Common sense would naturaly lead you to conclude that the King had seen the wisdom of investing in some hygene management courses, plastic surgery, etiquette lessons, and a subscription to the New Yorker. In actual fact, in one of those rare moments of dazzling insight and heart-rendering genius which ever so often rise up to change the course of history, the king decided to invent the light bulb. This was of course a brilliant and worthy idea, except for the fact that electricity would not be discovered for another 800 years. After several spectacular failures involving thunderstorms, lightning rods, and char-blackened stableboys, experiments were discontinued and the lightbulb was lost to history (until Mr. Thomas Edison came along, that is).
Now before you pass judgement on this, a little bit of historical context is in order. It was the middle of winter. The queen had once again began complaining of a headache, the tourist season was over, the roads were impassible, the palace was suspiciously deserted, the page boys had all gone home for the holidays, most of the other rent boys were on a mandatory work stoppage while waiting for the dreaded Crab Plague of 1054 to ease up, and the Capital City Guild of Prostitutes' strike was entering its third week with no end in sight. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
It had just come in from the speciality shop in the neighboring capital's pleasure district, and he was eager to try its polished, glowing golden surface out on the puzzled (and dare I say, a little retarded) Jester (who probably wouldn't know what was going on anyway).
As it crackled and vibrated with unholy, arcane power...
In truth, the Jester was a little hard of hearing, what with his ears still ringing from the incident three weeks pervious when the king, in a fit of artistic rage, had decided to teach the Jester the important lesson of diversifying one's comedic portfolio with the aid of a monkeywrench and several dozen blows to the head. However he got the message and, eager to avoid a second trip to Ye Olde Intensive Care Ward, quickly scuttled away.
Oblivious though he was to the rapidly changing and extremely suggestive countours of the hills around him.
And only occasionally getting a bucket of pig manure thrown over his head after making unfortunate references to the the villagers' wives and "other barnyard animals."
Part of this had something to do with his majesty's insistance on using the Blacksmith from Army of Darkness as his personal physician, and the latter's insistance on measuring the king's pulse using nothing more advanced than a 3-minute egg timer.
Never have truer words been spoken between lovers.
Either that, or he was referring to the fate of the readers suck with this tract. In his defense though, he was delusional, surrounded by radioactive flies, and crippled by the exponential growth of two of his eyelashes, and unfortunate side-effect of retaining a metal worker as your cheif chemotherapist.
"To the whipping post at once, slave! Weak and frail though I may be, I feel that I still have one more good flogging left inside of me."
Belatedly the king came to realize that in his weak and frail state, he would not have the power to stave off the vicious advances of the embittered and travel-hardened man he had so cruelly tormented in ages past. While the very though filled him with fear, he was oddly excited by the sudden reversal of roles as well.
Call me crazy, but I think the majority of readers have enough sense to avoid appearing weak and fragile before their hellishly-trated slaves. Or at the very least invest in a good, solid, Maximum-Security Prison rated chastity belt whenever talk of wands is rolled out.
Or fingers for that matter.
That thing is huge. I wonder if he has to invest in special medical support devices every time he feels the urge to pick his nose.
...says the disembodied hand, as NASA predicts generally sunny weather, with an outside change of Jesus showers moving across the People's Republic of China later in the afternoon.
And it was all told with all the gravitas of a cheap, 1970s broadway musical, complete with searchlights and styrofoam "boulders".
You can bet your ass that if he tried I'd be giving himself a little something of my own. Specifically a load of 00 Buckshot coming out of the buisness end of my Remington 870.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
From the Files of Pathetic White Guys
"Why Imams Be Playin' Us"
By Kevin McCullough
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Congratulations, Kevin. Until this moment I was firmly convinced that title of “single most pathetically white man in the Universe” belonged to Eugene Levy, veteran of such memorably bad films as all FIVE installments of American Pie, Cheaper by the Dozen II, and “Bringing Down the House.” However, following what can only be termed as one of the worst-wrought sentences ever to befoul the English language, I can only assume that you have launched a palace coup in an attempt to dethrone Mr. Levy. May the most hilariously straight-laced man win.
He is also a life long supporter of Hezbollah - a terror network with wider reach than Al Qaeda.
The same Hezbollah which you will recall was responsible for blowing up the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon in 1983, to which Reagan bravely and boldly responded by aborting a planned airstrike on Iranian-backed Hezbollah targets and withdrawing from the country just 4 months later.
I'd like to dip you in Cheez Wiz and spread you all over a cracker. You got me straight trippin, boo!
Radical ones are amused at our blatant display of weakness on our televisions, amongst our elected leaders, and at the spineless provosts in educational arenas.
And even amongst our military who just recently tried to put a muzzle on the producers of 24 on the grounds that the gratuitous torture scenes hurt America's image abroad, were unrealistic, and encouraged the troops to act out. Thankfully, Joel Surnow, the producer, declined. Otherwise, it might have emboldened the terrorists even more!
They are laughing at us, mocking us, and praying prayers of conversion over us, and we keep inviting them back for more.
Yeah well, you got a problem with that K-Dawg? I thought a stone-cold playa hata such as yourself would welcome the opportunity for Islamofascists to get in your grill, fo' shizzle.
Normally I'm a big fan of Jack Bauer and his pursuit to get the terrorists before they assassinate the President, release biological weapons, or detonate nukes on American soil.
I probably would be too, except for that fact that 1) Bauer is basically a criminal with a badge and 2) the show is FICTION, Kevin. There are no scary Serb assasins with a striking resemblance to Dennis Hopper waiting in the shadows to take out President Palmer, and believe it or not, the terrorists do not have a Nuclear Lab in downtown Los Angeles (and if they did in real life, it'd be the fault of whoever in power kept dillying and dallying every time somebody brought up the issue of cargo inspections. Y'dig?).
This year I'm grateful that they have played out a relatively believable storyline in terms of the dangers we face.
What? You mean they finally had a season where Jack's daughter publishes a article in the New York Times critical of the administration and a vindictive Vice-President decides to out Jack's secret identity just in time for him to get capped while undercover, and the next 23 hours revolve around Jack's funeral? They didn't? Oh...
However, I've grown ever tired of the ranting rampage of more than one character on the show this year more or less lecturing the viewers about the "constitutional protections" of those who wish us dead.
Translation: I really like the parts where they have Jack running around shooting Muslims, and the parts with torture and stuff, and when some politician says we should intern all Muslims, but when they start mentioning the Geneva Convention and Constitution, my eyes kinda glaze over.
I'm sorry, did I miss something? Have we, did we set up internment camps somewhere on our soil - even after 9/11?
Camps? How quaint. No, back in September of 2001 they were INS detention facilities. And we do have Guantanamo Bay and secret prisons in Eastern Europe, but those aren't technically on our soil so our laws don't technically apply.
But, it's not like we've ever done anything like that before, right?
I'm also not thrilled with the fact that they have portrayed a President who is actively negotiating with terrorists. At least he's a liberal democrat though - they get points for consistency.
Hey, psst, Kevin? Any of these quotes ring a bell?
Happy Birthday, Iran-Contra!
"We did not -- repeat -- did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages -- nor will we."
"What began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, not trading arms for hostages."
"The delegation also carried a chocolate cake [in the shape of a key] from a kosher bakery in Tel Aviv -- 'more of a joke than anything else between North and [arms middleman Manucher] Ghorbanifar.'"
"The only honest answer is to state that try as I might, I cannot recall anything whatsoever about whether I approved an Israeli [arms] sale in advance. My answer therefore and the simple truth is, I don't remember -- period." --
"I wouldn't say that we treated [President Reagan] as a mental patient ... But certainly we were all appalled by the absence of the kind of alertness and vigilance to his job."
"I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration ... And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds -- well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch."
No? Then maybe this picture will refresh your memory. It's a little more recent (the guy on the left is the leader of the Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq).
And setting up a Yassar Arafat-like character to be the noble pursuer of what is right is just the unbelievable cherry on top.
Unbelievable? Why? Was he played by Mel Gibson?
There are always the real-life democrats who held their annual winter retreat last weekend and invited an Imam to come pray a prayer of conversion over them as they started the meetings.
Oddly enough, Conservatives haven't always been this opposed to politics and religion mixing. At least insofar as it will get the voters out that is. Just ask Roy Moore.
Interestingly enough, the prayer he read went as follows:
In the name of God the most merciful, the most compassionate. We thank you, God, to bless us among your creations. We thank you, God, to make us as a great nation. We thank you God, to send us your messages through our father Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Mohammed. Through you, God, we unite. So guide us to the right path. The path of the people you bless, not the path of the people you doom. Help us, God, to liberate and fill this earth with justice and peace and love and equality. And help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation. Ameen
Justice, Peace, Love, and Equality? Yeah, I can see why conservatives might have a problem with that.
He is a life long supporter of the Ayatollah Khomeini. For you youngsters he's the radical Imam who took our boys hostage for 444 days under the "impressive" days of Jimmy Carter's presidency. For literally more than a year our government held its breath and hoped that maybe he might just change his mind.
Well that and there was that abortive, completley unfeasible Opeartion Eagle Claw that Jimmy Carter agreed to because the Pentagon guaranteed him it would work. And there was the subsequent project nicknamed "Credible Sport" which involved rescuing the hostages using a modified C-130 Aircraft. All the while of course, Carter was refusing to negotiate with the Iranians or give in to any of their demands. Reagan, on the other hand...well, see above.
All of that came to a swift end the moment Ronald Reagan put his hand on the inaugural Bible. Khomeini’s choice was, let 'em go or get turned into crispy pork rinds. (See Reagan's presidency was so impressive it even spared his enemy's life.)
Or the Iranians wanted him to win. Yes, I too can see how the mighty hand of justice of a washed-up, brain-addled former governor of California might scare the living daylights out of the Iranians. Except of course for the fact that if the Iranians had wanted Carter to win the election, they would have released the hostages right before the election. Not to mention the persistent rumors that Reagan's staff was communicating with the Iranians behind closed doors to delay the hostage release until after the election. I guess they just figured that Reagan, unlike Carter, was a man they could do business with (and business they did, see: Hostages, Arms for). Despite all of the heated "Osama wants the Democrats to win the 2008 elections" rhetoric we see from the right today, history is not on their side.
But I digress... back to Husainy.
He is also a life long supporter of Hezbollah - a terror network with wider reach than Al Qaeda.
The same group you will remember was single-handedly responsible for Ronald Reagan fleeing from Lebanon like a whipped dog after the 1983 Marine Barracks bombings.
One particularly peculiar anecdote emerging from these appearances being that they thought the Imam was being inclusive by citing Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. The former Veep didn't even realize that by including only those four he was advancing a strict doctrine of Islam.
Well no shit, son. What did you think he was gonna pray about when he showed up? The wonderful redeeming power of the Bhuddist Sutras?
Finally this week at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, on Long Island, New York, five otherwise exceptional young men have their campus jobs stripped for making a parody video on YouTube in which they as the Resident Hall Supervisors of one dorm, donned ski-masks and kidnapped "Pete the rubber ducky" - who as it happened was a campus mascot. Their big crime? The Ski masks and cartoonish Middle Eastern accents!
Which when you get right down to it is really ethically speaking no worse than if they'd dressed up in blackface and eaten chicken and watermelon on camera to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. I mean, they were only Resident Hall Supervisors, and it's not like that had any authority over their chargees.
Evidently they had crossed the line of "sensitivity," even though none of the schools 8500 students had complained and the vast majority of the campus supports the five boys.
Something tells me that if they'd dressed up as Romans, whipped Pete the rubber ducky, and threatened to crucify him, K-Dawg would be singing an altogether different tune.
For as long as we tell our culture through our entertainment that taking the wrong side is the right thing, as long as we give terror-supporting radicals places of prominence, and as long as we tolerate feigned outrage at harmless pranks while holding no one accountable for actual atrocity then our enemies will believe that we are weak.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Kevin McCullogh, leader of the "Musclehead Revolution," sitting there and fretting because he worries about what the terrorists must be feeling. Kevin, we have Dick Cheney on the other line. Want to talk with him first, or should I summon your therapist?
Till next time!
Friday, February 09, 2007
It burns....
There. I said it. That way, you can't come crawling back to me later howling about how I've betrayed you and how you are now scarred for life for all the horrible things you have seen and read on this blog. Yes, yes, yes. I know it hurts. Believe me, I know. The nightmares you awake from in the middle of the night, bursting out of your fitful slumber like a swimmer breaking the surface of a black pool. The loss of vision associated with the retinal scarring. The fact that your eyeballs are now the same consistency of a hardboiled egg and that your optic nerve is now more shot, stripped, and overloaded than Baghdad's power grid (January 2007: 4.5 hours of electricity daily!). The constant state of paralizing fear you must endure at various points throughout the day when you ralize that not only do you live on the same continent as these cretinous throwbacks to the neolithic period, but you actually share your citizenship with then and even breathe the same air.
Unfortunately, I have some bad news. Another weekly column has surfaced from the stinking, cankerous sore that is Alan Keyes' "Renew America." This time it comes a particularly blockheaded mental defective I am sure you will all recognize: our friend, Warner Todd Huston. While Warner is normally better known for his impressive, steely demeanour and his not a little shocking tendency to wear marsupial pelts on his face in a show of backwoodsman prowess, those of you with the suitable nerve may also be impressed that he fancies himself as something of a colunist and pundit as well.
At least inasmuch as anyone with an internet connection, a pathological hatred of society, and two brain cells to rub together can get something published on Alan Keyes' sight. I can only assume that Warner's successful entry into the field of online witlessness is that given his particularly loathsome appearance and barely controlled, squinty-eyed fury that they were willing to waive the two-braincell requirement. Kind of like knowing the guy who runs the rickety rollercoasters of death at your local amusement park. Sure, the sign says you have to be so many inches tall, but what's a little seatbelt malfunction and a 15-storey drop between friends, right?
Anyway, Warner has prepared something very special for us this week, and it goes a little like this.
Internet tattletales
Warner Todd Huston
February 7, 2007
A recent Wallstreet Journal editorial by Jennifer Saranow entitled The Snoop Next Door, highlighted some interesting websites that have been taking their slot on the World Wide Web of late... and, no, it isn't porn.
Which is something I think we can all be thankful for. Considering the personal goorming standards obviously espoused by Warner and other conservatives like Ted Nugent, I can only shudder in horror at the thought of his sweaty, greasy, bewhiskered form conducting some in-depth "research" on the moral depravity of transvestite prostitutes caught on cam in his star-spangled bikini bottoms and cowboys boots.
Good lord, I think I'm going to be ill.
Apparently these sites are being used to tattle on other people. One site claims to be ready to reveal bad drivers and people who don't know how to park well, one to uncover the identity of the person who is stealing newspapers in the wee hours of the morning before the neighborhood is awake to get their morning editions, and one to highlight litterbugs. All supposedly feature video or clear photos of the perpetrators of the ill the website's creators wish to right.
In other words, these websites have been set up by self-appointed vigilantes to mock and marginalize various pricks about town. While we know that deep down that anything that smacks of shootin' irons, rope, and dead mexicans is the kind of vigilante action Warner would love to get in on, the fact that these websites have been set up to out various jerks is obvious cause for worry around casa Huston. After all, right-wing jerks are the most marginalized and descriminated-against minority of them all!
How should we, as freedom loving Americans, react to websites where people are tattled on, spied upon, or "outed" as the bad guy?
Previous experience in these matters derived largely from the Valierie Plame CIA outing case and the Bushco warantless wiretapping program provide the logical right-wing answer I fear.
The libertarian reaction might be to confront the website's creator and ask them who the heck they think they are by publicly airing other's dirty laundry?
Because as we all know, Libertarians loves them their muzzling of free speech, yes they do (actually, come to think of it...)
Still others would applaud the website because they get to jeer the "jerks" of society who cannot seem to abide by the rules.
And thus intrinsically appeal to Warner Todd Huston who longs for the golden days of yesteryear when women were subservient, cattle was money, and justice came out of the barrel of a gun.
Which is right? Which is the more "American" reaction to these snoop's websites? Curiously enough, both are.
Ahh! HERESEY! Flip-flopper!
There has long been a presumption in the United States that anyone can do anything they like.
Provided they have the lawyers and political connections to cover it up. Just look at the Bush dynasty.
That everything is fair game, as long as what one citizen does doesn't harm anyone else, violating another's rights.
And by "anyone else," we are referring to the 18th century definition of the term: landowning white males within a certain income bracket.
Americans have always prided themselves that primogeniture and Royal privilege do not exist in the USA.
Unless of course your name is Bush. In which case you earned everything you have and don't owe anything to your President father, Senator grandfather, or governor brother.
Of you fall into that one percent of Americans who are victimized by that most loathesome of all taxes, the estate tax.
The lowliest citizen "born in a log cabin" can become president, any poor boy with the drive and an idea can become a captain of industry. For the most part, that has always been right, too.
Of course, the better-educated, more-stable, well-rounded individuals in this country stopped believing in that fairy tale around the same time they realized that the tooth fairy didn't actually exist and that Santa was really mom and dad. After all, the median income of African Americans is only 65% that of nonhispanic whites, there is only one county in the entire United States where the net worth of Black residents is higher than that of White residents, blacks have much higher unemployment rates, a poverty rate of close to 25%, have a life expectancy 5 years lower than that of whites, and numerous examples of inequality too extensive to list here. But hey, as long as Oprah Winfrey and condi Rice are still around, I guess Huston and his ilk will keep pointing that out.
American exceptionalism holds that we can do or be anything and we can do it our way on top of it. We Americans feel we do not need anyone's permission to do what we feel we need to do.
hu-bris
n. Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance: "There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris" (McGeorge Bundy).
[Greek, excessive pride, wanton violence; see ud- in Indo-European roots.]
But fuck that! We're Americans!
We are a proud and stubborn people, bound and determined.
And stupid. Mind-numbingly, paste-eatingly stupid.
For some, though, they take this tradition and try to stretch it to cover boorish behavior. They imagine that their status as an American means they can "say what ever they want" because of "freedom of speech." The courts have, for the most part, agreed with them.
This- taken to its logical conclusion- of course tends to result in spectacularly bad miscalculations.
So, at some level we have a somewhat accepted "right" in our laws to act like a jerk. That would make the websites that spotlights the jerks seem like a bad idea and perhaps posit that it is the website creators that have the "problem" and not the jerks who are highlighted there.
In other words, the morons who tend to think that freedom os speech and freedom of action also means the freedom to suffer any consequences as a result of that speech. Sure, you can splurt out whatever foul, racist, hate-filled slime crosses your pathetic excuse for a mind, but don't act the martyr when suddenly people go out and brand you as a racist. Just sayin...
On the other hand, a society has every right to define what is and isn't the "proper" way to act in public.
Poppycock! We all know that the Bible and our Judeo-Christian morality is the sole arbiter of what is and is not acceptable in today's society, m'larkey!
Or at least, that's the line he's going to tote whenever the local Gay-Straight alliance decides to have a gay pride parade in his home town.
A society has the right — even the obligation — to set up the rules by which everyone will be governed, to set up community standards. The proper comportment of an individual has always, until recently, been a very important consideration for Americans and anyone breaking the social contract was shunned.
You know I think Warner is coming dangerously close to advocating a set of laws and standards based on the will of the majority of the people and not on the primitive religious codes a a sheephearding tribe of desert-dwelling nomads. And as we all know, that comes dangerously close to advocating anarchy...
George Washington had his 101 rules by which he lived and books of etiquette have always been big sellers in this country throughout much of its history.
You wouldn't know it. Americans are by far and large contempible of such matters as proper dining protocol, sending out thank you cards, and giving up their seats to those in obvious distress.
From the books by The Earl of Chesterfield to Miss Manners, Americans sought guides on how to act, what to wear, how to speak, walk, eat and entertain.
Then given the popularity of reality TV shows, pop music, and what passes forpolite conversation in America, I'd say these two have a hell of a lot to answer for.
There was a time that ended not long ago when nether men nor women would step outside their houses without a hat on their heads and a jacket — or a shaw of some sort for women — across their shoulders. There was a time when curse words would never be uttered in mixed company[...]
Unless of course you were a sailor...
[...]when to be seen as upset in public would be a sign that you are uncouth and unintelligent.
They also tended to believe that skull shape was correlated to intelligence, coal was clean-burning energy, dog fighting was fun, and that sex made you insane. Not exactly the sort of people I want to be taking my cultural ques from there, Warner.
Public virtue was something that concerned the Founding Fathers to a great extent. Many Founders worried that the people would not be able to sustain the Republic because of the tendency of man to allow standards to degrade while existing in a state of freedom.
Which is of course why they were so adamant that we overthrow the rule of parliament and replace it with an oligarchic caste of warrior-kings as per our hebrew ancestors.
Samuel Adams once said, "Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters." But those men of character cannot be found if the society doesn't produce them in the first place.
This of course being the sam Sam Adams who was described by his contemporaries as "the last Puritain" and referred to Massachusetts as "our Christian Sparta on the bay." Not too sure we should be taking our cultural ques from him either.
This requires that the people observe certain customs and rules of comportment in themselves as well as their elected officials.
I.e. staying the fuck in the closet, J. Edgar Hoover, Mark Foley.
It comes down to a uniform sense of morality.
Here it comes! Now just remember a few paragraphs earlier he argued that Society has a good and just role in determining what is and is not acceptable behaviour...
As Teddy Roosevelt said, "To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
Wait for it...
And before Roosevelt, the great orator Daniel Webster also delved into the question when he said, "Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint."
Wait for it...
Unfortunately, today we have people that make a living by ranting in public like angry, petulant fools and our "celebrities" make their name by acting like selfish, infant terribles.
So, while a live and let live Libertarian might say that people have no right to intrude on others the way the "outing" websites do, those interested in public virtue and a uniform public moral code might stand up and applaud.
GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Idiocy
An Eye (Contact) for an Eye
By Suzanne Fields
Thursday, February 8, 2007
The men and women who shake us down at the airport are getting a crash course in Muslim culture.
'bout freaking time. Five bucks says she won't make it to the end of the paragraph without working in a dig out how liberal panzies are so worried about hurting Muslim feelings and want to sing kumbaya with them rather than doing what any good red-blooded American should: gunning them down where they stand.
A training DVD that runs for 45 minutes tackles such "sensitive" questions as why Arabs often avoid looking someone in the eye.
Or why it's extremely rude to touch anyone or any of their posessions with your left hand only (here's a hint: toilet paper), or how it's also very rude to show the soles of your feet at someone while sitting down. You know? The kind of stuff that we go out of our way to avoid doing so as not to piss people off? (Here's another hint. Men searching women. Big no-no).
An agent of the Homeland Security Administration questioning a suspected terrorist, for example, may regard dropped eyes as evidence of suspicious behavior, suggesting the suspect is hiding something.
A reasonable statement. And no doubt only included in order to stoke the fury of the mouthbreathers even further as they tear at their ears and shout "NYARR!! You in AMERICA! YOU act like AMERICAN!!"
But now he must confront his own ignorance. He's told that Arab culture considers it impolite to stare. (So does ours, as any toddler is told, again and again.)
And here I was thinking education was a good thing. Silly me.
Such sensitivity may be polite, but it may blind the officer to his own intuition and the sum of his experience.
Because having a team that includes people who actually speak the language and understand the culture is the last thing you want to do in such a situation. They might be compromised!
We've come a long way from the heroic mythmaking of "Tales of the Arabian Nights," of Scheherezade and Lawrence of Arabia, and that's no doubt good in its own way.
No fucking shit! I'm glad that Suzanne Fields believes its a marginally positive thing that we have started to move away from the themes and cultural dominance and exoticism which have comprised her (and others') narrative up until this point. Yes, Suzanne. Aladdin is not real, Baghdad is not inhabited by genies, and you can bet your ass that Saudi princesses do not dress like Jasmine. And yes, the 9/11 Hijackers used jets. Not magic carpets.
Where are the flowers and sweets?
Nevertheless, looking for insights through cultural relativism is exercising what President Bush might call "the soft bigotry of false expectations."
In other words, trying to find similarities and a certain degree of commonality between our two cultures is hopelessly doomed to fail because they're just so...different. And adorably romantic! So what's the point really? Now when do they sing "I Can Show you the World"?
"The reason we prepared [the DVD] is because our front-line officers were asking for training on how to interact with people from the Arab and Muslim world," says Daniel Sutherland, the agency's officer for civil rights and civil liberties.
Pah, what a bunch of limp-wristed metrosexuals, being concerned with other peoples' cultures and shit. Ther's only one way to deal with these folks, as any good, red-blooded American knows. And that's with belly full of lead!
He insists that the motivation for this sensitivity training is protecting the nation, not the feelings of terror suspects.
AND HERE IT IS!! The never-ending, omnipresent narrative ever so thoughfully crafted by right-wing strategists years ago and given voice in varying degrees of subtlety and cleverness by their operatives. The liberals, far from being the well-endowed, straight-shooting, killer psycho macho men we all know conservatives to be, they really just want to give the terrorists hugs and ice cream. "emocrats want the terrorists to win. Democrats care more about the feelings of the [insert mild to offensive racial epiphet here] instead of the dead Americans on 9/11!" Etc.
tly, people like Fields and Cheney always remind me of that totally insecure jock you knew back in middle school. Remember? The one who made it perfectly clear that he was only participating in the dance class as part of P.E. because he had to and if you ever even paused to wonder if he was actually enjoying it, he'd pound you later. Only in this case its "sensitivity training" instead of modern dance and the vice president instead of a socially inept, boorish, perpetually sneering twit. Or rather, it's still the same guy, but now he actually has power.
A federal prosecutor says he learned through his investigations that interviewers elicit more information by making nice, such as calling him "sir" rather than showing antagonism, like "barking orders." This sounds like the familiar good cop, bad cop routine, except that there's no "bad" cop when we really need one.
Because as we all know. Any Muslim at an airport is a terror suspect by default. Thank you Suzanne Fields for telling us what you and your ilk really think.
Such superficial approaches may reap occasional rewards[...]
Like stopping terror attacks...
but such approaches rely on stereotypes that brush experience aside and cloud good judgment.
Judgement and experience which is, in this case of course, woefully inadequate and irrelevant. Kind of like cracking a passenger over the head with a nightstick because he's reading from the Koran and finger his rosary beads before jumping on the plane. Or arresting a bunch of imams for praying before getting on the flight, because that's exactly how the 9/11 terrorists acted. Are you really this fricken dumb?
What we need is not a DVD but a better, deeper understanding of Islam without the politically correct lecture if we're really serious about containing jihad[...]
In other words, replacing one set of "stereotypes" (which are in most part useful cultural clues to facilitate interaction with muslims, like "Don't speak to a woman directly in the presence of another male as it's highly provocative" and "Try to keep your bag of pork rinds out of plain sight") with another, more virulently right-wing set of stereotypes (Like "All Muslims are commanded to take over the world by launching a violent Jihad in the name of their prophet" and "the more foreign they look, the more religious they must be and therefore the more suspicious you should be as well.").
Not only did the prophet say, "There is no god but Allah," but he ordered his followers to insist, at the point of the sword, that everybody else say that, too. Blah blah blah yoink whadda whammo!
See? Told you so.
Our fathers and grandfathers were not so politically correct.
I'll say.
The ashes of Nazi war criminals executed at Nuremberg were scattered to the wind, and the bunker where Hitler died is unmarked in Berlin, under a parking lot. There would be no shrines. But whatever is left of a suicide bomber is frequently sent to his or her family, and the Muslim authorities encourage shrines to inspire more suicide bombers.
Dear Transportation Security Authority
Be advised that until you stop mailing the remains of suicide bombers back to their families and Muslim authorities stop encouraging shrines dedicated to them, I regret to inform you that I will refuse to fly. Ever again. I'll keep writing shitty columns though and try to piss you off.
xoxo
Suzanne
The six Muslim imams who were taken off the USAir flight in Minneapolis have become Islamic heroes in our own country. They insist the airline "discriminated" against them for merely reciting their prayers.
I wonder if they'd do the same thing to Pentesoctal worshippers who felt moved by the spirit. But that's different, because they're white.
Airline employees[...]
I.e. the people who might soon find themselves out of a job...
[...]say the imams were shouting their prayers, as if trying to frighten and intimidate other passengers.
Which of course explains why they were released without charges five hours later. They were, however, praying in Arabic, a language which has been known to cause even the bravest of red staters to feel the early surge of "adrenaline" running down their legs.
Western historians once described life for religious minorities in the Ottoman Empire as a "golden age" of freedom. This romantic idealization clouded our understanding of Islam for decades. Now we learn that Jewish and Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire suffered humiliation under the "dhimmi code," where they were "free" to worship as they pleased as long as they pleased the Muslim authorities, who drew up tortuous legal restrictions.
Which as we all know was so much worse than the Crusading pogroms of 1096 in Germany. And Edward I's explusion of them from England in 1290. And the time King Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabelle of Castile ordered all Jews deported in 1492. And of course Manuel of Portugal's 1496 forced conversion of them all to Catholic Christianity. And the Goa Inquisition of 1552. But hey, anything is better than having to pay slightly higher taxes, right?
The new confrontation between East and West, like confrontations in the past, is not necessarily "a clash of civilizations." Rather it is what the historian Daniel Johnson describes as "the attempt to impose a theocratic religion upon a secular civilization."
And we all know who's side people like Suzanne Fields, Jerry Falwell, and Dinesh D'ouza are on that one.
Jihad is an obligation, to be pursued by different means, including speech, dress and the sword. This is the kind of war for which we are completely unprepared.
Well, some of us were atuned to the possibility. Like after the Khobar Towers Bombing or the U.S.S. Cole. But I can't imagine Suzanne would remember that. She was probably too busy screaming "No War for Monica" the last few times Clinton tried to kill Osama.
Foolishly avoiding eye contact, which will be perceived as an act of cowardice, along with other "sensitivities" that will send signals of weakness, will have a crucial impact on whether we win or lose.
In other words, if we lose it will be because we didn't act quite as prickish as we should have. The end.
Monday, February 05, 2007
A whop bop a lou bop
Little Richard, "Tutti Frutti"
The same song, covered by Pat Boone
Notice anything different?
Yeah, I thought so too. Yes ladies and gentlemen, we're dealing with that Pat Boone. The glaringly incompetent, painfully white "artist" who made his bones in what can only be described as the last hurrah of segregated America: by ripping off decent black music, cleaning it up, sanitizing it, and playing it for white audiences too uptight to let a black man's voice in over their airwaves, much less through their front door, and laughing all the way to the bank (I mean, the guy had a top 20 single entitled "Gee Whittakers!" fer Christ's sake..)
In any case, the ages have not been kind to Mr. Boone. After trying his hand at acting in a memorably atrocious "inspirational" film about gang violence ("The Cross and the Swtichblade, gleefully taken down by World O' Crap here), and at a very straight laced and serious rendition of Metal tunes (a la Richard Cheese, only so much worse because Boone wasn't trying to be funny) and getting kicked off of his slot on Gospel America, Mr. Boone has spent the last few years trying his hand at motivational speaking and writing really shitty columns for Townhall.com. At this rate, drug addiction, destitution, life as a conspiracy-toting, alien-probed homeless derelict can't be far off. Readers in Nashville are advised to keep their eyes open.
Poor Darwin's false religion
Posted: February 3, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
There it was, glinting in the sand, something catching the searing sub-Saharan sun.
Given that Boone is something like 200 years old, I'd say there is a good chance that this story is semi-autobiographical.
The half conscious, desperately thirsty British airman first thought he was hallucinating.
The thought he had talent? Nah, even the sun won't make you that brain-baked crazy.
As he staggered toward the shiny object, he prayed it was something liquid, something that would cool his parched throat. But it wasn't; as he grasped it in his hand and shook the sand away, he realized he was holding a watch.
A watch!
This is the part where Boone's chracter rubs the lamp and the magic genie comes out, only to recognize Pat Boone and grant him the sweet release of death he so desperately longs for but hasn't the courage to ask about.
And not just a watch; soon after, when he'd been rescued and returned to England, he showed it to his superior officers and then to scientific experts.
Probably after having hidden it deep inside some filthy biological recess and thanking the lord that the Bedouins, unlike the Afrika Korps, don't believe in cavity searches.
At first, no one could identify the maker or even how old the timepiece was. Nothing quite like it had ever been seen. It was fashioned of finest 24-karat gold, the design magnificent, the face a gloriously transparent crystal, the wristband intricate and obviously very expensive.
And evidentally one of the only reasons why he was still around to tell the tale instead of spending the rest of his life with a chain around his neck, mining salt rock with his bare, bloody hands outside a Tunisian quarry.
And the most amazing feature: The sweep second hand was moving gracefully in one fluid motion around the Roman numerals – keeping absolutely perfect time – and it seemed to need no winding or even motion to keep it running!
Yes, not only did this magical device not require winding, but it's second hand was able to move without motion, evidentally powered by some kind of cold fusion or gravity cascade modulator. Clearly this device had been left behind by the ancient astronauts who helped build the pyramids and accidentally forgot to clean up all evidence of their influence on humanity.
DOH!!
Eventually, Darwinian scientists concluded that this exquisite artifact had not been manufactured; it had evolved, starting as a primitive sun dial from prehistoric times, swept and carried along and burnished by howling winds and-
Yes, just in case you were wondering, Mr. Pat "Gee Whittakers" Boone is about to take us on a rip-roaring rendition of the so-called "watchmaker anaology" of the universe. You know, the one in which ignorant and easily impressed humans point to some pretty and/or complicated bit of science and say "Behold! God must have made it, for there is no other explanation!!"? Yeah, that one. We're going to skip ahead here, as I assume you've heard it before. It was already someone discredited before Darwin bothered dropping the 8-ton anvil that was "Origin of Species" on it.
Anybody gullible enough to believe that sappy saga? No? Well, how about one even more farfetched and absurd?
For those of you amongst the audience familiar with these family-reunion types of conversations with semi-senile, long-winded senior citizens who can't remember what day of the week it is or how old you are but insist on regaling you with the story of the time they lost the keys to the Chevy Deville: this is it. Time to politely interrupt, start coughing, and then run and hide in the bathroom.
The vast universe, operating in such dependable precision we can confidently send human beings a quarter million miles into space, all the way to the surface of the moon, and back, safely. Our earth, moving in quiet orbit around the sun, so perfectly placed that life of all kinds flourish, while just a little distance closer or farther away, and the globe would not support life at all.
...A scientific community sufficiently respected and well-endowed financially speaking to actually do its freaking work without having idiots like Boone's ancestors yelling "ye hereticks! All the world knowes that ye sun doth revolve around the earthe and that ye moone is the largest of the planetes! Burn the witches!"
And all of this just "happened." No blueprint, no design, no intelligence, no creator or creation process. Just blind chance, and something called "evolution."
Well actually a single cosmic event known as the Big Bang which created the universe as you see it (complete with a few billion other observable planets, all of which have proven to be uninhabited thus far). This was of course followed by about 3 billion years of the earth just kind of sitting there, followed by another three billion years of life (beginning with the first naturally-occuring enzymes reacting to each other in unexpected ways, forming into more complex compounds, and then finally into single-celled organisms). If you doubt this, please make sure to have your appendix removed and stop taking modern antibiotics. Circa 1922 penecilin should be fine.
So in other words, Pat Boone's analogy would actually make sense if you added one condition: the British airman inhabited a world in a parallel dimension in which giant hordes of watches littered the land, mated and reproduced with each other, and the various naturally-occuring watch parts existed in abundance, constantly combining, recombining, and falling apart based on natural laws.
As absurd, as nonsensical as this concept is[...]
I agree. It's right up there with flying machines. If God wanted us to fly, he'd have given us wings and hollow bones.
[...]it's being swallowed whole and taught to our kids by college-educated, highly intelligent professors, encouraged by the National Education Association and militantly defended by the ACLU.
You know, people like Einstein, Pasteur, Mendel, Crick, Watson, Fleming, Hawkins, and the like. A bunch of yahoos who have never contributed anything worthwhile to society.
Not one of these Ph.D.s can explain what started it all, where the mass and energy (the basic ingredients of which all things consist) began or came from. They posit a "primordial ooze," little one-celled organisms, some cataclysmic "big bang" explosion from which our unfathomable universe was created, and buy into a fantastic theory in which millions of life forms "evolved" into what we now see all around us – and apparently on only this one relatively small rock in all of space. Nowhere else.
I agree. Because as we all know, the founding principle of western scientific thought, as so neatly summarized by Descartes and Occham is this: "if we can't explain it, blame God." What is Dark Matter? The will of God. What is Dark Energy? Satan's flatullence. How do galaxies form? God does it. Is there life beyond earth? Only if God created it. Are there other universes? If there are, God will let us know.
And not one Ph.D. I've ever heard – totally aware of one of the basic laws of science, "every action creates an equal and opposite reaction" – can hope to explain what the "action" was that created the "equal and opposite reaction" we call matter.
"How did matter form?" God made it.
In his wonderful book, "Darwin's Black Box," author Michael Behe details the current "biochemical challenge to evolution."
In which he also brings up the watchmaker's arguement, only with much more style and scientific cover material. Again, while Behe can attempt to mount challenges to pure Darwinistic evolution based on biochemisty (including some rather embarassingly disatrous canards he attempted to hide behind until he was made the laughinstock of the scientific community), but the fundamental problem remains. Arguing from ignorance is not solid science, nor philosophy. Example:
I come in Monday morning and there is a red coffee mug on my desk. "How did this get here?" I wonder, looking at the mug. I've never seen it before. It's not mine. I'm usually the last person to leave the office. I distinctly remember locking the door before leaving Friday night. The only possible explanation?
THE GHOST OF MY LONG-DEAD GRANDFATHER MUST HAVE PUT IT THERE!!!!
Hey, it's been known to happen. I suspect him in the dissappearance of the DVD remote as well.
As true science has developed and modern technology is ever more able to peer deeply into the whirling universe of subatomic particles, the concept that life marched forward, mutation by mutation, from "simple" cell to complex organism has been knocked into the proverbial cocked hat.
Well, maybe it was proverbial back when cocked hats were in fashion (c. 1775), but I'm not sure that still applies today.
The more powerful and probing our microscopes become, the more diverse and dizzyingly complicated the simplest building blocks become; each is a tiny pulsing universe in itself!
Besides, if you look closely into an electron microscope, you can see miniature angles assembling complex organisms from raw materials. It's true!
Consider this. In 1925, in the infamous Scopes "Monkey Trial," ACLU attorney Clarence Darrow took the position that it was bigotry to teach just one view of human origins!
Well considering the fact that at the time the Dayton, TN legal statues made it illegal to teach anything other than classic 7-day creationism, you can sort of see his point.
He was defending the right of the science teacher to offer the theory of evolution as an alternative to the long-accepted account of creation. And now, that same ACLU is instituting lawsuits all over America wherever anybody dares to offer Intelligent Design or any other alternative to the theory of evolution! What blatant hypocrisy!
They supported Evolution when it was legal and continue to support it today, no matter what crackpot religious theory lab-coated reverends come up with to challenge it. Freakin' hycoprites!
Likewise, I fully demand the ACLU defend my right to teach the less well-known (but equally valid) "flood theory" to explain the appearance of rainbows after thunderstorms. If they don't support my challenge to the commonly-accepted (but highly atheistic) "color spectrum" theory of rainbows, they're nothing but a bunch of lying two-faced cowards!
Here's one more pertinent consideration, never reported by the most devoted Darwinian: Charles Darwin's own statements, especially as he approached his own demise. Earlier in his life, he openly acknowledged "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe … as the result of blind chance or necessity." His subsequent disciples evidently dismiss that thought. Doesn't fit the "theory."
Because as we all know, Darwin was like Jesus. If he changed his mind about something, that immediately invalidates everything he ever did or said on a particular subject.
But in a fascinating book, John Myers' "Voices from the Edge of Eternity," we find the detailed personal account of Lady Hope, of Northfield, England, who visited the aging scientist often at his bedside during his last days. It's too long to recount well here, but she tells of the Bible he was reading constantly and of the worship services that took place regularly in the summerhouse in his garden[...]
"Blah, blah yoink, wadda Darwin was very religious honk, honk, booga, recanted on his deathbed, snook wizz kerbunk!"
Because...
1) Lady Hope is a liar
2) Even Creationists accept that Lady Hope's tales were highly fictionalized, and perhaps even made up out of whole cloth (some 33 YEARS after Darwin's death),
3) Darwin's recantation would not change a single thing. If Einstein recanted the theory of relativity on his death bed, it would not make a jot of difference, except insofar as his biographers would be concerned.
Charles Darwin may have birthed flawed theories, but in this case he proved prophetic.
Now, Dr. Jonathan Wells states flatly, "I think in 50 years, Darwinian evolution will be gone from the science curriculum. People will look back on it and ask how anyone could, in their right mind, have believed this, because it's so implausible when you look at the evidence."
The only thing that bugs me about the sentence is that I will have to wait 50 years to burst out laughing and sending Dr. Jonathan Wells taunting e-mails. Although by he will no doubt be dead by then, and I'll be busy trying to get it on with the hospital staff.
But 50 years could be enough to destroy the faith of two generations of our young, enough to replace it with a bankrupt false religion. Will we have the courage, the gumption, to make sure that doesn't happen?
Yes ladies and gentlemen. This is Pat Boone. Please, stay way from the horrors of rock and roll, for the good of your soul!
