Mac to Mac on Iran Elections

Re-Tweeting Sara Robinson

Because eeeks is on summer holiday.

Memo to the Right Wing: Put Up or Shut Up

Dear Conservatives:

Your fellow Americans demand an answer -- and we want it now. Just one simple question:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

Just answer the question. Yes or no. Don't insult us with elisions, evasions, dithering, qualifications, or conditional answers. We need to know what your intentions are -- and we need to know NOW. People are being shot dead in the streets of America at the rate of several per month now. You may not want responsibility for this -- but the whackadoodles pulling the triggers make no bones about who put them up to this.

You did.

Update: PalMD weighs in with a memo of talking points. As the weekend simmers and the Fortstaffers prepare for another week of duelling pinheads, eeeks will be rehearsing her lines, she will. Eeeks likeses the telephoneses.

The Responsible Right (if such a thing still exists) needs to show itself, needs not to distance itself from hate, but to acknowledge it, then condemn it. Instead, the mouthpieces of conservatism are finding excuses.

But they don't get a pass for their excuses, for being "patriotic" or whatever else. They don't get to use tu quoque arguments to justify their own bigotry. They need to remember one of their favorite buzzwords: "responsibility". They will be held accountable for their words and actions one way or another, so they might as well own up to them.

If God doesn't matter to him, do you?

[R]eligion fails to provide a reasonable framework for morality, since it is so easily and regularly subverted to rationalize evil.

Biologist and Professor PZ Myers.

Is our school children learning?

Perhaps. But the minority party in Congress aren't: the rudderless Republicans doggedly continue piling up epic PR blunders such as this FAIL:

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Recent House Votes:
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21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act
Vote Passed (275-155, 3 Not Voting)

The House passed this bill that intends to modernize, renovate, and repair public school facilities.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry voted
NO

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Supplemental Appropriations, FY 2009
Vote Passed (368-60, 5 Not Voting)

The House approved this bill to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, security improvements in Pakistan and the national pandemic flu response.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry voted
YES
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Plenty of money to fight torture-justified, wet-dream wars in Eurasia but no money to edjucate our childrens. Sad. Pathetic.

Won't somebody give this man a pineapple?

OMAHA — U.S. Sen. Mike Johanns visited the Navy’s prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he says the conditions are more than adequate for the detainees held there.

He says facilities are modern and the detainees are given food, excellent medical care and time to pray daily.

Johanns says he fears pretty much anything that walks, talks and thinks for itself. Especially worrying to the freshman senator is the prospect of a U.S. foreign policy based on diplomacy instead of terror. Because Jebus is all about terror and brutality. Especially the brutality. And the terror.

Copied mostly from the Lincoln Journal-Star - thanks for the press release; sorry to hear about the recent negative income. Get back to me when there's a journalist on staff and the ad department is holding a bake sale.

I'm sure the good senator wasn't the least bit worried about the American citizen recently sentenced to eight years in an Iranian prison. I'm equally sure he's already preparing his annual Christ Mass gifts for American citizens still held in North Korea since, by his peculiar brand of justice, holding foreign citizens in prison indefinitely is okay as long as they have food, medical care and time to pray.

Where's Bernie?

...and where's Brownie? Not to mention Turd Blossom and leader of the Republican Party, Dick'n'Rush.

Mr. A, 39, 216 Street, was arrested on suspicion of four counts of felony theft by receiving stolen property and one misdemeanor theft charge.

Officer K.F. said on Tuesday police went to Mr. A.'s home and he consented to a search.

She said police found more than 29 items believed to have been stolen in residential and business burglaries, even a church, in the past two years. The stolen items included a computer, a MIG welder, a riding lawn mower stolen from a church, an all-terrain vehicle, a snowblower.

Flood alleged Mr. A. had bought the items far below their estimated value. A reasonable person should have known they'd been stolen, she said.

I guess that settles it then. If the reasonable person test is sufficient to send someone to jail....

But don't just take my word for it

Here's ultra-flaming-liberal Larry Wilkerson's take on the Party of No:

Less important but still busting my chops as a Republican, is the damage that the Sith Lord Cheney is doing to my political party.

He and Rush Limbaugh seem to be its leaders now. Lindsay Graham, John McCain, John Boehner, and all other Republicans of note seem to be either so enamored of Cheney-Limbaugh (or fearful of them?) or, on the other hand, so appalled by them, that the cat has their tongues. And meanwhile fewer Americans identify as Republicans than at any time since WWII. We're at 21% and falling--right in line with the number of cranks, reprobates, and loonies in the country.

When will we hear from those in my party who give a damn about their country and about the party of Lincoln?

When will someone of stature tell Dick Cheney that enough is enough? Go home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot quail with your friends--and your friends.

Stay out of our way as we try to repair the extensive damage you've done--to the country and to its Republican Party.

-- Lawrence Wilkerson
Washington Note

Thunderbird's wry sense of humor

Hands on the wheel, head in the sand

This just in from Congress.org

Recent House Votes:
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Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
Vote Passed (367-59, 1 Present, 6 Not Voting)

The House passed this fraud enforcement bill with an amendment to create a commission to investigate the causes of the financial crisis, sending the bill back to the Senate for its approval.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry voted
Not Voting


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Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act 
Vote Passed (300-114, 19 Not Voting)

The House approved this bill to reform mortgage lending practices.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry voted
Not Voting


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Barack Obama has used a nautical metaphor to describe the slow, slow turning of the giant ship of State. Perhaps these two abstentions indicate Rep. Fortenberry's tentative turning away from the dead-ender Republican Party's march into history. A welcome sign, even if for the wrong reason: political survival is not quite the same as the noble, self-sacrificing actions of a principled statesman, but, for these two instances, at least he's stopped doing the wrong thing.

One of Twelve (percent)

In 1938, something between eight and 30% of the American radio listeners believed War of the Worlds was real. Even notorious practical joker Adolf Hitler cited the panic as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of [American] democracy."


Hand, Richard J. (2006). Terror on the Air!: Horror Radio in America, 1931-1952. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland & Company. p. 7. ISBN 0-786-42367-6. via Wikipedia

---

The minutes raced by. Wayne Williams was now fully prostrate, held up only by a trio of coaches, each of whom took part of his writhing body and propped it up. Another bald man in the front of the chapel was now freaking out in Linda Blair fashion, roaring and making horrific demon noises.

"Rum-balakasha-oom!" shouted Fortenberry in tongues, waving a hand in front of Linda Blair Man. "Cooom-balakasha-froom! In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast out the demon of philosophy!"

Philosophy?

...

The whole thing — the demonic expulsions, the trading of miraculous wives' tales, the crazy End Times theology based on dire predictions that come and go uneventfully once a year or so — it's all a con that is done with the consent of the conned. Which is what gives it strength. If everybody agrees to believe, it is real.

Jesus Made Me Puke Matt Taibbi / Rolling Stone

---

• Cantor: GOP Recovery Strategy is “Just Saying No.”
• Despite Bipartisan Outreach, Every Single House Republican Voted Against Bill to Create or Save 3.5 Million Jobs.
• RNC Chairman Threatens To Withhold RNC Funds From GOP Senators (including Arlen Specter) Who Backed Stimulus.
• Republicans Oppose SCHIP Expansion: Bill to Provide Health Care for 11 Million Children Passes “Largely Along Party Lines.”
• Republicans Opposed Equal Pay Act, Bill Passes in Party Line Vote.
• Leader of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh: “I Hope he Fails."
• RNC Chairman Apologizes for Criticizing Limbaugh.
• Congressional Republicans “Rally Against Obama On Stem Cells.”

These clowns are in Congress because we sent them there. Well, no, that's not right; not all of us: The True Believers, those War-of-the-Worlds Believers, plus many whom the Believers distract with TV-praying, tittylating sports-n-guns sent 'em there. The rest of us stand around asking, "what just happened?" while mostly good and decent people like Chuck Hagel head for the hills.

flogging the fetus

...continuing from the previous post, here's Fortenberry's spokesperson slamming the Obama administration for being 'anti-science' regarding stem cell research:
Inadvertently cut from the above video, Pence's preparation for the interview:

concentrate... concentrate... I've got to concentrate... concentrate... concentrate... Hello?... hello... hello... Echo... echo... echo... Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon... Manny Mota... Mota... Mota...

And on an unrelated note, happy birthday, Weston!

embryonic stem cells cure blindness

(To Representative Jeff Fortenberry, R-NE)


Digression: What does it say about your values that the selection of "topics" for communication via the house.gov website lumps "Education and Labor" together whilst having no entry at all for Science?

--

In your recent "Bad Science" press release you assert "However, embryonic stem cell research has shown no clinical success." This easily falsified statement might well fool the Republican base here in Nebraska - there were apparently a village-full of people at the taxpayer-supported Lancaster Event Center for Teabagging on the 15th. Despite its popularity at home, a false statement about embryonic stem cell research is still false.

As articles such as this reach my attention, and if I'm not otherwise occupied, I'll be sending them in. While I honestly don't expect you to change your position anytime soon, at minimum you could stop telling this particular falsehood to your constituents.

----
www.timesonline.co.uk

From The Sunday Times
April 19, 2009
Blind to be cured with stem cells

BRITISH scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time.

This week Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical research company, will announce its financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.
----

Pfizer. One of your local corporate sponsors, no doubt.

Don't often hear that

"I ask you to look it up for yourself; you will not find it" claims Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., alpha male of NARTH, responding to a suggestion that the APA has a statement on their website that is somewhat critical of NARTH and its methods.

As the robust discussion between Nicolosi and a real scientist continued, the host of the interview busied himself with the Internet where he found, and subsequently read aloud, the highlighted section below:

American Psychological Association
Office of Public Communications
August 10, 2006

Statement of the American Psychological Association

For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the position’s espoused by NARTH and so-called conversion therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.
   Pamela Willenz
   Manager
   APA Public Affairs Office
   202-336 -5707
   pwillenz@apa.org
   ###


'Doctor' Nicolosi's response? "... I am very shocked. You got me on that one, you got me on that one" and with a chuckle, Owen Bennett Jones concluded the interview.

But. Notice the date on the Statement. One cannot read much on the NARTH website without recognizing their running battle with the APA. Google shows 299 instances of 'apa' on narth.com. It is simply inconceivable that in the past two-and-one-half years that Nicolosi hasn't been made aware of that APA Statement. Obvious conclusion: Nicolosi is a liar.

Much like the Republican Party motto: It's not Fascism when we do it, lying for Jesus is okay, especially if it's anti-gay.

Newshour, BBC World Service, 24 April, 2009.

The one-minute revelation (audio only):


The full nine-minute article (audio only):

Where the Money Does Go

"In fiscal year 2008, the federal government spent $3 trillion..." or you can just read their 4-page report. It's simple enough that even Gribbit or Grundel should have no further excuse for their flaming dog-poop-in-a-sack ignorance.

Scott, Sean, Adolph - BFF!

Nebraska radio boy has Hannity/Hitler hard-on, hopes for higher ratings. Thanks to PZ for the pointer to the goings-on in River City, but, really, this isn't exactly the attention we all had imagined.

Ya know, I try to be civil but the pressure to fling poo is strong.

UK scientists plan a major research project to see if synthetic human blood can be made from embryonic stem cells.

Led by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, the three year trial could provide an unlimited supply of blood for emergency transfusions.

BBC

Meanwhile, in the Great American Desert (it tends to be windy all year round), willful ignorance services ideology, as it has for millenia:

"...I oppose all forms of experimentation on human embryos, and do not believe that taxpayers should be fored to fund this type of activity. There is widespread evidence that such controversial and ethically divisive research, which requires the destruction of a human embryo, and therefore a human person, is ineffective. It also appears to be financially unsustainable absent generous federal subsidies. Unfortunately, many reports do not adequately distinguish among the different types of stem cell research, potentially contributing to significant public confusion on this important issue." - Fortenberry form letter, 3/16/2009

Yes, a report about "stem cells" might cause confusion - as opposed to reports by the Representative who goes out of his way to deliberately cause confusion. He conveniently lists shortcomings of scientific opposition versus the sublime success of The Good Life, buttressed by the occasional anti-science anecdote.

We could provide an unlimited supply of blood in this way

That's O-negative blood the Professor's talking about, the kind that can be transfused into anyone without fear of tissue rejection.
And where do these life-giving embryos originate? Petri dishes. They're from in-vitro fertilization procedures - the embryos that are not implanted. Unless used in research projects these embryos are destined for... the trash can.

Somewhere in this paragraph I would probably ask the Representative why he's not charging the fertility clinic operators with murder, but just this morning I saw a video clip of Representative Bat-shit crazy Bachmann questioning the Treasury Secretary of the United States of America. Given that context, my would-be rhetorical question becomes a disturbing prediction of future legislation coming from the Republican party. I'll just stop now.

In the gallows of paradox the scholars hunker, The Fortnight's festivities begin

Thanks, poetry muse, for a carefree title. Two weeks ago yesterday, this fella, friends, and extended family stopped by for a visit. We're still cleaning up around the house.

nobel prize games

Spycam

AND SO IT BEGINS.... As expected, the Employee Free Choice Act, a measure intended to make it easier for American workers to form unions, was introduced on the Hill today. The measure is often known as "card check," because it would give workers the right to form a union when a majority of employees sign cards saying they want one.

Huh? Seems like signing a card serves as invitation for later retaliation. I'd be worried about that if I signed a card at my job asking for a union... wait! That's right, I don't have a job - so employer reaction ain't going to be a problem. Senator Nelson (R_Lite-NE) tries to couch his opposition to the bill by invoking the word "worker"

Workers are “more concerned with keeping their jobs than organizing a union today,” the Democratic senator said

...which is as good a way as any to avoid real explanation explaining how being for the worker means to be against the worker. Heck, let's just go watch a football game, okay?

Carpetbaggin' Backlash

In United States history, carpetbaggers was the term southerners gave to northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction era, between 1865 and 1877. They formed a coalition with freedmen (freed slaves), and scalawags (southern whites who supported Reconstruction) in the Republican Party. Together they politically controlled former Confederate states for varying periods, 1867–1877.

The term carpetbaggers was used to describe the white northern Republican politicians who came South, arriving with their travel carpetbags. Southerners considered them ready to loot and plunder the defeated South.[1] Although the term is still an insult in common usage, in histories and reference works it is now used without derogatory intent.

--Wikipedia

Funny how things turn around over time. Like how it's trendy in some circles to compare recent Israeli governments with mid-20th Century NAZI activities.

Over at the OpenCongress website they have a clever voting trends analysis section that reports:

Rep. Jeffrey Fortenberry Voting Trends Analysis
The information below is an initial analysis of voting trends for this Member of Congress, calculated by cross-referencing all of this member's votes from the 110th Congress (Jan. 2007 - Dec. 2008). The results are intended to offer some helpful context for the place that this Member of Congress occupies in the Congressional landscape. In the next steps of site development, OpenCongress will incorporate more detailed analyses of voting trends to give you a comprehensive snapshot of every Member of Congress.

# Most often votes with: Rep. Charles Boustany [R, LA-7]

Aww, isn't that cute; they're like brothers!

Remind me sometime to tell the story about how a young Louisiana Republican wannabe with nice hair moves North to join the Republican War on Science and Other Stuff. It's American Dream meets American Idol.

Stemming the tide of stoopid

To Jeff Fortenberry, R-NE

In case you somehow missed it, here's the President of the United States - your President and mine - on science:

"I am also signing a Presidential Memorandum directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making. To ensure that in this new Administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science; that we appoint scientific advisors based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology; and that we are open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions. That is how we will harness the power of science to achieve our goals – to preserve our environment and protect our national security; to create the jobs of the future, and live longer, healthier lives."

As you mentioned in your recent press release, it seems that nowadays embryonic stem cells are inferior compared to induced pluripotent stem cells for human therapies. Maybe that situation will change over time; maybe not. Prayer will not answer that question. Scientific research will.

The larger point this issue raises, one far more appropriate for those people who are engaged in setting national policy, is that the ban on ES research was never based on science, rather, it was merely another Bush-era elevation of politics and ideology over reason and rational thinking. Kind of like torture. Or the jacked-up invasion of Iraq. Classifying legal advice as top secret. And so on.

Those days are thankfully behind us.

I urge you to chat with the good folks at UNMC in Omaha and see if their take on ES research is reasonable. They aren't generally regarded as kooks. Despite the apparent inferiority of embryonic stem cells, UNMC thinks this is a Good Thing. Perhaps they know something that we don't.

You can remain a faithful practitioner of your religion without pandering to fear, ignorance and hatred-of-the-other which, unfortunately, was a reliable vote-getter for the past few decades. For example, in this case you could have gotten out in front by finding and funding iPSC research right here in Nebraska. THAT would be something worthy of a press release.

I am looking forward with anticipation that day when you realize that obstruction, carping and denial are not helpful to the country, not helpful to the people of Nebraska and no longer sufficient to win an election.

Now. How about a press release showing what you're doing, not what you're not doing?