No greater truth.

Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

Decline and Fall

Jersey Shore. Train wreck. Can't look away. Time and brainpower, lost forever.

We Won

Granted, New York and Maine did not approve of the gays getting married. But we won anyway. The proof is below:

A Seattle high school video class (read: homos and artsy heteros) composed this all-in-one-take video to challenge their cross-town rivals.



I'm gay, and that's fucking gay (and is it just me, or is that the Pod People synthesizer playing in the background?). But the cross-town high school's response is, well, the fucking coolest thing you'll ever see a high school do at the instigation of the gays and their gay-adjacents.



We won. Rachel Maddow sums it up:

I'll Be Persecuted No Matter How Much I'm Not

Hands down, the dumbest diatribe I've ever heard.

THE commercial

The making of is excellent as well:

Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World

I love the Onion.

Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

Tigers love pepper. They hate cinnamon.

The Hangover is funny. It's that simple.

Bloody Squidmas!

I'll pass on the squiddy pudding.

The Bible's War On Christmas

The full verses are here.

Tommy's All Alright

So This Is Christmas...

Uganda and Rwanda both have measures pending that will persecute the gays, mostly by life imprisonment or death. The gays, after all, are responsible for the HIV plague that is ravaging their countries.

American evangelicals are responsible for this potential genocide. For years, they have been touting the anti-science Christian fiction that abstinence-only education works, and that it's the homos who are spreading the "evil." Now, as they try to back away from the genocide they secretly wished for but can't publicly admit to, they clumsily refuse to take accountability for their superstitious proselytizing and homophobic rants.

Could it be because being holy and "intimate with god" means never being wrong?

I would like to note that, in all the conferences to combat HIV that were held by Christian groups, American right-wing politicians, and superstitious African leaders, the following weren't present or considered necessary:

• epidemiologists
• virologists
• sociologists

Not a one.

Evil is real; imagined demons and devils pale in comparison to the live ones.

Let's All Celebrate Christ's Holy Virginal Birth

"I Told You Cha Cha Heels"

John Waters is a genius.

My story, "Service", to be published

The e-zine Hypersonic Tales bought my story "Service", the one with a satellite in a cotton field, and will publish text and audio versions of it in the very near future. Huzzah!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Stephen Segal Lawman. How can a 7th Dan aikido master be so ridiculous? "Push the bullet." "Watch his hands,he's going to run." And of course, he's always right. It's "Cops" meets "Kung Fu".

Let's go be champions boys!

Amazing

With the economy in the toilet, Chicago's planned Spire is a noble but dead dream. However, Roosevelt University will be constructing a new building, and it will stand out nicely in a city of stand-out architecture.

Defiant AND Beautiful

Someone should tell the many universities of the south that we don't really need Greco-Roman columns anymore. Really, we don't.

The Tears Are So Salty And Sweet

Beginning of the End

posted by a Malleteer, no less.

Great Commercial & a Smooth Whiskey

I Wept

From the floor of the New York State Senate, a brilliant woman, Diane Savino, made an impassioned yet sound and logical argument for LGBT equality:



The proposal to provide LGBT couples with equal rights was voted down. Even this appeal to reason and sanity was not enough.

This Weekend On Sirius 116

They Might Be Giants' live production of "Here Comes Science."

Arguments Vs Political Positioning Concerning Afghanistan

Galrahn at my favorite naval blog, Information Dissemination, provides a great commentary of Obama's speech regarding the increase of military forces to Afghanistan. Were that our cable channels so thorough and cogent. My favorite part, which touches on my earlier post:

Obama: Now, let me be clear: There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war during this review period. Instead, the review has allowed me to ask the hard questions and to explore all the different options, along with my national security team, our military, and civilian leadership in Afghanistan, and our key partners.

Information Dissemination: This is absolutely 100% accurate, and why people who have been crying about the Presidents "delay" are simply uninformed. Look at the historical statistics of casualties for OEF. Which armchair general on Fox News or anywhere else believes for a minute that the President has been wasting time? Whoever that person is; that is the person who I guess thinks we need to move our Army into Afghanistan just in time for winter.

Good strategy Mr. Political Talking Point... lets be like Napoleon and Hitler in Russia? On second thought, by acting now, we have time to prepare for the Spring offensive while the enemy huddles by the fire in their cave. In other words, we use mother nature to get a head start. That is the narrative that isn't mentioned in the political talking points, but I assure you is discussed in the DoD.

I know we have more to do in Afghanistan and that we have to do it. I find the whole endeavor distasteful, yet necessary. It's the best bad medicine that we can swallow now that the infection has been allowed to linger.

Nailed It!

Why Christian Morality Is No Measure Of The Latter

As Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, who thinks being gay is--to an unspecified degree--evil, pardoned a murderer and child raper. The guy found his way to Jesus, so why not?

The same guy just murdered four cops.

I'm all for justice, and I believe many felons earn clemency. But using religion as a guide for that power is as dangerous as it is stupid.

It's a Festivus Miracle!!

Mystery Science Theater 3000: XVI @ Amazon

And yes, that is THE Santa Claus.

Why I Loathe The Republican Word "Dither"

If you haven't heard the Republican apologetics concerning Afghanistan, their asserted criticism of the current administration is that Obama is "dithering." The few remaining sane Republicans have pointed out that additional troop requests were repeatedly rejected by Bush the Younger, and that Obama already sent more troops to Afghanistan in March.

But Republicans have one Army General (ahem!) complaining publicly, one who would have been fired before he had a chance to get on TV were Cheney still around. And so, every Republican sad-sack now uses the word "dithering," as though taking time to formulate and contemplate strategy is somehow gay and French. And as though 7 years didn't pass when they were in charge. How did we get to a point where 40,000 more troops were SO important to our strategy that not deploying them in a short few months allegedly becomes the difference between "surrender" and "victory?"

Note to Republicans: you lost power because you are not serious people who care about anything important. Proof?

Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

Yet, somehow, if a guy in office 11 months decides to take his time before sending 34,000 people into one of the world's worst shit-holes, he "dithers."

Christian Supplications Quelched By Tactical Indefatigability

After being ahead until the 4th quarter at home, Auburn (the 19-ranked "Christian" university in the country), is vanquished by an NFL-quality, clock-eating, "I-ain't-losing-to these-backward-ass-cow-fuckers" drive by Alabama.



We crushed their hopes; the salty tears taste sweet.

I Find This Funny

I used to say that if the US Navy wanted to know where the first Chinese SSBN was, they need only put two sailors out on opposite sides of San Francisco bay with hollowed out styrofoam coffee cups and place the rims to the water: that should be enough to triangulate its position.

Apparently, those two sailors are going to need to move to Hawaii: the new Chinese SSBN is noisier than a 70's-era Soviet clunker.

The problem is, the Chinese diesel-electric submarines are very quiet and only getting stealthier. That ups their home advantage, which may be all that counts with us. But if they want a global navy, they are way behind.

According To My Cable Oracle Box...

...the next episode of Fringe will involve human trafficking, the primary plot, and "squid-like creatures."

I'm This Excited

That episode will air Thursday, December 3. I'll have an extra pair of underwear close by.

Actual Useful Network Website

The network website for our new obsession, Fringe, is actually quite good. Useful season One recap, since we plowed through it.
And, of course, there's a wiki.

With added Walter goodness.

Worth The Ten Bucks

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have a download on iTunes that includes original accoustic recordings of some of their songs along with some of the album verstions that you may already have. However, you have to buy the full album to get the new recordings and the double-plus bonus: interviews about each of the songs.

Karen O is not a great interview; she gives lots of "uh"s and "um"s and "you know"s and some sound that resembles an octogenarian chain-smoker trying to hit a flat C (how does that raspy speaking voice make that singing voice?). But some of the nuggets from the interviews are great.

However, pay the $10 to get the greatest recording of "Maps" (my favorite song by them) EVER!

____________________________________________________

Oops! So you can buy the original songs individually, including "Maps," but you can't get the interviews. I'd buy it anyway: support good music.

I Want To Live Here

235 Van Buren in South Loop Chicago:


Good architecture is not dead! I demand someone buy me a condo here!

The Military Proves Lasers May Not Be Boring

Zap!

The footage I posted of an air-based laser clumsily cutting through a car engine pales in comparison to the above photo: a ground-based laser taking out a UAV. What's better, it used a "relatively low laser power" system.

Surely a nuclear engine of a carrier can support this level of defensive firepower...

A Confluence Of Unrelated Events

Our species lost a great actor this week: the incomparable Edward Woodward. The Wicker Man is one of the greatest suspence horror movies ever made, and I will leave it to one of Mr. Woodward's peers, the equally great Christopher Lee, to properly eulogize this great man:

The Wicker Man also starred Dracula actor Sir Christopher Lee, who described Woodward as “a good friend and a splendid actor”.

So say we all.

Edward Woodward's son Peter is a beloved Babylon 5 alumnus and a huge advocate of history education. Imagine my surprise when he appeared as a guest actor on Fringe this week.

I nearly cried as I jumped up and down in celebration of both him and his father.

Look sharp...

Inevitable

I can see y'all, maybe all of us, making the move in the near future, so when I saw this article there was little doubt it had to go up - A Windows User’s Crash Course In Switching To A Mac.

Sweet

Concept Art Offers Peek at Tim Burton’s Twisted Mind

Recently released images from Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland adaptation reminded moviegoers that the quirky London-based director possesses one of the most extravagant visual vocabularies of any filmmaker now working.

Underscoring that fact, New York’s Museum of Modern Art kicks off a Tim Burton retrospective Nov. 22 with a collection of 700 art pieces produced by the goth maestro over the past three decades.

As a companion piece, the auteur behind fantastical spectacles Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman and a host of other morbidly twisted movies is publishing The Art of Tim Burton, a 434-page tome packed with drawings, doodles, paintings and evocative concept art dating back to Burton’s teen years in Burbank, California.

Can't. Stop. Giggling.

Area Man Passionate Defender Of
What He Imagines Constitution To Be

TV Reviews

Star Wars: Clone Wars Season 2 "Landing At Point Rain"

While the first season was spotty, the second season has been almost nothing but good episodes. Now they've started a 4-episode arc surrounding a second invasion of Geonosis, and "Landing At Point Rain" was the first of that arc. And it was everything you hoped the prequel movies would be and weren't: war!



Fringe Season 2 "Earthling"


Fox has stated that it will continue to support this show, even though its ratings have slipped. Fox should: last week's episode was one of the best hours of network television I've watched in years. Spooky, kooky, and ooky (this episode: disturbing ooky), the show is a nice balance of unrelenting strangeness, persistent creepiness, and periodic terror.

If I had a religion...

Biblical Boycott

Maine rejected a gay marriage law. If Christian values are so important to them, then let's see it through:

Boycott Maine lobsters

After all, the Bible clearly states:

These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

Did Jesus eat lobster? I don't think so.

"Forbear To Judge, For We Are Sinners All"

Only a Shakespeare quote would be appropriate for the following:

The anti-gay marriage débutante-turned-Christian activist Carrie Prejean dropped her lawsuit against Miss America after they showed her a video she made of her masturbating...happily...for Jesus, I presume.

Carrie Showing What God And Silicone Gave Her

Please note that her parents, who she alleged taught her the Christian value of marriage, are divorced; and her mother accused her father of liking cock.

These Christians and their demons...

I love a good Venn diagram.

I Now Have No Balls...

"Suck it Jesus!"

...because I laughed them off watching Kathy Griffin's "Balls of Steel" on Bravo. You have to watch it: it's some seriously funny shit. And, Kathy (re)admits she's an atheist.

I laughed so hard I choked.

Makes sense.

SEC Replay Official Overturns
'Roe v. Wade'
TUSCALOOSA, AL—A Southeastern Conference replay official conducting a video review of a sideline catch during the Alabama-Tennessee game Saturday overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling... you guess it right off: The Onion.

Serious geekdom

HOO-RAY!

Robert Zemeckis is going to make a sequel to what is arguably his best film: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?!

Happy Halloween!

Pat Robertson Believes In Silver Shamrock

On Pat's website, a very disturbed woman wrote about Halloween:

"[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches,” Daniels wrote. “I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

So to Pat and his flock, the following is real:

Beware the magic pumpkin!

The Greatest Exhibits I've Ever Seen

Chicago's Field Museum: Evolving Planet.

Go there if you can.

Alabama's LCS May Just Get Picked

Just replace the mast with a stealthy column to support SPY-1F radars

With a new focus on ballistic missile defense, the Navy needs Aegis frigates. The problem is, the Littoral Combat Ships it's trying out are not the frigates it needs: they are multi-purpose pirate chasers and mine hunters. For half their cost, that would be fine. But they are turning out to be insufferably expensive, and we'll likely only need a handful for the mine-hunting, pirate-deterring role.

However, with a few modifications, the General Dynamics version may just work. It could be modified to an Aegis frigate. All that is needed is for the light radar SPY-1F to be amped up enough to detect in-coming ballistic missiles. That may take some money and time, but it would save the class and spare the US from having to start a new frigate class. And a cost of roughly $800 million would be a bargain. The GD competitor, however, could not support the SM-3, the Navy's anti-ballistic missile missile. So we may just be building frigates here after all...

Speaking Of JJ

Thanks to the Frank DeCaro Show, I'm addicted to Fringe. Of course, now it is in danger of being canceled.

Watch it. DVR it. It is X-Files meets Altered States. With some Twin Peeks thrown in.

JJ's Klingons F'n Rock

JJ Abrams' Star Trek originally had scenes with Klingons. Those scenes will be extras on the DVD. IO9 posted a clip of it.

Gladiator-masked, Number 2-like interrogator Klingons kick ass!

Jesus versus Gandalf Smack Down in the Village

I am, as usual, skeptical of "updates"of iconic tv & movies; but I'm willing to give this a chance.

Be seeing you.

Cinematic Truth

These Homophobes And Their Demons

Jonathan Methany of Gainesville, FL was an active opponent of a measure by the city that banned discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. One of the main arguments was that the measure would allow men to dress as women and go spy on unsuspecting ladies in restrooms. It's an absurd assertion, and it didn't work: the measure passed.

Methany has been caught spying on women with his cell phone camera in the restroom of the CVS he manages.

"When I Win The Lottery"

318 Forrest Ave, Oak Park, Chicago, IL

So Ahead Of Its Time

Flying cars never came to be, but I would still love to live here:

Chicago's Marina City

When building something actually meant something.

because I like you people

Latest cool science-y T-shirts - at io9 and TopatoCo.

I Finally Got My Favorite Pixies Cover

"I said this can't be me, it must be my double."

Way back when I was a teenager in high school, my best friend got a CD called I'm Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen. I loved Leonard Cohen, and I dubbed a copy of this tribute CD on a tape. Every morning of my high school senior year, I had an alarm clock with a tape deck that played the Pixies' cover of "I Can't Forget" to wake me up.

iTunes doesn't have the album, and none of the Pixies' compilations have this song. So I bought the CD off of Amazon. Sixteen years after I first heard it, "I Can't Forget" is still my favorite Pixies cover, and it remains one of the top ten songs they ever did. In addition, most of the other covers remain brilliant, including REM's "First We Take Manhattan" and Nick Cave's "Tower of Song."



"I'll be there today with a big bouquet of cactus."

Hard to Explain

Clyde and I both love the horror that is the movie The Salton Sea. Val Kilmer is the whacked out hero, but it's Vincent D'Onofrio as the incredibly frightening Pooh Bear meth dealer who makes the movie..

Now he got it for me for my birthday. Incredible! Never again will we wonder which of our thousands of hours of DVD's to watch.

I HAVE to.

I'm required to read Alister McGrath. Yes, THAT Alister McGrath. On the Reformation. I HAVE to. For my 500-level history class. Jiminy Cricket, what I have to go through to teach history to crazy teeners.

Movie Review: Outrage

This documentary could just as well be titled, "Why I Will Never Support Any Republican After 2003." If you have HBO, record and watch it.

How Many Times Have I Quoted Mrs. White?

Since I was barely a teenager, I have quoted Mrs. White's (played by Madeline Kahn) hilarious tirade from Clue. Now Buzz at Camp Blood has made it into a ringtone. So much for homos having separate interests...

"I hated her so much..."



You'll all be getting this ringtone assigned to you.

Lasers Are Boring

Below is the result of decades-long development of a military laser, here placed on an gunship.



Lasers are boring.

Black Francis: When They Come To Murder Me

Yeah Yeah Yeah Fans Will Find A Lot To Love

I bought and listened to the complete soundtrack to Where The Wild Things Are. If the movie is as good as the soundtrack, it will be a cult classic.

Naturally, Mr. Mulder

William Davis, who played the villainous "cigarette-smoking man" in X-files, is a skeptic and an atheist.

I Was Impressed

Star Wars: Clone Wars Season 2 premiered last night. I really enjoyed it, especially the zero-g battle pitting Anakin and clones against battle droids. Definitely worth checking out.

Recoil In Horror

Glenn Beck is the voice of the resistance. And he is a horror.



I have plenty of problems with idolizing any President of the United States. I had the same problems when Republicans did it to Bush the Younger. When I questioned their policies in Afghanistan and their grossly optimistic invasion strategy in Iraq, I was called anti-American, anti-patriotic, anti-military, and pro-defeat. As an atheist, I have been called worse by both sides. But this tirade is indicative of the modern Republican party, ruled now by the fetishists of the Christian moral authoritarians. No matter what the Democratic Party does from here on, it will be blamed on two groups: atheists and gays. We are their bete noir, their Michael Myers slashing their "rights" (read: Christian exceptionalism) through countless fantasy-narratives of invented persecution.

"If I Had My Way You'd Wear That Uniform For The Rest Of Your Pecker-Suckin' Life"

I went to see Inglourious Basterds. It is a spaghetti western set in Nazi-occupied France. And it is brilliant. I'll have to see it a couple of times more before I conclude that it's Quentin Tarantino's best film, but right now for me it is.

The All-American Weapon Of The Hostel "Bear Jew"

I am not surprised that the film is popular in Germany. After generations of guilt, and media-driven apologetics of "oh, but there were good Nazis who opposed Hitler," I understand the catharsis from seeing one's shameful historic, horrifying past put to a revenge fantasy. I was born in and now live in Alabama, and I wish this treatment would be done to the civil rights movement in the south. As someone who abhores the history of this fair state and yet is a product of it, I would relish in an anti-George Wallace revenge fantasy.

"There's a special level in hell for those who waste good scotch."

I would add that, were there a hell, another, lower level would be reserved for cowardly bigots who can't accept shame and defeat. That level would be filled with those southern "Americans" who still fetishise the Confederate flag. Can we start carving that symbol into their foreheads, since they are all too timid to do it themselves?

Karen O: All Is Love

From Where The Wild Things Are, available at iTunes:



Brilliant!

Water on the moon

Moon Water: A Game-Changing Discovery @ Space.com and images

We Grow

From USA Today:

Americans who don't identify with any religion are now 15% of the USA, but trends in a new study shows they could one day surpass the nation's largest denominations — including Catholics, now 24% of the nation.

No superstitions, no shackles...

My Pre-Ordered Copy Should Arrive Soon

Dawkins' new book, The Greatest Show On Earth, is available now.


For me, I assume it will be mostly elementary. But, like TMBG's Here Comes Science, one sometimes needs to know that a comprehensive, pedestrian scientific explanation is out there for the ignorant, obstinate superstitious among us. And we can relish in the book's simple explanatory glory, just as the religious enjoy reiterating their favored voodoo through verses and psalms. Only ours is based on reality and advocates hurting no one...

(B)V-1 Beetles

I really don't know what to think about this. It's either a great advancement towards getting my Jude Law-bot body or a scary omen of an insectoid robot-zombie holocaust.



Either way, I welcome my automaton-beetle overlords and beg for assimilation. Unless they can do that shit with squids.

A Great Article About Secretary Gates

From Wired:

Robert Gates: Overhaul the Pentagon

Well-Deserved Emmys

HBO's "Grey Gardens" won 6 Emmys, including "Best Made for TV Movie"[sic] and "Best Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie" (Jessica Lang). It deserved as much. We watched it because I had heard it was weird and interesting. Instead, it was a slice of retarded Americana, twisted yet familiar. Drew Barrymore also deserved an award, but oh well.

Watch it and you won't be disappointed.

Put The Gays In Charge

The Emmy's were unprecedentedly tolerable, thanks to alpha-gay host Neil Patrick Harris. When people receiving awards take time to thank the homo in charge for a job well done, one has to wonder: why aren't we in charge of more?

Harris pulled off the night with comedy and class; just watch the schmaltzy-turned-ballsy (and technically difficult) opening song he performed:



On another positive note, during the montage of "Drama TV in 2008," Battlestar Galactica was featured prominently. And people ballyhooed during it. Maybe one day scifi will be recognized...

Beyond The Republican Assertions About The End Of The European Missile Shield Program

The guys over at my favorite naval warfare blog, Information Dissemination, sum it up:

We seem to be heading towards one of two conclusions. Either big time sanctions are applied on Iran, or Israel attacks Iran by the end of the year. Today's actions suggest Russia will support the sanctions, but I guess we will have to wait and see.

They, like me, support this move by Secretary Gates. As the last post on this blog reiterates, the State Department is ill-equipped to handle the change, but it's a good one.

We have THAAD and Aegis (and the Israelis have Arrow). Theater ballistic missile defenses work. To continue to throw money at a system that would require massive expenditures to be deployed in a decade is retarded, especially when the whole point of the "shield" was to intimidate Russia. A few well-placed F-35s and F/A-18s, along with THAAD and Aegis, could do just as well.

Not the least bit surprised

Hitting Bottom in Foggy Bottom in Foreign Policy.

My Vote Wasn't Wasted: A "B-L-A-C-G-E-R" Who Will Always Defend His Minority Over Whites

I Take It Back

Maybe I wished that Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown was just a quasi-science fiction album and not a prophesy. With what's going on in this country now, the opus was the latter.

So, I change my review of Green Day's last album: 21st Century Breakdown is the best punk album of this decade.

If you've seen the evangelical Christian-driven racist protests fueled by Republican apologists/cynics, doesn't the following ring a bell?

I am a nation
a worker of pride
My debt to the status quo
The scars on my hands and a means to an end
It's all that I have to show

I swallowed my pride
and I choked on my Faith
I've given my heart and my soul
I've broken my fingers
And lied though my teeth
The pillar of damage control

I've been to the edge
And I've thrown the bouquet
Of flowers left over the grave
I sat in the waiting room
Wasting my time
And waiting for judgment day

Praise liberty
The freedom to obey
Is the song that strangles me
Well don't cross the line

Oooh dream, America dream
I can't even sleep
From the light's early dawn

Oooh scream, America scream
Believe what you see
From heroes and cons?!

Or, to quote my favorite radio liberal talk show: we have become a nation of "angry asshats."

I want to leave now...

As We All Suspected, Ned Is In Cahoots With The Undead

From Cute With Chris.

Mr. Deity Vs. Michael Shermer

I reiterate: Rule #1 - People are stupid.

Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America'. This is the sort of thing that makes me want to finish my career with another team.

Book Review: Republican Gomorrah

Max Blumenthal worked his way into the heart of the modern Republican machine and researched the origins of the Christian evangelical movement. His pedestrian result, Republican Gomorrah, still reads as a brilliant summary of what backed the Republican rise to power after the disastrous 70's and later took them down in the late 2000's: the sadomasochistic authoritarian wish-thinking of the religious right.

Blumenthal introduces his book with a story about Eisenhower, who despised McCarthy and the "persecution" thinking behind him. Using Eric Fromm's clinical dissection of the authoritarian mindset, he links RJ Rushdoony, Francis Schaeffer (who, strangely, was pro-gay), and James Dobson to the rise of an autocratic, fascistic anti-Enlightenment movement that hates the freedom it so cynically promotes.

Whilst narrating the lurid story of the rise and fall of the evangelical-driven Republican party, Blumenthal uses Fromm's Escape From Freedom to explain how its leaders and followers formed a culture of sadomasochism: prostate yourself to the master (here, the mass delusion of fundamentalist Christianity and its leaders), admitting you are a sinful creature in need of Jesus (and "Christian" father figures like Dobson). That masochism gives its followers the strength to sadistically prey on those considered lesser, weaker, and outside of "The Family." Twisted racism, misogyny, and homophobia were contemptuously played as "death" cards to rile a group of disillusioned, privileged middle-class white dopes into promoting a sectarian anti-egalitarian social agenda, a hoary righteous platform both espoused and ignored by the most cynical amoral reprobates imaginable, and a fiscally conservative agenda that was anything but.

One of the more interesting narratives in the book is how Dobson hated Gingrich and Armey because they were too "secular," ie they didn't pay homage to Dobson. If you wonder why the two moderate Republicans in the last election were Obama and Clinton, it's because Dobson systematically replaced any fiscal, reasonable conservative with superstitious twats subservient to the odious, born-again (and admitted Dobson follower) Tom DeLay.

McCain won the Republican nomination because the religious base was split between the fiscally moderate Mormon Romney (who believes that Jesus and Satan are brothers!) and the fiscally irresponsible Huckabee (who believes in every crazy anti-Semitic, racist superstition the religious right loves). After McCain won, the only way to appease those "Family" voters was: Sarah Palin, a hot meat puppet of the neocons who had the intellectual prowess of her Down Syndrome son Trig, and who was admittedly tied to Alaskan Christian Dominionists (many of whom wanted to secede from the US). As someone who lives in a part of our country that actively engaged in treason roughly 150 years ago, I have nothing but contempt for a woman who schtupps a former member of a secession party whilst campaigning that middle-class white people in fly-over country are "real Americans" --as though the multicultural, multi-religious, diverse people of industry living more closely together in urban areas aren't. Palin, and the religious right, failed to see that their charges against the elitism of the "others" were nothing more than a condemnation of their elitist simpleton culture. They still haven't grasped that moderate Americans have figured it out.

The book is sickening; it's no wonder the Republicans have lost every single intellectual supporter they had, from Goldwater to the Buckleys to libertarians like me.

And like Joe Scarborough, who nailed the recent "controversy" over Obama telling kids to work hard and study. Watch his visible revulsion and celebrate the last of the pragmatic (small r) Eisenhower republicans.

Uh Oh

Military rumor mills are buzzing:

• Ramadan ends on September 19.
• Iran has stated that it will continue its nuclear program, even as we agree to hold talks.
• Did Netanyahu go to an undisclosed Arab country on Monday?
• Did Netanyahu go to Russia this week?
• Without anyone saying anything, Putin states that attacking Iran is unacceptable?
• At the same time, we have deployed an unusual number of submarines.

Could be nothing, but there is another issue: the disappearance of the Arctic Sea. On the positive side, Le France has urged Russia not to sell air-defense missiles to Iran.

All of this could be a confluence of unrelated events. I'm not panicked, but I would not be surprised if war broke out within the next couple of weeks.

Speaking Of Carriers...

Here's a pic of potential B-2 fodder, the Chinese remodeling of the Russian carrier Varyag.

Apparently, China doesn't like Russia's island.

Even the Chinese aren't dumb enough to think that one carrier, or even a modest fleet of them, would ever engage the US Navy except during the most tense of diplomatic stand-offs. The point of a Chinese carrier is to protect interests abroad, same as ours. Should the US ever go to war with China, the US Air Force (with the power of Super Jesus behind them) would explode whatever warships our submarines didn't sink long before our carriers got within striking distance.

But having a carrier, even an old bad one, is better than none at all. And getting one signals China's wish to evolve into a global military power.

The United Kingdom Joins France (Kind Of)

The UK has started work on their new carriers, the first of which is the HMS Queen Elizabeth. What a horrible name, considering their current, aging carriers are named Invinsible, Illustrious, and Ark Royal. But then again, our next aircraft carrier is sadly named the USS Gerald Ford. I guess "Midway," Coral Sea," or "John F. Kennedy" seemed too political for a Republican congress to name a major warship class after...

HMS Queen Elizabeth, a medium carrier capable of catapult launches

Here's the good news: the UK has quietly stated that it will be buying F-35Cs instead of F-35Bs. The F-35Bs are the short take-off and landing versions of the F-35 Lightning 2, designed to replace the Harriers. The F-35Cs are the American carrier versions, which means that the UK carriers will support both catapults and arresting gear. In other words, they will not be light carriers: they will be oil-powered medium carriers.

Better 2 medium carriers than 3 light ones. Or even 4 light ones.

Le France may buy one, though they prefer nuclear power. I predict they will forgo these and instead build another nuclear carrier.

Here's my hope: with a medium, catapult carrier design going into production, maybe other European navies with light carriers will follow. If Spain and Italy build a medium-class carrier each, based on the British design, and France builds another large carrier, then we are golden. A European Union with 6 good carriers (and Japan with 3 light ones) will contribute more to global security than our having 1 over 10. And I question how we can ever justify a navy with over 10 supercarriers (and over 8 amphibious assault/light carriers) after 2020.

That's So Much Nicer Than The Horrible Stuff Ned Tells me

From Pharyngula.