This really creeps me out (thanks, Bromide)

here

Road trip, anyone?

Cocktails Cops Can't Resist
Bartenders revive classic cocktails. The law responds by reviving classic crackdowns.

On Monday, Virginia bartender Todd Thrasher helped Team USA win the Cocktail World Cup in New Zealand. (His winning cocktail involved artichoke aperitif, lime thyme syrup, and apple bitters. Suddenly those great mojitos you make don't seem so impressive, do they?) But when the sultan of swizzle sticks returns victorious to our shores, he won't find an entirely welcoming climate for his craft in the country that invented the word cocktail.

The Ten Commandments Are A Poor Substitute For A Moral Code

Whenever I hear Christians, even the more reasonable ones I work with, extol the virtues of the Ten Commandments, I end up having a rather heated and strange argument with otherwise sensible folk who ignorantly maintain that morality--and our democratic republican government--is based on them.

My arguments are not received well by these people. To quote Ayn Rand, "Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. " And any reasonable person can determine that virtually all of the first amendment to the constitution defies many of the Bible's top ten proscriptions.

Christopher Hitchens very deftly dissects the ten rules that will, in the end, purportedly determine whether any human is sent to an eternal torture chamber that makes Nazi concentration camps a comparative Disneyland. What is included, and what is left out, is telling of its origin. And nobody, and no court, and no governing body, needs them now.



Why has it never occurred to the religious that no society has made their Ten Commandments the law of the land and thrived or even survived?

Amateur Hour: Worse Than I Thought

Despite my Libertarian beliefs, I was happy enough to believe that a tax & spend President could at least fund something worthwhile. Short of removing all tax barriers for private space exploration (which no Congressman/woman will ever do), at least government could pave the way. Or so I thought.

from the Orlando Sentinel:

Obama aims to ax moon mission

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

Constellation: Earth, Moon, Mars

Helicopters Fly Over The Wall Of Separation

Governor Jindal of Louisiana, the creationist who has participated in an exorcism, is frequently touted as a potential Presidential hopeful for 2012. And while he didn't fly to Argentina to adulterate with a hot upgrade, he did use taxpayer money to be flown by helicopter to church services across his state.

Sound somewhat familiar?

Maddow nailed it:

Nevertheless, Jindal still has “a separation of church and state problem here,” reenforced Maddow. “… The governor has been sold to us as a fiscal conservative, a social moralist and an enemy of government waste. You know, none out of three ain’t all that bad, is it?”

And If He Wins, I'm Running To Another State...Make That Country

Roy Moore, the modern idol of all morondom, says he'll probably run for governor of Alabama. Again? Oh dear.

Some quotes from True Christian(TM), noted judicial scholar, and Real American(TM) Non-Activist (unless Jesus needs judicial activism) Judge Roy Moore:

• It can have a secular purpose and have a relationship to God because God was presumed to be both over the state and the church, and separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from government.
  
• It would bother me if a judge told me how I had to believe. (irony...meter...busted...)
  
• The First Amendment to the Constitution reflects that concept recognized in the Ten Commandments, that the duties we owe to God and the manner of discharging those duties are outside the purview of government. (Where in these commandments is government mentioned once, let alone its "purview" defined?)
  
• The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment. (WTF?)
  
• I stand before the Court of the Judiciary because I've done my oath. I've kept my oath. I have acknowledged God as the moral foundation of our law.
  
• God has chosen this time and this place so we can save our country and save our courts for our children. (Always for the children...)
• I believe that God is leading me to uphold the laws in Alabama and guide its policies. (His imaginary friend tells him how to uphold laws?)
  

And my favorite:

To disfavor practicing homosexuals in custody matters is not invidious discrimination, nor is it legislating personal morality. On the contrary, disfavoring practicing homosexuals in custody matters promotes the general welfare of the people of our State in accordance with our law, which is the duty of its public servants. Providing for the common good involves maintaining a public morality through both our criminal and civil codes, based upon the principles that right conscience demands, without encroaching on the jurisdiction of other institutions and the declared rights of individuals.

The State may not interfere with the internal governing, structure, and maintenance of the family, but the protection of the family is a responsibility of the State. Custody disputes involve decision-making by the State, within the limits of its sphere of authority, in a way that preserves the fundamental family structure. The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle.

Roy Moore believes that being a homo is a "criminal lifestyle." And he's running for governor. Of my state.

Although, it might be fun to find out exactly what it takes to force Obama to send the National Guard into Montgomery. Criminal persecution of homos? Giant crosses on public grounds? Ten Commandments posted in all schools? Prosecution of university professors for "subverting the family" by teaching not-the-bible? Who knows what crazy, anti-constitutional, bible-banging nonsense will cause our first black president to send in the National Guard. To Alabama. To stop a governor.

I changed my mind! I'm in: you can count on my vote Roy.

Judge Roy Moore reading something about graven images.

Thanks to Ed Brayton.

Prepare For Fundie Christian Protestations

President Obama in Turkey today:

I've said before that one of the great strengths of the United States is, although as I mentioned we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

I can't wait to find out how the Christers are going to twist, misquote, and generally take umbrage at such an enlightened statement about an Enlightenment-founded government.

ODS

Obama Derangement Syndrome
By David Horowitz

I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the Right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the “Bush Is Hitler” crowd on the Left.

Speaking of this crowd, have you seen any “I am so sorry” postings from that quarter as Obama continues and even escalates the former president's war policy in Afghanistan and attempts to consolidate his military occupation of Iraq?

Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the anti-Christ, although a disturbing number of people on the Right are convinced he is.

What the @#&%?!?

From Glenn Reynolds:

February 21, 2009

FIVE STATES CAUSED THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS? “The beneficiaries of taxpayer charity will be highly concentrated in just five states - California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Michigan. . . . It turns out that the five states with by far the highest foreclosure rates have some things in common with each other, but very little in common with most other states.”

UPDATE: Some thoughts from Dan Riehl.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “Whatever became of Rep. Laura Richardson? The Democratic Black Caucus member that no one talks about at all, the one with the 4 mortgages, all in foreclosure, the one who got to vote on the measure making debt forgiveness a non-taxable event? How about reviving interest in her touching case?”

Well, here’s a story on her multiple defaults from last summer. Plus, some thoughts on double standards.

MORE: Here’s a more recent article on Laura Richardson:

First Rep. Laura Richardson was having problems making house payments, defaulting six times over eight years.

Then after a bank foreclosed on her Sacramento house and sold it at auction in May, the Long Beach Democrat made such a stink that Washington Mutual, in an unusual move, grabbed it back and returned it to her.

This week, in the latest chapter in the housing saga, the Code Enforcement Department in Sacramento declared her home a “public nuisance.” The city has threatened to fine her as much as $5,000 a month if she doesn’t fix it up.

Neighbors in the upper-middle-class neighborhood complain that the sprinklers are never turned on and the grass and plants are dead or dying. The gate is broken, and windows are covered with brown paper.

Seems to me that she and her colleagues are taking about as good care of the country . . . .

Plus this: LAURA RICHARDSON PROMISES TO EXPLAIN ALL THOSE DEFAULTS–AFTER THE ELECTION. I don’t think she did. I love this bit:

“This election is about fiscal responsibility,” she said.

But she is defining fiscal responsibility narrowly.

”My personal [financial] experience is not what this particular election is about,” she emphasizes.

Your political class at work.

If this comes to pass, perhaps the other party will stop genuflecting to the religulous.

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.
P. J. O'Rourke

A Liberal Supermajority
Get ready for 'change' we haven't seen since 1965, or 1933.
WSJ

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on....

Finally, Congressional Oversight

Congress finally starts doing what it's supposed to: check the executive branch. No surprise it involves oil and Iraq, and it's not going to be pretty.

I don't think this story of oil deals should surprise anyone, nor should anything else that comes out of other congressional investigations into how this administrations was [not] run.

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

-Patrick Henry

I'm the decider.

-George W. Bush

Congress, hold him to those words.

Our Journalists Suck

I just heard an interview with Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security (gag), by the BBC. Were that our journalists so cogent and inquisitorial. The interview succeeded in making the administration he works for look like the disgusting authoritarians they are without his realizing it.

And try not to vomit when you read this and this.

I'm officially voting for a Democrat. For the second time. That makes me sad, but I'd rather the Supreme Court be filled by semi-lunatic fascists than by full-out ones. And at this point, my usual Libertarian protest vote just seems empty.

I WANT Republicans to lose, big-time. Because when they do, they become real Republicans. And because I really think that Hillary or Obama will be more fiscally responsible and more pro civil liberties than John McCain. Really. How fucking sad is that?

Unbelievable govt. waste

I've always hated farm subsidies, but this is... more than I can bear. Info here & here. More & more I consider finishing my career with another team.

Why I have lost confidence in this administration....

Nigeria, Iraq, Europe
by Hugh Fitzgerald at Jihad Watch


What does the attack on Kano, by fanatical Muslims against the local, Muslim-staffed symbol of the Nigerian state run mostly of, by, and for Muslim northerners, have to do with Iraq?

Everything. For the American government is monomaniacally fixated on Iraq, and the Executive branch, in its hallucinatory throes, tells Congress that it will leave "when the Iraqis tell us we can leave" but not when Congress tells Bush that it, as a representative of the American people, wishes to "tell us [that is, the Bush administration] when we can leave."

...

The Administration also does not look outside Iraq, at the larger local examples of Jihad or growing militancy that all contribute to one worldwide effort to keep Islam on the aggressive march. The belief that Iraq can serve as flypaper or as a "honeypot" to which all the "bad guys" -- as American soldiers are reduced to calling them, in an exhibition of the politically-correct infantilism of language that has been imposed -- will accommodatingly flock, there to be mowed down by the Americans and their "loyal" "Iraqi" "allies," (each of those three words deserves its own doubting quotation marks), has been proven wrong in every detail.

Read it all.