Last post of the night

From The Onion:

Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked

Love it love it love it.

HJ

Brannon Howse cites Russian state-run media

Why? Well, the phrase gullible sucker moron comes to mind.

Go to Howse's site and look at part of the most recent conspiracy theory that Howse is willing to embrace uncritically.

When I looked at the video, I recognized none of the reporters' names or even the format of the broadcast. So, I looked up the reporters. I found them almost nowhere on the web. Seriously. Real reporters, well, report and get cited. They don't even really have a web presence. These people are not even in LexisNexis Academic, the Daddy Mac of all news databases. I did find out, however, that "RT," which appears at the bottom right, refers to "Russia Today." You will notice that the weather in the corner cycles through US cites and then goes to Moscow.

So, I went to the website to see what they are about. I looked in their "Americas" section to see what type of stories they typically ran. The first six are:

• CIA Tortured terror suspects in secret Lithuanian prison.
• Swine flu vaccine not considered safe.
• Health care debates in US heat up
• Georgia to take Gitmo detainees
• "In the name of fighting terrorism you don't become a terrorist"
• Hundreds of 9/11 first responders die of cancer

Pictures of Gitmo accompany 1/3 of the news stories. Very pro-America, of course, you know, in much the way Howse loves America by denouncing everything about it at every moment.

Some of the other prominent headlines on the America page include:

• Afghan drug trafficking brings US $50 billion a year
• Death in US immigration prisons in shadow
• Russia will never give up its deterrent forces

...and my favorite:

• Most US dollar bills used to snort coke.

Haha! I don't know about my bills, but maybe the ones in Brannon's wallet! Haha!

But it's the strange Russia headline that led me to think this might not be an entirely reliable news source. I went to wikiworld to get the straight poop.

Western state and commercial media claim that RT has close ties with the Russian state authorities and a few years after the channel started broadcasting, for being a "cheerleader" of the Kremlin, applying positive spin to reports about governmental institutions, refraining from criticizing Prime Minister and former Russian president Vladimir Putin or the government, and deliberately and incessantly engaging in US/NATO/EU-bashing through "interviews" in which only Russian ultra-nationalists or highly critical, anti-western "experts" are interviewed--without any probing questions or challenges by the RT reporters, and without even bothering to hear opposing points of view. A CBS News story contains allegations that RT is "a continuation of the old Soviet propaganda services". Western commercial media, including The New York Times, routinely call it "state-run."

And did you notice how the "expert" says that mercury in vaccines causes autism? Seriously, Brannon. Is that how low you are willing to go? Willing to side with Oprah's protege, Jenny McCarthy? Really? Willing to quote the official news media of Gog, or possibly Magog? A few months ago, Brannon had a show about how the Kremlin was infiltrating the United States. Why would Brannon suddenly flip sides and endorse the Russian state-run media? I mean, unless he had no principles. Why are you letting Worldview Weekend be used as the tool of the devil, Brannon?

Some of the other claims: 1/3 of British nurses will not take the vaccine because of possible side effects. That survey reflects public concern about the vaccine, one caused by scare-mongers like yourself! Do you see the echo-chamber effect, Brannon? You are your own news source, you self-referential weirdo. (This is how we got into Iraq, by the way.) And this has serious potential health effects. Undermining faith in basic public health initiatives like vaccinations, which have more than DOUBLED life expectancy in the west over the last 125 years, is a disgrace and is unconscionable. And did you see how the credulous and basically useless reporter said that the vaccine was similar to a vaccine that caused problems back in the '70s...what's wrong with that statement? IT SHEDS NO LIGHT ON THE ACTUAL VACCINE THAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. When you measure disease preventability against the cost of prevention and the annual number of fatalities, the flu is at the top of the list as the most cheaply preventable major communicable disease. And that is because of vaccination, damn it. By making irresponsible and wild claims about vaccination, you are putting not only the lives of Christian children at risk, but, ironically given the current health "debate," old people, who benefit from the principle of herd immunity and have a hard time fighting off flu and subsequent infections.

So, if the TV show has a crawler at the bottom, Howse thinks it is legitimate news. No doubt he has bought tons of miracle cures from Kevin Trudeau.

Would you let me call in to your show, Brannon? Please. I really want to know.

HJ

Bill Donohue: Proving Penn and Teller's point...

"Hey, the Catholic Church has been making its point for two thousand years, testifying by means of encyclicals, Vatican decrees and other papal bull! All we'll do tonight is a measly 30-minute cross-examination. Shouldn't GOD be able to defend himself?" --Penn and Teller

Bill Donohue apparently does not think so.

Protesting an episode of Bullshit! about how the Vatican, up to the present day, has bullied, intimidated and silenced all those who with inside knowledge of legal proceedings could have spoken out against priestly pedophilia (including victims) by promising God's eternal punishment, professional victim Bill Donohue tries to, like the object of his sublime adoration, Pope Ratzinger the Naughty, bully, intimidate, and silence critics of the Vatican. This time it's Penn and Teller.

It actually is the darkest of their shows, I think. But then again, I'm a recovering Catholic. (Thanks for the PhD, assholes!)

Here's the threat by Mr. Stinky Incense Jihad (no relation) himself, which arrived in my mailbox this afternoon:

August 31, 2009

MASS MAILING OF PENN & TELLER SHOW

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest developments regarding the Catholic League response to Penn & Teller’s incredible episode on Showtime last Thursday:

I was happy to finger CBS this morning on “Fox and Friends” as the ultimate culprit: Penn & Teller’s Nazi-like assault on Catholicism that took place on August 27 will go down in history as one of the most vile, obscene programs ever aired in any nation. That CBS, which owns Showtime, allows this to go on is positively unbelievable.

We are now getting copies made for a mass mailing later this week. We will send a copy of this episode to 414 bishops, and to hundreds of influential Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Mormon religious leaders across the United States. We will also send a copy to hundreds of activists and members of the media. Then we will feature what Penn & Teller have done in the next edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal; that will reach a huge audience. Moreover, I am already scheduled to do several radio shows on what happened.

We want everyone to know about what CBS considers fair game. There is no way to undo the damage already done, but CBS/Showtime can still drop Penn & Teller. The ball is in their court.

Contact CBS rep Nancy Tellem at nancy.tellem@tvc.cbs.com

Well, first, you need to notice that Bill has decided that the Vatican's reprehensible behavior should go unchallenged. It's a rhetorical move for when your client is completely reprehensible. Kill the messenger. And the messenger's parent company.

I would like to point out the massive violation of copyright law that Bill Donohue is planning and has already admitted to in this press release, which he could just as well have titled "Exhibit A." The NFL and Major League Baseball would crucify Bill (heheh) if he made and distributed copies of their shows. I see no reason why CBS/Showtime/P&T shouldn't do the same.

Of course, why should CBS listen to Donohue? He can't be trusted to call off his jihad on CBS EVEN IF CBS DOES WHAT HE WANTS! Seriously. Take, for instance, how Donohue treated a gallery that CANCELED AN ART EXHIBIT because of Donohue:

“While we are delighted with the outcome, we are not pleased with the comments of the gallery’s creative director, Matt Semler. For him to say that our objection to this outrageous display constitutes hate speech and is the equivalent of a fatwa shows how deliriously irresponsible this man is.

“Because we did not like the way the Roger Smith Hotel handled the decision to drop the display, we have no intention of contacting the 500 organizations that we alerted to this assault on Christian sensibilities to inform them that the exhibition has been cancelled.”

And why did the gallery cancel? What did Donohue not call off? I'll let the artistic director of the gallery (which was in a hotel) explain:

"In this situation, the hotel couldn't continue to be supportive because of a fear for their own safety," said Semler.

Please write to the CBS rep Contact Nancy Tellem at nancy.tellem@tvc.cbs.com, and let CBS know that they have nothing to gain by cooperating with Donohue. Here's the letter I sent, and I encourage you to send something similar:

Dear Ms. Tellem,

I wanted to write in support of Penn and Teller and to praise CBS and Showtime for their willingness to air controversial material that enriches public discourse.

I know that CBS will feel pressure from many areas to discipline Penn and Teller for exercising their right to free speech, but I should let you know that, in the past, when sponsors of controversial art have complied with his request, he has refused to call off his boycotts.

In April of 2007, following a controversy about a chocolate crucifix that led to threats of violence against an art gallery that ultimately COMPLIED with the Catholic League's demands, Donohue published the following statement:

“Because we did not like the way the Roger Smith Hotel handled the decision to drop the display, we have no intention of contacting the 500 organizations that we alerted to this assault on Christian sensibilities to inform them that the exhibition has been cancelled.”

Clearly, CBS has nothing to gain by cooperating with Bill Donohue, and I encourage you to continue to uphold the principle of free speech.

HJ

Animala does the medievalist equivalent of the Church Lady dance on the backs of Christian Beowulf literalists...

It's true. Animala, who moonlights as "Lucian Helzapoppin" at the JREF boards, has found and destroyed a...truly bizarre article about Beowulf ripping the arm off of...wait for it...no....not yet....an NOW!!!...a T-rex.

Big expletive.

HJ

Check out LOL Lunatic

Outside the Interzone has let the crazy out of the bag. Love it!

HJ

I'm heading to Dragon Con next Saturday. If you intend to attend, let me know! There is apparently a session with everyone that I wanted to see, especially Neil Innes, Adam Savage and MST3K vets. It's like they designed that session for me!

Karen Allen	Catherine Bach	Trace Beaulieu
Dirk Benedict	Julie Benz	Michael Connell Biehn
John Billingsley	Claudia Black	Barry Bostwick
Bruce Boxleitner	Doug Bradley	Ben Browder
Charisma Carpenter	Luciana Carro	James Cawley
Justin Chon	Claudia Christian	Frank Conniff
Bill Corbett	Anthony Daniels	Bruce Davison
Felicia Day	Thomas Dekker	Aaron Douglas
Richard Epcar	Peter Facinelli	Tom Felton
Lou Ferrigno	Joe Flanigan	Charles Fleischer
Louise Fletcher	Stephen Furst	Gil Gerard
Terry Gilliam	Ron Glass	Steve Gonsalves
»R.W. Goodwin	Erin Gray	Dean Haglund
Richard Hatch	Jason Hawes	Virginia Hey
Tobe Hooper	Gary Jones	Doug Jones
Alessandro Juliani	Peter Jurasik	Richard Kiel
»Shelia Larken	Gareth David Lloyd	Traci Lords
Rachel Luttrell	James Marsters	Peter Mayhew
Kandyse McClure	Mary McDonnell	Malcolm McDowell
Paul McGillion	Jason Momoa	Tony Moran
Kate Mulgrew	Leonard Nimoy	Edward James Olmos
»Jaime Paglia	Mary Jo Pehl	Eric Roberts
Cristine Rose	Alan Ruck	Adam Savage
John Schneider	Dwight Schultz	Tracy Scoggins
»William Shatner	Helen Slater	Dana Snyder
Patrick Stewart	Kristy Swanson	Michael Trucco
Lani John Tupu	Kate Vernon	Garrett Wang
Grant Wilson	Matthew Wood

I'm going to look for Richard Keil. He'll be hard to miss! And those pudspanks from TAPS better keep their nuts away from my foot.

And I'm totally going to buy a bunch of nerdy T-shirts. Awwwww-yeah!

HJ

Jonathan Falwell totally misleads his readers

I don't know about you, but I pay judges to ignore unimportant things, like the religion of people involved in a civil or criminal suit, and to pay attention only to those things that are relevant to the case at hand. Since we do not have Sharia courts, rulings should only necessarily support a reasonable interpretation of secular law. It should not primarily take into account the content religious beliefs. I know that there are some instances where these two magisteria conflict, but when they do, the secular law, insofar as it is Constitutional, needs to be upheld.

With this in mind, as an atheist, I was completely appalled by the wording of a ruling that is supposed to have recently came out of one of those completely indistinguishable New England states (New Hampshire). I'll take the quote from Falwell's article, "Is Diversity Threatening Christianity?"

A Christian homeschooled girl was ordered by a New Hampshire court this week to attend a public school because her faith is a "bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews."

No joke.

I am furious at the thought of a court actually ruling that someone's faith "must be sifted." It is not a court's decision to decide that someone needs to be well adjusted or equipped to handle the real world. Luckily, that link leads to WorldNetDaily, so I never really had to worry about the quote being accurate.

Check it.

When you examine the case, one that is apparently only getting any coverage at all in the fundamentalist and, ahem, survivalist blogosphere and not at all in the legitimate press (seriously, fundies, look who you guys are hanging out with), it is a parental dispute. It's slightly different than a custody battle, apparently. The mom is a fundie, apparently, educating at home, and the father wants his daughter to attend public school. So the parents brought this case to the court to decide. Right? OK.

But what about this ruling, eh wot? Let's look at the WorldNetDaily report, which, like many lazy news outlets, basically quotes a press release at length. Hey, beats working.

The dispute arose as part of a modification of a parenting plan for the girl. The parents divorced in 1999 when she was a newborn, and the mother has homeschooled her daughter since first grade with texts that meet all state standards.

In addition to homeschooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities, the ADF reported.

But during the process of negotiating the terms of the plan, a guardian ad litem appointed to participate concluded the girl "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith" and that the girl's interests "would be best served by exposure to a public school setting" and "different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief ... in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs."

According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, "If I want her in public school, she'll be in public school."

A guardian ad litem is a person appointed to represent the interests of the child for the duration of a legal action. While they are appointed by the court, they do not represent the court. They may be paid by the parents (that apparently varies by state), but they do not represent the parents. They are independent social workers, volunteers, or lawyers who take on the responsibility of representing someone who is unable to represent herself.

I want to know which court documents that last statement came from, but all I can find is the uninstructive phrase "court documents." Indeed every search I found only refers to "court documents," except for one homeschooling blog that just accepts the claim that as fact. I suspect that such testimony comes from the mother's camp, though nobody seems to have bothered to report in such a way that proves me wrong that this was merely a charge, not an established, proven fact.

But what about the assertion that Falwell starts off with?

A Christian homeschooled girl was ordered by a New Hampshire court this week to attend a public school because her faith is a "bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews."

Was this the wording of the court? Where does that information come from? Because I am fully prepared to express outrage and solidarity with my Christian fellow citizens on this one if it came from the court. Let's go to the Alliance Defense Fund press release:

“Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children. In this case specifically, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working,” said ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons of Hampton. “The court is essentially saying that the evidence shows that, socially and academically, this girl is doing great, but her religious beliefs are a bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews. This is a step too far for any court to take.”

Goddamnitalltohell! You were quoting the lawyers?!? Jeezis.

The ruling itself is available online, wherein one encounters this ripe little slice of hell:

I mean, c'mon. If you are going to say the mother has absolute rights, so does the father, and this is clearly a bad deal. Of course, this is why the parents agreed have someone outside the family represent the best interests of the child when it came to important decisions.

But that was not the only indication that there were problems caused by homeschooling. The guardian recommended that the girl see a counselor. When that report came back, it sort of looked like this:
Trying to save the court appointed psychologist. How cute and telling.

What about that statement about the guardian basically imposing her/his will on the mother? Well, it seems that there is some question about how reliable charges by the mother in fact are:

Eek! Someone made charges they could not back up, it looks like, and it hurt their case. I think I am going to talk about ethos with my class on Monday.

But certainly home school wasn't effecting the girl's ability to form relationships with other kids or having an effect on the school work that she was doing to meet local educational standards!
Ouch. But at least the court cravenly barged in and eagerly futzed with the private lives of these citizens, right? I mean, throw me a fricken bone!

Ahh! C'mon, Jonathan, didn't you report on anything that actually happened!?! They must have at least dickered with what the parents are allowed to teach the girl. I mean, big violation there, right!?!
Homeschooling is not a religious right. It is not an intrinsic right of parenting, either. The ADF can argue that it is, of course, and that makes me happy because they are going to lose every time.

HJ

Why I left religion...

I'm joining a group on Facebook and you apparently need to share your deconversion experience. So check it:

I was born at a very young age into a Catholic family. I went through the Catholic education system through college, including Notre Dame. Let's face it, I was good at theology. I could justify anything. In my college theology class (which, to its credit, was systematic and not dogmatic), I think I missed one question the entire semester. I had mad Bible knowledge skillz.

Now, after about the first half of freshman year I stopped attending weekly mass in the chapel, and the only thing I did in church during my year in Catholic Spain was take pictures. So, I had drifted. But you know, still game, I guess.

There were some very early signs that I was not cut out for religion (or, as I later realized, that it was not cut out for me). I think the first sign that what I was doing was completely mindless was when I decided not to say anything during Mass. I was in 5th grade, and it was something to do during Mass (which, all through high school, I would attend only to oggle tits). My reasoning was that "Well, God knows what I think. He hears me praying silently to myself. So, why should I have to open my gob?" I was gobsmacked, therefore, when the teacher came up to me after Mass and actually scolded me and said, "Bingy (I was young), you didn't say one thing during Mass." My thought was, "Well, why is that necessary? I mean, what's the point if He already knows? I can't believe you noticed." But I'm sure I mumbled that I was sorry I was not Catholic enough or something, but that little slice of absurdity always stuck with me. The other thing was the rote memorization of prayers during religion class. We were graded for memorizing prayers.

When I was in fourth grade, I was talking in class or something, and my teacher, a nun said, "Bingy, was that you who was talking?" And through my 4th grade mind I thought, well, I'm supposed to tell the truth. "Yes." And she banned me from using a pen, which we had started doing and was a big sign of prestige for the kids. Well, I sure learned my lesson. Don't tell nuns the truth.

Bitch.

I was never a good Catholic. No Catholics are ever good Catholics (this is doubly true for the really Catholic ones). I think that the last flirtation with the faith was when the Pope came to St. Louis. I was charmed, but I later found out that we were used as propaganda. The only way you could go downtown to see the Pope was to take a bus to the riverfront and then to walk to the event from there. That was how it was done. This was the youth day, mind you. All the young people in the city who were going went that way; we HAD to. On the news that night, we were described as something along the lines of "Youth marching in support of the Pope." No. We were forced to do that. It would have made more sense to just drop us off near by, but that was how it was spun. I was really pissed off. That was the last time that they would use me.

The Catholic sex scandal ended it for me. After that, any pretense to claim legitimate moral authority with a clear conscience on the part of Church officials was permanently shattered, and I became convinced, on the whole, that the world was worse off for its presence, really. Not that they are taking over the world or anything. Just that they exert power for the sake of exerting power. I have no use for that anymore.

Also, since then, I have blossomed into a sort of serious academic who occasionally makes poop jokes.

HJ

I have a feeling Brian Dunning is going to give Chuck Baldwin total and complete butthurt

Last week, Chuck Baldwin went off his meds and started raving about the FEMA death camps. It was an episode of "This Week in Batshit" that I really enjoyed and got a lot of mileage out of (see "Touring My Friendly Neighborhood FEMA Death Camp"). But this week, I was more annoyed for Brian Dunning, the evil genius behind Skeptoid. I pulled this rotting weasel carcass of an article out of the gutter that is..oh, who the fuck knows anymore? Seriously. I was just looking at it, and I have no idea. Rather than give the illusion that these sites have original content, and to underscore the fact that the sites I visit on a daily basis are all completely indistinguishable at this point, well, I'll just call it OneWorldviewProphecy. I mean, does it really matter anymore?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column questioning why it was necessary for our federal government to be constructing internment camps all over America (See the original column at Chuck Baldwin Live).

I felt it was time for someone such as me to publicly broach the subject. Needless to say, the response was overwhelming. Even more interesting is the fact that the web link to the National Guard Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) of "Internment / Resettlement Specialist" that I included in my column was removed shortly after the column was published. Was this a coincidence?

Yep. The story had made the nutter rounds, so I'm positive that either the National Guard is sick of fielding questions from asshats or they filled the position. That ad was as dull as dirt. It was for an MP in the National Guard, who, let's face it, will likely get shipped to Iraq or some other shithole on earth. The fact that they had to take it down means that someone who should have been killing al-Qaida operatives had to waste a fucking second changing the website. And by the way, thanks ever so much for bringing to our attention a conspiracy that has been around since the 1960s. You are cutting-edge crazy. I mean, Cripes! How long does it take before the conspiracy is well and truly self-debunked by virtue of not taking place?

Of course, the U.S. Army still has their web site soliciting recruitment for "Internment / Resettlement Specialist" online.

And it too is completely unremarkable.

How afraid could you actually be of an outfit that was so incompetent at pulling off a coup that it was putting ads about it in the paper? I mean, really? It's like going into a gun store and asking, "How many cops you think I could kill with that rifle?"

Don't fuck w/ Mr. Paws, Chuck.

Predictably, I heard from a sizeable number of readers who expressed concern about my "credibility." Some were more direct: descriptions such as "conspiracy nut," "lunatic," "fringe," etc., popped up quite often. Several readers dismissed the entire proposition on the basis that, apparently, the link I provided to a photo of one such camp that was reported in the Idaho Observer as a FEMA camp was actually constructed in another country.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Heehee. Dickweed.

Which, if true, changes nothing, of course. Others pointed to a very shallow "exposé" published in Popular Mechanics that attempted (lamely) to debunk the whole notion of internment camps. This was the same source Glenn Beck used to dismiss the idea.

If Glenn Beck doesn't believe it, it's probably true. But look at how you dismiss the PM article: "It's lame." Not even addressing the thumping that they give your idiot position. Pathetic. It's like you are trying to lose the argument.

The lowest point of the whole article, however, was when he tried to marshal Brian Dunning as support for his position, who said a few weeks ago:

"When I first heard the FEMA Prison Camp conspiracy story, it seemed ridiculous and paranoid at face value. But when I finally dug in to research it, I started by searching for the origins of the rumors, and found to my surprise that nearly all of the legal foundation and precedent for such a plan does in fact exist."

If you were a student, I'd fail you for misusing sources, you twerp. Dunning concludes:

"I don't remember anyone electing a politician who wants to throw millions of Americans into prison camps. To make effective electoral decisions, you need to maintain a healthy skepticism, and not go off the deep end and suppose that every Halliburton contract is a slippery slope leading to Americans being gassed in military concentration camps. If you see barbed wire around a train yard, consider the possibility of other explanations (like the train company doesn't need stuff being stolen) before you conclude that the Illuminati are out to kill you."

Chuck. Saying something is "plausible" and something is "probable" are completely different cases and demand different standards of evidence. To simply ignore the difference is dishonest.

I'm warning you now, if you ever park in front of my apartment, I'm peeing in your gas tank.

HJ

Glenn Beck is breaking up!

I saw him briefly today, ridiculing children with no arms. He deserves the ruin that he is bringing upon himself.

HJ

Good ol' Onion...

"Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta"

I love it. Just when I get burned out on the wacky, they pull this out. Yay!

HJ

Improvisational Teaching

I'm a big believer in it. Today, for example, I am introducing my students to the concept of the "claim" and the basic structure of argument. I am going to use the Toulmin model, as I always do, but this time I am not going to teach it as a formula for constructing argument. Rather, I am going to talk about it as a tool for analyzing arguments.

The damned thing is, however, that I never know exactly what is going to come out of my mouth when I get up in front of the class. I'm ok with this. I consider myself a fighter-jockey type of teacher, pulling high Gs and generally assaulting my students' intellect from all possible angles at once. I'm a sort of an intellectual Sidewinder. Unfortunately, because I am incapable of predicting, much less controlling, what will come out of my mouth, I think that any digital revolution in teaching that incorporated streaming video capture would be the end of me.

The key, of course, is acting as if where I end up is where I intended to end up. For this one, because there are foundational technical terms that I want them to be familiar with, I am going to have a cheat sheet with me, just to make sure I put my foot on all of the bases.

Alright, there is lightning now. I can't wait to cross campus for my second class. Oh wait, yes I can.

HJ

Cheerios and snot

With an appetizing name like that, who could help but read along?

I'm pretty tired, fighting off a cold. At my campus, the number of H1N1 cases has shot up remarkably over the last week from 20 to something like 200. The student health service is overwhelmed. Everyone's going to get it, mefears.

Was introduced to the college faculty today. It was really the only reason I was on campus today. I was told to wear adult clothes. (I asked, "Does that mean that I am a big boy now, and nobody tells me what to wear?") Then it was out for noodles with my fellow new hires. I managed to get a noodle onto a chopstick, which was quite an accomplishment. After that, I went to the first meeting of a committee I signed on to. They are organizing a conference for the spring, and I thought that I would check it out since it was the type of thing I often did in grad school. Well, the topic was not really where I am hoping to go with my research in the future. But, you know, I'm pitching in for the good of the department and trying to show them that I am a team player. Yippee hurrah!

I have had such a hard time organizing this semester's classes, and I am not sure why. There is the whole "Completely new program with unique, specific objectives" thing.

My God, I hate the rhetoric book I'm forced to use. That's what's doing me in. I'm used to sitting down with the sucker and lining up my topical assignments with the technical readings in the rhetoric book. The book is inaccessible. That's all I have to say.

I feel like I have been slacking at the blog lately, for which I apologize. I'm not teaching a 1-1 load this year, as I feel is my birthright. That means I spend a lot of time actually working. Yikes! I certainly have not had enough time to do a podcast! Whew! I mean, I'm still collecting weird, as I do, but I just haven't had a chance to sit down and sort through it, chop it into little awful nuggets of goof and mock it mercilessly. Part of the problem is a sort of burnout that you get when you slog through the weirdness and unreason of the world every single day. It's taxing and demoralizing.

Gonna read for class tomorrow.

HJ

Brannon Howse is still spreading antisemitism

In my recent podcast about the roots of Howse's perverse and conspiratorial worldview, I was generous in not speculating about the motives of the various contributors to his cash cow, Worldview Weekend. Except for one contributor, who named Jewish names and quoted antisemitic propaganda outright. That was James Quinn. Howse has apparently decided that he would continue to pander to antisemites and continue to publish this twisted and increasingly shrill botch's feeble arguments. I really did go to a library and research this guy's statements and found where they came from. I'm right about this.

Quinn's current article on Worldview Weekend is "The Federal Reserve Must Die."

I will reprint the relevant portion of the podcast and transcript below. It is important, I believe, to continue to press Howse use his discretion to drop this contributor, or, if not, to at least publicly acknowledge that he endorses the views and opinions of Quinn.

Points 6, 7, 8 [of the Protocols]: “Jews manipulate the economy, especially through banking monopolies and the power of gold;” “Jews issue paper currency not tied to the gold standard,”and "Jews promote financial speculation and use of credit.”

I have long wondered why a preacher like Howse is perennially concerned with the economy, the Federal Reserve Bank, and a preference for the gold standard to a floating currency. His amateurish preoccupation with financial matters runs throughout his website. The depressing reality is that bigots have traditionally implicated wealthy Jews with financial manipulation and unscrupulous business practices. Until the modern era, Christians have generally considered loaning on credit a sin. The Jews, as far back as Jesus' rampage through the Temple, have attached no taboo to the practice. When Jewish communities were sequestered and relegated to European ghettos, they established what might be called parallel economies. They had their own social structures and business leaders and, per force of exclusion, encountered less competition with outside businesses. When the ghettos opened up, these wealthy Jews started competing, like good capitalists, with Christians' businesses. This new source of competition was, of course, not really welcome, and many Gentiles painted their new Jewish competitors in racist terms.

More recently, people who either prefer to not think of themselves as racists or who are racists but do not want to appear to be racists, have substituted "international Jews" with "international bankers." In the context of modern conspiracies, it is perhaps impossible to miss the anti-Semitic roots of these particular concerns. This is not to say one may never speak critically about "international business" of any type, even banking, but when one posits a cabal of unreasonably powerful international money-grubbers manipulating world markets because they can, it is hard to avoid that this role was originally was assigned to Jews. Again, I need to stress that I am not saying that Howse is an antisemite. He just applies the perceived social structures described in the Protocols and reassigns responsibility to another agent.

In an article from March 25, 2008 called "Past Presidents Have Warned Us About the Danger and Corruption of a Central Bank (The Federal Reserve)" (http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-3264/Brannon-Howse/Brannon-Howse), Howse is pretty explicit about his fear of a central banking system in his opening lines:

Few Americans know the truth about the Federal Reserve. The reality is it is no more a part of the federal government than is Federal Express. The Federal Reserve is a private corporation run by private bankers.

Why should you care? Because as President Thomas Jefferson, President Andrew Jackson and President Woodrow Wilson all understood, a private central bank has the power to destroy our lives and steal our freedoms.

OK, so that's not exactly true. The people who are running the Fed are a council of 12 people. 7 of these are appointed by the President. The other ones are rotating regional Reserve Bank chairs. The appointments are staggered and nobody owns it. The composition of the Central Board is such that an appointment spans administrations. They aren't the Rothschilds. The Fed is hardly in the hands of private bankers who work for their own personal gain. We'll meet the Rothschilds in a moment.

Yes, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson opposed the idea of a national bank, but relying on their advice to set modern information-age monetary policy makes as much sense as asking the last century's revolutionary genius Albert Einstein for a haircut. That is to say, it is an appeal to a false authority. At any rate, have you seen Einstein's hair? I mean, really, what were you thinking?

So, what is the Fed and what does it do? I generally take little notice of the day-to-day functioning of the Federal Reserve Bank. Arthur MacEwan, economics professor at U Mass, however, spends a good deal of time worrying about it professionally. In his Spring 2007 Dollars & Sense column (http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2007/0507drdollar.html), MacEwan sorts out some of the confusion of right-wing conspiracists with respect to the Federal Reserve. First, he patiently explains that there are a number of powerful sectors in the encomony, for instance, the energy, communication and transportation sectors, so while the Fed is important, it by no means has a monopoly on economic activity. Second, these sectors have competing and often directly contradictory interests; one example MacEwan cites is bankers' desire to be free of government regulation while reaping the benefits of the stability that is brought by regulation. Third, the Fed simply is not omnipotent; it exerts heavy influence over short term lending rates. It has no control over long-term interest rates, which heavily influence major investment planning. MacEwan explains what the Fed does:

The Fed has a variety of functions involving regulation of the banking system, including influencing the amount of money in circulation and interest rates (the price people pay to use other people's money). Of special importance, the Fed can influence the amount of loans that banks issue. When a bank issues a loan, this creates more spending power. This spending power (usually in the form of increasing the amount in the borrower's checking account) is the same thing as more money in circulation. So by influencing banks' loan actions, the Fed influences the money supp government to engage in excessive spending: the government can borrow from the public, but then, because of inflation, can repay in dollars that have less worth.

This fascination of some right-wingers with inflation and the debasement of the currency is ironic because, in fact, the Fed often (although not always) acts in exactly the opposite manner—limiting the growth of the money supply and restricting inflation.

When I came across this column, specifically looking for information about the functioning of the Federal Reserve, I was looking for a baseline understanding of the Federal banking system. But MacEwan gets to where I was going first:

Finally, while I am sure that there are many decent people who see the Fed and the bankers as the source of the world's problems, this view is often part of a larger anti-Semitism. The focus on "Jewish financiers" (the Rothschilds, for example) as the source of our economic and other problems is as old as it is wrong and offensive.

Luckily, Howse's site has never taken issue with the Rothschild family, I mean, except on May 26th of this year, when it printed James Quinn's article, "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" (http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-4964/Brannon-Howse/James-Quinn). Oh, and another Quinn article, "Grand Illusion-The Federal Reserve" (http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-4717/Brannon-Howse/James-Quinn). In "Ain't no Rest for the Wicked," Quinn says that we can identify the historical roots of the current financial crisis, and he opens the section with a quote from Mayer Amschel Rothschild:

"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."

Quinn goes on:

When the banking cartel succeeded in creating the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, control of money in the United States was put into the hands of bankers whose sole purpose is to enrich themselves at the expense of the citizens of the country. Their relentless printing of money has resulted in the dollar losing 96% of its value since 1913. The printing of dollars has allowed politicians to spend money today and make unfunded commitments decades into the future. The systematic inflation created by the Federal Reserve is immoral as it impoverishes the middle class and senior citizens for the benefit of bankers, the elite rich and entrenched politicians. Much of the moral decay in our nation can be traced to the manipulation of money in the last 8 decades.

In "The Grand Illusion--The Federal Reserve," Quinn exposes himself really to be a barenaked anti-Semite at heart. He quotes a letter said to be authored by the Rothschilds:

"Those few who can understand the system (check book money and credit) will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on it favors, that there will be little opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear it burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."

I was unable to trace the source of the letter to a date earlier than 1933, when it was published by Father Coughlin, a virulent and open antisemite and, in a bitter irony, a founding founder of shock- and hate-radio. I was able to find the quote on page 88 of Coughlin's 1933 The New Deal in Money. In it, Coughlin writes: "In an unfortunate letter which was never intended to fall into hostile hands, the Rothschilds on June 25, 1863, confided the following admission to a firm of bankers by the name of Ikleheimer, resident of 3 Wall Street. In part," Coughlin says, "the letter reads as follows: 'the great body of people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.' The quote was picked up by the fascist poet Ezra Pound, who said the lines came from a letter in the 1860s and referred to the Jews staging the American Civil War. I personally find that hard to believe. The murky source of these dubious lines aside (I mean, really, who signs their letters “The Rothschilds?"), there can be no doubt that the anti-Semite Coughlin was the one who injected that phrase into American popular conspiracy culture.

But at least Quinn goes on to see a Jewish conspiracy in the establishment of the Fed, and what is not explicitly stated in "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" is glaringly obvious in "The Grand Illusion":

The House of Rothschild had been the dominant banking family in Europe for two centuries. They were known for making fortunes during Panics and War. Some claimed that they would cause Panics in order to take advantage of those who panicked. The Panic of 1907 was the used as the reason for creating the Federal Reserve.

There is a logical error here, actually it is a 200-hectare logical error farm, but I'm going to let most of them rot on the vine. Let me pick two. First is that Quinn fails to point out that the Rothschild family were also making oodles of cash during the peace as well. At the same time, the Fed was created in part to alleviate some the risk of having crashes, so Jews pushing for something that would stop profitable panics seems to be something of a charity on their part. How everyone taking their money away from the banks benefits the banks, I won't understand. In this case, yes, Jews are clearly the scapegoats, and Howse should remove this disgusting antisemite from his website.

Howse has often lamented the floating currency and expresses a naive and whimsical nostalgia for the gold standard. While Howse is clearly just a pitchman for this sponsor, it seems to be in line with most of his previous statements:

[AUDIO: HOWSE AND GOLD]

Now wasn't that awful?

As I've said, Howse's interest in banking and gold makes little to no sense on its own. Like his suspicion of Masons, however, its historical antecedents are racist. Let me stress again that I am not asserting that that Howse is a racist; this facet of his worldview, however, in conjunction with these other points, clearly reflects the anti-Semitic sources of the ideology he espouses.

On a separate note, I would like to point out that buying gold now is probably a really, really bad idea. Lots of people who are selling their greatly depreciated stocks and reinvesting in gold, which is (consequentially) vastly overvaluated, are perfectly violating the most basic principle of capitalist investing, "Buy low, sell high." Don’t do it.

HJ

Ted Kennedy dies.

It's hard to believe that the last remaining Kennedy boy is gone. I'll get used to it.

Oh, thank fuck he didn't make music videos.

HJ

Stupidity...

Follow this link and scroll down to course number 180. It's just...yeah.

HJ

The Russians are coming!

...in all of the movies I'm watching this week, that is!

After about 4:00, I arrived home from work, and plonked down on the couch for some good old fashioned Cold War hysteria. It's a collection of DVDs called Cold War Hysteria, and it should be on everyone's Christmas list. Not because anything on it is of particular artistic interest, even though freedom-pissing John Wayne and fellow traveler Edward R. Murrow appear together in a short film called, I believe, "The Challenge of Ideas," explaining the global communist menace. Most of these, I suspect, are available at archives.org, which you should certainly know about (well, at least the Prelinger archive!). 3 DVDs of the most delightful propaganda.

I think that I may have found a worse movie than...almost anything. It's a feature film called, This Is Not A Test. If you follow the link, there is a link to the whole movie. Be warned, however. The plot is simply none of our business, and I am convinced that everyone deserves to die in the movie.

There are lots of instructional films about how to prepare and live in a fallout shelter, army films about atomic weapons testing with cool slow motion explosions, and a really, really awful one by the paint stripping and lacquer industry about how keeping your house neat and clean and, above all, painted with good American paint, will protect your home from fire in the case of an atomic attack. I mean, fucking really.

There are a lot of little morality plays. The doctor who sets up a triage unit and who has access to a phone line, but decides to not call other shelters to check on his wife because the phone lines will be needed. The precocious young scamp, who I hope sucks an radioactive lemon, who dutifully stays in his basement until the block warden comes around. Oh, and except for one case, kids' parents never die in atomic attacks. Everyone is always ok in another shelter. I love the rosy side of nuclear Armageddon!

So if you are looking for a good time in the public domain, I've given you a couple of titles!

HJ

I want some of what he's smoking!

I wish I was the mouthpiece of an incoherent deity. What a whackjobbie!



He lacks the quiet dignity of Jethro Q. Walrus-Titty:



Gotta love democracy!

HJ

Rate Your Students...

I do so enjoy the ranting at Rate Your Students. Something interesting always happens when you piss off smart people. Take for instance this brief essay, which ends:

I just felt you should know you have only been receiving an A for these last couple weeks in the course to get you to shut the FUCK up about your first amendment rights being trampled on or what other manic issue you had each day. I normally don't let a difficult student slide, but unless you learn to keep quite and listen, failure is inevitable and on this rare instance I will have forgiven myself from the rants of the hopelessly oppressed.

If you've still not settled on a major, I'd suggest looking into pre-law. Since you already have shown an interest in your own rights it could be helpful to learn what they actually mean and of course no one would deny your willingness to argue about every irrelevant point just to illustrate your intellectual dominance. I will admit you taught me one thing. It is important to stand up for what you believe, so with that I cheerfully assign you the A-!

I quote the late Isaac Hayes: "Damn right."

HJ

Joseph Farah make less sense before breakfast than most dada art exhibits don't all day.

I won't lie to you. I'm fired up on the wine. A nice red wine with a pretty picture of Barcelona's medieval district on it, a town of which I am inordinately fond.

But none of that, for turdburgers need smashing! I should be watching Civil Defense films of the 1950s, but noooooo. Someone had to piss me off. Because I am a little drinky right now, I thought that I would go after a low hanging fruit. His name is Joseph Farah. He founded WorldNetDaily, and is therefore sort of responsible for this gooftastic birther bullshit.

Anyway, it's called "Who most resembles 'Nazis'?" and my first answer is immediately, "WWII reenactors who play the Germans!" Apparently, I'm wrong because he comes up with someone else altogether. It's at Bible Prophecy Today. It's awful, but at least it's unoriginal and mediocre. Bring it on, failure.

It opens:

This is going to be, shall we say, "a controversial column."

Outfits like the George Soros-subsidized Media Matters will have a field day with it – excerpting passages out of context, deliberately distorting the words I am carefully choosing and, in typical knee-jerk fashion, mocking its premise.

1) You edit a major website. Learn how to use fucking quotation marks.
2) Out of respect for you, you glistening gob of mucus, I will not take passages out of context. I will mock you like there is no fucking tomorrow, however, and hold you personally responsible for every odious word you belch.
3) You clearly aspire to be a media whore and victim. Pathetic.

Cable TV propagandists posing as "newsmen" will hurl invectives and dub me as a villain for expressing my honest and candid opinions – all of which are based on reality and truth.

Again with "the" quotation mark abuse. You know, I think that I am going to see if he is such a big deal as he thinks he is. With my access to LexisNexis restored, I'm back on the research train, baby! This article came out on the 17th. Let's see how much of an uproar Farah can generate. I will search for all mentions of his name in all of the major cable news transcripts between the 17th and now:

fig 1. Joseph Farah sucking

Not a single mention. You wish someone would pay attention to you, you complete and utter failure. Instead, you get me, and I'm nobody.

Lately, both sides of the political spectrum have suggested their political opponents resemble Nazis or fascists. Are both sides equally wrong?

Let's talk about "national socialism" – because that, indeed, is exactly what Barack Obama and his friends in the Congress are actively promoting and enacting in America today.

This is your contribution to the public debate?

The very word "Nazi" is indeed an acronym for national socialism – the political and economic system Hitler infamously imposed on Germany in the 1930s. It was then and remains today, despite the denials of historical revisionists, a "left-wing" idea. All socialism is, by definition, a left-wing notion.

By "historical revisionists," of course (and notice the beautiful use of quotation marks), he means almost every single reputable historian and scholar of the Twentieth Century. To make this assertion simply farts away 70 years of social science. Goddamn, I hate it when people call legitimate work "revisionist" (take notes, asswipe). So, yes. I mock your premise, but only because it indicates your absolute lack of qualifications to lecture me.

Also, you don't know what "acronym" means.

If the left-right political spectrum has any meaning, it is that those on the left tend to favor government intervention while those on the right favor non-government solutions to problems. That is the traditional and accepted definition – much as those on the left would like to blur that understanding.

Nope. I'm cool with that. It has its limits, of course, but, sure, let's pretend that I am a knuckle-dragging ideologue.

National socialists, whether they seek to kill Jews or old people or the disabled or unborn babies, will always be national socialists – no matter what kind of lipstick they put on the pig.

Are you really convinced that you are surrounded by people who want to kill Jews? By elderly-hating maniacs? Fetus-eating cripple killers? Really? Really? What a sad and distorted view of reality you have. You should be on medication, you nut.

Furthermore, people like our Founding Fathers, who sought to diffuse power because they understood its unchecked and unlimited centralization represented a grave threat to personal liberty represent the polar opposite of national socialists.

And what better way to do this than through bloated inefficient bureaucracies, I ask you?

While it may be an overstatement to compare Obama with Hitler, it is even more far-fetched to characterize his political opponents as Nazis and fascists because they very clearly want to limit the size and scope of government – preferring that people be free to govern themselves to the greatest extent possible.

Dude, are you admitting that you are full of shit in the first sentence? Or are you..Jeez you make no sense. I'm going to get another glass of vino. This is going to be a tough one.

Obama has power. His opponents, for the most part, do not. Furthermore, Obama seeks to use his power to impose policies that have, like it or not, a striking resemblance to those Hitler promoted in the 1930s.

Rounding up Jews? Killing his opponents? Seeking bipartisanship that will scuttle his major health care reforms? Yeah, just like Hitler, weirdo.

Like what?

• Abortion

• 
  

Demonization is par for the course in the abortion debate. Let's move on.

• Infanticide

Well, I guess you are talking about the little law in Illinois that Obama did not vote for which protected babies born during botched abortions. Of course, they were already protected. It was the additional regulation of abortion practices with no clear medical gains that Obama didn't want to sign on to. Duh. 'Tard.

• Government deciding life-and-death issues in dispensing medical care for both older people and those with serious illnesses;

Of course, this has been debunked endlessly, and repeating this weird claim only makes you look like a clown.

• Unfair treatment of Jews, in Obama's case, with regard to Middle East conflict;

Not exactly the same, is it, as wiping out Jews all over the world. Yes. Peace in the Middle East will require the Israeli government to make some concessions, especially when it comes to deliberately pissing off Palestinians by building on seized land. Duh.

• So-called public-private partnerships – blurring the line between government responsibilities and the private sector. This is one of the definitions of fascism;

I hate you so very much. Contracting has been part of the American scene since...forever. In the fascist sense (especially the Nazi sense), the SS would sort of take over the daily running of major businesses. That's not what is happening here.

• Picking winners and losers among corporations and the dispensing of government favors and punishments to them;
  

Some businesses are too big to fail. I'm opposed to that personally, but I can deal with reality.

• Hiring and firing of supposedly private corporation executives;

Yeah, but did you see their track records? It should have been done long ago. And at any rate, they did not have legal authority to kick anyone out of a job, just make it a condition of bailout money. Don't want to take a government handout? Work harder, bitches. That's conservatism 101.

• Attacking free expression;

Shut up. (Haha!)

• Secrecy

Don't go there, asshole. Seriously.

• Using taxpayer funds for the hiring of political partisans to "organize" communities and sign up new voters;

Your demonization of community groups like ACORN totally baffles me. It's like accusing the Salvation Army of war crimes. Do you really do that with a clean conscience? Or do you, deep down, really hate yourself for being what you have become?

• Demonizing political opponents;

Hello, Mr. Pot, here's Mr. Kettle.

• Encouraging citizens to "rat out" friends, family members and others who oppose his policies;

Prove it, pigfucker. Seriously. They wanted the stories, not the sources, you dishonest, honorless boil.

• Keeping tabs on political opponents;

But not killing them like Nazis, right? You are sad, and you minimize the historical evils of that group.

• Filling top government posts with like-minded political extremists who would normally be regarded as internal security threats;

I have no idea what you are talking about and refuse to give that link the dignity of a click, as you have already proven that you are, without a doubt, beneath caterpillar shit.

• Ignoring the Constitution;

Oh, c'mon. Bush shat on Habeas Corpus, had "free speech zones," and eavesdropped on everyone and their mother.

• Blaming his predecessor and the fundamentals of the American political and economic system for all the problems besting the country;

Are you admitting defeat? How un-American. Heheh. You're right. Bush didn't start the wars. Idiot.

I mean, I could go on and on. George W. Bush and other predecessors in the White House had their faults. Some of them did terrible things, showed incredibly bad judgment, made horrible mistakes. But I can think of no precedent for someone in the White House doing all of the above at once – all of which bear striking parallels to the leadership of infamous fascists such as Benito Mussolini and Hitler.

Worse, the leaders of his party and his acolytes in the media can see no danger posed by any of these policies. In fact, like good Germans, they blame the opposition in the most disgusting, vile ways – often unfairly accusing them of doing what they themselves do.

And you say you love America? I mean, seriously. If you were a husband, you would be beating up your wife "only because you love her so much."

Why is it acceptable for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say American citizens attending congressional town halls are swastika-carrying thugs, but wrong for her political opponents to point out the similarities between her party's policies and those of Nazi Germany.

Oh, that's because they are being disruptive and bringing loaded automatic weapons to protests.

Why is it acceptable for Gary Trudeau of Doonesbury fame to compare those who want to see Barack Obama's birth certificate with Adolf Hitler, but wrong for his political opponents to point out the similarities between the way the president and Democratic Congress are attempting to squelch dissent and grab unchallenged, unchecked power and the way fascists of the past have?

Oh, that's because you are xenophobic and racist and making shit up.

Joseph, you are so bent, so completely misinformed on so many levels that I can only point at you and laugh. You are simply not even a player. You are this weird guy whose perception of reality is so distorted that if you are not in the booby-hatch by the end of the year, it is just further evidence that health care in this country is totally fucked up.

I would encourage you to climb into a trash compactor, but you are so dense, I'm afraid you'd break it.

HJ

Eco-activism...

We all love the environment here, right? None of us tortures kittens for fun, eh wot? So why is it that I received 3 papers this week about what a bad person I am for eating meat?

I don't expect incoming freshcreatures to be sophisticated thinkers, necessarily, but, man, the generalizations about omnivores is just baffling. One student actually posited collaboration between media and big Ag--this is precisely the type of conspiracism that I hope to challenge. She did not think that there might be other reasons why, say, CNN does not run film of animal torture or livestock shows 24hrs a day. Perhaps people don't like to see how their food is prepared? Perhaps it is uncontroversial to most people?

Naughty students, playing all fast and loose with logic.

I have started a new podcast, and, incidentally, will be giving a talk to my new colleagues about "podcasts in the classroom" in the near future. Yeah, I have no idea. My latest podcast looks at Jason Lisle, who was foolish enough to release an audio version of a talk he gave to the Secular Student Alliance (served with a side of PZ Myers) when they visited Idiotland Over Asshole, Kentucky.

Ding-a-ling.

OK, I need to prepare for class. Grr.

HJ

This makes me happy!

Ah...so like us!



HJ (tip o' the hat to Courtnix at Blog Around the Clock)

This one goes out to John "Colonel" Kling

(Arrived in my facebook mail.)

Subject: you are terrible

Everything you say is worthless. I have read most of your postings on your blog and have found no value whatsoever. Biased opinions tossing betwwen conflicting arguments which eventually end nowhere.

WEAK

I don't even know what that last sentence is supposed to mean. As soon as the literate start bashing me, then I'll pay attention. But I'm glad you enjoy the site, John!

HJ

P.S. That's totally going on my reviews page, bitch!

An Ironic, Christian Approach to Confirmation Bias

So I am paddling around the shallow end of the pool this morning, preparing to discuss confirmation bias in class this morning. We are going to be talking about a Michael Shermer op-ed that I have used before (read it or this post won't make nearly as much sense):

http://resonancetechnologies.com/press/articles/ThePoliticalBrain.pdf

As I cast about the web looking for a way to extend this for an entire class discussion (I am going to be using psychic cold reading as confirmation bias in action), I came across a blog post ("Confirmation Bias") at the Christian website Challies.com that quotes Shermer at some length and then says:

Like Dr. Mohler, I am “suspicious of all efforts to reduce human consciousness and cognitive activity to measurable or observable studies of the brain. There is a connection there, no doubt, but biological reductionism (and its close cousin, biological determinism) is a woefully inadequate explanation for human thinking and behavior.” To reduce human cognitive function, thinking, feeling and believing to mere imaging results is clearly inadequate in explaining the intricacies of the brain, the will and the heart. I don’t believe that we can ever neatly map out human reason or that we can ever solve how and why humans love, feel and believe.

[...]

When we affirm the doctrine of the fallenness of man, we affirm that through the Fall we have been corrupted in every way. The depravity of man extends to every area of his being so that nothing remains untouched. We are unable to use our minds without allowing emotion to interfere with reason. Clearly this poses a threat to intellectual integrity.

I'll say! You refer to an article that lays out fairly completely a case for what biological parts of the brain are operating during the unconscious process of picking and choosing those elements that confirm your pet theory, and then, BANG! You see evidence of the Fall. It could not be a more perfect illustration of the tendency you are discussing, honestly.

HJ

Is that a Finding Jihad I see?!?

It is! I haven't done one of these in a while, where I comb through sitemeter's records and extract the google search strings that lead to this website. And so I'm doing it now. So there.

• house cleaning cartoons (Just when you thought the funnies couldn't get any more dull.)
• bob dylan arresting officer (Why, he'll get put in jail for impersonating a cop!)
• make pancakes with arina of tribe? (What the hell is this supposed to mean?)
• condoleeza rice sexy pics (Excuse me, but I have to vomit everything I've eaten since kindergarten.)
• topless bottomless (Well, shit! What's left?)
• evil little fat folks (I hate gnomes too.)
• learning anal douche (HJHOP: Your source for learning anal douche!)
• nude tiny gals (Do you want pictures of them smurfing one another?)
• cliff kincaid paranoid psycho (That's my boy!)
• How many clubbings does it take to get to the gooey center of a baby seal (It depends on whether or not the carcass is bloated, really.)
• communist math (1 + 1 = exploitation of the proletariat!)
• safari lap quilts (Do they make lap quilts for that?)
• teletubbies infiltration (Yes, they have been infiltrated by the Illuminati. Also, Tinky Winky is a 33rd degree Mason.)
• cum puddle belly button (Well, there's an image I can't get out of my head.)
• bottomless girls (This one always makes me laugh. It's the visual.)
• topless wet t contest (What is wrong with this search?)
• oh yeah, greatest name ever, christopher johnson. (There's a lot of pain behind that search.)
• going bald at 18 very depressed (This is very sad.)
• rhode island sucks (Heehee.)
• crush on the pope (Been reading Bill Donohue's diary, have you?)
• banana phallus (That's my new band name!)
• still crazy after all these years depressed (Wow, you just totally ruined that song for me.)
• god strong like a fucking unicorn (Just drink in the weird, people. Drink in the weird.)
• angel losing its wings called (Hey, there's nothing funny about an angel with syphilis!)

Surprise break-out search of the week:

• does dirt devil vac cause cancer
• dirt devil cancer risk state of california

HJ

"But I'm SPECIAL!"

The people who write at Townhall.com strike me as not unlike juvenile turkeys that, when caught in a rainstorm, stare up at the weather and drown.

It's called "Never Make a Deal with the Devil about Prayer" and it's the fault of Ken Klukowski.

Three Florida school employees will go to federal court on September 17 to see if they'll be thrown behind bars. The reason? Prayer.

Why do I have a sinking feeling that they are not going to go to jail because of prayer?

Their school made a deal with the ACLU to stop praying and this ridiculous situation proves that you can't make a deal with the devil.

The Santa Rosa County School District is in an area of northern Florida where people uphold traditional values and customs. One of those customs is the widespread use of prayer at all sorts of public events -- including school events.

Oh, against the Constitution. Oh, in that case, "Yay, ACLU!"

Then the ACLU came in, filed a federal lawsuit to stop the pernicious influence of students hearing people pray.

No, not just "people," representatives of the government in charge of educating students and who wield legal authority over their students, including their non-religious or "other" students.

After a few months, the school board caved when the legal bills started mounting. The ACLU has an almost unlimited budget because it can be reimbursed for bringing these "civil rights" lawsuits, but the school district must pay out-of-pocket. Desperate to end the lawsuit, school officials signed a deal written by the ACLU, which the federal judge assigned to the case then issued as a court order.

No. Wrong. The ACLU does not have bottomless pockets, they are only reimbursed for cases that they win, and that comes from...the school district! If the ACLU had lost, then they would have to pay. This is how civil disputes are settled. The side that loses pays court costs. Loses, as in, "are found to be violating the Constitution" or "settle because they realize that they will be found to be violating the Constitution."

Then two things happened. First, some school employees and adult volunteers gathered for a lunch after school hours, and the principal, Frank Lay, had the athletic director, Robert Freeman, offer a prayer before the meal. Second, some students were present at an awards banquet when a clerk, Michelle Winkler, asked her husband (who is not a school employee) to offer a prayer.

The ACLU ran to U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers, who issued a contempt citation against all three officials. The judge referred the matter to the U.S. attorney in northern Florida (appointed by Barack Obama), who is now prosecuting all three for criminal contempt, which could carry six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Oh, so not for praying, but for violating a legal settlement. I have no problem with that.

Mat Staver, the head of Liberty Counsel, is now defending Principal Lay and the athletic director. Staver is working to keep them out of jail and save their retirements from being revoked by the state.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (barring the establishment of religion) originally only constrained the federal government. In 1947, the Supreme Court extended it to state and local governments as well. Public schools are part of state government, and so are bound in every respect by the court rulings on the Establishment Clause. That includes public school employees, when acting within the scope of their employment.

Dude, the states don't get to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they want and don't want! What is this, Alaska?

But with all due respect to the judge, this order goes too far. It forbids school employees from "participating" in any prayer, meaning that can't even bow their heads if someone else is praying. It also forbids them from allowing any private-sector person from offering a prayer. It uses overly-broad terms. It requires these employees, who are American citizens, to sign away some of their personal First Amendment rights.

They can quit. As representatives of the govt, they have no right to foist their beliefs on their charges.

It was ill-advised for the school district to try to make a deal with the ACLU. The ACLU is a ruthlessly and militantly secular organization, and these officials shouldn't have thought that if they signed a deal written by the ACLU that it would save them from this sort of outrage. -- Sometimes you have to fight.

Press release: ACLU Seeks End To Censorship Of Religious Material By Virginia Jail

The ACLU is not anti-religion. Y punto.

These people should not go to prison. The first two did nothing wrong, and the third likely did not realize how serious the consequences could be.

Oh cut that shit out. You sound like Paris Hilton whining: "But it's meee!" No. Ignorance of the law is no defense. I'm sure that's an age-old legal adage somewhere. And you are implying that they knew that there would be consequences. You are not entitled to having your parking fine cut in half because you didn't realize it was $30, not $15. Doofus.

And one lesson is clear: Never make a deal with the ACLU. They won't meet you half-way. Either you'll be forced to conform to their far-left vision of America or they'll drop the hammer on you with vengeance.

It is the court, I'll remind you, who is sending these people to jail, not the ACLU. Please fucking take this one all the way. The ACLU does not profit from their legal victories, and they take no satisfaction in these people unwisely violating a court order.

HJ

UPDATE: FatedPlace at America's Gods gives additional context to this story. Gotta love those Townhall haters!

Good ol' Onion

White House Press Secretary Spins Wife’s Tragic Death As A Positive