“Now that we know how to make gerbils smarter,” said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, “it’s not too far a stretch to hope that people’s intelligence can also be improved. Quite frankly, this can’t happen soon enough, as every environmentalist, advocate of evolution and war opponent will attest.”

via Science Daily

Technorati Tags: Gerald Weissmann, intelligence, quote, wishful thinking

Thomas Paine:

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize Mankind; and for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.”

Technorati Tags: obscene stories, voluptuous debaucheries, cruel and torturous executions, unrelenting vindictiveness, Bible, word of a demon, word of God, wickedness

In eight years, the only “trickle down” I’ve seen of the economics practiced by the Republicans are the tears on the faces of those who have lost their jobs, their homes, and their hopes.

Well said Shelley , well said.

From Greg Palast’s newsletter

…the late and lionized King of Union Busters, Sam Walton, would be proud today, were he alive, to learn that the woman he called, “my little lady,” Hillary Clinton, whom he placed on Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors, is front-runner for the presidency. She could well become America’s “Greeter,” posted at our nation’s door, to welcome the Saudis and Chinese who are buying America at a guaranteed low price.

Technorati Tags: Sam Walton, my little lady, , Clinton, Wal-Mart, union busting, sell outs

Joe Bageant

For god sake don’t mate with Republicans! It only improves their degraded gene pool and gives them more stamina.

Via a comment in response to another comment in aTimes Online article on Huckabee’s idiotic belief in creationism.

Somebody wrote:
“wierd americanos…Are they all like this??What kind of schools do they have?”

I think I have the answer. In the USA they have a system called “No Child Left Behind“, and how it works is this: when any pupil starts showing signs of getting left behind all the others wait for him to catch up…..

Posted by: Simon | 12 Dec 2007 18:57:11

Technorati Tags: Times Online, Huckabee, creationism, No Child Left Behind

From the Nov. 26th, 2007 LA Times letters to the editor column

This is probably the wrong time of the year to point this out, but have you ever noticed that if you put “The” and “IRS” together, it spells THEIRS?

Kenneth Tuxford

Redondo Beach

Coincidence?

Peak Oil has arrived and it is all downhill from here.

From The Oil Report: The Supply Outlook p.12

World oil production peaked last year and is projected to fall by half in 2030, according to a new report.

German-based Energy Watch Group, a network of independent scientists and parliamentarians, released Monday the report, Crude Oil: the Supply Outlook, which concluded that global oil production peaked at 81 million barrels a day or Mb/d in 2006, much earlier than most many experts had forecast.

The report, which comes only days after oil prices hit record highs, is also predicting that global oil production will begin to fall several per cent each year and that by 2030 it will be 39 Mb/d.

Now is when leaders who are elected must, no questions asked, put all available resources into alternate energy supplies. No one who is not serious about this should be elected. Any politician mouthing platitudes should be pressed hard on specifics, if they can’t set out exactly what they are going to do or if that plan is ineffectual then don’t give them your vote. Your future is at stake. As oil prices climb (law of supply and demand) your cost to stay alive will increase disproportionately (greed), and your quality of life will decrease immensely. If you wonder why Bush et al invaded Iraq you now have your answer. It is also the same reason they are going after Iran, oil and liquified natural gas (LNG). Plain and simple.

Download The Oil Report: The Supply Outlook (101 page .pdf file)

Technorati Tags: Peak Oil, World oil production, Energy Watch Group, Crude Oil: the Supply Outlook, olitician mouthing platitudes, Iraq, Iran

From IHT

The most common gripe I heard at the event from the crowd of corporate greenies was that it took more than an hour to drive downtown with the traffic caused by the UN climate meeting. I took the subway and walked the five blocks to the conference. It took 20 minutes from way uptown, and the carbon footprint was nearly zero.

and that my friends is one of the major reasons we are so in trouble. Those who have the power to make the decisions are clueless.

Technorati Tags: corporate greenies, UN climate meeting, carbon footprint, clueless

From a comment on Orcinus

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

“There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty_four hours my occupation would be gone.

“The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?

“We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” - John Swinton, 19th century newspaperman.

Technorati Tags: independent press, honest opinions, journalists, destroy the truth

In my younger days I was a big science fiction fan (I still am but I don’t read as much as before - not thrilled with the new crop of formula writers) and one of my all time favourites was Robert Heinlein. I haven’t read any of his works in years but today Norm reminded me of why I so enjoyed his writing, with this quote from “Time Enough For Love” (via one of Norm’s commentators) or possibly Job: A Comedy of Justice (my recollection)

The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.

In his day Heinlein took on topics that few would touch and did it in a masterful way. Yes his libertarian politics did not always match mine but he was such a masterful writer, with a firm grasp on his subjects that it was impossible to put his books down, and no doubt they did influence my political bent somewhat. As you can see his thoughts on religion are ones I can thoroughly agree with. For millenniums organized religions, and in particular monotheistic Judea-Christian-Islamic religions have used sex as a tool to control their believers. The Roman Catholic church pretty much perfected that scam. The reverberations of that control cloud people’s judgment to this day, and influence political life in all areas.

Or, as Shelley said today in another context

Let’s also forget that most serial murders in this country are typically committed by Christians, so are most lynchings and beatings, and that no war has ever been caused by an atheist. In fact, I can’t think of one single negative act ever committed in the name of atheism in this country. So as the whole ‘moral’ thing goes, the religious suck at it.

carrying on with the general theme of religion there’s what Stu said today as well

The peaceful Mahatma Gandhi once said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” And a lot of that is due to God’s message being filtered through The One True Church™ - chose one of many - via a heirarchy of paedophilic priests, all with their own agenda, only interested in the laying on of hands - preferably on the smallest choirboy.

or how about this one

Although most religious traditions call on the faithful to serve the poor, a large cross-sectional survey of U.S. physicians found that physicians who are more religious are slightly less likely to practice medicine among the under-served than physicians with no religious affiliation.

In the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine, researchers from the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital report that 31 percent of physicians who were more religious–as measured by “intrinsic religiosity” as well as frequency of attendance at religious services–practiced among the under-served, compared to 35 percent of physicians who described their religion as atheist, agnostic or none.

There’s nothing quite like a good old-fashioned organized religion to breed hypocrisy. Organized religion in general and fundamentalist religion in particular is evil, just plain evil. That’s my take at least (and no you don’t need to have religion to have a concept of good and evil - they just want you to believe you do.)

Technorati Tags: science fiction, Robert Heinlein., Time Enough For Love, Job: A Comedy of Justice, libertarian politics, religion, Roman Catholic, Christians, Organized religion, evil, good and evil

From a post here on intimidation by the Bush cabal

Howbern said…

You shouldn’t mention Nazi Germany when you’re talking about Dick Cheney. It’s a little know fact, that he had a relative who died in a Concentration Camp.– His uncle fell off a guard tower.

But when it comes to chilling effect nothing can beat Bush’s new Executive Order. See the follow-up to this over on Orcinus
[tag]
American freedom[/tag] has never in its history been in such deep trouble.

Technorati Tags: intimidation, Bush cabal, Dick Cheney, Executive Order

From a comment to an article here

I am unaware of any conservative politicians ever having done anything that is essentially good for the average American. (I stand ready to be corrected about this.) The right wing never strays from being entrenched in the wrong column yet still has great PR groups which persuade America that they will eventually bring a measure of benevolence to their ideology. They have failed at this since the 1870s and have little chance of ever succeeding.

The only thing I would add is that the last line should read “They have failed at this since the 1870s and have little chance of ever succeeding because they simply do not want to benefit all Americans, only a select few”

Technorati Tags: conservative politicians, average American, right wing

If you ask a software developer what they spend their time doing, they’ll tell you that they spend most of their time writing code.

However, if you actually observe what software developers spend their time doing, you’ll find that they spend most of their time trying to understand code (more…

Technorati Tags: software developer, code, going right ’round the bend, masochists

…in recognition of Daylight Savings Time, President Bush set the country back fifty years. Borowitz

Technorati Tags: Daylight Savings Time, Bush, Borowitz