Sanity Pills

So she wrote a wonderfully insightful and truthful piece on this whole Muhammad cartoon things. Oh wait. No, the opposite.

And people thing she is clever?

aaarghh

Among the gems.

In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence.

Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.

Wait she just contradicted herself in the same article

Largely unnoticed in this spectacle is the blinding fact that one nation is missing from the long list of Muslim countries (by which I mean France and England) with hundreds of crazy Muslims experiencing bipolar rage over some cartoons: Iraq. Hey — maybe this democracy thing does work! The barbaric behavior of Europe’s Muslims suggests that the European welfare state may not be attracting your top-notch Muslims.

Maybe Iraq has been quiet because all their crazies have been too busy blowing up american soldiers to merely riot and burn down a few embassies. They have better things to protest.

And also way to be bigoted. Lets classify all Muslims as Arabs because they are the same. Just like all white people are americans and everyone with narrow eyes is chinese etc. etc. Hey Ann … Culture and Religion are two different things.

But apparently the Quran is like the Constitution: It’s a “living document,” capable of sprouting all-new provisions at will. Muslims ought to start claiming the Quran also prohibits indoor plumbing, to explain their lack of it.

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Protestants don’t make a peep about other people eating food off one another’s plates. (Just stay away from our plates — that’s disgusting.)

Also lets take a closer look at this gem

Catholics aren’t short on rules, but they couldn’t care less if non-Catholics use birth control.

Maybe some catholics do not care but Geroge W Bush(not a catholic) is very interested in your reproductive freedom. How about a mention about all those millions of aid money going to only to  Catholic/Religious organizations who provide Abstinence Only AIDS prevention programs in Africa. Oh things like the FDA bottling up the morning after pill? hmmmm

And lets not get too holier than thou here. Your friends on the extreme right wing are the ones blowing abortion clinics, gay bars, taking sniper rifles to abortion doctors …. Lets not have two standards here. One will do just fine. Keyword … Fundamentalists everywhere are making the world a lot more interesting for the rest of us.

The Times has a decent piece on how Alito’s nomination is the culmination of a nearly 25-year plan by the Federalist Society to reorgnaize the US court system toward conservative freakshows. The subject matter is great, but there really is hard evidence of bias. Liberal media my ass.

The article adds further proof that Alito is a wingnut and will definitely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade (which, by the way, I’m starting to think won’t be such a bad thing afterall), in addition to increasing the power of the Executive Branch and the influence of corporations over all aspects of our lives (the primary reason to oppose the guy).

Judge Alito’s confirmation is also the culmination of a disciplined campaign begun by the Reagan administration to seed the lower federal judiciary with like-minded jurists who could reorient the federal courts toward a view of the Constitution much closer to its 18th-century authors’ intent, including a much less expansive view of its application to individual rights and federal power. It was a philosophy promulgated by Edwin Meese III, attorney general in the Reagan administration, that became the gospel of the Federalist Society and the nascent conservative legal movement.

I don’t like how the author stated as fact the original intent of the Constitution. First, that’s unknown. And second, their original intent may have been for an evolving Constitution more in line with how liberals currently view it. The author should have phrased this more explicitly to say that the intent of the Federalist Society is to reorient the Constitution to what they THINK is the original intent of the writers.

Where is the competing liberal movement???

By last week it was clear that the judge had enough votes to win confirmation. And the last gasp of resistance came in a Democratic caucus meeting on Wednesday when Senator Edward M. Kennedy, joined by Senator John Kerry, both of Massachusetts, unsuccessfully tried to persuade the party to organize a filibuster.

Was clear or seemed clear? Those are two very different things, and as of this morning, Alito’s confirmation was far less set in stone than it appeared to be at the end of last week. Right now there are 37 votes (some say 39) for a filibuster, but some Dems who won’t back Alito are waffling now about whether to support a filibuster (Biden and Feinstein appear to have switched positions).

Still, on the brink of this victory, some in the conservative movement say the battle over the court has just begun. Justice O’Connor was the swing vote on many issues, but replacing her with a more dependable conservative would bring that faction of the court at most to four justices, not five, and thus not enough to truly reshape the court or overturn precedents like those upholding abortion rights.

“It has been a long time coming,” Judge Bork said, “but more needs to be done.”

Jesus Fucking Christ.

UPDATE: The unthinkable has happened. A Republican broke rank. According to Armando at DailyKos, Lincoln Chafee will not back Alito. I doubt he’d support a filibuster, but who knows. He comes from a liberal region and is currently the second most conservative Senator from New England, right behind Joe Lieberman.

UPDATE 2: Jeffords will not support cloture. I never understood why he didn’t just switch parties all the way.

Disregard my post on January 26th.

I knew it would eventually happen, Alzheimer’s has finally struck Sen. Robert Byrd. He’s supporting Alito.

Democrats Nelson and Johnson both support Alito, and Landrieu promised not to join a filibuster (I doubt Jeffords would back a filibuster either). That means there’s probably not 40 41 souls on the right side of this fight. We lose unless a handful of Repugs break ranks, but they never do that.

Alito’s in easily, and Bush will be able to brag during the State of the Union.

To add to the recent SCOTUS ruling giving people more control over their bodies, the SJC added another blow to the right-to-life camp.

The Fag-loving court decided that the state could remove from life support a young girl beaten into a coma, and most likely a permanent vegetative state, by her parents. The stepfather wanted to become her guardian and keep her alive because he may face murder charges after she dies, but the SJC said “fuck you” to that guy.

The story is sad and unfortunate as is, but yesterday it took an unfortunate turn into Terri Shiavo-like realms. Apparently the girl is “responding to stimuli.” I’m hopeful that this will start a frenzy of activity in Western MA, with lunatics from all over coming to “pray” and fight for the girl’s right to live.

Let the idiocy commence.

I’m going to plan my trip soon. I’m really excited to get back to the Happy Valley, especially after finding out that Rachel Maddow lives in Cummington.

I like physician-assisted suicide, in fact, I think it’s pretty awesome. We should get past the abortion fight and make this the new pro-choice v. pro-life fight.

SCOTUS denied Ashcroft’s attempts to block the Oregon law.

In a stinging defeat for the administration, the justices upheld a U.S. appeals court ruling that Ashcroft’s directive was unlawful and unenforceable, and that he had overstepped his authority.

There’s a bunch of commies working at Reuters.

The decision was 6-3.

Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts dissented—-I see how it’s going to be from now on.

Fidel Castro poked fun at the chubbier (although more sober) Bush brother, calling Jeb an overweight slob, who has gained 52 pounds since entering office in 1999.

“Forgive me for using the term ‘fat little brother,’” said Castro. “It is not a criticism, rather a suggestion that he do some exercises and go on a diet, don’t you think? I’m doing this for the gentleman’s health.”

Bush’s straightforward retort:

“I will take any criticism from Fidel Castro, of all people, as an honor, given the fact that, you know, 8 million [Cuban] people … are repressed.”

Um, ok, fatty.

More ammo for O’Reilly’s “War on Chrsitmas.” A tree decorated by elementary school students in Oklahoma that was displayed in the state Capitol was removed because one lawmaker (Rep. Randy Terrill – R) thought it was inappropriate. Did this lawmaker make a Constitutional argument against a state sponsored religion? Nope, he complained because the idiot kids (and even more idiotic teachers) decorated the tree with used lottery tickets, an institution he disagrees with. Here’s what a representative of the school said:

“They had been studying about the lottery and understood that the lottery money benefits public schools,” Fair said. “They came up with a theme about the gift of education.”

Way to encourage a variety of bad behaviors: gambling, collecting trash, and creating stupid-ass themes.

I’m going out on a limb here and saying that this tree was probably fucking ugly as hell. They should’ve taken it down because it sucked. Most things elementary kids do are pieces of shit.

FYI, take a look at Terrill’s wife. Jesus Fucking Christ.

Prof. Paul Mirecki got his just desserts this week. The UKansas religious studies professor, who gained some notoriety recently because he isn’t crazy, was attacked and beaten by two men on a rural road early Monday morning. Mirecki claims that the two men made reference to the class that Mirecki was planning to teach about how wrong intelligent design is. The course was “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” but Mirecki canceled it after newspapers publsihed an email he sent to a student that took a jab at religious fundamentalists.

Religious fundamentalists were angered by these statements, in which Mirecki referred to them as “fundies.” Fundies is disrespectful? I think it doesn’t go nearly far enough, it’s tantamount to only calling Nazis “brownies.” Retards works better for me, maybe fucking retards, idiots, cocksuckers, cunts, douchebags… feel free to add your own.

I think (hope) that this debate becomes one of the defining issues in politics. The debate could be as heated as that over abortion, but this time there is no way in which defenders of creationism are even close to correct.

I think we know where Mirecki is headed:

And Ann Coulter still likes to claim that liberals are the violent ones.

onegoodmove has one of the stranger news pieces I’ve ever seen. These “Interns Who Pray” are fucking nuts.

At least the internship program follows affirmative action.

Well a little anyway.
Lets start with the following:
- We had no right to invade Iraq. Iraq posed no threat to the US and had no links to Al Qaeda. That much is as clear as day no matter what anyone else says.
- We invaded Iraq for the following reasons: OIL, He tried to kill my daddy, OIL, Haliburton, OIL, having an american base of operations in the middle east, OIL, Oedipus, and for the bunnies
- Iraq is not better off now. Yes Saddam is gone and he is/was a bad man but Iraqis were united in hating him as opposed to the west. There was an infrastructure in place(utilities, govt etc… no matter how corrupt) and there weren’t bombings taking place every day killing dozens.
- Women had more rights under Saddam than it looks like they will once a theocratic islamist regime/govt comes into power soon.
- 2000+ and counting US deaths and at least 100k Iraqis killed by US military. This is the blood on our conscience that will not wash away much like Vietnam.
- The US is most definitely not safer now than we were before we invaded. This has not only created a great recruiting tool for “the terrorists” but also caused a general feeling of ill will with the Muslim world and absolutely wasted the political cache and sympathy we had following 9/11

Now where do I agree with Bush: We cannot pull out now or anytime soon.
- Just because we invaded for the wrong/no reason and have destroyed the country doesn’t mean we can “cut and run” now. We have to fix or at least make a good faith effort to fix the mess that we have caused. Those 100K+ deaths and the many more to come are on the US’s hands now.
- The leaders of the resistance are definitely aligned or associated with Al Qaeda now and they are more organised than any other group in Iraq. If we leave, they will take over and that is bad.

What we should do:
- Apologize. Not to the american people but to the Iraqi people. Engage in diplomacy and use Imam Al Sastani (sp) one ofthe more respected people in Iraq to calm tensions. Explain US intentions clearly without double talk.
- Stop torturing people. Pass laws. Prosecute Rumsfeld and Cheney (realistically at least a slap on the wrists). Make the 10% or so of the military in Iraq who are complete idiots take some “How to behave like a decent human being” classes.
- Insist on a true democracy. Model it after the former Pakistani govt(an Islamic republic where women had at least quasi-equal rights) or a democracy that works in a majority muslim nation(indonesia?Bangladesh?).
-Send more soldiers if necessary. Thats what the generals want. Hire actually qualified people to implement the occupation!
- Impeach Bush