Monday's Brain: Binge And Purge!

[elfs]

'Principals' OK'd Harsh Tactics

Confirming what we always knew, ABC News publishes a story revealing that Cheney convened and Rice chaired meetings to sign off on torture techniques. They deliberately "insulated" Bush from the proceedings.

Rice? From State? So much for her chances of running as VP with McCain, ne? Or will McCain sell his soul again?

Avedon Carol watches the NY Times slide into obscurity.

The NY Times ombudsman defends the Times' unwillingness to cover the Winter Soldier hearings, and does so with tragically stupid results.

The Wall Street Journals blames the American Airlines fiasco on... Democrats!

Of course! It's the Democrat's fault that the FAA is enforcing the publicly agreed upon rules! All of those people waiting in airports, it's all the Dem's fault. I would never have noticed it! Thank you, right wing lobotomy, for showing me the truth!

Crosstalk Reminds You: Obama Isn't Christian Enough

Obama on Intelligent Design:

I'm a Christian, and I believe in parents being able to provide children with religious instruction without interference from the state. But I also believe our schools are there to teach worldly knowledge and science. I believe in evolution, and I believe there's a difference between science and faith. That doesn't make faith any less important than science. It just means they're two different things. And I think it's a mistake to try to cloud the teaching of science with theories that frankly don't hold up to scientific inquiry.

That quote in months old, but they're going to keep repeating it every day to remind those ready to swallow Ben Stein's lies that Obama isn't going to be their man.

Chuck Colson lies about "Expelled."

Chuck Colson, who once did time for conspiracy in the Watergate case, has a bizarre little article in which he attempts to address the "lies being told about Expelled."

He claims that "The Darwinists were not tricked into participating." Producer Mathis said that he called the film "Crossroads" at first and portrayed it to those interviewed as more even-handed than Expelled turned out to be, but decided to be more confrontational for "marketing purposes." However, writer and actor Ben Stein says that the film's vision was as it is now from the very beginning of the project. Research shows that the "Expelled" domain name was bought months before the interviews, and no similar domain name for a project called "Crossroads" was ever considered. Who's lying now?

He also claims that "The film isn't anti-science." He's partially right: it isn't anti-science because those who have seen say there's no science in it. It's anti-scientist, because it portrays those actually doing work in the biological sciences as anti-religious.

That's okay. When the Salt Lake Tribune tells people Expelled shows every sign of being a dog, you know it's gonna die.

Expelled: Now Necessary And Sufficient!

Mathematician David Berlinski, who has some personal problems with evolutionary biology, claims in Expelled that Darwinism was a "necessary but not sufficient" part of Nazi philosophy. But now Expelled has to deal with its own little bit of sordid ugliness: Maciej Giertych, who is listed as being in the film, turns out to be a nasty piece of work who believes that Jews support evolutionary biology because they're trying to speciate away from humanity (no, really!), they're dishonest and parasitical.

What lovely company Ben Stein is keeping these days.

Charles Krauthammer goes partisan insane for Israel.

Krauthammer, apparently concerned that Iran will get nukes and attack Israel, wants the United States to declare: "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran."

Krauthammer is an unabashed Israel supporter to the exclusion of any other interest and I don't think he quite realizes how stupid his request sounds. Why don't we just go all in? "It shall be the policy of the United States that any nuclear attack upon any nation by another nation shall be regarded as an attack upon the security of the United States, demanding a full retaliatory response upon the aggressor nation."

I'm in agreement with Krauthammer that Israel is pretty much the only functioning liberal democracy in that part of the world and so deserves our protection. But I don't think that makes the lives of individual Israelies uniquely precious compared to the lives of others. Krauthammer clearly does, and in ways that seem completely insane to me. If we're going to risk nuclear war by providing another nuclear umbrella, we should either do it right as we did against the Soviet Union, or not do it at all.

No Wingnut Welfare for Alberto Gonzalez?

Feel the love, people. Feel the love.

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Fundamentally, Israel can't take care of itself because in the territory controlled by it there are about 6 million Jews and 6 million non-Jews. And the non-Jews are at various stages of disenfranchisement.

It needs to bring in ever more potential soldiers (more than 1 million Jews and relatives of Jews were imported from the former USSR between 1989-2000), and it needs ever more cash (billions of dollars in US foreign aid every year, most of which is spent on US weapons technology and is thus very popular among US lawmakers, who get to spend money for Israel that gets spent right back in their own districts.)

There is a better way - the South African model would work very well in the Israel/Palestine situation. But that would reduce arms sales by more than 3 billion dollars a year and require some painful resource sharing by the Israelis (who are currently clutching every grain of sand and pint of water). So it isn't happening.

And that's why they can't take care of themselves.