Salon.com News | Resorting to semantics

This really demonstrates why I love Republicans. They are totally like a brick wall made for smashing logic over.

Notice how at the end the way Frists’s press secretary ends up basically saying it’s OK to press for a filibuster when you don’t have enough support to actually succeed in one, but that it’s not OK to press for filibuster if there is support for one.

It’s beautiful. I want Ari back. He was really poetic too…

An interview with longtime anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott | By Gregory Dicum

You really should read her book.

Laura Bush heckled on Jerusalem Visit

No shit? Why in the world would anyone heckle this woman walking around one of the holiest of holy lands?

It’s not like she just exudes WASPiness or anything. Anyway…after having a Palestinian worshipper scream “You are not welcome here. Why are you hassling our Muslims? How dare you come in here?”, and another worshipper shouted “Koran! Koran!” at her in Arabic, and then having even Israeli’s shouting at her to release convicted Israeli spy John Pollard, she chose to offer some real nice words of wisdom.

On the disturbances at every public place she went: [They show] “what an emotional place this is as we go from each one of these very, very holy spots to the next”. I believe this is a rhetorical form called “understatement”.

After listening to Palestinian complaints about Israeli abuses: “We’re reminded again of what we all want, what every one of us prays for…what we all want is peace”. I really can’t even begin to comment on that statement myself. I would ask her how often is she really reminded that is what she wants.

On the current chances of achieving peace: “right now … is as close as we’ve been in a really long time. It will take a lot of baby steps and I’m sure (there) will be a few steps backward on the way”. Hmm..like in the form of her and her family and friends starting wars? Could she be foreshadowing?

Anyway…all I’ve really done here is pick out parts of the linked article. It’s a short article, but I felt it was really rather revealing as to her character. Not that I had any doubts in the first place, mind you.

Rush to Judgment: Limbaugh Leads the Echo Chamber’s Attack on Bill Moyers

A really in tune analysis of the right wing freakishness last week…and I guess this week as well.

Even my blog was effected by the Republicon blog spammers immediately spamming the comments of any blog that mentioned Bill Moyers and showed up on Technorati.

In other news, I couldn’t help but laugh during Revenge of the Sith when Palpatine is giving the speech to the senate about the formation of the empire and says something very GW akin to, “You are either with us or against us”, and Padme starts crying and says “I guess this is how liberty is lost” or something like that. I can’t remember the exact lines, but it left a strong impression in my mind that George Lucas was making a bit of a statement.

PS : If you haven’t seen RotS yet, get your ass out there. It needs to be seen in the theater. I usually only go to about 1 movie a year in the theater, so that’s saying something. Revenge of the Sith is totally THE POWER. Mmm….and Natalie Portman is also THE POWER.

Charlie the Smoking Ape

Sorry, but that is just fucked up.

Update : Know-Nothing Bush Blocking Stem Cell Miracles by Matthew Rothschild

CNN.com - Stem cell bill may draw veto threat - May 19, 2005

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. There is only one way to solve this debate over stem cells. The solution is inspired by the Do Not Call telephone registry.

We create a “I Hate Stem Cells” registry, where the science hating right wingers can go and sign up. When they sign up, the share of their tax money which would have gone to any governmental stem cell programs is sent back into the general fund and not spent on stem cells. It would be up to the health care providers to ensure you don’t use any technique which may be derived from stem cell research when providing care of a list member. So a portion of the tax revenue which is removed from stem cell research for the list members, should naturally go into setting up and operating the registry, and providing a fast and reliable system for health care providers to verify a persons registry status.

Naturally, when new treatments or cures are discovered using stem cells, those on the list will not be allowed to reap the benefits. This really is best for all involved. They get to maintain their “Culture of Life” and the rest of us get to, well, maintain our lives.

I think it would be really great. After a generation or two, you would start to see the life expectancy of people not on the list edge ahead of those on the list, helping human evolution out of the lull it has fallen into. I mean, eventually one can see a future where only people on the list get heart disease or Alzheimer’s.

I just think that it’s the only fair way to resolve this. In this scenario, everyone gets what they want for themselves, only the right-wingers don’t get to slow things down and control the destinies of the rest of us.

Bill Moyers “A democracy can die of too many lies”

An address given by Bill Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis, Mo., last Sunday.

So the Mac Endub shipped me arrived today. It’s the first Mac I’ve ever had. A G3 350mhz. It’s sweet, a bit on the slow side, but suprisingly great for it’s age.

OS X, for those who don’t already know, is by far the best PC operating system, EVAR! I knew this even before I received my own Mac, but now I’m totally convinced.

It even makes my blog look better. Fonts are smoother, and things just generally have an air of coolness to them that Windows lacks. Back with OS 9, I could understand people claiming PC’s were better, but it’s not the case anymore. Mac’s running OSX are simply the cream of the computing crop, there’s absolutely no comparison.

Back to retro gaming now. Thanks for reading my nerdgasm.