And now, a history of the Internet

(via LGF)

Weapons bound for Hezbollah

LGF:

The IDF has uploaded a video presentation showing the huge shipment of weaponry from Iran, intended for Hezbollah, that was intercepted this week by an Israel Navy commando force aboard the civilian ship Francop.

Questions about health reform

LGF readers have them.

Japanese pig rodeo

And you thought mutton bustin was weird.

(via LGF)

Obama and racial hypersensitivity

(meme) Commenting on the TPMMuckraker story, LGF calls this image "disgusting racism"...

Really? So if I say I think it's pretty funny, does that make me a disgusting racist?

I recently read about shamans, witch doctors, and other primitive "spiritual" medicine in the early chapters of Robert Wright's The Evolution of God. And it seems to me that painting parts of Obama's health reform (like the public option) as running the risk of stifling innovation and leading to more primitive outcomes for medicine should fall within the norm of political satire.

But wait, we can't do that because it might suggest African-Americans are primitive, because of Obama's part-African heritage? Sigh.

I think distributing images like this is a bad idea only because it has the misfortune of serving as bait for the anti-racism police. And dealing with them is more tedious than the ordinary PC brigade, because of how harshly "racism" is demonized (justly so, in the case of actual racism).

Growing up bilingual and as a cultural minority as I did, I think I can state with a fair amount confidence that I'm pretty far removed from being racist. I was the only white kid in grade schools I attended and had some painful (as well as nonphysical) altercations with bona fide anti-yankee racism. So I know first-hand what the real shit is like, and this ain't it.

At worst, this image is racially "insensitive". Due to the bubble they live in, there are plenty on the right who have a real lack of racial sensitivity—but this does not mean they're "disgusting racists". And while I know being racially—or more broadly, culturally—sensitive can be is helpful for avoiding misunderstandings, this is not to say that being a sensitivity troll is helpful. Shame on TPMMuckracker and LGF.

Retort of the day

Pat Buchanan is a Christian creationist, who says: "Darwinism is not science. It is faith. Always was."

LGF counters:

It’s interesting that paleo-knuckleheads like Buchanan think the most devastating rebuttal of all to the theory of evolution is that it’s ... just like religion.

Amateur hour

With editing:



The "Copyright © 1786" is a nice touch.



(ht LGF)

"Soldiers in the Army of God"

A documentary of militant anti-abortionists:



Parts 2-7 at LGF.

Right-wing Christianity today

LGF has an extensive roundup of commenters reacting to the Tillman murder at hotbeds of right-wing kookery like Free Republic and Fox News.

Given such reactions, I can't believe it when QandO writes:

Someone went unhinged and shot an abortionist. So what? I mean, it’s a terrible tragedy, but what does it tell us about…well…anything? What conclusions are we supposed to draw? It’s not like abortionists are getting bumped off on a regular basis. The last one of these that occured was 11 years ago, back in 1998. What lessons am I supposed to draw from the fact that some lunatic thinks God told him to kill an abortionist that are in any way substantively different than those I would derive when a crackpot kills his pharmacist because the Venusians sent him a command to do so via the transmitter secreted in his skull?

If a crackpot kills his pharmacist, do you suppose there would be thousands of approving comments from right-wingers?

Obviously there's something different going on here. A sizable number of Christian fanatics actually approve of the murder of a physician in his church.

Klein and Kattenburg see this for what it is: political terrorism intended to reduce access to abortion.

Far-right nonsense

LGF:

“Intelligent design” creationist Denyse O’Leary interviews Islamic creationist Adnan Oktar (aka Harun Yahya); bug-eyed insanity ensues: Interview with Turkish Darwin doubter Adnan Oktar.

O’Leary calls Oktar’s book The Evolution Deceit: “the most succinct and comprehensive of the critiques of overblown claims for Darwinian evolution that I have ever read.”

Other books by Adnan Oktar include Holocaust Deception and Global Freemasonry. No word from O’Leary on whether she also considers those works “succinct and comprehensive.”

Logical fallacy of the day

RationalWiki:

No True Scotsman is a logical fallacy by which an individual attempts to avoid being associated with an unpleasant act by asserting that no true member of the group they belong to would do such a thing.

The term was coined by Antony Flew, who gave an example of a Scotsman who sees a newspaper article about a series of sex crimes taking place in Brighton, and responds that no Scotsman would do such a thing. When later confronted with evidence of another Scotsman doing even worse acts, his response is that no true Scotsman would do such a thing, thus disavowing membership in the group "Scotsman" to the criminal on the basis that the commission of the crime is evidence for not being a Scotsman. However, this is a fallacy as there is nothing in the definition of "Scotsman" which makes such acts impossible.

A modern example may be found at the would-be Conservative encyclopedia, Conservapedia. The founder of the site, Andrew Schlafly, has repeatedly used this fallacy to defend his personal concept that Conservatives, by definition apparently, do not practice deceit. When confronted with examples of deceit on the part of Conservatives, he routinely disavows that these individuals are Conservatives at all, on the basis that Conservatives do not practice deceit. He instead assigns them to the group liberal, regardless of evidence to the contrary. The use of this fallacy is underlined by the fact that prior to revelations of deceit, the same individuals would have been hailed as good Conservatives.

Phrases such as "un-American", "unChristian" or "inhuman" are widely used in politics and media to distance onself from a subject, defining them as outside the bounds of what the speaker considers to be truly 'American', 'Christian' or 'human' behaviour. These phrases strongly suggest the No True Scotsman fallacy, since the use, for example of "un-American" to describe specific political activities by some American citizens implies some special definition of "American" beyond mere nationality.

(Via LGF)

Link blag

The entitlement crisis is dreadful and Democrats are duplicitous.

Obsidian Wings gathers examples of how badly 9/11 and the Bush administration's torture policy warped conservative thinking. Many movement luminaries were ones emphatically against torture.

Bill Kristol is still crazy. But you knew that.

Conor explains the problems with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to NROites.  Jerry Taylor's follow-up is fantastic, by NRO standards.

LGF moans at yet another example of the GOP being anti-science.

That which wasn't in the brochure...

Nickel Creek, Ode to a Butterfly

(via LGF)

Quote of the day

"Neocons are more intelligent than most conservatives but much more evil." —rhino369

Wingnuttery of the day

LGF:

Pat Robertson urges his drones to jam the phone lines of the Department of Homeland Security, to scream about the “right wing extremist” report, wasting DHS resources and possibly blocking important calls.

Then he says that "someone down in the bowels of that organization is either a convinced left winger, or somebody whose sexual orientation is somewhat in question."

Bonus crazy Pat Robertson quote:

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."

More of his off-the-charts nuttery here.

Obama and Chavez

LGF calls this picture "absolutely sickening".

Without seeing a video of their conversation I'm not so convinced. I don't think it makes sense to rebuff leaders of other nations just because we disagree with their politics.

Update: The London Times has a story on the meeting. I don't see anything to object to there.

Update II: Politico says Obama walked over to introduce himself.

HuffPost has a video of Obama speaking of Cuba.

And finally, I didn't realize websites like this one still existed.