Recently in Politics Category
Here's in interesting blog post that compares Bill O'Reilly to Joe McCarthy. A choice excerpt:
MCCARTHY: You know the [American] Civil Liberties Union has been listed as "a front for, and doing the work of," the Communist Party?
OREILLY: [T]here is no question the ACLU and the judges who side with them are terror allies. (July 25, 2005)
While I'm sure Ann Coulter probably thinks this is a good thing (as Joe McCarthy was her role model), it certainly sends shivers down my spine.
According to this article, men act more "macho" when masculinity is threatened.
"If you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq War more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV [sport utility vehicle]," Willer said.
The obvious conclusion to draw from this: George W. Bush is the biggest wuss ever.
I'm always amazed at how people view and use religion after disasters. Some priceless quotes from a news wire article:
"These people need food but they also need Jesus," said Kosinski, who arrived this week from Malaysia. "God is trying to awaken people and help them realize that salvation is in Christ."
Umm... stick with the food and medicine, dude. And it's not only the Christians:
"This is some kind of a lesson. People forgot about God and he has now punished them. Maybe now people will realize what they have done and start going to the mosque."
So, going to mosque prevents the earth's tectonic plates from shifting and causing an earthquake. Got that kids? Good. Now about evolution...
But my favorite quote comes from (as usual) Jon Stewart on The Daily Show when they were showing a clip from ABC's show The View:
Star Jones: "...and I thank god every day 'cause, one month prior [to the tsunami], I was there [the Maldives]. ... God bless us."
Jon Stewart: "God killed 160,000 people. Just 'cause you weren't there, that's not him blessing. My guess is, that was an oversight."
Go, Jon, go! But, really, what would you expect from someone who thinks Atheists are unqualified to hold the office of President of the United states?
Some voting machines in Broward County can only count 32,000 votes per precinct. Translating this to tech terms, it could probably count up to 32,767 votes, which is a bit of a magic computer number. It's the largest number a 16-bit signed integer can hold. Why, oh why, is this an issue in this day and age? Are those extra two bytes so precious? 536,870,912 bytes cost only $95.99. I'm sure we could afford to spare a couple.
Some interesting election statistics. In the City of Chicago, 81% voted for Kerry, and 18% voted for Bush. In Manhattan, 82% voted for Kerry, 17% for Bush. In the Bronx, 82% voted for Kerry, 17% for Bush. In Queens, 71% voted for Kerry, 28% for Bush. In Brooklyn, 74% voted for Kerry, 25% Bush. I find these statistics particularly interesting given that exit polls had "values" and terrorism as the top deciding factors of Bush voters. How is it that urban areas are so "out of touch" with the rest of America, given that they are the most likely targets of terrorism? Or maybe the rest of America is "out of touch" with cities.
Between these 5 regions, Kerry got 1,771,838 more votes than Bush. Given how close swing states such as Ohio were, perhaps the DNC needs to start a Democratic Relocation Program.
This article describes how Bush lied to fellow Republicans in Congress regarding the prescription drug bill. Apparently, there were 13 Republicans who would not vote for the bill, if it cost over $400 billion because, hey, Republicans are against big government, right? It turns out former Medicare administrator Thomas Scully "directed his chief cost analyst to withhold information sought by Congress about the cost of the Medicare prescription-drug bill". From the article:
It is crystal clear that the Bush administration deliberately misled Congress by arguing that its then-pending Medicare drug bill would cost just $395 billion for the first 10 years, when its own experts placed the cost at $500 billion to $600 billion.
Is there anyone Bush hasn't lied to, lately? How does he get away with this and not look like a complete imbecile to the "average" American?
In a previous entry, I compared the Iraq war to The Crusades. Maybe Nicholas Von Hoffman says it better when he compares it to missionaries. Not that that makes me feel any more comfortable.
As usual, the President managed to tweak me during his press conference last night. From the transcript:
Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. ... And my job as the president is to lead this nation and to making the world a better place.
I think that truly summarizes the way he feels. He really feels as if are doing God's work by invading Iraq. That God has somehow has endorsed this war is very disturbing for me. Maybe that's how The Crusades started out.
While reading Norman Geras' blog, I ran across this article:
What is a Jew? Those hoping to find out from a Google search are in for an unpleasant surprise. The first of 1.75 million entries that appear when you type "Jew" into the search engine is an anti-Semitic site.
This discovery by a New York real-estate developer, among others, has sparked a cyberspace showdown, and a bid to alter the situation by a small band of Internet experts.
To push the anti-Semitic site down on the Google list, people have decided to try a Google bomb. It's pretty simple. If you have a website or blog, just put this link on it:
Jew [linking to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew]
That'll help drive up the page rank above the anti-Semitic site.
The Bush-Cheney website had this do-it-yourself campaign poster generator. Sure enough, it was abused, and taken down. Check out this flash animation (warning: music!) with the "best of" the abused slogans.
