A Real American Nero

By now, everyone is familiar with the pictures of GWB pimping with his Presidential Sealed guitar. Perhaps the comparisons to Nero are just too obvious, though people have been making them for years. Perhaps, rather than scrawl "This Machine Kills Fascists," on his guitar, Bush can color, in crayon, "I love my pet goat." His people will argue that he was in contact with mission control in the Big Easy. I argue that a true leader also speaks out to calm and reassure his people. I'm hearing reports of stabbings and chaos within the Superdome. Not to excuse that behavior, but, in a tragic parody of the BioSphere, these refugees have been thrown back into a state of nature.

Bush guitars while Rome burns. He is a true guitard.

That than which none greater can be thought...

We're all familiar with the old NewYorker cartoon of the frazzled scientist displaying his work on a formula on a chalkboard, where, to make everything come out just right, he has written, "And then a miracle happens." It's a statement on scientific whimsy and frustration and, sans formula, the basis of Intelligent Design. Intelligent design is a hoax on par with any of the great hoaxes of history, such as the Loch Ness Monster (coincidentally, a main buttress for the beliefs of young earthers everywhere).

Intelligent Design is basically defined by it's attacks on evolution. Evolution cannot explain everything, life is so complex, it requires conception of an intelligent designer to have created life. At this point, Intelligent design proponents bacically concede that evolution governs pretty much everything after the creation of the cell. Even there, there is very little actual debate.

In basing it's conclusions by working backwards from preconceived ideas about the creation of life, Intelligent Design is, ironically, perhaps, the most postmodern creation of metascience, infused with superstition and myth. Dragons may not be considered proof of intelligent design, but the people who believe this are not that far from the folks at the Discovery institute.

The thing that strikes me is that I've seen very thorough dismantling of the intelligent design attacks on evolution, but no thorough dismantling of intelligent design with the same scientific rigor. I'd like to start rectifying that. I have a few questions I think should be posed to all proponents of intelligent design belief. I will do further research and see if I can track down answers to these questions.

1) My biggest question is, who created the creator? If life is so complex as to be impossible without the help of a creator, mustn't the creator also have been created? This seems wholly circular to me. If life had to have a creator, how can the creator escape the same requirement. Is the creator not also intelligent?

2) Where is this creator now? What is this creator's role in the continued evolution of life? How can this be empirically measured?

3) By what scientific means did the creator in fact create life? Was magic involved? Miracle?

4) If the creator is so powerful, why does the creator not create new life or species out of whole cloth and/or in the lab? If the answer to this question is, "life was created perfect," isn't that a display of religious belief? If that is the answer, why have species evolved and died off?

5) If the intelligent design theory was derived from biblical creation, and not the Flying Spaghetti Monster, why are other supposedly "scientific" Biblical concepts like the earth being the center of the universe false?

I will have more questions tomorrow. So far, this stuff is 14th Century baby stuff that the church argued and never really came to a consensus on.

Able Danger

Everyone knows how I hate to write about national politics, as Kentucky and Ohio Politics are so deliciously absurd, but I couldn't help but talk about Able Danger. First off, Able Danger sound like an anagram to me, but I haven't been able to figure out for what.

It also appeared to me, at first, from this NYT story, that the right was leaking this story for the following line:

Colonel Shaffer went public with his assertions last week, saying that analysts in the intelligence project were overruled by military lawyers when they tried to share the program's findings with the F.B.I. in 2000 in hopes of tracking down terrorist suspects tied to Al Qaeda.

I thought the decision to disallow sharing of information between Able Danger and the FBI that was made by military lawyers would surely be used to smear these lawyers in the continuing 1002 Arabian Night at Abu Ghraib.

It further seemed Clinton, ghoulish spectre, he, or Jamie Gorelick was actually to blame for 9/11 helping to clear the apparently besmattered conscience of our wingnut friends. The smear was apparently scurrilous, but there's more.

Liberal blogs spent many pixels pointing out the many inconsistencies in the stories of those who revealed Able Danger. Again, the stories escape me, but here is the offending passage, from the Times story referenced above:

The former contractor, James D. Smith, said that Mr. Atta's name and photograph were obtained through a private researcher in California who was paid to gather the information from contacts in the Middle East. Mr. Smith said that he had retained a copy of the chart until last year and that it had been posted on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He said it had become stuck to the wall and was impossible to remove when he switched jobs.

Now, it turns out the worm may have turned and the real story is connected to what Al Franken dubbed Operation Ignore in his latest book. Apparently, this Zelikow fella, who was on the 9/11 commision and also gave the order to shut down Able Danger in March of 2001, may have had a hand in Able Danger being declared not historically signigicant. I don't know if the sources look any more credible, but the attempt to blame things on Clinton sure has backfired.

If someone were smart

there would be a lottery over who will resign first, Feltcher or Toast. Many democrats are wanting to savor Taft's flapping in the wind, but I'm more in favor of swift vengeance, force him to resign in shame, perhaps making him cry or at least rubbing his nose in the scat he's left on his reputation.

Why has everyone forgotten that the point of government is not to the winner go the spoils, but to protect, defend, uphold, and serve the constitchints.

Had Taft a shred of decency, he would have already resigned. It strikes me that Taft's best argument for keeping his job is to convince everyone that he is incompetent. What a delicious corner to be in. Abortions for some, miniature flags for all!

Blogging while the C-O-V burns

As I write this, I have been searching porn while the FDKY (covington branch) have been doing something or other outside my window. That's a pleasant feeling. I know the stretched a fire hose about 30 or so yards down the street, as I think someone may have left an 88 Ford Escort stripped and on blocks in front of the closer fire hydrant. I don't think they ever inflated it.

Reading the blogs the last few days, I think we're really starting to see the worm turn with regard to Bush. I remain steadfast that the only reason we are failing is that the putze in power are so incredibly incompetent. Seriously, I'm incredulous. They could do a better job replacing Rumsfeld with a magic 8 ball. Bush probably just needs to stay on vacation while we get some grownups to take control.

More and more people are demonstrating against the war. I don't agree with their message, but live under what is seemingly a delusion that they will be able to convince our dear leaders to remove their collective head from the collective rectum and stop screwing around. We've basically given up at this point.

Chicken Little

Taft, the farmer eating chicken piccata at brunch with the fox he appointed to guard the henhouse, apparently lied about the nature of those meals.

Tom Noe yesterday asked Gov. Bob Taft to issue a public statement correcting his accusation Thursday that Mr. Noe "made a great effort to conceal" his role in the state's $50 million investment in rare coins.

If Mr. Taft does not acknowledge that he made a "simple mistake," then Mr. Noe "will help people to understand that it was incorrect," said Mr. Noe's attorney, William Wilkinson.

Noe is about to sing like a canary. Either way, I think we need to talk about a third bird, as in Taft's goose being cooked. Hell, the Ohio Republican party is a freaking aviary!

Just had a thought

I was reading a post on dailyKos about the relative decline of the US in power in the world and how it parallels the winding down of the British empire in the early part of the last century. The thing that really strikes me is that the notion of the US as the last remaining super power, the greatest nation on earth is most important to the Christian Nationalists who would undermine that power by denying the truth of evolution, and opposing stem stell research, the absence of which will inevitably hasten the decline of America.

The last century, we were first. The first and only to put a man on the moon, the creator of the polio vaccine, the first to have nuclear capapbility. We were an engine. The Christian Taliban wants us to become insular and withdraw from the world into a womb of Christian Nationalism that nurtures and affirms their beliefs in the same way the multiculturalists would support and affirm the beliefs of all cultures.

I got to tell you, I think both approaches are wrong. I always refer to how immigrants should view the US as the free refill rule. In Europe and other countries, they often don't have free refills (or ice for that matter), but they have a wide array of cuisine. You can open your Ukrainian restaurant here, but you gotta have free refills. There is an American culture which at it's heart is secular but used to be called Civil Religion. You follow traffic lights. Have regular business hours. Start movies when advertised. You may not speak English at first, but that's always the goal. Serve free refills. Read the Dawahare's story and you'll understand.

Serur Frank Dawahare was born in a small village near Damascus, Syria, on August 18, 1888. He was the oldest of six children. He had one sister and four brothers.

Around the turn of the century Serur fled Syria to escape religious persecution. He came to America speaking no English and having very little money. He took a job in New York City in a sweat shop. There he met Selma Cury, whom he married.

So what, you say, this guy would today be looked down upon and called a potential terrorist by Bill O'Reilly? Perhaps, if not for the fact that the assimilated and built a large regional department store chain that prospers even today:

Serur's sons would shine shoes, sell newspapers, and on the fourth of July, were out selling flags. They embedded in all their children to be honest and work for what they wanted. It had to be team work.

Serur and Selma had eight sons and three daughters. They were very patriotic. They named three sons after presidents of the United States of America. Woodrow Wilson Dawahare, Warren G. Harding Dawahare, Herbert Hoover Dawahare.

In the 70's and 80's the chain followed a cautious expansion plan. The 90's have seen a new expansion bringing the total to 29.

Today there are 10 members of the third generation working in the business, one member of the fourth generation. The company plans to continue opening around three stores each year.

At one time, this is what it meant to be American. I have no problem with emmigration as long as the immigrant realizes that the reason he or she came here was to take advantage of America's promise and the only way to truly do that is by becoming American first.

Animal Farm

Here's my Orwellian take on Ohio's governor Taft, golf outings, and Tom Noe's rare coin fund. Not only is the fox guarding the henhouse, he's having the farmer over for a chicken dinner a couple times a week. I'm putting this in a letter to the editor, but I thought it was clever enough that it was worth a Plug Nickel first.

Back with a vengeance

I was watching another insipid piece on 20/20 tonight about how bad personal hidden cameras are on Gotcha! with John Stossel. This isn't the first segment on the evils of home hidden cameras on a show whose journalism relies solely on hidden camera investigations. Insipid. Then I realized that more people probably watch this shit than watch the Daily Show. I guess more also watch 20/20 than OReilly, but that is also a big steaming pile of feces. I'm just saying.

Been writing

My legions of loyal fans may be wondering why I haven't posted in a while. I've been writing, just not posting. I want to avoid any litigation and I've found it hard to write anything diplomatic about the clowns in Frankfort. Therefore, I've written, but not posted. MOre soon. Too many dumbass activity going on.