Associated Press Lies Again

The AP does it again.  The article is titled Poll: Many Obama 2008 Supporters Defecting to GOP, and begins with this ominous analysis:

President Barack Obama's winning coalition from 2008 has crumbled and his core backers are dispirited. It's now Republicans who stand to benefit from an electorate that's again craving change.

Nearly two years after putting Obama in the White House, one-quarter of those who voted for the Democrat are defecting to the GOP or considering voting against the party in power this fall.

Reading that, I immediately found the whole thing to be incredibly unlikely.  Would there be some Obama voters who switch sides?  Of course.  Part of his vote came from independents who weren't loyal to Democrats, and even if they like Obama doesn't necessarily mean they still like Democrats.  But the idea that lots of Obama people are flocking to the GOP seemed extremely dubious.

And I immediately identified the phrase "or considering voting against" as being fairly iffy and was hoping they'd give us the act4a3 details to this poll.

The Actual Results

And sure enough, the spin on this poll is a big pile of garbage.  After reading a bunch about how Obama is losing his coalition, we get the actual results:

_76 percent of Obama voters say they will support the Democrat in their House district, while 8 percent plan to back the Republican and the rest are undecided.

_71 percent of McCain voters say they will vote for the Republican in their House district, while 9 percent plan to get behind Democrats and 20 percent haven't chosen a candidate.

Uhh, what?  76% of Obama supporters say they'll vore for their Dem, while only 71% of McCain supporters say they'll vote for their Republican.  Sounds like Obama's doing better than the Republicans.

Only 8% of Obama supporters are switching sides, while 9% of McCain supporters are switching sides.  This is evidence that Obama supporters are "defecting to the GOP"??

And as you can see, the iffy "or considering voting against" line the article rested upon is actually that the people are undecided.  Yes, it can be argued that they're considering it, seeing as how they're not decided.  But those phrases don't really have the same connatation.  And as your spidey math skills should tell you, 15% of undecided Obama supporters is better than 20% of undecided McCain supporters.

In other words, the entire article is a crock of shit.  Obama's coalition is actually better than McCain's; at least according to this poll.  And only 11% of those who didn't say they'd vote for the Democrat thinks that Republicans will do a better job.  Looks like the only thing crumbling here is the Associated Press's integrity.

The Freedom to Get Sick and Die

Greg Sargent has a post about whackjob Sharron Angle's response during her debate with Harry Reid in which she was asked to name anything she thinks health insurance companies should be mandated to cover, and she responded with:

What we have here is a choice between the free markets and Americanism. America is about choices.  And we need people to have those choices. The free market will weed out those companies that do not offer as many choices and do not have a cost-effective system. 

Let the people decide where they want to buy their insurance.  You don't have to force them to buy anything.  And you don't have to force anyone to offer a product that no one wants.

And first off, the choice between free markets and Americanism?  Am I reading that wrong, or is she saying that Americanism is the opposite of free markets?  And is that even a word?  I guess it is, though I'm unclear as to how she was using it. 

Dying's Not an Option

But my real point is how this just shows the tunnel-vision thinking found so often in folks on both ends of the political spectrum.  People who somehow imagine that we could completely revamp our current system and still get all the benefits that it provides without any of the downside.  People who don't seem to realize that we had a system before labor laws and corporations, and things sucked a heckeva lot more than they do now. 

It's like the magic trick where the magician pulls the tablecloth off the table and everything stays the same.  But what you don't see is all the times the magician screwed it up during practice.  Unfortunately, in real life, we don't get to practie.  If we pull out everything holding up our system, we don't get a second chance at it.  And since we've already seen how things were like without it, there's no reason to take that chance.  Unfortunately, these people seem to forget that we've already seen that life can totally suck without labor laws or capitalism; and somehow imagine that prior generations invented this stuff just because they're stupid or cruel.

But in the case of Angle, it's even worse as the system she prefers is still in existence, yet she still imagines it works just fine.  We're not talking about someone who fails to grasp the reason why our current system was created.  We're talking about someone who insists that the free market will "weed out" crappy insurance; seemingly unaware of how prolific such insurance is.

Pony Insurance for the Free

Because yeah, I like freedom.  I like to be able to choose cheap products if I don't need the do-dads of a more pricey one.  And normally, that's great for me.  I don't want to be forced to buy a Mac if I can get by with a crappy netbook.  But health insurance is different from that, because eventually, I'm going to need it.  It's not a matter of me getting by with a no-frills plan.  It's a matter of me gambling with my life; which is a gamble I'm sure to lose eventually. 

And of course, nobody wants crappy insurance.  They all want the golden plan that takes care of them no matter what.  The problem is that most folks can't afford the insurance they need.  But...there is a way they CAN afford it, or at least a close approximation of it, and it's the very plan that dopes like Angle oppose.  Not only does it give everyone insurance, but it makes it so good insurers don't have to water down their products to compete with crappy insurance that people buy because they're gambling with their lives. 

So everyone's happy.  Well, everyone except for the morons who want to pretend as if dying is an option.  And so they'll cling to their ideals of freedom while ignoring the real world around them; imagining that the free markets will do what we clearly know they won't do.  The reality is that the only way the markets could be self correcting in this case is if people who get sick could hit a Do-Over Button, allowing them to go back in time and buy the insurance they now realize they need.  Short of that, we give everyone good insurance from the start and have them bitch and moan all the way to better healthcare.

And of course, the reality is that insurers want to give you crappy insurance, because it's cheaper for them.  They want to hook you in with cheap rates, which they'll raise without cause every chance they get, and then dump you once you really need it.  The reason Big Business opposes Big Government isn't because they love freedom.  It's because they want to screw over the little guys and Big Government won't let them do it.  There's nothing else to it. 

If the free markets would give us all pony insurance and good wages, Big Business wouldn't mind that the government was forcing them to do it.  And for as much as there are good insurance companies that want to offer good products, this law will only help them with that; as it forces all the crappy insurance companies to compete on the same basis.  And the only people complaining are the scumbag insurers and the people who don't know what they're talking about.  The rest of us should be happy to have the freedom to get good healthcare at a reasonable price.

Hating the Laws They Love

CNN has a story about how businesses which offer their employees crappy insurance plans are getting waivers from the Obama Admin allowing them to continue to offer crappy insurance plans until the insurance exchanges are set-up and we can give them real insurance. 

Without the waivers, these employers would be forced by the new healthcare law to offer real insurance now, but since that would require them to pay a lot more in premiums, they'd either have to raise their premiums or, more likely, just cut the insurance all together.  And while it'd be nice if they could get real insurance now, that's just not going to happen; so this is the next best alternative.

Now, anyone who opposes "Obamacare" should be HAPPY about this story.  Not only does it show Obama's willingness to work with businesses, but it also delays the effect of the healthcare law for these businesses.  So if you don't like the healthcare law or think Obama's a socialist dictator, this would be good news.  It'd be like us hearing that Bush was giving waivers to any soldier who didn't want to go to Iraq.

But of course, that would require these people to comprehend what they had just read, yet if they had these skills, they wouldn't oppose the law in the first place.  I mean, we're talking about a law which requires people to get a service which will be subsidized by taxpayers; and that would be a boon for any business.  As long as the money they collect actually goes towards the service they provide, there shouldn't be a problem. 

Yet all the same, these morons somehow imagine Obama is taking over the insurance industry in order to destroy it.  If that's a government takeover, Obama can take over my business any day.

Morons Speak

And so we get comments on that story like these:

"President Obama is the only leader taking comprehensive action to stop greenhouse gas emissions: He's steadily putting everyone out of work"

"this is just the beginning folks!!! you thought insurance companies were bad?!!! government is 1,000,0000 times worse!!! your gonna beg for insurance companies to come back once government puts them out of business to control your body and life!!!"

"anybody hear this on any of the major news channels....no these were the suck ups who pushed obama non care...this @#$% is wrecking our country and the news people are asleep at the wheel...no more democrats and only conservative republicans...I'm sick of the government in my pocket.....go Fox news and the Wall Street Journal."

"In Socialism the state always takes. The people own nothing! Do not be shocked or surprised as they eat away at home ownership, business owners,  jobs, owning property, anything. They will take it all. We can undo some of what's been done with the next vote."

"Ok - so now we have government run healthcare. And some people are actually happy? This is so the wrong way to go. What they should do is provide incentives to private healthcare providers to provide legimate benefits to Americans."

That last one is perhaps the funniest, as they just described Obamacare.  As I'm sure you realize, it's not government-run insurance at all.  It's private insurance with subsidies from the government, with enough protections to make sure citizens won't get ripped off by bad insurance.  Yet these people are so brainwashed that they don't even realize that Obama just gave them the insurance they wanted.

The Irony of Idiots

And without a doubt, these people didn't read the story.  They saw a headline titled 1 Million Workers Lose Out on Better Coverage and immediately imagine that Obamacare must be responsible for them losing out on the better coverage. 

But of course, the better coverage they're "losing" is what Obamacare is giving them, while this story is about these workers being exempted from Obamacare.   And in fact, these people didn't "lose" anything.  They're just stuck with the same crappy insurance they had before.  The same crappy insurance Obamacare's haters want them to have.  So they're attacking Obama for being flexible and giving workers the crappy insurance Obama's haters want Obama to have left them with.  And they're too stupid to even realize it.

And so we're stuck trying to deal with millions of people who don't even know that Obamacare is doing exactly what they want it to do, while attacking Nancy Pelosi for not reading a bill that they can't even comprehend.  And the saddest part is that many of these people will NEVER understand what this bill did, and will still be complaining about Obama's government takeover of health insurance, while unwittingly benefitting from it every day.  I hate it when irony hurts.

Calories Are Still Calories

In response to a post I wrote recently about nutritionists giving bad advice by pretending as if some calories are better than others, a longtime reader suggested that my theory would posit that a Coke and cotton candy diet with a 2000 calorie daily limit could be healthy.  He also stated that high fructose corn syrup is worse than cane sugar because the body processes it faster. 

I wrote a response to that comment (after a much delayed period in which my internet sucked), but decided it was good enough to be a full post, because I've been such a bum and haven't felt like writing lately.  So I rewrote it to be less of a response and more of a regular post.

BTW, shortly after writing my previous post, I read LiveScience.com's 7 Biggest Diet Myths, which contained some of the same things I had just written about; including the dangers of smoothies.  While I thought a few of them were wrong, I definitely think it's worth a read.

The Coke & Cotton Candy Diet

Regarding the Coke and Cotton Candy Diet, as long as we threw in a daily vitamin supplement and some whey protein, I betcha a lot of people would see a vast improvement in their health compared with the crap they're eating now.  If anything, their taste buds would complain sooner than their health would. People scoffed at the Atkins Diet, too. But eventually, the nutritionists had to grudgingly back down and quietly rework all their theories while pretending they were right the whole time. 

But of course, their advice was based upon superstition and hearsay; not science.  And they rejected a pile of science before they finally accepted what Dr. Atkins was saying.  Not that he was right about everything, as there are other good ways to lose weight, too.  But the fat=bad, carbs=good crock of shit is now dead, no thanks to the nutritionists who kept it alive for as long as possible. 

It sickens me to think of all the people who replaced their protein-rich eggs for calorie-rich muffins because of these fools.  Even now, too many people still consider muffins to be health food, simply because they're not as tasty as their donut and cake cousins.  As one doctor quoted by LiveScience suggested, the low-fat craze was an "uncontrolled experiment on a whole population."

But of course, the nutritionists STILL engage in uncontrolled experiments upon us.  They've now settled on this theory that man-made foods are bad for us, citing minor allergies to MSG as proof that it's dangerous, while neglecting the fact that peanut allergies can kill people.  Just because something's natural doesn't mean it's good for us, as nature produces poisons, too.  But these people continue to pimp this all-natural myth all the same. 

And of course, I wouldn't actually recommend a Coke-Cotton Candy-supplement diet to anyone; but it'd surely be than the 3000+ calories they're consuming right now; even if it came from fruit and vegetables.

The Problem of Quantity

And it should be noted that quite a few people drink at least a 64-ounce Super Big Gulp of Coke every day, which gives them a whopping 776 calories.  That's where the problem with soda is.  It's not the content or lack of vitamins.  It's the quantity.  Anyone drinking a 64-ounce Jamba Juice every day would find their weight balloon, as 64-ounces of their all-fruit smoothies would add almost 1000 calories to their diet; almost 25% more than they're currently getting in their Super Big Gulps. 

That's why the advice for people to give up soda is such foolishness: If it's just a matter of switching beverages, they're doomed.  These people need to change lifestyles.  I personally have found it's quite easy to consume over 800 calories in fruit juice without trying. One cup of juice just isn't very much, and it's ohhhh so tasty.  Anyone with juice in their house is lucky to not consume 500 calories of it a day.  If I didn't have kids, I'd never keep it around.

As for the nutritional value of Jamba Juice, that's all well and good, except the typical Jamba Juice consumer isn't suffering from a vitamin deficiency and doesn't require the 190% daily vitamin C their large Strawberry Whirl gives them; along with 380 unnecessary calories.  These people aren't getting much needed vitamins in the form of a tasty beverage. They're getting a tasty beverage with a few perks thrown in to fool them into thinking they're being healthy.  But the calories still count, even if it comes with vitamins. 

People need to realize that Jamba Juice is a guilty pleasure, not a health food.  Yet the nutritionists aren't warning us about this stuff at all.  But if a smoothie isn't a substitute for a meal, it's just as empty as the calories in Coke. There's no reason someone needs 930% of their daily vitamin C from a sixteen ounce drink with 260 calories, as you'd get in a Acai Super Antioxidant.

BTW, the vitamin C from their medium and large versions of that drink is apparently so ridiculous that they didn't even post it online; though my calculations show the biggest one to have 1860% of your daily vitamin C; along with 520 calories and 2 grams of saturated fat.  That's the health nut equivalent of buying a monster truck to over-compensate for having a small dick.  You're pissing out the excess vitamins while the calories go straight to your hips.

Sugar is Sugar

And the other point is that we need to stop calling fruit "fruit," and realize we're talking about sugar.  You can get sugar from all kinds of plants and there's nothing superior about the "unprocessed" sugars from Jamba's processed fruit drinks.  That sugar is no longer the same as when it's in its fruit format.  Eating a strawberry isn't the same as drinking one.

And the point about corn syrup is simply false, and is based upon what the nutritionists told us; while the scientists have concluded no such thing.  While there is a slight increase in sugar spikes compared with sugar, foods like white bread and potatoes are actually worse and rank higher on the glycemic index.

And one of the biggest problems with the whole concept of sugar spikes is that it's based upon an empty stomach. Mix it up with a belly of food and the sugar spikes aren't nearly as dramatic. It's the same way with alcohol; you'll get drunk a lot quicker on an empty stomach, as your body absorbs it all quicker. But a full stomach makes it harder to test these kind of things, so they don't do it that way. But that just proves my point: Sugar spikes aren't very dramatic if you're actually eating food. 

Too Many Calories

Overall, people need to limit their consumption of ALL unnecessary calories; not just the ones processed by man. The ones in fruit can hurt you, too.  My point isn't that Coke is a health food.  My point is that fruit juice isn't either.  Getting people to switch from one calorie source to another isn't going to fix anything.  And if anything, it has the ill effect of making people believe they're being healthy when they're not.  Eating an apple doesn't justify the brownie they'll have for dessert, and drinking apple juice doesn't help them at all.

IMO, one of the biggest reasons people are overweight (besides genetics and intestinal bacteria) is that people honestly don't know how many calories they're consuming.  Yeah, they know that Big Macs aren't health food.  But until they understand that milk, juice, and bread are also loading them up with calories, they aren't getting the big picture.  Yet they're constantly led to believe that these are health foods; as if the calories don't count.  But of course, ALL calories count, no matter how healthy they are for you.

Eating 900 calories at McDonald's isn't helping them, but it's all to easy to consume that much from just milk, juice, and bread.  Yet not only do the nutritionists not warn us about this; they actually encourage us to consume these.  Our problem is too many calories.  We're not suffering from a lack of vitamin C.  The number of calories we consume is far more important than their source.

A Calorie is a Calorie

Long time readers know that I've got a war on self-proclaimed nutritionists who use their own puritanical superstitions instead of science to give people lousy advice on what people should eat.  And I happened to notice another of those people yesterday. 

Here's an article titled 5 Ways to Limit Liquid Calories, which once again passes on the bogus claim that the calories in 100% fruit juice are magically better than the calories in soda and fruit juice cocktails; based upon the delusion that sugars that come from cane sugar and corn are "empty," as opposed to the wonderful sugars that come from other plants. 

It's as if we're to imagine that drinking fruit juice might somehow make us eat less.  But of course, they don't.  No matter how much fruit juice I drink, I'll still want to eat just as much; thus making them just as empty as the other calories I drink.

Soy Lattes to the Rescue

The writer starts by stating how those delicious Pumpkin Spice Lattes she enjoys at Starbucks have 410 calories, and recommends using soy milk instead of whole milk; which is one of the five ways of limiting calories. 

But what she fails to mention is that, even with the soy milk, this drink still has 370 calories.  That's right, her great advice of omitting the whole milk saves her a whopping 40 calories.  And she gets paid to write this garbage?  I mean, research suggests that we limit our calorie intake to 2,000 a day, yet this bozo is having us spend almost 20% of our calorie budget towards a fricking dessert drink; and imagines she's giving us good advice.

She also gives bad advice on when to consume calories, stating that it's better to drink your calories in the morning, when you can still burn them off.  Yet research has shown that it doesn't matter when you consume calories, and that having them in the morning is no different than having them at night.  That was yet another myth these people continue to push, evidence to the contrary.

Yes, I understand how skipping breakfast could slow your metabolism, but that's a far cry from telling people that it's ok to indulge in calorie-laden coffee drinks if you do it early enough.  That's superstition, not science supporting that claim.

Jamba to the Rescue

And finally, I wanted to highlight one of the commenters, who had the mistaken belief that smoothies are low calorie, as long as they're made with real fruit.

Real fruit smoothies are also great ways to limit liquid calories. As a huge fan of the restaurant chain Jamba Juice, I can say that anything from their All Fruit or Jamba Light menu is a low-calorie, great-tasting snack/meal of sorts in liquid form.

Simply put, if there are a lot of added sugars/unhealthy fats in a drink, don't drink it. But some calories in these drinks (i.e. whey protein) can be good. Just avoid any added sugars, and one can drink virtually anything without intaking too many calories.

And so I went to Jamba's website and see, lo and behold, that this person is full of dooky.  A 16-ounce all-fruit smoothie has 240 calories in it.  By contrast, a 16-ounce Coke has 194 calories.  And no, your body doesn't care where the calories came from.  And if you go for Jamba's biggest all-fruit smoothies, you're packing in over 400 calories.  I don't care what else they add to it, that's a lot of calories from a drink.

And even their "light" smoothies give you unnecessary calories, with a 16-ounce "Mango Mantra" giving you 150 calories; not much fewer than that Coke.  And some of their drinks can REALLY pack in the extra calories, including a Green Tea drink that has more calories than a Big Mac.  Sorry pal, but Jamba Juice is not your friend.

Everything in Moderation

And the biggest problem here is that too many people consider these to be ok, and fool themselves into believing that the calories don't count; as the commenter above clearly has.  And so they drink their 100% fruit juice and all-fruit smoothies, then "reward" themselves with a Spiced Pumpkin Latte; and don't even realize that they just drank half their calorie budget for the day.  And that's not to mention the bran muffins that add several hundred calories, or the Gatorade they drink after working out, which packs on more calories than they burned.

The reality of all this is that there are no tricks to losing weight, beyond moderation.  The reason people don't get fat eating fruit is because fruit simply isn't enjoyable enough to eat so much that you'll gain weight that way.  But the calories still count.  And if people enjoyed eating fruit as much as they enjoy Oreos and brownies, fruit would be bad for you, too.

Of course, even moderation should be done in moderation, and it IS a good idea to reward yourself with a few tasty calories.  Just don't confuse the rewards with the punishment, by imagining that soy milk substitutes and all-fruit smoothies count as the punishment.  They don't.  And the sooner people realize that boring foods can have more calories than fun food, the better. 

The Likely Voter Scam

I just wanted to take this time to once again state my belief that the demise of the Democratic majority in both the House and Senate are greatly exaggerated.  For as much as there is an enthusiasm gap between the parties, which is something I find undeniable, I not only believe the gap will be far less significant on Election Night, but I think it's actually masking how things look right now.

And a big part of this is on the role that polls play on Election Day.  There's this theory that says it's all about momentum, and polls give momentum to a candidate.  And for as much as I think there is some momentum effect at play in every election, I think this effect is grossly overstated. 

Because frankly, I just don't see too many people voting for a candidate merely because polls say he's popular.  As if someone checks the Gallup poll one morning and decides "Hey, this Obama guy's beating McCain by two points.  I think I'll support him," with enough people doing that so that Obama's lead grows by a few percentage points.  That sounds insane to me.  And if anything, any such effect can easily be offset by complacency, where by a voter might not show up because he thinks it's a slamdunk; while the underdog's voter might show up, because he thinks it's needed.

And if nothing else, the momentum of polls is a very ill-understood topic, of which I doubt there is much serious research.  For as much as I think polls are useful, it's merely to identify where the momentum is; not to change it.  And if anything, I think it has more to do with convincing people to donate money to candidates who poll well.  Lobbyist-types are likely to give more to the guy who looks like he'll win, while regular donors are more likely to give to a candidate who has a chance of winning, but still needs the dough.  And that sort of thing can have a real effect on an election. 

But this Likely Voter polling stuff by itself isn't really going to tell us much, beyond making political junkies have their equivalent of a minor Christmas morning every time they read a poll they like.

My Theory of Polls

And beyond momentum, a poll more than two weeks before an election is fairly worthless.  Not that polls are so bad, but it's the "Likely Voter" issue that makes them so worthless.  Yes, Tea Partiers have more enthusiasm than most Democratic voters and they're likely to say that they'll vote than Democrats will.  So what?  That doesn't make it true. 

And if anything, I'd gladly bet that the opposite is true: Angry Tea Partiers who won't vote are more likely to tell pollsters they will, while complacent Democrats will say they don't know if they'll vote, but will.  And that's just got to be correct.  There will always be people who say they'll vote, but won't; and that group will most assuredly lean conservative for this election.  And there will naturally be people who aren't sure if they'll vote, but will; and that group will lean Democratic.  That just makes sense.  And with more urgency on the Democratic side, and more confidence on the Republican side, that'll just happen more.

Because seriously, here's what should happen: The Unions and traditional Democratic base will give a full-court press the week before the election and convince their supporters that this is do-or-die; particularly two days before the election.  This is it, and if they ever supported Obama and his agenda, this is the time to support it.  And that's most certainly true.  2008 was very important, but things are even more important now that we've got everything on the line.  Failure is simply not an option.  And these people will show up in large numbers to vote straight-ticket Democrat; not because they're enthuasastic about the people they're voting for, but because it's better than the alternative.

And in the end, we might lose a few seats, but we could possibly gain a few. But I just don't see the tidal wave giving Republicans the House and/or Senate.  That's been my prediction for most of this year and I'm sticking to it.

Punishing Ourselves to Victory

Obama said:

The single biggest threat to our success is not the other party. It's us. It's complacency. It's apathy. It's indifference. It's people feeling like, well, we only got 80 percent of what we want, we didn't get the other 20, so we're just going to sit on our hands

And I've got to agree with that.  If all the people who voted for Obama in 2008 voted for Democrats in November, it'd be a landslide for us.  We'd slaughter them.  But the problem is that too many people have just given up on Obama.

But that was a big offense for many of the people Obama was referring to.  Apparently, the truth hurts.  So these people have to attack the man who is responsible for more liberalism than these keyboard critics of his will be in their entire lifetimes.  That's not to attack these people, but merely to state a fact:

Proving his point

Here are a sampling of comments to Obama's remark.

"Would that we had gotten 80. Seems more like less than 50%."

"All I wanted was a rollback of Cheney's acquisition of dictatorial powers for the executive, so I got 0%.  I shouldn't have been surprised; the Democrats are accountable only to the center-right."

"Our so called Dem "leaders" in Washington again showed why a large % of people who supported them are now basically disgusted we are with them. I have NEVER seen such totally ball-less group of people in my life. They deserve what happens to them in November, especially the Blue Dogs who really have NO concern for their constituents only concern for their "jobs".'

And there's a lot more just like it. 

And none of this makes any sense.  Because, yes, I suppose many of these people will be "punished" if they don't get re-elected.  But you know who else gets punished?  That's right, us.  The country.  These guys aren't just talking about kicking some traitorous Blue Dogs out of Congress.  They're talking about throwing us to the wolves. 

Anyway, I wrote three comments regarding this, and figured I'd share them here.  Enjoy!

Double-Reverse Psychocology

I'm astonished by the number of Democrats who somehow imagine that we'll get more of what we want if we "punish" Democrats in November. As if it's somehow worth it to allow Republicans to trash the country for two straight years, in the hopes that a rightwing victory will teach Democrats to be more leftwing.

But of course, what we'll get instead is two years of Republican rule, followed by Democrats who are so afraid of another loss that they bend over backwards to appease Tea Partiers. Believe it or not, but the way to strengthen your team is to support them, not attack them. I know, that doesn't feel very satisfactory, but that's how it works.

If you want Democrats to be liberals, we need to give them more seats in Congress; not fewer. And if we abandon them, they'll find someone else who will support them. That's just how life works.

Senator Rand Paul

This isn't Senator Weak-kneed v. Senator Pony. This is Senator Weak-kneed v. Senator O'Donnell.

And look, the main reason Democrats haven't done more is because they're scared. They just don't think there are enough liberals to support a liberal agenda, and that paralyzes them. By abandoning them, they just get more scared and more likely to do nothing or move to the right. It's like punishing your kid by slapping them every time they screw up. You're more likely to traumatize him than teach him to stop screwing up. And as much as I don't like scared Democrats, that's certainly better than emboldened Republicans in charge.

And again, that's what we're talking about. Maybe you'd prefer that Republicans get control of the circus again, but I don't. I'll take an ineffectual Democratic Congress over an effectual Republican one, any day. This election has real consequences.

Rahm's Peeing His Pants
 
A commenter suggested that Obama is ignoring the left because Rahm things he's got them all sewn up.  To which I wrote:
 
Really? You imagine Rahm thinks he's got the left sewn up? Because I believe Rahm's shitting his pants about the left. I think they've written off much of the left because the left wrote them off long ago.

Seriously, at this point, what could Obama realistically do to woo you back? Could he do it in the short time before the election? Or is it already too late? And at what point did it become too late?

He started his presidency with a good 10% of the ultra-left having written him off. Right or wrong, they simply couldn't support him. It didn't take long until another 10% wrote him off, followed by another little chunk. And before long, he's lost 40% of his base or more. And there's nothing that can bring them back. Not realistically. These people already gave up on Obama and the Democrats, and want them punished for their sins.

So at that point, what can they do? Because this was inevitable. Obama would never have more than 70% of the liberal base, and probably less. They went into it knowing that. Liberals just aren't like that. And so what choice do they have but to work the middle, and at least put up a good faith effort towards looking non-partisan?

And let's be serious: The Obama presidency is WAAAAAY better than the Bush years. Anyone who suggests differently is deluding themselves. As much as it's possible to find similarities between Obama and Bush, I refuse to believe that any of you would trade this for another Bush presidency or a McCain presidency. Seriously.

And that's what we're talking about. You can blame Obama and the Democrats all you want, but at the end of the day, we've got to live with two years of Republican hysteria. We'll only be punishing ourselves.

Discovery Channel Hates American Sea Captains

One of the problems with our society is that you can buy justice, in that the better your lawyer is, the more likely you'll do well in our justice system.  But frankly, I can't really think of a better system.  I mean, people should be allowed to choose who they work for, as well as who they hire as lawyers.  And I believe in allowing supply & demand to determine market prices. 

While I can think of some heavyhanded solutions which could solve this problem, I can't really see any of them being implemented.  And even if we succeeded in giving people equal justice, we'd just force the lawyers into back allies, giving advice on the legal blackmarket.

I had written a much longer post, but decided it wasn't worth it.  So I'm only leaving this.  Hope you're not too disappointed.

The Miranda Sham

The NY Times has an article about a fascinating study published by the Standard Law Review called The Substance of False Confessions (pdf), which details an analysis of forty cases in which people confessed to crimes they were later proven to be innocent of.  And the study is an excellent display of how police elicit confessions, what prosecutors do with those confessions, and what these people do intentionally and unintentional to convict the people they believe to be guilty of crimes.

And one of the biggest problems is the Miranda Sham.  While Miranda was originally conceived as a way of reinforcing our right to not self-incriminate, it's now used as a way of locking in statements, giving a technicality by which judges and juries can toss out witness testimony and ignore conflicting evidence, as long as certain words were uttered to the defendant before they were coerced into confessing.

And the whole thing is a sham.  We have the right to remain silent and if someone doesn't want to confess to a crime, we shouldn't be allowed to pressure them into doing so.  And in all of the cases presented in this study, the defendants were tricked into confessing.  They didn't want to confess and didn't even know the necessary details to confess, but due to their lack of intelligence (and more importantly, lack of lawyer), they inadvertently gave up their right to silence, though they had no intention of doing so.

In one case, one innocent person was not only pressured into confessing, but also pinned the crime on four other people.  Three of the other four also confessed.  The one who didn't had a lawyer.

Lawyers for All

And of course, had they been provided with lawyers, none of them would have confessed. Nor would they have endured lengthy interrogations, often involving lies and abuse. They didn't want to confess, but they didn't know how to not confess. And that's simply not how our system should work. We have the right to remain silent, and that right shouldn't only exist for those with the brains to demand it.  People who are too dumb to refuse to speak without their lawyer are the ones who need a lawyer the most. 

As the article states "In twenty-six of the forty cases—or sixty-five percent—the defendant was either mentally disabled, under eighteen at the time of the offense, or both."  And yet their confessions, without the presence of an attorney, were considered valid, even when experts testified that these individuals lacked the mental ability to understand what they were confessing to.  A schizophrenic who hears the "voice of God" during an interrogation is not a reliable confessor.

And just imagine if the right to bear arms was enforced similarly.  As if you only have that right if you actively pursue obtaining a gun, and the police can lock you up for hours, trying to trick you into giving them your gun; after which you've waived your right to possess it.  And then, during your trial, it's argued that you didn't have the right to bear arms because you had voluntarily waived the right, and therefore broke the law when you possessed a gun you didn't have the right to possess.

And yes, that's ludicrous.  But no more ludicrous than our current system of tricking people into confessing, and then acting as if those coerced confessions are rock-solid evidence that trumps all other evidence.  And this applies to guilty people as much as the innocent.  The right to remain silent isn't just a nicety.  It's a fundamental part of our system, which is why it made it in The Bill of Rights top five. 

If someone truly chooses to waive their rights, that's fine.  But if someone wants to remain silent, we don't have the right to trick them out of it.  That completely negates the whole purpose of having it in the first place.  The Constitution isn't just for the intelligent.

God's Mysterious Ways

A man from Charleston was "hiking the Appalachian Trail" and met quite a few people from Colorado.  He thought this might not be a coincidence and decided to ask God why so many people from Colorado were there, and God apparently told him that he was sending him a sign telling him to go to Denver and work at Tim Tebow's charitable foundation; now that Tebow got drafted by the Denver Broncos.  And so he went to Denver, gave a note to the first Bronco he saw, then stood outside waiting for Tebow; holding a bible verse for Tebow to see.

And no, I'm not making this up.  I read it right here.  Some guy actually believes that God altered the vacation plans of quite a few Coloradoans, just to send him a message.  Sure, you'd think an omnipotent being could find some slightly more direct way of communicating, but I suppose if he really COULD do anything, it'd be just as easy for him to use these mind-manipulating bankshots, as it would be to pick up the phone and tell the guy what to do.  That's what omnipotence is all about.

And seriously, this is a mental illness.  This guy is absolutely bonkers if he thinks the reason all these Coloradoans were hiking the Appalachians was so that God could get this one guy's attention.  After all, God apparently still had to tell this guy what to do, so it seems God could have just spared these people the hassle and just talked to the guy directly.  And what, he's never heard of email?

Of course, I don't mean to disrespect all believers by mocking this guy, as I'm quite certain that this guy isn't representative of all Christians.  But still, this guy's beliefs should give us all pause.  After all, it's a fine line between believing the impossible and being stark raving crazy, making it especially important to stay diligent.  When it comes to the supernatural, even the impossible is possible.  But as we've witnessed in others, it's all too easy to find supernatural explanations to ultra-natural events.

As a side note: The oddest part here is how the reporter could report this news, without trying to warn everyone.  When someone's willing to move cross-country because a supernatural being told them to be close to someone else, it's probably not a good thing.  I don't see this ending well.

Tea Party Punishes Conservatives Again

I'm hoping to say more about this soon, but thought this headline made a point I've been saying since the "Tea Party" began grumbling early last year: Sen. Murkowski's Defeat Marks Major Tea Party Win.

That's right.  The Tea Party taking down a conservative incumbent is a "major win."  As far as Obama and Democrats go, these are the same fruitballs that have been attacking them since the beginning, and this represents no change from before.  No, it's the Republican Party that needs to worry.  The far-far right is on the warpath and only the craziest can survive.  And the crazier they are, the easier it is for us.

The AP Hearts Beckapoolza

To hear the Associated Press tell it, yesterday's Glenn Beck Ego Rally in D.C. is proof positive Tea Party forces are part of an epic movement in American politics which threatens to change the status quo in the next election.  Forget about the fact that these people are actually fighting for the status quo, as it was before the 2008 elections; this is about a revolution.

The article was titled "Beck Rally Signals Election Troubles for Dems," and describes "voter unrest" at this "nonpolitical rally" which they say "illustrated voters' exasperation" at the people in charge.  It described the Tea Party thusly:

The tea party is essentially a loosely organized band of anti-tax, libertarian-leaning political newcomers who are fed up with Washington

Political newcomers?  Is there some sort of evidence of this, besides that this is how these people sometimes describe themselves?  Because I've got another way of describing these people: The same a-holes who hated Bill Clinton, fervently defended George W, and insisted throughout 2008 that Obama was a Muslim traitor socialist who planned to destroy America. 

In other words, they're the sore losers on the far-far-right who attack anyone who attempts to deny them power.  How anyone can look at these people and imagine that they're some sort of bipartisan uprising of recently frustrated voters is absolutely amazing.  That might make a better news story, but it's complete and total fiction. 

When Sarah Palin whips them into an anti-Obama frenzy, it's the same frenzy she whipped them into before her epic defeat in 2008.  Or are we to forget the "paling around with terrorists" stuff and pretend as if these people were somehow fair-minded about Obama before he destroyed America?

Likely Voters Skew Angry

And what did the AP not mention in this story?  That this "voter uprising" was estimated to be a relatively miniscule 87,000 people.  And while that's at least 86,980 more people than I could probably get at a Biobrain rally, in the grand scheme of things, that's not particularly impressive.  I mean, hell, that's only 0.15% of the people who voted for McCain in 2008.  And if 53 million votes won't win them an election, why should we take Beck's angry 87,000 to be some sort of threat?

And overall, one of the big fallacies too many people are making regarding the upcoming election is that angry votes somehow count more than non-angry ones.  That's why the "likely voter" scenarios the pollsters create are skewing Republican, because angry people tell pollsters they're more likely to vote.  But this far ahead of the election, that's still an iffy proposition, no matter how much us politicos want to be able to predict the future.

As a reminder, in August 2008, McCain and Obama were often neck-and-neck.  As Polling Report shows, while some polls of likely voters had Obama in a sizeable lead at this point, CNN had it at 48-49 Obama, well within the margin of error.  In fact, for the first part of September, McCain was winning in more polls than Obama.  It wasn't until October that polls consistently showed Obama with a break-out lead,  Yet Obama went on to win by seven points, a landslide by modern standards.

And that's just to be expected.  I mean, like it or not, even a majority of voters only care enough about politics to start having real opinions once the election approaches.  And the people who have established opinions are going to be the people who are involved, but that really doesn't mean much.  Because again, angry votes don't count more than tepid ones and there will always be more tepid voters than angry ones.

And that means that all this can change by November.  To suggest otherwise is to play silly headgames with ourselves.  The desire for certainty is no assurance that it exists.

Angry Still Angry

And back to the point, Beck's angry 87,000 is much fury about nothing.  These people were angry in 2008, 2006, 2001, 1996, and every other election for the last twenty years.  These aren't political newcomers who have banded together to form a new movement.  This is an angry mob that latched onto a cutsie name to describe themselves, as a way of associating themselves with a history they refuse to understand. 

Them referring to themselves as a Tea Party is just more evidence that they're ego-driven fools who are angry that America isn't designed exactly the way they want it; whatever that is.  As Carpetbagger continues to point out, this "movement" has no real agenda, beyond ambigious goals like freedom, liberty, and truth; without any real comprehension of what those ideas mean or how we can apply them in practice.  And the whole thing falls apart once they actually start trying to say what they're going to do.  They want freedom and power.  Beyond that, it's every jerk for themselves.

But all the same, the AP is in love with the idea that they've got a new story to pimp, so pimp it they will.  Yes, they're angry, but they've always been angry and a small group consisting of less than 1% of angry Republicans isn't going to make a difference in November.  As much as these people can hurt anyone, it's Republicans in Republican primaries who have to worry.  But these people weren't going to vote for Democrats in any case, and their vote isn't any stronger than it was going to be no matter how angry they are.

As I've always said, the Tea Party is a splinter group that is as much a threat to Democrats as Ralph Nader is to Republicans.  Somehow, the media acknowledges Nader as being a thorn in the side of Democrats, yet refuses to understand how the Tea Party plays the same part.  But perhaps that's just because they listen too much to their confused rhetoric, rather than the practical implications of what they're saying.  So far this year, the only people who have been hurt by the Tea Party were conservative Republicans who weren't conservative enough.  I fail to see how that's a threat to anyone else.

The Limits of Obamascare and the Douchebag Strategy

As I've been saying since Republicans made their anti-Obama "strategy" obvious last year, it's all for nothing.  All they were going to be able to achieve with it is to get the people who already hate Obama to continue to hate Obama, while losing any chance of winning over anyone else.  Obama and Democratic fortunes rested almost entirely on the economy, and as much as Republicans might have been able to implement a strategy to win new converts, they threw that right out the window when they decided to reflexively attack everything Obama did.

But that's not to say that Republicans wouldn't have ANY impact on Obama's future, as they could certainly undermine his plans in order to make him less effective.  Sure, they could have more easily done that with bi-partisan negotiating, but they could still have an impact even by attacking everything from the outside. 

And we saw a lot of that with the healthcare debate.  By attacking Obama's healthcare plan, it made it harder for him to get what we needed, and we ended up with an imperfect bill.  But...once the bill passed, it was time to move on.  Especially as their best trick was to attack things that weren't in the bill, which got a lot harder once there was a real bill to talk about.  If anything, it was the unknown that scared most voters, with only diehard Republicans hating the actual bill. 

Yet Republicans once again believed their own hype and imagined they could continue to use "Obamacare" to attack Democrats, even if it meant attacking a bill that would help people and contained lots of popular policies that were already being enacted.

Even Republicans Don't Care

And via Carpetbagger, it looks like we've got some results on this, at least as far as Republican Attorney Generals trying to score points with Republicans.  The end result: Not much.  Not that it can be argued that the anti-Obamacare position hurt these AG's, but it doesn't seem to have done anything.  And remember, these were Republican primaries, yet there wasn't any pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.  General Election results could be a negative, assuming voters even remember.

And that's just not good enough in politics.  You really shouldn't take a high profile stance on an issue unless there's a good chance you can score real points with it.  And had "Obamacare" been filled with Death Panels and other assorted evil-doing, that would have been possible.  But as it was, Republicans were stuck trying to repeal good policies that people support, and you really can't make something your key issue if you can't mention any of the actual details you're attacking.

But Republicans are too dumb to have thought this through.  Their position is to attack Obama as much as possible, and as far as denying him victories, it's worked; though with a huge cost (they currently have no policies or mandate of any kind, beyond denying Obama victories, and are less popular than Democrats).  But once he has his victory, it's time to move on. 

Even among Republicans, they list healthcare reform in their litany of Obama abuses, but they're far more concerned with stopping the next Obama abuse; and aren't going to reward people for repealing the policy battles they already lost.  And in a general election, the results could only get worse.

But of course, their "strategy" had little to do with politics at all.  The reality is that these people opposed everything Obama did because it was the easiest thing for them to do, as it required no actual thinking and was what Limbaugh and the other talking heads told them to do.  Just because your son teases your daughter all the time doesn't necessarily mean he's got some strategy to defeat her.  He might just be a douchebag.

The Right to be Offensive

One of the biggest mistakes conservatives make is listening to conservatives. Well, that’s the biggest mistake anyone can make, but generally, it’s only conservatives who are at risk of this. And the reason that’s such a mistake is because conservatives are so results-oriented. It’s not about weighing the options and determining the best position. Conservatives determine what result they’re wanting, and then find ways to rationalize that position. And for as much as that position differs from the one they should have gotten, it’s naturally going to be wrong.

And thus it is with the race issue. Not all conservatives are racist. Far from it. Nor are only white people racist. But…if you’re going to be a white racist, you’re going to be a conservative. It’s simply a conservative position, while the liberal position is to oppose white racism. Not that liberals support any racism, but it’s generally racism from whites that they push back against, as that’s clearly the more serious problem.

And the odd thing about conservative racism is that it was initially the explicit position, with liberals taking the opposite stance. But now, much of conservative racism is actually a pushback against liberal opposition to racism.  As if it's somehow ok to support an offensive position, just as long as you don't like the people who oppose it. And unfortunately for the entire conservative movement, this has pulled even non-racist conservatives onto the racist team; not because they’re racist, but because they oppose all liberalism.  But really, if your position supports racism, then you're a racist, whether or not you personally hate people of other races. 

And conservatives understand this when it comes to terrorism, as anyone who defends Bin Laden's right to kill Americans, ipso facto, is on Bin Laden's team.  Yet somehow, they imagine that they can defend the right to be racist without actually being racist.  But...if your policy forces blacks to the back of the bus, you're just as bad as the people who actually force them there.

It's the Context, Stupid

And this gets me around to my point: Laura Schlessinger and the N-Word. I have no idea if Laura Schlessinger is a racist. For all I know, some of her best friends could be n-words, and they're totally comfortable with her telling them that.  Frankly, the lady totally creeps me out and I never want to know Dr. Laura enough to find out what she really thinks about black people. 

But...her rant about how white people should get to use the n-word certainly would put her on Team Racist.  It's bad enough that she used the word eleven times, but by actually attacking someone who was offended by it, she certainly showed which side she's on.  And unfortunately, far too many conservatives agree that they should have the right to use that word, simply because some black people use it.

And the concept that conservatives are having so much trouble here is context. Context is everything, as it gives people an idea of what you're talking about.  The same words spoken by two different people can have wildly different meanings.  It's assumed that a black person isn't racist against blacks, so if a black person uses the n-word, it's assumed that weren't insulting blacks.  But...if a black person uses the word while insisting that blacks are stupid and lazy, then they'll be attacked just as much as if a white person said it; possibly more.

Similarly, if I, as a white person said “White people really need to be more sensitive towards the feelings of black people,” it’d be different than if Obama said it.  That's just common sense.  And the point isn't that people get to insult people of their own race or that black people get to use certain words white people can't.  It's that the context of the situation tells people what the words mean. 

PC For Me, Not for Thee

Conservatives know this, except for when it comes to them defending their right to insult minorities.  For them, not only do they feel they have the right to insult minorities, but they also feel they have the right to attack anyone who's offended by these insults.  That's what Dr. Laura was doing, as well as anyone else who attacks "political correctness."  Unsurprisingly, they don't seem to feel the same way when people insult Christianity.  It's all fun and games until someone disses Yahweh.

And that's what made Dr. Laura's remarks so wrong.  Not that she was using it directly to insult anyone, but that she was trying to mainstream the word in order to make it so black people should feel ashamed if they're offended by it.  It's like someone reporting a burglary and the police tell them to shut up and stop being so materialistic.  Not only are racists allowed to be racists, but their victims have no right to complain.

For as much as "political correctness" is a horrible thing for conservatives to endure, it really just amounts to basic human kindness.  Just because we have the right to offend people doesn't mean that people should be forced to accept offensive remarks.  If you have the right to make a remark, I have the right to complain about it.  And that's the part of free speech that conservatives have trouble grasping, as they truly want to believe it only applies to them.  Everyone else just needs to learn to shut up and suck it.

When Destroying America is Pro-American

One of the more mind-boggling aspects of conservatives is their insistence that they're not racist, while all the while defending the South's right to secession during the Civil War; as if contining to fight battles for dead racists doesn't reflect badly on you.  Fortunately, many conservatives don't see things this way, but all too many do.  And they'll assure you that their arguments are not in support of slavery, but support for the right of states to leave America.  As if we're to imagine that if California, New York, and Massachussetts chose to leave America to protest the Iraq War, these people would support such claims.

And so I'm reading about how a conservative pollster polled conservative bloggers regarding The 25 Worst Figures In American History, eighteen of which were liberals; most of whom are still living.  Either American history has gotten a whole lot worse in recent years or conservatives have very short memories.  And someone commenting on that noted that none of the people listed were Civil War Confederates, which should be odd, seeing as how the Civil War was surely the most perilous time in our history. 

I mean, imagine if Al Qaeda could even remove one state from the Union, and you can begin to understand why having a bunch of them leave at once might be a problem.  But apparently, it'd only be a problem if terrorists or liberals did such a thing.  But if REAL Americans want to destroy America, it's an American thing to do.  Or something like that.

Hardly Shocking

And here's the comment you've been waiting for, in response to the mention of Confederates as "worst figures."

Hardly shocking since the leaders of the Confederacy simply took their states out the Union as would be presumed since those states voluntarily joined. Their dispute was entirely political over an unfortunate system that was entirely legal in the US until the Union outlawed slavery in the states outside of Union control to avoid a negotiated settlement.

Of course.  They were just exercising their right to end their voluntary cooperation with the other states, so naturally that's not a bad thing for America at all.  But of course, it was.  I mean, even if it can be argued that these states were within their rights to secede (they weren't), that should still put them on the American history shit list.

But no.  Apparently, it's perfectly acceptable to destroy half of America, if you're having a political dispute with a group that won't negotiate.  Oh, and as a correction, in case you needed one: The Union HADN'T outlawed slavery prior to secession.  In fact, seven states had withdrawn from the Union before Lincoln even took office. 

This wasn't a reaction to imperious federalism.  This was a powerplay by people upset that they had lost an election.  (Huh, I wonder why that sounds so familiar.)

Involuntary Contracts

And the big joke is his "voluntarily joined" nonsense.  Just because you voluntarily signed a contract doesn't mean you get to unilaterially get out of it, and there was no provision in the Constitution to withdraw from it.  Once they signed in, they were stuck with it.  And if that wasn't the case, then the states wouldn't have been so wary of joining.  If it had been assumed that they could withdraw whenever they liked, there wouldn't have been a problem.  And hell, if anyone gets into a contract involuntarily, they have more right to invalidate it than if they get into it voluntarily.  I fail to see why it should be assumed that the Constitution has an escape clause.

And the southern states knew that, as their argument for leaving wasn't that their participation was voluntary, but rather, that America had failed to uphold their part of the contract; thus voiding the contract.  And that IS a valid reason to get out of a contract.  You can read South Carolina's Declaration of Secession, which lays out their case that that by creating laws that opposed slavery, Northern states were infringing upon the Southern state's rights by not enforcing slavery in Northern states. 

So basically, if Southern states weren't allowed to subvert laws in Northern states, this somehow violated the rights of Southern states.  And again, this "victimhood by not permitting me to victimize others" somehow rings a bell for me.

I was going to finish this post, but screw it.  I have too many of these unfinished posts lying around, so I figure it's best just to submit it unfinished than to let it die.  You can just fill in the rest by giving a recap of the opening, and imagining that I've tied it all back together with some pithy phrase that shows how stupid it is for conservatives to continue to defend secession.


Oh, and I also forgot to include a section on the second half of his comment, in which he explains that treason by the Confederates is comparable to FDR creating Social Security and regulations.  Yet oddly, Roosevelt really WAS on the list, while no Confederates were.  Conservatives are very weird people.

We're All Illegal Now

Saw the headline: .14th Amendment: Is Birthright Citizenship Really in the Constitution?  And I thought, "uh oh, better get the Maalox."

And I was kind of hoping this would be some sort of slamdunk against the "anti-baby anchor" crowd who insists that illegals are bad because they're illegal, and that applies to their kids born here who are legal.  But no, the article was really just an anti-Birthright fluff piece that didn't really take the topic seriously, which meant giving the anti-immigrant position while glossing over the reality.

And here's the meat in the article, explaining why Birthright Citizenship might not be required of us:

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment begins this way: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."


The key phrase here is "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Illegal immigrants are not subject to US jurisdiction, in the sense that they cannot be drafted into the US military or tried for treason against the US, said John Eastman, a professor at the Chapman University School of Law, in a media conference call Monday. Their children would share that status, via citizenship in their parents’ nation or nations of birth – and so would not be eligible for a US passport, even if born on US soil, according to Dr. Eastman.

Uhhh, what?  Illegal immigrants aren't subject to US jurisdiction?  Really?  Whose jurisdiction are they under and why do we keep arresting them if they're not in our jurisdiction? 

And...huh?  I thought the whole point to this amendment was to determine who was a citizen.  Yet, this guy's arguing that they're not citizens because they're illegal, and they're illegal because they're...illegal.  Yet, all we'd have to do is make them legal from birth, which is what we currently do, and then they're not only subject to our jurisdiction, but we can also draft them in the military and try them for treason.  In fact, that'd be a great answer to ALL illegals: We make them legal and then they're legal.  I have yet to see some reason why we need to make it so difficult for them to become citizens.

And hell, just as easily this rationale could be used to deny citizenship to ALL of us.  If you can't be a citizen unless you were already a citizen, and you're not a citizen until we determine that you're a citizen, then nobody can be a citizen.  It's that simple.

One Legal Scholar Agrees

Just to show what a joke the article is, the writer says:

Many legal scholars believe that changing the policy would require changing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, on which birthright citizenship is based. But “many” legal scholars is not the same thing as “all.”

Yuk, yuk.  How hilarious.  He found one crazy law professor who said a crazy thing, and that becomes the basis for an entire article.  And even worse, the article has a "Crazy said, Sane said" air about, emphasizing the crazy side yet not labeling it as crazy.  The reality-based position is relegated to the last three paragraphs, and only cites one person making the claim. 

I'm sure this was because the writer really wasn't taking it seriously, and didn't see the need in actually emphasizing the reality-based position.  But still, by treating it seriously and acting like both sides have a valid case, it helps legitimize the crazy position.  And that's absolutely something that real journalism shouldn't do.


BTW, of the things I learned in the comments section there is that 100% of an "anchor babies" don't complete college and 90% don't complete high school, and they're all criminals and drug smugglers.  I also read all about how they're only interested in getting free handouts and stealing our jobs.  But hey, these people aren't racists.  They're just telling it like it is.  Ugh...I really need to learn to avoid Yahoo messageboards.

A-Hole Atheists

Over on Facebook, I've got a "friend" that's an ok guy.  In fact, I only put "friend" in quotes to distinguish him from real friends, as I just don't consider sharing a few thoughts with someone on a website enough to form a true friendship (though I do have a few actual friends online).

And he's part of the atheist community I've found myself in there, which mostly consists of the same sixty or so people who all seem to be friends with one another.  (This guy, for example, has sixty-two friends in common with me; and they're mostly the same sixty-two friends I have in common with the rest of his sixty-two atheist friends.)  And I suppose I don't mind that at all.  Sure, I don't necessarily "like" all of these people, but they're like-minded enough that I don't dislike them; unlike the Facebook bigot I mentioned in my last post.

But of course, one of the big issues I have with many of these atheists is their hardcore anti-Christianity.  Because, I just don't get it.  I mean, why bother?  If someone's set in their beliefs about something, why bother spending your time attacking them for it?  Atheism should be about a lack of religion, not attacks on religion.  Similarly, I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I don't attack the guy either.  And frankly, I don't like how my atheism is besmirched by anti-Christian a-holes who always have to make a point of attacking Christianity, making it so that I'm a bit embarrassed to tell Christians that I'm an atheist, for fear of being lumped in with the anti-Christian atheists. 

Honestly, I'm a live and let live sort of guy and really don't appreciate it when these a-hole atheists screw things up for me and make people assume I'm hostile towards them simply because I don't have a religion.  While I enjoy religious debates, I don't really want to take a side in it and would rather be left out completely if it means anyone's feelings are going to get hurt.  Life's just too short to needlessly make people angry.

Funny Death: Still Not Funny

Now, I should mention that I don't actually find this "friend" to be an a-hole, but really kind of wonder about someone who can read a story about human suffering and immediately make a biting criticism about religion with it.  Specifically, he read a story about someone who was trying to park their car after a church service and accidentally killed two people, and his initial reaction was to write:

god works in mysterious ways huh!


These two were "specially" selected to go to their cloud condo in the SuperMagicLand in the sky! Or...

Uhm...that's disgusting.  I mean, I like making jokes and everything, but see nothing funny about two people dying, whether or not it happened after a church service.  Human suffering just isn't on my comedy menu.  Particularly in this case, as there wasn't anything even remotely ironic or humorous about this.  Not that I ever think it's so great to laugh about someone dying, but this doesn't even approach any sort of joke.  It was just mean.
 
Senseless Humor
 
And for what?  What purpose did it serve to mock this senseless death?  Is some Christian going to see this snarky remark about God's mysterious ways and decide that they were wrong about God?  Of course not.  If anything, they'll get upset and get even FIRMER in their belief of God, just to spite the mean atheists who'd mock the death of these two people.  That's just human nature.  You get more flies with honey, and all that.
 
And I once saw the same thing from another atheist on Facebook, who thought it was clever to point to a Holocaust poster which suggested that God had gone on vacation during that period.  And so they were making a petty joke about a human catastrophe in order to make atheists feel a little more smug about their atheism.  I tried explaining that at the time, but was told that I was being too sensitive, as if it's perfectly ok to score points against Christians by making unfunny jokes about human suffering.  After all, it was just a joke.
 
And of course, why bother fighting the "mysterious ways" meme?  After all, it's a perfect argument.  All circular logic is.  It simply can't be defeated from the outside, because the arguments support themselves.  And the only criticism of a circular argument is that you can't logically use an argument to support itself.  But Christians don't have that problem, as they have faith, and faith is enough support for anything.  Logical arguments simply can't penetrate something that views logic as a fallacy.
 
So, why bother?  Why attack people who aren't necessarily doing anything against you?  If someone's doing something that hurts me or stifles my freedom, I'll stand up against that.  But if someone insists upon believing something that doesn't hurt me, I see no reason why I should bother fighting it.  If they're wanting to hear my arguments, that's fine.  I'd love to convert someone who was open to it.  But I see no purpose in feeding a fire that wouldn't hurt me if I leave it alone. 
 
And I definitely side with someone who'd mourn a senseless death over someone who insists upon using it to score a senseless victory.  Hell, I'd mock a senseless death if it meant I could prevent another.  But even a funny joke isn't a good enough reason to mock human suffering.  And too often, the jokes aren't even funny at all.  Their only purpose is to make us feel smug in our self-righteousness.  And that's just not something I can believe in.

Befriending Bigots

I just read of a story of five guys in England who robbed a convenience store and killed the owner by bludgeoning him with a hammer.  And while the specific implement of death is a bit unusual, this sort of story is all too common.  And now these five guys have been caught and are likely to get the most severe punishment, and so it's a sad story all around.  A familyman shopkeeper suffered a bad death, and five youths who might have done something with their lives have now thrown it all away.

And the story would end there, except one thing...the five guys were Muslim.  And somehow, that changes everything.  And I read about this from a Facebook "friend" who I've slowly been learning is an anti-Muslim bigot who specializes in reposting stories about Muslim evil-doers causing atrocities to non-Muslims.  And that means that any offensive event becomes more fuel on the fire because Muslims are involved.  No longer are these unrelated stories of evil-doing and sadness.  Now, they're all part of the Muslim experience.

(Similarly, a story involving a drunk driver killing a nun would normally be an anti-drunk driving story, but became an anti-immigrant story because an illegal immigrant was involved.)

A Steady Anti-Infidel Diet

Here's the post from my Facebook "friend" that accompanied the link to that story:

According to sharia law in some places, it is likely that these murderers would never be arrested - were these children fed a steady diet of anti-infidel hate speech in their local mosque? How long before this type of crime is no longer prosecuted in the U.K.?

And really??  There is some chance that the UK might make it legal for people to rob and murder if the killers are Muslim?  I mean, I guess I'm not totally current with modern legal theory in England, but I'm really having a hard time believing that such a law has any possibility of getting passed.

And I should mention, the person writing this post doesn't even know if these dudes are Muslim.  They have Muslim names, and from there, it's considered fair to not only assume they're Muslim, but to assume they're hardcore Muslims who only did this because their victim was an infidel.  There are also hints that politically correctness is to blame for the newspaper not highlighting their Muslimness.

But as she said in a later comment, "the article didn't say anything about their mosque, which is why I framed my remark as a question."  And yeah, that changes everything.  Because it was just a question.

No Stereotype Here

When someone wrote that we shouldn't stereotype about these guys just because they had Muslim names, my "friend" responded:

Yes, of course, other than identifying them as Muslim, there is no "stereotype" here - being aware of what ideology might be driving a group of youngsters is not "stereotyping," especially when one knows a great deal about that ideology and its history. Not bringing it up would be egregious - and what would be another reason they could be so heartless? Are they just natural-born killers? So, labeling them as such is fine, so long as we don't blame the ideology that might have driven them!

And yeah, it's not stereotyping Muslims to assume that these guys were trained to kill infidels by their religion, if you know that Muslims are just like that.  It'd be "egregious" to not assume that their religion taught them to be heartless and cruel.  They might have been driven by their ideology, so it's best to assume that that's the case and add it to the pile of Muslim atrocity stories that all normal people collect.

But of course, that's the definition of stereotyping.  I mean, if there was evidence that these guys were hardcore Muslims who were taught that it was ok to kill infidels, that'd be one thing.  But this person is basing her assumptions purely on their names.  She doesn't even know if they're practicing Muslims.  Yet, we should assume they are, because Muslim "ideology and history" shows that to be the likely case. 

And what is the basis of her "great deal" of knowledge" of Muslim's ideology and history?  What else: Fellow bigots who highlight these stories with the emphasis on how Muslims always do violent, horrible things; creating a vast fever swamp of Muslim bashing stories.  Somehow, they fail to grasp how easy it would be to find all the murderers, rapists, and thieves in our prisons who were raised as Christians and pin this on Christianity. 

If the only stories you notice of a certain religion or race are the negative ones, then it's easy to imagine that everyone in those groups are bad people.  But it's not about whether you can find some bad people in a group, but whether those people represent the group as a whole.  And if you focus solely on the negative and insist that these attitudes reflect the group as a whole, while ignoring all the good people in that group, then you're a bigot.  There's simply no other way about it.


Post Script: I confronted this bigot by telling her that she's a bigot and explaining what makes her a bigot (something I've almost never done) and was immediately unfriended.  No argument.  No explanation.  It was over.  And thank god.  While I really did have some slight hope that I might be able to get through to her and convince her to stop hating Muslims, I truly was sickened by her ignorance and hatred, which only grew the more I read her material.

This all happened awhile ago and I never finished this post or another that I wrote about her (which I might post soon), because the topic was so upsetting for me.  I should also add that I have no idea how I became "friends" with her, and had no encounters with her outside of seeing her disgusting bigotry appear on my screen. 

While there are very few "friends" on Facebook that I actually consider to be friends, this person clearly belonged in the "cockroach" category.  I had forgotten all about this until I started looking through my unfinished posts for something to post, and am now quite happy to have gotten rid of this person from my life.  While I generally believe in giving everyone a chance, in hopes of building a bridge between us; there are always exceptions.

The Dork Patriots Strike Back

Terrorism is the last refuge of the powerless.  It's what you use if you believe the system is rigged against you and you have no other option for protecting what you value.  But apparently, there's a much safer option if you want to take control of your life by bonding with allies and smiting your enemies: The Internet.

While I've long witnessed conservatives waging hard-fought battles from the confines of their living rooms on websites like RedState and FreeRepublic, where they imagine they're giving liberal traitors a thorough thrashing with their strong rhetoric and truth-loving patriotism; we've now uncovered a new battlefront conservatives have adopted in order to fool themselves into believing that they're actually accomplishing something with their meaningless lives. 

They're now using Digg to popularize conservative stories and depopularize liberal stories, by grouping together and blindly supporting/burying whatever stories their fellow conservative Diggers tell them to support/bury.  And one of the biggest of these groups: The Digg Patriots.

Influencing the Wind by Spitting

And really, the whole thing's just sad.  Seriously sad.  Because these aren't truly dumb people.  They mean well.  They want to have an impact on life.  But, for whatever reason, they're relegated to spending large amounts of time trying to influence the world by clicking on buttons on their computers, as if that's some sort of substitute for actually doing something with their lives. 

And I'm sorry, while I'm a bit unfamiliar with Digg (never having used it), I just can't see how this could have any real impact on things.  I mean, most people don't even read the news, let alone get influenced by it.  Hell, you've got real conservatives making real news every damn day and even THEY have limited success in influencing anything.  And anyone who gets their news from Digg is likely to be someone who already has their mind made up and isn't going to be influenced by the stories they read.  It's the people who DON'T read news every day that you need to influence, and this isn't going to get through to them at all.

Yet, for these conservatives, it's all they've got.  This is their plan to take control of their lives.  And while I'm sure a majority of the Digg Patriots didn't get too absorbed in it, it's quite obvious that many of these people take this VERY seriously. 

The Bozo Patriots

Here are a few choice quotes that Alternet provides:

“The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives.”
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

Whether I agree with Bjornski, Anamaly100, PhilPerspective, Novenator, JanineWallace, UncaJoe; a couple others I can’t think of right now, I bury `em anyway. *ACTUALLY* each of them has been “dead-on, balls-accurate” (an industry term) at least once in the past week or so, and it sort-of pains me to be dishonest by burying them anyway, but then I remember . . . I’m not up for re-election!
-BentheDog

I personally vote for a complete blackout on lib subs: Bury every comment (including the conservatives “helping” to pop the story). No up-votes (no matter how much you agree).
-asami21

I’ve been permanently banned 4 or 5 times. You gotta make sure you got a month or so between [accounts]. …The libs make a big deal out of start dates on profiles after one of us returns from getting permanently banned. Maybe we should have 10 or 15 identities created so the next time one of us gets a permanent ban we could come back with an identity that was created weeks or months before. Kind of like Jeff came back as Benthedog and they had no clue.
-Phoenixtx

And seriously, whether or not you think gaming Digg is a problem, this is just pathetic.  Because you know these people think they're actually accomplishing something here.  This is their power.  This is their glory.  This is just sad.  Really, there are so many problems to solve and prizes to win in the world, and for these people to waste their time supporting/attacking news all day instead of doing something useful really bothers me on a fundamental level.

But...they've found an outlet for their powerlessness that doesn't involve blowing people up, so I guess I shouldn't complain.  Perhaps we should think about creating covert Digg groups for potential terrorists to join and give them a sense of power to their otherwise impotent lives.  That's all most of them were after anyway.

Bad Science Strikes Again

Yes, I've been a huge bum lately and haven't posted anything, and this really isn't much better.  But it's something.  Here's a post I made on Facebook, regarding an experiment that showed that pancreatic cancer cells LOVE fructose.  Enjoy!

While this study is interesting, I definitely have issues with the statement the main researcher made, suggesting that this study means we should act to restrict high fructose corn syrup.

I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets.

A real researcher would naturally be cautious and understand that this one study doesn't prove anything, as that's just not how science works. Science works by building a knowledge base in order to understand why these things are happening. One study, or even a handful of studies, doesn't prove anything. This study is just a building block of science, not an end result which demands immediate action.

The fact that they think we should take active steps based upon one study that didn't explain why this is happening would indicate that the researchers were biased and were attempting to find this exact result, in order to give us this exact conclusion. And that's just a bad way to do science, as it's too easy to devise a study to fit what you're looking for; even if that's not what you're intending to do.

Unfortunately, there's very little pure research done these days, as the easiest way to get funding is to set-out to prove a specific thing. If the sugar industry is funding you, it's because you were attempting to prove that sugar is safe. If an anti-diabetes group funds you, it was because you're proving sugar isn't safe. That's just how it works. That's not to say that these people are necessarily corrupt or anything, it's just that it's a perversion of science. Even well-meaning people can fool themselves into performing bad science, and if these researchers actually imagine that this one study should dictate public policy, they've probably engaged in bad science.

I mean, seriously, if their experiment showed that glucose cells grew more than fructose cells, would they have told us to drink more soda? I don't think so. They got the result they were looking for, and that's never a good thing.