Obama stares into the abyss, and gets blasted

Yves Smith has a scathing critique of President Obama's performance on Jon Stewart's Daily Show (both segments embedded below), and I'll fully admit that this was performance art, whereby the President tries to reacquaint himself with his liberal base a scant 5 days before the elections. But this was merely a reach-around after spending the last two years seemingly ignoring the reasons they voted for him. As you know, Mr. Obama was not even my third choice for president, but here he is, and here I am about to defend him from the rebuke of his fellow Hope and Changers.

I ask, what would Ms Smith have Obama say? I have no idea if Obama lied to Stewart, but for argument's sake I'll accept Smith's math and surmise that Obama has perpetrated an untruth on the American people regarding the health of our financial and housing markets. The commenters of the blogpost have found all the requisite pithy quotations from every political novelist about prevarications of office holders and moguls, so I'll refer you back to her post for the intellectual drama.

Smith, I would assume, feels that an honorable President Obama would get on national TV and say to the court jester, "OK, I'll be frank, Jon, we're screwed. The current CDS/ derivative/ mortgage crisis is well beyond anything we've ever seen and we are barely through the second inning of this fiasco. There is not enough money in the Treasury and only half a chance that the Chinese will continue to buy our debt in order to fund two foreign wars and 150 weeks of unemployment insurance for everyone. Not until all of middle America has lost their Social Security, and their jobs, and their home values have been depleted down to 1987 levels can we even begin to put this Humpty Dumpty economy back to order." Ah yes, the truth.

Smith believes that now is the time for a heart-to-heart with the American people? I would argue, as one commenter implied, the financial markets are a confidence game and the president at this time needs to instill confidence in a system that is staggering and about to collapse. If Smith thinks the alternative of devaluing all assets in one fell swoop is the better way to go, well, I have nothing to say except that I disagree. Obama has stared into the abyss and he is trying to bring us all back from the edge, but he has seen the blackness of the hole and heard the absence of an echo when he screamed. The abyss is not where we want to go. Obama may fail, and if he fails then he will take the blame and suffer the consequences to his legacy. But if he fails, then we will all suffer even more severe consequences. The reason that this economy is not worse than it is-- and it could easily have been horrifically worse-- is because there is some semblance of confidence that we will muddle through the hardship.

Yes, Obama could still be haranguing about the previous stewards who left him this mess, but what would that accomplish? This president is the only adult we've had in the Oval for many decades. I may be the only person on the planet who respects his decision to keep Summers and Geithner on the team, but I believe it was wise, if for no other reason than to hear their accounts of how this thing got broken in the first place. If we remember, the stock market rallied after weeks of free fall, the day Geithner was announced for Treasury Secretary. This may all end in tears, but the only chance we have is to keep everyone alive until the debt can be burned off and the smoke gets cleared by the wind. And it will take a long time and it's no small task.

Sometimes Dad has to answer the question "Are we there yet?" with the little white lie of "Almost" just to buy some time until the next bathroom break. And we'll be hearing the flush on Tuesday.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Barack Obama Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Barack Obama Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

60 Minutes and the Woes of White Upper-Middle Class America

I saw this 60 Minutes segment and a few things occurred to me. First of all, it had the feel of some self-sorrow, with white upper middle class Californians bemoaning their hardships of having lost their $150K jobs right at the worst time when their kids are grown and their fun was supposed to start. The bad luck of it all! Never mind that none of them had ever envisioned the worst case scenario or took appropriate pains to prepare. One woman forlornly remembered for Scott Pelly that before she was unemployed she was a "shop-a-holic...but not anymore {sigh}". We love living in a free market economy when times are good, wearing clothes and watching TV's assembled with slave labor, but then whine about the consequences when the inevitable crunch occurs to us. Yeah I get that there are a bunch of people hurting but the 60 Minutes episode was enough to make me puke. There are plenty of people in this country and the rest of the world who have it worse than the San Joseans in that piece-- none of whom appeared to be starving. I wonder how Pelly's self-indulgent woe-is-me story plays in Vietnam, Flint Michigan, Zimbabwe, or Allen, South Dakota.

The second issue is the lack of labor mobility in this country-- some of it due to health care and some of it is due to the current crisis being a housing problem, thus preventing folks from just picking up and moving to Nebraska (which has an unemployment rate of about one-fourth the national avg). Not everyone can afford the luxury of living on the west coast and just waiting for a software engineering job to land in their lap. I'll bet my next paycheck the Walmart in Lincoln NE is hiring today. The first woman featured in the 60 Minutes piece is a woman who is 54 year-old, who lost her job over a year ago, now without a home and whose children are grown. Why is she still in San Jose, ground zero for white collar unemployment? Is there no Greyhound service from California to Nebraska?

The third issue, and the one that needed to be addressed in this piece, is to ask how long is it appropriate for the government to provide unemployment insurance? We pay into this as a defined benefit and is it correct to extend this benefit forever? If 99 weeks is not long enough, then what is? 122 weeks? 156? If someone is unqualified for any job now, what will be different in 2, 3, or 4 years? I understand the economic issue that such benefits have a Keynesian stimulating effect with a positive multiplier, yada yada yada... but at some point these individuals will need to do something: either move, get an entry level job, or get re-trained. Paying them for another 20 weeks only delays the inevitable. Doug Francone was making $200K per year as a pencil pusher and lost his job over two years ago. That's a million dollars over 5 years-- what the fuck did he do to earn that amount of coin, and what the fuck did he do with it all? On top of this, he and his wife have received $470 per week for 99 weeks-- that's a $46,000 benefit paid partially with federal tax money above his defined benefit-- and now that this has run out, he has depleted his retirement savings and is back to square one. I have empathy for him, but ask, what else does he want us to do for him? He was likely overpaid for a decade while his wife stayed home with the kids and they have "nothing" to show for it except two wonderful, literate kids. That's a lot, that's more than most people have in this world-- now move to Nebraska and get a job.

My father told me long ago that an economic crisis will occur in my lifetime, 'bank on it'; it might be triggered by a nuclear attack, a worldwide infectious epidemic, a global war, an earthquake, a meteor, a Great Depression, an alien invasion from betelgeuse, zombies... or a bankster fraud-- who knows what flavor it will be, but it will occur, and it will have an economic after taste that will taste like shit. The fact is that every generation has had some such disaster and that fact ain't ever gonna change. The safest plan to prepare for this scenario is to attain some skill that will be marketable no matter what happens, when the fabric of society is torn asunder and the hounds of hell are upon us. Those skills are (not in any order): plumber, mechanic, primary/emergency* doctor, nurse, farmer, engineer. The list is very short. If you design video games for Nintendo, or work as the secretary for someone who designs video games for Nintendo, note that your job is not on that list.

The downside of pursuing those safe jobs is that for those intervening years that the economy is humming, your value will be discounted and you'll labor at a mind-numbing job for below-market wages. You may even have to slave away in a veritable backwater dealing with obese people who smell, eat Doritos all day and cannot spell the name of the town in which they live. This is not San Jose, California. Mind-numbing. But the upside is that when (not if) disaster strikes, you'll be fine. Alternatively, one could do something supremely interesting, intellectually challenging, with the potential for notoriety, fame or wealth or a high-paying job-- but then he/she would leave themselves vulnerable to the vicissitudes of all the meatheads who are running the asylum when the inevitable occurs. Why would someone do this? How bad can a mind-numbing job be? My father told me this as I embarked on my college career, appealing to my judgement and leaving the big decisions to me.

We live in a milieu-- a situation, an environment-- and we all must be aware of our environment and how it works. In modern USA, our situation is thus that we have free markets, poor regulation, no national health coverage, and lackluster safety nets; we liberals may not like it, we may think that it weakens our nation, we may think it leaves us vulnerable, but it's still our reality. So if we live our liberal lives, enjoy the nearly free food, the cheap consumer products, the safety of our streets and the quality of our schools, we should still be aware that these things all come with a potential downside. Quietly, we may have noticed that an asshole became president in 2001 and our Congress was Republican, or we may have missed it. We may or may not have noticed that we are fighting two foreign wars, we've dismantled out regulatory apparatus, we've used deficit spending to enrich defense contractors and the financial industry while ignoring the growing number of folks without health insurance or adequate education. What the fuck could possible go wrong? When the GOP took office in 1995 and Bush became president in 2001, these should have been viewed as sentinel events, calls to sound a red alert because Congress turned on the fan in 1995 and Bush started shoveling the shit into it in 2001.

But it's not really George W. Bush's fault-- he is merely a product of our society. Half the population votes against their own best interests every two years like clockwork. They get up, shower, get dressed and march off to the polling place to cast a ballot for some entrenched, corporatist fucktard because he promises to to save blastocysts or put the word "God" on all highway overpasses or challenge Kim Jong-il to a knife-fight or treats the flag like a sexual fetish or some such nonsense. This is our country, and we should all know it by now. If it hadn't been Bush in 2000 then it would have been Sarah Palin in 2004 or maybe Chuck Norris is 2008, but disaster was bound to happen one of these years. Actually, I'm surprised that it took so long to wreck this country, it's just testament to our social safety nets, governmental education, and other institutions that have taken two generations to build up despite the whining by the GOP and RWNJ's. And who knows, we may survive after all---

---... oh wait, elections are this Tuesday and the Republicans are going to re-take the House? Never mind.

I realize that this treatise exhibits my full-throated cynicism, and nobody is completely safe from the travails of a black swan event in our complex dynamic economic system, but the 60 Minutes story struck a chord. When I lose my job and my family is cast out of our home without health insurance or food, the final insult to my dignity will be when Scott Pelly knocks on my door to call attention to my wasteful decadent lifestyle and my lack of foresight for all the world to critique. I hope that I can resist the urge to be interviewed, close the door in Mr. Pelly's face and return to watching Jersey Shore on my 55" Samsung in my peaceful penury.

*"primary/emergency" refers to those specialties that will be in demand no matter what happens. The current health care debate highlights this perfectly: while reimbursement for specialists is on the chopping block, salaries for primary care are slated to go up. Nurses are still in high demand, with agencies importing Filipino and Indian nurses by the plane-load. I predict that reimbursement for obstetrics will be salvaged while laparoscopic robot hysterectomies for Medicaid patients will go away. I can give an entire dissertation on essential versus non-essential health care, but that's another time.

Pure Michigan: Lions Fans edition

[video]

Juan Williams: Al Campanis* 2010 [Update below]

Juan Williams was sacrificed to the gods of political correctness and it should backfire on NPR.

1. Bill O'Reilly was right (did I really just say that?) when he pointed out that Juan did not give an opinion, he was just describing his emotional state. If he had said we "should" feel nervous... that would be another issue.

2. What "Muslim garb" was worn by the 9-11 terrorists? Or Richard Reid? Or the Xmas Eve bomber? The problem with Williams' statement is that nervousness is a stupid emotion to have.

3. Mara Liasson has the highest job security in the world today.

4. Joan Walsh nailed it in her column today.

*Obscure Reference Alert: Al Campanis (below) iced his career as a baseball executive in 1987 when he implied in an interview with Ted Koppel that African-Americans were not smart enough to be Major League managers.

---------------------------------------

Update 10-23:

A commenter (who has subsequently deleted his/her own comment) made the valid point that Al Campanis is not the proper analogy to Juan Williams' firing because Campanis was a true bigot who viewed racial differences as reasons to discriminate on hiring. Granted, it's not the perfect analogy and the commenter is correct. To his credit, Campanis came out days later and stated that his remarks about race were misinterpreted since he only meant that there were no blacks with the proper Minor League management experience to warrant hiring into the Major League positions. He also said that he was tired and chose his words poorly in the Koppel interview. Of course, he was likely only trying to preserve his own high-paying job, but that is the story.

"...asked three times a day when she's due..."

OK, Tom Lehrer it's not.

[video]



Don't mistake my misanthropy for misogyny.

Atomic Tom: iPhone band on NYC subway

[video]



(h/t Misstrade)

Cee-Lo in the Pink

[video] not safe for work:

CNN: "What the Pope Knew"

The other 4 parts on Youtube: #2 #3 #4 #5 (At least until they take them down for copyright infringement.) The documents discussed in the story can be found in their entirety here, (except for those pertaining to the German priest, Father Hullerman.)

And Catholic League's Bill Donohue takes issue with the report (thanks Christopher).

My take: I thought the CNN report was fair in many respects but did have a few failings. I fully understand the strident defense put forth by Mr. Donohue, after all the sex abuse scandal has perhaps irretrievably damaged the Roman Catholic Church's standing in the world (but probably not). Nothing short of accusing CNN of lacking journalistic integrity would do as pushback.

However, while no Catholic would want this story re-hashed, the CNN piece presents many sides in an even light. The blame for the sex abuse scandal is shared by lay and sectarian officials, the abusers were caught and for the most part punished. The questions handled in this report concern how then Cardinal Ratzinger handled the various cases before him , and was he at all culpable in delaying justice.

Nowhere does the reporter say that children were abused because of any obstruction by Ratzinger. Sure, the victims are pissed, and they are given voice to vent their frustration, but the Vatican also is given ample opportunity to present the alternate case-- and surprisingly, I think they do a good job. Ratzinger was the supervising Archbishop in the German priest case, and reporter Gary Tuchman says that it is unclear whether Ratzinger was made personally aware of the abuse at the time. The alleged perpetrator was transferred under orders of a subordinate to Ratzinger. The Vatican official states that Ratzinger, as Archbishop, had over 1000 priests under his supervision and these matters were often delegated. You can decide if this is appropriate.

The other cases had more to do with the de-frocking procedures (laicization) that involved known sex-abusing priests while Ratzinger was stationed in the Vatican as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Tuchman interviewed the prosecuting attorney for the Vatican as well as a plaintiff's attorney for the victims and other principals, and the story becomes more of an indictment of the Canon Law procedures under Pope John Paul II, but all sides are presented with adequate journalistic integrity. Ratzinger is characterized as someone trying to navigate the complex and hierarchical system, and having mixed success. The issue is clear, however, that the sex offenders were not near children at this point and CNN states this.

If I were a Catholic, the entire story would make me uneasy. Catholic relatives have said to me that they view priests differently, especially around their children, since these scandals have come to light. The final video recaps that Ratzinger has made significant reforms by streamlining Canon Law by instituting procedures that would push such cases up the hierarchy more quickly.

Oddly, one of Donohue's complaints is that CNN should have reported that one perpetrator, Father Keisle, married the mother of one of his illegitimate children while he was still technically a priest. Why is this germane to the story? Wouldn't this unnecessary report of blatant abuse by a priest, using his power over a female parishioner to father a child, just fuel more negative sentiment toward the Catholic Church? We already know these guys are criminals, why pile on all their malfeasance? Why would Donohue think this is important? Would this somehow exculpate Ratzinger or the Church? Yeah, not only do they let in pedophiles, they also let in lecherous womanizers, adulterers, and other deviant sexual offenders... Odd.

Also, Donohue takes issue with the reporting that Ratzinger prosecuted Father Reese for publishing opinions as an editor of American magazine that were in direct contradiction to the RCC's teachings regarding homosexuality and abortion. Donohue does not think this is pertinent, but I would argue that this vignette shows exactly how the hierarchy protects itself by squashing all dissent. There is nothing wrong with this and fully within the Church's purview, but Catholics-- and all of us-- should realize that this is how top-down monarchies function, and the Catholic Church is indeed a top-down monarchy which uses Canon Law, another way of saying Royal Decree, to protect itself. Nothing wrong with it, heck, if I were King I would do exactly the same thing: first thing to go would be all these superfluous blogs (except mine, of course.)

The CNN report honestly presented both sides. Sure, Donohue dislikes "[Ratzinger's biographer] Gibson's quip that the pope 'always took the stalling tactic' [which] suggests the pope acted irresponsibly. Now this may play well with those unfamiliar with the process of determining innocence or guilt, but anyone who knows better will find his accusation flatulent at best, and unfair at worst." But Tuchman followed up by interviewing Vatican officials who clarified that Ratzinger was bound by Canon Law at the time. Fair. (Although I do like Donohue's colloquial use of the word "flatulent", one I'll be sure to co-opt in the future.)

The take home lesson here is that any large organization will be unable to ensure the safety of your children, and pedophiles will relentlessly seek avenues by which to prey upon your kids. Be alert and responsible. Lay officials in Milwaukee were negligent when they dismissed the children's claims of abuse. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, did what he could and now as Pope he has revised Canon Law. Might he become senile and unable to interdict on behalf of kids at some point? Sure. Might the Vatican's hierarchy fail its congregation again? You bet, but that's the chance you take when you're part of such a huge unweildy organization.

Might law enforcement officials unwisely defer to priests in the future? I hope not, but never underestimate the deference given to clergy. The real loss here is the trust that people have in their institutions-- both secular and sectarian.

Packers 17 Bears 20

And this is what is sent to me by a Packer fan. LMAO. (Thx KrisRick, that made my day.)

The Limbaugh Effect

Here's Rush:

We really live, folks, in two worlds. There are two worlds. We live in two universes. One universe is a lie. One universe is an entire lie. Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the left here and around the world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that's where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it. And seldom do these two universes ever overlap. ...

The Four Corners of Deceit: Government, academia, science, and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper.

And the Grist's Commentary:

"The right's project over the last 30 years has been to dismantle the post-war liberal consensus by undermining trust in society's leading institutions. Experts are made elites; their presumption of expertise becomes self-damning. They think they're better than you. They talk down to you. They don't respect people like us, real Americans."

He/she has good graphs that show how Americans have decreasing trust in all major institutions over the last generation, except one: the military.

Chilling.

Darwin Enters Twitter's Puke Funnel

Granted, my twitter feed is a mess. I get a disparate line of sludge all day long on my tweet-deck: stock traders bemoaning Bernanke, short-sellers calling for the next crash, White Sox fans wondering why the Twins keep winning (I know that answer: no walks, no errors), Republicans still obsessed with Obama's nation of birth... but yesterday's favorite-- if only because I haven't seen this theme in a week or more-- is yet another Final Refutation of Darwin, sort of.

Evidence challenging Darwin 'could be valid,' explains #Catholic scholarhttp://bit.ly/9N1yNo RT@CNAlive
about 23 hours ago via ower Twitter

I'm not picking on this particular Twitterer, well maybe a little, but if we're going engage in pseudo-intellectual repartee, then I think this tweet deserves a deeper dissection. In two short lines I find nearly everything wrong with today's popular culture. We say things like "evidence", yet very likely we have not personally reviewed the said evidence; this is beyond lack of rigor, this is lack of reading. Because it one were to read even the abstract of the "evidence" in question, one would learn immediately that not only is there no challenge to Darwin's theory extant in the study, but rather the study supports Darwin's long-standing thesis that individuals within taxa compete for habitat as part of the process of natural selection. It doesn't take a scientist to discern the implication of the "evidence." To wit, Sarda Sahney, et al, from Biology Letters states in the abstract:

"Tetrapod biodiversity today is great; over the past 400 Myr since vertebrates moved onto land, global tetrapod diversity has risen exponentially, punctuated by losses during major extinctions. There are links between the total global diversity of tetrapods and the diversity of their ecological roles, yet no one fully understands the interplay of these two aspects of biodiversity and a numerical analysis of this relationship has not so far been undertaken. Here we show that the global taxonomic and ecological diversity of tetrapods are closely linked. Throughout geological time, patterns of global diversity of tetrapod families show 97 per cent correlation with ecological modes. Global taxonomic and ecological diversity of this group correlates closely with the dominant classes of tetrapods (amphibians in the Palaeozoic, reptiles in the Mesozoic, birds and mammals in the Cenozoic). These groups have driven ecological diversity by expansion and contraction of occupied ecospace, rather than by direct competition within existing ecospace and each group has used ecospace at a greater rate than their predecessors." [italics mine-Tony]

In other words, the tetrapod populations have taken advantage of ecospace by expanding the boundaries of the habitat which they occupy. That's Darwinism! They expand their habitat by adapting to a larger part of their ecospace, which then improves their reproductive capability, yada, yada, yada.

In fact, the author, Sahney, has stated definitively, "We are not in any way suggesting Darwin was wrong," and Steven Newton, (in the same reference) explains:

"But we can also understand this idea with an analogy to a more familiar topic: Darwin's famous Galápagos finches. These birds occupy small, parched islands, on which perennial drought severely limits vegetation. This creates a situation of scarcity in which even small differences in beaks may confer significant advantages... Now imagine that a new volcanic island erupts in the Galápagos chain. Suddenly an expanse of new, un-colonized land is available; new food sources will grow there. How will this new land affect finch diversification? That's the kind of question being addressed here."

Okay, so the science in this study is consistent with Darwin's theory of the origin of species through natural selection, a theory which is so exceedingly elegant that it is consistent with the last 150 years of empiric evidence in archeology, geology, comparative anatomy, and all accumulated findings within the sciences of biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics. Quite a daunting body of support to be cast asunder by one grad student's study of habitat, no?

Why did twitterdom get all a-twitter over the misinterpretation of the study? Perhaps because multiple sources, and especially the BBC science writer (the same one who says "birds learned how to fly"-- they didn't, dinosaurs flew and then evolved into birds, but whatever), mis-characterized the paper as some sort of refutation of Darwin, with the opening line: "Charles Darwin may have been wrong when he argued that competition was the major driving force of evolution." Of course, this inane statement could be also be due to the co-author Prof Mike Benton who is quoted as saying:

"...competition did not play a big role in the overall pattern of evolution. For example, even though mammals lived beside dinosaurs for 60 million years, they were not able to out-compete the dominant reptiles. But when the dinosaurs went extinct, mammals quickly filled the empty niches they left and today mammals dominate the land." [emphasis mine-Tony]

According to the Darwin model, competition still occurred within the habitat utilized. Notice Benton did not say competition had no role, he is only remarking on the relative importance of competition depending on various factors, such as availability of habitat. Sure, his statement could be more clear, but such is the world of the three-line sound bite. No matter, an American professor sets the record straight later in the same article:

But there was always wicked competition within the ecospace and as Professor Stephen Stearns, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, US, told BBC News he "found the patterns interesting, but the interpretation problematic".

He explained: "To give one example, if the reptiles had not been competitively superior to the mammals during the Mesozoic (era), then why did the mammals only expand after the large reptiles went extinct at the end of the Mesozoic?"

"And in general, what is the impetus to occupy new portions of ecological space if not to avoid competition with the species in the space already occupied?"

Indeed.

The next part of the tweet in question is a quote from an alleged authority, Fr Robert Spitzer, that this challenge to Darwin "could be valid." Ah, the wonderful world of could, a conditional auxiliary which absolves the user of all responsibility of proof, or even rational conjecture. The Kalamazoo Post "could be" the premier blog on the internet! Or not. We'll never know, will we? The possibility certainly exists. Why? Because the possibilities of "could" are endless in the endless world of twitterdom.

So now we need to dissect the argument of Father Robert Spitzer, the Jesuit president of Gonzaga University, to see if he is indeed casting aspersions on the venerable Darwin. Spitzer states:

“For all intents and purposes then, the argument that space may have driven the development of species or one species' dominance over the other could be very much valid and, frankly, just as valid as competition. Both theories could be valid,” he stated, adding that the development of species could also have been driven “by another explanation that we don't yet know of.” [italics mine-Tony]

Close, but no cigar. Yes, both theories could be valid, or more exactly, both theses are indeed a valid part of the overall Theory of Evolution, which states categorically that speciation emanates from individuals competing for habitat (space, food and safety from predators.) Competition and space are both included within the grand theory, but they are not mutually exclusive. But what's with the stuff about "another explanation that we don't yet know of"? What did he have in mind?

Of course, to earn his priestly collar, the erudite sectarian scholar must pretend that there is some doubt about the validity of the Great Darwin as the jackals descend on his dying theory, and Spitzer reminds us that it still cannot be known absolutely if natural selection is the only model that can abide speciation. Yes, another explanation can be entertained! Of course, we should always keep the option open that speciation may have occurred by some as yet unknown force, but what is it? No conjecture? Maybe Noahs' Ark may still be found on Mt Ararat.

Perhaps I should show more reverence for the Reverend, after all he did couch his statement in all kinds of political mumbo jumbo so he is technically correct, but this is the kind of tortured logic that shows the utter silliness of religious arguments concerning science. If you want to refute Darwin, or intimate that his theory is flawed, then say so up front, and come up with a model to replace it that would better fulfill all the necessary criteria. Say it's the magic sky wizard that created species, or spontaneous mutation from extraterrestrial DNA, or something... but ple-e-e-ese don't fill my computer screen with malarkey about evidence that "could be valid" when there is no evidence, the authors say there is no evidence, you likely didn't read the study or even the entire BBC news article past the lede*, and there has never been any scientific evidence that has been inconsistent with Darwin's theory (which is actually the most amazing thing about this sordid tweet affair.)

The fact is that science has been eating religion's lunch for the better part of 500 years. Every generation has been marked by revealed religion surrendering ground to the army of scientists who have methodically revealed our existence in terms of chemical and physical properties that have left supernatural dogma crippled and dead. The priests are left to talk about the after-life and intercessionary prayer and "evidence that could be valid" since all else has shown them to be in error, and they have learned to qualify all their statements with conditional phrases, and then they lash out from their darkness when they smell blood, and pray it's Darwin's-- but it's only their own.

If only they could take down Darwin! The trumpets would blare! Hosannas would ring out! Jeebus would come back on a cloud to stuff Darwin down the puke funnel once and for all!

I realize that the nature of Twitter is to mimic stream of consciousness, which can be an attribute and a curse. The attribute is that we get inundated with a zillion themes and stories that might pique our interest. The curse is that we might read only the headline, or the "authority's" sound-bite and get the entire story wrong. Caveat Twitdor. Let the Twitterer beware.

*Fr. Spitzer was on Larry King tonight with Deepak Chopra, Leonard Mlodinow and Stephen Hawking, and the pious university president argued with the latter two about their new book while it was clear Spitzer had not even read the book!

Former Bush Aide Continues the Legacy of Lies

Mark McKinnon worked for the Bush White House and has been praised as one of the few lucid Republicans remaining merely because he hasn't called President Obama a Kenyan Socialist Muslim. Okay, the bar is set pretty low these days. McKinnon's recent op-ed, however, betrays a certain pathology whereby he misremembers a whole host of facts about his boss' tenure. As I read this piece I formulated several arguments, but then Keith Olbermann addressed it on his show and covered all the salient points.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Yes, Olbermann can be over the top at times, but in this case he's spot on and his facts are accurate. Apparently, Bush's cadre of advisers will attempt to re-write the history of "the greatest Republican president of the 21st century." Possibly McKinnon was merely trying to be gracious in praising both Obama and Bush at this milestone of combat forces being drawn down in Iraq, but if so, why lie about the facts?

Maybe Glenn Beck has a point...

....But I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

And I don't think his fans know either:

Maybe the jester has some insight:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Glenn Beck's Operation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Oh, Beck is a joke. I get it now.

Links to Drink By... Our Modern Culture Edition

1. Where I defend Sarah Palin.... (sort of): Michael Joseph Gross, in the latest Vanity Fair, all over the TeeVee today, explores the world of the Wasilla warrior, with all the gratuitous, off-the-record angst that we've come to expect from the Literate Class. To wit: "Warm and effusive in public, indifferent or angry in private: this is the pattern of Palin’s behavior toward the people who make her life possible." No shit. That sounds like me on some of my better days. Gross effuses that Palin sees evil everywhere, she's not well-read, she makes a lot of money, her fans love her, others hate her. Eight pages? It's dramatic, I get it, now tell me something new, dude. And for Democrats still flabbergasted that such a sociopath could make it to a national ticket, I have two words: Ambulance Chaser, and one more while we're at it: Joementum. (Of course, nobody has killed more soldiers and civilians, or wasted more money than the King of VP sociopaths.)

2. Mike Posner, the whole disc (shown at right) is very good.

3. PZ opines on the "Mosque." Again, I wish I had written this: "...we lose our democratic soul if we lose our tolerance for stupid ideas." And, "Naturally, I dislike the idea of constructing religious buildings anywhere, since they are a colossal waste of community resources, typically represent unproductive holes in the tax base, and promote stupid thinking — but guess what? Those aren't legal cause to interfere with people's right to waste their time and money. Also, if we accept the privilege of individual autonomy and personal freedom, we don't have moral cause to interfere." If there is such a thing as a soul, mine is modeled after PZ's.

4. The Iraq war ledger: Was it worth it? This CAP assessment is a necessary adjunct to mine.

5. Has it really been over 2 years since I reviewed Nassim Taleb's Black Swan? Well, I'm re-reading it now and enjoying it even more. BTW, it's good to see that Taleb is his usual cranky self these days.

6. If you haven't read Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone, do it. I laughed, I cried-- I almost cried--no, I did cry... Good book, well-written, epic story of missionaries, medicine, Catholicism, clash of cultures, family, Africa, war, immigration. You'll be entertained and learn a lot, I did. I'll provide a more thorough review at some point.

7. Should women be ordained as Roman Catholic priests? Okay, I admit that since reading Christopher's blog I've spent an inordinate amount of time re-connecting with my Roman Catholic roots. Part of it might be to see if they are still as whack as I remember--it's been a good 25 years since I stopped calling myself Catholic-- but I have to say that I appreciate the consistency in the dogma. Here's is an excellent list of the reasons why women will never be priests, and it's well-written (ah, the benefits of a parochial school education.) BTW, I also picked up Last Catholic in America at the library, written by an alum from my high school, but I haven't shown it to the wife-- she's getting a little worried about my newfound interest in the Church.

Enough for now, I've got work to do!