A good Question about Conservatives in general

d r i f t g l a s s: Today In Revisionist News...: "“What exactly is so deeply broken in people like Andrew Sullivan that they can delude themselves so long, so passionately, so disastrously and so self-destructively about the real nature a movement which, in the end, was never more than a cult of angry, paranoid rubes, well-funded demagogues and rapacious plutocrats?”"

Andrew Sullivan: Birther? No Not that kind.

Can someone please explain to me how Andrew Sullivan's obsession with who is the "real" mother Sarah Palin's son Trig is in any way different than the lunacy revolving around the President's birth certificate?

No, I don't think there is any different either.

And yes, that is one link to a Sullivan post about Trig per word. I ran out of words...

Ezra Klein spouts horseshit talking points.

Who killed free choice — and why? - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post: "separates individuals from the cost of their health care so they use more health services than they would if they had to pay their premiums out-of-pocket."

I personally know of no non-pathological person that "uses more health services" than they need. In fact I know lots of folks with very good insurance or living in Canada(for instance) that still don't go to the doctor( or take the proper medications) nearly as often as they should.

This is such unadulterated bullshit that I do not know where to start.

With all due respect to Ezra (and I do normally have a lot), this is not grounded in the world that most people live in. He knows better than most (since he has shown that doe does) that the economics of health care are not much like a normal economic market and I am absolutely baffled that he could come up with such a load of tripe.

Let's default on that debt - Eric Cantor Edition

Cantor: U.S. Will Hit Its Debt Ceiling | TPMDC: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) suggested Tuesday that Congress will allow the country to hit its debt ceiling, and continue to hold out for dramatic spending cuts while the nation approaches a genuine default."

Missing the Point - Daily Gut Edition - #slutwalk

The Daily Gut: "But marching for sluttiness?

Nothing brave there"

Andrew Sullivan forgets how lucky he is

Too Focused On Insurance? - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast:

"One small reform I'd favor is making co-pays much more linked to the actual cost of the relevant procedure or drug. If you pay 30 percent for a new drug, rather than a flat fee of, say, $30, you're going to become instantly more aware of the generic option."

Cost or price?

Two very different things.

Sully knows this better than most.

Let's get personal about this ... Andrew is HIV positive. How would he have done if he were NOT a well paid pundit paying 30% of copays for his anti-virals for the last several years?

Seldom have I seen a person that is as completely devoid of self-awareness as Andrew Sulllivan.

And yes i did just call someone that is HIV positive lucky.

Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician Metajoke

Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician Jokes:

"An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny."

Error Message of the day - Daily Conservative Edition

From The Daily Conservative via my "who visited here" list.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 35 bytes) in /home/content/95/4106595/html/thedailycon/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1140

There is an easy joke in here somewhere but I am too cranky to bother

Zandar on the REAL debate

Zandar Versus The Stupid: By The People, For The People:

"The debate now is basically not 'what role should government play in the lives of the American people' but 'at what rate should government transfer the remaining wealth that the middle class has in this country to the top 1% and how can we benefit from that?'"

Given recent events, it is rather hard to disagree with that. Sadly.

Dumb Analysis of Political Landscape

AMERICAblog News: The one who primaries Obama will be the next Democratic president:

"In Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, a far-sighted scientist can see that the Galactic Empire is crumbling and is to be followed by a thirty-thousand-year-long dark age, but with the right steps, the darkness can be limited to only a thousand years. There is probably no saving an Obama Presidency that stubbornly refuses to save the country and itself. There may even be no way of preventing the Republicans from taking the White House. But conducted properly, a primary challenge now can result in victory: if not in 2012, then in 2016."

I have to wonder if the people that sincerely think this kind of thing have paid any attention to what the GOP field looks like. Any reasonable reading of the polls shows that independents are running away from the leading GOP contenders. It is going to be necessary to be very right wing and perhaps borderline crazy to win the GOP nomination in 2012 and that just ain't where America lives.

Perhaps it is time for the PUMAs (let's face it, that is who this group is) to get their heads out of their asses and watch what the other side is doing a little bit. Sometimes it isn't all about our side.

The author does get points for the Asimov reference.

Andrew Sullivan on Obama's Fiscal Plan

Meep Meep Watch - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast:

"Of coruse(sic), for a blogger like me, you face a choice. Simply trust the guy and spin for him, or voice skepticism, outrage and disappointment and get played along with the GOP. But, of course, I don't mind gettng(sic) played. Because I want this president to succeed - and such success requires root-and-branch spending and tax reform."

Or you could wait until he actually presents his plan and make your judgement then.

Maybe Andrew should spend less time in hero worship and more in rational thought. One would think that he would have learned that in the first couple years of Bush II's administration but apparently not.

Non-feline comment of the day

Balloon Juice » When the MBA’s Meet IKEA: "So now we’ve come full circle and the US is the new third-world country from which advanced industrial countries like Sweden export manufacturing jobs, in order to take advantage of cheap labor that’s non-unionized and subject to minimal, poorly enforced regulations."

Bachman - Turner Overdrive - Let It Ride

To get the thought of Bachmann/Palin Overdrive out of my head.

Impressive HIV research initiative

HIV project Harper signed with Bill Gates fizzled - CTV News: "

-- By March 2009 -- two years into the project -- only $2 million of a planned $16-million annual budget had been spent. And a year later, just $5 million of a $34-million budget had been spent."

Impressive in the "wow they managed to fuck that up didn't they" kind of way.

Does Good Come From God - A Debate

Via PZ Meyers comes this debate between Sam Harris and William Lane Craig on the necessity of God for defining moral value. 
 Just in case you want to read more from Sam Harris

Comment of the week at Balloon Juice

Balloon Juice » Serious as a heart attack:

"مجد الله. جون كول يبقي لي سجين. كنت تعيش اليوم في حالة يمكنني دمعة/له وسأبذل للضعف, وقال والدموع. يخاف مني, خوفه, يثير اشمئزاز لي. يحصل لي بعض التونة والسمك وبالتالي.

Tunch"

For those that aren't addicted to Balloon Juice, Tunch is John Cole's rather rotund kitty.

For those that don't read Arabic, this is an automated translation via Babylon.com .

The Glory of God. John Cole keep me a prisoner. You live today in the case of I tear/him I will do my vulnerability, he said with tears. afraid of me, fear, disgusts me. Get me some tuna fish, and therefore.

Disingenuous statement of the day: Mike Pence Edition

Pence still attacking Planned Parenthood, says budget deal 'not good enough' | Video Cafe:

"'They tried to make this about women's health,' Pence said of Democrats. 'It wasn't about that. Planned Parenthood's clinics focus mainly on abortion.'"

Which of course is a lie.

Booman on progressive fantasy world

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community: "I think it's obvious that the Republicans won't be too willing to consider raising taxes on themselves, but it would be nice if progressives put half as much effort into backing up the president's efforts here as they are in ridiculing him for making any effort at all."

13% of H.S. Biology Teachers should be fired immediately

13% of H.S. Biology Teachers Advocate Creationism in Class | LiveScience:

"The majority of high-school biology teachers don't take a solid stance on evolution with their students, mostly to avoid conflicts, and fewer than 30 percent of teachers take an adamant pro-evolutionary stance on the topic, a new study finds. Also, 13 percent of these teachers advocate creationism in their classrooms."

To me, this is akin to a teacher saying that Ptolemy had it right about planetary motion.

The level of scientific illiteracy that this implies should disqualify someone from teaching science.

Eric Cantor on Medicare and Medicaid

ThinkProgress » Cantor Sees Current Medicare and Medicaid Programs As A ‘Safety Net’ For ‘People Who Frankly Don’t Need One’: "Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace questioned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) support for a plan in which Americans “pay more out of pocket.” Defending the proposal, Cantor argued that these programs sometimes provide a “safety net” for “people who frankly don’t need one” and that the shift of the burden from the government to the beneficiary will teach government “to do more with less”:"

Muslim Brotherhood on Facebook

WOMEN'S LENS - Un coup d'oeil féminin: Muslim Brotherhood creates Facebook page

: "The Muslim Brotherhood announced the creation of a Facebook page to raise awareness about its thinking and approach to change."

This could be interesting.

On More Intelligent Design Bullshit

Paul Nelson takes a stab at Ontogenetic Depth again…which makes me go stab-stab-stabbity-stab : Pharyngula: "Well, now we're done. His first point in his first essay is that 'ontogenetic depth' is 'A Biological Distance That's Currently Impossible to Measure'."

Dilbert is true yet again

not a WoW fan but i know some that are