God - 1, Science - 0

A recent Gallup poll revealed more folks believe in God's creation of humans than evolution.

Okay. How can you ask someone if she thinks evolution has enough evidence to support it and she says no (less than 50%), and then have the same person actually think God created humans, 10,000 years ago, essentially as they are (more than 33%)? At least some folks said they weren't sure (29%)...but with the numbers combined that means over 50% of Americans either think God created humans or they don't know for sure.

Obviously, evidence is irrelevant. And these folks sit on juries?

Folks, a friend of mine once said he thinks belief in God is a mental illness, or, that it took a certain form of mental derangement to believe in God. I don't know if that's true, but I believe it could be a form of mental derangement that allows one to accept faith in the face of NO evidence (fundamentalism) over reason in the face of proven evidence (science).

When liberals run the govenrment again, and national health-care is finally instituted, I think fundamentalists should be allowed access to faith-healers only, not M.D.'s; that would take care of their powers of reason (or their proportion in society) right quick...

Can I get an Amen?

Jails for Jesus

"Jails for Jesus" is a wonderful phrase referring to BushCo's. experiment with faith-based jails that don't use scientifically-based psychology for inmate rehab.

It is one more of the faith-based intitiatives taxpayers will shoulder in the newly passed $388 billion budget , which includes $105 million for abstinence education (an increase over 2004) for a program that doesn't mention birth control and for which there is no evidence reduces pregnancy. However, there is ample evidence it increases the Republican's Christian Right support (ka-ching).

Of course matching (abstinence education) charter schools will be needed that don't mention science, logic, reason, free will or democracy: Republicans to Push Faith-Based Legislation.

Post-Thanksgiving Belch

This week’s political events felt like the Thanksgiving meal from hell and it just keeps repeating. What did we eat?

Let's see...to munch whilst mingling pre-dinner we had those spicy appetizers; liberals seem to have lost the election to a boob, and the democratic party (God bless ‘em), is now desperately seeking a soul they can market.

Soup? The Republican government accused officials in the Ukraine of election fraud (as evidenced by exit poll anomalies and other irregularites). Salad? Ohio Repub.'s got indignant about a recount when the same anomalies happened in at least three states (the dressing had a nasty taste).

And that huge turkey; the Republican congress wants to block funding for countries that won't exempt U.S. citizens (like Dubya) from investigation or prosecution for actions up to and including war crimes (ka-ching!) by the International Criminal Court. It was too much to digest with that dollop of the House ethics rules-warp to protect their own little political war criminal Tom "The Hammer" Delay when he is indicted on charges of fraud. Hey, did you taste any of that what-will-they-do-when-he’s-convicted sauce?

And the desserts! Like born-again Jerry Falwell thanking God for the Republican punditocracies’ liars, hypocrites and addicts helping to get God's own out to vote. And that nut-filled Christian dismembering her own baby for, well, God (note: the topping there was the full-fat Canadian link inclusive of the mother's motive - God's voice - while American reporting-cooks used the politically healthier God-free version).

So...is the bathroom free yet?

This is Getting Old...

or maybe it's just me (getting old), but the less mandate I see the angrier I feel. Like the one in New Mexico of less than 1%: Bush Wins New Mexico by 5,988 Votes.

What do you think? 100% of New Mexico's entire population will be subjected to 4 More Years of the Antichrist's Minions because less than 1% of the voting population bought the Osama + Iraq = TERROR equation.

Maybe I'll take back my accusation that Bush Voters are stupid. Maybe I'll just accuse them of being stupid cowards.

Yea, that'll go over big.

And the Votes Just Keep on Coming!

This is what I'm talkin' about: Government Accountability Office to Conduct Investigation of 2004 Election Irregularities .

But then of course, there's this: TX - State Rep Seat Won By Dem May Be Overturned (Or Recounted, Or...)

(I can hear you...)

It's (Still) the Fear, Stupid.

Yep, (I've been saying this all along) - values won Bush the election? NO. According to the New York Times, Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda.

FEAR won the day? You betcha.

And when Rove's spin on Bush voters emerges just imagine him saying this with every statement: THE VOTER TURN-OUT EFFECT OF MY BUSH TERRORISM STRATEGY (endless haranguing and connection of terrorism with Iraq) ON (voter category) WAS (x%).

And Christians? They can be such willing, er, flocks.

Barefoot and pregnant ...

Is clearly what some people want all American women to become...is it asset control? Vagina envy? Misogyny? Insanity? Here's the Other Shoe Dropping: Omnibus Bill Also Promotes Policies That Increase Need For Abortion, Says NARAL Pro-Choice America.

From the Kerry campaign: "...there is a recount effort being waged that could unseat Republican President George Bush.”

Title, quote from campaign rep, in article by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann: Relax about Ohio, Relax about the guy tailing me.

About the vote lock-down (thanks Bev Harris, again), from the Daytona Beach News-Journal; East Volusia edition: Watchdog group focusing on optical scan voting

New blog link, Voting Abuse, adds new articles on the topic as they are published. Not exhaustive, but pretty darn good.

This is a decent summary of the Berkley analysis: The Oakland Tribune: Study finds Fla. 'ghost' e-votes. On the same subject, there are dissenting voices. A good read on those issues at Crooked Timber: Further Analysis of Electronic Voting Patterns.

INCOMING!!!: Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill

The New York Times > Washington > Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill

I can't discuss this without going into a rant, so I won't. But I do have one question: at what point will women get up off their asses and into the streets to stop the erosion of their rights to not be baby machines?

From the "I Told You So" Files

A bumper-sticker I made pre-election (not to mention a wager with a friend):

VOTE FOR BUSH - SEND YOUR KIDS TO IRAN

People thought I was nuts...but read any of the background information on the neoconservative world-view, like Gary Dorrien's “Benevolent Global Hegemony”: William Kristol and the Politics of American Empire (and Rumsfield, Cheney and Rice are all neocons) and it's there in black and white. Invade Iraq, Iran, then Syria. Control middle-east oil, bolster Israel, spread American hegemony through perpetual war. That's why the catch-phrase "War on Terror" is such a useful tool for this administration. Terror is an idea, not a place, hence a war against it can be waged everywhere.

And don't think this is just conspiracy-theory left-wing nuttiness. Read commentary from the right's own voice. Try this post from co-editor of The American Conservative, Justin Raimondo, at the UK site War Without End: Buchanan's Book on the Neocons at Drudge Report.

Regarding Bush's idea '...that we must "drain the swamp" of the Middle East and eradicate terrorism by implanting our conception of "democracy,"' Justin quotes Pat Buchanan:

"How would we have responded in the nineteenth century if Britain had invaded and occupied Washington until President Andrew Jackson abolished slavery and stopped his mistreatment of the Indians?"

and (regarding the direction of US foreign policy):

"An American version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, wherein Moscow asserted a right to intervene to save Communism in any nation where it had once been imposed. Only we Americans now assert a right to intervene anywhere to impose democracy."

Any questions?

Pandora's Black Box

There are so many fires that need putting out: the CIA purging of actual intelligence (i.e. Bush critics), Rice's likely cabinet appointment, Delay's mercs disemboweling their ethics to save their cash cow, and the endless waste of our Social Security and children's lives, dragging on in Iraq.

I, however, still can't get off the election and the uncounted, miscounted, lost and stolen votes. Maybe because I am convinced the election was rigged and hence my conclusion that nothing the 56 million who voted for sanity can do after that fact will have an effect on the thieving horde entrenching itself in power. I mean, why try to figure out what it appears Bush voters want liberals to "get" (values, morals, a Jesus on every dashboard) if those are either not their interests or if they didn't win and we did? And if we did win, the horror of what that suggests - a coup by Karl Rove and minions financed by billionaire sociopaths that could make a Dr. Strangelove meets The Handmaid's Tale hell on earth a reality - and us without a smoking gun?

One reason some universities are madly crunching numbers is to look at the anomalies in the election results. If states where black boxes were used consistently return results statistically abnormal, there are implications that become a defacto smoking gun...recounts and even new elections can be demanded.

And evidence that nearly screams intentional mismanagement and individual incompetence, if not fraud, keep piling up. Read it for yourself - voter rolls in black trash bags stopped on the way to a shredder - info at Democrats.com Stolen Election 2004: Wednesday update

As a post to this blog reminds me, Stalin put it best: "It isn't the people who vote who decide elections, but the ones who count the votes."

OHIO VOTE RECOUNT IN DECEMBER (that means Republicans have more time to lie, cheat and steal but hey, it's better than 2000) !!!

AP report Ohio To Go Through Statewide Vote Recount After All .

And if you haven't seen why for yourself, these numbers are just a few of the more, er, questionable results from Cuyahoga County:

Cuyahoga Heights - 570 registered voters / 1,382 ballots cast
Highland Hills Village - 760 registered voters / 8,822 ballots
Woodmere Village - 558 registered voters / 8,854 ballots cast
Orange (CSD) - 11,640 registered voters / 22,931 ballots cast

Further, Nader Activists Ask for N.H. Recount, (also from AP).

Check out the TALKING POINTS on Air America's Unfiltered Blog for details on the Ohio recount and BobHarris.com for a good summation of why it looks like fraud (but no one's saying that particular F word).

I especially like the coverage by New Zealand online paper Scoop for a variety of articles including a couple of statistical analyses, including the much-discussed academic work (can I say proving?) the near-impossibility (odds of 250 million to 1!) that the difference between predicted and actual vote counts in the trifecta-three states is due to chance or error (Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy analysis - in PDF) by University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Stephen Freeman.

Okay, I'll say it. Fraud.

Busheviks and the Neo-CONfederacy

LATE ADDITION (11-16). I add this new Alternet piece from Barbara Ehrenreich, a girl after my own heart on this issue: Act Like Christians.

Ah, I just had to get this up because it is so on (my) point. From BuzzFlash, GOP Hypocrite of the Week: The GOP "Moral Values" Voter.

In other words (my point is), if you're paying any attention to Rovian tactics you can see the moral values issue is a ruse, a sleight-of-mouth trick, a CON. Liberals are principled; we don't have to be values whores.

Dude, where's my VOTE?

This article from Media Matters Beyond "conspiracy theories," election irregularities get scant media attention explains why your main-stream media reading, conservapund-watching friends think your yelp to have the votes recounted (or just plain counted once) is sour grapes or conspiracy theory nuttiness...

And with or without their help there's an action list with things you can do Right Now, TODAY, at Black Box Voting.Org's link VOLUNTEERS: CLEANUP CREW INSTRUCTIONS SATURDAY NOV 13 2004.

The three locations to immediately donate funds for the recount are:
Black Box Voting.Org
Help America Recount Fund
Votergate

It's going to be a long week...

Friday...and the vote is still out...

Yesterday I wrote:

Do Not buy the ho-hum dismissal from conservapunds that it is something between an internet hoax and a conspiracy theory; folks from Alliance for Democracy have (hopefully) raised the $110,000 they need to pay to have a recount in every precinct in Ohio - if you can contribute go to the website link I have newly added (under Activist) or go to this section of the Randi Rhodes site. Oh, and there's a new Media link - for Greg Palast - also a supporter of the count, with a very cool site of his own.

Today, from AlterNet, I add A Legitimate Recount Effort In Ohio.

A taste from the article:

"It's re-certified," Arnebeck said. "If Kerry emerges victorious, he's president." Of course, a certification in Kerry's favor for Ohio won't take away the fact that Bush won the popular vote by 3.5 million votes.

And the clock is ticking on the Ohio process. In coming days, the Ohio secretary of state is expected to announce that the provisional ballots have been counted. A losing candidate for president then has 5 days to request a recount, filing the paperwork and filing fee. That cost is $10 per precinct, which comes to slightly more than $110,000. As of Friday morning, $35,000 had been raised.

Okay, who didn't send in their $10? Come on - a whole precinct for $10 and what if we have the winning number? Can you feel it? Say it with me...PRESIDENT KERRY.

And so while this is going on, what does the (liberal) New York Times write? Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried

...no comment.

The vote is STILL out.

If you were wondering the inference of that little tag ending my last post, it was a reference to my belief that the election results are false (manipulated). So far this article from AlterNet Worse Than 2000? is my pick for a good laundry list of the evidence (my two-cents on this are in my 11-4 post). For info on black boxes and associated problems visit BLACK BOX VOTING.COM. To participate in a recounting effort visit Bev Harris's non-profit Help America Audit at BlackBoxVoting.ORG (this organization is separate from BLACKBOXVOTING.COM). Also check out DemocraticUnderground.Com and Randi Rhodes excellent coverage on Air America is a must.

Skepticism of the election results is not whining or denial as some are going to claim. It is one prong of a strategy we will be creating (in a perfectly liberal style) on the fly (more on how that is a liberal style in a future post) to keep pressure on every suspicious action coming from the opposition (and they're all suspicious to me).

Most important, we owe the Americans who we convinced their vote counts that their vote does count. That's a moral obligation - you tell people you're going to protect their vote - you see it through. There are enough irregularities that some votes didn't count, and that is not okay with me.

Further, a cabal that will steal (the first election), lie (to start a war) and cheat (manipulation) to win at any cost (the ends justifies the means) should be under scrutiny 24/7. We can take the fight to them like they did to Bill Clinton (except this crew is F'n everybody)!

Somewhere a stain is seeking it's dress...

The Map is Not the Territory

Okay. Today’s Boston Globe map of voting results shown in red and blue landed in my email this morning and I nearly passed out. According to this map, voters for Kerry are about to be shoved into the ocean or crushed between converging middle-American landmasses.

Are we really the next endangered species?

Ah, no. According to Princeton University's professor of mathematics and computer science Robert Vanderbei's maps, liberals ain't goin' nowhere.

Not only stunning in beauty and complexity, these maps clearly show America as predominantly purple, not red. In fact, his topographical map illustrates that the most truly red states are comprised of western counties (some nearly the size of Rhode Island!) that trail down through the center of the country into Texas.

Now, if only those pretty maps weren't based on an ugly lie...

Mounting evidence the Stupid Majority is becoming arrogant (I mean more arrogant).

The most recent example is an email with the Democratic seal circling a crying baby's face (it's been around for-ev-er). Ho-hum. But it made me wonder; does anyone else find it odd that this bunch are such Sore Winners?

There's already been one book written about the phenomenon, by author John Powers (Sore Winners from Doubleday). AlterNet has a couple of good articles with the author: Sore Winners by Powers himself and This American Strife an interview by Lakshmi Chaudry. A little taste from the interview follows:

The title of your book comes from your observation that in fact these people at the top, especially Republicans, are "sore winners." Who is a sore winner?

It has always been an American fantasy that we are good winners. We win World War II and hand out Hershey bars and rebuild your country. But there has always been a strand in our culture of gloating about being wealthy.

I've never seen a time - at least in my lifetime - when successful people have been as angry and aggrieved or less generous. When Bush, who scrapes by in the 2000 election, then proceeds to rule as though he's won 90 percent of the popular vote, and then acts as though no one has the right to question him, that's classic sore winner behavior.

Well, it's obvious we're past the 2000 election. What I think we're seeing now is the backlash from the punishing criticism Bush and his supporters took before this one, and the release of anger behind fears that he would lose. They're in the I-told-you-so phase. They not only want to wipe our faces in their win, they want us to get in line (after what they believe is our much-deserved abuse for causing them so much anxiety). Talk about babies...

It's just a petty winner-take-all mentality (a form of social Darwinism Powers also discusses in the American Strife article), and I think they are going to be enraged when we don't get in line, don't go away and don't become the wimps they thought John Kerry, and by extension, we, would be. Further, as the months go by and our coverage and criticism of their every democracy-destoying move ramps up in volume and multiplying media outlets they're going to get nuttier, so watch your back.

Assault weapons don't fire spitwads.

Why do Bush voters think that HIS winning the election has made THEM smart?

Now I’m starting (finally) to hear Bush voters whine that since Bush has won we should stop calling them stupid. Doh?

When the 9th grade bully who's bigger than his classmates (because he was left back twice) trounces the 90-pound nerd it’s no reason to switch his classes from shop to rocket science.

So why isn’t it possible for the majority of voters to be stupid (about 60 million total, but the majority margin was just over 3 million)? Well, maybe America has entered a dimension that not only reverses reason with faith but units of measure with units of intelligence.

Hey, maybe that DOES explain everything…

Look, what did you think would happen?

That Karl Rove with that much money, that much power, that close, would let his life'’s mission –to turn social reality back to 1954 –slip away? That delusional radical Christians –who finally found cover in his tent - wouldn’'t slime their emotion and damnation-laden shame-and-blame game on everyone to stay where they finally had power instead of derision? That black boxes can’t be rigged? That exit polls were wrong? That only the trifecta-three states would have voting anomalies that glaring?

Three years? One year? Eleven months? Two hours? What did you invest? Radical conservatives have invested billions of dollars and nearly 40 years to get here. They have patience, strategy, funding. They accepted they were underdogs and then got on with the serious business of BUYING CONTROL.

Politics is about ideology, cultural ebb and flow, generations of families and it is ongoing, never-ending and a life-long commitment because it reflects people's beliefs and beliefs last a lifetime.

As a liberal I don’t engage in politics to win, I do it to live better and extend liberal, humanist values for living to others to enjoy, now and into the future.

Why do liberals seem to lose? It’'s the idealism, stupid. We are sustaining a vision that runs counter to the basic human evolutionary drive to survive at any cost. We were winning and conservatives felt threatened. They did what it took for them to feel safe again - get control. Now the shoe is on the other foot. So what.

We are creative, visionary, empathetic and compassionate. It is those functions in our brains that give our lives meaning, that comprise fundamental needs that must be satisfied. We expect that if we only show people The Truth they will agree with us. It doesn'’t work that way, anymore than when they can'’t understand why we don'’t “get it” from their point of view. It'’s brain wiring. It'’s not negotiable. We either learn to speak their brain mapped-on language or all are doomed to suffer their excesses.

But speaking their language doesn'’t mean becoming them. It means understanding how to stand our ground without imploding from the grief of observing in them what we most hate -– the way they use their fear of change to destroy our need to change.

Pretend it is the beginning of the struggle for human rights in America, not the end. Pretend you are preaching to a whole new crowd of people who don’t get it because you are. Pretend you are the calming, reasoning power of a loving parent married to an abusive prig, because you are. And if that spouse-beating, over-bearing, control-driven asshole won'’t get therapy toss him out!

Bring It On 2006.