The Antichrist is Among Us! (And His Name is Possibly Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz)

OK, so in the course of researching the Deathers (yes, I do research, even when there's only one real point to the whole thing), I came across the next meme the unhinged Right is trying to push. Obama is the Antichrist!

(cue scary music)

Yes, they're still at it. And it looks like this.



(This is the updated version, by the way, which even tries to incorporate the second of the three "minor problems" below. But fails.)

But since I get into stupid, geeky language arguments like this, I started looking into it. Only to discover that somebody already went there. So, from Mark Chu-Carroll:

In general, I find arguments like this to be extremely silly. This is, basically, like playing with gematria - only instead of doing real gematria (which can be quite silly enough), it's like our friend "Gotcha" - mixing systems and screwing things up until you get the results you want.

Lots of the particularly crazy strain of Christians really, desperately want to believe that Barack Obama is the antichrist. They want an explanation for how this black man with a muslim name could possible have actually been elected - they don't believe it could possibly have happened honestly. And their doctrine requires the antichrist to come soon. Combine those two, and you've got what, for them, is a sort of perfect storm.

Which gives us things like this. For more mockery, see beneath the fold.

According to the video, if you take a phrase from the new testament that supposedly talks about the antichrist, and then you translate it to english, you'll get the phrase "lightning from above". If you then take the word lightning, and translate it to a third language, hebrew, you get "xarak". If you then take the word "above", and translate it, you get "bamah" or "bimah" (depending on conjugation). If you put those words together, hebrew requires a prefix on the "bamah" part, which our oh-so-brilliant video author claims would be "O-". So, according to this fundie nutcase, if you translate a line from the new testament into hebrew (using English as an intermediate), you'll get "Barak O-Bamah".

There are a few oh-so-minor problems with this.

1. The phrase in greek is actually "lightning from heaven". "Lightning from above" is a clear, blatant mistranslation. But hey, what's a minor mistranslation if it produces the results you want?

2. The correct conjugation in hebrew would use the prefix "U-" not "O-", and either prefix would cause the initial consonant to be shifted to the "V" form. So the phrase in hebrew wouldn't be "Barak Obamah" but "Barak Uvamah"

3. The name "Barack" in the case of the president of the US, is not the same as the Hebrew name "Barak". Our presidents name is arabic - the corresponding hebrew name isn't Barak, but "Baruch". The two words are quite different in Hebrew - Baruch means "Blessed"; "Barak" means lightning. They're different words, pronounced differently. (Barak ends with a hard-K sound; Baruch ends with an aspirate-H. The K and the CH are written with different characters - BRK versus BRC.)

So... If you mis-translate greek to english, and then translate the english to hebrew making a conjugation error, you get something which sounds (to an english speaker) kind-of like the name of the current president of the US. Therefore, he's the antichrist.

I'll just point out (in an attempt to work in something vaguely on-topic) that mathematically, this really isn't surprising at all. It's basically exactly the same as my usual critique of gematria-type stuff. There are a finite number of phonemes in human languages. Almost any combination of phonemes that you can imagine is a word in some language. If you're willing to search a bit, and be flexible in your translations, you can find almost any kind of pattern or correspondence that you want.

Looking at this, it looks unlikely. The number of phonemes is fixed, but it's big enough that the number of combinations is pretty staggering. For instance, english has somewhere around 40 distinct phonemes. It's a whole lot. Even if you're willing to cheat, what are the odds that even a mistranslation of a passage would produce a result like this?

And for that, we go back to the bible codes. You're not working forwards, looking for what's there. You've got a result that you want, and you're working backwards from it. You've got a name, like "Barak Obama", and you want to make an argument that he's the antichrist. So you try to find some way that you could translate something close to those phonemes into something from the texts that purport to speak about the antichrist. It would be surprising if you couldn't. There's no shortage of passages in the bible, and for many of the fundies, they see a huge number of them as being, in some way, about the antichrist.

Let me show you an example. I'm going to "prove" that I am the antichrist.

Let's start with my first name, "Mark". The name "Mark" has several possible histories to it. One connects it to the god Mars; another one to the babylonian god "Marduk". Some christian sects associate Marduk with the devil, because among other things, he was the god of magic.

Now, let's look at with my pre-marriage last name. One way of transliterating it into hebrew gives us the word for "melody".

"Chu" has no direct translation to hebrew, because hebrew has no "Ch" sound. But the closest thing I can come up with is a hebrew prefix which translates as "the".

So my name could be (stretching, but stretching no more than this Barak Obama" thing) translated as "The melody of the devil".

So, the things that I'm saying to you are the melody of the devil. Sure sounds like I'm the antichrist, doesn't it?

Damn it. Now I have to find something else to blog on.

So, How Was Your Weekend?

So, last night my wife decided to cut her finger off. You know how some people get an idea into their heads and you can’t convince them otherwise? (Women - what are you going to do?)

Technically, she wasn’t really trying to cut off her finger: she was trying to chop up some vegetables. And it wasn’t the whole finger, just a little skin (and the barest edge of the nail) from the tip. Nice clean slice – she’s always been good at things like that.

It’s probably best that she was cutting snow peas at the time. Onions might have stung a little. (They were supposed to be vegetarian wontons. I guess she figured they'd be better with put a little meat in them.)

She was using a brand new knife: it was, in fact, one of those chef’s knives that Albertson’s gives away for free if you give them a whole wad of stamps. So, if they need a testimonial, I’m available – those suckers are sharp. Good steel.

Not a huge, horrible wound or anything, but we couldn’t convince the bleeding to stop. So it was off to the Emergency Room. With Annette, of course, complaining that I was speeding. ("See the red spray on the windshield, officer? I was kind of hoping we could get that stopped sometime soon...") I'm not sure I entirely understand the logic there: "OK, I may just bleed to death on the way, but make sure you obey the speed limit." What the hell? Wouldn't that be kind of embarrassing if there's an afterlife?

"So, how'd you die?"
"I cut my finger and bled to death, because I wouldn't let my husband... oh, never mind..."

The ER wasn’t jam-packed or anything, so we were in and out relatively quickly, and I took Annette home and tucked her in for some nice technicolor Vicodin dreams. And now she has this huge honking bandage on her index finger covered in bright pink tape. Sadly, it doesn't bend well, so when she tries to flip me off (usually for making remarks like those above), it turns into one of those British reverse-V things. (If it had been on her thumb, it would have made hitchhiking a breeze.)

So, do I trust my wife with sharp objects from now on? Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I did before, so overall, nothing has really changed.

Anyway, that was my weekend.

Sinking Deeper Into Madness

You know, I said a few weeks ago that the GOP has been tying up sacrifices on the Altar of Insanity, and Michele Bachmann is their drooling, gibbering High Priestess. And things are only getting worse.

And a week or so ago, I spent some time poking the Birthers with sticks. A hobby which has its own pleasures, but, like the old stereotype of Chinese food, leaves you hungry again an hour later, because they're such easy targets, riddled with easy-to-debunk delusions. But now we have a new level of wild-eyed lunacy running naked through the ranks of the unhinged right-wing, giggling madly and making the GOP look even less relevant than it already does.

In the larger sense, the Republican Party, before they were taken over by theocrats, closet fascisti and the clinically insane, had some good ideas. They were the yang to the Democratic yin, balancing the good and wholesome with the cold and clinical; and really, we need both as a society. But as Bill Maher said recently, "We don't have a Left and a Right party in this country anymore. We have a center-Right party and a crazy party. And over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the Right, and the Right has moved into a mental hospital."

Now, in support of the "lunatic fringe" argument, we find, for example, that right-wing activists opposing health care or clean energy reform are being told to to be disruptive ("Artificially Inflate Your Numbers... Be Disruptive Early And Often... Try To 'Rattle Him,' Not Have An Intelligent Debate"), because they already know that if they start debating, they've lost, whether on logical or emotional grounds.

But there's also an entirely new movement rearing its beady-eyed head. They're called "Deathers," and they have a simple claim:

The United States government is planning to kill off old people!

Now, this is a claim that isn't just ignorant, it's completely batshit insane. There are no words that can really express the depths of the idiocy that it would take to believe this nonsense. Except that there are some people out there who do. I've talked with them, both on line and face-to-face. I've reached the conclusion that there are really only two types of people who could believe this drivel: the mind-numbingly gullible, and the cold-bloodedly partisan.

And this sad fallacy of a meme is being driven even by members of the government. For example, Virginia Foxx (R-NC):



Now, at first, I thought that it might just be possible that she was as thoroughly gullible as she sounded. After all, the woman isn't young, and her impending mortality probably weighs on her mind late at night, as she lies there sleepless, imagining the unwashed hordes of homeless creeping up around her. But since her august record in the Senate involves calling the Matthew Shepard case a "hoax" (see, it was OK to beat up on him - he was gay!) and voting to let the victims of the Katrina hurricane die in the streets (they're just coloreds!), I think we can safely put her in the "partisan" category.

(I suppose it's possible that she could be both amazingly partisan and ignorant enough to believe this - after all, she is kind of old...)

The "fact" that they base this bizarre and ignorant claim on is the fact that, buried deep in the healthcare plan, there's a clause that would allow seniors to receive "end-of-life counseling." This is a reasonable, useful thing for someone like, say, Virginia Foxx, who's facing the encroaching loss of her faculties and needs a little help once in a while; this is something that Medicare isn't currently willing to pay for. In the words of the bill,

such consultation shall include the following: An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to; an explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses; an explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy.

You can read the actual bill here, or an explanation of these specific sections here.

But that simple clause is being taken out of context... no, I'm sorry, "taken out of context" doesn't reflect the actual intentions of the people involved. The deathers are openly lying about that clause, because it causes them physical pain to know that a black man is president (and, by extension, obviously better than they are).

They claim that the counseling would be mandatory... actually, let's just let World Net Daily explain it:

as people age or get sicker, it includes mandatory "consultations" offering suggestions on how to end life sooner... Those 65 and older will be required to undergo mandatory 'end of life' counseling to determine if they are worthy to continue to not only live, but take much needed resources from those who are younger and more worthy to receive them. Counselors will be trained to discuss how to end life sooner, how to decline nutrition and hydration, how to go into hospice, etc.

Of course, if you believe anything put out by World Net Daily, forced sterilization might be a useful option for you, because you're already too stupid to be allowed to breed. Just going to the site briefly, I feel like I've lost two points of IQ.

(Oh, yeah. By the way, are you morons aware that assisted suicide is illegal in 48 states? So you think that doctors are going to be pushing that on patients why, exactly?)

Let's consider one simple question: Does it make sense for the government to be killing off taxpayers?

"Ah," but the deathers answer, "these aren't taxpayers at all! These are people who are taking more money out of the system than they're putting in!"

Absolutely. Except for the cancer victims and the like, who also qualify for the counseling. Because you probably aren't aware of this, but a lot of cancer victims survive, and work, and pay taxes. Amazing, isn't it?

But let's look at this from a different standpoint. The US, far and away, spends more per person on healthcare than any other country in the world. But the US ranks 27th in life expectancy. The next nearest, Switzerland, pays only 70% what we do, and rank 4th; Cuba has the same life expectancy as the United States, and essentially pays nothing, comparatively. The longest life expectancy can be found in Japan, where they pay less than half what America pays.

It seems obvious that things could be done more efficiently. But it takes a special kind of inbred idiot to believe that killing off the elderly is the best plan that the government could come up with. (Admittedly, if G.W. Bush had fallen victim to that insidious pretzel attack, it would have been quite in keeping for the Cheney administration.)

I mean, come on! A few years ago, this kind of garbage would be something you'd expect to hear from some guy on a street corner, smelling like pee and holding up a hand-lettered cardboard sign. Now you find it on Fox News. (Which, technically, isn't much different from the previous scenario - they just have computer graphics instead of cardboard signs.)

You have to ask sometimes: do they really believe this garbage they spew? I'd like to think that they can't, but I don't have any evidence to support this theory. What do they think is Phase II of this nefarious plan? Soylent Green? (Well, at least then we wouldn't have to worry about the co-pay, right?)

I mean, I can see some benefits to what they're claiming is going on. After all, you get somebody who's just been told "Well, guess what, Mr Bernstein? It seems that you're going to live for quite a while. Now, you won't ever get that arm to work again, and there will probably be just a little bit of excruciating pain when you try to do something radical like, say, stand up or something. Oh, and you're going to need a machine to poop. And you do have a choice here - you can either have this bag of urine strapped to your leg, or you can occasionally lose control of your bladder and wet yourself. Either way, incidentally, you're going to spend a lot of time smelling like pee. And did I mention the excruciating pain? Actually, that won't be restricted to standing up. But the good news is, you're alive, right?"

Did anybody else ever see Who's Life Is It Anyway? I'm just curious.

But that isn't what's happening here. And there are some feeble intellects who might actually believe it, but I hold this hope, deep in my heart, that the majority of the people trying to claim this ignorant nonsense are simply evil, black-hearted villains who don't care who they frighten, as long as their political objectives are met.

Because otherwise, in the words of Glenn Beck, "I fear for my country."

Why Do Republicans Hate Americans?

There is a reason that healthcare reform in America is stalled, and it's spelled GOP. The Republicans are killing Americans because they don't want healthcare reform. And the Democrats are letting it happen.

Kent Conrad (D-NJ) even went on ABC's This Week to say that, despite having a 60-vote majority, Democrats couldn't pass this bill alone; he didn't explain how he came to this stunningly ridiculous conclusion.

But that only shows the blindness of some Democrats. Because the Republicans have already admitted that they want to defeat healthcare, not because they think it would be bad for the country, but because they want to defeat Obama. They openly do not care about the welfare of the American people; the GOP feels that they need to defeat a popular president because they disagree with his ideology.

That is the definition of a partisan hack.

And the Republican efforts are the reason that the current healthcare bill is going to fail. In an effort to be "bipartisan," and to make compromises to ensure that doctors wouldn't face a "pay cut," the House bill includes essentially a $245 billion chunk of payola to the healthcare industry. Well, guess what? If one of the reasons that we need to revamp the healthcare is because medical costs are out of control, then we have to cut medical costs.

Sorry, doc.

While we're at it, why is anybody worried about the insurance companies in all this? As a former executive in CIGNA testified before Congress last week, they've been defrauding us all along.

At a committee hearing yesterday, three health-care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that do not cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies."

The star witness at the hearing was a former public relations executive for major health insurers whose testimony boiled down to this: Don't trust the insurers.

"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable -- publicly accountable -- health-care option," said Wendell Potter, who until early last year was vice president for corporate communications at the big insurer Cigna.

Potter said he worries "that the industry's charm offensive, which is the most visible part of duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns, may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans."

Insurers make paperwork confusing because "they realize that people will just simply give up and not pursue it" if they think they have been shortchanged, Potter said.

In other words, the insurance companies use tactics that are illegal in any other industry: they bait-and-switch, they lie, they steal. And they're struggling with every ounce of energy they have to ensure that they can keep right on doing it.

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) likes to say (and a lot of brainless idiots like to repeat) that Americans don't want their healthcare "denied, delayed or rationed." But under the current system, it already is.

The latest Gallup poll shows that 16% of Americans have no health insurance at all (that's up from 14.8% only 18 months ago). With a current population estimate of 307,212,123, that's 49 million people uninsured. Now, you can add to that the underinsured. As of 2007 (and you can do the math yourself to figure out how much these numbers have increased since then), there were 25 million underinsured adults in the United States.

Much of this growth comes from the ranks of the middle class. While low-income people remain vulnerable, middle-income families have been hit hardest. For adults with incomes above 200 percent of the federal poverty level (about $40,000 per year for a family), the underinsured rates nearly tripled since 2003...

Respondents were identified as underinsured if they spent 10 percent of more of their income (or 5 percent if they were low-income) on out-of-pocket medical expenses, or if they had deductibles that equaled 5 percent or more of their income. An estimated 14 percent of all nonelderly adults were underinsured in 2007, and more than one of four were uninsured for all or part of the year. Adding these two groups together, 75 million adults—42 percent of the under-65 population—had either no insurance or inadequate insurance in 2007, up from 35 percent in 2003.

Lack of adequate insurance coverage, the study finds, is not a problem limited to low-income people. Adults with incomes below the poverty level were at the highest risk of being uninsured or underinsured, but "insurance erosion has spread up the income distribution well in to the middle-income range," the authors say. For those with annual incomes of $40,000 to $59,000, the underinsured percentage rate reached double digits in 2007. Barely half of those with incomes of 200 percent to 299 percent of the poverty level were insured all year with adequate coverage.

Sorry, Mitch, but that means that we have at least 74 million Americans whose healthcare is denied, delayed and rationed.

1 in 5 Americans have delayed or postponed medical care, usually because they couldn't afford it. And 60% of US bankruptcies are due to medical bills which have spiraled out of control.

More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts...

"Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote. "Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."

And rising healthcare costs are also costing us jobs. A study by the nonprofit Rand Corporation gave us the bad news there:

Economy-wide, a 10% increase in excess health care costs growth would result in about 120,800 fewer jobs, $28 billion in lost revenues, and $14 billion in lost GDP value.

Our Republican friends like to claim that all Americans already have access to health care: "After all, you just go to an emergency room." (GW Bush, 2007)

But that argument is a non-starter, too.

In every minute of every day, on average, an ambulance carrying a patient is turned away from a hospital because its emergency room is too full to take more patients...

Many emergency rooms barely can handle their daily patient loads, children don't always get good care and the quality of rescue services is erratic, the report says. Long waits for treatment are widespread, with ambulances sometimes waiting for hours to unload patients. Once in the emergency room, patients sometimes wait for up to two days before being admitted to a hospital bed....

The study cited three contributing problems to the rise in emergency room visits: the aging of the baby boomers, the growing number of uninsured and underinsured patients, and the lack of access to primary care physicians.

The report found that 114 million people, including 30 million children, visited emergency rooms in 2003, compared with 90 million visits a decade ago. In that same period, the number of U.S. hospitals decreased by 703, the number of emergency rooms decreased by 425, and the total number of hospital beds dropped by 198,000, mainly because of the trend toward cheaper outpatient care, according to the report.

So, ignoring all of the hot air being blown around by partisan hacks who get most of their campaign money from the healthcare industry, America can't afford not to have healthcare reform.

The good news is, another partisan hack (Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry of the "great" state of Texas) recently said that he'd turn down universal healthcare for his state. And that, by itself, may just allow the program to work. Texas has the highest number of uninsured citizens, and ties with Iowa for having the eleventh fattest state (which might just explain why it ranks 16th for the most deaths caused by stroke). If we can get Texas out of the equation, healthcare may just pay for itself.

John Adams Is An Idiot

En route to a hard look at the healthcare issue, let's take a side trip to Crazytown, which is apparently a small whistlestop in Ohio.

It seems that an inappropriately-named state legislator from Ohio, John Adams (R-Imagine That) has reintroduced legislation (which was originally shot down in 2007), requiring a woman to get the permission of the biological father before she could get an abortion.

(After all, them wimminfolk can't make decisions like this on their own, can they? They need to get permission from their man, the way God intended!)

Wow, coming from the party that claims to want smaller government, what kind of nonsense is this? This is practically unenforceable, unless you hire on a whole new branch of law enforcement. Who's going to be paying for the DNA tests to prove that the woman isn't "providing a false biological father"? (That's the first offense - a misdemeanor.) Are we allowed to take her at her word? "Innocent until proven guilty" and all that?

(This whole argument does lead to the fascinating mental image of some kind of Uterine Police bursting into the room with guns at the ready - "Halt! Put down that speculum!" But that's a ridiculous side issue, and I shouldn't even have brought it up.)

We already have states with "deadbeat dad" laws, who are supposed to track down fathers behind on their child support. And these states can't keep up with the dads, because they aren't funded to do so. Again, how are these new laws supposed to be enforced?

Supporters of this bill like to claim that it won't cost the state any money - this provides guidelines that the clinic has to follow. Which is a ridiculous and unfounded claim. At the very least, you can't have a law passed in the first place without it costing time and money on the legislative side (plus the cost of judicial review). You can't enforce a law without it draining money from the police and the courts. And when this law is inevitably struck down, all of that money is wasted.

And if the woman goes to the next state over and gets an abortion there, what crime has she committed? Will Mr Adams be coming up with something fascinating for that, as well? Will he be tagging pregnant women with GPS monitors next?

Let's look at the words of Mr Adams, the bill's sponsor.

"...this is also an attempt and a hope to keep the two people who have created that child together, and I suppose if you just go back to the simple beginning, there is merit to chastity, and to young men and women waiting until marriage."

Which is, of course, complete nonsense. In the end, the bill has nothing to do with "permission," or "father's rights," or even changing the morality of a society (which isn't something you can legislate anyway). This is all about restricting the access to abortion. Period.

I notice there's no requirement for the father to stick around, pay child support, or to do anything other than give his permission.

Why isn't there some penalty for the father? Why is this punishing only the mother? Dad, following the rules of this legislation, can just walk away. What if the bio-dad fights with the mom and leaves? Mom thought they were getting married. She's now forced to have the baby as a single mom, and become one of Reagan's "welfare queens"? If Dad just refuses to sign a "permission slip" for whatever reason, why is he not then legally required to provide financial support for his incipient offspring?

This doesn't "promote" any kind of behavior in the father, just penalizes the woman. It's ignorant legislation, not well thought out, and would be struck down the first time it was challenged. Meaning it's just money down the drain, in the middle of a recession.

And why, you may ask, will this law be "inevitably" struck down? I mean, I've said that twice; what do I base that on?

It's very simple. Lincoln first signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 (there was a second one in 1863, but hardly worth arguing about). And within a year of his death in 1865, we had the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery.

When you try to claim that one person has any control over the body, life and health of another person, that is slavery, regardless of whether the first person is married to the second. And slavery is, as I just pointed out, unconstitutional. (I'm sorry, but marriage doesn't give him any claim on her internal organs.)

It's a cute idea, and a nice try in getting around abortion rights, but it doesn't hold up to any reasonable standard of judicial logic.

In the end, why should the father have rights? At what point is he going to go through 9 months of pain and discomfort, permanently change his body, and run the risk of dying or ending up with permanent health issues in the process?

(I'll assume that that most people are aware that the US has the worst rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world, right? And the second highest newborn death rate. Of course, all those other countries have the advantage of universal healthcare. But very few of those people in favor of this bill would support that idea, either...)

(Of course, if you think about it, how can you denounce health care reform by claiming that government shouldn't come between people and their doctors, but have no problem placing government between women and their bodies? Do you see the dichotomy there?)

Mr Adams is concerned with legislating his brand of morality - sticking his nose (and the nose of the government) into other people's private lives. He wants to get the government involved in the sex lives of the American people. Am I the only one who’s reminded of Gladys Kravitz here? John Adams is worrying entirely too much about other people's behavior.

Quick Rerun

Update: I forgot that blogspot prints posts in the order that they were started to be written. So the "new post" I mention below can be seen immediately following this one.

This post originally ran July 14, 2007. I thought I'd throw it back out there, as a humanitarian effort. I'll cough up a new post tomorrow - it's already in the works. (Technically, I just needed the recipe, but since I looked it up, enjoy.)

Health Food For Everyone

I'm going to see if I can't make the world a better place in one simple blog post. Since it's July, this is a particularly far-reaching and important piece of news, and will increase happiness in much of this hemisphere.

First, let me point out that a study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture tells us that researchers in Thailand and America discovered that the antioxidant properties of strawberries are increased by the application of a little alcohol. (This is true of blackberries and other colored fruit, if you're curious.)

Now, some naysayers would like to point out that too much alcohol damages the liver. Screw them. They always want to rain on our parade. So we'll ignore them, in that responsible manner of the Bush administration, which bravely ignores any scientific evidence it doesn't agree with.

Straight strawberries have other beneficial effects - vitamins, minerals, fiber. You know, stuff that nobody wants to know about, but, like traffic laws, we need to have to stay happy and out of trouble.

Then we have the benefits of honey. It's good stuff. Plus, if you get honey harvested locally, it can have beneficial effects on your allergies, as well.

So, here's how I'm going to improve your life.

Strawberry Daiquiri Smoothie

1 pint (16 oz) frozen strawberries
1/4 cup local honey
1/2 cup water
Juice of 1 lemon (around 1/4 cup)
¾ cup rum (spiced is good, by the way)

Put sugar in blender first, to grind for a second or two. Pour in water rum, and lemon juice. Blend until to mixed (a few seconds). Start adding frozen strawberries, a few at a time. At the end, you'll probably need to stop the blender and stir with a spoon, pushing down any floaters. Serve.

Makes 2 good-sized daiquiris (3 if you skimp a little).

If you want don't really care about the health bonus from honey, you can go ahead and use 1/4 cup of "superfine sugar." Just put regular sugar in a dry blender first, and run it for a few seconds. If you actually pay extra money for "superfine" sugar, I'll have to come to your house and break your kneecaps. I'm sorry, but that's just the way life is.

(Some people would tell you to increase the sugar by 1/4 when substituting for honey. Well, to tell the truth, that kind of measurement is too much for me. I'm lazy. And I recommend that you avoid trying that much math when you're cooking, too. Or drinking. Same problem. It'll cause brain rot.)

Now, I'm willing to go for something that'll make your life easier and cheaper almost every time. But I'm not willing to substitute the "juice of one lemon" part for an equal amount of any brand of "reconstituted lemon juice." Because if you look on the label, every one of them that I've found uses either potassium benzoate or sodium benzoate to preserve the stuff. So avoid it.

There. See? One simple blog post, and you're healthier, more regular, and more relaxed. So what could be better than that, right?

Communication Update

So, let's check in and see how things are running in my little corner of the universe at the moment.

First of all, the boys over at Kook's Manifesto won't be publishing my infinitely reasonable climate change discussion, because Andrew33's tender, sensitive feelings are hurt. Or something like that.

See, I ended up on their blog, mostly because I was invited here. So I did. We chatted - it was friendly and congenial, but we didn't talk about global warming, which is what got us talking in the first place.

So two weeks ago, I coughed up a post to sum up our previous talk on the subject. Which was apparently where things started to go wrong.

Andrew33 wandered into the room and said:

I have an offer for you. To be fair, you come up with a concise pro global warming post and I will post it on our blog. I am a believer in giving both sides of the story... You have debated us well and not resorted to name calling and insults so hopefully this shows that we are fair and treat everybody decently as long as they act like adults

Of course, then you scroll down six responses and you find him saying to Diogenes:

I could call you a typical liberal who thinks fancy language makes you look smart... Difference between you and NC is I respect NC... why are you doing the talking? I will no longer acknowledge your existence as between your ears lies a supermassive black hole... You however are not welcome on our blog since you obviously only think with the part of your body glued to the chair.

And then his pal KOOK chimed in with

I find it interesting that Diogenes Syndrome is a disease related to being slovenly...its symptoms include body odor and other signs of severe hygienic neglect ( a decent description of a liberal hippy type) Frontal Lobe impairment may also play a part in causation.

Diogenes is also the name, I believe, of the evil brother in the Pendergast novels, and a villain in Sherlock holmes.

Good name choice

And it got worse. They decided that either Diogenes and I were the same person, or were gay lovers; Andy took his own posts, insults and all, and posted them on his blog; and things just went generally downhill.

Interesting that KOOK didn't bother pointing out that the most famous Diogenes ("Diogenes the Cynic") was legendarily looking for an honest man. Didn't seem to find one here.

So I came back for the first time in three days, and find this nonsense going on. I got a little cranky, yelled at the children here and on their end, went about my business.

Now, Andy admittedly made something resembling an effort: he deleted all the posts on his end, and said that if certain "corrections" were made, we'd still be debating.

That's the difference between Andy and me. I support free speech, and believe everybody's views should stand on their own merit. And unlike Dick Cheney, I believe that the "public record" should stay out there in the public. I think I've stated this often enough: I stand behind everything I say. I'll admit if I get something wrong, but you get to see the discussion, warts and all.

So I didn't make any "corrections." I put together a second global warming post meeting his specifications, and I stood back to see what would happen.

Which would be "squat."

(This even confused some of his readers.)

So, I've moved on. I had some time in the evenings this week, and I've been picking on "birthers" (the people who are still up in arms that Obama's birth certificate is faked, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Admittedly, this is low-hanging fruit: while poking birthers with a stick is easy, it's ultimately unsatisfying. But, hey, it's been a long month.)

See, what happened was this:

Taitz asked the court to consider granting her client’s request based on (Maj Stefan) Cook’s belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Cook further states he "would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command. ... simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties."

Now, his orders were, in fact, revoked, but it had nothing to do with the lawsuit. But that didn't stop the birthers from shouting gleefully "See? Even the Army knows Obama isn't a real US citizen!"

Cook, it turns out, was a Freeper and a conspiracy theorist who just might have cooked this scheme up with Taitz months ago.

(If nothing else, consider that Cook applied for orders to Afghanistan back in May. Obama was already in office. The "facts" hadn't changed in the intervening period; why is Cook trying to claim this abrupt "crisis of conscience" now? If he was truly worried that Obama's citizenship was such a terrible threat to the safety of soldiers everywhere, Cook shouldn't have volunteered in the first place.)

The problem was, Cook is no ordinary Reservist: he's an Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA). An IMA is not ordered to go anywhere. He volunteers to go, and is allowed to change his mind about going up until he gets on the plane.

As such, he registered this (somewhat ridiculous) complaint, and the Army rescinded his orders. That's how the system works.

Now, since he no longer has to go to Afghanistan, and his suit is based around the argument that he shouldn't go to Afghanistan... well, the point is moot. The courts don't keep arguing once the basic charges have been settled, one way or another.

And now he's facing a court martial - check out Articles 88 and 94 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (or UCMJ, to those of us who lived under it).

Article 94 MUTINY OR SEDITION
"Any person subject to this chapter who... with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition..."

("revolt," incidentally, does not always involve rocks and pitchforks, and "disturbance" covers a lot of ground)

More importantly, though:

Article 88 CONTEMPT TOWARD OFFICIALS
Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Thanks to Cook's IMA status, he's safe from some of the more esoteric charges such as Absent Without Leave (AWOL - Art 86) or Missing A Movement (Art 87). But he's still in for an interesting time.

(And by the way, here's how the Military Officer's Association sees it, if you're interested.)

I got the usual range of responses: some people wouldn't let it be heard (one guy even deleted it after initially posting it); a lot of people ignored me.

Two people let in the original comment, indulged in some character defamation, and then refused to print any follow-up comments. (I really love that last link - one of the first arguments of the unhinged right wing is to try and claim that I'm lying about 21 years of military service. It doesn't fit their limited world-view, and they refuse to accept it.)

There was one guy who generously allowed me to post, but said "This is the last unsigned response I will publish. I agree that everyone should be heard but, not if they remain annom." First of all, I have never been annom in my life and I am deeply offended that he would suggest such a thing. And secondly, a LiveJournal account? Really? That's so... 90's...

And two of them actually tried to debate the point. Not that it really got them anywhere.

But that's been my week. And now I have to spend the next week prepping for bringing our new electronic medical records on-line at the next facility. Yay.

(You really wouldn't think doctors would be Luddites, would you? And even the ones who can use a computer tend to fear change. It's sad.)

Global Warming 101

I've been asked to provide a simple, easy-to-follow look at global warming. There's a lot of misunderstanding of the subject out there, so let's take a basic look at the Big Picture.

The concept of climate change was first developed in the early 1800s. The idea of greenhouse gases was developed in the 1800s, and the term was coined by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who figured out in the 1890's that the increasing amount of CO2 in the air would warm the environment (in fact, he thought it would prevent the next ice age).

The greenhouse effect, in nature, is actually a good thing: it's the main reason that the Earth is significantly warmer than the Moon's surface (which doesn't have an atmosphere). The way it works is simple: sunlight is absorbed by the Earth, and instead of simply reflecting back into space, it's trapped by gases in the atmosphere that act as insulation. These gases, both natural and manmade, absorb and reflect parts of the infrared radiation: water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and ozone are the primary greenhouse gases, along with entirely man-made gases such as hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons.

Left to itself, Nature is a careful balancing act. Whether you feel that it was made that way by God, or whether you want to take a more scientific approach, that is an indisputable fact. The earth could not have lasted either the billions of years that the scientists tell us, or the 6,000 years that the creationists want to promote, if this engine was out of balance. Let's use the metaphor of two machines and carbon dioxide (and we'll call it CO2, if only because it saves me typing ten letters every time - yes, I'm that lazy).

One machine puts out CO2, the other (which we'll call the "scrubber") absorbs it and cleans it up. The CO2 scrubber can absorb gases at only a certain speed, and can be overwhelmed by the amount produced by the other machine (that's because, to drop the metaphor for a second, plants can absorb CO2, but only at a fairly specific rate).

The system is set up for the CO2 machine to produce its gasses at a certain rate, which the scrubber can handle. This leaves a "safe," trace amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and everybody's happy. But if the machine starts producing too much, you get a larger amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the insulating quality I described above starts to happen faster.

Now, the first machine is made up of people and animals breathing, fires, all the natural processes that go into the production of CO2. Now, suddenly, we introduce a second CO2 machine into the equation, pumping out even more CO2 (we even have a make and model for this second machine - the Industrial Corporation's "Revolution"). The scrubber can't keep up, and you have more and more CO2 in the air.
On top of this, remember that the scrubber is made up of the combined actions of all the plants in the world. And then consider this thing we call "deforestation," where more and more of the world's trees are being destroyed without anything new being planted. That's like somebody walking into the room every so often and dialing the scrubber to a lower setting, without turning down either of our machines.

This is obviously a very simplistic metaphor, but it gives a very basic overview of why the natural system isn't working the way it should, and why the gradual increase in CO2 that's been noted should be a cause for alarm.

Unfortunately, while the industries who've tied themselves to fossil fuels have waged a campaign to spread lies about climate change and global warming, these same industries openly ignored their own scientists. Back in the early 90's, the Global Climate Coalition represented these industries.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records obtained by environmental groups.

So we can ignore most of what the industries are telling us, since they're only worried about how much money they can make. (This is yet another reason why allowing the "Free Market" to operate unchecked may not be the best way to run a country, incidentally.) Meanwhile, in the real world, the news is only getting worse.

Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thick older ice shrinking by the equivalent of Alaska's land area, a study using data from a NASA satellite showed.

Using information from NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Satellite (ICESat), scientists from the US space agency and the University of Washington in Seattle estimated both the thickness and volume of the Arctic Ocean's ice cover.

ICESat allows scientists to measure changes in the thickness and volume of Arctic ice, whereas previously scientists relied only on measurements of area to determine how much of the Arctic Ocean is covered in ice.

Scientists found that Arctic sea ice thinned some seven inches (17.8 centimeters) a year, or 2.2 feet (67 centimeters) over four winters, according to the study by NASA and the University of Washington, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans.

The big picture, by the way, is called "climate change" - the term "global warming" only refers to one specific aspect of climate change. An important, and even potentially disastrous aspect, but one that can still be corrected.

I don't care what you think about ice and snow on the roads, global warming is a bad thing

Today, let's talk about global warming. Also known as "global climate change."

See, on another blog out there, I said some mean things about Michele Bachmann, and somehow ended up in a debate about global warming. That's how things work on these here Intarnets - it's a series of tubes, and they don't always go where you expect.

(Now, part of the message of the post involved the Left Coast Rebel saying that liberals were close-minded and not willing to listen to other people's viewpoints. And ten minutes after I posted my viewpoint, that same rebel asked his readers if he should delete it. Ultimately, it stayed, but I like the inherent irony in him even asking the question.)

Now, much of that debate was reprinted here in three parts. And, since Andy has already posted replies to last week's rant, let's see if we can lure him here, since he seems to be particularly interested in climate change. (To level the playing field a little, I'll start here primarily with arguments he's already seen.)

Now, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a group put together back in 1988 by the UN to monitor studies about climate change and determine the facts of the matter. Despite White House opposition, the IPCC noted an increase of about a degree and a half in average surface temperature in the latter part of the 20th century. They determined that greenhouse gases and deforestation were the primary causes, and nature (solar variation and volcanoes) had produced most of the warming up through about 1950, but had actually cooled things somewhat since then.

The summary of that study is here, if you're curious. Most of the major scientific organizations internationally have endorsed that study, by the way, and the IPCC shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore on the subject.

You're heading out into Conspiracy Theory territory if you believe that a giant international cabal of scientists is counterfeiting their evidence for some nefarious purpose. Nor do I think that it's likely that all the governments in the world worked together to alter the findings of those same scientists, without any of those scientists saying anything. (On top of which, wouldn't the Bush White House have had some input in suppressing the results, if that was the case?)

(And, admittedly, there was one scientist who left the group, back in 2005, named Christopher Landsea. However, he was specifically miffed about another scientist saying that strong hurricane activity was due to global warming, when he had performed no studies in that area.)

There are several climate model projections in the IPCC report, which suggest that global surface temperatures will rise another 2 to 12 degrees F. up through 2100, depending on who you believe (and it will probably continue to rise beyond that, since the 75% of the earth covered in water is a great heatsink).

But even that 2 degrees will cause significant melting in the polar regions, and even a few inches of increase in the world's oceans will be a bad thing.

Now, I understand that there are arguments against this concept. A number of scientists (mostly funded by Exxon-Mobil, oddly enough) have come out saying that this theory is implausible. Sadly, the logic holds up, and the facts remain facts.

(On the subject of Exxon-Mobil, they did manage to get one leading scientist ousted as chairman. Not that they were trying to alter the results of the report or anything...)

Over the last 150 years, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have risen from 280 to nearly 380 parts per million (ppm). You know, since the start of the industrial revolution. Why would that be?

And looking at that CO2, let's consider the nature of the chemical.

There are 3 major carbon isotopes, numbered 12 to 14. Carbon-12 is the most common, and carbon-14, the radioactive one, is the least common. They're usually spread pretty evenly, but, being radioactive, carbon-14 has a relatively short half-life, so that you can measure how old something is by how much of the trapped carbon in a specimen is carbon-14 - the less -14 there is, the older it is.

Here's the thing: since the various carbon isotopes are spread evenly through nature, you'd expect that they'd be spread evenly in the atmosphere. Now, since the carbon in the air shows a lot less carbon-14, doesn't that mean that most of it came from older sources? Like, for example, fossil fuels?

Incidentally, before anybody brings up "well, there are questions about the accuracy of carbon-14 dating! -- you know, I've tried to look into that, and the only place I've found those questions are in Christian (primarily creationist) websites. If you want to make that argument, you'll have to include a link to something from the scientific community, because it looks to me like they're pretty clear on the subject.

Our government seems to be concentrating on CO2 in their current legislation, as if that was the only culprit in air pollution. I mean, there are others: for example, ozone (O3), which is an unstable form of oxygen (O2) which happens to be poisonous (we need it in the upper atmosphere, but not where we're breathing, right?). Then there's the various sulphur compounds, many of which will kill you, and a bunch of various other compounds (mercury, weirdly enough, was taken off the charts by the Bush administration, despite the fact that it's been noted for the number of birth defects and other horrific problems it can cause).

You know, there's a term in the air pollution field: "particulate matter." It's that crap in the air that floats around for a while and then drops and clings to things. "Soot" is one type. (You know those Sherlock Holmes movies with the fog and stuff? I understand that the fog in those was actually smog from the factories, back in the 1800s/Industrial Revolution era, and it used to stain men's clothes to the point that paper collars and cuffs, that you could remove and throw away, were common.)

You know, when you think about it, soot should be heavier than air, right? I wonder how it gets up into the atmosphere? I mean, if your experiment with carbon dioxide proved that heavier gases will always drop, wouldn't a particulate drop even faster?

And where does acid rain come from, anyway? I mean, moisture in the air mixes with nitrogren oxide, sulphur dioxide or the like, and forms an acid that might travel for thousands of miles before it lands and screws stuff up around it.

Do you not believe that dumping millions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere might have an effect on things like the absorbtion of sunlight by plants? (And remember, it isn't just CO2 being put out by those smokestacks.)

And one of the favorite arguments of the anti-global-warming crowd lately has been this 2008 petition, where 32,000 scientists said that you can't prove global warming.

I've been wondering about those 32,000 scientists. I mean, when you look into it, you start to notice some discrepencies. Let's start with "scientist" as a definition. It means somebody with a degree and some science background, right? Are you required to be working in a scientific field? You've got 31,478 college graduates who signed this thing. But only 3,803 (by Ron Paul's count, at least) have "specific training in atmospheric, earth, and environmental sciences."

So, if we take their word for it about their training (and if they were going to fake this, they'd have a larger number, right?), that's about 12% who know enough about earth sciences to not be pulling information out of their posteriors. Did I do that math right?

You know, you've got to wonder about that other 88% of them. What did they study? There's got to be some math, some physics - that's a given, right? Of course, pretty much any degree has a certain number of prerequisites, including science, math and the like. But, really, a Doctor of Theology - well, by that definition, he's a scientist, right? I haven't seen a good accounting of what fields of study these degrees were in, so I can't talk with any certainty, but since they specified the numbers I used, I have to assume that there was a reason for it.

According to most studies, when you include the PhD's, there are 30,000 doctorates awarded each year. So based on that, they were only able to find 32,000 willing to sign on here? (OK, not even that many: only 31,478 - that doesn't seem like a lot.)

One Flew Over the GOP's Nest

Back in April, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine wrote an article called The Class Clowns, where he talked about the current state of the Republican party:

Following the Republican Party of late has been a movingly depressing experience, sort of like watching Old Yeller die — if Old Yeller were a worm-infested feral bitch who spent the past eight years biting children at bus stops and shitting in neighborhood swimming pools. As a useful force in American politics, the Republicans have been dead for a while now. But in the seven months since Sarah Palin's nomination, they have taken on an intriguing new role: providing much-needed comic relief during dark times, serving as the unofficial rodeo clowns of the Financial Crisis Era.

I recommend looking for it (the excerpt from the Rolling Stone site is nice, but get a back issue of the April 30, 2009 Rolling Stone for the full beauty of his words - it's got the Kings of Leon on the cover, if that helps). But I'm starting to wonder whether Taibbi went far enough. The current Republican party is littered, not merely with class clowns and ass-clowns, but with the actively insane. Even Taibbi pointed out, for example:

The real prize for nutty Red-baiting went to Rep. Michele Bachmann, a drooling dunce of a Minnesota soccer mom who is now a serious contender for the title of dumbest person ever to sit in the House of Representatives. When the Chinese recently proposed creating a new system for international reserves, Bachmann - who founded a charter school that banned the movie Aladdin for promoting witchcraft - sponsored a bill establishing the dollar as the official US currency for ever and ever, despite the fact that no one anywhere was talking about doing anything to the dollar. It was like calling for an end to aid to Turkey because we eat them on Thanksgiving anyway.

And Ms Bachmann certainly hasn't found a hidden stash of sanity since then: she's gone on record saying that the new energy bill is "tyranny" because "the federal government will virtually have control over every aspect of lives for the American people."

And now she's saying that she will break the law and not send in her census form, and she urges every other American to do the same; see, she explains, in the 1940s, "that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps." Which shows that she is simultaneously ignorant on history, how the census works, and the fact that aluminum foil won't protect her from the evil mind-control rays.

This isn't the first time that Michele Bachmann has brought up the specter of internment camps, incidentally - the last time, she said that the AmeriCorps program was going to become "re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

(Are we starting to notice a theme in Ms Bachmann's lunacy? She's apparently fallen into the 1984/Big-Brother-themed brand of insanity, which, I understand, can barely be controlled by lithium and electroshock therapy. Perhaps it's become time for Michele to be fitted for a straight-jacket before she stabs herself in the eye with a pencil - I once helped arrest a 6'2" screaming crackhead who was trying to smash his head through a car window, and he was making about as much sense as Ms Bachman has been lately.)

Even the right-wing talking heads on TV and radio are crazier than ever these days: one of the most popular, Glenn Beck, is also a direct philosophical descendent of those late-night radio talk shows where the UFO's were taking over the world, mind-control devices were being implanted in our goldfish, and we were being monitored from secret moon-bases where eighth-dimensional hive-minds were injecting radioactive isotopes into our movie-theater speakers.

Paranoid psychosis seems to be the only defining characteristic of the GOP these days. And the fact that ranting delusional maniacs are being mainstreamed into "normal" society (if such a thing exists) is leading America down an ugly path where wide-eyed gun-wielding killers shoot up churches for not believing exactly the same way they do. Whether it's Scott Roeder killing abortion providers, or Jim Adkisson killing people just for being liberal, this is an ugly, evil side to right-wing politics that needs to be stamped out.

Back in April, when the Department of Homeland Security came out with a report on right-wing extremists, members of the right-wing wouldn't stop screaming about how "Obama's claiming all right-wingers are evil!"

And, as I pointed out elsewhere:

So let's go back to the report. Derided by the right, what exactly did it say?

— (U//LES) DHS/I&A has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy—separate from any formalized group—which hampers warning efforts.

— (U//FOUO) Similarly, recent state and municipal law enforcement reporting has warned of the dangers of rightwing extremists embracing the tactics of "leaderless resistance" and of lone wolves carrying out acts of violence.

— (U//FOUO) Arrests in the past several years of radical militia members in Alabama, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania on firearms, explosives, and other related violations indicates the emergence of small, well-armed extremist groups in some rural areas.

Now, if this report was wrong, please explain James Von Brunn. And Scott Roeder. And James Adkisson. And Richard Poplawski.

For that matter, please explain the rise of right-wing violence across the country. There's nothing particularly new about it, but why are we seeing this increase?

Here's the thing. If you have Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh talking about these blatantly stupid lies, like "DHS reeducation camps" or "Obama is a Muslim/communist/socialist/anti-american/selling us out to the terrorists," and any one of the thousands of brain-dead chuckleheads who've been feeding off the lies of the Bush Administration (as filtered through the mouth of Karl Rove), and now believe that Obama is the anti-Christ, sent to earth to bring down "the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth," do you think that maybe this same chucklehead might be incited to violence? Maybe?

Now, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that the Freedom of Speech of the media talking heads should be diminished. They are welcome to have these nut-job views if they want them. But at a certain point, their national platform should be removed, in the interest of public safety; if they're inciting violence, I'm pretty sure that's a crime. For example, let's look at Ann Coulter's column from this week (since we're talking about the batshit-insane, and she epitomizes that description):

I wouldn't kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?

Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one.

Now, let's put logic like that into the hands of somebody who is both batshit insane and owns a gun.

See, what the Republican party has now given us is the single best argument for Universal Health Care. If we had decent health care for every American, perhaps a few of these people could be placed on antipsychotics (or in the worst cases, locked up), just to prevent them from harming themselves and others.

Now Eric's mad at me, too (apparently part 3 in a three-part series)

Geez, you go away for a week, you come back, and look what's happened to the place.

Not here. Over at the descriptively-named Pathetically Incorrect. Odd how fitting that name is, considering how often he is, you see...

My short relationship with Eric is chronicled here. We debated for a while, and then last week, he banned me from his blog. I mean, I could post some responses anyway - Diogenes does, and he was "banned" four or five times over the course of a week. But many of his comments get yanked, and I don't think it's worth the effort, really.

See, E-man reprinted a column by Ted Nugent, which I made fun of last week. And this apparently annoyed Eric. Because he then wrote a response entitled "An Open Letter To Bill From Eric About Ted..."

(Which means I could have titled this "An Open Letter To Eric About An Open Letter To Bill From Eric About Ted..." - yeah, I thought about that. For ten seconds or so. Gave up on it pretty quickly.)

You can read it yourself, if you'd like. But it has some fascinating formatting problems, and is currently in black on red - kind of hard on the eyes (the background and header picture changes about once a week or so - everybody needs a hobby, I guess). But in essence, he was upset because I was picking on Ted Nugent.

Did I make fun of Ted? Well, yeah. But he's a millionaire rock guy, so he can probably take it.

Do I use "strong words?" Well, yes. I always do. But when the Nuge is talking about "(the Democratic leadership's) ongoing program to bankrupt the entire nation," or that Democrats are "compromising our values, beliefs, and ideals," I think I'm justified in firing back.

But why would Eric get all cranky about me "demeaning and humiliating" Ted Nugent? The man does that all by himself. The last time I posted a link to a video of Ted and quoted his own words, Eric refused to post it: he apparently thought it was obscene.

Ted Nugent was arrested once for firing a flaming arrow into his audience. He doesn't need my help making a fool out of himself. For example, in this column of his that I made fun of.

And I wasn't even complete: I could have gone on for paragraphs more, pointing out one by one the stupidities and lies he was quoting. But I'd used up the humor and was in danger of going into pedantry. Thought I'd avoid that.

But all things considered, I think that I should respond to Mr Graff. (And actually, it might be helpful to try to read the original at this stage. But I'll try to summarize his points, in case you don't have the stomach for it.)

Dear Eric,

When I said "I only wish that the conservatives had control of the Republican party. Sadly, the neocons, religious lunatics and the inbred have taken it over. I had respect for the Republican party once, but lately they're just sad and outdated," you responded with:

If that were true, they never in a million years would have nominated John McCain to represent them as their president... The Republicans may be searching for a leader, but McCain was not it because many of them voted for Obama because the base was ignored.

And then McCain nominated a former beauty queen with a trailer-trash soap opera family as his running mate, as a sop to the religious right and a sad attempt to lure women to his side. Because the wimmenfolk will vote for anything with a vajayjay, right?

(I'll be happy to point out the numerous inadequacies of Ms Palin, but that's a column all to itself. Let me just say that I'll be thrilled and excited if the woman runs in 2012. It'll throw the GOP even further into the dustbin of obscurity.)

They nominated Michael Steele as leader in an effort to hide the fact that most racists are Republicans (if they support either major party, that is), but then the GOP strips him of power, and even tries to take away his access to their money.

So who's the real leader of the GOP? You get to choose between Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. Nice. Like I said, neocons, religious lunatics and the inbred.

How does Bill know Ted surrounds himself with the unemployed?

Ah, ah, ah, Eman. I said he surrounded himself with musicians. A group with, as I further said, a ridiculously high unemployment rate (at least in music - hence the need for day jobs). I should know, my wife is an operatically-trained soprano. For that matter, you should know - don't you have some musical outreach going?

Yeah Bill, like YOU pay for your music downloads.

Actually, I don't download much, but when I do, I have an ITunes account for that. You really don't know me as well as you think you do.

First Bill says Ted hangs around with the unemployed, then he calls Ted rich.

Well, he is. He's a musician who "made it." And he hangs out with other musicians. What, exactly, are you arguing here?

The country is in trouble because the stimulus package stimulated nothing,

* sigh *

And we needed a stimulus package because why, again? Perhaps because the country was already in trouble?

And by the way, only a small percentage of the stimulus money has been spent so far. So your point makes no sense on two levels.

Government increased payrolls by thousands.

And those are jobs, right? Isn't that good?

Government employees pay no federal taxes Bill. That means less people paying taxes and those people who do pay, pay more.

What? Where do you even get that? I'd say "urban myth," but it's not one I've ever heard.

OK, I spent 21 years in the military. Paying taxes. I then did a year with the DOE. Paying taxes. Every year, the president's tax records are released to the public. So, at what point are you saying that government employees don't pay taxes? (The military, in combat zones only, are the only exceptions to this.)

OK, let's try this. Timothy Geithner, before he was nominated as Treasury Secretary, worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. You know that's a government job, right? And then he got in trouble for using Turbotax to do his income tax, right? Why would he need Turbotax at all if he didn't pay taxes?

It's like I said. Sometimes, the things that you think you know turn out to be horribly wrong.

WOE!!! OK ..STOP RIGHT THERE!!! Business people aren’t giving out jobs because they have to cut back because of huge tax increases on business.

Woe, indeed. Your argument makes me very sad.

December 2008, if you'll recall, was before Obama was elected. For the past twelve months, the national unemployment rate had increased 2.3%. Even the government was calling it a recession back then.

So if the phenomenal growth in their taxes is the reason businesses aren't hiring now, why weren't they hiring then? Or could this just be a continuing trend, and you're trying to conflate two unrelated points?

Don’t be sorry Bill, we understand your public education on economics impairs your ability to think rationally.

You like to run down "public education" a lot, Eric. Did you notice which one of us has facts to back up our points here? And spells things right? Your private (or possibly home-based) education isn't doing you any favors here, my friend.

What business is it or yours or the governments what a business makes or does or pays it’s employees? What you want is SOCIALIZOM so you and the president can dictate what we make. It’s WAR on PROSPERITY!!!

Well, aside from figuring out tax levels and things, "pays it’s employees?" Really? Do you even know what socialism (that's how it's spelled, by the way) is? Look at China. Describe their government. Consider the concept of "sweat shops."

And now wander into Walmart and look at the tags on most of what's sold there. Note the profusion of "Made in China."

The Chinese own us, Eman. Body and soul. A good part of that is because Bush borrowed more from foreign countries than all previous 42 presidents combined. Added together, Japan and China hold 47% of US public debt.

My public education tells me that's a bad thing, Eric.

And by the way, can you please explain how you can have a "war on prosperity" during a depression? The defining aspect of a depression (or even a recession) is the overall lack of prosperity.

AGAIN Bill sees a need to be snide and obtuse. Equate to liberal minds.

Do you see the humor in being snide and obtuse when you're talking about me being snide and obtuse?

Bill, the French get 80% of their power from nuclear. How has that damaged anything at anytime in your lifetime?

Oy. Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. Here, look it up yourself.

Technologies today make storage of spent nuclear fuel safe and effective. Or are you still thinking from the 70’s???

"Storage." Please note that word. What happens when we run out of places to store it? Do we just build new places? You're like some guy driving down the road throwing your trash out the window. "Oh, it's fine. The state hires people to pick that up."

Let me just quote a physician on this.

Plutonium, the most significant element in nuclear waste, is so carcinogenic that hypothetically half a kilo evenly distributed could cause cancer in everyone on Earth.

Lasting for half a million years, it enters the body through the lungs where it is known to cause cancer. It mimics iron in the body, migrating to bones, where it can induce bone cancer or leukemia, and to the liver, where it can cause primary liver cancer. It crosses the placenta into the embryo and, like the drug thalidomide, causes gross birth deformities.

Finally, plutonium has a predilection for the testicles, where it induces genetic mutations in the sperm of humans and other animals that are passed on from generation to generation.

Where do we put the garbage, Eric? Will that storage site always remain secure? (Does "Love Canal" mean anything to you?) And that's only one of the many problems with nuclear power.

I'm not entirely opposed to nuclear power, but I see the problems. Do you?

if we did drill (offshore), the supply would explode and Bill overlooks this because of convenience, and lack of common sense.

Again, you make me sad. Aside from the facts I quoted (and you even reprint), now it's you oversimplifying. Here. read this. Consider the bigger picture.

Then you quote me saying "I thought you (Ted Nugent) were a big supporter of conservation? What happened to that?" And you follow that up with:

No, you thought wrong Bill, Ted is a drug free rocker. Has been all his life. And he is a hunter, big time hunter. A Big game hunter.

Yup. Correct.

Ted Nugent on conservation.

When the Canadian provinces were drained for increased agricultural production, it was the hunters, the waterfowl hunters that saw the destruction of nesting habitat and came to the aid of Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl. These are hunting organizations. And I can name the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation, Pheasants Forever, Quail Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation. We [hunters] stop the bulldozer boogie. We put value on wild ground. Because not only does the wild ground produce more ducks, of which we only shoot a minor percentage, but that ultimately is going to be where our quality air, soil and water will come. As a hunter, fisherman and trapper, I am proud to join this honorable community in taking credit for that.

But back to you.

Michigan... Everyone’s moved out of the place. No jobs, no money, all because of a LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC GOVENOR AND LEGISLATURE!! This would bring jobs to a job-starved state!!

Wait. Let me think. Michigan... Detroit... joblessness... I'm sure those things are related somehow...

Come on, Eric, grow up! Don't try to link "socialism" and Obama bailing out the car companies, and then ignore the very real problems that happen when those car companies fail.

No Bill, (the Founding Fathers are) not Gods, they are the ones who sacrificed their lives, their money, their families and everything they had for Freedom, the very thing you and Obama want to regulate. Not me, not now, not ever. Ted would back me on that... They knew people like you would come along and destroy the very fabric of our freedoms. Ted knows too.

Really? Here's some concepts I want you to look up. Habeus corpus, Freedom of Speech, and the relationship between illegal search and seizure and government wiretapping without a warrant. Now, look up what happened to those concepts over the last eight years. (And those are just three off the top of my head. Don't get me started...)

And then explain what the hell you mean by "you and Obama want to regulate." Because it's really sounding like you're off your medication again.

We got into crime, and you said:

Where concealed carry is the law, crime is down. Way down. Look up TEXAS!!

Really? Because according to the Census Bureau, Texas ranks higher than average in crime overall. Or, to put that in simple terms for you, Texas ranks as the 15th most dangerous state to live, when you consider violent crimes only. (In case you're curious, South Carolina is the most dangerous, and Maine is the least.)

See, the facts don't back up this "common knowledge" you keep relying on. (Or is this more of those "private/home education" problems?)

But then you get into some weird territory, Eric. Just before you ban me from your blog.

bill likes to put links in every other line he types. Yeah Bill, now I know I've debated someone who believes everything he sees on the internet.

No, I don't believe everything I see on the Internet. Nor do I believe everything I read in the library. But like the man said, the truth is out there. You should consider looking for it. Did you notice that many of my links in this post are to government websites? There are these things we call "facts." I like to base my opinions on them. Unlike you, who likes to pull non-facts out of your ass and pretend that the crap that adheres to them is chocolate.

Think, my good man. Find out where reality lies, and then form an opinion. Because right now, you're just making my points for me.

The man confuses me. After all, he invited me to debate on his site. And then he bans me for doing so?

I'd think about that, but it makes my brain hurt.

An open letter to Ted Nugent

Dear Ted Nugent,

You know, my new debating buddy showed me a column that you wrote, and it's the perfect example of the fact that, just because you're an expert in one thing, it doesn't follow that you're an expert in everything.

Ted, you've always played some serious guitar. I'll give you that much - you are awe-inspiring on the strings. But you are not, however, a particularly deep thinker, and this column is proof of that.

Let's start with the title. I mean, you have a perfectly good bumper-sticker slogan, but you rush to explain what you means in the first six words people are going to see, instead of letting the rest of the column explain it.

The Party of 'Know,' Not 'No.'

You should have cut that off after the first four words, Ted. Let me draw you an analogy. (Oh, sorry: an "analogy" is where you compare two things and show where they're a lot alike. I'll try not to use too many of them educated words on you.)

This is like when you're playing along on a guitar solo, and you realize that you repeated a phrase one time too many. If you repeat something too often, it gets redundant... sorry. It gets "boring." (No, really - that word had nine whole letters. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.)

But the title, which is just... well, Ted, it's like writing lyrics. Sometimes they just don't work. But then we get into your actual column, and I'm afraid that things only get worse.

In an effort to deflect criticism of (the Democratic leadership's) ongoing program to bankrupt the entire nation

OK, Ted, right off the bat you get it wrong. The Democrats are trying to fix everything that Bush and company screwed up over the last eight years. (I mean, you do know that it was Bush who started this whole bank nationalization/bailout thing, right?)

Let the guitar boy help the spelling-challenged Democrats understand what the bedrock of the Republican Party -- conservatives -- instinctively know.

Well, Ted. Sorry, I only wish that the conservatives had control of the Republican party. Sadly, the neocons, religious lunatics and the inbred have taken it over. I had respect for the Republican party once, but lately they're just sad and outdated. And very, very wrong. Much like your column.

Sometimes, the things that you think you know turn out to be horribly wrong. People used to think that the world was flat. As it turns out (I'm not sure you're aware of this), they were wrong.

You hang out with musicians, Ted; you're used to the people around you having a ridiculously high unemployment rate. For the rest of the country, that isn't considered a good thing.

So let's see what else you messed up on.

We know that stimulating the economy and getting America growing again begins with tax cuts across the board, including payroll, corporate and individual taxes.

Look, Ted, I know that you're rich. And I know that you miss your tax cuts. But you're really going to have to pay a little bit. The country is in trouble, and it needs your help. I thought you loved this country. Why do you want it to fail?

I'm sorry. Things aren't like they were back when Bush was in office. (We already covered the fact that Bush was the major force screwing all this up, right?)

We know that prosperity can not be brought about by taxing, borrowing and spending trillions of dollars.

OK, here's another new word for you - "oversimplification." You're taking a big problem, and trying to sum it up in less than twenty words.

The sad part is, to explain this to you, I've got to do the same thing. So try this: poor people need jobs. The business people aren't giving them out. The government has work it needs done. So the government gives them jobs. This helps the poor people out. And now the government needs to get the business people to start hiring, too.

Again, I'm sorry - I know this is confusing for you. It's a big problem. It takes a big plan, not small words.

We know the economic producers cannot be punished without also punishing the working class.

Wow. By that philosophy, business people can do whatever they want and never face any consequences. Of course, I guess that you don't produce much of anything except music, so maybe you don't understand business, either.

(Oh, how is that whole "music" thing going for you? Did anybody buy that album you did two years ago? Even with the help of your Damn Yankees friends?)

We know that GM and Chrysler will ultimately fail because they are now being run by the federal government and the labor unions.

You really don't know the difference between "stockholder" and "management," do you? Wow, you don't know jack-shit about business.

We know energy independence includes drilling off-shore and building many new nuclear power plants...

"...because completely destroying the environment will make everything better!"

Christ, Nuge. I know reading is hard, but the information is out there. Instead of just spouting off, you could actually look around. Best estimates tell us that even if we drilled on every inch of coastline, it would work out to one percent of daily consumption, and wouldn't kick in for ten years. It wouldn't do much of anything for us.

I thought you were a big supporter of conservation? What happened to that?

And nuclear power? Well, studies by the people actually building them tell us that building a new nuclear power plant costs more per kilowatt hour produced than any other type of power plant. Weird, isn't it?

I mean, there's other reasons, but I'm trying to keep this simple for you.

And let's ignore that we don't know what do do with the nuclear waste we already have lying around. Oh, wait! You have all that land in Michigan, and probably some other land! You should volunteer to store it for us!

No, huh?

We know that bailing out failing businesses with tax dollars is not what our founding fathers had in mind

Why do overwrought Republicans keep bringing up the Founding Fathers as if they were gods or something? It's true. The Founding Fathers didn't think of that. Of course, for that matter, using the internet, mass production, and the concept of a "global economy" were also not figured into their equations.

Do you really think that a pre-industrial society is the best source for economic advice? See, that's something else you missed out on in school, Nuge. It was called "history."

We know that more gun control laws will not reduce violence but will instead create more victims. We know that more guns equal less crime.

Hey, that's right! And since the United States has more guns than any other industrialized country, we must have less crime!

Actually, not so much. The overall US crime rate is pretty much the same as in other, similar countries, except for violent crimes: our homicide rate is three to five times higher than anybody else's. So really, guns haven't reduced crime, and the fact that they're easy to get has killed a lot of people. Where's the upside here?

And you keep going! I've already written more than you did, and I'm only halfway through. I mean, my god, Ted! How can you stand to be so wrong on every subject? Is the ADHD really that much of a problem at your age?

Tell you what, Teddy. You stick with playing the guitar, and leave the deep thinking to the people who can actually do some of it, OK?

Here we go again

I might, or might not, have joined a very small debating circle this week. We'll see how it goes.

In the course of putting together last week's post, I used my typical research method, of wandering around in the conservative blogs and seeing how they react to my points. It's effective - perhaps they have some information I haven't seen yet, or a different viewpoint which might shine a light on the subject in a new way.

(I'll admit, it doesn't happen often: the disadvantage of getting all your information from Fox News and World Net Daily is that they tend to try to argue from a very small pool of data, much of it wrong.)

And so I found myself on a site calling itself Pathetically Incorrect. Now, Eric (the guy who runs it) seems to believe he has a web-stalker named Diogenes, who is "rude and unable to stay on subject." To be honest, I didn't see that - Diogenes didn't add a lot to the discussion, but at least he was trying. Maybe there's a history there. Or maybe Eric sees his comments differently than I do.

Eric, who posts under the name Eman (no relation, as far as I can tell, to the Eighties superhero), seemed interested in the fact that I was willing to confront him with facts instead of insults, and offered to debate me. Initially on the subject of cars, in which I have little more than a passing interest.

(Heh, heh... get it? Passing? Cars? ...oh, never mind...)

It went OK, I thought. He presented his side, I presented mine, and he offered a second one. I suggested the murder of George Tiller (you know, the abortionist from Kansas). And he even let Diogenes post again. Which was nice of Eric, since he'd just banned Diogenes in the previous post.

And that's when things went horribly awry. For some reason, Eric thought I called him an extremist. (Perhaps because I compared the pro-life movement to the Taliban. Could that have been it? Him being pro-life and all?)

I'm still in there plugging away. Don't know if Eric will want to come out and play any more, though.