Rise of the Nones

I note that the latest Pew Research poll holds that "56 million Americans now identify themselves as agnostic, atheist or 'nothing in particular.'” We are called "nones", for "religious preference: None". That’s more than 22 percent of the population.

That's a lot of people for the Christianists and their Christian Reconstruction army to round up and make disappear. It's not just a paltry six million Jews and a few Gypsies and communists to deal with this time around. And that 56 million doesn't even include American Jews,  Muslims, Buddhists, etc., all of whom will have to be swept up as well.

That's a whole lot of people. If the average train car would hold 100 people, that's 560,000 train cars to haul us away. I don't think there's that much rolling stock in the world, let alone the USA.

Face it Religious Right, you are losing ground.

Which makes them all the more dangerous. Like a cornered animal. I think I may have to stock up on a few more 2nd-Amendment-Solution^TM "protection devices" myself.

And BTW, it's long past time for someone in the Congress other than Pete Stark to come out of the theological closet. I know you're in there. Show some guts and show your faces.

Besides, Pete Stark isn't actually in Congress any longer. He;s retired, but not before he was reelected several times even after he admitted he was an atheist. Atheism is no longer the moral equavalent being a child-molesting communist pederast to the American voters -- those who are not still in the Moron-American Voting Bloc, anyway.

"Sire, the Peasants Are Revolting"

Movie buffs will recognize that as a line from the French Revolution scene in Mel Brooks' History of the World Part 1. To which the king replies, "Phew, you're telling me! They stink on ice!"

Today the conservatives are revolting ("phew, you're telling me"...). But Boner kept his pecker up and fended off challenges from the Teabagger Morons (is that a tautology?) who were trying to oust him as Speaker of the House for being too "liberal".

Too bad it went down in such a civil manner. I was looking forward to that cage match. I'd pay good money for a pay-per-view broadcast of that.

Still, it has all the potential of being a very good year for snarky sideline commentators, like me.

Gomer to Boner: Down, Boy

Looks like John Boehner is too liberal(!) for his Republican pals. Today brought the news that the equally-unfortunately-named Louie Gomer Gohmert (R-Nutcase) is going to challenge Boehner and run for Speaker of the House.

Not to be outdone, there's a yahoo named Yoho from Florida who is also throwing his pinhead-sized hat into the ring. One Ted Yoho, in fact (R-Wackjob).

The wingnut media, of course, is all over it supporting anybody who is going to challenge that [expletive deleted] Liberal, Johnny Boner.

Boner? Gomer? Yahoo? Cage match! Cage match!

I swear, you can't make this shit up.

This year is gonna be fun.

Who the Hell Is Eatoin Shrdlu?

No that is not a Gaelic dancer or Lithuanian farmer. EATOIN SHRDLU -- those are, in order of frequency, the 12 most common letters of the alphabet in written English. This is why I never lose playing the Hangman game on my Nook. Once you go through those letters, you rarely find a Hangman word where you can't fill in the missing letters.

Unsurprisingly, it has its own Wikipedia page, which gives its history, going back to the linotype printing days. It even gives the updated frequency based on modern computer studies: ETAONI RSHDLC or ETAOIN SRHLDCU (13 letters!) -- take your pick; naturally there would be two competing schools of thought on this. But neither of those sounds very "name-y", unlike the original. Those two sound more like secret CIA cryptonymic code designations for Agency operations, as in ZRRIFLE (the Castro Assassination Plot) or JMWAVE (the Miami CIA station) rather than foreign names of people.

Naturally, the Oxford Dictionary also something to say on the whole topic.

So how does it end up? Predictably, again depending on the source, CMFWYGP BVKQJXZ. (That first group actually looks Welsh to me.)

So why does anyone even study this kind of thing? Well, based on my 40-year-old-experience in academia, the less something matters in the "real world", the more likely people are to heatedly argue over it. During the Clinton years, professors actually came to blows over the definition of "is" -- as in "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is"...

Hagel a Good Choice for SecDef

While he apparently is hauling some baggage around with him (his comments on "the Jewish Lobby", his past lack of support for LGBT issues, his Republicanism), Chuck Hagel is, on the whole, a good choice for Defense.

I've especially and immensely enjoyed the faux-outrage criticism, without even a whiff of irony, by the wingnuttery that he's "anti-gay". As has been said before, if Obama came out today for motherhood and apple pie, the Rethugs in Congress would pass a resolution against them both tomorrow.

I don't know if we've ever had a Secretary of Defense who has come out of a background that included Purple-Heart-winning ground combat as a regular grunt before, but Hagel will bring a much-needed sense of reality to the job of Secretary of Defense. And there's no reason to think that he'll go off the rails and go in a direction that his boss doesn't want him to go in.

So grab some popcorn, crack open a beer and watch the nomination fight in Congress. It's a good prelude to the one we'll see when John Kerry is nominated for Secretary of State.

A Family Resemblance?

Here are a couple of headshots. You tell me if you see a family resemblance between them.

On the left is Psycho-Eyes Florida governor Rick Scott, and on the right is Heaven's Gate Comet Cult suicide Marshall Applewhite.

I was tempted to call this "separated at birth?" but Applewhite is too old. It could be long-lost father and son, but I recall that Applewhite castrated himself some time before the New Nike Shoe Suicidists took that final step.

How about this one? Do you wonder what their children would look like?



Here's your answer:

Is Sarah Palin the Bethenny Frankel of Politics?

Yeah... Like probably most non-'reality'-show-watching people I didn't get the connection, but the headline intrigued me, so I had to read the story.

It was an education for me. Not only do I now know who Bethenny Frankel is, but why Ilana Angel asked the rhetorical question:

Just when you think Sarah Palin has said the dumbest thing possible, she tops herself with yet another doozy. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I wanted her to shut up and I totally take it back. I hope she never stops talking because every time she does, she reminds America there is no way in hell she should ever be President of the United States.
Mrs. Palin likes to share her views on Facebook. Perhaps she thinks this will make her popular among voters who are into social networking. It’s not working though because for her, it’s just a place where she hides from live television. What she is doing is showing Americans she is not serious, and should not hold any political office ever again, especially not President.
What are you doing Sarah? It’s time for things to get real and for you to grow up and stop playing games. Either you want to run for President or you don’t, but your rhetoric, while hilarious, is getting boring. Are you just trying to amass your fortune and raise your celebrity, or are you planning to run for President? Your cat and mouse game is annoying and we’re about done.
Following the State of the Union speech of President Obama, Palin said Obama’s use of Sputnik was confusing and I don’t doubt for one second that it was. For Palin. Bless her little heart. She was probably out bashing fish on the head, or shooting wolves from the sky when they talked about Sputnik in her history class, so you can’t blame her for not knowing the facts.
Palin said: “Well, speaking of last night, that was a tough speech to sit through and try to stomach because the president is so off base in his ideas in how it is he believes government is going to create jobs. Obviously, government growth won’t create any jobs. It’s the private sector that can create the jobs. His theme last night in the State of the Union was the WTF, you know, “Winning the Future,” and I thought OK, that acronym, spot on. There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech.”
Sarah Palin seems to be confused about a lot of things and it is impossible to take her seriously. What does it say about America that a woman, who is so incredibly under-qualified for a political job, is spewing crap each and every day about our country? What the f&%$ Sarah? When are you going to start acting like a grown up, and not a mean girl on the playground? You have no respect for this country, or for your President.
Sarah Palin is quickly becoming the Bethenny Frankel of the political world. Like Bethenny, she is attractive and oddly appealing, and also like Bethenny, she is a joke that we watch because we like to laugh at her, not with her. Bethenny has no talent, but she has a huge following of crazy fans. By crazy fans of course I mean the fans are actually crazy people, just like Sarah’s.

So, since there seems to be a building consensus for a Palin-free zone for February, this might be my last Palin Post for a month.

But jeez, you know the woman is such a fucking goldmine that I doubt I'll be able to go on the Palin-free wagon that long...

Election Results -- B'bye Magic-Bullet Specter

Yesterday's election results were good news for progressives across the board. Especially in Pennsylvania, where a Democrat kept control of the Murtha Seat in Congress, and where Republican turncoat Arlen Specter lost -- and lost big time -- in the senatorial primary.

And that was despite the fact that the big guns in the Democratic party all campaigned for him, including some "robocalls" made by Obama himself.

Why did he lose? People are fed up with Democrats who are "Rethug Lite" -- look at Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, for example -- and are ready to go with the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

Besides, I believe that a lot of people, myself included, have never forgiven Specter for the two things that will live in infamy in American history: The appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court is one.

And the other?

The Single Bullet Theory in the Warren Commission investigation into the assassination of JFK.

The Theory, dreamed up and fabricated out of whole cloth by none other than Arlen Specter himself when he was a Warren staff attorney, has never been able to stand the cold hard light of reality, despite desperate attempts by such disparate persons as Gerald Posner and the otherwise-rational Vincent Bugliosi.

It, almost by itself, derailed the actual investigation and assisted in the now-decades-long confusion and coverup of the true facts.

No, I'm not ready for the tinfoil hat just yet, but I've been a student and critic of the Warren Commission and its phony "report" for 45 years, and I can say with absolute certainty that there is simply no way under the laws of physics that Commission Exhibit 399 (aka the "Magic Bullet") could have been responsible for all of the damage it was alleged to have caused to two separate individuals.

At this point I'm willing to concede that we will probably never really know the truth about the Kennedy assassination(s). Thanks, Arlen. G'bye and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Good riddance.