Ya Just Gotta Love Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens' most recent column on Slate from this past Monday is a wonderfully reasonable view on religion and the election. Here are a few of the juiciest tidbits that I enjoyed most, but I urge you to click on any of the links here to read the entire article:

• As so often, the framers and founding fathers meant what they said, said what they meant, and risked no waste of words. A candidate for election, or an applicant for a post in the bureaucracy, could not be disqualified on the grounds of his personal faith in any god (or his disbelief in any god, for that matter).
  
• However, what Article VI does not do, and was never intended to do, is deny me the right to say, as loudly as I may choose, that I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate but who does not have the elementary intelligence to recognize the fact that this is what he is.
  
• Isn't it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in this country are? It's not enough that they can make straight-faced professions of "faith" at election times and impose their language on everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the currency. It's not enough that they can claim tax exemption and even subsidy for anything "faith-based." It's that when they are even slightly criticized for their absurd opinions, they can squeal as if being martyred and act as if they are truly being persecuted.

Luvya, Christopher!

No Torture, No Immunity!

I received an e-mail today from the Committee for a Democratic Majority and it seemed like a worthy cause, so I thought I'd share part of it with everyone here:

The Bush Administration is trying to cover its tracks - and it's up to our Democratic Majority in
Congress to stop them.

The Administration wants Congress to pass a law to grant immunity to any phone company that participated in President Bush's secret domestic spying program. The CIA now admits it destroyed video tapes showing agents using torture to interrogate suspects. Torture is illegal, and covering it up is a crime too.

It's obvious this Administration thinks it's a law unto itself. They don't trust the American people with the truth. That's unacceptable.

Demand the truth from President Bush: http://www.democraticmajority.com/enough

President Bush doesn't accept the rule of law, and apparently the phone companies don't either. With their help, the Bush Administration secretly spied on Americans for years, without any court orders or oversight. Now the president wants Congress to grant retroactive immunity to companies that broke the law at his bidding.

President Bush claims that American lives will be lost unless Congress changes FISA. He also says he'll veto any legislation changing FISA unless it includes immunity for the phone companies.

So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to sacrifice American lives to protect phone companies! Who's next? The private contractors they've let run amok in Iraq? The airlines they use to take suspects to other countries where torture is legal?

Enough is enough is enough is enough. Tell President Bush our laws apply to him too - and anyone who helps the Administration violate them: ttp://www.democraticmajority.com/enough

I Beg Your Pardon?

Have you heard about the latest Republican jabfest? A recent television commercial from Mitt Romney accuses the surging Mike Huckabee of issuing too many pardons when he was the governor of Arkansas. The commercial talks of how Huckabee issued 1,033 pardons and commutations as governor of Arkansas while Romney issued none while leading Massachusetts.

This is kinda reminiscent of the Willie Horton stupidity of the 1988 election. You remember that, don't you? George Bush (the elder) accused Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis of poor judgement for allowing the weekend furlough granted to Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who went on to rape a woman and beat her boyfriend while free.

But if you dig a little deeper you have to start questioning old Mitt's motives. First of all, zero pardons? None? Doesn't that seem a little extreme in the other direction? You could almost make the point that Romney was planning a presidential run and avoided all pardons, even though it is a duty of state governors to review and consider reasonable pardons. Anything to not be lumped in with Dukakis, that liberal governor from Massachusetts!

Romney's most noteworthy pardon denial was his rejection of the request of an Iraq war veteran who was trying to become a police officer after his National Guard service. What did the guy do? Well, when he was 13 years old he shot a friend in the arm with a BB gun... and it didn't even break the skin.

The best thing about all of this ridiculousness though is that it is one Republican doing it to another. Let those fools bang on each other about useless things like this and none of them will look presidential come November 2008... and we'll elect the Democratic nominee (whoever that may be).

Can You Fart Like a Kangaroo?

I challenge anyone just surfing the web to come across that headline and then not click on over here to read this post. The headline is compelling and amusing and impossible to ignore!

When I ran across this story I just had to blog about it. According to The Age:

AUSTRALIAN scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say. Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

So, instead of altering our diet to reduce our intake of red meat, we appear to be more eager to alter the red meat?!?! Let's hope they just modify the stomachs and not the legs. I mean, who'd want to have to keep track of a field of hopping cattle? And who'd want to try to milk a kangaroo-like cow?

Just when I thought nothing new could ever surprise me...

Naturalist vs. Atheist

Both of the terms in the title of this blog post describe me, but after reading an essay in Christopher Hitchens' latest book I have decided that the first one (naturalist) better describes me than the second one (atheist). More on that in a moment.

The book, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, is highly recommended reading. It is a compendium of articles and essays written by a variety of different atheist luminaries. The book is thought-provoking and easily digested in small bites.

Anyway, one of the essays toward the end of the book succicntly discusses why the term naturalist is better (for atheists) than the term atheist. Basically, it is because the term "naturalist" defines the person in terms of what s/he embraces and not in terms of what s/he does not. A naturalist "believes in" the natural world around him and what can be viewed, measured, and enjoyed in nature. I like this and it defines me well.

Secondarily, being defined as a naturalist allows me to define theists as supernaturalists. That is they "believe in" things that can not be seen or measured in nature. It lumps them in with believers in ghosts, fairies, unicorns, and leprachauns. And rightly so, for these things are all supernatural.

Ahh.... do you feel it? I feel all refreshed and redefined heading into the holiday season and next year...

I Do Not Heart Huckabee

Well, according to the latest national polls it looks like Mike Huckabee is now running neck and neck with Giuliani for the Republican nomination. This amiable and likeable guy - at least on the surface - is a complete wreck of a candidate. The only reason he is surging in the polls is due to the lemming-like nature of evangelical xians who only want to vote for another brain-dead xian. When Huckabee was asked what he attributed his surge to he said something so stupid that only a xian could like it:

“There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one,” Huckabee said. “It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people and that’s the only way that our campaign could be doing what it’s doing.

"And I’m not being facetious nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across who are praying that a little will become much and it has, and it defies all explanation. It has confounded the pundits, and I’m enjoying every minute of their trying to figure it out. And until they look at it from a just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out. And that’s probably just as well. That’s honestly why it’s happening.”

I think I even prefer Giuliani to this nonsense.

At the same time Mormon Mitt is trying to convert his raging Mormonism into a plus by touting his "faith." Well, you all know what I think of faith, but this whole speech is a crock of crap. If he were honest he would admit that he does NOT believe what most xian believers believe. But he won't do that... no, no... that would be too... gasp... honest.

Anyway, the whole field of Republicans is nothing but a fetid, stinking bouquet of turds.

Rupert Snags God Online

Did everyone hear that News Corp., that behemoth headed by Rupert Murdoch, has purchased Beliefnet.com, a faith portal whose mission "is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness". Well, I doubt they meant people specifically like "me"...

Anyway, the same guy that owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal now owns an online site for jeebus believers. Not that I think this particular acquisition is all that significant, but does anyone else think that there should be limits on the number of "news" organizations that one company can own? (Like there used to be...)

Ron Paul Strikes Back

Those of you who have read Mona Charen’s column attacking Ron Paul should take note that Jesse Benton, Communications Director for Ron Paul, has responded to the article in a very impressive, articulate, and convincing letter to the editor of the National Review.

I reproduce it for your edification here:

I read Mona Charen’s column on Friday and I had to clear a few things up. Outside of the name-calling (“kook,” as I’m sure you remember, was the attack word of choice used by critics of Barry Goldwater), Charen was way off base.

1. Dr. Paul’s commitment to principle is second to none, so to attack him, Charen twists the understanding of what a presidential pardon really is. A pardon is a constitutional check by the executive branch on the judiciary to protect against cruel or unusual punishment. When considering a pardon, a president examines extenuating circumstances to decide whether a punishment for a conviction under the law was unjust. Scooter Libby was convicted of a crime; that is not the issue here. Dr. Paul is not sympathetic to issuing him a pardon because he finds Libby an unsympathetic character. There is nothing inconsistent here. President Bush, who has issued the fewest pardons of any president since World War II, hasn’t pardoned Libby either, by the way.

2. If Charen paid much attention to the campaign, she would know that Dr. Paul never utters the word “isolationist” except to explain why he is not one. He believes in the foreign policy of the founders: peace, commerce, and open friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none. When he references Nixon and Eisenhower, he is clearly talking about past successful Republican campaign strategies, not what they did in office. Eisenhower campaigned to end the Korean War, Nixon to get us out of Vietnam. Dr. Paul argues that the GOP can only win in 2008 with a candidate who will bring hope troops form Iraq. Last I checked, many National Review readers cared a thing or two about Republicans winning elections.

3. Ron Paul is dead serious and very sober about what it will take to reform things like our oppressive tax system. Clearly, a Paul administration cannot end the IRS on January 29, 2009. Ending the income tax, a goal all real conservatives should share, would take major cooperation with the Congress. But, with honest communication and a lot of hard work, Dr. Paul knows that we can end the end the income tax over the course of just a few years. Over half of federal government revenue presently comes from sources other than the income tax. The United States could end the IRS and still fund the same level of big government we had less than ten years ago. There is nothing “unserious” about that.

4. Dr. Paul is a modest man with a sparkling record and unimpeachable personal integrity. I understand why you need to attack him by linking him to less-than-savory individuals (there is simply nothing else to use), but it is just not going to work. Some of your charges are silly. Dr. Paul’s “Texas Straight Talk Column,” for example, is public record and anyone, from the American Free Press to Cat Fancy, has the right to reprint it.

Yes, Ron appears on the Alex Jones radio program. But you know who else talks to Alex Jones? People like Judge Anthony Napolitano. Guess who hosts Alex Jones? FOX’s John Gibson and National Public Radio. Dr. Paul has said time and again that he does not believe 9/11 was an inside job. He does, however, think we should always question authority. When, by the way, were conservatives supposed to become trusting of big government?

Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity, and the protection of inalienable individual rights. He knows that liberty is the antidote for racism, anti-Semitism, and other small minded ideologies. Dr. Paul has focused all of his energy on winning the presidency so he can cut the size of government and protect the freedom of every American. Neither he nor his staff is going to waste time screening donors. If a handful of individuals with views anathema to Dr. Paul’s send in checks, then they have wasted their money. I cannot profess to understand the motivations of Don Black as neither Dr. Paul nor I know who he is, but a simple Google search shows that his $500 contribution has netted him at least 88 news hits, including Charen’s column. Perhaps a better explanation for his “contribution” is not support for Ron, but the attention he knew he would receive.

Mona, I can not expect everyone to support Dr. Paul, especially those who have sunk so much of their own credibility into supporting the Iraq war. In fact, Dr. Paul welcomes open and spirited discussions, and even legitimate criticism. But, I had to get a few things off my chest.