Are people really this stupid?

From WKMG, Orlando:
LAND 'O LAKES, Fla. -- A substitute teacher in Pasco County has lost his job after being accused of wizardry.
Teacher Jim Piculas does a magic trick where a toothpick disappears and then reappears. Piculas recently did the 30-second trick in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes. Piculas said he then got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he'd been accused of wizardry. "I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue, you can't take any more assignments you need to come in right away,'" he said. Piculas said he did not know of any other accusations that would have led to the action. The teacher said he is concerned that the incident may prevent him from getting future jobs.

This person could be your neighbor.

Excellent point: In Houston, a Texan protesting amnesty for illegal
immigrants argues that anyone who can't master English doesn't
deserve to live in America.

Wake Up People!

Larry M Bartels, NY Times:
"The real incomes of middle-class families grew more than twice as fast under Democratic presidents as they did under Republican presidents. Even more remarkable, the real incomes of working-poor families (at the 20th percentile of the income distribution) grew six times as fast when Democrats held the White House. Only the incomes of affluent families were relatively impervious to partisan politics, growing robustly under Democrats and Republicans alike."


Me:
When are people going to realize that it's just not that important if gay people can get married, that the vast majority of arab people are not terrorists, and that unless you are very wealthy, republicans simply do not care if you live or die? Am I the only person who will state that many, many, people in this country are flat-out stupid? I don't care if they get offended, I'm not trying to sell them something.

DNC Ad on John McCain and Iraq:

The republicans hate this ad, probably because it tells the truth. Show it to everyone you know.

Blogging from my iPod...

...while sitting in a TGI Fridays. Way cool.

Be afraid of water.

Here's a handy ranking of the various dangers confronting America, based on the number of mortalities in each category throughout the 11-year period spanning 1995 through 2005 (extrapolated from best available data). My buddy Bill recently underwent surgery for a hernia, it's a shame that Bush won't spend a billion a month on him while he recovers, but on the plus side, he's not at Walter Reed.

Didn't Ron Paul drop out?

I was buying a hot dog from a street vendor in Pittsburgh the other day, and standing next to the cart were about 20 people campaigning for Ron Paul. What's up with that? Is he trying to score the VP nod? He was always the least wacko of the GOP candidates. Which isn't really saying much.

100th Post- RICE MUST GO!

Perhaps the reason I'm not wealthy or famous is that I just can't lie like she does. I hope to never aquire that ability.

Because not everyone has seen it.

Attention New England:

Tom Brady doesn't care about you. Perhaps it's because Boston has fewer supermodels per capita than New York. Maybe it's because nobody in New York cares if you wear an ugly hoodie. I don't know.

Majority rules.

77% of Americans think Bush sucks. What is congress waiting for?

Mrs McCain should keep quiet.

Mr Populist, Daily Kos:

Cindy's biggest claim to fame: in 1989 she developed an addiction to percocet and vicodin, two powerful morphine based pain killers. In 1993 she was caught stealing percocet from supply of the American Voluntary Medical Team, a charity she founded to provide health care and medications to war victims in underdeveloped nations. The DEA investigated her and with the intervention of her well connected parents and McCain himself, Cindy got off the hook with the usual 90 day trip to the posh rehab. The American Voluntary Medical Team folded shortly after it ceased to be a supply point for Cindy's opiate habit.

The DEA agreed to keep Cindy's little misadventure in Lala Land from the public, but then Cindy went and terminated the guy who reported her to the DEA and the details of Cindy's sordid past as a suburban trophy wife junkie all came out when the fired guy filed a wrongful termination suit against Cindy.

A few weeks after Cindy came clean about her addiction, the Variety Club cancelled her Humanitarian of the Year Award. Boo hoo! [Another example] of Republican family values.

Why even consider electing a republican?

Lance Mannion:
If the Goverment is a car setting out to give every one a ride to work, then for 40 years the Republicans have been puncturing the tires, pouring sand in the gas tank, stealing the distributer cap, and, whenever they can get their hands on the wheel, driving it straight into the nearest ditch and then, pointing to the wreckage as the tow truck backs up to it, saying, "See, this proves that people were meant to walk."

And they do this so that they don't have to chip in on gas.

More Takashi!

The Rio Theatre, 1986. I was there, behind the wall of amps. Enjoy.

Larry King-style thoughts.

I'm glad the giants won.....In my opinion, Fifth Third is the most evil bank in the United States, and I recommend that you never do business with them.....If you like tenors singing love songs, go to betaylor.com......Cumadin pills taste awful, would it kill the company that makes them to coat them?.....I'm glad to be back at my day gig because television sucks in general, with the exception of the unedited version of Top Gear, even though they get a little harsh about American cars and Americans in general (BBC America really should stop editing the show, if we're smart enough to watch, we can figure out the british slang)....Why are my beloved NY Islanders playing as if it's 1972 again?

For the Long Island metalheads.

I've heard a rumor that the influential and mercurial glam metal band Takashi may be reuniting for a live show. They also may release the long awaited follow-up album to "Kamikaze Killers". The metal world awaits!

I'm supporting Edwards.

The man takes no money from PACs and corporations. We don't need another presidential puppet.

Needs No Title

That hairstyle kinda works for Condi, though.

A Musical Break

Because I haven't had any on for a while. Here's DEVO's video for "Satisfaction". It still annoys the purists.


Check out this great piece from LA Weekly about Mark Mothersbaugh and his amazing career and collection of music gear.

My band's holiday antics.

Kind of like the end of a Monkees episode.

Non-Crappy Starring You! eCards on JibJab

Back, with an explanation.

You would think that after getting my leg crushed by a car while riding my cycle, I'd be some kind of blogging dynamo while I recover. This has not been the case. I'm doing better, and so will the blog. Thanks for your understanding.

Kill Your American Idol - A song worth checking out.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=261065496&s=143441
Just released by Advanced Idea Mechanixx, a group from New York, with yours truly guesting on "vocal". Actually a catchy song for dancing or driving fast.

The real Rudy in 30 seconds.

Who would want this guy to be president, other than Bernie Kerik?

Why are people so greedy?

Can someone ask a trucker?

Why is it, that when there is a lane closed on the interstate, a truck will pull into the center of the highway to prevent people from driving to the merge point? Even when a sign says, "Use both lanes to merge point"? Is he upset because he picked the wrong lane? All he is doing is increasing the delay. I really want to know why truckers do this, but I don't know any, and when I pass the self-appointed emperor of the highway, he can't hear me cursing at him under my helmet.

A quick quote.

"How will America survive the twenty first century without a permanant Republican majority?
The same way a baby survives without a steel-toe boot kicking her in the face every seven seconds."
-- David Rees in the new Rolling Stone

Destruction Of National Pastime Given Two-Minute Standing Ovation

SAN FRANCISCO—A sellout crowd rose to its feet and exploded into ecstatic cheers Tuesday night as Barry Bonds completed the downfall of America's most revered sport by hitting a thundering 435-foot shot into the left field bleachers for...

I know what I'd like for my birthday.

Sort of a modified autogyro. I gotta get one of these!

Paul Potts Wins!

Paul won "Britian's Got Talent". Bravo! I understand that his CD has been released.

Progress?

He says he's seen progress. Wishing it doesn't make it so.

Sign the petition!

http://pol.moveon.org/subpoena

They get it in NYC

Imagine how many cupcakes we could bake with the money the republicans have wasted on this war?

Some info about my band.

Some of you know that I spend most of my weekends playing keyboards in a band called Easystreet. It's a decent name for a band, one that doesn't offend anyone looking to hire us for a wedding or dance. The problem is, it seems that every city on earth has a band named Easy Street, making it impossible to get a good name for our website. So I've reluctantly added a page to Myspace, even though it's owned by Rupert Murdoch. You can learn more about my swinging teenage combo at

http://www.myspace.com/easystreetov

The "ov" at the end stands for Ohio valley, where we usually play.

There are Americans that believe....

...that dinosaurs lived with a white guy who claimed to be the son of an invisible cloud being, in the desert, no more than 6000 years ago. Should people have the right to be this stupid? It cannot be good for society.

Wow.

From "Britain's Got Talent", this unassuming mobile phone salesman blows the crowd and judges away with a Puccini aria.

Learn this!

People who misuse the apostrophe drive me nuts. Don't all grade schools teach basically the same things? Click to enlarge, and visit www.angryflower.com

Trailer for Michael Moore's "Sicko"

Even fox "news" liked it.

I'd love to see the video.

Wayne Madsen-
When Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad on a "surprise" visit on May 9, he was booed by U.S. troops during an appearance before them in the Green Zone, according to our congressional sources. These incidents may explain why the Army has ordered its personnel to submit web postings, including videos, to Army censors before uploading to web sites.

Another Lie Debunked.

James Boyce-

Here's the truth.

In March 1999, Vice President Al Gore was doing an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. In the course of that interview, he said:

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
And guess what? It's true.

Let's quite Vincent Cerf, a man often called The Father of the Internet,

"The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator."
Marc Andreesen, Internet pioneer who actually received federal funding thanks to Al Gore, who while Senator wrote the High Performance Computing Act also credits Gore. Another Internet expert, Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet "would not be where it is today."

Multiple early web pioneers say that Gore was the first political leader to grasp and understand the Internet and its possibilities. They all say it was his vision and yes, initiative, that helped turn the Internet into what it is today.

Al Gore took an essentially internal government program and set it free to the marketplace.

This is something he should be proud of. But it's not just reason that is under assault in our modern world, it's accomplishment. If you're child grew up to be fluent in a foreign language, would you be proud or shamed? Proud of course, but John Kerry's ability to speak French was a huge negative in 2004.

Not only should Al Gore get credit for this work on the web, but here it is, eight years after he was misquoted, and this is what they will lead with in their attacks on him.

Video of my ancestors.

I get the same questions at work everyday.

This explains a lot.

Everybody around here calls it pop, and yet the sign above the aisle in Krogers says soda. I wonder how this data compares to red/blue state stats. Click on the image to enlarge.

Bush=Drunken Boor

From the Wayne Madsen report:
Our White House sources report that the Queen's visit to the White House yesterday was a protocol disaster. Not only had George W. Bush commenced his drinking routine early in the morning, just in time for the first mid-day visit by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, but his drunkenness continued well into the evening during the lavish state dinner.

Bush dreaded the Queen's visit and prepared for it by getting drunk. The Queen has never hidden her dislike for Bush who she considers ill-bred, impetuous, and a social boor. The Queen's dislike for Bush goes back to 1991 when he insulted her during another state visit by inquiring which of her children was the "black sheep" of her family. The Queen told him to mind his own business. The Queen was also unhappy that then-First Lady Barbara Bush failed to control her son during that visit to the White House. In November 2003, the Queen was incensed about Bush's Marine One helicopter tearing up her flower garden at Buckingham Palace and traumatizing her flock of flamingoes. Bush's communications staff also damaged expensive fabrics inside the royal residence. Bush never compensated the Queen for the damage and she had to file an insurance claim.

With that background, Bush groused about having to wear a white tie tuxedo for last night's state dinner. It took the direct intervention of Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice to convince Bush to wear the appropriate attire. During yesterday's welcoming ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Bush insinuated that the Queen was over 230 years old when he stated she had helped celebrate America's Bicentennial in 1776. The Queen was heard to have uttered the words, "Oh dear." Bush then winked at the Queen who was not amused by the president's antics. Bush also stated that the Queen gave him a look "that only a mother could give a child." It was not the first time the Queen had looked at Bush with an icy stare. Bush also nearly put his arm on the Queen's shoulder as he escorted her down the stairs from the red carpeted dais.

White House protocol officials remained nervous about Bush during the entire Royal visit. The Queen and Prince Phillip are sure to have much to talk about on their trip back home this evening. While the Queen was keen on visiting Virginia and the Kentucky Derby, her past dealings with the Bush family had her fearing the White House visit. Bush's boorish demeanor was in keeping with his past indiscretions around the Queen.

Republican Law & Disorder

I haven't posted a video in a while, here's a clever one. I wish I had that Law & Order sound effect at my divorce hearing for some extra gravitas.

I'm starting to see a trend.

I'm guessing that people of less intelligence are spending the day at gun shows and tractor pulls, leaving plenty of room at the beach for smart folks to make statements. I hope this continues through the summer months.

Happy Mission Accomplished Day!

Sure to be a common sight this summer.

I wonder what the minimum amount of people needed would be to create this kind of picture. It's a shame that your local newspaper will never cover this creative kind of protest. Wouldn't it be great seeing this photo instead of that insipid "Mallard Fillmore" strip?

This has to be a joke, right?

Click on image to bask in the stupidity.

Maybe he means progressively worse.

George W. Bush, January 2006: "There's progress. And it's important progress and it's an important part of our strategy to win in Iraq."

Bush, November 2005: "Iraq is making incredible political progress."

Bush, October 2005: "Iraqis are making inspiring progress."

Bush, September 2005: "Iraq has made incredible political progress."

Bush, April 2005: "I believe we're making good progress in Iraq."

Bush, March 2005: "We're making progress."

Bush, September 2004: "We're making steady progress."

Bush, July 2003: "We're making progress. It's slowly but surely making progress."

Actually, y'know what I think the president's problem is? Perhaps his definition of the word "progress." I have the reference book he uses when he doesn’t know what a word means: Mistaken P. Wrongingston's Diktionary of English. Let's see...ah, here we are. "Progress: Chaos caused by one's own incompetence that's portrayed as the result of others' malfeasance."
---The Daily Show

Bulding in sky. Plane in sky. They could meet.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/ has received a copy of a letter sent to the Manhattan Borough President's office Helicopter Task Force in 1996 warning about the dangers of the possibility that planes could hit buildings in downtown New York. Moreover, four active duty and retired Coast Guard, including a retired Commandant, concurred about concerns about planes hitting buildings. The letter, dated February 18, 1996, provides the response of four Coast Guard officers to the following question: "Because of the flight path and the huge volume of tour and other flights and the resulting confusion in the air, wouldn't it be easy for a terrorist helicopter to slip under 1200 feet escaping radar detection and drop a charge on the U.N., World Trade Center or other strategic building?"

The four Coast Guard officers responded:

"Yes, your concerns are well founded. It's a security risk."

"You're right. There's a possibility of a terrorist attack."

"Your analysis is correct."

"Yes. It should be a no fly zone like Washington."

This information that the US Coast Guard considered such a scenario makes Condoleezza Rice's comment on May 15, 2003 that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center," a blatant falsehood.

Fred Thompson, what an actor!

He's trying hard to convince us that tax cuts work. But we know he's only acting. You might believe him for about an hour, but then you get hit with the harsh light of reality as you exit the theater, and all you want to do is go home and maybe have some ice cream.

Jim's Book Club- first selection.

Here's a book Oprah won't make her army buy, it may be too deep for them, anyway:


http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Sam-Harris/dp/0307265773

The shotgun is hidden behind the shrub...

...and the secret entrance to the "undisclosed location" is the tree behind Dick's left shoulder.

Rudy, you got some 'splainin' to do.

Remains of 9-11 victims were used to fill potholes, contractor says
By Thomas Zambito

New York Daily News

NEW YORK - The pulverized remains of bodies from the World Trade Center disaster site were used by city workers to fill ruts and potholes, a city contractor says in a sworn affidavit filed Friday in Manhattan Federal Court.

Eric Beck says debris powders - known as fines - were put in a pothole-fill mixture by crews at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, N.Y., where more than 1.65 million tons of World Trade Center debris were deposited after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I observed the New York City Department of Sanitation taking these fines from the conveyor belts of our machines, loading it onto tractors and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts," Eric Beck said.

Beck was the senior supervisor for Taylor Recycling, a private contractor hired to sift through debris trucked to Fresh Kills after the trade center attacks. Before the arrival of Taylor's equipment at Fresh Kills in October 2001, the debris was sifted manually by workers using rakes and shovels.

Beck's affidavit was filed by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims who are suing the city in hopes of creating a formal burial place for debris that they say contains human remains.

"It's devastating," Norman Siegel, an attorney representing the families, said of Beck's statement. "When the 9/11 families found about this, they were wiped out."

The families argue that the cleanup was hurried and slipshod, with the result that more than 400,000 tons of debris weren't properly combed for human remains.

The city recently asked Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the lawsuit, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he would like to turn the garbage dump into a "beautiful park."

In his first few months on the job, Beck said Taylor's mechanical sifters found 2,000 bones per day. He recalled finding "bones, fingers, skulls, feet and hands" as well as a man's chest and "the full body of a man dressed in a suit." The remains were catalogued and turned over to the city, he said.

But Beck said he was pushed to sift the debris quickly, and that remains may have been missed.

"I was constantly told . . . to move the job, to run the conveyor belts faster and to keep the tonnage up," Beck wrote.

Other affidavits support Siegel's claim that the sifting process was shoddy.

One comes from Theodore Feaser, the retired director of mechanical operations for the city Sanitation Department.

"From my experience at Fresh Kills, I am absolutely convinced that if the City of New York unearthed, resifted and washed the debris at Fresh Kills . . . it would find hundreds of human body parts and human remains," said Feaser, a 20-year veteran who supervised the recovery effort at Fresh Kills for the Sanitation Department.

Diane Horning, the president of WTC Families for Proper Burial, urged Hellerstein to allow the sifting to continue so that loved ones' remains will be found.

"There is no place to leave flowers," said Horning, whose son Matthew, an employee of Marsh and McLennan, was killed on Sept. 11, 2001. "There is no feeling of solace or closeness to your loved one."

This needs repeating.

Here's a handy ranking of the various dangers confronting America, based on the number of mortalities in each category throughout the 11-year period spanning 1995 through 2005 (extrapolated from best available data). My buddy Bill recently underwent surgery for a hernia, it's a shame that Bush won't spend a billion a month on him while he recovers, but on the plus side, he's not at Walter Reed.

Another republican lie refuted.

From www.thesimpledollar.com

Public education and private education in America are roughly equal, even though private school students score higher. Why? Demographics. Private school test scores are better because the demographics of their students are tilted highly towards groups that do well no matter whether they’re schooled in public or private schools.
If you’re paying for private school, you’re not paying for a great education - you’re paying for demographics. The report actually says that on average, your student won’t do better on standardized tests in private school compared to public school; the only thing that makes a difference is their race, their income level, and their parents’ involvement in their education.
One more thing: you know all of those doomsday stories about how America’s schools are falling behind those of other nations? Those reports are similarly flawed because of Simpson’s paradox.
Take South Korea, for example. Their test scores in math and science dominate America and I do admire their strong education system. But read that article more closely: only 60% of their students of high school age actually attend high school; the “bottom” 40% are actually funneled into separate vocational schools. Thus, when standardized tests compare 12th graders in Korea and 12th graders in the United States, if you individual compare demographic groups, the United States does at least as well as Korea, but if you combine all students as a whole, South Korea appears to dominate the United States. That’s because their high schools, much like private schools in the United States, are full of students whose personal demographics are universally geared towards greater educational success regardless of the schools.
This same phenomenon is true in many countries; the United States is relatively rare in that they place all students in the same high schools and they have compulsory attendance requirements. Most of the nations that exceed the United States in average scores have high schools that are demographically skewed in some fashion.
In short, the best investment you can make in your child’s education is by being involved. Your involvement is a factor you can control - your race and (to a degree) your other demographics can’t be changed. Instead of dropping $50,000 on getting your kid into that ultimate private school, tone down your career a bit and get involved: find out what your child is interested in, be involved and interested in their homework, and let them know that they really are important to you. Love is the one investment in your child that can really pay off.

The Helsinki Complaints Choir

They turn complaining into art.

Rush = moron

“There’s no question the left has been trying to destroy the family structure.” — childless, thrice-divorced paragon of family values, Rush Limbaugh

Fox News Devoted 12 Times More Coverage To Anna Nicole Than Walter Reed

Our national media embarrassment was again on full display on Friday. Both MSNBC and Fox News devoted more coverage to Anna Nicole Smith - three weeks after her death on Feb. 8 - than they did to the multiple developments involving the neglect and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed military hospital.

The most lop-sided coverage by far was aired by Fox News, which featured only 10 references to Walter Reed compared to 121 of Anna Nicole - roughly 12 times the coverage. MSNBC featured 84 references to Walter Reed and 96 to Anna Nicole.

Please read and help get out the truth!

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a replay in what happened in the lead-up to the war with Iraq — the allegations of the weapons of mass destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.

I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

Olbermann's Special Comment on Secretary Rice's comments.

Rice is too stupid to be embarassed.

Even New Zealand Gets It

Creationism Explained!

Wow. By the way, the Bible doesn't say it's a sin to click on the ads up top. Scientists concur, heh, heh.

Very True

Another revealing anecdote.

At a farewell reception at Blair House for the retiring chief of protocol, Don Ensenat, who was President Bush's Yale roommate, the president shook hands with Washington Life Magazine's Soroush Shehabi. "I'm the grandson of one of the late Shah's ministers," said Soroush, "and I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime we all despise will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized."

"I know," President Bush answered.

"But does Vice President Cheney know?" asked Soroush.

President Bush chuckled and walked away.

Blocking Debate

These are the faces of evil.

At my house, it's 0%

Bush Overall Approval Rating 28% (CBS Poll)
President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday night to a nation that's strongly opposed to his plan for increasing troops in Iraq and deeply unhappy with his performance as president, according to a CBS News poll.

Mr. Bush’s overall approval rating has fallen to just 28 percent, a new low, while more than twice as many (64 percent) disapprove of the way he's handling his job.

Two-thirds of Americans remain opposed to the president's plan for sending more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq — roughly the same number as after Mr. Bush announced the plan. And 72 percent believe he should seek congressional approval for the troop increase.

Escalation

From the good folks at MoveOn. You might want to join them.

Just as we suspected. (No wonder my house is cluttered)

The Ideological Animal
Psychology Today

Most people are surprised to learn that there are real, stable differences in personality between conservatives and liberals—not just different views or values, but underlying differences in temperament. Psychologists John Jost of New York University, Dana Carney of Harvard, and Sam Gosling of the University of Texas have demonstrated that conservatives and liberals boast markedly different home and office decor. Liberals are messier than conservatives, their rooms have more clutter and more color, and they tend to have more travel documents, maps of other countries, and flags from around the world. Conservatives are neater, and their rooms are cleaner, better organized, more brightly lit, and more conventional. Liberals have more books, and their books cover a greater variety of topics. And that's just a start. Multiple studies find that liberals are more optimistic. Conservatives are more likely to be religious. Liberals are more likely to like classical music and jazz, conservatives, country music. Liberals are more likely to enjoy abstract art. Conservative men are more likely than liberal men to prefer conventional forms of entertainment like TV and talk radio. Liberal men like romantic comedies more than conservative men. Liberal women are more likely than conservative women to enjoy books, poetry, writing in a diary, acting, and playing musical instruments.

Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.

The most comprehensive review of personality and political orientation to date is a 2003 meta-analysis of 88 prior studies involving 22,000 participants. The researchers—John Jost of NYU, Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland, and Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway of Berkeley—found that conservatives have a greater desire to reach a decision quickly and stick to it, and are higher on conscientiousness, which includes neatness, orderliness, duty, and rule-following. Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature.

The study's authors also concluded that conservatives have less tolerance for ambiguity, a trait they say is exemplified when George Bush says things like, "Look, my job isn't to try to nuance. My job is to tell people what I think," and "I'm the decider." Those who think the world is highly dangerous and those with the greatest fear of death are the most likely to be conservative.

Liberals, on the other hand, are "more likely to see gray areas and reconcile seemingly conflicting information," says Jost. As a result, liberals like John Kerry, who see many sides to every issue, are portrayed as flip-floppers. "Whatever the cause, Bush and Kerry exemplify the cognitive styles we see in the research," says Jack Glaser, one of the study's authors, "Bush in appearing more rigid in his thinking and intolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity, and Kerry in appearing more open to ambiguity and to considering alternative positions."

By 2004, as the presidential election drew near, researchers saw a chance to study the Jost results against the backdrop of unfolding events. Psychologists Mark Landau of the University of Arizona and Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore sought to explain how President Bush's approval rating went from around 51 percent before 9/11 to 90 percent immediately afterward. In one study, they exposed some participants to the letters WTC or the numbers 9/11 in an image flashed too quickly to register at the conscious level. They exposed other participants to familiar but random combinations of letters and numbers, such as area codes. Then they gave them words like coff__, sk_ll, and gr_ve, and asked them to fill in the blanks. People who'd seen random combinations were more likely to fill in coffee, skill, and grove. But people exposed to subliminal terrorism primes more often filled in coffin, skull, and grave. "The mere mention of September 11 or WTC is the same as reminding Americans of death," explains Solomon.

As a follow-up, Solomon primed one group of subjects to think about death, a state of mind called "mortality salience." A second group was primed to think about 9/11. And a third was induced to think about pain—something unpleasant but non-deadly. When people were in a benign state of mind, they tended to oppose Bush and his policies in Iraq. But after thinking about either death or 9/11, they tended to favor him. Such findings were further corroborated by Cornell sociologist Robert Willer, who found that whenever the color-coded terror alert level was raised, support for Bush increased significantly, not only on domestic security but also in unrelated domains, such as the economy.

When these natural desires are primed by thoughts of death and a barrage of mortal fear, people gravitate toward conservatism because it's more certain about the answers it provides—right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, us vs. them—and because conservative leaders are more likely to advocate a return to traditional values, allowing people to stick with what's familiar and known. "Conservatism is a more black and white ideology than liberalism," explains Jost. "It emphasizes tradition and authority, which are reassuring during periods of threat."

A message to congress.

This photo provided by Beach Impeach Project, peace activists lay in the sand to spell out 'IMPEACH!' in 100-foot tall letters on San Francisco's Ocean Beach Saturday, Jan. 6, 2006. (AP Photo/Beach Impeach Project, John Montgomery)

America has spoken.

As long as there's no war on Christmas cookies, I'm okay.

You can call me a traditionalist, but to me it's just not Christmas without cookies, and Coca-cola in glass bottles. Wishing you a wonderful time doing things you like with people you love around the winter solstace. And a happy new year.

Watch. Learn. Help.

Net neutrality is important.

Monty Python: Bicycle repairman!

Because It's silly.

Howard Dean - Post Election Address

How about Gore/Dean in '08?

GOP Priorities.

The House took 140 hours of sworn testimony to get to the bottom of whether Bill Clinton had misused the White House Christmas-card list for political purposes, but only 12 hours on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

George W. Bush lovers certifiable?

By Andy Bromage

A collective “I told you so” will ripple through the world of Bush-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse’s study gets out.

Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

But before you go thinking all your conservative friends are psychotic, listen to Lohse’s explanation.

“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”

The study was an advocacy project of sorts, designed to register mentally ill voters and encourage them to go to the polls, Lohse explains. The Bush trend was revealed later on.

The study used Modified General Assessment Functioning, or MGAF, a 100-point scale that measures the functioning of disabled patients. A second scale, developed by Rakfeldt, was also used. Knowledge of current issues, government and politics were assessed on a 12-item scale devised by the study authors.

“Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry,” the study says.

Lohse says the trend isn’t unique to Bush: A 1977 study by Frumkin & Ibrahim found psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election.

People who are smarter than Bush, part 1 of 150,000,000

Sean.

I am thankful for you.

The google tracking thingy tells me that folks from as far as Vancouver have visited this li'l slice o' the web, which amazes me since I only recently started blogging. I'm trying to balance the outrage with snark, and I welcome all suggestions. By the way, if your'e not one of those users who block all the ads on the page, I humbly ask if you could click on those google ad things. They're pretty harmless. Thanks again.

It's only a matter of time...

A Message to the Democratic Leadership:

Okay, you're in and they're out. Welcome to the winner's circle. Since C&J is the most widely read publication on "The Hill" (named after Senator Hillary Clinton) I know you're expecting me to provide some personal guidance. Consider this a freebie:


Do the nation's bidding, not just the Democrats' and certainly not just your own (one Joe Lieberman is enough, thank you).
If I have to fork over a third of my income to you guys in taxes, I damn well expect you to be responsible with it. My broker doesn't take my money with the intent of building bridges to nowhere and neither should you.

I'm retiring in 23 years. I don't expect sweets and flowers but I do expect Social Security to be strong and non-privatized. Make it so and keep it so.

Silly flag-burning and gay marriage amendments are a waste of everyone's time. They are now off the table. A constitutional amendment establishing a permanent three-day weekend is back on the front burner.

Communicate with the netroots once in a while. Come to YearlyKos in August. Talk to us---we're a big ball of Democratic fusion (or is it fission? Whichever one doesn't make us literally explode, that's us) and we're here to help. That said, we will be watching and judging you based on spine, principle, talent and the swimsuit competition.

President Bush is not a moron---he just plays one on TV and in person. To put it diplomatically: when dealing with "43" "31 Percent," trust but verify. To put it less diplomatically: don't trust him ever.

The days of Republicans calling our side terrorist sympathizers are over. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can show you how to deliver a right hook to the jaw. If that's what it takes to stop this nonsense, so be it.

America's health care system is ranked lower than Cuba's. Fix that.

There is much Republican-fueled chicanery to investigate and many subpoenas to issue. Start with the war profiteers, the real traitors in our midst. Make them pay for putting their country club lifestyles ahead of our soldiers' lives.

You will memorize the following phrases and use them when the traditional media tries to push an inaccurate frame or outright lie about you or the Democratic agenda: "Where do you come up with this stuff?" "Prove it!" "Who said that?" "You've got to be kidding---is that what you really think?" "You want to step outside and tell me Democrats are weak?" You will not let the talking heads off the hook until they either prove their assertion or they admit they're full of bull. If the interviewer has been a total jerk, end the interview with, "Thanks for having me on. I hope next time we talk you'll do your homework first."

We understand that democracy is messy. We get that you're all jockeying for position and protecting your little fiefdoms---it goes with the territory. Just try and keep it a notch or two below Level Embarrassing, okay? If you're stooping, you're losing.

You promised to bring transparency and accountability back to Congress. Good. We the People are your boss and we pay your salary. We deserve to see what you're doing in our name.

For our men and women in uniform: 1) Body armor NOW. 2) Vehicle armor NOW. 3) Full funding of VA services NOW. 4) Unrelenting pressure on the president NOW to present his "plan" for getting us out of Iraq. (He, not you, is the Commander-in-Chief. This is his hot potato.) Our troops have been through---and continue to go through---hell. Let's reverse the Republican course and start showing `em some goddam respect.

You've got a helluva mix of seasoned veterans and new recruits with a golden opportunity that's been a long time coming. We don't expect you to be perfect. But we do expect you to be competent. Dear Lord, at least be that.

Sincerely,

---Bill in Portland Maine
American Pundit of Great Influence

Such a nice day.

Wasn't it great waking up today, and realizing that not everyone in America outside of your friends is a moron? Sure, there's still Rush, and BillO, and Hannity, and Dr. Laura, and Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and that guy on the highway with "Sportsmen for Bush" sticker on his Hummer, but the fact that NOT A SINGLE DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENT LOST yesterday fills me with hope for this country.

Bush's Surprise National Address

Deep Fried Pizza

Because I can't have every post be about how evil republicans are.

We CAN make this happen!

Interesting stuff.

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Nice Apple Ad Parody

No wonder I use a Mac.

Good ad from the September fund.

At least this shrub isn't a waste of oxygen.

Where are the congressional hernia hearings?

Here's a handy ranking of the various dangers confronting America, based on the number of mortalities in each category throughout the 11-year period spanning 1995 through 2005 (extrapolated from best available data).

Now with Chimp-o-matic!

Over there, on the left. Every day, a different stupid utterance from the Chief Execucriminal.
While you chuckle (or sadly shake your head), please click on the ad thingies above. Thanks!

GOP Family Values All-Stars. Feh.

-- Republican Commissioner ( of Richland County, Ohio ) David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

-- Republican Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

-- Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.

-- Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth anti-abortion activist who gained fame during the Schiavo media-circus, was convicted of two charges of raping a child in 2002 .

-- Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.

-- Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.

-- Republican pastor Mike Hintz,a First Assembly of God youth pastor whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.

-- Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

-- Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was charged with molesting his 9-year old step-daughter after including her in an anti-Gore television commercial.

-- Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

-- Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter, the Susan Smith who drowned her adorable two sons "in cold blood" in a South Carolina lake in 1995.

-- Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation and possession of child pornography.

-- Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

-- Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.

-- Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

-- Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

-- Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.

-- Republican Tennessee State Representative, Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).

-- Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was found guilty of molesting a 15-year old girl at the home for troubled girls that he ran.

-- Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.

-- Republican candidate Richard Gardner,a Nevada State Representative, admitted to molesting his two daughters.

-- Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner had been convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl. when the Republican Party, knowing of these crimes, put him on the ballot.

-- Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.

-- Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison. Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

-- Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession. With his political career over, he went to work in the hard-core pornography industry for Platinum X Pictures, owned by his daughter, porn starlet Jewel De'Nyle (Stephany Schwarz).

-- Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall, director of Faith & Family Alliance, (a Christian Coalition spin off), former student of Pat Robertson's Regent University, member of Ralph Reed's inner circle who funneled money to from lobbyist Jack Abramoff to Reed, was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.

-- Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a "good military man" and "church goer," was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

-- Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.

-- Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

-- Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp. Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer.

-- Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women. He was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl, and his sentences added up to 126 years in prison.

-- Age 62 Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo of Denton County, Kentucky was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.

-- Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins of Asbury Park, New Jersey plead guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.

-- Republican Mayor John Gosek of Oswego, New York was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.

This sums it up nicely.

They can call it Good vs. Evil all they want to, but to me it just looks like two teams of right-wing religious loonies fighting with each other, and the rest of us are just cannon-fodder or part of the battleground.
- Avedon Carol

Keep This In Mind

Bruce Schneier on Security

Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.
It's time we calm down and fight terror with antiterror. This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.
But our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world, a large percentage of them not Arab, and about 320 million Arabs in the Middle East, the overwhelming majority of them not terrorists. Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.
The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer.

Once again, Gore made sense.

In 1996, a commission chaired by then-Vice President Gore recommended a number of regulations to protect the safety of airline passengers. Among the recommendations was that steel doors separate the flight deck from the rest of the aircraft. Characteristically, the airline industry lobbied against the legislation on the grounds that such doors would cost too much. The absence of the doors, however, cost almost 3,000 lives.

Two toons while I work two jobs.

The part time school is starting with an unfinished new building, so I'm doubling during the day. Here are a couple of toons until I can post something pithy.

Ban high fructose corn syrup at airports!

Heart disease and cancer will claim about 1.5 million American lives each and every year. As far as accidental deaths (~100,000/year), motor vehicle accidents far and away lead the pack (+40,000/year), with accidental poisoning and falls in place and show1. You can play with those stats all kinds of ways. But the bottom line is that over the course of a civilian lifetime, the odds of falling victim to Al Qaeda rank somewhere between falling off a ladder to your death and being struck by lightning inside your home.

Works for me.

Apparently, the wingnuts are claiming that Leiberman was defeated by fringe anti-war wackos. I guess that means that we're the majority. Why can't Joe just accept defeat gracefully? It's not like he's ever going to have to work another day in his life. He'll lose in November, and in January start his lobbyist gig.

All you need to know in Connecticut

Is there nothing these people can't poison?

Everyone knows Al Gore stars in the global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." But who created "Al Gore's Penguin Army," a two-minute video now playing on YouTube.com?

In the video, Mr. Gore appears as a sinister figure who brainwashes penguins and bores movie audiences by blaming the Mideast crisis and starlet Lindsay Lohan's shrinking waist size on global warming. Like other videos on the popular YouTube site, it has a home-made, humorous quality. The video's maker is listed as "Toutsmith," a 29-year-old who identifies himself as being from Beverly Hills in an Internet profile.

In an email exchange with The Wall Street Journal, Toutsmith didn't answer when asked who he was or why he made the video, which has just over 59,000 views on YouTube. However, computer routing information contained in an email sent from Toutsmith's Yahoo account indicate it didn't come from an amateur working out of his basement.

Instead, the email originated from a computer registered to DCI Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.