The Grand Panjandrum

Going back to the old site.

Enough with politics! Lets have some fun at the expense of the Christianists. Wwweeeeee!

Noted evolutionary biologist and blogger PZ Myers reports:

I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird — I was standing in line, hadn’t even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn’t going to cause any trouble.

I went back to my family and talked with them for a while, and then the officer came back with a theater manager, and I was told that not only wasn’t I allowed in, but I had to leave the premises immediately. Like right that instant.

I complied.

Myers was interviewed for the movie and was unaware at the time that it was actually an anti-evolution piece funded by right wing Christians. But, you see, it gets better. It drips with sweet, delicious irony. Because:

They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn’t notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn’t recognize him. My guest was …

Richard Dawkins.

He’s in the theater right now, watching their movie.

It just doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

Apparently, from what I just read Joe Lieberman has got his head so far up McCain’s ass that he’s now speaking for him. Here’s the proof:

In Israel yesterday, NBC’s Lauren Appelbaum reports, Lieberman once again intervened when McCain made an incorrect reference about the Jewish holiday Purim — by calling the holiday “their version of Halloween here.

Jesus! We got Joementum and the Crypt Keeper staggering around the Middle East pretending to be important while Bill’s in Pennsylvania trying to convince a bunch of union workers that participate (as in participate in pro-NAFTA meetings as First Lady) doesn’t mean what they think it means, all while he praises McCain?

Jesus Sweating Christ! Can someone please explain to me what “CINC threshold” McCain and Clinton crossed? As far as I can tell they may have had a group marriage with the four of them, but that is the only threshold I can determine from my fortified compound out here in the high desert.
November 4th can’t get here soon enough.

Tonight CNN reports:

Florida Senate Democratic Leader Steven Geller and Sen. Jeremy Ring outlined a proposal to seat all the delegates at the convention in August.

The plan recommends seating half of Florida’s 210 delegates based on the results of the January 29 primary.

The remaining delegates could be allocated in a number of ways, including evenly, proportionally based on the national popular vote (excluding Florida and Michigan) or proportionally based on the total national delegate count, also excluding Florida and Michigan.

“I invite the campaigns to endorse our compromise to ensure victory in November,” Ring said.

The Obama and Clinton campaigns had no immediate comment on the plan.

This may be the incentive for the campaigns to finally agree.

“There is no do-over, no mail-in ballots, no complicated math. Just the basic process of American democracy is in play here.”

We shall see. But I’m not sure this falls into the Clinton criteria of seat as voted or do a revote. Obama has restated his position that he would abide by any DNC decision.

I agree with Pete Abel over at the Moderate Voice that about 29 minutes in is the crux of the matter.

… we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

A bit syrupy for my taste, but as Abel says:

“Just words?” Perhaps. But words are still the currency of discourse, and discourse is still the starting point for action.

Indeed. It is “where we start.”

Marc Ambinder points out an error in William Kristol’s column this morning:

Bill Kristol’s New York Times column about Barack Obama this morning contains a major, prejudicial error.

Paragraph five:

But Ronald Kessler, a journalist who has written about Wright’s ministry, claims that Obama was in fact in the pews at Trinity last July 22. That’s when Wright blamed the “arrogance” of the “United States of White America” for much of the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks. In any case, given the apparent frequency of such statements in Wright’s preaching and their centrality to his worldview, the pretense that over all these years Obama had no idea that Wright was saying such things is hard to sustain.

The error is in trusting the source without checking.

The truth is that Obama did not attend church on July 22.

He was on his way to campaign in Miami.

(Here is some video evidence.) This was before he signed an agreement forbidding himself from campaigning in Florida.

The original source was a Newsmax article linked to by Ambinder. The NYT seems to have fallen on hard times when it comes to fact checking but it is odd that Kristol would have two blatant errors (that were easily checked) during his short term in his new job.

UPDATE: A comment by Anna on Ambinder’s post makes an excellent point:

I think the worst part isn’t even that he USED Newsmax. But rather, that he didn’t even CITE that it was his source. Saying that his source is “a journalist who has written about Wright’s ministry” is very different from saying “Ronald Kessler from Newsmax”. He’s making it sound like a legitimate story when it might as well have come from the National Enquirer. What a tool.

Nothing quite like a Clintonian response to a simple question.

from www.redlasso.com posted with vodpod

(h/t Huffington Post)

John McCain may be guilty of being less than his self proclaimed Straight Express.

Simes said McCain, one of the Nixon Center’s advisors, has privately assured prominent supporters in the traditional foreign policy camp that “his more exuberant statements don’t necessarily reflect his real views.”

What is McCain up to? Is this a plant in the press to allay the fears of moderates, or is McCain indeed a Double Talker?

Mocking war supporters like John McCain is generally like shooting fish in a barrel, but his current trip to the land of W’s misbegotten war has made it especially easy. With an up tick in violence in Iraq, and the architect of the so-called Surge now admitting that insufficient political progress has been made, it looks as though the Senator is making a bigger fool of himself than he did last year when he walked “freely” through the Shorja market. As long as you ignore the fact that he can’t “freely” walk through his favorite marketplace this year its seems to be going swimmingly well!

A special thanks to 2parse blog for this tip.

When all else fails extortion seems to be the coin of the realm for big money Clinton supporters. Time and time again the biggest headache for the Democrats has been the Florida Democratic leadership and its unwillingness to stick to agreements and play by the rules. This morning the NY Times is reporting:

… influential fund-raisers for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have stepped up their behind-the-scenes pressure on national party leaders to resolve the matter, with some even threatening to withhold their donations to the Democratic National Committee unless it seats the delegates from the two states or holds new primaries there.

Apparently the Florida Demcoratic leadership and their money masters want to continue the charade of representing the voters of Florida. Please! I was born in the day; it just wasn’t yesterday. The full story of how the Florida delegates were stripped must be told to a much wider audience. It is time to stop the meme that Florida Democrats were the victims of those mean Republicans. They were not. While Florida Republicans were inside sticking up the bank, Florida Democrats were nervously chain-smoking out in the get away car hoping not to get caught. But Clinton’s Big Money supporters want their money back if their vote doesn’t count? Maybe they should talk to Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman, or maybe they already have? She seems to be part of the big money corporatist problem in Florida.

Jon Ausman, a Florida representative to the Democratic National Committee released an email last August 2007, here’s the money quote:

1.Florida Democratic Legislators sponsored the bill to move the primary to January 29th;
2.Florida House Democratic Legislators voted in committee three times for the bill to move the primary to January 29;
3.All but one Florida House Democratic Legislator vote on the floor to move the primary to January 29; and,
4.Florida House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber stated, after receiving a call from DNC Chair asking for help in opposing setting the primary date before February 5, “I don´t
represent Howard Dean.”
5.Florida House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber stated, after offering an amendment to move the primary to February 5th, that the only reason he offer it was “to show that there was an attempt to state within the Democratic Party rules.” The amendment
failed on a voice vote with no debate being offered.
6.Florida Senate Democratic Legislators voted in committee to move the primary to January;
7.Florida Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller stated on the Senate floor that he was offering an amendment to move the primary to February 5 only because he was threatened by DNC Chair Howard Dean. Sen. Geller than mocked his own amendment which failed on a voice vote without any debate.

By this account it doesn’t appear that Florida Democrats were victimized by anyone.  Florida Democrats are now in the bank threatening a stickup of their own.