The Stoning of John Edwards

First off, probably a quarter to half of the people currently wringing their hands over Edwards’ extramarital affair have cheated, are cheating, or will cheat on their own spouse.

It’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to talk about in polite company and it runs contrary to a lot of romantic/religious notions that people have, but monogamy is a fairly recent invention and is by no means natural. I’m just saying, keep in mind the ridiculous level of hypocrisy at work here.

Yes, he lied. Yes, it could have hurt his party’s chances, although it’s probably better that this distraction didn’t surface during the primaries. I do understand the disappointment of the people who defended him in good faith. You could even argue that people expect better-than-average behavior from their politicians, although the current gang of thugs and robber barons in power certainly speaks against that.

However, most of the sanctimonious commentators criticizing him would not have done any differently in his situation, and quite a few of them are in his situation.

Statistically, there is a significant portion of high-ranking politics/news people that have stories of infidelity of their own, so I’m assuming that we’ll soon see hundreds of these people come out and admit their own affairs in the name of honesty. Come on, who wants to go first?

*chirp!* *chirp!*

A disaster of Olympic proportions

So, despite the fact that they get to host the Olympics, the Chinese government apparently still doesn’t give a damn about little things like human rights, dignity, or freedom. How strange! Who could have ever predicted such a bizarre twist?

In addition to the abuse inflicted on the locals, for example destroying their houses, executing roughly 374 Chinese citizens during the Olympics, and deploying ridiculous amounts of surveillance and military strength, it looks like they’re also arresting foreign protesters, assaulting journalists, blocking Internet access even for foreign reporters, and just generally giving everyone a hard time.

Oh, this is a good one :

“We have laws regarding assembly and demonstrations, and we hope that foreigners will respect the laws of China.”

While we are aware of your laws, sir, there are reasons why we don’t respect them. It is because they are brutal and inhuman, in the image of the thugs, tyrants and monsters that create and enforce them.

We foreigners just happen to have a little more power to defy the crimes against humanity you call “laws” without getting murdered, that’s all.

Don’t worry, there will be more defiance and disrespect coming from foreigners, and soon.

Through the looking glass: surreal campaign ads

First, this laugably bad ad. It appears that the McCain campaign’s latest attack is “Obama wants to Photoshop his face onto Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty”. Incredibly juvenile, but it would work if your average McCain voter knew what a Photoshop was.

Secondly, there’s this video, “The One”.

Twist ending : “Paid for by John McCain 2008″. Really? Are… are you sure, official McCain Youtube channel and JohnMcCain.com?

I see two possible messages McCain could be trying to get out here.

He might be trying to say “Vote for Obama”, which is bizarre and likely not a winning strategy for McCain. Then again, his campaign, his party, and a good portion of the news media appear to be under the influence of hallucinogenic substances.

At this point I wouldn’t be that surprised if Bush went on a puppy-kicking spree only to have McCain come out and defend him, blame it on Obama and the Liberal Media, and say that this type of situation shows he’s “ready to lead” and his opponent is “naïve”. Somehow, it would probably even work, and the media would spend the next two days asking questions like “Voting for McCain : good idea, or great idea?” and “The Liberal Media’s biased reporting: should we stop favoring Obama?”.

Anyways. The other message, the one McCain is more likely trying to push with the world-leader imagery and the glorification of his opponent, is something along the lines of “Obama is the Antichrist”. That might make sense in the mind of Americans who consider reading forwarded emails to be ‘research’, but those people already have lists of contradictory reasons why they’re afraid of him.

In any case, I’m pretty sure the Antichrist is actually supposed to get elected. If McCain was a good Christian and he really believed what he’s trying to scare people into believing, he’d have to make sure the Antichrist won the election or he’d be standing in the way of Prophecy.

On the other hand, if he was a good Christian he probably wouldn’t be ridiculing Moses to make a political attack.

Let’s save this planet. It’ll be fun. Really.

From Bob Park’s What’s New :

UNCOOL: LOT OF HEAT FROM GLOBAL-WARMING DENIERS.
Suppose, I asked myself, that the deniers are right and the CO2 thing is a mistake? What will happen if the world takes the CO2 thing seriously, adopting common sense measures to counter anthropogenic warming and there never was any warming in the first place? 1) there will more non-renewable resources to leave to our progeny; 2) we will breath cleaner air and see the stars again, the way we saw them half a century ago; 3) we could stop paving over the planet, and 4) cut down on the number of billionaires. If we’re wrong we could have a party. We could have a party either way.

See, it’s not so bad, is it? Really, we’ll be OK if we get started on this right away, and we might even make money and invent some cool shit in the process.

Saving the environment is a reasonable, obvious thing to do, even if Stephen Harper thinks it’s a communist plot to destroy the economy of oil-producing nations.

The persecution of ‘Dr.’ Kent Hovind

From “The Fight To Save Dr. Kent Hovind” :

“But friends – there is one of Jesus’ flock that has been abandoned by America.  No – this is not a blood sucking Muslim – but a white Christian male.  Yes, this man should be at the very top of the Christian food chain – but instead he has been persecuted by the liberals in the Justice Department. This man is, of course, Dr. Kent Hovind – or as you probably know him – Dr. Dino.”

That’s silly, you know they don’t allow liberals in the Justice Department. They also don’t allow people who admire left-wing pro-choice nuts like Condoleeza Rice. Only good Republicans can properly deliver justice.

Alaska : Lose The Clown

Sure, he thinks that the Internet is a series of tubes, and yet assumes himself knowledgeable enough to regulate said Internet, but at least he’s an honest, hardworking guy, right?

Not so much. It seems that corruption is never far behind incompetence : Senator Ted “An Internet Was Sent By My Staff” Stevens accepts bribes and lies about it, according to a federal grand jury that just indicted him on seven (7) felonies. He apparently accepted $250,000 in bribe money from an oil and contruction services company between 2001 and 2006.

Maybe the company in question paid him to issue his utterly ignorant statements about the tubular nature of the Internet in an effort to push their pro-pipeline oil agenda?

It would explain why the company in question is now out of business. The tube remarks didn’t go over so well, and we all got to see the proof of his ignorance thanks to one of the few Tubes that actually does make up part of the Internet.

Seriously though, Alaska. Lose the clown.