How to save $85.50 on books

At the library book sale today, I purchased 89 dollars worth of books for the grand total of 3 dollars and fifty cents. The titles I got are:

The Consolation of Philosophy (pb) by Boethius for $.50.

The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History (pb) by Howard Bloom for $.50.

Dune (pb) by Frank Herbert for $.50.

The Age of American Unreason (hc) by Susan Jacoby for $1.00.

Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches (hc) by John Dean for $1.00.

Liking to consider myself an amateur forensic book detective, I like to see if I can reconstruct the life of the books I get preceding my purchase of them. Judging by the wear and tear on Dune, The Lucifer Principle, and The Consolation of Philosophy, these books enjoyed a relatively normal life of library books that were checked out and read semi-regular. Broken Government, however, is mint. I would guess with about 98% certainty it has never been checked out, much less read.

The Age of American Unreason was a book sale donation, meaning it is from someone's personal collection and was not a library book. The actual book itself would seem to indicate that it has never been read, despite the book's jacket having slight wear: the front is near mint, but the back has sustained some moisture damage and has a ring from someone sitting a drink down on it. I would conclude that someone was given the book as a gift, put it down on their coffee table and never read it, or never did more than flipping through it.

Baleful quote of the day

"I don't care about the Constitution." - Bill O'Reilly

To O'Reilly, the Constitution is apparently only relevant if it can be used as a prop to support his beliefs.

Watching human evolution

I'm a bit occupied this week with jury duty, so in the meantime I'll simply give a recommendation to the 3 part PBS Nova series Becoming Human

Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and NOVA's comprehensive, three-part special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives.

Part 1, "First Steps," examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of "Selam," also known as "Lucy's Child." Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. NOVA's cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And NOVA takes viewers "inside the skull" to show how our ancestors' brains had begun to change from those of the apes.

Why did leaps in human evolution take place? "First Steps" explores a provocative "big idea" that sharp swings of climate were a key factor.

The other programs in the "Becoming Human" series are Part 2: "Birth of Humanity", which profiles the earliest species of humans, and Part 3: "Last Human Standing," which examines why, of various human species that once shared the planet, only our kind remains.

All three parts really are excellent educational resources. Even if you're generally familiar with the subject matter, these shows really bring the material to life and help you to visualize what our ancestors and evolutionary cousins looked like and how they lived. (I found the segment in part 2 about the Homo Erectus fossil Turkana Boy particularly compelling.)

Rethinking the "war on drugs"

Johann Hari argues its time to quit dogmatically pursuing a counter-productive policy (via Butterflies and Wheels)

What would happen if we started to build our drugs policy around the facts, rather than our desire for a fuzzy feeling inside? Professor Nutt only took tiny baby steps in this direction before he was booted out. He argued that we should rank drugs by the harm they do, rather than by the size of the panicked headlines they trigger. Now the row is fading, it is possible to see how conservative he was. A must-read new report out this week – ‘After The War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation’ – follows the facts as far as they will take us. It shows that the rational solution is to take the drug market back from the unregulated anarchy of criminal gangs, and transfer it to pharmacists, off-licenses, and doctors who operate in the legal economy. To see why this is necessary, we have to look at some of the facts our politicians refuse to see.

Fact One: The drug war hands one of our biggest industries to armed criminal gangs, who unleash terrible violence across the country...

Fact Two: Under prohibition, drug use becomes more hardcore...

Fact Three: The drug war doesn’t reduce drug use – but the alternatives can...

There is more at the link, of course.

Quote of the day

"[S]kepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge; for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality. With it, we allow for some free play for the generation of new ideas and the growth of knowledge." - Paul Kurtz, The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge

Off with his head! or: Neoconservative justice

Bill Kristol apparently believes that if you're a Muslim and accused of an act of terrorism then you should be executed summarily at the discretion of the President without charge or trial.*

Law enforcement officials announced yesterday that Maj. Nidal M. Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the brutal attacks at Fort Hood Army base. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that “the number one issue, I think right now, is that Major Hasan be brought to justice.”

Last night on Fox News, Bill Kristol called Napolitano’s comment “stupid” and stated outright that there should be no trial:

KRISTOL: I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death.

Giving the Executive branch of government the power to declare a U.S. citizen guilty and have that individual killed by fiat without due process of the law was exactly why this country was founded, you know? The founders sought to break away from an oppressive, undemocratic system of government in which the most bedrock principle was that of habeus corpus: the right to not be imprisoned or punished without a fair trial. That's what our history books say, right?

I'm not sure what is worse, Kristol's open contempt for the most basic civil liberties and principles of western democracy which are enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or the Obama administration's more subversive tiered system of justice.

So what we have here is not an announcement that all terrorism suspects are entitled to real trials in a real American court. Instead, what we have is a multi-tiered justice system, where only certain individuals are entitled to real trials: namely, those whom the Government is convinced ahead of time it can convict. Others for whom conviction is less certain will be accorded lesser due process: put in military commissions, to which most leading Democrats vehemently objected when created under Bush. Presumably, others still -- those who the Government believes cannot be convicted in either forum, will simply be held indefinitely with no charges, a power the administration recently announced it intends to preserve based on the same theories used by Bush/Cheney to claim that power.

A system of justice which accords you varying levels of due process based on the certainty that you'll get just enough to be convicted isn't a justice system at all. It's a rigged game of show trials.

At least with Kristol, you have the injustice right out in the open. With the heads I win, tails you lose system being proposed by the Obama Department of Justice, there is a facade of due process which hides the injustice.

*I'm granting for the sake of argument that Hasan is guilty of terrorism, yet I don't believe his murderous rampage is terrorism. The profile of his act that seems more appropriate is that of the disgruntled employee who "goes Postal" on his co-workers. What's more, terrorism is generally defined to be an act of violence directed towards civilian targets to make a political point ... that didn't happen with Hasan. See here for more thoughts on the subject.

Beck gets South Parked

Crooks and Liars has a nice 5 minute clip. You can view the entire episode - "Dances with Smurfs" - here.

The amazing thing, to me, is that Beck considers the mocking to be a compliment (that the shows creators are libertarians who have run episodes mocking Al Gore and global warming helps), failing to notice that the joke is predicated upon the ridiculous and baseless nature of Beck's obsessive, non-stop character defamation.

Scientists as villains

In the original V mini series, the "Jews" of the Nazi analogue aliens were scientists who were persecuted by the aliens for supposedly plotting against the human race. Knowing how many movement conservatives were quick to assume the new version of the show depicts President Obama as a fascist totalitarian alien, its a tad bit ironic to see so many conservatives who seem to have bought into the same sort of anti-science conspiracy that the Visitor aliens sold to the public.

Witness Christopher Monckton who believes that the IPCC was created to establish a one world dictatorship rather than to address anthropogenic global warming and the associated climate change.

When "free market" doesn't equal "free"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

One of the reasons I cover Glenn Beck and his ilk so much is that I'm disgusted by the way that they characterize anyone who doesn't share their market fundamentalism as communists or fascists intent upon reducing human freedom. It is truly Orwellian watching Beck describe progressivism as totalitarian and the source of human slavery because it takes away the "freedom" to be a wage slave or be worked literally to death.

Here's the David Sirota piece that inspired that segment

Check out this report from Inside U.S. Trade (no link- subscription required) - it's straight from the I Shit You Not File:

Business groups are worried by the potential effects of provisions banning the import of all goods made with convict labor, forced labor, or forced or indentured child labor that were included in a customs bill sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA)...

These groups are examining the ramifications of the bill's provisions, especially in light of the bill's requirements that a newly created office in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually report to Congress on the volume and value of goods made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor that have been stopped at the border.

Business sources say this reporting requirement could cause DHS to more actively seek out imported products made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor...

One source did expect a push from lobbyists closer to the Finance Committee markup of the bill, and speculated that U.S. industry groups and foreign governments could form ad hoc coalitions to help send a united message.

AM radio conspiracy of the day

I flipped on Neal Boortz's radio program earlier today to here him explaining that Media Matters was created/funded by George Soros in order to attack anyone who got in the way of Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations.

Is there simply any non-conservative project that is not linked to some George Soros/Clintons conspiracy by movement conservative cultists?

Happy birthday, Mr. Sagan

The late Carl Sagan, probably the greatest science communicator of the 20th century, would have been 75 today.

In memory of his contributions to science and the public understanding and appreciation of it, eSkeptic has made available a lecture series on Sagan and a compendium of articles about him.

Every book that I have read by Sagan has been a tremendous pleasure, but The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark remains seminal reading for every skeptic and science enthusiast.

Update: Click here to watch James Randi's hour long talk in rememberance of his friend Sagan.

Quote of the day

"My TV doesn’t work and I’ve never watched Glenn Beck. Can you imagine how hard it is for me to understand, much less believe, that this routine is based on the gestures and madness of an actual person who apparently influences 30% of (US) Americans?" - Commenter Linda N. at Arthur Goldwag's blog, responding to Jon Stewart's parody of Beck

Update: I made this point in response to Linda in that comment thread, but I think it worth repeating here. If you aren't familiar with Beck's program and see Stewart do that routine, you'd just assume when Stewart uses the game Operation to allege a conspiracy to remove Beck's appendix he's just being silly. But that's based on an actual segment of Beck's show in which Beck played Connect Four to demonstrate a supposed Marxist conspiracy of radicals in the White House.

Jon Stewart mimics Beck, Thomas Jefferson applauds

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them" - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, July 30, 1816



As a regular viewer of Beck's conspiratorial, anti-intellectual nonsense, I must say that Stewart's performance is impeccable. The glasses, the piling up of books on the desk, the scribbled madness, the Daffy Duck (pre Chuck Jones turning him into a foil for Bugs Bunny) style performance ... it's all perfect.

Update: The plot thickens ... the nefarious SEIU in on the conspiracy to remove Beck's appendix?

And so it goes ...

Shorter conservative movement: we believe the apparently benign Obama administration is a secretly totalitarian, figuratively alien (unAmerican) entity, with nefarious plans to destroy America; therefore, a tv show about an apparently benign but secretly totalitarian, literally alien entity, with nefarious plans to destroy the planet is obviously about the Obama administration.

It's just a syllogism of conservative illogic for movement conservatives. Likewise, they believe that President Obama is a Nazi, a "liberal fascist"; therefore a remake of an allegory about Nazis is also obviously about President Obama.

And since one single journalist is pressured by the Visitor leader into giving her a soft ball interview, the show is also obviously taking on "Obama-mania."* That there is such a thing as Obama-mania in the first place is simply an article of faith for movement conservatives: the press is always "liberally biased" for liberals against conservatives. This is an axiomatic truth that can not be effected by reality (also see here.)

*In the original 1983 series, the analogous journalist character becomes the Visitor leader's press secretary. In the new series, the journalist is actually more skeptical of the leader's motives than the original character was. One could just as easily interpret the character having been pressured into reporting favorably on the Visitors to something like Dan Rather saying after 9/11, "George Bush is the president. He makes the decisions, and, you know, it's just one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where. And he'll make the call." I don't believe the creators had that in mind, but it goes along way towards demonstrating how singular the worldview of Beck and Hannity and the rest is.

Update: From Media Matters

Fox News' Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck have all endorsed the new ABC television show V, citing the show's depiction of aliens seeking to conquer Earth who offer to provide universal health care as a critique of "Obama-mania" and "Obamacare." This is not the first time Fox News personalities have promoted a television show to buttress their right-wing world view; many of them cited Fox's 24 to defend the use of torture by U.S. authorities, among other conservative positions.

Update on a modest prediction or: confirmed - I have psychic powers

I previously made the following prediction:

not long after ABC's reboot of the sci-fi series V launches, the aliens in the show will be viewed as analagous to the Obama administration by persons like Glenn Beck and such.

The show's premier was last night. It took one day.

"'V' aims at Obamamania"

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."

So, does that sound like anyone you know?

Yes, when the show was created in 1983 with the same exact plot and premise, it was obviously done as an allegorical tale about the future presidency of Barack Obama. The bit about universal health care was also obviously meant to demonstrate that President Obama is trying to trick the American people into accepting repressive government; it certainly wasn't a joke based on health technology from outerspace aliens truly being "universal."

"Is Obama an alien? ‘V’ and the age of hysteria"

The appearance of “V,” a refried UFO show on ABC, suggests that President Barack Obama is a dangerous alien. What’s interesting is that this new series is by a major network that went unconscionably gaga over Obama last year.

Such reportage — the gushing, idolatrous positivism issued by Katie Couric and Charles Gibson in the 2008 race, a perfect, present-day equivalent of Aldous Huxley’s “feelies” — is viewed here as it is with Huxley: as totalitarian. Elizabeth Mitchell, Earth Mother incarnate from the “Lost” series, back from True North to form an underground, is definitely worth the watch. Maybe they are cruising under the censors as they do in “Lost,” like the 19th-century Russians did, but the insurgents here very definitely view the federal government with its “sleeper cells” bringing “endless wars,” duplicitously “spreading hope,” pitching healthcare bribes to the clerks and proles and cultivating the blind devotion of the young in the Maoist and Leninist traditions as totalitarian. This could get interesting.

"V: The New Series or Obama Takes Manhattan"

So, dont know if anyone saw this last night, but I felt a bit of Obama satire going on. Alien sleeper cells come to Earth to ruin it, then the aliens land and use propaganda to bring us hope and change, including...wait for it...universal health care! Theres also the legion of young brownshirts, the control of the media. This should be interesting with the shoe on the other foot.

"'Left Lashes Out at ‘V’, Obama’Friendly ABC Purges Showrunner"

Last night a brave and insightful documentary was aired that accurately portrayed the wave of ObamaMania that swept the nation. It was called “V” and aired on ABC to mostly rave reviews and tremendous ratings.

"Parallels to Obamamania in ABC's 'V' Sci-Fi Mini-Series, Plus Reporter Helps the Aliens"

The top producer of the mini-series, set to air over the next four Tuesdays and then return in March, denied to USA Today's Levin's any parallels to Obama:

Others on both sides of the political spectrum may point to the visitors' explicit promises of hope, change and universal health care as a pointed reference to pledges of the Obama administration. But [Executive Producer Scott] Peters says the show has been in the works since 2007. Reality was “never really a factor,” he says. “There's no political message being shoved down anyone's throat.”

Obviously, the producer denying the show is an allegory about President Obama is proof that the show is an allegory about President Obama.

"V" Returns

So that's why Obama is hiding his long form birth certificate! Under race, instead of "Colored" or "Negro" it says, "Carnivorous Lizard."

Kudos for working birther denialism and racism into it.

"'V' Premier has Obama's promises all over it"

I watched the premier of the series 'V' on ABC last night with my wife. The press wasn't kidding - it was a frontal assault on Obama's policies. Two scenes in particular were eye-openers. One was later in the show when a suck-up media reporter was interviewing the alien leader "Anna." In the interview, the alien promised what the reported correctly pointed out was "universal healthcare." That is an Obama promise that he can't keep. The other scene was before the interview when the same reporter was being prepped and Anna demanded that he ask no questions that would make the visitors look bad. This is modus operindi of the Obama White House.

"ABC’s “V” A Knock Against The Obama Administration?"

What really grabbed me were the parallels between the V storyline and the realities of the Obama administration.

"'V offering better universal health care than Obama"

I was just drawing paralells with 'V'. They even mentioned Hope and Change!!! I'm surprised that the communications Czar from the Obama administration allowed this show to make it on naitonal t.v.

"The Parallels of V & the Obama Administration"

The simularities are uncanny.V is a television mini series that made its debut last night about Aliens who come to earth. They promise hope and change, health care for all, dictate over the type of press and they have young adults/teenagers in a grass roots campaign dress up in V uniforms to serve them which is kind of reminiscent of Obama's vision of recruiting American youths into his Civilian Defense Force.

That was posted by someone going by the moniker "David Duke is Right"

"ABC’s “V” - A Scathing Critique of the Establishment and Obama"

I tuned into catch the series premiere of ABC’s new Sci-Fi series “V” and was pleasantly surprised. Not only is the show well written and decently acted with a good amount of action and intrigue leaving the viewers wanting more. It is a not-so-thinly veiled critique of Barack Obama and the cult of personality that surrounds him.

One of the biggest points in the series premiere is made by the priest, Father Jack Landry is to not blindly trust the “Visitors” a group of more advanced aliens seeking seemingly peaceful refuge with us and our resources in exchange for technology.

The visitors come from no where. Their leader, Anna, like all the other visitors look like really attractive human beings. She promises peace to Earth’s leaders and assures the planet she is looking to leave it better than when they arrived. Sound familiar?

Yes. Just like Barack Obama coming from the "no where" that is the United States Senate and the far away, distant galaxy that is Chicago.

"ABC Series ‘V’: Invading, Fascist Lizards Arrive With ‘Universal Health Care’ and ‘Message of Hope’ –ABC Network Portrays Aliens, Hell-bent on Destroying Planet Earth, as the Obama Administration"

"Obama Parable?: Brownshirt Lizards Return in ‘V’"

Today, I’m writing to comment on “V,” as I’m sure many viewers missed the parallels of the questions raised in the show regarding our own politics today.

Hollywood script-writing 101 classes tell writers, “If you want to write a good script, write what you know.” Kenneth Johnson, creator of the original “V” series and story writer of the resurrected version, apparently knows his history. For disclosure purposes, I have met him and visited his home many years ago, but don’t know really much about him other than he has a good grasp on good and evil and human, albeit lizard, nature. (Possible political jab that the Left is slimy … even though lizards are not?)

The self-professed blacklisted Christian director goes on to wonder why so many conservatives objected to the protagonist in V for Vendetta blowing up the English parliament building despite it having been "occupied by representatives of the people who later voted in Leftist oppressors." That's right, the film adaptation of an anarchist parable inspired by Alan Moore's disdain for the Thatcher administration, retooled as a post 9/11 parable about trading liberties for the promise of security was really about fighting them evil leftists.

And I saved this link from Glenn Beck's site for last: "Favorite new show for Glenn?"

KEVIN: This could have been a Glenn Beck production. If Glenn Beck wrote this script, it could not have been better.

PAT: Wow.

KEVIN: It was really amazing.

STU: I'm surprised that I mean, there's got to be some part of them that knows that there's going to be a reaction. I think it's going to get people to talk. But also that there is some sort of, some sort of that general sort of angst against the government right now.

...

STU: Is it true reading a little bit about this online and, Kevin, you might know something about this, that one of the strategies of the visitors is to sort of implant people in different, like, levels of government and media and everything else, which is, I mean

KEVIN: This is right out of the Glenn Beck playbook.

STU: It really is.

KEVIN: Yeah. What they did was they sent, you know, a small group here a decade ago or whatever and now some are firmly entrenched in government and some are local news anchors that you recognize.

PAT: Wow.

KEVIN: And all of this stuff.

PAT: Wow.

KEVIN: So that when the rest of them come, there's already this structure as Glenn might call it or a framework.

...

PAT: And there's just a teeny little Glenn Beck fraction that's like, these guys are not what they seem?

Yep, just like the shows writers intended. The resistance fighters in V who have evidence that the visistors are really reptiles who kill humans are obviously supposed to be Glenn Beck.

Gee, why don't these folks cut out the middle man and conclude, like David Icke did after he watched the original '80s series, that reptilian alien "elites" really are trying to implement a one world government.

Torture and cognitive dissonance

From ScienceDaily (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars), a study that suggests that the act of torturing itself leads to the belief that the tortured victim is guilty.

"Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception," says Gray. "It is as though people who know of the victim's pain must somehow convince themselves that it was a good idea -- and so come to believe that the person who was tortured deserved it."

Not all torture victims appear guilty, however. When participants in the study only listened to a recording of a previous torture session -- rather than taking part as witnesses of ongoing torture -- they saw the victim who expressed more pain as less guilty. Gray explains the different results as arising from different levels of complicity.

"Those who feel complicit with the torture have a need to justify the torture, and so link the victim's pain to blame," says Gray. "On the other hand, those distant from torture have no need to justify it and so can sympathize with the suffering of the victim, linking pain to innocence."

This is consistent with the cognitive dissonance model of behavior rationalization.

Pat Boone wants to kill President Obama, figuratively speaking

Nothing sweller than seeing a crappy crooner wax poetic about gassing the "alien rodent" that is Barack Obama to his political death.

In time, it seems to happen to all older houses, no matter how well tended they may be.

All manner of parasites, vermin, roaches, rats, worms and termites find their way into the building. Long before they're detected, they infiltrate the walls, the floors, the roofs – and then chew their way into the structure, the supporting beams and the very foundation of the house itself. Silently, surreptitiously, whole communities of invaders make places for themselves, hidden but thriving, totally unknown by the homeowner.

Then, in time, tell-tale signs are seen. Little droppings, discolored trails, proliferating piles of residue appear in corners, on tabletops, little hanging sacs from ceilings – alarming evidence that the grand old dwelling has been invaded. Decidedly unwelcome creatures have made this place their home, and by their very existence will eventually destroy the house and bring it to ruin.

What can be done, when you learn that your house has already been invaded?

Well, the tried and true remedy is tenting.

Experts come in, actually envelope the whole dwelling in a giant tent – and send a very powerful fumigant, lethal to the varmints and unwelcome creatures, into every nook and cranny of the house. Done thoroughly, every last destructive insect or rodent is sent to varmint hell – and in a day or two, the grand house is habitable again.

[snip]

And they will do just that, drastically … unless we act, decisively and powerfully. Our White House is being eaten away from within. We urgently need to throw a "tent" of public remonstration and outcry over that hallowed abode, to cause them to quake and hunker down inside. And then treat the invaders, the alien rodents, to massive voter gas – the most lethal antidote to would-be tyrants and usurpers.

Again, this is why I call this kind of attitude conservative supremacism: any political outcome different from what is desired by the individual in question is by definition tyrrany, thus there can be no legitimate governance that is not "conservative." In his article, Boone asserts that President Obama thinks himself an emperor. Why? Because he is attempting (lamely in some instances) to promote the issues that he campaigned on, the ones that led to voters to vote and elect him.

The sad irony being that the previous president asserted a pseudo-legal theory of presidential power that was imperial, monarchical in nature; yet that doesn't bother Boone. Even the aspects of the imperial presidency and national security state that President Obama has inherited and continues to use do not seem to bother Boone; actual impingements on civil liberty and encroachments of Executive power do not factor in. Imaginary totalitarianism explaining normal democractic outcomes Boone disagrees with is more important. This is a mentality that helps to enculturate a disrespect for the rule of law, as exemplified by the United States being a culture that will impeach a president for failing to acknowledge a consensual sexual affair but not for waging illegal wars.

And as Dave Neiwert notes, Boone's conservative supremacism is expressed with eliminationist rhetoric.

Remember my discussion of this kind of rhetoric in The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right:

What motivates this kind of talk and behavior is called eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.

Rhetorically, eliminationism takes on certain distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale, the embodiment of evil itself, unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus worthy of elimination. It often further depicts its designated Enemy as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and disease-like cancers on the body politic. A close corollary—but not as nakedly eliminationist—are claims that opponents are traitors or criminals and that they pose a threat to our national security.

Eliminationism is often voiced as crude "jokes," a sense of humor inevitably predicated on venomous hatred. And such rhetoric—we know as surely as we know that night follows day—eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.

Living in his own alternate reality

You may recall I previously observed that virtually everything Andrew Breitbart says appears to be bullshit. Yet this is someone who is promoted by Fox News as a credible figure.

He's just part of the never ending stream of figures who are paraded on the network that live in some imaginary alternate reality. It borders on insane.

Example: Media Matters notes that Breitbart believes that President Obama "turned his domestic army of union thugs on the American people" by telling this fictional army to show up at townhall meetings to physically assault protesters.

Of course, it's easy to become desensitized to the absurdity of someone who holds such a worldview being promoted as a credible figure when it is a common belief of the Republican base that President Obama is deliberately attempting to destroy the American economy in order to install a totalitarian socialist regime.

Quote of the day

"The conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power … has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false." - Theodor Adorno, as quoted by Al Gore in Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis

via Joe Romm's review of Our Choice.

How Goldman Sachs bet on losing

From McClatchy

In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

McClatchy also released another report on Sachs' new role as the taker of people's homes

Theirs is an infrequent happy ending among the hundreds of cases in which subsidiaries of Goldman, better known for sending top officers such as Paulson to serve in top Washington posts, have sought to contain bondholder losses by foreclosing on properties and evicting delinquent borrowers.

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment on individual cases or on the firm's new role in bankruptcy courts.

Joining other Wall Street firms that bought millions of subprime mortgages, Goldman companies have gone to courts from California to Florida seeking approval to foreclose on the homes of middle- and lower-income Americans who couldn't keep up with their loans' soaring monthly payments.

And while people were losing their homes, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was secretly negotiating for Goldman Sachs and AIG against the interests of the US taxpayer.

The history of evolution in cinema

From The X-Change Files (via Framing Science)

Distributors’ concerns about Creation’s marketability are not surprising when we examine the history of cinema in regard to depicting Darwin and evolution. In my academic work I have followed the evolution of how Darwin and evolutionary thought have been depicted in cinema. Darwin’s demonstration of humanity’s link to its primate past was first played for comedic purposes in films of the early twentieth century. Films such as Reversing Darwin’s Theory (1908), The Monkey Man (1908), and Darwin Was Right (1924) poked fun at those who took Darwin’s evolutionary claims seriously. People who believe they are descended from apes will act like apes.

After the highly publicized Scopes Monkey trial in 1925 the notion of a human/primate connection changed from one of comedy to one of horror in cinema. Several post-Scopes films, beginning with The Wizard in 1927, feature “mad evolutionist” characters who design evil experiments in order to prove their “crazy” evolutionary theories about humanity’s connection to the animal world. Likewise, the goal of the mad evolutionists in The Beast of Borneo (1934) and Dr. Renault’s Secret (1942) is to prove humanity’s link to the animal kingdom. In front of a chart detailing the evolutionary “ladder of life,” the mad evolutionist Dr. Mirakle (played by Bela Lugosi) from Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) informs an unbelieving carnival audience that “the shadow of the ape hangs over us all” and that he will mix human and gorilla blood to “prove Man’s connection with the ape.” While this evolutionary-minded scientist is ultimately punished for his heretical conceptions, the film actually conveys the human/primate connection through Mirakle’s grotesque appearance and his clearly “animalistic” actions. In mad evolutionist films, the only human beings with a clear connection to primates are the evolution spouting evil scientists and their simian-like assistants.

Recognizing the uphill battle facing the Darwin biopic Creation, the blogger notes that given this cinematic history and the on-going antipathy fundamentalists have to Darwin and evolutionary theory, it's:

unfortunate given how well the film depicts Darwin’s conflict with his wife over faith, his struggles concerning his theory’s moral implications, and his disagreements with his colleagues (especially T.H. Huxley). Most importantly, the film humanizes Darwin through his grief.