Part I: Sex Robots
Part II: Sex Teachers
Part III: Lingerie Bowl
Part IV: Panty Bandits
Part V: Hooters Haircuts
Part VI: Sexy Stripper Scam
Part VII: Stripper Fitness
Part VIII: Exotic Erotic Ball
FOX News Has the Story
08 November 2007
Clinton, Immigration, Clinton, and Carlson
07 November 2007
During the "lightning round" of the recent Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton was asked a question about Eliot Spitzer's New York plan that would allow illegal aliens to obtain limited drivers' licenses. Clinton responded that, although she did not think that was the best way to handle the issue, she understood that, in the face of our failure to achieve comprehensive national immigration reform, this could serve as a remedial measure that would get "people to come out of the shadows." Leaving the wisdom of such programs aside, her answer seemed perfectly clear to me at the time.
In all these past debates, the candidates have been evasive about various issues. I've watched these things in frustration as candidates would bob and weave, change the subject, and start talking about Republicans or socialism, or whatever it is they preferred to be arguing against. Clinton was particularly slick about this, and it frustrated me how the moderators and commentators largely ignored it. Maybe they'd back up and ask for a clearer answer to their particular question, but nobody made a big deal about it. That's why it surprised me so much when all the talking heads chose this answer to jump all over her. All this time, they've ignored legitimate evasiveness and outright lies by the candidates. But now, when a candidate adds nuance in a response to a complicated question, everyone gets confused and outraged that she didn't give a quick yes/no answer.
Anyone who's watched the network news in the past week knows what I'm talking about. On top of the usual talking heads, the other Democratic contenders also portrayed this as a case of double-talk (EDWARDS: "Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago;" OBAMA: "I can't tell whether she was for it or against it. And I do think that is important. One of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we face").
Bill Clinton responded to this phenomenon:
"The point I'm here to make to you is whoever you're for, this is a really big election. We saw what happened the last seven years when we made decisions in elections based on trivial matters. When we listened to people make snide comments about whether Vice President Gore was too stiff."And when they made dishonest claims about the things that he said that he'd done in his life. When that scandalous Swift Boat ad was run against Senator Kerry. When there was an ad that defeated Max Cleland in Georgia, a man that left half his body in Vietnam. And a guy that led several departments ... with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden because he dared to vote against the president's version of the Homeland Security bill. Most Americans still don't know the truth. The president was against the Homeland Security Bill for 8 1/2 months.
"And Karl Rove told him they were going to lose the 2002 election unless the American people were scared about terror again. So they decided to be for a bill they opposed. And they put a poison pill in it. That bill was designed by the president to take the job rights away from 170,000 federal employees that had no access to secure information, no access to secure technology. No business being treated like CIA. We need to be able to fire CIAs. .. But we don't need to treat secretaries at FEMA that way. The whole thing was a scam.
"So Max Cleland said, I didn't go to Vietnam and leave one arm and two legs to come home and hold my job by stripping the job rights of 170,000 good, hardworking Americans. I don't want to do it. So they put an ad on comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Why am I saying this?
"Because, I had the feeling that at the end of that last debate we were about to get into cutesy land again. Ya'll raise your hand if you're for illegal immigrants getting a driver's license. So, we then let the Republicans go ahead saying all the Democrats are against the rule of law.
"I think it's fine to discuss immigration. We should. I believe immigration needs to be discussed. And it's fine for Hillary and all the other Democrats to discuss Governor Spitzer's plan. But not in 30 seconds, yes, no, raise your hand. This is a complicated issue. This is a complicated issue.
"So do I hope you vote for my wife? You bet I do. It'd be good for America, and good for the world. But, more than that I came here to tell you today, don't you dare let them take this election away from you. This belongs to you.
"Don't be diverted, don't be divided. Thank you ... "
Obvious conflicts in interest aside, I think that the point he's making here is a solid one: political pundits focus in on soundbites and allow them to turn into major issues (often despite their dishonest or misleading nature, and always omitting any trace of nuance). You get the candidates to give simple yes/no, for/against statements to complicated issues, and then you pounce with oversimplified soundbites and campaign ads.
The defense of Hillary Clinton crossed over from the strident to the ridiculous, according to the AP prospective first gentleman compared his wife‘s experience in last Tuesday‘s Democratic debate to the experience of John Kerry with the swift boat veterans for truth in the ‘04 presidential campaign. Was Bill Clinton serious? Did that comparison do more harm than good to his wife‘s run for the presidency?
[...]
Bill Clinton says his wife is swift boated. She is being criticized by both parties for position on giving driver‘s licenses to illegal aliens. They say she‘s a flip flopper. Could both parties be wrong?
[...]
Swift boating, it used to describe riding the rivers of Vietnam in search of the enemy now part of the American political lexicon particularly on the whiney left. It refers to group of former soldiers, sailors and marines called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who according to Democratic Party mythology unfairly kept John Kerry from taking his rightful place in the White House in ‘04.So when Bill Clinton in speech to the postal workers union compared the treatment his wife received after waffling her way through last week‘s debate to swift boating, some wondered whether the Clinton campaign was cracking under the pressure of being the frontrunner. Or was trotting out the defense to defend his poor piled upon wife smart politics?
[...]
It‘s cry baby politics, it‘s woe me, how dare you attack me, that‘s the M.O. that we saw for eight years while the Clintons were in Washington. And it‘s also - it is though. Everyone is mean to me, oh, it‘s bias. You don‘t like me because of my politics, for ever it‘s ignoring the validity of the central question. What is your position on driver‘s license, I still don‘t know what her position is.
Coupled with the recent misleading claims about Clinton playing "the gender card," it seems like the media pundits are creating a narrative where Clinton is some sort of weak front-runner who complains everytime somebody criticizes her. All of this, mind you, has been based on a single sentence about presidential politics being an "all-boys club" (note: she's the only female among 17 presidential candidates, and that statement was true), and a single sentence by Bill Clinton using the Swift Boat advertisements as an example to make a larger point.
UPDATE: It looks like there are plenty of other news outlets that are more than happy to pass this oversimplified and inaccurate meme along.
The New York Daily News:
Democratic White House candidates ridiculed Bill Clinton Tuesday for suggesting they were trying to sink Hillary Clinton's bid with slimy Swift boat-style attacks.
...
Bill Clinton theorized the recent Democratic debate in Philadelphia, in which Hillary Clinton was criticized for zigzagging on Gov. Spitzer's controversial driver's license plan, veered dangerously close to intraparty character assassination.
The New York Post (big surprise):
The rebukes came after Bill took a swipe at his wife's rivals. He likened recent Democratic attacks against his wife to a "scandalous" 2004 ad by John Kerry's fellow swift boat Vietnam veterans, questioning the candidate's military valor.CBS' The Early Show:
HANNAH STORM (anchor): What do you make of Bill Clinton criticizing Hillary Clinton's Democratic rivals, saying they were swift-boating her?
However, it looks like Bill O'Reilly has had the journalistic integrity to see through this one, even when being baited by Hannah Storm:
Three cheers for not buying in to rumors.O'REILLY: No. I think they make it up. You know, it's -- and I do this because they make stuff up about me. They make stuff up about any controversial figure. So, they're sitting around going, "What can we say about Bill Clinton?" We tracked it yesterday, and we couldn't find any Swift boat reference that Bill Clinton --
STORM: So you're saying he never said it?
O'REILLY: I don't know. I couldn't find it. I didn't report it. I couldn't find it. I had a segment last night on The Factor. I couldn't find it.
STORM: What's Barack Obama's stance, then?
O'REILLY: I don't know.
STORM: Because he's criticizing Bill -- he's taking on Bill Clinton.
CNN Starts to Fact-Check Giuliani
It's a good start, but this still leaves a lot to be desired. First of all, Wolf leads off by saying, "Some are now questioning whether the Republican front-runner got his facts straight." No, they're not. They're telling you that he got his facts wrong. And they're absolutely right (see here and here). Furthermore, not only were the facts just plain wrong, but they were also misleading on another level (something that shouldn't be ignored, either).
Wolf's CNN correspondent doesn't do much better. According to her, "Well, according to a lot of the folks we talked to, in fact, all of the folks we talked to, they said he did not get his numbers right." When every expert you talk to says that Giuliani's 44% figure was wrong (almost by half), it's safe for you to call it "wrong," instead of devolving into the normal he-said-she-said journalism. Furthermore, it's safe to call Giuliani a liar and a dissembler when he keeps on repeating the claims he knows to be false and misleading.
Perhaps due to this lazy-to-nonexistant journalism, Rudy Giuliani has stuck by his false claims, and says that he will keep on repeating them. Yet for some reason, the media keeps on focusing on Clinton's non-existent playing of "the gender card," and keeps on ignoring this outright false claim. Where are your priorities, people?
UPDATE: The Washington Post does a better job here, but the headline is still way off (the figures are not "questionable" - they're "spectacularly wrong").
Rudy Giuliani vs. John McCain on Torture
06 November 2007
Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that involves either immersing a person in water, forcing water into his nose and mouth, or pouring water onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. As a result, the person being waterboarded experiences "the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut." The goal is to make the person suffer until they tell you what you want to hear.
The United States has long considered this practice to constitute torture. In fact, we have convicted Japanese soldiers for torturing U.S. soldiers by waterboarding during World War II.
Despite all this, when asked whether waterboarding constitutes torture, Rudy Giuliani recently said "I'm not sure... It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it."
No, it doesn't. Whether you do it to Ghandi or Osama's limo driver, it's still torture. Whether the United States or Iran does it does not make any difference whatsoever. Whether you cause permanent brain damage or not is immaterial. You're still making a person physically suffer the sensation of drowning in order to get them to speak. You can maybe make the argument that "torture is useful in our war against terrorism because it makes people speak," but that's an entirely different issue. Its usefulness does nothing to alter the fact that it is indeed torture.
[Future Attorney General Michael Mukasey has similarly said that he can't say whether or not waterboarding is torture - but that's another story]
From Rudy Giuliani's interview with Bloomberg TV:
MR. HUNT: Let me try a couple of national security questions. Waterboard. You have noted the Congress has not outlawed it, and that you say it's not necessarily torture; it depends on the circumstances. John McCain says you are wrong and he says you haven't served in the military and have no experience in the conduct of warfare. Do you know more about torture than John McCain?Comparing waterboarding to a prosecutor's "intensive questioning" of mafia suspects is beyond absurd. That is, unless Giuliani held their heads under water until they talked (which I doubt he did).
MR. GIULIANI: I can't say that I do but I do know a lot about intensive questioning and intensive questioning techniques. After all, I have had a different experience than John. John has never been - he has never run city, never run a state, never run a government. He has never been responsible as a mayor for the safety and security of millions of people, and he has never run a law enforcement agency, which I have done.Now, intensive questioning works. If I didn't use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of mafia guys running around New York right now and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is. Intensive question has to be used. Torture should not be used. The line between the two is a difficult one.
John McCain (who was tortured in Vietnam) called him out on this:
“When someone says waterboarding is similar to harsh interrogation techniques used against the mafia in New York City, they do not have enough experience to lead our military,” McCain said Sunday night at a town-hall meeting here.I think he's got the right sentiment here, except I would replace the word "experience" with either "morality" or "honesty."
FOX News Equates Religious Proclamations With Patriotism
05 November 2007
In 1822, James Madison explained the Constitutional separation between Church and State when he wrote that, "Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together." At the time, our national motto was E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One).
In 1956, a Communist-fearing country chose to ignore James Madison's words and distinguish ourselves from the USSR atheists by adopting "In God we Trust" as our new "national motto."
Today, "In God We Trust — America Inc." (not to be confused with the Dead Kennedys album "In God We Trust, Inc.") has a referendum on the ballot in California where voters will decide whether or not to put the phrase "In God We Trust" in their public school classrooms. Not surprisingly, FOX News has a predictably awful column in which they equate the measure with an act of patriotism.
Let's examine one sentence from the story:And she believes that most Americans have faith in God, so having the national motto posted in school shouldn't offend anyone.
Her argument: Most Americans believe in God, therefore no Americans will be offended if we use the United States government to promote a religious belief that 15% of Americans do not share. That conclusion most certainly does not follow. But Sullivan merely replies: "Sometimes you have to go with the majority." Nevermind the significant minority.
Let's examine another:The councilwoman, who said she is a registered Republican and a Christian who attends a local Baptist church, told FOXNews.com that she has neither a religious nor a political agenda in pushing for the measure. "It’s not political. It’s not religious. It’s patriotism," Sullivan said.
But let's take a look at how she defines "patriotism.""American patriotism is love of God and love of country.
No. Patriotism is love of country. Religious belief is love of God. They're two different things. Something James Madison thought abundantly clear, and necessary to separate for the sake of both.
Also to nobody's surprise, there is not a single critical word of the proposal in the entire FOX article. Just a long story about why some people love it and think it's important, while "Other Bakersfield residents said there's nothing wrong with posting the nation's motto on classroom walls — even if it does mention God."
There is just one sentence, near the end, that reads: "Two other members on the five-person board have said they do not support the proposal." You'd think that the journalists at FOX would at least maybe include the reasons why.
All in all, I think that measures such as these trivialize religion, do nothing to promote patriotism, make non-believers out to be un-American (see George H.W. Bush: "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God"), and ultimately just promotes a view that confuses ecclesiastical and civil matters.
Vox Day on Galileo
But there can no longer be any doubt that scientism has become a dogmatic article of faith, and ironically, one that is even more narrow-minded and authoritarian than the medieval Catholic church. For centuries, the primary basis for the secularist belief that science and religion are inherently opposed has been Pope Urban VIII's "persecution" of Galileo for the crime of arguing that the Earth revolved around the sun; as Dinesh D'Souza noted in last week's interview, this myth has persisted primarily because it serves the interests of the anti-religious narrative that remains popular despite its fictional nature. Ironically, Pope Urban VIII was correct in the end, as there is not an astronomer or physicist in the world today who would disagree with the material basis for the church's condemnation of Galileo's heretical notion: "The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd. " The infamous pope was far more open-minded than the scientists currently attacking James Watson for his belief in human inequality. Not only did he grant Galileo the right to write a book on heliocentrism, but actually asked the father of modern physics to provide arguments for and against the matter, demonstrating a devotion to reason that was wholly lacking in the rush to lynch the father of the double-helix's sin against modern secular orthodoxy. First off, why is the word "persecution" in scare quotes? I can hardly think of a situation that warrants the label of persecution more than this. Second, even though the Sun is not an immovable center of the Universe, that was not the basis of Urban VIII's objection. His position was that the Earth was the absolute immovable center of the Universe. He believed this to be true based on several Bible verses (Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, 1 Chronicles 16:30), rather than on observational science. Furthermore, he categorized the alternate position as heresy, a crime warranting torture and death. Third, Theodore Beale is way too generous with regard to Pope Urban VIII. According to Beale, "Not only did he grant Galileo the right to write a book on heliocentrism, but actually asked the father of modern physics to provide arguments for and against the matter." However, this is not an act of open-mindedness. Urban required that Galileo include arguments against heliocentrism, and prohibited Galileo from ever speaking in anything other than the hypothetical voice (hence the dialogue format of his book). Furthermore, when he thought Galileo had gone too far in his actual publication, he threatened the man with torture and death unless he recanted. In contrast, the people Beale labels as being less open-minded have not threatened Watson with torture or death, and have freely permitted him to express his views. The fact that many people disagree with him, whether justifiable or not, is in no way comparable to the Galileo affair.
After the publication of his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was brought before the Spanish Inquisition by Pope Urban VIII and faced with the choice of either recanting his "formally heretical" beliefs in heliocentrism, or enduring torture and death. Galileo chose the former (Giordano Bruno, a fellow Copernican, had recently been burnt alive for similar crimes of heresy).
300 years later, WorldNetDaily columnist Theodore Beale (a.k.a. Vox Day) wrote a column downplaying the incident, and claiming that the recent James Watson controversy was either comparable or worse.
Pat Boone Gets Out the Anti-Gay Vote
04 November 2007
Aging musician Pat Boone (pictured above clad in leather) has a new automated phone call spreading through Kentucky aimed at getting the anti-gay vote out for the upcoming gubernatorial race. In the message, Boone rhetorically asks: "Now do you want a governor who'd like Kentucky to be another San Francisco?"
Audio here.
Rudy Giuliani and The New York Times
03 November 2007
From Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting:
Krugman notes that when Rudolph Giuliani makes a wildly false assertion about healthcare policy in a campaign ad, the political media treat it as a ho-hum story. Compare the Times' story (10/31/07) on Giuliani's false figures on prostate cancer--500 words at the bottom of an inside page, wrongly calling the candidate's claims "disputed"--with the Times' report (10/30/07) on trivial-to-imaginary discrepancies in Barack Obama's 25-year-old memories of his time in New York, which got 1,500 words and the front page of the Metro section.
FOX News Has the Story - Part VIII
Vox Day and Dinesh D'Souza
02 November 2007
Dinesh D'Souza is out promoting his new book What's So Great About Christianity. As a result, we get to enjoy some really bad editorials and interviews. This is what Dinesh D'Souza had to say in a recent interview with Vox Day:The first is a case that I try to make that Christianity is responsible for the core institutions and values that secular people, and even atheists, cherish. If you look at books by leading atheists and you make a list of the values that they care about, things like the right to individual defense, the notion of personal dignity, equality and respect for women, opposition to social hierarchy and slavery, compassion as a social value, the idea of self-government and representative government, and so forth, you'll see that many of these things came into the world because of Christianity.
Let's just examine really quickly what the Bible has to say about each of those "values that secular people, and even atheists, cherish."
(1) "the right to individual defense"
First off, this seems like a weird thing to include. I don't think that Christianity, or any philosophy, can claim to be the source of "respecting individual defense." It's really just something that's reflexive, and it's common in every society ever.
Nonetheless, the Bible has some counter-intuitive things to say on the subject:
"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."[Matthew 5: 38-42]
(2) "the notion of personal dignity"
Again, is Dinesh claiming that Christianity is the source of "the notion of personal dignity"? This seems like another blatant case of over-reaching.
It's worth pointing out, however, that the Old Testament God all-too-frequently ordered his people to rape and kill innocent women and children. Here is one example:
Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives ravished.[Isaiah 13:15-18]See, I will stir up against them the Medes, who do not care for silver and have no delight in gold.
Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants nor will they look with compassion on children.
(3) "equality and respect for women"
Is Dinesh really going to make the argument that Christianity is the source of equality and respect for women? Here are just two samples of what the Bible says about equality for women:
women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.[1 Corinthians 14:34-35]
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
[Ephesians 5:23-25]
(4) "opposition to social hierarchy and slavery"
Whoa, there. Really?
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
"If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property."[Exodus 21:20]
"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh."[1 Peter 2:18]
(5) "compassion as a social value"
Another case of some really amazing over-reaching. As if nobody thought of compassion as a social value before Christianity.
(6) "the idea of self-government and representative government"
You're kidding me, right? The idea undeniably pre-dates Christianity. This argument is simply a bad one.
It's one thing to say that some of these things were incorporated into Christianity somehow. It's quite another to claim (as Dinesh the exaggerator does), that Christianity is the source of all these wonderful things (and, as a consequence, that Atheists should be thanking Christians).
I'm glad that modern Christians and atheists (and lots of other people who don't fall into either of those categories) value these things today (sometimes in spite of what the Bible said 2000 years ago). But it really frustrates me when people like Dinesh D'Souza try to claim that their philosophy is the originator of all these values. It's a claim that's easily disproven, yet all-too-frequently made.
Rudy Giuliani's Prostate
Rudy Giuliani has a new campaign advertisement about his prostate:
According to Rudy Giuliani, “My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and, thank God, I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.” There are a few problems with this, though.
(1) The statistic is just plain wrong.
The former New York mayor did survive prostate cancer, but otherwise his statistical claims were not difficult to debunk, as reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC and other news outlets quickly discovered. Giuliani had picked up his numbers from an article in City Journal, a publication of the right-wing Manhattan Institute, and simply repeated them in public without bothering to check their validity. Unfortunately, they were essentially fraudulent figures, extrapolated inaccurately from old data (by a doctor who also advises the Giuliani campaign on healthcare).
Accurate and current data, easily available from public health agencies and medical authorities, shows that the survival rate from prostate cancer in England is better than 74 percent.
As the Journal of the National Cancer Institute wrote [PDF]: "similarity of mortality rates between the two populations supports the hypothesis that risk of fatal prostate cancer among British men does not differ from that among US white men. More intensive screening procedures, such as prostate-specific antigen testing, in the United States is the most likely explanation for the widening gap in incidence." In other words, we diagnose a lot of cancers that aren't lethal or are slow-moving enough to not require treatment. Saying, from that data, that we've got twice the survival rate is like saying we have a lower death rate from car crashes because we record more near-misses in the statistics.
(3) The average age of diagnosis for prostate cancer is 70. Therefore, you can expect that a whole hell of a lot of the people saved in the United States have Medicare (see "Socialized Medicine") to thank.
(4) The treatment used upon Rudy Giuliani was developed in a country with universal, single payer health care (see "Socialized Medicine").
[T]he technique used on Giuliani, prostate brachytherapy--using radioactive seeds--was pioneered in the modern era by a physician in Denmark, and brought to the US by one of his students.
http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/reprint/50/6/380.pdf
You'd think a guy whose life was saved by bradytherapy would admit, however grudgingly, that European socialized medicine ain't all bad.
I'm disappointed, but not surprised, that this story hasn't received more attention. Instead, I just watched the Democratic debates on MSNBC, and they preferred to ask questions such as "What are you going to be for Halloween this year?" and "Do you believe in extraterrestrial life?"
Instead of covering this issue (where the top contender for a party's nomination lies about one of the biggest domestic issues), there are endless segments covering topics like "Is Hillary being evasive?" (see here, here) and "Is Hillary playing the gender card?" (see here, here).
There is something seriously wrong here.
FOX News Has the Story - Part VII
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