Friday, May 30, 2008

R. Kelly Trial: Week in Review (even though you lost interest 5 years ago)


This week, the child-porn trial of R&B auteur R. Kelly caught an unpleasant case of blue balls. Key witness Lisa Van Allen was never actually called to the stand as expected, so everyone speculated about what she was supposed to say: She had an ongoing love affair with Kelly and at one point participated in a ménage a trois with the girl said to be in the video. Swear! The woman plans to come forward and say that she, too, had sex with a minor. (Juries and judges love this shit!) Also, they videotaped it, though the tape is nowhere to be found and not to be discussed. Hearsay all, of course. Other than the fact that R. Kelly's life is potentially stranger than his videos, what did we learn, if anything?



R. Kelly's "mole defense" is getting hairy. Upon further review, experts now claim to see a mole on the man in the video, a "maybe-cancerous" mark Kelly sports on this lower back. If you stare long enough, you also see a 3-D unicorn.


Never show the hired help your inner freak. Lindsey Perryman, a former personal assistant to Kelly, testified that she is "110 percent sure" that the man in the video is Kelly, and that the girl in the video is his goddaughter—who was between the ages of 12 and 13 at the time. She cites as evidence the girl's comely cheekbones.

Music journalists: stick to writing reviews if you want to avoid taking the stand. The Sun-Times writer who first broke the Kelly story, Jim DeRogatis, may have to testify as to the provenance of the tape in question and whether he made kinky copies for home viewing. Our guess for the latter: Yes, yes he did (and good for him!).

• And this Lisa Van Allen chick? Heavy drama with her ex and her fiancée. To start, her betrothed can't shut the hell up, dishing to the Chicago Tribune on each and every intimate detail of the woman's life. Her ex, on the other hand, he's the silent gangster type, and was asked by the defense to testify as to what kind of woman Van Allen really is. Namely, a slutty liar who's also the mother of his baby. (Interesting side note: Van Allen once starred in a Kelly video as a hair-braider, a role that just so happens to be the title of Kelly's most recent single. Actually, that's not very interesting.)

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Online Paper Refers to Madison's Brat Fest as a "Record Breaking Sausage Fest"


Organizers of Brat Fest in Madison, Wis., say the event broke its own world record by selling 191,712 bratwurst sausages during its four-day run.

Tim Metcalfe, one of the organizers, said the 2004 record of 189,432 brats was beaten when a huge dinner rush near the end of the festival led to 10,000 brats being sold in a single hour, The (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal reported Tuesday.

The stage bands got up and said, 'If everybody buys one brat right now, we can break this record,' Metcalfe said. I think everybody just had one more.

Metcalfe estimated the bratwurst celebration raised more than $100,000 for the charities chosen by volunteer servers.

The Post-Chronicle

Former Bush Aide: Bush Administration Not As Perfect As You Thought



Remember Scott McClellan? He was the doughy White House press secretary whose goofy incompetence served as a lighthearted bridge between Ari Fleischer's nerdy intransigence and Tony Snow's polished duplicity. (We haven't yet figured out a descriptor for current briefer Dana Perino, but since the Bush administration is, at this point, one prolonged exercise in running out the clock, it doesn't make much of a difference.) Anyway, old Scott's gone and published a memoir called What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, in which he says some not so nice things about his former employers. The highlights:

President Bush "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment... to this day, the president seems unbothered by the disconnect between the chief rationale for war and the driving motivation behind it."

• Both Scotty and the president were victims of deceit over the Valerie Plame affair: "He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth—including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheneyallowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie."

• Hurricane Katrina? Not so good for the administration. "One of the worst disasters in our nation's history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush's presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush's second term. And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath."

• The war in Iraq was a needless conflict sold on deception and propaganda, with an assist from the media: "If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. ... In this case, the 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

• Bush may very well have tried meth, heroin, and PCP, but due to the voluminous quantities he used to consume, he burned away the part of his brain that retained those memories. "'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'"

• Karl Rove once ate three entire boxes of Krispy Kreme Doughnut Holes in front of a starving chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey, who had been made to go a week without food as punishment for revealing the cost of the war to the Wall Street Journal.

Okay, that last one is made up, but if it weren't it would be the only revelatory thing in the book. The administration lied about Iraq and Valerie Plame? They fucked up Katrina? Bush did drugs? The media was spineless and craven during the march to war? If there's anyone out there to whom this comes as a shock, What Happened is available in certain Washington bookstores now. Should you somehow manage to dress yourself and find your way to the shops, you'll be able to discover many more stunning secrets like these.

Via Radar

Social networking for babies???

Now there's social networking for babies, with a bunch of Web sites that do the same thing as My Space and Facebook, but for the toddler set.

Babyspot (www.babyspot.com), Bundlo (www.bundlo.com), MyBabyOurBaby (www.mybabyourbaby.com) and an about-to-launch site called TotSpot (www.totspot.com) are now busily competing to get your baby's profile online.

Big-time ideas. Who likes to brag more than parents, except perhaps grandparents? And they can get into the craze, too, contributing their own content and networking with other grandparents.

Privacy is a big part of the baby sites. before you join one and start posting all the details about your baby and the family, make sure you can limit who gets to see all the details.

You can see where this is heading.

Playgroups and playdates will be arranged online, baby-sitters sought, shared and booked, and first words, first steps and first potty successes will be chronicled and digitally preserved to forever haunt the child as he grows into the easily embarrassed years.


Detroit Free Press

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

News from the White House: George Bush is not on the ticket

An important announcement from the White House: George Bush is not, repeat, not running for President in 2008. Or as Dana Perino put it:

But remember this election is -- the President is not on the ticket.

But remember, he's not on the ticket.

But again, President Bush isn't on the ticket.

Well, okay, then, no, I'm not -- I'm seeking nothing but to tell you that the President is not on the ticket...

And so begins the tightrope walk we can expect for the next six months. Assurances that Bush is "fully committed, 100 percent committed, to making sure that John McCain is elected to be the next President," while doing everything they can to put distance between John McCain and George Bush. When questioned (six times) on whether Bush and McCain would appear in public together, the best Perino could do was to say, "stay tuned," and to remind reporters that:

President Bush is a formidable campaign fundraiser, as has been reported over the years, and I expect that he'll continue to be.

So, how is that working out?

A Tuesday fundraiser headlined by President Bush for U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is being moved out of the Phoenix Convention Center.

Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.

With the need for repeated reminders that George Bush is not on the ticket, dodging questions about public appearances and failing fundraisers, John McCain is learning that running to carry out the third term of the most unpopular president in history is hard work.


Via: Kos

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Not quite a bobblehead



The St. Paul Saints, long known for offbeat, sometimes edgy, promotions, have come up with a real doozy for this Sunday's game.

While lots of sports franchises hand out bobblehead dolls, usually depicting their players, the Saints are handing out 2,500 "bobblefoot" knicknacks.

The keepsakes consist of a miniature bathroom stall with a couple of lower legs and feet. One of the feet is springloaded and "taps," which, the Saints' press release says, is in honor of National Tap Dance Day.

Right.

The team also takes pains to note: "It doesn't matter if your tapping style is done with a 'wide stance' or is used as some sort of code."
That's a none-too-subtle reference to Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig, who pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct after an undercover police officer arrested him for allegedly soliciting sex in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The undercover officer who arrested Craig said the senator's foot-tapping, bumping feet and swiping his hand under the bathroom stall amounted to well-known code used in soliciting sex.

Craig, however, said his foot-tapping was the result of the fact that he has "a wide stance."

Star-Tribune

Monday, May 19, 2008

America: John McCain is lying right to your face.

Here is some video to prove it:



It is crucial that we alert the public to the REAL McCain, and it is crucial we act now, before it's too late.

A big thank you to Brave New Films for the pretty pictures of the senile old man lying on camera.

Friday, May 16, 2008

N.K. OH PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!!!!



The progress made in the last 15 years by five once-young men toward being taken seriously as actors, singers, or dancers, for that matter—melted away this morning in Rockefeller Center under cloudy, rainy skies. New Kids On the Block were out on the plaza at the Today show.

Braving the drizzle were a fresh batch of screaming teens too young to appreciate the irony of a New Kids comeback (or their own DayGlo nu rave apparel, for that matter). Their moms, now roughly the same age as the band, do.

One has to wonder if Lou Pearlman gets NBC on the tube in the rec center of the Orange County jail.

Baby subpoenaed for unpaid chiropractor bill

HARRISONBURG, Va. (AP) -- A Harrisonburg court has dismissed a case against a baby boy summoned to appear in court for an unpaid bill. Richard White said he was shocked when he got a subpoena in the mail requiring his 1-year-old son, Jacy, to appear in Rockingham County General District Court next Tuesday over a $391 chiropractor bill.

Neither of Jacy's parents was named in the lawsuit, which has been dismissed at the request of the plaintiff.

Shortly after his son's birth in April 2007, White says he took Jacy to the chiropractor. He suspects that when the family moved, the office updated records for everyone but Jacy.

White says his insurance didn't cover the $391 and only recently billed him - about the same time the residents of his former home forwarded the subpoena.


St. Cloud (Minn) Times

Thursday, May 15, 2008

New revealing Starbucks logo has group screaming 'Slutbucks!'

Beware of the above two-tailed mermaid, for she is quite a seductress, who hails from a city called Seattle... She will steal your soul.... after all your money.


Seems that one person's smut is another person's morning latte.

A Christian group out of San Diego has found grounds for outrage over the new logo for Starbucks Coffee.

The Resistance says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves, Slutbucks."


The group, which claims more than 3,000 members nationwide, is calling for a national boycott of the coffee-selling giant.

The logo is a throw-back to what the chain used when it first opened in Seattle more than 35 years ago.

The explanation for that initial log design is explained in the book "Pour Your Heart into It : How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time," written by company founder Howard Schultz:

"[Creative partner Terry Heckler] poured over old marine books until he came up with a logo based on an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren, encircled by the store's original name, Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice. That early siren, bare-breasted and Rubenesque, was supposed to be as seductive as coffee itself."

Star-Trib

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Windows Live Search is dirty!!!!!!


So I am at work... Minding my own business and a co-worker asked me to search for help with an Internet Explorer iFrame exception, so I was in IE 7 which uses Windows Live as the default search and after typing in "IE iFrame exception" into the search box and doing a search the results came back typical... Except for the last one on the page:

Monday, May 12, 2008

Minnesota Governor Jokes About Lack Of Sex Life

MINNEAPOLIS ― Gov. Tim Pawlenty spent the fishing opener with his wife, Mary Pawlenty, on Big Pelican Lake in Breezy Point, Minn.

If an aside uttered by Pawlenty on Mike Max's radio show on WCCO-AM is any indication, they may very well have spent their every waking moment fishing.

"I have a wife who genuinely loves to fish. I mean, she will take the lead and ask me to go out fishing, and joyfully comes here," the governor said before adding, "She loves football, she'll go to hockey games and, I jokingly say, 'Now, if I could only get her to have sex with me.'"

The governor quickly clarified, "It's a joke, it's a joke."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty landed a 17-inch walleye Saturday during the Governor's 60th Annual Fishing Opener at Breezy Point on Pelican Lake, but Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau reeled in a 19-inch walleye about two-and-a-half hours earlier.

Mary Pawlenty, who was fishing with her husband, said she got a few bites, but nothing in the boat.

Listen to the Audio by clicking HERE

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Michael Vick's idea of what a Hybrid Car Is?


KNBC - Los Angeles

Mike Gravel to Superman That Ho?


The Mike Gravel-Obama Girl video is finally done. It is a must-see in which Gravel anoints himself "MC Gravel-a-helicopter" and starts Soulja Boy dancing with Obama Girl and a bunch of other young ladies. I read that the former Alaska senator learned the dance (and the "out of tune singing") all in a single day, and it's thought to be the first time a presidential candidate has so shamelessly employed hip-hop tactics to entice voters since Hillary Clinton started crip-walking during a town hall event in South Carolina.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Whizzinator Backfires for Man on Probation



JACKSONVILLE, FL -- One man let too much hang out during a trip to the bathroom.

Police say Timothy Harris, 28, went to use the facilities for a urine test. He's on probation.

Harris pulled down his shorts, and to his dismay a supervising officer spotted something non-anatomical.

The officer noticed Harris had a Whizzinator bag to help him pass the drug test.

For those not up on this type of technology, the Whizzinator is a prosthetic device, complete with heating pads, to hide samples of urine for test purposes.

The company even says its "foolproof."

Harris' Whizzinator is now evidence in the property room at JSO headquarters.

Harris is now in jail.

First Coast News

Driver kills dog, sues owners



Soon after a car struck and killed a dog just north of Cloquet, MN the driver added insult to the injury: He filed suit against the family for the damage done to his vehicle.

Fester, a miniature pinscher, already had been through a lot in his short life. When he was 7 weeks old, he had to be resuscitated twice in 2001 after suffering multiple grand mal seizures, a reaction to vaccines he had received days earlier. He suffered brain damage that made him a slow learner, owner Nikki Munthe said.

The family named him Fester after the character from the Adams Family because “he really was not that bright,” she said. The purebred had recovered, though, and made a loving companion to her three young daughters.

On the night of Jan. 4, Fester squeezed past Munthe as she was letting in her other dog and ran out onto Morris Thomas Road.

Jeffery Ely was driving along the road at the same time and didn’t see Fester. His 1997 Honda Civic struck the 13-pound dog, killing him instantly. Now Ely is suing the Munthes for about $1,100 for damages to his car, time he had to take off from his two jobs to get the car repaired and court fees.

Pieces of the bumper were propelled into the radiator when it hit the dog, Ely said, necessitating a replacement. Ely maintains the radiator issues were not pre-existing because he didn’t have problems driving until after the accident.

The case will be heard in St. Louis County Court on Friday at 1:15 p.m.

The CBS court show “Judge Joe Brown” contacted Ely after he filed his suit, offering both parties a free trip to California if they agreed to have their case tried on television. Munthe said she and her husband considered it but decided against appearing because she didn’t want to “glamorize” what happened.

Ely said he feels sorry for the family’s loss but, as a fellow dog owner, feels strongly that they must be responsible for their pets’ actions. He spent more than $600 putting a fence in his backyard to keep his dogs contained.

“I have complete compassion for them,” Ely said. “I know how it feels. I love dogs. But once you get them, they are your responsibility.”

The Munthes have filed a $2,400 countersuit against Ely for the cost to buy Fester, the time they had to take off work for court appearances and the cost of buying a dog to replace Fester.

Duluth News-Tribune

Obama wins big in NC and narrowly loses IN...

Total number of delegates gained on the day:

Obama 91


Clinton 79


A 58-42 victory in NC and a very, very close 51-49 loss for Obama in the Hoosier state should signal the end of the Democratic contest, right?

Yet, of course, the headline this morning? "Clinton Vows to Continue"

UGH!!!! Let it go, Senator Clinton. It's been a long, hard-fought contest, but please, concede and rest up for another shot some other time. Obama now has 1,836 delegates according to CNN's count, with around 200 left to be pledged from states that are expected to split pretty evenly. If the remaining superdelegates also split evenly, Obama's going to be right at the winning threshold.

It's time to unite before it bites us in November!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

That kid finally takes off the Favre jersey



Lovable scamp David Witthoft has finally taken off the Brett Favre jersey he has worn everyday for over four years. According to his pop, the youngster decided his twelfth birthday was the limit.

Which Branch Abuses Power in John McCain's World?

John McCain spoke at Wake Forest today, addressing the timely topic of separation of powers, starting off with a look at the executive branch:

All the powers of the American presidency must serve the Constitution, and thereby protect the people and their liberties. For the chief executive or any other constitutional officer, the duties and boundaries of the Constitution are not just a set of helpful suggestions. They are not just guidelines, to be observed when it's convenient and loosely interpreted when it isn't. The clear powers defined by our Constitution, and the clear limits of power, lose nothing of their relevance with time, because the dangers they guard against are found in every time.

...And though you wouldn't always know it from watching the day-to-day affairs of modern Washington, the framers knew exactly what they were doing, and the system of checks and balances rarely disappoints.

There is one great exception in our day, however, and that is ...

Drum roll ... Yes! he's going to do it! He's going to call out President Bush on his violations of the Constitution! At last! I mean, he started this off talking about the executive branch, right?

Wrong.

There is one great exception in our day, however, and that is the common and systematic abuse of our federal courts by the people we entrust with judicial power.

Huh?

For decades now, some federal judges have taken it upon themselves to pronounce and rule on matters that were never intended to be heard in courts or decided by judges....[long high-falutin' screed about the interfering judiciary]

No serious discussion about the suspension of habeas corpus. Or torture. Or violation of the Geneva conventions. Or illegal wiretapping. Just the tired old rhetoric about activist judges that we've come to expect from tired old Republican candidates with every election. Does he really think this is going to gain traction this cycle? With Iraq, the economy, health insurance hanging over the heads of voters?

Kos

Teacher fired due to...Wizardry!

Land 'O Lakes, Florida -- The stories in the news about inappropriate relationships between teachers and students have been overwhelming. There was even a substitute teacher in New Port Richey who got in trouble after investigators say she had a relationship with an underage student.

Well, another Pasco County substitute teacher's job is on the line, but this time it's because of a magic trick.

The charge from the school district — Wizardry!

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

"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.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell and went much farther than he'd hoped.

"I said, 'Well Pat, can you explain this to me?' 'You've been accused of wizardry,' [he said]. Wizardry?" he asked.

Tampa Bay's 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn't just the wizardry and that Picular had other performance issues, including "not following lesson plans" and allowing students to play on unapproved computers."

Piculas said he knew nothing about the accusations.

"That... I think was embellished after the fact to try to cover what initially what they were saying to me," he said.

After the magic trick, Rushe's principal requested Piculas be dismissed. Now, Piculas believes the incident may have bewitched his ability to get a job anywhere else.

"I still have no idea what my discipline involves because I've never received anything from the school district actually saying what it entails," said Piculas.

As a substitute teacher, the Pasco County School District considers Piculas to be an "at will employee." That means the district doesn't need to have cause for not bringing him back at all.

Tampa Bay's 10

Microsoft's Sync tech to come to Hyundai, Kia, Ford asks "but what about us?"

Once thought to be the exclusive domain of Ford, Sync-like technology looks to be coming to Hyundai and Kia cars by 2010. While Microsoft and Hyundai aren't calling the technology Sync officially, the new "music and information system" will be a voice-controlled interface that links mobile devices to car stereos, complete with remote firmware updates. Sounds a lot like Sync to us. Interestingly, only later versions will include multimedia and navigation-related features.

This is a curious omission -- why would Hyundai need Microsoft's help just to plug in some iPods? The product will be made official at a ceremony in Seoul attended by Bill Gates and Hyundai Kia Automotive Group Chairman Chung Moon-koo. Cocktail hour and family photos to follow immediately.

Engadget

Monday, May 5, 2008

Illinois man orders custom beer-can coffin


Bill Bramanti will love Pabst Blue Ribbon eternally, and he's got the custom-made beer-can casket to prove it.

"I actually fit, because I got in here," said Bramanti of South Chicago Heights.

The 67-year-old Glenwood village administrator doesn't plan on needing it anytime soon, though.

He threw a party Saturday for friends and filled his silver coffin — designed in Pabst's colors of red, white and blue — with ice and his favorite brew.

"Why put such a great novelty piece up on a shelf in storage when you could use it only the way Bill Bramanti would use it?" said Bramanti's daughter, Cathy Bramanti, 42.

Bramanti ordered the casket from Panozzo Bros. Funeral Home in Chicago Heights, and Scott Sign Co. of Chicago Heights designed the beer can.


Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Saturday, May 3, 2008

EXPELLED: "The Right" Releases More Propoganda

I recently received an "E-Card" advertising a documentary titled "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" from a friend, so I checked it out, since its easy to get any info you need and even download full length movies online, its not that hard.

The film, which claims that "Big Science" (haha... like "Big Tobacco" or some crap like that) suppresses criticism of both the evidence for evolution and the modern evolutionary synthesis, which is the theory that clearly explains this evidence. The film, hosted by Ben Stein, (who hasn't had a paycheck from Clear Eyes eye drops or Comedy Central in ages, so must be strapped for cash) contends that this scientific theory contributed to the Holocaust, communism, atheism, and of all things, Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, the film claims that American educators and scientists who believe that there might be evidence of Intelligent Design in nature are being persecuted for these beliefs.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science described the film as dishonest and divisive, saying that the film aimed at introducing religious ideas into public school science classrooms, therefore, once again, breaking that separation of church and state that our founding fathers put in our constitution and the film is being used in private screenings to legislators as part of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign for Academic Freedom bills.

In my research of the film I found the following:

Promotion of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution:


The film claims that intelligent design deserves a place in academia and refers to examples of what it calls a "design approach". The Discovery Institute's Paul Nelson describes "design theory" as "the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as a result of intelligence".intelligent design has been scientifically unproductive and has not produced any research to suppress, having failed to find any way of testing its claims.
Stein says in the film that "Intelligent design was being suppressed in a systematic and ruthless fashion", although the National Center for Science Education says in response that In a review of the film, Scientific American editor John Rennie comments on the vagueness of intelligent design's proposals, describing it as "a notion which firmly states that at one or more unspecified times in the past, an unidentified designer who might or might not be God somehow created whole organisms, or maybe just cells, or maybe just certain parts of cells—they're still deciding and will get back to you on that."

Claims that intelligent design advocates are persecuted:

In the film, Stein claims that scientists do not have the freedom to work within the framework of believing there is a god.[23] On the Expelled blog, Stein wrote:

Under a new anti-religious dogmatism, scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator. Do you realize that some of the leading lights of "anti-intelligent design" would not allow a scientist who merely believed in the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator to work for him... EVEN IF HE NEVER MENTIONED the possibility of intelligent design in the universe? EVEN FOR HIS VERY THOUGHTS... HE WOULD BE BANNED.

However, describing the film for New Scientist, Amanda Gefter wrote:

Its selling point is that academic freedom in the US is threatened by a vast conspiracy of atheist scientists, hypnotized by what Stein labels in the film the "Darwinian gospel". Supporters of ID are fired from their institutions or denied tenure, the film argues, while journalists who report on ID are silenced or shunned. This is an old trick. By claiming their views are suppressed, proponents of ID hope to be protected from criticism. When someone argues that ID is bogus, all they need do is yell: "See? Suppression!"

Portrayal of science as atheistic:


The film alleges that scientists and the scientific enterprise (which it calls "Big Science") are dogmatically committed to atheism and that Intelligent Design proponents are "suppressed in a systematic and ruthless fashion." It alleges a previous commitment to materialism in the scientific establishment as the cause of this "persecution". Stein contends that "There are people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can't possibly touch a higher power, and it can’t possibly touch God." The National Center for Science Education says that
the film represents scientists who are atheists as representative of all scientists, without discussing the many prominent scientists who are religious, and thus creates a false dichotomy between science and religion.

In an interview with Scientific American, the associate producer of the film, Mark Mathis, said
they had excluded scientists who are religious, such as Roman Catholic biologist because their views would have "confused the film unnecessarily". Mathis also questioned Miller's intellectual honesty and orthodoxy as a Catholic because he accepts evolution. HAHAHA

The film portrays the modern evolutionary synthesis as a theory that refuses to accept ideas with a theistic component like intelligent design. The National Center for Science Education states that this ignores the many scientists who are religious but do not bring God in as part of their theories, as testing requires holding constant some variables and no one can "control" God; consequently scientific explanations are restricted to the natural causes that are testable, regardless of the religious views of the scientists.

On the film's portrayal of science, Lauri Lebo, a York Daily Record journalist who covered the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, noted
"The first half of the movie is devoted to explaining how intelligent design is not religion" and then "the filmmakers seem to completely forget their earlier message. The rest of the movie is devoted to proving that atheistic scientists hate God and are trying to suppress intelligent design because, well, it's all about belief in God".

Claims that Nazism was inspired by acceptance of evolution:

The film opens with images of the Berlin Wall, and repeatedly uses a jittery style(which Richard Dawkins describes as the amateurish "Lord Privy Seal" effect of illustrating every point with images, including a guillotine, fist fights, and above all Nazi gas chambers and concentration camps.

In the film, intelligent design proponent David Berlinski says that Darwinism was a "necessary though not sufficient" cause for the Holocaust, and Stein presses the message of evolutionary biology being responsible
without acknowledging more direct causes such as the economic ruin of Germany after World War I and the racism and antisemitism dating back over seven centuries before Charles Darwin. In fact, the works of Darwin were burned by the Nazi Party.

From a scientific viewpoint, any distorted misunderstanding of evolution incorporated in Hitler's thinking is irrelevant to the validity of the modern evolutionary synthesis.

Michael Shermer, who was interviewed for the film, wrote of this:


When Stein interviewed me and asked my opinion on the impact of Darwinism on culture,
he seemed astonishingly ignorant of the many other ways that Darwinism has been used and abused by political and economic ideologues of all stripes....

Arthur Caplan, Professor of Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in his MSNBC column that the movie is a "frighteningly immoral narrative" and wrote that "this film is a toxic mishmash of persecution fantasies, disconnected and inappropriate references to fallen communist regimes and their leaders and a very repugnant form of Holocaust Denial from the monotone big mouth Ben Stein."

He criticized the substance of the movie, saying "[w]hat is especially startling and monumentally deceptive is that the movie never bothers to tell us what Intelligent Design actually is." He questioned the movie's understanding of science because "Science, by the very definition of the term, wants to invoke god or divine intervention as little as possible in seeking explanations for natural phenomena. " He concluded, "To lay blame for the Holocaust upon Charles Darwin is to engage in a form of Holocaust denial that should forever make Ben Stein the subject of scorn not because of his nudnik concern that evolution somehow undermines morality but because in this contemptible movie he is willing to subvert the key reason why the Holocaust took place — racism — to serve his own ideological end. Expelled indeed."

The Anti-Defamation League issued the following statement condemning the film's use of the Holocaust:

The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory. Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness. Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.

Reaction to the Movie:

The critical reaction to Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was generally negative. The film was widely publicized, but was not screened for film critics in advance. As of May 3, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 3 critics gave the film positive reviews and 30 gave negative ones. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 20 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.

Now, in terms of reviews by conservative, right wing reviewers would be 100% positive, but that is NOT the case.
Conservative National Review columnist John Derbyshire described the movie as "creationist porn" and "propaganda for ignorance and obscurantism." Concluding his review he wrote, "For shame, Ben Stein, for shame. Stand up for your civilization, man! and all its glories."

Roger Friedman of conservative good ol boys club "Fox News" writes that "Expelled is a sloppy, all-over-the-place, poorly made (and not just a little boring) 'exposé' of the scientific community" and echoes Patterson's concerns about Stein's career direction, stating that he "is either completely nuts or so avaricious that he's abandoned all good sense to make a buck" and "like some other celebrities, [he] finally has shown his true colors and they aren't so pretty." Friedman criticizes the film's exploitation of the Holocaust, "hoping someone will latch onto an anti-Semitism theme here" but that it is "such a warped premise that no one's biting", and Stein's involvement, as a Jew, is "so distasteful you wonder what in — sorry — God's name — he was thinking when he got into this". Ultimately he concludes that "It will come and go without much fanfare" and that were the film to be shown in his area he'd "boycott the filmmakers for thinking of me as this gullible and unsophisticated."

Well, folks, thats what I found when researching this film... I hope you all will make no effort to see it so that it can end up at the dusty bottom of a bargain DVD bin at Circuit City in a matter of months.




As a footnote, for those of you not familiar with certain things having to do with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." The phrase "separation of church and state", which does not appear in the Constitution itself, is generally traced to an 1802 letter the Danbury Baptists, where Jefferson spoke of the combined effect of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.


In Closing, I wish to use a quote that references the separation of church and state that is from a former president and fellow Catholic, John F. Kennedy:

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."


Friday, May 2, 2008

GOOOOOOO RAIDERS!!!!!!!



The drunken man screaming in the following video illustrates an undeniable truth that when you are drunk, there’s nothing more enjoyable than harassing the shit out of other people. I know the guys BEING harassed in this clip don’t look like they’re having much fun. But that Raiders fan is having THE TIME OF HIS F-ING LIFE RIGHT NOW.

White House: "Mission Accomplished" didn't mean the mission was accomplished



Hilarious.

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Dana Perino isn't even trying anymore. "Mission accomplished" referred to just the ship, and not the war? This is the excuse they come up with after five years of trying?

If their latest lame excuse was true, how then would they explain this speech by Bush in Qatar, on June 5, 2003 (just a month later)?

I am happy to see you, an so are the long-suffering people of Iraq. America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished.


KOS

Arms Stuck In Machine, Man Calls 911 With Toe

Even with his arms stuck in a piece of machinery, one northwest Florida man was able to call 911 using his big toe. Police say the unidentified man was at the DRS Technologies building early Thursday morning when he became trapped in a press-like machine that resembles an elevator.

The employee was alone.

He shook his cell phone off his belt, kicked off one shoe and used his toe to dial 911. Rescuers used a thick metal bar to pry the machinery off his arms. He was airlifted to a Pensacola hospital where his condition is not immediately known.

WFTV - Orlando, FL

Replica bull testicle provision removed from highway safety bill



TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida trucks have avoided castration.

A provision in a highway safety bill that would have banned drivers from attaching replica bull testicles to their rear bumpers was snipped from the legislation.

The bill will now go to Governor Crist's desk.

Republican Senator Carey Baker had sponsored the amendment that would have allowed police to give drivers a 60 dollar ticket for displaying the dangling decorations.

The House did not have the amendment in its version of the bill.

Senators had engaged in a somewhat heated debate over the issue two weeks ago.

WINK News - Ft. Myers

Thursday, May 1, 2008

University of St. Thomas: More Controversy

University of St. Thomas - St. Paul, MN Campus

Tara Borton, a first year law student at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, thought Planned Parenthood was a fine place to fulfill the public service requirement for graduation. She was set to start there on May 12.

But then she ran smack into abortion politics and Catholic doctrine. She’s also ignited a bit of firestorm at St. Thomas.

St. Thomas is a Catholic university, and the church has an issue with Planned Parenthood because it is a leader on abortion rights. So the student committee that oversees public service choices grudgingly gave her permission work with Planned Parenthood as long as she stayed clear of anything related to either birth control or abortion.

Under the excuse of fulfilling Catholic doctrine, St. Thomas is once again turning its back on the important work Planned Parenthood does for the community, such as counseling rape victims. Another example of doing politics instead of doing good. But hey, what else is new?!

The fact that, nine years ago, the school denied an internship to an undergraduate student who wanted to volunteer at Planned Parenthood to help victims of acquaintance rape, says alot about the supposed moral compass of the leadership there. They claim to have a social justice mission, but somehow if a person is raped they are exempt from compassion. You don’t have to be a catholic to attend that university. People do choose it for its small class sizes and solid curriculum. If the leadership is so into catholic doctrine, how does a business school fit in? They want some of the trappings of modern society - the ones that bring in cash. But catholic doctrine kicks in when it comes to SEX. By the way, Planned Parenthood offers a multitude of services. They do regular gynecological exams for women, including pap smears, which are critical in detecting cervical cancer. How is that bad?

Each year Planned Parnthood provides millions of cancer screenings and tests and treatment for STDs, in addition to birth control to prevent pregnancies that if they occurred, may be terminated through abortion. These services are 97% of what they do. Their primary client base is low income people. Those that howl about PP’s abortion services, which comprise only 3% of the services they provide, clearly cannot see the forest for that one little tree. The law student seems to get it though. Kudos to her. I hope that if she finds out UST won’t accept it as her community service, she donates her time anyway.

St. Thomas just can't seem to keep from stirring up controversy, this is the same kind of stuff that makes me think back to May 2006 when my childhood friend, Ben Kessler, who was a St. Thomas football player and at that time was about to go to seminary, stirred up a shitload of controversy with his commencement speech.

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