On the Event of His Death

Tomas Young

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues.

Full: http://t.co/civHveSPy5

There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.

 

Enjoy.

Editorial Conundrum

I’m in a bit of an editorial quandary.  Last year I ran a pro-wind piece extolling the virtues of sustainable wind power.  I don’t claim any special expertise on the subject other than being surrounded by a sea of these devices here in the Umwelt-sensitive district of Munsterland.   That said, I am in extremely close proximity to these devices.  They’re everywhere.   My enthusiasm for the technology caught the attention of some anti-windfarm group because there’s been an attempt to inject some anti-wind propaganda into the comment thread on that piece.

I’ve never blocked or banned a comment on this blog that wasn’t outright spam.  I even let the haters and the trolls take their shots.  I am willing to risk the potential of PTSD because, as a Vietnam-era service member, I know that shell shock is a risk of battle.  It’s been that way for men as long as there have been men.  But I digress.  This is not about my particular sensitivity to criticism or inability to take as good an ad hominem homo-baiting as the best of the Tea Party ‘tards has to offer.  It’s about whether I give exposure to what I consider is a coordinated attempt at consumer misinformation and propaganda.

Part of me wants to expose the anti-wind shill/idiot(s) involved.  Another part of me is reluctant to give them any publicity at all.  It’s an editorial conundrum I’ve not encountered in the past.  I’ve reviewed the material and visited the websites of the links that were attempted to be placed in my comment section and find them to be total rubbish and some of the more transparent anti-wind FUD propaganda I’ve ever seen.

About the only crazy claim not being made by these lunatics is that the windmills are somehow dragging down the rotational speed of the the Earth.

Just to give you one example of something we’re all suppose to be deathly afraid of?  The possibility of an out-of-control fire in one of these generators!!  As if a relatively small fire once in a blue moon, on a tower a high up in the middle of a field somewhere is suppose to be more scary than global warming or nuclear accident?  Give me a break.  It’s insulting.

Even though it would be fun to deconstruct the rather transparent attempts at misdirecting the public discussion on renewable wind power generation, I am going to set it aside for now unless prodded to do otherwise by an overwhelming request from the masses.

Enjoy.

 

Creationist WMD’s

PZ Myers worries about the potential of the creationist movement voting praying Sarah Palin back into high office in spite of because of her disdain for evolution.

Unfortunately, about half the American electorate will think what she wrote is just ducky. Those words won’t dissuade very many voters at all, so don’t make the mistake of thinking this revelation will somehow cripple her campaign to become president of the US.

The statistics relating to American belief in creationism are total crap.  Nowhere close to ‘about half’.  PZ, please don’t continue to spread this malignant creationist meme.  The actual population of true flat earthers is ten percent….tops.  Much more numerous than WMD’s in Iraq, but not so far from zero as to pose a serious threat.

I understand how one might be tempted to believe that half the US population rejects Darwinism.  Religious nutjobs infest much of our government (Godless PTSD victims e.g.) and control big swaths of our media.  The only political fear of religious radicalism on the wane is their possible manipulation of the vote, not the voters.

If manipulation of the voters really worked, we’d already see rioting in the streets over the various other delusional fantasies spit out daily by Fox News et.al. etc.   Don’t get your Obama birther rally attendance figures from Fox News, and don’t get your statistics on evolution denial from Answers in Genesis.

When I look around, I see a whole lot more gay people than religious freaks, and I surmise that the population of gays is bigger than the population of actual evolution deniers.  I fear neither though I do loathe the latter.

Enjoy.