Welcome November 2007!

Just a bit of fun: (hat tip to Friendly Atheist)

Note the sign saying that “gravity is a lie” but “intelligent falling” is the truth!

The Iraq army gets in shape:

Atheists: how the kooks see us. I’ve thought about Science Avenger’s article last night. You know, I really shouldn’t use the word “kook” to describe the authors of the articles that Science Avenger talks about (the article by Doug Giles or the book by Dinesh D’Souza). Newsflash: those articles and books are not written for us! That type of writing is designed to convince those still trapped by kooky, repressive branches of the various religions into staying where they are. This is more of the “ok, let those atheists have all of that decadent fun; you’ll get to laugh when you watch them burn in hell” type of thing.

(No, such writings aren’t written by those who on a deep down level see their religious beliefs as a nice thing for the “here and now” either, but I digress)

So, to you who are just grinding your teeth because you think that we are just engaging all of those “fun” vices that you secretly envy: MANY OF OUR PERSONAL LIVES ARE QUITE ORDINARY! Believe me, my personal sex life consists of interactions with my wife, period. In terms of being exotic, my personal adventures are very, very mundane, especially when compared to those of a Christian Republican Senator.

I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and my entertainment related highs come from proving a new theorem in mathematics, completing an ultramarathon, learning about a new science concept (or new to me anyway) or mastering a new yoga pose. I enjoy hikes and bike rides with my family members and friends. Whoope!!!! Bring out the marble vomitoria! (ok, so vomitoria weren’t for throwing up during orgies, but never mind)

Believe me, there are no parties like this for me (I am a “lights out by 9:30 pm type of guy, unless there is a good football game or political debate on television)

But go ahead kooks, believe what you want to about me.

Hillary Clinton: more on the debate and on Barack Obama (Hat tip to Tennessee Guerilla Women)

Hillary Clinton stood on a stage for two hours Tuesday night, being yelled at by six men. [...] Her fighting spirit was all the more impressive because so many of the positions she was defending were virtually indefensible. It’s not easy to try to make a matter of principle out of a refusal to say anything specific about Social Security. And you really need a spine of steel to stand up on national television and explain why it was a good idea to vote for a bellicose Senate resolution on Iran that has given George W. Bush a chance to start making ominous remarks about weapons of mass destruction again.

“Well, first of all, I am against a rush to war,” she said. That would have been disturbing even if she had not attacked the idea of “rushing to war” twice more in the next 60 seconds. Being against a rush to another war in the Middle East seems to be setting the bar a tad low. How does she feel about a measured march to war? A leisurely stroll?

And how could she have voted for an Iran resolution that was sponsored by Joseph Lieberman, who was basically drummed out of his party in Connecticut because of his hyperhawk stance on Iraq? Lieberman, who was once a somewhat boring but apparently good-hearted centrist, has turned into a disaster area for Democrats, a one-man quagmire. [...]

Hillary Clinton is relying on her Democratic audience to understand that all her peculiar positions and triple-waffles have to do with a fear of being demagogued by the Republicans in the general election. But you would have to be a very, very committed Hillaryite to be comfortable listening to two solid hours of dodging and weaving on everything from her vote on the Iran resolution to her husband’s attempt to keep records of their White House communications secret until after 2012. [...]

On Social Security, the underlying message seems to be that Clinton will not support any effort to keep the program solvent by eliminating the cap on Social Security taxes until she gets elected president and sets up a bipartisan commission to provide political cover. The problem with that, as Barack Obama pointed out, is that you don’t arrive in the White House with a mandate for anything more daring than appointing a bunch of people to do a study. [...]

The good news for her side was that nobody else seems really poised to take her place in the front of the field. Barack Obama continues to be a calm, measured, let’s-all-work-together presence, occasionally reminiscent of — Oh, Lord! — Joe Lieberman before the fall. Obama’s vision of a presidential leadership that rises above the squabbles and partisanship that stalk the Clintons is extremely appealing. However, it’s tough to play the wise elder statesman when you’re just three years out of the Illinois State Senate.

What the debate did demonstrate was that the others deserve more time to make their case. Hillary might have looked immovable on that stage, but she sure didn’t look inevitable. [...]

What really saddens me is that I’ve heard Hillary Clinton explaining things really well (as a Senator)

An example: here she explains potential problems with allowing government vouchers to send their kids to religious schools. (yes, the kooks, goons and wingnuts miss her point entirely, but it isn’t as if these bozos would consider voting for her anyway)

But Clinton the campaigner appears to be trying to adopt the ways of her husband, and frankly, that just isn’t her.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Obama vs. Clinton in Cleveland
• Democratic Horse Race: current state
• Last Day in Austin Jan. 2008
• Barack Obama’s Secret Meetings with Reverend Wright, Hillary Clinton