Intelligent Design defined

Via the inimitable Curmudgeon, the most very bestest definition of Intelligent Design *ahem* theory I've ever encountered:

An unknown intelligence (whether it’s a solitary creature or a vast swarm is never addressed), with utterly unknown characteristics (mortal or immortal, sexual or asexual, plant or animal, physical or spiritual), whose home base is unknown, and whose ultimate origin is a mystery (evolved, created, or eternal), arrived on earth somehow (in a flying saucer, perhaps, or maybe on a comet), at some unspecified time (or several times), and then in some unspecified way (technological or magical), for unspecified reasons (boredom, or maybe cosmic fulfillment), did something (or maybe several things) to influence the genetic characteristics of some (but maybe not all) of the creatures on earth.

The entire Discovery Institute couldn't have said it better. But I do realise that isn't saying much, considering all they do manage to say is either incoherent or rank, stinky bullshit.

Irish Blasphemy Law - feckin stupid

In a baffling display of religious idiocy, Ireland decided in the middle of 2009 to backslide into territory normally occupied by medieval theocracies such as Saudi Arabi. How exactly? By making it illegal to blaspheme - that is, by making it a crime to express thoughts which are disparaging of or offensive toward religion. Yes, in fecking Ireland, a country which knows - which should know anyway - almost better than any other Western country the torment of religiously-based violence and division.


How this came to pass in Ireland, which is considered a Silicon Valley of the EU and has suffered more than its fair share of pain at the hands of religious fanatics, is beyond me. Nonetheless, there it is in black & white: have a crack at faith and you'll pay the price:

...publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted

... is now a criminal offence, punishable by a fine of up to €25,000.

That's around $40,000 AUD. What the feck?

Education: still the greatest enemy of organised religion

And this bloke [source] has his cassock in a twist over it:

The Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, has claimed that graduates are spreading scepticism and sowing dissent. Instead of following the Church's teaching they are "hedonistic", "selfish" and "egocentric", he said.

Aw. My heart bleeds for you, Paddy. Quick primer:

Graduates = people who have spent years learning about The World and how it works (ostensibly, anyway - it's highly likely they've spent years learning to be alcoholics).

Bishops = people who have spent years learning about The Church and how it works whilst all but ignoring how The World works yet presuming to tell The World how it should work according to what The Church told them. Back to the bitching...

Bishop O'Donoghue, who has recently published a report on how to renew Catholicism in Britain, argued that mass education has led to "sickness in the Church and wider society". "What we have witnessed in Western societies since the end of the Second World War is the development of mass education on a scale unprecedented in human history - resulting in economic growth, scientific and technological advances, and the cultural and social enrichment of billions of people's lives," he said.

And that's a bad thing because ... oh, that's right. You people had absolutely nothing to do with any of it! In fact, much of this amazing progress (especially in the areas of cultural & social enrichment and scientific advancement) has been made in spite of the concerted efforts of monolithic religions such as yours. Hence this walloping serve of sour grapes:

"However, every human endeavor has a dark side, due to original sin and concupiscence. In the case of education, we can see its distortion through the widespread dissemination of radical scepticism, positivism, utilitarianism and relativism.

"Taken together, these intellectual trends have resulted in a fragmented society that marginalizes God, with many people mistakenly thinking they can live happy and productive lives without him.

Good golly, how dare anyone use any modes of thought or philosophy other than those sanctioned by That Humungous Tomb In Rome Which Pretends To Be A Country! How dare anyone consider living their life ethically and knowledgably and to the fullest extent possible without consulting That Great Big Confusing Unverified Book Of Fairy Tales, Torture Porn And Contradictions!

So I'm mistaken, am I? Pray, dear Bish, tell me exactly how I, one of your educated heretics, am currently living a happy & productive life with my gifted & gorgeous medical student wife and adorable dog and great band and vegetable patch (the lettuces are looking brilliant) and loving family (also mostly godless) and amazing, talented, beautiful friends (with whom I don't know that I've ever had any sort of serious religious discussion because it's simply not important enough a topic in our lives to discuss)? How is it that my wife & I are just as happy as those few friends of ours that are religious (not that we know exactly how many of them there are anyway because it doesn't come up)? How am I less happy than your average petrified, guilt-ridden Catholic because I go through life not fearing Hell, not fearing "temptation", not studiously avoiding evil "secular" knowledge & not feeling the eyes of God burning through my back as I muddle through life?

Jeez, Paddy ... you and your fellow befrocked ones say ignorant, insulting, out-of-touch shit like that and then you wonder why people are, in ever-increasing numbers, viewing your Church and the people who run it as anachronistic geezers with an unhealthy (and often hypocritical) interest in how other people run their private lives, and accordingly turning their backs on it.

Your Empire had a moral monopoly on Europe and much of the world for centuries. The Pope replaced the Roman Emperor as supreme monarch. You imposed your rule by force and enforced & expanded it brutally. Times changed though, and dispossessing rich heretics of their worldly goods and roasting the feet of your still-living enemies as their families watched and screamed in horror became, shall we say, passe. Since the roasting stopped, people have slowly realised that all The Church has left is guilt-inducing judgements & public denunciations of normal behaviour from people like you & Herr Ratzinger to keep people in line, keep bums on pews and keep the souls rolling in. Since people have realised that you have only words to throw at them, they've realised that the only power those words have is the power that they give to those words.

If you could just sit in your average pub and watch peoples' eyes roll (in a combination of mild amusement and apathetic boredom) the next time Ratzi or some collared clown (like, say, our own paedophile enabler, Cardy Pell) appears on TV, as if he's some kind of social/medical/artistic authority, to spout a soundbite denouncing something pretty ordinary, you'd have some idea what you're up against. People simply don't take any notice of your morality police on TV anymore. If anything they laugh at them. Not because people are becoming more evil or more secular (one and the same according to your capo di tutti capi), but because they just don't accept your self-appointed role as our moral superiors.

It isn't the 1950's anymore, where your local priest was the first guy you called in a pinch and not the cops or your lawyer or the milkman. People simply no longer accept that there's only one source for their morality and, what's more, they strongly resent hearing people like you (i.e. cloistered virgins with chips on your shoulders about anything fun) publicy denouncing them as hedonistic or self-obsessed or materialistic (or whatever other negative trait you can link to the modern world) just because they don't go to bloody church anymore. Sheesh, you drive people away from your precious Church by continually being ignorant of modern society and modern peoples' needs (not to mention being inert at best on the topic of child abuse) and insulting anyone who doesn't conform to your view, then you have the idiocy to wonder where all the Catholics went! Are you serious?

People change. As societies are made of people, societies inevitably change. Some institutions change along with the societies that support them. Sometimes a change is in fact necessary for the survival of an institution, e.g. the British Royal Family - no longer a monarchy with any real power, yet still existing in all its gilded glory, supported by their society (the French Royal Family, on the other hand, refused to change and they, well, got the chop). Those institutions who refuse to change, or do it very slowly or reluctantly, run the very real risk of becoming irrelevant or useless (or even harmful) to the society in question. The Catholic Church, constantly railing against, insulting, denouncing and harshly judging our ever-evolving society (while simultaneously ignoring its realities), as well as fruitlessly exhorting it to change back (presumably to pre-Henry VIII times when Papists ran Europe and just murdered anyone who stood up to them and then rifled through their pockets), runs the severe risk of becoming irrelevant.

But hey, Vatican, you've always been useless & irrelevant to me (except as a museum of artistic genius and great example of reprehensible social policy at the hands of an unchallenged absolute ruler). It would please me greatly if Catholics left you and your judgements behind in droves. Exodus-sized droves. Just keep up whatever it is that you're doing. You're driving far more Catholics away with your corruption & hypocrisy & unwarranted moral superiority complexes & unwanted, insulting, ignorant judgements than I ever could!

Just take solace from this, Papists: former UK PM Tony Blair just converted to Catholicism ... for some reason. I'm sure you'll all welcome your newest soul with open arms. He certainly won't be the first lying, mass-murdering, hypocritical piece of shit to eat your magic zombie-flesh and drink your magic zombie-blood.

California Christians display epic self-pwnzage!!1

A recent Dispatch From The Culture Wars brings news of a queer situation in California:

In May, after the California State Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal, the courts mandated state officials to provide gender-neutral licenses and other marriage forms. "Bride" and "groom" became "Party A" and "Party B."

[Whackaloon Fundy Whingers]Bird and Codding have refused to complete the new forms, a stand that has already cost them. Because their marriage is not registered with the state, Bird cannot sign up for Codding's medical benefits or legally take his name. They are now exploring their options, she said.

Oh me, oh my, oh my Great Galactic Squid, the EPIC LULZ are almost too much for my mortal, carbon-based brain to withstand! In a bizarre, inexplicable, baffling display of OMGWTFBBQ, these two COMPLETE CRETINS have CHOSEN to inflict upon themselves the very situation they & their bronze-age ilk wish to (and in many cases do) inflict upon gay people across the entire USA. Read the rest of Ed Brayton's short & sweet dispatch. Pretty much sums it up!

Last thought, directed directly at Bird & Codding: mentally retarded goats who eat lead paint and live under power lines on toxic waste dumps no doubt approved by your tax & destroy Republican party have more of a clue than you, you pair of barely cerebrally evolved mental sub-mammals with whom I'm ashamed to share my DNA. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! You lackwits are voluntarily cutting yourself off from vital legal rights - rights that you were born with and never even had to break a sweat to earn - just to spite gay people who've been struggling for those very same same rights for decades. I'd admire the strength of your convictions if they weren't so completely misguided and arse-backwards and, ultimately, futile with any luck. Instead, I join the world in heaping epic lulz upon you!!

HA!

Cracked: 7 Pop Culture Phenoms That Annoy Jesus

And rightly so! There's nothing more downright E W I L than Spongebob telling kids they should be accepting of each other. Why, to some well-meaning but completely misguided Christian activists, that's practically a license to sodomise (and then presumably eat) babies in public whilst wearing a Satan costume and listening to Slayer! Observe:

Both Focus on the Family and the American Family Association complained about a Spongebob video that was delivered to schools in which Spongebob has the balls to try to teach children to be accepting of others. Now you know Jesus isn't going to stand for that shit.

Even though the video never actually mentions homosexuality, on the website for the video's producers they include a pledge of tolerance for all races, cultures, beliefs and, yes, sexual orientations. Just like Hitler. Or the opposite of Hitler. Whatever, fuck that cartoon sponge!

Of course not all Christians are that retarded - just (generally) the ones with "Family" in their titles. I've noticed (and it's not just an American phenomenon either, it happens Down Here too) that the presence of the word "Family" in the name of a Christian lobby/political action/groundless & retarded-whinge-against-the-inevitable-progression-of-social-equality group is really just code for "We Hate The Gays". So much so that it maligns any other government/non-government/secular/religious "Family" group that is actually about helping actual families regardless of how many dads or mums are present. I really wouldn't be surprised if any actual, non-retarded pro-family groups have changed their names just to distance themselves from their similarly-yet-inappropriately-named fundamentalist namesakes.

It really makes me wonder what's worse for kids: seeing lil' Spongey & pals promote acceptance of people who may be different (y'know, like friggin' JESUS apparently did before he was brutally un-accepted by the Romans and those nasty ol' Pharisees) or having some thundering, fundamentalist, fire n' brimstone gay-haters attempt to twist that very decent, simple message around into something evil & corrupting, no doubt confusing the hell out of anyone too young to realise exactly how stupid and insane these alleged "family friendly" spokespeople are.

Heads up, Family Fundies: if you're really focused on helping the "family", the first thing that should become abundantly clear in your little scope is that there is more than one kind of family. Not all kids are raised by a man & a lady who love each other very much and have only ever had sex with each other exactly as many times as there are children in the house. Some kids only have one biological parent, some have none, some have two parents of the same gender, some only have grandparents, extended family members, yada freaking yada, I could go on but I fear I might blow your tiny minds with my dazzling expose!

The bottom line is this, my Christian friends: families aren't what they were in what I presume is your heyday - some bizarre Rockwellian 1959 where kids dragged puppies around in lil' red wagons, wore short pants until they were twelve and said things like "golly" and "smash the Reds!" With more information being launched straight at kids these days than ever before, what they need is clarity & reasonable filtering from those who know how to sift through the spam & the bullshit: us. The grownups. What kids need, today more than ever, are positive messages from us about humanity and how, most of the time, we can get along with our fellow humans. What kids simply do not need is this confusing, wasteful, hurtful worldview of yours that takes an ordinary message of acceptance from a character kids love and twists it around into some kind of subliminal ploy to turn all our kids into occultist sodomites. Do you seriously think a guy called Spongebob Squarepants is some kind of secret icon of the "Gay Agenda" (whatever the hell that is) out to "convert" children and give them The Gay? What the hell have Spongey & his starfish buddy ever done that Bert & Ernie haven't been doing since the 1970s?

The kids may be the young ones here, but it's your mis-named Family groups that have to grow up.

Papacy: "evolution is too science-y!"

PZ Myers expertly excoriates the ecclesiastic like noone else can, so instead of ranting myself I'll link you to his post about a "Vatican evolution congress" (maybe I should have an 'Atheist Prayer Meeting' in response, it would make as much sense) entitled "Science Is Not Your Merkin" (LOL) and tease you with some choice quotes:

"[Jesuit Father Marc Leclerc, a philosophy professor at the Gregorian] said arguments "that cannot be critically defined as being science, or philosophy or theology did not seem feasible to include in a dialogue at this level and, therefore, for this reason we did not think to invite" supporters of creationism and intelligent design.""

What an out — they're only going to allow arguments critically defined as scientific, oh, and theology. Those are two different things, you know.

I eagerly await the announcement of the associated banquet for the participants. They will only be serving the highest quality food, made by master chefs of Europe, using only the freshest, best ingredients, oh, and there will be dollops of runny, rancid fecal material splattered over the tables and dishes. But the meal will be a magnificent gourmet experience, and the world will know that Vatican shit deserves to be served to the greatest minds of science.

I'm sure they'll get some good smart people to go along with this, because there is no shortage of competent scientists willing to compromise the public face of science by associating it with wishful thinking and the supernatural. And the Vatican will, of course, throw buckets of pomp and money and somber news quotes at this, all to decorate the rotting flesh of their decrepit dogma with the jewels of science.

And look! Their exclusivity runs the other way, too!

"Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the other extreme of the evolution debate — proponents of an overly scientific conception of evolution and natural selection — also were not invited."

"Overly scientific conception of evolution"? What the heck? So the problem with evolution, to these Catholics, is that there's too darned much science in it? I guess Richard Dawkins won't be pining by his mailbox, hangdog with disappointment that his papal invitation hasn't arrived yet. Why, the whole problem with evolutionary biology is that we don't have enough religion in it, to poison and distort and attenuate the science. But not just any religion: it seriously needs more Catholicism.

Evolution, too science-y for Catholics...what the holy poo-spattered fuck is wrong with these people? I'm flabbergasted. I'm lost for words. There really isn't anything I can write to express how completely & utterly fucked, wrong and arse-backwards that concept is. Imagine if I read a bible, put it down and said "OK, very good, very interesting. But it's a little heavy on the God-talk, isn't it?" Any Catholic - any Christian - would instantly have the right the look at me with an eyebrow raised and say to me, "That's actually the ENTIRE POINT OF IT, you fucking halfwit. Now give it back before you drool all over the fucking thing."

Prayer - now with Hurricane-Stopping Power!

...or so a pack of loons in (where else but) Texas (actually, you'd probably also find them in Kentucky, Alabama or anywhere where they speak with a twang, and I'm sure you could find them in Queensland as well) would have us (and themselves) believe.

Via Kelly at the Rational Responders, the official text for their powerful Hurricane Ike-stopping prayer which can be found here. Apart from the usual blathering idiocy & sucking up, it contains this hysterical little gem:

Father, please forgive us for our many sins. Please forgive disobedience, rebellion, unbelief, forms of idolatry, shedding of innocent blood, and the rejection of Your Son, Jesus Christ. God have mercy on the Houston Metropolitan Area.

"O Vengeful One, please spare us, your unworthy & sin-filled slaves, from your Divine & Just Wrath! Please smite some other unworthy people from another local government region in Thy Mercy!"

Utterly laughable. On the one hand, it seems like you lackwits know that you deserve to be punished with a hurricane, Gomorrah-style, for all your wickedness. But on the other hand, you have the gall to think you can appease the Almighty and avoid his wrath with some sucking up! Surely it's God's Plan, right? Surely no human has the right to question God's Plan for the world ... right? And here you are, not asking for the hurricane to be stopped and for it to blow itself out, sparing everyone, just for it to be diverted. And how are you going to feel if it misses you and kills even more people down the highway a few miles? Probably pretty bloody pleased with yourselves, I'll bet. Smug bastards.

From Kelly's post:

Their church recently held a prayer meeting in order to officially command Ike to cease and desist its approach into the Houston area. Some participants claimed to have calmed Edouard and sent hurricane Gustav into southern Louisiana. No explanation was given for the Almighty's lack of regard for the residents in that area.

See, that's the thing. Hurricanes don't just STOP and cease & desist. Of course, God could choose to just stop them in their tracks and calm the winds instantly - after all, he sent them in the first place ... right? So why won't he just switch 'em off? Whatever the reason, he chooses not to (God's Plan) and (it would seem, if these loons are right) he just diverts them around whoever prays the hardest, or sucks up the most, or whatever. God help whoever is in the new path of the hurricane, especially if they didn't pray hard enough.

But what happened to "love thy neighbour", you twisted Christfreaks? If that hurricane goes around you it's going to hit someone else! And what happens when it does? Are you going to head down to the affected area, apologise for sending God's hurricane down their main street and take blankets and food and first aid kits and assist with the cleanup or even just donate to the Red Cross? Well? It's the least you could do after sending Divine Wrath into their town! Or are you going to sit smugly in your living room, watching it all unfold on TV, safe in the knowledge that your magic spells saved your postcode or head to your church and loudly proclaim how blessed you are that God listened to you and decided to fuck up a bunch of other people? Hey, I guess you could always pray for them.

This leads me to a train of thought: if God is punishing you people with a hugely destructive and potentially fatal hurricane but he can be persuaded not to with a bit of "O God you're so awesome", he's either very easily talked out of his Divine Plan with some simple flattery or your crimes weren't all that heinous to begin with - which, to be frank, paints this god of yours as one petty son of a bitch. You want to worship a god who can be talked out of punishing you via hurricane with some simple sycophancy? Loan sharks have stronger principles than that for god's sake.

Texas (and other) Christians, I'm not going to sit here and spout what you might call the usual atheist talking points about how your god is a confused, nasty, contradictory mishmash of "extinct" tribal gods and almost certainly doesn't & can't exist. No, what I need is to hear your take on your god's morality. I need a Christian to explain to me, in simple terms - and without pasting any excerpts from scripture - just how moral it is to first send a hurricane as punishment (which would almost certainly "punish" many, many undeserving people, being that hurricanes are huge, indiscriminate forces of pure destruction), then allow some of those people to change his mind and divert the hurricane away from their town to another area, where it would no doubt do as much damage to a bunch of other, more than likely equally undeserving people. But why divert it? Why let it continue on its path of destruction at all? Why not stop it dead or send the damn thing back out to sea to blow itself out, harming noone at all? If this anti-hurricane prayer is working, why is this omniscient god - whom all Christians seem to believe has a Plan - allowing himself to be talked into changing his Plan at the pleading of a few hundred sinful humans? Who the hell are you people to dare to ask God to change a Plan that he's probably had in place for (depending on who you talk to) the last ten thousand or four billion years? You people are meant to have faith in God's Will. You're meant to trust God. Who are you to think you know better than God? Why should he listen to you? What kind of conceited, self-centred egotist are you to think that YOU talked GOD out of sending you a hurricane? If God wants to kill you with the weather so you can join him in Heaven, you should damn well go gladly and not hit your knees in desperate supplication, begging him to spare you. I thought this life didn't matter when you had eternity with the Almighty to look forward to! Seriously, I want to hear how this god of yours is so easily dissuaded from his Plan by a bunch of mere humans.

Campaign 2008...

...and what a beauty it's been! We had Hillarious Clinton sinking to brave, new, stupendous lows against her own party-mate Barry Obama - doing herself out of the VP slot and basically handing him the nomination. That was quite a ... well, whole year of fun wasn't it? Dirty tricks and bullshit is par for the course in an election campaign, but against your own team-mate? In one of the most vitally important election years the US has ever seen? Hilly, hopefully you've realised all your shenanigans, lying about snipers and flat-out bitchy attacks (and Barry's comparatively rather classy & dignified responses) just made you look like an enormous bitch. But I guess we'll see if you've learned one damned thing come 2012.

Before that, we (the world) had a brief scare when a couple of god-bothering fundie nutfucks, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, came perilously close to grabbing the Republican nomination. Seriously, a choice between a cranky, out-of-touch flip-flopping war vet, a Mormon and a creationist halfwit? Is that the best the Repubs could muster? Fark me. Guess they're plum outa Bushes. Dang! Thankfully, though, the best man (i.e. the man who'll with any luck hand the country to Obama) got the nod.

Then, for a long time, nothing happened. Until John "Maverick"McCain (or whoever it is that strains his soup) had a brainwave and headed to Alaska, where he found a marginally attractive former (and self proclaimed) "hockey mom" to run for Vice President with him. After all his bleating about Baz Obama's lack of foreign policy experience, he picks governor Sarah Palin, a former mayor (or something) of a small town with less people than your average football stadium who only got her passport within the living memory of your average goldfish. A woman who, by all accounts of her time as a mayor and governor, would rather have under her a pack of loyal and eternally grateful toadies instead of qualified people who can do their damn jobs (which sounds eerily familiar). A woman whose foreign policy experience is probably less than my own - I have visited exactly one country beside Australia in my life - New Zealand, which is literally beside Australia. Obama's perceived lack of FPE has been the cornerstone of McCain's campaign thus far & McCain's own foreign policy experience seems to consist of (a) being shot down in Vietnam thirty years ago and then held captive and (b) standing in some desert somewhere and getting confused between Shia & Sunni. How do you explain that, John? If you die (admit it - you might, you old bastard), the woman in charge of the world's most powerful military will be a woman who's barely even seen her own country.

Dear, dear Mrs Palin. Well, there are a lot of things to like about this woman (for a fundie right-wing voter anyway): she's pro-abstinence and seemingly anti-sex-ed (which seems to have worked really well for her preggo unwed teenage daughter); a creationist (who else says things like "teach the controversy, teach ID"?); a gun-lover; anti-abortion (on that note, she's said that even if her daughter was 14 and a rape victim she'd still force her to have the child) and she kinda looks like Tina Fey's taller, not-as-cute sister. She ticks a lot of boxes for fundie bingo (probably all of them: I don't know for sure but I bet she hates gays too)! Also: she's a woman! That'll get the woman vote! I guess Campaign McCain remembered how well Hillarious was doing (until she b0rked herself) and thought "A-ha! They might have a black guy, but I gots me a white woman and they're scared of black guys so they'll all vote for my white woman! Ha!"

But is hasn't all been smooth running. Because Palin's a complete big-boy politics n00b, she can't hold herself up in public and managed to confuse a couple of private companies with publicy-funded ones, bitched them out for being "too big and too expensive" and made herself look utterly retarded. She's been bitching about all the coverage her daughter's pregnancy has been receiving as well. But hey, you can't blame the press - here's an anti-birth control, abstinence-only mother who has a rapidly-swelling teenaged case of EPIC FAIL OF ABSTINENCE living in her house. If she can't (or won't, as seems to be the case) teach her own daughter about how to not get pregnant then you have to call into question her common sense. If Palin has that standard fundie equation in her head - "how to not get pregnant = license to WHORE" - one has to wonder what other dogmatic retardedness is going on there. Basically, if a policy she supports has failed dismally in her own freaking home, one has to wonder about her plans for the nation should the unfortunate (but not entirely improbable) happen to McCain.

So, she's having herself a case of BAW at the media, who keep asking her mean ol' questions about what the hell she's doing on the Repub ticket and how the hell is she more qualified to run the country than someone like Ron Paul (who'd never get the nod from the Repubs because he's a big fan of the Constitution, that quaint document the Reps have been wiping their arses with for 8 years). They ask personal questions about her family too and I think she's just had enough! Palin (or her handlers) have imposed a fortnight's media ban - until they promise to show deference and respect to her. Are you fucking KIDDING ME? They're keeping her away from the media because she doesn't like the attention, they's asking her all nasty questions and stuff. BAW! You're running for Vice President of the USA, you cloth-headed twunt! You're going to cop some attention. And, just between you and me, be thankful you're a white Republican. Can you imagine the media environment, a few years back, if an unwed Chelsea Clinton was in school and pregnant? Well, the US media is a lot more right-biased now than it was in 1992-2000. Imagine the salivating talking heads on FOX News today (and here at home, people like right-wing knee-jerk schill Andrew "Batman is AMERICA, Joker is OSAMA therefore it's OKAY TO SPY ON EVERYONE ALL THE TIME" Fucking Bolt) if it was discovered if one of Baz & Michelle Obama's kids was up the duff? Trust me, it wouldn't be some cutesy fucking Juno moment with a lot of understanding and several hours of highly improbable (and somewhat annoying) dialogue. Can you imagine the feeding frenzy in the alleged "liberal" media if it turned out that Barry was about to become a grandbabydaddy to a black bastard? It'd be like seventy Christmases for the Republicans. Now, I'm not saying the current frenzy is mild. It's not. US political reporting lives on and for this shit - they long ago gave up actually reporting on candidates' stands on issues. These days it's about who's more electable & (less publicly) who has to pander the most to the fucking gun nuts and churchies and corporate arseholes to get the win.

You may have guessed that I want Obama to win. Not than an Australian should really give a shit, but the US is our most powerful ally and a lot of what happens there directly affects what happens here. US starts a war? Call the Aussies (they know our SAS are fucking badasses). Greenback starts to suck balls? So does our trusty buck. They start another TV reality show? We can expect it here in about six months and our own version in twelve to eighteen. But why Obama? Because he's intelligent and he's run a classy campaign. He thinks science is a good thing. He can string a sentence together and actually make statements, instead of a bunch of gung-ho kick-ass war-talk, cutesy down-home bullshit or just plain old condescension, punctuated with a shit-eating smirk. He's basically the polar opposite of Dubya. He's a properly educated man (Harvard law I believe). Bush does have an MBA from Yale - a college he had to get his dad to shoehorn him into, where he was a freaking cheerleader. At the stage of his life when Barack was a community organiser helping people in poor areas of Chicago, Bush was out drinking himself retarded and ruining every company he was appointed director of, or being spirited away from service in Vietnam, again by daddy. Dubya's basically had everything (including the lives and incomes of 300 million people) just handed to him. He's a spoiled little halfwit who may be charming to some (I just find every sound and facial expression he makes supremely irritating) but has been the figurehead of the most reprehensibly destructive and dangerous force in the world since late 2001. Barack seems to me to be a longtime public servant who might actually give a shit about what people need, being that he's actually spent his life with people, and not his dad's cronies. Hell, I could be flat wrong, but comparing the two

Obama? Something new - not another Republican, for starters. A guy who speaks intelligently and says a lot of the right things. It remains to be seen if he'll accomplish them. If nothing else, the lesser of two evils (an election choice which we in Australia are all too familiar with). If he gets in, I hope he has the balls to whip his gutless fucking party into shape. The Dems have been a pack of scrotum-deficient spineless fucks for way too long. Time to hit the Repubs with four years of "fuck you."

McCain? Basically, four more years of Team Bush, only more stupid - well, perhaps not more stupid, but just as stupid with different kinds of stupid. Palin? So retarded & incompetent people would be fondly reminiscing about Cheney. That's what it boils down to.

And, I think, this is what Campaign McCain has boiled down to (from here):



Unfortunately, given the 2000 and 2004 results (and the machinations that made those results possible), I know for a fact that there are (almost) enough people in the US to elect McCain and his fembot. Come on America - I loved you as a kid, even with Reagan in charge. Now wake the fuck up and stop voting against your own interests!