Till Disinterest Us Do Part

I must be one of the few people in the world who didn't watch the royal wedding. I'm also not going to write a long, gushy, boring-ass post about it.

You're welcome.

This Week's Zany Zonie Report

Oh, for crying out loud.

The Arizona Senate has approved a bill to give the state legal authority to go to court to take ownership of land owned by the federal government.

Governor Brewer and Esteemed Senators (not), if you're really so sick of being part of the United States of America, you should secede and be done with it.

(Except for Pima County, of course. As actual grown-ups, they want to remain a part of the Union.)

Then, when the new country is bankrupt and people are protesting a la Egypt, President Obama can send in a couple of Apache helicopters to conquer us and bring this stupidity to an end.


By the way, this is what happens when you elect Repooks--Radical Republican Kooks--to office.

Modern Day Mikey

Man, what has happened to Maureen Dowd? I used to like her writing (sort of--I couldn't finish her last book, Are Men Necessary? Thank goodness I got it at the library's used book sale). But in her latest column, she has transformed herself into a whiny, misogynistic fourth-grader, the journalistic equivalent of that cereal-scarfing brat from the old Life commercials. Remember Mikey? In her case, we could change the tag line to, "Let Mikey write it. Mikey hates everybody."

I don't know what Hillary Clinton has done to bother Moe so much other than simply existing--maybe daring to set herself in opposition to the Democrats' golden child, Barack Obama? The impression I'm getting is that Clinton should shuffle off to one side, just like a proper old hag, and let the shiny new person have the spotlight. Her time is over, after all, while his has just begun. However, why should it make any difference to Ms. Dowd if Hillary stays in the race? I presume she's not spending any of Moe's money.

Yeah, I know, columnists have to write about something. But I think Maureen Dowd is a columnist of sufficient stature and experience to produce work with a little more depth and a little less snark. This is an opinion piece, after all. As it is, it doesn't do much except prove that Moe likes to take equally inept potshots at everyone. No reasoning, no analysis, just pithy "commentary," paid handsomely by the column inch. At least I hope it was handsome--the final two paragraphs of this mess are just plain embarrassing and childish.

If Hillary Clinton doesn't win the nomination, I hope to heck she writes a book detailing all the sexist bullcrap of this campaign, and rakes her detractors over the coals. That would be one tome I would be quite willing to pay the hardback price for.

This War is Over

Here's my encounter with BlogWarBot, Chris Clarke's sometimes repetitive insult machine.

BlogWarBot: I'm BlogWarBot. You have something to say we haven't heard a thousand times before?
Guest: Don't know. What have you heard a thousand times before?
BlogWarBot: You're trolling me, aren't you?
Guest: Maybe. What do you call trolling?
BlogWarBot: What are you, some kind of provocateur?
Guest: What are you, some kind of question disposal?
BlogWarBot: My being , some kind of question disposal or not is none of your business and irrelevant to ending the war.
Guest: Which war?
BlogWarBot: Typical. An expression of privileged ignorance.
Guest: Privileged according to whom?
BlogWarBot: You're just jealous of the A-listers, aren't you?
Guest: What A-listers?
BlogWarBot: Maybe you should ask yourself that.
Guest: Ooh! I'm an A-lister!
BlogWarBot: Do you recognize the privilege involved in your calling yourself an A-lister?
Guest: Privileged compared to what?
BlogWarBot: I see porn is easier to deal with for feminists today than d compared to what
Guest: We're not talking about porn.
BlogWarBot: Your keyboard says 'no,' but your eyes say 'I'm a big ol' troll.'
Guest: How do you know what my eyes look like?
BlogWarBot: Why don't you ask your Mom when she brings you milk and cookies down there in her basement?
Guest: What basement?
BlogWarBot: What are you, some kind of provocateur?
Guest: That's the second time you've said that!!
BlogWarBot: You're projecting. And in denial. And ugly.
Guest: So??
BlogWarBot: So if I might ask, what's your take on that last blog spat?
Guest: Which one? They happen a thousand times a day.
BlogWarBot: O HAI U CAN GRO BRANE? KTHX ^..^
Guest: O HEY CAN YOU BUY DICTIONARY? THANKS
BlogWarBot: You want me to BUY DICTIONARY? THANKS for YOU?
Guest: Sure! You even learned how to work the CAPS KEY!!
BlogWarBot: What, Malkin didn't cover this on Hot Air?
Guest: We're not talking about Malkin!
BlogWarBot: Lemme guess. You're a Libertarian.
Guest: Give me Liberty or give me Death!!
BlogWarBot: So what does all of this have to do with the current mass extinction?
Guest: You mean the human one?
BlogWarBot: Stop placing your oppressive expectations on me!
Guest: You're oppressed! I feel so SORRY for you!
BlogWarBot: You keep using that word oppressed! you feel so SORRY for BlogWarBot. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Guest: What's it mean, then?
BlogWarBot: Maybe you should ask yourself that.
Guest: That's the second time you've said that, too!!
BlogWarBot: We can talk about me later. Now back to your inferiority to me...
Guest: Inferior to a collection of electricity and pixels?
BlogWarBot: I'm not sure I understand how you managed to log on successfully.
Guest: I dunno. Those little invisible mice just get the job done!
BlogWarBot: Robin Morgan used that in a poem once. But you knew that, you damn plagiarist.
Guest: Who's Robin Morgan?
BlogWarBot: What are you, some kind of provocateur?
Guest: THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM!
BlogWarBot: So what does all of this have to do with the current mass extinction?
Guest: SECOND TIME AROUND...YOU'RE RUNNING OUT OF INSULTS
BlogWarBot: Typical. An expression of privileged ignorance.
Guest: You've repeated yourself three times in a row!
BlogWarBot: Why are men always so concerned about my self three times in a row?
Guest: Who says I'm a man?
BlogWarBot: Do you recognize the privilege involved in your calling yourself a man?
Guest: Heh heh! You wanna give me your penis?
BlogWarBot: And it IS my penis, so keep your hands and eyes and laws off it, pig.
Guest: Hey, that's how we keep abortion permanently legal! Threaten to take the penis in exchange!
BlogWarBot: What are you, some kind of provocateur?
Guest: Okay, "bored now," as Willow said. Over and out.

Of course, you could go on forever, but eventually it becomes pointless...almost as pointless as talking to some guys.

(Actually, whoever programmed this has obviously taken a page from some anti-choicer's handbook.)

And a Little Truth Slips Out

Well. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.

Over at Telic Thoughts, there's a raging comment thread erupting over something PZ Myers said. One of the commenters cleverly takes his diatribe and turns it around:

"Science is a force for evil, or to say it in the most optimistic and sensitive way possible for a decent person, there is absolutely no evidence that science isn’t a force for evil…..You've got crazy-ass megalomaniacal scientific kooks telling people to hate their Jewish/black/gypsy/gay neighbors, you've got mobs believing them, you've got people electing Chancellors on the basis of how fanatically they will wage a war against inferior people, and you've got even more swooning with the vapors at anyone who criticizes scientific belief. Science makes you nuts. It makes ordinary people create atomic bombs that cause untold suffering, it turns them into caterwauling flibbertigibbet idiots at any slight to a dead Englishman who has never done a thing for them, and it makes them center their lives around creating toxic chemicals and weapons that pollute the earth and water, poison the atmosphere, and are bound someday to wipe us out as a species altogether.

You've been given your prescription, people of science: you believe in a lot of evil, stupid, ridiculous ideas. You can resign yourself to them if you aren't strong enough to part from them — I'm not going to follow you to your laboratories and drag you out with a choke-chain — or you can wake up. It's all up to you. One thing you don't get to do is silence the people who point and laugh."

Of course, she was engaging in hyperbole, pointing out how ridiculous the whole discussion is...but that particular comment, while it made me laugh, had more than a little ring of truth.

Jumping the Snark

My new blogpal, Deacon of Subversive Christianity, has a comment appended to this post that I couldn't resist being snarky about. The Barefoot Bum writes:

It is the case, though, that atheists typically assert that all theists suspend their rationality when engaging in god-talk; such a charge is indeed entailed by the fundamental atheist position that god-talk is, by its very nature, irrational.

Oh really? I suppose I could get on my high horse and say something along these lines:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1: 18-20, New International Version)

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile, there is no one who does good." (Psalm 14:1, New International Version)

According to my belief system, therefore, anyone who disbelieves in God is irrational by his/her very nature. So I am going to ignore and dismiss whatever that one says.

Does that sound arrogant? Egotistical? You damn betcha. Yet that is precisely what Mr. Hamelin is saying. Now if he honestly believes this, that's fine with me--this is one of those "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet" scenarios. But as far as I am concerned, he has no right to tar all religious people with this brush, since it's only his opinion.

Nothing more.

There's certainly no proof I'm being irrational, any more than Mr. Hamelin is. All this is subjective, after all. I think I have good reasons for believing in God; he thinks the opposite. Neither one of us knows for sure, or will know, in this life. That's where faith comes in, and Mr. Hamelin has no more, or less, faith than I do.

That being the case, I think both sides should leave each other alone.

(Of course, this might be easier if most religions, and Christianity in particular, hadn't made such a nasty habit of sticking its nose into places where it has no business, namely politics. But that's a subject for another post.)