Abstinence-only sex education: Teens who take "virginity pledges" 6 times more likely to engage in anal and oral sex

Conservative values in action

I heard Bill Maher say this in my previous post and had to fact check it. He's right.

"The conservatives don't really care about educating your children. What they care about is that teenagers don't fuck.... they've spent millions of your tax dollars to start abstinence clubs in the high schools."
-- Bill Maher

A spending bill before Congress for the Department of Health and Human Services would provide $141 million in assistance for abstinence-only sex education programs.

According to a study* published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health:

Those teens that take the "abstinence pledge:"

• were six times as likely to have engaged in oral sex as as those who did not pledge

• were four times as likely to have engaged in anal sex as those who did not pledge

• were much less likely to use contraception the first time they had sex

• were less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience

• were less likely to get tested for STDs

• have similar rates of STDs as teens who have not made pledges.

Conclusions:

"Not only do virginity pledges not work to keep our young people safe, they are causing harm by undermining condom use, contraception and medical treatment," -- William Smith, policy director at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States

Another Study concurs:

"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers, the study by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use.

More here....

UPDATE:
via TP

Where else but Fox News would you hear something like this?

Fox News guest: sex education proponents want kids to get STDs for financial gain

During the Dec. 31 broadcast of Fox News’ Special Report, Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright claimed that proponents of comprehensive sex education are trying to “encourage” sex because “they benefit when kids end up having sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancies and then they lead them into having abortions.” She then added, “You have to look at the financial motives behind those who are promoting comprehensive sex ed.” Watch it

--------------------------------

*Study co-authors Peter Bearman, sociology department chair at Columbia University, and Hannah Bruckner of Yale University used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and CDC, the AP/Long Island Newsday reports. The national study surveyed students nationwide in grades seven through 12 and followed up with interviews one, two and six years later. The Yale and Columbia report looked at data from 12,000 teenagers.

Bill Maher at Berklee

In case you missed it - Bill Maher performed at my alma mater - the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Bill talks about the issues - what a hoot!!

Bill on Katrina, Bill Clinton and the Bush legacy.



Bill on those that think they are the 'real Americans'



Bill on abstinence education



All parts here on youtube.

Funny stuff

Let's have some fried cheesecake! Only in America, the home of the obese

I couldn't believe it, I saw the commercial. Yes folks, fried cheesecake is now available at Sonic and Arby's. No wonder obesity is out of control in America!

I saw this 'food' discussed on a local blog.

Don't get me wrong, I love cheesecake. There is nothing as delicious as a cold dense NY style cheesecake with a hot cup of tea. But, now in my mid-40's, I recognize that such food is a recipe for a heart attack and clogged arteries. I almost never eat cheese cake... it is about the most unhealthy thing you can put in your mouth in terms of saturated fat and cholesterol.

So, how can we make an unhealthy food worse? Do what southerners do best ... deep fry it!! Yea, that's just what America needs - deep fried cheesecake to top off a healthy Sonic meal of a burger, side and shake:

*Super Sonic® Cheeseburger (w/ Mayonnaise) - 980 calories, 64 grams fat
*Tater Tots w/chili & cheese, Sonic Size - 720 calories, 50 grams fat
*Large Peanut butter shake - 1010 calories, 59 grams fat

Total - 2710 calories and 173 grams of fat ... and that's just one meal without dessert.
*(source: Sonic nutrition guide website)

Yea... that's what we need - fried cheesecake for dessert!

I've been a pescaterian for 16 years (vegetarian with occasional seafood) and I love the taste of dairy but for health reasons, I avoid it almost completely. I never buy dairy milk, and on the rare occasion that I use a small amount of butter, it is organic. (No bovine growth hormones for me, thanks). I just had my yearly physical. After taking up running a bit more seriously and modifying my diet slightly, I've lost 10 lbs. and my total cholesteral has dropped from 223 to 150, my PSA down from 2.8 to 1.7, my resting heart rate down from 72 to 58. My body weight puts me right in the optimum normal BMI range (22 - 23). You get what you pay for, and this good news from my blood work comes from alot of cold nights running down the road and a healthy diet. It's also given my mood a lift.

While I'm at it, I might as well be politically incorrect and cite this correlation between education, politics, race and obesity. (Conservative voters tend to be fatter, whiter, and less educated... sorry - it's a statistical fact).

Life is about choices. Get smart, get active, live long and prosper.

You are what you eat. Listen to Jules:


Pulp Fiction: I Don't Dig On Swine -

Conservative ignorance on parade: Terry Frank calls the world's foremost climate lab models: "a fortune telling circus"

In an effort to educate, I posted a link to the following graph of global warming projections. Terry Frank responded:

"Get lost. And take your fortune telling circus with you. Oops. I mean your climate models."

Here they are, the world's foremost climate labs that produced the supercomputer climate models that Terry Frank calls "a fortune telling circus."

Who do you suppose knows more about climate science? The wingnut deniers like Terry Frank, or the world's foremost climate labs?

Center for Climate System Research - Japan
National Institute for Environmental Studies - Japan
Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and Analysis - Canada
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - Australia
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research- England
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory- USA
Max Planck Institute für Meteorologie - Germany
National Center for Atmospheric Research- USA

Interestingly, current data shows these global warming projections to be conservative as many climate scientists stated in my last post on the subject.

I guess though, you’ll always have people like Terry Frank who obviously don’t understand the science and argue on the basis of energy industry agendas, lock step conservative ideology, or fear of gov’t control and sacrifice. What it's really about for these simple minded people is a perpetuation of the "war on Gore" or more specifically, the "war on liberals." The ironic thing is that I was agreeing with Terry, is so far as I believe that the climate change process is already underway and there is very little mankind can do about it, particularly in the short term.

(click graphs to enlarge)

Mike Huckabee fired State Police Chief who refused to help cover up his son's torture and killing of a dog

Compassionate Conservatism

This pig of a man, David Huckabee, son of the religious conservative Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, was fired from his job as Boy Scout counselor 9 yrs ago for torturing and killing a dog.

Utopia Animal Rescue:

(Miller County, Arkansas) Two boy scout counselors, [David Huckabee (18) and Clayton Frady (17)] ... admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death.

How did Governor Huckabee respond? By getting his son off without an investigation.

According to NEWSWEEK, Huckabee fired Arkansas State Police director John Bailey who refused to help coverup this criminal act of cruelty. According to Bailey, Huckabee told him one of the reasons he was being fired was because - "I couldn't get you to help me with my son when I had that problem."

"Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son," says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, who worked closely with Bailey and called him a "courageous" and "very solid" professional.

David Huckabee was also arrested on a gun charge and got off with a slap on the wrist.

Michael Vick, you should have a cell mate. This is one disgusting redneck asshole who has gone unpunished because of the 'moral compass' of his father. Typical Republican hypocrisy and corruption.

Remember, Huckabee claims his religion “defines” both him and his approach to his official duties. He touts his status as an ordained minister with a theology degree as part of his qualifications for the Presidency.

Why pop music today sucks

Frank Zappa nailed it -
h/t: C&L




The music we listened to between the ages of 13 and 16 is extremely influential. As a career musician, music educator with a music doctorate ... it is my qualified opinion that today's pop music sucks.

I was talking with Bill Kanengiser of the Grammy Award winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and he said exactly that. He said to one of my guitar students:

"the music me and Bill grew up listening to is SO much better than the crap you guys are listening to today."

One of the reasons for this is highlighted by the late great musical genius, Frank Zappa in the interview above.

When I was a kid, I was lucky. I had good musical influences. As a 8 yr old I was listening to R&B, but when I hit those formative years in my early teens, it was progressive rock, jazz-rock fusion, and ethnic music. I was introduced to Baroque music, my first love in the sphere of European classical music by an album called "Switched on Bach," that I got when I was 13. I've been hooked on contrapuntal music ever since.

Remember those bands? Music that refused to fit into a neat little 3 minute pop radio spots. Music that was through-composed, suite-like, orchestral, experimental, used virtuoso musicians, and stretched the boundaries. Starting in the 60's with the Beatles Sgt Pepper, then Abby Road, and the White Album. Then those crazy experimental albums by Zappa and the Mothers, like Uncle Meat that were improvisational and used experimental electronics. The epic Dark Side of the Moon album of Pink Floyd. The band Yes, with Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman. On the Fragile album we heard a classical guitar solo from Steve Howe - "Mood for a Day, " a transcription of a movement of a Brahms Symphony, and later Wakeman releasing his epic "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" with the London Sympony. Emerson Lake and Palmer, recorded their Trilogy, Brain Salad Surgery, Pictures at an Exhibition albums with rock transcriptions of classical music composers Aaron Copeland, Alberto Ginastera and Modesto Mussorgsky. Their Works album had Keith Emerson's piano concerto recorded with the London Symphony.

On the Jazz Rock fusion side there was John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, his albums with Shakti - virtuoso Indian raga music, Chick Corea, Al Dimeola, and the best instrumental (no vocals) rock guitar album of the era, Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow. Steely Dan's Aja was a revelation, using mostly jazz virtuosos like Wayne Shorter, Phil Woods, Larry Carleton on an album marketed as 'rock'... what a trick! I could go on and on.

Compare this music to what 15 yr olds listen to today, I was very lucky.

Stunning new data shows global warming accelerating - exceeding computer model predictions

Look at the facts:

• The top 11 warmest years all occurred in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January to November, currently places the year as the seventh warmest on records dating back to 1850. [story]

• The Arctic Ocean reached record high temperatures, arctic ice diminished to a record low, and ice melted on Greenland for a record number of days. [story]

• The Arctic Sea ice dropped from 7.8 million square kilometers to 4.2 million square kilometers. For comparison, the area of ice is the same as all the states east of the Mississippi River and a broad swath of those to its west. [story]

• 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record. [story]

• A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. [story]

• The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. [story]

• The Northwest Passage was open to navigation, for the first time in recorded history, ships sailed across water that had been part of the polar ice cap. [story]

• It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. [story]

• Greenland, in particular, is a significant bellwether. Most of its surface is covered by ice. If it completely melted — something key scientists think would likely take centuries, not decades — it could add more than 22 feet to the world's sea level. [story]

Quotes from scientists:

"In 2007 we had off-the-charts warming"
--Michael Steele, a University of Washington oceanographer with the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington.

"The Arctic is often cited as 'the canary in the coal mine' for climate warming. Now as a sign of climate warming, 'the canary has died.' ... At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012."
--NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally

"I don't pay much attention to one year ... but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you've got to stop and say, 'What is going on here?' You can't look away from what's happening here, this is going to be a watershed year."
-- Waleed Abdalati, NASA's chief of cyrospheric sciences.

"The Arctic is screaming"
-- Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo

"2007 set a new record, with melting [in Greenland] occurring for 25 to 30 days longer than the average of 1980 to 2006."
--Marco Tedesco, University of Maryland.

UPDATE:

Question:
What is different now than in the previous 4 Milankovitch ice age cycles?
THIS DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE PART OF A NATURAL CYCLE:
(click to enlarge)

Answer?


THIS:

Resulting in this:

For Webutante and authoritarian religious conservatives, the First Amendment offers the right to denialism and ignorance

When a differing opinion is too factual, too convincing, too challenging to debate, just delete it. Denialism is a hallmark of authoritarian religious conservatives like Webutante. And she admits it:

“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime . . . .” — Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

Also a hallmark of Webutante.

I am flattered by your compliment and remain, happily, guilty as charged.

Unlike Webutante, I never delete comments on this blog. I am not threatened by her views or anyone else's as she is threatened by mine. This says a lot about her psychological profile and the political persuasion she subscribes to. (Bob Woodward wrote a book about it).

Ever notice how most college newspapers (like MTSU) provide opportunities for on-line comments on their stories and opinions? You won't find that opportunity at student newspapers at religious colleges like Liberty or Bob Jones Universities. Why? Because they are threatened by a diversity of opinion, a 'secular' world view, and just the plain old truth. Easier to live in a bubble and not answer to inconvenient truths. Right Webby? Just surround yourself with like minded wingnuts and refuse to learn anything.

Bush's bimbo press secretary

Bush's bimbo White House Press secretary Dana Perino describes herself as "once a Bushie always a Bushie" ... of course we already knew that.

On the NPR game show, Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, Dana Perino admitted she knew nothing about recent American history. She didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, thought it might have something to do with the Bay of Pigs invasion. She had to ask her British husband what it was all about. He responded incredulously, "Oh Dana!"

Sheeesh.... can you imagine? This is the spokesperson for the President of the United States.

She lost the game.

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough: Either the President "is lying to the American people" or "is stupid" ... take your pick

Yesterday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters that President Bush was first briefed on the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusions on Wednesday, Nov. 28.

However, and intelligence official was quoted as saying:

The NIE has been in substantially the form in which it was finally submitted for more than six months. The White House, and particularly Vice President Cheney, used every trick in the book to stop it from being finalized and issued.

So, either Bush is lying or is not doing his job. We pay him to be privy to the most current intelligence.

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough said it best:

"We are left with only two options here. Either the President of the United States is lying to the American people about what happened during that meeting, or the President of the United States is stupid."

Bad news for Huckabee

Consider these two stories, then consider Huckabee's recent rise in the polls. Pretty pathetic if this is the GOP's man:

TP

Huckabee Clueless On Iran NIE: ‘No,’ Never Heard Of It

The Politico’s David Paul Kuhn asked former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) what he thought of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Huckabee’s response? Hasn’t heard of it:

and....

TP

“Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post,” reveal that, as governor, Mike Huckabee pushed for the release of convicted rapist Wayne Dumond despite being warned that the convict would strike again. After being released, Dumond raped and murdered Carol Sue Shields.

Check this out. Huckabee tries to blame Bill Clinton and the Dems for his actions!!

Remember the GOP mantra: "Admit nothing. Deny everything. Blame someone else."

Bush lies about Iran's nuclear program, Cheney tried to block intelligence

"So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously."
-- GW Bush, 10/17/07

A declassified summary of the latest National Intelligence Estimate found with "high confidence" that the Islamic republic stopped an effort to develop nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003.

The problem, this report was completed in 2006 and Bush and Cheney continued to lie about Iran being an imminent nuclear threat.

Think Progress has documented six instances of Bush, Cheney, and administration officials touting the Iran nuclear threat with in the past 60 days - when they knew of this intelligence report.

How do we know they knew about it? Cheney didn't like what it said and delayed the release of the NIE. The report has exposed Bush and Cheney as deliberate liars. Nothing new.

UPDATE: TP notes -

Yesterday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters that President Bush was first briefed on the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusions on Wednesday, Nov. 28.

But today in an interview with CNN, Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker’s Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist, revealed that Bush actually knew about the NIE at least two days earlier and had a “private discussion” about it with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before the Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, MD, last week.

and...

White House knew of NIE’s judgments for months.

Harper’s Scott Horton interviewed an intelligence community official who casts doubt on the White House’s claim that they only recent learned of the NIE’s judgments:

But one highly reliable intelligence community source I consulted immediately after Hadley spoke answered my question this way: “This is absolutely absurd. The NIE has been in substantially the form in which it was finally submitted for more than six months. The White House, and particularly Vice President Cheney, used every trick in the book to stop it from being finalized and issued. There was no last minute breakthrough that caused the issuance of the assessment.” So what, I asked, if not an intelligence breakthrough, what caused the last-minute change and the sudden issuance of the summary of the NIE? My source had no idea.

Horton’s source adds that though it appears Vice President Cheney “and his team” had “to fold their cards” on “plans for an air war in Iran,” Cheney’s “a tenacious son-of-a-bitch. He may very well be back at it tomorrow.”

More proof of the lie.

Religious conservatives deleting blog comments again: Webutante and Pistol Pete

Just wanted to document the ever increasing number of conservative religious authoritarians that have deleted my comments, not because of any vulgarity or insults, but just because my posts contained legitimate information that challenged their beliefs. These are people who say they stand 'for the truth.' Instead, what they really stand for is a narrow view of the world that they guard from debate and discussion with abject denial.

They pulled a "Mark Rose" on me. Check out their blogs and tell them hello from William:

Webutante

Necessary Therapy

Also note, most college newspapers have unmoderated blogs and discussion. You won't find much of that at religious colleges like Liberty or Bob Jones. They wouldn't want their students to have too many inconvenient truths, now would they? Forget about critical thinking, submission to dogma is far more important!

UPDATE: Webutante responds on Pistols site:

"Thank heavens for the First Amendment. I proudly stand guilty as charged! Best wishes…"

Apparently, Webutante’s 'proud' interpretation of the First Amendment includes the right to censor and control information… an authoritarian characteristic and an aid to those who wish to practice abject denial. This philosophy is common in dictatorships like China, N. Korea and in theocracies like Iran. We did an psychological profile on Webutante a while back. She is a classic religious right wing authoritarian denialist who has a practice of deleting posts that present information that threatens her beliefs.

Bush obstructs Congressional investigation on Plame leak

Do you believe it? Some authoritarian wingnuts, like this guy for example, still believe Bush's former Press Secretary Scotty McClellan is lying when he said that Bush and Cheney were among those "involved" in his passing along "false information" regarding the Plame scandal. Doc says, Scotty turned on former boss just "to sell books." This is a great case study in authoritarianism and abject denial

OK, so if Bush has nothing to hide, why is he blocking the investigation? Bush has denied the House Oversight Chair's July request for Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's FBI files. These files contain Bush and Cheney testimony that was not before the Grand Jury and therefore not subject to secrecy laws.

The Waxman Committee request:

Transcripts, reports, notes, and other documents relating to any interviews outside the presence of the grand jury of any of the following individuals:

• President George W. Bush
• Vice President Dick Cheney
• Andrew Card
• Stephen Hadley
• Karl Rove
• Dan Bartlett
• Scott McClellan

The chairman notes that Janet Reno, who was attorney general in the Clinton administration, made an independent judgement to provide several FBI interview reports to the committee, including those of Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore.

More here and here

Huckabee - the US is in a religious war

Vote Huckabee for an American theocracy.

Can you imagine America being led by a man who claims his most distinguishing qualification is a Theology Degree from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Only in Republican land ... and right now Huckabee is leading the GOP in the latest Iowa poll.

CBN:

In fact I think I'm stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism. These are people that want to kill us. It's a theocratic war. And I don't know if anybody fully understands that. I'm the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well.
--Mike Huckabee

About how much do you suppose the Huckster learned at Ouachita Baptist University in the 1970s about 21st-century fundamentalist Islam? Here's a wild guess: not much. Sounds like 'Bush lite' - if such a level of ignorance is even possible. But yes, it is possible - as Huckabee demonstrates. By the above quote he's just acknowledged we are in a 'religious' or theocratic war. Nice!

He's a a typical part of the Republican Culture of Corruption, he's had five admonitions and $1,000 in fines from Arkansas' Ethics Commission as governor. These incidents involve things such as failure to report that he paid himself at various times from campaign funds, nondisclosure of income, receiving various gifts like $3700 cowboy boots that had the appearance that he was "rewarded" for his performance as governor, for trying to take $70,000 in furniture from the governor's mansion, as well as using a governor's expense fund for a dog house and panty hose. More christian moral values hypocrisy.

The GOP culture of corruption - Office of Special Counsel investigating Rove now under investigation for coverup

Investigating the investigator

Is there an honest Republican in this Bush administration? Not even the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity, can be trusted.

WSJ

The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call. Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service.

Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch's agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

Mr. Bloch had his computer's hard disk completely cleansed using a "seven-level" wipe: a thorough scrubbing that conforms to Defense Department data-security standards. The process makes it nearly impossible for forensics experts to restore the data later. He also directed Geeks on Call to erase laptop computers that had been used by his two top political deputies, who had recently left the agency.

Another corrupt Republican caught in the act!

TP
$250,000: Amount it has cost the RNC to recover missing e-mails sent by Karl Rove and other White House aides on political e-mail accounts. House investigators have charged the RNC with overseeing the “extensive destruction” of these e-mails, which may have violated the Presidential Records Act. The $250,000 has gone to former FBI agents hired to retrieve the lost e-mails and to lawyers hired to defend the RNC.

Trent Lott resigns - Larry Flynt says Lott has been a target of his investigation

As democommie put it, look out Trent, Larry Flynt is in da house!

The rumor mill is in overdrive. Bloggers are suggesting Lott may have had a relationship with a well know gay escort.

Look at the facts:

• Lott resigns without explanation.

• Gay escort denies a current relationship with Lott yet calls him by his first name in an email correspondence and sympathetically urges "no more scrutiny" for him:

"Trent is going through his fair share of scrutiny right now and I don’t want to add to it. All I can say at this point is no comment. It’s the professional thing for me to do. "
-- Benjamin Nicholas, gay escort

(Of course it's the 'professional thing' for a high priced male whore to do).

• Larry Flynt, who has promised bombshell GOP sex scandal exposes, has acknowledged Lott has been under his investigation:

"Senator Lott has been the target of an ongoing HUSTLER investigation for some time now, due to confidential information that we have received."
-- Larry Flynt

Notice the rash of Republican resignations lately? Some say it's to avoid the new lobbying regulations. One has to wonder.

It seems to be a consistent pattern with the anti-gay conservative religious right-wingers. Like Larry Craig, voting against gay rights and then meeting gays in men's rooms for anonymous sex. These Republican homosexuals must remain in the closet. The hypocrisy is a hallmark of these individuals and a part of their pathological denial.

TN Senate Candidate: women in leadership roles is contrary to God's design

According to Republican Mark Albertini, God says women should not run for political office

Mark Albertini's blog post, sporting a photo of Hillary, uses Biblical examples to show why women running for political office goes against God's design. He feels it is unnatural that women should take leadership roles in society.

He explains in a blog comment:

God made men and women fundamentally different and with a different purpose in mind. Man was made to be a goal -oriented warrior. Woman was made to be a nurturing comforter. When either one deviates from this pattern, it strikes us as unnatural and it disturbs God‘s design. This was known as Natural Law to our founders. ... Perhaps a good illustration is would you want to put Ginger from Giligan’s Island on the tackle line of a professional football team? Obviously no. I think God’s plan unfolds from his design. He designed us all to fill a certain purpose in life. It’s not that one is better then the other. It’s that each serves a specific purpose. God created women with a womb so they could bear and nurture children. Men were not made primarily for this function.

Well ladies, forget about 'being all you can be.' As Mark says, your primary and specific purpose is to bear and nurture children. You better not get too ambitious, you will go against God!

Personally, I find this mentality not only archaic, but shocking in this day and age where many nations have, or have had female Presidents and Prime Ministers. It should give us all a wake up call that there are those out there running for political office who would like to see America run as a Christian theocracy. This type of "Dark Ages" philosophy has no place in American society or politics. Didn't we go to war with a regime - the Taliban - that subjugated women? It seems to be a habit of Christian conservative men to have a need control women - limit their rights, keep them pregnant and in the kitchen. This is not modern thinking and is no better than the theocratic regimes we condemn.

Fighting against our allies in Iraq - the cost of cowboy diplomacy

Most of foreign militants that are fighting the US in Iraq are from countries that are US allies

This is the cost of 'cowboy diplomacy'. This is what happens when an incompetent president fails in his objective to apprehend Osama bin Laden and then charges into Iraq without regional cooperation.

The results:

• Afghanistan was never secured properly and is now being retaken by the Taliban. Heroin production in Afghanistan is at an all-time high and is pouring into the US.

• Hate for America has been exacerbated by the Bush invasion and many allies in the region are supplying militants to fight the US in Iraq. Interestingly, almost none of the foreign fighters in Iraq are from Iran.

• Although there is a thankful and relative lull in violence, 4.2 millions Iraqis are displaced and 70-80% have no clean water, reliable electricity or basic sanitation.

• Thousands of Iraq's most vital and educated doctors, scientists, and professors have fled the country and/or have been targeted by insurgents.

• Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad says: “The improvements in security produced by the courage and blood of our troops have not been matched by a willingness on the part of Iraqi leaders to make the hard choices necessary to bring peace to their country. There is no evidence that the Iraqis will choose to do so in the near future or that we have an ability to force that result.”

It is clear that much of the lull in violence is due to the ethnic cleansing and displacement of Iraqis as a result of this war. What makes the wingnuts think that after 4+ years, the lull in violence will last? Let's hope it does and that when the US troops come home, Iraq will rise to the task of rebuilding their government and their nation. I just don't see how Iraq can do it in the midst of a civil war. How can anyone seriously think Iraqis are better off now? The damage has been done and goes much further than Iraq, thanks to the 'cowboy diplomacy' of GW Bush.

The bottom line here is: it too bad the US has isolated itself and our military is being broken by this calamity and all the hundred of billions being spent with no end in sight. We had time, we had Saddam hemmed in by no-fly zones, satellite surveillance, weapons inspectors roaming the country up until Bush pulled them out just days before the invasion. Saddam wasn’t an imminent threat. We had time to do it right, time to get a coalition like Desert Storm in 91. Instead we’ve alienated the Turks, Saudis and all our prior coalition members that helped us foot the bill in ‘91. We had time to do it right but no, instead of doing it right, with did it the arrogant unilateral ‘cowboy way.’ And now, what do we have to show or it but a resurging Taliban, and a broken and unstable country with no good options and no end it sight. The US military deserves better than this type of incompetent leadership and the generals know that.

Bob Corker "underwhelmed" by Bush Administration's understanding of Iraq

From News 9 Chattanooga:

Saying it as kindly as he could, the Junior TN Republican Senator Bob Corker said he was unimpressed with the level of discussions that the Bush Administration was having on Iraq:

"I just felt a little bit underwhelmed by our discussions, the complexity of them, the depth of them. ... I'm just telling you that at that moment in time I felt very underwhelmed, and I'm just being honest. I've said that to them, and to him, and to others. I kind of in a way wish I hadn't said it today."

The last comment was greeted with laughter in the crowd. Corker is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

This verifies what Ambassador Peter Galbraith reported of Bush before the invasion. Bush not only ignored CIA warnings of what would happen in the aftermath, but went in with a half-assed plan, with little international cooperation and with virtually no understanding of the sectarian make up of the country he was about to invade:

President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

The height of authoritarianism and abject denial: McClellan just wants to sell books

Unfreakin' believable!! Loyal apologists and authoritarian followers of GW Bush continue to fall in line and deny even his former Press Secretary, Scott McClellan's confirmation that he was passed lies by the Bush Administration to sell to the American people.

Think about this critically. A guy who spent his time as a loyal Bush staff member for 3 years is going to stick his neck out and essentially claim that Bush, Cheney and Rove committed treason ... so he can sell books? What makes makes this even more preposterous is that it was proven in a federal court that Cheney's highest ranking staff member lied and was convicted of perjury for protecting the White House liars. And now McClellan is lying too?

Doc at the Autopsy, (Mike from Wisconsin) a religious right-wing authoritarian conservative and loyal Bushie, global warming denialist, and rabid anti-abortion crusader, explains it all this way in the comments to his post:

"I’m thinking Scott McClellan is trying to sell books. ... It wouldn’t be the first time a former administration official stretched the truth to make themselves some money."

Of course Doc labels anyone that would actually believe Scott McClellan as "the rabid left." You've heard about this level of authoritarianism. "Doc" is a stunning example. Denial is an essential part of the culture of authoritarianism as clearly documented in the case of Bush. The demonization of all enemies (i.e. :"the rabid left") is another clear aspect of the psychological profile of religious right wing authoritarians.

Apparently Presidential Candidate Senator Chris Dodd is a member of the so-called "rabbid left" as he calls for an immediate investigation into the President's "fundamental betrayal of public trust."

"We need to launch an immediate investigation to determine the facts of this case, the extent of any cover up and determine what the President knew and when he knew it. If in fact the President of the United of States knowingly instructed his chief spokesman to mislead the American people, there can be no more fundamental betrayal of the public trust."

-- Presidential Candidate Senator Chris Dodd

In case you're unfamiliar with the concept of Bush cult authoritarianism, here's a good reference quote from conservative author John Dean:

"Devotion to authority and the movement's own power is supreme, thereby overriding the consciences of its individual members and removing any intellectual and moral limits on what will be justified in defense of their movement."

-- John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience

More on Doc's cult of authoritarianism.

More on the psychological profile of Bush.

Regarding the whole Plame/Libby affair, you'd have to be pretty stupid or in denial to not see what was happening:


UPDATE:
A discussion on CNN

Cafferty: "...it doesn’t really seem to me like it’s breaking news that the administration, the White House, may have misled one of their own about something. After all, they’ve been lying to the rest of the country about a whole bunch of stuff for the better part of six and a half years. You remember when the story broke about the CIA agent and President Bush said I will fire anybody in the White House who was involved in compromising the identity of a CIA agent? Well, that was a lie wasn’t it? Because Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and some of those folks, they were up to their armpits in the compromising of Valerie Plame’s identity. so the President changed and he said I will fire anybody who is convicted of committing a crime in conjunction with the outing of a CIA agent. So I mean that place has turned into an oil slick a long time ago and I don’t believe a whole bunch of anything that comes out of there these days.

Borger: But what if he’s lied to Jack? What if somebody lied to the President?

Cafferty: Excuse me. Excuse me. The buck stops at the oval office. He’s in charge. It’s up to him to find out who’s telling the truth and who isn’t. It’s up to him to tell the American people what went on in his White House. It’s his, it’s his White House. It’s his White House.

One of Bush's closest aids confirms what we already know - BUSH LIED

If you had one lingering thought that George W. Bush has been honest with the American people, GAME OVER. One of his closest advisers, Scott McClellan confirms today that Bush lied and deliberately hid the identity of an administration official who leaked the identity of CIA operative, Valerie Plame, causing significant damage to US efforts to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Essentially, one of Bush's top aids has confirmed that President G.W. Bush has committed treason in an effort to discredit a war critic. It is a criminal offense to protect someone who leaks intelligence information damaging to the security of the USA, thus aiding an enemy in a time of war. Not to mention, use his Press Secretary to deceive the American people and with hold information pertinent to a felony trial - the case of the Vice-President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby.

WASHINGTON (AP)
— Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.
"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

“If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is”
--GW Bush 2/10/04

Well it turns out Bush knew full well who the leakers were. The above statement has been confirmed as a lie.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in his new book, What Happened:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."

CNN story

Other Bush Administration lies regarding the Iraq war are neatly cataloged on this US Congress Website: http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/

Zogby Poll: Liberals enjoy a broad range of music, while conservatives dislike most music genres

This survey speaks generally to conservatives' tendency to be ethnocentric.

MUSIC
THE ZOGBY/LEAR CENTER SURVEY ON POLITICS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Liberals enjoy a broad range of music, while conservatives dislike most music genres.

-- Out of 15 musical genres, conservatives were more likely than the rest of the respondents to listen to only two of them: country and gospel.
-- Conservatives are the least likely group to listen to jazz (34% vs. 44% vs. 53%) and reggae (8% vs. 20% vs. 26%).
-- Over 90% of conservatives said they never enjoy reggae, electronic music or Latin music. Over 95% said they never enjoy world music
-- Liberals, on the other hand, are more likely than other respondents to enjoy almost every music genre, including world, punk, Latin, hip-hop and rap, blues, reggae, electronica, R&B and soul, jazz, folk and traditional music. Rock was the most popular genre among liberals (67%).

Conservatives do like classical music however. Makes sense, an art form primarily of white European men.

I guess this explains why Republicans are always trying to cut funding for the arts. Why fund arts when we can fund war?

Reminds me of that Churchill quote - When fighting the Nazis during WWII, Winston Churchill was advised to cut arts funding, he answered, "Good God no! What do you think we’re fighting for?"

Appreciation of diversity of arts and culture offers richness to life. Those that boast about disliking various and unfamiliar forms of art show their narrow-mindedness, ethnocentrism, cultural ignorance and intolerance. I think it is important to be curious about unfamiliar cultures and to make an effort to learn about things and people different from ourselves. It fosters a global perspective which is good for the world community.

Nearly 5 years later and a HALF TRILLION dollars spent, 70% of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water, 80% have no sanitation facilities

So, we're spending $330 million a day in Iraq. You would think, with all this US money spent, after 5 years the Iraqis would have basic services like clean water and basic sanitation. They don't. Most Iraqis lack basic sanitation, clean water and electricity.

The war profiteers are raking it in. Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock has soared in value and they've moved their company headquarters to Dubai to avoid taxes and accountability for their fraudulent contracts and shoddy work.

The Bush administration said the oil would pay for the reconstruction. At present production rates, it would take more than 100 years for Iraqi oil to pay the US back for what has been spent thus far, and obviously much more money will be required to rebuild Iraq.

Electricity, which is needed to power pumps, continues to be unreliable in many parts of Iraq, causing some taps to go dry because pumping stations and water treatment plants can't operate.

McClatchy:

Despite the fact that Iraq and U.S. officials have made water projects among their top priorities, the percentage of Iraqis without access to decent water supplies has risen from 50 percent to 70 percent since the start of the U.S.-led war, according to an analysis by Oxfam International last summer. The portion of Iraqis lacking decent sanitation was even worse -- 80 percent.

The latest in conservative hypocrisy: the Fox News culture of porn

This is way conservatives get their jollies. To see what I'm talking about - View the videos and check out the new FOX NEWS PORN website.

Here are examples of Fox News priorities:
(via: Project for Excellence in Media)

Percentage of air time covering the Anna Nicole story:

FOXNEWS - 10%
CNN - 4%


Percentage of air time covering the Iraq War:

MSNBC - 31%
FOXNEWS - 15%

But FOX NEWS had no problem running inappropriate sexual images in serious news stories... like about an entire minute of tit n' ass footage of spring breakers while discussing a serial killer on the loose. FOX NEWS also has a habit of promoting stories with explicit sexual content but with little news value, (perhaps to appease the sexually repressed conservative dirty old men?)

Don't get me wrong, I like looking as much as any guy, but these are the same conservatives that have outlawed sex toys and vibrators in several states, and have gone after CBS for the infamous 'wardrobe malfunction' that exposed 3 square inches of a woman's breast.

Hypocrisy is nothing new in the world of conservative values where gay Republican Congressmen result to anonymous sex in airport men's rooms, and to soliciting underage boys for sex. Not to mention the rash of Republicans revealed to having used prostitutes.

Protest banner of the day: "Same shit, different asshole"

This is in honor of Doc, who is fond of the term "Bu$hitler"

Here's a few links documenting Bush family history of war profiteering and the story of how our president's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power:

THE STORY of how Bush's grandfather built the family fortune by helping the Nazis.

The video documentary of the story.




Same shit, different asshole

Proof that the anti-choice campaign is pointless, irrational and most of all - ineffective

Here's why:

1) A study by scientists from the World Health Organization, and the Guttmacher Institute in New York have shown that instances of abortion declined the most where abortion was safe and legal.

2) This global study of abortion also concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.

The study showed that the result of outlawing abortion has been to endanger women's lives. The study indicated that about 20 million abortions that would be considered unsafe are performed each year and that 67,000 women die as a result of complications from those abortions, most in countries where abortion is illegal.

The continued preoccupation with denying women reproductive rights is dangerous, irrational, and counterproductive. It is an example of pushing a religious agenda where it doesn't belong - into our laws.

How your money is being spent in Iraq - 200,000 guns missing

Making a bad situation worse. It has now been calculated that the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have cost the average American family $20,000. This money has been used to purchase guns that may well be in the hands of our enemies. Thanks again, GW Bush, you continue to weaken America.


CBS

The department of defense is accused of "loose record keeping," and as a result, weapons transportation and distribution is "haphazard" and "rushed". What's more, 80,000 pistols, 110,000 AK47 rifles and 135,000 items of body armor are unaccounted for or simply, missing. It also cites "numerous mistakes and incorrect entries" in the records.

Raw

President Bush's six-year invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq will end up costing Americans about $1.5 trillion, or nearly twice as much as the White House has actually spent to fight its wars, because of unseen costs like inflation, rising oil prices and expensive care for wounded veterans.

The estimate was revealed in a Democratic staff report from Congress's Joint Economic Committee. The staff report, titled "The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War," estimates that the Iraq and Afghan wars have cost the average family more than $20,000.

Right wing authoritarians can't handle the truth - Terry Frank, Mark Albertini cowardly delete comments

Terry Frank on this post touts the global warming denialist, John Coleman. When I posted a comment stating the fact that Coleman is not a trained scientist nor has degrees in climatology and made his career as a "TV weather personality"... she deleted the comments. She also deleted my comment highlighting a Yale/Stanford study on the subject.

Mark Albertini from Chattanooga, TN State Senate Candidate completely disabled comments on his blog when reading comments I left despite the fact I allowed him the freedom to leave comments on my blog.

UPDATE: Albertini has resumed comments on his blog. He must have received my complaint or seen this post. (Site Meter shows a visit from his ISP/location Sun evening 11/11)
UPDATE II: Terry Frank has let my comment go through (after I called her on it). This is just one of several times she has deleted my comments, there is a long documented history of this - (see comments)


Question:
Why is it that conservative religious authoritarians can't handle the truth and delete comments? Why do you see so few liberal bloggers that similarly moderate and/or delete comments?

Answer:
Because ignorance is the ally of conservatives. Propaganda, spin, and half-truths are what they use to control people. What fuels authoritarians are their attacks and demonization of those who they deem as "the enemy" - often 'liberals.' Anyone who comes forward with inconvenient facts that dispute their tortured reality is an 'enemy.' They certainly wouldn't want people to know the truth, know the facts. So, they run from the truth.

You can see their tactic of manufacturing spin and division in society in everything from the Bush lies that brought us into war, the "Republican War on Science," the Fox News "War on Christmas," and the continued almost daily stoking of fear by the Bush Administration - a possible precursor to war with Iran.

Ever notice the fact than many conservatives these days "don't want to talk about politics?"

Why?

Because the truth remains uncomfortable for the supporters of the Bush regime, elected on a 'Christian moral values' platform that denies health care to kids, denies infrastructure repairs to US water projects, fosters an unprecedented culture of corruption, and starts a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

They call themselves 'conservatives' but support a president who has opened the floodgates to illegal aliens, and has fiscally ruined America. In just his first 4 years, the Bush Administration borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 presidents combined, over a $TRILLION dollars - turning 4 years of Clinton surpluses into the largest national debt this country has ever seen and a dollar that is weaker than ever on the international market.

They don't want to hear the truth. It makes them uncomfortable so they choose their 'information sources' that tell them what they want to hear - Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the like. You won't find many of their blogs linked to standard main stream media sources (AP, Reuters, etc..) - they get their 'information' through the filter of 'Christian conservative' news organizations like WorldNetDaily, CBN, Cybercast - where you'll see ads for Ann Coulter hate books.

No wonder the Republican party is falling apart.

Republican authoritarian Marsha Blackburn [R-TN] backs Bush veto of emergency dam repairs - TN Republicans join Dems to override Bush veto

I had blogged at NiT on the severity of the potential failure of two local area USACE dams. Bush vetoed a bill that would have provided emergency repairs for these dams. The Bush veto was over ridden in a bipartisan vote by Congress.

All of the Tennessee delegation voted in favor of the bill except for Rep. Marsha Blackburn [R-TN 7th]. This proves her authoritarian support of the President is more important than the safety of her TN constituents.

The cost of this bill would be $6.7 Billion over 4 years 2008-2012 - about what is being spent in Iraq in 3 weeks!

H/T: Christian WKRN News Extra

The House of Representatives voted to override (361 - 54) President Bush’s veto of a bill that would fund needed fixes to the Wolf Creek Dam and other waterway and infrastructure projects.

All of the Tennessee delegation voted in favor of the bill except for Rep. Marsha Blackburn [R-TN 7th].

YES - Davis, David; Tennessee, R-1st
YES - Duncan, John J.; Tennessee, R-2nd
YES - Wamp, Zach; Tennessee, R-3rd
NO - Blackburn, Marsha; Tennessee, R-7th
YES - Davis, Lincoln; Tennessee, D-4th
YES - Cooper, Jim; Tennessee, D-5th
YES - Gordon, Bart; Tennessee, D-6th
YES - Tanner, John S.; Tennessee, D-8th
YES - Cohen, Steve; Tennessee, D-9th

Earlier this year, the Army Corps of Engineers found “significant potential for failure of Wolf Creek Dam” with “catastrophic” results including “loss of life.”

Failure of Wolf Creek Dam would be catastrophic. Loss of life is expected to exceed one-hundred lives. Economic losses are estimated in the billions with damages as distant as Nashville, Tennessee expected to exceed $2 billion. A Memorandum for Record with the subject line “Wolf Creek Dam Interim Risk Reduction Measures” was signed on 19 January 2007. This document outlined the decision to lower Lake Cumberland to elevation 680 ft immediately and to hold that elevation for an indefinite period, unless and until the Corps determines that a different pool elevation is more appropriate.

Contact Congresswoman Blackburn and ask her why her authoritarian support of the President is more important than the safety of her TN constituents?

GAME OVER for the Republican Party: Bush drags down the GOP - disapproval higher than Nixon - sets up a Democratic Party dynasty

The signals are there:

Hillary and her Democratic rivals are polling consistently higher than Giuliani with the GOP further weakened by wingnuts threatening to support an anti-choice third party candidate. Polls show 27% of Republicans would support an anti-choice third party candidate.

The conservative National Review predicts Dems will gain 3 Senate and 4 House seats and Hillary will be our next president.

Dems have just taken the KY Governors seat and the VA State Senate Majority.

Why is all this happening despite the Democratic Congress' poor approval ratings?
The answer is one word: Bush

Gallup Poll notes:

the current 50% “strongly disapprove” figure for Bush is as high as Gallup has ever measured.

This figure of 50% of those that "strongly disapprove" is higher than Nixon's 48% measured at the height of Watergate in 1974.

Listen up Republicans, you elected a totally incompetent president, one who has cost America dearly. It will take decades to repair the damage of the abject failure of GW Bush. Now your GOP will pay the price.

Contempt of Congress filed for Bolton and Miers - White House calls Government Oversight: "futile . . . a waste of time".

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) filed a report Monday holding that two White House officials are in contempt of Congress for their continued refusal to honor subpoenas in connection with the controversial firing of US attorneys last year. Chairman Conyers has requested compliance 8 times previously, but to no avail. He's trying one more time.

If White House Counsel Fred Fielding rejects Conyers' final offer, reports the WaPost, a contempt vote could come as early as next week.

White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers could be held in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas seeking documents and testimony as part of a House Judiciary probe into the firing of nine US attorneys.

According to the WaPost, Democrats have been working to secure the votes necessary to make sure that a contempt vote, if brought to the House floor, would be successful.

How the the White House respond to this effort in government oversight?

Dana Perino, White House Press Secretary responded:

"they can now waste time again on another diversion ... it's been very clear that this is a futile attempt on their part"

Yea right, government oversight is a futile waste of time.

Easy to say when you've got something to hide.