Attacking Dumb America

Since Bill Maher appeared on CNN to call America a stupid country and claiming the country is getting dumber and dumber by the day the Repubs have come out in full force to prove they are SMRT. Here is your first run of commentary at FreeRepublic.com not for small children.

You have over 50 comments now and some majority of them turn the attack on those who voted for Obama. The reasoning of course is Maher attacked the of so stupid Sarah Palin. That was only his crowning jewel though. Look through the news any day and you can find so many examples of stupidity in our culture right now.

Just in the past year we have seen 23% of Americans unable to name a single scientist, 26% of Americans do not believe in the existence of Pangaea(47% of Republicans don't) and 81% believe in Creationism or Intelligent Design and don't believe Evolution.

It's not a question of stupid or not, but how stupid are we? Obviously if 81% don't believe evolution then that isn't just republicans but some from all groups. Here is one that should blow your mind. In a 2008 appearance on the Bill Maher show Susan Jacoby says 15% of Americans don't know the Earth revolves around the sun.

I recently completed a book by Author Charles P Pierce called Idiot America: How Stupitity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. The book goes through the obvious topics like the Creationism Museum in Kansas or the Terri Shaivo case. His take on how our society has allowed these ideas that previously would have been ridiculed to become central is very good.


So while I agree with Maher we are entering new territory of dumb he needs to make a better argument while on CNN instead of just saying because Sarah Palin could be president. He his show will only reach certain viewers, but while on a format like CNN he should be the one ridiculing these people.

This article got past an editor in it's original form which has now been switched. As noted by Jay Bookman the original article said this in attacking a socialised medicine system in the US:

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K.,
where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man,
because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless,” the editorial
claims.

OK that is just epic FAIL. Steven Hawking lives in the UK and has since his birth. He has had ALS (or more specifically a suspected case of Spinal Muscular Atrophy type IV) for over 40 years now. Fear mongering of "Death Councils" or "Euthanasia recommendations" is another attempt to use the concept made by Pierce in his book that anything presented on TV or Radio has to have some believability or truth. Just for the reason it was on TV or Radio and not ridiculed. EPL Transfer News

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How Do We Turn The Tide?

This is only going to get worse as more wackjobs say things that send angry people to do drastic things. This video can be found at Crooks & Liars.

So you want more?

Colmes: ...you then said, I asked for whom else are you praying in that fashion and you said President Obama. Are you praying for his death?

Drake: Yes.

Colmes: So you're praying for the death of the president of the United States?

Drake: Yes.

Colmes: Are you concerned that by saying that you might find yourself on some secret service call or FBI most wanted list. Do you think it's appropriate to say something like that or even pray for something like that?

Drake: I think it's appropriate to pray for the will of God. I'm not saying anything, what I'm doing is repeating what God is saying, if that puts me on somebodies list then I'll just have to be on their list.

Colmes: You would like for the president of the United States to die?

Drake: If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around I am asking God to enforce in imprecatory prayers throughout the scripture that would cause him death, that's correct.

This man is asking for the death of a US President by the will of God. I don't even have words for this nonsense, but I really don't know how we combat something like this.
(h/t Delaware Liberal)

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Hitler's Attachment

Adolf Hitler is one of the most interesting people in history to me. Not for the evil acts he did, but for his use as a labeling tool. His history is twisted and turned to be used in ways to attach him to people or groups as a labeling tool. If his history has any truth or myth that can be had in common with you then you are also a mass murderer.

His name is again a topic as the murderer of a guard at the Holocaust Museum was a white supremacist. The attachment of Hitler though is used in so many other ways. His National Socialism is used to target Liberals as socialist and the same. His supposed vegetarianism is attached to vegetarians and liberals. He is also made out as an atheist and used to assume all atheist assume to be like him. there are many more, but let's start with this so far.

National Socialist/Liberal
This one is based more on the name and less on any policies. National is the key word here as he wanted people of the state to assume a socialist view of owning the state. This would make them a much more energized group and feel a larger part of the group. Nothing the state did to control businesses was socialist, which involves the workers owning everything. He also closed all trade unions, which is most definitely not a socialist view. You can read more of this myth here.

Vegetarian/Liberals and Animal Rights
His Vegetarianism was based on propaganda by the state that he neither drank, nor smoked, nor ate meat, and was devoted above all to his people. The smoking is true, but he was known to drink and also had a mistress. Regardless the vegetarianism is also believed to be from a doctors advice to avoid excessive flatulence and sweating. Either way it was common knowledge that Hitler enjoyed sausages, liver and caviar. That is definitely not a vegetarian, but he might have been trying to be one. Slate had a good article on an author out to disprove this one.

Atheist
This one has no basis in any fact except the leap of faith that Hitler's open uses of God were for appearance only and to cover his true beliefs. Using the sources from this Wikipedia page you can see he was raised Roman Catholic, but had been in and out of the church during his later years. There are many unknowns in this as many people "lose faith" from time to time, but even his quoting from Mein Kampf shows some religious feelings.

"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and the reproduction
of our race...so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission
allotted it by the creator of the universe...Peoples that bastardize themselves,
or let themselves be bastardized, sin against the will of eternal
Providence."

"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."

Some other signs of religious belief include the belt buckles of the soldiers saying Gott Mit Uns or God is with us. Here is a through list of religious quotes from Hitler.

Hitler is a strong label as his attachment causes a reaction of disgust and repulsion from all. Regardless of disproving these myths they will still be used to attach him to different groups, but knowing it isn't true can help confront the label no matter who it is used on.

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Miranda Rights and Michelle Malkin

I have a lot to get to today as suddenly we have the revival of false claims regarding Adolf Hitler. There has to be a few Biographies on this man yet myths and lies still fly left and right. First though we have the new right wing talking point that FBI agents are reading Afghanistan terrorists their Miranda rights!!!

If you really want to get sick you can head over to DailyKos.com and see how she even showed a picture using the 9/11 plane crash as a joke about the whole thing. The great part about this is you go straight to the bottom of the post and see a direct quote from General Petraeus.

"The real rumor yesterday is whether our forces were reading Miranda rights
to detainees and the answer to that is no," Petraeus said today.

So there goes her theory. This is the second time the "conservative" General Pertraeus has sided with the Democrats after voicing his opinion against torture. This may hurt what had been seen as a future GOP candidate for President in 2012, but he would be the most likely candidate to draw in independents.

We shall see what happens to General Pertraeus, but as usual Michelle Malkin is not telling the truth.

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Escalating Violence From Right Wing

Update: All I can say is Wow. I misread the whole thing...Glenn Beck says it's my fault...that's right liberals are to blame.

So what can be said, but that fear mongering and hate lead to dangerous times. After months of a political campaign lead by McCain and Palin, which incited crowds filled with hate and anger, we get domestic terrorism twice in one week and this won't be the end. Even morning personality Shep Smith at Fox News Sees it.

Going to any of the major RW blogs or feed distributors you can see article after article disseminating false or faulty information leading to fear and hate. I've been stalking LibertarianRepublican for a few weeks now as they have followed the same logic even though the writer Eric Dondero claims only Libertarian allegiance (Then why name the site Libertarian REPUBLICAN?).

Just last week he spent the whole week using weak links and other right wing sites to turn Nashville Tennessee into the next extremest Muslim community. Here is one of his posts with a map labeling "terrorist" camps in the US and the mosque in Nashville. His only source is Front Page Magazine and the article is not supported by anyone else. You can go to Jack Silverman for his take in the Nashville scene. He takes apart his evidence bit by bit showing his linking is just a trail of other right wing nutjob sites. Here is my favorite though:

"Never mind that Mauro himself has been obsessed with tracking
geopolitical threats since high school (where he was nicknamed
"Government"--the girls must have been swooning), or that he hosts his own
website, worldthreats.com (!), where he links to the FrontPage article
in a post titled "The Islamization of Tennessee."

The question becomes how long before more violence starts from these forces of fear and hate. Every "birther" theory or slandering claim leads people to consider extreme situations. Every time I listen to this right wing radio there are callers saying "What can we do?", "should we revolt?", "He isn't an American!", or some other nonsense.

Until the right wing leaders our media outlets put an end to this we will see more and more violence. Homeland Security has released a report on the rise of right wing extremism and what is the expectations and all the causes.

There really is not much to be done, but the call on media members to stop with unwarranted or untruthful claims. Just minutes before the killer entered the Holocaust museum Rush Limbaugh again spouted the misinformation of Obama not having a Birth Certificate. This is the ultimate in fear mongering for them as even though his birth certificate is confirmed by sites like Snopes.com and FactCheck.org they can claim conspiracies and political influence. Even if they held the form in their hands they would make more claims that it wasn't real and now that he is President had it made to fit his means. These are the toughest to battle and leave people angry and disillusioned.

None of the right wing sites will label him a terrorist though as he is neither a different skin color, religion or political belief. So far 2 human lives are on the heads of Right Wing fear mongering. we can only hope it stops at that. (Make that 5 as I forgot the shooting in Pittsburgh)

An interesting idea comes from The Immoral Minority who notes the Shooters affinity for Sarah Palin. The extremism increased drastically in the campaign with the addition of Sarah Palin last year. I do not conclude she was responsible, but does her far right views and support from right wing extremists lead to more violence?

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Natural Cancer Cures and Imus is Dangerous

According to this article there is an alarming increase in people using natural "cures" for disease and especially cancer. They say 60% are trying natural "cures" first.

If you try a natural cure for your hangnail or a cold that is one thing, but a disease where time is of the utmost importance like cancer this is a big problem. There are some really disturbing stories in the article about those who had developed extremely life threatening cancers while taking unproven treatments.

I found this out while listening to the radio the other morning. I usually listen to NPR on the way to work, but during a segment change i flipped up to Imus in the morning. He was speaking to Bob Scheiffer and said he has decided to use this natural treatment of eating habanero peppers every day. He claims this is killing cancer cells. You can tell from Scheiffer's response he doesn't know how to respond. This is dangerous to not only Don Imus, but every listener who thinks this is a new approved option.

Imus's doctors have not approved of this and even if he were "cured" that doesn't prove it was the peppers. It takes large studies to prove something like this and single stories are not proof. Chemotherapy and targeted cancer treatments have spent many years under study by not just the FDA, but other competing companies to prove their claims. Much like everything else in science there are peer review efforts to prove these claims.

So the quack who started this phenomenon now is posting from a blogspot account showing how accepted this is(I know I'm at blogspot, but I'm not trying to sell you anything here). Then he heads to medical message boards and professes all the time about this "cure".

The danger here is as more and more defy doctors suggestion to take natural cures we are going to have more and more unnecessary deaths to cancer that becomes to advanced before the person accepts the doctors treatment. Chemotherapy is not something I would wish on anyone, but modern science is working everyday to make better combinations or even alternatives to chemo, which work better.

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Single Poll Deceives Repubs Again

So the wingnuts started their victory song to soon last week when Rassmussen Polling reported the Strongly Approve and Strongly Disapprove were equal for the first time since Obama took office. This was their sign that he was a failure and would be destined to get worse in the polls. Ignoring the +/- of 3 points and the extreme variability of polling.

Here is this weeks updated poll:


So what does this all mean? Nothing really. It's all based on what you heard that day or did you listen to Fox News or MSNBC. Basically for the past 3 months Obama has entered the random fluctuation that is within the standard error range of 0 almost daily. He is now a +8, but could be back to 0 before the week is out.

Is there any importance to hitting the 0 mark if it is just for the day? I don't think so since it is largely just a popularity vote now and many Americans have little to no day to day knowledge of government operations. Only on days like the visit to Cairo do we hear about politics and Obama all day on every station.

In regards to overall approval his numbers are 58% approve and 41% disapprove. He still has a clear majority of the independent or middle of the road voters on his side.

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The Religion Virus: Atheists: Get Out of the Damned Closet!

The Religion Virus: Atheists: Get Out of the Damned Closet!

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Atheist Majority

I was thinking today about how long it would take for a disbelief in religion to be a majority in the US. There has been a push back on anything not Christian in the 20th century, but there are obvious factors that show religion has been a progression over the years. The common concept of progression is Mythology to Religion to Science. Sometimes Philosophy is put in there near the end, but the point is we go from many gods to less gods to one god to understanding nature and ourselves.

So what factors lead to a increase skepticism in religion? The first is parental influence. If your parents are skeptical or atheist you will be much more likely to follow. The second is intelligence and education. The good news is that with higher education rates climbing every year there are more and more given the tools to open some skepticism.

The first study I saw was from USAToday.com, which did a study of those who responded "none" to a religious survey. This is up from 8% in 1990, but is likely not a large grouping of non-believers and more just the uninvolved. This is still a strong movement and creates a future generation who are not indoctrinated as children.

The factor of parental influence and increasing higher education rates support a exponential increase in non-believers over the next 20-30 years. This would support the thought that we could see a US that is a majority non-believers in our lifetimes.

A limit I can see, but is not based on any study might be reproduction rates among the different groups. Especially groups supporting beliefs like no birth control or supporting abstinence programs should produce more offspring then the agnostics.

More support for this increase is found in a Gallup.com poll here. If you head down a bit there is the no religious identification chart. This has increased from 2% in 1948 to around 9% in the late 80's, but held there with a strong push back by religious groups and religion becoming a bigger player in the Republican Party. Since 2000 though the increase has returned and as of 2008 we have reached a level of 12%.

This is mainly a drag on Protestantism, which is still greater than 50% of the population, but appears head to less than 50% in the next 10-15 years. Catholicism is also dipping after a rise in the 70's.

It will be difficult to know what this means since so many non-believers could be labeled many different ways. You have Agnostic, Atheist or just separated from the church and not really interested in what they believe at time of polling. The importance is an overall drop in religiosity. I would think this number is over 20% in these polls by 2020, but how long it takes to reach a majority is anyones guess. Religion will not go quietly and a push back could occur again to slow the progress of Atheism.

(h/t to The Religion Virus)

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Can We Still Talk the Dow Jones Numbers?

Back in March the big talk was the President Obama "effect" on the stock market. You can see one of the wingnuttiest(new word!) example here at rightpundit.com. Suddenly the Obama is bad just look at the market talk has silenced. Since the apparent "bottom" in March the market has gained 32% in just over 3 months. This I'm sure had nothing to do with Obama though, but lets look at his overall record.

Since the Election the market is still a net negative of 569.59 or 6.11%. Moving that date though to Inauguration day the market is a plus 5.66% or 469.02. Even assuming he is a net negative of 6.11% as of today he has quiet a way to reach the -20.5% of George W Bush in his 8 years.

Looking back at former presidents we see this Forbes article using S&P 500 data. The leader is Bill Clinton who gained 17.4% in his 8 years. Obama is currently a positive of 10.85% since Inauguration day and only a -2.72% since election day.

So the S&P 500 rate of 10.85% gained is enough to put him ahead of Nixon and Johnson so far. This is including the final decline of the recession including a low point of a 19.61% drop.

This all follows the stimulus package delivering its first payment to states and local agencies. So using the same logic that was used against Obama we can say that the stimulus was a huge success so far.

Much like the Myth of the failure of "The Real Deal" it will remain to be seen if Obama gets credit for a recovery, but we know they won't be attacking with the stock market for now.

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