yes, we have no collusion, part two

washington post:

a few days after the attack, the now-former secretary of state, rex tillerson, called the poisoning "a really egregious act" and linked it "clearly" to russia. by contrast, the president himself has said nothing so definitive. on his twitter account, where he comments regularly on islamist terrorism, he has not mentioned the use of a chemical poison in an english city. nor did he mention it during a telephone conversation with the russian president.

the headline practically writes itself ...

but he's not there

only 1% of people think of god as female, with 62% considering god to be male, the online survey conducted earlier this month of 1,050 adults in britain found.1

i remember sometime during the last millenium catching part of a documentary about christians in korea or some such topic and the one clip that stayed with me was an interview of a korean man saying that not only did he believe in jesus christ, son of god, but he also believed that christ was a caucasian with blond hair and blue eyes.

i immediately thought: "how horrible!" — this pathetic person had built himself a mountain that he could never scale.

most theists and deists with an anthropomorphic vision of their diety create one in their own image and posit themselves as the "chosen people" of that god, yet here was a person submitting to a god that he could never claim kin to, no matter how hard he prays, no matter what he sacrifices.

it seems that instead of enjoying the ego-boost most religions give their faithful, this person was basically condemning himself to a permanent inferiority complex. and if god is white, blond and blue-eyed, how could this person ever have any kind of relationship with any white, blond and blue-eyed human being in which he wasn't automatically inferior (perhaps even inferior to any caucasian nonbeliever as well), all the way down to his corpuscles?

watching that guy declare his strange faith just seemed so heartbreakingly tragic.

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¹ hat tip to p.z. myers @ pharyngula. from commenter greta christina:

the zombies' song "she's not there" keeps coming to mind. with a little tweaking, it makes an excellent atheist song. well, let me tell you 'bout the way he looks the way he acts and the color of his hair his voice is soft and cool his eyes are clear and bright but he's not there!

coalition of the wilting

courtesy of thinkprogress.org:

the defeated
country	leader	electoral fate
albania	f. nano	voted out, 7/05
australia	j. howard	voted out, 11/07
dom. rep.	h. mejia d.	voted out, 5/04
hungary	p. medgyessy	voted out, 8/04
italy	s. berlusconi	voted out, 4/06
norway	k.m. bondevik	voted out, 9/05
romania	a, năstase	voted out, 11/04
spain	j.m. aznar	voted out, 3/04

the departed
country	leader	electoral fate
britain	t. blair	bowed out, 6/07
el salvador	f.f. perez	timed out, 3/04
japan	j. koizumi	bowed out, 9/06
poland	a. kwaśniewski	timed out, 12/05

the dead-enders
country	leader	commitment
denmark	a.f. rasmussen	headed out, 2/07
s. korea	r. moo-hyun	chillin' out

goodbye tony blair

the skies are charcoal grey it's a dreary downtown day but at the end of my 40 foot leash is my little friend quiche quiche la poodle is her name and having a good time on a crummy day is our game. quiche quiche lorraine quiche quiche lorraine everyday i take her out. yeah! she runs around, she shouts out and barks. yeah! cause she's a good doggie she's a sweet, sweet, sweet puppy! arf arf and i know she'll stick by me, yeah! arf arf oh no! here comes a great dane drivin' down the lane quiche, quiche, quiche come back here don't leave me i'll go insane. i'll go insane. how do you like that? has anybody seen a dog dyed dark green about two inches tall, with a strawberry blond fall; sunglasses and a bonnet and designer jeans with appliques on it? the dog that brought me so much joy left me wallowing in pain quiche lorraine i'll show her! do you see the key in my hand? i'm gonna throw it in the lake yes, you've been so rotten to me, you take the cake. i'm just gonna lock the door to your kennel and just you try and come back to me yeah, you'll see. quiche quiche lorraine you mangy mutt. quiche quiche lorraine i'm talking about quiche! quiche quiche lorraine quiche lorraine! — the b-52s, "quiche lorraine"

hello gordon brown.

from the mouths of babes

(cross-posted at daily kos)

from today's "grim" new unicef report on child welfare in the the top 21 industrialized nations, in which the netherlands and scandinavia came out on top, while the united states and britain sat "roundly bottom":

peter marshall, narrator: in the netherlands, home of liberal views on sex and drugs, their young people rank at the top of unicef's survey for well-being. we went to a school in the heart of amsterdam to talk to sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. laura vos, student: in this country it's very free. you can do what you like, you can smoke when you're sixteen, you can buy pot in the store next to the school — [laughter] because it's not illegal, it's not that interesting for us to just — to provoke our parents with.

are you listening, mr. social conservative, mrs. moral majority, uncle christian coalition and auntie no-child-left-behind?

probably not.

still, miss vos does leave us with an interesting question: just what do dutch kids have to do there, to provoke their parents?

overall rankings from the report:
1. netherlands 2. sweden 3. denmark 4. finland 5. spain 6. switzerland 7. norway 8. italy 9. ireland 10. belgium 11. germany	12. canada 13. greece 14. poland 15. czech republic 16. france 17. portugal 18. austria 19. hungary 20. united states 21. united kingdom

all kidding aside, it is of course simplistic to attribute the success of the dutch solely or even primarily to its liberal attitudes. after all, a number of conservative and strongly religious nations like spain, italy and ireland made it into the top ten.

but what's noteworthy is how the report discredits the long-standing conservative-religious argument that morally permissive societies are dangerous to its children's moral and physical well-being. presumably this is the argument propping up their endless campaigns against hollywood, music, drugs, sex education, birth control, abortion, and the rest of their entire program. it's all about saving the children, don't you see?

and uncle christian coalition and auntie no-child-left-behind would have us all believe that only a strict country devoted to dogma can protect the young, not that a "decadent" country like the netherlands could ever rate such a list, much less come out on top.

anyone?

josh marshall, a liberal blogger still trying in these partisan times to hold fast to the middle — wherever that may be going — has just reached "like a sort of epiphany":

is there anyone in the country who can say honestly, in their heart of hearts, that when that moment of fear hit them after the recent reports out of london, they said to themselves, "god, i'm glad we're in iraq"? anyone?

the complaint against king george

to celebrate the 230th birthday of the united states, juan cole is having a little holiday contest. can you identify how many of the complaints which thomas jefferson and his fellow signatories leveled against king george and britain in the declaration of independence could be leveled against george bush and his administration by current american and/or iraqi citizens?

the first one on jefferson's list is easy:

he has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good

this complaint against the department of homeland security is oddly comical in its archaic construction:

he has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance

while these offenses of the military occupation should be familiar to the iraqis:

he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us for protecting them, by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states

and these offenses familiar to the anonymous captives at guantanamo bay and hidden elsewhere in once-abandoned gulags scattered around the globe.

for depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences

jefferson's list is quite long. for now, the rest of king george's crimes i leave to you.