More PROOF for intelligent design

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Monday January 30, 2006 · 6:58 PM PST

2006/01/30 · 18:58

Human earwax is proof positive of intelligent design.

First of all, earwax is complicated. Much like a mouse trap. Nothing with so many working parts (i.e., earwax) could possibly have "evolved." Plus, like a mousetrap, earwax is sometimes sticky (though not always).

Nevertheless, scientists and so-called 'genetic researchers'--all clearly Agents of Beelzebub--claim to have uncovered the key gene behind the waxy mystery.

The report in Monday's Nature Genetics journal solves a long-running anthropologist's riddle - why many people in China and Korea, as well as elsewhere in Asia, have dry earwax while the rest of humanity enjoys the sticky variety.
snip
Geneticists had known the neighborhood of the earwax gene from previous work and decided to pin it down. The earwax riddle surprisingly comes down to a single gene, dubbed ABCC11, reports a Japanese team led by Koh-ichiro Yoshiura of the Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. The gene comes in two types, or alleles, corresponding to wet or dry earwax.
http://news.yahoo.com/...

Ha!
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Civil War in Iraq was the goal

markymarx

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Tuesday December 06, 2005 · 6:37 PM PST

2005/12/06 · 18:37

I've been wondering about the possibility that chaos was the original goal of invading Iraq ever since Josh Marshall penned his brilliant article, Practice to Deceive: Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan.

In the end, the war turned out as Marshall predicted-- Iraq looks more like a post-invasion Lebanon than a city on the hill in the middle east. It is a failed state, and a haven for terrorists.

But what if this is all part of the plan (B)? The failed state scenario? More importantly--what should democrats do?

More follows: Read More

Are BLOGS your PRIMARY source of News? (w/POLL)

markymarx

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Thursday November 17, 2005 · 7:03 AM PST

2005/11/17 · 07:03

Where do you get your news?
Are there people out there who use blogs as their primary source of news?
Do you get your news from three or more sources every day?
Please feel free to comment about the results below. I'll need to check back later today to comment.

Please recommend this poll, if you think it's interesting...

Gore, Hillary, Clark, Spongebob--it doesn't matter. Without populism, we'll lose again

markymarx

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Sunday November 06, 2005 · 4:52 PM PST

2005/11/06 · 16:52

All of this polite squabbling over the '08 nominee is fun but it misses the point. Gore, Hillary, Clark, Spongebob-- in the end it makes no difference who we nominate. Unless things change at the highest levels, our glorious nominee will be killed again by bad advice from cautious handlers and beltway inside dopesters.

Consider the recent past. It seemed like Kerry stood a chance in 2004, but only early on. Here's how he sounded in early 'O4, for example, coming out of a tough primary battle against the populist-firebrand duo of Dean and Edwards:

"I have a message for the influence peddlers, for the polluters, the HMOs, the drug companies, big oil and all the special interests who now call the White House home: We're coming. You're going."

Ahhhh, those were the days...when Kerry seemed infused with confidence and poll numbers that looked like he might win.

http://www.cbsnews.com/...

That is until the whisperers of caution, the Machiavellis of sucking up to the powerful screwed Kerry's chances and in the process screwed America...
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TO JEROME A PARIS: ENERGY SECURITY is a terrible frame

markymarx

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Thursday November 03, 2005 · 6:05 PM PST

2005/11/03 · 18:05

To Jerome A Paris et al:

The phrase "Energy security" hurts our ability to draw attention to the very real threat of global warming. Energy security is a self-defeating frame.

Here's why: our opponents find it incredibly easy to turn this language to their advantage. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska (not known as a skilled persuader outside of Fairbanks) illustrates the point today in his piggish demand for drilling ANWR.

"America needs this American oil," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. He called opposition to pumping the refuge's oil "ostrich-like" and said it "ill-serves our nation this time of energy crisis."

"American dependence on foreign oil threatens our national security. We now rely on unstable and unfriendly regimes to meet our energy needs. ..."

http://stevens.senate.gov/...

markymarx

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Sunday October 09, 2005 · 10:21 AM PDT

2005/10/09 · 10:21

Over 20K are dead in Pakistan, and the death toll is rising:

Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands today through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 20,000.

20,000 Dead

What is Bush doing? What are we doing? What are you doing (other than preparing for theoretical future threats here at home)?

In addition to the human tragedy, here's another opportunity for Americans to show actual concern for people in parts of the world where there's still great (and at least partly understandable) animosity towards the U.S.

China has offered 6.2 million, the Czech republic pledged 1 million, and Belgium 300K. So far Bush is offering "condolences," experts, and $100,000 in emergency aid.
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Rudy Giuliani v. Hillary Clinton?

markymarx

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Wednesday October 05, 2005 · 6:16 PM PDT

2005/10/05 · 18:16

New York's ex-Mayor is now hinting at a run for President. I imagine the headlines are already being written at the New York Post: Hillary v. Rudy. What a juicy political matchup for the puking heads on the right

To the point for Democrats: if this occurs, I predict Hillary will kick Rudy's ass. The reason is obvious---Rudy will have no chance in the primary thanks to the abortion issue. His run will help split the party in two, between the greedy bastard CEOS on the one side and the nasty evangelicals on the other.

If Rudy wins the primary, the nasty evangelicals will stay home to protest. At least some of them. Then, voila, we end up with President Hillary. From where I sit, this at least sounds better than President Jeb Bush or President John "We need another Shooting War" McCain. Or Colin "They Have WMDS" Powell.

The point again: Hillary would kick Rudy's ass. (whether you want Hillary or not, which is a different question). The political matchup should inspire confidence in victory for 2008.

Christopher Hitchens gets it wrong--again! (WITH POLL)

markymarx

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Monday October 03, 2005 · 5:40 PM PDT

2005/10/03 · 17:40

If shooting dead horses or setting fire to straw men is your thing, then you'll love Christopher Hitchens latest screed in today's Slate. The column takes on supposed apologists for terrorism as practiced by Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah.

Where are these apologists in the US exactly? Certainly not in the virtual pages of Slate. Nor are the apologists actually quoted anywhere by Hitchens--making one wonder if any exist at all. Perhaps he's thinking of the former Iraqi information minister or a spokesperson for Jemaah Islamiyah itself?

Of course, Hitchens isn't really talking about real apologists --the sort of conservatives who would make excuses for Hitler while waggling their fingers at CIO organizers in the 1930s (much like Hitchens today). No, Hitchens real target is anyone who dares to criticize current US foreign policy.

(More below, starting with C. Hitchens, in his own words!:)
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To Barak Obama re: Paul Wellstone (and POLL)

markymarx

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Saturday October 01, 2005 · 10:03 AM PDT

2005/10/01 · 10:03

I never knew Paul Wellstone, Senator, but I admired him. So when you said you think of Paul Wellstone as a role model, I was paying attention:

[O]ne of Paul Wellstone's greatest strengths was his ability to deliver a scathing rebuke of the Republicans without ever losing his sense of humor and affability.

I think you are 100 percent right there--he was a pragmatist, a fighter, a diplomat, and he had a sense of humor. But this begs the question for citizens: what should our response be to politicians we admire that vote the "wrong" way? Read More

why we're completely fucked (WITH POLL)

markymarx

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Sunday September 18, 2005 · 12:54 PM PDT

2005/09/18 · 12:54

The tragic realities of Iraq have not woken us up from the dangerous dream of molding a cartoon version of the world into our own cartoon image. As if this isn't bad enough, the democrats don't present any coherent alternative worldview as an oppostion party. The fantasy of a one-way globe where all roads lead to Washington, DC is so persistent that real opposition is deemed unrealistic by most democratic party insiders. In other words, we're fucked!

First, the conservatives. Consider this gem from one of their least-dim bulbs, Justice Scalia, who says foreign laws and legal reasoning are irrelevant to America, because we don't have the same moral and legal framework as the rest of the world.

In other words, Scalia's thinking mirrors the Bush doctrine. We export our values--our constitutional principles--to the rest of the world. We do this based on the idea that these are universal principles. Then we ignore entirely what the rest of the world has to say since we supposedly don't share any of their values.
Read More

None Dare Call it Stolen! (WITH POLL)

markymarx

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Monday August 29, 2005 · 3:29 PM PDT

2005/08/29 · 15:29

"None Dare Call it Stolen," Mark Crispin Miller's excellent Harper's article about the 2004 election is a must-read for all Democrats. We should be screaming from the rooftops (and at the media) about the de facto disenfranchisement that occured.

In Ohio, for example, thanks to that creepy, Katharine Harris clone, Secretary of State Kennth Blackwell, there was:

a wide discrepancy between the availability of voting machines in more minority, Democratic and urban areas, as compared to more republican, suburban and exurban areas.

snip

[In Franklin County] election officials had "decided to make do with 2,866 machines, even though the analysis showed the county needs 5,000 machines.

This is de facto disenfranchisement, whether there is a smoking gun that proves a GOP-led conspiracy behind it or not. And whatever name you put on it, these are damning facts, fellow democrats: the sort of facts that our friends on the far right would NOT be trying to hush up. Read More

Heart of the Speech: A Dodge

markymarx

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Tuesday June 28, 2005 · 5:43 PM PDT

2005/06/28 · 17:43

How and when do we succeed? Bush won't answer the question, of course, but behind the nauseating chicken hawk rhetoric, the heart of BushCo's latest dodge is official: a secret plan to Iraqi-Ize the war. No details of course--since there is no coherent plan.

The first Republican secret plan to end a war was in 1968. The public had turned against the Vietnam war after the Tet offensive. Nixon won the election by claiming he would bring "peace with honor." He claimed he would meet with the Soviets and implied he had a secret plan to "de-Americanize."

Rumsfeld and BushCo are using almost the same Nixonian line today in the face of their own declining poll numbers on the war in Iraq:

Rummy says,

We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency...

Uh...and when is that going to happen again? Bush's secret plan below the fold: Read More

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