MINISTER OF RANTS

P.O.E.T.S. - 082606 || Kim Cattrall's 50!... Pluto's still a dog... FORCED RECALLS TO IRAQ...Legacy of JonBenet: Tarty tots & Pre-pubescent pint-sized prostitutes...

PISS ON EVER’THIN’ –
T’DAY’S SATURDAY, August 26, 2006

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(Da Rev’s STAND-UP begins after the quotes…)

BIRTHDAY SALUTES!
Our older son Darren turned 44, a fine caliber, Wednesday.

Sex & the City’s Super Sexy Samantha Jones – Lovely, exuberant, pneumatic Actress Kim Cattrall is FIVE-OH! And FINE.

President Clinton celebrated his 60th Birthday last week:

Dear Rev. Art,
I was thrilled to receive your online card on my birthday. I’m truly grateful for your kind words…
Thank you again for your good wishes.
Sincerely,

Bill Clinton

After everybody sang Happy Birthday at Bill’s 60^th birthday bash, a registered nurse popped out of a giant bran muffin!

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
[Aldous Huxley]

Your DNA may be destined to mingle with mine. Salutations!
[Richard Dawkins]

“Would you tax God?" asks a defender of church tax exemption. Well, if there were a God he should be able to pay his own way and support his own business. If not, then he should do like other business men and close up shop.
[E. Haldeman-Julius] 

WELL HOWDY, REV’LERS!

Welcome to our humble cottage in Metro Fairborn… I'm out of my mind, Folks - but feel free to leave a message!


All proceeds from t’day’s STAND-UP will be going to the “Foundation for the Appreciation of Others Like Ourselves”…

Time waits for no one. In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday. And we’ll all be that much closer to completin’ our worm food apprenticeship…

"LIKE A WINE-STONED COWBOY..."
Fruit of the Loon Brand

Some say life begins at forty. That may be, but it also begins to show. Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician. And age doesn't always bring wisdom.  Sometimes it comes alone…

I plan on living forever. So far, so good.

Did you read about the study that shows 1 in 10 toddlers is overweight. The main reason? Not enough toddling...

My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!

Oh, good. Da Pagan Baby has set up the slide projector for our astrological presentation. I MEANT astronomical! There's something new under the sun! THREE new planets! And Pluto… Oh, poor Pluto…

Astronomers have voted to strip Pluto of its designation as a planet. In response, Pluto's supporters are petitioning the United Nations for sanctions against Israel. (The first slide, please.)

PLUTO DEMOTED TO DWARF!

Disneyland, CA - (LaughFish.com) - Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, and Huey, Dewey & Louie were ecstatic when it was announced today that Pluto had been demoted to dwarf status.
 
Some of you may have learned the planets and their relationship to the Sun with this mnemonic: “Mary's violet eyes made John stay up nights proposing!”
Mary's=Mercury - violet=Venus - eyes=Earth - made=Mars - John=Jupiter - stay=Saturn - up=Uranus - nights=Neptune - proposing=Pluto…
Uh-oh! Strike the proposal! (The next slide, please.)

Biker-Pilot-Broadcaster Bill Kirby recalls learning a different mnemonic: “My Very Earthly Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles?”
Bill muses, “I guess that cupboard is bare, too.” (Next slide, please.)

All of the planets in the Solar System (apart from Earth) are named after Roman/Greek mythological gods. With the discovery of what was thought to be a ninth planet in our solar system in 1930, the name Pluto was chosen, after the Roman god of the Underworld.  Farthest from the Sun, it receives very little light.
 
The same year, Mickey Mouse's dog made his first appearance in a Disney cartoon as “Rover”. In the following year, “Rover” became “Pluto”, in "The Moose Hunt". Pluto is still a dog...  Uncle Walt provided the name for the cartoon canine fully aware of the mythical beast of the "Netherworld" of that name.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) apparently was not a member of any religion and did not attend services. Not only that, he apparently had an entirely secular funeral. It was "very private" and off-limits to the press, perhaps to conceal that it was not religious. Holy Crap! There is no "In God we Trust" on Disney Dollars! Disney finally came out near the end of his life, admitting, "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it." (Next slide, please.)

Since astronomers have stripped Pluto of its designation as a planet, it's basically just a big lifeless rock in space... kind of like Alabama.

Is the downgrading of Pluto as a planet a slippery slope? What next – will the astronomers eliminate URANUS?!

Goofy, who stands erect, might be a better name for a planet than Pluto, who remains on all fours…

Earth is full. Go home!

THIS JUST ___ IN!!

Humorist Jake Novak comments on the news:
Bush Meeting
President Bush had a special meeting in the Oval Office this week with Katrina survivor Rocky Vaccarella of Meraux, Louisiana. Before the meeting, Mr. Bush had not known any of the storm's victims were white.

Comedian Argus Hamilton offers these musings concerning current events:

Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Joe Rosenthal died at age ninety-four on Monday. He snapped the four Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. The Pentagon identifed the Marines in the photograph and ordered them to report for duty in Iraq.

Hezbollah leader Hasran Nasrallah horrified television viewers when he told an interviewer that he would be proud if his young sons became martyrs for Islam. He ought to enjoy them while he can. These kids blow up so fast nowadays.

Hillary Clinton graced the cover of Time magazine Monday in an article about her national appeal. Polls show more people identify with the Clintons than the Bushes. Nobody likes to think they are always wrong but everybody's got a sex drive. 

President Bush met Hurricane Katrina survivor Rocky Vaccarella Wednesday. He thanked the president for saving New Orleans. During the hurricane he was hit in the skull by a flying two-by-four but you would never know it from listening to him.

Bill Clinton admitted Saturday he enjoys making a living giving speeches for corporate events and charities. Every former president does what he does best. When President Bush leaves office he will work as a greeter at the Mexican border.

Florida GOP Senate Candidate Katherine Harris campaigns in New York...

HERE’S SOMETHIN’ REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT!

LARRY KING COVERS JONBENET RAMSEY CASE AS WWIII BEGINS! (BongoNews)


NEW YORK — Unperturbed by the fact that the Middle Eastern population has been reduced to three camels with thyroid cancer, Larry King clung to his scheduled CNN television programming.
On his interview show, he will have the family of accused JonBenet Ramsey killer, John Mark Karr, and take phone calls from his worldwide audience, many of whom are dealing with mild cases of acute leukemia induced this week by six or seven hundred internationally detonated atomic bomb explosions.

"It's true that most of the United States consists of corpses at this point," King said," but I'm sure Match.com will take care of that problem in no time…

Back when Patsy Ramsey was entering JonBenet in pedophilic livestock shows, she could only dream that her tarty tot would one day eclipse Marilyn Monroe to become America's most talked about dead blond."

Republican Red State Christian values in action: Putting enough Mary Kay on prepubescent girls to make them look like adorable pint-size prostitutes!

More Argus:
Oklahoma University banned athletes from working for car dealers Monday. The school recently banned alcohol. If Oklahoma's best and brightest aren't allowed to drink and sell used cars, tomorrow's senators may have to come from out of state.

President Bush pardoned an actor from the movie "Deliverance" for a moonshining conviction Thursday. White House aides carefully researched the pardon request. The president didn't want to lose his base by pardoning the guy who raped Ned Beatty and made him squeal like a pig...

Tom Cruise was fired by Paramount Tuesday over his behavior on the lot. This is about proselytizing. Tom Cruise forced his movie crews to endure Scientology lectures, unlike Mel Gibson, who never forces his Nazism on anyone. He simply lives it.

More from Jake:
AOL Chief Axed
AOL announced the resignation of its chief technology officer today, after members of its research staff released hundreds of thousands of its customers’ personal Web search queries. Of course the number one search query was: "How do I cancel AOL?"

 

WARNING! PG-34!

George W. Bush goes to a pre-school in Washington, D.C. to talk to the children to drum up a little PR for the kids to bring home to their parents. After his brief talk, he offers question time. One little boy put up his hand and George asked him his name.
"Stanley," responded the little boy.
"And what is your question, Stanley?"
"I have four questions:
First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the UN?
Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more votes?
Third, whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?
Fourth, why are we so worried about gay-marriage when more than half of all Americans don't have health insurance?"
Just then, the bell rang for recess, and President Bush informed the kids that the question session would continue after recess.

When they resumed after recess, President Bush said, "OK, where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has a question?"
Another little boy puts up his hand.The President pointed to him and asked him his name.
"Steve," he responded.
"And what is your question, Steve?"
"Actually, I have 6 questions:
First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the UN?
Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more votes?
Third, whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?
Fourth, why are we so worried about gay marriage, when more than half of all Americans don't have health insurance?
Fifth, why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early?
And sixth, what the hell happened to Stanley?"

Beautiful and Buff - Jackie Warner (Bravo's "Workout") - originally from Metro Fairborn, Ohio

A Southern Baptist lady attended services and taught Sunday School every week.  One Sunday, an out of town acquaintance, a gentleman, was in the pew right behind her.  He noted what a fine looking woman she was.  While they were taking up the collection, the man leaned forward and said, "Hey, how about you and me having dinner on Tuesday?"
"Why Yes, that would be nice," the lady responded.
The gentleman couldn't believe his luck. Tuesday, he picked the lady up and took her to the finest restaurant.  When they sat down, the gentleman looked over at her and suggested, "Would you like a cocktail before dinner?"
"Oh, no," said our circumspect fine example of southern womanhood, "Whatever would I tell my Sunday School class?"
Our gentleman was set back a bit, so he didn't say much until after dinner, when he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and asked, "Would you like a smoke?"
"Oh my goodness no," said the woman "I couldn't face my Sunday School class if I did."
Our boy felt pretty low after that, so they left the restaurant. As he was driving the lady home, they passed the local Holiday Inn. He'd been morally rebuffed twice already, so he figured he had nothing to lose so he ventured forth with, "Ahhh... mmmm… how would you like to stop at this motel?"
"Sure, that would be nice," she said in anticipation.
The gentleman couldn't believe his ears, and did a quick U-turn right then and there and drove back to the motel and checked in.  The next morning after a wild and passionate night, the gentleman awoke first.  He looked at the lovely Dixie darling lying there in the bed and with remorse thought, "What have I done?"
He shook her awake and pleaded , "I've got to ask you one thing, whatever are you going to tell your Sunday School  class?"
The lady said, "The same thing I always tell them. 'a girl doesn't have to smoke and drink to have a good time!'"

You MAY be in an Alabama Pentecostal congregation if:
*People grumble about Noah letting cockroaches on the ark.
*The preacher says, "I'd like to ask Bubba to help take up the offering" and five guys stand up.
*The restroom is outside.
*Four generations of the same family sit together in worship.
*There is no such thing as a "secret" sin.
*There is a special fund raiser for a new septic tank.
*Finding and returning lost sheep isn't just a parable.
*High notes on the organ can set the dogs to howling.
*Members wonder, when Jesus fed 5000 whether the two fish were bass or catfish.
*The fellow next to you explains when the preacher mentions the word "rapture" – “That’s whut y’ git when y’all lift sumpin’ too heavy.”
*The final words of the benediction are, "God bless President Bush as he carries on the war against the godless towelheads!”

Ole, while not very smart, was a gifted portrait artist. His fame grew and soon people from all over the country were coming to him in Minnesota for paintings. One day, a beautiful young woman pulled up to his house in a stretch limo. She asked Ole if he would paint her in the nude. This was the first time anyone had made this request. The beautiful lady said money was no object; she was willing to pay $50,000.
Not wanting to get into trouble with his wife, Ole asked the lady to wait while he went in the house and conferred with Lena, his missus. In a few minutes he returned and said to the lady, "Ya, shore, you betcha. I'll paint ya in da nude, but I'll haff ta leave my socks on so I'll have a place to wipe my brushes."

Bruce was driving over the Helena Street Bridge one day in his car when he saw his girlfriend Sheila just about to throw herself off the bridge into the water far below. Bruce slammed on the brakes and shouted, "Sheila! What the hell
do you think you're doing'?"
Sheila turned around with a tear in her eye and said, "Bruce. You got me pregnant and so now I'm gonna kill myself."
Bruce got a lump in his throat when he heard this and replied, "Sheila, not only are you a great lay, but you're a damn good sport too!"

OHHH!! GOTTA LOTTA CARLOTTA!

Good fortune. COMMENT!! Please spread the meme. Don’t smoke in bed…

SKEPTICS' DIGEST - AUGUST 2006

Formerly, the CORI Bulletin 
for Members of Central Ohioans for Rational Inquiry.

YOURS FOR BOLOGNA DETECTION SINCE 1996

“What you think you know may not be so.”

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QUOTE / UNQUOTE

Future shock [is] the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.
[Alvin Toffler]

Science is wonderfully equipped to answer the question “How?” but it gets terribly confused when you ask the question “Why?”
[Erwin Chargaff, Professor of Biological Chemistry, Columbia University]

The sea is the universal sewer. [Jacques Cousteau]

RETHINKING THE FALL OF EASTER ISLAND

New evidence points to an alternative explanation for a civilization's collapse...

British artist William Hodges traveled to Easter Island (or Rapa Nui, as the island’s inhabitants refer to it) in the 1770s, inspiring this painting of several of the stone statues that have made this locale famous. The island continues to draw both tourists and scientists, in part because of the mystery surrounding the fate of its civilization. A popular account of Rapa Nui’s history casts the inhabitants as the perpetrators and victims of an ecological catastrophe that resulted from overexploiting the island’s resources. New evidence from archaeological work and comparative ecology, however, reveals that this story may need to be rewritten. National Maritime Museum, London

(EXCERPT)
By Terry L. Hunt -
a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he has taught since 1988. He earned his master's degree in anthropology from the University of New Zealand and his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Washington. Hunt has been conducting archaeological field research in the Pacific Islands for nearly 30 years, and he is currently director of the University of Hawaii Rapa Nui Archaeological Field School.

Read the full article @
AMERICAN SCIENTIST online magazine || Sept-Oct 2006

Every year, thousands of tourists from around the world take a long flight across the South Pacific to see the famous stone statues of Easter Island. Since 1722, when the first Europeans arrived, these megalithic figures, or moai, have intrigued visitors. Interest in how these artifacts were built and moved led to another puzzling question: What happened to the people who created them?

In the prevailing account of the island's past, the native inhabitants—who refer to themselves as the Rapanui and to the island as Rapa Nui — once had a large and thriving society, but they doomed themselves by degrading their environment. According to this version of events, a small group of Polynesian settlers arrived around 800 to 900 A.D., and the island's population grew slowly at first. Around 1200 A.D., their growing numbers and an obsession with building moai led to increased pressure on the environment. By the end of the 17th century, the Rapanui had deforested the island, triggering war, famine and cultural collapse.

Jared Diamond, a geographer and physiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has used Rapa Nui as a parable of the dangers of environmental destruction. "In just a few centuries," he wrote in a 1995 article for Discover magazine, "the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalism. Are we about to follow their lead?" In his 2005 book Collapse, Diamond described Rapa Nui as "the clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources."

… In their book Easter Island, Earth Island, authors John R. Flenley of Massey University in New Zealand and Paul G. Bahn worried about what the fate of Rapa Nui means for the rest of human civilization: "Humankind's covetousness is boundless. Its selfishness appears to be genetically inborn…. But in a limited ecosystem, selfishness leads to increasing population imbalance, population crash, and ultimately extinction."

(Professor Hunt expected to help confirm this story. “Instead,” he relates, “I found evidence that just didn't fit the underlying timeline. As I looked more closely at data from earlier archaeological excavations and at some similar work on other Pacific islands, I realized that much of what was claimed about Rapa Nui's prehistory was speculation. I am now convinced that self-induced environmental collapse simply does not explain the fall of the Rapanui.”)

… The first settlers arrived from other Polynesian islands around 1200 A.D. Their numbers grew quickly, perhaps at about three percent annually, which would be similar to the rapid growth shown to have taken place elsewhere in the Pacific. On Pitcairn Island, for example, the population increased by about 3.4 percent per year following the appearance of the Bounty mutineers in 1790. For Rapa Nui, three percent annual growth would mean that a colonizing population of 50 would have grown to more than a thousand in about a century. The rat population would have exploded even more quickly, and the combination of humans cutting down trees and rats eating the seeds would have led to rapid deforestation. Thus, in my view, there was no extended period during which the human population lived in some sort of idyllic balance with the fragile environment.

It also appears that the islanders began building moai and ahu soon after reaching the island. The human population probably reached a maximum of about 3,000, perhaps a bit higher, around 1350 A.D. and remained fairly stable until the arrival of Europeans. The environmental limitations of Rapa Nui would have kept the population from growing much larger. By the time Roggeveen arrived in 1722, most of the island's trees were gone, but deforestation did not trigger societal collapse, as Diamond and others have argued.

There is no reliable evidence that the island's population ever grew as large as 15,000 or more, and the actual downfall of the Rapanui resulted not from internal strife but from contact with Europeans. When Roggeveen landed on Rapa Nui's shores in 1722, a few days after Easter (hence the island's name), he took more than 100 of his men with him, and all were armed with muskets, pistols and cutlasses. Before he had advanced very far, Roggeveen heard shots from the rear of the party. He turned to find 10 or 12 islanders dead and a number of others wounded. His sailors claimed that some of the Rapanui had made threatening gestures. Whatever the provocation, the result did not bode well for the island's inhabitants.

Newly introduced diseases, conflict with European invaders and enslavement followed over the next century and a half, and these were the chief causes of the collapse. In the early 1860s, more than a thousand Rapanui were taken from the island as slaves, and by the late 1870s the number of native islanders numbered only around 100. In 1888, the island was annexed by Chile. It remains part of that country today.

In the 1930s, French ethnographer Alfred Metraux visited the island. He later described the demise of Rapa Nui as "one of the most hideous atrocities committed by white men in the South Seas." It was genocide, not ecocide, that caused the demise of the Rapanui. An ecological catastrophe did occur on Rapa Nui, but it was the result of a number of factors, not just human short-sightedness.

I believe that the world faces today an unprecedented global environmental crisis, and I see the usefulness of historical examples of the pitfalls of environmental destruction. So it was with some unease that I concluded that Rapa Nui does not provide such a model. But as a scientist I cannot ignore the problems with the accepted narrative of the island's prehistory. Mistakes or exaggerations in arguments for protecting the environment only lead to oversimplified answers and hurt the cause of environmentalism. We will end up wondering why our simple answers were not enough to make a difference in confronting today's problems.

Ecosystems are complex, and there is an urgent need to understand them better. Certainly the role of rats on Rapa Nui shows the potentially devastating, and often unexpected, impact of invasive species…



THAT MUST BE PAINFUL. OR NOT…

With fish farming on the rise, a scientific issue takes on urgency

Jul. 16, 2006.

By Kenneth Kidd, Feature Writer – TORONTO STAR

Do fish feel pain? (These Lake Erie Walleye? Not anymore...)

It sounds like a simple question, one that ought to have a simple, yes-or-no answer — the kind we humans tend to crave. But if there's a query that manages to combine uncertain science, definitional problems and occasionally blind emotion, it's this one.

For a start, even language can get us into trouble. At least in popular Western culture, we have a long history of attributing human motives and emotions to all manner of animals and insects.

It shows up in the bedtime stories we read to our kids and the animated movies we see at the cinema. It's as if humour, shame, pride and sorrow are all part of everyday life in nature, felt and understood by animals in precisely the same way they are by humans.

Lacking other words to describe animal behaviour and motivations, we simply use the ones that would apply to us. That has obvious literary benefits, but does it lead us astray in science?

James Rose, a professor of zoology and physiology at the University of Wyoming, certainly thinks so. "Animals often do things that resemble things that we do," he says. "But it's a very different matter to interpret that (as meaning) they're thinking and planning what they're doing."

That's especially problematic with animals, like fish, that followed a different evolutionary path than humans, endowing them with brains and neurological systems far different from our own. For Rose, fish just don't have the necessary mental equipment to think about and feel pain in the way we do.

"If you look at fish in general, their brain stems are highly developed, but the cerebral hemispheres are not highly developed," he says. "They have the rudiments of what we have, but it just isn't very expanded, and everything I know about things like awareness indicate you've got to have more brainpower upstairs than they have."

In recent years, however, there has been a lot of debate on the pain issue, including a symposium last week at the University of Guelph that featured Victoria Braithwaite, one of the co-authors of a recent (and controversial) British study.

Braithwaite's group looked at the heads of trout and identified two types of so-called nociceptive nerves: A-delta fibres and C fibres. In mammals, A-delta fibres are associated with perceiving instant stimuli (like hitting your thumb with a hammer), and C fibres give you the lingering sense of injury (the subsequent throbbing).

Roughly half of the nociceptive nerves in mammals are C fibres, but in fish that number is typically only four per cent. And some, like sharks, don't have any, so they simply can't detect what we'd recognize as long-term pain or a sense of injury — which probably helps explain why sharks are such ferocious biters, and why their stomachs often include everything from car mufflers to anchors. 

To see whether those nociceptors were working, Braithwaite et al. injected trout with noxious substances (acetic acid or bee venom), and then watched how their behaviour changed. Depending on the experiment, the trout lost their appetites for a time, started beating water through their gills more frequently, or rubbed their noses on the side of the tank.

The study's conclusion: Those nociceptors were doing their job and the fish were reacting to pain.

But were they? Or was it just an unthinking reflex in the face of a negative stimulus?

"I would say they can certainly perceive pain," says Braithwaite, a senior lecturer in evolutionary biology at the University of Edinburgh. "Whether they feel it as an emotion, I would think they probably do."

This is where the definitional problems come in. What exactly is pain? Is it just any negative stimulus, or does the experience of pain require a higher consciousness, including self-awareness, memory and the ability to think and plan?

Academics can spend a lot of time debating the precise nature of "consciousness," but from a clinical, neurological perspective, instinctive reflexes aren't part of the mix.

"It's not just the ability to perceive and react to negative stimuli," says Richard Moccia, a professor of animal science at Guelph. "That isn't pain. Pain really is psychological at a higher level. We're really thinking about a higher level of consciousness being required."

And do fish have that consciousness? "The jury," says Moccia, "is still out on that."

Even Braithwaite, who readily uses words like pain and fear when talking about fish, isn't sure they're conscious.

"I would say that some of the behaviours of fish are much more sophisticated than we would have given them credit for, say, a decade ago," says Braithwaite. "Whether that means they're conscious, I feel very uncomfortable about. I would say we don't have enough evidence to say that they are." 

There is, on both sides of the issue, fairly wide agreement that too much cognitive ability might actually be a very bad thing for a fish, since taking time for thought could prove fatal.

 "They've got to be vigilant all of the time, whether they're a predator or prey," says Rose. "I've watched bonefish and sharks interact in the Bahamas, and everybody's got to pay attention all the time, because when a shark takes off, it's pretty abrupt."

So why, then, this renewed interest in whether fish experience pain? It all has to do with fish farming, which has lately come under attack by some animal-rights groups, especially in Europe.

And if you want fish farming to be governed by the same sort of rules that have long applied to the treatment of traditional farm animals, then it's more than a little helpful to have fish considered as being not much different than cattle or sheep.

As Braithwaite puts it: "The problem we have with fish is that they have this reputation of being cold-blooded, dim-witted creatures. People who do work with fish tend to think, oh well, you know, they're fish, it doesn't matter.

"We needed to say, well, actually, they're not that different from mammals and birds, because they have the same pain-processing equipment that we associate with animals."

The claimed existence of pain, in other words, might help ensure that farmed fish are treated and killed humanely. So, yes, there is an agenda. But do we really need unchallenged evidence of pain — and consciousness — to make us act humanely?

Gary Varner, an ethical theorist and philosophy professor at TexasA&M University, argues we don't need to go quite that far. "It's not as if one finding is going to come in and carry the day."

All you need to make is a so-called argument by analogy, he says. If X has these 10 characteristics and Y has nine of them, chances are Y also has the tenth. From a philosophical perspective, you end up treating farmed fish as if you knew for certain they experienced pain, despite the lack of scientific proof.

This would, at any rate, work out better for the fish — and might even be preferable to harvesting them from the ocean. "The only vertebrates I eat are fish," Varner says. "When I'm out fishing and I hook a fish, I do my best to kill it quickly, but maybe that could be better done under more controlled conditions. It wouldn't surprise me at all if fish farming, at least in ideal conditions, turned out to be a far better way to raise and harvest fish."

REVIEW: LAWS OF NATURE

Read the full review by Robert Lee Hotz – a Los Angeles Times staff writer who covers science HERE:

… Darwin clearly understood the challenge that natural selection posed to the conventional Victorian Christian faith that sustained his friends and family. No one was more reluctant to espouse it publicly or more distressed by its implications. Indeed, it steadily undermined his own belief in God, drove a wedge in his marriage and nearly broke his health. He brooded privately over his findings for 21 years before making them public.

Yet he finally embraced his brainchild, impelled by an unflinching intellectual honesty, the weight of the evidence and the imperative of an undeniable idea. "There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection," Darwin wrote, "than in the course which the wind blows."

A century and a half ago, Charles Darwin sparked a scientific revolution. Now that revolution has become a culture war. But does the concept of “intelligent design” have validity as an alternative to evolution? Three new books look beyond the rhetoric.



July 30, 2006

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
David Quammen
Atlas Books/W.W. Norton: 304 pp., $22.95

Intelligent Thought
Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement
Edited by John Brockman
Vintage: 258 pp., $14 paper

Why Darwin Matters
The Case Against Intelligent Design
Michael Shermer
Times Books/Henry Holt: 202 pp., $22

In the border war between science and faith, the doctrine of "intelligent design" is a sly subterfuge — a marzipan confection of an idea presented in the shape of something more substantial.
Read the full review HERE:

Have you got your Monkey Fish T-Shirt yet?

FALLACIOUS ASSAULTS

THE FERTILITY GAP
Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to multiply.

By Arthur C. Brooks on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 


Professor PZ Myer was surprised, then amused, as he took Professor Brooks figures and assumptions apart:

In a surprising discovery, reading the Wall Street Journal opinion pages will make you 57% dumber, will kill 8,945,562,241 neurons, and will force you to invent ridiculous statistics.

... Arthur Brooks, billed as a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Public Affairs, has written an incredibly stupid article, arguing that because Republican parents outbreed Democratic parents, their party will have a growing lock on government. The numbers, though, simply don't make sense, nor does the logic. He first claims that there is a "fertility gap" of 41% between liberals and conservatives, and then in a fit of innumerate fervor, claims this will generate a rapid imbalance.

A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020--and all for no other reason than babies.

Hold it—an 8% difference in the voting population generated in eight years? By differential reproduction alone? That's simply ludicrous, and I'd sure like to know what kind of calculations this professor made to estimate that. Net population growth in the US is about 0.6% per year, and even assuming every single person entering their majority joins the Republican party, you get less than a 5% difference in 8 years of growth. Fortunately, I don't have to stretch my brain at all this morning: Steve Reuland has done the actual calculations for Ohio. Basically, all you need to know is that in a state with a population of 11 million, there's a net gain of about 40,000 new individuals, which may be split with a small advantage to Republican households, but that's going to be a small gain. There's just no way it can add up to such a huge difference over a few years.

Also, Steve points out that migration is a bigger contributor to population changes, swamping out these birth differences. Need I point out as well that Republicanism and Democratic party membership are not fixed genetic properties? Brooks mentions that about 80% of the people vote the same way as their parents (given the quality of his understanding of statistics, though, I view that number with a jaundiced eye), but doesn't seem to understand that that 20% that differ is a greater factor than the small difference in reproductive rate. Well, not the rate that he claims, but those numbers are screwy.

I also have doubts about his base statistics that argue for this amazing Republican fecundity. Shouldn't these basic demographic facts make you wonder about his estimates?

Higher fertility has been a major source of population growth among minority groups. Hispanics have the highest fertility rate of any U.S. minority, with the average Hispanic woman giving birth to three children in her lifetime. The African-American fertility rate is 2.2 lifetime births per woman. Non-Hispanic whites have the lowest fertility rate of 1.8, about 14 percent below the "replacement rate" of 2.1.

Last I looked, the Republican party does not have a significant minority component. However, I am not going to make the stupid mistake that Brooks does, and assume that these unhatched chickens are all going to flock to the party of my choice...

Among the COMMENTS @ PZ's blog were these:

I can see that Brooks needs some help with his numbers. Statistics show that if you add a decimal place, 23.7% more people will believe you.

Wait, PZ, now you've gone and destroyed the only pick up line I had left - we have to do it or the Republicans win!

And finally...

Did you hear the one about how the adders were about to go extinct until someone gave them tables made from logs? With log tables even adders can multiply!

NOT ON PLANES, I HOPE!!

Good fortune. COMMENT! Please spread the meme. Don’t smoke in bed… 

WE BURIED OUR DAD SATURDAY...

See:
UNSUBSCRIBED: THE JAZZ MAN

But WAIT!

That hermetically-sealed compact marble urn may have contained my Dad's ashes, the detritus of a few million cells or a few billion nucleotides that, until December 2005, for 91 years, had formed a "vessel" for his "essence". But Dad's uniqueness among humans was known primarily to those who knew him, through his personality.

We celebrated his personality and the ways in which he touched our lives and so many others. Then we committed the lifeless ashes to a hole in the ground where a manufactured granite product attests to the dates of his physical existence, beginning and end.

I won't say we atheists don't grapple with mortality, and sometimes entertain vague hopes. But I think the honest part of being a human, and an atheist, is to recognize that mortality is inevitable and that things end.

Grief and loss are the terrible prices we pay for living in a world that changes, and that has produced us, ever so briefly. The dead are gone forever, never to return. All we can do is cherish their memory - and fight as hard as we can to delay our own demise, rage at our inevitable failures, and eventually, reconcile ourselves to the reality.

I'm not afraid of death - I'd just rather not be there when it happens...

"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity."
[Edvard Munch, Artist most famous for painting "The Scream"]

My brother and his wife came up from Florida. It was good to see them. They didn't drink all the light beers I'd laid in for 'em. They must be slowin' down...

Dad was a convert to Catholicism since the '50s. He attended services regularly and tithed. He admitted to agnosticism on the questions of God and an afterlife, but he felt a connection to the church. He liked to point out their charitable work. We never argued about religion. We respected each other's views.

We called a priest at University of Dayton to preside over a brief commitment ceremony in the chapel at Calvary, the local Catholic cemetery. The small gathering consisted of about equal numbers of atheists, Catholics and unaffiliated Christians.

Afterwards, we all drove home, put some jazz on the CD player, as befit the Jazz Man, o' course. We drank beer and Jack, and filled our bellies and retold the stories he'll tell no more...

See:
UNSUBSCRIBED: THE JAZZ MAN

P.O.E.T.S. - O81906 (JONBENET CONTINUAL TV NEWS PORN LOOP; GEORGE ALLEN KNEEDEEP IN MACACA; BOYCOTT MONTGOMERY-GENTRY?!...)

PISS ON EVER’THIN’ –
T’DAY’S SATURDAY, August 5, 2006

(Click on any image to ENLARGE IT!)

Artist: Boligan

(Da Rev’s STAND-UP begins after the quotes…) 

BIRTHDAY SALUTE!
Sixty years marks an incredible milestone in Bill Clinton's life.  He is a lifetime public servant, and every year since he has left the White House he has gotten more involved in the issues we all care about - from economic empowerment, to the global fight against AIDS, to the epidemic of childhood obesity in our nation, among many other pressing issues, such as fundraising for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

We can only expect the next year to bring more great work from Bill Clinton, The Clinton Foundation and you.  Commemorate this special occasion by signing his birthday card and considering a gift in honor of his birthday to the Foundation's ongoing work today: President Clinton's Birthday Card

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

"If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing"
[Anatole France]

"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window."
[Stephen King]

"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this because they manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them."
[Steve Eley]


WELL HOWDY, REV’LERS!!

Welcome once again to our little corner of the Utopia that is Metro Fairborn, Ohio!

First let me apologize for being late. My brother and his wife (the ones from Clearwater) visited us this weekend. They said they missed us so... and it’s really AWFULLY hot and muggy in Florida at this time. When it’s UNBEARABLY hot and muggy in Metro Fairborn, we say it reminds US of Florida…

My brother and sister-in-law couldn’t stay long, so I think there may be a bit of Jack Daniels left. Please - help us get rid of these leftover light beers! Seriously, it’s been a solid two days of SIBLING REVELRY!

Gallery of the Absurd

I see Mike’s here again this week. He never misses. Before he leaves the house, he looks in the mirror and tells himself, “This week I’ll find true love among the smart, hip, beautiful ladies at Da Rev’s STAND-UP…” Friday night he told his superior twin in the mirror, “This is the one and only night my soul mate will wander into the “Maple Grove…” The honky-tonk bar in East Dayton turned out to be out of bidness. …sigh…

WARNING: GRAPHIC TRUCK PORN

" 'CAT' ON A HOT TIN ROOF"

"Hello, ON-STAR?!"

Jim wouldn’t miss this weekly Rev’lery for the world. He figures his friends can’t have a good time without him. Or maybe he’s afraid his friends MIGHT have a good time without him.



Drink up and BE somebody! Or drink up and be somebody ELSE! It’s far better to have a good time you won’t remember than a dull one you will!

Trust me - when I finally get around to writin’ my memoirs I won’t have to go through the hassle of making up a bunch of decadent adventures…

“Cocksman” Clinton – our favorite livin’ President is 60 this weekend! At a recent political fund raiser Clinton said, "I hate the idea of turning 60. There used to be a time when I was the youngest person in the room." 
He went on to say, "Of course, to the ladies, I'll always be 69 (wink, wink)!" 

Generalissimo W. Bunnypants turned 60 this year. Comely Connie Chung is turning 60. Da Rev’s been there, done that. And, speaking of being late – yup, I think I must be late for that midlife crisis thing, too!

Here’s some advice from the Doctor of Motivation:

I try to live as I might if I didn't know my age. How old would I be if I didn’t know? I believe that one can age without growing OLD. One sure sign you’re OLD is if you find your fears and prejudices make decisions for you… It SHOULD come as an UNPLEASANT surprise, I would think…

I’m reminded of a few years ago when my grandson asked me how old I was. I replied, "I'm not sure."
"Look in your underwear, Grandpa," he advised.  "Mine says I'm four to six."

HEY! I'm in touch with my narcissism... I found this terrific idea from Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert @ Swedes for Obama :
GET YOUR OWN ENTRY IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA! 

In the media age, everybody was famous for 15 minutes. In the Wikipedia.com age, everybody can be an expert in five minutes. Special bonus: You can edit your own entry to make yourself seem even smarter.

Joe @ Evangelical Outpost - a conservative evangelical - suggests that “after the age of 30, men should perform regular self-exams for testicular cancer. However, he adds: “While it might appear reasonable to take advantage of time that is otherwise being wasted, performing the exam while standing in the checkout line at the supermarket turns out not to be such a good idea.”



Have you ever called someone a “PIG FUCKER”?! Well, one o’ my favorite political characters, Lyndon Johnson was runnin’ for Congress (this was when Democrats won elections in Texass – Lo-o-o-ng time ago!) The story goes that LBJ wanted to spread the rumor that his opponent was a pig-fucker. His campaign manager said, "Lyndon, you know he doesn't do that!"
Johnson replied, "I know. I just want to make him deny it."
 
There’s a winnin’ strategy in there somewhere – and you know it!



If you’re not afraid to get to know yourself –
go to this Survey of Ethnic and Religious Attitudes
When you finish the questions you can compare yourself to the general population…


Penny says no matter what Da Rev says, there IS a God… and he won’t stop STARING at HER!
 
Thanks again for bein’ here and remember - modern life is a shit storm and booze is the ONLY umbrella without any holes!




L8r T8rz…
 
THIS JUST ___ IN!!


 
IT’S RACISM WEEK! Who knew? But, really - Racism Week started with a bang as Virginia Senator George Allen stepped in some "deep macaca". Apparently he decided there aren’t enough good derogatory terms for brown skinned people and blurted out “Macaca,” in reference to an opponent’s campaign staffer.




Allen apologized Tuesday for referring to a student of Indian descent as a macacca. It's an old French colonial slur meaning monkey. He apologized quickly before the Kansas School Board could withdraw its endorsement.

(FYI: George Allen grew up in California, but he had a Confederate Flag on his pick-up even then. Allen also has some history that may suggest he's a bit racist, as he proudly declared April as "Confederate History and Heritage Month" during his tenure as Governor. He has a Confederate Flag in his living room and in his senate office. There was also a story about a (collectable) vintage era noose and some noise he made against MLK and the NAACP...)

From Senator George Felix Allen's Blog:

I am truly sorry - that you misinterpreted my remarks the way you did…
You say Macaque, I say Macaca,
You say Mullet-a, I say Mohawk-a,
Macaca, Macaque... Mullet-a, Mohawk-a,
Let's call the whole thing off!

By Mike Peters, the Dayton Daily News' own Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist...

Wonkette reports: Fidel Castro, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, commander-in-chief of the heroic Revolutionary Armed Forces, King of Rock… is quite the fashionista... 

From BongoNews:
Democrats Shift to the Left
Lenin’s Corpse Wins Connecticut Primary

Lenin in last job as a toilet paper caddy at Yale’s Skull and Bones Club

Pedophile on a Plane
Bangkok, Thailand (LaughFish.com) - John Mark Karr left Bangkok, Thailand and flew to Boulder City, Colorado where he is expected to face charges of kidnapping, 1^stdegree murder and of being smooth… “down there”.

Liners From Humorist Jake Novak:
 

JohnBenet Suspect
A 41-year-old man has been arrested for the 1996 murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. The arrest could finally solve the mysterious killing and get the American news media to shut the Hell up about it from now on.

Boulder police say they arrested John Mark Karr for the JonBenet Ramsey murder in part because he was "obsessed with the case." Well, I guess they're going to be rounding up everyone at CNN and MSNBC any day now.


Karr's Flight
JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr received the royal treatment on his flight to Los Angeles; sitting in business class, sipping champagne and eating a gourmet meal. The only people paying better attention to him are the people at CNN and MSNBC.

White House Arrest
A 32-year-old Muslim woman wielding a machete was arrested last week outside the White House. At first she was not under suspicion, because she only had a machete and not a bottle of hair gel and sports drinks.

Ford Hospitalized
Former President Gerald Ford is back in the hospital for the third time this year. He has now spent more time in intensive care than he did in the White House.

Da Rev: President Bush is down on his knees praying for President Ford’s recovery. If Gerry Ford dies, then Dubya's SURELY the DUMBEST living president!



The King o' the Liners - Argus Hamilton - assesses the events of the past week:
President Bush told Republicans in Pennsylvania Thursday that America cannot withdraw from Iraq now because the enemy will follow us home. They would be walking into a trap. If the real estate prices don't kill them, the gas prices will.



London Heathrow Airport began using a scanner that can see through clothing and show the naked body on a monitor. (It's on loan from the Clinton Library.) Its use is growing. However, at Los Angeles Airport they offer each passenger a lead frame if all you want them to see are your genitals.



France backed off its pledge to send seventeen hundred troops to Lebanon Thursday and offered to send two hundred. No wonder we keep testing positive in their bicycle races. Everyone looks like they're full of testosterone when they're surrounded by Frenchmen.

Wal-Mart reported its first quarterly loss in ten years Tuesday. The chain store is gigantic. Sixty percent of Americans think Wal-Mart is bad for the country, the other forty percent are afraid that commenting will affect their performance review.

Bill Clinton accused the Bush administration of trying to politicize the War on Terror. He really brings back memories. It harkens back to a more innocent decade when going over national boundaries was about sex and not geography. 

President Bush stated Monday that freedom defeated Hezbollah in Lebanon. Who is he kidding? If politicians explain the issues to the public as if we are idiots, perhaps it's because that's the way their aides explained the issues to them. 

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow met with reporters Wednesday and hotly denied charges that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. Don't say a word. If misreading the facts on the ground got us into this war, maybe it can also get us out.

HERE’S SOMETHIN’ REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT!

More from Jake:
Immigrant Populations Rising
New data shows that the nation's immigrant population is rising and newcomers to the U.S. are choosing to live in every part of the country... except in the areas close to Lou Dobbs' house.

New data shows that every state in the Union has an increasing number of foreign immigrants, except for Alabama. That's because if millions of suffering Africans, Asians, and Arabs wanted to live with toothless, unwashed, uneducated, nutty fundamentalists they could just stay home. 

Da Rev: Remember when Congress voted to change the designation of “French Fries” on their cafeteria menu to “Freedom Fries”? Apparently, they’ve quietly changed back to “French Fries”. Across the Atlantic, however, the French still call American Cheese “Stupid Cheese”!
 
Da Rev: Sub-cretin Troy Lee Gentry, of the insipid pseudo-country singing duo Montgomery- Gentry, has been accused of killing a TAME black bear that federal officials say he tagged as “killed in the wild”. Gentry allegedly PURSHASED the TAME bear, named "Cubby" for $4,650. The bear's death was then videotaped, and the tape later edited so Gentry appeared to shoot the animal in a "fair chase" hunting situation. Da Rev wonders if the corporate yahoos of country music broadcasting - who caved so quickly to appease the lowest common denominator among their listening audience by removing the Dixie Chicks from airplay (for exercising their first amendment rights) - might hold Montgomery Gentry product off the airwaves... I won't hold my fucking breath!

SOME OTHER THINGS A REDNECK SOCIOPATH MAY NEED TO LEARN:

* It's NOT cool to shoot any animal if it comes when you call its NAME;
* If y'all were drunk when you shot "Cubby" - it's time to enter a program; if y'all were NOT drunk when you pulled this stunt - it's time for the authorities to separate you from civil society until you are capable of establishing personal behavioral boundaries;
* Y'all can't charge on official during a sporting contest, no matter HOW much you paid for your ticket;
* If y'all REALLY have so much respect for all those young, old-fashioned, patriotic, Christian girls - y' shouldn't do 'em in a restroom stall;
* Pushin', shovin' and blackin' her eye don't count as foreplay, Bubba...

Photo: Troy Lee Gentry
Makin' ev'ry shot count!

More Argus Hamilton:
Pat Robertson was blasted by Jewish leaders for flying to Israel and lobbying against any cease-fire with the Muslims. He was calling for a war to the finish. Nothing is scarier than an eighty-year-old man who doesn't fear Armageddon!

WARNING! PG-34!

The Man says, Rev - you shouldn’t post anything that might offend a thin-lipped prude. Well, I don’t want to upset The Man.

But wait – what am I, a free man or a FUCKING “SLAVEBOT”?!

Little David attended a horse auction with his father. He watched as his father moved from horse to horse, running his hands up and down the horse's legs, rump, and chest. After a few minutes, David asked, "Dad, why are you doing  that?"
His father replied, "Because when I'm buying horses, I have to make sure that they are healthy and in good shape before I  buy."
David, looking worried, said, "Dad, I think the UPS guy wants to  buy Mom!"

STILL Da Rev's Fave Shot o' ACTRESS-SINGER JENNIFER LOPEZ

The guy had taken his girl out wining and dining. Coming home in the car he stopped in a remote area and got stuck in the mud. He began feeling between her legs.
''Stop it,'' she said, ''I want to remain a virgin until I marry.''
''Then how about a blow-job?''
''Ugh, I'm not putting that big thing in my mouth.''
''Then how about a hand job?
''Ok. How do I do that?''
''Remember,'' says the guy. ''When you had a Coke bottle and you shook it and sprayed your friends?''
''Oh, yeah!''
''It's the same, but much gentler.''
Later the guy was foaming at the mouth, farting, getting red in the face and screaming.
''What's wrong?'' The girl asked.
''TAKE YOUR FUCKING THUMB OFF THE TOP!''

ACTRESS POPPY MONTGOMERY - ("Without A Trace")

A man enters a clock shop and takes out his manhood and slaps it right on the counter! The lady assistant says to him "But, Sir - this is a clock shop - not a cock shop..."

He replies, "I realize that, Ma'am - but I'd still like two hands and a face on it."

Sean and Jason were in a pub and they went into the toilet to take a leak. While standing at the urinal Sean confessed, "I wish I had a dick like my cousin James. He needs four fingers to hold his."
Jason looked over and pointed out, "But you're holding yours with four fingers."
"I know," said Sean, "but I'm peeing on three of them."

PLAYBOY'S FIRST BLACK PLAYMATE: JENNIFER JACKSON

Good fortune. COMMENT!!
Please spread the meme. Don’t smoke in bed…

IT'S GETTIN' SO LONELY BEING THE WORLD'S LONE SUPER-POWER...

Douglas Waller reports from Washington on CHINA'S ARMS RACE:

P.L.A. (People's Liberation Army) budget is growing; last year it rose almost 13%, to $10.9 billion. The nation's top generals are leading all the armed forces through an aggressive reorganization. The P.L.A. is streamlining its force by 500,000 to bring it down to 2.5 million men, and replacing war-fighting equipment, much of which is still 1950s vintage. In their place: more modern weapons systems. China has so far bought from Russia three Kilo-636 attack submarines, two Sovremenny-class destroyers equipped with SS-N-22 antiship missiles, and 50 Su-27 attack jets. China is also building up to 20 new Dongfeng-31 intercontinental ballistic missiles, whose 8,000-km range could put nuclear warheads on U.S. soil. It's also interested in cyberwar, to cripple U.S. computers, and antisatellite weapons, to knock out communications and spy satellites.

Recently the US leaned on one of its few remaining allies, Israel, to halt the sale of surveillance drones to China. The US continues to urge European nations to observe a boycott on arms sales to China.

This week the Chinese ambassador to the UN - in an interview on the BBC - took an unprecedented tone of harshness in answer to US complaints about China's arms buildup and expansion and modernization of its navy. The ambassador said the US should "Just shut up!" - adding that China's defense appropriations are its own business. He went on to point out that the US outspends every country on earth many times over.

I  think it's about time for the citizens of the United States to listen and try to see our power and rhetoric from the viewpoint of most any other nation in the world. Our "go-it-alone" foreign policy has been good for the US. Obviously, we have enough arms to subdue every other country in the world at least twice! Sure, why not.

O' course, empires creak and groan under their own bloat. (Well, they usually run the treasury DRY.) Then they have to face the rest of the world and make nice to get along and beg a few scraps of trade or aid from former adversaries.

Where, oh where is it written - that ONE NATION shall continue to assert its will even in the face of widespread resistance just because it can? Da Rev's as filled to the brim with patriotic fervor for my republic and her history as the next guy - but I've always been a skeptic on the dogma of "My Country, Right or Wrong!"

 I dare to ask questions that I hope more of my fellow citizens will begin to ask - in public:

 Where is the ethical standard for our campaign for so-called nuclear non-proliferation - for OTHER nation-states?

 Why do we have thousands of nukes for every one held in another country?

 Why have we encouraged  England and France to acquire nuclear missile technology in the past, while seriously jawboning the Russians into reducing their arsenal?

 Why shouldn't India build a nuclear arsenal if Pakistan has done so - and/or vice versa.

 Who are WE to forbid Iran to build a supply of nukes - as we continue to turn a blind eye to nukes in Israel?

Has it occurred to ANYONE besides Kim Jung ill and Adolphminijihadist and the Ayatollah that NUKES are the GREAT EQUALIZER?

No matter what we may think about our importance and absolute moral authority in the world, consider what must go through the mind of every other leader of a nation-state across the planet in the face of a rogue warmonger leader of a nation with such formidable capacity for overkill. Especially, consider what goes on in the minds of certain very short leaders...

Found on the Net:
Q. "An empire is limited in time but not space; a republic is limited in space but not time. So, which is better?"

A. "As both time and space increase from a central point, the empire and the republic both are subject to the self-limiting ravages of corruption. The human capacity for civil corruption is what appears to be boundless and unending."

A-2. Empires must grow to survive; when they stop growing they don't plateau into sustained order; they die. This is because they're mostly governed by people who ... don't care what happens after they die. (Empires) exist for the sake of a small minority elite, not for the common people and for future generations. That's not to say they don't have advantages over republics. But a republic's main distinction is that it has its own long term sustainability as its main interest.

A-3. The Byzantine empire lasted far longer than the Roman republic and U.S.  Most empires have lasted longer than the U.S.

Pat Buchanan: Our hegemonists our confident that America’s power is too great for any to resist. History teaches otherwise. Every attempt to establish hegemony incites resentment and hostility. Weaker nations instinctively seek security in each other, creating the very combinations the hegemonists most fear. It is a law of history: The thesis calls into being the antithesis; the weak collude to balance off the strong. [“A Republic, Not an Empire”]

Pat Buchanan?! Well - just read what he said and evaluate it without reservations concerning whether you think Mr. Buchanan is an isolationist, a nativist, an anti-Semite, a fascist, etc., etc... Buchanan is a thoughtful writer with a good grasp of history and when he writes that he believes the US Republic is incompatible with Empire, I believe the fellow's right...
 

TERROR IN THE SKIES: BANNING LIQUIDS AND OTHER CARRYING ON...

WHAT IF THIS WOMAN IS A TERRORIST?!

With all the concern over liquids in carry-on luggage on airliners - what ABOUT all those saline pouches? Hey - a homicide bomber is a just as dead whether she carried the nitro in a purple "Passion" bottle or in her bodacious ta-tas, right? 

The last time Da Rev was at the Dayton International Airport, he had a particularly suspicious-looking female under surveillance. She was concealing a pair of 45s under her "Here Are The Weapons of Mass Distraction" t-shirt...

Rev. Art - Profiler:
Just tryin' t' do my part so the terrorists don't win...

ELECTION 2006: REV. ART WILL ACCEPT A DRAFT...

ITEM: Stephanie Studebaker, the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Representative, 3rd District (OH), who was challenging the  incumbent - was arrested this week, along with her husband, Sam, following a reported domestic dispute.

The information that Mr. Studebaker called his Dad (who then called the Sheriff's office) 'cuz his wife was kickin' his ass is the stuff of reality TV - or Surreality TV (Springer Show).

 I had high hopes for Stephanie Studebaker. I have fairly LOATHED the one-term incumbent Mike Turner since he first ran for Mayor of Dayton. After serving two years as Mayor, Turner ran for the vacated seat of long-time Congressman Tony Hall, a Democrat. From my personal perspective, Turner's tenure as Mayor was marked by refusal to recognize the demographic and population changes in the city which signalled a need to reorder budget priorities to address shrinking tax revenues. His successor has been presented with the task of closing fire stations and reducing the number of municipal employees in order to maintain fiscal solvency - a task made more difficult because the Turner administration had given no indication that the city was heading for a near-term day of fiscal reckoning.

As mayor, the "stealth" anti-Choice Mike Turner, courted the right-wing evangelicals by turning the traditional Mayor's "Prayer Breakfast" into a forum for decidedly theocracist speakers, including a preacher prominently associated with the patriarchist organization "Promise Keepers". When the City Commission appeared poised to extend civil rights protection to members of the GLBT community, Turner rallied support from conservative preachers, including influential African-American church leaders, to mount a last-minute campaign to turn the commissioners. As a result, the initiative was defeated by one "reconsidered" vote.

It appears that Ms. Studebaker's chances of upsetting the incumbent congressman were very slim - if fundraising is an indicator in the race - and it almost always is.  With the announcement of her withdrawal from the campaign, the Montgomery County Democratic Party has been presented with an opportunity to choose a more seasoned, better-known candidate to oppose Turner. The replacement must be someone who can hit the ground running - and raising big buck$ in a hurry. The Montgomery County Dem chair, Dennis Lieberman, has floated the name of former Congressman Tony Hall, who keeps busy as an activist on the global hunger front, but apparently has no position that would keep him from running. 

If Tony Hall should accept the invitation to run, it seems a good bet that he would unseat the one-term Republican in this year when GOP incumbents seem to be vulnerable, particularly in Ohio, where corruption at the state level seems to have sickened a majority of the electorate who will cast ballots in November. Ohio has operated effectively (though ineffectually) as a one-party state since the early '90s.

Da Rev will accept a draft...   

(Campaign Photo)

I am perfectly happy in my present position as a retired eccentric - however, I would probably have to respond if a groundswell builds in anticipation of my candidacy for Congress. I don't live in the 3rd District, but I often attend concerts and eat in restaurants in the district with the Pagan Baby. Besides, Ohio law says it doesn't matter what district you live in!

First, I'd like to say, as an indicator of my support for traditional values, I will campaign in a Loewy-designed '53 Studebaker two-tone hardtop with a V-8 engine sucking premium leaded.

I offer the following as qualifications:

1) I admit upfront that I've done EVERYTHING at least once - and I damn well ENJOYED it!

2) I've outlived any potential scandals that might embarrass my family or supporters - and besides - most of those women are OLD now!

3) I can do dinners with fundraisers 'til all the sacred cows come home to roost.

4) I know a bunch of rich, guilt-stricken liberals.

5) I will compose and perform my own campaign theme song - on a 12-string guitar - using both hands...

6) As a meat food products purveyor, I have conveyed mass quantities of pork, fresh and processed, to merchants of both Jewish and Palestinian extraction.

7) I expect my wife could beat me in a fair fight - and I've never tested that assumption.

8) As evidence of my "smack dab in the middle of the road" political philosophy - I offer my voting history, which includes pulling the lever for Goldwater AND McGovern... and Nixon and Carter.

9) While standing on the white line in the middle of Ohio SR73 in Waynesville, I pledged my support to Republican Buz Lukens and Democrat Jim Ruppert who opposed each other for a congressional seat in a district in which I was not a resident.

10) I assure every potential constituent that I do NOT favor any one religion over another.

11) War is Hell. I don't believe in Hell.

Oh - a couple more things I have taken Senator Lieberman's recent primary experience as an object lesson - I promise: NO WHINING & NO RIDICULOUS HIGH-FIVING of everyone in sight as if I'm auditioning for "River Dance"...

I think I would have a fair chance of winning if Turner slips up between now and November. For example, if he were found in bed with a dead girl - or a live boy...

IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE!!

 WHAT WOULD FDR SAY?
"TURN LEFT AT THE NEXT ELECTION!"

LITTLE ART & THE ANGRY NUN...

Sister Angelica on TV:

<=== "Arrrgghh! I should have killed that
@~X^%#*$! Rev. Art when I had him in First Grade!!

Good fortune. Please spread the meme.

COMMENT! Don't smoke in bed . . .

I HAVE A DREAM... YOU CAN HAVE ONE, TOO!

(Click)

PERCHANCE TO DREAM . . . an exercise.

You are - BLANK- years old.
Your dream is to:

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Leave your mark.

Da rev said: "Hell - I can do this:

I am 63 years old.
My dream is to: spread peace, love and understanding; to discover - really -why can’t we all just get along?; to spit in Tom DeLay’s food; to stick a booger in Phyllis Schaffley’s pile of hair; tie Pat Buchanan to his bed and tattoo a big pink swastika on his forehead. Mmmm . . . that’s all I can think of for now.

Leaving my mark.

P.O.E.T.S. - 081206

PISS ON EVER’THIN’ –
T’DAY’S SATURDAY, August 12, 2ôô6

(Click on any image to ENLARGE it) 

Da Rev’s STAND-UP begins after the quotes…

BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE:
Country Music Hall of Fame - Grand Ol' Opry Member Porter Wagoner is 79.

Guitar-god/Singer/Somgwriter Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 57.

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

CALVIN: "Any monsters under my bed tonight?"
HOBBES: "Nope." "No." "Uh-Uh."
CALVIN: "Well there better not be, I'd hate to have to torch one with my flamethrower!"
HOBBES: "You have a flamethrower?"
CALVIN: "They lie. I lie."
[Bill Watterson]

…once a person admits to not believing in God, this raises the question of whether or not that person believes in  America... 
[Chief spokesman for National office of the Boy Scouts]

…They tried to make me go to Catholic school, too. I lasted a very short time. When the penguin came after me with a ruler, I was out of there.
[Frank Zappa]   

WELL HOWDY, REV’LERS!

Da Pagan Baby and I welcome you to another gathering of the intelligentsia and other riff-raff at our modest cottage here in Metro Fairborn, Ohio!

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON WILL TURN 60 THIS WEEK!

We're happy to announce that the proceeds from this week’s STAND-UP are earmarked for The International Federation of Venetian Gondoliers… VOLARE! CANTARE!

So - on my way over here, a van full of gang-bangers waving guns tried to run me off the road. They were wearing blue, so I think they were Crips. CRIPS!! Right here in Metro Fairborn!
You’re wondering, “Really? What’d you do?”
I floored it and nearly ran into a goddamn fire truck. The guy driving it looked like Sam Shepard.”
You say, “No shit?”
Yeah. As a matter of fact, it was Sam Shepard. He must be doin’ research for some new play or movie about first responders. Anyway, he told me to follow him and we drove to a bar to meet his wife Jessica Lange – you know - the one with the FINE butt. We had a couple o’ beers.”
You might interject, “Wife? I thought they never got married.”
Well, THAT makes sense, because she was really HITTIN' on me!



BELA LUGOSI is my co-pilot…

I belong to the most distrusted, despised minority in America today. Atheism is a NON-PROPHET organization! Please accept me as your non-prophet!
But you say, “Prophets give us commandments!"
"Ah, sure," I say, "but where do they get them?"
Slowly you respond, "Well - I … suppose they make them up."
And Da Rev, exclaims, "YASS! My commandments come from the same f***ckin' place!”

A FEAST FIT FOR AN ATHEIST

Da Rev gives you his First Commandment: “EAT, DRINK AND MAKE MARY!”
The important corollary to this commandment is that Mary is an adult; that she consents; and she is encouraged to give full expression to her preferences, OH YESS!


ONE MORE O' THESE & I THINK SHE'LL BE READY...

For centuries, Hindu women have worn a spot on their forehead called a "Hindi." I always naively thought that it had something to do with their religion. Da Rev checked with the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. When one of these women gets married, she brings a dowry with her. On her wedding night, her husband scratches the spot off to see if he has won either a convenience store, gas station, donut shop or a motel in the United States... Bongo News

Everything I like is either against the law, immoral or FATTENING! This pack of gum says that each piece is 10 calories. WHAT – even if ya don’t SWALLOW it?!

Well - that's the problem, isn't it. Unlike other addictions, one can’t QUIT nutritional intake COLD TURKEY (or no turkey). If one can't drink in moderation, one usually can swear off alcohol, but - as the RALLY commercials keep reminding us - "YA GOTTA EAT!"

On the other hand – there is sex. E-w-w-w…
Seriously, Da Rev has spent most of his adult life spreading the word that sex is the most fun one can have without caloric intake.

I peruse alternative websites, even the EXTREME ones – ‘cuz YOU claim you don’t have time for it. I came across Achmed, a Middle Eastern resident, an enthusiastic young Shiite fellow whose blog fairly barks his enthralled acceptance of the prevailing dogma of the inevitability of global domination by the forces of totalitarian Islamo-Fascism, as told to him by extremist clerics and leaders of terrorist organizations. All Achmed knows is what what he learned in the madrassah. He wrote: “Western Civilization’s infidels are standing at the edge of the abyss. Soon the Armies of Allah will overtake them…”


C'MON, everybody!! We've flown in LESLIE GORE and two dozen KOSHER BUTCHERS! They'll be doing intricate MILITARY MANEUVERS to the sound track from "OKLAHOMA"!!

YOU'D cry too if it happened to YOU!!

The world is a grindstone and life is your nose.

Is it clean in other dimensions?

ARTIST: LAURA HANSBERRY

When I was a kid, I had two friends. They were imaginary. And they would only play with each other.

I just got my PRINCE bumper sticker… But now I can't remember WHO he is...

How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS??

As always, remember - if it GLISTENS, gobble it!!

THIS JUST ___ IN!



Humorist Jake Novak:
TERROR ARRESTS IN LONDON-JET PLOT FOILED
New safety measures are being imposed in the wake of these arrests. Airline passengers will no longer be able to bring along sports drinks, gels, or anyone named Muhammad.

Passengers will now be frisked, patted down, and forced to have an enema before boarding any international flights.




HUMOR BLOGGING THE WAR IN ISRAEL
The U.S. and France have agreed on the main points of a resolution to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The two sides came to an agreement mostly because no one actually consulted with Israel or Hezbollah.

French President Jacques Chirac says he will not push for Hezbollah to get out of Lebanon. That's not a surprise coming from someone who isn't even pushing to get Hezbollah out of France.

French Middle East Peace Proposals
*Lull combatants into deep sleep with 4-1/2 hour French movie filled mostly with scenes where nobody talks.
*Blame everything on Alfred Dreyfuss, (hey, it worked once!).
*Send in their most revered peace envoy: Jerry Lewis.
*Offer to re-settle West Bank Arabs on the Left Bank... oh wait, they're already
there.
*Tell everyone to run away!

Israel bombed a crowded street in Southern Lebanon. The scheduled anti-American and anti-Semitic protests on that street had to be postponed.

The strike hit a building near a mosque in the upscale southern suburb of Shiyah. You can always tell it's a richer Muslim neighborhood when everyone has the hardback edition of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

"KEEPER OF THE REVOLUTION"?! - IRANIAN WOMAN
Gladstone Gallery
IRANIAN GIRL IN BROTHEL

Comedian Argus Hamilton:
Presidential spokesman Tony Snow blamed former President Bush Wednesday for cutting and running from Iraq after the Persian Gulf War. That was fifteen years ago. No one knows if President George W. Bush is out of ideas or out of his mind, but we know he's out of the will.



President Bush told reporters Tuesday that Condi Rice is handling all phone calls to U.S. allies and brokering the Lebanon cease-fire. He's kicking back in the easy chair while Condi does all the work. And people say he's not really a Southerner...

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney lost her Democratic primary in Georgia Tuesday in a landslide. She denounced Israel and later slugged a cop who detained her. She may have lost her congressional seat but Mel Gibson has found his next leading lady.

Kansas voters threw out anti-evolution school board members Tuesday in favor of a majority who are pro-Darwin. This changes everything. Until Tuesday's vote, an independent mind was considered to be a violation of the state's open container law.

Tom DeLay lost his bid in federal court Thursday to remove his name from the ballot in November. His mood is serene. This time next year he will either be in prison or he will be a Republican lobbyist, so either way he works for cigarettes.



HERE’S SOMETHIN’ REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT!!

More Jake...
Army Theme Park
The Pentagon is considering building a Army theme park. Tickets will be $15,000 per day and sodas will sell for $1,385.68.



More Argus...
Tour de France winner Floyd Landis blamed dehydration for his failed steroid test Thursday. He's blamed cortisone, alcohol, thyroid medication and metabolism. Still, he will have to blame the Jews if he ever hopes to be welcomed back to France...

U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia lost the Democratic primary Tuesday. She sang a song about President Bush in her concession speech. She just signed a major modeling contract in Georgia to be the face of this year's record nut harvest.



The Arab League held an emergency meeting in Beirut Monday. It wasn't much of a fun convention. Neither Shiites nor Sunnis permit use of intoxicating liquors, which really shoots a hole in Mel Gibson's theory that alcohol causes anti-Semitism.



The Richard Nixon Library on Tuesday marked the thirty-second anniversary of his resignation. In the final days he drank heavily and blamed the Jews for all his problems. We never knew until today that what he really wanted to do was direct.

President Bush flew to Crawford Thursday for a ten-day vacation at his Texas ranch. Condi Rice is staying with him while his wife vacations alone in Alaska (and Ohio). Thank goodness his foreign policy is going so well or this could be a real scandal.

NASCAR movie "Talladega Nights" is big at the box office. Some people think NASCAR is a waste of gasoline. Hey, there are people who think the Tour de France is a waste of drugs.




WARNING! PG-34…




(19) "Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt (20) and lusted after her paramours whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emissions were like that of stallions." [Ezekiel 23]



A young executive was leaving the office at 6 pm when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in hand. "Listen," said the CEO, "this is important, and my secretary has left. Can you make this thing work? "Certainly," said the young executive. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.
"Excellent, excellent!" said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine. "I just need one copy."


ACTRESS ANGELA BASSETT
The Energizer Bunny died a couple weeks ago. Someone put in his battery in upside down and he just kept coming and coming and coming...

A baby polar bear sat with his mum on an ice berg.
"Mum," he asked, "Am I a real polar bear?"
"Yes darling, of course you are." his mother answered.
"Yeah, but, am I a proper polar bear, you know, a real one?"
"Yes dear," his mum replied, "You're dad is a polar bear, I'm a polar bear and your sister's a polar bear."
"I know that mum," he said, "but am I a proper polar bear?"
"Of course you are" said his mum, "now shut up and eat your penguin."
A minute later the polar bear asks "Mum, I know what you've said, but am I really a proper polar bear?"
"Look," she says, "you are a proper bloody polar bear alright. What's wrong with you? Why do you keep asking me that?"
"Well," he replies, "Because, I'm fuckin' freezin' here!"



This guy walks in to a bar (((OUCH!))). The very first thing he notices is a large jar filled with dollar coins. The man asks the bartender, "What's this jar here for?" The bartender replies, "If you put a dollar in I'll tell you.”
The man puts a dollar in and the bartender says, "There is a donkey out the back, he's been crying since the day we bought him. If you can stop him from crying you get all the money in the jar."
The man goes out the back and comes back only seconds later and the donkey is laughing. The bartender asks, "How the hell did you do it!"
The man replies "It’s a secret."
He takes the money and leaves.

Two years later the man comes back and sees the dollar jar full again. He put's a dollar in and says, “Let me guess - stop the donkey from laughing?”
The bartender says "If you think you can?”
The man goes out the back and again seconds later the donkey is crying. The man comes in and takes the money.
"Hang on there mate. I’ve got to know how you do it," the bartender says.
The man replies "Well the first time I told him my dick's bigger than his - and the second time I SHOWED him."


SUPERMODEL HEIDI KLUM - "RUNWAY" ON BRAVO-TV

Good fortune. COMMENT!! Please spread the meme. Don't smoke in bed...