Month: February 2007

It’s time for a contest. Let’s see who can find the single most ridiculous entry in the Christianist version of Wikipedia, Conservapedia. Here’s an entry on the cactus:

Cacti are those succelent plants which belong to the family Cactaceae. Every cactus is a succulent, but not every succulent is a cactus. The secularist view of the Cactaceae is that they are roughly two million years old, and that they have evolved exclusively in the new world. This view fails to explain, however, how it is that the Opuntia genus is native to the island of Opus, near Greece. Cacti are known for their high content of alkaloids, and have often been used in the sacramental rights of the Native Americans. Because of this, the early Catholic missionaries in the west thought the plants to be the work of Satan, and this is perhaps a preferable view to that of materialistic evolution since it is difficult to imagine how something like mescaline could have evolved by natural selection. Besides that, the psychoactive content of many cacti have inspired the writings of such ungodly men as Aldous Huxley and Albert Hoffman.

Several species of cactus are now endangered in the west due to "poaching" by collectors and invasive species. But, since Genesis suggests that man has been given dominion over all of the earth, the environmentalist concerns on this note are entirely inappropriate. It may also be that environmentalists, in addition to flauting the Word of God, are merely concerned about the effects that declining cactus populations will have on their supply of mescaline.

Maybe the whole thing is a spoof. But Stephen Colbert needs to book the creators pronto.

Readers are having a ball. The definition of "judicial activism":

"There are two major types of judicial activism practiced in the United States’ court system:

1. Liberal judges striking down laws that uphold core conservative American values
2. Liberal judges refusing to strike down laws that subvert core conservative American values

The most famous example of this is Roe v. Wade. Other examples include Brown v Board of Education[1] and Loving v Virginia[2] which stripped state control over education and marriage, respectively, putting it in the hands of the federal government; McCreary County v. ACLU in which judges stripped free speech and religious freedom from McCreary County [3]; Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in which the Supreme Court sided with terrorists over the protection of the United States of America. [4] and Schiavo v. Schiavo, in which judges ordered the death of an innocent handicapped woman against the wishes of her parents and many pro-life supporters.[5]."

Brown and Loving: blights on the country. Good to see the true core of today’s conservatism being expressed. Also:

Did you know that faith is a uniquely Christian concept? Add to the explanation of what it means, and how it does not exist on other religions.

"I thank God for helping me keep the faith, even when I didn’t believe," – Jennifer Hudson, accepting her Oscar tonight.

The Dixie Republicans have lost the fiscally conservative, independent vote. It may take a while before they win our trust again. Frank Luntz explains:

My polls show that Democrats now hold a perceived advantage with voters not just on reducing deficits and balancing the budget but on an issue long seen as a GOP strength: ending wasteful spending. That alone should jar Republicans into taking a fresh approach.

It has’t so far. They seem far more concerned to shore up the battle against abortion and gay marriage.

Meridian Hill Park in Washington D.C., this afternoon.

Another blogger piles onto the irrelevance of the Human Rights Campaign. Why is HRC more closet-friendly than much of "conservative" corporate America? Money quote:

If current trends continue, gays and lesbians may well be the test case that proves that employment nondiscrimination laws aren’t really necessary at all — take any sufficiently developed capitalist economy, free it from public or private coercion, and the profit motive may just be enough to end discrimination all by itself.

When I made that point in Virtually Normal, I got the usual brickbats. But a decade later, with HRC’s beloved Employment Non-Discrimination Act still in limbo and marriage rights already here in one state, and all-but reality in several others, it doesn’t look so outrageous. Some news reports say that ENDA and the hideous extension of the "hate" crimes law could pass in this session. I also hear that some HRC figures don’t want these bills to pass too soon because they think they can use them against Republicans in 2008. Are they that cynical? My own sense is that HRC will be reluctant to move on ENDA and hate crimes because success omn these decades-long goals would leave them with nothing much else to do. And they just built a vast multi-million dollar office complex!   

From Dina Martina.

Not a pretty picture.

Canaan, New York, 6.30 am.

Is that the best Hillary can manage in Hollywood? My take on the Geffen-Dowd hand grenade here. Arianna piles on here:

After a while, I came to dread the mention of her name, because it usually meant I would hear no more on any other topic that day. Looking back, I would be hard pressed to say whether it was conservatives or liberals who minded her more intensely. But the feeling they had in common was, "Anybody but her." And only in that way, I’m afraid, is she any more of a "uniter, not a divider" than the act she’d like to follow.

(Photo: Robert Sullivan/AFP/Getty.)