Wednesday Open Thread

Filed in National by on October 13, 2010

Welcome to the Wednesday edition of your open thread. I’ve been watching the Chilean mine rescue. It’s exciting to see the rescue of the miners who’ve been trapped for 2 months but also to see the interesting technology involved in the rescue. It was American technology that made the difference, the drillers that reached the miners were from an American company and the rescue capsule was designed by NASA.

The Washington Post continues its long slide into irrelevancy by publishing an op-ed by hateful homophobe Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) on National Coming Out Day.

Amid a spate of suicides and bullying — and a mere week and a half after one of the uglier anti-gay hate crimes in New York history — Perkins points the finger:

…homosexual activist groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family.

Also, says Perkins, gay activists and the media are the guilty parties:

Some homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal–yet they have been told by the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment, that they are “born gay” and can never change. This–and not society’s disapproval–may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.

Thank you, Washington Post Company, for bankrolling Tony Perkins’ plea against tolerance.

I’m surprised they didn’t win the asshat of the day award. But there’s so many asshats, so little time.

Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois, Mark Kirk, was caught on tape being a little too specific about his voter suppression fraud efforts:

In a private phone conversation that was secretly recorded, Mark Kirk, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois, told state Republican leaders last week about his plan to send “voter integrity” squads to four predominately African American neighborhoods of Chicago “where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat.”

Kirk’s campaign confirmed the candidate was secretly taped last week as he was talking about his anti-voter fraud effort.

“These are lawyers and other people that will be deployed in key, vulnerable precincts, for example, South and West sides of Chicago, Rockford, Metro East, where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat,” he said in the audio posted on YouTube.

Yeah, funny coincidence how those precincts were predominantly African-American precincts. I’m sure it’s all just a mistake, right?

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (35)

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  1. MJ says:
    October 13, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    While jigger may mean “alter, re-arrange, or manipulate,” when was the last time any of you heard it used that way?

  2. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    That’s what I thought the word meant.

  3. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 12:41 pm

    Really interesting link tweeted by BellefonteRoss:

    I understand these aren’t novel or particularly insightful thoughts, but I thought some people might be interested in seeing the exact two points that caused me to change from voting Republican to voting Democrat.

    Previously I thought:

    1.Big government can’t do anything efficiently or with quality, and there are no checks on it to prevent that. In contrast, free-market economics, despite being occasionally brutish, at least tends toward efficiency since it features competition as a check for quality. Therefore, a small government that leaves all possible matters up to the free-market will lead to the best system for the benefit of the general population.

    2.Poor people need the discomfort of being poor to help be motivated toward working hard. Only a small number of people are truly incapable of bettering themselves, the rest of them just need to be educated in capitalism and then given that motivation.

    Then I realized:

    1.Most giant companies are just as bad as big government in terms of their inefficiencies and how hard it is to change anything, and there are almost no meaningful checks for quality when they get to a certain size because competition is limited or non-existent. They can be even worse than big government because they are compelled to grab every penny with no direct incentive toward any other values or mission.

    2.The ability to dramatically alter one’s lot in life for the better (as compared to your parents, for example) is a very, very rare ability no matter what one’s socio-economic background. It is even harder, though, for those who are poor, who have been marginalized, or who are culturally or socially conditioned toward certain dysfunctional behaviors and thoughts.

  4. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    Another interesting read from slacktivist about Christine O’Donnell’s “dabbling.” I recommend you read the whole thing it’s too interesting to clip fairly.

    To understand this bizarre, and untrue, statement, you have to understand the peculiar place that Hare Krishnas hold in the rhetoric of America’s evangelical Christian subculture. “Hare Krishna” doesn’t refer, specifically or literally, to the belief system that bears this name. It’s a shorthand signifier representing something like “every other possible alternative that anyone could imagine.”

    As with her claim to have “dabbled into” a Warnke-esque form of Satanism, O’Donnell is here embellishing her “personal testimony” in an attempt to make it seem more compelling, more exciting and more authoritative. This kind of runaway exaggeration is encouraged in the evangelical subculture by giving such dramatic testimonies a more enthusiastic response than is generally provided to the more honest and accurate, but blander, sort of testimony that begins, “I’ve been attending this church my whole life …”

    But these false embellishments aren’t only intended to provide drama. More perniciously, this sort of artificially enhanced testimony is also encouraged as a debate tactic — especially in “witnessing,” when one is attempting to argue someone into conversion.

    …

    That is what this “Hare Krishna” business from O’Donnell is about. It’s a tactic for discounting and dismissing the competition. She doesn’t want to say that her evangelical faith is all she’s ever known because she worries that might leave her vulnerable to the accusation that she simply doesn’t know any different or any better. So she tries to head this off by making the implausible sweeping claim that she’s test-driven them all — that she’s experimented with every religion and found her own faith to be the best and only satisfactory alternative.

    She hasn’t really done so, of course, as evidenced by her continuing lack of understanding of what those other faiths actually believe. Plus she simply hasn’t had time to carry out such a comprehensive spiritual journey. Her claim might be slightly more plausible coming from an older person — a late-in-life convert after decades of a Razor’s Edge-style quest. But this claim is patently ridiculous coming from O’Donnell, who has been a vocally earnest evangelical since high school.

    …

    Those who make this kind of argument imagine that they’re improving their own religious testimony — making it both more exciting and more authoritative. But the truth is that it diminishes whatever power their own story might have had. A false testimony lacks conviction and honesty — the very things that make anyone’s own story compelling. And it betrays a lack of confidence — a lack of faith — that one’s actual beliefs honestly conveyed can withstand testing.

    h/t Honest Hypocrite

  5. AQC says:
    October 13, 2010 at 12:51 pm

    I am loving watching those miners be rescued! What a testimony to teamwork, faith, perseverance and strength!

  6. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 12:56 pm

    A former Congressman (and current House candidate) suggests that President Obama will be impeached over his birth certificate. None of that soft birther stuff from Michigan’s Tim Walberg. (MI-07)

    At a meet-and-greet event last night in Adrian, there he went again:

    Well, I’m gonna take him at his word that he’s an American citizen. I don’t know why it hasn’t been resolved other than the fact that the president hasn’t resolved it yet. So, heh! I don’t know if you can get a letter to him and ask him for that reason but…

    If I had, I had to do it, I’d just simply uh…of course I hadta show my birth certificate in order to be on the ballot. But, uh, if I were going to do it, I’d call, uh, Rush Limbaugh, Alan Colmes, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch Mcconnell and, uh, maybe one justice of the Supreme Court, call them all into a room and lay out my, my uh, birth certificate on the table and maybe it’s for personal reasons I don’t want it to be shown in the media or whatever else, but say “now all of you take a look it and tell me what you find. Now go and report it. But there may be some more issues related to it that I’m not aware of.”

    Funny that Walberg had to show his his birth certificate to get on the ballot for Congressman but assumes that Barack Obama didn’t have to in order to run for Senate in Illinois. Also funny that he feels it’s necessary for the president to prove himself to Rush Limbaugh and Alan Colmes, two pundits with absolutely no role to play in our government and it’s rules and regulations.

    But he then takes a step too far, suggesting that impeachment is on the table:

    The fact of the matter is the Executive has an awful lot of power to keep from showing certain things unless the courts will stand up to him. Or unless Congress, in majority, will stand up – up to and including impeachment. And the Republicans don’t have the majority.

    But, don’t forget, he takes President Obama at his word.

  7. Jason330 says:
    October 13, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    Faith? Okay I guess. Whatever gets you through the night.

  8. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    What a testimony to teamwork, faith, perseverance and strength!

    Why not science and technology? It’s irritating as a scientists to give credit to God but not to the people who did the work.

  9. anonone says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    Get Ready for Economic Collapse 2.0: “The enormous mortgage-bond scandal”

    It isn’t as bad as if first looks: It is worse.

    http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/10/13/the-enormous-mortgage-bond-scandal/

  10. anonone says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    Bon jour, Jason,

    Maybe this is the long game REVEALed:

    “There will be no [health] insurance industry left in three years,” Coburn told the Republican Women’s Club of Tulsa County.

    “That is by design. You’re going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone — which is what they want. Because if there’s no private insurance left, what’s left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care.”

    http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/13/coburn-end-insurance/

  11. AQC says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    Science and technology did not help them survive together those first 17 days with no contact from the outside world and only two days worth of rations! I don’t find a need to minimize the things I mentioned in order to appreciate science and technology.

  12. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    I’m just asking, why no mention of the huge technical accomplishment of the mine rescue? It wouldn’t have mattered how strong and faithful they were without the technology to find the miners and the equipment to get them out.

  13. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    A1,

    You’re citing Tom Coburn as a source?

  14. anonone says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:32 pm

    I should have bracketed it with sarcasms. 🙂

  15. Joe Cass says:
    October 13, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    AQC, if the big man rides his hairy up and out of that mine I will be born again. Until then…way to go NASA!

  16. AQC says:
    October 13, 2010 at 2:15 pm

    Some of you have become miserable fucks! Maybe you should get God in your lives. You’re still allowed to believe in science!

  17. anonone says:
    October 13, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    Too bad their faith didn’t keep the mine from collapsing to begin with. I guess God is also a “miserable fuck.”

  18. Geezer says:
    October 13, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    “It’s irritating as a scientists to give credit to God but not to the people who did the work.”

    What if you put your faith in the ingenuity of scientists and engineers?

  19. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    I’m sorry you feel attacked, AQC, that was not my intention. But yes, I did feel irritated that the engineers, drilling experts and other technical experts didn’t at least get a mention.

  20. heragain says:
    October 13, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    Just got a LOVELY push poll call from the Judy Travis campaign.

  21. Joe Cass says:
    October 13, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    Why would God create me as a miserable fuck?

  22. Joe Cass says:
    October 13, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    Miner with a mistress just doesn;t look to be the confrontational kind.

  23. Joe Cass says:
    October 13, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    We need 1000 laser systems put in the sky and we need it right now
    John Raese believes in God AND science. Science for defense and God to forgiving him being a complete tool.

  24. pls louise says:
    October 13, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    Got a question. Who made the decision for President Obama to come to Wilmington? Who made the decision to charge for the event, Phila. was free? Seems an real opportunity missed! Could have all the news networks here and thousands of cheering Delawareans.

    Who can afford to pay the amount they request? They could have passed a donation basket around. Really a missed national opportunity for Delaware to be spotlighted with some sanity.

  25. liberalgeek says:
    October 13, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    They could have passed a donation basket around.

    Ha! I hope you aren’t in charge of fundraising for any candidate. Passing around the hat is illegal.

    And really, $100 isn’t that expensive of an expense for something like this. I’m not paying it, but many will.

  26. anon says:
    October 13, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    Random-I only have a cell as to save a few bucks from having a landline–and am glad I miss the robocalls and such, but actually would be interested in a polling call. How does it work for households that are only using cells now? Just curious!

  27. V says:
    October 13, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    pls, it’s a fundraiser. hence the funds…

    Also, I’m going (like, inside and everything) if DL needs an operative in there…

  28. anon says:
    October 13, 2010 at 5:08 pm

    So there are already COD nuts carrying anti-marxist signs at the debate..what is wrong with these people, honestly? It just baffles my mind that they think that is legitimately going to influence people to vote for her. I hope plenty of witch hats and broomsticks also show up then.

  29. AQC says:
    October 13, 2010 at 5:29 pm

    UI, I was referring to the 33 men in the mine. I cannot imagine how they stuck together in such conditions. I think that is a testament to them. The technology and science is wonderful, but humans persevered long enough to successfully use it and those men hung in long enough to reap the benefits!

  30. Joe Cass says:
    October 13, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    Who oh who did the Chileans have faith in before the conquistadors came and sliced and diced the populace? The wrong, god, obviously!

  31. Belinsky says:
    October 13, 2010 at 6:30 pm

    Good interview with Mike Castle on All Things Considered:

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/10/13/130542240/rep-mike-castle-won-t-endorse-in-delaware-senate-race

  32. Unstable Isotope says:
    October 13, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    Belinsky,

    I caught that interview. Castle said some interesting things, like he should have focused on getting Independents and Castle Democrats registered as Republicans for the primary.

  33. MJ says:
    October 13, 2010 at 9:57 pm

    If you need a laugh, read this – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/13/elderly-men-now-just-beat_n_761405.html

  34. pls louise says:
    October 14, 2010 at 3:09 pm

    Geek: Then why was Phila free….what the party doesnt need the funds in Pa?

  35. liberalgeek says:
    October 14, 2010 at 3:45 pm

    It wasn’t a fundraiser in PA. Politicians do some events for fundraising and some for rallying the troops. Sometimes they do both in the same day at the same place. This isn’t new.

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