Has Marco Rubio Seen the Scientific Light? Maybe or....Maybe Not!

As spiritual scholar John Phillips accurately pointed out in a prior blog (May, 2010):

“The KING James was intended to be the simplest of all the bibles, because it was designed to be written with no more than 8,000 different words in total. (Obviously, it has more than a million words, but only 8,000 words are used repetitively to make up the one million- no more). Thereby, it became the simplest medium available to serve the largest population possible.”


John went on to add:

“But being popular doesn't make it correct, or endow it with absolute truth. As a matter of fact, with such low verbal density or use it would be comical to even suggest the King James bible (or any other) comes remotely close to truth. What it does, for the masses, is present a cartoon version of reality.”

Of course, it is this elemental simplicity which fuels its sales! Most Americans are not readers at heart, certainly of anything that taxes their gray matter or vocabulary. If they were to read anything and especially make purchases of it: it would be a book with a reduced vocabulary and one also advertised as conferring some “spiritual benefit”. Enter the Bible!

Coupled with this is that book publishers have known for over one hundred years it has been a consistent top seller, so have always churned out more copies than any other work of fiction – including the illustrious Harry Potter series.


So, the fact the Bible is a #1 “best seller” isn’t anything to crow about, it is rather an indictment of American insularity and parochialism of thought. It is the embodiment of all that Europeans, for example, criticize in terms of Americans’ lack of genuine intellectual insight and curiosity.

I bring this up because adherence to bible bunkum is what keeps the Republican party's hard core zealots and knuckle draggers (e.g. Todd Akin)  bound to a world view long since expired. Having said all that, there appears to be at least a ray of light on the Dumbo Party (i.e. Repukes) as one of their most hard core Tea Party mavens now admits to having some intelligence after all. I am referring  (to Florida Tea Bagger Extraordinaire, Marco Rubio.

Last month, when GQ magazine asked Rubio “How old do you think the Earth is?” he sputtered through an initially copout answer.


“I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says. I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.”

Hmmmm……so he never studied basic general science, even in college, where one is introduced to the concept of radiocarbon isotope dating? Maybe he has, because this week, in an interview with Politico, he attempted to mop up his Teapot response in GQ.

He said, “There is no scientific debate on the age of the Earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively. It’s at least 4.5 billion years old.”

BRAVO! Now, please inform Young Sun-Young Earth pseudo-astrophysicist Jason Lisle! It would work wonders!

Alas, maybe he could see Lisle leering at him in his mind’s eye as he hedged:

“I just think in America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever it is we believe. And that means teaching them science. They have to know the science, but also parents have the right to teach them the theology and to reconcile those two things.”


Errrrr…..no, maestro! Parents have NO such ”right”! Science isn’t up for election, "reconciliaton" with ancient dreck or popularity contests! Nor up for “rights” contention by bible-banging parents. Even if 5 million imbecilic parents don’t believe in Newton’s three laws of motion, that doesn’t invalidate them! Even if ten million Reichist zombies believe the Earth was created in 6 days and is 6 thousand years old, that is irreconcilable with the scientific FACT of Earth’s 4-5 billion years age – as you noted to Politico. You’re entitled to your own beliefs and opinions but not your own scientific facts!


But this leaves open the question: Why did Marco hedge?  Well, because he's tethered his fortunes to a party of creationists, global warming deniers and generally ill-informed, poorly educated yokels. According to a June Gallup report, most Republicans (58 percent) believed that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. Most Democrats and independents do not agree, mainly because most Democrats and independents are college educated and possess IQs over room temperature.


Make no mistake that his Republican anti-intellectualism is antediluvian. No wonder a 2009 Pew Research Center report found that only 6 percent of scientists identified as Republican and 9 percent identified as conservative. (Fewer still as fundamentalist Christians). It’s because the generic mindset in all those domains is antithetical to science!

Furthermore, a 2005 study found that only 11 percent of college professors identified as Republican and 15 percent identified as conservative. Some argue that this simply represents a liberal bias in academia. However, an equally strong a case could be made that people who absorb facts easily don’t suffer fools gladly. Since the Repugs are replete with fools, the thinking quarters of society will not suffer them gladly or their humbug – no matter how many bibles they quote, or how much they stomp their feet.

That, of course, leaves it to the rest of us – the critically thinking and educated citizens-  to be the adults here. It is up to us to tell these brats where to get off and what they can and can’t do. In that sense, we can’t permit them to turn our educational system into the laughing stock of the planet. Think of Adam and Eve riding dinosaurs with lassos, such as depicted in my blog on Charles Pierce's book Idiot America!

Obama Haters Need to Grow Up! AND 10 Takeaways from Election Night

Images on a Right whacko's blog.  (TOP: After the election was called for Obama, BOTTOM - just before). He is going into mental meltdown mode after Obama's win last night. Maybe he needs some MJ cookies.

As readers can see from the attached images, the Obama hating assholes haven’t relented despite a decisive electoral win over the lying, job-dismantling, petulant in defeat,  former BAIN CEO Mittens Romney. Can Obama expect cooperation from these fools? Don’t bet on it! The same blogger that posted the attached top and bottom images also had the temerity to scrawl on his blog:


“I wonder if Obummer really "won." Reports are coming in that (biased?) pollworkers in several states were giving ballots to individuals with no photo IDs. Which is why the Left has always opposed them. And...I wonder how many of those who voted (with no IDs) were even in this country legally!

No matter. "...be sure your sin will find you out" ( Numbers 32:23). As an evangelical Christian, I have personally seen and experienced much tragedy, hate, etc., and, although I may not understand at the time why things sometimes go the way they do, I put my faith in God, as opposed to confidence in man. In other words, I "walk by faith, not by sight" ( 2 Cor. 5:7 )."

  The last line was especially amusing as he had total faith the Mittster would win – and in a LANDSLIDE! How much dumbass faith is that? Maybe what we need to do is to get this hater into a nice video – DANCING with Obama – instead of hating on him.

But in my takeaways I will show why this nut is off his rocker. If ANY votes were “stolen” it was by the other side – likely in VA, FL and OH – making those states much closer by electronically switching votes (see two blogs ago – the link showing a machine vote switch in action)

The TEN Takeaways:


1- Nate Silver (538 blog) is a freaking pollster GURU! With a 90 % probability he basically nailed the result for Obama electorally – while taking all kinds of venom from Mittens’ Repuke Goon Gallery. The latter, as I noted before, simply couldn’t tolerate the nature of statistical reality and opted to diss it rather than accept it.

2- Willard Mitt was in the end his own worst enemy, as even assorted earlier defenders acknowledge this morning. No one in the end knew where this shapeshifter stood – he was a hard core Tea Bagger puppet in the REEP debates then morphed into a wannabe “moderate” during the presidential debates. In the end most intelligent people couldn’t reconcile his changes to who he really was,  or accept that what he said truly mattered to him - or to them!

3- Superstorm Sandy was indeed the ‘black Swan’ embodiment I noted earlier in a previous blog, and showed that indeed people need government when the going gets tough – while showing (with images of Gov. Chris Christie) Obama could work across the aisle and was indeed the grown up here.

4- The White Evangelical Cracker votes Mittens and his campaign kept insisting would arrive with “passion” (defeating or denying the polls like Nate Silver’s) didn’t emerge. The total white vote proportion was 72% and needed to be at least 74% for the Mittster to have a chance. The white cracker votes were at least cancelled out in Florida and Colorado by a 70%+ Hispanic turnout in those states. THAT turnout plausibly neutralized electronic vote thefts in those states. (Making the election close enough to toss to Willard Mitt, but now - thanks to the huge Puerto Rican Dem turnout in the I-94 central Florida corridor that state will likely have its 29 electoral votes for Obama.)

5- Obama took the Rust Belt states of Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin by finally giving a full throated defense of the auto bailout that people in those states could understand, especially using the ‘spokes on a bicycle wheel’ analogy of how jobs spread from Detroit outwards to other states which manufacture tires, auto parts, etc. This ensured large union turnout and likely neutralized the effort to electronically steal (switch) votes using a recently installed, uncertified electronic computer “patch”. (Union households went 60% to 38% for Obama, according to a CBS News poll this morning).

6- Virginia and Ohio going for Obama was also helped by a large women’s vote, for example in Ohio going to Obama by 56% to 40%. In Virginia women in Loudon County were appalled at their governor’s efforts to demand invasive ultrasound probes before allowing an abortion. Threats against contraception and hence increased health costs also caused women in Ohio to vote for Obama far more than their non-unon working class hubbies.

7- “The War on Women” coming to the fore, compliments of firebrand Christian idiots like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, assured at least six Senate seats going to the Dems including Clare McCaskill’s in Missouri and Joe Donnelly’s in Indiana. As even conservo Joe Scarborough observed this morning, this issue was one of idiocy,  not conservative identity.


8- The Youth vote in Colorado, coming out by nearly 60%-38% for Obama also hinged on the vote for Amendment 64 to make marijuana in small amounts legal for recreational use for all citizens 21 yrs. and older. This is another reason, as I will show below, Obama needs to get control of his agency – the DEA- to get them to back off State’s prerogatives as reflected in citizen initiatives. The alternative is to stir anti-government sentiment among youth in key states (like Colorado and Washington) which could be catastrophic for Dems.

9- The demographic reflected in the election disclosed whites no longer “control” the nation’s electoral map. Whites have continually been hard-assed against Obama in this cycle from the get go, with white men going for Mittens by nearly 66% to 34% and white women not much better at 56% to 38%. This racial split is deplorable and leads the impartial observer to at least suspect some racial motivation.


10. Obama Earned at least Political Capital He Can USE:

Obama will be told by the Extreme Reepos (like Mitch McConnell who delivered a most ungracious response last night) that he has no “mandate” because of the close popular vote, about 50%-49%, but by a large electoral win (likely with 332 final) he has at least political capital. How to use it?


A) GO OVER THE FISCAL CLIFF!

The “fiscal cliff” as I have pointed out before, is largely a confection invented by a certain Washington Neoliberal Elite to justify severe “entitlement” cuts down the road. They figure if they can get the Bush tax cuts to be retained for all now – yelping about a “massive recession” if we don’t- that they can use that as leverage to cut domestic benefits programs later. This is all so much HORSE SHIT! There is no fiscal cliff, and in fact DIVING over it is the best way to solve an otherwise intractable deficit problem (as even fiscal hawk David Walker would agree).

According to William Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institute and former adviser to George H.W. Bush:

“It will be much easier to negotiate a budget deal going over the cliff. It seems to be the only way we can boost revenues.”

Adds Matt McAlvanah, a spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the fourth-ranking Democrat:

“The willingness to go over the cliff is a means to force a deal,”

This is the point! The Repukes and Mitch McConnell, Eric Kantor and Weepy eyed Johnno Boehner, will make no “grand deal” on their own that includes ANY significant revenues no matter how much Obama may want them. Why would they? Their agenda now is to deny the Prez a Legacy, as opposed to being a one –termer.

The best means to attain deficit control and sobriety is therefore to go OVER the alleged “cliff” and in the process solve the problem without any need for Reepo cooperation or agreement to higher revenues. The revenues come automatically! By merely passively allowing ALL tax cuts to expire – the payroll tax cuts (which never should have been there in the first place since they FUND Social Security which the Reeps want to cut) as well as the Bush tax cuts for all classes, enormous deficit reduction is attained – without the bullshit and rigamorole to pander to the Reepos.

In fact, $500b would be saved the next fiscal year, and $3.7 trillion over ten years – with NO Bush tax cuts. The supposed consequences would not be catastrophic at all but only incrementally crimp some wanton consumption. (Most people never even noticed the payroll tax cuts coming into their pay packets each week!) . In large measure, the fantasy of the horrendous results of "diving" are based on the myth that tax cuts energize the economy and create jobs. But the opposite is true, as a Financial Times analysis of the Bush tax cuts showed (FT, 9/15/10) People – the Middle class- meanwhile, can then be told that this is a small price to pay to retain their government benefits which otherwise would require draconian cuts down the line.


B) Get Control of your Agencies and DEMAND the Reepos Finally Complete the Remaining Federal Office Picks from Last Term

Both are important and run in tandem. The REEPS must be made to understand that they cannot continue to hold up key picks for federal agencies, offices – and need to pay a price if they do. One method is a tack used several times by JFK, cut defense spending, contracts in their districts if they fail to cooperate.

It is also important Obama gain control of his federal agencies overall, instead of “letting the inmates run the asylum”, so to speak. A case in point is the DEA, which has been running amuck with raids on medical marijuana (MJ) dispensaries in CA, CO the last two years, despite Obama stating clearly in 2009 this sort of thing would not be a priority. Then WHY are they doing it?

According to author Rob Kampia (‘Legalize It!’, Playboy, November, p. 56):

“The federal attacks on medical marijuana aren’t driven by calculated politics ….Rather the attacks are the result of Obama being a bad manager. ….

In 2009 and 2010 the Department of Justice followed the president’s lead – just as any staff with a new boss would – and let medical marijuana flourish across the country. Unfortunately, over time the staff noticed that Obama, his Chief of Staff and other White House bosses weren’t holding the DOJ accountable. DOJ staffers started doing what most other unsupervised employees would do: They followed their own agendas.”

Obama, now that two states (WA, CO) have legalized pot for recreational use, needs to respect citizen voter rights for those amendments to constitutions in those states and tell the DEA hotshots to back off. Order them to follow his lead, not engage in their own freelancing. If not, and the feds continue intervening and impeding, this could cost the Dems the MJ states in future elections – and this may be critical in tight future elections (See also my takeaway #8)


C) Pull out of Afghanistan SOONER, instead of waiting until 2014. You will be able to save at least $550 b more in squandered treasure, not to mention dozens more American lives, and you don’t need to put on the bravado military posture any more to show voters how tough you are. In other words, you will now finally earn your Nobel Peace Prize in the eyes of many!

D) Don’t appease the Reepos or believe they will make nicey now with you. These are the same jackwads that obstructed everything in your first term. Make them come to you…..don’t offer any peace pipes to them! This is the least your voters expect after waiting in line for hours – for many of them – in key battleground states.

There! 'Nuff Said!

As for the asshole blogger that thinks Obama is an “Evil King” – take a look at your own side for once, friend, and maybe pull yourself away from the computer and help out the less fortunate instead of pissing on them all the time.

Sandra Fluke Warns of a Dire Future if We Make a GOOP Choice

Though her speech last night was short, it was elegant and to the point. In her soft, melliflous voice Ms. Sandra Fluke presented perhaps one of the most powerful cases for voting all Democratic - by showing us the future we confront if the Romney-Ryan Nazis grab power. Indeed, I had to go back to Robert Payne's book, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, to see how close Sandra's forecasts were to what the Third Reich actually did. This was particularly in terms of limiting reproductive choice, including outlawing of abortion and all contraception.

Payne also noted that one of the Reich's first steps on ascending to power was to ban all pornography, every last bit. Up until then, the Weimar Republic had produced some of the most varied and diverse material ever seen in Europe or anywhere. But as sex therapist author Betty Dodson noted in her previous book, all authoritarian regimes and especially those prone to butchery, know and understand that porn is amongst the most "transgressive" forms of expression there is. Hence, it had to be rendered verboten.

I already noted in a previous blog how the Romney -Ryan Robber baron gangsters, or "the American First Reich", plan to do the same by wasting a half trillion for a crusade. See, e.g.http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/hide-your-porn-romney-gop-plan-fierce.html

Sandra Fluke, meanwhile, articulately warned of the ferocious war on women everywhere that will erupt if the Romney Zombies get in. In Sandra's unforgettable words:

"Warnings of that future are not distractions. They’re not imagined. That future could be real."

As she elaborated, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up:

"In that America, your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs. Who won’t stand up to the slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party. "

She's referencing the coward rat Romney, who said - after Lush Rimbaugh used vile slurs to describe Sandra, "Those are not exactly the words I'd have used".

Oh really, Rat? What....you'd have used a more "refined" alternative? The coward Romney – as Rachel Maddow noted in a segment 2 weeks ago, also waited at least 36 hours (and after most other repups had weighed in) before offering a negative opinion on Todd Akins “legitimate rape” comment. Only then did the Mormon weasel proclaim it was “objectionable”. What we can conclude is that no such waffling weasel has any business being leader of the country, no matter how loudly his peanut gallery screams for him to do so.

Back to Sandra's stirring warning of a dark, dire future should American voters make the wrong choice:

"It would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms. An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure invasive ultrasounds we don’t want and our doctors say we don’t need. An America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it; in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over again; in which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve help, and which don’t. We know what this America would look like. In a few short months, it’s the America we could be. But it’s not the America we should be. It’s not who we are."

You're right, Sandra! It is the America we could be in, no longer America but Amerikka - the land dominated by a New Reich. Robber barons who fly the $ sign as opposed to swastikas, but who do the same thing. (In Nazi Germany, as Payne also observed, the second thing the Nazis outlawed was any form of birth control. You had to make babies for the state or face the camps)

Sandra continued, counterpoising the dark future with a much brighter one:

"We’ve also seen another future we could choose. First of all, we’d have the right to choose. It’s an America in which no one can charge us more than men for the exact same health insurance; in which no one can deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our lives; in which we decide when to start our families. An America in which our president, when he hears a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters—not his delegates or donors—and stands with all women. And strangers come together, reach out and lift her up. And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here—and give me a microphone—to amplify our voice. That’s the difference."

Indeed! This is the America we who are sane want. The future we want, and try to project beyond the vicious efforts of the liars and brigands to deflect it by disinformation. But will it happen? It depends on the outcome on Nov. 6th.

Ms. Fluke concluded her speech:

"Over the last six months, I’ve seen what these two futures look like. And six months from now, we’ll all be living in one, or the other. But only one. A country where our president either has our back or turns his back; a country that honors our foremothers by moving us forward, or one that forces our generation to re-fight the battles they already won; a country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom, or one where that freedom doesn’t apply to our bodies and our voices."

Well put. If in fact parallel universes exist, it is perhaps indisputable that in one of them the future portended by Mitt Romney and his Robber Barons and antisexual goons will materialize. The future of tens of millions of kids in rags, begging for food on street corners, as their parents have food stamps and their Medicaid cut. Meanwhile, rich buggers get double their old Bush tax cuts. And the military is fueled with $2 trillion in order to start a new war with Iran.

But in another parallel universe, Obama and Joe Biden are re-elected. Steps are taken to continue to improve the job situation, even as more resources are brought to bear. By 2014 Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is in full swing with millions added, children no longer denied care because of pre-existing conditions, and seniors not having to choose between food and meds owing to the 'donut hole'. At the same time, 22 million more people now have health coverage they lacked before.

Which parallel universe will ours track into by the end of November 6th? We had better hope it's the latter!

"Legitimate Rape": A Shot over the “Bow” for Women Voters!

The pro-GOP pundits this morning were almost in tears. Whining, crying, weeping and bellyaching: “If Karl Rove was in charge of the campaign he’d never let this happen!”


What are the talking heads blubbering about? Why?

After GOP (Missouri) Toad Todd Akin’s comments on an interview went public. To quote, after being asked why he supported banning abortion:


“It seems to me from what I understand from doctors, if it’s a legitimate rape female bodies have ways to shut that down.”

Huh? Say what? Female bodies have magical and invisible weapons to shut down potential pregnancy....from forcible rapes?

By “legitimate rape”,   Akin meant by force, for example being gang -raped. Somehow the woman’s body will “know” what happened and be able to instantly neutralize or “purge” the millions of sperm violently injected into her against her will. Hence, no need for seeking abortion! Hell, it’s a natural medical “miracle” of the female body to be able to distinguish “friendly” sperm from “hostile” types!

Where did this numskull learn his human biology? In some creationist Sunday School camp? The same ones that teach that dinosaurs walked the Earth simultaneously with early humans – as fake scientists like Jason Lisle proclaim?

Naturally, liberal women’s groups are in an outrage but ALL women’s groups (including conservo) ought to be because Akin’s ignorant remarks also are embodied in House legislation proposed by Paul Ryan via H.R. 3805. Thereby the distinction is made between ”forcible rape” and “non-forcible rape” with the former being the only “legitimate” kind that might be allowed for abortion. Even then, the forcibly raped woman who’s been impregnated would have to submit to an ultrasound “wand” or “probe” to be inserted into her vagina as she's  lectured over the “preciousness” of the rapist’s growing seedling inside. This, by the way, would be a NATIONAL piece of legislation applying to all women everywhere.

This is in contrast to the same law that had been proposed (last year) by Virginia Governor Bob McDonald, who once joked that women who had to submit to insertion of ultrasound probes shouldn’t complain because “they’ve already had something in there.”

Can any woman of sound mind, sight and hearing really vote for any of these knuckle draggers? Can those who are even conservative but are moms think of doing so, given what the voting consequences may mean for their daughters?

Be mindful here that what reprobates like Akin and Paul Ryan are after is a nationwide equivalent to the odious "personhood" amendments now making the rounds. This election, further, is likely to be quite close given that up to 5 million minority, elderly and student voters may well be disenfranchised by Republican Voter ID law tactics - which are not meant to preserve electoral integrity but to suppress potential Obama voters.  This makes it more critical than ever that women who intend to vote in affected states ensure they have all the documents, including ID, they need and they see that the GOP ticket is one of disaster and regression.

The crying pundits like Joe Scarborough have reason to be concerned as this Akin comment emerges days before the Repuke Convention in Tampa. And don’t anyone believe this is going away anytime soon!