Liberalism causes Daylight Savings time causes Global Warming

close up shot here. (from Kottke.org)

Money Quote: "Daylight Savings Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that Members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or Did they?

Perhaps this another plot by a liberal congress to convince us that Global Warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects."

Wow, who needs the onion when you've got the Arkansas post-Gazette?

Sorry Letterman, there's a new #1 on the Bush top ten

Move over MC Rove it's Bush's turn. We've had like 6 posts in the last 2 days here at aaaathatsfiveas, and I hate to keep moving them down the page but a lot of shit happened today. The biggest news was that President Bush actually DANCED with Africans for malaria awareness. Someone said "If it wasn't for all of his policies he'd be the greatest president." If you could charitably interpret his arrogance as being Colbert-like (which is now impossible given Bush's policies) then maybe...

Enjoy.



PS- new White Stripes single "Icky Thump" dropped today download it here. It's right heavy, and won't go far on rock radio but I think it rules.

PPS- You can link back to this page with this permalink or by clicking the title of this blog post if you wanna, you know, pass on the photos and info...

All the first-born are mine

A friend of mine once wanted me to debate with some "intelligent conservatives" because he was of the opinion that I would be a good representative of the left. These were nice people, but the first question they wanted to discuss was "What do you think of the ten commandments being posted in schools?" This was an ingenious lead-off question because it's one of those issues that conservatives often see as being simply obvious as all hell and so by opposing it I was immediately beyond the pale in their eyes. Someone intervened before I answered and the whole thing was laughed off before I could even say "Let's not waste our time discussing such a pointless attempt to violate the constitution."

I wish I had that chance back now, because I was just struck by a magnificent compromise. Let's not let the ACLU continue to have its reputation tarnished trying to get this or that stone tablet removed from this or that courtroom. I say we post the Exodus 34 10 commandments in every classroom, seriously. Why Exodus 34? Well, the bible couldn't be clearer on this point: the Exodus 34 commandments are the real deal. As you'll read if you follow this this link Moses broke the original ten commandments (like a total schlemiel) and so God had to write them up again (and he specifies that they will be the same.) Well here they are in all of their glory:

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).

2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.

4. All the first-born are mine.

5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.

6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.

8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.

9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.




Can everyone deal with this compromise? These commandments would teach children some very important lessons about religion. For one thing, it's obvious that there are plenty of contradictions in the bible (most religious people I know are fine with this, but some don't recognize this); I'm referring here (as only one example of many) to exodus 20 which produces an entirely different set of commandments even though these are said (by God!) to be the same. For another, it makes apparent that the bible is largely a historical document codifying the rituals, myths, and oral traditions of an oft-primitive people. Most importantly though, you need to know that when someone says something like "Homosexuality is wrong because it says so in the bible" they could just as easily be saying "not taking the apples that fall on the ground to church is wrong" (see commandment 9.)

This is not a slander against religious people, because many already know this stuff. The ones who've actually read the bible have no doubt confronted passages in Deuteronomy Leviticus and Revelations about how wearing blended fabrics is wrong, shaving your head and shaving your beard (into a goatee) is wrong, or about how Jesus will kill all of the children who had the misfortune to be born to adulterous parents. Moral absurdities like the sad tale of a woman who tries to save her husband from being beaten up by another man but has the misfortune of touching the assailant's junk and (of course) has to have her hand cut off often do little to shake the faith of believers because such a faith isn't understood in a literal way. Though it's not my cup of tea, I don't really have a problem with that sort of selectivity by itself (and there are plenty of people who disagree with me.) I have a problem with the next step that some people take: "BUT the earth is still only 6000 years old because the bible says so" or "BUT Homosexuality is still wrong because the bible says so."

There are plenty of good arguments for the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, we should ignore them for just this once, in the spirit of compromise.

White House Correspondent's Dinner

This year the White House Correspondent's Dinner was pale in comparison to last years. Of course nobody expected Sanjaya's presence to make up for Stephen Colbert not not being invited.

David Letterman was unable to accept his invitation, however, he did put together a Top Ten that IMO deserves to be on the "Letterman Top Ten, Top Ten".

Colts vs. The Patriot

I guess political donations can buy you more than a rider in the Patriot Act. Payton Manning got to visit his favorite Patriot, George W. Bush, on Monday.

Now I know that Super Bowl winners, regardless of their political affiliation, get to visit the White House. But rarely do they seem as thrilled as Peyton was to hand Bush a team jersey.

Peyton remarked on meeting Bush, "It was very emotional," Manning said at a short news conference after the ceremony. "It kind of made you proud to be an American." Ok, Ok.. that was actually a comment he made about visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. How could visiting soldiers who were unnecessarily wounded in this disastrous war make you feel anything but proud of America? One has to wonder which section of the hospital Peyton visited.. I'm guessing it was the VIP area.

Fool me once, shame on who?

I really don't know if there is anything I can say about this video that will do it justice. Just watch.





I wonder if he saw this video about George Washington when he was studying him last year...

Sam Harris pt.2 (and, oh yes, there will even be a pt. 3)

Sam Harris has an infamous "argument" in defense of torture. He probably borrowed it from Alan Dershowitz who borrowed it from Michael Walzer (who's one of the foremost proponents of "Hypothetical Apologetics"- here's Chomsky speaking at West Point about Walzer.) There is a serious flaw in the way Harris presents his case, but what's far more important is a consideration of the context in which this wholly flawed argument is made. When we're confronted with a silly argument that's taken seriously, it's highly instructive to consider why reasonable people suddenly fail in their capacity for reasonable judgment.

Here's the argument in a nutshell:

Person A: Torture is morally wrong, legally wrong, and practically ineffectual.

Sam Harris: If there was a giant nuclear bomb hidden in Manhattan set to go off in 24 hours and the guy who planted it was dancing around and laughing in our faces and the only way to find it is to torture him, can we torture him to find out? Many of my liberal counterparts may disagree with me, but I stand strong that torturing an obviously guilty mass-murderer to save millions of lives is justifiable.

Bravo. What a magnificent blowtorch of an argument. Not so fast guys- are you sure that torture is wrong? Okay well now that I'm finally thinking clearly, let's see what other mistakes I've made in my moral judgments:



Person B: Punching an old lady right in the face is wrong.

Sam Harris: If there was a giant nuclear bomb hidden in Manhattan set to go off in 24 hours and the guy who planted it was dancing around and laughing in our faces and the only way he'd tell us where it is is if we punched an old lady right in the face, can we punch her to save millions of lives?

God, I mean, that's a horrible thing to have to do but think of the millions of lives saved. I guess punching old ladies in the face isn't wrong after all. You know what though? That's far too easy because we don't live in a nation in which we are defying the world by punching old ladies right in the face. We do, however live in a nation which is defying the world by actively torturing people and so publishing a highly visible justification of torture has serious implications. Let's see, what might a Saudi Sam Harris be publishing...

Samir Harris

Person C*: Flying planes into buildings and killing innocents is wrong.

Samir Harris: If there was a madman who was going to release a toxic virus that we knew would, at the very least, painfully kill every last man woman and child in the world in the next week and the only thing that would prevent him from releasing it is to fly a plane into a building full of innocents, could we do it then?

Who would've thought to write an article hypothetically justifying flying planes into buildings after 9/11? Even if that person had said "9/11, of course, was a travesty" (PS- does anyone ever use that word correctly outside of "... of justice"?) that person would've rightly been condemned for (what I'll call) "Hypothetical Apologetics." It means defending a controversial act in theory, with appeal to largely non-existent thought-experiments, in the context of great controversy over the act. A classic example of this is the great "Humanitarian Intervention" debate that always seems to pop up when we go to war for non-humanitarian reasons. Should we be talking about whether a war can ever be justified (it can, obviously) in the midst of a war that simply cannot? I think we all know that the effect of such a discussion is to implicitly support the bad-deed (Torture, Iraq War, etc.)

If the US starts executing its prisoners of war, you'll of course get O'Reilly out there saying that it's necessary and important and every sane person should recognize that immediately as the disgusting sophistry it is. More insidiously though, you'll find a Sam Harris-figure saying "Well, I'm not sure it's a good thing in this case, but what if these POWs had been irreversibly transformed into brainwashed superhuman killers with the ability to blow up half of Manhattan with their minds? Perhaps it's time to rethink..."

Don't say I didn't warn you.



*Probably hard to find... oh apart from the leaders of nearly every country in the world including such notorious moderates as Kim Jong-Il and the leaders of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, the PLO, etc.