Gateway Past the First Circle?

Funky PhD over at Firedoglake has a humorous and interesting post on a major reason why extreme Christian wingnuts (as opposed to Christians as a whole) are so concerned about what people do in their free time: there is nothing good on the Internet (side note: why do we capitalize Internet?) for them to do! An excerpt:

Bobo’s world has all this time to rant and rave and host prayer meetings and issue press releases and worry themselves silly about pharmacists in Dubuque whose religious rights are being violated because a married woman just came into their drug store and tried to buy a tube of KY Jelly because there’s nothing on the Internets for these people to do!

But it’s not because they haven’t tried. Oh no. The Internets are filled with dozens upon dozens of time-wasting-pastimes-for-Christians-gone-wrong. Call me a godless evolutionist if you must, but I have come to the startling conclusion that there is something in the wingnut DNA that leaves fundamentalists unable to design a website.

Read the post for more. There are some great links in it, too!

Oh, the Humanity!

Florida Blues has a simply hilarious (to me, anyway!) one line post up. I duplicate it in its entirety, because, well, it bears repeating!

From the Independent (UK):
GM Industry Puts Human Gene into Rice

It's about time somebody did this for her.

Man, that's cold. Pass it along to your friends. :) Really, though, I think the human gene might have been better served being inserted into Delay, don't you? Rice can fake it...Delay, well, he comes across as...I don't know...some sort of creature of death or something!

Pitch Me! I Must Be Dreaming!

Keith Foulke needs work. I can just see him now, holding a sign: 'Will pitch for food. Can't promise not to give up massive two-run blasts twice in an inning.' An excerpt from the Globe:

Prior to Tuesday's ugly outing, Foulke hadn't pitched since his one scoreless inning in Baltimore April 21. And, with today's offday, he won't take the mound again until at least tomorrow night in Texas. That means one appearance in one week.

"You guys see the playoffs last year?" Foulke asked. "You guys remember how I talked all last year about the more I pitch the better I am. Any more questions?"

Well, yes.

I really hope he starts shaping up soon. Damn though, ya know, Sox are still champs, and it's early, and the YANKS ARE IN LAST. So things are okay!

It's Almost (wait for it)...Miller Time!

According to the Boston Globe, Wade Miller could be riding to the rescue of the ragged Red Sox staff soon. From the Globe piece:

"All my pitches right now are pretty decent," he said. "My slider has been my pretty good pitch my last couple outings. Probably the best slider I've had in a year or so. I felt my control was getting better from last time. I felt more comfortable. My windup was where I needed it to be. I sometimes throw a little too fast, too much adrenaline, and my arm is not in the right spot all the time. I slowed it down a little bit.

"We're finally getting around to pitching and getting back to where I need to be. It's been a while."

Good news. With Curt 'Loud Mouth Ass but damn he won!' Schilling and David 'Feed Me' Wells on the DL, we need Miller to step up big.

The Dangers of a Parliamentary System

The Real Cranky Yankee (really cranky these days too, apparently) certainly raises a good question about whether the new Iraqi government is actually a positive thing in the long run, though it looks okay now. From the Tribune article he links to:

"It's a sectarian government, it's not a national unity government, and the Arab Sunnis have been shunned," Mishan al-Jibouri, a Sunni delegate, said after the session. "The violence will soar, and this country will go to hell if this government remains."

I wonder how long this government will last. You know, a stable parliamentary democratic government used to be pretty rare even in Europe. Italy and Greece, for example, struggled for decades to achieve a modicum of stability, and France went through a whole bunch of Republics after the Revolution and various royal and imperial restorations. Can Iraq afford the mistakes that the Europeans made? Can we?

Everything You Thought You Knew Is Wrong!

The New York Times reveals that the famous photo of the helicopter leaving the US Embassy at the end of the Vietnam War was, well, 'mislabelled.' It actually was NOT leaving from the Embassy but from an apartment building occupied by the CIA. An excerpt from the Times (registration required):

"Well, like so many things about the Vietnam War, it's not exactly what it seems. In fact, the photo is not of the embassy at all; the helicopter was actually on the roof of an apartment building in downtown Saigon where senior Central Intelligence Agency employees were housed."

Guess there needs to be some textbook editing soon, hmm?
Thanks to Hit and Run, everyone's favorite group of jolly libertarians, for the link.

Babies or Republicans: Which is More Mature?

Since I am so late updating, I apologize if this does not interest you, but Digby links to and blogs about Republicans rewriting Democratic amendments to the Don't Take a Minor Over State Lines to End the Pregnancy Bill. How did they rewrite them, you ask? Simple: they inserted the words 'sexual predator' into every single one! WOW. What a bunch of whiny, small-minded idiots. A sample:

DEMS: a Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court. (no 11-16)
GOP REWRITE:. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a roll call vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays,the amendment was defeated.
DEMS: a Nadler amendment to exempt a grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil provisions in the bill (no 12-19)
GOP REWRITE: . Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if theywere grandparents or adult siblings of a minor. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was defeated.

Note that now the Republicans can accuse those that voted for the amendments of coddling sexual predators!! Insane. As Digby says:

"Oh boo fucking hoo. The Republicans are in total control. The Democrats can sit around all day long and call them a bunch of fascist nazi bastards and it doesn't mean anything. And they still can't stop whining."

Wrapping Down the Year

At last, the end of the school year approaches. I have completed my second semester of classes at UF. I got an 'A' in Philosophy of Education, with an 'A-' on my final paper for that class. The professor is incredible and makes it easy to succeed. Now, Comparative Education I'm worried about. I think my paper is good, but time will tell I suppose.
As far as high school teaching goes, I have 3 weeks left, and just starting the French Revolution. Next week, I cover industrialization, the scramble for Africa, and World War I, then I finish with the Holocaust. Damn. I have got to figure a way to cover more in less time. :(