Thanks to Tim Lambert of Deltoid for bringing this up:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase.php
Category Archives: dishonesty
An open letter to President Obama
Dear President Barack Obama,
You have failed us, on both the overseas war situation and on domestic issues like health care reform and the failing economy. And no, you do NOT deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. You should have refused it and nominated someone else.
When I voted for you, I expected you to live up to your stated promise to make changes in Washington, changes I could beleive in. Instead, you have broken many of your own promises and flipped-flopped on several issues important to me. You have also made too many concessions to the Republican opposition, the very people who were put out of power last year. That makes you look weak and unprincipled. You have also lied to us several times.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/rulings/promise-broken/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/rulings/compromise/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/rulings/stalled/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/half-true/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/barely-true/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/false/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/pants-fire/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/full-flop/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/half-flip/
So much for the hope you once offered us! Do not expect me to support you in 2012. We need a more progressive and honest person than you in the White House!
Dale Husband, the Honorable Skeptic
PETA dishonors itself again.
PETA has been using female models appearing as angels as part of its latest campaign to promote animal adoption. One picture in patricular really misses the mark:
There is absolutely NOTHING I find commendable about this. PETA may love animals, but objectifying women and disrespecting religion has its own PR problems.
To see more of PETA’s pictorial stunts, look here:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/glance/979225/outrage-over-petas-nude-church-shoot
And PETA is totally hypocritical. To see why, look here:
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
I want PETA shut down! I beleive in animal rights to a moderate degree, but I’m not a perverted extremist about it!
Damning evidence of fraud by Nils Axel-Morner
Nils Axel-Morner is a global warming denialist who has claimed that sea-level rises predicted by supporters of global warming are not happening and even that sea levels were higher in the historical past.
First, check out this blog entry from Tim Lambert:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/the_australians_war_on_science_42.php
Accusing Al Gore of hypocrisy
Take a look at this paper:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/OCregGoreHypocrisy051609.pdf
Comparing apples with oranges in climate denialism
World Climate Report is one of those blogs that is dedicated to global warming denialism. Here is a recent entry there:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/20/baffling-island/
Let’s work to destroy FOX News!
Ever since it was founded in 1996, FOX News, contrary to its claim to be “fair and balanced” has instead consistently promoted a neo-Conservative agenda, ultimately leading to the election of George W. Bush as President in 2000, his re-election in 2004, and the waging by Bush of not one but two wars on the other side of the world. These wars have killed thousands of American troops, injured tens of thousands more, and driven America deeper in debt than it has ever been, finally ending up with us in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-conservative
It’s time to make FOX News, and its overlord, Rupert Murdoch, pay!
Lying About History for the Bible
Sen. Max Baucus has got to go!
As far as I’m concerned, this disgusting traitor should be thrown out of both the Democratic Party and the Senate for his screwing up the effort for health care reform this year!
Notice to the New York Times: FIRE BRIAN STELTER!
In my last blog entry, I noted that the New York Times published an article by reporter Brian Stelter claiming that executives at News Corporation and General Electric, the parent companies of FOX News and MSNBC respectively, had arranged a cease-fire between Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann. Subsequent actions by Olbermann proved that article to be false. So what did Stelter do?
He wrote another phony article!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/business/media/08feud.html
At Fox and MSNBC, Hosts Refire the Insult Machines
Published: August 7, 2009
Executives at two of the country’s largest media companies are still trying to salvage what was essentially a cease-fire between MSNBC and the Fox News Channel.
The two cable news channels temporarily resumed their long-running feud this week after The New York Times reported that their parent companies, General Electric and the News Corporation, had struck a deal to stop each other’s televised personal attacks.
Fox News executives felt that MSNBC had broken the deal when Keith Olbermann, in an apparent show of independence, insulted his 8 p.m. rival, Bill O’Reilly, and the News Corporation’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, on Monday. On his show, “Countdown,” Mr. Olbermann called Mr. O’Reilly a “racist clown.”
Mr. O’Reilly responded with his own attack two days later on his program, “The O’Reilly Factor,” where he claimed that G.E., through MSNBC, was “promoting the election of Barack Obama and then seeking to profit from his policies.”
The chief executives at General Electric, whose NBC News division operates MSNBC, and News Corporation, which owns Fox News, reached an unusual agreement last spring to halt the regular personal assaults on each other’s channels.
Eric Burns, the former host of Fox’s media criticism show “Fox News Watch” and the author of “All the News Unfit to Print,” said, “Even in an age where there seemed to be no boundaries, people at the very top of two networks thought, ‘Well, I guess there are boundaries, because they’ve been crossed.’ ”
But the agreement was strained almost from the start, according to employees at the channels, even though it mostly succeeded in stopping the vicious personal attacks lobbed by the two hosts until this week.
Despite the renewed tensions, Mr. Murdoch and his counterpart at G.E., Jeffrey R. Immelt, are still seeking a truce in a feud that has embarrassed both companies, said three employees at the companies with direct knowledge of the situation. Mr. Murdoch was said to be particularly incensed by Mr. Olbermann’s and Mr. O’Reilly’s sniping.
The deal extends beyond the prime-time hour that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O’Reilly occupy. Employees of daytime programs on MSNBC were specifically told by executives not to mention Fox hosts in segments critical of conservative media figures, according to two staff members. The employees requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters.
In a statement, G.E. said, “While both companies agreed that the tone should be more civil, no one at G.E. told anyone at NBC News or MSNBC how to report the news.”
Some Fox employees said they were told in June and July not to flagrantly criticize General Electric. Fox said in a statement Friday, “This has nothing to do with preventing anyone from practicing journalism or interfering with freedom of speech — this is about corporate responsibility. We’ve never suppressed any stories about NBC or G.E. — both organizations are covered as news warrants.”
Still, some watchdog groups said the months-long cease-fire challenged the claims that the two media companies did not interfere in their on-air content.
The advocacy group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting asked its supporters on Friday to contact G.E., urging it to renounce the agreement with Fox.
Jeff Cohen, the founder of the group, said the deal between the two networks’ parent companies was a reason to be wary of corporate-owned TV news.
“It should remind news consumers of who calls the tune and pays the bills — and that TV reporters and even loud-mouthed commentators have corporate bosses whose interests are often not about unbridled journalism,” Mr. Cohen said.
Joan Walsh, the editor of Salon.com, said Thursday that it appeared that “the owners of two large news organizations colluded to make sure their audience got less, not more, information, and to promote their business interests, not the public interest.”
She asked, “How is it any different from a media organization making a deal with a politician not to expose a scandal in exchange for a political favor? We’d call that corruption, and I think this is the same thing.”
The executives had sought for years to tamp down the attacks by Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O’Reilly, to little success. Frustrated by the refusal by NBC’s chief executive, Jeffrey Zucker, to halt the attacks on Mr. O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, personally instructed Mr. O’Reilly’s program to aim at Mr. Immelt, people familiar with the situation said.
Peace talks, such as they were, resumed in the spring between G.E. and News Corporation executives. At a lunch in April, Mr. Ailes and Mr. Immelt agreed to tone down the attacks. It was not visible to viewers until after Mr. Immelt and Mr. Murdoch shook hands at an off-the-record conference sponsored by Microsoft in May and word of a cease-fire trickled down to both news divisions.
Mr. Olbermann told viewers on June 1 that he would halt his jokes about Fox News because he believed that Fox had played a part in inciting the death of the abortion doctor George Tiller. Inside Fox, executives chuckled. They knew that a pact had already been struck by Mr. Olbermann’s bosses to end the feud.
In the months after, when MSNBC would say something that strained the agreement, Fox News would respond accordingly, and vice versa.
In July, after Mr. Olbermann condemned Fox’s Glenn Beck for letting a guest assert that a terrorist attack in the United States might be a good thing, Mr. Beck booked a segment about G.E. and declared that a “merger between G.E. and the Obama administration” was “nearly complete.”
After the detente was reported by The Times on Monday, the fighting resumed and Mr. Olbermann claimed there was no deal among the parent companies. That was met by heated skepticism among bloggers.
Two days later, Mr. O’Reilly had his turn. His news hook: The Securities and Exchange Commission had fined G.E. $50 million on charges of misleading investors. And on Thursday, Mr. O’Reilly showed Mr. Immelt’s and Mr. Zucker’s faces and wondered how long they could allow “this barbaric display” — that is an Olbermann reference — “under the NBC News banner.”
Mr. Olbermann and MSNBC declined to comment Friday.
It remains to be seen whether the personal attacks will be halted again. Fox’s stance on Friday suggested that the corporate criticism would not.
“At this point,” a Fox spokeswoman said Friday, “the entire situation is more about major issues at NBC and G.E. than it is about Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann.”
That is simply a load of bogus crap! Here is a clip from Countdown on June 17, 2009, in which Olbermann made yet another long and scathing attack on FOX News:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann#31416352
Then the very next night, he did it again:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann#31435467
And yet AGAIN on July 7:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann#31788895
Which would lead me to ask, “What cease fire?” It looks like it was business as usual, with the exception of any direct references to Bill O’Reilly. Again, it was because of the George Tiller issue that Olbermann felt he should refrain from making fun of his rival. But any attack on FOX News in general would certainly be an attack on O’Reilly by implication. You don’t make several attacks on a rival during a “cease-fire”.
Finally, on July 17, Olbermann attacked the notion of news organizations agreeing to cover up any actual news, calling it “slimy”. So if Stelter was correct, that means Olbermann is one of the world’s biggest hypocrites. By this time, if there HAD been a deal of some kind between News Corp. and G.E., Olbermann should have been fired.
The fighting wasn’t “resumed” because it never ended! BRIAN STELTER LIED!
So now, I will repeat my demand to the publishers of the New York Times: Brian Stelter committed libel and not only refused to apologize for it, but has repeated his offense. Any reporter that wrote as falsely as he did, I’d have fired within a week, and Stelter should be NOW!
An example of biased, fraudulant reporting
I just found this on WorldNetDaily, a web “news” source appealing to right-wing extremists:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106815
CNN finally ‘fires’ Lou Dobbs!
Posted: August 14, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
It took him a long time, but CNN President Jon Klein finally got around to doing what he should have done a long time ago. In order to maintain the professed trademark of his network for objectivity in broadcasting, he realized he had no choice but to fire Lou Dobbs.Of course, cautious as he is, Klein did not fire the anti-immigration crusader directly, or even alone. He threw Dobbs overboard as part of a vendetta against radio talk-show hosts in general.
As first reported on the Website TVNewser.com, in a conference call on Aug. 11, Klein told his producers they should no longer book radio talk-show hosts on CNN shows: not on “The Situation Room,” nor Larry King, Anderson Cooper or Campbell Brown. From now on, said his edict, no radio talkers will appear on CNN. Period.
Why? Because, argued Klein, radio talk-show hosts are incapable of understanding or commenting on the important issues of the day. “Complex issues require world-class reporting,” sniffed Klein. Not only that, TVNewser.com quotes Klein as complaining that radio hosts too often do nothing more than “contribute to the noise,” and their comments are “all too predictable.”
Sign the petition to block federal government attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press!
Klein’s dead wrong, of course. Yes, we Americans do confront complex issues today, but radio talk-show hosts like me, whether liberal or conservative, are more than capable of dealing with them. After all, that’s what we do for a living. We research the issues. We explain them to listeners. We take listener calls about them. We talk about them, on average, three hours a day – without a teleprompter. We understand the issues far better, in fact, than any blow-dried anchor that does little more than read a script, written by somebody else, for one hour at the most.
Now, I must admit, I was both puzzled and disappointed to learn of Klein’s manifesto. Puzzled because radio talk-show hosts have long played an important role at the network. “Crossfire” actually began with two talk radio hosts, Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden. Other CNN personalities of yesterday or today – Larry King, Mary Matalin, Bill Bennett, Roland Martin, Glenn Beck and yours truly – hosted, or continue to host, their own radio shows.
I’m disappointed by Klein’s decision because I enjoyed six good years at CNN – as co-host of “Crossfire” and “The Spin Room.” Since leaving the network (not voluntarily), I have jumped at the chance to appear occasionally as an unpaid guest on “The Situation Room,” “Reliable Sources” or other CNN programs. I’m a big CNN fan, and I’ll miss being part of it.
But my grief is more than outweighed by one giant consolation: At least, this means the end of that pompous, arrogant and obnoxious Lou Dobbs. After all, Lou Dobbs is also a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. So Klein’s edict – “No Radio Talk Show Hosts on CNN” – must mean the end of Lou Dobbs.
And it’s about time. Dobbs contradicts everything CNN supposedly stands for. He doesn’t just report, he pontificates. He doesn’t just deliver the news, he pollutes it with his own opinions . He doesn’t even pretend to be in the middle of the road, he exults in being on the extreme right.
Actually, Klein missed two excellent opportunities to fire Dobbs. First, when Dobbs assumed the role of chief executioner for undocumented workers. No fine points about breaking up families or crippling certain American industries for Dobbs. If they’re here illegally, they should be sent back across the border, all 12 million of them. It’s the kind of daily rant you expect from right-wing Fox News, but not from “news leader” CNN.
Klein should also have dumped Dobbs for fanning the flames of the “birther” issue. Long after every serious news operation had dismissed questions about the authenticity of President Obama’s birth certificate as totally whacko, Dobbs kept beating the birther drum on CNN. But, instead of admonishing him to stick to “world-class reporting,” Klein himself said Dobbs was raising a legitimate issue.
Still, better late than never. We now know Lou Dobbs will be fired because we know Jon Klein is a man of his word. After all, he’s the president of CNN, “the most trusted name in news.” Surely, Klein would never ban all radio talk-show hosts from CNN and leave talk show host Lou Dobbs on the air. Would he?
The title of that article is totally misleading, since there is no confirmation that Lou Dobbs has been fired from CNN yet. So why did Bill Press write such nonsense?
Indeed, there is no link on the article to the original report on TVNewser.com, nor is there any confirmation on the website for CNN. See for yourself that the site for Lou Dobbs’ show on CNN is still up as of this writing:
So here we have an unconfirmed report about something that the CNN President supposedly said and it is posted not on the CNN website itself, but as commentary on another website without a shred of proof!
BILL PRESS, YOU ARE EVEN WORSE THAN LOU DOBBS HIMSELF! In the name of journalistic integrity, I demand that you retract your bogus statement and issue a formal apology to CNN and to Lou Dobbs!
Update: I finally found the report on TVNewser.com referred to by Bill Press, thanks to MediaMatters for America:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200908120051
Yesterday, TVNewser reported that CNN president Jon Klein “asked his show producers to avoid booking talk radio hosts.” According to TVNewser, this was Klein’s reasoning:
“Complex issues require world class reporting,” Klein is quoted as saying, adding that talk radio hosts too often add to the noise, and that what they say is “all too predictable.”
TVNewser writes that Lou Dobbs — who hosts both a radio show and a CNN show — is “presumably not affected by this.”
But beyond being a radio host, Dobbs regularly violates each of the standards set out by Klein — as Media Matters has extensively documented.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/no_more_talk_radio_hosts_on_cnn_124031.asp
Tuesday, Aug 11
No More Talk Radio Hosts on CNN?
Exclusive: TVNewser has learned, and a CNN spokesperson confirms, that in his morning editorial meeting today, CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein asked his show producers to avoid booking talk radio hosts. “Complex issues require world class reporting,” Klein is quoted as saying, adding that talk radio hosts too often add to the noise, and that what they say is “all too predictable.”
One of CNN’s longtime show hosts, Lou Dobbs, hosts a daily radio show. A few political contributors also host radio shows including Bill Bennett and Roland Martin. They are presumably not affected by this.
But this means other talk radio hosts who appear regularly on CNN, probably won’t in the near future including names like Stephanie Miller, Michael Medved, and Ben Ferguson.
> Update: Roland Martin stopped hosting his show on WVON last October when he became senior analyst for the “Tom Joyner Morning Show.”
Posted by Chris Ariens
So here is a report that couldn’t possibly be true. Are they implying that the CNN President is so ignorant that he didn’t know that Lou Dobbs hosts a radio program? And why wouldn’t any of the producers ask him directly if Lou Dobbs was to be fired as a result of this order?
I hereby write off TVNewser.com as a reliable news source!
The feud between Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly
I first took notice of Keith Olbermann when I happened to see a video on YouTube of him condemning President Bush for his conduct during the Iraq War.
I thought that was quite amazing, but then I saw these special reports on Bill O’Reilly, which totally blew me away!
You can’t get more damning than that! There are only two possibilities: Either Olbermann slandered Bill O’Reilly (in which case Bill O and FOX News should have sued Keith O and MSNBC as a matter of honor), or he told the truth (in which case FOX News should have fired Bill O). There is no third option. The fact that no slander lawsuit was ever filed and that O’Reilly works at FOX News to this day shows beyond all reasonable doubt that FOX News is a channel with no integrity whatsoever.
Here’s another example of Olbermann busting O’Reilly for falsehoods relating to World War II:
And unlike Bill O, who never makes an apology for his mistaken statements, Keith O does! One evening, he slammed New York Times managing editor Bill Keller for not firing a reporter who had not only printed a false story, but had committed plagerism to boot!
But the very next night, Keith O apologized for his condemnation of Keller. Appearantly, Olbermann had never worked at that newspaper before and knew nothing beforehand about how it was run. So he practiced what he preached!
There is no question that MSNBC is slanted towards the Liberal perspective. I suspect that was done because of FOX News appealing so much to right-wingers, so MSNBC had to balance it out. FOX News certainly has no business calling itself “fair and balanced”, nor does Bill O’Reilly have any business calling his show a “no spin zone”. Look at how arrogantly he dealt with Richard Dawkins:
….and then with Kirk Cameron, treating him with kid gloves while continuing to bash Dawkins:
And he even got into a shouting match with Geraldo Rivera over illegal immigration and drunk driving! How unprofessional!
Meanwhile, Olbermann took on Wal-Mart for several days to expose its terrible wrongdoing towards a disabled former employee:
Until Wal-Mart was forced to back down:
Now, those blind and moronic FOX News fans who call Olbermann a liar, without specifying what he lied about, are YOU going to file a slander lawsuit against him? Is anyone? If not, SHUT UP! In matters of credibility and honor, Keith Olbermann beats anyone at FOX News hands down! The only reason you distrust Olbermann is political prejudice, the irrational assumption that somehow Conservatives have a monopoly on truth and virtues and therefore anyone non-Conservative must be misguided, dishonest, even evil. WRONG! Grow up and deal with real life and not the nationalistic crap you’ve been spoon fed since you were babies!
When I was a child, I had absolute faith in God, in my parents and my country, like most children tend to have. In 1979, I would watch the news and see reports about American hostages being taken in Iran, about the Shah being deposed, and about Iranians chanting “Death to America!”, and I couldn’t understand why. What had we Americans ever done to Iran? I got the impression that the Iranians were evil people who hated us just because we were different.
But years later, I attended college and it wasn’t until then that I finally learned the truth: that in 1953, we Americans, through the CIA, had helped overthrow a democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran and allowed the Shah to take absolute power there. Why? Because that Prime Minister had attempted to nationalize the oil fields owned and operated by British and American oil companies, in HIS OWN COUNTRY! WHAT ARROGANCE AND HYPOCRISY WE DISPLAYED BACK THEN! NO WONDER THE IRANIANS WERE SO ANGRY! But in 1979, these disgraceful facts were never revealed by the mainstream media. The implication was that the Islamic Revolution of Iran had occured for no logical reason. But that was a lie of omission.
If someone like Keith Olbermann had been around in 1979 reporting the political news and slamming reporters of other networks for screwing with the truth, perhaps we would have learned the truth about the Iranian situation much sooner and we the people would not have been stupid enough to elect Ronald Reagan as the next President of the United States.
In any case, it was me learning the truth about Iran and what we did to it that made me reject forever the Conservative Republican politics of my parents and most of my other relatives. I wised up, and it’s about time millions of Americans did also and stopped acting like SHEEP being led to their slaughter by the pied pipers of FOX News and the Republican leaders.
Keep up the good work, Keith Olbermann. This Honorable Skeptic salutes you and hopes to see you on the air for many years to come!
CNN, fire Lou Dobbs!
I have decided to join in the efforts to have Lou Dobbs, the anti-immigrant and anti-Obama fanatic, fired from CNN for his irrational obsessions, which have brought disgrace to the CNN channel. To learn more, go here:
VenomFangX, the biggest liar on YouTube!
VenomFangX, aka Shawn, is a teenager (or at least appears to be one) and self-styled Christian evangelist who has made a total @$$ of himself on YouTube for at least a couple of years. He has gained quite a following among his fellow Christians there, as well as redicule and scorn from skeptics who have had the misfortune of dealing with him. And in a battle with one user in particular named ThunderfOOt, he got totally clobbered for engaging in violations of the YouTube terms of service and for legal reasons was forced to admit his wrongdoings on a video for all to see.
Now, if this “Christian” had any sense of honor or humility whatsoever, you would expect him to never bother with Thunderf00t again. But instead, he has just pulled this stunt:
Shawn, Shawn, SHAWN! Ray Comfort is no match for Thunderfoot, and that’s obvious. For you to call Thunderfoot wrong when YOU are the one who engaged in dishonorable behavior against him is totally bogus!
You are a FRAUD and so is your religion, period! If you cannot learn from your mistakes and just GROW UP and live like a man and not like a little boy, you can GO FUCK YOURSELF!
In the description of his video, VenomFangX says:
“Thunderf00t displayed all the weaknesses in the naturalistic philosophy. It robs people of a basic appreciation and value of human life over that of animals, and ultimately all life is seen as nothing more than complex machinery with our consciousness being little else than a spark of electricity. When morality and ethics are brought up, it is impossible for Thunderf00t to articulate a coherent answer, after all, speaking of right and wrong according to an electrical current is pretty silly, don’t you think, Thunderf00t?”
No, what is silly is you engaging in such a lame strawman. The notion that life is merely glorified chemistry is exactly what modern science has revealed over the past few centuries, and if you are too much of a coward to deal honesty with that, that’s your problem. It need not be anyone else’s.
Who are you to assume that because we are an assembly of extremely complex molecules, we have been robbed of anything? That is entirely an unfounded assumption on your part. If you need your delusional religion to feel that you have some dignity in your life, then YOU are the one that is robbed……of rational thinking! People are valuable because we as a species are unique, just as every species is unique and adapted to their environments and lifestyles. You don’t need religion at all to live in harmony with your fellow men or with other species. You just don’t! And how can you imply that putting man on the same level of value with animals somehow makes man worthless? Do you need us all to be as arrogant as you to feel better about yourself? What a terrible weakness!
No wonder your religion is dying, hypocrite!
UPDATE (Jan 7, 2010): After another round of dishonorable behavior, VenomfangX has been called out by another YouTube user, dprjones:
Think he will listen this time? I think not.
The Planets Won’t Cooperate, with CREATIONISM!
If you want more damning proof that Creationist overlords are willing to tell the most absurd lies to their own children, read on. Continue reading
Baha’i government would be totally tyrannical
The Baha’i Administrative Order, developed by Shoghi Effendi, and derived from the writings of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha, is a badly flawed and ineffective mode of government, which would naturally take over an area if the Baha’is ever became the majority of any place on Earth. Here’s why that must NEVER happen:
First, Baha’i elections are run in such a way that there are no nominations, campaigning is forbidden, and the top nine members that get the most votes are elected. As a result, incumbents are virtually guaranteed to win, turnover is extremely low, and the policies of adminstrative bodies cannot be challenged by outsiders at elections. There is no freedom in such elections.
Who is this psychotic pest?
In the interest in being completely transparent, I’m posting this insane comment I got from some unknown troll, who I think is either an alter-ego of or a close friend of an old enemy of mine:
Author : tangoforever (IP: 75.84.8.93 , cpe-75-84-8-93.socal.res.rr.com)
E-mail : dharma31649@mypacks.net
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=75.84.8.93
Comment:
To Michael O.
In this thread, as in all of his other threads, Dale Husband presents himself as
a mentally challenged individual. He seems to have a psychotic dispostion. He
statements smack of self serving, grandiose thoughts of himself. His statements
show him to be Narcissistic. Someone to steer away from for sure.
To provide proof of my observations – Profile of the Sociopath @
http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html and Narcissistic personality disorder @
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
This person is displaying one of the most rediculous examples of projection I’ve ever witnessed.
I checked out his WHOIS file and found the following:
OrgName: Road Runner HoldCo LLC
OrgID: RRWE
Address: 13241 Woodland Park Road
City: Herndon
StateProv: VA
PostalCode: 20171
Country: US
In any case, the twisted loon has been banned from commenting here ever again. That happens to all outright liars.
How Christian bigots make the peace process of Israel and Palestine impossible
After all the killings and destruction since 1948 in the “Holy Land”, we must do all we can to undo the systematic brainwashing of the American people that has been done for many decades by Christian fundamenalist leaders and propagandists. As far as I’m concerned, they are mass murderers by proxy!
First, they claim that Israel’s founding was a fulfilment of Bible prophecy and thus will lead to the return of Christ and the establishment of God’s kingdom. They must claim this because so many prophecies in the Old Testament referring to Israel were NOT fulfilled in ancient times, therefore, they assume that these prophecies will be fulfilled in modern times with the new state of Israel. But that is nothing but a rationalization.
Second, if you read what Jesus actually said in the Gospels about his return, then certain events were supposed to take place, then he would return while the generation that saw him alive still lived. Indeed, the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70 and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 could be seen as fulfillments of what Jesus said…….but he did NOT return. So why would some Christians still be waiting for his return nearly 2000 years later? And linking his return to the JEWISH state of Israel is absurd, period!
Third, and worst of all, many Christians see what has happened in the Middle East since 1948 as a reenactment of the ancient wars described in the Bible, where many atrocities were also committed. Indeed, the Book of Joshua describes a long campaigne of conquest and genocide that would be compared with what the German Nazis did if it happened today. And that is the main reason most fundamentalist Christians are not bothered by the wrongdoings of Israel because they think, “Such things were done in Biblical times and were said to be God’s will, so why not let them happen again?” That’s a bit like expecting a teenager to wear diapers long after he has outgrown them and been potty trained. This is one reason why I am sometimes so contemptuous of religion: It actually prevents people from growing up spiritually and morally.
And Palestinians, you are not blameless either! You, just as Israel, have murdered far too many innocents in the name of your religion and your nationality. If I had my way, I’d sweep both you AND the Jews off the “Holy Land” and allow that land 100 years of healing before I ever allow any people to live there again. And then only atheists and agnostics, who would treat the land and its history more objectively than any Jew, Christian, and Muslim would.
If you want to see just how stupid the mentality I described just above can get, just go to a library and check out The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, and its several sequels that this despicable fraud wrote in the late 1970s and 1980s. He was using religion to promote hard-line Conservative politics, and for that alone I will spit on him forever!
Obama, a hypocrite?
This is a sequel to an earlier blog entry:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/obama-bashers-are-bigots/
That was in reference to left-wing attackers. Many right-wingers shared the contempt for Barack Obama, but had their own agenda. Here’s an example: Continue reading
The destruction of Christianity
First, read this news report:
Monks brawl at Christian holy site in Jerusalem
Published: 11/9/08, 12:25 PM EDT
By MATTI FRIEDMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli police rushed into one of Christianity’s holiest churches Sunday and arrested two clergyman after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the site of Jesus’ tomb. Continue reading
Another fake “science” website
This is a direct sequel to:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/a-fake-evolution-site/
I’ve discovered another website with a false name:
http://www.allaboutscience.org/
On its home page it says:
Science: Knowledge and Discovery
Science is the human endeavor to discover truths about the world around us. Scientists seek out answers through observation and experimentation. As we discover more and more, we are able to apply what we’ve learned to develop new technologies and to improve everyday life. But perhaps more importantly, as we gain knowledge through science, we are able to begin satisfying our deep-felt need to know more about ourselves.
Which is absolutely true. But then you start to read deeper. Continue reading
Rep. Michele Bachmann is a liar and an extremist
See for yourself here:
Since when it is anti-American to have political, social, religious, and cultural diversity in your friendships or associations? How is associating with people who are not actually criminals, even if they have done or said questionable things in the past, anti-American? We have had Liberal Presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter and no one questioned their love for America!
This is the sort of innuendo and slander that supporters of Sen. John McCain have resorted to. Let’s send them a message: YOU DO NOT BELONG IN OUR GOVERNMENT ANY MORE!
http://www.censurebachmann.com/
It’s time to tell the truth about Liberals and about their Conservative opponents. Conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and now Rep. Michele Bachmann have been allowed to get away with slander, libel and hyperaggressive tactics for too long. Enough already! Liberals made America a free and independent nation, not Conservatives. Liberals fought to end slavery, not Conservatives! Liberals fought for women’s right to vote,, not Conservatives! Liberals, not Conservatives, led us Americans through two World Wars and even through much of the Cold War, before Conservatives Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. came along and just happened to reap the political benefits of presiding over the downfall of the Soviet Union. What have Conservatives done to make America great? Nothing, instead they only hold us back from being a more enlightened society, preferring one run largely by religious loons who happen to call themselves Christian!
Let George W. Bush be the last “Conservative” Republican President America ever has! I’be absolutely had enough of the hypocrisy of Conservatives and their outdated and increasingly useless dogmas. End their reign of terror, NOW!
Seeking balance in politics and activism
For starters, I wish to state that in an issue like politics, extremism among some individuals is inevitable. There are two reasons for this. First, many people mistakenly apply religious impulses to politics and thus attempt to be consistent with a certain political viewpoint, even at the expense of ignoring or denying clear empirical evidence that is against it. Quite simply, it is easier (if you are intellectually lazy) to just blindly follow a dogma of some kind that happens to appeal to your ego than to dig for the truth, apply consistent logic to all issues, and thus have a perspective that is subject to change and moderation over time. Second, extremists on any issue tend to work the hardest for their chosen causes and thus tend to rise to leadership positions within political organizations as well as single-issue pressure groups, by virtue of their extensive track record of having done so much for their causes as well as appearing to be experts on the issues they represent. This explains why so many otherwise worthy causes, such as animal rights, get so absurdly corrupted by groups that claim to represent them, such as PETA or ALF, and people who might be motivated by natural compassion to support animal rights are repelled by seeing extremist groups like the aforementioned ones claiming to be the best examples of those causes’ representatives. Let me assure you, they are not and I would be quite happy to see them destroyed without thinking for one second that this would be damaging at all to the cause of animal rights. If you, by your words or actions, make a cause look loony, that’s the best way to ruin it, and you might as well just oppose the cause altogether.
The insane Schlafly klan
Phyllis Schlafly is remembered as the one who leads the Eagle Forum and fought to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and 80s. For that, she is condemned by progressive women as being of the same character as Benedict Arnold. Indeed, Phyllis’s whole career is one of staggering hypocrisy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly#Criticism
The feminist activist Gloria Steinem and the author Pia de Solenni, among others, have noted what they consider irony in Schlafly’s role as an advocate for the full-time mother and wife, while being herself a lawyer, editor of a monthly newsletter, regular speaker at anti-liberal rallies, and political activist.[30][31][32] In her review of Schlafly’s Feminist Fantasies, de Solenni writes that “Schlafly’s discussion reveals a paradox. She was able to have it all: family and career. And she did it by fighting those who said they were trying to get it all for her… Happiness resulted from being a wife and mother and working with her husband to reach their goals.”
Now her son, Andrew Schlafly, is continuing in his mother’s footsteps, and is making an absolute fool of himself as the head of an biased web encyclopedia known as Conservapedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia
Here’s an example of Andrew’s foolishness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia#Lenski_dialog
On June 9, 2008, New Scientist published an article describing Richard Lenski‘s 20-year E. coli experiment, which observed the bacteria evolve the ability to metabolize citrate — a rare and complex mutation.[65] Schlafly contacted Lenski to request the data. Lenski explained that the relevant data were in the paper and that Schlafly fundamentally misunderstood it. Schlafly wrote again and requested the raw data. Lenski replied again that the relevant data were already in the paper, that the “raw data” were living bacterial samples, which he would willingly share with qualified researchers at properly equipped biology labs, and that he felt insulted by letters and comments on Conservapedia, which he saw as brusque and offensive, including claims of outright deceit.[66] The exchange, recorded on a Conservapedia page called “Lenski dialog”,[67] was widely reported on news aggregate sites and weblogs. Carl Zimmer wrote that it was readily apparent that “Schlafly had not bothered to read [Lenski’s paper] closely”,[68] and PZ Myers criticized Schlafly for demanding data despite not having a plan to use it nor the expertise to analyze it.[69] Consequently, editors who began to ask too many questions about the issue and about specific links “not allowed in Conservapedia”, were censored and permanently blocked. [70]
Andrew founded Conservapedia because he claimed that Wikipedia was biased to the left, but in fact, being a right-wing extremist, he naturally sees anything even slightly to the left of him as unacceptable, and Conservapedia is a manifestation of his own bigotry.
If people like the Schlaflys ran America, we wouldn’t have a free country at all, but a theocratic empire in republican clothing, and where women are allowed to have careers, but only under men’s terms, not their own. They must be discredited and buried forever!
The Fatal Flaw in Baha’i Authority
This is the direct sequel to my first blog entry on the Baha’i faith:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/why-i-quit-the-baha%e2%80%99i-faith/
The basic problem of authority in the Baha’i Faith, with its false claim that those authorities are infallible, really becomes obvious when you consider the issue of the Guardianship, which Shoghi Effendi held from 1921 until his death in 1957. He was appointed to that position by his grandfather, Abdu’l-Baha.
Sarah Palin, living a lie
Let me be frank and blunt about this matter of the Republican Vice-Presidental nominee of 2008: She is an IDIOT and a disgrace to all responsible women in America, if not the entire world!
She has five children and her oldest daughter Bristol, only 17, is already expecting a child of her own. So in essence, Sarah Palin illustrates that women, even highly achiveing ones like her, are still expected to be breeding machines as well.
I find that absolutely disgusting!
How can anyone, knowing the vast environmental destruction humans have caused around the world, because of our growing populations, ever put their trust in anyone that herself contributes to the problem?
How can anyone think that her assumptions about birth control and abortion are in any way applicable to places that are overcrowded, just because they seem justified in lightly populated Alaska, the state Palin is governor of?
How can anyone, claiming to be Christian, be so damn materialistic as to favor the exploitation of Alaska’s mineral resources to make people richer, at the expense of the wildlife that live there? Jesus constantly denounced that attitude! So do I, despite being non-Christian.
How can anyone, having so strong sexual urges herself that she would crank out five babies, seriously think that abstinence before marriage is an option for teenagers with their own raging hormones, including her own daughters? One of them has obviously rejected that. If those values didn’t work for the Palins, why should they be applied to anyone?
Nevermind that Bristol, the pregnant daughter, is planning to marry her baby’s father. Statistics show that the overwhelming majority of teen marriages end in divorce. In any case, she is at a disadvantage in moving on with her education, and even if she does that, many teen mothers, lacking financial resources, would not be so fortunate.
Nature made our sexual urges strong for a reason, that being that REPRODUCTION, the purpose of sex, is what perpetuates all species. Unless we eliminate those urges, we will inevitably give in to them when opportunities present themselves. I think anyone who says otherwise is a LIAR.
Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church, advertising its priest and nuns as celibate and therefore “pure” and totally dedicated to the church and nothing else, is lying to us all. And so is Sarah Palin.
Her daughter Bristol is living proof that her values on sexuality are a failure. And that being the case, her values about economics and the environment, issues which are affected by human population growth, are also discredited.
We need to BURY this loon before she destroys us! IMMEDIATELY!
The absurdity of Gitmo
OK, let me get this straight
First the Bush Adminstration attempts to define the prisoners at Gitmo as neither criminal suspects nor as POWs. It should be noted that the former class are forbidden to be tortured under the Bill of Rights, while the second class are prohibited from being tortured under the Geneva Conventions. Then to cover their @$$es further, the Bush Adminstration attempts to reclassify waterboarding, excluding it as a form of torture.
What is one supposed to conclude from that? You join the points together and thus conclude that waterboarding, and other forms of torture, are probably being done at Gitmo. And do you not think that’s why those prisoners were sent to Gitmo in the first place, to try to prevent the public from seeing what was about to take place there? Even German or Japanese POWs during World War II were never sent to Gitmo.
If such nonsense was ever done to American citizens by any other government, we’d all be howling in protest about it. But we are Americans who were so hurt by 9-11, so we can do whatever we want to anyone we please. We are special! We are better than all other peoples! We can’t trust THEM to live their own lives out without us looking constantly over their shoulders to make sure they do things OUR way. All because a few extremists nuts rammed a few planes into a few buildings, we go ballistic and throw due process out the window and put ourselves in a perpetual state of “war”. Remember, war is good for business too.
Of course, that doesn’t absolutely PROVE that torture and other human rights violations have taken place at Gitmo. But when the police have probable cause that a criminal suspect has committed a crime, even if it wasn’t done openly, they are duty bound to arrest the suspect. Likewise, we Americans are duty bound by our allegiance to the US Constitution to end the detaining of the prisoners at Gitmo and investigate those who detained them. No one should be above the law!
My recent statement about Israel-bashing
I wrote this during a discussion about a friend of mine:
“I try to make subtle distinctions to be as accurate as possible. I’ve noticed that when I do this, people who think in the opposite way slam me for being inconsistent. Take Israel, for example. Israel-bashers take the real examples of Israel’s dismal treatment of the Palestinians and translate that into outright labling of the Israeli state itself as criminal. When you do that, you are expressing prejudice. So even if the human rights violations by Israel ended, the Israel-bashers would still demand that the Jewish state should not exist because the act of establishing it displaced some Palestinians.
What they don’t tell you is that if Israel had never come into existence, the Jews still living in Palestine would be under ARAB rule and would be subject to whatever treatment the Arab rulers felt like doing. Given that most Arab states even today are either absolute monarchies or military dictatorships, how can efforts to establish a democracy for Jews like what was done in 1948 not be justified?
So I will slam Israel for specific acts that are excessive, but defend its right to exist and protect its citizens within lawful limits.”
And that’s the only decent way to operate. Anyone who takes a different route is a hypocrite, looking for excuses to have a second Holocaust in the Holy Land.
The sad downfall of Silly Old Bear in Care2
Silly Old Bear, also known as Henric Jensen, is one of my best online friends. He is Jewish, Swedish, married, a transexual, and one of the best human rights activists I’ve ever known. He was also one of the most hated people in Care2. Hated because he was a firm opponent of Israel-bashing, which he saw as anti-Semetic, and was just as eager to defending men’s rights even before angry feminists who seemed to have a grudge against all men. Continue reading
Why debates are often unethical in nature
Today, I saw this statement in Care2:
http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=7939&pst=1030979
there are some discussions pre-loaded with so much faulty premises and inaccuracies and false assumptions, that you just don’t know where to begin. these are the ones that i find are normally too exhausting to get involved in, and the chances of anything constructive coming out of it is extremely small, given that the biased starting premise indicates little to no desire to entertain understanding rather than confrontation. one cannot have a fruitful discussion about another worldview by being firmly anchored in another. so people who do that can’t provide any kind of useful exchange. take it from someone who actually knows at least two worldviews, and can see the one from the other interchangeably.
i’ve always disliked debates in school, you know. even though my teachers are forever nominating me on debate teams. the silliness of picking whatever side of whatever topic with the pre-intention of ensuring your side prevails whatever the truth is, is too philosophically pointless for me to overlook.
It’s not only “philosophically pointless”, it’s downright dishonest, yet most people debate in just that way.
Usually, I don’t. When I debate, I am open to being proven wrong because I ALWAYS rely on FACTS for my positions, not dogma.
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2007/07/21/an-honorable-skeptic/
(((Because I am honorable, I sometimes willingly concede points made by my opponents in debates with them. This should never be seen as a sign of weakness. When I know I am right about something, I will fight like a pit bull to prove my case and defeat my opponent because in some cases I do see my battles here as a struggle between light and darkness, good and evil, ignorance and knowledge. But I am also willing at times to listen to my opponent and consider his point of view, especially if that person is known by me to be honorable. If we do not listen to others, how can we ever grow in knowledge?)))
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 