12 September 2009

Link roundup for 12 September 2009

Rita ruminates on phallic obsessions both traditional and modern. Check out this too.

Pizza magnate Tom Monaghan's religion-based law school is being sabotaged by his own control-freakery. (Another religion-based law school? Didn't Pat Robertson do enough damage?)

A woman's sex life is affected by what she eats (oh, shut up, you know what I mean).

Didn't anyone look at this ad before it was published? (Found via Mendip.)

Immoral Minority has cartoons about Obama's school speech.

Middle of Nowhere offers fashion advice for wingnuts, and attracts one of the weirdest trolls ever.

Pastor Steven Anderson isn't shy about declaring his hatred for Obama (sent by Ranch Chimp).

A family-values politician finds kindred spirits to praise.

Reed Braden debunks efforts to deny Christianity's hatred of gays. More here.

Philip Pullman is writing a book about Jesus.

Religion is trying to imitate science, and just looks even stupider and more pointless than usual.

America must not sink to fifth place, but it's OK to rank 38th.

Keith Olbermann has the best and most devastating commentary on the Joe Wilson flap. Read this and this too.

Teabaggers are on the march in the name of "the people" against the government that the actual people elected in a landslide (sent by Ranch Chimp). Watch for exaggeration.

Matt Taibbi has a no-nonsense discussion of the health-care crisis and why reform is floundering (found via Middle of Nowhere).

US public debt, high as it seems, is low compared with that of other developed countries and will remain so for years to come.

Michael J. Totten has a photo-rich report from Libya, a country whose dreariness approaches North Korea's.

The difficult-to-protect shorelines of Greece's countless islands make it a gateway to the EU for illegal aliens.

Observation from space offers a way to estimate economic growth.

The BBC has discovered giant rats in New Guinea.

There's more evidence that fatty foods make you stupid.

Forty years later, two of the Apollo Moon landing sites have been photographed by India's Chandrayaan-1 probe and by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Alcor case summaries show the importance of preparation and legal issues for cryopreservation.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Cameron said...

The scary thing about US public debt is the rate of change. Debt as a percentage of GDP is a great way to measure the debt of a country. This is what the debt of the US looks like from 1999-2011

1999: 36.6% of GDP
2000: 33.7% of GDP Yay, down 3%
2001: 33.8% of GDP Uh oh, up .1%
2002: 35.5% of GDP Bleh up 1.7%
2003: 37.0% of GDP 1.5% this year
2004: 37.5% of GDP Good, only .5%
2005: 37.3% of GDP Yay, down .2%
2006: 37.0% of GDP Yay, down .3%
2007: 37.7% of GDP Meh, up .7%
2008: 47.5% of GDP Woah. Almost 10%
2009: 61.2% of GDP Uh...? 13.7%
2010: 75.0% of GDP Here's 13.8% more; we've just added 37.5% of our GDP in debt in three years...hey...that's what out total debt was just three years ago in 2007! Yay us!
2011: 88.7% of GDP Oh wait, here's another 13.7%

While 2011's projected level of 88.7% is not as high as Canada's 94.6% or Germany's 115.8% or France's 102.3% we're are on track to more than double our debt in the span of five years. Canada is only going from 65% in 2006 to 94% in 2011 and not mirroring the rate of the US even if the absolute number is lower. Most other countries are following a similar path. They're already carrying a higher ratio of debt than we are but they're not increasing it at such a rapid pace.

12 September, 2009 11:48  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for as always informative and entertaining round-up, Infidel.

I just watched Olbermann, following your link -- yes, my sentiments exactly. But as I'm typing it, there is a birther/freeper/wingnutter procession in Washington, with signs and posters featuring Jesus, Hitler, Pelosi, Obama, freedom, sickle and hammer, and all kinds of props expressing the onslaught of irrationality overwhelming the US these days. It is madness.

And so is the fact that pseudo-Democratic Senators, Baucus and Conrad, rushed in, after Joe Wilson's tantrum, to amend any "questionable" language in the health care proposal that could be misconstrued by the wingnuts as endorsing health care for illegal immigrants.

Which is simply pathetic. Not only it shows that the Dems have no spine, but also that stupid, disrespectful and wrong-headed tantrums by GOPers work.

Sad. And maddening.

12 September, 2009 13:08  
Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

Alot of folk's may look at the picture as Ms.Rita has posted ...and just look at it as a fetish or a laugh or whatever...raises small chat amongst us here in the west about dildo's and stuff. The phallus throughout history,has been a serious and sacred thing though for many...not just in Bangkok...but many culture's. A buddy Russ once was telling me(former Marine Sgt,Viet Nam) of these shrine's on the street where I reckon you go up and kneel and pray...like daily prayer's...in Bangkok.I even have a couple right now in my living room. :)
(simply for art/decoration)

Domino's Pizza Tom Monaghan was interesting...I had heard nothing about this elsewhere's.What was kind of nauseating is that a US Justice like Scalia would actually uphold this kind of activity and support it. In my personal opinion...this is the same as a tyrannical force...nothing else! I'll shut up on that!

Funnies from Immoral Minority were great! :)

Middle of Nowhere's posting on fashion...made me start thinking of Halloween...and thinking up of some scary costume's for the kid's to wear to trick-or-treat in. Just a thought.

Mayor Davies of Doncaster ... I been waiting for a story like that... and Britain is close enough to home. I was listening one day to a christian minister on local cable access tele here in Dallas one morning...supporting amnesty for all illegal immigrant's from Mexico and surrounding countries here in the Metroplex ... because of how much they were like us and in some cases more dedicated than alot of American's even to their familia value's...especially how strong Mexican family value's are. Now if I were a christian...and listening to him...it would be a fairly "convincing" show he put on...that's all we need...heh?

Mike Totten's piece about Libya made me think of Brother Muammar in his address the other day to some African nation's I was watching ... some of the attendee's actually fell asleep listening to him. But as Brother Qaddafi was closing out...he mentioned about the hundred's of billion's of reparation's from the west that he was asking for, well needless to say...that sure as Hell woke everyone up and gave "cheer's". Reparation's, heh? And he was talking somewhere's between $700/$900 billion or so...cant recall the exact amount. Boy oh boy, I'm waiting for that bite! Two decade's ago...I was wishing we would have just either broke off all contact with him...or take him out and get it over with... again, that's just my opinion. He ought to pawn that f'n gold ring he wear's on his left hand...there must be a pound of gold on that! Enough on that CSer!

The piece in BBC's Earth News was a real treat ... alway's fascinated about the species they find when they look in them tough spot's...and that rat was a treat! I am figuring that these climatic change's from Global Warming should also bring us some treat's in the future...closer to home. :)

Damn...are we still looking for folk's to confirm that human's have been to the moon?!! Geeeez, I just wish someone would confirm to us right now...where all our billion's of bailout fund's that were dished out like a goddamn buffet are going and how their doing.Maybe that too was a hoax...heh?

Thanx Mr.Infidel!

12 September, 2009 14:05  
Anonymous rita said...

Hi!
I was happy to hear Philip Pullman has a new book out. I loved the "His Dark Materials" trilogy. A funny story about that... Pullman's trilogy was in my local library along side the Harry Potter books (they both came out about the same time) The Librarian told me she was getting calls & some of the local Churchs were frothing about all the witches, warlocks, i.e. satanic influences of the Harry Potter books on the local youth. None of them had a clue about the heretical content of Philip Pullmans books. I mean in the Dark Materials trilogy "God" & the church are literally depicted as the bad guys. It shows how much attention those right wing fundies actually pay to what is going on. The ones that know how to read, that is.

Also, the giant rat, awesome! That is my newest idea for a pet(a regular rat, not a giant one). I decided birds are not for me.

12 September, 2009 19:45  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Cameron: For now, getting the country out of the Bush recession has to take precedence over a balanced budget, but I think everyone knows that the growth of public debt needs to be curbed eventually. That's one of the reasons that health-care reform is so important. If health-care expenditures continue to be so high compared with other developed countries (for overall public health outcomes only average or worse), the government is going to end up covering a lot of the tab, one way or another.

Elizabeth: The comparisons with Nazism and Communism are an insult to the victims of real Nazism and Communism. One can disagree with a public option, but to compare it with mass murder and putting milions of people in slave-labor camps is insane. We need more people who are willing to say madness is madness when they see it. As I commented on your blog some time ago, can we get Barney Frank for President next time?

Ranch Chimp: Dressing up as a teabagger for Halloween is a thought -- probably too scary though.

Over the years several Christian Right figures have suggested a sort of alliance with Islam against homosexuals, abortion, secularism, etc. It is a logical idea since they both hate the same things (and people).

One of the reasons I object to illegal immigration is that a lot of the illegal aliens come from backward Third World societies with reactionary value systems (strongly religious, bigoted against gays and abortion and so on), and I don't want to see our own culture and society any more contaminated with those kinds of values than it already is.

The professional idiots of society may not believe that humans have gone to the Moon, but they will soon be telling us that Obama came from there.:-)

Rita: I can well believe that they don't read much. They probably just go after whatever targets the rabble-rousers on talk radio or the Sunday pulpits aim them at. Obama is Hitler, Rowling is a Satanist -- looking at reality would just get in the way.

You might want to ask your landlord about the rat idea. Landlords tend to be unenthused about rats for some reason.

13 September, 2009 01:26  
Blogger Rita said...

Well, I haven't mentioned the worms yet...

One of the reasons I object to illegal immigration is that a lot of the illegal aliens come from backward Third World societies with reactionary value systems (strongly religious, bigoted against gays and abortion and so on), and I don't want to see our own culture and society any more contaminated with those kinds of values than it already is.

After the coverage I've seen on the web in the last two days, I'm shocked at how contaminated our society is.

13 September, 2009 09:19  

Post a Comment

<< Home