Archive for September, 2005

No more mister nice liberal

Thursday, September 29th, 2005

Hunter of DKos is on fire – here’s a sample, read his entire rant in response to me right-wing whining about Tom Delay’s legal trouble: Welcome to the world of the politics of personal destruction, you tubthumping, chin-jutting, Bush humping gits. Welcome to the nasty and partisan world that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, […]

Reeeally big shark attacks surfer

Monday, September 26th, 2005

With his bare hands an Australian surfer fought off a shark that thought he was lunch – the BBC reports: “He was just sitting on the board waiting for the next wave… and it just hit him from underneath and knocked him off, then actually just took his board and was dragging him and he […]

Creationists worried?

Sunday, September 25th, 2005

The Discovery Institute does not like all this fuss?! What are they worried about? Isn’t god on their side? A twist in the case is that a leading proponent of intelligent design, the Discovery Institute, based in Seattle, removed one of its staff members from the Dover school board’s witness list and opposed the board’s […]

Schwampel tot

Friday, September 23rd, 2005

Das politische Frankenstein Monster starb sofort, als man die Zutaten ins Reagenzglas verzweifelter Machtpolitik zusammen mischte: In dem Punkt waren sich die Spitzen von Grünen und Union einig: Nett sei es gewesen, dass man überhaupt einmal zusammen saß. Das war fast alles, was die Sondierungsrunde der drei Parteien heute als Ergebnis vorzuweisen hatte. Die Jamaika-Koalition […]

More monkey trials

Friday, September 23rd, 2005

With creationism and “intelligent design” in the offensive across America, the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial has the potential of becoming another Scopes Monkey Trial – the famous 1925 trial that allowed the state of Tennessee to keep anti-Darwinism statutes on the books. Only this time the roles are reversed. In Kitzmiller v. Dover parents and […]

Holocaust mass grave at Stuttgart airport

Wednesday, September 21st, 2005

During the years I lived in Stuttgart, I remember several occasions when construction workers found unexploded bombs from WWII. But this recent discovery of a piece of Nazi-era legacy is uniquely horrifying, and within an easy bike-ride from where I lived: Remains believed to be from some 30 Jews forced into labour by the Nazis […]

Simon Wiesenthal has died

Tuesday, September 20th, 2005

Remembering a tireless fighter for justice and human dignity: Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi Hunter has died in Vienna at the age of 96, the Simon Wiesenthal Center announced today (September 20th). “Simon Wiesenthal was the conscience of the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the International Human Rights NGO named in […]

Mercedes presents diesel-electric hybrid

Monday, September 19th, 2005

More proof that saving the planet can be quite fun: the new Mercedes concept car “Bluetec Hybrid” is based on the new S-Class, and, as it is a diesel, it should run just fine on biodiesel. A number of European automakers came to the hybrid party at the Frankfurt auto show, simultaneously arguing that diesel […]

Unentschieden

Sunday, September 18th, 2005

Und jetzt? Der Deutsche Wähler hat ein klares, deutliches “Ähh – weiss ich nich!” ausgesprochen. Die Deutschen Politiker saufen Wahlsekt statt Realitätswasser und erklären sich rundherum zum Sieger. Frau Merkel knirsch mit den Zähnen (macht die eh immer) and erklät den Sieg, Herr Schröder grinst (macht der auch immer) obwohl Rot-Grün verloren hat. Die Polit-genies […]

Oohmpah-oompah — Ka-ching!

Saturday, September 17th, 2005

O’zapft is! at the mother of all beer orgies, the oohmpah fest to end all oohmpah fests. With two mighty strokes the mayor of Munich drove the tap into the barrel of beer and handed the first beer to the Ministerpräsident (Governor) of the Free State of Bavaria. The natives went wild! Especially the Japanese, […]

Bogus dead-cat-fuel story on CNN

Thursday, September 15th, 2005

Thursday morning I got an email with a hyperlink to a CNN story about a German scientist making biodiesel from dead cats. Turns out that the clever reporters from Reuters picked up the story from the German tabloid Bild (picture a merger of the Weekly World News and USA-Today) about the company Alpha-Kat, and how […]

Ophelia is pounding the coast

Wednesday, September 14th, 2005

Hurricane Ophelia is pounding the North Carolina coast, and looking at the comments in Jeff Masters Wunderground blog, some of the residents of the Outer Banks are getting a bit nervous. They might be in for 10 hours of 70MpH winds. The N&O’s blogwatch has more.

Creationists and penguins

Tuesday, September 13th, 2005

Are there creationist penguins? Suppose you’re a bird that cannot fly and that has to waddle 70 miles from the ocean to the nesting grounds through minus 50 degree snowstorms – barefoot – or scooting on your belly to take a turn standing for months in minus 50 degree snowstorms, balancing your one egg on […]

Mercenaries in New Orleans

Monday, September 12th, 2005

The US government has deployed heavily armed mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm to patrol the “streets” of New Orleans. Armed mercenaries patrolling a US city on behalf of the US government? That seems like a very disturbing precedent to me. The mercs are a bit surprised, too: “This is a totally new thing […]

A Moment of Silence

Sunday, September 11th, 2005

Lots of talk today. Silence and reflection would be better …

Disaster profiteering in full swing

Saturday, September 10th, 2005

Vultures – vultures, everywhere. They are circling New Orleans and the rest of the devastated Gulf Coast. The no-bid contractors like the employer of Vice-president Cheney are vying to snag juicy reconstruction contracts: From global engineering and construction firms like the Fluor Corporation and Halliburton to local trash removal and road-building concerns, the private sector […]

Bush held New Orleans hostage

Saturday, September 10th, 2005

Two reports on National Public Radio chronicle the government response to Hurricane Katrina (via DKos Diary). The second report in particular highlights the disconnect between the reality on the ground and the proclamations of Bush administration officials, like Chertoff and Brown. The most shocking aspect of that disconnect is that Bush required Louisiana officials to […]

Smart arguments against intelligent design

Friday, September 9th, 2005

Recently, I had a little rant about how silly it is to consider creationism a scientific theory, even under the guise of so-called “intelligent design theory.” When I read Stephen Meyer’s ID paper, I realized, after I stopped laughing, that some may be taken in by Meyer’s scientific mumbo-jumbo talk. Even with no clue about […]

Thieves with both hands in our pockets

Thursday, September 8th, 2005

For Big Oil the disruption of the oil supply due to Hurricane Katrina was better than a license to print money. They jacked up the fuel prices, and they are keeping them up. Exxon Mobil is making $110 million profit a day this quarter. So President Bush hurries to their rescue and makes sure they […]

Copperhead bites the dust

Wednesday, September 7th, 2005

The man who mows our grass came by this evening to pick up his check and ran with his truck over a 2 1/2 foot copperhead snake in our driveway. It was clearly an adult and it was a beautiful snake with tan and brown hourglass markings. It was still moving and a couple of […]