The Enlightened Despot

Here’s what crazy right-wingers, crazy left-wingers, and Sarah Palin have to say today:

From the right, Brookhiser wins the very competitive contest for the most deranged reaction to a picture of Obama bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia:

I wish he had been raised Muslim. Then it would be habit, not baseness.

Meanwhile, Ed Whelan reacts to the Iowa Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage:

The lawless judicial attack on traditional marriage and on representative government continues.

On the left, Bill Keller has an interesting take on how people view the decline of his publication, the New York Times:

Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause.

Finally, Sarah Palin responds to the suggestion that Senator Begich should resign and make way for a special election, as it is unclear that he would have been elected if voters had known Ted Stevens’s seven felony convictions would be overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct:

I absolutely agree.

Here’s some more hard-hitting analysis from the same Representative Shimkus Frederick quoted earlier as worrying about the potential for lower carbon levels to starve plant life:

The evidentiary worth of the Bible’s testimony is not universally agreed upon, and in any case, the two arguments conflict with each other. If the Bible is literally, infallibly accurate, then the era of high carbon levels Shimkus references never occured - Earth is only a few thousand years old, after all. And anyway, God just said he wouldn’t drown us all; he never said we wouldn’t get our feet wet.

Meanwhile, over at the Corner, Andrew Stuttaford links to this from the Sunday Telegraph:

But if there is one scientist who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world it is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner, who for 35 years has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe, is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.

Despite fluctuations down as well as up, “the sea is not rising,” he says. “It hasn’t risen in 50 years.” If there is any rise this century it will “not be more than 10cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10cm”.

I suppose it’s possible that the man who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world is also a guy who believes in dowsing, also known as ‘divining’ or ‘water witching’, and that magnetometry mapping should make it possible to map individual footprints made by Ancient Greeks at a site the rest of the archaeological community thinks is a hoax, but it doesn’t seem all that likely.

There are still rational, honest people out there making the case that global warming won’t do as much harm as we’re told, and that proposed measures against it are therefore not worth pursuing. I think these folks are wrong, but I don’t think they’re stupid or crazy. But I do wonder why they don’t make more of an effort to call the liars and lunatics out for what they are. I will never get back the minutes of my life I spent reading about Morner’s views and checking into whether he was worth taking seriously. That makes me less inclined to bother with the next article purporting to present anti-alarmist science. If these people were ridiculed by people on both sides of the issue, it would be a lot easier to seperate the wheat from the chaff. So, attention Jim Manzi: when the Stuttafords of the world peddle this garbage on a blog to which you are a contributor, why don’t you call them on it?

This is the vehicle driven by the man Sarah Palin just nominated for Attorney General as a replacement for the man that resigned over a controversy arising from his advice to the Palin crowd that showing up to court after being subpoenaed by the state congress was ‘optional’. And yes, his license plate is ‘WAR’, though, in fairness, those are his initials.

(h/t Mudflats)

So I guess it’s pick on Bobby Jindal day here at the Despot. I apologize. Sort of. In any case, while the demon fighting is old news, Jindal talk these days is largely focused on his mocking “$140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring’,” as an example of wasteful spending. The something that is called ‘volcano monitoring’ turns out to be the monitoring of volcanoes.  Volcanoes have a nasty habit of spewing ash and hot lava, which can be fairly unpleasant for anyone in the neighborhood. There is therefore widespread confusion as to why, exactly, Bobby Jindal thinks monitoring these things is such a ridiculous scheme.

Mudflats (I’m linking to a blog about Alaskan politics twice in one day without mentioning Sarah Palin… odd) has the best reaction I’ve seen so far:

Remember when Sarah Palin simultaneously proclaimed herself to be an advocate for children with autism, and mocked fruitfly research at the same time?  A quick Google search will reveal that fruit fly research has been, and continues to be important in trying to understand….autism.  So why did Palin attack that science?

a) She didn’t bother to do any research on it.

b) It sounds funny.

c) Both a and b.

If you picked “c”, you are correct.

Now let’s play again with the NEXT next golden child of the Republican Party - Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal.

In his grand debut last night, in front of the nation, as the governor of a state that has suffered mightily from lack of preparedness in the face of natural disaster, and while several hundred thousand Americans (of which I am one) are currently living within sight of a volcano that is “code orange” and has at its base, a Chevron tank farm sitting at its base, right next to Cook Inlet, what does he do?

He mocks government spending on volcano monitoring.  Excuse me…he mocks government spending on ”something called ‘volcano monitoring’”.  Once again, a quick Google search will reveal what this strange and mysterious ritual that some call “volcano monitoring” is all about.  I’m sure the folks at the Alaska Volcano Observatory will be happy to enlighten Governor Jindal.  So, why did Jindal attack this science?

a) He didn’t bother to do any research on it.

b) It sounds funny.

c) Both a and b.

Once again, if you answered “c”, you are correct.

My only objection to this is that unlike fruitfly research, volcano monitoring doesn’t really sound funny, and doesn’t even require much research. They’re volcanoes! Lava is really fucking hot! Why wouldn’t we monitor them?

Via Mudflats, here’s Bobby Jindal telling a story that I personally feel would have been terrific material for his speech the other night:

The students, led by Susan’s sister and Louise, a member of a charismatic church, engaged in loud and desperate prayers while holding Susan with one hand. Kneeling on the ground, my friends were chanting, “Satan, I command you to leave this woman.” Others exhorted all “demons to leave in the name of Christ.” It is no exaggeration to note the tears and sweat among those assembled. Susan lashed out at the assembled students with verbal assaults.

Whenever I concentrated long enough to begin prayer, I felt some type of physical force distracting me. It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe. . . Though I could find no cause for my chest pains, I was very scared of what was happening to me and Susan. I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.

It appeared as if we were observing a tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange evil force. But the momentum had shifted and we now sensed that victory was at hand.While Alice and Louise held Susan, her sister continued holding the Bible to her face. Almost taunting the evil spirit that had almost beaten us minutes before, the students dared Susan to read biblical passages. She choked on certain passages and could not finish the sentence “Jesus is Lord.” Over and over, she repeated “Jesus is L..L..LL,” often ending in profanities. In between her futile attempts, Susan pleaded with us to continue trying and often smiled between the grimaces that accompanied her readings of Scripture. Just as suddenly as she went into the trance, Susan suddenly reappeared and claimed “Jesus is Lord.”

With an almost comical smile, Susan then looked up as if awakening from a deep sleep and asked, “Has something happened?” She did not remember any of the past few hours and was startled to find her friends breaking out in cheers and laughter, overwhelmed by sudden joy and relief.

With all due respect to demon-slaying, the GOP really needs to vet people a little more thoroughly before annointing them ‘rising stars’.

Republican Senators Hatch and Graham - not a duo likely to bolt across the aisle any time soon - have downplayed the Treasury Secretary nominee’s history with (supposedly accidental) non-payment of taxes. Hatch says that none of us are perfect, while Graham pleads that this is not the time for partisan interference with appointments to top economic jobs. So, nothing to see here, right?

That is the conventional wisdom at this point, but Michelle Malkin laughs at convention (and isn’t so wild about wisdom, either):

Time for the Geithner withdrawal betting pool. My guess? Friday 6:45pm Eastern.

I’m going to go with March 2011. This seems like one of those scandals that will be slow to develop…

If you’re looking for a fun group of crazy people to laugh at - and who isn’t? - you could do worse than checking out the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHMT. That’s not a typo. The ‘t’ is apparently there to remind you that they want it pronounced ‘vehement’, though I can’t imagine why they don’t just spell it ‘vehement’, since they’re already in the business of making up acronym conventions.

Anyway, VHMT is a group that wants humanity to voluntarily cease reproducing to “allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health”. One terrific thing about these lunatics is that they know you think they’re nuts. Their website is one big FAQ, and the second question is ‘are you really serious?’. (SPOILER ALERT: they are.)

They also clearly have a sense of humor about themselves:

Q: Do we have to stop having sex?

Sex is the way most babies are started, but is sexual intercourse really the primary cause of human reproduction? Let’s consider the statistics:

The World Health Organization estimates that 100 million couples engage in sexual intercourse on an average day, which is only 3.3% of the world’s six billion humans. This pitifully low amount of love-making results in around 910,000 pregnancies, thanks in part to contraceptives and sterility. For a variety of reasons, 55% of these zygotes don’t make it through fetushood to live birth. According to a current U.S. Census Bureau estimate, 359,000 do make it daily.

So, less than 0.4% of each day’s heterosexual trysts result in the creation of new humans — a statistically insignificant correlation for proving causation. In fact, it rounds to zero.

Unfortunately, their math tends to be almost as shaky when they aren’t joking. And they are chock full of smug:

Q: I’m extra smart. Shouldn’t I pass on my genes?

Well, could you pass a minimal intelligence test if one were required for a “license to breed”?

To find out, simply answer this question:

In light of the 40,000 children dying of malnutrition each day, and considering the number of species going extinct as a result of our excessive reproduction, do you think it would be a good idea to create another of yourself?

The real beauty, though, is in the places where it’s not clear whether they get the joke or not:

VHEMT Volunteers are realistic. We know we’ll never see the day there are no human beings on the planet.

All too true.

Back in 2002, John Derbyshire wrote an article entitled “Why Don’t I Care about the Palestinians?”, and apparently he’s still very proud of it, as he linked to it in a post at The Corner today. It’s astonishing stuff. It’s not just wrong, it’s crazy. But, still, I can’t help but admire it in a way. Intellectual honesty - a core value of the Despot, just below correctness - is thin on the ground these days, especially where Derb works. This is a man who isn’t holding anything back:

Which leaves us with number 5: expulsion. I am starting to think that this might be the best option. I’m not the only one, either. Here is Dick Armey, Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, talking to Chris Matthews on Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Well, just to repeat, you believe that the Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should get out of there?

Rep. ARMEY: Yes.

When I say “the best option,” I don’t mean “best for the Palestinians”. I don’t think they have any good options. Being Arabs, they are incapable of constructing a rational polity, so their future is probably hopeless whatever happens. Their options are the ones I listed above: to be ruled by gangsters, or Israelis, or Jordanians, or welfare bureaucrats. Or to go live somewhere else, under the gentle rule of their brother Arabs. Would expulsion be hard on the Palestinians? I suppose it would. Would it be any harder than options 1 thru 4? I doubt it. Do I really give a flying falafel one way or the other? No, not really.

Taste the crazy. Savor it.

After all that economic doomsday nastiness, it’s time for something a little lighter. When I wrote this, I had no idea that Sean Penn had been up to this stuff for years. The piece I quoted is not an aberration. He is a very crazy man, and a profoundly awful writer. From a full page ad he took out in the Times:

“It’s a sunny afternoon in Northern California,” the weatherman interrupted, “puffy white clouds resting upon a beautiful blue sky.” We sat in the car eating french fries in the parking lot of our local burger joint. President George W. Bush had just rebuffed the United Nations’ push to re-introduce weapons inspection teams into an Iraq where even a deservedly humiliated Saddam Hussein had expressed willingness to accept them. Tightening in my gut, on this otherwise fab day, were troubling questions about our nation’s understanding of this pending conflict. Its most accessible information sources were the corporately sponsored and largely conservative media outlets. Indeed, in my gut, were my own troubling questions, not only about our Administration’s unilateral military posturing, but also, what effect U.S. decisions today might have on my children’s tomorrow.

As soon as I read this, I hurried to his Wikipedia page to see if there were any instances of brain trauma that could explain all this. I didn’t find anything, but I did notice something very odd about it: it reads as if it is largely written by Sean Penn. I say that based both on the prose style and the content. Wikipedia articles, as a rule, do not look like this:

In 1986 he starred in the drama At Close Range, opposite Christopher Walken. The film was based on a true story and gained positive reviews from critics. Fans and critics noticed the change in Penn’s body build. Penn appeared very muscular and in shape. It’s considered to be the first film to cash in on Penn’s status as a sex symbol.

If he is working on his own article, he has been kind enough to leave this gem intact:

Directors Trey Parker and Matt Stone claim to have received a letter from Penn prior to the release of thier film Team America: World Police in 2004. The letter allegedly argued that they shouldn’t put the movie out for fear of George Bush being re-elected. Both Stone and Parker in an interview with CBS quoted the following: “What if we want George Bush to be re-elected? And who cares, you’re Sean Penn”.

(h/t CWB)

With an official announcement of the Clinton nomination (finally) immanent, Ben Smith has weighed in on the emoluments issue. In short, his position is that the legal question is hard to judge, but that no one cares or plans to do anything about it:

And there are serious lawyers who see this, legally speaking, as a real obstacle.

It is not, however, an actual political problem, any more than it was when Sen. Lloyd Bentsen became Treasury secretary in 1993 or when Richard Nixon made Sen. William Saxbe attorney general in 1973.

Nixon’s lawyers used what’s now known (in very small circles) as the “Saxbe fix,” by which Congress re-lowered the salary for the job, deciding that that got around the constitutional issue.

The dodge actually goes further back than that, though: Taft’s secretary of state, Philander Knox, came through the same loophole; his salary was brought back down to $8,000 in February of 1909.

(This doesn’t mean that it’s legally unquestionable. The Reagan administration, Eugene Volokh writes, decided not to name Orrin Hatch to the Supreme Court in part based on a legal opinion that the Saxbe fix wouldn’t do.)

That people think this may well be unconstitutional but don’t care should not be shocking; if the laws of our land were a movie, the producers might run some ads with a phrase like “inspired by the controversial 1787 document”, but the framers definitely wouldn’t get a writing credit. Personally, I think getting rid of it altogether or actually doing what it says would both be better than our current system, but neither is at all plausible.

Here’s what is shocking: Reagan was thinking of appointing Orrin Hatch to the Supreme Court? Really? God bless emoluments:

The Ayn Rand dating site I mentioned was just too tempting. I am now a registered member. And, while there are some innocuous entries, I doubt the author’s of that article had to dig too deeply. I found this after five minutes:

I have to say, I am a very confident person. Many people might call me conceited, but they’re probably just jealous of me and jealous of my confidence. Insecurity is for the weak. I don’t understand who decided that it was “cool” to dislike yourself. So in a way I guess my greatest virtue is my confidence, as well as my ability to take charge of situations. Others view me as a leader. I have a great (sarcastic) sense of humor. I am beautiful, well-dressed, and classy. If I could change something about myself …. I’ll have to get back to you on that one…I’m sure I’ll think of something…

Are these folks suffering from deep psychological trauma? All signs point to yes:

If I Could ‘Do Lunch’ with Anyone

My dad because we are really close - he is my best friend as well as my father. I look up to and admire him so much, and would do anything to please him.

Yikes.

Quotes taken from the The Atlasphere, the dating site for Ayn Rand fans, are exactly as hilarious as you would expect:

I am rational, integrated, and efficacious. So far, I’ve never met a person who lives up to the standard I hold for myself (except online).

I take my relationships seriously. I am simply not attracted to many of the women in this world. I do not “hook-up” with girls. I only kiss those who deserve, and so far I have only encountered one who did. I would love to find someone I can learn something from; someone who challenges me to think; someone I can feel like I’ve won, rather than lowered myself to.

Also fun:

Please note: If you’re overweight, I won’t date you. If you believe in God, I won’t date you. If you vote for Democrats, I won’t date you.

While I have not spoken to him, and thus have no more information than you, dear reader, I am going to go out on a limb and say that Frederick’s endorsement of Ruffini’s nice summary of some differences between British and American politics should not be taken as an endorsement of the post as a whole, which is, in fact stupid. The clue is in the title: ‘The GOP Needs an Ideas Czar’.

That’s a very bad idea. What’s especially weird about the post is that Ruffini’s explanation of why the U.S. political system doesn’t lend itself to parties having a unified message contains everything you need to see why his idea couldn’t possibly work. Furthermore, it doesn’t really address the complaint it is supposed to be a response to: that the Republicans have lacked a coherent message of late. Regardless of the merits, this complaint is not coming from David Cameron; surely the complaint is that their message has been incoherent by the standards of U.S. politics. In which case ‘because we don’t have a parliamentary system’ isn’t such a clever answer.

K-Lo, on the other hand, thinks it’s a terrific idea, and nominates Newt Gingrich for the position.

As a fictional character, Kathryn Lopez would be far too one-dimesional and cliched to pass muster as a crazy right-winger:

Jack Bauer channelled John Bolton when dealing with that odious U.N. peacekeeper last night on 24: Redemption.

More 24 in January. Something to look forward to that month.

That is epitaph-worthy.

Though I’m not wild about the book as a whole, particularly the final third of it, I have always felt that this passage from Will Self’s My Idea of Fun is genius, and very true to life:

We moved from the dinner table to the sitting room. The talk was of people, mutual friends who were conveniently not present. Their stock rose and fell on the conversational Nikkei with incredible speed. Someone would say of X, ‘Oh I think he’s idiotic, there’s no point to him at all-’ and then someone else would chime in with an anecdote confirming this. Before long almost everyone present would be vying with one another to come up with examples of X’s awfulness. Within five minutes it became clear that absolutely nothing could redeem X short of the second coming. He was venal, he was dishonest, he was gauche, he was pretentious, he was snobbish and yet . . . and yet . . . Just when X was hammered flat and ready for disposal, the tide turned. Someone said, ‘The thing about X is that he’ll always help you out if you’re in a real jam, he’s loyal in that way.’ The emotional traders swung around to face their dealing screens once more. With X so low he was worth investing in again. Before long his stock was being snapped up by all and sundry. X was now witty, unassuming, possessed of a transcendent sensibility…

So I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked to see people buying Ted Stevens stock right now. Still, this really did stun me for a minute:

Always Honest, If Rarely Charming

–> I realize I like Ted Stevens in a post-everything kind of way

Always honest? Really? The man just got convicted of seven felonies, and I’m pretty sure he said he didn’t do it. I’m all for giving credit where it’s due (thus our ‘being fair to nasty people’ tag), and I do find it frustrating that people are often unwilling to attribute any positive qualities whatsoever to political figures they don’t like. That said, I don’t think trying to think of nice things to say about the godfather of Alaskan politics is such a great use of one’s time. As a counter-point, here’s his famous unhinged rant about the series of tubes: