Putting the "ick" in Maverick

I grow weary of your pertinacity, America. Perhaps I've focused too much on Sarah Palin in recent posts, assuming that the potential but very real danger of an obdurate Creationist cretin inhabiting the most important office in the world could persuade you to think twice about the Republican ticket. Here then is an argument against the vintage veteran himself.

I have heard conservatives state that they are voting for McCain because he was a war hero. I assume then that these same conservatives must have voted enthusiastically for John Kerry in 2004, since Bush Junior's military service history is truly risible. McCain's record, however, lacks any of the distinguishing characteristics of Kerry's (or Powell's, or Eisenhower's, or George H.W. Bush's for that matter); he was known not for being an ace Navy pilot, but as a spoiled, drunken, gambling carouser who graduated 5th from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy and used his flyboy image to get laid. He crashed 3 planes, not including the one that was shot down over Hanoi or the infamous Forrestal incident, during which he retired to the "ready room" and watched on closed-circuit TVs as over a hundred of his ship mates fought and died bravely to fight the fire that started when his A-4 bomber was accidentally struck by a Zuni rocket. He was tortured into confessing American military information in Vietnam while other POWs he served with not only never confessed but attempted escape, and were punished harshly for their patriotic intransigence.

America, please look into this investigative article by Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone. If the only things you know about John McCain's history come from his campaign or Fox News, then you owe it to yourself and to future generations to look at the other side of this coin that you value so highly.

If you support McCain because you support everything that the current administration has done for our country (McCain voted in support of Bush 95 percent of the time last year), or if you want Roe v. Wade overturned (which he lists as one of his stated goals on his website), then you should vote for John McCain without regret. His military record alone, however, does not even remotely qualify him for the office of president.

An Appeal to the Purple States

Dear America (but specifially VA, PA, CO, FL, OH, NC, NM, IN, and NV),

I'd like to encourage you to take the Republican vice presidential candidate's vacuous statements and simpleminded beliefs into account when you vote on Tuesday. In the first place, she has advocated the teaching of Creationism in public schools alongside the scientific theory of evolution. I would actually condone this, as long as our science teachers are also required to instruct students on The Dreamtime; how the Egyptian god Re called forth all living things from the endless ocean of Nun; how Eros caused Gaia to fall in love with Uranus, and the accounts of all their children and grandchildren; how Odin the All-Father shaped our world from the body of the frost giant Ymir; and perhaps most importantly, how the Flying Spaghetti Monster created our entire universe while drunk. For there is just as much evidence for all of these creation myths, and many others, as there is for Sarah Palin's legendary fable detailed in two different conflicting stories in the Genesis chapter of the Christian bible. Either we advocate teaching them all in the science curriculum, or we just stick to teaching Evolutionary Theory, which is the only story that has an immeasurable amount of scientific evidence to back it up. Creationists like to argue that Evolution is "only" a theory, but they forget that the scientific definition of the word is very different from its everyday usage. The idea that germs cause disease is also "only" a theory; in fact, gravity is "only" a theory as well.

Still unconvinced that this candidate is daft? In her first big policy speech on Friday, she mocked fruit fly research while advocating more money for parents of special needs children. Drosophila melanogaster, or common fruit flies, are a model organism in biological and genetic research, essential for the study of genetics and developmental biology. This is the equivalent of saying, "Instead of funding research into airbags, seatbelts, and crumple zones in the interest of improving car safety standards, we're just going to give cash to people who have to take care of loved ones maimed in car accidents." This candidate is DANGEROUSLY scientifically illiterate. Please view the clip below for details.



"This is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and there has been a lot of competition for that prize."
-- Richard Wolffe, Newsweek senior White House correspondent