After what we've been through this last few years, after learning that in America in the 21st Century the only way to be happy and blissful is to utterly ignore what's going around you and in the world at large, it's to be expected that those of us on the left are suffering from extreme stress. The utterly maddening feeling that we are surrounded by malevolent idiots who simply won't pay attention is enough to unhinge a mind.

Well, what do you know.

I felt a little bad about my Christmas polemic. I know perfectly well that most people who are Christians are not evil, they're just rather blind and stupid sheep, and sheep do what sheep do: follow a leader. It may be too much to ask to tell the sheep to start questioning the shepherd.

Or maybe not. This word from Columbus, where a megachurch has been turned in to the IRS by other local churches:

Oprah on the James Frey mess:

"If you're an addict whose life has been moved by this story and you feel that what James went through was able … to help you hold on a little bit longer, and you connected to that, that is real. That is real," she said. "And it's … irrelevant discussing, you know, what happened or did not happen to the police."

So it's the "truthiness" that matters. ((c) 2005 Stephen Colbert)

OK. Ya know what? I see the light. You saw the Virgin Mary in the pee-stains on an underpass? Hey, I support you! If it made you feel all holy and stuff, what does it matter if she was really there?

When you look at things this way, the world is a kinder, gentler place. Who cares if the whole Jesus-arising-on-the-third-day thing is true? What matters is that believing it makes you feel all warm and churchy.

So it turns out that Oprah cannot be relied upon as an ethical lightning-rod? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

We need to be calm... very calm. We are getting a nice assortment of cards in our hand. We need the icy calm of a seasoned gambler to make smart choices, play our cards wisely and win the game.

I'm talking partially to myself here. We must not let our outrage rule us. As we are seeing, as the massive prisoner-transport bus that is the Bush administration heads off into the ditch, as the whole corrupt Republican machine can no longer hide its dirty hands, the cornered mice of the Republican party have only one recourse: hysterics. They can't admit they're wrong; they can only get more and more furious. You can see it in their blogs every day.

(Borderline lefties fantasize about moving to Canada. Borderline righties fantasize about murdering borderline Lefties. Any lessons here? Naah.)

But if, in the face of that, we as a blogo-hemisphere (c) and as a party present to the electorate an ability to face problems and counter hysterical arguments calmly, professionally and effectively, methodically destroying point by point the Republican belief system, it might go far in the minds of the American public. Part of the (in my mind perfectly justified) criticism perennially leveled against us is that our agendas are a bit fevered and often the result of emotion rather than cool logic.

How we get there, I don't know. But as with everything, it begins on a personal level.

Refuse to be baited. As they get more and more blithering, get more and more calm and competent. It will drive them insane.

Need an editor, Moosie? The Sundog is available.

Sam Alito would not be the Moose's choice in a Supreme Court nominee. He is far too differential to money power.

I'm sorry. I know it's petty to criticise people's education as revealed by their written communications. Sometimes I'm just in a petty mood.

It was his crack about the People for the American Way that got me in a spelling-correcting mood. Why, oh why, would a Democrat of any stamp do the "card-carrying ACLU member" schtick? Whose side is Moosie-poo on?

I believe that it is becoming increasingly clear who the Moose is "differential" to.

David Sirota serves up well-done Moose-meat this morning. I am so glad so many higher-visibility bloggers than myself are starting to loudly question whether this particular beast is fully housebroken.

I am of the opinion that no matter how Big our Tent is, an incontinent Moose is an unwelcome guest.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/why-the-dlc-is-so-dang
ero_b_13640.html

As Al Franken says, David, you are one sexy, sexy wonk.

I wish I could wish my Christian friends a Merry Christmas, but now for me that phrase has been tainted by a falafel-like smell. And this, like so many other misrepresentations and distortions of your religion, unfortunately comes down to being your fault. Individually, and personally.

Let me count the ways.

Members of any group whose views are being misrepresented have a basic obligation to make noise and get the truth out, that many don't agree with the misrepresentations. Otherwise, people suspicious of that group have every right in the world to lump them all together and assume they're all alike.

My contention, my Christian friends, is that while some of you may express cautious regret about the way the right has co-opted your religion, you yourself do not, have not and will not lift a finger to stop it. You sit there in your pews and eat your communion crackers and Welchade and let the crackers who lead you go right on doing outrageous things in your name, because you are afraid of bringing down the wrath of the Church on your head.

That's called cowardice, and that makes it your fault. Sorry, that's the way it is. If you don't fight the evil surrounding you, you are partially responsible for it.
 
How many of you have raised your voice against Bill O'Reilly's phony War On Christmas? And when I say raised your voice, I don't mean a grudging "You're right, Sundog"; I mean talking to people in the surrounding pews about how UTTERLY VILE and WRONG the whole mess is?

How many of you have heard patently political sermons that you KNEW crossed the line, and sat there and said nothing? How many of you loudly voiced protests about Justice Sunday? How many of you screamed bloody murder about the blatant electioneering for Bush in "Christian" churches all across this country? How many of you have dared to say anything that would cause your pewmates to think twice?

Precious few, if any at all. If you did speak up, if you're one of the Christians who actually follow Christ's teachings and fight this sort of thing, my humble apologies. There are so VERY few of you.

When I start hearing stories about churches split over the infusion of politics into religion; when I hear even ONE Christian leader tell Bill O'Reilly to get his filthy partisan hands off Christmas; when I hear of a preacher in trouble for telling his parishoners that God isn't a Republican, when you personally start making noise, THEN you have my permission to say "we're not all like that". Until then, in my book, yes, you are all like that. Deal with it.

Happy Holidays.

I said previously that I had given up on the Moose, but like some side of the road accident, I keep stopping to gaze aghast at the carnage.

What I'm wondering at this point is why anyone considers this guy a liberal or Democrat of ANY sort.

First of all, in one sentence: Anyone who uses the phrase "loony left" is automatically, instantly, unequivocally, permanently on the Other Side as far as I'm concerned. End of argument.

Imagine a moderate Republican calling the fringe of his party insulting names. It would never happen. That's because although they might not agree with their fringes, they see them as fellow travelers.

The Moose does not see fringe Democrats as fellow travelers. He sees them as the enemy. What a surprise. I guess it's a little harder than that to change your spots.

Check out this graph:

Only days before an democratic election in Iraq where people will be risking their lives to vote, the leader of the American opposition should certainly not be suggesting that victory is impossible. What kind of message does that send to Iraqi democrats and our troops? Democrats should be arguing for a success strategy in Iraq, not conceding defeat.

Can someone tell me in what material way this differs from the buttheaded Bush/Repugnican line? Hello, Moosie, we are listening to the opinions of the people on the ground, something you might try yourself.

Things are hard enough for us without a Moose in sheep's clothing among us.

(Boy is this one ever going to start a storm.)

I'm starting to wonder if I'm really a "liberal" after all.

Apparently, complaints that illegal immigrants are demonstrably and irrefutably causing harm to the social fabric of a neighborhood are now completely indefensible to the left. Complain that your neighbor roasts goats in his front yard and has a public party there at all hours, and you are a xenophobic racist, according to Atrios.

This policy is a non-starter, people. Pissing off people who are seeing their way of life under attack isn't going to convince them of anything except the fact that you are not interested in the things that are important to them.

I've never thought of myself as a racist, very far from it. I could tell you many stories to the contrary. But I definitely have sympathy for people who are seeing the social structure and neighborhoods they've lived in all their lives changed by immigrants with different modes of life who insist that WE adapt to THEM and not the other way around.

Screaming "RACIST" doesn't help the situation. A lot of people are genuinely concerned about the quality of life not just in America in general but right down in their own neighborhoods. If their kids are afraid to play outside there any more, sorry people, that is an absolutely legitimate concern in my book.

This is another subject most Democrats wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Call me a racist if you like. But all you're doing is making me think - and many others not so obviously liberal as myself - that this subject is simply taboo on the left, and that the Righties are right after all: what you want is to totally displace the American culture with that of anyone who walks in the door.

We have a culture too.

My stepson's math tutor stopped by yesterday on his birthday to drop off a gift of a cupcake and a book. This is a fairly nice guy, and I think a fairly good tutor.

Imagine my joy to find that it was a book about creationism, cleverly couched in pseudoscience to make it look as if it were a scientific analysis of creationism versus evolution.

What is it with these people? Imagine for one moment the situation turned around, and me giving his kids a book telling them the awful truth: their religion is a fairy tale. I'd probably be arrested.

Why can't they see how incredibly over-the-line such behavior is, and how incredibly insensitive it is to proselytize someone else's children? Why can't Christians understand that we have a right to be left alone by them?

Well, this is one tutor who's going to get a lesson. I'm going to take great delight in firing him and filing a complaint about him.

Sorry if that makes me one of those angry atheists Christians simply can't understand.

What a great day it is. I hope the sun is shining where you are right now.

There are not a lot of events these days that restore some of my faith in the concept of "common sense", but the Dover Purge makes me feel, for the first time in a long time, that you're not all insane out there. Of course no sunshine comes without a little rain, as the completely opposite events in Kansas (pardon me - HAW HAW HAW) demonstrate.

I get a lot (well, it seems like a lot) of flak for ranting about the damage religion does to the world, because it's not an appropriate subject for a political blog. Such a comment is, of course, an object lesson in not seeing the forest for the trees, as the Dover/Kansas dilemma shows us clearly.

Religion is integrally (and perhaps inseperably, which is why atheists are depressed) involved in how all of us live our lives, whether we subscribe to it or not. Seem fair to you?

My Christian friends, does it seem right to you that a bunch of yahoos in Kansas, motivated by beliefs only inches from your own, are able to find followers full of righteous fervor, take power and literally redefine science to match what the Bible says, ignoring the opinion of actual scientists the world over? That's really OK with you? You honestly don't see a cultural and economic downside to that? You honestly don't see why we have a problem with it?

Okay. But forgive us if some of us see the intelligent people of Dover as the future of the human race, as opposed to yourselves.

It's time to declare a truce, you elitist coasters.

No more Texan jokes. No more jokes about incestuous Arkansas families. No more knee-slappers about hicks anywhere in the South. No more jokes about who is more inbred, Tom Coburn or the Oklahomans who elected him.

From now on, reserve all that for Kansans.

How does one punish sheer, criminal  stupidity? How can one punish cultural ignorance on a scale of that contemplated by the inhabitants of the state of Kansas in its attitude towards evolution?

Simple. Flat out, finger pointing, guffawing ridicule. And completely guilt-free ridicule, at that. They deserve every ounce of it as long as they refuse to join the Nineteenth Century.

So haul out all those farmer's daughter stories, all those village idiot stories, and have a ball.

Don't worry Kansas, we'll quit laughing at you in, oh, say, twenty years or so.

And therefore, we don't have secret torture prisons, so there are no secret locations to be leaked. But if we DID, and there WERE, leaking their location would be a matter of National Security, so let's investigate it.

Being inside the mind of a Republican must be a little like being trapped in an Escher drawing.

In my previous post I began a bit of a rant about Digital Rights Management and how it's gotten out of hand.

If the term is new to you, it's beyond the scope of my puny blog to explain it but it boils down to the content provider - or distributor -  being able to specify exactly how that content can be used, to the extent that you couldn't defeat their intentions if you wanted to.

Sounds like it COULD be reasonable at first glance, doesn't it? 

Allow me to scare the beJeezus out of you. Imagine this tool in the hands of a repressive regime, one just a leeeetle bit more aggressive that the current band of fascists. Imagine Someone Else deciding what you could and couldn't see - and having the power to completely enforce it. No transmitted dissent of any kind. No DVD's, no CD's if the government didn't approve them. They simply wouldn't play.

Okay, enough paranoid fantasy, we wouldn't want to veer into Michael Moore territory.

But there are plenty of good non-Doomsday reasons for opposing the absolute control of content by government or anyone else. Regardless of that, an all-digital TV is in your future, because at some point in the next few years the analog sets will go dark as the transmitters go off, and then they won't even be useful as collector's items.

Might not a good first step be to put off the date that's scheduled to happen, until some of these questions are debated?

Just askin'. 

I wonder very much if the far right is pushing Bush too hard on the next Supreme Court nominee; basically ordering him to do their bidding. 

I've spoken about Texans before. We can be stubborn sons of bitches. I am not at all sure how Bush will react to this.

Of course, the wise political thing to do is probably to play to his base. But really: What's he got to lose by standing up and not being bossed around?

 It would be political suicide, of course. But (1) he might be so mad he didn't care, and (3) let's face it, he's dead in the water anyway. If you're going down anyway, why not go down in flames?

What a brave, Texan thing it would be to stand up and say, "I will appoint who I want". Hopefully with better advice this time. 

This won't mean anything to you unless you've read my entry about The Nineteen Percenters.

Right now at CNN.com is a poll asking whether indictments were justified. Take a wild guess how many say "no".

Twas the Night before Fitzmas
And all through the House
Not a wingnut was sleeping -
They were scared as a mouse.
The skeletons hung in the closets with care
In hopes that Fitzgerald would not look in there.
The Kossacks were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of frog-marches danced in their heads.
And Rove in his office and Libby they say
Had just come to terms with what's coming their way,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear
But Santa Fitzgerald in full battle gear!
"Now, Scooter! Now, Karl! Join Tom and Bill Frist
On the Famous Republican Criminals List!"
He gave not a leak, but went straight to his work,
And passed out indictments with nary a smirk,
But I heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight,
"Merry Fitzmas to all, except maybe the right!"

Hey, it happens. Every once in a while someone puts things better than I can.

I shake my head at  the comments from Christians who say I obsess on this topic. Yup - just the same way many Democrats are obsessing about George Bush, and for the same reasons. We believe you're ruining the world. Just as hardcore Bushies can't see the error of their ways. you just aren't capable of seeing this, so to you, our anger is unreasoning and comes out of nowhere.

Next time you observe that atheists seem filled with anger, please let the echoes of that phrase as used against you yourself by Republicans ring in your ears. If we're angry, it's righteous anger.

For your Sunday after-church reading, please let me reccomend the following excellent article by Cenk Uygur:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/if-youre-a-christian-mu_ b_9349.html 

We liberals, because we're just better people I suppose, impose limits on ourselves that the Right just doesn't deem necessary.

Ann Coulter is the example that leaps to mind. I'm glad some Republicans with gonads are finally speaking up against this dangerous idiot, but what took them so long? Where were their morals back then? And how can they not understand that we mistrust their judgement and intentions if Ann Coulter is OK with them?

Why is civilized discourse a priority of the left and not the right? Simply put: They're bad people. Their morals are all talk.

For instance, Ann Coulter has no shame at all about wishing actual physical harm to liberals, so they can "understand they can be killed". But has any liberal posted his desire to educate her to the evils of physical violence? By suggesting, for instance, that a sharp, well-delivered, well-timed punch to that anteater nose could make her understand that violence is a bad thing?

Of course not. We'd never stoop so low.

Another disaster, another yellowtoothed evangelist to blame it on the ungodly. Who is this God he talks to? Could some of you people who talk to the "real" god please hook this guy up?

It astounds me how people, apparently intelligent people, can live side by side with their religious beliefs and never seriously question them. Just blindly look over the illogic and contradictions as if they didn't exist.

For instance, we can prove God doesn't exist right here, right now. I'm thinking of a number. Ask God what it is.

Wrong.

Frivolous? Not at all, because it illustrates this point: No experiments can be designed to test for God's existence, because true believers change the rules left and right to make a test impossible. Of course that experiment won't work, they sniff. God doesn't have to prove himself.

Excuse me: Yes, he does. Just the smallest irrefutable evidence would be very welcome, please. I and millions of others would welcome such a demonstration.

Oh, but no, that breaks another rule. God must not prove himself; each must come to know the truth individually, not by some grand proof.

Oh. How very conveeeeeeeeenient.

And untrue, by your own book. What made Saul into Paul? What convinced MANY followers that Jesus was a god? Demonstrations of his godly abilities.

(I feel like I'm arguing about what kind of bird Big Bird is here.)

So why then and not now? "The age of miracles is past."

Oh, ah. How unlucky we were to miss it.

John Hannah, Josh throw out with no explanation.

A moment's Googling finds this:

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.

Full story at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-12.htm

Now, honey, you've GOT to go to sleep or Santa won't come! What's that I hear... is it sleighbells?

Christmas is coming. 

Oh yes she did.

Feinstein said she remained open to voting to confirm Miers, citing in part concerns raised by conservative Republicans. “The way she’s being beaten up by the far right is very sexist. People should hold their fire and give people an opportunity to come before a hearing,”

Sexist. Great. Let's overuse THAT one just as the right always expects us to. I can hear their eyeballs rolling now. Only trouble is, mine are rolling too.

Sexist? Puh-leez.

We Texans take a lot of grief.

Imagine for one moment what it must feel like to be a liberal in Texas. Well, you're wrong; it's worse. Not only to other Texans like to pretend we're not here, but our presence is inconvenient for thoughtless, elitist coasters who prefer to think of us all as barefoot hillbillies inhabiting flyover country.

But Texans, for better or worse, seem to have some built-in qualities that we're famous for. One of them, related no doubt to a surplus of environmental testosterone down here, is the fact that one of the more fruitless things to do in life is to lay down a challenge to a Texan. We take it personally.

So it's not without a good deal of glee that I observe the catfight - or, given the power involved, the sumo wrestling match - between my new hero Ronnie Earle and Tom Delay. Two died-in-the-wool Texans with utterly different outlooks, and you have to hand it to Delay, he is doing his best to belittle and thwart Earle.

But part of me, the part that has that Christmas-is-near feeling, shakes my inner head in wonder. You purposely started a blood feud with a powerful Texas prosecutor who has been a state fixture for a quarter century?

Man. Talk about cajones.

I have a feeling this is going to end in a spectacular way. I have the feeling we will soon have good reason to think that baiting a Texas prosecutor by comparing him to Elmer Fudd, etc., is not good for the further unfolding of your life plans.

I noticed something odd some time ago. Check out any online poll at some place like CNN.com (NOT Fox) and you'll notice it too. No matter what the question is - no matter how whacky - there is a solid 19% that will be in favor of the nutball choice.

I don't care if it's "should we eat puppies for breakfast". Nineteen percent will say yes.

In the latest poll numbers, only 28% of the country thinks it is going in the right direction. Subtract the Nutball Nineteen from this and it means only NINE PERCENT of the country - not counting the drooling class - supports where Bush is taking us.

If only we cound get the names of those nine percent and subject them to remedial education or something. The Nutball Nineteen is and always has been beyond hope - they must simply be kept from power.

That's what the war costs, according to James Cramer's figures. $177 million a day. (I'd link to the article but I can't figure out this editor.)

Say that slowly to yourself: A hundred and seventy-seven... MILLION... dollars... a day.

Two... thousand... dollars... a second.

Go ahead, try explaining this to your kids. Try explaining that they are going to have to foot the bill.

As a regular Bull Moose reader - every day, that is - I am dismayed that he seems to have lost it over the last few days. Demanding apologies from Cindy Sheehan for insulting McCain, and now from Kos and Atrios for slander, while he calls them McCarthyites repeatedly and doesn't see a problem with it. Well, after all, he is an ex-conservative - maybe he just isn't fully thinking straight yet.

I read Atrios and Kos every day too, and I have to confess, in this little slapfight I'm solidly with them. It is perfectly in line to question Lieberman's presence at that function. It is certainly not slander, and it is certainly not McCarthyism. We are capable of assimilating the FACTS that were laid out and drawing our own conclusions.

Hey Moosie, you don't seem to know this, but "McCarthyite" is a little like "Nazi": It's a conversational nuclear bomb. Cultured people, especially on the same side of the fence, don't call each other McCarthyites. Plus, it trivializes the evil that was McCarthyism.

Given that Kos and Atrios have adequately and rather calmly explained their position, given that The Moose has chosen to respond to this with more insults including repeated McCarthy references, I have concluded that the Moose is not nearly the reasonable person I thought he was, and I think I'll take him off my daily reading list.

I would say this there and not here were it not for the fact that his site is one-way. Wonder why that is.

Do you sometimes feel as though America is in quicksand? Dragging us down, down, until the neocons and Christofascists (c)  get the country they want and the real America, that bright beacon to the world,  is smothered and lost to history.

I saw an interesting article at CNN.com the other day about quicksand, and it struck me how very apropos the new findings were.

Did you know you can't really drown in quicksand? Unless you fall in headfirst or something, that is. You can only sink in about halfway before the balances are restored and you're stuck as far as you will be.

You can't forcibly pull someone out of quicksand. The forces involved would tear them apart.

What you have to do if you're stuck in quicksand is free yourself a little at a time. Move your feet until water seeps in and frees them. Slowly, slowly work against the quicksand until little by little you have more wiggle room.

That's what I feel like is happening lately. We're starting to get a little wiggle room.

AUSTIN, Texas - A Texas grand jury indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on a new charge of money laundering Monday, less than a week after another grand jury leveled a conspiracy charge that forced DeLay to temporarily step down as House majority leader.

Stay tuned, folks. This one is going into extra innings.

One of the things I find intolerable about Bush America is the effect it's had on my personality.

I'm an old hippie, I admit it. I try to get along with everyone. For most of my life I've been proud to be able to say that, although I didn't care for some people, there was no one I actually hated.

That has changed.

With the emergence of the just-plain-mean right wing over the past twenty years or so, I can no longer say that. I hate these people with every fiber of my being for what they have done to my country. I no longer speak to people who identify themselves as Republicans. There are people out there who I, as a six-and-a-half foot tall, 230-pound guy, would love to throw a punch at.

And it has destroyed who I thought I was.

CNN's latest poll question:

Do you think the government should raise taxes to pay for rebuilding New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast?

(sound of head banging on wall)

An incredibly dishonest question. How about "Do you think the government should rethink the enormous Bush tax cuts to the wealthy" to pay for it?

Republican doublethink again. Cancelling tax cuts to them is a tax hike. There's just no reasoning with these people.

I'd like to confront head-on this idea that a person's atheism has any connection whatsoever with their morality.

Christians have all these rules of behavior, some of which are in the Bible, some of which they just sort of make up. But to enforce this "moral behavior", they believe God holds a big stick over their heads: act right, or you'll go to Hell.

Which is a better kid, one that only behaves when there's the threat of punishment over his head, or one who behaves because they have come to the inner conclusion that they should? Which one is more moral? Which is more admirable?

Obviously, the kid whose good behavior arose from within. I have the good fortune to have five of these, I hasten to add before someone tells me I don't know anything about kids.

Why is it considered "moral" to adhere to certain behaviors under threat of punishment? If a person is truly moral, shouldn't these behaviors come freely from within? How admirable is the good behavior of a parolee who knows if he slips up, it's back to jail?
 
Here's what the Christians are telling us: If you don't believe in God, you have no moral compass. I would turn that around: If the only reason you act like a good person is because you are scared Skydaddy is going to spank you, your morality is as thin as paper. YOU have no moral compass. True morality comes from within, not from some imaginary God holding a sword over your head.

If your morality comes from the church leaders telling you what God expects so you won't go to Hell, you have no morality at all. What you have is the soul of a sheep, and you have placed yourself in a position to be manipulated by the leaders. Hence the existence of the Religious Right.
 
Give me independent thought any day. And give me a party that welcomes free thinkers.

O’Reilly: The truth of the matter is our correspondents at Fox News can’t go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad.

Rice: Bill, that’s tough. It’s tough. But what — would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?

 

Man, that gal thinks on her feet, doesn't she?

Ommmmmmmmmmmmm.........................

Deepak Chopra has a very basic problem that I can put in a few words, which words I thought of almost immediately after posting my last entry.

He wants it both ways. He wants to sneer at skeptics and critical thinkers, and on the other hand he wants us to believe that his ideas descend directly from the great scientific minds of the 20th century.

I'm sorry, but that is an utterly contradictory position. None of the great thinkers he insults by wedging himself into their company would support his opinions about skepticism for one moment. Their very lives were profound monuments to the antithesis of everything Chopra believes, and for him to mention them in the defense of his fantasies is deeply insulting.

Continuing my Chopra rant, I didn't give this one enough attention:

"4. Chaos and orderliness coexist, one being necessary for the other."

Well, yes. Any two things that you define as being opposites depend on each other for their very existence, by definition. Duh.

This is why I hate philosophy. This sounds very deep but compare and contrast:

Heat and cold coexist, one being necessary for the other.

Good and evil coexist, one being necessary for the other.

Darkness and light coexist, one being necessary for the other.

Not quite so profound-sounding now, is it? In fact you can see it for what it is: a word trick. It means nothing at all.

First, you have to understand one thing, unless you are already familiar with skeptical principles and the tactics of the antiscience crowd. It is quite easy to dress up nutty ideas in pseudoscientific clothing, throwing in the word "quantum" here and there. To the lay reader, this is impressive; "Wow, he's tied together philosophy and physics."

Naah. He has ignored ALL the basic rules of science and replaced them with "opinion". This is not science, this is hand-waving.

First, he refers to the expanding universe and the idea that dinosaurs evolved from birds as evidence that nutty ideas sometimes turn out to be true:

"These ideas have gone through the whole cycle from derisory attack to general acceptance."

But, Deepak, that happened through something known as the scientific method. It does not happen through philosophers sitting around and deciding how things "must" work.

Another howler:

"A new evolutionary theory, should it arise, would have to begin with quantum physics."

Classic pseudoscience. Take the latest buzzword and work it into your nutty theory, and suddenly it sounds more plausible. No, Deepak, not until the effects of quantum physics are shown to have any consequences on a macroscopic level.

Now let's look at some of the "principles he personally supports":

"1. Intelligence doesn't "appear" at a late stage of evolution. It seems to be inherent in nature."

Evidence, please? Intelligence, as far as we know so far, has "appeared" only in one creature in the universe - ourselves. Maybe it's just a bit of a leap to regard it as an underlying force of nature? Ya think?

"2. Before there is intelligence in action, there is the potential for intelligence. This must precede the Big Bang and still exists at a subtle level of Nature."

Must it? Why? Says who? You? Evidence, please, that it "still exists at a subtle level of Nature"?

"3. The primary evidence for intelligence in the universe isn't design but consciousness. In some mysterious way Nature knows what it is doing."

Indeed. Well, certainly no proof needed of that. Hoo, boy.

"4. Chaos and orderliness coexist, one being necessary for the other."

Sounds very deep. What the hell does it mean?

"5. Evolution manipulates chaos the way an artist manipulates paint, to turn basic ingredients into complex forms. "

Very pretty words. If science was done using pretty words, this might mean something.

"6. Consciousness may exist in photons, which seem to be the carrier of all information in the universe."

Oh really. Consciousness may exist in photons? Have you one shred of evidence or are you simply winging it here? I know of many fellow travelers down this road who will welcome you with open arms, set you up with magnets and a pyramid and sit at your feet, gazing at you in awe.

Enough. If you are the sort to be impressed with such twaddle, welcome to woo-woo land. Lord knows (irony intended) we have our share of whak jobs on the left, if anything, loonier than those on the right.

What Deepak Chopra has done for us here should not be mistaken. He has shown us very clearly that we must not think of ourselves as the party of reason and logic, because in our midst are these deeply nutty folks who will believe and postulate anything - and who place themselves on an equal standing with people who actually do science. This is terribly dangerous. It is exactly as dangerous when this looniness comes from our side of the aisle as it is when it comes from theirs.

Reason and science must be our guides. When woo-wooism like this rears its head, it is our DUTY to combat it forcefully. The forces of unreason know no political divides.