Check out this disconcerting story about the $27 million, new Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky: Adam and Eve in the Land of Dinosaurs.
Some of my favorite exerpts:

Outside the museum scientists may assert that the universe is billions of years old, that fossils are the remains of animals living hundreds of millions of years ago, and that life’s diversity is the result of evolution by natural selection. But inside the museum the Earth is barely 6,000 years old, dinosaurs were created on the sixth day, and Jesus is the savior who will one day repair the trauma of man’s fall.
…
Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry’s views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the “Jaws” and “King Kong” attractions at Universal Studios in Florida.

Ah, spectacle, where would religions be without you? To see the fucked-up and scary lows to which evangelical preachers will go in their use of spectacle to indoctrinate children with ass-backwards religious beliefs, watch the stellar movie, Jesus Camp.

Compare:
A) Democrats Drop Troop Pullout Dates From Iraq Bill

B) Chart of Enemy Attacks in Iraq, which shows that the civil war has progressively intensified since 2003 and that the “surge” hasn’t helped much.

Questions: Why the fuck are American troops still there? Why do Bush and the Republican drones ignore the evidence that the troop presence is not helping, but only allowing the deaths of more Iraqis and US soldiers? Why are the Democrats being cowards? Or rather, are the Democrats playing politics here, i.e., what is their strategy?

Intense.

With democrats in charge we are starting to get new coverage of some of the rather egregious lies to come out of this war.

Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch. People who I think really are admirable people who were lionized with lies to sell the public on the war. I think Jessica Lynch is even more of a hero for coming out and telling the truth. She could have gone with the flow, pretended the story was true and gone on a right wing speaking tour. But she decided to tell the truth instead.

via tbogg.

I heard the press conference today. Let me get this straight, the president seems to be saying that if funding for his war is cut he will react be cutting all sorts of things and extending tours. But he won’t withdraw. So he is going to use the troops as a blackmail tool?

This is a must read.

Your new SecDef:

[Gates] said it may require a new law to “address the concerns about some of these people who really need to be incarcerated forever but that doesn’t get them involved in a judicial system where there is the potential of them being released,” Gates told the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

Ah, yes, isn’t it so annoying that we have to get involved in a judicial system before we incarcerate someone forever? Stupid constitution…

Link from Pandagon.

But can the 9/11 Truth movement please go have their own protests? Every time I see these people at a war protest I am embarrassed for all of us and I just hope they don’t end up on the news. There is no point in debunking their claims here, but people, 9/11 was an inside job the same way dinosaurs died in Noah’s flood. This has been the worst administration ever, but there is no evidence, none, that they actually committed mass murder on that scale (in the US anyway).

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

I know nobody thought this was going anywhere but the supreme court. But it is still very disturbing that anyone, even if they are Reagan and Bush I appointees, can hold that there is a state prisoners can be in that has no legal recourse.

I am not a legal expert. I can speak to the constitutionality of this law and gitmo in general. But I still believe that this is not in the spirit of the bill of rights. A lot of supporters of detention, torture, extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretapping will argue that this is expedient…the threat is such that these measures are necessary to make us safe from terror. If even if this were true, which it doesn’t seem to be, efficacy cannot be the standard for what our country considers acceptable or normal behavior. There is no question in my mind that an authoritarian government can be very effective. The decisions made during the founding of our country were not made for effective war fighting, but to protect the truths the founders found to be self evident. If the police could should suspected criminals on sight there is no doubt that crime would fall, as would the number of innocent people shot by the police.

The current administration and its partisan supporters are not conservatives. They are authoritarians. They may at some level have good intentions, but their vision of our country must be opposed.