LiveBlog for Friday, December 17, 2010

Day 5 of Hal's "Obama Rocks" talking points super show! Obama's cool and all, but we can go ahead and remove our lips from his bum, Mr. Sparks.

Bush news (sorry, all)

The blunderful guy held a book signing at the Billy Graham Library
this week. (Near Steph's mom's home) (NOT making this up) A mortgage banker, attending, said
that we need more presidents like Bush. (NOT making that up!)

I'm guessing the mortgage banker wants to go back to the "good" (for
mortgage bankers) old days of no and slow regulation so they can do
more of what they almost did to the entire world's economy.

No word on what Billy Graham says to mortgage bankers. Perhaps
what does it profit you to gain the entire world and lose your own
soul?

Merry ChrimaHanaKwanzakaah to all.

(details at end of article www.charlotte.com)

Yay! Now gays can openly kill people for a country that treats them like second class citizens! Oh, glorious day! Done with Hal; hurry back, Steph.

So because I don't worship at the alter of Obama and I'm not hailing this repeal as the second coming, I must want a Sarah Palin jacket?

Oh, Hal, you've become Stephanie. Why don't you play some "fine American music" while you read a letter from some former Puma telling me that I'm the reason the repugs took control of the House?

I mean, I was told I helped the terrorists for not supporting Bush lock-stock-and-barrel, so I guess I need to be insulted for not doing the same with Obama.

Yes, he's done a lot of great things for this country; and yes, he was dealt a crap hand by the neo-convicts, but give me a break... I don't need to worship this man. And I can call him out on some BS when I see it.

Happy Thursday, gang! Work crazy train is hurtling down the track, so no blogging for me again.

Just a quick note, I'm having trouble downloading Wednesday's podcast on iTunes, don't know if it's my end or SMS. I can watch the UStream (and like to, for the "sausage" during the ads), but that's not going to get my laundry folded or my floors mopped like Steph on the iPod, now is it? :-D

Thanks again to Hal, Tony et al. for holding the fort this week! While I'm not a metal fan per se, I get a kick out of the metal intros and outros. Thanks, guys!

It sure is Obama apologist up in here, Sparks.

Just because HuffPo call it like it is doesn't mean it's just like the GOP. If the President wants to stop those on the Left from UNDERMINING his agenda, maybe he should stop doing it himself.

Caller said Stephanie & co know how the congress works... haha, Steph doesn't know how a VCR works. Suddenly Thom Hartmann is some know-nothing. And forget that Press wasn't even an Obama supporter.

Happy Tuesday, gang!

Work "esploded" this week and it looks like the Crazy Train right through the first week of January, so Iiveblogging and even podcasting will be sporadic at best. So Happy ChrismaHanaKwanzaakah to all!

Is there any man who chats-up women better than Hal Sparks?

40 : I thought someone should start InYourFacebook where you could 'enemy' people and let them know the bad things they've done.

El Cid,

My theory about the showers fetish is that it goes back to some creepy "boys club" men had going in the 50s and 60s.

Women, and men after that don't seem to worry much about it.

Having been in the military (including basic training), I have directly seen that servicemen who publicly assured that they were not homosexual and even had 'girlfriends' were in fact gay and often dishonestly convinced their 'girlfriends' that they were in a heterosexual relationship while doing double duty as they could.

Also, why the f*** do these freaks always fetishize showering?

The biggest threat we faced in the few non-divided multi-person showers left was when someone flushed the toilet (scalding you) or when someone let a monster fart or major waste relief, turning the entire bathroom into a foul, gas-filled disaster area.

And, of course, having to be the ones cleaning the whole bathroom, in turn at least.

Since it appears that everyone is going to be at Hal's ustream site, I'll just wish everyone Merry Christmas and see you next year.

70 :lol:

re 65: just discovered "B" key on teletype broken.

Happy Christmahanukwanzaka everybody!

Bye all! Happy holidays! Have a Friday, have a weekend! Bounce 'em if you've got 'em! Talk to you soon!

war is a business to the Republicans

63 that's orrible

a giant lizzard has hit the east coast, shutting down airports from altimore to oston.

Eeeeeeek! Gojira!

Vick should be made to clean up Steph's yard :mrgreen:

a giant lizzard has hit the east coast, shutting down airports from altimore to oston.

can't wait to see the Boehner weeping uncontollably at the podium and Eric Cantor (Smithers) coming up and slapping him periodically.

arguing with a republican is like t-ball. Just refuse to follow them to new subjects unless they concede that you were correct on the last subject. They get caught in an infinite loop, unable to continue the argument without changing the subject, and unable to change the subject with conceding the argument.

Randi Rhodes said there are giant lizards eating the small lizards in florida already.

#57 I'm finding out that the typical response (as demonstrated by RW callers to the show) is to bring up a totally unrelated "talking point".

My recent Facebook Wars has been more like batting practice. They pitch 'em, I knock 'em out of the park. :)

Hunter Thompson blamed 'Ibogaine' for Muskie's erratic behavior:

http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/HIUS316/mbase/docs/h...

(Last section on the page -- search 'Ibogaine')

Hilarious stuff! Still fascinating that some people took it seriously . . .

#55 Well, you forget that the conservative response to any such point is "No it wasn't!" Or, "Nuh-Uh!"

I want dog treats in the bill, but pork will do.

#52 That what I told a RW "friend" of mine the other day. He complained that Obama's stimulus hasn't worked. I said, it was too small and too reliant on tax cuts.

BREAKING: The little town of Bethlehem just put out a warrant for the arrest of Laura Ingraham. thank gawd.

Have a good weekend everyone!

WHENEVER CALLERS AND REPUBLICANS TALK ABOUT ALL THAT 'STIMULUS' MONEY, PLEASE FORCE THEM TO ADMIT THAT OVER $300 MILLION OF THE $787 BILLION WERE TAX CUTS.

Were tax cuts.

Tax Cuts.

Huge portion of the stimulus: Tax Cuts.

Jim was singing the end of my favourite Christmas song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPIbLManOzs

Ahem not for those of the faint of heart.

GO GAY! GO ARMY!!

WTF?

You mean like in China with all the former US manufacturing jobs?

when did America loose it's mind?

let's war on Rush!

New reports just out, Rush, which show how much the divide between the rich and non-rich has grown. If there's a war, the middle-class and poor are loosing.

43...good point! haha

I have noticed that many who text messages & email, have forgotten the "art" of capitalization.

Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

Mr. Assange said he came up with the idea for the new site while combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of WikiLeaks documents: “I realized that diplomats didn’t have a way to reconnect with old colleagues so they could lie to them.”

Saying that he hopes to build the site into a “portal of deceit,” Mr. Assange said, “This will be a must-visit destination on the Internet for sworn enemies to friend each other.”

The WikiLeaks founder said that Twofacebook would also enable members of the diplomatic community to share information about music, movies and TV shows “that they say they like but actually detest.”

Additionally, he said he had high hopes for the site’s first online game, Harmville, in which diplomats can kill or maim each other’s sheep.

Elsewhere, President Obama said he was “delighted” by his new deal with Republicans, in which he agreed to give them his lunch money.

in Jesus's time, craft trades like carpenter and stonemason were covered by the guild of masons. Jesus was a mason.

Julian Assange to Launch Social Network for Diplomats, Twofacebook™

I heard someone say that Jesus was a non-union carpenter. A little known fact lost to history is that nearly every single table that Jesus made... wobbled. You can't be good at everything.

Monongahela Ingots--a name consumers have gradually grown to trust over the courst of several decades.

An astronomer argues that his Christian faith and his peers' belief that he is an evolution skeptic kept him from getting a prestigious job as the director of a new student observatory at the University of Kentucky.

Martin Gaskell quickly rose to the top of a list of applicants being considered by the university's search committee. One member said he was "breathtakingly above the other applicants."

Others openly worried his Christian faith could conflict with his duties as a scientist, calling him "something close to a creationist" and "potentially evangelical."

Even though Gaskell says he is not a creationist, he claims he was passed over for the job at UK's MacAdam Student Observatory three years ago because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of the theory of evolution.

Gaskell has sued the university, claiming lost income and emotional distress. Last month a judge rejected a motion from the university and allowed it to go to trial Feb. 8.

"There is no dispute that based on his application, Gaskell was a leading candidate for the position," U.S. District Judge Karl S. Forester wrote in the ruling.

Gaskell later learned that professors had discussed his purported religious views during the search process. Gaskell told the AP in an e-mail that he didn't grow frustrated, but felt "one should not allow universities to get away with religious discrimination."

University scientists wondered to each other in internal e-mails if Gaskell's faith would interfere with the job, which included public outreach, according to court records.

The topic became so heated behind the scenes that even university biologists, who believed Gaskell was a critic of evolution, weighed in by citing a controversial Bible-based museum in Kentucky that had just opened.

"We might as well have the Creation Museum set up an outreach office in biology," biology professor James Krupa wrote to a colleague in an October 2007 e-mail. The museum was making national headlines at the time for exhibits that assert the literal truth of the Bible's creation story.

Science professors cited a lecture Gaskell has given called "Modern Astronomy, the Bible and Creation," which he developed for "Christians and others interested in Bible and science questions...," according to an outline of the lecture. Gaskell told the AP he was invited to give the lecture at UK in 1997, and organizers had read his notes.

The wide-ranging lecture outlines historical scientific figures who discuss God and interpretations of the creation story in the biblical chapter Genesis. Also in the notes, Gaskell mentions evolution, saying the theory has "significant scientific problems" and includes "unwarranted atheistic assumptions and extrapolations," according to court records.

Gaskell was briefly asked about the lecture during his job interview in 2007 with the chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michael Cavagnero, according to Gaskell's deposition. Gaskell said he felt that questions related to religion during the job interview were "inappropriate."

"I think that if I had a document like this and I was advocating atheism ... I don't think it would be an issue," he said of his lecture.

Science professors also expressed concern that hiring Gaskell would damage the university's image.

An astrophysics professor, Moshe Elitzur, told Cavagnero that the hire would be a "huge public relations mistake," according to an e-mail from Cavagnero in court records.

"Moshe predicts that he would not be here one month before the (Lexington) Herald-Leader headline would read: 'UK hires creationist to direct new student observatory.'"

University spokesman Jay Blanton declined to comment Monday because the litigation is pending.

Gaskell said he is not a "creationist" and his views on evolution are in line with other biological scientists. In his lecture notes, Gaskell also distances himself from Christians who believe the earth is a few thousand years old, saying their assertions are based on "mostly very poor science."

Gaskell's lawsuit is indicative of an increasingly tense debate between religion and science on college campuses and elsewhere, said Steven K. Green, a law professor and director of the Center for Religion, Law & Democracy at Willamette University in Salem, Ore.

"I think it reflects a phenomenon that the sides in this debate are becoming more encamped, they're hunkering down," Green said. "Because certainly within the biology community and within the science community generally, they see the increasing attacks creationists are making as very threatening to their existence — and vice versa, to a certain extent."

Gaskell was uniquely qualified for the new position at the University of Kentucky, according to court records, because he oversaw the design and construction of an observatory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also advised UK during the building of the MacAdam facility. He currently teaches at the University of Texas.

His attorney, Frank Manion, said scientists at UK were too quick to place Gaskell on one side of the creation-evolution debate.

"Unfortunately too many people get hung up on the idea that you have to be one extreme or the other," said Manion, who works for American Center for Law & Justice, which focuses on religious freedom cases. They say "you can't be a religious believer and somebody who accepts evolution, which is clearly not true. And Gaskell's a perfect example of that."

happy holidays everyone!

We Minnesotans have always hated the 'sconnies, now we just hate you more for killing high-speed rail.
;)