Getting the Coverage They Deserve

A follow up to my earlier post, via Oliver Willis on Twitter. Headline-grabbing nutjob Terry Jones may not be getting all the press attention he so obviously craves. From an internal memo circulated by Tom Kent of the Associated Press:

The concept of this planned event is offensive to many Muslims worldwide. National leaders and spokesmen for other religious denominations have also found the plan repugnant.

Should the event happen on Saturday, the AP will not distribute images or audio that specifically show Qurans being burned, and will not provide detailed text descriptions of the burning. With the exception of these specific images and descriptions, we expect to cover the Gainesville event, in all media, placing the actions of this group of about 50 people in a clear and balanced context.

AP policy is not to provide coverage of events that are gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend. In the past, AP has declined to provide images of cartoons mocking Islam and Jews. AP has often declined to provide images, audio or detailed descriptions of particularly bloody or grisly scenes, such as the sounds and moments of beheadings and shootings, displays of severed heads on pikes and images of hostages who are displayed by hostage-holders in an effort to intimidate their adversaries and advance their cause. Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

Sorry bud, no photo of yourself triumphantly burning books. You're in the same category as terrorist holding hostages.

Colin Powell, 2008. Subject: Muslim-Americans

With the new big fad on the right being hatred of Muslims, it's a good time to revisit a 2008 video on the subject. On an appearance on Meet the Press, Colin Powell not only shoots down the argument that Obama's a Muslim, but asks us to consider why we think it would matter if he were.

Partial transcript, courtesy of Alan Colmes:

Powell: [Obama is] a Christian; has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, “What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?” The answer’s “No, that’s not America.” Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be President?

… one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery. And she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave… He was twenty years old. And then at the very top of the headstone… it had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey, he was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he could go serve his country and he gave his life.

The photo:



So all you people freaked out about the Growing Muslim Menace, take those damned flags off your cars and quit referring to yourselves as "patriots." Patriots don't hate other Americans. There are a lot of better words you could apply to yourselves -- coward, demagogue, bigot, fool -- but the best is "anti-American." You are the anti-patriots. I know it's fun to dress up and play founding father, but wearing a tri-corner hat and waving a flag doesn't make you a patriot. Being a patriot makes you a patriot.

And sorry folks, you just don't measure up.

FOX News Ignores the Beam in Their Own Eye

Fox News is outraged -- OUTRAGED! -- that a celebrity would use his starpower to attack political figures he doesn't like.

Actor John Cusack went on a caustic Twitter rampage Sunday evening, attacking former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Fox News.

“I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS,” Cusack tweeted.

Cusack has long been outspoken about politics. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election and has contributed to The Huffington Post, but this is the first known time he has stooped to the level of making threats.

Ok, so it's not extremely constructive, but Fox sees something more sinister. "[W]hile the U.S. Constitution protects Cusack's right to speak his mind, some critics say he should be more careful about what he says, since he has more than 200,000 Twitter followers," Fox cautions.

"His provocative tweets could easily incite a rabid fan to commit violent acts against Fox News Headquarters and others he names," said Dr. Carole Lieberman, a Beverly Hills-based psychiatrist.

It's about at this point that I stopped reading, because all I could think was, "Oh for fuck's sake..."

Rightwing celebrities like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, or Sean Hannity -- all Fox News contributors, by the way -- have spent weeks trying to convince their idiot fans that a community center in Manhattan is a "Victory mosque" celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center. In case you haven't been paying attention lately, that hasn't gone so well for Muslims.

And now we're supposed to be afraid because John Freakin' Cusack let out an angry tweet about Tea Party bigs and Fox News? Excuse me if I don't panic.

A Reality Injection

David Gibson writes about a new anti-Muslim crimes flaring up and a new anti-hate PSA designed to head it off.

An Islamic advocacy group on Monday launched an affecting public service announcement featuring a montage of American Muslims, including children and senior citizens, a doctor and a cop, a Phillies fan and faces of different races, all aimed at countering the wave of suspicion and Islam-bashing stemming from the mosque proposed near Ground Zero.

The new effort comes as authorities in various states are investigating a number of possible bias and hate-crime incidents directed at Muslim targets. On Sunday, the FBI announced it was joining the investigation of a fire at the future site of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., that has been a catalyst for protests.

A brick was thrown through the window of a California mosque last week and a few days earlier signs were left at the mosque that read, "No temple for the god of terrorism at Ground Zero." Earlier this month, a plastic pig inscribed with messages such as "Remember 9-11" and "MO HAM MED the Pig" was stuffed into the mailbox of another Islamic center in California. (Like Jews, Muslims have a prohibition on eating pork.)

Here's the ad:

Pretty straightforward: I'm a human, not a monster. Still, there's not a lot you can do about the haters. If there's one thing I've noticed about wingnuts, it's that they're pigheaded and have found a level of ignorance that they're totally comfortable with (apparently, others have noticed this as well). Long after everyone else has moved on and wised up, they'll go to their graves certain that all the bullshit they've bought into is true, true, true.

The guys lighting the fires and firing the shots and pissing in mosques are hopeless. They are complete lost causes. They've decided to be idiots and, by God, they're going to keep being idiots until they draw their final breath.

That's not to say this is a wasted effort. There are a lot people confused by all the idiocy out there and someone needs to set them straight. The media sucks at doing that, so you take matters into your own hands.

Refusing to be Satisfied with Anything Regarding Park51

Bad news for lunatics: Park51 may qualify for tax-free financing. The rightwing nutjobs at Weasel Zippers are outraged... OUTRAGED!! "I’m sure the ACLU and Islamist-loving Lefturds will be outraged by this violation of separation of church and state," writes some dumbass or other. Actually, TIF funding is used for religious projects all the time and no one seems to have a problem with it. It's not like this is the first time it's ever come up.

However, just last month WZ posted another story about how the Park51 builders had rejected an offer for an alternative site by Gov. Patterson, linking to this NY1 story (emphasis mine):

The developer of the controversial mosque in Lower Manhattan says he is open to Governor David Paterson’s offer to help find another site for the project.

Paterson is volunteering another site on state owned property for the Islamic Center.

He says there needs to be greater dialogue to try and soothe everyone’s fears.

That deal fell through, as it was widely expected to and as Park51 organizers suggested to the reporter. The reaction of WZ to this giveaway of taxpayer owned land? They were all for it and outraged -- OUTRAGED!! -- that the Islamo-fascist Muslim community center builders didn't take it. "Why would they voluntarily move it when the mosque next to Ground Zero is a tribute to the Islamist victory on 9/11?" the post asks -- as incredulously as it does stupidly.

So accepting taxpayer funding: BOO!!

Rejecting taxpayer funding: BOO!!

How can anyone take these people seriously when they're so inconsistent? I suppose it's because the readers are as insane as the writers. One minute, black is black, the next black is white, then black is a baby koala in a tophat drinking lemonade. Only a lunatic or an imbecile would be able to look at these contradictory stances and say, "Hell yeah!" to all of them.

But that's the right for you; cognitive dissonance all the way.

Ground Zero Should be a Glenn Beck-Free Zone

I wish I'd come across this when I was writing the roundup today. Cenk Uygur and Dylan Rattigan discuss the propriety of allowing Glenn Beck anywhere near Ground Zero.

The only thing I'd add here is that Dylan Ratigan has a really bad habit of asking absurdly long, complicated questions. Whenever I see him, I always wind up thinking, "Shut up and get to the question mark already!" Seriously, is he the only guy at MSNBC who's paid by the word?

That aside, if you see Glenn Beck near Ground Zero, it's your patriotic duty to walk up to him and say, "Git! Git!" It's not the law, but it is what's right. You know that in your special American heart.


ETA: Whoops! Almost forgot. This came to my attention as a twitter petition. Go to http://act.ly/2c0 and reweet it to sign. Maybe we can get this to be law after all.

Or definitely not. But that doesn't stop it from being funny.

Muslim Cabbie Attacked in New York

And so it begins.

Story at NY1.

Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars isn't all that happy about this -- as no sane person should be. "Damn it all. Listen, lizard brain people: 'Muslim' does not mean 'terrorist' or 'America hater'," she writes. "There have been American Muslims here for a century. Muslims died on 9/11 too. Muslims reached out and helped their community after that tragedy as well, as NYPD, FDNY and volunteers. It was their tragedy too. What you are doing makes you no better than the blind and dogmatic hatred of al Qaeda."

The people whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria -- and you know who you are -- are not beyond blame here, as much as they'll spend the time it takes to convince everyone they are. When you whip up hatred and fear, when you lie about good people to cast them as "the enemy," this is what will happen. It's practically guaranteed.




UPDATE: And things get officially weird...

Village Voice:

Michael Enright of Brewster, New York, who was booked on charges of attempted murder and assault with a weapon as a hate crime, is listed on Facebook as an employee of the New York City-based Intersections International, a New York-based "global initiative dedicated to promoting justice, reconciliation and peace across lines of faith, culture, ideology, race, class, national borders and other boundaries that divide humanity." And a few weeks ago, they announced their support for -- you guessed it -- the Cordoba House, better known to many as the "Ground Zero Mosque."

According to Politico, he "had recently spent time with a combat unit in Afghanistan filming military exercises until this past May." So PTSD, maybe? Who knows.

I suppose you could argue that an employee doesn't necessarily share the views of the employer -- which definitely seems to be the case here. I mean, I doubt you'll find "stab Muslims" in Intersections International's charter. But it really doesn't seem to be the sort of place you'd work if hating Muslims had always been one of your favorite pastimes.

As this all gets less confusing (assuming it ever does), we'll probably learn more.


UPDATE II: And things get weirder. I came across this on Mediaite, among clips of films Enright had made about PTSD.

Enright’s Facebook page also lists him as a supporter of Assemblyman Greg Ball, the maverick conservative Republican who represents his home district and is running a heated primary campaign for the New York State Senate. While Ball is an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration (here’s a video of him talking about illegal immigration as he walks through Enright’s home town), he has never made a statement about the Cordoba House. Ball was unavailable for comment at press time.

Despite the lefty-leaning personality his job would suggest, Enright is a Republican -- or, at least, is backing a Republican. Whether or not this makes any difference remains to be seen, but the "he was a liberal" stories I'm already seeing look to be horseshit.

Park 51 Debate: Which Side are You On?

Muslim-Jewish relations program officer for the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding Walter Ruby on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, the people behind the proposed Muslim community center at Park 51 in NYC -- more commonly referred to (falsely) as the "Ground Zero mosque." The link is mine.

In my testimony at the hearing [before the Manhattan Community Board], I said that since our organizations began cooperating three years ago, I have consistently found both Feisal and Khan to be unequivocally opposed to violence and terrorism and deeply committed to the American values of democracy and pluralism. These are values, Feisal argues in his book, "What's Right with Islam," that are intrinsic to Islam as well.

For this reason, our foundation has consistently supported Feisal's effort to create an Islamic community center in New York that will serve as a high-profile platform from which to articulate that vision of peaceful and pluralistic Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Months ago, he and his wife told the president of our foundation, Rabbi Marc Schneier, that they hope to create a center for Muslim-Jewish dialogue at the Islamic community center in cooperation with our foundation and the larger Jewish community...

From what I have learned, when Feisal set out during the past few years to bring to fruition his decades-old dream of creating an Islamic community center with a strong interfaith component in New York City, he was never much concerned about where the center would be located. Yet, when a space large enough to fulfill his vision became available two blocks north of Ground Zero, he saw special significance in the site. He argued that the building of an Islamic community center there dedicated to non-violence and mutual understanding among faiths would represent a deeply felt gesture of compassion and healing by the Muslims of New York to the entire New York community, including those who lost loved ones on 9/11.

Ruby calls the couple "a model of tolerance."

Meanwhile, Little Green Footballs reports on those opposing Park 51. Long story short, these aren't good people. One of them, David Yerushalmi, wrote this [PDF]:

There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote. You might not agree or like the idea but this country’s founders, otherwise held in the highest esteem for their understanding of human nature and its affect on political society, certainly took it seriously. Why is that? Were they so flawed in their political reckonings that they manhandled the most important aspect of a free society - the vote? If the vote counts for so much in a free and liberal democracy as we "know" it today, why did they limit the vote so dramatically?

Yerushalmi calls blacks "the most murderous of peoples" and says that Muslims practice an "evil religion."

"David Yerushalmi, however, comes off looking almost sane next to another founding board member of [anti-Muslim blogger] Pamela Geller's American Freedom Defense Initiative, John Joseph Jay," we're told. "The Southern Poverty Law Center has a blog post about Jay's almost unbelievable anti-Muslim rants: Prime Islam-Basher Pam Geller Outdone by Colleague."

According to the Daily Kos, AFDI board member John Joseph Jay recently has posted a series of truly vicious anti-Muslim rants -- apparently without the benefit of a capital letter function on his computer.  "if islam kills non-believers as a matter of religious doctrine, then why should muslims expect to be free of retribution in the name of those islam kills?" he wrote. "why should muslims get a free pass? if it is right for muslims to kill non-believers, then why is it no less right for the rest of us to kill muslims?"

In another screed, the Daily Kos said Jay wrote: "there are, friends, no 'innocent' muslims. they obey. and they obey the dictates of the koran on jihad. and, they obey the commands of local clerics. in this, they have no choice. because, friends, there is no 'free will' in islam, one obeys  the dictates of allah."

Last month, Jay expanded on his advocacy of violence against Muslims to include people in positions of power. He commented on his blog about a magazine article regarding America’s "ruling class" as follows: "friends, if you wish to retain and preserve individual virtue, you are going to have to kill in order to do so. if we are to excise the ruling class, it will be with violence. they used violence to attain their privilege, they use it nakedly in the form of the s.i.e.u. [an apparent reference to the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union] and black panther thugs in elective politics to maintain it, they contemplate relocation camps to preserve it... buy guns. buy ammo. be jealous of your liberties. and understand, you are going to have to kill folks, your uncles, your sons and daughters, to preserve those liberties."

Now, keep in mind we're all supposed to be afraid that Rauf and Khan are radical extremist bent on instituting Sharia law. But the evidence points to those leading the opposition to Park 51 being the most extremist and radical ones here. Take away the votes from blacks and women, kill Muslims, liberals, blacks, and labor unionists? These are the people we're not supposed to be worried about?

It's time for people to ask themselves whose side they're on: the side of the models of tolerance or the side of almost inconceivable hatred?

Your call. Just make sure you can live with it.

THIS JUST IN: Karl Rove is a Fucking Idiot

Bill O'Reilly was wondering if maybe attacking Muslims 24/7 was a bad strategy for Republicans, so he went straight to the expert -- Karl Rove. Not surprisingly, Karl thought it was a great idea. The video's here. I can't get FOX's video embed to work. Probably because it sucks.

Anyway, he starts off by criticizing Barack Obama for dissing moderate Muslims somehow and then his argument devolves into this:

The vast majority of the American people believe there is freedom of religion in our Constitution and that right of freedom of expression would be best exercised by not building it here. Look, in that same first amendment there’s a right to freedom of speech. Who believes that skinheads should show up at a Black sorority convention and scream bigoted remarks? Who believes there’s a right of freedom of assembly. Who believes Neo-Nazis should show up at the B’nai B’rith hotel and have their meeting in the next meeting room? There are rights everyone has that we think it’d be prudent to not exercise them at certain times.

So Muslims are like Neo-Nazis. First off Karl, how did you not just lose moderate Muslims there? Unless your definition of "moderate" is "self-hating," you just beat every American Muslim stupid with the Godwin stick.

Two, Karl "Yay for war! Yay for torture! Yay for prison camps!" Rove doesn't get to compare anyone to a Nazi. Any neocon who accuses anyone else of fascism ought to be loaded up into a catapult and shot into the ocean. Then they ought to go fish him out and do it again.

Three, here's an American Muslim for you Karl (hint: he's the guy on the left).



Go tell Shaquille O'Neal to his face (or as close as your stubby little legs can bring you to it) that he's just like a Nazi. I'm pretty sure he'd treat you a lot better than you deserve.

At This Point, You've Got to Wonder Why There Are Any Muslim Republicans

Another leftover bookmark from the morning post. It turns out the the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab hate politics isn't sitting too well with top Arab and/or Muslim Republicans. And Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports they're doing something about it -- complaining.

Organized informally, the group includes officials who served in the Bush administration or have strong ties to GOP leadership. Their concerns are twofold: that there is something fundamentally unconstitutional about opposing the Islamic cultural center and that the tenor of conservatives risks alienating the Muslim and Arab communities (both domestic and abroad) for years to come.

"People like myself... who are hardcore Republicans and have been activists for years, with undoubted credentials on the Republican side, are really outraged by what is going on," said David Ramadan, a prominent Muslim-American conservative operative and a member of the Virginia delegation to the Republican National Convention. "We believe first and foremost in the Constitution. This is not a matter of this mosque or that mosque. This is not a New York mosque issue. It is a Constitutional issue.... This is absolutely unacceptable."

Are Ramadan and company outraged enough to do something more than ask kindly that their fellow Republicans stop hating them? Reading through the piece I'd have to answer no. Of course, being GOP, they wouldn't have a lot of experience in turning off the hate tap: if it's against gays, fine by them. If it's against Hispanics, that's cool. But if it's against Muslims, OUTRAGEOUS! Other than speaking to the press, there doesn't seem to be any strategy at all for getting their party to stop the bigotry.

So that ought to accomplish a lot... You'd think they'd know by now that there's no point in trying to shame the shameless. They're Republicans, after all, they know how this works. Pardon me while I refrain from feeling sorry for them.

"This is America, and Our Commitment to Religious Freedom must be Unshakeable"

President Obama on Cordoba House, the place of Islam in America, and what this nation really stands for:

Crooks and Liars has the transcript, if you need one. Of course, all the rightwing blogs are going completely mental over the address, which proves -- for them -- that the president is a secret Muslim terr'ist bent on destroying America. At this point, I'm having a little trouble giving a damn what these losers think.

Either we stand by our core principles or we don't. I don't care how deep the critics' bigotry or cowardice runs, we don't throw aside freedom because a bunch of terrified haters have decided it's time to freak out.

Griper Blade: Powell, McCain, Division, and Hate

In conversation, I've called Colin Powell a "politician in rehab." He was instrumental in bringing us to war with Iraq, despite any reservations he later claimed to have. The time to stop a disaster is before it happens, rather than after. Shaking your head in disapproval when it all goes to hell doesn't actually do anything all that helpful.

Still, Powell enjoys a measure of respect that few, if any, former Bush administration officials share. Justly or unjustly, Powell is seen by many Americans as "the good one" from Bush's first term.

So it is that Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama is seen as perhaps being more influential than most. Newspaper endorsements, celebrity endorsements, endorsements from colleagues; these generally don't do much to change people's minds. Not that they're totally without benefit -- each endorsement is a news story and all of these stories keep the endorsed candidate in TV news rotation. It counts for something, maybe a bump, but beyond that, probably not much else.

But Powell's endorsement came with an indictment. And that's what's going to hurt. He slammed McCain as erratic and scattershot, displaying no leadership during the credit crisis as he ran from gimmick to gimmick, trying to exploit it for political gain. He tore into his selection of Sarah Palin as not being prepared to become president -- which, as Powell put it, was almost the only job the VP's required to do.

But it was the ugliness of McCain's campaign that really got Powell's attention. While the press has been reporting some of it, it's hard to get them to go in depth. The media seems to believe that they have to find something just as bad from the Obama camp before they'll report on something from the McCain camp. Of course, this leads to false equivalencies and it downplays the outrageousness of McCain supporters by comparing it with things that, when you get right down to it, aren't all that bad. If some McCain supporter calls Obama a Muslim terrorist, some Obama supporter makes fun of McCain's age. Not really the same sort of thing...

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Griper Blade: Holy Joe's Unholy Alliance

They call the only elected member of the Connecticut for Lieberman party "Holy Joe." Sen. Joe Lieberman is well-known for his faith -- specifically, his Jewish faith. After all, it was Sen. Joe who tried to out-holy Dubya in 2000, with a speech calling on Americans to "reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God's purposes." Atheists like myself or Buddhists who's gods aren't real (they're karmic illusions) apparently have no place in American life -- although, I suppose we could pretend to pray, just to be polite. It wasn't quite the Orwellian nightmare that Mitt Romney's "Freedom Requires Religion" speech was, but it was scary enough in its own right.

Sen. Joe's faith is a deep, deep river, flowing straight into the heart of Israel. Holy Joe is wholly Zionist. His defection from the Democratic party comes largely from his dedication to fulfilling the neocon prophecy of Israel-friendly democracies sprouting like mushrooms in the middle east. In fact, if the spores of those mushrooms have to be sown with mushroom clouds, it'd be hard to believe that Lieberman wouldn't be proud to push the big red button himself. After all, it was Joe who suggested that we attack Iran. Like most neocons, Lieberman has gotten a little ahead of himself -- there's no real evidence that Iran's enriching uranium to weaponize it and, obviously, this means that Iran doesn't actually have nuclear weapons. But I guess a stitch in time saves nine.

All of which, to the casual observer at least, makes the following story from Max Blumenthal a little hard to figure.

Senator Joseph Lieberman is scheduled to headline Pastor John Hagee's 2008 Christians United For Israel Washington-Israel Summit this July 22. In accepting Hagee's invitation, Lieberman became the most senior elected representative confirmed to appear at the annual gala. Last year, when Lieberman spoke at Hagee's summit, he compared the Texas televangelist to the biblical prophet Moses, dubbing him "an Ish Elochim," or "a man of God." Unless he rescinds his pledge to appear at this year's summit, Lieberman can be expected to deliver another soul-stirring tribute.

He may very well rescind his pledge. Hagee, as you may remember, is the end times nutbag who had endorsed John McCain until it was revealed that Hagee thought Hitler had been sent by God and that the Holocaust was part of God's plan for the Jews.

But the weird thing is that if Joe drops the Hagee event, it'll be because of what it would look like for McCain -- who Lieberman supports -- not because Hagee's a freak. It's extremely likely that Lieberman knows all about Hagee's crazy-assed belief system. In fact, it's extremely likely that McCain has Holy Joe to thank for bringing him to Hagee. Lieberman and the end times nut are tight. John Hagee is a pro-Israel Hitler enthusiast. That may seem contradictory, but with faith, all things are possible...

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Griper Blade: Tlön, Iraq, Orbis Tertius

I've always been a fan of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Many of his stories are metaphors for religion and God; by taking these structures and beliefs and placing them in different contexts, Borges showed their absurdity.

Two stories have come to my mind lately -- Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius and The Babylon Lottery. Both show how a weird -- or even false -- idea can take over a culture or even the world, changing it forever. And not always for the better. In Lottery the idea is an unseen lottery that guides people's lives -- a lottery which may no longer exist, but people see messages from it in the random events that surround them (i.e., omens and prophecy), while Tlön is the story of a false encyclopedia entry for a fictional country (i.e., heaven) which eventually becomes so important to people that Borges tells us that "English and French and mere Spanish will disappear from the globe. The world will be Tlön."

These stories are about the absurd -- and dangerous -- power of religious belief. But they can also be seen as being about something that surrounds us every day. They can be seen as a metaphor for ideas that get away from us. These are the human inventions that grow beyond human control -- economies, for example. The concept of currencies and markets has created something so complex, so outside our control, that people who devise ways to affect them get nominated for the Nobel Prize. It's not like chemistry or physics, it's not a part of nature, but it's become an organic thing that people study. It's become as much a part of our world as the weather -- complete with forecasters who try to determine what it'll do tomorrow.

Yet, to a large extent, it only exists as a concept. All currencies really are are slips of paper and shiny metal disks. Economics is both earth-shatteringly important and absurd at once.

But, as I say, economics is only one example. Nations and borders are another. Nations exist as legal fictions in the most realistic of terms and borders are arbitrary lines drawn on maps. Viewed from space, the world isn't really a multi-colored patchwork of nations, like the globe on your desk. It's obviously one place, not a collection of places. Yet the idea of nations, like economies and The Babylon Lottery, can destroy lives and ruin cultures...

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Griper Blade: Bye Bye, Religious Right

For the first time in 20 years, the homosexual lobby proudly endorses a Kentucky candidate for governor: Steve Beshear. Beshear is receiving major support from out-of-state gay activists and has publicly committed to same-gender relationships, employment of more homosexuals in state government including teachers, and support for homosexual adoption of children.

If you believe these rights are fair please vote for Steve Beshear for governor. Visit Fairness.org.

That's the text of a robocall Kentuckians received prior to yesterday's elections -- the audio is here. No one will take credit for it -- mostly because it's probably illegal -- although it tries damned hard to seem like it came from Fairness.org, a Kentucky gay rights group.

It may try hard, but it fails miserably. The references to the "homosexual lobby," "out-of-state gay activists," and "homosexual adoption of children" ensure that only those with room temperature IQs would fall for it. Not surprisingly, despite this brilliant political maneuver, Steve Beshear won his election, easily beating the hopelessly corrupt and indicted Republican Ernie Fletcher.

Fletcher tried pretty much every trick in the book to get the religious nuts to the polls. He played up the fact that he was once a preacher. In an incredibly transparent move, he ordered that the Ten Commandments be displayed in the Capitol on the day before the election.

For some voters, the 2004 theme of "God, gays, and guns" worked. "I think his problems have been mostly politics," one voter said. "I think he's done a fine job. I think he's got high morals, and that's what the state needs." It's hard to figure how someone has "high morals" when just about everyone who's been paying attention knows that Fletcher's hiring scandal will likely put him behind bars. In response to the initial wave of indictments, Fletcher issued his own wave of pardons -- there's corrupt and then there's shamelessly corrupt.

Fletcher's humiliating loss may reflect the future of the religious right nationally. Hounded by high profile scandals and hypocrisy, split in support for candidates, and facing an electorate much more concerned about the economy and Iraq than what people do in bed, the religious right may find themselves not much of a player in 2008...

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