The ravens are looking a bit sluggish. Tell Malcolm they need new batteries.

Note To Republicans

You won.  You made greater gains in Congress than in any election since 1946.  You've been handed a mandate to be the Party of No for the next two years.  You don't even need to come up with a platform.

If you're depressed because you didn't somehow take the White House in a mid-term, consider this: Think how irritable President Obama is now, when his party has had control of both houses of Congress for two years.  Now think how he'll feel after two years of the Republican-controlled House blocking his every move.  And gloat, just a little.

Oh, and if a group of Democrats approaches you looking to rent fifteen hundred tug boats and ten thousand miles of steel cable, you might want to cut them a deal, just this once.

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Note To Democrats

You lost.  You lost because the country has seen the direction your party is headed and wants no part in it.  You suffered your worst losses in Congress for 60 years.  The Republicans won not because of their sparkling personalities or inspired policies, but simply because they're not Democrats.

If you're gloating because two or three of the Tea Party candidates didn't win, then at least you're easily pleased, something likely to stand you in good stead in 2012.

Also, you should probably look into cutting California adrift before it drags Nevada or Oregon down with it.  Probably best to just tow the entire state out to sea and scuttle it.

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As Opposed To... What, Exactly?

Repairs are to begin Wednesday on a 65-foot-deep (20 meters) sinkhole that opened in the eastern German town of Schmalkalden on Monday, local authorities said.

The sinkhole, which measured more than 130 feet (40 meters) across, swallowed a car and forced the evacuation of 25 people in nine houses, the regional newspaper Thueringer-Allgemeine reported.

-snip-

Jürgen Reinholz, environment and agriculture minister for the state of Thuringia, said natural causes were suspected, according to Spiegel Online International.

Uh huh. Thanks for that.

(Quality reporting from CNN.)

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So, PZ...

Look at this picture of Maddox and his political principles, too — he's indistinguishable from contemporary teabaggers, except for the fact that he had his sign professionally done and all the words are spelled correctly.

What exactly are you against - free enterprise, capitalism, liberty, private property rights, or America?

Or are you implying that people who support free enterprise, capitalism, liberty, private property rights, or America are intrinsically racist?

Being on the right side of one debate doesn't always make up for being a ranting loon in another.

(From here.)

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Some Things You Got Right While You Were Left

Kathy Shaidle writes about 8 Things she wishes she'd known when she was a leftist.

And for the most part, it's a solid piece.  But then, near the end, I noticed this paragraph:

Today we also know that Sacco & Vanzetti were guilty, as were the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss. There really were Communist agents in the State Department. Rachel Carson made stuff up. The Kennedys were jerks. Hollywood lied about the Scopes “Monkey” Trial. Many of the most iconic images and “facts” about the Vietnam War have been twisted beyond recognition.

(My italics.)

While I agree with most of those points, I was interested to see how, exactly, Hollywood had lied about the Scopes trial.  I had no particular reason to doubt that there were distortions in Inherit the Wind, so I followed the link to see what was said.

What was said was an abjectly dishonest apology for creationist claptrap.  When you see phrases like:

the purported evidence for evolution

you know you're not in for an honest debate about Hollywood's representation of a historic trial.

They pass of straightforward falsehoods like:

Indeed, the case for evolution remains far from satisfying standards of verifiable science.

With equally straightforward misrepresentations and ad hominems:

This is evident in the current vociferous debate between two of evolution’s most outstanding high priests, Stephen J. Gould and Richard Dawkins.

That current vociferous debate was about rates of evolutionary change on the local scale and the contigent nature of evolution.  Which is to say, there is no doubt at all that evolution happened; rather, there were questions about the reconstruction of the process on short timescales.

The Scopes Trial took place more than 70 years ago. Nevertheless its legacy continues to be felt in the series of legal battles currently being fought in courts across the USA.

Fought by the creationists, and lost, because what they are attempting to do is replace science education in public schools with their religious beliefs, and that is not just an affront to every right-thinking individual, but actually against the First Amendment.

Sorry, Kathy, on this one point you were right the first time, back when you were left.

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I Spy With My Little Eye, Something Beginning With P... And Ending With Arity

Even through Paypal an AUD now buys more than 0.95 USD.  And that's after the dip a couple of days ago when our Reserve Bank decided not to increase interest rates.

When you switch back and forth between the US and AU business press, things start to get a bit surrreal.  From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

''Jobs creation is far stronger than expected,'' said Macquarie economist Ben Dinte. ''The RBA is definitely wary of labour shortages developing in the economy.''

From Yahoo! Finance:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private employers unexpectedly cut 39,000 jobs in September after an upwardly revised gain of 10,000 in August, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

The August figure was originally reported as a loss of 10,000.

The Australian dollar hasn't been at parity with the US dollar since it was floated in 1983.

This makes buying goodies online really cheap, except if you want to get Civ 5 on Steam, who are being dickheads and charging Australians 60% more than anyone else.

(I just picked up the Icewind Dale bundle on GOG - IWD 1 plus Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster for $10.)

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Sums Up My Whole Week, Really

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Australian Election Update, Tuesday August 38st

Does Australia ha-

Apparently, yes.

Final score of 76-74, with the balance of power controlled by three five seventy-six one hundred and fifty rambling self-important nitwits.

So...  Business as usual, I guess.

I expect this government will be about as stable as one of those strange new transuranic elements that they haven't even bothered giving a name to yet.

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Australian Election Update, Wednesday August 32rd

Does Austr-
Nope.

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Australian Election Update, Saturday August 28th

Zzzzzzzsnrkzzzzzzzzz....

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