… and she’s listening to the voices in her head … (lord knows, there’s plenty of space to play in there).

The problem with teenage sexuality for right wingers is not that they’re too young per se, it’s that most kids will have to try on a few partners before they find one that fits well, and this sexual and romantic experimentation is what’s considered a problem. So the solution is clearly to make sure that kids who have sex get tied to their first partner through a baby, and preferably through marriage and a baby. Because fuck those kids; they don’t deserve happiness when so many of adults are grouchy and unfulfilled.

The Palins, you see, have assaulted poor li’l Mandy. Mandy finds it impossible to reconcile that Inauthentic Women can hold that teenagers would be better off not having sex and/or avoiding pregnancy yet actually be loving, supportive and even happy (!!!) when a healthy baby is born. Such a reasonable, moral, adult stance is causing the poor dear to engage in dark, muttering conspiracies about what RightWingers Really Really Think About Teh Sex!!

Excuse me while I stop clutching my pearls.

It doesn’t take much to set Mandy off into the throes of straw-doll making of Inauthentic Women(tm) but it certainly did help that Jodi Jacobson at Reality Check [heh.] should base her own Palin smears on an oft-repeated equivocation

Yet the situation is also full of irony. Bristol grew up in a family which espoused abstinence-only policies, not just as a familial choice, but also a state- and national strategy.

No, Governor Palin did not and does not

“I’m pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues.”

Again, such reasonableness about public school sex-ed — be age appropriate, stress abstinence, cover contraceptives, leave off the outlier explicit sex practices — doesn’t fit with the cartoon of non-leftist women as a bunch of frigid, sex-hating breeders in total thrall to wife-beating footsoldiers of The Patriarchy(tm).

Parenting is like teaching a skill, be it sewing, cooking, or building a house. There are basic, sound standards to learn and rules to follow. If one is going to build a home, whether it is a contemporary ranch or Victorian revival, a sound foundation is required, know how to use a level, do math correctly, etc. The same approach is what good parents, including RightWinger parents, do when raising children to become responsible adults and partners in solid relationships. When our loved ones make honest mistakes, we still love them, support them and get them back on the road. Teh Sex is all part and parcel of life and relationships and really a great, warm, fun, bring-us-closer part. But it is only part and doesn’t exist in a vacuum where it becomes some political flag of authentication.

It is amusing to observe the style of emo-ing that wants to ban McDonalds being sold to kids, fire any school admin that allows Coca-Cola on campus but defends the “right” of 13 year old girls to get abortions without their parent(s) knowledge.

And it does come down to abortion. Not the act itself, but the iconic political position it occupies for many of the Authentic Womyn set. Certainly poor Mandy’s own incoherencies and hallucinations about RightWinger Sex(tm) spring from her own issues

I called my sometimes-boyfriend, my inconstant lover and told him I was probably pregnant. I wanted him to offer to pay for the abortion. He offered instead to marry me.

I nearly threw the phone against the wall.

What can be said of a person who pitches a fit that the first reaction of her boyfriend was NOT “Hey, let’s just suck out that problem.” Heavens! How dare there be any consequence to fucking! How dare a male act like more than a carbon-based vibrator and not be my mind-reader at the same time!!! Hufff!!! PUFFF!!!

Really, the only “grouchiness” in view here is Mandy’s.

Us RightWingers? We are too busy having fun and sex.

Greenwald makes some good points in today’s post:

If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings: as “barbarians” — just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats — then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer. For people who think that way, arguments about “proportionality” won’t even begin to resonate — such concepts can’t even be understood — because the core premise, that excessive civilian deaths are horrible and should be avoided at all costs, isn’t accepted. Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives? How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?

So many of these conflicts — one might say almost all of them — end up shaped by the same virtually universal deficiency: excessive tribalistic identification (i.e.: the group with which I was trained to identify is right and good and just and my group’s enemy is bad and wrong and violent), which causes people to view the world only from the perspective of their side, to believe that X is good when they do it and evil when it’s done to them. X can be torture, or the killing of civilians in order to “send a message” (i.e., Terrorism), or invading and occupying other people’s land, or using massive lethal force against defenseless populations, or seeing one’s own side as composed of real humans and the other side as sub-human, evil barbarians. [link mine]

I think that we can agree with this. But there are frightening aspects of tribalism on display on the streets of San Francisco, as well–where tribalism used to mean something rather different–as is documented by Zombie:

Meanwhile, at an earlier San Francisco Gaza protest on December 30, the Palestinian protesters (according to this post at the “At the Back of the Hill” blog) chanted the following slogans in Arabic:

“Itbach al Yahud” (slaughter the Jews)
“Falastin balad’na w’al Yahud qalab’na” (Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs)
“ba ruh, ba dam, nafdeek ya Falastin” (with our soul, with our blood, we will cleanse you oh Palestine),
“al mawt al Yahud” (death to the Jews),
“Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud, jaish-Muhammad saya’ud” (Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return).

At the Back of the Hill noted,

While the Arabs screamed their desire to exterminate Jews, the English-monolingualists simply stood there happily smiling their approbation.

In short, perhaps Greenwald ought to blog a bit more in the direction of such moral midgets, and a little less towards the supporters of Israel. Or, replace Jews in all of the above slogans with “faggots.” Melanie Phillips via Jennifer Rubin:

The moral inversion in the west is so egregious, so monstrous, that the better Israel is shown to behave the worse the vilification that rains down upon it. What other country in the world would show such restraint in the face of more than 6000 rocket attacks upon its citizens – 6000! – that it took seven years before going to war to put a stop to it? What other country would treat individuals – including proven terrorists – from that enemy territory in its own hospitals? What other country would continue to provide essential foodstuffs and other supplies to those enemies who continued to fire rockets at it? What other country, when finally forced to go to war to stop the attacks, would show such concern to avoid the loss of civilian life that it contacts the population in enemy territory — even households containing identified terrorists – to warn them to flee from the imminent bombardment? And what other country would, for showing such unparalleled moral scrupulousness, be vilified and libelled as Israel is?

In Greenwald’s view, to cut to the point, do the Israelis deserve to have a state of their own, unmolested? Under what conditions would they so deserve, if not? Their opponents speak openly on the streets of the United States of genocide, and the basket weavers sit and smile, and twiddle their thumbs and toes.

Greenwald speaks of proportionality, but once again, that is in the eye of the beholder. Jews are expected to partition their Holy City, but Mecca is off limits to all but Muslims? Religious, tribal cleansing is practiced in more and more of the Arab world–Christians massacred and harassed, forced to convert at the point of a sword–and we are supposed to bemoan the policies of 15th Century Spaniards? Children are indoctrinated into tribal hatred by Muhtada Mouse, nuns murdered over cartoons, filmmakers slain in the streets of the Netherlands, and we are treated to lectures? Gays and rape victims hanged and stoned to death in the name of Allah, and lefties fulminate over Rick Warren?

Keep in mind that these radicalized Muslims consider it their duty according to the Koran to convert or slaughter their opponents at the point of the sword or the tip of a missile. What, again, is proportionality in such circumstances? Yes, there are brave people in Sderot protesting the Gaza incursion: where are the brave souls on the other side protesting the rockets?

To draw just one point from Reliapundit at The Astute Bloggers:

THIS IS WHY THE FACT THAT GAZANS WERE VIOLATING INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE CEASEFIRE - (A FACT ARGUED BY BOTH PRESIDENT ABBAS AND EGYPTIAN F.M. GHEIT) - IS OF NO CONCERN TO GREENWALD: INTERNATIONAL NORMS CAN ALWAYS BE TRUMPED BY VICTIMS OF “JUDEO-CHRISTIAN/WESTERN HEGEMONY” IN THE MINDS OF LEFTISTS.

And, as you’re certainly aware, there was a great deal of kicking and screaming over this in the MSM.

More:

This is rich. A gruesome propaganda video uploaded to LiveLeak that purported to show the aftermath of an IDF attack on civilians in Gaza turned out to be a fraud—it actually shows the results of an accidental explosion of a truck full of Hamas rockets at a Palestinian rally.

It’s almost like a blast from Bill Ayers’ past.

George Bush fails to provide a catharsis for Frank Rich:

WE like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella. So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.

Gosh, how can he go on without Rosebud the closure? At least he gets to beat off on the pages of the NYT.

Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.

Silly man! This presidency was all about . . . Frank Rich.

at . . . The HuffPo?

Concurrent with the switchover of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to its cool phase the Sun has entered a period of deep slumber. The number of sunspots for 2008 was the second lowest of any year since 1901. That matters less because of fluctuations in the amount of heat generated by the massive star in our near proximity (although there are some fluctuations that may have some measurable effect on global temperatures) and more because of a process best described by the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in his complex, but elegant, work The Chilling Stars. In the book, the modern Galileo, for he is nothing less, establishes that cosmic rays from deep space seed clouds over Earth’s oceans. Regulating the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth’s atmosphere is the solar wind; when it is strong, we get fewer cosmic rays. When it is weak, we get more. As NASA has corroborated, the number of cosmic rays passing through our atmosphere is at the maximum level since measurements have been taken, and show no signs of diminishing. The result: the seeding of what some have taken to calling “Svensmark clouds,” low dense clouds, principally over the oceans, that reflect sunlight back to space before it can have its warming effect on whatever is below.

Svensmark has proven, in the minds of most who have given his work a full hearing, that it is this very process that produced the episodes of cooling (and, inversely, warming) of our own era and past eras. The clearest instance of the process, by far, is that of the Maunder Minimum, which refers to a period from 1650 to 1700, during which the Sun had not a single spot on its face. Temperatures around the globe plummeted, with quite adverse effects: crop failures (remember the witch burnings in Europe and Massachusetts?), famine, and societal stress.

Many solar physicists anticipate that the slumbering Sun of early 2009 is likely to continue for at least two solar cycles, or about the next 25 years. Whether the Grand Solar Minimum, if it comes to pass, is as serious as the Maunder Minimum is not knowable, at present. Major solar minima (and maxima, such as the one during the second half of the 20th century) have also been shown to correlate with significant volcanic eruptions. These are likely the result of solar magnetic flux affecting geomagnetic flux, which affects the distribution of magma in Earth’s molten iron core and under its thin mantle. So, let us say, just for the sake of argument, that such an eruption takes place over the course of the next two decades. Like all major eruptions, this one will have a temporary cooling effect on global temperatures, perhaps a large one. The larger the eruption, the greater the effect. History shows that periods of cold are far more stressful to humanity than periods of warm. Would the eruption and consequent cooling be a climate-modifier that exists outside of nature, somehow? Who is the “flat-Earther” now?

Fortunately, we have access to such information because Al Gore invented the intarwebs.

The New Economy: brown shirts with green collars

Do click through the link!

http://www.codepinkforpeace.com

(h/t The Corner)

More campaign finance reform:

Before becoming a key fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, Hsu co-hosted a 2005 California fundraiser for Obama’s political action committee and introduced the Illinois Democrat to Marc Gorenberg, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who later joined the Obama campaign’s national finance committee. Prosecutors allege that Hsu directed his investors to donate money to specific candidates, and then reimbursed them in violation of federal campaign laws.

Grassroots. Trial begins a week before the transfiguration.

via Insty

A federal judge in Brooklyn has rejected a Liberian woman’s religious reasons for smuggling endangered monkey meat into the country.

U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie ruled Wednesday that Mamie Manneh’s faith didn’t preclude her from applying for permits to import exotic food or explain why she misled officials.

What possibly could be the dangers of importing (endangered) monkey meat? It’s not as though their physiology is like ours.

NOT VERY RELATED:

A strong earthquake cut power lines and sent panicked residents in eastern Indonesia running out of their homes toward higher ground, officials and witnesses said.

The Indonesian Meteorology and Seismology Agency warned that with a preliminary magnitude of 7.2, the quake was strong enough to cause a tsunami.

There were no immediate reports of giant waves and the agency lifted the tsunami warning within an hour.

Cleverest link to AGW wins bragging rights. Or maybe they’ve legalized gay marriage?

RELATED:

Was it a meteor falling from space?

Officials think that might be what residents saw shooting through the Alaska sky near Tok on Monday afternoon.

A tremendous explosion, like a sonic boom, drew some people outside, where they watched irregular contrails scribe a path in a clear sky.

At her home four miles west of Tok, Kathy Olding was loading a large sled with firewood to haul to her house when she was startled by an explosion.

My guess? Aliens returning to reclaim Bristol Palin’s latest child.

Just askin’…

Via Hot Air.

As conscientious parents, we all strive to teach our children to make smart choices. It first starts out as making the choices for them (”No, you cannot have a bowl of ice cream for dinner.” “Sorry, ducking the whole second grade thing is not an option.”) to letting them take responsibility for their own bad choices ( “I feel your pain, dear, but a broken arm is the least of what could have happened when you decided you could make a parachute out of your bedsheet and ‘float’ off the roof.”) Of course, not all people either receive or internalize that whole “make wise choices” thing, as The Darwin Awards clearly demonstrate.

Want to write a best-seller? Write a “self-improvement” book. Even as adults we remain willing and open to learn new lessons, to find new information to make new choices.

However, some people cannot be bothered with trying to persuade their fellow citizens to better choices.

According to Duke University’s Ralph Keeney, whose work was published last month in the journal Operations Research, America’s top killer isn’t cancer or heart disease, or even smoking and overeating—it’s our inability to make smart choices that leads us to engage in those and other self-destructive behaviors.

“Each year more than a million people needlessly die because of their own personal decisions,” says Keeney, whose work gives new meaning to the cliché we’re our “own worst enemies.” [...]

If we continue to kill ourselves with poor decisions, are we consciously opting for short, zestful lives over long, abstemious ones? Or is it that we simply need a stronger hand prodding us to make better choices? Keeney and a number of public-health advocates say the answer may be more governmental guidance in everything from what kind of food we buy to whether we contribute to our retirement savings.

Newsweeks’ author of this piece, Tony Dokoupil, peppers his article with appeals to Nannystatism. After highlighting Keeney’s work in decision making, he then lumps the professor who is more concerned with the how of making choices, not the choices themselves, with more straight-forward, “Let Uncle Sam take care it” types:

However the experts explain our tendencies to self-destruct, they all agree that we could use some help negotiating these choices better—and that government can provide it. For Keeney, it’s by adding “decision making” to the standard curriculum in public schools so that more children grow up empowered to recognize and mine all their options, rather than accept those presented by others. [...]

For Sunstein and Thaler, authors of the recent book “Nudge” (Yale, 2008), it’s through gently pushing people to make the right move. [...] In the realm of preventive medicine, for instance, that means encouraging people to go for regular screenings and checkups by establishing a deposit system: the only way to get your $100 back is by making your appointment.

The author acknowledges in his last paragraph that “a more interventionist government isn’t up everyone’s alley.”

Well, doah. There is one word entirely missing from the piece — Liberty — and that means you can tell people what is good for ‘em, but as adults if they want to jump off the roof with a bedsheet then we can’t ban bedsheets or roofclimbing “for their own good”.