Today is the day to honor fools, and so we take this moment to pay tribute to our year-round fools who excel at fanciful thinking....
Echidne points us to
Juan Cole's observations:
It isn't just Michael Schiavo -- even George W. Bush has drawn the wrath of American evangelicals. In February 2002, the president and Laura Bush visited a Shinto shrine in Japan, to which they showed respect with a bow. They were immediately denounced by evangelical organizations for having "worshipped the idol." To listen to the anguished cries of disbelief from Bush's Christian base, you would have thought he had met the same fate as Harrison Ford in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," where Indie was hypnotized by the evil rajah into worshipping the pernicious Hindu idol of the thugees.
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Egalia offers us our esteemed Dr. Frist, whose medical powers are so great he can diagnose people by videotape. Says Roll Call [subscription]:
The Senate's top doctor, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), has many new and unwanted patients. Over the past several days, they've been bombarding Frist's office with e-mails, describing their ailments, some of them pretty gnarly, and begging for a diagnosis.
"Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him."
-Proverbs 26:12
Drive for Democracy has all the info on how to get Frist the Great to diagnose your ailment.
Who says the Republicans don't have a national healthcare plan!
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Who knows how many people went outside at 10 a.m. local time to wave like idiots at the Google satellite as it makes a Keyhole pass over the nation with 3D earth-browsing software. What greater validation of oneself than to be confirmed as actually living on the surface of the Earth!
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Amanda points out that House Republicans are now eager to pass an unconstitutional bill to revoke citizenship of children of illegal aliens. Presumably, since they're sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States of America, they've actually read it. Maybe their reading comprenhension skills are impaired. Maybe they also forgot that our Founding Fathers were all illegal aliens and that our country was built on blood-soaked land when we conquered the land from the people who actually were born here to people who were born here. (How many generations go back 10-20,000 years? I think that makes even the DAR a squatters' association.)
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As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
-Proverbs 26:11
BBC reports on Tom Delay's ranting against the courts and judges:
Senior Republican Tom DeLay, who leads the House of Representatives, attacked the US courts for allowing Mrs Schiavo to die, calling them "out of control".
<snip>
"We promised the Schindler family that we will not let Terri die in vain," Mr DeLay said.
"We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president."
That nose thumbing has become the greatest offense anyone can make. Look what happened to Saddam when he thumbed his nose at Bush! Poor Tom Delay also seems to have not read the Constitution he's sworn to uphold -- especially the part about the judiciary. Maybe he just can't count to three (branches of government).
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"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit."
-Shakespeare
Wired reports that the Department of Homeland Security thinks that if they don't call the RFID chips in new passports "RFID," then they won't have the security vulnerabilities inherent in the technology:
The U.S. government will not use radio-frequency identification tags in the passports it issues to millions of Americans in the coming years.
Instead, the government will use "contactless chips."
The distinction is part of an effort by the Department of Homeland Security and one of its RFID suppliers, Philips Semiconductors, to brand RFID tags in identification documents as "proximity chips," "contactless chips" or "contactless integrated circuits" -- anything but "RFID."
The Homeland Security Department is playing word games to dodge the privacy debate raging over RFID tags, which will eventually replace bar-code labels on consumer goods, said privacy rights advocates this week.
<snip>
Privacy rights groups such as the EFF, the American Civil Liberties Union and CASPIAN have for years argued that RFID tags on consumer goods could be used to spy on individuals.
That is why Homeland Security is engaging in doublespeak, to dupe Americans into accepting RFID tags on their passports, said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program.
"It's a frightening, Orwellian use of the language," said Steinhardt, referring to the "contactless" branding effort. Steinhardt called the RFID tags the Homeland Security Department is using, which have faster processors and more storage capacity than retail tags, "RFID on steroids."
Government agents will use reader devices to track individuals wherever they use their RFID-tagged identification documents, Steinhardt and Tien said.
"They can call it a contactless chip," said Tien, "but it is still RFID. And it shares virtually all of the same vulnerabilities."
Maybe the identity thieves and kidnappers out there won't notice if we don't say "RFID." Maybe if the government spins hard enough, all the bad guys will just assume the chip is hack-proof.
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If only these were only jokes.
"I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad."
-William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
I say "Puck for President!"