"the right's Obama martial law #fail" and "Diagnosing the Republican brain":Mother Jones

[Glia]

Interesting common thread...

The Right's Obama Martial Law #Fail
No, President Obama is not coming to steal your house and take all the food out of your fridge.
By Asawin Suebsaeng | Fri Mar. 30, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

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President Obama wants to conquer your farmland, plunder its resources, feast upon the contents of your refrigerator, and then draft you into slave labor for his aggressive war on Iran.
Such is the narrative that has emerged out of the right's latest phony freak-out about Obama's wielding of executive power. On March 16, the White House quietly released the details of an executive order titled "National Defense Resources Preparedness [1]." The order authorizes the federal government to identify "requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand," and to "control the general distribution of any material (including applicable services) in this civilian market."
It's your standard government readiness policy—nothing particularly exciting or groundbreaking. In fact, almost identical executive orders have been issued by administrations since the early days of the Cold War, including those of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Dwight Eisenhower.
And some conservatives—who have previously accused Obama of wanting to confiscate their guns [2], ammo [3], Bibles [4], and even Cheerios and fishing rods [5]—have taken this as one more assault upon individual liberty from a radical president. Because the order identifies essential items that should be stockpiled in extreme scenarios—from livestock and water to construction materials and pharmaceutical products—some on the right have sounded the alarm.
read the rest at:
https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/obama-national-defense-resources-martial-law

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Diagnosing the Republican Brain
Fact: Conservatives deny science and facts. But there's a reality check that liberals need too.
By Chris Mooney | Fri Mar. 30, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

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We all know that many American conservatives have issues with Charles Darwin, and the theory of evolution. But Albert Einstein, and the theory of relativity?
If you're surprised, allow me to introduce Conservapedia, the right-wing answer to Wikipedia and ground zero for all that is scientifically and factually inaccurate, for political reasons, on the Internet.
Claiming over 285 million page views since its 2006 inception, Conservapedia is the creation of Andrew Schlafly, a lawyer, engineer, homeschooler, and one of six children of Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist and anti-abortion rights activist who successfully battled the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. In his mother's heyday, conservative activists were establishing vast mailing lists and newsletters, and rallying the troops. Her son learned that they also had to marshal "truth" to their side, now achieved not through the mail but the Web.
[1]Click here to read more from Mooney on the science of why people don't believe in science [2].So when Schafly realized that Wikipedia was using BCE ("Before Common Era") rather than BC ("Before Christ") to date historical events, he'd had enough. He decided to create his own contrary fact repository, declaring, "It's impossible for an encyclopedia to be neutral." Conservapedia definitely isn't neutral about science. Its 37,000 plus pages of content include items attacking evolution and global warming, wrongly claiming (contrary to psychological consensus) that homosexuality is a choice and tied to mental disorders, and incorrectly asserting (contrary to medical consensus) that abortion causes breast cancer.
The whopper, though, has to be Conservapedia's nearly 6,000 word, equation-filled entry on the theory of relativity. It's accompanied by a long webpage of "counterexamples" to Einstein's great scientific edifice, which merges insights like E=mc2 (part of the special theory of relativity) with his later account of gravitation (the general theory of relativity).
"Relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world," declares Conservapedia. "To date, a Nobel Prize has never been awarded for Relativity." The site goes on to catalogue the "political aspects of relativity," charging that some liberals have "extrapolated the theory" to favor their agendas. That includes President Barack Obama, who (it is claimed) helped published an article applying relativity in the legal sphere while attending Harvard Law School in the late 1980s.
"Virtually no one who is taught and believes Relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold," Conservapedia continues. But even that's not the site's most staggering claim. In its list of "counterexamples" to relativity, Conservapedia provides 36 alleged cases, including: "The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46–54, Matthew 15:28, and Matthew 27:51."

read the rest at https://motherjones.com/politics/201...science-denial

[Moon]

I was going to post the first half of this, too, but you got there first. Are these quotes for real,
or is it Al Franken fooling around again?

Interesting common thread...
The Right's Obama Martial Law #Fail
No, President Obama is not coming to steal your house and take all the food out of your fridge.
By Asawin Suebsaeng | Fri Mar. 30, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
President Obama wants to conquer your farmland, plunder its resources, feast upon the contents of your refrigerator, and then draft you into slave labor for his aggressive war on Iran.
Such is the narrative that has emerged out of the right's latest phony freak-out about Obama's wielding of executive power. On March 16, the White House quietly released the details of an executive order titled "National Defense Resources Preparedness [1]." The order authorizes the federal government to identify "requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand," and to "control the general distribution of any material (including applicable services) in this civilian market."
It's your standard government readiness policy—nothing particularly exciting or groundbreaking. In fact, almost identical executive orders have been issued by administrations since the early days of the Cold War, including those of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Dwight Eisenhower.
And some conservatives—who have previously accused Obama of wanting to confiscate their guns [2], ammo [3], Bibles [4], and even Cheerios and fishing rods [5]—have taken this as one more assault upon individual liberty from a radical president. Because the order identifies essential items that should be stockpiled in extreme scenarios—from livestock and water to construction materials and pharmaceutical products—some on the right have sounded the alarm.
read the rest at:
https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/obama-national-defense-resources-martial-law

-----------------

Diagnosing the Republican Brain
Fact: Conservatives deny science and facts. But there's a reality check that liberals need too.
By Chris Mooney | Fri Mar. 30, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

---

We all know that many American conservatives have issues with Charles Darwin, and the theory of evolution. But Albert Einstein, and the theory of relativity?
If you're surprised, allow me to introduce Conservapedia, the right-wing answer to Wikipedia and ground zero for all that is scientifically and factually inaccurate, for political reasons, on the Internet.
Claiming over 285 million page views since its 2006 inception, Conservapedia is the creation of Andrew Schlafly, a lawyer, engineer, homeschooler, and one of six children of Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist and anti-abortion rights activist who successfully battled the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. In his mother's heyday, conservative activists were establishing vast mailing lists and newsletters, and rallying the troops. Her son learned that they also had to marshal "truth" to their side, now achieved not through the mail but the Web.
[1]Click here to read more from Mooney on the science of why people don't believe in science [2].So when Schafly realized that Wikipedia was using BCE ("Before Common Era") rather than BC ("Before Christ") to date historical events, he'd had enough. He decided to create his own contrary fact repository, declaring, "It's impossible for an encyclopedia to be neutral." Conservapedia definitely isn't neutral about science. Its 37,000 plus pages of content include items attacking evolution and global warming, wrongly claiming (contrary to psychological consensus) that homosexuality is a choice and tied to mental disorders, and incorrectly asserting (contrary to medical consensus) that abortion causes breast cancer.
The whopper, though, has to be Conservapedia's nearly 6,000 word, equation-filled entry on the theory of relativity. It's accompanied by a long webpage of "counterexamples" to Einstein's great scientific edifice, which merges insights like E=mc2 (part of the special theory of relativity) with his later account of gravitation (the general theory of relativity).
"Relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world," declares Conservapedia. "To date, a Nobel Prize has never been awarded for Relativity." The site goes on to catalogue the "political aspects of relativity," charging that some liberals have "extrapolated the theory" to favor their agendas. That includes President Barack Obama, who (it is claimed) helped published an article applying relativity in the legal sphere while attending Harvard Law School in the late 1980s.
"Virtually no one who is taught and believes Relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold," Conservapedia continues. But even that's not the site's most staggering claim. In its list of "counterexamples" to relativity, Conservapedia provides 36 alleged cases, including: "The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46–54, Matthew 15:28, and Matthew 27:51."

read the rest at https://motherjones.com/politics/201...science-denial