Digby's Bell Curve Smackdown. Venezuelan President Better Man Than Dubya Or Robertson.

Digby's Bell Curve Smackdown

One of my frequent stops on these Internets is the invaluable Hullabaloo by Digby. This is my first excerpt from his blog, and it's a beauty. It concerns the recent revivial of the malignantly controversial book The Bell Curve, and Digby provides an interesting take on the subject by asking the question "But what would the Intelligent Design crowd make of this matter?" Excerpt:

So what happens when the Bell Curve meets up with the Discovery Institute? Will the racist Darwinians have the nerve to ask why the "Intelligent Designer" came up with the really, really fucked up idea that the big brained white guys like them got the tiny penises and the small brained, big dicked blacks got all the big-titted, hot assed women? Will the Discovery Institute fellows feel compelled to drop their pants to prove that the IDer in chief knew what he was doing?

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To view the whole piece, click on the link and scroll down to Comic Designer. The excerpted paragraph has the distinction of not only asking the obvious question regarding the "debate" between evolution and ID, but it also one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Atrios has also been devoting considerable bandwith to this noxious subject over at Eschaton in an attempt to help illuminate the landscape. My feeling is that the irony of this angle will easily be lost on the folks who so desperately need to see the underlying truth, namely that The Bell Curve promotes a nasty agenda, and does so with particularly sloppy research, as both Digby and Atrios ably prove.


Venezuelan President Offers Aid In Wake Of Katrina

Proving, as if that was a hard thing to do, that he is a better man than both the American Extremist Christian Cleric who called for his assassination and the American President who is probably giving serious consideration to this ugly notion, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is stepping forward with a generous offer of reduced price oil to aid the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Yahoo News AFP excerpt:

CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered to send food and fuel to the United States after the powerful Hurricane Katrina pummeled the US south, ravaging US crude production.

The leftist leader, a frequent critic of the United States and a target himself of US disapproval, said Venezuela could send aid workers with drinking water, food and fuel to US communities hit by the hurricane.

"We place at the disposition of the people of the United States in the event of shortages -- we have drinking water, food, we can provide fuel," Chavez told reporters.

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This is quite a gesture from a man who likely has a price on his head. Maybe Mr. Chavez is simply taking the position that you keep your freinds close, but you keep your enemies closer. In any event, it will be that much harder for the neocons to make the Reverend Robertson's wet dream come true without showing themselves as the twisted sleazebags they are.