Year: 2006

Beam him up (please!): It is commonly known that President Bush is proudly uneducated, ill-read and uninformed but I, for one, did not know until yesterday that he is making major policy decisions about science based on — not junk science produced by the flat-earthers in his party or even psuedo science like Intelligent Design — but science fiction.

Last night, in his State of the Union speech, the president came out swinging against human-animal hybridization:

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.

We can only assume that Laura has been tucking the preznint in with bedtime stories from “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” by H.G. Wells. The novel — which has been made into a movie at least three times, the latest with Marlon Brando — depicts just this sort of a horrific undertaking by a mad scientist on a remote island.

Earlier in the day, in a review of a book about Mr. Bush by the uber-snarky GOP political hack Fred Barnes, I also learned that Mr. Bush has based his entire approach to global warming — specifically that it doesn’t exist — on the teachings of the rightwing sci-fi writer, Michael Cricton:

Barnes also includes plenty of evidence likely to horrify those who oppose Bush (for instance, Barnes reports that the president fundamentally doesn’t accept the theory of global warming and was reinforced in that belief by a private meeting not with any scientist but rather with novelist Michael Crichton, whose novel “State of Fear” revolves around the issue).

The president’s interest in science fiction may also explain his failed plan to send explorers back to the moon and on to Mars a few years back, before he wasted the nation’s disposable income on his misadventure in Iraq.

“One: American jobs that will stay in America, using energy independence to generate those jobs. Two: a strong national defense based on telling the truth to our citizens, our soldiers and our allies. Three: Honesty and integrity to be restored to government. Four: A health care system that works for everybody just like they have in 36 other countries. Five: a strong public education system so we can bring optimism and opportunity back in America.”

— Howard Dean, Chairman, Democratic National Committee, Jan. 26, 2006

There are new rules for the State of the Union drinking game for 2006. This year, instead of hoisting a cool one or sipping a mickey every time Dear Leader mutters one of his catch phrases like “terrist survayance program” or “axis of evil,” follow these simple rules:

• At 6PM PST, turn off your television and grab your coat
• Go to the nearest bar
• Drink until kneewalking
• (In the off chance the television in the bar is tuned to the president’s speech, go to another bar)
• Return home safely and go to bed
• Others will count his lies while you sleep

See — all the fun of an old-fashioned “keyword” SOTU drinking game without having to listen to Dear Leader’s torturous elocution.

And if we have learned one thing about Mr. Bush it’s that there is no particular benefit to hearing his lies freshly minted.

Scientific confirmation: At a conference in Southern California last week sociologists and psychologists reported on several studies that show something many of us have long suspected: Republicans — especially strong supporters of George Bush — are implicitly biased against black people,.

Another study … explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups. That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

Republican National Committee spokesman Brian Jones was quick to accuse the researchers of bias, since they had contributed to the Democratic Party.

“There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky,” Jones said.

The research results compared with several other studies that drew similar conclusions.

“Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president,” said Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, “but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice.

“If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial,” said Stamford psychologist Jon Krosnick. “We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, ‘This takes me aback,’ they are ignoring a huge volume of research.”

Jan. 31, 2006 Final Senate Vote on Alito, according to C-Span:

A friend in Sweden sent us this graphic. It strikes us as a pretty accurate interpretation of how the rest of the world thinks the United States views the rest of the world.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think.