kimmy

Not a very good game. Although I did enjoy the part where Calgary sucked. I think that was the highlight for me. Congratulations, Argonauts fans. Stupid Calgary! -k

Great party. What a bunch of dumb-asses. -k

The Romney family history in the Mormon church goes back practically to the very start of the Mormon church. -k

Just a few weeks ago you were refusing to read my cite from PZ Myers because he's biased, and now you're offering cites from "Church of God" as evidence? You're too dense to even appreciate what an epic hypocrite you are. You know why PZ Myers is a good cite? Because he knows the subject. He teaches it at a MAJOR university. You know why the retards at "Answer In Genesis" aren't a good cite? Because they don't know anything about the subject. They only know one thing: how to con gullible and uneducated people. People like you. The "conundrum" you're presenting isn't a problem of evolution, it's a problem of your toddler-level grasp of evolution. You offer this ridiculous argument that organisms that depend on a symbiotic relationship must have magically popped into existence at the exact same time or otherwise they would have both became extinct right away. It really just reflects how badly you (and the people you get these theories from) understand the topic. How could a symbiotic relationship have evolved in stages? Easy. 1. Two creatures exist independently. 2. The creatures come into contact with each other and a mutually beneficial relationship occurs. 3. The cooperative relationship becomes a survival advantage for both, and is favored by natural selection. 4. Traits that enable a species to survive without the symbiotic relationship are no longer a survival advantage. 5. As a result, traits that enable a species to survive without the symbiotic relationship are no longer favored by natural selection. 6. Over many generations, because these traits are no longer favored by natural selection, these traits become weakened. 7. Eventually, descendents of the original creatures that formed the initial symbiotic relationship have lost traits that enabled them to survive independently, but it doesn't matter because they thrive thanks to their symbiotic relationship. This stuff is NOT complicated. This stuff is OBVIOUS to anybody who actually understands how natural selection works. Clearly, that is not you or any of your sources. -k

Que? -k

Cynics have accused Republicans of only caring about children until they're born. Well, in Michigan, that claim has teeth. After eliminating tax credits for outside-the-womb children in 2011, Michigan Republicans are now working to introduce... the Fetus Tax Credit! Folks, we couldn't make this stuff up. -k

I've never attended one either, but they were widely reported on, and video clips are easily found online, so I feel adequately informed to tell you that to describe them as "who's a better Christian contests" is not far off the mark. Politicians can appear at whatever events they like, and they can say whatever they like, but they're also responsible for the consequences of those choices. Rick Perry can go to the Family Forum and talk like he's the Redneck Pope if he wants to, but he has no business blaming anybody but himself later on if people start talking about him like he's a religious kook. But Rick, of course, wanted it both ways. On the one hand he was out telling evangelical voters that they ought to support him because he's got more Jesus Juice than the rest of the candidates, but on the other hand, he had his wife out crying that he was being attacked for his religious views. Or Michele Bachmann. Some people thought that asking her what 1 Timothy 2:12 means to her was way over the line. But she is the one who made her religious faith the center of her campaign, so it's fair game. I really don't care if people like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann want to tell religious voters that they're guided by their religious views. That's up to them. But they have no business crying about it afterward if that message isn't much of a hit with non-Christian voters and with Christian voters who believe in that "render unto Caesar" thing. I have no quarrel with candidates who have religious beliefs, but I have a big quarrel with candidates who want to pander to a religious base on the one hand, but cry "persecution!" when people who aren't in their base want to ask about their religious views. Look, man, if a former Cannibal is running for office, I want to know if he's ever eaten a human. And if he has, I want to know how he weighed his religious beliefs against that human's right not to be eaten and I want him to explain when and how he realized it was wrong to eat people. To me, those are important questions that he needs to address before I'd consider voting for him. Barack Obama had to answer questions about how his own views of Rev. Wright's racial rhetoric, over and over again. To me, that says that many Americans want answers to this sort of question. Well then it looks like Mitt was ahead of his church on that issue, and would have had a strong answer had the question been asked. That doesn't mean that the question was out of bounds. -k

US politics is great theatre. I think the most interesting aftermath of the election is the fingerpointing going on among the Republicans. It was an election that was ripe for winning... and they lost. Is it Romney's fault? Is it the Tea Party's fault? Is it policies? Is it changing demographics? What do they do next? It is also interesting that the most technologically advanced country on earth still can't run an election without chaos at the polls. One has to wonder whether some of that is by design. Certain governors in certain states might not be too concerned if certain voters at certain polling locations don't get to vote. I think the denial and disbelief of many of the Republicans on election night was fascinating. They were so heavily invested in denying mainstream polls and talking up their cherry-picked polls they thought they showed would win, that it's almost as if they believed they could create their own reality just by believing hard enough. "Nate Silver isn't credible! He's too gay-looking to trust!" "Nate Silver is a biased liberal, so our biased predictions are just as valid as his!" Megyn Kelly's famous walk was great TV, I thought. I liked that they put the math-nerds on TV to tell Karl Rove he was wrong. Kelly also apparently earlier responded to Rove's explanation of why he thought there was still a chance of Republican victory by asking him "Is that for real, or is that just stuff you tell yourself as a Republican to make yourself feel better?" Funny. -k

Just because somebody made a Youtube video doesn't mean they know what they're talking about. I watched 48 seconds of this and realized it's complete crap. Some guy talking out of his ass. "DURRRR survival of the fittest means organisms should be competing, not cooperating!" "Fittest" means best suited to survive, not an all out creature-fight. And "survival" means exist long enough to reproduce a new generation of offspring. If a symbiotic relationship gives an organism a better chance of surviving long enough to reproduce, that organism has a higher chance of reproducing than a competing organism that does not have the advantages of the symbiotic relationship. Natural selection will favor the symbiotic relationship. For example, clownfish and anenomes. A small fish that lives among anenomes eats small creatures that feed on the anenomes. The anenomes' poisonous branches protect the small fish from larger predators. Over time, the fish that live among anenomes has a better chance of surviving than fish that are out in the open, and living among anenomes becomes a trait that is bred into this species of fish. Creatures adapting to their environment by forming symbiotic relationships is actually a great example of natural selection in action. Evolution wins again. -k

I think the think most damaging to Justin Trudeau's leadership hopes are the horrible porn-stache he's wearing in that video. Ugh. As for the comments themselves... I don't think Trudeau's excuse that he was using "Alberta" as shorthand for "Stephen Harper" really makes sense when the whole point he was making was that the greatest Prime Ministers come from a specific province. His explanation just doesn't make sense in the context in which he made his original statement. At their core, the comments reveal an "Us-and-them" mentality. "The country belongs to Us" --Quebecers. Not Them. WE have a true sense of this country; THEY don't understand it. Here's a Quebec backbencher speaking in French to a French interviewer on a station nobody watches. Like a multi-millionaire politician talking to other multi-millionaires at a private dinner, I think it's a more candid look at what he really thinks than anything he says on the campaign trail. I think Trudeau's claims right now are about as sincere as Mitt Romney claiming he wanted to be president for "the 100%" after the 47% video. Trudeau walking around Calgary in a cowboy hat is about as believable as Paul Ryan showing up at a soup kitchen to wash clean dishes for a photo-op. I also think there's another aspect to his apology that should be mentioned, is that even in the midst of apologizing he was in denial, claiming this is only being talked about because the Conservatives are scared of losing the Calgary byelection. Justin's comments aren't much different from his dad's views, or from the stuff that got the Liberal energy critic canned last week. Or from Jean Chretien saying he liked to do politics with easterners, not Albertans, because they're a "different type". Or Paul Martin on stage at a campaign rally with Buzz Hargrove when Hargrove said: "His sense is about Alberta. The wealth of Alberta everybody recognizes is much greater than it is anywhere in Canada. Those principles that he is brought up with and believes in coming out of there don't sit well with the rest of Canada." or this: -k

Well, the Family Research Council "Value Voters Summit" and the Focus On The Family "Thanksgiving Family Forum" are two examples of events hosted by religious groups where Republican candidates are invited to talk about their faith and pander to religious voters. The description "who's a better Christian contests" isn't far off the mark in describing those events. Claiming that his religion wont influence his policy decisions is good. However, I think there are other reasonable questions that can still be asked. For example, in regard to Mormonism, black people were officially discriminated against by the Mormon church until 1978. Mitt Romney was 31 years old in 1978, he'd been on missions for the church and been a leader within the church by 1978. I think it would have been a fair question to ask how he squared the church's position on racial discrimination with his own values. I think his response to that question could have given voters insight into his values. (personally, I think the only true insight we got into Mitt's values came from the "47%" video and the "gifts to young people and minorities" post-election conference call... but that's for another thread.) -k

*spoilers* I like Kampmann too. Jon Hendricks hit him with a right hook-straight left combo very early in the fight. The right was kind of glancing, but the left was right on the chin, and Kampmann just went stiff and fell on his back. Hendricks is a southpaw, and his left hand is pretty devastating. GSP beat Condit pretty handily using mostly takedowns, wrestling, and ground and pound. It was a 5-round decision. GSP landed an elbow late in the first round that cut Condit very badly and it got re-opened several times during the fight. Condit was a bloody mess at several times. Early in the third round, Condit hit GSP with a headkick that was pretty amazing, as he threw it in very unexpectedly at the end of a furious exchange. GSP was rocked and went down, and Condit got on him but wasn't able to do much damage before GSP was able to recover and turn the round in his favor using his superior grappling. There was a lot of stand-up in this fight and it was pretty even. GSP certainly wasn't scared of Condit's striking. Considering what Condit can do with his fists and feet, I wasn't sure GSP would take the chance of standing with him. But the real difference was GSP's takedowns and wrestling, and only Condit's very good jiu-jitsu saved him from getting pounded out. Condit tried a lot of escapes and submissions from the bottom, and several times he had GSP in situations where GSP had to be cautious about getting caught in an arm-bar, but GSP shut those down quickly. It was a good fight, and GSP was more aggressive than he's been in his recent fights. -k

And Willard was playing Romney Hood. Even leaving aside the debatable premise that cutting or eliminating taxes isn't a "gift", some of his other plans certainly were. But people on Elephant Team don't recognize it as such... because when policies benefit other people it's "buying votes" but when policies benefit them, it's "Smart Policy". -k

Yes, GSP looked very strong in spite of the 18 months on the shelf with the ACL injury. It was his best performance in years. Condit came to fight. He gained a fan tonight... I was impressed by his courage. Johnny Hendricks' knockout of Martin Kampmann was ... just wow. The way Kampmann went down was like something out of Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour. -k

Won't you go to Hell for that? -k

That's getting pretty semantic. Being a member of a functioning society is being part of a club that has an annual membership fee. Offering discounted memberships to certain groups can certainly be argued to be a gift to them. And it all misses the point anyway. The point is that this whole premise that Obama won by promising gifts to targeted demographics and Romney lost by promising to treat everybody equal is a load of crap. -k

I agree for the most part... but isn't there at some point a line where somebody believes things that are just too strange for you to take the rest of their ideas seriously? I had this not too long ago. There was a young woman on our last city council-- my vote helped elect her, in fact. Later on I heard her speaking at a rally... ranting about things that were basically conspiracy theories. Even though she had some policy ideas I believed in... I was quite embarrassed to have voted for somebody who was, basically, a kook. Through their life's work. I was reading yesterday about Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu ever to be elected to Congress. Hindu beliefs are pretty poorly understood by ... well, probably by pretty much everybody except Hindus themselves... and the popular perception is that they have some pretty weird ideas. However, Miss Gabbard's service and accomplishments speak highly of her character, especially considering she's just 31 years old. -k

I don't know anything about any of that stuff. I just think it's tremendously fortunate that the day after Mr Canada was banned, we get a brand new member who has the exact same views as Mr Canada on every issue. It's almost as though he never left. -k

He went around the country promising policies that benefit certain groups of people, same thing he accuses Obama of doing. If Obama is "Santa Claus", then Romney is Kris Kringle. The current panic over demographics in the Republican party is merely the realization that the groups that have traditionally benefited from their largess are no longer sufficient to win the election on their own. -k

haha, sure. Maintaining low-interest student loans is a gift and Obamacare is a gift and the DREAM act is a gift. But eliminating the estate tax isn't a gift. Cutting capital gains taxes isn't a gift. Trillions of dollars of new military spending isn't a gift. Eliminating bank regulations isn't a gift. Promising everybody over 55 that they won't share the costs of reducing the deficit isn't a gift. If Obama's campaign was about gifts for young people and women and minorities, then Romney's campaign was about seniors and the banks and the wealthy and navy shipbuilders. -k

That wasn't Ralph Klein. That was a National Energy Program era bumper-sticker. Klein didn't enter provincial politics until 10 years later. -k

So in his campaign wrap-up conference call with his donors and fund-raisers, Willard basically confirmed what most of us suspected all along: "100% Mitt" was an act, and "47% Mitt" was the real Romney. Now that he no longer needs anybody's vote, he drops the charade and let everyone know what an ass he really is. Later, Willard. So glad you lost. -k

No doubt there are some religious crazies who vote Democrat. But they're not running for office. Get back to me when the Democrats have assholes like Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry campaigning for the presidential nomination, or when fruitcakes like Todd Akin or Paul Broun or Joe Walsh (to pick 3) running for office. Thanks largely to Tea Party involvement, some real kooks have been able to secure nominations to run for Congress and Senate in the Republican party. -k

I don't think the law can force this man to violate his religious beliefs. On the other hand, I believe the law does require places of business to make a reasonable effort to be able to accommodate the general public. One would think that a hair business open to the general public would have someone on the premises who could serve a female customer. -k

Well of course not. According to the Old Testament he should have just given himself 50 shekels and married her. -k