Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer
James Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular biologists have a duty to devise gene therapies or screening tests to tackle stupidity.
Perhaps because it never showed up in Kuwait the last time?
Or because our promise to do the same in Afghanistan is unraveling as you read this?
Or because we’re already selling out the Kurds to buy Turkey’s help with the war? (Excerpt from a similar story: “‘They have good reason to believe we’ll secure Baghdad and let the rest of Iraq go to hell,’ one U.S. official told me…”)
Yeah, probably one or more of those. Sadly, this appears to be another instance of performing bodily functions into a stiff breeze…
…he went on to add that he was looking forward to this year’s visit by the Easter Bunny, but Uncle Ari had already turned off the microphoneI don’t think even The Onion could make stuff like this up. Of course Bush did say this to the perennially-wishful thinking American Enterprise Institute, a reactionary think-tank.
But even funnier was yesterday’s press conference. When pressed by reporters about possible links between recent offers of aid to 4th world African nations such as Angola, and votes for a new U.N. resolution sanctioning the use of force against Iraq, a flustered Uncle Ari insisted that “this would imply that the nations of the world could be bought, a notion that is preposterous” – a statement that caused tremendous guffaws among the press corps.
Just how stupid does Dubya think we are?
More magical thinking from from the Nut HouseBe sure to check out Dick Tater’s speech tonight where, according to Uncle Ari, he’ll explain how our invasion of Iraq will magically improve relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Don’t look to complicated conspiracies to explain the Administration’s fanatical need to invade Iraq
Some rather strange theories regarding the Administration’s seemingly inexplicable desire to invade Iraq have been making the rounds. One of the odder theories is that we are invading the country in order to keep its oil-sales on the dollar standard. Frankly, this and similar theories don’t hold water – it’s useless trying to logically explain irrational behavior.
What we are seeing is a battle between two competing ideologies for the hearts and minds of America . The first is of a benevolent America that has learned from its past failures in empire building, and knows that not all problems can be solved with military force. It uses money, diplomacy and international institutions to make the world a better and safer place. I call this the “Platoon” mentality, after Oliver Stone’s film of that name.
The second vision is that of Imperial America. The only lesson that this America has learned from past failures is that we didn’t fight hard enough, we didn’t drop enough bombs, we didn’t go nuclear. And we can’t trust anybody, we’ve only got ourselves, and our big guns, to help us. James Cameron’s Rambo was the escape fantasy for chickenhawks following our humiliating military and political defeat at the hands of the North Vietnamese.
But the Reagan Administration’s invasion of Grenada marked a turning point in the war between Platoon and Rambo. Like the proverbial frog in boiling water, the Rambo mentality has grown in power with each larger and more successful military foray, culminating in the rapid downfall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. For the moment, we seem unbeatable.
Fueling the fire is the public’s secret love of “war porn”: all those cool images of cruise missiles surgically striking buildings, maps of far-away places with little troop icons on them, and pictures of our troops eating turkey-dinners in the desert. What makes war porn so palatable is that the coverage is so sanitized. Gone are the rotting corpses or close-ups of people being shot or dying. And without a draft or a war-time economy, what’s the great sacrifice? You can have your war-porn and enjoy it, too!
Even before the ascension of Dubya, there were conservatives advocating the seizure and occupation of oil-producing lands to secure U.S. access to energy. Before 9/11 though, these were a fringe element. But the Twin Towers attack brought them out of the cold and into the cornerstone of American foreign policy. It’s making the once-unthinkable thinkable: an unprovoked invasion and occupation of an oil-producing nation in the Middle East.
No, you don’t need complicated conspiracy theories to explain our Administration’s current march of folly; hubris from our recent military victories, no-sacrifice warfare complete with war-porn and Rambo-thinking politicians in the Whitehouse take care of that. What we do need, it seems, is some means of stopping this madness before it’s too late.