Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was just perusing the ole blog and thinking that if anyone is still reading this they must be somewhat masochistic. Fear not minions, the Smallholder and your Maximum Leader can go like this for days. (Months if the supply of beer and salty snacks is sufficient.)

But knowing that some readers of this site don’t want to be mentally or emotionally myred in ongoing verbal fisticuffs concerning science, morality, and public policy, your Maximum Leader decided two things.

First, the post on abortion that he has been working on must wait for another day.

Second, your Maximum Leader must issue an ex cathedra pronouncement. Minions must go to TexasBestGrok and vote in the lastest installment of Sci-Fi Babes Poll on the left side nav bar. In an effort to keep the voting fair and honest, your Maximum Leader will refrain from blatant pandering. (Unlike certain woolly beasts.) And while your Maximum Leader takes no offical position on how his minions should vote, let him say this. If the villainous Princess Ardala (of the heaving chest) does not prevail, your Maximum Leader may be forced to do harm to the Minister of Agriculture or a dwarf. Whichever he can lay his iron fist upon first.
Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader thinks this argument is going to peter out soon. There is just no point in continuing. (Save, of course, the constant amusement of our readers.)

In the ongoing discussion of the biological nature of homosexuality our argument, as it always does, boggs down in the details. The Smallholder is happy to go with a lower threshold of scientific certainty in this matter than is your Maximum Leader.

But as your Maximum Leader continually brings up, but the Smallholder never addresses, at what point does genetic predisposition trump free will? Who gets a free pass for their behaviour due to their genetic makeup? If the Smallholder is convinced that genes trump free will is he willing to accept the societal consequences (these are consequences beyond homosexuality) that flow from that decision?

An underlying teme in this talk is also morality. The Smallholder feels strongly that homosexuality is an acceptable choice to make regardless of the science of homosexuality. Your Maximum Leader feels that there are strong moral considerations that argue against the acceptablity of homosexuality. The Smallholder wants your Maximum Leader to jettison his moral beliefs if there is scientific evidence that shows that homosexuality is natural.

This is the root cause of the problem. Just because something can be found to exist and be normal in nature doesn’t make it acceptable. On this point the Smallholder and your Maximum Leader continue to talk cross purposes. (Because contrary to his assertions to the contrary, the Smallholder is only looking for the middle ground on certain issues about which he is not passionate. Like the Smallholder, your Maximum Leader just can’t resist the jab…)

Now as your Maximum Leader has said. He does not support homosexual marriage. He is willing to continue with the status quo. But there is a lot more subtlety to your Maximum Leader’s positions on this matter than the Smallholder has ever cared to investigate in this blog (we have talked about it personally).

For example, your Maximum Leader doesn’t see why individuals can’t designate whomever they want to inherit property or recieve benefits. (If people die without wills or other directives that is their fault.) The same goes for hospital visitation and medical powers of attorney. Indeed, most of the reasons cited by homosexuals for wanting marriage are perfectly possible and attainable outside of marriage. There are plenty of companies that offer “same sex” benefits packages. Frankly your Maximum Leader doesn’t see why your company should care who you want to put on your health-care plan. It wouldn’t change the cost.

In most cases your Maximum Leader doesn’t see why the government should have any say at all, or care at all, in many of the sub-issues involved in the gay marriage debate.

But when homosexual advocates start to demand recognition of same sex marriages, then your Maximum Leader draws a line. He’s happy to give a considerable amount of personal freedom to all people (not just gays), but he’s not happy to have a lifestyle to which he objects included in the definition of an acceptable lifestyle to make a few people feel better about themselves.

Carry on.

I’m a big amateur consumer of science news. I tend to report on the studies about the origin of sexuality because of a (years-long) debate with the ML about homosexual rights. The real heart of the question is: “Maximum Leader, IF homosexuality is NOT a choice, but biologically intrinsic, would this change your position on gay rights?” The dear Maximum Leader refuses to countenance such a development. And I think it says volumes that the biogted right won’t even consider the possibility.

If the Maximum Leade cares to visit the archives, he will note that he (rather cleverly as a debate tactic) continually resorted to the single-gene argument when he and the BigHo and I got into it last time. No one has ever focused on a single gene explanation except the Maximum Leader.

At any rate, I’m not a blind adherant, but do tend to believe, as an amateur, the larger consensus of the scientific community. For example, I’m more likely to follow medical advice from an MD than from a quack. The same applies when considering policy on issues like global warming and gay rights.

Now, I do tend to err a bit on the layman side on the food I eat. I haven’t seen anything conclusive about chemicals and antibiotics lingering in feedlot beef or industrially produced milk, but I get a bit of (perhaps irrational) heebie-jeebies from the idea; enough so that I go through the considerable amount of work to produce these goods myself.

Mike, thanks for the rogue-wave link. Cool stuff. You should do more marine topics, you sailor you. At least tell your readers about the “Quibron Bay,” the commissioning of which will be one of the first acts of the Mike World Order.

Here is a cool link I found through that site: Mars in 90 days.

In the Mark World Order, we would be on Mars in five years. Go Zubrin!

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in business we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Say things like, “This is the way we have always ridden this horse.”
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training sesson to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in todays environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that “This horse is not dead.”
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that “No horse is too dead to beat.”
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse’s performance.
15. Do a Cost Analysis study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is “better, faster and cheaper” dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

In purely Darwinian terms, Lynddie England is now morer successful than the Minister of Propaganda.

From today’s Washington Post Reliable Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31394-2004Oct14.html

Army Pfc. Lynndie England, 21, known as “Leash Gal” in the tabloids for her photographed behavior at Abu Ghraib, had her baby Sunday, an Army spokesman said yesterday. The family declined to release info about the birth, but the Baltimore Sun cited a source claiming it’s a boy. The father is England’s ex-boyfriend, Spec. Charles Graner Jr., who’s also charged with abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The idea of Lynddie “I didn’t do anything wrong at Abu Ghraib” England and Charles “As a Christian, I know it’s worng, but as a corrections officer I love to make a grown man piss himelf” Graner passing on their genes terrifies me.

I wish I could take comfort in the Maximum Leader’s Letspretendtopia World and comfortingly soothe myself with the idea that nothing in genetics is proven.

_________________

Update from the Maximum Leader: Your Maximum Leader would like to observe that the Smallholder appears to be devolving himself. He seems to have forgotten (or never learned - or maybe he’s hoping some scientist can help him) how to make a damned hyperlink. Your Maximum Leader just had to go through all his previous posts and put in the links (for the benefit of our loyal readers).

You know what else is nice to see… The Smallholder rushing to assume that the England/Graner offspring will be just as objectionable has his mother and father.

Update II: From Smallholder
Sorry to all for the hyperlinks. My computer won’t display any of the hot buttons for post creation. Even links previously created on the blog show up as html lists. Very odd. I was hoping to go back and fix the links when I could get on another computer, but the Good Maximum Leader has done my dirty work for me. Danke.

And heck, Mike the England post was a bit tongue in cheek. I really think we need some photoshopped baby announcements for this great American pair.

UPDATE FROM THE MAXIMUM LEADER: Oops. Must have gotten a little too snarky… Your Maximum Leader will see what he might be able to do on a birth announcement.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader decided that we have to break this out to a new post.

You know… Your Maximum Leader’s suggestion for a debate format for Bush and Kerry would be equally applicable to the Smallholder.

Allow a little mild fisking:

Once again my opponent is trying to adjust the world into a black and white resolution. If my esteemed leader was conversant with scientific principles and inquiry, he would know that NOTHING is ever 100% certain in science. The article I linked to is yet one more piece of the complex puzzle of sexual orientation.

Perhaps the Smallholder isn’t quite as conversant with scientific principles as he thinks. If you consider mathematics a science then things can be known with 100% certainty.

That isue aside, the sometimes-good Minister of Agriculture really
likes to break your Maximum Leader down into black and white issues. (This is probably a result of his native squishyness and inability to nail down a cogent set of core beliefs for himself.) Your Maximum Leader has never claimed that human genetics are a black or white issue. The article linked by the Smallholder isn’t really a piece of anything. It is a short reduction of semi-salient points derived from a larger study. (The larger study itself is not linked.)

Next point:

The Maximum Leader keeps focusing on the single gene issue, a position I have never held. Diabetes isn’t a single-gene issue either. But we don’t advocate discrimination against diabetes sufferers. Depression isn’t a single-gene issue but we acknowledge that there is a genetic component at the heart of many people’s struggle with theis mental illness. What shocks, yes shocks, the Smallholder is the intensity with which people will deny emerging scientific consensus in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and the necessity of rethinking predetermined positions.

Your Maximum Leader has never focused on the single gene theory. In his post he happened to highlight a line that addressed single gene theory. He also highlighted another line that the Smallholder neglects to mention. Allow your Maximum Leader to quote it in full:”The researchers discovered that women tend to have more children when they inherit the same - as yet unidentified - genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men.” What part of that last line fills any sentient person with certitude? Unidentified genetic factors and tendencies. Now your Maximum Leader would have to look at the actual study to figure out how uncertain the researchers actually are, but they sound pretty darned uncertain.

Also notice if you will the reliance by the Smallholder on the “emerging scientific consensus.” This point relates to the next Smallholder item:

To return to depression, scientists have found that depression “tends to” run in families and may be a result of a cluster of genes impacting brain chemistry. We don’t understand the whole mechanism as yet. Genetic research is in its infancy. But no one seriously disputes that there is indeed a genetic component. The same applies to a host of other issues and diseases. Single-gene causation like sickle-cell is the exception to the rule.

Emergent scientific consensus in a field of inquiry that is in its infancy and in which its practitioners recognize we don’t understand very much of what there is to understand. The discussion of depression is telling here. There are observable tendencies which may be the result of genetics. They also may not be. There isn’t enough evidence to know.

This is the crux of this disagreement. As your Maximum Leader has said before, he is skeptical, the Smallholder is willing to move ahead without further consideration. Your Maximum Leader is concerned here with the level of skepticism - a factor that doesn’t seem to concern the Smallholder in the least.

More:

My favorite part, however, is when he poses as a
critical skeptic of research. It is interesting that the skeptic part ONLY applies to science that undermines his political position.

What is so absolutely hilarious about this statement is that the Smallholder doesn’t want to talk about any science that isn’t politically charged. He’s never been quick to engage in discussion of the science behind “rouge waves.” Here is an empirically observable phenomenon which until just recently scientists dismissed. In fact, scientists dismissed it with much more certainty that currently exists over genetics.

Of course, I suppose all of us have points on which we are intellectually ineffective. But isn’t this the age of Enlightenment? Shouldn’t people of good will be willing o change their positions based on new evidence?

Last time your Maximum Leader checked, the age of Enlightenment ended in the late 18th Century. And your Maximum Leader is quite open minded. When evidence, not conjecture, is presented it can be reviewed, evaluated, tested and knowledge gained; then policy decisions - which is really the heart of the Smallholders argument - can be made. At that point your Maximum Leader would be happy to re-evaluate his position. Would the Smallholder be willing to do the same if the evidence pointed to no correlation?

And finally, the Smallholder still doesn’t care to address the issue of free will in this whole discussion.

Carry on.

I actually think Kerry bringing it up was a mistake; the place to hammer at the injustice of Bush’s policy was when Cheney was clearly uncomfortable supporting his boss in the first debate. The average American undecided voter will perceive Kerry’s revisiting of the issue as mean.

http://www.andrewsullivan.com

SOMETHING ABOUT MARY: I keep getting emails asserting that Kerry’s mentioning of Mary Cheney is somehow offensive or gratuitous or a “low blow”. Huh? Mary Cheney is out of the closet and a member, with her partner, of the vice-president’s family. That’s a public fact. No one’s privacy is being invaded by mentioning this. When Kerry cites Bush’s wife or daughters, no one says it’s a “low blow.” The double standards are entirely a function of people’s lingering prejudice against gay people. And by mentioning it, Kerry showed something important. This issue is not an abstract one. It’s a concrete, human and real one. It affects many families, and Bush has decided to use this cynically as a divisive weapon in an election campaign. He deserves to be held to account for this - and how much more effective than showing a real person whose relationship and dignity he has attacked and minimized? Does this makes Bush’s base uncomfortable? Well, good. It’s about time they were made uncomfortable in their acquiescence to discrimination. Does it make Bush uncomfortable? Even better. His decision to bar gay couples from having any protections for their relationships in the constitution is not just a direct attack on the family member of the vice-president. It’s an attack on all families with gay members - and on the family as an institution. That’s a central issue in this campaign, a key indictment of Bush’s record and more than relevant to any debate. For four years, this president has tried to make gay people invisible, to avoid any mention of us, to pretend we don’t exist. Well, we do. Right in front of him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3738368.stm

Attention European “moralists” against the death penality: Bite me.

This poster is rather funny. I’m not a big NRA fan, but I ’spect it will be an effective add.

You will have to scroll down to the thrid post for the graphic.

http://www.trapshooters.com/cfpages/thread.cfm?threadid=49678&messages=2

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will take a little break from political blogging to discuss scientific matters. Yesterday, your Maximum Leader and his esteemed father-in-law spent the whole day together going to pick up a new fishing boat. (Your Maximum Leader and his esteemed father-in-law are avid fishermen.) Along the way we talked about many things. At one point we discussed a sci-fi novel that your Maximum Leader had read many years ago. He can’t recall the name of it, but the basic story-line was that computers and robots try to take over the world and are succeeding. But a small band of men and women pull off a daring commando raid on a nuke silo in the midwest and launch a nuke into high altitude and explode it. The EMP knocks out the computers and robots and the humans win the day.

Excursus: Why didn’t John Conner do this to bring down Skynet in the Terminator movies? Hummm….

Anyway. Your Maximum Leader and his esteemed father-in-law had to speculate quite a bit on the overall effects of EMP on electronics and such. We both had to admit that we didn’t know enough about EMP to make many theoretical jumps on a number of subjects. So, this morning your Maximum Leader decided to throw this topic out to any minions who may know about EMP.

What sort of sized nuclear weapon would a potential rouge state (ie: North Korea) or terrorist organization have to have to effectively knock out the electronic infrastructure of the United States? Is such a senario even possible?

If you know anything about this, feel free to write your Maximum Leader. Please state the authority from which you derive your knowledge in the message.

Here are some websites your Maximum Leader found on a quick google this morning:
Electromagnetic Pulse

Electromagnetic Bombs.

US Army Corps of Engineers open letter on EMP Protection for Buildings.

Some Non-Proliferation Info from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Some stuff from the Brookings Institution.

As best your Maximum Leader can figure it out from a quick read, it would seem as though to destroy the electronic infrastructure of the US one would need to detonate a number of devices at high altitude. It seems as though the EMP would do serious damage to intruments connected to unprotected power grids. (Which your Maximum Leader assumes would be most power grids.) Your Maximum Leader hasn’t found anything concerning how EMP would affect satellites in orbit. Which would also be a concern.

Anyway… Perhaps if our resident rocket scientist has anything he could add…

Carry on.

Llamabutchers takes a typical NRA tactic in this post. Doctors, you see, cause more accidental deaths than guns, so we ought to ban doctors instead. The Foreign Minister made a similar argument about cars. The intent is to discredit all the statistics about accidental victims of guns. I have said before that there are solid arguments against gun control re: efficacy. But these silly little statistic arguments actually make the argument for common sense “well-regulation” of guns. We license drivers AND doctors in order to minimize accidental harm to society. I don’t think anyone objects to the restrictions our government places on people who want to practice medicine. If any libertarians out there support deregulating doctors, I’ll be glad to serve as your personal physician based on my extensive experience with calves.

Ace of Spades has a pop-quiz on eigthies culture. I am particularly pleased that he included a Big Trouble In little China question for the Foreign Minister and your humble Smallholder.

Via Doonesbury, here is a REPUBLICAN congressman’s take on the war in Iraq.

Kilgore gives the smackdown to economists who say one shouldn’t ote.

And here is a new science article that will have the Maximum Leader singing “La, la, la!”

That is all.

Return to your appointed tasks.
____________________________________________________

Update from your Maximum Leader: Did the Smallholder acutally bother to read the article to which he linked? Did he just read the headline? Or did he just willfully ignore such key phrases as: “Italian geneticists may have explained how genes apparently linked to male homosexuality survive, despite gay men seldom having children. Their findings also undermine the theory of a single “gay gene”. Emphasis added by your Maximum Leader. A quick perusal of the article finds wonderful keywords as: “tend to;” “as yet unidentified - genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men..”

In case minions are wondering about why this seems to be a topic of discussion… Your Maximum Leader, unlike the Smallholder, is not yet convinced of the genetic disposition towards homosexuality. Your Maximum Leader has read many scientific articles on the subject, but feels that no conclusive determinations have yet been made. The Smallholder on the other hand is willing to take as scientific proof a collection of theories concerning the genetic disposition toward homosexuality with which he happens to agree. The Smallholder likes to take cheap-shots at your Maximum Leader by thus saying that your Maximum Leader likes to deny scientific evidence with which he does not agree. Whereas your Maximum Leader feels that he would like to continue to keep an open mind and allow trained scientists to research the field of human genetics and come to generally accepted and testable facts - as opposed to just theories.

You see, when discussing the matter human genetics your Maximum Leader feels that we have only in the past few years started to really understand the human genome. It may be decades before we actually have scientifically verifiable facts concerning which genes may be responsible for which human character traits.

And just to add one more thing… Discovery of genes that might be related to character traits does not begin to address the many issues related to the nature/nurture argument. As your Maximum Leader stated in a previous post, if one could prove that a person was genetically predisposed to violence would that be a sufficient cause to excuse that behaviour?

Anyhow… Your Maximum Leaders is certainly not singing “la, la, la.” Perhaps the only one singing plainsong is the Smallholder who refuses to accept that there is uncertainty about those things which he feels should be accepted as certain.

Carry on.

Update II: From the Smallholder

Once again my opponent is trying to adjust the world into a black and white resolution. If my esteemed leader was conversant with scientific principles and inquiry, he would know that NOTHING is ever 100% certain in science. The article I linked to is yet one more piece of the complex puzzle of sexual orientation.

The Maximum Leader keeps focusing on the single gene issue, a position I have never held. Diabetes isn’t a single-gene issue either. But we don’t advocate discrimination against diabetes sufferers. Depression isn’t a single-gene issue but we acknowledge that there is a genetic component at the heart of many people’s struggle with theis mental illness. What shocks, yes shocks, the Smallholder is the intensity with which people will deny emerging scientific consensus in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and the necessity of rethinking predertermined positions.

To return to depression, scientists have found that depression “tends to” run in families and may be a result of a cluster of genes impacting brain chemistry. We don’t understand the whole mechanism as yet. Genetic research is in its infancy. But no one seriously disputes that there is indeed a genetic cmponent. The same applies to a host of other issues and diseases. Single-gene causation like sickle-cell is the exception to the rule.

And yet our Maximum Leader continues to refuse to accept the same type of research that is finding exactly the same type of genetic links to sexual orientation. Why do you suppose he applies this double standard? Hmmmmm.

My favorite part, however, is when he poses as a critical skeptic of research. It is interesting that the skeptic part ONLY applies to science that undermines his political position.

Of course, I suppose all of us have points on which we are intellectually inflexible. But isn’t this the age of Enlightenment? Shouldn’t people of good will be willing to change their positions based on new evidence?

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has had a rough night. Trying to watch baseball and the debates. Well, not really watch but listen to - since he was in the Villainmobile most of the night.

Here is your Maximum Leader’s one thought on the debate tonight. How about we have one more debate, but change the format? Your Maximum Leader’s format would consist of a single moderator, chosen at random from the “community of journalists.” The questioning would go like this:

Moderator: Mr. President/Senator Kerry, I have a question for you written here on this index card. But rather than asking it, you have two minutes to talk about what ever you would like.

When either the President or the Senator finished it the moderator would continue:

Moderator: Mr. President/Senator Kerry, you have 90 seconds to object to your opponent’s last statement, and add a non-sequitor of your own.

Your Maximum Leader would prefer to have the listening audience know in advance what to expect.

NB to Smallholder: No time to read anything more tonight. Will give it a shot tomorrow.

Carry on.

Well I guess I was one of the lucky ones that got to read all the posts on the dead horse exchange, it pays to check back often!

You know, I really don’t remember people I should from college. I remeber Wallstreet though and glad he checks in from time to time.

Ok M of A
I checked your Kevin Drum thing and here is my take.
I don’t think he is as unbiased as he intended to be. He consistantly scores most of Bushes statements with higher intent and accuracy and importance. Where as he dismisses a lot of Kerry’s statements and scores them low.
He really uses a “ends justify the means” attitude toward Kerry’s statements (like the un-biased Dan Rather).

Here some examples
1 This is only a modest exaggeration. Kerry’s main point, that total employment has decreased, is correct
Well its modest to Drum… not to me. IT is beneficial to Kerry to have big numbers here so he uses them. I would rate higher than 1 .

‘Shinseki wasn’t ‘retired,’ he filled out his full term as Army Chief of Staff.’
Well if he wasn’t retired, then there is an intent to decive here. Rate it higher than 0!

Kerry got one number slightly wrong, but there’s nothing seriously misleading here.
Well when Bush got the numbers wrong he scored 2 or 3 points… fairness????

‘It’s not clear if Kerry’s numbers really add up’.
coupled with
This is fairly ordinary political puffery
When talking about Kerry showing how he will pay for his programs.
Now the Repubs are trying to label him as a tax and spender, so if his numbers don’t add up its IMPORTANT! Yet it only got a 1 and 1.

The other thing is that unfortunately, Bush was on the defensive. If the debate would have been more about Kerry’s ’stellar’ career in the Senate, than I think he would have higher numbers.
I could go on. But I wont.

Here is the deal on the troop request. (my take anyway) I think we had enough troops to do what we needed to do. Proven by the fact that we took Bagdad so quickly. We have had a very tough line to walk though because if we had moved in immediately with 500,000 troops, that would not have looked good either (to the Iraqis). Should we have been able to predict that the Iraqis would sack their own cities? Should we have been able to predict that every Muslim with an axe to grind would head to Iraq to fight us? Maybe so. But most of our guys are not being killed with bullets. They are getting whacked by explosive devices stuck by the road or suicide bomber blowing themselves up with everyone else.

500,000 more troops might just mean 500,000 more targets for suicide bombers.

You yourself stated that politicians can’t admit they were wrong. Now would certainly be a bad time for Bush to say it. I personally do NOT think he is wrong though.

I have blogged about abortion before.

My fellow bloggers have mocked me roundly in the past for trying to find the reasoned middle ground.

But there is no middle ground on abortion.

Either you believe that life begins at conception, or you don’t.

If you believe that life begins at conception, then abortion is, QED, MURDER.

And yet we have people who are willing to water down their pro-life position by allowing exceptions for rape and incest. So the human being will die becuase of what her father did or because her existence will impose psychological suffering to her mother.

Think about following that logic for a while. I’ll wait.

This is what Kerry said in the last debate: (Bold = Smallholder’s fisk)

SARAH DEGENHART: Senator Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?
KERRY: I would say to that person exactly what I will say to you right now.
First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I’m a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.

Dear God ! Will some DNC staffer PUH-lease tell Kerry that his monomaniacal integration of Vietnam into every sentnce he utters has become a joke on Saturday Night Live! We all know you served in Vietnam. Really. We do.

First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I’m a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.

So do you believe life begins at conception or what? Are you a good Catholic or a pick and choose Catholic?

But I can’t take what is an article of faith for me and legislate me and legislate it for someone who doesnv´t share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can’t do that.

Um, yes, yes you can. We do it all the time. You don’t turn a blind eye to murder just because some people’s religion does not believe it is murder. Is it wrong to hunt down and kill terrorists, who simply, on religious grounds, believe that beheading helpless hostages is a moral good? If someone is committing what YOU believe to be murder, you MUST act to stop the act - it’s not just about “can or can’t.” If you can prevent a murder, inaction is not a moral course of action.

Am I wrong here? Someone tell me why I’m wrong.

Did I ever mention that I am the high priest of Maximumleaderology? As part of our religious doctrine, we feast on the flesh of ritually slaughtered homeless people. We don’t believe that it is murder if your motivations are pure. I’m glad to know that Kerry is unwilling to impose his religious beliefs on me and respects our difference of opinion.

Sometimes I long for the moral clarity of the British Raj.

When a Hindu delegation protested to the Viceroy that the British were interferring with their culture by preventing sutti, the British leader responded that Britain did respect the Hindu culture, but “our culture says it is wrong to burn women alive. And our culture imposes the death penalty on murderers. So go ahead and build your funeral pyres. We will build our gallows. After you are done practicing your culture, we will practice ours.”

I have been very frustrated with the blogosphere’s coverage of the debates. I’ll grant you that most bloggers have a definite political slant. We are no different here at Nakedvillainy. While I push towards the middle and the Minister of propaganda (very rarely) shouts from the left sideline, Nakedvillainy is at the end a very conservative blog because Mike is very conservative.

So it’s not the slant.

What bothers me is the refusal to look at both sides fairly.

Kevin Drum’s roundup on the debate is the first I have seen that actually takes BOTH sides to task for dishonesty.

Some of the inaccuracies reported by Mr. Drum seem rather minor to me. But the second listed under Bush is one that has been bothering me for some time: Bush’s claim that the people on the ground did not request additional troops is patently false. And he has to know it. And it is a serious issue.

From time to time, a President will go against the advice of his officers, cabinet officials, political majordomos or what have you. That’s leadership.

But, if the decision turns out to be a mistake, it is wrong to lie about the advice given by your people - effectively shifting the blame: “It’s the generals’ fault! They never told me that more troops were required!”

It shows a refusal to accept the consequences of one’s choices and immaturity.

It shows a lack of reflection that bodes ill for future decision-making.

I would love to see Analphilosopher explain how Bush isn’t a liar in this circumstance. I doubt it will happen.

Would the Maximum Leader and Foreign Minister please read through Drum’s analysis and give me their reaction?

And please, none of the “Well, the other side does it too!” We are agreed on that.

I would like my two right wing colleagues to express opinions about the following:

1) Which of Drum’s “Lies by Bush” were actually lies?

2) Do they matter?

3) On a relative scale, do lies about foreign policy and the war more harmful than lies about domestic policy?

4) Are you troubled, in the least little bit, by your man’s statements? As someone who is seriously troubled by the Democratic candidate on a host of issues, I am amazed by the seemingly blanket acceptance of Bush by the right. Give us a peek inside your minds.