When Justice Flashed Her Partisan Panties

UPDATE: Ann Coulter, with her characteristic sarcastic wit, has a few words to day about one of the innocent, Gitmo victims: Terrorists’ Restless Leg Syndrome

I recently had one of my infrequent brushes with Alameda County Superior Court. After boring hours of sitting in the gallery listening to proceedings, I was treated to a rare moment when the judge flashed her partisan panties. The judge was explaining how the U.S. court system was different from that in most countries. In the U.S., of course, the defendant is considered innocent and the government (District Attorney in this case) has to prove that the defendant is guilty. She contrasted this to “some” unidentified countries where a person could be snatched off his farm, shackled, imprisoned and brought before a tribunal. Then the poor, uneducated, unsophisticated defendant must somehow prove that he is innocent.

Pause for effect…

“And, unfortunately, there are some people in our current government who think that this treatment is perfectly reasonable.” (read: Guantanamo)

Bada-bing, bada-boom.

This elicited several snide anti-Bush remarks among members of the gallery.

That a judge in Alameda County should be a liberal, Democrat Party shill is not surprising. That said judge would be feel emboldened enough to make such a partisan remark from the Bench is disturbing.

Everyone is to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Jurors are expected to keep open minds until they hear the facts of the case. But, the judge gets to advocate political opinions from the Bench without backing them up with evidence, without having opposing views being presented. That’s not bullying, is it? Why of course not. It’s only abusive power when a conservative judge or a Republican administration does it.

Justice is no longer blind. She’s been given a set of bionic eyes, programmed and controlled by her liberal, partisan masters.

EXTRA READING:

Judicial Activism Reconsidered, Thomas Sowell

Behind The Bias: A Drive For ‘Social Justice’, Dennis Praeger

Debate: Difference of principles on judiciary, HotAir.com

Clear and Present Danger, Weekly Standard

One of NYT’s Guantanamo Bay ‘Innocents’ Turned Suicide Bomber on Release, NewsBusters.com

Judging the Judges, American Spectator

ELITE: That’s It, We’re Moving to Canada

Don’t let the door hit your a** on the way out…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “untitled“, posted with vodpod

Sodomy and Gratitude: Collective-Consciousness Hippie Crap from SF

Travel+Leisure magazine readers recently voted on the best travel destination in the U.S., and Boston beat out San Francisco. However, SF still remains popular with travelers.

Keep in mind that this is what San Francisco thinks of you, Red Staters and those of you in a Red State of mind.

Sodomy and gratitude: Nine perfect ways to prepare for the End of Bush. Can you believe it?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

You want to celebrate Bush’s permanent retirement to Crawford? Enjoy the perfect send-off with a well-lubricated loved one? You know what to do.

Get ready to pray. To Shiva, to Shakti, to Astarte and Allah and Buddha and Jesus and the Great Mother and whatever divine energy you like that the Dems don’t completely botch it, get just as power-drunk and monomaniacal as their GOP counterparts, and squander what’s shaping up to be an astonishing opportunity to reshape the American experiment.

[snip]

God is dead. Or rather, the Repub’s particularly cruel version, a gloomy, tyrannical, guilt-slingin’ God from Colorado Springs who loved war and smacked up women’s rights and pretended to tolerate gay people even while hating “what they do,” …. God is not what they say, and She never was.

[snip]

What, don’t believe in that like-attracts-like, up-your-vibration, collective-consciousness hippie crap? How sad for you. And your fellow Republicans.

[snip]

See them there, receding, sliding back into the Void with a wail and a whimper. Prepare, at long last, to wave goodbye.

Boston is beautiful this time of year! Go spend your hard-earned dollars there.

Extra Consciousness-Raising Reading:

More liberal collective-consiousness:Miserable provocateur rails against conservative women again, Michelle Malkin
Dumb A** of the Month Award, Sister Toldjah
Columnist Praises Obama as Magical Spiritual Being Not of This Earth, Patterico
Sodom and Obama, Confederate Yankee
More booze and cake! Cruel recession got you down? Buck up, pal. Good news abounds!, Mark Morford
Planet Obama: What would happen if the entire world could vote in our election? One guess, Mark Morford
White women, no way: Once pro-Obama, but now swoon for McPalin? Who the hell are you?, Mark Morford
The good news, the bad news: Gay wedding cake, the last days of Bush, and his ‘n’ her vibrators, Mark Morford

What’s Your Obama: Welcome to Sodom and Gomorrah

The Jawa Report has the scoop on an upcoming event in San Francisco: O’s for Obama. Every day’s a party in Baghdad-by-the-Bay.

Now you might assume that “O’s” refers to the mystical Obama hand-sign, but guess again. O’s for Obama promises music, fun and orgasmic breathing (Oh! Oh! Oh-Bama!)

The event organizer, Destin Gerek, who calls himself the Erotic Rockstar, says:

“I’ve put in a lot of work to make this event as safe and accessible for as many people as possible. Most everyone knows how to cum, but how many people know how to have a rip-roaring, full-body, high vibrational energetic breath orgasm all while fully clothed and without even touching their sex organs?

Not too many, but hundreds more WILL after the 24th.

I’m here to help you have an experience OUTSIDE of what you already know. Something that perhaps, you didn’t even know you were capable of experiencing. All this while promoting Obama for President.”

If this isn’t enough to convince you that Liberalism is a mental disorder, there’s no Hope for you…. maybe just Change.

Check out the nifty poll:

What’s your Obama?
– Man, Mystery, Miracle
– Obama the Earth Guardian
– Obama-daka, the Pan Reborn
– Galactic Ambassador Obama
– Leader from the Heart

We are soooo screwed if this guy becomes President and these people feel legitimized.

Portrait of a blinking idiot: New litmus test for right-wingers and conservatives

A research team, based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has published results from a study (“Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits,” Science, 19 September 2008, Vol. 321, no. 5896, pp. 1667-1670) that claims to show that physiological traits such as blinking and flinching correlate to political beliefs. Of course, those folks in the study who were strongly identified with conservative political beliefs are said to respond more strongly to stimuli by blinking harder and flinching.

If the claims are true that conservatives blink harder and more frequently, how do the study’s authors explain this?

Where do I begin? The sample size that led to this sweeping generalization? 46 people. So, the research team is saying that the reactions of 46 people can predict the behavior 6.7 billion people? Right…. Then, using that line of reasoning, one could hypothesize that 19 Muslim highjackers predict the behavior of all Muslims. I can hearing the howling about stereotyping and profiling and racism as I type these words.

According to the article, the team used

“physiological equipment, making it possible to measure skin conductance and orbicularis oculi startle blink electromyogram (EMG) response”

to conclude that

“Our data reveal a correlation between physiological responses to threat and political attitudes…. political attitudes and varying physiological responses to threat may both derive from neural activity patterns, perhaps those surrounding the amygdala.”

Of the eight researchers whose names appear on the article, only one – Mario Scalora – is a psychologist. The remainder are political scientists. There’s not a biologist, a neurologist, or a clinical physician in the lot. Not even a physiologist. You might think that adding a physiologist to a team that’s trying to draw conclusions about physiological reactions would be useful, if not obvious. If anyone has info on the specific equipment and tests used, please pass it along.

The article also states:

“political and social attitudes are heritable”

The proof they use for that conclusion: two articles published in the American Political Science Review. Since when are political scientists qualified to draw conclusions about genetics? Wouldn’t you want a geneticist to weigh in on that one?

While the Science article is careful not to draw conclusions about “liberals” and “conservatives,” the inference is obvious. And, the media is running with it. From the Toronto Star

“a new study in the prestigious journal Science says that people with right wing views blink and flinch far harder than liberals”

to Newsweek

“on the level of physiological reactions in the conservative mind, illegal immigrants may = spiders = gay marriages = maggot-filled wounds = abortion rights = bloodied faces.”

Lead author Doug Oxley told The Star

“What we’re introducing to the field of political science is this notion that there is a physical basis to these beliefs…”

If you want to introduce science to political science, why don’t you consult some actual scientists? All the team is doing is introducing and propogating another false meme.

So what’s next? Will folks be staring at faces, counting blinks, so that they can ferret out the evil conservatives from the nice liberals? I know! Bill O’Reilly can add a new segment to The O’Reilly Factor to complement his body language expert and media coach.

Ace of Spades has a nice retort to nitwit social scientists, Wherein I Do My Part to Aid the Social Sciences

More reading:

Are you born conservative (or liberal)? L.A. Times

Laws of Nature: How to Spot a Conservative Telegraph

Left, Right; Obama, McCain: It might not be what you think University of Nebraska-Lincoln Press Release

Updated Links from Slate.com
Republicans are from Mars, Democrats from Venus: Why is Every Neuropundit Such a Raging Liberal?
Liberal Interpretation: Rigging a Study to Make Conservatives Look Stupid