Pharyngula::About those dead rats...

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Tuesday, October 26, 2004

About those dead rats...

PZ Myers • 14 Comments

A friend with a child in the Richland County,WI high school where George Bush appears today reports the following. Students were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry clothing or buttons or protest in any manner, at the risk of expulsion.

A sniveling, weak, bullying coward. He's afraid of 15-year-olds wearing a "Kerry for President" button.

Maybe he should be afraid, though—I'm not a big fan of rap, but this recent Eminem video is powerfully angry stuff. If Bush tries to steal the election again, I think that in addition to taking some bloody dead rats to DC, we all ought to be wearing black hoodies.

If you haven't seen Eminem's Mosh video, for at least a little while you can download it by clicking on the image below. (It is 47MB, so if the site gets bogged down with people downloading it, I may disable it. We'll see how it goes.)

Eminem's Mosh
47Mb Quicktime movie

Note this other news story about Republican screening procedures that was mentioned in the Electrolite thread. Bush is afraid—of American citizens.

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Comments:

#7646: — 10/26 at 08:33 PM
As some of the comments at electrolite indicate, schools have been allowed to exercise an inordinate amount of control in the name of 'not disrupting the educational enterprise'. Students as minors have little regress, but what is of interest is that the teachers end up being subject to the same standards. What we need is a teacher from this school, or the NEA to take action.

There is something that stinks when children are used as captive props in the first place. The dress code nonsense just makes it worse.

#7647: — 10/26 at 08:43 PM
Check out the school's demograhics! It's 98 % WHITE! Bush is afraid of WHITE kids! Karl Rove is afraid of Wisconsin WHITE kids!

#7651: — 10/26 at 10:22 PM
While it's not unbelievable that Bush would do this, it's also entirely possible that the school board instituted these restrictions on their own. I think someone should call and ask them about this in particular, before we start up the Two Minutes Hate.

Also: hoodies are silly.

#7653: PZ Myers — 10/26 at 10:33 PM
Why wait? It's all the same thing: a culture of fear. I can despise both Bush and damned conservative school boards.

And all the kids wear those silly hoodies. At least I didn't propose that the uniform of the Resistance should be pants 4 sizes too big with exposed underwear.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#7655: — 10/26 at 10:48 PM
Why wait?

Well, I dunno about you, but I'm watching my blood pressure.

#7656: DarkSyde — 10/26 at 10:50 PM
This 70 billion and 22,000 troops more is going to hurt also. Godamn...70 billion fucking dollars more. "The oil will pay for the war" good Lord....

#7657: — 10/26 at 11:06 PM
(I posted the material below earlier this evening over at Internet Infidels (iidb.org), but I thought some folks here might like to see what happens when you try to reason with a loon).

While I was fixing dinner, I got a call from a GOP operative working the phones for Duhbya. Being that I am a registered Republican (who hails from the days when there were actually sane, moderate Republicans), I'm on the GOP phone/mailing list. Below is what transpired during that fateful phone call.

The caller asked me if he could count on my vote for Bush, and I said no.

I told him that although I was behind the push to move against Iraq two years ago,
the lack of evidence/justification for the war turned me against the war and against
Bush.

The caller immediately started haranguing me -- demanding to know why.

I gave him an example -- the forged Niger nuclear documents. I explained to
him how they constituted the sole documentary evidence for Saddam's alleged
nuclear program, and how the Bush admin had these documents in its possession
for months without realizing they were forgeries. I then told him that once the IAEA
investigators obtained those documents, they determined that the documents were
forged by doing a *google* search!

His reply was, "what documents are you talking about?". I gave him a quick backgrounder,
and then he asked, "have you actually seen them?". I said yes -- I downloaded PDF copies
off the web -- he asked me, "from where"?. I said that the documents are cached
on a number of web-sites, but the easiest place to find them is at abcnews.com.

His reply? He told me that ABC was a loony liberal news group, and that Peter Jennings
was -- gasp -- a Canadian, and then he went off about the CBS forged national guard
documents.

I then said.... now just waitaminute -- let me tell you how hopelessly bogus those
Niger documents were! They were so poorly done that "Iraq" was repeatedly mis-spelled.
His reply? "What the heck do you mean about that?". I told him that Niger, being a former
French colony, conducts its official government business in French, and the documents
were written in French. He then interrupted me, demanding to know why I would trust
the French. They are our enemies!

I told him, "it's not a matter of trusting the French", it's just that these French-language
documents being pushed by the Bush Administration as evidence of Saddam's nuclear
program were so crudely forged that even "Iraq" was mis-spelled. I told him that proper French
spelling of "Iraq" is "Irak", but the documents repeatedly referred to Iraq as "Iraq".

His reply? "Why do you insist on trusting the French -- they are our enemies, and Saddam's
friends". And why should I care about how the French spell Iraq?

At this point, I realized it was hopeless, but I decided to carry on and try to "run out the clock"
on him a bit. So it continued for another 15 minutes or so. He ranted about our enemies (like the
French and Germans) and wondered how I could undermine America's security by failing to vote
for Bush.

I asked him how borrowing billions of dollars from the Communist Chinese to wage an
un-necessary war would enhance our national security, and his reaction was, "huh"?

I explained to him that the US budget and trade deficits are soaring, and that Communist
China is our second-largest creditor. I asked him how he felt about our having to depend on
the Chinese government central bank to finance the United States budget deficits.

His reply? "What about all those secrets that the Democrats and Clinton gave to the Chinese?"

It went on and on like this, and believe it or not, it didn't get any better.

The fact that I wasted about 25 minutes of that caller's time made me feel like I had accomplished a *little* something...

The GOP base is totally and completely bat-sh*t crazy. The only reason I continue to remain affiliated with the GOP is to make them waste a little of their money sending me fundraising letters and such....

#7658: DarkSyde — 10/26 at 11:21 PM
I had to change my registration to Independant Caer. I just couldn't in good conscious be officially associated with the GOP any longer until (and IF) they kick the trash out of their midst.

#7659: Prashant — 10/26 at 11:44 PM
The Eminem video is over at archive.org and is playing on MTV and other music networks. Get the quicktime file (47 MB) from here:

http://movies12.archive.org/3/movies/Mosh2/GNN_Mosh_bb2.mov

#7660: Prashant — 10/26 at 11:51 PM

"The fact that I wasted about 25 minutes of that caller’s time made me feel like I had accomplished a *little* something… caerbannog

It would have been shockingly hilarious if after speaking with you the caller would have converted and decided to vote Democrat!

#7663: Matt McIrvin — 10/27 at 07:09 AM
I haven't been a big fan of unfavorable comparisons of Bush to Reagan, because I remember Reagan, and I think he wasn't so hot. But in this case I have personal knowledge: Reagan came and talked at my high school in 1986. And while they probably didn't let him in the actual room where the cameras were, I'm pretty sure they didn't expel that kid who showed up with the T-shirt that said REAGAN with a giant swastika underneath it.

(And a foot-high blue mohawk. It was part of a complete look.)

...Well, OK, Reagan had already gotten reelected at that point. And Iran-Contra was a few months away from erupting...

#7679: bjd — 10/27 at 11:43 AM
Can also go here, with more info about the Guerilla News Network folks who worked on the video:

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/article.php?id=752

I dunno. Isn't this kind of like finding Pat Buchannan on your side of a debate.... oh wait, Pat Buchannan is on this side of the debate.

#7680: bjd — 10/27 at 11:50 AM
Also the thing about the "black hoodies": reminds me when I was in high school as part of the Academic Decathlon Team. Part of the rules said "no uniforms during competition." Of course that didn't stop all the preppie schools from showing up in matching ties and cardigans.

I always insisted our team should show up in gang colors and bandanas as appropriate for our school (Morse HS, southeast San Diego. Woo-hoo!) And we placed 3rd despite adding members until the last minute.

#7692: — 10/27 at 01:54 PM
Why would I need an excuse to throw dead rats onto the White House lawn?

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Tuesday, October 26, 2004

About those dead rats...

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