The Raving Loony - Blaming the Victim

Really, I think I've tapped into an inexhaustible source of idiocy, here.

Today, we get this gem from dear Justin: The Greatest Evil Ever Known.

And what, you say, breath bated, is this great, inhuman evil?

The greatest evil is not the driver of evil acts. The greatest evil is the power to stop known evils, and refuse to, whether the intentions for doing so are evil or good. Allowing a known evil to exist and grow when you have the power to stop it is more evil than the actions of the known evil.

For this reason, the most evil man in history can be named: Neville Chamberlain.

That's right. Neville Chamberlain is the Superdevil.

Now, I don't think Mr. Chamberlain is the brightest light who was ever lit. I think he was, historically, a bit of an ostrich. His policy of appeasement has been roundly criticized by historians, and the Munich Accord was inarguably a bad move.

However. He did lead England into World War II when Nazi Germany's aggressive actions continued. He was a prominent member of Churchill's War Cabinet. As a politician, he was talented.

He was also a man astride a very difficult position. By the time his policy of appeasement came into play, Nazi Germany had a full-swing military industrial build-up in place. There are those who argued that he should have done more to prepare England for war, but it's difficult to blame a man for hoping not to send thousands of his countrymen to die in a ghastly, total war. To hope not to have to annihilate cities, killing women and children in an attempt to stop the war from killing millions more.

All this, of course, is secondary to the enormity of Justin's statement: he's calling Neville Chamberlain the most evil man in history. No. No he is not. Not even close.

The theory that "Allowing a known evil to exist and grow when you have the power to stop it is more evil than the actions of the known evil." means that every one of the passengers on the 9/11 planes were guiltier of the attack than the terrorists. That passers-by when a robber runs out of a bank may as well have stolen the money themselves. That every German who didn't join a fifth column during World War II was more vile than Hitler or Goering.

I'm sorry, but that dog won't hunt. Chamberlain was perhaps guilty of being foolishly hopeful in the face of the evidence - again, it's hard to blame him, given the eventual death toll and massive property destruction that resulted. But worse than Hitler? The most evil man in history? No. Now go read history, Justin. You know. The subject you have trouble with.

Asshat of the Day - March 6th, 2010

Today's Asshat of the Day? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

[Ahmadinejad] added: “The Sept. 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.” Mr. Ahmadinejad did not elaborate.

I don't deny that the Bush administration made hay of the 2001 attacks, nor that they launched a highly inadvisable war as a result of those attacks. I don't deny that some of the methods and actions taken in the course of this war were/are reprehensible, and denigrated both the United States and its allies.

I do think that the "9/11 was an inside job" people are lunatics. There is no way - no way - that something like this could be kept quiet in today's world. If the government sets out to kill thousands of its own people, cripple its own most powerful financial district and plunge itself into war, enough people will find out that it will leak. Someone will get wind of it, and if they do, or if any of the things in the highly public investigation ever turned up false, it would be all over the news. It would be the story of the decade, if not the century.

And Ahmadinejad, in this case, is just like Kim-Jong Il. He's screaming off-the-wall things in an effort to get the world behind him, when he doesn't really understand how the world outside his own borders thinks. If he were condemning the US for its techniques in prosecuting the War on Terror, while simultaneously allowing that it is necessary to oppose terrorism, he might be listened to. But in spouting off conspiracy theories in an attempt to paint the US administration as Machiavellian monsters, he just comes off as a lunatic.

Oh, and an asshat.

The Raving Loony - Liberals and Physics

In the first of what will probably become a semi-regular series, this post will mock Justin, of the Raving Loony, a blog we've mocked before. Repeatedly. And then, unable to handle being called on his own ignorance or tendency to present bias and opinion as fact, he surrendered the field.

But some time ago, he returned. Given his sensitive feelings (and a disinclination towards shooting fish in a barrel), I've largely laid off so far. But then he went and tweeted, and right out in public, too:

Liberals do not understand basic physics. Energy input and output must be equal. This means that man made climate change is impossible.

Ah, finally, a denial that makes sense! Why didn't I realize this before? Clearly, all the energy in Earth's atmosphere comes from the Earth. Human fires, lightning, volcanoes. That's where it's coming from. It's not coming from that massive ball of fusion at the center of our solar system.

I mean, if it were, there'd be some sort of balance between the energy pouring onto the planet and the heat that radiates back out into space. Balance determined by the composition and thickness of the atmosphere. And if that were the case, if humans were to pour gases into the atmosphere that would make it better able to trap heat, we could well be responsible for the definite warming trend observed on our planet.

It's a good thing that the earth is a closed system, with no energy streaming in from any nearby solar furnace. Otherwise, Justin's tweet would make him look like an idiot.

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In the future, Justin, do your homework before announcing your revelations. I know you have trouble with homework, but, you know, try.