(Warning: cricket ahead.)

Warney seems to have finally yelled BLEAAAAAAAAAUUGGGGGGHHHHHH! one time too many, even after a six-wicket haul.

The umpires had already blown four major
calls in Australia’s favor.  For a while, it looked like
the Windies could get called out just for daring to stand near the
wicket.

If the umps ever decide to leave cricket, they can always find work in Ohio and Florida.

UPDATE: The umpires blew yet another important call today, favoring Australia once again.  Not surprisingly, the cricket lords also decided to let Warne off the hook for disputing the umpires’ abilities.  Even less surprisingly, the West Indies couldn’t overcome the 5-wicket advantage the umps gave Oz in the last two days, an edge roughly comparable to giving one baseball team two extra innings to bat. 

There may be hope for Kansas after all.  Reader Stephanie, she of the mighty herds of roaming muntjac, alerts us to a new course being taught at KU, "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies."

Two points: one, I’m not denying the existence of a creator.  If there
is one, however, I strongly suspect it’s not a deity of infinite
wisdom.  More like a sophomore deity, doing a summer project to make up
a failing grade on his last universe, which fell over and collapsed
into a black hole while it was still on the lab table, and right in
front of that cute female deity he was really hoping to score with, the
one who still giggles every time she sees him.

Seriously.  I mean, look around.  Tell me that’s not what we’re stuck in.

I prefer this version anyway.  It’s easier to cut the guy some slack.  Speaking of which, everybody’s always going on about asking
some god’s forgiveness.  What if he’s the one who owes the apology? 
Look how many of us are born — born,
mind you, just randomly screwed — sick, hungry, and in the middle of
holy wars that kill lots of us off in the name of some misshapen
perception of godliness, largely the result of being stuck with tiny little primate brains barely capable of reason, which, incidentally, we did not even ask for, much less create.  And we’re the ones begging forgiveness?

Frankly, I think whoever put us here is
probably peering down with the same sinking pit in his stomach that you had
when you were a kid and realized you’d overfed the goldfish.  Oops. 
Sorry, little guys.  And now he’s just hoping the teacher shows up to
grade him before we finally manage to destroy the entire planet, forcing him to retake the entire semester.  Wait
until that hot little female deity hears about that.

Secondly, I will be disappointed if the KU course doesn’t include FSMism.  Let’s hope they are touched by the Noodly Appendage and act in Its wisdom.

Virginia man convicted today of conspiring to assassinate the president.

The Murtha Moment is now widely discussed in both the mainstream and
alternative press as possibly a moment when the Iraq war debate
fundamentally changed.

Bullshit.

Here’s one small example of why.

Yesterday, CNN’s Kyra Phillips led this "debate" (read down in the transcript) discussing the Murtha Moment.

As you by now expect, the "debate" did not include any voices from the anti-war side.  The leftish part of the debate (if that word even
applies) was taken by a highly-decorated Vietnam vet who articulately
pointed out the obvious fact that the war has no specific objective,
other than the wish to eliminate terrorism in a generalized sense.  At
his side was a nervous young soldier who agreed.

The "left" in this debate had special credibility, in the conventional mindset, only — only — because it had worn the uniform.

Thus, opposition to the war in this country only counts
for anything when it comes from people who have already been vocal
supporters of an irrational war based on obvious lies resulting in
inevitable mass killing.  That’s
why Murtha matters as well, of course.  The message is repeated and
ongoing.  And all of this just reinforces the notion that militarism in and of itself is a good and credible thing.

What about the people who were right all along?  What about the ten
million people who marched in the streets of cities all over the world
before this shit ever started?  No credibility.  Obviously.

Would Martin Luther King have a place in the discussion?  No.  Would
Jesus, whom millions of people who support incredible levels of
violence flatter themselves by pretending to worship?  No.  Of course
not.  He’s a god and all, but he’s nobody to actually listen to.

Half the country still supports torture, folks.  Half.  Even though it
doesn’t work, and security experts are most vocally opposed.

Think about what that means.  About our respect for human life.  Our
respect for the most basic morality.  Our respect even for the value of
knowledge and reason itself.

It’s nice that a lot of people are starting to realize that this specific war at this specific time is not working out specifically the way a specific set of liars and criminals promised.  That’s good.  Obviously.

But surveys have limits.  What’s not made clear by increasing
opposition is the thinking (if the word applies) behind it.  In most
surveys, someone who now
thinks, for example, "what’s wrong with these ingrates?  Fine, we
should have just bombed the place flat to begin with.  Screw ’em" will show up as "opposed" exactly the
same way Pope John Paul II would have, if he were still alive.

Considering the uninformed willingness of many of the war’s early ardent supporters — many of whom very likely couldn’t find Iraq on a map,
remember — is it really so likely that suddenly millions now have an
improved understanding of the differences between Salafists and Shiites?

Please.

This ain’t that.

There are still numerous fundamental and false assumptions at the
riverbed of the American mainstream.  These are nowhere near changing. 
Washington’s foreign policy is still inherently presumed "good," meant
only for the welfare of the affected peoples, despite a complex
historical record.  Military spending, no matter how wasteful, no
matter what else gets cut to pay for the waste, inherently makes
America "stronger," because "strength" is defined by our ability to
project our will upon others, not by the health and welfare of our
people.  Each war occurs in isolation from all past events; Bush’s
support for the Taliban, Rumsfeld’s handshake with Saddam, CIA support
for the fundamentalists who morphed into Al-Qaeda have nothing to do
with our current situation.  History itself is worse than useless; not
only are there no lessons to learn, but simply knowing it and pointing
it out still frequently brands one as unAmerican.

Let’s return to a moment near the end of yesterday’s Iraq "debate," in
which the pro-war side — another former soldier, of course — used a
demonstrable falsehood to summarize his position, of all things:

Who is "they" here?  September 11 had nothing to do with Iraq.  We’re four years
after the event here.  The White House stopped lying about this one
years ago.  Now they’re only lying about ever having lied about it. 
That’s, like, two lies ago.

Anybody still regurgitating this nonsense should be shouted down and slapped in the forehead with a transcript of Bush’s own admission almost three goddam years ago.

But Kyra Phillips, betraying the smug incompetence we’ve come to expect
from American "news" people, didn’t comment on or apparently even notice
the complete falsity of the fundamental argument.  (Of course, this isn’t her
fault.  It isn’t her job.  CNN doesn’t produce "news."  It produces an
audience, which it sells to its advertisers.  Kyra’s job is to maintain
and stimulate that audience, nothing more.  Same as Nancy Grace, host
of the Kidnapped White Women Parade, aka 58 Minutes Hate.)

Instead, Phillips concluded not with facts or clarification, but with masturbation so pure it could have come from a lab:

I can remember when you had to buy a magazine to see a woman touching herself like that.

A debate with no left side?  A commitment to militarism as the cover
charge for admission?  Long-debunked rubbish being cited as the basis
for argument, and treated as equal to truth?

I think we have seen that before.

We still see it, and all of the false assumptions involved, every day.  Murtha or no.

Let’s not kid ourselves.  Next war, everybody’s right back on the bandwagon.

Ordinary Dik-Dik:

Dik-Dik after getting a little too aggressive with that yoga stretching class:

OK, actually, that’s just another Gerenuk.

But still.