Stupid Shit Tuesday

Here at Punch and Jude, we round up stupid shit so's you don't have to go looking for it yourself. Community service, that's what we're all about.

We've been talking a lot about not-so-Intelligent Design lately, and that is one giant, steaming heap of stupid shit. That shit's so stupid, it's hard to understand how it continues to be a topic of contention in the public sphere. Seriously. And, Jon, all due respect, but ID is so transparently based on the idea of the Christian God as the designer that it's just not funny. In fact, that's exactly what Judge Jones said in the recent Kitzmiller case (the Dover, PA one; this is on page 25 of the PDF):

The only apparent difference between the argument made by [William] Paley and the argument for ID, as expressed by defense expert witnesses Behe and Minnich, is that ID’s “official position” does not acknowledge that the designer is God. However, as Dr. Haught testified, anyone familiar with Western religious thought would immediately make the association that the tactically unnamed designer is God, as the description of the designer in Of Pandas and People (hereinafter “Pandas”) is a “master intellect,” strongly suggesting a supernatural deity as opposed to any intelligent actor known to exist in the natural world. (P-11 at 85). Moreover, it is notable that both Professors Behe and Minnich admitted their personal view is that the designer is God and Professor Minnich testified that he understands many leading advocates of ID to believe the designer to be God.(21:90 (Behe); 38:36-38 (Minnich)).

Well, that pretty much nails that.

As for other stupid shit today, there's this, from the Charleston, West Virginia Gazette:

The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.

A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.

But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.

He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.

He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months.

Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.

“I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter,” Rebrook said. “They took it off me and burned it.”

But no one documented that he lost his Kevlar body armor during battle, he said. No one wrote down that armor had apparently been incinerated as a biohazard.

Can you believe that stupid shit? Way to shit on the vets. And this was a Pointer. An Academy guy, who did really well--even volunteered for infantry instead of some candy-ass REMF job. And still he gets the shaft. That's some stupid shit.

But, topping all of the other stupid shit, we have something special. Shit so monumentally stupid, it's hard to believe that a conscious human being could utter these words without being immediately seized by demons and dragged straight to hell for being so stupid and such a liar. I speak, of course, of the testimony yesterday of Bush lickspittle Alberto Gonzales. While speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales, in between rounds of torture-photo-inspired masturbations, actually said the following stupid shit:

GONZALES: I gave in my opening statement, Senator, examples where President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance of the enemy on a far broader scale -- far broader -- without any kind of probable cause standard, all communications in and out of the country.

God damn, that's some amazingly stupid shit. Aside from the obvious hilarity of the idea of President George Washington engaging in electronic surveillance, President Washington didn't fight a war. General Washington, on the other hand, did. Before there was a Constitution, you see, during that whole "revolution" thing you may have heard about. Also, it's kind of hard to hold Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt to the standard of a law that was passed in fucking 1978. And this guy is the Attorney General? That, also, is some stupid, stupid shit.