Treacher's Sorry Everybody Post

I saw this earlier and it was part of what gave me the idea to post Sorry Everybody links on my blog. Treacher has done a wonderful collection of Sorry Everybody links.

Schadenfreude Overload (Part 8)

Is this person really advocating IQ tests for voters? Why don't we just bring back the poll tax?
Are these the same people complaining about voter disenfranchisement?

Funny thing is, if voting eligibility were based on intelligence, Bush would have probably improved his margin. Let's make the (probably justified) assumption that intelligence correlates with education level. If you look at the breakdown of votes by education, Kerry only won in the "No high school" and "Postgrad study" categories. Assuming that we're not going to be too draconian about it, most of the low IQ voters we would throw out would be in the "No high school" category, a net loss for Kerry.

Schadenfreude Overload (Part 7)

My daddy didn't love me and now you too.

Is this Anti Semitic?

Citizen Smash covers the controversial resignation of San Diego Union Tribune columnist James Goldsborough. On Smash's site you can read the article that led to Goldsborough's resignation when it was rejected by Union Tribune editors because it might be offensive to Jews. A lot of people don't see any reason why this might be offensive to the Jews. Now I am not a Jew myself so this may be way off. But let me take a crack at it.

We see two opposing opinions in this column. One says Jews can't vote for Bush because they are too good. The other says they did vote for Bush because he bribed them with his policy towards Israel. So, the author seems to think that most Jews are good (ie Democrats) but some of the wicked ones were willing to put the good of Israel before the good of their own country.

This plays directly into an old Jewish stereotype, that Jews are traitors to their countries because they care more about what is good for the Jews (and Israel) than they care for their own country.

I don't necessarily interpret the article that way, but I do see how someone could. If it were my call, I would not have rejected the article. Israel is an important issue to many Jews and it is perfectly natural to point that out.

By the way, I think that his point (that the Jews who voted for Bush did so because he bribed them with a policy favorable to Israel) is bunk. 5% of Jews switched from Democrat to Republican from 2000 to 2004. So did 5% of Catholics. In fact every religious grouping except for other (which contains Muslims) voted for Bush in increasing numbers. Bush won more votes in 2004 than in 2000. Naturally more Jews, like nearly everyone else, voted for him.