Why do we believe in electrons, but not in fairies? by Benjamin Kuipers is another great piece that was brought to my attention by Ray Salemi. Just to give you an idea of what is in the piece, I have the following quote:

Science education is about teaching the scientific method, and about teaching some of the knowledge that the human race has acquired by applying the scientific method. It would be a useful part of a science class to teach the distinction between theories that are scientific because they make testable predictions, and other theories that could be true, but are not scientific because they don’t.

I have first extracted the audio from the article, Rick Perry Rewrites His Own History Again, Claims He Never Considered Secession, because I think it is worthwhile to hear what he said before you see him denying that he said it.

Perry is technically correct that he never uttered the word “secession,” but he did say that “when we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation. And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.” Just in case Perry doesn’t remember saying that he is “thinking about” seceding, he can listen to himself saying it here:

For the record, Perry isn’t just wrong about his own previously stated views on secession, he was also wrong the first time when he claimed Texas has the right to secede from the union.

You can click on the link at the start of this post to see the video of his denial. After seeing it, you can judge for yourself if what he said in his denial is an accurate description of what you hear in the audio.

As a fan of Rev. Wright, I know how clips can be manipulated to make it appear you said something you never did say. I will keep an open mind for the time when Rick Perry decides to explain the exact audio clip that I included above. Given that he did say in the clip that he is thinking about the deal to leave the country anytime Texans wanted to, it is still possible that he further went on to describe how that option was no longer available after a Supreme Court decision that was handed down after the Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression as I have heard southerners call it.)

The video below is the second of the edited parts of the interview of Gov. Mitch Daniels on The Daily Show.

If Elizabeth Warren had been conducting the interview, I wonder if she would have said,

For entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, don’t they have to have customers? If you take the money out of the hands of the customers and just give it to the entrepreneurs, they don’t have to grow the economy to get more money, and they can’t grow it because the potential customers have no money.

Given this reality, how can you say your tax policies are pro-growth?

The unedited interview is better than the cut down version that appears at the top of this post. Below are the video clips of the unedited interview.

The video below must be the source of the poster that I showed in the post The Other 98%.

Elizabeth Warren makes the case the way I wish more politicians did. It is one thing to be a supporter of the cause fundamentally. It is a major step up to be able to explain the cause in a way that does it justice.

The headline I used, WATCH: Elizabeth Warren rebuts ‘class warfare’ charges, comes from the post on Raw Story. There it gives a little context to the video.

In case you are interested in participating, I figured I might as well post a link to the source of the demonstrations,  #OCCUPYWALLTREET on Adbusters.org.

The three previous posts are Olbermann calls out media hypocrisy on ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest, “Days of Rage” Occupy Wall St. and Occupy Wall Street organizer: Republicans are the ones waging class warfare.

The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur explains why he supports the Occupy Wall Street protests that are not being covered enough (if at all) by the mainstream media.

The Other 98% on Facebook

Also from The Other 98%:

The article from Rawstory, Olbermann calls out media hypocrisy on ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest, provided the following quote and video clip.

Keith Olbermann pointed out Wednesday night on Countdown that the major newspapers had been ignoring the five-day-long “Occupy Wall Street” protests, but would have scrambled to cover a similar-sized tea party protest.

I think this is about the third time I have made a blog post about this protest. I have also previously noted the lack of coverage in the main stream press.

The two previous posts are “Days of Rage” Occupy Wall St. and Occupy Wall Street organizer: Republicans are the ones waging class warfare.

As promised, here is the video clip of Elizabeth Warren appearing on Morning Joe.

Each new video clip of Elizabeth Warren interacting with the forces arrayed against her makes me more and more hopeful of her success.

I have not yet found the video of Elizabeth Warren’s appearance on Morning Joe. I did find the video below from the Lawrence O’Donnell show talking about Elizabeth Warren.

The story Pa. school cancels play about Muslim poet appears in The Boston Globe. The start of this story from AP follows:

A Pennsylvania school district has decided not to stage a musical about a Muslim street poet after community members complained about the timing so soon after the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

I can’t even imagine what is going through your mind.  What kind of story is their about a Muslim Poet?  Is there a punch line to this blog post?

Wait, for it.  The play about a Muslim poet is the musical “Kismet”.

In the version about this story titled, Western Pennsylvania School Cancels Kismet in Wake of 9/11 Anniversary, they add the commentary:

Musicals like Rent and Godspell have encountered resistance on the school and community levels after their acclaimed Broadway runs, and now the 1953 Tony Award-winning musical Kismet faces a similar destiny in western Pennsylvania.

Yes, it is that “Kismet”.  The very musical my parents were thrilled to see on Broadway before we knew we were supposed to be afraid of musicals about Muslim poets.

I don’t know who thought up the headline  for the story as it appeared in The Boston Globe.  Maybe it was purposely chosen to give you a good shock when you found out what play they were talking about.

According to the AP story:

“Kismet’’ is an Aladdin-style love story set in Baghdad more than 1,000 years ago.

I suppose that movie theaters must now refrain from showing Disney’s “Aladdin” at any time near 9/11.

The irony for me is that I can imagine that many people reading this blog post (including some of my relatives) will be mystified at why I am making such a big deal of this.  To me, it is such a big deal because such blatant racism will seem so totally reasonable to people who claim to abhor racism.