How do you think the economy's doing? If you think it's going great,
raise your hands!
Wow, that's a lot of hands… guess it's going really well, then, huh?
I guess, because the government tell you how great it is every
chance it gets, well, it must be just great. I mean the numbers they
put out every month indicate that the economy's moving right along.
I mean, all of that growth! And unemployment's still kind of low,
right? And hey -- according to the Consumer Price Index, inflation's
really not so bad, is it?
But wait -- isn't this the same government continues to tell you
that Iraq and al Qaeda were in cahoots on 9/11? Aren't these the
same people who told us that the war in Iraq would only cost a few
billion dollars, take a month or two, and be entirely paid for with
Iraqi oil money? Don't they tell us they don't torture anyone, while
they're torturing people? Didn't they assure us that they would
never spy on us without a warrant, while they were in the midst of a
plan to spy on us without a warrant?
Yeah, but they're a bunch of greedheads, right? They love money! No
way they would lie to us about how well the economy's doing, right?
Hell, yes they would.
Remember the economic doldrums we found ourselves in from about 1973
until about the mid-1990s? It's back with a vengeance. Forget the
statistics, folks; use your instincts for once. How do you actually
feel about the economy?
Well, if you're feeling good about it, then you're buying into the
bullshit. Stop it!
Take your head out of the statistics and ask yourself, what’s so
great about it, anyway? They keep telling you everything's
wonderful, but name one thing that's gotten better in the last six
years, besides the size of the limits on your credit cards. Okay,
maybe the security guard industry's doing well lately, but that's
about it. Read the Rest of this article
here...
There is something I don't understand about the current crop of
Democrats in Congress. Why are they so reticent to discuss
impeachment? And honestly, I think we're way past the point where
discussion of impeachment would be useful. It's time someone put
forth serious articles of impeachment against George W. Bush and
Dick Cheney, and brought them to a vote.
Under normal circumstances, their reticence would make some sense,
because impeachment trials reduce the effectiveness of the Senate
for the time of the trial. But at this point, does it matter? Senate
Republicans have made it crystal clear that they will refuse to
allow anything important through to the floor for a vote, anyway; if
the Senate is going to be relatively ineffective for a while, why
not put the time to good use? Let's use the opportunity to
demonstrate just WHY the Founding Fathers put impeachment into the
Constitution six times.
Honest to God, what does
someone have to do to be impeached by these Democrats? The
Republicans made up something out of whole cloth in order to bring
charges against Bill Clinton, and continued with it, even though
three-quarters of the country sided with Clinton. Yet, with a list
of potential charges at least a mile long against the two current
occupants of the White House, are we supposed to believe there isn't
a political will to salvage our democracy and preserve what's left
of the Constitution?
And don't give me that "we don't have the time" crap, either. I keep
hearing that argument, too. It doesn't have to tale that long. I
know the impeachment of Bill Clinton
seemed to take forever, the fact of the matter is, the
articles of impeachment were passed on December 19, 1998, and he was
acquitted on February 12, 1999. That's less than two months from the
impeachment vote to the end of the trial. Think back over the last
two months; did anything happen, legislatively speaking, that we
couldn't have done without? They can't even pass bills dealing with
the Iraq occupation or immigration. We're in the middle of a
so-called "war on terror," and we can't even pass a bill to try to
identify 12 million people who are here illegally.
But I digress.
This is not about right and left, although the right wing wants you
to think it is. This is about right and
wrong. We need an impeachment
trial for no other reason than to expose the Bush Administration's
sins to the entire country, and the world, and to show to the rest
of the world how a truly great country does to get rid of scumbags
when they occupy the most powerful positions in the government.
Do we have the votes to convict? Not at the moment. But I have a
sneaking suspicion that if you manage to lay the evidence before the
people and show them everything the Bushies have done for the last
seven years, many Republican Senators -- especially the 22 up for
reelection next year and the 19 up for reelection in 2010, will sit
up and take notice.
The purpose of impeachment, of course, is to remove anyone in the
government who is committing a crime, or who is found to be corrupt.
That part is obvious; corruption cannot and should not be tolerated
in the government, and the Founders knew and understood this. But
just as important to the people who created the Constitution, was
the desire for a mechanism for getting rid of people who were
incompetent, and incapable of acting in a way beneficial to the
nation as a whole.
Let's face it, folks; with the Bushies, we've hit the jackpot with
regard to impeachable offenses. I mean, it's like the world's
largest dartboard; two blind people could make it a game with
everything the Keystone Kops in the White House have been up to. Read the Rest of this
Article Here
If you want to know why the United States health care system is
messed up, the answer is actually right in front of your face. Too
many Americans treat health care as a privilege, when it is actually
a right. Check out what some anonymous wingnut poster threw up into
a Usenet post last week. Granted, this guy isn't the brightest bulb
in the box, but a lot of people feel this way; I've heard this same
sentiment expressed several times in the debate over health care:
I understand, Ive (sic) always understood, your plan is to force
the health
professionals to treat you..... ...and take whatever you wish
to
pay them in return.... You want to have the same standard of
living
as people who spent a decade in higher education even though you
dropped out of school in ninth grade....
See, folks, that's the problem, in a nutshell. He's not alone. Too
many think of health care as some sort of privilege, and it's not;
it's a right. If you're sick, you are supposed to be entitled to see
a doctor, and not worry about whether or not you can afford it. None
of your rights are dependent on the amount of wealth in your
portfolio at the moment you get sick, or the willingness of a
private company to allow you to pay for it. It is a RIGHT, and it's
time we started demanding it.
This is not the wide-eyed idealism of a bunch of bleeding hearts;
it's also a practical matter. There are a handful of things which
should not be private industries in this country, and therefore not
be subject to the volatility of "the market," and health care is one
of them. There is a reason we spend more than anyone else in the
world on health care, and yet sit mired in 37th place in world
health statistics, and dropping. There is a reason why our health
statistics are more in line with Cuba and Albania than with Britain,
France and Canada. And it's the fact that ours is the only health
care system in the world that is treated much like a used car lot.
Read the rest of
this article Here...
The Key to Success for the News Media: Actual Journalism
by Milt Shook
Okay, I admit it; I'm geeky.
For the last several years, I have actually read much
of the Project for Excellence in Journalism's "State of the News
Media" reports. Okay, not all of the reports, but the ones about
cable, network and local television news, radio and newspapers. And
there is one unmistakable trend in every single one of them,
including cable news, which is in its relative infancy.
Fewer and fewer people are relying on the major media
for news.
I knew this without reading the reports, mind you.
It's not hard to figure out that fewer people are relying on
journalists for their news. I look around me on the train into work;
there are more people with paperback novels than copies of
newspapers, and I live in Baltimore and work in Washington, DC, so
there are plenty of good newspapers to choose from. News radio is
pretty close to dead in all but a few very large cities. And
broadcast television news is rarely discussed anymore. It's been
clear for years that the news media is on the decline.
And it's also pretty easy to see why, although the
idiots who run newsrooms will never admit it; the idiots who teach
journalism classes will never admit it; and the idiots in suits who
have no clue how to make money from the media will never admit it.
The problem, in a nutshell, is this; No one has any
clue what journalism is anymore.
Journalism was once considered the fourth branch of
government because, in a system of checks and balances, journalists
are (or at least should be) the only check on all of the other three
branches. Journalism is supposed to be about pure truth -- as pure
as truth can be, anyway -- and the conveyance of facts, so that the
consumer can process them into something meaningful to their lives.
Sure, there has been shady journalism and always has been; in the
early days of the republic, Thomas Jefferson actually used a
reporter to trot our nasty stories about Alexander Hamilton, in
order to try to gain an edge while running for president. But isn't
a profession supposed to grow? When I was a kid, you had supermarket
tabloids, and you had "real news." The people covering celebrity
gossip had a corner of a newspaper, not the front page. There was a
time, not all that long ago, when the concept of any journalist
standing outside of a jail, waiting breathlessly for a celebutante
to emerge free from three weeks of confinement would have been
absurd. Now, reporters clog streets and cause traffic jams, and
formerly "legitimate" news organizations are paying millions for
grainy pictures of celebrities they prop up and take down
continually, by force of will. Read the rest of this
article Here
You know, I love my father. I think he's a great guy
with a big heart, who knows how to love better than most people, and
who treats people with more dignity than most people. He's a regular
guy, and I wish we could have hung out more, to drink beer and watch
games together and stuff like that.
I do not, however, think he should be President of
the United States.
I, too, am a pretty decent guy, no matter what the
wingnuts think. I'm very easy to talk to, very friendly, I talk up
just about everyone I have contact with, and most people who know me
smile most of the time. I am usually fun to hang out with, as I like
to have a good time. I have strong opinions, and I back them up with
facts, at least most of the time.
I am also not qualified to be President of the United
States.
Can we please get away from this notion that the
President of the United States should be a "regular guy," which
other "regular" people can easily relate to? Seriously, this seems
to be one of the most common reasons wingnuts cite for thinking that
George W. Bush is a great president. I don't want the guy who just
sold me a hamburger to have his finger on the button, or negotiating
treaties with countries who could blow us up. I'd like to think I
have a higher standard.
Pardon me, but the man sitting in the White House
right now is inarticulate, ignorant, incurious, and pig-headed,
among dozens of other traits that are just as worthless in a leader.
Why would anyone think of these traits as pluses?
When you go to the doctor, would you prefer an
arrogant doctor who thinks he's smarter than most people and is
correct in his assessment, or a doctor who admittedly didn't do very
well in med school because he found it all boring, and who pays a
whole lot more than most for malpractice insurance, but who treats
you like you're his best buddy?
If you need someone to help you in dealing with the
IRS, would you prefer someone who graduated from Harvard and knows
the tax code like the back of his hand, but who's married to "Muffy"
and speaks like he has a stick wedged up his ass, or would you turn
to Uncle Bubba, who once did his mother's taxes for her, and got a
"bodacious refund," because he's easy to talk to and have a beer
with?
Why the hell would we want someone in charge of the
government who obviously has no clue why he's there, and proves it
every single day? Look at his appointments to key government
positions; many of them are young folks with no experience, who just
happen to have more loyalty to the Republican Party and to him, than
to the country as a whole. Think that's harsh? Well, then, think
about this; if Bill Clinton had asked me to serve as an FCC
Commissioner when he was president, I would have turned down the
job. The reason is, I'm not qualified to be FCC Commissioner, and I
love my country too much to subject them to an FCC with me at the
helm. The fact that these people with no experience are sitting in
positions of power for which they are unqualified, speaks to their
level of patriotism, doesn’t it?
Read the rest of this article here...
My advice to the Democratic presidential candidates
is this; you people had better come up with something to hang your
hat on besides just the war in Iraq, because there is a very good
chance that this war will be winding down by the time Americans cast
their ballots in November, 2008. Besides, there is so much more to
the Bush Administration and the Republican Party than just the war,
and it's time that we started looking at the situation we find
ourselves in, after a generation of right wing domination. There is
nothing these people haven't completely screwed up, but if we're to
take back the government for the people -- and that should be the
goal -- we can't just be a bunch of one-hit wonders. Regardless of
what some liberals say, having a strong stance against the Iraq War
is simply not enough at this point.
The Democrats must take strong, wholly principled
stands on every issue out there, and believe me, there are many out
there. This country is in debt up to its eyeballs, and it's
borrowing more and more money at higher and higher interest rates
from nations that don't necessarily have our best interests at
heart. For example, when the Federal Reserve implies that they are
raising interest rates in order to hold down
inflation, they're lying; they're actually raising interest so that
others will continue to lend us money to operate. One of the
countries that is lending us a lot of money is China. Their
hostility is barely kept under wraps; the only reason they keep
lending us money, besides the higher interest, is because we're a
huge market for them, and a huge source of income. They like our
trade deficit, which is another problem that must be addressed by
the next president. Our tendency to outsource everything because
it's cheaper has now cost many of us our pets; do we wait until it
starts killing people before we act? It's just bad policy to allow
others to manufacture everything we need; experts warned of the
danger years ago, and in their "free market" zeal (as if there was
such a thing as a "free market"), the right wing has put our
national security in a great deal of peril.
Then there is the issue of global warming, and
environmentalism generally. There's no need to be alarmist in order
to make this a huge issue. This is
a huge issue, but one which, with proper leadership, we can take
steps toward solving almost immediately. We must start holding
other countries up as examples. Nearly every other industrialized
nation in the world has higher mileage standards than the United
States, almost all have stricter carbon emissions standards. And
almost every other country in the world has signed on to the Kyoto
protocol has promised to limit carbon emissions in the near future,
and even more in the distant future. We, on the other hand, have
promised to increase our mileage standards to where the Europeans
already are, the Australians already are, and most countries in
South America already are, by 2020. Democratic candidates would do
well to point out that this should be embarrassing; we should be the
leaders of the world, not the followers. We could very easily take
the tax breaks we now give the oil companies and turn around and
hand them to companies which produce greener products, such as solar
panels and wind turbines. We could require that every vehicle now
getting less than 20 miles per gallon be manufactured with a hybrid
engine, and do so by the 2012 model year. With leadership, there are
all sorts of things we can do. Read the rest of this article here...
Last night, I went to see Michael Moore's new film, "Sicko."
Let me start off by saying that I am not the most rabid Michael
Moore fan ever. I think his style of filmmaking, while compelling,
does a disservice to the documentary genre in some ways, because
while his films are factually accurate -- there is never an untruth
in any of his films, as evidenced by his numerous offers to his
opponents to come up with one -- he does cherry-pick facts at times,
choosing to examine some thoroughly, while ignoring others. "Sicko"
is no exception.
Moore does himself an injustice with this method of
filmmaking. Throughout the film, Moore lauds the Canadian, French,
British and even Cuban health care systems, which are excellent
systems, to be sure. But not once does he mention the problems. I
don’t know much about the Cuban and French systems, but I have tons
of anecdotal evidence (the same kind Moore touts in this film, which
is not a criticism; I'll explain further on) that there are not
insignificant problems with the Canadian and British systems. There
are sometimes long waits for necessary procedures, procedures are
sometimes denied due to cost, causing doctors to alter their
treatment a bit, and in some of the poorer areas of these countries,
the care is somewhat less than stellar. For example, a really good
friend of mine from just outside London has been dealing with her
mother's bronchial treatments for several years, and she has
occasionally waited for hours in emergency rooms, doctors do
sometimes give a cursory examination when something more detailed is
needed, and hospital personnel have been rude and obnoxious at
times; they do, after all, work for the government.
The thing is, such problems pale in comparison to the
problems found in our system, which means their inclusion in Moore's
film would have actually enhanced the message he made. (Read the rest of this article Here...)
Seriously,
folks... if there was ever any doubt that the Bushies lack any sort
of moral compass, these letters, asking for leniency on the part of
Scooter Libby, for his part in outing a CIA covert operative and
then covering it up, should do the trick. (And what's up with James
Carville, anyway? No way was I expecting him to sign that tripe his
wife wrote! What the hell ever happened to "We're Right, They're
Wrong!" and "Fight Back!"?)
Those who know me know that it is very difficult for
me to speak ill of the dead. When nearly anyone, short of a career
criminal passes, there's a sadness that usually washes over me. It's
a loss to the human race, because every person has inside of them so
much potential.
Yet, when Jerry Falwell died last week, I actually
felt relief. I feel bad, in a way, but what Falwell represented is
so inherently evil that it is difficult to see his passing in
anything less than positive terms.
Before I begin, I'd like to stress that this is not a
personal evaluation of the private man. I never met him. Rather,
this is an evaluation of his public legacy as a self-professed "man
of God." I have no doubt that to close friends and family members,
he was a charming, loving man, and will be remembered by people
close to him as such. To them, I offer my condolences for their
loss. But Falwell worked all of his life to make his public self
into a political and religious icon, and that portion of his legacy
is what I choose to examine here.
It is really difficult to underestimate the damage
that people like Falwell do to faith and government with their
antics. The reason the Founding Fathers were so adamant about
separation of church and state was due to the potential for damage
to both institutions of government and religion by mixing the
spiritual and the secular. And if you think about it, it makes
perfect sense. It is impossible to solve a spiritual problem with
government, and it is absolutely impossible to solve a societal
problem with religion. But more than that, when you take a point of
view, and then support that point of view with "divine authority" of
a sort (especially one who threatens His minions with an eternity in
Hell as punishment for disobedience), you effectively cut off all
debate.
The public Falwell was simply an odious human being.
And regardless of his professed faith, I rarely got a sense that he
actually believed what he himself spoke so authoritatively on. He
was little more than a huckster and a charlatan, and he sold "God"
the way others sold cars, and God doesn't actually need the
undercoating.
Jerry Falwell became a minister and started the
Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1956, when he was 22 years of age.
Now, this would be unremarkable except that Falwell was raised by
agnostics, who had in turn been raised by atheists, so it wasn't
like he was raised in the faith. He didn't even become a Christian
until he was in college. I'm sorry, but even if you believe in
spiritual conversion, and even if you believe God speaks through
certain people, it's just not credible to believe that anyone who
had been a Christian for 2-3 years at most, is qualified to run a
church and tell everyone else everything there is to know about
Jesus, God and the Bible. I know biblical scholars who have been
studying the book for decades, who will tell you how difficult it is
to learn what is in the Bible; a couple of years in Bible College
doesn't qualify you to be a pastor, anymore than spending a couple
of years in med school makes you a doctor.
A segregationist well into the 1970s, Falwell often
criticized Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy for their actions,
and referred to the civil rights movement as the "civil wrongs"
movement. His supposedly "Christian" television show regularly
featured such segregationists as Lester Maddox and George Wallace,
back in the 1960s and 1970s. While he seemed to soften his stance
against segregation as the years wore on, he never renounced his
segregationist past, and in fact, during the 1980s, Falwell
criticized sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Eventually, Falwell apparently realized he was
outnumbered and that blacks were destined to get equal rights
someday despite his opposition, so he then set his sights on gays,
denouncing them with a vehemence that was definitely at odds with
his claimed faith. Though he preached throughout his life that
everything in the Bible should be taken literally, he apparently
decided that Jesus Christ's admonitions that people hate the sin,
but not the sinner, and that only people without sin should judge,
were the exceptions. He didn't just rail against homosexuality as a
practice, he railed against homosexuals. For example, Falwell once
described the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches, which
was about to be accepted into the World Council of Churches, "brute
beasts" and "a vile and Satanic system" that will "one day be
utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven." In
other words, Falwell called other Christians, who had been shunned
by other Christians, despite their beliefs, "Satanic" because they
happened to be gay. When the AIDS pandemic was in its early stages,
and the world was in a position to possibly put a stop to it early,
Falwell led the charge against government support of AIDS research,
and was once famously quoted as saying, “AIDS is not just God's
punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society
that tolerates homosexuals.”
Yes, you read that right. Jesus Christ taught
tolerance for all people, regardless of who they were, but this
self-professed "man of Christ" actually encouraged
intolerance for gay people. Not only that, but he apparently
thought that people who contracted AIDS deserved to die, despite the
fact that most of the people who contracted AIDS worldwide. For
someone who supposedly studied the Bible as much as Falwell, it
seems strange that he seems to have no grasp of what Christ was all
about. Read the rest of this
article HERE
A short story I wrote
a while back as a tribute to a couple of real "Angels of..." who the
hell knows what? Dedicated to the death of a real pseudo-religious
scumbag.
(Feel free to download
and put on your own site, as long as you don't change it and leave
my name on it... thanks...)
A
Plea for a Touch of Sanity...
by Milt Shook
What the hell is wrong with this country? As I write
this, the shootings at Virginia Tech happened just three days ago,
and the political shitstorm started before the first students were
carried off on stretchers.
Within an hour after we were told what happened, Dana
Perino, the fill-in presidential press secretary, was asked about
the incident, and the first thing out of her mouth was some crap
about the administration feeling that everyone has a right to own a
gun.
So? Who the hell gives a shit about that one hour
after a horrific tragedy such as that?
Not long after that, I started hearing some
liberal whack jobs suggesting
that the "gun culture" is the problem, and many suggesting that we
ban all handguns. Not only that, but I couldn't believe how many
people had managed to perform a complete psychoanalysis of the
shooter, despite the fact that his name hadn't even been released at
that point. And so many people were looking for someone to blame,
right out of the gate -- it must have been the mental health system,
and why didn't the police evacuate the campus of 25,000 students
right away? Come on, folks; the government can't protect us from
every nutbar out there. And sometimes, there are so many things to
"blame," there is way to point to one. And the first three days is
NOT the time for that kind of thing.
But as bad as some of the liberals were, the wingnuts
and gun loons were even more gun loony than usual. Within hours
after the shootings, the usual morons came out of the woodwork, to
suggest such brilliant "solutions" as arming every student
(question, geniuses; you hear someone in the hall shooting, and you
run out of the classroom, and you see a dozen students with handguns
-- which one do you shoot?), or suggesting that we arm all teachers,
or (and this has to be my favorite) suggesting that the students
were pussies, because they didn’t jump the shooter en masse and
disarm him. As if they had time to band together and come up with a
solid plan, at a time when they didn't even know who their target
was.
And then there was NBC News, usually a decent outfit
of professional journalists, who had to pull the bonehead stunt of
all bonehead stunts, of airing a significant portion of a video the
shooter sent to them just before his self-inflicted demise. Now, I
normally love Keith Olbermann, but I literally had to shut off the
television as he aired this crap, right after stating the obvious,
that this killer was delusional, and psychotic, and looking to make
a name for himself. Think about that last one for a minute, and then
consider how many like him will be sitting out there, looking at
this video, and this guy's name plastered all over the media, and
think they want to be just like him. Can you say "copycat"?
And what about the families? Can you imagine the
trauma of losing your child, and then being subjected to video of
the asshole who did it on every news channel in existence? Imagine
this killer taunting you every time you turn on the goddamn
television -- can you even fathom how these poor people felt?
Read the rest of this
article here
The world's human population has topped 6 billion
and is likely to top 9 billion in 20 years. As it stands, fully
one-half of the world's population is trying to survive on $2
per day or less.
Hundreds of millions of children worldwide have
no access to schooling. The United Nations set a goal for all
nations to put aside one percent of the amount spent on weapons
to pay for schools, and to do so by 2000. This modest amount of
money would have provided schooling for every child in the
world, yet we couldn't achieve that goal. As a result, nearly 1
billion adults worldwide lack the ability to read, or even sign
their name.
Four million babies and 11 million children under
the age of 5 die every year due to poverty, due to the absence
of food and/or potable water, or a lack of basic medical care.
While the combined wealth of the world’s 200
richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999, while the combined
incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least
developed countries is $146 billion. As of 1997, the 20% richest
people in the world have 74 times the income of the poorest 20%
as of 1997; in 1960, the ratio was 30:1.
The entire world faces major crises in the areas
of energy and food production, as well as a politically and
socially crippling shortage of water in the coming years,
especially as the population soars to the 9 billion mark. At the
same time, we are facing a changing world climate that could
cause those problems to be exacerbated.
The United States, which always used to pride
itself on freedom and liberty, is now threatening smaller
countries, invading countries with little or no ability to
defend themselves, and using war to prop up its economy. We have
adopted torture as a tactic against people we see as "enemies,"
and spying on people in this country, under the guise of
"protection."
Also in this country, our economy is on the verge
of major disaster because of a huge national debt that continues
to spiral out of control. Every year, American taxpayers spend
upwards of $1200 for every man, woman and child in the country,
just to pay the interest on that debt. And yet, we continue to
allow this debt burden to increase, thus creating an untenable
situation for our children and grandchildren; a situation that
all but guarantees higher taxes for them.
More than 47 million Americans have no health
insurance, a number that is predicted to increase to 65 million
in 6 years. As a result, there are pockets of the United States,
acknowledged to be the richest country in the world, in which
access to medical care is so bad, mortality rates rival those in
most third-world countries. Nationally, our health statistics
are among the worst in the developed word. For the first time
since the early 20th century, our infant mortality rate is
actually increasing.
These are all major problems, and all of them could
have a major impact on this country and its safety and security. At
the very least, we should be doing whatever we can to help alleviate
these problems.
Yet, what are the top issues that Americans seem care
about right now, if our media is to be believed? Whether Don Imus
should be fired for saying the same things he's been saying for
years; the heartwarming disclosure that Larry Birkhead is indeed the
father of Anna Nicole's baby; and the incredible ride of Sanjaya
Malakar, and whether not he can "ruin" American Idol.
And for once, I'm not just blaming the news media. We
reap what we sow. For the most part, Americans don't vote. Even
fewer have ever written their Congressperson with their concerns; a
majority of Americans probably have to dig deep into the recesses of
their brains to even name their Congressperson. We don't write
letters to the editor. Essentially, the things we care about can be
expressed in one word;
Money.
Yeah, if it affects our pocketbooks, we care. If
something the government does or doesn't do affects our ability to
accumulate worthless crap, we get really upset. And if the cost of a
gallon of gasoline goes above $3, we become distraught.
What happened to American values? We must have some,
because an awful lot of people go on and on about them. Of course,
those who scream the loudest about values rarely demonstrate values
themselves, so perhaps I'm off base. Perhaps we really don't have
values, but merely pretend to them.
I'm especially fascinated by those "family values"
folks, because they seem to use that phrase as a smokescreen.
According to the "family values" crowd, "family values" seem to
consist of making abortion illegal, making sure people they perceive
as lesser than them (for example, gays) have fewer rights than the
rest of us, and censoring any thought or idea that they find
unappealing.
Sorry, folks, but those aren't "values;" those
constitute dogma.
Why do those who choose to speak most vociferously
about "family values" have such an obsession with sex? Pretty much
everything they consider important has something to do with sex. If
you listen closely, you'll notice that their arguments regarding
abortion don't actually center on the fetus. Sure, they like to use
the fetus as a prop, but their arguments are about the consequences
of sex and their fervent desire that all people abstain from it.
This is why they speak out against any measure that might actually
serve to reduce the number of abortions. By choosing "conception" as
the arbitrary point "where life begins," they can make the case
against all "artificial" forms of birth control, and against sex
education, because teaching the mechanics of sex is somehow
"condoning" it (note the use of the word "condone" by these people),
and they can attempt to demand that all welfare for single mothers
stop, because such money "rewards" them for having children.
In other words, in their warped world view, sex
should be outlawed, because sex itself is the cause of all of
society's problems, and only when people stop having sex will all of
society's problems be alleviated. The irony is, these so-called
"family values" people actually cause more abortions than they
prevent, while groups like Planned Parenthood actually prevent more
of them.
And then there is homosexuality. To these
self-described "family values" people, gays are simply disgusting,
and when same-sex couples are allowed the same rights as everyone
else, we are somehow "condoning" their homosexuality. (Note that
word "condone" again.) If we allow gays to marry, they postulate,
somehow all other marriages will be tainted. The fact that most
marriages end in divorce doesn't have a major impact on the sanctity
of marriage, according to these folks, but if two people who love
each other happen to have the same body parts, well, the entire
institution of marriage will crumble.
People, these views have nothing to do with anyone's
values, and they most certainly don't reflect the values that this
country was founded upon; the values which made us strong in the
first place. They are meaningless religious dogma; personal taste,
if you will. They are not American values; in fact, they go against
our stated value system.
So, what are Americans' real "values"? That's
actually quite easy; they're right there in front of your face if
you'd bother to look at them. Read the rest of this article
here...
At some point, people in this country have to start
thinking about the long term.
We are absolutely, positively addicted to oil, right?
Nope.
And we must find an alternative fuel to oil, in order
to end the cycles of greed and violence which surrounds that
addiction to oil, correct?
Not exactly, no.
You see, we're not
addicted to oil; we're addicted to
energy, and there's a difference. And it is the lack of
understanding of that difference that continues to lead us down one
path after another just ripe for the greediest con men in the world
to exploit.
We must replace petroleum, of course, and we should
begin that transition soon. But such a transition will take years
and it seems to me that, given the mistakes we've made in the past,
it makes sense to develop a plan for a while first. For some reason,
when a gallon of gas hit $3, we decided once more that panic was the
order of the day, and once again, we are allowing ourselves to be
manipulated from one dependency into another.
Why is it that so few people see that using
agricultural resources for motor vehicle fuel is a horrible idea? I
know that biodiesel and ethanol are great solutions for reducing our
dependence on "foreign oil," but the idea of growing crops to burn
is a disaster waiting to happen. It essentially trades one
dependence for another, and will have negative effects that are
easily foreseen, if we just bother to take a deep breath and take a
look at the situation.
We see bio-fuels as a transitional fuel; something to
end our current addiction to oil temporarily, until we can come up
with something else. Unfortunately, given the current global
corporate structure, we will simply be trading addiction to one fuel
for addiction to another fuel. In order to make ethanol or
biodiesel, you have to grow something, which sounds great, right?
Our farmers need a break, don't they? They deserve a chance to make
a killing.
If you are thinking that, then you haven't been
paying attention, because it sure as hell isn't this one. In this
country, family farms stopped predominating a while back; most farm
land is controlled by huge corporations these days, not by Ma and Pa
Kettle. And if we switch to ethanol, the huge farms will grow so
much that family farms will still have the same problem; there is no
reason to believe they'll be able to compete, any more than they can
compete now. Large corporations will still be running the show,
controlling the supply and the price. If you doubt that, I urge you
to Google Archer Daniels Midland.
Read the rest of the article here...
I recently watched the documentary "Jesus Camp," and
came away stunned. There, right before my eyes, were large numbers
of child abuse victims. These kids weren't what we typically think
of as victims of child abuse; none of them were beaten, at least on
camera, and there was no evidence of starvation or anything of that
nature, at least physically speaking. But the adults in this film
couldn't have abused their children much more if they used leather
straps, cattle prods or small darkened rooms, because they were
denying these children the free will to learn about life and make
their own choices. There is a distinct difference between simply
raising your child according to the tenets of your religion, and
brainwashing them into believing that everything you know is right,
and everything in the outside world is wrong. That this child abuse
occurs in the name of Jesus Christ is frightening.
I do believe there is a God, and I do believe that
there is more to life than we know about. I'm not the most spiritual
person in the world, but I do believe there is a lot that we cannot
know, and I am always reading and listening and learning. Looking
around us, I just don't happen to think that everything is entirely
random; there seems to have been a lot of planning involved. I think
whoever or whatever created us is awesome, and has greater power
than we could ever imagine for ourselves. That said, I believe the
base of religion is evil incarnate.
Now, before you scream and throw bricks at my house,
I'm talking about organized religion, not personal belief or faith.
Beliefs and faith are very personal, and I will always respect a
person's beliefs, up to the point where those beliefs interfere with
the lives of the rest of us. And that's what bothers about these
people; these self-described "evangelicals." The so-called "leaders"
of these groups use the term "Christian" as a weapon, and they use
"God" as a method of control over everyone else. And unfortunately,
their ignorant minions are all to ready to believe anything they're
told, and pass it on, not because they believe it themselves, but
because they're afraid not to. When I was growing up, I was always
told that the key to being a good Christian was "Fear of the Lord."
That is still a major factor in religion, at least on the part of
the leadership and their mouthpieces, but look more closely; how
much fear do these religious leaders seem to have in the Lord?
Read the rest of this article
here...
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think it's
high time we retired "Sumsay" as a news source.
Surely, you've heard of Sumsay, haven't you? He's
commonly cited by just about every news reporter or interviewer
who's too lazy or cowardly to ask the question him- or herself. I
know you've seen this guy's name bandied about, and frankly, he says
some of the most bizarre crap imaginable. Why, the other night, news
anchor Katie Couric must have cited him three or four times, in
suggesting that John and Elizabeth Edwards might somehow be plotting
to use her cancer to get a leg up on the Democratic nomination.
Here; let me check the transcript…
Oh, wait. It doesn't say "Sumsay;" it says "Some
people say…"
Sumsay must only
work for Fox Noise Channel. My bad.
But you know; the phrase "some people say" is
actually worse, in many ways, than using that idiot, Sumsay. For a
high-profile journalist like Katie Couric, it's an abomination, and
she should be ashamed of herself. I've watched her interview people
for years, and she's never shied away from asking difficult
questions before; so, why the sudden cowardice? Read the entire article here...
Bring it ON!
by Milt Shook
If there was ever a time when the Democratic Party
had to stand their ground, this is it.
Apparently, President Bush (and I use the term
loosely) has offered to make a deal with the Congress. He'll offer
up Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to a select group of House
investigators looking into the political firings of eight US
Attorneys, but only on three conditions; it must be done in private,
no one can be under oath, and there can be no transcript. In other
words, they must be allowed to lie under oath without being subject
to perjury charges. This is what the Bush Administration considers
"bipartisan cooperation." Harriet Miers and, especially, Karl Rove
must be allowed to propagate their own brand of bullshit, without
even the slightest political risk, according to the Bushie logic.
Bush has "warned" Democrats to take the deal, or else
face what the mainstream lapdog press calls a "constitutional
crisis" of Biblical proportions.
To that, the Democrats had better say, "Bring it on!"
They have no choice; our Constitution is at stake.
The previous rubber stamp Congress capitulated the last time this
was offered, and the 9-11 Commission had exactly one chance to
interview Bush, under the same basic circumstances, as he played the
Jerry Mahoney to Darth Cheney's Paul Winchell, which allowed Bush to
get away with staring at a copy of "My Pet Goat," frozen in fear,
for seven minutes as people perished in the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon.
Now, however, there's a new sheriff in town, and
they'd better take their job seriously.
Yeah, there is a concept called "executive
privilege." The Bushies truly love "executive privilege" The concept
of "executive privilege" is a valid concept, when used properly,
designed to allow the president to operate free of constraint by the
Congress as a co-equal branch of government. In military and
national security matters, to be sure, the president and his staff
need the discretion to operate, without Congress looking over their
shoulder and questioning every political move. But this is not a
military or national security matter. If prosecutors are being
influenced to operate against the public interest, and to go after
some people, while leaving others alone, based on their political
affiliation, it is an issue of justice, and if the Bush
Administration is using political coercion to ensure that some
people get more justice than others, then it must be addressed.
When Richard Nixon tried to withhold the White House
tapes during the Watergate investigation, based on the same lame
premise that Bush is using now -- that somehow, being a coequal
branch of government means that Congress can't touch the executive
branch -- the Supreme Court responded by assuring Nixon that
executive privilege was not absolute. They stated:
To read the Art. II powers of the President as
providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to
enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim
of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and
nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of
'a workable government' and gravely impair the role of the courts
under Art. III.
In other words, when it comes to suspected wrongdoing
or potential abuse of the office, there is no executive privilege.
When the president's own people are possibly guilty of wrongdoing,
they don't get to make the rules. The Constitution clearly gives
Congress the power to investigate such wrongdoing, and do whatever
they think is necessary to alleviate the problem, up to and
including impeachment and removal of the offenders.
Now, I can imagine that Bush has been getting all
sorts of legal counsel from Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers,
among others, telling him that Congress has no power here but, as
usual, they would be wrong. And he may think he can buy some time
until he's out of office. But he'd do well to think again. He's
facing a very clear precedent here, and a conservative Supreme Court
that he and his father largely created themselves. There is no way
such a conservative court is going to hand a lame duck president the
power to protect his chief of staff from a Congressional subpoena;
they can't possibly be that stupid. Such a ruling would be seen by
the public for what it is; a blatantly political stunt with no legal
value. You see, with Bush v. Gore, the Supremes thought they were
buying a Republican political dynasty with that ruling. A ruling
such as the one the Bushies seem to think they will get this time
would put the political nail in the coffin of the Republican Party
for a generation, and it would give the next, likely Democratic
president, free reign to do whatever the hell he (or she) wanted to
do.
In other words, Bush can hem and haw and stamp his
feet and cry all he wants, but cannot get his way this time. For the
sake of the nation and our Constitution, they have no choice but to
issue subpoenas, and make such a political stink that the Bushies
have no choice but to sit the fat, bloated asshole Karl Rove, and
that sick, twisted Harriet Miers, before television cameras, and
make them lie their asses off in public to the American people. I
want to see those two sweaty and puffy before the cameras, and asked
why they hate America so much that they would risk its
Constitutional health over something so trivial.
So, listen to me Democratic Congress -- tell Bush to
"Bring it on!"
As those who have been reading me for a while know, I
am not one to buy the "conventional wisdom," whatever it happens to
be. In fact, when I use the term at all, it's usually presented in
quotes and refuted. There's a reason for this, of course. First of
all, I am skeptical by nature; I rarely believe anything when I
first hear it, no matter how much I want to believe it. That's what
makes me a little bit different than your average Fox Noise Channel,
of course; I don't believe everything that Keith Olbermann or Ed
Schultz tells me without checking, either. I was reading a column
by a liberal writer the other day, and I counted more than a few
factual errors in his piece, and while none of them were crucial to
his main thesis, it bothered me, because wingnuts don't deal with
facts, they deal with credibility. And how much credibility can you
possibly have if you don't bother to verify a quote from someone as
famous as Joseph Welch?
I know the feeling. I used to argue a lot on Usenet.
This was at a time when the Internet was slow and text-only, and I
was merely killing a little time between classes at the University
of Arizona. There also wasn’t as much information online as there is
right now, and finding it was relatively difficult. So, I often
pulled facts directly from my rectum. Most of the time, my memory
did not fail me, and I got it right. Once in a while, however, I
laid a real stinker. But that was then, this is now. But the lesson
I learned still serves me well; never believe anything you hear and
verify everything you don't believe.
Of course, there's a big difference between the
progressive media and the right wing media, as well. One major
difference is that Olbermann and Schultz don't expect me to believe
everything they say, and they
welcome me to look around and discover the truth. They
want me to be skeptical of
everything, because they value their credibility above all else. On
the other hand Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Brit Hume don't want
their audience looking things up, which is why they discount all
media except the few they can control as "liberal." They know that
is a lie; there is not now, nor has there ever been, a "liberal
media," but just in case, they want to insure that, if a wingnut
happens upon a legitimate news source, he'll be gullible enough to
not believe anything they say. They count on the probability that
few in their audience will question the veracity of the story in
order to tell it without breaking up laughing. They know for a fact
that their audience is immensely gullible, and will repeat anything
they say as if it was gospel truth, despite the fact that even they
know that what they're saying is complete nonsense. Read the Entire Article Here...
The thing I find most
fascinating regarding the Ann Coulter phenomenon is the number of
so-call "moral" right wingers hang on this nasty bitch's every word.
Seriously; everything that comes out of her mouth is negative, and
yet these so-called moral "conservatives" (they're not really
conservatives; they just call themselves that) applaud every word
that comes out of her mouth, even when she applies a hateful epithet
to John Edwards. It's disgusting...
The
Dirty-Minded Right
by Milt Shook
Why do right wingers have such "dirty" minds? Why
are they so obsessed with finding sex everywhere? Remember when
Janet Jackson flashed a bare breast at the Super Bowl a few years
back? Most of the people I know who saw it rolled their eyes and
went back to talking about the game. On the other hand, wingnuts saw
it, and were apparently plenty hot and bothered by it, because it's
all they talked about for weeks. That little stunt must have gotten
them popping the Viagra like Bob Dole, because complaint after
complaint poured in to the FCC, all over an exposed breast. It's
really pathetic and sad.
Consider their obsession with gays. It's simply not
healthy, I'm telling you. They supposedly find their sexual
activities to be "immoral," or some such nonsense, although from the
news stories involving the staunchest anti-gay wingnuts lately, they
seem to engage in a lot of the same activities themselves. I know a
lot of gay people, and I can tell you honestly that I have no
first-hand knowledge regarding any of their sexual activity. Oh, we
can all guess what same-sex couples might be doing when they're
alone together in a dark room, but I generally don't think about it,
any more than I would tend to lie in bed and imagine my aunt and
uncle having sex. I simply don't care what they do. And why should I
care? What Joey and Stu do in the privacy of their own home has no
more effect on my life than what the Falwells and Robertsons, et al,
do in the privacy of theirs. (Although, I'm betting that even those
couples have done many of the same things they apparently often
imagine gay couples doing)
Read the entire article here....
Fox Attacks
You see,
folks, this is how they work. Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films
has compiled this short film, which demonstrates how Fox News goes
after its prey. There is no "fair and balanced" on Fox Noise
Channel, nor is there propaganda. They just want you to get so
disgusted that you'll stay home rather than vote for Obama. I mean,
seriously; the best they can come up with is that the middle name
his mother gave him was Hussein? At the time she gave him that
name, Saddam wasn't in power, and the most prominent Hussein was the
King of Jordan.
A fat, stupid
right wing talk show host whose greed and sloth far exceed his
intelligence;
A power-mad
megalomaniacal billionaire whose main purpose in life is to get
revenge for the unfair treatment of the greatest president in
history, Richard M. Nixon;
A President whose
two biggest problems are the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and a horny
secretary
A wide-eyed
Christian whose only concern is making sure the country is
conservative;
The gruesome death
of a liberal foe in the billionaire's bathroom;
And a compliant
media, that only repeats what it's told, and refuses to let facts
get in the way...?????
(No, you don't get
Bush...)
You
get this novel, that's what!
With
Talent on
Loan, Milt Shook has written one of the best political novels you
will ever read; a
biting satire that strips away the veneer of the right wing propaganda
machine, revealing exactly how things work in the politics of the
21st Century. It's would be a treatise on modern politics, except
that you'll also laugh out loud. (ALL of the dialogue from the right wing radio shows
contained in this novel is
real... that may make you cry...
So click on the
link below, and you'll get a copy for the cover price of $18.95, plus $3
Shipping, and the author will not only sign it for you, but a portion of
the purchase will go to support progressive Candidates, via
ActBlue
You can also order this novel
through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, and any other bookstore, but
that link is the only way to make sure some of that money goes to
progressive causes, okay? And it won't be signed, and that's
important...
I have rarely jumped aboard the impeachment
bandwagon, to be quite honest. I was never comfortable with it. For
one thing, I've never been politically trendy, and the calls for
impeachment have far too often sounded, rightly or not, like
plaintive cries for attention. Also, while I understand that
impeachment is at its heart a political exercise, I absolutely
despise using the Constitution for purely political purposes. Let's
face it; there is no other apt description for submitting articles
of impeachment to a Congress that one knows is too politically
cowardly to act on them. To me, the exercise of the constitutional
mechanism for calling political leaders to account and removing
those who violate their oath of office or show complete incompetence
or disdain for the people for whom they work in a way that ends up
with nothing happening seems to be a huge waste of political capital
and time that could be spent doing the work of the people.
Let's just say, things have changed for me. I've had
an epiphany, if you will.
There is no doubt, nor has their ever been, that
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are not fit for office, and serve as
shining examples of exactly what the Founders had in mind when they
detailed the impeachment concept throughout the Constitution. I have
little doubt that Jefferson and Madison each woke up on successive
mornings, drenched in cold sweat at the prospect that a
simple-minded unprincipled idiot and a purely evil money-grubbing
unprincipled devil incarnate might somehow worm their way into high
government office, and wondered what sort of mechanism could be
created to prevent the complete destruction of the republic. (Just
as an aside, they more than likely imagined that it would be the
devil incarnate in the top spot, and the idiot his hapless sidekick,
which just goes to show you just how clever these Republicans are,
huh?)
So, they came up with impeachment. I sometimes wish
they'd come up with something a little more draconian, but removal
from office is a good start. But we really do have to start.
I sometimes wonder if the Republicans used Bill
Clinton's impeachment to inoculate their next president from
impeachment, by turning it into a petty exercise that pissed people
off and made them think such an effort completely pointless. If that
was the case, it seems to have worked like a charm. I mean, Bill
Clinton's popularity soared while he was being impeached, but people
didn't seem to mind very much that it was happening. Now, however,
even the mere prospect of impeachment seems to turn the average
voter off enough to get him to wince, grind his teeth and say, "two
more years isn't that long, is it?" As a result, even Democrats in
Congress who think George W. Bush is the most dangerous man to hold
high office in the history of the country are reticent to impeach,
for fear that it will make the two at the top into sympathetic
characters or something.
But at this point, we have to impeach Bush and
Cheney; we have to. There is no longer any choice, folks. If we
value our democracy, and what our country stands for, we must
impeach them. Read the
entire article here...
No, seriously; they really are pathetic. It's always
pathetic when a humongous corporation sees its own end, and tries to
hang on for dear life. It's also happening with the oil industry,
although their demise is a little farther away, time wise, so the
anxious moves don't quite rise to the level of abject desperation
that characterizes the current music industry.
I'm sure you've all heard; last week, the big bad
multi-billion-dollar music honchos, via the Recording Industry
Association of America, sent out a bunch of cease-and-desist letters
to college students, in what I'm sure will be a successful attempt
to extort money from them by threat of lawsuit. Their aim, of
course, is to scare the crap out of enough college students that
they will all stop downloading music via the Internet.
Of course, these college students to take the deal,
because the system is rigged against the consumer at the moment, and
the laws on the books favor the big bad music conglomerates. Also,
you are technically stealing music. You can finesse it all you want,
but the fact is, you don't own the rights to the music, and offering
it up to others via p2p servers is not your right. But the RIAA is
lying their asses off when they tell you that you're taking money
out of the mouths of those poor, struggling musicians.
There is no doubt that the financing of political
campaigns has become little more than legalized bribery in recent
years. One needs only look at the rape of the taxpayer that
constitutes the Iraq occupation, and who the money is being funneled
to, to realize that most large campaign contributions are little
more than influence peddling. And while the Republicans are much
more blatant in their openness to bribery in this manner, the
Democrats aren't much better.
One solution that has been proffered over the years
is public financing of campaigns. This is a very attractive-sounding
proposition. If candidate A wants to run for Senate, for example, he
or she must rely on publicly supplied funds. Theoretically, it keeps
the fat cats from buying their way in. And as proponents of public
financing see it, it keeps spending down, and opens the field to
more candidates who might not otherwise be able to run.
Yes, public financing is definitely better than what
we have now. But public financing of political campaigns is a stupid
idea that is destined for failure for many reasons, not the least of
which is, it’s anti-democratic. I should be able to support the
candidate I want; by handing a candidate tax money, you're
essentially forcing people to support people they don't necessarily
support. Moreover, the people who support these sorts of campaign
reforms insist on using words like "clean" to describe them,
implying that everyone who opts out of public financing is somehow
"dirty," which is unfair. If I want to run a "clean" campaign, but
my opponent chooses to opt out, sure, the idealistic side of me says
that people will know this, and vote against my opponent because
he's not "clean." Of course, he'll be able to buy tons more ads, to
counter the effect of that "gee whiz" cleanliness I express with my
high-minded rejection of the status quo. Read the entire
article here...
I only play the lottery when the jackpot is over $150 million. There
is really no point to playing it when the jackpot is less than that.
Also, I refuse to spend more than $5 at a time on tickets. These
thresholds were not my own choices, of course. I spoke to the Lord a
few years back, when the threshold was only $100 million and the
dollar limit was $10, and He told me that He probably wouldn't let
me win the lottery at all, but he most certainly wouldn't let me win
when I wasted my money like that. He told me the only money I would
likely receive in my lifetime would be money I earned by working my
ass off. (And yes, he used the word "ass." That surprised me, too,
but in all of my discussions with him, God is actually quite earthy
in his tone; once, I actually had to ask him to stop using certain
language around my young nephew. He just laughed, however, and
advised me that they were only words, and that those who claim He
had a problem with them are talking out of their asses, because He
really doesn't care.) He told me to take special note of the types
of people who win those jackpots, and asked me if I
really wanted to be like
them. When I said yes and called Him a selfish bastard, He smited me
-- it was just a minor smite, mind you, on my butt, nothing serious
-- so I apologized and immediately adjusted my lottery spending
habits.
He was right, though; I still haven't won a damn thing, and every
dollar I have was earned through sweat.
I've had quite a few conversations with Him, you know, and you can't
prove I haven't. God is actually very engaging, and He quite often
tells me exactly what I want to hear. For example, He told me that
every single one of those greedy idiots spewing right wing crap on
the radio would be on the fast track to Hell once their time on
Earth expired; if the government wasn't going to do anything to stop
them from screaming such hate, they would pay later on. He also told
me that all of those so-called "Christian" preachers who live in
mansions while taking money from people on fixed incomes, as well as
those who imply that people who vote for the "wrong" candidates are
going to be very surprised when they reach Judgment Day. He told me
straight up that his son Jesus was a liberal, and sided more with
liberal causes than conservative, and that many so-called
"Christians" were heading straight for eternal damnation because
they tended to worship the unborn at the expense of those already
here. He said that He has a higher regard for honest atheists than
hypocrites who go to church every week and wear their Christianity
on their sleeves, while spitting on their religion the rest of the
week. In reality, He hates religion, anyway; He only allows it
because it seems to make people feel better about Him. He's really
not the ogre so many religious people make him out to be. Read the entire article here...
If you want evidence that this country has gone
completely off its collective rocker, one needs only look at the
actions in Boston a few days ago, when a publicity stunt by the
producers of a cartoon show led some moronic city officials to shut
down a portion of the city and disrupted city operations for hours
to conduct a "terrorist investigation."
If this is what this country has come to, then the
terrorists definitely have won.
Now, I can't let the Cartoon Network people off the
hook completely. Knowing the psychological state of this country,
would it have been too much to expect for them to simply make a
short phone call to city officials in the various cities in which
these boxes were placed, to let them know? Of course it wouldn't
have, and they should have done just that. But to charge some of
them with a crime, simply because city officials completely
overreacted? What's the crime, exactly? I can see littering,
perhaps, but if a woman was to accidently leave her purse on the
bench when she boarded a bus, and it resulted in the police closing
down two city blocks and sending out the bomb squad, do you cite the
woman? That's ridiculous, of course. Read the entire article here...
A
Tribute from Nancy Pelosi's Hometown
Pity the poor wingnuts. You
see, even though history-making Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is
from San Francisco now, she was actually born in Baltimore. The
street she was born on, in the heart of Little Italy, just feet from
Baltimore's beautiful Inner Harbor, has been renamed for Mrs.
Pelosi. Imagine... thousands of tourists every year, looking for the
best Italian food anywhere, will see Speaker Pelosi's name, and be
reminded of her family's roots. Hats off to you, Speaker Pelosi...
You just know Bill-O will cry rivers over this one...
I was listening to a radio talk show the other day,
and the host was talking to a caller who made a remarkable
confession. She professed to be a Christian, and said that while she
disagreed with Republicans on most issues, she couldn't vote for a
Democrat because of the Democratic Party's stance on abortion. This
points up two problems, and I'd like to discuss both of them.
The first problem is that of the Democratic Party,
and progressives in general. For a generation now, we progressives
have gotten a bum rap with regard to issues like abortion, because
we have tended to adopt a stance on the issue that makes us look
like we're pro-abortion, even though we're most certainly not. I
think I'm pretty typical, and I'm very much against abortion, though
I am also very much pro-choice. On a personal level, I would
probably not stay with a woman who would have an abortion while I
was with her, although I wouldn't do so with a woman who had an
abortion in her past.
The bottom line is, pro-choice Democrats and
progressives are not "pro-abortion." The vast majority of
pro-choice advocates would love nothing more than to see abortion
cease to be an option for women, except in extreme circumstances. As
Bill Clinton often put it, we'd like to see abortions safe, legal
and RARE.
But if we examine the arguments we progressives have
made on this issue over the years, it's little wonder that people
think we're unreasonable. We can start with the fact that we have
allowed the less-rational voices on the anti-choice side frame the
debate, which is a really stupid thing to do. Even WE refer to them
as "pro-life," which of course implies that we are "anti-life"
somehow. How could we have allowed that to happen? Read the entire article here...
You know, there are times when I feel like I am
living in some sort of alternate universe or something, especially
when it comes to safety and security. Why are we so incredibly
paranoid, anyway? We're relatively isolated, relative to the rest of
the world, we're surrounded by very friendly countries, and we spend
more on the military every year than most countries spend on
everything. We have the biggest and baddest planes, ships and
weapons, and when all else fails, we have all of those nukes.
Violent crime numbers have steadily declined over the
last century, as have property crimes. Many of the most horrendous
occurrences, such as the school shootings at Columbine and the
second-worst terrorist attack in our history, at Oklahoma City, are
so rare that they dominate our news, even in these cynical times.
Yet, we allow ourselves to be subjected to all sorts of nonsense,
under the guise of "security," because we're deathly afraid that not
submitting to it will result in our untimely death.
I'm not going to get into the psychological aspects
of our collective paranoia, because I want to talk about the
security measures themselves, and how the government is largely
pulling the wool over your eyes, and using your tax money to support
nonsense, while real security measures -- those which actually will
work -- are never adopted.
Let's start with this simple premise; it is
absolutely impossible for anyone, including the most heavily armed
society on the face of the Earth, to guarantee your safety from bad
people who want to do you harm. The government should do what it
can, but it's unrealistic to expect them to succeed 100% at
preventing all psychotic individuals from acting violently toward
others. And that would be true, even if George W. Bush wasn't
president. But the fact of the matter is, the government didn't do
what everything necessary befo
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