Barking Rabbits

Upon reading an anthology of stories by H.P. Lovecraft, or why I will never, ever own a Kindle.

2012-01-27T10:20:00.000-08:00

Artistic rendering of Cthulhu, which also sort of represents my feeling towards complex electronic devices in general.

Yes, I recognize the fact that I am somewhat of a technophobe. Anything more complex than a ratcheting socket wrench usually ends up not working for me. Computers do not work. Wireless connections do not work. OK, my cell phone usually works, but that seems to be an exception, probably because it is one of the very low end devices that really does not do anything other than make and receive phone calls and text messages. I will never own a “smart phone.” I absolutely hate crap that doesn't work for me and I have to spend more time figuring out how to make them work correctly than the time I want to use them for.

So, I know that I am already predisposed not to be very enamored of a Kindle or other similar “electronic book” device. But here are some thoughts about why real books – for me, in any case – are vastly superior to a Kindle.

As the title states, I just finished reading an anthology by the great horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft. Click the link if you don’t know who he is. I realize that some younger folks in America might not have a clue as to the influence Howard Phillips Lovecraft had on American horror, and still exerts to this day. Horror writers such as Stephen King freely acknowledge Lovecraft’s influence on their own work. Films such as the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, many films by John Carpenter such as “The Thing,” probably all of the films by Wes Craven, etc. etc. owe their existence to the work of Lovecraft.

That doesn’t do a lot to explain my love of real books over a Kindle, other than to set the stage. I picked up my Lovecraft anthology in a used bookstore (absolutely the best kind of bookstore) for seven bucks a few weeks ago. This particular one was printed in 1945. The cover is in pretty good shape for something that old, although the top of the spine is pretty frayed looking and the corners are rather smashed with the cardboard sticking through the cloth covering. The pages are all very yellow, especially around the edges, as are many books that were printed during the war years of the 1940’s when they used much cheaper paper with a higher acid content than normal. There are water stains on the edges and the book has this very “old book-ish” smell to it. In other words, it is an absolutely perfect vehicle from which to read a little Lovecraft. In case I have whetted your interest, you might go looking for a version of “The Colour Out of Space.” That might be the most frightening short story I have ever read. I remember reading it when I was in jr. high school, probably at 11 o’clock at night. It made quite an impact. “The Cult of Cthulhu” is also a very good read, and is probably his most famous story. I just could not envision reading something like that from an electronic reader, where you are just scrolling up and down an LED powered screen. Where are the browning pages? Where is that interesting smell? An e-book would just not have worked for me.

I just like books as the means to deliver the words to the reader. Books have a substance to them that a Kindle could never have. Books, especially older books that have been read many times, develop a character all their own. They become unlike the next book you pick up off the shelf. I even love paperback books. I enjoy flipping back and forth between pages when I am taking a break from actual reading, which I do rather often. I go back and look at the cover art. My, isn’t that an interesting piece of artwork? I contemplate the creases in the spine and the missing chips from the cover. The more dog-eared the copy, the better. One book that I have that I re-read about every other year is “The Magus” by John Fowles. I won’t go into a literary discussion of that particular novel at this time. Many people don’t like it; as it sometimes seems to be an exercise in the worst excesses of that particular writing style, “Let’s try to confuse the hell out of the reader.” But I somehow find it fascinating. It just has a very unique, mysterious air to it, even when I know what is coming. My original copy of that book split into two pieces because of multiple readings and admittedly less than careful handling. I put lots of Elmer’s glue on the outside of the spine and then several layers of Scotch tape. That worked fine and it gives a very unique feeling to the book. I know exactly which book from my collection I am holding when I have that in my hand.

Yes, I am somewhat of a collector of old books, which also no doubt colors my perception of a Kindle. I have a number of very interesting editions, such as a what appears to be a first edition from 1901 of “Mr. Munchausen,” from spawned several films over the years, including Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” and a 1894 first edition of “Trilby,” which gave us the evil manipulator, Svengali, and popularized the notion of “animal magnetism,” also known as hypnotism. I could go on, as I have quite a number of interesting volumes in my collection. I just don’t see the attraction of reading any of those books on a Kindle device. Any book that I would read purely for enjoyment, I really want that book. I may get rid of it later, but I want to hold that copy in my hand while I am reading it. Being able to download it from Amazon for a couple of bucks instantaneously holds no attraction for me.

Now, this is not to say that I think that the Kindle should not exist. I have heard a number of stories about how someone’s mother has started reading again, mostly because of the ease of use and the fact that you can make the font really big for someone who would otherwise have to strain to read smaller print. Great. Maybe it would be good for a collection of technical books as well, although I still like being able to flip back and forth between pages, where you can easily see where you are in the volume, rather than try to scroll around or jump around between pages. I have enough of that with these technical documents I have to read on the computer for my job. And I can see where a search function would come in really handy from time to time. But I grew up with books. My mom had lots of books lying around. She read to me from some very old copies of “Winnie the Pooh.” I avidly read all the Hardy Boy books when I was a kid. I have always had a large collection of books that has followed me to place to place as I moved around during my life. When I remodeled my house, I specifically included a largish library/computer room with two walls covered with built-in bookshelves, which were filled immediately when I unloaded all the boxes that contained my books.

Carrying around an electronic tablet thingy that probably wouldn’t work the way I wanted it to and the battery would run out when I needed it and didn’t have the recharger just wouldn’t cut it for me.

Wildlife rule number 34. Squirrels do not share.

2012-01-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

Birdseed. Not always for birds.

Shih-Tzu blogging.

2012-01-22T17:58:00.000-08:00

Shih-Tzus may be cold weather dogs (and I base this on the prodigious amount of hair they grown in a very short period of time), but their height seems to be very much an issue when prancing about in a foot of snow.

OK, if Gandalf is so damn smart, why didn't he know about this?

2012-01-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

Comet Lovejoy from the International Space Station.

2012-01-17T13:07:00.000-08:00

Photo from Universe Today.

Nigel Tufnel comes home from war.

2011-11-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

I must have slept through the other nine.

Why no... No, I didn't.

2011-11-24T08:13:00.001-08:00

Or wait.... Maybe I did. I can't remember.

From Found Shit.

Weird Science News of the Day: Sailing Stones of Death Valley

2011-11-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

Aha. This is just what I needed to put a little pep into my day. Here is a bit of the story about these sailing stones that come from EnvironmentalGraffitti.com, as well as the photos used in this post.

Death Valley National Park in California is home to a place called The Racetrack Playa. The Racetrack is a dry lake situated 1130m above sea level, and even though it is 4.5km long, the ground is surprisingly flat, with only a 4cm height differential between the north and south ends. The mountains surrounding the Racetrack, comprised primarily of dark dolomite, reach as high as 1731m above the lake bed. When the heavy rains come, water rushes down the mountains and onto the lake bed, forming a shallow endorheic lake. Due to the hot temperatures of the region, the water evaporates, leaving behind a layer of soft mud. When the liquid fully evaporates, the ground cracks and leaves a mosaic pattern behind. While all of this is interesting, the feature that makes this area truly unique is something that has yet to be fully understood by the scientific community.

Over time, stones have fallen from the mountainsides onto the lake bed. Some of the stones are small, though others weigh as much as 700 pounds. Once they are situated on the incredibly flat surface, one might be inclined to think that they would sit undisturbed for thousands of years. This, however, is not the case. These gigantic rocks and boulders (known as Sailing Stones, Sliding Rocks, or Moving Rocks) are found all over the dry lake bed with long trails, or racetracks, having formed behind them, extending for hundreds of meters. Since there is no evidence of human or animal intervention in the movement of these stones, one has to wonder how the phenomenon is happening.

Not only to the stones move, but they move in completely different directions. Two stones could start next to one another, and start moving at approximately the same speed, but one will suddenly stop or change directions. Sometimes the sailing stones will turn around completely, moving back towards their point of origin. The tracks left behind are generally no wider that 30 cm, and less than 2.5cm deep. The longest tracks have been forming for numerous years, though to date, nobody has ever witnessed the event.

Ok, that is some really strange shit. Moving stones that leave trails that no one has ever seen move. And stones that are sitting next to each other might move in different directions or one might move and the other not.

I am fully vested in science, in that I think science is the only way that natural phenomena can be explained (i.e., I don't go in for explanations that involve religion or the supernatural). But this one, apparently, is resisting all attempts at rational scientific explanations, at least to date. I will be very interested in hearing if this is every explained.

UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long. Ask and you shall receive, I guess.

http://onemansblog.com/2007/09/06/death-valleys-sailing-stones-mystery-solved/

However, I am not totally convinced about this. If the incoming water has enough power to push the stones around for many hundreds of feet, then why isn't it powerful enough to also wash away the tracks in the mud?

This just about sums it all up.....

2011-11-23T08:52:00.000-08:00

Science moment of the day: Jupiter's Great Red Spot

2011-10-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

Wow. That's about all the narrative necessary for this one. Just, wow....

Snapped from the New Horizons spacecraft on its way to Saturn.

Photo from NASA. Click on the photo for a (slightly) enlarged version.

Sorry for yet another college football thread: Missouri going to seek membership in the SEC.

2011-10-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

See here for the very latest, which will no doubt be totally out of date in the next 15 minutes.

Ok, but here's one thing that I haven't seen anyone mention before. If Missouri goes to the SEC, do you realize that will give that league THREE TEAMS named Tigers? LSU, Auburn and now Missouri. And two other teams are named Bulldogs; Georgia and Miss. State. Yes, the SEC plays great football. They should apply to the NFL, they are so good. But seriously, you are looking very, very unimaginative with the names.

Seatle Times and Seattle P-I have a much different take on Occupy Seattle.

2011-10-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

This is how the lead story on the web version of the Times presents the story.

Occupy protest waning; just ask hot-dog vendor

Hum. If you are hoping that the "Occupy" movement really starts to coalesce and influence the political direction in this country, "waning" is not a word you really want to hear. Synonyms for that word include, "diminishing" and "shrinking." Not really good.

And this is how the lead story on the web version (which is, unfortunately, the only version of the P-I anymore) plays the same story.

Occupy Seattle Heats Up.

Wow. The movement is really heating up. Getting hotter, bigger. That’s quite a radical difference, isn’t it, about how two news organizations play the same story.?

Personally, I would go with the Times version, because, you know, who would have their fingers on the pulse of a grass roots movement that is going global than a seller of pork products who operates from a corner stand? If the view of a political movement by a hot dog seller isn't worthy of a front page story, I certainly don't know what is.

I suppose the P-I version might be talking about how one goes about heating up your hot dogs, but I rather doubt it.

Every once in a while, the Times runs a story that just tells you what their world view is.

Perhaps the most ill-conceived advertising campaign ever.

2011-10-07T13:30:00.001-07:00

Well, they are British, after all.....

From Picture is Unrelated.

The Rapture is now on for Oct. 21st. How many times does one have to fail completely and utterly before they understand they are wrong?

2011-10-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

Apparently never, I guess. Remember Harold Camping, the lunatic fundamentalist who convinced a lot of True Believers that Judgment Day was going to occur last May 21st? A large number of truly deluded and easily lead people got rid of all their possessions in order to be ready to ascend to Heaven when the Rapture occurred.

Of course, Camping got it wrong, in that said event never happened.

Well, now he is back and is now completely confident that the Rapture will occur on Oct. 21st. That whole May 21st thing? That was just the last-ditch date for everyone to get their respective houses in order. Oct. 21st is when the Hammer is going to fall. Jesus is really upset with everyone who isn’t a True Believer, and is going to met out the appropriate punishment for our wicked ways.

That is apparently how Camping sees it. Given what a complete and utter lunatic he looked like on May 22nd, I can’t imagine this guy even showing himself in public anymore, much less making yet another prediction that will be shown to be exactly what it is, total horseshit, on Oct. 23rd.

What is it with the human psyche that allows this kind of behavior? How can this guy believe any of this? And how could anyone listen to him and say, “Yeah, he may have been wrong last time, but boy, he is really spot-on this time! Wait until those non-believers see all those earthquakes and Jesus bringing fire and brimstone down on the world!”

I am totally convinced that perhaps a quarter of the human population of this planet is completely insane. They have lost the ability to deal with actual reality, and have retreated into a complete fantasyland just in order to survive. And then, when facts show reality to be something other than what they fantasize, they somehow find a way to rationalize it all away, just so they can maintain their fantasy that they are the only ones that understand and everyone else is in for their comeuppance.

Cross-posted at Pithy Cabbages.

Photo from the Seattle PI blog.

Shih-Tzu blogging.

2011-08-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Just because it's been a while since I have done this....

I wonder if there are doggies on the moon?

What? I was kind of busy here.

Well, since you interrupted my deep contemplation of the mysteries of the universe, I would really, really like for you to rub my tummy, if you have the time.

I really feel for the parents and spouses of the 31 Americans killed in Afghanistan.

2011-08-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Read the story here in HuffPo if you haven't seen the news.

This is reminding me so much of the Vietnam war. I am old enough to have lived through that time, but young enough not to have been made to go and fight and possibly die for some reason that no one could really explain. Oh, there was probably a valid reason at the beginning for both wars, but as time dragged on and things changed, no one could really explain why we were there and expending our military, other than some vague Domino Theory and communists overrunning the world. In Afghanistan, I have no idea what is going on anymore and why we are there. Al Queida has either been destroyed or picked up stakes and moved into Pakistan. The Taliban LIVE in Afghanistan and it has been proven time and time again that foreign forces have huge problems when they are trying to subdue local forces. Just ask the Soviet Union. Oh yeah, the Soviet Union does not exist anymore, and their foray into Afghanistan was one of the main reasons it collapsed.

Why are we in Afghanistan? Really, why?

This is an e-mail I wrote this morning to my local TV station about the FAA shutdown.

2011-08-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Why can't you say it's the Republicans who have partially shut down the FAA?

I saw your lead story on the 5:00 news last night (Aug. 3). All I gathered from it was that "Congress" couldn't come to an agreement on the FAA and that the lady you interviewed was upset with "Congress" for not doing its job. None of the Washington state politicians could tell you why this happened? Come on. A 30 second Google search would tell you exactly what is going on, and that it the House of Representative, under Republican control, inserted language into the FAA funding bill that would make it much more difficult for airline and railroad workers to unionize. That is not a secret! Plus, John MIca (R, Fl) admitted that he added language about defunding the rural airport program, mostly in Democratic states, just to "get people's attention." It was the Republicans who decided to use the FAA as a hostage to get what they want, after agitation by the CEO of Delta Airlines. The Democrats asked for a clean reauthorization bill, one that would fund the FAA without strings attached and Republicans refused. This is not a secret!

Are you afraid to say that it is the Republicans yet again who are throwing a wrench into government and are putting 10's of thousands of people out of work during a time of high unemployment? Why did you just incorrectly identify "Congress" as the bad guys here? That is so wrong, and I can't believe you can't get this right. This is one of the first times I have seen your news program lead off with a real hard news story, rather than the normal stuff involving sex or car crashes or house fires. You guys are really good at floods and snow. But come on. If you are going to try to cover a major news story like the FAA shutting down (for which I work, so I have a big stake in this), try to inform your viewing audience about what is REALLY behind it all. Otherwise, you are doing a great disservice to everyone and it looks like you are frightened of the truth. Even Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican Senator from Texas, said that the action by John Beohner's House was "not honorable", to send to the Senate a bill with riders like that that were not negotiated and that had such a drastic consequence. And then, it was the Republicans who decided to take their August break. Not Democrats. Not "Congress." Republicans.

I really, really expected better from you. Tell the truth, why don't you?

I wish I had said more, or in stronger terms, but I thought that this might be the maximum I could get away with and actually have someone read this. It won't help, of course. I would have thought that in a liberal place like Seattle, the TV and newspapers wouldn't be so unwilling to actually identify the culprits here. KOMO 4 TV, owned by Fisher Broadcasting. Anyone in the Puget Sound area, drop them a line if you don't like this hiding of the truth.

One thing I really wish I would have said is this. Republicans have voluntarily CHOSEN to govern by threats, intimidation, coercion and hostage taking. This is their new way of operating, and they are proud of it! John McConnell said as much after the debt deal was signed. This was so successful for them that they plan on doing it the next time! He admitted it, and was proud of it. So, if that is true, then why can't the press actually REPORT this? Why hide the fact, if Republicans themselves are patting themselves on the back?

Lest anyone forget in the midst of this discussion about the debt ceiling debacle, the FAA remains partially shut down.

2011-08-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

Here’s the HuffPo version to get your started.

The Senate, with the federal debt crisis resolved, is expected to leave by the end of the week for its August recess. The House has already left. Unless the Senate accepts the House bill, lost revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes could exceed $1.2 billion before lawmakers return to work a month later, senators said.

The FAA's long-term operating authority expired in 2007. Since then, Congress has been unable to agree on a long-term funding plan. The agency has continued to operate under a series of 20 short-term extensions.

The latest extension expired at midnight on July 22 after Senate Democrats rejected a temporary extension bill passed by the House that contained the subsidy cuts. Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic extension that didn't include cuts.

The lost ticket tax revenue is costing the government an estimated $200 million a week. The FAA has furloughed nearly 4,000 employees and issued stop-work orders on more than 200 construction projects.

Air traffic controllers have remained on the job. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has vowed that safety won't be compromised and travelers won't be inconvenienced.
...

Three times in the last 10 days, senators' efforts to pass a bill to end the shutdown without making air service subsidy cuts have been blocked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Each time, Hatch has focused his remarks on the labor provision.

"I've been asked by our leadership to make these objections," Hatch explained Monday night. "What is important here – and it's not some itty-bitty little thing – is that you have labor regulators out of control."

To end the shutdown, he said, the Senate must agree to the House's labor provision. Then, the shutdown "would be solved in a nanosecond," he said.

The labor provision would overturn a National Mediation Board rule approved last year that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Under the old rule, workers who didn't vote were treated as "no" votes.

Republicans complain that the new rule reverses 75 years of precedent to favor labor unions. Democrats and union officials say the change puts airline and railroad elections under the same democratic rules required for unionizing all other companies.

The White House warned in March that President Barack Obama would veto an FAA bill containing the labor provision.

So, I will recap a couple of important points here.

• The FAA has been operating without a full authorization budget since 2007. They have been operating on a series of extensions that are good for some period of time, a year or less. This is because the Republicans won’t sign a full reauthorization bill until they get everything they want. (Sound familiar?)

• Now, the Republicans won’t even sign a short-term extension of the FAA’s budget without including several provisions that the Democrats really, really don’t like. (Sound familiar?)

• The one provision included by the Republicans that most people are talking about has to do with government support of rural airports designated as important but don’t earn enough money on their own. However, the big kicker is the one discussed above regarding changes to election laws. The Republicans want to make it much, much more difficult for railroad and aviation employees to unionize. The Democrats really can’t accept that, but the FAA is being held hostage until the Dems capitulate. (Sound familiar?)

• Without an operation budget, the FAA cannot collect fees from airlines and airports to the tune of about $200 million a week. All the people in the FAA who get their salary paid from this pot of money have been furloughed. All the contractors and subcontractors throughout the country who depend on getting paid by the FAA for work done on airports and other safety related projects are also out of work.

• After their hard work on getting almost total surrender from the Democrats during the debt ceiling debate, the Republicans in the House have decided to adjourn for the summer until sometime in August without giving the FAA an operating budget. Which means this mess we have now is going to continue for at least two more months.

I find this absolutely unconscionable. During a time of very high unemployment and also during a time when the Republican Party has declared that the federal debt was THE absolute most important thing that must be addressed, they are holding the FAA hostage until their demands are met. They are creating very real safety concerns, all because they do not like unions. The money that would fund the rural airports would have been able to be paid out of the missing revenue in a week!

There is one thing that I don’t think has really been emphasized in the media yet about this issue. There are about 4000 FAA employees on furlough right now. There are a small number of employees within that 4000 that are critical to the safety of the flying public. They travel extensively, going around to airports around the country and inspecting the facilities and supporting infrastructure, such as the transmitters for the Instrument Landing Systems. These are critical functions. These people have been asked by the FAA Administrator to continue working, without pay, and to put all their travel expenses on the credit cards, which are in their own names. The FAA employees get the bill, the FAA doesn’t. These people are dedicated enough to continue with their jobs, even though our totally screwed up government has decided that the FAA can be used as just one more hostage in their new way of “governing.”

The Republicans don’t care about unemployment. They apparently don’t care they are creating the potential for a very real safety issue. This isn’t democracy. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t democracy.

I also know that when there is another commercial aviation accident or serious incident in this country, there will continue to be calls for the FAA to be more involved, that we aren’t providing enough oversight of the industry, and that we are too “cozy” with the industry we are regulating. There may be some validity in some of those arguments, but I think the despicable actions by the Republicans and by John Mica in particular have undercut any criticisms that they and the people who support them could point our way. They are saying that the safety of the commercial aviation system in this country is NOT a priority. Making it more difficult for some industry workers to unionize is much more important than aviation safety.

I don’t know what those people who are continuing to work without pay and who are putting their travel expenses (which are significant) on credit cards with their personal names on them will do if this continues.

Update: Here's more from Washington Monthly and Crooks and Liars.

Just to remind everyone which party caused this "debt crisis" in the first place.

2011-07-31T13:32:00.003-07:00

And that is why it is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to cut Social Security and Medicare, but not important enough to actually raise any taxes or cut defense spending.

I swear, I may never vote in another political election in my life.

2011-07-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, I know. Giving in to defeatism. Letting the bad guys wins. Go down swinging, and all that other rot. Not that I don't believe that there is a large amount of truth in each of those statements, or that I would encourage anyone I talk with to do the same. It's just me, on a personal level. I pretty much have lost faith in a democratic government where one half apparently is insane and their overall driving force is to destroy the other half. I can live with differences of opinion on how government should operate and differing points of view on policy issues. But I can't deal with a government that is being driven more and more to the right by a MINORITY of people who don't seem to have a clue about what governing actually means. And unlimited money coming in from undisclosed corporations, many probably foreign, just has so poisoned this form of government that very little will happen that will truly be for the good of the everyday citizen. It's all about how the rich and powerful get more rich and powerful. It's a rigged game, so why bother? That is the emotional state I am in right now.

Like many other Americans, I had just great hopes when Barack Obama was elected president. That was incredible feeling. I truly believed him when he was saying "Yes, we can." But that has turned out to be yet one more hollow campaign slogan, and President Obama has turned out to be a major disappointment. Whether this is because he truly believes in all the actions he is taking or whether he is just turning into a center-right politician because he so strongly desires to be seen as the "adult in the room," I don't know. He just never seems to catch on that negotiating with lunatics who really WANT to kill the hostage and get everything they want as well, which includes making Obama look bad on every single occasion, no matter how large or how insignificant it might be, DOES NOT WORK. All we ever seem to get is "political creep," where the country seems to start in one place and then is slowly dragged and coerced to the right, and we don't even seem to realize it's happening. Eight months ago, who would have thought we would have been looking at major changes to our social safety net to try to satisfy lunatics who think that the country defaulting on its financial obligations is a good thing? Yet, we all seem to have accepted that premise now, because the only thing that seems to matter at this point is to raise the debt ceiling, so worse things don't happen. And this is just what the extreme right wing of the Republican Party planned all the time. And we went for it.

Whatever Obama's driving motivations, we are now going to end up with a disastrous bill that will make major changes to Social Security and Medicare, neither of which add to the deficit, as well as make huge cuts in spending during a huge recession when we are getting close to 10% unemployment, and the Democrats are getting almost zero in return. There will be nothing in this final agreement, whatever it ends up looking like, that one could point to and say, "Look, that is a very progressive piece of legislation." No, it will all be big steaming piles of attempts at appeasing the radical right that really, really doesn't want to negotiate, even if negotiation were to give them 100% of what they want. The fact that they negotiated in the first place would be a major defeat for them, which is insane. That cannot continue if this country is to survive.

I don't know where this is all going to end and where the country will be when the Tea Party, a full 30% of the voting population of this country, gets its way. But I do know I probably won't recognize this country. At an emotional level, all I feel I can do at this point is to position myself as best I can, which luckily isn't that bad. I have a pretty good government job that will be there when I need it, unless the Tea Party decides that the FAA should be killed entirely, along with the EPA and all other government agencies that provide oversight and regulation of industry. I am not going to be rich in retirement, but it's beginning to appear that I'll do OK.

But actively trying to fight against this insanity that's gripped this country? And that's what it is, insanity.... I don't feel I can cope. My state votes exclusively by mail, so it's pretty easy for me to actually vote, so I might just throw it out there anyway. But really, enthusiasm about re-electing President Obama? Nope, my heart's not in it.

So, Obama's "bully pulpit" is to tell us we should call and twitter Congress?

2011-07-29T13:13:00.001-07:00

Jesus H. Christ.

Here is the image that comes to mind for me when I think of the Tea Party.

2011-07-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

I hope that everyone remembers what happened to Colin Clive at the end of the film.

What do you want to bet....?

2011-07-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

If the U.S. government defaults on its payments and, as a result, Social Security checks do not get mailed out, the Republicans will try to blame Obama?

OK, that's not much of a wager. That is pretty much a given.

Republicans: Rioting the night after their team lost the NBA finals.

2011-07-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

That my latest analogy to explain this madness. Republicans are still terribly, terribly pissed off because their team lost the NBA finals, aka Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential elections. They still cannot accept this reality, so they are really, really upset, and just to show everyone how upset they are, they are storming their own city (the U.S.A.) and proceeding to set cars on fire and throw anything they can find through plate glass windows. It won't stop the reality that their team lost, but it feels SO... DARN... GOOD!! It doesn't matter that those same people have to live in this country in the future. They are just out to show how awful it is that Obama is the president.

I hope that these white, elderly Tea Party types are really happy when they discover that their Social Security checks, the ones that they are either currently depending on or will in the very near future, are going to be for less than they were if they hadn't thrown their hissy fit.

(To be fully fair about this, that photo is from Vancouver, in Canada you know, after their team lost the NHL finals. But I thought that basketball is a bit more relevant of an analogy than is hockey, and a picture of a riot is a picture of a riot, regardless of the place or circumstances.)

Thank you, Texas, for being a leader in the drive to let crazy people carry guns anywhere.

2011-07-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

From Huffington Post:

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas -- A gunman opened fire at a child's birthday celebration at a Texas roller rink, killing five people, wounding four others and then killing himself as the private party turned to panic and some fled screaming in their skates, police and witnesses say.

Authorities ascribed the gunman's rampage to an apparent domestic dispute and said no young children or rink employees were killed during the shooting that erupted about 7 p.m. at Forum Roller World in Grand Prairie, about 20 miles west of Dallas. Some people at nearby businesses said they watched as adults and children spilled from the rink in horror.
...

Police said the gunman began arguing with a woman in Forum Roller World's front area where the party was being held, although the rink was not open to the public because the family had rented it for several hours for the private party.

Clearly, this is a perfectly valid reason to pull a gun on someone, because they couldn't get into a roller rink when they wanted to. But by gosh, if all those kiddies going to a birthday party at a roller skating rink would have been packing heat, you know, then this would have never happened.

I guess if places like Norway get almost 100 of their young people slaughtered by a madman with a gun and a grudge, then I guess it's OK if the U.S. has our own "incidents" every now and again. Like almost every single day....

Republicans have lost their entire grip on reality.

2011-07-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

Crazy doesn't even begin to explain this. One huge reason that I haven't been blogging in the last month is that I can't even begin to talk about how crazy this all is.... It's all been said before, so there really isn't any reason for me to try to reword what has already been written by more literate writers than I.

Parts of the FAA will be shut down tonight because Republicans want to make it more difficult for railroad and airline workers to unionize. Although I am safe for the moment, if the impasse goes on for too long (and I have absolutely no idea how long is "too long"), I will probably be out of a job as well. The government will probably end up going into default on payments on money that has already been spent because Republicans want.... I don't even know what they want anymore. For every single instance of someone on the right saying "This is what we are fighting for," you can find several instances of them doing exactly the opposite of what they are saying they support.

I am just in awe about how insane one of our two main political parties has gotten. Let's all hope the consequences of defaulting by the U.S. government are as bad as many are saying they will be, and these warnings are coming from BOTH the left and right. But the current Republicans absolutely don't care. They want to blow stuff up.

I see absolutely no path for this country ever to recover from this mess that started (in my mind) with George Bush getting the 2000 election handed to him by the Supreme Court. All we need is for a horse to somehow get appointed as a senator. The craziness will be complete at that point.

Incredibly, both David Brooks and Richard Cohen come to the conclusion that the Republican Party has lost its mind.

2011-07-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

I am paraphrasing, of course. If you want to see the gist of what they both said, here is a summary from Washington Monthly.

First, Cohen:

Someone ought to study the Republican Party. I am not referring to yet another political scientist but to a mental health professional, preferably a specialist in the power of fixations, obsessions and the like. The GOP needs an intervention. It has become a cult. […]

The hallmark of a cult is to replace reason with feverish belief…. This intellectual rigidity has produced a GOP presidential field that’s a virtual political Jonestown. The Grand Old Party, so named when it really did evoke America, has so narrowed its base that it has become a political cult. It is a redoubt of certainty over reason and in itself significantly responsible for the government deficit that matters most: leadership.

Then Brooks:

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases.

A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.

The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.
This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.

The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.

The members of this movement have no economic theory worthy of the name. Economists have identified many factors that contribute to economic growth, ranging from the productivity of the work force to the share of private savings that is available for private investment. Tax levels matter, but they are far from the only or even the most important factor.

I usually don’t read either of these columnists. Brooks sometimes makes some great points and comes across as a thinking, rational conservative. And then he spoils the moment by saying something completely insane. Cohen, well, I have no understanding about why he is thought of as a “center-left” journalist. I can’t think of much that he has written that I agreed with. I think he represents about the worst of the “beltway thinking.” But to have these two people put out columns on the same week that essentially say the same thing, that the Republican Party has lost it’s mind (yes, paraphrasing, but “Jonestown” and “cult” are pretty damning), that’s saying something.

Maybe the tide is finally turning. Maybe our press is finally going to find the backbone to stand up to the Republican Party and report on what is really going on in American politics these days.

Maybe.

Until then, I remain with a deep sense of despondency over the state of American politics. It’s like riding in a car going 90 mph with a madman at the wheel who really doesn’t care if he crashes the car or not, because he doesn’t believe in traveling by cars and if he does crash, well, that sort of “proves” his point, doesn’t it?

Update: Harsh words for Brooks from Driftglass, via Balloon Juice.

And while I am at it, I detest Comcast as well.

2011-06-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

I've been dealing with a "hi speed internet" connection problem on my home network that has been getting progressively worse. It's now to the point that, at many times, it's no better than a dial up connection. Bad, in other words. Bad and slow. So, I finally work up the energy to call Comcast, because I know it is going to be an ordeal. I sit through their damn automated menu system and push the right buttons, and I finally do get someone to talk to. Lo and behold, this is actually a nice, seemingly helpful person who wants to help me with my problem. Looks to me to be a bad wireless router. If the computers are right next to it, everything is fine. You get 40 feet from it, and things barely work at all. OK, I think I need a new router. After all, this is Comcast's property, they are "leasing" it to me or something. It's their equipment. Finally, the guy on the phone transfers me to someone else called "Xfinity Signature Support." I figure it's now their arm that supports the high speed internet stuff. After talking with this nice, helpful lady for about 10 minutes, I finally figure out that she is attempting to SELL me a support package, which I will have to pay about 20 bucks a month and a one-time sign up fee of $79. All to fix a problem with a service (high speed internet) that I am already paying for from Comcast, that doesn't work, and I want them to fix it. That's all. I am buying something from them that doesn't work. I want it to work. And they send me to some other "fee for service" part of their company that wants to sell me a 20 buck a month, plus a sign up fee, to fix something that doesn't work!

FU, Comcast. Jesus Christ, what happened to a customer focus in American business? Can't they do ANYTHING without trying to soak their customers just a little bit more? Goddamn..... Once I get my energy back, I am going to call back Comcast, and sit through their stupid automated phone menu that takes five minutes before you get to actually talk to a person, and demand someone come out and fix this without requiring me to sign up for some sort of "Signature Service."

The American business mentality sucks so bad. All they can do is think about how to make more money.

Yet another reason to hate Apple, Macs, and everything "i" related.

2011-06-28T11:14:00.001-07:00

I have spent the last half hour trying to get iTunes on my Mac to play some of my old CD's. It appears that if a new disc gets put in the computer that it hasn't seen before, iTunes goes and "queries" some database about the CD. I guess it is trying to get the name and all the songs and other info that iTunes likes to put into it's information. But apparently either there is some problem about contacting that database or else maybe the database doesn't know about these discs. It refuses to play almost every CD I put in. Nope, I don't know what that is, so I am not going to play it. I didn't know this, but there is not a PLAY CD command anywhere. Not until the CD gets a thumbs up from this database.... Oh, I did get it to play Revolver from the Beatles. I guess it knows who the Beatles are. It doesn't like Firefall, or any of the "new age" instrumental music I have from the 80's. It just won't play them.

I can't express how much I detest working with computers which were designed by people who think that they know everything and limit, on purpose, what the user can do.

I am about ready to pitch this stupid Mac out the window. And that is the entire reason I went with a Mac in the first place, because I hated my PC.

Here’s some interesting headlines from today’s Huffington Post.

2011-06-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

Tom Matlack Should Women Really "Go Ugly?”

AOL Real Estate: Real-Estate Disclosure: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

PopEater: 'Jackass' Star Ryan Dunn, 34, Dies in Car Crash

WATCH: Jon Stewart Live On Fox News, Tells Host 'You're Insane'

Oh, and then there is this little item…..

'Shocking' Oceans Report Warns Of Impending Mass Extinction

Yeah. Nothing important to see here. Let’s go back and talk some more about why Megan Fox REALLY got fired from the Transformers movie.

Crap. What a society we have. We are currently hearing some of the most dire predictions mankind has ever seen about the environment, and it mostly rates a big, collective yawn. Mankind is going to richly deserve everything that happens to us.

Ummm.... OK, if you say so.

2011-06-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

I am assuming this has something to do with the presidential aspirations of Tim Pawlenty...

Here are some reasons I think the United States is in decline.

2011-06-07T08:21:00.000-07:00

There are a number of reasons why I can’t say that this country “is doomed” or will be “totally irrelevant on the world stage.” Sheer inertia, for one thing. Plus we are still one of the biggest consumer nations on the planet. Plus we have a huge standing military with nukes. Other countries will have to pay attention to us, even if it is to humor us while privately rolling their eyes at each other in private when our name comes up.

Here are some things that will lead to our increasing irrelevance and eventual downfall as a world power.

• The country is being run by the rich and powerful solely for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Everyone else absolutely does not matter. The only time we get any of the crumbs is if our self-interests also coincides with the self-interests of the rich and powerful, which isn’t that often. The country, the most rich and powerful on earth, no longer cares for its citizenry.

• Ideology trumps good results. One political party has decided that government is evil and is doing everything it can to destroy that government. Yet, these are the same people who mouth patriotic slogans and the drop of a hat and will accuse their “enemies” of being un-American for disagreeing with their ideology.

• Making vast amounts of money is the only thing that matters. Just “making money” doesn’t cut it anymore. Companies have to make the absolute maximum they can, 100% of the time. Doing the right thing by their customers is a thing of the past.

• We have a large number of politicians who will say and do absolutely anything to get elected, even if it means contradicting themselves from two weeks ago and flat out lying through their teeth.

• We have one political party dedicated to destroying the other, and any means, regardless of the ethics or non-legality, will suffice. The end justifies the means. Government will be sabotaged in order to gain a perceived political advantage, even if most of the people in the U.S. will suffer in the short term, and probably the long term as well.

• The Republican Party has lost track of the overall vision of this country. What has been substituted is to object to every single thing the Democrats propose or try to accomplish. Again, the outcome is the only thing that matters. The cost to the country as a whole is not considered.

• Politicians and powerful people with a lot of influence will make up the most outlandish fabrications and outright lies in order to gain some sort of political advantage.

• Our media is no longer dedicated to getting to the truth. The reporters are driven by favoritism, “good old boy” politics, and a desire to remain in “the club.” The conglomerates that own the media outlets are interested in making as much money as possible. News is no longer outside that “for profit” box. Plus, they have huge stakes in the political game so that they can retain their position of vast wealth and power. Neither party has any desire to change.

• We have one media outlet that controls the political discussion and also acts as kingmaker that is totally dedicated to destroying anyone who disagrees with them, and will fabricate anything the can to achieve that goal.

• Our voting population includes a very large percentage of very ignorant people. They can be easily stampeded into voting against their own interests, as long as the issues are framed in a way that it is “us against them” and their own “values.”

• Science, regardless of the subject matter, is now on par with “strong opinions.” Scientific findings can be ignored when inconvenient, but will be trumpeted when a scientific finding happens to coincide with someone’s predetermined beliefs.

• We no longer desire to invest in this country, for things like education and infrastructure. It is more important that "shareholders" get a large return on their stock investments. Anything not collapsing right now can be ignored.

• We celebrate ignorance. Knowledge and experience are now suspect.

• A large percentage of the American people do not care to become knowledgeable about anything. They want to be entertained. Video games, high def/3D television, smart phones that will do almost anything, are apparently all that is required to keep a majority of Americans happy.

• A large percentage of Americans seem to think that America is “exceptional.” However, they have absolutely no basis for this belief. We are behind the rest of the world in almost every category that means anything.

I sure I will think about more. I really, really hate this country right now. If I were in a position to move to another one, I would probably do it. I have about seven years until retirement. I think emigrating is a definite possibility at that time.

Yep, this is exactly what it looks like when I take my family on vacation.

2011-06-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

I saw a quote from somewhere this morning that had Piper Palin saying to someone in the media who was part of the Moose Entourage, "Thanks for ruining our vacation." Je-sus.

You know, I really feel sorry for the Palin kids. They are growing up with such an extremely warped view of society and their own self-importance.

Update: Damn, this woman is a moron. This is her take on Paul Revere.

"...he who warned, uh, the...the British that they weren’t gonna be takin' away our arms...uh, by ringin' those bells and um...makin' sure as he's ridin' his horse through town...to send those warning shots and bells...that, uh, we were gonna be secure and...and we were gonna be free...and we were gonna be armed."

Click on this link for a YouTube of this mess, if you don't believe me.

This is such an embarrassment to this country that someone like Sarah Palin could even be considered to be worthy of running for the Presidency of the United States.

Obama-bots deployed to force white, heroic Americans to become socialists and have abortions.

2011-05-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

"Come! I shall now murder your unborn baby, even though you are not pregnant."

Obama-bots, or O-bots as they are affectionately called, are indestructable. The product of the nefarious mind of George Soros and the Kenyan-Muslim Jihad and Chowder Society, these automatons were created solely to destroy the God-Fearing United States of America. In its place, a trans-national Muslim caliphate will be created. White people will be forced to bow down to all to scary brown and black people and be forced to sit in the back of the bus. All Christians and Capitalists will be brainwashed, by such entities as the Peace Corp., public schools, and Hollywood blockbusters, so that they won’t wish each other “Merry Christmas” and will demand that the Nanny-State-Government will coddle them when they fall down and get a boo-boo on their knees.

Publicity photo from “Target! Earth”

Bob Dylan is 70 years old, Jane Fonda is 73....

2011-05-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

I suppose the 60's really are over, aren't they?

Priceless political cartoon.

2011-05-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

The text in this cartoon comes, word for word, out of a press release from Newt Gingrinch's camp.

Click on the cartoon to get a bigger version and then you might have to use the magnifying glass to blow it up big enough to read. It is worth the effort.

From John White Studio. Go check out his entire site.

Eric Cantor wants spending cuts to offset emergency aid to areas devastated by tornadoes.

2011-05-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

That Eric Cantor, he sure knows how to get potential voters on his side of an issue.

From Washington Monthly:

The scenes out of Joplin, Missouri, are just horrific. The death toll from the deadliest single U.S. twister in generations stands at least 116 people, and rescue workers continue a frantic search for survivors. President Obama will be in the area over the weekend, and obviously the area qualifies for federal disaster relief.

It’s hard to believe, but House Republicans aren’t sure if they’re prepared to spend the money to assist the victims and community.

The No. 2 House Republican said that if Congress doles out additional money to assist in the aftermath of natural disasters across the country, the spending may need to be offset.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said “if there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental.”

Finding ways to offset disaster relief funds could be a significant challenge for House Republicans and would put their promise to cut spending to a true test.

I don’t expect much from House Republicans, but this has managed to actually surprise me. When disaster strikes and there are deadly consequences, federal officials are expected to put aside politics and ideology, and commit whatever’s necessary to help.

I agree with Steve Benen here. How much more full of themselves can Republicans get? And this isn’t even “normally votes Democratic” areas like New Orleans after Katrina. These states that are getting bashed by tornadoes and floods are mostly reliably red or leaning red states, such as Missouri, Alabama, Tennessee, Montana, etc. What the hell is Cantor thinking? Is he so absolutely convinced that the only subject that the American people believe is important is cutting the deficit? He would actually withhold emergency funds to help American citizens in dire straights though no fault of their own? Are people without homes and places to work in Alabama and Missouri now “leeches?”

Un-flippin-believable.

Love of money consistently outranks doing the right thing in the United States.

2011-05-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

I find that I keep writing blog posts that start out with some variation of “The ONE thing that I find most amazing….” Of course, that only reflects what I am thinking that very day. In reality, there are just so many things is today’s society that I just don’t understand and could never imagine happening in this country.

Today’s “ONE thing I don’t understand” is how often we see stories, from all the various aspects of our complex society, that show us that people seem to consistently put making large amounts of money over doing the right thing. In this following story from Crooks and Liars, “the right thing” not only has to do with following the law but also protecting worker’s safety in a very dangerous workplace.

An independent state probe in West Virginia concludes that mining giant, Massey Energy, was responsible for the April 2010 explosion that killed 29 underground coal mining workers. It echoes preliminary findings by federal investigators earlier this year that Massey repeatedly violated federal rules on ventilation and minimizing coal dust to reduce the risk of explosion, and rejects Massey’s claim that a burst of gas from a hole in the mine floor was at fault. The report also notes Massey’s strong political influence, which it uses "to attempt to control West Virginia’s political system" and regulatory bodies.

Even when people have died and it is shown that the owners were negligent, they still fight against doing the right thing, because it will cost them money. These huge companies already make lots and lots of money for the people running them, as well as all the “stakeholders.” I absolutely detest that word, as it infers that the workers themselves are not “stakeholders.” But it is the idea that companies can’t even spend a 10th of one percent on making workers safer or even paying them little more than subsistence wages if it would mean giving up even that much of their precious profits. Profits are all that matter, it seems. Making huge amounts of money is never enough if there is one more drop of blood that can be squeezed from the stone. Profits for owners and stakeholders. That absolutely comes first these days.

Why is this? Where did this mindset come from in our society? Is our species just that greedy by genetics that it comes naturally? Have we not reached a place in the history of our society that we can afford to make sure that everyone has a piece of the pie, and is confident in the fact that their workplace is safe from hazards in the process? Why does a rising tide NEVER float all the boats? Why is it that the rich and powerful always want more riches and more power? I just truly do not understand this motivation.

In the richest country our world has ever seen, why is it that those on top seem to think those underneath them in the power structure are somehow slackers, that they are undeserving to share in the riches? What is it about people that drive them in this manner? Getting back to the story I quoted above, how could anyone be so callous and uncaring about worker’s safety that they couldn’t spend a bit more time and money in making sure their workers, the ones the rich and powerful depend upon for their riches, are safe when they come to work? What ever happened to “doing the right thing?”

This is a constant theme from today’s news items. Republicans want to bust those greedy unions, the ones that try to give a voice to the people who educate our children, who protect us on the street, and who answer that 2 a.m. alarm bell when our houses catch on fire. They want to demonize anyone who desires to a bit bigger share when it comes to dividing up the pie. How dare they ask for more! It’s ours! Greedy, undeserving maggots! As if someone who sits in a boardroom all day long or manages a hedge fund is somehow deserving of all the wealth they are siphoning out of the system.

Is this some inherited tendency of our species? Are we programmed to act in this way? Or is this a learned behavior? Is greed and avarice so widespread in our society that everyone “understands” that those are the rules everyone is working to?

I don’t know the answer, of course. I was trained as an engineer, not some behavioral scientist. But what I see of our species makes me ill. Yes, there are many, many good people who act selflessly and not just in times of extreme need (such as after this spring’s devastating series of tornadoes). There are many people working to change the system to make it fair to all, not to just the rich and powerful. But I am more interested in the motivations of those who are constantly fighting against doing the right thing by everyone who is part of the system.

I am very much not impressed with human beings as a species. Yes, we are capable of some wondrous things. Awe-inspiring. But we are also capable of thoughtless cruelty, even when the results of that cruelty is staring us back in the face. And we seem to be able to rationalize away any second thoughts or bad feelings this might cause us if we dwelled on it for more than a few seconds. Our ability to hold double standards and believe conflicting ideas at the same time is truly mind-boggling, and not in a positive way.

I hope that humans never do find a way off this planet and start “seeding the galaxy” with other human societies. I think, at this point in our development, we have failed the test and I believe that we don’t deserve any further chances. And God, if She exists, must be shaking Her head and thinking something along the lines of, “Well, I should have seen that coming. I guess I won’t try that again.”

You know, it occurs to me that maybe the Rapture DID happen last Saturday.

2011-05-23T16:08:00.001-07:00

It was just that when God started checking the list of who was deserving, it turned out that no one was qualified. Certainly none of these Born Again Christian politicians met the minimum standards to qualify.....

So.... He left.

I just passed the fifth year anniversary of Barking Rabbits.

2011-05-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

May 14, 2006, to be specific, is the date of the first post here. Well, that went fast. Sort of. I certainly used to be more prolific than I am now. And I wasn't so much of the one trick pony that I am now.

Anyway, happy anniversary to BR. Thanks to any and all who have ever looked in and decided to come back at a later time.

Republicans in Wisconsin have decided to attempt to grab the state government in a way that means, if successful, they will never have to let it go.

2011-05-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

(The following information comes from the May 20, 2001 edition of the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. I can't give you a link, as her website launches right into the video without providing a link to the story. If you are interested, click the link below about the voter fraud bill moving ahead.)

I think anyone who cares about what is going on in American politics right now is probably aware of what is happening in Wisconsin. The governor there, once elected, declared war on public unions. The legislature there pulled some fast ones and pushed the laws through, even though the Democrats tried everything, including leaving the state, in order to stop the Republicans. All of this was supposed to be because of the grave “financial crisis” the state found itself in. Of course, the crisis was not so grave that the governor couldn’t afford millions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the upper 2%. This is all very much in line with what Republicans are doing all over the country, of course.

The latest effort by the Republicans in Wisconsin is to pass laws, which they have done, that make voting a LOT more difficult that it had been. Photo I.D. will now be required at polling stations, even though that had never been a requirement in the past. You might think that might not be that bad. But apparently, it must be a very specific kind of photo I.D. Students are allowed to vote, but the I.D. offered by every single public college and university in the state does not meet these new standards. Retirees will probably not have these I.D.’s If someone is going to vote by mailing in their ballots, they will have to include a photo copy of their I.D. (which makes no sense to me, given that the person will not actually be present for anyone to check their face against the picture on the I.D.). There are a lot of other restrictions, of course. The estimate that Rachel gave was that this affects around 20% of the voting population of the state. It will cost the state millions of dollars to implement and millions of dollars each time there is an election, at a time where the state supposedly is in the grasp of that “financial crisis” we heard tell about. And all of this is to combat a problem, “voter fraud” that absolutely no one can prove is really a problem.

Take a guess as to which political party that the elderly, students, new voters, and those of ethnic heritage usually vote for? That’s right. Correct. Democrats. THAT is what is behind this. It is not about “voter fraud.” It is not about anything other than an absolute power grab. They know that their attempts to crush unions is not popular with the voters and that there is now a special recall election scheduled for, I believe, something like six Republicans who voted for that bill. Republicans know that the public is not happy with their agenda, especially since they didn’t mention ANY of this in their campaigns. That was all about jobs and bashing Democrats for how bad the economy is. So where did this come from? Many in Wisconsin, right now, are having severe cases of buyer’s remorse. They didn’t vote for this kind of crap, they didn’t see it coming. I don’t blame them for being upset. I do blame them for not looking into the matter of the Republican agenda, both stated and unstated, before casting their votes.

Look at what other headlines there are about Republicans and Wisconsin right now.

Wisconsin governor threatens to call National Guard on state workers (Somewhat old now, but still gives you an idea of how Gov. Walker operates.)

Bill would extend bargaining restrictions to police, firefighters

Walker gives himself more power to fill high state jobs

Assembly votes to give Walker veto over administrative rules

Wis. Secretary of State duties stripped (Who was the last Democrat in the state holding a high office, of course.)

Amid rancor, voter-ID bill moves to Senate

So, do Republicans start changing how they vote and back off on this attack on institutions that have been around for decades to be more in line with what Wisconsinites really would like? No, of course not! That is not how the current Republican Party does things! They have their agenda and they are going to stick to it. It doesn’t matter what everyone else wants. They want to destroy all the social programs and everything else that government currently does that they don’t like. And they will do this in any manner they can. It doesn’t matter if their actions are unethical, immoral and sometimes possibly illegal. The end justifies the means, in all cases. It doesn’t matter to them. They are so enamored of themselves at this point that they truly think they are superior to everyone else and they will crush all opposition. Rigging elections is just one of the tools in their toolbag. Yeah, so what if a lot of people are unhappy with how they govern? If those same people who aren’t happy also can’t vote, then that’s all to the good, right?

When I heard this story, I was just so disgusted. I have said this many times before on this blog. I really do not understand how these people live with themselves. What they are doing isn’t democracy. It isn’t freedom. Their actions are remarkably similar to other groups of people attempting to hijack government. I won’t mention any names, as then I would open myself up to criticisms about Godwin’s Law and other such “How dare you make that comparison!” self-righteous indignation.

This is what I was referring to in my last blog entry about being very fearful if these types of Republicans ever get total control over the government. They will never willingly let it go. Democracy, at that point, will be no more. Do you think that is hyperbole? I don’t. Just look at what is going on in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Florida. That is the future of the entire country if Republicans ever take control again. They already have the Supreme Court stacked, such that any appeals there will not be supported. We see how Republicans operate in both Congress and the White House. Put all of those different legs of government, the ones that are supposed to be the “checks and balances” against abuse of power by the others, under control of Republicans and you will get Wisconsin multiplied by about 10,000.

I know that many voters are not happy with Democrats and with President Obama. I am not terribly happy either about a number of things. I really thought President Obama would be able to change how things worked in Washington. Sure, Democrats have passed Healthcare Reform. It isn’t what progressives wanted and we all thought Dems kept caving to Republican demands that weren’t even made in good faith. But, even with its flaws, that piece of legislation is still quite an achievement. Democrats have been trying to do something along those lines since Truman. But there is a lot of stuff I am unhappy with. We did not close Gitmo. We refused to investigate the abuses of the Bush presidency. The rich and powerful are still quite in control. Dems aren’t standing up for unions, which are really the only organized support that the Democratic Party has these days.

I can see why people might not want to vote for Democrats. They seem spineless and are willing to let Republicans run over them without anything more than a weak, “Hey, that wasn’t nice!” But I will tell you something. If people are thinking that they will either not vote or vote for Republicans as some sort of symbolic gesture, don’t. Please don’t. Do not hand control of both the House and Senate to the Republicans. Do not give the White House to one of those idiots (with possibly the exception of John Huntsman) who make up the list of contenders. Don’t even vote Republicans for your local and state offices. Republicans do things differently once they are in office than what they said they were going to do on the campaign trail. I don’t care how nice they seem. Republicans lie. They will do anything to get their way. Go do some research into Wisconsin and you will see what the country will look like if that happens.

These people are monsters.

Update: Here's more detail from Parsley's Pics.

Aw, shucks. Donald Trump isn't running for president after all.

2011-05-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

I mean, who could have seen THAT coming?

About 90% of me is very happy, as happy as I can muster for something involving politics in the United States these days. This guy is a fatuous gas bag with absolutely no sense of what a clown he has become. I hope his ratings for his "reality show" go in the tank as well. Good riddance. He was such as distraction, the media would amplify every single idiocy the guy uttered. We have better things to talk about. I used to be totally indifferent to the man but now, I detest looking at him. He owes President Obama, and the rest of the country, a big apology.

That remaining 10% of me is kind of sorry to see him leave. I would have loved to see him destroyed in an actual debate. Even some of the current Republicans running for office would have destroyed him. I always love seeing over-inflated egos punctured.

Perhaps the one thing that amazes me the most about Republicans is how they have decided that public schools and teachers are the enemy.

2011-05-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

To me, this is a really unnerving thing. The one constant throughout someone’s life is that they had to go to school. For people of my age who grew up in non-urban settings, that meant public schools. They were there, you went to them. You may not have liked going to school, but that’s what you did. The teachers were, for the most part, pretty friendly and competent at their job. Even when I moved to a very small town in rural Alabama when I was in high school, there was the school. They did their best with the very few resources they had. Sure, you could bitch a bit about how things could be done better or the crummy buildings, but they weren’t “the enemy.” That would have made as much sense as declaring air or water the enemy, schooling for children was that ubiquituous.

O.K., fast forward to somewhere in the last decade or so. Public schools, in the minds of many on the conservative right, are about as popular as a coven of witches. They are there to “brainwash” your kids with all their talk of tolerance, multi-culturalism and other liberalist ideas (including evolution, of course). Teachers and teacher’s unions are a bunch of greedy, whiney slackers who are overpaid and just flat out terrible at their jobs. And, on top of all that, get three months off a year! Yes, I am sure we can all agree that teachers having to deal with all sorts of students on a daily basis, many of whom come from poor backgrounds, broken home, and may not even have enough to eat everyday, are just lounging in the lap of luxury on their $50K salary.

Worst of all, apparently, is the fact that schools are run…. by the government!! Horrors!

From Washington Monthly.

March, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum expressed his disdain for public education. “Just call them what they are,” Santorum said. “Public schools? That’s a nice way of putting it. These are government-run schools.”

Campaigning in South Carolina over the weekend, Santorum went even further. (via Steve M.)

Rick Santorum, a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, even raised the specter of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy in a speech here Friday night while explaining why his grandfather emigrated to the U.S. His uncle, he said, “used to get up in a brown shirt and march and be told how to be a good little fascist.”

“I don’t know, maybe they called it early pre-K or something like that, that the government sponsored to get your children in there so they can indoctrinate them,” Santorum said.

There is a fair amount of this talk going around. At a home-schooling rally in Iowa in March, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain — all Republicans who’ve expressed an interest in the presidential race — raised the specter of ending public education in the United States altogether.

This also includes far-right media. CNSNews’ Terry Jeffrey argued a few weeks ago, “It is time to drive public schools out of business.” Townhall columnist Chuck Norris has begun calling public schools “indoctrination camps.”

But I’d note for context that Santorum is a former two-term senator — and he just won a straw poll in South Carolina, which arguably puts him in the tier above folks like Paul and Cain. And in public, he’s comparing public schools to fascism.

Keep in mind, polls show that the American mainstream considers the public education system one of the nation’s most cherished institutions. When asked what areas of the public sector most deserve budget cuts, schools invariably come in last.

And yet, here we are.

"Indoctrination camps?" "Fascism?" And Santorum and Bachmann are not some penny-ante nutjobs. They are some of the "leading names" in the Republican Party and are likely to run for President. So, here's the situation, then. Some of the “most serious” of minds in the Republican Party are not happy with the publc schools. But rather than try to fix them, to put more resources into them so they have a fighting chance of becoming what everyone would like them to be, Republicans have decided that they want to destroy them. “It’s time to drive public schools out of business.” That’s pretty chilling stuff, by any measure.

One of my best friends from back in the 1980’s has become a ultra-conservative. His views apparently match everything I have heard off of Fox News and the Wall Street Jouranal. The unemployed are a bunch of lazy slackers. Unions should be demolished. He is supportive of everything that supports big business. It’s like he has become an entirely different person than the one I knew back then. I don’t like getting together with him anymore, because I know (even if we aren’t talking about it) that everything I hold dear is something is absolutely detests. It’s kind of hard to maintain a friendship with that kind of thing staring you in the face.

Last year, we were having drinks after work and he started off on a number of things that were apparently bothering him. Public schools was one of them. And he was really angry. I thought he was getting ready to punch me on several occasions. He hates paying taxes on public schools, even though his three kids went through their public school and came out of it very well, I think. Then, while he was on a roll, he came out and said what I really think he firmly believes, and that is the government has absolutely no business providing public education. He was for vouchers and private schools. So, once I could find the courage in the face of this anger and hostility, I asked him, “So, you are saying that you want every single kid in the country to go to private school?” He did an abrupt about-face but acted like he hadn’t, saying, oh, no, I just want to be able to opt out of paying taxes for something I disagree with.

That’s a nice thought, I guess. I would have really loved to be able to opt out of paying taxes that went toward two unnecessary wars, tax cuts for the upper 2% who don’t need any more than they already have, tax breaks for huge corporations who move their operations overseas and leave massive unemployment in many communities when they decide that they can get Chinese or Mexicans to work for 10% of what they pay American workers. But I don’t have that option.

But I find it amazing that Republicans don’t seem to understand what I think is a very basic fact. A highly educated population is good for the health of the country and ensures a future in an ever-increasingly competitive world. Do they really want to go back to the 1880’s, where most of the kids of this country just went to work when they were 10 years old and were functionally illiterate? Is that what they really want?

This is not a rhetorical question on my part. I see all the things that conservatives are attempting to tear down these days. The Republican governor in Maine wants to lower the working age for children, at the same time he wants to lower the minimum wage. Some states want to see the minimum wage abolished altogether. We’ve already discussed how many conservatives would like to kill public schools. And we all know how they feel about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and all other aspects of our current society that form a “social safety net” for those who are really in need. Do they really want to see a huge percentage of this country destitute? I just absolutely do not understand their larger vision for our society. All they seem to want to do is transfer even more wealth and power to the upper echolon of American society. But to what purpose? I have never heard anyone on the right even try to articulate their larger vision, past “smaller government” and “taxes are evil.” What do they really expect our society to look like in 50 years if those policies were really enacted?

As I have stated before in this blog, about the only answer I can come up with is that no one (aside from those really rich and powerful people behind these ideas) is even thinking about those larger questions. They have bought into the notion, body and soul, that Democrats and liberals are evil and must be destroyed. And that is not some sort of over-the-top hyperbole. That is really what they believe, and that is the only thing that really matters. That's it. The bigger picture, the one that will occur 50 years in the future, well, I guess that will take care of itself.

If that’s really the case, I am very fearful for this country if these people ever get total control of our government. Because they WILL find a way to never let go of the reins of power again.

OK. this is a real story title and picture in the NY Times.

2011-05-10T13:44:00.001-07:00

Aside From the Vampires, Lincoln Film Seeks Accuracy

Ahh....... I'm willing to bet that is the VERY FIRST time that particular sentence has ever been constructed in the history of mankind.

Well, why not? That's Hollywood for you. There isn't any story you could possible come up with that can't be enhanced with vampires. Or zombies, of course. But vampires will probably work best here. Hot, young, sultry, terribly self-indulgent vampires.

Lest you think I jest, here is the NYT link.

Donald Trump's new campaign slogan.

2011-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

Although it probably isn't one he would voluntarily choose himself....

Image absconded from Balloon Juice.

Being a part time political blogger, I feel I should say something about the killing of Osama bin Laden.

2011-05-03T07:43:00.000-07:00

Make no mistake about it, this guy was an evil fuck and deserved much worse than he got by getting shot in the eye and dumped into the ocean. OK, just to make that clear? I have absolutely no sympathy for someone who planned the mass murder of thousands of innocent people.

So, with that out of the way, here are some of my admittedly confused thoughts about the whole subject.

1. I was rather surprised that the mission statement was to have OBL killed and not captured. For one thing, ordering someone killed, even someone who deserved it as much as OBL did, isn’t really what I thought we did in this country. Yeah, it’s a myth, sure. I understand that. But still, to break with that ideal so easily and not let justice really take its course, as we normally do things even with the most evil murderers, seemed not in step with how we like to think of ourselves. The whole thing felt like it was a lot more about revenge and retribution, rather than justice. I have seen some mention of "closure" as well, which I think is a total rationalization. It's closure by the fact that a mass murderer got what he deserved. That's a lot more about revenge than some sort of metaphoric sense of "closure", in my way of thinking. And if you really want to get down and call it for what it was, that was an assassination, pure and simple. That's what South American drug lords do. That's what the old Soviet bloc used to do. Is that really what America wants to be? I suppose that train has long left the station, as we now seem to be quite fine with the concept of being known for torturing prisoners and holding people for years without charging them with anything. We seem to have already stepped off that slippery slope.

2. I know that the events of 9/11 were devastating to us individually as well as a country as a whole. And I don’t want to tell anyone how they should feel or celebrate the killing of OBL. But the whole deal of large masses of people getting together and chanting “USA! USA! USA!”, like at some hockey game or something, didn’t feel right. It was a bit unseemly, I thought. But then again, I am not in those people’s shoes, so I don’t know how they felt. My own feelings were something like, “Finally. It’s about time… Good riddance.” I really didn’t feel any elation.

3. Maybe now we can get the heck out of Afghanistan. We haven’t really understood why we are there for years. Al Quaida isn’t there anymore. Yeah, the Taliban is there and they aren’t very nice. But aren’t those the same people that the Soviet Union fought for so long and the U.S. was giving them arms to help them fight “The Evil Empire.” And look what it got them, a breakup of their huge country and a complete collapse of the central government. Sure, the U.S.S.R. was already rotten to the core and ready to go anyway, their losing war in Afghanistan only hastened it on. But isn’t the same exact thing happening to us? Let’s get out now while the death of OBL at least gives us some cover of getting out with our “honor” intact, since that seems to matter a great deal to some people.

4. It will be really interesting to hear the rationale from the Pakistani government, our supposed allies, about why they didn’t know that OBL was in this huge compound just miles from the country’s military school and where many retired military people live. Sure, it is JUST within the realm of plausibility that they might not have known he was there, but really, this doesn’t look good. They need to come up with some sort of explanation, and pretty quickly. It is a pretty telling indication about how much we don’t trust the Pakistani government that we didn’t tell them about the raid beforehand. Something is really going on here behind the scenes.

5. Those Navy Seals are really scary.

Rick Perry, like most conservatives, hates consistency if it gives him a chance to bash President Obama and the federal government.

2011-05-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

So, you remember Rick Perry, who is the governor of Texas and not (supposedly) some nut job tea party type who firmly believes whatever gets handed to him by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh? You remember the time when he was making noises about Texas possibly seceding from the United States because he didn’t like how the federal government was getting too big or wouldn’t leave the states alone or some damn thing?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall -- one of three tea parties he was attending across the state -- that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government.... Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

That certainly sounds unequivocal, doesn’t it? No doubt about what he is saying there, is there? He just hates the federal government and wants it to leave the states totally alone.

Except when he doesn’t, of course. More from Washington Monthly (with an embedded link to Daily Kos.)

Now, however, Perry is whining that the "oppressive hand" isn't intervening in Texas enough.

As wildfires continue to do significant damage to the Lone Star State -- last weekend's state-sanctioned prayer days didn't do anything -- Perry wants increased federal assistance.

And when President Obama visited tornado-struck Alabama yesterday, this apparently made poor Rick Perry jealous.
"You have to ask, 'Why are you taking care of Alabama and other states?'" said Perry.

Texas officials asked the White House to make the declaration, which would have allocated federal funds to help the state deal with the crisis.

"I know our letter didn't get lost in the mail," Perry added.

Daily Kos' Jed Lewison sets the record straight.

So hundreds die in storms throughout the South and Rick Perry's response is to question why those states are getting federal aid instead of Texas? Funny how he doesn't mention that Texas has already gotten at least $39 million in firefighting aid from FEMA over the past two fire seasons and has already received 22 grants in this fire season alone.

I'm not even sure what Perry is insinuating when it comes to politics. Does the governor expect us to think Obama favors Alabama over Texas for some kind of political reason? The last time I checked, they're both very reliable "red" states.

But what makes the governor's complaints especially noteworthy is the larger context -- it's a reminder of how offensive Perry's anti-government rhetoric was in the first place. He hates federal intrusion, except when Democrats in Washington are helping him balance his budget. He wants to keep federal officials out of his state, except when he's facing a natural disaster.

For this guy's feelings to be hurt when the president visits another state hard hit by a devastating natural disaster is bizarre.

Ha. You know, I think that these morons don’t even try to keep track of what they say on a day to day basis. They just react to whatever is happening then and there, and they come up with whatever comes into their minds so they can try to bash President Obama and the Democrats. It really doesn’t matter to them that they are being ridiculous, really inconsistent and very, very hypocritical. It just doesn’t matter, so long as they can say something bad about their enemies.

Just why this is true is beyond me. If I were to be caught in some of the whoppers these characters have, I would slink away and not show my face in national media ever again. But then, I guess I have some sense of self-awareness. These buffoons don’t. What we really need in this country is an electorate and a national media who would punish people like this. They would get excoriated in the press, and they wouldn’t get votes during the next election cycle.

But getting back to Perry’s statement above, I find that amazing, even in the context of getting to bash President Obama. He is actually saying that he doesn’t like President Obama going to visit one of the states hit by the biggest natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina. He want’s Obama to come and visit TEXAS, because, as we all know, Texas is more important that any other state. If Obama doesn’t acknowledge that “fact”, well, there is obviously some problem here that needs to be addressed.

Donald Trump is a worthless, racist prick with an ego the size of Rhode Island.

2011-04-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Besides the devastating tornados in the south, the other huge story that happened in the last two days is, of course, President Obama releasing his “long form” birth certificate. You know, the one that Donald Trump and all the other “birthers” have been demanding. The one that isn’t the official birth certificate used by the state of Hawaii… The official one is the one that President Obama released last year sometime. It is actually illegal to make copies of this long form BC and the White House had to get a special dispensation from the state of Hawaii to release this long form BC that didn’t prove anything more than what the other one did.

Of course, Donald Trump pretended that everything about the subject that he had been spewing the last few weeks didn’t happen, such as his “investigators” finding out this incredible information that would shock everyone. No, once the President of the United States had demeaned himself by having to acknowledge this kind of crap, what does Trump do? Does he apologize? Does he show any sort of contrition? No, of COURSE not. He says he is “very proud of himself.” And then, he has the absolute gall to start questioning President Obama’s college credentials in a way that makes it very plain indeed that he feels Obama is still hiding something and shouldn’t ever have been allowed to run for president.

Here is part of a post at Crooks and Liars that captures a lot of my very hot feelings about this.

And obviously I reside in La La Land because yesterday, Birth Certificate Day, punched me in the mouth. I was stricken, paralyzed with rage.

To see laid bare the brazen racial hatred coursing through the blood of so many millions of people who also call themselves American, well it actually made me cry. I’d thought, in 2011, that we were better than that. We aren’t. We are still desperately sick. And it made me ashamed before all of those that we continue to torment.

…

But the nakedness of the hate disclosed by Trump and the birthers was stupefying. It floored me. I could not comprehend that at least half of GOP voters and who knows how many more were cheering him on, nodding their odious assent. I wanted to divorce myself from them, from this country that could harbor such repulsiveness on such a wide scale. And most of all, even if it’s meaningless and solely to make myself stop weeping for a second, I wanted to apologize to my fellow Americans whose pain I know I can never know.

I’m so sorry.

Because if this is how we treat a man as smart and gifted and dignified and accomplished as President Obama, imagine how we treat everyone else?

Abso-fucking-lutely. How dare that asshole say the things he does? I don't care how rich he is, he has no right to get on national TV and say those kinds of things about the elected President of the United States. Goddamn these people anyway. Who the hell do they think they are?

This country is very sick at the moment, and what makes it worse, most of us refuse to acknowledge that sickness. We prefer to blame everyone else. It’s the fault of everyone who isn’t white and conservative. It’s the gays. It’s the black people. It’s Hispanics. It’s Muslims. It’s liberals. It’s schoolteachers and union members! Everything that is wrong with this country is THEIR FAULT! How DARE a black man even THINK he should be president?!?

These fuckheads make me sick, as well as our entire society that enables such behavior.

A few thoughts regarding the terrible destruction in Alabama and the rest of the Southeast.

2011-04-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

There have been a number of things happening in the last few days that I would like to comment on, but I think this one is the most pressing. The destruction due to a huge outbreak of powerful tornados is a little personal to me, as I used to live in Mississippi and Alabama. I finished up high school in a small town in Alabama, not unlike those just wiped off the map, about 45 miles from Tuscaloosa and lived in Birmingham for a couple of years. I still have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the South, as I think the mentality, attitudes and racism in that part of the country are ridiculous and belong more to the 19th Century than the 21st Century. I detested my time in high school there. But still, I know a number of people down there and have absolutely no desire to see this kind of tragedy visited on anyone.

I was always aware of the risk of tornados while living in Alabama and Mississippi, but it wasn’t a real “fact of life” like it is when I visit Oklahoma for my job. There, you know it is serious business. Maybe it’s just the difference in the amount of information available back in the 70’s vs. now. I do remember a small town about 40 miles away that was hit hard when I was in high school. We used to play them in football. That was a bit of a wake up. But I do remember some big time thunderstorms that were kind of frightening.

Actually, now that I have started writing this, I realize that I don’t have much to say, other than say how sorry I am this happened, which is worth exactly nothing to the people going through this and have lost their loved ones and their entire belongings.

Contribute to the Red Cross or other disaster relief programs if you feel so inclined.

I really hope that this isn’t the harbinger of things to come regarding extreme weather. But unfortunately, it feels like it might be, some people’s feelings about global warming and climate change notwithstanding.

Update: I got an answer to an e-mail I sent to an old friend who lives in Birmingham. He and his family are fine, but he said that the big tornado, the one that got Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, passed just 7 miles north of his house. MUCH to close for comfort, I would say, but there is also an old saying, "A miss is as good as a mile." Or seven.

I also hope that perhaps, just perhaps, many of the arch-conservatives that live in the Deep South might think a little better of the federal government after President Obama visits within two days of the event and pledges that the government will be there to help them during this terrible time. I believe that this is one reason a benevolent government like ours exists, for the benefit of its citizens, especially in time of need. Perhaps some others might change their minds when they are on the receiving end of this assistance.

Republicans are apparently genetically incapable of not being assholes.

2011-04-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

So, back in the days when George Bush was president, what were the rallying cries of Republicans back then, which apparently rebutted every single thing that Democrats ever said or did?

“Support Our Troops!”

“Remember 9/11!”

Ah, the good old days. Well… Those days have certainly passed, once a Democratic congress (now just Senate) and a Democratic president were elected. Republicans are under some sort of blood pact that says they must oppose every single thing that Democrats do, not matter if it is in direct opposition to the stances they took when the Republicans were in power. Every single thing. They are absolutely incapable of letting President Obama or Democrats in general being seen as having “won” something or other.

Case in point, 9/11 first responders. First, Republicans blocked providing healthcare coverage for those brave people who were the first into the scene, risking the same death that took so many of their fellow citizens. No, we can’t provide healthcare for them! That would be socialism! (Remember that little episode? It was called the Zadroga bill. The only reason it ended up passing was that Jon Stewart, on the Daily Show, went after Republicans for being such hypocrites. )

Now, some dumb cluck Republican representative stuck on some provision that requires these brave people, the ones that Republicans were so good as using as props when bashing Democrats, to undergo a security check to make sure they aren’t terrorists before they can get their benefits.

From TPM.

Medical providers will soon inform 9/11 first responders about a provision in the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation law that requires them to be run through the FBI's terrorism watch list before they can receive health care benefits.

According to a letter obtained by Michael McAuliff of the Huffington Post, Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, is instructing health care providers to tell their patients about the provision before they can begin to receive benefits in July.

The provision was tacked on by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) during the contentious fight over the bill in December, which was blocked by Republicans at the time. Stearns' amendment adds a paragraph stipulating the "disqualification of individuals on the terrorist watch list," and requiring each potential beneficiary to be run through the list.

McAuliff reports participants "will soon be told that their names, places of birth, addresses, government ID numbers and other personal data will be provided to the FBI to ensure they are not terrorists."

This is an example of why I hold absolutely no hope of American society ever recovering from the Bush years. Republicans, along with their corporate leash-holders and their attack dog media, cannot bring themselves to do the right thing if it means being on the same side of the fence, or even somewhere near the same fence, as Democrats. Democrats, by definition, are evil and want to destroy this country, so they must be opposed at every turn. No surrender, no retreat, no hint of contrition, even when it comes to something like this. What person in their right mind is going to think that these first responders are terrorists? What sort of warped logic is that?

I was about to call this guy a toad, but that would be insulting to not just toads, but all amphibians. What a small, small person. "Vindictive" doesn't even begin to put a label on this guy. "Spiteful" and "malicious", perhaps. I have to wonder how these Republicans live with themselves. But for some reason, I have to suspect this idiot actually feels GOOD about doing this. "He! He! I really stuck it to those Democrats with that one!"

As I think I said in a previous post, the only silver lining I can see out of all of this is that Republicans may be in the process of alienating every single person in the country that isn't white, over 50 and either belongs to a country club or is very ignorant of current events and believes every single thing that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh tells them. The next election is going to be very interesting, indeed.

Update: More Republican asshole-ishness, from Michigan Messenger, via Crooks and Liars.

So, about that voucher plan for Medicare, Senator Ryan....

2011-04-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

Do I really understand that what the Republican plan to "balance the budget", which it does not in any sense of the word, replace the current Medicare system with a system where the government just hands out vouchers to the elderly so they can go buy their own insurance? That's the plan, is it?

I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind.

First off, I understand that the vouchers will only increase over time as a function of the inflation rate and NOT the rate of increase in the actual cost of healthcare. Would you care to address that?

No? I didn't think so. So, that would mean all the increases in the actual cost of healthcare, not including inflation, would be the responsibility of the recipients of these vouchers? Is that right? The ones who are on a fixed income and probably are having a difficult time making ends meet already? That's your big plan?

Then, how about this? What insurance companies out there, right now, do you think are going to take on a very large number of new people on their insurance rolls, and all of them are elderly and many of them probably already with chronic health problems? Hum? Did you even THINK of that, Senator Ryan? What happens to those vouchers if the elderly can't find any insurance companies to cover them? Do they need to give those vouchers back to the government? Can they use them to buy food and pay their electric bills instead? Did you consider that?

And what about all those additional healthcare costs that aren't covered by your insurance companies? We do all know about those, correct? Copayments for every single visit, which can run into some bucks if you see the doctor more than one or two times a month, which many people would need to. How about all those costs when you have some significant medical procedures done or end up staying in the hospital for a week? Do you expect those insurance companies to provide 100% coverage, on every single healthcare related item, so that the patients aren't responsible for a whole lot more new bills on top of their already large insurance payments?

Have you even HEARD of actuarial tables before, Senator Ryan? Do you understand how insurance companies make their money?

So, before you go out on national TV and make a fool of yourself by waving some printed up pamphlet, saying it is the cure for all the countries financial woes, you might try to learn a bit about the subject you are decimating.

As I continually say, I just do not understand how Republicans have any credibility left, on anything. Why does anyone believe what they say?

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how Republicans have any support from individual Americans anymore.

2011-04-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

Every single thing that the Republican Party does these days is either to A) give massive amounts of power and money to individuals and corporations who already have money and power and B) propose to take away programs and benefits from the middle and lower class. Every single f*cking thing.

Increasing the tax rates on millionaires and billionaires is now apparently some sort of “Third Rail” in American politics (translation: Like the high voltage rail in a subway railroad track, touch it and you die). We cannot even begin to talk about closing tax loopholes for huge corporations, such that companies like GE and Boeing not only don’t have to pay income taxes, they actually get billions of dollars in rebates! And what kind of discussions are we having? Raising the retirement age. Doing away with the federally mandated minimum wage. Getting rid of Social Security, or else privatizing it so that these huge corporations can get their hands on all that money. Gutting public education and all sorts of public services for low income Americans. Getting rid of all unions, not just for public employees. You wait, it will happen.

How can the Republicans possibly keep selling themselves to the American public on being on their side and watching out for the concerns of everyday Americans? This is absolutely insane. During the healthcare debates of last year, what was one of the big anti-healthcare reform rallying cries we continually heard? “Keep your hands off my Medicare!” “Democrats are going to take away your Medicare!” And what does Paul Ryan’s proposed “budget” do? It does away with Medicare as we know it! It turns it into a voucher system that will go directly into the pockets of huge insurance corporations and medical providers!

How can this possibly happen? The Republicans in office must know they are full of crap. They cannot possibly believe they are doing all of this for “The American People.” They just cannot be either that stupid or unaware. Therefore, they must know they are lying through their teeth 90% of the time. I’m sorry, I don’t call people liars very often, but I just cannot see any other conclusion. And I certainly don’t see how the Republican supporters still believe that the Democrats are evil and are the ones that are, in their minds, trying to destroy the country. And how is the big media outlets not calling BS on all of this? Are Republicans so caught up in the prevailing Groupthink that they cannot see what is plainly in front of their collective noses? Is tribalism so rampant that they cannot imagine that “their side” is not the shining example of Truth and Righteousness that they have been told?

This is so crazy. I just don’t think anyone could have ever imagined something like this occurring.

Funny thing, I don’t see any sign of a story about the protests in Olympia in the Sunday Seattle Times.

2011-04-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

What’s on the front page? Oh, there’s some story about our really ugly Rock and Roll Museum. We are very proud of Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, you know. And there’s a worthwhile story about elderly citizens hovering on the edge of poverty and homelessness, and being targeted by inhuman scammers as well.

But is there a story about this? I don’t see one.

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Thousands of union members from all over Washington poured into the state Capitol Friday, calling on lawmakers to "put people first" by ending corporate tax breaks and painful cuts to public programs.

The protest was by far the largest of four days of boisterous demonstrations in Olympia over spending cuts legislators are considering in order to help close a looming $5 billion budget deficit for the next two-year cycle.

Buses began arriving at the Capitol hours before the noon rally, carrying musicians, iron workers, firefighters and others concerned about the scarcity of jobs, the rising cost of college and the security of their pensions. The Washington State Patrol estimated 7,000 people gathered outside the main legislative building, while labor group leaders put the figure closer to 12,000.

Protesters said they hoped the demonstration would serve as a powerful reminder to lawmakers of who their decisions are affecting as they work to craft the state's next two-year budget. The House plans to vote Friday or Saturday on a budget plan that includes $4.4 billion in cuts, while the Senate will introduce its own proposal next week.

"We need to remind them that we need changes right now, not later," said Tim Haslett, an electrical worker and father of five from Seattle who has been unemployed for most of the past two years. "I'm trying to do everything I can to pay for my youngest daughter to go to college next year, but I don't know how I'm going to be able to do that if there are no jobs."

"We do not have a budget deficit," Jeff Johnson, president of the Washington State Labor Council, one of the rally's main organizers, told the crowd. "We have a social services deficit, we have a jobs deficit, we have a revenue deficit, and we have a deficit of leadership."

It’s like it’s not happening at all. Great job, Seattle Times. I really, really miss the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Republican John Kyl, in response to getting caught telling untruths, replies, “It was not intended to be a factual statement.”

2011-04-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

So, this is what it now comes to. These a**holes use blatant lies to rile up their core supporters and convince them that they are the righteous and the other side are no more than lowly scum. When they invariably get caught and called out on their lies, aren’t even trying anymore.

“It was not intended to be a factual statement.”

Holy Mother…. So, by saying you were lying, that makes it O.K. somehow?

Check out the full story at Washington Monthly.

Image stolen from Balloon Juice.

Saturday morning thoughts on the non-government shutdown.

2011-04-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

I actually thought that there would be a last-minute agreement reached once it became apparent that the sticking points were funding Planned Parenthood and some heavy-handed restrictions on the EPA. The Republicans were going to look like total fools for shutting down the government over stuff like that. It was no longer about budgetary issues. It was about Republicans trying to foist their agenda on the U.S. through the only branch of the federal government that they control. They were going to get absolutely killed next election. They still might. But I figured, once we got to that point, there would be an agreement. Anything less would have been political suicide, or at least some major self-inflicted wounds.

Great, the government isn't going to shut down. Troops will continue to get paid, 700,000 federal workers (including me) will go to work on Monday morning. But we are going to have to live with the medium to long range fallout of this agreement. I believe the number that the R's and D's agreed to cut from the federal budget from last year's is 38 billions dollars. 38 billion. That's a LOT of money. Now, I am absolutely certain that there are large areas of wasteful spending that could be cleaned up. But 38 billion, all in this year? Where is that money going to come from? There is already a very large amount of what I consider to be damage done to how the government operates. People are going to lose their jobs, services are going to be cut. I am a great believer in the Law of Unintended Consequences. 38 billion, at this point, is still mostly just a number that the R's and D's were arguing about. Very soon, the rubber has to meet the concrete. Where is this money going to come from? I am going to guess our national parks are going to take huge hits, for one thing. I would bet anything that most federal agencies get edicts like "reduce your workforce by X%." There will be lots of social programs that people, here and now, depend on that will be cut or greatly reduced. On and on. We have yet to see the very real fallout from this arbitrary number that people agreed to last night.

And, as for looking toward the future, I've got news for you (if you thought otherwise, and you probably didn't), the Tea Party types did not give up after last night. They will come out fighting that much harder in order to achieve their goals. (Just what those goals are, from the "bigger picture" perspective, aside from "shrinking government", I really don't know.) They are going to want that 38 billion to come from all the programs that they seem to detest; education, environmental protection, any sort of oversight of business and industry, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, any programs which give financial support to the poor, disadvantaged and out of work, etc. And on top of this, they are going to continue to demand more and more tax cuts for the rich and for corporations and an overall reduction of spending and revenue collected by the U.S. government.

Lastly, I find it amazing that all of this thrashing about in the last few weeks was SOLELY about cutting spending. There was not a single word spoken about increasing revenue through letting the Bush tax cuts expire on the rich to very rich, nor was there any discussion about making American businesses (e.g., GE, Boeing) actually pay corporate taxes like everyone assumes that they are already doing. No discussion about closing up tax loopholes. None. That subject seems to be totally off-limits.

There was also no discussion about jobs, other than some very unsupported declarations by the Republicans that jobs would come streaming back when the government's deficit was reduced. I am not an economist, but that assertion makes absolutely no sense to me, and it certainly doesn't to some very smart people who should know, such as Paul Krugman. (I may go try to find a link for this later. For now, you can go do a Google search yourself if you are that interested.)

The Dems, even though they control both the Senate and the Presidency, still have handed the nutjobs running the Republican Party right now a very large victory, even if those self-same nutjobs don't recognize it as such right now. The discussion is solely about spending, not taxes. It is solely about which programs to cut or get rid of entirely. The public will not know who's to blame when they don't get the services they want.

The Dems have found a way to continue on this path that the Tea Party has defined for this country. Oh, they didn't get everything they wanted, but they certainly got a lot. They certainly didn't get enough pushback to think that this approach isn't going to work in the future.

I can't imagine what this country is going to look like in 25 years. Well, I do have my own thoughts on the matter. I hope I am wrong. But I have a feeling that most of the people in this country will look at the state that things are in and wonder how they heck the United States of America ended up there.

Sooo.... I am going to be furloughed because Republicans don't like Planned Parenthood and the EPA?

2011-04-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

Do I have that right? And this is after I took a two year (or more, depending) pay freeze so I can help subsidize the extension of tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

I am starting to get a little upset with the Republican Party. (That's an understatement...) Yeah, Democrats seem to be mostly spineless and won't stand up to hardly anyone without caving immediately. But Republicans, the ones you MIGHT think are sane, will not stand up to their wingnut Tea Party extremist wing. As a result of Republicans caving to the Tea Party, and then the Democrats usually caving to Republicans, we have the situation where the crazy 35% seems to be setting the direction for the entire country.

And it certainly isn't like we have any SERIOUS problems that need to be addressed...

UPDATE (Friday, 8:30 a.m. Pacific): Well, perhaps they are just down to talking about Planned Parenthood. That's an amazing thing to be THE fulcrum in whether to shut down the entire U.S. government or not.

I just had my talk with the boss about what might or might not happen next week. He was very insistent that, in the event of a shutdown, we should, under no circumstances, do anything related to our jobs. We could be subject to discipline... For doing our jobs... While not getting paid... But, really, when you get down to it, I don't think I will have a problem about not doing my job.

I am still expecting a last minute deal to happen. I think Boehner and some of the less-crazy Republicans know what might happen and who will be blamed if this indeed does go down. I actually think they have painted themselves into a corner with their crazy Tea Party base already. If the Republicans compromise, on ANYTHING, and avoid a shutdown (which many of the wingers really seem to want), then the base will be steaming mad. They already weren't that happy with Boehner. On the other hand, if the government gets shut down and some of these people all of a sudden find out they aren't getting their income tax refund as quickly as they would like or they aren't getting their Social Security checks, they are going to be upset. The Republicans will probably be blamed by everyone else for being such ridiculous ideologues to take everything to this level of crazy over Planned Parenthood (which, by the way, is already prohibited from using federal funds for abortions).

Crazy, crazy people.

UPDATE 2: I think it is unfortunate that I chose to focus this post, and the one just preceding this one, on how a government shutdown would affect me. That is actually the least of my concerns, although it is certainly not how it looks when you read the title of these posts. From a purely personal point of view, I am actually looking forward to some time off. I am not one of the unfortunate many who have to live from paycheck to paycheck. I can survive quite nicely. I am sure the same is not true for most everyone else who is going to be out of a job and/or paycheck next week, if something doesn't break lose here. If I were a military family and my wife or I were stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan, putting our butts on the line every day just because that what our "fearless leaders" say we have to do, and all of a sudden, we weren't getting PAID!?! I think I would be hopping mad about it. I just hope they put the blame for this fiasco in the correct place.

I apologize if this post appeared to be very self-centered.... Not my intent. The whole issue was just easier to talk about in those terms.

Guess I will probably out of work next week.

2011-04-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Republicans. But, of course, they are already trying to blame the Democrats for any government shutdown that might occur. That's sort of like a bank robber going into a bank, taking a bunch of hostages that he threatens to kill if he doesn't get a million dollars and a helicopter, and then blames the police for making him shoot his hostages.

That is exactly what is going on with the Republicans.

If I was John Q. Public, I might tend to blame the side whose members are actually cheering about the possibility of a shutdown. And that ain't the Democrats.

Ah, well. I have lots of yard work that needs doing. I'll be too tired to spend any money, anyway.

UPDATE (Tuesday, 12:50 p.m. Pacific): I really didn't think we would get to this point. This is pretty incredible.

Here are a few things I have learned by poking around the internets in the last few minutes.

I would actually be one of the lucky government workers. I am certain to be designated a "non-essential" employee, which means they can let me go without screwing anything up in the immediate term. The unlucky ones, it turns out (such as, oh, Air Traffic Controllers), will be deemed to be "essential employees." That means they have to show up for work, even if the government gets shut down, but here is the kicker. They don't get paid until everything is back up and running again! Hey, worst of both worlds, yeah?

Another thing is that President Obama and the Democrats have agreed, in principle but not in specifics, to the 33 billion dollars in cuts that was initially put on the table by the Republicans. Yeah, they WANTED 66 billion in cuts, but my understanding is that 33 billion would have gone a long way toward their goals. Guess what? That isn't good enough anymore. Neither is getting a bill that would get the necessary majority in the House. John Boehner is now demanding that he get a bill that could be passed with a majority of JUST REPUBLICANS. No need for bi-partisan support when you can pass a bill with your simple majority, right? That's what the Republicans want now, or else they shoot the hostages.

I just cannot believe how absolutely insane this country has gotten in the last few years.

UPDATE II: No, "non-essential" government employees are still rather essential. They just aren't essential in highly critical, day to day work, such as, oh, Air Traffic Controllers and the like. The country can get along without us, for a little while anyway, for some time. But just wait until the military families stop getting paychecks or Republicans don't get their income tax return checks when they think they should, and you will start to hear about how "non-essential" we are.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Republicans have gone so over the top that the non-insane 35% of Americans are finally catching on what is going on.

2011-04-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

I am not usually one to look for silver linings in big, dark clouds that you know are about to dump prodigious amounts of unpleasantness on your head. Silver linings are, in my mind, just the human spirit trying to stay optimistic. That usually isn’t me.

However, in our current situation, that might just be true. There may really be a silver lining in the Republican Party, as a whole, being so full of themselves and being so terrified of not conforming to the wishes of the Tea Party types, that they really are turning off everyone else.

- Republican governors seem to think they have been elected kings of their fiefdom. They are gutting people’s right to organize, they are turning down billions of dollars in essentially free money for high speed rail projects that would bring lots of work and dollars, while strengthing the state’s infrastructure. They are showing they have absolutely no loyalty to those who got them elected, other than Big Business. Teachers are now the enemy. Public education is evil. Anyone making under $50,000 a year is living high on the hog.

- The House of Representatives has become a place for wing nut ideologues to let down their hair. After screaming, “Where are the jobs!?!” for months, they have decided to pursue their rightwing ideology at all costs and jobs has become a non-issue. They have introduced legislation whose intent is to make abortions so difficult to come by they would be practically impossible. They have made it plain that they hate public schools, but will do anything they possible can to get rid of all government oversight of particularly hazardous industries, both for the environment and our population, as well as our financial institutions.

- The Republican Party keeps running imbeciles. Many times, these people do get elected, such as Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Jim DeMint, Louie Gohmert, etc. Many times, they give elections to the Democrats in what would have otherwise been a reliable Republican win, such as Sharon Angle. Every time they open their mouths, something very embarrassing comes out. Newt Gingrich has proven that he will say anything at anytime, as long as he gets to disagree with President Obama. Haley Barbour still has a very large problem with race relations, as well as a history problem. Sarah Palin, still the current Face of the Republican Party, is becoming increasingly disliked in the rest of the country and has essentially a zero chance of ever being elected to another public office, much less President of the United States. Most people wouldn’t even trust these people to teach their children, much less hand them a very powerful political position.

- Fox News, and in particular, Glenn Beck, have become so hysterical (in several different definitions of the word) that anyone outside that crazy 35% has a difficult time taking them seriously. They do not seem to have a coherent position about anything, other than Democrats are the most evil, vile things that the world has ever encountered. They aren’t even making an attempt anymore. And with a number of leaked memos from the inner sanctum of Fox News, it is very apparent that the reporters, anchors and on screen personalities are operating on orders from above.

As I said, I may just be reaching for something that isn’t there. But the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin in reaction to the huge overreach of the governor and the Republican senators were something to behold. Every single thing that the Republican Party attempts to do these days seems to alienate some other segment of the voting population, such as police and firefighting unions, teachers, Hispanics, and people without jobs and with not much hope.

One can hope, I guess. The prospects of an enlightened voting population making the correct votes (not always Democrats, mind you) in order to solve the very daunting problems facing our country seems pretty bleak right now. But perhaps, just perhaps, the Republicans have gone so crazy that no one past that 35% will believe them anymore. Maybe they have shredded their respectability so much that hardly anyone will believe anything they say from this point on.

For no particular reason, here's a cat that looks like Lenin.

2011-04-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

I'll have to find my doggie Trotsky photo. I have it here somewhere.

Heartbreaking picture from Japan.

2011-03-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

This photo just hit me in a sensitive place. This is really horrible....

Newt Gingrich once again proves that it is not what you say, it’s how many inflammatory, dog-whistle words you can fit in one 30-second sound bite.

2011-03-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

From Washington Monthly:

"I have two grandchildren: Maggie is 11; Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

Ha. America…. Secular… Atheist… Radial… Islamists…. American…

That’s pretty good, Newt. We should have been playing Buzzword Bingo.

Please tell me how something can be “secular, atheist” and “radical Islamist” at the same time? Aren’t those concepts rather mutually exclusive? Isn't that kind of the whole damn point of "atheistic?" Pardon me, but JESUS! If you are going to string a bunch of buzzwords together to try to get someone riled up, there should be a rule that you need to at least do that in a way that MAKES SENSE!

It appears to me that one of the primary requirements to run for the President of the United States from the Republican side of the aisle is to be a barking lunatic willing to pander to anyone and everyone who you consider to be in “your base.”

I am truly frightened about what might happen to this country if, against perhaps not-all-that-long odds, one of these nutjob Republicans were to actually win. I am not sure if the Democrats can hang on long enough for all of the idiotic, white, scared shitless of anything not associated with our tribe, voters in our country die so they can't vote anymore. Sorry, but that’s how I see it shaking down.

I am starting to have this same feeling of unreality about the Japanese nuclear disaster that I did about the oil spill in the Gulf.

2011-03-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is a very serious situation and I believe that we don’t know half of what is going on. Here is a short description via DailyKos about what the people on the ground are dealing with.

The world today got its first glance of the 50 workers, until now an anonymous group of lower and mid-level managers. Pictures from inside the plant show staff in full protective suits and masks working in debris-strewn control rooms lit only by torchlight. They are also pictured working to reconnect power supplies and trying to make the towers in the plant safe.

Five are believed to have died and 15 are injured while others have said they know the radiation will kill them. At first light today officials were alarmed to see steam pouring from reactors 1, 2, 3, and 4. It was the first time that steam has escaped from the No 1 reactor.

I have heard about the two or three workers that got radiation burns on their feet and legs by walking in radioactive water. But this is the first time I have heard about people actually dying and receiving enough radiation to know that they are going to die. I also did not understand the true devastation because of the hydrogen explosions. The controlling mechanisms, even if they get electrical power restored, may not actually function. And we are now hearing that one of the main containment vessels has a very large crack in it and that was probably the source of the radioactive water that burned the workers as they valiantly attempted to do whatever they could to help the situation.

Remember, also, that these plants are on the shoreline of the ocean. All this radioactive runoff is going directly into the ocean.

I know this is poor taste and I think many people have been avoiding making these comparisons just for that reason. But I can’t help but notice that the situation now resembles many of the mutant monster sci-fi films of the 1950’s, both Japanese and American. No, I don’t expect a giant whatsits to come lumbering out of the sea and start crushing cars. The giant monsters were just metaphors anyway. The real monster, the unknown entity that we were all totally unprepared to deal with, is radioactivity. The only real differences here are the fact that an earthquake and tsunami were act the heart of the disaster, not an atomic bomb. Otherwise, those filmmakers were very prescient.

I keep hoping that this will all just go away. The situation can’t possible be as dire as I am thinking it might be. I was having some pretty awful thoughts about not being able to cap an oil gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The situation in Japan is much, much worse. I really don’t even want to consider the possibility of the “worst-case scenario.”

I'm sorry, but Newt Gingrich's wife is really kind of creepy.

2011-03-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Does this photo remind anyone else besides me of The Stepford Wives? (The original one...) Can you imagine this person as the First Lady? Which is a much lesser horror, I admit, than the one involving her husband as the President of the United States. But still...

This confirms my beliefs that many Republicans believe they can and should do anything to destroy “the enemy.”

2011-03-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

The enemy I am referring to, of course, is anyone who might be a Democrat, a liberal, a union member, a teacher… Anyone who doesn’t act and think exactly like them. That is who Republicans identify as their enemy, and they fully believe that the end justifies the means.

To support this not-that-farfetched hypothesis, I offer this little gem. This story is appearing in many places on the internet. Here is the Crooks and Liars version. It seems that some legal eagle in Wisconsin wrote to the governor to suggest that he actually fake some sort of physical attack on himself and make it look like the perp was some union supporter. Here’s what the letter said, in part.

“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said. “Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.

Here the thing is in whole.

My, my. That certainly sounds above board and nothing at all to be embarrassed or ashamed about, right? All is fair in love and war?

Now, I am not going to suggest that every single Republican and conservative thinks like this. I fully believe that there are very ethical and moral people in this country who happen to have a very different vision than I do about how this country should be run. The problem here, however, is that there seems to be a very large number of Republicans out there that do NOT think like this. On the contrary, they appear to believe that anything that can be done to “win,” should be done. I think the 2000 election taught us that. That approach continues on to this day. Just think of the James O’Keefe selective video editing to take down targets conservatives don’t like, such as ACORN, Shirley Sherrod, Planned Parenthood, NPR… The only limitation they put upon themselves is this. Do not get caught. And even if you do get caught, you should never apologize, never back down. No matter how much dirt is on your hands when you get caught, remember this, it’s always the liberals fault!

I really would like to know how these kinds of people justify their actions to themselves. How do they sleep at night? How much different is this than, say, the old Soviet Union or some 3rd World Banana Republic? How can they possibly state, with a straight face, that they "love this country" and "love freedom and Democracy" and pull this kind of crap?

Technology: Does the Japanese nuclear reactor crisis indicate we have become far too trusting of technology?

2011-03-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

Before I start on this, I need to explain something. I do know something about this subject on which I am about to expound. I have a job involved in very complex technology. I can’t write about those direct experiences, however. One of my firm rules I imposed upon myself when I started this blog was that I wasn’t going to blog about my job. That is a good way to lose said job. But I do have almost 30 years experience with dealing with safety critical, highly complex systems. You are going to have to trust me on that point. And, for the record, I have a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a Master’s in physics. While I was in college, I also received some experience in the power generation field and spent some time around a nuclear power plant, courtesy of my participating in the school’s cooperative education program. Although that was now over 30 years ago, I do remember quite a lot of the fundamentals involved here.

For the record, no, I don’t work in the power generation field with my current job.

I have been watching with interest the ongoing and continually worsening crisis in Japan regarding the four (I believe it is now four, it could be more) unstable, possibly out of control, nuclear reactors in Japan. This emergency has been ongoing since the double barrel hit of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and a huge tsunami, and it seems to be getting worse as the days progress. I am not going to try to summarize the current situation, as any summary I try to put together will be out of date by tomorrow. Rather, I would like to focus on the bigger issue of technology in general and how our society has become totally dependent upon it without understanding or underestimating the very real risks involved.

I have seen some writers in recent days compare this accident, if that is even a good word for it, to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. That ship was labeled, from the time it was on the drawing board, as “unsinkable.” Literally, the belief was that it could never be sunk. Technology had advanced during the Industrial Age to the point that it was infallible. That was one reason why, when that huge ship sank on its very first voyage, it just clobbered the accepted reality of the day. Yes, the horrendous loss of life also had a huge impact on the collective psyches of both America and Britain. But the one part that I would like to discuss is the fact that people really had come to believe that the technology involved was that advanced such that all risks had been negated. That ship could never sink, end of story.

Our society today seems to find itself in that same erroneous state of mind regarding technology. It has become an integral piece of the fabric of day-to-day life in the 21st Century. We are literally surrounded by very sophisticated technology that we hardly even see for what it is. Smart phones, iPads, instant connectivity no matter where you might be, electrical power that we never even think about except when it isn’t there anymore, relatively inexpensive gasoline for your automobiles no further away than the gas station or convenience store three blocks away, on and on. Technology surrounds us. Our current society is totally dependent upon these things and we hardly ever think about what might be required to sustain all this technology and what the consequences might be if it doesn’t behave according to our preconceived notions.

There is one basic fact about all technology, no matter how advanced or primitive it might seem. That is, at some point, it will fail. Things break. Washers in faucets wear out. Pipes break. Metal fatigue can result in a catastrophic failure of a component in a system. Transistors fail. Insulation in wiring becomes chafed which results in a short circuit. Water gets into somewhere it isn’t supposed to be, which always results in things not working correctly. Oil pumps fail which causes moving parts to become dry and fail due to heat and friction. Failures are a fact of life in technology.

The trick for system designers, therefore, is to anticipate these failures and build mitigations into whatever it is you are designing so that the failure is not catastrophic. That is why we have backup systems and backups to backup systems. You have monitors in place for anything that might go wrong, so you can detect it and do something about it. A very easy to understand mitigation factor is for an operator of something, such as a car engine or a nuclear power plant, is to shut the thing down when it starts not working correctly. However, the trick to that is for the operator to understand when it isn’t working correctly and that he should intervene. With very complex systems, that becomes a very tricky proposition indeed.

The problem with this approach of understanding and mitigating all possible risks for very complex systems, such as modern commercial airplanes, nuclear reactors, submarines, and petrochemical plants, is that the list of things that can potentially go wrong becomes almost infinite. It becomes much worse of a problem when you start factoring in multiple failure conditions and what is always referred to as “operator error” on top of those failures. Once the system designer starts applying his or her fertile imagination to this problem, the whole process becomes almost infinite.

That is where “probabilities” start coming into the picture. Because it is impossible to take care of every single and multiple thing that could ever go wrong, then it becomes a matter of addressing what is most likely to happen and what is the thing that can happen that could have the worst consequences? Those are the risks that system designers address first. And as one who has seen the inside of this process, it becomes almost a game you play. Cost factors start to become very large in the overall decision making process. If a designer wants to address a possible situation that could have dire consequences if it were to happen in a very specific way and it would take a whole lot of money , time and resources to address, but it really isn’t all that likely to happen, then it is obvious that the people that make those kinds of decisions are not likely to address that particular scenario. It's all in how you "draw your box" around the possible scenarios you have to design your system to accommodate in a manner that will hopefully minimize death and destruction. Once something is placed outside that box, then, by definition, it is outside of your accepted reality. It will not happen. The Titanic will not sink.

When the increasingly dire situation in Japan started hitting the news, I immediately started wondering why the backup cooling systems of those power plants didn’t automatically kick in. Not having cooling water for a nuclear reactor is probably THE one big thing that designers worry about. It is rather likely that it will happen, too, if you don’t design and operate your reactor in very certain ways. So it was a mystery to me why all of these reactors that are in trouble seem to have lost their backup cooling systems. All of them had that problem at the same time. How did that happen? I won’t go into the probability numbers, but that would seem like that would be a Once In The Lifetime of the Dinosaur Kingdom kind of event.

Well, it turns out that the problem with all these plants is that they did have a backup cooling system that depends on emergency electrical power generators. And guess why those all failed? The tsunami wiped them all out, as they were built in a low-lying area right next to the ocean. That risk was either never identified or was considered to be so unlikely that they designers didn’t need to bother mitigating that one.

In a country like Japan that has a long history of violent earthquakes and tsunamis, you would think that this scenario might have been considered, given the possible catastrophic results. No, this was one of the things that was not considered in the realm of possibility. Why? My guess was that it was an economic decision, not a technological one. The potential for this scenario was recognized but it would have cost too much money to address a situation that people in charge didn’t think would occur.

That is called “acceptable risk.” People are making decisions about what is acceptable, given what it would take to address that problem. That is the basis for a Cost/Benefit Analysis. The problem here, as you might be able to see now, is that the main risk involved is for the citizens of Japan along that stretch of coastline. The risk that the managers of the company that had those nuclear plants built is being borne by the citizens of Japan, who had absolutely no vote in that decision.

Believe me, this kind of thing is constantly going on in today’s society. That is how this vast technologically based infrastructure we have in this country and the world works. Everything is a tradeoff.

There has been much discussion about nuclear power and whether it is a “safe” technology. Here’s my thought on that question.

There will never, repeat, never be a totally safe nuclear power plant. There will always be a possibility of something going wrong. If the system is designed in a way that the first and almost only requirement is that it will never experience an accident, then the risk that there will ever be a critical problem will be very small indeed. For instance, the plant could be designed with quadruple redundant cooling systems and with not one but two containment domes, each about 30 feet thick that would withstand a military type bomb being dropped directly on it. Accidents will not be a Zero Possibility, but they become increasingly very, very unlikely. The more safeguards you put in, the less likely that anything bad, no matter the cause, will happen.

However, that is not how things are done in our society. The companies that are going to invest billions of dollars in nuclear power plants are going to want a return on their investment. What’s the point of having these wonderful power plants if you never make any money? That, in common parlance, is referred to as a "Bad Business Case." Therefore, economics is a very major player in design decisions that you might think would be totally technologically driven. If you think that, you would be wrong.

But this is still O.K. That’s how our society works. The problem lies with how one goes about assessing the possible risks. If your schedule is very tight and your company is on the verge of going under, you might be inclined to start cutting corners in order to not spend any more money or effort than you absolutely have to. You might start “drawing your box” around the possible scenarios that you must account for in a way that starts to minimize those possible scenarios you must consider. If you limit those scenarios, then your job as a system designer becomes much easier. And cheaper, by the way.

That is what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The situation that occurred was considered to be something that the designers did not have to worry about happening. When it did occur, then the response is invariably, “Who could have foreseen X happening?” Does that sound at all familiar?

There are a number of other factors that contribute to accidents, of course. This is a very complex field of study and many books have been written on the subject. I am not going to be able to cover everything here. But I will mention a couple of other factors that I believe are very prevalent in how our technological society functions.

The first one is that these systems, whatever they are, are now so complex that the designers don’t truly fully understand what it is they are building and, more importantly, how they can fail. They are just too complex and there are too many individuals and different companies involved for any single person to grasp the intricacies of every single aspect of that system. When the first failure of something we have never seen before occurs, designers can learn from that experience and address that particular aspect in future designs. This is called (by me) the “Oops! Well, we shouldn’t do THAT again!” approach to systems engineering. However, that approach certainly didn’t help those affected by the first accident.

Another factor that is very important to the study of industrial accidents is that of complacency. To summarize, this means that since something bad hasn’t happened before when we did X, then, by definition, it won’t happen when we do X the next time. And complacency becomes so prevalent that it becomes nothing bad will happen when we do X again and put Y on top of it. That was one of the leading contributors to both the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle accidents. That entire process is called, in more academic circles, “Normalization of Risk.” Nothing bad has happened before, so it won’t happen in the future. Everyone has accepted the unstated assumption that the condition, which I called X previously, will not happen. It just isn’t in the entire paradigm. Therefore, we don’t need to worry about X, or even X plus Y, in our design.

I don’t think I even want to start talking about “operator error.” That’s what everyone’s reaction seems to be when anything happens outside of your preconceived notion of how things should work. If anything happens that designers didn’t anticipate, don’t we always see that “operator error” tag, even though you might be asking the question, “Well, how was the operator supposed to know how to react to these circumstances, since they have never been trained to deal with X, or X plus Y?”

All of this goes a long way in explaining why the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine was built without a containment dome or building, in case of a radiation leak or explosion. An explosion of the nuclear reactor was never in the realm of possibility, so therefore, it would have been a waste of money to build a containment dome to contain something that would never exist. As a result, we now have an uninhabitable zone, a la The Planet of the Apes, the size of Switzerland in the middle of Russia and the Ukraine.

If, on the other hand, worrying about the economic impact on your design and operational requirements is NOT part of the picture, then it is possible to design, build and operate a technologically complex system, and to do it safely. This is the case of the U.S. Navy and their nuclear power submarines. After the loss of two submarines, the U.S.S. Thresher and the U.S.S. Scorpion, the Navy decided that they were not going to lose any more submarines, for any reason other than being sunk by a hostile military force. To this end, they instituted a system called SUBSAFE. As a direct result of this program, the U.S. Navy has not lost any submarines since this program was instituted. Please note that economic considerations, such as how much this program costs the U.S. Navy, is not a factor. Keeping their submarine fleet safe from sinking is the only priority. This is not the case for anything done where profit margin is a concern, which is pretty much anything not involved with the U.S. military.

Where am I going with this discussion? I think the main point I wanted to make here is that we, as a society, do not understand the risks involved with these very complex technologies. Things will always go wrong, and the likelihood of spectacular accidents and failures increase the less that the people in charge worry about the possibility of those things actually occurring. And the risk is borne by all of us. Yes, those companies will lose money, maybe the entire company, if accidents are bad enough. But it is the unwitting participants who also bear a very great risk, such as those who live next to nuclear power plants, petrochemical plants, underground pipelines, etc.

It is too late to put this particular genii back it the bottle. It is out and the possibility of it wreaking significant havoc is very large, especially when you lump all the possible risks of all our technology together. You end up with the Bhopal chemical plant disaster in India, in which thousands died. You end up with collapsing coal mines with miners still inside. You end up with deep-water oil rigs that explode and leak millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico with absolutely no known way of shutting off a deep water leak like that, even though many workers knew that risks were being taken. And you end up with the possibility of hundreds of thousands of Japanese people being forced to relocate from an area that may be contaminated with radioactivity for thousands of years to come.

“Acceptable risks” are always acceptable. Until they actually happen, that is.

2011 NCAA Tournament: Big East kind of sucking canal water once again.

2011-03-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

As my alma mater, the University of Washington, experienced yet another end-of-game meltdown of a game against perennial power North Carolina and lost in heartbreaking fashion, I find I can take comfort in the fact that the Bestest, Most Wonderfulest Basketball Conference That Has Ever Existed has already lost 9 of their record 11 teams this 2011 NCAA Championship.

Let me see here….

• Villanova (9 seed) lost to George Mason, who got destroyed by Ohio State.
• West Virginia ((5 seed) lost to Kentucky.
• Syracuse (3 seed) lost to fellow Big East conference member Marquette.
• Cincinnati (6 seed) also lost to a fellow Big East conference member UConn.
• Louisville (4 seed) lost to 13 seed Morehead State on a last second 3 pointer.
• Georgetown (6 seed) got destroyed by VCU, who had to play in the “first four” games on Wednesday.
• Notre Dame (2 seed) got absolutely humbled by a 10 seed in Florida State.
• Pittsburg (1 seed) lost in the stupidest ending to a college basketball game ever, to Butler.
• St. John’s (Toast of New York and 6 seed) lost to Mid-Major power Gonzaga.

Ah, so that’s not doing so well, is it, for a conference and all their media promoters at ESPN and CBS? I have heard several analysts say something like, “Well, two Big East teams had to lose, as those two games had Big East teams playing each other.” Personally, I like the flip side of the coin. Two Big East teams had to WIN those games. Who’s to say that, if those games were against teams from other conferences, the Big East teams wouldn’t have come out as the losers? It might be that the Big East should feel fortunate to have two teams in the Sweet Sixteen.

And it seems to me that this sort of happened to the Big East in LAST YEAR’S tournament as well. Eight teams were made it into the field in 2010 and all of them but West Virginia were gone by the Sweet Sixteen. The biggest bombs back then were Georgetown getting beat by 13 by Ohio University, Xavier over Pitt and my Washington Huskies over Marquette in the opening round.

A number of basketball aficionados were rather upset this year, when the field was expanded from 65 teams to 68 that it seemed that the entire reason for expanding the already large field was just so MORE BIG EAST teams could be invited! Do the math.... Going from 65 teams to 68 teams results in a net gain of 3. How many additional Big East teams were invited in 2001 from 2010? That was 8 in 2010 and 11 in 2011 which results in.... 3! How about that? It looks like to me that expansion was done just so we could invite more Big East teams, only for them to lose!

11 teams from a single conference? That’s more teams in the NCAA tournament than most conferences have conference members. In my mind, that's insulting to everyone else.

Maybe next year, they can expand the field again so we can invite the entire goddamn Big East conference, including TCU which is coming in as the 17th member next year. That’s what everyone wants anyway, right? Would that satisfy everyone’s little basketball ego? The rest of us would then be able to get our jollies off to have almost every single game in the opening rounds feature a loss by the Too Damn Big East.

My vision of how the United States, as run by the current Republican Party, would look in 30 years.

2011-03-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

I this is something that has been playing around my mind in the past few days. I am not putting a lot of thought or research into this. This is just how I perceive the U.S. would be run if Republicans had their way, as evidenced by what they are currently saying and doing (that is an important point in my scenario).

There would not be an opposition political party. It would not be allowed. Our government system would resemble the old Soviet Union style of government, but only in form, not in content. Party loyalty would be paramount and no dissent would be allowed, even for trivial matters. All political votes would be expected to be won with 100% margin. The same goes for political elections. They would still be held, but they would be a total sham, with usually only a single candidate on the ballot. Voter suppression tactics would not really be needed anymore, because there would be a total lack of choice about the candidates.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights would still be in force, but by name only. Certain items contained in these documents that would cause an upset in the current system are either summarily ignored or else changed.

The political media would be a replica of today’s Fox News Channel. Every story, every news item, would be in support of the current administration and what a great job they are doing, or else to demean and denigrate anyone brave enough to come out and actually say anything about the system. But there would be much more coverage about the economy and business issues. This would also be a huge propaganda operation, but in support of the huge corporations of the country instead of the politicians. That distinction, however, would be getting harder to make every single day. The rich and powerful that run these corporations would also be, in essence, the puppet masters behind the curtains that told the politicians how to conduct their business. That would be a huge difference from how the old Soviet Union was run. That was power politics for the sake of being in power. The new system in place here would be in total support of the “free hand of the market.” Anything that corporations wanted to do, or didn’t want to do, would find willing supporters in our political system.

There very real stratification of our society would continue where it would reach a point that the upper class of the country would have total control over everything. The middle class would essentially be non-existent. The lower class of the country would be huge. It would be largely uneducated, as the public school system would be dismantled and anyone wanting an education could find it at private schools, but for a price. The rest of the population would resemble the rural America in the 1800’s. Education for the lower class would be at a minimum, and the jobs that would be available would be menial or backbreaking, dangerous work, because that would be all that is available. All the good jobs would be used as gifts for cronies, and the sons and daughters of cronies.

If you have the money, everything is available. If you don’t, then you are truly SOL. There would be little to no social services available. Even what are today considered to be “essential services” would be available at a price, such as health care, fire departments, and law enforcement for crimes against your person or property. This part of our society would resemble the corrupt states where money and bribes would be everything. If you want something, you would have to pay through the nose. For those with the wealth, that would mean little because it would be a drop in their bucket.

We would still continue to have a very strong military that would consume most of the available resources of the country. That would be a major way for the poor and uneducated to escape their particular hell, to join the military. The country would continue to throw our weight around the world, invading smaller countries whenever they did not bow to our sometimes very capricious will. The rest of the world would start to align against us, both economically and militarily. That would not stop us, however, because God is on our side. The United States can never be defeated.

This brings me to the subject of religion. Christianity of the most fundamentalist and militarist type would become the order of the day, and it would be fully supported by the government. If you didn’t subscribe to this particular brand of religion, you could never advance in society or your profession. Other religions, such as Judaism, would be tolerated, but only just. You would not be allowed to practice openly any religion on the “banned” list, and there would be many of those. Harassment, intimidation and physical violence by vigilantes and officers of the law against the others would be openly tolerated if not actively promoted.

The ruling class would be totally oblivious to the rapid decline of the country, of course. When it was noticed, it would be the fault of someone else; such as “old Europe”, Jewish Bankers, the lower class, or whoever the current convenient scapegoat might be that day. There would be very little manufacturing done in this country. All investment in the future will have stopped, as all profits that corporations made will be channeled into the already fat bank accounts and stock portfolios of the already obscenely rich. They will not notice that there are no customers anymore that have the resources to buy whatever products are produced. Most of the wealth of this country would be made by shuffling paper around and very complicated “financial instruments” would be used to build a house of cards upon which the very fragile remains of the economy rests.

I will not continue to what I think would be a very grim and hard landing. Such a system would not be sustainable. I could see several possible endings to such a society. It would not be pretty. Total collapse of a society never is, and one as large as ours would make it that much worse.

That is what I see when I hear how the Republicans say when they are describing their view of the country. I do not believe I am being over-imaginative here. This is what they are saying. I am fabricating totally wild hypotheses, either.

Would anyone like to discuss this?

Fascinating historical photo: President Lincoln.

2011-03-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

This is Abe Lincoln's Presidential train at Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania. Lincoln is the man in the middle of the photo in his famous tall black hat. President Lincoln stopped in Hanover Junction on November 18, 1863 before traveling west to Gettysburg, PA. This picture was taken the day prior to President Lincoln's now most famous speech, "The Gettysburg Address". It was also about four months after the infamous Battle of Gettysburg.

Last year, I was in Washington, D.C. One of the things I have always wanted to see was Ford's Theater. Unfortunately for me, the theater itself was closed the day I was there. But the basement museum was open. I was speechless when I was looking at the pistol John Wilkes Booth used to kill Lincoln in cold blood. There was a rather smallish looking boot split up the middle which turned out to be Booth's. The doctor that was sheltering him had to cut it off of Booth, as he severely injured his ankle in his infamous jump off from Lincoln's box to the stage. And, really rather on the morbid side, there was a pillow used in the house across the street where Lincoln was taken, complete with blood stains.

But what really got to me was when I did go over to Peterson House across the street, which is where the President was taken after he was shot and where he ultimately passed away. Although all the interior furnishings has been replaced since that time, it has been reconstructed as faithfully as they could. That was when I got rather emotional, being in the same room where President Lincoln died. That was some In Your Face history, let me tell you. I really want to go back and see the theater when it is open.

This photo is copyrighted by Eric Larson. Please go visit his railroading photo album. Click on the photo for a bigger version.

UPDATE: I was thinking that you could consider this train the Air Force 1 of its day.

Thoughts on Lunatic America.

2011-03-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

I will try to force myself to write something here. Blogs, by their very nature, need quite a lot in the way of care and feeding on a daily basis. This one hasn’t been receiving much of that in the last year or so. If my blogs were pets, they would both be lying in their own poop in a corner somewhere, quietly wimpering, hoping that someone will be nice to them or at least give them some clean water now and then.

What a nice visual… I don’t know why it is so difficult to write anything anymore. It may be that my job is mostly writing and reading. Not for their own ends, of course. There is a purpose in all that writing and reading, which usually takes a fair amount of mental concentration to do them correctly. I don’t seem to have any spare mental concentration to go around anymore. Sorry, blogs. Tough noogies, as we used to say back in the 6th grade in the Manitou Springs Jr. High School. I just am having a very difficult time on focusing in on anything that requires some amount of concerted effort and disciplined logic.

But, as I have mentioned before, I think most of my problem is that I am finding myself unable to deal with the insanity that is the United States of America. That is my main problem, I believe. I have college degrees in engineering and science and therefore tend to approach most aspects of my life with some logic and rational thought behind my approach. This approach completely falls apart when attempting to deal with or understand people who constantly exhibit the ultimate antithesis of logic and rationality.

When Barack Obama was elected president, I was very happy for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I suppose, was the fact that there would be a Democrat back in the office of the President. Secondly, John McCain and his pet showmoose wouldn’t be in power. But I was actually looking forward to the right-wing freak out because there would a Democrat AND a black man as President. I just thought it would be really fun to see the wingers go nuts. Sit back and enjoy the show, folks! Plenty of entertainment coming right up!

How wrong I was about that. The expected freak out did happen, but a) it was much, much worse than I every imagined it could be, and b) it wasn’t fun in the slightest. What it did was really make me come eye-to-eye with the fact that there are a huge number of people in this country who, from my perspective, act completely crazy when it comes to politics. They may be very nice people when not being political, but they are just crazy. Logic, facts, and rational, thoughtful approaches are not part of their repertoire. What seems to drive them are extreme tribalism, hate of “the other”, xenophobia, winning every single contest, no matter how small, at all costs, rage, and the obvious need to have an enemy, even manufactured ones, on which to take out their rage.

But to them, I am the crazy one. I don’t see the universe exactly as they see it, so, by definition, I must be crazy because it certainly isn’t them.

Here’s a little discussion, back from during the Bush administration, courtesy of Balloon Juice.

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is—

Tyrone: 27%.

John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.

Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?

Tyrone: Hadn’t thought about it. Let’s split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification—either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.

John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?

Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?

John: ... a bit low, actually.

That’s pretty much the conclusion I cam to. 30 million crazy people in this country. People to whom facts and logic mean nothing. 30 million…. That’s a lot. And they are certainly making themselves felt these days. Put a nice label on your movement, say, oh, “The Tea Party”, scream and shout down anyone who doesn’t agree with you, be supported at every turn by a major television outlet and several billionaires willing to spend all sorts of money to support their agenda, threaten and actually succeed on occasion to throw out members of your own political party if they don’t toe the “crazy” line that you have established, well, you can find yourselves with a lot of power. People have to listen to you, even though you only make up a 30% of the voting population of the country. The “liberal” media is too concerned about appearing liberal to point out the craziness. The leaders of their own political party are terrified that the monster that they created will turn on them, so the keep upping the stakes every single chance they get.

Our President, the one that I was so happy to see elected, has turned out to be a terrible negotiator, in that he seems to continually capitulate to these crazy people. Negotiations in good faith with sane people who disagree with you is one thing, but attempting to negotiate with crazy is a losing prospect every single time.

The crazy people appear to believe that science is just opinion, that global climate change is some sort of hoax, and the United States of America is the bestest, most wonderfulist country that has ever existed, on this world and any others that happen to be around. But they are adamantly against helping anyone who isn’t one of them, who (probably through no fault of their own) are having a difficult time of it. They do not want to make any investments, none, in the infrastructure of this country. They do not want to make any investments in education for the youth of this country, upon which the “greatness” of this country will depend in not that distant future. Republican governors are turning down money from the federal government for high speed rail projects that would help their state’s infrastructure, not to mention bringing in sorely needed jobs, just because they don’t like the President and his agenda. Other governors manufacture budget crises and then use those crises to push their own agenda, which is to crush unions. Other countries are beginning to eat our lunch in terms of investment in their economies and their future.

The United States ranks among the lowest in developed nations when it comes to infant mortality and their healthcare system, but among the highest when it comes to money spent per person for that same crappy healthcare system.

Real income for the lower and middle class workers has not budged in 30 years. Real income for the upper 10% has increased about 400% in those same 30 years. Businesses are sitting on huge amounts of cash reserves, but are not investing in themselves or hiring people. Huge companies have found loopholes by which they are able to avoid paying any corporate income taxes. But when it comes to budgetary woes, the people who are being asked to “share the pain” are always, without fail, the ones who have the least ability to give any more. Families who make over $250,000 a year are “poor” when it comes to taxation, but for all other considerations, teachers who make $50,000 a year and have a good dental plan are somehow greedy and overpaid. But by God, those oil companies, the ones that have made ONE TRILLION DOLLARS PROFIT in the last ten years, they need all those subsidies they are getting from the federal government!

None of this is new to anyone, of course. This isn’t really what I started out to write. This is just a litany of the craziness which has taken over this country.

I just can’t begin to imagine where this all might lead. I am almost to the point of just keeping my head down and hoping that my foxhole is a good refuge. I hope it all holds together for another seven years until I can retire. After that, I have no idea. I have toyed with the idea of moving to another country, although who knows what the situation might be in seven years.

Given all this, I just find it difficult to write another silly movie review or post funny pictures. It feels forced and wrong, like putting on a puppet show in your garage when your house is burning down.

Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

2011-03-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a joke making the rounds on the internet....

2011-03-04T06:48:00.001-08:00

Just in case you haven't seen this one.

A CEO, a Tea Partier, and a Union member are sitting around a table that has a plate with 12 cookies on it. The CEO takes 11 cookies and then leans over to the Tea Partier and says,"Psst. That Union guy is trying to take part of of your cookie."

I am REALLY tired of seeing headlines about Jennifer Anniston's new hairdo.

2011-02-23T12:25:00.000-08:00

Who gives a f*ck!?! Jeez!

If you are going to have items on blogs (including Yahoo) about celebrities, at least make them interesting! A new hairdo? On an actress who was nominated for this year's worst actress?

Conservatives certainly have an odd view of Democracy.

2011-02-23T09:56:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up and taking “Civics” in grade school, I seem to remember bits about freedom of speech and the right of assembly. It seems as if a Deputy Attorney General for the state of Indiana thinks that our Democracy should be run sort of like Gahafi’s Libya.

From Washington Monthly.

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building--something that didn't end up happening--one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

I see. Demonstrators are “enemies” and “thugs” who should be shot.

And that’s different than Libya how, exactly? Maybe we should just have the U.S. Air Force come in and drop bombs on the demonstrators. That would show ‘em.

UPDATE: Susan of Texas has exactly the same impression. We did not compare notes. It was just a conclusion that was just WAITING to be plucked like some low-hanging fruit. It wasn't difficult to come to this conclusion, at all.

UPDATE 2: Looks like this genus got himself fired over this tweet. Amazing.

If the country is in such a state of crisis, why is increasing taxes on upper 2% off the table?

2011-02-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

And why can't we make corporations pay their taxes? That seems to be all that those who are supposedly "in charge" can agree on; we can't increase taxes on rich folks and we can't make corporations pay their taxes. That's it. We could NEVER allow that, for some odd reasoning. And forget oversight and regulations! Heck, the invisible hand of the market will take care of any abuses by insurance companies or major polluters...

But yet, when it comes to everyone else, boy, everything is on the table. Takeaways in wages and benefits, raising the retirement age, doing away with Medicare, Medicaid, "privatizing" Social Security, breaking unions, laying off teachers, government workers, police, etc... Anything and everything that can be heaped upon those who actually have to work to survive and make ends meet is automatically something that "must be done" in order to avoid this future catastrophe.

How did this happen? Why is this country so obviously set up to benefit rich people and richer corporations? Aren't those the very people who have benefited from living in such an open and democratic society? When did actual people become the enemy that must be vanquished?

I suppose this is THE major issue of the day that I do not understand. What the heck is this country for if not to benefit all who live here? Why is it that the powerful always seek more power and the rich will never be satisfied with all the riches they already have? They must have it all, even to the detriment of the rest of the 95% of the country? Is that what this is really about?

I am becoming more and more disenchanted with human beings as a species every single day. I am very attached to very many individuals. I am really becoming to detest my species, however.

UPDATE: Check this out from Whiskeyfire:

Compare income taxes received by the federal government from individuals and from corporations (their profits are treated as their income), based on statistics from the Office of Management and the Budget in the White House, and the trend is clear. During the Great Depression, federal income tax receipts from individuals and corporations were roughly equal. During the second world war, income tax receipts from corporations were 50% greater than from individuals. The national crises of depression and war produced successful popular demands for corporations to contribute significant portions of federal tax revenues.

US corporations resented that arrangement, and after the war, they changed it. Corporate profits financed politicians' campaigns and lobbies to make sure that income tax receipts from individuals rose faster than those from corporations and that tax cuts were larger for corporations than for individuals. By the 1980s, individual income taxes regularly yielded four times more than taxes on corporations' profits.

Since the second world war, corporations have shifted much of the federal tax burden from themselves to the public – and especially onto the middle-income members of the public. No wonder a tax "revolt" developed, yet it did not push to stop or reverse that shift. Corporations had focused public anger elsewhere, against government expenditures as "wasteful" and against public employees as inefficient.

Organisations such as Chambers of Commerce and corporations' academic and political allies together shaped the public debate. They did not want it to be about who does and does not pay the taxes. Instead, they steered the "tax revolt" against taxes in general (on businesses and individuals alike). The corporations' efforts saved them far more in reduced taxes than the costs of their political contributions, lobbyists' fees and public relations campaigns.

If Republicans and conservatives yearn for the "good old days", how about we take a step back to the 1940's on this issue? That's when America was truly great, wasn't it? When we were exceptional? How about American corporations start sharing the load?

No, of course not. I didn't think so.

Republicans continually decry the "Nanny State", but what they really want is the "Daddy State."

2011-02-19T08:29:00.000-08:00

It seems as if everything that the modern Republican Party does is streamed directly from their psyche. There isn't actually a lot of rational thought that goes into their actions or statements. For example, they absolutely detest anything that they believe hints at weakness, dependency on someone else, and anything less than 100% absolute certainty that they know everything and can always be counted on doing exactly the right thing. Always. To them, that's the "Nanny State", where someone else takes care of you. They hate that. That's about the only reason I can understand that explains their hatred toward things like Social Security. The very nature of the program offends them, so it must be attacked.

The flip side of this coin, of course, is what I called the "Daddy State." And this is referring to "Daddy" as they saw him in the 1940's and 1950's. I also think this is a bit of an extension of the world inhabited by the American White Male after WWII. We had just vanquished the greatest evil the world had ever seen, and the flip side of evil is something almost god-like. American White Males could do anything. And most of the American White Males were already Daddies or were going to become one when they got back on American soil. Daddy knew everything, was always in control and could always, always be counted upon to take care of every problem that the family ever encountered, both large and small.

But here is what I really think that translates to. They crave an authoritarian figure, someone in charge. (St. Ronnie comes to mind, but only after the fact that his presidency wasn't really all that popular when it was actually happening.) They want laws to come from that person, not from some legal "system" that may come up with answers that they don't like. And they most certainly do not want Mother or the children to ever question Daddy, to ever ask why he made the decision that he did and to offer suggestions that aren't rigidly in the Daddy State mode that might smack of self-introspection once in a while. Ha! Self-introspection is for weaklings! If you question the authority of a Daddy figure, you might get smacked upside the head, either literally or figuratively. At least you might be grounded for the next few days. You don't ever question the authority of Daddy. That path leads toward darkness and chaos.

That's the picture of the 40's and 50's that modern Republicans would like to remember. Of course, that is all a very false impression. Daddy, in good times, might look and act like the combination of Ward Cleaver and Winston Churchill. But in bad times, when things really start getting dicey, the Daddy facade can very easily start to crack. Daddy could very well turn out to be a surly alcoholic with a tendency to take out his anger on his wife and kids. They certainly deserve it, don't they? All these problems are their fault! Someone who is never wrong and always in control, by definition, cannot be wrong or not in control.

I don't think Republicans can really admit, even to themselves, that this is the "utopia" that they are looking for. Maybe they can, but you surely can't tell them this. That would lead to even more denial and an even stronger pushback. No one can tell ME that I am don't know the answers to these problems or that I don't know what I am doing! I'll show them!!

And unfortunately, I think that is exactly what is going on in today's society here in the Good Ol' United States of America. There are some psychic hot buttons being pushed in a big way, and we are getting the programmed reaction that is required when those buttons are pushed. As I said in the beginning, there is very, very little rational thought involved here. It's emotional, gut reaction time, and nothing, no matter how small, that questions the validity of the Daddy State or implies a need for what they think of as a Nanny State must always, without fail, no matter how trivial or insignificant it might seem from a distance, must be attacked. Because it is an attack on their programmed belief system.

The insanity of today's society in America might look like it is just that, insane. However, I think when you view if from this lens of the unspoken, perhaps unthought, wishes for a Daddy State, I think it makes some sort of logical sense, however twisted it might be.

Apparently, a lot of insiders are predicting Republicans will shut down the government on March 4th.

2011-02-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

Check this story out in the Washington Monthly.

I'm of a firm belief the government will shut down after March 4th because the House and Senate won't be able to come to a conclusion on a CR [continuing resolution]. So it isn't a question of "if" in my mind, it is a question of "how long."

It's becoming clearer and clearer everyday that Republicans in the House have no connection to reality and are willing to burn it all down. Staff have sat dumbfounded over the last few days watching the floor, which no media is reporting on, to see how disconnected Republicans are from basic math. Their CR would do practically nothing to address the debt, but it will stunt any economic recovery (which they will blame on Obama).

What I don't hear people talking about is that so many members of the House are millionaires and don't seem to care how this will affect people. I don't know how they can look their staffs in the eye, who will be royally screwed by this.

The wild card is President Obama. As we discussed last year, he has yet to prove he has a spine. I fear he will cave and give in on most if not all of the Republican demands. In that case our last defense would be a small set of Dem Senators who have yet to lose their minds. But we will see.

As that post states, the current crop of Republicans are so divorced from reality that they don't even stop to consider whether they should stop and consider whether this is actually a good thing to do. All they know is that they have power and, by God, they are going to use it. Besides, the Democrats don't want this to happen, so it MUST be a good thing, right?

I just wonder how long it will be before our news media really starts reporting about how insane these people really are.

I would certainly be affected by this. I am an employee of the federal government. I have already had my salary frozen for the next couple of years because of these yahoos. As I said before, I actually don't mind making a sacrifice if it is the common good. But all I feel is that I am subsidizing tax cut extensions for millionaires and billionaires. But for this latest bit of insanity, a government shutdown would result in a forced furlough for me. However, don't feel bad on my account! It would just amount to a paid vacation, on top of my other paid leave days I get. I couldn't do any work, even from home. I wouldn't get paid during that time. However, once the government gets back up and running again, guess what? I would get back pay for all that time I would have been forced to take! Paid vacation, courtesy of John Boehner!

However, I think my case is the exception. Vendors who work with the government wouldn't get paid. Contractors who essentially work for the government but aren't direct employees wouldn't get paid. The last time this happened, back in the Newt Gingrich days, many of those people were forced to go out and find temp jobs to pay the bills. And that isn't to mention all the people who receive social security checks from the government. I am wondering what is going to happen to all those nice TSA people at the airports who pat you down or take x-ray pictures of you through your clothes. Are there enough private firms to jump in there and take up the slack? Would that even be allowed? How about things like Air Traffic Control? Would our military personnel, many of them stationed overseas with their families living paycheck to paycheck, get paid? Would the VA Hospital have to stop taking new patients or scheduling surgeries? I have no clue.

The thing is, neither do these nutcases who now are in the majority in the House of Representatives. They have many elder statesmen in their own party telling that this isn't a wise move in the least, and they don't care! They have the power and they are going to use it! I am Tea Party! Hear me roar!!

The Internet....

2011-02-18T08:49:00.001-08:00

Just because....

From Very Demotivational. The link is over there on the right. I am so demotivated, I'm not even going to bother pasting it in.

Wisconsin’s governor manufacturers a fiscal “crisis”, moves to crush unions and then threatens to call out the National Guard.

2011-02-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

The brazenness of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is truly breathtaking. I suppose I have been so naïve that it seemed to me that people like this really don’t exist. No one can be this… Cruel? Cynical? Devious? All while in plain sight, in the garb of “respectability” that is normally afforded a sitting governor.

So, here’s the short version, for those of you who haven’t been following this, from HuffPo.

Enter Scott Walker. Newly-elected GOP governor of Wisconsin with GOP control of both houses, it is understandable that he didn't think he had to ask for permission. But this was way, way over the top, both in terms of procedure and substance.

In terms of procedure, it does not play well to announce a radical bill that will devastate long-standing promises of economic security and then allow only three days for debate before the final vote on ratification. Asked why he did not give the unions even an opportunity to negotiate, Walker's answer joins the litany of the greats along with Richard Daley, Sr., and Huey Long: "To those who say why didn't I negotiate on this? I don't have anything to negotiate with. We don't have anything to give. Like practically every other state in the country, we're broke. And it's time to pay up."

That position was slightly undercut by his insistence that the only alternative would be to lay off 6,000 state workers. It does not quite do to insist that there is nothing about which to negotiate and then to identify a point of negotiation in the very next sentence. All of that, of course, was right before he said that the National Guard is standing by to intervene if public employees try to strike.

In terms of substance, it is hard to know where to begin. Walker's "Repair the Budget" bill is primarily a union-busting measure, many of whose provisions have no fiscal consequences at all. The bill requires public employees to make contributions to pensions and the costs of health care, but union representatives insist that they have no objections to those provisions. They insist that what they care about is the curtailing of collective bargaining rights. But maybe they should read the bill again. Here's a particularly juicy bit:

"Wages would include only total base wages and would exclude any other compensation, including, but not limited to, overtime, premium pay, merit pay, performance pay, supplemental compensation, pay schedules, and automatic pay progressions [emphasis mine]."

In other words, the entire salary grid for teachers would be thrown out, and school districts would be free to define and implement new salary systems from scratch. That's in addition to giving the administration unprecedented authority to redefine Medicaid eligibility (but only downward), and enough other material to fill 144 pages.

OK, I guess that sets the picture. The governor decides that, because of this “fiscal emergency” where the state is absolutely broke, he will gut any and all unions. Sure, that follows. But, if that wasn’t bad enough, guess what? Walker pretty much manufactured the entire “crisis” himself in his first few days in office by giving tax cuts and other gifts to the people and organizations that helped him get elected. Via TPM.

Wisconsin's new Republican governor has framed his assault on public worker's collective bargaining rights as a needed measure of fiscal austerity during tough times.

The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

"Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control," says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future -- a public interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts... so he could rush through these other changes."

Got that? The state could have possibly ended up with a surplus this fiscal year if it WEREN’T FOR THE DIRECT ACTIONS OF THE GOVERNOR HIMSELF!!

And that’s the reason why unions need to be broken up, and the National Guard called out to deal with any striking workers.

I would like to know what all those Tea Partiers who voted for this criminal were thinking. How much worse do they think a Democrat would be in that office? This guy is gutting the future of most of the middle class who are unfortunate enough to work for the state. “Get the government off the throat of the people! And let’s bust all unions and take away all collective bargaining rights at the same time, O.K.?”

AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

Islamic Propaganda in our Middle Schools!!

2011-02-15T12:15:00.000-08:00

I just saw that home-made flyer in our local post office as I ran out to mail a few things at lunch today. There was the row of little tear-off strips with a phone number at the bottom. I am wondering if it is good news or bad news that there was one of the little strips that had been torn off.

Where do these wackos come from? What evidence is there AT ALL that Islamic propaganda is being taught in our schools? What? These are the same lunatics that imagine that Sharia Law is going to replace the Constitution in our courtrooms and demand that Something Be Done Immediately!!

We are never going to fix the problems in this country. These lunatics are driving the entire conversation. Meanwhile, the rich and powerful are consolidating their hold on the money and power of this country, and we will never recover.

Does anyone remember that video of that older woman at one of the Town Hall meetings, crying and saying that she "wants her country back"? I certainly do.

That's exactly how I feel about it as well. I want my country back, because I sure as hell don't know what happened to it.

Wow, this is just so crazy. South Dakota wants to redefine “homicide” so that murdering an abortion provider is O.K.

2011-02-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

The conservatives of this country have just gone completely over the edge. I had no idea that we had so many damn crazy idiots in our entire country, much less being elected officials.

Check this out, from Balloon Juice.

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of “justifiable homicide” to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state’s GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state’s legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person “while resisting an attempt to harm” that person’s unborn child or the unborn child of that person’s spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman’s father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

Jensen did not return calls to his home or his office requesting comment on the bill, which is cosponsored by 22 other state representatives and four state senators.

“The bill in South Dakota is an invitation to murder abortion providers,” says Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortion providers. Since 1993, eight doctors have been assassinated at the hands of anti-abortion extremists, and another 17 have been the victims of murder attempts. Some of the perpetrators of those crimes have tried to use the justifiable homicide defense at their trials. “This is not an abstract bill,” Saporta says. The measure could have major implications if a “misguided extremist invokes this ‘self-defense’ statute to justify the murder of a doctor, nurse or volunteer,” the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families warned in a message to supporters last week.

How crazy is that? Legislation has been introduced in one our our 50 states that would essentially allow murder to prevent what is now a legal procedure.

What I find just about as astounding is that the conservative position is that, once a child is born, then the government should provide essentially no help to the parents at all. It doesn’t matter if it might be a low income family that is having trouble paying for food or their heating bills, or maybe they are getting thrown out of their house, or maybe they don’t have enough money for the kid to have lunch at school… The family is ON IT’S OWN! Touch luck, kid. And you will have REAL problems if you were born in the country but your parents are here illegally. You are royally screwed, even though conservatives really were glad you were born.

How can conservatives justify this position? The government can do everything up to condoning murder in order to prevent abortion, because life is so precious and all, and yet, once a child is born, the government should have absolutely nothing to do with any sort of assistance at all?

This is absolutely insane…

I just truly do not understand how middle and lower class people can vote for Republicans.

2011-02-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

Republicans all across the country seem to have declared war on the middle class. Everything that they are doing appears to be for the benefit of the wealthy and big business, at the expense of working class Americans.

Here’s the latest example from Wisconsin, via Washington Monthly.

Citing Wisconsin's gaping budget shortfall for this year and even larger ones expected in the years ahead, Gov. Scott Walker proposed a sweeping plan on Friday to cut benefits for public employees in the state and to take away most of their unions' ability to bargain.

The proposal by Mr. Walker, a Republican who was elected in November after pledging that he would get public workers' compensation "into line" with everyone else's, is expected to receive support next week in the State Legislature, where Republicans also won control of both chambers in the fall.

The prospect left union leaders, state and local employees and some Democrats stunned over the plan's scope and what it might signal for public-sector unions in the state.

On Thursday, the newly-elected Republican governor said he would refuse to negotiate with unions, and on Friday, Walker said he's contacted the Wisconsin National Guard, making sure they're prepared to respond to a protracted labor dispute, doing some of the jobs union members currently do.

Even by GOP standards, the scope of Walker's union-busting efforts is striking. We're talking about a governor effectively stripping nearly all government workers of their collective bargaining rights, and then trying to break the backs of unions themselves.

Mr. Walker made several proposals that will weaken not just unions' ability to bargain contracts, but also their finances and political clout.

His proposal would make it harder for unions to collect dues because the state would stop collecting the money from employee paychecks.

He would further weaken union treasuries by giving members of public-sector unions the right not to pay dues. In an unusual move, he would require secret-ballot votes each year at every public-sector union to determine whether a majority of workers still want to be unionized.

And in case that wasn't quite enough, Walker then added that union members would no longer be allowed to negotiate for better pensions or health benefits at all.

The governor is working with a newly-elected Republican-led legislature, and he's expecting lawmakers to pass his anti-union plan quickly.

And here’s the latest of what is going down in Florida.

Florida's Tea Party-backed Governor Rick Scott proposed cutting more than $5 billion from state spending on Monday while also slashing taxes as he laid out his first budget proposal aimed at closing a deficit of nearly $4 billion.

The Republican, a former healthcare executive, proposed saving nearly $4 billion over two years by reforming Medicaid, the health insurance program for poor people.

He also saw savings of $2.8 billion over two years through an overhaul of Florida's relatively healthy state pension system. Scott also proposed cutting taxes by more than $4 billion over two years. This would include a roll-back of corporate income taxes from 5 percent to 3.5 percent and reductions in property taxes.

Critics of the budget plan from Scott, who was elected in November on a pledge to create 700,000 jobs in seven years, said it would cut nearly 9,000 positions from state payrolls and slash billions of dollars from spending on education.

"This budget from the governor is a frontal assault on the quality of life of every Floridian and will not create a single job nor spur our economy forward; instead it takes us further into the economic ditch," Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith said in a statement.

And, of course, no discussion of this type would be complete without talking about New Jersey’s Chris Christie and his apparent hatred of school teachers.

And, lest us not forget that apparently every single Republican in the country wants to scale back or get rid of Social Security altogether.

Yeah, I know that everyone is hurting everywhere, and all states are experiencing some major budget crises. But why are all the “remedies” always aimed directly at the working class? Why do we NEVER hear about making big business and the upper crust of this country bear some of the burden? This IS the country that allowed them all to amass all those riches, after all. What is wrong with spreading the pain around, especially to those people who can actually deal with the pain?

If it comes down to a choice between middle and lower class people being able to afford housing, food and a relatively stable future for themselves and their children, and a bunch of rich people not being able to afford luxury homes, or a second home in the Hamptons, or a yacht, I know what I would choose.

What is wrong with these people? And why do lower and middle class voters KEEP VOTING FOR THESE A**HOLES?

I just do not understand…

Mubarak is out in Egypt!

2011-02-11T12:45:00.000-08:00

Amazing what a couple of weeks of really intense public demonstrations can do.

Now, what I want to know is this. When are Americans going to take to the streets, en masse, just like their Egyptian brothers and sisters so we can force Obama and his corrupt administration to give insurance companies back the right to take away people's insurance when they get sick and to stop making insurance companies cover kids with pre-existing conditions? Huh? When!

The whole world's watching!! All power to the insurance companies and the Koch brothers!!

It occurs to me that this is pretty extraordinary.

2011-02-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

But somehow, I bet it won’t be covered much in the MSM.

From Think Progress.

Former President George W. Bush canceled a February 12 visit to a Jewish charity gala in Switzerland, reportedly out of fears that legal action would be taken against him for his role in authorizing torture. Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, the International Federation of Human Rights, and Center for Constitutional Rights, said they had intended to submit a 2,500-page case against Bush in Geneva “on behalf of two of men, Majid Khan, who remains at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Sami al-Hajj, a former Al Jazeera cameraman who was released in May 2008.”

The Jewish charity group, United Israel Appeal, said it was canceling Bush’s invitation on security grounds, not due to legal action. “The calls to demonstrate were sliding into dangerous terrain,” Robert Equey, a lawyer for the organization, said. Protesters urged attendees of the rally to bring a shoe, recalling the moment when an Iraqi journalist threw one at Bush.
The human rights groups had a different interpretation. “Whatever Bush or his hosts say, we have no doubt he canceled his trip to avoid our case,” the Center for Constitutional Rights and others said in a statement. “He’s avoiding the handcuffs,” Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

Oh, sure. There is a bunch of chaff throwing and excuses being made to make it just possible that this isn’t the reason that George W. Bush, who admitted to war crimes, isn’t making this trip. But I wouldn’t put much money on it.

How extraordinary is this? Very, I would say. This would put George Bush in the same category as, say, Augusto Pinochet or Jean Bertrand Aristide.

I am of the opinion that it will take a very long time for the country as a whole to come to grips just what was done in the eight years that George Bush was president. If we aren’t rewriting history or pretending unpleasant things didn’t really occur that undermined who we are as a nation, then we seem to be trying to convince ourselves these things really were for the “protection of the country.”

Self-reflection isn’t a strong suit for us right now.

Well, that whole conversation about gun control sure vanished quickly, didn't it?

2011-02-04T08:25:00.000-08:00

Not that I expected anything different. An assassination attempt that was incredible not for the fact that it happened but in that it didn't succeed on a sitting U.S. congresswoman, but did manage to claim the lives of a number of other people including a 9 year old girl and a District Judge was just a few weeks ago. It appeared that we MIGHT actually finally getting around to addressing issues like how an unstable person managed to get a gun at a gun show, and maybe that clips that hold 30 bullets maybe aren't really all that necessary. But no. That is now "Old News." It is been overtaken by Egypt and whether or not Republicans are still going to try to satisfy their base by trying to repeal "Obamacare." We are now talking about whether or not Obama "lost" Egypt and that Bill O'Reilly believes that God causes the tides and not the moon.

Jesus, what a country. We deserve every single thing that happens to us.

Several reasons why American citizens should be allowed to carry guns anywhere they want to.

2011-01-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

- If you are at your son's high school basketball game and the ref makes a terrible call, you can threaten to shoot him.

- If you are driving on the freeway and someone cuts you off, you can threaten to shoot him.

- If you come across an actual crime in progress, you can shoot the criminals or anyone else who is standing around that also has a gun out and looks like he might be a criminal. (Of course, there is absolutely zero chance that the police, when they happen upon the scene, or even another citizen armed to the teeth, that they would shoot you because, to them, you look like you might be a criminal.)

- At political events, if someone says something or displays a sign that you disagree with, you can threaten to shoot him.

- If you are at a bar and getting pretty sloshed while watching your favorite football team, you can threaten to shoot anyone who is cheers when the other team scores a touchdown.

- If you are coming back to your parked car and you see someone putting a flyer underneath the windshield wipers but you think he might actually be trying to steal your car, you can threaten to shoot him.

- If you are protesting at a Family Planning clinic, you can threaten to shoot anyone who works there or looks like they might even be thinking about going in the door.

Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona must have really by idyllic places to live in the 1880's, you know, because everyone had a gun and that made everyone extremely safe. Those shootouts in bars and the streets must have really been entertaining. It's really too bad that we don't allow those anymore.

So, Keith Olbermann is out at MSNBC, huh?

2011-01-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

I just saw this at HuffPo. That figures.

I liked Countdown. I thought Keith got rather bombastic at times, sometimes at times when I didn't really think it helped our cause. And he certainly was full of himself at times. But I thought his special comments were, for the most part, spot on. I didn't watch his show all the time. I think I watched Rachel Maddow more often, after she got her show established. But Keith will be missed, that's for sure. He was saying things during the Iraq War that no one, absolutely no one else, had the guts to say on any sort of major broadcast media.

The entire staff at Fox "News" will always have a job, no matter how outrageous they get. MSNBC fires their only person they could remotely describe as a firebrand. I am sure that the wingers will be rubbing their hands in unadulterated glee for the next few weeks. I am sure they will take this as a sign that they were absolutely right in the viewpoint. (EVERYTHING that happens validates their viewpoint...) "We all have our jobs! We didn't get fired! Olbermann got fired. Therefore, we are right and he was wrong!" I am absolutely certain that is how it will be played.

I wonder who the right will now pick on the demonize and say that this person, whoever they pick, is "Just as bad as Glenn Beck. Both sides do it!" I suppose anyone will do. It doesn't even have to any sort of relationship to the truth, because the entire right wing will take up the banner and run with it, and it will then become "conventional wisdom." Rachel Maddow? Possibly. She is one of them "gays", you know. They could probably demonize Captain Kangaroo if he was still with us and they put their mind to it.

There is no possibility of understanding each other when we insist on having completely different realities.

2011-01-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

In fact, I believe that we have reached the point in this country where the two sides, commonly referred to as “left” and “right” or “red” and “blue”, do not want to reach an understanding with the other side. All we want is to see the other side lose, hopefully with the added bonus of being humiliated at the same time, and generally lose all credibility for all time.

In support of this not terribly startling hypothesis, I give to you a very personal example; me. I generally look upon myself as a rather reasonable fellow during most of the day, subject to the periodic whims of bad temper and irrational wishes. But generally, I think we, as a nation, should do what is best for our people and the future of our nation. That’s pretty high-level stuff, of course, and rather simplistic. The devil is in the details, as they say. But still, I normally wish for whatever is best for us, collectively, and I am willing to rethink my position when presented with new information.

Still, I am at the point where I have absolutely no wish to understand the mindset of many on the right, because I am convinced they are batshit crazy. They have absolutely no concept of what they are doing, even on a daily basis, except to do or say whatever they think will make their enemies “lose” or “look foolish.” That’s it. They just open their mouths and spit out whatever comes into their minds that they think sounds the best in accomplishing those goals. I won’t go offer specific instances here. You can find them in abundance every single day. I will point to people like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, most of Fox “News”, etc. as sources of what I think are insane ravings. I have absolutely no desire to try to look into their side of things, because I believe that would be akin to looking into the Mouth of Madness. There is no understanding possible, because it is impossible for a sane person to truly understand an insane person. All we can know is that person is insane. I experience difficulty when talking with my older brother or someone who used to be my closest friend, because I have to put it out of my mind completely that what I believe and what they believe are in total opposition. It takes as effort even at that level.

One the other side, based on all evidence I have seen, the right has exactly they same mindset, or even worse. They truly believe that every single problem in this country has been created by the left. They don’t want to work with the left to make things better. They want to destroy the left. They don’t want to understand any of our thoughts or positions on issues that affect this country and its people. All they want to do is to crush their enemies. That is what they want.

There is no understanding possible between these two sides. I believe the term is called “irreconcilable differences.” It takes two to tango, as another old saying goes, and in this current situation we have, not only do the two not want to tango, they don’t even want to be in the same building with each other. It is pretty difficult to reach an understanding with each other and work toward constructive solutions to difficult problems when the two hate each other’s guts.

I doubt we are anywhere near the point of, say, what occurred in the now defunct Yugoslavia. But that wasn’t pretty. Or even Northern Ireland. I sincerely hope that we haven’t reached the point where killing each other seems like a natural reaction to real and perceived grievances. But given the rash of “lone madman” events that we have had over the last few years, and add in the case of the very powerful and sophisticated bomb in Spokane, Washington along the parade route on Martin Luther King Day, it seems as if the United States might be closer to those two examples than we might like to admit.

No, of course Sarah Palin “didn’t pull the trigger.”

2011-01-14T13:08:00.000-08:00

I don’t know of anyone, even at the anonymous blog commenter level, has said that. No one has ever said that. Personally, I said something like Palin and the rest of the right wing “are culpable.” My dictionary says that means, “Responsible for wrong or error. To blame.” O.K., I accept that I maybe shouldn’t have used that word. I firmly believe the first part of that definition applies. In this case of the shooting of Congresswoman Gifford, they are indeed responsible for wrong or error. They carry some responsibility for bringing down the level of discourse in this country to the point that the whackjobs seem to think violence against people they disagree with is perfectly acceptable, even required. No, Palin, Beck, Rush, Fox News, etc. etc., are not directly to blame for her shooting. Obviously, the lunatic with a gun and some huge mental and emotional problems shot her and hold direct responsibility, for which he should receive the maximum penalty for his heinous crimes. No one has really ever said differently, even if the right-wingers want to parse words and meanings so they can attempt to look like the offended party here.

Here’s a bit of a post from Balloon Juice that is getting at the exact same point.

…the other (and I think more important) dodge that is going on is the attempt to pretend that everyone is blaming Palin and only Palin for the tragedy. It’s just nonsense. Yes, there was some lashing out at Sarah Palin over the crosshairs surveyor’s symbols, which is to be expected, but no one thinks that Sarah Palin is directly responsible for the murders. What is reasonable to discuss is a climate of hate and paranoid fear, fueled by lies and misinformation, that creates an environment in which lunatics like Loughner might be motivated to act out their revenge fantasies. For that, there is no doubt which party is responsible.

Exactly. This is just one more strawman set up to allow the right to assume their usual self-righteous posturing and totally avoid addressing the real issue at hand. What are they going to do about the venomous language that THEIR SIDE continually uses? Are they going to “tone it down” per Roger Ailes? Are they going to adopt a more thoughtful position that allows people to actually discuss issues, per President Obama? I sincerely doubt it. That would be wholly against their nature. That is what they do. As I noted previously, Glenn Beck refuses to acknowledge that he continually uses this kind of language, even though there is direct proof that someone can become so under the influence of Beck’s show that they want to go kill people.

This is really hopeless.

I am also rather upset by the current ongoing meme that somehow, criticism by the left (sometimes, yes, using very strong language) is somehow equally to blame for the degradation of the level of political discourse in this country. Quit making that ridiculous point! What, Democrats, liberals, progressives and people who just generally care about the state of our country are just supposed to sit down, shut up and take whatever lunatic ravings the right comes up with, because it would somehow degrade the level of political discourse if we complain about their lunatic ravings? What horseshit. If someone keeps whacking you with a two by four continually, even single day, are we supposed to sit there and take it because it might cause some people discomfort if we confronted the problem? Everyone has seen the movie, A Christmas Story, right? Did Ralphie cause problems because he finally got tired of the bully picking on him and his friends all the time? That was Ralphie’s fault? Or did he just get tired of getting shit from the bully, ever single day?

I know that hardly anyone reads this blog anymore. Most people come to look at the pictures… But don’t come to me as part of the problem. I am RESPONDING to the problem. Pointing out an issue is NOT the same thing as the issue itself. These two things are not equal. Quit pretending they are.

UPDATE: Good post at Washington Monthly about the Republican's "closed information system." This fits in nicely with what I was discussing above.

So, this is why Sarah Palin chose to resign as governor of Alaska?

2011-01-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

This was her “higher calling?” This was what was so damn important that being the governor of one of the United States of American (only 50 of them jobs around, you know)? So she could put out silly-assed tweets, have her own “reality” show (carefully scripted, of course), and to go into full Whiney Grizzly mode when someone has the audacity to criticize her? THIS is it? Excuse me, but WTF?

I cannot for the life of me understand why Sarah Palin is newsworthy, much less considered to be a possible nominee for a major political party for the President of the United States.

You know who Sarah Palin reminds me of? Chrissy on that 70’s sitcom with John Ritter, “Three’s Company.” Chrissy was there, in my mind, for two main reasons. One, eye candy. Two, to drop in unexpectedly and make really extremely silly non-sequiturs that make everyone shut up for a minute to take in the full throated stupidity of the comment. For example…

Jack Tripper: And speaking of current events, did you read the *big* news in the paper this morning?

Chrissy: The May Company is having a huge sale on pantyhose.

Jack Tripper: Excuse me, Chrissy, that's not exactly a current event.

Chrissy: It is so, it's going on right now.

Doesn’t that sound almost exactly like Ms. ex-Half Term Governor?

"As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border." --Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS's Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008

"All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years." --Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008

"But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies." --Sarah Palin, after being asked how she would handle the current hostilities between the two Koreas, interview on Glenn Beck's radio show, Nov. 24, 2010

Things I have learned in the last few days.

2011-01-12T08:12:00.000-08:00

- Many, many people care more about easy access to guns than they do about people. Yet, I am assuming that these same people are the ones who are so against abortion, because "life is sacred."

- We must accept the occasional (yearly or less) massacre of U.S. citizens as the price of easy access to guns.

- Criticizing hateful and violence-filled speech may cause harm to someone. But the hateful and violence-filled speech itself is totally innocent and should never be targeted for any blame, ever.

- Reading Mein Kamph and To Kill A Mockingbird makes you a liberal, even if you attempt to assassinate a Democratic congresswoman.

- Some Republicans may actually agree with the some of the left's criticism of the hate filled rhetoric that is going on today. However, they are so scared about upsetting the right that they will only offer that criticism anonymously.

- Asking for some restraint about some of the violent imagery being used is the same thing as trying to censor certain words and suppress right wing radio.

- "Both sides do it", even though hardly anyone ever offers up concrete examples of hate filled rhetoric from the left. The examples that are given are usually pretty tepid, such as a Daily Kos diarist saying that Giffords is "dead to me." That is apparently exactly the same as Sarah Palin's gunsight mailings targeting Democrats and saying that her followers "shouldn't retreat! Reload!"

- Anything that President Obama does or says is absolutely the worst thing that he could have said or done and must be roundly criticized.

- Oh, here's a new one. Democrats support the shooter of Gabby Giffords and want to get him "off", as in not be convicted of any crime, because Democrats want to use this to blame Republicans. Thanks, Rush, for that wonderful insight. That's just brilliant. How much do you make a year, again?

Any other candidates?

Glenn Beck is delusional.

2011-01-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

He is delusion in either one of two ways. Either he doesn’t remember what he has said in the past or refuses to believe it, or else he doesn’t think anyone will notice when he contradicts himself.

Either way, this guy is a fruitcake. He shouldn’t be in charge of a car wash, much less have a nationally syndicated radio show and an hour long television show on a major “news” network.

So, here is innocent Glenn (via Crooks and Liars):

Beck: Well, I don't use it (violent rhetoric) on or off the air, so I guess I'm in compliance, Media Matters.

Annndddd, here is crazy Glenn, the one that the innocent Glenn refuses to remember (from Rising Hegemon):

BECK: Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,” and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.

Oh, gosh. Let me see. Is debating aloud choking Michael Moore to death violent rhetoric. Hmmmm…

I am almost as despondent about the response to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords as I was the shooting itself.

2011-01-11T07:52:00.001-08:00

I was correct that no one would ever consider that some of the imagery and inflammatory language may not be appropriate. Nope. The overwhelming response of the right has been very predictable. It’s not their fault. Those weren’t gun sights. How dare liberals use this incident to try to score political points. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for even thinking such a thing. Bill O’Reilly is terribly angry, and we all know he has never been angry at anything before, ever, at the New York Times and we should all condemn them.

*Sigh*

It is all so predictable. And insane, too, of course. I would have never thought that people could be so stubborn, so insistent that their “side” is always right and the other side is always evil, and that all narratives absolutely must be adjusted accordingly, no matter the situation or the cost to American citizens and the country as a whole. The narrative must be preserved!

Here are some of my thoughts about some of the bigger narratives that have emerged in the last couple of days.

Narrative 1: The shooter is obviously mentally unstable. The use of sometimes violent rhetoric and imagery by the conservatives and right wing pundits of this country had no impact on this guy. He would have done what he did anyway.

My response: That is quite possibly true. We don’t know for certain. But given the political climate of this country right now and the real and threatened violence (see my previous post) that is coming from the right these days, don’t you think that it might be prudent to tone it down, even though there is may be no direct evidence that the shooter was motivated by political hate speech? Wouldn’t that be a wise thing to do?

Narrative 2: Both sides have a problem with out of control political hate speech.

My response: Nope. No they don’t. This is almost purely a right wing problem. See my previous post.

Narrative 3: Liberals want to control dissent by outlawing certain language.

My response: What a horseshit strawman that is. No one is saying that anything about censorship. We are calling for self-restraint. Those are two very different things. Morons.

Narrative 4: This country doesn’t need more gun control laws. We actually need less. If more people in that crowd had been armed, this tragedy wouldn’t have happened.

My response: Yeah, that’s a really smart idea. Have all sorts of people open up with their weapons into a crowd that is already in shock. Lots more people would have probably ended up shot than they did. Plus, it wouldn’t have stopped the guy initially. He came up behind Giffords and shot her in the head before anyone knew what was happening. He then opened up with a semi-automatic pistol filled with 32 cartridges. And it is obvious that, even if this lunatic knew that everyone in the crowd was armed, he would have gone through with his attack anyway. He knew he was going to be caught and possibly gunned down, and he did it anyway.

Narrative 5: The gunman wasn’t a conservative! He was a leftist! He said his favorite books were Mein Kamph and To Kill a Mockingbird!

My response: You are now insulting our intelligence. This is just one more example of saying the first thing that comes to mind that could possibly, just remotely possibly, be true and conservatives think this somehow addresses the issue. The guy wrote tracts, although just barely coherent, about the evils of government and how the government wants to control the population by the use of grammar. He was also on about U.S. currency not being backed by gold and silver. Plus, he specifically targeted a Democratic congresswoman he didn’t like for assassination. Does that sound like a liberal to anyone? All you can come up with to support your position is the guy’s reading list? And when is Mein Kamph a favorite of liberals?

There may be more narratives out there. I may update this post if I think of more.

I’ll just leave you with the latest cartoon from Tom Tomorrow, via Salon. I think he hits it on the head.

So, is this what Sharron Angle meant by exercising our Second Amendment Rights?

2011-01-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

Here's what she said while running for U.S. Senator in Nevada.

“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.”

“I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, ‘my goodness what can we do to turn this country around?’ I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

It wasn't Harry Reid this time. It was Ms. Gabby Gifford, a U.S. Representative from the state of Arizona. Is this what Sharron Angle meant? If Republicans don't win at the ballot box, then they are free to use guns? If so, I guess she is getting her wish.

Is this the armed revolution that Glenn Beck is constantly referring to?

I'm just so sick of this. I am sick of living in a country where hypocrites seem to be always the ones that get to set the rules, and mentally unstable people are spoon fed hate filled rhetoric. Democrats and liberals are apparently considered to be fair game for no other reason than they have a different opinion than do the hard core conservatives.

I have actually been predicting something like this for about a while now, ever since crazy people started carrying guns to Town Hall meetings and rallies for Barack Obama. It was just inevitable. We have had many close calls and some idiots actually carried out their insane delusions. Did we just have a couple of explosive packages go off in Maryland at some government offices? I think I saw where the authorities thought that the sender was upset about some traffic policies or something. We had a maniac crash a small airplane into an IRS building because he was upset about his taxes. The message we are constantly hearing is that government is evil and you are fully justified in taking violent action against it. How can anyone I'm rather surprised that more people haven't gotten killed.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this will be the last straw. This will be the thing that pulls us, as a country, back from the brink. Perhaps. But I really doubt it. I really am waiting to see what Fox News, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, and their kind come up with to excuse themselves. I can't see Beck or Limbaugh ever apologizing or rethinking their position, ever. They are paid to be bombastic assholes who are always right and never, ever will admit to a mistake. Oh, they will probably issue some half-baked statements trying to cover their collective asses, just like Glenn Beck did when Byron Williams became inspired by Beck's tirades to go shoot up the Tides Foundation. Oh, no, Beck had nothing to do with this! He's only an entertainer! A rodeo-cowboy! How could anyone believe that Beck had anything to do with that? I'm also waiting to see what kind of BS that the NRA comes out with. I am sure it will be some self-serving statement that acknowledges no guilt, deflects all blame, and probably tries to blame liberals somehow.

My heart goes out to all the shooting victims and their friends and families. I hope Ms. Gifford can recover so that she may live a full and meaningful life.

The remainder of my heart is a very black place right now. It is unfortunate, I suppose, that I don't believe in God, Heaven or Hell. Because if I did, I would sincerely pray for those people who advocate violence against those they disagree with the very hottest corner of hell for all eternity.

UPDATE: Some "morning after" thoughts on the Arizona shooting.

I see that many are calling for "both parties" to turn down the rhetoric. BS. I do not see ANYONE on the left, except for maybe a few little bloggers or anonymous commenters, ever calling for violence. Congress people do not do it. Rachael Maddow and Keith Olbermann are always highlighted as liberal commenters. I have never, ever heard them advocate violence. They are some of the ones asking for people to turn it down. This "both sides do it" crap is just that, crap. This is almost exclusively a right/conservative issue. Just look at this list of violence and threatened violence against prominent figures since 2008. Please. I do not see a whole lot of violence or threatened violence against the right or their organizations. This is NOT a problem for "both sides."

Even if this nut that shot the congresswoman yesterday and a whole lot of innocent bystanders isn't a tea party crackpot, even if he isn't a Glenn Beck fan like Byron Williams was (discussed above), even if he wasn't affected by Sarah Palin's election map with cross-hairs over many political races, there is still the issue of this intense and hateful rhetoric egging on people who may be so inclined. Because I am sure that the reaction from all this intense criticism by the left of the right's hateful BS is going to be something along the lines of "Hey, it wasn't our fault! This guy is just (one more) nut. You can't prove any connection."

I call bullshit. Human beings are incredibly easy to manipulate. Just look at TV commercials. Companies wouldn't spend billions of dollars trying to influence human behavior (in that case, buying their crap) unless it works. You can get people to believe anything if you try hard enough. My favorite example is the Hitler Youth. Of course, at this point, someone will know screech "Godwin's Law!" If you mention Nazis, then you are obviously not a serious person. My point here is to take that the Nazis took a very extreme position and were able to convince many people that they were like gods. So, why then isn't there a connection between this hateful bile that is filled with implied violence completely isolated from society? Propaganda works, especially for people who would like to believe whatever is being pushed in the first place.

So, Glenn Beck, Sharron Angle, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, you do not get a pass here!! You are culpable in this horrific shooting. All that needs to be discussed is the extent.

UPDATE 2: Yep, I was right. That didn't take long. Those symbols on Sarah Palin's political map during the campaign, the one that said "Don't retreat. Reload!" Those were not gun sights. Those were "surveyor symbols."

Uh-huh. Yeah. And I'm Tinkerbell.

UPDATE 3: Here are some of the visuals I mentioned earlier.

This first one is the campaign material targeting, and I do mean targeting, some Democrats. Those do not look like "surveyor's symbols" to me. I find it just amazing that Palin and all of the conservatives right now will never, ever admit they were wrong about anything or apologize to anyone about anything. This could have easily been taken care of by, "Sorry. Yes, that was inappropriate. Our campaign shouldn't have done that." If that would have occurred, the story would have been over, for the most part. But trying to pass those off as surveyor's symbols? Please...

This next one is something was seen around the internets during the campaign last year. Nope, no visual imagery there. Move along, nothing to see here.

The next time I hear this "both sides do it" meme, I would like someone to give some examples like this from the left.

Earth’s magnetic poles are not moving! It’s all a liberal plot!

2011-01-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

From Yahoo News.

An airport in Tampa, Florida, has had to temporarily close its runways to keep up with Earth's magnetic north pole, which is drifting toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per year.

Fox News reports that the international airport was forced to adjust the signs on its busiest runway Thursday because pilots depend on the magnetic fields to navigate. The runway will be closed until Jan. 13, and will re-open with new taxiway signs that indicate its new location on aviation charts, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports.

This is just another example of liberal hysteria, attempting to destroy America from within. Exactly how that’s supposed to work, I am not really sure. But I’m sure that’s true. You can’t trust liberals with anything. There’s no doubt this is just one more example of junk science. There is absolutely no basis in fact for this. For starters, God would not allow such a thing to occur. The Bible says nothing about Earth’s magnetic poles ever moving, so it can’t possibly occur. God would not let airplanes land in a cornfield over to the side of runways. God intended for airplanes to land ON the runways!

Besides, if the Earth’s magnetic poles were really moving, eventually it would cause a whole lot more problems than just having some airport maps being wrong. A full flip of the magnetic poles, which those “scientists” tell us have happened with some regularity in Earth’s history, could eventually mean some big trouble for us as a human species. The magnetic field, we are supposed to believe, shields the Earth and its inhabitants from cosmic rays, whatever those are, and the solar wind. I have never seen the Aurora Borealis, so it must not exist. If Earth was exposed to these things from space which I don’t believe in while the magnetic pole situation was sorting itself out, lots of rather bad things could happen. So, I choose to believe that it won’t happen.

Damn Obama and this Magneto-gate! It’s all his fault.

How come snow removal doesn't fall under the umbrella of libertarianism?

2011-01-04T07:05:00.000-08:00

Every time any major city has a big snowfall that overwhelms the ability of the local governments to keep the roads clear (and here in Seattle, that means about three inches), you always hear someone griping about how incompetent the local government is and how come all this happened? I am wondering (only rhetorically, of course) why all the tea bag conservatives aren't complaining to the high heavens about how much money all this snow removal is costing. "I don't want my hard earned tax dollars to be used in clearing streets that I DON'T USE! Let those other people bring cat litter to get their cars out of the ditch if they want to drive there. But why isn't the road in front of my house cleared off yet?"

It just seems incredibly odd (meaning "hypocritical") that you don't hear anyone complaining about the services that government provides at whatever level -- city, county, state or federal -- when their own self-interest comes into play.

Maybe we could move to a system like that local fire fighting district in Florida. If you haven't paid your yearly snow removal fee, then you don't get to drive on cleared streets after a snowstorm.

Movie Reviews: Four classic comedies from the Golden Age of Film that you probably aren’t familiar with.

2010-12-28T08:14:00.000-08:00

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas and is looking forward to 2010 getting the heck out of Dodge. I know I am, although the chances of 2011 being an improvement are rather slim.

Anyway, it seems traditional around the Intertoobs that everyone will have an “End of the Year List” of some kind. I think I have done something similar in past years. I certainly don’t want to go revisit politics, so I will pick a favorite subject of mine, classic movies! I don’t know what I would do without TCM.

Now, there are a huge number of classic comedies that I could pick to highlight. Some of the classic comedies are my absolute favorite movies. I could pick films such as any of the Marx Brothers films (except The Big Store, that is, which rather stinks), The Philadelphia Story, Arsenic and Old Lace (which was, if my memory serves, my very first exposure to classic comedies and also Cary Grant), W.C. Fields, the Road pictures with Bing and Bob, Some Like It Hot (which some say is the best comedy ever filmed, althoug hI am not sure I agree)… All of those are very worthy of attention, especially in these days of the big budget blockbusters (in 3D!) where subtle humor, satire and really witty dialog are not held in great esteem.

However, those films would be too easy. Everyone who is a fan of classic films knows about those. So, I picked a few films that may not be terribly well known but should be. Perhaps this will inspire you to go out and look for these. I will try to stay away from the big time spoilers, but I can’t be assured that I won’t say something that can be categorized as a spoiler. So, you have been warned! Sort of…

So, with that overly lengthy explanation that I could have probably done without, here is my End of the Year List of Fairly Unknown Classic Comedies that You Should Check Out Immediately, If You Like Such Things.

Murder, He Says: This one may sound like a film adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel, but it isn’t. This screwball comedy is from 1945 and stars Fred MacMurray as a door-to-door pollster that gets caught up with a family of crazy and murderous hillbillies. Marjorie Main, who is famous for her role in the Ma and Pa Kettle series, stars as the matriarch of the crazy Fleagle family. Fred falls in the middle of a quest for a huge amount of stolen loot, as well as some dark scientific experiments by the step-father of the Fleagles. There’s a cute girl masquerading as a long lost cousin, in order that she can help clear up her father’s name who was wrongly implicated in the bank heist. There’s the twin boys, Bert and Mert, who look to be straight out of Lil’ Abner, except for the propensity of wanting to shoot most anything that moves. The climax of the picture, with Fred and the imposter Fleagle trying to evade the rest of the family, is worthy of a Marx Brothers picture. Although this has been seen in a number of cartoons like Bugs Bunny, I think this is the first actual film where I have seen real people fall into a hay baling machine and end up coming out where they are all nicely packed up in large bales of hay.

This one is worthy of a look. It is also interesting in that this role for Fred MacMurray came not long after his role in Double Indemnity. That’s quite a difference, and it shows MacMurray’s versatility. There’s even a very interesting direct reference to the Bob Hope film, The Ghost Busters, that I found particularly amusing.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037931/

Merrily We Live: From 1938, this one could be classified as one of the early screwball comedies. This film reunites Constance Bennett and Billie Burke, in almost a reprise of their Topper roles. Constance Bennett successfully plays Jerry Kilborne, a high society debutant who isn’t as shallow or as self-satisfied as her friends and suitors might think. Burke is at her ditziest best. Of course, everyone is familiar with Burke as Glenda, the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. However, that particular role seems to have been an aberration for her, as she usually played, with extraordinary energy, high-class society women that have a very tenuous grasp of reality.

In this one, Billie Burke plays Mrs. Kilborne, who has an intense desire to rescue all the “hobos” around and reintegrate them into society. The film opens with the family discovering that the last bum employed by Mrs. Kilborne has just made a fast getaway with not only the fine silver but also the kitchen silverware. The breakfast scene where everyone is attempting to eat slices of cantaloupe with large mixing spoons and strainers sets the mood for the film. Bonita Granville, who gained fame as the first film version of Nancy Drew, adds incredibly energy to the proceedings as the younger sister.

Of course, a dashing young man who appears at the front door, looking to use the phone, is taken to be a hobo and inserted into the position of head chauffeur without his understanding how it happened. All sorts of mayhem ensues, with Jerry falling for the handsome Wade Rollins, who has taken to his role in the family a bit more than was expected. Of course, it turns out that he wasn’t a hobo at all, but a novelist on a vacation, but played along because it suited him. The entire premise is very much like My Man Godfrey, which was a bit hit only two years earlier. I like this one much better.

Give it a whirl, if you can find it or the next time it shows up on TCM. The jokes and witticisms are fast-paced to the point of barely being able to react to one before another one comes zinging at you.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030442/

The Palm Beach Story: From 1942, starring Claudette Colbert and Joel McRae. This one is of the best of the Preston Sturges screwball comedies. Rudee Vallee has a great role as the straight-laced J. D. Hackensacker III, a society tycoon who has fallen for Ms. Colbert. Unfortunately for Mr. Hackensacker, although she and Joel McRae are presenting themselves as brother and sister, they are actually married. The comedic set-up comes from the fact that the two are very much in love, but Gerry Jeffers (Colbert) is trying to divorce her husband Tom (McRae) and then marry a millionaire, so that Tom can achieve his dream of designing and building a flying landing field for airplanes.

This film has some of the funniest one-liners around, usually delivered in a dead-pan style. It also features some great support from what would normally be considered to be bit-players. Robert Dudley as the Weinie King and William Demerast as a member of the Ale and Quail Club are perfect in their roles.

Gerry Jeffers: Isn't it wonderful?
Tom Jeffers: Sensational. But you haven't quite answered my question yet.
Gerry Jeffers: What question, dear?
Tom Jeffers: Why this alleged old man gave you - how much is it?
Gerry Jeffers: Seven hundred dollars.
Tom Jeffers: Seven hundred dollars. Why?
Gerry Jeffers: No reason.
Tom Jeffers: Oh, is that so? He just - seven hundred dollars? Just like that?
Gerry Jeffers: Just like that.
Tom Jeffers: I mean, sex didn't even enter into it.
Tom Jeffers: Oh, but of course it did, darling. I don't think he'd have given it to me if I had hair like excelsior and little short legs like an alligator. Sex always has something to do with it, dear.
Tom Jeffers: I see.
Gerry Jeffers: From the time you're about so big and wondering why your girlfriends' fathers are getting so arch all of a sudden. Nothing wrong - just an overture to the opera that's coming.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035169/

Beat the Devil: From 1943, directed by John Huston and has a absolutely blockbuster cast of Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morely, and Peter Lorre.

I can’t figure out why this one isn’t better known and appreciated. Perhaps it is the fact that Bogie really isn’t known for his comedic roles. I think this is one of his best films, for no other reason that he kind of plays the same tough character as in his other, more well known roles, but in a way so tongue-in-cheek that it is hard not to laugh out loud.

Morely and Lorre are part of a criminal gang on their way to South America to try to get a claim to a what could be a substantial fortune in uranium ore. Jennifer Jones, who is cute as a button as the wife of a very dour and proper Englishman, constantly invents a fantasy life for herself and anyone she meets (including Bogie), such that it becomes difficult to tell what is reality and what is her dreamworld. Bogie and his wife (Ms. Lollobrigida) get entangled with both sets of characters while waiting for their ship to get repaired so they can resume their journey.

The plot almost doesn’t matter with this. It’s situational comedy as its best. There is an interesting story associated with this film, as recounted in the IMDB link below. Bogie has a serious accident during the filming of this move, which knocked out several of his teeth and made it difficult for him to speak some of his lines. Peter Sellers actually provided some of the dubbed dialog for Bogie. I would have never guessed that one.

Don’t let some bad reviews scare you away from this. It certainly isn’t what might be expected from a cast like this. But for unusual humor and a change of pace from all the actors and actresses (who would ever think that Gina Lollobrigida would end up as about seventh on the billing), you may not be able to find a better film to spend an evening with.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046414/

End of the Year Blogpost: Don’t let the door hit you on the butt on your way out, 2010!

2010-12-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

What is to be said about 2010? Certainly not much good on the political side, if you consider yourself to be a progressive. Mordor appears to be gathering its forces once again to unleash all out war on the forces of Truth and Light…. Which is a totally over-the-top metaphor, but it encapsulates the way I feel about things.

On a purely personal level, though, I really can’t complain. My career seems to have “arrived”, in that I have a good (albeit very frustrating at times), stable job that pays pretty well for engineering. I am actually held in good esteem by my management and I am considered as something of a knowledgeable expert on several subjects. We finally finished up the four year long process which saw our family adopt our new daughter, which culminated earlier this year in getting her a U.S. passport and social security number. She’s getting settled in with her new high school. The finances are in good shape, we will have the house paid off in less than a year, and we have our health (with the exception of a pre-existing condition which may or may not ever cause a problem). So, on that front, life is probably as good as I have ever experienced. Given where I have been in my life, both literally and metaphorically, I have no reason to complain and every reason to thank both myself and Lady Luck (or whatever deity who would like to be thanked).

When I started this blog a number of years ago, I imposed a rule on myself and the occasional guest bloggers that I might coerce into making a post now and then that I would not talk about me. This wasn’t going to be personal therapy disguised as a blog. I wanted it to be about topics that people might actually be interested in looking at, at least for more than about 45 seconds. The use of the personal pronouns “I” and “me” were not allowed. Politics, humor, history, movies, interesting visuals, those were all part of the game. But this wasn’t going to be about me as a blogger. Opinions were to be expressed as some “greater truth”, because opinions that don’t really belong to anyone aren’t really opinions, are they? I wanted this blog, whenever, someone did stumble along, to be interesting. I don’t find myself a very interesting topic….

But over the last few years, and especially 2010, I have become more and more despondent over the entire sorry state of affairs that is The United States. I have come to the very unfortunate conclusion that a very large percentage of the population of this country is comprised of complete and utter ignoramuses. Oh, many are ignorant because they don’t have the education, which is not always their fault. You certainly can’t pick the life circumstances into which you are born. You have to play the hand you are dealt. It’s a tragedy, of course, that you only get one hand per life. You can’t really say, no, I don’t like this hand. I fold. I’ll get it on the next hand. Sorry, but as we all know, life doesn’t work like that. But I digress… Which is a nice way of saying that I am blabbering and forgot my main point. The point I was making is that many people in this country incredibly gullible and are easily manipulated (let’s just call them, for the sake of a label, IGEM) by the more intelligent, the more devious and the less moral. And those people make up another large percentage of the population “Greedy, Egotistical Assholes”, or GEA. The rest of us, although we still make up a substantial percentage of the population of this country, just feel overwhelmed by the others. It feels as if we are being sucked down into a black morass of stupidity, greed and hubris, a’la the La Brea Tar Pits. The more you fight against it, the deeper it sucks you in.

This is where it has become increasingly difficult, to the point of total rigor mortise, to write anything resembling a rational, unemotional blogpost. I can’t keep myself out of it anymore. I have never felt so despondent about anything in my entire life. Oh, I went through some extreme depression in high school and college. But that was focused inward. It was me. This is about the country, where it is going and where we might end up. I can’t help but feel that this country is on a long, downward trajectory. I don’t see a soft landing anywhere. It could be very bad and end up in some nightmarish scenarios envisioned by writers like George Orwell or Aldous Huxley. At the very best, I see the U.S. sliding into irrelevancy and becoming the largest Third World Country on earth, with lot of nukes and a huge, undereducated, largely unemployable mass of people that will make up the non-privileged class.

I won’t bother going into detail on all these various scenarios I could possibly envision. It wouldn’t mean anything and would probably just depress me further.

It is possible, I suppose, that 2011 will see the beginning of a slow return to rationality. It’s possible, but not very probable. Fox News will still be with us, as will Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc. etc. The GEA’s will still be in control and more than willing to do whatever they can to manipulate the entire setup such that they will become even that much more rich and more powerful. There will be many people, both big and small, that will try to fight back but ultimately, they will fail. Just ask all those Saber Tooth Cats at the bottom of the La Brea Tar Pits. Oh, you can’t. They’re extinct.

There are many aspects of our current society that are contributing to my despondency, but I think one of the biggest ones is the fact that we, as a country, are purposely devaluing learning in general and the importance of science in particular. We are purposely becoming a nation of dumbasses. Education is now something we don’t aspire to. We now snort derisively about education and use it as something to show our distain for “elitists.” Our social and political discourse reminds me of nothing more than those knuckle-draggers everyone knew in high school, those “good old boys” who sat in the back row, never paid attention in class, usually got failing or near failing grades and yet, found it within themselves to ridicule the “eggheads” in class, saying that we might “have good book learnin’, but don’t know nothing.” That’s what this all reminds me of. There’s no use arguing with people who don’t even know enough to understand how stupid they really are.

If you profess a believe, say, of global warming and climate change, what you normally get in return is a response that contains nothing but utter contempt and a retort comprised entirely of made up “facts” and even louder opinions. Fundamentalist Christians are doing their part, of course, to undermine science, because anything that might cast any sort of doubt on their interpretation of a book written by a large number of people over the period of several hundred years, based on verbal stories handed down from generation to untold generation, and has been edited and revamped on who knows how many occasions, cannot possibly be accepted without extreme pushback. Many people are more than willing to rewrite history in order to suit their particular reality. Reality, facts and conclusions reached by the scientific process no longer matter. All that matters is opinion. This is what I find most disturbing. We are actively trying to become ignorant, and we are succeeding. We are even demanding ignorance in our elected officials. I find this inexcusable. We might as well all go to the local hospital, en masse, and demand a frontal lobotomy.

Sarcastic humor and satire just aren’t funny anymore. I can hardly watch The Daily Show anymore. This isn’t because Jon Stewart isn’t funny. It’s because of the subject matter, the idiocy that is this country, seems to be beyond satire. It’s like trying to satirize Through the Looking Glass. The truly absurd and nonsensical is beyond satire, and any attempt at it is, by definition, absurd and nonsensical by itself. Who could have possibly imagined scenarios such as sitting senators complaining about being asked to vote on a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, because it was somehow sacrilegious to be voting on that during December, which is also the month that contains Christmas? That is just insane, but yet, it happens and hardly anyone blinks an eye anymore. The ridiculous is now so commonplace that hardly anyone blinks an eye anymore.

Another aspect of our society that appalls me is that the quest for every greater “profits” is paramount. Nothing else matters. Oh, I am not so blind as to not know this has been true for every single year this nation has existed. That’s the entire point of capitalism, as far as I can tell. Let the drive to make money be the primary purpose of the country and everything else that is good will follow along. The personal well-being of the population isn’t the primary reason our economy exists. It just sort of is expected that it will happen as a result, sort of the way a large boat generates a large wake wherever it goes. It’s a by-product, not the point. But now, anything that takes away one single iota of “earning potential” from those who already are very well endowed is something to be banished by whatever means. Minimum wage law? Must get rid of that! Protections and safeguards that protect workers and investors, not to mention the entire well-being of the economy? Too much of a burden on free enterprise! Begone! Pensions? Can’t afford them, too expensive! But if we would like to try to close some legal loopholes, such as not allowing giant corporations to locate their shadow headquarters offshore with the sole purpose of not having to pay taxes, that’s strictly verboten! Increased tax levels for millionaires and billionaires? Heavens, what are you trying to do, destroy the economy?

I really hate this society. We swallow camels and strain at gnats as a normal exercise. We fixate on the truly trivial and are oblivious to the truly horrific. State-sanctioned torture is now a fact of life. We are still involved in two wars that no one understands the purpose of. It is likely that many thousands of Afghans and Iraqi civilians have been killed, many on purpose, but since only American lives matter, then it is not a problem. You can’t have a war without breaking some eggs, you know. Global climate change may be the most single significant issue that this country will have to deal with in the future, and yet, it is treated as some nefarious plot by evil liberals to destroy the economy. Why liberals would want to actively try to destroy the economy, I have no idea, but that’s how it is portrayed these days. I feel like a good historical comparison for this particular time might be Rome during Nero.

So much for the rantings of an aging Boomer. I have a few more years until I can realistically consider retiring. I hope the fabric of society holds together until then. Perhaps I can then just check out, sit back on my proverbial porch and watch the show from a dispassionate place. I also might try looking in to relocating to another country. Who knows what this place might look like in eight to ten years? Even retired, I might not want to reside here. Until then, I have a feeling I am not really going to enjoy the next seven years. And, as things stand, I will be one of the fortunate ones. There will be many people who will experience significant pain and anguish for no other reason than that is how our society is set up. This doesn’t sound like a place I will really want to call home.

Wikileaks.

2010-12-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

From Very Demotivational.

Miss TSA Pinup Girl! (NSFW, sorta....)

2010-12-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

Given the new "security" screening procedures at airports, I suppose this was rather inevitable.

I suppose I could make a really crude remark about boners here. But that would be totally out of character and beneath my dignity.....

I also just realized I am going to have to do another post soon, to get this thing off the top of the stack.

I am actually thinking the unthinkable. It might be better to have the Republicans in charge of everything.

2010-12-14T08:13:00.000-08:00

Now, before progressives go ballistic, let me explain.

I have come to the conclusion that the overwhelming priority of the Republicans is to block everything that Democrats want and do to everything they can to upset Democrats. That seems to be the only thing that makes sense. They are voting against many of their own proposals, for God’s sake. “Obamacare” was pretty much lifted from what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts. The “individual mandate” that requires individual to have individual healthcare coverage was proposed by a bunch of Republicans, including Chuck Grassley. Check out this very pointed segment from Jon Stewart, via Washington Monthly. This is pretty insane. And Republicans have been doing the same thing, over and over again, since President Obama was elected. Say one thing, do another. No shame, all hypocrisy. I am pretty much absolutely convinced that the biggest reason Republicans are such devout non-believers in global climate change is because it IS a big deal to Democrats and progressives. That’s THE reason behind their stupidity and myopia.

So, my theory now goes like this. O.K., let these assholes run the country again. Perhaps, once we’ve removed the “Go Absolutely Fuckin’ Insane At All Democrat ® Ideas!” dynamic, then maybe some sanity will come back into their thinking process. Oh, sure. The U.S. will probably do something really stupid like drop bombs on Iran. But hey, what’s one more war among friends? At least, someone might actually start thinking that maybe giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires isn’t really all that they thought it was back when Democrats didn’t like the idea. Or maybe they will stop trying to give the farm away to the giant insurance companies during the healthcare debate. They might actually have to explain some of their actions to their constituents. Maybe we might even NOT privatize Social Security.

Hey, it’s just a thought. Nothing else seems to be working. Because, you know, I was just thinking that this country really can’t stand to have one of the major political parties go absolutely nuts when the other party does so much as clear its throat.