Cold, hard facts and cold, dead hands

Video games have been blamed for much of the violence in the last decade. I have no doubt that sooner or later that someone will make that connection with Jared Loughner. But video games, as simulations of reality, can offer some insights.

Computer and role-playing games model reality in many ways, but most break down combat into offensive and defensive capabilities. Offensive capabilities have statistics such as basic to-hit chance, accuracy, weapon speed, type of damage, rate of fire, and raw numerical damage. Defensive capabilities have statistics such as deflection, dodging, parrying, and damage resistance or damage reduction.

Most games model armor and helmets as providing damage resistance and sometimes deflection. Shields more often provide deflection rather than damage resistance, and provide a chance to block attacks. Hand weapons such as swords, staves, polearms and the like have statistics such accuracy, speed, damage, parrying chance and the like. Missile weapons such as bows, thrown spears and guns have stats for basic hit chance, accuracy, damage type, total damage, and rate of fire.

Some games provide additional rules for resolving total damage inflicted based on hit location: a shot to the hand can't kill you immediately and the total damage is often limited to some fraction of a torso hit. A shot to the head will do double or quadruple damage based on ammunition type.

Note the total lack of defensive statistics that missile weapons provide.

The other thing you learn from video games is tactics: strike first, strike hard, and strike from concealment.

It's been widely reported that Gabrielle Giffords was a supporter of gun rights. After the door of her office was smashed in during the health care tirades (they were hardly debates) she apparently decided to carry a pistol. Arizona has some of the most liberal gun laws in the country: a recently passed concealed carry law allows almost anyone to buy a gun and hide it on their person almost anywhere they go.

But as anyone who plays video games knows, guns provide no defensive protection. At best they provide first-strike capability if the attacker is detected, or more likely, a retributive strike after the initial onslaught. At worst, guns provide no protection at all if the shooter is fast, agile, calm and prepared.

And that's exactly how it played out in Arizona. Giffords never had a chance because Loughner came at her from behind and capped her. With a high-capacity clip, he was then able to shoot almost two dozen people in a matter of seconds. Giffords may well have had her pistol in her purse. It didn't matter. If she had been wearing it on her hip, or even holding it in her hand, it still wouldn't have mattered.

The only way this would have played out differently is if Giffords had had an armed security detail that had identified Loughner as a potential threat. They might have been able to stop him from approaching Giffords from behind, but given Arizona's gun laws, he had every right to meet the congresswoman while packing heat. So they would have had to let him talk to her. And at any point during the conversation Loughner could reach into his jacket, pull out his pistol and shoot her in the heart. Maybe the security detail could stop him, maybe not. But there was no detail, so it's a moot point. (And I wonder how long it will be before Giffords is called irresponsible for not taking precautions? "You screwed up -- you trusted me!")

And security details can sometimes be the problem. A Pakistani politician was killed by one of his guards last week. The killer -- a conservative Muslim who despised the liberal policies of the governor of Punjab province -- is now being celebrated as a hero by many devout Muslims.

Now imagine, as I'm sure many of you are, that every person in the crowd was packing. After Loughner shoots Giffords everyone is momentarily stunned. During that time Loughner shoots the aide standing next to her. Then the judge standing in line to talk to her. Then he starts shooting randomly into the crowd.

Semiautomatic pistols fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Someone practiced at this can fire two or three shots per second, maybe more. Loughner apparently got a lot of practice and was a good shot.

Then the crowd realizes what is happening and they all reach into their jacket holsters and purses for their pistols, fumble to find and click off the safeties, and raise their weapons to aim and finally fire. Five seconds have gone by, and Loughner would have gotten 10 to 15 shots off. He's shooting into a crowd, firing at random. His shots will find targets no matter how bad his aim is.

Now the crowd -- untrained, panicked old ladies, moms with kids, and middle-aged men -- start shooting at Loughner. It's well known that handgun accuracy among even well-trained policemen is abysmally low in live-fire situations. Here it would certainly be lower. Ninety to 95% of the bullets fired would miss Loughner. But they could very well hit other people in the crowd, or even Giffords herself.

Remember the old joke about the circular firing squad?

Then there's the problem of identifying the aggressor. Early on in the war in Afghanistan more troops died from friendly fire than enemy action. If everyone has guns and is shooting, how does anyone know who the bad guys are?

In the Arizona incident there actually was a guy with a gun who came onto the scene. Joe Zamudio heard the shots, came rushing in and saw a guy with a gun. Zamudio put his hand on his weapon and . . . did not draw it. As it turned out, the guy with the gun had just taken it from Loughner. Zamudio kept his weapon holstered as long as possible to avoid being mistaken for the shooter. If he'd had it out with a round in the chamber, giving him that much less time to observe the situation, would he have shot an innocent man? He counts himself very lucky.

This is why cops wear uniforms: so that they can identify each other easily and civilians can recognize their authority. Cops coming on to the scene of a mass shootout have no way of identifying who's who, and could easily shoot the "good" guys.

Then there's the psychological angle. If you buy a gun you have to assume you're going to kill someone some day. Because you can't just threaten someone with it. Odds are they'll see the fear in your eyes, and they'll take that gun from you. And they may use it on you and your loved ones. Unless you're prepared to kill someone, owning a gun "for protection" is foolish.

Finally there are the consequences of killing someone. Cops and soldiers often suffer severe psychological trauma after a shooting. And they're trained to deal with it, fully expecting they will have to kill someone someday. Civilians without training would be at least as devastated, unless they're already halfway down the road the Loughner is on.

The tragedy in Arizona is really no different from Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood and dozens of home, postal and office rampages. Some suicidal nut job motivated by religion, politics, divorce, alienation, or revenge gets a gun and shoots people up.

Because a gun is not like a Kevlar vest or a ballistic helmet, it is not protection in any meaningful sense. It is a deterrent only because it threatens retaliation. If someone doesn't care whether they live or die, or they believe that they are faster and better and can outshoot their victims, or they are attacking from the rear, from cover or from great range, guns provide no protection whatsoever.

The one exception is in the theater of war, where it is (usually) obvious what the threats are, and threats can be preemptively neutralized. This is the proverbial best-defense-is-a-good-offense sort of protection.

But it points out the fallacy of carrying a weapon in a civil society. It is no sort of protection for the average person: the bad guys will just shoot first. Like Loughner, they will just cap you from behind if they think you're armed. Do we really want to turn our streets into warzones where people shoot first out of fear?

In Arizona there are six more pairs of cold, dead hands because we as a nation refuse to acknowledge the cold, hard facts about guns.

The Michael Jordan Generation

My senior year in high school was pretty amazing for a number of reasons. The first was that I had a fucking killer girlfriend. Gorgeous, fun, opinionated, highly intelligent and so much more, she really set the tone for what kind of woman I would be attracted to over my life. In addition, I had a great group of friends, was very involved in the TV studio and theater at the school, and had a great little business I had started painting and detailing windows. I only had a few customers but I made great money for 1984.

It was that same year that my beloved Chicago Bulls finally saw a ray of light and hope join their team in the form of the best player to ever play the game. He averaged 28 points a game on just over 50 percent shooting that season and became an instant star. Just a few years later, he led the Bulls to the first of 2 threepeats. His name was Michael Jordan and there is no doubt in my mind that he is responsible for the giant pile of shit that currently is American culture.

Now, I like Mike as much as the next person. I'm even a huge fan of sports and enjoy watching it regularly. But if you are someone who grew up during his era, you were socialized at a very key point in the development of our culture. And, as I will illustrate, it's not really Mike personally that was (and still is) the problem. It was the institutions in our society and the interactions that our citizens have with them that created the malaise. And its zenith was Michael Jordan so, like doctors that get diseases named after them, I am naming this one the Michael Jordan Generation (MJG).

We are not a nation of rugged individualists. I know that's going to send many commenters here into anaphylaxis but people aren't perpetual soloists in a culture as developed as ours. How we function in the interactions with our society's institutions (functionalism) and with each other (symbolic interaction) dictates our behavior. I've always been a blank slate fellow. I don't agree with Rousseau's concept of innate goodness nor do I think that we are all wretched sinners who need Jesus to save us. Being a believer in Christ means coming to Him of your own free will, not scoring brownie points in either beating yourself up or feeling guilty because you think someone's ass (male or female) is hot. You are a blank slate and the teachings of Christ...your belief in him...and your interactions within Christianity (or whatever you believe in) help to define who you are along with the multitude of other things with which you interact. 

Something else that is important to note here before we proceed further is that human beings are emotional. Trying to remove that element completely in any sort of analysis is pure folly. We are not Spock. You can pretend you are but then you would be a liar--as are many of my commenters who claim to rational and logical but then say things like

I'd ask if you've been sippin' the stupid juice, but it's more like you've been gulpin' it.

Comments like these are a daily occurrence here. I have no problem with people saying any of this stuff. Where I have a problem is with the hypocrisy. Emotions enter in to who we are as people and how we make decisions every day. These emotions arise from interactions with other people (such as in the comments sections of a blog) and they fill in the blank slate of who we are and who we become. They CHANGE us. You may have the conceit that by posting on a libertarian blog that you are sharing your rugged individualism with others but you are, in fact, interacting with people in a symbolic way which alters your behavior. This is a collective influence not an individual one. 

The main reason why I mention emotions,though, is what arises out of them: desire. We desire to fit in and function in our society and when we don't, we experience anomie or normlessness. We've all had the experience of seeing a McDonald's ad on television and then being hungry for a cheeseburger. I've even gone out and bought one before. On a very low level, this is operant conditioning. Desire, however, comes from repeated interaction with the people and institutions in our lives and that is much more powerful.

So, we are not a culture of islands. When we interact with our family, our peer group, our community, our schools, and the mass media (the five main areas of socialization), we behave in certain and distinct ways as a result of those interactions. There is no doubt in my mind that this was the case with Jared Loughner, the shooter in the Arizona Safeway massacre. His interactions with these five areas made him who he is today. Nikto spoke of this in his post yesterday. Somewhere along the line Jared's blank slate was filled in with socialization that led him to believe that shooting people was perfectly acceptable. Time and again we see examples like this and it illustrates a very key failure of the right wing and libertarian philosophy.: People don't operate in a vacuum. Of course, it would be wrong to say that personal responsibility shouldn't be considered at all. It's equally as wrong to say, however, that Jared's interactions played no part at all in what he did and it's just his individual fault. It's both.

There was a time when the first four of these areas were more significant. These smaller spheres had a great deal of influence on filling in the blank slate. Today, however, the mass media is the most significant and its influence has become so overwhelming in defining our culture and our interactions with the people in our family, peer groups, community and schools that, as an instructor, I can't even come close to competing with it. We have been socialized by the mass media to be ADD and want that "bright, shiny object." This brings us back to Mike.

The people that are parents today grew up seeing Mike hawk cars, clothes, soft drinks and shoes. This is how they have seen success defined: extrinsically. Hawking these items has been around forever but not at such a monumentally high level as when Mike showed up. Because of this Niagara Falls type inundation, this is how they raise their children. They have turned them into consumer drones giving in completely to the emotion of envy...of wanting to have the latest thing to make their lives happier. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but generally parents today and even some people in the mid 20s who aren't parents have been conditioned to believe that Michael Jordan is the pure embodiment of success and that our lives should be patterned after him. Mike is a shining example of the fact that the first four areas of socialization have all succumbed to this model of achievement and have altered their function within our culture.

We have, I fear, been changed for the worse because of this.

Parents now raise their children to be superstar athletes and adjust their lifestyles accordingly. Take the example of hockey in my state of Minnesota. It is played year round here starting at the age of 3. It costs thousands of dollars to play and if you were a kid who just wanted to play for fun, you can pretty much forget it. There are practices 4-5 nights a week with games on the other nights. These games are just as competitive and important to parents as the NHL. Fights break out often in the stands. We see them on the news and I see them all the time. Hockey is only one example. This rigorous level is seen in virtually all other sports.

Sadly, this mindset is so consuming that parents are, what I call, COP...Checked Out Parents. Their desire to have the "bright, shiny object" is so overwhelming that their involvement in socializing their kids is often non-existent. And it's not just because of sports as we will see shortly.

Peer groups have become part of the chain as well. If you don't play a sport, you are either "gay" or "retarded." From this we have seen the rise of increased competition in a variety of other sports like swimming and Ultimate Frisbee-a game that used to not have any refs. Everyone has to play a sport so they can be like Mike. Teens geek out on Facebook and YouTube to sports related activities which is pretty much everything now. My favorite bands from the UK are all massive Premier League fans...living and dying with a sport that encourages and rewards mediocrity.

It's important to note here that this mentality goes beyond sports. Sports is merely a spring board into the material and consumer based mentality that has permeated every level of our age cohorts, our peer groups, and, thus, into our families. To be cool, you have to be consumed by some or several areas of media. If it weren't for Harry Potter or Twilight, I have to wonder if young people would event talk about books at all! Even Harry Potter is like Mike...clothes, shoes, soft drinks...

Communities gear their city operations around sports due to the increased demand. Gyms open at 5am for practice and some games don't start until 9pm due to such high demand. A community is more attractive if they have 2-3 hockey rinks. Basketball training facilities have popped up around my town in the last few years so kids can play year round. Their goal? To be like Mike...cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks.

Perhaps the worst culprit are the schools. Sports has always been important in schools but today it is their culture. Want a kid to do his work in class? Show him or her you know something about sports. Then you're cool and they will get it done. And why are they cool? Cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks...all things we have been trained to envy, desire, and believe we will get...so we have been told and shown by the Michael Jordan Generation which essentially runs our country. As I have stated above, this model carries over into other areas besides sports. Honestly, it's all aspects of the mass media working on steroid overdrive to sell, sell sell! And one is not a complete person unless one has these things.

I can't compete with that. I can show them things that I think are cool like how our government operates or the history of our country. I can try to connect them with things they like today (which are all consumer driven) but it's mostly futile. It's not what I say, it's what they see. I had a student tell me the other day that he was going to be LeBron. I pointed out the percentages of that happening and he would have none of it. The MJG has told him otherwise. Big house filled with riches....cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks...

Again, I must confess that I am as much of a sports maniac as all of them. I play and coach tennis. I do like to win. I am emotionally down for a day or two after a Vikings loss which, after this season, was quite a bit. But I don't have those glassy eyes of a fucking zombie and the seemingly never ending desire to raise my children in a pro athlete style. My children play sports but I teach them that they are a part of life, not a lifestyle. Most Americans want a lifestyle and they are too lazy and impatient to have a life. Life is about learning a variety of skills that will help you earn a living and contribute to the community where you live. Most parents do not teach their children this and it's because they believe in the bill of goods that has been sold to them by the mass media. It will somehow happen instantly if you...just buy this pair of shoes...like Mike's shoes...

My favorite line from Inside Job comes from Andrew Sheng, a Chinese economic advisor. "Engineers build bridges...Financial advisors build dreams. And when those dreams become nightmares..."

That first line really made me think. What do we build these days? This is the fundamental difference between our country and China. They are building things...making things...and we really aren't. We desire a lifestyle filled with leisure and, thus, people make shit loads of money off of services in this country.  I have a friend who used to be in the NBA that owns one of those basketball gyms. What exactly is he offering society? There are businesses in China that are building machines to make solar power an efficient alternative to coal and oil. People around the world are buying this technology. How can the global market "buy" a training session from a former NBA player? Why would they even want to? Why is having this training so important to have in America? They can pretend for an hour or two that they are Mike. Cars, clothes, shoes, soft drinks....ironically, most made now in other countries!

I've been asked several times on this blog to point to ways private corporations and the wealthy people that run them are in control of our lives and directly harm us on purpose in the name of profit. I've offered some small and specific examples but they were mere threads in one giant quilt. The answer to these continued questions is much larger than some of the small examples I have mentioned.

Sit back and think about what I have written regarding the mass media's victory over the other four areas of socialization. Think about how they permeate every aspect of our lives now. Imagine what our culture was like before Michael Jordan (car, clothes, shoes, soft drink) and what it's like now. On a systemic level, it has, I fear, been irrevocably changed.

Now, ask yourselves....

Who owns the mass media?

Holiday Dinner Conversation

There's been a lot of discussion about whether the unremitting hate-filled vitriol from the right had anything to do with the shooting of Gabby Giffords in Arizona. It's pretty clear it has. For example...

I was having dinner on Christmas with my family: my wife, my father, mother, three of my sisters, two brothers-in-law, one brother-in-law's mother, and three grandchildren.

We had already had the annual argument on Thanksgiving, so politics was not under discussion. But my father was taking advantage of my brother-in-law's fast Internet connection by watching a Lou Dobbs video. I'm not sure why; Dobbs is making an all-out effort to state that he thinks the illegals are the only rational actors in this mess. Whereas my father thinks illegals should be shot on sight.

Anyway, during dinner my father took the opportunity (again) to crow about the Burma Shave style signs he had put along the highway that took Obama's comment about the United States no longer being a just Christian nation out of context.

Which prompted my nine-year-old nephew to excitedly chime in: "We should put up a sign charging ten dollars to shoot Obama."

For a moment everyone was quiet. Then my sister said, in a very careful and considered tone, "No, sweetie, we don't say things like that. Nobody should shoot anybody."

No one said another thing about it. But everyone knew exactly where this was coming from. My brother-in-law is a birther. He rejects all the evidence that Obama was born in the United States, insists that the birth certificate that has been validated by many observers is false, and so on.

So, is my brother-in-law talking about assassinating the president in front of his third-grade son? I don't know. Maybe the kid came up with this idea all by himself.

But my brother-in-law says that it's "his opinion" that Obama is not an American. Since Obama's mother was an American, nothing else matters -- Obama is an American. End of story. My brother-in-law might as well be saying, "It's my opinion that the sun circles the earth."

What the right calls their "opinions" are quite frequently "delusions." And these delusions are getting increasingly dangerous and violent.

When millions of Americans like my brother-in-law and father prefer to believe the lie that the president has absolutely no right to serve, that there is a vast conspiracy to put an anti-Colonial Kenyan at the top of the US government, it provides the basis for the less balanced to commit murder. This is exactly how the Fort Hood shooter was incited to go on the same sort of shooting rampage. We call him a Muslim terrorist, but he was clearly unhinged and deluded; how is Loughner any different?

Little kids do not always grow up to share their parents' prejudices, opinions and delusions. I share none of my father's hatred of illegal immigrants. My sister married a Mexican-American man, and my father disowned her for it. He's probably spoken to her just once in the last 18 years. But two of my sisters married guys who tell the same racist jokes that my dad does.

So it makes me wonder. What did Randy Loughner, Jared's dad, say in front of his son while he was growing up? Did he talk about "second-amendment remedies" in front of his son? Or is he just as crushed by this as most of us are?

Kids learn what is "normal" by observing their parents and peers. The current political environment is toxic and disgusting to most adults. Think about what it's doing to the kids.

Reflections On The Weekend

Much of my emotion regarding the shooting in Arizona is tied to Christina Green, a 9 year old girl who was one of the victims in the assassination attempt of Gabrielle Giffords. Christina was born on September 11, 2001 and had just been elected to student council. A neighbor thought it would be fun if Christina met Rep. Giffords so that is how she ended up at the Safeway. And now she is dead.

I have children so the empathy that I have for her parents cannot be put into words. As an educator, though, this hit me on another level that still leaves me gutted today. No doubt, it will stay with me forever. I encourage children like Christina every day to get involved in politics and make their voice heard regardless of their opinions. What will my message be now? I've avoided the likes of the partisan news networks for the most part but to do so now would be irresponsible. To ignore the very clear danger that I see coming from people like Glenn Beck would be catastrophic. People have said that I am trying to score political points. I am not. I am saying that same thing that Congresswoman Giffords said in March of 2010.

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action."

Consequences indeed. And not just in this case. Bart Stupak resigned over these voice mails. Raul Grijalva's office in Arizona was attacked last fall. There were other events as well. 

Better yet, though, take the example of Charles Wilson. He was recently jailed in Washington State for threatening the life of Senator Pat Murray over the passage of the health care bill. From Timothy Egan's recent Times column. 

Prosecutors here in Washington State told me that the man convicted of making the threats was using language that, in some cases, came word-for-word from Glenn Beck, the Fox demagogue. Every afternoon Charles A. Wilson would sit in his living room and stuff his head with Beck, a man who spouts scary nonsense to millions. Of course, Beck didn’t make the threats or urge his followers to do so.

But it was Beck who said “the war is just beginning,” after the health care bill was passed. And it was Beck who re-introduced the paranoid and racist rants of a 1950s-era John Birch Society supporter, W. Cleon Skousen, who said a one-world government cabal was plotting a takeover

In the case of Jared Loughner, we also have an anti government type who personalized his anger in the from of Congresswoman Giffords. Her "personal slight" towards him by responding to a question in Spanish set him on his path to that Safeway last Saturday. It is my contention that someone as clearly mentally disturbed as Loughner was enabled by what passes for normal discourse from the likes of people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. By saying crazy shit, it makes the crazies feel like they are right at home.

So what do I want to see happen? This.

The best thing for Sarah Palin to do at this point (and, quite frankly, if she were to do this I'd just about fall on the floor in shock and surprise) would be to issue a statement fessing up to the misguided and inflammatory gun imagery that she has used in political contexts, promise to refrain from doing so in the future, and shut the fuck up for awhile, out of respect for the victims of this senseless tragedy.

Thankfully, I think we are going to see that. Palin may not be as forthright as this but she may not have a choice. This is one of those events that will leave a deep mark on our country for a long time. To use crosshairs, wish for the death or torture of Democrats, or spout any sort of violent, anti government nonsense is going to be met with disgust.

It's absolutely disgusting that it took the death of Christina Green and the other victims to make it happen.

Quite Prophetic

Some Photos and a Comment

"Don't retreat, RELOAD"---Sarah Palin via Twitter.

More Quotes

I'm going to delay Nikto's post for a little bit and continue with some quotes regarding the AZ shooting.

"The majority of citizens in the United States of America have never read the United States of America's Constitution. You don't have to accept the federalist laws. In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications: the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar. No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver! No! I won't trust in god!

Nonetheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

These are quotes from Jared Loughner, the suspect in the shooting in Arizona. It sounds awfully familiar to me.

People have already starting bitching that I have made this political...blah blah blah. I'm really sick and tired of these same people deflecting responsibility for starting all of this. If some angry left winger had attacked Sarah Palin, I would seriously question how responsible I was in continuing to foment that mindset. Apparently, this has been lost on Alex Jones.

"Toning Down the Rhetoric Means Obeying Big Government."

This came up in comments...I think people on the right need to own up to the same path the left took in the 1960s and 1970s. The idealistic radicals at that time turned violent and were clearly wrong in what they did. We are seeing the same thing today...idealism of the right is turning violent. This is not the first incident although it is certainly the most violent. The guy on his way to blow up the Tides Foundation was inspired by Glenn Beck We've seen several incidents like this in the last two years including several in Arizona with other Congress people. The simple fact is that the left doesn't do this anymore. The right does now.

Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo had this to say last night on MSNBC.

"When there is a virus it always attacks the weak and elderly first. The anger and hate out there in cable news, talk radio, and the blogsphere has become like this virus and Loughner, a mentally ill person, is the weak and infirm elderly person who has succumbed to it."

Indeed.

Meanwhile, they are still looking for that second person. I wonder what that bit of the story will bring?

Oh, and our new Speaker of the House had this to say regarding the shooting.

"An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society."

Does that include the list of people below, Mr. Boehner?

Consequences

"I'll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo -- every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress." (Sean Hannity)

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus -- living fossils -- so we will never forget what these people stood for." (Rush Limbaugh)

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building." (Ann Coulter)

“I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victims.” - (Glenn Beck)

"To fight only the al-Qaeda scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders ... Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that's who." (Michael Savage)

"We are past the time for reasoned discourse" (said several times on The Smallest Minority by various posters and the site owner himself)

It's not legal to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. And the theater is currently filled with a lot of pissed off and paranoid wingnuts.

A Complete Disgrace

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Gabrielle Giffords (US Rep, D) said in an interview with MSNBC.

United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D) has just been shot in the head by Jared Loughner, a "pot smoking loner who wanted to make new US currency." He also complained about the illiteracy rate in his district (translation: I don't like Spics). Take a look at the photo (left) from his MySpace page. Look familiar at all? Second amendment remedies indeed.

Giffords was the lucky one. The death toll included a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge, and a staffer for the Democratic congresswoman. Giffords's office was also vandalized repeatedly during the health care debate.

But I guess I'm just reaching, right? There's no way in hell that anyone would take Palin's crosshairs seriously. People in this country are much better than that, aren't they?

What a great place Arizona must be these days. Papers please, Jew...fuck you and your transplant (the subject of Nikto's post tomorrow)...and a nine year old girl dead. What a disgrace.

Front Loading

Nikto has a post going up tomorrow that needs a little front loading. And it just so happens that it's also a "voice inside my head."

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." –-Sarah Palin, in a message posted on Facebook about Obama's health care plan, Aug. 7, 2009

Nikto will be explaining how this is an outright lie. For today, though, we can take note of yet another leader of the conservative movement demonstrating a monumental lack of responsibility. More importantly, this is not a voice inside of my head. She said this. Millions of people believed her....so much so that our health care legislation did not contain a public option.

We see comments like this come every day from major conservative leaders. They are more outlandish with the fear peddling every day. I can promise all of you that if they stop making comments like this, I'll stop having arguments with "the voices inside my head."

Voices "In My Head"

So, we'll try again, because ALL of you lamebrain lefties could really learn something if you would simply read it (repeatedly if necessary).
----juris imprudent in comments.

Democrats should “stay home on Election Day… for the sake of the nation.”

----Sean Hannity, Oct 19, 2006.

"Good for you, you have a heart, you can be a liberal. Now, couple your heart with your brain, and you can be a conservative."

----Glenn Beck, Oct 5, 2006.

Believing

I'm wondering what would happen if someone told me something on here and my response was, "I don't believe that." Apparently, it's just fine though if the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner says it.

The CBO just released a report that details how the House's new health care repeal law will add 230 billion dollars to the deficit by 2021. From 2012 to 2019 it would add 145 billion dollars to an already mammoth deficit. Boehner's response?

“I do not believe that repealing the job- killing health-care bill is going to increase the deficit.”

So, he doesn't believe it, hmm? I guess it's OK now to believe whatever we want. I guess that also means that he doesn't "believe" the CBO's other report that says the health care bill will actually reduce the deficit. Of course it can't work. That would mean (gasp!) they would....WIN! Waaaaaaah!!!!

I'm trying to figure out why they are going for repeal first. Didn't they get the memo about unemployment? Of course, they are really screwed there because their ideology is at loggerheads with itself. They got elected because the people of this country thought the Democrats were doing a crappy job at helping them get jobs so it was the GOP's turn. But the GOP wants the government to get out of the way so.....what now? Oh, yeah, cut taxes...cut spending and everything will be fine.

Belief is a wonderful thing.

Not in Control

I had a discussion with a commenter on this blog (who shall remain anonymous unless he/she chooses to come forward) in person at a local pub.

"Tell me again how I'm not in control of myself," she/he stated.

"Well, you are a smoker," I replied.

"Yeah, that's right. I'm addicted."

"So....you aren't in control of yourself. The nicotine is."

"I could quit but I choose not to because I'm addicted."

"But doesn't that mean that you are not in control of yourself?"

"No."

"But what about Jeffery Wigand," I asked, "the guy who came forward and said that Brown and Williamson (now merged with RJ Reynolds) manipulated the nicotine and the ingredients in tobacco to make the cigarette more addictive? Isn't that a great example (like the PG&E one I had given earlier) of a private corporation purposefully doing harm to people in order to control them into spending more money? Making more profit?

"But it's my choice. I can quit if I decide," she/he replied.

"But I thought you said you were addicted."

And so it went from there without any resolution.

It may have been his/her choice to continue to smoke but becoming more addicted was the choice of Brown and Willamson. They controlled millions of smokers by manipulating the contents of cigarettes. Having control was made more and more difficult due to the desire for more profit.

Wigand, incidentally, works with governments around the world to regulate tobacco on stricter control policies. I'd guess he's not getting much done here these days with the general sentiment in our country. Know which sentiment I am talking about?

It's the same one that thinks we tell the government to get out of the way and watch the free market take off. A tobacco company's dream!

Voices in My Head

In this post and the one below it, you will notice a new tag that we will be seeing from time to time. "Voices Inside My Head" refers to a few of my readers who are under the mistaken impression that conservatives/ libertarians don't actually say the things they say and that I make it all up due to voices in my head. Or a straw man argument. Or some other logical fallacy. Or maybe it's bad chili. I can never keep it straight.

"Who are you going to believe?" they ask," me or your lyin' ears?" Well, the answer is my lyin' ears because, starting today, you will be able to click on the tag and see all the posts with direct quotes from those very same conservatives and libertarians. Some may be in politics, some may be my family, and some will be pulled from comments...like this one.

We aren't as gullible as the Democratic base who sop up stupid as a rule.

This was written by 6Kings in comments in a ROTFLMFAO attempt to prove that Nikto's comment about how change, to the Right, is like Kryptonite. Hmm....

So, enjoy the "Voices Inside My Head" as it will be sticking around for awhile.

Relax.

To many of you, this image is a soothing as the softs sounds of the ocean as it gently laps up on the shore a mere 100 feet from your bungalow on the beach.

"That bitch in the House," as my uncle Bill so fondly put it on several occasions, has finally been deposed. The Wicked Witch of the West has been sent packing, folks, and a MAN is back in charge again. No more vaginas telling us what we can and can't do...praise the Lord!

And John Boehner is not just any man. He has name that sticks out loud and proud. It's a hard fucking cock that won't let anyone mess with it. Best of all, it's white just like its owner.

So have no fear, old white men of America, there's finally someone to stop that "anti colonial Kenyan" (© Newt Gingrich) in the White House. Actually, what am I saying? There's always someone to be afraid of, right?

It is the federal government after all...

Completely Agree

"We can recognize the extraordinary character of the Founding Fathers while also knowing that those 18th-century political leaders were not outside history. . . . They were as enmeshed in historical circumstances as we are, they had no special divine insight into politics, and their thinking was certainly not free of passion, ignorance, and foolishness."

---Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary historian, Pulitzer prise winning author and Brown University Professor.

New Year's Housekeeping

As we begin the New Year here at Notes From the Front, I thought it might be wise to throw out a few housekeeping items.

First, this blog is not important. Seriously, I mean it. Lately I've noticed a few commenters that seem to have substituted the comments section for a social life. Living your life and interacting with people is more important than posting here. If you don't have time to write all that you want, so what? I know I don't.That means your time is better spent doing things with friends and family than posting on this sixth rate (seventh rate?) blog. I put up a post every day but some are now from Nikto because I have other stuff going on.

This brings me to my second point. I think it's time that I reminded people why I post here. I do so because I love to write. It helps me work out my frustrations. It's also a heck of a lot of fun. I think it's pretty amusing that some of you feel that I am humiliated continually when I post here but I never am. Not at all. I have a pretty thick skin and school yard bullying, which we see all the time in comments, doesn't even come close to making a dent. A few weeks back I was working with some junior high school kids and had one student slice another student in the face with a scissors. Having someone call me stupid is pretty paltry compared to that.

My other main goal is for reflection and critical thinking. We've recently had a concise definition of critical thinking submitted in comments. Here it is again.

The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal.

I suspect I will be putting this up quite a bit as several of you are avoiding it. I'd like to see each one of you turn inward and honestly assess how well you match up this ideal. This would be the reflection part. You should know that every time...every single time...some of the commenters here blow a bowel about something I write, there is no doubt in my mind it's because they are resistant to reflection.

Something else...I had a regular commenter in here (a libertarian one, btw) make a note to me regarding staying on topic in comments. If this person wishes to state this with his name attached, that's fine but I thought I would let them remain anonymous for now. Essentially, said person complained that we whir off topic in threads and it would be nice to stick to the subject. I thought about it for awhile because I really do respect (and love) the person that suggested it but it's just not my vision for this blog.

Comments to me are about near total freedom. I post about climate change and you want to link a video about Obama as Hitler? Fine by me. You have a business or product you want to hawk and you are a regular poster here? Put it up. I have about 200-300 unique page loads a day. Talk about anything on your mind. This blog is an outlet for reflection, venting, and discussion on a wide range of topics. I live in Minnesota and have had it up to here (Mark puts his hand way above his head) with people telling me to be polite and not discuss certain topics. Fuck that. That's why ALL of you get the same honor and privilege. It's my way of telling my fellow Minnesotans to pound salt hence the byline above, "Where politics, sex and religion are always polite to discuss."

Of course, if everyone wants to stay on topic, then that's fine too. I will, however, generally delete spam comments if it is from a source I don't recognize. If it turns out to be someone we know, I will put it back up. Porn is also usually out unless it stars one of you and/or it's really hot.

One last thing about comments....sometimes Blogger is wonky. Since everyone seems to have a different experience with this, more than likely it's the relationship between individual settings and Blogger. Remember to cut and paste your comment off line and then if it vanishes, try again. As I have stated above, I don't block any one's comments or delete them.

So what will the New Year bring? Well, we already have the GOP putting health care repeal front and center. That's smart....NOT. I know climate change is going to come up a few times. We should have some GOP hopefuls for president soon. I predict Mitt Romney will be the nominee if he runs.

More importantly, though, we will have the start of a conversation that I hope will change this blog forever. It's the evolution of many of my thoughts that I have been putting up here since I started. It's why our country is so fucked up. It has to do with what I have been dropping here and there of late: The Michael Jordan Generation.

Stay tuned!

Critical Thinking, Science and Conservatives

Mark's post on critical thinking got me to thinking about an article I read recently. It said that the vast majority of scientists surveyed were Democrats, independents or undecided. Only 6% of them were Republicans. The right, of course, latched on to this as evidence of political bias in science. But it really reflects the sort of personality that's attracted to science in the first place.

Science is all about observations and the hypotheses that explain them. As scientists collect more data the hypotheses are refined. The theories change and are often thrown out completely when they don't fit the facts. In science there's always the possibility that the ground will be pulled out from underneath you. It doesn't happen overnight, but it happens in every field of study. Every theory is temporary, subject to change. That doesn't mean the theories are wrong; they're just incomplete.

People on the right seem to crow about never having changed their minds, as if it were some kind of badge of honor. They want an answer now, and once they have it they will not allow it to change. Even if the underlying facts change, or were initially misapprehended. They don't seem to trust science because science doesn't provide them a dogmatic answer that will justify what they've already decided they want. They hate uncertainty because it breeds fear.

Sure, there are some conservatives in science. But the very definition of science involves learning new things, and new ideas will of necessity change the way we think. And that's anathema to most conservatives: for them everything must remain static and unchanging. The way it was must be conserved for eternity. Even though that golden age was much different from what the conservatives of that time longed for.

A more cynical person would say that conservatives just aren't smart enough to be scientists, or are too greedy to waste time getting a PhD or working in academia for peanuts. But for many fields of study there is too much conflict between matters of fact and religious or political beliefs.

The foundation of modern biology and zoology is the theory of evolution. It explains pretty much everything, from why embryos develop the way they do, to how infectious diseases mutate. So a career in biology is out of the question for someone who thinks that Noah collected pairs of wombats, dodos, jaguars, penguins, polar bears, awks, platypuses, orangutans, bison, lemurs and aurochs from all across the world, put them on a boat for six weeks then led them back to their places of origin.

Astronomy and cosmology are similarly taboo: the creation of the universe is an open question for astronomers. For someone who thinks the earth was created six thousand years ago geology is right out. As is anthropology and pretty much any of the social sciences.

But there are some conservatives in those fields. One is C. Martin Gaskell, a conservative astronomer who is suing the University of Kentucky for not hiring him because he publicly questions the validity of evolutionary theory and theorizes on how the bible relates to contemporary astronomy. I thought Republicans were against frivolous lawsuits? I mean, it's a simple business question for the University: what serious student of the sciences would consider attending an institution that hires a guy like that? Such a hire would cast a bad light on the whole university, especially considering that Kentucky houses the Creation Museum and is providing public funding for a Noah's ark park.

The really hard sciences -- physics, mathematics, chemistry, medicine -- would seem to harbor the most conservatives because they come into conflict with political beliefs only rarely. And they are clearly the most applicable to money-making opportunities.

But when hard science does conflict with conservative ideology -- especially when there are economic implications -- the science loses. A prime example is climatology. Some conservatives deny that it's happening. Other conservatives deny that we have anything to do with it. Others say the scientists are lying to make money. The remaining few conservatives who acknowledge the reality say that we'll just adapt.

Mainstream climatologists agree that we should adapt. The best way to adapt is to reduce carbon emissions and develop new energy technologies. The best time to adapt is now, while we have enough oil and gas to make the transition smoothly.

One of the most foolish things I ever heard George Bush utter was also the most illustrative of the conservative mindset. He said, "Do you want the terrorists to control the oil in 50 years?" In 50 years there's not going to be any more oil to for the terrorists to control. We will have burned it all. Or at least all of the Middle East's easily accessible oil.

When the oil is gone we will of necessity reduce our emissions and develop new energy sources. Why put that off to the time when competition for the little remaining oil will be bringing us to the brink of war with China, and we have total dependence on countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Russia and Venezuela for our oil?

An Actual Death Panel

On December 20, 2007, a 17 year old girl named Nataline Sarkisyan died after a three year struggle with leukemia. Cigna, the insurance company that covered her, refused to provide coverage for the liver transplant that she needed to live. They did, however, provide the same amount of money for an "Investor Day" meeting to announce their earnings just a few days before Nataline died.

Soon after that time, a gentlemen by the name of Wendell Potter, Cigna's VP of Corporate Communications, left Cigna after it became clear to him that the company wanted him to wage a spin campaign to make it look like they didn't essentially kill Nataline. He couldn't take it any more. And now he has book out about the entire experience. A book, incidentally, that answers (again) how private corporations harm people or, in this case, kill them.

Generally, there are two parts to the strategy. One is what they’re doing publicly, what you can see. The other is what they’re doing behind the scenes — working with PR firms like APCO and through the think tanks.

They approach this very strategically. It’s important to note that the committee that I was on for quite a while, the Strategic Communications Committee, they’ve been working on this for a long, long, time well before the elections were held in 2008. They see all these organizations as ways to communicate with public opinion.

Think tanks are particularly important because they have good connections. The Heritage Foundation, CATO, the American Enterprise Institute and the Galen Institute and a few others that issue reports and commentary and people from those organizations themselves have connections to the media, can get op-eds placed in the Wall Street Journal and other places.

Insurers also work through their PR firms with T.V. producers, in particular, the conservative talk shows like Fox. They see that as a very very important place to go to get their point of view across and the producers are probably on speed dial.

Insurers also worked for a long, long, time, as I did when I was with Cigna, to develop relationships with reporters in the mainstream media. I certainly had very good relationships with reporters from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today.

It's as simple as that, folks. Even easier when the place you start from is having a large group of people that have a pathological distrust of government to help you along. So it becomes the government that has the death panels, they say, not them, knowing full well that they are the actual death panel and the government could stand in their way by actually enforcing the law. And just like that, a family who has paid their premiums and expected coverage watches a loved one die. Worse, the family is at fault, not the insurance company, and blaming the victim is the icing on the cake.

I'm trying to imagine what kind of people think it's alright to spend a quarter of million dollars on a party as opposed to saving a person's life. It makes me sick to think about it but that's our society today...driven by insatiable greed and supported by anti government fervor that enables it.

Critical Thinking

The topic of critical thinking has come up again in comments. It was born out of discussion (the latest in a series) which can best be described as MARK IS WRONG BECAUSE HE IS _______. This very tedious tactic has been going on for quite some time and it makes me wonder just how insecure some of my posters are in their ideology and beliefs. I mean, I am wrong from time to time, but how does that mean that they are right? Such a black and white world they live in....

The insta-contrarians in comments latest volley is that I am illogical therefore I am wrong. Well, folks, I am not Spock. Logic should be employed as part of an eclectic approach to analyzing the issues we talk about on here but it shouldn't be used as the sole tool in the tool kit. A link regarding critical thinking was provided to dispute this assertion.

Interestingly, the link provided by one of these ICs (insta-contrarians) had this to say about critical thinking.

The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal.

First, I agree completely with this statement. This is the framework I use to instruct young people. Second, this is an ideal and it would be very difficult to achieve it in one's lifetime. I know that I fall short of this ideal. We all do.

But I think I can say without much doubt that the ICs in comments come nowhere near this on nearly every issue. The only time they do is when I say something with which they agree. Surprise, surprise. We are on the same side of the argument so they win!

Want some examples?

1. I have yet to see any honesty in facing personal biases from the ICs. I have admitted several times on here that I have a horrible bias against Muslims.

2. I have yet to see any sort of flexibility regarding liberal and progressive policies from the ICs. They are all bad. I have stated many times on here that Reagan did many things he had to do given the context of his time and that he was right to do them. I've admitted that the Laffer curve works in countries with high tax rates and, possibly, with corporate taxes. It also works on a micro level.

3. I have yet to see any open minded analysis of climate change from the ICs. They are all warmists! I, however, have stated many times that I'd like to see more data but that the methods used in support of climate change are sound. This was recently confirmed by THREE independent panels (see: peer review).

If you ICs are the critical thinkers that you claim to be, demonstrate to me how you live by this definition above. If you reject the definition, that's fine. Why?

No doubt this will solve nothing and we'll quickly be back to personal insults and more "logic" based thinking.

Best Of 2010

It's that time of the year again, folks. What stands out as the best TV show, film, track and album of 2010? Here are my choices.

BEST TV SHOW.

Not even a fucking contest. The last episode was so unbelievably stunning that its implications

go far beyond simple entertainment. ABC's Lost explored philosophy, religion, human nature, sociology, time travel and alternate universes. The view on the afterlife was so beautiful and eloquently loving that I'm not ashamed to admit that I was moved to tears. Much of the reason for this, of course, has to do with the similarities between the Jack/Christian relationship and the one I had with my own father.

There's so much more to this show that I loved. The acting was impeccable. The production value was top notch through all six seasons. The writing was stellar. There will never be another show like this one. Go buy the complete series immediately.

BEST FILM (S)

Completely torn on this one. I have to say that this year it is a tie. The fun part of me that enjoys comic books and HK action films completely loved Kick Ass. What if someone became a super hero in real life? Forget about all the cliches...this is very real life. Well, mostly. The gun battle in the hallway at the end was completely unrealistic but still...

Solid entertainment along with beaucoup armaments. The character of Hit Girl (and the actress that plays her) alone are worth at least 2 viewings.

But then there is the part of me (seen most on this blog) that thinks that Inside Job should be seen by every single American followed by a broad and determined movement to change the way our country operates. Both films are fantastic in their own way and I really can't make a decision so I choose both.

BEST TRACK

I've always been a sucker for psychedelic pop. "1000 Years" by The Coral is a perfect example of this. Taken from their latest LP, The Butterfly House, "1000 Years" is pure bliss in under 3 minutes from this underappreciated band from Hoylake, Merseyside.

Honestly, the whole disc is worth it and was in serious contention for Best Album. That honor, however, fell to one of my old favorites.

BEST ALBUM

Tom has provided the soundtrack to over 30 years of my life. I saw his video for “Refugee” before MTV had even launched. I love all of his records but Mojo is massively good. I played it nearly every day this summer and was magically connected to all summers past in which, not surprisingly, I was listening to Tom Petty.

This would be one of those glimpses back to the 70s I yearn for on a daily basis…courtesy of the man who gave us many a great tune during the time. Take this line from the track "Let Yourself Go": “Got a blond headed woman that likes to come around…cute little hippy girl lives in town…brings a bag of records and she plays ‘em ’til dawn…give me little lovin’ then she got to go home.” I yearn to live in that world again…

So, how about you? What were your picks for 2010?

It's the Boards, Stupid (5 of 20)

We hear a lot of people whine about excessive executive pay. The reason why this is the case is because of the boards of various private concerns. Stockholders can bitch and whine all they want but the boards make the decisions and if they want to pay someone like Bill MacGuire half a billion dollars even though he back dated stocks...well...there's little anyone can do.

And if an already neutered government is run by men and women too timid to actually regulate private business for fear of being labelled a socialist, we are going to continue to see salaries that completely ridiculous.

In addition, Steverman astutely points out that the very wealthy in this country further consolidate their power by sitting on boards of other companies. If you are a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett that's not such a bad thing given their stated goals and actions towards social justice. But not everyone is Gates or Buffett. Many are like MacGuire above. Their only interest is money and power.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Happy Birthday, Jesus! When you return, please pay no attention to the several million people in this country who have mistaken you for a Muslim with your dark hair, dark skin, Middle Eastern looks, and robe. They were expecting a dude who looked like a member of the Lynard Skynnard Band. In other words, a WHITE dude.

Probably best not to hang out with the poor, the sick, the meek or the peacemakers either. Before you know it, you'll be branded a social justice lover who wants to redistribute wealth and (gasp!) take away Joe Cassano's second vacation home. Yeah, I know he got that house from breaking the 8th commandment but those millions of folks who would get nervous if you were on a plane with them think that you said, "Go forth and worship the unregulated derivative."

Take heart, though, my Lord and savior. We are only human, after all, and maybe someday everyone down here will actually read and understand your words.

And understand the meaning of your birth.

Perfect Reading for Christmas Eve

"All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street..." --------Dylan Thomas, "A Child's Christmas in Wales."

For the entire text, click here.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Luck and Who You Know (3 and 4 of 20)

Many of the comments over the years on here have always made me chuckle. One stock line I hear quite a bit is "if you work really hard, you can make it!" or "successful people work really hard." The former is largely false and the latter is true in some cases but not all.

I was reminded recently in comments of my life in corporate America in the 1990s doing sales and marketing. Hard work never got us anywhere. It sort of reminds me of the teachers who tell students to "just try harder!" This has never made any sense to me. You can push harder or pull harder but try harder? No. Trying involves patience and dedication but not effort as we have conventionally thought about it. Not "harder."

Both of the companies I worked for won clients as a result of two things. The first was just luck. I would happen across some bit of information (mostly on accident) and we'd have a new client. The second was who I knew...which was a lot of people. We built a lot of business from networking which brings us to numbers 3 and 4 of the Secret Weapons of the Super Rich: Executive Perks and Networking.

Senior executives at large companies typically receive not just a salary but bonuses, grants of stock, and stock options. They may have the ability to defer some of their compensation until future years, which can help with tax planning.Corporate leaders may also get help with tax preparation, along with free medical care and valuable insurance benefits.

We've talked about this one before. One very clear advantage the wealthy have over everyone else is they are able to structure how they are paid so they pay less in tax. This is why you never hear any talk of flat taxes any longer--something I would be in favor of today. The wealthy would end up paying more than they do now if there was a flat tax. The wealthy also enjoy the advantages of being able to hire accountants and lawyers--something your average Joe can't do. I had many clients who would regale me with stories of how they were going to save money while passing it on to their customer.

The topic for discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January is "shared norms for the new reality." Sound sleepy? For most of the rich and powerful in attendance, the real payoff is an opportunity to network with other rich and powerful individuals.

Sounds great, right? But honestly this new reality is simply adjusting the market to sell more to each other as opposed to the vanishing middle class. I can only imagine the tittering and guffawing that goes on Bill Clinton shows up at this event (as he has in the past) and talks about the engine of the middle class.

I guess I'm laughing as well because this is how we got our business back in the 1990s: networking. There was no hard work at all involved...just my very social personality. We got new business because of the people that I knew who trusted me. We lost business because we weren't in the "club." This was more true of the first company I worked at as opposed to the second. The first was run by two guys who were just terrible with clients. We pitched to every major company in town and we only were chosen from 2 of them. And that was to do smaller, less paying work.

Later, when I and two others split off from the first company we did better but we still weren't in the right networks and it was very clear we never would be. This is why I also laugh at people who think that small business is being fucked over by the government. Small business is being fucked over by the in crowd. They don't want small businesses to succeed, on the whole, because it leaves less money for them. Greed really kicked into high gear in the 1990s culminating in the nuclear level we have today.

They are able to do this because they are very strict about who they let into the club. It ain't Joe the Plumber, that's for sure. And yet he (and countless others) blame the government and President Obama who actually gave them tax breaks. Why is this?

Because their love of the dream (working harder and then making it) is too powerful to ignore. Like many other myths, they simply believe.

Semper Fi!

The other day someone used the term "warmists" in comments. I had never heard this term before but apparently it refers to people who have succumbed to "climate change hysteria." They refuse to accept the "truth." You know the "truth" I am talking about, right? The one Thomas Friedman astutely defines as "a fraudulent, anti-science campaign funded largely by Big Oil and Big Coal." Those silly warmists....how can they not see the facts? Well, guess who else doesn't see the truth and the facts.

The United States Marine Corps.

Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy, has directed both the Marines and the Navy in strategies that will "out green" Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and petrol dictators like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Apparently, going green is going to save the lives of our troops.

Fewer fuel convoys in theater can mean saving the lives of soldiers, said Katherine Hammack, the new assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment. Last week -- at the start of October's energy awareness observance -- the word "energy" was added to the name of that office. It's a reflection of the Army's new focus on energy.

There was one casualty for every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan in fiscal year 2007, according to a 2009 Department of the Army study.

Maybe there are other reasons to go green. Huh. I guess the hysteria over the "warmists" must have overlooked this fact. The article also details how the military is going to figure out ways to use less energy. One way is going to be solar power and more energy efficient buildings. All of this translates into better security for the troops.

The Navy is also up to some pretty cool shit as well. They've recently tested a biofueled Green Hornet (50 percent conventional fuel and 50 percent camelina, a hard plant that can grow in difficult soil) that flew above Mach 1, a critical threshold to clear the jet for operations. The Navy has also launched the USS Malkin Island, an amphibious assault ship powered by a hybrid engine. They also have the RCB-X combat boat which runs on 50 percent algae.

"Going green is about combat capability and assuring Navy's mobility," said Rear Adm. Philip Cullom, director of the Chief of Naval Operations Energy and Environmental Readiness Division, which leads the Navy's Task Force Energy. "It is not just about natural security; it also strengthens national security. By having reliable and abundant alternate sources of energy, we will no longer be held hostage by any one source of energy, such as petroleum."

No shit. Thankfully, there are people out there that are actually THINKING about the myriad of positive outcomes from green technology as opposed to being obsessed with winning arguments and not being wrong. It's important to also note that camelina and algae are biofuels that don't compete with ethanol (a food related biofuel).

All of this is part of Secretary Mabus' overall plan to increase security, reduce costs, and make our military more efficient by having a "Great Green Fleet."

We are moving towards alternative fuels in the Navy and the Marine Corps for one main

reason, and that is to make us better fighters. Strategically we have got to break the

dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels. We would not let countries that deliver our

energy today build our warships, we would not let them build our weapon systems, we would not let them be responsible for our defense and yet we’re willing to let them power those same warships, those same airplanes, those same weapon systems.

So strategically there’s a compelling case to be made for changing the way we get and the way we use energy. Tactically you can make the same case, every time you cut a ship away from an oiler, every time you produce the energy where you are you’ve made us better war fighters.

Semper Fi!

Well...are you?

Are you smarter than a Fox News viewer? How about a CNN viewer? Take our quiz to find out.

Please publish your results in comments below. I was wrong on one of them.

Oh, and there are plenty of facts to back up each question. Have fun with those:)

Shh (2 of 20)

Continuing on with examples of how the wealthy in this country have more advantages to grow their worth and attain more power, we have the hedge fund.

Hedge funds, which are also restricted to accredited investors, use a variety of often complex strategies, such as high-tech, proprietary trading platforms that buy and sell stocks in milliseconds. There were more than 8,000 hedge funds at the end of 2009, according to Hedge Fund Research.

John Merrill, chief investment officer of Tanglewood Wealth Management in Houston, says less than 25 hedge fund managers have stellar long-term records that make them worth often hefty fees, which can be 2 percent of the portfolio every year plus 20 percent of any profits. For regular investors it can be a challenge to even identify the most successful funds, which can be secretive about their track records, he adds.

Something else to note as well. Hedge funds are not obligated to disclose their activities to third parties. In addition to being very under regulated, hedge fund disclosure is not available to the non investor. Even to investors, they have very limited transparency and this is how someone like Madoff was able to run (an actual as opposed to make believe) Ponzi Scheme.

So, hedge funds are another example of something that is offered only to the very wealthy which further cements their ability to maintain power over the rest of us.

Get Ready

I recently completed the magnificent Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I highly recommend this wonderful series of books if you have not read them. In the last book, King through out a line that I will be using in great frequency starting today so get ready.

One of the characters in the book is describing in detail to the series' heroes how a town's residents (the morks) function and how their minders (the Algul staff) rule them. These residents are doing great harm to the universe and Roland, Eddie, Jake, Susannah and Oy (the heroes) are learning about them so they can attack the town and stop them.

Most morks are selfish introverts masquerading as rugged individualists-they want the world to see them as Daniel Boone types-and the Algul staff loves it, believe me. No community is easier to govern than one that rejects the very concept of community.

Now I finally get it and some of you. Fucking mega!

Christmas For Me! (1 of 20)

I guess I must've been nice as opposed to naughty because Santa has given me a very large present in the form of this year in the form of Ben Steverman's article/power point presentation over at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Each section details exactly how the wealthy of this country have far more advantages than the rest of us and have set up a system to not only keep it that way but to net them more money and, with it, more power. Since this has been the overall and ongoing argument in comments for the last year or more, I thought it would be cool to showcase his 20 points and see if I can make any sort of headway through the 1,000 feet of rock granite minds that make up some of my regular readers. Let's dive in and take a look at his first point.

Under U.S. law, certain investment products are only available to accredited investors, who must have a household net worth of $1 million or more. A key advantage of many of these so-called "alternative investments" is that, at least in theory, they help diversify a portfolio because they don't move in lockstep with traditional stock and bond investments, and so help balance out returns. Alternative investments include venture capital funds, private equity funds, direct investments in commodities such as timber, and stakes in private companies.

Available only to accredited investors...hmmm...but I thought that the market was free and we all had the same choices as everyone else? Apparently, we don't.

Of course, I'm certain that many of you will look at the first three words and leap into the usual GUBMINT BAD rhetoric but I'm hoping that you are smart enough to operate on the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy and figure out why and how this law exists the way that it does.

Here's to hoping!

Voices in his Head?

I get a a lot of grief in comments for arguing with the voices (conservatives) in my head. I have a post coming soon that addresses these comments. For now, though, and because it's Sunday, check out this video.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

I wonder if Stephen Colbert has voices in his head as well.

More importantly, a goal of mine has finally been achieved: "Jesus would've probably been a liberal Democrat." I've toyed with the idea of saying this but after some thought realized He wouldn't be either a Democrat or a Republican.

But the simple fact that Bernie Goldberg said it on Fox News pretty much makes my day. Recognizing the contradiction in the way Christ lived his life and the obsession the right has with the free market is the first step in realizing that being a Christian, as defined by Christ's words, and being a conservative (libertarian, evangelical or otherwise) today are mutually exclusive.

Victory

The Senate just voted to repeal DADT, 65-31. I don't see many victories these days but this is certainly one of them. A couple of weeks ago I didn't think it would happen. But here we are.

I'd like to issue a special note of honor to Sens. Scott Brown, R-Mass.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; George Voinovich, R-Ohio; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both R-Maine for putting the vote over 60. I don't care if you have a "D" or "R" next to your name. When you do the right thing, you get credit from me. Well done, Senators.

This would be one of those days when I am super fucking proud to be an American!

Seriously?

As I was scrolling through my news feed on FaceBook the other day, I saw that one of my very conservative friends (also an evangelical minister) had "liked" The American Principles Project.

I went and checked out the site expecting the usual. I certainly got that but right up front I saw something that was such a fine example of monumental hypocrisy that I, of course, had to share with all of you.

On the first page, we get their mission statement, which reads as follows.

The American Principles Project is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving and propagating the fundamental principles on which our country was founded - universal principles, embracing the notion that we are all, "created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

At first glance, I think we would all agree with this. But take a look at the first article in their news feed.

A response to a response - The Argument Against Gay Marriage: And Why it Doesn’t Fail

Are you fucking kidding me? We are all created equal...have unalienable rights...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness....UNLESS YOU ARE GAY IN WHICH CASE FUCK OFF!!!

What a load of hypocritical bullshit on a myriad of levels. If they actually believed their mission statement (the Declaration of Independence), they would embrace gay marriage. More troubling, and this is glaringly true of many conservatives these days, is their insistence that the Constitution limits government....except when it comes to things like gay marriage. Then its OK for the federal government to dictate what people do in their private lives.

The ONLY reason why homosexuality is considered a sin is because at the time the Bible was written, Romans were buggering little boys. That is a sin. In fact, it's a criminal act that has somehow translated over the centuries to mean that being gay is a criminal act. But back in those days, there were no Neils and Steves adopting little children from Haiti and operating their little B and B. Our culture has changed...our society has moved...homosexuality isn't a crime, folks.

I don't get it. Why are people so concerned about gay marriage? What do they think is going to happen when it becomes legal?. It's been illegal in most states for the history of our country and the heterosexuals certainly haven't improved it. In fact, it's worse now then it's ever been with the divorce rate being so high.

I don't care if they don't like gay people. That's their right. But to be such a hypocrite about the Constitution. Is it all about fear...AGAIN...with these people?

What I feel like every day in discussions on this blog. Bloody brilliant!

Sweet Site

Just found Michael Laser's site, news-basics.com and I love it. We see a lot more of these popping up in this day and age of biased media. Want to know the basics with some nice detail about Iran? Click on the link on the left hand side of his page. And if you absolutely have to have opinions, he offers links on all sides.

He also has a pretty cool link called Liberal vs. Conservative Values. Like Michael, I found myself laughing at the fact that I agree with some of the simplified polar opposites. For example,

On the social safety net

The liberal view

• There are people in this world who need help. They struggle to put food on the table, or can’t afford medical care—and many of them live in the United States. A civilized society would try to help them, instead of leaving them to fend for themselves. (Someday, the one who needs a helping hand may be you, or someone you love. All it takes is a serious illness, an injury, a lay-off, or a death in the family.)

The conservative view

• People are responsible for themselves—and, given the chance, they’re capable of supporting themselves and their families. If the government makes a practice of providing for people (with welfare, for example), they become weak and dependent, and lose their will to work. Nothing could be more destructive to the health of our society.

I agree with both and do not think they are mutually exclusive. Why do many of you think they are?