Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Maher on the Bubble
This is the bubble they live in. It's hard to get actual facts into this impermeable membrane. They are running against a fictional president. A president who has slashed defense, who has raised taxes, who goes around the world apologizing to different countries, who coddles terrorists, all of which, of course, never happened. But that's who they think the president is. And it's very, very hard. That's why we have this bubble we built on this show to physically illustrate this.---Bill Maher on "The Bubble."
Monday, February 27, 2012
It's Not Just Fox News
I'd add in the Right Wing Blogsphere as well. In fact, it's really more appropriate for them:)
Interesting....
The Keystone Fight Is Uniting Tea Partiers With Environmentalists.
I knew it was only a matter of time before there was some crossover. It makes sense when you really sit back and think about how one could make a case for the government failing to protect property rights.
I knew it was only a matter of time before there was some crossover. It makes sense when you really sit back and think about how one could make a case for the government failing to protect property rights.
Uh...Huh?
Some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them? Into what exactly? Someone who can think for themselves? Good grief...
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday's Epistle
Social issues have once again come up in the political dialogue and with many states taking up the issue of gay marriage now and in the fall, Lisa Cressman's recent piece in the StarTribune is quite timely. More than that, it's wonderfully welcome in its elegant way of expressing several simple truths. And, coming from an assistant priest at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Lake Elmo, MN, it carries with it a great deal more weight.
Gay marriage opponents had put up a questionnaire titled ""Six questions for supporters of same-sex marriage to answer" and so, Cressman did. I have decided to reprint her entire response here as it is just that good.
1. Were our ancestors all dumb and bigoted?
Our ancestors knew many truths, but not all. A common example of what our ancestors held to be self-evident, biblically sanctioned truth, which we now hold in abhorrence, is slavery. It's appropriate to ask ourselves whether a particular societal tradition is the best way for us to continue.
If the Bible condoned slavery, doesn't that mean that the authors may have not been completely accurate about everything?
2. Don't our sexual organs exist for reproduction?
Reproduction is one of their purposes, but so is intimacy. If our sexual organs existed solely for reproduction, couples would have sex only at the times necessary for procreation. Moreover, if this were the case, physical fulfillment in marriage wouldn't be enjoyed by couples who cannot have children (for medical reasons or by virtue of advanced age) or who choose not to do so.
3. Do we just give in to our sexual desires?
Our sexual desires have been channeled through the worthy tradition that people choose one mate and make a promise of fidelity through marriage. A mutual, joyful and public commitment, permanently held, one to another, is the healthiest way to build stable families and a stable society. This would argue for encouraging members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community likewise to make a commitment of marriage as the appropriate avenue for their sexuality.
4. Adultery, pedophilia and bestiality are wrong. So homosexuality?
Adultery is a problem because of the trust shattered when marriage vows are broken. Pedophilia and bestiality are anathema because there cannot be mutual consent -- an adult always holds power over a child or an animal. Homosexual commitment is mutual between consenting adults.
Consenting adults is the key here. You don't have that with children, animals or inanimate objects.
5. Changes in norms require universal acceptance. Prevalent homosexuality will not work.
Many changes in our country have taken place without universal acceptance. Indeed, many laws in our country were designed to protect the very people who do not receive universal acceptance. As to prevalent homosexuality, the long-held estimate is that roughly 10 percent of the population is homosexual. No law has the ability to increase or decrease those numbers.
Civil rights, anyone?
Now the best one...
6. The religious question: Shouldn't we be trying to encourage others to repent of a wrong?
The assumption is that homosexuality is wrong. Assumptions are fair to question, even religious ones. We understand now, in a way our biblical ancestors could not, that medically and psychologically, homosexuals are born, not made. Would a loving God deliberately create someone who is fundamentally a mistake?
This is the very essence of the debate. Gay people don't learn to be gay or give in to their "sinful desires." They are born that way. That's how God made them.
If it's a question about "love the sinner but hate the sin," the way we discern whether something is, in fact, sinful, is to look at its consequences. The consequences that result from committed homosexual relationships are as positive as they are for committed heterosexual relationships: stable, tax-paying, caring-for-one-another-through-thick-and-thin families. These are the kinds of consequences that benefit all of society.
This brings up an issue that I have never understood. If the anti-gay crowd thinks homosexuals are engaging in deviant behavior, why are they against them trying to change that into something much more healthy? Like a marriage?
Personally, I think it's because the anti-gays are (surprise surprise) paranoid that accepting homosexuals will push they themselves over the edge into sin. You know how those folks love to have people all thinking the same way (due to massive insecurity).
Marriage matters to the GLBT among us as much as it does to the rest of us. Surrounded by family and friends, to make a promise to cherish that one other person until parted by death, matters.
This is a big change, surely. I am persuaded, however, that change based on a commitment, a lifelong commitment of mutual joy, will benefit us all.
It's obvious that those benefits are quickly becoming economical:)
Gay hair stylist drops New Mexico governor as client because she opposes same-sex marriage
Man, I love the free market!
Gay marriage opponents had put up a questionnaire titled ""Six questions for supporters of same-sex marriage to answer" and so, Cressman did. I have decided to reprint her entire response here as it is just that good.
1. Were our ancestors all dumb and bigoted?
Our ancestors knew many truths, but not all. A common example of what our ancestors held to be self-evident, biblically sanctioned truth, which we now hold in abhorrence, is slavery. It's appropriate to ask ourselves whether a particular societal tradition is the best way for us to continue.
If the Bible condoned slavery, doesn't that mean that the authors may have not been completely accurate about everything?
2. Don't our sexual organs exist for reproduction?
Reproduction is one of their purposes, but so is intimacy. If our sexual organs existed solely for reproduction, couples would have sex only at the times necessary for procreation. Moreover, if this were the case, physical fulfillment in marriage wouldn't be enjoyed by couples who cannot have children (for medical reasons or by virtue of advanced age) or who choose not to do so.
3. Do we just give in to our sexual desires?
Our sexual desires have been channeled through the worthy tradition that people choose one mate and make a promise of fidelity through marriage. A mutual, joyful and public commitment, permanently held, one to another, is the healthiest way to build stable families and a stable society. This would argue for encouraging members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community likewise to make a commitment of marriage as the appropriate avenue for their sexuality.
4. Adultery, pedophilia and bestiality are wrong. So homosexuality?
Adultery is a problem because of the trust shattered when marriage vows are broken. Pedophilia and bestiality are anathema because there cannot be mutual consent -- an adult always holds power over a child or an animal. Homosexual commitment is mutual between consenting adults.
Consenting adults is the key here. You don't have that with children, animals or inanimate objects.
5. Changes in norms require universal acceptance. Prevalent homosexuality will not work.
Many changes in our country have taken place without universal acceptance. Indeed, many laws in our country were designed to protect the very people who do not receive universal acceptance. As to prevalent homosexuality, the long-held estimate is that roughly 10 percent of the population is homosexual. No law has the ability to increase or decrease those numbers.
Civil rights, anyone?
Now the best one...
6. The religious question: Shouldn't we be trying to encourage others to repent of a wrong?
The assumption is that homosexuality is wrong. Assumptions are fair to question, even religious ones. We understand now, in a way our biblical ancestors could not, that medically and psychologically, homosexuals are born, not made. Would a loving God deliberately create someone who is fundamentally a mistake?
This is the very essence of the debate. Gay people don't learn to be gay or give in to their "sinful desires." They are born that way. That's how God made them.
If it's a question about "love the sinner but hate the sin," the way we discern whether something is, in fact, sinful, is to look at its consequences. The consequences that result from committed homosexual relationships are as positive as they are for committed heterosexual relationships: stable, tax-paying, caring-for-one-another-through-thick-and-thin families. These are the kinds of consequences that benefit all of society.
This brings up an issue that I have never understood. If the anti-gay crowd thinks homosexuals are engaging in deviant behavior, why are they against them trying to change that into something much more healthy? Like a marriage?
Personally, I think it's because the anti-gays are (surprise surprise) paranoid that accepting homosexuals will push they themselves over the edge into sin. You know how those folks love to have people all thinking the same way (due to massive insecurity).
Marriage matters to the GLBT among us as much as it does to the rest of us. Surrounded by family and friends, to make a promise to cherish that one other person until parted by death, matters.
This is a big change, surely. I am persuaded, however, that change based on a commitment, a lifelong commitment of mutual joy, will benefit us all.
It's obvious that those benefits are quickly becoming economical:)
Gay hair stylist drops New Mexico governor as client because she opposes same-sex marriage
Man, I love the free market!
Saturday, February 25, 2012
If You Are Really Concerned About The Debt and The Deficit...
...then the person you should be supporting is Ron Paul. After that, it's Barack Obama.
A recent report by the non partisan U.S. Budget Watch, a project of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, showed that Mr. Paul's plan would only add less than 500 billion dollars to the deficit by the end of 2016. President Obama would add just a little more than that with 649 billion.
Yet, Mitt Romney would add 700-800 billion dollars to the deficit with 2.6 trillion added to the debt by 2012. Rick Santorum would add over 1 trillion dollars to the deficit by the end of 2016 with the debt rising to 4.5 trillion dollars by 2021. The worst offender, Newt Gingrich, would add 1.5 trillion to the deficit with a whopping 7 trillion dollars added to the debt by 2021.
So, why so much under the plans of the GOP hopefuls? Tax cuts. Well, they worked so well before...
Now that I think about it, they did work. The tax cuts have enabled the right to blame President Obama for all our economic problems.
A recent report by the non partisan U.S. Budget Watch, a project of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, showed that Mr. Paul's plan would only add less than 500 billion dollars to the deficit by the end of 2016. President Obama would add just a little more than that with 649 billion.
Yet, Mitt Romney would add 700-800 billion dollars to the deficit with 2.6 trillion added to the debt by 2012. Rick Santorum would add over 1 trillion dollars to the deficit by the end of 2016 with the debt rising to 4.5 trillion dollars by 2021. The worst offender, Newt Gingrich, would add 1.5 trillion to the deficit with a whopping 7 trillion dollars added to the debt by 2021.
So, why so much under the plans of the GOP hopefuls? Tax cuts. Well, they worked so well before...
Now that I think about it, they did work. The tax cuts have enabled the right to blame President Obama for all our economic problems.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Have All the Wrongs Been Righted?
Recently the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on affirmative action at the University of Texas. The legalistic argument usually made against affirmative action is that racial preferences are bad no matter what, even if they exist to right historical wrongs.
But when you dig a little deeper, the general sentiment of many who oppose affirmative action is actually, "Get over it! Slavery ended almost 150 years ago. How long are you going to make us feel guilty for what our great-great-grandfathers did?"
But the surprising fact is that slavery did not really end until 1941! The Thirteenth amendment abolished it, but left an exception for punishment, which was widely abused in the South until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At which point Roosevelt ordered a crackdown to avoid a propaganda attack by the Axis. The Thirteenth Amendment states:
But when you dig a little deeper, the general sentiment of many who oppose affirmative action is actually, "Get over it! Slavery ended almost 150 years ago. How long are you going to make us feel guilty for what our great-great-grandfathers did?"
But the surprising fact is that slavery did not really end until 1941! The Thirteenth amendment abolished it, but left an exception for punishment, which was widely abused in the South until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At which point Roosevelt ordered a crackdown to avoid a propaganda attack by the Axis. The Thirteenth Amendment states:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Everyone knows about chain gangs and share-croppers in the South, which were effectively slave labor. But after Reconstruction whites in the South used the Constitutional exception to falsely imprison millions of blacks and force them into slavery in industries such as logging, manufacturing, construction and mining.
This practice, known as convict leasing, is the subject of a PBS documentary called Slavery by Another Name. It's based on a book by The Wall Street Journal's Atlanta bureau chief Douglas Blackmon. Blackmon, a white southerner, wrote an article in 2001 about how many companies, including U.S. Steel, used convict leasing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He expanded his research into a book in 2008.
It worked like this: whites passed laws against vagrancy, loitering, gambling, spitting and so on. They also turned lesser crimes, such as stealing a pig worth one dollar, into felonies. Blacks were stopped on the street and if they couldn't prove they were employed, they were arrested on the spot. The state then sold the labor of prisoners, the vast majority of them black, to companies for a few dollars a month. The slave economy was back in full force, just in time to create an economic boom in the South as the industrial revolution hit.
Convict leasing was in some ways worse than slavery. It's in the best interests of slave owners to avoid abusing slaves because they have a lot of economic value: a slave can labor for decades. But convicts were leased by the month. If one died you just got another one. Many convicts were forced to work for 16 and 20 hours at a stretch at filthy, dark, cold, and wet jobs at coal mines, lumber camps and railroad lines. Overwork and mistreatment killed them by the thousands.
Another common practice in the South was peonage, or indentured servitude, where people were enslaved to work off debts. This practice was common in Mexico and supposed to be illegal in the United States. But in the South it was common for debtors to be forced to sign contracts to provide labor. Even worse, there were cases where law enforcement would round up blacks, claim they owed them money, get a justice of the peace to falsely "legalize" the claim, force them to sign a "contract," and then force them into slavery for money they never owed.
In one famous case in the early 1900s the U.S. government convicted the leader of one of these gangs, John W. Pace, of peonage. On appeal Pace claimed he was innocent because the people he enslaved didn't really owe him money, so he couldn't be guilty of peonage. And since there was no actual law against slavery—Congress didn't think to pass one since it was a Constitutional amendment—Pace's lawyers said he'd done nothing illegal. Teddy Roosevelt later pardoned Pace who went back to using peons.
Now, blacks weren't the only victims of these outrageous crimes, through they were in the vast majority. In 1923 a North Dakotan named Martin Tabert was arrested in Florida for vagrancy by Sheriff J.R. Jones. Jones had a contract with Putnam Lumber: he received $20 (plus expenses) for each prisoner he turned over to the company. Tabert had pleaded guilty to riding a freight train through Tallahassee, and was sentenced to pay $25 or serve three months of hard labor. He didn't have the money and was sent to the prison camp, where they worked him from 4 AM to 6 PM. One Friday Tabert was whipped 100 lashes for failing to keep up with the other prisoners as they marched back and forth to a swamp where they often worked in hip-deep water. He died four days later. Perhaps the worst thing is that Tabert's parents had wired their son some money but, as Sheriff Jones wrote in a letter, "it was sent in his name—I therefore returned it."
This sort of thing happened every day to blacks. But only when convict leasing killed a white man from North Dakota did it draw the attention of the New York Times (the full story is behind a paywall at the Times), and things start to change.
Perhaps the most vile aspect of this whole sorry episode in American history is the corrosive effect convict leasing had on the general impression of blacks. The PBS program points out that before the Civil War blacks were perceived as loyal and hard-working (as they are portrayed in movies about the era). Afterwards, subjected to massive unemployment and false arrest on trumped-up charges, they came to be viewed as lazy and criminal. Which makes me ask: was the pattern of absentee black fathers that society has decried for the past 50 years set in place when young black husbands were abducted off the streets by white sheriffs and sent off to slave labor camps?
There are Americans still alive today who were once enslaved by our justice system. There are Americans still alive today who were systematically prevented by their government from voting and using the same lunch counters, restrooms, buses, classrooms and drinking fountains as the rest of us. And there are Americans still alive today whose fathers and husbands were systematically murdered by their white neighbors while law enforcement participated or stood by and watched. Hell, these lynchings have occurred in my lifetime.
That means there are Americans still alive today who perpetrated those crimes. Can we really say all wrongs have been righted when there are still Americans alive today who feel those crimes were justified?
Barack Obama's Army Of Gun Grabbing Robots
Remember when all those people ran out to buy guns and ammo when President Obama got elected because they were afraid he would take away their guns?
Yeah, that never happened.
But at least the guns and ammo places weren't hurt too much by the recession. I wonder if they will thank the president....
Moreover, my own home state legislature just voted to give the use of deadly force anywhere the thumbs up. This is one of many examples in which the president has largely left the issue of gun rights up to the states. The results of this hands off policy has seen a great loosening of gun laws that honestly haven't been seen in decades. So you think they would be happy, right?
Nope.
They say that President Obama is a Muslim, but if he isn’t, he’s a secularist who is waging war on religion. On some days he’s a Nazi, but on most others he’s merely a socialist. His especially creative opponents see him as having a “Kenyan anti-colonial worldview,” while the less adventurous say that he’s an elitist who spent too much time in Cambridge, Hyde Park and other excessively academic precincts.
Yeah...which is it again? I can't keep track.
Whatever our president is, he is never allowed to be a garden-variety American who plays basketball and golf, has a remarkably old-fashioned family life and, in the manner we regularly recommend to our kids, got ahead by getting a good education.
Isn't he a model that we should point to and say to our kids, "Hey, be like this guy?" After all, he fulfills the checklist of the base in terms of family values and working hard to get himself ahead. In so many ways, he is illustrative of the opportunity that comes with this great country. And yet, they shit all over him.
It’s simply astonishing that a man in his fourth year as our president continues to be the object of the most extraordinary paranoid fantasies. A significant part of his opposition still cannot accept that Obama is a rather moderate politician quite conventional in his tastes and his interests. And now that the economy is improving, short-circuiting easy criticisms, Obama’s adversaries are reheating all the old tropes and cliches and slanders.
That's my favorite bit of the whole piece. It's so fucking accurate. And so fucking sad. It's likely that the rest of this election year is going to see them descend into deeper and heretofore unfathomable paranoia.
But there is something especially rancid about the never-ending efforts to turn Obama into a stranger, an alien, a Manchurian Candidate with a diabolical hidden agenda. Are we trying to undo all the good it did us with the rest of the world when we elected an African American with a middle name popular among Muslims?
Yes. Yes, they are. Why? Because THEY LOST THE ARGUMENT AND ARE CHILDISH.
It makes me wonder what will happen if the president wins a second term. I honestly wouldn't be surprised they started saying that the president is building an army of killer robots that are going to take away their guns.
Yeah, that never happened.
But at least the guns and ammo places weren't hurt too much by the recession. I wonder if they will thank the president....
Moreover, my own home state legislature just voted to give the use of deadly force anywhere the thumbs up. This is one of many examples in which the president has largely left the issue of gun rights up to the states. The results of this hands off policy has seen a great loosening of gun laws that honestly haven't been seen in decades. So you think they would be happy, right?
Nope.
They say that President Obama is a Muslim, but if he isn’t, he’s a secularist who is waging war on religion. On some days he’s a Nazi, but on most others he’s merely a socialist. His especially creative opponents see him as having a “Kenyan anti-colonial worldview,” while the less adventurous say that he’s an elitist who spent too much time in Cambridge, Hyde Park and other excessively academic precincts.
Yeah...which is it again? I can't keep track.
Whatever our president is, he is never allowed to be a garden-variety American who plays basketball and golf, has a remarkably old-fashioned family life and, in the manner we regularly recommend to our kids, got ahead by getting a good education.
Isn't he a model that we should point to and say to our kids, "Hey, be like this guy?" After all, he fulfills the checklist of the base in terms of family values and working hard to get himself ahead. In so many ways, he is illustrative of the opportunity that comes with this great country. And yet, they shit all over him.
It’s simply astonishing that a man in his fourth year as our president continues to be the object of the most extraordinary paranoid fantasies. A significant part of his opposition still cannot accept that Obama is a rather moderate politician quite conventional in his tastes and his interests. And now that the economy is improving, short-circuiting easy criticisms, Obama’s adversaries are reheating all the old tropes and cliches and slanders.
That's my favorite bit of the whole piece. It's so fucking accurate. And so fucking sad. It's likely that the rest of this election year is going to see them descend into deeper and heretofore unfathomable paranoia.
But there is something especially rancid about the never-ending efforts to turn Obama into a stranger, an alien, a Manchurian Candidate with a diabolical hidden agenda. Are we trying to undo all the good it did us with the rest of the world when we elected an African American with a middle name popular among Muslims?
Yes. Yes, they are. Why? Because THEY LOST THE ARGUMENT AND ARE CHILDISH.
It makes me wonder what will happen if the president wins a second term. I honestly wouldn't be surprised they started saying that the president is building an army of killer robots that are going to take away their guns.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Another Energy Milestone
For the first time in more than 60 years, The United States has become a net fuel exporter."It looks like a trend that could stay in place for the rest of the decade," Dave Ernsberger, global director of oil at Platts, told The Wall Street Journal. "The conventional wisdom is that U.S. is this giant black hole sucking in energy from around the world. This changes that dynamic." All of this is happening because of new sources of oil in North Dakota and Texas as well as new opportunities in Canada.
But......anyone notice a drop in gas prices?
Nope.
That's because, as I have stated many times, world demand has been rapidly rising in emerging markets. Brazil used to export fuel to the United States but now they import over 100,000 barrels a day. Singapore has quadrupled its imports from the US.
So, while this is a wonderful opportunity for oil companies, we won't see any difference at the pump, as the Wall Street Journal notes.
But U.S. drivers aren't seeing much benefit in the form of lower prices because refineries on the Gulf Coast are shipping much of their output to places where demand is strong, keeping prices high.
So, we can "drill, baby, drill" all we want but with demand falling off here in the US and rising abroad, it won't matter one bit how much fuel we export.
But......anyone notice a drop in gas prices?
Nope.
That's because, as I have stated many times, world demand has been rapidly rising in emerging markets. Brazil used to export fuel to the United States but now they import over 100,000 barrels a day. Singapore has quadrupled its imports from the US.
So, while this is a wonderful opportunity for oil companies, we won't see any difference at the pump, as the Wall Street Journal notes.
But U.S. drivers aren't seeing much benefit in the form of lower prices because refineries on the Gulf Coast are shipping much of their output to places where demand is strong, keeping prices high.
So, we can "drill, baby, drill" all we want but with demand falling off here in the US and rising abroad, it won't matter one bit how much fuel we export.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Suddenly, As If Out of Someone's Ass...
A recent discussion regarding racism prompted me to do a little research on the phenomenon known as denial. I chuckled when I ran across the concept of DARVO which stands for Deny the abuse, then Attack the victim for attempting to make them accountable for their offense, thereby Reversing Victim and Offender.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Further, psychologist Jennifer Freyd explains.
The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. [...] [T]he offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. [...] The offender is on the offense and the person attempting to hold the offender accountable is put on the defense.
Exactly. This is essentially what happens when folks bitch about "playing the race card." Suddenly (as if out of someone's ass), the person who is obviously being racist is now the victim. How ingenuous!
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Further, psychologist Jennifer Freyd explains.
The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. [...] [T]he offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. [...] The offender is on the offense and the person attempting to hold the offender accountable is put on the defense.
Exactly. This is essentially what happens when folks bitch about "playing the race card." Suddenly (as if out of someone's ass), the person who is obviously being racist is now the victim. How ingenuous!
A Serious Commitment
Lost in all the political news over the last few weeks was this announcement.
NRC approves first new nuclear plant in a generation.
It's actually two nuclear reactors that will be located in Georgia. Thomas Fanning, Southern Co.'s chief executive Officer, called the license a "monumental accomplishment" and said the new Vogtle plants would provide cheap, reliable power to Southeast residents for years to come.
The Obama administration has offered Southern and its partners $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees as an incentive. Fanning said he expects the U.S. Energy Department to finalize the loan in the second quarter of 2012. For those of you keeping track, that's 16 times the amount that was loaned to Solyndra and ultimately lost.
I'd say that represents a more serious commitment to nuclear power and energy overall considering that this plant will be the first since 1979.
NRC approves first new nuclear plant in a generation.
It's actually two nuclear reactors that will be located in Georgia. Thomas Fanning, Southern Co.'s chief executive Officer, called the license a "monumental accomplishment" and said the new Vogtle plants would provide cheap, reliable power to Southeast residents for years to come.
The Obama administration has offered Southern and its partners $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees as an incentive. Fanning said he expects the U.S. Energy Department to finalize the loan in the second quarter of 2012. For those of you keeping track, that's 16 times the amount that was loaned to Solyndra and ultimately lost.
I'd say that represents a more serious commitment to nuclear power and energy overall considering that this plant will be the first since 1979.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
The Maltese Candidate
Remember the creepy bad guys in The Da Vinci Code, the ones who flagellated themselves and wore spiked chains called cilice to inflict pain on themselves? Well, those guys aren't some mad conspiratorial raving of Dan Brown—they're a real organization called Opus Dei, which is Latin for the work of god.
In 2002, while a US senator, Rick Santorum went to Rome to celebrate the centenary of Opus Dei's founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. At the meeting he held an interview with the National Catholic Reporter:
[Santorum] told NCR that a distinction between private religious conviction and public responsibility, enshrined in John Kennedy’s famous speech in 1960 saying he would not take orders from the Catholic church if elected president, has caused “much harm in America.”
“All of us have heard people say, ‘I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it’s not right for somebody else?’ It sounds good,” Santourm said. “But it is the corruption of freedom of conscience.”
Santorum told NCR that he regards George W. Bush as “the first Catholic president of the United States.”Brown's fictional depiction of Opus Dei contains exaggerations, according to an ABC story from 2006. But the reality isn't much better:
There have also been claims of excessive control. Tammy DiNicola was a freshman at Boston College when she went on her first Opus Dei retreat. She says what began as as opportunity to deepen her faith quickly accelerated into involvement in an all-controlling group.
"Everything becomes gradually controlled," DiNicola said. "Your mail is read. Your salary's handed over. Your reading matter and your movies, all of this is controlled."
Opus Dei acknowledges that many members hand over portions of their salaries, but says that there is no truth behind allegations of excessive control and that its only intention is to teach and coach.It sounds very much like a cult. And the cilice? They're a form of hair shirt, and members of Opus Dei really do wear them, though usually only two hours a day.
According to the NCR article, Santorum isn't a member of Opus Dei, just an admirer of its founder. But Santorum is a member of the Knights of Malta, an organization that goes back to the Crusades.
In 2004 Rick Santorum and his wife Karen were invested in the Knights of Malta as Knight and Dame of Magistral Grace. The full name of the organization is "Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of MaltaSM". At the time Santorum was still a US senator representing Pennsylvania.
The Knights of Malta, or Knights Hospitallers, originally provided medical care for Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem. In the First Crusade they became a full-fledged military order. After they were ejected from the Holy Land, they governed the island of Rhodes as a sovereign state, and then the island of Malta. After Napolean kicked them out, they went to Rome.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) claims to be a sovereign state in the same way that the Vatican does, though it has no actual land other than its offices:
SMOM has formal diplomatic relations with 104 states and has official relations with another six countries and the European Union. Additionally it has relations with the International Committee of the Red Cross and a number of international organizations, including observer status at the UN and some of the specialized agencies. Its international nature is useful in enabling it to pursue its humanitarian activities without being seen as an operative of any particular nation. Its claimed sovereignty is also expressed in the issuance of passports, licence plates, stamps, and coins.SMOM issues passports, currency and license plates! It has diplomatic relations with Italy, Spain, all of South America, almost all of Eastern Europe, including Russia, and half of Africa and Central America.
This means that Rick Santorum accepted a title of nobility from a self-proclaimed sovereign state, whose sovereignty is recognized around the world. Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution states:
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.Now, since the United States does not recognize the SMOM's sovereignty claim, so Santorum may not technically be in violation of the Constitution. (And Congress may have consented to it and I simply can't find it on the net.)
But SMOM is a foreign organization that purports to be a sovereign state. And it has the express intent of influencing political outcomes in the United States. If you look at look at the PDF file announcing Santorum's knighthood, you will find it filled with condemnations of gay marriage, dictates over end-of-life care, and overt political statements such as the following:
MAY CATHOLICS VOTE FOR A PRO-ABORTION CANDIDATE? There are severalCuriously absent from this "pro-life" list is any mention of the death penalty, "preventive" war like Iraq, shooting guys who ring your doorbell, and similar acts which the Catholic Church is supposed to oppose. It's fine to vote for politicians who condone killing living, breathing human beings, but blastocysts are sacred! The pro-life proclamations are really just a very narrow agenda to restrict individuals'—and especially women's—health care choices.
non-negotiable tenets of the Catholic faith which hold, unequivocally, that these actions,
which involve the destruction of innocent human life, are intrinsically evil and, therefore,
are prohibited:
• abortion at any stage of life
• embryonic stem cell research (from fetal tissue)
• euthanasia/assisted suicide
• human cloning
A lot of Americans are uneasy about Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. But Santorum's connections to Opus Dei and SMOM put him ever further out on the fringe.
Does Santorum think of himself as a latter-day crusader? Would he literally be taking marching orders from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in Rome? Would he have an Opus Dei consigliere at his right hand and a papal nuncio on his left? Would he be incapable of separating his fealty to the Catholic Church from his loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of America? Is Rick Santorum a Manchurian Candidate, brainwashed by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta?
Many will complain that asking questions like this about Rick Santorum is a blatant attempt at character assassination and guilt by association. But Perry's now-defunct campaign did the same thing to Romney with his Mormon faith, and Newt Gingrich and the Republicans have been doing this to Obama incessantly for years, trying to link the president to Saul Alinsky (who died when Obama was 10), Jeremiah Wright, and Obama's dead Kenyan father's Muslim roots.
The difference is that Obama has consistently disavowed or disparaged the very ideas that Republicans try to link him to. Obama has time and again shown that he will work out a reasonable compromise to try to accommodate other Americans' views, though his efforts are constantly thrown back in his face by Republicans who feel that eternal political conflict is beneficial to their cause.
Santorum, on the other hand, has parroted the standard Catholic line, and worked tirelessly to force his beliefs on the rest of the country, especially in the area of women's health care.
When John F. Kennedy answered the question about his fealty to Rome and his loyalty to the United States, he answered forcefully and forthrightly: he was an American first. By repudiating Kennedy, Santorum has answered the question equally clearly.
The Church of The Blessed Skeptic
Rick Santorum on climate change
An absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life.
Hmph. Sounds exactly like the voices inside my head that post here.
An absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life.
Hmph. Sounds exactly like the voices inside my head that post here.
Monday, February 20, 2012
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