Well Done, Sir!

This is my state representative, Steve Simon. I have never been prouder of an elected official in my life. Sexuality and sexual orientation are indeed gifts from God. VERY well done, Steve!

What Are You Good At and Why?

Starting today, I'm going to ask two questions. These questions will continue to be asked for quite some time I imagine because I'm fairly certain the responses will be childishly dishonest.

For those of you who are Republican, what exactly are you good at and why are you a Republican? As the clip below demonstrates, I think the people of America deserve an answer. Now, I know that some of my regular readers are not Republicans and loathe them as much as they loathe Democrats (although they still vote Republican which makes me question their integrity). I'm not necessarily asking you. I'm asking the card carrying members of the GOP. If your two main strengths are fiscal responsibility and national security and you have demonstrated incompetence in both, why should people vote Republican?

My initial thought was abortion but the GOP had the presidency and both houses of Congress from 2003-2007 and did nothing except pass a law protecting Teri Schiavo. I suppose the GOP is doing a great job of restraining us from moving forward on alternative forms of energy so, if you are a big oil person, that would be a reason. And, as Bill says below, paranoia, greed and racism are all fun so there's that...

But really, I don't get it. Seriously. I'm not trying to be obnoxious. In looking at what the GOP has done for the last ten years, can one truly say that they even been competent? Bill Clinton left office with a budget surplus. The spending and tax cuts of the Bush years coupled with the lack of attention to Wall Street nearly brought us to fiscal ruin. It's the reason why our debt is so high today. Related to that is their failure on issues of national security which not only cost us trillions of dollars but ultimately didn't really do the job.

So, watch this clip and try to help me understand what Republicans are good at and why people are still Republicans.

Putting Some Things To Bed

Let's put a few things to bed on this beautiful Friday, shall we?

First, let's examine the information we have thus far as to whether waterboarding led to Osama bin Laden.

Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani born detainee, was subjected to some EITs (sleep deprivation, slapping, nudity) and gave up the name of the courier. He was not waterboarded.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libbi gave false information about the courier after they were waterboarded repeatedly. Months later, during routine questioning, KSM still gave false information about the courier. It was these lies that raised the suspicions of the investigators and set them on a course towards doing the bulk of the effort which was (ahem) police work. Thank you, John Kerry.

I know you guys simply must win the argument on every discussion and continually be "right" but, as of this moment, I see nothing to convince me that "waterboarding worked and that's why we caught bin Laden." Grow the fuck up.

Speaking of growing up, bin Lade is dead. It has now been confirmed by the people who lived at the compound AND Al Qaeda. We don't need to see his body nor use it as a warning. The Navy Seals were warning enough. The last thing I would want to do is tell the father, mother, wife, husband, son, daughter of a member of our armed forces that their loved one was killed because of an attack resulting from release of the death photo.

More importantly, the non release of the death photo does not mean he is secretly alive. If he was, don't you think he'd be making us look foolish by parading around the airwaves? In addition, he hasn't been secretly dead since 2001 either. President Bush would not have kept that a secret as it would've certainly helped him during his administration.

So, enough with the silliness, folks. Let's focus on using the intel that we now have to hunt down the rest of these guys. It looks to me like they wanted to attempt something on the tenth anniversary this year with trains. I wonder what else bin Laden's hard drive will reveal?:)

He Won

The more I think about it, the more I realize that those of you who say that it's not President Obama's skin that is the problem are actually right. It's not the fact that he's black. It's that he won. And continues to win.

Take a look at two recent Facebook cut-and-pastes that have been making the rounds.

Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found Bin Laden and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory.

and

A HUGE THANK YOU to our military, who have sacrificed, died, suffered, and worked hard, to fight people like Osama Bin Laden. YOU are the ones we thank. YOU are the ones who deserve ALL CREDIT. Thank a soldier for bringing due justice for those lost on 9/11 and all the victims around the world who suffered from his commands. Copy and paste if you agree....

Ah, childish dishonesty. There really is no finer example. Peel this back a layer (wafer thin) and one can easily see that they are pissed off that he succeeded.

When you tout yourself as the party of fiscal responsibility and national security and then go on to fail miserably at both, this is what you are left with in the end.

Drill Baby Dr-hey, waitaminute!

Yeah, it's great that we got bin Laden but how about those gas prices? Not allowing any sort of victory for the Obama administration, the GOP and pundits are moving on to the soaring gas prices we see around our country. They are right about one thing: gas prices are high. After that, they are pretty much wrong about the rest of it.

Their solution is domestic drilling and they fault the Democrats for not allowing it to happen. If we drilled more here, they say, prices would go down and all would be well and good. As is often the case, they are completely full of shit. Here's why.

Take a look at this graph.

The blue line shows the average price of gas in the United States. The red line shows the average price of gas in Canada. The green line is the price of crude oil. Canada is a net exporter of oil meaning they export more oil than they consume. They export around 3.3 million barrels a day and consume 2.2 million barrels a day. So, even with their abundance of oil and smaller population, they still have higher prices than we do. In other words, drilling and keeping more of their own oil hasn't helped them at all. They still pay more for gas.

So why are gas prices so high and why can't drilling help us? To put it simply, that's the marketplace for oil. Whatever extra we would produce would be insignificant in comparison to what the world consumes. In addition, OPEC would likely cut production to match what we were producing.

"This drill drill drill thing is tired," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, which calculates gas prices for the motorist organization AAA. "It's a simplistic way of looking for a solution that doesn't exist."

Simplistic indeed...almost as if a child came up with it.

It's pretty clear to me what needs to happen. The first thing we need to do is unshackle ourselves from the global marketplace. This can be done with new forms of energy. Unfortunately, one party is stomping their feet and acting like a red faced bully on this one. The second thing we need to do is reveal that the oil industry is gauging prices. That's why I'm happy to report that President Obama is looking into this issue. In fact, I think this investigation should be on the same level as Harry Truman's quest to eliminate fraud and price gauging in the defense industry. Ending oil subsidies for oil companies should also be part of this.

Finally, we need to simply stop buying gas. Easier said than done, I know, but it is a way that the free market can fix this with less demand. I've made a conscious effort to not use as much gas. So has Last In Line. People need to adjust their behavior and maybe bike, walk or take a bus. Lord knows there are many Americans who could use the exercise.

bin Laden Potpourri

I have several thoughts on the bin Laden story so I thought I would put them all into one post.

Pakistan-What up, bitch?

As I have been saying for several years on this blog, Pakistan is not our friend. Of course, this doesn't mean that we have to go off and attack them but this is a major embarrassment. Osama living in the lap of luxury for possibly 6 years? And right down the road from the military academy? I call bullshit.

If we want to seriously damage Al Qaeda, we need to get up Pakistan's ass with a fucking tweezers. No more aid, no more good times, no more pally-wally shit. It's clear that top Al Qaeda leaders are there. No doubt, this is where we will find Ayman al Zawahari who is now at the top of the most wanted list.

Treasure Chest!

More important than the killing of bin Laden is the intel that we gathered from the scene. We have Osama's hard drive and papers. Wow. This is an intelligence slam dunk. I wonder what information we will glean from it. This is the victory inside of the victory. Speaking of which...

"Obamateur" meme=Torpedoed.

Well, now what, ass hats? I guess my guy proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is all that. This was an extremely gutsy call. He could've just bombed the crap out of the base but opted for the high risk, high reward choice and succeeded brilliantly. Not only that, he managed to put the final pieces in place for this mission AND tour Alabama as well as visit the Cape.

He also showed he is a man of his word.

If We Have Actionable Intelligence About High-Value Terrorist Targets And President Musharraf Won't Act, We Will. (1 August 2007)

Done.

If the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out. Now, I think that's the right strategy; I think that's the right policy. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."(7 October 2008)

And done.

Of course, we are already hearing the cries that it was waterboarding that ultimately got bin Laden. Ah, the eight year old bullies who can never be wrong. There is not a shred of evidence to support this claim. Further, it was KSM duplicity (some time after being waterboarded) that led us to the name of the courier. After that, it was simply patience, dedication, and good intelligence work. I know you are trying desperately to find ways to be right and win the argument but you can't. Go peddle your masturbation snuff fantasies elsewhere.

Weird, dude.

Let's see...Hitler shot himself in his bunker on May 1, 1945....George Bush shot himself politically and declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq on May 1, 2003....Osama bin Laden was shot and killed (on the orders of President Obama) on May 1, 2011...

Finally...

I'd say it's time that we let the adults handle the country for awhile...say another five years?

Got Him!

This blog started as an email list back in the days immediately following the September 11th attacks as a result of trying to make sense of them. Eventually, it became this blog in May of 2005. Throughout those times, I expressed a great deal of frustration at how Osama bin Laden got away at Tora Bora and was never caught.

Yesterday, thanks to our special forces under the direction of our president, we finally got him. Osama bin Laden is dead.

Man, I've waited a long time to write that sentence. Words cannot express how I feel right now. It's been a long ten years and in so many ways I am relieved.

One of the main reasons why I supported President Obama during the election of 2008 were his assertions that he would refocus efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan. We saw that right away with the increased drone attacks inside of Pakistan. Now, we have seen that his strategy has paid off.

Apparently, the US received intelligence that bin Laden was at a compound outside of Islamabad last August. On Friday, that intelligence was confirmed and President Obama gave the go order. Late yesterday, our time, bin Laden was shot in the head and killed along with a couple of bodyguards. His body was secured and buried at sea.

The impromptu celebrations at the White House, Times Square, and the site of the World Trade Center warmed my heart. Although we quibble often in this country, at times like this we can see how united we truly are.

This is a major victory for all of us, folks. We should all be proud!

Republican Jesus

Most of you don't know this but I spent a fair amount of time avoiding Christianity. From about my sophomore year in high school until 20 years after that, I considered myself more of a polytheist. Right around 8 years ago, however, I realized that I didn't have to worship the Jesus that was being peddled to me by the right as being the "One True Jesus."

In other words, I stopped believing in Republican Jesus and believed in the one that the Bible states (clearly!) is for everyone.

A few days ago, I put up some Republican Jesus cartoons. The source of those was this fantastic column by a new fave of mine, Justin Rosario. This post is perfectly illustrative of a number of things that I think are really important.

First, it shows the journey of a man that was similar to mine.

Somewhere in there, I learned that we don’t have a national religion and people were free to practice whatever religion they wanted.

That's what I learned in school as well. He also saw what I saw during that time with the right.

Even with the Young Republicans during that first Bush presidency, I wasn’t assaulted with any kind of religious politics. I did find a good deal of racism which gave me a big clue about how Republicans see the world.

Yep. Same here.These Republicans are still around, though, and represent the business wing of the party.

But during Bush’s tenure, I started hearing the more than occasional remark about how not believing in God makes you a bad American and if you were a LIBERAL that didn’t believe in God? Scum of the Earth! Wait a minute. Not believing in God (or, more precisely, not believing in a very specific version of God) makes me a bad American? How does that even work? This country was founded on religious freedom and the explicit separation of Church and State, wasn’t it? 

This was right around the time I decided that I didn't have to believe in their warped version of Jesus Christ. Sadly, folks, Republican Jesus is an awful lot like Al Qaeda Mohammed. What's happened is the lines between civil religion and Christianity have blurred together with a whole lot of hate, anger, and fear to give us what we have today....Republican Jesus.

Republican Jesus™ is very different than the Jesus you and I are familiar with. First off, he is White. Not just white, but White. Republican Jesus™ has a special place in his heart for America. Specifically, White America. Do you doubt this? Ask yourself why anyone who believes in a colorblind Jesus would even conceive of praying for the death of Obama? No, only those who follow Republican Jesus™ would even think that such a prayer could, or should, be answered. If you are currently thinking that racism has nothing to do with the unprecedented hatred of Obama, go away, I’m talking to the grownups.

Oh, if only more liberals talked this way.

Republican Jesus™ loves the rich. Ignore that whole “camel through the eye of a needle” garbage. Republican Jesus™ wants you to be prosperous! It’s called “prosperity theology” and it percolates throughout the conservative religious fervor. God rewards the faithful with material wealth. Very spiritual stuff. If your idea of spiritual is a McMansion.

Sooner or later, this whole hypocrisy is going to come to a head. You can't worship the unregulated free market and Jesus Christ at the same time.

Republican Jesus™ hates the poor. This is the flip side of “prosperity theology”. If God rewards the faithful with riches, than the poor are obviously NOT of the faith and deserve what they get. This is, in part, why conservatives hate the social safety nets of welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. Those (and by “those” I mean those) people don’t worship Republican Jesus™ and are unworthy of being helped. Besides if you feed them, they’ll just breed!


Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of South Carolina actually said that. And he meant it.

Yep. He did. And that brings us to where we are today. Rosario has very accurately defined the real motive behind the "War on Spending" that we see being carried out with such vehemence. Of course, they may talk a good game but over two thirds of the Tea Partiers don't want Social Security or Medicare touched. Why? Because they are all fucking old and using the system themselves.

Thankfully, no one really has to worship Republican Jesus. He, like many of the beliefs of conservatives around the world, is a fairy tale distorted on purpose to serve a need by extremely weak minded people.

Sharia Law?

With challenges in education, health care, infrastructure, and budget deficits facing the state legislature in Minnesota, it makes complete sense that they are zeroing in on an issue far more important: gay marriage.

It makes sense if you are intolerant, of course.

I thought this debate was over. Most of the new generation of conservatives are pro gay marriage and find it to be a distraction from the larger issues our country faces. On this, we are in complete agreement. Yet, here we are, still putting up with this garbage and now we will see an initiative on the ballot which will specifically outlaw gay marriage in the state of Minnesota...even though it already is against state law. Supporters say the amendment is necessary otherwise the courts will find a way to make it legal.

That would be that whole equal rights thing in case you were wondering and we can't have that now, can we? So cue the ballot initiative aka DOUBLE SECRET FAG PROTECTION.

I (along with Nikto) have been talking on here for quite a while about how intolerant conservatives around the world really cause most of our problems these days. More specifically, I have pointed out the similarities between Christian conservatives and Islamic conservatives. Now they are not even hiding it anymore. Take a look at this photo on the right.


This is Shaykh Faraz Ahmad from the Muslim Community Center in Bloomington testifying along with State Senator Warren Limmer, a sponsor of the gay marriage ban amendment. They both argued that gay marriage will destroy our state and is against the will of God.

Well, at least they can find some common ground on this issue so I guess I should be happy. I have to wonder what's next, though. Sharia law?

Hmmm....worried about Sharia Law incessantly on a daily basis...until its intolerance has shared beliefs and then it's one big happy PAR-TAY, ain't it?

A Sliver of Light

Did I slip into an alternate dimension? Last week Speaker of the House John Boehner, on oil companies.

We're in a time when the federal government's short on revenues. They ought to be paying their fair share.

And now today from budget "guru" Paul Ryan on the oil industry and corporations in general.

We're talking about reforming the safety net, the welfare system, we also want to get rid of corporate welfare.

If they actually follow through, you can color me impressed. Maybe my long drought of not voting for Republicans (1996) will soon come to an end:)

Rand A Go Go

I've been thinking a lot about Ayn Rand of late given that several of my readers are her all too willing zombies. And Atlas Shrugged is now a film. Oh joy..

I guess I'm trying to figure out how a woman who was a pro abortion, free love atheist got to be so popular with the right...the libertarians, I get, but the base? Why?

The other thing that's amusing and not as well known about Rand is that she happily took Social Security and Medicare when her time came under the name Ann O'Connor. Did she consider herself a "looter," a "parasite," or a "moocher?" Perhaps she figured that she paid into the system so why not take out of it when her time came. Getting lung cancer in 1974 and seeing her insanely high medical bills was more than likely another factor in her change in thinking later in life.

Even more interesting is the fact that, as scribe Mark Ames writes, Rand modeled her characters on sociopaths.

“Whenever you hear politicians or Tea Partiers dividing up the world between ‘producers’ and ‘collectivism,’” he wrote, “just know that those ideas and words more likely than not are derived from the deranged mind of a serial-killer groupie….And when you see them taking their razor blades to the last remaining programs protecting the middle class from total abject destitution—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—and bragging about how they are slashing these programs for ‘moral’ reasons, just remember Rand’s morality and who inspired her.”

Indeed. One has to wonder what sort of process would occur in the minds of a "law and order" Tea Partier upon learning that their religion is based on morally bankrupt individuals.

A recent piece by Jason "Filthy Liberal Scum" Rosario really nailed the whole Randian religion. Echoing Ames, he writes, "The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became. A conservative society is a borderline sociopathic society."

The whole piece is a very accurate analysis of the pathology that I talk about frequently. In fact, he says the same thing I have been saying lately.

Do you know why Rand’s laissez-faire utopia would fail? It’s the exact same reason a socialist utopia would fail; people are imperfect. We are greedy, envious, petty and selfish. There will always be some among us who will better themselves specifically to the detriment of others because they simply don’t care. There will always be those who, as they gain power and wealth, will want more at any expense.

Indeed. Both he and I are in agreement in curiosity in wondering what Rand would think at witnessing the Epic Fail of Wall Street in 2008.

These people are sociopaths, pure and simple.  

Rand was a big champion of no regulation at all.  Close your eyes and imagine what Wall Street could do with even less regulation than it had before.  Think of all the possibilities. Taste the freedom.

Yeah, no. That would be a no...one giant big NO for me. I've seen that film already and it ends with the Rand worshipers beating their chests and screaming about how entitled they are to loot the nation. I just don't get the worship of sociopaths. I never will.

Trumping Trump

For almost three years we've had to endure the endless drumbeat of nonsense about Obama's birth certificate, the various conspiracy theories about how he was really born in Kenya, that his grandmother planted stories in Hawaiian newspapers in 1961 so that infant Obama could get Medicare in his dotage (Medicare wasn't enacted until 1965), that he's a Muslim (which would be ultimately revealed when the mystical long-form birth certificate was finally unveiled), that he's an anti-colonial Kenyan (somehow the elder Obama imparted this legacy during the one visit to his 10-year-old son during a Dave Brubeck concert).

The release of Obama's official birth certificate should put an end to the controversy, but it won't. The birthers will now find fault with something else: he can't be real American because his father was born in a foreign country. Or they'll start pushing the closet Muslim theory again. Or that Hawaii isn't a real state.

So, in the birther spirit, let's apply the same rigorous analysis to their darling, Donald Trump.

Trump's mother was born in Scotland. Trump says he was born in New York, and produced a birth certificate to "prove" it. But it turned out that it wasn't the official birth certificate, it was just one ginned up to look like one issued by a hospital -- who knows when? It doesn't give the nationalities of his parents, or their places of residence or anything. And it wasn't even released by the government! After scurrying around for a bit, Trump produced a second birth certificate (this time for sure!).

But if you actually look at Trump's "birth certificate," it's obviously a photostat or a microfilmed reproduction and not the original. That means Trump has not produced the original document. It can't be analyzed forensically to determine authenticity. They tell us the original was destroyed after being microfilmed "to save space in the archives," but more likely it was to cover up Trump's actual birthplace, which is his mother's ancestral home on the Isle of Lewis. Yes, Trump is actually Scottish!

Donald Trump is a Brit. A Tory. A limey. A god-damned pommy git! He's a king-loving, America-despising, anti-American Revolutionary War zealot. Isn't it obvious from his high-flying lifestyle that he fancies himself royalty? He thinks he's better than the rest of us because he's rich and can spin a good lie.

But that's not all: he hates America, and American women. Trump is a serial bigamist, shacking up with foreign women from Communist countries over and over. He's been married to Czech and Slovenian women for 21 of the last 34 years. That means he has -- or at least his private parts have -- lived outside the United States 62% of the time. He's spent hour after hour listening to these cunning vixens spout Socialist propaganda, brainwashing him into donating to Democrats. From the Washington Post article, he tries to hide his true motives behind realistic opportunism:

“Everyone’s Democratic,” he told Fox News in an interview about his potential candidacy. “So what am I going to do — contribute to Republicans? One thing: I’m not stupid. Am I going to contribute to Republicans for my whole life when they get heat when they run against some Democrat and the most they can get is 1 percent of the vote?”

What exactly is Trump saying here? Is he saying that he agrees with the Democrats, or just buying their favor with campaign contributions? If he was a real American, he wouldn't dream of consorting with those liberal pinkos. Hell, if he was a real American he wouldn't even live in New York, a place crawling with welfare queens, hedge fund managers, real estate tycoons, stand-up comics and librarians.

And then there's religion. Trump says he's a Presbyterian. But he's also said he was a Catholic, and a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. And then he got married to his third (!) wife in an Episcopal Church. Why can't this guy make up his mind? Or is he really hiding something? But let's go with his latest statement: Presbyterian. Did you know that the Presbyterian Church started in Scotland! Yes, Trump has pledged his soul to a foreign god!

And then there's that hair. What is he hiding? If he had any stones he'd man up and just admit he's bald. That means he must be hiding something. But what? Oh, oh. Now I get it. He's actually doing the reverse Londo to hide the fact that he's really an alien from Centauri Prime!

The Budget Director

I enjoyed David Stockman's recent piece on what has to be done in order to reign in our nation's debt. Likely, no one is going to like what needs to be done including myself. He gets right to the point very quickly.

The resulting squabble is not only deepening the fiscal stalemate but also bringing us dangerously close to class war. This lamentable prospect is deeply grounded in the policy-driven transformation of the economy during recent decades that has shifted income and wealth to the top of the economic ladder. The share of wealth held by the top 1 percent of households has risen to 35 percent from 21 percent since 1979, while their share of income has more than doubled to around 20 percent.

The culprit here was the combination of ultralow rates of interest at the Federal Reserve and ultralow rates of taxation on capital gains.

Hmm...who else has been saying these same things? Me. And I was never lucky enough to be the Budget Director for Ronald Reagan. So, Stockman's not exactly a liberal although by the current GOP's standards he's probably a communist. Later in the article, he puts forth some solutions, one of which I don 't agree with at all.

We are about to descend into class war because the Obama plan picks on the rich when it should be pushing tax increases for all, while the Ryan plan attacks the poor when it should be addressing middle-class entitlements and defense.

Well, there it is. At least someone had the guts to say it. Everyone needs to have their taxes raised. Except I can't see how that would be helpful given the decided lack of consumer confidence. Given that consumers make up two thirds of our economy, raising taxes on the lower 90 percent, in my opinion, would be disastrous. The middle class is the engine that drives this economy and they do not need any more burdens place upon them.

Overall, Stockman's piece states the obvious. Everyone wants solutions but no one wants to sacrifice. Worse, political theater is driving all of this which means nothing is getting done. I've stated many times on here that, as far as I'm concerned, everything is on the table including Social Security and Medicare. Hell, simply controlling the growth of Medicare would make a significant dent in our deficit and debt. Of course, that would mean controlling the cost of health care which means government regulation which means a pile of skulls, right?

Fucking Classic!

You'll be hearing a lot more about Republican Jesus in the coming days:)

Thinking Of Q

On this Easter Sunday, I've been thinking about the Q Document. For those of you who don't know, the Q document is the supposed source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke, specifically the material not contained in the gospel of Mark which was written before any of the others.

In fact, Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily from Mark and this mysterious document which may not have been a document at all. Many biblical scholars believer that it was simply stories that were finally written down in the form of Matthew and Luke. This I find to be very fascinating as it's stories that truly define us.

One of the things that drive me nuts about our culture is how we define success...indeed, how we define our lives. Last in Line is fond of asking folks, "How's your dash?" meaning the "-" that people have on their tombstones. It's clever in a dark sort of way and I've always loved it. I've always found it frustrating that people define their dash by what they do.

If you find yourself in any sort of social situation, invariably you will meet someone new and they will ask or you will ask, "So....what do you do?" The conversation usually devolves from there into heretofore unseen depths of boredom. I've talked about this before but how about the next time this happens say, "Tell me a story." Most people tend to shy away from this so have a few stories ready of your own and tell one to make them feel comfortable in telling theirs.

When they do tell it, listen closely to what they say and within just a few minutes you will find out quite a bit about the person. Are they an introvert or an extrovert? Are they intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated. More importantly, are they happy or sad? All of this can be heard and seen with the kind of story they tell.

As with the Q document, there is always a bit of mystery with every story but that's what makes us who we are. How we interact with each other is just as important to how we develop as how we function within our culture. And, it's stories, not what we do for a living, that we should be talking about. The stories of Jesus Christ created a magnificent tapestry that has lasted for over 2,000 years. As Jesus said,

"Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.."

What stories could we tell today that will last for that long?

Indeed

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves, not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires----John Steinback.

Earth Day

Being that it is Earth Day today, I thought I would point out a few interesting pieces I've seen over the last few weeks about climate change. In many ways, Dick Lugar was right.  President Obama's energy message has failed and it's largely due to political reality. The right has been very successful at shifting the message from "It's happening" to "It's a hoax" and they've done it with no facts or science whatsoever. They've succeeded in portraying leading scientists as a doomsday cult of true believers. Attack your opponent with what is, in fact, your greatest weakness...surprise, surprise...

So where are we at on this Earth Day 2011?

1. Glacier National Park once had 125 glaciers. It now has 20.

2. A shipping lane has now opened through the Arctic.

3. 400 coal-fired plants around the United States emit an average of 366,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants per year -- mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. These kill an average of 15,000 people per year.

These three items are absolute facts. If you still are in doubt (and I know some of you are), go ask your local science teacher to show you how a greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) warms the atmosphere. It's actually pretty cool to see first hand.

What's been interesting of late is to see how some energy companies have been changing their tune.

Richard Kelly, CEO of XCel Energy, is now saying that a $20 per ton carbon tax would translate into an extra 5 bucks on a 100 dollar a month bill. He's also saying that Xcel could find a way to conserve more energy and admits they waste quite a bit. This way the extra tax wouldn't be passed on to the customers. He, along with other energy leaders, see the future.

So what is it and why are they saying all of this? Because climate change is a security threat. I've put up articles from the DoD detailing that they are moving forward regardless of what the knee jerk debunkers think. In 2010, the human species burned 6 billion tons of coal. Energy demand is expected to rise by 30 percent by 2030, which means burning roughly 8 billion tons per year. From the article:

If climate change continues unchecked, we will see millions of people displaced globally, countries destabilized and U.S. troops mobilized to address these new threats.

The Defense Department calls climate change a destabilizing influence and “threat multiplier.” There is no better example of climate change as a destabilizing force than what happened in Pakistan last year. More than one-fifth of Pakistan was flooded by torrential rains and insurgents have pounced on the chaos-created opportunity to turn Pakistan into a breeding ground and safe haven for terrorist activity.

This is very, very serious folks.

So, why don't Americans believe in global warming? The Economist nailed it and offered an excellent solution.

A somewhat constructivist approach to building public concern would be to build up the issue-linkage between climate change and the search for renewable-energy sources. This would help mitigate the economic and psychological concerns (the latter because it's easier to accept a problem exists if you have a way of addressing it.) And renewable energy doesn't have the political or epistemological baggage of climate change. As my colleague said yesterday, "The idea that sustainable-resource use and renewable energy is some kind of socialist hippy hobby is incredibly naive and frivolous, and extremely damaging to the American economy.

I completely agree. Let's focus on the renewable energy as a tool to mitigate security concerns and bolster our economy.

Yet, we also need to call out the fact free science crowd and revel them for what they are: bullies.  They don't like to lose and they will do everything in their power to win. As with most of these debates, the only way victory is achieved is through money.

If Americans can see that they stand to lose money as a result of carbon emissions and stand to reap huge rewards for renewable energy, we can wave bye bye to the professional debunking of climate change.

Time to get out the spectacles!

Ultimately Counterproductive

The Republican Party across the country has declared all-out war on abortion and birth control. The budget bill earlier this year was almost thrown off the rails because of amendments to defund Planned Parenthood. Several states are passing laws to further restrict abortions to 20 weeks. John Kyl infamously lied on the Senate floor, saying that abortion constituted 90% of Planned Parenthood's services, only to later characterize the lie as a statement "not intended to be factual."

Yet for decades now Republicans have been constantly harping on welfare queens, anchor babies and "breadwinners" who bear children only to get government money.

The best way to ameliorate these problems is to make birth control and abortion easy, safe and cheap. Yet Republicans and conservatives are doing everything in their power to cause the people they seem to despise to reproduce in greater and greater numbers.

For some religious conservatives I can understand: they truly believe that abortion is wrong and should be stopped.

But the ostensibly libertarian Tea Party Republicans don't seem to have moral compunctions about anything, as long as it saves them a dollar. They don't seem to give a damn about abortion, chastity, abstinence, or the sanctity of marriage. Remember when Rush Limbaugh was caught with a Viagra prescription for another man? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Heroes of the Tea Party like Limbaugh, Gingrich and Trump go through wives like other men go through SUVs.

But stopping abortions and preventing Planned Parenthood from dispensing birth control to the poor (who are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic) seems counterproductive to the greater goal of saving money on social programs like welfare and Medicaid, as well as education, prisons, etc. Furthermore, demographic trends indicate that white Americans will be in the minority in the not-to-distant future, which has the potential to spell doom for the Republican Party.

Are the Republicans just a little bit afraid of getting tarred with the Hitler brush if they appear to be advocating eugenics by letting the government pay for birth control?

Or are they just so stubbornly cantankerous that they can't stand the idea of paying for someone else to have sex without getting punished for it with pregnancy?

Or is it a cynical ploy to pretend to deliver on the promise to end abortion that they've dangled in front of religious conservatives for decades?

Practically speaking, it will cost us a whole lot more in the long run to force women to bear children they don't want and can't afford. By eliminating birth control and abortions for the poor welfare and Medicaid costs will increase, hospital emergency rooms will be overloaded, education costs will increase, future unemployment rates will go up, and crime rates will rise as unwanted children grow up with no prospects for any kind of decent life. (There's a school of thought that the reduced crime rates we've seen since the 90s are in large part due to the legalization of abortion.)

The Republican Party seems to be bound and determined to cut off birth control and abortion; this will be ultimately counterproductive in the extreme. It will only serve to magnify the deficit and other social problems. Sometimes you need to spend a little money to save a lot of money.

Where are those practical, hard-headed, penny-pinching conservatives when we need them?

Six Signs of A True Believer

I've been talking a lot lately about the true believers of the conservative and libertarian movements. A recent discussion with a former student reminded me of the Kegley-Raymond text The Global Future. On page 150 of that book, the authors list six characteristics of transnational religious movements. I thought of, Katie, my acquaintance at the gym and smiled.

1. View existing government as corrupt and illegitimate because it is secular and not sufficiently rigorous in upholding religious authority or religiously sanctioned moral and social values.

While this certainly isn't true of libertarians, it is very true of the base.  Not only do you have to be a Christian but you have to be a Christian in THEIR WAY. President Obama and the entirety of the Democratic party are not sufficiently Christian.

2. They subscribe to a particular set of behavior and opinions that they believe political authority must reflect, promote, and protect in all governmental and social activities. The government must be in the hands of believers.

This is what Katie meant by "taking our government back." It must be back in the hands of believers. Of course, they mistakenly see people like me and President Obama as believers as well but really that's how their perception works. Again, Obama and all Democrats are destroying our country.

3. They are exclusionists. They tend to see their views as part of the inheritance of everyone who is a believer. 

4. They are militant and willing to use coercion to achieve the only true end.

This is what I was getting at the other day when I spoke of the similarity between the current conservative movement and the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s.  Their fervent belief is overwhelming and I especially find it troubling in the economic beliefs of libertarians.

5. They attack the inability of government to address social problems.

This is where the abortion and gay marriage issue comes in. They see both as pure evil and the government as being complicit in allowing them both to transpire. 

6. They are universalists. They see their views as part of the inheritance of someone who is a believer. 

Perhaps the most frightening of all.  This is quite evident in how they continually and massively deride the left. Look no further than my comments archive.

From now until the election, look closely for any or all of these traits coming from the right. No doubt, these characteristics will become increasingly magnified as we move closer to November 6, 2012

Yep

From a recent item in my news feed on Facebook...

I have no problem paying my fair share of taxes because I'm an adult and that's part of the deal.