Cagey Or Caging?

President Obama floated a balloon yesterday in the form of laying out a potential campaign strategy for his re-election (and clearly, he's chosen not to be a one term president): Run against George W Bush.

 

Specifically, he wants to talk about the direction he wants to steer the nation and where its come from.

 

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, conventional wisdom suggests that, once you've had four years in office, it's a little hard to paint yourself as the victim of circumstance. We still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no suggestion of withdrawal anytime soon. The economy is showing signs of early growth, but jobs and job creation, a peculiar measure by which a President is usually judged, have been a dark grey area.

 

I say "usually judged," because in 2004, George W Bush had a three million job deficit on his ledger, yet managed to get re-elected. Indeed, that Bush was re-elected is more a testament to the Democratic foolishness in choosing a candidate as opposed to Bush's own charisma. His approval ratings, you may recall, dipped deeply into the forty percent range, and after re-election, flirted with 30% at times.

 

On the other hand, Obama took over a nation that was at its lowest point, if not in history, then since the Civil War. Our invulnerability had been tested not less than three times in the previous eight years: the terror attacks as well as the twin stock collapses of 2000 and 2008. We are, to be frank, shell-shocked. A nation deeply in need of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, and this is before we look at the horrible state of the nation's political will, before we consider the two wars that seem unending, and before we look at the cynical way our leaders have behaved since 9/11.

 

It's understandable we're depressed and angry, so perhaps Obama's best strategy is indeed to put a happy face on the future. Hell, worse it couldn't get, right?

 

I'm angry. I look at the news, and look at the rage that's arisen from a small rageaholic minority of Americans and think I'm not alone. And I see that rage beginning to catch fire in moderates, who are not only angry at Obama, but at Republicans, Democrats, governors, mayors, hell, they're angry at the dogcatcher!

 

This could be healthy, long term, if we can keep it from boiling over into random acts of stupidity and channel it into citizen involvement, not in politics, but in watchdogging those who would corrupt the political process (like a Sarah Palin or a Glenn Beck, or a Goldman Sachs). We need a break from that kind of obstreperous and strident nonsense. We need to cool everything out while making sure we don't get sucked dry by the cynical fearmongerers of the right and the corporatocracy.

 

Get mad. But keep a clear head.

Suck It, Arizona!

This response to the Federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the noxious AZ SB 1070, the so-called Immigration Law is ludicrous at best.

 

At worst, if the law stands, it would set a very dangerous precedent to other groups who don't always have the favored eye of any particular state. Say, for example, a gay couple were to marry in Iowa, but move to Arizona. Let's say a whole bunch of couples begin to migrate to Arizona. What's to stop the state from passing yet another law determining that, since the couples violate the state's marriage statute and marriage is the basic building block of a nation, their citizenship should be revoked? After all, we've given a state the power to determine what constitutes "being an American" so how far out of the realm of possibility, given the distinctly....untermenschen...attitude Arizona is displaying here, is it to think that Arizona would not reserve the right to decide who gets to remain an American?

 

Full faith and credit be damned!

 

The immigration issue is a deeply tangled, deeply difficult and deeply divisive one. For my part, I believe that the laws pertaining to immgration ought to be loosened. This nation was built by immigrants, from the Mayflower on down to Ellis Island and beyond. The first generation immigrant has sparked new industries, created new jobs, built communities (every large city has a Chinatown or Little Italy), and brought their unique culture to our own and assimilated while assimilating.

 

I'm not sure why the Latino population is held in such low regard for somehow "destroying America." They do the dirty disgusting jobs that even the poorest citizen would turn his nose up to: field worker, busboy, janitor. However, every immigrant population has had to start with nothing in America, and work their way up. The story of the Irish or Italian, nevermind the Jew, is no different than the story of the Mexican or Nicaraguan. 

 

In a day and age when the established population has been so savaged by its own kind, perhaps we need fresh blood and a fresh way of looking at things in order to restart our economic engine. This is what immigrants throughout our history have excelled at. 

 

Open our fists and shake hands, says me. 

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) I'm not particularly interested in the LeBron James story, except to make a few observations. First, two wars have been waged for nearly a decade now, which received less attention over the entire decade than the James story has received in 2010. Second, if I was LeBron James, I'd hire a bodyguard and petition the NBA to allow him to accompany me onto the court. The spectacle he and his agent have created denigrated his reputation and disrespected the fans in the cities who were vying for him.

 

That kind of self-indulgent flashiness-- if I were a Knick, say-- would warrant punishment, up to and including a career-ending injury. In short, he's been treated with kid gloves until now because his story was one of those rare touching moments in sport: hometown boy grows up and makes good with his hometown team, he loves his mom, he enjoys the game and rarely seemed to be anything but a big kid at heart.

 

That ended last night. Keep your enemies close, is my advice.

 

2)   “Politicians need to understand there are consequences of their actions,”  hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman. True, but then so should hedge fund managers. Greed in the 21st Century is passé.

 

3) Another example of the poor shouldering more than their fair share of the burden.

 

4) Sometimes public outcry works.

 

5) The fastest growing category of mortgage defaults? The rich!

 

6) Fly-by-night solar plane. This bodes well for the electric car and other battery operated machinery.

 

7) I think CNN may have overstepped its bounds here. Reporters are allowed to have opinions and some of those opinions may be controversial. This was spineless.

 

8) The vuvuzela has hit the big time.

 

9) Apparently, Martians need to take driving lessons.

 

10) Finally, Skynet actually became self-aware on June 3, 1980. I guess this explains LeBron James.

The Slippery Ski Slope Of Terrorism

Norway? Really?

The sparsely populated and largely peaceful country was not used to being at the receiving end of either international or domestic terror threats.

But there has been much water under the bridge in the seven years since that threat, and Thursday's announcement of the arrest of three people on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack - one of them a Norwegian citizen - has so far been met with less incredulity.

There are some, to put it politely, tangential reasons why Al Qaeda might target Norway for terror attacks. And I do mean "tangential." For example, Norway has provided a small number of troops under its obligation to NATO, to the conflict in Afghanistan. The cartoons that depicted and mocked Muhammed, created in Denmark, were also syndicated in some Norwegian newspapers.

Mostly, cuz, there are a fair number of Danes living in Norway, you see. I should note that Norwegian embassies in the Middle East were attacked in the wake of those cartoons, but so were French, German, Austrian as well as Danish embassies.

The biggest stretch of them all, tho, has to be that Oslo hosted a 1993 peace conference between Israel and Palestine. The so-called "Oslo Accords" provided for the creation of the split Palestinian state (the West Bank and Gaza strip), and recognized the Palestinian Authority. Attending the conference were, of course, Israel and the Palestinians, but also American and Russian officials.

Yet, Norway is somehow to blame for this advance in Muslim-Western relations? OK, I suppose the case could be made that Al Qaeda wants diametrically the opposite: a total state of war between the West and Islamic worlds. Too, the Oslo talks grew out of earlier talks in Madrid, which has also been targeted by terror, albeit nominally by Basque separatists...but who knows who supports them? It's possible Al Qaeda outsourced the train attack there.

It strains credulity, as the article infers, to blame Norway for anything to do with the Islamic struggles. However, there appears to be a growing Muslim community in Norway (in urban areas, particularly) and even radical and moderate Muslims have battled in the recent past. 

I get the sense of Al Qaeda that its kind of like the drunk in the bar who wants to fight. He tries to pick a fight with the biggest guy in the bar, who smacks him down and then resumes his own drinking. The drunk staggers to his feet, sees all the eyes on him, and decides he'll take on anyone and everyone, if he has to go pick a fight with random strangers. 

Starting with the quiet couple in the corner, of course. 

 

The Missing Story

By Carl

 

Today is the fifth anniversary of the London transit bombings.

 

Naturally, the British papers are full of references.

 

Oddly, the only references in American media are from the Voice of America and some short wire service pieces. Interesting particularly when you consider the Queen was visiting just yesterday, on the eve of the anniversary, and visited our ground zero.

 

I say "oddly" because what England suffered that day is what America is only now starting to see: home-grown terrorism. First British and now American citizens attacking their countrymen.

 

In America, though, those attacks could be militant Islamists, or militant right-wingers. There's the dirty little secret of the American media. This is a third rail story possibly because if they were to report it fully, they'd have to report on the activities of the Eric Rudolphs in this nation: angry white men with grudges.

 

This would also require exploring why those angry white men are so angry, and here's the real story: they're angry because they feel their own country is against them.

 

It's easy to poo-poo those complaints. After all, old white men still have it the easiest in this nation. They're living longer, they have drugs to prevent erectile dysfunction which means they can have sex longer, they make the lion's share of money in this country, own the lion's share of property.

 

The problem with the easy answer here is, it's the wrong answer. It's not that angry white men are wrong to be angry. It's wrong that they're angry because they're white.

 

The real problem stems from the fact that society has put aside, for the most part, the racial divides. Instead, the problem lies within economic classes. So the angry white man has more in common with the working class black man or woman, or white woman for that matter, than he has in common with the concentration of wealth that has occurred over the past thirty years.

 

In the hands of rich (and not angry) white men. The United States has spent thirty years assisting those who need no assistance, at the expense of transmogrifying a thriving middle class into a society of poor and indebted. When you consider the fact that several tens of millions of Americans owe to banks and credit card companies more than the total value of their assets (i.e. are functionally bankrupt) and that two-income families, almost unheard of in 1980, are now the norm, it's no wonder that working class white men are angry, and that middle-class white men are not far behind. Who wants to live like that, knowing that a catastrophic illness, or a divorce, or a fire could wipe you out and force you to live on the streets?

 

That's not a fantasy. That's a reality, and that reality builds another reality where terrorism might be the blonde German-American frustrated that his wife left him holding the bag. In a dog-eat-dog world, the losing dog is going to look mighty tasty.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) The latest wave of terrorism comes from Al Diptera.

2) "...And STAY dead!"

3) I suppose the alternative is he would swallow? I see what you do here, Howard Kurtz! On the other hand, good for you, Lindsey, speaking truth to the moronic.

4) This is a plan everyone, regardless of party or dampness of bag, should get behind. Roosevelt electrified rural America. Eisenhower paved it. Both utilities brought enormous change and progress to rural America. Obama will go down in history as one of the great ones if he can get this passed, which he should.

5) Mel Gibson's new tape should be titled "Passion Of The...KEEEEEEEEEEEE-rist!!!!!"

6) Of course, it's possible Mel merely thought Oksana should go forth and multiply. He might be on Angle's blast fax list.

7) Worried you might see your end of days? Find out for sure.

8) I want to borrow my own column for a few paragraphs. Lately, there's been a lot of talk in America about how glad people are the US is out of the World Cup. Soccer is a game for little children. Soccer is socialist.

It all really comes down to one thing: soccer is, allegedly, boring.

Boring...boring...boring...and unmanly.

Bad soccer is boring, just like bad baseball or bad basketball or even bad hockey. Or bad writing (I'm looking at you, Thiessen). Good soccer is not.

But, good NFL football is boring, too. And there's the irony of the whining from the Sliwa's and Thiessen's of the world.

Here's a typical football game. Imagine it's a little after one on a Sunday afternoon in October. You've just come back from your son's soccer game. It was such a pleasure watching six year olds chase after a big friendly multicoloured ball, have fun, and get some exercise.

You click on the TV. Twenty-two men are lined up facing each other, their breath visible in the crisp autumn air. Wearing artificial body enhancements like shoulder pads and cups to accentuate their studliness, they glare across at the opposing team.

The ball is hiked, passed between the legs of a man bent over at the waist to the man standing directly behind him, firmly placing his ball in the quarterback's hands. The quarterback grasps the ball with both hands and begins to withdraw. He turns, and shoves his ball into the crotch of a large muscular sweaty man behind him. This man takes the ball and runs straight into a pile of men from the opposing team, extending his body in a plunge of tumescence, penetrating their territory one full body length.

OK, that part's actually...kind of arousing. But that gets him 2% closer to his goal. Only 50 more of those, and he can score!

You glance at the clock. A whole three seconds has run off. Both teams gather in a clump on opposite sides of the bed, I mean, line and spend the next five minutes discussing the color of the drapes, whether the down lineman on the other side is really dating her(!), and oh, yea, figuring out the next position.

I mean, play. The telecast goes into commercial after fifteen minutes of two guys drunk on cheap beer talk about how "the football" moved six feet forward and the quarterback's skillfull hand-off of "the football" to the fullback. 


Apparently, the guys are broadcasting a football game but attending the ballet and need to remind themselves constantly that they're working, and not goofing off.

The first of a string of beer and pickup truck commercials begins. You pick up War And Peace, which you haven't read since high school, and crack open the cover. As you read, various messages urging you to be a man and buy Amurican trucks and beer (built in Mexico and brewed by a Belgian company, respectively) waft thru the air like Muzak in an elevator.

Somewhere around the point where Prince Andrei leaves Lise and his father to go to war, the screen goes black, which is the universal symbol that corporate male bonding has stopped and the game is about to begin again. The huddles are still formed, and the topic of conversation has moved onto who on the team would make the best back-up dancer for Lady Gaga.

They clap hands, in delight presumably, and break the monotony. I mean, huddle. They line up, man on man, pawing the ground in anticipation and eagerness to collide with their counterpart on the opposite side. The quarterback barks out GPS coordinates to the nearest IHOP, and once again, the center passes his ball thru his anal cleavage to the quarterback, who hungrily accepts it, and shares it with the fullback once more.

With an almost orgasmic delight, the fullback dances and pivots his way into the pile of men....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, so exciting! In a grand jeté, he leaps into the pile, practically shouting "Take me! TAKE ME!" The imapct jars loose his most prized possession, overinflated balls, which drop to the ground like an exhausted sailor in a whorehouse.

The defense, sensing a chance to be tops, pounce and smother his ball. The fullback grimaces and writhes in agony at his fumble. The referees, apparent furry-lovers wearing zebra shirts, race over to the pile either to try to get sloppy seconds or to extricate the ball. Whistles, the kind you'd hear on a dance floor at Studio or the Ramrod, blow with delight as the men disentangle. One man wins the prize, and races off the field, his trophy held high over his head. His teammates slap his rear-quarters, copping a cheap feel while he's still numb from all the manflesh he fought through.

To let him and his fellows rest, a fresh crop of men trot out onto the field as the announcers begin to analyze what went wrong, showing the replay of the fullback's balls over and over again, from every possible angle including some that are practically pornographic in their detail. "The football" is mentioned often as if it is a living, breathing being, revered as a god when in reality it's just flesh that's been pumped hard.

You glance at the game clock. Another five seconds has run off, but there's a time out on the field as the refs reposition the piles of men and face them in the opposite direction, presumably so they can get even tans.

Except darkness is beginnning to fall. It's gets late early these days: it's barely halfway thru the first quarter and already the wife is calling you to dinner!

The announcers warn of a commercial. An image of the Dodge Ram appears on your screen as you pick up WAP again. Prince Andrei has his vision of the battle of Auterlitz as the game resumes. It's Wednesay, 5AM. You have voicemails from work that eventually see you fired that your 30 year old son was arrested for DWI, and your wife left you fourteen years ago for the soccer coach.

Another sweaty beefy man passes his ball through his anal crack to the quarterback, who fondles it gently and steps back, caressing it. Suddenly, he thrusts his arm back and forward, and ejaculates a long pass to a fleet-footed gazelle prancing down a sideline in the open, having evaded the pack of jackals tasked with restraining him. His hands creep skyward, and he cradles the QBs ball with delicacy and intimacy, nestles it in his bosom and begins to sprint towards his goal. Pursued by the jackals, he has no choice but to distract them by shimmying his hips, flaunting his fanny, and basically perform a ritual mating display down the sidelines.

Diving over the goal line, the receiver, a "wide out"..boy, there's a loaded term!...lays on the grass-like substance for a second, basking in the glory of his accomplishment. His teammates swarm over him, piling on top like he was Easy Mary at the drive-in on a Saturday night, kissing and holding him in various ways too disgusting to describe in a family newspaper. The defense...which until last week was the offense...stomps off the field, madder than a man who missed the annual sale at Barney's because his Filofax wasn't up to date.

The two teams line up for the point after, which is really kind of like cuddling after sex. Now, here's the funny part:

The ball is explosively expelled from the center's anal cavity to a quarterback lined up a few yards back. Pretty impressive, but here's the kicker, literally: a little foreign guy, WHO WASN'T MAN ENOUGH TO PLAY SOCCER because he'd have to expose everything except his shins, kicks the ball through the uprights, a Freudian symbol in itself!, and leaps into the arms of his team for scoring one. Stinking. Point.

And that, my friends, is why soccer is better than Americans deserve!


(h/t to Thers for setting me off)

9) *Whew!* That was exhausting! I need a shower now. (Much of that was off the top of my head but was based on an email I sent to a DJ friend of mine who whined about how boring soccer was on his show one day).

10) If your car has to be towed out of a creek, don't tell the cops you hydroplaned. They may not stop laughing. (Um, the name alone tells you all you need to know about this story)

Yobs, Yobs, Yobs

The children in Congress are at it again:

 

Once again, the Congress is going to go on a break without having extended long term jobless benefits, as the Senate failed to get 60 votes last night on another plan from Democrats.

By my count, this is the third time that Senators will have gone on a vacation without an agreement on extending those jobless benefits - the first time was Easter, the second just before Memorial Day, and now before the July 4th break.

 

Clearly, it is far more important to take a vacation than to help 1.3 million Americans stay off welfare. Maybe the Senators could hire a few of their constitutents to flip burgers at the family barbecue. They can label it "job training" and pay for it with office earmarks. Win-win, as they say.

 

Add to this the latest ridiculous selfish trope the Teabaggers are throwing out with regards to unemployment benefits: that they actually create long-term joblessness.

 

Anyone who's been on unemployment for a length of time-- and believe me I have-- knows that the unemployment benefit barely pays for food and possibly rent. Maybe, especially if your landlord is sympathetic. It's based on a percentage of your income and is capped at a couple of hundred a week. That might not sound half bad: if you're making $20,000 a year, that published report of $500 a week is more than your salary.

 

But if you're making $20,000 a year, you won't be eligible for $500 a week. You're generally eligible for half your salary, or $190 a week. And the formula is determined by state. For example, in Arizona, the maximum benefit is $200 a week. One can only imagine what a minimum wage worker makes in unemployment.

 

None of this takes into consideration the fact that the worst part of being unemployed is the shame and embarrassment of being out oa f job. Most people want to work. Most people will settle for a decent job that pays a decent wage that they can feed their families with. Any lifestyle beyond that, including mortgages and debts, will fall by the wayside. 

 

I know when I was out of work for a couple of years (thanks, Bush family!) my attitude towards my creditors was, "Sorry about your damn luck for lending money to a loser." Now, I never walked away from a debt, but I knew if I had to, I could. It took a lot of the sting out of getting those letters and bills each month.

 

The GOP attitude seems to be, "well, someone is having fun on our dime, and it must stop." And yea, there's a few people out there, probably a higher percentage now than when the recession first hit, that are enjoying the dole. So?

 

You folks in Congress work three months out of the year, get your health insurance paid for, despite drawing a six figure salary, have a guaranteed pension plan in place, have healthclub privileges, get free cafeteria food, have expense accounts and that's just for starters with the LEGAL perks of being a Congresscritter! It seems to me the percentage of corrupt Representatives and Senators is a LOT higher than the percentage of folks on unemployment who might buy the occasional six pack to drown their sorrows!

 

Grow up, nut up, shut up, and butt out!  

 

 

Please, Lord...I Ask For So Little

But could you please let this come true?

Washington • Republican leaders have not ruled out filibustering to block Elena Kagan from ascending to the Supreme Court, a last-ditch effort that could throw the Senate into turmoil in an already tempestuous year.

“We’re hoping that a filibuster is not necessary, but I think the examination did not go well today,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Judiciary Committee Republican, told The Salt Lake Tribune midway through Kagan’s second day of confirmation hearings.

From your slimy racist anti-Semitic mouth to God's ear, Senator.

By filibustering a perfectly innocuous nominee to the Supreme Court, one who has demonstrated time and again during the hearings the patience to put up with the moronic and mind-numbing idiocies demonstrated by conservatives, and then presenting a formidable case for her arguments, Kagan has shown she can clearly work with moral and intellectual turpitudes like Clarence Thomas and Antonin "Never Met A Bribe I Didn't Like" Scalia.

Of course, a filibuster won't happen, to be sure. There are not 41 Senators on the Red side of the aisle who would dare oppose a nominee to the Supreme Court ahead of a Congressional election in which many will be asked why they chose to block that perfectly nice lady from New York when the voted to let Sotomayor be seated. Even Orrin Hatch, who believe it or not is actually a voice of reason these days, thinks it's unlikely.

One exchange did annoy me, however. When Sessions called Kagan out on the recruiting ban Harvard University had in place with respect to the military (far more of which has been made than reality calls for, I should add), he mentioned that her actions prevented a prime "recruiting season".

Now, I'm confused: since when is Harvard Law School fertile ground for any military recruitment, if in fact it is part of the "Eastern liberal elite" that conservatives harp about like it was a thorn in their feeble paws?

I would have called Sessions on that, and glared mightily at him, daring him to reconcile his stupidity.

But I digress. It looks like Kagan will be confirmed and soon.

 

The Set Up For The Low Down

You know that queasy feeling you got yesterday when you read this story?

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities and states must abide by the 2nd Amendment, strengthening the rights of gun owners and opening courthouse doors nationwide for gun rights advocates to argue that restrictions on firearms are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Embrace your nausea. There's more here than meets the eye.

Essentially, what the Court ruled is that Constitutional rights trump states' rights or een individual rights. "Libertarians" may mark this as a good thing, but I do not. See, the Second Amendment prescribes that, in order to ensure your God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to buy a gun. 

I'm betting that's not what the Founders intended. This might be the only enumerated right that requires a citizen to do something in order to enforce it. A truly libertarian position would be that an individual's right to privacy is far more important than the constitutionality of a manufactured good. 

This is a glaring distinction that so-called "glibertarians" (e.g. people who read and masturbated to Ayn Rand books) fail to grasp and it's really a simple concept: no man is free if for that freedom he is requred to carry a weapon. 

But hold that thought for another time. Here's the really scary part.

This decision opens the door for the Court to decide that individual state laws are unconstitutional. Should Roe V. Wade for example be overturned, there is no check on the Court to decide that New York's abortion law violates the Constitution. Or New Jersey's. Or California. Should a consitutional challenge to the gay marriage ban fail in SCOTUS, that would open the door to overturning Hawaiian law, Iowan law, and would also prevent any number of states from recognizing homosexual marriages. 

It wouldn't stop there. Your state doesn't have a death penalty? Too bad. You might be forced to get in line with the totalitarians. Our laws would revert to the lowest common denominator of a moron state like Alabama or Mississippi.

Medical marijuana? Nope. Speed limit of 55? Gone, mostly because the federal government mandates it in exchange for highway funds, so all it will take is some yahoo from Montana to overturn that necessary and safer speed limit, and your state won't be able to do a thing about it. Property rights? Eminent domain will encroach and absorb as many properties as it deems necessary, because the SCOTUS has already ruled it's perfectly constitutional to appropriate your land and turn it over to a developer.

Are we sure we want to walk this path when it's taken so long and we've worked so hard to bring even a shred of progressivism to the nation? 

 

The Set Up For The Low Down

You know that queasy feeling you got yesterday when you read this story?

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities and states must abide by the 2nd Amendment, strengthening the rights of gun owners and opening courthouse doors nationwide for gun rights advocates to argue that restrictions on firearms are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Embrace your nausea. There's more here than meets the eye.

Essentially, what the Court ruled is that Constitutional rights trump states' rights or een individual rights. "Libertarians" may mark this as a good thing, but I do not. See, the Second Amendment prescribes that, in order to ensure your God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to buy a gun. 

I'm betting that's not what the Founders intended. This might be the only enumerated right that requires a citizen to do something in order to enforce it. A truly libertarian position would be that an individual's right to privacy is far more important than the constitutionality of a manufactured good. 

This is a glaring distinction that so-called "glibertarians" (e.g. people who read and masturbated to Ayn Rand books) fail to grasp and it's really a simple concept: no man is free if for that freedom he is requred to carry a weapon. 

But hold that thought for another time. Here's the really scary part.

This decision opens the door for the Court to decide that individual state laws are unconstitutional. Should Roe V. Wade for example be overturned, there is no check on the Court to decide that New York's abortion law violates the Constitution. Or New Jersey's. Or California. Should a consitutional challenge to the gay marriage ban fail in SCOTUS, that would open the door to overturning Hawaiian law, Iowan law, and would also prevent any number of states from recognizing homosexual marriages. 

It wouldn't stop there. Your state doesn't have a death penalty? Too bad. You might be forced to get in line with the totalitarians. Our laws would revert to the lowest common denominator of a moron state like Alabama or Mississippi.

Medical marijuana? Nope. Speed limit of 55? Gone, mostly because the federal government mandates it in exchange for highway funds, so all it will take is some yahoo from Montana to overturn that necessary and safer speed limit, and your state won't be able to do a thing about it. Property rights? Eminent domain will encroach and absorb as many properties as it deems necessary, because the SCOTUS has already ruled it's perfectly constitutional to appropriate your land and turn it over to a developer.

Are we sure we want to walk this path when it's taken so long and we've worked so hard to bring even a shred of progressivism to the nation? 

 

How Much Cock?

How much cock does Glenn Beck suck?

Fox News host Glenn Beck's apocalyptic political thriller has shrugged off a pile of bad reviews to debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list this week.

 

The story of a young, handsome PR executive's quest to save America from a 100-year-old plot to destroy it, The Overton Window was described as "didactic, discursive [and] sporadically incoherent" in the Los Angeles Times, and as "not just a bad book ... an instructively bad book because it offers a complete colour-by-numbers picture of the contemporary Wingnut psyche" in the Daily Beast.

We can presume just two things: one, Glenn Beck's rabid fans, all five of them, have bought multiple copies they can't afford on Social security and unemployment and, most likely, some right-wing welfare benefactor has gone out of his way to smooth Beck's feathers after the reviews he received, not just in what he might term "liberal mainstream media," but from respected writers and reviewers with no plausible agenda.

Which of course raises the issue "Who?" Who is stupid enough to push this godawful hateful shameless little man into a best-selling author, thus neatly overriding countless hours teachers across America have spent trying to instill in young minds good grammar, good syntax and a metaphorical prose somewhere north of a barroom tale?

Presumably, someone who hates America. Presumably, it was Glenn Beck himself, a man not known for, um, modest displays of temperment or emotion. The man cries often enough, we would have called him a sissy and made him wear a dress back in my old neighborhood.

However, even Beck could not possibly have that much money that he could afford to buy his own book (even if authors usually pay a remaindered price on copies they order). So we must search other, wealthier and more American-hating sources.

Rupert Murdoch springs to mind. His America-destroying agenda has been well-documented, as his Fox network competes with his Fox News network and various News Corp. in a race to the bottom, dragging millions of sheeple along with him. Why does Murdoch hate America so?

Any other ideas? List them in comments.

 

Day Three in Key West

The weather has been hot, muggy and threatening to storm each afternoon, but no relief.

This town is pretty awesome. Imagine Greenwich Village without the smug sophistication of enduring winters. Now add back in the inherent danger of running into the local rednecks while you're strolling around with your Noo Yawk walk and talk and political views.

I've felt more comfortable, at times, in the middle of Kingston, Jamaica, is what I'm saying. There are few places in the world where I've felt less local and more of an outsider. There's a hungry desperation in people's eyes, too. Concerns about the economy, no doubt, and to be sure there aren't as many people wandering Duval as I would have expected. The oil slick, the general economic malaise, and just people tired of being scared.

You wonder why Americans get so paranoid, and yet we do. This is still America, still a great nation. We can still come back and fashion a future.

I've managed to stay out of bar fights, and even tho soccer gets laughed at regularly when it's on the TeeVee, moments like the last American game prove a point: we simply don't know as much about the world as we would lie to. Underneath it all, underneath the braggadocio and bluster, America is still the baby brother who's trying to fit in with big brother's buddies.

One more full day to walk around. I promised ThumbPer I'd go to Hemingway House and visit his cousins, so that's on today's agenda. Plus, I need a dose of inspiration to get my books back on track.

Another Question

To the American naysayers who see soccer as a sport unworthy of the attention of our most exceptional nation:

DO YOU GET IT NOW???????????

A Question

So, who else is counting down the seconds until the wingnuts come out in full-throated defense of McChrystal?

I'm sure many of them are heaving a sigh of relief after this, because they now know what view is the exact opposite of Obama's and can scream accordingly.

UPDATE: Despite my familiarity with the inner workings of the wingnut mind, I did not anticipate speculations that Obama replaced McChrystal with Petraeus in order to ensure that Petraeus doesn't run against him in 2012. Bless their little hearts.

Margaritaville

I'm heading to Key West to attend to some business over the next few days. I'll be back on Saturday.

And yes, the Duvall Crawl is part of my plan!

See...I got bad news this morning...

Douchebags In The News

Well, let's just say there's a lot of anger out there today, and leave it at that as way of introduction:

 

1) Gen'l Stanley McChrystal -- Apparently, his major complaint against Obama specifically was that he seemed inadequate to the task at hand in Afghanistan the first time he and the general met. Now, that's a bit off-putting, to say the least. A President has been fully briefed by the outgoing adminstration on all hot topics, he's met with the Joint Chiefs by then as well, I'm sure. You'd think he'd have a handle on things, unless you believe that there's some sort of conspiracy among the more strident radicals in the outgoing administration to prevent him from being fully informed. He did bring Gates back on board, so this is an unlikely scenario. Which leaves only one possible answer.

 

The magnitude of the situation was inconceivable to anyone, and I mean anyone. General Eisenhower could have walked into that meeting and walked out looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

 

Given the tenor and nature of McChrystal's remarks, he should be and likely will be fired. He should consider himself lucky to be allowed to retire without disgrace beyond what has been revealed. It's gross insubordination of the highest order, and gives aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war.

 

2) Steven Newman -- The definition of chutzpah must now be updated. In the dictionary, a man who kills both his parents, then throws himself on the mercy of the court for being orphaned has always been the gold standard in chutzpah. But now, here we have one of the men most directly responsible for the Gulf oil spill whining about Obama's temporary moratorium on new drilling in the Gulf! (see also the cartel in London)

 

3) Miley Cyrus -- Normally, I could give a rat's ass about celebs, but here's a case where someone who's start in show business came about ONLY because her dad had a novelty country and western hit, suddenly believing they have talent and have earned their place in the pantheon of celebrity.

 

Good luck, Miley, it was nice knowing you. We expect naked photos and rehab by the end of the year.

 

4) Curren D. Price, California state senator -- Advertising on license plates. 'Nuff said.

 

5) Steve Jobs -- I love Apple. I love Apple computers, I love my iPhone, I love the new iPhone OS, I love my iPad. I hate the totalitarianism that Jobs sometimes inflicts on his customer base. That said, I wouldn't trade any of my Apple stuff for anything PC or Googled. 

 

6) Chimpanzees -- All we are saying, is give peace a chance. I fully expect the right wing to start confirming evolution with this revelation.

 

7) Megan Fox -- Noble concept. Let someone else do it. You can't act.

 

8) Portugal -- 7-0? Unnecessary.

Half-Gassed Solution

Are they ever going to stop kowtowing to Droopy Dog?

The Obama administration and a key player in Senate climate negotiations would consider a bill that caps greenhouse gas emissions from just the electric utility sector, which may face better political odds than an effort to cap emissions across the economy.

Naturally, that "key player" is Senator Joe Lieberman (I- Douchebag).

Yes, utilities are responsible for a large share of carbon emissions in America, primarily the coal and oil based plants. In practice, a form of carbon caps are in place on utilities already, since they can buy and sell power around the nation. More efficient plants, therefore, benefit from selling excess capacity to less efficient plants. This allows more efficient plants, which usually are less wasteful in carbon emissions too, to run at full capacity while encouraging less efficient and more polluting plants to lower their production.

This only happens at peak load times, tho, when it's cheaper for a utility to go buy power on the market rather than try to coax more power from its plants or worse, invest in a new plant that will lie idle much of the time. For normal capacity, this model does not exist.

It'll make a dent, but won't even begin to take effect until 2012, and won't be fully in place until 2018.

We. Don't. Have. That. Much. Time.

The UN IPCC has made it clear that, to avoid most of the major climate castastrophes associated with global warming, the world must see a 50-85%% reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2050.

That gives us less than forty years to design, implement, enact, and enforce carbon emissions rules. In a nation where it took 100 years to put in place even the pitiful program we laughingly called "healthcare reform" AND given that much of that century was spent in fairly benign political climates, what are the odds that in 2018, the morons on the radically idiotic right will cave and accept even the mildest carbon emissions caps?

Slim, and none. And Slim's out burning firewood.

Smack this asshole down, Mr President. Let's get this thing done.

Nobody Asked Me, But....

1) Walking (back) the dinosaur. While it still can be used as a campaign tool this year to tar Republicans in general, it's going to be very very hard to make it stick as a charge against a specific candidate. Pity. I was hoping Barton had a real spine.

 

2) All that whinging you hear about BP being the victim? Fuggedaboutit. They are a prime takeover target and BP investors will make out like bandits.

 

3) The long and the short of it.

 

4) Digging Bobby Fischer?

 

5) South Carolina, the state best known for weird politics, just got weirder.

 

6) Interesting. NJ passed a medical marijuana law just before John Corzine left office. I was expecting the new governor, Chris Christie, to seek to overturn it. Surprise, surprise, altho there are strings attached. I wonder...there might be an "I didn't inhale" moment coming.

 

7) Let she who is without sin cast the first softball. Do the right wingers even know about women's softball? Maybe they should ask Elena Kagan...I don't think she's about to tell.

 

8) Really! Was the breathalyzer even necessary???

 

9) Maybe they should have hired these guys to scare the slick away from the shores? Just a thought.

 

10) Finally, the most exclusive restaurant in the world. So exclusive, it's not even IN a building!

A Rational Explanation For Teabagging

Astounding article in the Times the other day: a think piece on the underlying psychology of Teabaggers. While it's true the movement is an astroturfed phenomenon, it caught fire for an unexpected reason, one that ultimately will backfire on Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and the Republican party:

Tea Party anger is, at bottom, metaphysical, not political: what has been undone by the economic crisis is the belief that each individual is metaphysically self-sufficient, that  one’s very standing and being as a rational agent owes nothing to other individuals or institutions.

In other words, what happened under the Bush administration was the dismantling of the illusion that we are all self-sufficient, that we can get by on our own, that we can, ultimately, make it on merit.

 

Who would get angriest at this causation? Not the reality-based community, who have known all along that each of us relies heavily on an unseen network of peers and support from people wholly unrelated to your capacity as a citizen in your community. Yes, the teachers you grew up listening to, but also the auto mechanic who built your car, the utility person who repairs your phone lines before you even know they're out, the fisherman who lands that net of shrimp that contains your dinner.

 

Warren Buffett's Responsible Wealth does yeoman work trying to remind people of this every day.

 

Who would get angriest at this causation? The very people who enabled the dismantling, which is why you see fervent Bush accolytes suddenly grumble about how "liberal" he really was. Ironic, isn't it, that the prophet of the Ownership Society would see it crumble under his very feet, his name now mud on both sides of the aisle.

 

The Teabaggers want to see the budget balanced but no taxes raised and they certainly don't want to see spending cut on things they like, such as defense, highways, water, farm subsidies, infrastructure that serves them, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. They want the government to stay away from the people but please leave Medicare alone, don't regulate Wall Street, but banks ought to be able to lend to small businesses on demand. 

 

A little paranoid schizophrenia, in other words.

 

Here's the thing: as J. M. Bernstein points out, the notion of self-sufficiency is an artifice, a creation of society, an institution. It is no different than marriage or a corporation, no different than being Republican or Democrat. It is granted by mutual consent and can be taken away unilaterally if one party to the agreement holds power over the other. 

 

And society, far and away, holds power over the individual. This was the whole raison d'etre of unions, if you recall. They are a way to give individuals power and influence in an wholly unbalanced equation of at-will employment.

 

Events of the first decade of this century proved that this artifice is in need of some adjustment. We saw a growing threat of international terror, coupled with the climax of a long term degradation of that thing that makes it all worthwhile to get up in the morning and head to work: a paycheck. Housing values became wildly unstable, creating a game of musical chairs that saw you land in a house you could afford when the music stopped, or in deep, desperate trouble. And finally, we saw a government, now two, confront a crisis that it was unprepared and ill-equipped to handle.

 

Mostly because politicians pandered to our baser instincts of giving us mo' money each week in our paycheck, and damn the debt the government was running up! 

 

The bill is coming due, and people are angry. They can't be angry at themselves, no, so they take it out on the most visible icon of this mess, the government. And this anger comes at a moment when, indeed, any rational person can only see that MORE government intervention in the world is needed, not less. We need the government to step into the markets and protect consumers and we need the government to intervene and help homeowners and banks work out their differences and we need the government to create work for those who are long-term unemployed and we need the government to protect us from the predations of corporations who gamble not only their economic futures but the very lives of American citizens on a short-term profit. 

 

And we need it now, but a significant portion of this nation hasn't woken up to smell the tea.     

 

If Man Can Walk On The Moon...

The famed scientist, David Suzuki, tells the parable of a test-tube of bacteria, starting with a single cell that doubles in population every minute, so that by the end of an hour, it has filled the test tube and exhausted its food supply and air. He points out that, at 59 minutes, the test tube is only half full, and at 58 minutes, just 25% full.

 

He imagines the debate the bacteria at 55 minutes:

"We're running out of space, we're running out of time, we're running out of air and food."

 

"Nonsense! Look! We have nearly all the tube left. There's plenty for all of us!"

This was the image that popped into my head while watching Obama's speech last night, particularly at this passage:

"Time and again, the path forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor," Obama said. "The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight."

"We cannot consign our children to this future," he added. "The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America's innovation and seize control of our own destiny."

Indeed, the time may be past to salvage any chance of a future as we've imagined it. When just one oil company spends more on drilling in the US-- one of the less promising resources for oil-- than the nation spends on energy research, we've got a major problem.

In the past, I've pointed out an optimal solution to train the guns of America and the world on renewable energy, and it's one I still haven't seen a serious "player" suggest, so I'm throwing it out there again: offer a government stipend, a grant of one billion dollars with no strings attached beyond the competition. If you can develop a truly renewable energy resource, one that doesn't pollute and can be harnessed with minimal environmental footprint, and have it produce BTUs at the rate of fossil fuels, you win the prize.

But I digress...

 

Obama termed the oil spill an "epidemic" and this is an excellent analogy. It's not a devastating attack like 9/11 was. It's not an act of God that swept through the Gulf, like Katrina was. This was foreseeable, preventable, and once unleashed, should have been containable.

 

That it wasn't contained is the real story here, one the media refuses to tell honestly. Obama's popularity has wrongly taken a hit here. It was the Bush administration that approved the license, it was the Bush administration cronies that allowed BP to dummy up inspections and set their own rules, and it was the Bush administration that, yet again, killed that region of the nation. BP, and if the testimony before Congress is any indication no oil company, should not have been allowed to drill without a massive contingency plan for the worst case scenario.

 

We have a chance now to set in motion not only our energy policy for the next few years, but for decades to come. We can wean the nation off oil and onto something healthier and safer for us all. We've done this before, heck, we've done it often, from whale oil to coal to crude, and from CFCs in the atmosphere to even better propellants and refrigerants. We've beaten back challenges. We will continue to do so.

 

Geology is the study of pressure, and time. Right now, epochal forces are acting on the American people. We can crumble into dust, or we can turn into diamonds.

Whoa!

This might be a little hard to process on a Monday morning, especially if you haven't had coffee yet.

What happens when we die? Do we rot into the ground, or do we go to heaven (or hell, if we've been bad)? Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

Let me try to suss out what the good Dr Lanza is saying: if you saw the movie "Star Trek:Generations", you've been made aware of a plot device called the Nexus, which you reach by slipping through a tear in space-time and where a part of your consciousness remains, even if you manage to escape.

Now, in this Nexus, your consciousness can visit anyplace, at any time. Not in our reality, of course, but in a parallel universe that can be created and destroyed in an instant by your consciousness. Want to be married to that girl you knew in high school? Think it and you get to live it.

So here's the question Lanza is posing and fumblingto answer: at death, what happens to your consciousness?

In life, consciousness seems to be stored in the brain, presumably holographically, since it's not just your memories, but also consists of your dreams, ideas, fantasies, and beliefs.

I'm careful here to divorce the actual way information is stored in our brains and used by our minds with the New Age concept of the holographic universe. There's pretty good evidence for a sub-quantum effect that allows for the immediate transfer of information between widely spaced quantum particles, but there is zero factual evidence for this operating on a human scale, or that human's can consciously alter the universe.

What Lanza proposes is that your consciousness enters or even creates a "blank slate," a brand new universe that allows you to be in control of its initial state and all outcomes, based strictly on your mind. Time goes back to zero, and you get a brand new clock.

It's not impossible. Indeed, chaos theory demands a probability be assigned to it, however low, since by the simple act of imagining it you presume the possibility of its reality. And now we have the paradox: if consciousness cannot create a universe at death, then how can this be a possible outcome, but it must be a possible outcome since our consciousness can create the idea.

Like I said, go have a cup of coffee. Ponder that for a while.

Apparently, you have an eternity.

An Open Letter to Chuck Schumer

Dear Senator Schumer:

Fuck you.

First of all, as Think Progress points out, what you said isn't true. I'm beginning to think that people who are most militantly opposed to the two-state solution are rightwing Israelis and their supporters. Which, you know, makes sense, since Israelis have a shit-ton more power than Palestinians and can do anything with our blessing other than actively, explicitly ethnically cleansing a region. Why would they settle for a two-state solution when they seem to be able to take it all? At the very least, in light of statements like this, why would we be surprised that Palestinians might be wary of promises to establish two states?

To echo what you said, I also think that countries should have boycotted trade with the US the second time we elected Bush. Maybe China should have called in their debts. Hey, maybe Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern states should have stopped selling us oil. Wait, what? Only we're allowed to elect violent, incompetent assholes and sociopaths without retaliation from other states? Democracy (tm) is fucking great!

Finally, although I'm sure you meant that Palestinians oppose Zionism because it's not part of their religion, when you say "they don't believe in the Torah," it almost sounds as if you're saying they won't support peace because they're subhuman unbelievers who will always be prone to violence. As a member of a group of people who have been historically ostracized, oppressed, and murdered for their beliefs, maybe you should learn from Helen Thomas and think about what you say before you fucking say it.

Yours truly,

Truculent A. Unreliable

PS: I'm aware that the majority of Israelis support a two-state solution, as well, but just as in the case of Islamic extremism, those voices aren't always loudest in the room. Hell, you don't sound like you're a fan of the two-state solution, yourself.

PPS: Fuck you. No, really. As a seasoned politician, how hard is it for you to avoid saying something so inflammatory at a time like this? I suppose it's safe to assume that any Islamic militants who might possibly use your statement as a recruiting tool don't have TVs or newspapers or internet access?