"To be, or not to be: that is the gotcha question." — The Daily Dorkmonger.
I have to admit it was pretty funny last week when Sarah Palin assaulted the English language, but let's not forget that she was also assaulting religious tolerance:
Yep, the latest conservative conniption is over the plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was also quick to give his puerile opinion: "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia."
The old windbag might want to pause for a second and examine the irony here. If needed, he might also want to brush up on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Then take another minute to review the politics of Saudi Arabia -- a theocratic monarchy which considers the Qur'an their constitution. And then tell me again why freedom-loving Americans should emulate the religious intolerance of such a backassward country?
If Newt can't admit that freedom of speech and religion are our greatest strengths, if he can't admit that Saudi Arabia should try to emulate us and not the other way around, then he can never again utter the old canard "they hate us for our freedom."
Now, back to the subject of Sarah Palin's utterances. While trying to cover for her fake words, she tweeted, "‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!"
I'm sure these Facebook users really thought they uncovered something sinister. "Martial Law Plans Revealed?" the title declares with a Fox-esque question mark. Except the video is a 2007 piece from the Onion which somehow recently resurfaced as real news.
LOL! Those Obama haters sure are gullible!
Oh Wait? What's this about a USDA official wrongfully fired because of a selectively excerpted video on a conservative blog? Oops. The Obama administration and legitimate news outlets vilified USDA official Shirley Sherrod based on bits and pieces of a speech which supposedly revealed her to be a racist, and -- gasp! -- was going to be aired on Glenn Beck's show!
Wow, Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck are still dragging our country down by the balls with the same modus operandi they used to attack ACORN -- a collection of lies and video edits promulgated over and over again.
But nothing has been learned. Let me speculate how the conversation went at the White House... "Let's not get a full set of facts! Let's not take a few minutes to view the whole video. Fire her! Fire her! So we look decisive! So we don't lose our own jobs!"
The Washington Post has a three part series on the top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
And in case you hadn't guessed, this bureaucracy is endlessly complicated, wasteful, and unchecked. And thanks to FISA and the Patriot Act, which basically legalized warrantless eavesdropping, the data flow is enormous:
Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases. The same problem bedevils every other intelligence agency, none of which have enough analysts and translators for all this work.
And yet they keep telling us we have to give up our privacy for our safety. But as Glenn Greenwald explained, all this surveillance is not keeping us safe:
But as I wrote many times back then -- often by interviewing and otherwise citing House Intelligence Committee member Rush Holt, who has been making this point repeatedly -- the more secret surveillance powers we vest in the Government, the more we allow the unchecked Surveillance State to grow, the more unsafe we become. That's because the public-private axis that is the Surveillance State already collects so much information about us, our activities and our communications -- so indiscriminately and on such a vast scale -- that it cannot possibly detect any actual national security threats. NSA whistle blower Adrienne Kinne, when exposing NSA eavesdropping abuses, warned of what ABC News described as "the waste of time spent listening to innocent Americans, instead of looking for the terrorist needle in the haystack."
This is almost enough to make me join the shouting teabaggers demanding smaller government -- except that the Queen Teabagger wants to exempt defense spending from the group's anti-spending fervor.
Be sure to read tomorrow's WaPo article which will surely describe how all this spending is making a few private contractors filthy rich while giving us nothing in return.
"It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members." — E. B. White, 1899 - 1985.
I found the above quote today and I suppose it makes a good epigraph to any article about cronyism. But should I write about the Florida GOP's spending scandal? Or the cozy relationship between the oil companies and the Bush administration which brought us the de-regulations that lead to this ongoing oil spill?
Or maybe I'll just sit back and enjoy my new TV for the rest of the night. Yeah, I'll probably do that.
I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. — W.H. Auden.
So let me get this straight. A sadist invents a powerful electric shock device to strap on the backs of children, then he opens a school where he's allowed to use the device on autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids, thus creating an environment of constant pain and anxiety.
And no, I'm not talking about some kind of Victorian era insane asylum. I'm not talking about Soviet era brainwashing. I'm talking about public funded education in the USA right now at the Judge Rotenberg Center.
And the torture doesn't end at painful shocks for minor acts of noncooperation. A recent report submitted to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture also revealed the use of restraint boards, isolation, and food deprivation in efforts to control the behaviors of the school's vulnerable students.
The UN Convention against Torture requires each government party to the convention "to ensure that all acts of torture are offenses under its criminal law." Unfortunately, we've been ignoring that quaint little treaty for far too long.
I'm as skeptical as Maddow about this al-Qaeda magazine. 4chan couldn't have done it better -- "in the kitchen of your mom" could be the internet meme of the year. But think about what that little phrase undoubtedlyimplies: real al-Qaeda members still live with their moms. Yes, I think there are some psy-ops going on here.
But just in case this is all real, here is my free advice for Inspire. Be really careful who you get your polling data from.
When I heard that some chick-magnet in a wheelchair was in the lead to win his own show on Oprah's new network, and that much of this guy's support could be traced to 4chan, I was skeptical and a bit worried. Aren't 4chan people notorious for their mean-spirited mockery and ironic "support" for asshats who are unwittingly embarrassing themselves on the internet? I mean these are the people who brought us Rickrolling!
I'd totally watch his show! I love the concept. I never watch travel shows. On the rare occasion that I do travel, I can't afford any of that ritzy shit. Show me how to have a good time when things go wrong. That's the story of my life.
I'm not quite saying that Oprah is evil, but there are rumors that she and her network are trying to fix the votes against Zach because they don't want to give a show to a person with a disability. But I know Oprah wouldn't rig the voting. She'd arrange for Zach to mysteriously disappear quietly in the night. That's the power of O.
You have no idea how a broken computer can rattle my life. I was so dismayed when, on Wednesday, the power supply crapped out on my desktop system that I actually took up a new hobby:
Yea, I transformed my computer desk into an origami station. As you can tell by the paper plumbobs, I was missing The Sims 3 more than I was missing blogging or Facebook or any of those other computer things. Also, notice the pink origami crane. I heard that if you fold 1000 of those wicked little birds you'll get a wish granted or something.
But that's not going to happen because I got my life back. Or I mean I got a shiny new quad-core gaming machine. I mean productivity machine.
So after five long, arduous days of near Ludditism, I feel alive again.
Just like BP CEO Tony Hayward who I hear is enjoying the yacht races. For some strange reason I thought the guy wouldn't want to be anywhere that reminded him of oceans, but I guess I overestimated his conscience.
To Kill a Mockingbirdturns 50 this summer. I did not read the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel until I was an adult, but I saw the film adaptation at around age seven or eight. Of course, it was probably the likable characters of Scout and Jem, close to my own age so I could imagine them as my own cohorts, which drew me into the television presentation. But I also look back and realize that Atticus taught me a lot about justice, respect, and human dignity.
Or at least that movie was an early inspiration to even thinking about those concepts. Sometimes I find it really hard to trace where my ideas and values come from, but I know where they stand now.
And that brings me to another subject. I feel, like many people including, I thought, the president, that our country has lost some of its moral high-standing during this ill-conceived "war on terror." But apparently President Obama has changed his opinions while mine have stayed the same.
I know I'm outsourcing to Jon Stewart twice in one week, but who can resist the comparison of Obama to Frodo?
There are probably more relaxing ways to spend your vacation.
A 52-year-old Californian construction worker named Gary Brooks Faulkner packed a gun, a 40-inch sword, night goggles, and Christian literature on his solo mission to Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden.
These kind of news stories (which we don't hear often enough considering there is a still a $25 million reward for OBL's capture) hold a special place in my heart. Some of my first blog posts in 2001 were about bin Laden...
It still baffles me that our CIA and special forces with all their high-tech equipment haven't found the 9/11 mastermind in the nine years since the terrorist attacks.
Faulkner might not have been that far from his prey. He was trying to enter Nuristan, a region the U.S. military decided to abandon last year as being too remote and indefensible, and widely considered a Taliban stronghold. Rumors of bin Laden’s presence in this area abound: As recently as last year, U.S. officials were speculating Osama might be hiding in the mountains of Chitral or just across the border in Nuristan.
So I have this feeling that, despite not succeeding on this terrorist assassin mission, Faulkner will still enjoy a bit of hero status at home. And maybe more crazies with 40-inch swords will give the OBL hunt a try.
For nine years I've had this strange feeling that our government isn't even trying.
Politicians along with BP CEO Tony Hayward seem to be having a difficult time with words lately. They want to spin this environmental calamity into some kind of delicious milkshake, or on the other hand, make the world feel sorry for them. "What the hell did we do to deserve this?" whinged Hayward. Well, let me remind you Tony about the 760 "egregious, willful" safety violations, and oh yeah, don't forget your company is destroying the Gulf of Mexico!
Oh, and while I'm on the subject of unhelpful cretins, let's not forget the religious nuts. They, of course, also have something predictably irrelevant to say. I don't have a specific quote, but I'll sum it up for you: "See, this is what happens when you sinners don't listen to us!" They say it gleefully because they secretly look forward to the apocalypse. And yes, the oil does kind of look like blood, and I'm sure you can find many references to the sea in Revelation, but no, this is not the end of the world.
But let's for a moment assume it was Judgment Day. Wouldn't you prefer that your God found you trying to make the world a better place rather than piously sneering at others?
Last night I was only following the California election results, but apparently there was some election weirdness going on in South Carolina.
A mystery man won the Democratic Senate nomination. His name is Alvin Greene, and he's unemployed, 32 years old, and a military veteran. He won nearly 60% of the vote in SC's open primary. Greene had no campaign funds, no web site, no bumper stickers and he tried to pay his $10,400 filing fee with a personal check. Oh, and he's also facing a felony charge for allegedly showing obscene photos to a university student.
Some people suspect a Republican plant. These kind of shenanigans have happened before:
In the early ‘90s, a Republican strategist was prosecuted and forced to pay a fine when he was found to have coaxed an unemployed black fisherman into running in a primary race to increase white turnout at the polls in a Lowcountry congressional race. The political operative paid the man’s filing fee.
But it seems a little odd to plant a guy like Greene and then leave it up to chance for him to get the nomination.
But what I find really odd is that Greene doesn't seem to have the wild-eyed political views or the attention-whore tendencies of people like Orly Taitz. In fact, he doesn't even seem capable of those kind of theatrics:
But you know, US Senators earn an annual salary of $174,000. So why wouldn't Greene run? It might have been a bit of blue sky dreaming, but a $10,400 investment for a chance at a $174k job isn't bad! Believe me, I've considered this scheme myself!
But come November, Greene (if he doesn't step aside) will be facing Republican incumbent Jim DeMint, and we'll see if this anti-incumbent fever is really contagious.
You may remember dentist/lawyer/real-estate agent Orly for her crazy legal filings to repeal Obama's birth certificate or something like that. U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land dutifully slapped her with a $20,000 fine, and I hoped that was the last we'd ever hear from the "birther queen."
Now, if Orly had won the Republican nomination, I could have written a long blog post about teabaggers, and California becoming a circus, and the irony of conservatives electing a former Soviet to overthrow our democratically elected government...
Seems some people wanted her to win for the sheer joy and hilarity of seeing this conspiracy theorist campaign with other notable California Republicans. No doubt there will be some memorable races in November when teabagger favorites run against Democrats who do not believe in bartering chickens for checkups, or repealing the Civil Rights Act, or drill baby drill.
But Orly won't be in those races. I really believe democracy is better when all candidates are serious, rational, and educated. I don't want California to become a circus.
The Internet is supposed to make us smarter. Where have I heard that before? Oh, it's the tagline of this blog which, by the way, is a quip I borrowed from comedian Lewis Black.
The truthiness of that supposition, though, seems to be a hot topic this week.
Clay Shirky, who teaches New Media as an associate professor at NYU, talks about the media revolution in his article Does the Internet Make You Smarter:
Every increase in freedom to create or consume media, from paperback books to YouTube, alarms people accustomed to the restrictions of the old system, convincing them that the new media will make young people stupid. This fear dates back to at least the invention of movable type.
He makes a good case that increased freedom to create gives us all kinds of silly, time-wasting distractions. For example cute cat videos, Farmville and the House Republicans' web site. But we also get revolutionary tools like Wikipedia which, according to Shirky, is becoming the most important English reference work since its creation in 2001.
But even the "good stuff" can distract me as I demonstrated in my Six Degrees of Wikipedia post last year.
Obviously there's a massive amount of informative, interesting stuff out there. I load a program called Trillian, which manages all my chat accounts, plus my Facebook and Twitter streams, and I'm instantly inundated with all kinds of witty comments and links to interesting news articles. I want to click each and every one because now I'm aware that there is something I don't know! Now I'm aware that there's new information I'm not aware of!
And knowing that there's something I don't know doesn't make me feel smart. It gives me an urgent feeling that I'm falling behind all those other smart people out there. So I read as much as I can, yet I can't commit it all to my long-term memory. Damn it.
But I'm not sure what those results really mean. In fact, asking whether the Internet makes us smart or dumb might be the wrong question. A better question is "What kind of brain is the web giving us?"
I think the most alarming part of this NYT story about a guy hooked on gadgets was the theory that heavy technology use diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another.
There's further evidence that the web is turning us into shallower thinkers with weak reading comprehension:
Navigating linked documents, it turned out, entails a lot of mental calisthenics—evaluating hyperlinks, deciding whether to click, adjusting to different formats—that are extraneous to the process of reading. Because it disrupts concentration, such activity weakens comprehension. A 1989 study showed that readers tended just to click around aimlessly when reading something that included hypertext links to other selected pieces of information. A 1990 experiment revealed that some “could not remember what they had and had not read.”
Even though the World Wide Web has made hypertext ubiquitous and presumably less startling and unfamiliar, the cognitive problems remain. Research continues to show that people who read linear text comprehend more, remember more, and learn more than those who read text peppered with links.
Well, that's discouraging. Here I am trying to inform and entertain, and yet, hyperlink by hyperlink, I'm slowly turning my audience into uncaring, scatter-brained introverts. That should be my new tagline.
I've been reading this odd little detective novel from 1908 -- The Man Who Was Thursday. I came across this passage, and well, the more things change, the more they stay screwed up:
"Mere mobs!" repeated his new friend with a snort of scorn. "So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons' wars."
Now I think of the whiny-ass rant from BP CEO Tony Hayward and I imagine that he's planning an escape to New Guinea or wherever, but probably not in a yacht -- he wouldn't want anything to remind him of oceans:
"There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."
Hayward wants his life back? How much does he make? Five million a year or something? Wow, he certainly benefited from anarchy in the form of chummy EPA officials letting BP get away with crimes.
And as always, it's the working class who will suffer the most. Louisiana fishermen are feeling desperate as they see their livelihoods destroyed. They're the ones who can't have their lives back.
As everybody knows, he was the child superstar of Diff'rent Strokes, a TV sitcom that ran from 1978 to 1986.
Yeah, the show was saccharine and contrived, but it entertained us. All the while, Gary suffered from a congenital kidney disease that stunted his growth. All the while, his parents misappropriated the millions of dollars he earned on the show. In the end, he was famous but not wealthy. That's a nasty combination. The public never forgot about the cute child star, so he got all the press any time something in his life went wrong, and yet he had few of the resources to shelter himself from the mockery.
Looking back at the history of Gary and his child co-stars, it seems they gave up a lot in order to entertain us.
Everybody's got a special kind of story, but Gary's real story never seemed funny. Rest in peace.
America is speaking out on the House Republicans' new taxpayer-funded web site. And boy, we sure are funny, but I doubt that's what the Republicans were looking for.
"This site was developed as part of an official effort to increase the dialogue between Americans and their Congress. Here, Americans are provided a new platform to share their priorities and ideas for a national policy agenda."
I'm sure the GOP thought they were being cool and innovative, but somebody should have seriously Googled "flaming," "trolling" and "rick rolling" before jumping into this new-fangled Internet thing. If you think I'm making fun of Republicans for being out-of-touch, then you're absolutely right.
A forum? To express our ideas? On this computer thing? Well gollly!
And wouldn't you know it? Give them an open mic, and people start yapping. Here is what the true Americans are saying on their new so-ugly-it-must-be-hip-with-those-myspace-kids platform:
We should make English the official language of the US and stop spending tax dollars on translations for Mexicans! if English is good enough for baby Jesus, it's good enough for Americans.
The United States needs to quit beating around the bush and declare war on the Devil. He has clearly shown to be a great threat to our national security by creating brown people, gays, and Jews. I know he would be no match for our fine service men.
ONLY gays in the military. Think about it.
We should invade China and take our money back.
The USA don't need socialist measures such as 8-hour work days, weekends off, paid vacations, banning child labor, or the minimum wage if we want to stay competitive against giants like India and China.
Look for more of the un-American places to spread our freedom.
No one should be allowed to criticize corporations, period. It's disrespectful and unAmerican.
Over time I have found that American sour cream just isn't sour enough. This is a national disgrace and is holding us back as a country. Soon we'll be nothing but whipped cream liberal candyasses.
We need to eliminate 62 days out of the US Calendar every year. That way we will move through time faster than other countries and we will be able to find out about new technologies first. Plus we can see the future. Don't tell the French.
Why hasn't anyone followed up on Sarah Palin's idea that we should have Death Panels to decide who gets medical care? I read about her Death Panels suggestion and thought it was very constructive and would make most of the recent very expensive health care plan unnecessary. The congress ignoring Sarah Palin's Death Panel idea shows that they were not serious about listening to the American People and their Constructive Ideas.
The government should never give you up, Never let you down, Never run around and desert you. Never make you cry, Never say goodbye, Never tell a lie and hurt you.
Now, who wants to bet some Republican candidates will actually campaign on a few of the "constructive" ideas listed above? Who wants to bet that the GOP will completely ignore any good suggestions that don't already fit their established agenda?
And who wants to bet that if the Founding Fathers could see us now, they'd pat themselves on the back for shunning direct democracy?
I allow myself one American Idol post per season. This is it.
Yes, it was the season finale tonight. Spoiler alert! As if you care -- Lee DeWyze won... a very talented and nice guy, but when you make it into the top two, you might want to rehearse a victory speech or something so you don't stand there gasping "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god." But that's okay. Does anybody really watch to find out the winner?
I watch for the entertainment, and there were a few... umm... let's say WTF moments tonight. The best was Bret Michaels performing a duet with Casey James. Hey Bret, glad you didn't die with that recent stroke and all. Take it easy.
Another unlikely guest appearance was Alice Cooper doing a number with Idol contestants dressed like school girls. It was mildly creepy.
Then there was the Pants on the Ground guy joined by everybody's favorite Idol reject, William Hung. Saggy pants and William Hung: two things that should go away! Seriously, not to sound like a cranky old person, but when is this whole saggy pants fad going to end?
Then there was the lollapalooza of all performances when all the previous Idol winners and runners-up sang together. There was Kelly Clarkson, and that other dude from season one with the wild curly hair (still), and then there was that guy with the pre-mature gray hair who shilled for Ford, and then there was... wait... who's missing? No Clay Aiken? No Adam Lambert?
This not-quite reunion was part of the farewell roasting of Idol judge Simon Cowell who is leaving the show. It won't be the same without his brutally honest assessments. I don't know if any future judge can use the word "ghastly" quite as effectively without the snooty British accent. It just won't be the same.
But I've saved the biggest most surprising WTF moment for last. At the end of a song mocking Simon and all his rudeness and arrogance, it appeared that contestants who had been ridiculed in past seasons were finally going to get one moment of retribution to sing off-key and tell Simon to kiss their tone-deaf asses -- and then a total Kanye West moment. Some guy named Ian Benardo stormed the stage, snatched the mic... and well, just watch:
A while back I wrote aboutThe Lightning-Rod Man by Herman Melville:
Door-to-door salesman are not part of our modern world, but we can still recognize the lightning-rod man today. He comes during a storm, strikes fear with his stories, has something to sell, and has something to gain. The Lightning-Rod Man is an enduring parable about consumerism, religion, and politics. Buy me, pray to me, vote for me or you'll end up dead.
Or poor. Glenn Beck is the modern lightning-rod man, or snake-oil salesman if you prefer. The Fox commentator spins wild, paranoid tales of the the coming economic apocalypse and then tells his gullible audience that buying gold is the answer. See, first he scares you, but then he saves you!
Of course, Beck wants his viewers to buy gold from Goldline which is one of his few remaining sponsors. Now, whether you believe gold is the answer or not, one thing is looking clearer and clearer: Goldline is screwing consumers. Their average markup is 90% above melt value. Their highest markup is 208% above melt value:
And Glenn Beck's audience must be a goldmine for Goldline. Beck's true believers faithfully follow the fallacies of his hallucinations:
One customer, whose name was redacted by the FTC, filed a complaint in February, writing, "Not knowing anything about buying gold, I called Goldline International, Inc. because of their advertisement on Fox News and the fact that Glenn Beck endorses them." Like Richardson, this customer originally wanted bullion, but the sales rep "absolutely insisted" on 20-franc coins, and the customer relented. Unable to get a refund, the customer reported paying $369 apiece for coins that could be bought elsewhere for as low as $208.
But now that Rep. Anthony Weiner is onto Goldline’s sleazy sales tactics and ties to right-wing pundits, what can Beck do? (Do I even need to ask?) He will weave an intricate web of conspiracies involving Van Jones, Jim Wallis, evil government agencies, and Media Matters -- all determined to take down Fox News!
And his fans will believe every deluded word even as he swindles them.
Well, apparently chicken suits have been the favorite form of ridicule directed at Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden, a millionaire casino executive famous for suggesting that poor people barter chickens for checkups.
Of course, Lowden claims she never said it, but she said it and the videos show it. Which reminds me of a comment Bill Maher made on his show on Friday: lying is obsolete. Yep, Lowden should learn that she can't deny her own words when they've already been set to a disco beat on YouTube.
I know my blog posts have been a little sparse this month. I'm not sure what my problem is. Maybe I've caught that infectious anti-incumbent fever that's been going around. Achoo!
Actually, I've hardly paid attention to the elections this week, but people are making a fuss about them, so I guess I will too.
So there's this guy Rand Paul, political neophyte son of Republican Congressman Ron Paul -- no relation to RuPaul, who won a Republican Senatorial primary race. Calm down Kentucky teabaggers. It's a primary race. He's not a Senator yet!
But, no doubt, Rand is the man of the teabaggers: "I have a message. A message from the Tea Party. A message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back."
After watching that Rachel Maddow interview, does anybody have any doubt that there is a strong racist vibe with the teabaggers and their candidates? If the creepy "take our government back" line is a racist dog whistle, then the rest of that interview was a racist bullhorn. Rand couldn't even give a straight answer to the Woolworth's lunch counter conundrum.
Hey Rand, it's really not a brain teaser. Most of this country agrees that it should be illegal for a business to discriminate based on race, gender, religion, or disability. Rand tried to compare it to a business owner discriminating against those who openly carry a gun. Well, I think the man doesn't know real discrimination. You can choose whether to carry a gun or not. You can choose what day you want to carry a gun. You don't get to choose your race, color or disability, and though you can change your gender and religion, it's certainly not something you do flippantly.
Rand tried to say that the civil rights issues that Rachel Maddow brought up were "red herrings." Well if Rand ever makes it to the Senate floor, then his positions on the Civil Rights Act and the 20-year-old American's with Disabilities Act are not inconsequential footnotes. As a Senator, his beliefs get translated into laws! That's the way it works!
Nobody wants to re-fight the civil rights battles of the last century... except apparently Rand Paul and the teabaggers. As a person with a disability, I do feel threatened every time some politician feels more empathetic toward the "free speech" of a business owner versus the basic rights of the disabled. I know it's hard for libertarians to understand, but in 1990, a federal law increased my rights.
The small government types don't comprehend this. Government had to write the rules to protect my rights. Free markets can't, won't, and aren't designed to do such things. Bob Cesca explained the flaws of libertarianism better than I can:
Libertarianism, which both Ron and Rand Paul famously embrace, suggests the free market is a significant and vital component of liberty. Private businesses are capable of accomplishing everything, and government can't interfere or regulate those businesses in any way. The free market will police itself. Just leave it be.
Private industry can pave roads, educate children, put out fires and protect our streets from drunk drivers. It can shuttle our kids to corporate schools and back, it can provide clean water to our homes and they can guarantee our meat and vegetables aren't contaminated with diseases. And by the way, in a nation that's 70 percent white, private businesses can choose to do all of these things for white people only. Private businesses can provide everything we need, but only offer those services to white people.
And these businesses, according to libertarian ideology, can form monopolies if they want to. As we're all painfully aware from the health care debate, monopolies occur even in our current government-regulated system. Imagine what would happen in a totally unregulated free market.
And really, after witnessing what has happened with the banks in the last year, and the BP blowout last month, we should all realize that businesses need to be regulated diligently. Leaving them to run amok is dangerous!
Can the federal government set the private sector's minimum wage? Can it tell private businesses not to hire illegal immigrants? Can it tell oil companies what safety systems to build into an offshore drilling platform? Can it tell toy companies to test for lead? Can it tell liquor stores not to sell to minors?
Hmm... wouldn't want the nasty government telling businesses not to hire illegal immigrants, would we teabaggers? Now there's a conundrum for Rand.
An Alabama geometry teacher decided to teach a lesson about straight lines and angles using a real world example: assassinating the president.
"He was talking about angles and said, 'If you're in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president,' " said one student in the class.
Birmingham's Secret Service didn't find the high school math teacher to be a credible threat, but the school has placed him on leave anyway.
Good move by the school. I'm all for inspirational teachers, but not like that! I'm really hoping the teacher is simply a hapless buffoon trying to spice up a boring lesson. But then, it isAlabama.
Okay, so now that we've all had a good laugh, I have to say that this entire oil spill disaster has been, to me, one of the most soul crushing man-made disasters ever. Millions of gallons of oil have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon blowout. The amount of oil could be "the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker every four days."
And it threatens the entire ocean food chain. We've all seen the illustrations where the little fish is eaten by the big fish, which is eaten by an even bigger fish, etc? Well...
Scientists say bacteria, plankton and other tiny, bottom-feeding creatures will consume oil and will then be eaten by small fish, crabs and shrimp. They, in turn, will be eaten by bigger fish, such as red snapper, and marine mammals such as dolphins.
The petroleum substances that concentrate in the sea creatures could kill them or render them unsafe for eating, scientists say.
"If the oil settles on the bottom, it will kill the smaller organisms like the copepods and small worms," Montagna said. "When we lose the forage, then you have an impact on the larger fish."
Making matters worse for the deep sea is the leaking well's location: It is near the continental shelf of the Gulf where a string of coral reefs flourishes. Coral is a living creature that excretes a hard calcium carbonate exoskeleton, and oil globs can kill it.
The reefs are colorful underwater metropolises of biodiversity, attracting sea sponges, crabs, fish, algae and octopus.
And that's just the effect of the oil. The 400,000 gallons of dispersants (chemical mixtures designed to bond to the oil molecules and separate them from water molecules) are also toxic and do not actually reduce the total amount of oil entering the gulf, but they do make the oil less visible. If that sounds to you more like a political "solution" than a scientific one, you're probably right. But some people are more gullible...
Brit Hume at Fox News recently asked, "where is the oil?" The guy has the critical thinking skills of a toddler. Put a little toy out of sight and it's "all gone!" Except it's not a toy, it's oil. And it's not all gone, it's deep in the ocean.
But it's going to take more than dispersants to clean up BP's political mess. Eight US senators are calling for criminal and civil charges against the multinational oil company. I'm not sure how we can even put a price on a disaster we'll be feeling for years, but I'm certain that $75 million won't be enough.
Ranked as one of the 50 most extraordinary churches by Bored Panda, this little California church is either unabashedly honest about who they really worship, or forgot to take the sign down from the previous owners.
I took one environmental studies class in college. It was to fulfill a general education requirement, and the year was... somewhere post Exxon Valdez oil spill and pre Gulf War I.
They say education is what remains after you've forgotten what you've learned. Well, these are the major lessons, predictions, and dire warnings my professor left me with:
We would enter a major war in the Middle East over oil.
Our future energy needs would have to be met with a diversity of renewable sources -- nuclear power not being one of them because it's dangerous and not renewable.
And because we need energy to get energy, we need to develop these diverse technologies and infrastructure before we run out of oil, coal, and natural gas.
Earth day is about more than cleaning junk off of beaches.
Accidents always happen. If a group of scientists say that drilling for oil here or there will cause an ecological disaster, they're probably right.
Global warming will result in increased droughts, flooding, soil erosion, and landslides.
Something about the unsustainability of exponential growth.
At times the lessons seemed apocalyptic, but the apocalypse, at least, seemed far off.
Okay, I honestly don't want to compare these events to signs of the apocalypse, but they are signs of something.
They are signs that as a nation we are confused and we don't know who to listen to. Hyperventilating know-nothings like Rush Limbaugh get way too much press. (Hey Rush, environmentalists did not blow up that oil rig, because that would be bad for the environment!) And actual climate scientists get way too little press, and when they do, it's because some oily politician is making a McCarthy-like political assault on their research.
These politicians think that if they create distractions, they won't have to actually do anything. But those who think we should wait until all scientists are in absolute agreement over global warming are willing to risk the entire planet.
I'm reminded of the French water lily story: "French children are told a story in which they imagine having a pond with water lily leaves floating on the surface. The lily population doubles in size every day and if left unchecked will smother the pond in 30 days, killing all the other living things in the water. Day after day the plant seems small and so it is decided to leave it to grow until it half-covers the pond, before cutting it back. They are then asked, on what day that will occur. This is revealed to be the 29th day, and then there will be just one day to save the pond."
Conan O'Brien is legally prohibited from being funny on television, but I'll be seeing him tonight live (and hopefully funny) in San Jose. Of course, I used to see him five nights a week for free, now I have to pay.
But he came across as such a genuinely nice guy in his recent 60 Minutes interview that going to see him now seems somehow like a vote of support -- though millionaire celebrities generally don't need my support. Maybe attending his show is more like giving the finger to NBC? After all, they screwed him, and as Conan's wife said, "it felt like they never really gave him the job."
Whenever the topic of renewable energy is brought up -- and it will be brought up a lot in the coming years -- the anti-environmentalist types will eagerly chime in that wind power is dangerous too! Wind turbines kill birds! Yes, that's a disturbing fact, but why is it always shouted by the same people who wouldn't give a damn about polar bears, owls, or wolves? And why do they think this negates the dangers of oil spills or other environmental disasters?
Tonight Keith Olbermann debunked the bird death arguments. Apparently cats are the biggest danger to birds! Who would have guessed?
