Intangible Things

Explain to me again how Michigan is #2...

2006-11-25T20:10:00.000-05:00

Of course I am biased, being a Gator fan and believing that the SEC is the toughest conference, but...

After looking at the conferences, schedules, and results for Michigan, USC and Florida, I don't understand how anyone can reasonably argue that Michigan deserves another shot at beating Ohio State, especially when they lost the first time (yeah yeah, it was in Columbus, only 3 points, blah blah blah - they lost, and they lost their conference too).

First, the respective conferences went (Big 10): 33-11, (Pac-10): 20-9 (USC-ND not played as of this post), and (SEC): 41-7 playing outside their conferences. I don't know if anything can be drawn from this, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Second, record against opponents ranked in the AP Top 25 during and at the end of the season:

Michigan: 1-1 (3)
USC: 3-0 (USC-ND result pending) (4)
Florida: 2-1 (SEC championship result pending) (4)

Third, losses:

Michigan: Ohio State (1) 42-39
USC: Oregon State (unranked) 31-33
Florida: Auburn (11) 27-17

Finally, bowl eligible teams (teams over .500) (and record):

Michigan: 4 (3-1)
USC: 7 (7-0) (loss to UCLA could make this 7-1)
Florida: 7 (6-1) (Arkansas-Florida result pending)

It all depends on Notre Dame, UCLA, and Arkansas, but Michigan shouldn't even be in the mix, regardless of their ranking.

Memory lane - the left and right versions

2006-11-23T10:18:00.000-05:00

Good for Her
Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press reports:

Former Attorney General Janet Reno and seven other former Justice Department officials filed court papers Monday arguing that the Bush administration is setting a dangerous precedent by trying a suspected terrorist outside the court system.

It was the first time that Reno, attorney general in the Clinton administration, has spoken out against the administration’s policies on terrorism detainees, underscoring how contentious the court fight over the nation’s new military commissions law has become. Former attorneys general rarely file court papers challenging administration policy.

So far the righties have been fairly subdued, but one commenter to a rightie site couldn’t resist a walk down memory lane. He writes:

I am always amused by those on the Left crying about the Constitution.

1. Does anybody remember Ruby Ridge and a dead child and woman there?
2. Does anybody remember Waco - Branch Davidians and women and children killed there?
3. Does anybody remember Elian Gonzales being forcibly sent back to Communist Cuba?

It appears all children are at risk whenever Janet Reno is involved with any issue and she seems the forget about the Constitution herself from time to time!

How come these meatballs never remember that Ruby Ridge occurred during the George H.W. Bush Administration (August 1992)? Or that the investigation conducted by former Republican Senator Jack Danforth concluded the Branch Davidians shot their children and then each other?

I’m not sure that Elian Gonzalez’s issue was a constitutional one, as Gonzalez was a foreign national, but he wasn’t sent back “forcibly.” He was (willingly) returned to the custody of his father, who had plenty of opportunity to request asylum from Cuba, and did not. “Forcible” would have been taking him away from his father and making him stay.

Details, details.

And does anyone remember that the new RNC chair, Sen. Mel Martinez, made his bones with the GOP by attacking Janet Reno during in the Gonzalez Saga? You can read about it at Media Matters.

I love trains

2006-11-20T07:57:00.000-05:00

A 10% Reduction in America's Oil Use in Ten to Twelve Years
An Overlooked, Practical, and Affordable Approach Using Mature Existing Technology

Commentary by Alan S. Drake
May 2006 • Rev. October 2006

NOTE: This is the third commentary in our series Electrification 101 – a discussion aimed at informing transportation professionals, decisionmakers, and the public at large of the value and advantages of electrifying transportation operations, and the electrification of public transport systems in particular. The following essay is a slightly edited version of a summary position paper disseminated by the author at a recent Peak Oil conference in Washington, DC. This article is a moderately revised update of the one originally published in May 2006. Alan S. Drake, a former accountant, is an engineer, and professional researcher based in New Orleans.

Why isn't Diebold liable for fucking up?

2006-11-16T11:23:00.000-05:00

Given the current voting situation in this country, why aren't the electronic voting machine companies (Diebold, ES&S, etc) criminally and monetarily liable when their machines fuck up? Sarasota, Florida, obviously has a problem, and I think ES&S (the company that provided their machines) should have to pay for all recounts, pay for a new election if necessary, and the CEO (who used to be Chuck Hagel, interestingly enough) should be put in prison for interfering with an election. Drastic? Yes. But that might be what it takes to get their attention, and get things straightened out. But a boy can fantasize...

Senate election schedule

2006-11-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

FYI - here's how the senate races break down by state and year. Maybe one day I'll put them in map form, so get a sense of red-blue futures...

2006	2008	2010
AZ	AK	AZ
CA	AL	AK
CT	AR	AL
DE	CO	AR
FL	DE	CA
HI	GA	CO
IN	IA	CT
MA	ID	FL
MD	IL	GA
ME	KS	HI
MI	KY	IA
MN	LA	ID
MO	MA	IL
MS	ME	IN
MT	MI	KS
ND	MN	KY
NE	MS	LA
NJ	MT	MD
NM	NC	MO
NV	NE	NC
NY	NH	ND
OH	NJ	NH
PA	NM	NV
RI	OK	NY
TN	OR	OH
TX	RI	OK
UT	SC	OR
VA	SD	PA
VT	TN	SC
WA	TX	SD
WI	VA	UT
WV	WV	VT
WY	WY	WA
		WI

Rahm Emanuel - hero?

2006-11-13T21:22:00.000-05:00

The House that Rahm Built

Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's profane, ruthless, savvy operative, remade the Democrats in his image--and helped the party overcome 12 years of humiliation

Story by Naftali Bendavid
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 12, 2006

What a revisionist whitewash (is that possible?) of history. Rahm didn't do it by himself (he had help from Dean), and he nearly caused it to not happen. He's the one who DIDN'T want to make Iraq an issue, and it was only after Ned Lamont made it an issue (whom Rahm and the rest did not support) in his primary with Lieberman that Iraq even entered the campaigns of many that were "annointed" by Rahm and Schumer.

Also, the two of them refused to support a number of candidates that were more progressive and more independent (Tester in Montana , Webb in Virginia are two examples), and forced many grass roots candidates out in favor of their chosen ones. It's a miracle that these two didn't lead to another Democratic catastrophe.

They wanted candidates chosen by back room politics, ones who would be beholden to them. These guys are dangerous (not as much as Republicans, but dangerous nonetheless), and need to be watched closely (and ideally beaten at the polls by real Dems). They wouldn't even throw Lieberman under the bus after he lost his primary to Lamont, and now the Dem hold on the Senate is dependent on Lieberman. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Dumbasses.

You're too fucking stupid to vote

2006-11-07T20:02:00.000-05:00

"It's unbelievable how many calls I got about Farrell (ed: D) — drove me nuts," said Moll, who put on his hearing aid to field these calls. "It's why I voted for Shays (ed: R)."

Told that many of the calls were likely sponsored by national Republicans, Moll shrugged. "Then I voted for the wrong reason," he said.

If you can't determine that this candidate might be better than that candidate based on the issues, or that this party might be better controlling Congress, then you are TOO FUCKING STUPID TO VOTE! Put the ballot down, and step away from the box...

Mid-term elections

2006-10-24T15:20:00.000-04:00

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Book review and history lesson all in one

2006-10-04T09:43:00.000-04:00

And what a history lesson it is. Oh, and Mark Halperin - I suspected you were a wanker during the 2004 campaign, and this just confirms it. Thank you Eric Boehlert.

Here's how dishonest Beltway journalism has become

Research on Team B

2006-10-03T14:14:00.000-04:00

That would be Cheney and Rumsfeld...

Groundhog Day
The Retreads Strike Again
Rank and File Partisanship
Muslim Brotherhood, Team B, PNAC, and the New International Fascist Agenda
Deja vu all over again
Today in History - 1974 Nixon Resigns - Cheney and Rumsfeld Receive Whitehouse Promotions

Engineering humor

2006-09-28T16:20:00.000-04:00

Being an engineer, I appreciate these (and kind of relate to them too...sadly)

A bunch of engineers are sitting around at a party, discussing the nature of God.

The mechanical engineer states that God must also be a mechanical engineer because "if you look at all the pulleys and levers that drive the body, how the tendons and muscles and bones all work together, well, it's just amazing."

The chemical engineer says that no, God has to be a chemical engineer because "if you look at all the chemical processes that drive the body, how the hormones and the brain and the glands and everything else all interact, well, it's just astounding."

The electrical engineer says that no, God has to be an electrical engineer because "if you look at the circuitry of the body, how the thousands upon millions of nerve cells transmit signals from one part to another, well, it boggles the mind."

The civil engineer speaks up last of all and says, no, God is definitely a civil engineer, because "only a civil engineer would run a sewer through a playground."

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him."
"Hi George! Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind golfers. We always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight. "The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons. Civil Engineers build targets.

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Three engineers were in the bathroom standing at the urinals. The first engineer finished and walked over to the sink to wash his hands. He then proceeded to dry his hands very carefully. He used paper towel after paper towel and ensured that every single spot of water on his hands was dried. Turning to the other two engineers, he said, "At Hewlett Packard, we are trained to be extremely thorough." The second engineer finished his task at the urinal and he proceeded to wash his hands. He used a single paper towel and made sure that he dried his hands using every available portion of the paper towel. He turned and said, "At Sun Microsystems, not only are we trained to be extremely thorough, but we are also trained to be extremely efficient." The third engineer finished and walked straight for the door, shouting over his shoulder, "At IBM we don't pee on our hands."

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below said, "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field." "You must be an engineer," said the balloonist. "I am," replied the man. "How did you know?" "Well," said the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's of absolutely no use to anyone." The man below said, "You must be in management." "I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

And this one was too good not to include:

There were three nuns sitting around talking to eachother one day when the first nun said "you'll never believe what I found in the Father's room the other day" the other two nuns asked what she had found, and she replied "I found a bunch of pornographic magazines". The two nun's gasped, and the second nun asked what she did with the magazines. The first nun answered "Well I threw them out of course." The third nun then said "Well I can beat that...the other day when I was cleaning out the Father's room, I found a pack of condoms"...the other two nuns gasped and asked her what she did with them. The third nun replied "I poked holes in all of them.", and the second nun promptly fainted.

Canadians get it

2006-09-25T17:11:00.000-04:00

I don't know how I never posted this one

2006-09-24T20:33:00.000-04:00

Unbelievably prescient. Note the date:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

January 17, 2001 | Issue 37•01

WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."

President-elect Bush vows that "together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us."

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.

Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Soldiers at Ft. Bragg march lockstep in preparation for America's return to aggression.

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."

Gotta love Sheryl

2006-09-18T22:02:00.000-04:00

From Sheryl Crow vs War on American Music Awards

Aside from the nuke nonsense

2006-09-14T20:41:00.000-04:00

what ELSE is wrong with this statement? (h/t to tristero)

On the September 12 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck said that "[t]he Middle East is being overrun by 10th-century barbarians" and "[i]f they take over ... we're going to have to nuke the whole place."

Is the United States and the rest of the West so weak that we would have to nuke a bunch of "10th-century barbarians"? Why does Glenn Beck hate America?

Conan meets Heavy Metal

2006-09-14T18:47:00.000-04:00

Friend of mine sent this months ago, and I came across it trying to clean out my email.

Korgoth of Barbaria Pt1
Korgoth of Barbaria Pt2
Korgoth of Barbaria Pt3

More from adultswim

Talented bunnies

2006-09-10T16:21:00.000-04:00

(movie) in 30 seconds

Cool green stuff

2006-09-09T08:50:00.000-04:00

From a dailkos diary:

Powerisers
Ice Energy
Solar powered cell phones

And what the fuck is wrong with this country when we allow China to develop frictionless wind turbines?

More cool stuff at Treehugger

I wonder who will be making an appearance this fall

2006-09-06T07:47:00.000-04:00

Considering what President Dumbass has had to say in the past, see if you can guess who from his speech yesterday (9/5):

...We remember the cold brutality of the enemy who inflicted this harm on our country -- an enemy whose leader, Osama bin Laden, declared the massacre of nearly 3,000 people that day -- I quote -- "an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor, unmatched by any in humankind before them."

...Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks -- in his words -- "a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous... [Caliphate]."

...Again, hear the words of Osama bin Laden earlier this year: "Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us."

Bin Laden calls this his "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan."...With the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden says, "al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America... lost -- according to the lowest estimate -- $500 billion... Meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars" of America. Bin Laden concludes from this experience that "America is definitely a great power, with... unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation."...

...Osama bin Laden laid out this strategy in a letter to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, that coalition forces uncovered in Afghanistan in 2002. In it, bin Laden says that al Qaeda intends to "[launch]," in his words, "a media campaign... to create a wedge between the American people and their government." This media campaign, bin Laden says, will send the American people a number of messages, including "that their government [will] bring them more losses, in finances and casualties."...Bin Laden says that by delivering these messages, al Qaeda "aims at creating pressure from the American people on the American government to stop their campaign against Afghanistan."

Bin Laden and his allies are absolutely convinced they can succeed in forcing America to retreat and causing our economic collapse...Osama bin Laden has written that the "defeat of... American forces in Beirut" in 1983 is proof America does not have the stomach to stay in the fight. He's declared that "in Somalia... the United States [pulled] out, trailing disappointment, defeat, and failure behind it."...

...But they've made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq -- the nation bin Laden has declared the "capital of the Caliphate." Hear the words of bin Laden: "I now address... the whole... Islamic nation: Listen and understand... The most... serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War... [that] is raging in [Iraq]."...

...Again, hear the words of bin Laden, in a message to the American people earlier this year...

Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them...

...Bin Laden and Zawahiri remain in hiding in remote regions of this world...

Hmmmm. Two interesting points. First, the "bleed-until-bankruptcy" plan is working, because the moron leading this country is doing his work for him. And second, at the same time dumbass was saying this, those "remote regions of this world" just got less remote:

Pakistan Gives Bin Laden Free Pass

September 06, 2006 6:10 AM

Brian Ross Reports:

Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a "peaceful life," Pakistani officials tell ABC News.
The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a "peace deal" with the Taliban.
If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

...

Oops. Of course today they're saying something a little different:

Pakistan Denies Bin Laden Gets a Pass

September 06, 2006 6:20 AM

Brian Ross Reports:

The government of Pakistan today denied it would allow Osama bin Laden to avoid capture under terms of a peace agreement it signed with Taliban leaders in the country's North Waziristan area.

"If he is in Pakistan, today or any time later, he will be taken into custody and brought to justice," the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said in a statement.

...

Whatever in the world could have caused them to say that?

Threatdown!

2006-09-05T22:11:00.000-04:00

Simple advice for the chimperor in chief

2006-09-05T18:28:00.000-04:00

The Rapture is not an exit strategy.

And it fits on a bumpersticker...

In anticipation

2006-09-05T16:29:00.001-04:00

Battlestar Galactica webisodes

This is the life

2006-09-05T16:21:00.000-04:00

except for the cage of course...

Lie by lie

2006-09-05T08:02:00.000-04:00

Mother Jones has put together a chronology of the lies that led to the Iraq Qwagmire. Cool.

Lie by Lie: Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003

The first drafts of history are fragmentary. Important revelations arrive late, and out of order. In this timeline, we’ve assembled the history of the Iraq War to create a resource we hope will help resolve open questions of the Bush era. What did our leaders know and when did they know it? And, perhaps just as important, what red flags did we miss, and how could we have missed them? This is the first installment in our Iraq War timeline project.

On right wing authoritarianism

2006-09-04T10:36:00.000-04:00

A comment (#55) from a discussion yesterday at firedoglake about John Dean's book, Conservatives Without Conscience:

Bob Altemeyer says:
September 3rd, 2006 at 2:41 pm *

Following up on Mr. Dean’s suggestion that I pitch my 2 cents into the discussion started by Victoria on No. 4, why do authoritarians need to create/adhere to gross falsehoods?

My research shows how well the question was posed, because there are the people who create the falsehoods and then the people who believe them and cling to them.

Authoritarian leaders will say, when answering a survey anonymously, that they are essentially amoral. They say for example that lying is justified if it gets you what you want, and one of the best skills a person should develop is the ability to look someone straight in the eye and lie convincingly. So I don’t know if the people who perpetrated the falsehoods you mentioned really believed them or not. But I have it from the horse’s mouth that authoritarian leaders will not hesitate to lie if it advances their cause. (We should realize, as Mr. Rosenberg points out, that they are hardly alone in this. But they may still be in first place in the Liar’s League.)

Authoritarian followers are quite a different story. First, they do pretty poorly on various “Can You Think Straight?” tests, compared to most people. They have trouble drawing logical conclusions from premises and from evidence. They are particularly given to wanting simple answers. They are not inclined to critical thinking unless their leaders have told them ahead of time whom to be critical of. And they trust their leaders so much (it comes with the territory when you’re an authoritarian follower) that they will believe the quite unbelievable when one of their authorities says it. They don’t check things that come down from on high, they just believe them. And studies show they are incredibly capable of holding all sorts of conflicting and contradictory ideas and explanations in their heads at the same time. Another thing that helps one understand the followers is that they are more afraid than most people, and disturbing events really disturb them. So they go to their authorities for reassurance, not facts or true explanations. I think this explains something about the current administration, namely how crummy its explanations have become. (”Islamofascism”?) I suspect that the “response teams” in the administration have learned that they don’t have to give sensible explanations of what went wrong, because they know their followers will believe virtually anything. And when people come along and point out the mistakes and misrepresentations and miserable untruths in the latest speech or press release, the last people on this planet who are going to read those criticisms or hear about them on the news they watch will the the high RWAs.

Profs give long answers, don’t they.

By the way, nobody who knows me calls me “Professor Altemeyer.” I’d be glad to be addressed here as “Dr. Bob,” which is my nickname on campus. It makes me feel much younger. I know, that makes me the 137th “Dr. Bob” you know.

Dr. Bob's research was a major component of the book.

Have the terrorists won?

2006-08-31T22:55:00.000-04:00

For America, Democracy Is Always More Important Than Security
by Chris Bowers, Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 02:02:42 AM EST
I should not be blogging this late, but I have to make a quick post before bed on a subject that has been irritating me for a while. Ever since 9/11, politicians of both parties, as we can see in Harold Ford's commercial below, have been saying lines that are a variation on "nothing is more important than our security." Well, you know what? That is bullshit. There is something more important to America and Americans than security: democracy.

Protecting American democracy should be the first priority of anyone seeking office. Protecting our nation comes second. America actually was founded in order to protect our democracy, rather than our nation. The civil war was fought to protect and further our democracy. There is no such thing as American identity without democracy. If, as a nation, protecting our nation has become more important than protecting our democracy, then we have lost our way as a nation both at home and abroad.

snip...

Expose those RW talking points

2006-08-31T22:31:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, too many in this country want so badly to believe things because it fits in with their world views, despite the facts. For instance:

The Truth About Clinton and Bin Laden: Another Right-Wing Talking Point Exposed

snip...

But one Clinton-bashing RNC talking point is not funny or comedic in the slightest. It’s a lie meant to disguise the miserable job that Republicans have done at avenging 9/11, and it’s being promoted with increasing desperation as we approach the mid-term elections.

The lie is that Bill Clinton had an easy opportunity to capture Osama Bin Ladin, but let him get away.

It’s one thing to hear this on Fox News; America’s Propaganda Network predictably allows this contention to go unrefuted by discoverable facts. It’s quite another thing when the lie has become so pervasive that ABC feels entitled to air a “docu-drama” which supports that lie.

snip...

Guess the quote

2006-08-21T17:21:00.000-04:00

"We have always had our covert enemies, but their numbers were few until the 1960s. But then the elite young men who declined to serve in the military during the Vietnam War set out to write a narrative in which they, rather than those who obeyed the call to duty, were the heroes."

Michael Moore? ROTFLMAO!!! Here's some more:

"They have propagated their ideas through the universities, the schools and mainstream media to the point that they are the default assumptions of millions."

Nope - not David Horowitz. But close. This would be Michael Barone. Can you say "projection"?

I've always wondered about this

2006-08-15T11:44:00.000-04:00

Why do knuckles crack? There's more to it, but here's the core reason:

A protective fluid cushions most of the joints in our bodies.

Inside a capsule that safeguards bones connected at a joint, synovial fluid keeps the cartilage, tissues, and muscles lubricated and well nourished. Nutrients float inside the fluid, along with gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

As you bend your fingers, the joint capsule stretches. To make more room for the stretch, gases release out of the fluid. The pop of your knuckles is the sound of gas as it bubbles out of the fluid, scientists say. Before your knuckle can crack again, the fluid must reabsorb the gas.

Microsoft marketing

2006-08-15T11:42:00.000-04:00

Microsoft redesigns the iPod packaging...

Bumpersticker seen recently

2006-07-11T16:29:00.000-04:00

Of course it was on a brand new Audi, and of course they got it wrong. I've included my corrections:

Republican = ~~Ownership~~A few owners
Democratic = ~~Dependence~~All are owners

Somebody noticed

2006-07-11T16:21:00.000-04:00

"First, Larry [Kudlow] and other Republican cheerleaders have a nasty habit of using whichever number looks better. This is standard operating procedure. Rule number one of Republican economic pundits. Lie your ass off and hope no one notices."

Seems Lawrence Kudlow is at it again. But everybody's on the case:

Bonddad v Powerline (x2!), Kudlow, Instapundit

A Kudlow Whopper?

Kudlow Claims BLS is Considering Adopting His Lunacy

I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

And for my 300th post

2006-07-11T11:04:00.000-04:00

Came across this while trying to find a way to get rid of the "The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped right now. Please try again later."

Of course I'm still looking for a good solution, but in the meantime:

Here’s how you disable XP’s annoying automatic preview:
regsvr32 /u /s shmedia.dll
You can enable it again by taking out the ‘/u’. This has no other side-effects.

(h/t to DjLizard)

Update: In the same thread, there is discussion of unlocker. It works.

What is Enlightenment?

2006-07-08T10:44:00.000-04:00

This link was referenced by Mahoney in the previous thread, but I wanted to highlight it here. This is the world in which our Founding Fathers grew, learned, and matured - the world that led to the creation of the United States. It is a world that those in power today, and the radical religious in this country desperately want to destroy, so they can lead a nation of sheep, unquestioning, unblinking, accepting of all that is imposed upon them. A nation of slaves, peasants, followers who dare not challenge their power.

IMMANUEL KANT: An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784)

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts.

Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.

But that the public should enlighten itself is more likely; indeed, if it is only allowed freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. For even among the entrenched guardians of the great masses a few will always think for themselves, a few who, after having themselves thrown off the yoke of immaturity, will spread the spirit of a rational appreciation for both their own worth and for each person's calling to think for himself. But it should be particularly noted that if a public that was first placed in this yoke by the guardians is suitably aroused by some of those who are altogether incapable of enlightenment, it may force the guardians themselves to remain under the yoke--so pernicious is it to instill prejudices, for they finally take revenge upon their originators, or on their descendants. Thus a public can only attain enlightenment slowly. Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.

Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters. But on all sides I hear: "Do not argue!" The officer says, "Do not argue, drill!" The tax man says, "Do not argue, pay!" The pastor says, "Do not argue, believe!" (Only one ruler in the World says, "Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!") In this we have examples of pervasive restrictions on freedom. But which restriction hinders enlightenment and which does not, but instead actually advances it? I reply: The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind; the private use of reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted, without otherwise hindering the progress of enlightenment. By the public use of one's own reason I understand the use that anyone as a scholar makes of reason before the entire literate world. I call the private use of reason that which a person may make in a civic post or office that has been entrusted to him. Now in many affairs conducted in the interests of a community, a certain mechanism is required by means of which some of its members must conduct themselves in an entirely passive manner so that through an artificial unanimity the government may guide them toward public ends, or at least prevent them from destroying such ends. Here one certainly must not argue, instead one must obey. However, insofar as this part of the machine also regards himself as a member of the community as a whole, or even of the world community, and as a consequence addresses the public in the role of a scholar, in the proper sense of that term, he can most certainly argue, without thereby harming the affairs for which as a passive member he is partly responsible. Thus it would be disastrous if an officer on duty who was given a command by his superior were to question the appropriateness or utility of the order. He must obey. But as a scholar he cannot be justly constrained from making comments about errors in military service, or from placing them before the public for its judgment. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed on him; indeed, impertinent criticism of such levies, when they should be paid by him, can be punished as a scandal (since it can lead to widespread insubordination). But the same person does not act contrary to civic duty when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts regarding the impropriety or even injustice of such taxes. Likewise a pastor is bound to instruct his catecumens and congregation in accordance with the symbol of the church he serves, for he was appointed on that condition. But as a scholar he has complete freedom, indeed even the calling, to impart to the public all of his carefully considered and well-intentioned thoughts concerning mistaken aspects of that symbol, as well as his suggestions for the better arrangement of religious and church matters. Nothing in this can weigh on his conscience. What he teaches in consequence of his office as a servant of the church he sets out as something with regard to which he has no discretion to teach in accord with his own lights; rather, he offers it under the direction and in the name of another. He will say, "Our church teaches this or that and these are the demonstrations it uses." He thereby extracts for his congregation all practical uses from precepts to which he would not himself subscribe with complete conviction, but whose presentation he can nonetheless undertake, since it is not entirely impossible that truth lies hidden in them, and, in any case, nothing contrary to the very nature of religion is to be found in them. If he believed he could find anything of the latter sort in them, he could not in good conscience serve in his position; he would have to resign. Thus an appointed teacher's use of his reason for the sake of his congregation is merely private, because, however large the congregation is, this use is always only domestic; in this regard, as a priest, he is not free and cannot be such because he is acting under instructions from someone else. By contrast, the cleric--as a scholar who speaks through his writings to the public as such, i.e., the world--enjoys in this public use of reason an unrestricted freedom to use his own rational capacities and to speak his own mind. For that the (spiritual) guardians of a people should themselves be immature is an absurdity that would insure the perpetuation of absurdities.

But would a society of pastors, perhaps a church assembly or venerable presbytery (as those among the Dutch call themselves), not be justified in binding itself by oath to a certain unalterable symbol in order to secure a constant guardianship over each of its members and through them over the people, and this for all time: I say that this is wholly impossible. Such a contract, whose intention is to preclude forever all further enlightenment of the human race, is absolutely null and void, even if it should be ratified by the supreme power, by parliaments, and by the most solemn peace treaties. One age cannot bind itself, and thus conspire, to place a succeeding one in a condition whereby it would be impossible for the later age to expand its knowledge (particularly where it is so very important), to rid itself of errors,and generally to increase its enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, whose essential destiny lies precisely in such progress; subsequent generations are thus completely justified in dismissing such agreements as unauthorized and criminal. The criterion of everything that can be agreed upon as a law by a people lies in this question: Can a people impose such a law on itself? Now it might be possible, in anticipation of a better state of affairs, to introduce a provisional order for a specific, short time, all the while giving all citizens, especially clergy, in their role as scholars, the freedom to comment publicly, i.e., in writing, on the present institution's shortcomings. The provisional order might last until insight into the nature of these matters had become so widespread and obvious that the combined (if not unanimous) voices of the populace could propose to the crown that it take under its protection those congregations that, in accord with their newly gained insight, had organized themselves under altered religious institutions, but without interfering with those wishing to allow matters to remain as before. However, it is absolutely forbidden that they unite into a religious organization that nobody may for the duration of a man's lifetime publicly question, for so do-ing would deny, render fruitless, and make detrimental to succeeding generations an era in man's progress toward improvement. A man may put off enlightenment with regard to what he ought to know, though only for a short time and for his own person; but to renounce it for himself, or, even more, for subsequent generations, is to violate and trample man's divine rights underfoot. And what a people may not decree for itself may still less be imposed on it by a monarch, for his lawgiving authority rests on his unification of the people's collective will in his own. If he only sees to it that all genuine or purported improvement is consonant with civil order, he can allow his subjects to do what they find necessary to their spiritual well-being, which is not his affair. However, he must prevent anyone from forcibly interfering with another's working as best he can to determine and promote his well-being. It detracts from his own majesty when he interferes in these matters, since the writings in which his subjects attempt to clarify their insights lend value to his conception of governance. This holds whether he acts from his own highest insight--whereby he calls upon himself the reproach, "Caesar non eat supra grammaticos."'--as well as, indeed even more, when he despoils his highest authority by supporting the spiritual despotism of some tyrants in his state over his other subjects.

If it is now asked, "Do we presently live in an enlightened age?" the answer is, "No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment." As matters now stand, a great deal is still lacking in order for men as a whole to be, or even to put themselves into a position to be able without external guidance to apply understanding confidently to religious issues. But we do have clear indications that the way is now being opened for men to proceed freely in this direction and that the obstacles to general enlightenment--to their release from their self-imposed immaturity--are gradually diminishing. In this regard, this age is the age of enlightenment, the century of Frederick.

A prince who does not find it beneath him to say that he takes it to be his duty to prescribe nothing, but rather to allow men complete freedom in religious matters--who thereby renounces the arrogant title of tolerance--is himself enlightened and deserves to be praised by a grateful present and by posterity as the first, at least where the government is concerned, to release the human race from immaturity and to leave everyone free to use his own reason in all matters of conscience. Under his rule, venerable pastors, in their role as scholars and without prejudice to their official duties, may freely and openly set out for the world's scrutiny their judgments and views, even where these occasionally differ from the accepted symbol. Still greater freedom is afforded to those who are not restricted by an official post. This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism.

I have focused on religious matters in setting out my main point concerning enlightenment, i.e., man's emergence from self-imposed immaturity, first because our rulers have no interest in assuming the role of their subjects' guardians with respect to the arts and sciences, and secondly because that form of immaturity is both the most pernicious and disgraceful of all. But the manner of thinking of a head of state who favors religious enlightenment goes even further, for he realizes that there is no danger to his legislation in allowing his subjects to use reason publicly and to set before the world their thoughts concerning better formulations of his laws, even if this involves frank criticism of legislation currently in effect. We have before us a shining example, with respect to which no monarch surpasses the one whom we honor.

But only a ruler who is himself enlightened and has no dread of shadows, yet who likewise has a well-disciplined, numerous army to guarantee public peace, can say what no republic may dare, namely: "Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!" Here as elsewhere, when things are considered in broad perspective, a strange, unexpected pattern in human affairs reveals itself, one in which almost everything is paradoxical. A greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people's spiritual freedom; yet the former established impassable boundaries for the latter; conversely, a lesser degree of civil freedom provides enough room for all fully to expand their abilities. Thus, once nature has removed the hard shell from this kernel for which she has most fondly cared, namely, the inclination to and vocation for free thinking, the kernel gradually reacts on a people's mentality (whereby they become increasingly able to act freely), and it finally even influences the principles of government, which finds that it can profit by treating men, who are now more than machines, in accord with their dignity.

I. Kant
Konigsberg in Prussia, 30 September 1784

Dominionism in America

2006-07-08T09:50:00.000-04:00

Mahoney at dailykos has an excellent ongoing series of diaries on Dominionism, and its adherents' goals for America...it ain't pretty. Some key graphs (that don't necessarily flow together, being from separate posts):

Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part I
Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part II
Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part III

Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part I

[...]
Rousas John Rushdoony, generally considered the father of "Christian Reconstructionism" (a type of Dominionism), published The Institutes of Biblical Law in 1973, in which he argued for the application of biblical laws to modern society, i.e., a theocracy. Chip Berlet at Talk to Action describes Dominionism as follows:
Open advocates of dominionism declare that "America is a Christian Nation," and that therefore Christians have a God-given mandate to re-assert Christian control over political, social, and cultural institutions. Yet many dominionists stop short of staking out a position that could be called theocratic. This is the "soft" version of dominionism.

The "hard" version of dominionism is explicitly theocratic or "theonomic," as the Christian Reconstructionists prefer to be called. For America, it is a distinction without a difference.

[...]

The split between conservative and liberal Protestant Christians can be traced to the earliest days of the European Enlightenment. The introduction of the historical-critical method into the academic study of the Bible quickly sparked a raging controversy in European theology departments. Conservative theologians rejected the historical-critical method as an illegitimate intrusion of a secular science into the sacred realm. Liberal theologians welcomed the new method as a valuable tool for better understanding the texts of the Bible in a modern world. Conservative theologians clung to various doctrines of inspiration, maintaining that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, literally true in its individual parts and as a whole. Historical criticism called that claim into question, and theologians who employed the historical-critical method discovered many factual errors and discrepancies between the various books of the Bible (consider the example of the Beatitudes, which Jesus delivers on a mountain in Matthew and on a plain in Luke), as well as clear evidence of multiple sources, editors, and revisions within the biblical texts themselves (this from the sub-disciplines of historical criticism known as source, form, and redaction criticism).

[...]

For these conservative Protestants, the Bible was the only authority in all matters of faith and life, and its directives were unambiguous. It was simply a matter of assent to this authority and application of biblical principles in one's life. Liberal Protestants, on the other hand, sought to learn from the sciences, philology, philosophy, and many other academic disciplines, as well as developing what they called a "canon within the canon" of the Bible. In other words, not all parts of the Bible were considered equal. Martin Luther, the 16th-century Reformer, already used this type of critical thinking in his use of the Bible, arguing that what is essential in the Bible is was Christum treibt - "whatever preaches Christ." Everything in the Bible must be weighed against its proclamation of God's gracious love in Christ. Those passages that correspond to what Luther called "the gospel" are given more weight than those passages that do not. The conservatives, on the other hand, considered every word of the Bible to be just as important and essential as the next - there was and could be no distinctions, because every word is the literal Word of God. Furthermore, any attempt to apply critical methods to the Bible was seen as tantamount to a rejection of God.

[...]

One feature of the modern conservative resurgence that is of special concern to us here is the insistence on the Christian roots of the United States. The belief that the United States is a "Christian nation" lies at the root of many of the positions taken by the Dominionists in particular over the last several years. And this booklet, America, Return to God, is a good representation of this type of thinking.

[more]

Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part II

[...]

America, Return to God is an example of a conservative use of Scripture, in which there is no distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament as sources for Christian theology, and in which every word and phrase is understood to be the literal, inspired Word of God. It is also an example of a particular reading of American history: the Founders clearly intended for the United States to be a "Christian Nation," regularly calling upon God in public prayer, referring to God in speeches and inaugural addresses, and favoring Christian morality as the bedrock of American civilization. We must remember these two basic perspectives on the Bible and American history as we work our way through the essays to follow.

[...]

The religious freedom granted in many of the American colonies was a natural corollary to the application of Enlightenment principles in the political realm. There is no need here to rehearse the Enlightenment roots of the American political system. We are well aware of this history. But Black suggests that it is the Left that is sowing the seeds of Enlightenment rebellion and threatening to destroy American civilization, never pausing to remember that it is the Enlightenment tradition itself that gave us our system of government in the first place. Black provides the standard list of areas in which American is being destroyed by secularism: morality, culture, justice, education, sexuality and the family, democracy, etc., all of which he attributes to the triumph of secular, Enlightenment principles:
The mindset of the sixties is still with us, as values and beliefs that were once cherished in this nation are being discredited by the left.

[Snip]

Obviously, a large number of Americans still cherish our Christian heritage, and faith is still strong in many places. But for a growing number, the enlightenment view of reality has become their accepted worldview. For them, moral consensus no longer depends on Christian truths, but on secular values. (Black, 30)

Emphasis in original

In this forum we have discussed the relationship between religion and morality ad nauseam. Is religion a prerequisite for morality? My answer to this question is a resounding "No." "Morality" in its most basic sense refers to a code of conduct. "Religion" in its most basic sense refers to a way of understanding the world and one's place in it, with particular reference to an Other. In terms of these definitions, then, religion is a much broader category than morality. Most religions encourage morality, but not all morality is necessarily religious. In other words, it is possible to be moral without being religious. Consider the case of the "Golden Rule," a particular moral command that, with slight variations, transcends cultural boundaries: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." There is nothing inherently religious about the Golden Rule, and one need not be religious to follow it. There are many more examples, but this one should suffice to demonstrate my contention that religion is not a prerequisite for morality.

This does not even begin to address Black's more specific claim that morality is limited to Christianity. According to his view, one must first believe in Jesus Christ in order to be a moral person. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Unitarians, Wiccans, Animists, Secular Humanists, Agnostics, Atheists and a host of others in this view are inherently incapable of morality because they do not believe in Jesus Christ. According to this belief, then, some of the great moral figures of history - one need only think of Gandhi - were in fact immoral because they were not Christian. Clearly this is a position to be rejected.

Finally, Black addresses what he considers to be the failure of the Enlightenment:
The secular humanism that was supposed to liberate mankind from his enslavement to the past has bred not liberty, but atheism wedded with hedonism, which has resulted in a chronicle of devastated lives that boggles the mind.

[Snip]

In general, the left does not care about women, independent judiciaries, minorities, democracy, gays or almost anything else for which it marches. That is why the left opposed the war in Afghanistan, which liberated women from being treated like animals. Nearly all the causes the left speaks for are noble-sounding covers for its real agenda - the overthrowing of Western, especially Judeo-Christian and capitalist, values. (Black, 35)

Second paragraph attributed, without citation, to Dennis Prager.

[more]

At this point I can only say go read the remainder, because the analysis and history is too good and too much to pull out segments. And also, if there is a better example of projection than that second paragraph, I have yet to see it. Amazing.

Deconstructing the Dominionists, Part III

[...]

In this short installment we will explore an essay by the editor, Thomas Wang (dubbed

"The Chinese Billy Graham"), entitled "The Neo-Pagan Drift."

Unfortunately, Wang never defines what he means by "neo-paganism," preferring to allow the term to speak for itself. As we work through this short essay, we will soon see, however, that by "neo-paganism" Wang simply means any philosophy or ideology that is not explicitly rooted in conservative Protestant Christianity:
In America today, a gigantic force is advancing swiftly and cunningly among every walk of life (including some Christian churches). We call this devastating impetus the Neo-Pagan Drift.

If there be a day that America should decline and fall, it would not be due to enemy missiles or nuclear attack from the outside, but because of this neo-pagan drift from within America herself! (Wang, 56)

This "neo-pagan drift" is the reason for all of America's ills, as Wang repeatedly laments that America could again be great if only it would
go through a nation-wide self-examination, under the search light of the Spirit of God on her national purpose, integrity and allegiance to Jesus Christ. (Wang, 56)

It has been said here many times, and, sadly, it must be said again: America IS NOT and NEVER HAS BEEN a Christian nation. The fact that a majority of Americans may self-identify as Christian does not make America a Christian nation. Any such claim is expressly forbidden by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. America owes no allegiance to Jesus Christ. America owes allegiance only to its own Constitution, to the rule of law, and to the protection of the right of every citizen to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[...]

What is most alarming in this collection of truly alarming statements by Wang is his claim that the Constitution must be subordinated to what he calls the "Constitution of God which governs the whole universe." (I can only surmise that he means the Bible here - I've been studying theology for almost 10 years and I've never heard of "God's Constitution.")
Let us be reminded that high above the Constitution of the United States is the CONSTITUTION of God which governs the whole universe! Dare we tamper with it! If prayer and Bible reading in our public schools are "unconstitutional," then our Constitution is unconstitutional under the Sovereign God! (Wang, 57)

Here we arrive at the true agenda of the Dominionists. First they attempt to demonstrate a relationship between what they consider to be an unprecedented decline in American morality and the "de-Christianization" of America. Next, they attempt to rewrite the history of the United States to emphasize its "Christian" character and issue a call for renewal. Finally, they call for theocracy. If the Constitution is shown to be "unbiblical" and incompatible with extreme conservative Protestant Christianity, then American constitutional democracy must be abolished and replaced with biblical law.

Wang finally turns to public education as the prime example of America's decline:

Higher education today serves only to build up an apology for atheism. Christian young people today continually confront human theories against the Bible; Darwin's Evolution or God's Creation? We are not leading our young people to God through our current educational system.

[Snip]

Our educational system should be operated on a God-honoring basis. The knowledge and faith in God should be taught to our students starting from kindergarten. (Wang, 57)

This is the true intention of the Dominionists: replace the secular with the religious in every sphere of public life, including public education. If the Establishment Clause forbids "leading our young people to God" through the public school curriculum, then the Establishment Clause should be overturned.

The Dominionists are not content to limit religious education to the home and the church; it must be the priority of the public schools as well. Never mind that there are adherents of other religious traditions also attending public schools. If they do not confess Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior, they must be converted. Never mind that the purpose of public education is to prepare citizens for life in the secular democracy that is the United States. If American doesn't soon "return to God," it will be destroyed.

Again, these Dominionist positions are rooted in the claim for Christian absolutism and exclusivity. (I hasten to add here that not all Christian absolutists are Dominionists. But all Dominionists are Christian absolutists.) According to this way of thinking, Christianity is the sole "true" religion, and therefore all other religions are "false" and, by extension, manifestations of evil or, as Wang puts it, "neo-paganism." Dominionists are not interested in religious pluralism of any type, nor are they interested in dialogue with other religious traditions or peaceful co-habitation. They are interested in conversion and in a Christian government with free license to evangelize its citizens with public funds and public means.

[...]

That's why the radical right can't stand universities - they teach people critical thinking and how to get beyond the frames of religion. How dare anyone question the authority of God. Therefore, religion (specifically this brand of Christianity) must get 'em young and indoctrinate them into the cult of Christianity. Can't have the rubes actually learning of other ways to worship (or not worship).

Way to avoid stealing BW when linking to pics

2006-07-06T21:43:00.000-04:00

h/t to benburch over at DU...

This works for most pictures.

Say you have a picture you want to use in a posting;

http://foobar.com/JulieNewmar.jpg

Now, if you just link it to your DU posting, you immediately start stealing bandwidth from foobar.com.

This is simply not a nice thing to do as some websites pay for every byte they transfer.

If you change that URL a little;

http://foobar.com.nyud.net:8090/JulieNewmar.jpg
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It then uses a free public caching service from www.coralcdn.org. It gets fetched ONCE from foobar.com, and they are not made bankrupt as each of DU's horny guys look at your Catwoman picture.

It helps to preview the posting before you hit post as this gets the caching service to do the initial fetch of the picture, which can be slow, before your posting appears to the public. Sometimes you need to wait a few minutes and re-preview it before everything will appear as it should, and some web servers will not play ball with the cache, and this is how you weed those out.

ENJOY!

Cool satellite tracking websites

2006-06-30T10:56:00.000-04:00

* Chris Peat's Heavens Above
* NASA's SkyWatch
* Science@NASA‘s J-Pass

Huh...the anti-intellectuals in the Dumbass administration missed this

2006-06-29T14:22:00.000-04:00

From the DOE:

Oklo: Natural Nuclear Reactors

[snip]

Nature’s reactors

In the early 1970s, French scientists noticed something odd about samples of uranium recovered from the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. All atoms of a specific chemical element have the same chemical properties, but may differ in weight; these different weights of an element are known as isotopes. Some uranium samples from Gabon had an abnormally low amount of the isotope U-235, which can sustain a chain reaction. This isotope is rare in nature, but in some places, the uranium found at Oklo contained only half the amount of the isotope that should have been there.

[snip]

So how did nuclear reactions occur in nature?

Deep under African soil, about 1.7 billion years ago, natural conditions prompted underground nuclear reactions. Scientists from around the world, including American scientists have studied the rocks at Oklo. These scientists believe that water filtering down through crevices in the rock played a key role. Without water, it would have been nearly impossible for natural reactors to sustain chain reactions.

[snip]

Oops...oh, and very cool what nature can do.

IP over Firewire

2006-06-29T09:26:00.000-04:00

Geek to Live: Fast, one wire network (IP over FireWire)

Nice listing of CV numbers

2006-06-26T21:54:00.000-04:00

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER

As always, the devil is in the details

2006-06-20T22:10:00.000-04:00

Was just revisiting the 2000 election fiasco...

How Bush Lost Florida But Won In The Supreme Court And The Media

[snip]

A Third Hypothetical

The articles about the new recount tallies make much of the two hypothetical cases in which Bush supposedly would have prevailed: the limited recounts of the four southern Florida counties - by 225 votes - and the state Supreme Court's order - by 430 votes. Those hypothetical cases dominated the news stories, while Gore's statewide-recount victory was played down.

Yet, the newspapers made little or nothing of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision represented a third hypothetical. Assuming that a brief extension were granted to permit a full-and-fair Florida recount, the U.S. Supreme Court decision might well have resulted in the same result that the news organizations discovered: a Gore victory.

The U.S. Supreme Court's proposed standards mirrored the standards applied in the new recount of the disputed ballots. The Post buries this important fact in the 22nd paragraph of its story.

"Ironically, it was Bush's lawyers who argued that recounting only the undervotes violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. And the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Dec. 12 ruling that ended the dispute, also questioned whether the Florida court should have limited a statewide recount only to undervotes," the Post wrote. "Had the high court acted on that, and had there been enough time left for the Florida Supreme Court to require yet another statewide recount, Gore's chances would have been dramatically improved."

In other words, if the U.S. Supreme Court had given the state enough time to fashion a comprehensive remedy or if Bush had agreed to a full-and-fair recount earlier, the popular will of the American voters - both nationally and in Florida - might well have been respected. Al Gore might well have been inaugurated president of the United States.

[snip]

For when I have time to actually understand this

2006-06-18T22:41:00.000-04:00

Our nutjob leader is in here somewhere...and it's pretty scary.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PSYCHOANALYTIC PLAY TECHNIQUE AND A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW OF EARLY DEVELOPMENT

For when I have time to get to this

2006-06-14T13:23:00.000-04:00

Rawls' Mature Theory of Social Justice

Yep, this pretty much sums it up

2006-06-11T08:48:00.000-04:00

From PZ:

Imagine that a scientist and one of these deranged libertarian right-wing anti-environmentalist science deniers go out for a drive one day...

LIB: Isn't this wonderful? I have a desire to drive, and sufficient surplus income to purchase a vehicle, and the market and technology provide me with one. Praise Jesus! Praise Adam Smith!

SCI: Uh, yeah, OK...but you know, the way you're driving is neither safe nor economical. Could you maybe slow down a little?

LIB: I decide what is economical; I can afford the gas. As for safety, I have insurance, and the little whatchamacallit meter in front of me goes all the way up to 140. I haven't exceeded the limit yet.

SCI: What you can do and what is safe and reasonable to do are two different things. If you want to experience natural selection first hand, that would be OK with me, except for the fact that we're both in the same car.
By the way, that's a lake a couple of miles ahead, and you're headed straight for it.

LIB: Lake? We haven't encountered any lakes in our travels so far. We don't have to worry about lakes. History is our guide, and it clearly says, "no lakes".

SCI: Well, yes, there's a lake right there in front of us. You can see it as well as I can, I hope. It's even marked right here on our map. I suggest you turn left just a little bit and steer clear of it.

LIB: Oh, you pessimistic doomsayers. You're always gloomily predicting our demise, and you're always wrong. We hit a mud puddle a few miles back, and see? No problems.

SCI: I'm only predicting doom if you keep driving as foolishly as you have so far. I suggest that we start on this alternate route now, so that we don't have to swerve too sharply at the last minute.

LIB: There is no lake. I like driving fast and straight. The last thing I want to do is turn left.

SCI: What do you mean, there is no lake? It's right there! And we are getting closer by the minute! Why are you accelerating?

LIB: That there is a lake is only your opinion. We need to study this, and get more input.
(LIB reaches down beneath the seat. His hand reemerges with a sock over it.)

SOCK: No lake!

LIB: Hmmm. We seem to have two opinions here. Since Mr Socky has taken economic considerations into account and you have not, I can judge which is the better and more informed. Sound science says there is no lake. Or if there is, we can accept the compromise solution that it will disappear before we reach it.

SCI: We are headed for that lake at 80 miles per hour, in a car driven by a lunatic. Slow down and turn left!

LIB: I am confident that our innovative and technologically sophisticated economy will come up with a solution before we impact any hypothetical lake. Right, Mr Socky?

SOCK: 's alright!

SCI: I have been telling you what the solution is for the last 3 miles. Slow down. Turn. Now. How is science going to save you if you insist on ignoring it?

LIB: Aha! Look! There's a pier extending out into the lake! I told you that technology would be our salvation. You scientists always underestimate the power of the free market.

SCI: Jebus. That's a rickety 40-foot wooden dock. You can't drive at 90 miles per hour onto a short pier! BRAKE! TURN!

LIB: You are getting emotional, and can be ignored. Market forces and the science and engineering sector will respond to our needs by assembling a floating bridge before we hit the end. Or perhaps they will redesign our car to fly. Or dispatch a ferry or submarine to our location. We cannot predict the specific solution, but we can trust that one will emerge.
I've always wanted a flying car.

SCI: Gobdamn, but you are such a moron.

(car tires begin rapid thumpety-thump as they go over planks)

LIB: I love you, Mr Socky.

SOCK: Ditto!

You'd think he was talking about the current administration

2006-06-09T21:25:00.000-04:00

One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish BOTH kinds of results.

I say that's also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don't publish such a result, it seems to me you're not giving scientific advice. You're being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don't publish at all. That's not giving scientific advice.

Cargo Cult Science
Richard Feynman
From a Caltech commencement address given in 1974
Also in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Fun with chemistry...

2006-06-07T21:00:00.000-04:00

The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments

I usually hate giving away the ending, but

2006-06-07T20:55:00.000-04:00

this one was so good...

From Conservative Utopia? We Don't Have To Guess over at the Booman:

So next time a "Conservative" like Ann Coulter tells you to just pack up and leave the country if you don't like the way George Bush does things, tell him or her this: I'm not leaving. You already HAVE a country to go to that believes in your ideology. Go there. I'm still trying to create one that believes in mine--and so was Thomas Jefferson.

Tell them, in other words, to go to hell. Because their hell already exists on earth.

I love you Apocalypse Pony!

2006-06-06T15:52:00.000-04:00

So good I had to screen capture

2006-06-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

Replicating it just wouldn't do it justice...

Fun with maps

2006-06-05T22:09:00.000-04:00

Cartogram of the 2004 election using red/blue color scaling and county populations:

World spending on healthcare:

It's interesting to note that the maps for healthcare, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions are almost identical.

Just an effort to educate myself on the Great Depression

2006-06-05T21:29:00.000-04:00

An article by Robert Samuelson

Staff report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Great Expectations and the End of the Depression (h/t from The New Economist)

Nice collection of links from U of Colorado

Depression study by UCLA economists.

Hypocrite, thy name is Michelle

2006-06-04T14:33:00.000-04:00

Much like Rush, Michelle Malkin has a problem (only one? hardly, but this one is hilarious!). To wit:

Michelle Malkin: Anchor Baby
11 April 2006 by Mark

Watching Michelle Malkin's blog descend into the undeniable, historically-proven abyss of Fascism -- blaming an internal enemy for a nation's problems -- doesn't have to be all gloom and doom. Sure, she's unhinged. Sure, she's a mirror image of almost every enemy our country has ever fought against, cloaked only in a thin disguise of uberpatriotism. But we can still have fun at her expense.

And, of course, we should.

[snip]

So it behooves us, then, to poke around in Malkin's own backstory a bit to find blobs of truth which we can then stretch into gooey hilarity through the taffy pull of satire. It doesn't take long to find one such bit: Michelle Maglalang was the product of one Dr. Apolo Maglalang and his wife, who he inseminated during what can assume was a disgusting act of utter perversity. Doc Apolo -- sounds like a Marvel Comics villain! -- still works as a pediatrician in New Jersey. He came here on a "work visa" from the Philippines. Shortly thereafter, little Michelle was born, causing (one can assume) great pain as she violently stretched her mother's vagina to the breaking point. (I add that last bit of color commentary only because I know it will drive Malkin absolutely nuts to hear me talking about her mother's vagina, even if only in a clinical way.)

A cursory review of Doc Apolo's medical background comes up empty. He doesn't have any lawsuits pending against him, even though one could argue that conceiving a neo-Nazi* should probably be illegal. He hasn't any citations against him medically, and holds the required medical licenses, etc. But the timing of Malkin's birth is what's important. She was, in fact, what the Right likes to call an "anchor baby" or "jackpot baby":
Put simply, an anchor baby is the offspring of an illegal immigrant who, under current legal interpretation, becomes a U.S. citizen at birth and, in turn, is the means by which parents and relatives can also obtain citizenship for themselves by using the family reunification features of immigration law. (Link)

According to the facts, Doc Apolo arrived in the US under a work visa sometime in 1970, and Malkin was born "months" later, in October. Now it's conceivable that Doc Apolo arrived in the US in January, immediately knocked up the missus, and never intended on using the fetus as a convenience. It's conceivable, but unlikely. The window of opportunity there is just too small, and in all likelihood Doc Apolo arrived here with the full understanding that he was bringing with him a pregnant wife due to give birth sometime inside the term of his visa. But even if he didn't intend on little Michelle being a jackpot baby, the fact that he stayed in the US through October, rather than return to the Philippines like a good immigrant, means Michelle was a jackpot baby --- a fact which immediately granted Doc Apolo's caterwauling spawn legal US citizenship, and tossed a whole bunch of US rights into his family's lap.

What does Ms. Malkin have to say about "anchor babies"? Here's what:
During my book tour across the country for Invasion, this issue came up time and again. In the Southwest, everyone has a story of heavily pregnant women crossing the Mexican border to deliver their "anchor babies." At East Coast hospitals, tales of South Korean "obstetric tourists" abound. (An estimated 5,000 South Korean anchor babies are born in the US every year). And, of course, there's a terrorism angle.

[more]

~~Oops~~Hilarious!!!!

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

2006-06-03T09:02:00.000-04:00

An interesting dailykos diary regarding Maslow's Hierarchy and relating it to politics.

Winning Hearts, Meeting Needs

[snip]

Here's my point. The farther down the pyramid we can be driven, by insecurity, illness, lack of expression, etc, the less human we become. We will do ANYTHING to feed ourselves and our families. After that, we will do anything to keep that resource safe.

To me, this explains why people vote against their self interest at one level of the pyramid to protect the next layer.

It explains to me why the abortion rate goes up under the Republican administrations. The feeling of security and having social needs met are much more supportive to a woman who is pondering whether to take the pregnancy to term; she is more likely to have the child if she feels financially and medically secure.

By piling debt on the class of society with fewer resources, the Republicans actually drive the needs to a lower and lower level where people will do whatever it takes (fill in the blanks here) to feed themselves and feel secure. Even vote for a Republican. Who can vote for a Democrat that wants to take you to the higher level of needs when you haven't got the basic levels secure?

When we talk about issues, we need to link it to the most basic level of human needs.

[snip]

Where are the Christians like Christ?

2006-06-01T21:03:00.000-04:00

This is an issue that really pisses me off about people who claim to be Christian but support today's Republican party. From Street Prophets:

Politics, Poverty, Religion and the debasement of Jesus

by Cogitator
Thu Jun 1st, 2006 at 04:13:38 PDT

Promoted by Deb, with added block quotes to make the attribution a bit clearer.

Just what did Jesus have to say about about tax structures? Personal financial portfolios? Offshore corporate tax havens? Municipal bonds?
My biblical research has failed to locate any such directives.

Various admonitions in the Bible though seems to particularly weigh in on those who use its spiritual contents for personal profit. Some examples:

More below the fold.

Much longer and really gets to the heart of the issue and how it relates to Social Security, health care, etc. Go read it.

Curious GWB

2006-06-01T07:48:00.000-04:00

Forget bombs — Bush drops the beat in this hip-hop spoof about an administration in a tailspin. Who knew the prez had such mad flow?

WTF?

2006-05-31T21:31:00.000-04:00

Fun with Statistics...

2006-05-31T16:28:00.000-04:00

More from DeLong - he calls it fun with graphs, but the numbers are fun too...

A few comparative international statistics, attractively presented: Google's Gapminder World 2006, beta.

DeLong beats Kudlow...again

2006-05-28T21:01:00.000-04:00

I've not kept track, but I figure the score is something like DeLong 42, Kudlow 0. You'd think at some point somebody would just tell Kudlow to shut the fuck up and go home, because he's hurting his side. For our benefit let's hope he keeps plugging away. Anyway...

May 27, 2006
Will Somebody Please Stop the Insanity!!!!

Over at National Review, Larry Kudlow writes:
Larry Kudlow on Enron, Morals, and Adam Smith on National Review Online: Capitalism in this country has been under assault ever since FDR's New Deal 1930s, a time when a number of alphabet agencies attempted to control America's industrial and farming sectors. The experiment soon proved a dismal failure, with unemployment running 20 to 25 percent up until WWII...

Ummm... The implication that Roosevelt's New Deal pushed the unemployment rate up is, of course, false. The U.S. unemployment rate in the Great Depression peaked at 24.9% in 1933--before any of Roosevelt's policies had time to have any impact--and was below 20% by the end of 1935. By Pearl Harbor day the unemployment rate was 9%--still very disappointingly high, but a far cry from Kudlow's "The [New Deal] experiment... dismal failure... unemployment running 20 to 25 percent up until World War II."

He goes on:
Still, the American welfare state would grow. In the 1960s and 1970s, the murderer's row of economic morons -- LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter -- in allegiance with their liberal Keynesian advisors, concocted a socialist policy mix that ultimately led to wealth-destroying big-government stagflation. Providentially, Ronald Reagan changed all that in the 1980s. The Gipper slashed tax rates, deregulated industries, and rescued the dollar, unleashing the forces of entrepreneurial capitalism...

Real deregulators will tell you that the Reagan administration helped, but that the heavy lifting on deregulation was done under the Carter administration by Alfred Kahn and company. Real international economists will point out that the strong dollar of the early 1980s was driven by Paul Volcker's high interest rate policies, which Kudlow and company strongly condemned. Slashing tax rates and creating big budget deficits, that Reagan did do--with results that weren't that great, for whatever supply-side benefits were generated by lower tax rates were more than offset by the crowding-out drag imposed on investment by the Reagan deficits. Real median hourly wages rose at 2.5% per year on average under the "murderer's row of economic morons" (booming under LBJ and Nixon, and then stagnating under Ford and Carter). They then grew at 0.5% per year under Reagan, 0.2% per year under Bush I, 1.2% per year under Clinton, and now 0.2% per year again under Bush II.
As a result, for the first time since the post-Civil War period (but for the brief Coolidge-Melon period in the 1920s), the American economic system became the envy of the world...

The Reagan years (and the years since) have been great for the overclass. But it was during the period 1942-1973 that the American economy performed best for the rest of us, and was genuinely the envy of the world.

As I've said before, the country is full with lots of excellent, thoughtful right-wing economists who would love to write for National Review. But something goes very wrong--and not just on the right. We do live in a very strange world, in which Gregg Easterbrook is Slate's "Mr. Science."

Posted by Brad DeLong on May 27, 2006 at 02:26 PM in Better Press Corps, Economic History, Economics | Permalink

Cultural ID comments thread

2006-05-28T09:29:00.000-04:00

Digby had an interesting post up that spawned a huge comments thread. Within that were a number of subthreads, and I tried to pull one out...

[sidenote:If Republicans are on your side, why do they never do anything that helps you?]

Friday, May 26, 2006

Cultural ID
by digby

Chris Bowers writes about one of my favorite subjects today: American tribal identity.

Over the past year and a half, I have slowly developed an argument that the electorate is, in general, non-ideological, not interested in policy, and generally unmoved by the day-to-day minutia of political events that, within the blogosphere, are treated as cataclysmic events. Sure, most people hold general political beliefs, but in general national voting habits are motivated by something else--something more basic. As we look for ways to motivate voters in November, we need to remember the powerful role that identity plays in political decision-making. As progressives, we shrug off concepts such as the "battle of civilizations," but if you look closely at demographic data, maybe it is a battle of civilizations taking place after all. We may very well be living in an era of identity politics. Who knows, maybe every era of American politics is an era of identity politics.

I think the evidence is overwhelming that it is. He reproduces one of those great maps that break down everybody by something or other and like most of them, it ends up showing the south as being a homogenous region surrounded by a hodgepodge of different things everywhere else. In this case it's religion, but it could be anything, including electoral results or sociological indicators. It's just a fact that the south has a very strong regional identity of its own. And I don't think the rest of the country is quite like it. That divide has been with us since the beginning and it far transcends any mommy/daddy party dichotomy.

I watched the country music awards the other night and saw what looked like a typical bunch of glammed up pop stars like you'd see on any of these awards shows. Lots of cowboy hats, of course, but the haircuts, the clothes, the silicone bodies were not any different from any other Hollywood production. But the songs were not. There are plenty of Saturday night honky tonk fun and straightforward gospel style religious and patriotic tunes. But there is a strain of explicit cultural ID that wends through all of them.

[more]

The threads comments pick up here:

Just remind them who it was that established the following:

-- the 8-hour workday/40-hour work week with time-and-a-half for overtime

-- the minimum wage

-- unemployment insurance

-- worker's compensation for on-the-job injury

-- the right to organize and bargain collectively

-- workplace safety regulations

-- child labor laws

-- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid

This body of work constitutes a foundation of security and fairness for ordinary workers and every part of it was put in place by the liberal democrats of their day. Whenever somebody wants to know "what do Democrats stand for?" I reply "well, let's look at the record" and point to the above and how my parents and their parents before them benefitted a great deal from that agenda. It infuriates me to hear Dean, Pelosi and all the others never ever talk about this stuff on Sunday mornings.
jaybee | 05.26.06 - 7:07 pm | #

-----

@jaybee & digby:

that laundry list is spot-on - but riddle me this:

those were the reasons that southerners used to vote Dem - and as a result Dems ruled this nation for years. Well obviously this has ended. Why?
mc | 05.26.06 - 7:58 pm | #

-----

"those were the reasons that southerners used to vote Dem - and as a result Dems ruled this nation for years. Well obviously this has ended. Why?"

Southerns used to vote Dem because the Republicans won the Civil War. When Dems finally put an end to legal racism, Southern Dems all became Republican.

I'd say the country has been basically divided between the north and the south from day 1. That's a bit simplistic, especially since Southern resentment has managed to absorb/corrupt other strands of American thought - anti-urbanism, anti-intellectualism, populism. But the bottom line is that the Northern ideal was always the small farmer, merchant, or artisan, while the Southern ideal was always the plantation owner. The latter is a non-cooperative, winner-takes-all outlook that is obviously very conservative, in the recieved wisdom/authority sense.

(Disclaimer: not all southerners or notherners are bad or good, but basic cultural outlooks can be either good or bad.)
Tom DC/VA | 05.26.06 - 8:26 pm | #

-----

This is one of my favorite topics too.

These kind of seperations go all the way back to the Civil War. If you want to think about identity politics, look at how divided the country was then, and just how those attitudes have formed modern politics as well.

Talk about "you're either with us or against us", it couldn't have been more stark at that juncture.

One need look no further than the divide between a patriarchal Southern system, and an eglitarian North to understand the roots of this sort of mentality. Just look at the ways Kevin Phillips and Patrick Buchanan implemented ways to exploit the cultural differences for political advantage during the Nixon administration. The infamous Southern Strategy was the product. By 1970, they had figured out how to exploit it for political gain.

Take a good look at Southern society circa 1854 and the answer to your questins wind up right in front of your face. While the Industrial Bubble was taking hold in the North, the South had deliberately locked itself into a system that by nature was never meant to change. Why do the work yourself when you can import slaves to do it for you? In the North, doing the work yourself and inventing was part of who you were.

The whole point of cessession was, "Leave Us Alone".

That lead to the Revolution against the Revolution. That was THE message of the Confederacy; We are rebelling against a hostile invader.

All this brings us back to Gretchen Wilson's lyrics. Country folk are always set upon. A Southern caste system naturally lends itself to simple proclamations about God, country, family, and what they stand for. Northern innovation has no grand unifying theme that spans those kinds of boundries, hence a massive lack of some kind of simple slogan or message that we can rally around. It just doesn't exist.

All you need is history to show you the way. It's all rooted in how this country developed, and I often find that the impact of the American Civil War is grossly overlooked.

While we're at it, hasn't this country had enough of presidents that come from Texas? The last three have started wars on their watch, and two of them have gone horribly wrong.

There are no Blue State country songs to had. There's no point for them either.

By the way, the next president of the United States will be George Allen He just enough rocks in his head to carry on the Republican legacy.
FuzzFinger | Homepage | 05.26.06 - 8:54 pm | #

-----

This reminds me of every time I've been in a bar wherever and some guy plays "Simple Man" by Skynyrd and buzzed dudes tell each other, in effect, "Right on. That's me." My younger brother and my dad are big listeners to the "young country." When I ask why (not in a jerky way), they always say something like, "It's positive," or, "it's simple." This stuff is liked because it rewards you for who you are, tells you nobody can change you (try as they might), sets you up as a person with a little dignity, no matter what some (nonexistent) outsider might tell you. It's self-affirming pap that doesn't ask a lot of you.

Obviously the South is ground zero for this kind of impotent, whining insistence, which still feeds on the old divisions. But this stuff's popular all over. The appeal the Republicans have crafted is great. I don't think it's so much that there's "Red State" music that is a cultural byproduct of ascendant Republicanism. I think that they've just figured out how to appropriate the disconnect people all over are feeling, Thomas Frank, etc. You're a simple man in a hard world who's capable of inordinate suffering? That's your thing? It doesn't, like, transfer to action, or anything? Cool.

Which makes me think we should just spend more time in Ohio and Colorado than try to dip into that inexhaustible well of ossified victimhood so many folks down there are addicted to. We can't compete.
rAD | Homepage | 05.26.06 - 8:58 pm | #

-----

There's some truth to what gurnBlanston said above -- I work in a blue collar sector and some of the guys (well, the white guys) fit the "southern victim" mold pretty well, one even said something along the lines of "the democrats hate the working man." And this guy was in his early 20s, bright Italian-American, kept up with the news and politics.

Here in New York, these mostly Irish & Italian blue collar guys, living out in the near suburbs, still buy into the Reagan "welfare queen, Democrats only want to take money from working people and give it to loafers" line. What they saw during what I call the decadence of liberalism was the separation of the New Deal Dems from the white working class to top-down social engineering like busing, from wealthy Ivy League types who were completely out of touch with the blue collar guys. This is on top of a long dirty history of the Irish fighting the Blacks here for the scraps at the bottom of the economic ladder. What these guys families saw was a wealthy, out-of-touch Democratic liberal elite foisting their ideas of social justice upon them in ways that would never touch them, the elite, in personal ways unlike those who's Mom's were held up by blacks at the candy store, or who's kids were forced to bus miles away for the sake of some idea of racial equality.

The Republicans took this resentment against elitist top-down liberalism and ran with it, and these Dem liberals, well, had no response to regain the working class. For them, health care, the minimum wage, Iraq, whatever, are simply intellectual exercises.

Of course, racism is at play, too, and these guys feel victimized by the welfare and benefits they imagine the blacks and latinos are soaking up off their hard work. While the Republicans mounted a very well-oiled argument that drip-down economics work (A Rising Tide Lifts ALL Boats!) the "liberal" Dems have never made a simple coherent argument to the contrary.

Frankly, I think we should have left the South to drift off at the time of Civil War, and seriously believe we should now consider separation -- in 1860 they were too economically important, cotton being the major American export, now frankly without Federal subsidies they'll be Mexico with less interesting architecture. The blue states are not that far from European social-democratic states in sensibility -- religion has no place in the public square, government has a role to care for ALL its citizens, keep an even playing field, the idea of the common good whether its environment or urban planning or day care for working moms or whatever.

I lived in Texas for 12 years and believe me, the comments above re a patron/plantation system are spot on. In Texas, the government exists mainly to enrich the already stocked pockets of the few families that run the joint. The term "white trash" is a southern construction (ie, whites who aren't much better than the blacks and hispanics). Frankly, cut 'em loose and let the rest of us move back into the "civilized" world. We can work with our blue collar guys, as in Europe you'll always have the Le Pen segment, but given the bankruptcy of top-down liberalism and the absence of a media (O'Reilly and Co wouldn't work in a divided nation, Murdoch's Post loses millions every year) I think we could win them over.
LeislerNYC | 05.27.06 - 12:10 am | #

-----

The sense of identity that Digby describes is the exact same sense of identity that the Nazis played upon in their rise to power. It is the identity of the loser, but not just any loser, the deposed rightful heir.

Germans had an overwhelming sense of having been betrayed by the other European powers after WWI. The rightful place of the German people was at the forefront of European society. Germany had produced Beethoven, Wagner, Bismarck. The Nazis came to power by telling the Germans they were right to feel that way. And giving them someone to point a finger at.

In much the same way, there is a sense among white Southerners that if they hadn't been betrayed by their Northern brethren that they would never have lost their position as the rightful rulers of this country. The Republicans try to ride that sense of resentment, but can never be as successful, because the Southern version is regional, not national. But it will be difficult to ever pull the South away from the Republicans as long as whites are the majority their, unless we begin to cater to the victim mentality that holds sway there.

It's pathetic how much our country is beholden to a bunch of racist hicks with an inferiority complex that is only matched by their sense of entitlement.
Singularity | 05.27.06 - 2:12 am | #

-----

This is a sloppy construct but I think American itself is the tribe the GOP plays to. If one adheres to American excetualism [sic: exceptionalism] in any of it's forms you will vote GOP.

The main form of exceptualism is the one that holds God has a special role for America. This springs mainly from that all American pre millenial dispensationalim so many fundamentalists adhere to. That isn't the only source of course for exceptualism has many faces, like Bush's two year PR blitz about spreading democracy. Spreading 'free markets' fits into it as well. In all cases American is seen as the font of moral goodness. America itself in that light is it's own religion, a civic religion.

The economic and military expansionists embrace the civic kind of exceptualism but love having the religious ones along for the ride.

It should be noted that one common element in this is that the status of The Nation is the primary concern. Americans standing as the most powerfull and richest nation must continue. There is a deep ironies in all this for such is absolutely a product of government and communal effort and identity, having zero to do with individualism.

No politician in America can even hint that they do not believe we are the greatest nation in history and that we should maintain and extend that status. If they do they are not members of the tribe.

Bush is an uber American. He embodies virtually every aspect of American exceptualism. He expresses often both the religious and the secular branches of it and there is zero doubt he belives them to his marrow. Such politician will win every time. There is no fighting it. Liberals play around the edges of rejecting American exceptualism and the lose. The only thing they can do is back away from the edge.

The big thing now is that economicaly America is losing it's dominance. The rise of China and Asia and how they interact with middle east oil resources is going to push back the edges of it economic and military dominance. Simple put American will not and cannot allow any drop in its status. How can we stop it you ask. Simple, blow it up. We are now proceeding on the path to blowing up the rest of the world.

I should mention non whites can't really be of the tribe. As non whites become the majority it is inevitable that representative democracy as we know it will have to be abondoned.
rapier | 05.27.06 - 8:27 am | #

This post doesn't entirely fit in with the subthread, but I thought it was made a great point.

It is not about class, it is about resentment. It is not class identity that the Republican Right has been so successful in appealing to, it is resentment: irrational and perverse anger-hiding-shame-and-envy.

Straightforward Democratic appeals to economic self-interest run into resentment. Democratic attempts to offer a genuine war hero runs into the same obstacle: resentment.

Resentment can focus on blacks, gays, feminists, scientists, limosine liberals; whatever the instance, the issue is always the same: "you" are not being respected. The identity assigned to "you" is merely incidental to the key, which is the resentment. To focus on class and tribal identity, which is just a convenient short-hand in fashioning the thesis that "you" are not being respected, is to completely miss the point.

Resentment is a corrosive force, a perverse force. Resentment is the opposite of admiration, or its shadow, in Jungian terms. Resentment loves a fake; the Republicans have mastered the art of presenting the fake: Nixon actually faked being a fake, but Reagan made a profession out of being a fake, and Bush II: well, he's a born fake.

A genuine war hero has no appeal, where resentment is dominant. The truth is of little concern; and, even self-interest and love of country are subverted.

Resentment is what is being "sold" by the corporate right-wing media, day in and day out. It is the stock in trade of the O'Reilly's.
Bruce Wilder | Homepage | 05.28.06 - 12:59 am | #

And these two posts carry forward the last one, and offer a point-counterpoint:

Half the things the very first poster listed people I know would hate and I’m from the south. It is obvious from the posts here that there is a huge gap between the sides.

People I know vote Republican because the left scares them. They want to take away their guns, give their kids birth control without their consent, and keep them from praying before the Friday night high school football games.

We feel you bastardize the Constitution as bad as Bush does the English language. Its not that we love republicans either, they come with their own set of problems. However, for the most part until now they have stayed out of our personal lives. If the Democrats want to win back those voters they have to stop with the insanity.

Southerners do not want outsiders coming in and saying we know what is best for you. We believe in freedom and we feel that the Left does not. The things you call progress such as minimum wage and other government intrusions are the very things we do not want.

Open the borders and consider it a done deal you will lose. That is not necessarily my world view it is simply how things are in the South.
Frankly, both parties disgust me.
James | Homepage | 05.28.06 - 3:22 am | #

Resentment is about race and race is about class and class is about social status and status is about economics and so around the merry vicious circle. Sorry, James, I'm 55 and as Southern as the day is long, and I'm here to tell you that what white middle American "conservatives" - whether Southerners or "white ethnics" claiming "it's a neighborhood thing" - want is Affirmative Action ended, deunionizing and deregulation so the companies maybe will stay in the South or whatever low-tax Red area, a huge "defense" budget to support the hundreds of Red state bases and many billions of dollars put into Red economies ever since FDR jumpstarted the South and west with massive military spending in WWII, repeal of the Fair Housing Act or at least an end to Clinton-era enforcement of anti-discrimination and anti-redlining laws, media consolidation so that "the message" is all anyone ever hears, school vouchers to end the public school system and so end social mobility while they're still above somebody, cheap gasoline to underwrite the value of exurban houses (see also redlining above), artificial housing booms that benefit the construction trades, (and now that the housing boom is deflating) better wages for currently immigrant-held jobs by deporting immigrants and thus raise wages again (see history of every modern developed country), the truncation of the Bill of Rights to the 2nd Amendment so that minorities are subject to the tyranny of the majority, and de facto revocation of equal protection once whites are finally in the minority but still hold all the power. There's more on the agenda, but that'll do for starters. No one should ever forget that their "God" is centrally a guarantor of wordly success.

Oh, and Jose, I don't know how much they're paying you to post this puerile cant here but however little it is they're not getting their money's worth, though maybe it's just someone's business loss tax write-off.
jlb | 05.28.06 - 9:00 am | #

And finally, I think this would be a cool song:

Listen to the Wind

Check where your sen/rep stands on the progressive scale

2006-05-27T08:57:00.000-04:00

Progressive Punch

dailykos post on Greek history not to be repeated

2006-05-27T08:42:00.000-04:00

Athenian Idol: Alcibiades and the Sicilian Expedition

by Alexander G Rubio
Thu May 25, 2006 at 04:34:53 PM PDT

Some time ago an army was dispatched over seas under the banner of crusading democracy. Not only would it break the back of tyranny, it would also secure untold riches and resources in the process, the politician in charge promised.

The year was 415 BC, the expeditionary force hailed from Athens, its destination was Syracuse in Sicily, and it was the brainchild of Alcibiades.

Athens was at war with her rival for supremacy in the Greek world, Sparta, in an internecine bloodletting which was to range across the Mediterranean and would rage on for a generation. Men would fight in this war who were not born when it first began. When it ended, both victor and vanquished would have reason to rue its beginning.

[more]

Who is Jesse MacBeth?

2006-05-26T08:10:00.000-04:00

Good question. I had never heard of him, and I keep track of too many blogs where he certainly would have popped up. Then comes this diary over at dailykos:

Anatomy of an Anti-Liberal Viral Video

Ever heard of Jesse MacBeth? Up until a few days ago neither had I. And, most likely, neither had you. But, thanks to the right-wing blogsphere, you and I now know who he is and what he is all about. Or do we?

snafu's diary :: ::

You see, according to numerous right-wing blogs, Jesse MacBeth is a hero of the Liberal Left. Michelle Malkin referred to Jesse MacBeth as "the latest cause celebre of the anti-war Left...". Odd considering no one had heard of him until a few days ago. Also, very interesting, since according to other right-wing blogs, Jesse MacBeth is a true blue example of the Hateful Liberal Conspiracy to Imitate Conservatives, Imitate Soldiers, and to Blame the Warrior Soldiers for Everything Bad and Evil in the World.^TM

[snip]

Think about it. A video is offered on the internet. Right-wing propagandists, all versed in defined tactics of hatred for all things not of their liking, make a pointed (and very predictable) stand that the video is a bonifide example of Liberal hatred for the common soldier, is all the rage amongst the Liberal movement when it is clearly not, nor is the fact that the video is a Liberal creation any clearer than whether MacBeth was an Army Ranger. The selctiveness of the right-wing is amazing in this regard. They entirely dismiss the truthfulness and integrity of MacBeth (and by proxy all his statemnts) yet they entirely accept that this obvious piece of propaganda was created with the intent goal of bashing soldiers, rather than the goal of inciting the hatred of the right-wing and / or the suspicion of the left.

Bear in mind, I'm not saying that there is a conspiracy amongst the right-wing blogsphere. What I am saying is that they are being used, their behavior predictable and reliable, to push the "Liberals hate soldiers" meme out into the greater blogsphere and mainstream media. It's what they do and do very well. The rightie blogsphere promotes hatred. It's a cannon for it.

A new take on an old classic

2006-05-24T19:28:00.000-04:00

When wingnuts attack

2006-05-23T12:16:00.000-04:00

OK, so there's this wingnut email floating around about how some mom got a special paint job on her Hummer (yup) to honor her son's sacrifice in Iraq. Now, I don't have a problem with her doing this - I have a major problem in casting her as a true American mom who really supports the troops because she did this. Well, here's the email:

Step aside Cindy Sheehan. Here's what a true American Mom did for her son.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. ( March 2, 2006)
Karla Comfort received a lot of looks and even some salutes from people when she drove from Benton, Ark., to Camp Pendleton, Calif., in her newly-painted, custom Hummer H3 March 2. The vehicle is adorned with the likeness of her son, 20-year-old Lance Cpl. John M. Holmason, and nine other Marines with F Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division who where all killed by the same improvised explosive device blast in Fallujah, Iraq, in December.

There's more to the email than this, but it's framed as anti-Cindy Sheehan, and closes out with this:

Support America and Support the Troops

Let us NOT forget......

My sister forwarded the email to me, saying how it "brought tears" to her eyes. Well...here's what brings tears to my eyes:

And then there's this:
USA Today: Editorial/Opinion
Posted 12/17/2003 8:47 PM
U.S. soldiers lack best protective gear

Notice the date.

And this:
USA Today: Editorial/Opinion
Posted 1/12/2006 8:53 PM Updated 1/12/2006 9:00 PM
For lack of body armor, troops die. Why the delay?

Again, notice the date.

Or this:
Cuts in veterans’ aid opposed
Cleaver, Moore join effort to block health-care cuts
By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH
The Kansas City Star
Posted on Thu, Apr. 20, 2006

I feel bad that the woman lost her son. But there are 2454 other mothers who have lost sons and daughters, or children who have lost mothers and fathers. And who knows how many tens of thousands physically or psychologically wounded. If you're going to support the troops, it takes more than platitudes like "support the troops", especially when the troops are somewhere they should not be, lacking clean water, food and equipment, coming home to collection agencies and cuts in benefits. True American mom who REALLY supports the troops? I guess you have to decide for yourself.

Personally, I don't think getting a custom paint job on a Hummer (of all vehicles, sheez) counts as supporting anything.

Just wanted to throw this up here...

2006-05-21T09:10:00.000-04:00

I will have to get to it later, but I didn't want to let it slip away. This is from booman, a post titled 2006 will be a major disappointment. So will 2008.

But I see NO ONE actually taking a stand. I see NO ONE standing up for DEMOCRATISM.
-----------------------------------

And what would that even look like? I can tell what I think it would look like.

For starters, it would mean shaping our policies around Liberal Rhetoric again. In my diary A Memorial For What We Have Lost, I tried to remind people of the REAL values that American stands for--that are ingraved and tattooed onto its very being:

The Common Good.
Equal Opportunity.
The Right to Privacy.
Accountable Government.
Respect Abroad.

It would mean standing up for single-payer healthcare.

It would mean standing up for a SERIOUS increase in the minimum wage.

It would mean standing up for SERIOUSLY higher taxes on corporations and the extremely wealthy, in order to actually SHRINK the income gap in this country.

It would mean standing up for re-regulating all the corrupt, vampirous industries that were deregulated by Reagan and Bush.

It would mean standing up strongly for the separation of church and state, and heaping scorn on those who would tear it down, rather than running in fear of them.

It would mean standing up for SERIOUSLY higher pensions and funding for our military personnel, and for our veterans.

It would mean doing all these things and much more--AND MAKING SURE THAT JOE SIXPACK KNEW WE MEANT IT.

This seems to sum up Americans' attitudes

2006-05-20T13:03:00.000-04:00

If you love your civil liberties, let them go. If they come back, then you can exercise your free speech and peaceably assemble and be secure in your papers and effects. If not, then they were never your rights to begin with.

Max Boot has totally lost his fucking mind. He shouldn't be living in the US, he belonds in the 1950s Soviet Union.

Oh, and read the whole post...hell, read the ones above and below too...

Way to go out on a fucking limb Pat

2006-05-18T22:28:00.000-04:00

Pat Robertson: If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms. There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.

Press Release 05-162
Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years

September 15, 2005
The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, according to a study by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The change occurred as global sea-surface temperatures have increased over the same period.

Atmospheric scientist Peter Webster of Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, along with scientists Greg Holland of NCAR and Judith Curry and Hai-Ru Chang of Georgia Tech, studied the number, duration and intensity of hurricanes worldwide from 1970 to 2004.

Results of the research will appear in the Sept. 16 issue of the journal Science.

"Basic physical reasoning and climate model simulations and projections motivated this study," said Jay Fein, director of the National Science Foundaton's (NSF) climate and large-scale dynamics program, which funded the research. "The results will stimulate further research into the complex natural and human-caused processes influencing tropical hurricane trends and characteristics," he said.

"What we found was rather astonishing," said Georgia Tech's Webster. "In the 1970s, there was an average of about 10 Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year globally. Since 1990, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled, averaging 18 per year globally."

[more]

EXTENDED RANGE FORECAST OF ATLANTIC SEASONAL HURRICANE ACTIVITY AND U.S. LANDFALL STRIKE PROBABILITY FOR 2006

We continue to foresee another very active Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2006. Landfall probabilities for the 2006 hurricane season are well above their long-period averages.

(as of 4 April 2006)

[snip]

PROBABILITIES FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE LANDFALL ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING COASTAL AREAS:

1) Entire U.S. coastline - 81% (average for last century is 52%)

2) U.S. East Coast Including Peninsula Florida - 64% (average for last century is 31%)

3) Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville - 47% (average for last century is 30%)

4) Above-average major hurricane landfall risk in the Caribbean

2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season Official Outlook (2), January 8th 2006

[snip]

Probability of a Tropical Cyclone making landfall in U.S: 96%
Probability of a Named Storm making landfall in U.S: 95%
Probability of a Hurricane making landfall in U.S: 85%
Probability of a Major Hurricane making landfall in U.S 75%
Probability of a Category 4-5 Hurricane making landfall in U.S: 55%
Probability of a Category 5 Hurricane making landfall in U.S: 30%

[more]

Me? I'm not betting against the house...

Miscellaneous quotes

2006-05-18T21:56:00.000-04:00

"The selfish spirit of commerce... knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain." -- Thomas Jefferson to Larkin Smith, 1809. ME 12:272

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood...It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." -- The passage appears in a letter from Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." -- Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 149, May 7, 1918

Thank you Janeane!

2006-05-18T21:14:00.000-04:00

George Bush and his anti-intellectual douchebag jamboree

Some good links on the estate tax

2006-05-18T07:43:00.000-04:00

FOR THEIR NEXT TRICK: ESTATE TAX REPEAL
The Estate Tax: Tough Questions and Honest Answers
The Estate Tax: Myths and Realities

Too bad we don't have leadership

2006-05-17T23:00:00.000-04:00

Tidal power - energy from the sea

Read the whole angrybear post

2006-05-17T22:15:00.000-04:00

but this section to me was the guts:

Don’t get me wrong – Robert Reich does this debate a great service when he talks about income distribution even if we can hear Robert Novak screaming something about CLASS WARFARE in the background. But he almost concedes Kudlow’s usual argument about faster growth by default even if we know Kudlow is dead wrong. Let me share my initial reaction to the two pieces by Reich that Mark Thoma linked to:

I like Reich - but let's be honest. He's not all that effective in debating this issue. All one needs to do to undermine the Kudlow et al. faster growth argument is to quote a Kudlow statistics - the US economy's average annual growth rate from 1947 to 2000 has been 3.5%. But let's break this down:
1947-1980 (high tax rates): 3.5%
1981-1992 (low tax rates): 3.0%
1993-2000 (high tax rates): 3.7%
Now taking the OMB projections for the rest of this decade, we project the following:
2001-2010 (low tax rates): 2.9%

I know – nothing original nor really all that complicated. But we have been witnessing a flood of free lunch garbage of late – all wrapped in a slew of distortions that Kudlow and his fellow clowns are infamous for bringing to any discussion.

One issue I have, and angrybear did it, is referring to Bush, Gingrich, and the rest as "conservatives" when they clearly are not. That's their framing, and we need to stop it.

Need to get through to *? Play God...

2006-05-17T21:32:00.000-04:00

Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom

December 7, 2005 | Issue 41•49

WASHINGTON, DC—Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

[more]

Another reason to love Jodie Foster

2006-05-16T08:17:00.000-04:00

Don't be fooled by the title...

Foster Quotes Eminem at Penn Graduation

[snip]

Foster, who graduated from Ivy League rival Yale University in 1985, received an honorary doctor of arts degree.

She earned laughs from the graduates by taking pictures of them from the podium and then by recalling her own years at Yale. But she struck a serious note later, saying the country and world are worse off than they were four years ago, and challenging graduates to change that.

The U.S. "squandered" the goodwill and sympathy other nations offered after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Foster said. She also criticized officials for the "disastrous and shameful" handling of Hurricane Katrina.

[snip]

And one more for the road:

The Family Guy on evolution

2006-05-15T18:25:00.000-04:00

The Big Bang

I never realized the level of savings

2006-05-14T22:53:00.000-04:00

Stay within posted speed limits. The faster you drive, the more fuel you use. For example, driving at 65 miles per hour (mph), rather than 55 mph, increases fuel consumption by 20 percent. Driving at 75 mph, rather than 65 mph, increases fuel consumption by another 25 percent.

Blog comments for posterity

2006-05-14T16:43:00.000-04:00

Comment from Kieran Healy over at a Crooked Timber thread STFU Syndrome:

Son, we live in a world that has blogs, and those blogs have to be guarded by men with computers. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Waring? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Reynolds and you curse the Keyboarders. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Reynolds’ existence, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that blog. You need me on that blog. We use words like “fisk,” “indeed,” “heh” … We use these words as the backbone to a life spent at home defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a woman who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the endlessly self-important invective that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a laptop and start to post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

Woodstock would have been cool to see live...

2006-05-13T20:36:00.000-04:00

That's GOTTA hurt!

2006-05-12T22:23:00.000-04:00

Poll: Clinton outperformed Bush

Friday, May 12, 2006; Posted: 9:16 p.m. EDT (01:16 GMT)

(CNN) -- In a new poll comparing President Bush's job performance with that of his predecessor, a strong majority of respondents said President Clinton outperformed Bush on a host of issues.

The poll of 1,021 adult Americans was conducted May 5-7 by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Respondents favored Clinton by greater than 2-to-1 margins when asked who did a better job at handling the economy (63 percent Clinton, 26 percent Bush) and solving the problems of ordinary Americans (62 percent Clinton, 25 percent Bush). (Watch whether Americans are getting nostalgic for the Clinton era -- 1:57)

On foreign affairs, the margin was 56 percent to 32 percent in Clinton's favor; on taxes, it was 51 percent to 35 percent for Clinton; and on handling natural disasters, it was 51 percent to 30 percent, also favoring Clinton.

Moreover, 59 percent said Bush has done more to divide the country, while only 27 percent said Clinton had.

When asked which man was more honest as president, poll respondents were more evenly divided, with the numbers -- 46 percent Clinton to 41 percent Bush -- falling within the poll's margin of error. The same was true for a question on handling national security: 46 percent said Clinton performed better; 42 percent picked Bush.

Clinton was impeached in 1998 over testimony he gave in a deposition about an extramarital sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinksy.

Background on oil and gas leases

2006-05-03T20:17:00.000-04:00

Who Owns the West?

How much do leases cost?

On auction day or at a time specified by an authorized officer, winning bidders pay an administrative fee of $75 per lease, the first year's rent of $1.50 per acre, and at least $2 per acre of their "bonus bid." (The minimum bid is $2 per acre; the bonus bid is what bidders offer above the minimum.) Winning bidders pay the balance of the bonus bid to BLM within 10 working days of the auction.

In addition to the initial payment, lessees pay rental rates of $1.50 per acre for the first five years for all leases beginning after December 22, 1987. Rates are $2 per acre for any additional year. Other rates may apply for leases that began prior to December 22, 1987. Rates can reach $10 per acre or higher for leases that are terminated and subsequently reinstated.

Lessees generally do not pay rent on land for which they are paying royalties (CFR Leasing Fees 2004).

What production royalties are paid to the government by oil and gas lessees?

Lessees pay a royalty of 12.5 percent to the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service on the amount or value of the oil or gas removed or sold from each lease. Lessees must pay a minimum royalty at the end of each year beginning on or after a discovery of oil or gas in paying quantities (CFR Oil and Gas Royalty 2004).

Pro Life?

2006-05-02T08:26:00.000-04:00

Prove it.

Soccer juggling

2006-05-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

Amazing

My first thought was "bullshit"

2006-04-30T20:26:00.000-04:00

and after giving it further thought, I still think it is bullshit. From Steve Gilliard regarding NYC prohibiting cell phones from schools:

This is going to result in tragedy one day. All you need is a school shooting, forget terrorism, even a fire, and you could create panic which could be avoided if kids could use their phones to call home.

The city is headed for litigation over this, when common sense would suffice. Kisd should have access to cells for emergencies.If they answer them in class, then unless someone died, they should lose the right to use them in school.

But without the ability to communicate, and Mike Daly is not exagurating, you could really create needless tension.

Today is a perfect day, cloudless sky, 67 and sunny. You know what we call those days
in New York. 9/11 days.

The kids need access to phones, for peace of mind if nothing else.

Yeah, like the kids having phones is going to do anything. First, it's not going to prevent something, and then, it's only going to exacerbate things as hundreds of kids are trying to call home, causing a panic among parents. The last thing emergency personnel want is emotional people interfering with their efforts.

The amazing thing is that for decades kids have gone to school without cell phones (myself among them), and there never was a problem. Now all of a sudden there is because cell phones might not be available? Nope.

Tom Watson misses the point

2006-04-30T11:02:00.000-04:00

(Note: I came across this through a Steve Gilliard post.)
In Trouble in the Heartland, Tom discusses Springsteen's new homage to Pete Seeger, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, and gets off-track when he hits Ballad of Jesse James.

Now I won't debate him on the meaning of the song (I agree), but I think he should consider the Boss's intent when putting this album together (and he states it clearly when talking about the album). He wasn't making a statement, he wasn't creating a theme album - he was simply playing songs that were fun to play. I only caught part of his interview played on Sirius, but I think it's available on the flipside (it's a DualDisc format) interviews and making of content. He was asked if he had picked songs to relate to today's situations, if there was an underlying motive to the selection. Nope. Just songs that are fun, tunes that sitting around a campfire might be cool to jam along with. Springsteen stated specifically that he did not consider the context of the songs beforehand, that if he did, he would have picked different songs, and the whole freewheeling creativity of the project would have been lost (my interpretation of the interview).

So, was the Jesse James selection a good one? Not if you're looking for meaning.

Colbert at the WHCD

2006-04-30T10:35:00.000-04:00

Nobody survived...except Helen Thomas.

Part 1
Part 2

Courtesy DU

Note: I've pirated the graphic from firedoglake because 1) I like it, and 2) it really adds to the post (and should be spread far and wide).

Yep, this pretty much sums it up

2006-04-30T08:47:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine is "disgusted with the selfish, self centered, self serving, imperialistic, Monroe Doctrine, ultra right wing conservative ignorant christian assholes who are in power or influencing those who make decisions for us."

Now these words will live on...

Bloggy synergy

2006-04-29T15:18:00.000-04:00

DeweyCounts has a good post over at dailykos on totalitarianism, but I wanted to just pull out the relevant points and supplement it with a post over at SadlyNo! (yes, I'm mixing lefty blogs...kind of like mixing drugs...feel the synergistic effects bitches!)

(the italics are DeweyCounts - I just wanted to demote them to highlight the points)

[George S.] Counts' 8 Elements of Totalitarianism:

1. The organization of a disciplined party: let's call it neoconservative.

2. The formulation of a "grand program": let's call it the "Project for a New American Century."

3. The appeal to idealism and heroism: let's put our dear leader in a flight suit and let's spread freedom.

4. The cultivation of human weakness: Count's explained this as cultivating hatred toward class, race, or religion as a means of social control. Totalitarians, according to Counts "experience pleasure in the torture and suffering off others." Go figure.

5. The undermining of social solidarity: let's hate the immigrants and let's hate the gays.

6. The creation of confusion: Counts: "the apostles of totalitarianism assiduously propagate half-truths and falsehoods in unqualified praise of their particular form of dictatorship." Can you say Mcllelan? How about Snow?

7. The arousing and spreading of terror: heh, listen to Counts: "...people are persuaded to believe the most fantastic tales about the savage and bloody actions or intentions of some adversary...that a small neighboring state is bent on aggression and conquest..."

8. The exploitation of the very processes and virtues of democracy: again, Counts: "...all totalitarian movements, whether of foreign or domestic origin, bend their energies to the overthrow of free institutions." Have you taken a moment to say goodbye to the 1st, 4th, 6th, and 8th amendments? To FEMA? To public schools? I'll give you a minute...

I say all 8 elements of totalitarianism are present in the current administration. Is it time for my tinfoil, or was Counts, back in 1941, onto something? Please take the poll.

I'll finish with Counts:

"If the American people should lose their democratic institutions, it would not be because those institutions had failed or because the ideals on which they rest are transient. Disaster will come only if the American people themselves, because of indifference, carelessness, or complacency, refuse to bestir themselves in time and to take the necessary steps to practice and defend the ways of democracy."

From SadlyNo!

Scaring White People for Fun and Profit (and Votes!)
While I'm reluctant to paint all conservatives with this brush, it's certainly true that scaring white people has become the staple component of the bizarre right-wing populism that started with Nixon's Southern Strategy, came to fame with AM talk radio in the '90s and that reached its peak with Bill O'Reilly and FOX News right after 9/11. Just look at Michelle Malkin's front page, and you'll find a cornucopia of supposed mortal perils for the white race. Wherever there are Mexicans waving flags, scary Islamists holding crazy signs, deranged black studies professors advocating genocide, or 7-year-old girls reciting black nationalist poetry, Michelle is there to tell you all about them and let you know that THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU.

[snip]

You can search through Michelle Malkin's archives and find literally thousands of these Pavlovian exchanges. Michelle will post something intended to scare the crap out of white people, and then, as if one cue, several of her white readers leave trackbacks talking about how scared they are. Alas, this has become the standard operating procedure not just for Michelle Malkin, but for the entire Republican campaign machine.

[snip]

The most distresing [sic] thing is that they will never run out of enemies to attack. It doesn't matter if they grow tired of using Muslamonazi murders global or elitist gay homosodomites or Hispino invaders or some cracked-out professor: the GOP attack machine has sufficient bogeymen to last it until the year 2678, and by then we'll have become a band of polytheistic space refugees whose chief concern is fending off Cylon nuclear raids. But I digress.

[more]

And a follow-up from SadlyNo!

Fukuyama's Gift

Here's a story of importance, via Matthew Yglesias, who doesn't seem to appreciate the gravity of what he's discovered. Francis Fukuyama, the apostate neoconservative, says that in the 1990s, neocons tried to manufacture an enemy, because they felt that the Republican Party "didn't do as well" when there wasn't a ruthless, monolithic pinkomuslimcommienihilist threat to America.

People, this, coming from Fukuyama (who would know), is big. It's as big as Ike's warning about the military-industrial complex; bigger than Bill Kristol's admitting that "The Liberal Media" is a useful wingnut delusion. It's big because it provides the final and conclusive missing evidence for something that the Left has known and argued for years but could never prove: That wingnuts contrive monolithic foreign enemies, either by exaggeration or by invention from whole cloth. The Left just never knew whether such a position came from a conscious decision, or if it was instead organic and structural (i.e., simply stupidity). Now, at least for the example of the 1990s, we have a formidable testimony, from the inside so to speak, that it was conscious and deliberate.

[snip]

The wingnut strawman is the Clash of Civilizations, World War IV, the Great Struggle Against a Monolithic Enemy. Folks, this is what the man means by "perpetual war for perpetual peace". This is why you have nutjobs like Atlas Shrugs and the Powertools saying that capturing or killing bin Laden would merely be a symbolic act. This is why you have Glenn Reynolds and Stephen Green disseminating the "Long War" talking points. This is why you have Daniel Pipes and Mark Steyn constantly calling for an all-out war on Islam. They want the war to last forever, and not just because they hate the "Other", but also because they enjoy the conditions war puts on domestic politics.

Perpetual War against the Monolithic Enemy also serves other purposes than a strategery for Republican election victories: it provides wingnuts with a means to feel better about themselves. For wingnuts, it takes a supremely Evil enemy, one that is powerful and promises a struggle to the death, to remind them of how resolutely Good they themselves are. Also -- and this mostly pertains to neocons -- they think that wartime is the proper crucible in which the moral character of the masses is formed. They admired the societal mobilization and sacrifice that America summoned during WW2. They also relish the prospect of a ruthless domestic government (as long as it's Republican), one that has enhanced powers of snooping, one that wipes its browneye with the Bill of Rights. Hence Michelle Malkin's desire for internment camps, and the general wingnut defences of American torturing, indefinite detention, illegal domestic surveillance.

Wingnuts, and neocons specifically, like to think that their decisions are based only on ideology rather than on a mix of ideology, tribalism, sectarianism, and nationalism -- a mix that is pretty much universal throughout the world. Of course we know that wingnuts proceed from all these biases: we document the evidence all the time. But they believe their own lies, and say they proceed as they do because of love of "freedom" and "democracy" -- such words that have always perfumed the rank atrocities they've wrought. It is probably true that neocons, at least, have the ideological bias more strongly than most. But still the other biases are there, particularly nationalism. Yet the important thing is that they project their fundamental error on others.

[more]

The General writes letters

2006-04-29T10:10:00.000-04:00

And is this a good one!

Moving Malkin-Belsen

A different perspective on legalization

2006-04-29T09:30:00.000-04:00

Frankly I hadn't thought about it in this way, but it makes sense. Of course the argument is too philosophical for most politicians, which means that the people who would be doing the selling (of the idea, jeez) would be clueless about the product...

From mykeru

I wouldn't have a problem with decrimininalizing most classes of drugs, simply for the list of contradictions that prohibitions present to a supposedly free society. The state shouldn't be able to dictate what sorts of crap people put into their bodies. If people want to free-base Drano, that should be their right. The rational for prohibiting drugs is that people can do some pretty stupid things while on them. The rationale for decriminalizing them is that people also do some pretty stupid things to procure them and, if mere procurement is a crime, then you're taxing the system with what the system shouldn't be concerned with in the first place. Besides, there's other things that make people do some pretty stupid things: Greed, jealousy, avarice and stupidity itself. Might as well criminalize that too. But we don't because we make the distinction between potential and action. That is to say, if someone knocks over a liquor store to procure drugs or just because they're greedy, then I fail to see the point in criminalizing greed rather than, say, knocking over liquor stores.

Then there's the huge in-your-face contradiction of allowing the #1 make-people-stupid drug, which is alcohol, to remain legal while prohibiting an entire class of drugs that are, by any measure, fair more benign. Fully half of all murders and domestic violence cases are alcohol-related. By not figuring the booze into the equation, while sending people up for being caught with a pot seed lining their pockets, we're missing out on the major etiology of violence. Alcohol also doesn't mix well with an entire class of medications. In the case of Xanax a little alcohol is a nice way to relax yourself into a coma.

In practical terms, if you had to get in the passenger seat of a car driven by someone who was completely ripped to the tits, would you rather them be drunk or stoned?

I rest my case.

Information on medieval locks

2006-04-28T23:03:00.000-04:00

A slight research hobby of mine...
Early, Medieval and Renaissance Locks and Keys

More information:

Lock History

Clinton and CAFE standards

2006-04-27T11:43:00.000-04:00

Automobile and Light Truck Fuel Economy: The CAFE Standards

[snip]

The Clinton Administration supported greater fuel efficiency, but indicated in 1993 that an increase in the CAFE standards was not the option likeliest to be embraced first.

[snip]

In 1994, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to explore raising the CAFE standard for light-duty trucks. Congress included language in the FY1996-FY2001 DOT Appropriations (P. L. 104-50, P. L. 104-205, P. L. 105-66, P. L. 106- 69, and P. L. 106-346) prohibiting the use of appropriated funds for any rulemaking on CAFE, effectively freezing the standards.

[more]

George Bush: A 19th Century President

2006-04-26T21:23:00.000-04:00

And this is from 2004.
Nineteenth Century Bush

Kill 'em all, and let god sort 'em out.

2006-04-26T21:17:00.000-04:00

Sadly, it seems that this disgusting phrase has a historical basis.

Albigensian Crusade

In the bloodiest incident of the war, in 1209, perhaps 10,000 of the inhabitants of Béziers [ed: France] were slaughtered during the storming of the city by the Catholic forces headed by Simon de Montfort. In a famous legend relating to this incident, the Papal legate, Arnaud-Amaury, the Abbot of Citeaux, was asked how to distinguish between the Catholic and Cathars, and allegedly answered, "Kill them all, God will know his own". The Catholic Encyclopedia denies these words were ever spoken, although they were recorded soon after the event by a respected Church chronicler who was also Arnaud-Amaury's fellow Cistercian. They are also consistent with other sources such as the contemporary Song of the Crusade.

Open letter to Rep Ron Paul

2006-04-26T21:03:00.000-04:00

Rep Paul,

I am not a constituent (I live in Florida) and I am a Democrat. However, I wanted to pass on my appreciation for your statement "Iran: The Next Neocon Target" and let you know that there are many Democrats in this country who agree with what you've said, and could not have written something better in their own words.

One statement you made brought to my mind a question:

"In a way it’s amazing there’s not a lot more outrage expressed by the American people. There’s plenty of complaining but no outrage over policies that are not part of our American tradition. War based on false pretenses, 20,000 American casualties, torture policies, thousands jailed without due process, illegal surveillance of citizens, warrantless searches, and yet no outrage. When the issues come before Congress, Executive authority is maintained or even strengthened while real oversight is ignored."

My question is this - what form of outrage do you expect? Millions of us have contacted our senators and representatives regarding each of the issues you mentioned. Millions more marched prior to the invasion of Iraq, yet Congress and the President ignored our efforts.

Given the current economy, Americans have very little time to research, understand, and act on these events, and yet millions have. My contention is not that there is insufficient outrage, but that there is insufficient interest in Congress to pay attention to us.

Good job President Dumbass - only took you 6 years

2006-04-26T18:29:00.000-04:00

Dow ends at 6-year high

The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI - news) ended up 71.24 points, or 0.63 percent, at 11,354.49, its highest close since January 19, 2000. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (^SPX - news) closed up 3.67 points, or 0.28 percent, at 1,305.41. The Nasdaq Composite Index (^IXIC - news) finished up 3.33 points, or 0.14 percent, at 2,333.63.

So glad that the nightmare of prosperity during the 90s is over...

Mega numbers for dummies

2006-04-26T17:44:00.000-04:00

Don't know how to get rid of all this space. Anyway, a TRILLION seconds is the equivalent of 437 CENTURIES. Wow. About how long it will take our grandchildren to pay off the invasion of Iraq.

Seconds	Minutes	Hours	Days	Years	Centuries
Million	16,667	278	11.6	0.04	0.0004
Billion	16,666,667	277,778	11,574	43.7	0.44
Trillion	16,666,666,667	277,777,778	11,574,074	43,676	437

Is it live, or is it...Will Ferrel?

2006-04-26T16:06:00.000-04:00

So-called Global Warmings

For future reference

2006-04-23T22:43:00.000-04:00

If you're going to try to use science to criticize atheism, don't get in an argument with a scientist who is an atheist - he will kick your ass.

And a note to The RawStory, you might want to take away Melinda's crayons before she really hurts somebody besides herself...

This is where it starts...

2006-04-22T20:43:00.000-04:00

A week ago if you'd have asked me about Pink, I would have thought WTF? But this is just...wow...

Dear Mr. President

Hey Sierra Club! Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

2006-04-20T17:08:00.000-04:00

As a former member of the Sierra Club (sorry for the lapse), I would like to understand why you would endorse Lincoln Chafee.

"The club said a vote for Chafee is better than a vote for a Democrat because of his position as a dissident within the majority party."

This has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, and given that George Bush is president, that says alot. His position as a "dissident" is worthless, since he is almost a minority of one in a party whose policies are anti-environment, which is to say anti-Sierra Club. Just look at NARAL and their (lack of) success at keeping anti-choice judges off the Supreme Court. And they endorsed Chafee as well.

Please, if you can't manage to support the candidate whose party will actually implement the policies you are calling for, then withhold your endorsement. To do otherwise is a waste of an endorsement, and any money that goes with it. It also provides cover to the Republicans, because now they can claim that they have the endorsement of a major environmental activist group. True? No. Do they care? No.

Just out of curiousity, did the Sierra Club interview any of Chafee's potential Democratic challengers?

For the record, I was going to renew my membership, but given this endorsement, I am going to send my $39 to Sheldon Whitehouse. I feel it will be money better spent.