...The folks who don't want government are the first to bitch when their house gets flooded, or when their beaches are polluted, or when the roads are impassible and want "somebody from the government there now". They wanna see the President come to share their pain and tell 'em "everything's gonna be all right". They just don't wanna pay for it.
We could argue the merits of a large and sprawling public works - managed by a large and sprawling bureaucracy. We can also argue the problems and pitfalls of the nanny state and an over-reaching legislature.
What we can't argue is that the underlying premise of government is to keep order,civility and provide for a safe and secure country. That safety and security is not limited to fighting useless wars and preventing those nasty turrorists from flattening buildings. It also includes the simple things like putting out fires and protecting citizens with adequate public health.
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The gunman who injured two police officers in a shootout while on his way to assault the Tides Foundation headquarters has officially acknowledged Glenn Beck as his inspiration. Byron Williams:
"I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind." [...]Now, in exclusive interviews and written correspondence with journalist John Hamilton, Williams speaks for himself. He asks Hamilton to be his "media advocate" and repeatedly instructs him to watch specific broadcasts of Beck's show for information on the conspiracy theory that drove him over the edge: an intricate plot involving Barack Obama, philanthropist George Soros, a Brazilian oil company, and the BP disaster.
Williams also points to other media figures -- right-wing propagandist David Horowitz, and Internet conspiracist and repeated Fox News guest Alex Jones -- as key sources of information to inspire his "revolution."
In a separate exchange with Examiner.com's Ed Walsh, Williams sought to defend Beck from "Obama and the liberals," whom he said are afraid of Beck "because he often exposes things that are simply forbidden in news."
Yes, because fiction delivered by a scam artist playing a televangelist is often (but not always) frowned upon in "news."
Also, I wonder if anyone will classify what's going on here as terrorism. Ultimately, that's what it is. With all the demonization of progressive organizations happening on the Glenn Beck show in front of an audience of 10+ million people, it must be more than a little nerve-wracking to show up for work at Tides or CAP or the ACLU these days. How many other Byron Williamses are lurking around out there, polishing their firearms with that punch-me-face faker on in the background egging them on?
"We never intended for good businesses to be kicked out," Jackie Nytes, a City-County Council member and ordinance sponsor, told The Indianapolis Star. "We sure never meant for the ordinance to be interpreted that aggressively." The Star Sunday said the council got involved after the owner of Just Cookies told a college gay rights group last month he would not fill an order for rainbow-iced cookies because he did not endorse homosexuality. The City-Council Council said in a letter obtained by the Star "it would be wrong to force a business to support a political project with which they do not agree."Known as "Cupcakegate" in the press, the bakery's handling of the gay students' special order spawned a national discussion on religious freedom and public accommodation.
American healthcare is expensive and it doesn't help us live longer.
In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands. The last available measure of female life expectancy had the United States ranked at forty-sixth in the world. As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined. The United States does little better in international comparisons of mortality. Americans live 5.7 fewer years of "perfect health"—a measure adjusted for time spent ill—than the Japanese.Meanwhile, per capita health spending in the United States increased at nearly twice the rate in other wealthy nations between 1970 and 2002. As a result, the United States now spends well over twice the median expenditure of industrialized nations on health care, and far more than any other country as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP).
If we work really hard, maybe we'll jump a few notches and pass Bosnia and Herzegovina (number 43). And, by the way, despite the awful violence and strife, Israel is number 12.
Yes, America has the best healthcare in the world! Go USA!
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Obama Has Created 863K Jobs in 2010, More Than Double Average Annual Creation under Bush
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It's a standing joke that the most homophobic ranters are likely to turn up in the news some day getting their luggage lifted. As it turns out, though, some of them face a fate that's even sadder.
Remember Jonathan Katz, the physicist who briefly held an advisory position with the Obama administration until his online essay declaring that he was proud to be a homophobe made the news? He raved about how homosexuality was simply disgusting and people with "unnatural desires" need to learn to repress them, for their own good and to prevent disease from spreading through the population.
Surprise, Jonathan Katz has not been exposed as a practicing homosexual. Instead, his son Isaac has come out publicly as a homosexual.
The elder Katz is going to have to learn something now, which is a good thing.
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Looks like being a war criminal has finally taken it's toll...
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Over the weekend I read a thought-provoking piece by Ronald Brownstein at National Journal that dealt with something that I had noticed but hadn't thought about beyond raising the question: "How did climate change become a political issue only in the United States?"
Why, in this country, has there been one political party that has decided to stand athwart science and shout "Stop!" in spite of all the evidence to support the fact that global warming is real? Climate change is an empirical, observable phenomenon, yet the GOP has decided, as a matter of politics, to reject the overwhelming scientific evidence and deny that the phenomenon is real. But why?
Why has the republican party not merely rejected proposals to deal with the problem, even the solutions that were originally proposed by republicans in the first place (Cap and Trade, anyone?) but moved beyond that to wholesale rejection of the underlying science.
Senate nominees with tea party roots, such as Nevada's Sharron Angle, have expressed these views most emphatically. But the pattern of repudiation extends to more-measured nominees such as Ohio's Rob Portman and California's Carly Fiorina who pointedly insisted, "I'm not sure," when asked whether climate change was happening. Of the 20 serious GOP Senate challengers who have taken a position, 19 have declared that the science of climate change is inconclusive or flat-out incorrect. (Kirk is the only exception.) With sentiments among rank-and-file Republicans also trending that way, it's no coincidence that two Republicans who affirmed the science -- Rep. Michael Castle in Delaware and Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska -- were defeated in Senate primaries this year.Just for the record, when the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences last reviewed the data this spring, it concluded: "A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems." Not only William Hague but such other prominent European conservatives as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have embraced that widespread scientific conviction and supported vigorous action.
Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that although other parties may contain pockets of climate skepticism, there is "no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of."
I admit to being rendered speechless at times by the deniers. Denying science makes about as much sense to me as buying a car for your dog. It just doesn't make any sense.
And what is to be gained, anyway? Even if it turned out that they are right and we are wrong about the climate change part, what is the worst thing that would happen if we converted to clean energy? That we would leave a cleaner, less polluted planet behind for our children and grandchildren? That we extend the years of oil and stop squandering something so chemically valuable as oil by burning it as fuel? (That hasn't made sense to me since O-Chem I when I was the ripe old age of 18.)
I know the reality is that the GOP has made this collective decision, but what I don't understand is why have they made it? What is the upside to rejecting observable reality?
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"Actually, I had my wrists augmented first, then my tits."
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Shorter Carl Paladino: "I Don't Hate Gays, But They're All Going to Burn in Hell"
He despises gay people, but then he thinks that discrimination against gays is wrong. How does he square that, you might ask. (He doesn't.)
Palladino is a real piece of work. He's used dubious schemes to rip off the taxpayers of New York State to get both grants and property tax rebates. Those schemes have made him a shitload of cash. He's just another Teabagging hypocrite who hates government spending, unless it puts cash into his pocket, then he is fine with it.
One thing he didn't mention is that the $700 TARP bailout came in at less then a tenth of that number, as banks were eager to pay back the money, so they could both shed the stigma of taking Federal money and they could go back to paying huge bonuses to the rapacious dirtbags who ran them over the cliff in the first place.
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