Economic collapse? It's the atheists' fault!

There's a clown in Minnesota by name of David Lebedoff, who has penned an article for the Minneapolis StarTribune, in which he declares that the real problem we're facing is atheism.

Yup. He references George Orwell, the English satirist who he claims somehow years ago foresaw our economic collapse and just knew "that the cause of the market failure would not be economic, nor even psychological, but rather moral."

Now, reading that I had to stop and ask myself if this guy was serious. Maybe he's writing a satire; a bit of comic relief for people without jobs waiting to be evicted from their foreclosed homes.

I don't think so. I think he's serious.

Orwell, says Lebedoff, was thoroughly disenchanted with the "Modern Age" because "People no longer believed in life after death." And this was, for Orwell, "the most important fact in the modern world."

And this, says Lebedoff, has "almost everything" to do with our current economic misery. Then he devolves into the usual rant of the religious goofballs on the right who maintain, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that atheists can't be good people and do good things because they don't believe in God and heaven and hell.

And if you don't believe in heaven and hell, well, it's party time!

Lebedoff puts it this way: "If you only go around once, then the main thing is to have fun. If you start admitting that from cradle to tomb it isn't that long of a stay, then life is a cabaret, old chum, and so, by the way, is Wall Street. There is a bumper sticker that proclaims 'he who dies with the most toys wins.' This is indeed the moral philosophy of those who believe that death is the final closing bell. Materialism, hedonism and Stairmasters are what people do until the clock stops ticking."

Then he goes on to suggest that our economic collapse is the result of people playing with money who "are in many cases free from moral restraint," and the reason they're free from moral restraint is that they don't believe in heaven and hell.


Lebedoff doesn't seem to notice he is telling us the only reason he might behave in a moral fashion is because he doesn't want to go to hell. He doesn't seem to realize that his is no moral position at all, but the lack of morality. He has no inner mechanism that guides his decision-making except the fear of a bloodthirsty god who will torment him with fire eternally unless he follows the laws of this bloodthirsty tyrant.

In other words, he will behave only because of the big stick held over his head.


I like PZ Myers response at Pharyngula:

"I had no idea that Wall Street was run by atheists, or that the government was run by atheists, or that Christianss and Jews and Muslims were never, ever interested in material possessions (I just knew that whole Prosperity Gospel thing was a weird confabulation of my imagination).

"But, speaking as a fairly strong atheist, I have to protest. The absence of an afterlife means that this life is all I've got, and I'd like to live it well -- there are no do-overs or second chances. I don't have the excuse that 'God would never allow harm to come to the planet' or 'Jesus will forgive my sins and let me live in paradise'. If I screw up now, that's all there is.

" ... Not believing in a magical afterlife ... actually tends to make things like preparing for the future, being a good steward of my resources, educating future generations, etc., even more important."


Lebedoff is one sorry excuse for a human being, in spite of the fact he's scared as all hell of hell.


Read PZ Myers here.

Lebedoff's article is here.

Can you beat this, Tim Tebow, with your biblical cheeks?

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Is it safe to take Vioxx and Celebrex?

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that one man, Dr. Scott S. Reuben, "a prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist," chief of staff at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, falsified data in 21 medical studies which "claimed to show benefits from painkillers like Vioxx and Celebrex."

Why would the good doctor do this? No answers seem to be forth coming as yet although Reuben "had been a paid speaker on behalf of Pfizer's medicines, and it paid for some of his research. ...

"Wyeth said it isn't aware of any financial relationship between the company and Dr. Reuben. [That isn't to say, of course, that there wasn't one] ... Merck had no immediate comment."

Baystate "has asked the medical journals to retract the 21 studies..."


Every day this question increases in importance: Who can we trust?



You can read the entire article here.

h/t to BS Alert

Hamas will not recognize Israel - so what's Israel to do?

When a democratic country is threatened by a terrorist country, what can be done?

Khalid Amayreh. writing in The Palestinian Times says this:

"The leadership of the Palestinian Islamic resistant movement, Hamas, has reasserted its principled refusal to recognize the Zionist entity (Israel), saying that Israel is an illegitimate state based on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

"Ismael Haniya, the legitimate Palestinian Prime Minister, told foreign dignitaries visiting Gaza last month ... "We will not cave in to pressure, we will not betray our people's trust, we will not recognize the illegitimate Zionist entity. This has always been our stance, and it will never change."


Okay. There you have it! Nothing new, of course, just more terrorist rhetoric.

So, what's Israel to do? Negotiate? Negotiate what? Turn Israel over to the terrorists?


Bob Poris, erstwhile scholar and knowledgable commentator on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, suggests this:

"It is time to accept his declaration and act accordingly. How much more need he say to realize he will not be a partner for anything but genocide? He should be taken seriously and removed from the scene."


Read the entire article by Amayreh here.

Colorado Christian arrested for trying to engage in sex (with girl under 15)

[Focus on the Family image by Houdini2]

Only it wasn't a pubescent youngster, as Juan Alberto Ovalle discovered. Nope. It was "undercover officers with the Jefferson County district attorney's office." Ovalle was "arrested on suspicion of using the Internet to arrange sex with a teenage girl."

So, big deal, you say. Happens all the time. Lots of Christians involved in this stuff.

Except...Ovalle, 42, is a big-time Christian who is employed by "a Spanish-speaking arm of the Colorado Springs Christian group Focus on the Family and narrates Biblical text for CDs..."

Yup, that Focus of the Family. Kinda gives the word, "focus" a new meaning!

And one more "moral scold" christianist wingnut bites the dust.


Read more here.

Michele Bachmann - Ha, ha, ha

It's been about a week since her last bit of insanity, so we would expect Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Moron, to be on her soapbox once again.

The Minnesota Independent reports that Bachmann, in a conversation with Minnesota KTLK-AM (radio podcast), warned the American people that President Obama is threatening our way of life by forcing our wonderful youth into "'re-education camps,' where ... [they] will have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

I hadn't realized the act Bachmann was ranting about was so far along. It's called The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which would broaden the AmeriCorps program. Obama will probably sign it into law this week. Please note that the co-sponsor of this act is none other than Orrin Hatch, not exactly a flaming liberal!

Here's what Bachmann said:

"It's under the guise of -- quote -- volunteerism. But it's not volunteers at all. It's paying people to do work on behalf of the government. ...

"I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns [sic] is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

Blue Texan at Firedoglake adds this: "Bachmann ominously announces she's 'watching our freedoms slip out the door,' warns that 'President Obama wants to cede American sovereignty to trans-national global authorities,' and once again calls for everyone to be 'armed with knowledge so that they can be dangerous to the views of the Left.'"


Also, from The Minnesota Independent: "A Minnesota Independent investigation reveals today that Minnesotans in Bachmann's district face the worst effects of the foreclosure crisis - but she's doing the least about it. Bachmann calls homeowners 'irresponsible' while advancing legislation to restrict abortion, make the U.S. government more Christian, and fend off mythical assaults on the dollar."

The entire article here.


We've said before that Bachmann is certifiably crazy. This is merely another confirmation of that fact.


Read more here, at The Minnesota Independent.

Another article at the Huffington Post here.

A new form of Christianity - it's enough to raise the dead!

[Image of New Life Church by David Shankbone]

Bruce Wilson at Talk 2 Action has, for some time, been involved in an extensive investigation as to how Christianity is in flux.

In an article entitled, "Pray," Wilson offers an overview as to how Christianity is changing into something quite different historic forms of the religion.


For example, he notes that prayer has generally been considered a private matter. But that's not true anymore. Consider what prayer means at Ted Haggard's former church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. From information derived from author Alix Spiegel, we learn that the pray-ers at New Life Church not only take prayer public but do so because of one certain conviction: Colorado Springs is infested with "teeming territorial demons," and said demons are a plague on the city.

Members at New Life, therefore, have established a plan to combat these demons: Spiegel said "they use maps, and computers, and statistics to chart out what parts of their city need prayer, for what reasons ..."

So, as Wilson put it, "Ted Haggard's New Life Church members were - street by street and block by block, toiling to expel, one by one, with prayer, the teeming territorial demons ... And they were maintaining, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, a prayer shield over their city to prevent those evicted spirits from re-infesting Colorado Springs."

And yes, you are still living in the 21st century!


This is, for Wilson, one example as to how Christianity is changing. Or, maybe not. Christianity has from its inception believed in demons and evil spirits and has used prayer to overcome same. The Roman Church has a bloody history of killing people it believed were infested by demons. Today, exorcists represent a growing profession within the Roman Church.

On the other hand, it is probably true to say that within mainstream Protestant Christianity, demons and demon-possession have generally been relegated to their rightful roles as manifestations of psychological trauma and thought to be better dealt with by science than by the magic of prayer.


However, there's much more. Within the last generation has grown up a new form of Christianity, of which Haggard's church is a part, called Postdenominational by the U.S. Center for World Missions, which, in 2001, published a massive research study of the Christian religion since its inception. The study is titled World Christian Trends AD 30 - AD 2200.

According to the book, Postdenominationalism is something quite new and has "no connection to historic Christianity."

What Postdenominationalism is doing is rabidly moving across the face of the earth garnering converts by the millions. Wilson notes World Christian Trends estimated this movement had grown to 385 million people by 2000 C.E.


The situation becomes even more stark when we come to realize that within this larger movement is another, "even newer and more radical faith" - the Third Wave.

Note, please, that Sarah Palin is part of the Third Wave!

Wilson says, "A rupture has occurred. Several hundred million Christians worldwide, more every day, are sailing into the uncharted waters of a theological system that has nothing to do with historic Christianity and which might have been, during the Medieval period, considered the wildest form of heresy."

The Third Wave believes, among other things, that through prayer they can change the "spiritual DNA" of a community. One of the leaders of this nonsense is Thomas Muthee, a self-appointed religious fruitcake from Kenya who appears in "Transformation" videos which promote the notion enough of the right kind of prayer can "transform" the essential character of a city or town or community. [Which is precisely what the pray-ers in Colorado Springs were trying to do.]

You will recall, that, in 2005, Muthee "blessed and anointed Sarah Palin."

But that's only part of it. This bunch of morons actually holds to the "doctrine that average Christians can learn to raise the dead. It's a claim one can hear promoted from the pulpit of Sarah Palin's most significant church, the Wasilla Assembly of God."


There's much more and it's important to have some understanding of this movement for it's not going away; it's growing. And it's not benign; it is cancerous. It is deadly. It is, to coin a phrase, demonic.


Read Wilson's article here. And he has another insightful piece here.

More on Thomas Muthee here, and an article by Jane Lampman of the Christian Science Monitor, here.

Update: My friend, Grandpa Eddie, has a scintillating post on this same topic today. Click here.

If you haven't seen the video of Palin's anointing and blessing by Muthee, watch below:

Cheney's assassination wing - where's the outrage?

[Image of Seymour Hersh from citizenbfk.wordpress.com]

There hasn't been very much about Dick Cheney's assassination wing in the mainstream media. That is a conundrum. As Seymour Hersh described it, this assassination wing was engaged in killing people the Bush administration didn't like or thought might be anti-American or terrorists and as such was a strictly illegal, unconstitutional, clandestine operation.

Where's the outrage? Have we become so numb to assaults, not only on the basis for our life together as Americans represented by our Constitution, but also with regard to basic human decency, that we no longer care?


Amy Goodman, writing for Democracy Now and AlterNet discusses this assassination wing as described by Seymour Hersh and John Hannah, Cheney's national security adviser.

Hersh claims that with the authority of George W. Bush, U.S. special forces (commandos) have "been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving."

When questioned as to the accuracy of this information, Hannah said, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer:

"There is clearly a group of people that go through a very extremely well-vetted process, inter-agency process ... that have committed acts of war against the United States, who are at war with the United States, or are suspected of planning operations of war against the United States, who authority is given to the troops in the field and in certain war theaters to capture or kill those individuals. That is certainly true."

Blitzer asked Hannah if he thought this was "totally constitutional, totally legal, to go out and find these guys and to whack 'em.""

Hannah responded affirmatively, reiterating the notion that we are at war with "al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and on that Pakistani border ... [and] our troops have the authority to go after and capture and kill the enemy, including the leadership of the enemy."


Hersh, speaking with Amy Goodman, calls this kind of irrational rationale for what it is: horsehockey (although he didn't use those words). Hersh noted that in the 1970s, President Ford signed an executive order banning such activities. "It's not only contrary -- it's illegal," said Hersh. "It's immoral, it's counterproductive."

Hannah was being disingenuous. The assassination squads were not "troops" in the field of battle, but well-trained special forces who went into, not only the Middle East, but Central and South America.

"And the idea," said Hersh, "that the American president would think he has the constitutional power or the legal right to tell soldiers not engaged in immediate combat to go out and find people based on lists and execute them is just amazing to me."


It should be amazing to every American! It should be more than amazing, it should be absolutely reprehensible for it goes against our consititution and everywhere we have stood for as a nation.

So, again: where's the outrage? Where's the MSM? Why haven't Bush and Cheney been arrested and thrown in jail? They're not above the law.

Or, are they?


Read the entire article here.

Palin just needs a little stimulus to get in gear

[Sarah Palin working on her plan to become governor of Alaska - Time photo]

And that little stimulus is probably 2012!

Remember now, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, has been bitching about the federal stimulus package since it was first announced. She wasn't going to take it, she said, in concert with several other rightwingnut GOP governors.

Amazingly, most of these rightwingnut GOP governors have learned through a process of self-discovery that they are against big government spending, deficits and red ink. How this happened exactly, we're not sure. It's possible they used taxpayer money to fly to Tibet and mediate with the Lama, or may Peru where they meditated with the llamas.

Obviously, they have not always been against big government spending, etc., as they gave Chimpy everything he asked for during his eight years in office. But lately they've got religion and that's why they don't like the stimulus bill and why they won't take any of this wasteful largess for their states!


But...but, it appears that these rightwingnut GOP governors have had another revelation. Even Mark Sanford down in South Carolina is making noises like he'll accept the money - even though he really doesn't want to. Heh. Heh. (The SOB knows if he doesn't he'll be lucky to be elected chairman of the capitol john in the next cycle!)

And Palin, too, is prancing about perkily suggesting that she might be open to accepting some of the money. I think she's finding it difficult to all of a sudden be against federal gifts to Alaska when she's spent her entire political life digging in the federal money pot.

In addition, Palin has, so far as I know, uttered not one complaint over the past several years about borrowing money to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, while she's been yelping lately about how the stimulus "enslaves our nation to other countries," she's never said a word about the fact that we're financing our war efforts on borrowed money from other countries - almost $1 trillion so far.

So, she has to be careful. She's a hypocrite for sure. But she can't overplay her hand or she'll end her career fishing off the back end of hubby's boat.


According to the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's "House leaders are moving toward accepting all the federal stimulus money, and lawmakers think Gov. Sarah Palin is becoming more open to the cash."

You betcha! She's got 2012 in sight. If she rejects the stimulus money, which includes a big chunk for education, it is likely that may doom her chances to get the Repugnican nomination as it will show her to be the uncaring, ideological wacko that she really is.

Furthermore, after careful reflection on the career of Sarah Palin and her character (or lack thereof), it seems clear that she intended from the get-go to accept the stimulus money. She had a plan--Sarah always has a plan; and that plan always has to do with ensuring that Sarah wins whatever game she's playing at the moment.

It goes like this: Make a lot of noise about how bad the stimulus is and how she is in favor of small-government and low taxes and low spending and blah, blah, blah. That will get her in good with the rightwingnuts and fruitcakes who are her base. Then, at the last minute, decide with a huge sigh, to accept the stimulus because she just doesn't have any choice; she's under so much pressure, she had to do it. Then explain, finally, that she's realized the stimulus might be good for Alaska, even, (weep here) if it is harmful for the country as a whole.

Tada!

What's Obama done lately?

It seems the other day I saw a video of Mitch McConnell, erstwhile Repugnican wingnut leader, saying that it's really too early to criticize President Obama for not turning around the financial crisis...he's only been in office for two months...but...

There's always that "but." Some folks are not only criticizing Obama for having failed to solve the financial problems of the world in two months, but are actually blaming Obama for those financial problems, even though said problems are the exclusive province of the Repugnican Party and the George W. Bush "Evil Axis" criminal gang.

Anyway you look at this, the implication is clear: Obama's had two months and he really hasn't accomplished much of anything yet.


This all got me to thinking. Excuse the hyperbole, but you'll get the point.

These aforementioned folks remember the good old days under Chimpy, and hell, it didn't take George W. Bush very long to accomplish a whole lot of things. I mean, really, just think about it:

His negligence and failure to read intelligence reports in the summer of 2001 may very well have led to 9/11; within a very short time, he had blown the entire surplus left behind by President Clinton; he started a war with another country to cop its oil for the US, but lied to the American people about it; he declared war on the environment; he talked to God and brought christianist wingnuts by the carload into the government; he started a bunch of faith-based programs which gave taxpayer dollars to christianist groups so they could save people for Jesus; he failed to provide our soldiers with proper gear and materiel; he hired crooked contractors to steal American money in Iraq; he made the US roundly hated around the world; he gave orders to torture our enemies; he wiretapped American citizens without authorization; he killed the Constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus; his FEMA organization failed totally in New Orleans during and after Katrina; he gave up playing golf (for about 2 months) to show solidarity with our fighting men and women; he gave us the highest deficit and most debt ever ...

And, amazingly, while doing all these things, he spent almost 1/3 of his time as president on vacation!

What a guy!

Sunday's cartoon - Insect Church

Thanks to Cat in the Bag!

Country music singers and God

[Image from American Music Channel]

Charley Daniels is a country singer who blathers on about God, patriotism and fighting and stuff. I don't know, but I wonder if he's ever served in the military. There's another country, John Rich, a Jesus-lover, who's singing anti-Obama crap these days; God told him to. One of Toby's Keith's songs is downright racist, but I don't know if Keith loves Jesus or not.

These are jest a few of the goofy good old boys from Nashville, some of which love drinking, Jesus and c-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-s-m, and think this is a good old Christian country thet jest don't got no room for faggots and Democrats, and liberals, and atheists, and socialists and commies!


Enter Diamond Rio. They used to be "stars." Back in 2005, the group recorded a song called "In God We Still Trust." Sounds about right for a country group worried about liberals and godless commies and goddamn atheists.

Most people have probably never heard of it. I hadn't. Then I read a tidbit from The Boot.

And naturally, when weirdness rears its ugly head, it often derives from Florida. In St. Augustine, an elementary school evidently required its students to learn this Diamond Rio tune, "In God We Still Trust," "for an end-of-the-year-after-school assembly."

Two families have sued the St. John's County School Board, claiming that this "amounted to religious indoctrination and interfered with the parents' right to raise their children according to their own beliefs."


The pressure worked. Just before the lawsuit was filed, the song was dropped from the program. But it ain't over yet. A hearing is set for April 8 in Jacksonville.


This kind of thing goes on in our country every single day. For some reason, many personnel affiliated with our public schools, are so obtuse they don't seem to ever understand the fact that they cannot promote Christian or any other religious propaganda in their school settings, or they do understand and do it anyway.

It's not like this is a secret! It seems, rather, that if a school board is dominated by christianists and the school district is made up mostly of fundy christianists, the powers-that-be figure they can get by with their little "evangelistic" endeavors in spite of the fact they violate the Constitution!


So Diamond Rio is out. For now. But the game isn't over. In your city, today or tomorrow, there will be another school somewhere proselytizing your children in the name of Jesus; sometimes using the work of Nashville's finest country music stars; probably because they are such great theologians and such terrific role models.

What do you think would happen if a public school required its students to learn a song called "In Allah We Still Trust"?

The cancer-healing god

[Image from picturesofjesus4you.com]

The 700 Club is a notorious fraud which has been foisted on the easily deluded and naive for years. But, because Pat Robertson and his minions claim to speak for Jesus, people tune in and send them mega-bucks year after year which allows him to continue to spread his religious poison around the world. It also makes him, in a sense, untouchable, no matter how off-the-wall he becomes.

He has, in fact, had the ear of our presidents, and has held a revered place in the halls of the religious right and has even gained the respect of certain Jewish groups because of his feigned concern for Israel. I say "feigned" concern, because it should be obvious that he isn't concerned for Israel or the Jewish people for themselves, but because they play an important role in Robertson's deranged end-times scenario.


Here's an example of what oozes out of CBN and the 700 Club.

This "amazing" story derives from CBN.com. It's about a mand named Ray Hayworth who was doing very well in life, thank you, until one day he discovered a lump in his neck. It was cancer. Not just one, "but two types of cancer: carcinoma and melanoma."

Ray and his wife, Billie, were distraught. "Billie said, 'At night I would lay my hands on his neck and he'd be sleeping away. And I would say, "Satan, how dare you! How dare you come against us like this! Greater is He, God, who is in us!" and I would just yell out, "I command you in the name of Jesus, you get off, you get off of his neck."'"

Everybody started praying for Ray and Billie. Well, not everybody, but you know what I mean.


Guess what? Yup. The cancer disappeared! When the doctor told them the cancer was gone, Billie glanced at Ray and Ray "just raised his hands and said, 'thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus.'"

Three years later, Ray is still cancer-free.

"He says the Lord gave him a scripture that signifies God's amazing power. "'Be still and know that I am God. That's my theme for the rest of my life,' said Ray.:


Now, it is wonderful that Ray is cancer-free. But there are some questions - big questions:

1. Why would God cure Ray of cancer and not everyone else who has cancer? Is Ray a better person, a better Christian than all the other people with cancer?

2. Did Satan cause Ray's cancer?

3. Was it Billie's laying on of hands and casting out Satan that did it?

4. If God loved Ray, why did He/She allow Ray to get cancer in the first place. Being all-powerful, God certainly could have stopped the cancer in its tracks?

5. Does healing of cancer depend upon a certain laying on of hands, cries of "Get out Satan!" and lots of prayer?

6. How much prayer is enough? Did God not know of Ray's dilemma, or did it take prayer to remind him?

7. Why does a supposedly-loving God allow people to get cancer in the first place?

8. Why can God heal cancer and cannot heal an amputee? Have you ever heard of an amputee being healed by God?


Spontaneous remissions of certain diseases, while uncommon, are not unusual. In may cases, the body heals itself and the doctors are not certain why that is so.

To rely on prayer to manipulate a deity to cure oneself while ignoring the fact that millions of people the world over are also suffering from cancer, is obtuse and uncaring.

To think that there is a person called Satan who causes cancer is religious insanity.

To believe that one can "cast out" cancer by reciting words like "I command you, in the name of Jesus to get off his neck," is just the same as relying on the incantations of shamans and witches.


And that's the bottom line: Ray and Billie believed in magic. Magic, not God, cured Ray.

God doesn't care. Just take a look around. It's obvious.

John Boehner - the Democratic budget - "Imprisoning our Kids and Grandkids"

By Heather:

From The Newshour with Jim Lehrer April 2, 2009. John Boehner is suddenly now concerned about fiscal responsibility with his criticism of the Democratic budget. Never mind the debt that was run up under the Bush administration for things like invading other countries that weren't a threat to us and war profiteering. Never mind tax cuts that never trickle down and enrich those at the top. Now that the spending is needed to keep our country out of a depression, Boehner is concerned about the debt being left to future generations. His talk about bi-partisanship after the way he and his fellow Republicans ran the House of Representatives is also laughable.

Thanks to Video Cafe.

Nelson, Bayh, the Budget and the rich

The following is derived from Think Progress.

First of all, when the Senate passed President Obama's budget, NOT one Republican voted Aye! Which is what we've come to expect from these partisan asshats who cry about the need for bi-partisanship while undermining bi-partisanship at every opportunity.

What we don't expect and what we don't need are hypocritical Democrats who go against the president in order to fulfill some deranged commitment to a "principle" in which they don't really believe.

We're talking about Ben Nelson from Nebraska and Evan Bayh from Indiana, both of whom joined with the Repugs and voted NO.

In a statement explaining his negative vote, Nelson harped on how Obama's budget had "trillion dollar-plus deficits" and would increase the debt, blah, blah, blah.

Bayh said essentially the same thing in his statement.


Both of them are full of horsehockey. As Think Progress asks, "why then did they also vote ... in favor of a $250 billion tax cut for the rich? ... Bayh and Nelson along with eight other 'moderate' Democrats broke with Obama and voted to reduce estate taxes from which 99.7 percent of Americans were already exempt."

Yup. Ten Dems in total voted for an amendment (introduced, by nogoodniks John Kyl, Repugnican from Arizona and Blanche Lincoln, Democrat from Arkansas, which would "slash estate taxes for the heirs of multmillion-dollar estates."

The Democrats were (and you may wish to join other progressives in trying to remove these bums from Congress):

Baucus (D-MT), Bayh (D-IN), Cantwell (D-WA), Landrieu (D-LA), Lincoln (D-AR), Murray (D-WA), Nelson (D-Fl), Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR), and Tester (D-MT).

Think Progress quotes from The New York Times: "99.8 percent of estates will never -- ever -- pay a penny of estate tax. The heirs of the remaining 0.2 percent of estates are who Ms. Lincoln and Mr. Kyl are so worried about."


One cannot help but wonder about the motivation of these dismal Democrats. Again, of all the problems we have in our country and in the world, the problems (hah!) of the super rich aren't among them!

Or maybe these Democratic senators are in that 0.2 category?

Or maybe they owe their election to the people in that 0.2 category?

It makes no sense. And it is extremely discouraging that people like Nelson of Nebraska and Bayh of Indiana, who pretend to be so worried about deficits and debt, vote to "slash" $250 billion in taxes from the federal treasury!

G-20 - Building up, not tearing down

[Image from BBC]

The differences between our current administration and our former administration are stark. The latter was mostly concerned with flaunting power and tearing down, and the Obama administration is concerned with cooperation and building up.

Thus, at G-20, the "leader of the free world" (our president!), helped to bring about what McClatchy calls "large achievements."

"The leaders of the world's major industrialized nations accomplished something at their G-20 summit...that rarely happens at such gatherings of heads of state.

"The produced large achievements.

"They pledged the first-ever global regulation of hedge funds and private-equity firms, big players in global finance that have enjoying operating under the regulatory radar. They agreed to require banks to set aside more capital in good times to help them function in bad times. They vowed to crack down on tax haven nations that allow the wealthy to escape taxation. And they pledged $1.1 trillion to the International Monetary Fund and related institutions to help revive the global economy."


What struck me, in particular, was how for the first time in a long time, the United States held out the hand of friendship by explicitly involving itself in cooperative efforts, and thus telling the rest of the world we not only own up to our culpability in this godawful mess, but recognize that we do not live in isolation, that we cannot "make it" on our own, that we're all in this together and we'll do whatever it takes to make it right.

That's a 180 from how the Bush/Cheney gang of criminal thugs operated over the past eight years!


This obviously does not mean that our problems are over and that we're on the way back to easy street. We may never walk easy street again. But it does mean that we're committed to taking the necessary steps to modify the system so that it works, not just for the greedy bastards on Wall Streets around the world, but for all the people -- those who because of the greedy bastards are now homeless, jobless, and hopeless.


McClatchy has much more on this subject which you can survey here.

David Shuster's Hypocrisy Watch: Karl Rove

Thanks to Video Cafe.

In London, the First Lady makes a school visit

A fine, interpretative article comes with the video at Video Cafe. Here's a snippet of that article:

"In my opinion this little clip gives us yet another example of what a transformational couple the Obama's have become in the world. In what could easily have been contrived for the cameras, the sense is that something genuine and real is happening, not faked. And as seen in this clip, Michelle Obama's message is especially resonant with young women and girls of color."

Read the entire article here.

The unpardonable Mr. McCain

[Image by Victoria]

What's with this clown? He wanders around like he's in a fog, muttering about how the Repubs got it right and the Dems got it wrong, and HIS new budget is the real McCoy and why doesn't anyone pay attention to him anymore; he was the Republican nominee for president for Christ's sake!

Almost makes one feel sorry for the old coot. I said, almost!

McCain has pulled off so much chicanery in his lifetime, that one just can't feel sorry for him; his sins, unfortunately, are unpardonable.

Maybe that's why he is pushing President Obama to issue a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson: so he can enjoy a pardon vicariously.


Now, you're supposed to ask, who the hell is Jack Johnson? Jack was the first American black heavyweight boxing champeen! But Jack, back in 1913, got into a lot of trouble (yup, 1913!) by screwing around with a white woman. He took her across a state line and so they got him on the Mann Act. But this was no one-night stand; the woman later became his wife.

All this turmoil (he ran off after his conviction for a number of years, but later ended up serving 10 months) wrecked his career. He was killed in a car wreck in 1946. He was 68 years old.


I have no problem with Obama pardoning Johnson. That's fine, even if presidents have rarely pardoned dead people, thinking, I suppose, that's a job for the deity. But if it would clear his name from what were most likely racially-motivated, trumped up charges, then go ahead and do it.

Won't help him any, of course, 'cause he's dead and gone. But it might make his survivors feel better.


The real question, though, is why John McCain is fooling around with this? I thought he was busy telling the Republicans how to win elections, praising Sarah Palin, and, because he still doesn't realize he lost the election, writing his own budget, which will be read by two people, he and his wife.

The world economy is in the tank; the depression is deepening everywhere as more and more people lose their jobs and their homes; we're still screwing around in Iraq; Afghanistan is become a deeper quagmire; Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is unstable as hell; the crazy fool in North Korea is planning to shoot off a missile into the sky which maybe, might could reach the U.S.; Mexico is falling apart and the drug dealers may well take over the government; Iran is, well, Iran; hunger goes unabated across the globe; McCain's wife still wears too much makeup ... all of this and McCain is spending his time on trying to get a presidential pardon for a guy who's been dead almost 100 years!

And what about all those other black folks who received a raw deal from racially-motivated, trumped up charges? Shouldn't they get pardons, too? Or is a pardon just for an prominent athlete and the rest of us don't count?


Oh, that's right. We're talking about John McCain. The rest of us really don't count!

He was corrupt then, he's corrupt now, so what's Palin's problem?

[Image of Ted Stevens by Lauren Victoria Burke/AP]

I don't get it.

I mean she's for him before he got into trouble. She was against him when he got into trouble because she figured he couldn't win so suggested he might want to drop out of the race. Now, that his indictment has been dismissed, she's for him again.

Makes you dizzy watching Ms. Sarah spin around!

Ted Stevens has been corrupt for years. The people of Alaska have excused that corruption and elected the old bat to Congress because he done so much good for the people of Alaska. Shore enuf!

He wasn't found not guilty, by the way; and no matter what he would like to believe, this does not clear him of the charges. The indictment was dismissed, not because he was innocent or such a nice guy, but because the prosecutor messed up big time. So old Ted gets a walk. Doesn't mean he shouldn't be in prison. Doesn't mean he's been washed clean in the blood of the lamb.



But Palin's been spinning!

Poor Ted. He probably would've been elected if it wasn't for this horrible trial. What to do? What to do?

Aha! Let's tell the guy who was elected legitimately by the people of Alaska, to get his funky ass out of Washington so Alaska can hold another election and send good, ol' corrupt Ted back to the Senate where he belongs and where he can pork-a-lot of stuff back to the people, whom he loves so much.


And that's what Randy Ruedrich (he's the chief poohbah of the Repugnican Party in Alaska) did! As reported by the Anchorage Daily News, Ruedrich "called on Sen. Mark Begich to step down from the U.S. Senate, saying that the state's voters would have re-elected former Sen. Ted Stevens had they known the U.S. Department of Jusice would abandon its prosecution of him."

Heh, heh, heh!

Palin, the prevaricator, jumped on the Ruedrich bandwagon, saying, Yes! Yes! Let's have a special election. Begich give it up and crawl back to Alaska!


Hah! Begich said, nicely, go to hell! He reminded these Repugnican morons that Stevens was in trouble long before the Senatorial race and he [Begich] was elected because the people of Alaska wanted a change from the corruption that prevails among rightwingnuts in the Repugnican Party.

Indeed, it's amazing how morally bankrupt the Republican Party really is. Palin and every other Repug in Alaska knows about Ted Stevens. But Stevens has brought more federal dollars to Alaska than there are Polar bears and wolves hiding from Sarah! So, who cares if Stevens is corrupt?

Fortunately, Begich is in place and cannot be removed by the whims of a Repugnican state chairman or a moronic Repugnican governor.

Still...

High taxes like the Holocaust says Beck

It just gets worse and worse. You've got to see this.

Thanks to BuzzFlash. Article and more here.

David Shuster's hypocrisy watch featuring Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell pushed his hair back over his head, smiled at the camera and said he just didn't like Obama's partisan attitude. It's just not nice. Obama just isn't nice to us wonderful Republicans.

Watch.



Thanks to Video Cafe.

John McCain, the talking widget and his budget

All one can do when watching this performance is thank the gods that this clown was not elected president. He has a budget proposal because Obama's budget is just terrible - it doesn't give tax breaks to the ultra-rich, and Obama actually plans to help people other than the military, and Obama's budget sends the deficit into the stratosphere.

Heh. Heh.

But listen to McCain - a lobbyist's best friend, a serial adulterer, one of those corrupt five who tried to get a Congressional committee to take the pressure off their S&L guy who cost the American people billions of dollars - and what he says about HIS budget proposal. By god, his budget won't cut taxes on the rich, that's for sure! And it won't cut defense spending, even if a large portion of defense spending is wasted on corruption and shoddy products. And the Repugs want a bi-partisan commission to study Social Security and Medicare (read: do away with Social Security and Medicare, which has been their goal since the 1930s!) And, by golly, gee, McCain's budget will result in a mere $3.3 trillion deficit - ooops! He meant $2.3 trillion.

But, hey, what's a trillion dollars these days?

As someone asked: Didn't this guy lose the election?

Thanks to Video Cafe.

The archbishop and the governor

[Photo of Joseph Naumann from Catholic.org]

Once again, in recent days, we have seen a Roman Catholic archbishop flex his godly muscles in an attempt to extort piety from one of the Roman Catholic faithful.

First of all, we should note that according to the most recent polls, Catholics by and large, view things like abortion, birth control, homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, gambling, etc., in a more liberal fashion than their non-Catholic neighbors.

Secondly, it is important to reiterate that studies have shown at least 25% of Roman Catholic priests/seminarians are homosexuals, and some insist the figure is probably closer to 50%, in spite of the fact that the Church considers homosexuality a "disorder," and believes homosexuals should not be priests.

Thirdly, we cannot forget that literally thousands of Roman Catholic priests have abused little children, both boys and girls, for decades. The Roman Catholic bishops and other poohbahs have known all about this abuse, but instead of reporting it to the authorities, they deliberately covered it up, and then fought every attempt to bring it to light and take appropriate action.
They didn't even remove these pedophile priests from the ministry. What they did do was move them from one parish to another, without informing the parish leaders or telling them that they should watch their children as they had a predator priest in their midst.


With those three points before us, we can now consider the case of the Archbishop of the Kansas City, Kansas, archdiocese, one Joseph Naumann.

Naumann is pissed off at the governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, who is a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Sebelius, you recall, has been nominated by President Obama to head up the Department of Health and Human Services.

[Rightwingnuts everywhere are up in arms about Sebelius and have innundated our Senators with dire warnings of disaster to come if they dare vote in her favor!]

The reason? Abortion, of course. Sebelius is pro-choice and thinks women should be able to choose relative to abortion without government interference or priestly dictates. Thus, she has seen fit to veto at least a couple of bills which would restrict abortion rights in Kansas.


The Archbishop is unhappy because Sebelius won't kiss his ring on this issue. According to Joshua Holland at Alternet, the archbishop was interviewed by Catholics for Faith and Family. In this intervew he explains his efforts to get Sebelius to toe the party line.

For example, the Archbishop conducted a "long dialogue" with Sibelius after which he wrote her a letter telling her she must not partake of the magical cracker. She did it anyway, and some dipshit priest tattled on her to the Archbishop.

So Naumann "went public," and told the whole world that the governor had been banned from the altar until she accepted the RC teaching on abortion.


I don't know that Governor Sebelius intends to do. Probably the same thing that John Kerry and Joe Biden do - ignor the rantings of the hyper hierarchical keepers of the keys to the Kingdom.

Also, consider this: Forty percent of American Catholics reject the official Catholic teaching on abortion! They simply don't hear the rantings of their skirted pontificators of piety, having recognized long ago that many of them don't have a clue as to what real life is all about.

What is especially poignant about all this is the fact that an archbishop of the Roman Church, in spite of the fact that 25-50% of the priests of the Church are in flagrant disobedience of the church's teaching on homosexuality, and in spite of the fact that the church has disobeyed the law and its own teachings by protecting thousands of pedophile priests, believes he has some moral authority to exert over the governor of Kansas or anybody else.

In his view, Governor Sebelius is unworthy to take Communion at the altar of a Roman Catholic Church where the odds are about even the priest is a homosexual, or in some cases, a pedophile, because she rejects the right of a church run by celibate (more or less) men to tell women what to do with their bodies.

There's something radically wrong with that picture.

Maybe there are too many archbishopricks in the Roman Church.

Poor little rightwingnuts have no voice in the MSM

[Image of Glenn Greenwald from Flickr - Majikthise]

This is so funny.

Glenn Greenwald, in a piece at Salon.com, dissects the continuous whining of the rightwingnuts as to how they are shut out of the mainstream media. He refers to a C-SPAN broadcast of a Commentary Magazine event involving William Kristol, John Podhoretz, and Jonah Goldberg, three self-appointed spokespersons for rightwingnuts everywhere.

Greenwald writes:

"Exemplifying the deeply self-pitying theme of the entire discussion, Jonah continuously insisted that conservative magazines are so very, very important to the political landscape -- indispensably so -- because conservative voices are frozen out of mainstream media venues by The Liberal Media, so that poor, lonely, stigmatized conservatives can only get right-wing opinion in places like Weekly Standard and National Review."

Hmmm. Seems like a lot of right-wing crap gets printed in the Wall Street Journal and even ze Washington Post, not to mention the New York Times. And what about FAUX News?

Greenwald continues:

"In between Jonah's petulant laments about how conservative opinion cannot be heard in The Mainstream Media, Bill Kristol talked about his New York Times column and his Washington Post column, John Podhoretz told stories about his tenure editing The New York Post Editorial Page and Charles Krauthammer's years of writing a column for Time and The New Republic, and Jonah referenced his Los Angeles Times column."

Heh. Heh.

Greenwald concludes:

"None of them ever recognized the gaping disparity between those facts and their woe-is-us whining about conservative voices like theirs being shut out of The Liberal Media. So important in conservative mythology is self-victimization that they maintain it even as they themselves unwittingly provide the facts which disprove it."


Ultimately, when one thinks about it, this is not surprising, for these rightwingnut neocons' lives are based on mythology, a mythology which seldom, if ever, allows facts to get in the way of opinion/philosophy/principles/theology.


Greenwald has much more, which you can read here.

Stephen Colbert rips Glenn Beck

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The 10/31 Project
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

h/t to Alternet.org

License to kill common sense in Florida

[Image of Florida state house from dms.myflorida.com]

Here in our town, and in our county, the powers-that-be have decided that because things are so bad economically, we should turn our backs on common sense and throw the notion of restriction and/or regulation to the wind.

So, "they" have decided to move on a number of delayed applications and approve another gazillion new homes in an area where the infrastructure is already strained to the breaking point. But these construction projects will bring jobs, they cry! That's always the mantra of the Chamber of Commerce types. Think of all the money they will bring into the community, they cry.

They don't tell you how paving over paradise creates a host of new problems. They don't tell you these projects will create a need for new schools and we can't fund the schools we have now; that increased traffic will increase congestion, and will contribute to more noise and fouling of the air we breathe; that we're running short of water; that houses already on the market aren't selling; that several major developers have gone broke and their half-completed projects sit unfinished and desolate as the topsoil blows away; that we've got tons of foreclosed homes vacant and deteriorating; etc.


The same thing happens up in Tallahassee, where the state legislators sit in session thinking up new ways to help their developer money-pots rake in even more money. And the sinking economy gives them a perfect excuse to bypass common sense and care for the community.

Rob Brinkman, for example, writing in the Suwannee-St. Johns Sierra Club newsletter, says that "This year, in the name of economic stimulus, there is a move to drastically reduce the regulation and permitting of new development on the theory that, if only these weren't holding builders back, everyone would have a job and there would be no foreclosures."

Actually, they don't give a damn about foreclosures. There are 300,000 foreclosures in Florida. Slicing regulatory rules to allow developers to bypass normal criteria for paving over paradise is going to do nothing to mitigate the foreclosure problem.

Or, as Brinkman says, the whole idea is "absurd." Unless, of course, you are a legislator and your first obligation is to those who funded your political campaign and not the people whom you are supposed to represent.

Brinkman also notes there "are also at least two proposals to either gut or simply dispense with the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), the state agency that reviews comprehensive plan amendments."

And here's another absurdity: It appears that the infamous red tide on some of our beaches in Florida may be due, at least in part, to over-fertilization. Some cities are considering regulating fertilizer application. The poohbahs in Tallahassee, to meet this crisis, are considering restricting the right of local governments to regulate fertilizer application.


And so it goes; on and on. And it is probably going on in your state, too, if your state, like Florida, is controlled by the Repugnicans. Got a problem? Any problem? Too much regulation! Let's cut out all the rules and allow our developer friends to do their thing. That will solve the problem!


Sheesh!

The Gospel of the Easter Bunny

The famous poem, The Gospel of the Easter Bunny, is back by popular demand.

If your faith in the Easter Bunny and his meaning for your life has been wavering of late, you'll want to re-read this Gospel and re-invigorate your spiritual side.

So grab a cold beer (martini, Jack Daniels, whatever) and drag up a chair and find your faith lifted.

Won't cost you a dime.

You can find The Gospel of the Easter Bunny at Creative Confections, here.

Joe the plumber, getting dumber

Yeah, some rightwingnuts against the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) invited Joe the plumber getting dumber to come to Pennsylvania and speak his mind, to tell the folks in Pennsylvania what a bad, bad thing is the EFCA.

Oops! Joe the plumber getting dumber doesn't know much about the EFCA.

Naturally.

But that's what Repugnicans do these days. Hire a dumbass like Joe the plumber getting dumber to go out and make fool of himself believing the whole while that the American people are gonna get snookered by this ignorant bozo.


Thanks to Video Cafe.

The challenge of nuclear power

[Image of Three Mile Island from nukeworker.com]

John McCain got on the bandwagon during last years presidential race. Others in and out of government have been touting the benefits of nuclear power. By and large, the dangers of nuclear technology have been pooh-poohed, or ignored.

But the dangers are real. France is often held up as an example of how a country can effectively use nuclear power to meet a majority of its energy needs. Seldom, however, are the problems France has, and is, experiencing, discussed. We have published at least two articles previously detailing some of those problems. One of those is here, and a more comprehensive article on the dangers of nuclear power is here.


Harvey Wasserman, writing for AlterNet, has brought the issue to our attention once again. He reminds us that we've had our own problems with nuclear power/plants in our country.

"People died -- and are still dying -- at Three Mile Island."

Some of us remember well the horror of 30 years ago, "America's most infamous industrial accident ... [and] we mourn the deaths that accompanied the biggest string of lies ever told in US industrial history."

Maybe that's the scariest part of all. We have discovered over and over again down through the years that our government has no compunction about lying to us when it serves the interests of those in power. Thus the Bush/Cheney gang, with straight faces, lied over and over again to justify their invasion of Iraq; or you may recall how the military lied to deflect investigation relative to its medical experiments on unsuspecting conscripts; or, in this case, how the government lied (and continues to lie) about what really happened at Three Mile Island.


Wasserman brings it all back: "As news of the accident poured into the global media, the public was assured there were no radiation releases.

"That quickly proved to be false.

"The public was then told the releases were controlled and done purposely to alleviate pressure on the core."

That was also untrue!

"The public was told the releases were 'insignificant."

Hah! The Nuclear Regulatory Commission still has no idea "how much radiation was released at Three Mile Island, or where it went."

Didn't matter.

Everybody lied. No problem, they said, just about the same radiation as an x-ray. They had no clue!

No problem, they said, the fuel did not melt inside the core. A lie. "...robotic cameras later showed a very substantial portion of the fuel did melt."

No problem, they said, there's no danger of an explosion. But there was!


Mr. Wasserman offers significant other information, including the fact that "the state of Pennsylvania hid the health impacts [of the meltdown], including deletion of cancers from the public record, abolition of the state's tumor registry, misrepresentation of the impacts it could not hide (including an apparent tripling of the infant death rate in nearby Harrisburg) and much more."

The truth? Surveys where fallout was the highest showed "very substantial plagues of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, respiratory problems, hair loss, rashes, lesions and much more."


Here's the real problem and the focus of this essay: We cannot and must not trust our government to tell us the truth, especially when it comes to nuclear energy! Or, as Wasserman put it:

"As the pushers of the 'nuclear renaissance' demand massive tax- and rate-payer subsidies to build yet another generation of reactors, they cynically stonewall the obvious death toll that continues to mount at the site of an accident that happened thirty years ago. The "see-no-evil' mantra continues to define all official approaches to the victims of this horrible disaster."

Even more frightening is that Three Mile Island had a state-of-the-art reactor, while "Every reactor now operating in the US is much older -- nearly all fully three decades older ... Their potential fallout ... could dwarf what came down in 1979."


So don't believe "them" when they say nuclear power is clean, safe, and the way to go. "They" are a bunch of rotten liars.


Read all of Wasserman's article here.