Duh: "White House Opposes War Authority Limits"

The Houston Chronicle provides today's no-brainer headline. King George doesn't want to let go of his ultimate authority as "the decider." (Do follow that decider link - it's absolutely priceless!) It was interesting to hear "Fair & Balanced®" Fox News radio's report on it: they led in with Tony Fratto saying, "I think what's clear is that there's a lot of shifting sands in the Democrats' positions right now. It's hard to say exactly what their position is." It didn't get much better from that. Their internet article on the same topic offers some balance in the second half, but the first half is Republican propaganda. Yech. And the tile on the front page? "Dems Want a Do-Over on Bush War Authority." It was particularly interesting looking over the news there because it had a clear us (Fox & Republicans) vs. them (Looney Democrats) theme. And people actually watch this junk? Would you believe Nevada Democrats agreed to let Fox News host a debate amongst their primary candidates? Sign the petition against that.

Black & Decker: Power Tools for Our State

Jim Black has been all over the newspapers of North Carolina for the last several months. He was the Speaker of the North Carolina House and recently plead guilty to a charge of public corruption for accepting bribes to advance legislation through the House.

Enter Michael Decker, a conservative Republican representative of the people of North Carolina. He met with Jim Black and struck a deal in 2003 whereby Decker would change parties to Democrat and vote for Black as speaker - for $50,000.[1]

Whose $50k? BellSouth, optometrists, video poker companies, lottery advocates, and Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice, among others, presented as checks to Black with the name and date omitted.

Hooray for the SBI finding some of the corruption. What else is left?

Church and State

Portugal voted to legalize abortion but less than half the populous bothered to show up at the polls, so the vote doesn't really count. Abortion is one of the most difficult subjects so far as the discussion of the boundary between church and state is concerned because we confront the question of exactly when a person (or person-to-be) is entitled to the protections of the state. I offer that God entrusted the care of the pre-birth child entirely to the mother and as such, the state should not attempt to wrest control from her because to do so could interfere in her relationship with God. Each contemplated abortion is an opportunity for a woman to come closer to God, to learn ways to discern His will, and to wrestle with a challenging question given the particular circumstances. If a law curtails abortion, it also curtails that conversation with God, interposes itself between the mother and God, and robs her of an opportunity to experience God's grace without interference.

The same problem crops up any time we attempt to legislate morality - the law gets between the would-be criminal and God. Do we require moral legislation to have a righteous country? Then is the country righteous if it is filled with law-abiding citizens? Does obeying that law of morality make one more righteous? No, one should obey because of a reverence to God and because of an understanding of morality. Different people have different understandings of morality, and so long as there is no harm to another person (which points out the crux of the abortion problem), the law should not interfere.

Consider Jerusalem public transit. Haredi Jews have taken it upon themselves to enforce a dress code and seating assignments on certain bus routes. This is so that the men can concentrate on their work rather than being distracted by the hot chicks on the bus. Being a man, I understand the distraction point and I have occasionally thought that the Taliban, amidst all their faults, had one thing going right in the dress code, but what business is it of mine (or the Taliban's) to insist on certain modes of dress? No, we cannot insist on other people behaving in a way that we deem right and proper, regardless of the circumstance, and Jerusalem women are right to protest the discriminatory treatment they are receiving at the hands of religious zealots.
Speaking of zealots, Pat Robertson comes to mind. He's the worst thing for Christianity's public image since the Crusades. He gets on the television and spouts his exclusionary hate-speak, such as, "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist." And then there are the lunatic statements where he claims that hurricanes are the wrath of God inflicted upon sinners.

But don't take my word for it - not any of it. Go read the Bible or another Holy Book and don't just pull out the quote, but study the message. Understand it in the context in which it was written, and come to your own Truth. Truth cannot be found from a televangelist. Truth is between you and God.

Truthiness

A friend of mine explained the way of things to me in 1998 - that reality is not what's important, but rather people's perception of reality.

Kudos to Grist for bringing the Truthiness of the AmeriCone Dream ice cream flavor to my attention. And kudos to HornDozer for the following piece on truthiness and history since the 1970s. It is my pleasure to introduce him by way of this piece. He's a retired history teacher, and one who stays up on current events. I enjoy discussions with him from time to time about our current events. His piece follows.

Of course it is our need for drugs that pays for all the drug lord operations. And our need of cheap dependable labor that causes the flood of illegals. If we really want to stop both drug related violence and the flow northward of illegal aliens, then we stop buying Mexican drugs and hiring Mexican illegals.

Although I despise the lawlessness of the whole border scene, and the Mexican government and the drug cartel, I equally despise the illegal hirers and drug users. (And I might add the lawlessness of Enron, Tom Delay and all the other corrupt bigwigs in today's America including the Bush Administration. and its Neocon thugs/idiots.)

But as to Mexico and our border: before I would move to a position of alarm concerning the dangerous and dastardly things going on currently, I would have to see stats to help me understand that it is worse than the last decade--or even century. Is it worse than the Mexican Revolution? Or the murder 10 years ago of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the leading presidential candidate in Tijuana. Or the drug wars that killed no one knows how many in Juarez 15 years ago? Etc etc.

What I am thankful for is that they want to kill each other--and not me nor other turistas. That way I can still travel/live down there in relative safety. Granted I am more secure in my hometown than in Nuevo Laredo. But I have no desire to go to NL. And I refuse to live my life in fear of being killed by situations in which I am so statistically secure. (I don't have the figures, but I would wager that the number of gringos killed in Mexico by drug lords or their violence is minimal.) Find me statistics. I don't want to deal with "truthiness."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

Read this whole article on truthiness. It is my new favorite word. It so definitively describes the way Republicans have operated in this country since before the Reagan Administration and the Republican Party conspiracy with the retard, reactionary, fundamentalist Christian right. The Republican Party at that time set up "think tanks" to arrive at truthinesses that "prove" that what the Retard Right fears, and feels in their gut is the absolute truth, and that they (the Republicans) are the ones to set up programs to allay the fears and strive for the things that the RRs believe "in their gut" to be true.

Unfortunately, a whole lot of what they feel or fear in their gut is not the truth. Just truthiness.

And this is what we have spent our tax dollars on since the Reagan Administration. That and on making the Republicans richest patrons more wealthy.

That is my History 101 since the late 1970s--with the exception of the Clinton Administration when we paid off the debt, improved governmental service to citizens and avoided overwhelming wars.

Of course my History 101 was predicted to a great extent by George Orwell in 1984.

What is terrorism?

The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as "calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological." Isn't that exactly what Bush did in invading Iraq under false pretenses?

Spin it up!

Get those facts dry! There have been a couple of examples of spin running wild in the news lately. Let's begin in Spain the environment minister proposed finishing off the bull after a bullfight in a slaughterhouse rather than by sword in the middle of the arena. [1] The reaction was more along the lines of, "She wants to ban bullfighting outright!" "This will destroy our national culture!" "We should not be importing other culture's values and adulterating our own!" [2] Um... right.

And then we're off to Spin City, Washington, DC for the next story. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is third in line to be President. As such, she is entitled to some special protection. The custom now is for the Speaker to take a military plane. Pelosi, having her district in San Francisco, asked if it would be possible to use a plane that could make the trip without stopping to re-fuel. [3] Republicans quickly spun that up into family junkets. [4, 5, 6, 7] Um... right.

Duke Lacrosse Justice

"Group raises $750K to help pay $3M cost of Duke lacrosse defense," says the Durham Herald-Sun headline. Perhaps Mike Nifong should pay the rest of it himself.