NEON GODS

Rain, boring stuff, and the remarkable Cleveland Indians.

You don't care, of course, why I've been silent recently.  I'm at the cabin in West Virginia preparing for the coming Board meeting of which I'm a member (homeowner's association, an election even I could win).

The winters out here are brutal, and by April warm, sunny spring weather to us is like gold to a pirate.  But it is missing this year.  11 inches of rain in April alone and it has rained steadily for the last 6 days.  Argggggh!  The trails are under water, our dirt roads are mud.  Maybe that's good because preparations for the coming meeting have required many hours of conversations and even more writing reports (it's a rather large association). 

I have found a substitute for the missing sunny days however: the lowly Cleveland Indians.  My Indians have begun the season at 25-13 (best in the majors) and they won last night by the rediculous score of 19-1.   Even Mitch McConnell can't quell my baseball excitement!

--Trakker

"Give Us What We Want or We'll Crash Our Economy. Then You'll Be Sorry!" The rantings of spoiled adolescents.

America's minority party is threatening the President and about to hold the country's financial stability hostage.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told President Obama on Thursday that he must agree to cut agency spending over the next two years and make significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid as part of a deal for raising the legal limit on government borrowing.

Got that?  Obama "must agree...."  But that's not all,

McConnell echoed House leaders’ insistence that tax increases are off the table.

I really liked Ezra Klein's analogy the other day.  Republicans are like a profoundly obese patient who, when told he must lose weight, says "I'll cut down on my calories a little, but exercise is off the table!"  I'll take it a step further: the doctor then tells the patient that it is almost certainly impossible to lose enough weight by reducing calories alone.  The patent then replies that the doctor is an idiot, that he gets plenty of exercise walking to and from his car every day, and storms out.  That's today's Republicans in a nutshell.

By the way, do you ever wonder why the Democrat's never make demands or issue ultimatums?  Why do the Dems never get irate and expose the Republicans?  Come on, damn it.  I want to hear Harry Reid step up and tell the Republicans that for every dollar of debt reduction that comes at the expense of the middle class and poor, there must be at least $2 in tax increases on those who make more than $500,000, and if the Republicans balk then all talks are off!  Case closed, show over.

But back to the Republicans.  President Obama should tell Sen. McConnell that he's willing to negotiate program cuts as long as they are accompanied by a like amount of tax increases, but if the Republicans insist that tax increases are off the table, then the progrm cuts are off the table as well...and if, as a result, the debt ceiling doesn't get raised, the Republicans can bear full responsibility for crashing our economy because AMERICA REFUSES TO BE HELD HOSTAGE BY THE TANTRUMS OF SPOILED ADOLESCENT POLITICIANS!!

--Trakker

Those anonymous people who prevent loss of life, do we really want to get rid of them?

Reading about the tragic flooding of the Mississippi it occurred to me just how much the government - at all levels - is involved in protecting people's lives and property in this tragedy.  The Army Corps of Engineers built, maintains and monitors the levees, NOAA's National Weather Service predicts the weather and monitors the flood stages of the rivers, another anonymous agency makes decisions about whether barge traffic on the Mississippi should be halted because their wake could overtop the levees.  State and local government workers and agencies determine what land is in danger of flooding and begin evacuating neighborhoods, while other agencies set up shelters and insure they have cots, food and water. 

I could go on and on, listing other government agencies who are involved in the prevention of disaster, but my point is, once the emergency is past and everyone gives a sigh of relief at how many deaths were averted, no one will have a clue, or even care, who prevented it.

We have one major political party that wins elections based on their demonizing of government.  Government is too big, it controls too much of our lives, their workers are lazy and overpaid, their pensions make the rest of us poor.  We don't need the government, they rob us of our paychecks, the people should be able to keep their money.

Government agencies are forbidden by law to advertise to let the people know what they get in return for their tax dollars.  Those who want to cut government can spend all they want on ads demonizing government.  I'm very afraid that we are going to end up cutting programs and agencies and workers who are vital to our survival.  Some things can't be put back together once they are broken.

I'll be on my way back to West Virginia in a few hours.  I'm putting together a Geographic Information System for our community.  Also working on rerouting some trails that are subject to flooding.  It's been one of the wettest springs on record out there and it's been hard getting out on the trails. Fingers crossed that drier weather is on the horizon.

--Trakker

Teachers: poor pay, demeaned by the right, and can be fired for anything the school board finds offensive

This is a great post by PZ Myers on Pharyngula, an eloquent defense of teachers:

Almost all of your public school teachers have sex. Most of them enjoy it and do it repeatedly, even.

Many of your public school teachers vote for the Democratic party. Some are conservative Republicans. Some are Communists.

Some of your public school teachers are atheists. Or Episcopalians. Or Baptists. Or Scientologists.

All of your public school teachers go home at the end of the school day and have private lives, where they do things that really aren't at all relevant to your 8 year old daughter, your 15 year old son. That you pay taxes to cover their salaries for doing their jobs during work hours does not entitle you to control the entirety of their lives.

All of your public school teachers have a history. Almost all of them have masturbated. Many of them have smoked marijuana. Almost all of them have dated; most of them have danced. Some of them are gay. Some of them are heterosexual. Almost all of them have private kinks which you don't know about, because they don't practice them in public, let alone when they're doing their jobs. Some of them have been sex workers.

And you know what? All of them can be fired or blacklisted by local prudes on school boards or the school administration. Teachers: you don't get to be human. This outrages me.

Read the whole post if you have time.  It points out that not only do teachers get paid poorly, insulted and demeaned by the right, they are also watched 24/7 by the community and in smaller towns must be very careful not to stray far from the mores of the townspeople.  The link to the former sex worker is especially poignant as it happened in New York City, a supposedly cosmopolitan city.  Being a teacher is a tough enough job.  They should at least be allowed to have the freedom to be who they want after hours.

--Trakker

The Bush administration, showing their true Christian ethics.

Paul Krugman writes on his NYTimes blog:

After reading John Yoo’s attack on the president for not taking Osama alive and bringing him to Gitmo, I thought I might take a minute to explain something I sometimes say. Once in a while I mention, in passing, that the Bush administration saw torturing people as a plus, not a cost. ...

From day one of the War on Terror (TM), it was clear that the Bush people reveled in the notion that they were tough guys, willing to Do What Needs to be Done. They were all wannabe Kiefer Sutherlands. Far from showing qualms about suspending the rule of law and using torture to extract information, they obviously enjoyed the idea that they were willing to go all the way, unlike those wimpy liberals.

Of course, they never admitted that, probably not even to themselves. But did you ever see the slightest hint of reluctance or discomfort? Or did you see tremendous self-satisfaction as the acts became ever more abusive?

And so they are, inevitably, deeply upset that someone who isn’t a tough guy by their standards seems to be doing a better job of getting the terrorists than they did.

Yes, the Republicans are furious that Obama won't praise the Bush's administration's embrace of torture and credit it's use for finding Osama bin Laden. 

It just reminds me how all those good Christians on the right don't have any qualms about torturing fellow human beings to get what they want.  Torture!  Is that what their Jesus would do?  Doesn't it want to make you barf when Christians tell you how much they trust their God to keep them safe from all harm?  They tell us we should all put our lives in Jesus's strong hands and then we would never have to worry again?  Next thing you know these same hypocritical cowards are then demanding that we taxpayers fund a huge expensive military with all kinds of nuclear weapons to keep them safe!  And when that fails they resort to torture to punish and question anyone they deem to be an enemy!

I'm sorry.  Bush and his fellow right wing Christians disgust me for gleefully engaging in waterboarding anyone with dusky skin and arabic name.

--Trakker

A great post by Ezra Klein based on an equally great article in the WaPost by Lori Montgomery.

As Lori writes, “The nation’s unnerving descent into debt began a decade ago with a choice, not a crisis.” A series of choices, actually. No policy contributed more to the deficit than the two rounds of tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003. The wars were also major contributors. ...

...the current deficit is primarily, though not exclusively, the result of policy decisions made during the Bush years. Insofar as Obama deserves blame for current deficits, it’s mainly because he hasn’t shut down Bush-era policies like the tax cuts. All the stimulus spending combined accounts for a relatively small portion of the deficit. Conversely, the financial crisis began before Obama was in office, but is unquestionably the single largest contributor to the deficit while he’s been in office.

The deficit is almost entirely Republican caused (but the Dems pretty much went along with it as Democrats usually do).  Now they are using their deficit to force us to cut, cut, cut every programs they hate (anything that benefits anyone who isn't wealthy).

Check out the two graphs in Klein's post and read Montgomery's article if you have time.

--Trakker

Hey kids, this is your future

Any society that is serious about remaining prosperous throughout the 21st century would concentrate on education, right?  At the K-12 level, we would recruit the most talented teachers, pay them well, and give them the tools they need to do their job even if it meant higher taxes.  At the college level, we would again recruit the best to teach and we would also keep tuition down so that anyone with the desire and ability could afford to get a degree, even if it meant higher taxes.

I'm sure you realize that America is doing just the opposite.  We are not serious about creating a prosperous future for our kids.  The future we are creating is a nation of ignorant, low wage, sweat shop workers with no unions, few benefits, and a flimsy safety net.  But not to worry, the rich won't have to pay much in taxes, and our Congressmen and women will live well, that's all that matters.

What set me off like this?  This op-ed in the NYTimes, "The High Cost of Low Teachers Salaries."  We know this is what we should be doing but the huge mass of angry, ignorant, asses out there - whom the rich have recruited to do their dirty work - hate taxes, teachers, education, and anything the government does to make life better for the middle class.

--Trakker

America: committing economic suicide

I just got a mailing from Feed America telling me that because of continuing high unemployment and massive budget cuts they are in crisis mode trying to feed the homeless and needy.  Like most of us I've stepped up my donations to food banks in part by giving less to other charities and in part dipping into savings.  In the end we will find a way to keep people from starving (in the most prosperous nation in the world!), but at what cost to the middle class?

But what is really pissing me off is that our government is far more concerned about cutting government spending which will throw more and more people out of work (and stop the taxes they pay) than doing anything to get people BACK to work.

The bottom line is that our middle class is being stripped of our wealth, wealth it has taken decades to build up.  America is committing economic suicide and we can't stop it.

--Trakker

Osama bin Dead

Osama is now a slab of dead meat.  My only regret is that we couldn't capture him alive and bring him back to the country he screwed over to answer for his crimes, but that would be too risky (and expensive) so a surgical strike and death is best.  I hope he soiled himself before the shot.

The impact of his death?  Exra Kein says it best,

There is relief in bin Laden’s death. Justice, too. And I felt a swell of patriotism when I read that “U.S. officials said they would ensure bin Laden’s body would be handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition.” Somehow, that’s a nice, final touch. But it speaks to what bin Laden was: a bag of bones and meat. A body, like any other. Most of what changed in this country after 9/11 was our choice, not his. And his death is a reminder that changing it back -- or revising it to better fit our future -- is, similarly, our choice, not his. We’ve killed him, but we haven’t revisited the ways in which he changed us, or the ways in which we changed us in response to his attack. Maybe it’s time we did.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks allowed the radical conservatives to take over this country. Osama killed thousands of innocents, the Republicans used the attacks to invade a country that was no threat to us, to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, to divide our country and impoverish our workers.  Which is the biggest crime?  Where is the justice?

--Trakker

Atheists: 60 million and growing

If Pastor Rob Bell represents an interesting new trend in religion (see the previous post), what about those who have managed to get past religion and accept the fact that there is no god(s) and that religion tends to destructively encourage people to believe in the unbelievable?  What about atheists?

Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is still a group that lots of Americans just don’t like much: atheists. Those who don’t believe in God are widely considered to be immoral, wicked and angry.

Actually, I've never had anyone flee in horror when I've told them I'm an atheist, except two dear old Jehovah's Witnesses who appeared at my door to convert me.  That was a blessing.

Rarely denounced by the mainstream, this stunning anti-atheist discrimination is egged on by Christian conservatives who stridently — and uncivilly — declare that the lack of godly faith is detrimental to society, rendering nonbelievers intrinsically suspect and second-class citizens.

And we all know why, too.  Deep, deep down inside they suspect we're right, and that scares the b'Jebus outa' them!

Is this knee-jerk dislike of atheists warranted? Not even close.

A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

In other words were kinda' liberal, that other group that is hated and loudly denounced by the sanctimonious.  The bottom line is that we don't give in to our darker natures, probably because we don't attend Sunday services led by jerks who know that telling people it's okay to give in to their feelings of hate and greed makes them want to give very generously to the messenger.

And hey, get this:

Consider that at the societal level, murder rates are far lower in secularized nations such as Japan or Sweden than they are in the much more religious United States, which also has a much greater portion of its population in prison. Even within this country, those states with the highest levels of church attendance, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, have significantly higher murder rates than far less religious states such as Vermont and Oregon.

Now for the real good news:

As with other national minority groups, atheism is enjoying rapid growth. Despite the bigotry, the number of American nontheists has tripled as a proportion of the general population since the 1960s. Younger generations’ tolerance for the endless disputes of religion is waning fast. Surveys designed to overcome the understandable reluctance to admit atheism have found that as many as 60 million Americans — a fifth of the population — are not believers. Our nonreligious compatriots should be accorded the same respect as other minorities.

So if you are one of the 60 million who have rejected the craziness of religion, might I suggest a visit to the Freedom From Religion Foundation website here.  Consider joining - they have a great newsletter.  It even comes in the mail with no visible identification on the outside if you are worried about what the neighbors think.

--Trakker