I just discovered...

I can actually blog with my iPhone! This is my first post with the phone, so I hope you all can forgive the shortness of the post. I'm getting a bit faster typing with one finger, though. I'm amazed at how easy it is to use the touchscreen keyboard on this thing! Now does this mean lots more short posts? Only time will tell!

Music in the 21st Century

I was just at the library and they had a bin of CDs that they were selling 2 for $2 and I bought an oldie, but a goodie: "Ella and Basie" put out by Verve records. No hesitation in buying them and if you're reading this wondering who Ella an Basie are, you're probably in the wrong blog.

Anyway, I was listening to this CD on the way home and I suddenly realized how rare it is for my daughters to hear the same music that I hear. We have individualized music so much, that when one person listens to something, the whole family isn't automatically hearing it, too.

Growing up, I heard my parents' music often. To this day I associate Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash with my father. I hear any kind of pop music from the '50s, especially Jerry Lee Lewis and the Coasters, and I think of my mother.

I wonder if my kids will think of any kind of music and think of me. We're always listening with headphones on, in our own private world now.

America is Israel's "Crack Dealer"

Thomas Friedman's Essay re: Israel and Palestine

I was nodding my head so vigorously I just about got a cramp reading the above essay.  The USA needs to just stop with the aid to Israel, the constant attempts at negotiations and let them deal with it on their own:

Oil is to Saudi Arabia what unconditional American aid and affection are to Israel — and what unconditional Arab and European aid and affection are to the Palestinians: a hallucinogenic drug that enables them each to think they can defy the laws of history, geography and demography. It is long past time that we stop being their crack dealers. At a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment in America, we have the Israelis and the Palestinians sitting over there with their arms folded, waiting for more U.S. assurances or money to persuade them to do what is manifestly in their own interest: negotiate a two-state deal. Shame on them, and shame us. You can’t want peace more than the parties themselves, and that is exactly where America is today. The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities. It is time we left them alone to pursue them — and to live with the consequences

Friedman then goes on to illustrate that the aid that is flowing to Israel could be better used for assisting the many US communities that are having to cut back on basics, such as fire departments and education. We need to realize that we are in a co-dependent kind of relationship with Israel and the aid that we're constantly supplying them with is only lengthening the process.

I'm reminded of a Start Trek episode where Kirk & Co. discover that the war two planets have been fighting for centuries has been fought by computers. The computers do war games and determine the number of casualties. The people are then selected by the computers to go to disintegration chambers. There is no damage to buildings and no famine or any of that ugly stuff that makes war disagreeable.

Kirk destroys the disintegration chambers and asserts that they have to deal with the ugliness of war or negotiate on their own to stop the killing.

This is basically what Friedman is arguing in this essay: We need to just simply stop and let them deal with the ugliness of war or realize they need to negotiate honestly with each other, knowing that compromise will need to occur. If they want US mediators without conditions, then fine, but stop the aid.

Friedman's conclusion:

It’s all a fraud. America must get out of the way so Israelis and Palestinians can see clearly, without any obstructions, what reckless choices their leaders are making. Make no mistake, I am for the most active U.S. mediation effort possible to promote peace, but the initiative has to come from them. The Middle East only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them.

Twitter as Newspaper for 21st Century

I'm now a die-hard Twitter fan, after previously dissing it.  I think sometimes, I get impatient with the new "newness" of something.  I guess that comes with being 45 and a bit of an old grump about change.

Anyway, now I am regularly calling Twitter my "21st century newspaper" to those who wonder what on earth I'm doing with it.  I read the tweets every morning with my coffee and click on the links that I'm interested in, much like scanning the headlines in the newspaper.

I feel like I'm getting a good sense of the world, rather than just the US, by subscribing to tweets from Al Jazeera English, BBC and various Canadian outlets.  It also saves on the time it would take jumping from site to site.

I don't really care who follows and doesn't follow me - I don't find that Twitter always makes for a good chat with someone unless you both happen to be tweeting at the exact same moment.  Replies can often get buried, but I've noticed that I pick up on them a lot faster when I use my iPhone for Twitter.

Anyway, I'm tweeting a lot now and those silly little random thoughts are going out on Twitter rather than on the blog.   For my twitter page, simply click on the link on the right of this article.

Imago Dei

I've begun teaching a grade 4 class here and I was talking one time with them about the concept of what it means to be created in the image of God. All of the kids, except for one, insisted that the idea of image was a physical one: that God had a real body. The one child who disagreed kept repeating, "No, God is a spirit!" Finally, I did weigh in that the one child was the one who had the idea and that the imago dei, or image of God, was not about the physical.

Now, we look at children and understand that developmentally, they go through stages of thinking and believing from the concrete to the more abstract. The idea of imago dei as a literal, physical concept is almost impossible for children to shake until they acheive a certain level.

It has occured to me recently that fundamentalist Christians who take umbrage with the concept that we have evolved at all are, in a sense, stuck at the level of thinking that imago dei is a physical idea. They struggle with, as I have in the past, the idea that we are just a few ticks off, genetically speaking, from the chimpanzee. The concept that we are mammals is uncomfortable for a fundamentalist and my idea here is that, in some unconscious way, they can't get over the idea that imago dei is physical is some way.

This is yet another way that fundamentalist thinking is really a betrayal of the core doctrines of Christianity.

The Truth is Not Always Easy to Discover

I read that there will be renewed Peace Talks between Israel and Palestine. Before I could get my hopes up, the pundits started saying that it will fail. I thought they were just being negative, which is partially true, but then I read an Op-Ed in the New York Times which got me thinking:

Hamas, the I.R.A. and Us

I highly recommend reading it in its entirety, but the basic point is that when we consider what finally worked in the negotiations in Ireland, we realize that it happened when everyone was allowed to come to the table:

Mr. Mitchell’s comparison is misleading at best. Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

The conflict in Northern Ireland had been intractable for decades. Unionists backed by the British government saw any political compromise with Irish nationalists as a danger, one that would lead to a united Ireland in which a Catholic majority would dominate minority Protestant unionists. The British government also refused to deal with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, despite its significant electoral mandate, because of its close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom.

A parallel can be seen with the American refusal to speak to the Palestinian party Hamas, which decisively won elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006. Asked what role Hamas would have in the renewed talks, Mr. Mitchell answered with one word: “None.” No serious analyst believes that peace can be made between Palestinians and Israelis without Hamas on board, any more than could have been the case in Northern Ireland without Sinn Fein and the I.R.A.

So there can be no peace unless Hamas is allowed to come to the table without the preconditions that hard right wing Israeli government wants to set on them. The preconditions basically ask Hamas to not be Hamas.

I recall that the difference between a "privateer" and a "pirate" in history depends on which side you were on. If you were favoring England, then French "privateers" are seen as "pirates", for example. Finding the truth in historical events is difficult, which is why history can be so fascinating.

This brings up the question: Is Hamas actually as much of a terrorist's party as our pro-Israeli press tends to paint it? Is Israel any less guilty of "terrorist acts"? Are we just viewing it through a Zionist lens?

Keep in mind that having Hamas come to the table doesn't mean everyone approves of everything Hamas has done. It also doesn't mean we should just blindly assume Israel, or the US for that matter, has always done the "right" thing. The I.R.A. weren't a bunch of boy scouts, either.

Why Conservatives Can't Be Allowed to Govern

Read this diary at Daily Kos first

That diary I have linked above gives the reason the mainstream media has failed the American public so miserably in the past few decades. It has allowed the fanatical rantings of pundits from the far right (Yes, I'm looking directly at you, Faux News) to become the main points of "debate" in the media. This is false, wrong debate based on false equivalencies, such as the idiotic debate between "creation science" and "evolution" - There are no points of contention. If you want to look at things from a scientific perspective, you go with Evolution. If you want ultimate answers to the meaning of life, you'll have to go with religion or philosophy.

Bill Maher, with whom I disagree quite a bit on some things obviously, had a great segment recently (NSFW language alert!) in which he asserted that we have too many false debates. There are no two perfectly defined sides to every issue or event in the news. We need to stop pretending that people like the birthers have a real point. We need to stop pretending that the truth is up for debate and can be discovered only through proper polling. Case in point, most people seem to be under the delusion that the Arizona immigration law is a good idea. It's not. It WILL lead to racial profiling and the detention of US citizens. There is no debate needed. The truth needs to be told, no matter what the public thinks. The media is supposed to inform the public, not reassure the public that everything they believe is really OK. In this way, the public actually has the ability to decide based on the truth, not based on distortions of interpretations or "misrememberings."

Something that is demonstrably true: Conservatives will drive the economy into the ground with run away spending if they are allowed to govern. This is not a debate:

The Deficit You're Freaking Out About is Bush's Fault

There is also another chart that demonstrates how the US under President Obama is actually on the road to recovery - this is also known as the "bikini graph," which just makes Rachel Maddow blush:

Both charts together directly contradict the narrative being pushed by the massive conservative media machine that the economy is in some kind of nose dive. No, the economy WAS in a nose dive under Bush and Obama pulled the plane out of the nose dive just like James Bond did at the beginning of Goldeneye. Furthermore, what was happening under Bush is exactly what results in the free wheeling, unregulated economy that conservatives are always screaming for.

Please, please educate yourself on what the economy has gone through in reality before voting in November.

Michael Campbell: Biggest Village Idiot North of Crawford, TX

There's a talk radio station that I often listen to here in BC, CKNW. It consists of all local hosts with a variety of backgrounds, so I do like the balance that exists.

One commentator who I cannot stand is Michael Campbell. He's actually the brother of the current Premier of BC, Gordon Campbell, which is scary. Michael Campbell talks about money and economic issues and is constantly repeating key neo-conservative talking points such as "welfare state" and "don't tax the rich or businesses" or, the biggest tell: "big government." He also likes to talk contemptously of the fools who don't agree with him. He says that economics is simple and easy to understand and other such naive crap that it astounds me that he's tolerated as a economic commentator here. He loves to dwell on the failures of the Greek economy, which he honestly believes is due to too many "entitlements."

Now, I don't know much about economics, I admit that, but I do have this blog to ramble. So ramble I shall! Also, I do know a bit about current events and the state of the US economy.

What part of the near total collapse of the US economy does Michael Campbell NOT understand? The US was the result of 30 years of government deregulation and unfunded tax cuts which were directed mainly at the rich. All the talk of give the rich and big business big tax breaks to create jobs was complete and utter nonsense. Give the rich a tax break - they invest it! Give big business a tax break - they give bonuses to the rich guys and shareholders rake in more big bucks.

Where was the middle class in all this? Bearing the burden for the rich and the big businesses. The US is the ultimate experiment in free (mind boggingly free, i.e. Gulf of Mexico) market. The Reagan experiment of "trickle down" economics has been demonstrated, over and over again since Obama entered office that this unfettered economy is a disaster.

Also, Campbell's simple-minded philosophy doesn't take into account the one important factor: human nature. Specifically, it does not take human greed into account. Give big businesses more money? They keep it. Give the rich tax breaks? They spend it on themselves. Campbell probably thinks that the business will actually hire more people or pass savings on to their customers. Nope - that's not what has happened in the US and it will not happen anywhere else. Any economic philosophy that ignores human greed will lead to economic ruin for the majority of people.

We've learned the end result of Michael Campell's economic philosophy:

Any questions?

Why We Need Separation of Church and State

This video of the beginning of the Anti-Historical Texas State Board of Education demostrates why the founding fathers wanted this separation.  This "prayer" is full of lies and historical untruths regarding the USA:



I'm actually appalled that a governmental body like this is allowed to open in prayer at all.  At one point in the past, having a little opening prayer was non-partisan, but this prayer is so obviously skewed and demonstrates the warped agenda of the Anti-Christian "Christian" Right that this kind of thing needs to be banned completely.  Just like the Day of Prayer has been hijacked by the religio-political interests of the Dobsonites, the idea of prayer during any goverment event needs to questioned and, perhaps, eliminated.

Sigh...OK...I give up - I REALLY want an iPhone!

I know, I know. Apple is a cult and people who have Macs and iPhones just jabber endlessly on and on about how wonderful life is now that they have this thing that is just perfect and never has any problems. Steve Jobs is an icon on their dashboard and they kiss it like a...well, whatever that thing that Orthodox Jews have by their doors.

I just totally, sinfully COVET this thing called an iPhone. I haven't had any cellphone in my life yet, but I just want to go all the way and get a really good smartphone. I also hate the idea of a tiny keyboard ala Blackberry. I love the idea of a touchscreen.

I'm totally behind the "App" idea, too. And to top it off, I just read this friday fun article at Daily Kos and I'm even more into the coveting idea. It even works as an emergency flashlight, for cryin' out loud. This is like the swiss army knife of cell phones.

Screw the iPad, I wanna iPhone.

Democratic Triumph in Maine!!

Well, I hope that's what this means. Otherwise it means the first step into fascist-ville courtesy of the teabaggers.

The idiot teabaggers of Maine have released a platform that would open the floodgates to a theocratic nightmare (The comments in brackets are from "Bill in Portland Maine," author at the daily kos link) :

Reassert the principle that "Freedom of Religion" does not mean "freedom from religion".
[What part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" do you not understand?]

We recognize the sanctity of life, which includes the unborn.
[But later they say in their platform that "Healthcare is not a right" but a "service." I'm confyoozed. I guess if you're gonna be born you better come out rich.]

Discard political correctness, make public the declaration of war (Jihad), made against the US on 23 Feb 1998, and fight the war against the United States by radical Islam to win.
[And we will only accept their unconditional surrender on the deck of a battleship!]

Espouse and follow the principle: It is immoral to steal the property rightfully earned by one person, and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits.
[Translation: Gimme back my lawnmower, Herb!]

[The] government takeover of healthcare is not only unconstitutional, but detrimental to the entire healthcare system. Only market based solutions will solve the problems.
[Yes, the insurance industry has done such a STELLAR job solving the problems. Although, to be fair, they did solve the problem of how to increase profits by finding new and exciting ways to deny coverage to sick people.]

Defeat Cap and Trade, investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth, and prosecute any illegal collusion.
[No comment---pretty much speaks for the whole document.]

Seal the border and protect US citizens along the border and everywhere, as is the prime directive of the Federal Government.
[Yes, but which border, Mr. Spock? Which...border...must...be sealed? Mexico? Canada? So...many...borders and we're just one...small...starship! Lost! In a nebula of...uncertainty and...confusion.]

Cut spending, balance the budget, and institute a plan for paying down debt. Proclaim that generational debt shifting is immoral and unconscionable and will not be tolerated!
[Disclaimer: Except when Republicans are in the majority, in which case such generational debt shifting will be relabeled "freedom investing."]

Restore a vigorous grounding in the history and precepts of liberty, freedom, and the constitution to the educational process. As Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
[Ahem---that pot-smoking liberal hack Jefferson was written out of the history books, remember? You'll need to find a more suitable quote by St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin or Ayn Rand. With sloppiness like this, how can we be expected to take the Maine GOP seriously?]

And then, for their grand finale, a swan dive into a Dixie cup of cuckoo:

Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.
[Twitch Twitch]

How unrealistic can a platform be? This further demonstrates how completely out of touch this tea party movement actually is with political (and constitutional) reality.

The big question that everyone should really have is: Why are the Republicans even listening to these idiots?

Persecution? Spare me....

I can't understand why Franklin Graham has gone so off the rails. I do have a lot of respect for his father, but his son is making the move toward mixing politics with religion. His father, Billy Graham, did not specifically endorse political positions and avoided policy talk in his preaching. He understood what the primary gospel message was, but Franklin is buying into this radical right wingnuttery by going down the Faux News victimhood argument.

In the interview given to wingnut Newsmax he says that his "disinvintation" to the Pentagon is some kind of affront to his freedom of religion. It's not. He's giving the interview and talking on Faux News about how he's so picked on. He's free.

However, his comments about Muslims are a relevant issue. How are we going to make any kind of peace with Muslim nations by excluding them, marginalizing them and calling them evil? Even if you want to preach the gospel to Muslims, you don't begin the conversation by saying their beliefs are evil.

Graham has also probably raised the risk factor for those Christian missionaries who are trying to work with the Muslim people in a manner that is not based on the hate that he is employing. As Bush's war on Iraq increased the amount of terrorist attacks in the world, so will Graham's hateful rhetoric increase the actual persecution of Christians.

Obama needs to make peace with Muslim countries. Didn't Jesus say "blessed are the peacemakers"? Compare Graham's talk with Obama's and tell me - who is actually doing what Jesus would do?

Tea Party's Historical Ignorance

I found this article, written by Ron Rosembaum about the Tea Party's tendancy to rewrite and misrepresent history.

Here is the take away quote:

Few paid attention, but they got to the truth. And they were Socialists fighting the Nazis, you might recall. Listen up, T.P.ers: The Nazis were not Socialists. The Socialists were not Nazis. They were blood enemies. In fact, the Socialists fought the Nazis, while conservatives and nationalists stood by and thought Hitler would be their pawn. Hitler, need it be said, was not a Socialist. He hated the Socialists. Had thousands of them murdered as soon as he came to power.

I think this is why it bothers me so much when Tea Party ignoramuses put swastikas on their anti-Obama posters. They disgrace themselves, they insult the dead martyrs to the truth, by lumping socialism with fascism and Obama with Hitler. They not only disgrace themselves; they be-clown themselves, they distort the historical consciousness of everyone they spread the comparison to.

Read the full article for why the TP's are so dangerous because of their faulty grasp of history.

Sedition?

This is a great discussion about how Palin, Beck and the Faux News conglomerate are seditious:



Clinton's comments about this violent language falling on the "sane or insane" are very relevant. Clinton never indicated that all right wing arguments are violent, but that some of the unbalanced listeners take it more literally than the GOP would like.

Timothy McVeigh was just one man who was inspired by the right wing militia movement. The movement may now condemn him, but it continues to inspire McVeigh wannabees such as the Hutaree militia. If the feds were slow on the uptake we could be talking about the deaths of many police officers, which is what the Hutarees were planning to do.

The above clip highlights how important it is for the right to begin to distance themselves from the hate speech of Beck, Limbaugh, Palin and the Faux News idiots.

Currently, Faux News and Company are embracing the inflammatory speech and acting not only as spokespeople for the GOP, but have become a major fundraiser as well.

Why Tea Partiers are idiots...

I am shamelessly reposting this from the comment section at this link:

How many of you have seen this:

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy com­pany offi­cials to dic­tate energy policy.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA oper­a­tive got outed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn’t get mad when we ille­gally invaded a coun­try that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and count­ing) on said ille­gal war.

You didn’t get mad when over 10 bil­lion dol­lars just dis­ap­peared in Iraq.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.

You didn’t get mad when you found out we were tor­tur­ing people.

You didn’t get mad when the gov­ern­ment was ille­gally wire­tap­ping Americans.

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the hor­ri­ble con­di­tions at Wal­ter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city drown.

You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the tril­lion dol­lar mark.

You finally got mad when.. when… wait for it… when the gov­ern­ment decided that peo­ple in Amer­ica deserved the right to see a doc­tor if they are sick.

(From poster named Stock)

This corporate funded astroturf movement deserves all the disdain and namecalling that the left can throw at them.

It's so easy being right wing!

All I have to do is be willing to lie and distort truth in order to get heard on TV. I am only "for" something until President Obama and/or the Democrats are "for" it. As soon as the President embraces it - I'm against it as a socialist, communist plot to take over the government.

This is the case for heath reform. Obama gave a key statement on health reform today and now is the time of the final push to give Americans what they desparately need: health care without the threat of bankruptcy. For too long the insurance companies have rationed care and denied coverage and this must end before the US bankrupts itself due to health care costs.

The complete lack of support from the Republican side of the aisle demonstrates their complete lack of moral guidance and lack of conscience. They have literally sold their vote to the Health Insurance lobbyists.

For some reason many in the so-called "mainstream media" are saying this is political suicide for the Democrats and Obama. This is nonsense. Once people get a taste of having good health insurance at a fair price without the threat of financial ruin, they will never want to go back.

Come this November, I'm sure many of these Republicans will discover that it was political suicide to say no when people's lives were on the line.

A great clip from Rachel Maddow demonstrating the utter hypocrisy of the GOP:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The best plan for voters? Come this November I believe it would be a good idea to only vote Democrat - vote straight along the party. This would, perhaps, let the GOP know that their gamble with American lives is evil and just plain heartless.

London 2012: The Worst Olympics Ever!

It seems that some, probably The Daily Fail...um...I mean, Mail, of course - are saying that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are the "worst ever". They began saying this about 4 days after the Olympics started.

I've decided to begin a satirical campaign of one to call the London 2012 Olympics the worst Olympics ever. I don't need any facts or the fact that they haven't happened yet to get in the way. I can just SAY it. That's all the New Atheists, Faux News, the GOP, Dick Cheyney, Sarah Palin and assorted Christian Fundamentalists do and they get air time! "Religion is behind all evil events." "Obama is going to slaughter you." "We are against the stimulus." "Waterboarding acheived good results." "I resigned my governership for the good of the people of Alaska/the country." "The earth was created in 6 24 hour days." (All of those things in quotation marks are factually untrue, for those unsure of my meaning!)

Quick - INTERVIEW ME!! I can make things up, too! Did you know that the English Olympic Committee is the same committee that planned 9/11? The Founding Fathers revolted against the BRITISH, ya know, so this is why it's unAmerican to support the London Olympics? It doesn't have to be TRUE or anything to get air time. I can be completely made up history, like Dick Cheyney and that former Bush speechwriter have recently begun to do with some airhead on ABC.

It's hard to believe that anyone can think of something as the "best" or the "worst" when it's just started and not finished. You cannot evaluate any event or historical person "in the moment". Faux News began to relentlessly lie about President Obama as soon as he came on the public scene and then repeat the lies and now we have the so-called "liberal" media beginning to allow "birthers" to get away with fabricated nonsense. (They ignored the birther talk at the National Tea Party convention and pretty much ignored the racist/bigoted remarks made by Tancredo. The last I checked only 600 people showed up for this "national" convention. Why does the media give attention to these nut jobs anyway?)

So it doesn't matter if it's true - it only matters if you SAY it: The London 2012 Olympics are (not will be) the Worst Olympics Ever! Those Brits don't know what they're doing and they all have bad teeth! Let's have another Revolution against the Brits!