That's what she said:

I refer, of course, to Sarah Palin. Just look at both of these:

And while we're at it, let's expedite the regulatory and permitting and legal processes for on- and offshore drilling.

— Speaking at the Tea Party convention on Feb. 26, 2010, about six weeks before the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

And now look at this one:

These oil companies must be held responsible if there's any lax at all in their measures and we will hold them accountable, but I am still a believer in domestic drilling. There is an inherent link between energy and prosperity and energy and security, and in a nation, energy and freedom.

— Speaking in Clarkston, Mich., at the Defending the American Dream Summit, May 1, 2010, about a week after the oil spill
~~~

Quote of the Day

It's from the TIME Magazine website and it's a good one:

We don't believe that a country which attacked a civilian convoy sailing in international waters can carry out an impartial investigation. Israel's one-sided inquiry is not valuable to us.

-- Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish Foreign Minister, on the Israeli investigation of the Gaza flotilla attack
~~~

The unbelievable cynicism at BP

Look what I found on a sidebar over at Common Dreams:

It seems the caring folks at BP have thoughtfully set up a Call Center so frantic citizens can vent - and not get through to "the big people" who really matter. A report at a Houston TV station finds that the 100 operators answering calls serve as a pointless screen, and often don't even take notes. Likewise, BP is still barring media from covering the havoc they've wreaked, denials notwithstanding. Get these people in jail, please.

"We take all your information and then we have nothing to give them, nothing to give them. (Operators) just put down, type ‘blah blah blah.'"

Truly hard to believe. Except not so much when people are apparently completely motivated by greed.
~~~

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Vincent Van Gogh

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Another outstanding headline

Here it is:

"How Can America's 'War on Drugs' Succeed When Prohibition Laws Failed?"

It's a good question, isn't it?

Here's an excerpt from the article:

When you ban a popular drug that millions of people want, it doesn't disappear. Instead, it is transferred from the legal economy into the hand of armed criminal gangs. Across America, gangsters rejoiced that they had just been handed one of the biggest markets in the country, and unleashed an Armada of freighters, steamers, and even submarines to bring booze back. Nobody who wanted a drink went without. As the journalist Malcolm Bingay wrote: "It was absolutely impossible to get a drink, unless you walked at least ten feet and told the busy bartender in a voice loud enough for him to hear you above the uproar."

So if it didn't stop alcoholism, what did it achieve? The same as prohibition does today - a massive unleashing of criminality and violence. Before prohibition, the saloon-keepers could defend their property and their markets by going to the police if they were threatened. After prohibition, the bootleggers could only defend theirs with guns - and they did. As the legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow explained: "The business pays very well, but it is outside the law and they can't go to court, like shoe dealers or real estate men or grocers when they think an injustice has been done them, or unfair competition has arisen in their territory. So, they naturally shoot." Massive gang wars broke out, with the members torturing and murdering each other first to gain control of and then to retain their patches. Thousands of ordinary citizens were caught in the crossfire.

The whole article is truly fascinating and insightful. It is really a review of a new book entitled Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent. There are quite a few interesting comments at the end as well.
~~~

Sunday heart warming story blogging

"Norm"

I want to urge you all to click through and read a brief tribute to a great dog. The piece is entitled "Norm's Story -- From Rescue to Service Dog".

Then consider (really; please really consider) visiting an animal shelter and adopting an animal who needs a forever home.

Every single one of the animals with whom I've shared my home over the years has given me far more than I ever gave him or her. Open your heart to one (or more). Truly, you will not regret it.

And here's another story worth knowing about: "Cat saves Houston-area woman from pit bull attack ".
~~~

Spaceship Earth

This was said a long time ago but it is so very, very applicable to our experience today:

We travel together as passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and I'll say the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

-- Adlai Stevenson

Will we, as a species, ever come to an understanding of what Stevenson was trying so hard to communicate?
~~~

The old math teacher in me strikes again:

Saturday limerick blogging!

Here you are:

Kick-Ass Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Republicans’ delicate ears
Are offended by ass, it appears.
F**k is fine from McCain,
Bush, and Cheney — that’s plain.
But ass from Barack begets jeers.

(Hat-tip to Lisa over at All Hat No Cattle.)
~~~

Stealth racism

I just finished reading an article over on Alternet entitled "Obama is Black but He’d Better Not Say So" by George Davis and I really think it's worth reading and thinking about.

Here's some information that I didn't know before:

A Harris Poll released recently found among Republicans (There are about 50 million registered Republicans in America):

* 67 % believe Obama is a socialist.
* 57 % believe Obama is a Muslim
* 45 % believe Obama was not born in the United States
* 38 % equate many of Obama’s actions to those of Hitler
* 24 % say Obama “may be the Antichrist.”

I do recommend that you read the whole article (it's quite short) to see how all that connects with racism.
~~~

Congress and the Bible in 1782

Here's the title of the article I want you to see:

"No, Mr. Beck, Congress Did Not Print a Bible for the Use of Schools"

Sometimes I simply cannot believe the lies that are perpetrated by the right wing. Take a look:

For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of watching Beck and Barton in action, here's the background in a nutshell: David Barton, the pseudo-historian from Texas who's probably more responsible than any other individual for spreading the erroneous belief that America was founded as a Christian nation, has now teamed up with Glenn Beck. Barton, who appeared on the radar recently as one of the history "experts" in the Texas textbook massacre, is also a former vice-chair of the Texas Republican Party, and, in 2005, was named one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America by Time Magazine.
...
One of the items in Barton's bag of historical tricks is a rare Bible printed in 1782 by Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken. This Bible has been a mainstay of Barton's presentations for years, and was, as expected, one of the featured pieces of Christian nation "evidence" whipped out on Beck's show. Barton's bogus claim about this Bible? It was printed by Congress for the use of schools -- proof that the founders never intended a separation between church and state.

Please click on the title above and read the article by Chris Rodder to see how this claim is thoroughly debunked.

Or just watch the following video:

Friday cat blogging!

"Moppet"

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

This fine boy shares the home of Tommi Cox-Phipps and her family. Sadly they lost another of their cats this past week. You can go over to Meditation Matters to read about that.
~~~

Another encouraging headline

Just take a look:

More Americans Dislike the Tea Partiers Than Ever Before

And here's a little excerpt:

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests that whatever populist hypnosis many Americans were under when the Tea Party folks first came onto the scene may now finally be wearing off. The poll says that now the percentage of Americans who hold an unfavorable view of the movement has jumped from 39 percent to 50 percent.

You can read what that's all about right here.
~~~

From True Majority:

You can get your own bumper sticker by going right here.

~~~

And now for something just a little bit different:

Yes, from another era. And it's a truly excellent performance.
~~~

Evidence matters

Well, now. This is interesting:

[A] new study forthcoming in the journal Pediatrics shows that lesbian couples raise healthier children than straight couples. Gabriel Arana of TAPPED suggests that maybe lesbians do better on average because they are a self-selected group of highly motivated parents that had to overcome obstacles in order to raise their kids. Or maybe two moms are better than one.

As Arana notes, the politically important thing about this study is the finding that same-sex parents are doing at least as well as opposite sex parents. Conservatives opposed to gay rights have often justified second-class citizenship for gays in terms of protecting children from allegedly harmful same-sex parents.

I found it here.
~~~

Here you go:

I really agree with the point made at the very end.
~~~

Headline of the day

Okay. Here's a headline for you:

"Helen Thomas was Wrong — But You’d Think She’d Killed 9 People or Destroyed Our Coastline"

And here's a brief excerpt:

... [O]ne can’t help thinking that the grande dame of the White House press corps would have gotten less grief if she’d purposely cheated the financial system and took taxpayer money to recover, or killed eleven and destroyed an ecosystem in an avoidable deep water drilling disaster, or let 29 men die in a push for more mining profits. Or shot nine men dead — in the head — in international waters.

It's from a short piece - more a comment than an article. You can read the rest of it right here.

Um, yeah. Even if you think Helen Thomas was indisputably wrong, there's such a thing as proportionality.

And here's another thought worth considering:

While Thomas' remarks were incredibly insensitive, many male, conservative pundits have said far worse—and kept their jobs to offend another day. There's not only a double standard concerning how our media covers the fraught relationship between Israel and Palestine, but with how, in this era of punditocracy, a woman with impressive credentials and a history of speaking her mind can be brought down so quickly.

It's from a brief piece called "Was a Double Standard at Play for Helen Thomas?" published by the Care2 folks.
~~~

The late, great career of Helen Thomas

I have struggled - truly I have - to know what I think about the Helen Thomas upset. And I just don't know. I can see it from a number of different points of view. However, I must say I appreciated this comment after a CNN article about the matter:

Maybe President Obama should hold an apology conference and have the Rabbi and Ms Thomas over to the White House for a beer.

-- Someone named Paul

There are actually a lot of thought provoking comments to that article, by the way.

I also can suggest called "In Defense of Helen Thomas - On Apologizing to Apologists" that, likewise, is followed by many comments (from all points of view) that may help us all think through the issues involved.
~~~
UPDATE: A reader emailed me in response to this post and sent along the following link:

http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2010/06/it-only-hate-speech-when-liberals-say.html

I read it with interest and had had many of the same thoughts myself. See what you think.
~~~

Understanding advertizing through brain imaging

I want to recommend an article entitled "Why Celebrity Ads Make You Want to Buy Stuff". Here's the lead:

Brain-scan research suggests celebrity faces evoke specific happy memories, and those positive feelings rub off on the products they endorse.

It's a very short article. Do go on over and read it. Very illuminating.
~~~

Oh, ouch:

Current status of the "religious right"

I want to call your attention to an article entitled "The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger" by Chris Hedges. I've admired the writings of Chris Hedges for quite some years now and this piece does not disappoint. Here's how it gets started:

Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged.

And here's another excerpt I really want you to see:

The movement is, for many, an emotional life raft. It is all that holds them together. But the ideology, while it regiments and orders lives, is merciless. Those who deviate from the ideology, including “backsliders” who leave these church organizations, are branded as heretics and subjected to little inquisitions, which are the natural outgrowth of messianic movements. If the Christian right seizes the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, these little inquisitions will become big inquisitions.

Big inquisitions.

Let us not think that it can't happen here.

So far, this article (in the reprint on Common Dreams) has generated 216 comments. I think it really touched a nerve and a deep concern.
~~~

Very worrying

This truly has the feel of a powder keg situation to me:

They are a brainwashed people, a nation of desperadoes, an army of suicide bombers.

-- YUN OK-HWA, a South Korean ginseng grower whose field lies near the DMZ, on North Korea; she worries that she will lose her livelihood if the North instigates a military clash

The above is one of the quotes of the day from TIME Magazine.
~~~

Oh, good grief

It's one of the TIME Magazine quotes of the day:

There's nothing clean and green about your misguided, nonsensical radicalism, and Americans are on to you as we question your true motives.

Sarah Palin, writing on her Facebook page, saying environmentalists are responsible for the oil spill because they keep oil drilling away from safer places to drill
~~~

Sign found at a BP station

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Another death due to bullying

Just look:

Sixteen-year-old Christian Taylor was found hanged in his bedroom on Monday, May 31: Memorial Day, a school holiday, which for most kids means the start of summer.

Taylor was a freshman at Grafton High School in Yorktown, VA. What's especially tragic about this suicide is that the teenager had complained to school and law enforcement officials about being bullied, but nothing was done to stop his tormentor. According to York-Poquosen Sheriff Sgt. Dennis Ivey, authorities had also looked into complaints by Taylor's mother, Alise Williams, weeks ago, but turned the matter over to his school after finding no crime had been committed. No action was taken, and Taylor's tormentor remained at school.

Ths above excerpt is from a little article found right here.

You know, there needs to be a zero tolerance policy on bullying in schools - the way we have for drugs and weapons.

And, no. It won't work to expect the kids to work it out amongst themselves. Studies have shown that the only way to stop bullying is for the person in authority to step in and put a stop to it. This is true of workplace bullying as well. (Something I've experienced, I'm sorry to say.)
~~~

Another really good headline

Here you go:

Who the Hell's in Charge Here? BP Disaster Caused by a Nasty Mix of Government Impotence and Corporate Rule

It's by that wonderful progressive writer, Jim Hightower.

You can read the piece right here.
~~~

Quote of the Day

From Sojourners:

We can fly to the moon and back how many times? And we cannot stop up a damn well.

- Eric Authement, owner of a shrimp processing plant in Dulac, Louisiana, that his family has run for generations.
~~~

Humdinger of a headline

It's couched as a question:

How Soon Until the Free Market Stops the Oil Spill?

Please ask it of all your pro-business, pro-capitalism, anti-regulation friends.

(You can read the article right here.)
~~~

The CCC and WW II preparedness

CCC Camp Rock Creek, California

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Last night I watched the episode of American Experience on PBS about the Civilian Conservation Corps. Yes, I had learned about this New Deal program in school but I had no idea about the CCC's contribution to making it possible for us to enter the conflict and then prevail in the Second World War.

Here's that part of the transcript:

Houston Pritchett, Joined the CCC in 1939: I was in the CC’s for 23 months and four days, never forget it. And I left because they was gonna take the men out of the CC and send them straight in the army. It’s time for us to make a move.

Harley Jolley, Joined the CCC in 1937: The coming of Pearl Harbor and the movement of the United States into World War Two brought an enormous demand for manpower. That was the axe that killed the CCC. By July of 1942 the CCC was phased out, gone.

Vincente Ximenes, Joined the CCC in 1938: Without the CCCs, I really… I really don’t know what we would have done. We did not have an army prepared to go to war. And here was approximately two and a half or three million men who were prepared and had been organized to work together. I joined the Air Force in 1941. And they didn’t have to do a hell of a lot of training for me. I was prepared.

Houston Pritchett, Joined the CCC in 1939: Nobody didn’t have to tell you about how to make a bed and how it should be done, how to clean your clothes. And they didn’t have to tell you — if the man tell you to go do something, you didn’t ask questions, you do it. The CCC made me a man, it made me respect discipline and how to work and get along with people.

So there you have it. That most "liberal" of programs (yes, even then its detractors called it a "communist" and "socialist" approach) enabled us to enter and win that war.

The film is truly fascinating --- and inspiring, too. You can read the entire transcript right here. Highly, highly recommended.
~~~

A little challenge

No posting today, dear people. I had hand surgery this morning and that makes driving the old computer a wee bit difficult!

I'll be back tomorrow, I sincerely hope.

Blessings to all.
~~~

Remembering is not enough

Here's why:

[R]emembering is not enough. Beneath the beauty of the lilies lies the ugliness of war. For the act of memorializing to be truly honorable, that harsh reality must be kept central. The human longing for an end to war must be revivified generation in and generation out - not just as a dream, but as a mandate. The waste, futility, and cruelty of war must focus our perceptions of it.

Just because we necessarily make something noble of war, by thinking gratefully of those who served to the point of death, does not remove the indictment of what killed them. War is a crime. Among its victims are its heroes. Yet in the modern era, they have been vastly outnumbered by men, women, and children for whom war was only catastrophic, in no way valorous. Memorial Day belongs to that legion of the dead also.

It's the ending of an article by James Carroll published in the Boston Globe.

And it's heartbreaking.
~~~

Something to think about this Memorial Day

I've read two articles today about the hugely distressing rate of suicides among both active military personnel and veterans. One is entitled "Memorial Day -- Remembering Military Suicides" and here's part of what it says:

How does it happen? After surviving harrowing combat, why would a young soldier decide to take his or her own life? The Army is spending $50 million to figure it out, and we may get an answer in a couple of years. But for some, that will be too late.
...
These soldiers who want to kill themselves are imprisoned by their experiences. Terrified by nightmares, they can't get out of the fog created by drugs and medications designed to alleviate their pain. Their intimate relationships fall apart, and they get into trouble with the law. Their lives spiral out of control right in front of them. They get talked to, and subjected to lots of lectures about responsible behavior.

Another is entitled 10 Things We Must Remember on Memorial Day and these statistics are offered:

Every day, five U.S. soldiers attempt suicide, a 500 percent increase since 2001.
...
Every day 18 U.S. veterans attempt suicide, more than four times the national average. Of the 30,000 suicides each year in the U.S., 20 percent are committed by veterans, though veterans make up only 7.6 percent of the population.
...
Female veteran suicide is rising at a rate higher than male veteran suicides.

These are terribly disturbing statistics. And we need to be disturbed.
~~~

In memory of ALL who served and died

Quote of the Day

This one is from the BBC website:

There is no confusion about this. Israel attacked the Gaza activists, not the other way round. They attacked an unarmed ship in international waters.

-- Andrew Collingwood

So when are we going to quit supporting and justifying Israel's actions no matter what?
~~~

A little history goes a long way

Oh, my. Here's an article by Tom Turnipseed (whom I've admired for some time now) entitled Immigrants R Us . I simply cannot begin to do it justice with an excerpt. It's short and easy to read so please do go on over there.

The article is also generating quite a number of comments that are thought-provoking.
~~~

This says it all, folks:

On this Memorial Day weekend, I want to ask all you xenophobic people out there who support the draconian Arizona anti-immigration law the following: Did our fighting men and women suffer and die so that someone could stop you on the street and say, "Show me your papers, Comrade"????

Oh? You think it won't happen to you because you're white? (Notice what a racist attitude that is, friend?)

Well, how about this: "First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the...."

You know the rest of it.

If you don't, look right here.

There are different versions, by the way, of that famous quotation. You can read about its origins and history right here.
~~~
UPDATE - Here are a some links that might be of interest:

Xenophobia

Draconian

Comrade
~~~

Saturday limerick blogging!

This one is a classic:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean -
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Don't know who wrote it. Have always truly appreciated it!
~~~

Something about water and hope

Would you like to read a genuinely hope-inspiring and very short article? Then I'd like to recommend one published on Alternet entitled "Saving Water, the (Really) Old-Fashioned Way".

Reading this will take almost no time and you truly won't regret it!
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Something interesting about the oil

From an article in The Guardian entitled "The Real Cost of Cheap Oil":

Big Oil's real horror was not the spillage, which was common enough, but because it happened so close to the US. Millions of barrels of oil are spilled, jettisoned or wasted every year without much attention being paid.
...
Big Oil is usually a poor country's most powerful industry, and is generally allowed to act like a parallel government. In many countries it simply pays off the judges, the community leaders, the lawmakers and the ministers, and it expects environmentalists and local people to be powerless. Mostly it gets away with it.
...
The only reason oil costs $70-$100 a barrel today, and not $200, is because the industry has managed to pass on the real costs of extracting the oil. If the developing world applied the same pressure on the companies as Obama and the US senators are now doing, and if the industry were forced to really clean up the myriad messes it causes, the price would jump and the switch to clean energy would be swift.

I wonder how many people realize this. I certainly didn't.
~~~

Ah, technology!

Ya gotta admit, this is funny:

With the iPhone in my right hand and the iPad in my left hand, it's like having two guns blazing.

-- Masayoshi Son, Softbank chief executive, at a launch event for the iPad, which just went on sale outside the U.S.

I found it right here.
~~~

Quote of the Day

This one is from Sojourners:

I’ve bled for my country, I’ve sweated for my country, I’ve cried myself to sleep for my country -- which is a lot more than some people who are passing judgment on me have done. I would rather go sit in prison than go to Iraq.

- Patrick Hart, U.S. Army sergeant with almost 10 years on active duty, who went to Canada rather than face a second deployment to Iraq.

There's something tearingly sad about this.
~~~

A quote of the day

Again, from the TIME magazine website:

I don't think there is any doubt, unfortunately.

-- Carol Browner, White House energy adviser, saying the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is the worst spill in U.S. history

I wonder what the true long term consequences of this will be. I am so far persuaded that they will be quite dire.
~~~
UPDATE: Please go right now and read an AP article entitled "Workers describe failures on oil rig". Here's the first part:

As the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig burned around him, Chris Pleasant hesitated, waiting for approval from his superiors before activating the emergency disconnect system that was supposed to slam the oil well shut at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

The delay may have cost critical seconds. When Pleasant and his co-workers at rig owner

Transocean finally got the go-ahead to throw the so-called deadman's switch, they realized there was no hydraulic power to operate the machinery.

Five weeks after the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers, the blown-out well continues to gush oil, pouring at least 7 million gallons of crude into the Gulf.

Dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster.

There's more. And it's both painful and disturbing. Very.
~~~

For your edification:

Today's QuickVote

This suprises me, actually. It's from the CNN web site:

Should the federal government push BP aside and take over the Gulf oil spill cleanup?

No - 56%
Yes - 44%

Seems to me that BP is making a dog's breakfast of the whole thing. And the stakes are very high indeed.
~~~

Just a little comic relief:

Sent to me by my good friend, Larry!
~~~

Something very worrying

It's one of TIME Magazine's "Quotes of the Day":

We have always tolerated North Korea's brutality, time and again. But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts.

-- Lee Myung-Bak, president of South Korea, announces a cessation of trade between North and South Korea following the alleged sinking of a South Korean warship

What is the price? And then, what happens after that?
~~~

Pathetic, isn't it?

Just in case you don't know about this, read right here and here.

~~~

Quote of the Day

From TIME Magazine:

When this bill becomes law, the joy ride on Wall Street will come to a screeching halt.

-- Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, after the upper House passed financial-reform legislation

Let us sincerely hope so!
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Was Carter Right?

"You bet he was," claims a contributer to Democratic Underground by offering this: "Carter was right, Carter was right! Carter was right!! Carter was right!"

Hmm. You think this poster is clear about his or her position? :-)

Look, please click through and read the post itself (extremely brief) and then, the comments that follow. They'll make you think.
~~~

Something about the call of nature

I want to call your attention to something I didn't know about until I read a little article entitled "Equality Comes in Strange Places -- Like The Bathroom". Here's how it gets started:

It seems like such a little thing, but it's the little things that can make all of the difference in fairness between the genders. Women are finally getting a chance to have equality at the Capitol.

At least, in the bathroom.

It's being called the "Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act," and simply put, it means that all federal buildings must now have as many women's toilets available as they have men's toilet and urinals. It seems like such a small issue, but in fact is an amazing step towards admitting that federal work areas may no longer be the male-dominated spaces they have been assumed to be in the past.

I agree.

The article also mentions a few other gender equality issues that are worth thinking about.
~~~

Pay attention to this, please:

Why isn't the world treating this as the emergency it is?

If the various estimates we have received ... come true, then we are in the situation where, 40 years down the line, we effectively are out of fish.

-- PAVAN SUKHDEV, head of the U.N. Environmental Program's green-economy initiative, saying the world faces the possibility of fishless oceans by 2050

(The above is from the TIME Magazine website.)
~~~

Bill Maher at his best

Just look:

He said, 'I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever.' But you know what dude, when you go to a website called RentBoy.com, which he did, and that website says, 'For the tightest asses on the internet, click here' – and then you click there – I think that's homosexual behavior.

–Bill Maher, on Rev. George Rekers, who was caught returning from an overseas trip with a male prostitute
~~~

Do think about this:

I'd like to recommend a page from Squidoo entitled "Ways to Support Your Local Animal Shelter". The page has lots of good ideas as well as other appropriate links.

~~~

Energy and reality

I want to call your attention to a brief and simple post over on Democratic Underground. It starts off like this:

If you think the BP incident was bad, wait until we have an "accident" in a nuclear reactor or at a nuclear dump.

We have to move to solar and wind energy. They are the only near-safe methods of creating energy. They are not totally safe, and they may be more expensive than oil, but they are the only safe sources of energy.

We have to find a way to produce solar panels that are durable but less expensive than the current panels.

There's a bit more with another really good point. Go read it, please. It will only take a couple of seconds.
~~~

Teaching empathy

I want to call your attention to an article from TIME Magazine entitled "How to Deprogram Bullies: Teaching Kindness 101". Here's an excerpt:

At a public school in Toronto, 25 third- and fourth-graders circle a green blanket and focus intently on a 10-month-old baby with serious brown eyes. Baby Stephana, as they call her, crawls toward the center of the blanket, then turns to glance at her mother. "When she looks back to her mom, we know she's checking in to see if everything's cool," explains one boy, who is learning how to understand and respond to the emotions of the baby — and to those of his classmates — in a program called Roots of Empathy (ROE).

After the recent bullying-related suicide of a 15-year-old in Massachusetts, parents and educators around North America are wondering: Could her death have been prevented? What can schools do to stop the taunting that takes place on and off campus? And most important, can positive qualities like empathy and kindness be taught?

For responses to those questions and more, please click through and take a look at the entire article. Worth it. Really.
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Quote of the Day

This is from Time Magazine:

They drove their car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, [and] now they want the keys back. No! They can't drive!

-- Barack Obama, criticizing the Republican Party at a Democratic party fundraiser in New York

That's good, huh?
~~~

Republicans and Limbaugh

It's so much worse than we thought.

Just look:

NPR has learned that much more oil, 70,000 barrels a day or more than ten times the official estimate, is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon pipe, based on scientific analysis of the video released Wednesday.

That's the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker full every four days.

You can read more about it right here.
~~~

Ambiguity

Someone who had a great influence on me as a young person once said that an important mark of maturity is a tolerance for ambiguity. I thought of that when I came across the following quotation:

If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say "no"; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say "no."

-- J. Robert Oppenheimer

We truly need to sit loose to our assumptions about the nature of reality, don't we?
~~~

For your edification:

Oh dear, dear, dear:

Necessary change

Over on Alternet, there's an article entitled "10 Ways to Change Your Life". This is the lead: "With simple modifications to your daily routine, you can be part of a cleaner, more sustainable world." And here's an excerpt:

7. Commit to not wasting
Wasting resources costs the planet and your wallet. Let your clothes hang-dry instead of using the dryer. Take half the trips but stay twice as long. Repair instead of rebuy. The list goes on. In the summer, for every degree above 72°F you set your thermostat, you save 120 pounds of CO2 emissions per year, and if you wash your clothes with cold water you can cut your laundry energy use by up to 90 percent.

8. Take your principles to work
We must act as though we care about the world at work as much as we do at home. Company CEOs or product designers have the power to make a gigantic difference through their business, and so do the rest of us. In commercial buildings, lighting accounts for more than 40 percent of electrical energy use, a huge cause of greenhouse gas production. Using motion and occupancy sensors can cut this use by 10 percent.

Another way of not wasting is to buy a lot of what you need from flea markets, thrift shops and garage sales. I really like the idea of the money I spend going to a non-profit organization or an individual family trying to make ends meet rather than a huge corporation. And when people buy used items that's less stuff to go into the landfills.
~~~

Saturday limerick blogging!

Here you go:

Linda Blair with great favour confessed,
She'd been exorcised, thus finding rest,
But alack and alas
Her old demon came back
and now the poor girl's repossessed.

This has probably made the rounds but it was new to me!
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Child-free conservationism

When I was younger (and it was still an option whether or not to have children) I sometimes wanted them and sometimes didn't. I often strongly believed that it was wrong to add to the severe problem our world has of overpopulation. That is the approach taken by Chris Bolgiano in her article entitled "My Mother's Day Gift to the Planet: Not Having Kids". Here's a little bit of what she says:

Although few journalists cover this angle, almost every environmental disaster is caused by overpopulation - but not the kind many assume. It's not the black and brown babies of the developing world that most threaten our planet, but our own desire for stuff - a hunger for iPods and starter castles.

American consumption, and the global pollution associated with supplying it, is unsurpassed. It takes a Third World village to use all the resources that a single American consumes and, often, wastes every day. So even though the birthrate in America is historically low, curbing it further would be a good place to begin when trying to save the world. I am pleased to do my part.
...
It seems to me that the encouragement of childfree couples is crucial to saving the planet.

I agree.

There are many other ways of contributing to the nuturing of the next generation without biologically reproducing. And so even though I'm sad at times that I never had children of my own, I'm also really glad that the children I do have are of the spiritual variety.
~~~

Today's QuickVote

This is from the CNN website. I'm really glad to see the response:

Should physician-assisted suicide be legal for people who are terminally ill?

Yes - 83%

No - 17%

We, as a society, are finally starting to realize that it is just wrong to insist that people who are dying anyway continue to live in excruciating pain until the last bitter moment. That's good news, as far as I'm concerned.
~~~

The problem with banning abortion

I want to call your attention to an article entitled "The Story of My Illegal Abortion". Here's some information that would be helpful for us all to know:

According to a 1958 Kinsey study, illegal abortion was the option chosen by 80 percent of single women with unwanted pregnancies. Statistics on illegal abortion are notoriously unreliable, but the Guttmacher Institute, a respected international organization dedicated to sexual and reproductive health, estimates that during the pre-Roe vs. Wade years there were up to one million illegal abortions performed in the United States each year. Illegal and often unsafe. In 1965, they count almost two hundred known deaths from illegal abortions, but the actual number was, they estimate, much higher, since the majority went unreported.

Here's the thing. I think abortion is a tragedy and I think it is the taking of life. But I don't think they should be made illegal because they will just go underground. I really want to reduce the number of abortions - not just punish women. Studies have shown that countries with legal abortions as well as goodbest sex education and legal abortions have, in fact, the fewest abortions. Why don't we do what actually works instead of what feeds our self-righteousness.
~~~

Oil spill an "act of God" ??????

Oh, I wish I were kidding. But I'm not. Look at what the Republican (of course) governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has said:

I hope we don’t see a knee-jerk reaction across this country that says we’re going to shut down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, because the cost to this country will be staggering.” Perry questioned whether the spill was “just an act of God that occurred” and said that any “politically driven” decisions could put the U.S. in further economic peril. “From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented.

Un-freakin'-believable.

Here's what the term actually means:

The legal definition is: "Natural causes directly and exclusively without human intervention and that could not have been prevented by any amount of foresight and pains and care reasonably to have been expected".

Now here's something you should know:

BP cut corners by violating numerous safety regulations and refused to install “a remote-control shutoff switch that two other major oil producers, Norway and Brazil, require.” In fact, the Chamber, which is one of BP’s many trade associations and lobbying fronts, has worked aggressively to oppose regulations and fight for more offshore oil drilling.

The above passages were found right here.
~~~

Simply outstanding snark

Take a look:

There's a show on CBS called 'The Mentalist.' It's about a detective with heightened powers of observation. Let me give you an example of how good this guy is. This guy is so good, he can tell the difference between a Goldman Sachs executive that is a lying crook and a Goldman Sachs executive that's a lying weasel. He's that good.

–David Letterman

And, by the way, the show is worth watching - really. It's a favorite of mine.

(Hat tip to Lisa over at All Hat No Cattle.)
~~~

Limbaugh accuses environmentalists

You know, I don't believe in hating - anybody for any reason. But this morning, I'm finding myself hating Rush Limbaugh with a perfect hatred. He actually has suggested that "wacko environmentalists" are responsible for blowing up the oil rig that created the spill in order to stop more drilling. Take a look:

I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig. ... Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade, that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they're sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they're sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I'm just noting the timing here.

It's being called the oil-spill truther movement. Sheesh. Here's one source for the above transcript: Rush: "I'm Just Noting the Timing Here"
~~~

Eight really important words

I want to call your attention to an article entitled "8 Words That Could Save Our Country". Here's the lead:

"Corporations are not people. Money is not speech." These are fundamental truths that our nation needs to remember -- and add to the Constitution.

And here's the first paragrpah:

A rogue Supreme Court seems hellbent on establishing a corporate oligarchy. Congress can’t stop it. Every time Congress or state legislatures tries to curb the power of billionaires or mega corporations the Court slaps them down.

Go read the rest of it if you have time. You won't be sorry.
~~~

May Day

It's May Day, people. International Workers' Day. Here's something we all need to know:

Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers' Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don't realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as "American" as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.

In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Jack London's The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860's, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn't until the late 1880's that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class.
...
On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike...

The above excerpt is from an article by by Eric Chase and you can read it all right here.

So, let me ask you something. Do you think the corporations would have just given us the eight hour work day out of the goodness of their hearts? No? Then this day is important. Really.

~~~

Saturday limerick blogging!

Well! It's Saturday again and so time for a limerick. Here's one that, suprisingly, I don't think I'd ever come across before today:

T. S. Eliot is quite at a loss
When clubwomen bustle across
At literary teas
Crying, “What, if you please,
Did you mean by The Mill On the Floss?”

- by W. H. Auden

By the way, The Mill on the Floss was written by George Eliot, not T.S. Eliot. That's part of why this is a terribly clever limerick!
~~~