Here's your headline

Take a look:

Bill Maher: When Will Obscenely Rich A**holes Stop Crying About Taxes?

The piece gets started like this:

New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.

And let's be clear: that's 3.6% only on income above 250 grand -- your first 250, that's still on the house. Now, this week we got some horrible news: that one in seven Americans are now living below the poverty line.

Someone once said that taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.

I recommend that you click through and read the rest of what Bill Maher has to say. You won't be sorry.
~~~

This is going around. Good.

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It's a headline for animals today

My sweet Tara

Look at this:

It's Adopt-a-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week

Here's an excerpt:

A recent survey from Petfinder.com of shelters and rescue groups found that 95% of their shelter and rescue group members currently have adoptable pets for whom they are having extremely hard time finding homes. Another 33% of their adoption groups have had pets who were posted on Petfinder for 1-2 years without being adopted, and 27% have had pets who've waited more than two years for a forever home.

Who are these animals? Mostly senior animals, followed by pets with medical issues, victims of breed discrimination, shy animals and the ones who need to be the only pet in the family. Sometimes they’re just the wrong color, or not the breed someone had in mind.

"It breaks my heart to think that some pets are homeless for years when they are just as wonderful as the younger, fluffier puppy next to them," [said Petfinder co-founder Betsy Banks Saul.]
...
"The goal of this initiative is to bring the issue to the forefront and help find forever homes for these special animals."

As someone who not too long ago adopted a senior animal, I really want to support this effort. My wonderful Tara (a nine year old chocolate lab) is undoubted the sweetest dog in the universe and she really needed a forever home.

Please think about this!
~~~

Headline of the day

Here you go:

The unlikely but powerful radicalizing impact of the Tooth Fairy

And the opening paragraphs of this article offer one of the best summaries I've seen yet of what has happened in and to this country:

Many decades ago, exploitative robber barons mercilessly worked our immigrant forebears, for negligible pay and no benefits, under dangerously unsafe conditions.

Only the hard struggle of organized labor won everyday Americans better lives.

Then came the union-busting Reagan era, which dropped working-class living standards to dire levels.

As that decline occurred, upper crust prosperity commensurately grew. What workers were losing in lower wages and vanishing benefits was appropriated as immense profit by corporations and banks.

Republicans subsequently rewarded them, and their elite executives, with huge tax breaks, and rampant deregulation, the destructive consequences of which tanked our entire economy in 2008.

I do urge you to click through and read the rest of it - especially if you want to know what's behind that headline.
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Quote of the day -- maybe of the YEAR

This is simply excellent. It's also freakin' logical:

[W]hen a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it.

-- Warren Buffet

I found it right here.
~~~

The Smearing of the President

Wow. Do I ever agree with this:

I don’t believe that the Republicans deserve to win. They have not merited it. They have operated by trying to drag down President Obama and his programs by obstruction through lack of any positive ideas of his time. I personally find the smearing of President Obama as an issue of national discussion. It is repulsive and ought to be discussed. I think it ought to discredit the Republican Party from consideration.

-- Sidney Blumenthal

You can see the context right here.
~~~

Headline of the day

My dear friend, Damian (who's a regular reader of "Child of Illusion"), sent me the following with this comment: "Thought you'd be interested in this (shocking and depressing) info..."

Shocking and depressing is so right:

Americans Have No Idea About Wealth Inequality in America

Here's part of what it says:

Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of "regular" Americans into these debates by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to "build a better America" by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality. First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: all demographic groups—even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy—desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.

If you click through to the article, you will find a very interesting graph illustrating the above point. You will also find some interesting comments (some of which are also shocking and depressing.)
~~~

Quote of the day

Think about this. Really think about it:

If we actually ended the Bush-era tax cuts, that would pretty much do it.

-- Peter Orszag, President Obama's recently departed budget director, saying that letting tax rates for all taxpayers return to the levels before George W. Bush's presidency would bring the country within reach of Obama's goal to balance the budget by 2015

So what's the problem? Did we not have prosperity before the Bush era?
~~~

Delicious snark

See what I mean:

I do miss George Bush. Compared to these teabaggers and the people who are pandering to them, he looks like a professor.

–Bill Maher

A grateful hat tip to Lisa over at All Hat No Cattle.
~~~

Headline of the day

Every article I've read by Donna Smith has been excellent. Here's the latest:

A Divide So Wide, A Healthcare Disconnection So Deep

I'm going to give you a rather substantial excerpt from the beginning:

Our national obsession with individualism and the attainment of personal wealth is so sick and so deep for some of our fellow citizens that even the bonds of marriage are often no match for the selfishness.

A woman with advanced breast cancer schedules her chemo and her radiation so that by the time the worst physical side-effects set in, she is at the weekend and can sufficiently recover to allow a return to work on Mondays. She has negotiated remote work-time on chemo days and the day after. She pays for her family’s for-profit, private health insurance because her husband is a small business owner whose business has felt deep losses during the recession. She must keep working if she wants the care that is attacking her cancer.

If it sounds brutal, that’s because it is.

I had occasion to chat with her husband. He believes that I am misguided in my work for a progressively financed, single standard of high quality care for all. He said, “You know, government can’t and shouldn’t do everything for us. It’s up to us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps.” Huh?

He really used those words. While his wife struggles to keep the premiums for the for-profit, health insurance paid, his bootstraps are sagging. Yet, he shows no sign of wavering from his entrenched position. He is not particularly active politically. He is not in the Tea Party or the Republican Party or any party. Yet his obsessive selfishness learned through intense cultural and societal indoctrination is so strong that he can bury the reality his wife is living and cloak himself in righteous anti-establishment, anti-government propaganda.

The rest of it is good, too.

I've listened to conservatives who don't have insurance argue with me against universal health care. It boggles my mind - really.
~~~

Quote of the day

This is a bit chilling when you think about it:

If you can imagine it, scientists can try to do it.

-- David Edwards, of the Biotechnology Industry Association, as the FDA begins a two-day meeting on whether to approve the marketing of genetically engineered salmon, which would be the first such animal approved for human consumption

It's from the TIME Magazine website.
~~~

Monday morning music blogging

This is utterly delightful.

If you're not familiar with Paul Bowles, you can learn a bit about him right here.
~~~

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Time for a headline

I don't know about you but I get really annoyed with the forwarded emails that put down government workers. Here's the title of a brief article I want to recommend:

By the Numbers, Public Workers Defy Anti-Government Stereotypes

Here's how the article gets started:

Want to get a disgruntled worker really mad? Just point to his arch enemy: the civil servant. You know, the shiftless paper-pusher, fattened on our tax dollars, the epitome of “waste, fraud and abuse.”

Alright, this might sound harsh to those of us who still think the government has some useful functions in society today. But bashing on the government and its workers has become a favorite pastime for conservatives like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has argued that public employees enjoy undeservedly lavish compensation packages while their private-sector counterparts grapple with shrinking paychecks. So the logic goes: Why should struggling families' tax dollars finance the bloated wages of bureaucrats?

An analysis of New England public employees by the Center for Economic Policy and Research and Political Economy Research Institute helps dispel the myth of the “spoiled” government worker. Researchers found that New England's state and local workers are actually comparatively disadvantaged. After taking into account variables like age and education level, "state and local workers actually earn less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts."

More and more I wish that the fundamentals of research methods were taught in high school and were made a basic requirement for undergraduate degrees. Too many people simply have no idea how to assess what's true or not when dealing with large groups.
~~~

Sunday music blogging

Just for fun!

Love that piano playing! :-)
~~~

Highly recommended:

Please hang on through the first part until you get to the bit about Haley Barbour's comment regarding the President.

Something I just found:

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Why I no longer watch any television news

The above video is the first of a series of eight. You can double click on the video here after you finish watching it and that will take you through to the original YouTube site. The remaining seven parts can then be found in the sidebar.
~~~

Pretty good snark from the Big Dog

Here you go:

[Democrats] have had the White House for 21 months, and they haven't dug us out of the hole we left — so put us back in.

-- Bill Clinton, joking on The Daily Show about the Republicans' argument for why they should win in the upcoming midterm elections
~~~

When people worship their own ignorance

This is a very illuminating (and worrying) analysis of what's going on with the tea party movement:

Your headline for today

I want to call your attention to an article by Robert Parry originally published in Consortium News. Take a look at the headline and subtitle:

This Country Just Can't Deal with Reality Any More

As Election Day 2010 approaches, the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.

And here's how it gets started:

As Election Day 2010 approaches – as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation – the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.

Yet, despite the danger, the nation can’t seem to move in a positive direction, as if the suctioning effect of endless spin, half-truths and lies holds the populace in place, a force that grows ever more powerful like quicksand sucking the country deeper into the muck – to waist deep, then neck deep.

Trapped in the mud, millions of Americans are complaining about their loss of economic status, their sense of powerlessness, their nation’s decline. But instead of examining how the country stumbled into this morass, many still choose not to face reality.

It's a riveting article, actually. Mind you, I don't agree with everything Parry says here. Nevertheless, everything he says makes you think. I would also urge you to read the comments that follow because many good points are made (and questions are raised) there as well.
~~~

Quotation of the day

This is just tragic:

I've tried so very, very hard, but those Republicans we've had in the last Congress have left us.

-- Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, on the Democrats' inability to pass immigration reform

Education and teen birth rates

Last night I heard on the radio that Oklahoma ranks 49th in the country for education. Then I read in this morning's paper that we have the 5th highest teen birth rate in the nation. Here are those top five:

Mississippi
New Mexico
Texas
Arkansas
Oklahoma

Something to think about, folks.
~~~

Right here in Tulsa:

Barbara Santee sent around an email today with the picture above and also an article of which the following is an excerpt:

A Tulsa man came up with a national billboard posted in Midtown Tulsa.

The message in patriotic colors reads, “Atheism is OK in Oklahoma. Saluting Gore-First Atheist Senator.”

Not surprisingly the billboard is getting a lot of attention.

On the westbound Broken Arr! ow Expressway at the 15th Street exit you’ll see the Freedom From Religion Foundation billboard.

A national group sponsored the board but the idea came from a Tulsa man.

Billboards are a way to sell a product and a way to promote beliefs.

Christians do it and now Atheists are too.

"I thought playing into Oklahoma's desire to be number one. Well we will capitalize and advertise the fact that we are number one with the Atheist," says Bill Dusenberry.

Dusenberry is a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He is talking about U.S. Senator Thomas Gore who was an Oklahoma native who Dusenberry believes was the first openly Atheist US Senator. He was first elected in 1907 and says the sign is a tribute to him.

Just to clarify here, I am not an atheist. I am, however, an ardent supporter of the separation between church and state. I also cherish the constitution and it clearly states that there exists no religious test as a requirement for holding office in the United States of America.

It absolutely stuns me that many of my fellow citizens don't know this.
~~~

Yeah, right:

Here's your headline

Look:

Do Something for the Progressive Base... and Win
Ten Things Dems Could Do to Win

It's published in The Nation and here's how it gets started:

Yes, the country is in a foul mood, with 15 million unemployed. The Democrats may get clobbered in 2010. And even if we survive, how do we hang on for the long term? If our great founder, FDR, could come back to us, he might remind us of the three simple rules that once, long ago, Democrats used to follow:

1. Do something for your base.
2. Do something for your base.
3. Do something for your base.

Seriously: why can't we do something for our base? It's been almost a half-century since we Democrats did something for our base, when Lyndon Johnson pushed through Medicare, i.e., "socialized medicine" for seniors. And while some may compare the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 to Medicare, there's a big difference. To the public, the new law seems to benefit only the uninsured: the young or the marginal, few of whom will even vote in 2010 (maybe just a third of the electorate will). So while the new law is a big help to them, it does nothing for the rest of our base, especially our smaller core base that will vote in the midterms.

Now. Please click through and go read what the suggestions are. A lot of them seem so obvious that it's truly hard to understand how they're being neglected.
~~~

16 deaths a day

Okay, all you libertarians and conservatives who favor deregulation. Can you possibly make a case that this is right? Suppose a loved one of yours died or was disabled because of workplace safety negligence. Really. Think about it.
~~~

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Veniamin Ivanovich Borisov

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sunday music blogging

Simply luscious performance.
~~~

64 Commitments

Here's something I had not come across before: It seems that in 1998, sixty-four princples of non-violence were adopted by a Denver Task force who had been inspired by the memorial anniversaries of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King (January 30 and April 4). A list of affirmations connecting those dates was then created.

Here are some sample principles:

Jan. 30: Today, I will reflect on what peace means to me.
Jan. 31: Today, I will look at opportunities to be a peacemaker.
...
Feb. 14: Today, I will affirm my value and worth with positive "self talk" and refuse to put myself down.
...
Feb. 21: Today, I will greet this day -- everyone and everything -- with openness and acceptance as if I were encountering them for the first time.
Feb. 22: Today, I will drive with tolerance and patience.
Feb. 23: Today, I will constructively channel my anger, frustration, or jealousy into healthy physical activities (i.e., doing sit-ups, picking up trash, taking a walk, etc).
...
Mar. 3: Today, I will identify something special in everyone I meet.
...
Mar. 11: Today, I will listen with an open heart to at least one person.
Mar. 12: Today, I will treat the elderly I encounter with respect and dignity.
...
Mar. 23: Today, I will hold no one hostage to the past, seeing each -- as I see myself -- as a work in process.
Mar. 24: Today, I will make a conscious effort to smile at someone whom I have held a grudge against in the past.

You can find the complete list right here.

I really do urge everyone to click through and let this list be the inspiration it is designed to be. Anyone who makes a commitment to put these principles in practice will certainly experience a changed life; of that I'm certain.
~~~

Karen Armstrong on today's observance

Her brief article is entitled: "9/11 and Compassion: We Need It Now More Than Ever". Here's a little bit of what it says:

The anniversary of 9/11 reminds us why we need the Charter for Compassion. It should be an annual summons to compassionate action. The need is especially apparent this year. In the United States, we have witnessed an upsurge of anti-Muslim feeling that violates the core values of that nation. The controversy surrounding the community centre near Ground Zero, planned by our dear friends Imam Feisal Rauf and Daisy Khan (who were among the earliest supporters and partners of the Charter) has inspired rhetoric that shames us all.
...
Imam Feisal Rauf is a Sufi. Over the centuries, Sufis, the mystics of Islam, have developed an outstanding appreciation of other faith traditions. It is quite common for a Sufi poet to cry in ecstasy that he is no longer a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew and that he is at home equally in a synagogue, mosque, temple or church, because once you have glimpsed the immensity of the divine, these limited, human distinctions fall away into insignificance. We need that spirit today -- perhaps especially near Ground Zero.

I so identify with the response to that ecstasy. I have experienced something similar myself and I plan to reflect on this at length today.
~~~

Nature's systems

I found this today:

We're putting nature's systems under huge strain, and we can't go on like that if we want to hand over something reasonably worthwhile to our children and grandchildren.

-- Prince Charles, expressing dismay toward climate-change doubters, during an eco-tour of Britain

He's right, of course.

I wonder if anybody will listen.

(This was one of the Time Magazine "quotes of the day" yesterday.)
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Some excellent snark

Just look:

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer stopped speaking during an interview and stared blankly at the camera for 30 seconds. The good news is, she’s now eligible to be governor of Alaska.

---Jay Leno

How to cultivate tolerance

Given the unapologetic racism and Islamophobia running rampant in our society right now, the following is well worth pondering, I would submit:

History leaves no doubt that among of the most regrettable crimes committed by human beings have been committed by those human beings who thought of themselves as civilized. What, we must ask, does our civilization possess that is worth defending? One thing worth defending, I suggest, is the imperative to imagine the lives of beings who are not ourselves and are not like ourselves: animals, plants, gods, spirits, people of other countries, other races, people of the other sex, places and enemies.

-- Wendell Berry

My question too:

Hat tip: WaterTiger at Dependable Renegade

This is for real. Wow. Just wow:

Here's your headline

But don't click through if you're delicate as far as the "f-word" is concerned:

Michael Moore Teaches Rahm Emanuel a F**king Economics Lesson

Normally I don't particularly like an excessive use of the "f-word" but, trust me, it's truly appropriate in this case!
~~~

Is the President finally getting it?

Here's what I mean:

If I said fish live in the sea, they'd say no.

-- President Obama, on the Republicans who have consistently opposed his economic proposals since he has been in office

Since Day 1, Mr. Obama has tried to play "nice-nice" with them and go the bi-partisan route and it just hasn't worked. Maybe he's finally getting it that the Republicans are going to be obstructionist as long as a Democrat is in office and that's just the way it is.
~~~

When Reagan was a Democrat

Folks, you've just GOT to listen to this. Really. It seems to be making the rounds on some of the progressive blogs out there and it certainly speaks to issues that need to be pondered on Labor Day:

What happened to this man?

Here are some thoughts:

This speech was given in 1948. This was before the Supreme Court ruling of "Brown vs Board of Education" and before the Civil Rights Movment of the 60s. Yes, Reagan briefly mentions civil rights in his remarks here but I'm wondering if maybe he wasn't expecting the Black Power and Black Pride movements. This speech was also before LBJ's "Great Society", anti-poverty efforts. I'm wondering if a certain racism prompted his move to the Republican Party. It is widely considered that his visit to Philadephia, Mississippi in 1980 was a deliberate racist appeal through code words and symbolism.

Remember, too, that he supported the apartheid government of South Africa.

Also worthy of note is that Reagan was married to Jane Wyman, a liberal, when this speech was made. He later married Nancy Davis, a conservative.

Pity.
~~~

A Labor Day treasure

This morning, I got an email message from the AFL-CIO. The writer quoted FDR who said, ""If I were a worker in a factory, the first thing I would do would be to join a union."

Then President Barack Obama was quoted:

I think that's true for workers generally. I think if I was a coal miner, I'd want a union representing me to make sure that I was safe and you did not have some of the tragedies that we've been seeing in the coal industry. If I was a teacher, I'd want a union to make sure that the teachers' perspective was represented as we think about shaping an education system for our future.

Me too.

In fact, I have been a member of three unions during my working life: two teachers' unions and the musicians' union. (Two of them were affiliates of the AFL-CIO.)

Let me tell you something: I've worked union jobs and I've worked non-union jobs and I'll take the union jobs any day. As a musician, I've been hired to perform in non-union situations where the working conditions were simply appalling. (Once an orchestra pit for an opera company I worked for was so filthy there was a dead rat in it.) I also sometimes had trouble getting paid and, let me also tell you, when you're in the "starving artist" category, you can't very well hire a lawyer to go to bat for you. When I joined the union and started working those jobs, everything changed. Appropriate conditions, no forced un-paid overtime (par for the course in non-union jobs), decent pay and, most of all, respect. Having representation and recourse when there's a problem makes all the difference in the world.

Do we sometimes find corrupt politics in unions? Well, yes. The thing to remember is that without unions, the corrupt politcs will all be on the side of management. (Ponder that one for a while.)

I've also been on the receiving end of union-busting intimidation techniques and, I assure you, that's no fun. I still get a little sick to my stomach when I remember it.

This Labor Day, thank the unions. Even if you've never belonged to a union in your life, unions have benefited you hugely. Because of unions we have, in this country, the following:

Weekends
40 hour work week
On the job safety regulations
Decent wages
Reasonable job security
Pension plans
Protection against abusive employers
Paid vacations

And, if you don't have the above in your work, you probably think that you should. That's the influence of the union movement on societal values.
~~~

A couple of Scripture passages for the day

Just a reminder here:

The laborer is worthy of his hire.

-- Luke 10:7

and

You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it)...

-- Deuteronomy 24:14-15

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Image from Wikimedia Commons

More about capitalism

I've been saying for some time now that I believe capitalism to be a great evil. Today I came across an article entitled A World in Collapse? by the journalism professor, Robert Jensen, whom I admire very much. Here's a brief excerpt:

Capitalism is the most wildly productive economic system in history, but the one thing it cannot produce is meaning. Even more troubling is the way, through its promotion of narcissism and mindless consumption, that capitalism undermines the larger culture’s ability to create real meaning. Virtually all of what is good in society—solidarity, compassion, creativity, ethics, joy—comes from outside capitalism, giving the illusion that capitalism is a civilized system. It’s a cliché, but important enough that we sing it over and over: Money can’t buy you love. Capitalism cannot create a healthy human community, and it undermines the aspect of human nature rooted in solidarity and love.

The other obvious failure of capitalism is its contribution to the erosion of the health of the ecosystem. Humans have been drawing down the ecological capital of the planet since the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, but that process has intensified dramatically in the capitalist/imperialist/industrial era. Our culture is filled with talk about the success of capitalism even though that system degrades our relationships and threatens our existence. That’s an odd definition of success.

It seems to me that we have lost the will to save ourselves as a species. And there's really only one reason for it: the seemingly inescapable grip that the capitalist system has on us.
~~~

One more way we're destroying ourselves

This is what I mean:

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

-- Isaac Asimov

As someone who practically grew up in libraries (my mother, of blessed memory, taught both English and Library Science) this distresses me very much.
~~~

Your headline for today

This is an article by Jim Hightower:

If You Don't Fight for the Middle Class, Kiss It Good-Bye

And here's a small excerpt toward the beginning:

Social Security, wage AND hour laws, collective bargaining rights, unemployment compensation, the GI Bill, the interstate highway program, civil rights laws, Medicare, Head Start -- and more -- provided the national framework necessary to sustain a middle class for the American Majority.

This essential framework was not "given" to us by corporate executives and politicians -- indeed, they sputtered, spewed and fought every piece of it tooth and nail. Rather, it came from union-led grassroots movements, organizing for structural change.

This Labor Day, we see corporate executives and their politicians relentlessly dismantling that framework, piece by piece -- and we see the middle class disappearing and poverty rising with each dismantled piece.

Let's think about it, people.
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

His name is Hector

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Well. This is refreshing:

These are the words of the Governor of Mississippi:

I don’t know where we would have been in Mississippi after Katrina if it hadn’t been with the Spanish speakers that came in to help rebuild. And there’s no doubt in my mind some of them were here illegally.
...
My idea is everybody from Stanford who’s from India that gets a PhD, we ought to stamp citizenship on his diploma. So instead of him going back to India and starting a business that employs 1,800 people, then he’ll start a business that employs 1,800 people in Des Moines, Iowa, instead of India. A lot of it is just common sense. And common sense tell us we’re not going to take 10 or 12 or 14 million people and put them in jail and deport them. We’re not gonna do it, and we need to quit — some people need to quit acting like we are and let’s talk about real solutions.

-- Haley Barbour

I found the quotation right here. I must say, however, that some of the comments to that post are very cynical. (Maybe appropriately so.)
~~~

Hear, hear:

A headline worth pondering

Here you go:

Global Warming Deniers Aren't "Experts" At All: It's Time for a New View of Science

Here's an excerpt that really caught my attention:

The sociologist Michael Smithson has pointed out that all social relations are trust relations. We trust other people to do things for us that we can’t or don’t want to do ourselves. Even legal contracts involve a degree of trust, because the person involved could always flee to Venezuela. If we don’t trust others or don’t want to relinquish control, we can often do things for ourselves. We can cook our own food, clean our own homes, do our own taxes, wash our own cars, even school our own children. But we cannot do our own science.*

So it comes to this: we must trust our scientific experts on matters of science, because there isn’t a workable alternative. And because scientists are not (in most cases) licensed, we need to pay attention to who the experts actually are -- by asking questions about their credentials, their past and current research, the venues in which they are subjecting their claims to scrutiny, and the sources of financial support they are receiving.

And here's another statement we need to ponder:

All scientific work is incomplete— whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, to postpone action that it appears to demand at a given time.

You know, I wonder if the climate change deniers out there would refuse a heart by pass operation if they needed one. Probably not. And what they're not considering is that the very same scientific principles that make such surgery possible also tell us that we are in serious danger of driving ourselves into extinction by the way we are treating the earth.

I really do recommend that you click through and read the whole article. There are some nuances and particulars discussed that really can't be captured in a couple of short excerpts.

* (Emphasis mine)
~~~
UPDATE: Here's a Sierra Club page entitled "TEN POPULAR MYTHS About Global Climate Change". Definitely worth spending some time with.
~~~

Quote of the day

Now this is a statement of true courage:

Whatever they do to us, we are going to keep coming.

-- Waheeda Amiri, - a 15-year-old Afghan student who fell ill after a posion-gas attack on her school, on returning to class despite the dangers
~~~

What the #$%^ is WRONG with these people?

Just look:

Over Half Of Republicans Thinks President Wants Worldwide Islamic Law

I despair. Truly I do.
~~~

Headline of the year (IMHO)

Oh, my. Take a look at this one:

How Conservatives and the GOP Destroyed the "Traditional Family" They Claim to Treasure

Here's a sample:

The decade in which the GOP became synonymous with Christian Right “family values” groups like the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority was also a decade in which unions became weaker and many manufacturing jobs were lost. Organized labor suffered a major blow when President Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981, which was a victory for union-busting and proved terrible for American families. Steven Greenhouse, who has covered labor issues for the New York Times, summarized the effects perfectly when he said: “I remember in the 1980s when the air traffic controllers union was wiped out. For 15 years after that, employers all across the country cut jobs, cut pensions, cut health coverage and stepped onto workers' rights.”

Yeah, I remember that too.

Union busting is a very great evil. I've been on the receiving end of intimidation in that regard. (But that's a story that must await another day.)

Take a look at the rest of the article if you have time. A lot of it is common sense (or what ought to be common sense) but it's all spelled out rather neatly here.
~~~

Headline of the day

Here you go:

Sarah Palin would be an ineffective president, say 6 in 10 Americans, according to new poll

You don't say?

However, I'm a bit concerned about the 40% who apparently don't see this clearly.
~~~

Interesting:

This is from a CNN poll. (Definitely not a majority.)
~~~

Patriotism versus nationalism

Here's something that merits pondering, I think:

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

-Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)

Well now, here's a thought:

Take a look:

I don't think that most of these people who are yelling and screaming really care one way or another.

-- Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, saying on Thursday's Daily Show that he feels much of the arguing over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero is about gaining votes and publicity
~~~

Sorry; this one's too good to pass up:

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Too, too funny:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Tennessee No Evil
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

A sincere request

Hello, dear internet friends.

I want to ask your prayers and/or good thoughts (whatever it is that you do...) for my niece, Jane, her husband, Chris, and their newborn little boy. The baby was born last night and is now in the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of Virginia Medical School hospital. He will need heart surgery.

My brother says that it is possible that the baby can go home to build his strength up for a while before the surgery but they're not sure yet.

My deep gratitude to you all for your caring and concern.
~~~

Yeah, yeah; we knew all along...

This, I mean:

Ken Mehlman, former George Bush campaign manager and chairman of the GOP National Committee, has come out as gay, the most powerful Republican to ever do so. He is already being both praised for his courage and blasted for leading what has been called "the most homophobic national campaign in history."

If you've forgotten who this is, check out his picture here.
~~~

Really worth thinking about

I wonder if any politicians have asked themselves this lately:

How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?

-- Harry S. Truman

Headline of the day

This one pricked my curiousity:

Faced with Mosque Madness, Democrats Invert Frederick Douglass’ Key Rule for Change

And what was Frederick Douglass' key rule for change you ask?

Here you go:

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.

The article continues with a description of the typical spinelessness among Democrats about the critical issues of the day.

Click on through and read it, please.
~~~

Ya think?

This is what I'm talking about:

We need better abilities and authorities to put in place these preventive controls and hold companies accountable.

-- Margaret Hamburg, FDA chief, saying, in the wake of the salmonella outbreak in eggs, that her agency is limited by law to a mostly reactive stance on food safety

All right all you pro-business Republicans. How's that free-market, de-regulation approach working out for you?
~~~

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Margret Hofheinz-Döring

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Are we losing our collective minds????

Look what I just found:

Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle once partook in a campaign against a local high school's use of black football jerseys, arguing that the dark color was ungodly and wicked...
...
It was Homecoming of 1992 and Nevada's Tonopah High School football was seeking to depart from their school colors, specifically in wearing black jerseys instead of the usual red and white. The uniform change was meant to be a display of solidarity...
...
Enter Sharron Angle and her color-crusading cohort.
...
"I cannot quote scripture as they did to justify their point but the gist of their argument was that black as a color was thoroughly evil, invoking the supernatural and especially the devil," [news reporter Bill] Roberts reports. "Whichever argument prevailed, school administrators caved in and prohibited the Muckers from wearing the black apparel."

The black uniforms were then confiscated and held under "lock and key" by the administration, which refused to compensate the team for the money they had spent acquiring the jerseys.

I'm getting really disheartened by the fundamentalist mood that has prevailed in this country for some time now. Heck, it's not only disheartening, it's scary.

Just in case you've been living under a rock lately, Sharron Angle is the Republican challenging Harry Reid for his Senate seat.

I found the above story right here.
~~~

The pathetic legacy of Sarah Palin

Here's something that was said along with the above photo:

Promising not to quit is now a legitimate campaign pledge for Republican candidates in the state of Alaska.

I found it right here.
~~~

Says something, doesn't it?

Love it, love it, love it!

This, my friends, ought to be the last word on the Dr. Laura issue:

Here is a simple rule: blacks can use the word "nigger" if they want to, whites can't. There is a rhetorical principle underlying this rule which is hard to explain, but not hard to illustrate.

You can use the word "fatty" to describe yourself and your almost-as-fat friends, but your husband and children can't. Thin friends can't. Thin competitors certainly can't. Your husband's mother absolutely can't.

Get it?

This was publised as a comment to an article over on The Smirking Chimp.

Too funny! (And very sensible.)
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Ha! Something to think about:

The flooding in Pakistan

So very true:

You can't just blame nature.

-- Ganesh Pangare, a coordinator with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, claiming the destruction of ecosystems exacerbated the impact of floods in Pakistan that have killed an estimated 1,400 people
~~~

Something different for Friday cat blogging

Trust me on this one people; cats are really like this:

Quotation found in a comment

And it's a good one, too:

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person's enemies say about him.

-- Napoleon Hill

Something I really respect

Sojourners shared this one:

The fishermen don’t want to make people sick. I wouldn’t feed that to my children without it being tested -- properly tested, not these 'Everything's okay' tests.

- Tracy Kuhns, a shrimp-boat owner from Barataria, Lousiana., explaining why she and her husband had not gone shrimping Monday despite assurances by federal officials that it was safe.
~~~

Refreshing, sensible AND funny

Okay, folks. I happen to be white and I was born in the Deep South in 1949. My home town is Vicksburg, Mississippi. My brother and I were taught early on that the "n" word is simply not used in polite society. I don't think my parents or teachers would have been at all moved by the argument that we ought to be able to use it since black people use it with each other. That would have been considered completely irrelevant. As members of the dominant class that historically were the oppressors, we simply could not ever justify using it.

Now, here's the thing: I never wanted to. It says something to me that a white person would even want to use that word and therefore try to find a way to justify it.
~~~

Unless you've been living under a rock lately,

you know that China now has the second largest economy in the world. So take a look at this:

A lot of other economies in the region are essentially riding on China's coat tails.

-- ESWAR S. PRASAD, former head of the International Monetary Fund's China division, at the news that China passed Japan to become the world's second-largest economy
~~~