GOP to Veterans: GO HUNGRY!

The party that fetishizes veterans, that worships military duty, that calls every man and woman who serves his or her country a "hero," has voted to demean their heroes and let them go hungry.

You read that right.

We saner folk know, of course, that the GOP's posturing is all show and zero substance, and another manifestation of their fake patriotism, which was demonstrated this past week when the Republicans in the House voted to slash the SNAP program.  Hundreds of thousands of our veterans--you know, the folks who defend our freedoms here and abroad, the ones who lay down their lives so that GOP Congresscreeps can charge their lavish dinners to the government while they travel in the U.S. and abroad on "fact-finding missions"--millions of those men and women depend on the SNAP program.  Yeah, those GOP hypocrites, who never saw a program for the needy in this country that they didn't hate and that they didn't go after, pretending it would save the tax payers millions of dollars and make those lazy, undeserving moochers who want free stuff, our veterans, get off their lazy asses and find a job!

Those are Republican values:  Slash needed programs to feed our veterans and their families (and millions of other struggling Americans), while pretending they support our troops.




From the daily kos:


Thursday's House vote to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $40 billion over 10 years proved, once again, that when the Republican drive to demonize poor people comes into conflict with the supposed Republican reverence for veterans, demonizing poor people wins. 

The bill would kick 170,000 veterans off of food stamps, out of around 900,000 veterans in the program. Republican rhetoric was that the food stamp-slashing bill would continue food assistance for the virtuous poor—children, seniors, disabled people, employed people—and only cut assistance for able-bodied adults who don't want to work, preferring to live high on the hog off of their average benefit of around $4 a day. 

That's false in ways almost too numerous to count: 

• The bill contains no provisions for people who can't find work in an economy where there are three jobseekers for every available job. 

• Republicans claimed unemployed people could fulfill the bill's work requirements by turning to job training programs, yet many people don't have access to job training programs and the bill did not fund them. 

• The bill would kick 2.1 million mostly working or elderly people out of SNAP by eliminating expanded categorical eligibility. On paper, these people's income or assets are above the SNAP threshold even though, in reality, they face significant expenses like child care in order to keep working, bringing them below the threshold: 

A typical working family that qualifies for SNAP due to categorical eligibility consists of a mother with two young children who has monthly earnings just above the program’s monthly gross income limit ($2,069 for a family of three in 2013). On average, the families above that limit who qualify for SNAP as a result of categorical eligibility have combined child care and rent costs thatexceed half of their wages. The approximately $100 per month in SNAP benefits they receive covers about one-fourth to one-fifth of their monthly food budget.

From the Military and Foreign Affairs Journal "Veterans Today:"


Hardest Hit by Proposed Food Stamp Cuts? Veterans and Active Military 

The prejudices against those who desperately need food stamps and other supportive programs are rampant. However, what the Huffington Post report uncovered is that a surprising group of hardworking Americans rely on food stamps. This group will undoubtedly change the face of what the average American thinks of what a food stamp recipient looks like as well as the trajectory of the food stamp funding battle. 

Veterans and active duty service members are one of the largest growing populations that need assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is a financial assistance program provided by the federal government that allows struggling families to purchase food. According to data compiled by the Huffington Post, 1.5 million veteran households are using SNAP. 

The sharp increase of veterans or other military families relying on food stamps is right in line with what is happening across the board: more families are struggling to make ends meet because of the recovering economy and families who may have never needed assistance before are looking for help. 

Compounding the issue further is that many veterans who recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan may also have returned with medical conditions or disabilities that prevent them from working or continuing their service. As of 2011, more than 46 million Americans received food stamps.


Food stamp use at military commissaries up sharply in four years



My name is Jason. I turned 35 less than a week ago. 

My first job was maintenance work at a public pool when I was 17. I worked 40-hours a week while I was in college. I've never gone longer than six months without employment in my life and I just spent the last three years in the military, one of which consisted of a combat tour of Afghanistan. 

 Oh, and I'm now on food stamps. 

Since June, as a matter of fact. 

Why am I on food stamps? 

 The same reason everyone on food stamps is on food stamps: because I would very much enjoy not starving. I mean, if that's okay with you: 

•  Mr. or Mrs. Republican congressman. 
• Mr. or Mrs. Conservative commentator. 
• Mr. or Mrs. "welfare queen" letter-to-the-editor author. 
• Mr. or Mrs. "fiscal conservative, reason-based" libertarian. 

Remember this outrage the next time you hear a loud-mouthed hypocritical Republican thank one of America's military heroes.  Remember that it's only lip-service that the posturing Republican is giving to the man or woman whose real service defended our freedoms and is now struggling to feed him/herself and family.

My enemy, our friend

When Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, I wasn't particularly interested, not being a Catholic and seeing myself, at least ethnically, as a survivor of the exterminations and repressions and expulsions the Church he leads has perpetrated; seeing us all as damaged by it's long war on science and technology, on democracy, liberty, freedom of thought and speech  and even personal hygiene, I wasn't about to see any more than a cosmetic change.  Certainly the Church's attitude toward sexual freedom, the right to terminate a pregnancy, the right to read what we want to,  the right to have intimate relations with a partner of one's choice?  That's not going to change.

Maybe I was wrong. No, do as thou wilt isn't going to become doctrine any time soon, but respect for others, reluctance to condemn and perhaps adopting persuasion over fiery threats of damnation and excommunication may become, at least during his tenure, the order of the day.

Is this more like stoning the sinner with marshmallows or is it a new return to the kind of non-judgementalism that is attributed to Jesus?  Is the Church really going to make an effort to back away from being all about sex and the iron handed control of sexuality; about making sex a dirty necessity we have to feel guilty about and keep to a minimum?

The church has the right to express its opinions but not to "interfere spiritually" in the lives of gays and lesbians said Pope Francis in an interview just published. in a Jesuit magazine.  For an institution that has seen itself as a gatekeeper for God, that's a welcome surprise, at least to those who think their God doesn't mind answering his own phone; who think God doesn't have to consult his parish priest before allowing himself to judge people. He feels women must play a key role in church decisions, although the extent of the intent remains to be seen.

None of this, of course, affects me, being a non-believer, and I'm pretty sure the Church isn't going to begin recommending abortions or gay marriages or anything at all like that, but preaching and teaching instead of damning and condemning and blowing sulfur smoke seems like one small step for a pope and one great leap for the Vatican.

Will the Baptists, the Evangelicals and the Pat Robertsons of America join the enlightement?

Cyber English

Language— a divine gift given to the human race. I have a strong admiration for language. There are thousands of languages spoken worldwide. I speak two of the top three languages in the world. I look up and take interest in many others.

Frequently, I scroll through my Facebook and Twitter accounts and find myself thinking: “what is our language coming to?” or “what disrespect to the English language…” I am no grammarian, but the English that is used in the online world is ridiculous. The words and shortcuts used online, is becoming a dialect (if I may call it that) of its own. Some of the more famous ones even get taken to the outside world, like “OMG” (oh em gee). More and more, the online slang is being spoken inside schools and among cirlces of friends.
 

When I attempt to correct or explain English usage to friends and family, I usually get made fun of and called an English geek. I had come to the conclusion that since English was the second language of several of my friends at school, and some of my family, that I was made fun of because they had not mastered the English language. I thought they probably had trouble with it and I was being too harsh. My cousins hated and still hate to read and write. I am the one they call when they have essays to type or letters to write. I always asked myself Why? Why the lack of motivation to look up things? Why not try to read? Like I said, I figured it was because English was not their first language. However, Facebook and Twitter proved me wrong. I have several friends young and old, who write in another language online and still misuse it, even when it is their first language. Not only do they misuse the language, but they over-abbreviate and change the sound/spelling of words—purposely! I have tried asking some of my friends and family members why they do it. The answer is usually “I don’t know” or “because it’s boring.”

 I understand languages have evolved over time. Nevertheless, a huge question remains in my head: “Is the way English is being used today the laziest? And, if so, how much will it truly impact the English language?”

 

A quick history about language:

English derives from a language called proto-Indo-European which was spoken thousands of years ago. This original language, one of a number in the world, is the parent of various language families such as Germanic, Celtic, Hellenic, Italic, and Indo-Iranian. ¹

Each branch developed its own dialects over time and English developed from the Germanic branch. As much as it has changed, we have learned to adapt and learn to keep communicating. The history of the human race lies in writings, stories, and translations that have been passed on through the centuries; it is transported through language. The reason behind the huge changes cannot be pinned. Laziness? Transcription error? Was it the writer or the speaker?

Either I am obsessed with language, or I was born into the wrong family/circle of friends, but I seem to be the only one for miles who respects our language. I find that the further in time I go, the more beautiful the English language was—I mean look at Shakespeare, he appears in theatres, poetry class, and in any English class, in general. Chaucer was also a great, poetic-like master of the English language. I can go on and on, and name several writers who manipulated the English language in such a lyrical way. My list stops some thirty years ago. Who will bear the English of our time into another century?

 I simply can’t find anything romantic or poetic about the online slang; here are some examples: “FML” (f*** my life), “SMH” (shake my head), “Ur” (your), “stankin” (supposed to be stinking?), “da”(the), “dope sesh” (cool session), “rok’d” (rocked), or people using k’s instead of c’s or x’s instead of k's.
 

Sometimes, I have to google abbreviations and sayings in order to understand. Other times, I keep on scrolling because I am uninterested in seeing how much time a person takes to change our language, when they should be taking the time to write things the way they are supposed to be written. Technological advancements have impacted our daily lives in several ways (that's a whole other story...), but is the way it is affecting our langauge dumbing it down?

 

Aurora

1. Treharne, Elaine. Old and Middle English c.890--c.1450. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2010.

Here he is - Mr. America

Racism?  Just like those liberals to think that "American Values" are racist, says Fox jerk Todd Starnes and after all it was only 'politically correct' judges that enabled a dark skinned American woman of East Indian descent to win the Miss America contest over  someone with real American values like blond hair and big tits. American womanhood as traditionally seen by pageant judges always has been typified by tattooed Army Sergeants, hasn't it?  If that isn't true American womanhood, perhaps those judges will choose a man next.

"Americans were backing Miss Kansas -- but the liberal Miss America judges were not interested in a gun-toting, deer-hunting, military veteran." said Tiny Todd on his Facebook page on Sunday.  Americans -- Americans who can't tell the difference between Indians, Arabs and Muslims but are sure that to be an American; to have American values means TBBT: you're tall and blond and have big tits.

"Americans" (that being Todd) were backing Theresa Vail and I'm sure many were, even though most Americans I would venture have as little interest in this cattle call as I do -- even though tattoos make me cringe even on male Army Sergeants, she was a fine candidate and for all I know a fine person. 

If that's what the repulsive troglodyte from the caves of Fox likes, that's his privilege - de gustibus and all that, but for those of us who don't have a problem calling an American citizen, born and raised a 'real' American if they don't have 100% European ancestry; even for those of us who might actually consider an Indian or Chinese or Middle Eastern or, God forbid, African woman attractive and intelligent and talented and worthy to represent 'American Values"  --  for us Nina Davuluri is a fine choice and a real All-American girl.

Smug racist assholes like Starnes and the Network he rode in on don't, needless to say, represent any values, much less American ones I'd respect, or even tolerate -- or even refrain from punishing with extreme prejudice and considerable violence given the chance.  But I've been around long enough to know there isn't anything to be done about convincing these people. No dispassionate analysis, no baseball bat will make these people see non-European people as anything but a threat to their imaginary "values."  As Max Plank once said, the truth does not triumph by making its opponents see the light, but because they eventually die.

So if we're unable to stop hoping for some new America that gives more than lip service to its principles while festering like a cesspool of hate and stupidity and bellicose self-aggrandizement perhaps we should hope and pray that Fox fall into some lake of fire, that the earth opens up and swallows Todd Starnes like the foul and fetid carcass of the loathsome creature he is, so every good and true and righteous person can piss on his grave.

Global Climate Hoax?

Or not.

More than 20% of Einstein’s original papers contain mistakes of some sort, says Mario Livio in Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein.  Indeed, Darwin’s  Origin of Species contains far more of them, owing in no small part to the total ignorance of the mechanisms of heredity at the time or writing.  It was thought that the mysterious elements we now call genes simply mixed in the offspring like different colors of paint rather than like the shuffling of cards.  Yellow and blue paint may give green  until diluted by combining with one or the other color,  but Genes, Jacks and Queens are always one or the other and undiluted and a joker introduced into a deck will always turn up again sooner or later.  Darwin’s blunder was in not noticing that an advantageous mutation would under the blending model of his day eventually disappear, making  the passing on of small traits almost impossible with successive generations. 

Mountains of new data both from fossils, in the laboratory and from the comprehensive understanding of genetics proved that the blunder was only apparent when viewed in a glass darkly.  Inheritance didn’t work the way his detractors insisted  (and some still do.) As to one of Einstein’s apparent blunders, first in adding and then removing Lambda, the Cosmological Constant, the  truth seems when viewed through more modern glasses that  adding it was not a blunder but understanding it is so far an unachieved goal. 

  

Yet when we examine the kind of Denialism modern communications have  facilitated, we will find much commentary using the early pre-Mendelian uncertainties in the theory of Evolution to attack what may now be the most documented and supported theory of anything and further, a theory that gains more supporting data with every new discovery and finds wider and wider application.  We find, at least in my opinion, far less outrage about any of the proposed  explanations  of the apparently accelerating inflation of  empty space in our universe .  Astronomy was not yet advanced enough  for Einstein’s early cosmology to include an expanding cosmos, much less an accelerating expansion and he famously removed the constant, which he called ugly, from his equations as being no longer necessary. 

Still, deniers and opponents  of all sorts  exist and passionately marshal outdated observations, invalid arguments and fallacies against the science.  I don’t think I’m being venturesome by seeing patterns amongst denialists. I think there is a constellation of beliefs that seem to accompany passionate attacks on well documented  scientific and historical consensuses and they differ from the truly valid observations that consensus changes when new data appears.  There certainly is no new data refuting evolution, nor are geneticists and paleontologists moving in all seriousness away from accepting it. The same is true of  the currently accepted ages of the Earth or of the Universe.  There is no new data showing that millions were not rounded up and gassed by the Nazis and I’m convinced that there is no new data and only an assemblage of fragments of old data to argue that not only is the idea that the worldwide climate is changing but that the deforestation and   artificial introduction of  carbon and sulfur compounds  into the air are not a significant factor.  Arguments that examine only fragments of data, chosen for ambiguity are often cited without reference to other firm data that clarifies the matter. Insinuations are made of suppression for political reasons as if everyone from Communist to Libertarian would agree to delude the world for no particular gain.  Assertions are made that radiocarbon dating “is a joke” and  “is no longer trusted.” Assertions that  global warming is part of a natural cycle, contrary to observed data.  Assertions that one data set invalidates all other data with no mention of peer reviews of that set.  It’s almost monotonous.  

People, or at least a large proportion of the people who angrily deny theories and the data that support them also possess, as I mentioned, a constellation of other traits and particularly a personal attachment to belief systems political and religious.  Most people for instance, who argue in the total absence of empirical observation  and contrary to huge and growing masses of data, from physics, mathematics and geology  are certainly  religious.  Likewise, the people who write books and articles about the “hoax” of climate change tend also to have not only an affiliation with ‘Conservative’ politics and religious traditions but a propensity to assemble the same sort of arguments.  Concocted evidence of human footprints next to dinosaur tracks,  fictitious articles about oil forming magically in the deep strata,  dishonest testimony that evolutionary science is giving way to other interpretations,  books asserting  evidence against the existence of Nazi extermination camps almost always written either by heretofore unknown “experts”  often unconnected or only tangentially connected to the science in question or to science in general all grasped at  like floating straws to Denialists:  Books by Engineering professors about the Holocaust Hoax,  Articles and talks about  anthropogenic factors in climate change by aeronautical engineers,  and TV meteorologists.  Paleontologists, Paleoclimatologists, Geologists?  Not so much,  unless they work for the petroleum industry.

Certainly the history of science is the history of how theories are modified as technology allows new data; how theories are replaced by theories that explain observed phenomena, certainly -- but  giant worldwide hoaxes involving  nearly every scientist in a field including  suppression and falsification of data? I can’t think of one, nor can I think of a motivation that would affect such a widely diverse set of individuals and make them act in such unlikely  harmony.

No, as I said, not only Einstein’s work but the work of all the most brilliant pioneers of science and mathematics have contained errors, oversights and blunders.  We don’t have shoe salesmen writing anti-Newtonian diatribes. We don’t hear about Galileo’s Hoax, the mendacity of Kepler, do we and that's because they don't endanger the dearly held fictions of today's religious people or wealthy corporations.

Science progresses haltingly but the ultimate test is the agreement of theory with data even as data emerges and refines theory. Theories have been overthrown, discredited and abandoned but the level of passion involved has nothing to do with the soundness or unsoundness of a theory as history asserts in a loud voice.  If Einstein, Newton Kepler, Kelvin, Darwin, Hoyle and in fact all of them  spent their lives revising and reviewing, blundering and going back to the drawing board, none of them have been perpetrating hoaxes.  Hoaxes involving multitudes only seem apparent to certain kinds of people who share certain characteristics. Not understanding how science works is one of those characteristics. Being Republican is another.

There is no new data arguing against accepted cosmological and paleontological or anthropological theories. There is no emerging data arguing for a climate hoax, Intelligent design, a  worldwide flood  – only cranks seeking attention and the people with personal, financial and psychological reasons to become their disciples.  Yet they go on and on. Fox goes on reporting and deciding for us.

 

Mowing on Monday

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Last week, this income inequality report failed to get the attention of our mainstream media.  In a nutshell, the gap between rich and poor widened again – this time reaching record levels unseen in almost a century.  Top wage earners - the so-called 1% - raked in 19.3% of all household income during 2012, surpassing the previous all-time record of 18.7% last set in 1927.  The remaining 99% earned a mere 1%.  Why is this report so damning – and shocking?  History has shown: Income inequality drives Depressions and Recessions and brings massive social unrest.  Not a word on the evening news, but we see it everyday in our communities.

Every other day of the week is fine, yeah

But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes

You can find me mowin’ all of the time.

For some reason, everyone in my neighborhood prefers to relax on Sunday and mow the lawn on Monday.  For obvious reasons, I prefer to mow my lawn with the sprinkler system running – no explanation necessary.  Why every Monday but not Tuesday, you ask?  Bizarre, I have to admit. Perhaps it just turns out that way.

Good lawnmowers make good neighbors.  We keep up appearances and keep peace in the neighborhood.  Witness this daily exchange every time neighbors meet at the mailbox:

“Good afternoon, Mr. Briggs. How are you today?”

“Mighty fine, Mr. Stratton. And yourself?”

Although everyone in my neighborhood mows the lawn on Monday, not everyone mows in quite the same way.   Here is the odd part: Some of us aim our lawnmowers in straight parallel lines, while others tend to meander, zigzag, or form contour circles around their homes. Why should Euclid matter as long as the grass is cut!  Folks of different strokes, notwithstanding, good lawnmowers make good neighbors. We keep up appearances and keep peace in the neighborhood.

Until a strange thing happened! Suddenly Lampposts, Manhole Covers, and Utility Poles won the right to be treated as legal persons.  Then they secured easements that granted them special access rights and privileges.

You would think homeowners in the neighborhood might find common ground to form a Monday grass cutting alliance.  Oh no!  The Lampposts, in league with the Manhole Covers, started a PR campaign that warned the homeowners on Magnolia Street to beware the residents of Hawthorn, who now regard the residents of Dogwood with suspicion and sneer at the residents on Elm, who scorn the residents on Elder.

In short order, Lampposts convinced the homeowners on Magnolia to love the neighborhood more than their neighbors who dwell on Hawthorn, Dogwood, Elm, or Elder – all of whom no longer look like, act like, or think like ‘real’ neighbors, they claim.

The Manhole Covers think of themselves as ‘Job Creators’ (although any job that has ever fallen into an Open Manhole quickly disappears – never to be seen again).

Utility Poles accuse lawnmowers of engaging in class warfare.  Cutting grass no longer levels the playing field, they insist; and the teachers, nurses, and other working folks living on Elm are oppressing the Lampposts and Manhole Covers, they claim.

Meanwhile, the Lampposts and Utility Poles say: “If the residents on Elder lose their healthcare or pension benefits, they should consider themselves ‘empowered.’

Legal but non-living persons now rule the neighborhood.  They never created a single job but reserve the right to trample on our bushes and shine flashlights at night through our bedroom windows.

Years ago when a Lamppost burned out, a service truck came to the neighborhood and replaced a bulb. This year, the Lampposts say: “Buy your own bulb and replace it yourself.”  Then they demand a bonus, a pay raise, and a tax cut.  Last year, their service truck morphed into a Jaguar.  This year, their Jaguar morphed into a Rolls Royce.

The situation has set neighbor against neighbor, and I am starting to think garden vegetables now speak on behalf of homeowners.  Today, you can hardly tell the difference between a Lamppost versus a real person anymore.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood has gone to pot.  Everywhere ... overgrown grass, weeds taller than Utility Poles, short sales and bank foreclosures, and neighbors no longer talking to neighbors.  If there is one lesson to be learned, forget the Lampposts, Manhole Covers, and Utility Poles.   Forget the polemics, stalking points, and dog whistles. Oh, how I yearn for the smell of fresh cut grass, E Pluribus Unum, and a friendly neighbor exchanging friendly greetings at the mailbox again.

Oh, Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee

That Monday evening you’d still be here with me.

Reminder:  Tomorrow is Tuesday, the day we bring our trash bins to the curb.

Remember the Raisin!

The people who like to manipulate us by creating and preserving anger like to give us slogans.  Remember the Maine, Remember the Alamo, Remember Pearl Harbor, Remember the Raisin! Never Forget!! 
 
All these things are inevitably forgotten despite the slogan advertising campaigns and sooner or later we'll get tired of remembering 9/11. Sloganeers will get tired of milking the faded fear and self-pity and choreographed mourning. The people who were born too late to remember it will eventually need to be told to remember something else that some party needs to cultivate anger about, so as to pass some kind of horror like the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 or the Patriot Act.  9/11 will be forgotten by most everyone but historians and those who remember will remember it in context of the things we did and the laws we passed and the freedom we gave up while we were whipped into a passion.

Think calls to 'always remember'  are genuine and untainted by politics?  Wonder why we shouted Remember Hoover! in 1936 but nobody remembers to Remember Bush?  Remember Katrina and at least 1800 fatalities?  Why not?   We spent billions and billions on a the Largest government agency in history and abridged the Bill of Rights in 2001, but we didn't do a damned thing to improve reactions to natural disasters which you can be sure will occur more often than a repeat of 9/11.

I suspect that calls to remember are  calls to preserve a mental state in which we can be manipulated, tricked and sold some unsavory product. Stay angry, stay afraid and obey.

FOX: Bow down to my God or get out.

"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

-George H.W. Bush-

Perhaps you're old enough to remember, as I certainly am, to remember when Dwight Eisenhower had his arm twisted by the Knights of Columbus into adding a mandatory affirmation of  individual and collective subordination of  national allegiance and legal obligation to religious belief.  It may have had something to do with the need to give the rabble some reason they could understand to make us seem like the good guys in the struggle against the Communists for world domination of the 1950's but it's really the same struggle for domination our founders participated in against tyranny over the human mind and spirit by Established Christianity in Europe and it goes back millennia - or longer.

Perhaps you're old enough to remember the days of the Vietnam war, the conflict that like the Civil War was never really won, never really resolved and which still divides the nation our kids are forced to call indivisible every morning. Anyone my age either cringes or puffs up in self-righteous idiocy when he hears "America - love it or leave it."

That fulsome piece of carrion of course deconstructs to "this country is only for those who agree with the lowest and angriest common denominator" and that, at the time, being the John Wayne/Martha Ray duo shouting that if you don't support the war and all it's horrors, lies and sinister motivations, you're not a "real" American. And of course real Americans believe in the correct god and them commies don't and there's the whole story. Napalm - God wills it!

Isn't it odd, by the way how we still make a hero out of that bloated, talentless fart-bag despite his support for the oppression and slaughter of two million people in order to preserve a system of government that had enslaved them?

Does anyone doubt that Fox, had it existed 50 years ago would have supported that national embarrassment, the stench of which still is detectable like some cosmic background radiation?  Fox, in fact has always supported the dichotomies the Right uses to foment anger, promote dictatorial colonialism and criminal exploitation and set us one against the other. Men against women, rich against poor, white against black, corporate against individual -- those contrived dichotomies have always set up the most ignorant, deluded, misinformed and stupidly self-righteous to be the good guys, the sensible, clear thinking guys who oppose science, empiricism, mathematics and indeed honesty in favor of myth and legend, whether corporate, political, religious or any mixture of them. Those clear thinking, God fearing deniers of evolution, geology, cosmology, nuclear physics, climatology and history.

Hence when a President like George Bush the Elder says he can't understand how someone who doesn't believe in some god or another can be considered a citizen and thus demonstrate his contempt for the letter and spirit of Our Constitution and indeed the Enlightenment and Humanist movement that produced it, you won't hear a peep of protest from the gaggle of birdbrain gigglers at Fox.

Yes, I'm tired of listening to the things Fox News is tired of and particularly since one of those things is my freedom. Every time some parent somewhere gets tired of his kid being cajoled, coerced, forced and even bullied into not only acknowledging some category of deity, we're affirming that our freedom itself is subordinate to what its shamans say that deity demands.

Dana Perino "is tired" of "atheist's demands" for freedom from religion and says "they don't have to live here."  I wonder if her  distaste for individual freedom of conscience includes the suggestion that the bones of Madison and Jefferson and Franklin and Washington be disinterred and dumped elsewhere in some free country, but of course even that obvious extension of her idiotic ire implies an intelligence far too great to exist in such an empty skull.

Dana Perino and the bastards who pay her are the enemies of freedom, truth, justice and what I used to think of as our great nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Yes, I'm tired of you Dana and of the miserable, evil, corporate bastards who pay you to undermine everything special and praiseworthy about our country - or should I say my country, because not only are you not part of it, you're not worthy of being part.

The part of it you hate is the heart of  Democracy, the soul of freedom and if you won't tolerate the humanity, the humanism at the heart of America - you don't have to live here.

SYRIA-US DISAGREEMENT

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Even within families, there is serious disagreement over current Syria strategy. I refer to a conversation last night with my oldest daughter.

First some background: My daughter is a high-ranking officer assigned to the Pentagon with substantial Mid-East experience: 4 deployments totaling 8 years on the ground (in Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, as examples), starting with the first Gulf War (1990-91).

Her viewpoint: Stay out. Why? No matter how bloody and violent, no matter how unconscionable, no matter how sectarian and divided, virtually all peoples of the region – including combatants fighting amongst themselves – share a unanimity of attitude: They demand the right of self-determination and prefer to be masters of their own fate without the intervention of former colonial powers. After the first Gulf War, George Herbert Walker #41 made this blunder. He kept a residual U.S. force stationed in Saudi Arabia – often cited by al-Qaeda as a motive for targeting U.S. interests (recall the Khobar Towers bombing incident). All sides in these various and sundry Mid-East conflicts share the same xenophobia.

Acknowledging her point, I raised another issue: Mid-East conflicts have metastasized cancer-like beyond the region; witness the spate of terrorist incidents spanning 4 continents. IOW, when regional conflicts spill into our territory and put our citizens at risk, we have a compelling national security interest at stake.

Her reply: We should make every effort to protect our citizens and maintain security within our borders; but we should avoid another Archduke Ferdinand moment that may draw us into deeper, more protracted, and more costly conflicts. After decades of supplying arms to our so-called allies in the region - such as Saudi Arabia - the time has come for regional powers to get their own house in order and do some heavy lifting, she says.

My response: Too late. We cannot re-write history and reset the clock of Mid-East perceptions. In the past half-century, various governments have used American foreign policy as a scapegoat – for reasons both right and wrong – to cover their own failings. Since the cancer of Mid-East conflicts have metastasized worldwide - and Western interests are often in the crosshairs of these conflicts - we have little choice but to intervene.

Our discussion in a nutshell: A perfectly civil and reasonable exchange of views between father and daughter – now shared with readers of this forum. How ironic! General Daughter shuns military involvement; formerly Pacifist Dad makes a case for intervention.

As thorny and nettlesome as this Syria issue has become, it should not turn into another partisan slugfest. By all means, argue the merits but avoid the temptation to engage in wanton and gratuitous Obama-bashing. Mid-East conflicts have vexed 11 U.S. presidents since Eisenhower.  So please be forewarned: If you gang up on President #44, this cephalopod will ink your aquarium and drown you in torrents of citations and references. To quote the estimable Wednesday Addams: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

More images and videos below the fold:

Datashock and Awe

I've had a lot of datashock recently. Datashock?  Why that's what you fell when you're hit with data that contradicts everything you took for granted about yourself.  I recently had a DNA test for instance, expecting that it would reflect the generations of genealogical data I'd been putting together for years and going back centuries.  Imagine the surprise to find that I'm half Scandinavian.

But that's nothing compared to what I found out.  You know that mysterious database used by every hardware and ladies' underwear marketer to send you catalogs and interrupt your most private moments with phone calls?  An article in CNN Money yesterday had me laughing about the errors in her publicly disseminated information the reporter found when she went to AboutTheData.com . I stopped laughing when I checked my own information.

I've been running a long and angry battle with companies like Experian to remove erroneous data from my credit report: 'aliases' that originated in clumsy data entry and became irrevocably enshrined, addresses I've never heard of, addresses that never existed, household members long dead and other items likely to follow me to the grave before Experian ever takes the time or makes the effort to look into revising the Gospel. It's the same story with various web sites that claim to have data about me and my house and other things. The stock answer to my assertions of error is that "Sir, we get our data from public records and they cannot be changed." Thus spake Zarathustra.

But that's nothing. AboutTheData  asserts, despite evidence to the contrary, that I'm 93 years old, have no children and my DNA and birth certificate be damned, I'm German.  Of course they know my credit cards and everything I have ever purchased with them.  they know the size of my house and what it's worth and what I payed for it and when it was built, but they also insist that I have a large mortgage on it which I don't.

This is the kind of data that affects one's life, one's well being, one's credibility and for the most part it's immutable, unchangeable, ineradicable. Now unlike the other people search sites like Pipl.com, AboutTheData does allow one to edit this farcical farrago of  data, although I'm tempted to let them think I'm 93. I'm tempted to tell them I'm dead actually, although I now understand why my mailbox is full every morning with prepaid funeral fliers, ads for nursing homes, walk-in bathtubs, home nursing services, motorized wheelchairs and crematoriums. (It would be nice if the IRS thought I was deceased, but I'm sure they have their own databases. )

But it's still a shock to think about how we assume, living in an "information age,"  that the information about your age is true, but it seems more and more that no one has any interest in correcting mistakes or even hearing about the ocean of ludicrous errors they spend so much money and bandwidth maintaining against the unheard protests of a baffled, astounded and rightly pissed-off public.