March 13, 2009 archive

Friday Philosophy: gender identity and you

News out of West Virginia is that the State Senate passed a bill adding protection for sexual orientation (and age) to its anti-discrimination law.  While I applaud that, I also understand that it is not sufficient to protect the people most likely to be discriminated against.  And I don’t just mean transfolk.  I mean gays and lesbians…and even straight people…who do not perform their gender role to the liking of those who would discriminate.

A lot of folks just don’t get that.  A lot of people believe that transpeople are just out to get what they can for themselves and do not comprehend that in working for protections based on gender identity, we are concerned about you…and you…and you, too.

What people seem not to be able to accept is that we all have gender identities…every single one of us.

Help! Help! I’m surrounded!

Glenn Beck, well-known wingnut, has come loose from his bolt!  His “We Surround Them” campaign seeks to let other wingnuts know that they “are not alone.”

How ’bout those principles?

The Nine Principles


  1. America is good.

Rush: I hope Obama Fails!


  1. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

 Said Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 19:24 — “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

  1. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.



Well, if it’s market-moving manipulation, it’s not really a lie.


  1. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.



Unless you tell your spouse to hit the highway!

   * Ronald Reagan – divorced the mother of two of his children.  Married Nancy Davis who bore him a daughter only 7 months after the marriage.

   * Bob Dole – divorced the mother of his child, who had nursed him through the long recovery from his war wounds.

   * Newt Gingrich – divorced his wife who was dying of cancer.

   * Dick Armey – Former House Majority Leader – divorced

   * Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas – divorced

   * Gov. John Engler of Michigan – divorced

   * Former Gov. Pete Wilson of California – divorced

   * George Will – divorced

   * Sen. Lauch Faircloth – divorced

   * Rush Limbaugh – Rush and his current wife Marta have six marriages and four divorces between them.

   * Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia – Barr has been married three times.  Barr had the audacity to author and push the “Defense of Marriage Act.”

     The current joke making the rounds on Capitol Hill is “Bob Barr, WHICH marriage are you defending?”

   * Sen. Alfonse D’Amato of New York – divorced

   * Sen. John Warner of Virginia – divorced (once married to Liz Taylor)

   * Gov. George Allen of Virginia – divorced

   * Henry Kissinger – divorced

   * Rep. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho – divorced

   * Sen. John McCain of Arizona – divorced

   * Rep. John Kasich of Ohio – divorced

   * Rep. Susan Molinari of New York (2000 Republican National Convention Keynote Speaker) – divorced

   

  1. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.



Unless your name is Rove, Bush, Cheney, Libby, etc.

  1. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.


Especially if you control the results.

  1. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.



Well, maybe for a tax write-off.

   

We are supposed to applaud philanthropy–the very word connotes altruism and “giving back”–but Walton and Wal-Mart giving serves as a reminder that philanthropy provides an alternative to taxation, a way for rich people and corporations to decide what to do with their extra money, as opposed to letting the rest of us decide through our elected governments. Since charitable donations are a tax write-off, as Krehely points out, “they are supposed to benefit the public good.” He thinks it is reasonable to ask whether a family’s–or a company’s–philanthropy serves the common good, or at least enough good “to make up for the public revenue that we’re losing.”

Funny he should mention taxes: Wal-Mart and the Waltons have, after all, been notably reluctant to pay them. Not only has the company lobbied for tax breaks in communities all over the nation, the Waltons–the family that former Wal-Mart board member Hillary Clinton has called “the best America has to offer”–have campaigned vigorously against the estate tax. They have donated money to its opponents, Republicans like John Thune of South Dakota and David Vitter of Louisiana, and enlisted one of Washington’s top lobbying firms, Patton Boggs–a leading anti-estate tax lobbyist–to represent their interests.

   

  1. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.



Oh, really?  Tell me more!

   Ari Fleischer:

   There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.

   

  1. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.



I’m Henry Paulson, and I hold this principle dearly!

Section 8. Review: Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

 

Breaking: New Mexico Legislature Abolishes State Killing

Long story short, the NM legislature has passed the bill abolishing capital punishment in New Mexico and has sent it on to the governor for signature.

This happened about 15 minutes ago.  Here’s a first link to prove it’s so.

Now you can open that bottle of champagne and offer a toast to New Mexico and to the abolitionists who worked so hard and well to bring about this wonderful victory.

Bravo!!

Stop ‘vilifying’ executives, JPMorgan’s crybaby CEO pleads

Up front disclaimer, I am suing WaMu and their successor, JPMorgan. You can read the saga here and here. While my battle with them doesn’t change the facts here, it does serve to explain my rage.

“When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in his speech. “I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country.”

Hey Jamie, hear that faint music in the background? It’s the worlds smallest violin. By the time this is over you will be lucky if an angry mob hasn’t come to get your greedy larcenous butt. Trust me Jamie, I want the last payment you get from US, the tax payers you swindled to be a life time vacation, all expenses paid in Sing Sing or Leavenworth. Follow me below the fold for the reality of of Mr. Dimond’s world whether he is willing to acknowledge it or not.

On Human Evolution

A Pre-emptive Invasion of Friday Philosphy

Emphasis on philosophy.

Some folks propose that humans, having mastered their physical environment, are done evolving. I would counter that the human hand has not yet developed the capability to replace both the remote control and mouse and the human ass has not yet evolve to its full Barca-lounger capability….but that would run counter to my point, so I wont.

My point is that the next frontier of human evolution is not physical but mental. An evolution of the brain, not the body. And that that mental evolution and the new perceptions it engenders will change Human Beings in ways we cannot possibly envision. Since our brains are not evolved enough yet to comprehend them, lol.

There are three recognizable current levels of the human brain. The reptilian, evolved for pure survival mechanisms. The animal which evolved to relate to others and allows socialization and ‘pack behavior,’ acting in a group to enhance survival. And the current pre-frontal cortex that is responsibe for advanced thought that has allowed what passes for ‘advanced’ thought like abstract thought, and scientific thought, that has allowed us to evolve to our current level.

I am too lazy right now to search for the science, but these three brains are ‘stacked on top’ of each other in evolutionary order.

What will the next ‘stack’ be? If there is one.

As it stands right now, to allow my inner misanthrope to come out and play, humans are too stupid to survive. We have yet to evolve past the overwhelming influence of the animal brain that compels us to compete with other packs and kill them. War.

We have yet to evolve a true capacity to have ‘long term’ abstract thought that would allow us to deal with things like Climate Crisis, an existential threat to our evolution as a species. We are stuck addressing only the short term crises in front of our faces, the immediate threats that challenge us. We have yet to make the leap to recognize that the Common Good insures the Individual Good and that cooperation as an entire species instead of in small groups is the next imperative survival strategy.

Punch line:

Well….at least Republicans haven’t.

 

Wild Wild Left Radio Week 10, Tonight, 6 Eastern

Our very special guest tonight will be our own Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) of Pen and Sword. We will be discussing the Banastans and the policies of Gates with him in our second half hour.

*Not only will we be discussing the Cramer fiasco, but we have, and continue to be on the cutting edge of investigating him.

*Next, we will discuss Societal Fallout. Is Violence in our populous becoming more widespread due to this economic collapse?

*Will it Militia-ize, and there be secession as Chuck Norris & Glenn Beck are touting?

*We will also discuss Herr Cheney authorizing Death Squads, from the JSOC.

********************************************************

Please call in with your questions or comments, any time during the broadcast:

The call in number is 646-929-1264

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“See” you on the Radio!

Book Recs? and an idea

I’m hatching an idea and want to toss it around here for feedback & input. I’m thinking of  DK folks who are either resistant or overwhelmed with discussions on the whole Truth:Torture  topic. My idea is, it would be a group effort, to do a new Weekly Series on the subject, with three or so items in each Issue: a Book Review, a Website Review; and , #3, is a Wild Card. #3 could be a music video, a cartoon, or lulz, or something.  

Maybe also include a Week In Review Update / Summary of News too.

Ya know… “Torture Lite”…

What do you think?

Our Dumb Media Part Deux

What dday says

I am a little late to this party, but Howard Fineman’s barbaric yawp on behalf of the political establishment is a truly amazing document. It should be put in a time capsule so that future generations can understand why American politics became so corroded in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. What Fineman appears to be saying is that the public, who elected Barack Obama with the belief that he would fulfill his agenda, supports him in that effort; but that the “establishment,” who is unelected and self-appointed, is very unhappy about all this agenda-fulfilling going on, and that might sink the President. He cites a bunch of data points that I think he picked off of random Twitter feeds from the Gang of 500 to prove his point, but then he admits that they are all contradictory:

What I think is interesting is that all the Beltway types who welcomed George Bush and his gang into the family when he was trading off his 48% mandate and passing humongous tax cuts early in his term have all these doubts and troubles with Barack Obama trying to make good on his campaign promises. But more than that is this mindset that the “establishment” chatterers are the real constituency in this country, and the people on the outside, the chattel, the hoi polloi, the dumb rubes in flyover country, they’re nobody off of which to base a winning electoral coalition. The Village still thinks that the role of the President is to please the Villagers, but public opinion isn’t bearing that out. Congress’ approval has jumped since they passed a stimulus package and health care for kids and equal pay for women. People trust government to fix the economy and not big business – part of the “establishment” in Fineman’s scenario.

Swimming with Sharks



Photobucket



All the money is gone. Well, there never was any money, but accounting entries which created money through the issuance of debt. Nonetheless and you can argue magicians’ tricks endlessly, but now not only is the rabbit gone but so is the magician’s top-hat.

Overnight, as though someone turned on a switch which turned off the air itself, trillions upon trillions of dollars of wealth disappeared. Overnight. Poof. Now you see it and now you don’t.

But, just as a magician’s tricks are illusions and not real so to is the disappearance, virtually overnight, of the world’s wealth. Because how can nothing disappear?

Friday Constitutional 19 – Amendments 21, 22 And 23

Happy Friday and welcome to the 19th installment of Friday Constitutional! As nearly everyone that is reading this knows by now, this is the Dog’s series looking at the Constitution of the United States. For those that missed any of the other installments or are coming in now, you can find all of the previous installments of this series at the following links (the Dog just realized that the links for this series are longer than some folk’s essays. What does that say about the Dog?):  

You have to see this.

Journalism

So we’re at the point that a comedian has to take a break from fart sounds and funny faces to dish out some journalism.  Because otherwise, there isn’t any?  Journalism, that is.

Jay Ackroyd 07:28

Cramerica

Michelle: “It Hurts!!”, “It Hurts!!”

I went over to ABC News to see if they had posted a video report that I caught last night, never got to that as this is what I found, and will be airing this morning on GMA.

Exclusive: ‘It Hurts,’ Says First Lady of Military Families on Food Stamps

First lady Michelle Obama wants military families to know they have a friend in the White House, she told “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview today at Fort Bragg, N.C. — her first network television interview since her husband took office.

“It hurts. It hurts,” the first lady said of hearing about military families on food stamps. “These are people who are willing to send their loved ones off to, perhaps, give their lives — the ultimate sacrifice. But yet, they’re living back at home on food stamps. It’s not right, and it’s not where we should be as a nation.”

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