Bush Wins Third Term - Keep the Change

This is not what the voters thought they were buying for their $1.

So far there has been no action on Don't Ask Don't Tell, no action on START, Guantanimo is still open, Americans overseas can be killed by our government on the president's say so without any legal findings or finding of a court (and not on any recognized battlefield). Medicare and Medicaid slowly bleed to death (where reimbursements) while robber barons and criminal financial schemers drain the public dry using the Fed and bailouts to throw the women and children out of the life rafts.

The Bush-Era Tax Cuts are now going to be extended by the administration, in exchange for a temporary extension of unemployment benefits. In exchange for a few crumbs, the multi-millionaires will be able to pull up to the banks in armored cars and stuff them with bags of money before driving-off laughing into the night.

Excuse me, but you can keep the `Change'; I'd like my dollar back.

Wikileaks Heroes Pfc. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange

Obviously the government was keeping things secret for far too long that did not need to be secret. If it's over 10 years old and it doesn't reveal details of military weapons/plans or the identity of a US agent it should not be secret. Period.

Is this a democracy or not? Does the public have a right to know what the hell it's government is up to or not? Can the public be trusted to govern or not? YE,S YES, YES.

There's no half way here. Pfc. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are heroes. Nothing less.

If the government doesn't want secrets released it shouldn't create them.

Agreeing with Ted Rall

Every so often I find myself agreeing with some what of Ted Rall has to say.

First and foremost, the economy. 60 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Republicans told exit pollsters that the lack of jobs was their number-one issue. Obama never proposed a jobs program. He gave trillions of taxdollars to thieving banksters who ought to have been arrested instead, then tried to pass off this outrageous giveaway as economic stimulus. To make things worse, he stuck with an impossibly absurd argument: more people would have lost their jobs without it.

Even if the phony stimulus stopped things from getting worse--and it didn't--people don't care. They want the 20 percent of Americans who already lost their jobs--their friends, spouses, children and parents--to find new ones. Obama never addressed that.

He didn't even try.

...

The takeaway is anger, not ideology. People are pissed. They hate the bailouts, but the bailouts aren't the main point. More than anything else, the American people are angry that their government doesn't even pretend to give a damn about them.

Some of my friends disagree with the view that giving banks money instead of arresting the criminals (both political and corporate) responsible for this mess was the right thing to do. I can't but disagree, paying of the mortgages of Americans, even speculators would have been far preferable to throwing people out of work and re-enriching the rich and irresponsible.

Me, I wanted people (1) - PUNISHED, and (2) - THE ECONOMY FIXED. Instead we got (1) - BAILOUT, and (2) SCREW THE PEOPLE.

No wonder people are pissed.

VOID

Persuading other unhappy voters to vote out incumbents on election day is the key to improved government. Do your part!

After all if they are all thrown out of office every time they have no reason not to do the right thing.

China and the Nobel Peace Prize - And a Great Day for the World

中国是居于领先地位的国家。但有一个障碍。

我支持中国的迅速崛起，但公民必须能够批评政府。中国需要它的持不同政见者。

中国有许多忠诚的公民。如果没有真正的问题存在，人们只是耸耸肩，并忽略抱怨。中国太大，太忙碌，听取不满的持不同政见者。这是你应该采取的态度。忽略他们是明智的课程。不认真对待他们。

这是正确对待批评。如果中国接受了诚实的批评和公开的公众辩论，政府将不再是一个西方的关注。中国必须强调民族团结，而且还诚实和开放性。然后，中国将成为世界的中心。

这将是世界上伟大的一天。


The original in English:


China is among the leading nations. But there is an barrier.

I support the rise of China, but citizens must be able to criticize the government. China needs it's dissidents.

China has many loyal citizens. If no real problem exists, people will just shrug and ignore complainers. China is too big and too busy to listen to disgruntled dissidents. This is the attitude China should take. Ignoring them is the wiser course. Do not treat them seriously.

This is the correct treatment for criticism. If China accepts the honest criticism and open public debate the government will no longer be a Western concern. China must stress National Unity, but also honesty and openness. Then one day China will be the center of the world.

And that would be a great day for the world.

An Honourable Middle East Peace Proposal

Currently the Old City "the real Jerusalem" has an Arab population of 32,635 and a Jewish population of 3,942.

I propose purchasing all land and buildings in the city, and making it an international historic site to be managed by UNESCO charged with preserving and protecting the site.

The site is a mere 0.35 square miles (244 acres). Even purchased at 10 million an acre it would cost less than $2.25 billion. The Palestinians and Israelis could each claim the Old City as their capital, but the actual government of their countries would have to be administered outside of the UNESCO site. The city surrounding the site would be divided between Israel and Palestine and renamed to something other than Jerusalem. I suggest East City and West City respectively, keeping proper nouns and their unfortunate connotations out of the argument completely.

Let it be an international site of worship and peace maintained in a respectful manner by historians archaeologists and researchers in cooperation with an small international guard presence.

Surely if God returns he would be pleased to see everyone cooperating.

In cooperation with the declaration of a Palestinian state, and with reparations and an apology in lieu of a right of return to Israel proper, this would resolve the most contentious issues allowing the Palestinians and Israelis to live in a just and fair peace together preserving the honour of both.

Both Parties are the Enemies of the People

The Republicans are self interested and the party leadership cynically advances business interests and the country club entitlement mentality cynically using social and religious issues to hold together shifting coalitions of the angry.

The Democrats are the party of socialistic reform, trying to wield the power of the state to remake America into an egalitarian society by promoting federal power. They don't appear to realize that power once aggregated is never relinquished and the power once given to a central authority is seldom given back. One day that power may be wielded against them, they will not like it much then....

Both parties chuckle while excluding or minimizing the effect of all 3rd party efforts or co-opting them (the tea-parties). This situation appears resistant to change. An angry impotent and ill-informed electorate throws the bums out at every election, switching like a schizophrenic from one bad strategy to another back and forth over and over.

Many people are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. There is no party for them, and both parties of looters are there to make sure it stays that way.

There does not appear to be an end in sight.

The Tea Party

The tea party is an angry populist movement. Give us a double dip recession and hyperinflation, and the collapse of the economy and there is a real revolution brewing. Revolutions can be peaceful, but this one won't be. These are Americans, and Americans are armed to the teeth. They have also been watching two wars overseas, and understand the limits of modern armed force. They view the government as the enemy and won't hesitate to take up arms against federal authority. They may not win, but the rebellion if crushed will change America forever, turning it into another European nanny state with cameras in every closet.

Heroes not Robots

Recently this piece of drivel was in the NY Times, written by Simon Ramo. Frankly I was incensed when I read it. The cowardice advocated in this piece amazes me that it was written by an American male. Since when was safety more important than heroics or glory? We can all lock ourselves in our houses, barricade the doors and hide measuring out our lives by the teaspoon, or we can go out and LIVE. Who would not want glory, if not for yourself, at least for others? Robots never inspired anybody to become a hero.

-G

Bob Herbert, Blaming the Victim

There was an interesting article by Bob Herbert in which he is fairly accurate in his portrayal of the Republicans. Unfortunately the nuts on the left are guilty of the same excesses which takes all the wind out of the sails of his argument.

While I agree with many of of these points, the Democrats are equally to blame for poisoning the atmosphere of political discourse. The consequence of this from both sides is the outrageous behaviour of some fringe tea party activists. What we have here is two viewpoints that are irreconcilable. Because neither side will give on any points, increases in temperature in the political discourse will result in the pot starting to boil. What we now have are a hard core remnant of Republicans facing a hard core remnant of Democrats, leavened by a handful of Democrats from swing states. Those will be swept from power in the next election replaced with a handful of Republicans from swing states. There is really no middle ground on issues like slavery, abortion or the right of women to vote. And now apparently nationalized healthcare. Americans are AFRAID.

The parties occupy the leftmost and rightmost fringes of the discourse. Everyone in the middle feels disenfranchised. The tea party people, libertarians an technocrats, even scientists are all being used as grist for the mill for one party to gain a temporary advantage of over the other party.

Disenfranchised people get angry. Angry people are easy to manipulate and angry people can become violent.

We need to re-evaluate who we are as a nation, and give those in the center a voice. Otherwise the republic will fail and our liberal democracy will be replaced with a bureaucratic dictatorship with trappings of democracy just like Rome.

Annie Get Your Gun

The House may try to pass the Senate health-care bill without voting on it.

OK, now that's called taxation without representation. I guess if they do that the republic is dead and it's time for a new revolution. Annie get your gun.

There are numerous articles on the internet about how the house may try to pass the Senate health-care bill without voting on it. Now clearly this is unconstitutional and illegal. I guess we'll need some flags and uniforms. I wonder how much bloodshed a new civil war would cause. Hopefully not more than the civil war as a percentage.

618,000 out of 31 million or so, roughly 10 times that today. So the question is:

Is socialized health care worth the lives of 6-10 million Americans (or more)? I would advise Nancy Peolsi to tread carefully. They're called tea parties for a reason.

Chill Out

Some more fun climate related entries:

http://physicsworld.com/blog/2010/02/physicists_are_modellers_too_b.html

http://physicsworld.com/blog/2010/02/would_researchers_entering_the.html

http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming

More Climate Change

The climate change scandal is not going away.
Peer review of climate change emails (Feb 1st 2010).
Chinese Data (Feb 1st 2010).

Mind Wipes

Apparently there is a new method to prevent people from remembering stressful events and having PTSD afterwards. I find this troubling coming as it does after doctors have found a way to remove painful memories. After all if the concentration camp guards can't remember shoving people into ovens, and shooting the children, how can we ethically punish them? What if we can't remember it even happening? Imagine this technology gradually perfected. The government could commit any horror and make the public forget. This is a slippery slope at the bottom of which is the annihilation of nothing less than the human soul. People need their pain, their fear, their guilt and trauma. Otherwise they aren't people any more.

Lost Premier

Apparently a TV show (LOST)is more important than good governance. Folks you can't make this stuff up. Where are all the adults?

Avatar - B

== SPOILER ALERT ==

10' tall blue smurfs and floating mountains. It was Pocahontas with aliens complete with singing. The corporate human enemy (thank God they weren't wearing US flags on their uniforms) are there to get a mineral they can't find elsewhere and the smurfs are sitting on top of it. I found the plot recycled, and not a single new idea in the whole film, with one dimensional enemies (Mr. Hard Case Soldier, and Mr. Evil Corporate Exploiter made an appearance). Unless you consider golfing into a coffee cup, and a brief I'm a veteran, you're a veteran of such and such back stories. That said the film was visually stunning, probably one of the top 5 films I've ever seen as far as visual spectacle was concerned. The visuals didn't REALLY get in the way of the story, but the floating mountains were a bit hard to take (given the mineral, I'll give that a physics pass, but barely).

If you are bothered by physics or time-lines, 2154 is probably too soon for spaceships with NAFAL to get anywhere except the closest star systems. Given the evident mass shipping of materials too and fro, even granting the base shown was built locally the actual level of technology in the film was disappointing low. We'll assume the corporate types had access to the military equipment of contemporary Nigeria say, but if the mineral is that important, why is there no government oversight?

The biggest problem with the movie is the anti-capitalist anti-corporate anti-technology pro-noble-savage view of the world. Savages are savage. The smurfs don't even use fire. Given the importance of the mineral, the next contact the aliens will have with earthlings is likely to be a few dozen high-yield Cobolt-60 dirty nukes launched from orbit to sterilize the planet, or at least a large swath of it. Hard for flying smurfs to deal with fallout and gamma rays. Of course killing the natives is supposed to "look bad", so perhaps there is oversight after all.

Realistic? Sort of given the content of the movie, and our past contacts with native peoples. Depressing view of mankind, technology and progress? Oh God, yes. That said, the built in neural interfaces for all the critters was cool. I don't plan on unplugging my refrigerator and air-conditioner any time soon, or going to live in the jungle in harmony with the animals. It was a cool view of an alien world, but it was also very preachy.

Festival of Hate

ABC reports that President Obama Names Transgender Appointee to Commerce Department. Now usually this sort of thing would cause me to just roll my eyes and mutter something about the democratic party being a freak show, but I was unprepared for the explosive vitriol heaped on this unknown and apparently hard working (if perhaps regrettably interesting) person. One person shared my view calling it a "festival of hate". It reminded me of the way Jews, Roma and Poles were treated by Nazis before WWII.

"...I can tell you that person who think that their thinking is the only way are doomed themselves to eternal damnation. God created all of us. Not one or the other is inferior...." (quoted in part from Dolores Jones).

My view:
Dolores Jones, as a Christian and a father I can only hope my fellow Americans are as tolerant and open minded as you are. If you believe in liberty you can see that people who embrace others however unusual they are, who are DOING NO HARM are on the right side of history. Angry prigs and psudo-christian-faschist-cum-flag-waving-partiot-wannabees obviously don't know what freedom is FOR, or WHY it's worth defending. What if it was your child? You'd disown them for your religion; you really think that's what a GOOD GOD - THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE wants? Idiots.