After contemplating the late evening diary from LIBERALINLIMBO, I asked myself a series of questions. (NOTE: The questions posted are questions that I posed to myself as I slipped into a complete state of slumber.  I would love to have comment related to the last question below.

Or, better yet, any question if one wishes to do so, but especially the last question.)

Question One:
What are obligations and responsibilities, as citizens, do we have to our government?

I do not believe that any of my studies of history yielded information that people in aggregate support any specific government, regardless of nation or society. I do not recall any time in US History that the political environment even allowed aggregate and cohesive support for government.

Question Two:
As the nation experiences increasing threats internally and externally, does the citizenry have any obligation to unyieldingly support the federal government?

While it appears that most democratic republics work best with political dichotomy, the current climate in the United States seems to verge on unhealthy divergence based predominately in pure politics. Of course, the divergence is influenced by social and economic issues as well. Problem is....the People are divided along the very same lines, thus feeding emergence and thriving of
non-productive paradigms.

Question Three:
Is there a point in our existence where government should expect the citizenry to give unyielding support?

The Obama Administration seriously underestimated the extent of counter measures that would be deployed by conservatives in the nation. The President himself appeared to naively believe that some Republicans in Congress would support some of his initiatives. After losing a few battles (GITMO) and barely winning another (Health Care Reform), I now receive innumerable email from the DCCC, the DNC, and the White House. The President and his team tried to work with the RIGHT but feel victim to a significant strategic blunder; CHANGE has suffered. Thank goodness the administration is 'overall' winning the big battles, and I remain resolute in my support (on most issues).

Question Four:

Do, I as a citizen and supporter of the administration, have any obligation to ask "What can I do for my government?

Last series of questions as I fell off to sleep:

Does the current state of discord work to make government better?  If taken 'outside of the box', does the current state of discord actually support JFK's historical exhortation?  Does the complete lack of support from the RIGHT, and the festering malcontent from the tea party, actually work to keep a progressive (well almost) administration on its toes?

THE QUESTION:
What can you, or we, do for our country?

I may be preaching to the quire, yet I'm sick of hearing so many people, even those who can truly say they are running this country, doubting evolution as if it's completely baseless in the concerns of evidence and backing from the scientific community. It wouldn't bother me so much if it were just some pundit who thinks pissing off people who disagree with her is a virtue (I'm looking at you Anne Coulter), but even persons who are in good part running this country. So, here is my attempt to prove that evolution does show the origin of species in a way that is logical, and furthermore can be tested and observed directly and indirectly.
What people often fail to understand is that it's purpose is not explaining life's origin, it's explaining how life has developed to it's current state. An easy way to put is that there is a reason Darwin named his book "on the origin of species", and not "on the origin of life". The best way to prove it is to look at things such as genes, and how they change and adapt, which is most handily observed in simpler creatures with simpler gene structure. For example, take bacteria. We develop vaccines, immunity is spread naturally due to susceptible persons dying of it, and so on. Yet we see that these micro organisms change and adapt. Many are killed off by the vaccine, yet those immune to it are left to reproduce. And it is from this gene stock that the population is then based upon, and the descendants, or at least most of them, now have this gene making them immune to said vaccine. And these descendants are now the entire population. So, you have an entire population undergoing a change, making it slightly different from the original creature: micro evolution. And in populations of relatively simple forms of life, such as bacterium, this process can happen quite quickly. After all, this is essentially the reason new vaccines have to be developed for the same virus as much as every year.
Granted this is in simple creatures though, so let me point to a higher order of life which is more complex. Namely insects, and more specifically, the boll weevil. To anyone living in more rural areas, you're probably familiar with this as being the bane of any farmer, being that it is a common pest that is difficult to control, and can decimate crops. Well, several years ago, 2005 I think, a new pesticide was developed to get rid of them from farmers fields. at first it was very effective, killing off nearly the entire population, and often even eradicating it in certain fields. However today, the pesticide is ineffective against the boll weevil. Once again, only those that were immune to the pesticide were left to reproduce, and that they did. Those insects with the immunity to the pesticide formed the basis of the population, making virtually the entire population immune. Micro evolution strikes again.
Before I go on, note that in other examples the process is much slower, because the predator or whatever it may be causing the change in the species in question is evolving along side it. For example, the boll weevil's natural predator is the cockroach, and the cockroaches change along with their prey species.
Now, both of my examples prior to this have been of micro evolution. Allow me to provide one of macro evolution. As in an entirely new animal evolving from the original animal(s): In 1493, the Spanish conquistadors were the first Europeans to set foot on what is now the mainland of the Americas, specifically landing on what is now Mexico. With them, they brought horses, no species of which was indigenous to the Americas. Over the course of their explorations, some of their horses got loose, were released, etc. and eventually spread across Northern Mexico, and into the Great Plains of what is now the United States. In the Great Plains, one can still find an animal that is considered a symbol of the American West, the Wild Mustang. Yet the Mustang was not known to Europe, and as I pointed out, horses were not known to the American continents prior to European arrival. Macro evolution.

This is too funny, and makes me think folks are finally starting to wake up to the fact that they have been lied to for 30 years by the conservative media.

Fox host Van Susteren asks blog readers to gauge her intelligence

For journalists, hate mail comes with the territory. And it can come at any moment, with critics instantly shooting off emails when someone ticks them off on a blog or on the air.  

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren has surely received audience complaints before - but a recent email exchange irked her enough to take issue with it on her own blog. And in a move that Fox executives probably would have tried to discourage had they been consulted, Van Susteren also urged her blog readers to weigh in on the central point raised by her correspondent: that she is, well, rather dimly lit.

It all started when Brian of Tahlequah, Okla., told Van Susteren she had a "mind like a seive" (yes, it should be "sieve"). Brian didn't stop there: He also wanted the host to know that her "brain is empty."

"Matter of fact, it is so empty, if you put a pea in your skull it would rattle around like a BB in a boxcar," he wrote.

In her blog post, Van Susteren responded with a few questions - and several question marks. "Why does Brian watch if he thinks I am so stupid?" she wrote. "How stupid is that????"

Perhaps expecting fans to rally around her, Van Susteren polled the audience as to who's dumber: Van Susteren or the guy watching a show he doesn't like. As of this writing, after more than 12,000 votes, the results aren't in the host's favor: 67 percent of respondents say Van Susteren is dumber.

Still, she can probably take comfort in the performance that a Fox colleague, Clayton Morris, turned in on Friday's "Fox and Friends" broadcast. Reading an unrevised cue card in faithful Ron Burgundy style, Morris twice referred to himself as co-host Steve Doocy, at the beginning and end of a segment he was announcing. Perhaps the next poll on Van Susteren's blog will invite readers to pit Morris' intellectual heft against her own.

- Michael Calderone is the media writer for Yahoo! News.

Here are the results so far:

Who is dumber?
Greta? 72% (12,389 votes)
Brian for spending his time watching someone he thinks is dumb 28% (4,919 votes)
Total Votes: 17,308

http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews...

Warning: this diary contains language some readers may find offensive. It's the rage talking. Sorry.

At the blog Be John Galt (no, thanks), Ayn Rand disciple bc3b claims that BP had been contemplating the top kill maneuver as early as May 9, but didn't attempt it until now because President Obama was playing golf.  No, I am not making this up.  (bc3b also confuses the top kill maneuver with the junk shot manuever, but that's another matter.  Here's some help for you, bc3b, if you're interested.)

Andrew Corsello does a fine job of stating what I think about Ayn Rand.  My negative feelings about her have been more intense lately, since we can blame what Corsello calls Ayn Rand Assholes, or ARA's, for the last few years of economic trauma:

Thanks to them, the Rand Experience is no longer limited to those who have read the books. It's metastasized. You, me, all of us, we're living it. Because it's the ARA Army of antigovernment-antiregulation puritans who have spent the past three decades gleefully pulling the cooling rods out of the American economy. For a while, it got very big and very hot. Then it popped. And now the rest of us have to spend the next decade scaling the slippery slopes of the huge suppurative crater that was left behind.  

Anyway, some pack of adolescent Rand disciples is trying to find a way to criticize Obama for the screw-ups of BP, and this is the shit they come up with.  Hey, bc3b, why don't you take the advice of your hero and check your premises?

Given the intimate relationship between the previous administration and oil companies, perhaps bc3b might be forgiven for thinking that Obama is an oil company executive.  But he's not, so you can't have that particular premise, bc3b.

Ayn Rand called her "philosophy" objectivism.  Academic philosophers have virtually no respect for Rand or objectivism.  Now, I'm wondering why bc3b, who I assume is an objectivist, would blame Obama, a public official, for the oil spill in the Gulf, when objectivists believe that government regulation of the private sector is wrong.  To assume that Obama is responsible for this mess is to believe that government ought to regulate and control business.  I have no problem with that premise, but you can't have that one, bc3b, because you are a stinking objectivist.

So why would bc3b and Republicans in general want to hold Obama responsible for BP's mess?  Because they all believe that the private sector can do no wrong, and that government is responsible for everything that ails us.  Remember the health care reform debate?  Republicans like Rep. Mike Pence warned against a "government takeover" of health care:

Folks know a government-run option would result in tens of millions losing insurance they have with their employer now and millions of Americans losing their jobs, and the idea now that piling on top of all that big government takeover of health care are going to be tax increases on businesses and employees is just astonishing. . . . Republicans are coming together around conservative values. We need the American people to ride to the rescue. We can stop this government takeover of health care, and we request demand this Congress take action that will get this economy moving again.

Months later, Pence is changing his tune. "The American people deserve to know why the administration was slow to respond, why necessary equipment was not immediately on hand in the area and why the president did not fully deploy Cabinet-level federal officials" to the Gulf Coast until April 30, Pence recently said.

Pence wants government out of the health care business, but he wants government all over the oil business.  Why?  Republicans can be counted on to defend the interests of big business every time, and the little guy can go fuck off and die (literally).  So Pence and the rest of the Republicans did everything they could to kill health care reform, since they saw it as antithetical to the interests of the health care corporations and their profits.  Now they're defending BP by trying to blame their royal screw-up on President Obama, since bad PR for BP is antithetical to the interests of oil companies and their profits.

And let there be no doubt: this catastrophe in the Gulf is BP's fault.  According to the Associated Press, "Dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster."  And that's not Obama's fault.

In addition, President Obama's response to this catastrophe cannot be compared to President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, no matter what Republicans looking for a political advantage say.  According to the Associated Press,

The Gulf region, ravaged five years earlier by Hurricane Katrina, was on the verge of a second ecological disaster. Would there be a repeat of the bureaucratic bungling that marked President George W. Bush's response to the hurricane?

While the Obama administration has faced second-guessing about the speed and effectiveness of some of its actions, a narrative pieced together by The Associated Press, based on documents, interviews and public statements, shows little resemblance to Katrina in either the characterization of the threat or the federal government's response.

Lemme guess, Republican, the reporting of the Associated Press suffers from liberal bias, right?

And if you stop and think about it, the differences between Katrina and BP are stark.  Government is responsible for responding to natural disasters like Katrina, and government was responsible for the construction and maintenance of the levees protecting New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain.  BP is responsible for the man-made disaster in the Gulf that BP itself caused, and BP is also responsible for cleaning up its own mess.

Some Republicans and adolescent objectivist bloggers might want to blame the catastrophe on lax government regulation.  Consider the following lead paragraphs of an Associated Press story:

At a 2005 workshop, a senior official in the U.S. government's Minerals Management Service raised concerns about ultra-deepwater drilling and included the bullet point, "Few or no regulations or standards." Within two years, Jim Grant left his post as chief of staff of the government's Gulf of Mexico region to take a job with BP PLC - one of the companies his former agency regulated in its oversight of offshore drilling.

Grant's change is one example of the revolving door between the Interior Department's MMS and the oil industry, which increasingly has the attention of Congress, the Obama administration and watchdog groups after the disastrous BP oil spill at an ultra-deepwater rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Just this week, a government report said drilling regulators have been so close to the industry they've been accepting gifts from oil and gas companies and even negotiating to go work for them.

For someone like me, this is disturbing.  But haven't Republicans and ARA's wanted to deregulate the private sector and get government off the backs of corporations so that they could make more money?  Sorry, assholes: you can't on the one hand insist on deregulation, and then fault Obama for regulatory failure.

Republicans like former FEMA "director" Michael Brown have even gone so far as to claim that the spill was a conspiracy on the part of Obama to provide an excuse to reestablish the ban on offshore oil drilling.  Sorry, Brownie, but that just reeks of desperation and stupidity.

So, what have we learned?

John Galt can go fuck himself.  

( - promoted by leftake)

Well, since no one really seems to know how to fix the horror that is BP's gift to the planet, maybe we should brainstorm ways to fix the problem. All of the big brains are on it, but all of the big brains let this happen...so maybe something we say can trigger a good idea. Out of the mouths of babes and all.

My first idea was to move some empty oil tankers to the giant ocean plumes they're finding under water, and pump that poisonous water into the tankers until they're full. Then the tankers can go to a retro-fitted desalinization plant or something to dump the water and have it cleaned and replace it back into the ocean. Before the plumes reach either shore or sensitive environment. Like you suck grease out of soup with a turkey baster.

BP is using their oil tankers and don't have any for the job? TOUGH. They spilled it, they need to use all their resources to clean it up.

Or we can just have Rand Paul suck it all up. He seems to be able to swallow anything.

Ideas, clever people?

Most individuals think of libertarianism as a right-wing movement. Libertarians are believed to be pro-capitalist and pro-individualist, implicitly rejecting government intervention in the lives of the citizenry, the most favorite targets being the income tax system and the welfare state. Indeed, the most vocal libertarians in the modern political sphere do come from the American Right, such as Ron Paul, William F. Buckley, and, to a lesser extent, Ayn Rand (Although Objectivism does have the smattering of a libertarian ideology, Ms. Rand rejected any such comparison). As such, those on the American Left are viewed as outsiders, and those of those who do wear the title of libertarian proudly are met with raised eyebrows. The true history of libertarianism is much different. Libertarianism is not a right-wing ideology hijacked by the Left; it is a left-wing ideology hijacked by the Right. For much of its history, the Left maintained near-exclusive rights to libertarianism. The first use of the term "libertarian" in a political sense came in 1857, in a letter written by Joseph Déjacque, a French anarchist-communist. It was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that libertarianism was infused with economic liberalism, thereby giving birth to modern right-libertarianism. In the modern United States, no one better represents to perversion of true libertarianism better than Rand Paul, the current Republican candidate for Senator of the state of Kentucky.

On its face, Rand Paul's philosophy appears to be the pure essence of libertarianism, much like his father's. Rand Paul opposes the PATRIOT Act, the Wall Street bailouts, the Department of Education, the war in Iraq, and the income tax. He does not do as far as his father Ron Paul is suggesting that the Federal Reserve ought to be abolished, or that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations, so in that sense he is more of a moderate than the elder Paul. Like most who call themselves libertarians, Rand Paul is a strong supporter of individual liberty and says that the government should not be "intruding into the personal lives of its citizens," according to his campaign website. Unfortunately, most of Rand Paul's philosophy undermines this position, and highlights a general problem with right-libertarians - namely, by attempting to meld together libertarianism with political and social conservatism, right-libertarians severely undermine themselves. Rand Paul has criticized the Fair Housing Act, saying in May 2002 that, "a free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin." Speaking about the Americans with Disabilities Act, he said that it too constituted an overreach of federal authority: "I think a lot of things could be handled locally. For example, I think that we should try to do everything we can to allow for people with disabilities and handicaps. You know, we do it in our office with wheelchair ramps and things like that. I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who's handicapped, it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100,000 elevator. And I think when you get to the solutions like that, the more local the better, and the more common sense the decisions are, rather than having a federal government make those decisions." But perhaps the two most flagrant violations of his so-called libertarian principles involve gay marriage and abortion. Rand Paul has come out against the right of gays and lesbians to marry, and on abortion he is downright authoritarian; he wants to restrict federal money from groups like Planned Parenthood, who "perform or advocate abortions," and he supports "legislation restricting federal courts from hearing cases like Roe v. Wade" as well as a constitutional amendment banning abortion altogether.

Rand Paul is not a libertarian - he supports small government and individual liberty on issues consistent with his political ideology, and he supports big government intrusion into the personal lives of its citizens when it advances the conservative moral crusade. Rand Paul clearly has a distorted notion of liberty, or he would not oppose the ADA or the Civil Rights Act. As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously put it, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." Individuals should certainly be allowed a great deal of freedom to decide how they wish to act, but they may not assert such freedom if it harms another man. If pure freedom is the highest form of liberty, then any interaction between two or more individuals will undoubtedly result in the violation of someone's freedom to do something. The question, then, is whose violation constitutes a lesser violation. Imagine two societies, 1 and 2, both of which are inhabited by two individuals, A and B and X and Y, respectively. In Society 1, A wishes to kill B, but Society 1 has a law prohibiting murder. This law, then, restricts A's freedom, namely the freedom to kill whomever he pleases. In Society 2, X wishes to kill Y, but unlike Society 1, no anti-murder law exists. X, realizing that his freedom to murder is not restricted in any manner, kills Y. By doing so, X has just violated the totality of Y's liberties; now that Y is dead, her ability to act at all is taken away. A prohibition on murder clearly violates someone's freedom to do something, if pure freedom is indeed the highest form of liberty. So should we outlaw murder or not? Yes, because the loss of Y's life by X is clearly a greater violation than the violation of A's right to murder B. A greater violation of liberty takes place in Society 2 than in Society 1. The same applies to the Civil Rights Act. Under a pure freedom standard, a white business owner has a right to be racist and prevent blacks from shopping in his store, and a black man has a right to shop where he pleases. Title II, the portion of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits private businesses from discriminating, violates the business owner's right to be racist, but that is clearly a lesser violation than the one that would occur if the black man were barred from shopping at that particular store. Individual liberty does not entail that a man has a right to violate the liberty of another man, but Rand Paul's political positions suggest otherwise.

As for his stance on gay marriage and abortion, they are fully inconsistent with libertarian values. A man who purports to be against government intervention into people's lives fully supports the government castrating a woman's right to control her own body and the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. To be fair, this is not a problem exclusive to Rand Paul, but indeed to many right-libertarians. Many right-libertarians have tried to have their cake and eat it too, espousing individual liberty while simultaneously catering to the prevailing moral standards. Today's morality, which is primarily religious in nature, is unfit for a libertarian society. Religious ethics is based on the idea that individuals, to be moral, must adhere to supposed edicts of a divine being, that his sense of rightness and wrongness derives from ancient taboos and superstitions. Most of religious ethics is unacceptable to the cause of maximizing human liberty, and should be discarded in favor of a rational morality. Many right-libertarians, either due to their prior convictions or for the sake of political expediency, choose not to do this, and come to support blatantly contradictory and hypocritical positions, as Rand Paul does.

Some will counter that this too is the case with left-libertarianism, that socialism and a strong welfare state are incompatible with an expansive view of individual freedom. I disagree. Liberty is meaningless unless we have a robust welfare state that provides the citizenry with a basic standard of living, which would include health care, education, housing, and perhaps some form of a guaranteed minimum income. The reason is obvious; if a significant portion of our population is born into poverty, and thus is prevented from receiving a good education, or lives sickly because they do not have access to health care, what is liberty to them? Nothing but an empty concept far divorced from reality. Right-libertarians wrongly assume that the doors to social mobility are wide open, and that anyone, with the right vigor and determination, can succeed. The poor, then, are often maligned as "welfare queens" who are either too lazy or too stupid to work, or both. They ignore the crushing burden of poverty, and its ability to spread from one generation to another, like a mutated gene. A laissez-faire capitalist system is very good at solidifying class systems into caste systems. For one, management has total control over the means of productions with labor having very little input, so the management can make production decisions that they know will benefit themselves and their businesses, even at the expense of their workers. In a laissez-faire system, economic and personal success derives itself entirely from the amount of money one possesses, so the wealthy can generate more wealth and open more doors of opportunity for themselves, while the poor remain helpless. Socialism and the welfare state are arguably much more libertarian than most of what is proposed by the flag bearers of modern day libertarianism, like Rand Paul. Far from maximizing individual liberty, their policies would do much to further autocracy and restrict the rights of the people, and thus do dishonor to the hallowed traditions of libertarian philosophy.

In case you don't know him already, A.C. Grayling is a British humanist and philosopher whose name is not well known within the atheist community. He had a brilliant article on The Independent about the Pope and Goldman Sachs. Here it is in full.

Why is it that large, rich, influential organisations and those who run them get away with big crimes and misdemeanours, when ordinary folk are punished for their miniature versions of them? It's an old story, of course, but no more pleasant or right for being so.

Compare the circumstances of two men whose occupations and avocations have brought them to pubic notice recently. One is Harry Taylor, an unemployed 59-year-old, who was found guilty last week in a Liverpool court of putting "offensive religious images" in the prayer room of the city's John Lennon airport (which he did on the grounds that having such a room in an airport named after John Lennon would, he said, have offended John Lennon). The jury of 10 women and two men had all sworn to consider his case fairly - on the Bible.

Mr Taylor received a five-year Asbo forbidding him from carrying religiously offensive images in public, and sentencing him to six months' imprisonment suspended for two years, but with 100 hours of unpaid work and £250 costs to make him feel the sting of the judge's disapproval.

The other man is Joseph Ratzinger, otherwise Pope Benedict XVI, right, current head of the Roman Catholic church. To appreciate the contrast between the Pope and Mr Taylor, we need to remind ourselves of the following simple facts. Child sex abuse is a serious crime. Concealing crimes is a serious crime. Systematic, decades-long deliberate concealment of many thousands of crimes in many countries is a very large-scale criminal conspiracy. It is a matter of public record that the Catholic church is guilty of just such a conspiracy. The Pope, as head of the church, is accountable for the its actions. It is also on public record that he personally protected abusers and covered up cases of child abuse before becoming Pope.

Is the Pope in any danger of receiving 100 hours of community service for hiding hundreds of paedophiles from the law all round the world? Is he likely to get an Asbo? Or has he been invited to the United Kingdom as an official visitor who will meet the Queen and be feted and courted, secure in the knowledge that efforts to arrest him and put him on trial for heading a huge criminal conspiracy will fail?

It is not only the Vatican that enjoys the immunity, the get-out-jail-free card, so willingly conferred by far too many people and their governments on anyone or anything big, rich and influential. The same curious and unquestioning deference is accorded to institutions like (to take a relevant current example) Goldman Sachs. This enormous bank has more in common with the Vatican than the fact that both "do God's work", as the Goldman Sachs chairman, Lloyd Blankfein, claimed on his organisation's behalf. (By "God's work", he meant creating wealth and jobs. The irony is that for everyone other than itself, Goldman Sachs has lately done the very opposite.) It shares with the Vatican the same immunity, the ability to do massive harm and yet, Teflon-like, get away without a scratch.

For only consider: for years, it seems, Goldman Sachs had knowingly and deliberately packaged and sold bad debt, and then bet against that bad debt, thus winning twice at others' expense. Goldman maintains that its clients knew what the score was. To the untutored eye, this looks straightforwardly like the crime of fraud, but hey, who are we non-bankers to judge? What we know is that as tens of thousands of people lost their jobs and homes in 2009 because of the dodgy things that banks such as Goldman Sachs were doing, Goldman Sachs was making a profit of $13bn (yes, billion).

Is Lloyd Blankfein, as head of the bank in question, in danger of an Asbo preventing him from going anywhere near an investor? Is he likely to get 100 hours of community service for earning tens of millions of dollars in recent years as he and his bank helped drive the world economy towards meltdown by their unscrupulous tricks, thus seriously harming millions of people?

Well, Mr Blankfein and others in his company's management testified before a Senate committee last week. Even as they were being told by one senator that Las Vegas was offended by comparisons with Wall Street - because Vegas casinos are honest enough to acknowledge that the odds are on their side - the share price of Goldman Sachs rose. Why? Because everyone knows that Mr Blankfein and his cronies and their bank are safe as houses and will come to no harm. (By the way, the senator in question, John Ensign, is himself under investigation for sexual inappropriateness with a member of his staff. In America, "ethics" is about money and "morals" is about sex.)

Two images spring to mind regarding the Pope of Banking and the CEO of the Vatican, each heading organisations publicly acknowledged to have done immense harm and yet neither is in any danger of having to pay for it, not even with the punishment that Harry Taylor must undergo. One is the image of such men as Erich Honecker and Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, suddenly exposed by the collapse of the gigantic cardboard myth behind which they hid. The other is the image of the Wizard of Oz at his levers, caught as the curtain hiding him is whisked aside, revealing a puny fellow in his underpants.

If we did not buy the big cardboard myths that protect the papacy and the bankers, we would apply to these men exactly the same standards as we would if, say, our government's inspectors of schools were shielding sexually abusive teachers, or if the finance department of our local authority were betting other people's money for its own gain. This is precisely what the Vatican and Goldman Sachs have done: but they are not being held accountable because of the cardboard myths that they, in their turn, hide behind.

In a world that was the right way up, what Harry Taylor did might be regarded as bad manners or lack of taste, but not a crime. Giving offence in respect of what someone chooses to believe or do should never be a crime; matters are otherwise with gender, sexuality, age or disability, because these are not matters of choice. In the Taylor case, the real offence is the crime committed against free speech. But it is even more offensive that Harry Taylor can be subjected to a criminal prosecution and the Pope and Lloyd Blankfein not. Tearing down the cardboard myths that protect them would be the first step to putting this right.

In the little time that I have spent researching and participating in the debate over atheism versus theism, I have come to be well acquainted with the arguments for the existence of God. One would think that there exist a treasure trove of arguments, and that they vary from person to person such that it is difficult to catalog them all. In reality, one intriguing point of fact that one learns from studying the atheism/theism debate is that there aren't a lot of arguments. Barring different interpretations, the list of arguments is actually quite manageable. Here, I will present the four most common arguments for the existence of God, and then present my arguments against those arguments. What I hope to demonstrate is that the arguments for the existence of God are all incomplete and insufficient, and even in combination are not enough to satisfy the theistic burden of proof.

The Cosmological Argument: Since every "thing" that exists must have a cause that brought it into existence, the existence of the universe can only be attributed to a prime mover, and that prime mover is God.

The cosmological argument is the most commonly employed argument for the existence of God. Theists argue that since the universe had a finite beginning, it had to undergo a change from a state of nonexistence to a state of existence. To do that requires that some omnipotent entity initiate the creation. Every painting has a painter, every book an author, and so on; it only makes sense that Nature has a creator also. Of all the arguments for the existence of God, I find this one to be the most convincing and hardest to argue against. When analogies of painters and authors are used, it really doesn't sound too farfetched to think that a divine construction worker exists somewhere beyond the borders of the universe. At first glance, the cosmological argument seems to be a perfect justification for the existence of God. But this is only on the surface. A little investigation will uncover that, as a proof for the existence of God, the cosmological argument is woefully insufficient, and may actually cause more problems than it solves.

For one, theists are still left with a tremendous burden of proof, even if the cosmological argument holds. Voltaire noted that, even if we grant the veracity of the cosmological argument, all it tells us is that God is omnipotent, or all-powerful. It does not tell us that God is omniscience, omnibenevolent, or omnipresent, or that there is just one God, or even that He has existed forever, all attributes that theists readily assign to Him. And it certainly goes nowhere in proving that any of our holy books are true. If theists base the existence of God on the cosmological argument, then all of the other properties of God would have to be independently verified by other arguments. Indeed, the cosmological argument would seem to suggest that God Himself must have a "first cause", a being that brought Him into existence. Theists credit God with creating the universe because they argue that the universe is so complex that it could not have materialized spontaneously on its own. If God is the creator of the universe, then He must be as or more complex than the universe itself. The cosmological argument, then, requires us to posit the existence of a god for God, and then a god for that god, and so on, creating an infinite regression of gods creating other gods. Theists will no doubt immediately object to this extrapolation of the cosmological argument by saying that God is fundamentally different from the universe, and so it is possible for Him to have existed forever, without a first cause. But why are we so eager to ascribe such properties to God and not the universe? There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with saying that the universe itself has properties such that it can create itself out of nothing, at least for the time being. It makes more sense to ascribe such properties to the universe than to God, because, unlike God, we know the universe exists. It is foolish to ascribe properties like eternal existence to God when we cannot even verify that He exists in the first place. To my knowledge, theists have not adequately stated why God is allowed to have properties that allow Him to bypass the cosmological argument, and why we cannot assign the same properties to the universe.

The Teleological Argument: The order visible in the universe could not be the product of random or accidental processes, so order must be the product of a creator, and that creator is God.

In many respects, the cosmological and teleological arguments are deeply intertwined, and are often made in the same breath. Therefore, many of the arguments against the cosmological argument - such as the infinite regression and the divine property problems - can be applied to it. But I do not wish to rehash those arguments. I wish instead to deal with the feature unique to the teleological argument. The teleological argument introduces the concept that the universe is orderly. Indeed, to us it appears so. Everything in the universe obeys strict physical laws: Kepler's laws of planetary motion, inertia, gravity, conservation of mass, etc. Additionally, the universe is filled with physical constants - light, for instance, travels at a constant speed of 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. These constants also appear to be very finely tuned. The strong nuclear force, the force responsible for holding the protons and neutrons together in an atom, is valued at 0.007, and this value seems to be just right for chemistry as we know it to take place. If the strong nuclear force is less than 0.007, the universe would contain nothing but hydrogen, whereas if it is greater than 0.007, all of the hydrogen would have fused together to make heavier elements. If the value of the strong nuclear force were anything other than 0.007, the universe would be a very different place, and we would not exist. Surely such fine-tuning must be the work of God, right?

No. The problem with the teleological argument is that it is a tautology. By saying that the universe is orderly, we must necessarily be comparing the properties inherent within the universe to something, in the same way that when we say that a building is tall, we are comparing it to other buildings of lesser height. So to what are we comparing the universe when we say that it is orderly? Nothing, it would seem. There is nothing to which we can the compare and deduce that it is orderly. All that the advancers of the teleological argument have done is conjured a list of physical laws and constants and declared that to be the standard of order. But it isn't. In saying that the value of the strong nuclear force is 0.007, all we've done is described the universe as it is - we have said nothing about how it ought to be, and, in my view, no such ought statement can be made. The universe, by definition, must be orderly, because it is the ultimate standard of reality. To see this, imagine that the universe came into existence with a different strong nuclear force, for instance. In universe A, the one in which we currently reside, the strong nuclear force is 0.007, whereas in our counterfactual universe B, it is 0.006. If we found ourselves in universe B rather than universe A, could we really say that it is more orderly? Of course not. Yes, the entire universe would consist only of hydrogen and life would not exist, but that, in itself, would not make the universe disorderly. The universe would be acting in perfect accordance with the physical laws, as any universe does. Just because the laws and constants are such that life has managed to evolve on this planet is not prima facie evidence for the existence of an orderly universe, or for a divine order-giver, for that matter.

In short, there is no meaningful question about order on the scale of the universe. The universe is the way it is because it is the universe. There exists no objective standard of order to which we can compare your own universe - at least, no standard exists such that humans can deduce it. To do that requires another universe, but under that scenario, we would not longer reside in the universe. Like the Milky Way, we would become one "universe" among many, and so the only judgment we could make, if any judgments could be possible, is how our "universe" compares to the others.

The Ontological Argument: God, being that than which no greater thing can be conceived, must exist, because if He did not, then it would be possible to conceive of an existent God, which would be greater than that which no greater can be conceived, which is absurd.

In the pantheon of arguments for the existence of God, the award for "Most bizarre" undoubtedly goes to the ontological argument. The ontological argument states that God must exist because perfection is part of the concept of God - he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc - and perfection entails existence, and as such the concept of God entails God's existence. As should be quite clear, the ontological argument attempts to prove God's existence purely through reason and logic alone, making it much different and much stranger than the cosmological and teleological arguments, which make claims about the nature of the universe to prove the existence of God.

Fortunately for us, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant published Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, and in it he thoroughly dismantled the ontological argument, and it has yet to recover from his stinging rebuke. Much like the argument itself, Kant's objection is thoroughly philosophical, but comprehendible. Kant's reason for rejecting the ontological argument is that it presumes that existence is better than nonexistence. Kant argued that existence is not a predicate - in other words, existence is not a property that an object has. If it were the case that existence were a property, then those who say God exists would be saying, in effect, that there is a God and He exists, while those who say God does not exist would be saying, in effect, that there is a God and He does not exist. In this case, then, the atheist would be contradicting herself by saying that God does and doesn't exist, while the theist would be making a tautology because, by saying that there is a God, she is simply repeating herself by saying He exists.

So what is existence then? According to Kant, to say that an object exists is to say something about the world - namely, that the concept of the object is embodied in the world. For instance, when we say that dragonflies exist and fairies don't, we are not adding anything to the concepts of a dragonfly or a fairy - we are not assigning any properties of existence or nonexistence - but rather we are saying that the world is such that the concept of a dragonfly is exemplified in it and the concept of a fairy is not. Suppose that we had a perfect description of a dragonfly: it has two sets of wings, it is one inch long, it has six legs, etc. If, after listing all the physical traits of a dragonfly, I then said that it exists, I have added nothing to the concept of a dragonfly. I have only added to the description of the world, not of the dragonfly itself. In Kant's view, there is no conceptual distinction between a dragonfly and a really existing dragonfly.

Therefore, an existent God is no better than a nonexistent God. An existent God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc., while a nonexistent God is also omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. They are, according to Kant, exactly the same.

The Morality Argument: Without God, there is no such thing as morality - there would be no objective moral facts, and every action would be morally permissible.

The religious quite often assert that moral codes are unique among all other kinds of human knowledge in that they cannot be derived from facts about the world. David Hume famously declared that you cannot derive an ought from an is - that is, descriptions of the world as it is cannot tell you how it ought to be. The fact that we have a sense of moral rightness or wrongness, then, strongly suggests that an object standard of morality exists, and that it comes from somewhere. If it does not come from facts about the world, as Hume's ought/is problem suggests, then it must come from a supernatural force, something outside of this world. God, then, is the likeliest candidate for our source of morality. As Fyodor Dostoevsky put it in The Brothers Karamazov, "If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral; everything would be lawful, even cannibalism."

It is quite ironic that David Hume's is/ought problem has become so popular among defenders of religion, considering that Hume first presented this argument in his  A Treatise of Human Nature to refute those who wanted to deduce morality from the existence of God. Needles to say, Hume would be quite disappointed with whom has embraced his line of thought. Generally, I am quite the fan of David Hume, but I think he got it wrong on this one. When it comes to morality, it is very much possible to use facts about the world to determine how we ought to behave towards one another. Ethics, at its core, is driven by a concern over the welfare of sentient beings. Consider the large numbers of people who are moved to vegetarianism out of contempt for the slaughtering of farm animals. Notice that vegetarians feel these emotions for animals and not plants. Vegetarians are concerned about how we treat pigs, but they could care less about whether celery is handled roughly. Why is that? Presumably, it is because vegetarians believe that a pig has experiences of pleasure and pain more intense than celery. Whenever we are trying to deduce whether some action X is morally right, we are on multiple occasions made to come to grips with that action's consequences on the pleasures and pains of sentient creatures. In abortion, for example, we worry about whether the fetus can feel the pain of its own destruction, and on environmental conservation, we weigh the economic benefits that certain businesses have against the potential detriment they pose to the habitat and wildlife. At all time, consciously or subconsciously, the utilitarian desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain is an omnipresent factor in our ethical calculations.

Some will likely reject my casting of ethics in terms of pleasures and pains. Who is to say that pleasure and pain are important? In a world without God, the theist will retort, no account of intrinsic value can properly be made. Value in a godless world is a completely human construct, and humans can choose to value whatever they want. Ethics, then, does not have to be about the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain in sentient creatures - it could be egoistic, where each person does whatever she wants, or it could be sadistic, where each person tries to maximize the total suffering of society. This, of course, is ludicrous. The real question is, why shouldn't pleasure and pain be important? The fact that God does not exist has no bearing on the nonexistence of intrinsic value. This becomes quite clear whenever this criticism to applied to something other than pleasure and pain. Who is to say that empiricism is important, that belief support by evidence is better than belief unsupported by evidence? Who is to say that logic is important, that if A = B, and B = C, that A must necessarily equal C? People accept that belief with evidence and logical consistency are important, but if you press them for why they are important, most will be at a loss for words. Pleasure and pain are in ethics as empiricism is in epistemology - that is, a set of intrinsic values that can and should guide human ethical thinking.

Pleasure and pain is inexorably tied to human wellbeing - those that happier tend to be better off, and vice versa. No doubt theists will point to scenarios where people derive their pleasures from sources universally considered immoral. Sadists, for example, get pleasure out of inflicting pain, and masochists get pleasure in receiving pain. Both types are receiving great pleasure, but neither is particularly well off. While I accept that, as illustrated with the sadism and masochism example, pleasure is not always tied to wellbeing, I do not believe that this poses a significant threat to my account of ethics. It is quite possible for some people to be wrong about the kinds of pleasures that lead to greater wellbeing. Throughout the history of science, people have believed many false things, like geocentrism or that demons are the source of disease and natural disasters. Today, everyone recognizes that these people had wrong scientific outlooks on life, and no one is tempted to say that the fact that these people held such views means that the enterprise of science is without objective truth. It seems to me that only our psychology is preventing us from applying the same standard to the field of ethics. In the same way that ignorance about the nature of the universe lead men like Ptolemy to assume that the earth was the center of everything, so moral ignorance may lead sadists and masochists to seek pleasure in pain. Indeed, medical research suggests that the development of sadism and masochism in human beings can be attributed to a wide variety of factors, from irregularities in mental development to growing up in hostile and violent environments. Sadists and masochists may very well not have fully function mental faculties, so there is no reason to suggest that their account of ethics must be taken just as seriously as anyone else's.

If concerns about pleasure and pain form the foundation of ethical thought - as I believe they do - then, insofar as it is possible to determine the amount of pleasure and pain a certain action will incur, it is possible to determine whether an action X is moral or immoral. Science, particularly psychology, provides us with an excellent avenue to determine the amount of pleasure and pain inflicted by a certain action. Analyzing the brain and neural chemistry will allow us to figure out exactly what is happening in the mind of someone who, say, got a hug from a close friend, versus someone who has discovered that their partner is having an affair. Through the tools of psychology, we will be able to develop a very good, but not necessarily perfect, account of pleasure and pain in the brain, and that information will go a long way is guiding our behavior towards others. Science, therefore, can help us derive an ought from an is. In tying morality to questions about pleasure and pain, we have created an ethical system completely divorced from any conception of God. Furthermore, it is an ethical system in which not everything is permissible - some actions are wrong because they induce greater harm than happiness, and some people are wrong about what actions contribute to greater wellbeing.

I have so far devoted most of my time to demonstrating that a God-independent standard of morality does exist, and that this should give us pause before accepting the morality argument. In reality, this has been a waste of time, because even if we absolutely no secular account of morality, we would still be on good grounds to reject the morality argument. The morality argument imploded long before any atheistic philosopher came along to voice her first objections. In the fourth century before the Common Era, Socrates authored the dialogue Euthyphro in which he put forth a key refutation of the morality argument. In the dialogue, Socrates notes a dilemma posed by the morality argument when he asks Euthyphro, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" Both options cripple the morality argument. If God commands the good because it is good, then it would mean that goodness exists independent of God - God unearthed morality, and then commanded humans to act accordingly. If, on the other hand, the good is good because God commands it, then no objective standard of morality exists, and morality is totally arbitrary. If God had given Moses a Ten Commandments list which ordered humans to kill, steal, and lie, that would be the standard of morality, because God is the first and last word on moral rightness and wrongness. Some theists object to the Euthyphro dilemma by arguing that God simply could not command that, say, the torture of children is morally permissible. God, they say, is omnibenevolent, so he could not will that humans act cruelly toward one another. If this is the case, then we have a contradiction in the conception of God. God cannot be simultaneously omnipotent and omnibenevolent - that is, he cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving. If there are some actions that, due to his omnibenevolence, God simply cannot will humans to do, then he cannot do anything he wishes and is thus not omnipotent. If he is omnipotent, then he may will that any action be performed, and so benevolence is a choice. Moreover, those who assert God's omnibenevolence as limiting his possible choices of action have inadvertently fallen into the pitfall of the second dilemma - if there are some actions that even God can deem morally permissible, then some God-independent standard of morality must exist. The morality argument has tripped over its own shoelaces. Theists making the morality argument simply cannot have their cake and eat it to - they cannot assert the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God from whom objective morality derives. Something has to give.

What I hope to have demonstrated is that the most referenced arguments for the existence of God are woefully insufficient, and offer little in the way of constructing a sound proof of God's existence. Together, the cosmological, teleological, ontological, and morality arguments have more holes than Swiss cheese, filled with self-contradictions and inadequate justifications. Given how easily they fall apart under pressure, they are, in my view, unconvincing, and so I reject them and any conception of God.

First, some context:

Dick Cheney retired from this company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $36 million. As of 2004, he had received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President. Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000 and has received stock options from Halliburton. So, there's definitely a setting for preferential treatment and insider deals.

Now, let's see how this gigantic corporation does business, shall we?

Note: This is the result of maybe half an hour of research. Google "Halliburton scandal" and you'll get literally hundreds of accounts of scams, theft, deals, and a litany of the very worst corporate America has to offer. These are snippets, but I've included the sources if you want to read more.
***
HALLIBURTON ANNOUNCES AGREEMENTS TO SETTLE EXPORT INVESTIGATION.

http://www.allbusiness.com/gov...

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 14, 1995--Halliburton Company announced today that it has agreed with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U. S. Department of Commerce to settle civil and criminal charges arising from certain exports that were made by former subsidiaries of the Company. As a result of the settlement, Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty in U.S. Federal Court in Houston to three violations of the U.S. export control law which prohibits the export of U.S. goods and services to Libya and has agreed to pay a fine of $1.2 million.

***

In 2001 The Wall Street Journal reported that a subsidiary of Halliburton Energy Services called Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. (HPS) opened an office in Tehran. Although HPS was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in 1975 and is "non-American", it shares both the logo and name of Halliburton Energy Services and, according to Dow Jones Such behavior, undertaken while Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, may have violated the Trading with the Enemy Act.

A Halliburton spokesman, responding to inquiries from Dow Jones, said "This is not breaking any laws. This is a foreign subsidiary and no US person is involved in this. No US person is facilitating any transaction. We are not performing directly in that country." Later Dave Lesar would book his own flights to the Teheran office through the UK arm of KBR. No legal action has been taken against the company or its officials.

Halliburton Connected to Office in Iran, Dow Jones, 2/1/01.

***
In 2002 a Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports were done to see if chemicals being emitted were harmful to people from Halliburton's Harris County, Texas facility. The facility had 230 TRI air releases in 2001 and 245 in 2002.

Environmental Release Report - Scorecard

***
Halliburton firm bribed Nigeria Saturday 10 May 2003, 10:05 AM

http://www.theage.com.au/artic...

A subsidiary of controversial US oil services giant Halliburton paid a Nigerian tax official $US2.4 million ($A3.75 million) in bribes to get favourable tax treatment, the company has admitted. "The payments were made to obtain favourable tax treatment and clearly violated our code of business conduct and our internal control procedures," Halliburton said in a regulatory filing. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), which paid the bribe, has been under scrutiny since it was awarded a government contract to run Iraqi oil services without any bidding process.

***
Halliburton Overcharged U.S. in Iraq by JOHN BURNETT; December 12, 2003

http://www.npr.org/templates/s...

A senior Defense Department official says a Pentagon audit has found evidence that a subsidiary of Halliburton may have overcharged the U.S. government by as much as $61 million for fuel deliveries in Iraq. The company, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, admits no wrongdoing.

***
Suit Accuses Halliburton Of Fraud In Accounting By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: August 6, 2004, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08...

Four former finance employees at the Halliburton Company contend that a high-level and systemic accounting fraud occurred at the company from 1998 to 2001, according to a new filing in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors who bought the company's shares.

***
On June 7, 2006 Halliburton's Farmington, New Mexico facility created a toxic cloud that forced people to evacuate from their homes. "Halliburton spill results in acid cloud."

- Associated Press. - (c/o Albuquerque Journal.) - June 7, 2006.

***
Dyncorp and Halliburton Sex Slave Scandal Won't Go Away: Halliburton, Dyncorp lobbyists stall law banning human trafficking and sex slavery

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | January 1 2006

Almost a year after Representative Cynthia McKinney was told by Donald Rumsfeld that it was not the policy of the Bush administration to reward companies that engage in human trafficking with government contracts, the scandal continues to sweep up innocent children who are sold into a life of slavery at the behest of Halliburton subsidiaries , Dyncorp and other transnational corporations with close ties to the establishment elite.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ar...

***
Company pleads guilty in Halliburton scandal
By Nicholas Ibekwe; February 25, 2010 11:40PM

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sit...

Admission of guilt

WM Kellogg's admission of culpability in the scandal that involved the payment of N27 billion in bribes to Nigerian officials to secure the contracts of the construction of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant worth $6 billion (N9 trillion) is coming on the heels of Halliburton staff pleading guilty to bribing Nigerian officials through its former subsidiary KBR, early 2009. Halliburton was ordered to pay a fine of N83.8 billion in an out of court settlement reached with the Department of Justice and the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC).

***
And now this:

Gulf oil spill: The Halliburton connection; April 30, 2010 |  9:13 pm

Investigators delving into the possible cause of the massive gulf oil spill are focusing on the role of Houston-based Halliburton Co., the giant energy services company, which was responsible for cementing the drill into place below the water. The company acknowledged Friday that it had completed the final cementing of the oil well and pipe just 20 hours before the blowout last week.

Cementing a deep-water drilling operation is a process fraught with danger. A 2007 study by the U.S. Minerals Management Service found that cementing was the single most important factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period -- more than equipment malfunction.

Halliburton has been accused of a poor cement job in the case of a major blowout in the Timor Sea off Australia last August. An investigation is underway.

According to experts cited in Friday's Wall St. Journal, the timing of last week's cement job in relation to the explosion -- only 20 hours beforehand, and the history of cement problems in other blowouts "point to it as a possible culprit." Robert MacKenzie, managing director of energy and natural resources at FBR Capital Markets and a former cementing engineer, told the Journal, "The initial likely cause of gas coming to the surface had something to do with the cement."

Let's ask ourselves...

Is this a company that deserves a chunk of my taxes that are continually paid out in government contracts? Does this company deserve some serious third-party/non-conflict-of-interest-based scrutiny? Is this not the poster child for the need for more serious corporate regulation?

Why is the United States government still supporting this company and offering them sweetheart contracts? At the very least, is this how we want our country represented world-wide?
This should end now. NOW. We need more serious corporate transparency and regulation.

p.s.
Is Dick Cheney a decent human being whose opinion on anything whatsoever is credible?

(Go ahead, add your own rule! - promoted by leftake)

First off, feel free to add your own, we can make it an ongoing list. Anyway...
New Rule: If your members regularly bring AR-15's to rallies, you're not allowed to call yourselves peaceful.
New Rule: When we have people saying women cause earthquakes, you can't say religion is not a tool of sexism.
New Rule: When you used to be a high school government teacher, you're not allowed to say that Woodrow Wilson was a bigger bastard than both Hitler and Pol Pot from a historical perspective.
New Rule: When the economy grows for 3 quarters straight, the loans to the banks are being paid back with interest, unemployment is slowly declining, health care has been passed, Don't ask Don't Tell repealed,has vastly improved foreign relations, is about to open up Israeli-Palestinian talks, and when there is meaningful environmental regulation in the works and gaining traction, you can't say Obama hasn't really done anything as president.
New Rule: Anyone who writes notes on their hand as a publicity stunt can't be considered seriously for public office.
New Rule: When kids premeditate 1st degree murder, it's acceptable to try them as adults.
New Rule: When thousands of barrels of oil are pouring into the Gulf daily, you can't say off shore drilling is safe.
New Rule: When we have the power to end life on earth, you can't say we should keep our nuclear stockpiles.
New Rule: Passing a law that makes it okay to stop a person because of skin color to ensure no crime has been commited, is called 'racism'.

Once again, feel free to add your own. I will be...

It amazes me how quickly people change their tune when a true disaster occurs.  On an average, normal day you'll get these right-wing hacks bitching up a storm [pun intended] that the Gov't needs to get out of the way of the private sector and needs to just go about protecting the country from potential invaders.  Otherwise, simply, shoo!

And then a deep water oil rig blows up.

"Where was the Gov't oversight?!"

Um...I thought you wanted less Gov't intrusion in the private sector??

"Obama isn't doing enough to help fix this problem!!"

Um...I thought you didn't think the federal Gov't could fix anything.  Now you're complaining that it's not fixing something?  Where's your precious state Gov't??  I thought they could do what the feds couldn't!

And, by the way, what part of "deep water well" do you not understand?  Perhaps the "deep" part of the phrase.  You can't just wade out there from the beach, dive a few yards beneath the surface, and be right at the so-called Ground Zero.  You can send in the Navy Seals, but not even they can dive to this sort of depth.  You need submersibles.  Does your state Gov't have one of those we can borrow??

"This has some weird timing and feels like a conspiracy to me.  Afterall, what better reason to NOT drill now?  So Obama has it both ways - he wanted to drill [yeah right], but now has an excuse not to.  How convenient!"

Hey, I'm the resident conspiracy theorist on this site and, honestly, yes this thought popped into my brain.  But there is a significant variable missing from the picture - what is going to happen with off-shore drilling from this point forward?

Until we know the answer to that, you can claim CONSPIRACY! all that you want, but it won't hold much water.  If Obama uses this as the sole reason to repeal the executive order [at least I thought it was an e.o.] that opened up shoreline to drilling, then yes, you have a good argument.

BUT...

If Obama uses this to still allow drilling, but done in a safer manner, then the conspiracy falls flat.  Moreover, it would be a positive outcome to the event.  Anything that becomes safer is a good thing in my view.

So yes, this could actually be a big conspiracy to shut down any further shore drilling.  But until we actually see that order coming down from the administration, you honestly can't take such claims seriously.

"This is Obama's Katrina."

We all know this one is just ticky-tack bullshit.  The right is so embarrassed by Bush's response to Katrina that they just slobbering all over themselves to paint Obama in the same sort of light.  Well THIS President didn't just fly over the site.  He was on the ground there today.  And he didn't wait days before providing help.  As soon as it was realized that oil was spewing from the broken pipe [um, where's the mechanism that is supposed to clamp it shut BP and why isn't it working?!?!], all resources reacted.

Afterall, the initial reports [at least the ones I read] were that no oil was spilling from the pipe.  I don't know if those reports were from BP or from the Obama admin.  But they were obviously wrong.  Even still, action was taken quickly.

So this might end up being a disaster on a grand scale anyway...and Obama will always be blamed for it.  But that's just how these things go.

In summary #1 - if this doesn't show you that some issues are too big for the States to handle [::ahem:: health care], then nothing will ever open your eyes.

In summary #2 - if you bitch about Big Gov't, yet are now bitching about the Gov't not acting, then you have some serious deep-seated, unnatural hatred of Obama.  Afterall, it shows that nothing he does is good enough.

( - promoted by leftake)

 

This is one of the first of many dead animals that will be washing ashore due to the oil spill in the gulf. 

The oil hasn't come to land yet because they are dropping chemicals into the water to disperse the oil. This has two objectives, in my opinion:  To show they are "trying" to do something and to make it seem like the spill isn't as bad as it really is.

I could go on a huge rant about it destroying the economy of my area and harming the wildlife and wetlands, but I'm getting so tired of talking about it. That and I'm concentrating on trying to clean all of it up in the in upcoming weeks as a volunteer. I just want to ask that if any of you live near the area, could you please find time to volunteer and help us clean up once it starts getting bad? All of us on the Gulf Coast would appreciate it. 

 

(BTW, sorry I haven't been around much. Life is getting hectic.)

(Very interesting discussion... What do you think?   - promoted by leftake)

Link Me!

This article deals with the Westboro Baptist church whose members protest at the funerals of military personnel.  The case is going to the Supreme Court.

I have to wonder if the people who are screaming about rights being taken away! are the same ones who feel these church members shouldn't be allowed to protest in this manner.  I'm not saying that they are one in the same.  But I truly wonder how many do fit that bill.  Afterall, isn't decrying the taking away of rights, while actively engaging taking away rights...well...hypocritical?

You see, speech that is upsetting isn't necessarily hate speech.  You might hate it with ever fiber of your being.  But that doesn't make it hate speech.

And it further begs the thought about taking the Constitution as written or 'interpreting it'.  I have to wonder how many people desire the Constitution to be unwavering in what it says, yet want to ignore that little "freedom of speech" portion when it goes against them.

I'm just saying.

This is where it gets sticky in my mind...

A friend of mine posted a link to a Daily Kos diary on my Facebook, and this is so awesome that I wanted to share it with you all. This is a response to all the Tea Party folks, courtesy of Rosie O'Donnell. I encourage you to pass this on as a reply to every anti-Obama e-mail you get.

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate
energy policy.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in  Iraq.

You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.

You didn't get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.

You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.  Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans...oh hell no.

From: http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...

( - promoted by leftake)

After the airplane attacks on 911, it took very little effort to get the people in line behind Bush & Cheney allowing them to engage in a war.

The attack was unacceptable to the American People and we wanted it stopped, the perpetrators identified, and someone to pay for it.  Iraq was selected as the arena for the initial airshow and then it spilled into Afghanistan.

I will reserve my personal feelings on this whole ordeal for a later time, except to mention that Dick Cheney has close ties to Halliburton (now KBR), who is still receiving government contracts worth hundreds of millions.  Every Republican voted YES and did not require a debate before going to war, and any Democrat who mentioned debate was anti-American and a communist.

Now consider how many Americans are still dying annually because their healthcare insurer would not provide coverage for a vital test which could have prevented their death, denied them a much needed treatment, or cancelled their policies all together.  And, there were no laws against this practice in America.  Why do killings of this nature not draw the same hurt and anger we felt on 911?  Why must thousands be killed in a single moment before it gets our attention and stirs us into action?

http://babylonblogs.blogspot.c...

"With all their beady little eyes
And flapping heads so full of lies
Blame Canada!"
~~~
-Sheila Broslovsky

"Since I've arrived in Canada, I've been denounced on the floor of Parliament - which, by the way, is on my bucket list - my posters have been banned, I've been accused of committing a crime in a speech that I have not yet given, I was banned by the student council, so welcome to Canada!"
~~~
-Ann Coulter

Can you spot the true statement in the above sentence? Ann Coulter's I mean, not Mrs. Broslovsky's, a woman who may be Coulter's only rival for both cartoonishness and agenda driven Canada bashing.

Give up?

"I've arrived in Canada." One true statement, told only as a springboard, to be used to leap into a pool of excrement, where you'd imagine she feels most at home. Her relevance in the U.S. at low ebb, Coulter launched a P.R. attack on unsuspecting Canada, using her well-worn catalog of easy stereotypes and ugly cliches to try to battle her way back into the limelight. An offensive offensive, if you will. She created a goldmine of out-of-context 'slights' to report to her dwindling fan base back home, painting herself as the brave stormer of a castle that had all but rolled out the red carpet for her arrival.

But who did Brave Sir Ann really slay in her quest for 'matterdom' ?

By my count: One young girl, a college Provost who offered her counsel, her hosts and benefactors for the evening, and of course her two most elusive enemies: Honesty and Irony.

The young girl was cut down for the sins of being of middle eastern heritage, and making a very human, very affecting statement. It was essentially ' Because of statements you've made, I'm afraid to be in airports.' Ann's response? "Then ride a camel."

Sa-NAP! Who wouldn't want someone that witty lecturing their leaders of tomorrow, amiright?

Well, THAT got some attention, and Ann like any rock star or circus geek, knows when you've got their attention, it's time to kick it up a notch. That's when she fired back at the Provost of University of Ottawa, Francois Houle for accusing her of 'committing a crime in a speech she had not yet given'. Or, as she calls him "A-Houle." A-Houle, get it?

Whew. Whatever they're paying her, it's not enough!*

And what kind of reactionary-socialist-monster would make such a brazen accusation? No kind, really. What actually happened was, a career academic whose job it is to make sure such things run smoothly, sent Coulter an e-mail welcoming her (rather effusively) to his campus.

Here's the entire transcript:
http://www.nationalpost.com/ne...

He does caution her about the differences between Canadian and American laws. But that's just a courtesy, isn't it? When people from the States come to visit me, I caution them about several things. The speed limit signs are in kilometers not miles, don't get a speeding ticket. It was a nicety that he performed in the course of his job.

I suppose if you're the type of vicious unprincipled thug who's comfortable calling a young girl a camel jockey (essentially), you may be paranoid enough to misinterpret someone else's graciousness as threatening behavior. But to be sure, that's the way she spun it when she leaked it to the press.

With conservatives like Ann, the help you offer may not be as valuable as the help that can be attained from you. That's how you make headlines, if you're distasteful enough to be controversial, but not interesting enough to fill a hall.

Well that got asses in the seats, with asses left over. Really, from Ann's perspective there was nothing left to do. Certainly no reason to fulfill her contractual obligations. It's not her fault the University/campus security/demonstrators/Ottawa Police demanded the appearance be cancelled, is it?

Here's a link that shows how none of those things happened:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/n...

So she lied. So she mobilized the aging frat boys who frequent her website to perpetuate the lie. They LOVE Ann, and it's only not because she talks just like one of the guys from Omega House that used to spank you in your underpants....It's also that she looks like one of those guys but is, technically, a woman. Unless you're elected to Public Office, a conservative's gotta keep those feelings repressed!

But this isn't about that! It's about.....FREE SPEECH! Yeah That's it, FREE SPEECH! Ann LOVES the free speech! Oh, you didn't know that about her? Hell yeah. She's a fierce advocate of the right to free expression!

And to prove it, she took her show to Calgary, in the more conservative (at least by the socialist standards of Canada, wink-wink) praries,where they had to change venues form a 400 seat hall to a 1000 seat hall, where Good Sir Ann who was now describing herself as a "hate-crime victim" would preach the gospel of beautiful, glorious free speech!

Oh, by the way? ""While there will be a Q&A to ensure open, intellectual discussion between attendees of the event and Ann Coulter, the Question and Answer period will be moderated, and any sort of ranting, heckling, or otherwise disrupting of the event will result in removal by security and/or police...As well, individuals caught recording this event will be removed."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com...

You can almost taste the freedom! I want to know all about Ann the Victim's heroic tale of overcoming the adversity she single-handedly manufactured.

No officers, I DON'T have any questions!

~~~~~~

* As mentioned in Part1, they were paying her 10,000 Cdn, down roughly 150% from her speaking fees from two short years ago. For those of you cynical enough to suspect that would motivate her to create some controversy for attention? Yeah, I hear you.

( - promoted by leftake)

From the wonderful world of TED comes this talk by one of my perennial favorite public intellectuals. Personally, I think the line that "science can tell us nothing about morality" as been an unjustified leap to conclusion, something that most people simply declare without ever being held to any burden of proof. I'm inclined to believe that science can shed light on key questions on well-being, which will bring us one step closer to answering the elusive question posed by Socrates: How should one live?

I thought, sheltered in my environment of open-minded friends and diversity, that racism was about dead except in isolated areas. In the bulk of teenagers I've seen lately, it seems to be. But, after seeing what's happened to our black and gay Congresspeople lately, that's clearly not the case.

My only explanation is that these folks aren't smart, they aren't cute, they have boring jobs, their wives are cheating on them, and they're too lazy to go make something worthwhile of themselves... some people have so little going for them that they have to make up something or grasp at straws to make themselves feel superior to SOMEBODY. You don't have to do anything yourself to excel if you just base your superiority on your skin color - no effort required.

That said, I'm a next-door-looking little white girl from an upper middle class Southern background. Light skin, light reddish blonde hair, green eyes...an Aryan's wet dream at a glance. Yet, I have NO DOUBT in my mind for a second that one of these nutcases would shoot me full on in the face if I should air my opinions within a group of them and they thought they could get away with it. Not because I was colluding with other races. Just because of what I believe.

Maybe individually not, but in a pack they seem rabid.

I think the innate racism is coming out and goes hand-in-hand with these kinds of people, but I don't think that's the only reason they're doing what they're doing. I think a part of it is that the pressure to behave with a certain level of courtesy, dignity and restraint has been removed by the leaders of the right, so they think they can act any damn well they please. When actual CONGRESSMEN let loose with something like "Baby Killer" on the actual Floor, then what should we expect from the rabble outside?

They're stupid, so they watch girls pulling out each other's hair on reality shows and think that people actually DO that. The leaders - Media [Rush, etc.], Political [name that Rep], and Entertainment are all teaching stupid people to behave badly.

Then, their leaders are whipping them into a frenzy of fear. And the bottom line is:

Scared dogs bite.

These people are no longer Americans in the way we generally accept the term. As in "proud to be an..."  

They are cultists.

Our great nation was brought to its knees in great shock and horror when it learned of a an unspeakable tragedy. Sitting Vice-President and Gaffe Machine 2.0 Joe Biden said the word fuck during the historic signing of President Obama's Health care legislation.

"This is a big f-----' deal," Biden whispered into President Barack Obama's
ear and was picked up by a very sensitive microphone, The Hill reported.

Oh, would somebody please think about the
children!

Shame on you, Mr. Vice President! Vice-president's cannot become overly effusive and utter such offensive vulgarities upon witnessing the promulgation and signing of a monumental achievement that will avail millions of Americans, but rather they may only use this word when they want to unapologetically tell a Senior Senator to go F--k themselves!

And you wonder why his daughter turned out to be gay? Over the years she was perpetually overhearing her father telling folks to "go fuck themselves" and I guess she just ran with it.

Now, I refuse to kowtow to the supercilious and ridiculously punctilious merits of political correctness and its complete and utter destruction of the English language. The Fuck word (not the F-word) and its usage is one of my all time favorite past times, and I vehemently defend its usage, however. It is vital to be vigilant of decorum and context when using it. For instance, it would be a great disservice to Abbey Hoffman and George Carlin if one were to say " I just beat the fuck out of that homeless bum with no arms or legs." Better yet, telling a senior senator to "go fuck himself" when he was questioning the voracity behind your (Dick Cheney) noisome activities.

But let's momentarily step away from the fuck word to highlight the type of language the GOP and its supporters (e.g., the Teabaggers) inappropriately use.

During their million moron march on Washington on the eve of passage of the HCR, the Teabaggers--notorious for saying vile, outdated slurs--chanted "nigger," as civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional Caucus member Andre Carson (D-IN) walked by.

Indeed, the Teabaggers speak redneck as a second language. But come on! Surely you fat, white, old and angry fodder of the GOP aren't just socially backward racists?

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), an openly gay congressmen, was called a "faggot," as protesters shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Such thoughtful, intelligent opposition! I suppose it is a refreshing change from the usual irrational and retarded "Obama is a muslin (not Muslim but 'muslin') socialist Nazi" ephitets for which these empty-headed shittards are so famous.

In short, let's stop pretendingthat Vice-President Biden saying fuck to express his joy and jubilation over something for which he worked his entire legislative career is newsworthy. Instead, let's focus on how far and far the GOP and their supporters are from kookistan and devolving by the second.

First they came for my unemployment...and helped me get a job.

Then they came for my pre-existing condition...and let me get health coverage.

Then they came for my broken school...and gave me a proper education.

Then they came for my college tuition...and made it affordable.

Then they came for my bank...so I could get a loan.

Then they came for me...and I thanked them.