Scary Shit

While I hate to help spread anything Glenn Beck has ever said, the conversation, and I use the word conversation loosely, he has with an intelligent and thoughtful caller from Massachusetts who challenged his assertions about health care outlines everything that's wrong with people like him.

What pork really looks like

The next time you hear some blowhard say how there isn't enough money in the budget for health care, education or other programs that benefit society as a whole, just mention the F-22. Despite the administration's requests to cut the massive spending (we're talking many billions of dollars) Congress continues to try and slip in more purchases of the F-22 fighters to appease their corporate campaign donors. Enough is enough. Call your Congressmen and Senator's offices and demand that they not fund the F-22 and instead fund something that truly matters to the American public.

NY - DO NOT RE-ELECT THIS MAN

For the past month, citizens of the Empire state have had to watch as their state senate ground to halt thanks to the bumbling power grab by State Senator Pedro Espada.

For those who haven't been following, Pedro Espada and girlfriend stabbing senator Hiram Monserrate departed from the Democrat caucus in the beginning of June and joined the Republicans reversing the 32-30 majority that the Democrats controlled. This led to the month long battle between the two parties and "accidental" Governor Paterson.

Thankfully it has since been resolved with both morons returning to the Democratic caucus and allowing legislation to resume, but not before jeopardizing the budgets of numerous municipalities as well as wasting New York state tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars in state senate salaries and expenses.

Now, the turn coat has been appointed Majority Leader of the party he abandoned. While I am glad that this impasse has been cleared it churns my stomach to think that this fool actually came out ahead in all of this. I hope that when his term is up, the good people of New York's 33rd district have the good sense to bump him out of there and replace him with someone who cares more about his constituents than about senate titles.

Thank you Portugal

Just saw a report on BBC America about Portugal's experiments in decriminalizing ALL drugs. That's right, ALL drugs. And while they had been warned by some that decriminalizing drugs would lead to massive increases in drug use and the potential for a new boom in "drug tourism" none of that has come to happen. In fact drug related deaths and illnesses have decreased and there has been no noticeable increase in drug use. Now, people who need treatment to break their addictions are able to get it and those unable or unwilling to get treatment can at least get clean needles and other services previously unavailable to drug addicts due to the legal issues with associated with providing such services for an illegal activity.

I hope that other countries will realize the folly in keeping drug use a criminal offense and begin to save on the tremendous amount of money and time that is wasted on waging "drug wars" against their own citizens.

If only conservatives really cared about conservation

Liz Peek demonstrates in her diatribe "Can the Climate Control Zealots In Congress Be Stopped?" Republicans and Conservatives in America are still acting as if we have a choice in the climate-change arena. As if we can just close our eyes, block our ears and put clothespins on our noses and everything will be ok.

What they all miss whenever they talk about how much all of these programs aimed at curtailing our use of fossil fuels, breaking our dependence on foreign oil, and creating jobs and whole industries for America is the hidden figure: what it will cost us if we do nothing.

You cannot fix this massive problem of climate change, energy overuse and America's crumbling industrial sector without a healthy infusion of spending and planning. We need for America to get back on her feet with innovative new industrial sectors that will create jobs, here in America. We also need to curtail the wasteful use of fuel in this country, that has stemmed from the relatively low prices Americans pay at the pump (compared to other industrialized nations).

To do this, we need to make sure there are provisions so that the most vulnerable among us will still be able to get to work and afford the necessities in spite of much needed raises in fuel prices. They can call these tax credits, to appease the Republicans, or they can call these fuel stipends or they can call them fairy godmother gas checks, so long as people at or below a certain level (probably 3-4 times the poverty level would suffice) can receive government money to cover the increase in prices at the pump and for groceries by taking part of the tax revenue generated through carbon caps.

Liz Peek and her friends at FoxNews have tried for years to feed Americans the same lie over and over again that climate change isn't real, or that it's not as bad as people say, or that it's inevitable. Hopefully Americans are waking up to the fact that it is real, it is here now, and unless we do something about it, we will pay a far bigger price that what President Obama has so far proposed.

If there is anything to criticize in this Energy Bill it is that it does not go far enough and that industry has already meddled too much in its formulation and drafting, to the point where it will not be as effective as a truly transformational energy bill should be, but I don't think Liz has any problem with that.

Michael Jackson and Ahmedinejad

A friend of mine has already written the next episode of South Park. Here's how it goes down:

Kyle and Stan uncover a secret plot by Iranian President Ahmedinejad to distract America from the Iranian election protests by injecting Michael Jackson with toxins that induce a heart attack, knowing that if someone as iconic as the King of pop were to die suddenly America will be wrapped up in news coverage of Jackson and his life for the next week and won't spend so much time talking about the protests and the suppression of the protesters in Tehran.

Also, Cartman tries to blame the jews for Jackson's death.

Iran Election Pt 3

I have been a bit cautious with regards to jumping into the Iranian election debate for fear of overreacting as the rest of the Western media seems to have. In the words of an Iranian who did vote for Ahmedinejad "there has been no fraud at all." While I still profess that I do not know if there was or wasn't fraud committed, and if there was fraud committed by whom was it committed or attempted, but I think that as things calm down we will see that there are more and more people like Mustafa who voted with their conscience and hope that their candidate prevails.