Remember the worldwide violence over a cartoon showing Muhammad with a bomb in his turban? Well, Afghan President Hamid Karzai met recently the country’s religious leaders to ask them to kindly ask militants to stop hiding bombs in turbans and other religious garments. It is a curious appeal since one would have thought the clerics could go a little further and say that hiding bombs in terrorist acts anywhere is immoral.
Category: Politics
The United Stats Olympic Committee has issued a formal letter stating its intent to sue the “Redneck Olympics” over the use of the word “Olympic.” The Committee insists that it owns the word Olympic — despite the fact that it refers to an ancient sporting event from Greece that preceded both the United States and copyright/trademark laws. (It turns out that this early depiction of the Greek Olympics had been long misinterpreted as a race. It is actually early Greek lawyers serving an organizer with a complaint over the use of the word Olympic in 776 BC).
Continue reading “United States Olympic Committee Threatens To Sue The Redneck Olympics”
It appears that if they just stayed put Texans would be living seal steak and penguin chili. Just 1.1 billion years ago, rocks show that Texas was part of a remote part of the Antarctic continent south of the Atlantic Ocean basin.
In an important symbolic victory for soldiers who are atheist, agnostic, or non-theist, Fort Bragg has approved a concert called “Rock Beyond Belief.” While journalist Ernie Pyle may have said that “there are no atheists in foxholes,” we know that to be untrue. We have brave men and women fighting for their country without a belief in God or any specific God. They have faced open hostility in the military, so this is a major victory of sheer recognition.
Continue reading “Army Approves Concert For Agnostics and Atheists At Fort Bragg”
It is one of the oldest institution in our government and stretches back to the founding of our Republic. Yet, in a decision made without consulting other members, former pages, or historians, Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) snuffed out the program to save just $5 million. As a former House leadership page in the 1970s (and here), I have written repeatedly in columns to propose page alumni taking over the program and even funding most or all of the program. The problems in the past have been entirely due to the pedophiles among the members and poor administration. Instead of allowing some discussion of alternatives, the House leadership moved to kill a program that has been a cherished and powerful symbol in our government.
Continue reading “House Leadership Moves To End Page Program After Roughly 200 Years — To Save $5 Million”
The Taliban appear to have been responsible for the killing of 38 — mainly Navy Seals — this weekend in taking down a CH-47 Chinook. Our stalwart ally Afghan President Hamid Karzai — who previously expressed a lingering desire to fight with the Taliban — expressed regrets for the deaths.
Continue reading “Taliban Kills 30 Navy Seals and Seven Afghans in Operation in Afghanistan”
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
After the news over the past few months about the global uprisings against tyrannical and non-responsive governments, I have pondered why the United States has not had more people in the street protesting the economic inequality that we are facing here at home? Continue reading “Is An Economic Revolution Possible in the United States?”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
According to a Wall Street Journal article, Richard Fisher, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, found that since June 2009 37% of all net new jobs in America were created in Texas. Even though Texas is an energy state benefitting from high oil and natural gas prices, Fisher touts Texas’ business friendly environment, its right-to-work laws, and its “tort reform”– a $250,000 cap on punitive damages.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?” Rodney King 5/1/92
The arguments and divisions politically here and throughout this country are rampant and destructive. Anger and hatred of others of differing opinions rises at times to fever pitch and I admit that I am part of the problem as much as anyone else is. This is a somewhat different piece in that I am going to present some national problems, as I see them and elicit your comments on them, in an attempt to discover whether there is some common ground agreement, on some things plaguing our society. While I am more interested in whether or not people agree that these are indeed problems for us all to consider and work to solve, it is certainly apropos for people to comment on what they believe the solutions to be.
This is an experiment on the viability of people agreeing on the premise that a problem exists in a given area. We cannot begin to resolve issues, unless we first agree that they are issues to be contemplated by the entire body politic. My hope is to engender real, civil discussion and perhaps at the end reach something like consensus. This is not a plea for Bi-Partisanship because to me that is a fantasy, whoever may utter it. To be “partisan” is to hold strong opinions and srong opinions do not resolve themselves into agreement. The resolution reached by “partisans” is always one of compromise, without either side changing their core beliefs, but agreeing to take part of the loaf. I am “experimenting” to see if many of the diverse viewpoints represented here can at least agree that a specific issue is indeed a problem, or if it is indeed an issue. Beyond writing this, I will not take part in the ensuing discussion, since the formulation itself indicates my views on whether these are indeed problems. I will limit my questions to legal issues, with no particular order of importance intended.
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
I guess I am a little naïve, but I was shocked to read that the Obama Administration has a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that is so large in its scope that some Senators consider it a whole new law! Continue reading “Double Secret Probation”
Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The wrath from the right has been scortching ever since VP Joe Biden commented that certain freshman tea party congressmen were acting “like terrorists” in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. There was equally no love lost when John McClain commented that the tea party freshman were acting as “deceivers” and their ideas were “bizarro.”
Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
Weren’t we told that if the Debt Ceiling was not raised that the Triple A credit rating of the United States would suffer? I guess the credit agencies don’t care if 1.8 Million jobs are lost in the process! Continue reading “The New Debt Deal May Cost Up To 1.8 Million Jobs!”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
UPDATED: It is the position of the American Psychological Association that homosexuality is not a choice or a mental illness, but rather a normal variant of sexual orientation for a certain percentage of society. They came to this stand based upon scientific research that showed no connection between homosexuality and psychopathology. In addition to considering homosexuality a normally occurring human behavior, the APA does not support therapies to change sexual orientation and points out that there is no reliable science to suggest such therapies are effective. The APA also issued a resolution opposing discriminatory legislation and initiatives aimed at LGBT people.
In addition, geneticists have also found a link between genes and sexual orientation. While the ongoing studies have not been definitive is establishing genetics as the sole determining factor in human sexual orientation, they do indicate that both genes and environmental factors do play a role in determining sexual orientation. This comports with the research upon which the APA used to set their policies.
The stance of the country’s most recognized psychological professional association and the psychological, sociological and genetic research goes right to the heart of what’s going on in Anoka, Minnesota. Suicide, like sexual orientation, has environmental components influencing the behavior. Research has shown that ambient temperature and duration of sunlight are the dominant environmental influences on suicide, but that social cohesion, socioeconomic status, and social support are also important influences. The situation in Anoka involves students, teachers, school policies, religiously based politics and the suicides and attempted suicides of teenagers. It is not a pretty story.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The 2010 elections which gave the Republican Party the majority in the House of Representatives was seen as the elevation of a “Grassroots Movement”, composed of the spontaneously combusted wrath of ordinary citizens fed up with a bloated government. It was indeed a seminal moment for those people who disdained taxation, government handouts in entitlements, and the seeming waste of our tax dollars. The initial angry explosion was a reaction to the proposal and passage of the Health Care Bill. Rallies were organized, town hall meetings disrupted and a “hit list” of both Republican and Democratic members of Congress circulated.
The initial mainstream media reaction to this nascent movement was one of disdain, particularly because it was seen as an “out of the Beltway movement”, thus not to be taken seriously. However, this changed in a large part led by FOX News and copied by its “wannabe” CNN. Led by these Cable outlets, thirsting for sensation to fill their 24/7 news maws, all media began to follow suit, not wanting to be left behind. I find it interesting though that as late as April 22, 2010, Politico, hardly a left wing outlet, noted that unwarranted attention and media frenzy had begun, elevating the status of this purported movement: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36185.html It is ironic that this article, while laying out the irrational amount of attention given to the Tea Party, at its end discounts the effect the movement would have on the election. Its authors certainly were not prescient.
Lost in the tumult of media exaggeration and sensationalism was the fact that this was not at all a grass roots movement of average Americans, but a crafty example of political manipulation laid out in tandem with the compliance of Rupert Murdoch’s news network’s assault upon all things they deem liberal. The prime mover in this is Richard “Dick” Armey, a former Texas Republican Congressman, House Majority Leader, and major senior lobbyist at a worldwide lobbying firm. Armey created the mythology of a grass roots movement, guided its progress, arranged, and then paid for its “spontaneous” events.
Continue reading “Tea Party and the Myth of a Grassroots Movement”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
It appears that Americans for Prosperity, a group co-founded by the Koch Brothers, may be involved in voter shenanigans in Wisconsin. According to David Catanese at Politico, AFP “is sending absentee ballots to Democrats in at least two Wisconsin state Senate recall districts with instructions to return the paperwork after the election date.” Think Progress has reported that the AFP mailer isn’t actually a ballot but a “form letter that looks like a normal absentee ballot application.” The Absentee Ballot Processing Center that is printed on the last page of the AFP mailer is actually registered to a right-wing advocacy group called Wisconsin Family Action PAC—and not to an actual processing center or election board.
Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo reported that an organization called Wisconsin Right to Life had previously used that same address (Absentee Ballot Application Processing Center, P.O. Box 1327, Madison WI 53701-1327) “for absentee ballot application letters and phone calls that were sent out shortly before the July 12 Democratic primaries, but after the official deadlines for the applications.”