Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

“New jobless claims jump unexpectedly to 667,000″ says the Associated Press.

What about huge unemployment isn’t expected? Who didn’t expect this kind of massive increase in joblessness? Who’s the idiot that still hasn’t gotten the memo that the economy is falling apart?

The Reuters headline reads:

Wall Street bets on stimulus after job cuts

and all of a sudden the worrying thought occurs to me: Are we rewarding job cuts? Is it that corporations are learning that, if they’ll go on and cut enough jobs so that people believe in the reality of an economic crisis, the government will then come along and then give them lots of money?

Are we encouraging corporations to kick people to the curb?

One of the consequences of global warming is rising sea levels. There is no rational debate about whether sea levels are rising - this change has been measured worldwide.

At the end of last week, the EPA issued a new report on the likely implications of sea level rise. The report goes into a good amount of detail, making it a useful resource if you’re truly interested in the subject, but not a thrilling read if you’re only casually tracking the issue.

The report confirms that “Rising water levels are already an important factor in submerging low-lying lands, eroding beaches, converting wetlands to open water, and exacerbating coastal flooding.” In comparing the social and environmental costs of trying to preserve current shorelines and managing a retreat to higher ground, the report concludes that attempting to preserve current shorelines will have a lower social and environmental cost in the short run, but will have a higher cost in the long term.

I’ve winced over the last week as I’ve watched colleagues announce, in professional situations, “Well, so much for global warming! Do you know how cold it’s going to be tomorrow?”

They’re reacting, of course, to the strong cold front that has been active in the upper Midwest and East Coast of the United States. These prophets of instaclimate don’t seem to be aware that, at the same time as there’s been a cold front in some parts of the country, the Pacific Coast has had a strong heat wave. What would they suggest, that global warming doesn’t count in the East, but it’s stronger than ever in the West?

It’s uncomfortable to watch people exhibit such sloppy thinking in professional settings, forgetting that global warming is a global, not local, phenomenon, and failing to understand the difference between a day’s weather and changes in climate. Would these people suddenly believe in the reality of global warming again, if only they encountered a hot summer day where they live?

I’d love to send these people to meteorology school, but failing that, I’ll give them the reminder that December was one of the warmest Decembers on record, and 2008 was one of the top ten hottest years ever recorded.

One chilly week of fluxuating weather doesn’t undo the kind of trend that climatologists have been tracking for decades.

There is, underneath the surface of constitutional, secular law in the United States, a seething conspiracy to replace the current American government with a Christian theocracy.

The conspiracy has been announced by Republican Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia, who proclaimed on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives:

“I pray, Lord: You are sovereign and completely in control of all things, and I acknowledge Your awesome power and authority. All things are in Your control, and nothing is too small or too great to bring before You.”

A member of Congress is part of the theocratic conspiracy, and has announced his intention to make Christian religion sovereign over the government of the USA, and “completely in control of all things”. An aspiring American ayatollah, Paul Broun, may expect to be made part of the Grand Christian Rulership Council under which we will all be forced to submit to his “awesome power and authority”.

Oops. I meant to say God’s awesome power and authority. Paul Broun doesn’t represent God in Congress, does he?

Dick Morris is a political consultant who is paid to tell candidates how to communicate effectively. In keeping with his skills, Dick Morris came out with a new book a month ago with the easy to understand and remember title of Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us … and What to Do About It.

What to do about it? Which it does he mean?

Actually, Dick Morris originally wanted to come out with a longer, more convoluted title for his book. The book was supposed to be entitled, Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments and Little Chipmunks Are Scamming Us … and What to Do About It.

The publisher’s agent worried that the title might make Dick Morris sound a bit kooky, so they changed it.

Spoken by Congressman Charles Rangel of New York on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday:

Alcohol abuse is rising among Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, many of them trying to deaden the repercussions of war and disorientation of home. The problem is particularly prevalent among those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Increasingly, these veterans are spilling into the criminal justice system. Their stories are similar: coming back from war with lost jobs, crushing debt and ruptured families.

War is a crime. It leads to more crime.

War is ripping our country apart.

It is time for a new surge in anti-war activism.

There’s been a great deal of concern about the foreclosures of American homes, and plummeting home values, but there’s a different kind of real estate crisis: A foreclosure of green values.

Solve Climate reports that out of the top dozen homebuilding corporations in the United States, not one has integrated environmentally-sustainable design into their work.

Maybe it’s a good thing, then, that homebuilding is down. There will be less of a bad thing, until green building can increase. Over the next four years, green homebuilding companies are expected to almost double their market share.

For someone a lucky, the wait won’t be that long. HGTV has held a Green Home Sweepstakes, and will announce the winner of an eco-friendly new home in a few days.

Two sets of financial numbers in the news are the focus of my attention tonight:

First, the price of regular unleaded gasoline where I live is not four dollars per gallon yet. It’s three dollars, ninety nine cents and nine tenths of a cent - a whole whopping tenth of a penny less than four dollars per gallon.

Second, Open Secrets reports a huge difference in the character of the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The amount of money from PACs (political action committees) taken by Barack Obama: $250
The amount of money from PACs (political action committees) taken by Hillary Clinton: $1,216,842

Flag, flag, flag. All Republicans seem to talk about these days is flags. Which candidate loves the American flag more than the others? Which candidate has the most flag lapel pins on their jacket? Which presidential candidate has licked the flag out of adoration, and had flag pudding for lunch?

The flag is an obvious symbol for love of country.

So, the question is this: Why are Republicans so concerned that they people might not love America? Why do they think that America isn’t worthy of being loved?

I think it’s because they don’t understand what makes America worthy of love. They know that they’re supposed to love the flag, and the national anthem, and the Fourth of July and all that, but they don’t know why.

That’s because Republicans don’t understand that what they’re supposed to love are the principles upon which the American nation is founded, not the symbols that represent those principles.

Because the Republicans don’t understand the principles, they get obsessed with the symbols. Ironically, the Republicans attack the principles of the American nation in order to protect the symbols.

Republicans don’t love America. They just love the flag, and the national anthem, and the Fourth of July. There’s a big difference.

I am now officially admitting that I am politically depressed.

I think I’ve been politically depressed for several weeks now, but I haven’t allowed myself to acknowledge that depression. The news today puts me over the edge, way past deniability.

Hillary Clinton is releasing advertisements on television that strongly imply that if Barack Obama becomes President, we may likely be attacked by Osama Bin Laden, and Barack Obama won’t be able to handle it. It’s an absurd attack, that preys on the fears of American voters.

The sad thing is that, like the Clinton 3:00 AM telephone call, it works. Voters buy the message. They’re willing to sell their hopes out for the sake of fear. Clinton’s consultants know this, and they’re going whole hog because, above all else, they want to win, win, win.

A few voters get it. They see how despicable this line of attack is. The rest don’t care. They really believe it. It’s these voters, and not even the Hillary Clinton campaign, who depress me.

It depresses me to live in a nation where people are too cowardly to live in freedom, and too lazy to get involved in their own government, and too stupid to tell the difference between a scare tactic and “experience”.

I’m not writing this to try to score points for Barack Obama above Hillary Clinton, and try to affect any election. You know why? I’ve finally realized that I am too little and too powerless to have any affect. In a nation of 300 million people who care more about whether Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake have really finally broken up than they do about the Bill of Rights, I’m not going to be heard. I’m not going to make a difference.

If I try, I’m going to fail.

I’m going to keep on trying, just because it’s a damn old habit that I don’t think I can shake. Nonetheless, I no longer have any expectations of success. My voice won’t be heard. Things won’t get better. America is on the way out, and the American government is just going to get uglier and uglier.

Tonight, Pennsylvanians are going to reward Hillary Clinton for her scare tactics. Hillary Clinton will stay in the race, gleefully running around cheering “I won! I won!”

And then we’ll go on to Guam… and Indiana… and Nebraska… and the next state… and all the way to the end… and Hillary Clinton’s tactics of never asking the American people to think big or step out on a limb will be vindicated.

It will be a stalemate, and although Barack Obama will have won the majority of primaries, and have gotten the majority of primary-elected delegates, Hillary Clinton will be made the Democratic nominee, just because she has more powerful people who owe her favors.

We’ll slump on toward Election Day, and maybe Hillary Clinton will win and maybe John McCain will win, but most Americans won’t really care. They’ll just want to make sure that the election coverage on TV doesn’t interfere with their favorite weekly TV show.

I’ll still care, but I don’t expect that this year’s election will change anything. Clinton won’t bring soldiers home from Iraq, and she won’t close Guantanamo, and she won’t have the Patriot Act repealed, and her health care plans will be forgotten within a year, and we’ll continue to watch America slouching into the margins as Bill Clinton has one last fling at sexual independence with some middle-aged barmaid he meets on the outskirts of Peoria.

We had a chance to do something better with this country, but people just don’t give a damn. Damn it all to hell.

The moral character of the Republican Party is revealed in a shameful state by its consideration of Condoleeza Roce as a vice presidential candidate.

Condoleeza Rice was already infamous for deceiving Congress about the nature of the briefing given to George W. Bush just before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Now her name will be forever linked to torture.

At a meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell that was approved by George W. Bush himself, Condoleeza Rice gave her strong endorsement to the use of torture by CIA agents against prisoners.

Rice told the CIA, “This is your baby. Go do it!”

What kind of sadist would refer to torture as a “baby”? The Condoleeza Rice kind of sadist.

If John McCain chooses Condoleeza Rice as his running mate, we’ll know that he is that same kind of sadist as well.

So, Osama Bin Laden, who once was regarded as a terrifying threat to American lives but now seems more like an over-the-hill late night talk show host, has released a new video.  No dancing in it, shamefully.

In his new video, Bin Laden suggests that if America wants the Iraq War to be over, Americans should just convert to fundamentalist Islam.

Well, it’s a start.  I’m glad that Osama Bin Laden is willing to negotiate.

Here’s my counter offer, then.  I will consider converting to fundamentalist Islam if Osama Bin Laden converts to Buddhism first, as a good will gesture, just to show that people are all willing to change.  In order to help Osama Bin Laden feel confident in converting to Buddhism, I’m asking the Dalai Lama to become a Wiccan.  After all, everyone knows that there isn’t enough room in Nirvana for the Dalai Lama and Osama Bin Laden both.

Category Five means catastrophic. Hurricane became a Category Five hurricane overnight. That’s the second Category Five hurricane in the Caribbean this year. Think Hurricane Katrina, only it’s Central America that’s being devastated instead of New Orleans. Honduras and Belize are getting the brunt of this one, and will the Yucatan be ravaged yet again?

A link that we all should become familiar with: The National Hurricane Center.

This warning about Hurricane Dean was given by the National Weather Service just a few hours ago: “Dean could become a potentially catastrophic category five hurricane at any time before it reaches Yucatan.”

Surely, passing over the Yucatan will diminish the power of Hurricane Dean, but only after pounding the Yucatan again.

Am I right in remembering that Hurricane Katrina was only a Category 2 hurricane?

In reading the National Weather Service forecast, it looks as if they’re predicting that Hurricane Dean will reach the Yucatan Penninsula in about four days… but could it turn north, to hit Texas?

Only one computer model predicts that Hurricane Dean will hit Texas, but the National Weather Service notes that that particular computer model <i>”has had a very reliably track record”</i>.

Watch out, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico! Get the hell out of Yucatan!

Thanks to John Stracke for bringing to my attention today’s news that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has gained new powers to rush through death penalty cases to quick execution even when the quality of justice is sacrificed in the practice.

It’s a bald-faced grab for power. Executing terrorists fast has no benefit to domestic security (or Homeland Security, as the new politics of fear tells me I’m supposed to say). In fact, quickly executing people who may be able to give valuable information hurts security, as the too-quick execution of Timothy McVeigh showed. Too many secrets about the people behind the Oklahoma City bombings died with McVeigh.

The new death penalty powers come right on the heels of Alberto Gonzales getting powers to force Americans to participate in huge electronic spying programs against their fellow citizens, in what looks more and more like the old Total Information Awareness project.

Those who have read the new law that gives those powers, the Protect America Act, know that there is only one other person in the federal government who shares the power with Alberto Gonzales to run its Internet and telephone spying programs: The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell.

Michael McConnell also was caught in a grab for power today. It seems that Director McConnell has pushed through yet another dramatic new program to spy against Americans. Domestic law enforcement agencies now have the power to use military spy satellites that were designed to spy against the Soviet Union to peer down at the United States, and see what people are are doing here - no terrorist threat required for the spying.

This is a dramatic consolidation of power in the hands of just two men in the federal government - Gonzales and McConnell. Why the power grab now? What do they plan to do with that power that they weren’t doing before?

I’m speaking to the small segment of Americans who is paying attention and cares about preserving the liberty that is the foundation of American government. Something very big is going on, right before your eyes.

Keep an eye to the skies… and wave hello to McConnell and Gonzales.

Between 125 and 175 people killed in three or four bombings in just one town in northern Iraq today. Qahtaniya lies in the area of Iraq that George W. Bush and his pig-headed pro-war Republican allies have claimed is a model of peace and prosperity.

If there’s this much violence in what Bush regards as a model area of Iraq, how can Bush possibly continue with plans to declare his military escalation - the surge - a success?

if this is what Bush thinks success looks like, then only a fool would continue to support his plans for “victory”.

The Republicans who keep on repeating the mantra that all hell would break loose in Iraq if America stopped its military occupation are in denial. They refuse to see that hell has already broken loose in Iraq, and it’s because of the American invasion and occupation.

Correction: The death toll from these attacks is now at over 500.

The Pentagon tells us that three Americans were killed in Afghanistan today, and that five Americans were killed in Iraq today.

Remember just four years ago, when a single American being killed in either country was regarded as cause for alarm?

The longer we stay, the worse things get in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Military missions have failed.  We need non-military options for both countries.

It’s a fascinating theory, this idea that the Protect America Act was rushed through to protect a Total Information Awareness program. It provokes questions, and reconsiderations of some moments in Bush Administration history.

The question that comes into my mind is this: Given what we know about the tenacity with which the Bush White House has held onto its powers, no matter now outrageous the claims to power are, how likely is it that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales just relinquished the Total Information Awareness program, as they appeared to do at the time, back in 2002? Not likely at all. It’s just not in the character of the Bush White House.

In fact, as was pointed out a while ago here, the Total Information Awareness program never died. It just went underground in the National Security Agency.

Oh, connection! The National Security Agency is where the alleged warrantless wiretapping that the Protect America Act is supposed to legalize was taking place.

The question that now rests most heavily upon my mind is this: How do we test the hypothesis? What are some of the pieces of information that would prove or disprove it?

Barring that, what are some of the pieces of information that would strengthen the Hepting v. AT&T hypothesis, without going so far as to prove it?

A few days ago, someone here asked about the idea of an Afghanistan Body Count. Unfortunately, no one seems to have any current figures on the number of civilians killed and wounded in Afghanistan during the current war there. I imagine it would take quite a bit of effort to get a such a body count together, requiring the labor of a professional, or of someone with a lot of time on their hands.

There is, however, a regularly updated report on the number of American deaths and woundings in Afghanistan. Of course, it’s given by the Pentagon, so take it with a grain of salt.

The latest numbers are:
409 American deaths
1428 Americans wounded

Of course, these statistics are about eight days old now. Two more American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan just yesterday, perhaps more today. As the war in Afghanistan has continued, the rate of American deaths and woundings has been increasing, not decreasing. Afghanistan looks to be sliding toward something more like the violent chaos in Iraq.

Flights at the Long Beach Airport in California were delayed and passengers were evacuated from the terminal yesterday… because someone wanted to play video games.   Is the explanation that simple?

Maybe not.  It was a Gameboy video game machine that triggered the Homeland Security alert.  Someone packed a gameboy in their luggage, and failed to inform the Transportation Security Administration, and when it was found, security officials worried it might be a bomb.

A government official explained, <i>”It certainly was nothing but it certainly looked like something. It had all the wires and components that you would see in an explosive device.”</i>

Nintendo Gameboy machines have all the wires and components that you would see in an explosive device, huh?  Maybe Nintendo Gameboy machines <b>are</b> explosive devices!  Maybe this whole “video game” thing is just a terrorist plot to smuggle bombs into every neighborhood in the United States.

I mean, what’s the alternative explanation?  That the Department of Homeland Security is so incompetent that it doesn’t know how to tell the difference between a bomb and a video game?  Naw, that couldn’t possibly be true!

Okay, so it’s not Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but here’s another fantastic title I’m thinking of tonight: George W. Bush and the Cut and Pasted Soldiers.
I’m thinking of this title after seeing a really scary little page of a graphic used by the George W. Bush for President campaign, which shows how the Bush campaign cut and pasted pictures of soldiers in an audience before Bush so as to make it appear that there were more soldiers than appeared in reality.

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/maat/images/georgewbush.jpg 
It seems that soldiers aren’t individuals, as far as George W. Bush is concerned, just props, one the same as the next, all just tools to further his own ambition.

What a sicko.

There are many people alive today who still accept the old religious belief that humanity is at the center of the universe, and that all of the Cosmos is just a creation upon which a divine being intended human beings to be the dominant players.

The people who still believe that would do well to consider the implications of this video, which shows the size of Earth relative to other planets, and then to the sun and other known stars. It reminds me of a short animated spot that used to run on Sesame Street years ago, with the lyrics, “That’s about the size, where you put your eyes, that’s about the size of it.” The idea has also been discussed well in Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot.

Theists need to explain this, and never have: If people are the special creation of a divine ruler of all the universe, what is everything else, the immense vastness of the non-Earth universe, there for?

The TV show The Sopranos is over, and media critics are having a festival of whining about how cheated they are out of a meaningful ending to the series.

I don’t get it. How could there be a meaningful ending to a TV series that had no meaning in the first place?

I can understand if you watched The Sopranos for one season, if you had nothing better to do, but after that first season, what was the point?

Ooh, the main character was a mobster… like in hundreds of other TV shows and movies. Ooh, he does bad things… like thousands of other TV and movie characters.

Okay, the mobster saw a therapist. That had enough interest to carry a single one-hour show - kind of like Analyze This, but without the jokes.

What was left after that? Mob goons battling for control of turf. Miscellaneous, not very remarkable personal issues.

I saw a few of the shows, sure - enough to see that there wasn’t really that much there. The only people who would keep on watching The Sopranos after the first season are the kind of people who get addicted to television, and are just desperate for something to watch because they don’t have anything to do.

The Sopranos is over. Yawn. Turn off the televison now, okay?

Ever heard of the Yowie? People looking to gain tourism dollars for Batesman Bay are hoping you will soon.

They’re saying that the photograph you see here shows the Yowie, a wild Australian ape-man cryptid. The Yowie is supposed to be the Australian equivalent of Bigfoot or the Yeti.

They say that this photograph of the Yowie is real evidence of its existence.

If you believe that, then let me give you some more information: In the photograph you see below of Barack Obama, you can see the Loch Ness monster in the background.

Don’t see it? You’re just not looking hard enough.

Defenders of religion as a positive force for humanity need to consider the stoning death of a teenage girl who was stoned to death in the supposedly “liberated” Iraqi Kurdistan. Amnesty International reports that she was struck by relatives with stones until dead as punishment for staying out the night with a Muslim boyfriend.

Girl was not Muslim, exactly, but from a Yezidi family. The Yezidi have a system of religious belief that is influenced by Islam, but is not strictly Islamic.

Want to find out more about this religion? Go ahead and Google “Yezidi”. You’ll find some information about the Yezidi religious practice in the abstract, but two of the ten links on the first page of the search results are about the stoning.

Certainly, for myself, the story of the Yezidi stoning dominates my thinking about this cultural group. I’m curious about their beliefs and practices, but first and foremost, the though comes into my mind that, gosh, the Yezidi may be interesting and unique, but they stone teenage girls to death.

That’s a big lesson for cultures, as they seek to present themselves in the world. All the highfalutin ideas about the creation of the Universe and the meaning of life are great, but when you engage in barbaric practices, that’s all that will matter to most people.