...on being qualified

President Obama has just nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme court. I don't know much about her, other than she appears to have an inspirational, Horatio Alger-type story. I'm not writing to address her qualifications. In fact, my concern is that her nomination has little to do with her judicial qualifications.

This morning, news headlines proclaimed, "Obama picks Latina." Sounds like a politically savvy choice. NBC news questions, "Would Republicans dare vote against first Hispanic Woman?" Probably not in significant numbers (not that it would matter)--they can't afford to further alienate the Latino vote.

But I have a few questions about the nomination (if not the nominee). First, what does being a Hispanic woman have to do with being qualified to be a Supreme Court justice? What does being any gender from any race have to do with being qualified? President Obama said he would nominate somebody with "empathy and understanding." Admirable traits, but what do they have to do with dispassionately applying the law? I'd like to think that the answer to each of these questions is, absolutely nothing. Now, Sotomayor may in fact be the most qualified person President Obama could have nominated, but anybody would be hard-pressed to make the case that Obama's decision was based on her qualifications and not her race and gender.

I also can't help wondering if Ms. Sotomayor feels that her appointment has been cheapened by being based on marketing, political correctness and voter-getting rather than judicial excellence. Obviously, nobody is going to come out and say that she was only selected because she's a "Latina", but would she have gotten the nod had she been a white male? And if not, isn't that racism? Ms. Sotomayor isn't stupid and can't be naive to this line of reasoning.

Here's how I look at this and other quality vs. equality issues: If I'm on an airplane who's only pilot suddenly dies of a heart attack, the attendant asks if anybody in the plane has any kind of flying experience and four people raise their hands, I hope the attendant ascertains the skill and experience of the four, then selects the best pilot. If the attendant selects the new pilot based on gender, race, sexual preference, political affiliation, friendship, financial favors or any other reason, I'll be looking for a parachute and the nearest exit.

...on being confused

First off, let me admit that there is much about this topic that I don't understand, but it appears to me that a) the gay rights movement has an agenda, and b) it's confusing.

Take for example a recent Politico article:

"But gay rights groups — disappointed that Obama didn't pick an openly gay man or woman for his Cabinet — are pushing him to put the first openly gay justice on the Supreme Court.

"Within hours of word of Souter's departure, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund was hailing the candidacy of a First Amendment scholar and former dean of Stanford Law School, Kathleen Sullivan. 'Out lesbian a contender for Supreme Court,' one of the group's web sites declared."

To me, this seems to clash with what I thought was the gay rights agenda, namely indiscriminant equality. So when it comes to marriage, we mustn't discriminate, but when it comes to the President's cabinet, we suddenly should? When it's a local school teacher, sexual preference is irrelevant, but when it's a supreme court justice, it's vital? Must the supreme court nominee also be, as the Politico quote suggests, an "openly" gay person, or is being discretely gay sufficient? What are the rules here? What is the criteria? How is a person supposed to be politically correct? Even if one wanted to color within the lines, they couldn't because the lines keep shifting!

Look, I'm not making any moral, right or wrong arguments here (that's another rant), I'm just pointing out what appears to be multiple standards and multiple agendas. And I'm saying that it's confusing. At best. At worst, it's disingenuous and makes "indiscriminant equality" look like bait.

...on being a pirate's best friend

Now that an American ship has been hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia (it was the 6th ship hijacked this week), I thought it a perfect time to unveil my plan to end modern-day piracy, which costs the developed world hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

What's the solution to the piracy plague? Here it is: We bail them out! That's right, we simply create a stimulus package for the pirates that incentivizes them to stop working, i.e. to stop hijacking ships. They stop working, we pay them. Simple.

Note: The other way to get them to stop working would have been to severely tax their earnings, but that seemed a bit of a stretch since Somalia doesn't have an IRS.

The beauty of my plan is that the international community wouldn't need to do a thing. Americans will foot the bill! I mean, this would only cost a couple hundred million dollars a year--that's pocket change compared to the trillions upon trillions President Obama and Congress plan to spend on far less urgent projects; indeed, on projects that have far less chance of success.

To those who balk at this plan, let me remind you of two things. First, the American tax payer is apparently quite willing to throw obscene, illogical amounts of money at problems. According to recent polls, the majority of Americans don't mind having their taxes raised...or at least the taxes of their more wealthy neighbors. The Obama spending frenzy still has the support of 59% of Americans according to Gallup. So if they're willing to spend their childrens' money so freely, why not give them a sure thing, success guaranteed project to spend it on?

Second, I don't think I need to remind you that piracy, along with every other problem in the world today, is America's fault, and we are therefore morally obligated to pay for and fix it. I was a bit surprised that President Obama didn't apologize for piracy on his recent European tour. He apologized for everything else, but not piracy. No worries--we'll fix that omission too.

My plan is to have President Obama travel to Somalia and apologize directly to the pirates. Of course, he'll want to bow to the pirate Captain as a sign of cultural respect. And we'll make sure he gives one of his trademark "America is arrogant, it's all Bush's fault and we're sorry" speeches. And to seal the deal, he'll present the pirate captain with a box set of DVDs! And THIS time, we'll make sure he includes a DVD player that actually plays American DVDs. When he returns to Washington, Mr. Obama will undoubtedly appoint a Pirate Czar to oversee swashbuckling policy.

So, in summary: America is arrogant and responsible for piracy. No problem, cuz most Americans are more than happy to use their childrens' money to pay the pirates off, thus incentivizing them to not work. The price tag for this won't amount to a drop in the bucket of President Obama's spending plans, so it's a bargain. And it involves both pirates and czars, which is very exciting.


Oh, and one more thing: I'd like to formally and preemptively apologize to pirates, Europeans, the UN and the Muslim world for writing this rant. I was arrogant and wrong to do so. Can I offer you some money?

...on being forced to pay for my unfair advantage

As a nation, we've decided that we no longer trust the free market. We've been burned! The market failed to protect us from our own greed and rank stupidity. So from here on out, we've decided (or at least the politicians who 'represent' us have decided) to put the government in charge of the markets.

WHAT????!!!!!!

What has government ever done--EVER--that would lead us to believe that this is a good idea? Ever? The short answer is NOTHING. But rather than engage in a subjective analysis of history, let me direct the wrath of this rant at what the government is doing with our tax money today.

Today the government has turned its attention to the housing crisis. A brief history: Basically, a whole bunch of greedy, short-sighted financial institutions driven by government legislation, gave out exotic home loans to a whole bunch of unqualified and even more short-sighted people who had absolutely no business buying a house (much less the houses they bought) and couldn't afford to pay the mortgages. This under the negligent eye of the Bush administration and on the wings of legislation championed by Barney Frank to help the "economically disadvantaged" get into a home loan. The result is the present deep and deepening recession. Who would have thunk? Both the financiers and those they over-financed were profoundly unwise and deserve to be dropped on their financial noggins.

But is the government going to let the market run its course and allow stupid financial institutions to fail and stupid house buyers to default? No, it would be too painful and the market cannot be trusted. Barney Frank and his congressional cronies, on the other hand, can. Mysterious.

The plan is to bail-out the people who can't afford to pay their mortgages. And who's going to bail them out? The government? And where does the government get is money? That's right, from people like me. Hard working people who were smart enough not to buy what we couldn't afford with money that wasn't ours. So now we'll be paying our mortgages and the mortgages of a bunch of instant-self-gratification idiots who got in over their heads in homes they couldn't have afforded with a -4% interest rate.

Back when he was pushing his loans-for-everybody legislation through congress, Barney Frank--one of the small, truly disappointing figures in all of congressional history--was concerned with being fair to all the economically disadvantaged out there who couldn't afford a house. Never mind that there were good reasons they couldn't afford a house. The government needed to ensure equality!

And since its plan for equality then has backfired, the government's plan for equality now is to penalize people like me who have unfair advantages. So now, in the name of fairness and equality, I'm being forced to pay for the unfair advantage my HARD WORK and COMMON SENSE have given me.

What an absolute crock! Hey Barney, if I stop paying my mortgage now, can I get some of that government bailout money, you retarded Elmer Fudd Oompa-Loompa?

Seriously, what are we doing here? We're promoting bad behavior by rewarding it! Once upon a time in America, it was embarrassing to take a handout. Now it's a legislated expectation. Oh, I know. I've seen the talking heads on TV explaining how we're all in this together and if the government doesn't take money from people like me to bail out the flunkies then we'll all go down together.

Well, I've thought about that and you know what...let's dance! If it's a choice between getting my teeth kicked in now and being bled dry paying for flunkies over the next 50 years, then I say bring the pain! Let's get this over with! Let's all go down together--flunkies too! It's about time somebody who actually deserves to pay for their mistakes starts paying. And if that means I have to suffer along side the idiots, so be it. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life--nor do I want my children to spend the duration of theirs--paying off immoral imbecile debt. Let's do this now!

But we won't, will we Barney, you beady-eyed lilliputian? No, we'll rob from productive people to underwrite sloth and indigence, and go socialist in the process.

...on being there when my children were sold into slavery

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams


Niro is said to have fiddled while Rome burned. Likewise, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew to Rome after pushing-through a partisan spending bill that effectively sells our children and grandchildren into financial slavery. How symbolically ironic that this happened during the tenure and at the behest of our first black president, Barak Obama.

It is perhaps too harsh and unfair to evoke the imagery of slavery here. Indeed, future generations of Americans will not be whipped, shacked, starved or denied their civil and and human rights. They will, however, and in a very real sense, be fiscally indentured to the large and rising creditor nations of the world who are now purchasing our debt.

My children don't know this, of course. They don't realize that they'll grow up in a very different, less friendly world where the Untied States is no longer an economically, politically and socially dominant stabilizing force. They don't understand that they'll toil and be heavily taxed their entire lives in a desperate bid to somehow pay the burgeoning interest on US government debt to China, Russia and other foreign and domestic bond holders. But if they look at today's passage of a near-trillion dollar, pork-filled, politically motivated spending bill with childlike ignorance, they are not alone.

In a nation that increasingly looks to government to solve their problems, and especially during times of crisis, reality is often slow to set in. But I think that a few people get it. Or at least are trying to grasp the magnitude of what's happening. Others--too many--are simply content to shut their eyes, cross their fingers, take the money and run.

Gone are the days of Patrick Henry, who rightly observed, "For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it." On this day, when the worst has come, we the people proved unwilling to understand and know it, and willing to sell our childrens' inheritance for a proverbial mess of pottage.

Yes, we're deep in a recession and there's plenty of blame to go around as to how we got here. There are good arguments to be made (though few arguments thus far have been good) that the government needs to do something. But why a trillion dollars when less than a quarter of it will be distributed within the first year? Would it have been asking too much to approach this crisis in a reasoned, thoughtful, measured way? Would it have killed Pelosi to--as she and the Democrats promised--allow the American people to actually read the bill before agreeing to it? Such was Pelosi's rush that not a single congressman was able to read the final version of the 1,071 page bill that they voted for and passed today. Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver lamented, “We all cast our votes with one hand and crossed our fingers with the other.”

But pass it they did, and not a moment too soon. Nancy Pelosi had just enough time to get in a photo opp and catch her flight to Rome. Whew! And when the gargantuan spending bill finally passed both houses of congress--this urgent bill that had to be passed RIGHT NOW, never mind reading it--President Obama, rather than signing it, took a three day vacation to Chicago. Guess it wasn't that urgent after all. Honestly, you can't even make this stuff up.

Pelosi, Reid, Obama and all those who rammed this colossal spending bill through congress and down our throats at the expense of our children, have killed the proverbial albatross and I intend to be part of the electoral movement that hangs it around their collective neck in 2010.

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy." - Thomas Jefferson

...on being willing to give my children's money to stupid people

I'll start this rant with a quote from South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford: "[This bailout is] what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your political connection is to those in power. That is quite different than a market-based economy where some rise and some fall but there’s a consequence to making a stupid decision. A lot of people who’ve made some very stupid decisions are being bailed out by the population at large."

I'm like millions of other Americans in being absolutely appalled by the events that lead our economy to the present recession. And I'm no less disgusted by the frantic, heavy handed and, as Governor Sanford puts it, "stupid" rush to give trillions of dollars to screw-ups and special interests in the name of bailing out the economy. But am I surprised?

No.

Surprise occurs when something unpredictable and out of the ordinary happens. And that's simply not the case here.

Today the story broke that General Motors will spend $1 billion of its tax payer bailout money on investments in Brazil. This news has, of course, been met with stunned disbelief and outrage by the American public. I say 'of course,' but who can seriously be surprised by this? Is there anything that the GM executive team has done in the recent past that would make this move surprising? No. These are the geniuses who flew their corporate jets to Washington to ask for money. They've made stupid decisions in the past and are merely continuing on course. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE MONEY TO STUPID PEOPLE.

Speaking of corporate jets, until they were shamed and bullied into canceling the order, Citigroup planned on using part of their $45 billion in tax payer bailout money to purchase a new, state-of-the-art corporate jet. People were shocked and appalled. I was appalled too, but I must say that the whole jet thing is very consistent with Citigroup's track record. Oh, and did I mention, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE MONEY TO STUPID PEOPLE.

No sooner did Bank of America get its $24 billion in bailout money then it bought a bank in China for $7 billion. Then followed this up by laying-off 32,000 employees. It's shocking, until you remember that this is the same Bank of America that gives credit cards to people who don't have social security numbers. Then it all makes sense: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE MONEY TO STUPID PEOPLE.

The week after tax payers spent $85 billion bailing out AIG, company executives spent a half million dollars of it on a luxurious corporate retreat. The Huffington Post indignantly proclaimed, "They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill." Indeed, but let me ask you this: Is there anything in AIG's past actions that would cause you to expect a different course of action? Hmmmmm...well then I'm going to have to say, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE MONEY TO STUPID PEOPLE.

John A. Thain, chief executive of Merrill Lynch, leads a pack of flunky Wall Street bosses who have handed out billions in bonuses to their executive teams despite the fact that their institutions have lost billions for investors, are no longer independently viable and have received billions in tax payer bailouts from the government. And yet news outlets nationwide marvel at how these organizations got into the mess in the first place? How could it have happened with such steady hands at the tiller? Are you serious? Thain spent $1.2 million to redecorate his office! HIS OFFICE!!!! And are you seriously taken aback by the billions in bonuses to executives who should have been summarily dismissed for piss poor performance? Come on! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE MONEY TO STUPID PEOPLE!!!

Is there anyone out there who's beginning to see the pattern here? Anybody need a few more examples? Because I've got 'em. How about just one more--the proverbial icing on the stupidity cake.

We just elected a man who vowed to replace the "politics of fear with the politics of hope." Two weeks later he's appointed a tax cheat to run the IRS and goes on TV daily with doomsday forecasts aimed at intimidating Congress and frightening the American public into passing a pork-filled, trillion dollar spending package. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! The bill was drafted behind closed doors by a handful of congressmen from one party lead by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who recently claimed that, "five hundred million Americans lose their job every month"). Now they're pressing hard to pass the bill in the name of expediency and expect us to believe that a) it's a good bill, b) it will fix the problem, and c) it has to be passed right now, as is or we're doomed as a nation.

I have my doubts. And why shouldn't I when it comes to Congress? This is a group who earns their single digit approval rating year in and year out. Gross, bureaucratic incompetence is their hallmark. And these are the very people to whom we pay taxes--who decide where our money goes. And they've decided to use it (plus a bunch more money that they'll have to borrow and a bunch more that they're going to print) to bailout, and thus socialize, the economy. Sorry, but I wouldn't trust Nancy Pelosi to hand out the condoms she claims will stimulate our economy, much less trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. But she's going to. And our children and grandchildren will be saddled with a crippling debt, paving the way for creditor nations like China to takeover the political and economic leadership role in the world.

It sickens me. It really does. I'm angry, disgusted, embarrassed, outraged, saddened, nauseated, fed-up and pissed-off. But I'm not surprised. And I'm not saying don't pay your taxes. All I'm saying is.....THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE MONEY TO STUPID PEOPLE!!!

...on being misinformed

I was un-American, but now I'm just misinformed. That according to Hollywood's best and brightest.

First it was Tom Hanks pronouncing Mormon supporters of California Proposition 8 "un-American," a comment for which he later apologized. Now Samuel L. Jackson, while discussing the same topic, said, "I wouldn't go so far as to calling them [Mormons] un-American. I'd just call them misinformed."

Well of course we're misinformed, Sam! Anybody who disagrees with you must be misinformed. There's no other explanation. If we were informed, we'd agree with you. Period. Unless you disagreed with Tom Hanks, in which case we'd have to agree with him. He does have a couple Oscars.

It's just delicious to listen as statements like these pass as authoritative. Or better yet, as rational arguments. I'm not sure if it says more about Hollywood or about us. After all, we're the ones who listen to them.

I don't mean to pick on these two actors. I think they're nice, talented guys and I assume they're every bit as sincere in their ideas and beliefs as I am in mine. I'm not going to boycott their movies because their views on Mormons' views. I just think it's funny.

I'm also amused and a bit mystified by the fact that everybody's singling out the Mormons on this issue. Is anybody going to mention any other religion? Ever? I mean, pretty much every religion in California supported Prop 8. So why aren't Catholics or Methodists or Lutherans un-American or misinformed? Why isn't anybody demonstrating in front of their churches? Curious, that's all.

What's even more curious to me is when Tom Hanks said, "I do not like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper." Sounds good, but isn't that what laws do? Doesn't every single law ever written discriminate against somebody or something? I think so...but then I may just be misinformed. I'm not sure, but I'll bet Samuel L. Jackson could tell me.

...on being intolerant

The idea of political correctness has been around for a while now, but it doesn't pack the devastating punch that it did when it was freshly coined. It's no longer damning enough to be politically incorrect; the stigma isn't powerful enough to get you banned from society at large. In fact, political incorrectness is becoming somewhat trendy. Being politically incorrect is edgy and marks one as a free-thinking independent. Not bad, which is exactly why the PC activists have moved on to new words like "intolerant" and "discriminate". Words whose connotation is almost universally negative and whose stigma is a social scarlet letter.

In today's America, unless you're willing to tolerate anything, you're intolerant. And I'm simply not willing to tolerate anything. And I do discriminate and vote for discriminatory laws. I'm intolerant, for example, of theft. I think it's wrong and won't put up with it. And I'll vote to pass laws that will discriminate against anybody who steels (BTW, show me a non-discriminatory law--no such thing).

Now, that sounds reasonable, until one of my ideas or opinions runs counter to the idea or opinion of an activist with a cause and a chip on his shoulder. That's the tipping point, if you will. It's at that point that I become intolerant, which, in a connotative sense at least, is only a hop skip and a jump from bigoted, racist and hateful.

Building on my previous example of theft, I believe that illegal immigration is a form of theft--that people who enter a place illegally and steel another person's identification for personal gain are thieves. That's not the sum total of all they are, but it's something they're doing and I won't tolerate it. I'll vote to pass laws and measures that discriminate against people who come here illegally and steel other people's identifications.

Is this not a reasonable position to take? To the open borders activist, it is not. He or she can no doubt explain why they disagree with my point of view. But instead of debating the issues, or leaving the outcome up to voters, many activists resort to name calling.

It's been said that the best way to win a fist fight is with a gun. Likewise, modern activists excel at using labels and charged rhetoric to trump mutual discourse. As I've stated before, the beauty of labels lies not only in their egregiously negative connotations but in their ease of use. Like a big stick, labels pack a punch and their use requires no training or skill. No facts, figures, logic or arguments are necessary to use a label like "intolerant." In fact, the lack of a substantive argument is the best possible time to use labels. It immediately puts your opponent on the defensive and changes the debate from issues to whether or not your opponent is, for example, an intolerant, bigoted hatemonger.

The recent passage of California Proposition 8 is an excellent example. Both sides had legitimate arguments to make, but the gay rights activists--especially after they lost--chose to hurl labels and engage in name calling. They singled out the Mormon church and quickly labeled Utah a "hate state." This, despite the fact that California Mormons made up just over 2% of the Prop 8 votes, and Utah citizens--Mormon or otherwise--can't and didn't vote in California.

Interestingly, the activists chose not to attack and demean California's African-American community, 70% of whose voters favored Prop 8. But attacking them would have backfired and earned the activists a label of their own: Racist. Instead, they went after a small, historically unpopular religion. Easy target, easy label, easy bypass of any arguments that might be mistaken as legitimate.

The irony here, of course, is that the gay rights activists are demanding tolerance from the Mormons (and others), but are completely unwilling to tolerate the Mormons (or anybody else) who disagree with them. The message seems to be, "Anybody who disagrees with us is a hater...and we hate haters!!!" You just can't make this stuff up.

The bottom line, as always, is that activists apply labels when it suits them. That is, when somebody else disagrees with them. If you agree with them, you're off the hook. Ridiculous? Yes. Juvenile? Yes. A complete double standard? Yes. But it's also effective. The activists will likely continue to use labels until we stop buying into their hypocrisy.

...on being mentally enslaved

This Christmas season, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire (phone: 360-902-4111) has allowed the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) to display in the capital rotunda a sign that reads:

"At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail.
There are no gods, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

I don't know what the good governor believes, but she's not a stupid politician. She knows Washington, one of the most secular states in the union populated by a largely non-religious, progressive electorate. She also knows that it will be four years before that electorate gets another shot at her. And she's betting that even those voters disturbed by state sponsorship of anti-religious rhetoric will probably forget all about it in four years time.

I will not. I disagree with the Governor's decision and contend that, besides being in horrifically poor taste, the whole thing is illogical, undemocratic, and embarrassingly ironic in both its attempted promotion of equality and its call for reason. Allow me to offer five specific points in defense of this assertion.

First, regardless of what you believe about religion, Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. It's in the name: CHRIST-mas. You may not believe that Jesus is the divine Son of God, or even that there is a God. You may not even believe that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual historic figure. The fact remains that Christmas is a celebration of His birthday. What's more, the United States government has made Christmas a federal holiday.

Defending the FFRF anti-religion display, co-founder Dan Barker claimed that, "Our members want equal time...to have a place at the table." But I would ask, what table? There is no table. This is not a debate. It's Jesus's birthday party, and if you're concerned about equal time for your bigoted views then pick one of the other 364 days of the year and throw your own party.

Second, the other displays in the capital rotunda are symbols, not written statements. The Christians have displayed the nativity, the Jews the Menorah. Even the secular "holiday tree" is symbolic of a season of good will and giving, regardless of belief or religious affiliation. Contrast this with the atheist group's verbose diatribe, which is a statement with an agenda rather than a seasonal symbol. It's clear to see, as we all learned from Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the others. And yet all displays are being treated as equals by Governor Gregoire. Maybe she didn't watch Sesame Street as a child.

Third, while the other displays are positive, seasonal professions of belief, the FFRF sign is a pointed and purposely negative attack. The other displays celebrate; the anti-religion display denigrates. When interviewed, Dan Barker admitted that their sign in the capital, "is an attack on religion." I can see the government wanting to be politically correct and fair, but allowing an attack ad parity with Christmas displays is not promoting equality. Ironically, it's just the opposite. Again, one of these things is not like the others.

Fourth, a display attacking religion is not the democratic way to separate church and state at Christmas time. Christmas is a federal holiday by popular consent of the citizenry of a representative democracy. If you don't like Christmas and don't want the U.S. government to give it federal holiday status, then sponsor legislation to have Christmas removed from the list of federal holidays. Get such legislation passed by elected representatives of the people and signed into law and your winter solstice worries are over. But if you can't get such legislation passed (and let's be honest, you can't) then you need to respect the will of the people. That's democracy.

Fifth and finally, the atheist's anti-religion display is, by its own verbiage and logic, ironic and a red-faced embarrassment to reason. How can one call for the prevalence of reason, then summarily rule out possibilities that have, at the very least, not been disproven? How can a reasonable person put forth "our natural world" as the sum total of all that is, when we know so very little about our natural world and the universe in which it resides? And when we are making theory-bending, knowledge-expanding discoveries about the nature of nature every day? How can any reasonable person decry religion as "superstition" today when not too many yesterdays ago things like the spherical shape of the earth, atoms, germs and much more were also decried as superstition? How indeed can any reasonable person lay mental enslavement at the door step of religion, then, with a straight face, put up a sign dictating what his fellow man should and should not believe? It is both high irony and base hypocrisy.

Carl Segan famously declared that, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." But even if it were, that's no excuse for bad manners at Christmas time. As I contemplate the anti-religion display in my state's capital rotunda this Christmas, I can only hope that it backfires; that others will see through the intolerance and opportunistic sniping of Dan Barker and his atheist activists; that they will see that Governor Gregoire's spineless attempt at equality has produced just the opposite and cast a negative light on both the state and the season; that they will be reminded of what Christmas really is and be ever more determined to keep Christ at the center of the holiday that commemorates his birth and bears his name.

And to Dan Barker, wherever you are, merry Christmas to you.

...on being an expendable idiot

So it's been nearly three weeks since I was laid-off from my high-tech, software industry job in downtown Seattle. I was on a hand-picked team working for a senior VP. Didn't matter, he was laid-off too.

When I came to Seattle and started looking for jobs, I rang-up three offers in as many weeks. Not so in today's job market. In three weeks of searching, I've had one real interview and nothing close to an offer. The economic downturn/recession has everybody from Microsoft on down hedging their bets and freezing their hiring. I'm working with recruiters and open to contract work, but even then the pickins are slim to none.

Since coming to Seattle, I'm $20k upside down in a house that I won't be able to get out of for years (thus ending our family at two kids due to lack of space) and I've lost a my job at the front end of what promises to be the worst recession since the 1930s. As a bonus, my retirement accounts are nigh unto worthless and I'll probably end up in a cheap nursing home on the outskirts of a town I've never heard of. But at least I've got my health. Good thing, cuz I no longer have health insurance.

I've honestly thought a about going back to Idaho and seeing if I could get a line job at the local potato processing plant in Blackfoot. I won't, but I've thought about it. Potato chips and computer chips have given Idaho the fastest growing economy in the U.S. Maybe I could get in on that action.

If I did, I'd probably be working along side some of my less studious classmates from high school. Like them, I'd make about $25-30K a year. But in Blackfoot, Idaho you can buy more with that than I can buy with my near-six-figure product manager salary in Seattle.

Those mullet-wearing underachievers may actually be the smart ones. It's entirely possible that I'm an idiot who's wasted thousands of dollars and many years of my life getting a college education and scaling the precarious corporate ladder. In fact, it's looking more probable by the day.

Had I dropped out of high school and taken a line job at the potato factory, I would by now have a house on a piece of land. It wouldn't be a big house, but it would almost certainly (even if it were a double-wide trailer) be larger than my current townhouse on no land. And I'd have a job to support my family. Not bad. Instead, I'm unemployed, living in a shoe box and drowning in negative equity with no insurance or retirement money. The guys at the potato factory would have a good laugh.

...on being French

A great big sloppy thank you to all those responsible for bringing us the 2008 financial crisis and saddling tax payers like me with an additional trillion dollars in debt. And I'm not just talking about the Wall St. masters of the financial universe--I'm talking about all those many Americans out there who were stupid and/or worldly and/or greedy enough to mortgage themselves to the absolute hilt in an adjustable rate loan that they couldn't afford for a house that they had no business being in.

I'm a small government guy. I like capitalism and generally don't care for regulation. But the steep and deep regulation we're about to receive at the government's hands is wholly and richly deserved. As a nation, we just discovered the formula for socialism: Greed + ignorance - prudence.

I used to work with a person who spoke frequently of their serious credit card debt. At one point they were considering filing for bankruptcy. Instead, they bought a new house! Yes indeed, the bank told them they could afford it and they somehow figured that this was the right move. So, throwing third grade math lessons out the window, they jumped right into that exotic ARM and 'moved to Beverly.'


But rather than rant on, I found this gem of an article that I'll conclude with:


How We Became the United States of France
By Bill Saporito Sunday, Sep. 21, 2008

This is the state of our great republic: We've nationalized the financial system, taking control from Wall Street bankers we no longer trust. We're about to quasi-nationalize the Detroit auto companies via massive loans because they're a source of American pride, and too many jobs — and votes — are at stake. Our Social Security system is going broke as we head for a future where too many retirees will be supported by too few workers. How long before we have national healthcare? Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat, red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.

Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been shrink-wrapped by a half dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn. and FedExed to Washington D.C. to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. We're now no different from any of those Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride. Italy? Sure, it's had four governments since last Thursday, but none of them would have allowed this to go on; the Italians know how to rig an economy.

You just know the Frogs have only increased their disdain for us, if that is indeed possible. And why shouldn't they? The average American is working two and half jobs, gets two weeks off, and has all the employment security of a one-armed trapeze artist. The Bush Administration has preached the "ownership society" to America: own your house, own your retirement account; you don't need the government in your way. So Americans mortgaged themselves to the hilt to buy overpriced houses they can no longer afford and signed up for 401k programs that put money where, exactly? In the stock market! Where rich Republicans fleeced them.

Now our laissez-faire (hey, a French word) regulation-averse Administration has made France's only Socialist president, Francois Mitterand, look like Adam Smith by comparison. All Mitterrand did was nationalize France's big banks and insurance companies in 1982; he didn't have to deal with bankers who didn't want to lend money, as Paulson does. When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie. France doesn't have the mortgage crisis that we do, either. In bailing out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our government has basically turned America into the largest subsidized housing project in the world. Sure, France has its banlieues, where it likes to warehouse people who aren't French enough (meaning, immigrants or Algerians) in huge apartment blocks. But the bulk of French homeowners are curiously free of sub-prime mortgages foisted on them by fellow citizens, and they aren't over their heads in personal debt.

We've always dismissed the French as exquisitely fed wards of their welfare state. They work, what, 27 hours in a good week, have 19 holidays a month, go on strike for two days and enjoy a glass of wine every day with lunch — except for the 25% of the population that works for the government, who have an even sweeter deal. They retire before their kids finish high school, and they don't have to save for a $45,000-a-year college tuition because college is free. For this, they pay a tax rate of about 103%, and their labor laws are so restrictive that they haven't had a net gain in jobs since Napoleon. There is no way that the French government can pay for this lifestyle forever, except that it somehow does.

Mitterrand tried to create both job-growth and wage-growth by nationalizing huge swaths of the economy, including some big industries, including automaker Renault, for instance. You haven't driven a Renault lately because Renault couldn't sell them here. Imagine that. An auto company that couldn't compete with a Dodge Colt. But the Renault takeover ultimately proved successful and Renault became a private company again in 1996, although the government retains about 15% of the shares.

Now the U.S. is faced with the same prospect in the auto industry. GM and Ford need money to develop greener cars that can compete with Toyota and Honda. And they're looking to Uncle Sam for investment — an investment that could have been avoided had Washington imposed more stringent mileage standards years earlier. But we don't want to interfere with market forces like the French do — until we do.

Mitterand's nationalization program and other economic reforms failed, as the development of the European Market made a centrally planned economy obsolete. The Rothschilds got their bank back, a little worse for wear. These days, France sashays around the issue of protectionism in a supposedly unfettered EU by proclaiming some industries to be national champions worthy of extra consideration — you know, special needs kids. And we're not talking about pastry chefs, but the likes of GDF Suez, a major utility. I never thought of the stocks and junk securities sold by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as unique, but clearly Washington does. Morgan's John Mack calls SEC boss Chris Cox to whine about short sellers and bingo, the government obliges. The elite serve the elite. How French is that?

Even in the strongest sectors in the U.S., there's no getting away from the French influence. Nothing is more sacred to France than its farmers. They get whatever they demand, and they demand a lot. And if there are any issues about price supports, or feed costs being too high, or actual competition from other countries, French farmers simply shut down the country by marching their livestock up the Champs Elysee and piling up wheat on the highways. U.S. farmers would never resort to such behavior. They don't have to: they're the most coddled special interest group in U.S. history, lavished with $180 billion in subsidies by both parties, even when their products are fetching record prices. One consequence: U.S. consumers pay twice what the French pay for sugar, because of price guarantees. We're more French than France.

So yes, while we're still willing to work ourselves to death for the privilege of paying off our usurious credit cards, we can no longer look contemptuously at the land of 246 cheeses. Kraft Foods has replaced American International Group in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the insurance company having been added to Paulson's nationalized portfolio. Macaroni and cheese has supplanted credit default swaps at the fulcrum of capitalism. And one more thing: the food snob French love McDonalds, which does a fantastic business there. They know a good freedom fry when they taste one.

...on being non-partisan

This rant is dedicated to all the Kool-Aid drinking partisans out there, on both sides of the aisle, who put the 'less' in mindless every time they start talking politics. Political discourse in this country would be limited to a precious few voices without these talking points regurgitators.

There are few things as tedious as watching a hot and bothered partisan conjuring up and chewing somebody else's political cud. Domo oregato for the talking points bulletin, Mr. Roboto, but what I was looking for was an original thought. Or at least a borrowed thought that you've bothered to think through and look into enough to intelligently discuss it in your own words.

Not sure if you're a partisan or not? Consider this example of reflexive partisanship: Candidate A has some tax irregularities, has allegedly been spotted holding hands with one of his interns, and has a college age son who was just charged with selling drugs. If it turns our that Candidate A is a member of your party, you will vigorously defend Candidate A to the death, denying or justifying all perceived misdeeds and railing on the other party's "attack machine." Conversely, if the same candidate turns out to be a member of the other party, you'll uncompromisingly condemn his actions, contend that there's no possible justification for them and cry for his ouster. In neither case will you wait for the facts of the various matters to come in--you'll stand on conjecture, treat it as fact and defend it like Davey Crockett in the Alamo.

The bottom line: For partisans, the candidate is irrelevant. What he or she does is irrelevant. Right, wrong, good, bad, moral, immoral, truth, lie...all irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is party affiliation. Everything turns on this single criterion--and turns quite effortlessly.

To avoid being labeled as in the tank for one or the other party, many people have begun styling (and registering) themselves as "independent." Independent has such a nice, think-for-myself connotation, while allowing all so labeled to avoid the appearance of partisan politics.

Unfortunately, it's usually a bunch of hooey. Personalities like Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Ann Coulter or Michael Moore are unabashed partisans and proud of it. Others hide behind the independent label more successfully, but every time they open their mouths I hear the distant voice of Jim Jones saying, "drink up everybody."

I recently had what we'll call a conversation with a semi-rabid Democrat partisan at work. Sensing that my political views lean to the conservative side, this person vehemently denounced George W. Bush as the "worst president in the history of the United Sates." Since I've heard this same claim applied to Bill Clinton by many a Republican partisan, I thought I'd test my coworker's assertion:

Me: The worst? You really think so?
Coworker: I don't think it, I know it!
Me: Hmmm...well how many presidents are we talking about here?
Coworker: What?
Me: You said Bush is the worst American president ever and I'd like to know how many presidents are in the comparison pool?
Coworker: I don't know, like 50. It doesn't matter. He'd still be the worst if it were a million.
Me: OK, well who are some of the other presidents he's up against for worst president?
Coworker: All of them.
Me: All of who? Can you name 10 of the 43 U.S. presidents?
Coworker: I'm sure I could, but what's the point?
Me: The point is, you're comparing Bush to a group of people, most of whose names, policies and histories you don't even know. And you're telling me definitively that Bush compares unfavorably to every single one of them.
Coworker: Well he does!
Me: Don't you mean, "Well he does, now shut up and drink your Kool-Aid!"?

Mind you, I'm not opposed to a good argument--old or new--and quite like the lively discourse of ideas. I have political opinions just like the next guy and enjoy a friendly debate. But please don't tell me that Barak Obama is secretly a Muslim or that Sarah Palin believes that dinosaurs lived 4000 years ago. Do a little homework, then come back and we'll have a conversation about what's happening in the real world.

The internet, and especially the blogosphere, has become a virtual feeding trough for those all to eager to devour the slop of the day which appears to validate and vindicate their eyes-wide-shut point of view. Anyone can post anything, no matter how far fetched and free of evidential backing, and partisan readers will lap it up, regurgitate it and pass it on.

Today's modern propagandists and smear merchants are reminiscent of Bagdhad Bob, who stood in the streets of Baghdad, looked straight into the camera and assured his viewers that the Americans were, "not even [within] 100 miles [of Baghdad]. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion...they are trying to sell to the others an illusion." Comical in their overt absurdity, Bob's comments were nonetheless heard and believed by many Iraqis.

The real problem, then, is not in the supply of information but in the demand. If Americans quite using narcotics, cross-border drug trafficking would dry up and go away. Likewise, if enough Americans stop consuming copious amounts of political tripe, the suppliers will stop producing it. Unfortunately, there are enough partisan zealots lined up on both sides of the political spectrum to keep the slop flowing into the trough.

Too many Americans have developed a taste for the embellished and/or fabricated side of the story that justifies their political view. This, of course, puts them in a position of dependency on those who supply that side of the story. Like an addict, they jones for the next hit and don't question the dealer when he provides it.

Orson Scott Card once said that, "if pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side." Similarly, when partisans vote the man with the preferred flavor of Kool-Aid informs their choice every time, regardless of how much fabricating he does on the side.

More to come...

George Obama '08

The search is over, my friends! I've found the recipient of my vote for the next president of the United States. The man I'm referring to, of course, is George Hussein Onyango Obama.

Yes, he's Barak Obama's half-brother, but ONLY HALF!!! Don't let family ties fool you into thinking he's anything like Barak. For one thing, George lives like a recluse and nobody knows he exists. Very discrete! He pulls this off by living in a 70 sq ft shack in the slums outside Nairobi, Kenya, a place where people--George included--live off of a dollar a month (George was considering moving up to a 103 sq ft hut, but triple digits seemed overtly ostentatious). Now that's thrifty! How'd you like to turn this lean-n-mean tiger loose on our budget deficit? Or a pork chop, for that matter?

George is also strong on defense. He explains that, "I have scars from defending myself with my fists. I am good with my fists." Now that's what I'm talkin' about--good with his fists. I'll bet he could take Ahmadinejad in a street brawl. Conversely, do you think Barak could even throw a decent punch? Exactly!

And George has what it takes to survive a tough political campaign. Citing his qualifications here, he says, "Huruma is a tough place, last January during the elections there was rioting and six people were hacked to death. I have had to learn to live and take what I need."

Well, come on over and take what you need from 1600 Pensylvania Ave, President George. You had me at, "good with my fists." You're my man in 2008!

Click here, or on the chart below, to learn more about George Obama.

...on being on the hook

Alma 14:10-11
And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children ...he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene?
But Alma said unto him...[God] doth suffer that... the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.


Last week we studied Alma 14 in Sunday school. This is among a very few chapters in all scripture (that I know of) that gives a rational for one of religion's most difficult questions: Why does God allow the needless suffering of innocents? This is the most troublesome question I faced on my mission, and one that I’ve pondered many, many times since.

Our Sunday school teacher explained that he took great solace from verses 10 and 11, which explain that the suffering of innocent men, women and children in this world is not meaningless—that God has a reason for staying His hand. While I share this sense of relief that there is a method to what would otherwise be pure madness, I can’t say that I take solace in these verses. To the contrary, they haunt me.

To me, a sense of solace here acknowledges that God has a purpose, but stops short of considering that purpose. So, what is His purpose? As stated in verse 11, God intends to use the suffering and death of His innocent children as evidence against those who caused that suffering and death; as justification for His judgments upon them, which we may well imagine to be harsh.

So the first bit of bad news for us is that the suffering and death of the innocent and helpless is not on God, it’s on us. We’re on the hook. This sobering reality is followed-up with the news that God intends to hold us accountable and exercise judgment against us. This is how I read and interpret these verses, and this is why they haunt me.

To be fair, we're not like the wicked of Ammonihah, who cast women and children into the fire. Instead, we're more like bystanders, watching it all happen from a safe distance as countless millions are thrown into the fires of hunger, disease, disaster and war. If commission is the charge, we're innocent; if omission is the charge, we're guilty.

But can we really be held accountable for people who die in famines in Africa or in obscure local wars on the far side of the world? To the extent that we know about it and can do something to help but don’t, I believe the answer must be 'yes'. In a court of law, this is called criminal negligence or failure to render aid and usually carries a 2-5 year prison sentence.

So do we know enough to be held accountable? Most of us live our lives without thinking too much about our less fortunate brothers and sisters in remote parts of the world. But while this self-imposed ignorance may allow us the bliss of our big houses, expensive cars and calorie-rich diets, it doesn't release us from responsibility. In this age of information, only selective information consumption can shield us from myriad harsh realities in the world at large. The truth is literally at our fingertips if we would know it, and only burying our heads in the sand can shield us from reality.

The next question is whether or not we, having a basic knowledge of the pain, suffering and death in the world around us, can legitimately do something to help. In Mosiah 4, King Benjamin teaches, "I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give. And now, if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless, otherwise ye are condemned."

So do we have, or do we have not? That is the difference between remaining guiltless and being condemned. It's also a relatively easy question to answer.

The average American makes about $45,000 a year, or around $123 a day. This in a world where 1.1 billion people have consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day. So, half the world--nearly 3 billion people--live on less than $2 a day.

Each year in the US, we spend more on trash bags than 90 other countries spend on everything. In other words, the receptacles of our waste cost more than all of the goods consumed by nearly half the worlds nations.

Since taking office, George W. Bush has tripled American aid to Africa and recently vowed to double that increased amount by 2010, to nearly $9 billion. How much is $9 billion? It’s $5.7 billion less than Americans spend on dog and cat food each year.

Every day in the developing world, 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That’s 1 child every 5 seconds. In the US, we spend over $38 billion annually on diet foods, diet aids, and weight loss programs because 60% of our population is overweight and 25% are clinically obese.

So we spend $38 billion each year to loose weight, $40 billion on our pets, $110 billion on fast food, $20 billion on pornography, $587 billion on gambling, $31 billion on cigarettes and $58 billion on alcohol. All while 820 million people are undernourished, consuming less than the minimum amount of calories necessary for health and growth. And to top it all off we have the gall to ask, "How could God allow this to happen?".

But dark ironies aside, the answer to whether or not we have something to give, is a resounding yes. The real question is whether or not we're willing to take some of what we have--not only wealth but time, talents and energy--and give it away.


More to come...

...on being alive

So the Phoenix Mars Lander may have discovered ice just under the surface of Mars. This has the scientists and media outlets buzzing, as it may indicate the possibility of life on the Red Planet. Life on Mars! Wow!

OK, by life, I mean microbes--single cell organisms so tiny that they're only visible under a microscope. But hey, it may not have big green eyes and fly a space ship, but if it can be scientifically proven to be alive, that's good enough for me. Life is life, right?

Well, perhaps life is life on Mars, but here on earth--and in particular in the modern Western world--life is only life if the law says it's life. Life, in short, is legislated. And that's where I have a big problem.

Look, I realize this is a sensitive issue, but it needn't be overly complex. If they find a microbe on Mars, the corks will start popping all over the scientific world. They will have discovered a living creature, they'll be able to prove it, and there won't be a dissenting view to be found. Contrast that with a human fetus, which just a few weeks after conception has a heart beat, brain waves and over 3 billion lines of genetic code. The microbe on Mars is alive, but the human fetus...well, that's a bit complicate...see, if you divide by 3 and carry the 1...then...well...um...

It seems grossly unfair to judge microbial life by scientific standards and human life by legal standards, but that really is what it's come to.

The pro-choice people I know will disagree. They'll argue that it's a matter of 'viability' rather than alive/not-alive. A fetus, they argue, cannot survive independently outside of it's mother's womb prior to a certain point. And until that point is reached, it's non-viable and can be terminated.

But this argument--though compelling for those who need it to feel compelled--is both problematic and unscientific. When exactly is the point of viability? I know what the law says, but can we pinpoint it scientifically? Is it the same for every fetus? And isn't it true that the point of viability is changing with advancements in technology, and thus where you live?

And what about the independent survivability argument? Isn't it true that microbes can't survive independent of a water source, thus making them non-viable? And that humans can't survive independently outside of an oxygenated environment, thus making all of us non-viable? There are millions of people in the world who can't survive without drugs, or transfusions, feeding tubes, or pace makers, or dialysis, or help getting out of bed and over to the bathroom every day.

Would the AARP object if we changed the name from 'assisted living facility' to 'non-viable repository'? That would be a good first step to legalizing euthanasia, saving tax payer dollars and ensuring that all those who cannot survive independently can be terminated...by a more viable family member. After all, shouldn't the more viable among us have the right to choose our fate?

The bottom line is that every living creature in this world is circumstantially viable. It's simply a matter of finding the right circumstance to fit your definition.

Oh, and then getting that circumstance legislated.