Circular reasoning

We're exporting our democracy

News in the news

Recognizing the TSA for what it is - a systemic invasion of your right to privacy.

Education in the U.S.

We here in the U.S. are taking a lot of hits for our educational system. We don't score well on a lot of international tests, we have a higher drop-out rate and, according to all of the conservatives, we have bad, bad unions. Forget about the fact that those bad, bad unions spend millions of dollars every year fighting for legislation that will make schools better.

One reason that our educational system is probably weaker than most other nations is the diversity of our citizenry. We take in, and have taken in since the inception of the nation, immigrants from all over the world - including nations that don't have much history of educating their youth, meaning folks without the culture (like Japan) that have an intense drive to pursue learning.

We also have weakness because of a fatal flaw in the reasoning of those guiding the schools - they are convinced that everyone can, and wants to, and should learn the same stuff. Here in New York, with few exceptions, all high school students are required to take "Regents" classes that focus on more advanced language skills, algebra and geometry, Biology and earth science, etc. There's little room for the children whose interest focuses on technology, welding, auto mechanics, or even digging holes in the ground. In some districts, music and art are also after-thoughts. In many other nations around the world, children are sorted out, at some point, to get an education in a field that they are suited for and have an interest in.

Another reason our schools are weak is the religious influence that wants to dull the intellectual pursuits of science and increase the pursuit of subjects best left to harlequins and preachers. If your going to focus on crap like creationism and astrology, your children are going to look pretty dumb on tests that ask how long ago dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Now we've got at least one Federal judge who's going to provide sanctuary for the nincompoops that don't want to learn what the better educational systems are offering. Most likely, religious nuts who want their children to believe that the only true text is a dusty old book written over two-thousand years ago by an imaginary God that nobody can see, hear or touch.

The following is from the J-Walk blog...

A US judge has granted ­political asylum to a German family who said they had fled the country to avoid persecution for home schooling their children.

In the first reported case of its kind, Tennessee immigration judge Lawrence Burman ruled that the family of seven have a legitimate fear of prosecution for their beliefs. Germany requires parents to enrol their children in school in most cases and has levied fines against those who ­educate their children at home.

Christians Uwe Romeike, a piano teacher, and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Morristown, Tennessee, in 2008 after ­German authorities fined them thousands of euros for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes, Romeike said. They had been holding classes in their home.

Along with thousands of torture victims, political dissidents, members of religious minorities and other persecuted groups who win political asylum every year, the Romeike family will now be free to live and work in the US.

Oh goodie - some more anti-science nuts to throw into the mix.

Very Astute

I really liked this post from Susie Madrak on Crooks and Liars.

I've been writing for years that the core Republican value boils down to this: cheap, disposable labor.

They want the workforce battered to the point where they will be grateful for any kind of work, no matter how badly paid or how poor the working conditions - and they want you stripped of any rights in the workplace that might slow them down while making money.

I was reminded of that this basic truth this morning when I read George Will's latest column:

Today's unemployment rate is 10 percent; the underemployment rate—the unemployed, plus those employed part time, plus those discouraged persons who have stopped looking for jobs—is 17.3 percent. Almost 40 percent of the unemployed have been so for seven months or more—which is not surprising: Congress continues to extend eligibility for unemployment benefits, apparently oblivious to the truth that when you subsidize something you get more of it.

He's not talking about the Wall Street Bankers who got us into this mess, of course. He's chiding people who are on unemployment for not taking anything they can get, under any conditions.

TSA lied: naked-scanners can store and transmit images

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

You know those airport scanners that can see through your clothes, offering an intimate look at your junk and your lovehandles and every other part of you that you keep between you, your spouse, your doctor and the bathroom mirror? You know how the TSA swore up and down that these machines didn't store and couldn't transmit the compromising photos of your buck-naked self?

They lied.

...

Just more US government employees doing Al Qaeda's business: undermining the quality of life in the "free" world. Osama's still free, how about you?

Read more by clicking on the link above.

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Republicans - it's so easy to make fun of them

The headline reads...

GOP Strategist Todd Harris Can't Name One Thing Republicans Have Done for the Country in 20 Years.

Click HERE to read the article.

The definition sure seems to fit...

From Acerbic Politics

Why they vote the way they do...

and why we get screwed over...

From Acerbic Politics

How We're Winning The War In Iraq

From Acerbic Politics

Churches are freeloaders

A great post from Gawker - thanks Nathan...

How is the American economy supposed to limp its way back towards some pitiful semblance of prosperity when every time a city has a nice space that would be perfect for a cash-earning business, woops, a church just stole it?

This is happening! Did you know that a church does not contribute a god damn thing economically, and, to the contrary, pays no taxes at all while still consuming city services such as firefighter responses when heathens burst into flames? It is true. Churches contribute less to the public coffers than more civic-minded businesses like strip clubs and sex shops and Satanic apparel outlet stores. The WSJ reports that America's entire tumbleweed-strewn business district is hamstrung by a preponderance of freeloading houses of worship, popping up faster than toadstools on the cow shit of the recession.

The City of San Diego fought for two years to prevent a church from settling in an industrial park, which the city said was meant for job-creating businesses, not worship.

Something useful—not church. When will Jesus start paying his fair share

Just Thinking

I'm always looking for ways to try to understand right-wingers since their positions on many political issues are simply beyond my comprehension. While reading something the other day, the following crossed my mind...

Among Democrats, we view the government and the economic engine of the nation as entities designed to serve the people of the world .

Among Republicans, they view the people as servants of the government and the economic engine.

I could elaborate on this, and might at some point, but for now I'll just leave this for you to ruminate on. Feel free to comment.

Chuck

Crooked Senators

I guess I'm officially on a rant today, after that last post and this one.

No matter what you think of the Senates new health-care-reform bill, it didn't come without a lot of bribery. Most Senators got paid huge sums of money (paid into their campaign funds, of course, so as not to look like actual bribes) to get rid of the public option and any substantive reform that didn't benefit the insurance companies and big pharmaceutical companies. But there was more than that.

Gawker summarized some of the bribes needed to get the votes. I'll post just the first two - click on the link to read the rest.

If Your Senator Didn't Get Paid for Supporting Healthcare Reform, You're a Sucker

Nebraska gets permanent federal aid for its increased Medicaid costs under the bill, valued at $100 million over the next decade. Every other state gets three years of increased aid.

The residents of Libby, Mont., will get special access to Medicare to cover the effects of asbestos contamination from a vermiculite mine that operated there until 1990, thanks to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). The EPA has already devoted $6 million to the town's 2,600 residents.

Flying gets a little safer

Four or five years ago my wife and I were on our way home from Las Vegas with a flight change in Chicago. We boarded our plane at O'Hare, taxied out onto the runway somewhere and...stopped. The engines shut down - and we sat. The pilot told us there would be a delay for weather. And we waited. And no more information was forthcoming.

We sat on the runway for 3+ hours - crying babies, long lines for the bathroom, cramped seats, uncomfortable temperatures.

Finally, they started the engines and we were told we had to go back to the terminal to refuel. But they lied. We went back to the terminal and they had us deplane. Our flight had been canceled - but no one told us until we were back inside the terminal. We waited in line for another 2+ hours for an agent to tell us that there were no flights back to Syracuse for two days - that they would not put us up for the two days - that there were no available hotels within an hour's drive of the airport.

We finally caught two seats on a flight to Buffalo, and I rented a car and drove home from there (about a 3-hour drive).

For the privilege of being so rudely treated, we paid American Airlines something akin to $700, round-trip. I hate - no, make that despise, the airlines in this country. Maybe $700 isn't a lot to them - it is to us. One would think that when you shell out that kind of money and put yourself and your transportation into the hands of a large corporation like that, that they would take care of you. They don't. They're willing to abandon you and leave you to your own devices the minute things get tough for them. (One hostess in the airport told us that weather wasn't the reason for the cancellation of our flight - there was a work slowdown by the air-traffic controllers. We still don't know the truth.)

Are the airlines struggling financially? I hope so. They can all go out of business for all I care. I fly as little as possible (maybe once a year) and would fly even less if it were possible.

As far as I am concerned, the new news out of Washington regarding the nation's airlines is minimally good news, but even what the government is allowing is too much, IMHO.

Here's a summary of the new FAA regulations - from the New York Times...

Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be able only to keep passengers on board for three hours before they must be allowed to disembark a delayed flight. The regulation provides exceptions only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.
.........

Airlines will be required to provide food and water for passengers within two hours of a plane being delayed on a tarmac, and to maintain operable lavatories. They must also provide passengers with medical attention when necessary.

From January to June this year, 613 planes were delayed on tarmacs for more than three hours, their passengers kept on board.

Airlines will also be prohibited from scheduling chronically delayed flights. Carriers who fail to comply could face government enforcement action for using unfair or deceptive trade practices.

Those Republicans Are Such Lovely People

The article below was lifted entirely from the J-Walk Blog. Nice job, John.

It seems that our government is pretty much based on prayers. Congress members urge their constituents to pray for certain outcomes. Then God decides what to do, based on the number of prayers he hears. For example: Health Bill clears hurdle, Coburn's prayer.

A little after 1:00 am, the Senate health-care bill cleared a key procedural hurdle that almost all but ensures its passage on Christmas Eve. The AP: "All 58 Democrats and the Senate's two independents held together early Monday against unanimous Republican opposition, providing the exact 60-40 margin needed to shut down a threatened GOP filibuster."

Meanwhile, the only way that Majority Leader Harry Reid was going to fail to get 60 votes was if a member of his caucus didn't show up to vote.

And that's exactly what Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said he's "praying" for.

"What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said on the Senate floor Sunday afternoon. "That's what they ought to pray."

Apparently, Coburn wanted God to smite one of those Democrats. It's not clear if he wanted him dead, or just incapacitated.

Health insurance reform

From Acerbic Politics

Pants on fire

From Acerbic Politics

Health Care Reform: By the Corporations, For the Corporations

From Austin Cline. Click on the link to read more...

People's disappointment at the health care "compromise" should not be surprising. Was there ever any serious doubt that we'd get a "reform" which transfers massive amounts of money from the people to the corporations while doing little to genuinely relieve the pressures created by a broken, for-profit system? Real reform would not only reduce profits but increase people's security, both of which are anathema to corporations that thrive on fearful people sending them money (keep in mind that Bernanke is comfortable with 10%+ "official" unemployment for the foreseeable future — and he will not be risking any of his own comfort). Of course health insurance corporations are getting what they wanted.

Howard Dean: Defeat Newest Health Care Bill

From Crooks and Liars: read more and watch video by clicking on the link.

He [Dean] recapped all the compromises we made: "We wanted single payer, but that was taken off the table early on. That was a mistake. We had to get to the place where we had health insurance for all Americans." But now, he said, there's no public option, and no Medicare option.

"You're forced to pay money to an insurance company or get fined $750 by your government, while 27% of your money goes to CEOs who are flying around in these private jets," he said.

He talked about the compromises made for pre-existing conditions, the most disturbing one the ability to charge you 300% more, merely for being older. "It's guaranteed issue, but if you’re making $65,000 a year for a family of four and you’re paying $20,000 for insurance, how is that reform?"