The Great Tax Con Job

Thom Hartmann is one of my favorite talk show hosts because he's incredibly knowledgeable about the economy and has details on how and why the Republicans have screwed the whole country while making themselves rich. He also happens to be a good writer, too. I knew he had several books out but I haven't bought any, fortunately I did sign up for his newsletter where I got this article from Thom called The Great Tax Con Job:

Novelist Larry Beinhart was the first to bring this to my attention. He looked over the history of tax cuts and economic bubbles, and found a clear relationship between the two. High top marginal tax rates (generally well above 60%) on rich people actually stabilize the economy, prevent economic bubbles from forming, prevent economic crashes, and lead to steady and sustained economic growth (and steady and sustained wage growth for working people).

On the other hand, when top marginal rates drop below 50 percent, the opposite happens. As Beinhart noted in a November 17, 2008 post on the Huffington Post, the massive Republican tax cuts of the 1920s (from 73% to 25%) led directly to the Roaring '20s stock market bubble, temporary boom, and then the crash and Republican Great Depression of 1929.

Rates on the very rich went back up into the 70-90% range from the 1930s to the 1980s. As a result, the economy grew steadily; for the first time in the history of our nation we went 50 years without a crash or major bank failure; and working people's wages increased enough to produce the strongest middle class this nation has ever seen.

Then came Reaganomics.

Isn't that great? Where else are we going to get this kind of precise info? The major media will never cover it, I'm just glad Thom is out there fighting the good fight. Follow the link above for much more of this, it's a long article and he has more where that came from.

I might have to buy one of his books someday. Wonder if any are available for Kindles?

Too bad he is completely wrong about atheists and makes all the same mistakes most theists do. No one is perfect, I guess.

The New Place

I've had the Blackberry Storm for months now and have not used the camera even once. Since I also just moved in to a new place it only makes sense to take a few shots.

This is my front lawn. Follow the path and out the gate and there is another front lawn, also a garage to the right.

And here is my view of the front lawn looking out of my studio window. Pretty cool, huh? Just ignore those boxes on the left, unpacking takes a while.

And here is my living room, taken at an odd angle to avoid more boxes over to the right. Nice tile floors, much better than carpets. At the back is a sliding glass door that leads out in to a private patio. Makes me almost want to start smoking again so I have an excuse to go stand out there.

Imaginary Man In Sky

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The Onion clearly has at least one atheist working over there. Unfortunately it was very funny but was way too true to be anything but sad:

Even more incomprehensible, sources said, is that hundreds of millions of Americans openly worship the all-knowing invisible man—who apparently observes the world's events from atop his perch in outer space—without fear of mockery, shame, or violent government reprisal.

Ouch - WAY too true indeed.

The Evolution of God

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On Bill Moyers Journal last Friday he talked to Robert Wright, the author of The Evolution of God. It was a very interesting discussion about the book and the nature of God. I wanted to post the video but they had no embedding code so you’ll have to follow the link to watch it. They also have a written transcript, which is how I got these quotes from, so don’t blame any misspellings on me.

BILL MOYERS: So, here's my journalistic lede I would use if I were reviewing your book. "Robert Wright has made a convincing case that if circumstances change, god has changed, because the story of god is intrinsic to the human story. But what Wright has not done is to make a convincing case that god exists."

ROBERT WRIGHT: I would say it's hard for anyone to make a convincing case that god exists in the sense of pointing to evidence. And I don't really try to do that. I mean, I do argue that there is evidence of some sort of larger purpose unfolding through the workings of nature. But that doesn't tell you much about what might have infused the purpose.

Wright says that God was invented by humanity as stories meant to deal the things we could not control and has evolved in many ways, changing to fit the times and the needs of humanity. Personally, I think that is THE argument that tells us there is no god and never was, it was, and continues to be, a human invention. Pretty much ends all argument in my opinion, come back when you have evidence that supports a god as being something other than a made up story. But Wright falls just short of making that claim. He seems to want to walk a line that has him believing in some kind of transcendence but without having to explain what that is.

ROBERT WRIGHT: Because I don't-- what do I mean. I don't--I mean what. Transcendent is a very tricky word. And I get into trouble from hardcore materialists by using it because people think, "Oh, you mean spooky, mystical, ethereal stuff." I don't know exactly what I mean by transcendent.

I may mean beyond our comprehension. I may mean you know, I may mean prior to the creation of the universe or something. I don't know. But I do think that the system on Earth is such that humanity is repeatedly given the choice of either progressing morally in the sense of accepting more people into the moral circle or paying the price of social chaos. Okay?

I recommend watching the video because when you read the above he doesn’t sound very bright, but in the video it comes across very differently and he seems quite intelligent. He fudges the meaning of transcendent in order to give himself wriggle room for not claiming to actually believe anything but without claiming full disbelief. Kind of bizarre, actually. He spends the entire time with Moyers explaining how god is merely a human invention but then tries to deny that he is saying there is no god. Moyers himself is a big god-believer and keeps trying to steer Wright into saying there is a god but Wright just won’t do it.

BILL MOYERS: I don't find any traces of cynicism in the book. In fact, I want to ask you about something you say toward the end. You say that, "Human beings are organic machines that are built by natural selection to deal with other organic machines. They can visualize other organic beings, understand other organic beings, and bestow love and gratitude on other organic beings. Understanding the divine, visualizing the divine, loving the divine--that would be a tall order for a mere human being." But we've not given up trying, have we?

ROBERT WRIGHT: No. And I think, you know, in a way we shouldn't. I mean I think if there is you know, something out there called moral truth. And we should continue to try to relate to it in a way that brings us closer to it. And it--
BILL MOYERS: I don't understand what you mean. Out there?
ROBERT WRIGHT: Well. Well--
BILL MOYERS: What did--
ROBERT WRIGHT: Did I say that?
BILL MOYERS: Yeah, you've said it several times. I mean--
ROBERT WRIGHT: I should be careful.
BILL MOYERS: --if you don't--
ROBERT WRIGHT: Because I don't-- what do I mean. I don't--I mean what. Transcendent is a very tricky word. And I get into trouble from hardcore materialists by using it because people think, "Oh, you mean spooky, mystical, ethereal stuff." I don't know exactly what I mean by transcendent.

Wright continues to say that trying to understand god is not a bad way of trying to align ourselves with some kind of transcendent morality. He uses the example that our morality has also evolved over the centuries, steadily getting better and better, in a sense of including more and more people within our tribe. He seems to be saying our morality keeps improving because we are continually moving closer to some kind of morally that exists out there in the universe.
Keep in mind that Wright wrote The Moral Animal which was all about how natural selection created our morality. He even explains how we can be moving along a pathway to better and better morality because to fail to do so leads to societal chaos. This means we evolve morally because it is in our self interest to do so and those that don’t are less likely to survive their own chaos. This is pretty much the same process of morality evolving through natural selection but Wright seems to not notice this, he keeps trying to attribute this evolution to higher morality as us somehow listening to transcendence, or god, and trying to understand it and get closer to it.
Definitely a blind spot on his part, but the video is worth watching for a very interesting discussion between 2 very interesting men. Maybe I’ll get the book, too.

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Obama Talks at the NAACP

I thought this was one of his best speeches, it is most certainly his angriest speech. He is really fired up for this one, I wish he showed this side a whole lot more, I was beginning to think he was a milquetoast.

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Poor Farrah

Michael Jackson via last.fm

Farrah Fawcett died 2 days ago on June 27th. You all heard about that, right? Or did you miss it? I heard a brief mention and then all the news shows were only about Michael Jackson's death because of the unfortunate and incredible event of both of them dying on the same day. What are the odds?

OK, Michael was the bigger star and touched more lives in more profound ways than Farrah, but hell, a person only dies once. Too bad she didn't get her due. She had that film of her dying shown on TV, twice, so I guess she's gotten some.

Of course, I never liked Michael - or Farrah either for that matter. Still, Farrah fought cancer and took a long time dying, showing courage in the face of adversity. Michael just lived badly and that bad living knocked him off in an instant. But in all of this the one person who really ticked me off was Ryan O'Neal. On TV he had to say in a mournful voice; "Why did they have to take MY girl?" Fucking publicity whore, stick a camera in his face and he can't resist milking it for all it's worth, even if it means using his girl's agonizing death struggle to make himself look like the noble victim.

Hey, they took MY girl too, Ryan, but I never tried to say that to anyone, even myself.

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My Favorite Pharyngula Post

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I'm a regular reader of Pharyngula because PZ Myers is a fun writer. One of those guys who makes a story or idea interesting because he is almost always writing with a sharp, sarcastic wit - a lot like me! Also, I almost always agree with him. But he has written his best post so far, and that is on the subject matter not the style of writing: He compares the incompatability of science and religion! This is the kind of thing I've been ranting about for years, but who reads me?

But in a debate about the compatibility of science and religion, we have to put the argument in an appropriate context and define a specific shared purpose for both science and religion — it's the only legitimate ground for discussion. In this case, what we're trying to do is address big questions (remember, the Templeton Foundation says they're all about those "big questions") about the nature of the universe, about our history, about how we function, and then we encounter a conflict: religion keeps giving us different answers. Very different answers. They can't all be right, and since no two religions give the same answers, but since science can generally converge on similar and consistent answers, I know which one is right. And that makes religion simply wrong.

Ah, that is so satisfying to see someone with READERS say "religion is simply wrong". Stephen Jay Gould tried to be nice to religion and called it nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA). Essentially trying to say that science and religion operated in very different realms and therefore could not be judged the same way. That science was about reality while religion was philosophy. This would be fine if religion stayed over in it's designated territory but it never, ever has, Christianity has even attempted to do science using the bible, which is how we get a 6,000 year old Earth. Gould's idea is so obviously wrong I always thought it was just a desperate attempt to placate the theists. PZ attacks the different methods:

We have to look at what they do to see why. In order to probe the nature of the universe around us, science is a process, a body of tools, that has a long history of success in giving us robust, consistent answers. We use observation, experiment, critical analysis, and repeated reevaluation and confirmation of events in the natural world. It works. We use frequent internal cross-checking of results to get an answer, and we never entirely trust our answers, so we keep pushing harder at them. We also evaluate our success by whether the end results work: it's how we end up with lasers and microwave ovens, and antibiotics and cancer therapies.

To put it simply, science is self-correcting. There are a number of excellent methodologies (which PZ outlines briefly above) that are employed in the self-correcting process. Over time various hypothesizes converge in the closest thing we humans have to truth. I've often said this is the difference between science and religion; over time science converges from splinters to solidity, while religion is the opposite, it simply keeps splintering more and more. Look at all the sects of any one religion, this is because all that is needed in religion is a charismatic leader and you have a whole new set of answers and there is no way at all to check anyone's answers.

Religion, on the other hand, uses a different body of techniques to explain the nature of the universe. It uses tradition and dogma and authority and revelation, and a detailed legalistic analysis of source texts, to dictate what the nature of reality should be. It's always wrong, from an empirical perspective, although I do have to credit theologians with some of the most amazingly intricate logical exercises as they try to justify their conclusions. The end result of all of this kind of clever wankery, though, is that some people say the world is 6000 years old, that it was inundated with a global flood 4000 years ago, and other people say something completely different, and there is no way within the body of theology to resolve which answers are right.

"Religion uses a different body of techniques" - oh the depth of meaning over that one. Their methodologies are crap and never yeild any accurate answers about the nature of reality. They end up with ridiculous conclusions, the Earth being 6,000 years old is a favorite to look at because it is SO absurd and so easily demolished. But the hard core fundies can't say that their religion is wrong and science is right so they start making up things to make it seem like science is crap, the end result of this is an American society that is frightfully ignorant of even the basic scientific answers about the world. Or about the basics on how science finds answers.

I love that PZ talked about this in detail - and I highly recommend following the link and reading the entire posting - because he has a lot of readers and this message will reach many people. Unfortunately he is probably preaching to the choir for the most part, but I'm sure there is a fair number sitting on the fence, trying to make up their minds. PZ gives them some tools to work with for judging things.

If religion stayed in it's own territory along the lines of Gould's NOMA I would have no complaints about it. But when it ventures into sciences realm it needs to be prepare to defend itself.

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The Public Health Care Option

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Well, it looks like Obama and the Democrats are going to let us all down again, no single payer plan will even be talked about, they are just going to try and have a public option. This means that most likely people will be able to sign up for Medicare since that is already in place.

Darcy had Medicare and she got the best treatment of any of her online lung buddies, who were all told their private insurance didn't cover organ transplants. Darcy never had a problem getting anything covered in 16 years while her friends had to fight tooth and nail over and over again just to stay alive - and not all of them succeeded.

The idiot Republicans keep trying to stop a public option while telling all of us how horrible government run health care is. What are they worried about? If government health care was so bad they should welcome the public option so we can all experience how bad it is. If the Republicans are even slightly right then all a public option would do is let private insurance win the competition hands down and end the argument.

So why aren't they all for it? Because they are lying like crazy and every one of them knows it. They know that the public option will blow private insurers out of the water, that over time everyone will get tired of paying big bucks for inferior care and will move over to Medicare and all those fabulously wealth CEO's of private insurance companies will lose their billions of dollars in bonuses and salaries.

Yes, it's true. They are willing to let you and everyone else who can't afford health insurance die from cancer and a dozen other serious illnesses, and let everyone else pay for the most expensive health care in the world, just so their friends can make some big bucks and will then give some to them as campaign contributions. 20,000 people die every year in this country because they don't have insurance and it's been happening for nearly 20 years, since the last time they pulled the wool over the public's eyes and shot down health care reform in 1993. All that blood and suffering is on their hands. And you know what? They are laughing all the way to the bank. Laughing at all of the public who fell for their crap last time and will do so again this time.

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More Photos

Still packing to move and running across more photos. Found some real gems today I had no idea I had, mostly of Darcy and Nikko. I don't have time to scan in very many, got to pack like crazy! I'm running out of time.

This one is a great family portrait of Darcy, Nikko and me. Look how intent Nikko is, she was so full of personality. And unlike most cats she loved for me to hold her, but only me, no one else could do it.

The second one is Darcy and Nikko sacking out. I love this one. It has to be 16 years old at least. We were still living in Fullerton but I can see Darcy is already sick because she's showing the weight gain from her medications. She was skinny before she started taking prednisone.

I'll be very glad when this move is over. I will finally feel like I can move on, being in my own, post-Darcy place, rather than the one we shared for 10 years. It will be very nice having Ally right next door, too, she came over last Sunday to help me paint.

I hate to think how the current cats, Aki and Cead, are going to react to the move. They've never lived anywhere but here, and cats hate change. I won't even be able to let them outside for at least a month so they won't try and head back to the old place.

Cuteness

I'm a real cat person and a real sucker for cat cuteness. Here is a tiger cub looking incredibly cute. Thanks to Pharyngula for the link.

It's amazing how housecat-like he is. All the same moves, even the "cute" looks like when they cuddle into the bed and show their stomach. I swear that my cats practice those cute moves when I'm not home, probably critiquing each other. I can read his body language because of my familiarity with house cats. He feels warm and safe and comfy.

Remembering Darcy

The worst part of moving is going through our tons of stuff, or I should say Darcy’s tons of stuff since 90% of it hers. It’s also bittersweet, I keep coming upon things like old photos that make me stop and look and sometimes cry a little.

I found one that was an odd black & white photo but when I turned it over there was a message on the back written to me. At this point I start to remember it. My memory is so bad now I’m actually losing my past. Her note really got to me, written in a bold, black marker in her terrible handwriting and covering the whole back of the photo:

Kevin, My Darling Bear, I am so proud of you, congratulations on your first cover . . . I finally went into a darkroom today, and for that I thank you more than you know . . .Remember that I love you always & that I believe in you, look back at how much you’ve grown this last year, and you will too . . .I really do love you so much Kevin, so now I am going to go upstairs & slip my hand into yours. (where it belongs!) and fall asleep, until your sleepy tousled face kisses me awake in the morning Happy Valentines Darcy

She was always bad with punctuation but at least she put in capitals this time. I don’t know what year it was but the cover reference referred to a painted cover I did for a magazine so it has to be 1987 or 88. There were so many things she wanted to do, like photography and writing, but had no confidence in herself to do them. I tried to encourage her and she actually signed up for a class and only went to a few classes, but she did get to use the darkroom and make some pictures.

She also took along her very expensive camera when we eloped to Scotland and photographed the whole adventure. Flying into Glascow, renting a car to drive to Edinborough where we got married, then traveled through England and down to Paris, where we flew back from. Truly a great trip and some great photos to cover it.

I still love the story of Darcy talking to the Justice of the Peace in Edinborough over the phone while we were planning it. She called it Edinburgh and he said in his Scottish brogue: “Ah lass! I canna marry ya if ya canna pronounce it - it’s EdinbuRAH!”

She got sick soon after that and didn't do much photography, her hands were shaking too much.

Sonia Sotomayor

The Right Wing seems to have gone completely nuts over this nomination of a Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court. Of course, going nuts for them is not a big leap but just a small step. It's rather amusing that some of the Republican pros are now toning back their rhetoric, seeming to realize that everyone on the right has gone too far and they have likely already lost any degree of the Hispanic vote, they are trying to step back a bit and sound rational again.

One thing they have done that pisses me off to a large degree is how they took a single quote out of a long speech of Sotomayor's, when the entire point of her speech was about what it means to be a Latina Woman Judge. It was titled A Latina Judge’s Voice and you can follow the link and read the whole thing, but it's quite long. I will post some of it here:

While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. Whatever the reasons why we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning, are in many respects a small part of a larger practical question we as women and minority judges in society in general must address.

Look at how nuanced this paragraph is. She talks about how judges strive to be unbiased when judging a case, but then points out that it is likely impossible. Then she says it might not even be a good thing, that a judge needs to bring the entirety of their personal experiences to the bench. To fail to do so would short change the law and society. This is the very thing a Hispanic Woman Judge should be thinking about. Human beings can strive to be unbiased but cannot do so - ever. Recent scientific studies have shown that our brains require a bias, a context, in order to learn.

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Again, lots of nuance and an examination of how it's important that diverse thoughts and experience be brought to bear when judging a case - or arguing one. Here is the part that people are quoting:

First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

Really taken out of context, as usual. They assume people will be too lazy to look this stuff up on their own and will just accept the lies the pundits tell them. Unfortunately, that is too often the case.

Now remember that this is a speech all about being a Latina Judge. How can she talk about that and not look at what role her personal experiences will bring to her work? And she does NOT say she is better than a white male, she says she HOPES the richness of her personal exprience will enhance her ability to judge a case. Don't we all hope for that? Someone who discounts the power of their own biases will arrogantly pretend they are being fairminded when they are being just the opposite. Judge Scalia comes to mind immediately. Rare is a judicial dicision of his EVER made that contradicts his conservative biases, but if you asked him I'm sure he would tell you that he strives to be unbiased at all times.

What we have with Sonia Sotomayor is someone who will bring the full weight of her experience to the table but who will also strive to be more than that. Isn't that why we have 9 judges on the Supreme Court - to bring in a diversity of experience and knowledge?

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Bacon and Eggs

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I had bacon and eggs for lunch at a coffee shop today. Such a simple thing yet filled with hidden meaning. I don’t think I’ve had them for over a year and it was the first time I’ve eaten alone in I don’t know how long, might actually be since Darcy and I first started dating in 1985. I might have eaten alone at a convention somewhere over the years but every time I can think of I was with someone. Hardly ever went to a convention alone and if I did I’d usually meet someone I knew there to eat with.

I used to eat alone a lot BD (Before Darcy), I liked eating out but didn’t always want company. I used to love to bring a book with me and have a little quiet time reading while waiting for the food and after finishing. This time I brought my book on my iPod Touch, which is absolutely perfect for that! Easy to carry and I could read while eating. Need to turn the page but hands are greasy? Just need a pinkie finger to swipe the screen, simple as could be.

It’s a good thing I’m easily amused because after a week and half with a really bad flu I’ve been really miserable. Mostly over it but the nasal and lung congestion just wants to linger on for what feels like forever, but today was the best I’ve felt in quite a while. But I think I need some Mucinex and some hot tea with honey and lemon. I don’t know what it is but that drink works wonders for the throat. And it’s got to be those three things, miss any one and it just isn’t right. The lemon is the key to it, I think.

And I must be feeling better to want to write in my blog. Well, I’ve wanted to, because I never lack something to say or the desire to say it, but I was too depressed to get started since Darcy died. Guess I have to learn how to create a life AD (After Darcy).

Nightmare Girl

The comic I've been in the process of coloring for the past year and a half now has a blog, started by creator Jimmy Leigh. It's a 100 page graphic novel and Duval Stowers is still drawing it and Jimmy still writing it. Good thing it's such a big project because I haven't had time or energy to devote to it for quite some time because of Darcy being sick for so long. Now that she's gone I've been in kind of a stunned mode and hard to do anything - and I have to move in a month!

Jimmy has our most recent work, a new cover, at his blog but I'm putting my favorite here.

More can be seen at my Nightmare Girl Gallery.

Rachel re: Bob Graham

Nancy Pelosi says the CIA lied to her about waterboardeing and didn't tell her about it. Enter former Florida Senator Bob Graham, who also says he wasn't told about it at around the same time. And it turns out that 3 of the 4 meetings the CIA said they had with Graham didn't actually happen. How do we know this? Bob's got notebooks, lots and lots of little spiral notebooks. It's better to let Rachel take it from here because everything works better with pictures.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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New Rules

Great New Rules on Bill Maher last Friday. About evolution and idiot evolution deniers:

"You can’t crap all over Darwin and stem cell research and global warming, then come crawling back to science when you want Tamiflu."

The Paul Krugman Rock Song

Who else but Rachel Maddow would find the guy who wrote Paul Krugman his own theme song?

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A Gathering Colbert Storm

Steven Colbert takes on gay marriage and the NOM TV ad in a truly hilarious satire.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad
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Econ 101

Obama gave a speech today. We all know he’s good at speeches but for this one he dropped the soaring and inspiring prose and settled into the role of an economics professor and explained in simple terms why he was doing the things he’s doing to get the economy going again. All very good and, unfortunately, very necessary for the stupid American public who are getting mad about things that they don’t even understand.

Obama is doing what any smart guy would do, looking at history and learning it’s lessons. The best example we have of our situation is The Great Depression.

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Very easy to look at the things Hoover did, all of which caused a deeper and worse depression. And look at what FDR did that started us back on the road to being able to live.

The first thing Hoover did, and which he is most known for is - nothing. He just stood there and said there was nothing he COULD do, the economy would correct itself. As we can see, Republicans have followed ideology over reality for over 75 years. FDR showed (and this is actually Keynesian economics, FDR didn’t invent it) that spending at a time when only the government has the muscle for any kind of big spending, is the necessary thing for a completely stagnant economy. Another thing Hoover got raked over the coals for was raising taxes, which was like throwing gasoline on a fire. This is why Obama hasn’t raised taxes for the rich yet like he said he was going to. He’ll just wait for the Bush tax cuts to expire next year and hope the recovery is far enough along that it won’t hurt.

This I have some doubts on, that raising the top tax rate from 36% to 39% is going to cause much of a problem. It might even be stimulative as the rich might want to make business investments to lower their taxes. Keep in mind that we have a marginal tax, which means the percentage increases with quantity - the 39% kicks in at amounts over $400,000. And that rate is ONLY paid on income over that limit, not below it. Still, I can understand being cautious and won’t fault Obama for not wanting to risk raising taxes right now.

But where I do find fault is what Obama said about not nationalizing the banks the way Paul Krugman has been saying he should. I kind of felt like Obama couldn’t justify that either and gave the least amount of explanation on that part. I think he is just staying away from what most of the country sees as socialism. But Krugman actually IS an economics professor at Princeton, unlike Obama who only plays one in speeches, and he recently won the Noble Prize in Economics, no small feat.

First we need an explanation of what Krugman means by nationalizing the banks, he doesn’t mean for the government to start running banks, they aren’t in the banking biz and shouldn’t be. It means the government steps in and seizes a failing bank and pretty much guts it, getting rid of it’s toxic assets, shareholders and officers. Then they sell it and let new management come in and start fresh. The best part of this is that it throws the assholes out on the street who brought the entire world’s economy to it’s knees. The bailout is giving these very same assholes billions of dollars to do what they want with, like give themselves million dollar bonuses and buying company jets. I think this is the single worst thing Obama is doing, letting the same guys remain in their positions to wreck more havoc. The big disadvantage to nationalizing is that all the shareholders suffer 100% loss, no chance of ever getting it back. With all the IRA’s out there right now that could mean a big hit to a lot of middle class people, not just rich guys.

That kind of hit could be worse than raising taxes in today’s economic climate. That’s probably what Obama is worried about, although I’m sure he’s more worried about looking like a socialist.

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Free Money Only for Wall Street

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The administration has unveiled new plans to help the auto industry. It will entail a complete re-organization of Gm and Chrysler - “shared sacrifice” is what Obama called for, which means the re-negotiations of union contracts. And he also wants the head of GM to step down.

Excuse me???!!!! Is Obama serious? Now I’m having very serious doubts about his ability to get us out of this economic mess - he doesn’t seem to understand what caused it and what has to change.

I don’t mean that any of those things he wants the car companies to do are wrong - what I’m mad about is why didn’t he and Geithner make these same demands of the bankers and Wall Street guys and AIG??!!

When it came to the AIG bonuses they said “Oh, we can’t do anything about it, they have contracts.” Yeah? Tell that to the auto workers union members who also have contracts. They will tell you contracts aren’t sacred, in fact, they might even tell you that contracts are worthless. Except - they only seem to be worthless for a working man, if you are rich then your contracts will not even be questioned.

And why is the head of AIG still there? Actually the guy in there now is new and can’t be blamed for all the stuff that went on before he got there. But what about all those guys who got those bonuses? You know, the guys so indispensable they not only can’t be fired but we have to give them millions of dollars just to keep them around - who are the same guys who engineered a huge part of the problems. Or the people at all those over corporations?

Where the HELL is the “shared sacrifice” over at Wall Street? Can we even have any kind of “shared sacrifice” as long as the rich guys aren’t part of it?

On top of that he gave the 2 auto companies 60 days to turn things around or the hammer will fall. But Wall Street is given 5 times as much money with no demands on them at all. They don’t even have to account for where the money went.

All the people who have caused this financial meltdown are still there making far more than any auto worker ever did and are being handed billions of dollars with absolutely no strings attached.

UPDATE: Turns out that although the head of GM was fired by Obama he will be walking away with a $25 million golden parachute. Think the union people renegotiating their contracts will see the “shared sacrifice”? Think about it, working people making the HUGE fortune of $50,000 per year are asked to take a pay cut while the head of GM walks away with more money that any of them will ever see in their lifetime? GM stock went from around $30 per share to around $2 per share during his tenure. That's worth $25 million?

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Changes in the NFL

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Just came across this little news blurb from ESPN:

DANA POINT, Calif. -- More games that count, perhaps as early as August 2011? That's exactly what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wants.

There are several hurdles before the league can expand its regular season from 16 to 17 or 18 games. Among them is reaching a new collective bargaining agreement with the players' union.

Still, the commissioner hopes to present a proposal to the owners in May after the matter was discussed at length this week at the owners meetings.

"It's possible that we could vote in May, but we want to have core discussions on this," Goodell said Wednesday. "Anytime you have change, there is some reluctance. But it's clear we don't need four preseason games anymore."

I would LOVE another game or two. My seasons have been messed up lately because of Darcy, she hated football and was so glad when the season was over. It made the Super Bowl bittersweet for me because that was the one game she liked - because it was the last one for many months.

I actually missed most of the season, seeing maybe one game a week, if that, because I wanted to spend my time with Darcy for however much time she had left. There was none to waste.

Now it's just the opposite, with Darcy gone I very much want as much football as I can get because it will make me not think about Darcy. So an extra game or two would be great. And I hate pre-season games, not worth watching and not worth getting a star player hurt.

One or two more games would place quite a toll on the players, though, a football game is pretty brutal, it's rare to come out of one without some kind of injury. Plus there is the fatigue factor.

I'd still be very happy to see it, I don't watch pre-seaso0n or collage football because they just aren't the same .

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The Law of Evolution

Clive Thompson has an interesting essay on Wired.com. It's about how damn annoying Creationists are when it comes to the word "Theory". I am so sick of hearing someone say "Well, it's ONLY a theory" when talking about evolution. Little do they know tht tells someone who knows about these things that they are completely ignorant on the subject. I've explained over and over what a theory is in science for years now yet it doesn't seem to have made a dent on the terminology.

The defense against this: a revamped scientific lexicon. If the antievolutionists insist on exploiting the public's misunderstanding of words like theory and believe, then we shouldn't fight it. "We need to be a bit less cautious in public when we're talking about scientific conclusions that are generally agreed upon," Quinn says.

What does she suggest? For truly solid-gold, well-established science, let's stop using the word theory entirely. Instead, let's revive much more venerable language and refer to such knowledge as "law." As with Newton's law of gravity, people intuitively understand that a law is a rule that holds true and must be obeyed. The word law conveys precisely the same sense of authority with the public as theory does with scientists, but without the linguistic baggage.

Quinn is physicist Helen Quinn who wrote about this in an essay for Physics Today. Clive goes on to say:

Evolution is supersolid. We even base the vaccine industry on it: When we troop into the doctor's office each winter to get a flu shot — an inoculation against the latest evolved strains of the disease — we're treating evolution as a law. So why not just say "the law of evolution"?

Best of all, it performs a neat bit of linguistic jujitsu. If someone says, "I don't believe in the theory of evolution," they may sound fairly reasonable. But if someone announces, "I don't believe in the law of evolution," they sound insane. It's tantamount to saying, "I don't believe in the law of gravity."

It's time to realize that we're simply never going to school enough of the public in the precise scientific meaning of particular words. We're never going to fully communicate what's beautiful and noble about scientific caution and rigor. Public discourse is inevitably political, so we need to talk about science in a way that wins the political battle — in no uncertain terms.

I'm all for it . . . OK, now how do we get it done?

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Climate Change

Just found a new blog on global warming, very informative:

So the NYT’s Andy Revkin blogs on the new Gallup survey, “Gallup: Rising View That Climate Risk Exaggerated?” and asks “What’s your take on what’s going on?” What’s your take on why Gallup finds “a record-high 41%” of Americans now say the

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“seriousness of global warming” is exaggerated.

[Yes, let’s put aside the irony of that question coming from the reporter who famously wrote an article, “In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall” that charged Nobelist Al Gore — the man most associated in the public mind with the climate warning — with exaggeration (a false charge, as I proved here).]

Here’s my take. Objectively, in the last two years, the science makes painfully clear that climate risk has grown sharply, far beyond what 99% of people I talk to realize, even highly informed people.

He has lots of charts and things but the main point is clear - we are screwed. Nobody is doing anything in this country because most of us don't think it's all that bad. I've been worried sick about this, we really are going to be royally screwed by climate change that has gone too far to stop now. Best we can do is try to limit the damage. Here's more from the site:

* Hadley Center: Catastrophic 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path
* M.I.T. joins climate realists, doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C
* AAAS: Climate change is coming much harder, much faster than predicted
* Nobel laureate Rowland agrees we are headed to 1000 ppm
* NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe
* Startling new sea level rise research: “Most likely” 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100
* US Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely “substantially exceed” IPCC projections

All this is very bad news. Now I don't think things will get so bad that human life or civilization will end, but millions, maybe even billions, are going to suffer and many will die over the next century.

He is saying that the oceans will rise 5 feet by 2100, 91 years from now. To think about how bad this is go to the beach (those of you not landlocked) and stand on the sand right at the water's edge. Figure out where 5 feet is by using your own height, doesn't have to be perfect, this is just a quick estimate to give perspective.

Now turn around and face away from the ocean and project an imaginary line at 5' high and see where it goes. Down here in So Cal it means all our beaches will be gone and all houses close to the beach will be gone, at a total lose to the owners.

The blog is called Climate Progress and it's written by Joseph Romm.

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Rachel Explains EFCA

Rachel Maddow keeps proving she can explain things with precision and simple clarity. Nor is she afraid to call anyone a liar when they are lying. She explains what EFCA is and what happens at a business when someone wants to start a union, and how the Republicans are lying through their teeth in their desperation to stop the bill.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Tax The Rich

I get a weekly newsletter that I always find interesting even though it makes my blood boil. It's called Too Much and it talks about the many abuses of the rich and how much they are really walking away with and how everything they say is a lie.

This week they talk about the claim by Republicans and the rich that raising taxes on the rich doesn't mean anything because the rich just hire accountants to get them out of paying more:

Does this case against upping tax rates on high incomes have any merit? Do higher tax rates on high incomes merely roll off the super rich, as opponents of these higher rates charge, like water off a duck's back?

We don't have to guess at the answer here. We need only examine the historical record. Higher tax rates on income in the nation's top tax brackets, that record shows, do make a clearly discernible difference. The higher the tax rate on high incomes, the more in taxes the super rich pay.

Tax loopholes, of course, do exist, and the super rich have, down through the years, spent large fortunes on tax lawyers who know how to max out on the opportunities these loopholes offer. But they spend these fortunes whether tax rates on high incomes are rising or falling. The lower the tax rate, consequently, the less the rich will pay in taxes.

The current top federal tax rate, 35 percent, has been in place since 2001. On 2008 tax returns, this top rate will apply to ordinary income — that's wages, salaries, and bonuses, but not capital gains — over $357,700.

In other words, they are lying. If it was true why would the rich care if their tax rate was raised if they wouldn't have to pay any more? The fact is the rich ALREADY have armies of accountants getting them the best tax payment they can get, they won't suddenly start hiring them if their tax rate is raised. The Too Much web site has charts for how much they rich paid in the past when there were higher rates.

But look at the real numbers, they are now paying 35%, but only on income OVER $357,700, not on all their income. And the new tax rate will only take them back to the Clinton tax rate of 39%, again only for income OVER $357,700. This means $40,000 per every million they make. This is pocket change for them, they spend more than that on their daughter's birthday parties. And they were still pretty rich and getting richer during the Clinton years.

It's unbelievable how greedy and petty these people are - and unpatriotic. This is to help the country and they fight it tooth and nail.

Darcy and Me

I was going to put a picture up of Darcy that showed how sick she was. I only have one because she didn’t want any pictures because of how badly she looked. There is only one in existence because she did it for one of the grandkids, Maddie.

But when Bennet was here and going through some of her things I found a set of very old photos. This picture of us is from January 1986. I can pinpoint the time exactly because it was when my sister Wendy and Earl got married and I know they did it on my mom’s birthday, January 10.

We had only been dating a few months and she hadn’t even moved in yet, although I think she did not long after the picture was taken. It was kind of a gradual process. But we got Nikko, the World’s Best Cat, in April that year and had been living together for a bit before then.

I think this is the first picture of her I’ve put on the web. I thought it should be a good one, not one of a courageous person ravaged by disease.

Life Without Darcy

It’s been more of a struggle to live without Darcy than I thought it would be, 23 years together creates a lot of patterns. It’s almost more as if I lost a piece of myself than just losing my wife - as if that wasn’t enough.

Years ago I was working really hard, trying to start different businesses and working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Darcy wasn’t one of those wives who complained, what she did was support me as much as possible. One way she did that was to take care of everything at home, cleaning, cooking, shopping, paying bills, etc. Not that she liked all those things but she was home and unable to work and she did want to do her share.

Now I have to do all those things myself and having a tough time of it. I never was very good at it. Before Darcy moved in my place was a mess, I only ate fast food, and my bills were starting to get out of control just because I couldn’t remember them until it became urgent, like they were about to cut my electricity off. So I’m not good at these things to begin with.

I’m also faced with this huge case of ennui, I just find it really hard to do things and I find myself so indecisive that I’ll put things off just so I don’t have to decide anything. I keep thinking I need to start making lists of things to do and make plans on when to do them but then I forget to do it or put it off. And the more I put things off the more things spiral out of control and the more indecisive I feel. And the more depressed I feel.

Boy, do I want a cigarette. I haven’t had one since August 1st which I find amazing considering all that has gone on since then. Clearly I would not have made it without the Chantix. Speaking of which, I forgot it this morning, better go take some.

Wish I could talk to Darcy about all this but I’ll have to settle for a blog posting.

Religion 101: Final Exam

Someone has come up with a pretty good religious test, here's a sample:

5- You are the incarnated Son of the all-powerful and all-loving Creator of the universe. What would be a good way to demonstrate your compassion and power?

1. Cure cancer forever
2. Cause all the earth's deserts to bloom with food crops
3. Unite the world with a common language and an end to poverty
4. Conjure up a jug of wine and follow it up by walking on water


6-Since we can never "know" whether or not a God exists - it is fundamentally a matter of "faith" - it's best to be a believer since you have nothing to lose, but everything to lose if your

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disbelief is incorrect. Keeping in mind that the fate of your soul depends on the right choice, in which God should you place your belief? For extra credit, include a brief essay justifying your choice, along with the reasons why you reject the other three.

1. Zeus
2. Quetzalcoatl
3. Vishnu
4. The Holy Trinity


(*Note: Choice D assumes you were born around 400 A.D. or later, after the invention of the Trinity)

7-You are the Creator of the universe. Your chosen people are a tribe of nomadic herdsmen, presently in bondage on one of the millions of your planets. Their ruler is being quite obstinate. Keeping in mind that you possess not only infinite power but also infinite love, your best course of action would be to:

1. Cause the ruler to drop dead of a heart attack
2. Cause the ruler to fall off a cliff
3. Visit the ruler in a dream and persuade him to let your people go
4. Slaughter a great number of innocent babies who had nothing to do with the ruler's policies

My quess would be that the writer of this is an atheist, heh heh. Check out the rest of the exam via the link.