My hope is that we get rid of these policies of extremes: zero tolerance, no negotiation, maximum return, lowest cost. We seem to value even ridiculous extremes at times.

With this is the rejection of false either-or’s. Conservative or liberal, the environment or industry, socialism or capitalism. These turn debate into contests instead of a process of discovering the truth. What if the government enacted (or repealed) some thing that made a big positive difference to everyone involved. Would you care which ideological category it belonged in? These bi-polar arguments are contrived and unproductive.

My hope is that our generation puts aside some of this pointless vitriol and tries to actually solve problems. Unfortunately, I’m not optimistic.

It’s my usual profanity-ridden chatter about politics. It’s called Taxes and the Nanny State.

Take a listen and post a comment with your thoughts.

A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Do you think this is a racist quote? What is your definition of racist?

As usual, there is what she said and then 9 million interpretations of what she said. If you take her literally at her word, you’d take the meaning to mean “a Latina women has better judgment than a white male”. If you take the most unflattering and literal opinion, I do think you could call that a racist statement and I do think we would call a white male who said the opposite a racist.

But I think such an interpretation is wrong and out of context. She is talking about people who struggle as minorities compared to people in the majority who don’t face challenges related to racism or what I could call “economic racism” — considering certain people to be worthy of lower positions in the social hierarchy. I think people who have struggled economically and people who have faced the adversity of racism may very well have better judgment than someone lucky enough to have not faced those challenges.

Do I think she is a racist? Of course not.

He apparently thinks if he claims victory somehow it is his to lose. No, Norm, an automatic recount has been triggered and YOU ARE NOT THE WINNER YET. I personally hope we send you back home to reinvent yourself into a kinder, gentler piece of shit. Maybe you could become a Democrat again? The wind is blowing that way, you know.

I think it is a dying viewpoint — that same-sex marriage is “bad”– and these actions in these states will be reversed, for sure, no question about it, and the people that voted for them will go down in history as being intolerant and ignorant as did people who worked to deny rights to blacks.

(inspired by The fight over Prop. 8 goes to the courts)

It’s funny to me, though, that the general sentiment I’m sensing from the disappointed Right is that they need to hold on to their checkbook. They think that they will be paying for new spending in higher taxes.

First — the debt is $10 trillion. Our GDP is about $15 trillion. So our debt load is 2/3 of our GDP. That is getting out of hand. Our budget is about $3 trillion, so our income should be $3 trillion and thus our debt is more than 3 times our nominal income. We gotta get this house in order. We need to do it by growing the economy, running a surplus budget and paying down the debt. If, at my company, we had 3x our gross income in debt, I’d be shocked and worried.

We need to run a surplus budget. We have to do it. Some balance of less spending, higher taxes and growth of the overall economy is the solution. We can’t raise taxes so high that we curtain economic growth. We can’t cut spending so much that programs and services are starved to inefficiency. The liberal solution to growing the economy is investment in shifting the entire bell curve of the standard of living, thereby giving a return on that investment in the form of a more robust economy. The Right still seem to believe in trickle down economics.

Second — the Right doesn’t necessarily do better under Republican administrations! They think they do, because capital gains taxes do tend to be higher under Democrats, but one needs look no further than 8 years of George W. Bush to see that alone is not a good measure. Would you rather pay a little more on capital gains and have your economy not tank? I think you would.

I think the unwillingness of affluent Americans to pay taxes is one of the least patriotic things I can think of. They want to have the world’s most powerful army and they do have the world’s most powerful economy and they still can’t do the math the reveals how crucial progressive taxation is to our success in these areas. It’s vital, it’s working and rather than be grateful for the privileged lives that they lead, they whine about taxes. It’s sad, really.

So lighten up, Righties. You’re going to be fine.

The United States of America did the right thing. We made history tonight but more importantly, we chose an excellent man for the job.

God Bless America.

I’m a capitalist. I’m not suggesting we tax at 50% or create a welfare society. Neither is Obama. The biggest untapped potential in our economy is realized when people transition from low-income to middle-income or from middle-income to high-income. When we move the whole bell curve, the whole bell curve moves! Amazing! So you rich folks get richer, too, when poor people get richer.

Morally, it’s always funny to me how, as individuals, we are offended if people call us selfish or greedy. Those are not qualities we want in the people around us, either. Almost all of us are gracious, giving and caring people. Yet somehow the Right can spit out “share the wealth” as if it was the most vile concept to ever cross their lips. How dare he suggest that we should be gracious, giving and caring people! Why, that’s un-American! Right Michele?

WRONG. It is possible to be a capitalist and a small-d democrat and still rise up to our shared responsibility to make possible a decent standard of living for our citizens. Those of us who do find ourselves making more than we need should feel lucky and grateful and willing to help others achieve it.

QED

She vowed – as she has many times — that if she and running mate John McCain are elected, they will nix such fat that’s tacked onto budget bills by lawmakers eager to win points back home– projects that “really don’t make a whole lot of sense” and have “little or nothing to do with the public good. . . things like fruit fly research in Paris, France.”

“I kid you not,” she declared with a chuckle.

First of all, these retards continue to act as if France is anything but a major ally of the US. The US won our revolutionary war due to France. Shut the fuck up with this France bullshit.

But far more importantly, anyone with any knowledge of biology can tell you the important role that the fruit fly has played. The research she is denigrating here is highly useful:

One problem: the research she chose to highlight as a waste of cash just happens to have borne some, well, fruit. And for special needs kids, no less. Among such projects: a 2007 University of North Carolina study that researchers said might be key to better understanding the root of autism spectrum disorders.

The quotes are from Scientific American which goes on to list McCain’s own desperate attempts to paint other scientific research and science education as wasteful.

I’m anti-pork. I think earmarks are a stupid way to do things. We should fix that system, no question about it. But it is un-fucking-believable that Palin/McCain choose to attack those few and inexpensive earmarks that actually make sense. Palin lobbied for the bridge to nowhere, for Christ’s sake. She should shut her mouth before she prematurely ends her career. Oh wait, Republicans celebrate ignorance and stupidity, she’s gonna be a superstar!

Sorry, I’m venting a bit, but the desperate weenies who are clinging to God, guns and John McCain annoy me.

Science IS politics. In the US, the federal government pays for nearly 100% of astronomy research.

Further, politics on issues involving science need to be influenced by scientists! Scientists have a duty, in my opinion, to speak their scientific opinion on the issues of the day. Not a right, a duty. The same is true of every industry, we need to hear from economists on economics and oil men on drilling policy. That’s just obvious. So when we hear from Phil Plait or any other scientist on science-related politics, thank them even if you disagree with them.

My suspicion is that 99.5% of the people that complain to Phil (and others, including me at Slacker Astronomy) are Republicans. They don’t like the views of their party or candidate trashed and they feel insulted that their views are being ridiculed.

Good! The prime fucking directive, as far as I’m concerned, is that you be able to articulate and defend your views. Otherwise answer “Don’t know”. ‘Cause if you are going to act like you have a valid opinion you better be able to tell us why that is so.

I know many Republicans who are not anti-science. But the Republican party as a whole is on the wrong side of many scientific issues. They pander to religious people and they ridicule the accepted views of science. They get what they deserve from people like Phil Plait.

It’s probably happening a little already, but science-minded Republicans should absolutely demand that their party jettison their anti-science schtick. Evolution is the obvious example, but the lunacy of young Earth creationism, hysteria about embryonic stem cells, denial of humanity’s obvious influence on Earth’s climate and the utter failure of abstinence-only sex ed to prevent pregnancy and disease are other examples where Republicans put ideology ahead of generally accepted science.

On Palin:

I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president

On the rat-bastard Republicans:

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said: such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim; he’s a Christian, has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, “What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?” The answer’s “No, that’s not America.” Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he’s Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

On the economic crisis:

I have especially watched, over the last six or seven weeks, as both of them have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we are in, and coming out of the conventions.

And I must say that I’ve gotten a good measure of both. In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to how to deal with the economic problems that we’re having, and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me. I got the sense that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had.

On McCain’s campaign:

I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently — or his campaign ads — on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about.

This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign, but Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robo-calls going on around the country, trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted? What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate.

I agree with Powell on this one.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.
So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

He also slams John McCain:

John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

So the Right is pissed off and Buckley offers, and the National Review accepts, his resignation.

One would be tempted to say the obvious except we don’t have to, Buckley does it for us:

I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

Mr. Buckley is not alone among conservatives. Oddly enough, the conservative vote this year is for Obama.

McCain thinks he can scumbag his way into office. Norm Coleman apparently thinks the same thing. When will they learn? Those scary ads about how scary the other guy is with wolves howling and facts set aside for sensationalistic lies DO NOT WORK.

There is exactly one thing McCain can do to stay in this race: stop talking about Obama and start talking about himself.

I seriously think McCain is losing it. He sounded like Palin last night in the debate, trying to get every issue into every answer. Obama was pretty so-so as well, it seems both those guys are tired.

Currently http://www.electoral-vote.com/ forecasts Obama getting more than twice the electoral votes as McCain.

If you want the next four years looking just like the last eight, then I am not your candidate. But if you want real change – if you want an economy that rewards work, and that works for Main Street and Wall Street; if you want tax relief for the middle class and millions of new jobs; if you want health care you can afford and education that helps your kids compete; then I ask you to knock on some doors, make some calls, talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4th.

I DON’T want the next 4 years to look like the last 8. Obama represents a much, much better shot at that than John McCain. If people weren’t single issue voters or rabid ideologues, Obama would crush McCain. As it is we have to convince people that the party in charge of the last 8 years should not be in charge of the next 8. That should just be obvious.

A friend sent me this. We’ve all seen that Palin clip by now. I think it is maybe the first time that SNL was able to use a quote word for word and have it be absolutely hilarious. Jack is mad and he should be.

I would forgive Palin for having one bad moment. We all say stupid things. Lord knows micadelic is going to paste some Obama clip to insure proper balance. But with Palin they are ALL bad moments. I haven’t heard her say an intelligent thing yet, outside of her speech at the convention. She’s not quick on her feet, she’s not well-informed, she’s not highly educated and she’s not articulate. She would be a horrible candidate for President. With McCain being 72 years old, she is running for President. And thus the MaCain-Palin ticket is excluded from being a serious choice for your vote.

I know, I’m some big elitist because I want our highest leaders to be highly intelligent.

WTF.

Palin is doing the one thing that a VP candidate should never do — weakening the ticket. The Republican ticket consists of an old man who can’t seem to control his campaign and a woman who clearly doesn’t have a clue. The financial crisis on Wall St. is damning as hell to the incumbent party and I think we are at the beginning of a McCain tailspin to defeat.

It’s clearly not over yet, but the Palin love affair, with the exception of the most brain-washed pro-lifers, is completely over.

Here’s a quote from the above link:

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.

Obama’s resume is fantastic. He is the most qualified candidate since Clinton, in terms of his intelligence, education and firm grasp of the issues. He has good judgment, good insights, he’s candid, articulate and personable. He’d be a great President.

People need medical care. It’s required in this day and age. Life is precious and we’ll all spend whatever we need to if we need to. So the market is guaranteed and health care providers have the actual services of value. In between consumers and these providers is a massive corporate for-profit bureaucracy that is trying to milk profits out of the system.

We should learn from France:

Americans often assume that when people get universal coverage, they give up their choice in doctors, hospitals and care. That’s not the case in France, Dutton says. The system is set up both to ensure that patients have lots of choice in picking doctors and specialists and to ensure that doctors are not constrained in making medical decisions.

In France, the national insurance program is funded mostly by payroll and income taxes. Those payments go to several quasi-public insurance funds that then negotiate with medical unions to set doctors’ fees. (Doctors can choose to work outside this system, and a growing minority now charge what patients are willing to pay out of pocket.) The government regulates most hospital fees. This system works collectively to keep costs down.

When someone goes to see a doctor, the national insurance program pays 70 percent of the bill. Most of the other 30 percent gets picked up by supplemental private insurance, which almost everyone has. It’s affordable, and much of it gets paid for by a person’s employer.

“There are no uninsured in France,” says Victor Rodwin, a professor of health policy at New York University, who is affiliated with the International Longevity Center. “That’s completely unheard of. There is no case of anybody going broke over their health costs. In fact, the system is so designed that for the 3 or 4 or 5 percent of the patients who are the very sickest, those patients are exempt from their co-payments to begin with. There are no deductibles.”

I couldn’t find the statistic, but I think we are the only G8 country without some kind of national health care system. Ask the Republicans and France is wrong, the rest of the world is wrong and the US is correct to pay more for a worse system because we fear government bureaucracies more than private bureaucracies. It’s nonsense.

Bush is wrong, McCain is wrong, the Republicans are wrong — we need a national approach to health care. It’s the fiscally conservative thing to do.

“You can put lipstick on a pig,” Obama said. “It’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still going to stink after eight years.”

For the McCain campaign, the comments were a not-so-subtle reference to Palin’s comments at the GOP convention. She asked delegates if they knew the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom. “Lipstick,” she said.

The McCain camp called Obama’s comments “offensive and disgraceful” and said Obama owed Palin an apology. In its latest advertisement, the McCain campaign today called Obama’s comments sexist and used the punch line: “Ready to lead? No. Ready to smear? Yes.”

But Obama said the ad was a tactic to avoid serious debate.

“They’d much rather have the story — this is the McCain campaign — about phony and foolish diversions than about the future. This happens every election cycle. Every four years this is what we do. We have an energy crisis. We have an education system that is not working for too many of our children and is making us less competitive. We have an economy that is creating hardship for families all across America. We’ve got two wars going on, veterans coming home not being cared for, and this is what they want to talk about.

If you think Obama was making a sexist remark towards Palin you are a brain-washed idiot.

Even Huckabee saw though this stupid McCain tactic:

HUCKABEE: It’s an old expression, and I’m going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin. He didn’t reference her — if you take the two sound bites together, it may sound like it, but I’ve been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that’s maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So, I’m going to have to cut him slack.

1. 9/11
2. Katrina
3. The credit crisis
4. The closely related housing crisis
5. Iraq
6 Afghanistan
7. $4 gas

Now the government just nationalized Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac — another example of deregulation at work.

While the Democrats are deeply flawed in many ways, the Republicans are just completely incompetent. They are unfit to lead this country. They want their cake and eat it too and the math does not work out.

Recall the Republicans held the Congress for 6 of the last 8 years and the Presidency for 20 of the last 28 years.

This has been 8 years of a financially irresponsible administration, a foreign policy based on expensive national building, an economic policy of caving to the rich and sticking it to the middle class and a deregulation policy that has led to Yet Another Expensive Government Bailout.

It makes no sense whatsoever to believe that the Republicans are the answer to the problems that the Republicans created.

We need a president like Clinton again — a really smart moderate with liberal tendencies. We don’t need another President like Bush.

Obama could be a very Clinton-like President. McCain would be another Bush-like President.

At the biggest moment of his political career, he delivered a flat, stupefyingly boring address that drained away all the excitement generated by Sarah Palin’s pit-bull-with-lipstick performance the night before. His central message – that it’s time to clean up Washington – was incoherent. Yes, McCain has some legitimate reformist credentials. But he’s also a 25-year Washington insider who marches in lockstep with George Bush on such issues as the war in Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthy.

“It really is an audacious ploy, to tell people that the country’s got to correct the mistakes made by a political party when that’s the very party you represent,” writes Tom Shales in today’s Washington Post. “It’s like staging a revolution against yourself – saying that the Republicans have got to go so the Republicans can move in and clean up the mess.”

The facts are in: McCain supports 90% of the Bush agenda. You call that change? Palin is worse than McCain, favoring teaching creationism in school, being irrationally anti-choice and begging oil companies to come in and defile the last great wilderness in America.

Obama/Biden is the ticket that represents real change. The Republicans have been in power for 20 of the last 28 years. They had their chance.

(That is an embed from CNN, we’ll see if it works.)

It’s funny (but painful) to see CNN actually ask and demand answers to hard questions. The McCain campaign has no answer as to why they have a different standard for Sarah Palin than they do for Barak Obama when it comes to the necessary foreign policy experience to be President.

I’m on Sarah Palin’s side on this one. If she is smart, educated and well-informed I believe she can be the President of the United States. Now I’d like John McCain and all you Republicans to say the same of Barak Obama. Then we can set aside this experience argument once and for all.

As you know by now, Obama officially has the nomination of the pro-death Democratic Party. Money is flowing into his campaign from the radical homosexuals, God-haters, and baby-killers all over the country.

Yes, we on the Left love death. We want to spread death as far and wide as possible. That’s why we support war in Iraq! (Oh wait, we don’t.) That’s also why we support capital punishment! (Oh wait, we don’t.) That’s also why we want to put commercial interests over the environment, in hopes of creating a global climate crisis! (Oh wait, we don’t.)

If these idiots really believed in a culture of life it would be a philosophy that extended further than abortion. That don’t have a culture of life, they have a culture of theocracy, where their religious views are the law of the land.

I respect that some people truly believe abortion is murder. That doesn’t excuse this inane rhetoric at all. Troy Newman, President, Operation Rescue — are you an idiot.

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here.

Perhaps you’ll recall Amy Goodman is a journalist and a fucking nun. She’s a fucking nun who was inquiring why her producers were arrested when she herself was arrested.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

I’ll be calling Mayor Coleman to ask him what the hell is going on in his city. He is either completely full of shit or completely impotent in these situations.

Sarah Palin is asked:

Will you support the right of parents to opt out their children from curricula, books, classes, or surveys, which parents consider privacy-invading or offensive to their religion or conscience? Why or why not?

To which she replies:

Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.

Later she is asked:

Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

To which she replies:

Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

First of all, the founding fathers had nothing to do with the pledge. “The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), a Baptist minister, a Christian Socialist…”

Second, it did not contain the words “under God” until the 1950′s. It was added because “The Knights of Columbus in New York City felt that the pledge was incomplete without any reference to a deity…”

The quoted text is from Wikipedia.

So Sarah Palin has a strong opinion on something she apparently knows nothing about.

PZ also notes the irony in the answers to these two questions. Parents should decide, unless it is about the Pledge, in which case she’ll fight them!

MinnPost points out that the single-issue Christian wackos love Palin.

It looks to me like she is another Michele Bachman — perhaps slightly smarter but just as much of a party-line Right Wing ideologue.

Republicans are weird, though. Take, for example, this quote:

Palin brings traditional political strengths—such as gun enthusiasm and a pro-life record—to the ticket.

Gun enthusiasm is a political strength? The Righties don’t seem to realize how unimportant guns and abortion are in the real world. When it comes to issues facing America today a) they are on the wrong side of both those issues and b) they are not anywhere near the top of what people are worried about.

Except, of course, for single-issue voters who care only about those two issues. Luckily, they are a shrinking minority.

But back to Palin, it surprises me that McCain took away his main advantage over Obama, which is this inexperience argument. How can McCain hammer on Obama for inexperience when he would put a small-town mayor second in line to the Presidency? It’s true that Obama can’t very well attack Palin on the inexperience issue (even though he is much more experienced than she using normal measures of experience). But McCain just took away one of his major advantages in the debate.

It also seems like a token female gender play, trying to woo Clinton supporters. I am happy to see a woman in the race and I think we should all judge her independent of her gender. But it seems like a completely political decision, as opposed to a policy decision. This could hurt McCain as well.

I don’t think people vote for, or against, the VP, so it may not make tons of difference. But I personally don’t see McCain in a stronger position after this decision.

The volatile issue of teaching creation science in public schools popped up in the Alaska governor’s race this week when Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state’s public classrooms.

Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, ‘Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.’

She later clarified to say “…she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum.”

She’s pro-life, pro-drilling-in-ANWR and she “invokes God in every decision she makes”.

I’m glad McCain chose a woman and I’m not going to condemn her myself until I learn more. But so far it does not look good.

When I think about what the most important criteria is, for me, when it comes to choosing a presidential candidate, it’s intelligence and honesty. I want to know the person is really smart and has really good judgement and will be honest with the American people. I will forgive almost any failure if I think this is true. It’s why I think Jimmy Carter was a great president, for example. I will accept failure if it is honest failure. I think Clinton was a great president for the same reasons: he as really smart and he wasn’t afraid to be honest with us. I still recall a debate where he answered a question by a doctor and he said “I’m gonna raise your taxes.” He did not try to hide that and his honesty was refreshing. (As an aside, Slick Willy was not necessarily honest in all regards and I do not give him a free pass for that, per se.) I even liked John McCain in those times that he was boldly honest. I’m seeing less and less of that McCain.

So Obama, to me, has the two most important qualities. He’s really smart and he’s not just blowing smoke up our asses. We’ll have a good-faith problem solver at the helm. That alone is a major, huge, gigantic, colossal, phenomenally large difference compared to Bush. In the intelligence/honesty department I think McCain is also an improvement over Bush. He is nowhere near as smart as Obama, though, plus he’s old, which slows down the processor a bit. He’s also been caught famously lying, like in regards to the rebel flag issue. He came clean, which I respected, but he lied about it in the first place.

Biden is really a great man. He is a liability politically because of his long voting record and the fact that he is an East Coast Liberal. We’ll be hearing all sorts of horror stories about what Biden has voted for (and against). But he is a solid guy with a solid reputation in the Senate and I love that he is boldly outspoken.

So Obama is better than McCain and way, way better than Bush and Biden is way, way better than Cheney. We have a chance to significantly upgrade our executive branch. President 2.0. Let’s do it!

Now it’s inevitable that the extremists in either party will sling mud and pull all sorts of dirty tricks. All they need to do is hide behind empty shell companies and buy advertising. Given the current laws we have, we can’t stop these assholes from playing dirty. Thus we must do our best to ignore it. The candidates on both sides should denounce it emphatically and ask people who are supporting them to not do it.

The fair game, in my opinion, is 2 issues:

1. What qualities does the candidate have as a person and a leader.
2. What are his positions on the issues.

Those are the only two valid discussions we should have.

Now to the issue of guilt by association — it’s a gray one, in a sense, because whom you choose to associate with does lend insight into #1 above. On the other hand, we should never take some other person’s views as a proxy for the candidate’s views. The candidates can speak for themselves! So if some advisor to Obama is a racist, for example, we cannot infer something about Obama’s views from this. If McCain has a supporter who is an ardent theocrat, we can’t assume that McCain shares that view.

If McCain, though, goes to Bob Jones University (or Obama goes to, say, The Sierra Club) and proclaims what a great institution it is, then he is inviting assumptions.

Above all I’m praying to God (and that from an atheist) that the candidates themselves take the moral high ground. Both campaigns will be looking for every advantage, but being above the pissing match should be an advantage. Let’s pick the candidate who stays on the issues, has intelligent views on the issues and who avoids the slash and burn bullshit of “Swift Boat” politics.

The attack on the science has two components. The first is the most obvious: to use what appear to be scientific arguments to cast doubt on what the scientific community deems valid arguments about climate change. But the second may be the most important: to do it in a way that casts aspersions on all kinds of scientific argument. The attackers don’t care if they are accused of political or economic bias in making their own scientific arguments because one of their objectives is to establish a covert narrative that says science is always biased and tainted by political corruption. The aim is to destroy the moral authority of science, not its factual basis. They then erect a new standard based on economic promise and the virtues of “progress” and modernity.

I’ve said before that scientists tend to be liberals. It’s just a fact, just like big business guys tend to be conservatives. I don’t think either side needs to apologize for this. But the Right Wing hates this because science does hold a special place in our debates. You can’t argue about issues like climate change, embryonic stem cell research or natural selection without involving science and the fact that all the scientists are on the Left makes it seem, to some, that “science” is just a political tactic to win debates. The above quoted paragraph makes quite clear how the Right Wing has chosen to fight this: just claim that all science is biased!

I interviewed a particle physicist lately (which I will soon post over at Slacker Astronomy) and he said, and I quote, “I don’t believe anything.”. He has trained himself as a scientist to not believe things — he either knows or he doesn’t know and “knowing” involves a file cabinet full of data and research. He has purged himself of belief because it is a liability as a scientist.

So, I’m sorry, you sad little Righties. Science is not a tactic and when your beliefs are in opposition with science your beliefs needs to be modified.

What I am pointing out also goes to why you Obama cultists are so clueless. You all do not understand America, or the American electorate. You elitists long for this country to be something that (hopefully) it will never be. You don’t understand the majority of “gun-loving, bitter, religious, stupid people” that must be won over in order to be elected to lead them. You just do not get it. You all are so smart you’re stupid. You live in these bubbles where your views are continually reinforced, so much so you start to believe they are mainstream.

The problem with this point, Micadelic, is that it is really 50/50 in this country, as we saw in the last couple of elections. I agree, there are many people who disagree with me. There are also many, many people who agree with me.

I am wondering about the word “elitist”. I think your average gun-loving, pro-life, fag-hating redneck is wrong about a lot of things. That is not to say they are bad people, they are not, and I know and love many a gun-loving, pro-life, fag-hating redneck. But I argue with them and I argue based on thinking. I admit it! I base my arguments on thinking. I try to gather facts and information and think about all sides of an issue. Then I try to use my best judgment, based on balancing my principles with what I think is practical and achievable.

Let’s use guns as an example, the data is in and the US has more guns deaths, by far, than any other westernized country. The US also has the most gun proliferation in the westernized world. Prior to discussing what our policy should be, you have to be an idiot if you don’t see causation between the vast proliferation of guns in the US and the vastly higher incidents of gun deaths.

I’m not anti-gun. I have no desire to deprive rednecks of their guns. But the streets of Minneapolis are very different from the farms of northern Minnesota. Cops are in grave danger every day due to the proliferation of guns. Do you think we can take that into account when we debate gun policy? Am I an “elitist” because I think that, yes, god dammit, we have to be able to debate gun policy?

The 50% of the people you are supporting in the above paragraph think that gun policy should be off the table. They hated the Brady Bill and they’ve worked to thwart any effort to debate gun policy. They are wrong and I’m not going to pander to them to get their vote.

If you think gun policy should be off the table, that doctors should be thrown in jail for performing abortions and that gay people should be denied spousal rights and benefits, you’re wrong. I can’t care if you have a majority or not, you’re wrong. A majority of people were in favor of slavery, too. Populism can be just as bad, or worse, than elitism.

I think smart, educated and well-informed people should run this country. I think ignorant, uneducated and uninformed people should not. Do you disagree? One could argue that “smart, educated and well-informed” constitutes an elite. If so, I’m an elitist.

“As a woman, mother, a former teacher and an elected official, I find this material completely unacceptable,” McCollum told the Star Tribune.

I bet you don’t subscribe to Playboy then, huh? Good! That’s how the marketplace of ideas works. If you don’t want to read things like people joking about pornography, you are not required to read it.

Franken’s office responded:

“Al understands, and the people of Minnesota understand, the difference between what a satirist does and what a senator does,” Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr told the Associated Press. “It’s unfortunate that she’s trying to create divisions in our party rather than working with other DFLers (Minnesota Democrats) to take on the special-interest senator.”

Listen up, Democrats: you’ll recall we had a governor in this state named Jesse Ventura. You floated up a limp whale of a candidate against him and you lost. The people of Minnesota are real people and we don’t mind that our elected officials are real people. Al Franken is a huge liability if you think like the people who lost against Jesse Ventura. He’s a huge asset if you think that honesty, humor and non-career politicians are a good thing. Franken will trounce Coleman unless you guys keep on this puritan bullshit. Al Franken has spent most of his life being a comedian. There are all sorts of off-color remarks in his past. We don’t care.

No, of course not. Obama has a law degree from Harvard and he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was professor and a lawyer before serving in both the state senate and the US Senate. He has more government experience that probably 99.99% of the people in the country.

By contrast, Ronald Reagan was the governor of California for 2 terms. That is the sum total of his political experience. Note that this includes no foreign policy experience. Oh I guess I should mention he was the president of the Screen Actors Guild.

Obama is more experienced and more educated than Reagan was and much better prepared to be President.

Obama is not perfect. I disagree with some of his positions. But STFU with this bullshit that he is incapable of doing the job. He is completely capable and he represents a welcome change from the 8 years of incompetence we just endured.

That’s wrong. What we need to do is be prepared to compromise ourselves, internally, in terms of how we elect our leaders. This is exemplified easiest as “single issue politics”. There is not a more irrational strategy than single issue politics. We must accommodate multi-issue politics in our decisions and we have to be immune to the constant pressure by single-issue institutions to do otherwise.

There are conservative values I agree with. Many conservatives share some of my liberals values. This is not binary. We need to elect sensible, thinking people who really want to solve problems. That is more important than electing people who punch the same answer as you on the scorecard.

For example: Hey, Righties, could you live with someone who raised taxes on you if they delivered a robust economy? Hey, Lefties, could you live with fewer social programs if they delivered you situation where fewer people needed it? Can we worry a little more about the strategies and less about the tactics?

Some of the goals are a good standard of living, a robust economy, peaceful relationships with the world, minimal government interference in our lives and a just and equitable society. Can we agree on that? If so, can we be ready to compromise on the tactics and methods to achieve these things?

The compromise doesn’t happen “out there”. It happens in you and in me and it happens when we look at the big picture. We need better leaders. We have the power to select better leaders. We have to stop electing ideologues and start electing problem solvers. You’re the only one who can do that.

I have a challenge for conservatives and middle of the road Republicans — give Obama a chance. Just give the man a chance. John “Bush 3.0″ McCain represents nothing more than a minor tweaking to Bush’s policies on Iraq and the economy. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. I know the far right could never vote for Obama but many of you that voted for Bush and were disappointed owe it to yourselves to listen to Obama and give him a chance to earn your support. I don’t agree with Obama on every issue. It’s not required that you agree with a candidate on every issue. Separate the person from the political party and give each candidate a fair shot at your support.

I respect John McCain. I really hope he doesn’t give me reason to withdraw that respect during this campaign. I agree with McCain to some extent on several issues, I respectfully disagree on some issues and I think he is dead wrong on some issues. I will listen to him during this campaign and I hope he surprises me. The Dept. of Opinion Manipulation in the Republican party is going to try to make him say all sorts of stuff*. I hope he doesn’t say it.

* I was dismayed that McCain went to the NRA with same old tired and incorrect bullshit about how Democrats want to take your guns away. I think Obama should go talk to the NRA and say “how long are you gonna let Republicans buy your vote by uttering the one sentence they know you want them to say? It’s fucking naive to think that any single issue is more important than the management of the United States of America as a whole. Your interests are much broader and more vital than the single issue of gun legislation. No one is trying to take away the guns of law-abiding citizens. Relax and let’s move on to the important stuff.”

It’s a key point and it is good that Matthews pushed it: appeasement does not mean “talking to”. It means giving up something in hopes of avoiding a conflict. Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler by signing the Munich Agreement, conceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler.

John F. Kennedy said “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.” I agree with him. I think Bush is a dumbshit.

Stung by criticism that his Monday letter explaining a veto of legislation to ban a fire retardant and a known toxin in children’s toys was “riddled with inaccuracies,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty yesterday acknowledged factual misstatements and apologized.

But he still stands behind his veto:

And so, the governor altered his reasons for vetoing the bill which, he said Tuesday, was because “many studies regarding the impact of DECA do not support a ban.”

Meanwhile, in reality:

Dahl said the “overwhelming conclusion” of independent, peer-reviewed studies is that DECA is a “dangerous neurotoxin.” She produced a long list of abstracts for scientific papers documenting known hazards of DECA, and another list of studies on another toxin, phthalate (pronounced fail-ate), that would be phased out in the vetoed bill.

Dahl said that both DECA and phthalate do not bond to the products in which they’re used, meaning that the chemicals are released as children chew on playthings or as products heat up.

Forty-one nations, including the European Union and Mexico, have banned phthalate; the giant retailer Toys R Us and toymaker Mattel have vowed to be phthalate-free by the end of the year.

The flame-retardant DECA — a “developmental neurotoxin” similar to PCBs, which were banned in Minnesota in the 1970s — is used in textiles, mattresses, and electronics. Heat causes DECA to be released, exposing firefighters to elevated chemical risk as they respond to fires.

Children are affected as heat from laptops and TV sets release DECA into dust that then circulates around the home and into carpeting.

Hmmm, I wonder whose pocket the Gov. is in on this one?

(via MinnPost)

It’s Republicans, of course, that piss me off the most. They try to spin liberals as wanting a nanny-state where the government does everything for everybody, forcing legislation and regulation down our throats. Yet they are so quick to call upon government intervention where they want it. People shouldn’t be allowed to be gay married! Abortions should be illegal! We need half of our budget to go to the military! People shouldn’t be allowed to grow pot! Hell, if you drive your car into an affluent Republican neighborhood you can’t even park on the street without a permit. They love government, but only when it directly benefits themselves. With Republicans it is a politics of convenience — “I’m a socialist when it is your stuff and a capitalist when it’s my stuff”. Thus, Republicans, when they use the “government should leave us alone” argument, are complete hypocrites.

Libertarians, on the other hand, think that government has one role — protect personal property. They think the only good laws are laws that protect personal property. All other laws are just government interference in our lives.

I think libertarians are not hypocrites but they are much too willing to allow the tyranny of the majority and much too unwilling to use government cooperatively for the common good. Libertarians seem to think that, if you get sick from mishandled food at a restaurant, you should not patronize that restaurant anymore. If you don’t want to work in a dangerous mine or a smoke-filled bar, don’t apply for the job. If you can’t afford health care, too bad so sad.

While I am certainly more sympathetic to the libertarian viewpoint than the Republican viewpoint, I think it’s impractical and wasteful to not band together for the common good, it guts our economical potential and it abandons our humanitarian ideals.

My favorite Paul Wellstone quote is “We all do better when we all do better.” Our greatest economic potential is moving people out of poverty. We should do this for humanitarian reasons alone, but the economic reasons cause the initiative to pay for itself! Welfare programs that get people on a track towards economic independence are fiscally conservative. The health care “crisis” is another example where, if we increase the size of the risk pool and use our dollars more wisely, everyone benefits. A pure free-market approach to health care leaves behind the poor and costs us much more money in the end. Free markets cannot be trusted to do the right thing in the long term for the population as a whole. Free markets benefit those who are savvy and have means. They brutalize the poor.

Thus, we should abandon empty platitudes like “government should leave us alone”. In the best case its naive and in the worst its hypocritical bullshit. I agree entirely with the notion that we must be wise about what we choose to do with government. Government is the wrong tool for many, many jobs. But, on the whole, government is a force for equality, opportunity, fairness and justice. The anti-government rhetoric of libertarians and Republicans is just plain wrong and, in the latter case, is just a shallow attempt to deceive people with a campaign slogan.

So apparently he can’t love his own sister because of his religious beliefs but he can fuck around on his wife for years and drive drunk. I guess I missed that part of the Bible.

I don’t care, necessarily, that people are imperfect. I do care when they are lying, hypocrites who act as if they hold the moral high ground politically.

Let’s see, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) fucks call girls, Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) cheats on his wife and drives drunk. At least Elliot Spitzer (the only D in this post) had the decency to resign.

It’s sad and pathetic that retarded Republicans like Rush Limbaugh would interfere with the democratic process. Do you believe in democracy or not, Rush, you dumbshit?

“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. … I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. … You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!”

I personally don’t think it is a bad thing at all that the Democratic race is still on-going. The Republicans like to spin it like it is great for their candidate, but their candidate is a tired, old, rich, white man who thinks in lock-step with George W. Bush on way too many issues, including the war. They have huge problems so they delude themselves and the American public to whatever extent necessary to make it seem like they have a chance.

I do not want Hillary Clinton to be the candidate.

i just wonder why, if mr. pz is so smart, he’s doesn’t realize he was used as part of a pretty clever publicity stunt. expelling him from expelled! and then he rushes to the nearest computer to breathlessly report how he was kicked out. priceless.

pretty funny if you ask me (and i believe in evolution). i just think pz is an insufferable intellectual snob and it’s great to see him get punk’d.

I suppose I should stop being surprised at the things you think…

PZ attempted to see a movie that he was in. The makers of the movie knew he was coming and waited until the last moment to kick him out. (They could have just emailed him and told him he wasn’t welcome.) The “clever publicity stunt” made those tools look like extra special tools when they kicked out PZ and let Dawkins in! Oops, sorry, didn’t recognize the most recognizable atheist in the world (who is also in the film!). PZ’s reporting of the incident was hilarious and the press associated with the incident was 100% critical and negative towards the movie. Oh, yes, very clever.

I’ve met PZ and he is a very humble and very nice person. He is not a “snob” in the slightest. What he is is extremely knowledgeable about this issue — evolution — and he is constantly defending generally accepted science against people who don’t know a single fucking thing about it. Yes, I suppose one can seem like a snob when you are an expert on a subject and you are debating self-righteous idiots without a clue WTF they are talking about.

The core issue here is very interesting — how the Right pretends to be anti-intellectual. Anti-intellectualism is an agenda of elevating mediocrity and small-minded thinking while denigrating education and intelligence. It’s completely nuts and it gets us incompetent leadership like George W. Bush — a “regular guy” completely devoid of the skills necessary to do his job.

We need a hell of a lot more “intellectual snobs” and a lot less influence by ignorant people too lazy to be intellectually engaged with the world.

What many people overlook — silly us — is that politics in Minnesota has degenerated into a cynical game. The object of the game is no longer to achieve the public good through rational compromise by mature adults. How quaint. No, the object of the game now is to wage tribal warfare and punish enemies.

Now forgive me, but I expect chief executives to rise above the partisan fray a bit. Pawlenty has acted like a spoiled child though his entire terms. We have this concept called a balance of power. This means that compromises are necessary and expected. Pawlenty has proven over and over that he has no class whatsoever. He is a petty,small-minded partisan who puts the Republican party and his vice-presidential ambitions over the will of the people of Minnesota. Every. Time.

I know politics is politics. I’m not crying because Pawlenty wields his power. I’m crying because he constantly wields his power like he is governor of only those Minnesotans who are Republicans. Damn it, Timmy, you are my governor, too, and you owe me a lot more than this partisan bullshit that you have become known for. Grown up.

Two plus two does not equal five no matter how many people vote for it.

This is democracy’s principle flaw. Majorities have made all sorts of atrociously wrong decisions that trampled the rights of minorities. Legal slavery under the constitution of the US comes to mind. Religious persecution, racism, sexism — all the creation of majorities.

So the idea of a republic is rather a good one, where the people elect representatives who make decisions rather than the people making decisions directly. It allows a bit of a buffer zone between “mob rule” and government. The problem with this is what America is facing today — your government goes up for sale to special interests when it is in the hands of greedy, petty people.

I’ve always wondered why lobbying is effective. Most of the people in the US congress are not hard up for money. In fact, most of them are independently wealthy. So why does money sway them? If I were a politician I would say, donate to my campaign if you want me to use my best judgement. I promise nothing in return for your campaign contribution except to be as wise as possible in rending my judgement and as idealistic as possible, while as pragmatic as necessary, to make a positive difference in people’s lives.

Government walks a very fine balance between providing the foundation which makes law and justice possible while treading as carefully as possible on the individual liberties that we take to be self-evident.

Government is necessary and therefore it must be effective and therefore we need our best and brightest at the helm and therefore we are compelled to get the money-grubbing, ideological crooks out of our government. To do that we must render the notion that [s]he who spends more get more votes impotent.

The power is with the people. The only people who serve in public office are the people we put there. We are failing.

Are you tired of allowing a well-funded vocal minority:

[1] Dictating what we can say, do or think?
[2] Suppressing our freedoms of religion and speech?
[3] Having more rights than the rest of us?
[4] Telling us that they are offended by what we say or do?
[5] Preaching tolerance while demonstrating utter contempt for anyone with a different view than their own?
[6] Exploiting our legal system to advance their agendas at the expense of our rights?
[7] Destroying our nation’s traditional values?

Then do something about it by joining Minnesota Majority. We are a non-partisan issue advocacy group seeking to restore traditional values to Minnesota’s public policy.

I added the numbers so I could address the sins of the “well-funded vocal minority” in order.

1. Dictating what we can say, do or think?

Give me one example of this, anybody. The only examples I can think of are related to things like hate crimes. I doubt they are pro-hate crime. So WTF are they talking about? Laws? Are they against laws? Yes, we have laws that say you can’t ejaculate into someone’s milkshake. Do they have a problem with that?

2. Suppressing our freedoms of religion and speech?

Again, one example please. The Right has always been too stupid shallow to realize that the separation of church and state is there to protect the religious! The fundamental issue that the founders were trying to protect was the freedom of religion. They were wise enough to understand that this meant a hard, bright line between the state and religions.

3. Having more rights than the rest of us?

Who can they be thinking of here? The only people I can think of with “more rights than the rest of us” are ridiculously rich people who buy influence in our government.

4. Telling us that they are offended by what we say or do?

So they are pro-freedom of speech but anti-freedom of speech?

5. Preaching tolerance while demonstrating utter contempt for anyone with a different view than their own?

I’m definitely sensing some contempt here. To me this is the ol’ “why aren’t you tolerant of bigots” argument. If you hate homosexuals, want to destroy the separation of church and state and seek to enforce your personal morality on me, you should expect some contempt and intolerance.

6. Exploiting our legal system to advance their agendas at the expense of our rights?

Again, the only people I know who have the resources to exploit our legal system are rich people. The fact that there is a independent judiciary was a stroke of brilliance by our founders and it is an important part of the balance of power with the executive and legislative branches of government. This point is major evidence of the bankruptcy of the Right Wing agenda — they don’t like the independent judiciary, something they share philosophically with fascists and dictators.

And if you want to talk about protecting our rights I assume you are a strong supporter of the ACLU and the EFF? Those are the organizations out there protecting our rights.

7. Destroying our nation’s traditional values?

I prefer to judge values today. I think the gains that minorities have made in the last century are a sign of the maturation of the USA. Ben Franklin warned us about the “tyranny of the majority“. That’s why our constitution was so carefully crafted with a balance of power and a fundamental right to equal opportunity. The implication that traditional values are better or more moral or more natural has never been proven. Why does a group that has as #1 on the list a disdain for people “dictating what we can say, do or think” also have on their list a desire to dictate what we can say, do or think!

Look — these people are probably nice, well-meaning and smart people. It’s not them I am attacking, it’s their ideas. Their agenda is misguided on virtually every count. I’ve tackled only their “About Us” page. On every page they reveal a nonsensical misinterpretation of the issues. It’s an agenda of the 1950′s, ridiculously out of place in 2008.

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

What she meant, from what I can tell, is that there is a strategic advantage to have a black Presidential candidate right now. That the times are right, from a political strategy standpoint, to capitalize on a candidate of color. She says her own candidacy for Vice President was specifically because of her gender.

That’s not a racist comment and I don’t believe she is a racist. I think she’s wrong, though. I don’t think Obama’s candidacy or popularity is because of his race in any way. For the more backwards-ass in this country, it’s actually in spite of his race. For most people, I think his race is irrelevant. It is for me.

I’m very happy, of course, that women and people of color are closer than ever to being President of the United States. I think the monopoly that white men have had in that office is unwarranted and largely because of historical bias. But that doesn’t mean I would support any candidate solely because of their gender or their race. Obama is smart. That’s why I like him.

A bipartisan effort is under way to end Minnesota’s “blue laws.” As state laws currently stand, Minnesotans who want to do their car shopping on the weekends or buy beer for a Sunday night party have found themselves out of luck. The selling of strong liquor or automobiles on Sunday is currently against the law in Minnesota.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like they are optimistic on getting the job done:

Ultimately, the bill is mostly symbolic and intended to generate a discussion. “We don’t expect these bills to get out of committee, but we wanted to let people know that these silly laws exist,” said Kahn.

I don’t understand at all what is hard about repealing these backwards-ass laws.