In a flurry of posting...
As most of you know, I lived in Utah for quite a while when I was young. I returned to Provo to attend
Brigham Young University, and was not impressed. I believe part of the problem was living in Provo, the Mormon Meat Market. Salt Lake City is an entirely different animal. My wife is horrified that I'd ever consider it, but I find myself drawn back there for quite a few reasons. Many of those reasons involve being outside, but there are other reasons. The mayor is good start. I'm not the biggest fan of the democratic party, and point out many of its failings as reasons that we need more than two parties.
Mayor Ross C. Anderson gives me some hope for party, he actually has a spine. He's not too popular outside of Salt Lake City, but has done many things that the people there appreciate.
A short list:
Demonstrating during a visit of George Bush
Disbanding DARE and pushing for a program that works
Extending health care benefits to domestic partners of city workers
I like this guy.
I'm not this funny
But I wish I was
A whole new take on flat taxes
I'm a big proponent of the idea of flat taxes. One little piece of paper: How much you made, how much you owe. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. The Finns take that concept one step further, with fines based on income.
Finnish authorities know how much everyone earns, and they prorate traffic fines depending on the wealth of the mal-efactor. Last year the 27-year-old heir to a local sausage fortune was fined 170,000 euros, about $204,000 at the time of the fine, for driving at 50 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone in downtown Helsinki.
For whatever reason, the Scandanavian countries really seem to get it. I'd love to bring some of their social policies here, but that's certainly easier said than done. It's certainly tempting to maybe just pack up my bags and go to the goodness. Who knows
It worked
But it didn't drown in a bathtub.
Ring around the rosy
Plague Infested Mice Escape New Jersey LabState Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs said mice infected with plague die "very fast," so "the risk to the public ... is probably slim to none. We didn't think -- nor did the CDC think -- there was any public health threat..."
Infectious-disease experts... called the episode ... very troubling -- raising serious issues of security and control...
Richard H. Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and a critic of the government's rapid expansion of bio-terrorism labs... noted there has been a series of serious incidents across the country involving accidental human infections at several of the labs working with agents like anthrax and plague. At the same time, he said, federal guidelines call for only minimal security -- a lock on the lab door and a lock on the sample container and cage.
"You have more security at a McDonald's than at some of these facilities," he said.Even Better:New Jersey... does not know how many labs in the state are actually conducting experiments involving lethal bacteria or viruses.
It was just Wednesday that the Emergency Health Powers Act was signed into law, requiring all people, companies or institutions working with or possessing disease strains that can be used for biological weapons to register with the state Department of Health and Senior Servicers. Do you feel safe yet? I'm not sure who I'm worried more about now, the terrorists or us? The events of the last couple of weeks have not enhanced my faith in our federal government's (especially the Department of Homeland Security's) ability to do their job.
Thoughts for today
I'm not really up to any great pontifications today, so I'll keep it simple.
I'm not quite sure that I like being an american anymore. There are certainly worse places to live. However, looking at the world today, I'm somewhat convinced that we are the enemies of freedom. We support despotic regimes, fight to topple democratically elected leaders and are the bottom of the pile for humanitarian aid amongst the so-called civilized nations.
Some people seem to labor under the delusion that we are "spreading democracy" throughout the world. Our record doesn't really support that. We're more than happy to give money and arms to despotic regimes. Out of the 25 top nations that receive arms from us, 20 of them are either undemocratic or known civil-rights violators.
We are also the only fundamentalist developed nation. We don't really support freedom at home, we are growing increasingly repressionist. Women's rights are being challenged, there is still a lot of racism and the treatment of homosexuals is straight out of the dark ages. The line between church and state grows increasinly thin as the neocons continue their stranglehold on the nation, with a wonderful opportunity right now to put 2 judges to life appointments on the Supreme Court.
Do I stay and fight, or just go where I can be happy? I've asked that before, and come back to it repeatedly.
Now this is what I'm talking about
Rehnquist: The Chief Injustice
By: Dan La BotzThis guy definitely knows where I'm coming from. We don't need to change a couple of things, vote some more Dems in or whatever. We need a whole big overhaul of the entire damn system. I don't know what the best system would be, but I'm pretty sure this isn't it.
More anger
This will be short and is just some serious anger in relation to another blog I just read:
UNDERNEWS I like the last sentence:
Louisiana's Republican House member Richard Baker, a strong Bush ally, may have tipped his hand about the future plans for New Orleans when he told a group of lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."OH MY GOD!! This is a state congressman. Good to see that he's full of Christian compassion. I'll stop now, because if I continue I'm going to get
really
offensive.
Grrr...
I wrote a pretty decent little piece yesterday, which Blogger was more than happy to not post and then promptly eat. Ah well.
I came across this wonderful piece of trash today:
An excerpt from 9/11 and The Sport of God Let’s take a brief detour to Ohio and I’ll show you what I am talking about. In recent weeks a movement called the Ohio Restoration Project has been launched to identify and train thousands of “Patriot Pastors” to get out the conservative religious vote next year. According to press reports, the leader of the movement— the senior pastor of a large church in suburban Columbus—casts the 2006 elections as an apocalyptic clash between “the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell.” The fear and loathing in his message is palpable: He denounces public schools that won’t teach creationism, require teachers to read the Bible in class, or allow children to pray. He rails against the “secular jihadists” who have “hijacked” America and prevent school kids from learning that Hitler was “an avid evolutionist.” He links abortion to children who murder their parents. He blasts the “pagan left” for trying to redefine marriage. He declares that “homosexual rights” will bring “a flood of demonic oppression.” On his church website you read that “Reclaiming the teaching of our Christian heritage among America’s youth is paramount to a sense of national destiny that God has invested into this nation.”
One of the prominent allies of the Ohio Restoration Project is a popular televangelist in Columbus who heads a $40 million-a-year ministry that is accessible worldwide via l, 400 TV stations and cable affiliates. Although he describes himself as neither Republican nor Democrat but a “Christocrat”—a gladiator for God marching against “the very hordes of hell in our society”—he nonetheless has been spotted with so many Republican politicians in Washington and elsewhere that he has been publicly described as a“spiritual advisor” to the party. The journalist Marley Greiner has been following his ministry for the organization, FreePress. She writes that because he considers the separation of church and state to be “a lie perpetrated on Americans—especially believers in Jesus Christ”—he identifies himself as a “wall builder” and “wall buster.” As a wall builder he will “restore Godly presence in government and culture; as a wall buster he will tear down the church-state wall.” He sees the Christian church as a sleeping giant that has the ability and the anointing from God to transform America. The giant is stirring. At a rally in July he proclaimed to a packed house: “Let the Revolution begin!” And the congregation roared back: “Let the Revolution begin!”
(The Revolution’s first goal, by the way, is to elect as governor next year the current Republican secretary of state who oversaw the election process in 2004 year when a surge in Christian voters narrowly carried George Bush to victory. As General Boykin suggested of President Bush’s anointment, this fellow has acknowledged that “God wanted him as secretary of state during 2004” because it was such a critical election. Now he is criss-crossing Ohio meeting with Patriot Pastors and their congregations proclaiming that “America is at its best when God is at its center.”) [For the complete stories from which this information has been extracted, see: “An evening with Rod Parsley, by Marley Greiner, FreePress, July 20, 2005; Patriot Pastors,” Marilyn Warfield, Cleveland Jewish News, July 29, 2005; “Ohio televangelist has plenty of influence, but he wants more”, Ted Wendling, Religion News Service, Chicago Tribune, July 1, 2005; “Shaping Politics from the pulpits,” Susan Page, USA Today , Aug. 3, 2005; “Religion and Politics Should Be Mixed Says Ohio Secretary of State,” WTOL-TV Toledo, October 29, 2004].
-Bill Moyer This just continues to push me away from Christianity in any way shape or form. I know that not all Christians are like this, I know that these are the extremes. It is just becoming more and more prevalent and gaining more and more influence (especially within the Rep. Party). We have a Pres. who believes that he speaks for God and represents His will. Excuse me, Mr. Holier-than-thou, but give me a break. He's an alcoholic, ex-drug addict with an addiction to power and sending people to die. He's a liar, self-delusional, and responsible for the death of thousands.
Oh wait, God killed those people. He sent the hurricane, He sent the terrorists, we're fighting His war (for oil, cause God always needs more oil). We're just being punished for being too liberal, allowing those damn gays to exist, not forcing children to pray and read the bible in school, not teaching creationism in school, etc... That whole 1st amendment thing is definitely evil, no more freedom of religion, speech, beliefs, ideas, thoughts... God has told us how to talk, what to think, and that we're supposed to kill all the infidels. Oh wait, is infidels too Islamic of a word? Sorry, didn't mean to do that, don't want to get confused over which extremist religion we represent.
Since the Global War on Terror is bullshit, they tried to give us a new spin line: The Global Struggle Against Extremism. Well shit, we don't need to go anywhere for that, let's just start killing the liberals, the abortionists, those damn treehuggers standing in the way of our money, I mean progress...
I think it's high time for a struggle against extremism. There's plenty at home to deal with. THere are lots of good Christians (I'm assuming), it's time for people to start standing up for what they believe and start thinking for themselves. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Russell Johnson (the guy from the link above) are the extremists we need to deal with.
Well, I'm sure I've managed to offend just about anybody who's ever read the bible so far. Thanks for reading my rant.
Disaster strikes
The calamity along the coast has gotten me to thinking. I know that everybody and their brother has something to say about the tragedy that has befallen the people along the gulf coast. Everybody has a finger to point at somebody else. The Pres, the mayor of N.O., the FEMA director, the Gov. of LA. Nobody has accepted any sort of responsibility for this. We knew this was possible. The people who live in N.O. know that they're below sea level. I remember talking a lot about the possibility of something like this last year when Ivan was on its way. So if a bunch of 18-25 year old weather students could have foreseen this, why couldn't anybody else?
Well, they could, and they did. Nobody wanted to take the steps to prevent it, however. And now look what we're left with. It's terrible, it truly is. I don't want to sit here and point fingers and pick fights, I just want to see some people helping out. And there is truly a lot of that happening. But all the arguments about not helping the poor, not helping the blacks, I have a hard time discounting. When 9/11 occured, over 500,000 people were evacuated from Manhattan Island in a matter of hours. One man, the commander of the Coast Guard for the area was responsible for all of this. There was no talk of needing permission, of local officials turning boats away, of people being given DVDs with instructions to leave, of the poor being left behind. Everybody got the hell out of dodge. The fact that we have seen so many issues, so many roadblocks to getting these poor, unfortunate souls out of N.O. is criminal. I think that everybody shares the blame, though. The local officials, the state officials, the federal officials. They're civil servants. That means that they are there to serve the people. As of yet, all I have seen is a bunch of petty bickering about whose fault it is. You know what, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK!!!! Get the survivors the hell out of there first. Then we'll start impeaching people for criminal negligence and willful endangerment and start throwing their asses in jail.
That's just me, though.
