America...devolution

Last week some folks ("Christians") were bitching about the attention that the Dalai Lama received in Seattle, they made the claim that Christianity was responsible for ALL of the good of Western Civilization and that NO OTHER religion advanced civilization. I think I blogged about that bullshit at the time, but here's the latest.

http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2008-04-22-voa57.cfm

I’ve been informed by "Christians" that AMERICA RULES in healthcare and yet large parts of America ’s population is getting WORSE in life expectancy? Especially ironic that the geographic areas mention are those in the most “Christian” parts of the country. I believe last week we were informed how Christianity made people live longer and have better everything. So, this can’t be true. Stupid Facts.

Over the last 20 years, life expectancy has either declined or stagnated for one
of out every five women compared with four percent of men. Ezzati finds this a
grim statistic for an industrialized nation. "We don't associate worsening of
health, worsening of life expectancy with something that happens in a developed
high-income country."

Christianity RULES Part III

Did anyone note the irony of these comments with the Pope’s comments at the same time? Is this the “level of civilization” he spoke of?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080417/ts_nm/pope_usa_dc_27

For the third consecutive day of his trip to the United States , Benedict
mentioned the scandal that rocked the Church in 2002 and cost U.S. dioceses $2
billion in damages, demonstrating his resolve to deal with the issue and make
sure it does not happen again.

"No words of mine can describe the pain and harm inflicted by such
abuse," he said in the sermon of a Mass at Nationals Park , a new stadium
hosting its first non-baseball event.

Christianity RULES Part II

Western society advanced DESPITE Christianity. Christian superstition led to Galileo being imprisoned for defying the “God-given truth” that the earth was the center of the Universe. Yet, science advanced despite those impediments imposed by Christianity (both cultural and legal). Even today, as “Christians” try to stop medical research on religious grounds, science marches on.

Western Civilization didn’t thrive b/c of Christianity, it prospered in spite of it.

I did get a chuckle after work when I thought about how much your disdain for the rest of Western Civilization faded away during this here attack on non-Christian societies. You’re always going on and on about how much Canada , France , Germany , etc. all suck.


And South America ? That’s just about as poverty-stricken as N. Africa and the Middle East . What’s up with that?

I guess that goes to show (considering oil-rich Arab countries incredible wealth and “progress”) that economics drive societal prosperity, not religious doctrine. And a few hundred years of colonialism doesn’t do a society any favors either.

Christianity RULES

My Bushie friend hit me with this:

North Africa and the Middle East were part of the Greco-Roman world
and yet did not develop with the rest of Western Civilization.
Explain.

My response:

Saying Western Civilization is Western Civilization b/c it is Christian isn’t an argument.

As for North Africa and Middle East . Have you ever been to Egypt ? Abu Daubi?

How about Gary , Indiana or Detroit , Michigan ? Seems like Christ must hate the Midwest and love UAE.




More eye-rolling at the Dalai Lama from newly merged social-conservative groups...

Given who's on the board, expect to hear more from the newly merged Family Policy Institute of Washington and the Spokane-based Washington Family Foundation.
The two groups will now be known as the Family Policy Institute of Washington, which describes its work as "to introduce and influence Washington state laws and public policy in support of human life and the institutions of marriage and the family." The group will keep its Spokane office and staff, as well as an Eastern Washington Advisory Board.
The group, which is unhappy with the attention the Dalai Lama is getting in Seattle this week, is no stranger to politics. Its board members include:
The group yesterday criticized as "the very height of absurdity" the notion that the visiting Tibetan Dalai Lama should be seen by "liberal Seattle elites, media, politicians and educrats" as a source of spiritual guidance and real-world solutions:
"Never in history has this part of the world achieved a fraction of the sustained level of civilization and prosperity as is commonly found in the Christianized West,"
said the group's executive director, Larry Stickney. He maintains that: "Wherever eastern religions have taken hold, superstition, backwardness, abject poverty and misery has been a common denominator of its practitioners and peoples."

McCain and Clinton call Obama "elitist"

I especially love it when multi-millionaires are calling Obama an “elitist”. McCain sits in his $4 million dollar house (one of 4 they own) and calls Obama elitist. His wife is one of the richest women in Arizona …you can’t buy those kinda balls.

That Bush Magic

My Bushie friend likes to say that “Everyone knows” that things are better now, and we all know that for them “everybody” means those who lives in his house, but apparently America (and the individuals who comprise America that he has little use for) disagree:

Stories below are hyperlinked for your viewing convenience:

We’re worse off than 4 years ago, voters say

WASHINGTON - Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
This has become a fundamental question in presidential elections. And for the first time since 1992, a plurality of voters heading into November’s election answer that question with a resounding no, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Forty-three percent say that they and their families are worse off, compared with 34 percent who say they’re better off; 21 percent respond that their status is the same. By contrast, strong pluralities or majorities answered that they were better off before entering the general elections in 1996, 2000 and 2004 — when, with the exception of the extremely close 2000 race, the incumbent party held onto the presidency
.
February retail sales worse than expected

Feb. foreclosures up 60 percent over year before
Oil prices touch a new high of $111 a barrel
Stocks tumble as commodity prices soar

Vile

The Bush extortion of American continues.

Bush appears to be saying that the Army’s behavior “could cost American lives”. How’s that for supporting the troops? It should be horrifying that while the Military of America refuses to engage in torture, the civilian executive believes that he should be able to torture. WOW.

Bush: Limiting CIA Interrogations "Could Cost American Lives"

By Paul Kiel - March 8, 2008, 10:33AM

From President Bush's radio address today, where he announced that he'd
vetoed the Senate authorization bill, which would have effectively outlawed
waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques for the CIA by
limiting the CIA to the Army's guide for interrogations, the Army Field
Manual:

Interesting discussion of "experience"

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/17/Worldandnation/Presidential_experien.shtml



http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1717926,00.html?xid=rss-topstories


"there's no such thing as presidential experience outside of the office itself."
James A. Baker III


Wouldn't it be nice if time on the job and tickets punched translated neatly into superior performance? Then finding great Presidents would be a simple matter of weighing résumés. Take a Democrat like Bill Richardson — experienced in Congress, in the Cabinet, as a diplomat and governor — and have him run against Republican Tom Ridge, a former soldier, governor and Director of Homeland Security, with the winner chosen by a blue-ribbon commission of all-purpose elders. The Danforth-Mitchell commission, perhaps, or O'Connor-Albright. But it has never worked that way, which is why Lincoln 's statue occupies a marble temple on the Mall in Washington , while his far more experienced rival William Seward has a little seat on a pedestal in New York City .

…

Richard Nixon served as a Congressman, Senator and Vice President; he watched from the front row as Eisenhower assembled one of the best-organized administrations in history. When Nixon's turn came, though, his core character — insecure, insincere, conspiratorial — led him to create a White House doomed by its own dysfunction.

Lawless

Yeah, but our secret police, spying on our own citizens and general disregard for the law is better than when China, Cuba, and Russia, etc use their secret police, spy on their citizens and have a general disregard for the law. We’re George W. Bush’s America . When our leader says he must violate these laws to protect our country, who are we to argue? After all, when has a leader claiming the violation of laws and the abuse of civil rights is justified by “protecting the state” ever gone wrong? If laws are in place to specifically guard against these types of abuses, what is a leader to do, but ignore them? That behavior has never had bad consequences in the history of the world.

George Bush was elected our leader by nearly a majority of Americans, how can he be expected to be bound by laws established by Congress or a Constitution created by the mental midgets of the 18th Century? It’s not like they knew anything about threats to our nation. They only fought a war for independence and then watched a foreign country burn down the Nation’s capital, what would they knew about threats to the homeland?



More FBI Privacy Violations Confirmed

By LARA JAKES JORDAN Associated Press Writer

The FBI acknowledged Wednesday it improperly accessed Americans' telephone
records, credit reports and Internet traffic in 2006, the fourth straight year
of privacy abuses resulting from investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and
spies.

The breach occurred before the FBI enacted broad new reforms in March
2007 to prevent future lapses, FBI Director Robert Mueller said. And it was
caused, in part, by banks, telecommunication companies and other private
businesses giving the FBI more personal client data than was requested.

Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mueller raised the
issue of the FBI's controversial use of so-called national security letters in
reference to an upcoming report on the topic by the Justice Department's
inspector general.

An audit by the inspector general last year found the FBI demanded
personal records without official authorization or otherwise collected more data
than allowed in dozens of cases between 2003 and 2005. Additionally, last year's
audit found that the FBI had underreported to Congress how many national
security letters were requested by more than 4,600.
The new audit, which
examines use of national security letters issued in 2006, "will identify issues
similar to those in the report issued last March," Mueller told senators. The
privacy abuse "predates the reforms we now have in place," he said.

"We are committed to ensuring that we not only get this right, but
maintain the vital trust of the American people," Mueller said. He offered no
additional details about the upcoming audit.

Senators Clinton and Obama

Senators C and O:

GROW UP!. You’re running for the highest office in the land, show some dignity. We’ve had 7 years of partisan bickering and name-calling and the Democrats have the best opportunity to win the WH in decades and you two are going to ruin it with your petty sniping and bickering over little irrelevant junk. Senator Clinton, tell me why I should vote for you instead of Senator Obama because you call him a plagiarist. Honestly, do you think that is the kind of stuff that is going to win you the election? If so, it tells me you don’t deserve it.

Stop the negative name-calling and focus on WHY WE SHOULD VOTE FOR YOU. I ask Senator McCain to do the same.

And as for you, the “media” you too could serve America well but not taking these comments and blowing them out of proportion. Look at the headlines you write, why do you sensationalize these comments. Those of you running and those of you reporting owe it to America to grow up. Try to return civility and dignity to American politics. You’re the only ones that can do it, so why don’t you step up and serve America and it’s citizens.

Congress and steroids in sports

Is it any wonder that America holds Congress in such low esteem? Steroids and HGH in baseball? Is this even in the top 100 most pressing issues in America? The Bushies will soon be leaving an intractable war, huge deficits, mortgage "crisis" and the specter of stagflation, does whether Roger Clemens took HGH impact anyone's life? Or what Roger Godell did with the tapes the Patriots created?

No one cared when 80% of MLB was taking speed in the 70's. Steve Howe was a walking drug cartel, but reinstated 6 or 7 times after getting busted for coke.

What a waste of time and resources…

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:
THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE HAS ASKED THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE TO
INVESTIGATE WHETHER BASEBALL STAR ROGER CLEMENS LIED DURING HIS
TESTIMONY TO CONGRESS ABOUT PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS

STOP SAYING that a BILLION PEOPLE Watch the Oscars (or any American Television Event)

So, about 30 million people watched the Oscars last night about 1 in 10 Americans. This is America's award show (even if all the awards went to people from other countries) and CONTINUALLY people on the show talked about the "HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS" or even "a BILLION" people watching the telecast.

So, 1 in 7 people in the world watched the Oscars, but only 1 in 10 Americans did and IT WAS ON IN AMERICAN PRIME TIME. Forget that it was middle of the night in Europe and during the work day in Asia, yet somehow everyone with a television in the rest of the world watched our movie award show...JAYSUS I'm so sick of that lie.

How many televisions are out there? Do you really think that half of China and half of India watched our award show?

I am so sick of that lie every single year...THERE SHOULD BE A LAW

Movies about "injustice"

My brother sent me a note from Netflix about "Rules of Engagement". A doc about Waco and the Brand Davidians. His note was somewhat sympathetic to the Davidians, I responded.


I think i may have seen this, but I have seen a bunch of stuff on this and the thing that is often downplayed is the Koresh and his followers killed 4 Federal agents weeks before the government moved in and burned the place. Koresh was a nut job, pedophile and murderer who did EVERYTHING he could to ensure that he and his followers died martyrs (even if it meant shooting them himself or making sure they didn't leave). this wasn't about religion or even about guns. Once you kill multiple federal agents ...I'd say all bets are off. He was given a month and a half to surrender.

If you want to really see a true abuse of Federal Power, check out the Randy Weaver case in idaho.

Everyone groups these two incidents together, but in my mind they are vastly different. They get grouped in the same way Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal get grouped. The Davidians and Weaver grouped by groups who try to prove that the government hates religion and guns, the militia types. And Mumia and Peltier get grouped by the far left who try to prove the government hates minorities.

Peltier, I think is innocent. Well at least not guilty of what he's been accused of. I've seen the research and there is definetly reasonable doubt there. As for Mumia, and I know you're a fan, all the evidence supporting his "innocence" is that the cops, judge, the world is racist. No shit, but I don't know that I've ever heard him or his followers show that he was somewhere else or actually innocent. Only that the trial was racist. Just like Mark Furman being a racist doesn't mean that OJ is innocent, a racist system doesn't prove you didn't kill someone.

Iraqi's think things were better before

I didn’t ask, but the BBC did: And once again, the Bushie's are wrong:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6451841.stm

MOST IMPORTANTLY read the first set of Charts on the top, specifically the one on the right.

In 2007 about 63% of Iraqis said things were about the same or worse than they were under Saddam. Less than 40% of Iraqis feel that things are somewhat or much better than they were before the war. That is NOT even close to MOST. (about 60% said their own lives were about the same or worse)


Since the end of the war in Iraq , thousands of civilians have died in violence on the streets. Support for the coalition forces based in Iraq is low - with 82% expressing a lack of confidence in them and 69% thinking they had made the security situation worse.

Security remains a key concern. Asked whether they felt safe in their own neighbourhoods, 40% said yes in 2004, 63% in 2005 but only 26% in 2007.

A strong leader is more popular than democracy to 58% of the Sunni population, although most accept Iraq will be a democracy in five years' time. Shia respondents were split 41% to 40% in favour of democracy over an Islamic state, but 52% think Iraq will be a democracy in five years' time.

Why do the Republicans get credit for "keeping America safe"???

It never fails to amaze that Bush allowed 2 terrorists attacks, didn’t bring anyone to justice for either and he’s some superhero. And now that terrorists are only killing American’s overseas that is some vindication of a horrible foreign policy. Since there is no way of knowing if bin Laden (who is still alive remember) had any intention of attacking again, how can the Bushie's say he "kept us safe"? It’s like saying that Bush stopped car theft in America because my car hasn’t been stolen in the past 7 years.

I suppose by Bushie logic Bush has also prevented Tsunami’s from hitting America and kept America safe from Asteroids.

This has got to piss off all those dudes still "fighting" the cold war

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/02/19/castro/index.html

The fact that he’s leaving on his own terms must have Jesse Helms rolling over in his grave …wait, he’s not dead.


I sent this to my Bushie friend. He responded with some mumbo jumbo as expected. I responded:

That’s funny coming from the guy who feels that a couple hundred thousand dead Iraqi’s (or a million Sudanese) is no big deal. Now you get all righteous despite the fact that the US is holding people in Cuba without trial, without lawyers, without charges, in a made up “legal” status b/c they are “enemies of the state”. (which seems to be the same stuff we hate Castro for doing)

Castro could have been ousted 30 years ago, if we had sold Cuba Levi’s and Fords. The far Right’s (led by pissed off Cubans in Miami who liked their dictator better) irrational fear of Castro empowered him for decades. (for an example of how to stay in power using a common enemy of the state, look at Bush’s more subtle efforts to subvert the Constitution over the past 7 years).

Also ironic since Castro came to America for help when first in power before he ever went to Russia, but because he was a socialist all those lives were lost in a senseless pissing contest.

Vista blows or why Microsoft Developers are like Jazz Musicians

So, I bought a Vista laptop 4 months ago and I think I finally have all the patches installed to make it work most of the time. Although I've come to expect a routine editing of the registry that is requried to make Vista recognized that this computer does actually have a CD/DVD drive.

I'm not a supergeek, but I know enough about PCs and MSFTs products, after all I've been using Windows and MS Office daily for 15 years or so. But Vista has been pretty much the worst transition ever and I didn't even upgrade...I bought this PC with Vista on it.

Office 2007 has been a chore. In their infinite wisdom of changing the UI every god-damn time Bill Gates donates another million dollars, the tool bars are completely foreign. I still use Word and Excel (and Visio and PowerPoint and Project and SharePoint) daily at work, but at home I've got this new UI for WOrd and Excel and I can never find anything. (Where the hell is the button to center text? Save As...what the F, where is it?...don't worry i found them).

I just realized that Word now saves files (by default) in a format that is unusable to anyone without Office 2007. That's a neat trick. It doesn't even really make this .docx clear when you save. Look, as I mentioned I use Word daily, so I can't imagine the hassles that my parents would have using this, trying to learn the new UI.

I have a good friend at MS, he's a developer and he will inevitably tell me these are improvements that people want or NEED. And I understand security issues and the need to makes changes for that, but changing the UI serves no purpose other than to say "look how cool we are". Although, it is quite tedious to have to give my computer permission 4 times to open up the progam I clicked to run. I get the reason for that.

I've told my friend that every time MS comes out with new crap, they simply add bloat and features that 98% of users will never use. macros are great, but I'll bet you 95% of Excel users have never heard of a macro let alone written one.

I've heard it said, and belive it to be true that Jazz Musicians are just playing for each other. it's a very self-indulgent music. I think Microsoft Developers are at the same point. They don't develop for their customers. They develop for each other so they can show off how big their programming skills are. in the meantime, you and I have to learn where the damn "Delete Table" button while Vista and Office take up 20 gigs of Harddrive.

And much like Jazz fans (and I like some of it, much like I enjoy the basics of MS's products) I will be told "I just don't get it". Maybe not, but I don't want to. I want to write a party invitation (thanks for the new templates) I don't want to relearn how to use Office every 3 years anymore than I want to hear a 25 minute free-form jazz exploration.

Saudi's kill "witches"...is this what Huckabee has in mind?

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2008/02/15/verjee.saudi.witchcraft.cnn

These are our "best" friends in the middle east?

Is this what we'd see in Mike Huckabee's America? after all he did say that we should change the Constitution to agree with his version of the Christian Bible (just saying there are many versions of the "sacred Word of God" out there). There are lots of "crimes" in the bible that are also punishable by death like eating shellfish and working on the sabbath. Would Huckabee's vision also include beheading witches?

Just askin'

People who can't speak should get punched Vol 1

2 All time pet peeves:

1)People who say

"Samwich"...there is NO M in Sandwich.

2) People who say "literally" when they mean the exact opposite. No asshole, your head did NOT "literally explode". Anyone who does this should get a punch.

Also,
People who say "Pitcher" when the are talking about a Photograph.

I hate "It is what it is". What a lame statement. It means nothing. Generally said when the speaker has nothing intellegent to say. It's the ultimate verbal punt. You might as well say "blah blah blah".

The use of the word "Surreal" is WAYYYY out of hand. Not everything new is surreal. "I went to the DMV and i went to the front of the line, it was so surreal" NO IT WASN'T dumbass. It was unusual, but it wasn't surreal. Meeting a famous person is not surreal, neither are thousands of other things claim are surreal that are no where near it.

There are more, I'm sure.

Jeb more like George than I thought

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/11/prison.boss/index.html

I always thought Jeb was the more competent one, but considering his regime’s oversight of Florida ’s Child Welfare system and the Prison system, it’s clear that it’s a genetic pre-disposition toward lawlessness, corruption and incompetence. I don’t remember hearing about how the former head of the Prison system is in Federal Prison for 8 years, but that’s seems appropriate for the Bush family no? Especially after I go back and read the Jeb defended Crosby repeatedly and claimed the initial claims of his improprieties were politically motivated attacks.