Nazi pope on dignity:
Pope says some science shatters human dignity. But, apparently, hiding pedophilic priests to protect the church's assets and repurtation has no ill effect. Whew!
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Click here to send a friend or family member a message from Mitt Romney. And you can customize the call! Why I had Mitt call my friend John (a heathen like me) to wish him a Happy Chaunkah (Mitt uses the superfluous C) and to tell him that he knew John was concerned about radical jihadism (um, he isn't). I even was able to send the message in the name of one of John's more challenging, um, friends. And a good time was had by all.
Thanks to Max for the link.
John Edwards to quit presidential race.
I am really surprised, shocked actually. I thought Edwards would stay in to the end. I can only hope that he made a deal with Obama and/or endorses him, because I can't see why he would end his campaign unless he had a real reason to do so (his online donations in January went up significantly). And yes, part of me hopes that the reason is not due to health concerns.
Thank you John and Elizabeth Edwards for working hard to put real issues on the table. Now I have to consider who I should vote for next Tuesday. Probably will still pull the lever for Edwards. And, of course, I will reregister as an unaffiliated voter the very next day, because I can't be a member of a party where Dennis Kucinich's and John Edwards' messages are considered too far to the left.
Oh, and that douchebag Giuliani is out too, and he's going to endorse McCain.
THE LEGACY OF GEORGE W. BUSH’S PRESIDENCY -- The Country He Inherited, The Country He Leaves Behind. Anyone reading this post already knows that this country has gone from relative good times to the shitter in only seven years, but seeing the facts in black and white is still stunning. Click the link, but get a box of tissues first.
Thanks to my cousin Chris for the link.
Congress unlikely to buy proposals in W's State of the Union speech. Want to know the State of the Union, DC politicians and mindless corporate-owned media? Angry, determined, focused and rebellious. Yes, the minions are restless, and we are working together to make you all accountable. Like it or not (and I like it), enough of us realize that we need to watch you like hawks. And we are watching.
As much as the gains over the last year have been meager, I am starting to believe that the tide is changing. Calls to contact our representatives and senators to tell them how we want them to vote, follow up on blogs that keep running tallies of vote commitments, true commentary that looks at why and how a bill did or did not get enacted, much of this is the work of committed bloggers who don't just report what is happening, they are affecting the process. It's all good.
The short version: ya'll is fucked. The longer version? The democrats want al qaeda to bomb christian churches and give money to lazy scumbags who won't work. Etc. Me? Happy not to have a tv, and I won't stream it either. Because it doesn't matter, that's why.
Update: Ok, I actually listened to most of that asshole's speech, but I did it in the most painless way possible. Namely, I was listening to Mike Malloy's running commentary over W's speech. Man, Malloy is clever, because he made me laugh. And yes, W said that congress has to give immunity to telecom companies for their past illegal acts because we need to be able to track down the terrorists who want to kill us. That's a paraphrase, but you know.
Fortunately, the FISA bill is being challenged and democrats defeated a republican attempt to get cloture on the Intelligence Committee's version of FISA (the version with telecom immunity) and force an "up or down" vote. The phone calls to democratic senators helped. Go to Firedoglake for continuing updates and action items with regard to FISA. If the telecoms are given retroactive immunity for giving this administration everything they wanted (i.e., datamining our telephone calls and e-mail), then it's over. Corporations will know they can abet the government in violating our constitutional rights and there isn't a fucking thing we can or will do about it.
Humans Force Earth into New Geologic Epoch. LiveScience.com reports: Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet's geologic history has begun.
Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.
Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch: --Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns. --Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature. --Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns. --Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.
And that's why we are in the highest spot on the food chain, my friend. I'd like to see monkeys or dophins fuck things up in so little time. That said, you can imagine my disappointment when my suggesting of "The Epoch of the Greedy Faux Christian Douchebag" didn't get much support. Fucking anal scientists.
The Story of Stuff. Click the link and you are sent to "The Story of Stuff" web site which includes, at the top, a 20 minute presentation on our consumption nightmare. I've been thinking about this for a long time. Every time I visit my family in south Jersey I see more stuff. Toys and gadgets and other stuff. My sister-in-law can't bring herself to throw things out, so it accumulates. My brother and nephew go on secret purges to throw out old, broken toys and other crap that simply takes up space, but no matter how much they throw out there always seems to be more (although, to my sister-in-law's credit, she is very good at purging clothing that no longer fits and passing it on to friends and relatives or donating it).
Long and short, a while ago I realized that one of the reasons we have such a fucked up government is that the powers that be--corporations and their politician puppets--see us simply as worker bees and consumers. Not as citizens who work together to produce a greater common good--simply the things that make stuff that we buy, with a healthy profit to those who use us. I stopped participating in this cycle a while ago. Sure, I eat out a lot since I tend to eat one big meal a day (lunch) and I have a Barbie-sized kitchen, but I don't buy much stuff. In fact, most purchases of stuff I make each year are for gifts.
That said, I have to admit that not buying stuff has been easy for me, because I hate to shop. I see it as a chore (with the exception of prescription glass frames. Yep, that's the one thing I like to shop for). For example, I need a new vacuum cleaner, because the old one (not that old) just doesn't work that well. It didn't cost much (under $100), so of course it only worked well for a year or two. Now I am willing to spend $400-500 to buy a new vacuum cleaner, but it has to be something that will last for at least 10 years and do its job well during its lifetime. I have checked on line, chatted with friends, but I still can't make up my mind about which of a couple hundred vacuum cleaners I should buy. Yes, there are literally hundreds of vacuum cleaners that are currently available, but despite my research I haven't found information about how long any of these machines are expected to last. You see, when I finally buy a vacuum cleaner, I don't want to think about a replacement for a very long time.
My insistence on buying something that will last is one reason why I buy less stuff than most people. The other, of course, is that I live in a tiny apartment that cannot accommodate stuff. While I would like more room, I am pretty confident that when I finally buy an apartment I won't be filling it up with crap. By then, of course, I won't be alone, because too many people have too much debt acquiring bigger houses and all the stuff needed to fill them. Like it or not, this consumption frenzy is going to have to slow down. It simply isn't sustainable in every way, but particularly here in a country where the worker bees have stagnant wages and increasing consumer debt.
So the good news is that I think that this consumptive cycle is finally starting to slow down. The economic situation surely will temper future buying frenzies, but there is something more. Despite buying all this stuff--more likely because of it-- many Americans are fat, broke and unhappy. The question is whether the adoption of a more sustainable, healthier lifestyle will be gradually embraced, or whether the end of buying will be thrust upon us. That I do not know.
