I am constantly confused when Republicans and those on the right talk about how they are the ones for individual liberty. Are they not the ones who oppose legalizing marijuana? Are they not the ones opposed to gay marriage? Was it not a Republican that proposed to have the Pentagon ban Wicca from our armed forces? It was the lack of individual liberty that made me move from the Republicans to the Libertarians long ago.
Of course now I have problems with free market capitalism as well as it suffers the same problem socialism (at least as a form of government economic policy which to me isn’t really socialism but) does, greed. If everyone played fair, true socialism would probably be the best route. It is the means that is most fair to the most number of people, everyone. My problem with it is then where is the motivation to do better? Of course perhaps that gets back to the playing fair part. If everyone played fair under a capitalist situation, then you add the motivation to do better, but then you create castes, and that by itself isn’t fair to the workers. So where I stand on economics is still in the air.
I’ve done lots of those “What kind of…yada yada… are you?” quizzes. I generally end up being an anarchist. This is perhaps true, Libertarians are basically anarchist with a capitalist lean rather than the default socialist lean. I am certainly not a socialist, at least not as it is traditionally practiced. So I find myself drifting without political or economic ties. When I find the near perfect system, I’ll let you know.

Later today, more details about the torture the US did on detainees will be released. Those on the right are upset. They think that if the world knows what we did in detail it will threaten our national security. They believe that the release of any photos would do the same thing.
They are missing the point. If we never did those despicable things, there would never be anything to leak out and threaten our national security. We are, at least according to those on the right, the supposed moral leader of the world. Yet we committed immoral acts.
We are the most “Christian” nation in the world and yet we freely engaged in the torture of humans and think we are justified in doing so… the Nazis thought they were justified as well. That is not to say that the torture of those people is anything like the Holocaust. Obviously the murder of millions of people is far worse, but the point is that in both cases the people in power, felt justified in doing what they did.
We are the only industrialized nation not to provide affordable health care. The right can talk how nobody is denied health care all they want, but they again miss the point. Yes you can get health care, but can you afford it afterwords. Nobody is saying the poor can’t get the health care, they are saying people can’t afford to get it so they ignore it.
The US is the only advanced economy in the world that doesn’t guarantee workers get paid vacation time. New Zealand, Australia and much of Europe grantee workers at least 20 days, with some demanding 25 to 30 days, and those don’t count mandatory paid holidays. I get 5 days, and a couple holidays, and I am doing better than 1 in 4 Americans.
I could go on and on, and initially did, but I’ve touched on those subjects before, so I’ll leave them be for this post. How can we be upset the information is coming out? If we didn’t do it, we wouldn’t have anything to be ashamed of. If we didn’t do it, we wouldn’t have a threat to our national security. I think it would be better for our national security to let it all come out, and to swiftly prosecute those responsible. But Bush, Chaney and the rest of those responsible up for war crimes. What puts us at risk is not dealing with the issue honestly and punishing those responsible. If we investigated and punished all those responsible for these reprehensible acts, then we would in fact be more secure, as the world would see us as dealing with it and not willing to put up with it, even when it was us who did it.

The other day was the National Day of Prayer, and those on the far right violated the commandment of judge not, and bashed Obama’s faith because he didn’t make a big deal out of it… of course the fact that nobody prior to W made a big deal out of it didn’t bother them. As we can see by the purposeful disinformation given to members of the church about cosmology/ambiogenesis/evolution, one can count on the far right to bear false witness.
The National Day of Prayer sort of… okay no sort of about it… violates the separation between church and state. Of course the far right say that was about keeping government out of the affairs of the church, and while that is partially true, they are wrong to suggest that it wasn’t about keeping the church out of government affairs. If one reads the letters to and from Jefferson about it, it was clear the Founding Fathers intended to keep the church out of the state.
Modern day Christians seem to forget the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims came to the Americas to escape, now pay attention, the Christian ran government and the actions of the Church itself. Modern day Christians recall the Pilgrims came for religious freedom, but forget that the ones who persecuting and repressing them were Christians. Heck, it wasn’t too long ago that people were being burned at the stake for being the wrong kind of Christian. A church in power of the state is a dangerous thing, and this is why the Founding Fathers erected the wall of separation between church and state.
Of course all the commentators had to bear false witness and make the claim that the US was founded on Christian principles. Which is odd, since the idea of a republic is Pagan, the idea of Democracy is Pagan and our system of laws is based on English Common Law, which was around long before Christians were in Europe… yes when it was Pagan. So it seems we were founded on principals of the Druids and those worshiping the Greek Pantheon. Most of the Founding Fathers were Deist, not Theist.

I noted earlier a much reported rumor of Obama’s Drug Czar choice. Well, he either has changed his mind or it was indeed a rumor, or the guy was considered along with others and his name was the one that slipped out. It has now been confirmed by several sources that Obama has picked Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to be his Drug Czar. Seattle voters passed a law to make marijuana enforcement police’s lowest priority, and while Kerlikowske was initially skeptical, the policy has worked out well. Washington is one of the many states to have compassion laws, and Kerlikowske didn’t try to undermine those laws. Advocates of compassion laws are cautiously optimistic that if he is approved by the Senate that he’ll keep going with Obama’s campaign promise of letting actual medical science prevail and stop wasting billions of federal dollars on raids of compassion clubs, grow ops and the like in states where it has been legalized.

The rumor mill is spun up, and it says that Obama’s choice for Drug Czar will be Republican Congressman James Ramstad. Ramstad, a former alcoholic, has voted against medical marijuana laws and needle exchange programs. He opposes eliminating the raciest sentence discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine, then again most drug laws were originally racially motivated, with some help from industries that would profit from making them illegal.
On the campaign trail, Obama promised that he would stop Federal raids of legal medical marijuana grow-ops, shops and the like in states that have made it legal. Unfortunately this may be his first broken promise. With a hard line drug czar at one spot, an Attorney General that believes in tougher drug laws, specifically marijuana laws, a White House Chief of Staff that thinks we should silence doctors on the truth of medical marijuana, and a vice-president that believes in mandatory minimums, it looks like Obama will not deliver change on the medical marijuana front, despite all the scientific evidence to support it, and the fact it would save the tax payers billions of dollars a year.
Of course it wasn’t for such a promise that I voted for him. If that was my primary concern, I would have stuck to the Libertarian Party choice. Still it is disappointing to hear that he is may break this promise. Hopefully this rumor, though going on for a couple months now, will not be true and he’ll make a real change on this policy and stop wasting billions of tax dollars and resources so that they can better be spent on fighting real crime.

In 2007, the US Government, despite the fact that Ethanol is the wost alternative energy source, spent $3 Billion on Ethanol. Solar, wind and Geothermal, which could prove to be our Nation’s salvation to so many problems one doesn’t know where to begin to list them all, received just $750 million while biodiesel, got $180 billion. This demonstrates the power of the oil and farming lobbies, both whom benefit from Ethanol. Sure solar, wind and geothermal could create millions if not billions of jobs, remove the need for foreign oil and move us to carbon neutral status (perhaps even carbon positive…or negative depending on which way you want to term a move to the better), and could be used to power homes on a mass scale, not just primarily for transportation; and sure biodiesel, unlike ethanol, could be made without sacrificing food and/or feed crop, and without food/feed crop space and uses far less oil to produce than ethanol, but why let these facts gets in the way of a politician pocketing some money. Why should the government do what it can to help the environment or the people of the US get high paying jobs when they can take the money for themselves and run?
Unfortunately, Obama’s initial stimulus plan doesn’t include an infrastructure upgrade which would create far more jobs and have a long lasting positive step on the economy, but hopefully after they get past this rushed version they’ll work on improving the nation’s infrastructure to support a move to solar, wind and geothermal… there is no reason we couldn’t get nearly every ounce of our energy needs from the three.
hat tip: Who wins federal dollars race? Ethanol does, by a long shot. An older story I meant to comment on a long time ago…
I suggest seeing King Corn just to see how important corn is to the farming industry and how they manage to get corn into everything… everything, despite it isn’t really that healthy for you.

Well, at least the executives didn’t take a $200,000 private jet flight in this time when they were asking for money, and are cutting their salary to $1 million in total compensation… nice, most American’s are struggling paycheck to paycheck and they take only $1 million… I have an idea, set the salary cap in total compensation for anybody, CEO the board, any executives and down the line to $130,000. That’s still a shit ton of money, more than anyone needs in a year and saves a ton.
Now I have to ask why the hell would GM look to cut Saturn? Okay, Saturn is little more than rebadged Opel’s these days, but I would cut a few others first. They are already looking to sell Saab, which is fine, they don’t really need it, and it is perhaps best left to a European company to own. They need to shut down Pontiac, which I hear might be the case anyhow. Another division they need to shut down is Buick. I would also shut down GMC, since it duplicates too much of what is in the other brands, which brings me to: Then you really need to stop having so much cross pollination. By that I mean, don’t sell the same car under all brands with a name change and a slight styling change. Why sell the same small scale SUV under Chevy, Saturn and the others just rebadged with a sheet metal change? It’s one thing to rebadge an Opel in the US as a Saturn (though I would stop with the sheet metal/plastic changes), it’s another to do it across a large line. The cost savings from doing brand redesigns of the sheet metal and other changes alone would help save GM.
The auto industry hasn’t yet shown that they learned their lessons. The simple fact they are in such bad shape when their foreign competitors are not is just proof they are mismanaged. GM is on the right track with the Volt, but that is about it, and it may be too little too late. I recall an interview where the CEO of GM was saying no amount of planning could have prepared for this crisis, and yet Toyota and Honda seem to have been ready. For years some economists were warning this crisis was going to happen. So I have a hard time believing him. Clearly they mismanaged because they knew they were too big to let them fall, just like the bank CEOs. I say screw them. Let them fall.

I don’t have the time to go into it fully, so I’ll keep this short.
Sarcasm mode on. How surprising, the big $700 Billion bailout that the banks were getting while paying their executives $70 Billion in bonuses is no longer buy troubled mortgage assets, but rather will just be given to banks in exchange for partial ownership. Gee, who could have predicted that the largest private bank in the US would switch from supposedly helping the people of the US to just helping themselves and the banks. Sarcasm mode off. I am not convinced for one moment that the Fed ever intended to help the American public, and from the beginning their plan was simply to inject cash into the banks. The owners of the Fed is kept a secret, it could very well be that the same banks and financial institutions that will get this money are the Fed’s owners. Congress should demand the Fed sticks to the original plan or take the money back.
Meanwhile, the Big Three auto makers are asking for $25 Billion of that $700 Billion to get them through until the new labor deals go in effect in 2010 which will reduce their costs a great deal. Of course Bankruptcy would force that deal to go in effect now and force other changes that the industry needs to make. We bailed Chrysler out in 1979 and here it is not even 30 years later and they are asking for another bailout. Why should we think that any of the big 3 learned a lesson? GM’s CEO said nobody could have predicted these problems, yet several economists have been warning about the credit crash for years, warning about all the problems we are facing today. Somehow, even though GM doesn’t think it could have been managed better, Toyota and Honda seem to have been managed well enough to avoid the problems the big 3 are facing. I am sure I’ll have more to say on the auto bailout later.

I continue to wonder why only Main and Nebraska renounce the winner take all approach to a presidential election and do it the way it should be done, have the winner of each congressional district win that district alone, then the two extra votes go to the winner of the state. This splits the difference between a pure popular vote, while maintaining the integrity and purpose of the electoral college in giving the smaller states power.
There is no way to pass an Amendment that gets rid of the Electoral College, the small states would never support it, but one might be able to pass a tiered Amendment since it still leaves the small states in play. The question is if the Federal Government could mandate that all the States go to a tiered system without a Constitutional Amendment. The Constitution says the States can choose their own method of selecting electors, the question becomes if detailing how those electors are used would violate the Constitution or not. I have recently thought that perhaps it can’t and that an Amendment would indeed be needed to force a tiered system. In Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952)., the Supreme Court ruled that electors are functionaries of the state and subject to the state’s rules and governess. So unfortunately the difficult process of an Amendment would probably be needed, but I still think it would pass, especially if it included clauses to prevent faithless electors, and some states would probably want clauses to prevent Gerrymandering (the redrawing of district maps to favor a particular outcome) which would be a far more tricky part to write.

Congratulations to Obama. I’ll admit, I voted for Obama over Barr, partly because I feared a McCain win, but mostly because, regardless if you believe in in policies or not, he does inspire people to action, and I think that is what is needed at the moment. People need to get involved with their country again. Would it have been nicer to have Barr? Yes, but I’ll gladly take Obama over McCain continuing the Bush legacy.
I’ll cover more about the election perhaps after work tomorrow (well, I guess technically today from my clock). Some measures around the country went well, up to one ounce of marijuana was decriminalized in one state, medical marijuana passed another state, it looks like voters in Colorado voted against defining life from the moment of fertilization (as pro life as I am, an amendment to that end causes problems). Meanwhile some other measures are not looking so good, California’s Proposition 8 looks like it might pass, meaning a ban on same sex marriage (I’ve waxed on about legislating morality enough, I’ll skip it for now). At least California passed Prop 2, which forces farmers to give their animals room enough to turn around (egg laying hens, veal caffs and pregnant sows), so perhaps California does have some heart… then again it looks like they’ll say no to Prop 5, which would have provided treatment programs for non-violent drug offenders over incarceration (which results in huge savings, you can treat tons of people for the cost of sending one person to jail).
Anyhow, I’ll see how things are tomorrow. Right now it’s 1:30 am and I have to be at work at 9, so I am off to bed.

Has it really come to this? Sen. Elizabeth Dole is falsely accusing her opponent Kay Hagan in ads and on the campaign trail of being “godless” because the race is too tight. At one point in her ad she shows a picture of Hagan while somebody else does a voice over saying “There is no God.” Leaving views under the impression she said it. Of course, even if she was godless, who cares? We aren’t electing a pastor, but a Senator in that case. As we know, this country wasn’t founded under Christian principles anyhow. The fact is however, Hagan is a Christian and former Sunday School teacher. The ad is simply a pathetic attempt by Dole to scare voters away with an outright lie simply because she might loose the election. How good of a so-called Christian slandering another Christian of being godless just to win an election. CNN’s Campbell Brown gives the details:

[Edited 28 October to add about rich cheating on their taxes more, and to remove a few commas and apostrophe s's, which for some reason I did on nearly every occasion where it should have been just an s.]
We’re back online and I am finally able to post political stuff.
I saw Ruben Navarrette Jr’s Commentary: Liberals let loose on Palin and Joe the Plumber and it just amazes me how much an idiot the Republicans are being… and I am finding it harder and harder to believe that I used to be a devout Republican myself.
At one point Naverrette says, ” I also thought the Democratic Party was supposed to go to bat for the little guy, the everyday Joe the Plumber.
Tell that to Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio resident who got his 15 minutes — and 40 lashes — because he dared question Obama about his tax plan.”
First off, Joe the Plumber would have been a non-story if it wasn’t for McCain bringing him up at the debate. The media wouldn’t be hounding him and finding all kinds of things about him if McCain didn’t make an issue of Joe himself. So his so called 40 lashes, the media camping out on his door step isn’t Obama’s fault as McCain and Naverrette would have you believe, but McCain’s fault… and he didn’t dare ask Obama, he asked, and Obama answered at length. Next, if we went by Joe’s original claim, he wasn’t any “everyday Joe the Plumber.” Very few people, even plumbers, make $250,000 a year. People who think that those making $250,000 are everyday people are living in a world that doesn’t represent the true state of affairs in the US. No wonder why they think the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

Executives at 6 US banks will get $70 billion in bonuses for their work this year. That is a full 10% of the $700 billion bailout package these banks, along with a few others, will be receiving.
So let’s see, while the Fed was in Congress asking for the $700 billion, they took from the banks $125 billion, and now these banks are paying their executives bonuses amounting to $70 billion… That is nearly $200 billion that the banks and the Fed could have saved the taxpayers.
Nobody seems to be rising high hell about it. I heard a brief passing about it on the news, who went on to talk about the expected Fed rate cut. I did find a story about it though at the Guardian.
These guys purposely ran their financial institutions into the ground, knowing the government would bail them out, then get no punishment, and as a matter of fact get to take $70 billion in bonuses. I say, strip them of everything they have. Everything. Put them in a public housing apartment, salary cap them to $35,000 a year, and give them a 92 boat of a car that gets bad gas millage. That is the punishment for every board member and executive who has been in these companies for the last 10 perhaps as high as 15 years. Of course there will be no punishment, and years from now we’ll be right back in the same spot, especially since the laws that caused it are still in place as is the greed on the consumer and bank end.

The US Government, fresh from bailing out AIG from being mismanaged, now is about to bail out tons of banks and other financial intuitions who were mismanaged. The boards, executives and upper management knew the risks they were taking, took in millions of dollars in compensation, without regard to the consequences if their risks went bad, as they knew they would sooner or later, since tons of people have been warning about the then pending housing crisis for well over 5 years before the bubble burst, and have been warning of other economic problems just as long or longer.
The burden of their greed will be carried by the American taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars (AIG alone is over $85 billion). Yet what will become of the board, executives and upper management? Nothing. The CEO of AIG is being replaced, but he still got $7 million for his 3 months there, and we can be sure he’ll just go on to the next muli-million a year job. Richard Fuld at Lehman Brothers walked away with nearly $490 million after selling his options. The only punishment I have heard about so far from our government is to block $24 million to the heads of Fannie May and Freddie Mac.
Meanwhile, while these people tanked the American economy, and made millions (combined perhaps billions) doing it and will get to go about their multi-million dollar lives, the regular hard working, taxpaying American will bear the burden. Those of us who have to decide which bill to skip this month, and can only dream of having enough for a 401k, let alone a more serious retirement plan, have to go hungry some days so the kids can eat healthy, will be paying for the errors of these board members and executives of these financial intuitions.

First let’s talk about Palin… One has to worry when the VP choice is far more popular than the actual nominee. People are leaving after she speaks while McCain is talking, and when appearing separately, she draws far bigger and enthusiastic crowds. It’s sort of as confusing as people loving American Idol over far better TV choices… Then there is the fact she tried to ban books, then tried to fire the librarian for not complying… and other abuses of power (firing the guy for not firing her ex-brother in law… her staff not complying with the subpoenas)… hey she’ll fit right in with the Bush administration…
Then there is the offshore drilling. I have to say I like the provisions the Dems put it, let the White House and Republicans rip into it… What’s wrong with having the state it is about to be used in approve it? What’s wrong with having to actually drill the spots they have now before adding new ones? Nothing with any of them aside from the fact it doesn’t favor the oil companies.
Now to the AIG bailout. Okay, so lots of companies all around the world would have been hurt if it failed. The problem I have is that unless we take the money out of the accounts of the board and other executives who made the bad decisions that led the company down this path, than they have been rewarded for gross incompetency. I would at least bring huge civil suits against the board and the rest of upper management to help offset any burden the government will have. It’s would almost be like bailing out Ford or the other big 3. They were the ones who bet heavily on big cars, trucks and SUVs without a good range of smaller to midsized cars for when the economy went south… and they had to know that sooner or later it would go south and gas prices would jump high… yet these boards and executives make millions for being idiots. We shouldn’t reward people for being stupid, and when their decisions touch as many lives and companies as AIG did, then those idiots need punished. Of course the reality is that they will walk away multi millionaires, and be given charge of another company, where they can do it all over again, because these idiots never learn… Look at the big 3 who had the same problem when gas prices jumped in the 70s, corrected but went right back to making the big cars and trucks that got them in trouble then.

With a full blown mortgage crisis going on, there are many plans out there to save the homes of American’s. This is mine.
The government forms a corporation and this corporation buys the loan of the approved applicant. This loan is, mostly, a very very low interest loan. There are however a few gotchas that come with the program.

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef in Kansas wanted to start testing all its meat for Mad Cow disease (currently only 1% of our meat is tested for the incurable disease that lays waste to the human brain), but the Bush administration stopped them because larger meat packing firms feared that if Creekstone Farms Premium Beef succeeded in getting better sales because they were advertising they were testing all their meat, then they would have to follow suit and start doing expensive tests themselves… in other words the meat packing industry feared the open market and asked the Bush administration. (Story.)
Since McCain is a twin of Bush, I would expect more of the same from him.
US beef (and a range of other meat) is already banned in many countries outside the US (even China refuses to let our meat in), I think this will just solidify their ban. (The EEC bans US beef do to the hormone treatments most US meat growers give their cows to speed the growth process.) I guess we can chalk up another reason to move to New Zealand as fast as possible, safer food.
Anyhow, I find it amazing that the Bush administration would actually take steps to block the free market from allowing proven safer beef from reaching the market, especially when the company was going to pay for it itself.

Bob Barr is the Libertarian Party candidate for President. I normally support the Libertarian Party candidate, but this time I am not so sure I can. I am fine with him changing his mind on the War on Drugs, same sex marriage, his original support of the Patriot Act and his original support for the War in Iraq… all these things he has publicly came out against his original position and now is firmly on the correct side of those debates.
However, I have yet to hear him apologize for his bill that would force the Pentagon to ban the practice of Wicca. A move that awarded him one of the few Burning Times awards ever given out. Regardless of one’s view of Wicca, the First Amendment clearly states (emphasis mine): “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..”
Too many on the Right seem to want to return to the way it was in Europe (and the Colonies here) when people were burned at the stake for believing something different than those in charge did. Joan of Arc, a Christian was burned at the stake by the very same church that later made her a Saint for failing to believe the way they did. Of course rather than burn people at the stake, they want to return to the burning times via political and legal action. This is wrong, and Christ Himself would oppose it. What too many people on the Right seem to forget is that Jesus didn’t hang out among the righteous of His day, but among the very people the Right want to ban and alienate. They say “What Would Jesus Do?” with one side of their mouth, but the other side of their mouth and their actions (which speak louder than words) show they don’t care about what Jesus would actually do, they just want to force their beliefs and agenda on everyone.
To make a bill that would ignore the Constitution and the important concept of freedom of region is just asinine… it is the ignoring of the First Amendment (among so many other things) that firmly put me in the opposition to Bush/McCain. If Bob Barr was to publicly do a sincere apology, and be accepted by, say the Lady Liberty League (who for the rights of Wiccan/Pagan soldiers… and Wicca/Pagan rights in general) and some others, then perhaps I can get behind him. But I can’t support a guy who opposes the First Amendment.

I saw a report that illegal Mexican immigrants are returning to Mexico in record numbers (story). A part of it is the fear over the tougher stance of illegal immigration, but the biggest part is America’s softening economy. Of course apparently lots of Mexican’s resent them returning since they are afraid that it will drive wages down and burden the social services. I can see the Neo-Cons now… “It’s not a failed Economic Policy, it is sound immigration policy.”

McCain, and tons of others, talk about how America was founded on Judea-Christian traditions. however, even Thomas Jefferson (yes, THE Thomas Jefferson, renowned Founding Father, favored among Liberals, Neo-Cons, Evangelicals and more) noted: “The proof of the contrary, which you have adduced, is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever existed.” Thomas Jefferson’s original design for the Great Seal was to include the images of Hengist and Horsa (leaders of the Anglo-Saxons, two thousand years before Christianity reached their shores) on one side (to be fair the reverse side on Jefferson’s seal would have had Moses leading people to the promised land.). So, if we are speaking about our system of laws and values, we are in fact founded on Pagan traditions…
Perhaps McCain wasn’t talking about our Nation’s actual founding, but going back further… Native Americans… not Christian before Westerner’s forced them to convert, so he wasn’t talking about them. Vikings were here next… again not Christian. The Pilgrims were Christian. Perhaps he was talking about them… but they were escaping a Christian country (much like the Evangelicals would like to setup), so perhaps not the best example. So what the hell was he talking about?