Casting In Our Abundance

What Would Jesus Do?:

12:41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.
12:42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing .
12:43 And he called [unto him] his disciples , and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:
12:44 For all [they] did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, [even] all her living.

What Would Jesus Our Super-Christian-God-Appointed-Preznit Do?:

Here is what is cast:
...The announcement brought the United States' total aid package to $35 million so far, and Bush administration officials said that much more would be sent...


And Here is the abundance:

Four days of festivities will culminate January 20 with Bush’s swearing in ceremony at the US Congress, his parade to the White House and nine inauguration balls. The final bill for all the celebrations will be a cool 40 million dollars — a record in US history — mostly financed by donations.
[...]
In addition to the 40 million dollar inauguration bill, slightly higher than in 2001 when Bush first made it to the White House, there is the undetermined cost of the biggest security operation for the first post-9/11 inauguration.
The tax payer will pick up that tab. The most popular events include the January 18 "Saluting Those Who Serve" gala honoring the US armed forces and the January 20 "Texas-Wyoming Ball," where country singer Lyle Lovett will perform and a proper attire of tuxedo plus cowboy boots is recommended. Tickets for these events are already fetching several thousands of dollars at internet auctions.
[...]
The most spectacular events will be fire works and a grand parade through Washington of 10,000 people, including musical bands from 50 US states and close to 300 horses. Rooms at Washington’s top hotels are completely booked up despite their requirement of reserving a minimum of four nights and a no-money-back policy.

The richest and luckiest will have the run of a presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton costing 150,000 dollars that includes a personal butler to tuck away the guests’ belongings and a 20,000 dollar gift-set of luggage. "We are sold out. The package (presidential suite) has not been sold yet," said Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman Coleen Evans.

The tens of thousands of ordinary citizens who want to see the parade up close will have either have to be frisked or pass through metal detectors. To reinforce thousands of local police patrolling the events, some 4,000 troops will be deployed, as well as bomb-sniffing dogs and hazmat units capable of dealing with chemical, biological or radiological attacks.

What gets me is the part about the $40 million...it's not even taxpayer dollars, it's all freakin' donations. From big donors. What's stopping Bush from just taking the money and using it as a donation to help those countries needing it? Hell, how about cancelling the huge love-fest completely and saving a few of our hard earned tax dollars (4,000+ deployed troops for an inauguration? Holy Crap!)

I believe this is a case of "Talking the talk, but not walking the walk".

A Blog On Bloggers Blogging Blogs

Pandagon has a blog post up regarding, well, blogs:

Blog Elitists?

....You can see it in the year-end conservative blogger fellatings - blogging is a transformational tool reserved solely for the right, and, at this juncture, it's a critical move to push liberal bloggers out of the conversation. Even the most breathlessly wrong "fact-check" makes the conservative rounds in a few hours, whereas it's seemingly much more difficult for a liberal post to get around. Part of it is simply how memes spread - the conservative side of the blogosphere, from my reading of it, when not citing bad TCS columns tends to interlink to one another in a continual reaffirmation of the position and of the importance of the communal declaration of belief. In a Norquistian twist, conservative bloggers promote communalism and liberal bloggers tend to promote individualism, at least in my reading.

I disagree with the idea that the problem has anything to do with how "liberal" blogs function versus "conservative" blogs. Rather, the focus should be on how rapidly conservative blog "echoes" end up getting pitched into the mainstram media. Look at the whole "Rathergate" episode. Yes, they were correct, the memo's were forged, but the timeline from Powerline to LGF to the CNN, Fox, and et.al. was WAY faster than some of what gets to the major media outlets after getting posted on TPM, or Atrios. Come to think of it, I can't right now come up with an instance where something went from one of the lefty blogs into the mainstream media.

The upper echelon of the progressive blogs should ask themselves, when (or how often seldom) have they pushed an important point that should have been worth "going prime time" but instead just bounced around the left-wing blogs and died right there?
Not to make it sound like a conspiracy theory against the SoCalledLiberalMedia, but where is their "direct line" to the mainstream press? Where do ideas from the left ever jump into the headlines?

More Idiocy

Public teaching of Intelligent Design?

...They say the school will teach evolution because it's part of the state's standardized testing. At the beginning of the unit, teachers will read a statement saying evolution is a theory-not a fact. They will "not" teach intelligent design-a theory that says the universe is so complex a higher power must be responsible. Teachers will tell kids that there are alternatives to the theory of evolution and give them the name of a Book they can read to learn more about it on their own. The ACLU is suing Dover saying presenting intelligent design violates separation of church and state... (Notice that Book is capitalized in the original article. Like, ya know, as in B-ible?)

I say, fuck it. Lets just open the damn floodgates of hell and let any old "theory" get pushed as a mandatory requirement in the public education system. After Darwins theory of Evolution, they can teach the Moulder/Scully "Martians-ass-fuck-apes-to-make-humans" theory, then the Scientologists "God-Gumba-at-the-earth's-core-puked-mankind-out-of-a-volcano" theory, and the creationist theory.

Why stop at Biology? All those "theories" of math, chemistry and physics, they are just theories, man, not facts. If my teacher says that 1+1=2, well, that is his theory, not mine. I think 1+1 should equal 80,000,000, cause that's cool, at least in my theory. Theory of Relativity? Smack it, my "Little-Atoms-Opening-The-Gates-to-the-23rd-Dimension-of-Bumfuck-Mongolia" theory is just as valid, right.

I mean, they are just theories, right? It's not like anyone is going to really use those theories in real life right? What's the harm in it?

American Idiots

Latest polling shows Americans are still having a post-election hangover.

...As for Bush, 49 percent of respondents said they approved of the job the president is doing... Bush is the first incumbent president to have an approval rating below 50 percent one month after winning re-election.

...When asked how the United States has handled Iraq during the past year, 47 percent said things have gotten worse. Twenty percent said the situation has improved and 32 percent said it is about the same.

...On another of Bush's hot-button issues, Social Security, the respondents were divided (48-48) on whether workers should be allowed to set aside some of their earnings in private stock or bond accounts.

... only 35 percent of those surveyed in the 65 and older category(approved changing Social Security).

Approval rating in the tank? Older Americans not wanting Social Security tinkered with? Think Iraq is either getting worse, or only staying the same at best?

Well , to the 52% of you "man-daters", I say, suck it up, bitches. You wanted to wear the blue dress, so wear Bush & Co's cum-stains with pride. You earned it.

Dumb fuckers.

Feel Safer Now?

Anti-missle system fails.

Sixteen minutes after the target flew from Kodiak, the interceptor at Kwajalein atoll in the western Pacific Ocean failed to take off because of an "unknown anomaly," according to a statement from the Missile Defense Agency.

The interceptor on the Kwajalein atoll is similar to the six interceptors stored in silos at Fort Greely, 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks.

The Fort Greely interceptors, which are about 54 feet long and weigh 25 tons, are not used in test launches. Rather, they will be put on alert, ready to chase an enemy missile, once the ground-based, mid-course system is declared operational.

Great. We implemented a system that is the equivalent of shooting arrows at a bumble bee to avoid getting stung.

How about this: why don't we skip spending all of our R&D on building our own missle defense system and just buy one from another country?

The Arrow Interceptor ( טיל חץ, Hebrew: "Hetz") is a theater missile defense (TMD) system; it is the first missile that was specifically designed and built to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles on a national level. It is the only anti-ballistic missile system able to intercept its targets so high in the stratosphere.

The Arrow 2 interceptor itself has a speed 2.5 km/s; as opposed to purely kinetic weapons it has its own explosive warhead allowing it to miss by 40-50 meters and still kill.

On July 29, 2004 Israel and the USA carried out joint experiment in the USA, in which the Arrow was launched against a real Scud missile. The experiment was a success, as the Arrow destroyed the Scud with a direct hit.

The Need To Change

What the Progressives need to start talking about is how to start re-taking the heart of the Democratic Party. Until they do this, the Democratic Party will continue to founder.


There is a constant claim that the country is "polarized". However, it is not polarized from liberal to conservative. In all actuality, it is currently split politically between a radicalized right-wing GOP and a centrist-seeking DNC.

The DNC needs to recapture the original populist approach that the rich "pukes" are raping our country, stealing our money, and taking away our freedoms in the name of so-called morality.

The Progressives need to start at the state levels, and they need to start in the midwest and work their way south. This work could take 10 or 20 years, so they better start now. Waiting will only make it harder.

Ressurected

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