Adios '007, Good Luck 2008!

2007 is over here in a little more than two hours. I can't say I'm sad to see it go. Here's to a great 2008 to every one of us. I paid the first month's rent a day early. I'm that optimistic.

What's so bad about buying foreign stuff?

Once upon a time we could afford to and that wasn't too bad. At least we were headed toward having zero national debt at that time (2001). But, thanks to Greenspan and Bush, we are now well on our way to being owned by Dubai. Read it and weep.>>>

Genesis 1

Busted!

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And it's filling our prisons.

In his book, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse, Philip Greven (1992), a professor of history at Rutgers University, says that the roots of America's unusally angry, violent, and crime-ridden society lie in the country's Judeo-Christian heritage. Greven examines cases of childhood punishment and the rationales for physical punishment among those with strong Protestant conviction. The latter usually boil down to the belief that it is necessary for parents to break the will of their children to gain their respect and obedience. In reality, he says physical assault only breeds rage and hostility, with negative outcomes.

Marlene Winell, Leaving the Fold (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 1993), p. 126

What he said.

The influences that have lifted the race to a higher moral level are education, freedom, leisure, the humanizing tendency of a better-supplied and more interesting life. In a word, science and liberalism- the two forces, fundamentally skeptical, that we have seen continuously at work in human progress- have accomplished the very things for which religion claims the credit. [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Outline of Bunk"]

Romney handed the power to rule.

The right wing evangelical bosses gathered yesterday at the alter of the "Bush " cathedral in College Station, Texas so that Mitt Romney could appear to them as a vision brought by Bush the Father. But Romney's intent is to seize control of them and their foolish followers. To do so he only has to be anointed before them by someone like Bush the Father then stand before the gang bosses and tell them in their code that he will make it worth their while to put him in office. Like his benefactor, Bush the Father, all he has to do to control them is to act like they control him. It is a primitive and obvious ploy and it works on the fundagelicals every time. But who controls Romney?

Romney no more controls himself than Bush the Father controlled himself. They and all the other so-called presidential candidates of every political party know exactly who and what is in in control and it is not the people of this country, or god, or the constitution.

By far the biggest power on this planet is oil and those who control it. They use this country to launder oil and as a source of mercenaries when they need a hit on one of their enemies.

Oil is useless until it can be turned into money and by far the easiest way to do that is to control the American public. The U.S. is the only place in the world that the oil rich can send their product in any appreciable volume and have it turned into cash. Because America has the most efficient delivery infrastructure in the worl, they can launder their oil here far cheaper and at a far higher profit than anywhere else in the universe. To do that they must promote the most wasteful use of their product.

The spoiled U.S. citizenry, they have found, is eager to oblige. In the U.S. they have found a country full of the most gullible, glutinous, spoiled, fat and lazy fools on this planet. A country full of people disconnected from reality and easily lead to ravenous consumption by flocks of prosperity preaching evangelical bosses and free market swilling talk radio and media propagandist.

All it takes to control the whole country and guaranty that every drop of their oil is converted to as much money as possible in the fastest manner possible is to pay off religious thugs in this country and make them think their people hold the offices of power. And you thought Romney was submitting yesterday to YOUR God. Fool! It wasn't even good theater.

On Duality

To believe that consciousness can survive the wreck of the brain is like believing that 70 mph can survive the wreck of the car.

[Frank Zindler]

Texas Education Agency being run by a bunch of fundamentalist jerks.

The person they fear most has struck back. Barbara Forrest is their worst nightmare and she does not mince words.

In forcing Chris Comer to resign as Texas Director of Science, the Texas Education Agency has confirmed in a most public, unfortunate way the central point of my Austin presentation, “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse,” the mere announcement of which TEA used as an excuse to terminate her: the intelligent design (ID) creationist movement is about politics, religion, and power. If anyone had any doubts about how mean-spirited ID politics is, this episode should erase them. Texas school children depend on the adults at the TEA to protect the quality of their education. For the last nine years at the TEA, after twenty-seven years as a science teacher, Ms. Comer was doing her part, and she got fired for doing it. The children are ultimately the losers. Read the rest>>>

Be not influenced by those who promote fear.

Bruce Schneier gets it right. There are far too many who will do anything to "feel safe". They usually like to go on about all kinds of hazards, everything from germs to terrorists. I think some are just insecure freaks without lives, and full of themselves. They have what I call a martyr fetish. They get in the habit of acting like they are afraid of everything from spiders to a dirty spoon or they get sick from this or that or they hate fifteen kinds of food or the devil is going to get um..... It's all the same kind of thing.

This made me think of that:

Q: You have repeatedly maintained that most of the investments that the government has made towards counter-terrorism are largely “security theater,” and that the real way to combat terrorism is to invest in intelligence. However, Tim Weiner’s book, Legacy of Ashes, says that the U.S. government is particularly inept at gathering and processing intelligence. Does that leave us with no hope at all?

A: I’m still a fan of intelligence and investigation (more here) and emergency response (more here). No, neither is perfect, but they’re way better than the “defend the target” or “defend against the tactic” thinking we have now. (I’ve written more about this here.) Basically, security that only forces the bad guy to make a minor change in his plot is largely a waste of money.

On the other hand, the average terrorist seems to be quite the idiot. How you can help: refuse to be terrorized.

Go read that and lot's more>>>>>

Texas education board preparing students to replace cheap foreign labor.

Perry and his appointee McLeroy are trying to sneak creationism into Texas schools by claiming they are going to treat it equal to science. Their fraud is not going to work. While it plays out in the courts costing millions of taxpayer dollars, Texas students will be getting a sub-par education dooming them to the labor of illiterates. At least then Perry won't be able to claim that illegal workers are here to do jobs 'mericuns won't do. I hope someone with guts and money puts some evangelicals in prison for this.