Friends help you move.
Good friends help you move the bodies.

"We often think of atheism as a dogma, or as a position that has taken a definitive stance against the existence of God, and that, of course, is true academically. "

"But there are many in this country who are functional atheists who may not openly disavow the existence of an infinite being but make their day-to-day decisions as if God did not exist or did not matter. "

"In all of the vital institutions of the land, we're already atheistic — at least functionally."

-- Ravi Zacharias (Christian)

What? Does this mean that the (functional) atheists are really in charge here? Is that really so bad?

If you like to poke fun at politicians, Congressional Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is a problem: she makes it way too easy.

First, indisputable facts:
Rep. Bachmann is a bona fide conservative:

• Progressive Rating: 0/100
• Conservative Rating: 72/100
• Votes with party on 93% of the time.
• She scored 100% on the American Conservative Union 2008 Ratings of Congress.
• She supported the George W. Bush bank bail-out scheme (yes, Bush; it was enacted before the November 2008 election)
  

Not that these are bad things. She has a set of core beliefs, and she legislates based on those beliefs. I'm not criticizing those beliefs. After all, many of my friends are conservatives. I was a Republican-type conservative, and still consider myself to be a fiscal conservative (unlike today's Republicans). I'm merely trying to make it clear that conservatives and liberals alike agree that she is a pure ideological conservative.

That said, I'm not convinced that she represents her district very well:

• Bills sponsored by Bachmann, 13
  Sponsored Bills Made Into Law, 0
  
  
• Bills Co-Sponsored by Bachmann, 223
  Co-Sponsored Bills Made Into Law, 0

That suggests to me that she doesn't pick her battles very well. She too busy being an idealogue, not serious about representing the people who elected her.

Shifting gears, Rep Bachmann is a practicing lawyer (let's hope she only practices). She got her law degree (Juris Doctor) from that fantastic 4th tier law school, Oral Roberts University (note: U.S. News surveyed 184 accredited programs to get the information used in the ranking of top law schools.) Yes, that's the same Oral Roberts University Law School that closed a few years after she got her degree (so one could say that ORU's Law School is no longer 4th tier). Yes, that's the same Oral Roberts University Law School that sent its library and students to Jerry Falwell's "Liberty University." Jerry's "law school" and its students and materials were sent to Regent University.

Regent U. Law School was a favorite recruiting ground for the Bush II administration. They got people with "law degrees" from a 4th tier law school ... plus ideological purity ... and a healthy dose of incompetence.

Now the good stuff about Michele Bachmann:

• She told Americans they should slit their wrists is any kind of health care reform were enacted.
• She called for an investigation into the patriotism of members of Congress.
• She claimed that Americorps training facilities were "re-education camps" to indoctrinate Americans in something (damphyno what).
  
• She said she would - and that everyone should - refuse to participate in the 2010 US Census. After all, the census gives the government information that it can use against you.
  
• Her voice was one of the most prominent among those who spread the "death camps" myth.
• She claimed (through a proxy at Faux News) that House Speaker Pelosi was trying to prevent one of Bachmann's rallies.
• She publicly called for an 'orderly revolution' at a time when many in her target audience are strongly implying that blood must be shed to get rid of elected officials.

The list goes on, but you get the idea (I hope).

I've saved the best for the last. As a 100% true red-white-and-blue conservative, she favors free markets and opposes government subsides. Unless, of course, the free markets are a problem for her business, and the subsidies are given to her business.

Why does the US government subsidize some farmers? The subsidies are used to prop up farmers who can't succeed in free markets. That's a fact, Jack. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. So what would a true free-market advocate say about subverting free markets with subsidies?

Data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006.

Now for the quiz:

Michele Bachmann
() nut case
() a dense version of Sarah Palin
() Socialist
() Marxist (socialism for the rich)
() welfare queen
() hypocrite
() pretty, conservative, and a taco shy of the combo plate at El Cazador

Choose all that apply.

Note: I've cited very few references in the above material. However, you can do what I did: Google it, and throw out all of the unreliable sources and all of the unverifiable 'information.'

'After 9-11, (Defense) Secretary Rumsfeld said

"There are no good targets in Afghanistan, let’s bomb Iraq."

And initially I thought he was kidding.'

-- Richard Clarke,
Chief Counter-terrorism Adviser on the U.S. National Security Council
under Presidents Clinton and Bush the Lesser

Source:
U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Transcript

Pay Attention. There will be a short quiz later.

• When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
  
  
• Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
  
  
• Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.
  
  
• Take naps.
  
  
• Stretch before rising.
  
  
• Run, romp, and play daily.
  
  
• Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
  
  
• Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
  
  
• On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
  
  
• On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
  
  
• When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
  
  
• Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
  
  
• Be loyal.
  
  
• Never pretend to be something you're not.
  
  
• If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
  
  
• When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus	Nobel Laureate Chemistry	1876
Annie Lennox	Singer & Eurythmic	1954
Anwar Sadat	President of Egypt (former) Nobel Laureate, Peace	1918
Barbara Mandrell1	Singer (Country)	1945
Cab Calloway	Band Leader (Minnie the Moocher)	1907
Carlos Castaneda	Anthropologist, stoner, writer	1931
Clara Barton	Nurse	1821
Conrad Hilton	Hotel executive, ancestor of dingbat	1887
Cosima Wagner	Composer's annoying wife	1837
Gary Sandy	Actor (WKRP)	1945
Gerhard Herzberg	Nobel Laureate, Chemistry	1904
Giuseppe de Luca	Opera singer	1876
Helena Rubinstein	Cosmetics merchant	1870
Humphrey Bogart	Actor	1899
Isaac Newton	Mathematician, scientist, lawmaker	1642
Jesus of Nazareth [the place, not the band]	History's Most Influential Liberal, martyr, agent of change	~ Spring, 4 BC
Jimmy Buffett	Singer-songwriter (head Parrot-head)	1946
Joe McCarthy	Commie-hunter and shameless anatomical orifice of the southern kind note: the anatomical orifice is south of somewhere, but the man was from Wisconsin	1908
Karl Rove	Liar, Scumbag, Bush's Brain Excellent reason for birth control and abortion	1950
Kenny Stabler	Pro football player, Snake (Oakland Raiders and most bars & taverns)	1945
Larry Csonka	Pro football player (Miami Dolphins) linebacker knocker-over	1946
Linda Wutzer Name (partly true)	Former girlfriend (completely true)	N/A
Little Richard	Singer, flaming queen	1935
Me1	Renaissance man	N/A
Mike Mazurki	Actor	1911
Mohammed Ali Jinnah	Founder, Islamic Republic of Pakistan	1876
Nellie Fox	Pro Baseball player	1927
Rickey Henderson	Pro Baseball player Thief extrordinaire	1960
Robert L. Ripley	Anthropologist-Cartoonist, Believe It Or Not	1893
Rod Serling	Writer	1924
Sissy Spacek	Actor (Carrie)	1949
Steve Wariner	Singer-songwriter	1954
Tony Martin	Singer	1913

¹Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool

People glad they weren't born onChristmas Day:
• many Jews (other than JC)
• most Muslims
• nearly all atheists

Odds of being born on
• Christmas Day: 1 in 365
• Odds of being born on any other day: 1 in 365

Number one reason that being born on Christmas sucks: you can't get thefree birthday dinner and pecan pie at Stuckey's or the free ice cream cone at 31 Flavors.

"If we use fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations."

-- Nikola Tesla, 1900, as quoted in “Great Scientist, Forgotten Genius, Nikola Tesla” by Chris Bird and Oliver Nichelson, New Age, #21, Feb. 1977, p. 42

And who was Nikola Tesla? The guy definitely had cred ... Consider the following:

• Edison's work in electricity was based on using DC (electrical current) . Tesla's work was on AC. So what?
  
  
  • DC can be transmitted only short distances. Imagine having a power generating station every mile or so.
  • AC can be transmitted for hundreds of miles. Those high-voltage power lines that comprise the "power grid?" Thank Tesla, not Edison. The generators that produce and use AC - too numerous to count.
  
  
• Edison and Tesla both created lighting powered by electricity (as opposed to being poered by fire).
  
  
  • Edison invented the incandescent light bulb - the one that we see 'everywhere' - the one that generates more heat than light. Some would say that a "lighting" device that produces more heat than light is, um, inefficient at best.
  • Those fluorescent tubes (and now bulbs) - the ones that use 22% as much electricity to produce the same amount of light and produce very little heat? Tesla.
  
  
• Electric motors including those that power electric
  
  • cars
  • starters for gasoline/diesel/biofuel engines
  • razors
  • fans
  • and on and on and on - just look around you
    
  
  
• Wireless communications devices (radio). Tesla, not Marconi, was the creator. After decades of court battles, Tesla was finally awarded the patent for radio .... it's too bad he died before that happened.
  
  
• X-rays? Tesla discovered the x-ray. Roentgen patented devices using x-rays.
  
  
• Robotics? Electrotherapy (medical devices)? Wireless transmission of electricity?
  
  
• Geothermal energy (Tesla described and experimented with it). Capturing earth's naturally-occurring magnetic fields to produce electricity (Tesla had extensively studied the idea). The laser (Tesla's "death ray" weapons).

To learn more about the forgotten genius, start with Wikipedia. Wikipedia has many pages and dozens of sources.

metonym, noun.

1. A word that denotes one thing but refers to a related thing.

- Example: "Washington is a metonym for the United States government."
- Example: "Plastic is a metonym for credit card."

Before you protest, notice that the above is irony in action.

irony, noun.

1. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs;
2. A trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs;

trope, noun.

1. The use of a word or expression in a sense different from that which properly belongs to that word or expression.
2. The use of a word or expression as changed from the original signification to another, for the sake of giving life or emphasis to an idea.
3. A figure of speech.

Some people are quick to invoke the "Founding Fathers" to justify a claim or action.

Now it's my turn, except that I'm not trying to convince anyone that the Founding Fathers meant this or that. I'm just quoting first James Madison, then the Constitution. You draw your own conclusions.

JIMMY:

"In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the Legislature, and not to the executive department."

ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8

The Congress shall have Power:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress....

ARTICLE II, SECTION 2

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States ....

• 4,367 U.S. Military Fatalities in Iraq (source: icasualties.org)
  Was that before or after "Mission Accomplished"?
  
  
• 931 U.S. Military Fatalities in Afghanistan (source: icasualties.org)
  The count is so low only because Bush ignored Afghanistan for so long. However, Obama with get those casualty counts up where they should be.
  
  
• 31,557 U.S. Military Maimed in Iraq (source: DoD Update as of October 31, 2009)
  Before or after?....
  
  
• 102,949 Iraqis Reported Killed (source: Iraq Body Count)
  1,366,350 Iraqis Reported Killed (source: justforeignpolicy.org)
  At least they're free now, and the economy in Iraq is booming as the country is rebuilt.
  

The 2nd Amendment is in danger!

An off-duty Jacksonville, FL, sheriff's deputy forgot to leave her service weapon outside when accompanying her mother to Shands Jacksonville hospital for an MRI. The powerful magnet sucked her Glock away in a flash, trapping the deputy's hand between the machine and the gun. Repairs, plus the lengthy powering-down and re-powering of the machine, was said to have cost the hospital $150,000.

Source: WJXT-TV (Jacksonville), 10-1-09]

It's obviously Obama's fault.

Source: me

Details of Healthcare Plan Revealed

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - The United States Senate today unveiled details of its health care plan, tentatively called CompromiseCare^TM:

Under CompromiseCare^TM,

• People with no coverage will be allowed to keep their current plan.
  
  
• Medicare will be extended to 55-year-olds as soon as they turn 65.
  
  
• You will have access to cheap Canadian drugs if you live in Canada.
  
  
• States whose names contain vowels will be allowed to opt out of the plan.
  
  
• You get to choose which doctor you cannot afford to see.
  
  
• You will not have to be pre-certified to qualify for cremation.
  
  
• A patient will be considered "pre-existing" if he or she already exists.
  
  
• You'll be free to choose between medications and heating fuel.
  
  
• Patients can access quality health care if they can prove their name is "Lieberman."
  
  
• You will have access to natural remedies, such as death.
  

Source: Andy Borowitz

If the people that believed the moon landing was staged on a movie lot had access to unlimited money from large carbon polluters (or some other special interest) who wanted to confuse people into thinking that the moon landing didn't take place, I'm sure we'd have a robust debate about it right now.

-- A. Gore

Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog.
- Doug Larson

Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it and get a new one every six months.
- Clifford Stoll

Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.
- Author unknown.

How does it feel being one of those people who can be fooled some of the time?

Trust me on this: the 'son' in the story is depressed (as in real, live, clinical depression).

One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church, to which he replied, "I'm not going."

"Why not?" she asked."I'll give you two good reasons," he said. "One, they don't like me, and two, I don't like them."

His mother replied, "I'll give YOU two good reasons why you SHOULD go to church. One, you're 54 years old, and two, you're the pastor!"

When you're depressed, that's a good day. Click here to see a bad day.

According to thinkprogress.org, 12/9/2009

The House GOP leadership "met with more than 100 lobbyists at the Capitol Visitors Center" yesterday to strategize about how to kill financial reform legislation. One lobbyist who attended the meeting told the press that "the message was...the Democratic majority are ruining America, ruining capitalism."

Wrong. And Wrong, again.

The Democratic majority is not the political problem. The political problem is the "no-no-no, no to everything" minority who wants to fast track back to a fantasy time when the illusion was that free markets solved all problems.

The real problem, however, is not that any politicians are "ruining capitalism." Capitalists are doing that without outside assistance.

Market economies make things work. Other economic systems can't and don't work. But just as a sporting event needs rules and referees to enforce the rules, markets need rules and someone to enforce the rules.

Otherwise,

1. The biggest bullies make the rules.
   
2. Life becomes a zero-sum game: one person's gain is another person's loss. The size of the economic pie ceases to grow, and the relative sizes of the pieces of the pie shift in favor of greed and avarice.
   
3. A tiny minority accumulates most of the wealth. The majority is a large impoverished class. Note that this is an inevitable result of the redistribution of wealth that occurs when bullies rule the streets.
   
4. Anyone who manages to 'move up' from the bottom rung becomes a threat to those at the top of the ladder. The power that comes with wealth is applied to push the upstarts back into the pit of poverty.
5. If there are too many upstarts, the mobsters put on slick suits and go to Washington. There the mobsters buy the laws needed to not just push back, but to also punish. It's called socialism for the rich.
   
6. Life ceases to be even merely a game. It becomes oppression.
   

All of that changes when the reformers take control and make sure there are rules and referees who can enforce the rules. That, in turn, assures that markets - and the benefits of markets - are accessible to all.

When markets are truly accessible to all, society and capitalism thrive. Truly free markets are the markets that are well-behaved.

Reformers, not capitalists, are capitalism's best friend. Capitalists, not reformers, are the ones who make socialism thrive.

Capitalism would be a good thing, if it weren't for capitalists. You may quote me.

Over the years, Microsoft has released a family of products. They were released in the following order:

1. Windows 95
2. Windows 98
3. Windows 2000
4. Windows 7

Maybe someone at Microsoft should do an Excel spreadsheet to make sure that 7 actually does come after 95, 98, and 2000.

Microsoft Math is right up there with Civilian Math vs Military Math (read your way down to Wednesday, March 11, 2009)

Prejudice - prejudgment, judgment not based on facts - gets in the way of wisdom and understanding.

I have had a prejudice against Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. I thought of it as a bias, not a prejudice. You see, a bias IS based on fact - mostly on a person's prior actions (as perceived by the person with the bias). In Hatch's case I justified my bias because

1. He is a Mormon. (Most) Mormons grudgingly gave up one of their prejudices against blacks not long ago. Because of the black skin curse, blacks could not be priests and could not worship in Mormon temples. You see, the Head Frog of the Mormon church had a revelation. God told him it was OK for blacks to be priests in the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Cynic that I am, I think the real revelation was that the Mormons' bans - the Mormons' prejudice - was interfering with world-wide recruiting efforts.
   
   Nevertheless, since Hatch seems sincere in his Mormon beliefs, I have assumed that he, too, grudgingly gave up (at least publicly) one (or more) of his prejudices against blacks.
2. Politically speaking, Hatch is an über-conservative. Such people tend to long for the good old days ... meaning in part, "when the n#**ers knew their place."

So - I have always been suspicious of Sen. Hatch's smile and pretty words. I assumed the worst of what I perceived to be his white supremacy values. And since white supremacy tends to also be anti-Semitic ... you see where I'm going with this: I have long held prejudices against Sen. Hatch and what I thought were his prejudices.

Several years ago Hatch and a writer for the New York Times were talking. Hatch mentioned that he wrote love songs. The writer challenged him to write a Hanukkah song. Nine years later - somewhat out of the blue - Hatch presented his Hanukkah song lyrics to the Times' writer, Jeffery Goldberg.

Goldberg ran with it. He lined up a composer to set music to Sen. Hatch's lyrics. Once it was all polished, there was a real recording in a real studio. Among the singers in the recording are several Jews (duh....), an Arab(!), and a high-profile Mormon (guess who).

For your listening pleasure, the result is a song that is "happy and peppy and bursting with love." Click here for 2 minutes, 16 seconds of joy . I love it, my mother would have loved it, my father would have given a wry smile of appreciation. My brother, always the ecumenical, will probably start singing it.

To quote Johnny Cash and Shel Silverstein (from A Boy Named Sue), "I came away with a different point of view."

Still, Orrin Hatch has a rather pathetic voting record. He voted:

• for all anti-choice legislation
• against the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay legislation (re: when women are paid less than men for the same job)
• against extending unemployment benefits
• against hate crime legislation

And now (finally) black men, like all white Mormon men and boys over the age of twelve, are a part of the Mormon priesthood.

Women of any color - not even women not cursed by having black skin - are not allowed into the good ol' boys club. But they can still bake cookies.

Letting go of prejudice is very liberating. Sen. Hatch, I apologize for my (thus-far) boorish attitudes and words. Are we cool with this?

More complete and more accurate details.

Would you really want to work for a company that wants your pee?

Somehow it just seems to be the right term ... regardless of what the Prez sez.

If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.

There's a message in there somewhere.

The President pronounces that country's name as "Pah - kee - stahn".

Shouldn't he call the neighboring country "Ahf - gah - nee - stahn"?

Just askin'....

Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression "calculated risk," they never show the calculations?

How do we know that the person actually did the calculations? How are we supposed to know that the calculations were accurate?

Just askin'....

Tip #1: Shooting your holiday turkey is a good way to get in touch with your roots. It also addresses that occasional need to release those primal urges.

Tip#2: Pick a store that doesn't use metal detectors at the entrance.

It's too late for this year, but try it next year at Thanksgiving:

When everyone at the table takes turns saying what they are thankful for, say, “I'm thankful I didn't get caught,” and refuse to say anything more.

Source: Daily Joke

From yesterday's news:

NEW YORK (Reuters) Wednesday, December 02, 2009
General Motors Chief Executive Frederick "Fritz" Henderson stepped down at the request of the company's board of directors on Tuesday and will be replaced by current Chairman Ed Whitacre."
Whole article: GM CEO Fritz Henderson steps down

Q: Where is the driest place on earth?

A: Antarctica.

• A desert is technically defined as a place that receives less than ten inches of precipitation per year.
• The Sahara gets just one inch of precipitation a year.
• Antarctica's average annual precipitation is about the same, but 2 percent of it - known as the Dry Valleys - is free of ice and snow and it never rains there at all.
• Parts of the Antarctica continent have seen no rain for two million years.
  

The next-driest place in the world is the Atacama Desert in Chile. In some areas, no rain has fallen for four hundred years and its average annual rainfall is a tiny 0.004 inch. Taken as a whole, this makes it the world's driest desert, 250 times as dry as the Sahara.

As well as the driest place on earth, Antarctica can also claim to be the wettest and the windiest. Seventy percent of the world's fresh water is found there in the form of ice, and its wind speeds are the fastest ever recorded.

The unique conditions in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica are caused by so-called katabatic winds (from the Greek word for "going down"). These occur when cold, dense air is pulled downhill simply by the force of gravity. The winds can reach speeds of 200 mph, evaporating all moisture--water, ice, and snow--in the process.

Though Antarctica is a desert, these completely dry parts of it are called, somewhat ironically, oases. They are so similar to conditions on Mars that NASA used them to test the Viking mission.

Source: The Book of General Ignorance. Armed with this book, you could earn a living from Bar Bets.

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