Missing George Carlin on Independence Day

I last saw George Carlin at the Palace Theater in Columbus, Ohio less than a year before he died. He wasn't at the top of his game, needing to refer to a huge notebook for some of his material, claiming that they had added a bunch of stuff for this tour and he hadn't gotten it all down yet.

There wasn't much new material. George was old, and tired, and near the end of the race. But he was still furious.

On this Independence Day, you should be furious too.

When Alan Simpson, chairman of the Obama Debt Commission, overtly states that changes to Social Security are down the road, odds are he's not talking about raising the income level above the current $106K to make the rich folks pay taxes on their elevated income. It's obvious that the preferred solution is to increase the retirement age, cut benefits, or both.

George was prescient.

US Government Restricting Media Access in Gulf

You had to know this was coming. Transparency is only welcome when there's nothing to hide.

We, The People, Want The Keys Back

Via Firedoglake, Megan Carpentier launches into a heartfelt essay in which she bluntly tells folks, "No, I want MY country back, assholes!"

The America I grew up in was one in which yelling racial epithets at school children was supposed to be a horrific part of a shameful past that we should acknowledge, rectify and strive not to relive. It was one in which we acknowledged that the safe haven many of our ancestors found on these shores came at a terrible price for the people who already lived here and to whom our founding fathers did unspeakable things. It was one that required a terrible, hypocritical compromise that forced us to betray the very principles of liberty and justice for which those founding fathers swore this country stood and that we’ve only managed to rectify in fits and starts and never quite lived down. It was one that strove to provide that equality of opportunity to everyone, and that, despite our imperfect beginnings, could and would in my lifetime live up to those promises.

I'm beginning to get the sense that this is a rising sentiment. True, it's been a rough road, what with the trouncing civil liberties endured during the Bush years, and we're still making concessions, blaming the War on Terror for a lack of fortitude to core tenets. Perhaps it's the constancy of reminders of where we've gone asunder.

Our government has surrendered its will to govern along with any semblance of competence, self-paralysis in the Senate serving as the permissive poster child of dereliction of duty while local, state, and federal officials allow those on the margins to divert the power of representative democracy toward those who need it the least.

Mega-corporations are driven by little more than a plundering mentality, where taking as much as you can, as fast as you can, is the short-term goal and measure of success, regardless of consequence or ethical boundary, unchecked by regulation, law, or morality, as profits and campaign contributions replace integrity and sustained growth as core canons of American business.

We exhibit a wanton militarism that seeks to spread a brand of freedom that we're unable or unwilling to execute within our own borders but which sucks up an ever-growing share of our economy while our children grow hungry, our jobs disappear, and our infrastructure crumbles like ancient Greek ruins. We've become a living, breathing example that when you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Our focus has become not the 80% of beliefs that unite us - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - but the 20% that divides us, whether it be one religion seeking predominance over another, one skin color seeking to limit the opportunity of another, or one political party seeking to use our diversity and differences as wedges to split us apart for their own benefit and enrichment.

We've never achieved our more perfect union, but that's remained our goal. Why is there such trepidation about the resultant chaos and discomfort associated with change and improvement?

These same constitutional scholar wanna-bes seeking strict interpretation of the broad concepts of Jefferson and Adams, et al. blissfully ignore the very precepts outlined in the Preamble, and continue to ignore the fact that the Bill of Rights was developed in response to serious concerns that omission of significant individual liberties from the draft version of the Constitution might lead to further oppression by a government in its infancy, or its successors, and the inclusion of such liberties was so important that the document was amended before the historical ink was dry.

Individual liberties that protect the rights of Tea Party Patriots to protest, birthers to demand Barack Obama's birth certificate, and rich citizens to finance repugnant political discourse under the umbrella of protected free speech are the root cause of our disagreements, which means our freedom is working exactly as designed. It's impassioned egalitarianism at its best, as voices are heard and claims are staked, in the public arena, where positions can be evaluated, accepted or discarded based on merit and adherence to our principals, not by who postulates the loudest or which group has the most weaponry.

The voices calling for a return to an ideology of inclusion are growing stronger as they return from the wilderness, a modern day suffrage movement gaining momentum while refusing to be shouted back into the night.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Epic Dysfunction at Minerals Management Service

From the New York Times:

Federal regulators responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials several years ago to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil — and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency, according to an inspector general’s report to be released this week.

Words fail me. Outrage does not.

Why Does A Salad Cost More Than A Big Mac?

Can you say government intervention via subsidy?

Via The Daily Dish

Heavy Snow and Government Fallacy

Our government - local, state, and federal - wants us to believe that they are prepared for attack and pandemic.

So what does it say when leaders in the Washington D.C. area decide that they will suspend snow removal operations because the heavy snow makes it too dangerous?

Isn't that the point of snow removal? Leave it there, and danger abounds. Scoop it up, and danger abates.

I'll never understand how this works. I just hope the firefighters don't avoid my house for fear of burns.

Penis and Vagina, Penis and Vagina

Our government thinks parents might be humiliated by saying the words "penis" and "vagina" when talking to their kids about sex.


Our government is wrong.

Science: It Works, Bitches

Faith can be a wonderful thing, adding depth and meaning to a life that might otherwise be overwhelmed by the immense nature of our universe and the role that we play in it for the brief time we're here.

Not everyone believes the same things, nor should they. It's our disparity of thought and quest to find answers in a myriad of ways that keeps the human race plunging forward. Faith (and religion) play a role here, too, although as science advances and begins to provide plausible answers to previously puzzling queries, a friction has developed between those who believe in science, those who believe in faith, and those stuck somewhere in the middle, trying to reconcile the two.

Isn't there enough science available to convince nearly everyone that the earth is not 6000 years old? We may disagree as to whether the correct age is 10 billion, or 500 million, or even 1 million, but 6000 seems completely off the mark.


That's why it is so distressing to see people in government quote the 6000 year number as their rationale for either supporting or opposing programs that deal with scientific matters.

Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen, (R), used the statistic in a hearing before the Arizona Senate’s Retirement and Rural Development Committee, where she advocated for more uranium mining in Arizona because the state needs the money, and 6000 years of history has shown that uranium isn't bad for people.

As noted in the write-up, it's through the science of uranium's radioactive decay that we know that the earth is billions, not thousands, of years old.

When faith and religion stand in the way of our leaders making common-sense decisions that affect us all, that whole separation of church and state thing starts to make more sense.

Image via Tim Van Gorp

Are Americans Terrorists by Default?

One of the most often heard cliches emanating from the flag-waving crowd is that whole "freedom of speech" thing that our forefathers insisted be included in the American Constitution. It was so important that it ended up as the First Amendment.

Ring a bell? Thought so.

Peaceful protests by the common citizenry, unfettered by government interference and persecution, have become the backbone of the sort of democracy we've been trying to force-feed to other countries, often accompanied by high explosives.

So why does training material provided by the Department of Defense point out that public protest can be considered "low-level terrorism?"

In a complaint filed by the ACLU and detailed in an article on the Contra Costa Times web site, that would be the United States Government - Department of Defense. And the ACLU would like some answers and changes, such as revising this Q&A:

Among the multiple-choice questions included in its Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course — an annual training requirement for all DOD personnel that is fulfilled through Web-based instruction — the department asks the following: "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?" To answer correctly, the examinee must select "protests." The ACLU wants that changed immediately, and it wants corrective information sent to all Department of Defense employees who received the training.

Remember - if it's not an American flag, it's probably a bomb.

Defense Department sees protests as terrorism , via Contra Costa Times

What's that again?

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo makes an interesting observation:

Conservatives are so incensed by warnings about the threat of right wing radicalism that they're considering overthrowing the federal government.

Math is Hard

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has become the latest potential Obama administration nominee to be called out for past tax problems.

In her case, Sebelius paid roughly $7000 for "mistakes" over a three year period. Hardly a Tom Daschle-esque calamity, but still, what the heck is it with such a large number of government officials being seemingly unable to accurately account for and pay their taxes?

Could it be that everybody does their taxes wrong? EVERYBODY?

And perhaps there's a clue in our federal tax code. Title 26 of the US Code of Federal Regulations runs 13,458 pages and is made up of twenty volumes. You can buy it from the US Government Printing Office if you'd like.

Or keep using TurboTax. Just don't try to get a job in a presidential administration.