Okay, this may be TOTALLY out of line... but does anyone find it funny that Viagra and Cialis may cause BLINDNESS? How long has it been an old wives tale that "If you play with yourself too much, you'll go blind." And now, we apparently have proof, straight from the FDA!
The FDA is saying that the Viagra probably didn't cause the blindness per se... so what does that leave us?
Did anyone notice? Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, and Foxtrot all had the same punchline today. That's funnier than the comics themselves!
Just read a very interesting article by Bill Berkowitz at Working For Change that discusses the parallels between the slow rise of Nazism in Germany in the early 20th century and compares it to the slow rise of Theocracy we're seeing in the United States today.
It's definitely a good read, and will provoke many thoughts about how this current administration is behaving as it puts into place anti-democratic policies such as the PATRIOT Act, the removal of citizen review of environmental issues, and the move toward government endorsement of Christianity as a state religion.
Compare this with the 14 Points of Fascism that I called attention to back in January, and it gets pretty darned scary. When will America wake up and see what's happening?
General Motors is apparently starting a thirteen-state tour in an attempt to try to convince governors to work to reduce manufacturers' liabilities in the realms of health care and put limits on punitive jury awards in lawsuits. Why am I not surprised?
Companies have been looking for ways to offload healthcare costs for a long time, as if they don't have a responsibility to look after the workers who make them their money. And they're looking to offload their responsibility to build safe products by limiting the money a plaintiff can receieve in a lawsuit.
It's interesting... the Bush Administration says they want to privatize more of the government, but the private companies are looking to foist more of their issues off on the government. If employees can't look to their employers for medical care, who's going to get the brunt of that? The government. And who's going to be responsible for limiting punitive decisions in liability cases to keep private companies from paying out when they screw up? The government. Is no one else seeing this?
It's amazing what people are trying to get away with these days, but few places are as frightening as the state of Kansas. Mandating the teaching of fairy tales (AKA Creationism) in state public schools (even temporarily) was apparently only the beginning.
The Attorney General of the state of Kansas, Phill Kline, is apparently trying to require two abortion clinics to open their records to him so he can "investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children." He's fishing into the files of 90 women who have had abortions, according to the article.
First, the Kansas AG is a staunch opponent of abortion, and I wouldn't trust him with the information he uncovers.
Second, Doctor/Patient Privilege has to take some effect here.
Third, his agenda violates the separation of Church and State: he's trying to push to have stickers put into science books in Kansas schools that state evolution is just a theory, and pushing the so-called "Intelligent Design" theory. The difference between evolution and intelligent design is that there is scientific evidence for evolution. There is NONE for intelligent design. But his agenda is to push for religion and state to merge.
Folks like this need to be kept out of government - one of the basic tenets of this government is the separation of Church and state. It's necessary in any nation where there is freedom of religion. If one religion is adopted by the government, then we don't have freedom of religion any longer. And that's anti-American.
Amazing... I'm seeing evidence that the evangelicals are coming around to see the environment as worth protecting.
Apparently there are evangelical groups forming that are calling for better pollution controls and more environmentally-friendly policies by the Bush Administration. Interestingly, the normally off-the-scale-to-the-right leader of "Focus on the Family," James Dobson is one of the signatories to a document signed by the National Association of Evangelicals, which calls for environmental responsibility among all Christians and more civic responsibility by the government in creating a sustainable environment. Other signatories include Ted Haggard, head of the N.A.E., and Chuck Colson, head of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Of course, the article discusses the usual mistrust by the evangelicals of traditional environmentalism, and prefers to refer to it as "creation care," in reference to the Bible, naturally. But despite this shortcoming, a positive step is being seen as mainstream evangelicals are pulling away from the dispensationalists (the folks who see the earth as available to be used up, basically, in preparation for the rapture).
An interesting point in the article is made by John C. Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. He takes some time to discuss the evangelicals' suspicion of traditional environmentalists:
"While evangelicals are open to being good stewards of God's creation, they believe people should only worship God, not creation," Green said. "This may sound like splitting hairs. But evangelicals don't see it that way. Their stereotype of environmentalists would be Druids who worship trees."
Another reason that evangelicals are suspicious of environmental groups is cultural and has its origins in how conservative Christians view themselves in American society, according to the Rev. Jim Ball, executive director of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
"Evangelicals feel besieged by the culture at large," Ball said. "They don't know many environmentalists, but they have the idea they are pretty weird -- with strange liberal, pantheist views."
I find it interesting that these evangelicals, Green seems to be saying, do not understand how anyone can be secularly interested in saving the environment, but rather that they must have some faith-based reason for wanting to protect the earth.
That explains much - to an evangelical, he seems to be saying, one takes religion into consideration for everything. On the other hand, a person like me looks at saving the environment because I'm concerned about the future of life on earth and the health of the world's population. God really doesn't ever enter into it for me. I once dated a girl who didn't understand how I didn't stop to pray when something was going poorly for me or I needed to decide on a course of action. It simply wasn't in her mindset to accept that I didn't see prayer as necessary. And the same seems to be in play here.
It'll bear following this issue more closely, I think - I'm too suspicious in general to take too much at face value. But it certainly seems to be a step in the right direction for the environment!
One of today's most respected journalists is, rather was, Bill Moyers. Bill has written and spoken about a lot of important topics over his career, but perhaps none is more important than the comments he made upon receiving the Global Environment Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School.
Moyers called our attention to the rising religious right, who with the appointment of George W. Bush to the Presidency of the United States (as he did not win his first election) has attained power that can no longer be ignored. The most dangerous wing of the religious right is that which believes in "The Rapture."
For those of you who aren't familiar with "rapture theology," I'll summarize (though if you haven't you should read the Moyers article at the link provided). After a certain grouping of world events takes place, which includes wars, environmental catastrophe, and certain political events, the "faithful" of Christianity will be literally raised up to heaven, where they'll be able to sit next to God and watch as he destroys the rest of us in accordance with the book of Revelations in the Bible.
So... why is this dangerous, you ask? Isn't everyone entitled to their religious beliefs? This is America, after all. We have freedom of religion here - it's one of the very first rights that our forefathers put into the Constitution's Bill of Rights, and rightly so.
But we also have a standing philosophy that goes along with the Bill of Rights: that we may enjoy our rights as promised by the Bill of Rights as long as those rights don't interfere with the rights of others. And a primary instance of this philosophy is the practice of the separation of Church and State.
Many don't believe in the separation of Church and State, but it's a fact that one of the very first treaties negotiated by our government with a foreign power declares that the United States was NOT founded on the Christian religion. See Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, as signed by President John Adams. It states:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Apparently, President Bush is hyping nuclear power as a way to end America's reliance on foreign oil, and calling it an environmentally-safe alternative. BULL.
I suggest everyone read this article at Grist.com on the Rocky Flats nuclear waste site and the cover-up going on around it.
Why do Americans allow Bush to ride over them like this? It's simply amazing to me. People, get off the party bandwagons and do some research of your own! You'll see just how corrupt and evil this man is.
An interesting comparison... check this out!
The Old American Century's 14 Points of Fascism
But it's not always a good thing. There have been plenty of other notorious individuals who were declared "Person of the Year" by Time Magazine. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Newt Gingrich, and plenty of other baddies have made this list, too.
It's not always an honor - it's just a statement of who's been most influential in the past year. And given all the horrible things that the Bush Administration has done to the world in the past 365 days, you can't deny that it's the case that he's been influential. But not in a good way - at all.
Here's a complete list.
In the wake of the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean, our head Theocrat George W. Bush has put his father, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton in charge of a massive fundraiser effort for relief organizations. For the most part, a fantastic thing - two competing politicians uniting to help the people of the world who need help. I doubt Dubya came up with it on his own.
But am I the only person who sees this as an extraordinarily convenient appointment for our NeoCon Fuhrer? Former President Clinton was just beginning to undertake an effort to push for renewable energy in the United States, something that President Bush has been starkly against (based on his actual policy and actions, not his words). In December, Clinton called for a true effort by the supporters of renewable energy to get the job done, and not to let themselves be hung up by the political obstacles that are in place. As the creation of renewable energy sources would tend to 1) hurt his big backers in the energy industry, 2) null the main reason he went to Iraq (OIL), and 3) put the Democrats in the drivers seat as regards the energy issue in future elections, it certainly doesn't hurt the GOP to have Clinton doing other things.
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad Clinton is doing what he's doing with tsunami relief. Those people have gone through a horrible disaster and I wish there was more I could do beyond what I've already done. But I do question the President's true reason for asking former President Clinton. I think Dubya saw a chance to force Clinton to accept another role in his post-administration days, one that wouldn't make him look bad and would keep his funders happy. And Clinton certainly couldn't say no to tsunami relief.
I've been reading and hearing a lot of news recently about these folks who put up enormous Christmas light displays and, as I am wont to do, I feel I must comment.
As pretty as such displays can be (and most of them aren't much more than huge gaudy messes of lights), I find these things extremely wasteful. Unless these folks have enormous solar batteries that are powering these displays (which I sincerely doubt), they're doing nothing but wasting energy in an attempt to one-up their neighbors. And in the process, they're tying up traffic around their houses, annoying their neighbors, creating fire hazards, and doing nothing to improve the spirit of the holiday.
In my opinion, they're nothing more than selfish displays of "Look at me" and "I'm better than Jones, down the street!"
Good gravy. I thought that I had seen the worst of the "Christian" political movement with the passing of pro-bigotry reforms in eleven states (including Ohio), but apparently I was wrong: even the environmental movement isn't safe from the "reforms" of the Religious Right-Wing agenda. And that scares me even more than the bigotry.
This seems to indicate that not only are religious right-wingers (I refuse to call these people Conservative Christians, as they are neither Conservative nor Christian) against issues of social justice, but that they are attempting to HASTEN the environmental downfall of the world. How is it that lunatics like these are able to gain access to political power? What exactly is the world doing wrong that this outlook is popular?
All you have to do is step outside and look at a sunset. Or gaze over the majestic views of the Appalachians. Or examine the world within one of our national parks. Or simply sit outside, far away from the world of cars, fax machines, stock options, and television, and close your eyes, and listen to the world around you. And you'll quickly understand why this world is worth saving.
Most people stop believing in fairy tales when Santa Claus becomes a story. Why is it that religious right-wingers can't do so?
Okay, I'm going to get all the bile in my system out in one post, so bear with me, please.
I have lost faith in America.
Yesterday, I looked out and saw a great nation that was under the rule of a president that we actually did not elect. He had taken the four years he had and destroyed our environmental protections, failed to defend our shores, abandoned a search for our attacker, pursued an illegal war that was little more than a personal grudge, thrown our economy into disarray, spent billions of dollars he didn't have, suggested writing bigotry into the Constitution, and pushed to keep us under the control of uncaring corporations.
But, there was no way that the American people were going to allow him to stay in office, I told myself. They're not going to ignore the damning evidence, believe the lies, succumb to the fear, and hide behind a veil of ignorance and vote this man back into office.
Then I got up this morning and found out that I was very, very wrong. America has re-elected George W. Bush as the President of the United States.
I simply don't have the words for the disappointment I'm feeling. I truly don't understand what this country is about any more. Didn't we learn ANYTHING from the Cold War? Administrations that try to influence their populations by instilling fear of the outside world can't succeed. Our nation wins by being strong, by sticking up for the tenets that we believe in as a nation. The rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Well, Life is gone. We're in a war, a war that was started against a nation that had done nothing to us. For 1100 American soldiers, Life is no longer a right they cherish. Life is also slowly being removed from us by an administration that would rather sell out to big corporations that are spewing filth into the air, raping our national resources, and perpetuating a cycle of use/discard that is choking our environment. Respiratory diseases are at an all-time high. Our air is dirtier than it has been since the Clean Air Act was initiated. Forty percent of our waterways are no longer safe for drinking, fishing, swimming, etc.
Liberty is gone. Bush's PATRIOT Act removes that. Now we're under the watchful eye of an intelligence structure that we know doesn't work. If it worked, 9/11 would never have happened. Bush is also in favor of a constitutional amendment to deny the rights of homosexuals to get married. If he's willing to write bigotry into the Constitution for one thing, what's to stop him from doing it elsewhere?
The Pursuit of Happiness is quickly going. He's paying companies to ship jobs overseas, boosting big business at the expense of small businesses and the middle class, removing environmental protections that ensure the health and welfare of the people, and adding to the national debt daily, via an unwanted war. Hard to be happy when you have no job, can't make money, you or your family are sick as a dog, and you have no idea if you'll be shipped off to fight an illegal war.
So, having established that Bush is Unamerican by his very actions, why did America vote for him? I see two reasons:
1. Despite the fact that Americans say they don't like negative campaigning, they respond to it. Bush's campaign was negative from the get-go. Kerry didn't fight back as strongly and harshly as he should have. It would have been easy to do so, just bringing up almost ANY Bush "achievement" shows his failures.
2. The Democrats do NOT realize what this country wants any more. They're stuck in an older mindset, where established candidates are the ones that can push things forward. Kerry is a prime example of that. On the other hand, look at the last two Democratic Presidents: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Neither of them was what you'd call an establishment Democrat - they're not from the Northeast, they're not Ivy Leaguers (Yes, I know Clinton did law school at Yale, but he didn't do his undergrad work there), and to a certain extent they bucked the system. They also were not senators - they were governors.
The Republicans, on the other hand, have gotten very good at wordsmithing and turning the nation against words such as "liberal" and "intellectual" by treating them as insults. And the Democrats have fallen right into their trap. You never see a politician describing him or herself as "liberal" any more, you hear "progressive." You don't hear them calling themselves "environmentalist," you hear "conservationist." And they defend their dangerous policies by talking about smaller government, removing the "welfare state," and railing against the "liberal media."
The second thing that frightened me about this election, even more so than the Bush victory, was the willingness of Americans to write bigotry into the laws. I am referring to the eleven issues on the ballots in state elections looking to outlaw marriages by gay individuals. In every case where this took place, they were victories, and especially in the southern states. In Ohio, ONE county voted against the issue, and it was close there.
What kind of person votes to deny basic rights to a person simply because of who they are attracted to? How does it really affect anyone if same-sex marriage is allowed? This is all connected to so-called Christianity. Now, as most folks who know me know, I refuse to call any members of the so-called "Christian Right" a Christian. I was raised as a Christian, I know what it means. It doesn't mean try to use an archaic book to justify bigotry and hatred. It means to follow Jesus's most important commandment: "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."
The important thing in the bible isn't to follow it all word-for-word. That's simply not possible, as it's a centuries-old compilation work which is extraordinarily inaccurate and contradicts itself frequently. Rather, take the important messages from it and follow those. And the primary one is the one I just mentioned in the previous paragraph.
At any rate, the Democrats need some new blood. And it has to be people who are clean and competent. Clinton was competent but he came with some extra baggage in the form of his personal life, and the Republicans were able to waylay his administration throught that. I hear people talking about John Edwards to run in 2008, but a one-term senator isn't going to be experienced enough to do so. Hillary Clinton is another name I hear. But if Americans aren't ready to allow gay marriage, they certainly aren't going to be up for being led by a liberal female.
But, I kept wondering during this election how things would be going if Howard Dean had received the nomination. I am quite sure he wouldn't have let Bush beat up on him the way Kerry did. Add to that the fact that Kerry had a Senate voting record that Bush was able to exploit. I'm not sure how Bush would have attacked Dean's gubernatorial record, I'm sure he would have figured out a way. But Dean would have pulled no punches in pointing out the shortfalls of the Bush administration, unlike John Kerry. Dean would have fought harder, and in a way that would have mobilized the unprecedented grassroots movement he attracted.
For my money, the best candidate for the next Democrat nomination is Howard Dean.
Until then, I will wait and see exactly what the President plans to do to re-unite America. He said in his acceptance speech, "To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust" He's going to have to work awfully hard to gain that support from the Kerry voting populace. And he's going to have to do nearly full reversals to get anything from me.
