I have been listening to enough rants, hate and nonsense in the last year and a half to last me a lifetime or more, and I’ve been more than fed up with it all.  But I started realizing that this sort of crud is endemic; uninformed people who choke off their sources of information to a limited cell of rumors and scares will support all sorts of wild stuff out of ignorance and fear, and fail to take this sort of thing apart and think it all through.

Nutballs in American political life were there from the beginning – look at the nastiness during the Adams and Jefferson administration, under Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, and so on.  There’s been two big red scares (right after the first and second World Wars), and a lot of people fighting anything that smells like change.

They fought immigration from ‘those people’ – first non-English speaking Europeans, then non-Protestants, non-Europeans, and so on.  They fought changes in the laws to give anyone voting and citizenship rights…removing rules that kept Catholics, non-property owners and the like off the voting rolls.  Not to mention non-Christians.  And letting people who aren’t our kind into office?  Oh!

They fought taxation of any kind.  They fought any kind of consumer protection, including drug safety and food safety.  They fought public schools.  They fought paper money, banking, lending, interstate commerce, the internet and highways, and practically everything that they considered despicable progress.    They fought separation of church and state, because they desired their religion’s rules to trump everyone else’s.

They fought medicine and science and public health.  They fought innoculations, public water systems and sanitation laws. They fought educational reform; if the Bible and a switch were good enough for them, it was good enough for you.

They fought slavery in favor of indentured servitude (think serfs, and they were white and British) because they hated foreigners, and then fought against freedom for the black slaves that came over to America against their will, and they fought homesteaders.  And yes, there were fanatics like John Brown who fought against slavery but didn’t give much of a damn who died in the process, and bushwhackers like Quantrill and Jesse James who killed and laid waste in the opposite direction.

They fought freedom of expression and gun ownership by other people who didn’t fit their mind of real people.

They closed their eyes to intolerance, poverty, hate, misery, ignorance and want, out-scrooging every Scrooge.  They become stooges, in many cases, for much more moneyed and wanna-be-powerful interests.  And very often, those interests proceeded to screw the ignorant over just as much and thoroughly as anyone else, because the powerful who used them didn’t care who got worked over.  They fought reforms of banks and recoveries from panics and recessions and depressions because they felt that the government shouldn’t help anyone.

They become shills, endlessly repeating total nonsense.  They get sucked into buying tons of extra ammo and gold and survival equipment by scare merchants who advise them that the Boogie Man is right around the corner – or become dittohead drones to people who advise them to trust Nobody But Them aginst All Those Commies Out There.

Here’s a sampling of some; cut to avoid disturbing your stomach.  I remembered plenty of this from my own experience, and had to do a little research to give specifically connected links.

I have no problem with political debate.  I have every problem with organizing people to shut down political debate with threats and screaming.  And it deeply bothers me to see how many people don’t think before they act, vote or rant about whatever.

I know Marxists, and nobody in the Administration’s top is a Marxist, unless your definition has no connection to real life.   I see people rant at town halls about the evils of socialized medicine, and go home and thank God for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and never realize the problem with this.   I see people gripe about potholed roads and collapsing bridges and about how there should be no local taxes and never get the connection that no taxes = no public anything.

And I am tired of politicians who lie through their teeth for political power, regardless of the cost to all but their buds – whether it’s Richie Daley trying to tapdance about how the Olympics won’t cost Chicago anything, or the GOP leadership / politicians refusing to  care about anything but trying to destroy Obama  as a lesson to the rest of us and pandering to the most whacked out elements of their base.  That was the reason why I left the Republican party years ago; I believed in government’s role for the general good, and in things like honest government for the general good, and the GOP leadership stopped doing that.

When environmental protection comes down to ‘don’t worry, the rapture is coming’, I can’t support that.

Rush Limbaugh: Sanford was probably driven in desperation to cheat on his wife and get some small pleasure out of life by Barack Obama’s efforts to destroy America, as in what-the-heck-it’s-all-over-I’m-just-going-to-have-fun.

Full quotes at the link.   At the other end of the world, Congressman Michelle Bachmann is suggesting that the Obama Administration is going to use Census information to round people up that it doesn’t like, and cites the Japanese-Americans rounded up during WW2 and taken to internment camps.

So I guess it’s probably really my fault for voting for Obama and plunging us all into a deep, dark gay socialist hell on earth.  Sorry, Governor Sanford, I just had no idea as to what I was doing.    I was only follwing the instructions of Comrade  Jiang Yu Cai as she was directed by the ChiCom Politburo, too, so they’re involved in the heinous plot.

Risk map setup from air toxics risks on causing cancer in the USA via the EPA:

Parts of Los Angeles, Calif., and Madison County, Ill., had the highest cancer risks in the nation — 1200 in 1 million and 1100 in 1 million, according to the EPA data. They were followed by two neighborhoods in Allegheny County, Pa., and one in Tuscaloosa County, Ala.

“Air toxic risks are local. They are a function of the sources nearest to you,” said Dave Guinnup, who leads the groups that perform the risk assessments for toxic air pollutants at EPA. “If you are out in the Rocky Mountains, you are going to be closer to 2 in a million. If you are in an industrial area with a lot of traffic, you are going to be closer to 1100 in 1 million.”

1. If you want an idea of why the idea of mixing church and state is a bad one, look at Iran.   You can’t challenge the state without challenging God’s word, you heathen.  Die in hellfire!
2. And which church gets to call the shots?  The largest church in the USA is the Catholic Church, and I can just bet that there’s a lot of people in the USA who aren’t Catholic (or consider those damn Papists right up there with Saaaaatan) not caring for that.  As a Unity person, I have no truck with theocrats of any stripe, thank you very much.
   ( Read the rest of this entry » )

From Booman Tribune: 1953 – the CIA engineers a coup against the elected (but leftist) prime minister of Iran, and sets in motion the anger against the US from the Iranian man on the street by creating the Iranian secret police SAVAK  whose terror kept the Shah in power until the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

A couple of posts on the politics of religion in Iran and on who the players in Iran are, and why they hate each other’s guts.

Another note on Ahmadinejad’s connection with the thug-militias out on the street.

And then there’s Andrew Sullivan’s comments on the Supreme Leader’s speech at Friday prayers today (after the cut):

Senate hearings today on GM and Chrysler dealerships being closed; sounds like there’s going to be a how dare you cut our constituents’ dealerships fuss. Such as:

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who met with the GM and Chrysler executives on Tuesday, said Congress would not try to “go through the administration to get them to do something in the companies.”

But Dorgan said it was reasonable for the lawmakers to ask Chrysler: “Are you sure you’re making the right decision in the way you treat these kinds of dealers in certain rural areas?”

Suuuuuure.  Remember that when GM closed out Oldsmobile, it cost them $1 billion dollars to pay off the dealers.  As I’ve said over and over again, this dealership issue is going to be a big deal.

Here’s a map from AP of the major stimulus projects on a county-by-county basis.   Zoomable flash.   In my case, the big project in my area is the resurfacing and repair of a major nearby road that we use on a daily basis that is pothole city (which is unfortunately a widespread problem in the Chicago area after this last winter).    They’re also fixing our own street.

(Update: I’m noting this story about Frankfort, KY schools and their handling of gay students, but I’m beginning to think it’s a crock.)

Stephen Fry:

• his blog (he’s a big techie)
• his letter to his 16 year old self.  About love, mostly.
• -on manic depression
• -on his new BBC series on the USA (which I’m about to dig into)
• -on hate and anti-semitism (he’s part Slovakian Jewish)
• his column from the Guardian on tech items (RSS)
• -comparing laptops to books (MP3)
• -on smartphones

People were asking about the Ted Kennedy story; here’s the link.    The article mentions other Americans who have recieved honorary knighthoods; US Citizens can’t accept titles and whatnot from abroad - it’s in the US Constitution (last para).  The way this is handled is to make them ‘honorary knights’ for something they’ve done, and that’s part of the British Honours System (sic).  See also http://www.honours.gov.uk/ for more details.

Yes, you can decline an ‘honour’ or a knighthood or whatever; once granted, however, there’s no way to change your mind and give it back.  You can send them the actual medal, but that’s a trinket and easily replaced.  Honours can be pulled from someone that is a criminal or some such, and have been - except if it’s a peerage (barons and above) - those are lifetime things.  And exceptionally rare.

There’s also a site to show the stuff that goes with a peerage or knighthood, as well as judges and whatnot.   Enjoy!

Is it just me, or is all this talk about Ted Kennedy getting an honorary knighthood from an British Queen weird on a stick?  I don’t mean to say that he shouldn’t get any honors he’s due or that I’m no longer an Anglophile,  but that after hanging out with a bunch of hardshell Irish-Americans for a long time, it’s odd that one who is as steeped in the Erin-Go-Bragh traditions would *accept* such a thing.  Your comments welcome to help me puzzle this one out.

New story on the Pakistani-American TV exec who beheaded his wife; dude had a LONG history of mental instability and rage - the dead woman was wife #3, and she wasn’t the first one to be worked over.  This things rarely happen in a vacuum.

I’d forgotten about this: The American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, courtesy of Messrs Bush and Helms.  It authorizes the US President to use any and all means to yank US citizens and soldiers out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, including invading the Netherlands on a rescue mission.   It also prohibits any office in the US from assisting the ICC or extraditing people out of the US to the ICC, or letting ICC investigators into the US.   If another country wants American military aid, they have to sign a  waiver that says that they will not accept an extradition request for Americans to the ICC (doesn’t apply to NATO, Israel, Egypt, Taiwan).  Good question as to what the future holds on this.

In early December on the LJ side, I did a ‘rate the Presidents’ competition to see what my readers thought of the US Presidents.  The raw results and comments are still there  - and these are the results, sorted by Mean (statistical results under the cut; the spreadsheet itself is here).

Sets: One (Washington -> Harrison), Two (Tyler->McKinley), Three (TRoosevelt->Carter); Four (Reagan->GW Bush)

What I found interesting was the high SD for the more controversial picks - e.g, President A was good in this area, horrible in that area.    Some were problematic; how do you rate a President who served for very little time and died in office?  The breakdown seemed to be: (sorted by Median)

1-3 (horrible), 4 (bad), 5 (mediocre), 6 (nice try), 7 (pretty decent), 8 (darn good), 9 (walks on water).

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Harbors open their doors to the young searching foreigner
Come to live in the light of the big L of liberty
Plains and open skies billboards would advertise
Was it anything like that when you arrived?
Dream boats carried the future to the heart of America
People were waiting in line for a place by the river!

It was time when strangers were welcome here
Music would play they tell me the days were sweet and clear
It was a sweeter tune and there was so much room
That people could come from everywhere.

Now she arrives with hopes and her heart set on miracles
Come to marry her fortune with a handful of promises
To find they’ve closed the door they don’t want her anymore
There isn’t any more to go around…
Turning away, she remembers she once heard a legend
That spoke of a mystical magical land called America…

As we have cable here, I don’t worry much about the conversion from Analog to Digital broadcasting. However, I do have friends who will be affected, rabbit-ears and all, and this set of maps should show you what the difference will be in your area as to the range of broadcasting with digital.  Of course, I’m also one of those galoots who think that the ultimate ideal on cable broadcasting would be to have an a-la-carte set of local channels from other places, like Dayton or Sydney.

I’m just so looking forward to a grownup in the White House.  I think most of us are.

A good friend who has tons of cool ideas and never gets around to going much with them came over for the New Years’ party with a story treatment and basis.   It’s really stirred me up as to where this could go; it’s not alternate history, but more a mix of hidden history and political thriller sort of thing.  I’ll give you a hint; it was inspired by Chester Alan Arthur and Barack Obama.    I suppose part of what interests me is the weird tangent it has from my own personal experiences…

• With huge numbers of people unemployed, and more rolling into the offices, the states are running out of money to pay benefits.  Like 30 out of 50 states.
• Drill-baby-drill just went *choke*, as oil companies are suddenly unwilling to finance new exploration.   Existing wells are being shut down as uneconomical to operate, and forecasts are looking like oil will reach $30 a barrel, as the Chinese economy goes into full slump.  These things seem to be interconnected, don’t they?

Another bit of Rittenhousia, about the beginnings of paper-making in America, circa 1688 - this is from the Historical Magazine, 1857.  Again, for the record.

( Read the rest of this entry » )