About the Anne Kilkenny email

Newsweek has run a debunking article about claims being made in the Anne Kilkenny email, and other "fact" sheets being circulated around the internet about Governor Palin. A few of the salient points:

"Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn't cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years."

"She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time."

"She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She's been registered as a Republican since May 1982."

"Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a "courtesy" when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state."

"Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. She has said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides" of the evolution question, but she also said creationism "doesn't have to be part of the curriculum.""

I'm proposing that we UU bloggers set a new standard on the internet. Let's all try to fact-check our posts before posting. Most of the ones above, like the DK diaries that caused the initial firestorm needed only a Google to correct. Here's some tip-offs that should alert you to something that needs a fact-check:

"So and so slashed funding for such and such". This is a trick both parties use, at all levels of government. The way it works is to first pass a ridiculously large increase in your pet program; then, when the Mayor or Governor or President does the responsible thing and cuts it back to a reasonable number, you can claim he "slashed the budget". This is easy to debunk- just compare the previous budget to the current one. Virtually any time money is mentioned in a political ad, some such trick has been pulled. For example, both President Clinton and the then newly elected Republican Congress tried to claim credit for a balanced budget. They were both lying. When you look closely, you'll notice that the national debt increased during those years- and if you have a balanced budget, which includes your loan payments, your debt load does not go up.

A corollary to the above is to claim that someone has "cut standards" or "eliminated safeguards". It works the same way; establish some ludicrous regulation, then castigate them for changing it to a realistic number. Since lay people don't know what the reasonable standards should be, it's very effective.

Big numbers being thrown around without explanation or definition. For example, an editorial in the local paper spoke of the thousands of acres being lost to urban sprawl in Indiana every year. Alarmed, I looked it up- there are 640 acres per square mile, and 35,870 square miles of land in Indiana, for a total of 22,956,800 acres. I breathed a little easier. Or when Mitch Snyder, the homeless advocate, claimed that 45 homeless people die per second. That was repeated a number of times in the news before someone actually picked up a pocket calculator and figured out that would mean 1.4 billion dead per year!

Any claim of fact that doesn't reference a publicly available source to cross check.

Wealth and income taxes

Will Shetterly quotes an article about how Americans believe in taxing the rich. But the wording of the article, and/or the people who wrote the study, don't seem to understand what they are writing about.

It begins, "A significant majority of Americans — 56 percent yes, only 40 percent no — want the government to “redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich.”, but the one and only tax- and the only examples of disparity they discuss- is income. What they seemingly fail to understand is that there is a difference between income and wealth. Income taxes do little if anything to redistribute the wealth.

Suppose Bill Gates died today and left his entire fortune to me. I don't know his current net worth and the taxes involved, but the exact numbers don't matter- say I get $250 billion after taxes. I quit my job, and despite the advice of financial pros, put all the money in a non interest bearing checking account just to see people's jaw drop when they run a check on me. Come April 15, 2010, what is my tax burden?

Nothing. I didn't have any income in 2009. No income, no income taxes. Doesn't matter how high the rate is if you have no income. No income, but plenty of WEALTH- I still have my quarter of a trillion. Make the income tax 100%- it's still not going to redistribute my wealth. Even if you taxed 100% of the interest a smarter man than I would have been earning on all that money, the original wealth is still there- enough for a thousand lifetimes. The only way to redistribute the wealth is to tax the wealth, not the income. If you tax the wealth, the high incomes take care of themselves- they disappear next tax year when they become wealth. The key is to tax net worth- wealth- not income.

Any politician who speaks of redistributing the wealth or the disparity between the rich and the poor and doesn't talk about taxing wealth is either a college dropout or a demagogue and a liar. There really isn't a third option that I can see. Oh, I can understand why they don't want to pass a tax on wealth- most of the politicians who are talking about the disparity between the rich and the poor are themselves living off of huge, multi-generational fortunes. They don't want to pay a wealth tax. That just makes them demagogues and hypocrites.

A couple questions for Barack Obama

According to this story , Barack Obama is having second thoughts about his tax plan. "WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama says he would delay rescinding President Bush's tax cuts on wealthy Americans if he becomes the next president and the economy is in a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy."
"What about increasing taxes on the wealthy?
"I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is. I mean, the economy is weak right now," Obama said on "This Week" on ABC."

My questions:
Senator Obama, if rescinding the tax cuts would hurt the economy, why would you ever do it?

If you think such tax cuts are good for a weak economy, does that mean that President Bush was right to call for them after our economy took hits from 9/11, Katrina, etc? Does that mean that he was right and Joe Biden was wrong?

Well, that's some better, I suppose...

Bloggers are finally starting to exit the Palin family bedrooms, only to enter her church. The same people who were outraged that conservatives would complain about the things Senator Obama's pastor said are now screaming about something a guest speaker at Governor Palin's church said. Others are dissecting her faith, saying it's important to know because it will affect how she would carry out her duties.

But we already know how she would carry out her duties. From Time Magazine : "When a parental-consent law was struck down by Alaska's highest court in 2007, Palin called the decision "outrageous" but refused demands from conservatives to introduce antiabortion legislation in a session that was supposed to be about a natural gas pipeline. "In all the years I've known Sarah and her parents, we never talked about right to life or any of that," says St. George. "She doesn't let those issues get in the way of getting things done for the community."" From eQualityGiving.org - hardly an evangelical fan- "She opposes marriage equality. She supported the Alaska marriage constitutional amendment in 1998. As Governor, she vetoed legislation that would have denied same-sex partners of state employees health and retirement benefits. She vetoed the legislation because the Alaska Supreme Court had ruled that such a denial of benefits was unconstitutional." In other words, she draws a sharp line between what Sarah Palin, citizen and voter, supports, and the duty of Governor Palin to uphold the law of the land. Just like JFK and every Roman Catholic since. Just like every elected official swears to do.

Ok. I get it. You're upset that Senator McCain picked Ted Nugent's sister as a running mate. But the best way to insure that she stays in Alaska is to start talking about real issues.

Non-issue issues #3 Abortion

There are a lot of single issue voters both pro and con Roe V. Wade, but as a practical matter, this is a non-issue. Roe V. Wade isn't going anywhere.
How can I say that? Obviously, if a Democrat is elected, Roe V. Wade is the litmus test for the selection of a Supreme Court justice. But how about if a Republican is elected? Won't a Republican President choose a conservative judge?

Certainly, but "conservative" means something a bit different in describing a judge- the opposite of "conservative" in this sense would be activist, not liberal. Both types of judges may be conservative or liberal in the political sense. I'm sure CC could do a better job of describing judges, but here is a simple explanation. An activist judge does what he thinks is right, and then tries to find a legal justification for it. In a real life example, a Justice said that the death penalty was unconstitutional because the emerging public sensibilities of the public have deemed it to be cruel and unusual punishment. A conservative judge would say that's crazy; the death penalty is in the Constitution, right there, in black and white- to say anything else is tantamount to amending the Constitution without due process. Republicans like that "original intent" kind of judge.

But what if the issue being discussed isn't in the Constitution? Like Roe V. Wade, for instance? A conservative judge tends to say things like "stare decisis", which means "We've already ruled on that once, and I don't see anything new here that wasn't argued before", and "jurisprudence constante", which means "don't rule on a whim". ( no lawyer can understand a concept until it's been translated into Latin) Don't upset the applecart is the conservative frame of mind. That is why despite most of the Supreme Court having been appointed by Republicans, they've never re-heard Roe V. Wade.

Of course, a Republican President could appoint a right wing activist judge... get him past the Bar rating committee, get them through committee hearings in the Senate, then get him confirmed. Riiiight. Bush couldn't even get mild-mannered Harriet Myers past step 1. And given the court make up, he'd have to do that at least three times, probably four, and possibly five times to overturn Roe V. Wade. I guess it could happen. Bob Barr could pull an upset and become the first Libertarian President. As Henry II said in The Lion In Winter, "In a world where carpenters are resurrected, anything is possible."

Folks, Roe V. Wade isn't going anywhere. Both parties know it. The only reason they even bring it up is because it keeps the contributions pouring in from the activists on both sides. Presidential candidates sigh in relief whenever the question is brought up in a debate, because they know they can waste five minutes without answering a real question and fire up the base at the same time- a real twofer. Don't feed this troll.

Why the tone of the coverage of Gov. Palin matters

CC , Ms. Theologian and I have been trying to convince the UU blogosphere to leave Gov. Palin's womb and family, and sexist double standards out of the discussion, and talk only about the issues- with little success. The general consensus seems to be, "Republicans talk about values all the time, so I can trash her family all I please." Asking "If you can't keep it clean because it's the right thing to do, how about because it's the prudent thing to do," has been no more successful. "Vengeance is mine," sayeth the angry bloggers.

Perhaps that's understandable, but it's also foolish. Consider this : Poll: 51 percent say reporters are trying to hurt Palin
"Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November. Thirty-nine percent (39%) also believe the GOP vice presidential nominee has better experience to be president of the United States than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama." This is a direct result of the perceived nastiness of the coverage. While of course the numbers differ by demographic and party affiliation, a plurality of all demographics basically agree: "Sixty-eight percent (68%) of voters now believe most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and 49% believe reporters are trying to help Obama this year. Only 14% think they are trying to help McCain. In another survey, 55% said media bias is a bigger problem for the electoral process than large campaign donations." Worse still, "Among unaffiliated voters, 49% say reporters are trying to hurt Palin, while 32% say their coverage is unbiased. Only five percent (5%) say reporters are trying to help her."

Here are some more stats from Rasmussen , "Palin Power: Fresh Face Now More Popular Than Obama, McCain" “...Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters.... Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin’s favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year. As of Friday morning, Obama and McCain are each viewed favorably by 57% of voters. Biden is viewed favorably by 48%.” “The Palin pick has also improved perceptions of John McCain. A week ago, just before he introduced his running mate, just 42% of Republicans had a Very Favorable opinion of their party’s nominee. That figure jumped to 54% by this Friday morning. Among unaffiliated voters, favorable opinions of McCain have increased by eleven percentage points in a week—from 54% before the Palin announcement to 65% today.”

You know how close this election is. You know how few undecideds are needed to swing it. So enjoy your schadenfreude... I know the Republicans will.

This gives a whole new meaning to "tramp stamp"

Duck hunters need not only a state hunter's license, but also a duck stamp from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The stamp costs $15, with the money going to purchase waterfowl habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. But something went wrong with the program this year.

Due to a typo on the application, the phone number for the stamp program doesn't spell the intended 1-800-STAMP24; it spells 1-800-TRAMP24... which connects to a phone-sex line. Oddly enough, agency spokeswoman Rachel Levin said the agency has not received any complaints.

Whatever you do, try NOT to think of Daisy Duck doing a pole dance.

Non-issue issue #2: the Iraq war

That might seem crazy at first glance- there's no issue they have more differences on. Senator Obama opposed us going to war in the first place. Ah, but going to war is no longer the question.

President Obama won't bring the troops home one day earlier than President McCain would. All the experts agree that if we leave before a viable government is in place, there will be civil war and a bloodbath. President Obama will be very risk-averse in Iraq; no way in hell is he going to have the legacy of the first black President be "the man who lost Iraq" and "the man who gave us the Middle-East killing fields".

President McCain won't leave the troops in Iraq one day longer than President Obama would. Put these reasons in whichever order you wish: McCain knows that if the troops don't start coming home soon, the nation will become ungovernable- he did live through the Vietnam years, you know. McCain knows the horrors of war personally- he's not going to leave his beloved men and women in uniform in harm's way longer than he has to.

If you've been watching the last six months, the candidates have been moving closer to each other despite their rhetoric. Obama is now talking about not leaving precipitously, and McCain is now mentioning timetables. Both of them will rely on the same State Department and Pentagon experts when in office. So hold their feet to the fire about counterterrorism, and how to balance that against our freedoms- but don't let yourself be swayed one way or the other by emotional rhetoric about the Iraq war.

The Non-Issue issues #1: Energy Independence

This is a series of posts about issues that really aren't- smokescreens that obscure things we really should be talking about. I chose energy independence first because it's one that both candidates agree on, differing only in details about how we achieve it.

This is an issue because it resonates with something visceral within us, the desire to be self sufficient. But no nation is, or can be, self sufficient. No society above the hunter-gatherer level can be. Even the Native Americans had extensive trade, with each of the First Nations producing goods expressly for trade with others. T. Boone Pickens has advertising saying that what we spend on oil is a transfer of wealth. Nonsense. It is trade, commerce. The fact that it's a consumable product doesn't make it a transfer of wealth; if that were true, you're transferring wealth every time you buy a loaf of bread.

Energy independence is not in America's best foreign policy interest. To hear the candidates talk, you'd think that all our oil is bought from the middle east; but according to the Department of Energy , only 20% comes from the Persian Gulf- and almost all of that from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. As to Iraq, after all that's happened, we should be buying our oil from them. Saudi Arabia is an ally- the only one there that will allow military bases and the launching of strikes from their soil. They have voted with us in the UN, and for us within OPEC. Almost all the rest of our imported oil comes from Canada and Mexico. Cutting off that trade makes no sense- it's a supply that won't be embargoed in case of war, and buys a lot of goodwill as well. I can't see that it's in America's best interest to drive them into bed with China in the search for a new customer.

It is not in America's best economic interest. Home grown oil will be more expensive- that's why we're buying from foreign countries in the first place. And don't think better cars will make up for it; completely discounting gasoline, we use five million barrels a day in industry- for plastics, synthetic materials of all kinds, solvents, even medicines. So many things are made from oil that chemists say it's a shame to burn it as fuel. Windmills and corn alcohol cannot replace it for these duties- drastically increased oil prices mean every product you buy will increase in price. It would be insane to pay more than we have to for these petroleum products just from xenophobia.

Yes, synthetic fuels should be developed- to address air pollution and Global Warming. But doing that will not eliminate our need for imported oil, and both parties know that. The attempt to achieve independence for it's own sake will cost a fantastic amount of money, with the only benefit being political, and both parties know it. Don't let them off the hook as to CLEAN energy; we need to know what they're going to do about that. But don't let either candidate or T. Boone Pickens deflect the issue by talking about "Transfers of wealth to them thar Aye-rabs", either.

The early results are in from UU bloggers on Sarah Palin's speech

And it's unanimous. The verdict is: She's mean. Mean, mean, mean, mean, mean. She dared to oppose the man she's running in opposition to! The meanie. One said her campaign was racist. I didn't get it. It must be one of those code-word things I don't get.

But there are code words I do get. Mean. Famous UU Keith Olbermann said it a little more plainly- he likened Gov. Palin to Dolore Umbridge. If you missed that literary reference, Dolores Umbridge is a witch.

If someone had told me a few months ago that some people were calling the female candidate a witch, and saying that a woman's place is in the home, I'd have assumed they were talking about Republicans referring to Hilary... I'd have laughed at the idea they were speaking about Unitarians!

Best line of the night

Rating the speeches at the Republican covention tonight is pretty easy. Mitt Romney stank on ice. The worst speech ever given anywhere in the whole history of the human race. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but Lordy, Lordy, it wasn't good.

Giuliani was the smiling, laughing attack dog, with many well delivered zingers

Governor Palin was homey, amusing, and an obvious crowd favorite. The thunderous applause may have been partially just relief that she brought assets to go with the liabilities, but she can deliver a speech, no question about it.

But the best single line of the evening goes to Mike Huckabee; talking about the press coverage they've gotten since last Friday, he said it was "tackier than a costume change at a Madonna concert."

The lesson of Gustav

Luckily, Gustav did much less damage than feared. But we learned that New Orleans- and by implication, any major city- can be evacuated in time.

The reason FEMA did a terrible job taking care of the victims of Katrina is that Bush made a terrible pick to head it. But the reason there were victims is that the Mayor didn't evacuate the city- let that horrible photograph of a huge parking lot full of unused busses soaking in floodwaters be a warning to all mayors of coastal cities, cities near faultlines, and cities near volcanos: Don't wait for the federal government to offer advice, don't hesitate for fear that if worst doesn't come to worst you'll catch heat for wasting money... if you get a warning, ACT. The only waste you can't explain away is the waste of human life.

Gustav and the Colts

What's the connection, you ask? Is it a reference to the fact that Peyton's father, Archie Manning, used to play in New Orleans? No. You see, Indianapolis just built a new half a billion dollar stadium for the Colts- but we haven't yet torn down the RCA dome. So when Saints manager Mickey Loomis was told to evacuate the team, he thought of the old dome. I'll let IndyStar sportswriter Bob Kravitz take it from here: "All of this began last week when Loomis made a call to Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian, checking on the availability of the RCA Dome. Told the dome was a hard-hat area, Loomis and the Saints were offered Lucas Oil Stadium. That's like being given the Taj Mahal after learning the No-Tell Motel has no vacancies. The Saints jumped on a plane Friday morning.

To their great credit, the Colts have helped the Saints in every way possible, giving the team trainers, blocking sleds, towels, Gatorade and even a clubhouse attendant to work their locker room at Lucas Oil Stadium.

They even hooked the Saints up with a local company to do their game-day flip cards and Tuchman Cleaners to do their laundry."

We call that Hoosier Hospitality.*



*Not a reference to I.U. Purdue is still THE Indiana University.

Instant empathy

One of the strange things about my childhood is that I did not grow and mature proportionately- my feet in particular. By the time I was twelve, I was still only 5'2", but I had size 14EEE feet. My dad, who nearly had to take a second job just to buy me shoes, used to say I'd be seven foot tall if they hadn't turned so much under to walk on, and I learned about Hobbits at an earlier age than usual. That being the case, I felt an instant surge of empathy when I saw this picture .

P.S. Before you ask, big feet only indicate a good sense of balance.

OK, I am now officially sick of the treatment of Sarah Palin

As long as it was only a few irresponsible loony left blogs, I could ignore it, but now it's in Mainstream Media like the TIMESONLINE , and showing up in news aggregators like Breitbart.com and Drudge.

Let's take the biggie: Trig is really Bristol's son, not Sarah's, a filthy little piece from Daily Kos . The sole and only "evidence" is photos in which Sarah didn't "look" pregnant, and Bristol did. Even our own Chalice Spark , Ms. Kitty , and Steve Caldwell (by way of comment on Ms. Kitty's) didn't know what to think. I don't like to speak ill of my peers, but come on- it took less than five minutes of Googling to render the story, in the Times words, "utterly unfounded", little things like the photo showing Bristol "pregnant" was published in the Anchorage Daily News in 2006, (making hers the world's longest human gestation), and photos of Sarah taken from the side rather than the front, which showed considerable bulge. Ye Gods, people, I'm not the world's best researcher, and yet it took me less time to find those than it probably took to write the blogs saying "I don't know what to think."

Then there's the speculation as to the cause of Trig's Downs Syndrome. When someone pointed out in the Daily Kos comments that their theory was unlikely because the odds of an under 20 having a Downs child were 1:2,000 while the odds of an over 40 were 1:10, it was suggested that the cause, and the reason for the cover up, was that Bristol's child was the result of incest. OK, I don't expect any better out of Daily Kos. But I was dumbfounded when Alan Colmes suggested that it was caused by improper prenatal care, a result of Sarah running around giving speeches. After receiving complaints, the page was taken down, but you can see a snapshot here .

Then of course there's the "VPILF" thing- 23,800 entries in a Google search. (If you're unaware, it stands for Vice Presidents I'd Like to Fraternize with. sort of.) Not as vicious as the son/grandson thing to be sure, merely degrading and undignified... but the interesting thing is that the domain name vpilf.com was taken out two months ago , just in case she was picked. And even they weren't the best prepared- you can already buy VPILF shirts, hats, mugs, magnets, jackets, etc.

I am flabbergasted. Governor Palin hasn't earned this level of enmity through years of bitter fighting... the Kos thing was posted 21 freaking hours after the announcement. The Alan Colmes thing, 22 hours. Nobody works that fast- are we now at the level of preparing files of vitriol in advance on every politician alive so they can be instantly savaged if they enter the national arena? Are we now prepared to make pre-emptive strikes against sixteen year old girls to drive their parents out of the race? For all those who have not yet raised their voice in outrage, let me say that I hope you enjoy what you will hear over the next ten weeks- I know I won't.

Class, real class

It's really Labor Day weekend

Our local Kroger grocery stores has Halloween candy displays up.

On a lighter note

I was just going over my journal entries from the trip west, and was reminded of something that made me smile at the airport... a suitcase on the baggage carousel that had a sticker saying "Pick me! Pick me!"

Take a look at ourselves

Time for a change indeed was the title of an excellent post Monday at Auspicious Jots. In it she said, "We are not the religious arm of the Democratic Party.We sure do look like it far too often." In it is a heart breaking comment from someone who feels shut out of her congregation because of the overt politicizm.

I am often told I exaggerate the image of our religion as merely the chaplains of the Democratic party. Consider this story from Inside NoVa.com , "Area Dems cheer Obama"
"As Sen. Barack Obama prepared to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic party's presidential nomination Thursday night, a group of party loyals gathered to watch the speech in the social hall of the Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Church in Manassas."..."Obama campaign signs hung on the walls inside and outside of the Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Church on Thursday night."

I'm still committed to my congregation, though for the first time in twelve years I believe I'll skip coffee hours for the rest of the year. I don't believe I'll want to hear the conversations, nor read the crap that's sure to be pinned to the bulletin board. I might curtail my Channing Club activities, too, as I'm tiring of hearing "jokes" like "Of course I'll be there- unless Bush has us all in concentration camps by then".
*sigh* Sometimes I just feel so tired, and wonder why I bother smacking my forehead into brick walls. Sometimes I envy Robin Edgar's energy and determination, if not his judgment. Maybe ice cream will help.

UPDATE:
I have received the following statement:
"The use of our building for this event was a building rental, for which the congregation was paid in full. It was not a congregational activity. It was announced as such at the beginning of the event, was not publicized through congregational communications channels, and was communicated to the press as an event of the Prince William County Democratic Party, not an event of our congregation. We are in the habit of hosting many rental events here in our church building that help us to pay the bills and fulfill our distinctly religious mission. We also accept rental fees from Mary Kay Cosmetics, from the PW County Chamber of Commerce, local business owners, and a Yoga Studio. In fact, we make every effort to ensure that what we do here is liberal religion, not a front for liberal politics."

I feel better!

Something's fishy

A college student and her father- both sushi fans- tried an experiment : they bought sushi at several restaurants and grocery stores, and sent samples to a lab for genetic coding to positively identify the species. They found that 8 of 14 restaurant samples, and 6 of 10 grocery store samples were not what they were being sold as: "White Tuna" that was really Mozambique Tilapia, "Red Snapper" that was really Nile Perch... fish that were dramatically cheaper than what they were being sold as.

I wish someone would do this test for fast food burgers. I'm reminded of the Simson episode where Crusty the Clown was asked if the rib sandwich being sold at the Crustyburger was really pork, and he replied, "Think more legs."

An exciting new development for the disabled

What was once science fiction is now undergoing trials, with units going on sale shortly- a powered exoskeleton that will allow paralyzed and otherwise wheelchair bound people to walk, albeit with canes. If you are or know anyone currently in a wheelchair, this footage of a paraplegic man walking to an outdoor cafe and sitting down on a regular chair will touch your heart. They said the units will initially cost $20,000- I hope the next President will allocate funds to buy them for unfortunate returning veterans.

Maybe Nixon was right

and Sammy Hagar was wrong. According to a study by the University of Michigan, people are slowing down because of the high price of gas- and fatalities are dropping dramatically.

"Over the previous 10 months, monthly fatalities declined an average of 4.2 percent compared to the previous year. Then, Sivak's data shows, fatalities dropped 22.1 percent in March and 17.9 percent in April of this year — numbers that did not show up in a recent federal report that tracked a drop in traffic deaths through the end of 2007.

The declines found by Sivak suggest that motorists reached what he calls a "tipping point" and have begun significantly changing their behavior — altering not only how much they drive, but where, when and how they drive. Sivak said early data for May and June show similar trends.

"There is something more than just the reduction in driving that has to be brought in as an explanation for the huge drop in fatalities," Sivak said."

"Sivak predicts that highway deaths this year will drop below 37,000 for the first time since 1961 if the March and April trends continue. The government motor vehicle death count for 1961 totaled 36,285. The number of highway deaths peaked in 1972 at 55,600, then generally declined over the next two decades. For the past several years, the number has hovered above 42,000 a year."

"It's really very interesting that with all these efforts that have gone into building safer highways, safer cars, better enforcement ... this really dramatic change we're seeing is due to economics, to the price of gasoline," said Paul Fischbeck, director of Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation at Carnegie Mellon University"

Come on, Sammy- leave your Ferrari in third gear.

I am frequently asked how I can always be so optimistic

Three times in the last three weeks alone, and by family members- which was a large part of the inspiration for this post. I've been called "Pollyanna" and "dreamer" more times than I can count, but they are wrong; I can recognize evil when I see it. But still, I believe in Man. I believe because I'm a realist.

That statement makes many a jaw drop. I am often told that "reality" is that Man is part of nature, red of tooth and claw, and has the reddest teeth and claws of them all. Just look at the news, I'm told. But the "news" is not reality- it is sensationalism designed to sell a product- that is reality.

I have often touted Robert Heinlein's This I Believe . Here are some quotes:

"I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime, yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest decent kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up, business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries --but it is a force stronger than crime."

"I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses...in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land."

"I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones."

"I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies."

But those words were written more than fifty years ago, and he wasn't a young man when he wrote them, I'm told- things are different today. Are they really? Consider this story , "Girl, 11, Finds $1,000 Floating in Ocean" The incident: "While swimming in the surf in Ocean City, Md., Rowan Short of Brandywine Hundred found a Ziploc bag containing two credit cards, a Pennsylvania driver's license and more than $1,000 cash." What happened? "Her mom used a cell phone to call 411, got the number of the driver named on the license, and placed a call to Elaine and Michael Chosky in Pittsburgh." They went out of their way to return it.

Of course there are a few people like that, but what would most people do? Reader's Digest decided to find out. They designed a test : they "lost" wallets- "In each we put a name, local address and phone number, family pictures, receipts -- and $50 in cash.

We dropped 120 wallets -- ten each in three large cities, three major suburban areas, three medium cities and three small towns. We left them in parking lots, malls, bus stops and on sidewalks. Then we waited to see what would happen. To each person who returned the wallet, we offered the $50 as a reward.

This was no rigorous scientific study but rather a real-life test of integrity. Would people in small towns return the wallets more often than those in big cities? Old folks more than young? Women more than men?"

The results? In one of those cities, Moncton N.B., all ten of the wallets were returned intact- and one of the honest men was a lawyer! (Paging Diogenes) People from all walks of life went out of their way to return the wallets- even homeless people and poor people with families who needed the money. Two thirds of the wallets were returned intact. When the test was repeated in America, the results were the same. In Europe, the numbers dropped, but were still more than half- and two Scandinavian cities hit 100% They repeated the tests with cell phones and got the same results. Even the 68% honesty rating reported is low in one respect: "Even those who kept the wallets still had a conscience, judging by the furtive glances and the attempts at concealment many of them made as they left the scene." They knew right and wrong; they were simply weak. I'd wager, from incidents I've seen, that if the empathy quotient had been raised- say someone crying and obviously looking for the wallet or phone- 90% would have been returned.

I'm not blind to evil; I just put it in perspective. Humankind is decent and good. Evil- even the petty evils- are the aberration, not the norm. I do not confuse results with motivations. I know it's conventional wisdom in the UU blogs that Bush is evil, but he's not; he's simply wrong. I believe that our current Presidential choices are between good and better, not good and bad. I believe in Abraham Lincoln's words, "If you tell the people the truth, they'll do the right thing." I believe that with every passing year of the information age, more and more people will become aware of more and more truths, and do more right things. I believe that a golden age of Man is no longer a pie in the sky, nor even the dreams of our grandchildren, but within the grasp of today's children, if they will but reach for it.

Go ahead and call me Pollyanna. I'm comfortable in that role.

I, too, am becoming concerned

Catching up on blogs after my return from Port Townsend, I was impressed by this excellent post from "Celestial Lands" entitled "I'm beginning to become concerned". His concerns were sparked by this video:


It bothers me, too. It is an example of the quote I have referenced before: "there is a God shaped hole in the human heart that must be filled with something". I don't mean that people are sacrificing small animals to Senator Obama, but many are placing levels of hope and faith in him that are usually reserved for Gods, not mortals- you can actually see tears and hear choked up voices when some people speak of him.

The supplication at the end of the video, "When you get to the top, don't forget about me", carries the whiff of a threat when you consider that no President can deliver the kinds of changes that Obama's supporters are talking about. Consider the issues:

IRAQ. Experts agree that if we just pull out next January, there will be civil war and purges to rival the killing fields of Southeast Asia- that assessment has a stronger consensus than Global Warming. That is why the Democratic congress has kept funding the war despite their pre-election rhetoric. President Obama is not going to leave as his legacy a mass slaughter; hence, we will remain in Iraq until a viable government is in place. Optimistic experts say that will be 18 months to two years; many say three to five years. Not even the management of the war will change dramatically; even Haliburton will retain their no-bid contracts. Bush hired them for the same reason Clinton did for his Bosnian war; they were the only company with the manpower and expertise extant, and still are.

GAS PRICES. No matter who the President is, gasoline prices will be driven by the market, and will go up and down as supply and demand drives them. The demands of China, India, and the rest of the developing world are going nowhere but up. Alternative fuels? The Department of Energy was created to find them, and thirty years and tens of billions of dollars later there still isn't a viable alternative- President Obama isn't going to change that in four or even eight years.

ENERGY POLICY. Nuclear, hydroelectric, and wind power are all opposed bitterly by environmentalists and animal rights activists- core constituents of the Democratic party. (however, in a truly bipartisan effort, Kennedy and Romney worked hard to kill the offshore wind farms in New England) The next President will be forced eventually to ok drilling offshore and in ANWAR- forget gasoline, we need five million barrels of oil a day just for the plastic and chemical industries.

GLOBAL WARMING. President Obama will not get the Kyoto Protocols ratified; when President Clinton tried, the Senate voted 95-0 against it. As long as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gasses- China- refuses to sign on, we won't either.

THE ECONOMY. Let me sum it up this way: the primary reason why Congress' popularity polls are down in the single digits is the economy. Don't you think that if there was any way to improve it quickly, they would do so? Do you think they like being unpopular?

Obama's supporters believe, with a truly religious fervor, in changes that no mere President can deliver. I hope his charisma can carry them when reality sets in; I fear for public order if it doesn't. David was right to quote Frank Herbert:
Here lies a toppled God.
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A Narrow and a Tall one.

More pictures from the Kitsap Peninsula

Here is the view down the street in front of the house we're staying at.

Although you can see the bay from there, the direct line goes to Downtown, so we went North to the beach. Though normally P.T. residents aren't all that fond of Californians, they apparently have learned things from them, as evidenced by this surfer.

Looking of to the East, we could see Mt. Baker and the N. American continent proper.
Off to to the west beyond this point, but concealed by mist on the horizon, is Japan.

Blogging luncheon in Port Townsend

We're still here in the Great North West, but we took a break from family and touristy things to meet with a fellow blogger. We met at the ferry dock, which is a pretty straight shot down 12th from our house.You can just see the bay between the trees at the bottom of the hill.


This hill is every bit as long and steep as it appears, and it seems to be the primary source of income for Port Townsend- it has a 25MPH speed limit, enforced. This means you must either pay tickets or replace your brakes regularly, and either way PT wins.

We got to the docks without getting a ticket, (who cares about the brakes? It's a rental), and immediately found Nemo!


Unfortunately, it was not Nemo we were looking for, but Ms. Kitty . Fortunately, she found me- which is actually a bit scary, as the only photo she had was the one from the top of the blog!

Ginger and I took Ms. Kitty to this little bistro we had found a few days ago when we got lost looking for the post office. Ms. K is in the middle:


(The photo doesn't do Ms. Kitty justice, by the way- it doesn't convey her laugh, or contagious cheer) In the next 105 minutes we very nearly decided who the next Presidents of the UUA and USA should be, almost figured out guidelines for congregations taking political stands, and came that close to settling on a way to get cats to stop playing critter hockey in the living room. A few last anecdotes and we had to get her back to the ferry home. Too short, too short... perhaps we'll meet again in Salt Lake City next year!

Our vacation began not with a bang...

but a quimper. Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship , that is. Our first full non-traveling day began with Sunday services at what I think of as "The church my mother in law built", though I do admit that she had help. I found out why she thinks so highly of Rev. Bruce Bode- he thinks clearly and speaks well. (So far I can report 100% good experiences with UU ministers named Bruce)

Rev. Bodes' sermon, "Religious Liberalism and Political Liberalism" was tremendous, and will be the subject of a post here as soon as it's transcribed on their website. (I try not to quote from memory, preferring more reliable sources) I will say that I think it's the first time I've ever heard it said from the pulpit that its possible to come to conservative conclusions from UU principles.

There's another UU congregation out here, whose minister all of you know and love. Ginger and I will be having lunch with her in a couple days.

This is my 300th post!

Egrets? I've had a few

And this one took me to Seattle. His name is stretch, and he flies for Frontier Airlines. I'm here in the upper left corner of the country to visit family, a couple UU churches, and a fellow blogger. Updates as events warrant.

Can anyone identify this medal?

My father was a WWII Veteran, serving first as a civilian employee of the Army Air Corps, then as a member of the Merchant Marine- that being the only service that could get him into the thick of things. (as a polio survivor, he was 4-F) He also had a commission as Ensign in the U.S. Navy, as a radio expert. But he never told us much of what he did in the war. Stories about shipmates, life in England, etc., but very little else. Going over his effects, however, we have found that his service was far more interesting than he ever let on- some of it still classified; we are going to have to file a Freedom Of Information Act paper. Anyway, this decoration was also amongst his stuff, and is the only one we can't identify. Do any of you veterans recognise it?

Thoughts about "Freedom From Religion"

This is obviously inspired by my previous post, and a comment that seemed to imply that the "wall of separation" between church and state makes even military chaplains unconstitutional. No one can read the words of the founders and honestly say that the intent of the First Amendment was to drive religion that far out of public affairs. If that were the case, then government documents using such phrases as "the Laws of Nature and of nature's God", "Endowed by their Creator", "Supreme Judge of the world", "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence", "do ordain and establish", and "In the Year of our Lord" would be unconstitutional... rendering the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself unconstitutional! Clearly, the intent was to prevent the government from favoring one religion over another, not to deny their existence.

My complaint goes beyond a silly lawsuit, however; I have a problem with the attitude behind it. I have a problem with people who believe that the only permissible public expression of religion is contempt for it. I have a problem with the mindset that led a popular author to say "Molesting the children wasn't as harmful as raising them Catholic in the first place." My distaste for such vitriolic, militant atheism is such that I will make an equally controversial statement: To truly achieve freedom from religion, you must give up part of your humanity as well.

I mean that literally. What C.S. Lewis said poetically- there is a God shaped hole in the human heart that must be filled with something- is now being said by biologists as well. Anthropologists long knew it; the religious drive is older than Homo Sapiens Sapiens- Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man left evidence of religious rituals, and there is reason to believe that even earlier predecessors did too. We know now that when you say "Give me that old time religion" you are talking at least 100,000 years old.

The militant atheists say that humanity has outgrown the need for religion. Maybe so. But human beings have not. Each of us is born just as clueless as the early hominids, and has to learn for ourselves the lessons of joy and pain, love and loss, the reality of death, and what it means to be human. The first time our hearts are broken, it's as if all those millennia had never passed, because it's the first time in our universe. Our innate sense of religion is the only way we can make sense of all of it.

The only reason anyone can deny this is that western society defines "religion" only in terms of God, and a fairly narrow definition of God at that. If one defines "religion" as "an irrational devotion to something outside one's self", then all sane people are religious. And yes, Secular Humanists, I'm saying your devotion to "Humankind" or "Society" is every bit as irrational as devotion to God. There is no non-emotional, logical case to be made for it.

How can I say that? Example: give me three solid, rational reasons why I shouldn't go through life simply taking what I want. Note: the argument "because if everybody did that, society would collapse, and you'd be hurt too" won't fly for at least three reasons- first, that's also an argument for eugenics and sterilizing homosexuals and "defectives"; second, we both know everybody wouldn't do that. Lots of people genuinely enjoy raising crops and raising kids and building things- there will always be plenty of sheep; why shouldn't I walk like a wolf among them? Third, even if society could collapse, it's too big to collapse within my lifetime- if this life is all I'll ever have, why not make the most of it?

In all the decades I've asked that question, no one has ever given me an argument that didn't boil down to an appeal to a higher power, by whatever name. When a Dawkins denounces religion, all he's really saying is "My irrational devotion to an abstract concept is superior to yours"- the same as any other religious zealot. Humanity cannot be ruled by logic; logic depends upon base assumptions that cannot themselves be proven by logic. Thus the "God shaped hole". I've found something that fits mine; if you don't like it, find your own- don't try to deny the validity of mine.

Update: Religion allowed in VA care, court rules

"MADISON —Taxpayers cannot sue the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for incorporating religion into its health care programs for the nation’s veterans, an appeals court has ruled. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and three of its members have no legal standing to bring the case." So begins this story from the greenbay pressgazette.com.

"Annie Laurie Gaylor, the group’s co-president, criticized the ruling but said an appeal to the Supreme Court was unlikely. She said the group would look for VA patients who object to their treatment to be potential plaintiffs but said such a case would still be difficult to win.“The courts are moving to the position where government can fund religious activities and endorse religion without restraint,” she said. “It’s really very disturbing.”

Normally I would go along with a separation of church and state suit, but this time I think the FFRF is out of line. Way out of line. This isn't about telling school children to pray to Jesus, or teaching creationism or some such. This is about veterans. In the hospital. No way I'm going to tell people who put their bodies between me and harm's way that they can't have whatever solace they can get from whatever they worship. If they're laying there in pain, perhaps terminally ill, they can have my tax dollars for a chaplain or faith-based counseling. They've earned it.

Good news on gay marriage

A minor controversy is swirling in Salt Lake City. According to The Salt Lake Tribune , a wedding announcement published by a suburban paper, The Herald-Journal for a lesbian couple has generated "...two letters to the editor (one for and one against), 10 e-mails, several phone calls and four subscription cancellations over publication of the announcement." Additionally, "A Friday letter to the editor denouncing the ad drew about 160 pro and con comments on the paper's Web site by late Monday."

Why is this good news? Because it's a minor controversy. Just a few years ago, in almost any city in North America, the response would have been reminiscent of the scene in Young Frankenstein, right after the line, "A riot is an ugly thing. I think it's about time we had one." This poll the Herald-Journal links to, "You Decide should gays be allowed to marry" run by KQED, is currently at 59% yes, 41% no- in Utah!

Is green U.S. mass transit a big myth?

Is the question raised by Brad Templeton in an article using data from the US Departments of Energy and Transportation. The answer- depending on where you are, of course- is sometimes yes!

He is not arguing against using existing mass transit systems, but for considering the numbers for future construction. In many instances, it may be better to encourage responsible personal transportation. I have long thought this, and my recent trips to Europe confirmed it- the problem is not whether one drives, but what and how.
CC's SmartCar would be at least a mid-size car in many European cities. In Italy I saw many, many vehicles I would call a "crossover" type; not a cross between a car and an SUV, as we would use the word here, but rather a cross between a faired scooter and a single seat car- like this one Some of them even had cute little pickup beds for delivery duties. Most all of them got northwards of 50 MPG, often quite a ways north; 60-80 MPG for some. None of them would be legal here.

Why? Because it's claimed they aren't safe- and yet, the accident injury and death rates are no higher there than here. Why? Because these are town cars; they are driven where geography and traffic conditions are such that you aren't going fast enough to have a high-impact accident. They don't have to be able to survive a 60 MPH accident with a Cadillac because the average accident would be 20 MPH with a pedestrian or another scooter- and even those accidents are less likely because such lightweight vehicles stop faster and maneuver better.

We have special licenses for Ultralight and Sports airplanes, as long as they don't try to mix it up at the big boy airports. We have special licenses for scooters and mopeds, as long as you don't try to take them on the highways. But we have no such provisions to allow micro-cars. Here in Indiana one town passed an ordinance permitting people to take their electric golf carts on city streets to the corner store, and the State Police swooped in and busted everybody, saying that only the State and Feds could make laws about cars. An appeal is pending, but there is little chance of them prevailing. In today's environment, this makes no sense.

We need a national law to provide for micro-sized town cars. For millions of Americans, a four-wheeled scooter would do us for getting to work and the store- 90% of our travel. This would also make electric vehicles practical overnight; without carrying those 5MPH bumpers, airbags, steel I beams, etc., they would be light enough for existing technologies to be competitive- as in the golf carts mentioned above. Downtown parking? I saw Italians comfortably parking three of them sideways in a single standard parking place, or one "regular" small car and one micro-car . For that odd long distance trip, you can rent a larger car- you'll still come out way ahead in the long run. Would Americans buy such cars? Notice that during the muscle-car years before the gas crisis, the Volkswagen Beetle was a best seller.

Some thoughts on the TVUUC tragedy

I have held off commenting on this because I believe that usually our reactions to tragedies are more deserving of study than the actual occurrence, and I wanted to see what those reactions would be.

Many bloggers are concentrating on the words of Hannity, O'Reilly, et al, because the shooter possessed their books and hated liberals. I am tempted to say Pot, Kettle, Black; were President Bush to be assassinated, there would be bloggers appearing in UUpdates who would have cause to hang their heads- but I would be as wrong as the bloggers mentioned above are, because that's not the issue. Rev. Sinkford got it right; "This crime was the action of one man who clearly must have lost the battle with his personal demons." It's not possible to couch one's words such that a tortured soul could not find a call to violence in them- look what South American terrorists made of Liberation Theology; Hell, look what Charles Manson made of Beatle music!

Nor is gun control the issue. This man didn't use an assault rifle, or a cheap handgun; he used the one firearm responsible gun control advocates cite as an example of the guns they're NOT trying to take away- a garden variety shotgun. True, this crime could have been prevented if ALL firearms were eliminated. And all sexually transmitted disease could be wiped out if everyone remained virgin 'til marriage, and faithful thereafter- which would actually save more lives than the elimination of civilian owned firearms. Let me know how that works out for you.

Despite my diversions into pop culture and politics, I call myself a UU blogger- I was looking for religious responses from my colleagues; things like how to deal with the emotions evoked, and how to deal with and prevent such incidents in the future. There have been some, and good ones: on dealing with it on the spot, Reflections Following the Knoxville Shootings: I've Never Been So Proud ; on how the rest of us can deal with it, Ten Ways to take Action Following the Tragedy in Knoxville . The "Ten Ways" list has excellent suggestions for maintaining and strengthening our commitments, but only the last on the list deals specifically with preventing future incidents- I would like to add a few:

1. We should call for mandatory counseling for anyone who has a restraining order sworn against them. The court would (or should) not have issued the order without proof of impulse control issues; if they have these issues, they should be dealt with. Worse come to worst, the counselor may well be able to warn the authorities that the subject was losing it.

2. We should debate and develop ethical standards for the use of force, both to teach in R.E., and to publicly promulgate. And don't give me any pacifist there-is-never-any-excuse-for-violence nonsense, either- what would have happened in Knoxville had congregates not attacked the shooter, even breaking his arm? He did have another 76 rounds on him...

3. How about working with teachers, leaders of other churches, and the public to develop ethics and morality classes that can be taught in public schools? This has always been a thorny issue, but possibly the most important one we could tackle. No doubt there will never be agreement on sexual issues, but couldn't we find agreement on the violence issue with most people?

The new Batman movie, “Dark Knight”

This is less a movie review than a discussion based on Chalicechick's excellent analysis Oh, how I hated the Batman movie

WARNING: CHOCK FULL O' SPOILERS

I agree with her on some points, disagree on others (big shock, there)- I'll start with the disagreements. The Joker. She liked Ledger's performance, (agree!) but not the character. She complains about his almost magical abilities- "He can do anything, and the movie wants us to believe this so badly it doesn’t bother to explain how he does some of his more amazing feats. (E.g. Joker can sneak lots of bombs and arguably surgical equipment into jail with him.)" I bet Cris Angel could do it; and anyway, it was established not much later in the film that he had city and police officials working for him- the people Dent, by then Two-face, killed. You can do a lot with insider assistance. She thinks he should have had a hard time recruiting: "Said mooks have to have heard that everybody who helps Joker do anything dies, but they play along anyway and are all dead by the end of the movie." This is a hallmark of evil dictators- Stalin's purges were legendary, and Sadam Hussein tortured and mutilated his own officials... and yet, they never seemed to have trouble finding replacements.

But those arguments are really beside the point; a larger than life hero requires a larger than life villain. To borrow a line from "Inherit the Wind", if St. George had killed a dragonfly rather than a dragon, who would remember him? I liked the fact that this Joker had no origin story; he was simply evil. Indeed, he mocks the concept of an "origin" by making up different origin stories for different people. He doesn't kill for profit or sexual gratification- he does it to make the world a worse place... truly the Anti-Batman. Or rather, the Anti-Ideal-Batman, which this one wasn't.

I totally agree that much of the plot was contrived- a perfect example of why I have grown to not only dislike situational ethics, but also the discussion of situational ethics. One of the ethical lapses this leads to is even worse, in my opinion, than CC paints it- the cell phone eavesdropping. CC says, "One of Batman’s most impressive toys is a pretty clear stand-in for domestic wiretapping (I guess thanks to Obama and McCain's agreement on the issue, Wayne Enterprises won't even get fined)..." As I understand it, the two provisions Obama and McCain agree on are for calls that originate and are received in foreign countries but pass through our routers, and for calls that originate in foreign countries and are received in the U.S.- but Batman is listening to not only purely domestic calls, but also every sound the cell phones can pick up as he remotely activates them! I can only hope there were plenty of cell phones present at a burrito eating contest. Batman supposedly proves his honesty by not holding the power himself, but giving it to Lucius. To my mind, that's worse, not better... he didn't have the courage to face his decision, and instead tempted another!

But even that’s not the worst of Batman’s ethical lapses. In the end, he proves his nobility by taking the rap for the murders Harvey Dent committed, so the people could have a hero and not lose faith in the system. Huh? Just minutes before he had been supremely confident of the decency of the Gothamites trapped aboard the bomb-laden ferries, certain that they wouldn’t kill innocents to save their own skins- and had been proven right! Now, suddenly, he can’t trust their judgment? And what if the truth had come out- that after being forced to listen to his fiancé getting the Col. Sanders treatment, then getting half his own face melted off, Dent- still in shock- loses his temper and kills some of the perpetrators? Who would have judged him harshly for that- harshly enough to lose faith in the system? (after all, this Dent didn’t live long enough to become the super-villain of the comic books) No, Batman becomes just another government bureaucrat, lying to the public for their own good.

This new Batman series is more down to Earth than the Tim Burton franchise, has a better (in George Carlin’s words) “Hey, this could happen!” feel, but Burton’s has more heart, more humanity. The heck with it. Go see “Iron Man” or “Spiderman” again instead.

Sympathy for Ms. Kitty

When Kit first posted about her cat "Maxie The Magnificent" becoming a killer, I didn't have the words to comfort her- I'm glad Ogre was able to say what I couldn't. But I knew that post was coming back when she wrote about not being able to keep Maxie on the porch.

Ginj and I have always had cats; our current clowder of four is the smallest we've had. The eldest, Laurie, I've written about before. The youngest, Monica, is another rescue. The two in between are brothers we got from a local pet store. I had gone in for a bag of cat food, and stopped to admire a pair of pure black kittens. The manager told me that they were, at six months, too old to sell because they were no longer cute- if I'd buy a 25 lb bag of food for each, he'd throw them in for free! Appalled at his attitude, we made the deal.

One of the brothers was small and sleek; the other tall and frizzy haired- naturally, we named them Simon and Garfunkle. Poor kids- after spending the first six months of their lives in a cage, they were afraid to come out from under the desk for two days. Then, realizing it was OK to come out, they started racing around the house at top speed, spinning out and hitting the wall like NASCAR, then racing off in another direction. They were (and are) inseparable... cleaning each other's faces, then engaging in Greco-Roman wrestling, then falling asleep in each other's arms, only to pick up the match where they had left off when they awake. And, like Topsy, they just kept growing.

Here, facing the camera, and weighing in at 11 lbs., is "little" brother Simon.





And the Behemoth filling the overstuffed leather chair is Garfunkle.





Despite being fixed, they- like Maxie- could not be kept inside or on the porch once they reached adulthood. They, like Maxie, soon proved to be killers. If you're a human, they're the sweetest things you can imagine. Garfunkle will leap into my lap, pull on the cuff of my shirtsleeve until my arm is bent, then climb into the crook of my arm and fall asleep, his purrs making my chest resonate like a guitar body. But if you're any life form of five lbs. or less, you're dead. I've seen Garfunkle run, leap, and pluck a flying bird right out of the air.

The lesson is to learn to love things as they are, not as we would like them to be. Cats are not small dogs, nor fuzzy children, nor animated stuffed toys- they are the most ferocious killing machines Mother Nature has ever unleashed into the underbrush, their ecological niche. We must remember that their affection for us, while genuine, is a perversion of their pack (pride?) instincts- we haven't tamed nor civilized them, we have merely stepped into one or more roles that would otherwise have been filled by elder cats in a pride.

But if it's any consolation, Ms. Kitty, there is a side benefit. I don't know if there is some kind of vermin grapevine, or if the smell of real killers is subtly different or what, but there hasn't been a rat, mouse, bat, cockroach, or any other form of vermin inside the house in years. (unless one of Les Freres Noir brought it in, already broken) You watch- I bet within a few months, the aura of Maxie around your house will make it a vermin-free zone.

After a two year visit to the United States, Michelangelo's David is returning to Italy ...

Unicode

Going through a box of inherited antiques, I ran across a small book entitled "Unicode". No, it has nothing to do with early computer languages- it's a set of codes used in telegraph messages,published in 1922. These codes were used to avoid running up large fees, as telegraph messages were charged by the word- hence "Unicode", a series of words that represented entire sentences. For example, the word "Abrasi" meant "Met with an accident, boat upset, all safe". I found this fascinating, and flipped through the book to see what all kinds of situations were covered by this code, and was amused to find this one: "The improvement is not sustained" is replaced with the single word "Dogma".

Please take a few minutes

to watch this video . You might cry, but you won't regret it.

Sympathy for Jesse Jackson

I've agreed with very little of what Jesse Jackson has said or done the last twenty years. Like the generals of the old bromide, he was fighting the last war- his language and tactics, I thought, being wrong, even counterproductive for this day and age. Like a still-touring 60s rock band, he had become a parody of himself.

Then came the flap over the live-mike, unguarded comments about Barack Obama. I don't need to repeat what he said; everyone has heard it. Heck, there are undiscovered Neolithic peoples in the rain forests of Indonesia who could quote it. It was a Nine Day Wonder, endlessly deconstructed on both TV and radio talk shows. Then came Gaffe Part II, when it was revealed that he had used the "N" word during the diatribe, setting off another round of clucking.

I feel genuine sympathy for Rev. Jackson for the first time in decades. What must he feel when he looks at Obama? Here is proof that he could have been a candidate- perhaps President- if the Democratic Party had ever truly been behind him. He now knows that he had been nothing but a token, a bit of affirmative action to the party, a means to an end- not respected for what he was, but merely for the votes he could deliver. He sees an interloper in his chair, a kid who hasn't been there, hasn't done that; someone who was in diapers while Jesse was putting his life on the line. Someone with great potential replacing someone with great accomplishments.

Isaac Newton said "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Never before have I wondered what it must have felt like to be one of those giants.

For all STAR WARS fans

The Imperial AT-AT Walker lives, courtesy of DARPA .

More updates to "An Inconvenient Truth"

Al Gore has appeared before Congress and more importantly (judging by popularity ratings) Oprah Winfrey saying that man-made Global Warming is now "settled science", comparing dissenters to "Flat-Earthers". Some Global Warming activists have gone farther than that- Scott Pelley has been quoted on the CBS News PublicEye blog saying: "There is virtually no disagreement in the scientific community any longer about ‘global warming.’ … The science that has been done in the last three to five years has been conclusive.” Pelley also posted this quote to the same blog: “If I do an interview with [Holocaust survivor] Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?”

Is that the case? Are those who deny that the Global Warming that occurred between 1970 and 2000 (there has been no change the last eight years) no better than holocaust deniers? Let's look at them. There are a few deniers associated with the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine ... 31,000 of them! "On May 19th 2008, OISM announced that over 31,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 with Ph.D.s, signed a petition that states, "... There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate..." Signatories include such luminaries as theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, MIT's atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen and first National Academy of Sciences president Frederick Seitz. More than 40 signatories are members of the prestigious national Academy of Sciences."

Then there's the American Physical Society , which has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. "In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution." This Article shows one of the things they are discussing:
"WASHINGTON (7-15-08) - Mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports. Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007."

Let's not leave Europe out- in a paper from the Danish National Space Center entitled "Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich –
The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing", they authors say, "As for the upward linear trend removed from Fig. 2 (lower), it is customary to attribute to greenhouse gases any increase in global temperatures not due to solar changes. While that is reasonable, one cannot distinguish between the effects of anthropogenic gases such as carbon dioxide and of natural greenhouse gases. For example, increased evaporation means that infrared radiation from water vapor, by far the most important greenhouse gas, will tend to provide positive feedback for any global warming, whether driven by anthropogenic or solar forcing. In any case, the most recent global temperature trend is close to zero."

It's starting to sound to me that there's some wiggle room here, that anthropogenic Global Warming is "settled science" only to Al Gore. What is the truth? I don't know; I'm not competent to say. Neither is Al Gore. In fact, neither are many of the scientists on both sides of the debate; a scientist, when speaking outside his specialty, is merely an educated layman. Even Nobel Prize winners. You doubt me? I offer in evidence William Shockley
, 1956 Noble Prize winner for physics, co-inventor of the transistor, one of the founders of silicon valley... who believed that it could be mathematically proven that Blacks are inferior to Whites. His math was correct, but his presumptions were wrong- which is what Global Warming debaters are saying about each other.
This being the case, it bothers me that both Presidential candidates are big believers, and want us to spend a fortune on programs that will further damage our economy before it is even determined what can be done, and what should be. I'm hoping that the new Congress will consider any such measures closely.

Today's job market

A pet peeve I have about our denomination

is demonstrated by this video from the excellent DiscoverUU :

The Unitarian Universalist Association was created in 1961- only four people in that list lived beyond that date. The others may have been Unitarians, (although technically, some of them must have been Congregationalists, as the AUA wasn't formed until 1825), or they may have been Universalists, but they weren't Unitarian Universalists. Actually, I suspect that many of them, were they alive today, would be UCC rather than UUA.

What is this tendency we have to claim any celebrity in all of history who doesn't have a formal declaration of belief in the Nicean Creed on record as one of ours? Are we insecure about the comparative youth of our denomination, like a fuzzy bunny Wiccan who claims unbroken descent from Lilith? Whatever it is, I wish we'd stop; there's plenty to be proud of in the UUA's short history, and we should be touting that- we don't need to borrow glory from predecessors who may or may not even agree with what we are today.

Here's one I haven't heard before

Man goes to church. Man says he was asking God to have "a real experience" while praying at church. Man says he was so consumed by the spirit of God that he fell and hit his head. Man sues church!

An example of why P.C. "experts" are ignored

This headline from the Telegraph: "Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'"

"Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.
This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food."

Of course, everyone on the planet- expect for race relations experts- knows that toddlers are notorious for their food issues; every book on childrearing ever written contains a chapter on it. Sometimes they are finicky, sometimes they develop irrational hatreds of or attractions to certain foods at random- and then change their minds with a rapidity that leaves flip-flopping politicians in the dust. It is a natural stage of human development.

But that means nothing to such "experts", who can stretch farther than Reed Richards in the pursuit of offense. We are frequently chastised for using "code words" that are so well coded that neither the speaker nor the audience understood the "code". Indeed, sometimes the codes are not merely obscure, but fictitious; for example, "picnic" has nothing to do with lynching, "rule of thumb" is not derived from wife beating, and people went on "outings" long before gay activism. You'd think "experts" would use Google or Snopes before going out on a limb, but then as a rule they don't have to worry about anyone calling them on it.

I just pray that the spicy food hadn't been packed in a brown bag .

UPDATE: I've just learned that "Black Hole" does not mean a collapsed star with near infinite gravity, as I've believed all my adult life; it is a racial epithet. So is "Devil's food cake", according to this Dallas County Commissioner

Apparently, in Provincetown

"sex on the beach" is not a drink. I've seen this story a number of times over the past week, but could never come up with a satisfactory comment. Then I realized that the perfect comment had been made forty years ago.

Parents, are you raising children or adults?

This is the question asked by sociologist and youth minister Jim Hancock in his book "Raising Adults: A Humane Guide to Parenting in the New World". What he means by that is explained in this Indianapolis Star article : "Our task has often been defined as raising children," Hancock said, "and ultimately that's what we've ended up with -- adult-aged children who don't feel very well prepared for life in the real world. I think if we were to shift our emphasis to raising adults, everybody is happier."

Jim describes a method of parenting that teaches children how to become independent. "One thing we should never ask our kids is, 'Do you have your jacket, homework, gym bag, backpack, keys,' listing everything I can think of that you might possibly need in order to survive your day. I think effective parents learn to ask their children, 'Do you believe you have everything that you need for today,' and teach their children to figure out what is on that list." He demonstrates classic errors: "Hancock tells the story of a woman who skipped a business meeting to take her adolescent son's homework to him at school. "I thought, 'how long has she been doing that?' Probably since he was 6 years old, and he's learned to depend upon her for those kinds of details. He will be very angry with her one day when she takes a vacation or dies and he's left without his homework. Not to mention when he's 32 and the boss needs the memo, and his mother is not there to bring the document to him."

He also offers a free online book , "Ten Things We Should Never Say to Kids".

Women earn only 87% of what men earn

if they work for Barack Obama, according to this story from the Cybercast News Service. The 26 men working for Obama's Senate staff office average $55,962.00 per year; the 31 women average $48,729.

What about McCain? After all, "Mr. McCain is an honorable man, we respect his service. But when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer," Obama said in Albuquerque, N.M. last week. Of McCain's non-intern employees, 30 were women and 16 were men. After excluding interns, the average pay for the 30 women on McCain's staff was $59,104.51. The 16 non-intern males in McCain's office, by comparison, were paid an average of $56,628.83.

Hmm. That is a clear difference.