The State of the Union Drinking Game
Number of hard ciders I would have had to down during Bush’s speech (with 10 tics counting as a full bottle): 17
Number of hard ciders I would have had to down during the Democratic rebuttal: 1.5

Want my thoughts on the SOTU? Click “more”. Realize though that if you click on the “more…”, you are choosing to read what I’ve written and knowing that I am not a fan of Bush, you are willingly choosing to read something criticizing our president.

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Kerry took Iowa.

Duuuuuuuuuude…

I’ve been resisting the urge to get catty and fisk the following but… I need something to vent my frustrations upon and since this person ends his tirade with a sentiment that makes me utterly ashamed to be American, I thought “why not?”

The unemployment rank fell much faster than expected this week. The government urges us to not look at just this week you need to take the 4 week average, yet this past week unemploment fell to 348,000 down from 391,000. One of the fastest drops ever. This also brings us down to emplyment levels of when Clinton was in office, so as we see the economy is no worse off than before President Bush took office!

Now we all should be happy! IF you care for the poor or the rich, then you will be happy. The only thing to be hateful about is if you HATE Bush, and HATE the country that is being made better!

OK… let’s talk about what is wrong with this picture:

1.) This blogger fails to identify the sectors where the growth occured. Was it service, manufacturing, tech??? Those have an impact because the service sector normally grows faster and offers more jobs… but at a lower pay and without benefits. Indeed, the growth was service sector jobs… which means that the nation’s unemployed people can be treated to a bunch of McJobs. Wanna know why this is a bad thing? Read Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenereich.

2.) This blogger has repeatedly ignored the fact that most presidents don’t have a lot of control over the business cycle. When Clinton was elected, we were in a recession. We rebounded during the Clinton years and actually kept things going well for longer than happened when Reagan supposedly rebounded the economy in the 1980’s. Bush’s economic plan is almost identical to Reagan’s. It didn’t work in the 1980’s (and increased our national debt) and it ain’t gonna work now.

3.) This blogger is quoting numbers… without looking at the other indicators. Yeah.. the economy grew 8%. Does this mean that all the unemployed tech people are working again? Does this mean that the laid off people are actually living without fear of forclosure on their properties? And does this economic boost apply to all areas of the country or is it focused in a region? I can tell you pretty honestly that the economy is still in the toilet and the Bush tax cuts aren’t helping a lot of people rebound. Wanna know my rationale for this? Looking at the people in my area, where I grew up (Silicon Valley), where we’ll be moving to, and looking at life in other parts of the country where my classmates are doing pastoral internships. Things still suck.

4.) This blogger is turning a blind eye to the fact that the Bush tax cuts mean that welfare mothers are having a hard time getting their kids daycare so they can go back to work. (This was in the November 3rd issue of the New Yorker in the quiz on the tenth 100 days of Bush.) If mothers have no place to leave their kids, how are they supposed to work? Head Start is a federal program which means that it needs funding. Funny how the numbers may say one thing but reality is another.

5.) The last paragraph indicates that this blogger is practicing idolatry as they are putting their country up on a pedestal and equating it with God. It’s one thing to love your country — it’s something else to ignore all the wrongs and not even consider that there is room for improvement. We had the world’s sympathy after 9/11 and we’re now hated. Am I the only one that sees a problem here?

As for loving the rich and the poor, I think our country does a crappy job of it. People can criticize France and Germany all they want but… they take care of their people. People can talk about how stupid Canada is but… they don’t have half the problems we do with crime, poverty, or terrorism. Why is this? They. take. care. of. their. people. Most things like Social Security and the FDIC were created in the Great Depression era to protect people. Why can’t our government think like this now?

Another thing: when all the right-wing fascists were complaining about Clinton, they were never told to go to Canada. (Most of us just patted them on the head and said, “Suuuuuuuure”.) Why is it that these people are telling those of us that disagree with our country (and unlike that blogger, have a brain) to go to Canada. If all of us went to Canada, I’d hate to see how messed up this country would be.

/rant.

Sometimes, I really wish David Horsey was better known. He sums up my feelings perfectly on so many issues…

For those who are in favor of gun control (and exercising the 2nd Amendment responsibly), join the NRA Blacklist.

Anyone want to do me a favor and tell me what sectors contributed to the precipitous GDP growth, considering that the job market is still really tight and most of those new jobs created are with the Asian counterparts of American companies?

Then there’s this little song…

We’re all Republicans now,
We’ve all come around somehow
We’re all wearing flight suits
With big parachutes.
We’re all Republicans now.
We’ll defend this land everywhere
From the comfort of our armchair.
We’re proud to be patriots, glad to be hawks.
We salivate whenever Rush talks.
We’re smarter and nicer and better than you.
We’re chosen to lead, and God says so too.
He’s a Republican
He’s a Republican
He’s a Republican now.

We’re all Republicans now,
We’ve all come around somehow
Even old Democrats
Can change their hats.
We’re all Republicans now.
Affirmative action must go
Unless it’s somebody we know.
We’ll put conservative judges back on the bench,
More executions, let’s start with the French,
No more free lunch, everybody must pay,
If you want health care, Canada is that way
We’re all Republicans
All Republicans
All Republicans now.
–Garrison Keillor

CT Weblog: Ten Commandments Watch Continues

I’m torn on this. On the one hand, I applaud Roy Moore for standing up for the faith and defending it against those who seek to remove religion from society. On the other hand, I believe in the separation of church and state and Moore’s religious defense of the monument on state grounds is a violation of that.

The Left Hand
Jon of Blog One Another raises an interesting point:

Helen, let’s say you belonged to a church in Indonesia. Your church was attacked by Muslim extremists: the building bombed, people hurt and killed. You identified the assailants and pressed charges against them. You, a Christian, and your assailants, Islamists, appear together in a court of law. And behind the judge, carved into the wall in large flowing Arabic script, are the words, “There is no God but Allah; Muhammed is the servant of Allah.”

How would you feel? Would you have a fair trial?

Jon’s point is this: is the placement of such a monument which conveys a religious message that may not be the one of the defendant a hinderance to justice being served? Is the message of such a monument the rules by which we are playing and are those that follow the tenets of that monument the ones who have the judicial advantage? Do only Christians deserve justice while pagans are denied?

Next question: if the argument for keeping the monument is that it represents something that influenced our justice system, shouldn’t there also be a monument to Hammurabi’s code or to Napoleon (i.e. for the Napoleonic code)? What about something relating to English common law (a monument depicting the Magna Carta)? Our justice system has many influencing origins and we shouldn’t be favoring one over the other.

Last point/question against the arguments in favor of the monument: I heard someone say on the news that it reminds us of our Christian moral heritage. (My apologies for not getting the name. I was listening to NPR on my way to the store.) So is it there so that people might see it and convert to Christianity? When exactly did our moral heritage become Christian. I’d argue that it’s Judeo-Christian at least and Abrahamic (including Islam) at most. You are not going to automatically drop your idols and believe in the Christian God just because you see 10 moral theses chiseled on a piece of stone. If it’s to inspire civic behavior, I’d argue that we are not a theocracy and therefore, not all of the 10 Commandments apply to our civic laws. If they did, the freedom of religion guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights would not exist.

The Right Hand
As much as I argue for the separation of church and state, I think we are too overzealous in separating the church from the state. I like that the ACLU argues for my civil liberties but they take it way too far. We can’t have manger scenes in public, but we can have menorahs and crescent moons. The people at my church in Santa Cruz used to joke that we went to the MLK Convocation every year because it was the one university event that was allowed to start with prayer. (I actually had a Biology TA ask me “what the h*** [I was] doing in Biology as a Christian????” That was the last time I wore my [very tiny] cross when I went to class.) We can’t sing religious Christmas carols in school; but we can sing Hannukah songs all we want.

I can understand the anger of many of those protesting the removal of the 10 Commandments monument. It’s a sign of their faith and denying its inclusion in public is equal to denying them the right to be practicing Christians. I am not ashamed of the Gospel even if I might occasionally be ashamed by some who claim to spread it; and I reserve the right to stand up for my faith in public. I support those who are there keeping vigil because I understand their position and respect their desire that their faith not be overlooked.

The Hands Clapping
So what is the action that should be taken? Should we engage in civil disobedience (a Romans 13 violation) to prevent its removal as Dr. Dobson is calling for on his radio address? Or… is Roy Moore wrong for supporting disobedience against the government of which he is an agent and to which he swore an oath to uphold the law? (This would count as bearing false witness [breaking an oath and in effect lying], which is one of the prhibitions in the commandments that Moore is trying to protect.)

We have a 10 Commandments monument in the courthouse square of the town in which I live which has the commandments in Hebrew and English. A fuss was made a few years back and the majority of people voted to keep it, with the added thought that the inclusion of the Hebrew added a cultural memorial aspect to it. Could they maybe chisel some Hebrew on there? (That might call off the ACLU dogs.) Or… could they maybe incorporate other judicial influences into the monument, which would make it a historical thing and not specifically religious?

This is definitely not a black and white issue!

CNN.Com: Simon drops out of California recall race

I think someone in the California GOP pointed out to Simon that he lost to Davis last November — before this idiocy even started and that if he was that unpopular then, did he really think he stood a chance now???

California is generally a moderate state politically, which means that Arnold’s platform is really where most people are at politically. The fact that the Republicans are pulling out their other people shows that they must be pretty darn desperate to get the governor’s mansion if they’re going to risk being laughed at for running the Terminator.

Oh… for those who think Arnold will magically solve California’s problems (or who think anyone is going to do better than Davis), you’re in a dream world. A regime change (not even a full one because the other state offices stay the same) isn’t going to fix the budget because THE MONEY ISN’T THERE. State workers are not going to magically get their jobs back and auto taxes are not automatically going to get cut. When the Dot.Com bust happened, the state lost a ton of tax revenue because people lost jobs and those high salaries that used to exist vanished. In other words, a major part of the state economy failed and that revenue stopped coming in. California may be the world’s 6th largest economy, but it’s a depressed economy. Basically, the lives of most normal people are not going to change all that much. Teachers are still going to be out of work and former geeks are still going to be looking for tech jobs in a place that doesn’t have them. (Hint: I hear Austin is prepped to be the new tech capital.) The only difference: a legally elected governor is probably going to be ousted because our idiotic previous governor (Wilson) signed deregulation into law which caused a power crisis 4 years later that crippled the state. (By the way, where was Wilson in 2000 when all this was happening? Yep… hiding because he didn’t want to face that he was responsible for this mess.)

And for the record, I actually have worked on campaigns in local and state government in California, which makes me a whole lot more credible on this subject than some people.