http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:25:37 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/14/202537.php YABOSIJustice Rhys Morgan in Canada told Steven Cranley that he "cannot form a romantic relationship of an intimate nature with a female person" as part of his sentence for abusing his former lover. I’ll give the judge a ten for creativity, but I have to wonder whether he’d been downing shots of Yukon Jack prior to making his ruling. How the heck are they going to enforce this one?I’m sure that many of us can cite examples of sexual relationships in which one side feels a much stronger sense of intimacy or love. In other cases, both sides may feel that their relationship is just a "fling" and remain friends even after the sex ends and they decide to move on. It also is possible for a non-sexual relationship to become close, and even obsessive to the point that it unhealthily interferes with a marriage or other aspects of life.So if sex alone is not the benchmark, how is a court to decide whether this poor slob has a girlfriend, or is otherwise involved in an "intimate" relationship, and what objective standard can it possibly assign? Will Cranley be arrested if he is observed going to a movie every week with a lifelong female friend? What if after a year of not having a girlfriend, he breaks down and hires a stripper to come in for a lap dance? Will he have violated his sentence if he becomes so enthralled that he considers the stripper his "girlfriend" for the time she is there, even if there is no abuse?Another interesting side-note to the case is that the judge did not appear to place any limitations on marriage. In theory, Cranley could find a mail-order bride on the internet and take out wedding papers while remaining in compliance with his sentence, putting the girl in a dangerous situation when she wants to leave after discovering that he’s a freak. I suppose it’s okay to expose a woman to a potential hazard so long as Cranley demonstrates some sort of acceptance towards traditional family values.One thing that is certain is that had this ruling been handed down in the United States, the outcry from both the far left and right would be deafening. The ACLU would be screaming about rights violations while evangelicals would be complaining that Justice Morgan is encouraging homosexual behavior by specifically prohibiting relationships with females (notice that his ruling mentions females only). Cranley’s race is not clear from the article but if he is anything other than Caucasian, you can bet that Al Sharpton would be praying at his side.I understand the judge’s concern for the safety of women that Cranley may encounter, however the ruling is lame. It puts the courts in the position of measuring the intimacy of a relationship, and specifying when a female companion becomes a "girlfriend". In short, it attempts to standardize a highly subjective aspect of one’s personal life. It also leads one to wonder how Justice Morgan concluded that three years is the right amount of time to keep Cranley away from intimate relationships. The judge could have done better had he simply sentenced Cranley as a first-time offender, to a couple of years in a minimum security jail with a requirement for intensive mental health counseling. Politics65269@blogcritics.org Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:25:37 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/13/125229.php YABOSIBaby George Bush's unwavering support of Attorney General Alberto "Albie" Gonzales is reminiscent of his support of the rodeo clown "Brownie" who was his FEMA Director when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. While Albie is more qualified for his job than was Brownie, he appears to have botched his job to the same degree...or has he?The question is whether Albie really is as dumb as he appears, or whether he just got caught up in the arrogance of this Administration that continually tries to convince the public that a president should be granted nearly unlimited power. Perhaps one day we'll hear Albie doing a Paris Hilton impression for the press, claiming that he plans to stop acting stupid and that his real issue is that he was too afraid to say "no" when asked to cross a line that he knows he should not have. In his defense, Albie has been a Bush loyalist for many years, at one point helping Baby George to avoid jury duty for a drunken driving trial without disclosing his own DUI conviction. He appears to be somewhat of a political moderate, since his potential Supreme Court nomination was quashed by the GOP's evangelical wing. Given his history prior to assuming the post of Attorney General, Albie looks to be Baby George's cowering finger puppet rather than someone who independently concluded that a few Democratic appointees were lousy U.S. Attorneys. Certainly presidents and cabinet members have always made loyalty and ideology important characteristics when building a team. The Clinton administration took this to a new level by bringing a young, highly inexperienced team into the White House, and the Bush administration has gone even further. This ever-increasing premium that is placed on ideological parallelism only worsens the partisan divide. Our next president needs to set an example by building a highly qualified team that is not rabidly idealistic, but experienced and able to cross party lines in order to serve the people of the United States.An extreme example of the Administration choosing ideology over talent and experience was the hiring of former senior Justice Department official Monica "Goody-Two Shoes" Goodling. According to former Ashcroft Chief-of-Staff John Ayers, "She was the embodiment of a hardworking young conservative who believed strongly in the president and his mission." In fact, Goody had no business being a senior Justice Department official at all, in any administration. Her resume shows that Goody had little if any experience practicing law prior to obtaining her position in the Justice Department. She graduated from Regent University Law School, a rinky-dink institution founded by Pat Robertson where "there is an attempt by professors to integrate biblical principles into areas of the law." It's difficult to fathom that there were no candidates from places like Harvard or Boalt Hall with more professional experience who may have been more qualified and possessive of better judgment.It's unfortunate for himself and for the Bush Administration that Albie lacked the courage to point out that firing eight U.S. Attorneys would cause more controversy and scrutiny than it was worth. Of course, he would not have been listened to, but at least he could have been on record as a strong individual, rather than a gutless wimp, or worse yet, an unqualified village idiot.In the end, Albie's sordid little affair may very well benefit the United States, provided the voters are smart enough to fill Congress with members of the opposite party from the president. If this is the case, then the next president will be under more scrutiny with regard to the issue of talent vs. ideology, as he fills his cabinet (for you "Swillary" lovers, I am using the term "he" generically). Regardless, Nancy Pelosi and the Dumbocrats should feel lucky to have this weapon in their 2008 campaign arsenal. Politics65209@blogcritics.org Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:52:29 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/06/124724.php YABOSIWith Hillary Clinton leading the Democratic fund-raising race, it's a sure bet that the issue of universal healthcare will come up. This will be controversial and confusing, as the candidates will blast one another's proposals and explain why only they can provide good and inexpensive healthcare for everyone. In the end, it is unlikely that anything will get done since a large enough proportion of each candidate's soft money contributions can be traced back to a PAC or individual with ties to the insurance industry. In any case, it will be entertaining watching the candidates attempt to differentiate themselves on this topic when all healthcare proposals may be placed into one of three general categories: Open Competition (today's status quo), Managed Competition, or Single Payer.Open Competition is the closest to what we have today. There are few or no limits on the number of insurers or the rates they can charge. There are state regulatory boards to weed out fraudulent businesses and ensure that insurers actually provide the services that they claim to. Health insurance is most often provided as a benefit to individuals by employers and the costs end up being passed on to the consumer. Small and medium sized companies purchase policies from smaller insurers that may place limits on various types of medication and procedures. There is no requirement that an employer insure every employee and there are few safety nets for people without insurance, except in cases when people are very poor. An uninsured member of the middle class can sometimes receive state-sponsored benefits by doing a "spend-down," which entails disposing of most of his liquid assets by prepaying expenses like auto loans and rent. The benefit of Open Competition is that there little government interference with regard to an individual's healthcare choices, and for those who are insured, the quality of healthcare generally is good. A form of Managed Competition is what Clinton proposed back in 1993. With Managed Competition, the government decides which companies may provide health insurance to the public and generally will require those companies to insure every citizen. Since insurers will have to provide some amount of free or very low cost benefits, they either will increase prices for their traditional customers (employers), reduce benefits, increase deductibles, or some combination of the three.Of course, consumers will foot the bill for price increases and those who currently are insured are likely to suffer a reduction in benefits to make up for the insurers' losses from being required to insure those who cannot pay. An interesting side-effect is that insurance companies will have an even greater incentive to enrich politicians, in order to keep the rules in their favor. Clearly, the biggest winners from Managed Competition will be people like "Swillary" Clinton and the few insurers that are allowed to continue doing business. A Single Payer system is basically socialized medicine as has been implemented in Canada, the U.K., and numerous other countries. With a Single Payer system, there are no insurance companies. The government is the single payer of healthcare expenses for each individual (less, of course, a deductible that may be based on income). It is hard to imagine a Single Payer system working effectively in a country as large as the United States.The cost of building and maintaining the management infrastructure will likely run in the trillions of dollars, and managing the quality of service will be a nightmare. As much as the threat of malpractice suits drives up the cost of healthcare, it does serve the purpose of helping to maintain a reasonably good overall quality of care. Regardless of whether a good job of implementation can be done, the insurance industry and politicians who are supported by insurers would never allow a Single Payer system to be set up.In my humble opinion, the best solution is to stick with an Open Competition model, but make a few changes that could help those who are under-insured receive some benefits. One is to provide additional tax credits to employers who insure every employee. Businesses already are allowed to expense their health insurance plans, but providing them a bonus for insuring all (including part-time) employees may increase the number of people that have some sort of health benefits. Another is to provide insurers with a tax credit for insuring people who are uninsured, but who don't qualify for Medicaid.Tax credits for companies that take steps to provide insurance to those who can't afford it are a better solution than building a large socialistic infrastructure on top of the ones we already have (i.e., Medicaid, Medicare and state programs).The next time you hear a candidate yapping about healthcare reform, try to figure out into which category his or her plan falls. In most cases, it will be some form of Managed Competition and there will be little real difference between what each candidate proposes. You may see an also-ran propose the Single Payer option, but it's unlikely he'll have a workable plan on how to implement or fund it. Regardless of what's proposed, I suspect that we'll have a form of Open Competition for a long time to come. Politics64891@blogcritics.org Wed, 6 Jun 2007 12:47:24 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/01/004444.php YABOSIMitt “Flipper” Romney has gone on the attack, saying about Hillary “Swillary” Clinton, “Her view is the old, classic, European caricature that we describe of big government, big taxation, welfare state.” Although he may very well be right, Flipper still is no better since there’s no way to tell what he really stands for.Flipper’s success at raising money is not surprising given the amount of flip-flopping that he’s done in order to position himself for evangelicals who make a habit of complaining about being ignored after they help GOP candidates win elections with their campaign contributions and ability to get the sheep into the voting booth. In addition to switching religions, Romney has flip-flopped on many issues, including abortion and even his political affiliation. It’s amazing how well the positions that he’s taken over the years have fit his target electorate and contributors.Flipper claims that his latest religious flip-flop is a result of an experience he had while driving in a blizzard in which he saw a bright light and heard a voice tell him that he’d lost his way. While he doesn’t say whether this experience was alcohol induced, he does say that it led him to move away from his Mormon faith in a new Christian direction that he still has yet to choose. I suppose that Southern Baptist is looking pretty good, given his political aspirations. Then again, perhaps it will depend on who donated the most cash to his campaign.Although Flipper’s use of a religious experience to justify his flip-flop is clever and appears to have been a success, it shows that he is not to be trusted by anyone. You can bet that as soon as there is a reason, he’ll find a new excuse in order to flip-flop again. This is a person who is out only for himself.Of course, Swillery is no better. She is a clever con artist who can make just about anything that she proposes sound like it greatly benefits society when in reality it benefits and enriches her political aspirations. It is a well-know fact that many key Clinton (both Willie’s and Swillary’s) donors are PACs that are affiliated with large insurance companies. Swillary’s indebtedness to them can be seen in her Universal Healthcare Project from 1993, in which she proposed a managed competition framework, rather than a single payer program that would effectively eliminate the need for the huge private health insurers who have enriched both she and her husband.It would not at all be surprising to see the Swill-lady attempt to resurrect her failed healthcare proposal should she be elected President in 2008. To make matters worse it is likely that she will give some access to many of her large Hollywood donors, placing our nation in the position of having its policies influenced by a strange mix of large insurers and far left leaning entertainers who are completely out of touch with the real world. So how do Flipper and Swillery stack up against one another when all is said and done? If you like evangelical rhetoric that envisions America as a Christian version of Iran, choose Flipper. If you like feel-good Hollywood-style far left rhetoric that provides a vision of higher taxes and poorer healthcare, choose Swillary. Either way we all lose. The irony here is that all we’re better off if both Swillary and Flipper are liars who don’t implement their vision du jour once elected. If one wins the White House then our best bet is to vote the opposite party into control of Congress. At least that will give us a fighting chance against the far left and right special interests that push them towards the ideological fringes. Politics64677@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Jun 2007 00:44:44 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/05/30/222305.php YABOSIYa gotta love the Creation Museum that recently opened in one of America’s true cultural and intellectual hotspots, Petersburg, Kentucky. As far as dumbing down religion, the beliefs espoused at this “museum” rank up there with the Catholic Church’s long-held assertion that the sun revolves around the Earth.Believe it or not, there are intelligent and educated creationists who actually acknowledge that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. Rather than deny the validity of proven scientific techniques such as carbon dating, they look for ways to reconcile their strong Christian beliefs with the large base of archaeological and anthropological evidence that shows our planet to be millions of years old. Like televangelists and Christian Coalition rhetoric, the Creation Museum is geared towards the lowest common denominator amongst Christians, and is either insulting, humorous, or both to those with an ability to read the Bible and think at the same time. The problem with evangelicals is that most are too lazy or lack the education to pick up the Bible and develop their own understanding of what it says without having it spoon-fed by a charismatic preacher in an Armani suit, or the help of a Christian theme park.As an example, most backwoods Christians think that a “day” from the perspective of Creation means 24 hours. Many educated creationists point out that a “day” of Creation time could actually translate to millions or billions of years, and that the Bible does not specify Creation as being a finite process. With these constraints removed, reconciliation of science and the Bible is possible if one considers that evolution is an ongoing process used to implement Creation. Unfortunately, most evangelicals are too brainwashed to accept that possibility even if they could understand it.So what’s my point here? It’s that religion has become so dumbed down in this era of mass media and technology that we have lost our ability to develop our own understanding of, and relationship with, God. We rely on snake oil salesmen like Jerry Falwell to spoon-feed us their interpretation of the Holy Scripture and blindly accept whatever we are told. It is this type of blind acceptance that Islamic fundamentalists use to convince uneducated and naïve young people to carry out their evil bidding of suicide bombs and murder, and is why religious fundamentalism of any kind is so dangerous.Once we give up our willingness to read and understand the Bible for ourselves we cede control of an important aspect of our life to another. If this isn’t a reason to fight hard for secularism then I don’t know what is. Culture64599@blogcritics.org Wed, 30 May 2007 22:23:05 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/05/29/200324.php YABOSINow that Baby George Bush has signed the war funding bill the Dumbocrats will look back on a missed opportunity. Rather then simply cave in to their fears of being seen as not supporting our brave soldiers who have been thrown into this misadventure, Congress should have seized the opportunity to create some semblance of balance in the policies that have moved from the extreme left to the extreme right in the past six years. Baby George has lived his life as a spoiled kid. His belief that he can do and say anything he wants was re-enforced while he had the luxury of a GOP controlled congress that would not break from him. Unfortunately the Dumbos lack the intestinal fortitude to slap Baby George until he realizes that he cannot continue to act like the brat that he is.The Dumbos should have had the guts to mix other policy initiatives with Iraq War funding, that continue to reiterate the message that Baby George no longer has a blank check. This would have meant pressing Bush on issues that are near and dear to him and his evangelical backers, or force America to make a final decision as to what to about Iraq. One thing that Pelosi and her core of losers could have done was to add federal funding for stem cell research and abortion clinics to the war funding bill. It is true that both these initiatives have nothing whatever to do with the war in Iraq, but the Dumbos needed to stand up to Baby George and say, "you can't have it all...you can choose the war or stem cells and abortion." Since the Dumbos lacked the guts to take this type of action, they failed miserably to restore our system of checks and balances which has fallen by the wayside over the last six years.Another rider on an Iraq funding bill that would have made sense is to either reinstate the draft or require two years of military service from all U.S. citizens under thirty. These are not uncommon practices, as many countries require some form of service in return for the privileges that come with citizenship. When service is required, it creates a military that is truly representative of the people, and a shared experience that spans all races and levels of wealth, leading to a stronger sense of patriotism and national unity.Clearly many people, especially neoconservatives, would scream at the possibility of their kids serving in Iraq. However, adding such policies to the Iraq war bill would have forced Baby George to place the burden of war across a much broader section of the American people, and would be a true test of the extent that Americans are willing to support this misadventure.Given their lack of guts and reluctance to force Bush to choose between Iraq and his far right domestic policies, the Dumbocrats have shown that they are no more trustworthy with power than are the neocons and evangelicals who are in charge now. It's a sad statement as to the future of our nation and demonstrates the pressing need for reforming our political process that it has allowed small but vocal and wealthy groups on the left and right fringes to hijack it. Politics64564@blogcritics.org Tue, 29 May 2007 20:03:24 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/05/18/152223.php YABOSINow that Jerry Falwell is dead, people are asking where his immortal soul will end up. His followers of course will say it’s heaven, but the smart money says that he’ll burn in hell. This raises the question as to how someone who appeared to have been so close to God could wind up in hell. It’s pretty simple, really. Falwell was a fake…a charlatan who preyed primarily on the less educated and those who could be moved by fear. Although claiming to preach the gospel while building his Moral Majority in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Falwell actually used many of the same tactics that Hitler did back in the 1930’s. The best example was his use of the “them against us” message in which he portrayed not just evangelicals, but all Christians as a minority that was being marginalized. This message, although a lie, struck fear into not only evangelicals, but mainstream Christians, convincing both groups to open their wallets at unprecedented levels.Interestingly, Falwell took a similar position to that espoused by the Ayatollah Khomeini, insisting that we should live in a non-secular state. Falwell’s vision for America was that of a Christian version of Iran in which religious influence is built into public institutions, with taxpayer money going towards promoting his brand of Christianity. During his rise, his opponents were too fearful of Falwell to point this out, and his political influence increased unchecked. Jerry’s legacy is still not clear. It’s possible that the GOP will be able to cure itself of the evangelical cancer that is destroying it from within, but this will take a long time. Everyone knows that non-secular states not only are repressive and go against traditional American values, but are doomed to economic failure. If Falwell’s policies, such as banning abortion and stem-cell research, are implemented then everyone loses. Banning abortion, for example, would be an economic disaster, resulting in more unwanted children whose parents are not prepared to care for them thus further worsening welfare, prison, and judicial systems that already are overloaded. Consider that even the staunchest conservatives acknowledge that unwanted children born to unprepared parents are far more likely than those who are not, to turn to crime, gangs, and violence, regardless of whether they receive spiritual counseling. Falwell’s myopic brand of Christianity fails miserably to account for this. Prisons today already are releasing dangerous criminals early in order to alleviate overcrowding. An increase in unwanted children who are more likely to turn to crime would worsen the situation, resulting even more early releases for criminals who would have an even greater opportunity to prey on society. The bottom line is that we all would pay a steep price in the form of more crime and violence, not to mention higher taxes and medical costs. At this point it’s fair to say that while Falwell had a Khomeini-like vision for America, and used some of the same tactics as Hitler did in his early days, he clearly does not rise to their level. However, should his vision and policies come to full fruition in the United States, his legacy may very well approach theirs, and the result would be an economic and social disaster for a nation as large as ours, likely causing levels of unrest and violence that we have never seen and don’t want to imagine. Politics64040@blogcritics.org Fri, 18 May 2007 15:22:23 EDT