I am easily amused

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Go forth and send this to everyone on your email list. Especially the Republicans.

History in the making

Mark this day in history:

Today, the Democratic Party selected the country's first African-American Presidential Nominee. Five months from tomorrow, Barack Obama will be the first black President in American history.

Remember what you were doing today. You'll want to tell your children and grandchildren where you were on this momentous day.

Every woman is a serial killer, every man commits genocide

We haven't talked a whole lot about reproductive rights and women's health as a political football, but I think we can all agree that it is a foundational issue of a progressive life, of allowing the freedom for women of every age, background, and social strata to determine their own reproductive destiny without restraint. I'm not just talking about abortion here, or the pill, but complete and total sexual autonomy, including the right to have a sexual life that is free from repression.

This topic has been on my mind a lot of late and yes, we'll be discussing both sexual education and abortion in a couple of back-to-back Second Saturdays in the near future (haven't decided when yet). But in the meantime, I may be spamming the community with links that are related to start fleshing out the field of debate and explore what it truly means to be a feminist*.

So, read about the latest brainstorm by the so-called "right-to-life" movement (don't buy into that framing...they should be called anti-choice and/or anti-woman) that pretty much outright confirms that their movement has nothing whatsoever to do with saving the widdle helpless babies and everything to do with controlling women's sexuality.

*Also, because this is as good a place as any to post it, the all-time internets-winning rantalicious manifesto on what it means to be a feminist.

FMLA

Just received this email from Working America about an attempt by the Bush Administration to gut the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Not all of us has made use of this critical right, but that doesn't mean we won't need to at some point, nor that we shouldn't all have the ability to do so.

If you're a parent, think how much different those first few months would've been if the FMLA hadn't been an option. (Nevermind that it's unpaid leave, which is a freaking crime anyway, but at the very least, you should be assured that you can take time off to be with a sick family member or a new baby without losing your job. We should never have to choose between family and work.) Or if one of your beloved family members became ill and you had to take care of them, if our medical information or that of your loved ones became available to your employers and coworkers...do you want that PITA from management to know medical details without your knowledge or consent? I don't. And I sure as hell wouldn't want to have to make more visits to the doctor just to satisfy some Orwellian requirement, especially at a time when medical bills would no doubt make my financial situation precarious (thanks to the fucked up insurance and health industry perpetuated by those same Republican assholes).

Please take the time to read the following and submit your name to the list of people demanding that FMLA be left alone.

They're doing it again.

Last year, the Bush administration's Department of Labor took
the first step toward making it harder for working people to
take unpaid leave for medical and care-giving purposes under the
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

They postponed their attack--because people like you spoke out
about the importance of family and medical leave. Today, it's
time to act again.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA

Why? Because they've proposed new rules that will make it more
difficult to take FMLA leave. But before they make any
decisions, the Department of Labor is accepting public comments.
This is your chance to tell them you oppose the restrictive
proposed changes to the FMLA rules.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA

Here's one of the changes they're proposing:

:: The Labor Department wants to let employers contact medical
providers directly, sometimes without employee consent. If these
proposed changes are approved, your boss-- or anyone at your
workplace--could be allowed to call and question your doctor
without your knowledge. This proposed change to the FMLA could
open the door to violations of your medical privacy.

That's an extra burden working people don't need, especially
when dealing with serious illness. Will you tell the Department
of Labor that you oppose this proposed change to the FMLA rules?
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA

Here's another change they're trying to make:

:: The Department of Labor wants to require more frequent
medical visits for workers who request FMLA leave. Who will pay
for these extra medical visits? You guessed it--you will, either
outright or through co-pays, and through lost time at work.
Plus, you could find yourself footing the bill for all the extra
paperwork your health care professionals will have to undertake.

Potentially sensitive communications with an employee's doctor
should be left in the hands of other medical professionals--NOT
placed in the hands of employers. Please respond now to let the
Department of Labor know that you're against this proposed
change.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA
Our strength is in numbers--we will compile your comments and
submit survey results before the deadline.

We only have a few days to tell the Labor Department how we feel
about their proposed changes to the FMLA. Together, the members
of Working America can make an impact. We've done it before--and
with your help, we can do it again.

Sincerely,

Working America, AFL-CIO

We're all wearing the blue dress now

As much as I LOATHE the Republican Party, there's a certain unabashed verve with which they perpetrate their crimes and misdemeanors that's impressive to behold, even if it makes me absolutely livid at whatever the latest shenanigan is.

Exhibit A: the entire Spitzer debacle. I'm still in shock at what happened, and it all happened so quickly that I don't think anyone's had time to absorb the magnitude of it yet. Like pretty much everyone else in the liberal blogosphere, I've been following Spitzer's career for years, since his time as a NYDA and then AG. He fucked some people's shit up, and they were the kind of people that aren't used to getting so much as a disapproving look while they lie, cheat, and steal, let alone indictments and verdicts. To say that the man has made some powerful enemies is the understatement of the year.

So the fact that he left himself so wide open with the prostitution thing is perhaps doubly boggling, and whatever else you can say about the situation, it's both sad and infuriating that he had such a massive Achille's Heel that he either couldn't or wouldn't fix.

HOWEVER. The way in which it all went down, and the severity with which they came down on his head smells exceedingly fishy, or should, to everyone that's not actually a, you know, fish. Conjuring up some 60+ year old law that hasn't been used in ages to get him on, and throwing the kind of federal resources on the kind of case that the feds normally don't even handle because they have far more important crimes to prosecute? Yeah, that's not suspicious in any way.

The good folks at firedoglake are on the case, as ever. And today, they've got a nice timeline of the whole affair (pardon the pun), with links to some very interesting documents that I think you'll all find interesting. Valentine's Day in particular.

Just What DID Trigger That Investigation of Spitzer?

I'm not saying we should excuse Spitzer for obtaining the services of a prostitute. It was wrong and he shouldn't have done it. But I'll note that David Vitter -- the Repub busted for visiting prostitutes for years (and whose predilections apparently involve wearing a diaper and other unusual kinks, according to the reports that floated around after that news broke) -- is still in office with nary a word that he ought to resign, even though he's in trouble for using campaign money to pay for his extracurricular activities. To say nothing of guys like Larry Craig, who's actually been convicted of a crime in relation to his extracurricular activities, and yet currently holds office AND all of his Committee assignments. And to my knowledge, there were no federal agencies involved in either of those cases, and certainly not the 5 or more that were/are apparently involved in the Spitzer case. Apparently, as in all other things political these days, IOKIYAR.

Sick Days

Ezra Klein regularly posts his graph about Americans' paid time off vs. that of the rest of the (CLEARLY MORE INTELLIGENT) industrialized world, and since he's posted it recently, I thought all y'all might be interested:

Ezra Klein: Sick Days

I think we're all aware that comparatively speaking, the paid time off (PTO) benefits in the U.S. suck massively, but that graph is a stark illustration of just how much it sucks. Note his clarifier at the bottom about how the U.S. stat is actually recorded on that graph.

Yes, that's it exactly

You're not likely to find a truer description of Republicans in power vs. Democrats in power:

Government as a Lemon

Short, sweet, and straight to the devastating point.

Guidelines

So, a little diversion from all the primary shenanigans.

Yanno, those things called "laws"? To paraphrase Captain Barbossa: "They're more what you'd call guidelines."

Discuss.

One America

John Edwards is giving his campaign withdrawal speech, and my heart is breaking. I've known it was coming -- how could you not, after the blatant and egregious lack of coverage of his campaign at every turn -- but it's not any easier.

I feel about John Edwards as a candidate the same way I felt about Al Gore as a candidate. It's only by dint of seniority that Al Gore takes a slightly higher place in my heart -- I campaigned for him every year he ran for the Presidency since 1988 -- but I feel about them both that they were two of our best potentials for the greatest presidencies of my generation, and destined to be marked down among the truly great in our history.

I (We) have been donating to Edwards' campaign every month since the day he officially announced in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. I've argued on his behalf in discussions about presidential politics, hoping to encourage people to check out his positions, his platform, his candidacy. He was the candidate truly invested in you and me, the every day people of this country, and a passionate advocate for the poor, a very large constituency that's been shunted aside and ignored by both parties for far too long. Unions, universal health care, progressive tax policy, education assistance, retirement insurance, federal work programs...these are honest-to-god progressive, populist reforms. They are the heart and soul of what makes a democracy truly great, what prevents the power and wealth from being concentrated in the hands of the few and privileged, what fulfills the promise of the American Dream, what ensures that your children will not have a lower standard of living than you do. And John Edwards was the first candidate in over 60 years who was running on this unabashedly populist platform.

Despite his withdrawal, he accomplished something great, which was to push the two frontrunners to move to more progressive, populist policies. Obama's rhetoric on the power of the people? That came directly from Edwards. Hilary's far-reaching healthcare platform? Almost verbatim from the Edwards plan. (And Edwards had his up months before either of the other two.) When one of those two become president, you will have Edwards to thank for their promises to make povery reform a central part of their presidency. You will have Edwards to thank for any push toward more and better health coverage. You will have Edwards to thank for the change in labor policy toward unions and organizing. You will have Edwards to thank for the move toward "rewarding work, not wealth".

We are facing what I believe will be the most difficult and challenging period in our history. And the next President is going to have monumental problems to fix, gigantic messes to clean up, and a morass of troubles to calm. An economy in freefall, skyrocketing energy costs, unsustainable consumption, inadequate/nonexistent healthcare coverage, an environment in crisis, criminal government activities, horrible foreign policy, an utter boondoggle of a war...you know the list as well as I do. I believe we are on the downward slope of the American Empire. Frankly, I think that's for the best -- we have been wielding our club of power like spoiled children without a concern for whom we hit or how much damage we do. But it will take a truly great and strong President to help us navigate our way into the brave new world ahead, this difficult journey from singular world superpower to something much more humbled (and deservedly so).

We are now faced with two history-making candidates. We are blessed as a party with an abundance of possibility, for I think they can both be outstanding Presidents, leaders we can be proud of and support fully. They were not my first choice, but I'll be solidly behind whomever the nominee ends up being. And I'll hope that they'll have the wisdom and the political savvy to choose Edwards as their Vice Presidential running mate.

Because in either 4 or 8 years, I expect to be campaigning for candidate John Edwards once again.

Peace go with you, John.

Baptism in the Religion of Science

This is a reprint of something I wrote for last month's Second Saturday. The topic last month was science, and the importance of a well-funded and well-supported scientific community to a nation's health and survival. I'm posting it here because I'm really proud of what I wrote and I hope maybe someone might chance to read it and contemplate my message.

Baptism in the Religion of Science

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy. -- Shakespeare, Hamlet

When we think of politics, science isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. And really, it shouldn’t, generally speaking. After all, science is a discipline ruled by logic and systematic testing of ideas and theories, not the sometimes erratic-seeming dance of compromise and diplomacy and arcane rhetorical maneuvers. While politics could certainly benefit from the injection of science – real science – science should never be held hostage by the fickle tendencies of politics.

But in the last decade – and most especially since the election of the Bush Administration – the sciences have been under a sustained and not-so-covert assault by the world of politics. We see it in the debate over stem cell research, over the question of whether to teach creationism as a science, the insistence that abstinence from is the only education that prevents teenage pregnancy, the regulation of mercury emissions, the unavailability of emergency contraception, the argument for clearcutting in the interest of “healthy” forests, the skepticism about whether global warming is really happening, and on and on.

The damage done to science and scientific advancement by this Administration cannot be overstated. As Chris Mooney, a leading journalist on science and intersecting politics, makes clear:

The broadest way of stating the problem is that throughout his presidency, Mr .Bush has let politics rule everything and left virtually nothing to dispassionate analysis. Preconceptions, rather than critical thinking, have driven policy. Indeed, the US federal government is staffed with legions of political appointees who think in raw political terms, often with a disregard for the long-standing professionalism of the agencies they find themselves lording it over. As a consequence, the US government has become a place where loyalty and the rewarding of prior supporters wins out again and again over careful analysis and expert judgment.

– Chris Mooney, “Out of the bushes”

The fact is that alongside the many egregious crimes – both literal and figurative – committed by this Administration, the assault on science and advancement in this country is damage that will take years, decades, possibly even a generation, to undo. The scientific philosophy – that underlying principle known as the Scientific Method – poses a very real danger to the parochial, small-minded, and backwards thinking of those who currently control Republican Party. Whether conservatism plays a role is debatable, but the conservatism currently exemplified in today’s GOP reflects the very antithesis of science. And thus it is threatened by the ideals of science, which, not so coincidentally, share a foundation with progressivism.

Which isn’t to say that progressivism is somehow “right” or scientific fact. Of course it isn’t, and believers in a progressive political worldview can be as susceptible to close-mindedness and logical fallacy as our counterparts on the Right. Nonetheless, today’s Extreme Right live in an insular world that neither understands nor allows the introduction of uncertainty, the questioning of What Is, the exploration of possibility. To do so is to undermine their carefully crafted illusion of rightness, and that is a threat they will fight to the end.

…the inescapable fact of both science and reality is that that we never know everything, and never will. Yet this pervasive state of uncertainty hardly lessens the moral imperative to take whatever it is that we do know and use it to improve our lives; and if we fail to do so -- because the issues are too politicized, say -- in the end we will have only ourselves to blame.

– Chris Mooney, “The Intersection of Science and Progressive Values”

One of the many unfortunate side effects of this trumping of politics over all else is that as a nation, our fellow citizens are themselves succumbing to the rising tide of ignorance and superstitious regression. In a country of critical thinkers, whose minds are disciplined by logic, the suggestion that our planet is only 6000 years old, that we all descended from a single man and a single woman, and that dinosaur bones were embedded in layers of rock by the devil would be – and should be – soundly ridiculed and laughed into oblivion. Nonetheless, in the year 2007, we are having serious discussions about whether to teach this mythology as science.

Thus the work to be done isn’t just in repairing the damage done by this Administration and putting controls in place to ensure that such an egregious crime against human intelligence and knowledge cannot be repeated in this country, but also to undertake educating ourselves and those around us. It means engaging their superstitions – and our own – and taking the time to understand how and why the natural world and the universe works the way it does. To learn to question, to be skeptical, to never be afraid of learning, to be open to possibility, to pursue knowledge.

It means reacquainting ourselves with the wonder and excitement we felt as children when we were overcome with awe at the knowledge that there once walked lizards that were hundreds of feet tall, that creatures more bizarre and fantastic than anything on a movie screen once lived on our planet and live here still, that our highest mountains were once under water, that molten rock regularly spews to the surface from our Earth’s deepest core, that there are worlds in our celestial neighborhood covered in gases that turn their alien skies yellow, that rains of hot acid fall from their turbulent clouds, that our Sun hurtles through the heavens at thousands of miles an hour, that stars can end in spectacular explosions that result in a gaping vacuum from which nothing escapes, that there are galaxies colliding and particles so small not even our most powerful microscopes can see them…in short, we must renew our faith in science, be born again in the philosophy of knowledge, and be ever vigilant of the twin temptations of apathy and ignorance.