Superstorm Sandy

Wow.

Just..... wow.

The images coming in from the destruction caused by hurricane/superstorm/Frankenstorm/whatever Sandy are incredible. Streets of New York City underwater. Tunnels flooded. Fires destroying 80 homes in Queens. Oceanside houses wrecked.

Even as the storm passes, challenges remain. Close to 8,000,000 people without power. The mass transit system of NYC completely shut down. Water on the runways at Laguardia. Feet of snow falling in West Virginia.

My thoughts go out to those in the affected areas. It appears that the federal response has been swift, with the President declaring disaster areas, and receiving and communicating information all throughout the night. Even Governor Christie of New Jersey has praised the President's response to the disaster, which really says something. President Obama and Governor Romney have put aside the campaign for the moment to focus on the relief efforts (though, honestly, the cynic in me says that is at least partly because campaigning during these events would appear insensitive, thus losing votes). Even though it can't be a major concern at the moment, part of me does wonder what sort of an affect the storm will have a week from today, when people from all over the country will (at least try to) go to the polls. The NYSE was even brought down for two days because of this, something that hasn't happened due to weather since the 1800's. This is perhaps one of the most astounding symbols of how historic this hurricane truly has been.

For now, the focus will be surviving the storm and picking up the pieces. It remains to be seen exactly how much work that will require, and what the financial cost of this tragedy will be. It's nice to see that the country seems to be pulling together in support of the affected region, but at the same time it saddens me that it takes a historic storm of epic proportions for this to happen.

RIP George McGovern

George McGovern has died at the age of 90.

Regardless of his political positions, every person who considers themselves a patriot should respect McGovern for having the courage to stand up for his convictions. His vocal protest of the Vietnam War gave a voice to so many of the voiceless soldiers who were used as pawns by their own government without having a say in the matter. Standing up and speaking your mind, even against the government he served, was a true embrace of the ideals embedded in the founding of our country.

It sickens me to see some of the comments that people have posted about McGovern. I shall not dignify them by quoting them here; instead, I link to a Yahoo article with a comment section so you can see for yourself the vile trash that comes from the fingertips of such radicals. This sort of behavior should not be tolerated; it should be vigorously pointed out that one cannot call themselves a patriot while simultaneously speaking such things about such a great American. A true patriot agrees to disagree with others while still respecting each others' rights to their own opinion. A true patriot follows in the footsteps of our heroes and works with those he does not agree with for the betterment of our nation. A true patriot does not think of other Americans as the enemy because they do not agree with his opinion. This is the sort of thought that the founding of America was expressly supposed to stamp out, that those who created this great nation sought to escape from. Anyone espousing such views is the true traitor to the American way.

Let us on this day celebrate the life of a true patriot and pay no mind to those who would show him hatred, for they are not true Americans anyway.

RIP George Stanley McGovern,
July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012.

It Has To Stop

Ever since the release by an American citizen of an anti-Islam film, Muslims around the world have been rioting, targeting American interests in particular. Whether the protests are because of the video or the video is just a pretext for attacks is debatable.

However, it seems that American embassies are not the only things in the cross-hairs. Today in Bangladesh, Muslim protesters burned Buddhist temples and homes after complaining that a Buddhist man had insulted Islam.

This is beginning to get ridiculous. Well, it has always been ridiculous, and I just feel like something needs to be said. The interesting thing is that Islam itself seems to be the main religion most forgiving of blasphemy. According to Leviticus 24:16 of the Christian Bible,

"And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death."

The Bible clearly sets a death penalty for blasphemy; furthermore, it is discussed in multiple places throughout the Bible as being unforgivable:

Mark 3:29 - But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.

Luke 12:10 - And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 

These are just two examples. Judaism has similar teachings; for example, the Leviticus passage is part of the Torah as well. What's more, Israel has current laws punishing blasphemy:

Insult to religion
170. If a person destroys, damages or desecrates a place of worship or any object which is held sacred by a group of persons, with the intention of reviling their religion, or in the knowledge that they are liable to deem that act an insult to their religion, then the one is liable to three years imprisonment.
Injury to religious sentiment
173. If a person does any of the following, then the one is liable to one year imprisonment:
(1) One publishes a publication that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others;
(2) One voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others.

 Maybe not as extreme as those suggested by Leviticus, but it's definitely nontrivial.

So, you must be thinking: wow, if Christianity and Judaism do that, the Quran must take it to another level. In fact, on the subject of blasphemy, the Quran says...

...wait for it...

Nothing.

That's right, the Quran, the holy book of Islam, says nothing about blasphemy. Furthermore, the hadith, the teachings attributed to the prophet Muhammad, also say nothing on the topic. How can this be? It seems that Muslim jurists created the offense of and punishment for blasphemy, and added it to the Sharia law. Punishment for blasphemy has nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with the extremists doing everything they can to control the masses. It's easier to control everyone when they are only allowed to think one way.

Unfortunately for many common citizens in the Middle East, this is the only way of life they know. The teaching of the religion is so closely tied into the Sharia construct that it's hard to tell the difference. The radicals in charge are in complete control of the masses; because the "sin" of blasphemy is so ingrained in the everyday Muslim, all the leaders have to do is point to a target to send the masses into a riotous frenzy. The people don't know any better; not only are they used to blasphemy being handled in such a way, but it must go through their mind that if they don't react violently to an offense, will they be seen as sympathetic to it and therefore a blasphemer themselves? And so they riot, and destroy, and kill. It's a vicious cycle that doesn't seem likely to stop anytime soon.

As much as we in America would like to, we can't blame Islam. We can't blame Muslims in general. In fact, the religion of Islam itself is the one thing that can correctly be said to not be a contributing factor to this mess at all. We need to fix the situation in the Middle East, but to do that, we must first understand the situation. We cannot paint all Muslims with a broad brush. The average Muslim is no different from you or I in principle. The line of thought that "all Muslims are terrorists" or "Islam is a hateful religion" only serves to add to the chaos in the world. I write this article so that we can better understand the situation, because without knowledge, we are no better than those we rail against.

 

A Not-So-Civil View On Civil Rights

civil rights (n): Personal liberties that belong to an individual, owing to his or her status as a citizen or resident of a particular country or community.

With that out of the way, I'd like to direct you to Ann Coulter's comments on who deserves civil rights.

I'll give you a moment to recover from your shock.

.......

Ready? Okay.

While there are many good choices, I think this was my favorite quote:

"We don't owe the homeless. We don't owe feminists. We don't owe women who are desirous of having abortions or gays who want to get married to one another. That's what civil rights has become for much of the left."

So it seems that, in Ann Coulter's mind, a certain class of people deserve equal rights only if they have been enslaved in the past. I could go on a diatribe explaining why this is categorically ridiculous, but I'm not sure Miss Coulter leaves anything to be said. The fact that she thinks rights are some sort of currency to be doled out based on the degree to which a class was repressed is nonsensical. Whether or not this is more crazy than the fact that she seems to believe that immigrants, women, and homosexuals have never been repressed is debatable. Miss Coulter's ignorance of who deserves rights is surpassed only by her blatant disregard for current and historical events.

I don't think it possible for anyone to defend Miss Coulter's remarks. Whether or not you are pro-choice, whether or not you agree with gay marriage, no matter your beliefs on immigration, you cannot possibly believe that personal liberties and freedoms should be bargaining chips to be used as payment to bury the past. Shame on Miss Coulter for her remarks, and I believe that she should apologize: not to women, or gays, or immigrants, but to all Americans who should be offended that a woman who claims to be an American can have this sort of view on civil rights.

Forgetting the 47%

We've all seen the video clip by now, with Mitt Romney discussing how he feels about voters who support President Obama:

Romney has since doubled down on his comments, while allowing that they "were not elegantly stated". I suppose that's smart; he'd have a hard time trying to explain that he didn't really mean what he said. After all, the comments were made during a private fundraiser that was not supposed to be filmed, which would seem to be a perfect setting to speak candidly about what he really believes.

Most people shouldn't be surprised that Romney feels this way. By now we are all well aware of his total and utter disconnect from the issues that trouble anyone not at the very top of the income spectrum. His "lower the rates and broaden the base" statement is about the only concrete piece of policy we've heard from him in the entire campaign. Apparently, the 47% of people who owe no income tax each year are all completely dependent on entitlements, and have no desire to move up the economic ladder.

After all, we all know that the 50% of recent college graduates that can't find a job are just sitting back and loving it. The elderly who receive no income could be in the factory working their butts off, but they just think they're too good for that type of work. And soldiers? They think that just because they're on the front lines of the War that Never Ends that they should be exempt from getting a real job and actually doing something for their country? Please.

Humorously, many of the 47% that Romney has such contempt for are probably supporters of his. Seniors have tended to back the GOP for some time now. The military will always have a strong connection to the party that can't cut a penny from defense spending (even though our military spending is more than the next twenty largest military spenders combined). Many southern states that back the Republicans based on religious and social considerations (the "Bible Belt") are among the poorest states in the nation.

The former governor's comments are ridiculous in every sense of the word. He has tried some damage control, but cannot stop himself from saying stupid things. As quoted in this article, Romney believes that his comments underscore his effort to "focus on the people in middle". How are you focusing on the middle of the country if you have thrown out nearly half of it? The hits just keep coming in an interview with Fox News:

"There are a number of retirees and members of the military and so forth who aren't paying taxes and that's how it should be. 

"But I do believe we should have enough jobs and take-home pay such that people have the privilege of higher incomes that allow them to be paying taxes. 

"I think people would like to be paying taxes. The good news is if you're doing well enough financially that you can pay a tax. And the problem right now is you see in this country so many people have fallen into poverty that they're not paying taxes they have to rely on government and the right course to help them is not just to have government handing out but instead government helping people to get back to good jobs."

It's funny how in one breath you can stand by your comments, and in your explanation, you completely change what the comments said in the first place. The quoted remarks are clearly in direct conflict with the position that the 47% of people who do not owe income taxes are dependent on government and do not want to take responsibility.

We all knew how Mitt Romney felt. Still, there's something sickening about hearing it come so bluntly out of his own mouth. It saddens me that a man such as this can be so close to becoming the President of the United States of America.

Obama Isn't Cooking The Books

So, I was just poking around the internet and started to get interested in saying something about this. During this election cycle, we hear an earful from the GOP about how the unemployment rate is "actually much higher than the 8.2% number that the government reports". In one of Mitt Romney's latest appearances, he said that "the true number... is probably 15 percent".

Now, we can argue until the end of time about what is the best way to compute this, and other, statistics. What I have an issue with is the seeming implication of many in the GOP, leading to belief by many Americans unable to think for themselves, that President Obama is somehow manipulating the unemployment numbers to appear more favorable for himself. The fact is that Obama is using the same numbers that have been calculated for decades, and the last major change of any kind that would affect the statistic came in 1994, when the questionnaire was last significantly changed.

There are multiple measures of unemployment, which FactCheck.org has conveniently explained in this article. President Obama is doing nothing wrong or different by reporting the U-3 number; it's the same number the last President Bush reported as well. And back then, I don't recall Republican congressmen saying that it was important to change the way unemployment is calculated, as has seemingly become so important to them in this election cycle.

Even so, it is noteworthy that while the GOP touts that states with Republican governors are doing better with unemployment, they use the U-3 number to do so, which is the same number they criticize the President for reporting.

So much hypocrisy... though I'd be lying if I said I were surprised at this point.

GOP Fanatics Are Only Hurting Americans

By now, I'm sure the whole country is aware that the Supreme Court of the United States has (more or less) upheld the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. This isn't stopping Republicans from fighting it; if anything, they have only been invigorated in their efforts to kill the ACA.

Many GOP leaders have redoubled their efforts to deny health care to the masses. In this article, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell said that the decision "marks a fresh start on the road to repeal". Senator Rand Paul goes as far as to question the validity of SCOTUS's decision, saying "just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so". It's interesting that when the decision goes their way, the GOP seems to believe that the Supreme Court's word is absolutely unquestionable. Clearly their opinion has changed.

Even more harmful than rhetoric, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal refuses to implement Obamacare even after the ruling by the Supreme Court. The ACA does allow until 2014 for states to set up health care exchanges, even though people desperately in need of health care obviously would like their state to move more quickly than that. Instead of going forward with this, Governor Jindal has decided to put his efforts into making sure Mitt Romney is elected to repeal the law. Clearly, this is not helpful to the citizens of Louisiana. Jindal, along with many in the GOP, has decided to completely abandon any semblance of trying to make economic progress in this country in order to launch a full scale assault on Democrats in the fall. This not only affects those in need of health insurance, but the country as a whole that needs the full attention of all its leaders at this critical economic juncture.

Certainly, this will be the GOP's excuse for not getting anything done until the election. They are "putting their efforts into a full repeal" even though it is clear that that just isn't possible at this time. This means that they will accomplish absolutely nothing, and the GOP's base will absolutely eat it up. I suppose one could view this as a genius move by the Republicans, though the only reason it can work is because it is what their base wants. To get rid of Obama and his signature piece of legislation at any cost, even it it means completely paralyzing the country until at least November.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/29/3682585/kentucky-sen-mcconnell-vows-to.html#storylink=cpy