In a move that makes sense only in a parallel universe- the Department of Homeland Insecurity and Fear Mongering is cutting anti-terror funding to cities with high security concerns, like New York, Washington DC and Seattle (remember, before 911 there was a plot to blow up the Space Needle in 2000- not to mention we do have a large port).

“It doesn’t seem to make sense,” Bichsel said. “New York is down 40 percent? Washington? Again, the money is not following the threat level.”

It does make sense if you are trying to spread the moolah to your red state supporters.

The Guardian has an interview with Al Gore. Go read it and try not to feel too bad that we got the Decider instead.

Post-Oil Man by James W. Johnson

I know- I keep promising a follow-up on the superjumbo healthcare post. But I’ve got a small glitch that I am trying to think my way around. The original idea was that you keep private insurance companies but payment for the premiums comes from the government. That way you ensure competition, keep prices down, and makes sure everyone is insured.

The problem is that in industries where there are massive government restrictions (aerospace for example) business found a way to push back by reducing competition. The companies either went out of business or merged to the point that there are very few companies who do the job now. With little competition, the amount of sway the government has is lost.

The whole reason to keep healthcare competitive is to prevent some of the problems other countries with universal care have had. That is one of the few benefits of coming to the game late, we get to see the trouble spots and plan around them.

In the mean time, a study has just come out that says Canadians and healthier than Americans.

Canada’s national health insurance program is at least part of the reason for
the differences found in the study, Woolhandler said

And just for fun (not because I’m procrastinating) here are links to the previous posts.

The Seattle Times has an article about the specter of Vietnam hanging over the war in Iraq. We may be blase’ about throwing comparisons out between the two wars, but the utter failure in Iraq is becoming an inescapable fact.

One of the reasons for Vietnam was the domino theory, that if we let Vietnam fall to communism it would spread around the region like dominos toppling. In Iraq the hope is that if we toppled a corrupt regime and put in democracy, the other regimes in the area would fall like dominos.

We eventually got out of Vietnam. We didn’t make it topple-proof from communism. But communism in most of the world fell apart anyway. So why are we in Iraq?Domino theory already failed.

I know the idea of an immediate pull out raises questions (at least in the minds of those of us who feel responsible for the current level of carnage) of responsibility to the Iraqi people. Does the Pottery Barn rule stay in effect when we break more with every attempt to fix the problem?

I’ve been reading this interview from Der Spiegel (in English at Salon- I don’t speak any German except hello and thank you) of Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

I was going to write more, take apart the interview piece by piece. But I find myself stunned by every new twist in it. I am not as pro-Israeli as most Americans. I think the Palestinians have a very serious claims to human rights abuses and that creating a Jewish State should not include the destruction of another people, even though the Jews were horribly abused themselves under the Nazis.

Throughout the interview there are bits where Ahmadinejad makes some pretty clear points. One about freedom of speech (when referring to several Europeans who have been jailed for being Holocaust deniers). Though Ahmadinejad seems to be a Holocaust denier himself. Another about the resettlement of the Palestinians versus the occupation by Isreal.

Ahmadinejad: Precisely that is our point. Why should you feel obliged to the Zionists? If there really had been a Holocaust, Israel ought to be located in Europe, not in Palestine.

Spiegel: Do you want to resettle a whole people 60 years after the end of the war?

Ahmadinejad: Five million Palestinians have not had a home for 60 years. It is amazing really: You have been paying reparations for the Holocaust for 60 years and will have to keep paying up for another 100 years. Why then is the fate of the Palestinians no issue here?

It’s difficult. On one hand Ahmadinejad is right about the expansion of nuclear powers, the monopoly of powerful western countries, the right of return for Palestinians. On the other hand, he sounds like a twisted version of our own Holocaust deniers and wingnuts. The Islamic version of the private militia, white power people who hide out in Idaho stockpiling weapons. Only he has the legitimate governance of a large, oil rich country and access to nuclear material.

Well, I started it as a group blog to discuss political ideas and cultural phenomenon with my favorite smart people. But (and I am singly responsible for this) all politics all the time makes me a dull girl. And I’m a poly- sci student. There is only so much I can take before my little mercurial self runs off to something else. But make no mistake- I always come back to the political.

So I post about shows I’ve been to or art I love or personal stories that don’t seem political at all. I get on kicks where I am railing against the patriarchy or organized religion or even just where the hell my Kleenex box has drifted off to. We have Fursday Fun just to lighten stuff up.

That doesn’t mean that serious pieces won’t get written or don’t have a place here.’They absolutely do. I just can’t be the one doing all the heavy hitting, and since I am doing the primary writing here – I do what I can to avoid either burn out or over-covering things that have been written about ad naseum by other blogs.

I hope that you all are enjoying the stuff that is not pure politics. I hope that you all are still happy to contribute the stuff that you all are good at writing about. I think MDH’s post on the new economic realities was fantastic. Wonder’s take on religion was very heart-felt and it was good to see the progressive side of Christianity represented. DeeK is forever my darling friend for helping me rail against the patriarchy, even though we feel very differently about immigration (or not so different- depending on the day). Phuxy is my brother in arms and bringer of teh funny- even though he is always in the middle of either midterms or finals.

With that I would like to introduce our newest blogger. Little Flower actually gets paid to write (can you imagine) and is damn good with the politics side of politics. I hope you all give him a big warm hello in comments.

The White Papers

Keeping with a recent theme at the White Papers, this is the first part of a reflection on Christianity that will take more than one post:

I’ve been troubled, since I memorized the Sermon on the Mount during my teen years in the ‘70s, by the divergence between the teachings of Jesus and the practices of Christians.
There is something decidedly odd about the fact that so many of those who claim the name of the man called the Prince of Peace — who preached non-violence, loving enemies and went to his death without a fight — have such a love of violence and war and knee-jerk contempt for those who do not share their beliefs.
What to make of this? One possibility is that these folks — in the spirit of Pappy O’Daniel in O Brother Where Art Thou I’ll call them “Kill-Your-Enemies Christians” — are not. They are the false believers mentioned repeatedly in the pastoral letters of the apostles Paul and Peter. However, that puts me in the position of judging the spirituality of people, a place I don’t belong.
The position on which I settled was that God intended that his followers to take a variety of positions. My justification for this was from Paul’s image of the church as a body, and his list of spiritual gifts. The idea is that God wills that Christians be both conservative and liberal, to have different theological beliefs, and to have all different types of talents and tendencies. It all melds together into a glorious pot that one day we’ll understand at the end of time.
It is unmistakable that different denominations and sects have used different passages to come to different conclusions about the meaning of scripture. I thought that was because there was some key to understanding that was not granted to us mortals. Maybe God didn’t want everything spelled out to prevent us from worshiping the text instead of the creator.
Now, however, I’m having second thoughts …

More to come sometime when I don’t have to coach hockey.

I have to be a real employee today (sucks) so posting will be light until I can return to my idle ways of glaring at students and dreaming that they installed a retractable roof and an open bar in my lab. It’s really beautiful here today.

In the mean time- for your reading pleasure

Salon has a fantastic interview with Karen Armstorng called Going Beyond God.

Very often people hear about God at about the same time as they’re learning about Santa Claus. And their ideas about Santa Claus mature and change in time, but their idea of God remains infantile.

From the NY Times: Government whistleblowers are dealt a giant blow by the Supreme Court

The LA Times looks at the power of charisma

More later.