Uruguay lifts ban on gays serving in military

When Latin America is teaching the United States about human rights, the world has truly come full circle. Read the rest of this post...

Got vitamin D?

It's Sunday. So let's venture off politics for a moment. During my last physical, my doctor suggested I get tested to see if I had a Vitamin D deficiency. I was like, the sunlight and milk vitamin? How do you not get enough of that? Doc said, lots of people don't, and lots don't get tested. So we added the test into the mix, and what do you know - deficient. The "cure" is pretty simple - take 1,000 IU of Vitamin D a day, easily bought at the local pharmacy (I get the 2,000 IU pills and split them). Don't self-medicate, because there's no way of knowing if you aren't getting enough Vitamin D, and if you are, you don't want to OD on the stuff. But do ask your doctor about it at your next physical - after all, that's why we pay the losers at Blue Cross so much money every year. Here's a recent article about it as well. Read the rest of this post...

Creepy older guys protest Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame

It's telling that the pro-life guys doing the protesting are both men who clearly didn't graduate recently. I'm all for public protests, but there's an astroturf quality to some of these religious right protests, and conservative protests overall. You'd think, if the students were truly upset that Obama was coming to their school, that some - uh - students themselves might protest?



Note from Joe: "Creepy older guys" is a term that describes too many priests and other leaders of the Catholic Church -- and most of their allies in the right wing (Tony Perkins, for example). This whole episode is a sad commentary on the Catholic Church in America. And, my mother, a solid Catholic, agrees (although she wouldn't use the term "creepy older guys.") Read the rest of this post...

Are we a nation that lets its leaders torture for political reasons?

Do the American people support torture purely for political reasons? That is the operative question. And, that's what the Bush administration, led by Dick Cheney, did. They wanted to show links between al Qaeda and Iraq. Those links didn't exist. But, Dick Cheney was determined to find them -- even using torture.

Watch David Waldman from DailyKos explain it:

The traditional media wants a sideshow. But, the American people have to know what our leaders did. Read the rest of this post...

Rumsfeld sent Bush creepy Top Secret religious updates about the Iraq war

Frank Rich reported on this last night. GQ has copies of the documents (I show two of them above, GQ has lots more). I'm a Christian. This is creepy. They look like "end of days" propaganda created by a cult or the Unibomber.



Here's Frank's description of the memos:

This Sunday, GQ magazine is posting on its Web site an article adding new details to the ample dossier on how Donald Rumsfeld’s corrupt and incompetent Defense Department cost American lives and compromised national security. The piece is not the work of a partisan but the Texan journalist Robert Draper, author of “Dead Certain,” the 2007 Bush biography that had the blessing (and cooperation) of the former president and his top brass. It draws on interviews with more than a dozen high-level Bush loyalists.

Draper reports that Rumsfeld’s monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America’s most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.

Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)

What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

Read the rest of this post...

The state, the parents, and the kid with cancer

We got quite a reaction from yesterday's post about the young boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma whose parents were refusing to give him chemotherapy for religious reasons. Ultimately, the courts intervened and ordered him to get treatment. You can check out the comments for yourself. Here's one reader John sent me by email:

A thirteen-year old is not competent to make this kind of decision for him/herself. The parents, in my opinion, are just plain goofy. Okay, so I don't believe that religion trumps the rule of law. In fact, I don't think that religion trumps much of anything. The parental rights should be terminated and the kid treated and it should have been a long time ago.

Let the kid live and choose how to die when s/he's old enough to make a stupid-ass decision for him/herself.

OK, so I sorta believe that religion is somewhat akin to brain-washing. I put the existence of a deity right up there with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. That's not to say that religion doesn't do some good. After all, for years it protected royalty around the world and kept the masses subjugated. And, hey, what the heck. What's a little biblical approval of slavery among white friends?

The best thing that religion does is promote a value system. But, how many politicians follow the prohibition against stealing? Adultery? Lying? ad nauseam. Our corporate "citizens" are even worse. Great examples for the youth. What have they learned? Hypocrisy. Cheating. Lying. After all, the adults do it.

It's sorta like the myth of the Old West. Shucks, Ma'am. Kissing one's horse. One well-placed shot solves the problem. The triumph of virtue over evil-doers. Like the white faces trampling on the rights of the Native Americans and stealing their lands and mineral and water rights. Did I mention genocide?

Ah, yes. All justified by so-called christian religion.

I have no compunction having the state declare the parents' rights here, null and void, with respect to medical treatment for cancer.

Read the rest of this post...

Russian government brutally breaks up gay pride parade, again

Two years ago, the Russian police sat back and watched as thugs violently beat gay marchers, including Members of the European Parliament. This year wasn't much different. It's really astonishing how backward Russia still is. Not in terms of its acceptance of gays. In terms of the fact that government violence is still tolerated, and sanctioned, when the party in charge disagrees with the politics of its people. It's another lesson in nation-building. Just because you throw out communism doesn't mean you get democracy in its stead.

(And just because you have nukes doesn't make you a man either.) Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Way too much focus on the idiotic faux controversy at Notre Dame. The traditional media has let a small, extreme group of fanatics blow this thing up. And, they're giving the nuts lots of air time today, too. It's ridiculous. I knew it had really gone way, way overboard a long time ago. But, it was all re-confirmed yesterday when I saw Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council debating a Catholic priest/professor on MSNBC yesterday -- and Perkins was trying to school the priest on the Catholic Church.

Now, the smack down between Senators Kyl and Webb should be good. Webb is tough and very smart. Kyl is an idiot. A scary idiot. Same for the debate between Tim Kaine and Michael Steele. Steele should be no match. But, he'll provide some good fodder for the week. Although, the Kaine-Steele debate is on "Meet the Press" so David Gregory has the capacity to turn it into a boring, non-event.

Interesting pairing of Liz Cheney with Steve Schmidt. She is truly her father's daughter: paranoid, nasty and ultra-conservative. Schmidt is trying to moderate the GOP. George has to ask about gay marriage. Schmidt supports it. Love to know where Liz stands. After all, her sister is a prominent lesbian with a child. Does Liz think her sister is worthy of marriage equality?

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Jim Webb, D-Va.; Republican strategist Liz Cheney, daughter to former Vice President Dick Cheney; Steve Schmidt, adviser to John McCain for the 2008 presidential election.
___
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union; Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.
___
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Democratic National Committee chairman; Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
___
CNN's "State of the Union" — White House Budget Director Peter Orszag; Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio; actress Mariel Hemingway; director Barry Levinson; Emily Toates, student at Notre Dame and member of "Right to Life" group.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame; Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

I'm finding these shows less and less relevant by the week. Read the rest of this post...

Once in a lifetime

Same as it ever was...same as it ever was. David Byrne must have been thinking of banksters. And torture. Read the rest of this post...

British banking chiefs continue to make mega money

Unless this economy hits another thud - which remains very likely - no real change will ever happen with this pampered bunch. They're convinced that they are worth it and when leading political figures run to make millions from them after leaving office, it's no surprise that nothing is changing in terms of pay. Why would our political leaders deprive themselves of their retirement plan? Well, retirement plan that is in addition to the one taxpayers already funded. They really are despicable. Bankers too.

The heads of Britain's biggest banks are enjoying salaries far in excess of other leading chief executives - in spite of the recession. In fact, according to new research, the annual take-home pay of some senior bankers is larger now than it was before the credit crunch triggered the run on Northern Rock in September 2007.

The revelation is likely to further anger members of the public and MPs who have expressed concern about remuneration levels in the City.

A report last week by the treasury select committee claimed that the bonus culture among banks had encouraged a "lethal combination of reckless and excessive risk-taking". But according to a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be screened tomorrow night, the basic pay of leading bankers has defied the economic downturn.

The programme claims that, historically, bank bosses have been paid the same as their FTSE 100 peers, but in the past 10 years their salaries have outstripped them. Research conducted for Dispatches reveals that, in 2008, bank bosses earned an average of £255,000 a year more than their FTSE 100 peers.

Read the rest of this post...

Neaderthals eaten by humans?

They were Dextered but not thrown away. Neaderthals were dinner, plus fashion. The Observer:

One of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.

The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said the jawbone had probably been cut into to remove flesh, including the tongue. Crucially, the butchery was similar to that used by humans to cut up deer carcass in the early Stone Age. "Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them," Rozzi said.

The idea will provoke considerable opposition from scientists who believe Neanderthals disappeared for reasons that did not involve violence. Neanderthals were a sturdy species who evolved in Europe 300,000 years ago, made complex stone tools and survived several ice ages before they disappeared 30,000 years ago - just as modern human beings arrived in Europe from Africa.

Read the rest of this post...