Al Gore - Presidential, Patriotic and Prophetic

Watching the horrifying new documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” based on a slide show Al Gore has given hundreds of times around the globe, I had two distinct impressions.

One, that Global Warming is not only a very real and scientifically proven phenomenon, but also a catastrophic freight train heading directly at us. Any child who can multiply and divide has to come to the same conclusion. And the conclusion is neither hyperbole nor overstatement.

Indeed, despite sniping from media morons (like John Tierney of the New York Times) who focus on the fact that Al Gore doesn't have the same screen impact as, say, Tom Cruise, or that the film has too much information and not enough entertainment (ooops--they forgot it was a documentary, not a thriller), the basic, scientifically undisputed facts are astonishing.

Global temperature has proven to be a function of, and determined by, carbon levels in the atmosphere. And the fact that carbon levels are currently multiples higher than they have been in many hundreds of thousands of years is an indication that global temperatures are going to continue rising beyond historical precedent--with absolutely devastating consequences.

After watching the film and reading the evidence, anyone who doesn’t agree that we are facing a global emergency of Biblical proportions is just plain stupid, ignorant, deluded or in denial. If anyone disagrees, I challenge them to point to ANY robust, peer-reviewed study that contradicts the research presented in the film. Otherwise, we all need to act quickly if we want to save the planet as we know it and prevent a flood of human misery and suffering.

The film, which details Vice President Gore’s background and adolescence, also provoked the sad realization that our nation would have been so much better off with President Al Gore.

While President Bush is incapable of speaking proper English, stumbles over words, and doesn’t seem to understand the simplest concepts, Al Gore is thoughtful, articulate, passionate and engaging. While Bush can barely parrot the talking points of his handlers, Gore is a solid extemporaneous speaker. I’m not sure if Bush is stupid, but he is surely, at best, a mediocre intellect. And his team has proven themselves incompetent, dishonest, corrupt, hypocritical, greedy, arrogant and destructive.

Sure, Bush has a great smile and can tell (his handler’s prefabricated) jokes with great effect, but it’s impossible to imagine him getting passionate or involved with any cause beyond his tiny set of oil friends or his ranch. He has neither the range nor the depth. Gore clearly has both. He would make an excellent foreign policy negotiator, perhaps the best steward of the environment in a generation, and hold accountable the same corporate interests that have the hapless Bush team in their pockets.

Looking back, it’s heartbreaking to imagine the wars, scandals, constitutional crises and policy failures that would have been avoided if the Supreme Court hadn’t given the victory to Bush.

Some would suggest that we shouldn’t look back, we should look ahead. But if we look ahead with the same idiots that got us into our current messes, we won’t fix anything. We have to look back and accept that the gross negligence, mismanagement and ineptitude of our current leaders disqualify them from being a part of any solution. Duh.

Al Gore would have surely avoided many of our current problems. Those who claim there is no real difference between the two political parties should have their heads examined. In terms of outcomes, our lives and our nation would be in a very different place, heading in a very different direction, if Al Gore were President. But thanks to this film, Gore may have a greater, more positive impact on our lives and future than we will ever get from eight years of the Bush disaster.

Barbaro and the Mighty Buck

It’s easy to look at a racehorse and see grace, dignity and athleticism. But those traits are in short supply when it comes to the horseracing industry.

The devastating injury at the Preakness to Kentucky Derby winner and race favorite Barbaro cast new light on a world that has always been, at bottom, seedy.

While Triple Crown venues feature wealthy horse-owners and dandy wannabes dressed in tuxedos and fancy hats, the racing world is really just another facet of the gaming industry. Indeed, there are few places in America more disgusting and depressing than an OTB (off track betting) outlet. Welcome to the daily business of racing.

On most nights, horse tracks and their betting outlets serve as grubby, low-rent destinations for degenerate gamblers, desperate down-and-outers and fraternity brothers on slumming road trips. And on any given week across the nation, thousands of horses race, many of whom are neither loved nor cared for the way Barbaro seems to be.

Horses are a business. They don't freely decide to join with human companions to win glory against others. Sure, they live to run, but they don't live to push themselves to the limits of their endurance or structural integrity. And as racehorses are selectively bred for greater speed and strength, breakdowns like the one Barbaro suffered are becoming commonplace.

As such, horseracing is yet another disgusting example of people using animals to try to make a buck. I would never stop anyone from racing horses. I would simply state that horseracing is a disgusting, disgraceful enterprise that should be shunned.

I have no respect for the wealthy egomaniacs who push their little corporate jets and Bentleys and horsies around the world to prop up their social status, nor do I have any interest in joining the swilling, drunken hoards stuffing themselves into centerfields to pretend to care about nationally televised races while they try to hook up or throw up. I can hang with that crowd on any given Spring weekend in Daytona or Cancun.

A pig wearing Christian Dior is still a pig. And while I’m happy to say a prayer for Barbaro, I refuse to see horseracing and breeding as anything but using animals for greed and status. There is nothing dignified or noble about it.

Pat Robertson's God Problem

American Mullah Pat Robertson disclosed recently that God told him 2006 will be a bad year for storms in the United States. Duh.

Of course, I don’t believe God spoke to Robertson. Not because Pat is a bigoted, intolerant, arrogant, superstitious loon. But because God told me he didn’t...

JT, I’ve never said a word to Pat Robertson. He’s a hostage taker, and the minute I open my mouth I won’t be able to shut him up. Besides, I never speak to Christians. Look what they’ve done to Jesus, turning him into an excuse for violence and hatred. And those awful portraits of him with pale skin and a morbid stare. Even worse, they claim I wrote the Bible. I mean, you’d think an omnipotent deity could do better than that creepy hodgepodge. Stoning people on the Sabbath? Me? Come on. And the guy who came up with Revelations was tripping on Sumerian peyote, in case you hadn’t already guessed.

Try to remember that Earth is a little speck of dust in my universe. I’ve created billions of galaxies, and billions of life-supporting planets in each galaxy. It’s a big challenge to keep track of. For example, there are eighty-six million genocides occurring at the moment. The one on planet Optrodus is particularly awful because it involves genetically targeted nanoassassins. Very sad, very messy.

And I should add that sixty-seven thousand planets will go extinct in the next terrestrial week due to poor stewardship, which doesn’t even include the nineteen hundred others due to supernova, asteroid collision and structural failure. The problems creatures create for themselves astonish me. Free will is complicated, but it doesn’t have to be lethal.

I often want to intervene, but that goes against the first principle of this whole thing of mine. If creatures take half the energy they spend on begging me to help them and put it into making their worlds better, the universe will be a significantly nicer place.

I know--you’re thinking that my communicating with you is a type of intervention, but it’s not. Nobody will ever believe you. For whatever strange reason, they keep believing religious fanatics and wingnuts like Robertson. It’s bad enough that preachers put words in my mouth, but the things they have me saying almost make me want the shut the whole experiment down.

Then again, when both suns rise at the same time over the yellow mountains of planet Grislbex, or when your whales sing their mating songs, or when….well, it makes it all worthwhile. Don’t you agree?

Theocons, Theofascists, Theobaloney

Theocons and Theofascists are finally turning on their Golden Boy Bush. According to the New York Times, a revolt is being led by Christian conservatives who feel betrayed by the President.

Does this mean the Radical Right are finally embracing rational thought? Hardly.

They aren’t pissed because Bush is an incompetent liar. They aren’t upset that he recently stated on the subject of Immigration that, “we are a nation of laws,” despite the fact that he chooses to ignore some of them. They aren’t upset that his Attorney General went on TV the next day saying that, “if laws exist, they have to be respected, they have to be enforced,” even though he has shown utter contempt for the ones he doesn’t like and doesn’t believe the President is obligated to follow. They aren’t pissed at the gross mishandling of Iraq or the ever-growing mountain of debt.

No, they are pissed because Bush and his Republican Congress aren’t radical enough. That’s right, the Theocons are angry because attempts to impose their superstitions on the rest of us have failed. They feel betrayed that our so-called leaders haven’t followed through on issues like outlawing abortion and prohibiting gay marriage.

But they fail to realize that their radical agenda is abhorrent to a majority of Americans and politically untenable. So, since they can’t force us to behave the way they want, some are becoming more militant, scary and dangerous. Don’t believe me?

Last week a new Theofascist group held “concerts” attracting thousands in San Francisco and Detroit declaring that Christian faith is under attack. The group BattleCry and its umbrella organization Teen Mania label the imaginary attack on their faith and values “a war” (does that remind you of the words of a tall, bearded, AK-47 toting man on the Afghan/Pakistan border, per chance?). Their rhetoric comes close to inciting violence, all in service of their warped interpretation of the Bible. As ever, when angry, fearful, narrow-minded control freaks cloak themselves in the language of absolute truth, bad things begin to happen.

I’m glad the hapless presidency of George Bush has been, in effect, emasculated. He is already a lame duck. But I’m horrified that arrogant, intolerant, divisive Theofascists are turning up the volume on their hatred, anger and self-righteousness. They have nothing to do with Jesus, and everything to do with social tyranny.

Fox "Journalist" Gibson

Here's a fun post from my new blog, Bible Fiction, dedicated to railing against the growing number of Fundamentalists pushing for Theocracy in America...

John Gibson, Partisan Hack

Liar Liar

Though none of the mainstream media outlets would touch it, rumors swirled around the Blogosphere this weekend that Bush Administration mastermind Karl Rove is about to be indicted for perjury and perhaps more.

I suspect it’s no mere coincidence that President Bush has a prime-time speech scheduled tomorrow night on the subject of Immigration. It provides a convenient spotlight to do damage control on the same day Rove’s indictment is likely to go public.

But no amount of damage control can salvage the Bush Presidency. Rove’s resignation will be the death knell of the Bush regime--perhaps the most corrupt and incompetent in our history. The Bush accomplishment list will remain blank until the end. But it’s not just Bush.

On Meet The Press today, Newt Gingrich responded to the recent corruption scandals and White House troubles by saying “I think there’s a problem in both parties.” Which is the dishonest dodge a lot of Republicans continue to use to hide the fact that their party has completely eclipsed the Democrats in the arena of corruption, bloat and pork.

The Republican Party has actually become a Reagan Republican’s worst nightmare. Where they used to stand for fiscal responsibility, they now support the biggest debt binge ever (and still growing). Where they used to stand for small government, they now support a President whose actions come closer to Big Brother than any in our lifetime. Where they used to stand for military savvy, they now stand for disastrous strategy failure. Where they used to stand for values, they’ve become this decade’s cigar smoking, poker playing, hooker hiring sleazebags.

When the Supreme Court gave Bush the Presidency, Republican friends assured me that even though Dubya seemed developmentally disabled, his hidden genius was in picking world class advisors. But now that several of his advisors and cronies (DeLay) are in jeopardy of going to jail, along with a host of supporting players from Cunningham to Abramoff already locked up, it seems my friends were perfectly wrong. The Bush Administration, including Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Don Rumsfeld, appear to be some of the most arrogant, treacherous, radical, cynical, inept, incompetent political operatives in memory. In short, disastrous.

Nowadays, when anyone admits being a Republican, I always respond: “Oh? You must hate George Bush.” Wide eyed, they often muster, “What do you mean?” But the answer is obvious. George Bush has as much in common with a Reagan Republican as a Sunni has with a Shia. Both Sunni and Shia worship the Koran, and both Bush and Reaganites worship tax cuts, but that’s where the similarities end.

Early in his Presidency, some opponents of Bush labeled him a liar. Conservatives dismissed the charge as hysterical liberal hyperbole, but history has proven them wrong, too. Not only have Bush, Cheney and Rummy been caught in too many lies and distortions to dismiss, but two of their top advisors allegedly lied to the Feds, not to mention the public.

As with any organization, corporate culture emanates from the top. In the Republican Party, dishonesty and hypocrisy have become endemic. And in the Bush Administration, lying seems woven into the cultural fabric. The likely indictment of Karl Rove will soon add yet another strand to his awful, sordid tapestry.

You're Wrong, Dubya

First of all, Mister President--Prove It.

Prove that your eavesdropping program doesn’t target ordinary Americans. You’ve long-since lost the trust of the American people, and it’s time to let the FISA court review your activities to ensure their lawfulness.

Your wiretapping speech today was deceptively precise. You said the government “does not listen to domestic phone calls without a warrant.” But you conveniently avoided the emerging fact that the government does a lot of other things to our phone calls without a warrant.

USA Today reports that the NSA now tracks most all calls, capturing the timing and numbers called without actually recording the content. Is this not “mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,” to use your words?

At the very least, it seems to violate the spirit of the law.

Secondly, your values and priorities are entirely wrong. You stated that “our most important job is to defeat this [al Qaeda] enemy.”

Wrong.

Our most important job is to safeguard the Constitution and protect the liberties and values our nation rests upon. If we discard or denude our values in the pursuit of an enemy, we've already lost.

But you just don’t seem to understand this fundamental distinction.

Indeed, you seem hell-bent on re-interpreting and selectively ignoring our laws to suit your own disgraceful partisan purposes.

Until you let objective third-parties review your spying activities, the public will justifiably view you as guilty until proven innocent, withholding the trust you have failed to earn.

UPDATE:

As the facts emerge and the discourse sharpens, one thing is becoming clear:

Though perhaps not listening, Big Brother is watching us closely.

The "New Paradigm" Lie

Remember the Internet bubble? Remember all those Silicon Valley eCommerce businesses going public and making fortunes for their employees and shareholders? Until the bubble burst and billions of dollars evaporated, destroying bank accounts and lives. The infamous rationale for that financial feeding frenzy was captured in a phrase: “new paradigm”.

Why are Internet companies trading at insane multiples? Where are the earnings? Where is the cash flow? Hey you don’t understand--it’s a new paradigm!

Of course, that assertion turned out to be disastrously wrong. There was nothing quaint or obsolete about the fundamentals of financial analysis. The present value of future cashflow was and remains the foundation of our capital markets. The new paradigm turned out to be a novel way to separate investors from their money.

Years later, we’re being sold the same bill of goods by Republicans, namely Karl Rove and his talking-point spinmeisters. They claim that Democrats are stuck in the pre-9/11 world while they are busy shaping the post-9/11 world.

Let’s call their theory the Post 9/11 Paradigm.

According to Conservatives, all the rules changed after the twin towers fell. Torture became necessary. Rendition became acceptable. Indefinite detention without recourse became the norm. Wiretapping without warrants became justified. After all, human nature and the principles and values we hold dear fundamentally changed on 9/11. It's a new paradigm!

Oh?

With the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War collapsing and the clamor for investigations, censure and even impeachment rising, the Post 9/11 Paradigm seems to be bursting like the Internet bubble before it.

People are beginning to realize that compassion, tolerance, justice, due process, moderation, oversight, caution, diplomacy, discretion, thoroughness, capability and service still form the foundation of our nation’s values.

Torturing our presumptive enemies (whose actual guilt or innocence hasn’t even been ascertained) is just as repugnant, barbaric and regrettable as ever. It still opens our own citizens to the possibility of vengeance and blowback. Indefinite detention is still as grotesque and inhumane as it was when the Soviet Union used gulags. Secret wiretapping can still lead to the same destructive, unjust and unconstitutional abuses it led to in the past.

No, human nature and the consequences of injustice didn’t change on 9/11. What changed was the level of our fear, and the willingness of politicians to stoke that fear for their own aims. So the next time I hear a Republican accusing Democrats of being part of the pre-9/11 mindset, I’ll remember a broker trying to sell me a hot internet stock based on a new paradigm--nothing but mistaken, self-serving garbage.