Will the real morality please stand up?

Okay. The religious right has had their fun. They've had their day in the sun, professing to be the moral compass for our entire nation.

It's time to call bullshit.

South Dakota is now considering a law that would essentially make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. It may also make it okay to kill anyone who is supporting a woman choosing to have an abortion, including her own family.

Sorry, I don't care who your God is or what you think he says, but any asshole who calls for the murder of their fellow human beings doesn't get to tell anyone what is and isn't moral.

It's time for reasonable people to take back morality. It's time to define what is right based on common sense and reason. Belief in God should not be a prerequisite. Belief in humanity should be.

This country needs a new movement, with new leaders, who will fight to define a new, more sane approach to doing the right thing. And fight against those hate-filled hypocrites who've held a morality monopoly for far too long.

I wish our president would take the lead on this. But with half the country calling him a Muslim and the other half wondering if he's the devil, I can't see him doing anything to ruffle the feathers of the cuckoo branch of Christianity.

But he should. Because more than ever, this country needs real leadership. Real courage. Real vision. If Obama were to take on the religious right and stand up for real American values like compassion, reason and community he could go down as one of the greatest presidents our country has ever seen.

He has the brains and I believe he has the heart. But I just don't know if he has the balls.

Everything's free!

In a surprising move today, President Obama has made official the Bush policy of not paying for anything.

His new 2012 budget proposes about $3.7 trillion in government spending, supported by about $2.6 million in revenues. That's $1.1 million in free stuff!

When asked, an unnamed Obama official said "I don't know why we didn't think of this earlier, it's a no-brainer, really. Everybody loves free shit!"

No-brainer indeed. How much brains does it take to say 'screw you' to arcane accounting notions like paying for what you need?

Another staffer was equally excited. "I noticed Bush adding new programs and starting new wars all throughout his presidency while lowering taxes at the same time, but I never put two and two together. Turns out you don't have to!"

It's a good thing our schools do such a shitty job at teaching math or else people might raise a few eyebrows at this new approach. But when I tried to elicit some outrage from my fellow citizens, the most animated response was a dismissive "Who needs math? Video games calculate your points for you!"

To make sure Obama doesn't get all the credit for ushering in this new era of magical bookkeeping, Republicans are all over the interwebs promising to cut taxes even further while offering to cut mostly non-essential programs like student loans and home-heating assistance for the poor.

When pressed to explain why social security, Medicare and defense were pretty much ignored by both parties, a prominent political consultant retorted "what part of 'we don't have to pay for shit' don't you understand?"

Slow on the uptake, I pressed further, suggesting that a simple rollback of all the Bush era tax cuts would pretty much give us the revenue needed to cover all this stuff. Met with a blank stare and a whiff of disappointment, I finally moved on.

So, let's celebrate, people! Happy days are here again. Throw a big party. Put it on the credit card. America's buying!

Tough luck

Man, you won't believe the crap I've had to deal with this past week. Just the other day, I was on the phone with a customer service rep and my call dropped. Fuck! That's 5 minutes I'll never get back.

And the other day, I was at the store and got stuck behind some douche with like 200 items. Cock! I had to wait almost 7 minutes before I could proceed.

And get this, just this morning I was walking to the train station when a stiff breeze made it feel like 5 degrees for almost 8 seconds. Holy shitballs that's cold!

All of this misery got me thinking how lucky people are in places like Egypt. They are so wrapped up in this whole revolution thing, they don't have time to care about shit like dropped calls. Hell, most of the people don't even have cell phones!

And what about people in Mexico? With their ongoing drug wars? How do you give a shit about supermarket lines when you're worried about what might be lurking around the next corner? That's gotta make life pretty simple, no?

All over the world, people are dealing with war, famine, civil unrest and more. How great would it be if we had stuff like that to distract us here in America? You can bet we wouldn't be worried about the cold weather if we had to constantly wonder whether scud missiles were about to drop from the sky.

Sometimes I dream about dropping all of my worries and moving to one of these exotic, far-away locales.

But then I'd have to deal with the hassle of going through airport security.

Fuck that shit.

Remember when?

Remember when America was a hotbed for entrepreneurs? A place where taxes were low and the government just got out of the way and let business blossom? A place where a good idea and a hammer was all you needed to rise out of poverty and into the land of riches?

No? Well, that makes sense, considering that America never existed. Despite what Glenn Beck and others may have told you.

The right used to romanticize the good old days from a cultural standpoint. "Leave it to Beaver" was the model for their Utopian vision of a more perfect America. Of course, all it took was a few history books and a decent memory to debunk that myth. The 50s were hardly as 'keen' as the republicans like to think—filled with racism, sexism and a whole bunch of other 'isms'.

Now, republicans like to hearken back to that by-gone era of unbridled capitalism, when every new subdivision was an incubator for small businesses, filled with would-be Edisons developing the next big idea.

Except that era never happened either.

You see, if you look back at our country's most prosperous time, post WWII, what you'll find is a breed of capitalism so foreign to today's republicans (and most democrats) they might actually call it, heaven forbid, socialism! AHHHHHHH!

Now I know, most of you probably here the word socialism and think of the Stalin or the devil, but that's just because the right has done such a good job of painting government as the enemy, lying in wait to steal your unborn babies and kill your aging grandparents (or is it kill the babies and steal the grandparents? I never remember).

But if you really want to get a good sense of how socialism can actually work well, take a look at America in the late 40s and throughout the 50s.

Fresh off our victory on two fronts, our federal government created a program called the GI Bill. This provided returning soldiers with free college and a number of other benefits.

Our tax rates were also off the charts, pulling in up to 90% of income at the highest brackets.

And their was a grand bargain struck between businesses and labor to create a middle class of Americans that had never existed before. Companies (relying on heavy government subsidies) provided steady employment with good pay and benefits in return for the hard work and consistent buying power of their employees. It was a genius idea that led to an unprecedented period of prosperity. But the whole thing kinda reeks of socialism, no?

Today, we see politicians claiming they want to bring back the middle class. But they seem to have forgotten how it came about in the first place. Now, we can argue about the details, but slashing taxes for the rich and shipping jobs overseas seems a bit misguided to say the least.

But here's the real problem. Business doesn't care anymore. As Robert Kuttner points out in this excellent piece on HuffPost, today's businesses don't need the American worker. They don't need their labor and they don't need their purchasing power. They can get all of that overseas. All they want is lower taxes so they can fatten their paychecks and share the wealth with their rich investors.

So who is left to make sure Americans can earn an honest living? That's right folks, it's your good old friend, the government again.

The natural evolution of the economy is drawing more and more resources away from the U.S. It's a simple fact. But that doesn't mean we have to accept a continued decline in our standard of living. There is plenty of work to be done right here on our own soil. Our roads, bridges and mass transit systems are crumbling. Our airports are outdated and ill-equipped for the 21st century. Our buildings are highly energy inefficient. The list goes on.

But without government support, that list will remain unfinished forever. And without more jobs, our country will continue its devolution into a land of a few haves and a whole bunch of have-nots. It's bound to make people pretty cranky over time. Mix in our love of guns and our penchant for violence and things could get ugly.

Now if only the democrats could grow a pair and make their case to the American people that their way is the best way out of this mess. If not, they're likely to be the ones caught in the crossfire.

Baby it's cold outside, global warming must be a hoax

Okay, who can tell me the difference between New York and Earth? C'mon, show of hands now. Aha! I knew you could do it.

Too bad this schmuck can't.

Bill O'Reilly has a 'call into Al Gore' to help him understand how New York can be going through a snowy winter at the same time we are experiencing global warming. Hmmm, let's ponder this for a nanosecond. Last time I checked, New York accounted for about .025% of the earth's total square mileage. Now, I'm not a math major, but I have to imagine that it would take an exceptional drop in temperature in New York to even make a dent in the average global number.

But from where Bill O'Reilly stands, we are clearly in the middle of an ice age.

Now, unlike most of his compatriots over at Fox, I actually believe that Bill has a bit of gray matter floating around in that fat skull of his. So I have to think he's either being disingenuous with the whole "holy shit it's snowing, there's no global warming" bit or he's recently been hit in the head.

I also think he must have an awfully short memory. Because, by his same logic, we were in the midst of severe global warming just last summer in New York. Remember that Billy? It was about 92 degrees for 3 straight months from June through August.

But guess what? As much as I wish that little bit of info would actually prove the existence of global warming and shut these idiots up once and for all, it proves absolutely nothing.

Because the other thing that climate change deniers just don't seem to grasp is the difference between 'weather' and 'climate'. We can experience a cold spell and still be in the midst of a warming period. Too put it simply is weather is what's happening right now, while climate is what's been happening for years.

I have to wonder if climate change deniers freak out every time the weather changes. "It's been raining for two days straight, holy shit, it's gonna rain forever!" "Oh wait, now it's been sunny for week! Guess we live in a land of eternal sunshine!" "Hey! It's foggy, why is the world covered in fog now?"

Now, I would love to point and laugh at these dimwits all day, but unfortunately there are enough people who think like them to bring down the whole process of addressing climate change. How can we fix something if people don't even believe it's real?

It's gotten so bad that President Obama didn't even mention global warming in his State of the Union speech. Which is understandable, given how divisive the issue is. But it's also completely unacceptable.

Because if the leader of the world's 2nd largest polluter, a man who actually believes in climate change, can't muster up the guts to speak about it, we're fucked.

But hey, my thermometer says it's only 26 degrees outside! So we've clearly got a long way to go before the planet really gets cooked.

How Mubarak is like Pauly Shore

For you kids out there, Pauly Shore was a 'star' on MTV for a few years back in the late 80s and early 90s. He wasn't particularly funny or talented, but he managed to build a nice little career for himself. He even made a few movies, including the classic and somewhat successful Encino Man.

But that wasn't enough for him. He went on to make the movie Class Act, which was most definitely not a success. Lesson learned, right? The people had spoken. Time to get out of the game.

Nope. He hung around, spitting out another half dozen or so movies over the next few years, each likely worse than the next (I haven't been able to find anyone who has actually seen one of them).

Because he hung around, he ended up a joke (more than he was from the start), destined to play out the rest of his life making lame cameo appearances and occasional stints on VH1 'remember when' type shows.

And that's kind of what Mubarak is doing right now, on a much grander and more violent scale. We tolerated you for some time. You weren't a standout by any means, but you served a purpose.

But c'mon dude, the people have spoken, quite clearly. The jig is up (and gone!). What are you trying to prove by hanging around at this point? Are you trying to be a dick? If so, it's working.

Sure, you've said you don't plan to run again in September. But why wait? In Pauly Shore terms, that's about 5 movies too long. Just get the hell out now while the getting is relatively good.

The more you allow this to drag out, the more the responsibility for the violence falls on your shoulders. You don't need to go out like that. Don't be a Pauly Shore or a Brett Favre.

Be a real man.

Keep the life preservers on the boat

It's time for poor people to stop abusing the welfare system to get their fat checks and government cheese. Why don't they just get a job and stop sucking at our overly generous federal teat?

Everyone knows that the government should only be offering benefits to those who already have stuff. Got a farm? We'll pay you to run it. Got oil? We'll pay you to drill for more. Got a factory in India? We'll pay you to build 5 more.

Got a kid and nowhere to live? Screw you. And your little rug rat too.

You see, it's so much harder being a middle or upper middle class person in America. So we need to make sure those folks are well taken care of. Sure, most of those people have easier access to credit, better health insurance and safer neighborhoods. But fuck, they earned all of it through hard work.

Usually the hard work of their parents. But hard work nonetheless. It's not easy growing up on the hardscrabble streets of a mostly white American suburb. Have you seen Breakfast Club? Detention? On a Saturday? Fuck that's harsh.

So, it's only fair that those who own homes get a huge tax deduction. And those IRA contributions and capital gains should get favorable tax treatment as well, obviously. To the victors come the spoils, as they say.

But man, when some city dweller starts crying because they can't feed their baby and can't afford rent, that really sticks in my craw. You made your bed, now lie in it. Oh, that's right, you don't have a bed. Whatever, you get the point.

Think you deserve a better chance at the American Dream? Well, you should have thought of that before you decided not to be born in a better area with more opportunity. You should have thought of that before you chose to go to an underperforming elementary school. You should have thought of that before you surrounded yourself with adults who didn't have connections at good colleges and top companies.

And now, some of you want a handout? Some of you want to take advantage of the system and manipulate it to your advantage? Wow, you've got some nerve. Everyone knows that type of behavior is best left to the people who really need help.

Like bankers and car companies.