Progress Report: Nearly There

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Yepper. Less than 8,000 to go, and only 1/2 day of work standing between me and a completed book.

I could probably even sneak out for Thanksgiving, but not if I want those last 8,000 words to be more than useless babble. The bits that are left require research. So home I stay, and fajitas I eat. Mmmm, fajitas.

For my fellow NaNo sufferers, who may be staring down the barrel of a seemingly-impossible deficit right now, I think that the encouragement from the Life After Faith appendix is appropriate:

Caucasian mountaineers had a proverb: "Heroism is endurance for one moment more." What you're going through may seem like it's unendurable, but if you keep your focus on getting through for just one more minute, you'll get through. It's how people end up becoming heroes, and it's how people end up with a reputation for being courageous. They're not doing anything particularly remarkable. They're just getting through for one moment more.

Survive enough of those moments, and you'll find you've made it through. Even the worst times end. One thing I've learned in my life is that if I endure the bad times long enough, something good is waiting for me. Something changes. And it was worth holding on for.

Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust and went on to become an eloquent advocate for human rights, knew more about despair than most of us ever will. "We have to go into the despair and go beyond it," he said, "by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else." If you're feeling despair, probably the last thing you feel like doing is embracing it, but simply fighting it is exhausting. I've followed Elie's advice, and found that by embracing my moments of despair in order to channel them into something else, using them as the driving force to help other people, has taken away their power to hurt me. When pain or despair are used to do something positive, when they become useful, they're much easier to handle. They become almost welcome, and then one day, without my really noticing, they're gone.

The Japanese have a wonderful proverb: "Fall seven times, stand up eight." It goes perfectly with Confucius's wise words: "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." It's hard, when we're knocked flat by the agony of losing most of the things and the people who defined our lives up until now, to believe that we can ever rise again. But we can. If you look, there will even be a hand extended to help you back up just when you least expected one.

Finally, I'd like to share some excellent advice from St. Francis of Assisi. "Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible." Look. Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I can't quote a religious man who made a great deal of sense. And he's right: by not trying to do it all at once, by taking things step-by-step, you'll find yourself doing things you never thought possible.

Three days, my darlings. It can be done. And if you have to cheat, get drunk, and go on a 10,000 word stream-of-consciousness ramble that's only remotely related to the book, well, so be it. Quantity over quality this time round. Don't worry if it doesn't really fit.

That's what revision's for.

Going Home for Thanksgiving? You Might Need This...

I need to see about collaborating with this delightful progressive on future projects:

Oh, Lordy. It is that time again. Thursday is Thanksgiving— the official kickoff event of the 2008 holiday season. For a lot of progressives, these festivities also mean that we're about to spend more quality time with our conservative relatives over the next six weeks than is strictly good for our blood pressure, stress levels, or continued sanity.

[snip]

These family gatherings were hard enough to stomach through the appalling years of the Bush Adoration—but this year, it's likely to be even worse. Our beloved family wingnuts were insufferable, in a grotesque Mayberry-on-acid surreal kind of way, while crowing into their succotash about the manly Godliness (or was it Godly manliness?) of Our Divinely Ordained Commander-in-Chief. But this year's different. This year, they're on the way out of power—and they're scared witless about it. Which means big steaming heapin' helpings of liberal-bashing are likely to be featured prominently on the menu next to the mashed potatoes, as they put fresh vigor into every paranoid anti-liberal fantasy ever spouted by Rush, Reverend Pat, or their new darling, Sarah Palin.

The black guy won. Armageddon—or, at the very least, socialism, atheism, gun control, and a national epidemic of erectile dysfunction—must certainly be at hand.

As you prepare to head once again into the family fray, it might be useful to note that most of the right wing's favorite anti-liberal slanders are rooted in some deeply-held—and deeply wrong—assumptions about who liberals are, and what we believe. If your relatives, God bless 'em all, insist on going down that road, your best defense this year might be to listen closely for these underlying myths and fables at work—and be prepared to challenge them head-on when they surface in the discussion.

Here's a basic set to get you started. Tuck it away in your bag with your Xanax and Maalox, and apply (liberally, of course) as needed.

#8, "Liberals are Godless—and therefore, amoral," is my especial favorite, in light of the book I'm writing. But they're all wonderful, and should come in useful once it comes time to once again be subjected to ye olde "Libruls are whut's wrong with Amurka" lecture.

This is one of many things I'm thankful for - I do not have to go through this agonizing torture. For those of you who do, good luck and my sympathies, my darlings.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

(Tip o' the shot glass to Crooks and Liars)

An Observation

I've just spent the last couple hours reading Christian bullshit spewed out in secular threads, and it has led me to consider revising my book.

Here is the revised version of How to Talk to an Atheist in its entirety:

"You know what, don't bother. I didn't want to talk to you, anyway."

Sigh.

At least I'll have all of the lovely hate mail I can post for our entertainment...

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

George W. Bush: clueless to the bitter end:

President and First Lady Bush recently sent Jewish community leaders invitations to a Hanukkah reception at the White House next month. But as the New York Post reports, the invitations “raised more than a few eyebrows” because the image on them was that of a “Clydesdale horse hauling a Christmas fir along the snow-dappled drive to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave”...

Laura Bush's spokesperson said that detail had just "slipped through the cracks." So did everything else, like defending the Constitution, governing sensibly, and understanding just what it is that a president is supposed to do.

George W. Bush: useless to the bitter end:

Ryan Avent considers what could have been.

[George W. Bush] very easily could have asked Congress to send him a stimulus bill, even a modest one, amid an intensification of what will likely be the worst recession in thirty years, if not longer. It would have made a difference. It would have made the season a little more bearable for the growing numbers of unemployed, and it would have made Obama's task a little less daunting.

Instead, he's spending his waning days weakening environmental rules, helping his cronies get jobs in the professional bureaucracy, and preparing his pardons. What a stupid, despicable man. History can't judge him too cruelly.

I am, not surprisingly, sympathetic to this perspective. But reading it reminded me of something: for all the talk in far-right circles about Bush not being conservative enough, some of his most painful disasters came because he refused to stray from his conservative ideas.

This is probably a little too casual an analysis, but it seems this touches on one of the more glaring differences between Bush and Reagan -- both instinctually backed conservative ideas driven entirely by far-right ideology, but Reagan reversed course when those ideas failed. Bush didn't.

Bush is like an ox: when he gets settled into a routine, he can't get out of it. He doesn't seem to have the capacity for actual thinking, much less changing the thing that can loosely be termed his "mind." It's a good thing we only have another couple of months' worth of this fucktard. I still have no idea why we elected such a fuckwit twice.

And he's still doing his level best to ensure America can't confront the climate crisis:

The Bush White House, though in the shadows of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition effort, continues to subvert the rule of law and impede action on global warming — in other words, Bush isn’t just pardoning turkeys. Last week, the White House emailed mayors asking them to oppose the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft proposal for greenhouse gas regulations. According to the Washington Post, the email by Jeremy J. Broggi, associate director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs reminded mayors to formally submit complaints to the EPA:

At the time, President Bush warned that this was the wrong way to regulate emissions. Chairman John D. Dingell called it “a glorious mess.” And many of you contacted us to let us know how harmful this rule would be to the economies of the cities and counties you serve.

Broggi, a young Dick Cheney protegé, also linked to a November 20 U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog post by Bill Kovacs that makes the absurd claim regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act “will operate as a de facto moratorium on major construction and infrastructure projects.” Broggi’s lobbying against his own government is nothing new — last year the Department of Transportation lobbied Congress to oppose global warming regulations.

To avoid action on global warming despite a direct order from the Supreme Court, Bush’s people have brazenly flouted their Constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the law, ignoring science, ignoring Congressional subpoenas, even ignoring emails from the EPA. Just as former attorney general Alberto Gonzales claimed the Geneva Convention’s ban on torture was “quaint,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson called the Clean Air Act “outdated” and “ill-suited” to the task of regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

However, it is the approach of the likes of George Bush, Stephen Johnson, Bill Kovacs, and John Dingell to the climate crisis that is “outdated,” “ill-suited,” and “a glorious mess” — not laws like the Clean Air Act.

Someone tell me again why we didn't impeach this sorry son of a bitch.

I'm thankful for many things this Thanksgiving. One of them is that we will have a man with an actual brain and the ability to use it in charge. But there will, alas, be no end to stupidity and Republicon snivelling. Some of the enfants terrible are headed back to Congress:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) reportedly told colleagues at a Senate prayer breakfast last week that she feels "lingering resentment toward Democratic senators who campaigned against her." Collins reportedly confessed that that she had "trouble forgiving colleagues" who campaigned against her.

It marks an interesting twist in the tension between the two parties -- now, it appears, Democrats are just too mean.

I'm afraid this is pretty silly. Members of one party, as a rule, want to help defeat members of the other party. This does not make them Big Meanies. If Democratic senators traveled to Maine to smear Collins with sleazy attacks and vicious personal lies, I could understand holding a grudge. But as far as I can tell, Dems primarily accused Collins of voting with Bush too much of the time. This hardly constitutes a cheap shot. Indeed, it happens to be true.

But when the truth hurts, Cons don't buck up and face it like courageous human beings. They throw tantrums and start obstructing anything and everything in sight.

Such as health care reform:

The Washington Times fired off two separate editorials today criticizing incoming Health and Human Services secretary Tom Daschle’s Federal Health Board initiative and progressive health care reform. Universal health care “would also reduce consumer choice and drive many private insurers out of the market,” the Times claimed:

Although his board would technically have no say on the 68 percent of health care that is provided through the private sector, Mr. Daschle modestly adds: “Congress could opt to go further with the Board’s recommendations. It could, for example, link the tax exclusion for health insurance to insurance that complies with the Board’s recommendation.” Those last 19 words would spell the end of independent private-sector health care in America. [Tony Blankley]

It would result in massive increases in federal spending, higher federal taxes and taxpayer debt being passed on to our children and grandchildren. It would also reduce consumer choice and drive many private insurers out of the market, leaving all but the wealthiest Americans with little choice but to receive care from the resulting government monopoly. [Washington Times]

The attacks are certainly reminiscent of the conservative effort to mischaractarize President Clinton’s health care reforms. In 1993, the Heritage Foundation labeled Clinton’s plan “a massive top-down, bureaucratic command-and-control system that would meticulously govern virtually every aspect of the delivery and the financing of health care services for the American people.” An influential editorial published in the Wall Street Journal by the Manhattan Institute similarly described the Clinton plan as a “coercive” proposal that “takes personal health choices away from patients and families.” [Health Plan’s Devilish Details, WSJ, 9/30/1993]

Fifteen years later, conservative talking points — however consistent — still don’t match reality.

I'm having a heart attack from not surprised. You know, it would have been nice if once - just once - the Cons could act like grown-ups instead of stomping their feet and screaming until they can't breathe just because the world doesn't work the way they want it to.

While I'm wishing for things I'll never have, I'd like a pony, too, please.

Progress Report: Yep. A Train

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Definitely a train. That's got to be what that light at the end of the tunnel was, because I feel like I've been hit by one.

I did a desultory bit of work tonight revising The Rules for the purposes of this book. I'm stuck on #9. My brain resembles tapioca far too much to coherently rewrite that one, so I'm punting it to you lot. Some of you weren't around when The Rules were first created, so here's your chance to weigh in.

Here's the original #9:

9. Absolutely under any circumstances never ever bring up that old "atheism is a religion too" chestnut. That's one of the dumbest things you could possibly say. Absence of belief is not a religion. We don't have "faith" in the non-existence of God. That's just one of those whiny, snivelly things religious people do to try to win arguments, and all it does is make you look like a total fuckwit. If you're here to earn any respect at all, do not shoot yourself in both legs by that snooty "atheism is religion" crap. And if you even begin to start with the "but you're really agnostics" bullshit, I shall give you such a smack.

One of the original commenters pointed out that this rule might fly straight over the heads of those who can't imagine life without belief. So how do we manage to make this comprehensible?

I am taking my sorry self to bed. At least tomorrow is the last day I have to drag myself from it before late afternoon, so you're likely to see a much more cheerful Dana come Thanksgiving. No worries, eh?

Sympathies to my fellow sufferers. I imagine we're all feeling rather wretched just about now, but remember, my darlings: 'tis almost done, and we will have that wonderful warm glow of success very soon.

Support Our Troops. Bush Doesn't.

I hope you've had your blood-pressure meds today:

From the LATimes, another story about the Bush administration deciding to nickel-and-dime wounded veterans:

"Marine Cpl. James Dixon was wounded twice in Iraq -- by a roadside bomb and a land mine. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, a dislocated hip and hearing loss. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Army Sgt. Lori Meshell shattered a hip and crushed her back and knees while diving for cover during a mortar attack in Iraq. She has undergone a hip replacement and knee reconstruction and needs at least three more surgeries.

In each case, the Pentagon ruled that their disabilities were not combat-related.

[snip]

Because, of course, someone who fractures her hip while diving for cover in a mortar attack has not been disabled while "participating in the risk of combat". Obviously. According to the new policy, "her wounds would be considered combat-related only if she had been struck by shrapnel."

If you wondered what sort of damage Bush's new regulations were doing, there's your answer. I'm too infuriated to think of an appropriate response. I just wish the fucktards who put these policies in place were forced to sustain injuries in combat that would then be ruled non-combat-related.

Maybe then we'd see people actually supporting our troops rather than claiming they do while fucking them over.

Think Progress Dances on Ignorant Politico "Reporter"

It's not often that I see Think Progress really let go, but apparently two fucktarded articles in one day was too much for them. Brad Johnson borrows the Smack-0-Matic and goes to town:

Erika Lovley, the Politico’s energy and environment reporter, today wrote a full-page article on the dying breed of global warming deniers that promotes their brand of toxic stupidity.

Lovley unquestioningly quotes extremist denier Joseph D’Aleo, Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) aide Marc Morano, and Cato Institute fellow Patrick Michaels in a piece littered with bald assertions and slanders against the scientific community without any basis in reality.

Brad then bashes her with real science, and annihilates her second article (he treats the two as one idiotic whole), before delivering the coup de grace:

In fact, this piece only provides evidence that the Politico is comprised of stupendous hacks who scorn the very concept of responsible journalism.

Thank you, Brad. May I have the Smack-o-Matic back before you break it, please? Thankee kindly. I'm sure Steve Benen appreciates the chance to get in a whack of his own:

How many scientists are quoted defending the global warming consensus of the scientific community? Zero. Lovley's article reads like something one might find on World Net Daily.

All too true. I'd hope the stupid git could feel a touch of shame at being so outrageously moronic, but anyone who swallows anti-science pablum pushed by far-right fucktards and believes that the Old Farmer's Almanac is equivalent to a peer-reviewed science journal likely has no shame at all.

We'd better get good, sturdy dancing shoes, my darlings. Looks like we'll have plenty of dwarves of ignorance to stomp down, despite the fact we just elected a man whose major "failing" is his use of complete sentences.

I Am Civically Literate Enough to Write This Blog

I am nearly 100% qualified to opine on political and governmental issues. Ha!

And no, I didn't cheat and Google the answers. If I had, I wouldn't have missed bloody Question #7. Go see if you do better.

This is an interesting little project the ISI's got. Their official survey - the one people can't cheat on - shows that 71% of Americans fail the test. The average score for regular citizens is 49%. For people who held public office, it's 44%. That's just pathetic.

Here's a finding that shows a dramatic confusion about religion in this country:

Seventy-nine percent of those who have been elected to government office do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.

Only 24% of college graduates know the First Amendment prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States.

I think we need to get to edumicating people.

At least we know without taking the test that we're likely smarter than average:

The civic knowledge gained from engaging in frequent conversations about public affairs, reading about current events and history, and participating in more involved civic activities is greater than the gain from a bachelor’s degree alone.

And people wonder why I didn't opt for crushing student loan debt...

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Looks like the Bush regime's got itself stuck between a rack and a thumbscrew:

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the White House “isn’t inclined to grant sweeping pardons for former administration officials involved in harsh interrogations and detentions of terror suspects.” White House officials believe that the Justice Department’s torture memos make such pardons “unnecessary”:

Some Republicans have been pushing for President George W. Bush to grant pre-emptive clemency to officials who fear being investigated by Democratic critics. White House officials have countered that such pardons are unnecessary, these people say. The officials point to Justice Department legal opinions that supported the administration’s methods of detaining and interrogating terror suspects. […]

Some former Bush administration officials have argued against a blanket pardon for post-9/11 activities, saying it would be tantamount to an admission that the Bush policies weren’t legal.

So. They can't pardon the people who tortured detainees because to do so would admit that their paper figleaf is a fiction. This leaves the way open for prosecutions later. While Obama doesn't seem interested in pursuing criminal charges, at least we know that option will be open if we can convince him otherwise.

And he does indeed respond to pressure from bloggers:

A number of bloggers -- most notably Glenn Greenwald, Digby, and Andrew Sullivan -- have raised serious concerns about intelligence official John Brennan, who's been rumored to be a possible candidate for either the CIA director or the Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration.
Brennan's critics accused him of supporting some of the Bush administration's most offensive intelligence-gathering policies, including rendition and "enhanced interrogation techniques." Obama, they said, even if he intended to move far away from those policies, should not make room for Brennan in his administration.
The criticism seems to have had the desired effect. Brennan has withdrawn from consideration for any intelligence post in the Obama administration.

[snip]

As for the broader context, Brennan's withdrawal appears to be the direct result of blog coverage. For those who believe bloggers' concerns are inconsequential, this is clear evidence to the contrary.
Most excellent. Brennan wasn't the most outrageous choice Obama could have made, but he was, nevertheless, an apologist for the Bush regime and has no place in the next administration. I'm glad our objections made a difference.

It's also good to see some folks on teevee using our time-tested strategy of point-and-laugh:

On CNBC this morning, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist claimed that the current financial crisis facing America is rooted in the fact that Democrats took control of the House and Senate in 2006. “The economy’s in the present state because when the Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006, you knew that those tax increases were going to come in 2010,” said Norquist.

According to Norquist, the stock market collapsed because “we’re in the middle of responding” to tax increases that haven’t actually happened yet:

NORQUIST: Well, the economy’s in the present state because when the Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006, you knew that those tax increases were going to come in 2010. The stock market began to collapse as soon as you recognized that those old tax rates were coming back. So, we’re in the middle of responding to those tax increases.

David Sirota, who was on the CNBC show as well, notes that Norquist’s absurd argument was laughed at and immediately rejected by the host and the other guests on the show. The Financial Times’ Chrystia Freeland pointed out that “the stock market is collapsing because the U.S. and global financial system is in crisis.”

This, I think, should be the ongoing method for dealing with far-right fuckwits. Especially when the arguments are this egregiously stupid.

I guess Norquist won't be tapped as one of the conservative bloggers meant to elevate the discourse of the "rightroots:"

The Washington Post ran an interesting, 2,300-word item today on conservative blogs and their future within (alongside?) the Republican Party. As far as leading conservative activists -- online and off -- are concerned, the right is far behind the left when it comes to online presence, and there's apparently a renewed push to do something about it.

As that process begins in earnest, I'd encourage them to consider this fine post from Outside the Beltway's James Joyner. He argued the other day that, despite his conservative beliefs, he finds "most of the best analytical blogs are on the center-left," and fleshed out his reasoning yesterday.

Part of the reason I'm drawn to the center-left blogs, including those cited above, Kevin Drum, Steve Benen, and others despite disagreeing with them while finding it increasingly difficult to find center-right blogs worth my time is that the former are much more likely to get beyond the debates of the 1980 election. There's almost no serious analysis of health care reform, urban planning, education, and many other issues that regularly crop up on the best lefty blogs on their conservative counterparts. If we read about those issues at all, they're framed as if Ronald Reagan were still aspiring to high office: Say No to socialism! Abolish the Department of Education! Government IS the problem!

[snip]

So, where are the right-of-center counterparts to Yglesias, Klein, and company?

I've long wondered the same thing. For more than two years, I was the editor for Salon' "Blog Report," featuring posts from the left and right. It led me to read dozens of conservative blogs every day, and I quickly realized that when it came to depth and seriousness of thought, the two sides weren't close. (James Joyner, who is both thoughtful and knowledgeable, is a noticeable exception.)

Indeed, to help drive the point home, earlier this year, Erick Erickson, RedState's editor, acknowledged that the "netroots" have an advantage over the "rightroots," but attributed it to an asymmetry in free time, since conservatives "have families because we don't abort our kids, and we have jobs because we believe in capitalism."

This is largely the kind of thinking that dominates on conservative blogs. They can't quite get to policy disputes or serious analysis, because they're too busy mulling over the implications of liberals joining forces with Islamofascists, the United Nations, and Mexican immigrants to execute some kind of nefarious plot.

It's going to be a long while before poor Mr. Joyner can stop reading Steve Benen et al, I'm afraid.

And it's going to be even longer before we get any sort of acknowledgement of reality from their current grand poobahs:

Last night on Hannity and Colmes, Karl Rove vigorously defended his role in the White House as the Bush administration’s political guru. “The politics and policy are constantly banging into each other in decisions that are made inside the White House. That’s just the way it is,” he said. When Colmes asked him if that presented a “conflict of interest,” Rove insisted that, under Bush, “policy won out” over politics:

COLMES: Is that a conflict of interest though? The intersection of politics and policy? I know you’ve been criticized in the past of combining the two, as if when one conflicts with the other, maybe the country suffers, and it should be about policy regardless of the politics involved.

ROVE: Well, at least in the White House I was in, policy won out, but you had to be aware of the political fallout of what you were going to do in order to contain it and deal with it. You bet. But to — but first and foremost if — the president I worked for, George W. Bush said, you know what, let’s do right, and the politics will take care of itself. It didn’t mean you were blind to it, but it didn’t mean that you needed to focus first and foremost on what you thought was in the right interest of the country.

Needless to say, it didn't take Think Progress and Steve Benen to pop that little balloon.

You know, it would be nice, just for a change of pace, to have political adversaries that were just a wee bit less ridiculous.

Progress Report: A Little Something Extra

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Skipping ahead again, and adding a new section. Right now, it's an appendix, but I might make it a chapter proper. I'm talking about life after faith, because of this.

Appendix II: Life After Faith

In memorium Jesse Kilgore


I wrote this book for stalwart Christians who are perplexed by atheists and needed a guide to getting along. But you may have picked it up for a very different reason: you might be wanting to know how to talk to atheists because you rather suspect you're becoming one. You're trapped between two worlds right now. You can't talk to Christians, because they don't understand your growing doubt. You're having a hard time talking to atheists, both because you've been taught that atheists are nothing more than a bunch of murdering, evil plagues on society, and because you don't yet have the vocabulary. You have no idea how to reach out to us, where to find us, or what to do once you've caught our attention.

You don't even know if you want to talk to an atheist, because you're in the midst of losing the most precious thing in your life right now. You may even feel as though your life is ending. You face the loss of family, friends and the God who's guided you throughout your life. It's terrifying. It's agonizing. It's not something you want to face, but you can't get rid of your doubts. You have no idea what's waiting for you if you take that fateful step and renounce your faith.

You probably feel more alone than you ever have in your life.

You don't have to go through this alone. Talk to us. We'll stand by you.

Some of us had an easy time of it, sauntering along the path from belief to disbelief, stopping to smell the flowers on the way, and enduring no more than some good-natured ribbing from our friends and family. We didn't have to face being ostracized from our communities. We weren't big on the church-going to begin with, so finding things to do on a Sunday morning was never a problem. But even those of us who had a primrose path to the godless life understand that other people got to walk barefoot on nothing but thorns and rocks the whole way. We know it can be desperately hard, and while we may not always know what you're going through or the right thing to say, we'll do our best to help you through.

That's what this appendix is here to do. I'll be pointing you toward alternatives and resources. I'll try to ease some of your fears. I'll do my best to guide you through, whether you end up contentedly Christian again or gloriously godless. The important thing isn't winning you for one side or the other: it's ensuring that you live as happy and as productive a life as you can.

I'm writing this for people like Jesse Kilgore, who lost his faith and took his life. I don't want to see others end up thinking that there's no life after faith. You need to know that there most certainly is.

Figured this needed to be there. And we need to remember that there may be some folk reaching out to us who don't know how to be an atheist, but need our sympathy and our help. Whether they go back to being Christian or make the transition to total godlessness or find a comfortable spot in between, I hope we can be there for them.

Which I will be. After NaNo, and I've had a chance to sleep for about ten years...

To All of You Bashing The Dancing Wu Li Masters

I know it's not pure quantum physics. I know that conflating Eastern mysticism with science is a somewhat silly thing to do. But it was my gateway drug into the hard sciences, it made me appreciate the fact that science was a human endeavor, not just a matter of cold calculation, and it's still a beautiful book.

So there.

Glenn Beck Inspires Hate, Wonders Why People Hate Him

From the chronicles of extraordinary dumbassitude (h/t):

Glenn Beck has been telling a personal story illustrating what he says is a particularly intense level of hatred on the left.

According to the newly signed Fox News host, he was verbally assaulted by a truck driver while standing in line at a Wendy's restaurant at a truck stop. Writing on his blog, Beck says the truck driver called him a "racist bigot," blaming the talk show host and conservatives "for everything." Wrote Beck, "The hatred was palpable." As his security detail stood between him and his assailant, Beck says the truck driver ended his rant by threatening to run him over.

It was ugly stuff, and Beck was shocked by the level of hate: "I wanted to say, I think you have me mistaken for someone else, but I knew he knew who I was and he just hated me for who I was…. Wow. Is this who we've become? Is this who we've become?"

You reap what you sow, Glenn. Enjoy that whirlwind.

We won't even get into the fact that, for every paltry handful of hate on the left, you need a shipping container for the hate spewing from the right. But if anyone's really in so much doubt that they need examples, I'll be happy to find a few hundred after NaNo. Shouldn't take me more than an hour or so.

Atheists: The All-Purpose Enemy

I feel all powerful now:

Last Thursday, Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, the fourth largest United States coal company, ranted that his critics were “communists,” “atheists,” and “greeniacs.” In an address before the Tug Valley Mining Institute in Williamson, WV, Blankenship said those who criticize him are “our enemies” like Osama bin Laden:

It is as great a pleasure for me to be criticized by the communists and the atheists of the Charleston Gazette as to be applauded by my best friends. Because I know they are wrong. People are cowering away from being criticized by people that are our enemies. Would we be upset if Osama bin Laden was critical of us?

We'll have to start marketing ourselves as all-purpose enemies. We should be getting paid royalties, we're so useful.

What have the “atheists” at the Charleston Gazette done that merits Blankenship comparing them to Osama bin Laden? They’ve reported on:

– The Fatal Aracoma Mine Fire. In the months before the fatal 2006 fire at the Aracoma mine, which had 25 violations of health and safety laws, Blankenship personally waived company policy and told mine managers to ignore rules and “run coal.”

– Political Corruption. Blankenship has spent millions of dollars to influence West Virginia judgeships and state legislative races, and palled around in Monte Carlo with state Supreme Court Chief Justice Elliott “Spike” Maynard and their “female friends” in July 2006. The state court reversed a $77 million verdict against Massey in 2008.

– Mountaintop Removal. Massey Energy is the king of the incredibly destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining. The Bush Administration (which includes former Massey officials) overturned Clinton-era rules limiting the practice. Massey now plans to destroy Coal River Mountain despite lacking necessary permits.

Curses! Foiled by those reality-loving atheists again!

I should probably be offended that atheists are so reviled that crooks like Blakenship use us as an all-purpose epithet, but I'm merely amused. And the more hysterical fits fucktards like Blakenship throw, the more he tries to smear good people by calling them atheists, the better off we are. People will eventually start thinking, "Hmm. According to that mountain-top removing, polluting, corrupt scumbag Blakenship, atheists are his worst enemies. Sounds like atheists aren't half bad!"

Besides. Being the sworn enemy of mountain-top removing, polluting, corrupt scumbags like Blakenship is rather a point of honor. I'm glad he recognizes the fact we hate his guts.

Progress on the Progressive Front

There's been a lot of bitching on the left about the dearth of progressives in Obama's cabinet choices. I haven't any sympathy. Obama didn't promise us a progressive rose garden. He flat-out told us he's going to go post-partisan on our asses. And when he has chosen progressives to help him transition and govern - John Podesta comes to mind - there's been, at most, a smattering of applause before people are right back to the whining, moaning and complaining.

Maybe it's because I came late to the game, but I've been quite satisfied in most of his choices. He's picking intelligent, qualified people who will extract the maximum of milk with the minimum of moo (h/t Terry Pratchett). If he packed his administration with far left progressives, the Con roadblocks thrown up in his way would become Berlin Walls. He knows that. I'd rather see him pick people that will help him govern - especially since most of what he's said about the economy and the environment and even a few things on national security have been in accord with what we've been wanting.

Steve Benen has a nice piece up about why he's not concerned about Obama's cabinet choices. And today, there comes word that Obama's economic team will include a dyed-in-the-wool progressive:

...Obama announced his selection of Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury; Lawrence Summers as the Director of our National Economic Council; Christina Romer as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors; and Melody Barnes as Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

[snip]

But it's Barnes, moving to the White House by way of the Center for American Progress, who's of particular interest. Yglesias had a good post on Barnes and the Domestic Policy Council.

[snip]

Barnes has some of the liberal credentials that people have seen lacking in some other Obama appointments. She served as Chief Counsel to Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995 to 2003, was CAP's Executive Vice President for Policy, and then left to join Obama's campaign as policy director.

That's the second person he's tapped from CAP that I know of. So yes, he's bringing progressives on board, and yes, the next four years are likely to see advancement on the progressive front.

A line from Alias keeps coming to mind every time I consider progressives' efforts to shift the country left: “It’s not about cutting off the head off the monster. It’s about killing the monster. The work is complicated, it’s political, and it is long term.”

It is going to take time and a herculean effort to wean this country off of it's conservative dependency and get them used to progressive ideas. We can't just elect a progressive president and have him appoint a progressive cabinet and call victory. The Cons did that with their neocon agenda. It didn't last. I don't want us to suffer the same fate.

Our work is going to be complicated, political and long term. We have to build a progressive country from the ground up. We have to elect progressive politicians, encourage progressive policies, and bust our asses to make sure those politicians and policies make a real, positive difference in American lives. We have to show that the progressive agenda, unlike the conservative one, actually works. It's the only way a progressive agenda can succeed, and it's the only way it deserves to.

We have to rid ourselves of the reactionary elements in our own party by voting them out in favor of progressives. Until we can put the Blue Dogs down, we're going to have to work with what we've got. What we have is Obama, and he's proving that while he's more centrist than we may have wished, he's sympathetic to our ideas. He's also pragmatic enough to realize you don't merely steamroll your enemies - you make it impossible for them to resist you. Progressive ideas coming from a centrist, bipartisan administration will be far harder for the Cons to obstruct. Selling those progressive ideas to the American people as a moderate, post-partisan package means they're more likely to buy. Once they've tried it, they'll like it and they'll keep buying, even if we later change the packaging to read "Now With More Progressive!"

Even the Cons know that. It's why they'll fight like grim death to keep things like universal healthcare off the table - they know that once Americans get a hit of the pure progressive, they'll never go back to that conservative trash they've been mainlining.

Obama's not the magic man who will sweep progressives into power with a wave of his wand. He's simply a president we can work with, one who's not afraid to bring progressives on board. We've been given a gift. Instead of whining that it's not quite the progressive gift we wanted, let's get the work done. Let's do it right, so that the country may go left.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Just remember: Republicons aren't racists:

At the 2000 Republican convention, Chambliss — along with then-lawmakers Bob Ney and Tom DeLay, who have both faced significant legal and ethical troubles — hosted a golf event for lobbyists at Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia, which has a long history of discrimination against people of color. As the New York Times reported in 1993:

Unable to meet the requirement that clubs must have nondiscriminatory membership policies to host tournaments, the Aronimink Golf Club has asked to be relieved of its agreement to be the site of the 1993 P.G.A. Championship, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America said tonight.

Aronimink, a private club in Newtown Square, Pa., near Philadelphia, has no minority-group members. […]

O’Brien said the club had told the P.G.A. it had a seven-year waiting list for new members, but asked that it be considered as the site for a future championship when is is able to conform to the national association’s policy on membership.

ThinkProgress reports that, ten years later, Chambliss's pet golf club still hasn't made clear progress on the non-discrimination front.

More in whites-only golf:

TPM Election Central notes today that South Carolina Republican Party Chairman and recently declared candidate for RNC chairman, Katon Dawson, was formerly a member of a the 80-year-old whites-only Forest Lake country club:

Back in September, when Dawson was first quietly laying the groundwork for his RNC run, The State newspaper reported that he resigned his membership in the nearly 80-year-old Forest Lake Club. Members told the newspaper at the time that the club’s deed has a whites-only restriction and has no black members.

Dawson claimed to the paper that he’d actually been working since August to change the club’s admission practices after reading about them in the press.

Somehow, Dawson spent twelve years there without ever finding out that the reason there were no black people golfing with him was that the club didn't allow them membership. My bullshit detector is twitching.

Why not screaming? Because it's feeling rather smug about having called the "but of course we would never spy on anybody but terrorists!" bullshit:

And to think, some of us nervous nellies were concerned that the NSA might abuse its surveillance powers and listen in on communications it shouldn't have.

A former communications intercept operator says U.S. intelligence snooped on the private lives of two of America's most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.

David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" phone calls of al-Yawer when he worked as an Army Arab linguist assigned to a secret NSA facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia between 2003 and 2007.

Last month, Faulk and another former military intercept operator assigned to the NSA facility triggered calls for an investigation when they revealed U.S. intelligence intercepted the private phone calls of American journalists, aid workers and soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Faulk says his top secret clearance at Ft. Gordon gave him access to an intelligence data base, called "Anchory," where he says he saw the file on then-British prime minister Tony Blair in 2006.

Faulk declined to provide details other than to say it contained information of a personal nature.

Surveillance on foreign heads of state is not especially uncommon, but as Zachary Roth reminds us, "the U.S. and Britain have pledged not to collect information covertly on each other."

Yeah. That Tony Blair, man - total terrorist. And, of course, every spy knows that important terrorist secrets might slip out when our ostensible allies are talking dirty on the phone.

In other bullshit news, Republicons are still stuck in the tax-cut rut:

In a time of severe economic crisis, it's important that all of us -- voters, policy makers, investors -- remember to do two key things. First, keep a cool head and avoid panic. Second, pay absolutely no attention to congressional Republicans, who have no idea what they're talking about.

Republicans quickly criticized the idea of such a vast [stimulus] initiative, saying Congress should instead cut taxes to spur economic growth.

"Democrats can't seem to stop trying to outbid each other
-- with the taxpayers' money," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. "We're in tough economic times. Folks are hurting. But the American people know that more Washington spending isn't the answer."

I realize that Boehner and congressional Republicans don't want to deliberately hurt the country, so perhaps it's best if they take this opportunity to enjoy a little quiet time.

We need to sit these children in the corner and keep their noses to the wall for, oh, say, the next four years. They can't behave, they're threatening to throw tantrums because they can't get their way, and they just keep screaming the same words over and over again. Useless fucking baggage.

It would just be nice if they'd have at least one new idea once in a decade or so.

Two pieces of good news when it comes to right-wing fucktards, though. Virgil Goode's on his way out, even though they're having to drag him kicking and screaming:

Here's one Republican Congressman who just won't give up, no matter how long the odds.

A source close to Rep. Virgil Goode -- the colorful Virginia Republican best known for fiercely denouncing the 2006 election of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) as the first Muslim member of Congress -- tells Election Central that Goode will call for a recount at a press conference set to begin shortly, after the state elections board today certified a 745-vote margin of victory for Dem opponent Tom Perriello.

The final numbers: Perriello 158,712 votes, Goode 157,967.

And we're soon going to be celebrating a funeral:

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports today that Freedom’s Watch, the right-wing advocacy group founded by Ari Fleischer and funded by Sheldon Adelson, “is pretty much kaput.” Freedom’s Watch spokesman Ed Patru “confirmed that much of the staff was on its way out,” but refused to say if the group would continue in the future:

As for the organization’s future, Patru maintained it was yet to be decided by the board of directors, which includes former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Sands Corp. President Bill Weidner.“In the coming weeks and months, the organization will downsize,” Patru said.

“In terms of the future and what role the organization will play, those decisions will be made in the very near future.”

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving group. Our national discourse will improve by a factor of 10 overnight.

It's nice having adults in charge and screaming fucking infants being put to bed, isn't it?