This week's New Yorker cover satirizes the far right's view of Mr. and Mrs. Obama, using all the false stories that have been thrown around (Barack is a Muslim, Michelle is  a terrorist, the "fist bump" is a signal of black rebellion) and locates all of it in the oval office.

If you are a sophisticated audience, like most New Yorker regulars, this is satire that makes the conservatives look silly.

Unfortunately, to the great mass of unsophisticated Americans, the huge audience of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and the like, this is going to be promoted as a confirmation of fact.

One wishes it hadn't been done. But there it is. So far, Obama has refused to comment.

Perhaps next week we can have a satirical image of McCain in an old folks home, armed to the teeth and assisted by Holy Joe Lieberman, plotting out attacks on an Iranian map...
Under The LobsterScope

I think we all have to have a great deal of respect for Dennis Kucinich who has tried time and again to have Bush impeached for truly obvious misdeeds. He has faced Nancy Pelosi's "no impeachment" position and has added to his following in single Congressional digits every time (Pelosi doesn't even want Karl Rove brought to justice for ignoring a Congressional warrant from Conyers' committee).

Kucinich just put out this letter in response to the revelations by the Pentagon that we got into Iran due to a lie which Bush was aware of. Instead of bringing 35 charges, he is bringing only one... maybe the rest of Congress can absorb one issue.

I found this posted on an ABC site:

IF YOU LIKE THIS ECONOMY;

IF YOU LIKE THIS NEVER-ENDING WAR;

IF YOU LIKED HIS VOTE AGAINST A GI BILL FOR IRAQ VETS;

IF LIKE PAYING HIGH GAS PRICES;

IF LIKE THE TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH;

IF YOU CAN'T WAIT TO INVADE IRAN;

IF YOU LIKE HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT;

IF YOU LIKE A PRESIDENT WHO VOTED AGAINST EQUAL PAY FOR WOMEN;

IF YOU LIKE A PRESIDENT WHO VOTED AGAINST MATERNITY LEAVE FOR WOMEN;

IF YOU LOOK FORWARD TO THE END OF ROE V. WADE;

IF YOU LIKE THE UNFAIR TRADE POLICIES THAT SEND JOBS AND TECHNOLOGY OVERSEAS;

IF YOU LIKE A GOVERNMENT THAT PRACTICES TORTURE;

IF YOU LIKE A GOVERNMENT THAT SPIES ON ITS OWN CITIZEN;

IF YOU LIKE THE FACT THAT THE US IS ONE OF THE MOST REVILED NATIONS ON THE PLANET, THEN YOU'LL JUST LOVE McCAIN.

I think this should be printed out and posted on every refrigerator in America (or wherever YOU keep YOUR important reminders).

No matter what arguments come out of the campaigns this year, this says it all to me. Each and every item sums up the problems with Republican policies and you can be guaranteed that the Old Man promotes all of them.

Under The LobsterScope

The Wall Street Journal says things are probably not looking up in the oil and gas crisis:

In the U.S., $200 crude would push the price of gasoline to well over $6 a gallon, causing commuters to alter their driving habits more sharply than they have already, while putting extreme strains on large sectors of the U.S. economy.

Speaking as one member of a strained-large-sector-to-be, I am wondering what I can plan ahead to do by December... or, indeed, what I can do now that I haven't done already... to make economic survival possible.

I'm already driving a car that gets 33 mpg, and, except for going the 15 miles back and forth to work 3 days a week (4 this coming fall), I have limited my driving to the half mile to the grocery and the gym.  No more exciting trips to visit friends or relatives. No vacation travel. This part of life has already been cut back and become utterly boring (but has kept me from spending money in many places where I would have before). West Virginia has little-to-no public transportation, so that's out as well.

I've cut down doing my laundry to once a week... and doing cold-water washing at that. I used to do laundry twice a week and always used hot water. I wear things for longer periods, now... and for that I hope to be forgiven by the local style mavens.

Sweaters come out of the closet this fall...heat gets cut down on, even though we're an all electric house... sooner or later the ticket goes back to the oil prices.

Most of all, I'm going to encourage everyone I know to get the Republicans who left us with this mess out of office... and I don't feel too partial to some of the Democrats who helped them when there are more progressive ones available.

Under The LobsterScope

How people feel one way or another about Iran is one thing (personally, I don't see that making war with them over nuclear weapons which they don't really seem to have and are not likely to develop for years is such a good idea), but this article in the Khaleej Times made me grateful that I can blog about anything I damn well choose:

Khaleej Times Online  >> News >> MIDDLE EAST
Iran mulls death penalty for Internet crimes
(AFP)

2 July 2008

TEHERAN - Iran's parliament is set to debate a draft bill which could see the death penalty used for those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet, reports said on Wednesday.

MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society," the ISNA news agency said.

The text lists a wide range of crimes such rape and armed robbery for which the death penalty is already applicable. The crime of apostasy (the act of leaving a religion, in this case Islam) is also already punishable by death.

However, the draft bill also includes "establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy", which is a new addition to crimes punishable by death.

Those convicted of these crimes "should be punished as "mohareb' (enemy of God) and "corrupt on the earth'," the text says.

Under Iranian law the standard punishments for these two crimes are "hanging, amputation of the right hand and then the left foot as well as exile."

The bill -- which is yet to be debated by lawmakers -- also stipulates that the punishment handed out in these cases "cannot be commuted, suspended or changed".

Internet is widely used in Iran despite restrictions on access and the blocking of thousands of websites with a sexual content or deemed as insulting religious sanctities and promoting political dissent.

Blogging is also very popular among cyber-savvy young Iranians, some openly discussing their private lives or criticising the system.

Human rights groups have accused Iran of making excessive use of the death penalty but Teheran insists it is an effective deterrent that is carried out only after an exhaustive judicial process.

The number of executions soared last year to 317 amid a campaign which the authorities said was aimed at improving security in society, and was sharply up on 2006 figures when Amnesty International recorded 177 executions.

All legislation in Iran has to be rubber-stamped by a conservative clerical watchdog before it is written into law. The Guardians Council vets bills to see if they are in line with the constitution and Islamic law.

The most I feel about these idiots is pity.

Under The LobsterScope

Obama's recent push toward the Christian community, especially as it comes to a White House connection to something resembling Bush's policies, has me a little edgy. The recent poll revelation that roughly 92% of Americans are believers in some form of religion (with Christians by far in the lead) puts me in a shaky 8% that misses the true separation of church and state that Jefferson enjoyed.

While riding in to work this morning and listening to public radio do a story on the Middle East, they gave up the statistic that over 80% of Arabs are convinced that the US's position in the Iraqi and Afghanistani campaigns is to replace Islam with Christianity, therefor giving Al Quaeda it's strongest recruiting message.

An article on Huffington Post this morning talked about Franklin Graham (Billy Graham's heir apparent) questioning Obama in public on whether or not he was a Muslim and trying to bring him to Christ in front of a group of clerics Obama was meeting with.

All of this is making me feel so far to the outside that I fear the worst happening both in the US and in the World.

Atheists rarely stand up proudly to declare their non-belief. More likely, they wish to be ignored by believers... left alone and unbothered. The organizations which have formed around atheism (The Brights, The Humanists, etc.) seem like they are competing more for membership and money than for the freedom from believing that everything is God-created and that we are doomed to hell for not taking part in the Jesus chorus.

It doesn't matter, it seems, whether you support a Democrat or a Republican. Both sides want to tie themselves to pastors and priests who advocate the most outlandish things... and who, when these things don't happen on schedule (you can look back for centuries and see the Rapture as having been expected and missed several times), simply revise the due-date.  At all political levels we are seeing this stuff happening (the Governor of Louisiana, for instance, just signed into law a bill making creationism ... excuse me, "intelligent design"... a subject being taught to the youngest of schoolchildren) and it is getting worse.

When I was younger I thought we were getting farther from religion as a culture, but we have actually swung the other way. I fear that my grandchildren's grandchildren will never see a religion-free cultural climate. Perhaps they will be able to finally disengage at least elective politics from this bugaboo.

Under The LobsterScope

The press is only beginning to pay attention to Sy Hersh's articles in the New Yorker detailing the secret moves against Iran being carried out by the Bush Administration, and, more specifically, by the Cheney office's influence over that Administration.

Yale Professor David Bromwich wrote in the Huffington Post:

In late 2007, after winning an election whose central issue was a more prudent and rational policy in the Middle East, congressional Democrats, obedient to the wishes of a Presidential Finding, signed away $400 million for secret operations against Iran. A more craven act of submission would be hard to imagine; and they did this in the glow of victory, in direct contradiction of their mandate. What were they signing for? Sabotage, assassination, covert support for political clients and "destabilization" generally are predictable parts of such a design; but the Democrats, in the months between their capitulation and Hersh's article, made no mention of dissatisfactions at having been cut off from oversight. The truth seems to be that in this area, as in so many others, only the Office of the Vice President oversees the Office of the President.

There was a really nice essay by Cenk Uygar in the Huffington Post this morning. You can read it here.

I sent him this comment:

Cenk's argument is crystal clear and 100% valid...and not likely to change anything with the Conservative Republicans. Too bad.

The Fourth Amendment, which gives us the right of Habeas Corpus and hearkens back to the Magna Carta, is the deepest of American philosophies and, I daresay, if any of the Founding Fathers had to pick and choose among the first 10 entries that make up the Bill of Rights, it is the one they would be least likely to change.

I'm hauling out my flintlock musket, however, to protect my home and property (and wait for the general Militia call). I only hope I don't shoot anyone by accident (my vision is faltering with old age.)

Under The LobsterScope