One Second before Midnight

by Al Petrone

Science tells us the earth is over 4.7 billion years old, with all of modern history and human civilization only occurring within the last 5,000 to 10,000 years. Said differently, if all of time were compared to a 12 month calendar, ALL of mankind's recorded history would have occurred on the last second, of the last minute, of the last day of that year. Using our universal timeline as an analogy, everything we know as humans has transpired at 11:59PM on December 31st .... all in less than one second. All of the world's cultures, languages, countries, empires, governments, religions, stories, songs and dreams that have ever come and gone - and those that are still here ....have all happened within this "one second before midnight". In this one blink of an eye, millions of species have appeared and disappeared off the face of the earth. One species however, evolved beyond the others, and learned to walk upright and communicate. In very short order, this same species went on to build pyramids, paint the Sistine Chapel, crack the genetic code of our DNA, and fly faster than the speed of sound. Thru their many stages of evolution, and while struggling to survive, this human species continually re-defined itself and its rightful place in the universe. As they journeyed on their many different paths thru time, they created many forms of culture and society. Along the way, each of these societies offered their own version of economic, political, judicial and religious belief systems. This resulted in the birth of numerous tribes within the species - each with their own language, their own customs, their own government, and their own Gods. Many of these forms of authority were based on birth-right, legend, inherited power, blind faith and legacy. Whether one believed the species was a "risen ape" or a "fallen angel", one thing was irrefutable: most of all human conflict had arisen thru man-made institutions....like borders, governments, religions, cultures, languages, and armies. Yes, the very same species that found the cure for polio, also created the atomic bomb. The very same species that sculpted the Statue of David and painted the Mona Lisa, also enslaved their fellow man. The very same species that wrote Hamlet and landed a man on the moon, also allowed a holocaust and several genocides to occur against their own species. History shows us that this continuous battle between good and evil has raged for thousands of years - with many of the ideas, cultures, governments, Gods and societies having come and gone in the flash of this one second before midnight.

... more on the hope for mankind after the click.

File this under Irony

Today's losers losing their homes are Republican districts. At least according to the Center for Responsible Lending, who has just issued a new report that shows nine of the top ten districts with the most foreclosures are Republican and most likely to receive the bulk of any homeowner bailout, and thus, at least according to one On Air editor of a major cable network, fit the definition of "losers".

... read a summary of the loosing districts after the click.

Rick Santelli's 'losers' may turn out to be the people who are supposedly his ideological fellow travelers. Ironic? Just a little ...

A need to reconnect

"Must Read" piece from The Financial Times (London)

By Francesco Guerrera in New York

In different times, the offer from the check-in attendant would have been accepted with alacrity. But in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, with an angry public, populist politicians and an aggressive press baying for a crackdown on Wall Street’s “excesses”, the senior banker paused for thought when he heard those usually welcome airline words: “Sir, you have been upgraded to first class. Please follow me.”

Finally replying, “I am fine in coach, thank you”, he gave up the better seat and opened another chink in the armour of beliefs and practices that corporate America had built and spread around the world over decades.

Once hailed as examples of an American dream that rewarded success with large pay cheques, lavish perks and popular admiration, executives and their companies have been caught in the grip of a storm that will revolutionise business. The deep freeze of capital markets, the implosion of financial groups and the resulting rise in governments’ sway over the private sector have called into question some of the foundations of Anglo-Saxon capitalism.

... read the rest in the Financial Times after the click.

The Party of No

from the DNC web site:



At every step, the Republican Party has chosen obstruction over progress. As House Republican Whip Eric Cantor told the Washington Post, the Republican Party’s approach to the Obama agenda is “just saying no.”

On February 26, President Obama proposed a groundbreaking federal budget that will end fiscal gimmickry, restore honesty and accountability to the process, and make critical investments to rebuild and renew America. But Republicans continue to just say no. "No," they will not support the President’s plan. And, more importantly, "no" they will not present an alternative of their own.

... check out the "Nope" clock and run your cursor over the Republican leaders.

The news, as it used to be

... or check the video on YouTube after the click.

An Insider's Look At How Ayn Rand Destroyed The World

by Lee Stranahan on HuffPo

I know my Ayn Rand. In fact, when it comes to Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism I'll put put my Ayn Cred up against almost anyone.

I attended her funeral in 1982. I was one of two students at experimental Objectivist high school back in 1980s. I did the audio taping on a lecture course taught by her 'intellectual heir', Leonard Peikoff. I've attended Objectivist conferences, owned first edition copies of Atlas Shrugged and I was personally kicked off the lawn of the Canadian power trio Rush's drummer by Neil Peart himself asserting his property rights.

Today, I realize that Rand's philosophy isn't just wrong or misguided - it's actually been destructive and dangerous.

... read the rest of the piece after the click.

and it's 1, 2, 3, what are we fightin' for?

Student facing 20 years in hell

The Independent (UK)

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country's highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence.

The 23-year-old, brought to worldwide attention after an Independent campaign, was praying that Afghanistan's top judges would quash his conviction for lack of evidence, or because he was tried in secret and convicted without a defence lawyer. Instead, almost 18 months after he was arrested for allegedly circulating an article about women's rights, any hope of justice and due process evaporated amid gross irregularities, allegations of corruption and coercion at the Supreme Court. Justices issued their decision in secret, without letting Mr Kambaksh's lawyer submit so much as a word in his defence.

... read the rest in The Independent after the click.

Less Religious?

quoting from John Cole on Balloon Juice:

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

... more on Balloon Juice after the click.

My comment: John ends the piece with a stellar observation that I think makes a great reference to Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Reverend Haggard and quite a few other Bible thumpers:

"For an omnipotent and omniscient being, God has made some really lousy earthly staffing decisions."

Thought for the day

from Quotes of the Day

"Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."

-- Eric Hoffer

The Forgotten Conqueror

In twenty-five years, the Mongol army subjugated more lands and people than the Romans conquered in four hundred years. Genghis Khan, together with his sons and grandsons, conquered the most densely populated civilizations of the thirteenth century. Whether measured by total number of people defeated, the sum of countries annexed, or by the total area occupied, Genghis Khan conquered more than twice as much as any other man in history. The hooves of the Mongol warriors' horses splashed in the waters of every river and lake from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. At its zenith, the empire covered between 11 and 12 million contiguous square miles, an area about the size of the African continent and considerably larger than North America, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean combined. It stretched from the snowy tundra of Siberia to the hot plains of India, from the rice paddies of Vietnam to the wheat fields of Hungary, from Korea to the Balkans. The majority of people today live in countries conquered by the Mongols; on the modern map Genghis Khan's conquests include 30 countries with well over 3 billion people. The most astonishing aspect of this achievement is that the entire Mongol tribe under him numbered around a million, smaller than the workforce of some modern corporations. From this million, he recruited his army, which was comprised of no more than one hundred thousand warriors - a group that could comfortably fit into the larger sports stadiums of the modern era.

In American terms, the accomplishment of Genghis Khan might be understood if the United States, instead of being created by a group of educated merchants or wealthy planters, had been founded by one of its illiterate slaves, who, by the sheer force of his personality, charisma and determination, liberated America from foreign rule, united the people, created an alphabet, wrote the Constitution, established universal religious freedom, invented a new system of warfare, marched an army from Canada to Brazil and opened roads of commerce in a free-trade zone that stretched across the continent. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope of Genghis Khan's accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination and tax the resources of scholarly explanation.

the above from
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
by Jack Weatherfoord
Three Rivers Press, © 2004 by Jack Weatherford
ISBN 0-609-80964-4

My comment: Why is it that we seem to know so little about the man who "smashed the feudal system of aristocratic privilege and birth" replacing it with a system based on individual merit and achievement? Believe it or not, and contrary to what you probably have heard, Genghis Khan believed in the rule of law and abolished torture. He refused to hold hostages and was the first to make it a policy to grant diplomatic immunity to ambassadors and envoys, even from those with whom he was at war. Did I forget to mention that he also invented the first international postal system? The census?

We know a lot more about men who accomplished far less, Alexander, whom we call the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon. Could the answer simply be Eurocentrism in the face of a world of history?

Hoping he fails ...

from FiveThirtyEight.com

Republican "holds" in the Senate, Bloomberg reports, are preventing two key economists from joining the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s economic advisers are increasingly concerned about the U.S. Senate’s delay in confirming the nominations of Austan Goolsbee and Cecilia Rouse to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Without Senate confirmation, the two economists are barred from advising the president as the administration tackles the worst financial crisis in 70 years and tries to advance the spending plan Obama submitted to Congress last week.

Goolsbee, who has a reputation for competence and centrism, and Rouse, who specializes in education policy, are hardly the most controversial figures. Unless one of them has tax or nanny problems, they are likely to be approved by unanimous consent. If there were ever a time when our country needed economists like a fire needs firefighters, this is it.

... read the rest after the click.

My comment: Hoping he fails and doing everything they can to see that he ... and we ... fail. A little more of the Audacity of Nope? After dominating policy for 8 of the last 8 years (NO, the Democratic majorities in Congress weren't veto proof ... check the record of Bush vetoes ... one between 2001 and 2006, eleven in 2007 and 2008.) and having their philosophy and policies totally discredited, the still have the cahones ...

War on the Rich?

The bogus GOP claim that Obama is trying to bleed wealthy Americans.

By Daniel Gross in Slate

To hear conservatives tell it, you'd think mobs of shiftless welfare moms were marauding through the streets of Greenwich and Palm Springs, lynching bankers and hedge-fund managers, stringing up shopkeepers, and herding lawyers into internment camps. President Obama and his budgeteers, they say, have declared war on the rich.

On Tuesday, Washington Post columnist (and former Bush speechwriter) Michael Gerson argued in an op-ed that "Obama chose a time of recession to propose a massive increase in progressivity—a 10-year, trillion-dollar haul from the rich, already being punished by the stock market collapse and the housing market decline." The plans are so radical, "there will not be enough wealthy people left to bleed." CNBC's Larry Kudlow wrote that "Obama is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds." Other segments on the financial news network warn of a tax on the rich, a war on the wealthy. My personal favorite was a piece from ABCNews.com, which had to be rewritten and reposted because the original was so poorly done. (The revised version isn't much better.) It quotes a dentist who is contemplating reducing "her income from her current $320,000 to under $250,000 by having her dental hygienist work fewer days and by treating fewer patients. [That way, she] would avoid paying higher taxes on the $70,000 that would be subject to increased taxation if Obama's proposal is signed into law."

It's hard to overstate how absurd these claims are. First, let's talk about the "massive increase in progressivity" that Gerson deplores. It consists largely (but not exclusively) of returning marginal tax rates to their levels of 2001, before Gerson and the epically incompetent Bush administration of which he was a part got their hands on the reins of power. Obama wants to let marginal rates for families with taxable income (not total income, but taxable income) of more than $250,000 revert from 33 percent to 36 percent, and to let the top rate—currently 35 percent on family income above $357,000—revert to 39 percent. (Here are the current tax tables.) There's also talk of capping—not eliminating, but capping—deductions on charitable giving and mortgage interest.

... there's lots more dispelling the right wing myth. Check it out on Slate after the click.

The Roots of Anti-Liberalism

by Dan Agin

[Dan Agin is Emeritus Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Chicago. His scientific interests are biological psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral genetics. He's the author of the trade book Junk Science: How Politicians, Corporations, and Other Hucksters Betray Us (St. Martin´s Press/Thomas Dunne Books,2006) (paperback edition 2007) (Spanish edition, Ciencia Basura, 2007). His forthcoming book is More Than Genes: How the Fetal Environment Shapes IQ and Behavior (Oxford University Press, 2009). ]

---

With all the current prattling by conservative hacks about "liberals" and "liberalism", as if caring about the conditions of other people is a horrible attitude, you would think the more intelligent among the hacks would understand the lessons of history. Or is that too "liberal" for them?

Without the lessons of history, our future may be a dark time. And of lessons, history has plenty to offer us--about ourselves, our children, and the roots of anti-liberalism.

In its baldest expression, anti-liberalism is not caring about your neighbors, the people of your city, the people of your country, or the human species. You care about "country" or "freedom" or "business"--but not about people. You paint yourself as a "rugged individualist" or a "philosophical conservative" or, more recently, as a political and social "moderate"--because these days "moderate" may be a safer label at dinner parties. But no matter the label, it's all anti-liberalism and striking in the way the lessons of history are so conveniently ignored.

Anti-liberals have their slogans. "Self-reliance" and "fiscal responsibility" and various other anti-liberal slogans fly around the media like intoxicated pigeons, but if one looks behind the slogans they are all part of the political mechanics of anti-liberalism.

The Roots of Anti-Liberalism: Part I

The Roots of Anti-Liberalism: Part II

The Roots of Anti-Liberalism: Part III

Health care is a privilege according to some Republicans

President Obama held a health-care summit today at the White House where he made clear that reform was an administration priority. "If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy and get our federal budget under control, then we have to address the crushing cost of health care this year, in this administration," he said. But he'll face some serious Republican opposition, as this clip from MSNBC makes clear.

Tennessee Republican was on the network this morning, railing against any health-care reform effort as a move toward "socialism" and "class warfare."

"Health care is a privilege," Wamp went on to say. "It's not necessarily a right."

... more after the click.

My comment: Does he really mean to say that some people have no right to health care?

The Cost of Life

Source - Health Care Cost per Capita from the UN, Life Expectancy Statistics from CIA World Fact Book (2008 Est.)

The chart above compares the per capita health care cost of the most expensive health care systems on the planet with the average life expectancy by country.

I wonder who's getting the best value for their money. It doesn't appear to be us.