What's This For?

How can I stay away from you?

Well, There're some Festering topics that have been hovering on my desktop for a while now. In fact many of them are hovering over this picture. I need to get them off my raw turkey before I can finish writing papers and grading.

Speaking of papers...

Welcome to 1970
A recent Kentucky editorial seems to be confusing our contemporary historical situation with a previous. Given the milieu of an over-reaching impeachable executive, an interminable no-win military quagmire, looming fuel shortages, Middle-East violence, and an odd turn for otherwise great musicians, it's hard to fault them for coming to the conclusion they do. But hippies? Really? I don't see many around anymore, but then I live in Southern California- not really the hotbed of liberalism that Lexington, Kentucky is.

Speaking of hippies...

Simplify, Man
The Supreme Court is listening to a case regarding the EPA's role in actually protecting the environment. You would think the the Environmental Protection Agency might have a role in that- you'd be wrong. The case started sometime ago when EPA was petitioned to set greenhouse gas emission standards.

In 2003, the agency denied the petition, saying that it lacked statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, even though the agency in previous administrations had held that it did. Further, the agency said, even if it did have authority, it was not required to use it.

From here on, it'll just be known as the Agency.

So how does it look for this particular case, especially given the controversy in the non-scientific community over whether we contribute to climate change? Well how's this:
"I mean," asked Justice Antonin Scalia, "when is the predicted cataclysm?"
At one point, he acknowledged the role of carbon dioxide as a pollutant in the air but wondered about it being a pollutant in the "stratosphere."
"Respectfully, Your Honor, it is not the stratosphere. It's the troposphere," Milkey said.
"Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I'm not a scientist," Scalia said to laughter.

I'm sure things will be just fine.

Speaking of hell...

That Whole "Christian" Thing- It's Just a Name, Dude

The president-elect of the Christian Coalition announced Tuesday that he was stepping down, saying that the religious group appeared to balk at his proposals to focus on environmental and anti-poverty issues rather than on purely "moralistic" issues such as abortion.

This is no lefty president-elect; he's a Southern giga-church pastor who just happened to think the Bible is concerned with more than stone monuments to the ten commandments and gays burning flags at their weddings. I guess he thinks being a Christian is not the same thing as being a right wing kook. Seriously. Weird eh?. That whole full Gospel approach to faith won't really play to their base.

This might be one of those times when someone would say, "At least they're being honest." I guess. But it seems like that kind of honesty one finds when a spouse is caught cheating or a tumor metastasizes when you hoped it would just go away.

Speaking of not going away...

Word To your Father
Turns out MY PRESIDENT isn't so popular in the rest of the world and some people in the rest of the world wanted his father to get that message to him.

"We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he's doing all over the world," a woman audience member bluntly told Bush after his keynote speech.
Bush appeared stunned as the audience of young business leaders whooped and whistled in approval.
The retired president had just finished a folksy address on leadership by telling the audience how deeply hurt he feels when his son the president is criticized.

Or maybe they just wanted him to feel deeply hurt. I mean, why else criticize his boy?

Is this this?

Then how about something that's decidedly not Wrong, Terrible, or... Freaky... Funny... Foul? Yes, Foul. It's more of a thank God there's at least one American Christian thinking of this.

Jimmy Carter's new book identifies conditions in Israel as they are- apartheid. I know that sounds horrible. There's two reasons for that: 1.) we hear nothing of the conditions the majority of Palestinians suffer and 2.) it's a horrible thing.

Do you think that's an overstatement? Do you think that somehow I'm being hard on Israel? It's weird how most American Evangelicals were on the wrong side of the fence with South Africa too. And that was without the looney tunes Left Behind theology.

If you'd like to learn more about the apartheid conditions in Israel, visit your local library, or if you're worried about being put on a government watch list, you can go here. But that'll probably get you on a list too. You could also just buy the Christian Former President's book. I'm going to. I suppose that's list fodder as well.

Speaking of lists...

It's on my Amazon Wish List.

Thanks to Grandpa for turning me on to the celebration of greed and materialism that is the Amazon Wish List.

Now Rocking
Buzzcocks- Encore Du Pain: Live in Paris