Your favorite football team's coach retired. There is a coach that you really think they should hire, and another coach that you think will screw up everything from recruiting to talking to the press. When it comes time to hire the coach, they hire the one that you absolutely despise.
What is your general response to this?
A) Still attend the games and still cheer your team on?
B) Hope your team loses every game so maybe they'll pick the coach you want next time?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Extremist Kills Guard in Holocaust Museum
Per AP Wire:
Link
Of course, this should not be all that shocking to anyone.
Extremists (or terrorists) are extremists, no matter what goals they are trying to achieve or what it says on their voter registration card.
Elderly gunman kills guard at Holocaust Museum
By NAFEESA SYEED, Associated Press Writer Nafeesa Syeed, Associated Press Writer – 3 mins ago
WASHINGTON – An elderly gunman, said by authorities to have a violent and virulently anti-Semitic past, stepped inside a crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, opened fire with a rifle and fatally wounded a security guard before being shot by other officers.
The assailant was hospitalized in critical condition, leaving behind a sprawling investigation by federal and local law enforcement and expressions of shock from the Israeli government and a prominent Muslim organization.
Link
Of course, this should not be all that shocking to anyone.
Extremists (or terrorists) are extremists, no matter what goals they are trying to achieve or what it says on their voter registration card.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Government Health Care Unpopular in Washington
...Because it would hurt the profits of the insurance companies. Not because people don't want it.
Link
119 Million Americans Want a Public Health Option -- Why Aren't Politicians Listening?
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
Posted on June 8, 2009, Printed on June 8, 2009
As the health insurance industry and its defenders in Congress lay out their case against permitting a public option in a reform bill, perhaps their most curious argument is that some 119 million Americans are ready to dump their private plans and jump to something more like Medicare – and that's why the choice can't be permitted.
In other words, the industry and its backers are acknowledging that more than one-third of the American people are so dissatisfied with their private health insurance that they trust the U.S. government to give them a fairer shake on health care. The industry says its allies in Congress must prevent that.
The peculiar argument that 119 million Americans must be denied the public option that they prefer has been made most notably by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is one of two panels that has jurisdiction over the health insurance bill.
Link
Palestine/Israel
Two stories.
First, via BBC News:
Link
On the other side of the wrongness of it all, also via BBC News:
Link
First, via BBC News:
Palestinian killed in West Bank protest
The barrier has generated frequent protests by Palestinians
Israeli troops have shot dead a Palestinian man during a protest over the barrier Israel is building through the West Bank, Palestinian sources say.
Link
On the other side of the wrongness of it all, also via BBC News:
Israelis 'thwarted Gaza horse bomb attack'
The clash was one of the worst since the January conflict
Four Palestinian militants have been killed on Gaza's border as Israeli forces fired at what they said were men and horses carrying explosives.
The Israeli military said its forces returned fire at a group including a few men wearing explosive vests and five horses loaded with explosives.
Link
World War II POWs Honored For First Time
Via CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/08/berga.recognition/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
It should not have taken so long to honor these brave men. Few Americans will ever read this story. Instead, the media reports on such "important" people as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who have really accomplished next to nothing of value in their lives.
This is one of the main things wrong with the country at large today. It is not that Americans are stupid - it's that no one tells them the important things. If you're watching Entertainment Tonight and Fox News and expect to get all of the news you need to know to appreciate and change this country for the better, it isn't going to happen.
ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) -- Hobbled with age, weathered with time, the World War II veterans stood at attention. One by one, a two-star general delivered flags flown over the Pentagon in their honor. He looked them in their eyes and snapped his right hand in salute.
It marked the first time in history the U.S. Army recognized 350 soldiers held as slaves inside Nazi Germany. The men were beaten, starved and forced to work in tunnels at Berga an der Elster where the Nazi government had a hidden V-2 rocket factory. Berga was a subcamp of the notorious concentration camp Buchenwald.
"These men were abused and put under some of the most horrific conditions," the general told a private gathering of Berga survivors. "It wasn't a prison camp. It was a slave labor camp."
No ranking Army official had ever uttered the words "slave labor camp" in reference to the men's captivity at Berga. Boles knew the gravity of his statement -- that he was setting the historical record straight after 64 years.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/08/berga.recognition/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
It should not have taken so long to honor these brave men. Few Americans will ever read this story. Instead, the media reports on such "important" people as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who have really accomplished next to nothing of value in their lives.
This is one of the main things wrong with the country at large today. It is not that Americans are stupid - it's that no one tells them the important things. If you're watching Entertainment Tonight and Fox News and expect to get all of the news you need to know to appreciate and change this country for the better, it isn't going to happen.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Welcome and an Explanation
Hello, and welcome to Magical Flagella, possibly the most strangely named political blog on the entire internet.
Why the name Magical Flagella? Well, that is one of the many, many misconceptions that the far Religious Right has of evolution and its "flaws." They will claim that the flagella found in bacterial cells are too complex to have evolved by natural selection, since without all parts being present, the flagella won't work.
Of course, this illustrates a misconception of evolutionary theory, illustrated here by the always charming Dr. Ken Miller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_HVrjKcvrU
So yes, this blog is largely to criticize the Religious Right when they are wrong. Now, do not make the mistake of assuming that I am against religion. I'm not. I am a Catholic myself and almost everyone I know (seeing as I live in the buckle of the Bible Belt) have some sort of religious views. There are certain, limited issues where I will accept the Religious Right's viewpoints, but I will very rarely accept their ultimate goals or their often radical methods.
The United States is a secular nation by the Establishment Clause. Even if it does have a largely Christian character, it is not a Christian nation. This has been repeated since the Treaty of Tripoli, where Article 11 stated in blatant terms,
This was in 1797, well within the Founding Fathers' lifetimes.
Anyway, this is the end of the introductory post to Magical Flagella. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, shoot me an email at j.roberts@okstate.edu, or comment here. If you have your own blog and are interested in mine, please feel free to add me to your blogroll and I will try to add you back.
Why the name Magical Flagella? Well, that is one of the many, many misconceptions that the far Religious Right has of evolution and its "flaws." They will claim that the flagella found in bacterial cells are too complex to have evolved by natural selection, since without all parts being present, the flagella won't work.
Of course, this illustrates a misconception of evolutionary theory, illustrated here by the always charming Dr. Ken Miller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_HVrjKcvrU
So yes, this blog is largely to criticize the Religious Right when they are wrong. Now, do not make the mistake of assuming that I am against religion. I'm not. I am a Catholic myself and almost everyone I know (seeing as I live in the buckle of the Bible Belt) have some sort of religious views. There are certain, limited issues where I will accept the Religious Right's viewpoints, but I will very rarely accept their ultimate goals or their often radical methods.
The United States is a secular nation by the Establishment Clause. Even if it does have a largely Christian character, it is not a Christian nation. This has been repeated since the Treaty of Tripoli, where Article 11 stated in blatant terms,
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion...
--http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tripoli1.htm
This was in 1797, well within the Founding Fathers' lifetimes.
Anyway, this is the end of the introductory post to Magical Flagella. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, shoot me an email at j.roberts@okstate.edu, or comment here. If you have your own blog and are interested in mine, please feel free to add me to your blogroll and I will try to add you back.
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