A Texas Republican state legislator has introduced a bill that makes hiring of undocumented workers a crime in which the employer could be punished by up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine unless they were hired to do household chores, like maid, caretaker, lawn worker, or any type of house worker.
Because you know how hard it is so hard to get good help these days…
So Congress has passed and Obama has signed yet another continuing resolution to extend funding to keep the government running for another two weeks, until March 18, 2011. This is the fifth such extension. The previous ones provided stop-gap funding until December 3, then December 18, then December 21, and then March 4.
These ad-hoc actions are because Congress has still, six months into the fiscal year that began n October 1, 2010, not only not passed a budget but not passed even one of the twelve appropriation bills.
We will now be subjected to another tedious spectacle of wrangling as the March 18 deadline looms, which will likely result in another temporary extension.
How long will they keep kicking this can down the road? It is quite incredible that the world’s biggest economy is being run like a struggling mom-and-pop store, not knowing whether it can pays its bills from week to week.
Complicating things is the fact that this not the only contentious budgetary issue. There is also the debt ceiling of $14.294 trillion which is now predicted to be reached some time in April or May. Expect to see another circus around that issue. There is no doubt that it will be raised (because the oligarchy will demand it) but it is an issue that allows for a lot of demagoguery and who can resist that?
A recent report said that NATO drone strikes have once again killed a large number of civilians including 20 women and 29 children, in a remote region of Afghanistan.
The killing of civilians by drones is an explosive issue in Afghanistan and Pakistan and soon after the story emerged there was a bizarre report that General Petraeus had told Afghan government representatives that all the people killed were members of the Taliban and that he suspected that Taliban sympathizers in the village might have burned their own children in order to make the US look bad.
(The US has apologized for another appalling drone killing of nine children who had been merely gathering firewood. I shudder to think of the number of people who join terrorist groups because of their rage when members of their family and community are killed like this.)
It is always a bad sign when you accuse other people of things that would be unthinkable if said about your own group. The instinct to protect and shield one’s own children seems to be deeply held and universal, is observed in almost all species, and is supported by evolutionary theory. Harming one’s own children is the act of a psychopath and thus rare.
This is what makes Petraeus’s purported statement so offensive. Other commanders are making it even worse by claiming that burning of their children is a common practice among Afghan parents! To accuse an entire village of doing so is a sign of deep desperation and requires a very high level of proof. It is not a charge to be tossed around casually.
I have said many times before that in the immediate aftermath of a major event where a government has likely committed an atrocity, their immediate instinct is to lie their way out if it in order to gain public support, hoping that by the time the truth slowly emerges, people will have forgotten the event or at least passions will have cooled.
We saw this with the case where a US warship shot down an Iranian civilian plane killing everyone abroad. President Reagan and other officials claimed that the dastardly evil Iranian government had deliberately sacrificed their own people by dive-bombing the US warship so that it would be shot down as part of their plan to make the US look bad. This was absurd on its face and was shown later to be a flat-out lie but the US media lapped it up. After all, we like to believe that we are always good and the enemy is always evil.
Then there was the claim that Iraqi soldiers had removed incubators from Kuwait just for the sheer evil pleasure of wanting babies to die. This was also reported unquestioningly by the media but was later shown to be not only false but a deliberate lie planned and implemented by a public relations firm.
Then there was the case of the Brazilian who was shot dead by British police and where every justification given for the killing turned out to be a lie.
Stories that fit so conveniently into a narrative that saves one’s own face and demonizes the enemy have to be treated with deep skepticism. This is why, even though I think that George W, Bush and Dick Cheney are liars and responsible for war crimes, I have never taken seriously the claims of the so-called ‘truthers’ that Bush and Cheney either planned the 9/11 attack or knew about it in advance and allowed it to happen. Such extraordinary claims require a very high bar of proof and nothing close it has been provided.
As I said before, “This is why I always take initial news reports of such events with a grain of salt. I believe that all governments, without exception, lie to their people. They do this routinely and without shame. But most people are uncomfortable accepting this fact and want to believe that their government is trustworthy. And at the early stages of the events, governments and official spokespersons take advantage of people’s trust and use their dominance of the media to make sure that people’s early impressions are favorable. The only reason that governments will hesitate to lie is if the media quickly investigates the original story and gives the subsequently revealed facts as much publicity as the original stories. But as we have see, the present media have largely abdicated that role, playing it safe by simply reporting what the government says.”
It is up to us to suspend belief in obviously self-serving government claims until we see convincing proof.
To no one’s surprise, the US Supreme Court by an 8-1 margin ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church had the right to peacefully picket funerals. This was clearly the correct decision, in my opinion, and what surprises me is that there was even one dissenter (Justice Alito).
I don’t know why people keep taking this church to court. It only gives them the publicity they crave and makes them into First Amendment martyrs. Their First Amendment rights should not be violated just because we do not like what they say.
(For previous posts in this series, see here.)
The idea that religion is in a period of inexorable decline is, unsurprisingly, not one that is shared by religious apologists. In fact, Alastair McGrath in his book The Twilight of Atheism argues the opposite, that it is atheism that is in decline. I have not read this book but Keith Parsons, a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston, has and in an essay that is well worth reading in full, challenges McGrath and in the process reinforces my case that it is atheism that is ascendant.
Parsons says that what is remarkable about the current debate on atheism is that it has generated enormous and widespread interest, extending far beyond the small intellectual circles that were the normal range for such controversies.
These days, says McGrath, we hear not faith’s but atheism’s withdrawing roar. Now, early in the 21st century, we are told that atheism is in decline and religion is resurgent.
How odd, in that case, to find atheist books recently heading up the bestseller lists and atheists showing up on the TV talk shows to make the case for unbelief. Is atheism becoming chic? The public response to Sam Harris’ The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, as well as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, appears to indicate a swelling interest in arguments for unbelief. A bestselling atheist book is really quite a novelty. Speaking from my own personal experience, an atheist book typically sells in the dozens, and its author will die of old age long before seeing a royalty check.
Just when I think that the Republican congressional leadership and their nutty supporters could not get any more childish, they surprise me. They are deliberately abandoning biodegradable utensils in the cafeteria (a policy implemented by the previous congress) to bring back Styrofoam, one of the most environmentally damaging materials. The press aide to the new speaker John Boehner was so proud of this move that he felt it worth sending out a tweet.
This kind of pettiness is everywhere. After ridiculing Michelle Obama’s creation of an organic garden in the White House as an example of her environmental extremism, they are now attacking her campaign against childhood obesity as an example of the Obamas’ desire for a ‘nanny state’. Really? You really oppose urging children to eat healthily and get more exercise?
I would not be surprised if she praised motherhood and apple pie, these crazy people would claim that she is an angry feminist who hates men and is also trying to destroy the peach industry.
The Daily Show takes on those lazy, pampered, good-for-nothing teachers, with their luxurious lifestyles and cushy jobs.