Robert Green Ingersoll, A Sunday Morning Reading

Selected quotes of Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899)

Churches are becoming political organizations….

It probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this Government will be destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave.

All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy — making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. Surely politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary reputation of the Jewish God.

***

We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins — they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day — of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars — neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience — and for them all, man is indebted to man.

***

It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah.

***

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer — good, honest, noble work.

(H/T to Positive Atheism)

Interesting

Asia Times article from 2006.

When the invitation to attend a human-rights workshop in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates came, it was a complete surprise for Nilofar, an attractive Iranian woman in her early 30s who works for an international organization in Tehran and claims to be apolitical. 

[...]

In class, the Serbian instructors organized role-playing games in which the participants would assume the personas of characters such an Iranian woman or a Shi’ite cleric. Throughout these exercises in empathy and psychology, stress was laid on the importance of ridiculing the political elite as an effective tool of demythologizing them in the eyes of the people.

“They taught us what methods they used in Serbia to bring down Milosevic,” Nilofar said. “They taught us some of them so we could choose the best one to bring down the regime, but they didn’t mention directly bringing down the regime – they just taught us what they had done in their own country.”

Cyrus Safdari, an independent Iranian analyst, said: “As I gather, the idea was to fund and train activists to be agents provocateurs along the lines of the Otpor movement in Serbia. Their job was to utilize various techniques, such as anti-government graffiti etc, to embolden the student movement and provoke a general government crackdown, which could then be used as a pretext to ’spark’ a mass uprising in Iran that appeared to be spontaneous and indigenous.”

[...]

Safdari added that the inspiration for the workshops such as the one in Dubai may find provenance in one of the right-wing Washington think-tanks that has a proven track record of providing inspiration for Bush administration policy initiatives in the Middle East.

As for the funding, he believes that it may come “only indirectly from the US government … I’m not sure if that meant the project belonged to some ‘political entrepreneurs’ acting independently of the US government, or if these are just standard measures intended to create plausible deniability”.

Hmmm. This could explain Paul Wolfowitz’ commentary, as well as other neocon “support” of the protesters.

This does not sound like a “flaky” woman – UPDATE

Update: Full text of Governor Palin’s remarks.

*She sounds articulate, clear on her priorities, and while I may disagree with her political philosopy, I find her statement here refreshing.  And if the PTB don’t think this will appeal to a whole lot of folks tired of the same old political bullshit, I think they are in for a big surprise.

If a Democrat had expressed this sentiment, ‘progressives’ would be cheering her on. But, since it is being expressed by an eeevil Republican (who also is a woman, btw),  according the the DNC talking points, she’s exhibiting “bizarre behavior.”

From The New Agenda:

UPDATE: at about 4:30 Candy Crowley reported that she had received on her Blackberry a statement from the DNC:

…continues a pattern of bizarre behavior

And commentator Paul Begala said:

It’s just very flaky.

UPDATE #2: More quotes:

We’ve seen the governor’s had some pretty bizarre behavior in the last few months. — Democratic strategist Karen Finnery on CNN

We’ve seen a lot of nutty behavior from governors and Republican leaders in the last three months, but this one is at the top of that – John Weaver to the Washington Post.

*I am still looking for a full video and transcript of the press conference. Link to full text above video.

Demopublican Oligarchy

Another FDR era ”relic“  appears headed for the waste bin.

It has long been the goal of the Republicans to dismantle the progressive gains and protections for the average American that were granted by programs and legislation put into place during the FDR era. They are getting help from our “Democratic” administration. Riverdaughter links to this New Yorker article  (a must read) and remarks:

Bair, described as “not a team player” by Tim Geithner’s guys, is having her department subordinated to Treasury so that the bankers can escape the possibility that the FDIC can take them over.  For the first time since the FDIC was created, its power in the area of bank regulation and resolution has been become secondary to the power of the Treasury and the Fed.

From the New Yorker article:

But in the white paper detailing the new legislation, which the Administration released on June 17th, all the new authority to regulate firms that posed systemic risk was vested in the Federal Reserve. During Geithner’s testimony before the Senate, Jim Bunning, of Kentucky, echoing Bair, was incredulous. “It took fourteen years for the Fed to write one regulation on mortgages after we gave it the power to do that,” he said. “What makes you think that the Fed will do better this time around?” In addition, while the March plan said that the “Secretary and the FDIC would decide” how to resolve a failing firm, the new plan said such power should “be vested in Treasury.” Geithner could appoint the F.D.I.C. to do the technical work of cleaning up the firm, but between late March and mid-June—when Bair’s aggressive ideas about how to handle Citigroup leaked to the press—Bair’s agency had been downgraded from Treasury’s equal partner to a sidekick. The senior Treasury official said that stripping authority from the F.D.I.C. had nothing to do with pressure from the banks. “Making a group decision on something that must be done really quickly is not easy,” he said. “At the end of the day, someone has to have the ability to make a call, and it’s better to have that authority vested in one person.”

From two people to one. And that one person is Tim Geithner.

Riverdaughter gives the short version:

Ok, to recap: Bair came up with a pretty good idea to regulate bank holding companies by the FDIC.  Geithner took that idea and made it his own with the additional spin that the department that does a superb job of actually regulating the banks, the FDIC, would be bypassed as regulator in favor of the Treasury, which has a record of one regulation in the past 14 years.  Problem solved!  There is something deeply unsettling going on here if the Obama administration is willing to trash one of the best departments it has in order to give the finance guys what they want.  We’re all going to suffer for this.

Stunning.

If you haven’t already done so, read Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article describing how Goldman Sachs has its tentacles everywhere, and has for quite some time. After going through the history of various ‘bubbles’ from which Goldman Sachs always managed to profit, Taibbi turns to the Obama administration and the recent cap-and-trade legislation.

Fast-forward to today. It’s early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs — its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign — sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.

Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm’s co-head of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an “environmental plan,” called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

Sigh. What I find so disturbing in reading this article is that Taibbi was just another voice in the Hillary-bashing/Obama-loving chorus in the last election. It was really quite disturbing to see his Hillary-hate override his normally excellent, clear-eyed populist reporting. Perhaps he is awakening from his Koolaid induced stupor?

Back in April, Glenn Greenwald weighed in on the corrupting connections between Wall Street and D.C.

Last night, former Reagan-era S&L regulator and current University of Missouri Professor Bill Black was on Bill Moyers’ Journal and detailed the magnitude of what he called the on-going massive fraud, the role Tim Geithner played in it before being promoted to Treasury Secretary (where he continues to abet it), and — most amazingly of all — the crusade led by Alan Greenspan, former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin (Geithner’s mentor) and Larry Summers in the late 1990s to block the efforts of top regulators (especially Brooksley Born, head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission) to regulate the exact financial derivatives market that became the principal cause of the global financial crisis. To get a sense for how deep and massive is the on-going fraud and the key role played in it by key Obama officials, I highly recommend watching that Black interview (it can be seen here and the transcript is here).

Yours truly blogged on this back in April too. At the time, Obama was repeating the “looking foward” mantra and I objected. It’s even clearer to me now that this “nothing to see here” attitude was merely a politer way of telling us, “Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

Greenwald continued:

Just think about how this works.  People like Rubin, Summers and Gensler shuffle back and forth from the public to the private sector and back again, repeatedly switching places with their GOP counterparts in this endless public/private sector looting.  When in government, they ensure that the laws and regulations are written to redound directly to the benefit of a handful of Wall St. firms, literally abolishing all safeguards and allowing them to pillage and steal.  Then, when out of government, they return to those very firms and collect millions upon millions of dollars, profits made possible by the laws and regulations they implemented when in government.  Then, when their party returns to power, they return back to government, where they continue to use their influence to ensure that the oligarchical circle that rewards them so massively is protected and advanced.  

To the oligarchs, it’s a feature, not a bug.

Real Fatherhood

For all the times we hear about piss-poor fathers, know that there are thousands upon thousands that would do as this one did.

After Michael Grady saw his 12-year-old son Austin get trapped Sunday in the swirling white-water of North Carolina’s Cullasaja River, the Maitland accountant quickly must have added up the tremendous risks of his jumping in after the child to save him.

And just as quickly discarded them. Because Mr. Grady, about whom it was said there’s no better family man, charged into the water. And then for 10, 20, 30 or more aching minutes, he struggled to free his son who, like Mr. Grady, had become wedged in holes between rocks as the current bore down on them.

Mr. Grady, with the help of other heroes, saved his son. Then Mr. Grady died in the Cullasaja, before other good hearts could save him.

Last week some famous people passed, and got heroes’ send-offs, including an entertainer who once dangled his child off a balcony for paparazzi. Maitland’s Michael Grady — Boy Scout troop leader, churchgoer, family man — died saving his son.

Thanks to Nancy Imperiale for pointing me to this article by the Orlando Sentinal’s Mike Bianchi. Go. Read. Let me know if you can get through it in one piece. 

In sports, we talk about leaving it all out on the field.

We talk about giving it 110 percent, which is more than you actually possess within the confines of your body.

We talk about a last-gasp effort.

Now we know these aren’t just cliches. They’re true. Mike proved they’re true. He actually gave more than his body had — his last gasp — to save his son.

11,000 people will attend Michael Jackson’s funeral next week. It will be a media extravaganza and all we will see on our television screens. Mark Sanford’s emails and confessions will continue to make titillating fodder for the talking heads. But at Michael Grady’s funeral:

. . . the kids attending the funeral have been told to wear their youth league baseball or football jerseys.

Because that’s how Coach Mike would have wanted it.

You see, Mike Grady lived — and died — to watch his boys play.

Deconstruction

The Red Queen shreds the forced birthers’ arguments.

The thing is, if they really did want more babies to be born there are a gazillion programs that help do that. Universal healthcare and daycare are a start. Paid parental leave, flexible work schedules, better overall collection of child support or even the socialist idea proposed by Richard Nixon of mandatory minimum incomes so that financial devastation is no longer a side effect of an unplanned pregnancy would help. Eliminating the mommy tax (the giant wage gap between moms and EVERYBODY ELSE that works) would make it better too.

But those aren’t programs that punish women for having sex (and generally they require some relinquishment of $ from dudes in the form of lower wages, higher taxes or child support payments).

[...]

All this is a long way of saying that the pro life part of the forced birthers party line is one giant crock of shit. The question of when life starts may be fun to debate in a purely philosophical exercise, but it has nothing to do with the actual problem of women who are pregnant and don’t want to be. The real debate is who controls your body? You, your nearest patriarchal overseer, the assholes in navy blue suits who vote for our laws? If you believe that you are the only person capable of making decisions about your own body, then you believe that everyone is capable of making decisions about their own body. If you believe that there is ever a time when someone else gets to make decisions about a body not their own (which is slavery), then you better be prepared to line up for mandatory blood donations. If you’re okay with a little bit of slavery, it’s best not to assume that you’re going to be the slave owner.

Go. Read.

Modern Day Pamphleteers

Chris Hedges:

Corporate ideology, embodied in neoconservatism, has seeped into the attitudes of most self-described liberals. It champions unfettered capitalism and globalization as eternal. This is the classic tactic that power elites use to maintain themselves. The loss of historical memory, which “balanced and objective” journalism promotes, has only contributed to this fantasy. But the fantasy, despite the desperate raiding of taxpayer funds to keep the corporate system alive, is now coming undone. The lie is being exposed. And the corporate state is running scared.

[...]

The battle ahead will be fought outside the journalistic mainstream, he said. The old forms of journalism are dying or have sold their soul to corporate manipulation and celebrity culture. We must now wed fact to rhetoric. We must appeal to reason and emotion. We must not be afraid to openly take sides, to speak, photograph or write on behalf of the disempowered. And, Ewen believes, we have a chance in the coming crisis to succeed. 

Go. Read it all.

Let the excuses begin

Now that Al Franken has been declared the winner in Minnesota (and Coleman has seen the writing on the wall conceded), the Dems now have their 60 votes, right? Big Things are gonna happen now, right? I ain’t holding my breath. And lo and behold, not 24 hours later I read this in the WaPo:

What Franken’s Win Does and Doesn’t Mean

First, it definitely does not mean that Democrats have a filibuster-proof ticket to passing whatever they want. Though technically Democrats have now reached the magic number of 60 senators, it’s worth remembering that for practical purposes, the majority may have just 58.

Whatever.

Second, even if Democrats do have 60 votes, there’s no guarantee of unanimity,

Ya think?

 

Question

If acetaminophen is the problem, why don’t they just ban that? Or, maybe before they do this how about they make every effort to educate the public?

A federal advisory panel voted narrowly on Tuesday to recommend a ban on Percocet and Vicodin, two of the most popular prescription painkillers in the world, because of their effects on the liver.

The two drugs combine a narcotic with acetaminophen, the ingredient found in popular over-the-counter products like Tylenol and Excedrin. High doses of acetaminophen are a leading cause of liver damage, and the panel noted that patients who take Percocet and Vicodin for long periods often need higher and higher doses to achieve the same effect.

[...]

While the medicine is effective in treating headaches and reducing fevers, even recommended doses can cause liver damage in some people. And more than 400 people die and 42,000 are hospitalized every year in the United States from overdoses.

In hopes of reducing some of these accidents, the committee voted 24 to 13 to recommend that the F.D.A. reduce the highest allowed dose of acetaminophen in over-the-counter pills like Tylenol to 325 milligrams, from 500. And members voted 21 to 16 to reduce the maximum daily dosage to less than 4,000 milligrams.

Won’t people just take more pills?

Acetaminophen is included in a vast array of over-the-counter cough and cold products, including Nyquil, Excedrin and many others. A small share of accidental poisonings result when people take two or more of these combination products without understanding the risk.

The F.D.A. asked the committee whether it should ban combination products that include acetaminophen. The vote was 24 to 13 against such a ban, with many members saying consumers saw the products as valuable.

So….they’ll ban the perfectly legal, but only available by prescription combo drugs, but not anything that can be bought over-the-counter.  This makes No Sense At All. 

Consumers need to be better educated about the risks of popular medicines, most panel members agreed.

“If you keep track of what you’re taking, none of this is an issue for you,” Dr. Jan Engle, a panel member and head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said in an interview after the meeting.

Duh.

Cancer’s Trojan Horse?

This is cool!   

Australian scientists have developed a “trojan horse” therapy to combat cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy drugs.

The “trojan horse” therapy has the potential to directly target cancer cells with chemotherapy, rather than the current treatment that sees chemotherapy drugs injected into a cancer patient and attacking both cancer and healthy cells.

Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved 100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the “trojan horse” therapy in the past two years.

The scientists plan to start human clinical trials in the coming months. Human trials of the cell delivery system will start next week at the Peter MacCullum Cancer Center at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and The Austin at the University of Melbourne.

The therapy, published in the latest Nature Biotechnology journal, sees mini-cells called EDVs (EnGenelC Delivery Vehicle) attach and enter the cancer cell.

The first wave of mini-cells release ribonucleic acid molecules, called siRNA, which switch off the production of proteins that make the cancer cell resistant to chemotherapy.

A second wave of EDV cells is then accepted by the cancer cell and releases chemotherapy drugs, killing the cancer cell.

“The beauty is that our EDVs operate like ‘Trojan Horses’ They arrive at the gates of the affected cells and are always allowed in,” said MacDiarmid.

“We are playing the rogue cells at their own game. They switch-on the gene to produce the protein to resist drugs, and we are switching-off the gene which, in turn, enables the drugs to enter.”

More at link. Very interesting how they are able to disable the protein that causes the cancer cell to resist the chemo. I realize that chemo is a tough road to hoe, but if this works in human trials, perhaps chemotherapy treatment will not need to be as long and go for as many rounds as is now currently required.

“We want to be part of moving toward a time when cancers can be managed as a chronic disease rather than being regarded as a death sentence,” he [Brahmbhatt] said.

The Nature report said the mini-cells were “well tolerated with no adverse side effects or deaths in any of the actively treated animals, despite repeated dosing.”

“Significantly, our methodology does not damage the normal cells and is applicable to a wide spectrum of solid cancer types,” said MacDiarmid.

“The hope is that the benign nature of this EDV technology should enable cancer sufferers to get on with their lives and operate normally using out-patient therapy.”