The next generation of skeptic?

Although the letter is a few days old now, I only spotted it today and was glad to see it. In the Beaver County Times, where I still rake muck on occasion, I found a skeptic — writing about a U.S. House resolution, intended to have ‘In God We Trust’ as the nation’s motto. The writer brings up E Pluribus Unum as a reasonable and more inclusive alternative, and she sees the crass political stunt by Republicans for what it is. Not that they make it difficult to see.

As if this wasn’t silly enough, it seems that this motto has already been done — back in 1956, when they replaced E Pluribus Unum — and this resolution is just a reaffirmation of existing law. I have little doubt that the Republican-majority House would pass this if they can find the time. I wonder if the Senate would do the same; Democrats may still hold it, but they can be a bit spineless at times. It is obvious that the GOP just wants to score some cheap points with the religious right. And the believers would have to be foolish or ignorant enough to not even realize how unnecessary the resolution is.

I’ll place my bet on ignorant.

Meanwhile, the motto stands…and while I don’t like to see it, the fact that it’s printed on our money is some cause for amusement. Clearly, money is god to the GOP.

Inspirational!

Evidence in favor of the biblical god? Perhaps! This was the opening remark of the concession speech of one Jesse Kelly, a conservative tea party nutbag who ran against one of our local representatives, Gabrielle Giffords, and nearly beat her.

I would like to thank our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, my wife Aubrey, who has been by my side this entire time, my family, for their unwavering support, and the thousands of warriors who fought with me in this campaign.

I am tempted to thank Jesus as well for making Jesse Kelly a loser, heh. It is merely ironic that he can use the term sanity. Worse still, that he nearly won. I don’t like Giffords that much anyway — she waxes conservative, she’s in a more conservative district than mine, and I would have to hold my nose to vote for her — and even so, the ‘red wave’ almost got her. My own representative, too, although Grijalva won a bit easier.

As a tea partier, Kelly campaigned for cuts in education, called Medicare a Ponzi scheme, wanted to replace (vaguely, now) progressive income taxes with regressive sales taxes, and took a principled stand on abortion to force even victims of rape and incest to carry to term. His own list of issues makes it fairly simple to comprehend the extreme conservatism he espoused.

Not that he would have to worry much about helping the GOP reduce the majority of the population to serfdom; he has his father’s family business to return to, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the right wing hands him a salary and makes further use of him in the future.

Better luck next time, pal.

AZ: police state

My home state reminds me often of my old home state, PA. The dynamics between Phoenix and Tucson are reminiscent of Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh. At least in one respect, however, I haven’t heard of PA being as bad as AZ. They don’t have a PR-famished, lawsuit-ridden ideologue ruining the justice system in Philly and exporting that failure throughout the state…well, not that I know of, anyway.

This diary on Daily Kos chronicles a week in the life of Joe Arpaio, Maricopa county sheriff (Maricopa being the Phoenix area county). Even the writer has to remind you, this is just a week’s worth of shame! Damn. It is a testament to the idiocy of the electorate up Phoenix way that this man still runs the jails as opposed to occupying a cell in one. Let’s see, the highlights…

• He wants to recruit and equip vigilantes to search for illegal immigrants
• Millions paid out in lawsuits as a result of his wrongful arrests, prisoners dying in his jails, and his harassment of county officials he doesn’t get along with
• Arpaio minions losing their jobs or going on paid leave for misconduct and bogus political corruption cases
• …and to top it off, the USDOJ is suing him too for failing to cooperate with their investigation, threatening millions more in federal funding

It really does impress me that with a record like this, the conservatives up north prize Sheriff Joe so, even as their own area’s crime rates suffer compared to the rest of the state. I guess his supporters must not be feeling it. And this is the sort of ‘justice’ they want to force on the rest of the state with S.B. 1070, inviting lawsuits from conservative cranks and racists if they don’t think law enforcement is hunting brown people with sufficient zeal.

Sadly, like Pittsburgh, our voices get drowned out by the volume of grumpy old men in the bigger city. And by attacking achievement as ‘elitism,’ they’ve made incompetence into a virtue.

Pennsylvania skies

It’s raining, storming some now as I write this tonight. I took this picture in the afternoon when I got home. The sky to the southwest — good and gray. I missed a better shot while I was driving home; the sun was shining through the clouds, casting sunbeams like rays down to the ground. This was when it had broken through a bit later.

Monsoon season brings this weather, and the sky or parts of it remind me of the old stomping grounds back east. In this case, it was just the southwest. In other directions I could see blue sky and puffy white clouds. That’s the way of things here; there’s a lot more sky, and it can vary quite a bit.

Anyway, nice to smell the rain and cool things off some tonight.

Adventures in transportation

My car’s third issue this year cropped up today, when the driver’s side window motor gave out with a rattle and a grind. It’s in the shop now, hopefully to be resolved by tomorrow for minimal off-work-time. It may also give me time to build this tomorrow, since it arrived over the weekend. Some assembly required.

We’ll see if it looks that spiffy, but Sue and I decided to split the cost on an exercise bike as she doesn’t want to start going to a gym again. Assuming I don’t break it, this should be my new form of exercise soon. Plus I can watch TV. And hear it, and choose the channel, unlike in a gym. We’re both dieting, she’s practically fasting; but exercise is necessary, we know this. She may still be walking but I’m not…so, here we go.

I could probably fit more furniture into the living room, but it’s looking pretty packed. Maximum lived-in-ness!

Furry pest visit

During the afternoon the kitten found me, while I was outside trimming some of the plant life in the yard. Naturally he decided to come inside to play with the string and otherwise look for mischief. I wish I knew what about my house he likes so much; I might be inspired to change it, heh. One of these days he’ll grow up and be as indifferent and aloof as his pal Mudbug.

And then, there was string

Since I have a couple extra days off, I picked up some rope today to tie back a tree that is growing lopsided enough for my car to run into its branches. As a side effect, I have some…string. And as I was working on the tree, who should arrive but Sue’s little buddy to heedlessly play with the string while I was trying to work.

I brought him inside with a piece of string to occupy him for awhile. I’m sure Sue will be happy next weekend to have some string for the kitty to play with.

Water falls from sky!

It is an ill omen, as I have learned from the many crazy Tucson drivers who react so strangely to this phenomenon. I was at work looking out the window thinking, hm, clouds. I know the monsoon has ‘officially’ begun already but we were just starting to see dew points creep up, humidity seeming to increase ever so slightly, some days with clouds.

Then I got out of work, and I saw more than clouds; I saw rain columns. Heck, I saw it spattering on my windshield before I got home. Rain columns, btw, are what you can see when there’s not a bunch of hills and mountains crowding your horizon like back in PA. The mountains here are distant enough to let you see a lot of sky for miles around, and so you can see rain falling on a spot from miles away. This was my view from the driveway when I got home.

So, it’s monsoon season again. I can smell the water in the air now. Time for coolers to not work so well, time for me to dust off the portable A/C and make sure it’s working. And it’s a good thing I got my car thoroughly checked out and the battery replaced. I’ll be needing that A/C too.

On the bright side, I have a couple days of actual vacation time (i.e. vacation time not used as sick/adventures in plumbing/motoring) scheduled for next week. Couldn’t make it back east, but I may call.

Sue’s missing out

Since we’re in this state of economic woe and Sue can’t upgrade her PC here, she doesn’t come over as much. And this is what she’s missing. Teasing you mercilessly, yep! Look at da kitty…aww…

This little guy continues to come and visit, probably looking for her. Continues to prowl around my kitchen while I cook dinner, hoping I will feed him, since she fed him in here, blast it. And when I settle down this is where he goes: her chair. I imagine it’s pretty cool compared to being outside. At least until he gets bored, makes a nuisance of himself, and gets the boot.

A failure to lead

Although I’ve already voted by mail for Arizona’s Prop 100 sales tax increase this May, I feel the need to point out the essential failure on the part of the state gov’t to address this budget crisis themselves. You know, do what people voted them in for, representative government. Be representatives and do some governing. It is sadly typical that conservatives have staked out such an extreme anti-tax position that they can’t raise a tax to save their own skins. Instead they have to foist it off on the people to raise a tax.

History

Governor’s veto

In June 2009, lawmakers approved a state budget, but only days later, Brewer vetoed the bill because it did not include the sales tax measure.^[12]

On July 31, 2009 lawmakers attempted to pass a state budget for the new fiscal year which began July 1, 2009. But, by the end of the day, lawmakers found themselves at yet another stalemate on the already late budget because of a failed agreement on the sales tax increase initiative.^[13]

In an amusing case of my agreeing somewhat with our Driving-While-Hispanic-criminalizing governor Jan Brewer, here she is advocating the tax that she couldn’t get the legislature, dominated by her political party, to pass.

And this proposition may still fail — thanks to their Republican constituents and the anti-tax extremism they have engendered in this state. I voted for it, but it would almost be more fun if it fails. I mean, bad, awful in all kinds of ways for the state, especially for our schools. But it would be nice to see what the passionately anti-tax Republicans would make of the results.

It’s bad enough that the state has to use regressive sales taxes, which hit the poor harder. But I still see conservatives complaining that we’re overtaxed, that it will hurt businesses, that the state just needs to cut some more. Oh no! The poor businesses! We’re all supposed to suck it up but not them, eh? It’s the comments that I find interesting from that link; even the Phoenix paper, the AZ Republic, seems to be on board for the sales tax, but evidently not some of their readers.

The news sources can always go to the Libertarians for a contrary position here. They can be counted upon to always support gov’t budget cuts. And like what we saw at the national level, it may take some time with the right wing-nuts in charge to see just how bad their positions really are.

When did businesses become citizens of the world, and stop being part of our communities, sinking or swimming, contributing with the rest of us? When did it become necessary to coddle business at any cost? They can’t all leave if the taxes go up.

Wednesday edit: Looks like the proposition did pass in the end, so the schools will be saved some grief.