Well, the religious Right wing-nuts are at it again. They're all up in arms about Obama potentially speaking at Notre Dame. And, as usual, their reasons are just as hypocritical as ever. They claim Obama shouldn't speak there because he's pro-choice.
And no, you idiots, not "pro-abortion". For the last f&*#ing time, NO ONE IS PRO-ABORTION! No one WANTS to see unborn babies killed. But the educated people of the world know that simply outlawing it doesn't reduce the number of abortions. There are better ways.
But, that's another topic for another post.
Back to the Notre Dame issue. As you probably know, Notre Dame is Catholic, and Catholics are generally avid pro-lifer conservatives. On the surface it makes sense they'd object to a pro-choice speaker. But their problem is their definition of pro-life is so narrow they don't even make sense. Apparently the only life they are "pro" about is the life that has not been born yet. They don't give a rat's ass about the life already here. They'll protest Obama but they had no trouble with Bush speaking there even though Bush has been responsible for the loss of thousands of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By the way, pro-choice does not mean Obama is directly responsible for a single embryo death. He does not order anyone to have an abortion. He does not perform any abortions. He does not even advocate abortions. He just thinks it's not the government's place to get involved in a woman's personal life and thinks advocating prevention is the better course to take.
I thought you conservatives were all about less government in our lives, anyway. Oh, wait. That would make too much sense for you. Never mind.
So, the "pro-lifers" protest Obama, who is not directly responsible for any embryo deaths, but they have no problem with Bush who was directly responsible for thousands of deaths. Bush ordered the bombing of towns in which innocent children died sleeping in their beds. Why do these people not see that as a more heinous crime than simply allowing a woman the right to choose? To most intelligent thinkers, directly causing the death or maiming of innocent already-living children is far more heinous a crime than the loss of an embryo. Yet Bush, who committed these very anti-life crimes, is perfectly welcome at Notre Dame.
Everyone knows the conservatives are hypocrites so it's not all that surprising. (Well, everyone except the conservatives themselves. They seem to be completely oblivious to their own hypocrisy.) But the degree of hypocrisy with these right-wingers is just absolutely mind-boggling.
I can only guess these people just do not think. Period. They just parrot what they hear from crazies like Limbaugh and the words go straight from their ears to their mouths without ever passing through their brains for processing. There's just no other explanation.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
With Gas Prices Down Are You Still Paying More?
With gas prices down to just over $2/gal you could still be paying more than that through everything else you buy. So was that $4.50/gal price of gas intended to help boost the economy?
I know that sounds contradictory. How could high gas prices possibly help boost the economy? People cut down on spending travel when they can't afford to fill their gas tanks. And it hurts businesses because the cost of their supplies and merchandise goes up due to higher delivery costs, reducing their profits. How can that possibly be a boost?
In the short term, it wasn't. But let me explain. As you'll probably recall, businesses didn't just eat those higher expenses. With the gas prices staying high the businesses started raising their prices to pass on the expense to the consumer. Everything from major clothing stores to your local restaurant started raising their prices. Pizza joints started tacking on "deliver surcharges" or increasing the current delivery charges. This is all "due to high gas prices", they'd say.
So now we all got a double whammy. Higher prices of gas at the pump plus higher prices on just about everything else they buy too. People complained about the gas prices but were surprisingly sympathetic about local business prices. I recall going into a usual teriyaki joint for lunch one day and noticed that almost every entree on the menu had been raised by $1 "due to higher gas prices". Someone pointed out the increased prices to (presumably) her friend standing next to her and that friend just shrugged and said, "Well they gotta deal with the higher gas prices too" and proceeded to pull out her ATM card.
Ok, so back to the original question. How did all this help boost the economy? Well, think about this. Gas prices have been back down to just over $2/gal for months now. But have you seen any business drop their prices back down to what they were prior to the gas price hikes? Have you seen a single pizza place eliminate or lower their "high gas prices" delivery charge? I sure haven't.
So when gas prices dropped it was an instant and effortless increase in revenues for all those businesses that had jacked up their prices when gas was high. And consumers were so tickled by the fact that they weren't going broke at the pump they didn't even notice they were still getting stung everywhere else. A nice boost for businesses indeed!
I'm probably wrong. I doubt the whole gas price thing was set up just to give businesses an excuse to raise their prices so they'd profit when gas prices dropped again.
But whatever the reason the result is that we are still indirectly paying higher gas prices and we need to start calling them out on it. It's just wrong that they are continuing to use an excuse that's no longer valid to justify higher prices and delivery charges. Call your lawn service company and ask them, "Remember that $10/month increase you tacked on a while back due to high gas prices? Well, now that gas prices are down, I want that previous rate I had." Next time you order pizza ask them why you're still paying that "high gas prices" delivery. Or, better yet, tell them you're not ordering from them until that fee is eliminated or reduced and order your pizza from a place that didn't hike their prices.
We're all still paying higher gas prices through the increased prices on goods and services that businesses haven't lowered since their costs were reduced. Time to start fighting back and not just let them take advantage of us. If we don't they'll use every excuse they can to do it again and again.
I know that sounds contradictory. How could high gas prices possibly help boost the economy? People cut down on spending travel when they can't afford to fill their gas tanks. And it hurts businesses because the cost of their supplies and merchandise goes up due to higher delivery costs, reducing their profits. How can that possibly be a boost?
In the short term, it wasn't. But let me explain. As you'll probably recall, businesses didn't just eat those higher expenses. With the gas prices staying high the businesses started raising their prices to pass on the expense to the consumer. Everything from major clothing stores to your local restaurant started raising their prices. Pizza joints started tacking on "deliver surcharges" or increasing the current delivery charges. This is all "due to high gas prices", they'd say.
So now we all got a double whammy. Higher prices of gas at the pump plus higher prices on just about everything else they buy too. People complained about the gas prices but were surprisingly sympathetic about local business prices. I recall going into a usual teriyaki joint for lunch one day and noticed that almost every entree on the menu had been raised by $1 "due to higher gas prices". Someone pointed out the increased prices to (presumably) her friend standing next to her and that friend just shrugged and said, "Well they gotta deal with the higher gas prices too" and proceeded to pull out her ATM card.
Ok, so back to the original question. How did all this help boost the economy? Well, think about this. Gas prices have been back down to just over $2/gal for months now. But have you seen any business drop their prices back down to what they were prior to the gas price hikes? Have you seen a single pizza place eliminate or lower their "high gas prices" delivery charge? I sure haven't.
So when gas prices dropped it was an instant and effortless increase in revenues for all those businesses that had jacked up their prices when gas was high. And consumers were so tickled by the fact that they weren't going broke at the pump they didn't even notice they were still getting stung everywhere else. A nice boost for businesses indeed!
I'm probably wrong. I doubt the whole gas price thing was set up just to give businesses an excuse to raise their prices so they'd profit when gas prices dropped again.
But whatever the reason the result is that we are still indirectly paying higher gas prices and we need to start calling them out on it. It's just wrong that they are continuing to use an excuse that's no longer valid to justify higher prices and delivery charges. Call your lawn service company and ask them, "Remember that $10/month increase you tacked on a while back due to high gas prices? Well, now that gas prices are down, I want that previous rate I had." Next time you order pizza ask them why you're still paying that "high gas prices" delivery. Or, better yet, tell them you're not ordering from them until that fee is eliminated or reduced and order your pizza from a place that didn't hike their prices.
We're all still paying higher gas prices through the increased prices on goods and services that businesses haven't lowered since their costs were reduced. Time to start fighting back and not just let them take advantage of us. If we don't they'll use every excuse they can to do it again and again.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Religious Conservative Hypocrites
Newt Gingrich: "Obama administration 'anti religious"
(Read article: CNN Political Ticker )
Uh, no, you idiot. He's not anti-religion. He's just against a Church-State government. Remember that thing we all cherish, The Constitution? Yeah, the one that says there should be separation of church and state? If you conservatives are really so protective of the Constitution like you say you are then you should be glad he wants to keep the government secular.
Hypocrites.
(Read article: CNN Political Ticker )
Uh, no, you idiot. He's not anti-religion. He's just against a Church-State government. Remember that thing we all cherish, The Constitution? Yeah, the one that says there should be separation of church and state? If you conservatives are really so protective of the Constitution like you say you are then you should be glad he wants to keep the government secular.
Hypocrites.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
National Health Care and the Selfish Conservatives
I'm so sick of the conservatives whining about not wanting a national health care because they don't want their money being used to pay for others' health care services. Typical selfish, greedy little money grubbers shouting "My money, my money!" Yes, it is your money. But here's a news flash for you ..... you're already paying for others' health care! I know, you're thinking, "no I'm not! I only pay for my own health insurance." True. But why do you think the average family's health insurance premiums are something outrageous like $1,500/mo, whether they actually use it or not? Because the insurance is paying for everyone else who's running up more medical costs than their premium payments cover. And where do you think they get that money? From you, the one paying and not using all your insurance. So let's say you pay $1,500/mo for your family's insurance and use less or none. Your neighbor pays $1,500/mo for his family but has $3,000 worth of medical bills. Guess what. You're paying for his family's expenses. Instead of the government taking your tax money and using it to cover everyone else's medical expenses, the insurance companies take your money and use it to cover everyone else's expenses .... and shave a hefty profit off the top while they're at it.
Ok, so the next argument is usually something like, "well, at least I'm not paying for the lazy good-for-nothings who don't have insurance", right? But you'd be wrong again. You end up paying for the people without insurance indirectly. How? Because people without insurance tend to put off preventative care. By waiting until things get more serious before seeking medical attention their treatments end up being more extensive and costly. They often also use the ER for services so they won't be turned away, which is way more expensive than a regular doctor visit had they been able to see one earlier and not waited until it became critical. And if they can't pay for the services the hospitals have to eat it. But they don't eat the cost and then forget it. Oh, no. They have to raise the costs for everyone else to cover the costs of those who can't pay. And that increased cost gets passed on to your insurance company and ultimately to you with jack-up premiums.
Just face it. There's no way out of it. You're paying for others' expenses one way or another.
So how is the current insurance system better than a national government-paid-for health care system? Why do we need the middleman in there with their CEOs giving themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, especially when they get even bigger bonuses by working harder to deny claims to the people paying the outrageous insurance premiums? Oh, you don't think they work hard to deny claims to make bigger profits? Oh, yes they do. They spend millions of dollars ... millions of your dollars from premiums, I should add ... so they can create whole departments dedicated solely to finding ways to deny claims. So, besides helping to pay for others' medical expenses, paying CEOs outrageous bonuses, ...oh yeah, and paying dividends to shareholders ... you're actually paying the insurance companies to find ways not to provide you the service you're buying. Awesome system, isn't it?
And then we have the economic issue. People are going bankrupt every day due to huge medical bills. Small businesses are closing their doors or laying off employees due to the high cost of health care coverage. And it significantly hinders entrepreneurship, the thing we say America is so proud of. If you're a man with a wife and three kids dependent on your job to provide your family with health coverage and you have an idea for starting a small business, are you going to tell your family they have to go without health coverage until your new business gets off the ground? Probably not. There are many, many people out there with small business dreams and ideas who will never see them come to fruition because they are shackled to their current employer just for the health coverage. This is a ridiculous economic burden our system should not have to bear. I find it ironic that Republicans, who say they are the pro-business party, never seem to get this.
Btw, does it even make sense to put the burden of health care coverage on employers? Is there any other country that does, or has in the past, put the burden of health care coverage on employers? It's kind of weird if you really think about it.
So why not have a system where everyone pays into it so there are no "freeloaders" and no one is skimming huge profits off the top or denying claims or denying coverage? You're going to pay one way or another so this way you can at least rest assured that everyone has to contribute a share through their tax dollars. On top of that, you'll never have to worry about going bankrupt due to accident or illness. Why doesn't that sound better better to you?
Ok, so the next argument is usually something like, "well, at least I'm not paying for the lazy good-for-nothings who don't have insurance", right? But you'd be wrong again. You end up paying for the people without insurance indirectly. How? Because people without insurance tend to put off preventative care. By waiting until things get more serious before seeking medical attention their treatments end up being more extensive and costly. They often also use the ER for services so they won't be turned away, which is way more expensive than a regular doctor visit had they been able to see one earlier and not waited until it became critical. And if they can't pay for the services the hospitals have to eat it. But they don't eat the cost and then forget it. Oh, no. They have to raise the costs for everyone else to cover the costs of those who can't pay. And that increased cost gets passed on to your insurance company and ultimately to you with jack-up premiums.
Just face it. There's no way out of it. You're paying for others' expenses one way or another.
So how is the current insurance system better than a national government-paid-for health care system? Why do we need the middleman in there with their CEOs giving themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, especially when they get even bigger bonuses by working harder to deny claims to the people paying the outrageous insurance premiums? Oh, you don't think they work hard to deny claims to make bigger profits? Oh, yes they do. They spend millions of dollars ... millions of your dollars from premiums, I should add ... so they can create whole departments dedicated solely to finding ways to deny claims. So, besides helping to pay for others' medical expenses, paying CEOs outrageous bonuses, ...oh yeah, and paying dividends to shareholders ... you're actually paying the insurance companies to find ways not to provide you the service you're buying. Awesome system, isn't it?
And then we have the economic issue. People are going bankrupt every day due to huge medical bills. Small businesses are closing their doors or laying off employees due to the high cost of health care coverage. And it significantly hinders entrepreneurship, the thing we say America is so proud of. If you're a man with a wife and three kids dependent on your job to provide your family with health coverage and you have an idea for starting a small business, are you going to tell your family they have to go without health coverage until your new business gets off the ground? Probably not. There are many, many people out there with small business dreams and ideas who will never see them come to fruition because they are shackled to their current employer just for the health coverage. This is a ridiculous economic burden our system should not have to bear. I find it ironic that Republicans, who say they are the pro-business party, never seem to get this.
Btw, does it even make sense to put the burden of health care coverage on employers? Is there any other country that does, or has in the past, put the burden of health care coverage on employers? It's kind of weird if you really think about it.
So why not have a system where everyone pays into it so there are no "freeloaders" and no one is skimming huge profits off the top or denying claims or denying coverage? You're going to pay one way or another so this way you can at least rest assured that everyone has to contribute a share through their tax dollars. On top of that, you'll never have to worry about going bankrupt due to accident or illness. Why doesn't that sound better better to you?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Why Do We Need Free Will Anyway?
Most theists seem to use the Free Will argument to explain evil and suffering. And most atheists argue back that free will is no excuse for the degree of evil. Both sides usually try to make free will fit in one way or another because we instintively think it's of vital importance. I'd like to ask, why is free will necessary?
When discussing the issue with a theist I was asked, "Let me ask you this: which would you have preferred: that God created you WITH free will or WITHOUT?"
I'm pressuming it was a rhetorical question and the expected response is, "WITH free will, of course!"
But I'm not going to say that. Instead I want to take a different approach. While I'm quite convinced the Free Will argument does not work I'll pretend for a moment that it does and answer the question a different way.
If I could get rid of hunger, poverty, disease, war, rape, torture, and all the other horrendous acts of humans (and nature) that cause suffering, yes, I would sacrifice free will. And what would be wrong with that? You might argue that would be sad and we'd be bored and unhappy. Not if you consider God could have created us in any way imagineable (and probably ways unimagineable) and could have created us to be perfectly content with no free will. In fact, it would have been just as easy for him to create us so that we were downright ecstactic about the idea of having no free. Yes, we could have been created as deliriously happy robot-like creatures. But, if we were deliriously happy about not having free will, if we were deliriously happy about being robot-like beings, then why would we care that we didn't have free will? We wouldn't want it because God would have created us to not want it. So what? Everyone talks of free will as if it's this magical wonderful thing we should want above all else. (And here I'm talking strictly about free will pertaining to God, not to be confused with "freedom" as in free from restrictions imposed by other humans.) But why? If God tells us that without free will we will live happy, peaceful lives, but with free will we will have disease, war, and other miseries, why should we ever strive for the latter?
When discussing the issue with a theist I was asked, "Let me ask you this: which would you have preferred: that God created you WITH free will or WITHOUT?"
I'm pressuming it was a rhetorical question and the expected response is, "WITH free will, of course!"
But I'm not going to say that. Instead I want to take a different approach. While I'm quite convinced the Free Will argument does not work I'll pretend for a moment that it does and answer the question a different way.
If I could get rid of hunger, poverty, disease, war, rape, torture, and all the other horrendous acts of humans (and nature) that cause suffering, yes, I would sacrifice free will. And what would be wrong with that? You might argue that would be sad and we'd be bored and unhappy. Not if you consider God could have created us in any way imagineable (and probably ways unimagineable) and could have created us to be perfectly content with no free will. In fact, it would have been just as easy for him to create us so that we were downright ecstactic about the idea of having no free. Yes, we could have been created as deliriously happy robot-like creatures. But, if we were deliriously happy about not having free will, if we were deliriously happy about being robot-like beings, then why would we care that we didn't have free will? We wouldn't want it because God would have created us to not want it. So what? Everyone talks of free will as if it's this magical wonderful thing we should want above all else. (And here I'm talking strictly about free will pertaining to God, not to be confused with "freedom" as in free from restrictions imposed by other humans.) But why? If God tells us that without free will we will live happy, peaceful lives, but with free will we will have disease, war, and other miseries, why should we ever strive for the latter?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Should Humvees Be Illegal?
So, I was watching a show about the car of the future and they were talking about all the different alternative-energy cars people are trying to develop such as hydrogen, ethanol, lithium battery, etc.
When I first started watching the show I was feeling hopeful. But after the show I was feeling somewhat depressed. it's looking pretty grim, frankly. Nothing's going to happen soon and, even when it does happen, it won't be enough.
They're saying by the year 2050 there will be 2.5 times as many cars on the road as there are now. And, while progress is being made towards finding alternative-energy cars, it's slow and none of the options so far is particulary ideal. Burning ethanol, for example, only reduces carbon emissions by 25%. And this doesn't even take into account all the energy required to preduce the corn needed for the ethanol. As it turns out it takes nearly as much fossil fuel to produce it as it replaces. Kind of pointless, isn't it?
While this is disturbing enough, there was something else that sort of pissed me off. Besides all the research being done towards alternative-energy cars, lots of research has been done to make current gasoline powered cars run more efficiently. They say that within the last 20 years engine efficiency has increased 30%. Yeah, that's good. That's not the part that pisses me off. What pisses me off is they also said that during this same time the average fuel economy rating has gone from 22mpg to 20mpg despite this increase in efficiency. Why? Because, rather than making cars more fuel efficient, car manufacturers have been using the technology to make "sexy" cars with more horsepower, or bigger vehicles. There are more SUVs on the road now than ever before.
So in this day and age of looming energy shortages and global warming, why do we even allow gas-guzzling vehicles? Why are Humvees, for example, even legal? Who the hell needs one of those? Considering the Earth's dire future with our current practices, would it be so aweful to make it illegal to own a huge vehicle without proving you have a need? No more Humvees, no more Ford Expeditions unless you can prove you have a real need for one. For example, if you earn your living doing construction and you need a big-ass pickup truck to hall your tools and supplies then fine. But if you're just some guy with money having a midlife crisis who get a hard-on about the idea of driving a Humvee, no go for you, buddy.
Most of the time I've actually seen Humvees on the road they're being driven by middle-aged housewives buying groceries or taking the kids to Big 5 to buy new soccer balls. She's probably driving it because her dumb-ass husband had a mid-life crisis and thought he was going to reclaim his youth with it but soon realized he couldn't afford the gas to drive it to work everyday, so the wife's stuck using it to run errands. This is just selfish, wasteful, and stupid, IMO. Would it really be so bad to just outlaw this kind of crap?
When I first started watching the show I was feeling hopeful. But after the show I was feeling somewhat depressed. it's looking pretty grim, frankly. Nothing's going to happen soon and, even when it does happen, it won't be enough.
They're saying by the year 2050 there will be 2.5 times as many cars on the road as there are now. And, while progress is being made towards finding alternative-energy cars, it's slow and none of the options so far is particulary ideal. Burning ethanol, for example, only reduces carbon emissions by 25%. And this doesn't even take into account all the energy required to preduce the corn needed for the ethanol. As it turns out it takes nearly as much fossil fuel to produce it as it replaces. Kind of pointless, isn't it?
While this is disturbing enough, there was something else that sort of pissed me off. Besides all the research being done towards alternative-energy cars, lots of research has been done to make current gasoline powered cars run more efficiently. They say that within the last 20 years engine efficiency has increased 30%. Yeah, that's good. That's not the part that pisses me off. What pisses me off is they also said that during this same time the average fuel economy rating has gone from 22mpg to 20mpg despite this increase in efficiency. Why? Because, rather than making cars more fuel efficient, car manufacturers have been using the technology to make "sexy" cars with more horsepower, or bigger vehicles. There are more SUVs on the road now than ever before.
So in this day and age of looming energy shortages and global warming, why do we even allow gas-guzzling vehicles? Why are Humvees, for example, even legal? Who the hell needs one of those? Considering the Earth's dire future with our current practices, would it be so aweful to make it illegal to own a huge vehicle without proving you have a need? No more Humvees, no more Ford Expeditions unless you can prove you have a real need for one. For example, if you earn your living doing construction and you need a big-ass pickup truck to hall your tools and supplies then fine. But if you're just some guy with money having a midlife crisis who get a hard-on about the idea of driving a Humvee, no go for you, buddy.
Most of the time I've actually seen Humvees on the road they're being driven by middle-aged housewives buying groceries or taking the kids to Big 5 to buy new soccer balls. She's probably driving it because her dumb-ass husband had a mid-life crisis and thought he was going to reclaim his youth with it but soon realized he couldn't afford the gas to drive it to work everyday, so the wife's stuck using it to run errands. This is just selfish, wasteful, and stupid, IMO. Would it really be so bad to just outlaw this kind of crap?
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