Bush has never vetoed a bill

As you might know, I think George Bush is the worst excuse for a president in history. When he (or that evil and thoroughly ugly man Cheney) appears on television, I have to turn it off out of fear of losing control and throwing my remote at the screen, not softly, but hard. I can't describe the harm I think he continues to do to our country our children's future. I hold him and the lying crowd he surrounds himself with in utter disdain.

I read this morning that Bush is the first president since Garfield in 1881 to have never vetoed a bill. Doesn't mean anything you say? I say it means plenty. For one, it indicates a president who will do anything for to please his political supporters, damn the consequences. But any thinking person already knew that.

Here are veto stats on some past presidents. Roosevelt vetoed 635 bills and was overridden nine times. Eisenhower: 181 and overridden two. Reagan: 78 and nine; Clinton: 36 and two.

You show 'em George.

On illusion

I received an email yesterday morning from a friend that featured one of those visual illusions that at first glance looked like frog. But as the image rotated 90 degrees, you clearly saw a horse's head and the frog was gone. After looking at the horse, it took concentrated effort to to see the frog again. (Unfortunately, I could not paste the picture to this blog). It's a good illustration of how we "perceive", of how we can often see only what we expect to see, and of how difficult it is for us as humans -- it's almost unnatural -- to change an existing belief.

Maybe this "illusion" offers one of the keys to understanding how otherwise intelligent people can believe the outlandish and non-sensical claims of their "religion" (applies to every religion!). All without the barest shred of evidence! Not only that, all the evidence points in the opposite direction -- the direction that says the nature of God is unknown and unknowable, and that he does not influence events here on earth.

I have to laugh (or cry) when people say "God was watching over me" or "God spared me because he had other plans for me." What about the people (small children, too) he wasn't watching over. If he has "plans" for little old "you," was Katrina part of God's plan, too? What about the Holocaust or 9/11 or the Iraqi War? Were they all part of God's plan, too. These are reasonable questions that should be asked.

My answer, when it comes to anything involving the Supernatural, is always the same:"I don't know." The available evidence, however, overwhelmingly indicates that God does NOT have a plan. Seems to me he set it all in motion 16 billion years ago and then left us on our own. It seems rather doubtful to me (I'm being kind) that the God of the Universe chose the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to communicate his presence to us!!!

None of this, by the way, precludes an afterlife. Who knows? Maybe so. I hope so. Just don't go telling me that you know how to get there and I don't!!!

Speaking of "reasonable questions," more than half the U.S. population (54%: NBC poll) believes the Adam and Eve story of creation-- and therefore do not believe in the Big Bang or Evolution. (It's a fact. I can show you the poll). The remaining 40% or so of the population hold the logical and perfectly reasonable view that the A&E story is pure allegory (which is what I learned in Catholic school, to their credit). To the relief of millions, it's okay to believe the allegory interpretation and still be a good Christian or Jew.

Most Allegory Believers, including so-called "moderate Christians", consider the beliefs of the Bible "literalists" untrue but harmless. But is it harmess? I say it's not. I say it's NOT good to bullshit kids by telling them to believe things that are not true, the A&E story for example. Lying about Santa Claus is one thing. Continuing to lie to older children (and adults!) about an issue as important as "God" or "eternity" is unacceptable, and certainly detrimental to "scientific inquiry". Is it good for a child's education to tell him that God made the universe less than 10,000 years ago, when science says he did it somehere around 16 billion years ago? To borrow a term from our religious zealot president, I say it's "evil."

Most religious believers (even Bush) claim to reject "religious extremism", although usually with a tendancy to be more tolerant of it within their own religion -- sometimes too tolerent. Mainstream Muslims, for example, are often supportive of suicide bombers, and moderate Christians let silly myths like "The Rapture" go unchallenged. Non-extremist Muslims and moderate Christians are "selective" in their beliefs. They both share in common a remarkable ability to focus only on the parts they agree with (The Sermon on the Mount is a favorite) and to pretend the parts they don't agree with don't exist (like Bible stories about stoning your daughter or owning slaves; or exhortations in the Koran to 'kill infidels").

Why do moderates, doubters, and even agnostics give religious believers a free pass instead of asking a few hard questions, and INSISTING ON ANSWERS that are more substantial than the usual end-of-the-discussion line, "You have to have faith"?

Why don't Catholics publicly question the truth of a fundamental doctine like "the Transubstantiation" -- that belief that bread and wine is changed into Christ's body and blood with a few magic (er, I mean miraculous) words from the priest celebrating mass? (It's even true when the priest and the alter boy have something going on in the sacristy!). Don't people stop to consider the origins of The Transubstantiation, that it was decreed as "dogma" by a pope and his cardinals at the Council of Trent, not through some divine insight but in reaction to the Protestant Reformation.

Is it possible that the Council participants might have gotten it wrong? After all, the last officiating pope (Julius III) was rather distracted -- seems he had a thing going with a 15-year-old boy he "picked up in the streets of Parma". So it's not a stretch to suggest that, "Maybe, just maybe" . . . the bread remains bread, and the wine remains wine. In which case it's all BS, isn't?

(You won't believe this, but there's a part of me that cringes when I say something disrespectful about beliefs that others hold so sacred, and that I once did, too; but I still believe the questions must be asked and should be asked.)

So why don't we ask these questions? Because it's politically incorrect, that's why. Even Howard Stern, who's always looking for a new taboo, won't go so far as to question the fundamental beliefs of a religious believer. Maybe it's time we start asking the hard questions. Maybe it's time we start applying the same rigorous standards of "proof and evidence" to religious belief that we logically and routinely -- without exception -- apply to literally every other belief in life. With Muslim extremists willing to kill because of their religious beliefs, we may have no choice but to start publicly questioning religious beliefs.

Here's the way I see it: If the God of the Bible does exist, I can think of no reason why he would he object to us using the brains he gave us, and then respectfully but forcefully asking the hard questions!

Executing Elderly Prisoners

The CBS Evening News had a piece last night on the Death Penalty for aging prisoners. Featured was a feeble old inmate due to be executed soon. A uniformed guard explained how he and four others will need to carry him to the gurney (he can’t walk) and then “strap him in” (so he can’t escape?). Another guard pointed to a decrepit, mentally-retarded-looking guy in a wheel chair, also on Death Row. “Look at him,” the guard says, “he’s not gonna hurt anybody.” We can agree on that. Then again, what do you with him, Let him go? (maybe at the top of a hill? Only kidding).

I was hoping the interviewer would stir things up by asking the guard: “But it’s costing us on average $40,000 a year to keep this old guy alive, more with all his medicines. Shouldn’t we kill him and save the state some money?” I'm sure the scripted answer would have been: “But, sir, you can’t put a price on a human life.”

The Death Penalty is one of those issues that both the Right and the Left love to argue about – the “bleeding hearts” on the Left (you gotta give the Right credit for their skill at branding with language) and the “eye-for-an-eye” crowd on the Right. And the more I hear the sillier it gets. Everyone knows that the Death Penalty does not deter crime, sometimes kills the innocent, is arguably uncivilized, and does not save the state money. (It probably costs more with the long appeals process). Besides, isn’t life in prison without parole a stiffer punishment than a needle? It would be to me.

The shrillest advocates of the Death Penalty -- all on the Right of course -- are out for one thing: vengeance. They call it "justice," but it's revenge, and that's the part that bugs me: the state does not belong in the vengeance business. The angry daughter of the man the featured prisoner killed wants him executed “because he killed my father.” Sort of reminds you one of Bush’s justifications for attacking Saddam: “He tried to kill my daddy.” (It’s okay that we tried to kill Saddam, but always “evil” when it’s the other way around).

I don't personally care one way or the other (except for those who are innocent) so I'm sure no bleeding heart. But I'd much rather be a bleeding heart than a member of the retribution crowd!

Has Iraq made us weaker?

It's really a dumb question. Of course the Iraq War has made us weaker, and what a shame. I realize there will always be a delusional few out there who like to insist the Iraq War has made us stronger (and safer). I'm sure our President would be one of them. But who cares what he thinks. He's been a font of bullshit since day one.

One needs only to look at the Iran situation to separate fact from fiction. Our invasion of Iraq has empowered and emboldened Iran, and had much to do with the election of their extremist president, who I doubt would have won the election if we were not occupying Iraq. Even supporters of the war agree that our occupation of Iraq has stirred up anger and resentment in the Islamic world.

It's tempting to say "Who cares if they don't like us?" But that misses the point. Iran is now going after a nuclear weapon and we are much less able to do anything about it than we were before the war. We certainly do not have the strength to threaten them militarily. Our troops are already overcommitted, if not exhausted. As a former Marine, that pisses me off!

The real payoff of our idiotic invasion of Iraq is very likely to be a nuclear weapon in the hands of Muslim extremists and for this I would have to give part of the credit to our embarrassing excuse for a president who, only four weeks ago, stated again that he would do it all over "even knowing what he knows now." The nerve of him! And people accept this? That to me is unbelievable. Then again, over half the electorate believes in Noah's ark (ignoring inconvenienbt facts like the 220,000 species of beetles that exist on our planet), so what should we expect?

I'm fully aware of the upside of a "free and democratic Iraq" -- as well as the downside of an Islamic republic aligned with Iran, the incredibly huge cost in treasure and reputation, a Sunni (not Al Qaeda) insurgency that is far from over, and the tens of thousands of deaths and ruined lives, both civilian Iraqi and American, this unncessary "war of choice" has caused.

Again, I remind our president and his supporters of two facts: 1) We did not go to war for purpose of "freeing the people of Iraq." And 2) so-called "terrorism" was Saddam's enemy as much as ours. There was no terrorism whatsoever in Iraq until we arrived.

Free Enterprise is not always THE ANSWER

stop holding up free enterprise as the holy grail. Healthcare especially. Our citizens get less healthcare for more dollars than any any country in the world, according to the measurents most commonly used. Go figure. Actually, the reasons are simple: Administration, marketing, and insurance chew up as large a part as the actual "healthcare." That's because the HMOs and insurance companies have one objective: to pay our as little as possible, so as to boost profits and and benefit the investors.

So you don't think I'm a communist, I assure you that I do believe in free enterprise, the profit motive, and private investment. I would much rather see our nation's capital in the hands of individuals. I trust individuals (I'm thinking of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) to be be better at putting the capital to work. It's behind much of our country's success. (That's why I don't want to see us fuck it up!)

I submit that capitalism does not work in healthcare. Profits cannot be the end all. (There's nothing wrong with "profits", but it doesn't work in healthcare).

The accepted wisdom among the unthinking right wing seems to be: We need profits in order to be motivated. I have worked off and on for the UCSD School of Medicine Dean's Office for over three years and I can attest that far and away the "best doctors" were not motivated mainly by money. Sure, they wanted to make a good living -- they should -- but they were not in pursuit of hedge-fund-type riches. That's not what turned them on.

Despite what the dumb half of the country assumes -- that government "can't do anything right" -- I have NO DOUBT we would all be better served if the government (i.e., the people collectively) ran the healtcare system. If the rich want to get a supplemental policy on top of government-provided health care, fine, let them.

The pharmaceutical industry likes to talk about the money it spends on "research", but the fact is they spend more on "marketing". That's a published fact. If I may share a personal experience, I worked for a year at the UCSD Hospital in an office that encountered a steady stream of well-dressed, and well paid, young men bearing gifts of pens and pads and candy for the office staff -- and I'm sure something much nicer for the physicians they were calling on.

Isn't it strange that the doctors' contacts are "sales representatives" who presumably memorize a pitch about the drug or pill their peddling? It's all so silly - and wasteful. (I wonder: Does the fact that it provides "jobs" to nice young men and women count for anything? Should it?)

Another huge marketing expense are all those TV ads for Lipitor, Viagara and Celebrex -- ads that designed with one purpose: to persuade TV watchers to "ask your doctor about Lipitor"(or whatever)

I'm influcenced by my USMC experience. If you were sick in the Marines you saw the corpsman (same as a medic in the Army), or you could go straight to the dispensery (like a neighborhood clinic) where a nurspe practitioner equivolent would look at the problem and either handle it (like a serious blister) or send you to the Navy doctor on duty. It worked! And it wasn't dependent on a "profit motive" in order to work efficiently. In fact, the lack of a profit motive made it work better. (Remember, the U.S. is most "inefficient" worldwide in providing healthcare to our citizens).

Don't you get it? In the area of "healthcare", the profit motive gums things up. In part, it's because the consumer is incapable of choosing wisely on his or her own. Not only can it be a matter of life and death (literally), but the consumer is no match for an industry whose GOAL is to provide the smallest amount of care for the best price.

Get that!!! Please. It's a fact.

What do we owe our progeny?

I saw a program on PBS the other evening on Global Warning. There is no longer a doubt that it's happening, that it will bring about significant climate changes in the future, and that many people in the future will suffer because of it. Scientists the world over agree that we must do something now if there is to be any hope of forestalling the worst of its effects. Yet the Bush administration still has a policy of creating "confusion and uncertainty" about whether it is even happening. Republican Senator Imhoff (perhaps the dumbest man in government) calls Global Warming "a hoax," while he collects campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry.

Global warming (along with saddling future generations with our national debt) confronts us with the question: What do we owe future generations? Do we owe them anything at all?

I think we do, but I've known people who disagree. "What do I care? I won't be here?", someone once remarked to me. I guess it boils down to one's philosophy. Or is "morality" a better word. And why is that the Conservative Right, who consider themselves the "moral ones," are also the ones with the "who gives a shit?" attitude toward our progeny?

Could it be that to them "morality" is only a matter of gay marriage, premarital sex and pornography and has nothing to do with our responsbility toward future generations?