Thought all should know...

It's a girl! Born to Deder and Andrea Siedler in Eugene Oregon at one-ish in the afternoon today, June 19, an 8# baby girl. Baby, mother...and father reportedly doing well. Name to be named as soon as official. Proud first-time grandparents Bill and Genie are buoyant and elated. Newly minted grandfather Bill can scarcely wait until newly minted granddaughter is old enough that he can say to her: "Pull my finger!"

Not Only Is...

The American Right-Wing much, much better armed than the American Left, it is much, much more likely to use those arms on those whom it perceives to be the reason white, fundamentalist Christian males are losing their long-held privileges over minorities. Privileges right-wingers think of as "rights" for them, and "special rights" for anyone who's not them. Secession talk in Texas, the killing of Dr. Tiller, the Holocaust Museum security guard and the killing of three cops in Pittsburgh, PA have surely made the Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism look prescient now, even though it was originally panned by Fox News and other conservative media outlets.

Much the same thing happened when Clinton became president, and it's only more so since the election of Barack Obama. This phenomenon is particularly evident here in Alaska, where gun store owners have proclaimed, "Obama is the best gun salesman I've ever had." I can attest to this attitude from personal experience. I recently went into the Wasilla Sportsman's Warehouse looking for ammo. Asking why the shelves were empty, the guy behind the counter explained the shortage by confiding to me, "Some people think there's gonna be a war." I was tempted to ask him with whom this war was to be fought, but I already knew. Even stranger days may lie ahead.

The once-a-fortnight blog continues...

With this gem from the Daily Kos, quoting Bill Maher:

"Rush [Limbaugh] and his ilk have come up with a name for the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court that's been 99 percent white men for 200 years, and that name is 'reverse racist.' She is a racist and someone has to stop her because for too long white men have been kept down by powerful Puerto Rican women!"
---Bill Maher

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Back here in the Greatland, Anchorage Daily News columnist Elise Patkotak combines the Religious Right's mis-belief that America's laws are somehow based on the Ten Commandments - and their fear of gay marriage. Demonstrating that only two commandments of the "Decalogue" are actually in law (#6, "Thou shalt not kill," and #8, Thou shalt not steal). Further, Elise reminds us that all known cultures and civilizations since humans became human have embraced those very two concepts, regardless of religion. How else could any culture survive?

She adds that:
"If your religion requires you to shun gay people, shun away. But your god cannot take away their civil liberties because the Constitution make it crystal clear that those rights and liberties did not come from any god." I particularly like the way she boldly uses the lower case "god." It shows that Elise is not afraid to demand that religious people need to succeed in what Oliver Wendel Holmes referred to as the "market place of ideas," and cannot expect the rest of us to defer to religious views only because their religious.

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New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman puts the current financial crisis' roots squarely where they belong. In the administration of Ronald Reagan, hero of the Republican Party, who signed the law that gave the banking industry"a license to gamble with the taxpayers money" due to the catastrophic long-term effects of deregulation. Go to the NYT website and find it.

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Finally, it looks like two petty crooks (bribery) who were once representatives in the Alaska State Legislature may actually get out - part of the fallout from the US Senator Ted Steven's(R-Alaska) affair, where the USDOJ (under Obama) dropped all seven charges to which Uncle Ted was convicted (under Bush). This was due to mishandling of Steven's case by prosecutors, NOT on the evidence. Ted's age (82) was also a factor in Attorney General Holder's decision to not retry.

Not quite so lucky are former state reps. Pete Kott and Vic Kohring, as even though they may be released temporarily, their convictions may still hold up. After all their was indisputable video evidence of the bribes-for-votes for both of these guys. Hell, Vic (my own former representative) went down for like, 200 bucks and a bottle of vodka. Stay tuned on this one.

I know you've already heard this...

I'm "Batchin-it"...

For the next few days with "Bunches" out to NY to collect our daughter, see some of the sights available on the NY side of America. Warm and sunny enough here in the Greatland to beat last year's miserable global-warming-denial-of-a-summer already, and it's only the middle of May. I'm crossing fingers.

Sarah (our governor) Palin has sided with fellow beauty pageant contestant Miss USA California, claiming that the 1st Amendment's freedom of speech clause covers Miss Prejean's somewhat impolitic statement, seemingly (and biblically) anti-gay rights. Our Governor thinks that the freedom of speech is unrestricted by privately owned ("The Donald" Trump)and funded events like the Miss USA bimbo-fest. This is of course, not true, which is why Al Campanis, Jimmy-the-Greek and others have famously been fired or retired by their media bosses when caught practicing bigotry. Not by the bosses, but by the public.

While it is a true example of sisterhood that an aging former beauty queen is standing up for a silicon-enhanced current beauty queen, neither of them seem to "get" the 1st Amendment: You can speak your mind...but there may be consequences. We bloggers should understand this too.

Late to the party again...

But The "Tea Baggers" on April 15th here in Alaska count among themselves one Chuck Heath, father of Sarah "Caribou Barbie" (Heath) Palin, observed at the Wasilla Tea Party wearing a grin and a "Joe the Plumber" sweatshirt, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Question: Is there anything so galling as a former public employee who lives on a handsome retirement (payed for by the local taxpayers), and who so gleefully attends tax protest demonstrations? Word is that Chuck was an exceptionally good teacher, so I'm sure he feels he earned his retirement. fine. Why protest against others getting theirs?

Our local publicly-owned electric utility here in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley has completed its annual membership meeting, board elections and bylaw referendum. In other places news of this sort would rarely make the shopping fliers, but this is the Wasilla-Palmer-Mat-Valley, so its BIG news. The relatively new "liberal" majority on the Matanuska Electric Association (MEA)board was re-elected, even after ordering manager Wayne Carmony to cashier Bruce Scott and Republican political gadfly Tuckerman Babcock. MEA has long served as a Laundromat for Republican patronage jobs, which explains Scott and Babcock's tenure there. Frankly, it couldn't have happened to two of more deserving practitioners of the professional sinecure. Tuckerman, who ran for Alaska State House as a conservative "let the private sector do it" candidate back in 1990, never so much as threw a paper route, and has probably never known a "private sector" job. I'd say good riddance, but the slippery smug and unctuous Tuckerman will re-emerge in some other form, shape-shifter that he is.

A University of Miami study indicates that religious people tend to "live longer than the norm for their demographic group." This should perhaps be unwelcome news to secular humanists like myself. Upon reflection, however, the secularist and non-theistic among us must consider that the average religious person spends 3 - 6 hours per week in Sunday School and church,or on the way to and from church. We non-religious put those hours to other uses: taking a walk, watching football, reading, doing chores, having a mimosa in the hot tub, making love, sleeping in or writing blogs, all kinds of relatively more productive endeavors. I figure the religious have to live 2 - 8 years longer than we un-churched just to make up for all the time they wasted - in church.

I should call this "Bill's Blog-A-Fortnight"...

Or "Think Again, Every Two Weeks or So." Anyway:
In her plaintive response to President Obama’s plan to redirect funds from the anti-ballistic missile program to defense programs deemed more worthy, Governor Palin claimed: “Alaska's strategic location and the system in place here have proven invaluable in defending the nation....”
If, by “invaluable” our governor means “not of value,” she is spot on. The “mid-course” missile defense program is – according to the Pentagon – rife with technical problems, waste, cost overruns, and mismanagement. The billions we’ve spent on this program only show that we’ll buy a system that, even under ideal test conditions, fails more often than it works. Cold fusion would be neat to have too, but the technology for it, and the missile “shield” placed in Alaska has yet to prove feasible, much less cost effective.
The fact that Ted Stevens brought the system, and the billions of federal dollars which go along with it, to Alaska has more to do with Palin’s complaint than Obama’s funding decision, or North Korea’s recent (unsuccessful) missile launch. After all, defense spending is the gift that keeps on giving for Alaska, as it has been for decades. Besides, our governor still has national aspirations.