Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Along with the Daily Show and Colbert Report, the Onion is perhaps the best source of political news in America today. The unfortunate irony is that none of the three are actual news sources. While all three are brilliantly funny, the truths that they tell wrapped in satire reveal the true decay of the mainstream media. With the media asking ridiculous questions about Obama’s choices regarding lapel decorations instead of discussing the travesty that is the FISA bill (giving retroactive immunity to phone companies for warrantless wiretaps), we must count on the Onion to reveal the truth about the disaster that has been the shrub presidency.  It’s still not to late to impeach!

One of the greatest truth-tellers of the 20th century  died last night when George Carlin succumbed to heart failure. Carlin was perhaps of the funniest humorist of our time but he was much more than a comic.  He held up a mirror to the world to expose the hypocracy and absurdity of modern life.  While some criticised Carlin for the coarse language he often used, it was in fact a tool in his verbal arsenal.  One of the long standing topics of his monologues was the euphamism.  Carlin was an advocate of calling a spade a spade, not softening shell-shock to battle fatigue and then PTSD.  He used language to describe everything from the horror of war, to silliness of the hippy-dippy weatherman, to consumerism, to germs.  Carlin has inspired the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  The world needs more people willing to stand up speak truth to power in such an eloquent manner.

What do you suppose the chances are that the media will celebrate this truth teller in the way they fawned over Tim Russert last week.  Unfortunately that won’t happen even though it should.  Carlin provided us with far more reality than Russert ever did.  We’ll miss you George.

Recently Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been garnering a lot of grass roots attention. Even as an unrepentant liberal, a lot of what Paul says appeals to me because of his unequivocal stand on the Bill of Rights and ending this absurd war on terror. This anti-war/anti-police state stance is the main issue that seems to attract a lot of younger supporters who might otherwise consider themselves to be more left-leaning. Unfortunately, there are no Democrats aside from Dennis Kucinich who are so strident on these issues.
Unfortunately, as appealing as Paul’s stand is on these issues, he has some equally disturbing positions on other issues that just aren’t getting the attention they deserve. Paul has made it clear that in spite of his belief that the government should stay out of people’s private beliefs, that doesn’t apply to a woman’s right to decide whether to have a baby. Paul want’s the supreme court to repeal Roe v Wade and thinks abortion should be outlawed by states. Perhaps even more disturbing, when he was asked at a recent event about his response to a debate question on whether he believed in evolution, he made it clear that he does not. Any potential president who can simply disregard scientific evidence in this way has absolutely no business even being considered for the position. In an increasingly technological world with a lot of problems that we must address, it is critical that we have a president who has basic scientific literacy. On this count Ron Paul along with several of his GOP colleagues fails and should be dismissed from the race immediately.

On Sixty Minutes tonight Scott Pelley conducted one of the most disgraceful “interviews” I’ve ever seen with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Pelley came off as such utterly arrogant jackass reading his questions directly from the list of White House talking points. His “questions” were nothing more than accusations of Iran’s supposed “crimes”. While Iran is definitely no angel, having supported Islamist groups in Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere, the US government has been trying to whip up war fever against Iran. CBS should be ashamed of themselves allowing Pelley to conduct this inquisition and they should never have aired this propaganda piece. This is just another example of the utter corruption of the American mainstream media.

I just heard from Steve Pierce that the city of Ypsilanti has done a turnabout and bounced the Stop City Income Tax group from the Heritage Festival Parade.  The group which is campaigning  to defeat the proposal for city income tax that is due to be on the ballot this November had previously applied and been approved to march in the parade.  They filled out the paperwork indicating clearly the groups name and no one saw it as a problem initially.  But apparently someone down at City Hall was reviewing the list of participants and decided that dissenters weren’t welcome at the parade.

It sounds like someone in charge has a thin skin when it comes to criticism of their policies and if that’s the case they have no business being in politics.  Whoever made the decision reverse the approval should step forward and explain themselves.  This move is outrageous and the person/people behind it should be removed from office.  If indeed it was the mayor it shouldn’t be a surprise given the dirty politics they play during last year’s campaign.  Perhaps a recall should be on the ballot right next to the tax proposal.

Last weekend Mark Helprin published an op-ed piece in the New York Times that essentially argued that copyrights should exist in perpetuity. The essence of his argument is that if he writes something, his descendants for all time should be able to earn a living off of that. That’s kind of like saying that my current employer should continue paying my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren ad infinitum for the work I do now. This is an absurd argument on the face of it and Helprin comes across as a fool for even putting the idea forward. Today Techdirt has a wonderfully articulate rebuttal of Helprin’s idea starting from an explanation of the difference between physical and intellectual property.

The purpose of property is to better manage the allocation of scarce resources. Since the resource is limited and not everyone can have it, property rights and property law make complete sense for a civilized society, allowing those with rights to the property to buy, sell and exchange their property. This allows for resources to be efficiently allocated through commerce and the laws of supply and demand. It’s a sensible system for the best allocation of scarce resources. However, when it comes to infinite resources, there’s simply no need to worry about efficient allocation — since anyone can have a copy.

Perhaps what we need to do to make some progress in this whole discussion is to change the terminology to words that are more accurately represent what we are talking about. The whole term intellectual property should be discarded immediately in favor of Ideas. Once we are talking about Ideas the tone of the argument changes. When a company like HBO or Disney starts talking about getting a perpetual monopoly (and a copyright or patent is a government granted monopoly) on an Idea, it might start getting average people’s attention so that they stand up and say NO MORE! Check out the rest of Techdirt’s article here.

The School Board selected two new members tonight to fill the vacancies left by the resignations of Amy Doyle and Cam Getto. Eric Temple and Sarah Devaney are now members of the board for the next year until they have to run for election. The recordings of the interviews are up on the podcast feed. Best of luck to Sarah and Eric because they are going to have an extremely tough job in the coming months and I don’t envy them one bit.

On an unrelated note, I also want to send best wishes to Dr. Maggie Brandt. Maggie is a trauma surgeon and also Steve Pierce’s wife as well as an army reservist and she is heading off to Iraq at the end of this week. Unfortunately it looks like she is going to be very busy for the next few months repairing the physical damage being done to troops over there. Stay safe Maggie.

I’ve avoided writing about the conflict surrounding the resignation of Layne Hunt as high school principal because I didn’t know enough about what was going on in private, but now it’s time to speak up.

During the last three Ypsilanti School Board meetings leading up to the resignation of High School principal Layne Hunt, a lot of people including one Lee Tewson (not sure about the spelling) hurled accusations of racism at members of the board, even though no one on the board ever publicly accused Hunt of anything or even called for his dismissal. The accusations were completely uncalled for. During this entire episode the only thing that I think the board did wrong was Amy Doyle’s the motion to accept Hunt’s resignation. I think Andy Fanta was correct in his comments that the board did not need to accept or reject the resignation. Once the Superintendent accepted the letter, it was not rescindable and there was nothing the board could do. I think that this motion was a mistake only from a politcal perspective as it was unnecessary. But that is neither here nor there.

As Eric mentions the irony of this whole thing is that many of the people standing up to accuse the board of racism were the very same people who criticized the same board for dropping the Braves nickname. This is sheer hypocrisy! It appears that many of the people were speaking in Hunt’s defense based only what they had heard from Hunt himself without any knowledge of what was apparently going on at the High School. Kathleen Conat at the Ypsi Courier has evidently done some actual investigating and it appears that the issues with Hunt go way beyond personality conflicts with staff. It appears that many incidents in the building that should have been documented and report to Superintendent James Hawkins were never reported. Hawkins has declined to speak publicly about personnel matters regarding Hunt and rightfully so.

The fact is almost none of us know what was really going on at the school. For anyone to start hurling accusations of racism around without knowing the whole story is divisive to the community and counterproductive. If this is not about racism, and it certainly doesn’t look like it is, it’s like crying wolf. Every time people cry race when it has nothing to do with it, people are less likely to listen next time. You can find a link to the recordings of all the school board meetings on the Ypsi Government Podcasts page at the top of this page.

Update:I removed Amy’s name as it turns out that although she read the motion she did not originate it.  Amy explains the process:

What happens, most times, is that the wording of the motion has already been determined by the superintendent or board president.  Then it is typed up and included in the board packet.  At the time of making that motion, the board president calls upon a trustee to read it.  I was merely called upon; I did not originate it.

My mistake.  Sorry Amy!  I just want to say one more time that I think that both Amy and Cam did a great job during their tenures on the board and dealt with a lot of difficult issues in difficult times.  The Ypsi School District was lucky to have them as active participants.

In case you haven’t heard Cameron Getto resigned from the Ypsilanti School Board today.  We all Cam thanks for stepping up and serving on the board for the past couple of years.  He always did what he thought was best for the students and the district.  He’s had to deal with a lot of difficult issues and done good work.   Given the difficulties of being a single parent and the workload the board has ahead of it dealing with the budget, it’s certainly understandable why he made this decision.  We all owe him a debt of gratitude for even stepping up to serve the community in the first place.   He did far more than most people are willing to do.   Hopefully Cam will stay as involved as his time allows.  Good luck Cam and take good care of your girls.

Surely by now you have heard about the fiasco that is Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  Contrary to the to all the bullshit rhetoric from republicans about supporting the troops, they have consistently done nothing of the sort.  Wounded troops undergoing outpatient treatment at Walter Reed, have been living in disgracefully squalid conditions in buildings at the facility, and the number of wounded has been drastically undercounted by the defence department.

Now in a further insult to the wounded troops,  instead of addressing the problems at WRAMC, and all the VA hospitals around the country, they have ordered the soldiers living there to be up at 6am every day and ready for inspection at 7am.  In addition they have barred everyone at the facility from talking to anyone in the press.  Don’t fix the problem, just ignore it.