Seeing a pattern

I'm actually feeling a bit sorry for the Republicans lately. All their chickens are coming back and biting them in their ass.

Bobby Jindahl scoffed that part of the budget included volcano monitoring. Within weeks, a volcano was erupting in Alaska. And, being from Louisiana, Mr Jindahl should be aware of the benefit of knowing about natural disasters.

Republicans stripped hundreds of millions of dollars that would have gone towards disease prevention from the stimulus package. Within weeks, swine flu was killing people in Mexico, and has currently been confirmed in half a dozen states.

Has the Republican name become a toxic asset in need of a bailout? It seems so. Consider Jim Jeffords, Lincoln Chaffee, and now Arlen Spector. All changed their affiliation away from that big R.

They had a common complaint: they didn't leave the party, the party left them.

I wonder if they can survive.

Tea & Irony

So, there were protests on April 15th by people thinking that their taxes are too high.

This isn't new. It happens every year, usually with sporadic results. It is the sort of active public participation that the Constitution specifically protects.

So why is this year notable? Fox news sponsored and promoted the events, even calling them 'FNC Tax Protests.' Given their past positions, there is little doubt that this was orchestrated as a way to protest the stimulus package in general, and more specifically the Democratic President. This is childishly partisan.

Where were the protests when Bush bailed out the banks? That was billions of dollars for Wall street fat cats. Where were the protests over unaccounted for billions of dollars that disappeared in Iraq? That wasn't even in our own country.

Ironically, one of the reasons the budget looks so grim is that Obama included the wars in his budget. Now we have an official way to track what we are spending, and how to pay for it. It was easier for Bush to look like he had a balanced budget, because
he chose not to put large expenses in it, but Obama's approach is more mature and responsible.

If you want to protest that your taxes are being spent on things that you don't approve of, go ahead. I approve; it is your right.
But for Fox to try and portray their event as a grass-roots movement is disingenuous.

Seasonal Greetings

So today is Easter Sunday, and in honor of the occasion, there is an interesting letter in today's newspaper. The letter writer calls out- by name- a person that dared thank the newspaper for running an article about a recent survey that showed that religion was on a decline and that non-believers were now 15% of the population.

The letter writer suggested that he leave the country and find a hotter one, since he would be spending eternity there.

Now, I know that true believers come in all strengths. I know that some are well-mannered, intelligent, articulate, and merely see the expanse of the universe in a different way than I do. I have no qualm with them; it is usually intellectually invigorating to speak with them, and I think we are both stronger for it.

But to those that see the devil in the shadows...

Well, I'm sure that isn't what Jesus meant by 'Love your neighbor.'