SCOTUS on trial, but . . .

This week “Obamacare” is on the Supreme Court docket, and I’m of two minds about how I want it to turn out. The conventional wisdom says that the conservative majority will kill enough of the law to effectively render it useless, which would confirm in the minds of many that this Court at least has been bought. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible (in my mind anyway) that this Court will give the law a pass as is, because it’s the best deal the private insurance companies can ever hope for. And why is that? Because if “Obamacare” is overturned, all that’s left to do the right thing is the private option — and conservatives on the Court and in general don’t want to go there because it would put their patrons out of business.

This Court has no credibility, thanks largely to its majority’s deference to money and corporations. The concept of “the people” is lost on this majority.

As I said, I’m of two minds about how I want this to turn out. I do want the Court to uphold the law as is, so that Obama has a chance to preserve a victory — and to give people a chance to realize its benefits. On the other hand, I’d like to have a good reason to revisit the very logical compromise of the public option —which would preserve the (stupid) employer-based private insurance system while offering a competitive alternative. This could be extending Medicare to all ages, which should be immune to Supreme Court challenges.

It’s hard to imagine why conservatives are so opposed to finding a cost-effective way to providing affordable health care to every American, unless squeezing every possible penny from every breathing American and depositing it into private insurance coffers for as long as they can is more important than preserving health and saving lives.

Legalizing murder

What are we going to do about guns in the US? Not even the Supreme Court has had the wisdom to understand the language of the Second Amendment, which authorizes states to maintain well-regulated armed militias. We have these today — they are referred to as the National Guard, and guardsmen do not keep tanks in their back yards. Thanks to the NRA, we have drifted so far from the meaning of the Second Amendment that it is now apparently legal to commit murder in Florida.

The killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, has once again pitted the NRA against reason. Gun violence is a self-escalating condition in that laws are passed to supposedly make it easier for people to protect themselves against gun violence, which in turn results in more gun violence. If people only owned hunting rifles, the death rate by gun in the US would be a fraction of what it is today.

As we mourn the death of an innocent boy, I can’t help but wonder what people in civilized countries think of the US today. Now that so many states have enacted the kinds of laws that may make it possible for the killer in Florida to get away with his crime, I could see other countries issuing advisories against travel to the US. It would be interesting to see the various states’ tourism offices going head-to-head with the NRA.

A culture of stupidity

Have you ever wondered why someone would want to be deliberately stupid in a world that should know better? Ask a Republican. They will, of course, deny they’re stupid, but among themselves they acknowledge that they say stupid things in order to ensure the loyalty of certain voters, who will believe anything if it supports their biases.

Let’s take oil, for example — specifically, blaming the president for high gas prices, and getting away with it among these voters. Everyone knows oil prices are set on the world market — well almost everyone — and that despite reduced imports and increased domestic production, prices are going up anyway. Why? Because the US currently produces only about ten percent of the world’s oil, and there’s very little chance of changing that ratio any time soon, no matter where we mine the oil. With such a small contribution to world supply, we won’t impact world prices much.

And let’s not overlook the fact that we have to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. That imperative is seldom part of the conversation about gas prices. Gas-powered cars are going to be with us for a while, so instead of kvetching about where the next drop of conventional oil is coming from, we need to get behind a program to make biofuels a practical reality. This is in everyone’s interests — even the stupid.

The common-sense Navy

Even as the GOP mocks biofuels, the US Navy is taking energy independence very seriously with a plan to have 50 percent of its total energy consumption coming from renewable sources by 2020. Now is this common sense or what? Well, I’m waiting for the Republicans in Congress to hold hearings on why the navy is so gosh-darned worried about a silly thing like national security.

Win what, Rick?

In the wake of the recent killings in Afghanistan, would-be commander-in-chief Rick Santorum is criticizing President Obama for what he considers a lack of leadership. In public remarks, he said, “Let’s either commit to winning or get out.”

Win what, Rick?

Inhofe is a clear and present danger

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) won’t be around long enough to personally destroy our habitat as we know it, but he seems determined to make sure the wheels of destruction will remain in motion.

Inhofe, one of the nation’s most prominent pinheads, recently published a book entitled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. On the Internet you can find a Tulsa World photo of Inhofe signing a copy of his book for an 11-year-old boy. In a world where justice prevailed, Inhofe would be charged with endangering the welfare of a child. You can go to jail for peddling porn to a kid, but you get off scot-free if you poison his mind with dangerous lies.

The premise for Inhofe’s book is that God controls climate, not humans. He believe that it’s arrogant of people to think they can do what only God can do. The senator has often declared global warming to be a hoax, and now he’s recorded his ignorance for the ages.

Like so many conservatives, Inhofe seems to be incapable of embarrassment or chagrin. He is obviously not smart enough to grasp the science that discredits his skewed reasoning. He fails to understand that the God he so reveres gave us minds and the option of using them. Thousands of scientists — God’s creations using their God-given brains, according to Inhofe’s faith — have deduced that global warming is the result of human activity, and to refute this is to allow that God is fallible.

So there it is, Jim. Thousands of God’s children, using the minds He gave them, have correctly assessed the evidence that humans have influenced the earth’s climate. You’re claiming that God made a mistake when he gave them the intelligence required to make this judgment, but you don’t have the reasoning skills required to grasp this either. I think if someone tried to explain that to you, your eyes would glaze over and you’d foam at the mouth.

Sorry to be so cruel, Jim, but you put yourself out there.

The unfinished Bible

Religious freedom is a treasured American doctrine, especially because it guarantees each and every one of us the right to believe as we wish — or to disbelieve, if we so choose. Believers of the world find guidance in the Bible, to varying degrees. Some are convinced it is the word of God, inerrant. Some see it as a source of spiritual comfort. Still others see it as a history of their religion.

When The Da Vinci Code was published, there was a renewed curiosity about the Lost Gospels that were known to have existed but were never included in the Bible — which, after all, was a work of men who exercised some editorial judgment. Some of those Gospels have been found, but there doesn’t seem to be any movement to add them to the Bible. Others remain lost.

The timeline of the Bible spans the period from some time before BC 4000 BC (which could be a year or billions of years) until about 95 AD (which is pretty definite). How much beyond this point in time the inclusion of the Lost Gospels would extend this timeline is unclear, but it certainly wouldn’t bring us up to the present.

And why not? Why does the Bible end when it does? Why hasn’t the Bible been updated periodically since it was first translated and organized into a single book? What were the early Christians so afraid of that they excluded those missing gospels and decided that the Biblical history of the Christian religion ended in 95 AD? I’ve been told that the Bible tells the story of Jesus and those who knew Him personally, and that the New Testament reveals the fulfillment of the prophesies of the Old. But who says? The missing gospels were written by people who knew Christ, and who’s to say that there were no more prophesies to be revealed?

This isn’t something I’ve ever thought about before. But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Whatever else it is, the Bible, a collection of Judaic and Christian religious texts, is a history of Christianity, and I can’t think of a single reason for it to end when it does. It’s not enough to say it ends with the End Times predicted in Revelations because assembly of the Bible began in 125 AD and continued through many translations for centuries afterward.  It is as if the early Biblical editors decided that God had no more to say.

Afterthought: And what would a continually updated Bible report? The Inquisition? The Reformation? And what about these revelations? Oops — the earth does move after all. Oops — forget Adam and Eve and think monkey. And oops — maybe it took longer than six days to create the universe.

End this madness followup

Last Monday I ranted about Daylight Savings Time, and today I am reminded why I hate setting the clocks ahead an hour. I’m out of whack, and I know I’m not alone. I will be out of whack tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future. In fact, this article talked about the health risks associated with losing an hour of sleep once a year.

There is a movement out there to end the madness, and I was lucid enough this morning to do a Google search for petitions related to ending Daylight Savings Time. It can be found here: http://www.standardtime.com/. Go there, sign it, then go back to bed.

Can’t do better than Elizabeth Warren

Progressives who got excited when Elizabeth Warren established an early lead over Scott Brown in the race for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts are concerned that she’s fallen behind in the polls. It’s hard to imagine that the brilliant, articulate populist could possibly lose to Brown, who recently received the endorsement of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe.

Snowe, who threw in the towel in disgust over the lack of cooperation between the parties, was as close to a moderate as there was in today’s GOP and recently characterized Brown as an independent voice. Really? I don’t think so. I think Brown threw in with the Democrats in a few recent votes in response to the pressure of Warren’s early favorable numbers. I think Brown is an opportunist without core principles.

Like a lot of progressives, I was stunned when Brown defeated Martha Coakley in the special election to replace Kennedy after his death, and I could just accept the notion that Bay Staters were pissed enough at Coakley for not knowing her Red Sox baseball to vote against her. So what’s up now? Brown doesn’t embody the Massachusetts ethic — Warren does. She is the candidate on the side of the people, and the people of Massachusetts are supposed to be smart enough to see through the likes of Scott Brown.

When Elizabeth Warren became the Democratic candidate for senator in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I was sure it was a shoo-in. How could any blue state reject what has to be the ideal candidate? Well, there are eight months to go until the next election. Let’s see what happens.

Angst in the Middle East

There’s a growing concern that Israel may bomb Iran without US support, and if that happens it could set the Middle East on fire. We’re already hearing a steady drumbeat for war from the right wing, particularly the GOP candidates. I agree that Iran shouldn’t have nuclear weapons, but neither should Israel, which practices a policy of Deliberate Ambiguity — that is, it neither confirms nor denies that it possesses nuclear weapons. If Iran really wants a nuclear capability, it’s probably because it believes Israel has one.

So far no one can say with absolute certainty that Iran’s goal is to put together a nuclear bomb, but if it does it would have to build at least two because it would have to test one to make sure it worked. But there’s a high probability that underground nuclear tests would be detected and verified by a combination of several available technologies. That would seem to be the logical time to put Iran in the crosshairs, to deploy a couple of carrier groups in the Persian Gulf and deploy AWACs and airborne anti-missile platforms. Attacking Iran preemptively might be jumping the gun a bit.

Iran must know that launching a nuclear-tipped missile at Israel would assure its destruction at the hands of the US and its allies. Iranian leaders can’t be that crazy, can they? It’s understandable that Israel would be on edge with a nuclear-armed Iran in the neighborhood, but does it have to live in fear? The US and the USSR waged a cold war for over 40 years, and life went on. Yes, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad threatened to annihilate Israel, but the Soviet Union’s Premier Khrushchev did threaten to bury the US. For the US and the USSR, Mutually Assured Destruction was a strategy that prevented war. So perhaps both Israel and Iran should be able to practice Deliberate Ambiguity, and play their own version of Mutually Assured Destruction. But for that to happen, Iran has to learn how to say “maybe.”