Dead Men Do Tell Tales, After All. Another of those supposed taped messages from Usama bin Laden was released this week. In this one, "bin Laden" denounces the U.S. for "(man-made) global warming". You'd think he'd have addressed this before or during, and with the intent of influencing, the Copenhagen conference, which ran from December 7th-18th. But the tape wasn't released until January 29th. Why is that?
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Because Usama bin Laden has been DEAD for years, and it took that long for the sound wizards of al-Qaeda to manufacture a bogus message on audiotape, that's why.
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If bin Laden were alive and living in the frigid mountains of Pakistan, in an unheated cave, I seriously doubt he would be talking about global warming.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,375 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:44 PM

 
Taking Out the Trash. How do Britscum like Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsay get into this country? Do we have absolutely no standards in immigration anymore? Why are U.S. airwaves filled with British and Australian accents? Why do Brits sit in judgment of Americans in their own country? Deport all these noxious intruders. I would rather have 100 Mexicans, Guatemalans, Haitians, and Brazilians for each Simon Cowell, Gordon Ramsey, Ozzie or Sharon Osbourne, Piers Morgan, and any of the other Brits who DARE to judge Americans on U.S. television. Deport them all!
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What good is a border if it can't keep out Slimon Cowell?
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Mind you, if Britain, Australia, or New Zealand were to join the Union as states, we'd have no choice in allowing their citizens, now our citizens, to move around the larger Nation. And then their accents would just become regional accents like Mississippi's or Boston's. But Brits and those others insist on their independence, which means they want a border between us. Fine. Live with the consequences of that border and STAY THE HELL OUT of this country!
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Let us also deport all those Brits doing voiceovers in commercials for American products. Force all those ads off the air, or compel them to be dubbed into proper American speech.
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In NYC, digital-TV channel 7-3 has a woman with a loathsome British accent doing U.S. weather forecasts. Why?
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Why is Daljit Dhaliwal, with her appallingly hideous accent, allowed to work for Worldfocus newsmagazine? Deport her. Worldfocus is a production of WNET, a Newark, NJ station stolen by New Yorkers and now apparently turned over to Brits. Tons of British trash are broadcast by WNET every week, because WNET's NY executives are slavishly enamored of our former colonial overlord. They are, indeed, latter-day colonials — Tories — convinced that the United States is inferior to Britain, their emotional home. Perhaps the executives of WNET are inferior; I'm not, and Americans in general are not.
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Why is a British or Australian accent one whit more acceptable on American TV than a Chinese or Mexican accent? If you come to the United States, learn American English. If you want to speak British, or Australian, or New Zealand English, STAY IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY, and stay OUT of mine.
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Anglophilia has reached toxic levels in the United States, and Americans have taken a supine, servile attitude toward our once-again self-asserted "betters". Our speech is being driven off the airwaves in favor of imported, often lower-class(!), British replacements. Breathe Right nasal strips, invented by an American, Bruce Johnson, are now advertised with a noxious British accent. Why? Mr. Johnson did a great job of introducing us to the product, but he has been thrown off commercials for his own invention. Disgusting.
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Victoria's Secret was formed in San Francisco, California, but it affects a British accent. Why? Whoever gave that company a British accent should be deported, along with the odious Brits whose atrocious speech irritates the ears of genuine Americans.
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The William Wrigley Jr. Company, founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1891, advertises its Orbit gum with a lower-class British accent. Why?
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I am not alone in deeply resenting the takeover of U.S. television and film by Brits, Australians, and New Zealanders, plus the odious Canadians who have been passing for Americans for decades. Here are some quotations from one website on this topic.

[By "Mr H2O"] Over the past few months, I've noticed an irritating trend in American advertising while watching various channels on cable television.

An ever increasing amount of TV ads feature an actor speaking with a British accent.

The other day at a drive up bank ATM machine in Warren, Michigan the voice on the ATM machine even featured a British accent from the damn machine.* * *

Why do American advertisers feel the need to add this new dimension to their advertising ? I consider the United Kingdom a foreign country and wouldn't want products pitched to me in the accents of the 193 other existing world countries !! [s/b 192 other countries]

[And his followup to some other commenters' remarks]

I happen to be born, live and work in the USA.

I would expect to see and hear things with American sounding voices.

My parents are immigrants, but they don't expect to see commercials with German accents !! When I visit Germany the last thing I expect is [to] hear a commercial with a Brazilian accent, or _________ ( insert name here).

I don't see an influx of Dutch Afrikaans actors or any other particular country that may happen to have a majority of "english" speaking people.

Would it be that they are difficult to understand for the common American in the USA?

Personally I find it annoying - an unpleasant mental state that is characterized by such effects as irritation and distraction from one's conscious thinking.

["Northern Lad" then points out something I had thought of immediately]

Regarding Dutch Afrikaans actors doing American films, there is one that now only speaks with an American Accent - Charlize Theron.

["Genrae" agrees with H2O]

I've noticed this too, and have wondered about it[;] don't know what to say with regards to the why. I love wonderful accents as much as many, but that doesn't mean I need to hear them on all of the commercials every time I turn on my television.

Some commenters remarked on the (bizarre) phenomenon that many Americans seem to adore British accents. I suppose very few of them have, as I do, an ancestor who fought to throw the British Empire and its accents OUT of what became the United States. I'm perfectly willing to part with all those Anglophilic Americans. Let them move to their beloved England and join Madonna in learning a phony British accent. Madonna seems to have done what Brits here do NOT do, try to fit in.
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(Aside: In looking on the Internet for serious commentary on this Britacc phenomenon, I found an unappreciated, pretty funny video on YouTube called "British Accent News of America".)
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From Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's Jane Seymour to The Mentalist's Simon Baker to House's Hugh Laurie, and on and on and on, Americans are being replaced by foreigners. How do foreign actors even get into the United States? There's no actor shortage in this country. At any given time, perhaps 200,000 American actors and actresses are unemployed, but prime roles in film, TV, and stage productions are being given to foreigners. Deport them all!
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You can't even find an estimate of how many American actors are out of work, nor of foreign actors who are given jobs Americans want desperately. The Screen Actors Guild has almost 120,000 members, and it is only one actors' union. Actors' Equity represents over 48,000 actors, actresses (yes, I know that's a forbidden word — but not to me or any sensible person), and stage managers. How many of these unions' American members can't find work because foreign actors are hired in their stead? And how many Americans who want to act, who take acting classes in college or from individual coaches, can't find work because American entertainment is shot-thru with foreigners?
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In last year's Academy Awards, all but one of the major prizes went to foreigners. Plainly, this is not an American film industry at all. All those ridiculous Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films are made abroad, and inflict foreign accents upon American audiences. Craig Ferguson, a Scot who left the UK, ridicules the American convention of giving Brtitish accents to ancient Romans. There is still little love lost between Scots and the English. I can understand that, tho it's mainly the ruling class that are slime. Ordinary Brits are much like anybody else, and they can't help how they speak. But if they come here, they had darned well better speak as we do.
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I have a colleague who used to live in London but moved to northern England, where his friend Maria lived. They came to visit me in Newark (NJ, not -on-Trent, England), and Jeremy altered his speech somewhat, in the American direction. Maria upbraided him. It turns out that Maria is half-American, the dauter of a GI stationed in England. She has visited her (late) father's (Hispanic) family in Los Angeles. Is she still adamant about Jeremy's refusing American speech even when in the United States, her father's country? I don't know.
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The ties among the old-line English-speaking countries, called by some the "Anglosphere", are many. But if "English" (by whatever name) is one language, it should be spoken in one way. And given that 75% of all native speakers of "English" speak OUR way, it seems to me that ease of communication, and good sense, argue for others to conform to our standard. Just as smart Mississippians, Okies, and Bostonians give up regional peculiarities to make themselves understood in the wider community, so should Brits. Given that the UK's 60M people are fragmented among some 19 major dialects, it's not as tho we're really talking about anything like an equal number of speakers on each side of the trans-Atlantic divide. Americans rule the "English" language, and it is not for the great majority of educated speakers to conform to a tiny minority of not-necessarily-well-educated speakers of dialect. It is for the many small minorities to conform to US. If they stay in their own dialect area, they are entitled to hold onto their dialectal peculiarity. But if they move here, they damned well better learn and use our speech — or GO HOME.
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Many foreign actors who take parts here put on an American 'accent' (tho our speech is not an accent; standard American speech IS standard speech for the arguably-misnamed "English" language), but as soon as they leave the set, they resume their hideous foreign accent. And we're supposed to be alrite with that. These odious foreigners are allowed to live here for decades, take jobs away from Americans for decades, but never take U.S. citizenship. The Canadian, William Shatner, has been taking roles away from Americans in their own country since about 1957! But he has REFUSED to take U.S. citizenship. Deport the bastard.
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One assertion used to rationalize away objections to illegal immigration is that the millions of illegal aliens in this country take jobs that Americans don't want. That is assuredly and emphatically not true of acting jobs. But the U.S. Government permits thousands and thousands of foreign actors to enter the United States legally for the express purpose of taking jobs away from Americans in their own country. That same Government also smiles upon "runaway productions", mainly in Canada, where all the minor roles and some major are played by Canadians, and all the jobs given to support professionals (craft-service people; limo drivers; set designers, builders, and dressers; costumers; makeup artists; liting and sound technicians; etc., etc.) go to Canadians — or New Zealanders, or Brits. So not only do American actors and actresses lose work and income, but all kinds of American film professionals in many different crafts lose their livelihood to foreigners, abroad as at home.
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There is a quick fix for "runaway productions": simply make expenses incurred in foreign production of films or television shows that are set in the United States, non-tax-deductible. Once all such expenses have to come out of profits, the economic incentive to screw Americans out of jobs will be reduced or reversed, and tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs in film and TV production will return to the United States. If some such jobs nonetheless do not return, the taxes their producers pay on profits can be used to fund unemployment benefits in the U.S. during this terrible recession. Any attempt by producers to hide their tax liability by "creative accounting" can be punished by years and years of imprisonment, which the guilty can be required to pay for out of their own pocket.
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The cure for hiring foreigners at home is equally simple. Forbid foreign actors to take jobs away from Americans within the United States. Just NEVER give so much as ONE employment visa to a single foreigner to act in the United States. I repeat: there is no actor shortage in the United States.
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As for quashing the odious trend to inflict British accents on Americans, restrictions CAN be put on accents, which are NOT protected by the Constitution. For one thing, commercial speech does not enjoy full protection under the Constitution, because the First Amendment was never intended to protect the right to make a profit by lying or otherwise misusing language. But second, it is the WORDS that matter in speech, not the accent. We can permit the words, but not the accent.
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Even if legislators should shy away from banning foreign accents — and let's face it, that would be a hugely popular measure, especially as it would be seen by many Americans to militate against Spanish accents — legislators and other political leaders, and especially the President, can use their prominence ("bully pulpit" in the case of the President) to denounce loudly and in no uncertain terms, the contempt that advertisers and producers plainly have for Americans and our speech, and urge broadcast networks to refuse to air commercials with foreign accents. If the leaders of both major parties were to ask aloud, "What's wrong with American speech?", and the President were to say, "I am deeply offended when I turn on American TV and hear British accents in commercials for American products", wouldn't that affect the behavior of advertisers?
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Do we have to mount mass demonstrations in the streets, or launch boycotts of Breathe Right, Wrigley, Victoria's Secret, and every other product and company that attacks us with British accents? If so, let me know where the nearest demonstration is.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,375 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Bull Run. I listened to only the first several minutes of Obama's first State of the Union Address, but was struck by this bit:

when the Union was turned back at Bull Run, and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt.

Nobody seems to have picked up on that Bull Run reference. Plainly he was comparing the current behavior of the Republican Party to the treason of the Confederacy, which is completely appropriate. The Republican Party long ago ceased to be the "Party of Lincoln". It is now the Party of the Neo-Confederacy, the white-trash Southern traitors with their Confederate battle flags and gun racks in their pickup trucks — now as likely to be Japanese pickups as American — who are the willing slaves of the rich, in a new, WHITE slavery where the rich own the poor and abuse them with their own, eager complicity. With each economic lash, they perk up,

"Oh yes, master. Please hit me again! Cut my pay! Cut my benefits! Make me pay more of my health insurance! Yes, yes! Higher co-pays, fewer items covered. Make me pay for emergency room care and ambulance service. Yes, yes! Force me to work uncompensated overtime! Increase my hours! Treat me like dirt! And keep your taxes low while raising mine. Buy another house in a gated community to keep me out! Buy a yacht and keep it in a marina I can't even walk thru. Show the world how rich 'We' are, you Good Old Boy! Keep my schools bad so my kids will never wise up any more than I did. And pay me off, buy not just my silence but even my adoration, with the blatantly false pretense that You are Us. Yes, yes, hit me again, harder, harder. I love it! Just save me from the niggers, the faggots, and those Commie pinko bastards in the North, and I'll do anything you say!"

In an email conversation with a colleague in northern England, I pointed out that the behavior of the Republican Party is like the opposition in a parliament trying to bring down the government by vote of no-confidence. We don't have a parliamentary form of government, but, bizarrely, the Republican attempt to bring down this Administration by disciplined, adamant, unified refusal to participate in any legislation the great Democratic majority wants is working to subvert the Administration.
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But such obstructionism works only because Obama is either a secret Republican working against the very things he claims to favor, or the world's wussiest pussy.
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Where's the stick? We see the carrot, but the Republicans aren't biting. They can wait until November. We need a stick. The President has got to start punishing the recalcitrant enemies of the state by moving Government funds and facilities out of their districts, out of their states. There are military base-closings recommended periodically to save money. Close everything in the South. How can Republicans object? They want smaller government, don't they? Fine, we'll downsize EVERYTHING in the South. All Federal facilities that can be relocated to the loyal parts of the Nation will be moved there.
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We might have to leave a NASA launch facility in Florida, just to have a backup landing strip if we continue a space-shuttle program. But Obama wants to privatize space, so maybe we can sell Cape Canaveral and pull all NASA employees and facilities out of that area. All regular NASA operations can launch from southern California and 'land' in the ocean. Launch facilities might have to be as close to the equator as we can get, but Hawaii is farther south than Florida. And the Johnson Space Center's command and control operations don't have to be in Texas. They can be anywhere. Move them to a Northern state, preferably one with Democrats as Governor, both U.S. Senators, and majorities in both houses of the legislature.
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The United States has poured trillions and trillions of dollars into the South, money stolen from the North and handed over to ungrateful rednecks. Yet the South is still the most regressive, racist, homophobic, illiberal part of the Nation, and holds us back generation after generation. It is an albatross around our neck that costs us hugely in every way but militarily. The uneducated — uneducable? — rednecks of the South do volunteer in high numbers for the military. But that doesn't mean the military bases have to be in the South. Move ALL of them to the North. Maybe then the South wouldn't be so gungho to invade countries for the economic benefits such wars bring to the South.
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Obama is far too little the angry black man getting back at the people who made life hell for his people for hundreds of years, and who continue to try to do so to this day.
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Perhaps when the South sees that racist hostility to the current President will bring vast devastation to the South as the North takes back everything it has given to unappreciative Southern scum, they will see the handwriting on the wall and be more cooperative. If not, the loyal parts of the Nation sure could use those relocated jobs.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,374 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Beau Biden Is Full of Crap. (See his statement in declining to run for Senate from Delaware.) 'Nuf said.

Passed What Legislation? A stupid poll question was answered stupidly. The question in a CNN/Opinion Research poll, misrepresented in the headline to the Internet story I saw about it as referring to a "veto-proof majority", was:

"Until that special election [in Massachusetts], the Democrats had sixty votes in the U.S. Senate which allowed them to pass legislation without any votes from Republican Senators. Now the Democrats still have a large majority but cannot pass bills without cooperation from at least one Republican Senator. Do you think this change will be good for the country or bad for the country?"

70% of people polled said it was good that the Democrats could not pass legislation without a single Republican. Idiots. Deport them.
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Exactly what legislation did the Democrats pass without support from even one Republican, due to their supposed "veto-proof majority"? Not one damned thing.
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And of what conceivable importance is a "veto-proof majority" when the President is of the same party as the Congressional majority? Is a Democratic President going to veto a piece of legislation passed by his own party? The headline was plainly misconceived.
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More to the point, however, is the notion, almost explicit in the supposed results of that poll question, that the people of this country want minority rule. The question as asked was idiotic, and got an idiotic answer. What should actually have been asked is "Do you think that a minority in Congress should have veto power over the majority, or that ordinary legislation should be passed by ordinary majority rule?" Or perhaps, "Do you favor minority rule, such that the majority is not permitted to govern?" Or "Is a minority in Congress entitled to thwart the will of the majority?" If any of those questions produced a majority, then we might as well create a dictator and have done with even the pretense of democracy.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,374 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Good Riddance to Conan O'Brien. I was sure, when Jay Leno was bumped off The Tonight Show, that Conan O'Brien would fail as his replacement, because I regard Conan O'Brien as a no-talent nothing. He can't put together 10 words without an "uh", and often more than one "uh" per 10 words — which is inexcusably unprofessional behavior. Sure enuf, that dopey hack failed to maintain Leno's ratings, so got the boot, but not before he was offered much more than he should have been, the right to continue to host The Tonight Show a half hour later than it has been airing in recent years. And he was to have a whole hour, while Leno, a vastly superior entertainer, was to have only half an hour.
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(Mind you, I have been annoyed at both those entertainers because of their occasional "jokes" about Newark and New Jersey more generally.)
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O'Brien should NEVER have been offered The Tonight Show , ever. Not five years ago, not this past week; not at 11:35, not at 12:05.
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I was astounded that his original contract for Late Night (in the 12:35am timeslot) was renewed. Astounded. I don't understand how anyone can put up with two or three uh's every single minute. What kind of moron attacks his audience endlessly, when all he need do is attend some speech-therapy sessions to unlearn that preposterous habit? And why would anybody put up with that? Caroline Kennedy was effectively disqualified from a temporary appointment as U.S. Senator because of one interview in which she said "you know" many times. But Conan O'Brien has been saying "uh" more often in every show for 16 years than Caroline K said "you know" in one interview. Bizarre.
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I'm also astounded that NBC paid him so much as 1¢ to go away — at his own choice. In effect, O'Brien quit, but was given severance as tho he had been fired. I used to work for lawyers. What kind of incompetent legal counsel drew up so grotesquely one-sided a contract?
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The idea that Conan O'Brien would be paid over $33 million (I have little quarrel with the payout of $12M to his displaced staff of some 200 — unless O'Brien takes them to whatever show he does next) is stunning in its stupidity and callous obliviousness in a time of deep recession, high unemployment, and vast misery in Haiti.
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Even more astoundingly stupid was NBC's allowing O'Brien to compete against NBC a mere seven months after leaving The Tonight Show . Non-compete clauses often require as much as a three- to five-year term. Given that O'Brien is being given MILLIONS, for nothing, he certainly cannot complain that he would be reduced to poverty for being unable to 'make a living' during that time. He could, for instance, write a book or do radio without competing against NBC Television. Mind you, I suspect that if Conan went head-to-head against Jay, he would be crushed in the ratings by the far-superior Leno. But it embarrasses me to have such a clod on American television at all. NBC should have insisted he remain off-air for at least two years, and preferably much, much longer — or leave NBC with nothing if he wanted to work elsewhere sooner than that.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,374 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Smash the Filibuster. Dire pronouncements about the huge consequences of the victory of one Republican in the election for U.S. Senator from Massachusetts makes plain that the United States has completely lost its democracy. The Senate has an UNCONSTITUTIONAL rule requiring a supermajority for ordinary legislation. Why is there no indignation that the Senate has ended our democracy, so that a 59% majority is not enuf to pass simple legislation in the United States Senate?
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What recourse do we have, when one house of the national legislature undoes the work of the Founding Fathers and overrules the Framers of the Constitution to impose a supermajority requirement upon all actions of the Senate, when the Constitution permits no such thing?
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Who has standing to sue to require the Senate to operate by simple majority, as was plainly intended by the Framers? The form of the Constitution is plain: unless a supermajority is expressly provided for, all parts of the Government the Framers created must operate by simple majority. The Constitution doesn't have to say, in so many words, that simple majority rules. That is plainly implied by the word "democracy", which everyone understood to be the intent of the American Revolution. The absence of an express statement that votes within each house of Congress shall be determined by majority in no way authorizes either house to require a supermajority. Think about it. If the Senate is able to require a 60% vote, why not a 90% vote, or 100% — so that essentially nothing at all can ever again be done by the United States Government?
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There is no provision in the Constitution that any vote in either House of Congress require a 60% supermajority for anything. Not one thing. The word "sixty", the number "60", do not occur in the Constitution.
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By contrast, the Constitution does expressly refer to 2/3 and 3/4 of Congress.

• Two-thirds of both houses is required to override a Presidential veto.
  
• Two-thirds of the Senate is needed to impeach a public official.
  
• Two-thirds of either house of Congress is required to expel a member.
  
• The Senate must approve a treaty by a two-thirds vote.
  
• Two-thirds of the states must be present at the vote of the House of
  Representatives to elect a President if no President gets a (simple) majority
  of the electoral vote, but the actual vote for President is by simple majority.
  
• Similarly, two-thirds of the States must be present in the Senate to choose
  a Vice President if no one gets a majority of the Electoral College, but
  again a simple majority of the states chooses the Vice President.
  
• Two-thirds of both houses are required to keep a President who has been set
  aside for temporary disability but says he is no longer disabled, from
  retaking his office.
  
• Two-thirds of both houses are needed to place a Constitutional amendment
  before the states, and three-fourths of the states are required to pass a
  Constitutional amendment.

Apart from those very few provisions, everything else in the U.S. Government is supposed to operate by simple majority. Ergo, the Senate is NOT authorized to undo democracy and require a supermajority for ANYTHING.
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If the Senate chooses to ignore the Constitution and operate outside it and in plain defiance of the Constitution's democratic intent, someone must act to restore Congressional democracy. The President can do that.
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The President can proclaim that the Senate is in violation of the Constitution, and no supermajority not mandated by the Constitution will be recognized; so any measure, including cloture (to end debate), will be considered to have passed if approved by a simple majority. The Vice President is the President of the Senate. He can rule that a simple majority vote for cloture is valid, and the 2/3 majority cloture rule is legally void, for being unconstitutional.
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The President doesn't have to sue the Senate; the Supreme Court has no authority to empower the Senate to defy the Constitution. All that needs to happen is for the President to declare that the filibuster is unconstitutional, and for the Vice President to rule that a simple majority vote to end a filibuster is sufficient, and the people's business will go forward as the Framers of the Constitution intended: democratically, by simple majority vote for EVERYTHING.
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The only thing that stands between the current, maddeningly antidemocratic Senatorial obstructionism we now suffer, on the one side, and the restoration of democracy on the other, is the weak will of a President who will not stand up for us. But even Barack Obama might conceivably show some backbone (Barackbone?) if hundreds of thousands of Americans in cities all around the Nation demonstrate in the streets demanding an end to the UNCONSTITUTIONAL FILIBUSTER.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,373 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 AM

 
More Compulsory Insurance. The Obama Administration is showing again that it is really a Republican Administration controlled in every matter and to every degree by the rich and the corporations they control.
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An article from January 5th but hilited on AOL today says that FEMA is forcing millions of people to buy flood insurance against their will.

These premiums can cost anywhere from $500 to a few thousand dollars a year. And, in a sweet-heart deal if ever there was one for insurance companies, flood insurance is a requirement for anyone whose mortgage is backed by the federal government. And, yes, more than 50 percent of all mortgages in this country are now guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (who, by the way, ought to be married by now, don't you think?)

I'll pass over the apparent suggestion that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should merge.
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It would appear we shall soon be the United States of Insurance, with a government over the people, by the insurance companies, for the insurance companies. It's time for Congress to step in and tell FEMA to go f* itself, and tell Government backers of mortgages that if they are worried about floods, they should include flood insurance as a condition to such backing when the loan is first taken out — not after — just like homeowners insurance or PMI (private mortgage insurance), and then only if subject to rigorous Governmental regulation. Indeed, any insurance that is compulsory should be available from Governmental, not-for-profit companies, not just from private you-bet-for-profit companies, but FEMA flood insurance is not available to individuals unless their entire municipality participates in the National Flood Insurance Program. So in demanding that everyone in places that FEMA, on its own say-so, defines as a flood-hazard area, must buy flood insurance, FEMA is requiring people to give their money to a private corporation, every year without end, whether they are EVER flooded or not. What do you call paying something for nothing? Oh yes: a scam.
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In any case, no one who secured a mortgage without flood insurance should now be required to buy flood insurance unless they have actually experienced a flood. They should be "grandfathered". And people in areas that have rarely or never had floods should not be required to take such insurance, or such premiums as they are required to pay should be adjusted steeply downward by some defensible schedule based on actual probabilities.
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This has become a Nation of crybabies and scaredy-cats living their whole life in fear and spending inordinate amounts of money for "protection". Those companies that profit from people's insecurities are running a "protection racket", and should be reined in by Government, not handed millions of unwilling customers. The Government of the United States is intended to serve the people, not the insurance companies.
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First compulsory health insurance, then compulsory flood insurance. What next, compulsory life insurance, renter's insurance, collision insurance (as distinct from automotive liability insurance), child insurance, flight insurance, weather insurance — vacation insurance? — all from private corporations, of course. The Fifth Amendment is clear: government may not require people to buy anything from any private company as a condition to living in the United States. Government may require certain insurances as conditions precedent to extending credit or mortgage backing. But any such requirement must be approved by Congressional action, not bureaucratic fiat, and it must provide Governmental insurance for all people affected, not just some. The FEMA website makes this extraordinary assertion:

Who needs flood insurance? Everyone.

Oh? I live on the side of a gentle hill almost 200 feet above sea level, in a seaport, so any heavy rain flows without obstacle down to the sea. I need flood insurance? No, I sure as hell do not.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,373 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:46 PM

 
Make Haiti a State. Television is filled with reports of the terrible toll an earthquake near Port-au-Prince has taken, and many media tell of websites and fone numbers by which individual Americans can contribute to the rescue and rebuilding effort. Where were these humanitarian media when Haiti was languishing in dehumanizing poverty and political authoritarianism or turmoil for 206 years?
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Media have been quick to call Haiti one of the poorest countries on Earth. I suppose that depends on how many nations are meant by "the poorest". By most measures, Haiti isn't remotely one of the poorest countries in the world, only the poorest nation of the Western Hemisphere — the fortunate Hemisphere. The 10 poorest countries by GNP per capita are all in Africa; the 10 poorest by global purchasing power parity include one (Yemen) in southwestern Asia, but all 9 others are in Africa. According to Wikipedia, International Monetary Fund statistics rank Haiti as the 24th poorest country on Earth; World Bank figures show it as 20th poorest; the CIA World Factbook shows it as 26th poorest, all of those countries that are poorer being in Africa or Asia. But Haiti is still appallingly poor.
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Once the current crisis has been overcome, and things return to subhumanly miserable "normal", will the American people turn away from the ugliness again? We shouldn't. The U.S. owes Haiti, bigtime. Were it not for Haitians rebelling against France from 1791 to 1803, Napoleon might well NOT have sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States.
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I addressed the debt the United States owes Haiti, here, as part of a much longer post, on April 7, 2007:

Mexico is not the only Third World area to which the United States owes an enormous debt that it has not yet repaid. There are at least three others. First is Haiti. As the Louisiana State Museum's website puts it:

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had a vision of a renewed western empire for France, and his schemes included the recapture of Louisiana from Spain. Control over this vast territory would halt the westward expansion of the young United States and would supply French colonies in the West Indies with the goods they needed. In 1800, Napoleon signed the secret Treaty of Ildefonso with Spain, an agreement that stipulated that France would provide Spain with a kingdom for the son-in-law of Spain's king if Spain would return Louisiana to France. However, Napoleon's plan collapsed when the twelve-year revolt of slaves and free blacks in the French colony of Saint-Domingue [Haiti] succeeded, forcing French troops to return defeated to France and preventing them from reaching their ultimate destination — Louisiana — and from being able to defend it. As Napoleon's New World empire disintegrated, the loss of Haiti made Louisiana unnecessary.

A textbook from my college days expands:

Some fifty thousand men had already been sacrified in the fiery furnace of Santo Domingo. Fifty thousand more men and an enormous sum of money would have to be thrown into the pestilential island [yellow fever] before it could be subdued. Even with such a force Napoleon might fail. If he did succeed, he would lose anyhow — for the island would be ruined. ... With his prestige suffering badly at home and abroad, he could not afford to go on with this mad venture and risk another setback. Since he was forced to abandon Santo Domingo, what need had he for the granary — Louisiana? [Realize, as both this quote and the altogether separate source above indicate, Haiti was the rich prize, and Louisiana only the backwater to supply that rich prize! Might Haiti again be rich? Not independent, it won't. As a State of the Union? May be.]

[Moreover, the British were preparing a major fleet to seize Louisiana without paying a cent for it.] Spain almost certainly would have been willing to outbid Jefferson for Louisiana. [but] Aside from forestalling the British fleet, [Napoleon] apparently had in mind keeping the United States from being driven into British arms, and at the same time averting future wars with the boundary-bursting young nation. More than this, Napoleon had in view beefing up the American republic so that it would thwart the expansion of England in the New World, compete with her merchant marine, and, as he far-sightedly put it, "sooner or later humble her pride."

So he sold Louisiana to us. Had Toussaint l'Ouverture and the Haitian people not fought fanatically against the French, Napoleon might have subdued "Saint Domingue"** and then been able to move his army on to Louisiana, thereby to create a great, French-speaking colony of it, in control of that portion of American foreign trade that flowed from the Mississippi River system, and hemming in U.S. territorial growth for a generation or more, and perhaps even permanently. Had France stayed in Louisiana permanently, the U.S. would have remained east of the Mississippi and become only a middling country, not the world's only superpower. Without Louisiana, we wouldn't have moved on to Texas or the Southwest, including a little thing called California.
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It is hard to overstate the case of how much we owe Haiti. We have never paid so much as the tiniest fraction of that debt. It's time we did, starting with accepting immigrants fleeing the horrendous conditions of independent Haiti, and culminating in statehood for that now-miserable country that could, with U.S. aid and guidance, become a splendid Sunbelt state, a cheap place for retirees to live comfortably on modest Social Security payments.

If we do not bring Haiti into the Union (if at first in a Territorial or "Commonwealth" arrangement of several years' duration to prepare Haiti for full statehood), it is almost certain that Haiti will resume its history of economic desperation and political instability. Is that in our interest?
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,373 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 5:48 PM

 
Food Network Liars! The supposed celebrity cook-off using vegetables from the White House garden was a complete, shameless, and inexcusable fraud. Not one ounce of the veggies harvested in preparation for the cooking challenge was used in any of the dishes by either team. Not one ounce. The only thing from the White House garden that may have been used — and one must wonder even about this — was some honey. Disgusting. What exactly is the point of LYING about the origin of the vegetables?
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The contestants didn't say they used only vegetables of the TYPE grown in the White House garden. They said they had used vegetables actually grown in the White House garden. That is contemptible in the extreme, and Michelle Obama should publicly condemn the deception.
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The Food Network has been much in the news where I live, the New York-Newark Tristate Metropolitan Area, because the company that produces it tried to extort three times as much money per cable subscriber as they had been getting from Cablevision, but Cablevision refused, and dropped it from the lineup. (In part, this was to show how tuf Cablevision was prepared to be in an ongoing dispute with Fox, which is also trying to extort more money from Cablevision, on the theory that Cablevision wouldn't dare drop a major broadcast network. We'll see about that.)
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Good for you, Cablevision! Greedy cable producers have got to be made to hold the line, because cable bills are already so high that I had to have my service turned off. I just couldn't afford it, and so much of what is on cable is crap! — like cooking shows. Has there ever been a time when people did less cooking than now? Why are there hours and hours of cooking shows even on broadcast TV, when nobody cooks?!?
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The costs of any increased payout to the extortionists at the Food Network would not be absorbed by the Cablevision company itself, of course. They would just pass along the increase to subscribers, whether they watch the stupid Food Network or not. Don't cable services already get all or a substantial part of the revenues for commercials placed in their programs? Isn't that supposed to be the way TV is financed, thru advertising? If not, why do we put up with so much advertising?
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There is at least twice as much advertising on TV as there was 40 years ago.

Commercials take airtime away from programmes. In the 1960s a typical hour-long American show would run for 51 minutes excluding commercials. Today a similar program would only be 42 minutes long. In other words, over the course of 10 hours an American viewer will see approximately an hour and a half more commercials than he did in the sixties. Furthermore, if that sixties show is rerun today it is almost certain to be cut by 9 minutes to make room for the extra commercials.

That's bad enuf, for an hour-length program. But a lot of programming is in half-hour shows, interrupted two or even three times for commercials, and bracketed beginning and end by more commercials and promos (advertising by the broadcaster that tries to get viewers to watch others of their shows).

These brief commercial "breaks" that interrupt shows regularly are the primary reason for the existence of modern-day television networks. A typical 30-minute time block includes 23 minutes of programming and 7 minutes of commercials (though some half-hour blocks may have as much as 12 minutes of commercials).

That's 24 minutes of every hour given over to commercials and promos, at the least. Put another way, for every 2 minutes of programming, there is now 1 minute of advertising. That is outrageous. And it's still not enuf for the Food Network. They want to be paid in addition to any advertising revenue they get!
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Infomercials, which are program-length commercials, of course devote 100% of the broadcast time they occupy to advertising.
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What kind of country allows that kind of outrageous abuse? An evil country, that's what kind of country.
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And what kind of broadcaster would use the prestige of the Presidency to draw people into watching a program that is a complete fraud? An evil broadcaster, that's what kind of broadcaster.
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The Obamas have become indignant of late about their image being used to sell products or to popularize PETA, but are not indignant about the Food Network, a bunch of thieves, conning them into using the First Lady to promote a scam? Disgraceful. Cablevision should not give the Food Network one red cent.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,373— for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:22 PM

 
Never Apologize for the Truth. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is, preposterously, being criticized for saying aloud what a lot of people were thinking during the very long campaign for the Democratic nomination for President, that Obama could well be elected because the country was ready to vote in a light-skinned black person who did not speak with a black accent. I, frankly, did not think the Nation was ready to elect any black person President, so was delited to discover I was wrong. I'm very rarely wrong about anything important, so have no problem admitting the rare occurrence.
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To say that the Nation is ready to elect a black person who is not dark-skinned and doesn't speak Ebonics is NOT racist but ANTI-racist, you Republican morons and opportunistic frauds. It is no secret that many blacks themselves have problems with dark skin, and that many black women feel that "good hair" (straight, not nappy) is important. Many educated blacks feel not just embarrassed but indeed humiliated when a prominent black person is heard in major media speaking Ebonics.
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Reid was an early supporter of Obama. He did not say that no black person of any coloration or speech pattern could or should be elected President. He merely implied that as a practical matter, a person of relatively lite color and perfect speech stood the best chance any black person could have. That is simple realism, and it sends a message that black people, especially black kids, need to hear: speech matters.
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Black kids need to be told:

If you want to establish your 'street cred' at the cost of having everybody but morons think you an uneducated loser, go right ahead. It's mainly your future that you're throwing away, tho widespread black failure constitutes a serious drag on the Nation overall. If you want to be accepted as a sensible person who aspires to be part of the Nation like everybody else, you will have to speak standard English. You know how. You hear it on television and in films all the time, and have even heard it from black people for decades. Bill Cosby's TV family, the "Huxtables", spoke standard English; so does the real Presidential family, the Obamas. Millions of black Americans speak perfect English. More to the point, most of the most highly successful black Americans speak perfect American English.

Harry Reid's utterance could end up doing a lot of good. The suggestion by Michael Steele that Reid should resign for something so ridiculously trivial is at the very least disingenuous ultra-partisanship. Back in the day, we used to say of some black people, "He's a credit to his race." No one would say that about Michael Steele. Steele is the political version of Stepin Fetchit, shuffling and bowing to The White Man. At least Stepin Fetchit was appropriate for his time, and he became a millionaire who blazed a trail for other black actors who demanded more dignity.
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The problem for Steele is that he is a Stepin Fetchit in a time when The Man (in the White House) is black. He's an anachronism, kissing white ass to be admitted to the club, even tho the club is now headed by a black man.
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Senator Reid is something of a p*sy-boy, in general, but I hope he finds his manhood and fites back against the patently phony indignation of Republican enemies of the state. Reid should on no account apologize for telling the truth about race, especially when that truth is as good as it turned out to be, something those of us born before desegregation, had trouble believing until the nite of Tuesday, November 4th, 2008.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,373 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Six of One, 2,010 of the Other. As the 21st Century approached, I wondered how we would say the numbers of the years. I had heard that in the early years of the 20th Century, people said "nineteen five" for what we later said as "19-oh-5", but have never actually heard a recording nor seen a textual rendering of that formulation in print. Maybe it was "19-hundred 5", which would make more sense than simply dropping the 0.
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In any case, it did not surprise me that the first 10 years of the 2000s were said "two-thousand x". But I wondered when "twenty" would replace "two-thousand". Are we there yet?
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No, not fully. We are undergoing a transition that will eventually end up at "twenty", but some people are still saying "two thousand ten", while others insist, some militantly, on "twenty ten". But what about next year, "twentyleven"? Will we have to backtrack to "two thousand" for the year 11? "Twenty eleven" is awkward. "Twenty twelve" works, and every year thereafter. But what about now?
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"Twenty-ten" fits with long-established usage related to measurement of vision: "twenty-twenty", "twenty-forty". "Two thousand" is only one syllable longer than "twenty", and is clearer. I say both, at different times, and suspect a lot of other people do too. I don't think I'll say "twenty eleven", tho. It's either "twentyleven" or "two thousand eleven" for me.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,373 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Messages from and for Uganda. I received email today from someone concerned about draconian antigay legislation under consideration in Uganda. This is the legislation that conservative megachurch pastor Rick Warren felt compelled to publicly oppose on December 10th. I present below the text of that email, then my reply.

Here in Uganda, gays are at risk of being segregated from society and there is a
bill they want to pass for any one to be sentenced to death if found guilty.

How can you assist us here? I want to start an under ground movement of gays
but I need a house where we shall be meeting without being detected.

Waiting to he[ar] from you.

Below is the extract from the media

Kampala — A stringent Bill against homosexuality is in the offing, the state minister for ethics and integrity, Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, has said.

Addressing a press conference at the Media Centre yesterday, Buturo said the country was besieged by homosexuality, pornography, prostitution, human sacrifice, drug abuse, embezzlement and witchcraft to the extent that it was "dangerously becoming a permissive society."

He noted that once the Bill is passed into law, it will be an offence to
publish and distribute literature on homosexuality or advocate for it.

He also stated that it would become impossible for homosexuals to address press conferences and attract people to their cause, once the Bill becomes law.

He, however, declined to reveal the penalties for offenders.

Buturo said he was under pressure from some development partners "to go slow on homosexuals".

He disclosed that some donors were threatening to withdraw funding if Uganda becomes more hostile to homosexuals.

"I all the time tell them to leave us alone. I say (to them) that Uganda's
integrity is more than the money they give us. We are not going to be taken advantage of on account of financial support," Buturo stated.

After all, he remarked, 70% of the aid that Uganda gets is repatriated.

The minister dismissed the notion that people are born homosexual.

"Ugandans who are choosing to promote illegality should not abuse the rights of the majority," he warned.

Buturo urged religious institutions to fight immorality, arguing that they
are "supremely mandated to address matters of the soul."

He disclosed that he was looking after 60 former homosexuals, saying they are under threat from their former colleagues. He, however, did not name the place where they are being kept.

I replied:

We have no contacts in Uganda who might be able to assist, I'm sorry to say. It is extremely bizarre that a continent that is being ravaged by poverty brought on by grotesque overpopulation, which is causing habitat destruction that threatens many species, sees homosexuality, a natural control on overpopulation, as an enemy to be suppressed. Yes, by all means let heterosexuals destroy Africa's wildlife, forests, and grasslands, and produce mass starvation, dehumanizing poverty, and desertification. We wouldn't want populations to be in balance with nature!
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I think that while there is still time, before passage of any law that might forbid open statements to media in favor of homosexual rights, gay men in Uganda and who can reach Ugandans from outside the country need to make precisely this point: that in the work of creating a better future, homosexuality is a potentially huge HELP, not harm. I will put this email exchange into my Mr. Gay Pride blog, WITHOUT your name (unless you want it to appear, with or without your email address), which will provide a means for people with Internet access to consider this matter. Some of them may have ways to help, and if anyone contacts me to offer assistance, I will let you know. But that blog has a very small readership at present. Alas, there is no major way we can help change attitudes in a backward country. We are still trying to change attitudes in the United States. Good luck.

(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,371 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:44 PM