The End of Christian America

From the article:

There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world." As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

That was a pretty wordy way of saying, "Worship any god(s) you like. It is your right under the Constitution to do so or not as you choose. Keep it to yourself. Respect my rights as well and quit trying to elect people and pass laws that will force me to believe as you say you do or there's gonna be trouble."

Many conservative Christians believe they have lost the battles over issues such as abortion, school prayer and even same-sex marriage, and that the country has now entered a post-Christian phase. [...]

Halle-fuckin'-lujah!

I walked in the door about ten minutes ago with my new dead-tree copy of Newsweek and posted this on the strength of the cover. Now I am going to go sit on the couch and read the rest of it.

Saturday give-Emmylou-an-assist Music Blogging

Kieran Kane with Emmylou Harris ~ This Dirty Little Town

Thanks to neddysea, UK.

The Rankin File

A comment in response to last week's video:

Gordon, if you like Cookie Rankin, you will love the rest of her family. - montag

Well, Montag ol' buddy, ya got that one right!

Here's a twofer from this fine Canadian group from Cape Breton. First, a number from the Heavy Metal end of their repertoire ta suck ya in:

The Rankin Family ~ Movin' On

And something a little sweeter and more poignant:

Borders and Time

Thanks to lbrankinfiles.

Thought for the Day

A few minutes ago I was in the 'reading room' as I am every morning, with my copy of The Old Farmer's Almanac and next to today's date was:

When you drink from the stream, remember its source.

A little further ponderin' upon the vicissitudes of life and a Grand Question came to me:

When Repugs drink the koolaid, do they remember it comes outta Limbaugh, Hannity, Rove, etc., etc.'s ASS?

Heh. Life is good.

Fairey Swordfish

Following up on my earlier post, some lovely footage of these old crates.

Note the crew 'walking the prop' to pump oil out of the bottom cylinders so it will start without bending the connecting rod or blowing the head off and the low-tech starting system ("Goddamit, Gord, she stalled! Get out there and crank! Move yer ass, we're only forty feet up!"), and the mosquito abatement effect when it does start. Carbon footprint my ass, go sink something!

These things weren't very fast and had about the same stall speed as a grocery cart, but they were deadly. The brave pilots would try to fly them so low in the attack that the enemy gunners couldn't depress their guns enough to shoot at them, and if they did, the big round somewhat hopefully named motor could stop a lot of lead from reaching the pilot, and could keep running with minor bits like a few of the cylinders and heads, etc. shot away.

Enjoy.

Thanks to unapro3, Oz.

I'm disgusted with the U.S. Navy

Captain Phillips, skipper of Maersk Alabama and hostage to drugged-up Somalian thugs, obviously read my earlier post and followed my advice:

[...] You better just jump overboard and swim for it and pray that the nearby US warship blasts those pirates to Kingdom Come if they point their weapons at you. Best of luck.

LATimes

Reporting from Washington and Nairobi, Kenya -- Adrift with his captors in sight of U.S. warships, the American sea captain being held for ransom by Somali pirates briefly escaped their lifeboat by jumping overboard, a U.S. official said Friday, but was recaptured and brought back.

Where was our fuckin' Navy? Why, right there! And they screwed the pooch.

They should have had a gun team - .50 cal, 20mm, 5-inch .38, a sharpshooter with an M-14, whatever, in position to take advantage of Captain Phillips' jump. There was a window of a few seconds between the time he jumped and the time the thug fired warning shots at him to force him back aboard.

In those few seconds the pirate should have died. If this had been a SWAT situation in L.A. or NYC, he would have.

What's the Navy for? Why, to keep the sea lanes open, among other things. What do we pay them for? They let four clowns with Kalashnikovs buffalo three goddam warships, and weren't ready to take them out when they had the chance. What the fuck good are they?

You fucked up, Canoe Clubbers. I'm disgusted with you.

There will be more on this. Latest report is that many, many pirates, with hostages in tow, are converging on the area. I hope they don't have enough dope to try and seize one of our destroyers. Shit, at the rate our Navy's going they'll get it and we'll be ransoming off one of our first-line men-o'-war. Won't that look wonderful?

And fuck you, Repugs, kudos to the French. My condolences to the family of the hostage who was killed, but the Frogs had the balls to go do it.

This shit has to stop, even if innocent people have to die, I'm sorry.

Afterthought:

I heard earlier that the Somalian pirates were paid $80 million in the last year, mostly by the companies insuring the ships. Why don't you insurance companies just pay them first so they can get stoned and not have to go out to sea in the first place?

Kill 'em off or pay 'em off, makes no difference to me, but this shit is getting ridiculous.

"Some F-22s'll send them pirates skedaddlin', you betcha!"

I posted the other day about SecDef Gates' decision to cut some useless pork outta the military budget.

But wait! When ya shake a tree, out come the squirrels...

Think Progress, with links and video:

Last year, the New York Times revealed that numerous cable news “military analysts” never disclosed their ties to military contractors. Yesterday, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney appeared on Fox News to discuss the Somali pirates situation, and managed to use it as an opportunity to shill for the F-22:

McINERNEY: I’d put F-22s and combat air patrol out there, two of them, with tankers. … The reason I’d put the F-22s is because they can go 1.6 to mach 2, and they have a very quick reaction time and a 20 millimeter canon.

“It doesn’t take an Air Force general to see how bizarre McInerney’s military reasoning is,” [...]

(207 comments so far. Heh.)

There's video, but if ya wanta watch a useless old fart prattle nonsense, just come on over for coffee. It'll be more fun. Or just read on...

I think perhaps a coupla googolzillion bucks worth of strike fighters, air tankers, airfields and support personnel to try and catch an outboard-powered fishing boat at 1000 miles an hour maybe, just maybe, might not be the most efficient way to help with the piracy problem. Might save the old coot's job, but he shoulda been saving his money in case sanity ever struck DoD, and struck it has. Except him.

So what, you may well ask, is your solution to the greatest danger to maritime commerce in three generations?

Maritime commerce has been in danger before. Here's my cost effective low-tech answer:

Click to embiggen.

The artwork shows a Stringbag bearing down on a famous high-seas raider of yore. Got the sonofabitch too!

These old planes did pretty good at Taranto, Italy as well, and since Somalia used to be called Italian Somaliland, I'm sure there's some museum display somewhere that's itchin' fer a repeat against them Eyetie wogs!

We could probably build hundreds of these things from scratch for the price of an F-22, and the old general could keep his job. Win-win!

All we need is goggles and scarves. Fixer can drive, I'll drop the fish and fire the Lewis gun, and we can discuss who gets to crawl out and handle little in-flight repair jobs should the unlikely (cough) need arise.

I'm rarin' ta go! What could possibly go wrong?

Update:

I couldn't resist. When yer retired, screwin' around becomes an art form! Thanks for the canvas, Fixer.

House Judiciary Committee releases report on the imperial presidency

From Margie Burns.

The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has released its copious report on abuses of presidential power in the administration of George W. Bush. “Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush” runs 541 pages and covers five major categories of presidential overreaching—politicization of the Justice Department, assaults on civil liberties, misuse of Executive branch authority, retribution against critics, and government secrecy. The report is authored by Majority (Democratic) staff on Judiciary. The breakdown of major abuses is preceded by an overview and followed by recommendations for future policy. (Warning: Owing to the length of the report, downloading is slow.)

Don't forget to eat while you're reading the report.

Repug teabaggery

I couldn't resist. Watch Rachel try to hold it together and Wonkette sail through as cool as a cucumber. Funny.

By the way, the best definition of 'teabagging' is in Spanish. I'm sure the Repugs do this with each other a lot and have to let it steep a long time due to their very small teabags.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Update:

Also see TEABAG PARTY! Heh.

Listen to me ...

The Communist Chinese are our biggest trading partner. Communist Vietnam welcomes American tourists by the thousands and also has a vigorous trading program with us. (Remember that we actually fought a war with them that cost us 58,000 souls) We deal with the Russians, who are still more Communist than not (we might be visiting there next year as well).

What the fuck is the problem with Cuba? Ain't nobody else in the world seems to give a shit. Many of my Canadian and European friends have been there and say it's beautiful. Mrs. F's grandfather used to tell us stories about how the nightlife in Havana and how we should get there if it ever becomes possible. What the fuck? It's a piddly little island. Let's get over the fact that Fidel has outlasted 9 U.S. Presidents, giving the finger to each of them.

Ooh, the Rethugs are worried about Cuba's civil rights record. What about the Chinese? What about what the Vietnamese did to our soldiers? Yet we exchange with them. Even Iran, part of "The Axis of Evil" sells us oil and we gladly take it. And what about the hypocrisy?

...

I couldn't agree more. But it's a bit unseemly to make that argument when Americans are holding their own prisoners in Cuba, some of whom have tried to kill themselves out of despair that they will never even be given a trial or know if they will see the outside world again. I assume they don't have worms in their rice, but they have, by all accounts suffered quite a few beatings and worse. And many of them are innocent.

I think American congressmen who to Cuba probably need to be a little bit circumspect about lecturing anyone about wrongfully imprisoning anyone. Shamefully, the US doesn't exactly have a lot of credibility on this issue.

...

It's about time (it was about time 20 years ago) we get over whatever hangups we have with Fidel and Raoul and start interacting with one of our closest neighbors. Cuba poses no threat to the United States and it might be nice for two generations of Americans to finally reunite their families; for those here so long to return to the land of their birth, whether to stay or to visit.

I'm tired of the false outrage over something we ignore over and over again if it benefits us and the visit by members of Congress this week was a refreshing change. It seems Fidel felt the same way.

Let's get off our high horse with regard to Cuba. Communism, human rights, or any other issue have not stood in the way of relations and trade with our Cold War enemies, they shouldn't when speaking of Cuba either.

Quote of the Day

El Rude-o

A Message From the Left to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, et al: Blow Us:

(photo of Obama with the troops)

And you, too, Dick Cheney. Suck it. Hard.

Not just on Iraq, either. The boy's got a way with words, don't he?

Russell Dunham dies at 89; Medal of Honor recipient

LATimes

Russell Dunham, a World War II Army veteran who was awarded the Medal of Honor, the military's highest decoration for valor, after he assaulted three German machine gun emplacements, killed nine German soldiers and took two prisoners, died of congestive heart failure Monday at his home in Godfrey, Ill. He was 89.

Go read this. Godspeed, Mr. Dunham.

Politics is a street fight, not a seminar

No shit. Good read by P.M. Carpenter.

Reassuring, since someday soon Mr. Obama will indeed take ownership of the GOP's economic sewer. But that day, obviously, is not yet upon him; it looks as though the multitudes may grant him 180 days or so before they reckon he's had plentiful time to stop and reverse three decades of criminal incompetence and carefree madness.

[...] The price of bank nationalization might be Obama's super-ambitious plans in other realms [my emphasis]

.
Which, of course, no one among the left wishes to see sacrificed -- including Paul Krugman.

It was a simple trade-off. You pick, which do you want? An immense and politically bankrupting disruption in the already neurotic financial markets just to achieve an oligarchic dismantling that can at any rate be accomplished in two, four, or six years hence? Or, however disagreeable the terms, economic stabilization now, accompanied by -- or so the strategy goes -- vast sociopolitical advances in health care, education and renewable energy?

We can't have both, not immediately. We could in the best of both worlds, perhaps, but we dwell in only one -- and its atmospherics are far less academic than Prof. Krugman's. Politics is a street fight, not a seminar.

President Obama is laying the groundwork for changes that should have been made thirty years ago, but we got Reagan instead. Nothing's immediate, but we have to start somewhere. And give it our best. 'Peachy' is young and fulla piss an' vinegar, in the nice way, maybe too nice, but he can do it if anyone can. If anyone can.

21st century pirates, 19th century solution?

I was reading about the negotiations to free Captain Phillips of Maersk Alabama* at the Beeb:

*This is not the first time this ship has been seized, but it was done previously with lawyers who steal without a gun on behalf of white-collar criminals. Go read the last paragraph at the link.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the navy had called his hostage experts "to assist with negotiations".

He said the FBI was now "fully engaged in this matter".

Oh effing swell. With the Federal Bureau of Ineptitude on your case, Captain, given their 'hostage negotiation' record, you're toast. You better just jump overboard and swim for it and pray that the nearby US warship blasts those pirates to Kingdom Come if they point their weapons at you. Best of luck.

Captain Phillips gave himself up to the pirates as a hostage. While I am not sure it was the right thing to do, it was his call and I certainly won't second-guess him from the safety of my keyboard. I applaud him for his concern for his men and for his bravery.

Analysts have said the negotiations could be lengthy, with the pirates keen to extract a ransom for the captain as well as compensation for a boat that was wrecked in the attack.

Pirates? Want compensation for a boat used in an attack on a merchantman? That'd be like 'compensating' a failed liquor store bandit for his car that got wrecked runnin' from the cops. They got some brass ones, those guys! Heh. They'll be lucky to keep their lives!

And the lifeboat is thought to be equipped for a week at sea, although the ship's owners, Maersk, said it had run out of petrol and was "dead in the water".

Screw the petrol. Wait 'til they run out of drinking water and they'll be more amenable to listen to reason. We will see.

There are lotsa piracy-related links at the Beeb site, but this one got my attention:

Could 19th Century plan stop piracy?

Shorter: Nope. Read on...

If the navies of the world need some advice on ways to stop piracy off Somalia, they could look to Lord Palmerston, British Foreign Secretary in 1841.

"Taking a wasps' nest... is more effective than catching the wasps one by one," he remarked.

Palmerston, the great advocate of gunboat diplomacy, was speaking in support of a British naval officer,Joseph Denman.

Denman had attacked and destroyed slave quarters on the West African coast and had been sued by the Spanish owners for damages.

It was British policy to try to destroy the slave trade, but this sometimes ran into legal complications.

The slavers had lobbyists? Figures.

With Somali piracy still threatening shipping, it sounds as if modern navies need a few Captain Joseph Denmans, or the like-minded American, Commodore Stephen Decatur.

Sent to attack the Barbary pirates off North Africa in 1815, Decatur simply captured the flagship of the Algerian Bey [ruler] and forced a capitulation.

The United States' very first foreign war was over this exact same issue:

The Marines Hymn contains a reference to this conflict in the opening line: "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli..."

No such action against the "wasps' nests" along the Somali coast is possible today, even though the UN Security Council has authorised the use of the "necessary means" to stop pirates on the high seas and hot pursuit into Somali territorial waters.

Phooey. Damn and blast!

Everything has to be done in accordance with "international law" and this is interpreted as complying with the conditions of the International Law of the Sea Convention.

This convention, in article 105, does permit the seizure of a pirate ship, but article 110 lays down that, in order to establish that a ship is indeed a pirate vessel, the warship - and it may only be a warship - has to send a boat to the suspected ship first and ask for its papers.

This is hardly a recipe for a Denman - or Decatur-type action.

I will bet that deep inside Pirate Headquarters, those clowns are well aware of this and are laughing their fool heads off that the very people they are sticking up have made it nearly impossible to protect themselves from it in any meaningful way.

What to do, what to do?

Since writing in December last year about the legal problems involved, I have had a lot of e-mails from people angry at the ineffectiveness of the measures taken so far and proposing their own solutions.

These include:

* Convoys. Already done in the case of aid ships going into Kenyan and Somali ports
* Arming the crews. The crews might not want this, though in the latest case the American crew of cargo ship Maersk Alabama did fight back
* Arming merchant ships with heavy guns. Ship owners might not want to risk an engagement at sea
* luring pirates into attacking apparently unarmed ships which then declared themselves as warships. Would this be in "accordance with international law"?

Maybe not, but 'Q-ships' work!

* Other ideas suggested would appeal to officers Denman and Decatur. Fixer, Gordon, quit with the letters already. I get it.

I mighta made part of that up...

I understand that the maritime powers have hamstrung themselves and made piracy nearly impossible to deal with, but something needs to be done to make this sort of criminal enterprise less appealing. Short of fixing Somalia so it works and less of its men have to turn to crime to survive (some always will), perhaps we need to go back in time even further for a solution. Simply put:

A pirate is a robber who travels by water.

How did governments fight back against the pirates?

Successful pirate attacks became so frequent and troublesome that governments were forced to take strong action. In the 18th century, they sent heavily armed naval warships to the pirates' favourite hunting grounds. Terrible battles were fought, during which some of the most famous pirates, such as Bartholomew Roberts and Blackbeard were killed. Other pirates were captured and put on trial, and were then executed amidst great publicity. Bodies were coated with tar and hung in special iron cages as a dreadful deterrent to others thinking of taking up piracy.

Works for me.

Prosecutors Who Screwed Up Sen. Stevens' Corruption Trial Were Bush Appointees

I've had the same thought as Tony Peyser:

Call me crazy, point to my tin foil hat
Say my idea's weird & unconventional
But could that botched case have been
Not an accident but maybe intentional?

Then again, maybe they were just typical Bush appointees - good Repugs and incompetent.

Kill 'em all ...

No amount of legislation would have prevented the gun violence over the past few weeks. While I'm of the firm opinion there are too many idiots out there with guns and there should be tighter supervision of sales, nothing is gonna prevent a nut from losing his grip. It's easy enough to get a firearm if you really want one, as we've seen in countries with strict gun laws. An assault weapons ban would do little because there are many rifles that can be modified for automatic operation that would avoid the ban. When there's a will, there's a way. I just wish there were more education in their use, and abuse, before someone is allowed to carry. There should be some sort of proficiency requirement.

My biggest fear is that when someone is confronted with a deadly force situation and decides to react, the 'collateral damage' will be worse than the carnage inflicted by the nut. By god, I've seen how the New York City Police shoot, and those guys go through yearly quals. In a shooting incident on the streets of Queens last year, people on the elevated train, 50 feet above, were dodging bullets. I can imagine what somebody who hasn't fired his pistol since he bought it would do. "Look, I got the guy but I killed everybody else too, even some people on the next block."

Also, the right-wing gasbags fomenting revolution don't help either. The talk and scare tactics have been the push needed to put these nuts over the edge and kill everybody in the house. While I'm a staunch defender of the 1st Amendment, there have to be consequences for people who knowingly spread lies and distortion to whip up unrest. It is like yelling "fire" in a movie theater. The NRA also bears major responsibility for their anti-progressive propaganda. This cannot be tolerated and I'm glad to see David Shuster and Rick Sanchez, among others, stand up to these people. We all should, gun owners and opponents alike.

Once you take aim and fire, it's just like an email. You can't get the bullet back. The right to keep and bear is enshrined in our Constitution, but I wish more people would buy guns for their hobbies of target shooting and hunting (and become proficient in their use) instead of as penis extensions. Similar to speaking of dicks, there's always a guy out there with a bigger one.

And on Fixer's block...

Gleefully gleeped from YubaNet.

!אױ גװאַלד

Tomorrow begins Passover for our friends of the Hebrew persuasion, and we wish them a fine observance. This might be a little previous, but whaddya do with all the leftover matzo when it's over? A little planning, what could it hurt?

By the way, I like matzo fried with maple syrup. I'm not all that Jewish, though, although I haven't let that stop me from writing about their tribe before.

If you would like subtitles go here.



They should change the last line from "'cause it's not all that bad" to "'cause it doesn't go bad", but maybe that's just me. I've never been able to tell if it's stale or not just by eating it.

They missed a very good use for surplus matzo. You'd think since it's the month of Nissan on their calendar that they'da put שתיים and שתיים together and thrown in that it's a very good backing for bondo on rusted-out body panels. Maybe they couldn't get it to rhyme.

Yay! for American sailors!

NYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- The American crew of a hijacked U.S.-flagged cargo ship retook the vessel Wednesday from the Somali pirates who seized it far off the Horn of Africa, Pentagon officials said.

Capt. Joseph Murphy, an instructor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, told The Associated Press that he was called by the Department of Defense and told the crew, including his son Shane, the second in command, had regained control.

"The crew is back in control of the ship," a U.S. official said at midday, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record. "It's reported that one pirate is on board under crew control -- the other three were trying to flee," the official said. The status of the other pirates was unknown, the official said, but they were reported to "be in the water."

"Trying to flee" - I'll bet there's some blown-up Yamaha outboards in the shop in old Mogadishu tonight!

Damn, I hope someone got some vid of our guys throwin' those pirates over the side!

Update:

Here's an MSNBC report. Or here. Jim Iwonteventrytospellit is doing the best he can with preliminary reports, but he don't know jack shit! Heh.

Quote of the Day

BuzzFlash lead in to Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead (NYT):

You don't say. They are praying for the return of Dick Cheney and the conquest of the Middle East. They probably have prayer rugs made of $100 bills just to kneel before portraits of Darth Vader Dick!