For a week now Iranians have been very upset because their votes did not count in their election of a President.  As a result Iranians have been conducting almost non-stop massive protests, accepting perhaps dozens of deaths for over zealous police/militias.  The Supreme Ruler of Iran demanded they stop and go home, or face increasingly severe consequences.  The protests went on.  All of this, when it is very possible that a majority of Iranians actually did vote for the declared winner there.

For about 2 months  now Americans have been making it clear to their elected representatives that they want, at the very minimum, a new health care system that includes a government run insurance program competing with private insurance companies.  The most recent polling shows 72% of Americans want this, and even Republicans favor it with 50% approval.  The US Senate says shut up, go home, and allow them to pay back their insurance/pharmaceutical/AMA backers with a health care plan that primarily features a requirement that all Americans must buy insurance from the private insurance companies, no matter what it costs.

As a result, Americans en mass are .... watching TV.

We are a nation of sheep,  a nation that to get what we want, even with 72% of us agreeing on what we want, there is nothing we will do.  Some of us will "do our part" by painlessly, and without having to spend any time, sign an on-line petition.  But, demonstrate?  Do mass protest marches?  Conduct civil disobedience drills? Sorry, there is this great "Reality TV" show I don't want to miss tonight.

Does anyone know how to wake us up and force us to accept responsibility for getting what we want?

Can we all agree that education for our children is the bedrock of our nation?  Without a good education experience the next generation will allow our country to regress, to be less than the greatest nation on earth.  You might even believe, as I do, that we are already moving in that direction.

When I was a child I lived in a small, poor town in mid-America.  I knew that I and my friends were the world's most important people because my town built a schoolhouse that was sheer luxury compared to where I lived.  It had indoor restrooms, water fountains, central heating, a beautifully finished wood floor in a large gymnasium where we could play, etc.  By contrast virtually no house in town had more than an outhouse for a "restroom", water came from hand pumped wells or, in my case, a rain water storage cistern, and floors were crude boards, painted or covered with cheap linoleum.  We were clearly the most important people in town.

We no longer seek to make our schools luxurious compared to our children's homes.  We complain when taxes go up to support our schools.  But, there is at least one way we can still demonstrate that nothing is too much for our children's education.

 Donors Choose is a website where we can help enhance the classroom experience for one class at a time, by donating as little as $5, all of which can go to fund a specific project requested by a teacher in a poverty area of our country.  You can chose from hundreds of projects to donate to, and when you do, you quickly find that your donation is greatly appreciated.  Some of us have persuaded our hobby groups to "adopt" one or more of the projects, and all donate to be sure those are fully funded.  I am an enthusiast for planted aquariums, so I got one of the on line forums devoted to that hobby to adopt and fully fund 6 projects to date, with a 7th now being donated to.  But, church groups, scouting groups, social groups, etc. all could do this equally well.  The reward you get in how well you feel about yourself makes it a bargain for the money.

Please, just click Donors Choose and see if this arouses your generosity as it did mine.  Our country can only benefit by your doing so.

Obama acknowledged this week the country could face trillion-dollar deficits for years to come. He has pledged to try to rid government of wasteful spending and to look at ways to address costly entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

I have a new business plan in the works.  I live in a small town that has just had a big influx of 30 year olds, with families, working at our factory at lifetime jobs.  I'm going to set up a bank, and persuade those folks to send me about 5% of their paycheck every two weeks, so I can hold it for them.  I will tell them I will add 5% interest, compounded monthly to the money they send, and after 30 years they can buy the house of their dreams in Florida.

Move the clock forward 30 years.

John Smith takes early retirement, comes to see me and says he is going to take the $500,000 shown on his monthly statement as the value of his account, and buy a house in Florida, on the beach.  I, of course, chuckle and say, how can you do that?  You just have a piece of paper with numbers on it, not actual money.  It takes actual money to buy a house.  Not only that, but your co-workers all want to do the same thing, and I don't have anywhere near that much money to give you.  So, you will have to borrow $500,000 from me, at 6% interest, and $50,000 in loan fees, if you want to buy that house.

John says, but I sent you money for 30 years, I know I have it here.  

So, I say, sure you did, but look at this big bank building we are in.  Your money paid for it.  Look at my house.  Your money paid for it.  Look at how much my employees make.  Your money paid for that.  You can't expect to still have any money, you just have a piece of paper with numbers on it.

Now, what's wrong with my business plan?

Did the title get anyone's attention?  Well, it is only slightly hyperbolic.  The ongoing collapse of our economy should tell any thinking person that capitalism doesn't work.  In fact none of the pure economic "ism's" work.  But, they all have some good features.

We now have a golden opportunity to make some big changes in how our economy works, an opportunity that will vanish very soon.  It is when people are reeling from a disaster that major changes can be made without the majority being too fearful to allow the changes to happen.  Bush took advantage of the disaster of 9/11 to make some major changes, all of which were in the wrong direction and none of which were designed to benefit our nation.  This particular disaster is the Democratic Party's chance to make major changes that do benefit the nation.

My blueprint for change follows.    First, we need to separate basic human needs from capitalism.  It is utterly immoral to tie health care, for example, to profits for big businesses.  It is equally immoral to tie education, housing and food to big business profits.  Those four basic human needs should become our socialist experiments, just as Social Security was such an experiment in elder care back in the 1930's.

Capitalism is fine for non-essentials, such as entertainment, luxuries, and extra-basic human needs, like 6000 square foot houses for 2 person families, or SUV's, or long distance air travel.  That capitalism should, however, be the heavily regulated variety, with strong oversight by the government to rein in the lust for money that reigns supreme today.

Health care is an excellent place to start this transformation.  Now is the time to force our government to adopt a pure, single payer form of health care, with all basic care available to every occupant of this country, at no cost.  The cost of this basic care must be a shared cost paid by every occupant of the country, whether they want to opt in or opt out.  Even Congressmen should be covered by and pay for this same basic health care.

One reason for high health care cost is the rapidly escalating cost for medical training in our universities and hospitals.  That cost, along with all other education cost should be paid for by all occupants of the country, whether they use the education opportunity or not. 

Housing and food require a lot more thinking to find good ways to socialize their costs, but the principle of basic needs being paid for by every occupant of the country, whether they eat a lot or a little, and whether they choose to opt for a 6000 square foot house instead of the more modest basic housing or not.

FDR did not make the mistake of thinking small when our nation faced its last economic disaster.  I'm afraid Obama is making that mistake now.  But, if we apply sufficient pressure on him and on our Congressional representatives I do believe it is possible force them to think big and make these needed changes.

Obama's change.gov website set up health care community meetings all over the country to hear our input about the needs in health care.  But, they organized those meetings to preclude any really significant input from occurring, asking instead for us to wail about our own personal problems, and then decide what form of future similar meetings we preferred.  As soon as possible Obama needs to learn that this won't be acceptable to us.

I'm running short of ideas about how to force the Obama team to open their minds, and think "Yes, we can", instead of "we can't do that" when it comes to the changes we need.   

Maggie Mahar, who contributes many thought provoking posts here, has an article about Senator Baucus's plans for universal health insurance which very subtly suggests a political problem hidden in any such proposal.  Note the following statement in that article, "An estimated 80 percent of heart disease, stroke and type-2 diabetes and 40 percent of cancers, could be prevented if Americans stopped smoking, adopted healthy diets and became more physically active."

If we are going to share in everyone's health care costs, as a universal health care program requires, don't we have to work to reduce those costs in any way we can?  Surely we can't continue to allow tobacco products to be marketed in this country when they increase health care costs that much.  The government currently bans many food additives, fearing that they might increase cases of cancer by a few percent a year.  We ban many drugs because the cost to society is too great if those drugs are abused.  Think of the pressure on government to enforce healthy life styles on all of us if we have any form of universal health care.

I'm not bringing this up because I think government shouldn't ban tobacco and greatly increase the pressure on us to change to more healthy life styles.  In fact I think those things should be done in any case.  We have no individual right to live dangerously when all of our citizens have to share the cost of the consequences of our living that way.  And, even now we share some of that cost.

Isn't this a can of worms?

I was opposed to Proposition 8, and voted against it.  In my opinion any reasonable reading of the equal protection clause of the US constitution prohibits government from granting more rights to some citizens and fewer to others.  That means, if government offers any "rights" to married couples, everyone has to have the opportunity to marry whom ever they wish.  And, government certainly does offer more rights to married couples, from income tax filing to inheritance rights to adoption rights.

But, I am bothered by the attempts to overturn the decision made by California voters to define marriage as being limited to one man-one woman partnerships.  Our voters have every right to do what they did last Tuesday, unless doing that was a violation of either the state constitution or the US constitution.  It can't be a violation of the state constitution since it was an amendment to the state constitution, so the only way that what the voters did was legally wrong was if it violated the US constitution.  And, that decision has to be made by the courts.

There are currently waves of public demonstrations against Proposition 8.  The only effect these demonstrations can have is to demonstrate to the courts that the public believes that the US constitution prohibits Proposition 8 from ever becoming law.  But, why would the courts believe that even a 100,000 person demonstration was meaningful when the people voted decisively that Proposition 8 become law?  So, other than being an outlet for the rage of those who support gay marriage, the demonstrations seem pointless.

Far better to challenge proposition 8 in the court, and this is already underway.  The courts will know where the people stand - against gay marriage - but will have to decide whether the US constitution trumps the will of the people.  It does, of course, but courts are known to ignore simple facts like that, especially right wing courts such as we are now cursed with.

I am not planning to take part in any of the many demonstrations against proposition 8.  I hope this explains why.

As my vast readership knows, I recently posted about McCain's moral shortcomings as a president.  Now it has become glaringly obvious that his mental shortcomings are far worse than his moral shortcomings.

This leads me to ponder a hypothetical situation:  Let's say one of the major parties nominates a person for their candidate for president who is obviously utterly senile, but is still extremely popular with voters.  Is there any process by which that candidate can be forced out of the race?

Clearly, if the Democratic Party were the one nominating such a candidate the press would raise a huge outcry about the danger this candidate poses to America as well as to the world.  That would prevent that candidate from winning a single state in the election - problem solved.  But, if the Republican Party were the one nominating such a senile candidate the press would simply hide that information from voters.  So, what can be done?....Uh, I mean in the theoretical situation, what could be done.

I can't see anything in the Constitution that would cover this, probably because the founding fathers couldn't even conceive of an American group nominating for president an utterly incompetent candidate, and even more so, they couldn't conceive of the "free press" being complicit in trying to foist such a candidate off on the nation.  But, of course, the Republican Party and today's "free press" didn't exist at that time in our history.

It is time to look at John McCain without the rose colored glasses.  This is a man who was able to get into the US Naval Academy only because his father and grandfather were navy admirals, which caused the academy to give him a free pass for his bad high school grades.  Once at the academy he was only able to rise above 6 others in his class - he was one of the 7 worst students at the academy.  That should have ended his chance to be a naval officer, but a special exception was made for him, allowing him to become a naval aviator.

As a naval aviator he was best known for crashing his aircraft, once because he was too indifferent to read the manual for the aircraft.  On assignment to an aircraft carrier his first brush with fame was to be at the center of a disastrous on-board fire that nearly cost him his life, and did cost the navy billions of dollars in damages.  By then his father was the admiral in charge of all Pacific operations, so the inquiry into the cause of the fire found that McCain was not to blame - just as he was found qualified for the naval academy in the first place in spite of his bad high school record.  Having your daddy in charge of the whole operation can be an advantage.

After he entered combat, flying a ground support aircraft noted for its agility, he managed to get shot down, and was taken as a  prisoner of war.  Much is made of his courage as a POW, but even he admits that if he had known that he wouldn’t be rescued for many years, he wouldn’t have turned down his chance for early release by the North Vietnamese.  His next brush with fame was when he made propaganda films for the North Vietnamese, something that seems to have been forgotten by the news media.  After the war it was time for him to settle down into the obscurity he deserved.

Instead, he began an affair with a woman much younger than his wife, who had been in a bad accident that left her less attractive to John.  He obtained a marriage license to wed his mistress, before even divorcing his current wife.  Clearly the attractiveness of his mistress was enhanced by her hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth.

Using his new wife’s wealth he ran for the US Senate in a solidly Republican state, and won easily.  As a senator he began to use his new wife’s wealth to cultivate the press, and finally found something he was good at.  Over the years he became the darling of the press, which was always on the take for parties, good transportation, and other perks that McCain handed out readily.  Thus, his undeserved reputation as a maverick and an independent thinker.  His legislative centerpiece is the McCain Feingold campaign finance law.

Once he began his run for the presidency last year he immediately began to violate his signature law, by unilaterally dropping out of public financing, after using that as collateral for a loan, and finding unexpected success with fund raising.  His “maverick” image went out the door when he selected a campaign staff made up almost exclusively of lobbyists.

Now, as an obvious loser to Obama he picked Palin as his vice presidential candidate in spite of her total lack of qualifications for that office.  And, because he selected her without any form of vetting, he ignored her corrupt past in Alaska.  Republicans, being somewhat  intelligence challenged were so taken by Palin’s looks and ability to speak in complete sentences, that McCain is now poised to win the presidency.

But, winning isn’t at all certain, since McCain has no agenda, beyond more wars and more neo-con nonsense, so Karl Rove’s henchmen are now being allowed by McCain to run a campaign based entirely on lies about Obama.

A good argument can be made that the only thing driving McCain right now is his desire to do something that will make him a success comparable to his daddy and granddaddy.  Not only does he not put America first, he puts only John McCain first, as his whole life demonstrates.

Can there be any doubt that John McCain is morally unfit for any public office?

It is time to look at John McCain without the rose colored glasses.  This is a man who was able to get into the US Naval Academy only because his father and grandfather were navy admirals, which caused the academy to give him a free pass for his bad high school grades.  Once at the academy he was only able to rise above 6 others in his class - he was one of the 7 worst students at the academy.  That should have ended his chance to be a naval officer, but a special exception was made for him, allowing him to become a naval aviator.

As a naval aviator he was best known for crashing his aircraft, once because he was too indifferent to read the manual for the aircraft.  On assignment to an aircraft carrier his first brush with fame was to be at the center of a disastrous on-board fire that nearly cost him his life, and did cost the navy billions of dollars in damages.  By then his father was the admiral in charge of all Pacific operations, so the inquiry into the cause of the fire found that McCain was not to blame - just as he was found qualified for the naval academy in the first place in spite of his bad high school record.  Having your daddy in charge of the whole operation can be an advantage.

After he entered combat, flying a ground support aircraft noted for its agility, he managed to get shot down, and was taken as a  prisoner of war.  Much is made of his courage as a POW, but even he admits that if he had known that he wouldn’t be rescued for many years, he wouldn’t have turned down his chance for early release by the North Vietnamese.  His next brush with fame was when he made propaganda films for the North Vietnamese, something that seems to have been forgotten by the news media.  After the war it was time for him to settle down into the obscurity he deserved.

Instead, he began an affair with a woman much younger than his wife, who had been in a bad accident that left her less attractive to John.  He obtained a marriage license to wed his mistress, before even divorcing his current wife.  Clearly the attractiveness of his mistress was enhanced by her hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth.

Using his new wife’s wealth he ran for the US Senate in a solidly Republican state, and won easily.  As a senator he began to use his new wife’s wealth to cultivate the press, and finally found something he was good at.  Over the years he became the darling of the press, which was always on the take for parties, good transportation, and other perks that McCain handed out readily.  Thus, his undeserved reputation as a maverick and an independent thinker.  His legislative centerpiece is the McCain Feingold campaign finance law.

Once he began his run for the presidency last year he immediately began to violate his signature law, by unilaterally dropping out of public financing, after using that as collateral for a loan, and finding unexpected success with fund raising.  His “maverick” image went out the door when he selected a campaign staff made up almost exclusively of lobbyists.

Now, as an obvious loser to Obama he picked Palin as his vice presidential candidate in spite of her total lack of qualifications for that office.  And, because he selected her without any form of vetting, he ignored her corrupt past in Alaska.  Republicans, being somewhat  intelligence challenged were so taken by Palin’s looks and ability to speak in complete sentences, that McCain is now poised to win the presidency.

But, winning isn’t at all certain, since McCain has no agenda, beyond more wars and more neo-con nonsense, so Karl Rove’s henchmen are now being allowed by McCain to run a campaign based entirely on lies about Obama.

A good argument can be made that the only thing driving McCain right now is his desire to do something that will make him a success comparable to his daddy and granddaddy.  Not only does he not put America first, he puts only John McCain first, as his whole life demonstrates.

Can there be any doubt that John McCain is morally unfit for any public office?

Let us not pretend our country applies no religious test for prospective presidential candidates.  We do and we always have done so.  Just last summer there was a national outcry over Obama's church, whose pastor was believed to be too outspoken in his sermons about his feelings about our government.  And, there has been a continuous undertow of commentary about the imaginary Islamic upbringing of Obama.  The Republicans always apply religious tests to Democratic candidates.

Well, it is time to apply those tests to the Republican candidates.  Sarah Palin's church  is one that I'm quite sure would not be acceptable to most Americans if they only knew about it.  For sure it is not in the mainstream of religious thought in our country.  A problem with her choice of religions  is that it is one of those that preaches that world upheaval, colossal wars, and other human calamities are good things.  Can our country survive another president who believes that God speaks through him?  Don't be fooled in thinking that Palin will only be vice president, and not president.  Given McCain's age, the fact that his father and grandfather were victims of heart attacks, and his bombastic temper, you would never want to bet that he would survive 4 years in that office.  If we don't want a religious radical as President, now is the only time we can prevent it.

Let us not pretend our country applies no religious test for prospective presidential candidates.  We do and we always have done so.  Just last summer there was a national outcry over Obama's church, whose pastor was believed to be too outspoken in his sermons about his feelings about our government.  And, there has been a continuous undertow of commentary about the imaginary Islamic upbringing of Obama.  The Republicans always apply religious tests to Democratic candidates.

Well, it is time to apply those tests to the Republican candidates.  Sarah Palin's church  is one that I'm quite sure would not be acceptable to most Americans if they only knew about it.  For sure it is not in the mainstream of religious thought in our country.  A problem with her choice of religions  is that it is one of those that preaches that world upheaval, colossal wars, and other human calamities are good things.  Can our country survive another president who believes that God speaks through him?  Don't be fooled in thinking that Palin will only be vice president, and not president.  Given McCain's age, the fact that his father and grandfather were victims of heart attacks, and his bombastic temper, you would never want to bet that he would survive 4 years in that office.  If we don't want a religious radical as President, now is the only time we can prevent it.

Tonight "60 Minutes" broadcast an interview  with a Marine Sergeant, who is charged with the unjustified killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha.  I was only able to watch a few minutes of the interview, before becoming angry beyond belief at the true criminal behind those killings, George W. Bush, President of the USA.

The Sergeant being charged was in his first ever live "combat", when this occurred.  He was trained as a Marine to engage a military enemy, with rules of combat appropriate to that.  He was not trained to do police work.  When the men he was responsible for were attacked and one of them blown to pieces by a bomb, his training took over, and he sought the "enemy".  When he found that enemy, or someone he had to believe was the "enemy", he acted to make sure no more of his men were killed, which is his responsibility.  The subsequent house raids that resulted in more killings of Iraqis can easily be criticized in retrospect, but I doubt that any trained military put in that position would have done any differently.

Of course the real criminal is George W. Bush, who ordered the unjustified attack on Iraq, and has adamantly refused to remove American troops, now that any reasonable goals of the attack have been met.  Bush has not acted as any ordinary human being would if in that position.

The day has to come when this criminal gets the justice he deserves.  I hope Obama will be the one to make sure that happens, but the odds are overwhelming that he wont.

I just finished reading Tom Oliphant's book, "Utter Incompetents", a chronicle of the entire first 7 years of the Bush administration.  Oliphant believes that Bush was a very good governor of Texas, but gives no information to support that belief, and he believes that Bush really wanted to do what was best for the country as president, again with no information to support the belief.

These beliefs are behind the title of the book - Oliphant's conclusion is that Bush and his cohorts were simply utterly incompetent at their jobs.  The book takes all of the major events of the past 7 years and points out the gross incompetence that got us where we are today.

Dick Cheney comes in for almost as much criticism as Bush, and is acknowledged to be the real power behind Bush's presidency.

What is missing in the book is any consideration of my theory, that Bush was pushed forward for the office with malice aforethought, by the money men behind the Republican party.  Cheney was there to keep Bush in line.  And, the primary, defining objective of that administration was to transfer as much wealth as is humanly possible to the money men behind the party.  I can understand everything done by Bush and his administration if that theory is correct.

The book is very readable - I read it cover to cover in three sittings, never once bored or distracted.  Many of the horrendous acts of the administration tend to get lost to my memory, replaced by the horror of the Iraq invasion.  After reading this book I have no doubt that GWBush has been and continues to be the worst president our country has ever been cursed to have.  January can't get here too soon.

This has been a historic week for the Bill of Rights.  First the 4th amendment was eviscerated by Congress.  Then the 2nd amendment was misinterpreted by the US Supreme Court.  All that is left is for the remaining branch of the government to mangle another of those ten amendments.  Never fear, we have two more days left in the week.

The 4th amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  It would be difficult, even today, to express this any more clearly.  A search warrant is needed before the government can perform a search of anyone's property, including their electronic communications, and that search warrant must describe what is to be searched and what will be taken.

The FISA law has always been at least somewhat out of the bounds of what the 4th amendment permits, by allowing the searches to take place before the warrant is obtained.  This week's events have still further weakened our protection from illegal searches.  This is one of the amendments that has protected us from despotic governments.

The 2nd amendment says, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  This amendment is considerably less clear, but it clearly does give the states the ability to maintain a state militia, made up of citizens who keep the guns they need for their militia duties at home.  Nothing in that amendment is about hunting or self protection.

But, the Supreme Court is now dominated by "conservatives" who are convinced that every person's safety is dependent on them being armed to the teeth.  So, this week's ruling turns the 2nd amendment on its head, and converts it to a hunting and individual self protection amendment.

Since it is the 4th amendment that is so crucial to protecting us from a despotic government, one would expect there would be a nationwide outcry against the FISA modifications which will be passed this week.  And, since a very small percentage of us need guns for either hunting or for self protection, one would expect that there would be at least a shrug of the shoulders at obtaining the right to keep a gun in our homes.   But, one's expectations would be completely in error.

Senator Obama is running on a promise to change the way we do business in Washington.  He has lectured us about the need for more civility in public life, and about the need for more responsible parenting.  So, of course he would oppose the FISA modifications and be upset about the Supreme Court ruling.    But, again common sense loses - Obama favors both of those actions.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, waiting to see which of the first ten amendments the executive branch of our government will demolish in the last two days of the week.  To avoid being wrong again I won't predict which it will be.

This is a good time to start thinking about how the 2012 Democratic Presidential Primary cycle should work.  We certainly should know that this year's cycle is not the best way to do it.  So, I decided to give it a shot myself.

First:  my complaints about this year's cycle.
Iowa and New Hampshire going first -why?
A 6 month cycle - why?
A mix of rules for caucuses and primaries instead of standardized rules.
Too long a "recess" between some elections.
No reason to allow individual states to schedule their own primaries.

My system will be a three month cycle, starting in March 2012 and ending with May 2012.  This means 50 primaries or caucuses in 13 weeks of Tuesdays.  To simplify this, assume all of the primaries will be on Tuesday.  I would break down the schedule to 48 weeks of 4 primaries per week, and one week with 2 primaries. And, no weeks off until they are all done.

There is no logical reason to hold the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary before any other state gets a chance at it.  But, I doubt that there would be support for changing this, so I would hold both of those events on the first Tuesday.

Each of the remaining Tuesdays would have a primary or caucus from four different areas of the country, with four different state delegation sizes.  For example, the second Tuesday could be New York, N. Dakota, Alabama and New Mexico.  The next week might have Texas, Vermont,  Missouri and Oregon.  And, on by fours to the end. 

This should greatly limit the pandering that now goes on when a candidate spends a whole month in one state promising the moon to try to win that state.  It keeps the voters interest involved throughout, or until someone has a majority of the delegates.  And, it eliminates the mad scramble of states to be among the first primaries.  Of course the schedule would change each election cycle.

Is there a better way to schedule the Primaries?  And, what about caucuses - should they even be allowed, and under what rules?