brainrow

It’s official: Al Franken is running for U.S. Senate:

I grew up in a hard-working middle class family just like many of yours. And as a middle-class kid growing up in Minnesota back then, I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And I was.

My wife, Franni, whom I met our freshman year of college, wasn’t quite as lucky. When she was seventeen months old, her dad — a decorated veteran of World War II — died in a car accident, leaving her mother, my mother-in-law, widowed with five kids.

My mother-in-law worked in the produce department of a grocery store, but that family made it because of Social Security survivor benefits. Sometimes there wasn’t enough food on the table, sometimes they turned off the heat in the winter — this was in Portland, Maine, almost as cold as Minnesota — but they made it.

Every single one of the four girls in Franni’s family went to college, thanks to Pell Grants and other scholarships. My brother-in-law, Neil, went into the Coast Guard, where he became an electrical engineer.

And my mother-in-law got herself a $300 GI loan to fix her roof, and used the money instead to go to the University of Maine. She became a grade school teacher, teaching Title One kids — poor kids — and so her loan was forgiven.

My mother-in-law and every single one of those five kids became a productive member of society. Conservatives like to say that people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps — and that’s a great idea. But first, you’ve got to have the boots. And the government gave my wife’s family the boots.

That’s what progressives like me believe the government is there for. To provide security for middle-class families like the one I grew up in, and opportunity for working poor families like the one Franni grew up in.

By the way, I stole that boots line from Tim Walz, our great new congressman from Southern Minnesota. Tim’s father died when he was a kid, and he and his brother and his mom made it because of Social Security.   

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Your government should have your back. That should be our mission in Washington, the one FDR gave us during another challenging time: freedom from fear. 

Revvin’ up for the next war:

President Bush said today he is certain that elements of the Iranian government are supplying deadly roadside bombs that kill American troops in Iraq, even if the innermost circle of the government is not involved.

Hey, has he ever been wrong?

“Support the Troops” the Bush-Cheney way.

First, let the ghost of Rumsfeld equip them for the “surge”:

U.S. Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan lack more than 4,000 of the latest Humvee armor kit, known as FRAG Kit 5, according to U.S. officials. The Army has ramped up production of the armor, giving priority to troops in Baghdad, but the upgrade is not scheduled to be completed until this summer, Army officials said. That is well into the timeline for major operations launched last week to quell violence by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, which the U.S. military now views as the top security threat in Iraq.

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The Army began the Iraq war with an estimated $56 billion equipment shortage and has struggled to keep up with demands for new armor to protect against increasingly deadly bombs. In the case of FRAG Kit 5, the Army quickly produced a bolt-on version in limited quantities, while the permanent version has taken longer than expected to develop, test, produce and install. Meanwhile, the unexpected deployment of five additional Army brigades into Baghdad has created an urgent need for 2,000 Humvees with the new armor.

“You go to war with the army you have.” I guess that’s how you escalate, too.

Next, use them to justify more of the same. More soldiers without protection means more casualties. You can rest assured that the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress will cite each of those sacrifices as one more reason why we must continue this disastrous war, so that, in Karl Rove’s words, “their sacrifices have not been in vain.”

Next, cut ’em loose as soon as possible:

The Bush administration’s budget assumes cuts to veterans’ health care two years from now — even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.

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Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly — by more than 10 percent in many years — White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.

Sorry, troops, but there’s somebody Bush and Cheney support more:

According to Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, Mr. Bush will act by decisively widening the “yawning gap” between rich and poor. The president’s budget for fiscal 2008 “puts extremely large tax cuts for the most affluent Americans ahead of the needs of low- and middle-income families as well as future generations,” Mr. Greenstein says.

People with incomes of more than $1 million would get tax cuts averaging $162,000 a year (in 2012 dollars) in perpetuity. The top 1 percent of households will receive more than $1 trillion in tax benefits over the next decade, if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.

Any billionaires among our brave troops can rest assured that Bush and Cheney are always there for you.

Via Crooks and Liars: I hadn’t realized that Bertrand Russell, the mathematician, philosopher, and general trouble-maker, had written a children’s book:

In these political times, so polarized with heated rhetoric, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across a copy of Bertrand Russell’s The Good Citizen’s Alphabet. A important philosopher, Russell had the wisdom to realize that certain words require proper definition to be used correctly in political and social discourse; words such as, “asinine,” “erroneous,” even “nincompoop.” Of course, there are also words that inspire: “liberty,” “sacrifice,” even “zeal.” Russell aspired to educational enlightenment, believing “the ABC, that gateway to all wisdom, is not made sufficiently attractive to immature minds.” In his research with this teaching tool, respondents found his explication of the alphabet both “wise” and “foolish,” “right-minded” and “subversive.”

Well, it’s not really a children’s book. Like the Pat Bagley books, it uses the form of a children’s book to comment on grown-up concerns. “Asinine” is defined as “What you think,” and “Bolshevik” as “Anyone whose opinions I disagree with.” “Liberty” is “The right to obey the police” — I see that Bush, Cheney and Gonzales aren’t breaking new ground after all.

You can see the entire book by viewing the slideshow.

Clueless George Goes to War, by Utah political cartoonist Pat Bagley, is a parody of the Curious George children’s books.

It’s the first of three such books. The others are Clueless George is Watching You and Clueless George Takes on Liberals. They’re short — each one less than 30 pages — but they’re funny, and they land some sharp jabs at this disastrous administration.

As The Man tucks him into bed at the end of Clueless George Goes to War, George worries about some of his critics.

“They were obviously America-hating, evildoer-loving liberals,” The Man patiently explained.

“So that’s why you sent them all to Geronimo Bay…” mused George. “Shouldn’t we have given them trials?”

“The answer to that is very nuanced,” said The Man.

This administration tries to “nuance” our rights out of existence. The proper response to that isn’t nuanced at all.

You can find sample pages from all three books, other books and pins here.

Today is also the 198th birthday of Charles Darwin. (Links to many Darwin Day posts here.)

From ScienceBlogs:

For scientists, the human fascination of Darwin’s life is only part of the picture. He is also admired because he was a scientist’s scientist — a role model for the ages. He had a keen insight into the way that nature worked, and he was able to use his observations to formulate hypotheses. He was also a very careful and methodical scientist. In the years between when he first formulated his evolutionary hypothesis and when he (reluctantly) published it, he conducted experiment after experiment, looking at different aspects of life. He bred pigeons to study how selection could result in changes in offspring. He spent years dissecting barnacles and observing the similarities and differences within and among species. He (with some help from his son and butler) soaked seeds in a tub of saltwater for months at a time to study dispersal. He gathered information from a web of collaborators that spanned the world, on a range of topics that covered a great deal of the science of biology. Darwin’s combination of insight and patience is what makes him a role model for scientists, and it’s one of the reasons that most of us have such great respect for him.

Darwin’s importance is only growing:

In his own way, Darwin emancipated the sciences. By producing a coherent theory that unified biology, he established biology as a theoretically sound and intellectually exciting science. Lawrence Summers … is right to say that “If the 20th century was defined by developments in the physical sciences, the 21st century will be defined by developments in the life sciences.” It will be Darwin’s century, a century in which his ideas will be the strong bedrock on which great inventions are built.

The Creator sure was busy 198 years ago today, and He did some of His best work then, too.

Part of the legend of King Arthur says that Arthur is not dead, but only sleeping under a hill in Avalon, waiting to return in England’s hour of greatest need. It’s a myth, of course. Arthur himself is at least half myth.

Today is the 198th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, and I can’t help thinking that this country sure could use him now.

Of course, Lincoln can’t return to save us from our current troubles, any more than Washington or Jefferson could solve the troubles of Lincoln’s own day. “It is for us, the living,” and it always has been.

We will not be saved unless we save ourselves.

On the PBS NewsHour tonight, essayist Julia Keller said of this portrait, “It is less of a face, maybe, than a soul, worn inside out.”

Lincoln is a source of comfort and encouragement in our hour of need. He was a mortal, fallible human being, like ourselves. He showed us just what a mortal, fallible human being can do. His life challenges every one of us to do better.

St. Augustine was ahead of his time. Why, he might have been talking about “intelligent design” here:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

(I’ve broken the quote into shorter paragraphs.)

On Thursday, Stephen Colbert interviewed Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists. Hedges said of right-wing TV evangelists like James Dobson and Pat Robertson:

The image that they present of Jesus and of the Christian is essentially a warrior cult. I mean, it’s that obsession with violence, it is that notion that America can use its imperial power and use its violence to create a Christian nation. They condemn other ways of being, other religion as satanic — I mean, they’re constantly blasting Islam, nominal Christians, liberals. It is a message that’s deeply anti-Christian, and, I think, filled with a lot of bigotry and a lot of intolerance.

When Colbert challenged him for being angry, Hedges, a former seminary student, said, “I don’t think anger’s a bad thing,” and quoted St. Augustine:

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

I took the precise quote above from Wikiquote. There’s more there worth reading.

Via the O’Reilly Network:

A nice treat from the folks at Zune: 30-odd free unDRMed MP3s ready for download, including tracks from Wierd Al, Barenaked Ladies and the Shins. Perfect for your iPod, Zune or other MP3 player.

These might be available only for a limited time, so get while the gettin’s good.

Via the O’Reilly Network, a look at the future of computer interfaces:

One of the chaps doing the handiwork in that video is Jeff Han, famous for his demonstration of a (somewhat smaller) multi-touch setup at TED a year or so ago. This video shows work by Jeff’s new company Perceptive Pixel. And that’s the progress over just one year…

The music isn’t ominous enough. Didn’t these people see Minority Report? Can Future Crime be far behind?

Via Boing Boing: corporate and commercial jets leaving the Super Bowl, based on air traffic control radar.

Do you suppose the shareholders of the corporations paying for those corporate jets feel they’re getting a good return on that investment?

I’m a big fan of the old Stan Lee – Jack Kirby Fantastic Four, but not of the 2005 Fantastic Four movie.

I’m sure the forthcoming movie sequel will be another terrible disappointment, but the title is Rise of the Silver Surfer, and there’s a teaser trailer here. What? No sign of Galactus?

Well, I’m a glutton for punishment. Bring it on.

From Animal Planet, a trained bird named Einstein:

I saw this yesterday on another blog, but now I can’t find the place where I found it.

Remember the good old days, when the United States was the greatest proponent of human rights around a world, and a thorn in the side of many a dictator? Those days are gone.

Representatives from 57 countries on Tuesday signed a long-negotiated treaty prohibiting governments from holding people in secret detention. The United States declined to endorse the document, saying its text did not meet U.S. expectations.

So now the United States is aligned with the Pinochets and Pol Pots and the Stalins.

Boy, I can’t wait until George W. Bush is out of office.