Health Care Refo-oh crap, what are you doing with that noose?

From a recent NY Times article:

The bitter divisions over an overhaul of the health care system have exploded at town-hall-style meetings over the last few days as members of Congress have been shouted down, hanged in effigy and taunted by crowds. In several cities, noisy demonstrations have led to fistfights, arrests and hospitalizations.

Um...on the up-side, people are starting to take notice of politics. Yea!

On the down side, we're starting to look like those Fox specials with names like "The World's Wackiest/Most Violent Parliaments."

I understand that divisive issues will lead to frustrations on both sides. Great. Read up on the topic, take a side based on an informed opinion, and make your voice heard.

But be respectful and calm. Don't start a riot. This is not Iran. This administration did not steal an election. We are not being oppressed. We are being asked to join in a debate over the future of healthcare, like the civilized country we are.

And as a brief aside to those calling for these protests (I'm looking at you Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly): for eight years, you told protesters that they were un-American. You said dissent was un-patriotic. You questioned the loyalty of any who didn't fall in line behind the Bush administration's agenda. But now, dissent is patriotic, as your picket signs read. You organize events and encourage your followers to disrupt meetings and protest taxes, and then claim it's grassroots.

But I've never seen grass grow from the top down.

I'll let Mr. Jon Stewart explain*:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Master Rebators - The Crank Cycle
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Rock on.

*I was going to right a brief explanation of Fox New's claim about Cash for Clunkers seen in the posted video. It took on a life of it's own and is now posted here.

On Cash for Clunkers and Why Fox News Sucks at Math

I started to write a brief end note to this post about political fist fights, town hall meetings, and the conservative double standard. The end note was going to be on an outrageous claim from Fox News that the Cash for Clunkers deal was running out of money. But the note quickly spiraled, and has taken the form you see now.

Now, on to Cash for Clunkers.

Yes, due to the program's popularity, it burned through it's allocation rather quickly, leading to additional funds being allocated. But at the time FN's claim, the math worked out like this:

The statement claims CfC was allocated $1 billion, and spent $96 million with another $96 million promised, and was therefore "basically out of money already". That's dishonesty in reporting. Let's look at this in digits.

One billion = 1,000,000,000
One million = 0,001,000,000

Notice the three extra zeros. At this point, CfC had spent $192,000,000. Out of $1,000,000,000.

Each clunker traded in is worth between $3,500 and $4,500.

Let us now consider this with smaller numbers and get rid of a few zeros. We'll move the decimals over six places. One billion becomes one thousand and one million becomes one. We will leave the percentages the same.

CfC allocated-------------$1,000.00
CfC spent-----------------$0,192.00
Each additional deal----$0,000.0045

Each additional clunker traded in costs less than one half of one percent. That means that 202,000 more trade-ins were made between Fox New's wonderful display of (willful) ignorance and the renewal of CfC.

What thinking man, given a thousand dollars, would claim that he was out of money after spending $192, if each purchase cost him less than half a penny?

Using elementary-school level math, you can move the decimal over one more place, and see that 19.2% of the allocation had been expended.

Does this mean that Fox News is a less-than-twenty-percent-of-the-glass-empty style pessimist? If this is the case, they are truly the most depressed people in the world. By the time you're a teenager, you're "basically" almost dead.

Another option is that they so incredibly simple as to not understand the difference between a million and a billion. But I would hope that "America's News Network" was smarter than that.

Instead, I see it that the network that claims to report the facts and let the viewer decided, who has taken "Fair and Balanced" to be their slogan, is so incredibly biased as to purposely misinterpret the facts to mislead the public.


Rock on.

Edited on 8 September 2009 for minor formatting changes.

Did you know...

...that Christopher Hitchens sends his daughter to a private Quaker school?

That's what he said when he was interviewed by the Commonwealth Club of California.

He was asked which religion he detests the least, and gave the response that even the Quakers make the mistake of viewing faith as a good thing.

It is of the highest order of hypocrisy to claim that religion poisons everything and then send a child, your child, to a religious institution.

Rock on.

Don Miller on Story and Christianity

I realize that the title is very descriptive. The point in all of Don Miller's books is the role of Story. In fact, his latest book, coming out in August, was originally going to be called Let Story Guide You, though he rewrote it and changed the title to A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

Anyway, he gave a brief overview of the book on his blog, and laid out what he thinks is the true narrative structure of Christianity.

For more on Million Miles, see Miller's interview -- really, it's more of a video-taped conversation -- with his publisher, also on his blog.

For more on Miller himself, check out his website, his blog, or any of the many posts I've written on Miller.

Rock on.

Anybody ever notice that the Pillsbury Doughboy is really just a bread gollum?

Congratulations, Pillsbury, you've created a medieval Jewish mythical monster that will eventually grow so large that it will collapse in on itself and kill whichever innocent family happened to be making cinnamon rolls that morning

Jerks.

The Tyger

One of the gifts I received for my most recent birthday was a copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence & of Experience.

Of the songs, perhaps the most famous is "The Tyger", which is presented below. The poem was the inspiration for several episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and the phrase "Fearful Symmetry" became a chapter in the classic graphic novel, Watchmen. The chapter is nearly completely symmetrical.

* * *

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb makd thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

* * *

Rock on.

In All of This, There Can Be Only God

A few months ago, I posted several videos from a photographer doing some cool (no pun intended) time lapse stuff in Antarctica.

Today, he posted several new photos to his blog. Scroll down to the image of the Milky Way.

It is one of the most awe-inspiring things I think I've ever seen.

Rock on.

And once again, there goes my productivity.

I discovered Hulu around this time last year.

Hulu is a web-based television and music hosting service, completely legal and free.

For college students, this is a huge service, and while I don't know how much Hulu has made, it's probably a lot.

I first heard of Hulu through YouTube.

A couple of days ago, I discovered that YouTube itself is trying to get in on the massive market for free digital media online.

I've spent the afternoon watching Nova's documentary on absolute zero.

Next up, I plan on watching a PBS two-part documentary on Martin Luther and former Python Terry Jones' series Medieval Lives.

Rock on.

Where in the world is...

...John McCain?

Did the Republicans tell him to go sit in the corner after the election?

I haven't heard from him in a while.

Just wondering.

Edit: I'm bumping this because Sen. McCain was on ABC's Face the Nation today.

He seemed more like his pre-election self. He was back to being a moderate, advocating the closing of Guantanamo, but leveling a fair and valid criticism of President Obama's current plan and discussing the current state of the Republican party. He praised President Obama for putting a stop to waterboarding and admitted his own shortcomings during the election.

In short, he was not the same person who picked Palin as a running mate or accused Obama of associating with terrorists.

Welcome back, Senator. I missed you.

It's hard to believe

I've been reading PHD Comics for nearly two years now, and have recently started re-reading them from the beginning.

The comic is twelve years old, so it's a lengthy process.

But that also means that when this strip was published, the world had no clue how truly horrendous Star Wars Episode I would be.

The poor fools.