Blog Goes International: Russia Is a Little Behind the Times

This is one of the Russian spies arrested yesterday. Her spy-name is Anna Chapman. I wonder if all of them used surnames of famous killers.

Did you see this story?

Apparently, 10 Russian spies have been living deep under cover as married, suburban, soccer-parents in Virginia, New jersey and New York for years. My question is, why? Does Russia think we are still fighting the cold war? Do they plan to crush us with Kruschev's old shoe? Are they trying to find out the secret recipes for Coke and KFC?

I think this is just an excuse for Russian intelligence personnel to live here. (By "here," I mean in the US, not Utah, obviously.) Maybe they just don't have Glamor Shots in Russia and really felt they needed some filtered pictures of young Russians with "come hither" looks (see pic above).

And they did such a GOOD JOB, too! Right up until they got arrested and had their faces plastered all over the US media.

According to the article, they had "spy sex" and "spy kids" in order to become "Americanized." What does that even mean? Russians have sex and kids, I assume. I understand that having kids as part of the cover story makes it more convincing, but it does not make them more "American-ish," does it?

What I cannot figure out is how having "spy sex" makes them more Americanesque. Who would know? Do they have a sex tape on YouTube? (I have not looked. I'll leave that to you. Let me know if they are singing the National Anthem or something really American, you know, to make them seem more American.) And what the heck is "spy sex?" Are ropes and masks involved? Tiny cameras and recording devices? Do they use secret codes to ....? You get the point.

This is a weird story. But things always seem really weird when they are out of proper time and/or context. This story would be thrilling and scary in 1979. But in 2010, I just think it's funny. What could Russia possibly learn from these spy-sex-soccer-parent pretenders that they could not learn from satellite technology, hacking, cellphone eavesdropping, and the freaking Freedom of Information Act? Yes, I'm sure we have very important secrets, but these suburban throwbacks were not even CLOSE to anything or anyone important (apparently). They just look like cavemen in a world of robots. Maybe they can get a job in a Geico ad - when they get out of prison.

How to Get on TV

(1) Notify the media that there is a 10-foot tall, blond, dawg-killing monster on the loose.

(2) Continue by claiming that you went outside your house in the evening to "call coyotes."

(3) Claim to have seen a 10-foot tall, ape-like creature with a human face and "beautiful hair" in the woods near your home.

(4) Claim further that you have seen the creature numerous times near your home.

(5) Accuse the creature of killing one of your five dawgs.

(6) Draw a picture of the monster with beautiful blond hair to show to reporters.

(7) Explain that as an experienced hunter, you could have shot and killed the creature, but you were afraid of gettin' in trouble with the police.

(8) Ease everyone's anxiety over the (apparently) Aryan Big Foot Monster by describing how you scared him (her?) away by "rough talking" to him (her?).

I promise this will get you on TV. See?

"And to the Right, You Will Hear Pandering"

Okay. Utah's turn.

This being such a deeply, deeply RED state (despite the fact that my own Congressman is a blue dog Dem) one of two people will most assuredly be Utah's newest Senator: Tim Bridgewater or Mike Lee.

Putting aside for the moment that I disagree with them both on just about every issue, I want to take issue with the total lack of depth and actual thought that went into their positions.

Tim is in favor of major medical tort reform and also wants to speed up the FDA drug approval procedures. Great idea, Tim. Now pharm companies can kills millions of people and NOT be held responsible. Brilliant. As it currently stands, pharm companies make billions of dollars on drugs that sometimes have unanticipated ill effects. If they are not responsible for that, then who is? Hmmm? IMO, if they are going to take the risk of selling a drug before they know the answers to all the questions, they should assume the risk, especially in light of all the profits they make.

Tim also wants to let states take over Medicare and Medicaid. (News flash, Tim. States already run Medicaid.) But he also want to impose stiffer penalties for MediCare fraud. How are you gonna do that if states run it? (I am going to assume he means "administer" and not "determine whether or not to have MediCare." If he means the latter, then he has clearly lost his marbles.)

And Mike wants to "end deficit spending." Hmm. Interesting. Did you pay cash for your house, Mike? I bet you got a loan for that. And did you know that our country would still be part of the British Empire if Ben Franklin and John Adams hadn't convinced all of Europe to loan us the money to fund the American Revolution? I'm thinking not. Debt is a tool that, if used correctly, can finance growth and expansion of our economy to meet our needs. Debt is not evil or bad or wrong. But it does need to be used correctly. That is precisely what our Senators and Congressman fight about. (Also, Mike, I'd be interested in knowing how many speeches and letters to the editor you wrote railing against the two unfunded wars W started.)

It's just so much pandering BS! I cannot stand it! Check out their sites to see what I mean: "Improve the quality of education by giving more control to states." Yeah, Texas is doing a great job with that.

And term limits! The reddest of all red herrings! We already have term limits. They're called ELECTIONS! If you don't like the incumbent, vote for someone else. But here's the thing. We all like OUR incumbents. It's that other state's or district's incumbent we are tired of, right? Too bad! They get to choose their insider just like we do.

This is my absolute favorite: This is from Mike's site.

"REFORM THE TAX SYSTEM
With 50% of wage earners paying little or no taxes, too many voters have no “skin in the game”—and no reason to question new government programs that are funded by the real taxpayers."

Yeah, that's because they are too poor to pay taxes you dumb-ass! With 85% of American wealth in the top 20% of the population, (leaving 80% of the nation's population to share the other 15% of the wealth) you can understand why a large number of American's have too little wealth and income to pay federal taxes. But apparently Mike doesn't get this. What's really the stunner, though, is the large percentage of those poor people who vote for folks just like Mike because of social issues, ignoring that he wants to take a piece of their teeny, tiny, hamburger-helper pie. Nice, Mike. I'm sure you can solve all of our problems by sticking it to the poor people.

This one comes in a close second. Also from Mike's site.

"REDUCE GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS
The answer to an economic downturn is not a government stimulus, but a reduction in government regulation and bureaucracy to allow the natural forces of our private enterprise system to rebound without undue interference."

What do you call someone who continues to advocate some idea or theory that has been shown to be utterly ineffective, and even harmful? I call him Mike Lee.

Reduction in government regulation, you say? Well, reduced regulation got us a financial crisis (almost collapse) and an oil spill in the Gulf that we cannot even begin to measure yet, it's so big and bad.

The GOP and Bill Clinton repealed a number of financial regulations, including parts of the Glass-Stegall Act, which led directly to the flim-flamming that inflated and popped the financial bubble.

And the complete lack of regulation and enforcement that went on with BP is just mind boggling.

Everything has rules. Your religion has rules. You make rules for your kids. And we have laws and regulations that establish rules for doing business. And why do we have rules? To keep the exchange fair and so that everyone will know what to expect. Rules bring about predictability, and in business, predictability is good.

(BTW, Mike, if the free market is the solution to all these problems, then the Feds should just go back to ordinary business and trust BP to clean up, right? Is that your position?)

Do you think it's funny (not funny "ha ha" but funny "wow") how these guys are so devoutly religious when it comes to regulating private, personal behaviors, and yet so ruthlessly greedy when it comes to money? If you were to reverse the positions, the equivalent would be to advocate legalizing and promoting prostitution, drugs, and condom-free orgies.

I just want to know, where are the serious, pragmatic people who actually want to move our country forward? 'Cause they're not running for office this time around.

(Afterword: Yes, I called Mike Lee a dumb-ass. But he's really not. He just assumes the voters are.)

My Mind is Boggled. Is yours?

My last blog entry featured this picture of Phyllis Shlafley.

Most of you reading this have little or no idea what the ERA is. ERA (in this context) is the Equal Rights Amendment. While the post-Civil War Amendments to the constitution guaranteed equal rights under the law for all Americans regardless of race, there is nothing in the constitution making such a guarantee based on gender. I.e., under a strict reading of the US Constitution, there is no guarantee of equal protection of the laws and equal treatment based on gender. As a result, a group of women, now often referred to as "feminists," banded together to support the Equal Rights Amendment. While the protections would go in both directions, since men in America have typically held most of the power and authority, this proposed amendment was seen as primarily a new protection of women against gender discrimination.

Which begs the questions: Why would any American woman in her right mind want to STOP the Equal Rights Amendment (which failed to be adopted BTW) as Ms. Schlafly is demonstrating in this photo? Is the idea that women should be men's equals that offensive or revolutionary? Apparently, to Ms. Schlafley and the majority of Americans in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was. (It passed both the House and the Senate, but failed to get enough states to ratify it before the 1982 deadline.)

Since the failure of the ERA, numerous federal laws have been passed (enforced broadly under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, primarily) to prohibit gender discrimination in many areas. But it still makes me feel a little like a second class citizen that a majority of Americans think gender equality is not something we should guaranty with the Constitution. Why the hell not?

Remember my blog "Why is this OK?" Well, let me ask it again: Why is this OK?

To answer my own question: It's not OK. It's just that no one cares enough to change it. And that is a sad commentary on my gender. We may have come a long way, baby, but we have miles and miles and miles to go. And in heels, no less.

I'd Like the $1,000 Sent to ____________, Please

You have probably heard about the state school board in Texas rewriting (or re-righting) history. They are downplaying the significance of Thomas Jefferson (OUT WITH THE BOLD) and featuring religious talking head Phyllis Schlafley (IN WITH THE RUBE) (photo below, right), for example.
Most notably, they are hiding, if not outright denying, that the founding fathers created our constitutional government intending to maintaining a separation of church and state.

One righty on the board said this: “I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.” The rest of this blog is directed at this David Bradley guy.

Dear Dave,

It's called the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." See, all federal laws are made by Congress. The Executive governs by enforcing those laws, as well as exercising powers specifically granted it in the Constitution (establishing religion not being one of them, BTW), and the Judiciary interprets the law. See how that works?

So, if Congress is prohibited from establishing a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, that de facto mandates the separation of church and state. But, you can also read the writings of our founding fathers and find that they also wanted this separation.

The complexity (irrationality) of your "conservative" mind amazes me. You want a strict interpretation of the Constitution - applying only what the writers of the document intended - EXCEPT when it comes to establishing your own little theocracy. I have several comments on that.

(1) Theocracy sucks. It corrupts both religion and government. Theocracy gives you burquas, burning witches, and the oppression of peoples of minority faiths. It is one of the few things you can actually call "unAmerican." For all the mistakes our founding fathers made (slavery being a very big example), this is one major principle they got right.

(2) People, like you, who argue we were founded as a "Christian nation" are suffering from a delusion brought on by understanding too little of our history and listening to too much Glen Beck. Yes, the overwhelming majority of the first European-Americans were Christian. But our federal government was (and is) not Christian, it was (and is) secular. The power to govern comes from the people, not from God or Allah or Jehovah or any other deity. We choose our leaders in a secular voting booth on a weekday. It is not a liturgical or ecclesiastical exercise. It is an enlightened, human, secular exercise.

(3) Screaming your "Christian nation" delusion doesn't make it true any more than the Salem witch trials actually made the victims of that superstitious mass murder into witches. Saying it does not make it true. And teaching it to unsuspecting, innocent children does not make it true either.

(4) Finally, Dave, I'd like for you to send the $1000.00 to the charity chosen by my readers. I'll let you know which one wins.

Secularly yours,

Heather McDougald

Teenagers Have Rhythm, and They Know How to Use It

A recent survey revealed that an increasing number of teenagers girl claim to be using the rhythm method as birth control.

I am having trouble deciding what to discuss with this news. Here are topics I am thinking about:

(1) Being deprived of access to birth control that actually works, teenagers are forced to employ a method that only sorta works sometimes.

(2) Teenagers having sex is clearly not a spontaneous thing, as least for the rhythm section of the teenage population. This requires planning and a calendar.

(3) Can we stop pretending that teenagers are not having sex now?

(4) Abstinence-only sex education is stupid.

Putting these topics aside for a moment, I have a story. When I was in college, a (male) friend of mine asked me if a girl could get pregnant "every time she had sex." I was dumbfounded by this guy's ignorance of female reproductive biology, and I explained it to him. (BTW, we were on a road trip at the time. Kinda made the rest of the trip a little *awwwwk--waaaard.*) To that end, I am at least pleased that these young ladies have a sufficient understanding of how their bodies work to make these decisions.

Okay. Let's start with number 3. Teenagers have sex. Not all teenagers, but enough of them that we should really stop acting like it is rare or surprising or going to stop.

Now, let's combine numbers 1 and 4 and start giving these young people the information and technology they really need to avoid STDs and unwanted/unplanned pregnancies. Clearly, the decision to keep them ignorant and ill-equipped is not stopping them from having sex, it's just forcing them to take risks and get more creative. (FYI, suggestions to keep people ignorant and ill-equipped will get a "Nay" vote from me every time.)

Finally, number 2. These young people employing the rhythm method are PLANNING on having sex and are trying to avoid pregnancy. You may have moral objections to their activities, but you must salute their maturity. OK, some of you will not salute their maturity, but come on. You have to admit this is more impressive than the "we didn't mean to" or "we only did it once" stories that persist when an unplanned pregnancy occurs. Though I do not actually believe those stories, I think there is a perception that teenagers having sex occurs spontaneously and without calculation. This shows that is not the case, at least for these young ladies.

One final note (because this blog is really about changing how we handle sex-education and the integration of birth control): If we want to reduce the number of abortions by teenagers, the best thing we can do is reduce the number of teen pregnancies. Kudos to these teens for trying to accomplish this using the rhythm method, but can we please dig our heads out of the sand and give these kids some condoms?

Why Is This OK?

When I saw this picture, my first reaction was: Ankles! I can see their ankles!

That reaction is perhaps proof that I have become desensitized to the absurdity and oppression that is a curse on millions of women around the world.

We're lucky in America where our biggest problems are (1) making 75% of what an equally qualified man makes in the same job, (2) having to make sure we park near the door and a light if we are not returning to our car until after dark, (3) worrying that we may have to travel across the country to terminate a pregnancy that may be threatening our life, (4) NEVER taking our eyes or hands off of our drinks at a bar, (5) wondering if the unknown person who rings our doorbell is a salesperson or a home invader, (6) knowing we are getting ripped off by a mechanic, (7) despite being more than half of the population, only constituting a small fraction of elected government position, (8) basically being second-class citizens in many churches, synagogues, and mosques, (9) enduring benevolent objectification from those churches who don't want us to feel like second class citizens, and (10) Sarah Palin (who is really, really bad for our gender).

But we don't have to wear burquas. We do not get beheaded, stoned or immolated if we are accused of sexual immorality (at least not legally). We are not forced to endure painful female circumcision. We are usually not forced to marry people against our wills. We have the right to vote, move around independently, work, and serve in the military.

I am seething as I write this, listing all the ways women in America are "lucky" because of all the freedom and rights we have compared to women in many parts of the world.

But men don't count what they CAN do. They count what they CAN'T do. (1) They CAN'T get pregnant. Everything else is the province of men. Everything. They can even lactate (with the right medical application).

I wonder sometimes what it would have been like to grow up literally thinking I could do anything I wanted. Anything. I could live anywhere, do any job, wear any clothes. That's freedom.

In America: Men are free; Women are lucky.

Would you Like Some Cheese with that WHIIIIIIIINNNEEE?!

This morning on TV I heard the strangest, whiniest thing. The report was on the latest efforts by BP to stop the gusher in the Gulf, and then the story turned to criticism of President Obama.

The people talking, including conservative Joe Scarborough, acknowledged that the administration was doing everything in its power substantively, but that Obama has failed to "emotionally connect" and show that he "really cares" about the people on the Gulf Coast. This went on for several minutes until I finally turned off the TV.

What the hell? I looked up and re-read the Presidential Oath several times and nowhere in it did Obama promise to make us feel loved or otherwise be our therapist.

If you need a hug, go visit your Momma! If you wanna "feel better about the situation," go to the coast, pick up a freaking shovel and start cleaning! Or better yet, start supporting green legislation like alternative fuels, cap & trade, etc. But to complain that the President is not emotional enough about the spill to make us feel better is just kinda stupid, and really, really immature.

Funny how some people cry and moan if a nominee for the Supreme Court is called "empathetic," but if the President doesn't bow, scrape and cry on TV, he's just out of touch. Not everyone cries as easily as Tammy Faye or Glen Beck. Personally, I'd rather have a thinker in the White House than a feeler.

I never cared that W didn't ride the first fan-boat to New Orleans after Katrina, and I don't care if Obama supervises the cleaning-up of the BP oil mess from the Oval Office. I could not care less about kind words or sentiment when it comes to disaster. I only care about competence, effectiveness, and learning lessons from failures.

So, Mr. President, I don't want a hug. I want changes in drilling policy, in energy policy, in clean-up policy, and in spill-liability policy. If you cannot get these things done in this climate, in the aftermath of this failure, you have bigger problems than being too cool.