Author: rakemag

Hey, Toto, I bet we can fool those Kansas rubes with a story about scarecrows and wizards. Auntie Em will never suspect we were just out behind the barn smoking a fatty.

It seems the Kansas Board of Education voted today to make Intelligent Design part of the curriculum in Kansas biology classes. Thank God, most of you are saying, we’re not in Kansas.

I just have a couple of questions. If God really was the intelligent designer, why did he skip Kansas when it came to handing out the intelligence? And, figures made public this week show that American kids are falling even further behind our international competitors when it comes to math and science proficiency. Do you think there’s any reason for that?

What Iowa looked like before genetically engineered corn

I’ve been hanging out lately with a young economist who’s been making a study of the history of economic thought. The conversation is a bit one sided, because, while I’ve heard of economic philosophers such as Keynes, Mill, Smith, et al., he’s actually read them.

Sunday night, the conversation turned to the government’s role in economic policy. He told me that, despite all the political bloviation to the contrary, all serious economists past and present, believe the government has a role (and even duty) to influence the market–not just to keep it safe to operate.

Two stories on the front page of the Wall Street Journal make that point today. (Sorry, you’ll have to subscribe to read them, just like I do.) One story made note of the well documented fact that many American drug companies have stopped making vaccines and antibiotics because they can make so much more money making Lipitor and Viagra. So, just when we really need vaccines and antibiotics, there ain’t none. The story, of course, (this is the WSJ, afterall) makes the point that the drug pushers can’t make any money because the government essentially sets the price, for vaccines especially, and it lets people sue the companies for alleged side effects.

Seems to me these are both easy fixes: indemnify the companies against any good faith mistakes, and since drug companies are, or at least should be in part, in business for the public good, license them sort of like we license broadcasters. In effect, we’ll let you make huge profits on your drugs, but in return, you have to do something for us, and make drugs we need, but the public weal demands be widely available and cheap. (Ok, I was kidding about regulating broadcasters, but you get the point.)

The second story was that of a farmer in Spain who had spent years developing a special organic variety of corn, only to have it polluted by strains of genetically engineered seed pollen blowing into his field from his neighbors. It is a growing problem, affecting even such American industrial giants as Anheuser Busch, who want to keep their beer making ingredients pure.

What an apt metaphor for the unregulated spread of all things capitalism.

As soon as I get done kissing you, I’m going to scare some Minnesotans

You read it in the Strib first. Katherine Kersten tells us today, “A proposal to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman in Minnesota’s Constitution is one of the biggest issues our state will face in the next legislative session.” Never mind education, tax policy, transit, bird flu, foreign terrorism threats, or energy costs, don’t forget it’s the gay married terrorists that are out to kill your way of life.

I shouldn’t be surprised at anything Katherine Kersten says, but today I have to admit she’s topped herself. As if we didn’t have to worry about all the dangerous Mexicans who want to come here to pick our fruit and clean our houses, now an even more insidious invasion is being fomented in Canada. Nope, health care for all wasn’t bad enough. And they don’t even want to stop at good strong beer. And, if the fact that many of them speak French doesn’t make you afraid, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Those goddam Canucks don’t legally descriminate against gay people. They’re going to hell and they want to take your children with them. And who does Kersten hold up at the defender of Canadian (and your) virtue? The Catholic Church. Yup, that Catholic Church–you know the one that’s been hiding pedophile priests for the past several centuries.

Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary is coming to the Twin Cities this week to tell us all about it. He’s one of the bishops who has threatened Canadian Members of Parliament with denial of communion in retaliation for their votes on gay rights to marriage. As Kersten further quotes him, “Canadians who believe in the historic definition of marriage, who believe that children need a mother and father, are now the legal equivalent of racists.”

Now that’s not exactly true. But exact truth won’t work, if your object is to scare people and inflame your voting base. What is true is that people who would deny rights to gays are the legal equivalent of people who would deny rights to people of a different skin color. Remember when it was illegal for a white to marry a black? I do.

If you don’t, have a look at our own 14th Amendment. Minnesota can pass all the anti-gay legislation Kersten and her ilk can scare us into, and some activist judge who can read the U.S. Constitution will just have to strike it down. And won’t the “base” have fun with that? Politics of divisiveness, welcome to Minnesota. You’re welcome here.

Can we at least ask that the Strib move this preposterous idiot to the Pandering to the Churchgoers page on Saturday, or, at the very least, bury her next to the bitchy gays Claude Peck and Rick Nelson in the Sunday Signature section? Her column’s very presence on the news pages denegrates the efforts of the good reporters and columnists who toil there.

Would somebody please give this guy head so we can impeach him?

We weren’t cheered too much by Miers withdrawal from the Supreme Court nomination. It’s not as if Bush needed anything else to emphasize how truly out of his depth he is. I was always convinced the decision to nominate her in the first place went something like this:

Bush: “Karl, Dick, we’ve got to nominate someone for that big judge thing whatchamacallit. You know any good ‘ol boys who could completely tip the court off the edge of reason?”

Rove: “Dubya, I got my own damn problems here with this Fitzgerald guy. Can’t you do anything yourself?”

Bush: (Yelling down the hall) “Hey, Harriet, whatcha doin’ for the rest of your life?”

Cheney: (Stage whisper to Rove) “Evidently not.”

But, now that we’ve had our fun with Harriet, maybe we should turn our thoughts to those who’ve really paid the price for Bush’s incompetence and Rove’s treachery. In case you’ve forgotten, there is tape of Rove telling the Republican National Committee in January 2002 that the “War on Terror” would be the issue that would carry the Republicans to victory in the next election. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in Afganistan wasn’t going to take that long, they needed something else to keep up the image of Bush as the man to keep America safe.

So we get lies about WMD, the Plame incident, and a war that’s now killed 2000 American boys and girls, wounded and crippled another 15,000, and killed or wounded uncounted Iraqis. Does anyone still believe we did this for the Iraquis as opposed to doing it to keep Cheney and Rove in power?

The indictments that are probably coming down soon are already being positioned by the White House and their sock puppets as “technical” ones–ones that will probably be for perjury instead of the crime of outing one of our covert agents. We get a big laugh out of that, especially since Hutchison voted to remove Bill Clinton from office for just such a “technicality.”

But somebody’s keeping their eye on the ball, despite all the Republican pitches in the dirt.

Today Operation Truth released a new television ad. Watch it, please.

And would someone tell me how oral sex grew into an impeachable offense while all those flag-draped coffins are kept out of sight?

Say it ain’t so, Joe. The Sox beat me to it.

Next time I’m in Vegas, I’m putting $100 on the Cubs to win the 2006 Series. It’s their turn.

I have to finish this so I can make the hubby a nice dinner

Probing every day for a new low in journalism, the Strib doesn’t let us down today.

One of my female colleagues brought this to my attention. Right before she vowed to call and cancel her subscription.

I never look at the life style section. This is why. Imagine you are a female reader and you run across this sentence: “Whether you’re tired of paying dry-cleaning bills or just want to impress your future mother-in-law, it makes sense to learn how to iron a shirt.”

Unfortunately, I never met my mother-in-law, but I can certainly tell from the way that she raised her daughter that ironing technique was not high on her list of qualifications to be permitted to marry into the family.

Irony, yes. Ironing, only if you have to.

One thing an iron would be good for, though, is cracking some editor at the Strib over the head. I don’t normally advocate violence, but in this case, I’d make an exception.

Lucky at cards, unlucky at war

This story yesterday from the NY Times depicts a new low in how we treat our soldiers. Actually, it’s not a new low, since it has been going on for many years.

We’re running casinos on military bases. So, we’re not only asking our men and women in uniform to gamble their lives, but, hey, while you’re at it, why not throw in your paycheck and your family’s livelihood?

All this is justified because the Pentagon uses the $120 million or so it fleeces our soldiers for for “recreational” uses. You know, golf courses and such.

As the story notes, jackpots are kept low so soldiers are less tempted to gamble. Of course, anyone who knows anything about compulsive gambling knows that doesn’t really work.

I wish I could come up with some crack about this. You know, maybe “Let’s have a raffle for a set of armor plating for your squad’s humvee.” Or how about, “It won’t cost you an arm and a leg to take a chance on winning your very own set of body armor”?

Instead, I’m just sort of ashamed.