Michele Bachmann is a great fundraiser…for Democrats. Since that creepy video of her calling everyone who isn’t a rightwingnut “anti-American” has spread all over, money has been pouring into the Elwyn Tinklenberg campaign. Check out Tinklenberg’s ActBlue page: he has received over $100,000 since yesterday. I opened the page a few hours ago and just checked again, and it had shot up about $20,000. Add a few pennies to the total, if you can!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Sorry to go off topic, especially in one of the first few posts, but since most of you non-troll types seem to be fans of that whole “academic freedom” thing, I figured this might be of interest to some of you (my apologies if this is old news):
BYU yanks diploma
I tossed a hundred bucks into the anti-Bachmann pile, but it’s nice to know that it’s worthwhile to be pro-Tinklenberg instead of just against the Bride of Frankincense.
By the way, the right-wing Christian students who tried to take over the student council at American River College in Sacramento finally succeeded. They passed a resolution in favor of Proposition 8, the initiative campaign to outlaw same-sex marriages and overturn the state supreme court decision that made them legal. The somnolent college student body finally woke up and realized their student council did not represent them. A recall election is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in Sacramento. I hope the Slavic-Christian-neocon junta is kicked out.
In the meantime, the No on 8 campaign could use a little love.
I swear. There is a point in that Matthews interview where you can see Bachmann, after getting backed into that corner of McCarthyism, get this glimmer of realization that there’s a pretty good chance she just killed her political career.
I think it’s great that Elwyn’s gotten all those donations. I hope the bulk of them come from Minnesotans.
I contributed from California. First time I ever donated to a congressman outside my state. Check the first news story to address this phenomenon thus far http://minnesotaindependent.com/13670/tinklenberg-campaign-to-release-overwhelming-donation-numbers-on-monday
BTW 154,770 right now. Now this is something worth going viral.
Owch. At least I go to CSUS. My cousin goes to American River though, maybe I should have a talk with him.
Awesome. I contributed from MA; I hope it helps bring this wingnut down.
Don’t forget that there are lots of other races we need to pick up — check the directory of candidates or the list of fundraising pages to find other needy targets with a good change of taking over a Republican seat, and remember to spread the wealth around.
It’s gonna be a thrilling 17 days.
This Bachmann woman does seem like a raving lunatic, based solely on the information in her Wikipedia article (I’ve never been to Minnesota and am not familiar with its local politics). (Interestingly enough, her article reveals that she used to be a Democrat and worked on the Carter campaign. Just making the point that blithering hyper-religious lunacy is not restricted to right-wing Republicans; indeed, IIRC, it was Carter himself who coined the term “born-again Christian”.)
Just out of interest, what are Tinklenberg’s political positions?
He should send her a thank-you card.
I kicked in a few bucks. This Bachmann wackdoodle needs to be voted out of Congress! What a creepy, scary piece of work she is. Listening to her babble, I can close my eyes and see her running thru the streets, torch held high, screaming for the villagers to root out the witches and burn ’em.
Thanks for posting the video.
My pocketbook is growing thin buy I managed to pitch in a few bucks to help your state get rid of this lunatic.
Who in the hell votes Bachmann in? Not too familiar with Minnesota although I’ve been there a few times. Her district must be in the midwest version of Appalachia or something.
Her call for a witch hunt to root out antiAmericans seems to have struck a nerve. In her tiny mind, this would include Darwinists, scientists, Democrats, various heretics not of the christofascist faith, anyone else not a reptoxian, big headed UFO aliens, etc.. In short, the majority of the US population.
The spector of pea brain, twisted pseuod-xians of the Hate and Kill sects running amock with ropes, stacks of firewood, and torture squads is sort of medieval. In fact it is very Dark Ages, an Inquisition type thing. Maybe Minnesota should try something new, like joining us in the 21st century.
I can see her next campaign slogan. “Torture, it is not just for Moslems and witches anymore.”
“BYU yanks diploma”
One thing that I found heartening about that article was the comments section. As always, when there’s a comment section below an article, I check the first page or so. They have the thumbs-up-thumbs-down method of comment rating, and the only two comments on the page that were for BYU’s decision were hidden due to extreme thumb-down-ed-ness.
NJ here; contributing a few bucks (I’m a midwesterner, though, and even have relatives in MN, so it’s all good).
Wow. Just go to that ActBlue page, and hit refresh every couple of minutes to see the effects of Bachmann’s love on Tinklenberg’s campaign. He’s raking in about two-hundred bucks a minute.
Donate to the Bachman: overturn her! drive.
Walton @ #7
Here is a story on many of her positions. It includes video of them, from her own mouth.
Mercurious #16: I was asking about Tinklenberg’s positions, not Bachmann’s. I realise Bachmann is something of a lunatic. But I haven’t heard of Tinklenberg and am not aware of his position within the Democratic Party. There’s a world of difference between a “religious right wingnut vs. moderate” election and a “religious right wingnut vs. hardline leftist wingnut” election. As a libertarian conservative, I don’t like the religious right, but I marginally prefer them to tax-raising, high-spending statists.
Opps sorry Walton. Tinklenberg’s Issues page
I’d say he aligns pretty well with moderate Dem’s.
There should be a post like this to donate to the North Carolina senator that pals around with atheists.
brainn — of course there’s an ActBlue page for Hagan in NC, too, it’s here. She’s raised close to $2 million from ActBlue. It’s worth looking through the fundraising campaigns to see who the hot tickets are.
Walton, I had the same questions, but a glance at Tinklenberg’s page was enough to satisfy me that he is a solid moderate Dem (if perhaps a little dull and mainstream by my taste).
Tinklenberg is now the top of ActBlue’s list of hot candidates. Fantastic — but don’t forget all those other races!
http://www.censurebachmann.com/
Petition for pointless Congressional censure, 18K signers
Ok. $100 to El Tink. I’m anti-“anti-American”. What a dolt she is.
What glory! What wonder!
We don’t need to raise money to put the candidates for rationality and sanity on the air — we need to put the other guys out there!
Ben Franklin is reputed to have observed that truth wins, in a fair fight. (That’s why we have evidence rules in federal courts, by the way.)
Keep the fight fair!
Hmmmm. Can I find video of Texas SBOE chair Don McLeroy? How viral can it be?
@LoewLife #15: I see what you did there.
that page of Tinklingberghs position is incomplete (deceptive?) see wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Tinklenberg
pro-life and anti-gay? still probably better than Bachman though. also blue dog democrat? man are the minnesotans in this district screwed!
Awe, all this real world change makes me feel so squishy. Remember 4 years ago when Bush supposedly won due to the “moral” voting block? Let’s show them the power behind the “rational thinking science loving atheists for a better America” voting block!
yup. i sent him $100. from the chicago area.
I would hope that BYU gets their ass handed to them. We know that in terms of public relations this attack against a student who had already graduated is a disaster. Now I hope the guy can bankrupt their sorry asses for institutional extortion.
Enjoy.
By the way, here is a poll to crash:
http://www.expelledthemovie.com/
It’s “Expelled,” asking “Do you think Darwin’s theories are outdated?” Now forget the pedant’s response, where you’d say “Of course they’re outdated, that’s why we don’t call it ‘Darwinism’ like the lying propagandists do.” Partly they’re counting on that, I suspect (that is, they know they’re lying).
Right now it’s 57% “yes,” 14% “no,” and 29% “maybe”. “No” should be at the top, in my estimation, since their point has always been to conflate “Darwin’s theories” with modern evolutionary theory.
Glen D
That’s great! It reminds me what a livejournal user who went by the name mia_d called Philanthropy for Misanthropy. She would go on message boards looking for dumb, misanthropic comments and, in response, donate money to charities the original posters would hate and tell them about it. It infuriates people! It’s loads of fun, it bothers them way more than any argument ever could, and it makes the world a better place.
I did it once. It’s very satisfying to write, “In lieu of a response to your laissez-faire attitude regarding human rights, I have just donated thirty dollars to Amnesty International. In your name. Have a nice day.”
I snuck into a Michele Bachmann meeting of the Minnesota GOP. She gave a 20 minute question and answer segment about abortion in which she got 70% of embryology wrong. Most it though were selective quotations from people like PZ here who don’t support her nutty views. But there were other things that she claimed that just cannot be proven.
There were other weird things like she said something like “did you know that at 6 months a fetus is capable of using symbols to communicate?”Oh really michele??? please tell me more you stupid cun—!! And another oddity:(approximation: “Science has shown that life begins at conception. I can prove it too. According to cell theory all living things are made of cells, and even a fertilized egg is a cell, and so its alive” *Cue applause*
Something like that unfortunately it was extremely awkward to watch her struggle with words like “blastocyst” and still keep things folksy. Of course she used “zygote” and “fetus”, “embryo interchangeably…
It was funny how she described fertilization AFTER THE FACT. She didn’t once mention how girls GET PRAGNET in the first place and the events leading up to this even though everyone there was either over 18 or below 1 year old.
This was like 3 years ago when I was doing under the table reconnaissance for the local Democrat I support
They banned recording devices unfortunately so at least I MYSELF don’t have a recording. Even if I did I swear to Poseidon that this is all true.
I would have laughed at it because I was in such a shitty mood.
I don’t know. I’m really torn on abortion personally. I have complete secular reasons to oppose it. Too bad the prolife movement is so religious. I remember PZ said something similar in his Citypages video interview.
@ Walton #7
Your comment about President Carter’s religiosity would be an outrageous smear if you had any knowledge of Carter’s public actions while in office and after he left the White House. As it stands, your comment just shows ignorance.
Tinklenberg has raised upwards of 400k in the past 36 hours…..thanks Michelle….
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/18/2550/3286/381/634245
@ dubiquiabs #33: What smear? The OP said that she [the wingnut] worked on Carter’s campaign and claims that Carter invented the term “born-again Christian”. Doesn’t say too much about Carter at all, really, even if he *did* invent the term.
“A Liberal Definition by John F. Kennedy:
Acceptance Speech of the New York
Liberal Party Nomination
September 14, 1960
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label “Liberal?” If by “Liberal” they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of “Liberal.” But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
Read speech here:
http://www.liberalparty.org/JFKLPAcceptance.html
RE: Prop 8 — Howard Ahmanson is, along with the Mormons, the biggest backer of it. He’s an arch-conservative Rushdoony disciple (so much so that he was at Rushdoony’s bedside when the loony racist homophobe breathed his last) and nearly single-handedly forced and bankrolled the anti-gay schism in the Church of England and the Episcopalians in America: http://www.advocate.com/print_article_ektid63636.asp
As for Bachmann: Her CD was tailor-made to be a Republican stronghold. It’s made up of white-flight megachurch exurbs surrounding the northern Twin Cities metro area, with a chunk of conservative Catholic residents from around the St. Cloud and Stearns County area. (Stearns County has lots of German and Polish Catholics, so many that they openly resisted Prohibition during the 1920s; they made moonshine known as “Minnesota 13” which was among the better ‘shines one could get; one moonshiner’s facility was so clean and modern that the revenooers begged him to go straight — this was towards the end of Prohibition — so they wouldn’t have to trash it. The insularity of Stearns County residents is such that inbreeding-related diseases are fairly high, giving rise to the term “Stearns County Syndrome”.)
Linky
All I can say is… Holy shit!
The latest polls shows the McCarthyist Bauchmann winning 42% to Elwyn Tinklenberg’s 38%.
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/1-0&fp=48fab4b3cd998098&ei=n1X6SPnUPKK-MpigiZAJ&url=http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14648.html&cid=1256737500&usg=AFQjCNHMniYgjSfFOK6WfSCLJUVjgIomNw
That was before this huge gaff. I tossed in a few bucks, hopefully the pro-American progressives will send help Bauchmann packing.
Dubiquiabs #33: My apologies, I wasn’t clear. “Blithering hyper-religious lunacy” was a reference to Bachmann, not Carter. Reading my comment again, I realise that it could be misinterpreted.
For the record, I was not attacking either Carter or religious people in general. I am not anti-religious in the slighest. But, like most people here, I do find Bachmann’s beliefs ludicrous; and I was only pointing out that she used to be a Democrat.
Jeezus P.Z. Every time you write up a post like this one it costs me a hundred bucks. The cash is gone before the red haze clears from my eyes. I’ve got no beer money left. Have mercy.
Bert, look at is as an investment. Your putting your money in now to have one hell of a huge party on Nov 5th when we kick all these thugs and slugs out of the gov.
… and then he got assassinated. :-/
Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann is evidently a very good motivational speaker – for the opposition! :-D
What’s your problem Bret? Don’t you know how to prioritize? You get rid of the gas or food money before the beer money. You should never, EVER, under any circumstance take money from the beer account and give it to anyone –let alone a politician.
I… I… I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion, personally. Were you raised by wolves or something?
Don’t let it happen again, okay? Promise me.
Ooops… Please forgive me for calling you Bret, Bert. It’s temporary keyboard dyslexia. After all, some of us haven’t given away our beer money.
Of course, I may have to eat the pets.
Just putting a word in for Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in NH–she is running for the senate seat against the incumbent, John Sununu (shudder)…sounds like he has been a particularly nasty opponent and I, for one, would like to see him out of the Senate.
@Glen #30, regarding Expelled, it looks like Religulous has passed it in domestic box office total after being out only two and half weeks, and playing in roughly half the number of theatres.
I gave thirty bucks to the cause, just to see those Coulter-McCarthyites drown in their bile.
Coulter however doesn’t seem serious about it, she’s just milking a huge demographic for personal betterment. I think she’ll probably admit some regret as she advances in the years.
Have you seen this Tinklenberg ad?
http://www.tinklenberg08.com/haveyouseenher.html
Funny!
#45 Capital Dan
Smart move…just think of all the money you’ll save on pet food ;)
Well, I already donated 3 hours of my time today as a Veteran for Obama doing outreach, might as well chip in a few bucks here too. She is the very definition of the crazy.
@ #40
Thank you, Walton.
I’m not religious, but one of the reasons I hold Mr. Carter in high regard is that as best I know, as a public official, he never tried to foist his religious convictions on others, directly or indirectly.
IMO, what matters is how we behave, not what labels we carry, willingly or not.
What I find most disturbing about the Bachman case is that someone like her can get elected at all.
Dan #45; I said I’m out of beer money, not out of beer. That’s why Gawd created the basement refrigerator.
Beer will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no beer. (adapted from the “Furry Freak Brothers”.)
Done, with pride, from Colorado.
$488,127. Almost a half million in 24 hours — completely spontaneously, spurred by that one appearance.
It’s looking more and more like that interview ended her career.
Dudes! I’m so disappointed that no one here conducted a full bitch slap! I have a TINY income and donated $5 to Tinklenberg – just check the “other” box. Please donate a simple buck or even 50 cents!
Getting back to my dis… I did a *wee* bit of homework after the fact and… ready?
This nasty bitch is married to – yet again – ANOTHER super-sized nellie in denial closet queen. Marcus. Google him. YouTube, too. Guess what he does for a living? Runs a counseling service to “pray away the gay”. Yepper. Like a starving man in a pickle barrel.
Michelle refuses to use the word “Gay”. She prefers “disfunctional homosexuals”. We’re talking really SICK chick here, Chicklets. Vomit on Pradas kinda thing.
DONATE.
GET RID OF HER.
SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT MARCUS.
Don’t forget to Facebook him people!
You can donate to HAL BIDLACK through Act Blue too! He’s out of my district, but would be a great choice to represent the area that includes Colorado Springs.
His opponent is practically a no-show, but is the incumbent Republican and a Christian.
Hal Bidlack is an Air Force Retiree, lost his wife to breast cancer a few years back and was at the Pentagon on 9/11. Top that with his attendance at TAM and you have an amazing guy!
Just out of curiousity since I have never been there, and that ain’t gonna change:
Is Salt Lake City kinda hotbed for the devolutional jehovas witnesses, i.e. an intellectual vacuum?
A new post, pushing for signatures to the *Academic Freedom Petition* up on the blog too!
Mormons, the SLC church hate Jehovas Witnesses.
You need to get your sects right.
The reality is that SLC is a cross between Boulder CO and the Vatican. The city itself is sort of boring in a clean modern way but the surrounding areas are among the most spectacular on earth. And contrary to myth, SLC is majority nonmormon and the previous mayor was a far left feminist and the present mayor is some sort of far left Dem. The state is divided into LDS and nonLDS areas and SLC is where the heathens ended up.
That’s got to be a scary existence if you’re forced to ration your beer. Do yourself a favor, don’t answer the phone or invite any of your friends and family over. You might just make it, Bert.
Thanks mate.
Kinda know it, but problem is that I am seriously uninterested.
Same shit, different buckets, – almost literally.
Know there is very good trout fishing in Utah, so it would have been a crying shame if that had been spoiled by having to cope with religious creeps before getting to the creeks!
Dubiquiabs at #52: I agree with your remark that it is our acts, not the way we describe ourselves, by which we ought to be judged.
Carter’s not, of course, remembered as a hugely successful president – he was excoriated for his handling of both the economy and the Iranian hostage crisis – but to be fair to him, he became president at a very difficult time, grappling with energy crises and an unstable world. (And it is worth noting that he did successfully negotiate the release of the Iranian hostages, albeit that they were not actually released until after Reagan’s inauguration.) I do have a lot of respect for Jimmy Carter, and in his post-presidential years he’s certainly been active in promoting good causes. As a practising Baptist, he’s also battled the loony fundamentalist elements in his own denomination (in fact, he formally split with the Southern Baptist Convention a few years ago).
I would have voted for Reagan in 1980, though, simply because Reagan’s commitment to tax cuts and the free market were what the country needed at that time (just as Thatcher was needed in Britain). On both sides of the Atlantic we were being held back by crippling tax rates and failed Keynesian policies. Clearly, neither Thatcher nor Reagan magically made things perfect, but they did pave the way for long-term macro-economic growth on an unprecedented level. But we’ve already had that debate elsewhere, and it’s probably best not to re-hash it here.
If I were a Minnesotan living in the relevant congressional district, I can say with some certainty that I would be voting for Tinklenberg. Looking at his positions page above, he seems solidly moderate. I wouldn’t be a partisan voter in the US; although my economic views align with Republicans, my social views generally align with Democrats, and I’d usually prefer to vote for the least loony candidate. But I would be voting McCain for the presidency.
#64 above: There is a world of theological difference between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. All that they have in common is that (1) they are both non-Trinitarian sects in the Christian tradition and (2) they are both well-known for knocking on people’s doors.
Other than that:
Mormons use a number of scriptural texts besides the Bible (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Book of Abraham); Jehovah’s Witnesses use only the Bible (albeit their own controversial “New World” version).
Mormons are Restorationists and believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, who restored the true Church and translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates given to him by an angel called Moroni. Jehovah’s Witnesses make no such claim, but they do contend that their translation of the Bible is “more accurate” than that used by other Christian groups, and that other Christian sects have deviated from the true path.
Mormons believe in complete abstinence from alcohol, tea and coffee. Jehovah’s Witnesses allow moderate use of these things, but they are prohibited from accepting blood transfusions even if necessary to save their life.
Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot vote, serve in the military or participate in any political activity beyond paying taxes, since they believe that they owe allegiance solely to the Kingdom of God and not to any earthly state. Mormons, on the other hand, are perfectly willing to serve in the military where required and to involve themselves in politics, although the LDS Church itself declines to take a political stance.
It’s astonishingly silly, in other words, to describe Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses as “same sh*t, different buckets.” I’m sure you don’t believe in either of those religions – neither do I, for that matter – but they are radically different in terms of both belief and practice. It’s no different from when some Christian fundamentalists conflate Satanism and Wicca (again, two completely different religions), or, for that matter, atheism and Satanism. Not sharing someone else’s beliefs is not an excuse to be wilfully uninformed about them.
Some motherfucker to be accusing others of being willfully uninformed.
Who gives a fuck what you think, Walton? You’re an anthropogenic global warming denialist with a long pattern of lying here at Pharygula. You cherry pick data and ignore conclusions that you dislike, while blatantly lying about the other commenters. Everything you say is worthless.
My name is Niben, and I approve of this message.
OK, let’s clear this up. I am fed up with being labelled a “global warming denialist”, as it seems an attempt to lump me in with “Holocaust denial” and other absurd points of view. I am inclined to be sceptical of anthropogenic global warming because of a number of factors. Firstly, as I understand it (do correct me if I’m factually wrong), the Earth has warmed and cooled naturally throughout its history, without any human activity. Secondly, there was a “global cooling” scare in the 1970s which turned out to be largely unfounded; this leads me to be sceptical of today’s “global warming” scare. Thirdly, as I understand it, ice levels in a few parts of the world are actually increasing, albeit that others are shrinking rapidly. Fourth, what about the impact of natural solar activity on global temperatures? Fifth, what about the fact that some warming trends have actually started hundreds of years before increases in carbon dioxide, and that warming itself can sometimes affect carbon dioxide concentrations (suggesting that there may be a correlation-cause confusion in the most common interpretation of the statistics)?
As I understand it, there are many different viewpoints on precisely what proportion of the general warming trend is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. I am inclined to be distrustful of the IPCC because it is, as its name suggests, an intergovernmental panel, and therefore its conclusions are likely to be politically-influenced and aimed at influencing political activity. I am also very sceptical of “An Inconvenient Truth” and the like, because of the clear manipulation of statistics in order to achieve a goal of political advocacy.
Although there undoubtedly are people with vested interests in denying anthropogenic global warming (large oil companies, for instance), it’s interesting to note that the “denialists” are predominantly not affiliated to or funded by such organisations. Rather, most of the prominent global warming skeptics are academics (Robert Balling is a professor at Arizona State; Richard Lindzen a professor at MIT and former government researcher; Roy Spencer a professor at Alabama State). In contrast, big industry mostly seems to be jumping on the “green” bandwagon for PR purposes, telling us how environmentally friendly their operations are.
Why does there seem to be a direct correlation between conservative libertarians and AGW deniers? Especially as they seldom seem to be climatologists.
Why does there seem to be a direct correlation between conservative libertarians and AGW deniers? Especially as they seldom seem to be climatologists.
Why does there seem to be a direct correlation between left-wing politicians/activists and promoters of global warming hysteria? Especially as they seldom seem to be climatologists.
Because the Reagan-Thatcher era’s successes demonstrated convincingly that capitalism is the best way to generate prosperity and high standards of living for human beings. The Left, having lost that argument, needed another ground on which to attack big corporations – so they conveniently jumped on the global warming bandwagon. In contrast, we conservatives and libertarians do not have this instinctive hatred and fear of big business – so we are naturally inclined to view AGW sceptically. Considering that the promoters of environmental hysteria seem to want us to prioritise cutting carbon emissions over the goal of promoting human prosperity and higher standards of living through economic growth, can you blame us for wanting irrefutable evidence? Do we want to throw away the great prosperity that comes from industrial growth and development – and with it our chances to end poverty and deprivation – simply because of a hysterical panic about a few degrees’ rise in global temperature?
Difference is there is general scientific consensus behind Global Warming. While there are many on the left who have no idea about it and go along in order to save the planet. But there are many many scientists who have studied this phenomenon for decades who are saying that it’s happening. And in terms of government and business, they both are doing nothing because the only thing that matters is the economy. So many times it’s said “if we act, people will be out of work”, and so we are in a position again where nothing will change until the situation is dire.
Yes, capitalism has worked so well recently. The market is even more deregulated than before and everything went boom! But of course, that was the slight bit of regulation that was there which is to blame… Though I must have missed the memo about the left having lost. Was there a memo or is this just another case of your spewing your opinion as gospel?
Really? What’s this?
“Federal Officials Seek to Relax Rules for Dumping Mine Waste”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/washington/19mining.html?th&emc=th
My, Bush & Co really seem to be going to town on anti-environmental legislation…
Last-Minute Mischief
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/opinion/18sat1.html?th&emc=th
Never thought of Sarkozy, Merkel and McCain for example as “left-wing politicians…
(McCain officially admits to AGW and supports the IPCC recommendations for reducing global emisssions – unlike Palin).
Oh, but I forget, from the Palin/Walton point of view (which is even more to the right than G.W.Bush, which from a global perspective can only be described as extreme far right), every politcian is left-wing.
Heck, obviously because AGW is “an inconvenient truth” for advocates of deregulation and “economic freedom”.
They NEED to deny it, otherwise, their dogma falls apart.
People like Walton have the dogma of “economic freedom” and govt deregulation so deeply rooted in their brains it completely blindfolds them.
They can’t even understand that most humans don’t want to live in a world with periods of “unprecedented economic growth” that only benefit the rich, and then pay back with periods of crisis where they risk to lose the little they have. Economic freedom fundamentally, increases even more inequalities, reduces the quality of life, it makes it more uncertain and riskier.
Humans want sustainable growth, this is what will have to be the new paradigm for the 21st century. That means slower growth that is under control, not cycles of “unprecedented growth” and then depression which only benefit the very rich.
Humans accept a certain level of inequality in society, but not an extreme level like we have today. And humans above all are animals that seek to mitigate risks.
That’s why Sustainable growth makes so much sense, to minmize the risks of AGW, to minimze the risks of peak oil and other basic resources, to minimize the risks of being born in a poor familly.
I seem to be somewhat late to the party, but I don’t think this particular bit has been fisked:
(Walton at #7):
I doubt it. The idea of baptism or salvation being a rebirth is biblical. I’d imagine some preacher came up with the more catchy term, possibly sometime in the sixties. Of course, Carter may have helped popularize it, but he hardly did so alone. Charles Colson’s book describing his imprisonment and new-found faith is titled “Born Again”, for example.
Konrad at #76: You’re right. I just checked, and although Carter was one of the first major public figures to use the term to describe himself (in a 1976 interview), he didn’t actually coin the phrase, though he is often mistakenly credited with doing so. My apologies for the error.
Negentropyeater: And who defines what level of growth is “sustainable”, or decides who should benefit from the proceeds of such growth? The omniscient all-powerful State? (Because we know central planning has worked so well in the past…)
As John Randolph has pointed out today on another thread, many of the problems with financial markets can be laid at the foot of the Federal Reserve and other central banks – who have legally protected decision-making powers in regard to monetary policy. Friedman explains in Capitalism and Freedom that there would have been no Great Depression if it were not for the errors in monetary policy made by the Federal Reserve in 1929-31. Ultimately, the amount of credit available in the market, and accordingly the possibility of credit bubbles, is affected primarily by the central bank’s decisions – and like all central planners, they don’t have sufficient information to always make the right decisions. Our world’s monetary system is, in short, a pile of crap – but it still works the way it does because no one has come up with a viable replacement (and it would be incredibly presumptuous of me to try and invent one).
Free markets are not at the root of any of our problems. The thing we need to resolve is our monetary system, which, ultimately, is something which is created and regulated by the power of government – which is why it is such a mess.
As to free markets and the environment. Let’s, for the sake of argument, assume the worst: that global warming is principally caused by anthropogenic factors, and is on the cusp of causing worldwide ecological disaster. Even if that is true, a free market approach is still viable. At the moment, the global warming idea has been so popularised worldwide that it is influencing consumers’ buying decisions and companies’ marketing decisions. Companies like to sell themselves to the public as “green” and “environmentally conscious”. “Environmentally friendly” products are a multi-billion-dollar global industry. I predict that in time, the pressure of consumer demands and public opinion, within the framework of a democratic capitalist society, will have effect in compelling business to change its approach. The Kyoto protocols and other statist interference is therefore unnecessary.
Slight ambiguity in my post above: “legally protected” should be hyphenated as “legally-protected”.
Colin Powell hammered Bachmann this morning (10/19/08) in his news conference in which he announced he endorses Obama.
I loved that. It’s nice to see a grown up finally show up.
Walton,
I’m not talking of a communist system, but still within the capitalist framework, Govt will need to impose stricter regulations. For instance on leverage ratios, both for indvidual consumers on mortgages and other means of credit, on investors (how can it be that a hedge fund such as Long Term Capital had a Debt/Equity of 200 !), and on businesses.
Moreover, we need to get rid of the shadow banking system which was completely deregulated and is responsible for more than 90% of the credit bubble.
We need to resist next time the temptation to deregulate once again in order to accelerate growth. Because it’s true that deregulation accelerates growth, so it looks better in the short term, but in the end you are just building a very weak economy, that benefits only to the rich. This has been the anglo-saxon dogma en vigueur since Reagan and Thatcher. The French and the Germans didn’t want to go there, we resisted as much as we can, we were told that our banks and fnancial institutions were old fashioned, that our economies didn’t grow fast enough, that we did too much for social welfare, that our workers complained too much, that our savings were too high, in brief, that we would soon not be competitve anymore. Well, I’m quite sure the comming years will show that we took the right direction, allthough we did sucomb to the temptation of “economic freedom” a bit too much in certain areas.
At the end of the 70s, the OECD would have continued the way we had done since WW2, wth Bretton Woods, alternating periods where we grow the wealth with periods where we grow social benefits, we would be in a much more solid siutation globally today, life would be fundamentally less risky and less harsh than it is for most people, and inequalities would be reduced.
We had a good system, we broke it when we started this whole accelerated growth era of irresponsible deregulation.
Bravo, you are slowly realizing that economic freedom theories, which are based on simplistic assumptions (free markets are perfect at estimating a risk/return, perfect competition can exist, etc…) are completely baseless as they coesist anyhow in an environment where key elements such as monetary policiy, fiscal policy, environmental policy cannot be fixed by the markets.
What about if you are wrong ? Isn’t it a bit too risky to make this assumption, which btw is completely unwarranted.
I’d like to remind you that the shadow banking system (hedge funds, derivatives traders, broker-dealers, etc…), which is the most deregulated market that exists, with no govt interference, is responsible for 90% of this credit bubble, the largest in history (larger than in 1929) and has caused a complete systemic crisis which nobody knows will be the consequences in the future. Can you imagine the level of risk and uncertainty that these individuals took on behalf of the entire planet ?
How can you pretend, faced with this undisputable evidence of systemic failure that the “invisible hand theory” be valid ? What excuse do you have this time that we have an example of market that followed exactly the Friedmanian ideals and waited for the “invisble hand” to bring it to reason. Well, it didn’t, and now, we’ve got the shit all over the place.
It’s not only ridiculous, but also extremely dangerous for the future of mankind.
Cutting pollution has always required government intervention. It is simply not taken account of by the metrics the free market uses to judge fitness. Relying on PR has problems: public information shortage, denialists such as Walton, the tragedy of the commons.
In 2005 before the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, the national scientific academies of the G-8 nations (the NAS, Royal Society etc.) plus those of China, India, Brazil issued a joint press release saying that climate is warming, the cause is human activity, and the effects will be Bad. After the summit fifty national science bodies issued a similar statement. Any non-scientist who believes he knows something that they don’t, or who believes they are part of a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, must be utterly, utterly mad.
I’ll go as far as to say every long established scientific body on the planet believes AGW.
From Roy Spencer’s page on Wiki:
“He is also a supporter of intelligent design[1] and is skeptical of the scientific consensus that human activity is primarily responsible for global warming.”
Heh.
A quote from wiki:”With the July 2007 release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.”
Source
Ah, Walton, still here I see. Looks like a lot of those emotional issues you were grappling with cleared up.
The Daily Kos has a blog article pointing out that the Minn. newspapers have failed to pick up on this story at all – one in fact has a story about bacteria in human stools on the front page in fact (PZ – that sounds a bit biological at least!)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/20/0337/9913/689/635947
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Marc, it’s on the front page of the Strib, the state’s main newspaper, this morning. And it was being covered on local TV news last night, at least in the Twin Cities. Not sure about outstate Minnesota.
PERCEPTION IS NOT NECESSARILY REALITY … DON’T BELIEVE THE POLLS …
Obama supporters act as if the polls are a true reflection of what’s going to happen on November 4th. Obama has consistently tried to win each of his elections prior to a single vote being cast, by eliminating his opponenets on technicalities, or having the DNC dump Hillary, or by giving the false impression that he already won, before the election has even taken place. When you don’t have an actual record to run on … and all you can do is point out problems, and blame others, as Obama has, you have to rely on gimmicks that have nothing to do with your actual ability to lead … like accusations of racism ad nauseam … like early voting …busing and indoctrinating homeless people on the way to the polls … photo ops with big crowds … spending 4 to 1 on advertising … having the media in the tank … having Hollywood in the tank, having Acorn in the tank … and, having 98% of all black voters in the tank. But, all of these things are nothing more than a fabricated perception. They have nothing to do with a person’s experience, or ability to lead. They just reveal a candidate who will say, or do anything to get elected. That’s why the Obamabots are so worried. That’s why Obama is telling his disciples not to get over confident. That’s why the Obama campaign tries real hard to make it look like Obama has already won … just like they did in the run against Hillary in the primaries. I happen to believe there are legions of people who are going to vote for McCain on November 4th … unlike the ‘in your face’ Obama supporters, November 4th is when the McCain supporters will express themselves. A vote for Obama is a vote for voter fraud, corrupt media, and a road to socialism. Keep America safe and strong, elect McCain/Palin on November 4th.
The Intrade securities market is predicting an Obama win with 87% probability.
Do those legions of people actually exist in the real world, or only on Diebold machines?