Missouri Senator Jim Talent: ethanol scam artist

Senator Talent allegedly represents me.  He is allegedly a thinking man.  He allegedly cares about our country. 

Senator Jim Talent sends me an email newsletter every month or so.  His current newsletter says this about Iraq:

As day-to-day life there improves, my hope is that more Iraqis will view the liberation of Iraq and the ongoing political progress as a turning point for Iraqi society.

When was that written, I wonder?  Two years ago? Three years ago? 

What else has Senator Jim Talent been up to? [If you’re wondering why I always say “Senator Jim Talent,” I’m hoping that it will make this article more search-engine-friendly than not saying “Senator Jim Talent.  After all, Senator Jim Talent is facing an election in November]. 

Senator Jim Talent does prominently announce some things.  He’s so upset that payday loan shops are so incredibly evil (with their 500% interest loans) that he has announced that he is supporting a bill so that would require payday lenders to offer reduced loan rates, but only to members of the military.  Screw everyone else, I suppose.  I guess it never occurred to Senator Jim Talent that we should pay members of the military decent wages so they don’t have to desperately walk up to the counters of the payday lenders.  Senator Jim Talent is also against promising new forms of stem cell research, but he somehow forgets to put it prominently in his newsletter that he prefers to let real children die in order to protect …

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It makes ECONOMIC sense to invest in disadvantaged children while they are young

I can’t think of a dumber investment policy than to have our states spend three times more on average per prisoner than per pupil…  We don’t really have a money problem in America, but a profound values problem and a profound priorities problem.

Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, during her lecture “Stand Up for Children Now,” on April 19, 2006 at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Americans spend $60 billion a year to imprison 2.2 million people. This statistic compelled me to pull out my calculator.  The result was shocking.  In the United States we spend more than $27,000 per prisoner per year.  Is this effective?  Other than the violence, crowding, beatings by “goon squads,” rapes, riots, and high rates of recidivism, that is, is it effective?  There are many reasons to be concerned.  Here’s the main reason indicated by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons:

What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons. We must create safe and productive conditions of confinement not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it influences the safety, health, and prosperity of us all.

What might be more effective method of using our limited social resources than putting millions of people in prison?  How about investing more in the training and education of disadvantaged children?  This is not just an idealistic platitude.  In the June 30, 2006 issue of Science (www.sciencemag.org – …

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Moral Values…hmm

 In 2004, George Bush was reelected.  We can debate endlessly over whether or not he stole that election, but it’s beside the point for this rant.  Besides, four million popular votes seems like a big wad to steal.

What we need to figure out if we want to have any possibility of turning this misdirected ship around is WHY SO MANY PEOPLE VOTED FOR THE REPUBLICAN RIGHT?  Not even just Republicans–there are decent Republicans that I would support (Arlan Spector comes to mind, as does a pre-2004 John McCain)–but the rabid fundie far right wing of the party, the wing that is destroying it and trying to turn this country into something like a theocracy. 

So what was it?

    The factor listed by most exit polls in Middle America was–is–Moral Values.  Not in California or the Northeast corridor, but in the Heartland.

    Moral Values.

    I had thought for a long time that the issues driving Bush supporters floated between abortion, school prayer, and taxes. I’m now not so sure tax cuts are that important–these people have got to realize that if Bush continues his policies, at some point a huge bill is going to come due.

    The furor over gay marriage in the last months of the campaign underscores the exit polls. Moral Values.

    If I thought the votes were driven by the deep morality stemming from a Kantian apprehension of the nature of the right, the good, and the universalizable as determined by a focused application of the categorical …

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Afghanistan democracy is drowning in illegal drugs

President Bush and Republican leaders in Washington have failed America by not stopping importation of heroin from Afghanistan which has become a “narco-state” in the aftermath of the toppling of the Taliban regime which had supported Osama bin Laden and global terror through sales of drugs. A resurgent Taliban uses drug sales as an instrument of terror and finances international terrorism. The warlords which grow and process the drugs are supported by the US in our continuing efforts to prop up the post-Taliban government of Hamid Karzi. The flow of more potent Afghan drugs into the US has caused carnage among users, some as young as 11.

In 2001, the Taliban had banned opium production in Afghanistan to increase the price of its stocks which it apparently used to supply funds to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists for their attacks upon the United States and others. Opium production in Afghanistan fell to just 74 metric tons. After the overthrow of the Taliban, opium production capacity skyrocketed to 1,278 metric tons in 2002, according to DEA statistics. Production more than doubled in 2003, and then nearly doubled again in the next year according to James Risen, in his book “State of War.” Risen also writes that “by 2004, Afghanistan was producing 87 percent of the world’s opium supply. In late 2004, the CIA estimated that 206,000 hectares were under poppy cultivation and that the new crop would generate $7 billion worth of heroin.”

Congress and the Bush administration were aware …

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Super Bull

     It’s not yet football season, but I’m already hearing rumblings, and I’ve seen news bits on the the Rams cheerleaders.  But since, to my mind, all professional sports is of a fabric, some worse than others, I thought I’d post this essay I wrote some time ago, with modifications.
     An acquaintance asked me a while ago if I intended to watch the play-offs and I responded–automatically and immediately–with “what play-offs?”
     Such honesty can get you seriously dissed in this country.  But, yes, Virginia, there are people in the United States who know virtually nothing about pro sports.  Or semi-pro.  Or amateur.  Nothing about sports.
     When the Cardinals (my home team) are in the play-offs or whatever, heading for a pennant–which they do more regularly than I care to recall–I suffer at work, because suddenly none of the radios are playing music, but carrying the do-or-die commentary on the day’s Game.  People move about rivetted.  They have a glazed look in their eyes.  I’ve seen that look in others–religious fanatics in the grip of glossolalia.
     I don’t get it.
     No, wait.  Let me be clearer.  I don’t GET IT!
     Is it possible to grow up in this culture and not have an appreciation for athletics?  Sure, but that’s not what I don’t get. And for the most part, I’m not sure most sports fans have such an appreciation themselves.  I mean, I don’t think all those people who tuned in to watch the Team of the Month take another Super Bowl …

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