What Would Durkheim Do?

You have to be deliberately obtuse not to recognize the problem that religious fanaticism has become. Today, the evidence is particularly clear, unfortunately:
* Terrorists attack the Moscow subway
* Terrorist plot thwarted

In the first attack, you have Muslims who believe they have the right to kill innocent people for their political goals. The second concerns a plot by American Christian terrorists to kill police officers and innocent people because of their "new world order" paranoia.

The common denominator: religion. Either we rid ourselves of it, or it will kill us all.

The healthcare battle is over for now. Perhaps the most useful thing to come out of this politically is the exposure of the Republican party — the slurs yelled at Reps. Lewis and Frank, the "baby killer" shout on the floor of the House the "unconstitutional fascist dictatorship" and Marxism signs at the teabag rally. What do you do to practice democracy in a country where perhaps 40 percent of the people are unhinged?

This is the politics of resentment, writ large and ugly, across our politics. Sad.

From the NY Times today:

Upending the priorities of his Democratic predecessors, Governor Christie unveiled a budget that would hit the poor, elderly, schoolchildren, college students and inner-city residents hardest, while largely sparing the wealthy and businesses.

The GOP would like to do to the country what Christie is doing to New Jersey. It is shameful.

Surveying the ads for recent American films I am led to one inexorable conclusion: 12 year olds must have a shitload of disposable income.

Maybe if we weren't so intent on putting a gun in the hand of every man, woman, and child, this might not have happened. We license drivers; it isn't so strange an idea that we license gun owners in a responsible way.

The good news for today is this: Paterson Ends Campaign. Good riddance, I say.

Now let's find a real progressive to run. Someone who will fix the budget crisis created by tax giveaways to the wealthy.

So Palin is gearing up for a run for the White House. What's she selling? Creationism, climate change denialism, pollution, war, and bigotry. Just what this country needs!

The tea baggers, birthers, deathers, and other assorted rubes love her, they say, because she's authentic. Well, I've written about that con before.

I say that if Americans can't recognize a con job when we see it, we deserve whatever we get. (Though I can't blame the rest of the world for holding a grudge.) Frankly, she's not even very good at it — what with the cheat notes written on her hand. That whole winking, you-betcha bullshit is like bad undergraduate theater.

Like I said, we generally get what we deserve.

I'm back from Paris again. I've just posted photos from my field observations of a couple of immigrant neighborhoods in Paris. I'm working on a book manuscript comparing immigrant neighborhoods in Paris and Brooklyn.

What does this reveal about us? majority favors torture of terrorism suspect (from Professor Turley's place).

I am sick and tired of religious fanatics trying to blow up airplanes. I travel a lot and I don't want to die because some fucking moron thinks God is whispering "Kill!" in his ear. And the increased security makes traveling even more unpleasant. So knock it off you delusional pieces of shit.

My eager hope for 2010 (as with every year, alas) is that the godbags will finally go away.

Recent events have made perfectly clear that the government is nothing more than a thug for multinational corporations. (Cf. bank bailout, health care "reform", escalation of war, etc.)

I agree with Howard Dean: kill the bill!

But I would go even farther. Let's get rid of the federal government. At least that would make it harder for corporations to take our money and try to kill us (and the planet).

From the Big League Stew blog at Yahoo! Sports:

Basically, the fundamental difference between old-school stats and new-school stats is that old-school stats measure what happened at the surface level — batting average, earned run average, wins. New-school stats try to measure each player's contribution to those surface stats, while filtering out the contributions of their teammates and the random fluctuations of chance. Because of this, newer stats tend to do a much better job of predicting the future. FIP is a much better predictor of future performance than ERA, wOBA is a much better predictor of future performance than batting average, and so forth.

The best stats = the best sport. Says I.

This needs no commentary: Report Says Irish Bishops Covered Up Child Abuse .

I do hope that Lou Dobbs seeks treatment for megalomania. The severity of his illness is alarming: Dobbs is considering a run for President. For his own well-being, he should probably be hospitalized.

On the other hand, it would be hilarious to watch his campaign. It would be like a slow-motion train wreck. At some point he'll realize that he is not the second coming of Reagan. Will it end in tears on national TV? Or bullets? The question on everyone's mind is whether or not his campaign would be worse than Fred Thompson or Rudy "The Prick" Giuliani. (Wait, is that even possible?!)

Wingnuts believe that only wingnut government is legitimate. This realization explains a lot about our current politics. This is how political violence is born.

The latest evidence:
* Majority of GOP believe Obama didn't win election
* Wingnut extraordinaire Hoffman accuses ACORN and unions of stealing election

See, also, the birther conspiracy, Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck, etc. etc.

The redesign at Racism Review looks terrific. Take a look!

From Jeff Passan's mailbag:

Rooting for the Yankees is like going to Las Vegas and rooting for the casinos.

William Benson
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Exactly right!

Via "Darwin's Giant Squid," I found an interesting discussion of the debate between old atheists and "New Atheists." Ophelia Benson contrasts plain atheists and movement atheists and suggests a fair solution to the disagreement. Go take a look.

I played a show last night with my friends Scott, Karla, and Brendan in Idea Fire Company ("We put out ideas!") at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn.

It was a great show. The other two bands were both good and the venue is a great place to play (and hear) electronica.

I have been disappointed with the Obama administration so far — but then I'm disappointed with every government because they always respond to the desires of their corporate owners rather than the needs of the people — but this news items is indeed a good move: Whitehouse.gov goes open source.

(I'm a Drupal geek myself.)

Now, if they would just adopt the spirit of open source as a principle of governance, we'd be heading in the right direction.