PIC OF THE DAY

When you look at the morbidly obese person at the far right of the WaPo picture below, you understand why Obama's services as spokesmodel are needed.

How did UBS Americas' President, Eric Whitacker, get so fat? Was it wining and dining his rich American Tax-Dodge customers?

From the Washinton Post story:

One of President Obama's golfing buddies Monday was a top donor to his campaign and the president of a bank at the center of a U.S. investigation into illegal tax shelters.

When a corporate pigs actually looks like a pigs, they gotta bring in a tall, elegant, spokesmodel.

And, hiring a black spokesmodel... well, we can all appreciate the irony there.

----- o -----

TRUE BUT STUPID HEADLINES

Sometimes a stupid headline can completely warn you off a story.

The Onion specializes in stupid headlines, such as with this above-the-fold story in today's issue:

Today, in a possibly related story, the Los Angeles Times on-line had this headline:

Junk-food tax seen as way to fight obesity, fund healthcare

Of course this headline is true.  All that is required for this headline to be true is that one person has expressed that view. For instance:

Moon seen as made of blue cheese,

This is about the demented ex-astronaut/moon-lander's campaign to correct the myth about green cheese.

Or

Obamacare seen as socialism,

Or

LA Times editors seen as morons.

Of course, LAY's intent is to assert that a junk food tax might reasonably be expected to fight..., and to fund...

Or, the headline could have read:

Junk-food tax seen as regressive.

Yesterday the New York Times had this headline:

World bankers suggest rebound may have begun

If that headline is true, then the opposite is equally true:

World bankers suggest rebound may not have begun

etc.

----- o -----

RE-CAREERING

We Intermediate Stage Band enrollees gathered in the hall outside the band room at SF City College waiting for the class before ours to clear out.

I chatted a bit with a newcomer tuba player(!) who told a sad story.

Maybe twenty years old, he seemed to be on the standard track of graduate high school at eighteen and graduate college at twenty-two.

But, get this, he had transferred from San Francisco State University, to SF City College. Obviously the usual direction of such transfers is the other way.

Ben, or whatever his name was, transferred because he couldn't get enough units at State.

Due to budget cutbacks there weren't enough classes available that would contribute to his music  degree.  He said none of his friends could get more than 12 units per semester, some got fewer.

A counselor told him it could take up to eight years to get a bachelor's degree.

Per this website SF State charges a flat rate for registration and fees, not per-unit.

So, a student taking 10 or 12 semester units would pay the same $2,370 per semester as a student taking 15 or 16 units.

Limiting class availability effectively raises the per-unit and therefore per-degree costs.

Back in the day, a prominent professor at State who was having an affair with my (female) roommate told me that the purpose of the Academy is certification, not edification.

Certainly, the higher the price the more it becomes so.

In addition to certification, community colleges provide some actual job skills training. For instance, I once considered taking a ten-key class that would open up additional accounting-type jobs for me. My mom took an LA City College class to brush up on her shorthand.

More and more, as the economy slides, I'm thinking of my music classes as re-career preparation. I mean busking.

Diogenes said:

If you wish a career as a beggar, practice on statues.

A recent headline regarding the financial collapse tells a complete story:

What Did I Do Wrong?

A guy goes to college, gets a job, pays off his student loan, marries, has kids... and now he's laid off, his home is in foreclosure, and he doesn't know what to do.

The headline indicates some confusion about necessary and sufficient.

"Go to college, get a good job," is a formula that few seem to question.

While a college degree might be a necessary condition of getting a good job, the poor bastard in the headline had the mistaken notion that a college degree is a sufficient condition for getting a good job.

There are thousands of people with degrees we wouldn't hire for any job--we wouldn't even want to be around them.

Also, he simply lost a spes/res bet, aka  "Wimpy bet".

You know, the hippies were right.

Speaking of hippies who were right... We're coming up on the anniversary of a great moment in guerilla theater.

It was on August 24, 1968:

Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and ten other Yippies entered the New York Stock Exchange and climbed to the visitors gallery overlooking the main hall.

The Yippies addressed the brokers and traders working below them on the evils of money and greed. Most of the brokers found the incident amusing and at the end of the speech many joined in good-natured applause.

Then the Yippies reached into their pockets and threw into the air handfuls of dollar bills. As money floated down like autumn leaves the scene changed dramatically.

Brokers and traders jumped, pushed and buffeted each other to catch the falling banknotes, others on hands and knees scrambled about on the floor grabbing as much as they could.

The security guards arrived and the Yippies were ejected from the building.

This account come from a website called Sniggle.net, The Culture Jammer's Encyclopedia.

Where does one go to get a BA in culture jamming?

I remembered the incident, but I'd forgotten it happened in 1968, that tumultuous year, best characterized by Prague Spring.

Hippy flowers and Soviet tanks.

btw: My contemporaries who graduated from SF State in 1970 received certificates signed by Ronald Reagan and S.I. Hayakawa. Great certification!

----- o -----

"BI" OBAMA EXPLAINED

Many of us have been scratching our heads over President Obama's insistence on so-called bipartisanship regarding healthcare reform legislation.

The Democrats have the majority in both houses yet Obama seems to give Republican views equal weight.

He makes concessions to GOP congresspeople who won't vote for the final bill under any circumstances.

It makes no sense.

It makes no sense if you assume that Barack and the Dems truly want to pass an effective healthcare bill.

But it does make sense if you figure that Barack and the Dems never really intended to pass serious healthcare reform in the first place.

Success was never an option. Failure was never in doubt. "The Industry" was always in control.

"Bipartisanship" is a way of sharing the blame with, or even pinning the blame on, the Republicans.

Think about it... Who appear to be the villains in this melodrama? The Democrats or the Republicans?

It makes perfectly ugly sense.

[The great Max Baucus photo above comes from sfgate.]

----- o -----

"THE FOOD COMMUNITY"

Food, I guess, as opposed to intravenous drip.

Readers concerned about global food insecurity will want to read this Guardian UK story.

San Franciscans, on the other hand, have a chance help solve the problem by, of all things, eating.

Thanks to the great, new (to me), online news source, San Francisco Appeal, for covering an upcoming charity hot-dog tasting scheduled for the Acme Chop House located in the Giants' ballpark.

Two things caught my eye.  First, the term "food community," and second, this blog's favorite hot dog entrepreneur will be there.

The event will benefit the Chef's Collaborative...

a leading nonprofit network of chefs that fosters a sustainable food system through advocacy, education and collaboration with the broader food community,

Any idea what this could possibly mean?

Anyway, nine sausage types will be available, provided by vendors including Let's Be Frank.

The owner of the Marine district/pushcart hotdog outlet got this blog's attention when he shared with us What San Francisco is All About.

You guessed it: hot dogs, or more specifically, his hot dogs.

"Let's Be..." is also listed as a food vendor for the Outside Lands rock fest in Golden Gate Park, which is thoroughly dissed in the same issue of SF Appeal.

"Weenies for weenies" it looks like.

A one-dollar donation is requested to get into the Chop House, then each food item is $5 or less.

If "Let's Be..." is offering whole hot dogs for that price it could be a bargain, if you can eat three of them.

Usual price is $5.50 for a Let's Be frank, times three is is $16.50. A dollar donation plus three franks at $5/ea. is $16.00.

Save fifty cents, and it all goes to some vague charity.

Plus, they offer select beers and wines at $3 and $4 per glass respectively.

I went to Acme once for lunch. Overpriced mediocre burger in a deserted atmosphere.  I worked for 18 months right next to Acme and none of my co-workers, none, ever went there.

As the location suggests, it's mostly for game day splurgers.

----- o -----

BLACK BEAUTIFUL. WHITE...?

G.M. Trevelyan came from the British upper crust. You can surmise this from these two sentences in his wikipedia entry:

Trevelyan's parents used Welcombe as a winter resort after they inherited it in 1890. They looked upon Wallington Hall, the Trevelyan family estate in Northumberland as their real home.

Trevelyan's views were considered liberal within the British aristocracy. Even so, in his 1927 extended essay titled "History of England" (could be subtitled What Makes Britain and Her People So Darned Great), he reveals truly embarrassing ethnocentricity and rationalization.

Writing of the "Second Empire," of Queen Victoria's time:

The other aspect of the Second British Empire has been the development of vast portions of Asia and Africa by commercial intercourse and by political rule.  The political rule has been conducted in African and in The East and West Indies, according to the benevolent ideals that have been generally prevalent in Downing Street since the days of Wilberforce and since the reorganization of Indian Government by Pitt and His governors General. Great benefits have been conferred on a very large proportion of mankind: in Africa, inter-tribal war and slave-raiding have been stopped; in India, Egypt and elsewhere the material benefits of modern science and organization have been applied for the advantage of all, not least of the humblest cultivators of the soil.

But two difficulties have beset the path of executive rule over the non-European races.  First, the counter claims of white farmers and traders, especially where, as formerly in the West Indies and permanently in South Africa, they are numerous enough to practice self-government. And, secondly, the class of difficulties which inevitably arise, particularly in India, when a long period of peace, good government and contact with Western civilization has caused the ruled to desire to become self-rulers. The questions how best, how fast and how far this demand can be met without disaster, form perhaps the most difficult problem that good government has ever created for itself.

With a quick clean-up of the racial references, many white Britishers today would pretty much agree with the stuff about benevolence and good government.

In America this same sentiment takes the form of:

Despite obvious mistakes and imperfections, the United States has been a force for good in the world.

Just too fucking white for me.

Big Mama Willie Mae Thornton is beautiful.  I usually don't think of women playing blues harp.  This is great.

----- o -----

WORD WORN

At my age getting up to pee in the middle of the night is normal.

For me it's only once per night, which is considered not that bad. [Email me for a full report on my recent prostate exam.]

Sometimes, if wakeful after peeing, I'd flip on cable news. For a  while I was enjoying Morning Joe.

But lately I just can't take the naked polemics and the diversionary debate topics.

The knowing misuse of language is an identifying feature of "the bad guys."

 

It's like torture. The use or approval of torture is an identifying feature of "the bad guys."

Obama's pitch is that we're all Americans, torturers and anti-torturers alike. "False arrest? Let's have a beer and talk about it."

To me, torturers and asshole cops of any religion, race, or nationality are "the bad guys."

Anyway, I find that my dislike of pundit-talk is extending to Obama-talk. Reported in a piece on CommonDreams about growing discontent among Obama supporters:

As one of these people recently said to me, the cadence of Obama's speeches that used to give her shivers is now starting to grate on her nerves.

Recently one night after peeing, I was watching Joe doing his S&M thing with Mika and it was just too painful so I flipped to IFC and found the last half hour of Night of the Iguana.

Regarding the use of language:

MSNBC is to Tennessee Williams as rape is to lovemaking.

A few days (nights) later I flipped from Cable News to the last twenty minutes of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Tennessee Williams was one of  "the good guys."  Harper Lee, too.

Obama, not so much.

Remember his first few weeks in office... he gave all those short speeches that were telepromptered, all in those shiver-inducing cadences.

Then in unprepared remarks such as answering interview questions, Obama is much more halting, he spends a lot of time looking for the "right" words. Halting speech is the opposite of forthrightness.

Juries are told that when evaluating the testimony of a witness, they may consider the witness' "manner of testifying."

Obama flunks that one.

----- o -----

NEWSOM GOES FOR "STREET" CREDS

I think of SF's urbanist bicycling movement as endemic to the eastern and northern parts of the City. These areas are bay-side and bay-level.

A bicycle commute for a person who lives and works in those areas is hill-free.

The rest of the City is hills, hills, hills.

So I was surprised to see that Mayor Newsom's faux-Green, anti-auto, resume building program called Sunday Streets was coming to my western neighborhood.

The Sunday Streets program once a month closes a street to vehicles for a few hours so that humans (bicyclists and brave pedestrians) can use it.

I thought the Examiner story, Sunset Psyched for Sunday Streets, was a bit overenthusiastic.

And I just have to take exception to its moronic statement:

For the first time this year, participants in The City's popular Sunday Streets events will have the chance to stroll along the Pacific Ocean.

Actually, all human beings who are able to transport themselves here can "stroll along the Pacific Ocean" whenever they like, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The City has made it easy for people to stroll along the Pacific Ocean.

The above detail of the Sunday Streets event area contains a number of vertical lines:

- At the very left is the Pacific Ocean;

- Then we see a line of beach, which can be walked all the way from the Cliff House south to the county line and beyond.

- Then there's a band of scrub flora, mostly ice plant, in which we see a continuous north-south sand-path, always available for walking.

- Then we see the Upper Great Highway, south and north. This is the actual "street" that was closed.

- To the right of the northbound Great Highway we see a paved multi-use path (bikes and pedestrians) that also extends the length of the  highway. (DiFi put that in, along with traffic lights that greatly increase beach access.)

So, my message is, to those who want to stroll, or even bike along the Pacific Ocean, don't wait for Sunday Streets to return, y'all come on out whenever you want.

Except for those few hot days per year when the masses head for the beach, there's even plenty of free parking.

[The above photo is from the urbanist San Francisco Citizen blog's coverage of the event. Oh, the irony!]

----- o -----

SF WELCOMES CHIEF GASCON

... with this amusing sfgate story about officials trying to shut down a so-called strip club in the City's adult entertainment district.

"Heaven," is only one of many such establishments in San Francisco, but

Unlike the other clubs on Columbus and Broadway, Heaven Mini Theatre refuses to pay off the police," attorney Gregory Walston wrote. "As a result, the police's planning enforcement officers began issuing citations against Heaven Mini Theatre. ... It is also well known that the other clubs pay off the police and other city officials, most notably the DéjÀ Vu clubs, who in turn allow the clubs to operate.

My dad (third generation) used to tell visitors that San Francisco is an "open city."

I figured he meant that vice was tolerated, as in any major seaport.

A family friend, who was SF's first female public defender, used to say that SF vice wasn't run by organized crime, as in other cities, but rather directly by the Police Department.

[Detail from sfweekly photo.]

I guess that "traditionally" crime families would buy police departments and use them to enforce local hegemony for their particular family.

As an "open city" the police department IS  the dominant crime family. All vice-operators are free to do business as long as they make the proper pay offs.

I guess this eliminates a layer of suction.

Ruth used to say that SFPD had an airport detail that would pick up mobsters as they arrived in SF and transport them to the Chief, who would explain the "open city" concept.

Years ago I spent a week in Philadelphia (first prize) and read a major public corruption expose every morning in the local press.  One I best remember was about mobsters ripping off the school lunch program.

And I thought, Damn!

When I returned to SF, I asked a knowledgeable observer why we have so few corruption exposes in San Francisco's local press.

Is it because San Francisco is a "clean" town? Or because the corruption is so pervasive no one dare (or need) mention it?

Anyway, big welcome to our new police chief. Good luck.

Curiosity about "encounter studio" regulations can be satisfied here: Article 15.4.  Highlight from the "definitions" section:

(j) Specified Anatomical Areas. (1) Less than completely and opaquely covered: (a) human genitals, pubic hair, buttock, natal cleft, perineum, anal region, and (b) female breast at or below the areola thereof; and (2) Human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state, even if completely and opaquely covered.

I wonder if that url is blocked by nanny software.

----- o -----

EXIT ADMISSION

At the end of her tenure as Police Chief of a major U.S. city, Heather Fong made an admission that startled almost no one.

"It's not just media shy, I'm kind of a shy person. I'm not an extrovert in a way that some people are. I'm different. Everyone is different. We all come from different cultures; we all come from different upbringings. In the end, we're all just people."

sfgate story here.

Exemplifying a non-shy person would be Gary Delagnes, President of the Police Officers Association.

SFMIKE provides this picture from a public event at which Delagnes

gave a speech calling the Supervisors a bunch of carpetbaggers from elsewhere who were "idiots" and weren't "real" native San Franciscans.

SFMIKE's full story here.

I don't know, when it comes to hiring a cop, do we want shy, or non-shy?

I can't think of one good thing Heather did in her five years at the top.

She was skilled at filibuster-answers when questioned by, say, the Board of Supervisors. After filling five full minutes (seems like an hour) with rapid-fire yet monotone facts figures and references that only obscure any possible meaning, Heather would look up with a smile, "Any other questions."

Former Chief Fong will be collecting a $200k+ yearly pension for the rest of her life. She's not shy about that.

----- o -----

GGP: WAR ZONE

At 9:00am every day of the year, weather permitting, "Rudy's Group" of mostly retirees gathers to play tennis at the Golden Gate Park Tennis Complex, the biggest (most courts) public tennis facility in these parts.

We get some advance notice when a tournament is scheduled to take over the courts. Rudy's Group usually reschedules for 7:30 am and is able to finish before the tournament matches get under way.

This past week we couldn't even do the early session. We were told that a youth tournament would have matches starting at 8:00am all week.

Normally, early start times happen only at the beginning of tournaments, while the draw is being whittled down, so this was unusual.

My friend and I decided to chance it for our regular Wednesday 7:30am drill session, figuring there would have to be one court unoccupied for the hour or so it takes us to tire out.

When I arrived there was an SFPD squad car parked prominently where a corner of the complex abuts Bowling Green Drive. Usually any cops around would be at the Hippy Hill corner, interacting with the morning congress of hobos.

There were already lights on  and a few adults fussing around in the clubhouse.  The courts were vacant except for one on which some Chinese-elder regulars were talking with a tall young cop.

I walked out onto a court distant from the clubhouse and got ready to hit some practice serves until my partner arrived.

Then I see the cop walking all the way out toward me.

We talk affably and he explains that I'll have to leave as soon as the kids start arriving. 

"No problem," I told him, "we'll just play until someone needs the court then we'll depart immediately."

This was satisfactory to him.

I queried the cop about the tournament, who? what? Very pleasant and polite, he seemed reticent to talk about it.

When my friend arrived we moved to an even more remote court, the last one that's ever assigned for a tournament match.

As the kids started arriving we were visited by a man with a jacket that said, "Security." He and I had the same conversation, only when I asked about the tournament, he answered: "It's part of the Jewish Community Center sponsored "Macabbi Games and Art Fest."

So that explained why seemingly none of the participating kids were black, or brown, or yellow-- fifteen hundred Jewish kids in town participating in multiple sports and arts events.

Still, dense, I wondered, why all the security? Were there very young kids who might wander off or be abducted?  Are Jewish kids held more precious?

The Games' website helped. The heavy security wasn't because the kids were Jewish, but rather because the games are Zionist.

The purpose of the Maccabiah is to:

enrich the lives of more than 400,000 members in more than 60 countries with Jewish and Zionist values.

Their website mentions the "Munich 11."

So the tournament promotes the ongoing theft of Palestine and the oppression of the Palestinian people.

JCC Maccabi...  continues to introduce teens to the magic of the state of Israel.

Many residents of the nearby neighborhoods regularly stroll or walk their dogs along the paths through the tennis complex and sometimes stop at the clubhouse to pee, or get water for their dogs or something.

This last week they were all scrutinized, just like me, as potential suicide bombers.

In hindsight I'm thinking that the nice young SFPD guy wasn't the only person at the courts that morning carrying a gun.

----- o -----

CHRIS DALY: GOOD THING #2

Deserved or not, Supervisor Chris Daly is blamed (credited, per our pov) for the departure of three members of the San Francisco Arts Commission. [sfgate story here]

One of the resigners is Dede Wilsey, who is largely responsible for the design of this building in Golden Gate Park.

Its resemblance to an aircraft carrier (helicopters) is not for nothing.  It anticipates the day when Dede and her rich friends will have to eschew ground transit entirely, for security reasons, and chopper in, chopper out.

After all, critics agree, the building works better as a private party venue than as an art display facility.

Anyway, wisdom is that these devoted servants of San Francisco and of the Arts quit because of ethics issues--they refuse to comply with new, more stringent, financial disclosure rules.

One of them says so explicitly and seems kind of paranoid:

Przyblyski's letter describes in great length her frustration with Supervisor Chris Daly's recent move to require far more financial disclosure of arts and film commissioners...

"I cannot help but fear that this is an attempt to open the door for new opportunities to harass me in an attempt to 'get' my husband,"

For some reason, although the new ethics rule was approved unanimously by the Board and signed by our butler-to-the-rich mayor Gavin Newsom, it's supervisor Chris Daly getting the blame.

sfwillie's blog says Way to go, Chris!

----- o -----

BICYCLING IN THE RAIN

Yesterday our Board of Supervisors unanimously certified (approved) an Environmental Impact Report regarding a Bike Plan that would increase dedicated bicycle lanes, and increase public transit accommodations for bicycles in San Francisco. (sfgate story here.)

This despite the Report's findings that the plan would result in increased air pollution and decreased public transit efficiency.

Bikes first!

Bicycling is great if:

- You're healthy and fit;

- You're not going too far;

- You're not carrying too much stuff;

- There's only one or two of you;

- You have secure parking at all destinations;

- You have shower/locker facilities at all destinations;

- Motorists (elsewhere) continue to pay gas taxes to keep the bike lanes paved;

- The price of food (bicycle fuel) is no object;

- Liability insurance is not required;

- Stop signs and red lights are not enforced;

- You don't live, or work, or visit at the top of steep hills;

- And, most importantly, you have fair weather, not too hot, not too wet.

The new bike lanes will be in force 24/7/365.

Even in the the worst weather possible.

I looked at the website of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the major force behind the Bike Plan, to see how hardcore bikers handle inclement weather.

I did a search of their site for "rain cancels" and got this:

Even SFBC acknowledges that almost no one wants to ride a bike in the rain.

So, on rainy days, the new bike lanes will be empty, and bikers will be riding public transit, or hitching rides in death machines.

If the rain strikes in the middle of a work day, those who biked to work will expect Muni to get them, and their bicycles, home.

Great plan!

As with little kids who expect to make millions from their lemonade stand (as long as mommy buys the ingredients), sometimes you have to let them try it, and see for themselves.

----- o -----

LIVE LOCALLY, EAT GLOBALLY

It's an oft repeated factiod that a billion people go to bed hungry every night. Yet, there is no appreciable effort to control world population growth.

But significant efforts are underway by the rich, to seize croplands in poor countries.

It's a variant on a familiar saying:

I stole a man's fish, he was hungry for one day.  I stole the man's fishing pole, he starved to death.

The Guardian UK piece, Fears for the world's poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food, gives the details of a trend which according to UN officials "could severely impair the ability of poor countries to feed themselves."

Apparently huge amounts of land are involved.

According to one official:

...about one-fifth of the land deals were expected to grow biofuel crops. "But it is impossible to know with certainty because declarations are not made as to what crops will be grown," he said.

Some of the world's largest food, financial and car companies have invested in land.

The car company/biofuel part boils down to: They starve so our cars can eat.

Yikes!

----- o -----

FALSE APPEAL, BAD SPOKESMODEL

We shouldn't blame Obama because everyone does it.

What's that?

The Brown Beast* calls it FALSE APPEAL TO COMMON KNOWLEDGE, or common consent, or common practice.

Obama is quoted in this Raw Story story:

...the recession we faced when I took office was even deeper than anyone thought at the time. It told us how close we were to the edge, Obama said.

There are two ways to refute this false statement:

a) point to oneself as an absolute contrary example, for instance, sfwillie's blog has been calling this a depression ever since the Dow started its dive; and

b) cite experts in the field who are absolute contrary examples, of which, in this case, there are many.

False Appeal to Common Knowledge is so widespread that we hardly notice.

All the assholes who promoted the Iraq invasion still say to this day that "Everyone thought Saddam had WMD." (Except maybe the millions of people worldwide who took to the streets in protest... maybe?)

The Brown Beast explains:

False appeal to common knowledge or consent is one of the more vicious fallacies when used deliberately. For it plays upon that snobbishness in people which makes them reluctant to admit that they do not know something or that they are peculiar enough to think differently from their neighbors.

I once did a quick edit on a business oriented book in which the author stated, by way of medical metaphor, "Nobody goes to  General Practitioners any more."

I told the author that this was so untrue as to be an embarrassing blemish on his persona. The author disagreed.

I pointed out to the author that he, himself, had a GP, whom he visited regularly, as his primary doctor.

Nope, it stayed in.  So much for business writers.

Anyway, Obama's use of this stupid, and the Jesuits say vicious, fallacy is political hackdom, pure and simple.

Bad Spokesmodel.

* Writing Handbook, Kammer & Mulligan, SJs, Loyola Press, 1953. How can I hate the Jesuits when they have created the best-ever reference book on English usage? The Beast even includes sentence diagramming. Wikipedia, too, has a good article on Fallacies.

----- o -----

DADS: IT'S YOUR FAULT

So far Obama has continued prosecuting two wars of aggression, protected vile torture planners, and paid $Trillions to Wall Street extortionists.

He has fired scores of Federal employees for being gay. He defends false arrest, as long as the cop is white and the victim is black.

His use of preventive detention (disappearing people) turns the U.S. Constitution, not to mention the Magna Carta, into toilet paper.

He speaks good words but has yet to do one good thing. Sotomayor?

Now Barack Obama is teaming up with aggressive religionists to blame fathers for our nation's problems.

American fathers are unemployed, uninsured, and underwater.  AND IT'S THEIR OWN FAULT.

Here's the disgusting story.

And an excerpt:

"This might be the most culture-changing of all the initiatives" of Obama's faith-based office, says Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical activist.

"The old script was that conservatives care about fatherhood and families and that liberals don't. Here you have a Democratic, progressive president who is making fatherhood and family a huge priority, which helps to put the culture wars to rest."

I guess the message will be: if American dads would shape up, they too could send their kids to private schools that cost $30,000 per year, per child.

Notice the name-change. Bush's Office of Faith Based Initiatives has become Obama's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Hey, Obama promised change. He never said how much.

I'm still a non-believer.

In the new depression, the message on the sign pictured below will conclude with the words, "Praise Jesus."

The word "partnership," as in public-private partnership," is a huge red flag.  What it almost always means is: theft of public resources.

----- o -----