Like many people here in Texas, I took advantage of the early voting and got my civic duty done.  My wife and I voted this last Sunday and since then, I’ve pretty much tuned out from all the election rhetoric.  I skipped Obama’s 30 minute infomercial last night and I’ve pretty much stopped reading anything on the Internet about the election.  For me it’s over until election night and that poses a problem for me.

Well, not really a problem, but this will be the first major election without cable television.  When we moved to our new house a few years back, we made a conscious decision to not get the big cable package.  We really didn’t watch that much TV and thought that it wasn’t really worth the money.  Yup, I’m one of those rare kind that doesn’t have 200 channels.  I do have basic cable, which gives me the networks, PBS and those wonderful access channels, but that’s about it.

There are some things I miss, but I find I can get most of the content I want from the web and through podcasts and I get my HD content over the air, so I don’t feel like I’m missing that much.  But without CNN, MSNBC, FOX News or anything like that, where will I get my election coverage?  How will I know who is winning without the cable news pundits telling me every 2 seconds how those battle ground states are leaning?  I could sit back and maybe turn on PBS for election results, but instead, I’ll probably just wait until later in the evening and check things out on the web.

I know this is a historic election, we’ve been told that for the last 100 days by the media, but it will still be historic whether I pay attention 24 hours a day or just for a few minutes.  I can use my time better than to listen to the talking heads spout their speculations and poll results.  Their commentary won’t change the votes and in the end, it’s the votes that matter.

I’ve been posting quite a few rants lately.  Sorry about that but there’s been a lot to rant about.  So to balance out the mood a bit, here’s something more on the lighter side.  It’s an old joke from Bill Hicks.

I’ve learned a lot about women.  I think I’ve learned exactly how the fall of man occurred in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, and Adam said one day, “Wow, Eve, here we are, at one with nature, at one with God, we’ll never age, we’ll never die, and all our dreams come true the instant we have them.”

And Eve said, “Yeah….it’s just not enough, is it?”

It made me chuckle the first time I heard it, and it has stuck in my head ever since.  It’s a classic.

Drill baby Drill was the mantra of the McCain campaign at the convention, but with the election nearing and the polls showing McCain trailing, a new mantra has arisen and taken over the campaign, Fear Baby Fear.  It’s worked the last few elections, so why not another, right?  But what’s the famous line Bush massacred?  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  You can’t fool the electorate again with this one.

The McCain camp and it’s supporters are showing their true colors.  The attacks, name calling, apocalyptic future scenarios and lies are all they have left at this point in the game.  Not exactly what I would expect from the party that is supposedly on the side of God.  But then again, God wouldn’t take sides, would he.  But their twisted version of God, for whom they think they are working, apparently does.  He is used like a pawn to draw in the multitude of faithful to the supposed party of family values, as if the rest of us don’t have any values.  Well, let’s look at some of those values they claim to espouse.

First up, how about calling your opponent a terrorist.  That’s basically what Sarah Palin was doing as she questioned Obama’s dealings with Bill Ayers.  This also brings into question his patriotism and is in effect calling him anti-American as Michele Bachmann did so ridiculously on Hardball a few days ago.  The rhetoric spewed by Palin and others borders on hate speech and does nothing but incite the crowds toward hatred and violence.  Great values for a supposed Christian.

Next, how about McCain asking the question, “Who is the REAL Barack Obama?”.  What is he implying?  Is he questioning his patriotism? or questioning his religion?  In effect fueling the rumors that Obama might be a Muslim, culminating in that video we all saw of a lady at a McCain rally worried that Obama was “an Arab”.  Finally, McCain was forced to step in to try to contain the fire he himself had set.

And so what if Obama is a Muslim?  Why should it matter?  It pisses me off that these people want to condemn an entire religion of a couple billion people over the acts of the extremists.  As if the Christian religion has never had any extremists who engaged in torture and killing.  Or how about the pro-life Christians who bomb abortion clinics or shoot abortion doctors.  Does that make the billions of Christians suspect?  It’s ridiculous, but that’s what they are implying.

Colin Powell talked about this very thing after he endorsed Obama.  The money quote from that interview was, “Our great strength is in our unity and our diversity.”  Powell sees that the vilification of the Muslims will lead to ruin.  But that part of his discussion got drowned out by the pundits on the right who derided him for endorsing Obama because he’s black.  So tell me, how does this in any way help to unify this country or bring people together across the isle or across the street.  This is a party of hate, intolerance and prejudice and it needs to end.

How about the usurping of ideas by the McCain campaign.  First it was trying to steal the Change mantra that Obama had been successfully campainging with for months, now it’s Joe the Plumber, who turned out not to be named Joe or to be a plumber.  It’s just another facade by the Republicans trying to show they care about the middle-class electorate and another grasp at stealing a tactic from the Democrats.  McCain should be talking about Dick the Driller, that’s a better image to go with their Drill baby Drill mantra.

And when all those attempts didn’t really stick, now comes out the word “socialist”.  So how is Obama any more of a socialist than the current administration, which has basically stepped toward nationalizing our banking system.  Which is stepping closer toward nationalizing the insurance groups.  Which is stepping closer toward nationalizing our auto industry.  So who really are the “socialists”?  Just because Obama wants to try to fix a broken health care system or potentially tax people who can afford it at a time when income inequality is near it’s highest, he’s a socialist?  Give me a break.  This is nothing more than another scare tactic thrown out as a last ditch effort to breed fear and doubt.

Finally, we have the Focus on the Family idiots putting out a document (I won’t link to it, if you really want to read it, just google it) that describes the state of the union in the year 2012 if Obama is elected.  Oh how apocalyptic.  Why not just look at the state of the union today.  Is that any better?  Instead they are worried about equal rights for gays and lesbians, worried that our kids will be indoctrinated in our schools into accepting these alternative lifestyles, or that our supreme court will honor our constitution and recognize same sex marriage.  This will cause the disbanding of the Boy Scouts and other horrendous events such as adoption agencies allowing same sex couples to adopt children…oh the humanity.  These people are seriously homophobic, all because of some obscure lines from Leviticus in a book written nearly 2000 years ago.  The inanity just boggles the mind.

The Republicans and their supporters are just one sorry excuse for a political party and one that is apparently grasping at straws at this point.  To me, the best thing that can happen is for the Republican party to lose big in all elections across the board…national, state and local.  This might cause them to re-examine their path and help splinter out the radical, intolerant and extreme religious factions and bring back the party I once supported.  One that actually believed in fiscal conservatism, small government, reasonable oversight and strong economic principles….I have a dream.

Ok, so I stole that title from Phil Plait over at BadAstronomy.com, but it definitely applies.  Why is Texas doomed you might ask?  Well, as I’ve mentioned before, the science curriculum standards are up for review and our wonderful creationist State Board of Education recently appointed the group that will help to shape the new standards.  Guess what, there are 3 creationists on the 6 member board, two of which are authors of a pro Intelligent Design textbook called Explore Evolution, distributed by The Discovery Institute, now doesn’t that sound like a conflict of interest since the results will also determine what textbooks Texas schools will use?  It does to me, but then again, the head of the SBOE, Don McLeroy, knows that noone will notice and noone will care and he’ll go on pushing his agenda on the rest of us.  But what was his quote from his appearance on Texas Montly Talks?  It was,

“I certainly don’t want to force my views on anybody else.” – Don McLeroy

He won’t do it personally, but he will do it through his surrogates.  Now, some in Texas are starting to stand up against this, one group is The 21st Century Science Coalition.  They have well over 1000 scientists and faculty members from Texas who support the Scientists for a Responsible Curriculum in Texas Public Schools statement.  In addition, the Texas Freedom network and Texas Citizens for Science have been working to keep religion out of the science classroom.

The problem is, it may be too late.  However, there are elections coming up and some of the SBOE members are on the ballots.  The video below gives a good background on some of the issues with the SBOE and discusses those members who are in need of being voted out.

With this going on and the upcoming issues with Bible classes in Texas schools that the SBOE failed to provide standards for, Texas is certainly going to be facing litigation for years to come, all because most people haven’t been paying attention to what this obscure 15 member board is doing to Texas.  Well, it’s time for that to change unless we want to be seen in the same light as Kansas, Louisiana and Dover Ohio.  And with two members of The Discovery Institute on the curriculum committee, we’re well on our way.

I know that’s alot of links in this post, but they are all worth reading and give a background on what is happening here in Texas.  One more that is a good read is this article, it covers alot of ground on the issue.  Ok, that’s all on this for now.

Over the past three weeks I’ve watched a few movies, but none that I’ve really wanted to write a full review about.  So instead, I’m taking the lazy way out and putting together a single post with my thoughts on each of the films.  I’ll list the films here, that way if you’re interested, you can click the “continue reading” link to see what I thought about them.

1. Constantine’s Sword
2. The Namesake
3. Charlie Wilson’s War
4. Love Actually

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Many people may have missed it, but a few weeks back thirty-three churches defied IRS regulations and conducted sermons that endorsed specific political candidates.  They called it “Pulpit Freedom Sunday”. The IRS rules are pretty clear on this.  All 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations are banned from endorsing any political candidate in the capacity of that non-profit organization.  This applies not only to religious non-profits, but to any 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit including charities.

Leaders of these organizations are still free to express their opinion outside the capacity of their organization by using the four magic words, “as a private citizen”.  No one is preventing anyone from talking about whom they support in any political campaign.  No freedoms are being impinged, no rights violated, however, some individuals seem to forget where the line should be drawn between religion and politics.

The IRS rule in question has been in place for 54 years and the goal of this small group of churches is to get a court case started that will be a challenge to this law.  Now, why is this just wrong?  Well, I was listening to a podcast last night and heard the head of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, discuss this issue and I thought her response summed it up very well.  She said

“I think it’s a rare congregation of whatever faith tradition that holds people who have exactly the same ideas, and a pastor’s job, at its best, is to seek to feed and nurture and encourage every member of the flock and not just the ones who agree with you.  And if you take a public position on one particular person then you in some sense elevate that person to a god within your religious tradition.  It seems wholly inappropriate……I will make a decision when I cast my own ballot and I don’t think it’s my job to tell other people how to cast theirs.”

How refreshing.  This is from a religious leader who is currently facing a partial seceding of the flock over the church’s views on gays and lesbians.  Yea! a new faction is born!  That’s what the podcast was discussing, but this question near the end, and the thoughtful response is what caught my attention.

When will religious leaders realize their political views are not what the congregation is coming to hear.  They are coming to church to share their faith and to hopefully better understand their faith.  Isn’t that the mission of the pastor? to help their congregations become more connected to their faith?  The fact that these leaders would put their church’s in jeopardy over something so trivial shows their lack of caring of the impact to the larger whole.

The solution is simple.  If the leader of a church wants to tell his congregation how to vote, let that church pay its taxes like the rest of us and then I’m happy to let them say whatever they want, but until then, leave your political views to yourself and go back to doing the work that you originally chose to do.

I didn’t watch the debate last night, but I saw some of the highlights.  One involved McCain pitching the idea of the Federal Government buying up all the bad loans and re-negotiating them to new terms, in effect leaving the taxpayers to cover the losses.  At the same time he wants to freeze spending, now I’m no economist, but how do we do both at the same time?  To me this is just another in a string of statements from McCain that now make me think he’s the equivalent of Felix the Cat.  That reference may be a bit old for some of you, but the tagline was “whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks“.  If you want a more recent reference, how about Carrot Top.  McCain is basically pulling policy ideas out of a bag, seeing how the public reacts, if it doesn’t work, he drops it and goes back and grabs another.  There is no rhyme or reason behind his proposals, no theme that ties things together into a coherent policy, just fishing to find the right political appendage that might resonate with the public. This is what McCain has been doing throughout this campaign.  The tricks involve misleading ads and statements about his opponent, multiple comments on the state of the economy, suspending his campaign, picking Sarah Palin as VP, and now this latest one.  None of these moves seems like any sort of coordinated policy or plan for addressing the issues that the country is now facing.

I’m not saying that Obama is without fault, believe me he has his issues too, but he has seemed to be pretty consistent on his policies and ideas regardless of what has happened with the market and the economy.  And yes, Obama is doing negative ads as well, but from what I can tell, the percentage of negative ads is lower than McCains.

The real reason I didn’t watch the debate was because I’ve already decided how I’m going to vote, so there was no reason to listen to these two candidates spew their stump speeches again.  So, how am I going to vote?  It may seem pretty clear from what I’ve been posting, but in reality, I was on the fence until a week or two after McCain announced his Vice Presidential running mate.

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Yes, I watched the VP debate between Biden and Palin, and I’m actually sad that I did.  There were literally times during the debate when I wanted to stick a finger in my throat and gag.  If I had to listen to Palin’s crap any longer…ANSWER THE FRICKIN’ QUESTION!!!!!

Ok, let me calm down a bit.  Sorry.  But when you have one of the candidates basically say they aren’t going to necessarily answer the moderators questions, I begin wondering why they even bothered to show up.

Then top it all off with the commentators on PBS, who I usually think are pretty good, say that Palin stood toe to toe with Biden and I just about lost it.  Which debate did they just see?  I stepped out for a few minutes to put my daughter to bed, maybe I missed something, but other than that, it wasn’t much of a debate.  Biden at least answered the questions, and on top of that mostly had substantive answers while Palin kept looking at her notes, going back to talking points, ignoring the questions and generally acting like a beauty queen.  And the crap about telling Biden to stop looking back at the past, well, sorry lady, but understanding how you got to where you are might help you figure out what NOT to do in the future.  What’s that famous line?  Those who ignore the past are destined to repeat it…well, that applies here.

On to some more general impressions.

First, she at least didn’t have any MAJOR Tina Fey moments, although there were a few times when she was not making complete sense and seemed to not understand the question.  Specifically, when they were asked what their real achilles heel was.  Palin never wavered from her rehearsed talking points and provided no real answer to the question, instead she tried to defend the “perceived” weakness the moderator mentioned.

Second, she rarely defended McCain after attacks from Biden, instead she fell back to talking points and pushing the Washington outsider and Maverick lines.  I don’t think she knew enough to actually debate him on those points.  This is where the format of this debate helped her.  If this one had been like the recent Presidential debate with more back and forth, she would have been in real trouble.

Third, the folksy talk grated on my nerves and if she smiled any more or winked one more time I think I would have really lost it.

She was just outclassed.  She looked like a 2nd grader trying to stand toe to toe with the teacher.  I’m sorry, but I can’t believe we are seriously considering someone like that for the office of Vice President.  I don’t want an average American in that position, I want an excellent and intelligent American and she ain’t it.