Alan Grayson Is The Man

Representative Alan Grayson (D-Florida) helpfully sums up the Republican health care plan on the House floor:

- Max

The Catholic Church Responds To My Request To Be Excommunicated!

Jesus could ball, but he was no messiah.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks, but I’m just getting around to it now. You may remember this post in which I published a letter I sent to my former parish requesting my formal excommunication by the Catholic Church. It’s not that I think the Church still has some sort of power over me—they don’t; I just thought it would be pretty sweet to have an actual letter from the proper Church authorities banishing me for eternity.

It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it’s certainly a start.

(Just click for a larger image.)

Although I have a lot of things on my plate right now, I plan to have that letter written by the end of the week. This is going to be awesome.

- Max

The "Logic" of Christians Is The Perfect Argument Against Intelligent Design.

Excuse the red font, but in this post that’s how I’m going to distinguish between my words and those of Larry Amon—a two-bit Christian commentator for that awful “Examiner” site that any brain damaged biped can write for. Specifically, he writes for the Baltimore Christian Conservative Examiner. I came across his “Religion and Science: 101” article when I was scouring the newswire, as I am wont to do, for any stories about intelligent design and its occasional encroachments on public education curricula. I have decided to comment on this guy’s article not because he’s famous by any means, but because his remarks contain some typical Christian idiocy that I'd like to condescendingly ridicule. So, like a teacher grading a horrible paper handed in by a student who technically isn’t mentally retarded, but close, I’m taking a red “pen” to each and every single one of this adult’s sentences because pretty much all of them are complete crap. Larry’s words are obviously the ones in black font, and his original piece of shit can viewed here. Without further ado, here is Larry’s “paper.”

Some in the scientific community have been quick to call intelligent design just a new form of creationism. [There are more than just some scientists who call intelligent design a new form of creationism. That is to say, just about every reputable one.] In a way, there is some truth to that. [There is more than some truth to that.] Intelligent design is a theory that works with creationism but there is much more to it than that. [FALSE: There is more to it, but not much more. Intelligent Design is a vaguer rehashing of creationism. It junks the Adam and Eve bullshit, but still presupposes an intelligent designer/god.] Intelligent design however is not in and of itself religious. [FALSE: Any “research” paradigm that automatically ascribes phenomena to intelligent agency is inherently religious.]

Intelligent design is a way of addressing the issue that science can not. [FALSE: Intelligent design can’t address shit. In order to determine whether the universe is intelligently designed, one would have to know—for contrast—what a non-designed or what an unintelligently designed universe looks like. There is no way to know what any of these would look like.] Evolution simply can not answer the question of how it all started. [Technically true, but this is a junk statement because evolution does not purport to “answer how it all started.” Pointing out that evolution doesn’t explain abiogenesis is like noting that the Pythagorean Theorem doesn’t explain how to bake corn muffins. It’s a virtually meaningless proposition.]

You have Christians who believe in creationism, that is those who literally take the account of six days of creation from Genesis to be the origins of Earth and the Universe. [Yup.] There are also Christians who believe in evolution and those who believe God used evolution through creationism. [Yup.] Christian, agnostic or atheist, no matter how you look at the issue of our origins you are left with the question, where did it all start? [Yup.] In Ben Steins [sic] Expelled, the top evolutionists either had no answers or their best guess was aliens. [FALSE: They had many good answers, but that cocksucker Stein edited the shit out of the clips of people such as Richard Dawkins to skewer what they actually said.] But they never answer where the aliens came from. [This is a tense shift, and your conclusion is based on a false premise.] They simply push the problem back one level. [Whatever the fuck this means.]

Christians nor anyone else should fear science. [Uh huh.] True science is just the explanation from a human perspective on how our world and universe work. [Fine, but this is a strangely postmodernist assertion coming from a Christian wingnut such as yourself.] Everyone has an agenda though, even scientists. [The agenda of scientists is to ascertain the truth. Even if they are motivated by ego, the great thing about the scientific community is that it rewards the true and critiques the false.] So sometimes science pushes an agenda rather than the truth. [FALSE, asshole. Truth is the agenda.] Beyond the theory of evolution being the only theory that is allowed, consider abortion. [As opposed to what other theories? Intelligent design? That’s not a theory, but a dogshit hypothesis.] Science can and does show pretty clearly that a baby is alive and a separate life from the mother the whole nine months, from conception to birth but somehow scientists don’t push for an and to abortion. [Non sequitur and a red herring. The (varied) positions of scientists on abortion are not even remotely at issue here.] They sometimes even find ways to try to diminish the life of a baby. [FALSE: What are you talking about? Wasn’t this originally some drivel about intelligent design?] This is more politics than science but still, where are all the scientists standing up against abortion? [Here’s a question: where is your psychiatrist when you need him?]

If you don’t know much about science and biology it can be hard to debate details with a person who does. [Which is why you should’ve ended this article after the first sentence.] Even if you know your science you can’t really win a debate about evolution because if someone is closed off to an idea you can’t make them change their mind. [Ignoring for the moment that this is a run-on sentence, this is especially true if you believe in an invisible man in the sky. How the fuck could anyone convince you to change your mind?] What you can do is get the other person to consider the one question that science can’t claim to answer with evolution. [?] No matter what some evolutionists say they will always leave the answer blank as to what started it all. [This is a testament to the ability of some of us to say, “I don’t know.”] Whatever they say just ask, what caused that? [Wow! You’re good!] Eventually they won’t be able to answer. [Whoa! Holy fuck, this might be going somewhere!] This is where intelligent design comes in. [Hmm. Keep going.] Intelligent design not only says something that is complex and has a clear design to it must have a designer but it also answers the question of what was the initial cause. [Uh…ok…but, to quote you from a few lines ago, “What caused that?”] The answer is that there must be a designer who is infinite. [Aren’t you just avoiding the answer in the same way you claim that evolutionists do?] This might seem like avoiding the answer the way evolutionists do but it’s not. [Oh, ok.] When asked who created the designer or where did the designer come from the answer is that he or it was always there. [Aces!] Evolutionists can not say that something was always there because evolution does not allow for that possibility. [Hey shit-for-brains, you are confusing evolution with cosmology. Evolution has nothing to do with the beginning of the universe. At first, when you referred to “what started it all,” I really thought you were talking about abiogenesis (which would’ve been wrong just the same), but now I see you’re a complete idiot who’s mixing biology and questions about the origins of the universe. As for your “always there” supposition, why is this a property that only the intelligent designer can have? Why can’t the universe, or say, the pre-Big Bang state of affairs, also always have been there? It seems arbitrary to exempt your intelligent designer from a standard that you’re ready and willing to apply to the universe. In addition, why could there not be a regression of causes going back ad infinitum? You say the intelligent designer has always been there; I say that causes and effects have always been there. This is just as, if not way more plausible than your hypothesis. Indeed, it has to be. For your hypothesis to be correct, the intelligent designer would somehow have to be uncaused. Paradoxically, if something has always existed, this means that it could not have begun to exist, and therefore does not exist. The infinite regression of causes and effects makes far more sense, because it does not require that the buck stop somewhere in the past at an uncaused agent.]

It’s important to remember that intelligent design is just a way of addressing where we come from. [Yeah, in the same way Santa Claus is a way of addressing where Christmas presents come from.] Another import thing to remember is that evolution is at best only a theory. [FALSE: At this point, the factuality of evolution is undeniable. By contrast, intelligent design is at best only a harebrained hypothesis cooked up by malnourished, primitive savages who thought the sun was alive.] Scientists will jump up and down and say it’s not just some made up idea, that It’s pretty much a fact. [It is.] The fact is that it’s not a fact and by the scientific definition it must be called a theory because it can not be proven. [FALSE: It can. We have the transitional fossils. We have the radiometric dating. You should check it out. Research. Books and science journals are awesome.] No matter how long the theory of evolution has been around it’s still just a theory that was originally posed by Charles Darwin who recanted his theory before he died. [FALSE: This claim has been debunked time again, and only exists because some dishonest Christian cunt made it up. Even if this tale were true, this would have no effect on the validity of evolution. Theories (in this case a fact) are judged on their abilities to explain phenomena, and nothing more. Even if Darwin himself had trashed his own theory, the evidence is too insurmountable to pay such a recantation any mind.]

Intelligent design may take faith but faith does not have to be blind. [FALSE: Faith is always blind. That’s what makes it faith.] Looking at a design it only makes sense that there is a designer. [A classic petitio principii. The statement, “Design is evidence of a designer” is an obvious tautology. But saying this in the present case is fallacious because we do not know that the universe is designed. So what you are really saying is, “The universe was designed by a designer. Therefore, there is a designer.”

GRADE: F -

Larry, that is a generous grade. Unfortunately I cannot give you a Q, so this will have to suffice. What were you thinking? Most of the statements in this paper are wrong or make assumptions based on things not in evidence. I’d ask you to redo this, but I won’t since I don’t think you can do any better anyway.

You gotta love Christian logic. It’s just so gosh-darn cute.

But annoying as fuck.

Feel free to let Larry know what you think of his “writing” by commenting on his article here. But be nice. No threats, and keep the profanities to a minimum. You want to explain why he’s wrong. Not that he’ll change his mind. Like Larry himself said, “Even if you know your science you can’t really win a debate about evolution because if someone is closed off to an idea you can’t make them change their mind.”

- Max

Inebriated Discourse Loves The '80s

Robert Palmer could belt that shit out.

Six years ago today, we lost a legend. Originally, I was going to write a long post explaining why Robert Palmer—who died in 2003 at age 54—is the greatest musician of all time, but that would be like writing an article explaining why Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever. It just isn’t necessary. So without further ado, here is arguably the most memorable music video in history—a video whose women still look hot today. Pretty impressive

For those of you who want to see the weirdest music video of all time, check out Palmer’s “Some Guys Have All the Luck.”

- Max

Symbolic Immortality- Humanity's Common Bond and Worst Enemy

Life is indeed a constant flight from death.

Every person is destined to die, and as human beings, we are unique in our intimate awareness of this stark fact. The truth is, however, that if we were always fully conscious of the fragility of life and our impending demise, we would be rendered unable to cope with life; effectively becoming paralyzed by overwhelming anxiety and terror. In order to avoid this most unpleasant experience, we repress our fears of death, in part by absorbing ourselves in things that provide us with a sense of meaning and purpose. In this way, we can quite effectively coast through life, almost entirely unaware of how this tremendous existential dilemma affects us on an unconscious level. In his Pulitzer-prize winning book, “The Denial of Death,” Ernest Becker (1973) demonstrated how man must continually seek to repress and deny the awareness of death by cultivating his own systems of symbolic immortality. In the mid 1980’s, three social psychologists began studying Becker’s ideas in the laboratory, eventually culminating in what is now known as Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1986).

The fundamental hypothesis of Terror Management Theory (TMT) is that repression of mortality awareness is accomplished by two primary mechanisms; having faith in a particular cultural worldview (or shared conception of reality) and self-esteem striving (see e.g., Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Shimmel, 2004, for reviews). Cultural worldviews imbue the psyche with a sense of meaning by providing explanations for existence, standards of acceptable behavior, and the potential to transcend physical death; either symbolically, through contributing to something greater and more enduring than one’s self (e.g., a nation, political ideology, family), or literally, by having faith in an afterlife (Arndt & Vess, 2008). TMT sees cultural worldview defense as essential to the establishment and maintenance of self-esteem, which also serves to buffer basic existential concerns. To date, an impressive body of evidence has lent support for the roles that self-esteem and worldview defense play on attenuating mortality concerns.

The bulk of TMT research is based on the mortality salience hypothesis, which contends that reminding people of their own death will lead them to increase their defense of certain cultural beliefs and their willingness to meet certain standards of behavior. Here is a typical example of how TMT studies are conducted: participants are first exposed to a mortality salience prime (e.g., writing a paragraph about their own death, watching video clips with death related stimuli, answering questionnaires that prime thoughts of death), then, engaged in a distraction task (which allows for conscious mortality concerns to be suppressed); and lastly, asked to complete a measure designed to assess cultural worldview defense (Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997). One series of studies that has been particularly well reported in the literature has had participants answer two open-ended questions about their death, followed by an evaluation of other people who either threaten or support their worldview (e.g., Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992). Results from these studies indicate that participants who are reminded of death (experimental group) demonstrate increased worldview defense (compared to those in the control group that are not primed with death), as witnessed by more positive evaluations of others who support their beliefs and more negative evaluations of those who challenge those beliefs (Arndt, Goldenberg, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 2000). These findings reveal both the positive and negative aspects of death-denial. Although clinging to worldview defenses can produce such positive effects as boosting self-esteem, it can also make individuals more prone to react negatively toward different others. In fact, a slew of other TMT studies have shown directly that, when reminded of death, people are significantly more prone to act with hostility towards those who do not share their cultural beliefs.

We all know how the 9/11 attacks led to nauseating displays of flag-waving in this country. It was, in effect, the perfect terror management experiment conducted on a massive scale. After the citizens of this country were reminded of their mortality, they could not help but display glowing pride in our nation and also the simultaneous desire to destroy some common enemy that threatened their worldviews. Patriotism is just one example of something that provides people with a sense of symbolic immortality. Feeling patriotic with regard to American values, for example, enables people to immerse themselves in a part of a greater whole, a whole that is much larger and certainly more enduring than their individual existences. When we are reminded of death, those with differing worldviews (e.g., Muslims, Zoroastrians, the French, etc) are all viewed with more open hostility. After all, if people have faith in a particular model of reality, than any disparate conceptions of the world only serve to threaten the legitimacy of their beliefs. In the most extreme cases, they become willing to give up their physical lives in order to maintain the symbolic immortality structures they have built.

It seems that Becker was right after all.

~Wolf

References

Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1997). Subliminal exposure to death-related stimuli increases defense of the cultural world view. Psychological Science, 08, NO 5.

Arndt, J., Goldenberg, J. L., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2000). Death can be hazardous to your health: Adaptive and ironic consequences of defenses against the terror of death. In J. Masling & P. Duberstain (Eds.), Psychoanalytic perspectives on sickness and health (Vol. 9, pp. 201-257). Washington D.C: American Psychological Association.

Arndt, J., & Vess, M. (2008). Tales from existential oceans: Terror management theory and how the awareness of death affects us all. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2/2, 909-928.

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: a terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp.189-212). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S, & Chatel, D. (1992). Terror management and tolerance: Does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one's worldview? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 212-220.

Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (1997). Terror management theory of self-esteem and social behavior: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 61-139). New York: Academic Press.

Pyszczynksi, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt, J., & Schimel, J. (2004). Why do people need self-esteem?: A theoretical and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 435-468.

Tom DeLay Is A Scumbag Piece of Shit

This is what an asshole’s mugshot looks like.

As if the show weren’t horrible enough, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is on Dancing With The Stars tonight. Sadly, ABC was unable to secure a furlough for ex-DeLay associate and convicted conman Jack Abramoff to serve as his dancing partner. I’m not sure how long DeLay will last on the show, but I fear that ABC has provided an outlet for DeLay to exercise his southern charm and show his human side.

But we know better. DeLay is human in form only. His evil machinations and blatant hypocrisies in Congress have been responsible for the perpetuation of great miseries and unspeakable acts. Although I do not have the time or the space to list every one of them, one in particular stands out above the rest. I am talking, of course, about DeLay’s knowing and willful blocking of legislation that would have imposed humane working standards on Saipan—an island part of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which are themselves collectively a United States commonwealth.

As House Majority Whip and later House Majority Leader in the 1990s and 2000s, DeLay did his darnedest to protect heinous sweatshop owners on the island of Saipan who were slave-driving on behalf of the likes of Wal-Mart, Gap, Old Navy, Abercrombie and Fitch, Ralph Lauren, JCPenny, and others who wanted to skirt U.S. labor laws. The tale has been told many times over, complete with horror stories of pregnant workers being forced to get abortions, and children being forced into prostitution. DeLay, apparently sticking more to his anti-labor values than his Christianity-inspired anti-abortion principles, ignored the ugly reality of the plight of Saipan’s sweatshop laborers and child prostitutes. Plus, the all-expenses paid trips to the CNMI courtesy of Abramoff were just too good for DeLay and his family to turn down.

You can read more about the evil Tom DeLay, and his relationship with convicted felon and former lobbyist for the CNMI government, Casino Jack Abramoff, here.

Or, for those of you interested in reading about the other major scandal involving Tom DeLay—an ongoing investigation into whether he conspired to violate election laws—go here.

- Max

American Leaders Say Economy Is Better, Macroeconomics 101 Says Otherwise.

That’s secessionist Governor Rick Perry of Texas talking to a bunch of business leaders in Houston claiming that the state is basically recession-proof, which is strange considering that in August the unemployment rate in Texas hit a 22-year peak. High comedy. Expect these remarks to be replayed in television ads by Perry’s opponents in the 2010 Texas gubernatorial race.

Perry joins a growing chorus of officials across the country and in Washington D.C., as well the oligarchs on Wall Street, who have been assuring us that things are looking up for our economy. Even the stoic Fed firebomber Ben Bernanke declared last week that the recession is “very likely over.” Well that’s a relief, because I had been hoping that someone important would come along and tell me that my reality-based assessment of the U.S. economy is off the mark. And here he is, telling me that everything is going to be ok.

Why is that? Because the Dow finished at an 11-month high on Friday? Big whoop. Unemployment is still hovering around 17% (not the cooked “official” 9.7% figure we keep hearing), and likely to get worse. The trade gap is narrowing, thanks to gun-shy American consumers and because of the falling U.S. dollar, which helps exporters. The problem with the atrocious dollar index figures, however, is that these numbers may not be temporary, but instead a harbinger of much worse things to come. Why? Please watch this instructional video featuring Bernanke, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and his successor Tim Geinthner for the answer:

Well, after the Chinese saw this, they started buying up gold in order to hedge against the falling dollar—the world currency at the moment. They’ve even started to issue yuan bonds outside of China because they full well expect their currency to play a larger role in the global economy, especially with inflation in the U.S. likely to worsen.

Between inflation, low interests rates, and a consumer base still smarting from overspending, Americans are expectedly unsure about what to do with their money at this point. The options are not very appealing. In one of the better scenarios, do they stick it in a CD with a 17-month interest yield of a whopping 2% on a minimum $1,000 deposit, even though by the time they can get their money out it might have less real value than it did when it went it because of inflation? Or, do they take advantage of the flowing credit that’s been reestablished and buy a bunch of shit with their stagnant wages (assuming they’re actually employed) even though they’ll need to save up for their annual health insurance premium hike of 8% (assuming they actually have health insurance)?

Wall Street and its political wing, the U.S. Government, prefer that people do the latter, and prop up retail and stocks even though the last thing Americans need is another flatscreen television or a thousand shares in General Motors. Common sense says that Americans need to stop spending and start saving, but the Federal Reserve is doing its best to encourage people to part with their dollars, which, when you think about it might be a good thing. That way, when the dollar isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, Americans can sell their flatscreen TVs and other possessions on Ebay in exchange for euros, pounds, and yuans. Maybe there is a method to the Federal Reserve’s madness after all.

- Max

Max Keiser Discusses Teabaggers, Disses Obama For Being Soft On Wall Street

Financial analyst Max Keiser briefly loses his shit when talking about Glenn Beck’s teabaggers from last night’s On the Edge on PressTV. Funny stuff.

- Max

Max Baucus Submits Health Bill That Pleases No One Except Max Baucus

Yet again, Senator Max Baucus wonders, “What would Aetna do?”

The much anticipated (though not by me) Max Baucus (D-Montana) health care reform bill was released by the Senate Finance Committee today, and as expected, it is terrible. And not only is it terrible, but no Republican seems willing to support it. This all begs the question, what was the point of writing this dogshit bill in the first place?

If the point was to garner Republican support, well, that’s just ridiculous. Even a hayseed such as Baucus had to know that the GOP would attempt to kill any Democratic-led effort to reform health care. As far as congressional Republicans are concerned, this debate is not about health care; it’s about handing President Obama an early defeat for his administration. At this juncture, the GOP has much to gain by killing reform so that in the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections, they can say that they stopped Obamacare and staved off a nonexistent socialist threat. In fact, the Republicans are at a point of no return. For many Republicans in Congress, to suddenly support the opposition’s plan could be tantamount to committing political suicide because their constituents are out for Democratic blood. As we saw with Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project this weekend, the GOP base has been worked into a frenzy thanks to the massive amounts of red meat tossed to them by the Republican leadership and right-wing media types. This is a very impressive operation. It’s not easy to take the aimless and irrational prejudices of millions of people in middle and lower classes, and harness them so that the result is a mass rebuke of proposals that would actually benefit them.

Let’s make one thing clear: there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the Democrats to adopt the Baucus bill as the bill to go with to reform health care. This bill is god awful, and does nothing to address runaway premium costs. Apparently the other proposed reform bills and their government-run public options are too radical for Milquetoast Max. From the New York Times, the following is a list of ways in which the Baucus bill differs from these others:

¶Instead of creating a new government health plan, Mr. Baucus would set up nonprofit insurance cooperatives in every state. The Congressional Budget Office said the co-ops “seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country.” This finding provides ammunition to liberals who say the co-ops could not compete effectively with big insurance companies.

¶The Baucus plan, like the other bills, offers subsidies to help low- and middle-income people buy insurance. But eligibility is more limited, and the subsidies appear to be less generous than in the other proposals, causing some Democrats to suggest that many people could still find insurance unaffordable.

¶Unlike the other bills, the Baucus plan would impose a new excise tax on insurance companies that sell high-end policies costing more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. Mr. Baucus hopes the tax would put downward pressure on health costs. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees denounced the tax, saying it would hit “health plans that provide benefits for many middle-class families.”

¶The bill would not require employers to offer coverage. But employers with more than 50 workers would have to reimburse the government for some or all of the cost of subsidies provided to employees who buy insurance on their own.

On top of these, the Baucus bill would force people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. And if it seems like there’s nothing here that benefits you, you’re probably right. If you already have health insurance and make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, or don’t have access to an insurance cooperative (CO-OP), under this abomination you’re just going to have to deal with annual premium hikes that far outpace your wage increases.

What qualifies a person for Medicaid under the Baucus plan? Well, it’s a simple calculation, but I’ve yet to find the answer anywhere in the press, probably because they’re too embarrassed to actually come out and say it. This bill would expand Medicaid to those making 133% of the federal poverty level, which for 2009 is $10,830. So for example, if this bill were in effect today, that means in order to qualify for Medicaid as a single person, you could not make more than $14,404. I’ve heard of panhandlers making more than this in a year.

As for the CO-OPs, this from NPR:

Robert Laszewski, who heads a Washington, D.C.-area consulting firm, says, “I think they’re the single dumbest idea I've heard in 20 years of being in Washington and working on health care policy.”

Laszewski says there’s no need to promote co-ops. They can already form on their own. As for the nonprofit advantage, he says there are plenty of nonprofit health insurers around, including many of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans. The only difference is that they’re run by board members who are appointed, rather than elected. Laszewski says any kind of new insurer will need a lot of cash on hand to line up doctors and hospitals willing to treat patients, and to set up health IT and billing systems.

Indeed. The bill even states that CO-OPs “must not be sponsored by a state, county, or local government, or any government instrumentality.” (Section 501c of the 223-page bill.) Then why is this even in the bill, if they can form on their own and must not be sponsored by any government entity in order to qualify for federal funds? (I hope to expand on this notion of CO-OPs in a later post if the Baucus plan gains prominence.)

A more important question is, should I even care? Is the awful Baucus plan the one the Democrats are going to go with? I sure hope not, but I cannot underestimate that party’s penchant for self-sabotage. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is at this moment being held hostage by Max Baucus of Mon-fucking-tana. Why? Let’s take a look at who contributes to the Baucus war chest:

Think Progress

What a tool. The health insurance industry lives and votes vicariously through Baucus (and so many others). Why bother with politicians when we can spare ourselves the charade of elections. For the sake of transparency, this country should just get it over with and replace the U.S. Senate with the CEOs of the 100 most powerful corporations in America.

I leave you with this clip of Wendell Potter, former Communications Vice President for the health insurance giant, Cigna, testifying before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Tuesday. In anticipation of the release of the Baucus bill the following day (as many of its key provisions were already known), Potter gives his assessment as a former industry insider who has since reconnected with his conscience.

- Max

Getting High Without Drugs

I have long been fascinated with experiencing altered states of consciousness. Since I no longer choose to ingest certain chemicals in order to induce these states, however, I have since turned to exploring other avenues of tweaking my primary modes of perception. The following is a list of my top three favorite ways to “get high” without the use of drugs.

WARNING: The following exercises may be contraindicated for people with certain physical disabilities (e.g., epilepsy) and/or mental illnesses (e.g., bipolar Disorder, schizophrenia).

1. Lucid Dreaming

Have you ever wanted to actively engage with your dream life? This can be achieved through the practice of lucid dreaming; an experience akin to being fully immersed in a fantasy world, while maintaining an awareness that you are actually dreaming and that your physical body is asleep. Some people arrive at lucid dreaming naturally, but most of us require an abundance of practice in order to achieve this state. Thankfully, there are certain steps that, if followed correctly, will eventually result in dream lucidity. Lucid dreaming does not only hold the prospect of being insanely fun, but may also have significant therapeutic potential; a subject currently being investigated by researchers. [For a comprehensive resource on the subject, check out Stephen Laberge's website].

One possible therapeutic application of lucid dreaming is for confronting recurring nightmares, which are almost always indicative of some unconscious complex that is not being adequately addressed by the individual. If you are having a recurring nightmare of a man stabbing you to death, for example, the result will always be the same; death by stabbing. If you are fortunate enough to achieve a lucid state while experiencing this same nightmare, however, you would be able to retain some level of awareness that you are only dreaming, and hence the fear factor of the knife-wielding murderer would be lowered dramatically. You can then engage in the dream without the usual level of fear, and thereby confront or destroy this would-be attacker before he kills you yet again. Theoretically, by accomplishing this goal (facing the antagonist of your nightmare), you may also overcome the unconscious issue behind the dream without ever necessarily realizing it. This is just one possible example of how lucid dreaming can be fun, exciting, and potentially therapeutic.

2. Sensory Deprivation

In the absence of sensory stimuli, the mind can always be counted on to provide its own objects of perception. Are you not at least mildly curious to see what thoughts, images, or experiences could be encountered when you let your mind break away from the hindrances of everyday perception? If you are not at least intrigued by this idea, consider yourself either pathetically boring and/or incredibly fearful of getting in touch with yourself. [The authors of this site indulged our intrigue with regard to sensory deprivation some years ago, as witnessed here.]

Most authorities maintain that what is perceived under the conditions of sensory deprivation are merely hallucinatory. Although it is likely true that the content of a hallucination does not exist in any reality outside the mind of the individual observer, it can nonetheless provide us with meaningful information. It is rumored that Francis Crick, before co-discovering the DNA molecule, clearly saw a vision of the double-helix while “hallucinating” under the effects of LSD. Whether this is true or not, there can be no doubt that many valuable insights have been engendered via experiences of similar types of altered states. Such states should therefore, at the very least, be respected as tools for initiating certain higher-order creative processes.

[If you are interested in finding a sensory deprivation (flotation) tank in your area click here.]

3. Tantric Sex

Sting is not the only person out there who has become acquainted with the benefits of tantric sex. This practice (sometimes referred to as kundalini yoga) is essentially a blending of certain yoga and meditation practices within the act of sexual intercourse. This is not an exercise that comes easily by any means, but if practiced enough, holds the potential to take sex to a "higher" level. Speaking for men, specifically, sex is almost always performed as a means to an end; creating the all-powerful money-shot is most often the goal. In contrast, taking the focus off of the orgasm is taken as an implicit rule in tantric practice.

The sexual act undoubtedly raises one’s energy levels (whether you call it plain old sexual arousal or the raising of chi, prana, orgone, etc). Instead of harnessing that energy with the goal of expelling it all at once through ejaculation, however, those who engage in tantric practices attempt to steer the energy of their libidos toward achieving certain altered states of consciousness (e.g., mystical union, rapture, etc). In this way, the tantric practitioner experiences moments of bliss, comparable to or exceeding that of normal orgasm, without actually cumming in the formal sense. Again, if this topic does not at least slightly pique your interest, consider yourself a hopelessly boring individual.

~Wolf

And now, for your viewing pleasure: A ridiculous dramatization of the sensory deprivation experience via the sloppy 80's movie, "Altered States."

Teabaggers Hold Million Moron March

AP

Patients from a D.C. psychiatric ward hold signs while on a fresh-air break at Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project.

Spurred into action by the poorly educated, crew-cutted Mormon ignoramus, Glenn Beck of Faux News, a confederacy of teabagging dunces descended on the National Mall in Washington D.C. today as part of his “9/12 Project.” His stated purpose was to bring the country together by reminding everyone of how we all felt united as Americans on September 12, 2001. Beck showed how serious he was about his little cause by fake-crying in a series of despicable on-air displays in which 9/11 served as a backdrop for his teary-eyed theatrics. Not surprisingly, the rally was far less noble, and much uglier than it’s purported goal might indicate, as it attracted some of the most under-evolved humanoid cretins walking America today.

Here is a video from the Associated Press of this Million Moron March:

Did everyone catch what that white sign said on the right of the screen? It read:

OBAMA:

WE HAVE WAKEN [sic] UP TO YOUR EVIL PLANS TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY. TAKE YOUR RACIST, UN-AMERICAN ACORN GROUPS AND ARROGENT [sic] WIFE BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY AND STRIP THEIR RIGHTS AWAY!

As Beck himself did earlier this year, the sign accuses Barack Obama of being racist, and then proceeds to tell him to go back to his “own country.” You’ve got to love bald-faced hypocrisy. I also find the reference to Michelle Obama as “arrogent” quite instructive. The First Lady has conducted herself in a dignified manner, and hasn’t done anything that one could call arrogant. But I guess if you’re the racist asshole holding that sign, you expect black people to act meek around whitey just as they did in the Jim Crow South. Ah, the good old days.

The worst kept secret about this whole march is that it had nothing to do with policy and everything to do with the president. These teabaggers bitch about taxes, but the federal government has not raised their taxes or even proposed doing so since the last administration. They whine about freedom but were either silent on the Patriot Act or defended it on the grounds that they had “nothing to hide.” They are 100% partisan, and don’t give two shits about spending or the federal deficit. They were nowhere to be found in the Bush years when Dick Cheney boldly declared, “Deficits don’t matter,” and showed us just how much he believed in that maxim. Did teabaggers protest the bailout of Wall Street in last year’s TARP signed into law by Bush? No. Did they protest the ARRA (stimulus bill) this year which allocated money for infrastructural projects across the nation, and was signed into law by Obama? Yes. What does this tell you about these halfwits masquerading around as fiscal conservatives? That they can’t get off the couch to protest the largest single fleecing of American taxpayers in the history of the country, but they can hop on buses and ride a thousand miles to protest a bill that might actually benefit their states and hometowns. What are they really protesting here?

The president. The black president. The black Democratic president. The funny thing is, there is reason to protest, except these idiots are protesting the wrong thing. Like Bush, Obama is in Wall Street’s pocket and will act accordingly. However, Obama still has to get reelected. He also has a legacy to shape for the history books. For Obama, health care reform is a means to both of those ends, but his proposal is hardly radical. Before the debate even began, Obama inexplicably took the prospect of a single-payer system off the table, and thus his best bargaining chip. Whereas he could have started with single-payer in the negotiations with Congress, only to meet legislators halfway and create a strong public option, he has started with the public option. As a result, he now appears to be giving up ground that he should have had no business surrendering in the first place. This all begs the question, just how much reform does Obama want? Clearly not much. And if this country does get health care reform, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be concessions to the health care industry throughout the bill.

So then, the teabaggers are protesting what? Not socialism, as many of them claim. They can’t be because in order to be protesting against socialism, there has to be socialism, which there isn’t. Socialism is when the government controls the means of production. In the United States the private sector controls the means of production and also the government, which it uses to funnel taxpayer money into the private sector when it needs capital, and also through the annual Pentagon budget. That is definitely not socialism. It’s not even capitalism. It’s just theft. Business as usual. Although I must say, the government’s response to the latest financial meltdown was an unusually overt “Fuck you,” and should have made clear to everyone who really runs this country.

It is clear to me that these teabaggers are either protesting nothing that exists in reality (socialism), or are protesting something that could provide them with a cheaper and better alternative to the health plans offered by rapacious health insurance behemoths. Either way, we’re dealing with an extremely dangerous pathology—one that emboldens the ruling elite by demonstrating a profound ignorance of its power and outrageous excesses. While Beck and the teabaggers rail against a phantom socialist menace, Wall Street is laughing all the way to the fucking (offshore) bank with our money.

Obama could be protested against for many reasons, not the least of which is his decision to reappoint Ben Bernanke to chair the Federal Reserve. Bernanke, along with Hank Paulson and then-president of the New York Fed, Tim Geithner, helped Wall Street pull off that impressive $700 billion TARP heist that’s going to make our economy much worse off in the long run. Indeed, the U.S. economy is in for a Day of Reckoning in the not too distant future because the government has artificially propped up companies that should’ve failed, and more importantly, because the government didn’t have $700 billion to give in the first place.

So pardon me if I chuckle a bit or shake my head when I see these middle to lower class shit-kicking teabaggers on television screaming in horror that a government-funded health insurance option might become a reality for the millions of Americans for whom private insurance is too expensive. Instead of protesting that the reform doesn’t go far enough, that we should have a universal health care system like every other developed Western nation, that stiff regulations be put in place to curb runaway premium costs, the teabaggers unwittingly shill for an industry that’s happy to keep fucking them in the ass as long as it’s profitable to do so. Forget what’s the matter with Kansas? What’s the matter with America?

Well, as Matt Taibbi explains, the peasant mentality lives on in America:

“…[A]ctual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs.”

Welcome to the corporatocracy.

- Max

Betting On Death: Wall Street's Latest Voodoo Moneymaking Scheme

What happens on Wall Street stays on Wall Street...unless they lose their shirts and need us to bail them out against our will because our elected representatives are in the fucking bag.

While our economy is still in shambles, Wall Street is already paving the way for the next big bubble: the death bubble.

The New York Times recently featured an incredibly disturbing article titled, “Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance.” Here’s how it works:

“The bankers plan to buy ‘life settlements,’ life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to ‘securitize’ these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

“The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return…”

After reading that last line, I paused in mid sentence for a few seconds, and scrolled back up the page to see if I had unwittingly navigated my way to The Onion, because this sure read like a satire to me. Nope. Then I wondered if the Yes Men had outdone themselves and actually hacked the New York Times website (instead of simply printing and distributing fake copies of the paper as they did last November). Slowly I began to realize that this wasn’t a joke, and that this article by Jenny Anderson was discussing an all-too real developmental-stage speculative enterprise that literally bets on death.

You’ve got to hand it to Wall Street. These people remain undeterred in their never-ending drive to make profit where it was thought there was no profit to be made. They’ve had two major bubbles in the last decade, both brought on by wanton speculation fueled by the kind of cockeyed, sky’s-the-limit optimism you see from the cheerleaders on CNBC and in other financial media. Both bubbles burst quite dramatically, although the latter was—and still very much remains—an economic crisis of epic proportions. And yet, here we have some investment bankers who have already drawn up and are starting to push the next great moneymaking scheme before we’ve even gotten ourselves out of the current fuckup which they helped create. And the kicker is, it works in the same way those dubious mortgage securities did (and still do). I can only hope that the anonymous banker in the article who said, “We’re hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering,” is completely wrong, but if he’s right, we might just have another bubble—the death bubble—coming down the pike in a few years time.

Of course, this lament of mine will be moot if our economy collapses before life insurance speculation can matter. This is not some remote possibility. The fundamentals of the U.S. economy are still terrible, regardless of how well the Dow has been doing. (Don’t even get me started on those fuckers at CNBC.) We still have serious problems in this country, starting with the dollar. Not that anyone in a position to do anything about our falling dollar agrees this assessment, but that’s the reality. If I had the balls, I’d take a trip to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at Treasury and destroy the presses myself. Would this be the only way the government would stop printing money? It would seem so. If this lunacy isn’t stopped soon, it’s going to take an SUV full of $100 bills just to buy a Whopper with cheese.

While the falling dollar has expectedly helped to narrow the U.S. trade deficit over the past year (July’s data notwithstanding), the Baltic Dry Index indicates that international trade has declined in absolute terms. Just about every U.S. manufacturing sector has been declining, with the exception of the arms sector. As such, the official U.S. unemployment rate is 9.7%, but this figure is bunk, as it includes neither those unemployed Americans who have simply stopped looking for work, nor former full-time workers who have been forced to work part-time (often at minimum wage). When these folks are included, you get a 16.8% unemployment rate—and a much realer sense of just how shitty the U.S. economy is.

But enough gloom and doom about our economy, and back to rich people betting on Americans dropping dead.

Now, I’m not one of those people who thinks a cure for cancer has been found and that the medical industry is suppressing it because they want to keep cashing in on the lucrative cancer treatment business. However, it is not unreasonable to ask what effects large-scale death speculation would have. Right now we have no way of knowing just how big this will become, but if the life insurance speculation game (and that’s really what it is to these people) becomes as popular as (subprime) mortgage-backed securities were earlier this decade, there are going to be a lot of rich and powerful investors out there who stand to gain everything from a retardation of medical innovation. Theoretically under this scheme, if you hold bundles of these securitized life insurance policies, it would be just wonderful for you if somehow hospitals, doctors, and all medicine and knowledge about the practice of medicine just disappeared, and we as a people had to resort to playing with snakes and making sacrifices to please Asclepius in the hopes that he will heal us.

This is what the moneyed interests of this country want. While they’re busy turning their millions and billions into more millions and billions in relatively short order thanks to the casino economy, the rest of us continue to slave away for ever-decreasing real wages at jobs we’re not sure how long we’ll have. That way, we’re continually worried about job security and our overall welfare and won’t raise a stink about being smacked around all the time. We are serfs in a neo-fiefdom. We’re easily replaceable. And we’re fun to gamble on—our credit, our mortgages, and soon our life insurance policies.

I’m an advocate of the free market with two qualifications: (1) no corporate welfare; if a business needs state subsidies, it doesn’t deserve to exist. (2) Regulation, regulation, regulation. Ideally, no regulation would be necessary. However, as has been well-documented, big business is always inventing new and exciting ways to bend us over and take full advantage of our vulnerabilities. If you’re a worker, the main thing to know about companies in the free market is this: if there’s nothing stopping them, they will fuck you if they think fucking you will be profitable. It’s the nature of the system, which is why safeguards are needed to prevent wholesale raping and pillaging.

Now if you’ll excuse me, this serf has some land to till.

- Max