Religion and an inverse correlation to prosperity...

Is Belief in God Hurting America? | | AlterNet

Using existing data, Paul combined 25 indicators of societal and economic stability — things like crime, suicide, drug use, incarceration, unemployment, income, abortion and public corruption — to score each country using what he calls the "successful societies scale." He also scored countries on their degree of religiosity, as determined by such measures as church attendance, belief in a creator deity and acceptance of Bible literalism.

Comparing the two scores, he found, with little exception, that the least religious countries enjoyed the most prosperity. Of particular note, the U.S. holds the distinction of most religious and least prosperous among the 17 countries included in the study, ranking last in 14 of the 25 socioeconomic measures.

The author notes that the study doesn't demonstrate causeality, just a correlation. However, he points out what may be the cause:

"Popular religion," Paul proposes, "is a coping mechanism for the anxieties of a dysfunctional social and economic environment." ...

While possibly true, religion also serves to blunt the very progress that would lead to more societal well being. Look at the Christian Right's opposition to universal health care and government reform of the financial sector: both areas of reform that are likely to help/protect the less fortunate in our society. These are areas of reform you'd think the church would support. Why don't they?

In his paper, Paul writes of an "antagonistic relationship between better socioeconomic conditions and intense popular faith" derived from fear that greater prosperity will loosen the grip of religion. ... These groups have a lot to lose in these kinds of debates. When you adopt progressive policy reforms," Paul says, "in the long run, religion is bound to be road kill."

Conservatism in America... screwed

Poll: Limbaugh is most influential conservative - Yahoo! News

By a wide margin, Americans consider Rush Limbaugh the nation's most influential conservative voice.

Those are the results of a poll conducted by "60 Minutes" and Vanity Fair magazine and issued Sunday. The radio host was picked by 26 percent of those who responded, followed by Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck at 11 percent. Actual politicians — former Vice President Dick Cheney and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — were the choice of 10 percent each.

If conservatives actually consider these idiots 'their voice' -- the movement is truly screwed: it has NO intellectual underpinnings. It's based completely on made-up-shit and crazy, previously discredited ideas.

I never thought I'd say this: I long for a real conservative leader.

Beware the military industrial complex...

Wasteful Defense Spending Is a Clear and Present Danger - WSJ.com

When John McCain was shot down over Hanoi in 1967, he was flying an A4 Skyhawk. That jet cost $860,000.

Inflation has risen by 700% since then. So Mr. McCain's A4 cost $6.1 million in 2008 dollars. Applying a generous factor of three for technological improvements, the price for a 2008 Navy F18 fighter should be about $18 million. Instead, we are paying about $90 million for each new fighter. As a result, the Navy cannot buy sufficient numbers. This is disarmament without a treaty.

Having working in and around big defense contractors for more than 20 years I can say I fully agree with the former SECNAV's evaluation: the cosy relationship between the military, supplies and the civilans working in the pentagon has turned what should be a competitive market into a good ole boys network where BIG defense companies routinely milk money out of a contact for 2-3 or MORE years beyond it's orginal cost/schedule. 50-100% cost overruns are not uncommon.

In fact, I worked on one defense project back in the late '90's that was supposed to be about 3 years long and demonstrate, on orbit, new sensing and tracking technologies. Ten years later I know the program was still nursing at the government teet and the satellites STILL hadn't been launched.

How's that for return on you $100+ million investment?

Something has to be done. I'm not opposed to spending on the military, but we spend so much on so many ridiculous projects that its bankrupting the country.

People scream about potential increases in gov health care spending, but don't seem to bat an eye when we spend $350 MILLION on a single fighter jet - or worse, several hundred million on a program that goes no-where for more than a decade.

This is corporate welfare on a HUGE scale.

Will we ever get control? ... i doubt it. Something about the American pyche is at work here: spending money to kill people is "oo-raah" good; but try to spend some to help sick people and you get protests.

What the hell happened to people?

What is wrong with this country?

It was just a few years ago when the right was telling us that if you didn't support the president (in a time of war) you were NOT a patriot ... they told us it was our duty not to question warrantless wiretaps, torture, rendition and a host of other (at least) questionable activities taken on unilaterally by the executive branch...

Now, those same folks are telling us -- while we are still at war btw -- that they don't want their kids to watch a speech by the president ... a speech who's theme is "stay in school" and "help out in your local communities" ...

Has this country really gone this bat-shit crazy? I mean, we aren't supposed to question the violation of our 4th and 5th Amendment rights ... but we should teach our children that this president's words aren't to be trusted -- even when he speaks about something ALL of us (supposedly) agree on?

There truly is no hope for a people who are this screwed up... The politicization of EVERYTHING is at hand when a message like "stay in school" is seen as serving some evil, ulterior motive.

Opinion vs action...

Torture and Academic Freedom - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

The strongest legal criticism made of Professor Yoo and other Bush administration lawyers is not based on disagreement over policy or even morality. They were not implementing unjust laws; they were actively circumventing just laws.
The memos purporting to justify the harsh treatment of detainees could do so only by twisting the law beyond all recognition, and doing so in secret so that the flawed legal advice would not be challenged. When the memos were disclosed publicly, virtually no one could be found to defend them on the merits. The Justice Department itself was even forced to take the highly unusual step of withdrawing virtually all of the legal analysis it had issued only months beforehand.

That's the way I see it too: These opinions were kept secret in part because the administration knew they were using twisted logic to circumvent fairly straightforward law regarding the treatment of prisoners. While I support "academic freedom", and the rights of people to express their opinions, this situation is completely different. Here you have government officials using specious, at best, logic to justify practices we have publicly denounced abroad and are demonstrable harmful to America's principles.

Not only should he be fired, but he should be disbarred for using such tortured logic to justify criminal behavior by our government.

Science & Faith...

The Strange Case of Francis Collins | The Reason Project

There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn’t surprising, as very few scientific truths are self-evident, and many are deeply counterintuitive. It is by no means obvious that empty space has structure or that we share a common ancestor with both the housefly and the banana. It can be difficult to think like a scientist (even, we have begun to see, if one is a scientist). But it would seem that few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion.

Criminals

Op-Ed Columnist - Rewarding Bad Actors - NYTimes.com

But crashing the economy and fleecing the taxpayer aren’t Wall Street’s only sins. Even before the crisis and the bailouts, many financial-industry high-fliers made fortunes through activities that were worthless if not destructive from a social point of view.

And they’re still at it. Consider two recent news stories.

One involves the rise of high-speed trading: some institutions, including Goldman Sachs, have been using superfast computers to get the jump on other investors, buying or selling stocks a tiny fraction of a second before anyone else can react. Profits from high-frequency trading are one reason Goldman is earning record profits and likely to pay record bonuses

This kind of activity simply must be stopped via regulation... Allowing a group of people to reap huge financial gain at the expense of others: while adding NOTHING to society -- used to be considered criminal behavior... Now we call it investment banking.