Some will point out that the co-author of the paper in question, Alan Carlin, has a Bachelor of Science Physics degree. Some others, in turn will point out that with the complexity of atmospheric and climate sciences means that specialization is critical, and for most of his career, Alan Carlin has been an economist.

Many of those who claim themselves Climate Skeptics find it convenient to cite people as authorities on climate change by virtue of the fact that they are scientists. Scientists, though, are not necessarily interchangeable. To do their research and do it well, they have to keep themselves apprised of other's research. Even if Carlin had essentially spent his career as a physicist, it would be a critical question as to whether he was familiar with other folk's science.

It would also be important, if we are to honor those amateurs who might have some kind of native genius that allows them to overturn the scientific order, that they base their theories on sound information, and that they present data to back themselves up. And even if they do, it does not mean that everything is overturned. Their theories must be checked and cross checked.

Some might find this unfair. They are used to systems of argument where the person who others come to believe might have a point is not questioned or scrutinized any further.

But science is not science when it is preserved from questioning, from true scientific skepticism, which in this case could be defined as such: the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics.

Suspended judgment, and systematic doubt. These are often some of the most neglected aspects of science in the popular imagination, yet they define what makes science itself a compelling alternative to the old folk wisdom. Suspended judgment, the tentative reaching of conclusions means that while scientists might come to close approximations of what is true, they're never permanently there. However, that's where many folks stop, because for them, this is their opportunity to offer what their belief on the matter is.

Neither does systematic doubt escape abuse. All you really have to do is doubt anything that endangers your conclusion. That can get systematic.

The Critical elements of scientific skepticism is that the suspended judgment counts for everybody's theory, not just that of your opponents. All too often, the folks who call themselves Climate Skeptics become quite irate at the notion that their challenges must undergo the full gauntlet of peer review, testing of their conclusions or whatever else. They want credibility now, and to cast down global warming to the dustbin of history.

It doesn't work lilke that. The systematic doubt of science, and the suspended judgment means that the claims and the implications of a theory have to be falsifiable. And no, I'm not talking forgery here. What I mean, is that any theory or hypothesis which cannot be proved false, isn't scientific. If you aren't allowed to ask who or what's behind the curtain, you're still in Oz.

Who might be behind that curtain? One source is Theodor Landscheidt. Like with Carlin, climatology was his hobby. Unlike Carlin, his day job isn't as an economist, but rather as an Astrologer. The late diviner literally thought that cycles like those he described helped bring about Hitler's rise. Some people see more patterns in the world than there are real phenomena to correspond to.

Then you get into problems with models. Now, this gets a lot of complaint from those claiming to be climate skeptics, because they define experimental precision and proof as the defining standard of what is science.

Well, we'd better tell the biologists and and the geologists and the astronomers and all the climate scientists to pactk their things up and leave room for the real scientists. The real problem is, the subjects of many sciences don't fit neatly in the confines of a laboratory, where precise, exacting and perfectly repeatable experiments can be carried out. Also, in sciences and disciplines where the real world is involved, there are often difficult to understand variables that get tossed into the mix, making it difficult to extract perfect laws.

Add to that the sort of first and second order complexity issues from which chaos theory and emergent behavior theories spring, and science has to unclench its approximations somewhat. Some cite the inexact ranges given by scientists and the uncertain predictions as being a product of a lack of competence or understanding, but the truth is, nature operates at a scale and complexity where small changes early on make big differences later on.

So we have to consider the reasons that models are necessary. If we can't drag Mother Earth into the lab, we can create a simpler model, and by observation and application of the natural laws shape that model into good enough approximation of the real thing that we can make predictions that have a reasonable chance of being correct.

But why can't we be exact about climate predictions?

One thing to keep in mind is that iterative equations are used to model both weather and climate. Iterative equations take your last result, and plug them right back into your equations. As such, the variations created by changes in heat, humidity and other factors are looped right back into the equations that determine how those factors are going to develop next. We end up dealing with things like the Butterfly Effect, as time goes on, because as we plug things back in, what were originally small, undetectable differences in the initial conditions end up creating much more profound differences between the direction the system was predicted to go, and the direction it actually does end up heading.

Climate's no different. Any number of variations we can't observe or predict might throw an expediently precise prediction off. But how, then, do we get any kind of decent predictions at all?

Well, weather can be likened to students walking around a campus. Students are complex, and they might go just about any where, disregarding the sidewalks, the shrubbery, even scaling the buildings if they are so inclined. But the environment is not random, nor are the motivating factors for students. Even where the students wear their own paths, the students find themselves taking much the same shortcuts. Though you can't necessarily tell predict the path of any one student, you can begin to form a model of where they may most likely walk.

Climate, in part, is all about where the weather tends to walk. Now sometimes it might cut across the lawn, but most of the time, because of the effects of geographic features, currents, and prevailing winds, a certain pattern dominates the observed behavior of local and global climates, and certain paths remain well worn.

That is, until you introduce another element. Or in this case, a compound: CO2.

In a critique of one critic by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, we get a sense of why so many Scientists hold CO2 responsible for the warming:

Continuing his display of ignorance of the modelling enterprise, Allègre wonders why modellers put CO2 in their models, and concludes that it is only because they happen to know how it has varied over the centuries. Could a century of meticulous laboratory and field work documenting the radiative effect of CO2 perhaps have something to do with modellers’ preoccupation with this gas? Evidently not in Allègre’s universe. But there’s more: "Because one doesn’t well understand how clouds form, one neglects them! Because one has not mastered the role of aerosols and dust, one neglects them!" (p.104) This is not at all true. Clouds, aerosols and dust (as well as solar irradiance variations and volcanic eruptions) are all included in modern models. Models that leave out the influence of the CO2 rise fail to reproduce the warming of the past 30 years, and it is precisely for this reason that CO2 is confirmed as the prime culprit in global warming.

When a model that excludes an certain factor fails to account for changes, and one that does include it succeeds in properly modelling the results as they happened, that is a prime indicator of which model is more likely right. Now, the possibility might be that your models are leaving things out that might turn the tables, but I doubt whether Allegre (the target of the critique) got his model right. How can I be so certain?

Well, when your model requires absurd assumptions to be correct, that tends to be a huge waving red flag. This time, in the form of a large flat black surface.

This flub is nothing compared to the trouble Courtillot’s collaborator Le Mouël got into during the debates, when he was trying to show that the 1 Watt per square meter variation in the Solar irradiance over the solar cycle is fully half the greenhouse gas forcing. Well, there is the little matter that Le Mouël forgot to take into account the sphericity of the Earth (which means divide the solar irradiance by 4) or its reflectivity (which means take 70% of the result). As the Le Monde reporter archly noted, Le Mouël’s calculation assumes a black flat Earth, but, "Hélas! La Terre est ronde" (zut alors!). Le Mouël seems eager to follow in Allègre’s geometrically-challenged footsteps: In a 1988 book (12 clés pour la géologie, Belin:Paris), Allègre confidently stated that the pole to equator temperature gradient was due to snow albedo and atmospheric absorption, making no mention of the role of the Earth’s spherical geometry, which is far and away the dominant factor (and the reason there’s ice at the poles to make a high albedo). Messieurs, here’s a little hint: What does the "G" stand for in "IPGP?"

The round Earth having robbed him of his 1 Watt per square meter –which in any event is mostly averaged out over the relatively short solar cycle leaving a miniscule tenth of a Watt variation between cycles — Courtillot grasps at the possibility some unknown and unquantified nonlinear mechanism for turning the very high frequency solar variability into a century scale trend.

Another source of Carlin models the atmosphere as if it was in orbit around the planet, rather than sitting right on its surface, rotating with it. That's just one of his errors.

While models inevitably fudge some things in order to have a computable output (a model this complex that you can't push through a computer won't do you much good) certain assumptions, such as a non-spherical Earth, or an atmosphere in orbit kind of obliterate whatever connection to physical reality might exist. The approximations in the model should be summarizations of something real, not the use of assumptions that are anything but for the sake of getting a desired response.

That the EPA disregards this unsolicited product of Carlin's research is considered scandalous in Barton's eyes, and in the eyes of many hyperventilating on the airwaves about Climate Change fanatics surpressing the truth. But as we unfold and unpack all the underlying theory and though, the truth seems to be the furthest thing from consideration. The politics of sowing doubt and encouraging disbelief certainly qualifies as a systematic kind of doubt, but it's systematic in the service of a strongly, stubbornly held belief or position that Global Warming is all a hoax, and the policy questions surrounding it are just so much conspiratorial efforts aimed at turning the economy towards socialism, or simply, maliciously toward failure.

Funny how a whole bunch of melodrama gets stuffed into that space. The evidence to support it is thin, but you are supposed to presuppose a gigantic conspiracy involving half the country without the benefit of things like internal documentation or whistleblowing that actually has scientific back up. Why is it that Bush and not Clinton ends up doctoring the EPA and NASA reports?

This whole claim of a Global Warming Hoax is all about framing the costs of the program to remedy it in negative economic philosophy terms before you even find out what the remedies are, or what they could do for you.

When I was younger, before my more political days, I went on a couple of trips with my family in a Ford Focus. It wasn't the biggest vehicle, and this was sometimes a problem, but what it lacked in space, it made up for in range. Having gone on trips in a station wagon that got maybe 11 or 12 MPG many times, the marvel of how long the car went without fillups still remains with me when I think of the benefits of fuel efficiency. If you're getting 50 to 100 miles per gallon, a cross country trip (like one from Houston to DC or Philadelphia) becomes possible with a few full tanks of gas.

A friend of mine who recently bought a home, a guy who I can't accuse of being a raving greenie, nonetheless does his best to make his house efficient. Reason? Even he enjoys a small electric bill. He just recently put window film over an upstairs room in order to get the thermostat to trip less.

But somehow, getting things on a more sustainable footing or being environmentally sound is seen by some on the right as being a wussy or self-righteous thing to do, or that government intervention to bring about more efficiency is seen as the first waves of totalitarian socialism.

Since when, though, have sustainability and efficiency ceased to be capitalist virtues? Investors should prefer the company that manages its finances better, that produces goods and services with less waste and expense. And of course investors would likely be searching for the exit, if confronted with a company whose business model would make it difficult for it to be profitable in the long term.

Why are we waiting to make this transition? Even if cost rise somewhat, the real question is, could we keep things cheap forever, the way we're going? Would we be able to avoid the rise in fuel prices or the consequences of the rise in heat trapped?

Only if Anthropogenic Global Warming was a figment of a dark conspiracy's imagination. Otherwise, the crisis is real, and so are the consequences of the scandalous dishonesty of the politicians pushing the talking points and the pseudoscience.

And this is what Calera did. Brent Constantz, founder of Calera says:

"We are turning CO2 into carbonic acid and then making carbonate. All we need is water and pollution."

We have both. Now we have a new way of making concrete. Instead of polluting concrete we have a green concrete, one that absorbs CO2. Instead of raving against concrete roads, we should convert as many roads as possible to green concrete. Instead of many home-building materials, we should use strong and insulating green concrete.

Calera's process may also be used to modify current production of concrete to reduce CO2 emissions

Green concrete has changed my mind about CO2 storage and sequestration. The recently House-passed climate bill favors it and I think the Senate should support it, as well.

I see a lot of green concrete in our future!

A recent article entitled, Israel Defies Obama Call For A Halt To Settlements, made me jump out of my skin. The title itself drips with the sort of profuse arrogance that has caused legions of people around the world to mistrust America for years. Why is it taken for granted that Israel should defer decisions on matters of state to any American president? Why should they be expected to defer such matters at all? Isn’t it their country? Leaving all the history between our two nations aside—which would read like a trashy romance novel—the simple fact is that America has no right to tell Israel how to run their country, and has even less of a right to get upset when Israel ignores our “demands”. We don’t even treat Puerto Rico this way. It doesn’t even matter what Israel decides; illegal or not, morally reprehensible or not. Israel is not the fifty-first state of the union.

And then in a reader-write-in column of Newsday someone offered some truly fantastic advice. This person said:

“Not to meddle in another country’s affairs under normal circumstances is the right thing to do. However… [blah, blah, blah] …President Barack Obama should appoint a task force to investigate the election.”

Really? First of, logistically speaking, is Iran really going to hand over the necessary information for the US to do an impartial, independent study on the results of their election? I’m thinking no. Second, and again, what right do we have to stick our nose in anyone else’s business? Were the elections of critical importance and interest to the US? Of course, but that still doesn’t give us a right to tell another country what to do. Least of all start an investigation into their elections. What next, we demand a retroactive recount of Hugo Chavez's victory?

This pervading belief throughout American history that we are somehow responsible, if not divinely appointed to direct global affairs is a dangerous belief to perpetuate. Look at the main reasons Al Qaeda stated for the attacks on 9/11. They made it abundantly clear that our interference in the Middle East, specifically our delusion that their oil belongs to us, and that Israel is our pet lapdog, were the leading reasons for the attacks. I’m in no way justifying the atrocities they committed, but nobody can falsify their logic on that premise alone. We have been directly involved in Mid East affairs very nearly since this country’s inception. Perhaps they are tired of our collar around their neck.

And one of the latest acts of buffoonery performed so eloquently by Senator John “itchy trigger finger” McCain was to openly call for the United States to commit an act of war against North Korea. It is hard to say whether or not North Korea will launch a nuclear missile any time soon, but again, we can’t just go around searching other country’s ships at will, especially when our track record for finding WMD’s is as good as the average number of mice who get away with the cheese from the trap. Imagine if this hothead had won the election? He’s a fine man, and a hero for serving his country, but he actually suggested we do something that could in all likelihood provoke a nuclear war!

America is not the World Police despite so many people who wish it to be. Considering all the problems we have domestically, so long as people aren’t attacking our interests directly can’t we just let other countries take care of themselves and focus on our crumbling infrastructure, rancid economy, substandard educational system, and the continued denial of the rights of various groups of citizens? America is hardly in any shape to be telling other countries how to do anything.

The Republicans have been quick to emphasize the shame of the motivating factor in his disappearance: his affair with a South American woman. The public is already accepting of politicians who can't keep it zipped. But they aren't quick to call attention to his disappearance from the State Capitol.

The man is a public servant, elected to his position by people who expected him to carry out his responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to be on call for the constituents who need him, to be reachable, even if he's taking a break. If those powers cannot be exercised by him while he's gone, he needs someone in there who can exercise those powers in his place.

This abandonment of an elected executive post would be unforgiveable regardless of one's party. If this is such a burden for him that he cannot live as he pleases, then he is free to make his leave of absence of these responsiblities permanent.

You have take a particular leap of logic beyond that in order to find fault with that logic. You have to make this pitch. You talk about bipartisanship, as if that is a good in and of itself. You choose words like "government takeover", essentially linking healthcare reform with a public option to unpopular interventions in the banking industry and the car companies. You say you want to reduce costs, do good things. You don't offer any solid plans, you just express positive intentions. The Republicans are good at expressing positive intentions. Their results vary.

And of course, you use music that screams "sad concern" Bring on the pianos, we're saving you from the plight of government bureaucrats taking over!

Well, lets be sure about something: Republicans and Industry lobbyists got their way before. They succeeded in creating a system that leaves almost three quarters of Americans believing they need a government alternative, that government bureaucrats would do a better job of managing the healthcare system than private insurers.

They would have nothing to fear if they had not created a system that benefits themselves, but not the patient, where their profit margins depend on the very situation Americans seem so desperate to escape from.

When an entity feeds on the pains and suffering of a body, we have a name for it: parasite. Generally, medical science treats parasitic creatures as something to be treated and healed from.

Healthcare reform with the public option will give the insurance companies one last chance to prove that they can be better than a government administered program, that they can be something else than a parasite. One way, or another, the private insurers will either prove their superiority, relegating the public option to a minor status in American Healthcare, or they will fall short, demonstrating that for all the boasting and dark warnings, a government run system, with all its flaws, serves the purpose better.

The radical approach here would be to stick with an approach that has been seen not to work: our current system. It's not going to get better. The insurance companies don't want it to get better. Better costs them money.

Curiously enough, the same is true for those reliant on our addiction to fossil fuels. America hit peak oil years ago, and even new discoveries in Alaska would do little but shave a few cent off of the cost of a tank of gas two decades down the line. And that's in the best case scenario. But they'll certainly go out of their way to say that there would be an excessive burden on American business, due to the pollution restrictions of cap and trade.

According to a new study, that's where they would be wrong. The cost would be postage stamps worth a day, and the benefits? Well they don't get into what the benefits would be for not having global warming be such a severe problem, as it would be otherwise. But certainly, if the droughts, storms and ice sheet melting observed so far are any guide, the benefits would be great.

The Republicans and the Fossil Fuel industries treat this as some kind of radical junk science. They sponsor all kinds of contrarian pseudo science in their defense, and respond to charges that their science is mostly fringe by appealing to the notion that their science will be back on top, when the evil conspiracy involving most climate scientists, the media, and possibly the Rosicrucians and Illuminati is cast aside, and the dedicated right thinkers are shown correct in the next paradigm shift.

But the fact remains, most Climate scientists are convinced of the reality of Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming. It's not a radical theory forced upon the scientific community, any more than Einstein's Relativity is. True, some theories do end up retired to greener pastures upon the arrival of a gruff new competitor, but it's not really a scientific way of going about things to insist that your theory, absent all the testing and experimentation, the observation and study, must be correct, and a better established, better confirmed theory is false. The whole point of all that observation and testing and whatnot is to put that theory to the test. If you haven't done that, then in practical terms, you don't even have a theory, you have an unproven hypothesis, which lends you little credibility.

I know pop culture loves to lionize the lone scientist, out to prove the establishment and its theories wrong, but the truth is, this is a bit of a melodramatic construction, largely useful for making Cassandra figures out of eccentric but brilliant, scientist-like characters. It's not hard to tell why the Republicans try to appeal to people with this notion. There's a certain self-made man vibe to it, an appeal to the Renaissance ideal romanticized in American history.

The only problem is, a lot of the easy problems have been solved. There's a reason such people have to brilliant, and they are rare. And these people don't usually stumble into these discoveries without an appropriate background. Even Patent Clerk Albert Einstein, often represented as the patron saint of toiling, loner, scientific geniuses, was avidly aware and well-read of the physics of the day, pursuing his theories with reference to and collaboration with other physicists.

And his theories were a lively and topical part of the scientific melieu of the time, including a landmark theory explaining the photoelectric effect.

He took Max Planck's neat little mathematical workaround for squaring the experimental results of real objects that radiate when heated with the idealized black bodies(non-reflective perfect absorbers of radiation), and used it to give the reason why materials experiencing the photoelectric effect gave off electrons with more intensity not with the increase of a light source's intensity, but its frequency. (the amount of electrons given off still depended on the amount of light. We're talking about how hard they get knocked out, not in what quantity.)

That, in fact, is what won him the Nobel Prize, not Special Relativity, which was an answer to another question: why the motion of the Earth didn't seem to make a difference to the speed of light. He was not the only one to come close to his answer, but he was the only one to realize a crucial fact: that the principle he laid out were all that were needed, that the properties of special relativity were not merely a correction on a theory that would have absolute frames of reference- there were no absolute frames of reference in Einstein's theory, only the invariance of the speed of light in a vacuum, and the uniform, shared laws of physics between any frames of reference.

As counterintuitve as Einstein's work was, it lent itself to being tested. Whether it was the gravitational lensing implied by his General Relativity theory, the explanation of Mercury's strange anomalies in orbit, or time dilation, where objects near the speed of light see time slowed, there was more coming from his theory than mere speculation and philosophy. Proof of his theory showed up in the warping of star backgrounds, the behavior of objects in orbits, and in the slowed decay of muons (electron-like particles) created by cosmic rays high up in Earth's atmosphere.

Romantic visions of science see it in terms of the old natural philosophy, in terms of schools of academic thought which meshed straight into other aspects of philosophy, like morals and ethics, like religion, rather than having a different species of standards, altogether.

Science, by its nature, must be built on testable conclusions. Why testable? Well, it's like Michelangelo carving off all the marble that isn't his statue. It's nice to have your educated guess confirmed, but it's not a complete disaster to have your guess knocked down, because the disparity between guess and result can tell you something both about what you did wrong, and about what may be right. Reality is like a maze, and you're trying to prune away the dead ends to find the real route through to a good explanation.

Some talk about teaching Intelligent Design or Creationism as Science, but the problem there is that a critical element of the scientific method is missing: testability. How do you test for God, or his divine hand, in a way that would allow you to rule it out conclusively? Accepting supernatural explanations as part of a scientific inquiry is like accepting water into a cylinder in an engine. It won't provide fuel for the subsequent burn, an explanation that can be pruned away and left out, if not confirmed by experimental results.

This habit of favoring fringe "discoveries" and "research programs" over mainstream, properly vetted science is just one aspect of a widespread, negative politicization of moderates and moderation, intended to give political cover for those who want to claim themselves the aggrieved victims of politics, instead of the bullheaded contrarians trying to support radical, unsupported positions. They draw equivalences they don't earn, use sensational rhetoric rather than solid facts to support their positions.

They accuse those who simply follow the logical conclusions of accepted and well supported theories of playing the politics, so they can play the politics. They charge others with conspiracy, even as they plan and prop up organizations that they commonly fail to fully disclose the methods, purposes or funding sources for.

They'll offer up nightmare worlds where you can't enjoy a hamburger, or smoke in the privacy of your home, where uncaring bureacrats run a healthcare system where skeletons and rotting corpses sit in the waiting room with you, the cobwebs gathering. They greet the slightest deviation from their laissez faire free market methods, even in the wake of the worse economic collapse in recent history, with scorn and charges of socialism unbounded. Not even emergency spending to save the financial system, to prevent the collapse of a domestic industry is free from their critique. Better to let a major industry, with millions of jobs at stake, collapse in the space of a month or two, rather intervene with government. And of course, the deficits that they said were necessary for the economy just a while ago become a threat to western civilization, and totally the fault of the current president.

It's a radical idea, in their eyes, to give tax cuts to people who need more money, rather than to people who have more than than they need. It's radical, for them, to tax people more who can afford to pay more, and relieve those further down the income brackets for such high taxes. Fairness for them exists only in the equality of tax rate, not in the recognition of the inequality of the effects that increases have on one economic class as opposed to another.

They call it class warfare to point out that rich people can, and perhaps should pay more. They cal it income redistribution, especially when, of all people, the middle class and poor see their taxes cut. Redistribution is not a neutral term for the Republicans and Conservatives, but a red-flag dogwhistle for Communism.

You see how this is working? Take something where the effect is not that radical, where the policy is not that outside the mainstream, and treat it as if it dooms the country to whatever form of dystopia is handy. Never mind how truly outside the pale your own policies are, how far from the mainstream your plainly stated opinions might find themselves. The purpose here is not to be honest with people.

The purpose is to win. To cast such doubt on the other side that you can win merely by the force of your own certainty, regardless of how erroneous that certainty is.

Never mind that the violence is escalating in Iraq, and staying the course isn't doing the job. You can make the people, or at least the legislators fear that there is no other rational option.

Never mind that the failure in New Orleans was inexcusable, you can defame the victims of the disaster who you failed, and explain the failure as being just another symptom of Government's worthlessness.

Never mind that the tax cuts advertised as the means for growing revenue, predictably dropped that revenue, contributing to record deficits. Never mind that the economy continued to decline in real terms, despite the Chinese money paying the rich. This is one theory that cannot be disproved, because it must be the answer. Anything else is just not politically correct, because it leads to growing government and burdensome taxation.

Never mind that letting the financial companies write the rules of how they would be policed ultimately ended in disaster. It's communism to rewrite the laws to protect the public, socialism to yank the bonuses and perks of executives who've gotten into enough trouble to require government help. We can't very well stop rewarding incompetence, now can we?

Just never mind. Nothing can or should be changed, even as everything has fallen down around our ears. The failure of the Republican policies to pass the tests of real world implementation should not trouble you. What should trouble you is that liberalism, or even plain moderation is just plain scary, and you should run as fast as your feet can take you to the far right.

This is what they do to win. They redefine what's radical in a world of free-floating rhetoric, even as their policies strike out further and further from the center, even as they move further and further from compromise.

If you want to ask how bipartisan the Republicans can be, ask the Senator from Pennsylvania what happened to him when he dared cross the aisle to vote for the Stimulus. Ask Rush Limbaugh and those like him what the status is of those who endorsed or voted for President Obama. Ask them just how far you can stray from their platform, their beliefs, before you are cast out, vilified as just another enemy.

Ask yourself, at this moment, why we are still letting the Republicans tell us what is moderate, what is reasonable in our society, after all the unreasonable things they have done, after all the assaults on independent thought and judgment they have undertaken. Why are we still allowing a party that no longer has many moderates define what is moderation for the rest of us?

Sure both instances represent an upwelling of political frustrations but the difference between the two is drastic. In the case of Iran a spontaneous, almost organic reaction spread across the country as it became clear that their voices were to be ignored. With new light being shed over the fraud likely perpetrated in the Iranian elections, there is little doubt that the grassroots outcry from the Iranian people is a necessary, long over due reaction to years of political suppression.

However, the supposed grassroots movement in America, cleverly called “tea parties” by those trying to conjure up images of revolution, is the exact opposite. Leaving aside the involvement of the corporations that funded these little soirées, they are nothing more than the vocalized frustrations of a people who cannot accept the end result of their democracy working with perfect efficiency. The will of the majority prevailed and Barrack Obama won in a landslide victory. Aside from the widespread doubt of America having the intestinal and moral fortitude to elect a black president, there wasn’t much credence to the idea that John McCain and Sarah Palin actually had a chance. Their campaign died a slow, miserable death. It’s understandable that Republicans and their voters would be upset.

But instead of being a platform for political expression the tea parties quickly became the fashionable thing to do for racists, conspiracy theorists, and citizens fed up with the way Republicans left this country after eight years but refused to acknowledge that very fact. They became a sounding board for bigotry, hypocrisy, and paranoia; almost a continuation of the frightening sentiments expressed by some Republican voters waiting on line to cast their votes only a few months earlier. The problem with linking both protests is that one was born out of true patriotism and the other congealed from the tears of a party that had power for so long they couldn't imagine a life without their hands on the reins.

The tea parties were a perfectly legal expression of free speech yet they were nothing more than a temper tantrum by people who were incapable of accepting defeat through the democratic process. Their candidate lost, fare and square. That can hardly be said of the Iranian protesters being slaughtered by their newly re-elected incumbent.

Republicans are scattering like roaches after a nuclear blast, unsure if they can survive despite all the myths to the contrary. Any given day there is a new voice for the party and a new direction being outlined. Some demand a shift further to the right and others want to abandon the social concerns holding their party back from keeping in touch with modern Americans. Within the party small opposition groups are taking sides for what looks like an impending civil war. I guess in that regard frustrated Republicans and the Iranian protesters have something in common.

Currently, in the US, people are either covered by health care insurance or not. According the government statistics (link):

• 61% of Americans have Employer-Sponsored, group health plans.
• 18% of Americans are uninsured.
• 16% of Americans are on Public Health insurance plans like Medicaid.
• 5% of Americans have Non-Group, Private health plans.

In 1984 the combined number of Americans covered through Employer-Sponsored, group and Non-Group health plans (ESGP) was 76.5%. For those not counting; that means the number of people getting health care through their employer has dropped by over 15% in 25 years. (link)

Where did they go?

It appears that the people previously covered by ESGP either went uninsured or went to public health Insurance plans because their respective percentages rose during the same period. The number of uninsured has grown to 18% n 2007 up from 14.5% in 1984.

Why did they leave?

It appears the reason for the drop-off in Employer-sponsor group plans (ESGP) was the large increase in costs associated with such plans. ( Link). Since costs have increased, substantially, for ESGPs over the past 25 years. People have had to make tough decisions about whether to put food on the table or pay for health care for themselves or their family.

People dropped off of ESGP and are either uninsured or covered by a government plan. Is that clear?

Now let’s take a look at those lucky enough to be a part of ESGP.

Republicans have claimed Obama’s Health Care plan will put “Bureaucrats” on the spot for making health care decisions. They’ve been trying to scare Americans into accepting Status Quo for Health Care by claiming that Big Brother will be your Doctor and Americans will lose their freedom of quality health care. The Republicans have presented this myth that ESGP programs are private insurance programs that give the people the freedom of health care.

What a crock.

Employer-sponsor group plans (ESGP) are not private; they are managed. These managed programs provide health care at a cost directly to the consumer either by paycheck deductions or by co-pay or by percentage deductions; or a combination of all three.

ESGP are not private insurace, they are managed by plan administrators and are closely monitored. Most ESGP are broken into three types: HMO, PPO & POS. Managed Healthcare Plans are types of health insurance policies that help employers offer their employees discounted medical insurance services by negotiating reduced charges with hospitals and physicians. But let’s remember something: both POS and HMO require some sort of approval before health care is provided.

Cost-cutting is king for managed health care plans. ESGPs manage to the bottom line, not the quality of health care. How ESGPs save money and cut costs is by transferring the costs more directly to consumer (or employee) by increasing co-pays and paycheck deductions; it’s sort of like a slow-bleed.

But what about that claim that some bureaucrat will be dictating your health care?

For ESGPs, plan administrators routinely administer care from their cubicles and phone lines. Those plan administrators decide which tests are approved and which are denied; they make these decisions every day. What’s the difference between some plan administrator working for ESGP making the decision for approving your treatment and a government bureaucrat?

Since the fear mongers use long wait lines as a tactic, let’s take look at wait times.

According to a recently published USA Today article wait times in the good ole USA, with most of Americans using the ESGPs, has increased and is continuing to increase at alarming rates.(link).

Average appointment wait times in days for five medical specialties

• Boston: 50 days
• Philadelphia: 27 days
• Los Angeles: 24 days
• Houston: 23 days
• D.C.: 23 days
• San Diego: 20 days
• Minneapolis: 20 days
• Dallas: 19 days
• NYC: 19 days
• Denver : 15 days
• Miami: 15 days
• Portland: 14 days
• Seattle: 14 days
• Detroit: 12 days
• Atlanta: 11 days

But what about all the noise about the quality of health care? Will a government supported plan produce quality less than with an ESGP?

If that were true, then with people on Medicaid, the Doctors, Nurses and Hospitals would be different or would produce a level of care lower than those under an ESGP. With Medicaid, the Doctors, Nurses and Hospitals are all the same. So how can anyone, in their right mind, claim that health care quality would suffer?

For anyone familiar with ESGPs, everyone knows that you’re at the will of the negotiated plan. The employers negotiate based on getting the best possible coverage for the lowest possible cost. These characteristics are competing not complimentary. The notion of freedom under ESGP is laughable.

It’s time that America has a health care plan for everyone. That produces quality health care to benefit its citizens, not the profits of health care providers.

It’s time that America gets the health care it deserves.

And now they have prevented more up and down votes than any senate minority in history. The Democrats would be well within their rights to destroy the filibuster option at this point.

The article linked concerning the house details the consequences of the Democrats balking at the prospect of the Republicans adding over a hundred Amendments for consideration on each spending bills. They limited the number of Amendments, and the time spent on debating. The Republicans responded by prompting, through parliamentary methods, over fifty two votes on a single bill, roll call votes on even measures known to be unanimously accepted.

The argument could be made that the Republicans are well within their rights. Maybe. But are they doing themselves, the body in question, or the American people much good with their ceaseless, reckless use of parliamentary methods to stop the Democrats?

Or are they providing more ammunition to campaign workers to describe just how much of a Roadblock Republicans made of a process where the majority of Americans wanted change? Despite their efforts to come out like heroes of political resistance, the reputation of the Republican party has suffered, and they remain supported with any strength by their political base.

The Republicans wonder why they always get cast as the bad guys in movies. Perhaps its because they make it so easy. Charleton Heston picks the occasion of the Columbine Shootings to come out, shake a gun over his head, and scream "You can have my gun when you take it from my cold dead hands!". This, he does, the guns not long out of the cold, dead hands of a pair of teenagers who just butchered classmates and teachers. Charming.

Maybe its what they felt was necessary to lend solidity back to a pro-gun movement rocked back on its heels by public outrage. In that sense, it makes sense. But did that episode make it easier for people to accept a lack of Gun Control or harder? What happens the next time some loophole lets firearms become the center of another appalling tragedy?

Republicans successfully defeated Universal Healthcare the last time, but after a decade and a half during which private healthcare managed to fulfill every threatened outcome of Government run healthcare, did Republicans really defeat government healthcare, or did they just make it inevitable in the long run as the crisis built from the unanswered need?

Republicans successfully shut the government down. Did that charm people? Quite the opposite. For many it was a signal that the Republicans were out of control, and Clinton sailed to easy re-election, with Newt Gingrich rendered a cartoon figure of political immaturity.

In the Aftermath of Katrina, Republicans suggested that government's inherent faultiness was responsible for the trouble with the response. Americans made a different judgment, more specific. One could say that the response to Katrina was one of the straw meets camel's broken back moments for the Americans concerning the Republicans.

And Iraq? Is it coincidence that the surge started right after Republicans lost the election? That they rolled out the same rhetoric about quitting and everything?

The Republicans in Washington, the leaders of the party have shown greate diligence when it comes to getting their way, and little patience with being told no. And now, deprived of their prominence by the voters, they're turning around and telling the majority of Americans no, gumming up the works, making sure that the government they want to work for them doesn't, that the measures with majority support, even in the legislature, either never come up for a vote, or come up through as much difficulty as possible. Even now, to maintain their hold, they are stymying the seating of Minnesota's second Senator, though every method to count the vote and recount it has come to one, unchanging conclusion: a Democrat, Al Franken, will be seated.

Let me make a shocking admission here: I wish the Democrats had operated with one half the spine the Republicans have shown so far. At the very least, the Republicans are showing their ability to unite for a purpose, something I wish my party would do more often, especially when faced with the Republican's obstruction.

But I also wish the Republicans had one half the brains, collectively speaking, that the Democrats showed in the past two elections. The Democrats learned to not only choose their battles, accepting members whose politics were not entirely aligned with the party platform, but they also chose to side with Americans on the issues that mattered to them. Rather than try and tell the majority they were wrong, rather than put the American people through a traumatic ordeal, trying to force their views on everybody, force their policies down everybody's throats, the Democrats appealed to people, appealed to what they wanted.

The Republicans have decided to pretend like it's still 1994, or 1981. They've decided to do everything in their power to force down the opposition's poll numbers, to tear apart their agenda and stifle the emergence of a more liberal order in America, to replace the conservative that people had rejected in two straight elections.

The Republicans should take note: they did not just lose by a couple seats, they lost dozens in Congress, and were almost completely neutered in the Senate, where once they broke almost even. They could gain something in 2010, but would the gains have any staying power? Would it change the balance of power, or only give the Republicans more to lose?

How will this strategy work, where all the others have failed? The Republicans have succeeded in convincing Americans that their behavior is dangerous to their interests. Under Bush, the country just seems to have fallen apart on every front. We saw bridges collapse, our country suffer strategic defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, our nation's reputation dragged through Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay's mud, the economy cratered, jobs lost and destroyed, and our nation's debt catastrophically increased, all for a tax cut few Americans saw the bulk of in their own pockets. People saw businesses merged with pledged reductions in costs that turned out to be mirror images of the costs that increased. And of course the second wave of big, inefficient vehicle manufacturing ended much like the previous wave ended: with the car companies in crap shape and foreign competitors taking the initiative.

People were asking "How much more Republican leadership can this country stand?", owing to all that happened. Now, I think, they are bound to ask "How much more Republican obstruction can we endure?"

The Republicans are underestimating the seriousness with which people are treating the sins of the past few years, just how easy it will be to remind voters whose to blame for their current lot in life. The Republicans are demonstrating their splendid party discipline in the suicidal effort to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. I can get the pride and the stubborn unwillingness to lose that fuels this, but I don't get the failure to recognize that their contrarianism is rubbing most Americans the wrong way. Winning one or two policy arguments, a handful of seats back is no substitute for the long term health of a party that many are beginning to see as dangerous in its esoteric brand of partisanship.

But that is beside the point. With President Obama now opening up federal benefit packages to include same-sex partners his hypocrisy on the subject grows even more apparent. He has already wavered on his promise to abolish Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the military despite the highest support ever among American’s in favor of repealing the practice. Is he now just trying to appease the same-sex community by throwing them a bone?

Surely this is an unprecedented step forward for same-sex couples, but for someone who ran on a platform of change this change leaves a funny taste on the palate. It is not enough to simply appease the same-sex community and those who support it. If Obama truly desires change then he cannot be afraid to pull the trigger. Whether his own religious beliefs are holding him back, or he fears damaging his political “in-the-center-ness”, it would make a tremendous impression for him to go all the way rather than compromise to hedge his bets.

As it stands now the state and federal governments perpetuate the discrimination of an individual’s right to love. At least some states have managed to pluck their heads from the moist darkness and embrace reality. But let’s face it folks, the people who claim marriage is only about procreation conspicuously left love out of the equation. They can never even mention love in their defense of so called traditional marriage because it would further expose them as fools. I’m sure there are plenty of loving married couples who cannot reproduce, or relish the thought, choose not to. Are their marriages any less real?

And as Obama is trying to appease both sides of the debate without stepping on any toes good military personnel are being shoved out the back door due to their genetic propensity to love someone of their own sex. Meanwhile, openly proud white supremacists are being herded in through the front with open arms.

I guess some change is good enough so long as it doesn’t offend anyone too much.

What we are seeing in Iran is a massive upwelling of democratic—western, if you must think of it in those terms—ideals. The Iranian people are irate about what they perceive to be a stripping of their right to vote. The most fundamental right in any democracy. If that is not an expression of common ground between Iranians and Americans I’m not sure what is. While many protests have turned violent it is becoming evident that this violence is at the hands of the state more often than at the hands of the protesters. There have been peaceful, mile-long marches, as well as university sit-ins, and a nearly unprecedented use of the internet to report on what is going on. Pictures from Iran look remarkably similar to images of America in the 1960’s. Students, adults, men, and women are all standing together so that their individual voices might be heard as one. Again, if that is not an American ideal nothing is.

President Obama must support the continued peaceful protests of the Iranian people and show America that we are not so different after all. If so much of the Iranian population believes their election was a sham then it is up to them to do something about it. But Obama can support this grass roots support for Iranian democracy. And while correlation is not the same as causation it is a peculiar coincidence that this rise in democratic support within the Middle East happened after Obama’s trip to the region. Several countries in the Middle East have shown their propensity for exercising democratic freedom, and many people in the area are vocally supporting the west, or at least democracy. President Obama should ride this wave as far as it will take him and perhaps at some point it will be impossible for the enemies of diplomacy here in America to ignore the progress he is making, and will continue to make in the Middle East.

These naysayers are the same people that constantly broadcast the virtues of capitalism, free markets and competition. And here is an example where President Obama wants to introduce competition and they are screaming their objections.

Ezra Klein makes the argument clear:

....... If the public plan works, then private insurance will work better as well. In this telling, the simple existence of the public plan forces a more honest insurance market: Private insurers need to offer premiums closer to their marginal cost, and they have to cut administrative costs, and they have to work on their reputation for cruelty and capriciousness. The existence of another option changes the market. Individuals will have access to private insurers, but they'll no longer be stuck with them.

What's wrong with that? Competition from the public option will improve the whole system and bring costs down. Terrific boost to capitalism!

Without the public option, there will be no true competition. The huge insurance companies will be in control. The cost of healthcare will zoom. More people will go bankrupt from excessive healthcare expenses.

There can be no true reform without a public option. If the public option can't be achieved without the complaining senators, let's get it done with a simple majority.

These are the fruits of years of both parties helping GM to defy the needs of Americans in the marketplace The problem of coddling the automakers is neither conservative nor liberal, but one whose difficulty is founded on the notion that helping the economy means doing what benefits a bottom line in the short term.

So what did we do for Business's sake? We loosened laws that protected consumers and debtors. We loosened regulations that prevented predatory lending and credit offers. We wrote regulations that allowed people to trade derivatives without being required to count the costs or the risks. We re-wrote accounting regulations to allow more elaborate, less candid financial portraits of companies to be painted, making it easier to hide the truth from the market.

And we let companies procrastinate and outright escape from environmental and energy policy constraints.

So what happens? Does the market reward this freedom? No. Anybody could have seen it coming, but it wasn't in anybody's immediate interest to do something about it. Then gas prices and an economic meltdown combined to turn the automaker's finances into a train wreck.

The Republican propaganda essentially says this: Democrats want to hurt business. Results have turned that formulation around on itself: As much as Republicans wanted to help business, their policies helped create the unnatural economic collapse we are in right now.

We have to distinguish between profitable behavior and productive, the status quo, and what can be sustained. The differences can be considerable.

The problem isn't necessary that folks are incapable of behaving rationally. Rather, people never operate completely rationally, and rationality itself doesn't always lead to moral or beneficial outcomes. The world is complex, and so are people, so when folks actually behave rationally, they may simply be behaving rationally, accounting for the environment around them and the system they have to deal with in their daily lives.

Some folks assume that the market rewards good behavior and punishes bad, and that if you just left things to themselves, the major dilemmas and problems would resolve themselves of their own accord, as people made choices and learned from what other people did. Trouble is this doesn't take account of the fact that some behavior, while locally rational, are globally irrational. There's even a term that relates to this reality: the Tragedy of the Commons. But that's only one part of things. People can get greedy about owning one small part of something, like patent trolls who snap up their intellectual property in hopes of suing somebody to get money for work they themselves never did. One can call this the tragedy of the anti-commons.

We don't need the government involved in the economy because we're too stupid to run it right and we need the supergenius Feds to avoid mistakes. We need government because rationality and intelligence on the part of the average citizen does not guarantee the prevention of absurd, immoral, or dangerous outcomes in the real world.

Too many modern economic thinkers do not anticipate the effects of individual free will and locallized self interest as much as they would like to think they do, and thus do not let themselves admit the truth: that sometimes self-interest needs law to blunt it or turn it aside, that while people may be smart enough to see to their own interests, not all ways in which people would see to their own interests, especially as an overall population, would come to good ends.

We have to think on more than one level as to what the good of the country and the good of the economy is, not simply assume that higher profits mean healthier economies. It matters what you're profiting for. Some rational actors in the economy saw the opportunities in creating a system where people's debts were sold off for the profit of the companies providing them credit. This was perfectly rational as long as people were willing to buy that debt, and as long as you weren't the people being permanently indebted to feed this. But then desperation has a rationality all its own.

People are adaptable, and clever, and that is not always a good thing. The market encourages whatever gains people the most, and nowadays, many people only address the long term when disaster hits. And then people forget all over again. There's always risk in an economy, but there are some risks one doesn't have to learn are bad again and again. Unfortunately, there are many risks that get taken all over again when the pressure is off.

We have to define what kind of rational responses are acceptable, and watch against the repeated rise of irrational impulse's ugly head. Sometimes, people just can't help themselves.

Socialism has some overall problems. Nobody knows enough overall to be able to tell people how to run an economy. It's such a multi-dimensional system, that it really doesn't work all that well to try and micromanage it.

But there are times when a government must intervene, to cut off natural and unnatural economic disasters at the pass. The alternative, however satisfactory to those who insist all lessons of the market must be taught assiduously, leaves us open to devastating secondary consequences, consequences that aren't so much lessons as undeserving disasters inflicted on the American economy.

I've personally lived through several of these craterings, and it doesn't seem to me that folks on Wall Street, or in Corporate America are learning their lessons in enough numbers that we don't see these massive collapses. That is not to say that most corporate folks are greedy psychopaths. Most aren't. They probably aren't all angels, and shouldn't have to be, but then, our laws require people to make money for the corporations they run, and it gets very difficult to tell these people that they can't go out there and do what others do to make a profit.

Fact of the matter is, we all end up learning a certain degree of gray-area behavior, stuff that is not necessarily admirable, but seemingly necessary to take care of our interests. Or we accept sacrifices of economic stability to do what it takes to make ends meet, or to help those we love. Medical costs, for oneself and one's family, are responsible for many, if not most bankruptcies in this country. People snidely talk about the excesses of society in terms of credit and debt, acting like it's all just people going on spending sprees and greedily grabbing for things they shouldn't have. Though some of that doesn't happen, There's a lot more moral complexity and rational thinking going on than the critics are really taking into account.

A lot of it, unfortunately, the product of the other policies that the moral guardians of the economy pushed. Credit wouldn't be extended and overcharging on different items wouldn't be done if it weren't for policies that let too much easy credit flow, the market's sensitivity dulled by the dishonestly run market for debt.

Oh, it's a clever scheme, and a lot of money was made with it. While we talk about GM, we should recall that the car company, amazingly enough, wasn't the profitable branch. It was the bank that financed the road-faring cargo vessels we call SUVs, that enabled the average person to afford such behemoths. It worked, as long as there was demand for the big, expensive vehicles, whose debts could then be sold off on the market, like all the others.

Unfortunately, somebody screwed up, pushed things too hard in one particular industry, and caused a financial chain reaction that hit strong businesses and weak businesses alike.

Up until that point, though, it was perfectly rational, what the market wanted. Only after the market imploded was it discovered that this was a lousy way to do business. There was a mutual dependence at work, throughout our economy, that gradually grew one sided in who it benefited.

And now that system is broken. Rush not only says "let the peaces fall", but has indeed set out to attack somebody willing to do what Rush and his favorites in the political world were unwilling to do, out of political predisposition. We ran things much like he wanted for so long. He got the opportunity with Bush to get people in charge who agreed with him unreservedly, and he returned the favor.

And they screwed up. And now, irrespective of the anger and impatience that the average American feels against the Republicans, Rush wants to torpedo efforts to save the economy, because he considers them politically incorrect.

Or maybe something else is at work: maybe he's afraid that if things go as plan even on a temporary basis, the public will have little use for his party.

Could be both. But the trick is, he's not waiting for Obama's methods to collapse under the weight of their error. In fact, he's sort of conceding that they could work. But after having pushed Bush policies for years that simply failed to work, his concern is not doing what it takes to help the economy recover. His aim, instead, is to help the party recover that got us into this mess, the clean up of that mess be damned.

For all their resistance across the board, the Republicans have not led through the offer of palatable alternatives, nor have they been willing to follow the Democrats they bashed for so long as they dreamed of permanent majority. As for getting out of the way? No. They haven't seen fit to do that. Obstruction is the name of the game. It used to be the conventional wisdom that most votes in the Senate were decided by the majority. Now, because of the near constant filibuster threats, it takes sixty votes. Though Democrats are about to get the final votes to make this happen, the question ought to be asked: Has it occured to the Republicans that there's a reason why the stalemate that formerly existed has evolved into a sixty seat majority? The Republicans literally have broken records in the course of their obstruction, not merely filibustering a few bills and appointees, but nearly every bit of major legislation that the Democrats have put forward. Where once they threatened the Nuclear option in revoking the privilege of filibustering, they now practice the scorched earth option in opposing Democratic Party Legislation.

The question of whether or not they feel this is justified, rational is irrelevant. Most people think that as they do all the different kinds of things they do.

The question that you the voters, you the Democrats, you the independents, and yes, you the Republicans out there must consider is how much longer we can tolerate this kind of destructive indulgence of over-narrow self interest. When do we start taking care of problems, instead of adding to them?

Rush Limbaugh is willing to make the situation with GM worse just to put off that day when a Liberal government, running things the way it does, nonetheless succeeds. If he weren't worried about this, all he'd need to do is play the doomsayer, right or wrong, and wait us out. But he's confident that it just might work, so sabotage is his intent.

Meanwhile, folks like Obama are doing their level best to make sure that GM doesn't become a perpetual subsidiary of the US government, accepting one bailout after another. That, or it collapsing and taking a Domestic industry with it. The truth of the matter is, the government allowed the Car Companies to get too big in the first place, resulting in a situation where the big three were "too big to fail", where they could be assured of massive market share on company size alone. But as tough economic times hit, and their money supply runs low, they indeed become able to fail, and take a good size chunk of the economy with them.

The Republicans, whatever their colleagues in the Democrat Party did, most decidedly, visibly, advocated for what they call the free market. I don't make that qualification lightly- I think conservatives misunderstand the term nowadays, having only heard it from politicians who weren't upholding a new deal economy against a Soviet Regime for the better part of several decades.

My sense has been that it is the failure of the markets that gives greatest life to socialism and communism, greatest warmth to their promises of a successful fight of the disadvantaged against the rich. The irony is, in their zeal to crackdown on what they see as Class Warfare, they build iniquity into the system that's bound to convince people that class warfare is exactly what's going on, and that if they don't take greater control of the economy, they'll be the losers in the fight.

FDR's new deal helped head this off at the pass, helped take the wind out of the socialists' and communists' sails. When the interests of the few can coexist with those of the many, people don't question those who gather their treasure and their rosebuds while they may.

But that's changed. The Republicans succeeded in exposing people to more of the risk, more of the costs, more of the externalities. They may argue that this is just good for them, but this is people's lives, and most don't take a philosophical long view about ot it that justifies it as being what they deserve or what they need to be truly strong.

The message Republicans are trying to send, it seems, is not only have they not learned their lesson, they don't even want to learn their lesson. They want to continue to force their beliefs on the rest of America, even after America has strongly rejected them, strongly rejected those who bear witness to them. They have lost ground in virtually every group that is rising in prominence in America, yet have taken this as a cue to double down on failed policy directions, and stifle the very agenda that was so overwhelmingly mandated by the election.

Rush Limbaugh is leading his party to become the exact thing they've been accusing the Democrats of being for so long: a politically radical group willing to undermine the strength of the economy to satisfy ideological dogmas. Only, they will not see this themselves. They will see themselves as the saviors of America's prosperity. But like with so many things in the past decade and before, they will allow themselves to make things worse for America because they reason that what they are doing, though harmful now, will yield dividends later.

Both parties have had the chance to push policies that had risks for economic growth attached. Only difference is, where the Democrat's experiments with the economy yielded success under their long tenure, the Republican's experiment over the last thirty years has been a disaster for most Americans.

It's understandable that the Republicans, after being in charge for so long, will not take their sidelining so lightly. But their actions, if we did not make the obvious assumption that the party has its own best interests at heart, wouild seem to indicate that they wanted to be more forcefully ejected from the political mainstream, to drain even more patience from the average American, and lead Americans to to remove even more of their folks from office in their anger.

If winning was everything, I would cheer this development on, but I fear that the result of the Republican's imposed paralysis and economic gridlock will make a hollow triumph of any such victory.

My question, to anyone who opposes basic human rights for gay people, is therefore: why?

Just for a moment stop to imagine that. The love of your life has to live thousands of miles away because your government tells you that your relationship is invalid and illegal.

I appreciate that there are certain obstacles - perhaps the couple want to live in a state that does not permit gay marriage, and since the law dictates that only spouses can sponsor their partners, the framework of the law makes it impossible to allow these partners to enter the country.

I expect to see this argument trotted out in the comments, which is why I pre-empt it here. The law says something. The law is wrong. Change the law. It happens every day. My fiancee changed Colorado law yesterday.

What I don't accept is that this is an institutionalized discrimination, the like of which we have freed ourselves from over the last fifty years - so that from being amazed at a Catholic President, we have managed to fill the Supreme Court with Catholics, and so that from being incredulous at a black baseball player, we have become the United Nations of Baseball.

Why would we do this to our citizens? Why would we deny them the right to live in peace (and often, in faith) with their partners? Why, in 2009, are we still tolerating this intolerance?

Is it fear of a vengeful Old Testament God? Is it terror that living amongst homosexuals will tarnish our children and - heaven forbid! - turn them gay? Is it that we just plain 'ole hate queers?

I want to know. I want to know WHY we care who someone else loves. Why is it ok to discriminate, legally and personally, against this small minority of people who just want to enjoy the basic human rights that the rest of us enjoy?

Please, enlighten me.

P.S. - I am trying not to turn this post into a debate on gay marriage - I'll do that some other time. I would like comments to address the premise that gay people are forced to live in separate countries due to our laws, and to answer why (or why not) this is acceptable in a decent society.

This seems to be the philosophy of many religious-right people. Some are so self-righteous they go out and do the killing. Their less self-righteous leaders egg them on by spewing venom, hatred and curses.

Of course, Roeder thinks he did the right thing. Every tyrant thinks he is right. Hitler thought he was right. Stalin thought he was doing the right thing. Osama bin Laden thought he performed honorably when he killed 3,000 of our countrymen on 9/11. He and his acolytes believed they will be surrounded with beautiful maidens in Paradise because they killed infidel Americans.

Like these tyrants, Roeder is a terrorist. He believes that anyone who disagrees with him disagrees with God and should be destroyed. His God is not Allah, but what difference does it make? He is an American terrorist.

And who is training these American terrorists? Hate-spewing radical-right leaders, pundits and commentators. A gruesome example of a commentator that for years has called Tiller a "baby killer,' is Bill O'reilly:

Tiller, O’Reilly likes to say, “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000.” He’s guilty of “Nazi stuff,” said O’Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. “This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union,” said O’Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.

Here is but a few samples of how righteous-right followers of O'Reilly and other hate-mongers reacted on Twitter to the killing:

I'm happy Tiller's dead.
Doctor George Tiller was aborted today in his 204th trimester - aren't paybacks a bitch
God bless the gunmen who hopefully won't be caught.

You can find a lot more of this hateful stuff on the Internet. Disgusting! And they spout this stuff in the name of God!

There are many on both sides of the abortion issue that feel strongly about their position. But to kill for it? Why can't we argue the merits of our cases in a respectful way? Why can't we seek common ground and work to reduce the number of abortions, as President Barack Obama exhorts us to do:

So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term.

Instead of killing those who disagree with us, let's work together for the enhancement of ALL life.