Cyniscism on Climate and what about DADT?

There are days like today when I wake up and see that its been snowing throughout the night (or at least the early morning). I see the white city landscape and after I´ve had a breakfast of fresh baked German bread I sit down and turn on the computer and read that the belief that Climate Change is taking place is shrinking in two different polls.

What is the reason? Some are suggesting its the "evidence" in the East Anglia emails scandal (to which many have posed the question: what evidence to deaf ears). Or perhaps its the snow outside my door and outside many doors in the world this winter season? To be honest climate change is not my area of expertise, but I wonder if it really was the case that the whole thing was such a hoax, that some solid evidence for it couldn´t be uncovered. If George Bush and the neo-con boys couldn´t expose it (and imagine the things it would have done for the party had they uncovered that leftist plot{please note irony here}) then I am wondering if there might not be something really going on. I love to hear non-scientists yell themselves blue in the face about the issue, love to hear them talk about the controversy as they call it, I love it so much I have a new idea for how to deal with climate change and its associated ills: lets just ignore it.

Why? Because obviously there isn't enough political will to change things anyhow. Business as usual prevails in the world we live in, so lets just let this one go. To be honest it won't be our problem anyway. Someone else will have to deal with it. Thats the nice thing about pollution: if I can't see the landfill, it isn't there. If my shit is washed down the toilet, it ceases to exist. The trash truck that empties the garbage twice a week is magic and everything inside it just vanishes. If we ignore Climate Change I am sure it will just fix itself.

I was shocked(no I have become unshockable in my cyniscism) to discover this morning that two generals had spoken out against the potential repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT). These two homophobes have this idea that its going to disturb the armed forces somehow. Are they assuming that there are no gays there and suddenly they will be forced to accept all these gay recruits? No other "western" country has a law as stupid as DADT and they are all doing fine. If they are concerned that a significant portion of the military is homophobic and will drop out because they have to serve with homosexuals, then wouldn't it be a welcome change to get rid of the bigots in uniform. Can we start with these two generals? The military would be better off immediately.


Lets end this on a happier, more interesting note on culture and art: In Berlin.

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Is it possible something might actually happen?

Health Care Reform: it was alive, it was happening, it was dead, it was a failure with a capital F, rumors, rumors, its alive, its back, its possible? Krugman certainly thinks so and he explains very simply that its theoretically only a few steps away from being reality. This is of course the situation that we are in: Brown being voted in was certainly a hick-up for the whole thing, but it doesn´t hide the fact that both the house and the senate have already passed bills for health care reform. All that has to happen is the House passes the Senate bill and Obama signs it into law. Of course there is still to be some going ons before, but that is how government works.

What happens if this scenario goes down? The conservatives will freak out. By the way that last link is to The New Republic which I just discovered is a great source of in-depth analysis on current events in the US (from a left viewpoint). There was an article on the website with some remarkable insights into the tea party´s approach to things at the moment as well as Palin´s notion of the real Americans. I give two of the quotes below here:

"Populism that bases its criticisms on a preference for one segment of the populace is merely another special interest."

"The wisdom of a policy is not determined by its social origin."

Both of those quotes are by Leon Wieseltier.

The Tea Party´s approach (and Sarah Palin´s) that they somehow represent the real Americans is false for so many obvious reasons. I, and many others like me are also real Americans, and I want nothing to do with those embarassing demonstraters. Here is a great take on the whole movement by Mark Halperin at Time Magazine.

Now to important matters. Team Sweden have made it to the Quarterfinals where they will without a doubt be facing Slovakia. If we win, and I think its possible, we play either Russia or Canada. I think it ends in the Semi-finals. I would love another gold, but we´ll have to wait a bit for that. Good luck Tre Kronor, you´re gonna need it.

Back in Germany and been thinking...

I made a mistake in Hawaii. I was sitting in the car and driving around Maui and I thought that maybe it would be interesting to listen to all this famous right wing radio hosts. So I did and on the first one I was greeted with trumpets and an announcement that the host was involved in taking back America from socialism and from there it just went down into the mud never to recover. I noticed myself gripping the steering wheel tighter as they talked about how bad everything was, how the country was disappearing, and so on. Then I remembered something: isn´t a lot of this just the same rhetoric that was present with Clinton. The kind of rhetoric we forget about because it never got beyond rhetoric, it never reached any kind of substance.

That brings me to the Tea Party. I just finished reading this article in the New York Times. I also watched some of the highlights from the convention they had. Its a conspiracy theorists playground. All the aluminum foil hat kids are there. They keep talking about the government being unconstitutional, about it taking away their liberties, etc. I didn´t see any of that in the US. Don´t get me wrong. There are plenty of things the government does that I don´t agree with. That is why I vote. I also think highly of these people for caring. I only wish they were informed. I wish they knew what they were talking about. I wish they had facts. I wish they weren´t just all white (I am sure there are minorities there as well but that is not the face I am seeing, or the one they are presenting). I wish they could present some kind of interesting arguments for the things they stand for. They don´t. They are about fear and anger; fear of their own fantasies and anger about things they chose not to understand.

When the Tea Party has something of substance to say it will be interesting to hear it. Until then they are just another right wing movement that honestly won´t be anything different than the republican party we have now. Congrats on renaming yourselves.

Joe Klein making an incredible point about the Queen of the movement.

To quote someone I much respect about her: "She´s just an embarrassment."

Sweden took their first Gold in Vancouver. Congrats to Charlotte Kalla and she deserved it.

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