A Blue Eyed Buddhist

I wonder how many of my fellow federal employees remember this little phrase…

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States…

Why do I mention this? Because there’s a bunch of bigots out there who have forgotten this part of their oath as a federal employee or as holders of political offices.

The Constitution of the United States is very clear. People have the right to practice whatever religion they damn well please. Part of that right is to have houses of worship.

So why on earth is the proposal, by a religious group, to build a community center which will include an area used for worship in dispute at all?

If it meets the local building and land-use codes, it not only should be allowed, but it MUST be allowed.

If you believe in religious freedom; if you want to have the right to choose your own religion; if you want to be able to gather with others and worship or pray together; and if you take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, then you should not be fighting any such proposal.

In fact, you should be supporting it against anyone who is trying to stop it. You should be saying “look, it’s their right, and more importantly it’s what separates us from oppressive governments like those in Saudi Arabia or Iran.”

I’m discussing this, of course, because of the hubbub around the proposal by a Muslim group to build a community center- which will include a mosque- a few blocks away from Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center towers used to stand, in lower Manhattan.

Whether you like Muslims (or Islam as a religion) or not should not be at issue here.

Whether you blame all Muslims for 9/11 or not (though if you do, you’re a idiot) shouldn’t matter.

What matters is that they have a right, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, to build that community center.

Every American who believes in our Constitution should be defending this proposal.

And people who aren’t defending it are, put simply, un-American. Newt Gingrich, claiming that we should stop it from being built? Un-American. Republicans running for Congress, bitching about it? Un-America.

It is NOT an American habit to suppress religions. It goes against our very nature. Yes, we might feel discomfort with Muslims being near the WTC site, but we must fight that discomfort and stand up for the rights of everyone in America to worship as they see fit.

And that includes Muslims. Like it or not.

Uno aprende a amar, no cuando encuentre a la persona perfecta, sino cuando aprenda a creer en la perfección de una persona imperfecta.

(Alonso posted this to his Facebook page today. I thought it was particularly good. So often, we want a perfect “other” to come and fix us, to make us happy… and that never works, because nobody is perfect.)

I don’t know how into detail people are following the oil spill and all of the accusations and recriminations about it, but it’s been interesting watching the Republicans try and find things to complain about on behalf of Big Oil and those massive campaign contributions.

One of the things that the Republicans have bitched about lately is the moratorium on deepwater drilling that the Obama Administration has implemented (a bit too late for thousands of birds, sea turtles, and countless numbers of other creatures in the Gulf). They claim this drilling ban (even if temporary) is horrible for the economy of the Gulf Coast.

You know what’s horrible for the economy of the Gulf Coast? A oil well spewing a bajillion gallons of crude oil into the ocean. (It would appear that the Gulf Coast is, therefore, screwed either way.)

But put that aside. Even if the government opens up deepwater drilling again, it’s highly likely that… it won’t happen. Know why?

Well, the answer is in this article.

Insurance costs for deepwater drilling are poised to rise by as much as 50 percent after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the increases are sharp enough that it could make some exploration and production projects too expensive no matter what happens with new regulations in Washington.

. . .

The impact is particularly potent in deepwater, meaning depths of greater than 1,000 feet, the areas of the Gulf of Mexico that hold the most remaining oil reserves.

Drilling in deepwater is more price-sensitive than other types of oil exploration, because it requires expensive state-of-the-art equipment, detailed analysis of hard-to-reach geology and long planning horizons for projects. Many deepwater exploration and production projects are viable only when oil prices are expected to remain high, so increases in the costs of drilling could render some projects unfeasible.

In other words, all this whining about how the Big Bad Evil Government is unConstitutionally intruding on the poor little oil companies’ ability to provide jobs and money to the common people doesn’t matter.

(And of course anyone who believe that the oil companies are in it for the People is an idiot; the oil companies don’t give a shit about people, turtles, fish, the environment, or anything but making as much money as possible at every moment.)

The reality is this: If you make the companies pay the true price of their drilling, which includes the costs associated with the inevitable accidents (and yeah, accidents do happen, even if they are the result of negligence or even outright recklessness of the drilling companies) then those companies might decide that they can’t afford to do it.

So don’t believe, not for a minute, the crocodile tears of the Republicans. They aren’t bitching because they are concerned about the little guy. They’re bitching because they want their corporate overlords to have the freedom to drill or not, but even knowing that deepwater drilling is likely to be pulled way back or even stopped, they’ll still pretend that it’s President Obama who’s responsible for bad news.

This is just another example of how dishonest politics has become, led primarily by the right wing noise machine of entities like Fox News and right wing talk radio.

If you want to honestly talk about deepwater drilling, then do so. If you want to point out that hey, the reality is that we love our big-ass cars and we, jointly, are responsible for drilling all these wells because we can’t give up our SUVs and so forth, then do so.

But spare us the bullshit about how Obama is to blame for drilling slowing down. The market is speaking, and when insurance costs for oil companies skyrockets companies are going to be less likely to drill.

Oh, and you know what will happen then? The odds are the government is going to put on new regulations, requiring more safety equipment and better blowout valves and so forth, and you can bet that the Republicans will blame THAT for the oil companies deciding to not drill as much. But it’ll really be as much because of the market, and the higher insurance costs, as anything else.

Man, that old saying is awfully true. Came home tonight and flipped on the faucet to cook some rice and…. nothing.

The water main for my neighborhood broke today- in fact it’s right out in front of my building. The main through here is fairly old- up to 100 years old, in fact- and it just finally gave way.

There’s a big hole opened up in the street and of course we’ve got nothing in the building.

It’s not a huge deal- they’re out there working on it even at midnight, so it’ll probably be fixed relatively soon- but it’s inconvenient and fairly a hassle when you want to have a shower, or flush your toilet, or whatever. You don’t really think about it until it’s not working.