United Divided states of America

Why is this extremely divided country called the UNITED States of America. Would DIVIDED States of America not be more appropriate?

Social Security, American Style

In the US, when you get unemployed, are sick, or whatever, only limited help can be expected from the federal government. Capitalism rules, and if you cannot help yourself, you are crewed. Really, well, it is more nuanced.

Take the current crises in the financial markets. They are big enough to bring the US economy on its knees, and most of it is caused by the idea that you should lend for everything, even when yo do not have the means to pay those bills..... And so it began. bad credit, here is a loan anyway. A mortgage for the house? Sub-prime, no problem, here it is...... And then the economy did not exactly do what the Bush administration wanted, so you give everybody a stimulation package (Thanks Uncle Sam), but did it solve the issues. No, it just made the deficit sky rocket, but heck, most of the people making those decisions will be embalmed and put in their grave fault before those worries will hit our children and grandchildren. Who cares, we can at least live rich and destroy our earth....

But lets stop that rant there. I wanted to address another aspect of this insane system. First the government encouraged sub-prime loans because that was good for the economy. But the economy did not do what they wanted, so they nationalized two semi-private corporation, Fanny mae and that other one when they came in trouble. (O yes, they tried a few things in between, but that did evidently not help a bit either. Anyway, so what to do next? Well, uncle sam is going to be a mortgage broker, and is going to buy mortgages. Congratulations.

So, who is going to pay all this? We, the tax payers (remind me, no taxation without representation, but I as a foreigner am not allowed to vote, but I do have to pay taxes!)! So, instead of directly developing some system that will help those in need, the US does it inderect by first pushing those people into debts to deal with the life-emergencies, after which they will hekp them anyways, and along the road, leave a lot of money with finacial instititions that could have been left out of the equation if a more sensible social security system would have been in place.

Benediction of a new Biology Building

Last Friday, they dedicated the new Life Science Building I am working in. A place where people study how the many life-forms evolved, how evolution itself works, and where a substantial percentage of the professors, post-docs, graduate students is atheist.

Anyway, it was named after James King Jr., a senator of the Florida legislature who has done a lot for Florida State University. Unfortunately, he dragged in a priest to do a benediction of the building! I was offended! Anyway, it is the usual violation of the separation of church and state, and I as an heathen really didn't appreciate it that I got blessed at such an public and open event. Now I have to bring in a horn and a bottle of mead to counter balance this!

A nightmare scenario!

I am puzzled. In the primaries, all conservative candidates could do no good in the eyes of the voters, and McCain was massively favoured over the more conservative candidates. But he did not do good enough against Obama in the polls. But the most puzzling was that the republicans, who themselves voted massively for him, did not get really excited. Weird....

Now he has whipped up an ultraconservative female VP-candidate, and suddenly things are really different. I listened to parts of their acceptance speeches, and bluntly, it felt to me that the republican base was more enthusiastic for the attacking rhetoric of Palin than for McCain.

McCain is old, and various fundamentalist christians already have start praying for the untimely death of McCain so that their ultraconservative darling can become the president. And I am sure that there are fanatic christians out there that at least hope someone will help McCain to see his creator in an untimely manner.

In short, we have a nightmare scenario here. With this scenario, the conservative right has the option to get an ultraconservative president in the white house, more conservative than that they would be able to elect directly. This back-door with an old dude that can die every day, and a ultraconservative VEEP, could be the far worst thing even happened to this country.

I fear that McCain/Palin will win. After that, lets hope he lives long enough and does not get assassinated.....

Palin and the Failure of Abstinence Only Programs

LOL, when I heard that the teenage daughter of the vice-presidential candidate Palin was pregnant out of wedlock, it could not be a better example of the failure of 'Abstinence Only Programs'. So, here we have the woman that is the conservative face of the republican ticket who is going to defend 'Abstinence only Programs' as an effective way to prevent teen-pregnancies. Well, that worked perfect with her own daughter. To me, this is roughly the same as an anti-gay republican found in bed with another guy! Anyway how, you can guess how I would vote if I was allowed to in this country.........