Archives for November 2012

Is anyone else on American television as rude as Bill O’Reilly? I don’t watch TV, so I can’t be sure, but I can’t imagine why anybody watches this rude and pompous guy.

In was in a restaurant last night that was turned to Fox News and O’Reilly’s show was on. Both televisions in the place were on the same channel and it was loud, so I didn’t have much choice but to hear it. I heard O’Reilly start interviewing Dave Silverman, the president of American Atheists. The group is suing to stop some activity or other that it considers an illegal government involvement in a religious holiday. Actually, it wasn’t as much an interview as it was a patronizing attack.

The guest tried to be polite and civil from the beginning, but O’Reilly wasn’t interested. He quickly cut off any polite talk and went on the offensive. He asked the man why his group was suing and the man replied that the atheists believe the case is about government involvement in religion.

O’Reilly asked what religion is involved. The atheist looked a bit puzzled before answering that it’s Christianity. O’Reilly cut him off quickly.

“[Christianity] is not a religion,” he said. “That’s a philosophy.”

I couldn’t tell whether O’Reilly was stupid enough to believe what he was saying or if he knew he was being disingenuous. I have to assume he was being intentionally dishonest, because I can’t believe anyone is that stupid. O’Reilly was rude and intellectually dishonest for the rest of the interview parts that I saw. At one point, he referred to the atheist as “You and your merry band of fascists.”

I eventually had to put my earbuds in and turn Laura Veirs on as loud as I could stand the music.

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Since the election, I’ve heard a lot of talk from otherwise-reasonable people about how much the Democrats and Republicans hate each other and how they stand for entirely different things. I keep wanting to check and see whether these folks are really paying attention. Isn’t it obvious that Democrats and Republicans are really just two different wings of the Bipartisan Party?

Almost everybody talks wistfully these days about how great it would be if the two parties could just work together in a “bipartisan way.” Those naive folks don’t seem to understand the truth that George Carlin spoke when he said, “Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”

When the two parties come to some big budget deal which lets them borrow billions and billions more dollars without cutting any spending, it’s hailed as bipartisan. The alleged combatants stand together smiling about the great deal they’ve come to, but it never seems to be a great deal for anyone except those who like bigger government and more spending.

I can’t remember the last time that actual spending was cut overall in the federal budget. Do you? When politicians talk about cuts, they generally just means cuts to the rate of growth of spending. In the real world, we don’t call those cuts. Instead, we look at it as an already-way-too-big government getting even bigger while politicians lie to us. Again.

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I was out getting my mail one day not long ago when I noticed several of my neighbors in the street talking. I stepped across the street to be neighborly and see what the neighborhood gossip might be.

“Hey, let me tell you about the new idea we’ve been talking about,” said Karl. He’s sort of the intellectual in our neighborhood. I’m not sure what he does, but he spends a lot of time at the library working on a book. “We’ve decided that we need a neighborhood swimming pool for our street. I figure we can have it ready to go by the time it’s warm enough in the spring.”

“Sounds great, Karl,” I said, “but wouldn’t that be pretty expensive?”

“None of us can afford it alone,” Karl said, “but if we put our resources together, it shouldn’t be so bad.”

The other folks all seemed to think it was a good idea, so I told him I might be interested if the price was right. They told me they’d let me know what they figured out, and I went back home.

A few days later, there was a knock at my door. It was Karl and a couple of his friends.

“I have great news,” Karl said. “We took a vote and decided to move ahead with the community swimming pool project. We’ll be letting you know how much you owe as soon as we have the figures all put together. Isn’t that great?”

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