Doug's Views – Page 75 – Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist

September 14, 2011April 18, 2020

What Happened To The Anti-Death Panel Tea Partiers?

The Tea Party Death Panel

The last two cheap labor Republican debates have attracted a crowd that is part ugly and douchebaggery in the extreme. In the debate last week the largest cheer was when it was pointed out that Governor Rick Perry oversaw 234 executions. Monday night Ron Paul got applause and someone shouted out “Yes” when he was asked if someone without health insurance should be allowed to die, and Michelle Bachmann tried to claim a cancer vaccine caused brain damage. Is this what we have become? Really?

Teapublicans cheer death for uninsured (09/12/2011)

September 11, 2011April 18, 2020

September 11th – A Humanist Response 10 Years On

Image of WTC before the attack with US Flag in background

Today is the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on US soil. The World Trade Center in New York was attacked shortly before 9 AM on a bright and sunny Tuesday in 2001. By the end of the awful day both towers were destroyed, the Pentagon had been hit, and people were killed in a fourth plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Five days later I wrote an essay about the attacks from my secular humanist perspective. I went through it this week and have posted it again – changed little from the day I wrote it.

September 7, 2011April 18, 2020

GOP Jobs Plan? Same Old ideas that haven’t worked in 10 years

Image of emotional House Speaker John Boehner

The stagnant economy is like a stalled car. You sit there and keep turning the key in hopes that it will luckily turn over but you know you’ll have to call the tow truck. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) doesn’t want to call the tow truck in issuing his jobs plan called “The House Republican Plan For American’s Job Creators”. The “plan” just offers the same tax cuts, budget cuts, and regulation cuts that have failed yet to create the jobs we need.

In what seems as an effort to pre-empt the President’s jobs speech on Thursday, Speaker Boehner released his jobs plan. It has nothing new and nothing that hasn’t already been tried in the past ten years. It contains nothing for the middle class and those actually out of work.

September 3, 2011April 18, 2020

First Saturday of College Football – Go Bucks!

Finally the college football season is here. As a treat I present a video clip of the best tradition of them all – the ramp entrance by the Ohio State University Marching Band in Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

Ohio State Marching Band Ramp Entrance (2009)

September 2, 2011April 18, 2020

Complaining about the poor having appliances misses real problems of being poor

About ten years ago I was trying to explain to someone on an e-mail list I was a member of that I was poor. My apartment was junky, my car barely ran, I couldn’t afford a cell phone or high speed Internet. He laughed. He said I wasn’t poor because I had a computer with Internet access, a car, and air conditioning. Even though I had a temporary job that paid barely above minimum wage and I was one pay check away from being homeless my friend said since I had stuff I wasn’t poor. This is not the first and probably not the last time people judge another’s worth by the stuff they have instead of the actual issues with having little to no income like education and health care.