Category: religion and politics

Church and State should be separate in the body politic, but never in individuals.

Love letter to my Representative

07141104.PDF

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
235 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Representative Pelosi,

I [read this in a political blog today](http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/07/14/whos-the-man-3/ “Who’s the Man?—Balloon Juice”):

> Congressional Democrats took aim Thursday at conservative Republicans who oppose raising the federal debt ceiling, with Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) charging that a top GOP negotiator, Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), “shouldn’t even be at the table” in crucial White House talks on the issue.

The blogger opined:

> Can you imagine Steny Hoyer even thinking about pulling this shit on Nancy Smash? If he did it in a dream, he’d wake up and apologize.

I had to let out a chuckle. (Nancy Smash is **you.** It’s a nickname based on [a photo of you holding a gavel when you bright the ACA bill to the Capitol](http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×7972612 “Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi carries the gavel when Medicare passed-pics—Democratic Underground”).)

I’m young, healthy, and with a great paying job, but I have friends who have already been impacted (positively) by “Obamacare” so I’m so proud of what you and the others in Congress have achieved with [ACA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—Wikipedia”). It is a landmark legislation and accomplishment when you were Speaker. In a generation, your opponents on the other side of the aisle will campaign on **preserving** it.

Politically, I’m pretty conservative—which means I’m probably to the left of most of your colleagues in the Democratic Party. But I can’t tell you how happy I was when I realized I’d be voting for you in 2008 — that you were my representative. And again in 2010, though under less enjoyable circumstances.

I [work in technology](http://automattic.com/about/ “About Us—Automattic”) building [free software](http://wordpress.com/ “WordPress”) that [powers 12% of sites on the internet](http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all “Usage of CMS for websites—Web Technology Surveys”) and therefore I do everything electronically, but I’ve been told that if I write a letter to you (moreso if it is handwritten), that you might actually read it. I don’t want to request anything except to say, keep fighting the good fight…

and **SMASH!** 🙂

Terry Chay
A citizen of your District since 2008

Posted on by tychay 0

Voting yourself to oblivion

“My mom said she voted for anything that is going to lower her taxes.”

Great so your mom voted for Prop 19 which failed. But the other stuff? You realize that your dad is the only breadwinner in the family and he’s a government employee. When California is forced to submit a budget, and all alternate taxation and alternate funding resources have been closed, the first thing they’re going to do is lay off your dad (again).

It’s sad, but it’s the cold hard reality of those votes. I’m sure they’re going to enjoy the no new taxes when they’ve got no income to go along with it.

Yet another year where I voted with the losers on all but a couple propositions. Ironically, I’m one of the lucky few who doesn’t get touched by this voting stupdity. Heck, I never even had a joint.

Enjoy the consequences of your actions.

Posted on by tychay 0

Satanism… or worse

Girlfriend: “Everyone was asking about me—even family members. It’s probably better I wasn’t invited to her wedding. I know what would have happened if I showed up. Her mom would have come up to me and said, ‘So, how is your walk with God doing?’ and then she would have asked me about you.”

Boyfriend: “You should just tell them I’m a Satanist.”

Girlfriend: “Hah! Instead of a Catholic? That would have gone over well.”

Boyfriend: “Or… even worse, that I believe President Obama was born in Hawaii. That would have really freaked them out!”

>:)

Posted on by tychay 2

Editorial wall my ass

The person next to me on the airplane was reading the Wall Street Journal. I glanced over and it took me about 15 seconds to realize that it was the editorial page. The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal has definitely got to be the largest: “I’m an ignorat douche” tags I’ve ever seen a person display.

A lot of people rationalize reading the Journal because of the claim of an chinese wall that separates their editorial board from the news board. The claim is their editorial board is right wing whackos (and that content is given for free online); their journalsm is impartial enough to make business decisions (and that content is behind a pay wall online).

Bullshit.

Take this recent example: McDonald’s May Drop Health Plan.

And then read the takedown by a conservative or the this New York Times article. There is really no excuse for sloppiness in this reporting other than a political agenda—after all the rationalization McDonald’s is giving for dropping the plan in the article is that they’re keeping too much money for themselves!

This is common sense: Murdoch bought the paper and changed its direction radically. If you are reading the Journal now to make business decisions, you are making really poor ones.

Posted on by tychay 0

Weapons-grade wingnut

The comments on Balloon Juice can get quite witty. I love the imagery and alliteration in the following:

Wow. That’s some real weapons-grade Wingnut there.

That was used when talking about a purity purge going on over the “ground zero mosque” which is actually a community center with a prayer space. Another commenter wrote:

Calling this a mosque is like calling a casino in Las Vegas a cathedral because it has a wedding chapel.

Posted on by tychay 0

Are democrats more educated?

Balloon Juice links to a Brookings study that measures educational attainment by metropolitan area and notes that 24 out of 25 areas are in states that went for Obama in 2008.

This made me immediately wonder which the outlier was. A quick scan said that the post is incorrect and that there are two outliers according to that metric. The first is Austin-Round Rock at #14 and the second is Tucson, AZ at #25. Doug was probably referring to Austin. But why talk about states, when we have the county breakdown? The county Austin resides in (Travis, TX) actually went for Obama by almost 2 to 1 (64-35%)—seems a shame to pick on Austin simply because it happens to be in a red state.

PResidental breakdown of Travis County

Continue reading about education and voting patterns after the jump.

Posted on by tychay 3

Remind me not to get a lawyer trained at Tennessee

Glenn Reynolds suggests that the U.S. treasury defaults on its debt, Bruce Bartlett trashes it, and Glenn’s defense?

Well, I was hoping for a thoughtful email from an expert, but instead I got a typically intemperate blog post from Bruce Bartlett. Bruce, I’m not trying to turn the United States into Zimbabwe. That would be the guy in the White House, whom you seem surprisingly anxious to defend.

It amuses me that Zimbabwe had a $100,000,000,0000 (that’s one hundred billion) bill before they finally gave up on the currency. In storage somewhere, I have a 1 million mark bank note.

I’m surprised nobody noticed the racist undertone in this response. Bruce Bartlett brought up Zimbabwe because defaulting on the debt was the direct cause Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. The analogy Glenn sets up is: Barack Obama is America’s Robert Mugabe and he’s going to take all the land away from you White people!

While that was most likely completely unintentional, the only adequate defense is that Glenn Reynolds, a law professor and premier conservative political pundit, is both socially insensitive and politically ignorant.

The irony amuses me with the obviousness of it all. (NB Title: Glenn Reynolds teaches law at the University of Tennessee.)

Posted on by tychay 2

Terry takes the Oklahoma High School Civics Test

1. What Is the Supreme Law of the Land?

The Ten Commandments.

2. What Do We Call the First Ten Amendments of the Constitution?

The New Deal.

3. What Are the Two Parts of the U.S. Congress?

Communists and Capitalists.

4. How Many Justices Are on the Supreme Court?

None. This is a trick question. Everyone knows the only people in court are the judge, jury and executioner.

5. Who Wrote the Declaration of Independence?

Jesus.

6. What Ocean Is on The East Coast of the United States?

The Mexican Ocean.

7. What Are the Two Major Political Parties in the United States?

Republican and Socialist.

8. We Elect a U.S. Senator for How Many Years?

Until they die or get caught in a wide stance.

9. Who Was the First President of the United States?

Ronnie Raygun.

10. Who Is in Charge of the Executive Branch?

Donald Trump.

Continue reading about about Oklahoma after the jump

Posted on by tychay 2