Study shows 18% of Americans make baseless decisions

There's a lot of buzz going around that 18% of people think Obama is a Muslim. Could it be that he celebrated Ramadan at the White House? Because so did President Bush. Or his opinions on the Ground Zero mosque? Because that means the 26% of Americans who are okay with the mosque are also Muslim. No, no, it's because at least 18% of Americans are categorically crazy.

Let's do the numbers:

• 18% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% a year ago. 43% are unsure what religion he is.
  
• 24% of Americans believe in witches.
• 29% believe in Astrology.
• 34% of Americans believe in UFOs.
• 92% believe in God, but only 71% believe in the Devil. (4% on average are unsure whether either exists)

(Source: FOX News poll)

That means by a ratio of 10 to 1, more people are unsure about Obama's religious preferences than they are about the existence of a Supreme being (god) and his/her antithesis (devil). It may be that people have spent more time contemplating god than what Obama does on a Sunday morning.

But the other numbers there are hard to refute. 24% of Americans believe in witches. Let me say that again. 24% of AMERICANS BELIEVE IN WITCHES. Really America? REALLY? 29% believe in Astrology. That's almost ONE THIRD of Americans who open up the paper, check out whether Sagittarius is ascendant, and plan their days accordingly.

Thank god only 18% of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, despite him saying time and time and time and time again that he isn't. Because on average it's looking like a slightly higher number--1 in 4--believe in things that aren't verifiable in the least (UFOs), or have been completely refuted (witches). Surely, facts aren't so important for 25% of Americans when making decisions.

But don't worry, America, we're not alone. While 6% of hardcore Americans believe the moon landing was fake, 25% of readers to a British Science and Technology magazine responded to a poll saying they believed no humans had landed on the moon (CNN poll). So Britain, it seems, might also be one part nuts, three parts normal.

You can watch Buzz Aldrin punch one of these conspiracy theorists below.

Angry American: end Social Security

I understand going into this that I'm a healthy 28 year-old who has yet to pay what I hear are exorbitant health care costs. But as a 28 year-old I've also been paying taxes for a decade, watching my pay checks get parsed out to medicare and social security and Federal income taxes.

Before I started paying taxes, back in high school, my parents and my 10th grade teacher taught me the beauty of compound interest. I remember learning (reluctantly) about investments and how money I invested as a twenty-something could make me a millionaire by the time I retire. Well, I've put money away, and certainly have yet to see the beauty of compound interest due to the recession, but I'm confident that my future retirement is more assured by those investments than the tens of thousands of dollars I've lost to social security.

Social Security is insolvent. It is a pyramid scheme by definition: those who paid in first are earning their returns off those who bought into the program later. Unless we as a nation keep out-breeding the generation before us, we're fucked.

There is plenty of blame to go around regarding our deficit. Last week the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hit a sad budgetary milestone of $1 trillion dollars, or about $3 trillion once you factor in other spending like VA benefits, etc. But I'm not worried about defense spending. Those costly wars will end, social security and medicare will not.

These days the maximum amount a social security earner can get per month is $1,100.00. This is a substantial stipend, but most agree that it is insufficient to live on. Even so, over 20% of this year's federal budget went toward writing Social Security checks.

On a conservative estimate, this year I will pay $5,000 into Social Security. If I invested that money (likely back into US businesses through the stock market), and earned a 5% interest in it until the time I can retire under current Social Security laws (age 66), that $5,000 would have become about $32,000. That's almost three times the amount I can currently expect to make of my social security investment each retirement year (assuming it's still solvent by then.)

While I understand our obligation to those who have grown to depend on Social Security, we as a nation should ensure they are not left out to dry. But for we who are under 40, I would gladly surrender all the money I've put toward Social Security up to this point in my life if I could stop paying into the program tomorrow. It is a waste of my money.

Does this put the burden of retirement back on the individual? Absolutely. But who would you trust with your retirement: yourself, or someone else who is also trying to manage the retirements of 300 million other people?

I'll leave fixing the health care system out of this argument. It is a much more complex problem whose solution (I feel) lies more in regulation than it does in entitlement programs. But Social Security is bankrupting America and making us far more insecure that the name might imply. Get rid of it.

What Obama should learn from Kennedy

The desk at the Oval Office last night was supposed to be the launchpad for Obama's renewed commitment to steering our country toward clean energy. By rallying around the terror of the "cloud of black crude" in the gulf, Obama had a country angry and a bit scared about our oily future itching to know what we should do about it.

He failed.

In his 18-minute speech, Barack Obama called for climate change to wean our addiction off fossil fuels, as a third step in ensuring that such an oil disaster would not happen again. He said this from behind a desk, in measured, uninspired tones.

While there are as many contrasts as comparisons, the titanic task of overhauling our entire energy policy is more complex a task than putting a man on the moon. For one, it involves the decentralized work of an entire nation, while a space race requires a group of experts and a handful of rockets, shifting to renewable energy requires all of us to change how we live. Still, in terms of salesmanship, Obama should have taken cues from John F. Kennedy on how to address the undertaking. Let me compare:

Tone:

• JFK used his State of the Union speech to announce the space race. He said this before Congress and he said it before the American people. The scene and setting bespoke inspiration, like a preacher promising damnation should we not enter a space race, but reassuring us that we can save ourselves if we try.
• Obama, instead, sat behind his desk in the Oval Office, a bit like Atticus Finch explaining world news to a child, as if we all didn't know there was a colossal oil leak in the Gulf, and that we needed consoling. You do not inspire behind a desk.
  

Technique:

• JFK established timelines and goals in his speech, which is essential to defining success: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."
  
• Barack Obama did not. He spoke in abstracts and established no goals: "Each of us has a part to play in a new future that will benefit all of us. As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment."
• Both, it's interesting to note, did point out that rival countries--the Soviet Union and China--had a head start on their respective causes: the USSR with its "large rocket engines, which gives them many months of lead-time and "countries like China" who are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America." Telling Americans that we're losing will only help if you tell us how to win.
• JFK told us we could fail: we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.
• Obama did not. He goes so far as to say we're already doing the right thing, thereby telling us that we don't need to change. "...we’ve already taken unprecedented action to jumpstart the clean energy industry. As we speak, old factories are reopening to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows, and small businesses are making solar panels. Consumers are buying more efficient cars and trucks, and families are making their homes more energy-efficient. Scientists and researchers are discovering clean energy technologies that someday will lead to entire new industries."
  

Writing:

• JFK laid out a clear plan, with clear goals, and then told Congress and the American people that it was their choice. This made us accountable to achieving his goal, and is a smart sales technique. It also left the semantics of political squabbling to Congress, preventing his desire for the space race from being tarnished by political gain. "Let it be clear-and this is a judgment which the Members of the Congress must finally make-let if be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action-a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs."
• Barack Obama did not. He invoked the partisan atmosphere of the health-care debate (which left no one really satisfied) and put the burden of choice on him, a president who has no power to create laws because that is Congress' obligation. "So I’m happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party.." If no plan has been made, then no speech should be made. If the choice is not ours, then why do we need to hear it?

An open letter to the South Park creators on Helen Thomas

Dear Trey and the Other Guy:

I know a Muslim group recently threatened you guys (or threatened that someone would threaten you guys) if you ran a South Park episode depicting a picture of the prophet Mohammed (pictured here), and I wanted to say thanks for at least giving it a whirl. No religion is above any other, and all are legal fodder for mockery. I'm hoping that you'll be able to extend your Muslim/Jew/Santa/Christian/Scientology bashing to something that happened earlier in this week: Helen Thomas' tirade, more specifically the response to it.

Helen Thomas, at the ripe age of 89, recently told a camera wielding rabbi that she thought the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go back to Germany and Poland." Helen Thomas, a Lebanese immigrant, was swiftly outed from the White House Press Corps and forced into retirement for her statement.

Were her statements appropriate? Sure, they were her solicited opinion. She wasn't speaking on behalf of anyone. A man approached her with a camera and asked her what she thought about Israel. Odds are if I were a Lebanese immigrant who had to deal with Israel's periodic occupation of my country, I'd probably say the same thing. But that's not the point.

What's bothersome here is how quickly she was rushed out the door. After a decades (many, many decades) long career in journalism, Thomas said something as inappropriate as, at one point or another, all our aged, somewhat out-of-touch grandparents have said. Instead the viral video of her statement was quickly book ended with remarks indicating that she wanted to restart the holocaust because she's a zany Jew-hater.

I don't think that's true, and more to the point, I don't think it matters. Just like it's socially taboo to draw a picture of the prophet Mohammed, it's apparently equally taboo to share your opinions on the plight of Israel.

I understand that Helen Thomas is held to a different standard as a figure working in the public spotlight, and we should all be careful what we say into a stranger's camera. And Hearst Corporation (didn't they help orchestrate a war once?) can fire whomever they like. What I don't like is a person, be it Helen Thomas or whomever, getting blindsided by a man with a camera, being asked their opinion on something, and then being punished for sharing it. Was hers a politically savvy answer? No, but she's old!

So, what can you do to help? Remind us that old people, by virtue of being old, get a blank check to say whatever they want. They are bellweathers of former generations, telling us how people used to think and challenging our current belief structure. Sometimes it's downright racist, but censoring such people isn't going to make those beliefs go away, it will just damage the national dialogue that advances this great country and this great planet.

More so, the one part of the world that's been at relatively constant war for many millennium is probably the one part of the world that could use a reality check, a sense of humor, and a respect for open dialogue more than any other; and each side seems diametrically opposed to any of it.

So help us. Make us learn to laugh at things old people say.

Sincerely,


The Fourth Corner

P.S. Also, if you could put this guy in one of your episodes that'd be awesome.

You're doing it wrong, Mr. President

The New York Times ran a pretty interesting Op/Ed the other day, officially putting the old Grey Lady in the category of people who think President Barack Obama is doing it wrong.

I agree.

What's he doing wrong? Well, the response to the oil spill for one, but it's an indicator for some of the other policies President Obama has goading around in DC. But first let's talk oil.

I have on good authority (this girl I met at a bar whose an environmental lawyer, you know who you are MK), that British Petroleum is the fly in Big Oil's ointment. While Shell and Exxon and Chevron all have their flaws, it is BP who tends to fuck up the most. This sentiment was reflected in the NYT's Op/Ed:

In the last three years, according to the Center for Public Integrity, BP accounted for “97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors” — including 760 citations for “egregious, willful” violations (compared with only eight at the two oil companies that tied for second place). Hayward’s predecessor at BP, ousted in a sex-and-blackmail scandal in 2007, had placed cost-cutting (and ever more obscene profits) over safety, culminating in the BP Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 and injured 170 in 2005. Last October The Times uncovered documents revealing that BP had still failed to address hundreds of safety hazards at that refinery in the four years after the explosion, prompting the largest fine in the history of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (The fine, $87 million, was no doubt regarded as petty cash by a company whose profit reached nearly $17 billion last year.)

What does this mean? BP is a royal fuck up, and something like the Deepwater Horizon was just a disaster waiting to happen. So what do we do about this? What's the political angle? It's simple.

1. Shut down BP. The United States has no obligation to let a fuck-up like BP sell us oil from our own Federal waters. Until they clean up their act (literally and figuratively) they don't get to work in our waters or on our land. Happily, they can go dump millions of gallons of oil off their own homeland. The capital-based markets will adjust and one of the other oil companies with a substantially better track record can come in and take over.
   
2. Grow balls. A large pair of balls will be required to shut out BP and ensure continued enforcement of gov't and environmental policies on other oil companies in our country's waters. These balls will likely manifest themselves in terms of tougher regulation and more oversight by a heftier Mineral Management Service. Sorry, conservatives, this may increase our tax burden, but will certainly cost us less in revenue than the income lost from another oil disaster.
   
3. End the moratorium. Looking at the statistics above, this is a BP problem, not an oil problem. Don't punish the whole class because the trouble child was caught cheating. Besides, Louisiana and the gulf states don't need anymore help from the federal government destroying their livelihood. The oil industry is by far the largest employer in Louisiana, fishing is a far second, then tourism is a paltry 4%. According to the Financial Times, the moratorium just nicked 6,000 jobs from Louisianans in the midst of a global recession. Use a scalpel, Mr. President, not a sledge hammer.
4. Lead us. I know you're good at speeches Mr. O, and I know you have the ability to rally this nation. You've had two great opportunities to overhaul this country--first with the recession and now with this oil spill--and I'm not sure I've seen quite what I expected. Yes, health care overhaul passed and you've done some things with gas-mileage regulation, but these are drops in the bucket. Bush failed by not mobilizing the country after 9/11 and letting the military handle it all. Don't make that same mistake. We want to be pointed in a direction. Tell us clean energy, make us do it. That's how Hoover Dam got built. That's how Washington, DC got built. That's how the atomic bomb and the nation's interstate system got built. Ideas are out there (and here, and here) to fix our energy needs using good ol' American ingenuity, we just need a leader to kick us out of our easy, pump-and-forget energy laziness and make this oil crisis really sound like the international crisis it is. Yes, we'll grumble, oh how we will grumble--especially if you say, tax gas to build mass transit--but without struggle there is no progress.

Admittedly, you're already doing a lot of this. You put $40 billion into fixing up our really, really old energy infrastructure. You're working on this clean energy bill and you've put billions toward making federal buildings "green" to save taxpayer dollars on the back end of federal energy bills.

But then again, BP gave you $77,051 when you were in the Senate (McCain got $44,899), and they're lobbying dumps well over $10 million onto Capitol Hill every year. Still, you raised $750 million from the rest of us, so that's a comparative drop in the bucket, but you've still got to convince us you're on our side.

My suggestion: take a lesson from the President you're often compared to, FDR. Every week FDR had his Fireside Chats, where he took over America's airwaves and briefed us on the latest. You do a radio address that no one listens to because it's broadcast almost nowhere, and you've got that YouTube site, sure, but America watches TV. Take the airwaves once a week. Talk to us with that handsome mug and tell us how we're doing it wrong. Get us involved.

Americans shocked to discover people die in war

Following the release of video footage from an Apache gunship by the website wikileak.org, millions of Americans were shocked to discover that people die in warzones.

The video, which has received nearly a million hits on YouTube has sparked controversy across the airwaves as Americans realized US soldiers kill people in warzones. "I thought we just handed out backpacks," said a local resident when hearing about the video.

In the edited video titled "collateral murder", two Apache helicopters engage armed personnel. It was later discovered that two Reuters reporters were embedded with the insurgents and tragically died. Later, the video shows a vehicle picking up the wounded which was also engaged in violation of Geneva Conventions.

"its about killing civilians in cold blood," wrote ze3rebana, who has probably never been to a war zone.

"THERES MORE TO COME!!!! VIDEOS SHOWING THE TARGETING, ON PURPOSE, of WOMEN & CHILDREN USING BOMBS FROM A B1 BOMBER," wrote youchewb, an outraged viewer who posts videos of TuPac, the violent rapper, on his YouTube profile.

"this is so so wrong...." wrote rangsar, who was shocked to discover innocent people have died in Iraq.

"Death to America," wrote WoShiJoe, who didn't provide any contact information.

"I started crying around 8:40," wrote HeliosofSweden, a 22 year old male from Sweden who is into "vids and shit" according to his YouTube profile.

"Videos like [this] justify terrorist means against the USA. Simple as that," wrote pedritus2007, a 40 year old Portugeuse man who posts videos of World of Warcraft to his YouTube page and whose favorite videos include the "Free Hugs Campaign" video.

The video, which was shot in 2007 at the height of violence in Iraq when US forces were being attack 1,100 times a day across the country, later shows the soldiers who had just been shot at evacuating the wounded to American field hospitals.

Please stop combining words, America

Snowmaggedon was never that clever, but the way it rolls off people's tongue in the mid-Atlantic would make you think they'd just discovered gift of gab. But Snowmageddon wasn't the only invention from the recent snow storms. Snowpocalypse was another word-meld that gained in popularity.

For a time I thought this melding of "snow" and a meteorological event was over. Then, on the splash page of MSNBC, there it was today: "Northeast braces for 'Snowicane'"

While the English-language's strength lies in its ability to evolve and adapt to new vernacular, can we come up with something that doesn't make us sound like teenage school girls? And it's not just weather-systems that we're naming. Wordsmith creations like "Frenemy" or "Brangelina" or "Facehook" (one who uses Facebook as a platform for hooking up). Muttering these words to a few close friends is acceptable, just like swearing is. But seeing these words up on news tickers like the Washington Post gets me worried.

Are we learning to say more with less? Possibly. Lord knows, we can speak much more succinctly than our founding fathers could write, and they could certainly write more efficiently than the Brits, and anyone can say more with less than the Russian (see "Crime and Punishment" for clarification).

But George Orwell had his own thoughts on the subject. In 1984, he satires what he sees as the destruction of the English Language through newspeak. The dumbing of the English language--the death of creative metaphors, logical arguments, etc.--is a scary prospect. While the vocabulary of newspeak isn't accurate, its underlying practice is. Think of how often people use 'suck', 'dude' and 'fuck' to intone different meanings. Surely there has to be a zestier way to pepper dialogue. Yet at the same time, none of those words illicit any constructive meaning. When something sucks, it doesn't explain what sucks about it. Oddly, suck is rarely ever meant to mean what it means, just like fuck is rarely used to describe intercourse. The meaning isn't in the definition of the word, but how it is said, which is the same way grunts and moans communicate their underlying meaning.

Consider, please, the next time you are about to write about your fucking life and how much it sucks that you could really cut to the meat of the matter. For the discerning journalists, consider 'snowicane' and its brethern as taboo: you're paid to write and describe and provide logic to a complex world. There's also the fact that the storm hitting the northeast is completely unrelated to a hurricane, and that the storm that hit the mid-atlantic, while hyperbole, did not induce Armageddon.

Sports White People Watch

I picked up the paper this morning to find Tiger Wood's mug on the front page with the headline "We're All Ears." Apparently, el Tigre is going to apologize to the world for sleeping around on his wife.

To Tiger I say this: don't.

First, I could give a shit who you slept with. The rest of the world should also give a shit who you slept with. Indeed, the only people that should care is you and your wife, and the litany of other chicks you banged out with. America, pay attention to something else. Like Afghanistan. Or the fact that people now think it's cool to fly planes into buildings. Or Haiti. Remember Haiti?

Or if you're inclined to keep your TV tuned to sports, why not try the winter Olympics? If you're upset with the moral corruptibility of the game of golf, try curling, or speed skating, or ice dancing. With a one-two combination of Canada and sports that almost are exclusively watched and played by well to-do white people, the Winter Olympics is the lactose-free milk of sports: it won't upset anyone.

Prior to the Tiger Woods scandal, I suppose most people would have said that about golf, but golf with it's balls and sticks and tropical, sweaty climate (invented by guys in kilts) was begging for some sex scandal. Winter sports lacks the most basic of human interaction as most sports there are solo events played by people bundled up in layers of clothes. Plus golf is boring.

More importantly, why does America need a great golfer to be a moral beacon? Would this coverage be so grandiose if Tiger was a linebacker or basketball player or ultimate fighter or the best at some less "civilized" (read: pretentious) sport? I'd say it's a plus, sure, and Tiger really had us all going with how overwhelmingly boring he was, but so long as his infidelities don't happen on the green during the Pro Tournament (is that a golf thing?), who cares? I certainly don't. If we're looking to golf for our moral guidance, we're pretty fucked as it is.

But apparently that's where America IS looking, because here it is, on the front page. Not Afghanistan where it looks like Americans are winning for once (and getting the cooperation of Pakistan). Not the winter Olympics where world records are being smashed on a daily basis. Not on Haiti where 1 in 32 died last month and now flooding is coming. Not on the coup in Niger (okay, it's Africa, I may be asking too much). Not on the fact that the IAEA just said Iran really is going for nukes. Not on the friggin' nutwhack in Austin. Not on the economy which, FYI, is still in the pot. Not the fact (looking at you here Washington Post) that half of the stimulus dollars allocated to Washington, DC, went straight to a private company, Clark Construction, who cleared over 4.7 billion dollars in revenue during the worst year of the recession, 2008. I mean, really, Tiger Woods takes top billing? The media--"fourth branch of the government," "voice of the people"--has declared Tiger Woods as THE most important story of the day? Fuck.

So don't apologize Tiger. Not to the AP or to any camera. We really shouldn't care. Help us not care.

The Tea Party is a sign that all is well in America. Sort of.

The recent rise of Glenn Beck's renegade Tea Party (Taxed Enough Already) is a sign of a healthy and evolving government. Despite Tea Party rhetoric, and despite counterarguments from both parties, the apocalypse is not on the horizon, nor is the downfall of America. Quite the opposite, in fact. It's better than ever.

The Tea Party largely rose to prominence at the outset of what is now being called the "Great Recession", primarily when both President's Bush and Obama signed separate bailout bills loaning over a trillion dollars to help curtail the plummeting economy and unfreeze the credit markets. The decentralized movement's one common theme is that the deficit is growing too large, and that the government is growing too big. It's right there in the title: Tea Party followers are just plain Taxed Enough.

While it is easy to be distracted by outspoken affiliates of the Tea Party--the ill-spoken Sarah Palin or the End-is-Near diatribes of Glenn Beck--the party, at it's base, does have a point. America has racked up the largest deficit since World War II. The Bush tax cuts worth over 1.3 trillion dollars are about to lapse.

The Tea party's rise is a natural reaction to such large spending and such high taxes. It's rising prominence in the political field is a healthy and fascinating one, one that can largely be tied to policy as well as the internet: this is the first instance in which conservatives have been able to effectively harness the power of social media because it's the first time they have been out of office. Barack Obama used these tools in 2008, and now conservatives appear to be joining in as well.

Similarly, the downfall of the republican party--or more accurately it's transformation--can be traced in history. In the 1850s the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act frustrated so many Americans that it was the death nell of the Whig Party, which reemerged as the modern Republican party. Now, perhaps, the G-O-P will trade in for T-E-A.

While party evolution is necessary and healthy for American politics--Thomas Jefferson wished America to be in a state of "constant revolution"--what is disturbing is the partisan knee-jerk reaction in its tone. Jefferson may have wished for a constant revolution, but it is necessary for that revolution to occur in the halls of Congress than on the battlefields of Gettysburg or on the walls of Fort Sumter.

If the Tea Party is sincere in its desire to both reduce the deficit and cut taxes, it must decide which is the higher priority. We are in two costly wars and in the middle of what truly is a Great Recession. Spending on a large scale will not stop until any of those are resolved. To prevent the deficit from growing, taxes will have to rise to cover those costs. The same is true with Social Security (which Bush tried to reform) and health care (which Obama tried to reform). Together, spending on both these programs costs the American taxpayer over half of our entire budget each year, about 1.5 trillion dollars. If the Tea Party is sincere in its desire to lower the deficit and cut taxes, these two programs should be looked at with a discerning eye, and offer a solution to repairing both of their bloated budgets.

These problems are national problems that transcend party lines, and, as such, should transcend party politics. If the Tea Party wants to usurp the republican party as a counterbalance to the nation's liberals, then it should consider honing its rhetoric to offer smart solutions to the problems it has so clearly pointed out. Shouting matches at townhall meetings and rally's outside the Capitol show dissatisfaction at the status quo, but do not qualify as rational debates. Obama has constantly called on the republican party to offer plans on reform, this would be a great opportunity for the Tea Party to provide a logical counteroffer to his proposals and should not be missed.

When George Washington warned against the two-party system, it was not their opposing views that he warned against, but the tone use to express their mutual opposition: "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism."

The Tea Party's greatest chance for success is not poisonous rhetoric, but a measured and balanced tone advocating policies--be they liberal or conservative--that will achieve the tax and deficit reduction the Tea Party seeks. If the Tea Party can offer such a plan, it's ranks will grow, and with it, so will the health of the nation.

Why Marjah matters

As an American who served in Iraq and worked intelligence on the Afghanistan problem for a brief time, I still don't know where Marjah is. I had to look it up. While Marjah is an important geographic location--in the heart of Afghanistan's pashtun country, in the heart of Afghanistan's poppy crops, in the heart of the southern insurgency--these are not the reasons Marjah is significant.

This is why Marjah is significant. We are going it slow. This may not sound like a tetonic shift in strategic policy for our military, but it is.

In the late months of 2001 and in 2002 when America invaded Afghanistan, I was in a small classroom at the University of Washington listening to a lecture by a man from the War College who had helped Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld layout his military strategy. He made a distinct comparison by what we were doing in Afghanistan to the First World War, and it is a comparison that defined our strategy in the wars we've fought over the past decade.

In World War I, strategists lauded a new form of technology that would render the average infantryman obsolete. Field Artillery--dubbed the "King of Battle" because of its sheer violence of action--was it. The advent of accurate long-range artillery would replace the infantry as the primary fighting weapon in World War I. Long-range fires would decimate the enemy position, and a relatively small fighting force would then enter the area, kill or capture any remaining enemies, and the war would be won.

As we know, the Great War did not play out like this. Field Artillery made a brutal war more brutal, and made one of the bloodiest wars in human history. But the thinking that technology could put fewer fighting men in harms way--the same logic invented the machine gun--was a pleasant one. It was patriotic and held in high regard that Americans could invent their way out of any crisis. It was a peaceful, lulling thought, but it was inaccurate then, just as it is now.

At the outset of the Afghan war, field artillery was an integral part of the military outfit, but there was a new player on the field, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV. Armed with hellfire missiles at most, or the ability to range in artillery at a minimum, a UAV could glide over the mountainous regions of the Hindu Kush and kill the enemy. A small fighting force of rangers or marines or special forces could then go in and clean up the remainder. War won.

But in our obsession with making war safer for our troops, we may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, enemies could be killed with fewer troops on the ground, but nothing could be liberated.

What took us four years to learn in Iraq has taken us nine years to learn in Afghanistan. Marjah is our first test in a new strategy. Go slow. As marines creep into the southern city, they are entering by foot. Instead of rushing in by vehicles and scrambling to take the city center, they are going slowly and deliberately. Flushing out snipers is done with counter fires, grenades and mortars. The same is true with counterattacks on ambushes. The UAVs are there, the field artillery is there, but they are regarded as a last resort because the victory is not in killing the bad guys, but in saving the lives of the people in Marjah.

This strategy will take more troops, and it will ask more of those on the ground, at least in the short term. But the surge strategy is simple. It was recommended by Powell a long time ago--overwhelming force. It was recommended by Shinseki too, who was fired for saying we needed more troops. Now Petraeus and McChrystal have the ears of leadership and are telling them the same thing: more troops, be they Afghan or American or British or Canadian. Then we clear, we hold, and we build. Only one of those steps can be done with a UAV. The rest of the job belongs to the oldest branch in the military, the infantry.

Don't Ask Don't Tell, But join up anyway!

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be on Capitol Hill today, discussing the Obama administrations broad plan to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on homosexuals. Gates faces an uphill battle against increasingly raucous conservatives and increasingly timid democrats, all who are anxious to put their name on anything controversial in an election year.

Despite this, Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-Pa) and his 187 co-sponsors have publicly thrown their support behind allowing openly gay service members to serve their country. Still, the fodder from the opposition is strong: General George Casey, the Army's Chief of Staff, has voiced that he believed the ban shouldn't be lifted until the US completes its withdrawal from Iraq (though homosexuality in Iraq is less taboo than in America). A second member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is also in opposition to the repeal: Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway believes the repeal would affect military readiness.

This battle has been fought before. In 1948, despite the opposition from high-ranking members of the military, President Harry S. Truman bypassed Congress and signed Executive Order 9811, effectively desegregating the military. When the Executive Order was signed, many tried to create laws which would have rendered the Order moot, namely Richard B. Russell, a Democratic Senator from Georgia.

Despite segregation laws during World War II, high-casualty units who were low on white soldiers were often forcibly desegregated through reinforcements of black soldiers. When the segregated Eighth Army went to the Korean front in 1950 and suffered staggering losses, black soldiers soon joined the fight and helped push back the communists to the 38th parallel. It seems racial supremacy was an issue until death and defeat were on the line. By 1951, the Army formally desegregated its units.

The military preceded the rest of America in desegregation by over a decade. It was a moral choice: when Truman signed the Order we were not a nation at war. The Man from Missouri knew it was the right thing to do.

Now in the midst of two wars where gays and straights have served side-by-side, we're faced with a similar dilemma. Cries from the right will say openly-serving gays will affect military readiness. I say we are fortunate they are serving in our ranks today, despite our rejection of their lifestyles.

Richard B. Russell, the democrat from Georgia, had tried to pass a bill allowing white soldiers to choose whether they wanted to serve in a segregated military unit or not. The bill was defeated twice in Congress, and defeated again in Korea, and again in Vietnam, and again in Panama, and again in Iraq and again in Afghanistan when soldiers chose to serve with people of different backgrounds in the foxhole next to them. Soldiers in the Army want someone beside them they can trust, a trait that transcends race and sexual orientation. It doesn't matter who they are or how they live. Our laws should reflect that.

Support Patrick Murphy.

Did you hear the one about the 85 million Iraq spent on fake bomb detecting equipment?

As news of another coordinated bomb attack comes on the day Ba'athist Chemical Ali is killed, Americans and Iraqis alike are wondering how insurgents can continue to outsmart millions in training and bomb detecting equipment.

The answer? Very, very easily.

The Iraqi government recently spent $85 million dollars on the latest evolution in bomb detecting equipment. The British manufactured ADE 651 consists of a black plastic handle, a radio-styled antenna, and requires no battery or energy source whatsoever beyond the static electricity generated by soldiers shuffling their feet on the ground. Really. Millions watched an Iraqi shuffling his feet to generate the static electricity on CBS' Nightly News last night.

The trouble is, the device is a total, total hoax. Adding insult to injury, Iraqis paid about $60,000 for each device in a no-bid contract, though the manufacturer normally sells them for $18,500. According to the New York Times, five to eight bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for the price Iraqis paid for one ADE 651.

The story, originally reported by the BBC, is exploding across papers and has led to an export restriction of the device by Britain and an arrest of its manufacturer, parent company-ATSC's Jim McCormick. The export restriction initially angered Iraqi soldiers who claim the device works. Major General Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives, told the New York Times “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs.”

In the face of increasing evidence to the contrary, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched a probe into the reliability of the bomb detecting equipment this morning. Let's hope he uses something a bit more reliable to uncover the truth.

Certainly the only thing more entertaining (and tragic) than this story, is the ADE 651's promotional video. Let's all hope Mr. McCormick gets his just desserts.

National debt ceiling to go up by how much?

We hear at the Fourth Corner have been playing a lot of SimCity lately, and if there is one thing that will knock your city off the top perch, it's spending too much money. Yes, putting in the Mayor's house and putting in those dozen sport stadiums sounded like a good idea at the time, but now Godzilla is stomping through your commercial district and your police department is on strike and won't even bother to stop him.

That's why it's a little unnerving that the Senate--both Republicans and Democrats (despite what each says)--want to increase the American debt ceiling to $14 trillion dollars. They're worried, and rightfully so, that if they don't bump up the debt ceiling that Uncle Sam will default on his loans by October, meaning they want to be able to take out more loans to pay for the debt we've already created.

$14 trillion alone is a hard pill to swallow. If every American opened up their wallets to pay that debt off, we'd each be out $47,000.00, including children. Considering the average American makes $45,000.00 dollars a year, our spending is outpacing our earnings. On a national scale, our GDP was $14.27 trillion dollars. In fiscal terms, that means we're more than broke, unless we can all live on $2,000.00 a year (about $5.00 a day).

The good news (we guess) is that most of that debt is foreign owned. And if push came to shove and Godzilla--I mean China--started storming around demanding we cash out, then we could just not pay him. Sure, sure, it's not the best fiscal policy around, but China doesn't play nice either, which is why their currency is artificially overinflated by 60% despite global protests.

The other good news is that a $5.00 a day budget is still pretty decent. Half the world lives on just $2.50.

Angry American: Who Owns My Mortgage?

It's been just over two months since the Fourth Corner relocated from Washington, DC to Alexandria, Virginia. A first home was purchased, tax breaks obtained (god willing), and mortgages packaged and sold. Then sold again.

To understand where our mortgage is requires an economics degree. Our mortgage rate was handled by First Savings Mortgage. Through them we negotiated the interest rate, worked with a person we could actually get on the phone, and felt pretty content that if there was ever a problem, we knew who to call.

A week after the house purchase, First Savings Mortgage sold our mortgage to Wells Fargo. You may wonder how Wells Fargo could afford to purchase our mortgage, considering they still owed the government $25 billion dollars in TARP money (to be paid back this month, they are the last big bank to do so).

We now write our checks to Wells Fargo. We know no one at Wells Fargo. We have never banked there. The only indication of this was a letter in the mail, that offered us the ability to set up automatic payments on Wells Fargo website, where the only payment option was "pay full amount first day after due date". I still don't know what that means.

So, today, I opened up another letter, this one from Freddie Mac. I don't know who the fuck Freddie Mac is, but he's the guy that now owns my mortgage. I don't pay him, I still pay Wells Fargo, but apparently Wells sold Freddie my mortgage. All I know about Freddie and his girlfriend Fannie is that they were behind the recent recession (along with Wells Fargo), and frankly I'm miffed that nothing has changed.

I understand banks need liquidity. I understand credit is essential to a healthy market. But does it not stand to reason that First Savings Mortgage should be inheriting all the risk? It's a localized bank, meaning that if it went under, only Alexandria residents would be in the tank. They are the 'closest to the ground' and did all the assessments to determine if I was good for the loan they gave me.

Wells Fargo and Freddie don't know anything about me. All they know is that First Savings said I'm a good bet, and that they should bet on me, too, thus freeing up First Saving's capital to make another loan. Why not sell straight to Freddie? Why have an intermediary? Why disassociate the risk on a national level where we as a collective whole are putting our eggs in one national basket? Pardon moi, but does that not seem like a dumbfuck thing to do?

States and counties stand to gain the most from a healthy real estate economy, not the federal government. It's states who impose property taxes, and as such, it's local governments that should be moderating how their lands are bought and sold. Similarly, it's local banks that should be inheriting the risk. Credit can still be bought and swapped at a more localized level without jeopardizing the entire system. Yes, the profit margins won't be as high, but it will also deny banks the ability to corral so much credit and capital that they become "too big to fail."

So First Savings Mortgage, take my mortgage back. I'm good for it. If you had kept my mortgage I'd be paying you a sweet penny every month. Instead you blew your wad and went for the lump sum by selling it to Wells Fargo, a too-big-to-fail behemoth that fucked us all in the first place. And instead, now I'm paying Wells Fargo who I'd really prefer not to. You've taken the customer out of the equation, which is pretty impressive, but you've managed to take logic out of it, too. Here's to another go around!

GM's Dirty Little Secret

If there is one thing the Fourth Corner loves, it's freedom. And if there is one real threat to freedom in this world it's not terrorism, or Obamacare, or Sarah Palin. It's Canada.

Make no mistake. Don't let their politeness fool you. They would kill you in their sleep if they could. They hate puppies and rainbows. And they own an 11.5% stake in the most American of enterprises: General Motors.

For generations General Motors has become synonymous with America. It was a company founded on ingenuity. It's employees made a living wage. It gave life to the mid-west, and people who like hockey. These days GM may appear as American as it once was--it's profits go toward repaying government bailouts, and it's employees get paid for doing nothing during summer shutdown--but the secret is out, GM is 11.5% less American than it was a year ago.

Canada already has its universal health care, and its liberal policies that let people choose who they marry--both items which are supposed to cause the apocalypse (thanks, Canada)--can we really trust them with our American car company? What if instead of a huge V10 engine they put in something that converts flowers into hugs? What if instead of 14 cup holders they put in only 10? Where will our 4 other Venti Starbucks go? What if they replace the board of directors with a death panel that chooses which GM drivers will get in car crashes? What if they make everyone who buys a GM sleep with a dude?

Think about it America. This is how it starts. First Canada takes 11.5% of GM. Then 11.5% of Congress. Then 11.5% of our Stars and Stripes. Then they take Michigan. News flash: Canada starts with a 'C'. You know what else starts with a 'C'? Communism.

They're Actually Making a Tron 2

My fascination with Tron hit an all time high in college, mainly because only one video store had a copy of the film, and to rent it required a $500.00 deposit. Surely, any VHS that required a $500.00 was good. Damn good. No, TRON good. The 1982 classic is and always will be a legend.

And, like all legends before and since -- Indiana Jones, Star Wars, The Phantom of the Opera -- it will be ruined by a sequel. I haven't seen a preview, but I know this to be true. I know it because it fits the classic mold of a horrible sequel: it was made more than two decades after the original came out.

Mathematically the formula for a horrible sequel would look like this:

20 years + original movie release date = horrible sequel

This sample can be applied to literally any sequel. Take the Bible. The Old Testament had plagues, explosions, harems, a vengeful god--it's the Jerry Bruckheimer of religious texts. Then, 20+ years later the New Testament comes around. The New Testament is like a foreign film: there's a lot of confusing parables, I don't understand the ending, and it's rife with homoerotic undertones (monogamous guy hangs out with twelve all-male 'disciples', he's a 'fisher of men', at the last supper Jesus asks a table full of guys to eat him).

What bothers me more about sequels is that there are plenty of writer types out there who have written plenty of screenplays with plenty of original plots. They're like those shows that you know were only supposed to last one season, but then they just keep going. And going. Until they ruin everything that was good about it. I'm talking about you Heroes.

The fact is, there's an art to bowing out gracefully. That's why there's no Mona Lisa: the Sequel. That's why there isn't a follow-up to Citizen Kane. It's why Iraq was a shitty follow up to Afghanistan.

But as the sequel generation grows up, I hope we've learned that originality is worth the $500.00 deposit, and it's something we should shoot for.

United Airlines Doesn't Love American Soldiers

I've been sitting on this story for a while, but now that Veteran's Day is around the corner, and the holiday season is kicking off, I thought I'd share with the greater world my trip home from Iraq in June 2008.

I had just finished out-processing at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was about to fly home and see my wife and family for the first time. I was out of uniform, but I had the typical crew cut, two giant Army duffle bags, and military ID ready-to-show should the need arise.

I'm a tall man, and, before Iraq I used to be an avid traveler and had earned "premium" status on United. That doesn't mean much beyond the occasional cut in line and a free upgrade to Economy plus. As a tall guy whose also remarkably cheap, economy plus suited my just fine.

I approach the check-in counter. There is a large woman typing away. She asks for my flight information. She checks my bags. She explains they are overweight and I give her a copy of my deployment orders showing that the government will cover the cost of the large bags. Then I ask if there's any space in the exit rows.

She types. "No, no room."

"Well then could I get an upgrade with my Premium card?" I hand her the card. She runs it through the system a few times.

"You're not a Premium member," she explains.

"I am," I assure.

"Well have you flown United Airlines in the past year?"

"I've been in Iraq for the past year."

"So then you haven't flown United in a year and your membership was canceled."

At that point, it felt great to be back in the United States after spending a year in Iraq. I was glad I had just defended this woman, and the policies of United Airlines from terror abroad. I did not want to argue. I did not want to do anything but go home, so I took my back seat and started collecting miles all over again.

Admittedly, I haven't pursued the fact that United Airlines cancels US Troops frequent flyer miles beyond bitching about it to my friends, and so I'm really just as culpable as they are. But the utter lack of giving-a-shit the woman displayed still sizzles my bacon a year later.

There's a plus here though. I have three hours to waste at my gate and spend a good part of it at a restaurant where I have a few beers and strike up a conversation with the guy next to me. He's a fine guy, just a guy waiting for his flight. He does airline interior design--which is a profession I didn't even know existed--but after working for a larger company for a bit he struck out on his own and is now his own boss trying to make ends meet.

After an hour or so, we get to me and what I'm doing there and I explain I'm on my flight home from Iraq. The stranger, Scott was his name, buys my drinks and my meal outright. I thank him, and he thanks me and says its the least he could do. He didn't have to do it, and I didn't deserve it, but it was a moment in my life I'll never forget.

Happy Veteran's Day. Thanks for all that have served and all that will.

The Angry American: Starbucks, the New McDonalds? The Starbucks Via Challenge.

Yesterday I walked to one of the four Starbucks in a three block radius of where I work (really) and took up Starbucks on their recent instant coffee, sorry--"microground Via"--challenge.  I have this to report.  It tastes slightly better than Folger's Instant Coffee. Slightly.

But this is bigger than just instant coffee. It started with the Caramel Machiatto, the unholy alliance of coffee and a quantity of sugar that could only be conceived in America.  Then Starbucks moved onto the Egg McMuffin--sorry, the Saugage and English Muffin with Egg White, that costs twice as much as an English Muffin.  Then the comfy chairs started disappearing.  Baristas started shouting orders.  

Starbucks' business model was fashioned along the same lines as McDonald's.  McDonald's offered fast food, but the real revelation was that clean bathroom and a consistent experience.  Starbucks built the third-location, the place that wasn't an office, but wasn't home either.  A bar for the non-drinker, consistently placed in every city so regardless of where you were, there was your local hang out. 

And that doesn't bother me.  Go Starbucks.  Do your thing.  But everyone else, what's the point?  The ambiance is gone.  The coffee is burned.  Everything on the Starbucks menu can be purchased at the equally ubiquitous McDonald's now for half the price.

And that, my friends, is what bothers me.  Before Starbucks, there was a time when a cup of coffee could be purchased for under a dollar.  Then Starbucks made it an experience.  Poetry on paper cups.  $1.50.  Italian names.  $2.00.  I can buy a cappuccino in Italy for half the price of one served to me at the Starbucks across the street. 

I just want coffee.  But because of Starbucks I can't have coffee no matter where I go.  Instead it's a venti or a grande.  Instead it's not a cup of coffee, it's "Seattle's Roast Blend" and everyone knows they can charge as much as Starbucks because they've made it okay.

Well, the caffeine high has worn off, America.  Rub your eyes and look around.  We're getting duped. Go to McDonald's.  Better, go to a cafe (if they still exist).  The Via is the last straw.