This needs said. It needs said more often and by more people.

The problem is that the country romanticized by the far right hasn’t existed for some time, and its ability to deny that fact grows more dim every day. President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.

Even the optics must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill’s most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It’s enough to make a good old boy go crazy….

You may want “your country back,” but you can’t have it. That sound you hear is the relentless, irrepressible march of change. Welcome to America: The Remix.

This should be required reading.

A taste:

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred.

And that’s just how it starts.

A damning indictment on the racist, bigoted fearmongering that represents today’s Republican Party.

At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.

This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry….

The G.O.P. poisons the political atmosphere and then has the gall to complain about an absence of bipartisanship.

The toxic clouds that are the inevitable result of the fear and the bitter conflicts so relentlessly stoked by the Republican Party — think blacks against whites, gays versus straights, and a whole range of folks against immigrants — tend to obscure the tremendous damage that the party’s policies have inflicted on the country. If people are arguing over immigrants or abortion or whether gays should be allowed to marry, they’re not calling the G.O.P. to account for (to take just one example) the horribly destructive policy of cutting taxes while the nation was fighting two wars.

If you’re all fired up about Republican-inspired tales of Democrats planning to send grandma to some death chamber, you’ll never get to the G.O.P.’s war against the right of ordinary workers to organize and negotiate in their own best interests — a war that has diminished living standards for working people for decades.

With a freer hand, the Republicans would have done more damage. George W. Bush tried to undermine Social Security. John McCain was willing to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office and thought Phil Gramm would have made a crackerjack Treasury secretary. (For those who may not remember, Mr. Gramm was a deregulation zealot who told us during the presidential campaign that we were suffering from a “mental recession.”)

A party that promotes ignorance (“Just say no to global warming”) and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country.

David Frum is a diehard conservative. He uses their talking points, their stupid names for honest legislation, and I probably would check outside before believing his assertions that the sky was blue.

But he isn’t an idiot. Misguided, but not a fool.

So, when he reads the tea leaves over the end of the health care bill, it may behoove other conservatives to pay attention when he pronounces doom and gloom for the GOP.

For once, I hope he’s right.

What good did all the airport legislation achieve? None. It simply means that you and I now must get to the airport six years before the plane is due to leave and arrive at the other end with yellow teeth, smelly armpits and no nail file. Did it prevent a chap from getting on board with exploding underpants? No, it did not.

Happily, however, I have a solution to the problem, a way that normal human behaviour can be preserved. It’s simple. We must start to accept that 5% of the population at any given time is bonkers. There are no steps to be taken to stamp this out and no lessons to be learnt when a man with a beard boards a plane with an exploding dog.

I don’t always agree with Clarkson, nor should I, but he’s got the right ideas concerning why and how we inconvenience everyone for the stupidity of a few.

Well, the baseball postseason has started, which means I now spend a lot of time glued to the television. Thus far, the Yankees have dropped one; which is a nice start to things. But we’ve got the Twins, and probably the Red Sox if necessary, to take care of that unpleasantness. Right now, its time to focus on the Cubs taking a long shot at winning the National League. Yeah, I’m probably dreaming but its fun to watch.

UPDATE: Cubs Win! And I tell you, if all their games are that tense, I’m gonna need a cardiologist. Geez.

If you want access to course material from a prestigious university, MIT has made them all available online at their CourseWare site.

Yes, its another episode of really stupid people and ideas.

Here’s the one toy NO kid wants for Christmas; doesn’t mean their parents won’t try to get it for them. I’m going to just gloss over the fact that the only reason this guy knows how to fly a plane was because he was avoiding active military duty during Vietnam. Let’s just focus on the ridiculous notion that piloting a plane in the air over a totally clear sky does NOT make you a hero or worthy of an action figure. How about we go the REALLY morose route of making action figures for each of the guys dying for the war he gleefully pursued? Would that be enough to fill someone’s incessant need to make a profit off of this? The worst part? Its on back order. Idiots.

Another potentially racist moron in Texas. No, I’m not picking on them; the news just reports it.

Oh yeah, you can call them French fries again.

Now, interesting stuff:

Popular Science put out an article about the worst jobs in science. Via Slashdot, I learned of a story concerning the history of Murphy’s Law. Its pretty interesting. Also, I will link you to Unwise Microwave Oven Experiments if you promise to just read the article and not actually try any of the mentioned items.

The Galva News has an article about the local National Guard unit being shipped out soon. In it, my brother Tom is interviewed about the situation (by the by, if someone could send that to me I’d appreciate it). Anyways, we’ve known about it for a few months but did not know what we could say or not. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since then and you should probably all be able to infer that while I don’t think our country got into Iraq on the best of international terms, I also do not think that leaving that place in total chaos is the answer either. So, should any of you choose to make some impassioned plea with me to get into line and shut up about questioning our government, kindly take a moment to realize that a) I have thought about it, b) I do have a history degree and am fully capable of taking the long view of recent events, and c) my brother is getting sent over to get shot at. Yes, I actually had a conversation tonight whereupon my patriotism and objectivity were questioned. I don’t appreciate either suggestion and will stop venting about it now.

More signs that we have a long way to go with race relations in Texas. Hey, this time they were acting on orders from some national outfit. Well-intentioned perhaps, but way out of line.

In sports, if you have been following baseball at all, you might realize that I am so completely torn right now. I have some kind of genetic affinity for being a Cubs fan (thanks Dad), though I managed to learn to follow the Astros from when I was a kid living in Pasadena. Both are vying for a post-season spot and only one of them is likely to go to the playoffs. I figure if the Cubs go, I can then hope for the impossible: a seven-game Cubs-Red Sox series which would likely be an event so improbable the planet would tilt on its axis and it would stop being 100 degrees every day here in Vegas.

And yes, Japan now has Hello Kitty taxis. I’ve been meaning to link this for a few days now, but I think it speaks volumes about how different that country is from the US. Having been there, I can imagine how cute and yet sickening those things must be to look at. Face it, our taxis are no fun here.

Last, but not least, this link takes you to the MC Hawking site. Yeah, basically some software developer decided that the concept of uber-genius Stephen Hawking singing a pack of science-ish rap covers could make him money. I don’t know whether to laugh hysterically or just shake my head in shame for our species.

Well, the media is warming itself up for who knows what tomorrow. Funny thing is, there are a lot of well-intentioned people who will probably say and do a lot tomorrow for all the wrong reasons. And isn’t that probably the saddest part about this whole situation: that we really haven’t learned as much as we should have? Then again, maybe I’ll be proven wrong and the day will be without a ton of flag-waving and forgetting the fact that we are remembering regular people who got shoved into the front lines of a conflict between psychopaths and the rest of the world. For some more perspective on this, I read this article earlier today which somewhat delineates thoughts I hope have crossed your minds.

Also on the subject, some clearing of the air about things you may think about 9/11. On a broader scope, this article from the New York Times points out the international perspective; which, while you may or may not want to care about it, still exists.

I had some social commentaries about ridiculous news articles I’ve read recently, but it can wait for a couple days.