Herman Cain is a Jerk

Herman Cain on the Occupy Wall Street movement:

I don't have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself! It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded.

Mr. Cain, maybe in the future if you "don't have facts" to back up what you're saying, you should just keep your mouth shut. On second thought, keep talking. The more you say, the less credible you are, the less chance that you will ever be elected president.

The Tyrant King of North Carolina

In the election of 2010 the Republican Party gained a majority in both house of the North Carolina State Legislature for the first time since 1870. Even with the rising wave of Tea-Party activism that year, this was considered a surprise by most observers. In an outstanding new article in the New Yorker magazine, Jane Mayer reveals the disturbing role that one NC businessman, Art Pope, played in influencing the results of this election.

Using the loopholes in campaign spending created by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of January 2010, Mr. Pope, whose family owns the Variety Wholesalers group of discount store chains, used his business fortune to pour vast amounts of money, through several "non-partisan" groups, to influence the state house elections and get his hand-picked group of extremist right-wing Republican candidates elected. The result has been a string of proposed legislation that will, among other things, shorten the period for early voting, eliminate early voting on Sundays, and require photo ID to vote in NC--all of which will disproportionately affect young, poor, and minority voters. The Republicans have also passed anti-environmental legislation, and have proposed a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. Perhaps even more importantly, the Republican takeover of the NC state government allowed the GOP to dominate the process of redrawing Congressional district lines after the 2010 census. Governor Beverly Perdue, a Democrat elected in 2008, has courageously opposed the Republicans and has vetoed many of the bills that have been passed, but unfortunately most of her vetoes have been overridden.

The influence of Mr. Pope on NC politics has been compared to that of the Koch Brothers. One Democratic official quoted in the New Yorker article says

In a very real sense, Democrats running for office in North Carolina are always running against Art Pope. The Republican agenda in North Carolina is really Art Pope’s agenda. He sets it, he funds it, and he directs the efforts to achieve it. The candidates are just fronting for him. There are so many people in North Carolina beholden to Art Pope—it undermines the democratic process.

This is the tragedy of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, that it allows one extremely wealthy individual to exercise so much power in government simply by being willing to spend vast amounts of money. It would be just as wrong (although much less likely) if that individual was a liberal spending the money on getting Democratic candidates elected. And unfortunately this will keep happening until that decision is overturned by a future Supreme Court decision.

In the meantime, if you live in the southeast or mid-Atlantic region of the United States, please go to this website, look at the list of discount store chains on the right hand side of the page, which are owned by Art Pope's family, and please do not spend one cent of your money at any of those stores.

Squirrel Facts: Largest and Smallest Squirrels

There are more than 365 different kinds of squirrel in the world. Of these, the largest is the Ratufa, or Indian Giant Squirrel, found in southeast Asia and parts of Nepal. This species has a head and body length of about 14 inches, and a tail that can be more than two feet long, making its total length more than three feet (almost 1 meter).

Indian Giant Squirrel

The smallest is the African Pygmy Squirrel, which is found in Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. I measures just 5 1/2 inches (14cm) from it nose to the end of its tail.

African Pygmy Squirrel

Occupy Wall Street

This is the Declaration of the Occupation of New York.

It is the statement of the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement that started on September 17 in New York City, and is spreading across the country. It is an awesome popular uprising against the corporate greed and influence that is destroying our country. I am hopeful that a similar movement is developing in Charlotte as it has in many other cities following New York's example.

It is not surprising that the corporate "news" media is not giving this growing movement the coverage it deserves. I browsed three online news sources earlier this afternoon: CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and the British site BBC.com. Guess which one gave the most prominent place on its site to the Occupy Wall Street protests. Yep, it was BBC.

And even the "liberal" New York Times web site is showing its bias against this movement. Yesterday, when over 700 protesters were arrested at the Brooklyn Bridge, NYTimes.com made a sudden and startling change in its lead sentence (see screenshot image below), shifting the blame for the arrests from the police to the protesters. For the record, there were many witnesses who reported that the police had led the protesters deliberately onto the bridge roadway and were planning ahead to carry out mass arrests.

Barack Obama's Human Rights Campaign Dinner Speech

There have been many instances since his election in which I have been disappointed in Barack Obama. This is not one of them:

We don't believe in the kind of smallness that says it's okay for a stage full of political leaders -- one of whom could end up being the president of the United States -- being silent when an American soldier is booed. We don't believe in that. We don't believe in standing silent when that happens. We don't believe in them being silent since. You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient. We don't believe in a small America. We believe in a big America -- a tolerant America, a just America, an equal America -- that values the service of every patriot.

This is the Barack Obama who I supported wholeheartedly back in 2008, and who I wish we could see more of in 2011 and beyond.

Chris Christie is NOT "Too Fat" to be President

There are plenty of reasons that I do not want NJ Governor Chris Christie to be elected president. Most of them have to do with the fact that he is yet another right-wing Republican. However, his weight is not among those reasons.

Amazingly, this has become an issue recently, as Governor Christie has been under recent pressure to reconsider his well-publicized decision not to run for president. For example, this recent article by Michael Kinsley declares in no uncertain terms that Christie "can not be president: He is just too fat." Mr. Kinsley, like many others who share his view, see Governor Christie's weight as a moral issue. They contend that if a person can not control his or her eating sufficiently to maintain a "normal" body weight, that this calls into question their self-control and thus their trustworthiness in public office.

There is no question that obesity is a serious and growing public health problem in the United States and other industrialized countries. As a person who has personally experienced with weight issues all of his life, I can say that there are many reasons for this problem. The factors involved in obesity can include family history, education and upbringing, pervasive advertising of unhealthy foods, lifestyle, poverty, and medical issues. It is seldom if ever simply a matter of "will power" or "self-control," as many people assume. For every person who successfully and permanently loses a significant amount of weight, there are many more who struggle unsuccessfully to do so.

The overweight are one of the last remaining socially "acceptable" targets of prejudice in America. This prejudice goes well past jokes and hurtful comments in the schoolyard, extending even to overt acts of discrimination.

There are many reasons to oppose Chris Christie if he should decide to jump into the presidential race. So please, don't judge him for something as superficial as his size.

Squirrel Facts: The Eurasian Red Squirrel

The red squirrel is found in both coniferous and temperate broadleaf forests throughout Europe and northern Asia. This is a completely separate species from the North American red squirrel that is found in Canada and the northern United States.

The red squirrel is somewhat smaller than the eastern gray squirrel. It is reddish in color, although the shade differs depending on region and season. It has a creamy white underbelly, and, the most distinctive feature, ear tufts, which are usually most pronounced in winter. The diet consists mostly of seeds of coniferous trees, nuts, fungi, berries, tree sap, and occasionally birds' eggs. The red squirrel will build a drey similar to the eastern gray squirrel, or may nest in tree cavities such as abandoned woodpecker nests.

In most parts of its range the red squirrel is abundant. However, tragically, in England the introduction of the larger and stronger eastern gray squirrel from North America, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century, has pushed the red squirrel out of most of its range. This is not due to aggression by the eastern gray, as the two species are not known to be antagonistic, but is because of several factors including the conflict over available food resources, greater adaptability and breeding success of the eastern gray squirrel, and, most troubling, a disease called squirrel pox which eastern grays carry but are immune to, but which is fatal to the red squirrel. Apart from the spread of the eastern gray squirrel, the red squirrel population has also been affected by fragmentation and reduction of its native forest habitat.

Wild populations of red squirrels in the United Kingdom are now found primarily in Scotland. Efforts are underway to protect and conserve the remaining populations of red squirrels. More information about these efforts, and how you can help, can be found here.