Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Sleep deprivation Thursday

Sleep deprivation Thursday

Last updated on: December 4, 2008 at 8:45 am by Fred Clark

Sleep deprivation Thursday 2008-12-04T08:45:44-05:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A bit of housekeeping: Since the most recent LBFriday installment was three days late and wound up getting derailed by a long Aristotelian tangent about acting, ethics and Mike Seaver, I intend to revisit Part 3 of LBTM tomorrow.

From what I've seen of the comments thread in the previous entry, many of you have already begun responding to that part of the movie. I'll try to catch up with you tomorrow.

* * *

Here's a bit more from Jim Hopkins' Gannett blog linked to in the previous post: "Documents reveal double-digit profit margins at scores of papers now on verge of massive layoffs."

Hopkins got his hands on a Cost & Statistical Summary report for the chain covering the first three quarters of 2007. As he says:

The numbers are startling … Every newspaper except Detroit's was profitable a year ago — although some, just barely so.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette was the star. It had the single-highest profit margin: 42.5%. … The paper's total ad revenue over the three quarters: $25 million. The report doesn't disclose circulation revenue for any paper. Applied only to ad revenue, then, Green Bay made around $10.6 million during the period. …

Now, some readers say these are, in fact, gross profit margins — that certain costs must still be subtracted before you can get to "net" earnings. … To be sure, several barely profitable papers may have dipped into the red since this report was published. The economy went over a cliff this year when the housing bubble collapsed, throwing the nation into recession. Yet, I imagine many of the papers listed below are still enjoying very healthy margins.

For the record, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, which reported that 42.5% gross profit margin for the first 9 months of 2007, laid off 14 people this week, eliminating a total of 22 jobs.

* * *

It's Thursday, let's talk about abortion!

On his way out the door, President Bush is tossing a bomb over his shoulder:

The Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers to refuse to participate in any way in morally "objectionable procedures" such as abortion and possibly including birth control and artificial insemination.

Abortion and birth control opponents are praising the new rule — and praising Bush for enacting it. I don't understand why.

This isn't a piece of legislation that had to be patiently shepherded through Congress. Nor is it a court ruling that took years to work its way through the judiciary. This is an executive rule — something Bush could have done just as easily at any point during the previous eight years of his administration.

The fact that Bush waited eight years to do this — doing it just in time to make it a pain for Barack Obama to reverse, but still in such a way that it is guaranteed to be reversed soon enough — is evidence not just that Bush takes his anti-abortion supporters for granted and for suckers, but that he doesn't care that they know this.

Think of it this way, as soon as Obama is sworn in he will have the authority to issue an executive order ruling that the EPA must regulate CO2 as a pollutant the way they're supposed to have been doing all along. This is something Obama has said throughout his campaign that he supports and it's something his environmentalist supporters expect him to follow through on — just like Bush's support for an expansive "conscience" rule was something he campaigned on (twice) and that his anti-abortion supporters ought to have expected him to follow through on sometime before his last full month in office. Now, if Obama were to dither for the next four years without ever issuing an executive order on CO2, and then if he were to get re-elected in 2012 promising to do this in his second term, and then he were to fiddle around for another four years before finally, just before leaving office, getting around to issuing the order he could have issued eight years earlier and doing so in such a way that it would likely be overturned by his successor … if Obama were to do that then you can be sure that environmental voters would not be praising him for it. Environmental voters would interpret such hypothetical shoddy treatment as evidence that this hypothetically irresponsible president didn't really give a rip about them or their agenda.

Seriously, shouldn't supporters of this conscience rule be at least a little miffed that their agenda has been reduced to a soon-to-be-erased afterthought? Or is it that they're just as cynically manipulative as Bush seems to be and they're only applauding this because they've already written the fundraising letters they intend to send out when President Obama predictably reverses this early next year?

"Conscience" doesn't really seem to be a factor in these folks' political games. They often seem less like they have an agenda they want to enact than like they have a racket they intend to milk.

* * *

OK, I knew the Fourth Amendment was looking shaky and the Eighth Amendment was on life support, but I didn't really expect to have to worry about the Pentagon violating the Third Amendment.

The U.S. military, so far, doesn't seem to be planning to quarter these troops in private homes, but according to The Washington Post:

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. …

[The troops] would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

I'm not sure which is more disturbing — that it now takes a fifth of the letters in the alphabet to designate the various possible nightmare scenarios, or the fact that our government imagines that the best and first response to such scenarios should involve uniformed, armed soldiers.

Responding to the aftermath of an explosion is not significantly different from responding to the aftermath of an earthquake. If your city gets hit by an earthquake, you'll need help and you'll need it fast, but a few thousand soldiers with guns wouldn't really

be your first priority.

Similarly, responding to
a chemical weapon attack is not significantly different from responding to the aftermath of an industrial chemical release or spill. Think of Bhopal. It's just deeply weird to consider an incident like that and think that flooding the area with armed soldiers would have been the most useful priority in response.

The threat of a "CBRNE event" is a serious concern, but precisely because it is serious it requires a more serious response than this. If the federal government wanted to train a 20,000-member incident response team of EMTs, firefighters, medical and rescue personnel then I would happily applaud. But I'd want that army of first-responders to be operating under civilian or law-enforcement authority.

Otherwise, this sounds like a hair-trigger excuse for Martial Law. No, thank you.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 3, 2008

The paper

Next Post

December 5, 2008 You know who else I don't care for?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month November 2026 October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Psalm prophesies the coming of the Messiah being rejected?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalm 51 Psalm 118 Psalm 1 Psalm 137