Obama has pre-emptively fired Erroll Southers, his choice to head the TSA. By proposing to put a union organizer in charge of the TSA, Obama was indicating his preference for union politics over keeping Americans safe.  (I am not exagerating, politicians have to expect a few Americans to die, here and there, but union politics is a systemic influence on American politics). Good show!

Now declare ObamaCare dead, withdraw your nomination of Ben Bernanke, fire Tim Geithner, instruct the Attorney General to investigate the Oligarchs, and unleash Arnie Duncan.

From RCP Senate Race Live Blog

11:35pm — A somewhat stunning statement from Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): “If Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But Since Brown has won and the GOP now has 41 votes in hte Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some GOP Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because i do not think the country would be well served by the health care status quo. But our respect for Democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. I hope there will be a serious effort to change the senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of this process.”

Thank you Massachusetts!

The infrastructure of our nation — our science and our markets — are being dismantled to enrich Friends of the Administration

Capitalism and markets work. Innovation works. It is the fast-pace of innovations in videogames that lets a $99 Wii balance board outperform a $17,885 medical device in tests. Science lets us build machines by the atom

Instead, we destroy our markets and our scientists by subsidizing casino cronyism. The HUD announced it will subsidize house flipping

While it’s funny that our country is so science-illiterate that an 11-year-old’s science fair project leads to a lockdown, bomb squad, and suspension. But there’s nothing at all funny about what the Oligarchs are doing to our country.

So what do we do?

*: Fire Bernanke.
*: Celebrate those who refuse to transfer wealth to the Friends of the Administration
*: Take away this Administration’s super-majority in the Senate.

Fight the Oligarchs. Fire Bernanke.
Fight the Oligarchs. Fight the speculators.
Fight the Oligarchs. Defeat Martha Coakley.

From CNN:

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.

The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.

The news these days is more enjoyable if you imagine that Jay Leno is running for Senate in Massachusetts and Martha Coakley is trying to steal the Tonight Show from Conan O’Brien.

Jon Stewart is unusually good in this segment:

A World, Lost and Found

Catholicgauze has a great piece on the Ricci Map, a world map (including the fabled land of Ka-Na-Ta) composed as part of the Jesuit’s intellectual work for the Ming Emperors of China. The lead Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, defeated Muslim astronomers in predicting heavenly events, and rapidly gained the trust of the Imperial Household.

The Jesuit program in China included the Chinese Rites, the recognition of the deep cultural and emotional similarity between Chinese “ancestor-worship” and Catholic prayers for Intercession from the Saints. The Jesuits installed in the churches the characters  天主, “Lord of Heaven,” to ease the conversion of Chinese, just as the early Christians had adorned their saints with halos, using the iconography of an old order to emphasis a now revealed truth. Sadly, the Taliban of an earlier era did not approve, and in the bowels of Church politics the conversion of China was forgotten.

I feel blessed to have been married in the South Cathedral of Beijing, standing on land given to Matteo Ricci and the Church by the Wanli Emperor. While the current building dates to reconstruction after the Boxer Rebellion, the land on which it stands has been the site of a Catholic Church since Ricci’s time. The church, after suffering during the Cultural Revolution, is rejuvenating.

Catholicgauze concludes: “The Ricci Map is undeniably a Chinese map. It shows the combination of European knowledge with a Chinese worldview. It shows a lost world.“

With the amazing news that Google.cn is no longer censoring results, average Chinese netizens can now use a search engine that is able to honestly summarize the internet. While this probably will not last long, but for now it is an amazing site. Here is what image searches for the Unknown Rebel now look like under Google.cn and Baidu (which, like MSNBC, is indirectly controlled by its national government):

While Google is afraid of terrorists, it seems not to be afraid of Communists.

As Slashdot notes, body scanners can store and email nude photos of you, your family, and your kids to strangers.

But don’t worry. I’m sure no TSA employee will screw up badly enough for anything to happen.

If such a thing ever happened, Obama would fire the guy. Obama would never let union politics get in the way of national safety.

Still doing a little editing here and there, but this is the bulk of the first half of the fourth chapter of my dissertation.