"We know there must be thousands of clergy out there who have secretly abandoned their faith but have nowhere to turn."

“Now they do have a place to meet, a true sanctuary, a congregation of those of us who have replaced faith and dogma with reason and human well-being.”

Said Dan Barker, a former preacher, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, about the Clergy Project. Richard Dawkins — the atheism proselytizer — is also involved in this project. He writes:

"If a farmer tires of the outdoor life and wants to become an accountant or a teacher or a shopkeeper, he faces difficulties, to be sure. He must learn new skills, raise money, move to another area perhaps. But he doesn't risk losing all his friends, being cast out by his family, being ostracized by his whole community...

"Clergy who lose their faith suffer double jeopardy. It's as though they lose their job and their marriage and their children on the same day."

A farmer who "tires of the outdoor life" is not a fraud, is not deceiving the people he cares about telling the truth to. It's funny that Dawkins didn't put that problem first. That says something about Dawkins, no?

Anyway, it really is an awful problem, to believe you're called into the ministry and then to feel that's nothing at all. And yet, isn't that part of training for the ministry, struggling with "the dark night of the soul" and so forth?

You're not Apple. Don't even try design.

Sorry. That's my reaction to this thing.

"It is possible to make people contented with their servitude. I think this can be done."

"I think this has been done in the past. I think it could be done even more effectively now... It looks as if the totalitarian regimes of the future will not be based on terror, because they will have other means... which will be much more efficient... and more pleasurable for those who undergo them."

ADDED: That Aldous Huxley quote, from a video at the link, sent me back to my Kindle copy of "Brave New World," whence I've lifted this for you:

"Work, play — at sixty our powers and tastes are what they were at seventeen. Old men in the bad old days used to renounce, retire, take to religion, spend their time reading, thinking — thinking!...

"Now — such is progress — the old men work, the old men copulate, the old men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think — or if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon; returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction, scampering from feely to feely, from girl to pneumatic girl, from Electromagnetic Golf course to …"

Why doesn't Obama talk about "climate change" anymore?

The NYT environmental reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal has a long "news analysis" piece titled "Where Did Global Warming Go?" It veers all over the place but I think the nut of it is that Obama's not talking about it anymore. Here are paragraphs 4 and 5:

Though the evidence of climate change has, if anything, solidified, Mr. Obama now talks about “green jobs” mostly as a strategy for improving the economy, not the planet. He did not mention climate in his last State of the Union address. Meanwhile, the administration is fighting to exempt United States airlines from Europe’s new plan to charge them for CO2 emissions when they land on the continent. It also seems poised to approve a nearly 2,000-mile-long pipeline, from Canada down through the United States, that will carry a kind of oil. Extracting it will put relatively high levels of emissions into the atmosphere.

“In Washington, ‘climate change’ has become a lightning rod, it’s a four-letter word,” said Andrew J. Hoffman, director of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainable Development.

And here's the last paragraph, #24:

In private, scientific advisers to Mr. Obama say he and his administration remain committed to confronting climate change and global warming. But Robert E. O’Connor, program director for decision, risk and management sciences at the National Science Foundation in Washington, said a bolder leader would emphasize real risks that, apparently, now feel distant to many Americans. “If it’s such an important issue, why isn’t he talking about it?”

What's in all those other paragraphs?

1. Poll numbers show a decline in Americans' belief in the catastrophic predictions about global warming.

2. There's nothing about poll numbers in other countries, but governments in other countries are adopting measures aimed at pushing back the climate.

3. In the U.S., the right wing has made "skepticism about man-made global warming into a requirement for electability, forming an unlikely triad with antiabortion and gun-rights beliefs," and polls show a partisan tilt to the skepticism.

4. People in other countries are getting annoyed at us for going about our selfish ways and not getting with the climate-fighting agenda. And Bill Clinton said "I mean, it makes us — we look like a joke, right?"

So, you can see, the point here is: Hey, Obama, get with the program. Look to the world and its opinion of us. Isn't that supposed to be your thing? Instead, you're acting like a right winger. That's so disgusting! Bill Clinton thinks you look like a joke.

The Occupy Madison encampment.

The group has moved to Veterans Park, which is right by the State Street corner of the Capitol Square. This is how it looked at midday yesterday, right after the peace march.

IN THE COMMENTS: Shouting Thomas links to his photographs of the Occupy Wall Street crowd. He's got some great material over there:

The above picture has everything! These young people are reading about themselves in the New York Post. Note the guitar. One of the young men has covered up his face with a bandanna, emulating a Latin style revolutionary. And, of course, in the background you can see a banner featuring Che Guevara, Fidel Castro's executioner. That romantic fantasy seems to always appeal to the young.

ALSO: Commenter edutcher says, "They always look like bums." And asks "Wonder why that is?" Presumably, he's implying that these people are bums. But when you live on the street, you look like a street person, so it's inherent in the choice of protest style that the Occupy [Your City] people will look like bums.

So the real question is: Why have these people chosen this image? If people go home at night and regroup in the morning, they will look clean and well-groomed and basically normal. If they camp out, they'll soon look like derelicts. It's their intentional branding. Now, maybe it was a bad choice. But it is a choice. They want to appear to be the desolate masses of the world.

Buttons for sale, at the peace march.

In Madison, yesterday.

Madison Peace March: The Movie.

Meade shot the video. I edited. This is what it looked like today on State Street and up on the Capitol Square for the big anti-war march. I make an appearance in the final frames.

"Solidary with Palestine" — a banner at the anti-war march today in Madison.

A hilarious and eerie interaction with iPhone 4s.

After having some trouble understanding me, the new iPhone has gotten quite good at hearing my speech. I said, "Play 'Poses' by Rufus Wainwright" and it did. I love that song, but with Meade listening too, I was afraid it was dreary, so I told the phone "Stop playing that song." It complied.

Meade said, "There's a real person listening on the other end." So I asked the phone, "Are you a real person listening to me, like maybe in India?"

Here's the answer I got, my next statement, and the response:



Freaky!

The anti-war march — today in Madison, Wisconsin.

"Hope is in the street not the White House."



"Who lied? Who died? Who pays? Who profits?"



"Birds not bombs."



"Corporations get handouts/We get shut out."



"Occupy the World."



"U.S. empire abroad requires austerity at home! Bring all troops & dollars home now."/"Still waiting to get trickled down on."



"Soon the poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich."



Following a man in a badger hat and rainbow fingerless gloves, a woman eats from a bag of popcorn:



"The world is a dangerous place to live... not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."



"End the wars," a sign clothes-pinned onto a marijuana flag, held by a man wearing a "No more drug war" T-shirt.



"It's time for peace" (and also time for the Farmers' Market, which is going on at the Capitol Square at the same time the peace march arrives).

Oh, no, no, no! John Nichols is not the sort of person who would compare Scott Walker to Stalin.

Here's a priceless chunk of bullshit:

Joseph Stalin is reputed to have suggested that it did not matter who cast the votes. What matters is who counts the votes. I don’t have a taste for comparing Gov. Scott Walker with the Soviet strongman. But when it comes to managing elections, Walker is giving his harshest critics ample encouragement to make the comparison.

So... it's not that Nichols is the type who'd say somebody is like Stalin, it's that Scott Walker is just so terribly much like Stalin that he's forced to overcome his reticence and observe that some other people are probably going to be forced to compare him to Stalin.

"That's the best way: You just get on with the whole thing. Never mind suing anyone. And just do something different."

That's Bill Cunningham, the NYT fashion photographer/commentator, talking specifically about the failed lawsuit over red soles on shoes, and, in the process, making a nice general point about litigiousness.

ADDED: If you watch the clip, you'll see Cunningham doesn't think much of Christian Louboutin for suing to protect its distinctive trademark red soles. It lost the lawsuit against YSL. But he mainly jumps forward to delight at the other shoemakers who are making other colorful soles. We see yellow and blue soled shoes.

It's not very coherent as a legal concept. He never says YSL should have picked a different color than red. He just likes the other shoemakers who find something different to do. But does that mean that Louboutin should have found something different than bringing a lawsuit? It's not at all clear.

I think Cunningham is saying: I don't care about law! Law isn't delightful! Extravagant shoes are delightful! Let's engage with the things in life that are delightful!

"I'm not aware of any meetings about 'the antiwar march hare in Madison.'"

My new iPhone's Siri program just got closer than ever before to understanding a question I asked, which was: "When is the anti-war march here in Madison?" I know there's an anti-war march today, and I'm trying to find out when. To be fair, Googling my question doesn't pull up the answer either.

But I love the robotic intelligence that substitutes — for "march here" — March Hare:



Hey! It's a tea party!

UPDATE: I just asked "What time is the Badger game today?" and was understood exactly and the phone immediately brought up the official UWBadgers site. So... go iPhone. And... go Badgers!

UPDATE 2: The phone seems to have figured out how to understand me. I asked "What's the best blog written by a law professor?" and it got it word for word. It wouldn't express an opinion however, but asked if I'd like it to "search the web" for the answer. That is, want me to Google that for you? I tested it with "Who's the best Republican Party candidate for President?" and, again, it offered to search the web. The iPhone is opinion neutral. And it's not cruel neutrality. You need a human being to get cruel neutrality. The robot provides bland neutrality.

Obama admistration abandons a part of Obamacare that can't be made to work.

The NYT reports:

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said she had concluded that premiums would be so high that few healthy people would sign up. The program, which was intended for people with chronic illnesses or severe disabilities, was known as Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, or Class....

“We have not identified a way to make Class work at this time,” Ms. Sebelius said. She said the program, which had been championed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, was financially unsustainable....

When Congress was developing the program in late 2009, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, described it as “a Ponzi scheme of the first order” because it required an ever-increasing stream of premiums to cover the cost of benefits.

A Ponzi scheme! I guess it was terrible of Conrad to call it a Ponzi scheme at the time, but now the administration is admitting that no matter how hard they try, they just can't disguise the fact that it's a Ponzi scheme.

The question remains: What are the other Ponzi schemes, the ones you're not yet forced to admit are Ponzi schemes?

Realize that the Class Act was portrayed as a source of revenue in the calculations about the feasibility of the entire health care reform. To go back to that Firedoglake post (discussed earlier today here):

[I]n deep-sixing the CLASS Act, the Administration just forfeited $86 billion in savings on the Affordable Care Act. 

I know... try to get your mind around that.

That’s because the CLASS Act was a net revenue positive in the ten-year window of the legislation, because it collected more in premiums that it paid out in the early years, according to CBO scoring.

So the effective nullification of the CLASS Act costs $86 billion. But it’s unlikely that $86 billion will be made up in any other way. If Congress repealed the CLASS Act, they might have to find offsets. But since the White House just isn’t going to implement the program, the savings won’t be realized but nobody has to worry about paygo or anything. It just blows a hole in the medium-term budget.

Wow. That explanation is head-slappingly weird but you see the point: There was never $86 billion to be used to offset other costs, but it was used anyway.

My trouble getting Siri to work in iPhone 4s reminds Chip Ahoy of his mother and his dog.

He writes:

The dog jumped on the sofa, Mum said, "Tina, get down." Tina obeyed. She dropped into the down position but she stayed on the sofa even though Mum was not her trainer. It happened Mum uttered the precise command that works: the dog's name, the single-word clear command.

Mum said, "Tina, I said, get DOWN!" Tina dug her little doggie elbows deeper into the sofa.

Mum said, "DOWN!" The dog dug her nose into her paws trying to be further down into the cushions. Then Mum looked at me and said, "That dog of yours doesn't listen at all."

Me: "Tina." *ears perk* "Get off the sofa." The dog jumps to floor and immediately sits alertly awaiting her next instruction. It's a bit Nazi-like actually, when you see it. A bit frightening, the dog is black, after all. In fact, her down command was so fierce that she was in the down position before the word is pronounced. We could not do this on hard surface because I feared she'd crack her elbows, but she sure was fun to practice on grass or on carpet.

And — oh, how we love Chip here at Althouse! — he animates the photo I took with the phone:

"Obama is a despicable man. Dishonest and heartless to the core."

That's a typical comment at Firedoglake, a big left/liberal blog. Here's another (and it's not like I'm skipping over compliments):

It is said that many Americans think that Barack Obama is a nice guy.

Barack Obama is not a nice guy, and the American people may soon realize that he is not a nice guy.

“Underdog” Obama clearly does not want a second term as President.

Perhaps he deserves another “term”, possibly ten to twenty?

And then, a taxpayer-paid visit to the Hague?

And:

Classless, cluless, cruel and corrupt.

"Classless" is a reference to the "Class Act," the voluntary long-term care insurance component of Obamacare, which the Obama administration has announced it will not — cannot — implement. (I'll write some more about that in the next post. This post is about the intensity of hatred aimed at Obama from the left.)

Another comment:

One more knife in the back for the working men and women of the country. This abomination of a president must be removed from office. He is ruining our country.

And:

Obama’s crappy healthcare overhaul is coming apart like a car put together with superglue, as it was supposed to do, of course, after it transferred everything to the insurance corpse and Big PhRMA.

Pretty soon the only thing left will be the mandate to buy skyrocketing insurance.

A commenter named "demi" says: "he’s not looking as well as he once looked. Something is taking a toll on the man." And the immediate response, from DWBartoo is: "I think he resembles Joseph Goebbels more … every single day, demi … the eyes … the eyes are dead."

Another commenter says: "I don’t understand why the right hates Obama. he is the best Republican President they’ve had in decades."

Another:

I tried to read his autobiography. Found it chock full of trite, and gave up. I knew he was full of BS. I knew he was a front for the elites.

The night he got elected, I went to an election party, had to my partner is a big dem supporter. I kid you not people were crying and hugging one another. I was horrified. had a few people shout at me for not going along with the group hysteria.

Which draws the response: "Have to confess: I fell for it."

And:

I wasn’t into the hysteria but I thought that for once I wasn’t voting for the lesser of two evils but somebody I really wanted in there. Now I don’t believe I voted for the lesser but rather the greater of the two evils. At least if McLame had come up with such an abominable plan, the Democrats would have blocked it if for no other reason than because McLame has an “R” after his name.

All right, I'm going to stop now. I've only combed through a third of the comments, but you can see what is happening: Obama has become the embodiment of their grief over the pending stillborn death of Obamacare.

I'm thinking Obama's best hope for reelection is for the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare — find the individual mandate unconstitutional and the remainder of the law inseverable. Take the whole thing down.  Let Obama rhapsodize about the beautiful future that might have been — it's very pretty when it's not real — and blast away at that terrible Supreme Court that reaches beyond the realm of the law. Ironically, Obama would be publicly denouncing the Court for getting political and secretly grateful that the political benefit came to him.

Think about it. Obamacare is the nonviable fetus that we continue to carry to term, agonizing in anticipation of a stillborn. It's very sad. But there is the possibility of ending the existence of that misbegotten child. Do you like my metaphor? Within it, the Supreme Court is the abortionist. It can intervene right now and end the suffering.