Cal Thomas’ website has been revamped and I don’t know what to think about the graphic below (compare it with the graphic at the top of this page).

More importantly, I visited Calcified Cal’s site looking for his latest column in which he excoriates senseless captialism, even as he continues to love Republicanism and loathe Democrats. Talk about disconnects. That’s almost as looney as Duhbya’s belief that Republicans will sweep the House, Senate and Whitehouse in the fall. Guffaw, snort, haw-haw, ROFLOL! Wait, a minute — maybe Diebold will make that happen. peace, mjh

Cal Thomas Official Web Site – ECONOMIC WOES

Some of the lust for bigger and better is human nature, but a lot is the result of consumerism. The Timex watch is no longer enough. We now must have a Rolex, though both accurately tell time. The adequate low-end automobile is insufficient. We must trade up to a luxury car with numbers and letters on the rear that mean nothing, but convey “status.” And the house we are living in, which would have been more than adequate for our parents and certainly our grandparents, must be upgraded to larger digs in order to impress, if not growing families, than enlarged egos. [mjh: I think that should be ‘then’.]

When none of this brings the promised happiness and fulfillment, we turn to drink, or pills, or counselors, or divorce court and seek significance in new things and relationships on what quickly becomes a personal boulevard of broken dreams. …

When wants and needs are confused, desires become entitlements and politicians are afraid to tell people what they need to hear. Instead they tell them what they want to hear. Anger and envy result, as well as frustration with a political system that was not designed to indulge its citizens in their lusts or subsidize their greed.

Who will tell us that unending and expanding prosperity with home values constantly rising and a citizenry always able to afford them is a fantasy that is bound to end in heartache for those who buy into it?

The economy isn’t bad. We are bad for believing that more is better and the most is best. We have an abundance of things, but a deficit of character. The economy is a false god, a golden calf. When this false god doesn’t deliver, we complain to politicians who are happy to accept our faith in them to give us what we want — if we will only pledge to them our allegiance at election time.

E. J. Dionne Jr. – A ‘Challenge’ Worth Challenging – washingtonpost.com 

Of course, defeating terrorism is important, and no candidate will say otherwise. But the United States has a lot of work to do in the world. If we’re thinking about the next two decades, not to mention the next 90 years, it’s a mistake to see terrorism as a “transcendent challenge” that makes all our other interests secondary.

For conservatives, there is something peculiar about turning Islamic extremism into a mighty ideological force with the power to overrun the world. It’s odd that so many take seriously Osama bin Laden‘s lunatic claims that he will build a new caliphate. (And, by the way, exactly what did the Iraq war contribute to the fight against terrorism?)

In his new book on neoconservatism, “They Knew They Were Right,” Jacob Heilbrunn quotes Owen Harries, an early neoconservative whose realist bent has made him skeptical of the latest turn in the thinking of his erstwhile comrades. Harries argues that viewing terrorism as an ideological challenge akin to Nazism or Soviet communism is neither accurate nor prudent.

“I think it’s to belittle the historical experiences of World War II,” Harries says, “not to speak of the Cold War, to equate the terrorists of today and the damage they’re capable of with the totalitarian regimes of the previous century.” Underestimating our enemies is a mistake, but so, too, is endowing them with more power than they have.

E. J. Dionne Jr. – A ‘Challenge’ Worth Challenging – washingtonpost.com

Think Progress » Matalin On Global Warming: ‘A Largely Unscientific Hoax,’ A ‘Political Concoction’ 

This week, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer discussed the right wing’s tepid support of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) with right-wing activist Mary Matalin. Matalin explained that McCain is out of step with the far right on several issues, in particular global warming, which many conservatives “loathe” discussing:

BLITZER: They loathe that?

MATALIN: Because it’s a largely unscientific hoax. And it’s a political concoction.

Watch it:

Echoing Matalin, former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) recently said that “there is no science to suggest that man is the cause of climate change.” These claims are laughable. As Science Magazine noted, in addition to the IPCC and National Academy of Sciences, there is overwhelming agreement that the causes of global warming are man-made.

Matalin observed that “you haven’t heard [McCain] prioritizing” climate change recently: “What you’ve been hearing him say since he’s achieved the nomination…is to prioritize security issues,” which are less controversial on the right.

(HT: TheGreenMiles)

Think Progress » Matalin On Global Warming: ‘A Largely Unscientific Hoax,’ A ‘Political Concoction’

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Think Progress » GM exec: global warming still a ‘crock of sh*t.’ 

Reuters reports that GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz defended his previous remarks dismissing global warming as a “total crock of shit.” Lutz said his views had no bearing on GM’s commitment to build environmentally-friendly vehicles. He added that those “spewing virtual vitriol” at him for disparaging climate change were “missing the big picture.” “My thoughts on what has or hasn’t been the cause of climate change have nothing to do with the decisions I make,” Lutz alleged.

Think Progress » GM exec: global warming still a ‘crock of sh*t.’