Who Really Bankrupted America?

In January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington would have enough money by the end of the decade to pay off everything it owed.

Now, instead of tending a nest egg of more than $2 trillion, the federal government expects to owe more than $10 trillion to outside investors by the end of this year. The national debt is larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any time in U.S. history except for the period shortly after World War II.

Polls show that a large majority of Americans blame wasteful or unnecessary federal programs for the nation’s budget problems. But routine increases in defense and domestic spending account for only about 15 percent of the financial deterioration, according to a new analysis of CBO (Congressional Budget Office) data.

The biggest culprit, by far, has been an erosion of tax revenue triggered largely by two recessions and multiple rounds of tax cuts. Together, the economy and the tax bills enacted under former president George W. Bush, and to a lesser extent by President Obama, wiped out $6.3 trillion in anticipated revenue. That’s nearly half of the $12.7 trillion swing from projected surpluses to real debt. Federal tax collections now stand at their lowest level as a percentage of the economy in 60 years.

Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus, a favorite target of Republicans who blame Democrats for the mounting debt, has added $719 billion — 6 percent of the total shift, according to the new analysis of CBO data by the nonprofit Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative. All told, Obama-era choices account for about $1.7 trillion in new debt, according to a separate Washington Post analysis of CBO data over the past decade. Bush-era policies, meanwhile, account for more than $7 trillion and are a major contributor to the trillion-dollar annual budget deficits that are dominating the political debate.

Lori Montgomery The Washington Post

Trickle Down Tales

Reality Behind the Debt Crisis

I stopped writing about politics because it was driving me crazy. I decided to bury my head in the sand for a while. That is until I heard about the 39 riders on the the Boehner plan to raise the Debt Ceiling. The Bill was intended to a limited increase in the Debt Ceiling and we would have the whole fight again in a few months. The 39 riders were all about destroying regulation, environmental regulation. De-funding the EPA and gutting the Endangered Species Act are prime Republican targets. If the current class of Republicans and Tea Baggers had their way we would return to the pre-progressive Oligarchy when the wealthiest Americans owned everything, child labor laws did not exist, the environment was pillaged and plundered, factories were death traps, and the food was not fit for human consumption. Why would that be? Because regulation is really there to help the poorest and weakest of our society. The bottom 90% benefit the most from governmental protection. If we want a vision of the Republican Plan we need only to look at China with its lung searing pollution, toxic products and toys, unregulated building codes, and lack of personal liberty.

Yes the Republicans want to unfetter industry, the job creators, but they also want to tell you what you can do with your own body and tell you who you can love.

The Republicans always paint Democrats as tax and spend liberals but a quick search of the debt accumulated in my lifetime reveals the most fiscally prudent Presidents have been Johnson, Nixon and Clinton and the most fiscally reckless have been Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes. I left our Carter because he's somewhere in the middle and I left out Obama because were are only part way through his first term. George W. Bush raised the National Debt from 5.7 Trillion to 10.6 Trillion doubling it in 8 years. Under Bush Senior the Debt nearly doubled from 2.6 to 4.1 Trillion. Under Reagen the National Debt went from 900 Billion to 2.7 Trillion increasing by two thirds. Yes the debt has risen under all of the last 9 presidents but Clinton and Johnson were the best at keeping it under control.

If you want to believe the Republican lies and let the gut all environmental protection then go ahead... I'm looking to move to Canada.

Stop Robo Calls

Robo Calls are annoying and the are perfectly legal. Even if you signed up for the Colorado and National Do Not Call list politicians and their proxies can still Robo Call your cell phone. What can you do?

1. If you get a Robo Call hang up and try to call the number back and voice your disapproval. Sometime you get a live person and sometimes you can leave a message.
2. Contact your state representative. In Colorado you can try this link: http://comaps.org/allsearch_old.html
3. Contact the DNC and RNC and voice your disapproval

I'm all for free speech but it stops with my phone.

One Day for Design

Check it out:
One Day for Design

Why Will the Government Shut Down?

Culture Wars. Here is a partial list of the riders attached to the funding extension:

• Prohibits the Federal Reserve from transferring more than $80 million to the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Basically killing the program
• Prohibits funding for the EPA to change a rule regulating water. Can you say arsenic in the water?
• Prohibits the District of Columbia from using its own, non-federal funds to pay for abortions beyond the very limited circumstances in which federal funds are currently available (in circumstances of rape or incest and to save the life of a pregnant woman). Really?
• Prohibits funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., or any of its affiliates.
• Prohibits funding for needle-exchange programs.
• Prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from collecting information on multiple sales of rifles or shotguns to the same person. Preparing for the revolution are we?
• Prohibits funding for the Sustainable Communities Initiative. Who cares about sustainability? Fuck it.
• Blocks funds for the Federal Communications Commission to institute Net Neutrality rules. Because Comcast has your best interests at heart...
• Prohibits Recovery Act funds for signage. Now that's just douchey

Pup with Munchies

At least he could close the door!

If You Watch It Backwards

What a great concept! This site give a literal description of the plot of your favorite movies if they were watched in reverse... For example:

If you watch “Top Gun” backwards, it’s about the breakup of two gay Navy pilots.

If You Watch It Backwards

Around the world in 2000 pictures

This is really fun. If you like this then check out this video too by Luke Shepard

I Love Statistics

I frequently peruse the stats at the Pew center and I found a few that are not really shocking but eye opening.
Here's a set of three stats:
1. How religious a state is
2. Levels of poverty per state
3. Teen pregnancy per state
States like Mississippi are a trifecta in that they have high religious beliefs, high poverty, and high teen pregnancy. On the other end of the spectrum are Vermont and New Hampshire; low in all three categories. It's also interesting that states with the most restrictive sex education tend to have the highest rates of teen pregnancy...

Religiosity (click to zoom)


Poverty


Teen Pregnancy

Big Pharma Profits

Drug companies would like use to believe that it costs close to a $1 billion to bring new drug to market. They site a 2003 from Tufts University. The study, which was published in the Journal of Health Economics, was conducted out of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (TCSDD), a drug industry-funded group that “advocate[s] on behalf of initiatives and issues that further the cause of pharmaceutical innovation” (http://csdd.tufts.edu/about/corporate_sponsorship).

Tufts produced a drug industry-funded study that contains drug industry-favored results. It includes a small and random sampling of unnamed drugs, and claims that such drugs cost an average of $802 million a piece to produce in 2000, or $1 billion in 2011 dollars when accounting for inflation. But the precise numbers and details are all but missing from the report. So how anyone in the scientific or regulatory community can willfully accept the report as anything other than hearsay is anyone’s guess.

According to a recent piece in Slate, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PhRMA), a pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry trade group, says that average drug development costs are even higher, having allegedly topped $1.32 billion in 2006. Based on this number, PhRMA is claiming that such costs increased by a whopping 64 percent in just six years, which is more than double the normal medical inflation rate.

The Light and Warburton study, which has been published in the journal BioSocieties, says that these figures are greatly overblown, and are simply not based in reality. The Slate piece cites additional research noting that 84 percent of the costs associated with the first research phase of drug development is covered by taxpayers via government grants. Add to this the report’s estimate that the drug industry uses a little more than one percent of its sales revenue on basic research, and the costs in this department are very minimal.

Another little-known fact is that drug company R&D costs are tax exempt. They do not depreciate like normal investments do, either. When accounting for the many other tax breaks that drug companies receive, their actual net costs are cut by at least half of what they claim, according to the report. And when adjusting for “cost of capital,” that amount should be cut in half again if it is to even approach an accurate estimate for R&D costs. After all, if drug companies are not willing to take a risk in the R&D department — which is part of what running a business is all about — then they should not be in business at all, right?

Apparently drug companies feel as though they are entitled to massive profits, even if they fail to produce a valuable product. No other industry receives the benefits that Big Pharma does in the name of public health, and yet the industry is constantly whining and threatening that unless it can keep riding the gravy train and receiving special treatment, the production of drugs will cease. This, of course, takes place as the industry marks up its drugs as much as 569,000 percent over cost, bilking insurance companies and the government out of billions

Too Much To Handle

The devastating quake in Japan is weighing heavily on my heart this week but it's not weighing on Limbaugh's heart, if he still has one. Limbaugh has spent his time mocking the Japanese survivors for maintaining a recycling program... "They've given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are recycling their garbage." Here, he began to laugh, continuing, "and yet, Gaia levels them! Just wipes them out!"

So while I cannot even comprehend the kind of hate festering the Limbaugh's heart I can look at the budget and the Republicans and quietly say WTF. While Japanese survivors are able to maintain a recycling program in the face of devastation (because they can see beyond the immediate crisis), GOP’s top priority is somewhere between “get Styrofoam cups back into Congress” — an actual push the Republicans took up to thumb their nose at Nancy Pelosi’s environmental policies — and make “Sesame Street” beg for money.

Recently Ezra Klein of the Washington Post wrote:
The discretionary spending programs being dickered over currently in Washington account for only 12 percent of the federal budget, "and that's not where the problem is." The grave and gathering threat to our fiscal future comes from the so-called "entitlement programs" of Social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which now consume 47 percent of the budget and will consume 64 percent by 2020... Trying to wipe out the deficit and shrink the national debt by cutting the discretionary budget is a bit "like trying to clean your house by doing more and more to organize the hall closet." The closet might be neater but the real mess still awaits you.

O'Keefe Lying Again

Last week, a Project Veritas "sting" operation directed at National Public Radio cost some NPR executives their jobs. Beginning with Senior Vice President for Fundraising Ron Schiller, who was depicted on tape disparaging the Tea Party movement and suggesting that NPR should move away from federal funding, the fallout eventually cost NPR CEO Vivian Schiller her job as well. That's sort of the NPR way "act in haste, repent in leisure."

The Glenn Beck-branded website, The Blaze, may seem an unlikely defender of NPR but when the site's editor, Scott Baker, and video production specialist, Pam Key, examined the raw footage, they found "questionable editing and tactics."

—The video "does not explain how the NPR executives would have a basis to believe they were meeting with a Muslim Brotherhood front group," and indeed "includes a longer section of description that seems to downplay connections of the MEAC group to the Muslim Brotherhood as popularly perceived."
—The video is edited to make it appear that Ron Schiller "is aware and perhaps amused or approving of the MEAC['s]" advocacy for Sharia law, but Schiller's "Really? That's what they said?" remark is actually made in reference to "confusion" involving the "restaurant reservation."
—Schiller is actually complimentary of Republicans, and prefaces his criticism of the Tea Party by indicating that it's his own opinion, not NPR's. (Plenty of conservatives and Tea Party activists have averred that NPR has treated them fairly.) Baker also finds footage in which Schiller and director of institutional giving Betsy Liley express a hesitancy to disparage the "education of conservatives" and defend "intellects of Fox News viewers."

Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member for broadcasting and online at the Poynter Institute, says there are "two ways to lie. One is to tell me something that didn't happen. And the other is not to tell me something that did happen." After comparing O'Keefe's edited tape to the longer version, "I think that they employed both techniques in this," Tompkins says.

One "big warning flag" Tompkins saw in the shorter tape was the way it made it appear that Schiller had laughed and commented "really, that's what they said?" after being told that the fake Muslim group advocates for sharia law. In fact, the longer tape shows that Schiller made that comment during an "innocuous exchange" that had nothing to do with the supposed group's position on sharia law, David reports.

Tompkins also says that O'Keefe's edited tape ignores the fact that Schiller said "six times ... over and over and over again" that donors cannot buy the kind of coverage they want on NPR.

O'Keefe continues to maintain that their video is "very honest." It's easy to see why: the effects of his "sting" operation manifested themselves in several public firings, so he can couch his claims—however dubious they may be—in the fact that NPR's response was a de facto acceptance of the video's premise.

Which is why organizations like NPR shouldn't freak out and start firing people until all the facts are known.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

I had a potluck to go to and decided to make a soup. I'm a big fan of thicker pureed soups and I wanted to use a head of cauliflower I had in the fridge; so this is what I came up with.

1 tablespoon whole coriander toasted and freshly ground
1 tablespoon whole cumin toasted and freshly ground
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon hot red pepper or more
2 tablespoons of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon of ginger, minced
1 large onion, small dice
1 large celery root, cubed
1 large head of cauliflower, broken into florets
2 medium potatoes, cubed
1 quart vegetable stock
3–4 cups of water
Salt
Olive oil (I use Whole Foods brand EVOO for almost everything except for deep frying)
1 cup of heavy cream

Toss cauliflower florets with a bit of olive oil and salt and roast in a 400° oven until browned.

Sweat Onion until translucent, heavily salt to help the process along. Add all of the spices and stir over medium high heat. You want to release the oils in the spices and you will have a sticky mess in the bottom of the pot. Add celery root, garlic, ginger and potatoes. Add a little water if necessary to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of pot and saute until everything starts to just take on a bit of color. Add water, stock and roasted cauliflower and BRB then RTS (Bring to Boil, Reduce to Simmer)

Simmer until the veggies are fork tender then shut off heat and puree with an immersion blender (You can buy an immersion blender at Bed Bath and Beyond for around $50 bucks and it's money well spent!).
Blend to a smooth consistency and then add the heavy cream. Ladle into bowls and enjoy.

In Defense of NPR

When Gov. Scott Walker was caught on tape musing about how he wanted to let troublemakers mingle among the Wisconsin protesters; it made the news for about five minutes. When James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart manipulate tape to show their point of view, think Shirley Sherrod and acorn, it makes headlines. For those who still think there is a liberal bias to the news I say you are delusional.

NPR is the only real news let and if you think it's liberal it's only because it challenges the status quo, as news should. News should challenge not reflect.

As far as the Schiller and Schiller debacle... fuck it... What did Schiller actually say?

"The current Republican Party is not really the Republican Party. It's been hijacked by this group that is ... not just Islamophobic but, really, xenophobic," Schiller said in the video, referring to the tea party movement. "They believe in sort of white, middle America, gun-toting — it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."

It's true! "We've just exposed the true hearts and minds of NPR and their executives," O'Keefe said in a letter posted on the site. What is interesting and what's not getting reported is The heavily edited video shows Schiller and another NPR executive, Betsy Liley, meeting at a pricey restaurant in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood with two men claiming to be part of a Muslim organization. The men offer NPR a $5 million donation. NPR said Tuesday it was "repeatedly pressured" to accept a $5 million check, which the organization "repeatedly refused."

What is interesting is the O'Keefe claims to stand for truthiness but heavily edits his videos, just like Andrew Breitbart, to tell his story..

As far as Juan Williams is concerned, he should have been let go a long time ago. He obviously loved working for Fox more than he loved working for NPR. If you value NPR let your voice be hear http://www.170millionamericans.org/

How Smart Are Elephants?

I saw this a few days ago and while I knew that elephants were smart I was blown away by this research.
from the AP
Elephants are socially complex. In a series of tests, the giant mammals learned to cooperate to solve a problem, researchers report.

The elephants caught on as quickly as chimpanzees, elevating themselves to to the level of great apes, dolphins and crows.

The tests, conducted in Thailand, involved food rewards placed on a platform on the ground connected to a rope. The elephants were behind a fence. To get the food, the elephants had to pull the two ends of the rope at the same time to drag the platform under the fence. Pull only one end and all you get is rope. Six pairs of elephants were tested 40 times over two days and every pair figured it out, succeeding on at least eight of the last 10 trials.

In another experiment, the researchers left only one end of the rope within reach of the elephants, with the other end coiled on the table. The elephants didn't bother to pull the rope, seeming to recognize that it wouldn't work if their partner couldn't pull the other end.

It is hard to draw a line between learning and understanding, the researchers concluded, but the elephants did engage in cooperative behavior and paid attention to their partner.

Previously elephant ability to be self aware was tested.

Elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, joining only humans, apes and dolphins as animals that possess this kind of self-awareness, researchers now report.

"This would seem to be a trait common to and independently evolved by animals with large, complex brains, complex social lives and known capacities for empathy and altruism, even though the animals all have very different kinds of brains," researcher Diana Reiss, a senior cognitive research scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in Brooklyn, N.Y., told LiveScience.
The researchers began their experiment by introducing three adult female Asian elephants to a mirror [image] eight feet wide by eight feet high constructed in a private area of their yard at the Bronx Zoo. Making the jumbo-sized mirror as "elephant-resistant" as they could was a challenge, given that "elephants love to constantly push with their heads and manipulate anything they can," explained researcher Joshua Plotnik, a graduate student at Emory University in Atlanta.

"We used a mirror made of plastic -- if we used glass, it would have broken very easily -- and framed it with steel and bolted it to the wall, but we were still worried they'd bring it down," Plotnik told LiveScience. "Luckily that didn't happen. We never saw them attempt to rip the mirror off. They seemed too interested in it to do that."

One of the first things animals capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors do is try exploring the other side of the mirror. Elephants Maxine and Patty did this [video]: they swung their trunks over and behind the wall on which the mirror was mounted, kneeled in front of it to get their trunks under and behind it, and even attempted to physically climb the wall. Remarkably, the elephants did not appear to at first mistake their reflections as strangers and try to greet them, as many animals that can recognize themselves normally do.

"Elephants have been tested in front of mirrors before, but previous studies used relatively small mirrors kept out of the elephants' reach," he added. "This study is the first to test the animals in front of a huge mirror they could touch, rub against and try to look behind."

As they begin to understand mirrors, animals that can recognize their reflections try repeating actions in front of it. The elephants, for example, waved their trunks around and moved their heads in and out of the mirror view.

Finally, once animals recognize reflections as their own, they use mirrors to investigate their own bodies. On more than one occasion, the elephants stuck their trunks into their mouths in front of the mirror, and Maxine used her trunk to pull her ear slowly toward the mirror.

"As a result of this study, the elephant now joins a cognitive elite," said researcher Frans de Waal at Emory University.

One elephant, named Happy, passed the final test of repeatedly touching an X painted on her forehead, a place she could not see without a mirror. As a control, when a colorless paint was used to draw the X, Happy didn't bother with it. While only Happy passed this test [video], the researchers noted that more than half of chimpanzees examined typically fail this test.

"Also, while primates constantly groom themselves, elephants love to throw mud on themselves and bathe in dust, so the other elephants might have seen that mark on their heads and not cared," Plotnik said.

Future research can focus on when elephants first develop this capacity. "We first see evidence of humans recognizing their reflections when they are 18 months old," Reiss said.

The scientists reported their findings online October 30 via the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Hopefully, she added, this will encourage people to protect elephants.

The Dirty Word

When did liberal become such a dirty word?
What does it mean?
Let's take a look:

'liberal(s)' appears to be a derogatory term for people of a particular politcal persuasion. Is Liberal the new Communist?

Here below is one set of definitions for liberal. Would this define said 'liberals' when voiced by a 'libertarian' or conservative in the states? you'll notice words like 'tolerance' and phrases like 'not bound by orthodoxy'. Are these reprehensible qualities to a tea bagger? Or does 'liberal' mean something completely different to them? Just asking...

Definitions of liberal on the Web:

•broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's opinions"
•having political or social views favoring reform and progress
•tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
•a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
•big: given or giving freely; "was a big tipper"; "the bounteous goodness of God"; "bountiful compliments"; "a freehanded host"; "a handsome allowance"
•a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets

Conversely what is Conservative:
•resistant to change
•cautious: avoiding excess; "a conservative estimate"
•a person who is reluctant to accept changes and new ideas
•bourgeois: conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class; "a bourgeois mentality"

Net Neutrality

Today Nancy Pelosi tweeted this:
House GOP schedule today: defending #DOMA & stopping #NetNeutrality. Not on the agenda: #jobs (http://go.usa.gov/40D).
of course the haters tweeted this:
@NancyPelosi House GOP schedule today defending #DOMA & stopping #NetNeutrality / YES FIGHTING YOUR MARXIST AGENDA SO WE CAN GROW JOBS #TCOT
and this:
@NancyPelosi, not everyone can have a government job like you Pelosi.

So what is Net Neutrality and why all the vitriol? Here are a few FAQs from: Save The Internet

What is Net Neutrality?

Net Neutrality is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.

Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers may not discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies.

Net Neutrality is the reason the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation and free speech online. It protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data—not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Who wants to get rid of Net Neutrality?

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies—including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable—want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. And they want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services and streaming video—while slowing down or blocking services offered by their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of a level playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services—or those of big corporations that can afford the steep tolls—and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

The big phone and cable companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to gut Net Neutrality, putting the future of the Internet at risk.

What's happening in Congress?

Republicans in the House—aided by millions in political contributions from phone and cable companies—have launched a full-frontal assault against Net Neutrality and the FCC's authority to protect consumers' right to connect. In Early 2011 they introduced several measures to both "defund" the FCC's ability to act as a watchdog against industry abuses and to take away the agency's ability to enforce protections.

So while the thugs in congress, aided by millions in contributions from telecoms, want you to be afraid of net neutrality; the conspiracy machine at Fox News has the ignorant masses, once again, believing what is good regulation is bad. They want you to believe that net neutrality is a Marxist plot against America, which it's not.

Never mind the bullshit surrounding DOMA. The DOJ only said it would not defend the Constitutionality of the law. It DID NOT said it would not enforce the law... The Republicans, once again, are trying to get the public to take their collective eyes of the ball.

Why I Teach Design and Not Art

Design is the ultimate expression of the immutable laws of the universe. I know that sounds heady and pompous but I believe the five principles of design are the key to everything.

1. Unity
2. Balance
3. Rhythm
4. Emphasis
5. Proportion

Simply stated, these principles point us to what we find to be beautiful, efficient, and desirable. They help to explain the inner workings of our body and mind and our outer workings of family, culture, and the world.

At one point, I think, design and art were one. The names we remember from the Renaissance are not simply known as painters and sculptors. They were architects, they built machines of war, and they created urban spaces. They solved major problems of math and physics AND they created incredibly beautiful art. Somewhere along the way I think that connection was lost. Somewhere along the way art became about personal expression and no longer spoke in the language of visual communication.

As school systems have languished over the last few decades the connection to art, music, physical activity have been lost. Children today are pushed to achieve but to achieve what. Without cultural context, without a big picture, without grounding what will they have learned?

It's time for designers everywhere to step into classrooms, boardrooms, and the halls of congress to show the world or at least the folks here at home that DESIGN is the solution. Why the financial meltdown? Lack of balance and scale? Why the fear? Lack of unity and focus? What can rhythm teach use about driving, stress, and fatigue.

OK enough pontificating... time to make stuff

Why Do People Vote Against Their Interests?

For the last three years, Gallup has called 1,000 randomly selected American adults each day and asked them about indicators of their quality of life. Responses are converted to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Here are the 2010 results, sorted by Congressional districts.





In this first map, respondents were asked about health problems that diminish their quality of life. Darker orange means more health problems.


This map shows the percentage of respondents clinically obese. 38% on the high end, illustrated by dark orange and 10% on the low end illustrated by light orange.




This map shows what percentage of respondents exercised for at least 30 minutes on three of the last seven days. Darker orange is better.




This map shows what percentage of respondents had enough money to buy food for their family... Notice the correlation between obesity and inadequate food.




In this map illustrates how many of respondents had health insurance. 98% dark orange versus 58% light orange.






One final map: This map shows results of the 2010 midterm election. Blue is Democrat and red is republican. Notice that concentrations of republican votes, in the southeast especially, are also concentrations of constituents who are poor, unhealthy, obese, and lacking health insurance.

For more maps click here

Increased Support for Legalization of Marijuana

You probably already knew this but more men favor legalization of marijuana as oppose to women. And of course younger, with a college education, and leaning toward liberal democrat support legalization 66% to 29%... While support for legalizing marijuana has never been higher (pun intended); it's interesting to note the polarization by: party, political leaning, education, age and gender. Political viewpoint also, not surprisingly, trend in polar opposites for Gay Marriage, Gun control, and Legal Abortion. There are roughly 72 million registered Democrats and 55 million registered Republicans... that leaves about 74 million independents. This is interesting against the backdrop that Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

I still think if liberal Democrats put down the bong they would sway elections more toward the issues they support.

What Inspired This Flavor?

This from Slashfood.com

The battle for late-night supremacy now moves to the ice-cream aisle. On the heels of Stephen Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" comes a new late-night funnyman-inspired ice cream flavor from Ben & Jerry's. That's right; in conjunction with the two-year anniversary of SNL alum Jimmy Fallon taking over Conan O'Brien's NBC post at Late Night, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have created "Late Night Snack," a premium ice cream complete with Fallon's mug on the lid. Here's how it rates:

The Claims: Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack is vanilla bean ice cream with a salty caramel swirl and fudge-covered potato chip clusters.

The Verdict: Grade A. One might wonder what Ben, Jerry, and Jimmy were doing late at night when the idea for this peculiar ice cream and potato chip combination came about, but whatever it was, it worked. The combination of sweet and salty is harmonious, but not exactly balanced evenly; it's more sweet than salty, which is a good thing -- it's ice cream after all. The hints of saltiness in the potato chips adds dimension, much like Ben & Jerry's famous "Chubby Hubby," which contains fudge-covered, peanut-butter-filled pretzels. The fudge-covered potato chip clusters of "Late Night Snack" add a nice texture, but the clusters don't get in the way of the smoothness and creaminess of the ice cream and caramel.
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This new ice cream flavor was announced at a press event in Late Night's Studio 6B, where last summer Fallon and his house band The Roots performed a Ben & Jerry's tribute song, "Ladysmith Snack Mambazo," in the style of South African a cappella singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It was this skit that inspired Ben & Jerry's to approach Fallon and NBC for a co-branded ice cream flavor, provided that they were willing to support the ice cream company's pledge to support Fair Trade ingredients. (Proceeds from the sales of Late Night Snack also benefit Fair Trade Universities.) The vanilla beans and cocoa used in this new flavor come from Fair Trade suppliers -- not that you'll taste the difference on your tongue when you eat it. However, Cohen and Greenfield stressed the importance of supporting Fair Trade, an effort hoped to be fully realized by 2013 for their entire product line. While Fallon supported this, he was also proud of his flavor's originality. "Stephen Colbert is a jealous son of a bitch," he joked, desparaging Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" flavor. "Like no one was going to think of putting ice cream with a cone." Indeed, Fallon's potato chips dipped in fudge are a bit more inventive than Colbert's waffle cone pieces dipped in fudge, but there's room for both of them -- they do have different time slots, after all.

Westboro Baptist Church Wins Supreme Court Appeal Over Funeral Protests

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount anti-gay protests outside military funerals, despite the pain they cause grieving families.

The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that threw out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son's funeral.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.
Roberts said the First Amendment shields the funeral protesters, noting that they obeyed police directions and were 1,000 feet from the church.

"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and – as it did here – inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker," Roberts said. "As a nation we have chosen a different course – to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

Alito strongly disagreed. "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case," he said.

Matthew Snyder died in Iraq in 2006 and his body was returned to the United States for burial. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who have picketed military funerals for several years, decided to protest outside the Westminster, Md., church where his funeral was to be held.

The Rev. Fred Phelps and his family members who make up most of the Westboro Baptist Church have picketed many military funerals in their quest to draw attention to their incendiary view that U.S. deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are God's punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.

They showed up with their usual signs, including "Thank God for dead soldiers," "You're Going to Hell," "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11," and one that combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi, with a slur against gay men.

The church members drew counter-demonstrators, as well as media coverage and a heavy police presence to maintain order. The result was a spectacle that led to altering the route of the funeral procession.

Several weeks later, Albert Snyder was surfing the Internet for tributes to his son from other soldiers and strangers when he came upon a poem on the church's website that attacked Matthew's parents for the way they brought up their son.

Soon after, Snyder filed a lawsuit accusing the Phelpses of intentionally inflicting emotional distress. He won $11 million at trial, later reduced by a judge to $5 million.

The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., threw out the verdict and said the Constitution shielded the church members from liability.

Forty-eight states, 42 U.S. senators and veterans groups sided with Snyder, asking the court to shield funerals from the Phelps family's "psychological terrorism."

While distancing themselves from the church's message, media organizations, including The Associated Press, urged the court to side with the Phelps family because of concerns that a victory for Snyder could erode speech rights.

Roberts described the court's holding as narrow, and in a separate opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer suggested in other circumstances, governments would not be "powerless to provide private individuals with necessary protection."

But in this case, Breyer said, it would be wrong to "punish Westboro for seeking to communicate its views on matters of public concern."

AIGA CO Presents: Alex Bogusky

After making advertising history as a founding partner of the world's most awarded agency (Crispin Porter + Bogusky), Alex Bogusky changed course to pursue a new way of doing business. In 2010, Adweek's Creative Director of the Decade turned his focus from being a brand advocate to a consumer advocate by launching the FearLess Revolution.

As our economy staggers and our ecosystem is pushed to its limits, Bogusky noticed that the rules of business have changed. In fact, they are suddenly heading in the opposite direction. Businesses today are striving to provide more transparency, more collaboration, more democracy, and ultimately more value.

Inspired by people worldwide who were looking to help design meaningful solutions, Bogusky envisioned a community-driven system that embodies this new approach to capitalism. In 2011, he partnered with friends Rob Schuham (Action Marketing Group) and John Bielenberg (Project M) to launch COMMON, a collaborative network for rapidly prototyping social ventures under a unified brand.

This Wednesday at the DAM
6:00-8:30
More info: AIGAColorado

Even Mother's Milk Has Become Political

Michelle Obama has taken a lot of flack from the wing-nuts lately. Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann are ganging up on the First Lady because of her efforts to end childhood obesity. Kids who are breast fed are less likely to be obese and Obama wants hospitals and work places to facilitate breast feeding. The IRS recently made breast pumps tax deductible but the ramble on the right can't even put children's health before politics.

However, two Republicans said they stood behind Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign despite crazy conservative charges of "nanny state" leveled by Bachmann, Malkin, and Palin.

Mr. Huckabee, a former fatty said that that obesity is a problem threatening the welfare of the entire country. “What Michelle Obama is proposing is not that the government tells you that you can’t eat dessert,” Mr. Huckabee said. Rather, the first lady wants Americans “to recognize that we have a serious obesity crisis–which we do,” Mr. Huckabee said.

This month Mr. Limbaugh, king of the fat asses, said Mrs. Obama is “requiring what everybody can and can’t eat. She’s demanding that everybody basically eat cardboard and tofu. No calories, no fat, no nothing.”

Mr. Christie, the New Jersey governor, said criticism of the first lady’s campaign is “unnecessary.” “I think it’s a really good goal to encourage kids to eat better,” said who has spoken about his own girth.

“I struggled with my weight for 30 years,” Mr. Christie said Sunday. “If a kid can avoid that… more power to them and I think the first lady is speaking out well.”

The Most Dangerous Man in America

Excerpted from NPR and The Guardian...
Glenn Beck calls her one of the most dangerous people in the world.

Piven is a professor at the City College of New York. In 1966, she and her late husband, Richard Cloward, wrote an article for The Nation outlining a plan to help the poor of New York and other big cities to get on welfare.

In their research, they found that not all the poor who were eligible to receive welfare actually did. They advocated that all the nation's eligible poor should apply. They felt such a strain to city budgets would force Washington to address the poverty problem.

Forty-five years later, Beck took to the airwaves of Fox News and his own radio program, warning the public about the obscure article.

"Let me introduce you to the people who you would say are fundamentally responsible for the unsustainability and possible collapse of our economic system. They're really two people," he said, "Cloward and Piven."

For about the last three months, week after week, Beck's been hammering away at Piven and her husband. From their 45-year-old article, he sees a vast conspiracy to overthrow the American financial system.

Theirs, he says, is a plan to "overwhelm the system and bring about the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with impossible demands and bring on economic collapse."

Beck says their approach is the main strategy employed by the far left ever since, applying it to everything from the Wall Street collapse to the health care law to climate change.

Soon after Beck made her infamous, Piven says hundreds of death threats poured into her e-mail account and conservative blogs. Things like, "'May cancer overtake you soon!'" Piven says. She ended up asking the FBI and state police for help.

While Piven acknowledges that Beck has never advocated violence against her, she still feels Beck's screeds led directly to the threats against her life. Some of Beck's followers have emailed Piven directly. One of the anonymous emailers simply wrote "DIE YOU CUNT" in the subject line. Another wished that she would get cancer. I don't blame them for being upset. It is upsetting. But I blame Glenn Beck for telling them a factually untrue, crazy story about why those changes occurred."

When no one else controls the narrative the lunatic fringe takes over.
When the process of governing is incomprehensible, manipulation and propaganda thrives. The strange stories that Glenn Beck creates with his chalkboard gain traction with Americans, who are made anxious by the large changes that have overtaken the United States, including the election of a black president and the increasing racial diversity of the population, deindustrialisation and the decline of American power abroad, as well as cultural changes in sexual and family norms.

By telling simple fairy tales that trace these big and complex changes to the machinations of particular people, Beck makes the changes comprehensible in a way, and also makes the people who are presumably responsible the targets of his listeners' frustration and outrage. Partly because it is utterly irrational, and partly because it is an effort to bully and intimidate his political opponents, this is dangerous for democratic politics.

Who else has he bullied?
Beck burned Nancy Pelosi in effigy on his set. He tried to poison her with a chalice... Well, he claimed he wanted to poison her on Fox. Some weeks later, somebody tried to firebomb Nancy Pelosi's house. That guy's mother went on television and said he gets all of his ideas from Fox News.

The Tides foundation in San Francisco was targeted by a gunman, Byron Williams, an unemployed carpenter packed his mother's Toyota Tundra with guns and set off for San Francisco with a plan to kill progressives. The shooter gave jailhouse interviews, and we published them, and he says Glenn Beck is this schoolteacher on television and points to specific episodes of the Glenn Beck show that inspired him do it.

Serial Adulterer Critiques Obama

Newt Gingrich is out for blood. He's claiming the POTUS* has broken his oath of office because he is failing to uphold the law of the land. To review, the DOJ** recently decided not to defend DOMA*** from Constitutional challenges. To be clear, the DOJ did not say they wouldn't ENFORCE the law just that they would not DEFEND the constitutionality... But now Gingrich, who frequently campaigned on family values issues, divorced his second wife, Marianne, in 2000 after his attorneys acknowledged Gingrich’s relationship with his current wife, Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide more than 20 years younger than he is.

His first marriage, to his former high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, ended in divorce in 1981. Although Gingrich has said he doesn’t remember it, Battley has said Gingrich discussed divorce terms with her while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery. Gingrich married Marianne months after the divorce. Gingrich also acknowledged cheating on Ginther, the woman he married after abandoning his cancer ridden wife, while leading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton for allegations of perjury involving the Paula Jones sexual harassment civil case and the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

I hope Gingrich does get the GOP nomination for president... It should be interesting.

*POTUS President of the United States
** DOJ Department of Justice
*** DOMA Defense of Marriage Act

It's Not the Budget!

Since the protests in Wisconsin began Rachel Maddow has been trumpeting that it's not the budget it's politics. It's a plan to dismantle the last stronghold of Democratic support. When SCOTUS affirmed that corporations can fund campaigns willy nilly; Republican majorities are secured for the rest of the century.

Now a strange voice is echoing this sentiment... Shepard Smith, from Fox News:

On Wednesday's "Studio B," Shepard Smith said the battle over union rights in Wisconsin was all about busting unions and securing Republican political power, not about the state's budget deficit.

It was a take that placed Smith squarely in agreement with people such as Rachel Maddow, who has repeatedly argued essentially the same thing on her show.

Speaking to a mostly-in-agreement Juan Williams, Smith said the fight was "100 percent politics."

"There is no budget crisis in Wisconsin," he said, adding that the unions "[have] given concessions."

The real point of the fight, Smith said, could be found in the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns. Seven out of the ten donated to Republicans; the other three were unions donating to Democrats.

"Bust the unions, and it's over," Smith said. He then brought up the Koch brothers, the billionaires who have bankrolled much of the anti-union pushback in Wisconsin. The fight, Smith said, "started" with the Kochs, who he said were trying to get a return on the money they donated to Walker's campaign.

"I'm not taking a side on this, I'm just telling you what's going on...to pretend this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey," Smith said.

One truth speaker at Fox? I see the four Horsemen on the horizon

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes

This is really cool and this guy is so excited...

Sex Scandals and Hypocrisy

This comes from The Daily Beast and it's an analysis on which party has the most sex scandals. Since 1990 the Republicans slightly edge out the Democrats 34 to 27. What's interesting is the type of sex scandal. Democrats tend to have more problems with harassment, staffers and underage girls; Republicans tend to have more problems with prostitutes, hypocrisy and underage boys.

On the hypocrisy front Republicans edge out Democrats 17–9. Almost half the sex scandals we turned up involved someone saying one thing while doing another. The earliest example was womens’ rights champion Robert Packwood, who in 1992 was infamously slapped with several sexual-harassment and abuse charges from former female staffers.

While the Republicans tend to hire more prostitutes and try to cover-up the incidents with hush money or behind the scenes wrangling... The Democrats are just as likely to have sexual relations with a minor.

The interesting thing to me is the party of "family values" tends to be the most hypocritical... I guess that's not really a surprise after all.

Who's the Real Debtor?

With all the talk about the national debt and the new Republican controlled house; budgets are getting a lot of attention. Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker claiming Obama was ruining the US and taking our country to the poor house. During my life, there have been four Democratic and five Republican presidents and the national debt has risen from 312 billion to 13.5 trillion, a 330% increase; most of it under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Below are 2 charts, one from lafn.org and the other from my own research. Both are based on numbers from the Treasury Department. I like the simplicity of my chart. I tried to make it look as non-partisan as possible and let the numbers speak for themselves... One thing is clear, labeling Democrats as the tax and spend party is a myth.

The Thing That Pisses Me Off Most About the Right...

The thing that pisses me off most about the right... Where to start? I guess it come down to the christianista "morality" that they want to impose on everyone. In the abortion wars for example; who is really "for" abortion. Yes there are women who have used abortion as a form of birth control and that is abhorrent. It's still amazing that some insurance companies pay for viagra and not birth control pills... But here's the rub. The liberal stance is to let people have a choice. It does not qualify that with religious beliefs or other mythological questions but leaves the responsibility with the individual. The conservative view is that we have to mandate what is and is not permissible, as interpreted through christian dogma. It does not matter if the individual is a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Atheist... all must submit to the will of Christian doctrine because the US is a "Christian Nation."

The main thrust of the argument against, gay marriage, repealing don't ask don't tell, abortion, planned parenthood, HIV and STD counseling, and hate crimes legislation is they are inconsistent with "Christian Values." For all of the complaining and pot stirring Glen Beck and Michelle Bachmann have made about Michelle Obama promoting a "nanny state" by suggesting healthier eating options for children; I find it ironic that they don't see the same "nanny state' mentality when it comes to the culture wars. It's okay for the right to take away civil rights of minorities but if the left wants to fund planned parenthood, that is anathema.

Collectively we cringe when we hear of the penalties of Sharia law. We think a legal systems that involves stoning and amputation seems barbaric and yet any law based on religious principles is barbaric. Fred Phelps is barbaric when he pickets the funerals of fallen soldiers. The recent debate about "forced rape" as a criteria for legal abortion sounds barbaric. The solution is a truly secular legal system and it is the only way a true Democracy can survive.

Thankfully the Obama Administration rewrote the "conscience clause" allowing health care providers to decline care to patients if it would violate their religious beliefs.

The Bush rules allowed not just health workers but hospitals and even entire insurance companies to decline to provide abortions or any other service that violate a "religious belief or moral conviction."

Tony Perkins, president of the anti-abortion Family Research Council, called the changes "a blow both to medicine and the right to practice one's deeply held convictions."

There's No Hope for the Budget

Sen, Michael Bennett recently sent out an email asking constituents to send him their budget ideas. This is what I sent:

Cut the military budget to the bone. Pull out of Iraq completely and out of Afghanistan ASAP. Close most of our bases worldwide and slash any weapons programs. We always hear that loss of military spending will result in a loss of jobs... To quote the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, "so be it..."
How is military spending, for the purpose of jobs creation, really any different than other types of stimulus? It's not! It's all welfare.




This pie chart from 2009 shows more clearly the real problem. Not only are we paying for current military spending but also for past wars, the wars the Bush Administration left off the books and out of their budget.

Health is a huge component as well and Obama's health care plan does not address it. To really address the rising cost of health care we have to address how doctors are paid and no one really wants to do that. There are precedents in changing doctor pay. Look at the pay structure of the Mayo clinic. The Mayo clinic is a not for profit organization that pay doctors a fixed salary.

We do need to make hard decisions but no one is willing to make them. Redistricting will be happening all over the country this year and republicans in charge of most of the state houses. I'm sure we are probably in for republican majorities for a long time to come and you can say goodbye to the middle class, an end to any environmental regulation, arsenic and fracking chemicals in the drinking water, an end to public transportation, huge bonuses for CEO's and Wall Street thugs...

What the?

I'm not a big follower of pop culture, especially in pop music. I didn't like Madonna back in the 80's. I never understood the Brittany thing and I am befuddled by Lady Gaga. I was at a party last night and some of the conversation drifted toward Lady Gaga and her Grammy appearance. This morning I looked up her "Born This Way" single, from the Grammys, on Youtube (it will probably be taken down soon).

Now again, I'm not a pop culture maven but I was struck at how similar Gaga's "Born This Way" is to Madonna's "Express Yourself" (Performed, poorly, at the MTV Music Awards circa 1989).
Maybe it's just me but I think Gaga blatantly ripped off Madonna.



A lot has changed since '89. No amount of auto-tuning could have helped Madonna's voice. MTV still played music back then and Lady Gaga was 3 years old when Madonna was queen of pop. Who could blame Gaga for being influenced by Madonna. I'm sure she was singing into a mirror, with a hair brush, to all of Madonna's songs when she was a wee tot.

Affable Dunce

Last night I watch Eugene Jarecki's documentary Reagan. The director interviews everyone from Reagan's cabinet members and sons to new reporters and biographers. It's a compelling piece of film making and gives probably the most unflinching view of the 40th president yet. From his beginnings as a nearsighted lifeguard who saved 77 lives and a staunch FDR supporter to his rise as the president of the Screen Actors Guild and spokesman for GE; Jarecki shows the evolution of the man but does not shy away from the hard questions surrounding the Iran Contra scandal.

Jarecki paints a clear picture that Reagan must have known about the arms deals but he seems to lay more blame at the feet of Vice President Bush... At once point the real mystery of Reagan (to my mind) was revealed. While many on the left saw him as an affable dunce, his resolve and calculation was entirely, to quote a phrase from another affable dunce, "misunderestimated." It seems the true genius of Reagan was to disarm his opponents with his likability. Even as he was flouting the Constitution and congress, he addresses the American people with a grandfatherly tone of learning from his mistakes. So even as Reagan destroyed the middle class, labor unions, and increased poverty most people liked him...

Bush Sr. never mastered this technique and always appeared petty and paranoid. Clinton was folksy and likable but George W. truly took the folksy lesson to heart. Despite the fact that he was from east coast money and studied at Yale, he was seen as the guy many Americans wanted to share a beer with; Never mind that he did more to gut our civil liberties than any other president.

Unfortunately, Obama is taking the same cues from Reagan. His tone has taken on a decidedly more folksy air since taking office but I don't think folksy enough to disarm his opponents.

Last Reagan Rant (maybe)

In a recent article in the Washington Examiner, Bryon York said "Americans live in a nation and world transformed by his [Reagan's] deep belief in liberty, free enterprise, and American exceptionalism..." Let me first say that I love America. I grew up in the Midwest, said the Pledge of Allegiance everyday in school, I know the words to the National Anthem, and I've even shed a tear hearing Lee Greenwood sing 'Proud to be an American.' That being said, I have come to feel that American exceptionalism is just a new fancy name for the same old racist, imperialist bull shit known as Manifest Destiny. I know the 1840's Democrats used to term to justify the expansion America from sea to shining sea... But how can we say we are the manifestation of THE shining city on the hill when we have the blood of 600,000 Iraqis on our hands (maybe more, some estimates are over 1,000,000).

For all of our faults, I still think America is a great nation but the Reagan revisionists and the Sarah Palin nut jobs, who tick of the three core conservative values as: American Exceptionalism, Strong 2nd Amendment rights, and a strong defense (no matter what the cost) are bankrupting this country both financially and morally!

We need to stay on message, help Obama get back to the vision he promoted during his campaign, and put the Reagan revisionists back in their place.

More Reagan Legacy

It wasn't until 1985, the year Rock Hudson died, that Ronald Reagan first mentioned AIDS in public... and this was in response to a reporter's question. By that time, more than 5600 Americans had died.

In 1988 Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who looked like a character out of the Old Testament, advocated sex education and mailed over 100 million pamphlets infuriating religious conservatives and gay activist. His strident approach was off putting but at least he was willing to have a frank discussion about AIDS. Unfortunately this frank discussion didn't happen until over 20,000 people were infected nationwide. The Reagans and Bushes were silent and in 1987 Silence=Death became the mantra of Act Up.

By 1996 The AIDS Quilt covered the entire National Mall

Today 33 million people are infected worldwide and more than 25 million people have died. If Reagan had acted in those early days would it have made a difference? Yes!

Here's a Reagan Legacy for Ya

From a press conference via Daily Kos
See entire post here

5 Reagan Myths

I haven't posted in a long time because doing the research was causing a flare up in my acid reflux... BUT this is too good to pass up.

From the Washington Post
I'm copying most of the article but adding my own editorial take.


1. Reagan was one of our most popular presidents.

It's true that Reagan is popular more than two decades after leaving office. A CNN/Opinion Research poll last month gave him the third-highest approval rating among presidents of the past 50 years, behind John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. But Reagan's average approval rating during the eight years that he was in office was nothing spectacular - 52.8 percent, according to Gallup. Read that! Third behind Bill Clinton

In 1982, as the national unemployment rate spiked above 10 percent, Reagan's approval rating fell to 35 percent. At the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, nearly one-third of Americans wanted him to resign.

In the early 1990s, shortly after Reagan left office, several polls found even the much-maligned Jimmy Carter to be more popular. Only since... lobbying efforts by conservatives... has his popularity steadily climbed.

2. Reagan was a tax-cutter.

Certainly, Reagan's boldest move as president was his 1981 tax cut, a sweeping measure that slashed the marginal rate on the wealthiest Americans from 70 percent to 50 percent. The legislation also included smaller cuts in lower tax brackets, as well as big breaks for corporations and the oil industry. But the following year, as the economy was mired in recession and the federal deficit was spiraling out of control, even groups such as the Business Roundtable lobbied Reagan to raise taxes. And he did: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was, at the time, the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history.

Ultimately, Reagan signed measures that increased federal taxes every year of his two-term presidency except the first and the last.

3. Reagan was a hawk.

Long before he was elected president, Reagan predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse because of communism's inherent corruption and inefficiency. His forecast proved accurate, but it is not clear that his military buildup moved the process forward. Though Reagan expanded the U.S. military and launched new weapons programs, his real contributions to the end of the Cold War were his willingness to negotiate arms reductions with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his encouragement of Gorbachev as a domestic reformer. Indeed, a USA Today poll taken four days after the fall of the Berlin Wall found that 43 percent of Americans credited Gorbachev, while only 14 percent cited Reagan.

4. Reagan shrank the federal government.

Reagan famously declared at his 1981 inauguration that "in the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." This rhetorical flourish didn't stop the 40th president from increasing the federal government's size by every possible measure during his eight years in office.

Federal spending grew by an average of 2.5 percent a year, adjusted for inflation, while Reagan was president. The national debt exploded, increasing from about $700 billion to nearly $3 trillion. Many experts believe that Reagan's massive deficits not only worsened the recession of the early 1990s but doomed his successor, George H.W. Bush, to a one-term presidency by forcing him to abandon his "no new taxes" pledge.

The number of federal employees grew from 2.8 million to 3 million under Reagan, in large part because of his buildup at the Pentagon. (It took the Democratic administration of President Bill Clinton to trim the employee rolls back to 2.7 million.) Reagan also abandoned a campaign pledge to get rid of two Cabinet agencies - Energy and Education - and added a new one, Veterans Affairs.

5. Reagan was a conservative culture warrior.

Reagan's contributions to the culture wars of the 1980s were largely rhetorical and symbolic. Although he published a book in 1983 about his staunch opposition to abortion (overlooking the fact that he had legalized abortion in California as governor in the late 1960s), he never sought a constitutional ban on abortion. In fact, Reagan began the odd practice of speaking to anti-abortion rallies by phone instead of in person - a custom continued by subsequent Republican presidents. He also advocated prayer in public schools in speeches, but never in legislation.

In 1981, Reagan unintentionally did more than any other president to prevent the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling from being overturned when he appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. O'Connor mostly upheld abortion rights during her 25 years as a justice...

From the time I was 16 to 24 I lived under the Reagan regime and I can't say I thought much of him then or now. I am truly baffled as to why he has become the hero of the right. Especially when you closely look at his record. But, when looking at the mythology taught in schools about the Founding Fathers; the Reagan Myth seems to be more firming grounded in idealism than realism.