Tuesday 07 April '09 show

• Guest: Christopher Hitchens, author, journalist, pundit, media fellow at the Hoover Institute. Author, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" …or does it? The transcendent.
• Bumper Music: Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males Todd Snider.
• Book: "Age of Reason", Thomas Paine.
• Book: "The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions", Wayne Teasdale.
• Book: "The Kabbalah: A Study of the Ten Luminous Emanations from Rabbi Isaac Luria", Ed.; Rabbi Yahuda L. Ashlag.
• Obama in Turkey saying America secular, not in war with Islam. Rant. Deism. Unitarianism. There is a healthy core within all religions, the transcendent, mystical, Christians should read the mystics. Meister Eckhart.Meister Eckhart. Saint Francis. Saint John of the Cross. St. Teresa of Avila. Wayne Teasdale. Dalai Lama. Father Bede. Islam and Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism are rich with mysticism too. The Baal Shem Tov.
• Bumper Music: Feels Like Home, Meck (video).
• Governor Mark Sandford says South Carolina will take some of the stimulus money but not all, so protestors are setting up a Sandfordville tent city.
• Bumper Music: Losing My Religion, REM.
• NBC/CBS poll. The governor of Vermont vetoed legalizing gay marriage, it was overturned this morning. It is the first state to do it legislatively, rather than the Supreme Court.
• Islamic country's place in the history of science. The three wise men were from Persia.
• Clip:
  "It's a bloodthirsty religion that's practiced over there by a bunch of throwbacks, and we're to kill 'em." Michael Savage.
• Article: Actions Speak Louder than Words with the President's Energy Policy, Amy Watson.
• Clip:
  "I voted against the Clear Skies Bill. In fact, I was the deciding vote -- despite the fact that I’m a coal state and that half my state thought that I had thoroughly betrayed them. Because I think clean air is critical and global warming is critical.

  “But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion. Because the fact of the matter is, is that right now we are getting a lot of our energy from coal. And China is building a coal-powered plant once a week. So what we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon. And how can we sequester that carbon and capture it. If we can’t, then we’re gonna still be working on alternatives.

  “But ... let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade policy in place that is as aggressive if not more aggressive than anyone out there. I was the first call for 100 percent auction on the cap and trade system. Which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases that was emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year.

  “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing that I’ve said with respect to coal -- I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter, as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it, that I think is the right approach. The same with respect to nuclear. Right now, we don’t know how to store nuclear waste wisely and we don’t know how to deal with some of the safety issues that remain. And so it’s wildly expensive to pursue nuclear energy. But I tell you what, if we could figure out how to store it safely, then I think most of us would say that might be a pretty good deal.

  “The point is, if we set rigorous standards for the allowable emissions, then we can allow the market to determine and technology and entrepreneurs to pursue, what the best approach is to take, as opposed to us saying at the outset, here are the winners that we’re picking and maybe we pick wrong and maybe we pick right.

  "
  Obama Jan. 17 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle (video) (audio).
• Guest: Carrie Lukas, Vice President for Policy and Economics, Independent Women's Forum. Author, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism". The IWF saying, "Obama to Bankrupt Coal Industry". Obama Jan. 17 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
• Bumper Music: Working In A Coal Mine, Devo.
• Article: ThinkFast: April 7, 2009.
  "The U.S plans to “step up its use of drones to strike militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas and might extend them to a different sanctuary deeper inside the country.” The Pakistani government has “expressed concerns that the missile strikes from remotely piloted aircraft fuel more violence in the country.” "
• Why we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan - not just the Taliban, but oil. It could become Obama's Vietnam.
• The video of the woman in Pakistan who was beaten.
• Article: Chinese Poison on our Tables.
• Article: Lennar Acknowledges Chinese Drywall Problems, Promises to Replace Material in Some Florida Homes.
• Article: Toxic Drywall Invading America.
• Countries apart from the US are taking protectionist measures.
• Article: Ricardo's "On labor" 1814, "On profits" 1816.
• Bumper Music: Check it Out, Jim Mellancamp.
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Article: Woman divorces husband for cleaning too much.
• Thermohaline circulation - the ocean conveyor belt.
• Article: Resist or Become Serfs, Chris Hedges.
• Guest: Chris Hedges, author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning", "American Fascists" and his latest, "I Don't Believe in Atheists" (hardcover - the paper back is called "When Atheism Becomes Religion: America’s New Fundamentalists"). Journalist/Author/Senior Fellow at The Nation Institute. Resist or Become Serfs. He graduated from Harvard School Of Divinity, very academic, takes critiques seriously, so spawns a lot of atheists. Then he read Hitchens and Dawkins, etc. The Jefferson Bible. Deists. Time to reinvent Deism?
• Bumper Music: Tommy Can You Hear Me? The Who.
• Article: Sick Sea Turtle Swims Right to Hospital Doorstep.
• Gospel of Thomas.
• Bumper Music: The Story, Brandi Carlile (video).
• Al Franken is doing better, but it is about denying Obama another vote, so it goes on.
• Don't believe in God? Which God do you not believe in? Faith v religion. Spirituality.
• Article: Cheney to keep vice presidential records, will not allow them to go to Bush library ‘for now.’.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. The president went to Iraq. Iraqis went to Camp Victory. He talked about extraordinary achievements, time for Iraqis to take responsibility. Iraqi shoe thrower sentence reduced. Pentagon briefing, tourism uptick in Iraq. Not prostitution tourism. Ending F-22, Gates budget cuts. Cheney not allowing documents to go to the Bush library. Al Franken tally. 312 win for Franken, Coleman will go to final appeal.