Howard Dean: On mosques like gay marriage

Don't forget that the allegedly progressive Howard Dean has never come out in favor of gay marriage. Don't forget that he did NOT take the lead on gay civil unions when governor of Vermont, but was basically presented a fait accompli by the state legislature.

Therefore, his original ignorance-based opposition to the Park51 Islamic civic center/mosque is now, unsurprisingly, followed by a mushy, Obama-esque plea for "compromise." Not "equal protection" of the First Amendment.

Picture him saying words like this to gay marriage proponents:

This has nothing to do with the right to build, and unlike same-sex marriage or the civil rights movement, it is not about equal protection under the law. The rights of the builders are not in dispute. This is about ending the poisonous atmosphere engendered by fear and hate, and in order to do that there has to be genuine listening, hearing and willingness to compromise on both sides.

Way to take a stand! Well, you're better than Harry Reid.

Food for locovoric thought

Stop being so pious about local food sourcing, says Stephen Budiansky. I agree, after following his number crunching; you sound like Al Gore offering carbon offset indulgences.

Great blog name he has, too; Liberal Curmudgeon sounds like, well, like Socratic Gadfly!

Friday scatblogging - a big, wandering cat

But, this ain't no kitty-cat. Nope, it's a cougar spotted inside the Twin Cities that, per scat evidence, also traipsed six nearby Wisconsin counties last winter. Given typical puma wanderings, I'm sure sharp-eyed people will find more of its scat elsewhere.

You really DON'T forget how to ride a bike

Or, maybe, at least, your muscles don't forget how they developed, if you were a serious biker. Our muscles actually gain some sort of memory from regular exercise and don't totally lose it.

Yay, we're No. 11 here in America

The United States, on a combination of five major metrics used by Newsweek, with consultation from people like Joe Stiglitz, ranks No. 11 out of 100 nations on the globe. And, it's probably not going to get better immediately.

That said, as on other, similar surveys, small, homogenous countries like Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and South Korea outrank us on many things. But, given where most EU member nations rank, taking the EU as a whole, it would quite possibly outrank the U.S., too.

At the same time, leave it to Newsweek to tell a mainstream media lie about how, really, no really, the United States isn't an empire:

America spends more on defense than the rest of the industrialized world combined, not because it is inherently militaristic, but because the United States is the enforcer of the international system.

And, as long as the MSM tells lies like this, America will be inherently militaristic, as Mark Twain knew more than a century ago.

However, Chinese autocratic "capitalism" (which is really no more "capitalistic" than the U.S.) isn't a model for the rest of the world, either. Rather, "old" Europe may not be so sclerotic:

To put it bluntly, European businesses are kicking America's ass, as well as Japan's and China's. And the rest of the BRIC nations besides China. And, the earlier core EU of Western Europe could actually pick up the pace more. Picture EU expansion as being, other than the Greek debt crisis, something like how NAFTA was really supposed to work here in the New World, but didn't, primarily due to American big business greed, callousness and more.

And, since French President Sarkozy hosts the G8 and G20 later this year, has been making noise about more financial reform, and the EU in general has done more than just make noise about other regulatory tightening in the last couple of years, Obama had better sit up and take notice.

Anyway, here's how we stack up against 99 other countries on five metrics.

'Old' Europe ain't so sclerotic:

Far, far, far from it.

To put it bluntly, European businesses are kicking America's ass, as well as Japan's and China's. And the rest of the BRIC nations besides China. And, the earlier core EU of Western Europe could actually pick up the pace more. Picture EU expansion as being, other than the Greek debt crisis, something like how NAFTA was really supposed to work here in the New World, but didn't, primarily due to American big business greed, callousness and more.

Take note of the poll in the right-hand rail. A couple of months ago, I would have been ready to believe the worst about the Greek debt problem and vote more conservatively. Not now.

And, since French President Sarkozy hosts the G8 and G20 later this year, has been making noise about more financial reform, and the EU in general has done more than just make noise about other regulatory tightening in the last couple of years, Obama had better sit up and take notice.

I wouldn't be surprised if, by 2015, the euro is not a default tertiary global currency, with the EU accepting that, but deliberately keeping the currency from being a full-fledged secondary currency.