U.S. Representative Julia Carson (D IN-07) passed away today shortly after announcing she was suffering from lung cancer. She was 69.

The Christian Science Monitor has an article on a recent House Committee report that the White House has been manipulating the work of the government’s environmental scientists.

At least since 2003, and especially after hurricane Katrina hit, the White House has broadly attempted to control which climate scientists could speak with reporters, as well as editing scientists’ congressional testimony on climate science and key legal opinions, according to a new report by a House committee.

“The Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming,” said the report, which is the result of a 16-month probe by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “The White House exerted unusual control over the public statements of federal scientists on climate change issues.”

I’m not a big fan of Ayn Rand, but I think some of her ideas were useful. (Eh? I thought we were talking about the White House?) One of those ideas was one the John Galt character apparently took from Aristotle — the somewhat obvious law that “A” equals “A”. And, no matter what you say about “A” — it’s still going to equal “A”. No matter how off base physicists may be in describing the laws of physics, a mechanic is going to have to deal with those laws as they are and not as they are described.

So, the environmental situation is what it is, and the Bush administration’s deceptive descriptions are not going to change it. We’d better do our best to accurately observe what “A” equals.

Looks like I missed my three year blogoversary. My first Indiana government blog entry was November 29th, 2004. Presumably untold riches and power would’ve been mine had I spent my time productively. Too late now, I guess. Might as well keep blogging along.

I’ve never really understood the particular fascination of Congress for Major League Baseball. I have a vague understanding that MLB has a Congressionally sanctioned monopoly of some sort. Anyway, Sylvia Smith has an article on Mark Souder’s interest in baseball’s steroid scandal. Souder says that MLB has to make serious changes on its drug screens or Congress will apparently micromanage this process.

First, doesn’t he have anything better to do? Fight against the expansion of government authority, perhaps? Second, shouldn’t the free market be taking care of this? The way I hear it from Souder’s brethren, the free market is infallible.

I don’t have strong feelings about the well-being of baseball, but I figured I’d point out the discrepancy between Souder’s proposed intervention and small-government, free market rhetoric.

[tags]IN-03[/tags]

Jerome Armstrong at MyDD has a post about the Oil Accountability Project. Apparently the Senate Republicans mounted a filibuster to preserve a deeply held belief against the perils of majority rule — protecting oil companies from taxation. The legislation failed because it had the support of only 59 votes out of the 100.

It’s almost too bad the Democrats didn’t let the Republicans use the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster back when the Senate Republicans were mumbling something about “up or down votes”. But, of course they didn’t, and that’s fine. The minority should have some leverage. But, the Democrats really ought to drawing a lot of attention each and every time the Senate Republicans filibuster. They’ve been doing it a lot more than minority parties in the Senate have traditionally done, and the Democrats ought not be shy about pointing that out. It’d be a lot easier to laugh at disingenuous talking points about how the Democrats hadn’t gotten anything done and then make a pitch for electing 60+ Democrats to the majority. Personally, I’m not terribly comfortable with a filibuster-proof majority, but if the minority party is going to use the filibuster willy-nilly, I guess that’s the alternative.

For some reason, Christmas history is fascinating to me. The timing of the celebration is not believed to have anything to do with Jesus’ birthday, particularly. Rather, back in the Roman Empire, Christians were vying with, among others, the cults of Mithra and Ishtar for believers. Mithra and Ishtar had birthdays around the winter solstice (late December). That time of the year had significance for humans because it meant winter was on the run and the length of the days would grow longer. Sun gods tended to have celebrations in their honor. By placing a significant holiday at this time, it made it easier for Christians to gain converts in the Roman Empire in that they could switch their God without having to disrupt their festival celebrations too much. This apparently worked out pretty well for co-opting the Scandinavian Yule celebration, apparently a raucous winter celebration devoted to Thor.

By happy accident of the period of human gestation, having Christ born around the winter solstice allows him to have been conceived and crucified around the same time — the vernal equinox, also an important time of the year for competing religions of the era, fertility cults and the like.

During the Reformation, some Protestants condemned Christmas as popery — my understanding is that most Christmas traditions have little to no support in the text of the Bible. When Cromwell’s Puritans took over England, they banned Christmas in 1647. The Protestants’ anti-Christmas sentiment encouraged the Catholic Church to promote Christmas all the more. New England Puritans also banned Christmas for a period of time.

In post-colonial America, Christmas fell out of favor since it was considered to be too English. Christmas in America eventually rebounded through the 1800s due in large part to various works of literature, popularizing the holiday. In 1870, it became a national holiday.

Santa Claus came on the scene, largely through the efforts of popular cartoonist, Thomas Nast in the late 1800s. Father Christmas had been a holiday character from the 1400s, associated with merry-making and drunkenness. The Christmas tree seems to have caught on beginning in the 1700s and is often explained as a Christianization of a pagan, solstice tradition of tree worship.

I’ve mentioned on many occasions that I’m not a religious guy. Nevertheless, I’m grateful for Christmas. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, I still think it is useful to have a period of time devoted to congregating with one’s family, resting from labor, showing affection through the exchange of cards and gifts, and generally reminding one another that peace and love are valuable things. As a parent of young children, I have to say that it’s also pretty fun to observe their sense of magic and wonder at things I’ve long since taken for granted — looking at the kids mesmerized by the Christmas tree is a beautiful thing. That, my friends, is the reason for the season.