The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) welcomes former President of The United States James Earl Carter to our world. In a question and answer session at The Carter Center in Atlanta, our former president responded to a question about the verbal attacks on our current president, Barack Obama, specifically the large number of Nazi and Adolph Hitler comparisons being bandied about. Mr. Carter’s response was: “There is an inherent feeling among many of us in this country that an African-American should not be president,” thus identifying the 800 pound gorilla in the national living room; racism. His comments naturally resulted in a torrent of denials of a character similar to one where William Shakespeare once noted how a certain party “doth protest too much.”

Kudos to Jimmy Carter, a man of honesty and integrity. The cynical and careful ways racists operate these days fool few Americans, yet even fewer of us are willing to point out the obvious, perhaps out of fear of being smeared with the same brush, or unwilling to revisit the national agony that is race relations for the entire history of the United States. Many would love to pretend that the election of a black president has waved a magic wand over the issue of racism and made it disappear. They would also like to pretend that the Wall Street titans who made all the money disappear will one day make it magically reappear with a “Presto, Change-O!” and tell us that the whole financial collapse was “all part of the show, ladies and gentlemen.”

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious, however, cannot let such illusions stand. Our mandate is a simple one: separate the wheat from the chaff, a duty that we take quite seriously. And so the firestorm over Mr. Carter’s candid observation begins. It will be interesting to see how President Obama’s critics justify their comparisons of the man to Adolph Hitler and his party to the Nazis, comparisons that should be saved for only the most heinous of mass-murdering dictators and their tyrannical state apparatus. So far it is an empty bag of gas, otherwise there would be no public voices of opposition or anti-government rallies permitted, as anyone with the slightest familiarity with The Third Reich can attest.

And exactly what element does the opposition appeal to when they spread lies about Mr. Obama being a Muslim of Kenyan birth? Certainly not to Rainbow Coalitionists. To be perfectly clear, that would be the racist elements of American society. Never before in the history of this Republic has a movement been launched to impeach a president before he has even been sworn into office. Generally those efforts are reserved for when a sitting president commits a crime against the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. Thus far in Mr. Obama’s 8 months as president he has yet to propose any legislation or practice any executive policies that would violate the United States Constitution. So, while impeachment is not a realistic option, it seems that thinly disguised racial attacks on his character are the way to go, those being far easier than formulating actual ideas and workable policies as an alternative to the president’s own agenda.

When Republicans brand Mr. Obama a Marxist and a Socialist, are they not purposely omitting the Republican Corporate Welfare System they created and maintained for decades? Taxpayer-funded direct welfare payments and tax relief to wealthy corporations have far outstripped the subsistence level welfare payments to underprivileged individuals by trillions of dollars and always have. They prefer that our nation abominates the poorest recipients of social benefits while ignoring the wealthiest beneficiaries of government handouts. The recent massive bailouts of America’s financial industry by both the Bush The Younger and the Obama Administrations were merely automatic extensions of an extensive Corporate Welfare State long established and rarely questioned.

Republicans walk on thin ice indeed with the Socialist accusations, so perhaps that explains the shift to Nazi comparisons, where no embarrassing corollaries can be pointed out, except perhaps for their torture and domestic spying policies. Perhaps they feel that impugning the man’s character and doing everything short of openly calling the president “a Nigger” will disguise their appeals to racist America. Not on DOPOTO’s watch, or Jimmy Carter’s either. The American people are not stupid, at least not many of them. Racists are are a dying breed, running in packs and howling that the sky is falling, and perhaps it is. On them. On their evil philosophy. On their day in the sun.

As for the rest of America, they have elected progress and turned their backs on racism. The results of the 2008 elections were obvious. Whether President Obama is a great president, a lousy president or somewhere in the middle of the pack has no bearing on the choice made in 2008. A man was judged by the content of his character and not found wanting. He was handed an overwhelming majority in both Houses of Congress and expected to govern according to his own lights within the Constitution of The United States of America. If that exposes the racists for who and what they are, so much the better. The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious likes things to be clear and unambiguous. Frankly, we are uncomfortable with deceit.

This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been observing the anti-government rallies aimed at President Obama’s policies and have come to the conclusion that many of his enemies have severe trouble distinguishing mosquitoes from hand grenades. Others among their ranks have trouble seeing the puppet strings attached to them and often believe they are expressing original ideas, an impressive and masterly performance by right wing demagogues and corporate lobbyists not previously heralded for their subtlety. When left to their own devices, however, the lunatic fringe always tends to go overboard, such as the unbelievable anger expressed over a president who wants to provide his nation with health care.

Researchers here at DOPOTO have thoroughly examined the Obama proposals and are hard pressed to understand the many Adolph Hitler and Nazi comparisons being put forth. While the Department studies people extensively as part of our only mission, pointing out the obvious, the Hitler comparisons come as a surprise because they seem to soften the actual Nazi atrocities in many minds to the level of civil debate over zoning laws, rather then the mass-murdering, rapacious invaders that was the Third Reich. A brief study of the matter reveals that it took a lot more than a series of town hall meetings to stop the Nazis and their Fascist partners in the Axis, at the cost of 65 million lives and the fruits of many centuries of work building the cities and factories of Europe and Asia.

And so DOPOTO feels compelled to inform that segment of the public that Hitler and Nazi comparisons ought to be reserved for only the most extreme acts of genocide, totalitarianism and brutal aggression. Wanting to provide one’s nation with health care benefits hardly qualifies for the Monstrous Dictator Hall of Fame. Nor does a president’s desire to address his nation’s schoolchildren, something other presidents have done with almost no pubic comment. As far as charges from the opposition that President Obama plans to brainwash America’s children into becoming his socialist puppets with this single speech to the nation’s children, well, if we were not called The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious we would feel silly pointing out that this is an exercise in unprecedented stupidity. Pointing out the 800 pound gorilla in the room is, however, our mandate and our sacred duty.

Civil protest in America is a time honored tradition and a healthy exercise of our democratic rights and privileges. In the United States, no person is prevented from speaking their mind about anything, the key word here being mind. When protest becomes mindless and done for its own sake it becomes meaningless. How can any thinking person take anyone seriously who lends equal weight to petty concerns and major issues? The obvious answer here (our specialty!) is that it can’t be done. When protest is lodged by thinking people with solid logic and irrefutable moral authority behind their arguments, minds and the nation have often been changed for the better, starting with the founding of America itself in 1776. When inane fools constantly cry wolf they are easily dismissed, and their puppet masters do themselves a disservice by rendering any legitimate complaints they have to the realm of the ridicuous. A valuable civic tool for real debate and positive change is rendered a sad joke, and America becomes less American, and a little sillier for a nation that doesn’t mind being refreshingly silly every so often. Just not this silly. DOPOTO respectfully suggests that Nazi comparisons be reserved for actual potential monsters leading totalitarian political movements, and major anger for major issues.

This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has spent a leisurely summer doing what we always do; spotting trends, analyzing worldwide news reports and cultural shifts and then pointing out the obvious (we take our name seriously) to interested parties, albeit in a more relaxed way than usual in deference to the season. This has been an especially rainy summer in the Northeast, where DOPOTO headquarters is located, but plenty hot as usual, the odd weather indicative of nothing more momentous than just one of those things. Others would have the world believe that the inordinate amount of rainfall is indicative of some coming ecological or climatological apocalypse, but our dedicated research staff has found that to be as reliable as when many people complained that the moon landings 40 years ago changed the weather forever. Which is to say, unreliable.

While 40 years ago those reports were generated mostly by old ladies just for something to complain about or to make enough noise so that people would realize they were still alive so hold off on the funeral plans already, today’s ecological apocalypse Paul Reveres all seem to have some sort of psuedo-scientific axe to grind. Some were saying that the planet has been subject to more hurricanes, typhoons and other violent tropical storms than ever before and that their severity is increasing every year. It turns out there is really no way of knowing that for sure since measuring these things is only a fairly recent phenomenon and a process that has improved very quickly in the past couple of years, just like every other technical aspect of modern society. The Digital Revolution and the Information Age brings us amazing new devices and sources of information more rapidly than our ability to process them can adjust. So naturally conflicting schools of thought emerge as we struggle to keep up with the dizzying pace of our own inventions.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is human nature in this constantly changing world. We are a curious race of beings, eager to know what’s what about everything under the sun. And so we often take this quest to extremes and jump to conclusions that are not always justified. The only real reason we are aware of so many storms is that we only very recently gained the ability to count so many of them that previously blew themselves out without the benefit of human detection and measurement. The Department has long since established that trees that fall in the forest without people there to hear them do indeed make a sound. It is not always about us. There is no concrete reason to believe that we are subject to more or fewer storms than 200 years ago, when the method of remote storm detection for humans was having your flimsy wooden sailing ship sunk to the bottom of the deep blue sea with all hands and no one the wiser until Jaques Costeau came along in the 20th Century and put Davey Jones’ Locker on television.

But, as DOPOTO researchers and analysts have learned during our tenure as pointers-out of the 800 pound gorilla in the room, there are those people who cannot stand not to know about every mystery that has puzzled mankind since the dawn of time and so latch onto any theory that seems to explain these things, no matter how unrealistic or even outlandish, or worse, at least in this department’s admittedly biased view, contrary to the obvious. And so they gravitate to an explanation of why the sky is blue according to their personal bent, either religious, scientific or just for the sake of being a know-it-all-blowhard uninterested in actual truth as long as he or she is perceived as an authority in possession of knowledge above and beyond their peers.

Unfortunately, the rapid dissemination of information and the dizzying pace of technological advancement has produced no shortage of people who fall into the blowhard category, usually lazy minds that latch onto a piece of valid information or revealed truth but are too lethargic to explore a subject any further once they have formed a theory. They completely discount any new insights into their pet idea that might serve to contradict their notions. On such practices are built many fine religions and impressive political theories, but no valid science. Science (at the risk of being too obvious even for an organization that specializes exlusively in obvious) is the discipline of seeking provable truth. A true scientist always bows to the obvious and to solid proof, even though that proof may have just wiped out their life’s work and long-held theories, rendering their “knowledge” null and void. Plausibility cannot be confused with fact. That’s the risk a person takes when they enter any branch of scientific study.

Which is why science is a rare calling, since by definition the scientist is required to be the ultimate realist. A person with the most extensive knowledge is the person most aware of how little they really know for certain. The finest brain surgeon in the world cannot cure the common cold, a humbling realization. True scientists don’t leap to hasty conclusions, using terms like “tests indicate” or “results are consistent with” or “field study and experimentation points to” and avoid making definitive pronouncements until proof positive is obtained. True scientists don’t have the luxury the rest of us have, to be so certain of something without really knowing why. Which explains why there are so few true scientists. In this lighting-fast age of technology and information, at least human nature is our Rock of Gibraltar for unreasonable assumptions. Nothing much new to report under the sun in that regard. Besides, it’s late August, it’s hot as blazes, it’s sticky and humid and here at DOPOTO we are compelled to admit that we are just as brain-fried as anyone else at this point.

This has obviously been a half-baked speculative lazy-ass summertime doldrums report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.

The Department of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been toiling in near-obscurity for long years in an effort to point out the forest for the trees. In today’s modern society, oral and written languages are too often used as tools for obfuscation rather than as a means for the clarity in communication for which they were designed. Indeed, new terms are constantly being invented for the sole purpose of muddying the waters of human communication, a tendency that inspired the creation of The Department. Here at DOPOTO our mission is to decipher these confounding codes and, literally, point out the obvious. While that might seem like a simple task, think of the legions of spin doctors (liars), press agents (liars) and pubic relations personnel (liars) employed by the wealthy and powerful to mask their real intentions and their actual deeds by calling them something else.

Quite often their efforts result in the popularization of made-up words or phrases that either have no meaning at all but sound good, or contain built-in contradictions that render them open to any interpretation, thus allowing liars to deny they lied. For example, how many “wars of liberation” can there possibly be? If you listen to those who start wars, that would be all of them, even though the truth is that most of them are intended only to liberate some valuable assets and territory from their rightful owners. In business, what is a “write-down” but flushing a whole lot of money down the toilet due to incompetence? “Outsourcing” is a genteel phrase for selling the jobs of the people who made the corporation fabulously wealthy to nations who pay their workers in soybeans. And in military campaigns, “government contractors” is a fancy term for highly paid mercenaries with no national loyalties and bound by no law or code of ethical conduct, aka: “The-not-so-few, the-not-so-proud.”

But by sheer tenacity The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious has made steady inroads in helping people cast off their blinders and see the Emperor’s new clothes. When governors explain they are quitting their jobs because they are “not quitters” or “for family reasons,” most people now realize what a bunch of baloney they are being handed and that either ambition, greed, criminal indictments or extramarital sex are the reasons why these people broke their oaths of office. Of course not all people refuse to drink the Kool Aid, but enough so that we are being fooled less and less by the rich, the powerful and the devious. Indeed, many people prominent and otherwise have been jumping on the DOPOTO bandwagon, pointing out the 800 pound gorilla wherever he rears his ugly head. And so DOPOTO is proud to announce its Obvious Hall Of Fame. And The Golden Duuuh! goes to:

Derek Jeter, baseball player: “If we play well we can beat anyone, if we play poorly anyone can beat us.” Can’t be any more obvious than that, no?

Anonymous Wildlife Official: “All fish need water.” Argue with that logic!

Ayatollah “Shotgun Dick” Cheney, former Supreme Leader of America: “… there was never any evidence to prove that.” – referring to Iraq having possession of weapons of mass destruction or having been involved in any way with the 9/11 attacks. Not exactly a timely admission, coming as it did 7 years after he sent in the Marines to crush their armies, blow up a whole lot of expensive stuff and hang their leader by the neck until dead, but a step in the right direction for America’s only dictator ever. DOPOTO’s decision to include him in the Obvious Hall of Fame is meant as an incentive for old Dick to open up a little more, maybe let us know where the rest of the bodies are buried.

Lisa Randall, Harvard Physicist and architect of the Large Hadron Collider: “The fact is, it’s likely to take a while to get the results we want.” Ms. Randall wins in the Understatement Bordering on Honesty Category for her explanation of the repeated failure of the 9 billion dollar, largest ever, 15-years-in-the-making particle collider to collide anything together except the plans of physicists everywhere to study dark matter. Like Shotgun Dick’s inclusion in the hall, her induction is meant as a gentle prod to admit the complete truth, that this thing was an albatross from the get-go and will never provide any scientific data to anyone other than psychiatrists studying stubborn fools who keep doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

Suzanne Brown, high school student: “It’s so popular that Google has become a verb. Why would anybody use a different one?” – describing the unlikelihood of Microsoft and Yahoo’s johnny-come-lately search engine BING of unseating Google as the internet’s most successful and popular web site. If you don’t believe her, just Google the results. From the mouths of babes…

George W. Bush, former Assistant President of America: “You teach a child to read, and he or she will pass a literacy test.” Well… yeah? Not exactly what we had in mind, but an exhaustive study by researchers here at DOPOTO found that to be Bush The Younger’s only recorded instance of having uttered a viable complete sentence, such as it was. It was only his status as former Assistant President that prevented us from awarding his Golden Duuuh! in a special Head Scratching Obvious Statement Category, or handing him our consolation prize, The Silver Whaaat?!?

Mamoud Abbas, Palestinian President: “We have made mistakes.” This admission represents another first from the leader of a quasi-nation that has spent most of its existence trying to gain recognition by hurling stones and rockets at Israel and sending suicide bombers in lieu of ambassadors, then claiming to be under orders from God. Now if any Israeli leader wants to step up to the plate and admit that they have in turn been pretty rotten to what amounts to a captive population in Palestine, maybe they too can be inducted into the Obvious Hall Of Fame. DOPOTO is not holding its breath.

Yogi Berra, former baseball player, Lifetime Achievement Award: “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” An often overlooked American original truth teller, Mr. Berra is famous for his “Yogiisms” (gems like “it gets late early around here” and “if you see a fork in the road, take it”), some of America’s most beloved examples of convoluted word play, many of which would also qualify for a DOPOTO award in The Head Scratching Obvious Statement Category. Yogi Berra, in his own entertaining way, has been calling them like he sees them for his 65 years in the public spotlight. Perhaps his best insight was: “If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be,” while his most thought provoking truth just might be: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” For the same candor and dedication that earned him a first ballot berth in the Baseball Hall of Fame and a place in America’s heart, DOPOTO proudly salutes Yogi Berra for his continuing colorful quest for simple truth with the Diamond Doozy Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of a one good man’s lifelong dedication to pointing out the obvious.

DOPOTO: “What is, is.” What, we can’t be in our own Hall of Fame? We invented this stuff!

This has been a report on The Obvious Hall Of Fame from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious. Thank you, thank you very much.

We here at the Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO), like much of the rest of humanity, read the newspaper and internet news and hear radio and television news reports just about every single day. Our highly skilled research team has long since concluded that the reports are often incomplete, and that certain phrases or words are code for something else entirely. For example, what is a “highly placed source” but a disgruntled employee who’s input has been rejected and has found a reporter to publicize their agenda? Those who do have the ear of the boss sure won’t risk their position by going behind his back to the press anonymously. And doesn’t “former beauty queen” always seem to mean vengeful wrinkled old hag? And there are a thousand more examples of newspeak that say something other than the obvious, an anathema to an organization like ours dedicated to pointing out the Emperor’s new cloths. Consider the following:

When the leader of a nation or his spokesperson says “our position is clear,” invariably that means they are sticking to an unreasonable policy and won’t listen to reason for all the cheese in Wisconsin.

When huge banks announce that they have bounced back from the grievous self-inflicted hemorrhages of last year so quickly and are reporting huge profits once again, what they really mean is that it’s okay again to transfer billions of their shareholders’ dollars (read that: someone else’s money) to the wealthy elite executive corps in the form of obscene bonuses.

And when these princes of high finance announce they have found another Golden Goose called “High Frequency Trading,” they are letting the cat out of the bag that they are cheating again and will move heaven and earth, fielding legions of attorneys and lobbyists, to find a loophole in any law or regulation designed to level the playing field and punish unfair insider trading.

When scientists worry that the machines they build may soon have the ability to outsmart man, they seem to have forgotten that VCRs, DVD players, phone answering machines and home computers have been doing this for decades. Who worries about robots and drone airplanes when you can’t even figure out what the hell the F12 key really does?

And speaking of scientists, when archaeologists uncover some new dinosaur skeleton or ancient human implement and say that this “probably” or “almost certainly” was this particular kind of creature that lived and ate this particular way or this specific tool was used for this or that exact purpose, what they are really saying is: “Your guess is as good as mine.” Nice work if you can get it.

When savage killings and open warfare breaks out between Muslims over the proper practice of the Islamic faith and Christians smugly announce how barbaric a faith Islam is, what they are saying is that they cut every single history class in school. No faith has been responsible for more bloodshed, torture, brutal oppression and widespread warfare than that of the followers of The Prince of Peace. Islam has a way to go to catch up to Christianity’s body count. To a whole lot of Muslims’ credit, however, they are trying their best in the critical Tyrannical Oppression and Senseless Killing departments, so there’s still hope for them entering the mainstream. Special kudos from The Department go out to them for the innovative and diabolical twist of talking young men in the prime of their lives into blowing themselves and others to smithereens in the name of a religion that means “Peace.”

When Charles Taylor, former brutal dictator of Liberia now on trial for war crimes in Sierra Leone (where he tried to conquer their diamond mines) pleads not guilty to the many charges against him, he is especially vehement in denying the charges of cannibalism. Which doesn’t look good for his prospects of acquittal on all the other charges of diamond smuggling, gunrunning, war making and the murder and mutilation of half a million human beings. When your only defense is: “At least I’m not a cannibal!”, your case is problematic at best and your chances of winning quite slim.

When China and Taiwan approach one another though official diplomatic channels, what that means is that China has finally given up the ghost of reclaiming the island, figuring, “Do we really need another 23 million citizens to go with our 1.3 billion, especially when those pesky Taiwanese are used to voting and having all those decadent Western human rights and liberties? They’ll just fire everyone else up and we’ll be having another Tiananmen Square incident every six weeks. That darned tank ammo is very pricey!”

When a species of frog previously thought to have been extinct is found somewhere, that means that nature has been pretty thorough in producing enough varieties of frogs so that their functions overlap and when one kind disappears the world doesn’t notice they are gone. Perhaps they take turns disappearing and reappearing to spread the frog workload equitably. What that also tells us is that there are people in this world who are on the ball with keeping tabs on frogs so that the rest of us are pretty much off the hook with frog counting. Reassuring, that.

When you read about billionaires still wheeling and dealing well into their 70’s and 80’s, your realize that the accumulation of that much wealth is as often as not an all-consuming compulsion rather than a means to an end. At an age when most men their age have relinquished the running of the world to younger hands and are enjoying the fruits of their labors in the restful and  leisurely pursuits of retirement, what these obsessive control freak geezers are telling you is that they are Ebenezer Scrooge, afflicted with a severe mental infirmity and unable to help themselves. And as any first year intern at DOPOTO can confirm, there are no Ghosts of Christmas Future handy to save these poor wretches from themselves.

When Republican Party operatives mount an intensive campaign to remove President Obama from office because he was really born in (!) Kenya, what they are really saying is “We’ve got nothing, not a damned thing in our pointy little heads.” Calling the followers of their movement “Birthers” isn’t helping their lost cause either, conjuring up images of inbred, isolated religious cults or Nadya Suleman, the Octomom. Calls to Birther headquarters in Brainfreeze, Idaho from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious have gone unanswered due the Birthers’ fear of the “witchy voices” emanating from their telephones, which they have declared to be instruments of Satan.

When sport writers and cycling fans gush over bicyclist Lance Armstrong’s 7 wins in the Tour de France, they never mention that bicycle riding is something that most of us master completely at around the age of 7 or 8, and yet receive no accolades for our advanced skills or athleticism. It’s pretty much an unspoken assumption that someone who rides a bicycle 10 hours a day will get giant thighs, deep lungs and not much else. Which researchers at DOPOTO have discovered is why the Tour de France was originally invented, as a consolation prize devised by social scientists to boost the self esteem of French people whose only skill was bike riding and were starting to feel inferior to people who won accolades for actual athletic prowess or winning their wars. Somewhere throughout the ensuing decades it got out of hand with the Yellow Jersey that was originally the entire jackpot for the race becoming a symbol of actual achievement. One result is that Armstrong is a wealthy international star.

This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has, as always, been scouring the globe for the readily apparent. Also as usual, the Department has many rivals for pointing out the forest for the trees. The latest DOPOTO impersonator is one Steve Schmidt, the campaign manager for Senator John McCain’s failed presidential bid in the 2008 election. While trying to get a grumpy old man elected president is an unenviable task, especially when said grumpy old man picks as his running mate a decidedly bizarre and ignorant bimbo from Alaska, Mr. Schmidt did his best. The man is a professional and a talented political operative who has the misfortune to be working within the framework of a dying political party.

The Republican Party was coming off eight years in power under President Bush The Younger, during which time they failed to make even one correct decision and made a bigger mess of America than was thought to be humanly possible. By the time the 2008 elections rolled around, the American people had their fill and overwhelmingly delivered the White House and both houses of Congress to the Democrats. These things happen from time to time in American politics, and the defeated party retrenches and eventually bounces back. This time, however, the Republican Party is in such disarray that it may split into one or more new political parties, one for the religious right wing, another for the corporate thieves, perhaps yet another for the simply power mad.

Which is where Steve Schmidt entered the business of pointing out the obvious. In a speech before the Log Cabin Republican convention, Mr. Schmidt declared that religion is ruining the Republican Party. He stated that a political party is no place to formulate policies based on religious faith, figuring that people with differing religious beliefs would be driven away, and others reluctant to join. This has been a serious problem for Republicans for many years, but only Steve Schmidt has been willing to talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. He reasons that if the party announces itself to be ordained by God, only zealots, professional killjoys and would-be Messiahs will remain in the fold.

And so DOPOTO, being experts in the field of pointing out the obvious, is more than willing to share the results of our research into the matter. It seems that around the time of Ronald Reagan, Jesus Freaks started getting themselves politically organized. Prior to that time, Jesus Freaks were basically mentally imbalanced and very disoriented individuals that others went to great lengths to avoid, so they decided to clean up their acts, band together and go mainstream. Unfortunately for the Republican Party, that is where the Jesus Freaks gravitated. Even more unfortunate, their new status as respectable citizens did not temper their extremely annoying personalities or their odd tendency to condemn most of humanity to the eternal damnation of Hell Fire, as if that was within their power.

At first they organized a local election here, a statewide victory there, and gradually became a national presence, sending Congressman and Senators to Washington and Governors to state capitals. And like any zealots who get a taste of power, theirs went right to their pointy little pin heads. Before long they were announcing that anyone who disagreed with them were in an open alliance with Satan and they finally got one of their fellow dimwits elected president, the aforementioned Bush The Younger, the black sheep of the very wealthy and powerful Bush family. Himself a lifelong failure, a complete idiot and a born-again Christian, he set records as the Governor of Texas for executing retarded teenagers and clearing brush at his ranch, a never-ending obsession in dry and brushy Texas. His presidency not only put America in dire straits, but left the Republican Party in a shambles.

Such is their disarray that the current capo-di-tutti-capo of the Republican Party is now Rush Limbaugh, the ignorant radio buffoon most famous for his addiction to Oxycontin (hillbilly heroin) and wishing failure for his nation’s president. A warmonger who never wore a uniform, a self-proclaimed intellectual who failed out of college after two semesters (failing even a ballroom dancing class!) and a serial marrier, Mr. Limbaugh is himself not a religious man but is an expert blowhard adept at pandering to religious weirdos. His only rival for the title of Republican Head Honcho is the disgraced former Speaker of The House, Newt Gingrich, a man who changes religions as often as he changes wives. Newt is best known for obsessing over President Clinton’s penis and handing his wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital sick with cancer so he could marry his trophy wife (who he has since traded in for a newer, presumably trophier, model).

So, Mr. Schmidt, the God Squad is only one of your party’s problems. The party that in recent times was the home of smart people like Jacob Javits, Margaret Chase-Smith, Everett Dirksen, Henry Cabot Lodge, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, the Republicans haven’t had a leader of any political talent or intellectual substance since Richard Nixon, and he was a paranoid crook who resigned in disgrace. While they still proudly call themselves “The Grand Old Party” and “The Party of Lincoln,” many people figure it was all downhill after Honest Abe and that the only thing “Grand” about them is larceny. 

None of these former Republican leaders would qualify for inclusion in today’s GOP, not being anywhere near unreasonable or insane enough, even Nixon. The Christian Fascists currently running the show at the GOP are the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Party. Naturally Mr. Schmidt’s speech was received about as well as the Captain of The Titanic greeted that news that his unsinkable ship was taking on water faster than Rush Limbaugh washing down a few fistfuls of Oxy. Some even banished him to Hades for the sin of describing the emperor’s new clothes. This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been as usual observing and reporting on all things great and small in this great nation of ours and beyond. So far 2009 has been a curious year, with a new president taking the reins of a government and an economy in shambles, up to his sizable ears in troubles left over from his predecessor Bush The Younger, possibly the worst president ever of any country anywhere and into the foreseeable future. Our research teams here at DOPOTO have been scouring the record books and it seems that Bush The Younger was even less effective than Idi Amin, no small feat. And yet the public outcry against the Democrat Barack Obama from prominent Republicans started before the man was even sworn in as America’s 44th president. It seems they long for a return of the good old days of two and a half months ago when they were in power and their policies were bankrupting the nation and actively attacking the Bill of Rights.

Even Newt Gingrich has been resurrected from the political garbage dump and elevated to a position of Elder Statesman. This is a man who pretty much failed at everything he set out to do for his entire life and has set a sorry moral example even for opportunistic hacks. These days the Republican Party, once the home of smart guys and cautious statesmen, is now being fronted by two fat buffoons with not a single original thought between them, the other one being the famous radio entertainer and drug addict, Rush Limbaugh. Not that being a drug addict is all that bad, but this particular one has gone on record as gloating with glee when other drug addicts died from an overdose (maybe figuring: good, more for me!). He’s even repeated over and over again that he wishes the new president, and hence his own nation, will fail. 

With leadership like this, DOPOTO expects the Christian Fascist Wing of the Republican Party to form their own party so they can at least go down in ignominious defeat in the next election on their own terms. Names being proposed for this new political movement are “Guns for God Party,” “The Jesus Loves Me But Hates You Party,” “The Old Testament Party” and “The Real Aryan Nation.” That last one is subject to litigation brought by the prison gang of murderous White Supremacists of the same name, claiming their sales of meth-amphetamine will be hurt by this unwanted association with such scary, vile scum. 

In other news, pirates from Somalia continue to take ships for ransom off the coast of Africa. In a curious twist on old pirates, these guys don’t have formidable warships that fire volleys of cannonballs and grapeshot at their targets and then swing on board with cutlassess in their hands and daggers in their teeth. These Somali pirates basically drive up with a tiny boat like your buddy has for fishing, sneak on board and point submachine guns at everybody until someone hands them a million bucks and then they go away. At least they keep up with some of the old pirate traditions of blowing the dough on drinking, hookers and gaudy jewelry back on land. Then they sober up and go do it again. So far, so good.

All the nations that are up in arms about this have not discouraged these guys and the warships they send over there are pretty much equipped to lay waste to vast swaths of territory, not to find drunken guys in dinky little fishing boats. This just might be a job for the Harbor Police. Issue a few BWI summonses (Boating While Intoxicated), confiscate their beer and maybe make them take a safe boating course. That course of action can’t be any less effective than sending battleships after dinghies. Right now the American Navy has surrounded a life boat with four pirates holding an American sea captain hostage with a half a dozen modern dreadnoughts and still the guy is a prisoner. The pirates have been basically mooning the navy, waving their whiskey bottles at them and singing Bruce Springsteen songs. This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.

The Department of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has, as always, been monitoring the news and general trends in America and the greater world beyond. It seems that being an incompetent executive is a safe career path only if you are in charge of gigantic banks. If you mess with the nation’s cars, however, the president puts out a hit on your career. This is, after all, America, and we’ve always been all about the cars. The banks? Not so much. This is not the first time American bankers have brought our economy down in flames. The suggestion here is that the president bring in some members of the Rothschild family to straighten things out in the banking industry. They’ve been doing the international banking thing for centuries pretty effectively.

In sewage treatment news (there is such a thing), it seems that some enterprising scientists are trying to make clean auto fuel from human sewage. DOPOTO applauds this brilliant idea for this plentiful and ever-renewable resource and expresses our gratitude that we are not the ones who have to deal with it. Sewage treatment is not for the faint of heart. It seems that the methane we humans produce in great amounts is a cleaner-burning gas than most and in just a few chemical steps our body wastes can be made to run cars and trucks. Which leads one to wonder what the new emission standards will be. For cars, that is.

In psychology news, a new study indicates that arguing in front of one’s children isn’t as harmful as once thought so long as knives, pistols and heavy blunt objects are not involved. This news comes as a relief to everybody everywhere who has ever raised any children, ridden with guilt that their incessant bickering has scarred their kids for life. Popular wisdom used to be that this sort of behavior was wrong and that parents should adopt a united and calm front for the sake of their children. For years our television shows reflected this Stepford Parent approach, showing perfect, well-adjusted parents who never let a cross word pass between them in front of the tykes. 

Well, it seems this fantasy only led most of the child stars of such shows to lives of substance abuse and crime, and these were only fictional families. So imagine every parent’s relief when it was revealed that their ordinary human natures were a better role model than the TV automatons! It seems that kids learn from watching their parents resolve conflicts, but the psychologists warn that only fair fighting is allowed, which just goes to show that they are still not in tune with reality. Maybe if people were preparing their little ones to enter a perfect world this would hold true, but DOPOTO’s own independent research has shown that it’s best for kids to learn about human treachery, duplicitousness and underhanded tactics at home. No sense sending naive fools into a world that will chew them up and spit them out.

In weather news, the Northern Plains States are considering a class action suit against Al Gore to make him cease and desist in his efforts to halt global warming. After two early Spring blizzards dumped about 4 feet of snow on them and caused the near-flooding of several cities and farming communities, their thinking is that a couple of degrees warmer next winter sounds pretty good. When told that the price of doing nothing about the melting polar ice caps would lead to a rise in sea levels that would turn Florida into an extension of the Gulf of Mexico, western residents responded that 49 states is plenty enough for any country. Some of the more enterprising among them even got busy with a new flag design.

In New York State, the governor and legislature have been busy trying to wrest back their title as the Most Corrupt State from Illinois. After the headlines involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich attempting to sell the president’s old Senate seat to the highest bidder and getting himself impeached for his trouble, New York legislators have responded admirably in a series of back room deals and public malfeasance that have only added to the state’s considerable problems and solved nothing. In a refutation of President Obama’s theory that government should be on the level, New York politicians have gone on record as being the lowest of the low, the most self-serving and the least concerned about the public good. The thinking in Albany is that fair and open dealing is for wimps. They don’t want change, they want folding money, and lots of it. When told that Obama is using his own money to redecorate the White House, several prominent State Senators and members of the House wondered where he stole all that dough and if they could get in on the action. So, the Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious gives this week’s Not Getting It Award to the  Government of The State of New York.

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been following the news diligently, which is what we do around here, seeking signs that our nation is coming together to solve a very vexing set of problems. So far there’s not a huge body of evidence suggesting a unified effort. In the financial sector, outside of throwing mad money around and demonizing a certain few executives, it seems that the industry-wide chaos that led to the current financial meltdown still reigns. Research here at The Department seems to indicate that the only thing preventing a rain of banker and stockbroker suicides from the gleaming towers of Wall Street is the fact that modern skyscrapers don’t have windows that can be opened. 

Studies further indicate that this architectural feature, coupled with general inertia, is inhibiting a healthy changing of the guard at the highest corporate levels. The fact that the leadership in most of the troubled banks, investment houses and insurance firms has remained the same is only contributing to the problem and the economic recovery is being stalled by the many dimwits who have somehow found themselves in charge of these institutions. The recommendation here is to fire everybody who lost money running a bank, an accomplishment that a few years ago would be hard to imagine. They are, after all, banks, and banks are designed to do only one thing, to earn money. Does anyone open a bakery and not bake bread?

On the political front, there is much ballyhoo over global warming and alternative energy. In California, where there is a giant desert called the Mojave, many people have proposed installing solar energy collectors, the thinking being that this is a desert where the sun shines mercilessly all the time. “Not so fast,” says California Senator Diane Feinstein, there is the beauty of the desert to be considered, and the large tortoise population. DOPOTO will have to take her word for it on that beauty-of-the-desert idea since we have no one at The Department willing to go to a desert and check it out. None of us here is a tortoise able to withstand life in a barren wasteland. No word on where Senator Feinstein would prefer to place the solar power facilities, but one of California’s nicknames is “The Sunshine State” so presumably she’s got a backup plan to place them outside of the 25,000 square miles of ideal terrain for solar power that is the Mojave Desert. The Department eagerly awaits her ideas and proposals.

On a similar note, no volunteers were available to visit the Arctic to check out the Polar Bear problem, what with it being 40 below zero half the time and human beings being about the same size as seals, the Polar Bears’ go-to meal of choice. So, once again DOPOTO is dependent upon the numerous reports of impending climate change emanating from governments, scientists and corporations. It seems that there is no exact agreement on this global warming premise as far as its severity, the timing of the apocalypse and whether or not we can do anything about it except make documentaries and write reports. What we do here is write a whole lot of reports so the hope is that we’re doing our part to prevent catastrophic climate change.

In more political news, it seems that the President of Iran is really not the President of Iran. America’s new president, Barack Obama, made peaceful overtures to the nation of Iran, figuring their government would respond to it one way or another. But in Iran, there’s a creepy guy in a funny hat and black robes that has authority over their president, and it’s not the Iranian Supreme Court. It is instead someone called their “Supreme Leader,” a powerful religious guy sort of like Popes of previous centuries that wielded enormous political clout. This guy, being really old and in no danger of actually having to fight himself, has ruled out peace as something he’d like to talk about. 

To be fair, The Supreme Leader of Iran is simply following a human custom as old as civilization itself: old guys wanting even more money and power firing up young guys to go fight and die in pursuit of the the old guys’ objectives. It is a system that works. Not very well, unfortunately, but it does work. The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious has studied numerous wars and it seems that no leader of any nation has actually picked up a weapon in many centuries, when kings realized that going into battle themselves only results in one of them getting his head cut off as a trophy for the other king. The thinking among world leaders, Supreme or otherwise, is that there are a whole lot of expendable heads available to do the dirty work. 

And so in all areas of human endeavor, the squabbles continue, waiting for someone to come up with a good idea so that it can be alternately praised or condemned. Research indicates, however, that good ideas seem to win out eventually in spite of any objections. A good case in point is the world of medicine, where doctors no longer think there is any such thing as “ill humors,” bleeding sick people doesn’t help their situation all that much and simple sanitation saves more lives than a thousand medicines. Of course this realization took centuries to sink in, with many a hapless patient dying at the hands of filthy quacks, but that is the nature of the human beast, as hard-headed a creature as any. The word “ignoramus” was not invented to describe any other creature but man. This has been a report from DOPOTO, where pointing out the obvious is our only skill.

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been carefully monitoring the news for signs that the worldwide economic meltdown is lifting. So far, no good. The news seems to be all bad, with even the one half of one percent of the population that qualifies as super-rich feeling the pinch of a bad economy. It is worth noting that there is another, distinctly different one half of one percent of the population that generally does the bidding of the super-wealthy, the military, alternately securing peace so the wealthy can operate on a multinational level and making war on the enemies of international commerce. Those enemies are generally those who question the right of one half of one percent of humanity dictating to the other ninety nine and a half percent, and those who would seek a piece of all this international commerce. It seems that not everybody in the 99 percent that is neither super-wealthy nor in the military agrees that the lion’s share of the world’s wealth ought to be deposited in the coffers of a tiny greedy elite.

Hence the need for a strong military, to convince the 99 percent otherwise. Interestingly enough, the half a percent that is in the military has no one in it from the half percent whose interests they champion, a pretty odd state of affairs, leading one to wonder what is their motivation. For example, not a single person in the military thought it would be a good idea to attack Iraq 6 years ago, a nation that posed no military threat to the United States. Yet, it was decided by the richest half percent of Americans that Iraq had to be attacked and that was that. The rest is history, as they say, and The Department is reminded that history is basically a bloody mess.

In these modern times, however, a third one half of one percent of the word’s population has emerged as a political and military power to counter the historic monopoly on power and riches secured by the world’s military organizations at the behest of the world’s super-wealthy (remember, it was never the average Roman or British citizen who thought it would be a great idea to conquer the world at the cost of much bloodshed, but their leaders’ brainstorm). This other half a percent would be religious fanatics, remembering fondly the many centuries that religion shared in the spoils of war and the benefits of commerce. A mere glance at the many grand palaces that are churches, temples and mosques and the vast riches accumulated by organized religions serves to remind mankind that untold wealth poured into religions for centuries and these various faiths held a whole lot of political power.

Indeed, for almost as long as there has been organized religion, almost every war has been fought in the name of God, at least nominally. Wars are actually fought over money and for no other reason, but the God excuse was perfect and it unleashed an inordinate amount of savagery on the so-called enemies of God. So now you’ve got your Islamicists and your Christian fascists and even some Jewish Fascists fighting to get their rightful bit of the spoils, angry that the businessmen have taken over their turf in the past century or so. And to show the businessman that they mean business, these religious fanatics are sacrificing all manner of their own people to unrelenting warfare, terror attacks and insurgent fighting groups. 

Taking their cue from the half percent of the super-wealthy, the religious leaders never actually put themselves in harm’s way. Everybody remembers what happened to Joan of Arc, and that just wouldn’t do when there are so many saps out there willing to sacrifice their lives for them. And just as the super-wealthy have the military to act as their proxies, the super-religious draw on a further one-half of a percent of the world’s population, the super gullible.  Can there possibly be a bigger born patsy than a suicide bomber? Approaching their gullibility are the ragtag militias assigned to battle modern armies, which works here and there in surprise attacks and ambushes but ends predictably in their wholesale slaughter when open combat is attempted. 

Not that modern military personnel are not gullible either, otherwise they would never allow themselves to be used so callously in the name of flag and nation. While the vast majority of any nation’s military personnel are honorable people signing up to serve and protect their country, that is very rarely a mission they are assigned to carry out. Generally they are used like pawns on the chess board of world commerce to insure that the money flows upward to the richest half of a percent of the world’s people. And as far as DOPOTO can tell, the world had reached some sort of status quo economically using this system, but in recent years the reemergence of religions wanting to get their former share of war loot has upset the delicate apple cart and the economy has suffered as a result. 

Religions dearly miss that 10% tithing that made them among the wealthiest, most powerful and influential organizations on earth. If that meant espousing all sorts of implausible superstitions, well, they needed some justification for their existence, and playing the God card was always an effective tool for controlling vast populations who might otherwise question why 99% of the people had to make do with less than 10% of the available wealth. We here at the Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious are not suggesting any solutions to this age-old dilemma, that is not our job, but merely pointing out the 800 pound gorilla in the room. So, subtracting the 2% of the population mentioned above, that leaves the rest of us, 98% of humanity, as the hapless victims of the relentless power struggles of the wealthy, the military, the religious and the gullible. The greed of the business and religious elite has driven the rest of us to the brink of bankruptcy for probably the thousandth time in history. It’s pretty obvious, hence the name of this agency.