Saturday, March 27, 2021
Take Your Operative and Shove It Up Your Prefatory
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Hey Kevin Baker, Guard Duck and Other Traitors
Stop fucking up our country with your nonsense.
Monday, March 22, 2021
Friday, March 19, 2021
SUBMIT
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Religious Misogyny Motivated the Georgia Murders
When eight people, mostly Asian women, were murdered at massage parlors in Georgia, a huge argument ensued: were these race-based hate crimes, or the acts of a sex-crazed wacko?
The piece of trash that did this was turned in by his parents, who gave the cops his cellphone number so they could track him down. We'll call him "PoT" instead of his real name to avoid giving him the notoriety he likely craves.
PoT's Instagram account had the following tagline: “Pizza, guns, drums, music, family, and God. This pretty much sums up my life. It’s a pretty good life.”
If life was so good, what was PoT's problem? Why did he do this?
Authorities said Robert Aaron Long had confessed to the killings and had told investigators he had “a sexual addiction.” Long indicated he may have frequented the spas in the past, police said, and that they were “a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”
In other words, PoT was a disgusting and weak animal, and "Guns and God" were the answer he chose to solve his own failings: kill the thing he desired and his temptation would go away.
We see this pattern over and over and over, in nearly all religions. In Saudi Arabia they make women cover themselves from head to toe to avoid inciting the passions of weak men. In Afghanistan the Taliban stopped girls going to school so they wouldn't tempt men. Ultraorthodox Jews in Brooklyn treat women like chattel, denying them a real education and turning them into baby machines that no man but their husbands can touch. Catholic priests worldwide crusade against birth control and abortion, denying women the most basic control over their own bodies. Southern Baptists disallow dancing and their pastors tell women that they have to look attractive because "God made men to be drawn to beautiful women," while sporting a gut that could dam the Mississippi River. And all religions have been covering up the rapes committed by their pastors, priests, rabbis and mullahs since time immemorial.
Religion gives animals like PoT license to murder. Here's how it goes. Lust is a sin. Temptation is how Satan takes us away from God. Satan is evil. You must conquer temptation. Throw in some guns and the answer is obvious. PoT was "proving" to God the strength of his faith, by destroying evil temptation at the source, killing these women.
How can I know that this was the motivation? There are literally millions of women out there to tempt him, and PoT knows that he can't kill them all. But he can pass God's "test" by killing the temptations he's met.
PoT had been in treatment for addiction, and clearly it failed. PoT's youth pastor said, “I don’t say this callously: I don’t know what’s happened in [PoT] to get to this point. What happened last night doesn’t seem in any way like the young man I knew.”
I can tell that pastor how PoT got to that point: religion screwed him up. By harping on sin and temptation and pretending that whatever force in the Universe that created the Andromeda galaxy actually cares how some bozo in rural Georgia gets his rocks off, his "faith" drove him to murder.
Religion does give legitimate comfort to some people. An old lady can die happy, thinking she'll be reunited with her long-dead husband. It can help some kids stay on the straight and narrow.But then we saw how nearly the entire evangelical hierarchy endorsed a completely depraved and immoral man for president, despite his own bragging about how he sexually assaults women. And then they had the gall to compare him to King David (who was also a total scumbag, but one who ultimately repented). And then they sued state governments that wouldn't let them crowd their congregations into disease-filled churches so they could fill their collection plates during a pandemic. All the while claiming that they are "pro-life."
Organized religion has lost whatever moral authority it ever had. It's just another gang of greedy men grubbing for money and power.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
End The Voting Rights Battle
I don't do this often but both sides are completely wrong in the voting rights debate. And Ross Douthat has explained why in his latest piece.
The first study, from the Democracy and Polarization Lab at Stanford University, looks at the effects of no-excuse absentee voting on the 2020 elections — the kind of balloting that a lot of states expanded and that many Republican state legislators now want to roll back. Contrary to liberal expectations, easing the voting rules this way seemed to have no effect on turnout: “States newly implementing no-excuse absentee voting for 2020 did not see larger increases in turnout than states that did not.” Then contrary to Republican fears, the easement didn’t help Democrats at the G.O.P.’s expense: “No-excuse absentee did not substantially increase Democratic turnout relative to Republican turnout.” Overall the authors argue that what drove higher turnout in 2020 was simply “voter interest” in the elections, not the major voting rule change, which “mobilized relatively few voters and had at most a muted partisan effect.”
The second study comes from a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oregon, and it looks further back in time to assess the effects of Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court revision of the Voting Rights Act that made it easier for states to impose voter ID laws and other restrictions. Using data from six federal elections, the author finds no post-Shelby divergence between white and African-American turnout in states affected by the ruling. Indeed, if anything, the jurisdictions saw African-American turnout rise relative to white turnout in the 2016 elections, suggesting that new obstacles to voting prompt swift mobilization in response.
That should all clear it up, right?
Bwahahaahaha!!!
Sunday, February 21, 2021
The Texas Disaster
For the last several years there's been a different kind of weather pattern: a terrible "polar vortex" that brings freezing temperatures down into places like Austin, Texas, where it got as low as 0 degrees, and warm toasty weather to Anchorage, Alaska, where it was 20 degrees warmer.
Every year there are articles that ask whether climate change is responsible for this or that particular freeze. And the answer from scientists is maddening to laymen: maybe not this one, but it's responsible for the increased frequency of such events.
The mechanism is pretty obvious: the jetstream, which usually keeps arctic air bottled up at the north pole, has been weakened by the warming atmosphere over the last several years. When a warm front breaks through the weakened jetstream, bringing balmy weather to Alaska, cold polar air is pushed south, often down into the lower 48.
Texas, a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil and gas industry, decided long ago that they didn't want to be part of the national power grid. So they have their own grid, which is almost completely unregulated.
To keep prices low the power companies don't have any reserve capacity. They spend nothing on contingencies for extremely hot or extremely cold weather. So when it got down to 20, 10, 5 and 0 degrees last weekend all the natural gas pipelines froze. Power plants that use gas turbines went offline. Cooling water pipes froze, and coal and nuclear plants went offline. Ice formed on blades, so wind turbines went offline.
Now, we have gas turbines in Minnesota, where it was -20 below for days on end at the same Texas was 20 and 30 degrees warmer. They didn't freeze. We have nuclear power plants, and coal-fired power plants, and wind turbines, and they all kept working just fine.
While Texas was suffering from blizzard-like conditions last Sunday Minnesota had very cold but clear weather. During the worst two days in Texas the solar panels on our house generated 145 kilowatt hours of electricity. Some of which we could have sent to Texas if they hadn't cut themselves off from the rest of the country, preventing people from freezing to death or dying of carbon monoxide poisoned trying to keep warm by running their cars.
See, that's the thing about renewable energy. It's not always windy or sunny everywhere. But it's always windy or sunny somewhere. And if you have an interconnected grid you can trade that power back and forth.
When Texas lost power its governor went on Fox News and blamed the outage on wind turbines, which generate maybe 10% of Texas' power. He didn't mention that the nuclear, coal and natural gas plants that generate the vast majority of power in Texas were also offline, because utilities skipped weatherizing their infrastructure, even though Texas went through a similar disaster in 2011.
When Texas lost power Ted Cruz went to Cancun, because he wanted to be a "good dad." Because, you know, there's nothing a senator can do to help.
When Texas lost power New York representative and Republican bogeywoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to Houston, helped out at a food bank and organized an online relief drive that had already raised $4 million by Saturday. But she doesn't have kids who need to go to lie on the beach in Cancun in the middle of a pandemic, so she has all the free time in the world.
Yeah, AOC is just pulling a stunt, showing how Democrats actually care about people and then do something to help. But, geeze, Ted! I mean, Rafael. You could have pulled the same stunt. But you didn't! You went to Cancun, something an actual human being would know makes you look like a total douche bag.
When Texas lost power Joe Biden declared a major disaster, freeing up emergency funds. There was no sniping about Texas voting for the "former guy," or an attempt to extort some concession from its governor, or a rush visit to Houston to throw paper towels at people seeking warmth in a shelter.
Republicans constantly tell us that government is the problem, not the solution. Well, it's very clear that Republican governments are the problem. Republican governments are just shills for giant companies and billionaires, doing whatever the people with all the money want them to do. Or worse, they use the levers of government to line their own pockets. Like that former guy who charged the Secret Service millions of dollars to stay at his own hotels and resorts...
And somehow Republicans maintain power by selling the lie that they're the defenders of freedom. What was the freedom Texas Republicans sold to its citizens? The freedom to get ripped off by big companies:
SAN ANTONIO — As millions of Texans shivered in dark, cold homes over the past week while a winter storm devastated the state’s power grid and froze natural gas production, those who could still summon lights with the flick of a switch felt lucky.
Now, many of them are paying a severe price for it.
“My savings is gone,” said Scott Willoughby, a 63-year-old Army veteran who lives on Social Security payments in a Dallas suburb. He said he had nearly emptied his savings account so that he would be able to pay the $16,752 electric bill charged to his credit card — 70 times what he usually pays for all of his utilities combined. “There’s nothing I can do about it, but it’s broken me.”
Monday, February 15, 2021
Are We Ever Going to Learn?
About once a month, like clockwork, an accusation appears that dethrones yet another cultural hero. We found out that Minnesota nice Amy Klobuchar was a mean boss. Al Franken did sexist things on a USO tour. James Gunn made bad jokes a decade ago and got fired. Countless football players slug their girlfriends.
This time it's Joss Whedon, creator of several television shows that featured strong female leads:
Tuesday, February 09, 2021
Dedicated To Right Wing Bloggers and Commenters Everywhere
Monday, February 01, 2021
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Monday, January 18, 2021
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Dear Senate Republicans:
Suck it up, Republicans. Your guy lost. Deal with it.
Check that. He wasn't your guy. He was an elitist New York grifter, failed casino owner and con man who thinks he's better than everyone else, even though he's an ignorant dunderhead. He was a front man for the Russian mob who made a hostile takeover of the Republican party. You never liked him.
Trump's a loser. He's always been a loser. Even when he wins, he acts like a loser, whining about everything, lying about everything, even irrelevant nonsense like inauguration crowd size.
So why do you want to drag out the unmitigated catastrophe of the Trump years? Why do want to risk him coming back in 2024?
Senators, you must convict the bastard!
He got lucky and won in 2016 with the help of the Russians, and because everybody hates Hillary, even half the Democrats. James Comey hung her out to dry with his mishandling of the bogus email scandals, and the leaking by Rudy Giuliani's cronies in the New York FBI office of the equally bogus Weiner laptop scandal, just days before the election.
Every Republican knew Trump was a toxic serial rapist before the election, when he was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women by the pussy. He won the primary with grade-school tactics, insulting and spouting ridiculous lies about his Republican opponents, including some of your fellow senators. Remember Low-energy Jeb, Little Marco, and Trump's claim that Ted Cruz's dad shot JFK?
Ted, how could you possibly support this weasel and carry his lying water for him? Have you no shame?
Trump continued his assault on allies in the Republican Party and his own employees throughout his term, trashing everyone from Jeff Sessions, to John Bolton, to Rex Tillerson, to John Kelly, to Bill Barr. Every time Trump screwed the pooch, he blamed someone else and threw them under the bus. He displayed zero loyalty to his allies. To you, dear senators.
And then, on January 6, he sent a lynch mob to the Capitol to kill Mike Pence. And risked your lives in the process.
Everyone knows Trump lost. Everyone knows why Trump lost. But they're too afraid of him, and the crazies that he's been egging on for the last five years, to admit it. Republican office holders are getting death threats from people in their own party simply for obeying the law and keeping their vow to uphold the Constitution.
Yeah, I know, you're afraid for yourselves and your families. Well, join the club. These nutjobs have been plotting to kill -- and actually killing -- Democrats, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans for the last five years. Literally dozens of Trump supporters, like Cesar Sayoc, have been jailed for terrorist threats and murder.
Why would any sane person want to keep Trump around? The longer he has a voice in politics, the longer he'll rile up these crazies and the more people they'll threaten and kill. Including other Republicans, because Trump and his people want to instill fear and incite a race war.
Trump is a malignant narcissistic psychopath, and by his lights, if he can't be president, no one can. He'll burn the country to the ground if you don't stop him.
This clown has destroyed America's standing as a world power. He drove our trade deficit and national debt to record highs. He's the first president in forever to leave office with more people unemployed than when he came in. He's given over our foreign policy to the Russians and Israel. He's alienated all our allies. He surrendered to Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin and Hafez Assad and the Taliban. He coddled murderous dictators like Saudia Arabia's MBS and Turkey's Erdogan. The Iranians are back to enriching weapons grade uranium.
Almost half a million Americans are dead because he botched the coronavirus response.
Trump is a total failure. He is the biggest loser at all the things that really matter.
And, face it: there's nothing to worry about Biden and the Democrats being in charge. When Democrats come into power after a Republican destroys the economy things improve -- as it did with Roosevelt after Hoover, Clinton after Bush I, and Obama after Bush II. Biden won't be dictated to by the squad and Bernie because most congressional Democrats are moderate. And Trump has been such a disaster that there's just not enough money for the squad's wish list.
Just admit it: Republicans are terrible at running the country. You don't want government to succeed. You only have an opposition party mindset, you're only happy when you're whining and sniping at the "establishment" -- the people who run the government -- even when those people are you. Not wanting to do the job makes you unfit to actually do the job.
Trump losing is the best thing to happen to this country since the Allies won WWII. Businesses crave stability and predictability, but all Trump did was sow chaos, discord and uncertainty. And it's the best thing to happen to you, senators: you don't have to worry about Trump stabbing you in the back at every turn, or issuing some insane tweet in the middle of the night, destroying everything you worked on for the last year and a half.
So, dump Trump's big fat rump. Vote to convict!
Thursday, January 07, 2021
Trump Screws His Supporters 10 Times Harder. Again.
Donald Trump loves to brag to about how he doesn't just get even, he hits back at his enemies 10 times harder. But the people he hurts the most are his employees (Mick Mulvaney, Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr, etc.), his business partners, his investors, his political allies, his wives, and his most rabid political devotees.
After Trump incited a mob outside the White House they rioted inside the Capitol. Four people died, one shot by capitol police as she lunged over a barrier.
These people are now screwed. They are facing years in prison for criminal destruction of property, terrorizing members of congress and numerous other charges. And these idiots documented their crimes on social media!
We have to pause to note that these white rioters were treated with kid gloves. Over the summer Black Lives Matter protesters were met by SWAT teams and the military decked out in riot gear, but Trump rioters, who for weeks had openly plotted on social media to invade the capitol building, were met only by a small capitol police force.
What was the FBI doing for the last two months since the election? Aren't they supposed to be tracking threats, foreign and domestic?
These people's lives are now ruined. And where was Trump? After inciting them to riot, he went back to the White House to watch the carnage on television.
And what the hell are these people been fighting for? Why do they want four more years of this clown?
The Trump years have been an unprecedented disaster. Three to four thousand people are dying every day from Covid -- that's eight 9/11s a week!
The economy is mess because of his idiotic tariffs and totally botched response to the pandemic.
Our government and corporate computer systems have been hacked by the Russians. And Trump has yet to say one bad word about Putin.
Kim Jong Un has continued to build nuclear weapons after making Trump look like an idiot for saying that he fell in love with the North Korean dictator.
Iran is back to enriching weapons grade uranium after Trump withdrew from the international agreement that prevented them from doing so. Trump's assassination of a popular Iranian general only made Iran more determined to defy him, rather than getting them to back down. And the Russians openly help the Iranians.
Taliban forces are taking Russian bounties to kill American troops, continuing to attack government officials and kill innocent civilians while Trump's negotiators try to make a "peace deal" with these psychopathic murderers. Trump's exit from Afghanistan will make our withdrawal from Vietnam look like a victory parade.
Russian TV set scenes of Trump's capitol riot to dramatic music, graphically showing how out of control the United States is, and how dangerous democracy is.
Notice how Russia so prominently figures when we talk about Trump. They are, after all, responsible for putting him in the White House. He is undeniably their creature.
Trump loves to claim that the rest of the world is laughing at us. Well, he's right now. The Russians are laughing. The Chinese are laughing. The North Koreans are laughing. The Iranians are laughing. They all think Trump is a joke. He can't even get Dictator 101 right.
Trump is the biggest loser. And nothing is more pathetic than a loser who keeps whining after he's been beaten. Trump isn't a man, he's a childish caricature reminiscent of Trelane in The Squire of Gothos.
But Canada, Australia, Europe, Australia, Great Britain, Japan and the rest of the free world are shocked and saddened by how far the United States has fallen, becoming yet another banana republic where crazies run riot in the capitol building.
Given all this, I still cannot comprehend why anyone would support this absolute scumbag. It has always been clear from the beginning that he does nothing but lie and make false promises that he'll never deliver on. He doesn't give a damn about anyone other than himself. He flushes his allies, employees and supporters down the toilet like yesterday's Big Mac, blaming them for his innumerable failures.
They are the American Carnage Trump promised us.
Some day, we can only hope, Trump supporters will realize they have been played and royally screwed by this animal. He is and always has been the very thing they claim to hate: the cosseted insider who manipulates the system in his own favor, repeatedly screwing over the people who got him there in the first place.
And then instead of rioting in the capitol, perhaps they'll have a few protests at Mar a Lago, or Trump Tower, or his lovely DC hotel, or at his several golf courses.
I Rest My Case
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Defund the Police Is a Bogus Slogan: Let's Fire Bad Cops! Instead
A while back Barack Obama made many Democrats and liberal pundits angry by criticizing the Defund the police slogan employed by many activists after Minneapolis cops murdered George Floyd in cold blood.
In a letter to membership, Kroll — the president of the MPD’s police union — referred to protesters outraged by police brutality as a “terrorist movement” and defended the officers who killed Floyd and were subsequently fired, arguing they were “terminated without due process” and lamenting, “What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd.” (Floyd had a criminal record, but mostly for nonviolent drug and theft charges.)
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
The Religion of the Right
The conservative of 2020 has turned worship of ME into a bona fide religion. They don't get the concept of WE or what it means to be in a society where we have to depend on each other. They have tapped into their inner adolescent rage against authority and made any sort of group work into communism.
They are the ultimate teenager who DOESN'T WANNA! And BLOWS EVERYTHING OUT OF PROPORTION WITH EXAGGERATION!! Working together as a society becomes slavery in totalitarianism.
To get a clearer picture of this selfishness on steroids, read this.
This would be why the rest of the world looks at us and wonders what FREEDUMB is...
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Do The Hard and Tedious Work
Tuesday, December 08, 2020
Election Fraud in Federal Court
Re: Kevin Baker's latest post about election fraud.
If you are someone like Kevin who believes the myth that Democrats stole the 2020 election, please kindly cite your evidence that you would be willing to use in federal court to support your assertion. Remember, you can get in very serious trouble lying in a federal court. It's not a little blog that allows you to spout irrational nonsense. It's where grown-ups do business.
No evidence? Nothing? Bueller?
Then you are lying merely because you are butthurt about your guy losing. There is nothing more to this election than this:
Trump was an incompetent buffoon who literally killed Americans and the people voted him out.
Now, go read Leon Festinger's When Prophecy Fails and learn from your cognitive dissonance.