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How Far They Have Moved Right...

Finally

I'm happy to report that someone got the memo on the need for a real fucking news station as opposed to three we have now that can't resist bright shiny objects like Miley Cyrus. Al Jazeera America is simply fantastic.

I waited a few weeks since it launched to see if they could resist the paparazzi like stories we see on the other three networks and they have. In addition, they pick an issue on focus on it for a considerable amount of time. The show, "Inside Story," recently focused on climate change and to my complete delight, they did not play the Cult of Both Sides and focused on the actual science.

No doubt AJA will lead to several bowels being blown by those on the Right who just can't help themselves in predicting the coming End Times. Clearly, those who will engage in this haven't even watched the station. I was struck by how many average Americans participate in the discussions. These people come from all walks of political ideology and don't necessarily look great on TV which I think is totally fucking mega.

To see where you can watch Al Jazeera America, click here and enter your zip in the upper right hand corner.

The Only One

It appears that I am the only one who thinks that the president asking Congress for permission to bomb Syria makes him stronger, not weaker. That's true even if Congress turns him down.

Consider what would happen if that was the scenario as it was in the UK. Congress, not the president, would be blamed if we allowed the use of chemical weapons to go without an appropriate response. This would be a similar situation to World War II where President Roosevelt lobbied hard to get the United States involved in the war only to be rebuffed continually by Congress and their isolationist ways.

Granted, Bashar Asssad is no Adolph Hitler but ignoring his actions would have massive repercussions in the region. Iran would feel emboldened as would the various terrorists networks that both they and Syria support. In short, it's far too late to do nothing.

And the president knows this. But he wants to do this the right way and that's why Congress needs to be in the decision making process. They need to see the evidence over the next week (as will the world) of Sarin gas use in Syria. Once this happens, much of the hand wringing and fretting that we see in the "liberal" media is going to go away.

Honestly, I think Assad's days are numbered.

250 K?

On this Labor Day, I thought it appropriate to check in on how Governor Scott "250,000 jobs" Walker is doing on his promise. We need look no further than Walker Job-O-Meter over at Politifact. Apparently that promise is now a goal, not necessarily a reality. He's also been lying about some other job related matters but what do the numbers actually say?

It looks like is about a third of the way there with 84,000 jobs added. This graphic shows it's been real up and down this year...sort of like that national picture.

Now, if this were President Obama, these numbers would be horrible. But since it's Scott Walker, well, what a great job he is doing, eh!?

Great Quotes

Addicting Info has a great list of quotes from our founding fathers that don't really seem to jibe with the whole not really sort of but really yes please theocracy conservatives want for our country. Among them...

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” ~Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814

I think I might need to highlight a quote a week from this page.

Amen

Which Car is Outselling The Rest?

That would be the Tesla.

In the first half of 2013, Tesla captured 0.6 percent of the total light-duty vehicle market in the state—more than Buick, Fiat, Land Rover, Lincoln, or Mitsubishi. And looking only at June, the latest month for which figures are available, Tesla also topped Cadillac, Chrysler, and Porsche. That’s especially impressive when you consider that those brands are selling multiple different cars, whereas the Model S is the only Tesla vehicle in production.

I was told there was no market for this sort of vehicle. Huh.

The Arrogance of Ignorance

There they go again. Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican, recently said that humans can't possibly change the climate of the entire planet:

“I think it’s arrogant that we think as people that we can somehow change the climate of the whole earth when science is telling us that there’s a cycle to all this,” he said. “And that cycle was occurring before the industrial revolution and I suspect will occur way into the future.”

This is like saying that something the size of ant couldn't possibly tear down a house. Ants are just too small! Termites, however, can easily destroy houses.

It is not arrogant to think that humans can change the climate. It is the height of ignorance to think that we can do anything we damn well please without affecting the future of our of grandchildren.

The fact is, humans have been changing local climates for thousands of years. When you chop or burn down trees and convert forests to croplands, you change the climate.

You can see this for yourself: just take a bike ride down a trail in Minnesota on a hot day. When you're pedaling along a trail shaded by trees the air is cool and damp. When you leave the shade and enter a grassy area -- or a wheat field -- the air is dry and the temperature jumps several degrees. This is because forests cool the earth, and help to retain water locally instead of sending it all back into the air. Trees may even make it rain.

The effect is even greater when you replace trees with cities. This produces an effect called the "urban heat island." Areas denuded of foliage and covered with concrete and asphalt retain heat and and don't retain water, changing the local climate. Climate change deniers are well aware of this: they count on it to attempt to discredit historical climate data (which scientists have accounted for in their calculations).

Farmers in Brazil and Indonesia have been burning and chopping down the great rain forests for decades, turning lush, damp forests into dry fields. Haitians scavenging for wood to burn have chopped down all the trees on their side of the island. The American West has been hit hard by wildfires, and thousands of square miles have been burned in the last few years. This has changed the local climates, making them drier.

If you change enough local climates through deforestation and urbanization, pretty soon the continental and global climates change.

There are seven billion people on earth. Yes, there have been natural climate cycles in the past. But there have never been seven billion people before. The land area of the earth is 149 million square kilometers, or 58 million square miles. That gives us a population density of 121 people per square mile across the entire planet. By comparison, Macau has 73,000 people per square mile, India has 954, China has 365, Nicaragua has 120, the United States has 84, Alaska has 1.2. This means that, if we put our minds to it, we could easily chop or burn down all the forests in the world even with tools as primitive as stone axes. Which would drastically alter the global climate. And if you consider what would happen if we detonated all our nuclear weapons at once, it's clear that humanity has more than enough power to change the climate of the planet.

Over the past 200 years we have been digging up oil, gas and coal which were formed by the remains of forests and plants over millions and billions of years. Not only are we burning the forests of today and putting their carbon into the atmosphere, but by burning fossil fuels we are putting the carbon of millions of years of forest and plant growth into the atmosphere, all in the blink of an eye on the geological scale. It's like burning all the forests that ever existed all at once.

That is something that has never happened on earth before, so any talk of science's "natural cycles" goes completely out the window.

To think that that the activities of seven billion people can't change the climate is both arrogant and ignorant. So the question is: are we going to be termites, gnawing at the foundations of the world's climate until it comes crashing down upon us? Or are we going to be good shepherds of this earth?

A Real Head Scratcher

Fox News had a story on air recently in which they wondered why the beaches in our country are eroding. As Media Matters notes, that's a real head scratcher!

Forfeit These Services!

Samuel Warde has a nice variation on the anti-socialist pledge up over at Liberals Unite. Here are a few of my favorites...

Want to visit another country? Don’t bother unless you know a way around the border stop which is patrolled by the government and don’t forget you no longer can get a passport any more.

You need to worry about clean air or water once the commie EPA is shut down.

You no longer have to be bothered with paved roads, highways, interstate freeways or public bridges.

It's almost as if they don't understand how the real world works from the comfort of the basement of their parents home.

Coming Clean

I was quite heartened to see that the CIA has now admitted that it played a significant role in the coup in Iran in 1953. This event, more than any other, was the spark that lit the flame of hatred for the United States in Iran. Backing the Shah, who murdered his own citizens regularly and often on a mere whim, was a giant mistake.

Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq was the democratically elected leader and we had him overthrown simply because he nationalized Iran's oil. So what? It was their fucking country to do with whatever they desired. Iran wasn't a problem before the CIA, BP and MI-6 fucked everything up.

Fuck You

I actually had some sympathy for George Zimmerman throughout his whole ordeal and thought of him simply as a wannabe moron who should have never gotten out of the car. Most of my disgust over the shooting of Trayvon Martin lied not with him but with his mouth foaming supporters in the gun community who finally got to thump their chests and shout, "Hoo-RA!" as they turned Zimmerman into the victim standing his ground.

Yet after the recent revelation that Mr. Zimmerman visited Kal Tec, the gun manufacturer that made the gun he used to kill Martin, he can fuck right off. Any concern I have for his safety and future life as a result of the verdict is gone. He could have simply led a quiet life and tired to stay out of the spotlight. Yet if he is going to now be a gun celebrity and preen, he bears full responsibility for anything that happens to him.

Fuck you, douchebag.

The End Game

With the United States on the verge of bombing Syria after it has been discovered that the Assad government used chemical weapons against the rebels, I have to wonder...what is the end game in Syria?

No doubt the use of such weapons is thoroughly disgusting on just about every level but it shouldn't be news that President Assad is a despicable man. Equally as awful are the rebels who like to videotape people's hearts being cut out and eaten by resistance soldiers. These are the people we want to help out?

I suppose I understand the concept of a surgical strike the sends a message but it won't accomplish anything. The civil war there will continue and it's going to be a giant cluster fuck just as it is in Egypt with various groups vying violently for power. In the final analysis, there is very little we can to stabilize Syria let alone the region.

Retraction

The other day I posted this photo thinking that it was a real Michele Bachmann quote. It was actually from a Bachmann parody page so it isn't something she actually said. My mistake.

Speaking of photo mistakes, I'm still waiting for an admission of error from Kevin Baker and his merry band of American Taliban members on this photo.

I won't hold my breath.