Friday, August 21, 2015
Thursday, August 20, 2015
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHHAHAHAHHAAA!!!!!
Armed 'Patriot' Guarding 'Muslim-Free' Gun Store Accidentally Shoots Himself
Here's to hoping a whole lot more of armed "patriots" and "oathkeepers" shoot themselves
Here's to hoping a whole lot more of armed "patriots" and "oathkeepers" shoot themselves
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
More Blood On Their Hands
Take a look at these hearses...
That's one for each of the eight people killed by David Conley in Houston last week. Despite the fact that Conley had a history of domestic violence, he was still able to obtain a gun. How?
He was able to purchase the gun online.
Had Manchin-Toomey been passed in 2013, all 8 of these people would still be alive. So would others. If you advocate for gun rights and against universal background checks, these deaths are your responsibility. Their blood is on your hands.
And you need to be put away.
That's one for each of the eight people killed by David Conley in Houston last week. Despite the fact that Conley had a history of domestic violence, he was still able to obtain a gun. How?
He was able to purchase the gun online.
Had Manchin-Toomey been passed in 2013, all 8 of these people would still be alive. So would others. If you advocate for gun rights and against universal background checks, these deaths are your responsibility. Their blood is on your hands.
And you need to be put away.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Victim George Zimmerman Goes Full On White Supremacist!
Victim George Zimmerman has finally decided to throw his lot in with like minded individuals in the Gun Cult. Remember the gun store in Florida that declared a "Muslim Free" policy? Well, ol' Georgie has painted them a little Confederate flag to auction off. Make sure you check out the video in the link. What an excellent illustration of the Gun Cult!
Although, I am still wondering if they understand that by vigorously fighting for looser gun laws, they are, in fact, helping the very Muslims they purport to be against acquire more weapons. Don't they realize how much they have in common with Islamic extremists?
Maybe the could just hug it out:)
Although, I am still wondering if they understand that by vigorously fighting for looser gun laws, they are, in fact, helping the very Muslims they purport to be against acquire more weapons. Don't they realize how much they have in common with Islamic extremists?
Maybe the could just hug it out:)
Frank Zappa Long Ago Predicted Where The GOP Would Be Today
Frank Zappa Sees the Future of the Republican Party in 1986
Frank Zappa Sees the Future of the Republican Party in 1986THE SOURCE for this videohttp://youtu.be/WmhjyB3QfEg
Posted by Roger A Summers on Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Monday, August 17, 2015
The Problem We All Live With
Right now, all sorts of people are trying to rethink and reinvent education, to get poor minority kids performing as well as white kids. But there's one thing nobody tries anymore, despite lots of evidence that it works: desegregation. Nikole Hannah-Jones looks at a district that, not long ago, accidentally launched a desegregation program...
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Southern Politics
I've been visiting family in Southern Illinois and Missouri for the past few days and it's always amusing to discuss politics with them. Both of my mom's sisters love Donald Trump. Interestingly, the cite the same reasons as many other conservatives have cited. He says what he thinks, he's not a career politician, he'd be tough with China (that's a big deal down in these parts...you know, those crafty Chinks), and he'd fix our country's financial woes because he's a good businessman.
Politics must be the only field where a good chunk of the country doesn't want specialists in that field running the show. Think about this for a minute...would you want an electrician doing your plumbing? How about a lawyer building your house? So, the least of us that is experienced in government should get the nod. Yeah, that sounds like a whole bunch of adolescent nonsense to me. If you are one of these people that is bent out of shape about career politicians, why don't you put your put your time where your mouth is and run for office yourself? Or support someone with a like minded ideology? Otherwise, get over the fact that you didn't succeed in life and someone else (a politician) did.
I can report some good news from the Show Me State. One of my aunts finally gave in and enrolled in the Affordable Care Act. My mom and I kept telling her that she would save a ton of money if she did but she didn't believe us...because Obama. Cognitive dissonance finally gave way to the reality of a premium drop from $800 a month to $100 a month. They get to keep their own doctor (hee hee) and actually have better coverage.
Recent polls show the rest of America is catching up as well. Funny how reality works...
Politics must be the only field where a good chunk of the country doesn't want specialists in that field running the show. Think about this for a minute...would you want an electrician doing your plumbing? How about a lawyer building your house? So, the least of us that is experienced in government should get the nod. Yeah, that sounds like a whole bunch of adolescent nonsense to me. If you are one of these people that is bent out of shape about career politicians, why don't you put your put your time where your mouth is and run for office yourself? Or support someone with a like minded ideology? Otherwise, get over the fact that you didn't succeed in life and someone else (a politician) did.
I can report some good news from the Show Me State. One of my aunts finally gave in and enrolled in the Affordable Care Act. My mom and I kept telling her that she would save a ton of money if she did but she didn't believe us...because Obama. Cognitive dissonance finally gave way to the reality of a premium drop from $800 a month to $100 a month. They get to keep their own doctor (hee hee) and actually have better coverage.
Recent polls show the rest of America is catching up as well. Funny how reality works...
Saturday, August 15, 2015
The Real Reason Conservatives Oppose the Iran Deal? Oil!
The news is full of stories of economic woe in oil-producing states. From North Dakota:
The benchmark crude price has declined to $42 per barrel, after rallying in June to $60. North Dakota’s crude oil trades at a discount to the Oklahoma benchmark because of the higher cost of shipping most of it by rail. Helms said Friday’s North Dakota wellhead price estimate was $28.50 a barrel, down nearly $11 from last month.From Texas:
“People didn’t have to work anymore [during the height of the fracking boom],” said Elliott Skloss, a sign maker for the county road and bridge department. “Now they’ll have to work or panhandle if the oil price doesn’t go back up.” His family farms had five oil and gas wells that earned monthly checks worth $50,000 just a year ago, but they now earn one-tenth as much because of the decline in prices and well production.From Alaska:
The result, historians and economists say, is beyond the experience of this state, or probably any other in modern times: more than half of the tax base — predicated on crude oil selling at around $110 a barrel — is simply gone in the whirlwind of $50 oil, as though it never existed. A spending plan of $6.1 billion for 2015, passed by the Legislature last year, will fall $3.5 billion short, or more, if oil prices keep falling. Alaska collects no state sales or income taxes to pick up the slack; a savings fund from past oil earnings will help, but it cannot fully fill the gap either.If the Iran nuclear deal goes through, the sanctions that keep Iranian oil off the world market will be lifted. Iranian oil will flood the market and oil prices will plummet to even lower levels. Oil industry analysts are predicting major savings:
"Once we get past Labor Day, we should see gas falling by 10 to 15 cents a month," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service. "By December a lot of places are going to see gasoline at $2 or less."Remember Sarah Palin's salacious "Drill, baby, drill!" innuendo? Michelle Bachmann's "I'll bring back $2 gas" promise? Well, it's happening on Barack Obama's watch.
This is the real reason conservatives are opposed to the Iran nuclear deal. This is the real reason conservatives are opposed to renewable energy such as wind and solar power, which are quickly becoming cheaper than oil and natural gas even at historically low fossil fuel prices. This is the real reason conservatives oppose fuel economy and power plant emissions regulations, which save consumers money and and save lives.
The oil and pipeline billionaires dictate domestic and foreign policy to the Republican Party based on what's profitable for them, regardless of what's good for the economy and the environment.
Friday, August 14, 2015
The Beauty of The Free Market
Check out this fantastic piece on the decline of coal.
The overblown political rhetoric about the plan tends to obscure the market reality that the coal industry has been in steady decline for a decade, partly as a result of the natural gas boom, but mostly because consumers are demanding cleaner air and action on climate change. Communities across the U.S. have led the way in persuading utilities to close dirty old coal plants and transition to cleaner forms of energy.
Man, I love the free market!
The overblown political rhetoric about the plan tends to obscure the market reality that the coal industry has been in steady decline for a decade, partly as a result of the natural gas boom, but mostly because consumers are demanding cleaner air and action on climate change. Communities across the U.S. have led the way in persuading utilities to close dirty old coal plants and transition to cleaner forms of energy.
Man, I love the free market!
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Yet Another Affordable Care Act Lie Torpedoed
Conservatives spent a great deal of time assuring Americans that the Affordable Care Act's rules on health care for businesses would result in all sorts of problems ranging from less hiring to reduced hours.Three recent studies, including one from a conservative group the American Enterprise Institute, shows that this has not been the case.
So far, though, researchers say employers have not changed how they hire and schedule their workers in response to the law. "The data, to date, basically say that that hasn't happened, at least on aggregate basis -- that there really hasn't been nearly the change that some people were expecting," said Chris Ryan, a vice president at the payroll-management firm ADP.
Shocking, I know, that a prediction of doom and gloom from the right did not, in fact, come to pass. Ah well, reality has a well known liberal bias:)
So far, though, researchers say employers have not changed how they hire and schedule their workers in response to the law. "The data, to date, basically say that that hasn't happened, at least on aggregate basis -- that there really hasn't been nearly the change that some people were expecting," said Chris Ryan, a vice president at the payroll-management firm ADP.
Shocking, I know, that a prediction of doom and gloom from the right did not, in fact, come to pass. Ah well, reality has a well known liberal bias:)
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
A Call To The Private Sector On Inequality
Peter Georgescu has become another member of the one percent to call for action on the inequality in our country. This time, however, he's going directly to the private sector.
Who will be courageous enough to start the ball rolling? The most obvious choice is our government. But the current Congress has been paralyzed.
Paralyzed by ideological intransigence...
Gerogescu lays out the future quite nicely.
If inequality is not addressed, the income gap will most likely be resolved in one of two ways: by major social unrest or through oppressive taxes, such as the 80 percent tax rate on income over $500,000 suggested by Thomas Piketty, the French economist and author of the bestselling book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”
I've said the the same thing many times on this site.
So what are the action items that the private sector can pursue?
First, invest in the actual value creators — the employees. Start compensating fairly, by which I mean a wage that enables employees to share amply in productivity increases and creative innovations.
Second, businesses must invest aggressively in their own operations, directing profit into productivity and innovation to boost real business performance. Today, too many corporations reduce investment in research and development and brand building. As a result, we see a general decline in the value of their brands and other assets. To make up for those declines and for anemic revenue, businesses buy back their stock (now at record levels), and thus artificially boost earnings per share.
Yep.
Will they do it?
Who will be courageous enough to start the ball rolling? The most obvious choice is our government. But the current Congress has been paralyzed.
Paralyzed by ideological intransigence...
Gerogescu lays out the future quite nicely.
If inequality is not addressed, the income gap will most likely be resolved in one of two ways: by major social unrest or through oppressive taxes, such as the 80 percent tax rate on income over $500,000 suggested by Thomas Piketty, the French economist and author of the bestselling book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”
I've said the the same thing many times on this site.
So what are the action items that the private sector can pursue?
First, invest in the actual value creators — the employees. Start compensating fairly, by which I mean a wage that enables employees to share amply in productivity increases and creative innovations.
Second, businesses must invest aggressively in their own operations, directing profit into productivity and innovation to boost real business performance. Today, too many corporations reduce investment in research and development and brand building. As a result, we see a general decline in the value of their brands and other assets. To make up for those declines and for anemic revenue, businesses buy back their stock (now at record levels), and thus artificially boost earnings per share.
Yep.
Will they do it?
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
The President Channels Zombie Politics
I wonder if the president reads Zombie Politics...
President Obama stands by comments linking Republicans to Iranian hard-liners
“Just because Iranian hard-liners chant ‘Death to America’ does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe,” Obama told students and faculty at the university. “In fact, it’s those hard-liners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It’s those hard-liners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus.”
Hee hee...
President Obama stands by comments linking Republicans to Iranian hard-liners
“Just because Iranian hard-liners chant ‘Death to America’ does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe,” Obama told students and faculty at the university. “In fact, it’s those hard-liners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It’s those hard-liners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus.”
Hee hee...
Was The American Civil War About Slavery?
Here is a great answer to that question...
Was the Civil War About Slavery?
New Video! "Was the Civil War About Slavery?"What caused the Civil War? Did the North care about abolishing slavery? Did the South secede because of slavery? Or was it about something else entirely...perhaps states' rights? Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, settles the debate once and for all.
Posted by Prager University on Monday, August 10, 2015
Monday, August 10, 2015
Just Let the Lower Ninth Ward Go...
For years there have been articles (like this one) about how poor neighborhoods in New Orleans have not come back after Hurricane Katrina. The implication is that society doesn't care about poor people and revitalizing the places where they live.
There might be some truth to that. But the bigger truth is that people should never have lived in those places to begin with. The elevation of the Lower Ninth Ward is zero -- it's at sea level -- and some parts are four feet below sea level.
Lots of New Orleans is below sea level. That part of Louisiana is basically a gigantic swamp built up by silt in the Mississippi delta over millennia. No amount of money spent on Army Corps of Engineer projects will ever make the Lower Ninth a safe place to build homes.
As climate change causes sea level to rise, places like New Orleans and Florida are going to get flooded more and more frequently (high tides now threaten major flooding in Miami Beach). The Lower Ninth Ward was one of the last areas developed in New Orleans because it's a stupid place to build. The poorest people are victimized because they could only afford cheap (and unsafe) land.
But it's sheer stupidity to compound these travesties by bemoaning the fact that few people are moving back and encourage them "return home." On the contrary, everyone should be moving out. Turn the whole place into a big park designed to survive flooding.
I'm not just picking on the Lower Ninth Ward. In 1997 the Red River flooded, destroying thousands of homes and businesses in North Dakota. Fifty thousand people were evacuated. And lots of them wanted to rebuild in exactly the same place. It's sheer idiocy, as shown by the 2009 flooding of the Red River.
It's stupid and dangerous to build in the Lower Ninth Ward, on Florida's eroding beaches and in the flood plains of the Red River and the Mississippi. The federal government should help out the victims of natural disasters, but they shouldn't subsidize greedy developers and local politicians who blindly focus on growth and build on land that will be under water when the next hurricane or spring thaw hits.
There might be some truth to that. But the bigger truth is that people should never have lived in those places to begin with. The elevation of the Lower Ninth Ward is zero -- it's at sea level -- and some parts are four feet below sea level.
Lots of New Orleans is below sea level. That part of Louisiana is basically a gigantic swamp built up by silt in the Mississippi delta over millennia. No amount of money spent on Army Corps of Engineer projects will ever make the Lower Ninth a safe place to build homes.
As climate change causes sea level to rise, places like New Orleans and Florida are going to get flooded more and more frequently (high tides now threaten major flooding in Miami Beach). The Lower Ninth Ward was one of the last areas developed in New Orleans because it's a stupid place to build. The poorest people are victimized because they could only afford cheap (and unsafe) land.
But it's sheer stupidity to compound these travesties by bemoaning the fact that few people are moving back and encourage them "return home." On the contrary, everyone should be moving out. Turn the whole place into a big park designed to survive flooding.
I'm not just picking on the Lower Ninth Ward. In 1997 the Red River flooded, destroying thousands of homes and businesses in North Dakota. Fifty thousand people were evacuated. And lots of them wanted to rebuild in exactly the same place. It's sheer idiocy, as shown by the 2009 flooding of the Red River.
It's stupid and dangerous to build in the Lower Ninth Ward, on Florida's eroding beaches and in the flood plains of the Red River and the Mississippi. The federal government should help out the victims of natural disasters, but they shouldn't subsidize greedy developers and local politicians who blindly focus on growth and build on land that will be under water when the next hurricane or spring thaw hits.
Climate Change Goes Local
I was very please to see this week's cover story in CSM regarding climate change going local. Here's the skinny...
In city after city in South Florida, local officials are dealing with climate change. So, too, are municipalities big and small across the United States. The same determination is evident among governors and legislators in more than two dozen states. And it is magnified worldwide: Surprising progress in grappling with global warming is coming from surprising nations.
This groundswell of action on climate change is producing solutions and often bypassing lagging political leadership. The gathering force of these acts, significant and subtle, is transforming what once seemed a hopeless situation into one in which success can at least be imagined. The initiatives are not enough to halt the world’s plunge toward more global warming – yet. But they do point toward a turning point in greenhouse gas emissions, and ambitious – if still uneven – efforts to adapt to the changes already in motion.
Outstanding!
Here's something else that's very interesting...
Green lawns trump the political arguments over climate change, says Mr. Brown. “We don’t say ‘climate change,’ ” he admits. “It’s ‘protecting resources’ or ‘sustainability.’ That way, you can duck under the political radar.”
Right. This is exactly what Mooney talked about in "The Republican Brain." When words like "climate change" become so propagandized, you have to tell a different story. Who wouldn't be for protecting resources and sustainability?
In city after city in South Florida, local officials are dealing with climate change. So, too, are municipalities big and small across the United States. The same determination is evident among governors and legislators in more than two dozen states. And it is magnified worldwide: Surprising progress in grappling with global warming is coming from surprising nations.
This groundswell of action on climate change is producing solutions and often bypassing lagging political leadership. The gathering force of these acts, significant and subtle, is transforming what once seemed a hopeless situation into one in which success can at least be imagined. The initiatives are not enough to halt the world’s plunge toward more global warming – yet. But they do point toward a turning point in greenhouse gas emissions, and ambitious – if still uneven – efforts to adapt to the changes already in motion.
Outstanding!
Here's something else that's very interesting...
Green lawns trump the political arguments over climate change, says Mr. Brown. “We don’t say ‘climate change,’ ” he admits. “It’s ‘protecting resources’ or ‘sustainability.’ That way, you can duck under the political radar.”
Right. This is exactly what Mooney talked about in "The Republican Brain." When words like "climate change" become so propagandized, you have to tell a different story. Who wouldn't be for protecting resources and sustainability?
Sunday, August 09, 2015
It's Not _____________ When We Do It!
Donald Trump banned from RedState over menstruation jibe at Megyn Kelly
Aw...were their feelings hurt? Are they are all PC and shit now?
Sheesh...what a bunch of hypocrites. So much for the "outrage" over everyone being offended all the time:)
Aw...were their feelings hurt? Are they are all PC and shit now?
Sheesh...what a bunch of hypocrites. So much for the "outrage" over everyone being offended all the time:)
Good Sunday Words
"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there."
---Pope Francis, 22 May 2013
---Pope Francis, 22 May 2013
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