Here Comes the Sun

This is a really cool video of the sun:



All that is going on over our heads all day long, and we never see it. The sun just seems like this bright and silent unblinking eye, but in reality it's an incredibly violent place constantly exploding with the force of ten thousand billion nuclear bombs every second.

And the galaxy is filled with billions of stars just like it, circled by billions of planets very much like our own, except ours is probably the only one that through some accident of chance has not been wiped clean of intelligent life by an asteroid, or a comet, or volcanoes, or a collision with another star, or a supernova, or a deadly beam of radiation from a gamma ray pulsar halfway through the galactic disk.

Meanwhile, most of us sit down here and snipe at each other, arguing over whose god is bigger, in a vain attempt to puff up our egos and make ourselves seem important in this infinitely huge and beautiful universe.

Defriended!

A long time tennis friend recently defriended me on Facebook. I suppose it was a long time in coming after his wife did a couple of years ago. He divorced and remarried an absolute hard right wing psycho three years back and has slowly been descending into the anger, hate and fear that comes with that territory (side note...he told me after he married this woman that she liked to have her hair pulled and be smacked around while he fucked her...why is it always the conservatives that are so weird with sex?:))

Two days ago he posted a rant about a form letter he received from Senator Amy Klobuchar. He had written to her about welfare reform and was pissed about the letter he got in return. I queried...

What exactly were your concerns about welfare reform?

He responded...

Mark - Here is my concern about welfare - well, why don't I just recant a conversation I had with someone trying to rent my townhome from me:

Me: I see your section 8 status expires soon. Person wanting to rent townhome: that's okay - as long as I find a place to rent by the deadline I will get the section 8 housing credit for life..... Maybe it's just me but I don't think that person really needs my tax dollars...but Mark - if you want to pay for them maybe they could just set up a payroll deduction out of your account. They payroll deduct my donation every week.

Apparently, he doesn't know what the word recant means but oh well. I needed some more information because there is no such thing as "section 8 housing credit for life."

Well, why does he have section 8 status? Is he disabled in some way or, perhaps a veteran? And is the government paying you his rent money? Was he or she even telling you the truth? I guess I don't have enough details here to make a more fully detailed comment but you are obviously frustrated so here are some possible solutions. 

First, you could contact Al Franken. He has always been more approachable than Senator Klobuchar. He's called me personally on more than one occasion. Second, you could contact your congressional representative. I'm not sure who that is but I'm guessing it's either Erik Paulsen (R) or Keith Ellison (D) if you still live southwest. Both are very approachable. Representative Paulsen is a great guy. I used to coach his daughter in tennis. Section 8 is federally funded by run by the states themselves. Another option might be to contact your state rep and/or state senator. They would have more hands on experience with this. 

You also might want to check the data in the photo I've attached as it mirrors the overall problem with welfare in our country. Most of our tax dollars go to wealthier people in the form of tax breaks and subsidies. It's actually the people that own homes that are leeching more off of us, Chris. This is true with welfare across the board and why you don't hear much about welfare reform these days. We'd have to start with the hundreds of billions of dollars of handouts that corporations and wealthy people get from the federal government.

He responds...

Yeah - Do you really think I would post a section 8 issue about a vet - I have all the respect in the world for our vets...No it was not a vet. Call me and I will tell you about it. Oh and Al Franken - Yeah he's useless. The only thing he's good at is marching in the 4th of July parade in Eveleth. A nutless monkey could do his job.

A nutless monkey...this is when I realized just how truly awful the right wing hate machine is and what a good job it does at fomenting rage. I responded...

Well, then perhaps you should run for office and try to bring about the changes to welfare that you would like to see. If you think his job is so easy, try it out. Actually, you don't even have to do that. You could organize a group of like minded people and start a serious lobbying effort. All it requires is your time and effort. That's what is great about living in a free country. I sense a lot of anger here, 

I would urge you to not let right wing media take advantage of it. One of the greatest myths (also known as lies) ever put on the American people is that poor people are lazy and spoon of our tax dollars. The biggest deadbeats in this country, in terms of dollar amount out of our tax dollars, are corporations and wealthy people. 

Here are the numbers from the Cato Institute, a right wing organization. $100 billion a year compared to the $60 billion a year spent on traditional welfare programs. This does not include government contracts or tax breaks which makes the handouts even larger.

And then he defriended me...

If there is one thing that has become crystal clear to me over the years it's that conservatives don't want their fantasy land of hate to be fucked with in anyway. They like it for the fiction that it is and if you confront them facts, they will get even angrier. Perhaps it's just best to leave them alone in their land of unicorn farts.

Yet, I still find myself perplexed by the visceral anger that these folks have. It usually starts with the president and then extends to all Democrats. There is nothing out there that is more pointed than right wing anger and, considering that they are also well armed, I'd be a fool not to be concerned that they are going to do something about it.

Thanks, Obama

Check out the video.

The Collected Wisdom of Pat Robertson

Montana Says No to Fashion Police, or Sharia Law Defeated in Montana

A lot of people consider yoga pants to be a crime of fashion. David Moore, a Republican lawmaker in Missoula wants to make wearing them a crime punishable by five years in prison. Thankfully, Moore's law was tabled unanimously by the House Judiciary Committee.

According to the Billings Gazette:

The proposal would expand indecent exposure law to include any nipple exposure, including men’s [emphasis added], and any garment that “gives the appearance or simulates” a person’s buttocks, genitals, pelvic area or female nipple.

Yes, to show how egalitarian he is, Moore would turn men who don't wear shirts into criminals. Would they also wind up on the sex offender list?

Moore literally wants to create fashion police.

Under current Montana law persons convicted of indecent exposure three times can be sentenced to life in prison. Ergo, wearing yoga pants three times could make you lifer. Though to be fair, Moore did want to reduce the maximum penalty five years in jail and a fine of $5,000 as an enticement to get more lawmakers to vote for it.

But how would such a law be enforced? Indecency is in the eye of the beholder, after all:

Moore said he wouldn’t have a problem with people being arrested for wearing provocative clothing but that he’d trust law enforcement officials to use their discretion. He couldn’t be sure whether police would act on that provision or if Montana residents would challenge it.

In other words, Moore literally wants to create fashion police. He wants to give individual cops license to harass attractive women with threats of being prosecuted for indecent exposure based on their choice of garments. Yep, no way this law could possibly be abused.

I can just imagine how traffic stops would play out in Montana: "Ma'am, I was checking you out, and I noticed that you have nipples and buttocks. That's a crime punishable by five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. But there's a way you can avoid all that drama..."

"Ma'am, I noticed that you have nipples and buttocks. That's a crime punishable by five years in prison."

In the end it wouldn't just be yoga pants. It would be any tight clothing, such as bikinis, or even clothing that rested against the body without constricting it, such as a light cotton blouse, or a sweater. Yes, this upstanding conservative American wants to criminalize women for getting cold and wearing skinny jeans.

The essence of his proposal is that women should be required by law to wear loose clothing. Exactly how is this different from the Taliban and the ayatollahs in Iran who force women to wear hijabs and chadors?

What caused this guy to want to outlaw yoga pants? Well, there was a nude bike ride that made him mad. In other words, one group of people offended him, so now he wants to punish a completely different group -- mostly women -- who have absolutely nothing to do with the first group.

Why are conservatives so hung up on women's bodies in the first place? What are they so afraid of? Are they incapable of controlling their lust? Do they hate women so much they can't stand seeing what they really are?

If Moore doesn't want to be bothered by yoga pants he should stop staring at women's crotches.

It's not like there's some deep dark secret. Everyone knows what human bodies look like -- we all have one. Anyone with an Internet connection can see everything that yoga pants cover up, in much greater detail and in living color.

The answer is really quite simple: if Moore doesn't want to be bothered by the clothes women wear, he shouldn't go to the gym and stare at their crotches and chests when they're in yoga class.

And they keep telling us the war on women is over...

Weather Vs. Climate

The good thing about science is that it's true whether you believe it or not...

The Gun Toting Atheist

Hmm...

Charged with three counts of first-degree murder is Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, who has described himself as a “gun toting” atheist. Neighbors said Wednesday that he always seemed angry and confrontational. His ex-wife said he was obsessed with the shooting-rampage movie “Falling Down” and showed “no compassion at all” for other people.

Falling Down, for those of you who have not seen it, is old white man's porn. Michael Douglas plays a man who just can't take it anymore and goes on a shooting spree across Los Angeles. Here's the trailer.




I wonder how many other members of the Gun Cult get a boner when they watch this film.

Yet They Still Went To The Gun Range

The Eddie Ray Routh trial is underway and information is starting to come out about that day at the gun range.

Shortly before he was shot to death by a troubled former Marine at a Texas gun range, legendary Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle texted a buddy, "This dude is straight-up nuts," a defense attorney told jurors Wednesday. 

A lawyer for Eddie Ray Routh said in opening statements of the man's murder trial that Routh's insanity was so evident that Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield exchanged texts expressing alarm as the three rode together in February 2013 to a Texas shooting range. "He's (sitting) right behind me, watch my six," Littlefield texted back, using a military reference for watching one's back.

Yet they still went to the gun range. Why?

Because being a member of the fucking Gun Cult makes you that fucking stupid.

Responsible gun owners my ass!

The Answer to the Most Pressing Question of the Day

Conservatives are now presented with a dilemma: in the wake of the murder of three Muslim college students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, should they support the killer, who was a middle-aged white guy simply exercising his right to Second Amendment solutions? Or should they support the victims, who were kind-hearted Muslim dental students that volunteered to help the homeless, and were brutally gunned down by a fanatical atheist?

Speculation is rife about why Craig avowed atheist Stephen Hicks killed a Muslim newlywed couple and their 19-year-old Muslim female friend: was it a hate crime, or just an angry white guy mad about a parking spot?

Well, the answer is staring us in the face: he killed them because he had a gun. No gun, no murder.

Guns are a powerful mind-altering drug like PCP. They represent sheer naked power, power that corrupts quickly and absolutely.

If you put a gun in the hands of the most coldly rational atheist or the gentlest Christian they quickly become raging maniacs.

In so many murders and suicides the gun itself is the motivating factor. Without the weapon and the ability to kill someone as easily as turning off a light switch, thousands of people in this country would not have to die needlessly every year.

Ending A Deeply Flawed Ideology

My mom told me a story about her sister recently that disturbed me profoundly. My aunt has always been a little crazy and has gotten worse since my uncle died 3 years ago. He was staunchly conservative (save for being pro choice) and considered himself a southern gentlemen. He had a very aristocratic nature about him which made sense since he lived in Southern Illinois. My aunt still lives there and most of the people in her town are very conservative as well.

They lived in the house that belonged to my uncle's mother, oddly residing upstairs in the servant's quarters while she was alive. When my uncle's mother died five years ago, they took over the rest of the house. In all the time they lived there, no one else in the family was ever invited over for holiday gatherings or even a short visit. It was very strange. My uncle kept a very tight rein on my aunt and didn't allow her to do many things because he was very traditional. He wouldn't even let her pack a car! I think this had an effect on her over the years and made her mental issues even worse.

I used to get into all sorts of political debates with my uncle. He loved President Bush and hated Barack Obama with all of his heart. The absolute nonsense that used to come out of his mouth was ridiculous. But until he died, I had no idea just how far gone he was, ideologically speaking. As she has been helping my aunt clean out the house, my mother has discovered, much to her horror, that my uncle and my aunt were doomsday preppers.

In the last few months, my mom has found hundreds of canned goods, boxes of food, and many rounds of ammunition. She has also found many guns, including one that was kept loaded by the bedside. My aunt recently showed my mother this and, much to her horror, began twirling it around to "show off her skills." Thankfully, my mom moved out of the room quickly and then had my other uncle come over to the house and take all of the guns out of there.

My aunt is an example of someone who should never be allowed to have a gun. I'm not even sure if she has a license to have one. After my mom told me this story, I understood with much clarity how there are so many accidents with guns ever year. Of course, banning guns isn't going to solve anything. What I'm calling for is the ideology that is at the root of this problem to go away.

Forever.

Time will take care of some of this for our society. When the old white men die off, I think the fevered dreams about totalitarian governments and playing apocalypse will fall away somewhat. In the meantime, I want to see the people of this country reject the idea that having a gun in your house protects you. You don't need to keep a loaded gun by your bed. No one is coming to get you. The statistics show that you are much more likely to hurt yourself, a member of your family, have a member of your family hurt themselves or others, or have it taken away from you if someone does come in to your home. Honestly, people should be more worried about their diet then home invaders. Americans should also worry less about protecting themselves against the government. If the federal government wanted to dominate us with weapons, they could do it easily.

Leave the fear behind, folks, and let's start focusing on actual threats out there like climate change and health issues.

(So Many) Good Words

From a recent question on Quora...I find it childish for people to persist saying " it's just a tool." No, it's a weapon. I find it childish to walk around in a Starbucks or a chipotle with a long armed rifle slung on your back and act like you're it doing it be threatening.

I find it childish to bring ted nugent to a state of the union address when he talks about threatening the president and secretary of state. I find it childish to pretend that a gun is not a weapon, and mock people for being histrionic or irrational for not liking it or feeling nervous because they don't know you and don't know if you're a " good responsible gun owner" or a showboat with an itchy trigger finger. I may have to accept the level of cray-cray on guns in this country ( it hasn't always been like this is my lifetime) but I do not have to like it.

Bigotry against gun owners. Maybe one day I will get to where I get this concept as you do, that being a gun owner is somehow akin to a religion, disability, ethnicity or gender. But I'm nowhere near at that point. As I see it, gun owners in America have so much going for them: a 2d amendment, lots of money, lots of elected officials in their corner. 

To think of myself as a bigot because I have a negative response to the amount of guns that are in this country, and the not-so-rare irreverent attitudes I see ( definition : mine) of people to who own them is hard to swallow. You have the law on your side. You even have numbers in your side. I wasn't aware that gun owners across America were experiencing employment discrimination, or bullying, or social isolation. Owning a gun is owning a possession. If it were a samurai sword, I'd likely think the same thing. Weapons are not a part of your body. You can be welcome places that your gun is not.

Sing it, sister!

Riker Sits Down

Lies About Iraq

The pile on of Brian Williams over the last couple of days is pretty ironic when you consider that Fox News and other right wing media outlets are gleefully dancing about lies told about Iraq. Actually, ironic isn't the word for it.

Hypocritical, pathetic, and disgusting are more like it.

"It's Just Made Up"

From Ronald Reagan's chief economist...

As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, Bartlett said in an interview, "It's just nonsense. It's just made up." Government and industry studies support his view.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks companies' reasons for large layoffs, found that 1,119 layoffs were attributed to government regulations in the first half of this year, while 144,746 were attributed to poor "business demand."

I think things being just made up are a cornerstone of conservative economic theory.

Good Words

I got a message on Quora from someone who has recently been engaging Kevin Baker in a discussion.

This Kevin Baker guy can be difficult to take! :) My goal in my discussions with him is to have fun, to improve my skills making arguments, and to learn. I absolutely agree his arguments are largely semantic (he seems quite satisfied to zero in on minor discrepancies to "prove" his point), and his need for sharing his "wins" on his site frankly makes me a bit sad. I've commented on that site as well as here, and he (along with his followers) aren't shy about making personal attacks or snide remarks.

Sound familiar?:)

I wonder if Kevin will take anything from this and, perhaps, change.

Again with the False Equivalences on Science

With the measles scare and the question of vaccinations in the air, making false equivalences between the left on the right is again in vogue.

Fred Hiatt at the Washington Post has a column doing it with regard to science. This time his bugaboo is that in poll of scientists and the general populace, the right disagrees with scientists on most everything, while the left disagrees with scientists about vaccinations and eating genetically modified organisms (GMO foods).

First off, GMO foods are not about science. They're about corporate profits. More on this later.

Concern over GMOs isn't just about eating them. It's about the host of other problems the GMO-based agricultural-industrial complex engenders.

Second, the poll results don't represent what the pollsters say they do. When an average person answers a poll question they don't respond to the actual wording -- they're giving their overall reaction to the subject. A question like, "Are GMO foods safe to eat?" will be answered instead as if the poll asked "Do you think GMO foods are good?" The average person has heard a litany of reasons (monocultures, genetic contamination, toxic pesticides and herbicides, agribusiness crushing the family farm) about why they're bad, but can't enumerate them on a poll because polls don't allow for nuance. So they just vote GMO foods off the island.

A more specific example is climate change. Everyone over the age of 50 knows without a doubt that the climate is changing. So when conservatives say they don't believe in global warming, they're really saying A) I don't care because I'll be dead by the time it really starts to matter, B) I hate liberals and their stupid causes, C) Who gives a damn about polar bears?, D) It will cost too much to do anything about it, E) I don't want to give up my riding lawn mower and my Hummer for a bunch of tree huggers, and F) I'm afraid I'll lose my job when the Koch brothers pick up their ball and go home if they don't get what they want. Since they can't say all that on the poll, they just say they don't believe in climate change.

The scientists, however, will answer that GMO safety question honestly. Because, well, they're scientists. "Yeah, eating Bt corn is probably safe; i.e., it will probably not give you a heart attack tomorrow or a brain tumor next month."

Then the scientists would hasten to add (unless employed by Monsanto), "GMO crops like Bt and glyphosate-resistant corn engender a vast industrial-agricultural complex that creates many risks with the excessive use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, all of which contribute to bee die-offs, mutated wildlife, algal blooms in lakes and streams, Parkinson's, autism, and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if eating Bt corn contributed to the obesity epidemic or the alarming spread of food allergies. More unbiased research is needed to answer that."

That "But" will never get on a poll because polls aren't intended to give detailed results. They are, almost always, paid for by someone who wants a particular result to prove the point they want to prove.

The real question is whether the positive aspects of raising GMO crops outweigh the negative aspects.

The fact is, the science says that GMO foods have many negative aspects. These bad qualities are rooted in real science, not silly prejudice. The real question is whether the tradeoffs between the positive and negative aspects of GMO crops make them safe and sustainable on the whole. Monsanto doesn't care about the overall picture, they just care about their bottom line.

Most genetically modified crops are not engineered to make them more nutritious. They have genes inserted in them to make them poisonous to insects (Bt corn), or resistant to herbicides (Roundup Ready Corn).

In other words, the ag giants want to sell GMO crops so they can sell more Roundup and atrazine, as well as lock farmers into buying seed from them every year.

It took decades for scientists to realize that DDT was bad for humans. We haven't been eating Bt corn long enough to have enough data to know with absolute certainty that it's completely safe. The people doing the research on the safety of GMO foods are paid by the companies that produce them. Companies are known to cherry pick their data (mostly by burying studies that disagree with what they want). It's therefore not unreasonable to be scientifically skeptical about their findings.

Monsanto sells GMO corn so they can sell more Roundup and create a seed monopoly.

Furthermore, there are serious problems with industrialized agriculture, and GMO crops allow these bad practices to be used ever more widely.  In particular, the overuse of chemicals on crops.

The herbicides used on GMO crops are known to cause developmental problems in animals (atrazine is notorious for what it does to frogs) and human fetuses. The pesticides used in agriculture are toxic not only to insects, but also to humans, even in relatively small doses. They are neurotoxins known to cause diseases like Parkinson's.

Neonicotinoid pesticides are implicated as at least a partial cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, the condition that is killing bees across the world. Bees are essential to many types of agriculture, such as apples, apricots, almonds, all kinds of vegetables like cucumbers and watermelon, cotton, alfalfa, even okra. Is it wise to risk all those other crops so that some farmers can spray Imidacloprid indiscriminately?

When farmers buy GMO seeds from corporations like Monsanto, they are forbidden to use that crop as seed the next year. They must buy more seed from Monsanto. They can be sued even if they accidentally plant some seed they didn't pay for. This is a huge expense, and it means more money is being transferred from the pockets of farmers into the coffers of big business.

To exacerbate the problem, weeds frequently develop resistance to herbicides on their own. Even worse, the genes inserted into GMO crops are sometimes transferred to weeds, making them resistant to the herbicide and defeating the entire purpose of GMO crops.

Monoculture GMO crops represent a huge gamble that will likely result in a massive crop die-off one day.

Furthermore, when farmers across the country -- and the world -- all plant the exact same crop, we wind up with a genetically identical monoculture. When a disease or pest attacks the entire crop can be wiped out.

This is happening more and more frequently. Within the next few years most of the orange trees in Florida will be affected by citrus blight. The price of orange juice is projected to go way up. In the next few years chocolate prices will go up due to a combination of demand, drought (caused in part by higher temperatures due to global warming) and disease (witch's brew and frosty pod).

So, in the future, when some form of corn rust mutates and infects GMO crops, it will be carried by insects across the country. It will infect a huge fraction of the corn in the country, because there only a couple of companies selling seeds. Because the corn crop will be a monoculture, all from the same seed produced by one or two companies, all the plants will be infected.

This isn't idle speculation. It's something that will happen if we continue to plant a monoculture of corn. And because it can take years to develop new GMO crops, we could have famine that lasts for years because everyone foolishly planted the identical crop world-wide and there isn't enough genetic diversity in the seed banks to find a plant that is immune to the plague.

The problem with GMO crops isn't the science. The problem is with the corporations that use the science to make products without regard to the negative effects that product causes, which may extend far beyond the product itself (such as GMO crops that encourage overuse of fertilizers which winds up killing all the shrimp off the coast of Louisiana).

GMO crops are really an argument for letting the world's population grow without bounds.

In the end, Hiatt's defense of GMO crops doesn't rest on the science. It rests on the assumption that the world's population is going to continue to grow unabated, and unless we use GMO crops to increase yields we will have mass starvation.

Which is incredibly short-sighted. Clearly the population cannot grow unbounded. There are seven billion people in the world. GMO crops may be enough to support nine billion. But about 12? Or 15? Or 20?

Clearly the world survive just fine if there are only seven or five or three billion people on it. But at some point everything will collapse if we continue to increase the population, depending on a scientific infrastructure that requires monoculture crops and the massive use of toxic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers that we know will fail at some point.

Science Should Never Yield To Freedom of Expression

Some Good Words...

A “view” differs significantly from a “view necessarily informed by evidence.” The problem with many climate-change naysayers is that they present their views as facts where they are not accountable to the evidence. They avoid having to address expert review. They dodge the systematic technical criticism that is essential to establishing scientific claims as trustworthy. 

In this case, they have failed to persuade the scientific community. Instead, they appeal directly to nonexpert citizens with shards of evidence or emotional pleas, trying to short-circuit the process of validation.

It's always about the short circuiting, isn't it? Why?

I think it comes back to that insecurity/inferiority complex thing again. They just can't stand the fact that there are leaders in our country that are smarter and more successful than they are. So, let's tear them down...somehow...someway...

Pretty fucking sad.

Obamacare Vs. The Affordable Care Act

Shovel To The Head!

I just pulled this from a comment on that same social media thread from the other day...

I think it hit the nail on the head with a hammer ! I doubt they got diaper head ladin at all . This guy is not for America . You think because he forced a bullshit health care bill that he is god . Socialism is for a ignorant populace that can't manage themselves . The world war 2 generation showed us how it was done . That was a generally good generation of people that saw the greatest growth in any country in history . They went to the moon , built cars , bridges , highways , railroads, phone systems , cable TV , airlines , power plants . Anyone want to see what a liberal socialist take over looks like you tube the ruins of Detroit .

Wow...

Honoring Humble Beginnings

While I was mopping the kitchen floor today I contemplated my humble beginnings. My dad was blue collar all the way: variously a short-order cook, a window cleaner, a janitor and a bus driver.  When he had his own janitorial business I would sometimes help him with the lighter work, dusting doors and woodwork in new houses. When I was in high school I worked for a time cleaning apartments for the elderly -- mostly mopping floors.

That reminded of how frequently conservatives tout their "humble beginnings." At the 2012 Republican National Convention they talked about it constantly: from Ann Romney, to Paul Ryan, to Chris Christie, to Condoleeza Rice, they all had stories about their "humble beginnings."

Throughout the nomination process Rick Santorum constantly bragged about his grandfather Pietro being an immigrant coal miner. Of course, neither Rick nor his father were coal miners -- Santorum had to go back two generations to dig up his "humble beginnings."

These conservatives always talk about honoring those humble beginnings, about how that kind of work "builds character."

But you gotta ask: how does our society really honor someone? By waxing poetic for a couple of hours at a political convention? By taking off our hats for veterans at a football game? No.

The best way to honor someone is to pay them more money.

The best way to honor someone is to pay them more money. Enough money so they and their kids don't have to suffer through the indignities of poverty.

That's how we honor our sports "heroes." That's how we honor captains of industry. That's how we honor doctors and judges and attorneys and politicians. We pay them lots of money.

Why is it that the teachers and the janitors and the window cleaners and the maids and the miners and the cooks and the waiters and the cops and the soldiers and the farmers and the meat packers -- the people who actually do all the work to make this country function -- get paid peanuts, while the people who caused all of our major problems -- politicians, CEOs, hedge fund managers, bankers, stock market traders -- get paid the big bucks?

Look at this way: if all the CEOs died tomorrow, the country wouldn't skip a beat. If all the farmers died, we'd all starve. It's not an arbitrary comparison, because their numbers are roughly equal: according to Forbes, there are 1.7 million CEOs in the United States and about 1.9 million farmers and agricultural workers.

And even worse: through the miracle of the capital gains tax cuts passed under George W. Bush, the people who do the least work get taxed at the lowest rate. That's how Romney paid only a 14% tax rate while doing nothing but running for president.

Why is it that the people who do 99% of the work to make this country function have only 65% of the country's wealth?

Based on their policies, conservatives resent and despise their humble beginnings.

Based on their policies, conservatives don't honor their humble beginnings. They resent and despise them. They want to make anyone who hasn't "bettered themselves" -- like they did -- suffer for their laziness and lack of initiative.

When conservatives tout their humble beginnings, they're really just puffing up their own egos. They're bragging, "Look how much better I am than my grandfather, how successful I am. I got where I am because I'm better than they are. Better than you."

If men like Santorum really honored their grandfathers, they'd be demanding that men like Pietro be paid more, work under safer conditions, and be guaranteed decent health care when they were injured on the job.

Why are the people voting for these guys suckered into believing them?

Waving Buh Bye To Austerity

It's not surprising that Europe is finally ejecting austerity from the capsule and moving on to an economic policy rooted in reality as opposed to unicorn, fairy land.

The ECB’s new stimulus “should strengthen demand, increase capacity utilization and support money and credit growth,” Mr. Draghi said. He rejected any criticism that the vast expansion of the ECB’s easy-money policies would stoke inflation down the road, noting that inflation has stayed very low even after several interest-rate cuts and abundant ECB loans to banks. “There must be a statute of limitations for those who say there will be inflation,” he said.

Yeah, that was passed by a long time ago...

Equally not surprising is the recent vote in Greece firmly against austerity.

Greece currently has public debt equivalent to 177 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). Its unemployment rate stands near 25 percent overall, and more than half of young adults have no jobs and few prospects. The austerity measures have gutted many of the country's most vital social programs. The economy has shrunk by more than 23 percent since the 2008 global financial crisis, a contraction comparable to the U.S. economy's during the Great Depression.

Austerity in times of economic contraction doesn't work. It never has. The only question that remains is when this shift in policy produces results, will the pathological haters of government finally admit fault?

Red State Whining

I've put this map up before but I've had a few requests via email to put it up again. The states in red represent who gets the most government handouts and the states in blue represent who gets the least. Ironic that the states that bitch the most about the federal government get the most money. Regardless of their whining, as a resident of the state of Minnesota, I'm happy that more of my share of tax dollars help people out in these states. Why?

Because I'm a grown up:)

At Least Bush and Cheney Didn't Do That!

More Economic Good News

The Labor Department said on Friday that employers added a seasonally adjusted 257,000 jobs in January, but even more significant was a revision of earlier estimates showing an additional gain of 147,000 jobs in November and December. Since Nov. 1, employers have hired more than one million new workers, the best performance over a three-month period since 1997. More jobs were created in 2014 as a whole than in any year since 1999.

Obama's "destruction" of the United States continues...the clever fiendishness of his evil plot is brilliant!

Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to figure out how to respond:)

Will They, Perhaps, Admit Fault With Other Issues?

Voices In My Head (Social Media Edition)

I recently engaged some Cult members on social media regarding the president's recent remarks on the Crusades at Friday's prayer breakfast. I realized as soon as he made them that bowels would be blown to such a great degree inside the bubble that, from the outside, it would have a decidedly deep brown hue. Sure enough, I was correct. Among the comments in a recent thread...

-We don't need our president focusing on things that happened during the Crusades. We need a president to focus on the threats that face our country today. Obama's remarks at the Prayer Breakfast were a joke.

-Our president is a joke

-...his remarks were so far out of the realm of what is happening that you wonder who the hell wrote that! You have a country of 6 million people (Jordan) taking the lead on the most dangerous situation affecting the whole world. Where is the "Most powerful man in the world"? Hosting illegal aliens. That calls for a big WOW!!!!

-Everything he says is a joke if it wasnt for the terrorists back then, there wouldn't have been any crusades!!

-I want a real president , a real American president ! One that says this is going to be one nation under God ! I want to hear a president with the balls to say , this is America this is how we do it here , and you knew this on the ride over . So if you don't like our customs and way of life go home . If interest on a loan offends you don't borrow money . If the pledge of allegiance offends you go home . It's not the "in god we trust" that really offends them . It's the first sentence . I pledge allegiance to the United States of America , would only offend someone that immigrated to the USA that doesn't plan allegiance ! Why would allegiance be such an insult to a person who technically wanted to be in the USA ? You answer that one yourself.

-He is a MOSLEM POS

When people opine about the United States declining, these comments (from six different people) are the exact reason why.

President Grandma

While the Republicans fill up their clown car with another round of presidential candidates (exception: Jeb Bush) for the 2016 election, ready to spout wacky, ideological nonsense (copyright: Barack Obama), Hillary Clinton calmly waits to announce her candidacy. She will have virtually no opposition from the Democrats and is running far ahead of all GOP Candidates (exception, again, Jeb Bush) in the early polls.

She is certainly not a done deal for the White House and will likely make some gaffes along the way in addition to being hit hard by oppo research. Yet most of this will wash away and it won't be merely be because she is a woman and will draw many women to vote for her. It will be due to one inescapable fact.

She is going to be President Grandma.

And the hate, fear and anger brigade on the Right won't be able to get any traction against her like they did with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Sure, they'll still have the die hard members of the Cult that will be believe anything they say but a good chunk of the cranky, old white people will take severe umbrage against attacking someone's grandmother. In many ways, this negates any discussion of Ms. Clinton's age.

This is an appeal that goes to the very heart of Americana. The image of "grandma" keeping us all safe and warm is inherently universal. Grandma is the one that bakes you cookies, tucks you in, and showers you with love and affection every time she sees you. Even some of the cranky, old white men that hate Barack Obama will be swayed by future President Grandma.

So, my message to Ms. Clinton and her people is simple: every single thing that you do after you announce your candidacy should be geared around President Grandma. Speaking events, townhalls, debates, social media communiques...all of it! Don't fret about getting the young vote. They like grandmas too, remember! Think about the voting bloc you can create...women, old white people, young people, all the non white people who continue to be alienated by the Right...they will all come home to President Grandma!

Who Has The Most Anxiety?

At first glance, the Supreme Court's looming decision in the King V Burwell case will cause the president and the Democrats the most anxiety. If SCOTUS decides that the subsidies do not apply to the states that do not have their own exchanges and are being run by the federal government, millions will lose coverage.

Yet, if I were a conservative, I would think for a moment before I began to thump my chest in victory over the president. This recent piece from AP details how Republicans have quite a bit to lose as well from such a decision.

RED STATES IN THE PATH

Insurance losses would be concentrated in Republican-led states, which have resisted "Obamacare." Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, and New Jersey are among those with the most to lose. Residents of blue states that are running their own markets would continue to receive benefits.

"It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary now heading a health care consulting firm.

Because the health law's 2015 sign-up season is still under way, it's unclear how many millions of people could become uninsured. Two independent studies estimate around 8 million. Not all the 37 states where the federal government is currently running insurance markets would be affected equally. Some have made progress setting up their own exchanges.

Imagine you are a Republican governor of one of these states and suddenly millions of your constituents lose their coverage. Certainly, there would be some people that would blame the president but there would be plenty that would blame you.

That's why I predict, in what will be most amusing irony, Republican governors will end up putting together their own exchanges should the court rule against the president. Eventually, every state will and should have their own exchange. This way the federal government can be kept out of it to a greater degree and conservatives can claim some sort of victory. 

What's the Harm from a Measly Vaccination?

I had measles when I was kid. It was no big deal. I had chicken pox too. I even had pneumonia once. I lived.

I also had vaccinations for polio, tetanus,  diphtheria, some kind of hepatitis, and the flu. I lived through all those, too. And I haven't gotten the flu since I started getting the vaccine, for 10 or 15 years now.

Jenny McCarthy juggling breast implants

So what's the big deal about getting vaccinated? Why are Republicans like Chris Christie and Rand Paul joining Playboy model Jenny McCarthy saying that parents should be able to opt out of getting their kids vaccinated? Why do think they that parents should have the freedom to let their kids become Typhoid Mary?

It's interesting, considering how much conservatives blather about freedom, that the two states that have no exemptions for vaccinating school kids are Mississippi and North Carolina.

So why is it a problem when kids don't get vaccinated? Measles isn't all that deadly, and neither is chicken pox. And anyway, if my kids get shots, and the neighbor kids don't, my kids will be immune. Won't just the kids with idiots for parents be the ones that get sick and die? Isn't this just another case of evolution in action?

Nope. Not that simple.

Are parents who don't get their kids vaccinated baby killers?

First, not everyone can be vaccinated. Some people have compromised immune systems or allergies to vaccine components. There are minimum ages for most vaccines, typically two months for polio, pertussis, tetanus and the like, six months for the flu, and 12-15 months for diseases like mumps, chicken pox, measles, and so on. Wouldn't that make parents who don't get their kids vaccinated baby killers?

Second, the more people who get a disease, the more likely it is to mutate, and the more likely it is to develop strains that vaccines don't protect against. This is one reason why the flu vaccine is so hit and miss.

More to the point, for the selfish, parents who don't vaccinate their older kids are gambling with the lives of younger siblings. They're betting that enough other kids at school are getting vaccinated so that their kids won't get sick and bring the disease home to their baby sister or brother who is much more likely to die from it.

Sure, there are risks with vaccines. But those risks are far lower than the risks parents take every day as they ferry their kids around in cars to and from day care and school and play dates and birthday parties and soccer practice.

The reason everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated is herd immunity. This means that if enough of the population is vaccinated, even people who aren't immunized are extremely unlikely to get a disease because it will be so rare. But when lots of people aren't vaccinated, there is no herd immunity and a disease like measles will spread like wildfire.

Jenny McCarthy blames vaccines for her son's autism. Isn't all that crap she's been sticking in her body for decades just as likely a cause?

This another example of the tragedy of the commons, where the selfish actions of a few harm the many.

But what about kids getting autism from vaccines? This was all a lie, based on falsified research by a British doctor. There's more evidence that having an older father is linked to autism and even stronger evidence that exposure to pesticides, which are usually neurotoxins, cause autism.

But the debate has been muddied by the untrustworthiness of pharmaceutical companies. They've demonstrated time and again that they're interested in profit, not public health. For decades vaccines were commonly preserved with thimerosal, which is organic mercury, a known neurotoxin. The toxic effects of organic mercury have been known since the 1950s, yet pharmaceutical companies are still putting thimerosal in vaccines for adults and in products like contact lens solutions. This is just stupid laziness and greed, and it undercuts the entire argument for vaccines.

Mercury is known to cause many types of neurological deficits, from cerebral palsy, to Mad Hatter syndrome, to birth defects. It's why thimerosal is banned from childhood vaccines, most American dentists don't use mercury amalgam fillings, and the EPA requires mercury scrubbers on coal plants and municipal incinerators.

What this last example shows is how unreliable "market based" solutions are in the real world. The harm caused by mercury pollution from burning coal doesn't show up when you turn on your light switch. It shows up in fish and seafood. A housewife has no way to know that turning on her dishwasher exposes her to organic mercury in the fish her husband catches in a nearby lake. Even if she does make the connection, she has no alternative: power companies are monopolies. All she can do is stop eating fish and seafood, making fishermen the innocent victims of power utilities that burn coal.

And when you have a state like Mississippi that requires children be vaccinated, the pharmaceutical companies that have the monopoly on vaccines are not constrained by any kind of market pressures. In fact, Congress passed a law in 1988 that shields vaccine makers from lawsuits, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011.

But the fact is, for the vast majority of diseases, there is no simple cause and effect. In the case of autism, there are hundreds of genetic and environmental contributing factors. When celebrities like Jenny McCarthy stand up and blame vaccines for her son's autism, people looking for an easy answer join her chorus and boycott vaccines, to the detriment of us all.

But seriously, how can you trust the medical judgment of someone like Jenny McCarthy? This woman was a habitual drug abuser, has had numerous breast implant and other cosmetic surgeries and repeated botox treatments.

Isn't it just as likely that all the crap she's been sticking in her body for decades caused her son's autism?

The Mindset of The Gun Cult

Check out Kory Watkins, the leader of Open Carry Tarrant County in Texas.




Punishable by death, you say? Hmmm...remind me again how these guys are NOT like Islamic extremists.

Wow

House votes - again - to repeal Obamacare

This latest vote marked the 67th time the House has voted to entirely repeal, defund or change some provisions of President Barack Obama's signature health care law. Republican aides emphasize that 10 changes to the law have been signed into law by the President.

I am reminded of the following quote...

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Are White Republicans More Racist Than White Democrats? (Part Eleven)

Here's a poll conducted recently by the Washington Post and AP regarding implicit racism between Democrats and Republicans.

Certainly, this shows a problem with implicit racism in both parties yet when two thirds are showing a problem (nearly 10 points ahead of the Democrats) that is more significant. Again, this isn't surprising considering that the bulk of the GOP base is in the South.

There is also this Pew Poll which mirrors the GSS data regarding interracial marriage.

Note the uptick again right around the time the president got elected.

So, what exactly is implicit racism? Well, take the survey and find out! Here were my results.

Your Result Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for European American compared to African American.

This comes as no surprise to me whatsoever. I'm curious as to how my five commenters would do on this survey...if they even agree to submit to it. That first screen will likely send them into fits of paranoia:)

How Federal Spending Lifts Economies

Check out the recent study done by the Washington Center For Equitable Growth. If the United States makes more of an investment increasing our students' science and math scores, the dividends would be enormous.

The important thing to note here is that the increase in GDP means an increase in government revenue which means the investment in such programs would more than pay off, based on their study.

This study clearly illustrates the power that federal spending has to lift economies. There simply aren't any other entities out there that have this kind of muscle. One would think that the anti-spending crowd would want to make more money, right?:)

And Cue Up Rush Limbaugh...

Almost as if on cue after Mark's post about the worst president ever, Rush Limbaugh said this:

The best president in my mind, the gentleman president of all time, is George W. Bush ... he conducted himself as professionally and proficiently as possible.

Let's just look at one aspect of the Bush presidency, the most expensive (coming in at over a trillion dollars) and the most destructive blunder (over five thousand American dead, and hundreds of thousands of American wounded vets): the war in Iraq.

Bush told us that Iraq was behind 9/11 and that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. He got this information from a source named "Curveball," an Iraqi defector who wanted asylum in Germany. The German intelligence service told Bush that Curveball was lying.

Ahmed Chalabi provided the Bush administration with similar intelligence. He was a special guest of Laura Bush at the 2004 presidential inaugural. He was also an Iranian spy: he gave Iran information about codes that US intelligence had broken.

Yes, all the neocons in the Bush administration were fooled into invading Iraq based on lies from an agent of Iran, the country the same people are now telling us is a terrible threat to the entire world, and especially Israel.

Bush was either duped by Iranian spies or was lying about Iraqi WMDs.

Either the Bush administration knew these sources were lying, or they were duped by them. It's hard to believe the Bush administration was really that incredibly stupid, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were lying.

Before the Iraq invasion vice president Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld paraded before cable news cameras telling us it would be a cakewalk. The war would last just six days, or six weeks, or six months at the most. During that time I wrote many times about previous American invasions of other countries that had been successful: they all required us to stay there for 50 to 100 years: Japan, Germany, South Korea, the Philippines. When you invade a country, you basically have to stay there forever to make it stick -- it's the "You break it, you bought it" theory of invasion. You can't just go in, beat up the bad guys, take their oil, then leave and expect it to be stable, functioning democracy. But that was the lie that Bush sold us.

Bush never understood the "You break, you bought it" theory of invasion.

Bush told us the war would pay for itself: we would take Iraqi oil to pay for it. After more than 10 years, we have spent more than a trillion dollars on Iraq. Most of it was in fighting the war, but hundreds of billions went into building and rebuilding and re-rebuilding infrastructure that was bombed over and over again. Tens of billions went into cash that was flown into the country by the planeload as bribes to warlords to fight on our side. A lot of that cash never made it to the warlords, it went into the pockets of mercenaries ("security contractors" in Bush speak) who stole it. And it will continue to cost us billions every year, for decades, as we continue to pay the medical costs of the tens of thousands veterans who were mangled for life.

Bush installed a sectarian Shiite government in Iraq, which is essentially a puppet of Iran. The Shiites immediately began to persecute the minority Sunnis in retribution for the decades of persecution that Saddam had visited upon them. This opened the door for ISIS to invade the majority Sunni areas in Iraq near the Syrian border, threatening the very existence of the Iraqi government and raising the possibility of a terrorist takeover of the entire country.

All because George W. Bush had to overturn the applecart in Iraq, either because he had daddy issues or because his oil exec cronies wanted the Iraqi oil (which the Chinese got, by the way).

Now, the reason for going over all this ancient history is not just to cast aspersions on Bush, but to illustrate why Rush Limbaugh is wrong. One presumes that Limbaugh admires Bush because he made tough decisions and imposed the American stamp of power on the world.

But that was a failure: today Iraq is a total mess. Americans have no influence over the Iraqi government -- that was lost while Bush was still president. In 2008 Bush signed the status of forces agreement that pulled Americans out of Iraq in 2011 -- not Obama.

Worse, the aftermath of the Iraq War spilled over into Syria and destabilized that country. Most of the ISIS terrorists were radicalized and recruited in the prisons of Iraq during Bush's reign of terror (remember Abu Ghraib?).

The lesson of the war in Iraq is that you can't believe anything that anyone over there tells you: Curveball and Chalabi were liars with their own agendas. You can't trust that any of your "allies" in the region will help you: they won't, they're only using you for their own purposes.

Yet, even with this experience behind us, people like John McCain were instantly ready to back ISIS terrorists when the Syrian civil war started -- he even posed in pictures with them. And this isn't just me saying this, it's Rand Paul too.

Did McCain know these guys were ISIS terrorists? Of course not. He wouldn't willingly deal with these people. But that's the point. McCain was duped just like Bush was. We're damned lucky that he never became president. John McCain also wanted to fight in Libya. And Georgia. And Crimea. For a man who lived through a terrible war, this man has learned absolutely nothing about war.

Getting back to Limbaugh's statement, his characterization of Bush as "professional and proficient" is as laughable as it is ironic. Nothing about the Iraq War, Bush's singular "achievement," was professional or proficient. Everything about it, from conception to execution to termination was terribly bungled.

Bush started a war that couldn't be won and made America weaker.

Bellicose bumpkins like Rush Limbaugh think George Bush was a good president because Bush ran roughshod over foreigners and blustered about American power. But in the end those displays of naked aggression backfired. Bush started a war that couldn't be won and made America weaker. And much poorer. And killed a lot of good men and women.

There is simply no question that the United States is far better off after six years of Obama than after eight years of Bush, by any conceivable objective measure. More to the point: our worst problems came from Bush's conscious decisions to invade Iraq and let banks go crazy with mortgage derivatives.

And Obama's biggest mistake? Trying to get all Americans access to medical care.

Which for conservatives like Rush Limbaugh is beyond the pale!

A Very Busy and Informative CBO

So, the Congressional Budget Office has been busy of late. First up, we have this...

CBO: Deficit to shrink to lowest level of Obama presidency 

In a report released Monday, CBO says the deficit will be $468 billion for the budget year that ends in September. That's slightly less than last year's $483 billion deficit.

Of course, the Cult is still going to believe whatever is reported inside of their highly emotional and irrational bubble. Maybe a picture might help.

\

















(note: the above graphic does not include the revised and even lower figures just released by the CBO).

We also have this from the CBO...

Budget Office Lowers Its Estimate on Federal Spending for Health Care


With the latest revision, the budget office has now reduced its 10-year estimate for spending by Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs by $1.23 trillion starting in 2010, the year the health care law took effect. By 2039, the savings would amount to $250 billion a year today, or about 1.5 percent of the economy.

And the bubble continues to contract...:)

The Fizzle of Gunmageddon

Once Again, “Gunmageddon” Fizzles At Colorado Capitol - 

"After all the promises of vengeance against Democrats after the 2013 gun bill brouhaha, and the subsequent recall elections, it's obvious today that the gun issue did not result in the sweeping success for Republicans that Dudley Brown predicted. During a powerful Republican wave election that had everything to do with national political storylines and little to do with Colorado, Republicans took one chamber of the state legislature by a single seat–just like they did in the last Republican wave year. But they did not take full control of the legislature, and they did not elect a governor who will do their bidding. And for good measure, both Democratic seats lost in the 2013 recalls were retaken by wide margins–one of them by the former state director of the much-reviled Mayors Against Illegal Guns"

Yet another chest thumping prediction by the Gun Cult that didn't pan out...shocking...

The President's Long Game Works Again

Russia’s sovereign credit rating downgraded to junk

The 2016 Budget

President Obama released his 2016 budget yesterday and, in just about every way, it represents everything the Democrats stand for and everything the Republicans stand against. Here is a breakdown of some of the highlights. In my view, it's the best budget he has put out since he became president. This one jumped out at me right away...

-Provides Tuition-Free Community College for Responsible Students. The President's America's College Promise proposal creates new federal-state partnerships to provide two years of free community college to responsible students, while promoting key reforms to improve the quality of community college offerings to ensure that they are a gateway to a career or four-year degree. If all states participate, an estimated 9 million students could benefit from this proposal.

A big reason why our country was so successful after World War II is the GI Bill. This echoes that legislation and is a great example of middle class economics. An investment in these students now will pay dividends in our economy's future.


Other highlights...

—Spending of $4.0 trillion and receipts of $3.5 trillion would combine for a $474 trillion deficit. For the budget year that ended Sept. 30, the actual deficit was $483 billion. That was a marked improvement from the $1 trillion-plus deficits during Obama's first years in office, when the country was struggling to emerge from a deep recession. 

—A six-year, $478 billion public works program would pay for highway, bridge and transit upgrades. About $238 billion would come from a one-time, 14 percent mandatory tax on the up to $2 trillion in estimated U.S. corporate earnings that have accumulated overseas. That rate is significantly lower than the current top corporate rate of 35 percent. The top corporate rate for U.S. earnings would drop to 28 percent; foreign profits would be taxed at 19 percent, with companies getting a credit for foreign taxes paid. The remaining $240 billion would come from the federal Highway Trust Fund, which is financed with a gasoline tax.

 —The capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 per year would increase from 24.2 percent to 28 percent. Obama wants to require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they are inherited. He is trying to impose a 0.07 percent fee on the roughly 100 U.S. financial companies with assets of more than $50 billion. 

 —Obama would take the $320 billion that those tax increases would generate over 10 years and funnel them into low- and middle-class tax breaks. His ideas: a credit of up to $500 for two-income families, a boost in the child care tax credit to up to $3,000 for each of up to two children under age 5, and overhauling breaks that help pay for college. 

 —Painful, automatic cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies would be eased, with a 7 percent increase in annual appropriations. For 2016, Obama wants a $38 billion increase for the Pentagon. All told, agency budgets would go up $362 billion over the next six years above caps mandated by automatic spending cuts. 
.
The one that jumps out at me here is the alteration in corporate tax code and foreign profits. Corporations that are keeping their profits abroad should be taxed more and given the incentive, through a lower overall rate, to come back home.

The president has finally gotten smarter on dealing with the GOP. Start with a proposal that is firmly on the left side of the field (at least by today's standards:)) and force the Republicans to compromise on a more moderate approach. Don't begin with a compromise that results in something in the middle on the right side of the field.

President Obama...Yesterday and Today

And the numbers have improved even more since September of 2014. One would think that people would be more grateful but when you are so immature that you can't take the success of an ideology that you despise, it follows naturally that adolescent behavior is the result.

Good Words

From a question on Quora...

This question sounds a bit like it was written by a teenage girl living in an upper-middle-class suburb who declares that she just had the Worst. Day. Ever. just because she didn't make the cheerleading squad and has a lot of homework that night.

An excellent summation of the maturity level of the president's critics.

Businesses Fighting Climate Change

The course to combat climate change has changed significantly in recent days. Polls show most Americans view at as both a threat and man made. This piece from today's New York Times shows just how serious the private sector is taking this issue.

Mr. Page is not a typical environmental activist. He says he doesn’t know — or particularly care — whether human activity causes climate change. He doesn’t give much serious thought to apocalyptic predictions of unbearably hot summers and endless storms. But over the last nine months, he has lobbied members of Congress and urged farmers to take climate change seriously. He says that over the next 50 years, if nothing is done, crop yields in many states will most likely fall, the costs of cooling chicken farms will rise and floods will more frequently swamp the railroads that transport food in the United States. He wants American agribusiness to be ready.

As I have stated many times previously, when companies like Cargill have their bottom line threatened, we will change our attitude about climate change.

Check out the link to their report. 

The Dangers of Straw Purchases

New information has come to light in the New Hope police shooting last Monday night. It turns out that Raymond Kmetz bought his guns online and then sent a straw buyer to the FFL to pick them up. 

A 42-year-old man from Golden Valley who was an acquaintance of Kmetz picked up the guns, Stanek said. A background check was done on him. Documentation for the gun transfer shows the names of both Kmetz and the alleged straw buyer. Troy Buchholz, owner of the gun shop, said in a phone interview Friday night that he questioned the buyer about why Kmetz’s name was on the K-Bid auction form. 

The buyer told him he had used that name to protect his privacy online. Buchholz ran a background check on the straw buyer, which came back with no problems. On the form, the buyer checked a box that said he was buying the guns for himself. He was alone, didn’t appear to have been coerced into buying the guns and paid for them, Buchholz said. Everything appeared legal.

This is the exact kind of bullshit that would have been prevented had Manchin-Toomey been made into law. A review of the bill shows that the new regulations of this bill put tighter controls on this type of transaction. Beginning on page 19 of the bill, the new law expands background checks to include gun shows and internet sales. Page 24, lines 4-22 would certainly have given Buchholz the regulation he would have needed to refuse the sale.

Of course, focusing on this one example for proving or disproving the effectiveness of new gun regulations misses a larger point. The questions that should be considered is this: would Manchin-Toomey (or some other set of new regulations on Americans who want guns) have prevented one or more of the deaths or injuries we have seen in the last year as a result of irresponsible Americans with guns?

If the answer is yes (and it obviously is), what exactly is the cost of the "sacrifice" that the Gun Cult claims will be the result? Is it human lives?

Evidence of Adolescence

Hey, check out the car parked next to me at the club today...

Obama emblem that says "Douche" instead of Obama...something about hand guns...a sticker that says "I'm not a racist, I hate Biden too"...and a little boy peeing on the word "Obama."

Was this person 12 years old?

He also had some sort of emblem that said something about the 2nd amendment being homeland security since 1789 next to an American flag on his bumper. Wow...

The Tide Has Turned On Climate Change

Check out this headline...

Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds

Oh snap. What are the members of the Church of the Climate Skeptic going to do now?

In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming.  

Among Republicans, 48 percent say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports fighting climate change, a result that Jon A. Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University and an author of the survey, called “the most powerful finding” in the poll. Many Republican candidates question the science of climate change or do not publicly address the issue.

Holy shee-it! It's going to be most amusing to watch the GOP candidates in 2016 fall all over themselves in trying to address this. Here's my advice (and the real reason why this poll shows a shift). Focus on how much more money is going to be lost by corporations if climate change isn't addressed. Juxtapose this with how much money can be made in the emerging renewable energy market.

The almighty dollar always wins the day and that, my dear readers, is a good thing!

The Idiot’s Guide To Gun Storage

I'm not a huge fan of Wonkette, mostly because she reminds me too much of the right wing blogs that contain a lot of wacky, ideological nonsense. But her recent piece on just how irresponsible Americans are with guns is right on the mark.

In other words, you can literally misplace your 9mm pistol in the waistband of your one-year-old’s diaper (please don’t!), and most jurisdictions in this country won’t bring criminal child neglect or endangerment charges. Which is exactly what the founders intended. 

On this issue, we need to see more stuff like this. This is the only language the Gun Cult understands. Anything less is like bringing a knife to a gun fight (pun intended).

And, if you think the stories related in this piece are anectdata, think again. We have over 200 children under the age of 18 killed or injured and accidental shootings outnumbering defensive use by 54 incidents already in 2015 with next to nothing being done about it in terms of gun safety.

The responsibility for next to nothing being done lies solely at the feet of the gun lobby and the cult that believes everything they say. Shedding a light on this simple fact, as Wonkette does in her gun violence pieces, is completely supported by this site.

The Whole "if guns were cars" Argument=Torpedoed

Ever notice how a debate about gun laws usually elicits a guns to cars comparison?

It usually goes something like this. A completely rational and logical person asks a member of the Gun Cult why we shouldn't alter our existing gun laws. After wiping away the spittle and mouth foam from their shirts, this same rational and logical person is given a long  and very adolescent diatribe about the American Revolution, totalitarian governments, and tough history coming.

Mixed in with his wacky, ideological nonsense is the inevitable and childish comment about how there should be more car laws or changes to automobile technology because, after all, cars are death machines and kill far more people.

Well, guess what? We ARE doing that.

The chances of a driver dying in a crash in a late-model car or light truck fell by more than a third over three years, and nine car models had zero deaths per million registered vehicles, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Among the improvements credited for declining death rates is the widespread adoption of electronic stability control, which has dramatically lessened the risk of rollover crashes. SUVs had some of the highest rates a decade ago due to their propensity to roll over.

Side air bags and structural changes to vehicles are also helping. Automakers are engineering vehicles with stronger occupant compartments that hold up better in front, side and rollover crashes, allowing the seatbelts and air bags to do their jobs well, said Russ Rader, an institute spokesman. Improved technologies were responsible for saving 7,700 driver lives in 2012 when compared to how cars were made in 1985, the institute said.

So, how about some improvements to gun technology then, eh? Since we like to compare cars and guns, why not use the same method that has been effective here? I would think we could come up with all sorts of techno add ons that would prevent, say, yet another child picking up their parent's gun and shooting themselves or others with it.

What do you say, Gun Cult?

The Week In Politics

Since the State of the Union, the political scene sure has gotten interesting. As I have previously suggested, the president's approval ratings would rise if he started to appeal more to his liberal base. The fact that he was done in the low 40s was partly due to the left (and not exclusively the right) not approving of him because he was being too moderate. Well, they have come home, folks.

The president's tone in last Tuesday's speech shows that he's finally getting it right. You start off far left and then force Republicans to meet you in the middle. You don't start off at the 40 yard line on the left side of the field. Then you end up with a policy that is on the 30 yard line on the right side of the field. Now he's more or less forced the GOP to meet the reality of governing. Yes, that's right, conservatives. Now YOU GUYS have to deal with approval ratings running 30 percentage points behind the president.

Mitt Romney decided not to run for president today. That's too bad because I would have like to see him gum up and already gummed up field. I've heard a lot of talk about the deep bench on the side of the GOP but I see it more like this.

7 right-wing demagogues that will be shoved down our throats in 2016

In many ways, this is good news, though, because Reince Preibus's dream of being able to hide the batshit will not come to pass. These guys are going to be out there with their short wave radio lunacy and wacky, ideological nonsense, straw manning their way to their next appeal to fear to old, white men who can't seem to get over their problem with their parents...I mean, authority.

I say we let them have center stage for the next few months and then President Grandma can announce her candidacy sometime later in the year. What could possibly go wrong?:)

Simply Let Them Speak

From a letter to my local newspaper...

The Jan. 27 editorial “As the Midwest warms, economy will suffer” is the 2015 version of a sky-is-falling progressive scare. We have seen it all before. In the 1970s, it was the “population bomb,” then the coming of a new ice age — both wrong. The next iteration was Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth,” complete with a dramatic hockey-stick graph of temperature rise. Undaunted by being totally wrong, progressives revised the global-warming mantra using the meaningless term “climate change.” Since climate changes from day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year, this latest scare tactic to save Minnesota, the United States and the world is guaranteed to require more government with higher taxes to support a big new bureaucracy with big new programs. The inconvenient truth is that this is but another boondoggle in a long history of progressive, tax-and-spend, save-the-world ideas.

Wow....