We're All Alone!

Last week several articles appeared reporting that there are no super-advanced societies in the 100,000 galaxies they searched. We're all alone in the universe!

But that's not really what it means. What the study (which started in 2012) really found was that there were no infrared emissions that have the signature of a Dyson sphere.

A Dyson sphere (postulated by physicist Freeman Dyson) is a structure that completely surrounds a star and captures all its energy. Dyson theorized that an advanced civilization will dismantle all the planets in its solar system and build a huge structure to house its ever-growing population. The only energy that escapes is a small amount of "waste heat" emitted as infrared from the outer surface of the Dyson sphere. That waste heat was what the  researchers were looking for.

Dyson spheres have appeared in many science fiction novels and shows, including Star Trek. Larry Niven's Ringworld was a variation on a Dyson sphere, a ring of superstrong metal that circled a star.

However, a truly advanced society would never find itself needing to build such a huge structure to house unchecked population growth. Long before they had the technological capability to dismantle entire planets and build structures hundreds of millions of miles across, they would have to learn to control their reproductive urges. If they didn't, they would wind up warring over limited resources, bringing their civilization to ashes time and time again until they finally killed everyone off, long before they were capable of building a Dyson sphere.

Furthermore, if you're really advanced, a Dyson sphere isn't that great an idea. First, it makes you completely dependent on a single star. That's a single point of failure, which is always a bad idea.

Then, the sphere itself is also a single point of failure. It's a really big and really heavy target with a massive star at its core. Every piece of junk in the star system and its environs is eventually going to be yanked into a collision with the sphere, in much the same way that Jupiter and the other gas giants keep pulling comets out of the Oort cloud toward the sun.

And this Dyson sphere would be huge, like two hundred million miles across. Every sizable piece of junk in its way as it orbits the core of its galaxy is going to put a big hole in it. An advanced engineer would make the design failsafe, which means all its defenses would have to be completely passive. A planet can take a big hit from an asteroid because its gravity will retain its atmosphere no matter how big a hole is punched in it (within limits, of course). Holes in a sphere will make it leak and eventually come apart. A Dyson sphere would require constant repairs, and a wise designer wouldn't assume that future inhabitants would always have the technology and knowledge to make such repairs.

Then, stars are messy. They have massive flares, spewing out lots of radiation and a constant flux of solar wind. All those waste products would have to be dealt with in a Dyson sphere. Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere shield us from that stuff. Most of the bad stuff just slips around earth into space. In a Dyson sphere you'd have to collect it all and deal with it, converting it to useful energy or ejecting it.

Over time stars grow, explode, shrink and ultimately die. That takes billions of years. But a civilization that builds on such a scale would be used to thinking in such terms. Building a structure that's supposed to be the eternal home for your race around a star with a finite lifetime is counterproductive.

Practically speaking, where's everyone going to live while you're dismantling all the planets in your star system and constructing a giant sphere that occupies the same space where your planet is orbiting? It just doesn't seem possible unless you build it around another star and then move everyone there. But if you can do that, why build Dyson spheres at all? There are billions of planets that could be made habitable with far less effort than building a Dyson sphere.

Finally, a civilization that wants to ensure its survival doesn't put all its eggs in one ... giant egg. It makes much more sense to build a lot of little planets that are all independent instead of a single gigantic system that's stuck around a single star.

Since the 1960s, when Dyson made his proposal, human technology has advanced. We've discovered a lot of ways to do things more efficiently. In some cases, much more efficiently. A truly advanced civilization will ultimately figure out an efficient means to produce energy via nuclear fusion, or using other principles that we've only speculated on -- antimatter or zero-point energy, for example.

The more advanced a civilization, the more efficient it would be, making it less likely that we would be able to detect its waste products. For example, as time has gone on, our communications technologies have become much more focused and lower powered. For our fastest data transmissions we use fiber optic cables. Our TV, radio and mobile phone broadcasts have been digitized and drastically lowered in power. Our powerful microwave transmitters are aimed in tight beams at receivers instead of broadcast like old-style AM radio.

We have concentrated on increasing the sensitivity of our receivers, decreasing the size of our electronics and reducing the power of our transmitters. This saves on battery life. Our cars and industrial processes are constantly doing more with less fuel and raw materials.

In other words, an advanced civilization won't need the entire energy output of its star. They would be smarter than that.

In the 1960s when Dyson came up with his idea, we were obsessed with bigness. We were building rockets to the moon. We were building nuclear aircraft carriers the size of cities. We still do big stuff, but now we know bigger isn't always better.

Dyson's underlying assumptions were that everything will grow bigger and bigger, and population will grow without check, resulting in energy consumption without check. These assumptions are without historical precedent: one thing history has shown us is that resources and technology have limits. Civilizations that recognize and work within -- or increase -- those limits survive.

Those that ignored these limits died.

The New Hampshire Cattle Call

In looking at the cattle call last weekend in New Hampshire for the GOP, it's very clear that the Republicans have too many fucking people running for president. Politico has their takeaways, of course, but I didn't see a mention of the sheer number of candidates.

Cruz, Paul and Rubio are declared.

Carson and Huckabee are announcing soon.

Bush, Christie, Walker, Graham, Fiorina, Jindal, Bolton, Kasich, Lynch, Perry, Pataki, Santorum, Bolton, Elrich, Gilmore, King, Snyder, and Trump are all exploring.

Dudes, that's 25 people.! Reince Priebus must be shitting himself right now. Imagine that first debate with all those people up on stage collectively spouting wacky, ideological nonsense for all of the United States to see.

And where exactly are their new ideas? Senator Rubio announced last week that "yesterday is yesterday." Yet he is against abortion under any circumstance and vehemently against gay marriage. Smells an awful lot like yesterday to me...

25 people...good grief...that's just too damn many candidates. Did they learn anything from 2016?

Walker Down 12 Points Versus Clinton

Check this out.

To look ahead to a possible 2016 presidential matchup, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads Walker in Wisconsin, 52 percent to 40 percent.

In his own home state...wow...

Do The Facts Matter Anymore?

You Are What You Eat

Are Liberals Better at Comedy?

Reportedly, Ted Cruz loves the Simpsons. Which is funny, because when the Simpsons makes a political point, it's almost always a liberal one (like when it ridiculed Fox News and Rupert Murdoch). Members of the Simpsons creative team reportedly have liberal leanings.

To be fair, the Simpsons mocks everyone, from Elon Musk to George Bush to Al Gore to Leonard Nimoy to Lady Gaga. Everyone gets their share of ridicule.

Why? Liberals are willing to gore sacred cows. Some of the best humor is self-deprecating, and conservatives are always worried about winning and proving their point, and just can't cut loose the way liberals do.

When conservatives do satire they typically just make fun of the people they don't like. And those people are frequently powerless and poverty-stricken. How much chutzpah does it take to make fun of welfare moms and Mexicans who risked their lives to pick tomatoes in California for less than minimum wage?

Liberals tend to go after hypocrisy wherever they see it, especially in the halls of power. Comedy like The Daily Show reserves some of its harshest criticism for icons like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Harry Reid, when they don't live up to the ideals they espouse.

Perhaps the problem is the lack of empathy. Conservatives seem to have a really hard time understanding why other people feel the way they do. And I don't limit this criticism to American conservatives -- conservative Muslims and Jews are as bad or worse. Conservatives either can't comprehend why someone with different experiences might feel differently, or they don't dare make the attempt to understand for fear of falling off the true path.

If satires of Mohammed or Allah or Jesus or Xenu send someone into a murderous rage, then that person's faith is pretty weak. If these gods are so powerful and their messages so profound, how can an insignificant gnat of a comedian possibly harm them?

Do they think God can't take a joke?

Is Not Having Kids Selfish, or Is Having Them Selfish?

Recently Pope Francis answered the question for us:

“A society with a greedy generation, that doesn’t want to surround itself with children, that considers them above all worrisome, a weight, a risk, is a depressed society,” the pope said. “The choice to not have children is selfish. Life rejuvenates and acquires energy when it multiplies: It is enriched, not impoverished.”

This seems rather hypocritical: current Catholic dogma requires all priests, monks and nuns in the Catholic Church to be celibate. The Orthodox and Anglican Churches, which are similar to the Catholic Church in many ways, have no prohibition against married priests, and most Protestant sects allow their pastors to marry. Most Islamic and Jewish sects also allow married clerics.

By the pope's own definition, then, choosing to become a Catholic priest or nun is an inherently selfish act. If he was truly selfless, he would have married and joined the Episcopalian Church instead. Then he could have joined the Catholic Church when Pope John Paul II decreed it possible. In fact, there are hundreds of married Anglican priests who quit that Church and became Catholics.

But is the basic premise even true? Let's turn the question around. Is it selfish to have kids? Is it selfish to have five kids rather than one or two? Why do people want kids in the first place?

Historically, there are lots of reasons: people had kids because they wanted to have sex and couldn't avoid getting pregnant. They wanted to create workers to till their soil and milk their goats. They wanted to have lots of kids because child mortality was extremely high and the more workers they produced the wealthier they would be. They needed someone to care for them when they were old.

These days the reasons are a little more abstract. Some of the old reasons still exist: they want someone in the family to carry on the family business. They don't want to be all alone when they're old. They want someone to carry on the family name. They're pressured into having kids by their parents, who expect it. Some have kids out of duty to their religion. Some people just love children, and like taking care of them, in the same way that some people like having pets to care for.

The real reason people have kids is because they have sex.

But, still, the real reason people have kids is because they have sex. Cynically, the Catholic Church forbids birth control: if you want to have sex, you have to have kids. But only a paltry percentage of American and European Catholics are still suckered by that nonsense.

Unfortunately, there are more sinister reasons for having kids. Some people have as many as possible in the hopes that they can out-reproduce others, so that "their kind" (typically, their race or religion) will have more numerical power and influence. This is the underlying reason that some religions encourage large families. Religion is most effectively transmitted by indoctrination from childhood: you never get a chance to question any of the underlying assumptions of a religion if you're brainwashed from birth. Mormonism was founded on this concept -- your ascent into godhood depends on maximizing the number of descendants, and it's why they practiced polygamy at the beginning.

These days a lot of white Americans want more whites to have kids because they're afraid they'll be outnumbered by Latinos and other non-Europeans in a couple of decades. These same fears were expressed in the 19th century when the Irish, Swedes, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and other "lesser" immigrants threatened to outnumber "real" Americans of English extraction.

Kids are the only practical form of immortality

But perhaps the biggest reason that people have kids, when you boil it all down, is that they are the only practical form of immortality. If they have kids some part of them will live on. That's why parents put such pressure on their children to give them grandchildren: they went through all that work to have kids to grant themselves a bit of immortality, and without grandchildren they will "die off."

All those reasons are selfish: they accrue some personal benefit, or satisfy a selfish demand another person made upon them, or provide an advantage to their in-group. Having kids because your pope demands it is not a selfless act, because the pope's rationale is not selfless: his personal goal is to propagate Catholicism. We wouldn't perceive Iranians obeying the ayatollah's command that they have more children in order to outnumber the infidels as selfless, would we?

The only selfless reason for having children is that the future survival of humanity depends on them. With seven billion people in the world, this is not a really big concern at the moment.

Now, what are the reasons people don't have kids? The selfish answer is that they don't want to be bothered with the responsibility.

But are you selfish if you know that you lack patience and think you would be bad a parent? What if you knew that you couldn't love a child that was mentally retarded, and didn't to want risk having to face that kind of agony?

What if your parents always argued, were bitterly unhappy, got divorced and have bickered endlessly and made your life miserable ever since? Would you be selfish if you recognized those same traits in yourself and wanted to avoid inflicting such tragedy on your own child?

Are you selfish for not having kids if you've socked away so much money (which was possible because you didn't have kids) that you won't have to depend on someone else to care for you when you're old?

Every child takes some social resources: they take up spots in daycare, seats in classrooms, money in education aid. People without kids pay property and income taxes to support schools, even though they don't personally use those facilities. Conservatives are always bitching about high property and income taxes, but the largest expenditure of state and local governments is educating kids.

People with kids pay less in taxes and are a greater burden on society, though it's a price we should all be willing to pay.

People with kids pay less in taxes and are a greater burden on society. We should be glad to help them, because there's no question that the world needs kids. But how many kids do we need?

Because there are limits. There are more than seven billion people in the world. The planet is finite. There are only so many acres of farmland in the world, and there's a limit to how much food each acre produces. In 2100 it is projected that there will be 11 billion people in the world. By that time we will have used up all the oil and gone through a good chunk of the coal. The world will be much warmer, there will be more droughts in some areas, sea level will be much higher, forcing people in coastal areas inland. Our highly productive petroleum-based agriculture will be a distant memory.

People fool themselves into thinking that we'll always be able to figure out some way of feeding more people with fewer resources. But history shows this is false. Drought and famine have destroyed civilizations time and again. The Romans had the best technology in the world: they built aqueducts to bring water from afar and they built ships and roads to import food from other continents. At the height of the Roman Empire they were convinced it was eternal. But nothing is.

If we don't carefully plan ahead our empire will come crashing down as well.

The carrying capacity of the planet might be 1 billion people, it might be 2 billion, it might be 10 billion. It will depend on the level of technology and the sustainability of our agricultural practices. But we know that the number, whatever it is, is finite. It's not a trillion. It's not 100 billion. At some point humanity's population on earth has to reach a steady state, where births equal deaths.

If that number happens to be, say 5 billion, and we've got 11 billion when all the aquifers and coal and oil run out and we have to depend on wind and solar generation for all our power, what happens to 6 billion extra people?

Is it right to keep barreling ahead, madly procreating without regard to the limits that humanity has crashed into countless times before, on the vain hope that "we'll figure something out" when disaster strikes again?

Is it selfish to not have kids of your own so that the kids and grandkids of people who want them will have better lives? Is it right to criticize people who are giving up their effective immortality so that you can have yours?

#Loserswithguns

There's a guy that posts on Quora who I have come to respect a great deal. His name is Rich Kennerly and he identifies as "Former Police Officer, NRA Life Member, Tx DPS Police Firearms Instructor, MPA, BA-Pol Sci." On the surface, you would think that Rich and I wouldn't get along, right? Yet Mr. Kennerly has come up with a meme that is completely fucking brilliant.

#Loserswithguns

Mr. Kennerly thinks that we need to address the losers with guns problem and not the guns problem. He is adamant about all sides of the gun issue being able to work together to stop losers from getting weapons. Check out some of his words.

We'd like to find a way to deal with the #LosersWithGuns problem and do not accept that "nothing can be done."

The bad guy, the psychotic always has the upper hand in any situation. He knows what he's going to do and what he wants to do. Most self-defense strategies are fantasies in reality. OTOH, through education, training, testing and licensing we've made driving, flying, food handling, medicine, and a myriad of other potentially deadly endeavors into some of the safest, most productive in the world, but somehow resist applying the same civilized methodology to firearms, even to the point of prohibiting the scientific study by the CDC and NIH.

Well, they certainly have not been very forthcoming on uniting to help on workable solutions to the nation's #LosersWithGuns problem. That common gound issue should unite both camps, pro-gun & anti-gun alike.

Great stuff and very appropriate considering this.

Nearly 9% of Americans are angry, impulsive - and have a gun, study says.

So, what are we going to do about it?

#Orangepantsguy

Check out the media running after Hillary, especially the orange pants guy from the early 1970s...

Should You Spend More than You Save to Stop Cheaters?

Recently there's been a stir in Minnesota due to a transit report indicated that between $800,000 and $1.5 million in fares are lost because 6.8% of light rail passengers weren't paying fares. 

The light rail lines use the honor system: you just buy your ticket at the platform and walk on the train. Transit officers occasionally check that passengers have tickets.

Of course, this news brought on the outrage from the right wing:

"Met Transit has over 200 police officers who are supposed to be monitoring this. What are they doing? They're not doing their job," Rep. Mark Uglem, R-Champlin, said during a Monday transportation bill discussion in a House committee meeting. "We have $1.5 million in taxpayers' money that we're being cheated out of."

So the Metropolitan Council, the governmental body overseeing Metro Transit, has looked into the problem to determine how much a solution would cost:

Retrofitting light-rail stations to include turnstiles would cost about $100 million, [Met Council government affairs director Judd Shetland] said. Adding them from the start is cheaper but still pricey: Adding turnstiles to the proposed Southwest and Bottineau light-rail lines would cost a combined $34 million.

Once installed, turnstiles would cost about $1.3 million per year to operate, he said.

It would take about a century to make back that $100 million it would cost to put turnstiles in. In addition, it would cost as much each year in maintenance as you would make from the all the skipped fares. But in subway systems that do have turnstiles there's still a 2-3% fare dodging rate, so adding turnstiles would wind up costing much more than it would save.

By the way, it's curious to hear a Republican demanding that government increase regulation, especially when enforcing those regulations would cost more than they would save.

And it's more than just the money: turnstiles suck. Getting through them is hard for the elderly, anyone with children and anyone carrying anything. They're impossible for people in wheelchairs. Turnstiles slow everyone down, wasting everyone's time. And missing your train because the nitwit in front of you is taking forever to get through the turnstile because they forgot where they put their ticket is really annoying

So, how does this conservative outrage over cheaters transfer to other sectors?

Minnesota has "sane lanes" (also called High Occupancy Vehicle lanes) on some freeways. These HOV lanes charge a variable fee to let you scoot by all the other cars stuck in traffic. Single-passenger commuter cars are supposed to get a MnPASS transponder so their account can be charged each time they use the HOV lanes. People in car pools (two or more people) can also use the lanes at no cost.

Estimates are that as many as 9% of the cars using the carpool lanes are cheating. Some people have even been caught with inflatable dolls in their cars to make it look like they have a passenger (at least that's what they say the doll is for...).

Somehow, there's no sense of outrage among Republicans over carpool lane cheaters, even though more freeway drivers cheat than light rail passengers. I'm guessing that's because a thick percentage of those cheaters are rich Republicans from the boondocks who commute fifty miles a day and believe it's their right to zip by all those suckers who obey the rules.

And I don't hear them demanding that we beef up audits at the IRS to nab the millions of people who are cheating on their taxes (reportedly $100 billion a year). Instead, Republican congressmen want to gut the IRS's budget and some of them are childishly demanding that we get rid of the IRS completely.

When it's poor people who don't have enough money to pay for a ride on the train, Republicans are out for blood. But when it's Apple socking away hundreds of billions in profits in Ireland to avoid paying taxes to the United States of America -- the country that educated all their employees at public school systems and universities, making made their business possible -- Republicans root for the cheaters.

Ah, you can always tell the legislature is in session by the constant din of self-serving selective outrage spewing from the capitol.

Will Climate Change Debate Literally Heat Up in 2016?

Climate change denialists like Ted Cruz have insisted for years that global warming just stopped in 1998. The fact is, the earth has continued to get hotter: 2014 was the warmest year on record and the 10 hottest years are all after 1998, according to NASA.

There have been claims of a "hiatus" since 1998, but that's not quite true. The atmosphere has continued to warm, albeit somewhat more slowly than the remarkable increases over the previous 40 years. Scientists believed that more of the heat trapped by the CO2 in the atmosphere was being transferred into the oceans, since ocean temperatures have continued to increase faster than air temperatures, especially in the Arctic.

Now there is a report out that explains exactly why the atmospheric temperature increase slowed: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is a current in the northern Pacific Ocean. The PDO is similar to the El Niño Southern Oscillation which has a significant effect on weather in North America.

The PDO entered its "cooling phase" in 1999, causing ocean temperatures near the equator cool and while warming the subtropics to the north and south, sucking heat out of the atmosphere and into the ocean to a depth of 700 meters.

"Because the ocean is in contact with the atmosphere, there's heat exchange between the atmosphere and the surface ocean," [oceanographer Braddock Linsley] said. "It seems that about 90 percent of the heat that should be in the atmosphere right now with all that extra CO2 [humans have emitted since 1999] has gone into the ocean."

The problem?

In April 2014, the PDO moved to a positive phase [several years ahead of schedule]. Whether this is a temporary change remains to be seen. The signs so far have been ominous—2014 was the warmest year on record (ClimateWire, Jan. 9).

If it is permanent, "it is logical to suggest that the winds and ocean currents change accordingly and switch us into a new regime where heat is not buried so deeply, and we jump to the next level in global warming," [climatologist Kevin] Trenberth said.

If the PDO really has shifted, the summer of 2016 may be very hot and -- if Ted Cruz is the Republican candidate -- very embarrassing for climate change denialists.

Republicans And Democrats Working Together?

I think I may have slipped into an alternate reality.

Congress approves formula fixing Medicare doctors pay.

Congress on Tuesday approved a bill to repair the formula for reimbursing Medicare physicians, marking a rare bipartisan achievement just in time to head off a 21 percent cut in the doctors' pay.


What the-??!! Did I wake up in an alternate reality?

It gets better.

The legislation includes a two-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for low-income children and a two-year extension of funding for community health centers.

Maybe there is some hope...

The Fresh Face Of Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio officially announced his candidacy on Monday and instead of being overshadowed by Hillary's announcement, it ended up being a complement and contrast to her video. I have to say I was pretty impressed with his entire speech. He's very smart to present himself as the "Barack Obama" of the Right. His lines about "yesterday" could resonate with young people. The setting wasn't as flashy as Paul's or Cruz's either.

Moreover, I fully support his effort to overhaul immigration. The simple fact that has put out an actual policy as opposed to making his entire ideology about personal attacks illustrates that he is serious about governing (as opposed to Ted Cruz). Of course, the immigration will be his Achilles Heel with the base and the cranky, old white men so I'm not sure I see a path to the nomination. I just don't see the GOP base, in its current form, nominating a non white.

Check out his announcement speech below...

The Republican Brain, Part One: Two Levels of Frustration

As we enter the 2016 elections, I think that every single citizen of the United States should the book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality by Chris Mooney. Over the course of the next several weeks, I'm going to be examining the book in detail and my hope is that I can ameliorate my two levels of frustration that I have with conservatives. What are those two levels of frustration, one might ask?

It begins with the simple fact that conservatives deny reality. In their world, our economy is awful, the Affordable Care Act is a failure, and climate change is a liberal hoax. In reality, our economy has improved dramatically since the Great Recession and is quite robust at present. The ACA is quite literally saving lives. And the threat of climate change has risen to such a high degree that the Pentagon is treating it as one of the gravest security risks of the future. So, this is the first level of my frustration.

The second level is even more confounding and awful. Conservatives think that the rest of us are the ones that are actually brainwashed and live in a different reality. They use their perceptual framework and fop it off on everyone else. What Mooney's book does so eloquently is illustrate how the conservative brain is vastly different from the liberal brain or even the independent brain. Conservatives don't think like anyone else because that's how their brains were made from a physiological perspective. Thus, when they push their perceptual framework on liberals and independents, they are committing a massive error in judgement.

Liberals and independents don't strive to shut out new information. That's what conservatives do. Mooney opens up his book with an introduction called "Equations to Refute Einstein." In this section is a quote from Andrew Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia, AKA the alternative to reality. I've heard of the site before but have never explored it until I started reading Mooney's book. After reading a few entries, I was completely horrified. As an instructor of history, there hasn't been such a collection of propaganda and out and out lying since the Age of Totalitarianism. It is further proof of Sorkin's American Taliban theory.

Take a look at the entry on homosexuality. Kind sounds like the same garbage we see from (ahem) other religious extremists in the world....who could they be, again?:)

Here's the one on climate change.

Check out this one on "liberal denial". Oh, the irony!

This one made me fall over in laughter.

Mystery:Why Do Non-Conservatives Exist?

Mooney offers a quote from Schlafly in this first part of his book to explain why Conservapedia was created.

It strengthened my faith. I don't have to live with what's printed in the newspaper. I don't have to take what's put out there by Wikipedia. We've got our own way to express knowledge, and the more that we can clear out the liberal bias that erodes our faith, the better.

This statement confirms several assertions I have made on here over the years. Conservatives believe that reality has a liberal bias and if they don't like something, they bury their heads in the ground like ostriches. The "I don't have to live with" remark may has well have come with a long stomp down the hallway and a "Fuck you, Dad!"

More importantly, this quote is an excellent illustration of my two levels of frustration with conservatives. They willfully deny reality and erroneously think, in a massive way, that liberals are the ones doing so. But why do they do this?

It's because conservative leaders tell a better story. Think about it for a minute. You don't have to hear about things you don't like anymore. Only good things. Wholesome things. The way America used to be before freedom died and the fucking commies took over. Things are all normal and good without pesky reality intruding in to the mix.

And you don't have to eat your vegetables neither!!!

Better Sorry Than Safe

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The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part Six)

Here are my last two American Taliban questions.

-Which political party in the United States (the Democrats or the Republicans) is more likely to be unmoved by new information and why?

Top answer?

I agree that members of both parties have a pattern of doing this. I'd also agree that conservative 

Republicans are by definition adverse to change, especially social change. Religiosity is a big part of that. Hard core conservatives , in my opinion, tend to see changing your mind as a sign of weakness. There is no credible data to support that marrsige equality negative impacts marraige. Zero. 

Yet, several states, including my own, have people digging their heels in. It's clearly a losing battle. Education reform is another area: it's based on the premise that union busting is going to improve teacher quality. Most of the premises that Republican governors base their reform agendas on are not rooted in an example.

I'm going to talking about this more frequently in the weeks to come. They are unmoved by new information because they believe the stories they are told by their chosen avenues of information.

-Which political party in the United States (Democrats or Republicans) has a hostile fear of progress and why?

Top answer?

It's hard to put either at the top given democratic fear of GMOs, increased productivity in fossil fuel extraction and usage around the world and increased freedom for businesses to operate with limited over site while there is republican fear of stem cell and reproductive research, and of human freedom of choice in regards to mating and use of narcotics. 

More to the point, both parties leverage fear to produce hostility. Neither party wants to speak objectively about any issue. Very issue seems to be caricatured to elicit maximum fear. Both parties enmesh the other in straw men arguments, turning every case away from it's individual merits and instead toward some extreme. 

Question the wisdom of carbon tax verses it's impact on business and you are a climate change denier seeking to end life on earth. Question the justice of one man one woman marriage and your a pedophile promoting beastiality. 

In all cases both sides routinely vastly overstate their own case, making the opposition out to be hypocritical monsters, rather than rational human. It's getting harder and harder for a thinking person to take any politician's word seriously, and easier and easier to despair over the near term future of politics. Politics today ignores reason and focuses on emotional persuasion, particularly the emotion of fear.

Completely agree. That's why Democrats would be best suited between now and the election next year to lose all the BS about GMOs and other nonsense that makes them look as ridiculous as conservatives look all the fucking time.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A recent email from a reader from Kansas informed me of this.

As of July 1, no training will be required for someone choosing to holster a hidden gun or shove one into a purse or backpack. After that date, concealed-gun permits will be strictly voluntary in Kansas. And no resident of the state wanting to carry a concealed weapon in Kansas will be subject to a state criminal background check so that law enforcement could determine whether they are even eligible to possess a firearm.

Wow. That's fantastic!!

What could possible go wrong?

Do Manners Teach Us to Lie?

Every time someone commits a horrible crime you hear their acquaintances saying, "I'm shocked. He was always so quiet." Or, "He was so polite and respectful."

The same thing is true of Michael Slager, the South Carolina police officer who shot Walter Scott in the back, killing him as he fled from a traffic stop for a broken tail light.

For example:

“I see him as a child of divorce,” Mrs. Shay said. “And I think that may have had an impact on him, if he was a sensitive person, and he struck me as kind of sensitive — shy and a bit quiet. He did want to talk to you and be polite. It didn’t come easy for him.”

“Just a nice kid, you know,” said Nancy Thomas, another former neighbor. “He was a little shy,” she added.

“I remember him being always very respectful to me — you know, he said, ‘Yes, sir, no, sir,’ and he did what was expected of him,” his former chief, Fran Pagurek, said by phone. “We never had an issue with Mike while he was here.”

The last comment got my goat. Saying "Yes, sir," and "No, sir" isn't a sign of respect. It's a sign that you have learned to lie right to people's faces.

Teaching kids these niceties acts as a social lubricant, but it also allows them to hide their real feelings beneath of veneer of false graciousness. It's what allows pychopaths, who are incapable of real human emotion, to pass as normal. Is teaching children to adopt the uniform and formulaic behaviors known as "manners" really instructing them in the art of deception?

Far too often, people hear "Please," "Thank you," "You're welcome," "Yes, sir," "Yes, ma'am," and think, "Oh, what a polite young man." When I hear that kind of effusive politeness I immediately think, "Con man!"

Is the reputed rudeness of New Yorkers more honest than Southern "charm" or Minnesota "nice?"

I hate being called sir. This is America. We're all equals here.

When someone reflexively addresses me as "sir," as if I were some British duke or Southern slavemaster (which happened when I was in Mississippi last winter), it really ticks me off. I'm no one's social superior, and I despise a society that perpetuates that kind of thinking. This is America. We're all equals here. Treating people as something they're not is condescending and obnoxious.

Manners are a disingenuous surface affectation, indicative of nothing deeper.  For every killer who was an odd duck and a loner, there's another killer who politely mouthed all the right words and insinuated himself into someone's life to pass himself as trustworthy solely on the basis of manners -- the ability mask one's true feelings and intent.

The same thing is true for people who know all the right prayers in church and sing the praises of the Lord. Anyone can memorize that crap -- all those external expressions of piety say nothing about your true faith and inner goodness. Just look at all the pastors and priests who railed from the pulpit about marital infidelity and homosexuality who regularly committed adultery and pederasty.

Manners are magic incantations to hide your true intentions.

People are so easily seduced by empty manners and jolly glad-handing. They're on alert with used car salesmen and politicians, and are less frequently fooled by it in those cases. But anyone who relies on the formulaic incantations of manners is using them like magic spells to deceive someone of their true intentions and feelings.

Because the real test of one's character isn't how polite and respectful you are to your betters or the people you want something from. It's how you treat everyone else.

The "Destruction" Continues

Check this out...

Now how could this have happened?:)

The "destruction" continues...

Have They Read The Bible or the Constitution?

Smart Move, Hilz

Check out Hillary Clinton's launch video.


Very smart move taking the focus off of her.

She's heading off to some low key events in Iowa and New Hampshire in which she will have some conversations with smaller crowds. Quite a contrast from this...

And this...

I wonder if Marco Rubio's announcement tomorrow will be as grandiose and bombastic as Cruz's and Paul's respective announcements. One thing is for sure...as with the first two GOP candidates, Rubio will mention how "freedom has died under Obama" and that we need to "take our country back." I expect we will see personal attacks (see: all they know how to do) as well.

What exactly are they taking our country back from? A good economy? Improved health care?

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part Five)

Continuing with the American Taliban questions on Quora...

-Which political party in the United States (Democrats or Republicans) has a pathological hatred of the federal government and why?

There were a myriad of responses on this one which all amounted to most people thinking neither party really does. I think the word "pathological" turned people off. Here are a couple of interesting responses...

The people of the South most hate the Federal Government. The Feds under Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson forced integration on them and they hated it.. Nixon's Southern Strategy recognized this. He welcomed the haters into the party (and pepole like me soon left). So now all ofices in the South are held by Republicans.

There are sadly many people like Jim. This is also further evidence of my ongoing discussions about the South and conservatives.

I'd say it's both neither and Republicans. There is a wing of the party, led by Grover Norquist that believes 'the government can do nothing well'. Grover, you may recall is infamous for his 'reduce the Federal government in size until we can drown it in a baby bassinet' comment. While he holds no official position in the party he has extracted promises from many to allow no new taxes of any kind, severely restricting options to react to conditions. I would say that this wing has a pathological hatred of the federal government, else why the images of drowning babies? 

The rest of the Republican party is rather more reasonable, but somehow they seem to have lost control. I would hope they regain it soon, if not the moderate flight from the party will continue to the point that a new party will form out of those ejected or who left in disgust. Our 'winner take all' elections force two primary parties of nearly equal membership, and marginalize pretty much anyone else.

Yep.

-Which political party in the United States is more intolerant of dissent, both within their party and in the general population? Why?

Top answer?

I think there are factions within each party that don't tolerate dissent within their ranks. But voicing your opinion as a voter and voicing your opinion as a legislator are two very different things. There are pro-life Democrats. There are Democrats who are socially conservative and have issues with marraige equality. There are Democrats who have problems with unions. Because many teachers vote democrat for a number of reasons, but have been vocally critical of Arne Duncan and Barack Obama in regards to Common Core, charter schools and standardized testing. Elizabeth Warren is probably the Senator who sticks out in my mind as criticising the party from within. 

There aren't many Republican politicians who have stood up to the marraige equality fight, the posturing of the socially conservative / theocrats even though I know there are many , many Republicans who have had enough of the big government , mean spirited, wedge issues. There is the Tea Party, which has talked about cutting spending, but also has morphed into social issues. Republicans seem to have greater party fealty, which may be politcually advantageous, but I think that means that it doesn't do enough calling each out, or standing up for what is somewhat at odds with the party's platform.

Agreed.

Gluttony Is A Sin!

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part Four)

The next American Taliban question was answered perfectly when I posed it on Quora. Up until this point, we have seen the answers point obviously at the Republicans. What we haven't seen is an example of a Republican answering the question and demonstrating its validity in action. With this question...

-Which US political party (the Democrats or the Republicans) views compromise as a weakness and why?

...we did.

There is a political theory out there (citation anyone?) that the party in power tends to fragment and engage in infighting, while the party out of control tends to become more extreme. It should be clear that a fragmented party as well as an extreme party would have difficulty with compromise, though in neither case is this because compromise is seen as "weak." It is because they disagree with the compromise position. 

An extreme example: The Taliban would have gays put to death. In many states in America gays are allowed to marry. What compromise policy should one approve of, in the interest of avoiding deadlock? If the pro-gay marriage party, say, refused to accept mere amputation as a compromise policy, would you say they did so because they wanted to avoid appearing "weak"? I hope you agree that would be absurd. Sometimes you just need to accept that there are strongly and sincerely held views in this world that are irreconcilable and will only be resolved by one view prevailing and another position being utterly defeated. Compromise is not always a noble goal.

Initially, I made the error of thinking he didn't answer the question. But Rob is a well known conservative on Quora and the second time I read it, I realize that he did (see bolded emphasis), thus proving that Republicans are the ones that view compromise as weakness:)

Here's another answer.

Currently, the Republicans because their party has been taken over be extremists. Generally there are extremists on either side who view compromise as failure and a bunch of politicians in the middle who keep the lights on. Democrats are generally more likely to compromise because the Democratic party tends to include people who applaud diversity, which requires some level of compromise to begin with. The Republicans have certainly shown, in the past 6 years, that being uncompromising can reap huge electoral benefits in a country with an ill-informed populace.

The comments that follow this answer are great examples of reality versus bubble.

-Which political party in the United States (Democrats or Republicans) is more undeterred by facts and why?

The top answer (too long to reprint here) in that it indicts both parties ignorance of basic facts. His list is most impressive.

A couple of other answers...

At this time in history, that would surely be the Republicans, or at least the far-right of that Party, which currently seems to rule the roost. They deny climate change or at least deny human involvement, say the earth is 6000 years old, don't accept evolution, etc

The republicans by far. Thirty years of economic failure of supply economics, climate change denial, Birthers, thinking women swallowing thing goes to their uterus, young earth republicans, clueless about human reproduction, abstinence teaching only, clueless about contraception devices, to name a few of their many attempts at avoiding reality

I think our pattern has developed into the full blown truth:)

First Florida, Now Wisconsin

For Some Wisconsin State Workers, ‘Climate Change’ Isn’t Something You Can Talk About

Discussing climate change is out of bounds for workers at a state agency in Wisconsin. So is any work related to climate change—even responding to e-mails about the topic.

A vote on Tuesday by Wisconsin’s Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, a three-member panel overseeing an agency that benefits schools and communities in the state, enacted the staff ban on climate change. “It’s not a part of our sole mission, which is to make money for our beneficiaries,” said State Treasurer Matt Adamczyk, a Republican who sits on the board. “That’s what I want our employees working on. That’s it. Managing our trust funds.”

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. What a bunch of fucking babies. Once again, the closet fascists come out to play!

Cooties!

After the all the noise in Indiana about a law that tried to legitimize religious prejudice, we have a story about the depths of stupidity that such thinking leads to:

Francesca Hogi, 40, had settled into her aisle seat for the flight from New York to London when the man assigned to the adjoining window seat arrived and refused to sit down. He said his religion prevented him from sitting beside a woman who was not his wife. Irritated but eager to get underway, she eventually agreed to move. 

Imagine how completely annoying it would be to have your flight delayed half an hour because some forty-year-old man was acting like a six-year-old boy who's afraid he'll get cooties sitting next to a girl.

And it's not an isolated occurrence.

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For approximately a half hour at the beginning of her El Al Israel Airlines flight last week from New York to Tel Aviv, Elana Sztokman watched as the haredi Orthodox man seated next to her rushed up and down the aisle searching for someone willing to switch seats so he wouldn’t have to sit beside her.

On the same route several hours later, another El Al flight was delayed as haredi men stood in the aisles refusing to sit next to women.

After takeoff, the men resumed their protest until other seats were found for them. A passenger on the flight told the Israeli website Ynet that the trip was “an 11-hour nightmare.”

Does their religion really require such silliness?

Rabbi Shafran noted that despite religious laws that prohibit physical contact between Jewish men and women who are not their wives, many ultra-Orthodox men follow the guidance of an eminent Orthodox scholar, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who counseled that it was acceptable for a Jewish man to sit next to a woman on a subway or bus so long as there was no intention to seek sexual pleasure from any incidental contact.

Apparently these guys are afraid they will succumb to a dark temptation on an airplane, in public, in front of hundreds of other passengers and flight crew.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that has repressed women for centuries. And it's not just Judaism. This same strain of prejudice abounds in many forms of Islam and Christianity.

Men who are too weak to control their own impulses demand separate seating in airplanes and buses and temples. They force boys and girls into separate schools, or ban girls going to school altogether. They make women cover themselves from head to toe. They force women to sequester themselves in their houses and never go out in public.

It's ridiculous that these people think their barbaric religious laws should be accommodated by the rest of society. They're demanding that Talmudic and Sharia law govern everyday interactions between people in public, under the guise of "religious freedom."

Just like those businesses in Indiana who want to use Old Testament law as a basis to refuse to do business with gays and lesbians.

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part Three)

Next up in this series are the following questions...

-Which political party in the United States (Democrats or Republicans or neither) suffers from severe xenophobia and why?

There weren't as many views on this one so the answers should be taken with the smaller numbers in mind. My favorite?

I'm not sure either party suffers from severe xenophobia, although I would say the right wing of the Republican Party uses fear based appeals as a tactic more. Fear of Muslims, fear of undocumented immigrants, fear of socialism, fear of gays, fear of home invaders, fear of the government, fear of the collapse of America, fear of the United Nations, fear of economic collapse, and so on. Is it xenophobia? Not so much. Fear of change? Pretty much.

If they want to win elections, they are going to have to change this ideology.

-Which political party in the United States (the Democrats or the Republicans or neither) demonizes education and why?

Top answer?

Both and neither, really. 

The Republicans, when playing to their base, like to deride their opponents' education as being uppity or out of touch all while poo-poo-ing scientific evidence which might point to a need to enact policies which could negatively impact Big Business (their donors) profit margins. I don't consider that demonization, though. 

The Democrats tend to want what they consider to be thoughtful measurement with benchmarks and clearly defined objectives, which, when laid like a template over public education, becomes a strait jacket of regulations and teaching-to-the-test without much learning actually going on in the classroom. Again, problem that this is, I cannot label it demonization. 

If I had to choose one or the other, though, which has less trouble convincing themselves education is "not important", it would be the GOP; the Democrats, from their consistent meddling, have always seemed VERY interested in exactly what goes on in every classroom, right down to the slightest zero for not turning in homework- the child obviously has problems which we all must help solve....

The rest of the answers are equally as thoughtful.

Here We Go Again

A South Carolina police officer has been charged with murder after shooting an unarmed black man in the back.

The shooting unfolded after Officer [Michael] Slager stopped the driver of a Mercedes-Benz with a broken taillight, according to police reports.

As soon as he stopped the car, the driver, Mr. [Walter] Scott, fled and Officer Slager chased him into a grassy lot that abuts a muffler shop. The officer fired his Taser, a stun gun, but it did not stop Mr. Scott, according to police reports.

A video taken by a bystander shows what happened next. Wires, which carry the electrical current from the stun gun, appear to be extending from Mr. Scott’s body as he tussled with Officer Slager. As Mr. Scott turns to run, something — it is not clear whether it is the stun gun — is either tossed or knocked to the ground behind the two men.

Officer Slager draws his gun as Mr. Scott is running away. When the officer fires, Mr. Scott appears to be 15 to 20 feet away and fleeing. He falls after the last of eight shots.

The officer then goes back toward where the initial scuffle occurred and picks something up off the ground. Moments later, he drops an object near Mr. Scott’s body, the video shows.

Initially Slager claimed that Scott had taken his taser, but the video clearly shows this was a lie. Slager calmly shot Scott in the back, and then, without a moment's hesitation, methodically staged the crime scene to support the lie.

Now, the talking heads at Fox are probably going to ask, "Why did this black man run away from a cop if he hadn't done anything wrong?" and "Why did he resist arrest? Resisting arrest is a crime!"

Seriously? As this incident shows, any black man in this day and age has every expectation to fear for his life any time a cop stops him. This happens all too frequently: once the cops get hold of you, you never know whether they'll choke you to death like Eric Garner, shoot you for obeying their commands like Levar Jones (also in South Carolina), or beat and sodomize you like Abner Louima.

And there are other reasons. In South Carolina you can be sent to jail for failing to pay child support. People generally don't pay child support because they don't have the money. How does putting them in jail -- making it impossible to earn more money -- further the cause of paying child support?

The United States supposedly abolished debtor's prisons a century ago. Yet in places like Ferguson, MO and South Carolina, people are jailed for not paying fines and court fees. If these cities are serious about getting paid, the authorities should put them to work and garnish their wages. But instead they jail them for not paying fines, and then make them pay room and board for being jailed.

Throwing them in jail prevents collecting fines and child support. It's simply counterproductive and vindictive Catch 22 type of retribution that seems specifically targeted at poor people to prevent them from ever escaping the trap of poverty.

You would expect this kind of state-sponsored injustice in a Charles Dickens story, or a Franz Kafka novel, or newspaper article about Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Not in 21st century America.

But that's life in the American South, the land of no income taxes.

This Year's NRA Convention=Gun Free, Civilian Slaughter Zone

Working guns prohibited at NRA convention

Wait...wha? I thought gun free zones were a big no no for the Gun Cult. Talk about hypocritical...

And dangerous! Imagine if one of those left wing commie bastards who wants to take guns away chooses this gun free zone as his next point of slaughter and chaos. Let's see if the Gun Cult's predictions comes true about crazed killers and how they evily plot mass shootings.

We got ourselves a gun free zone right cheer!

The Middle East Is Burning Because Bush and Cheney Set It on Fire

Dick Cheney says President Obama is the "worst president on foreign policy." That's rich coming from the architect of the Iraq War, the biggest pooch-screwing since Vietnam.

A recent article in the Washington Post indicates that Saddam's Baathist cronies form the core of ISIS, the current bugaboo (after Iran) in Republican circles. But why did these guys start ISIS?

The de-Baathification law promulgated by L.­ Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American ruler in 2003, has long been identified as one of the contributors to the original insurgency. At a stroke, 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi army were barred from government employment, denied pensions — and also allowed to keep their guns.

The U.S. military failed in the early years to recognize the role the disbanded Baathist officers would eventually come to play in the extremist group, eclipsing the foreign fighters whom American officials preferred to blame, said Col. Joel Rayburn, a senior fellow at the National Defense University who served as an adviser to top generals in Iraq and describes the links between Baathists and the Islamic State in his book, “Iraq After America.”

The U.S. military always knew that the former Baathist officers had joined other insurgent groups and were giving tactical support to the Al Qaeda in Iraq affiliate, the precursor to the Islamic State, he said. But American officials didn’t anticipate that they would become not only adjuncts to al-Qaeda, but core members of the jihadist group.

Bush installed Shiite Iranian puppets in Iraq, knowing they would persecute the Sunni minority. Bush signed a Status of Forces Agreement in 2008, calling for American troops to withdraw from Iraq by June, 2009. And now Republicans had the gall to criticize Obama for their mistakes.

Again and again, Republicans made colossally stupid foreign policy decisions: Eisenhower deposing a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, Reagan supporting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Reagan selling missiles to Iran in exchange for hostages, Reagan supporting Saddam and turning a blind eye to the Kurdish genocide, Bush letting bin Laden get away again in 2001, Bush being duped by Iranian agents in 2003, Bush invading Iraq in 2003, Bush's vindictive de-Baathification fiasco, Bush's torture scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Time and again Bush was warned that his actions were just creating more terrorists. Yet he kept making the same mistakes over and over, all on Cheney's advice. And today, we have ISIS.

Yeah, the Middle East is burning. Because George Bush and Dick Cheney literally set it on fire.

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part Two)

Next up in my American Taliban, Final Word series are these two questions...

-Which U.S. political party (Democrats or Republicans) has a fundamental belief in scriptural literalism? Why?

Top answer?

Definitely the GOP simply because of the dominance of religious conservatives. Many of the GOP platform stances such as anti gay rights and anti abortion are rooted in scriptural literalism. When someone believes that an arbitrary historical text written by ordinary men is the divine word of God there is no room for compromise or discussion. 

These people want clarity and certainty in their beliefs and mindset. Reality is black and white with no ambiguity. This is what makes all fundamentalist religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam identical to each other. All historical religious texts contain an increasily massive number of propagated human errors from translation and transcription that monotonically increases with time. The Bible and all other religious texts are all written by humans yet many attribute these texts as the word of God. 

To me it is logically absurd that so many people can blindly follow religious texts in a literal manner that conflict drastically with each other. Each religion essentially invalidates itself and all others by declaring itself the one true religion.

No room for compromise or discussion...wholeheartedly agree! It's pretty sad when you think about it. Where is the room for progress?

-Which political party in the United States (Democrats or Republicans or neither) writes and passes legislation to control a woman's body?

The top answer (from my favorite responder!!) was filled with data and incredibly detailed. Save the link for future information. It will definitely be useful in the coming election.

Thousands of Murderers?

Election Day in Ferguson

When the Justice Department released its reports on Ferguson last month, conservative whites believed they had "won" because Officer Darren Wilson was cleared of murder charges. Fox News and its yes men claimed the "Hands Up Don't Shoot" narrative was a complete lie, and that Michael Brown was a thug who deserved what he got.

Yet the Justice Department released a second report that showed a consistent pattern of racism and civil rights violations in the police department and the courts that intentionally screwed poverty-stricken black residents of Ferguson out of millions of dollars and repeatedly threw them in jail because they couldn't pay. Police abuse of African Americans was an integral part of the city's budget. This resulted in a slew of resignations in Ferguson and the dissolution of the Ferguson municipal court.

This was a clear abuse of police and government power, something that should be near and dear to the hearts of conservatives. Yet all they can do is crow about Michael Brown getting what he deserved.

For months protesters filled the streets of Ferguson, spending hour upon hour upon hour -- sometimes all night long -- protesting the abuse the police and the city government have heaped upon African Americans for years.

Today is election day in Ferguson. A cynic might say they picked the date to minimize turnout.

During those protests some activists were trying to register people to vote. Conservatives went ballistic. Even though Ferguson has a majority black population, everyone in the police and the city government was white.

Today is election day in Ferguson.  Yeah. Today. The Tuesday after Easter. In an odd-numbered year. A cynic might say they picked the date to minimize turnout:

In 2013, the turnout rate was just 17 percent among white voters and 6 percent among black voters. One reason for the small number of voters is the fact that elections are held in April on odd-numbered years. That's been shown to seriously depress turnout, compared to November in a presidential year, or even to November in midterm years. Turnout topped 40 percent during November's midterm elections, but that also represented a 10 percent drop from 2010. But in 2012, 76 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, almost 20 points above the national average (and Barack Obama thrashed Mitt Romney, taking 85 percent of the vote).

It seems crazy to me that people can spend hour upon hour for week after week, standing in the streets yelling, "Hands Up Don't Shoot," yet they can't spend half an hour on a day in April to cast a vote.

You can protest all you want, but it won't make a damn bit of difference if you don't elect people who will listen to your protests.

I know that for a century and a half white conservatives have put up all kinds of roadblocks to prevent African Americans from voting. But as the 2012 election results show, blacks can clearly make their voices heard, if they just show up to vote.

Today's turnout in Ferguson will show whether all the protesters who stood on the streets were serious. If they can spend countless hours, night after night, chanting about justice and peace, surely they can make an appearance at a polling place to elect the people they want to ensure justice and keep the peace.

You can protest all you want, but it won't make a damn bit of difference if you don't elect people who will listen to your protests.

Lil' Wayne (LaPierres)

VERY Good Words (on guns)

I was asked recently to answer a question on Quora.

Is America's Second Amendment "right to bear arms" a bit antiquated and needing to be reformed?

I haven't yet but check out this answer, from a "Firearm owner, firearm safety, military weapons training, responsible firearm use."

Right now, no, I do not believe it should be altered in any way. We can, however, change gun laws. I believe in the individuals right to own weapons, for person defense, hunting, and the ultimate purpose of the 2nd amendment - defense against tyranny. I personally do not see at this point the threat of a violent movement by the government that would cause us to rise up, but very few people who are destroyed by such things can see it coming.

I think we need to tighten up the screening process for owning firearms. Better mental health evaluation, better evaluation in screening buyers to determine their level of responsibility, and making more courses and training facilities available for people to learn how to use their weapons effectively, safely, and the most critical part - WHEN they should actually use it. An example in closing: Adam Lanza murdered children and teachers with his mother's guns. She was a shooting enthusiast. She knew Adam was troubled, mentally ill, and unstable - Yet she did not lock her weapons up as a responsible owner should - And that mistake cost her her own life, and the lives of many others. 

Responsible owners vs Irresponsible is what needs to be looked at. How exactly we do that, I am not sure.

It's that last line that really nails the debate right now. The difficulty in this is that there are many firearms owners and gun rights activists that realize that they are likely not mentally fit to own guns. Some of these people are the loudest in that group and it's so obvious they would be affected by any changes to laws. So, they prey upon responsible gun owners fears and everyone just goes along.

It won't change until, sadly, these folks are personally affected by gun violence.

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part One)

I've written extensively on this site about the validity of Aaron Sorkin's American Taliban description of the modern day conservative. Taken as a whole, it can seem overwhelming and perhaps even sensationalized. But what if you took it one characteristic at a time?

That's just what I did on Quora and the results were very interesting. Here are the first couple of questions.

By far, the most popular (36K views and counting!) was this one:

-Which US political party, the Democrats or the Republicans, denies science on a regular basis? Why?

Part of the reason for this was renowned sci fi author, David Brin, weighing in with a response.

Alas. Let there be no mistake. The American right, which used to admire science, is now in full tilt against science. Thirty years ago, 40% of US scientists called themselves Republican, now it is 5%. They are voting with their feet, the smartest, wisest, most logical and by far the most competitive humans our species ever produced. 

And not just science. Can you name one profession of high knowledge and skill that is not under attack by Fox & its cohorts? Teachers, medical doctors, journalists, civil servants, law professionals, economists, skilled labor, professors… oh yes, and science. I defy you to name one that isn't under assault by a hijacked-insane version of what used to be an intellectual conservative movement. One that now screeches invective upon all of the "smartypants" professions, in the worst know-nothing movement in 150 years. 

The anti-all-smartypants campaign has driven all of those professions away from conservatism and the GOP. 

Do some liberals or (more often) their leftist allies sometimes do unscientific things? Sure. You can pile up anecdotes of leftist groups and persons doing/saying nostalgic tripe and romantic claptrap. But Democrats pour money into real science, and most non-leftist liberals do listen to it. Further more, among the billionaires, most all of the tech moguls (except for one or two) are Democrats, while the so-called resource extractors and Wall Street guys are Republicans.

His was the top response for awhile but has since been voted down to second because he is a poopy headed fat face whose face is fat! (side note: how can 422 upvotes be second to 41 upvotes?) Regardless, both of the top answers (and many others) resounding illustrate that it is, in fact, the Republicans. 

-Which political party in the United States demands more ideological purity, the Democrats or the Republicans and why?

Top answer?

Absolutely the Republicans. There isn't any equivalent to the term "DINO" on the Democratic side, despite the existence of many it would well fit. The "Blue Dog" Democrats, who at times align with the Republicans, are a very real part of the Democratic party. They don't face rabid hatred and primary challenges even that being so. 

I guarantee you that if a Republican crosses the aisle one too many times (or even once on some object of extreme hate like PPACA), they will face and possibly lose a primary challenge. At minimum, they will get derided as a "RINO". If Ronald Reagan were to run for office today on the same platform as in 1980, he'd almost certainly get that treatment. Conversely, the Democrats tend to run the spectrum from center-right to somewhat past center-left. Obama is more toward center-right, while someone like Elizabeth Warren is farther over to the left. Neither is run out of the party on a rail for it.

Second answer...

Republicans.

Democratic lawmakers face little fear of being primaried out of office by the far left fringe if they stake out a few moderate positions. In the republican party, the risk of being primaried out of a job is far higher, thus republican politicians are much more reluctant to challenge the party line (unless they are challenging it from the fringe instead of the center), and thanks to the Tea Party, the party line has shifted markedly rightward. The end result is that many republican office-holders have now backpedaled from former statements they've made taking somewhat moderate positions on issues like climate change, women's reproductive freedoms, restrictions on armour-piercing bullets, gun purchase background checks, support for renewable energy, an individual mandate to get health insurance, and a variety of other matters. Consider the case of South Carolina republican congressman Bob Inglis. 

Initially a climate change skeptic, he studied the issue and became convinced that in fact there actually IS an overwhelming scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real, and that the science is sound, so he changed his position and began advocating for taking the issue seriously. Result - in the next election he received only 27% of the vote, getting trounced by a more ideologically pure opponent who stuck to the climate denial party line. Many other republicans have lost primaries under similar circumstances - they were just not pure enough to avoid suffering the wrath of the far right fringe. Even House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, considered a rising star of the party, was primaried out of office. Along the same lines, almost no republican is willing to publicly criticize the Grover Norquist pledge to not raise taxes, on anything, ever. Many of them are known to loath the pledge, but they don't dare challenge it out loud - they know doing so will earn them a well-funded primary challenger.

I'm sensing a trend here:)

Just In Case

Man Always Carries Gun In Case He Needs To Escalate Situation

“I never leave home without my Glock, because you just don’t know when someone might mouth off to you in a bar and leave you with no choice but to turn a minor altercation into a tense life-or-death scenario,” said Donner, noting that he keeps his loaded weapon in a hip holster should the need arise for him to respond quickly, and with deadly force, when he is angered by a perceived slight.


Some satire that is a little too close to home...

Good Words

From a recent piece on Politico...

Some are insisting on a “better deal” than the framework nuclear agreement reached with Iran on April 2. But the idea of a better deal is a chimera, an illusory option, and it should not lull us into thinking there is another agreement to be had if only we were to bear down harder. The present agreement, which depends on important pieces to be resolved by the end of June, can substantially reduce the ability of Iran to develop a nuclear weapon over the next ten years or more and also creates a dynamic that could be a game changer in the combustible Middle East. 

The rest of the piece explains why this is true and completely torpedoes the Right's talking points.

Sorry, conservatives, you are going to have to allow the president yet another win. It's what is best for the country and, more importantly, the security situation in the Middle East.

So, grow the fuck up!!

Moms On A Roll

Greater Than These

Across the United States today, many Americans will be celebrating the risen Jesus Christ and that His message is eternal. The core of that message is that we love one another while doing His works and greater than these. In so many ways, we are doing that. Take a look...

Greater than these...

Fucking Glorious

Indiana and Arkansas took steps this week to quell the national uproar over their religious "freedom" laws. In short, they caved to the will of the free market.

And it was fucking glorious.

The revised Indiana law prohibits service providers from using it as a legal defense for refusing to provide goods, services, facilities or accommodations. It also bars discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or U.S. military service.

You can almost here the slumped soldiers now that they can't refuse the gays anymore.

Arkansas was able to avert much of the fallout Indiana has seen by making changes before Hutchinson signed the law. The revised language more closely mirrors the 1993 federal law and only addresses actions by the government, not by businesses or individuals. 

People have focused on the call Governor Hutchinson got from Doug McMillon but consider the pressure Wal Mart is under from...well...US! My pals on the left like to squawk about corporate power but it has really been the people...the consumers that drive demand (that again?!? :)) that are putting the screws to these folks.

This whole affair was a massive statement on where we are at in 2015 in terms of civil rights. This country is not going to tolerate this bullshit anymore.

Thank God.