Before pretty much everyone in the South decided that it was time to take down the Confederate flag, there was a lot of hemming and hawing in the immediate aftermath of Dylann Roof's terrorist attack on a church in Charleston, SC.
Initially many southern politicians defended the flag as "their heritage." Many, like Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina, said that the flag "is part of who we are."
No. That is not who we are. That flag is who our ancestors were.
And even though half my ancestors didn't come to this country until the 20th century, I can still say we. My maternal grandfather was from Tennessee and I'm related to General Stonewall Jackson.
We are not our fathers -- we own neither their victories nor their sins. We can only learn from their mistakes and preserve their successes. The idea that our heritage -- our ancestry -- defines who we are is an antiquated, stupid, racist misconception. We define who we are by what we say and what we do.
As Americans we're all equal. We're supposed to make our own way in the world and not leech off our ancestors' reputations. As Americans we pick our own heritage -- we're not stuck with whatever random traits our genetics gave us.
Sometimes people carry this idea to ridiculous extremes, as in the case of Rachel Dolezal. She claimed the heritage of African Americans. It sounds weird, but it's no different than every Republican from Ted Cruz to Bobby Jindal claiming the heritage of Ronald Reagan. The only thing Dolezal really did wrong was lie about it.
If you have white skin, no one can just assume you're intolerant and racist. If you have brown skin, no one can just assume you're lazy and stupid. You can't choose your skin color. But if you choose the Confederate flag as your emblem, you're claiming a heritage of disunion, racism and oppression.
That choice is key: being able to define who we are is our real American heritage.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Warning Labels
Just got this in an email...
Two issues here, racism, and the proliferation of gun culture and acceptance of gun deaths. I am far more concerned how we are growing a new crop of racial bigots than I am with ISIS. As for guns, 30,000 people a year die here in gun violence. This simply (with a few notable exceptions) doesn't happen in other developed nations. If ISIS were killing even a tiny percentage of that 30k in the US...we would lose our minds. This doesn't even register with the American public.
It doesn't register with them because the "liberal" media (especially Hollywood) are ammosexuals. If they reported on the Gun Cult the same way they report on ISIL, it would be a much different situation.
The Tax Revenue Zombie Lie Rises Again
It amuses me to no end when zombie lies rise again. Check this out.
GOP strategist Christie: Tax revenues rose after Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003
Once again...
What we found is Christie is carefully picking his starting and end points to make the most dramatic comparison. Changing the timeframe makes all the difference, as we’ll show you.
Indeed:)
The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of two academic centers the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, summarized the CBO numbers. This chart based on the center’s table shows revenues initially falling, not rising.
In short, federal revenues were below 2000 levels (after adjusting for inflation) until 2006. They outpaced fiscal year 2000 collections for a bit, then fell again in 2008. The same pattern roughly holds if you use 2001 as the starting point. What’s that all mean? When you adjust for inflation, the 47 percent revenue growth from 2003 to 2007 becomes 28 percent. And if you start the clock in 2001, revenue growth drops to 4 percent. By 2009, of course, the numbers look even worse. Here’s another way to look at it, using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Over Bush’s two full terms, federal revenues dropped 13 percent.
Christie’s statement has some superficial accuracy but a more complete picture shows that he has omitted many details that would lead to a different conclusion. We rate this claim Mostly False.
Superficial accuracy pretty much sums it up!
GOP strategist Christie: Tax revenues rose after Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003
Once again...
What we found is Christie is carefully picking his starting and end points to make the most dramatic comparison. Changing the timeframe makes all the difference, as we’ll show you.
Indeed:)
The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of two academic centers the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, summarized the CBO numbers. This chart based on the center’s table shows revenues initially falling, not rising.
In short, federal revenues were below 2000 levels (after adjusting for inflation) until 2006. They outpaced fiscal year 2000 collections for a bit, then fell again in 2008. The same pattern roughly holds if you use 2001 as the starting point. What’s that all mean? When you adjust for inflation, the 47 percent revenue growth from 2003 to 2007 becomes 28 percent. And if you start the clock in 2001, revenue growth drops to 4 percent. By 2009, of course, the numbers look even worse. Here’s another way to look at it, using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Over Bush’s two full terms, federal revenues dropped 13 percent.
Christie’s statement has some superficial accuracy but a more complete picture shows that he has omitted many details that would lead to a different conclusion. We rate this claim Mostly False.
Superficial accuracy pretty much sums it up!
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Very Tired of Idiots
Many in Nation Tired of Explaining Things to Idiots
Of the many obvious things that people are sick and tired of trying to get through the skulls of stupid people, the fact that climate change will cause catastrophic habitat destruction and devastating extinctions tops the list, with a majority saying that they will no longer bother trying to explain this to cretins.
Coming in a close second, statistical proof that gun control has reduced gun deaths in countries around the world is something that a significant number of those polled have given up attempting to break down for morons.
Finally, a majority said that trying to make idiots understand why a flag that symbolizes bigotry and hatred has no business flying over a state capitol only makes the person attempting to explain this want to put his or her fist through a wall.
Amen.
Of the many obvious things that people are sick and tired of trying to get through the skulls of stupid people, the fact that climate change will cause catastrophic habitat destruction and devastating extinctions tops the list, with a majority saying that they will no longer bother trying to explain this to cretins.
Coming in a close second, statistical proof that gun control has reduced gun deaths in countries around the world is something that a significant number of those polled have given up attempting to break down for morons.
Finally, a majority said that trying to make idiots understand why a flag that symbolizes bigotry and hatred has no business flying over a state capitol only makes the person attempting to explain this want to put his or her fist through a wall.
Amen.
An Unbroken Line from Jefferson Davis to George F. Will
Ta-Nehisi Coates has a long article that discusses the origins of the Civil War. It consists mostly of quotes from Southern politicians who justified slavery as being necessary for civilization and even white equality.
Coates' point is that the Confederate flag is undeniably the emblem of slavery and is why it should be taken down.
But reading these quotes makes it clear that the political philosophy and economic theory of pro-slavery secessionist Southerners have been directly adopted by modern conservative "thinkers" and corporate elites in the United States.
For example, here's an excerpt of the statement of Mississippi justifying secession:
Jefferson Davis believed that without slavery, equality among white men was impossible:[A] blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilizationOur position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
Many southern "gentlemen" held slaves in particular and working people in general in utter contempt (from the Muscogee Herald):[E]quality ... cannot exist where white men fill the position here occupied by the servile race.You too know, that among us, white men have an equality resulting form a presence of a lower caste, which cannot exist where white men fill the position here occupied by the servile race. The mechanic who comes among us, employing the less intellectual labor of the African, takes the position which only a master-workman occupies where all the mechanics are white, and therefore it is that our mechanics hold their position of absolute equality among us.
— Jefferson Davis
Free Society! we sicken at the name. What is it but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists? All the Northern men and especially the New England States are devoid of society fitted for well-bred gentlemen. The prevailing class one meet with is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own drudgery, and yet are hardly fit for association with a Southern gentleman's body servant. This is your free society which Northern hordes are trying to extend into Kansas.This last was a reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would allow the voters in the two new territories to decide whether slavery would be allowed. People like Jesse James flooded into Kansas and Nebraska to influence the outcome of the slavery vote. Southerners wanted slavery to spread to new states and dreaded the outcome of new territories voting down slavery.
How many poor white Southerners fought for the Confederate Army because Jefferson Davis told them that if blacks were freed from slavery, poor whites would become the slaves?
The wealthy upper classes of the South considered themselves the real Americans, the well-bred, genteel Anglo-Saxon nobility of the United States. They despised a free society. They thought of the vast "northern hordes" as inferior, a lower caste, a servile race, greasy mechanics and filthy farmers. That is the heritage the Confederate battle flag represents. How many poor white Southerners fought for the Confederate Army because Jefferson Davis told poor whites that if blacks were freed from slavery, whites would become the slaves? Were the men who fought in the Confederate Army fighting to preserve slavery simply to avoid being forced into slavery themselves?
The idea that there must be masters and there must be slaves appears to persist in the South to this day. The best way to do this is to minimize the political and economic power of workers, which means busting unions. If workers are unorganized and intimidated, you can pay them slave wages. That's why "right to work" laws were first enacted in former slave-holding states and have effectively destroyed private-sector unions there. Such laws have slowly spread to northern states as Scott Walker and other northern politicians have been co-opted by corporate elites like the Koch brothers.
Many corporate execs espouse the same slave-holding mindset as Jefferson Davis: the only thing that matters is profit. Today's Republican Party falls in line, parroting the narrative that maximizing the wealth of a few individuals and cutting their taxes will benefit the country much more than paying the people who actually do all the work a living wage.
But union busting still wasn't good enough for corporate America: even non-unionized Americans make too much damned money. So corporate America ships jobs off to other countries.
That brings us to the present day, when in March George Will told us proudly that income inequality is a good thing. Will is making exactly the same argument the well-bred gentlemen of the South: slaves are necessary for commerce and civilization. Will casts this in the light of shipping jobs off to Vietnam, where surrogate slaves perform the "drudgery" of manufacturing cheap shoes and plasma TVs for the United States. But it's just the same argument Jefferson Davis and well-bred Southern aristocrats used a century and a half ago.
Back then southern plantation owners needed African slaves to maintain their wealth and power. Today, corporate America needs wage slaves to maintain their stock bonuses and profit margins.
We had a Civil War to disabuse Southern slave holders of their quaint notions about "civilization and commerce." As more and more Americans fall into poverty -- especially white Americans in the South -- notions in board rooms will need similar adjustments.
There's some evidence that corporate America is beginning to understand how untenable growing income inequality is (note Walmart's increase to their minimum wage).
Let's hope they don't dawdle too long.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Following the Money
A lot of Republicans had a hard time calling for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from South Carolina's capitol in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Charleston, even as it became more and more obvious that Roof's motivations were linked to glorification of the Confederacy, white supremacy and slavery.
Most said that taking the battle flag down was something that people should "begin discussing," though some -- like Mitt Romney, to his credit -- did quickly call for its banishment to the ash heap of history.
The question is, how can anyone possibly defend the Confederate flag, especially in light of the horrors of slavery and the treacheries of the Civil War that it invokes?
The answer's obvious: money.
It turns out that Republicans get a lot of money -- and votes -- from racists. The Guardian looked into this:
The leader of a rightwing group that Dylann Roof allegedly credits with helping to radicalise him against black people before the Charleston church massacre has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans such as presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum.Additionally:
Earl Holt has given $65,000 to Republican campaign funds in recent years while inflammatory remarks – including that black people were “the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world” – were posted online in his name.
Holt has since 2012 contributed $8,500 to Cruz, the Texas senator running for the Republican presidential nomination, and his Jobs, Growth and Freedom Fund political action committee, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. On some filings Holt’s occupation was listed as “slumlord”.And it's not just presidents: Holt spent his cash affecting election outcomes across the country:
Holt has also distributed tens of thousands in campaign contributions among prominent Republicans in congress, such as Representative Steve King of Iowa ($2,000), Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas ($1,500) and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona ($1,000). He also gave $3,200 to the former Minnesota congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.Holt's website and its focus on the fiction of "huge numbers" of heretofore unknown black-on-white murders was what radicalized Roof. Curiously, the signal event that started Roof down this path was the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.
What?! you say. How can that be? Well, following the lead of Fox News, in which whites and Christians are always the victim no matter who gets killed, racists like Holt twisted the killing of a black teenager walking home in the rain into a call to action for white supremacists. Roof's impressionable young mind was warped by Holt's propaganda, just like young Somali Americans whose minds are warped by Al Qaeda and ISIS propaganda on the Internet.
The constant refrain of conservatives is always, "We're the victims! We're the victims!" even when whites kill blacks. To distract from the injustice of Trayvon Martin's murder, racists like Holt manufactured a phony scandal that sucked Dylann Roof in.
Fox News and Republicans like Cruz, Bachmann, King, and Cotton all jumped on the Zimmerman bandwagon, repeat the same stupid chant, knowing that it's what angry racists in the South want to hear. It wasn't the exact same tune that Holt was pushing, but it was an accompanying melody, a sort of racist-light counterpoint that lent mainstream credibility to Holt's ridiculous claims.
Now, Republicans and most of their supporters in former slave holding states don't openly advocate the radical racist agenda of Holt and his ilk. But they use the code words and the dog whistles that let racists like Holt and Roof know where their sympathies really lie. They push policies in Congress -- privatizing Social Security and Medicare, cutting welfare, repealing the ACA -- that are calculated with the express intent to do maximal harm to minorities. This agenda was clearly described by Paul Krugman just today:
Only one former member of the Confederacy has expanded Medicaid, and while a few Northern states are also part of the movement, more than 80 percent of the population in Medicaid-refusing America lives in states that practiced slavery before the Civil War.
And it’s not just health reform: a history of slavery is a strong predictor of everything from gun control (or rather its absence), to low minimum wages and hostility to unions, to tax policy.
These policies are intended to keep black and other minorities on the lowest economic rungs of society. The downside is that with increasing income inequality, much of it due to jobs shipped overseas and union busting, more and more white Americans are falling into the same trap. But to Holt, that's a good thing: the poorer whites become, the more scared and pissed-off they get.
Holt wants white kids like Roof, now facing the same dismal prospects that blacks have faced for the last 150 years, to blame blacks for their problems. It's an easy sell in the South, where racism is always bubbling below the surface.
Now Cruz and the other Republicans are falling over themselves to return Holt's donations. But it's a sham. They'll keep the millions of dollars of donors who are smarter than Holt and don't put their racist rants online, couching them in gentler terms like "combating voter fraud," "states rights," "balanced budgets" and "tax reform" that have the ultimate goal of crushing minorities.
But everyone still knows who's calling the shots in the Republican Party.
Let Them Live On Their Own
Today, I'm wondering why the GOP candidates for president are hedging on the Confederate flag still being flown in South Carolina. Could it be because their base is filled with old, white southern racists? Nah, that can't be it. It must just be me and my bias against them:)
In objective reality, they simply can't face the negative aspects (see: racism, prejudice, bigotry) of the people in their base and the core tenets of their ideology. They should face it and consider what it's like for black people who live in Charleston (and other places in the South) who have to see the confederate flag every day when they go to work. Or drive on a road named after a Confederate general who fought to keep them in human bondage.
The fact that we are even still debating this makes me fucking sick to my stomach. The South is filled with racist assholes like Dylan Roof who have a profound warped sense of reality. Take a look at this photo of Roof from trip to a Confederate museum.
One of the slaves is fucking SMILING? Yes, that's right. They were all really happy and comfortable during the time as slaves.
I've really had enough of these assholes. They hate the federal government? Great. Kick them out and let them live on their own.
In objective reality, they simply can't face the negative aspects (see: racism, prejudice, bigotry) of the people in their base and the core tenets of their ideology. They should face it and consider what it's like for black people who live in Charleston (and other places in the South) who have to see the confederate flag every day when they go to work. Or drive on a road named after a Confederate general who fought to keep them in human bondage.
The fact that we are even still debating this makes me fucking sick to my stomach. The South is filled with racist assholes like Dylan Roof who have a profound warped sense of reality. Take a look at this photo of Roof from trip to a Confederate museum.
One of the slaves is fucking SMILING? Yes, that's right. They were all really happy and comfortable during the time as slaves.
I've really had enough of these assholes. They hate the federal government? Great. Kick them out and let them live on their own.
Political Preachers
It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that Michele Bachmann is fleecing people, similar to an evangelical preacher, to pay off debt from living a lavish lifestyle. Stupid people are always willing to part with their money, eh?
I think what's kind of surprising is that her donors don't seem to have noticed that she doesn't hold public office anymore. They are still giving her money as if she is some sort of candidate. Is this the future of failed GOP candidates? Just begin to ask people for donations so they can continue on with their private club memberships and pricey dinners?
Well, they do love themselves some aristocracy...
I think what's kind of surprising is that her donors don't seem to have noticed that she doesn't hold public office anymore. They are still giving her money as if she is some sort of candidate. Is this the future of failed GOP candidates? Just begin to ask people for donations so they can continue on with their private club memberships and pricey dinners?
Well, they do love themselves some aristocracy...
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Do These Pictures Clear Things Up about Dylann Roof?
Through Internet sleuthing the New York Times and other outlets have reported on Dylann Roof's white supremacist web site, The Last Rhodesian, and a trove of pictures of Roof apparently in his back yard and at various slave plantations and Confederate landmarks.
Fox News and Republicans have been expressing confusion and uncertainty about what could have possibly motivated Roof to commit a terrorist attack on a bunch of old ladies in a church basement.
These pictures should answer that question:
In every Congress between 1995 and 2006 Republicans put forth "flag desecration" amendments. The last time it failed by a single vote.
And here's Dylann celebrating his Conferate heritage:
Here's Dylann celebrating his Southern pride with the Stars and Bars and a .45:
And here's Dylann showing his white supremacist and Nazi sympathies:
"1488" is white supremacist code for "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. Heil Hitler!” The othala rune beneath that is another symbol used by white supremacists.
How representative is this young man of the citizens of Dixie who have "Southern pride" and speak fondly of their "Confederate heritage?" How far removed from Dylann Roof are the Tea Partyers who angrily shout about "taking our country back" from a black president? Or the secessionists in Texas, who fear the Army is set to invade them any day now and are itching for a rerun of the Civil War?
American conservatives have to stop waffling and call a spade a spade. They must stop exercising Republican partisan correctness. They must call these people out for continuing to honor the racist, anti-American, flag-burning traitors who caused the deadliest war in our history.
If any flag should be burned, it's the Confederate battle flag that was still flying high over the capitol in South Carolina, while the American flag was at half-staff to honor the victims of Roof's terrorist massacre.
Fox News and Republicans have been expressing confusion and uncertainty about what could have possibly motivated Roof to commit a terrorist attack on a bunch of old ladies in a church basement.
These pictures should answer that question:
And here's Dylann celebrating his Conferate heritage:
Here's Dylann celebrating his Southern pride with the Stars and Bars and a .45:
And here's Dylann showing his white supremacist and Nazi sympathies:
"1488" is white supremacist code for "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. Heil Hitler!” The othala rune beneath that is another symbol used by white supremacists.
How representative is this young man of the citizens of Dixie who have "Southern pride" and speak fondly of their "Confederate heritage?" How far removed from Dylann Roof are the Tea Partyers who angrily shout about "taking our country back" from a black president? Or the secessionists in Texas, who fear the Army is set to invade them any day now and are itching for a rerun of the Civil War?
American conservatives have to stop waffling and call a spade a spade. They must stop exercising Republican partisan correctness. They must call these people out for continuing to honor the racist, anti-American, flag-burning traitors who caused the deadliest war in our history.
If any flag should be burned, it's the Confederate battle flag that was still flying high over the capitol in South Carolina, while the American flag was at half-staff to honor the victims of Roof's terrorist massacre.
Climate Change Warrior
Let's just make today a climate change day!
Check out this piece from the New York Times.
Dr. Oreskes’s approach has been to dig deeply into the history of climate change denial, documenting its links to other episodes in which critics challenged a developing scientific consensus. Her core discovery, made with a co-author, Erik M. Conway, was twofold. They reported that dubious tactics had been used over decades to cast doubt on scientific findings relating to subjects like acid rain, the ozone shield, tobacco smoke and climate change.
And most surprisingly, in each case, the tactics were employed by the same group of people.
The central players were serious scientists who had major career triumphs during the Cold War, but in subsequent years apparently came to equate environmentalism with socialism, and government regulation with tyranny.
Hmm, those people sound awfully familiar...:)
It's both sad and devastating, but entirely understandable given their System 1 brain thinking, how easily manipulated people are by these actors.
Check out this piece from the New York Times.
Dr. Oreskes’s approach has been to dig deeply into the history of climate change denial, documenting its links to other episodes in which critics challenged a developing scientific consensus. Her core discovery, made with a co-author, Erik M. Conway, was twofold. They reported that dubious tactics had been used over decades to cast doubt on scientific findings relating to subjects like acid rain, the ozone shield, tobacco smoke and climate change.
And most surprisingly, in each case, the tactics were employed by the same group of people.
The central players were serious scientists who had major career triumphs during the Cold War, but in subsequent years apparently came to equate environmentalism with socialism, and government regulation with tyranny.
Hmm, those people sound awfully familiar...:)
It's both sad and devastating, but entirely understandable given their System 1 brain thinking, how easily manipulated people are by these actors.
The Caveat
In my previous post I said that my initial reaction was that I didn't think that gun laws could stop Dylann Roof's terrorist attack on the church in Charleston. But as I've considered it, I'm not so sure. Roof was on the cops' radar, and if he hadn't been white, things likely would have played out differently.
In particular:
Buying a gun should require a license, practical testing and a rigorous background investigation. Roof's suspicious behavior at the mall is exactly the kind of thing that should show up on a criminal background check. The logical conclusion is that Roof was trying to buy a gun to commit a robbery.
That shouldn't prevent a person from getting a gun out of hand. But it should trigger a deeper investigation. They should talk to his family and friends. Had the authorities done that, they might have remarked upon his recent racist behavior. Had they checked him out on the Internet, they might have learned of his racist sympathies from his Facebook page, which might have led them to his Last Rhodesian white supremacist web site, where he divulged his racist plan to attack Charleston.
That level of investigation would cost money, of course. Which means a gun license would have to cost a fair amount of money. Which might have prevented Roof from getting a gun in the first place.
Admittedly, that's a lot of ifs. But as we already know, it's impossible to prevent all murders. But the higher the bar is for gun purchases, the fewer guns will be sold, especially to angry losers like Dylann Roof.
The only possible goal is to reduce the number of deaths without imposing undue burdens on the rest of society. Making sure that gun buyers aren't white supremacists planning to rob malls or murder old black ladies in church isn't an unreasonable burden.
Now, suppose Dylann Roof had been a Muslim. What do you think the cops' reaction at the mall would have been? A Muslim skulking around a mall, wearing black, asking questions about employees and closing times. They would instantly suspect he's preparing for a terrorist attack, looking to sneak into the mall after hours to plant a bomb. If they didn't arrest him for this on the spot, at a minimum they would have placed him on a watch list, which would have been flagged when he tried to buy a gun.
American conservatives are more than willing to allow the authorities to invade our privacy by x-raying us, rifling through our personal belongings and making us take off our god-damned shoes every time we board an airplane.
Yet somehow they think everyone in the country should have complete and untrammeled access to weapons of mass murder at their local gun stores. They can shoot up churches and schools and malls with impunity -- why would any terrorist bother with an airplane anymore?
NRA people don't seem to understand that lax gun laws they insist upon also allow Muslim terrorists to obtain guns easily -- just like the guns Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem provided the jihadists who were killed in the Muhammad cartoonambush contest in Texas last month.
In particular:
Mr. Roof has had two previous brushes with the law, both in recent months, according to court records. In February, he attracted attention at the Columbiana Centre, a shopping mall, when, dressed all in black, he asked store employees “out of the ordinary questions” such as how many people were working and what time they would be leaving, according to a police report.Clearly the cops suspected Roof was casing the mall for some sort of burglary or other nefarious activity. If he'd been black and caught doing this, what are the odds they would have just let him go on his way?
Buying a gun should require a license, practical testing and a rigorous background investigation. Roof's suspicious behavior at the mall is exactly the kind of thing that should show up on a criminal background check. The logical conclusion is that Roof was trying to buy a gun to commit a robbery.
That shouldn't prevent a person from getting a gun out of hand. But it should trigger a deeper investigation. They should talk to his family and friends. Had the authorities done that, they might have remarked upon his recent racist behavior. Had they checked him out on the Internet, they might have learned of his racist sympathies from his Facebook page, which might have led them to his Last Rhodesian white supremacist web site, where he divulged his racist plan to attack Charleston.
That level of investigation would cost money, of course. Which means a gun license would have to cost a fair amount of money. Which might have prevented Roof from getting a gun in the first place.
Admittedly, that's a lot of ifs. But as we already know, it's impossible to prevent all murders. But the higher the bar is for gun purchases, the fewer guns will be sold, especially to angry losers like Dylann Roof.
The only possible goal is to reduce the number of deaths without imposing undue burdens on the rest of society. Making sure that gun buyers aren't white supremacists planning to rob malls or murder old black ladies in church isn't an unreasonable burden.
Now, suppose Dylann Roof had been a Muslim. What do you think the cops' reaction at the mall would have been? A Muslim skulking around a mall, wearing black, asking questions about employees and closing times. They would instantly suspect he's preparing for a terrorist attack, looking to sneak into the mall after hours to plant a bomb. If they didn't arrest him for this on the spot, at a minimum they would have placed him on a watch list, which would have been flagged when he tried to buy a gun.
American conservatives are more than willing to allow the authorities to invade our privacy by x-raying us, rifling through our personal belongings and making us take off our god-damned shoes every time we board an airplane.
Yet somehow they think everyone in the country should have complete and untrammeled access to weapons of mass murder at their local gun stores. They can shoot up churches and schools and malls with impunity -- why would any terrorist bother with an airplane anymore?
NRA people don't seem to understand that lax gun laws they insist upon also allow Muslim terrorists to obtain guns easily -- just like the guns Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem provided the jihadists who were killed in the Muhammad cartoon
Toby Keith: Right and Wrong
Both sides of the gun control debate are weighing in on the terrorist attack on a Charleston church. Hillary Clinton called for "common-sense" gun control laws that keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. NRA board member Charles Cotton blamed the victim for voting against laws that would allow guns in churches. Country music star Toby Keith said stricter laws would have made no difference in the Charleston attack.
I tend to agree with Keith (though with a caveat in a second post). Dylann Roof bought a weapon legally, had no (serious) criminal record or history of mental illness. So there were no red flags that would have stopped him from getting a gun.
That means that we're always going to have some number of people who get guns legally who then use them to commit murder. As Keith points out, this happens even in countries like Norway, where strict gun laws are in place.
So, yeah. Some number of people are going to die each year in attacks like this, regardless of the gun laws.
Where the gun nuts are wrong is claiming that the Charleston terrorist attack could have been prevented by a policeman or armed citizens in the room. The hackneyed lie about guns making us safer.
You see, the bad guys don't play fair. They don't schedule a duel for high noon on Main Street in front of the saloon. They plan for weeks, lurking, practicing, skulking, shooting people in the back and gunning down old ladies while accusing them of "raping our women."
Had there been an armed cop in the room, Roof simply would have shot him first, probably in the back of the head. And then Roof would have another weapon.
Now, the NRA nuts will say: if everyone in the room had a gun Roof would have no chance. Nope. Not true. Because a lot of people just freeze under stress.
When I was a kid I went into some sandstone caves with two of my friends, Bob and Randy. We were looking at the bins where mushrooms were grown when we heard a truck pull up. We peered out and saw some guys unloading junk. We threw open the door and ran like hell.
At least, Bob and I did. Randy froze. He just stood there stupidly gaping, while Bob and I bolted up a hill and into the woods. They grabbed Randy and called the cops. Bob and Randy got arrested, I skipped town and they didn't rat on me. Thus ended my illustrious criminal career...
When my wife was in high school she and a friend started to cross the street. A car came out of nowhere. My wife froze. Her friend grabbed her and pulled her out of the way. She could have been run down right then and there.
Freezing is a normal human reaction. It might be indecision. It might be a paralyzing fear. It might be emotional shock. In a situation like Charleston, it's probably all three, all at once.
So when people see someone get shot, a lot of them are going to freeze. There were several middle-aged and elderly ladies and men in that church in Charleston. All of them will freeze for several seconds at a minimum. In that time a practiced shooter with a semiautomatic pistol can easily fire 10-20 rounds.
They're going to stay frozen for varying times. Some will totally dissolve in an anxiety attack. Some will come out of it quickly and react. If they have a gun they'll draw it. The killer, who will have positioned himself so he can observe all his victims, will shoot the first one to move. And then the next one, and the next one. Even if they all have guns, they won't react simultaneously, allowing the shooter to deal with one target at a time.
But the idea that all of them will have guns close at hand is ludicrous. Six of the nine victims were women. Women typically keep everything in their purses, including guns. Women frequently don't keep their purses immediately at hand, especially when they're among friends and people they trust. Even men will frequently keep guns in their jacket pockets, which would be hung up on the coat rack.
Which means most of the people in the room, even they were packing heat that night, wouldn't have had their weapons on them when the shooting started.
But some of them might. Let's say the pastor whipped out the pistol from his waist band and started firing at the terrorist. He'd almost certainly miss, because he's emotionally distraught, not really very well trained, and -- this is true even for cops -- the vast majority of pistol shots fired in haste will miss.
And the terrorist, a stone-cold killer who can mercilessly gun down little old ladies without a second thought, will calmly turn and shoot the pastor. And then he'll have another weapon.
Since his targets won't all react simultaneously and scramble over to the coat rack where their guns are in their purses and jackets, the killer will have plenty of time to reload and shoot everyone in the room as they unfreeze, even if they had all brought guns to a bible study in a church basement.
When I first heard about this attack it vexed me that he could shoot so many people, pausing to reload several times, without anyone rushing him to stop him. How, I wondered, could they just stand by and let this happen?
But Roof had chosen his victims carefully. Observed them for an hour. He picked middle-aged and elderly people who knew would be easy to kill, lulled them into a sense of safety and then killed them in a blitz attack.
Roof's victims weren't like him at all. They weren't stone-cold killers. They don't want guns near them or their families. Even if they had firearms, most of them would hesitate to use them, because they wouldn't be familiar with them them, they're not used to the recoil or the noise, they're afraid of missing the target and hitting someone else. They think human life is sacred and think killing is wrong.
NRA people can't comprehend this. NRA people spend their every waking moment fantasizing about guns, practicing with them, psyching themselves into the mindset that human life is cheap, planning how to kill people they think are threatening them. They will trade someone else's life for theirs in a heartbeat. For them the ends justify the means: every man for himself.
In short, NRA people think just like Dylann Roof.
Normal people don't want to spend their lives obsessing about guns and death. They just want to carry on with without having to live in constant fear.
Roof and his ilk know that. That's why they do what they do: they want to ratchet up the fear, the distrust and the hatred. They want blacks to react violently and angrily to this act of terrorism, in order to perpetuate the white supremacist dream of resegregating this country.
The Pope On Climate Change
Like me, Pope Francis is a "fake" Christian, according to conservatives. He spends his time worrying about the poor, not judging gay people, and preaching the evils of inequality (see also, the works of Jesus Christ). Now that he has embraced the objective reality of climate change and what is causing it, he's gone full on commie pinko bastard!
"Those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms," Francis wrote of the impact of climate change in the encyclical titled "Laudato Si," or "Praise Be."
He called on humanity to collectively acknowledge a "sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded." And he wrote that climate change "represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day."
Francis said that developing countries, as the biggest producers of harmful greenhouse gasses, owe the poorer nations a debt. "The developed countries ought to help pay this debt by significantly limiting their consumption of nonrenewable energy and by assisting poorer countries to support policies and programs of sustainable development."
In one particularly blunt passage, Francis writes: "The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish. ... Frequently no measures are taken until after people's health has been irreversibly affected."
Actually, the pile of filth also extends to the conservative platform on climate change with the party of responsibility taking none of it.
"Those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms," Francis wrote of the impact of climate change in the encyclical titled "Laudato Si," or "Praise Be."
He called on humanity to collectively acknowledge a "sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded." And he wrote that climate change "represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day."
Francis said that developing countries, as the biggest producers of harmful greenhouse gasses, owe the poorer nations a debt. "The developed countries ought to help pay this debt by significantly limiting their consumption of nonrenewable energy and by assisting poorer countries to support policies and programs of sustainable development."
In one particularly blunt passage, Francis writes: "The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish. ... Frequently no measures are taken until after people's health has been irreversibly affected."
Actually, the pile of filth also extends to the conservative platform on climate change with the party of responsibility taking none of it.
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Power and Loss of Control
An excellent summation of the Gun Cult...
Everyone is going to have a different answer. I'm no exception. In my opinion, i believe it all boils down to "power-hunger". Whether you agree with me or not, guns give people a false sense of power. Taking guns away means taking power away. Nobody debates car ownership because nobody derives any feeling of power or control or authority when driving. Half the people i know,who own a car, hate driving. Find me one person,who owns a firearm, that hates shooting. A car and a gun are obviously 2 totally different things. Sure both can be used as a weapon. But only 1 of them IS a weapon.
People like having the feeling of god at their fingertips. People who are avid gunners, are the ones who proudly show off how enthusiastic they are when it comes to gun ownership. How many people do you know, walk around with shirts and hats that advertise General Motors,Daimler-Benz,or Volkswagen? But how many people do you know who wear clothing that says NRA,or has pictures of guns? I see people all the time with tattoos that depict a skeleton gang member holding a gun.
Guns make people ,who own them,feel powerful and more importantly....in control. That control is what they're fighting to retain.
And they are thinking with their System 1 brain which is largely emotional.
Everyone is going to have a different answer. I'm no exception. In my opinion, i believe it all boils down to "power-hunger". Whether you agree with me or not, guns give people a false sense of power. Taking guns away means taking power away. Nobody debates car ownership because nobody derives any feeling of power or control or authority when driving. Half the people i know,who own a car, hate driving. Find me one person,who owns a firearm, that hates shooting. A car and a gun are obviously 2 totally different things. Sure both can be used as a weapon. But only 1 of them IS a weapon.
People like having the feeling of god at their fingertips. People who are avid gunners, are the ones who proudly show off how enthusiastic they are when it comes to gun ownership. How many people do you know, walk around with shirts and hats that advertise General Motors,Daimler-Benz,or Volkswagen? But how many people do you know who wear clothing that says NRA,or has pictures of guns? I see people all the time with tattoos that depict a skeleton gang member holding a gun.
Guns make people ,who own them,feel powerful and more importantly....in control. That control is what they're fighting to retain.
And they are thinking with their System 1 brain which is largely emotional.
Friday, June 19, 2015
The Whole Hate Crime Bugaboo
People (and by people, I largely mean conservatives) seem to get so irate about the category of crimes known as hate crimes. Why? I think a big part of it is they can't accept the negative aspects of their own personal ideology (racism, prejudice, bigotry) so they blame the victim. More importantly, they have a profound lack of understanding of how the law works.
There are a variety of categories of what constitutes murder. This is also true of stealing. Yet they don't seem to have a problem with any of these. Each of these laws illustrate how complicated the law can be as it responds to the uniqueness of various criminal acts. Hate crimes is merely another category that offers a more muscular prosecutorial punch. If someone breaks into an NAACP chapter, for example, and writes "Niggers, we will kill you" all over the walls, without hate crime laws, they would be charged with a couple of petty crimes and maybe terroristic threats. With them in place, the punishment is far worse and it should be because we have zero tolerance for this sort of behavior in our culture today.
So, as we learn more of the Charleston shooting and hear more about hate crimes, we are likely to hear adolescent assholes foam at the mouth about hate crimes and how they are all gay and shit. Ask them if they have the same feelings about the hundreds of laws regarding theft:)
There are a variety of categories of what constitutes murder. This is also true of stealing. Yet they don't seem to have a problem with any of these. Each of these laws illustrate how complicated the law can be as it responds to the uniqueness of various criminal acts. Hate crimes is merely another category that offers a more muscular prosecutorial punch. If someone breaks into an NAACP chapter, for example, and writes "Niggers, we will kill you" all over the walls, without hate crime laws, they would be charged with a couple of petty crimes and maybe terroristic threats. With them in place, the punishment is far worse and it should be because we have zero tolerance for this sort of behavior in our culture today.
So, as we learn more of the Charleston shooting and hear more about hate crimes, we are likely to hear adolescent assholes foam at the mouth about hate crimes and how they are all gay and shit. Ask them if they have the same feelings about the hundreds of laws regarding theft:)
Fox News Claims to Be the Victim in Charleston
For years Fox News has taken up the mantle of defending Christianity from the devils on the doorstep. They invented the pretend war on Christmas. They portray the requirement that for-profit corporations pay for birth control is a terrible burden and the most extreme violation of religious freedom. Fox New contributor Mike Huckabee claims gay marriage will lead to the criminalization of Christianity. And on and on.
Two days ago a white supremacist assassinated a black state senator in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest black churches in the country. That day, June 17th, was the 193rd anniversary of a slave revolt planned by the church's founder, Denmark Vesey. Vesey and five slaves were hanged after a secret trial, and 30 other slaves were tried and executed in short order, all in secret.
When Dylann Roof killed those nine African Americans he said, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” He said this as he was shooting six black women, one of whom was 87 years old!
Before the shooting he talked to an acquaintance:
Roof was a fan of racist symbols, from the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa to the Confederate flag he proudly displayed on his car.
Now Fox News is selling the lie that Roof's racism-fueled terrorist attack was an attack on Christianity, and an another excuse to call for more guns. Christianity -- and by proxy Fox News -- was under attack in Charleston! Christians are the victims! Woe is us! We're the victim! More guns!
It's not a fluke that this happened in South Carolina, the birthplace of the Civil War. A state that still flies the Confederate flag, the symbol of slave holders. Streets in Charleston are named after Confederate generals, traitors to the United States of America. They still celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, which is held on the birthday of Jefferson Davis in some states.
They say they're just celebrating their heritage. What is that heritage? Enslaving human beings and then executing men like Denmark Vesey for trying to achieve the same freedoms that the American Revolution was fought for.
The Confederate flag stands for slavery and white supremacy. And as long as South Carolina flies that flag, and puts it on its license plates, South Carolina will endorse and promote the same racist hatred that Dylann Roof expressed when he assassinated nine African Americans to inflame the nation with his terroristic goal of inciting a race war.
Two days ago a white supremacist assassinated a black state senator in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest black churches in the country. That day, June 17th, was the 193rd anniversary of a slave revolt planned by the church's founder, Denmark Vesey. Vesey and five slaves were hanged after a secret trial, and 30 other slaves were tried and executed in short order, all in secret.
When Dylann Roof killed those nine African Americans he said, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” He said this as he was shooting six black women, one of whom was 87 years old!
Before the shooting he talked to an acquaintance:
Joey Meek reconnected with Roof a few weeks ago and said that while they got drunk together on vodka, Roof began complaining that "blacks were taking over the world" and that "someone needed to do something about it for the white race."This echoes the standard refrain of the Tea Party -- the creation of Fox News -- "taking America back."
Roof was a fan of racist symbols, from the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa to the Confederate flag he proudly displayed on his car.
Now Fox News is selling the lie that Roof's racism-fueled terrorist attack was an attack on Christianity, and an another excuse to call for more guns. Christianity -- and by proxy Fox News -- was under attack in Charleston! Christians are the victims! Woe is us! We're the victim! More guns!
It's not a fluke that this happened in South Carolina, the birthplace of the Civil War. A state that still flies the Confederate flag, the symbol of slave holders. Streets in Charleston are named after Confederate generals, traitors to the United States of America. They still celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, which is held on the birthday of Jefferson Davis in some states.
They say they're just celebrating their heritage. What is that heritage? Enslaving human beings and then executing men like Denmark Vesey for trying to achieve the same freedoms that the American Revolution was fought for.
The Confederate flag stands for slavery and white supremacy. And as long as South Carolina flies that flag, and puts it on its license plates, South Carolina will endorse and promote the same racist hatred that Dylann Roof expressed when he assassinated nine African Americans to inflame the nation with his terroristic goal of inciting a race war.
Thoughts On Charleston
I have several thoughts going through my head right now regarding the shooting in Charleston but the one that sticks out predominantly is that we have, yet again, lost another young man to violent psychosis. Why? How did this keeping happening in our culture?
It's the magic cocktail all over again...male, young, white, mental illness, takes SSRIs, parents divorced, parents nutso, plays violent video games, and easy access to guns. Boom!...literally. Now, we haven't discovered yet whether or not he takes SSRIs but look for that bit of information to come out in about two weeks. That's the way it always works. Here is a piece that details Dylan Roof's background.
Much is being made of the racial angle with conservatives falling all over themselves in a most amusing attempt to redirect the attention away from the fact that this occurred in the South...in a deep red state...the same state where the Civil War began...where a lot of Republicans voters reside. I'm curious to know where Roof's parents are in all of this. He had to learn his white supremacy stuff somewhere, right? I'm betting it was from his dad who gave him a gun less than two months ago.
At this point, the racial thing is secondary to me. We have to figure out why our culture produces people like this. Is it the Columbine Effect? More importantly, how can we engage young men at an earlier age so they don't end up becoming spree shooters? In many ways, this is the same issue that communities with gangs have when they are trying to stop young men from turning to violence. It's also the same issue the world has in preventing young people from joining ISIL.
I'm convinced that had a few key people engaged Dylan Rood earlier in his life and steered him on a more positive path, this shooting never would have happened. This was a failure of mentorship in his life that should serve as a lesson for other mentors out there who might have someone they know like Dylan.
Do something now. Enlist the help of others in your community. Help these young men out!
It's the magic cocktail all over again...male, young, white, mental illness, takes SSRIs, parents divorced, parents nutso, plays violent video games, and easy access to guns. Boom!...literally. Now, we haven't discovered yet whether or not he takes SSRIs but look for that bit of information to come out in about two weeks. That's the way it always works. Here is a piece that details Dylan Roof's background.
Much is being made of the racial angle with conservatives falling all over themselves in a most amusing attempt to redirect the attention away from the fact that this occurred in the South...in a deep red state...the same state where the Civil War began...where a lot of Republicans voters reside. I'm curious to know where Roof's parents are in all of this. He had to learn his white supremacy stuff somewhere, right? I'm betting it was from his dad who gave him a gun less than two months ago.
At this point, the racial thing is secondary to me. We have to figure out why our culture produces people like this. Is it the Columbine Effect? More importantly, how can we engage young men at an earlier age so they don't end up becoming spree shooters? In many ways, this is the same issue that communities with gangs have when they are trying to stop young men from turning to violence. It's also the same issue the world has in preventing young people from joining ISIL.
I'm convinced that had a few key people engaged Dylan Rood earlier in his life and steered him on a more positive path, this shooting never would have happened. This was a failure of mentorship in his life that should serve as a lesson for other mentors out there who might have someone they know like Dylan.
Do something now. Enlist the help of others in your community. Help these young men out!
Well, That Didn't Take Long
As I predicted...
NRA board member blames pastor for Charleston deaths
What an ugly bunch of fuckers...but, hey, that's that Gun Cult for you!
NRA board member blames pastor for Charleston deaths
What an ugly bunch of fuckers...but, hey, that's that Gun Cult for you!
Thursday, June 18, 2015
It's Not a Hate Crime: It's Terrorism
There's a serious double standard. When Sunni and Shia Muslims kill people in mosques in Iraq we call it terrorism, but when white guys in America shoot a bunch of people in houses of worship we call it a "hate crime."
To wit: last night 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof shot and killed nine African Americans at a church in Charleston, SC. Roof has now reportedly been captured in North Carolina.
It's just another such incident in a long list of right-wing terrorist attacks:
In 2012, a white supremacist shot and killed six worshipers and wounded four others at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. A shooting rampage by a right-wing gunman in 2008 killed two people and wounded seven at a Unitarian Universalist church in Tennessee.The granddaddy of these terrorist attacks was the Ku Klux Klan bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, when four black girls were killed. For good measure, let's not forget forget the right-wing terrorist bombings of the 1996 Olympics, abortion clinics and gay clubs, or the right-wing terrorist shootings of abortion providers, shall we?
Roof sat with the victims during prayer before opening fire. He said, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” Then he shot six women and three men, one of them a state senator. The shooter reportedly left one woman alive so that she could bear witness to the crime. Roof's Facebook page shows him wearing a jacket emblazoned with apartheid-era South African and Rhodesian flags.
It is clear that Roof committed these murders as a political statement in order to intimidate the African American community in the United States.
Now, there's a difference between a hate crime and terrorism. A hate crime is when a white guy beats up a black guy for dating a white woman, or a homophobe kills a gay man for hitting on him at a bar. The shooting in Charleston was a premeditated terrorist attack, calibrated to incite fear in all African Americans.
Attacks on churches aren't the only double standard on American right-wing terrorists. Police stations are frequently targets of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Less than a week ago an American gunman attacked Dallas police headquarters in an armored van. James Boulware planted a bunch of pipe bombs around the building. And the cops knew about this guy:
In 2013, Boulware was arrested after attacking a relative at their home and leaving the scene with "several firearms, ammo and body armor." Boulware then allegedly made phone calls in which he threatened to kill family members and attack churches or schools, which prompted the local school district to go into lockdown mode. He was arrested without incident and assault charges against him were eventually dropped.Yes, the authorities just let him go, and let him buy more guns, an armored van, body armor, materiel for bombs and lots and lots of ammo.
But everyone's already forgotten about this guy, partly because he didn't kill anyone, but mostly because he was a white guy. And every time a white guy goes on a shooting spree everyone just says, "He was obviously unbalanced, maybe schizophrenic, just a deranged wacko with a fetish for guns and bombs."
They make excuses, such as, "Well, he wasn't connected to an organized terrorist group. He was just a lone-wolf nut job who hated the government." Which is usually followed by the sentiment, "They drove him to it!"
And this is the difference: whites are held individually responsible for their crimes (usually with a large dollop of blame attached to society for making them do it), but the entire African-American and Muslim communities are held collectively responsible for any crime committed by one of their own.
Boulware's attack was clearly terrorism, a political statement intended to intimidate the police and retaliate against the justice system which he blamed for his miserable life.
Was Boulware schizophrenic and crazy? Quite possibly. Almost by definition suicide bombers are mentally ill. It doesn't matter. That's why the word "terrorist" is so frequently preceded by "crazed." If they commit terrorist acts, they're terrorists, regardless of their mental health.
Boulware and Roof aren't alone. There are lots of people just as crazy as they are. The Department of Homeland Security reports that right-wing terrorism is a greater threat than Muslim extremism. These guys aren't just lone wolves: they roam this country in packs:
Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that by some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 people involved in some way with sovereign citizen extremism. Perhaps 100,000 people form a core of the movement, he said.The right-wing sovereign citizen groups claim the police have no authority over them, and have killed lots of cops to make the point.
These guys have been skulking in the background for decades, spinning conspiracy theories, setting up their militias, killing cops over pizza, evading grazing fees in Nevada, and occasionally blowing up federal buildings in Oklahoma City.
Are they crazy? Sure. Why not. It doesn't matter. Their victims are just as dead.
Fox News and conservative politicians encourage these kooks and feed their paranoia with their crypto-racist, anti-government, hate-filled rhetoric. And then Republicans bow down to the NRA to enable them to buy guns, ammo, body armor and armored vehicles on demand.
These right-wing terrorists will keep on shooting cops and innocent church-going Christian African Americans as long as the right gives them the license to kill.
Charleston Shooting
Another young white man has gone on a shooting spree. This time it was in a black church in the South. Police are investigating it as a hate crime so it seems that this was racially motivated.
Most interestingly (and really not surprising), all the major news networks except Fox are covering this story as a big story. Last night, Fox had a story about Donald Trump. Today they are talking about the trade deal.
Wow.
I suppose the next word out of unicorn fart land will be about how those folks in the church should have armed themselves and this would not have happened.
Most interestingly (and really not surprising), all the major news networks except Fox are covering this story as a big story. Last night, Fox had a story about Donald Trump. Today they are talking about the trade deal.
Wow.
I suppose the next word out of unicorn fart land will be about how those folks in the church should have armed themselves and this would not have happened.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
The Clown Car Gets Colorized
Now that the GOP clown car includes Donald Trump, the 2016 presidential campaign has gotten a whole lot more interesting. By "interesting," I mean big fucking trouble for the GOP. Take a look at Trump's campaign announcement.
Based on what he says here, I have to wonder if he is a secret Democratic plant that's going to beat the crap out of GOP candidates.
In so many ways, he is the epitome of conservatives today...arrogant and full of hubris, shameless money worshiper, deep belief in an aristocratic class, angry and hateful. What a great way to illustrate what the GOP stands for to independent voters!
Based on what he says here, I have to wonder if he is a secret Democratic plant that's going to beat the crap out of GOP candidates.
In so many ways, he is the epitome of conservatives today...arrogant and full of hubris, shameless money worshiper, deep belief in an aristocratic class, angry and hateful. What a great way to illustrate what the GOP stands for to independent voters!
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
It's The Librals' Fault!!
Remember that Dallas police station shoot up?
Dallas police shooter’s father says ‘liberal people’ drove son to ‘breaking point’
Wow...talk about playing the victim...:)
Dallas police shooter’s father says ‘liberal people’ drove son to ‘breaking point’
Wow...talk about playing the victim...:)
HIllary Not Talking To The Press?
So, the word in unicorn fart land is that Hillary isn't talking to the press and refuses to answer tough questions...
Really? This was yesterday.
So much for objective reality...
Really? This was yesterday.
So much for objective reality...
Good Words
I am going to do all I can to pierce the collective amnesia that the Republicans are trying to impose on people. We're not supposed to remember that the 12 years preceding Bill Clinton quadrupled the debt of our country? We're not supposed to remember that when he left office we had a balanced budget with a surplus? And if it had been continued would've paid off the national debt? We're not supposed to remember that Barack Obama inherited the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and had to pull us out of the ditch? And did a better job than he gets credit for?
---Hillary Clinton.
This is the objective reality that the GOP fears heading into the election. Keep reminding the voters about it.
---Hillary Clinton.
This is the objective reality that the GOP fears heading into the election. Keep reminding the voters about it.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Moses A Founding Father?
Apparently so...
Texas approves textbooks with Moses as Founding Father
It's always something with that wacky board of education in Texas. Of course, the histrionics about this is kinda funny to all the teachers out there. Most end up doing their own thing anyway. Add in the fact that a significant number of students never read their textbook assignments and the mouth foaming is unjustified.
Texas approves textbooks with Moses as Founding Father
It's always something with that wacky board of education in Texas. Of course, the histrionics about this is kinda funny to all the teachers out there. Most end up doing their own thing anyway. Add in the fact that a significant number of students never read their textbook assignments and the mouth foaming is unjustified.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
So, I posted this question on Quora...
...and the best answer I have ever seen was posted. In addition to this being the best answer I have ever seen, it's also one of the finest examples of satire I have ever seen. Here it is in its entirety...
The questions was how exactly are Christians under attack in the United States?
I'll tell you how:
1. Churches in the USA are regularly burned down by atheists, Muslims, and other anti-Christians, and the secular law enforcement agencies here won't even investigate. That's why you rarely see a church that can be identified as a church in the US. Mostly, Christians meet in hidden locations to avoid detection.
2. It's almost impossible for Christians to get elected to public office. As soon as word gets out that a candidate is Christian, s/he can kiss that election good-bye.
3. The Bible has been banned in the United States. You can't get it here legally, and if you're caught with one you'll go to prison.
4. Christian kids live in fear of their schoolmates discovering they're Christian, because it's bound to lead to teasing, bullying, even getting beaten up.
5. All broadcasting of Christian views has been censored. Try as you might, you will not find a Christian radio or TV station in the US. They do not exist.
6. Christian holidays are forbidden. You'll never hear a peep about Christmas or Easter in the US -- people are simply too afraid to openly celebrate these holidays. Which is a shame for people like me because there would be oodles of marketing opportunities around those events, but alas, no.
7. All Christian symbols are banned. You cannot find Christian jewelry, bumper stickers, t-shirts, or anything like that in the US.
8. Christians who dare reveal their identity, or who are even suspected of being Christian, are regularly beaten in the streets by angry mobs. And again, the secular law enforcement here does nothing to stop it.
9. Christians in America are forced to publicly deny their faith, and to perform public actions to prove they are not Christian, such as being forced into a gay marriage. The alternative is life in prison, or execution.
10. People who are openly Christian here cannot own a business, are harassed at the voting booth so that many do not even attempt to vote, are subjected to special taxes no one else has to pay, and must have a cross stamped on their driver licenses, Social Security cards, and passports.
In short, America is a brutal and frightening place if you're a Christian. I wouldn't go there if I were you.
The answer has gotten over 3,000 views already with my question over 8,000 views. No wonder...it's completely brilliant and makes conservative Christians look fucking ridiculous.
The only thing that is under attack is the ability of a conservative Christian (see also, fucking hypocrites) to force their opinion on the rest of Christianity. That's what they are really pissed off about.
We are calling them on their bullshit.
The questions was how exactly are Christians under attack in the United States?
I'll tell you how:
1. Churches in the USA are regularly burned down by atheists, Muslims, and other anti-Christians, and the secular law enforcement agencies here won't even investigate. That's why you rarely see a church that can be identified as a church in the US. Mostly, Christians meet in hidden locations to avoid detection.
2. It's almost impossible for Christians to get elected to public office. As soon as word gets out that a candidate is Christian, s/he can kiss that election good-bye.
3. The Bible has been banned in the United States. You can't get it here legally, and if you're caught with one you'll go to prison.
4. Christian kids live in fear of their schoolmates discovering they're Christian, because it's bound to lead to teasing, bullying, even getting beaten up.
5. All broadcasting of Christian views has been censored. Try as you might, you will not find a Christian radio or TV station in the US. They do not exist.
6. Christian holidays are forbidden. You'll never hear a peep about Christmas or Easter in the US -- people are simply too afraid to openly celebrate these holidays. Which is a shame for people like me because there would be oodles of marketing opportunities around those events, but alas, no.
7. All Christian symbols are banned. You cannot find Christian jewelry, bumper stickers, t-shirts, or anything like that in the US.
8. Christians who dare reveal their identity, or who are even suspected of being Christian, are regularly beaten in the streets by angry mobs. And again, the secular law enforcement here does nothing to stop it.
9. Christians in America are forced to publicly deny their faith, and to perform public actions to prove they are not Christian, such as being forced into a gay marriage. The alternative is life in prison, or execution.
10. People who are openly Christian here cannot own a business, are harassed at the voting booth so that many do not even attempt to vote, are subjected to special taxes no one else has to pay, and must have a cross stamped on their driver licenses, Social Security cards, and passports.
In short, America is a brutal and frightening place if you're a Christian. I wouldn't go there if I were you.
The answer has gotten over 3,000 views already with my question over 8,000 views. No wonder...it's completely brilliant and makes conservative Christians look fucking ridiculous.
The only thing that is under attack is the ability of a conservative Christian (see also, fucking hypocrites) to force their opinion on the rest of Christianity. That's what they are really pissed off about.
We are calling them on their bullshit.
Cast The First Stone!
Hey kids, check this out!
It's a Jesus slingshot that's perfect for your evangelical buddy. Help him or her to cast the first stone with this supercool slingshot!
It's a Jesus slingshot that's perfect for your evangelical buddy. Help him or her to cast the first stone with this supercool slingshot!
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Can The Republicans Win In Any Way With King v Burwell?
Chris Trejbal over at Americablog doesn't seem to think so and I agree. If SCOTUS does not uphold the subsidies, they have two choices. If they go the nuclear option, they instantly piss off seven million voters. If they go with the band aid, quick fix option, then the adolescents in their base get pissed off. If SCOTUS upholds again, it would be incredibly demoralizing.
The one thing about his piece that really stood out for me was this quote from the Daily Caller's Neil Siefring.
Republicans shouldn’t disrupt Obamacare’s collapse if the Supreme Court decides the subsidies are unworkable. The blame for this lies squarely with our scholar-leader President Obama and the Democrats. Republicans should not rescue them from their mistakes. Republicans have pointed out for years that Obamacare is unworkable. If the Supreme Court helps prove them correct, Republican leadership in the House should take advantage of the decision to pivot health care back to the states as rapidly as possible and get the federal government out of the health care business at which it has failed so badly. Republicans in the House and Senate should resist the temptation to provide mouth-to-mouth to the bureaucracy the left has constructed. They have done so too often in the past.
Scholar-leader? Prove them correct? Why doesn't Mr. Siefring, like every other conservative out there, admit that he can't fucking stand it when people are smarter and more accomplished than he is? This is a very core problem with conservatives today. They suffer from terrible, terrible adolescent envy.
Fix this problem and most others go away.
The one thing about his piece that really stood out for me was this quote from the Daily Caller's Neil Siefring.
Republicans shouldn’t disrupt Obamacare’s collapse if the Supreme Court decides the subsidies are unworkable. The blame for this lies squarely with our scholar-leader President Obama and the Democrats. Republicans should not rescue them from their mistakes. Republicans have pointed out for years that Obamacare is unworkable. If the Supreme Court helps prove them correct, Republican leadership in the House should take advantage of the decision to pivot health care back to the states as rapidly as possible and get the federal government out of the health care business at which it has failed so badly. Republicans in the House and Senate should resist the temptation to provide mouth-to-mouth to the bureaucracy the left has constructed. They have done so too often in the past.
Scholar-leader? Prove them correct? Why doesn't Mr. Siefring, like every other conservative out there, admit that he can't fucking stand it when people are smarter and more accomplished than he is? This is a very core problem with conservatives today. They suffer from terrible, terrible adolescent envy.
Fix this problem and most others go away.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Saving Lives
One of the main reasons why I support the president is that he has literally saved lives since he has taken office. The passage of the Affordable Care Act has led to more people having insurance and getting medical care that didn't have it before.
Ergo, lives saved. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
Pretty spectacular!
Ergo, lives saved. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
Pretty spectacular!
Thursday, June 11, 2015
The Trouble with Girls
There's been a lot of talk about women in science and technology in recent months. Google's Eric Schmidt stuck his foot in it last March. Apple's Tim Cook wants more gender equality, but his company is still 70% male.
But what has attracted the most attention were comments by Tim Hunt, a 72-year-old biochemist and Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, who made advances in cell division:
He meant the comments as a joke, but continued to defend the sentiment behind them:
Second, I really don't know where the bit about crying comes from. I worked for 25 years in software engineering, and always had women coworkers and/or bosses. My wife worked in electrical engineering for just as long, and had many female coworkers and employees. Neither of us ever saw women crying at work because they were criticized.
I wonder: in Hunt's storied career, did his criticism of a male colleague ever elicit angry shouts, obscenity-laced streams of invective or even fisticuffs? That's a typical male response to criticism. I have seen numerous violent emotional outbursts from men over the years (especially from managers). I cannot believe that Hunt was never involved in his own share of such altercations.
Isn't an obscene rant just as unprofessional and unscientific as a crying jag?
As a man of a certain age, Hunt would perceive a swearing-filled shouting match as a proper way for scientists to settle their differences. He knows how to win such an argument: just shout back, only louder.
What Hunt is really complaining about is that he can't win an argument by shouting louder when the object of his derision starts crying. Crying disarms him and exposes him for the bully he is.
Now, assuming that Hunt really means what he says, all this loving and crying is his fault. He says that 1) he falls in love, 2) she falls in love, 3) he makes her cry.
Since Hunt is a Nobel Prize winner, I'm going to venture a guess that he ran his lab. That would mean he was the boss. I would also guess the man is rather arrogant, brilliant, self-absorbed and full of himself (he did win the Nobel Prize, so he does have reason). There's an inherent imbalance of power when a renowned boss romances an employee. Because of the potential for abuse, most workplaces strongly discourage such relationships and some even ban them.
Why? The best way to undermine any person's confidence and credibility is to make it appear they obtained their position through sexual favors. By instigating such a relationship with an employee, Hunt is torpedoing that person's career in the most callous way possible.
When Hunt criticizes a lover, the subtext is, "You are stupid. You have this job just because we had sex. My criticism means I don't love you anymore. You're going to lose absolutely everything: my respect, our love and your job. And stop crying, damn it!"
Hunt is little different from the imams and the ayatollahs who want to cloister women in their houses and hide them under chadors. Like them, Hunt blames women for his inability to work without being distracted by their gender. Hunt is the problem, not the women.
Instead of banning women from the labs, brilliant men who can't keep it in their pants should be kept out of management positions. They should work in solitary, monk-like contemplation where they won't be distracted by their inability to concentrate on the science at hand and constantly "falling in love." Which is just the euphemism men like Hunt use for "getting laid."
The real trouble with girls? Men are dicks. In both senses of the word.
But what has attracted the most attention were comments by Tim Hunt, a 72-year-old biochemist and Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, who made advances in cell division:
“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls,” Mr. Hunt said Monday at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea. “Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”The reactions to his comments have been swift and harsh. Hunt has resigned as honorary professor at University College London.
He meant the comments as a joke, but continued to defend the sentiment behind them:
“I did mean the part about having trouble with girls,” he said. “I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me, and it’s very disruptive to the science because it’s terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.”
And he elaborated on his comments that women are prone to cry when criticized.
“It’s terribly important that you can criticize people’s ideas without criticizing them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth,” he said. “Science is about nothing but getting at the truth, and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.”First off, Hunt has blinders on. There is and always has been same-sex romance. Scientists can be gay like everyone else: segregating men and women won't end romantic entanglements in the lab.
Second, I really don't know where the bit about crying comes from. I worked for 25 years in software engineering, and always had women coworkers and/or bosses. My wife worked in electrical engineering for just as long, and had many female coworkers and employees. Neither of us ever saw women crying at work because they were criticized.
I wonder: in Hunt's storied career, did his criticism of a male colleague ever elicit angry shouts, obscenity-laced streams of invective or even fisticuffs? That's a typical male response to criticism. I have seen numerous violent emotional outbursts from men over the years (especially from managers). I cannot believe that Hunt was never involved in his own share of such altercations.
Isn't an obscene rant just as unprofessional and unscientific as a crying jag?
As a man of a certain age, Hunt would perceive a swearing-filled shouting match as a proper way for scientists to settle their differences. He knows how to win such an argument: just shout back, only louder.
What Hunt is really complaining about is that he can't win an argument by shouting louder when the object of his derision starts crying. Crying disarms him and exposes him for the bully he is.
Now, assuming that Hunt really means what he says, all this loving and crying is his fault. He says that 1) he falls in love, 2) she falls in love, 3) he makes her cry.
Since Hunt is a Nobel Prize winner, I'm going to venture a guess that he ran his lab. That would mean he was the boss. I would also guess the man is rather arrogant, brilliant, self-absorbed and full of himself (he did win the Nobel Prize, so he does have reason). There's an inherent imbalance of power when a renowned boss romances an employee. Because of the potential for abuse, most workplaces strongly discourage such relationships and some even ban them.
Why? The best way to undermine any person's confidence and credibility is to make it appear they obtained their position through sexual favors. By instigating such a relationship with an employee, Hunt is torpedoing that person's career in the most callous way possible.
When Hunt criticizes a lover, the subtext is, "You are stupid. You have this job just because we had sex. My criticism means I don't love you anymore. You're going to lose absolutely everything: my respect, our love and your job. And stop crying, damn it!"
Hunt is little different from the imams and the ayatollahs who want to cloister women in their houses and hide them under chadors. Like them, Hunt blames women for his inability to work without being distracted by their gender. Hunt is the problem, not the women.
Instead of banning women from the labs, brilliant men who can't keep it in their pants should be kept out of management positions. They should work in solitary, monk-like contemplation where they won't be distracted by their inability to concentrate on the science at hand and constantly "falling in love." Which is just the euphemism men like Hunt use for "getting laid."
The real trouble with girls? Men are dicks. In both senses of the word.
Cool Guy With Gun At Airport
Check out Jim Cooley.
He's really cooley, I guess, because he likes to carry his AR-15 at the airport. And then he likes to complain about being harassed by the police. Gosh, I can't imagine why...
Perhaps he and victim George Zimmerman should start a club!
He's really cooley, I guess, because he likes to carry his AR-15 at the airport. And then he likes to complain about being harassed by the police. Gosh, I can't imagine why...
Perhaps he and victim George Zimmerman should start a club!
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Climate Change Won't Make Plants Grow Faster
One of the tenets of climate change deniers is that as the world warms -- when they admit that it is warming -- plants will grow more quickly. It turns out, not surprisingly, that's a lie:
The interesting thing is that the study was instigated by climate deniers:
“There is more to climate change than just temperature,” says Camilo Mora, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Hawaii in Mānoa, who led the work. Drought and limited sunlight will undermine any gain from a warmer atmosphere. By 2100, Mora says, “there could be an 11 percent reduction in the plant growing season worldwide.”Specifically:
One primary reason is that heating the Arctic will not bring pineapples to Alaska. There is insufficient sunlight year-round at high latitudes to support lush vegetation. In addition, the tropics will lose up to 200 “suitable growing days” a year—days when temperature, soil moisture and sunlight favor growth rather than retard it—because of excessive heat and drought. Overall, “the decreasing number of suitable growing days in the tropics will offset optimistic projections at mid- and high-latitudes,” the study concludes.And the idea that increased carbon dioxide levels will make plants grow faster because it's "plant food?" Not true.
Greater levels of CO2 made no difference one way or the other. At higher temperatures plants open their pores, called stomata, to capture the elevated CO2, which boosts photosynthesis, greening the leaves. But plants also tend to close their stomata in warmer temperatures to prevent water loss. Mora says that on balance the two effects cancel out.Plants don't like extreme heat, and just like people, they die when they get too hot. There's a reason that the hottest places in the world -- deserts -- have so few plants.
The interesting thing is that the study was instigated by climate deniers:
Mora did not expect this result when he began the study, inspired by notes he swapped with a climate denier. In 2013 Mora published a high-profile study in Nature showing that climate change would harm plants and animals in the tropics sooner than it would hurt them in the Arctic. He says he received numerous e-mails and phone calls attacking the results. “In one such phone call I decided to talk to the person,” he explains. “The guy, one of the so-called climate deniers, claimed that climate change would actually be good for the planet.” The argument is known as the greening effect—that warmer temperatures and higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere would increase plant growth. Mora found several serious papers reaching that conclusion.
But Mora, who grew up in Colombia and saw plants struggle under high heat and low rainfall, had a hunch that there was more to the story. He and his graduate students calculated the number of days, from now through 2100, when plants would have favorable temperature, moisture and light to grow. They found that at high latitudes plants in the future could not “profit” from warmth because sunlight is limited much of the year. In the tropics temperatures got too hot for numerous plants and drought rose, adding stress to already overtaxed ecosystems. Broadleaf forests there would take the biggest hit, losing as much as three months of suitable growing days annually.Nonetheless, Mora sees an upside to climate deniers:
Mora sees two big lessons from the new analysis. One, “that nothing good can come from messing with the Earth’s climate.” And two, “that engaging climate deniers could be good for scientific productivity.”If climate deniers were all just harmless cranks making scientists cross their t's and dot their i's, that would be one thing. But when they're employees and shills for oil and coal companies that spend billions of dollars suppressing and distorting the truth, dictating government policy and sucking up hundreds of billions of our tax dollars through direct and indirect subsidies, it's a whole other can of worms.
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Monday, June 08, 2015
Young American Taliban
Check out this photo:
It's from a collection of photos that were found in Nancy Lanza's home after the policed searched during the Sandy Hook investigation. It is not known whether this is Adam or not. Either way, I find this to be profoundly disturbing. What kind of seriously fucked up mentality brings you to a place like this?
Oh, right....the same as this one...
So, how much longer are we going to put up with this ideology?
It's from a collection of photos that were found in Nancy Lanza's home after the policed searched during the Sandy Hook investigation. It is not known whether this is Adam or not. Either way, I find this to be profoundly disturbing. What kind of seriously fucked up mentality brings you to a place like this?
Oh, right....the same as this one...
So, how much longer are we going to put up with this ideology?
Sunday, June 07, 2015
Fantastic Words!
From a recent question on Quora...
I've long suspected that a lot of modern christianity is the result of people who want to be admired and respected like Jesus, but in their hearts they know that they have no intention of living up to Jesus' examples of humility, compassion, sacrifice and tolerance -
So, the only way they can be "like Jesus" is by pretending, at each and every opportunity, that they're being tortured and vilified for their wonderfulness, by jealous moral inferiors. This is why they react with the righteous anger and the teeth gnashing and the wailing and the hysterics whenever they don't get their way - Every time somebody tells them "No, you can't do that", what they pretend to hear is "I HATE YOU AND I WILL CRUSH YOU AND ALL YOUR KIND INTO NOTHING !"
Maybe it's best explained with this wonderfully accurate phrase that I once heard used by an arrogant prick, in a story by Mr. Howard Chaykin: "You can't talk to me that way ! Don't you know who I think I am ?!"
That last line from Mr. Chaykin pretty much sums up every conversation I've ever had with a conservative in general, let alone Christian!
I've long suspected that a lot of modern christianity is the result of people who want to be admired and respected like Jesus, but in their hearts they know that they have no intention of living up to Jesus' examples of humility, compassion, sacrifice and tolerance -
So, the only way they can be "like Jesus" is by pretending, at each and every opportunity, that they're being tortured and vilified for their wonderfulness, by jealous moral inferiors. This is why they react with the righteous anger and the teeth gnashing and the wailing and the hysterics whenever they don't get their way - Every time somebody tells them "No, you can't do that", what they pretend to hear is "I HATE YOU AND I WILL CRUSH YOU AND ALL YOUR KIND INTO NOTHING !"
Maybe it's best explained with this wonderfully accurate phrase that I once heard used by an arrogant prick, in a story by Mr. Howard Chaykin: "You can't talk to me that way ! Don't you know who I think I am ?!"
That last line from Mr. Chaykin pretty much sums up every conversation I've ever had with a conservative in general, let alone Christian!
Christians Under Attack?
I think there are several reasons why conservatives like to play the victim as detailed here by Bill Maher. The main one is they generate support by fomenting anger, hate and fear. What better way to do it then the garbage Bill points out?
'Tis a bizarre world in which they live. I'm very, very glad I don't go through life constantly feeling persecuted and under attack. Oh well...at least they have guns to fight off the imaginary monsters:)
Saturday, June 06, 2015
The 411 On The Clinton Foundation
The attacks and childish taunting against the Clinton Foundation have gotten pretty silly of late. The right wing bubble has been spinning some pretty ridiculous yarns (see: lies) about the organization so I think it's way past time we examine the objective reality. A good starting point is the foundation's site itself. Follow any of the links above the top banner and you can see all the work that they do in the world. It's pretty impressive and helpful to a lot of people...which is exactly why conservatives hate it as much as they do. As one begins to dig deeper into the foundation, several things become apparently quickly-all of which torpedo the myths about the organization we have heard so much about from the right wing bubble.
First, this isn't a personal, family organization. It is a large not-for-profit philanthropic entity that solicits contributions, establishes and runs programs and serves as a vast convening vehicle to mobilize other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government and private corporate assets to efficiently solve heretofore unsolvable, major world problems.
Second, Bill and Hillary Clinton, along with many other people, work for the foundation. It's not their personal organization. It's a communal one...something conservatives always have had trouble understanding:) They earn zero income and receive no benefits from the foundation. In fact, they donate much of their own personal money to the foundation along with many Democrats and Republicans as well as putting in many hours to ensure that objectives in helping people are met.
Third, contrary to the lies being told about the Clinton Foundation's lack of transparency, the organization is very open about the source of its contributions. Even though they are not required by law, the still post the contributors to the foundation. This is a great illustration as to exactly what happens when you are more forthcoming with information. They basically make shit up. No wonder she doesn't want to release her private emails.
Fourth, 88% of the monies collected by the Clinton Foundation are spent on programs and direct activities that benefit people in need in this country and around the world. Between the Foundation and its subsidiary organization, the Clinton Global Initiative, more than 400 million people in 180 countries have benefitted from its activities since its inception in 2002 - again: that's 400 million people! It has been committed to meeting a number of major world challenges and has active programs addressing climate change, economic development in some of the world's poorest nations, health, including the deliver of HIV/Aids medications at low cost to victims in the world's impoverished countries, general health and wellness and improving opportunities for women and girls. The Foundation has had a major impact on improving the Haitian economy both before and after its terrible earthquake.
This runs contrary to the mostly false statement that the Clinton Foundation spends very little on actual charity. The foundation is not set up like a regular charity that farms out its aid to other workers. They hire workers in house and pay them a salary. That's why their administrative costs are so high. As is most typical of right wing blog commenters, the wordsmithing and monkey word games are hauled out in the hopes of a "gotcha."
I'm wondering if this is going to backfire at some point, though. The continued attacks on Hillary Clinton will inevitably increase the image of her as a victim.
First, this isn't a personal, family organization. It is a large not-for-profit philanthropic entity that solicits contributions, establishes and runs programs and serves as a vast convening vehicle to mobilize other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government and private corporate assets to efficiently solve heretofore unsolvable, major world problems.
Second, Bill and Hillary Clinton, along with many other people, work for the foundation. It's not their personal organization. It's a communal one...something conservatives always have had trouble understanding:) They earn zero income and receive no benefits from the foundation. In fact, they donate much of their own personal money to the foundation along with many Democrats and Republicans as well as putting in many hours to ensure that objectives in helping people are met.
Third, contrary to the lies being told about the Clinton Foundation's lack of transparency, the organization is very open about the source of its contributions. Even though they are not required by law, the still post the contributors to the foundation. This is a great illustration as to exactly what happens when you are more forthcoming with information. They basically make shit up. No wonder she doesn't want to release her private emails.
Fourth, 88% of the monies collected by the Clinton Foundation are spent on programs and direct activities that benefit people in need in this country and around the world. Between the Foundation and its subsidiary organization, the Clinton Global Initiative, more than 400 million people in 180 countries have benefitted from its activities since its inception in 2002 - again: that's 400 million people! It has been committed to meeting a number of major world challenges and has active programs addressing climate change, economic development in some of the world's poorest nations, health, including the deliver of HIV/Aids medications at low cost to victims in the world's impoverished countries, general health and wellness and improving opportunities for women and girls. The Foundation has had a major impact on improving the Haitian economy both before and after its terrible earthquake.
This runs contrary to the mostly false statement that the Clinton Foundation spends very little on actual charity. The foundation is not set up like a regular charity that farms out its aid to other workers. They hire workers in house and pay them a salary. That's why their administrative costs are so high. As is most typical of right wing blog commenters, the wordsmithing and monkey word games are hauled out in the hopes of a "gotcha."
I'm wondering if this is going to backfire at some point, though. The continued attacks on Hillary Clinton will inevitably increase the image of her as a victim.
Friday, June 05, 2015
Walker Raising Taxes?
Scott Walker recently announced a $500 million dollar stadium deal for the Milwaukee Bucks, half of which will be funded by taxpayers. Somewhat perplexing, no? After all, isn't this the same Scott Walker who is "battle tested" and fighting for lower taxes? I guess $250 million dollars of corporate hand outs are OK:)
I guess funding basketball is OK but not education.
I guess funding basketball is OK but not education.
No Hiatus
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a report saying that has been no hiatus in global warming after all. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration readjusted thousands of weather data points to account for different measuring techniques through the decades. Their calculations show that since 1998, the rate of warming is about the same as it has been since 1950: about two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit a decade.
The so-called hiatus has been touted by non-scientists who reject mainstream climate science. Those claims have resonated; two years ago, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change felt the need to explain why the Earth was not heating up as expected, listing such reasons as volcanic eruptions, reduced solar radiation and the oceans absorbing more heat.
"The reality is that there is no hiatus," said Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina. He is the lead author of a study published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
One key to claims of a hiatus is the start date: 1998. That year there was a big temperature spike; some of the following years were not as hot, though even hotter years followed in 2005, 2010 and 2014, according to NOAA, NASA and temperature records kept in England and Japan. This year is on pace to break last year's global heat record. The key here is this spike date which is exactly how the church of the climate deniers wordmith and right wing blog comment their way into some sort of an argument.
Remember, the linked report above is peer reviewed science (see: objective reality). The comments sections of a right wing blog is not (see: inferiority complex, envy of success and accomplishment).
Oh, and I had an email request to link this site again for those of you out there who want to torpedo the climate deniers with the detailed science. Click on the intermediate and advanced tabs and use that information in your next conversation. Witness the cognitive dissonance.
Remember, it feels like they are being physically attacked!
The so-called hiatus has been touted by non-scientists who reject mainstream climate science. Those claims have resonated; two years ago, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change felt the need to explain why the Earth was not heating up as expected, listing such reasons as volcanic eruptions, reduced solar radiation and the oceans absorbing more heat.
"The reality is that there is no hiatus," said Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina. He is the lead author of a study published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
One key to claims of a hiatus is the start date: 1998. That year there was a big temperature spike; some of the following years were not as hot, though even hotter years followed in 2005, 2010 and 2014, according to NOAA, NASA and temperature records kept in England and Japan. This year is on pace to break last year's global heat record. The key here is this spike date which is exactly how the church of the climate deniers wordmith and right wing blog comment their way into some sort of an argument.
Remember, the linked report above is peer reviewed science (see: objective reality). The comments sections of a right wing blog is not (see: inferiority complex, envy of success and accomplishment).
Oh, and I had an email request to link this site again for those of you out there who want to torpedo the climate deniers with the detailed science. Click on the intermediate and advanced tabs and use that information in your next conversation. Witness the cognitive dissonance.
Remember, it feels like they are being physically attacked!
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