This piece from The Trace is the best gift I've received this holiday season. I had no idea that there was this much progress on the issue of guns in this country. Take some time to look through each of the stories on the 10 Americans and how they are helping shift our nation's attitude about guns.
I think my favorite was Chris Lane's fantastic post entitled "3 Reasons I Went From Being A Gun Nut To Supporting Gun Control." Choice cuts...
Americans aren't completely free in many ways, and most gun owners don't seem to worry about the many laws and social customs that place limits on other aspects of their lives. I'm not free to walk down the city street completely naked (have no fear folks, that's not something I want to do), yet there are open carry advocates walking around stores with AR15s on their backs.
People willingly submit to rules and limits on their personal freedom in countless ways; it's the price of living in a civilized society without being a huge nuisance to other people. One day I realized that nudity is controlled more tightly than ownership of deadly weapons, and that seemed absurd to me.
Indeed. It is absurd. But one has to understand that people that feel this way aren't really rational. They feel powerless without their guns. It's pretty fucking sad when you think about it. Worse...
They seem to believe that the reason a lot of people are in favor of gun control measures is because they don't value freedom and are "Sheeple," somehow rejecting the fact that more and more mass shootings and gun crimes seem to be happening and worry the rest of us.
Some of the hardcore gun owners I met were convinced that America is heading towards an Orwellian future where no one is free and the government controls every aspect of our lives. To many of them, the only thing standing in our evil government's way is their personal stockpile of AR15s. They seem to ignore the fact that if the government went to such an authoritarian extreme, it would have the resources to effectively vaporize any suburban "patriots" who decided to raise an armed resistance against it.
Thinking the government is out to get them is a very simple and fairly stupid way of looking at things, and not something the majority of responsible gun owners buy into, but once I found myself encountering a bunch of those characters, I decided I didn't want to be part of that culture anymore.
Bravo! Way to deprogram yourself and wake the fuck up. Why would anyone want live their life that way? Gun bloggers and the commenters that post on such sites seem to lack the capacity to reason at all. They are so overcome with emotion that it astounds me they can even function in society at all.
Too often guns are shown to be totems of power, the only way to deal with a conflict, and as a symbol of masculinity. It's stupid. I personally began to feel less powerful whenever I carried a gun. Living in fear while going about my business just made me feel weak and paranoid.
Exactly right. And it's self feeding as long as they are armed.
I challenge all gun owners to stop living in fear and being weak and paranoid. It's no way to go though life.
Here's a much better idea.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Panic!
Politico has a piece up about the whole boiling pit of sewage message from the GOP and how easily they can fall into disseminating it.
For a moment, it looked like the fever that had burned since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 had broken. But then came the Mexican rapists, and Benghazi, and the plot to “Islamize” America, and Planned Parenthood acting as an agent of holocaust. We heard endless dark warnings about Obama the Nazi, Obama the ISIS apologist. We learned that the Affordable Care Act is tantamount to slavery and the Holocaust could have been averted if the Jews just had guns, and that the Iran deal will trigger the second Holocaust (so many holocausts!).
Once the Paris attacks happened, the panic tightened its grip, with two leading Republican presidential candidates suddenly possessed by dueling hallucinations of celebratory Muslims in Jersey on 9/11. Then came San Bernardino. Donald Trump, who had previously contented himself with talk of an authoritarian state in which Muslims were made to register and neighbor spied upon neighbor, doubled down, calling for a ban of all Muslims trying to come to the United States. The rest of the field, while not quite scaling such rhetorical heights, hardly distinguished itself with steely Churchillian reserve, opting instead for a flurry of muppet arms.
When Obama gave a speech emphasizing calm and fortitude, Marco Rubio responded by saying that, on the contrary, Americans are “really scared,” John Kasich said “our way of life is at stake,” Chris Christie proclaimed that World War III had begun, and Jeb Bush said ISIS is “organizing to destroy Western Civilization.”
They seem to have real difficulty calming down, don't they? Do we really want people with this much fear and panic running our country?
For a moment, it looked like the fever that had burned since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 had broken. But then came the Mexican rapists, and Benghazi, and the plot to “Islamize” America, and Planned Parenthood acting as an agent of holocaust. We heard endless dark warnings about Obama the Nazi, Obama the ISIS apologist. We learned that the Affordable Care Act is tantamount to slavery and the Holocaust could have been averted if the Jews just had guns, and that the Iran deal will trigger the second Holocaust (so many holocausts!).
Once the Paris attacks happened, the panic tightened its grip, with two leading Republican presidential candidates suddenly possessed by dueling hallucinations of celebratory Muslims in Jersey on 9/11. Then came San Bernardino. Donald Trump, who had previously contented himself with talk of an authoritarian state in which Muslims were made to register and neighbor spied upon neighbor, doubled down, calling for a ban of all Muslims trying to come to the United States. The rest of the field, while not quite scaling such rhetorical heights, hardly distinguished itself with steely Churchillian reserve, opting instead for a flurry of muppet arms.
When Obama gave a speech emphasizing calm and fortitude, Marco Rubio responded by saying that, on the contrary, Americans are “really scared,” John Kasich said “our way of life is at stake,” Chris Christie proclaimed that World War III had begun, and Jeb Bush said ISIS is “organizing to destroy Western Civilization.”
They seem to have real difficulty calming down, don't they? Do we really want people with this much fear and panic running our country?
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Friday, December 25, 2015
A Message of Peace
Reprinted in its entirety...
To our Christian brothers and sisters:
Out of our shared love for the Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, Peace Be Upon Him, we greet you with peace and joy during your celebration of his life.
The Bible refers to him as the Messiah and describes the annunciation, his miraculous birth and his numerous miracles.
The Qur’an refers to him as the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary. It teaches about his miraculous birth and how his mother Mary was honored above all the worlds. Muslims are instructed to invoke peace upon him whenever his name is mentioned.
The Qur’an narrates the story of the angel who visited Mary, saying “O Mary, indeed God has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of all the worlds.” (Qur’an 3:42)
The angel said, “O Mary, indeed God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary. He will be honored in this world and the Hereafter and he will be among those closest to God. He will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and he will be of the righteous.” (Qur’an 3:44-45)
She said, “My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?” The angel said, “Such is God; He creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” (3:47)
The Qur’an describes how the baby Jesus, immediately upon birth, looked up to his mother and comforted her: “Do not be sad; your Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates. So eat and drink and be contented.” (Qur’an 19:24-26)
The Qur’an describes many instances in the life of Jesus: how he preached the worship of God and compassion to people, how he healed the leper, how he healed the blind, and even how he brought the dead back to life.
Our two religions, Christianity and Islam, which both profess love and reverence for Jesus as a central figure in each of our religions, constitute over half of the population of the world.
Mercy and compassion, charity and love are the divine attributes that the Christmas season evokes among Christians. A mother’s devotion, a child’s love, and the promise of God’s mercy and grace in the coming of Jesus to us are sentiments that Muslims can share and appreciate.
In the Bible, we are told that Jesus, in response to a question about the most important commandment, is said to have answered: “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is similar. You should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40) Jesus added that those whose hearts are filled with such love of God and neighbor live not far from the kingdom of God. (Mark 12:34)
Similarly, the Qur’an teaches us that to “worship God being sincere to Him in faith, to incline towards the truth, to establish prayer and to give alms to the poor is the essence of the religion.” (Qur’an 98:5) “ … And you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And God is The Merciful Forgiving.” (Qur’an 24:22)
The Prophet Mohammad, Peace Be Upon Him, taught: “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.” (Bukhari & Muslim)
In the words of St. Paul, let us put on the armor of light which is the teaching of God that we are to love one another that we might together better confront the dark that lies within some human hearts which are far from God. (Romans 13:12)
As Jesus taught so movingly, let our lights so shine together before all people that they may see our good works which glorify our God in Heaven. (Matthew 5:16)
Jesus taught us that we should not live by bread alone but by every word of God. (Matthew 4:4)
Thus, we applaud the good hearts and loving deeds seeking to please God in His mercy and compassion that are befitting for us not only during this Christmas season but also every day of every year. Let all people, Christians and Muslims, who love Jesus, peace be upon him, come together to practice what he preached. Let peace and goodwill spread among us all.
We invite all our Muslim brothers and sisters of goodwill to join us in this open letter at this Christmas season and throughout the year as peace and joy, love of God and neighbor, are to be with us always.
This article was submitted by Imam Asad Zaman, Muslim American Society of Minnesota; Dr. Odeh Muhawesh, Imam Hussain Islamic Center; Shaykha Tamara Gray, Rabata/Daybreak Bookstore; Dr. Tamim Saidi, Masjid Al Kareem; Fedwa Wazwaz, Engage Minnesota; Dr. Shah Khan, Islamic Center of Minnesota; Dr. Onder Uluyol, Islamic Resource Group; Zafar Siddiqui, Al Amal School; Imam Sharif Mohamed, Islamic Civic Society of America — Masjid Dar Al-Hijrah, and Owais Bayunus, Islamic Center of Minnesota.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
A Child's Christmas In Wales
In what has become an annual tradition here at Zombie Politics, we turn to Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas in Wales." (full text here).
There are so many elements that I love to this story that they are just too numerous to count. I suppose my personal story is the one that resonates the most. I was part of a dramatic ensemble that read it a church on Christmas Eve, 1984. I had never heard the story before and was sort of dragged into doing it by our drama teacher. I even forgot to read a line!
Yet, by the end of the reading, something magical happened to me. "All the Christmases rolled down" in a wonderfully warm bundle of memories and, as I left the church, the words cemented themselves in my soul. I realized this story would be with me forever...especially at Christmas.
There are so many elements that I love to this story that they are just too numerous to count. I suppose my personal story is the one that resonates the most. I was part of a dramatic ensemble that read it a church on Christmas Eve, 1984. I had never heard the story before and was sort of dragged into doing it by our drama teacher. I even forgot to read a line!
Yet, by the end of the reading, something magical happened to me. "All the Christmases rolled down" in a wonderfully warm bundle of memories and, as I left the church, the words cemented themselves in my soul. I realized this story would be with me forever...especially at Christmas.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Cruz Against Political Correctness Except When He's for It
Last week Ted Cruz released a video in which he pimped his daughters to make a political point ("How Obamacare Stole Christmas").
But when Ann Telnaes of the Washington Post ridiculed him for bringing his young daughters into the tawdry business of politics with a cartoon that depicted him as a Santa Claus organgrinder with a pair of dancing monkeys, that was beyond the pale for the tough-talking Texan.
Cruz whined that the cartoon attacked the girls, but it's really attacking him for forcing his children to parrot his partisan lies. The cartoon is really about children being the victims of a father who will stoop to anything to get elected president.
The Post withdrew the cartoon, but it shouldn't have. The Telnaes cartoon wasn't an unmotivated attack on the Cruz girls; it was a parody of a political ad that Cruz himself put out there. That makes it fair game. It's Cruz's fault for exposing his own daughters to this; this is on him, not Telnaes and the Post.
What makes it doubly ridiculous is that nearly every parent refers to their children as monkeys: it's a term of endearment. I'm sure Cruz and his wife are no different. If you could stomach watching the 15 hours of excruciating Cruz family videos his campaign shat on YouTube, you could probably find multiple instances of Cruz calling his children monkeys. Perhaps there should be a Senate hearing to look into the matter of whether Cruz now calls, or has ever called, his daughters monkeys.
The real subtext here is that for years Republicans have been circulating cartoons depicting President Obama as a monkey. By carping about the cartoon Cruz is underlining the "injustice" of his minions getting called for portraying the president of the United States as a monkey, while "liberals" do the same thing to his children.
The difference, of course, is that Republican portrayals of Obama as an ape are motivated by racism, while Telnaes is using the common organgrinder trope that is completely inoffensive when applied to white children.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are always the first ones to start screaming about the tyranny of political correctness every time they spout derogatory nonsense about Mexicans, Muslims, women, the disabled, and every other group they insult to get elected. Yet they're the first ones to pretend they're the victim when they talk trash and prostitute their children to further their own political goals.
These guys are such whiny little bitches...
Cruz whined that the cartoon attacked the girls, but it's really attacking him for forcing his children to parrot his partisan lies. The cartoon is really about children being the victims of a father who will stoop to anything to get elected president.
The Post withdrew the cartoon, but it shouldn't have. The Telnaes cartoon wasn't an unmotivated attack on the Cruz girls; it was a parody of a political ad that Cruz himself put out there. That makes it fair game. It's Cruz's fault for exposing his own daughters to this; this is on him, not Telnaes and the Post.
What makes it doubly ridiculous is that nearly every parent refers to their children as monkeys: it's a term of endearment. I'm sure Cruz and his wife are no different. If you could stomach watching the 15 hours of excruciating Cruz family videos his campaign shat on YouTube, you could probably find multiple instances of Cruz calling his children monkeys. Perhaps there should be a Senate hearing to look into the matter of whether Cruz now calls, or has ever called, his daughters monkeys.
The real subtext here is that for years Republicans have been circulating cartoons depicting President Obama as a monkey. By carping about the cartoon Cruz is underlining the "injustice" of his minions getting called for portraying the president of the United States as a monkey, while "liberals" do the same thing to his children.
The difference, of course, is that Republican portrayals of Obama as an ape are motivated by racism, while Telnaes is using the common organgrinder trope that is completely inoffensive when applied to white children.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are always the first ones to start screaming about the tyranny of political correctness every time they spout derogatory nonsense about Mexicans, Muslims, women, the disabled, and every other group they insult to get elected. Yet they're the first ones to pretend they're the victim when they talk trash and prostitute their children to further their own political goals.
These guys are such whiny little bitches...
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Moving Left
The main reason why the Right are so out of their minds right now is this.
Why America Is Moving Left
It means that on domestic policy—foreign policy is following a different trajectory, as it often does—the terms of the national debate will continue tilting to the left. The next Democratic president will be more liberal than Barack Obama. The next Republican president will be more liberal than George W. Bush.
Yep.
Why America Is Moving Left
It means that on domestic policy—foreign policy is following a different trajectory, as it often does—the terms of the national debate will continue tilting to the left. The next Democratic president will be more liberal than Barack Obama. The next Republican president will be more liberal than George W. Bush.
Yep.
Monday, December 21, 2015
The Deadly Trap of Opioid Painkillers
In the Democratic debate one of the questions dealt with the epidemic of heroin overdoses that has hit the country in recent years. But it's not just heroin: a lot of it is other opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin and Percocet. Heroin use is way up because people addicted to those prescription drugs turn to street when their pusher doctor stops handing out scrips like candy.
Last year more than 47,000 people died of drug overdose; almost 30,000 of those deaths were from opioids -- as many people as were killed by guns and car accidents. The three candidates in the debate all agreed that more has to be done to prevent doctors from overprescribing addictive drugs. But it's not just doctors: patients have to stop asking for them.
And doctors do hand these drugs out like candy. About 10 years ago I came down with pneumonia. I didn't even know I had it -- I just had a terrible headache and couldn't sleep, but had no congestion or even a cough. After a false start with the wrong antibiotic, they finally gave me the right stuff -- Zithromax -- and without my asking for it, a prescription for Percocet.
I don't generally bother with drugs to treat headaches -- they never work anyway. But I hadn't slept for days, so I took the antibiotic and one tablet of Percocet. However, as soon as I started to drift asleep I stopped breathing: I'd overdosed on a single pill. So now I had to force myself to stay awake and concentrate on each breath, and the headache was still killing me. Fortunately the Zithromax worked almost immediately and I was better the next day.
And it's just getting worse: every time I or my wife have even the most minor surgery, the doctors are always eager to push some more Vicodin or OxyContin on us.
My system is probably hypersensitive to the effects of opioids, but these drugs -- Percocet, OxyContin and Vicodin -- are inherently dangerous. The difference between a useful therapeutic dose and an overdose is fairly small. People who rely on them to alleviate severe pain for years on end build up an addiction and a tolerance to opioids. They have to take larger and larger doses, inching over the years toward an eventual deadly overdose.
When their doctors finally cut them off they turn to the street to buy prescription meds illegally, like Rush Limbaugh did, or they buy heroin. The quality of street drugs is extremely uneven, increasing the likelihood of an overdose.
The CDC has now recognized opioid overdoses as an epidemic, and has been working to revamp the guidelines for prescribing these drugs. But drug companies are fighting this tooth and nail. CDC has now delayed a plan to issue new guidelines. Big Pharma doesn't want their opioid cash cow gored.
People who have severe pain feel they have no alternative but to take drugs. But opioids like oxycodone were originally intended as a temporary stopgap for cancer patients; people in acute pain who were either being cured of their disease or dying from it. These drugs were not intended to be taken for years on end for chronic pain from mundane conditions such as ruptured discs or diabetic nerve damage.
Now, I'm not saying that people plagued by severe back pain should just suffer. But painkillers can only ameliorate pain temporarily -- they cure absolutely nothing. If patients have severe neuropathy, the goal should be to remedy the underlying physical condition. Not dope them into a stupor for the rest of their lives.
Real cures require expensive and/or risky surgery, or extensive changes in behavior or ongoing physical therapy and exercise. Health insurance companies don't like the former and patients don't like the latter. And in some cases we don't have any viable cures yet.
So the cheap, easy and lazy thing to do is hand out painkillers as if they were M&Ms.
Taking painkillers will never fix what's really wrong when people suffer from pain. But drug companies like that. They have no incentive to find real cures for the underlying causes of chronic pain, because their business model depends on hooking more and more people on opioids and milking their pain for the rest of their lives. Just like any pusher on the street.
Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who was recently arrested for securities fraud, became infamous for jacking up the price of a sixty-year-old life-saving drug by 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 dollars per pill. He saw nothing wrong with telling AIDS patients and mothers of sick newborns, "Your money or your life!"
Shkreli is a disgusting imitation of a human being, but at least he was being honest. The CEOs of drug companies hawking opioids are doing the same thing, saying, "Pay us or suffer the fires of hell for the rest of your miserable life!"
This is the problem when capitalism intersects with medicine. Corporations, as Shkreli told us, aren't in the business of making people healthy. They're solely in the business of making money. More money. More quickly.
Americans should stop putting up with expensive, half-assed solutions to medical problems: painkillers are not the answer to chronic pain. The medical-industrial complex is making trillions of dollars off our suffering.
We should be getting real cures for all the money we're spending. Not a temporary fix that addicts us to dangerous drugs that will eventually kill us.
Last year more than 47,000 people died of drug overdose; almost 30,000 of those deaths were from opioids -- as many people as were killed by guns and car accidents. The three candidates in the debate all agreed that more has to be done to prevent doctors from overprescribing addictive drugs. But it's not just doctors: patients have to stop asking for them.
And doctors do hand these drugs out like candy. About 10 years ago I came down with pneumonia. I didn't even know I had it -- I just had a terrible headache and couldn't sleep, but had no congestion or even a cough. After a false start with the wrong antibiotic, they finally gave me the right stuff -- Zithromax -- and without my asking for it, a prescription for Percocet.
I don't generally bother with drugs to treat headaches -- they never work anyway. But I hadn't slept for days, so I took the antibiotic and one tablet of Percocet. However, as soon as I started to drift asleep I stopped breathing: I'd overdosed on a single pill. So now I had to force myself to stay awake and concentrate on each breath, and the headache was still killing me. Fortunately the Zithromax worked almost immediately and I was better the next day.
And it's just getting worse: every time I or my wife have even the most minor surgery, the doctors are always eager to push some more Vicodin or OxyContin on us.
My system is probably hypersensitive to the effects of opioids, but these drugs -- Percocet, OxyContin and Vicodin -- are inherently dangerous. The difference between a useful therapeutic dose and an overdose is fairly small. People who rely on them to alleviate severe pain for years on end build up an addiction and a tolerance to opioids. They have to take larger and larger doses, inching over the years toward an eventual deadly overdose.
When their doctors finally cut them off they turn to the street to buy prescription meds illegally, like Rush Limbaugh did, or they buy heroin. The quality of street drugs is extremely uneven, increasing the likelihood of an overdose.
The CDC has now recognized opioid overdoses as an epidemic, and has been working to revamp the guidelines for prescribing these drugs. But drug companies are fighting this tooth and nail. CDC has now delayed a plan to issue new guidelines. Big Pharma doesn't want their opioid cash cow gored.
People who have severe pain feel they have no alternative but to take drugs. But opioids like oxycodone were originally intended as a temporary stopgap for cancer patients; people in acute pain who were either being cured of their disease or dying from it. These drugs were not intended to be taken for years on end for chronic pain from mundane conditions such as ruptured discs or diabetic nerve damage.
Now, I'm not saying that people plagued by severe back pain should just suffer. But painkillers can only ameliorate pain temporarily -- they cure absolutely nothing. If patients have severe neuropathy, the goal should be to remedy the underlying physical condition. Not dope them into a stupor for the rest of their lives.
Real cures require expensive and/or risky surgery, or extensive changes in behavior or ongoing physical therapy and exercise. Health insurance companies don't like the former and patients don't like the latter. And in some cases we don't have any viable cures yet.
So the cheap, easy and lazy thing to do is hand out painkillers as if they were M&Ms.
Taking painkillers will never fix what's really wrong when people suffer from pain. But drug companies like that. They have no incentive to find real cures for the underlying causes of chronic pain, because their business model depends on hooking more and more people on opioids and milking their pain for the rest of their lives. Just like any pusher on the street.
Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who was recently arrested for securities fraud, became infamous for jacking up the price of a sixty-year-old life-saving drug by 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 dollars per pill. He saw nothing wrong with telling AIDS patients and mothers of sick newborns, "Your money or your life!"
Shkreli is a disgusting imitation of a human being, but at least he was being honest. The CEOs of drug companies hawking opioids are doing the same thing, saying, "Pay us or suffer the fires of hell for the rest of your miserable life!"
This is the problem when capitalism intersects with medicine. Corporations, as Shkreli told us, aren't in the business of making people healthy. They're solely in the business of making money. More money. More quickly.
Americans should stop putting up with expensive, half-assed solutions to medical problems: painkillers are not the answer to chronic pain. The medical-industrial complex is making trillions of dollars off our suffering.
We should be getting real cures for all the money we're spending. Not a temporary fix that addicts us to dangerous drugs that will eventually kill us.
And Then There Were 13....
Well, Lindsey Graham is out of the GOP race. Does anyone really care? I for one will miss his little seen performances in the undercard debates:)
That leaves the following candidates:
Jim Gilmore: Who? Or, more appropriately, why?
George Pataki: He must be looking in horror at what his party has become. See also: extinct species, Northeast Republican
Rick Santorum: The evangelical vote is no more
Mike Huckabee: see Rick Santorum
Carly Fiorina: She has her 15 minutes. Now she's trying to repeat them over and over again.
Rand Paul: There aren't enough sensible libertarians out there.
John Kasich: Probably the most qualified and reasonable GOP candidate in the mix which is why he'll never get above 2 percent.
Jeb Bush: He does indeed remind the entire nation of your awkward father.
Ben Carson: When he finally showed some energy, he was just...weird.
Chris Christie: I think this guy could surprise some people in New Hampshire.
Marco Rubio: Currently down or flat lining but still in the top three. If he can win an early primary, he might catch fire.
Ted Cruz: He will win Iowa. After that, it depends on his organization to get out the vote in the Southern states.
Donald Trump: Still the front runner and proof positive of maturity of the conservative base.
Note how I ordered and grouped each of the candidates. One of the last three will likely be the nominee, At this point, I'm hoping that it's Cruz. "Real" conservatives have assured me that if a true, deep red Republican were nominated, magic will happen and the silent majority will turn out to vote.
I can't wait.
That leaves the following candidates:
Jim Gilmore: Who? Or, more appropriately, why?
George Pataki: He must be looking in horror at what his party has become. See also: extinct species, Northeast Republican
Rick Santorum: The evangelical vote is no more
Mike Huckabee: see Rick Santorum
Carly Fiorina: She has her 15 minutes. Now she's trying to repeat them over and over again.
Rand Paul: There aren't enough sensible libertarians out there.
John Kasich: Probably the most qualified and reasonable GOP candidate in the mix which is why he'll never get above 2 percent.
Jeb Bush: He does indeed remind the entire nation of your awkward father.
Ben Carson: When he finally showed some energy, he was just...weird.
Chris Christie: I think this guy could surprise some people in New Hampshire.
Marco Rubio: Currently down or flat lining but still in the top three. If he can win an early primary, he might catch fire.
Ted Cruz: He will win Iowa. After that, it depends on his organization to get out the vote in the Southern states.
Donald Trump: Still the front runner and proof positive of maturity of the conservative base.
Note how I ordered and grouped each of the candidates. One of the last three will likely be the nominee, At this point, I'm hoping that it's Cruz. "Real" conservatives have assured me that if a true, deep red Republican were nominated, magic will happen and the silent majority will turn out to vote.
I can't wait.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Old Dixie Hwy. renamed for President Obama
I'd say this is a metaphor for about eight zillion things...:)
Racism and Bigotry on Full Display
Rip Donald Trump all you want but I think his "block all Muslims" comment was the best thing that ever happened. Why? Check out his poll numbers. What we see here is fantastic proof that conservatives are fucking bigots. Examples.
Rather than being pissed off about these view, I'm actually pretty happy that it's out there now on full display so we can now deal with it.
And deal with it we will. There simply aren't enough bigots out there to win a national election. When you add this stuff in with the anti-immigrant garbage, how can any GOP nominee possibly win?
Rather than being pissed off about these view, I'm actually pretty happy that it's out there now on full display so we can now deal with it.
And deal with it we will. There simply aren't enough bigots out there to win a national election. When you add this stuff in with the anti-immigrant garbage, how can any GOP nominee possibly win?
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Thoughts on the New Star Wars Film
Here are my thoughts on the new Star Wars film The Force Awakens
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)
I give it an 8 out of 10. I gave the other films as follows:
Episode IV: 10. The first one is still the best. I'll never forget that feeling of wonder I got my first time I saw it.
Episode V: 8. I realize I'll lose my fan boy cred by not giving a blowjob to Empire every other minute but I hated that I had to wait to find out what happened to Han. And it was such a downbeat film.
Episode VI: 9. Only one point off for the stupid Ewoks. The space battles at the end just blew me away.
Episode I: 7. I realize the prequels get a lot of shit but this movie was really great. It had been years since Star Wars had come out and it was so amazing to come back to this universe again.
Episode II: 2. Barf. Really fucking bad rehash of Titanic. Multiple plot points vague and silly.
Episode III: 4. Mildly better but still lacking plot wise in many ways.
Episode V: 8. I realize I'll lose my fan boy cred by not giving a blowjob to Empire every other minute but I hated that I had to wait to find out what happened to Han. And it was such a downbeat film.
Episode VI: 9. Only one point off for the stupid Ewoks. The space battles at the end just blew me away.
Episode I: 7. I realize the prequels get a lot of shit but this movie was really great. It had been years since Star Wars had come out and it was so amazing to come back to this universe again.
Episode II: 2. Barf. Really fucking bad rehash of Titanic. Multiple plot points vague and silly.
Episode III: 4. Mildly better but still lacking plot wise in many ways.
Force Awakens gets an 8 overall for several reasons...the complaints first.
-I realize JJ Abrams means lingering questions (see: Lost) but I was mildly irritated about the mystery around Rey. They don't need to hook anyone to stick around.
-Too much happened in the 35 years since VI to gloss over in just a few lines of dialog. The whole Kylo son gone bad with Leia and Han lamenting felt too light. It needed another scene or two.
-Han dying sucked. I realize why they did it but it still was hard to take.
Other than those very minor issues, the film was great. The three new characters are incredibly fascinating. Give me some more Poe Dameron, baby!! Finn was really cool and Rey is just a fucking boss. And what about Snoke? I think he's actually really small in real life (Wizard of Oz dealio).
I'm very excited to see the future films!!.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Trump Aspires to Turn Americans into Baby Killers
In the Republican debate last night Donald Trump defended his monstrous idea to murder innocent women and children to retaliate against ISIS.
So, let me get this straight, Mr. Trump. If you were president today, you would have the infant daughter of the San Bernadino terrorists killed. A baby who happens to be an American citizen.
And you'd have her grandmother killed too, because she must have seen those pipe bombs on the floor of the apartment. And the baby's grandfather too, on general principles.
Because if you didn't have that baby executed after promising that you'd kill the families of ISIS terrorists, you'd be caving in to them. You'd be making idle threats that you'll never carry out. You'd be exposed as a gutless braggart who can't back up his big mouth with big actions.
And you couldn't do this in secret, and just have the news report that you'd had a baby executed. No, you'd have to put the whole sorry spectacle on YouTube, just like ISIS does when it beheads foreign aid workers who are just trying to help the people displaced by war.
And you couldn't have some hooded executioner kill the little girl. No, to prove you're not a pussy, you'd have to pull the trigger yourself and blow her brains out. Or better yet, you'd use an AR-15, like the terrorists did in San Berdoo, and unload a full clip into that tiny body, splattering blood all over, maybe even getting some of that sweet, sticky baby blood on your face...
Is this is the sick fantasy of Donald Trump and the people who support him?
How will Trump respond when one of his sick sycophants carries out Trump's threats of retribution against the infant daughter of Malik and Farooz, or some other innocent Muslim child who's easier to find?
Trump and his sycophants just don't get it: ISIS terrorists are suicidal maniacs who believe the Apocalypse is nigh and that those killed by their enemies are martyrs and will go straight to heaven without passing GO, and will collect 72 virgins. That includes their families, who will be with them in heaven that much sooner if Trump murders them.
Carrying out Trump's threats of intentionally killing babies and grandmas would be the greatest gift the U.S. could give ISIS: millions would sign up, rather than thousands.
The way to get these guys is not to make them martyrs, but to show them as the cowardly scum they really are. Adopting their tactics legitimizes them, lowering us to their level. Doing that would bring the murderous chaos that daily fills the streets of Iraq and Syria to the streets of America.
Once you uncork that bottle, the genie won't go back in.
So, let me get this straight, Mr. Trump. If you were president today, you would have the infant daughter of the San Bernadino terrorists killed. A baby who happens to be an American citizen.
And you'd have her grandmother killed too, because she must have seen those pipe bombs on the floor of the apartment. And the baby's grandfather too, on general principles.
Because if you didn't have that baby executed after promising that you'd kill the families of ISIS terrorists, you'd be caving in to them. You'd be making idle threats that you'll never carry out. You'd be exposed as a gutless braggart who can't back up his big mouth with big actions.
And you couldn't do this in secret, and just have the news report that you'd had a baby executed. No, you'd have to put the whole sorry spectacle on YouTube, just like ISIS does when it beheads foreign aid workers who are just trying to help the people displaced by war.
And you couldn't have some hooded executioner kill the little girl. No, to prove you're not a pussy, you'd have to pull the trigger yourself and blow her brains out. Or better yet, you'd use an AR-15, like the terrorists did in San Berdoo, and unload a full clip into that tiny body, splattering blood all over, maybe even getting some of that sweet, sticky baby blood on your face...
Is this is the sick fantasy of Donald Trump and the people who support him?
How will Trump respond when one of his sick sycophants carries out Trump's threats of retribution against the infant daughter of Malik and Farooz, or some other innocent Muslim child who's easier to find?
Trump and his sycophants just don't get it: ISIS terrorists are suicidal maniacs who believe the Apocalypse is nigh and that those killed by their enemies are martyrs and will go straight to heaven without passing GO, and will collect 72 virgins. That includes their families, who will be with them in heaven that much sooner if Trump murders them.
Carrying out Trump's threats of intentionally killing babies and grandmas would be the greatest gift the U.S. could give ISIS: millions would sign up, rather than thousands.
The way to get these guys is not to make them martyrs, but to show them as the cowardly scum they really are. Adopting their tactics legitimizes them, lowering us to their level. Doing that would bring the murderous chaos that daily fills the streets of Iraq and Syria to the streets of America.
Once you uncork that bottle, the genie won't go back in.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Red Alert!
Starting Tuesday and continuing for three days, the more than 20 million residents of Beijing will have heavy limitations imposed on their daily activities. Schools will be closed, outdoor construction will be halted, and as the BBC reported, “cars with odd and even number plates will be banned from driving on alternate days.” It’s the first time China’s highest alert has ever been enacted in the city.
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| Beijing, December 2015 |
We used to see these sorts of things here all the time in the United States and in Europe. In 1952 London experienced a "killer fog" that killed about 12,000 people. On December 7th visibility was reduced to one foot. At noon it was pitch dark. The air was so filthy that the coal smoke penetrated people's clothes and made their underwear filthy.
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| London, December 1953 |
As in China today, most of the smoke in London came from burning coal. Londoners heated their homes with coal, in addition to using it to generate electricity (China has the same problem today).
In the United States, the pollution that caused deadly smogs came from automobiles, industry (steel plants and smelting), coal-fired power plants, and so on. By the late Sixties it was clear that business as usual was no longer possible. So on January 1, 1970, Republican Richard Nixon signed the legislation that created the Environmental Protection Agency.
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| New York, November 1966 |
Because of the EPA, cities like New York and Los Angeles have much lower smog levels, and our skies are blue most of the time. Literally millions of American lives have been saved because of EPA regulations.
Yet when you hear Republicans, especially Republican presidential candidates, talk about the EPA, they just bitch about "burdensome" regulations or the "war on coal."
The same pollution that causes the smog that kills vulnerable adults with asthma, children, and the elderly also causes climate change. The same coal plant emissions that poison our lakes and rivers with mercury and other heavy metals also cause climate change.
Republicans like to think of themselves as rough and ready individualists. They idealize freedom as driving a big 4x4 pickup truck that gets 10 miles a gallon and belches black smoke. They cast it in terms of the lone hunter going hunting on the back 40.
But the Republican ideal of individualism doesn't scale up in modern life with antique fossil-fuel technology. We can't all drive inefficient pickup trucks to work in New York and LA and Houston and Chicago, or even Minneapolis and Milwaukee. We can't build that many freeways -- or parking lots -- and the atmosphere can't absorb that much pollution and CO2.
The same thing is true for generating electricity: you can't generate electricity for 350 million Americans with coal: it's just too dirty and inefficient. Natural gas is better, but it still generates CO2, which is causing climate change.
Now, nearly every Republican elected official denies the fact of climate change. They pretend scientists are perpetrating a gigantic hoax and a conspiracy, but we all know for a fact they deny it because they're paid to do so by the oil, gas and coal industries. How do we know this for certain? Because they also want to eliminate EPA regulations that regulate power plant and automobile emissions that were originally enacted by Republican themselves because, as we saw for decades since the industrial revolution, pollution kills people. By calling for repeal of EPA regulations, they are denying that pollution kills people in exactly the same way they're denying CO2 causes climate change.
Our population has simply grown too large to continue to burn things for energy and heat: just as we had to move away from wood-fired fireplaces and coal-fired pot-bellied stoves to oil- and natural-gas-fired furnaces, we now now have to move away from all forms of combustion.
We could continue to burn fossil fuels -- if the population of the United States and the world were what they were five centuries ago: the earth's natural systems can absorb a limited amount of CO2 and other air-borne toxins. But to do so we'd have to wage a major campaign of limiting population growth, but also of actively reducing the world's population.
Are Republicans advocating we commit mass genocide so they can continue to burn coal and drive gas guzzlers?
In order to maintain and perpetuate the kind of individualistic lifestyle that Americans are accustomed to -- and the rest of the world wants to attain -- we have to turn to renewable, clean sources of energy. We have to drive cars that run on electricity or renewable fuels, like hydrogen generated by non-polluting carbon-neutral processes.
Republicans still refuse to acknowledge this reality, but the business world already has: the stock of coal mining companies has tanked and several have gone bankrupt. The prices of gasoline and natural gas have dropped precipitously as demand has dropped and supply has spiked. However, they'll almost certainly go up again as drilling companies go bust, the production bubble bursts and demand increases. (Market economies are notoriously volatile and unstable, aren't they?)
Now is the time to begin phasing out coal completely, because there's nothing good about burning coal: it's dangerous to mine, it leaves wretched scars in the earth, it's bulky and expensive to transport, it produces toxic pollution and CO2 when burned, and presents a huge waste disposal problem with millions of tons of toxic ash that spills on regular basis, killing millions of fish and poisoning our waterways.
We can replace all the jobs lost in coal mines with better jobs building, installing and maintaining wind and solar facilities: instead of working in dark and filthy mines, workers can build wind turbines and solar panels in high-tech factories and install them in the clean, fresh air.
Rugged American individuals can install their own solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls, achieving their own energy independence, something that's impossible with fossil fuels. A clean renewable independent energy future is much more in line with historical conservative ideology, rather than toadying to oil barons like the Kochs and petro-dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia.
In any case, we're going to run out of oil, gas and coal at some point. Fossil fuels are dinosaurs, literally and figuratively. We need to switch to the next thing while we still have the energy and resources to do so, instead of descending into war and chaos over dwindling fossil fuel supplies.
Monday, December 14, 2015
The End of Fossil Fuels
Great piece from CNN about the climate agreement in Paris.
The Paris Agreement, which came out of two weeks often-sleepless negotiations at a conference center here in a Paris suburb, is just the type of blaring signal the world needs that the era of fossil fuels is coming to a rapid close. Countries around the world pledged to do the near-impossible -- limit warming "well below" 2 degrees, and below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels if feasible. That basically requires the world to move rapidly toward 100% clean energy, producing zero net greenhouse gas emissions between about 2050 and 2080.
Yep.
If I were a firm in the fossil fuel industry, I'd think about getting out now. Oil is bad for business.
Perhaps that's why I haven't heard any of these lies lately. No one is listening.
The Paris Agreement, which came out of two weeks often-sleepless negotiations at a conference center here in a Paris suburb, is just the type of blaring signal the world needs that the era of fossil fuels is coming to a rapid close. Countries around the world pledged to do the near-impossible -- limit warming "well below" 2 degrees, and below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels if feasible. That basically requires the world to move rapidly toward 100% clean energy, producing zero net greenhouse gas emissions between about 2050 and 2080.
Yep.
If I were a firm in the fossil fuel industry, I'd think about getting out now. Oil is bad for business.
Perhaps that's why I haven't heard any of these lies lately. No one is listening.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
WWJD?
What would Jesus Do?
It's a question every Christian ask themselves at one point or another in their lives. I think that Canada just showed us what He would do.
It's a question every Christian ask themselves at one point or another in their lives. I think that Canada just showed us what He would do.
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