Released!

A judge has ordered the release of all documents related to the Trump University case.

And he's Hispanic....hee hee:)

We Remember

To those who serve and to the families of those lost, we remember...

Down 12%

After increasing in 2013 and in 2014, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell in 2015. In 2015, U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were 12% below the 2005 levels, mostly because of changes in the electric power sector.

Sweet!

The Rio Olympics Should Be Canceled

A hundred and fifty health experts have called for the Olympic Games scheduled to begin in Brazil this summer to be canceled or delayed:

With Brazil already swarming with Zika-loaded mosquitoes, hosting 500,000 foreign athletes and spectators for the 2016 Olympic games there in August poses unnecessary health risks and is downright “unethical.”

The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization disagree, and have said the games should proceed.

But the problem with Brazil isn't just Zika: it's everything. As the Daily Show showed recently, Brazil is a disaster.

The former president of Brazil, Dilma Roussef, was recently deposed in a coup that was arranged by her political enemies in order to derail an investigation into their corruption. Their plot was divulged in a recording made public last week.

Brazil's economy and law enforcement are in a downward spiral because of low oil prices, problems that have been exacerbated by diverting billions of dollars to building facilities for the Olympics.

The ocean in which many of the events are scheduled to take place is filled with sewage, so loaded with bacteria and viruses that ingesting three teaspoons of seawater will infect a person with all sorts of nasty diseases.

The Brazilian government's response to Zika has been heartless. The worst thing about Zika is that it can cause babies to born with monkey-sized brains (microcephaly, or "pinheads," as Bill O'Reilly is so fond of saying). Last month the CDC definitively found that Zika causes babies to be born with tiny brains.

Brazil has severe restrictions on abortions, and no exceptions are made for babies born with microcephaly. Mothers are forced to bear children that will never be able to talk, care for themselves, grow up or ever really be human.

And then there's the epidemic of violence against women, exemplified by the recent gang rape of a sixteen-year-old girl by 30 men, which was recorded and posted online. There are at least 13 rapes a day in Rio de Janeiro, though the actual number is far higher because most rapes are never reported.

Brazil has become a third-world hell-hole in just a few short years. The country is incapable of hosting a safe and healthy Olympics. Athletes and spectators will contract diseases that they will bring home to their families and the rest of the world.

The Zika epidemic in Brazil was started by one traveler infected with the virus getting bitten by a mosquito in Brazil. It is the height of idiocy to send half a million people to Brazil so that they can get infected and bring the disease back to every corner of the world.

Let's Be Clear

The End of Oil

My favorite news organization, the Christian Science Monitor, has a great piece up about how oil is really at a turning point.

Even if the nearly 200 nations that negotiated the United Nations climate change agreement last December don’t meet their emissions-reducing commitments, they’re still worried about global warming and pollution. Major oil-consuming nations have policies in place to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. Other pressures are building.

In five years, a fossil fuel divestment movement on a few college campuses has spread worldwide, with 518 organizations worth $3.4 trillion agreeing to sell off their coal, oil, and natural gas investments. These groups include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, heirs to the Standard Oil fortune, and the sovereign wealth fund of Norway, a top 20 oil producer. Even Saudi Arabia is moving to sell a portion of its state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, and diversify its economy.

One need only look at what's going in Venezuela to see what happens when you rely on oil these days. Man, I love the free market. Oh yeah....I also love this...

If the world is producing more oil, why are gas prices going up? 

Production is growing, but world demand, fueled by low gasoline prices, is growing even more. As a result, the oil glut is shrinking. By the end of the year, and perhaps as early as next quarter, production worldwide could fall below world demand. That would be the first time that’s happened since 2013.

Hmm...:)

Yay Hawai!

It looks like Hawaii is moving a more sane direction regarding guns. All firearms owners in Hawaii will now be in a federal database.

The bill involves an FBI database known as the "Rap Back" that currently tracks people who are in "positions of trust," such as school teachers and people who work with the elderly. Stephen Fischer of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division told The Associated Press. Hawaii would add gun owners to the list.

It's not too surprising that bowels are being blown in the Gun Cult. Oh well. Considering they fully support mentally unstable people acquiring firearms easily, they can fuck right off.

A New Approach to Gun Violence

NRA Members Want Background Checks?

I guess they do:)

Bathroom Wars Escalate into Violence

When this nonsense about needing to show birth certificates when using public restrooms started I asked myself how a parents with children of opposite gender would be able to bring their kids to the bathroom (and kids always gotta go...). Well, now we have the answer:

Utah dad says he was attacked for bringing 5-year-old daughter into men's bathroom

A Utah father said he got into an altercation with another man in a Walmart bathroom over the weekend after bringing his son and his daughter into the men’s restroom with him.

Chris Adams told Fox 13 Now Wednesday that he had taken his 7-year-old son and his 5-year-old daughter to shop for storage bins at the Walmart in Clinton. During their run, both children needed to use the bathroom.

Adams said he took both of his children into the men’s bathroom. He said another man inside the restroom saw his daughter with him.

“This guy walks in and goes to the bathroom, the urinal,” Adams told KSL Tuesday. “Then he just, like, turns to me and starts freaking out, dropping the ‘F-bomb,’ and what he was freaking out about was that my daughter was in the men’s bathroom.”

He said the man started a fight with him that carried out into the store. Adams said the other man kept saying it was inappropriate for his young daughter to be in the bathroom with him.

Was this grown man afraid that a 5-year-old girl with her dad and brother was a sexual predator? Or was he simply embarrassed that the girl had seen how tiny his penis was?

This crap about transgendered people in bathrooms is a red herring: it's just the Koch brothers or ALEC or some other conservative organization funded by billionaires trying to win the 2016 the same way they won the 2004 election.

As you may recall, 2004 was the year of the gay marriage scare. It played a large part in increasing turnout for Republicans, allowing Bush to win what was shaping up to be a tight race despite numerous dirty tricks played against John Kerry by Republican operatives.

But just a few years later gay marriage had become a reality. In large part because most Republicans themselves -- including Vice President Dick Cheney and Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager in 2004, who himself was gay -- actually support gay marriage.

The trans bathroom issue is nothing but a political stunt to drum up anger and hatred on the right. Republicans also have trans children, and after this election cycle is over, they'll all come out of the closet and tell us that they're actually against all this hysterical crap.

But, just as Republicans are all lining up behind Donald Trump's agenda of racism, misogyny and hatred, they'll fall in line with the trans bathroom issue just like they did with gay marriage.

The question is, in the meantime, how many people are they going to get beat up or murdered by idiots panicked by the idea that a girl piddled in the same bathroom that they did?

The Real America

A fascinating look into the Real America...wow.

Libertarians Chances

A recent piece over at Politico posits the question...does the Libertarian party actually have a chance this year? I think they do if they do a couple of things.

First, focus on the micro issues where the libertarian ideology actually works in reality. Education, which should be reformed from the local level outward, is one example. Legalizing all drugs is another.

Second, lose this nonsense.

If they can get the wingut out of their movement, they might actually peel away voters from both the Democrats and the Republicans.

When A Man Gets A Fever

Trump's Delegates Are....White Nationalists?

Donald Trump’s delegate ineptitude stumbles into white nationalism

Hoo boy...

The Challenge of One Size Fits All

The biggest challenge facing the gun rights position today is the one size fits all nature of 2nd amendment interpretations over the course of the last few decades. At the heart of this, is the concept of responsibility (individual versus societal) that dogs most issues of the day.

Defenders of gun rights fight for looser government regulations and champion easier access to firearms. By taking this position, they open up the door to a wide range of individuals, some of whom are irresponsible with firearms. Unfortunately, gun rights activists view this action as having a negligible on our society. Given that mass shootings have become the norm and toddlers shooting people  at the rate of one per week, I find this view most troubling and, quite frankly, heartless.

They also view these irresponsible people with firearms as being islands in our culture and any detrimental effect as being exclusively the fault of said person. Of course, this is the problem with the entire liberal versus conservative ideological wave length. Liberals tend to recognize that when you deal with a large group of people (aka the general public), a significant number of them are not intelligent, mature, or responsible. This is why liberals favor regulation and government control on a whole host of issues, not just guns. These irresponsible people are a drag on our society that inhibits progress. Conservatives, on the other hand, would rather leave the issue of responsibility with each person and let “free will” rule the day seemingly not caring about the effects nor our collective responsibility to society.

So, the biggest challenge facing the gun rights position today is the same one facing many of the other issues of the day. By loosening regulation on the financial sector, health care, the energy sector, and guns, people will behave in an irresponsible fashion and destroy lives. Because we live in a society where people are in a constant state of interaction, less regulated people will hurt or kill other people. It’s just that simple.

Dwarfed?

I was sitting watching my son play baseball the other day when the conversation with a fellow parent turned to politics. We talked for a bit about the election and then she said something that cracked me up.

"I just have this feeling that Trump is going to win."

I asked her on what she based her assertion.

"I don't know...just a feeling."

She was certainly not a Trump supporter as she told me she would be voting for Hillary Clinton and truly despised Trump's comments about women. Yet her comments made me wonder where all this "Trump feelings" stuff originates. I think part of it is his celebrity but I'll have a post about that in a few days. Most of it is merely slippery slope fallacy...he won the GOP primary when no one thought he could so therefore he will win the general when no one thought he could.

I don't think my fellow baseball parent is aware of the massive infrastructure advantage that Hillary Clinton has right now. The political world is, however, and it's pretty amazing.

Through the end of last month, the period covered by the most recent FEC filings, Trump’s campaign had spent less than a third as much Clinton’s ($57 million to $182 million) and had assembled a staff about one-tenth the size of her (70 employees to 732), with a fraction as many offices (Trump last month paid $101,000 in rent vs. $328,000 for Clinton), the analysis found.

Does Trump think he can get out the vote in a general election without field offices?

Polls A Go Go

I find it most interesting that everyone seems to be focusing on national polls (of registered voters no less..pee-yew) and not on the state by state polls. National polls don't really matter. It's the individual state polls that matter. And anyone that thinks this race is tightening ought to take a look at what Arizona and Georgia look like.

Here are some other notes about polls...

Nate Silver went on a pretty hilarious Twitter rant about polls in May. And a great mea culpa from Silve as well.

Speaking of 538, here's some great insight on the whole Trump supporters are in the closet meme.

Where are the Emperor's Clothes?

Welcome To Louisville

The Greatest Answer Ever On Quora

The question asked was...

Is it true that there are some "no-brainer" gun control laws that should be passed?

And the answer was this...

I own guns. I like guns.  I can conceal carry (though may or may not).  I enjoy hitting up the range and shootin' 'em.  I do believe there exists a right to gun ownership in this country.

But I also think the ease with which one can acquire massive amounts of military-grade lethality in this country is flat-out stupid, and don't believe there's anything in the Bill of Rights that entitles me to purchase and own a .50 caliber sniper rifle loaded up with armor-piercing rounds.

Slippery slope be damned, there does exist such a thing as reasonable gun control legislation, just as there exist some very unreasonable guns.

For shits and giggles I went down to my local gun store the other day to see what they were up to as I expected there was some amusement to be had there post-Newtown.  Indeed, there was.

While I was there, I literally witness shop staff taking the price tags off of AR-15s and other semi-automatic assault rifles, replacing them with significantly marked-up prices.  Ammo shelves were empty, save for the odd box of cheap range ammo.  Walls that had, a few weeks ago, been covered inch-to-inch by every imaginable type of assault rifle lay bare - people had come in and bought out every damn thing they could, certain they had to do so before the government swooped in to snatch up their right to do so.  You'd think the zombie apocalypse had begun (especially since all the anti-zombie explosive rounds had been among the first to sell-out).  At most, you might have found an antique rifle to buy.  Oh... and that actual .50 caliber sniper rifle that was selling for $15,000 and had been on the shelf for about a year?  Someone finally bought it just the other day.

I'm sorry, but while I don't doubt there are plenty of reasonable gun owners who genuinely enjoy the things for recreational purposes or even for what they represent technologically (as I like to consider myself to be), there are also some batshit crazy paranoid types far too eager to treat guns as the end all be all, along with some shamelessly opportunistic types giddy at the prospect of making money off the aforementioned crazies (the shop staff and owner, with whom I have rapport, admitted being near giddy each time a mass shooting takes place - they don't fear legislation because they know attempts at it usually fall apart, plenty of loopholes are left in place, and they sell out of every damn thing in the store no matter how much they mark it all up each time people freak out [such as after Obama first got elected, after Obama got reelected, after Aurora, after Newtown, etc]).

And I'll eagerly go on record saying that, when I went to take my classes to get my concealed carry permits, the overriding reason I ended up feeling like I wanted a concealed carry permit is because those other people in the class were going to have one.  While I primarily wanted them to make going to the range or out to the desert to shoot an easier affair, most everyone else there expressed genuinely feeling like they needed to conceal carry before the United Nations took away any opportunity to do so or Obama himself came kicking in their doors to take away their guns  (and wives and children, I suppose).

As much as some would like to say "the left" or the Feinsteins and Obamas are dictating the gun control debate and set to trash the Bill of Rights, the fact of the matter is the types of people I've described above, as well as the more sophisticated types taking advantage of the people I've described above, have actually been the ones dictating the gun control debate, passing the legislation at the federal and local level, and ensuring there's no shortage of truly devastating and lethal weaponry available and just about anyone can get their hands on the stuff.

Check out this guy:

This weapon doesn't seem like something anyone could carry around with them wherever they went. What if I told you, though, I could have it under my jacket in line behind you at Starbucks? A few seats down from you at the movies? In the car next to you at a stoplight? Walking alongside you at the mall? It's a Sig Sauer P556 "pistol" - yes, it's considered a pistol. One can carry it concealed (though it is almost 2ft long) as they would a pistol. Yet one can also use a 30-round magazine with 5.56 NATO rifle rounds and fire off those rounds as quickly as they can pull that trigger with that thing.

The average person would not look at that thing and consider it a pistol, much less suspect it's the type of weapon anyone would be allowed to "conceal carry" at will in public, but thanks to the ways laws are written and manufacturers work with those laws it is.

It's easier for me to go buy a .50 caliber sniper rifle than over the counter allergy medication; with a few easily-acquired attachments and accessories (that require absolutely nothing but money to buy) I can turn just about any semi-automatic assault weapon available (and there are tons available) in to one capable of firing at near fully-automatic rates; the only limit to how many rounds of ammunition I can acquire is how many I can afford, and I can feed those rounds in to weapons with belts and drums and high-capacity magazines that enable me to fire off dozens and even hundreds of rounds before having to reload. 

I can assure you the licensing process that allows me to carry multiple concealed weapons - such as the "assault pistol" in the photo - in most every state is less stringent than getting a drivers license and easier than getting a license to cut hair. And if I simply want to own assault weapons without attempting to conceal-carry them, there's really no licensing process at all. None at all. 

Sure, there's a 2nd Amendment. Sure, there are practical reasons to own guns. But to deny the absurdity behind how easily anyone can get guns and what types of guns they can get is irrational; to suggest no reasonable attempts at limitation and regulation exist is also irrational.  Existing laws are already insufficient and far too lax, and at the same time manufacturers are able to circumvent them so effectively they might as well not exist; pro-gun legislators and the gun-lobby have purposefully ensured states and municipalities either can't pass laws, or can't effectively enforce whatever laws they do manage to pass. 

Again, I don't doubt reasonable gun owners exist and, again, I hope to consider myself one of those people.  At the same time, however, after many years circulating among  gun owners and participating in that culture and network, I simply have to admit I've spent a fair amount of time surrounded by people I'd consider to be fairly irrational when it comes to gun laws and those people and the lobbies representing them have had a far greater impact on existing laws in place than anyone attempting to restrict ownership or what is available for ownership.

The vast majority of weapons available today were designed to kill people.  Their express purpose is to facilitate and enable the effective and efficient killing of people.  Sure, there's the odd hunting rifle or shotgun round that kicks ass at bringing down ducks, but the measure of most any semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapon and round is how effective it is as "stopping", "neutralizing" and killing a person.  You won't ever hear the folks snatching up weapons down at the gun store touting a particular brand's ability to effectively put holes in paper targets or fly down range with true aim.  They sell that "double tap" ammunition (that actually fires two projectiles per cartridge) for your handgun so that single shot can put two bullets in a person; they sell "The Judge" - a revolver that fires out shotgun rounds - so one can still yield extreme force and lethality with as small a weapon as possible; they sell those high-capacity magazines so you can blast off round after round in rapid succession in the hopes you take out the bad guy, despite however bad your aim might be.  These weapons' and accessories' designs, techniques, methods and technologies were borne and perfected on battlefields for use between armies, and just about anyone can easily employ them on the streets here at home.

Existing gun laws are not only inadequate, but absurd; existing gun laws are not only failing to protect, but just about facilitating obscene amounts of violence as pro-gun lobbies go out of their way to ensure each contains loopholes and workarounds that render them obsolete; existing gun laws are not taking weapons off the streets but rather encouraging manufacturers and retailers to find creative ways to enable just about anyone with sufficient money (which often isn't even that much) and a pulse to posses killing power and destructive ability beyond anything the authors of the Constitution could have ever imagined.  And when some point to the failure of existing gun laws to effectively curb violence, don't let them convince you it's because gun laws stand no hope of ever accomplishing anything.  Allow yourself to consider the possibility that existing gun laws haven't done enough to this point because gun proponents have ensured they can't be effectively implemented, people can easily avoid any jurisdictional enforcement they don't like, manufacturers can easily work around whatever laws that might exist, and concerted efforts are made by groups like the NRA to make any legislation impotent as they then point to that impotence as a reason to not have the laws in the first place.

It's high time the militia gets well-regulated, and we acknowledge there are absurd degrees of firepower beyond easily accessible to everyone.

Number One answer in the question.

Over 62,000 views.

Over 1,000 upvotes.

Fuck you, Gun Cult. Your trolling and swarming will not stop the majority of the people in this country that want to live in a safer place. As Mr. Dunlap noted, we are on to you.

And we will never stop until you are completely fucking neutered.