Comments Are Fully Open

Given our plethora of new readers from Reddit, Quora, Twitter, and other locales, we have decided to open up comments without moderation. Too many people have complained that they don't like having to wait to see what they wrote published and that it takes too long to go through the filter.

I've also decided to allow comments of any kind as this is an election year and it's going to get ugly anyway. Anyone previously banned from posting here is welcome to post again. I challenge those individuals (mostly from Kevin Baker's blog) to make their assertions without personal attacks on me. If they do, so be it, but it pretty much proves that they have nothing of substance to offer and zero convictions.

We will delete any spammy things like product ads or sex stuff. Also, any sort of doxing is a big no-no. People have the right to privacy. My associates in the police department (two of which are fans of this blog and Trump supporters, go figure) regularly monitor my traffic and will be all over anyone who doxxes.

With that, comment away!

The Meme Heard 'Round The World

This morning, I posted this meme on Reddit.

And my karma points exploded. The best comment?

They know. These aren't stupid people, well I guess they are but you know what I'm saying. They would rather be on a sinking ship with an inept captain than admit that they were wrong.

Indeed. Hubris and ego are big problems with the right. I'm certain that some of them really believe that socialism in any form is evil. But most just want to "win" and be "right."

The cognitive dissonance that is going to occur if Bernie is the nominee and wins is going to cause some of these folks to go fucking batshit. They are going to whip themselves up into such a lather that we may have to hold them down as their lives improve. It sort of reminds me of a little kid who doesn't want to take his medicine.

Do these assholes honestly think that people don't travel outside of the country anymore?

The Chest Thumping, Insecure Nonsense of Kevin Baker and His Merry Band of Authoritarians

The Democrats are a near lock to win the electoral college in 2020. How do we know this? Look no further than Rachel "the Doc" Bitcofer.

A recent piece in Politico has elevated her to national recognition and I highly recommend following her on Twitter as well as examining her model for 2020. Bitecofer saw some basic facts in the election of 2016 and was able to correctly predict the outcome of the 2018 election down to the seat. She also predicted Virginia in 2019. Those facts say that for the first time in history, Republicans lost the white, male, college educated voted in 2016. Trump's path to the White House, as she puts it, "which was the political equivalent of getting dealt a Royal Flush in poker, is probably not replicable in 2020 with an agitated Democratic electorate."

There is no such thing as a "swing" voter anymore. Not in this age of hyper-partisan politics. It's all about turnout and any of the top candidates in the Democratic field are going to destroy Trump.

So, when I read the chest thumping, insecure nonsense of Kevin Baker, quoting a likely Russian trollbot, I just shook my head. Projection. Again. Some things never change.

Because the shock is going to be entirely on his side of the aisle when he can't seem to fathom, the day after the election, how Trump lost. And so badly. Likely, he, along with other Trump supporters, will blame the media and the elites and others they are all jealous of but in the final analysis, it's going to come down to the simple fact that there are more of us that are going to vote than there are Trump voters.

Bernie has a fucking army. Young people will turn out for him by the millions. Mayor Pete will turn out moderates and a whole new generation of voters. Amy Klobuchar will pull the Democrats who voted for Trump back into the fold. Bloomberg, even if he isn't the nominee, will spend billions to defeat Trump. Kevin, do you not understand what you are up against?

Kevin et al, I would suggest seeking therapy for your issues with people that are successful, intelligent, accomplished and do things to help people (i.e Democrats and the few Republicans left who aren't Trumpified). You guys have built an entire political ideology around petty insecurity, irrational jealousy, feelings of inferiority and inadequacies, and childish bullying. Your party is fucking done. You just don’t see it yet.

Moreover, your party has become an authoritarian cult and you are cheering it on. History has not been kind to leaders and supporters of such endeavors. I’d recommend changing your tune fairly quickly if you don’t want your life to be miserable.

And I'd recommend following the Doc on Twitter. I realize the cognitive dissonance might be too much for you but it will ease pain of what's coming. It will also help you remember that happened in 2018 and 2019.

What's the Real Reason Parasite Could Win?

There have been dozens of stories in the news about Parasite being the first non-English language film to win the best picture Oscar. Few believed it could win because of an insurmountable hurdle: it's in Korean with subtitles.

I haven't seen this movie, or any of the other nominees for that matter, so I can't comment on the artistic content. But I can address the issue of subtitles.

This prejudice against subtitles has always baffled me. People complain that subtitles and closed captions are bad because they take your eyes away from the action, or the surprise is "spoiled" because the text appears before the actor speaks the words.

I turn on closed captions in English language shows all the time. My hearing is slightly damaged, but I don't want to expose myself to loud sounds because they'll just damage my hearing further. So when there's a background noise, like the dishwasher running, I turn on captions.

And on the completely altruistic side, I turn them on when my wife is sleeping.

Then there are production problems in some shows: sometimes the music or sound effects drown out the dialog and it's impossible to tell what the actors are saying. Sometimes the actors have accents that are difficult to understand -- usually English actors with regional accents in BBC shows.

This prejudice against subtitles gets a little ridiculous. My dad has severe hearing loss but refuses to wear hearing aids. He watches TV with headphones turned up to 11, but won't turn on closed captioning. Which is required by the FCC for people just like him.

(I do have one complaint about closed captioning, however: it's often riddled with errors. They seem to use automatic voice recognition on a lot of shows, and the text produced is often missing words, or misunderstands what was actually said.)

Then there are shows that make creative use of subtitles. The first series I noticed doing this was Heroes, which featured long conversations between two Japanese characters. The subtitles were often deployed inventively in different locations around the screen, almost like speech bubbles in comic books.

In the case of non-English language films, some people say they prefer dubbing in English because subtitles are too "distracting." But for me, the mismatch between the words on the audio track and the actors' mouths is far more irritating (like the infamous Godzilla dubs). Frequently the intonation or emotional content of the English language track doesn't match the scene, or is over the top, or the voice actor they chose just doesn't fit the character. Sometimes the English dubbing or translation sounds so stupid that it completely ruins the scene.

In short, I would much rather see the film as the original writer, director, and actor intended it to be seen, without interference from another writer, another director, and another voice actor, all of whom were hired by the studio in what always seems to be a rush job.

There have been many suppositions as to why a film with subtitles was finally able to win an Oscar: it's the Netflix effect (they have a lot of popular non-English shows with subtitles), or the FCC's closed captioning mandate.

Admittedly, there is a downside to subtitles: they don't help slow readers, dyslexics or the illiterate. I wouldn't want to stigmatize people who don't like subtitles, but it's true that captions require a certain facility with the written word.

But I think a large part of it is that the voters in the Academy are like average Americans who are just getting older and harder of hearing, and like me are using closed captioning every day.

How Fascism Continues

The Best Campaign Ad of 2020

Run it over and over again the swing states. The guy is not mentally fit for office.

How To Win A News Cycle

The Age of Donald Trump has brought many lessons to politicians and pundits all across America. One such lesson is how to win a news cycle. Trump does this very well. He knows that if he does something obnoxious, people will either praise him or condemn him. As long as they are talking about him and he is in the news-ALL of the news-it doesn't matter what he did.

Nancy Pelosi has learned this lesson very well. She knew the cameras were on her when she tore up Trump's SOTU speech. Now, everyone is talking about that and not his speech. Fox News has been wall to wall on the Great Pelosi Shredding and their dear leader is nowhere to be found. Even Kevin Baker had to put up a post about it.

More importantly, it seems all right wing news and information outlets do these days is troll liberals (and Mitt Romney now that he grew a pair of balls and chose country over party). I was watching Fox News the other night when I was on the treadmill at the gym and all they did was show clips from CNN and MSNBC. Free air time? Really?

It seems to me that conservatives should put forth their own ideas and convictions...oh wait...sorry...I can't type anymore because I'm ROTF and LMFAO. Conservatives have no ideas anymore and have only one conviction.

Trolling liberals.

What the fuck do you guys even stand for?

The Trump Cult Doesn't Get It

The Trump Cult has one very big tell when it comes to the general election and it's their fall back position on everything.

Trolling.

They think they have liberals pegged as naive about Trump's chances in the general election. They assume that because we all thought Trump would lose in 2016 (as did Trump himself and most conservatives) that our predictions of him getting his ass kicked in the fall by any of the top candidates is the same naivete. It's not and here's why.

Trump barely won in 2016 by roughly 80, 000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He squeaked by. The Cult will have you believe that it was some sort of mammoth victory for them but, just like the "millions" that showed up for Trump's inauguration, it's pure fantasy.

Further, The Cult has to have the twice Obama voter go for Trump again this November or it ain't gonna happen. That one really causes some cognitive dissonance for them. They don't get that 2016 was a "fuck you" election and if anyone other than Hillary was the nominee, Trump would be running his own streaming service now and fleecing them for $8.99 a month. 2020 is going to be a different sort of election and not a repeat of 2016.

Any of the top contenders can wipe the floor up with Trump given his how detrimental his words and actions are to those twice Obama voters. They are sick of his bullshit and they will vote for Biden, Mayor Pete, Bernie or Warren. Honestly, they really only need a few votes in the Rust Belt and that's it. All of those candidates bring large constituencies with them and they are going to turn out to vote against Trump.

They did it in 2018. They did it in 2019 in red states. They will do it again this year.

The Very Predictable Iowa Caucus Disaster

Twenty years ago George Bush won the presidency by a single vote on the Supreme Court. Florida had botched the election by using punch cards in the polling booth, requiring voters to poke holes in a card, a card that was easily misaligned. The Court stopped a recount in Florida that would have almost certainly resulted in Al Gore winning the presidency.

It was clear then that there's only one valid way to register votes: on bubble sheets that can be quickly counted by mark-sense readers, or by humans if the machines aren't working, and to audit the machine-read results.

But companies saw a way to make a lot of cash: they sold the idea of using computers at the polls to a lot of states. This was a horrible idea, for dozens of reasons, but the main reason is this: elections only happen every year or two.

These computers are expensive and only get used for one or two days a year (or two weeks, in states that now allow early voting). The software is non-trivial and is only used once every couple of years, is difficult to test under actual conditions, and needs to be modified upon every use. Maintaining the hardware and operating system is a gargantuan job. All those computers are easy targets for hacking, so operational security is difficult at best, and impossible at worst. Worse, in every election since then there have thousands of complaints that the voting machines incorrectly count votes: touchscreens that registered a vote for a Republican when the voter selected a Democrat.

And all this is supposed to happen on city and county budgets, which are constantly hamstrung for cash, especially compared to things that happen on a daily basis, like fixing potholes and paying cops' and firefighters' salaries.

The last presidential election was severely disrupted by Russian hacking, and Donald Trump won because of that hacking.

So what moron decided they should write an app to register votes at the Iowa caucuses? What were they thinking? "Hey, let's give the Russians another chance to hack the election!"

To avoid that, they thought they could keep the app a big secret, and release it just before the caucuses to prevent said Russian hacking. What were they thinking? "Let's have an app that no one's ever seen and that's never been tested under life-like conditions decide who the next Democratic nominee is!"

To be fair, Iowa did have voters fill out presidential preference cards, so they should have a paper backup. But these are all administered in chaotic settings like high-schools gyms and cafeterias, usually by elderly people, so just how reliable is this system?

Then there's the problem with caucuses in the first place. Minnesota, where I live, used to have them for selecting the president, and in 2016 they were a disaster. Everyone wanted to go, and because everyone had to be there at exactly the same time, there wasn't even enough street capacity to accommodate all the cars going to the caucus: I sat in traffic in the same spot for 20 minutes until I finally I gave up and parked several blocks away.

Also, only certain kinds of people attend caucuses: party apparatchiks and driven, single-issue partisans. People just interested in selecting the candidate most likely to win are discouraged from coming.

For all these reasons, caucuses should be dropped in favor of presidential primaries that are run with the same rigor as general elections (rigor that should be improved with bubble-sheet voting). The selection of the next president should not be entrusted to party hacks and rabid pro- or con-abortion partisans browbeating their neighbors at caucus.

Minnesota has adopted such a presidential primary system, and all states should do so.

Republicans are having a field day with the Democrats' botched Iowa caucus. But the Republicans have completely abandoned democracy -- in Minnesota they completely prevented other candidates from running in the Republican primary, so Trump will be the only name on the Republican ballot -- just like the good old Soviet Union.

Minnesota will still have party caucuses to decide other issues and let candidates for local offices talk directly to the voters, but Minnesota Republicans refuse to announce where their caucuses will be, because they don't want anyone coming they don't control to bitch about Trump.

Finally, the idea that Iowa and New Hampshire should always get first shot at selecting the president is utterly bogus: those states do not represent the country in any meaningful way, and they should not get this outsized advantage that results from the extra attention that candidates pay them. There should be six to eight "Super Tuesdays" during primary season, and states should rotate among those every two years.

You Are A Traitor For Questioning It

A Projection of Cognitive Dissonance

Supporters of Donald Trump love to engage in projection. They accuse the rest of the country of doing the very thing they do. In the case of a recent comment by Kevin Baker, high priest in the Church of the Climate Denier, he illustrates how this works.

So, still delusional. I'm not sure what's going to happen to him when the cognitive dissonance strikes in November. He may vapor-lock. But I doubt it. His mastery of rationalization is remarkable, really.

This was in response to a recent post in which I stated the following.

The House was lost and will stay that way because of Trump. In fact, you guys are going to lose more seats there and the Senate as well. Heck, you’ve already lost state houses and governorships because you have hitched your wagon to a buffoon.

Let's take a look at a few key facts.

-The 2018 election flipped the US House back to the Democrats. This was an off year election and voter turnout approached 50%. They netted 40 seats and now have a 35 seat majority.

-Democrats flipped seven governorships in 2018. They flipped one in 2019 (Kentucky) and held on to another one in a deep red state (Louisiana).

-Democrats saw a net gain of five legislative chambers.So, Democrats had a net gain of five state government triplexes and Republicans had a net reduction of four triplexes. Democrats had a net gain of 308 state legislative seats and Republicans had a net loss 296 seats.

-Virginia is now entirely controlled by the Democrats who ran on gun safety. They are poised to pass sweeping new gun laws that are anathema to gun rights activists like Kevin.

Why did all of this happen? Two words.

Donald Trump.

His support was poison in all of these elections. People are tired of him and largely view him as yet another politician who breaks his promises. Remember the promise to drain the swamp? His recent actions with Ukraine, hiding his taxes, rolling back EPA standards, locking up children and generally acting like a king are all quite swampy.

It doesn't matter who the nominee is. Any of them are going to kick his ass in the fall. Of course, this assumes he will make it that far. I think there is a good chance he won't. I see him quitting, having health issues, or completely losing his shit when his tax returns are released in June of this year.

So, Kevin, why are YOU rationalizing the 2018 and 2019 elections? What's going to happen to YOU in the fall when cognitive dissonance strikes? After all, your Republican brain has been scientifically proven to have the most problems with cognitive dissonance. 

As always, I welcome a debate with you on any online platform if you ever decide to come out of your safe space.

Reason #524 Why Trump Should Be Impeached

Donald Trump was impeached because he tried to blackmail the president of Ukraine into phonying up some dirt on Joe Biden and his son, but that's not the only reason Trump should be removed from office.

His argument against impeachment has boiled down to this: removing him as president would be a national security risk.

The fact is, Trump is the nation's biggest security risk. Within a few months of assuming the presidency he had the Russians over to the Oval Office and blabbed a bunch of classified information, exposing an Israeli intelligence source.

He regularly has phone calls with dictators like Duterte of the Philippines and Erdogan of Turkey, stupidly blabbing confidential information in an attempt to impress them with his power. He discusses national security issues with international leaders in public at Mar a Lago, the same place where a Chinese spy was caught bugging the place.

And he is constantly being recorded by people he's working with, including Lev Parnas, the guy was helping Trump to extort the Ukrainians, Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, and Omarosa, who apparently was hired because Trump thought that would get him cred with African-Americans. The Daily Show has a humorous compendium of these security breaches, starting here at 9:46.

The secret recording that started this all was the one on the bus where he bragged about grabbing pussy. That impulse to brag and puff himself up is a disastrous character flaw in a president privy to the nation's most important secrets.

What isn't the CIA telling Trump, because they know he'll run off and call Putin to brag?

This man is the most incompetent person to ever hold the presidency. He cannot be trusted to keep his mouth shut about anything. Whether this is due to senility or an overweening urge to constantly try to impress people about how important he is, it doesn't matter.

This clown has got to go.

Climate Change Denier Won’t Leave Safe Space

In looking at the comments of his now disproven post regarding climate change, Kevin Baker is still incapable of leaving his safe space to face actual scientists who make fact based arguments. I get that he has a personal issue with me but to shut out reality that much and be so afraid to actually engage someone...anyone...who even has a rudimentary knowledge of science tells me that doesn’t really believe what he is saying and just peddling propaganda at this point. Speaking of which...

1. McConnell doesn’t have the votes to deny witnesses. Ain’t over yet, bub.

2. Assuming Trump makes it the election (doubtful for many reasons), he’s going to get his ass kicked by any of the top nominees.

3. The House was lost and will stay that way because of Trump. In fact, you guys are going to lose more seats there and the Senate as well. Heck, you’ve already lost state houses and governorships because you have hitched your wagon to a buffoon.

Dude, you are going to be in for a tough year if you keep defaulting to troll...

The President Is A Coward

The president of the United States is a coward. A fucking coward. I never thought I would say this about a person in that office but it’s true of Donald Trump. He and his fellow toadies in the GOP know that witnesses mean the truth will be impossible to ignore. Nixon may have been cowardly but at least he had the sack to resign.

I feel a great deal of pity for the people that still support him. They’ve traded the dignity of the office for a few extra bucks, judges who vote with liberals nearly half the time, and glee at trolling liberals.

Pathetic...

Climate Change Denier Pwned

As promised, I will be challenging Kevin Baker on his AGW denial. His most recent post puts forth four assertions. Here are each of them completely destroyed, one by one.

"Actual proof isn't necessary because by the time we have it it will be too late to fix"

This is several variations of nonsensical arguments, the taxonomy of which can be found here. The links are filled with mountains of evidence detailing all the proof that is necessary. For example, take a look at this link, "there is no empirical evidence." Click on the intermediate tab (you too, Kevin. You are a scientist, after all, right? You should be able to understand the language) and see the actual proof.

"The only solution is central planning by a world government run by our intellectual superiors."

This has been said by no one in the scientific community. It's a made-up crazy Internet lie put forth by people that have deep psychological issues with authority. Every time I ask for evidence of this, I get mouth foaming, anger, links that lead to looney web sites, and accusations of naivete.

People that accept the science of climate change want the public and private sector to work together to shift our energy usage to renewables. Carbon taxes would be a start. After that, it's up to the private sector. What Kevin hilariously ignores is that it's already happening. Sorry, buddy, but you don't get to play totalitarian fantasy games today:(

"People who oppose this are "deniers" who should be shut up at any cost"

False. And there really aren't many credentialed deniers out there, despite this other myth.

"There are too many people anyway, and a mass die-off would be good for the planet."

And the evidence of this is...where? In your ass? People say all sorts of crazy things on the internet, Kevin. You of all people should not believe everything you read on there:)

"the glaciers in Glacier National Park that were supposed to be gone this year are still running strong."

Wow, this is just a big fucking lie. 

In 2017, the USGS published a time series analysis of the glacier margins of the named glaciers of Glacier National Park . The areas measured are from 1966, 1998, 2005 and 2015/2016, marking approximately 50 years of change in glacier area. Scientists used aerial photography and satellite imagery to measure the perimeters of the glaciers in late summer when seasonal snow had melted to reveal the extent of the glacial ice. The data table shows that all glaciers have been reduced in area since 1966 with some glaciers having been reduced by as much as 85% by 2015. The average area reduction over the approximately 50-year period is 39%. Currently, only 26 glaciers are larger than 0.1 square kilometers (25 acres) which is used as a guideline for deciding if bodies of ice are large enough to be considered glaciers.

Seriously, what the fuck is the matter with you? When you read facts like this, does your head get all splodey and stuff?

"Michael Mann lost his defamation lawsuit because he still wouldn't release the raw data he used to produce his infamous "hockey stick" global temperature graph."

I've searched all over for this "loss" and the only thing I found was this. And this. From the second link...

Stay tuned to see whether the trial court ultimately agrees. This case began in 2012, and is unlikely to conclude any time soon.

Again, WTF are you talking about, Kevin?

Regarding the hockey stick nonsense, click here. 

While many continue to fixate on Mann's early work on proxy records, the science of paleoclimatology has moved on. Since 1999, there have been many independent reconstructions of past temperatures, using a variety of proxy data and a number of different methodologies. All find the same result - that the last few decades are the hottest in the last 500 to 2000 years (depending on how far back the reconstruction goes). 

Raw data is here. So, that's another lie torpedoed. 

Kevin, you are going to have to do much better than these weak assertions. That was too easy! 

Remember When The GOP Used To Care About The Environment?

Climate Change Challenge Rejected For Safe Space

I recently challenged science denier Kevin Baker to a debate on climate change. He commented on the challenge with his usual personal remarks (not allowed on this blog so it was not published) and declined the invitation. He also linked to a straw man argument that he and his commenters created about me that is 11 years old.

His comment made me reflect on the time I got voted off the blog (by one vote). In the voting post, a commenter remarked how they wanted Kevin's blog to be a place where they could retreat from the outside world (of facts) and just be free (of reality) or something like that. I've thought about that comment for a while and it always cracks me up. Even right-wingers need their safe spaces!

Kevin clearly needs such a safe space from the science of climate change but there is really no hiding from it. Climate deniers can make up whatever nonsense they want but it's all been refuted by the science. So, every time Kevin lies about climate change, I will be responding here and here on Reddit. I will use facts and peer-reviewed evidence to show that his assertions are completely wrong. He has an open invitation to respond but I don't think he will. As with many subjects, he engages with reasonable people outside his blog, doesn't like what he hears, and then retreats to his own blog to get back pats. Where is his mettle?

Sadly, he has allowed his personal emotions about liberals cloud his judgement and transform his views into an incoherent and paranoid mess. Worse, he is basically giving the middle finger to his own children and grandchildren who are going to have to live in a world with the number one threat (as identified by the Department of Defense) ignored due to adolescent feelings about authority.

The bottom line is that I'm going to call him on his bullshit about climate change whether he shows up to defend himself or not. He is welcome at any time to discover who understands the logic and reason of science and can defend it.

Where We Have Arrived

He Must Take It

Climate Change: There IS No Debate

For anyone who's over 40, there's simply no debate about climate change. It's happening, and it's completely obvious that it's happening from your own personal experience.

And I'm not talking about how things were in the good old days, when I was a kid and I had to walk uphill to school both ways. This is just since 1990.

I've been playing volleyball for more than 30 years. I play both indoors and out, and I've also been attending University of Minnesota volleyball matches.

When I started, the outdoor volleyball season started in May and ended in September or October. Now we regularly play from April to November, and several years we've been able to play from early March until early December. I usually stop playing outdoors in November not because it's too cold, but because the sun is so low I can't see the ball when it's served from south side of the court.

The women's NCAA volleyball season runs from August through December. When we started attending matches we had to drive through snow storms to get to half the matches. In the past 10 or 15 years there's barely any snow on the ground during the last two matches.

Since milder winters are perceived as a "good thing," a lot of people rationalize that climate change is not so bad and pretend it isn't happening. But just last week a flock of tornadoes killed people across the south. Tornadoes in Louisiana and Alabama in January! And this is becoming a regular thing. Come on, people, this is not normal!

My personal experience jibes with what scientists have been telling us: spring is arriving almost a month earlier, screwing up all sorts of natural cycles. The melting permafrost in Alaska and Russia is destroying entire towns because the very ground they're built on is melting because of global warming.

There's no debate about climate change. It's happening, right here, right now, and it's having drastic effects on our infrastructure, plants, animals, and human beings.

Anyone who says different is just lying.

But that's par for the Republican course.