The Watering Hole, August 31, 2015: Chris Christie vs. Technology

In order for Governor Chris Christie’s plan to round up people who overstay their visas to work, he would have to invent time travel technology. And even though it’s impossible to know if time travel really has been invented if you’re not the one using it (if history has changed, so have all your memories), looking at his poll numbers it would appear he hasn’t yet. After all, if you started out doing poorly in your effort to become President, and you had the ability to travel back in time, wouldn’t you go back in time and change things so that you had the humongous lead in Republican polls and not some billionaire with an oversize ego and even worse ideas than yours? Actually I shouldn’t say Trump’s ideas are worse since he hasn’t explained how any of them could work except to say “Management.” But I digress. Anyway, without time travel, Christie’s plan to call in FedEx Chairman and CEO Fred Smith to help teach the government how to track people who have overstayed their visas can’t work. At least, not if your plan involves finding any of the estimated eleven million people who are here illegally. Well, listen to him try to explain his plan this past Saturday. [Video via Think Progress.]

Christie’s campaign spokesperson (or “spox” as they’ve come to be called these days) is none other than FedEx CEO Fred Smith’s daughter, Samantha. It’s possible that’s a coincidence, and not at all related to Christie mentioning FedEx as part of his plan. It’s also possible that Ebola-infected monkeys will come flying out of Christie’s butt and nest in Donald Trump’s hair. One can dream, but one should probably seek professional counseling or be more diligent about taking one’s meds. But I digress. Christie said that “at any moment, FedEx can tell you where that package is. It’s on the truck. It’s at the station. It’s on the airplane.” But they can’t actually tell you where that package is “at any moment”. In order to do that, each package would have to have something like an RFID tag, which transmits a low-level signal that can be tracked by satellite, and FedEx doesn’t do that for every package they deliver. What they can tell you is where the package was when the bar code label on it was last scanned. And they don’t get scanned all the time. FedEx drivers pick up and deliver hundreds and hundreds of packages each day, so scanning every single package at every stop would be impractical. You can find out when your package got put on the plane, but until it lands and the label is scanned again, all you can find out is that it is in transit. So it is not true that FedEx can tell you where a package is “at any moment.” Christie tried to explain to Chris Wallace that of course he knows people aren’t packages. [Video via Raw Story]

But to use this technology that can find the people who overstayed their visas, you would have to find the people who overstayed their visas and give them some kind of bar code that can be scanned, or a visa with an RFID chip in it. Then you would have to install scanners all over America that can detect these bar codes and RFID tags, and keep their current locations handy so that the microsecond their visas expire, you’ll know exactly where to go pick them up. Assuming that in addition to buying and using all this technology, you also came up with the money to have them picked up, housed while being processed, and transported to a waiting government official in Mexico. Whose taxes are you going to raise to pay for all that? I suggest Donald Trump’s, for starters. Followed by all those millionaires and billionaires who got ginormous tax cuts back in the Reagan days, heralding the beginning of the destruction of the Middle Class in America. The calls for balancing the budget (a completely unnecessary and self-defeating goal) were nothing more than the legalized transfer of wealth to the top 1%, and most of that to the top 0.1%. We were told that the rich people would use their tax cuts to create jobs and the wealth would trickle down to the rest of us. Yes, they actually told us that. And it was complete bullshit and they knew it. Because rich people do not create jobs. Consumer demand creates jobs. A need for a product or service develops, and someone starts up a business to meet the demand for that need. And it isn’t always a rich person doing it. How many times have you heard of the guy who had nothing and started a multi-million dollar business? What rich people often do is give that guy several hundred million for his business and take it over themselves. But no matter how big that business gets, it isn’t the owner that created the jobs, it’s the consumer demand of the Middle Class that created the vast majority of those jobs. Without that demand, there would be no reason for that business owner, either the guy starting out who hasn’t yet made his first million, or that guy with the hilarious Trumpadour hairstyle, to hire people in the first place. But I digress.

This is our daily open thread. Feel free to discuss Chris Christie, Donald Trump, roadkill you may have personally worn on your head, or anything else you wish to discuss.

Sunday Roast: Happy Zooniversary!!

Freddie just owns that whole stadium, doesn’t he?  Absolutely fantastic.  🙂

Anyhoo, I guess TheZoo has been a thing for a little over eight years — which is kinda nuts, actually — but in a good way!

Our Critters and Zoosters “met” about ten years ago on the ThinkProgress blog, when it was just a wee little thing with barely any comments.  Awwww, it was so cute.  Damn, look at it now!!  As good things tend to go on the interwebs, it eventually became overwhelmed with smelly ol’ trolls and several of us decided to just bug out — hence TheZoo!

We used to be a more serious blog, with lots of political posts, cartoons, and massive snark, which was linked on occasion by Crooks & Liars and ThinkProgress itself.  Srsly, cool, right?

These days we’re a comfy little online neighborhood pub, with daily open threads by the Critters containing wisdom, poetry, essays on politics/religion, photos, videos, the occasional bizarre rant (usually by that Zooey nutter), live-blogging political debatey-type things, and a multitude of insightful/snarky/sarcastic/snide/thoughtful/naughty comments by our loyal and well-loved Zoosters.

Thank you so much for hanging out, all y’all, and Happy Eight Years, everyone!

This is our daily open thread — Party on!

The Watering Hole, Saturday, August 29th, 2015: Let’s Get Away From It All

This ought to take your minds off of the insanity of the Republican “presidential hopefuls”, if only for a little while.

The Weather Channel has posted the finalists for its 2015 “It’s Amazing Out There” photo contest. So enjoy some cool photos and forget about Teh Stupid.

Here’s one of last year’s photo finalists, a cool shot taken by Dwayne Kear:

So go ahead, refresh your sense of wonder at something other than jaw-dropping idiocy.

This is our daily Open Thread – enjoy!

The Watering Hole; Friday August 28 2015; “Can the Dumb Define the Divine?”

. . . I infer from the Odors borne –
Of its Voice — to affirm — when the Wind is within —
Can the Dumb — define the Divine?
The Definition of Melody — is —
That Definition is none —
Emily Dickinson

Interesting question, that one. Republicans everywhere seem to think they can not only DEFINE divinity, but that they can interpret each and every current event through the “eyes” of their particular brand of “the Divine.”. Here’s but one example of what happens when a near maniacal ego grapples with concepts that lie far beyond its ken. Republican presidential candidate hopeful Ted Cruz has said:

“I’m a Christian and Scripture commands Christians to love everybody.”

“What we’re seeing now is this liberal fascism and intolerance where their object is to persecute, to punish, to fine any Bible-following Christian or believer that believes in the biblical definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. And that is profoundly inconsistent with who we are as Americans. . . .”

“There are some activists who, frankly, manifest a hatred and intolerance for Christians, who are persecuting Christians. That is unfortunate. As I said, I think we should love everybody. . . .”

[religious liberty was] “the foundational right upon which this nation was built, and I am proud to stand with these heroes gathered tonight to defend religious liberty.”

In other words: liberal fascism (itself the oxymoronic equivalent of, say, “gentle cruelty”) is the (presumed) unholy or perhaps Satanic undercurrent that has forced “Christians” to hate, fear, and disrespect LGBT people because it is liberal fascism that has mandated commercial “Christian” florists and cake-makers be disallowed from refusing to make cakes or sell flowers to those who would celebrate or (horror of horrors) participate in, say, a same sex marriage. Because, apparently, gay people are deserving of hatred and intolerance because God put a verse in the bible pointing out that He, too, hates and is intolerant of the whole concept of those aberrant people (whom He created in the first place). Cruz believes, I’m sure, that he CAN, indeed, “define the Divine.”

Weird. On the one hand, according to Cruz, the bible commands Christians to love everybody; on the other hand, he also refers to hatred and intolerance as a product of those liberal fascists who see the world through a different lens. What he fails to notice is that the ‘right’ to practice hatred and intolerance is not only allowed, but sometimes DEMANDED by his concept of religious liberty which he maintains is under assault by (non-existent and oxymoronic) liberal fascism. Divinity not only allows, it also so demands — at least according to definers of Divinity such as Ted Cruz — the practice of hatred and intolerance as a ‘right’ granted by religious liberty.

Confusing.

So. OK. Fine. Yes. We have just been served — by Presidential candidate Ted Cruz — a full helping of what is fast becoming known as REPUBLICAN STUPIDITY!! (See also Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Rand Paul, somebody named Kasich, and whomever else I might have forgotten about already).

Seriously folks. When Emily Dickinson asked “Can the Dumb define the Divine”? I’m betting she was perfectly aware that the answer is clearly NO. And even though she never really said as much, my guess is that to her, it was not all that tricky for anyone with a functioning mind to define the Dumb. And it still is NOT tricky, given that today all one really has to do is look and see if there’s an “R” behind the name. If there is, the answer is a definite Yup. Dumb. Defined.

Anyway, in an effort to assuage my, shall we say, “disappointment” (?) in re the mental qualities of the Republican Clown Car occupants, I spent some time wandering through some of my old photo files on a search for evidential photographs of the mentally superior critters one runs across constantly while visiting “out there.” I found several, each and every one of which portrays exponential levels of intellectual superiority to Republicans everywhere. I only hope I’m not insulting the intellectually superior critters by assigning physical resemblance comparisons to several of the Republican Presidential (ouch!) candidate hopefuls! Nevertheless, let the DIVINE — herein and now — DEFINE the DUMB. At least a handful of them.

                                                                      Trump?

                                                                 Carson?

                                                  Fiorina? (look closely)

                                                                          Jeb!

                                                                        Walker?

                       Ted Cruz, aka the mummified frog. Definitely. Q.E.D.

And speaking of mummified frogs, here’s the latest from Ted’s papa, Rafael Cruz:

‘The Devil Overplayed His Hand’ With SCOTUS Gay Marriage Decision

So there it is again. One more attempt by a Wingnut to define the Divine. My answer, therefore, to Ms Dickinson’s burning question “Can the Dumb define the Divine?” is a simple one: OF COURSE NOT!!! Duh!

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity;
and I’m not sure about the universe.”
Albert Einstein

Q.E.D.

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole; Thursday August 27 2015; “Anchor Babies”

“We are here to support American values.
America was built with immigrants.”
Juan Gomez
(Vice president of United Voices for Immigrants,
Teacher of English to immigrant adults,
Peruvian immigrant
April 9, 2006)

Anchor Babies. I find the demeaning attitude implicit in those two words to be infuriating. And ridiculous. And STUPID! No wonder Republicans use them on a daily basis.

Donald Trump initiated the latest round of nonsensical anti-birthright bias when he suggested that if he were to become President, he would deport each and every “illegal” or undocumented immigrant, and that he would then find the means to override the opening words of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the line that grants birthright citizenship WITHOUT EXCEPTION via the words:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Since Trump first mentioned his racist and white supremacist ego-maniacal fascistic proposition, most if not all “candidate” occupants of the Republican Clown Car have voiced agreement with his ‘unconstitutional’ thesis. Their responses have ranged from the ridiculous to the bizarre (especially Jeb Bush who aimed his hateful rhetoric at Chinese and Asians rather than the more “popular” Hispanic brand). But the bottom line remains: the GOP has morphed from an all-inclusive and reasonable politic to become little more than a white supremacist, hate and fear motivated classical Fascist movement, one whose intent seems to be the redefinition of this country.

I could rant for days on the absolute asininity of the GOP’s “positions” on this and on most other matters of national and humanitarian import, but in deference to sanity I’ll hold back. A little, at least. But I will answer Jeb Bush’s idiotic response to the journalist who asked him about his use of the words ‘anchor babies.’ “You give me a better term and I’ll use it,”  Bush replied. Seems to me that’s an easy one. How about, “children”? I should think that would be clear and obvious, esp. to the politic that sees the fertilized egg as a ‘person’ worthy of full constitutional protection. I guess that concept must only apply to white zygotes, though, and surely not to brownies and Chinks and Japs and . . . well, you know.

Funny too how “anchor babies” weren’t an issue when white Christians first came to North America back in the seventeenth century. I mean, it seems crystal clear that each and all of those immigrants were effectively illegal, undocumented, etc. I admit I find it curious that today’s Republicans, when they’re bitching about “anchor babies,” never mention the atrocities those Pilgrim “anchor babies” were at least partially responsible for over ensuing generations. Why is that I wonder?

A recent article in the Washington Post by Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt discusses what he refers to as “Donald Trump’s nativist bandwagon.” In it he notes that

Trump would abolish birthright citizenship: the principle, embedded in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, that anyone born in the United States is an American, no matter the legal status of his or her parents. Sen. Ted Cruz promptly claimed he’d always opposed birthright citizenship, too, a claim the Houston Chronicle quickly disproved. Bobby Jindal and Ben Carson joined in, as did Scott Walker, though he didn’t seem entirely sure. Jeb Bush stayed admirably aloof from the mob.

(Hiatt apparently wrote the piece before Bush jumped on board and criticized Asian/Chinese “anchor babies” rather than Hispanic “anchor babies”). He goes on to quote Doris Meissner, who ran the U.S. immigration agency under President Clinton and is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.

“What’s the belief system, the social cohesion that binds us? . . . A commitment to democracy, participation, equal rights, opportunity, due process, government by the people — people have to be full members of the society for that to be real and flourish.”

Hiatt further notes that the anchor baby “problem” will fix itself eventually. The children of the undocumented will be citizens, and they will grow up — as children of immigrants, legal and illegal, generally have — to better their lot, sometimes to prosper, almost always to contribute.

If, on the other hand, American-born children were denied citizenship, the number of people illegally here would swell. By 2050, according to a study a few years ago by the Migration Policy Institute, nearly 5 million people who had been born here would have no legal claim to remain — or, if having even one undocumented parent was deemed disqualifying, as many as 13 million.

“With all the problems illegal immigration presents, at least it’s a one-generation phenomenon. It self-corrects with the next generation born here,” Meissner told me. “A permanent underclass where disadvantage is transferred generationally is a terrible counter-force.”

Hiatt is, in my very humble opinion, precisely correct in his thesis. The “problem” that has so gripped the imaginations along with the irrational hatreds and fears of the American political far right (aka the GOP) is nothing other than an expression of their own inborn insufficiencies, coupled with their white supremacist and ego-maniacal attitudes. “Anchor babies,” meanwhile, are children who will become — courtesy of the Fourteenth Amendment —  the next generation born here, each and all of whom will be citizens, and they will grow up — as children of immigrants, legal and illegal, generally have — to better their lot, sometimes to prosper, almost always to contribute. 

Meanwhile, it seems the time to put an end to the political insanity as preached, practiced, and imposed by today’s version of the Republican Party has definitely arrived. The insanity of never-ending fear and hatred theses that drive their current politic makes life miserable for far too many real and genuine people even as it appeals to far too many — mainly those with shriveled souls (aka Republicans).

Therefore the obvious question: what sort of future might the 2016 electoral process portend? Current polls that show the ego-maniac Donald Trump leading all other clown car occupants. To Ann Coulter, the notion of a “President Trump” serves as Proof That ‘God Hasn’t Given Up On America Yet’. George Will, on the other hand, has suggested that Trump’s immigration plan could spell doom for the GOP. With any luck at all, Will’s thesis will be proven to be absolutely accurate, given that if this country is to have any semblance at all of a sustainable future for its people, GOP “doom” is mandated. If Trump can pull that off, fine. If another candidate should be chosen from the current crowd, with luck the ego-maniacal ghost of the Trump candidacy will continue to do his candidacy’s dirty work and pave the way to a progressive nation, a true Democracy that addresses the well-being of ALL its people rather than just its (white) oligarchs and power mongers.

And once civility replaces their fascistic hatred, let there be NO MORE TALK OF ANCHOR BABIES!

“Marches will only get you so far. There has to be
an electoral component to get the Republicans out of the majority.”
Armando Navarro
(Coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights,
a network of Hispanic activist groups in Southern California
April 9, 2006)

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole, Monday, August 24, 2015: The Rebel Flag Is Not About ‘Patriotism’

So the Weekend Folks at Fox and Friends (say that three times backwards in front of a candle-lit mirror and it will summon them) are having a sad over the decline in acceptability of the Battle Flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia (hereafter conveniently, if technically inaccurately, known as the Confederate Flag, the Rebel Flag, the Traitor Flag, The Slavery Lover Flag, the Racist Flag, and the White Supremacist Flag II) because they wrongly believe it’s because Liberals are trying to ban all expressions of “patriotism.”

Before going on to hear what an actual documentarian on the Civil War has to say about what it, and the battles flags under which the South fought, represented, let’s clear up a couple of things. First Tucker “This is not about a school district in Tennessee” Carlson. it is about what’s happening in this one county school district in Tennessee. That would be the first thing an actual journalist would make clear to his audience, but I digress. Second, it wasn’t “Liberals” who were “banning the American flag.” it was the county officials in this one school district. Now, FTR, I think they went too far in banning all flags, especially the American Flag. It’s without question a violation of First Amendment rights, but so too is the banning of the Confederate Flag. Don’t misunderstand me. It may sound like I’m agreeing with Tucker Carlson, but I am not. In this instance, he happens to be right about it being wrong for them to ban all flags, but he’s right for entirely the wrong reasons. He wants to turn what is a simple violation of First Amendment rights into a baseless attack on Liberals and Liberalism, by using the tried and true Conservative tactic of the false framing, or straw man argument.

To continue with the Wrongness of Being Tucker, he tried to blame what’s happening in this on, well, you try to make sense of this:

“This is a about a long-term trend where the people who run everything — the elites in Washington, New York and L.A. — despise rural America and its culture, suspect anybody that doesn’t live in their cities of being a bigot, and they’re trying to crush that culture by banning its symbols.”

While it true that Dickson County is represented by a Democrat in the House, he had nothing whatsoever to do with this local policy change. Nor did anyone in New York. Nor did anyone in L.A. Nor do the people in Washington, New York and L.A. “despise rural America and its culture.” In this free society, people who live on the coasts have chosen to live a different lifestyle than those who live in the middle of the country. It’s not an either/or choice, Tucker. It’s not a matter of binary thinking – that if you like one thing you must hate the other. Liberals, whom you despise for the way we think, do not think the way you think we think. You are projecting, and it is showing us how YOU think about the situation. And we don’t think of anyone who doesn’t live in our cities of being a bigot. The explanation is similar to what John Stuart Mill said about Conservatives. “While it true that not all conservative people are stupid, it is most certainly true that most stupid people are conservative.” (Some 300 years later, scientific studies have confirmed this.) It’s not that people in the cities think of the people in rural America as bigots, it’s that bigots tend to prefer not to live in the multi-cultural cities on the coasts. It’s not that everybody in rural America is a bigot, it’s that most bigots prefer to live in rural America. What concerns people like me is how welcome they are to live there. But that’s a topic for another post, as my grandfather used to say before he died in 1959. (He was ahead of his time.)

I’ll get back to why what you said is bullshit, but first let’s make clear about what this “heritage,” this “culture,” you’re referring to really is. I won’t give it away by mentioning “Slavery.” Oops.

It’s not that we want to “crush” that culture (there you go projecting again, believing that we Liberals think of resolving differences of opinion through violent conflicts), it’s that we want people to understand the truth about what that flag represents. It represents a way of life that is no longer American. That heritage, that culture, you so lovingly defend even though you were born and raised in California, was founded on the premise of White Supremacy, and the simple proof of that is the way black people have been treated even 150 years after the war ended. That part of the country has never wanted to accept black people as equals. Not legally, not officially, not formally, but worst of all, not honestly. Tucker blathered on.

“Not just the Confederate flag, but the American flag,” he continued. “They hate expressions of patriotism. It makes them uncomfortable. Let’s be honest.”

If you’re equating a love of the Rebel Flag with patriotism, I’m going to have to ask you which dictionary you’re using because, by definition, the Rebel Flag (the one used by the Traitors) cannot be called a flag of Patriotism equal to that earned by the American Flag (the winning side, I might add.) Like most of the Conservatives we hear on public media (there, I didn’t generalize too much) and the people who think they’re right (no, still not too much), Tucker Carlson engages in too much binary thinking because it’s the easiest kind of low-effort thinking there is. It’s one thing or its opposite. If you don’t support the American Flag 100% and everything she stands for, then you must be a Traitor (like those Rebels who denounced the United States and formed their own country and started a war with us.) If you’re uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean you hate something. We are capable of nuance, of seeing shades of gray. What makes me uncomfortable about the public displays of patriotism I see are the bigoted, racist people doing it. I don’t like being associated with those people. The people who promote the symbols of Slavery are people whose values I do not share. And when you try to pass them off as good American citizens, I have to wonder from which dictionary you found your definition of “good.”

This is our daily open thread. Feel free to say horrible things about Tucker Carlson, or discuss anything else you wish.

Sunday Roast: Buh bye!

Hey kids, let’s join the Young Turks guys and take the argument to end birthright citizenship to its logical conclusion…oops.  Start packing, y’all.

This is our daily open thread — Rested and tan?  Wha…?

The Watering Hole, Saturday, August 22nd, 2015: (T)Rump Droppings

First, here’s several nut-filled nuggets from Trump’s interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN:

“Hillary’s record as secretary of state was a disaster…She was in favor, totally in favor, of the Iraq War, which is obviously not a good soundbite.”

Immigration word salad:

“You know, this country is so politically correct. Nobody wants to take a stance on anything…Now they like to use the word undocumented because it’s more political — I don’t use that word. They’re illegal immigrants. They came over illegally. Some are wonderful people, and they’ve been here for a while. They’ve got to go out. They’ve got to leave…These people — the really good ones, and we have some great ones — we’re going to try and expedite so they can come back.  But they’re going to come back legally.”  [According to the article, Trump “said he wouldn’t need to amend the Constitution to do it.”]

“No. 1, the 14th Amendment is very questionable as to whether or not somebody can come over, have a baby and immediately that baby is a citizen. OK?”

“Amending is too big a deal. It’s going to take — it’ll be two terms. I’d be in my second term or my eighth year by the time — assuming everything went smoothly. … I believe you can win it legally.”

According to the article, “He said people can’t be allowed to just “walk over” the border to give birth.”

“You have people on the border and in one day they walk over, have a baby. And now all of a sudden we’re supposed to pay the baby … medical, Social Security…”

“Trump defended his comments [on getting his military strategy by watching current and retired generals on TV]…saying it allows him to get a lot of advice quickly.”

“I watch your show. And I watch other shows. And you have the best generals, the best everything … frankly probably better than I could get,” Trump said. “What do I know? I’m a man that made a great fortune. I’m gonna make our country rich and I’m gonna make our country great.”

“I think that I would be a great sleeper on the military, because people wouldn’t think it’s my strength, but I think it would be one of my strengths…One of the things I noticed in your poll, I came out way, way ahead of everybody on the economy, and a lot of people weren’t surprised to see that, but I also came way out ahead on the military … and ISIS. I would build up our military so strong, so powerful that nobody will mess with us.”

Trump was asked “how he would respond if Pope Francis told him that capitalism can be toxic.”

“I’d say, ‘ISIS wants to get you. You know that ISIS wants to go in and take over the Vatican? You have heard that. You know, that’s a dream of theirs, to go into Italy.”

“I’m gonna have to scare the Pope because it’s the only thing…The Pope, I hope, can only be scared by God. But the truth is — you know, if you look at what’s going on — they better hope that capitalism works, because it’s the only thing we have right now. And it’s a great thing when it works properly.”

It gets worse, as seen in last evening’s thread on ThinkProgress about Trump’s rally in Alabama.

“Oreos. Oreos. I love Oreos, but I’ll never eat them again.”

“Women’s health issues. We’re gonna fix it.”

[According to the CNN article, Trump “said his wife and daughter both encouraged him to talk more about women’s issues after the (Jeb Bush “I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues”) controversy.”

“They said, you know, ‘The one thing you should do is talk a little bit about women’s health issues, because you’re so good on it, [y]ou know about it. And you cherish women. You want to protect women’. … I will protect women more than anybody.”]

“I swear to you I will never ever ride a bicycle.”

Had enough Trump for one morning? Yeah, me too.

This is our daily Open Thread…so talk about anything you want.

The Watering Hole – Friday August 21, 2015 – Music Night

Have we ever done a ‘bad boy’ theme?

 

The Watering Hole; Friday August 21 2015 — The Week’s Wingnut Lunacy Pinnacles

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid,
but most stupid people are conservatives.”
(John Stuart Mill)

Here are what I can comfortably refer to as the last week’s top ten examples of right wing LUNACY. They’re not arranged in any particular order (any “order” in wingnut spoutings is typically a contradiction in terms anyway), and as usual the relatively brief titles do indeed suffice to tell people with functioning minds all they really care to know. Topics include, of course, the week’s manifestations of hate, fear, persecution, revolution, women, communism, the antichrist(s)(?), and diets. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but considering the sources, maybe not so much.

1. BarbWire Warns That Obama Is The Antichrist Who Was Put Into Office By Satan

2. Markell: Pope Francis May Be The ‘Second Beast’ Of The End Times

3. Rick Santorum: Liberals ‘Rewriting History’ To ‘Fit Their Ideology’ Like In Communist China, USSR

4. Santorum: Judicial Review Is Okay…If The Court Agrees Me!

5. Michael Savage: ‘Extreme Diets’ Of Liberals Are ‘Creating A Vast Epidemic Of Mental Deficiency’

6. Pat Robertson: Christians Forced To ‘Bow Down’ Before Gays Who Are Bent On Destroying Us

7. Glenn Beck’s Birmingham Rally Is Designed To Allow Participants To ‘Be Seen By God’

8. Larry Klayman: 1776-Style Revolution Coming If Conservatives Don’t Win 2016 Election

9. Tony Perkins: Women Need To Stop Acting Like Men Or Society Will Go Down The Tubes

10. ‘I Was Born That Way’: Bryan Fischer Claims He Was Born Christian, Repulsed By Homosexuality

That is, of course, only the tip of the lunacy iceberg. Still, there should be enough freakishness embedded therein to drive the average progressive liberal a few feet closer to sanity’s edge, to the point beyond which revulsion takes over.

Revulsion. Hmmh. Bryan Fischer (see above) spoke of “revulsion” when he said:

“I think that most of us have an instinctive, I think revulsion is not too strong of a word, to the act of homosexuality, what actually happens when homosexuals come together and engage in sexual congress. We look at that and there is just an inner revulsion to that.”

“God has the same reaction that you and I do,” he continued, “but that instinctive revulsion that we have when we think about homosexuality, I was born that way.”

Curiously, that’s almost precisely how I see things — IF, that is, the words “homosexuality” and “homosexuals” are changed to, say, “conservatism” and “conservatives.” Bingo. Revulsion.  I’m guessing that’s because, as Fischer pointed out, “I was born that way.”

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole. Thursday August 20 2015; Is America Capable of Greatness?

“Who knows but he will sit down solitary amid silent ruins,
and weep a people inurned and their greatness
changed into an empty name.”
(Constantine De Volnay)

******

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! VOTE TRUMP!

Is America capable of greatness? Of course she is. She’s proven it time and again by being absolutely GREAT at things such as starting (and losing) unnecessary wars; she’s GREAT at proclaiming herself GREAT; great at fomenting and supporting irrational fears and hatreds both at home and around the world; great at polluting land, air and water and ignoring any cleanup tasks; great at ignoring poverty both at home and abroad; great at improving the well-being of the already obscenely well-off; great at anything at all that satisfies greed on most any level; great at ignoring realities discovered by science in favor of whichever prejudice happens to be in agreement with her current politic; she’s also shown herself to be more capable than most any other country in denying reality in favor of myth. So yes, in many ways America is more capable of “greatness” than is any other nation on the face of the earth. But does that also imply she’s great at doing the RIGHT thing? Is she great at showing compassion for people less fortunate? For the downtrodden? For victims of wars? Perhaps on occasion, but only if her prescribed actions fatten appropriate egos and wallets, and especially when such actions accelerate the accumulation of power by the already powerful.

So what does Trump have in mind as the means of carrying out his slogan? How is he going to “Make America Great Again” when she’s already “great” at most of the stuff that people like Trump find to be egregiously satisfying? Might he have other directions in mind? Might he be preparing to act, for example, to conquer domestic poverty by finally putting into place FDR’s “Second Bill of Rights”? FDR’s thesis was simple enough, after all. As he noted in his 1932 presidential campaign,  “It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.” A society devoid of poverty would certainly qualify as “great,” would it not? Maybe he has a plan to ‘Wage Peace, Not War’? That would most certainly be seen as a harbinger of greatness, right? Or perhaps he’s considering this: the ‘greatness inducing’ program recently described in an article entitled From Japan to Vietnam, Radiation and Agent Orange Survivors Deserve Justice From the US, a program wherein America would finally and willingly admit to the atrocities of Hiroshima, of Nagasaki, of the Agent Orange contamination of Vietnam, to be followed by the gracious act of compensating each and every survivor — victims — of the collective consequences of radiation, of dioxins, etc. To do so would surely be seen by the rest of the world as an act of pure humanitarianism, an act demonstrating America’s new found GREATNESS for everyone to see.

Might actions such as the above actually be parcel to Donald Trump’s MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN program? Are his intentions to find and take actions to relieve suffering everywhere by using America’s resources and by revealing her implicit kindness and caring for all to see?

OF COURSE NOT! NO WAY!

Ain’t no money in it, ain’t no power in ANY of that crap!

GRRRRRRRRRR!!

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole, Tuesday August 18, 2015 – Environmental News and Food Politics

Study: Temperature influences bird diversity loss in Mexico

Interesting in that land use has had little effect on bird diversity. Seems counter-intuitive. But, the hotter it gets, the less diversity, even in tropical climes.

“A wide-ranging study of gains and losses of populations of bird species across Mexico in the 20th century shows shifts in temperature due to global climate change are the primary environmental influence on the distributions of bird species.”

Read on…

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The Watering Hole, Monday, August 17th, 2015: Grab Bag

Just a few odds and ends to get your Monday started.

(R) Presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson has already proven that he “don’t know much about biology” when it comes to homosexuality, women’s reproductive and overall health, and where the fetal brain tissue came from on which he used to experiment. He’s also shown that he “don’t know much about” #BlackLivesMatter, or about prisons. Now Carson shows that he “don’t know much about history” when it comes to foreign policy, the Middle East, or the meaning of “anti-semitism.” In particular, he shows in an op-ed piece in The Jerusalem Post that he “don’t know much about” the Iran Nuclear Deal either.

A few items from Daily Kos: one oldie that makes a nice palate-cleanser; and a recent one that ends with an eloquent message [some of the comments afterwards are excellent as well.]

And for the funny, ICYMI (as I did), John Oliver and friends teach Sex Education.

This is our daily Open Thread–pick a topic, any topic.

Sunday Roast: Perseid Meteor Shower

Okay, I know this video is from 2013, but it was taken in the high desert around Joshua Tree — which is the land of my birth — so I had to use it.

My eldest son was born 33 years ago, yesterday.  When he was little, I told him that the annual Perseid meteor shower was a light show just for his birthday.  Of course, it was a total lie, but it was a lot of fun and pretty damned convenient, so don’t judge me.

Now I just have to stop hyperventilating over the fact that I have a child who is 33 years old.  Breathe…

This is our daily open thread — Don’t forget to look up.

The Watering Hole, Saturday, August 15, 2015: How The Right STILL Gets Religious Freedom Wrong

This past Thursday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins interviewed Fox News Channel Host/Parasite – I forget which – Todd Starnes (both men can best be remembered by forgetting they exist as soon as you finish reading this post) about a recent federal appeals court ruling that said a Colorado baker violated a couple’s rights when he refused to bake them a wedding cake just because they were both men. Here is my own (generously abridged) transcript of an exchange between Perkins and Starnes courtesy of the good folks at Right Wing Watch:

STARNES: It was really chilling to hear you read what they, what the government wants this Christian business owner to do. And when you read the ruling – I’ve had a chance to read the 60-some-odd pages of the Court of Appeals ruling, which is affirming the lower court’s decision – it’s not much of a legal stretch to imagine the day when they will tell pastors the same thing, “You will participate in these gay weddings.” So it’s a troubling thing when you look at this document and you realize that Christian business owners, at least in Colorado, really don’t have as much freedom as they thought they did.

PERKINS: Yeah, and that’s one of the points I’ve tried to make with pastors, you know, I know pastors have been concerned that, you know, any day now they will be forced to do same sex weddings and I say, look, look, look, it probably will come but not immediately. What’s more immediate are the people sitting in your pews, the bakers, the photographers, you know, the florists, we’ve seen those already. But it’s coming, you know even further, it’s coming to the fire chiefs, like Kelvin Cochran, who’ve you written about in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s the regular business people, the public servants. It’s Judge McConnell in Ohio, a city court judge, who did not want to do, perform, actually have to perform, and there was, I don’t know if you saw this, Todd, but there was a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court Ethics Board that said he was required, as a judge, to perform same sex weddings.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the apparently malleable term “Christian business owner.” What is that, exactly? Is it the owner of a business specializing in Christian merchandise? Or is it the owner of a business who happens to be a Christian? If it’s the former, then an argument could be made that Christianity plays a part in how this business owner runs his business. And one might (if one wanted to try hard enough) be able to make an argument that he should be able to run his business according to Christian principles. Otherwise the latter applies and Religion has absolutely nothing to do with how you run your business if your business is one that’s open to the general public. If your business is one that’s open to the general public, then it has to be open to ALL of the general public. If you wish to start a private service to your friends and other like-minded bigots and operate on a membership-only basis, you can do that. You just can’t pretend your business is open to the general public. And since we’re not talking about business owners who specialize in selling Christian things, the word “Christian” when attached to the words “business owner” means nothing. Starnes says it twice, but in neither case does it bolster his argument because he’s primarily trying to apply it to the owners of a general business. And operating a business in the United States has nothing to do with Religion. You are free to practice Christianity. And you are free to operate a business. But you are not free to operate a business according to any Christian principles if those principles infringe on anyone’s Constitutional rights. To do so would be to force others to practice your Religion, and you are never free to do that.

Starnes, who to my knowledge has as much legal training as I (zero), then goes on to say one of the most ignorant things one could say about this subject, “…it’s not much of a legal stretch to imagine the day when they will tell pastors the same thing, ‘You will participate in these gay weddings.'” Actually, Todd, it is just that – a legal stretch, and a huge one at that. Here’s why. In the United States of America, Marriage is considered a civil institution, not a religious one. (By contrast, in Israel, marriage is considered a Religious institution, and certain people can be denied the right to marry in Israel. It doesn’t mean legal marriages performed outside Israel won’t be recognized, it just means Rabbis in Israel do not have to perform same sex weddings.) If anything, we accommodate Religion by saying if your wedding ceremony is a religious one, performed by someone recognized by the state as being a member of the Clergy sanctioned to perform marriages recognized by your Religion (a priest, not an altar boy), then the State will also recognize that marriage and you won’t have to have a separate wedding for civil purposes. So all religious marriages are recognized as civil ones, too. But not all civil marriages are, nor should they be, recognized by any religious entity. My wife and I were married in a restaurant by a Justice of the Peace. There was no God mentioned or involved. And yet our marriage is considered 100% legal by the State of New York and, by extension, all the other states. Nobody could rationally dispute that our marriage is valid. And since a civil marriage is possible for all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof), no clergy or church will ever be forced to perform a same sex wedding. In fact, in every state that legislatively passed some kind of Marriage Equality Act (including my own state of New York), there has always been an exemption for churches or clergy members who do not wish to perform same sex weddings because their religion forbids them. And to my knowledge, no church has ever been successfully sued for refusing to perform one. And nobody is saying they should. If your Religion refuses to live in the 21st Century, that’s your Religion’s problem.

Lastly, Todd, the fact is that nobody has as much individual freedom as you think, as least as far as forcing others to practice your personal religion goes. But what we all have, including you, is the freedom to refuse to practice someone else’s religion. Some religions believe you should always keep your head covered in deference to God. Should you be forced to follow that practice if you’re not a follower of any of those religions? Of course not. And saying that two people of the same gender should not be allowed to marry because YOUR religion forbids it would be the same thing as forcing them to practice YOUR religion instead of theirs. You also don’t have the freedom to punch Liberals in the face, despite the fact that many Conservatives have publicly expressed a wish to do so. So you’re not free to do anything you want. There are limits, and those limits generally apply to the point where they affect others.

Now for where Perkins gets things wrong. First and foremost, the day will never come when pastors are forced to perform same sex weddings against their will as pastors. If they’re also public servants that’s different and we’ll get to that shortly. As I said before, I know of no states where pastors and clergy are forced by law or the courts to perform weddings for two people of the same gender, and I seriously doubt this will ever be an issue.

For those who understandably forgot, Kelvin Cochran was the former Fire Chief of Atlanta who self-published a book about his religious beliefs that said some negative and ignorant things about LGBT people (while still Fire Chief.) He also distributed this book on city property, and for that he was suspended. What Conservatives coming to his defense fail to notice is that as the Fire Chief, he’s in a position to influence the careers of any firefighter serving under him, including those who happen to be gay. How then could a gay firefighter in Atlanta ever feel he or she has an equal chance at promotion or advancement knowing the person in charge thinks they’re ruining society just by being gay? There’s no evidence that he ever did, but how can you ever feel your job is safe knowing what the boss thinks of you?

But Perkins didn’t stop there. He tried to draw an equivalence between being a private citizen business owner and being a public servant. Toledo Municipal Judge C. Allen McConnell refused to perform a wedding for a lesbian couple citing his deeply held religious beliefs. (After a 45-minute delay, the couple were married by another judge.) Judge McConnell asked the Ethics Board to give him guidance and they did. They said he couldn’t refuse. And they were right. What Conservative Christians (an oxymoron, as the message that Jesus Christ gave was overwhelmingly Liberal, so how can any good practicing Christian adhere to Conservative beliefs?) fail to grasp is that your right to practice your religion is just that – YOUR right to practice YOUR religion. It is NOT, however, YOUR right to impose YOUR religion on anyone else. But more importantly, and often overlooked in the discussion, is that discrimination against gay people (and only gay people) has nothing to do with one’s religious beliefs. Would the Colorado baker refuse to bake a cake for a woman who happened to be menstruating? Would he refuse to serve a divorced woman? Would he refuse to serve a customer he knows eats shellfish? These are all things the same chapter of the Bible (Lev 18) says are worthy of banishment, so if he’s willing to serve all of them, then his objections to serving a gay couple have nothing to do with his religion. And despite what illogical Conservatives like Justice Scalia think, that does matter because it means the claim that he runs his business according to Christian principles is a lie, which means the legal argument he presented to the Supreme Court was perjury. If I said I refuse to serve Conservatives because my religion teaches me they have sex with elephants, do I really have a constitutional leg to stand on? Of course not, because such a belief is clearly not based on my religious beliefs. And neither was the baker’s.

This is our daily open thread. Feel free to discuss religious freedom, illogical conservatives, gay leaders of the community like Todd Starnes, Tony Perkins, or Justice Antonin Scalia, or anything else you wish.

Music Night: Men in Kilts

Albannach, baby.  🙂

Just to clarify:  I maintain a reputation for music posts with Truly Crappy Music ™, but I’m branching out tonight.

Fun fact:  All music played while wearing a kilt is high quality stuff.  Don’t argue with me!

Music Night post — Knock yourselves out!

The Watering Hole; Friday August 14 2015; The Alien Invasion of Amurka

Aliens. They’re here. Their efforts to assume control of this formerly (as in pre-Obama) great nation are rapidly picking up speed. I have taken here the liberty to present a stack of evidence collected in just the last few DAYS! Hang onto your respective hats.

WND: Illuminati-Controlled Government May Use Jade Helm 15 To Stoke Chaos

Nice to see that World Net Daily continues to remain World NUT Daily.

Larry Pratt: Fund Planned Parenthood With Sales Of ‘The Dr. Mengele Cookbook For Jewish Body Parts’

No need for advice from Mengele on how or where to get human body parts. Our Second Amendment solved that problem a long time ago.

For Pat Robertson, Levitical Laws Apply To Gays But No One Else

I’m guessing the Bible was written specifically FOR Pat Robertson (and those who “think” like him). Makes perfect sense since it makes their lives easier. Y’ know?

Scott Lively: ‘Religious Freedom’ Only Applies To Christians, And That’s Why God’s Punishing Us With Gay Rights

The most bizarre nutcase thesis so far in 2015 (and maybe since the Big Bang, even):

“Well, I don’t actually believe in ‘religious freedom,’ the way that the term is used,” Lively explained. “I know that when you use it and when most people use it, you’re talking about Christianity. We’re not talking about freedom for Islam and freedom for Buddhism and Hinduism as if they’re equal with God.

“The number-one Commandment is ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ And when we forget that and we start accepting this concept of religious pluralism and we say that Jesus Christ is really no higher an authority in America than Buddha or Mohammed or even Satan, that’s when we have really dropped the ball and we have brought disfavor from God on us.”

Right. OK. Aliens for sure. I get it.

Jim Bakker: America Is Descending Into Cannibalism

Who the hell let this guy out of the slammer, and WHY??

Beck & Boykin: This Is America’s ‘Last Call’ As We’ve Become Worse Than Sodom And Gomorrah

General Boykin has clearly not yet sobered up following his stint in Iraq. As for Beck? He never will. Sober up.

Rafael Cruz: Americans ‘Under Bondage’ Because We Can’t Buy Incandescent Lightbulbs

There’s something about the word “Cruz” that causes my eyes to glass over.

And finally, there’s this little gem, one more from World Nut Daily:

Os Hillman: You Too Can Profit From God’s Coming Judgment

And yes, when he uses the word “profit” he is indeed referring to “profit” as in MORE MONEY to be made thanks to the something-or-other that God apparently mentioned a few thousand years ago. It’s way beyond my ken, but here are the nuts and bolts of it (emphasis on the NUTS):

How can believers take advantage of this season? If we are prepared this could be the greatest wealth transfer we have ever seen in our lifetime, or it can be a devastating time if you are not prepared. Let’s assume a major financial crash might happen as a result of the Shemitah year. What should you do now? Here are some steps I have taken along with many others I know who have taken them. Keep in mind that you must be directed by the Holy Spirit in your own preparation. God told Jeremiah to buy a piece of land when he knew his nation was going to be invaded by Babylon. . . . [Etc.]

Hey, if you can’t make a buck from a disaster . . . !

OK, so that’s enough. The PROOF that aliens have arrived and are rapidly assuming control is everywhere, the evidence incontrovertible. But I knew that. I’ve known it for a long time, actually. And I can prove it with photographic evidence: four of my own pics that are nearly four decades old, plus one that someone else somehow managed to snag (I only hope s/he’s OK, that some benefactor was there to shout “Klaatu Borata Nicto” at exactly the right time).

Touché.

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole; Thursday August 13 2015; ACD and its Predictable Consequences

“We didn’t inherit this world from our ancestors;
we borrowed it from our children.”
~Lakota Proverb

A few days ago I happened across one of the most cogent analyses of the ultimate consequences of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD) — Climate Change — that I’ve seen to date. It’s written by Chris Hedges, posted on Truthdig.com, and entitled Evoking the Wrath of Nature.

Here is the portion that caught my attention. It is a precise summation of the undercurrent motives behind ACD (seldom if ever stated in the mass media) which drive those national attitudes that have enabled the cause(s) of ACD AND the resistance toward developing solutions before the consequences prove irreversible. On this continent, as Hedges notes, the causal attitudes date back to the arrival of the Europeans, [who were] driven by an avarice that blinded them to all but profit. . . .

The Europeans of the era ridiculed the beliefs of the American Indians, along with their communal structures, in which everything was shared and all had a voice in tribal decisions. They routinely referred to them as “savages” or “heathens.” They painted the militiamen who terrorized and slaughtered Indian communities as military heroes and agents of Christian civilization and progress. They scoffed at legends and beliefs like the one that the remarkable stillness of the lake at the base of Mount Chocorua was sacred to the Great Spirit and should not be violated by the sound of the human voice. The Europeans did not believe that nature could seek vengeance. They were sure they could domesticate and control the wilderness.

Mount Chocorua is named for the great chief Chocorua, one of the last of the Abenakis, who was killed around 1720. He was hounded to the summit of the mountain that now bears his name by white settlers and either shot or pushed off its precipice. He is reputed to have damned the Europeans before he died, saying: “May the Great Spirit curse you when he speaks in the clouds and his words are fire! May lightning blast your crops and wind and fire destroy your homes.”

Chocorua’s grim curse is now reality. Greenhouse gas concentrations, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, continue to rise. Last year was the hottest since we began scientifically tracking weather, and 2015 is expected to top 2014. Glaciers and ice sheets are melting at an accelerated rate, causing the oceans to rise. Even if we stop all carbon emissions today, some scientists say, sea levels will rise by 10 feet by 2065 and as much as 70 feet over the next couple of centuries. Major coastal cities such as Miami and New York will be underwater. Droughts plague huge swaths of the planet. Wildfires, fueled by parched forests, have been burning out of control in Southern California, Canada and Alaska. Monster cyclones and hurricanes, fed by warming air currents, are proliferating, ripping apart whole cities. Massive species extinction is underway. And we could face a planetary societal collapse due to catastrophic food shortages within the next three decades, according to Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute. Food shortages are being driven by the warming of the planet, an ever-burgeoning population and “widespread shifts in consumption patterns as countries develop”—code for the growing and unsustainable global demand for animal protein as developing countries urbanize and income levels rise.

The blind, self-destructive exploitation that lies at the heart of capitalism, the placing of monetary profit above the maintenance of life, the refusal to understand and accept limits, have turned the victimizers into the victims. Ignoring the warnings of native communities, we have evoked the deadly wrath of nature. And I fear we may not be able to find our way back. (highlight mine)

Greed, combined with the biblical thesis that humans were granted by their God “dominion” over the earth, “dominion” over all of life, are proving to be a deadly combination. Today in this country, with the threat of ACD consequences becoming greater with each passing day, both the (principally right wing) “greed” and “Christian” segments of our society not only work endlessly to deny the scientific reality of ACD, they also leave no stones unturned in their collective efforts to (a) prevent any efforts to reduce carbon emissions, or to (b) rescind the many successful programs already in place — all in the hope of increasing profits and reducing costs, and all of which they do with the nearly full and complete support of the Republican Party. It’s interesting to note, for example, that virtually the entire GOP slate of 2016 presidential candidates — along with the vast bulk of their party’s congressional colleagues — proudly deny even the reality of ACD. “It’s a scientific hoax,” and “climate changes every day,” and “God will not allow . . .” etc. are bogus reasons most often cited as “fact.” The bottom line is that money and profit mean more than anything else on the planet, each and all of its myriad life forms included.

So: Whereto from here? Hedges’s concluding statements seem as fair an analysis of ACD consequences as I’ve yet seen or heard. He writes,

The world does not fit into the rational boxes we construct. It is beyond our control and finally our comprehension. Human beings are not the measure of all things. Existence is a mystery. All life is finite. All life is fragile. The ecosystem on Earth will die. It will be slain by our failure to protect it, or it will succumb to the vast array of natural forces . . . We have lost the capacity for reverence. We slew those who tried to warn us. Now we slay ourselves. (highlight mine)

Indeed, indeed. The haughtiness of unfettered Capitalism has set the stage for its own destruction even as it accepts the destruction of others it has orchestrated over the course of centuries. It seems more the pity that “we” are unable to learn, to follow the course of prosperous survival rather than that of ultimate destruction, of mass extinction. Why might that be? Is the human intellect too dense, too shallow, to comprehend the consequences of its actions?

No. It’s because there is and always has been PROFIT in destruction. And besides, God said . . . etc.

Chief Luther Standing Bear of the Teton Sioux pointed out the clear and obvious countermeasure when he said,

“For the Lakota, mountains, lakes, rivers, springs, valleys, and woods were all finished beauty. Winds, rain, snow, sunshine, day, night, and change of seasons were endlessly fascinating. Birds, insects, and animals filled the world with knowledge that defied the comprehension of man.”

Sounds good, but nope, no way. Ain’t no PROFIT in it.

OPEN THREAD

 

The Watering Hole, Wednesday, August 12th, 2015: Chuck Should Listen to George (Bonus: Birds!)

I started this post (a few days ago) thinking that I would rebut Senator Chuck Schumer’s reasoning, as reported in this NY Times article by Jennifer Steinhauer and Jonathan Weisman, for his opposition to the Iran Nuclear Agreement.  But that would have taken too long and wouldn’t have been good for my mental and physical health.  Suffice it to say that Chuck’s ‘arguments’ against the deal are specious and unfounded, and the final quote in the article is, quite literally, nonsensical:  “To me, after 10 years, if Iran is the same nation as it is today, we will be worse off with this agreement than without it.”

Then I got distracted (once again) by President Washington’s Farewell Address, with his  warning against aligning the Nation with any particular nation(s) at the expense and enmity of any other nation(s), and at the expense of our country’s interests.  (If you’re interested, the pertinent discussion starts at “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.”)  I wanted to scold Schumer with these two sections in particular:

“Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.“

~ and ~

“Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.“

Then, for a bit of crazy, there were a couple of stories on RightWingWatch about Michele Bachman “predictions” and/or supposed validation of previous “predictions.” 

Finally, I ran across something to wash the bad taste out of your minds: a story about birds from DailyKos.

This is our daily open thread, so talk about ‘such and stuff’ (as my mum used to say.)

The Watering Hole, Tuesday, August 11, 2015 – Environmental News and Food Politics

Stem Cell Research Identifies Effects of Pollution on Human Health

From the article:

“The researchers used a combination of biochemical and cell-based assays to examine the gene expression profile during the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells upon treatment with BPA, a compound known to cause heart disease, diabetes, and developmental abnormalities in humans. They were able to detect and measure, BPA toxicity toward the proper specification of primary germ layers, such as endoderm and ectoderm, and the establishment of neural progenitor cells. These results indicate that BPA may alter embryonic development in vivo.”

Read on…

The Watering Hole, Monday, August 10th, 2015: Make It Stop!

Make it stop – Teh Stupid will make my ears bleed!

Only one Republican debate down, and already the incessant fallout of Teh Stupid is taking its toll. Pretty soon I’ll be curled up in a ball with my eyes tightly closed and my ears covered, otherwise what’s left of my brain will start leaking out.

How’re your brains holding up?

This is our daily Open Thread–discuss anything you want!

Sunday Roast: Music Sunday

I love Mumford & Sons, and I’ve been listening to them a lot lately — so all y’all get a post out of it!  Yeah, I’d pretend I had anything else to post, but I can’t put anything over on you guys.  🙂

This is our daily open thread — Play some tunes!

The Watering Hole, Saturday, August 8, 2015: Mike Huckabee and the Personhood Movement

Having an opinion does not equate to having a valid opinion. Nowhere was that more clear than at Thursday night’s Fox News Republican Debate Of Ten Candidates Personally Chosen By Roger Ailes. Before continuing, and to give credit where credit is due, the moderators for the debate asked much tougher questions than I thought they would. That doesn’t mean they asked the right questions, but they did ask things I didn’t think they would address. Unfortunately, they didn’t ask them about many important topics, including income inequality, global warming, or climate change. Then again, these are all things Fox News Channel denies are a problem, so why should I have expected them to ask the people who want to be president about them? By contrast, Israel was mentioned 12 times that night, three by moderators and nine by the candidates. (Sen Rand Paul mentioned them four times in his remarks, but he was defending his position that we shouldn’t be sending foreign aid to them or anyone else.) Others mentioned Israel in order to make some completely false remark. Dr Ben Carson said, “You know, we turned our back on Israel, our ally.” (Absolutely untrue. Republicans mistake our disdain for the thoroughly contemptible PM Benjamin Netanyahu with not wanting to support Israel.) Gov Chris Christie (upset because Neil deGrasse Tyson won’t declare him to be one of the Plutoids) disagreed with Sen Paul and said, “But I absolutely believe that Israel is a priority to be able to fund and keep them strong and safe after eight years of this administration.” That’s all well and good, Governor, but the Founding Fathers would expect you to put the interests of the United States ahead of any foreign nation, especially one that didn’t exist in their day. And the word “bless” (or some form of it) was mentioned eight times that night, seven of them by Sen Marco Rubio in his closing comments (in between sips of water.)

But it’s Gov Mike Huckabee’s comments on Personhood that I want to address.

WALLACE: Governor Huckabee, like Governor Walker, you have staked out strong positions on social issues. You favor a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. You favor a constitutional amendment banning abortions, except for the life of the mother. Millions of people in this country agree with you, but according to the polls, and again this an electability question, according to the polls, more people don’t, so how do you persuade enough Independents and Democrats to get elected in 2016?

HUCKABEE: Chris, I disagree with the idea that the real issue is a constitutional amendment. That’s a long and difficult process. I’ve actually taken the position that’s bolder than that.

A lot of people are talking about defunding planned parenthood, as if that’s a huge game changer. I think it’s time to do something even more bold. I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the constitution now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception.

The reason we know that it is is because of the DNA schedule that we now have clear scientific evidence on. And, this notion that we just continue to ignore the personhood of the individual is a violation of that unborn child’s Fifth and 14th Amendment rights for due process and equal protection under the law.

It’s time that we recognize the Supreme Court is not the supreme being, and we change the policy to be pro-life and protect children instead of rip up their body parts and sell them like they’re parts to a Buick.

First off, Planned Parenthood is not “selling off” body parts, so stop perpetuating that lie. Now, you might disagree, Mike, but you would still be wrong. Just because it’s what you believe, just because you once held the office of Governor, it doesn’t make your opinion correct, nor does it mean (despite what Gov Kasich said, “And we’ve got to listen to other people’s voices, respect them…”) that we have to respect your opinion. You are under no obligation to respect the opinion of anyone whose viewpoint is not grounded in reality. Period. If I told you that our bodies are inhabited by aliens who were once prisoners on another planet, you have every right in the world to question just about everything I say. And if I told you a fertilized egg was a human being, you should dismiss that, too. Because it isn’t scientifically or medically accurate. And no matter how much you may want it to be true, Mike, a fertilized egg is not a person with rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Amendment Fourteen, Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The key word in that amendment, the one word that makes all the rest have meaning,is “born.” In order to have the rights listed in either the Fifth or the Fourteenth Amendments, you have to be born. If you are not born, you are not a person with rights under the Constitution. Even Associate Justice Clarence Thomas agrees with that position.

Senator LEAHY. Judge, does a fetus have the constitutional status of a person?
Judge THOMAS. Senator, I cannot think of any cases that have held that. I would have to go back and rethink that. I cannot think of any cases that have held that.

So the movement to declare a fertilized egg a person has some serious problems, not least of which it isn’t constitutionally sound. And it doesn’t matter if you believe differently, you can’t declare a collection of cells to be a person with rights if that collection of cells has not yet passed the critical stage of being born. And you can’t pass the critical stage of being born until the woman carrying you gets pregnant. No pregnancy, no birth, and no person. If you ask any actual doctors who have gone to school and learned these things, they’ll tell you that fertilization is not the beginning of pregnancy. Implantation is. Until the fertilized egg is implanted into the uterine wall, a woman’s urine won’t even show hormone changes that indicate pregnancy. And even implantation alone isn’t enough, since about half the time, the eggs don’t stay implanted in the uterine wall.

“The medical community has really been quite clear about when pregnancy begins,” says Dan Grossman, an obstetrician/gynecologist at the University of California, San Francisco, “and that definition is that pregnancy begins once implantation occurs.”

That would be the implantation of the fertilized egg into the woman’s uterus. One reason doctors don’t consider a woman pregnant until after implantation is a practical one — that’s when pregnancy can be detected by hormone changes in her urine.

But there’s another reason, Grossman says. “It’s really only about half of those fertilized eggs [that] actually result in an ongoing pregnancy.”

The rest of the fertilized eggs either never begin dividing or never implant. Or they do implant but spontaneously abort. That can happen so early in pregnancy that the woman never even knows she was pregnant.

So from a medical point of view, considering every fertilized egg a person, with a person’s full rights, wouldn’t make a lot of sense, he says.

If you understand anything about Evolution (and evangelicals like Huckabee do not) you would know that the DNA of what comes out of a birth is not the same as that of the parents which produced that fertilized egg. Every person gets DNA from both its parents. But sometimes something goes wrong and the resulting child has something different, sometimes bad and deadly (a mutation, or a birth defect) but sometimes beneficial to its survival. This is precisely how human beings descended from lower life forms. Those species didn’t become humans, but humans are related to those species from along ago. That’s how Evolution works. And it’s not “just an opinion” based on something that’s “nothing more than a theory.” In the Science world, there’s a huge difference between a theory and a Theory. And you shouldn’t dismiss it just because you don’t understand the difference. It may be called a Theory (capital ‘T’), but it’s still a scientific fact. And an opinion based on a scientific fact like Evolution is a valid one, unlike many of the ones expressed at Thursday night’s Fox News Republican Debate Of Ten Candidates Personally Chosen By Roger Ailes.

This is our daily open thread. Feel free to discuss why Republicans are wrong about just about everything, or anything else you wish to discuss.

The Watering Hole, Friday August 7, 2015 – Music Night

Miley Cyrus  …untwerked     …doing a Dolly Parton song.

BTW, she has very good politics.

 

 

The Watering Hole; Friday August 7 2015; The First Republican Presidential Candidate “Debate” Summarized

In tribute to last night’s Republican “debate” — here, from Apocalypse Now,
is Marlon Brando reciting T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece,

“The Hollow Men.”

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Today dedicated to

Pretty much sums it all up.

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Oh, and one more thing. In case you weren’t aware of it, a right wing preacher-man has pointed out that God is Using Donald Trump And Fox News To Save America!

Yee Haw.

OPEN THREAD