I thought I’d wait a couple days after the release of President Obama’s long form birth certificate before saying anything. I figured, let’s give the birthers time to admit they were wrong or misled, and demand an end to one of the American radical Right’s Big Lies.
...Crickets.
Heavens to Orly Taitz, not a peep. Does any sane person expect anything different from the RepubliCON Cult? Of course not. They are a cult so enraged by the fact there is a Black man in the White House, they accept any wild notion that justifies their fear, anger and hatred. They embrace the twisted belief system of racists, fascists and idiots. And as we all know, racists, fascists and idiots are never wrong, and never have to recognize, or admit to holding, any false beliefs.
The horror is not that these goose-stepping moral failures cannot admit they are wrong, or refuse to show any interest in learning the truth; but they are virtually half the voting block of the Republican Party. These arrogant, racist fascist fools are why we have the Republican Party in power. The true meaning of “useful idiots” is on display for the world to see. How can anyone be proud of this country with this reality? We are no better than 1930’s Germany. We are now practically begging for a Republican police state. Fascism has come. The Big Lies are here. The “pinhead patriots” are ignorant and frightened authoritarians who believe those who disagree with them are Marxist threats to their vile notion of what a free democratic republic should be.
The servants of Mammon are in control of our politicians, and what was once called a government of, by and for the people has been bought and paid for. The legislative, judicial and executive branches of our federal and state governments are being locked into serving the agenda of the power brokers of Wall Street, insurance companies, energy conglomerates, Pharma, and the Military Industrial Complex. Money is Free Speech. Corporations are Persons. (Thank you Supreme Corporate Cronies.) War is peace. (Thank you, GWB, “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.”) Freedom is slavery. (Goodbye jobs, fair pay, benefits and pensions.) Ignorance is strength. (Thank you, Trump and Birthers.)
This is a clear symptom of the growing power of the Dark Side. “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Thank you, Jesus.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
A Hero's Reward
Maybe you caught the Bill Maher show this month when he had Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger on as a guest. We remember him as the pilot who successfully landed a passenger plane on the Hudson River a couple years ago after having his engines cut by bird strikes. The media, politicians, and public alike all praised the outstanding pilot as a hero. And he is rightly called a hero. His superb piloting skills, unflappable nerves and cool thinking undoubtedly averted a terrible event and saved many lives.
It’s a good thing airline pilots are so handsomely rewarded with generous pay for their unending responsibilities for the safety of the passengers and public. Or are they generously, or even fairly, compensated?
Remember the fatal crash near Buffalo in February of ’09? Sully told us the first officer of that flight earned $16 thousand a year and had to sleep on the floor the night before the flight because she couldn’t afford a motel. He also informed us the captain of the flight had no training to prepare him for the dive the aircraft took when ice had built up on the plane.
From the AP:
The training by the airline — Manassas, Va.-based Colgan — for the Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier, a twin-engine turboprop, didn't include a demonstration or simulation of the stick-pusher system, sources said.
A stick-pusher automatically kicks in when a plane is about to stall, pointing the aircraft's nose down into a dive so it can pick up enough speed to allow the pilot to guide it to a recovery.
However, when Flight 3407's stick-pusher kicked in on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport the night of Feb. 12, Renslow pulled back on the plane's control column, apparently trying to bring the aircraft out of the sudden dive by raising the nose up. Pushing forward to gain speed is the proper procedure.
The activation of a stick pusher can be a jarring experience for any pilot, especially if the pilot has never experienced it before, said William Waldock, an aviation science professor at Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, Ariz. The natural response is to pull back unless you've been trained through repetition to push forward, he said.
I guess we should take comfort in knowing the CEO’s and shareholders didn’t have to make any sacrifice.
Ever wonder how Sully’s income and pension are doing? Well, Sully has lost 40% of his pay. Sully’s first officer had just taken a 60% pay cut. Sully said his pension was “terminated, gone”. He was sad to report that he could never encourage a younger person to follow him in a career as a commercial pilot.
The sacred bottom line is revered and served over the public’s safety. The public interest and general welfare of the American people is being subverted. The American Dream is ending in a nightmare. But don’t worry, be happy. Big Business is doing just fine.
It’s a good thing airline pilots are so handsomely rewarded with generous pay for their unending responsibilities for the safety of the passengers and public. Or are they generously, or even fairly, compensated?
Remember the fatal crash near Buffalo in February of ’09? Sully told us the first officer of that flight earned $16 thousand a year and had to sleep on the floor the night before the flight because she couldn’t afford a motel. He also informed us the captain of the flight had no training to prepare him for the dive the aircraft took when ice had built up on the plane.
From the AP:
The training by the airline — Manassas, Va.-based Colgan — for the Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier, a twin-engine turboprop, didn't include a demonstration or simulation of the stick-pusher system, sources said.
A stick-pusher automatically kicks in when a plane is about to stall, pointing the aircraft's nose down into a dive so it can pick up enough speed to allow the pilot to guide it to a recovery.
However, when Flight 3407's stick-pusher kicked in on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport the night of Feb. 12, Renslow pulled back on the plane's control column, apparently trying to bring the aircraft out of the sudden dive by raising the nose up. Pushing forward to gain speed is the proper procedure.
The activation of a stick pusher can be a jarring experience for any pilot, especially if the pilot has never experienced it before, said William Waldock, an aviation science professor at Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, Ariz. The natural response is to pull back unless you've been trained through repetition to push forward, he said.
I guess we should take comfort in knowing the CEO’s and shareholders didn’t have to make any sacrifice.
Ever wonder how Sully’s income and pension are doing? Well, Sully has lost 40% of his pay. Sully’s first officer had just taken a 60% pay cut. Sully said his pension was “terminated, gone”. He was sad to report that he could never encourage a younger person to follow him in a career as a commercial pilot.
The sacred bottom line is revered and served over the public’s safety. The public interest and general welfare of the American people is being subverted. The American Dream is ending in a nightmare. But don’t worry, be happy. Big Business is doing just fine.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
"Sound Science"
If you believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and can ignore geology, paleontology and other science that prove the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, chances are pretty good you are a Republican voter.
If you can ignore archeological studies and carbon-14 testing showing hominid life has been present on earth for millions of years, and insist Adam and Eve were the actual “first couple”, chances are pretty good you are a Republican voter.
If you can ignore the fact that the ten warmest years on record have been since 1998, the world’s glaciers are receding, Arctic permafrost is thawing, the Arctic Sea’s Winter ice cover is shrinking, vast Antarctic ice shelves are detaching into the sea, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is we are facing real climate change, chances are pretty good you are a Republican voter.
In fact, the more you distrust science and dislike scientists, the more likely you are a Republican voter.
So what’s the deal here? Does science have a liberal bias? Or do the non-liberal opponents of scientific research have a political and financial interest in suppressing the results of scientific studies. We remember the Bush Administration muzzled NASA climate studies.
Let’s ask renowned climate scientist Rush Limbaugh for the real truth. “Climate change is a liberal hoax”. Well, there you go. This is all that some people really need to believe, and no more attention is required for such nonsense. Just go vote for Republicans and everything will be alright.
Or not. Now let’s be fair. Republicans have their own favorite kind of science. They love the science that gives us more spectacular ways to kill our fellow human beings. They love all the new high tech surveillance tools the Bushies praised and utilized in their war on the Bill of Rights.
Maybe Stephen Colbert was right when he said, “Reality has a well known liberal bias”. Maybe that means science must share in that bias, right?
Indeed, the Right has a strong bias against any science that might cost them financially or politically. And they are not ashamed of it. Remember, by the typical Right Wing tactic of re-definition, they label research and studies they don’t like as not being “sound science”. They attack both the message and the messenger. Credit must be given to their organized assault on science, and education in general. Remember colleges and journalism, like science, are also full of liberal bias, according to the Right. But is the Right... right? That doesn’t matter. Only their bottom line matters.
Here’s where this discussion gets interesting. It turns out Americans on the whole still like and respect science. Sixty percent of the public supports government investment in research.
As far as the climate change issue goes, Limbaugh and the Right have done a heck of a job misleading the American public. Now only 49% of Americans, down from a majority, think the Earth is getting warmer due to human activity. The great majority of scientists, 84% think this is true. I guess this would indicate the percentage of scientists who work for Big Energy and other major polluters.
The effectiveness of the Right Wing propaganda machine can also be seen in these: “Just 40% of scientists agree that “when something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful”; a majority of the public (57%) agrees with this statement.” And: “Most scientists had heard at least a little about claims that government scientists were not allowed to report research findings that conflicted with the Bush administration’s point of view. And the vast majority (77%) says that these claims are true. By contrast, these claims barely registered with the public – more than half heard nothing at all about this issue. Only about a quarter of the public (28%) said they thought the claims were true.”
Damn know-it-all liberals, no doubt.
The Religious Right has been effective in denying evolution: “Most notably, 87% of scientists say that humans and other living things have evolved over time and that evolution is the result of natural processes such as natural selection. Just 32% of the public accepts this as true.”
I’m quoting a Pew research poll that also tells us only six percent of American scientists admit to being Republicans. Fifty-five percent identify themselves as Democrats. No wonder the Right hates scientists. And no wonder they want to suppress research that disagrees with their agenda.
This information goes far in explaining the Right’s hostility towards science, and by extension, public education, college professors, journalism and any other sources of knowledge and information that threatens their power and sacrosanct bottom line.
Although none of this is really news. Galileo’s persecution by the Pope almost 400 years ago was the classic lesson on institutionalized conservative power’s war on science. The Vatican has since apologized for the suppression. What do you think the chances are of the American radical Right apologizing for their suppression over the next 400 years?
If you can ignore archeological studies and carbon-14 testing showing hominid life has been present on earth for millions of years, and insist Adam and Eve were the actual “first couple”, chances are pretty good you are a Republican voter.
If you can ignore the fact that the ten warmest years on record have been since 1998, the world’s glaciers are receding, Arctic permafrost is thawing, the Arctic Sea’s Winter ice cover is shrinking, vast Antarctic ice shelves are detaching into the sea, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is we are facing real climate change, chances are pretty good you are a Republican voter.
In fact, the more you distrust science and dislike scientists, the more likely you are a Republican voter.
So what’s the deal here? Does science have a liberal bias? Or do the non-liberal opponents of scientific research have a political and financial interest in suppressing the results of scientific studies. We remember the Bush Administration muzzled NASA climate studies.
Let’s ask renowned climate scientist Rush Limbaugh for the real truth. “Climate change is a liberal hoax”. Well, there you go. This is all that some people really need to believe, and no more attention is required for such nonsense. Just go vote for Republicans and everything will be alright.
Or not. Now let’s be fair. Republicans have their own favorite kind of science. They love the science that gives us more spectacular ways to kill our fellow human beings. They love all the new high tech surveillance tools the Bushies praised and utilized in their war on the Bill of Rights.
Maybe Stephen Colbert was right when he said, “Reality has a well known liberal bias”. Maybe that means science must share in that bias, right?
Indeed, the Right has a strong bias against any science that might cost them financially or politically. And they are not ashamed of it. Remember, by the typical Right Wing tactic of re-definition, they label research and studies they don’t like as not being “sound science”. They attack both the message and the messenger. Credit must be given to their organized assault on science, and education in general. Remember colleges and journalism, like science, are also full of liberal bias, according to the Right. But is the Right... right? That doesn’t matter. Only their bottom line matters.
Here’s where this discussion gets interesting. It turns out Americans on the whole still like and respect science. Sixty percent of the public supports government investment in research.
As far as the climate change issue goes, Limbaugh and the Right have done a heck of a job misleading the American public. Now only 49% of Americans, down from a majority, think the Earth is getting warmer due to human activity. The great majority of scientists, 84% think this is true. I guess this would indicate the percentage of scientists who work for Big Energy and other major polluters.
The effectiveness of the Right Wing propaganda machine can also be seen in these: “Just 40% of scientists agree that “when something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful”; a majority of the public (57%) agrees with this statement.” And: “Most scientists had heard at least a little about claims that government scientists were not allowed to report research findings that conflicted with the Bush administration’s point of view. And the vast majority (77%) says that these claims are true. By contrast, these claims barely registered with the public – more than half heard nothing at all about this issue. Only about a quarter of the public (28%) said they thought the claims were true.”
Damn know-it-all liberals, no doubt.
The Religious Right has been effective in denying evolution: “Most notably, 87% of scientists say that humans and other living things have evolved over time and that evolution is the result of natural processes such as natural selection. Just 32% of the public accepts this as true.”
I’m quoting a Pew research poll that also tells us only six percent of American scientists admit to being Republicans. Fifty-five percent identify themselves as Democrats. No wonder the Right hates scientists. And no wonder they want to suppress research that disagrees with their agenda.
This information goes far in explaining the Right’s hostility towards science, and by extension, public education, college professors, journalism and any other sources of knowledge and information that threatens their power and sacrosanct bottom line.
Although none of this is really news. Galileo’s persecution by the Pope almost 400 years ago was the classic lesson on institutionalized conservative power’s war on science. The Vatican has since apologized for the suppression. What do you think the chances are of the American radical Right apologizing for their suppression over the next 400 years?
Friday, April 1, 2011
Wake Up, America!
You know, lately I've begun to realize how extreme my political perspective has become. I have now come to understand the Big Picture more clearly. I think it's time to moderate my thinking a bit. After all, why should I blame Republicans and conservadems for our national troubles? Liberals must take their share of the blame, since they were in power for most of the last three decades. FOX (R) is just what we need for sensible balance to the radically liberal corporate media. I wish Progressives would get a clue and figure it out. The Republican Party and their donors only want what's best for every American. They are the epitome of freedom and democracy. George Bush and Dick Cheney left us a gloriously free and prosperous America, until Obama the Socialist used ACORN and the New Black Panthers to steal the election. Now we see his Marxist plans for the destruction of America are rolling over the interests of Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce. They are powerless to stop him. He could very well be the anti-Christ! Wake up, America!
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