Is this a Coup?
Some folks believe that Congress will not re-open until after the midterms, when, the GOP hopes, it has enough votes to prevent the Epstein files from being released.
Tagged with: Coup
Respecting All Other People Is Not Easy
There are people in our society who value and understand science, who believe that government needs to take care of those least able to care for themselves, who vote for Democrats–and who respect Trump supporters. There is a word for these people: they are called saints.
We mere mortals have trouble respecting those whose moral values are twisted beyond recognition.
What Do We Know about Happy People?
Certainly, what we have at left isn’t a coincidence.
Educated people tend to become affluent and understand the importance of taking care of one another and protecting the natural environment. Knowing that they’re helping others makes them happy.
The inverse of this is also true:
• Under-educated people have trouble becoming affluent. They’re easy targets for the type of disinformation campaigns that are rampant in the United States.
• The lunatic in the White House is making America great again.
• “Taking care of one another” is for woke socialists.
• Climate change is junk science and an anti-capitalist hoax. Climate scientists take in huge amounts of money and publish papers to draw conclusions that have no basis in fact.
• Schools should teach our kids to grow crops and mend their clothes. Vocational schools are better than colleges, since the latter only crank out liberals.
Believing garbage like this is not the route to happiness.
Tagged with: climate change hoax
Americans Have No Faith in Their Government
What a shock. Republicans control everything and Americans have lost confidence in government. How is that possible?
More to the point, more people every day are having a horrible realization: the U.S. president is deranged.
Tagged with: Americans Have No Faith in Their Government
“No Trump”
Senior Energy Analyst Robert Rapier writes:Starting tomorrow—November 1st—I’m declaring it “No Trump November” on my Facebook page. I need a break from the daily circus, so I don’t plan to mention him at all during the month. I’m cutting myself off cold turkey. No posts, no comments, no rants. Please don’t tempt me with articles, videos, or breaking news.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Robert: That’s fine; I won’t post a link to this post on your FB page, the way I normally would.
I would point out, though, that in a way this plays into Trump’s hands. The work of fine and intelligent people like you impedes his ability to inflict damage on our formerly great country.
Tagged with: "No Trump"
The Government’s Role in Our Lives
Many of us have been interested in this subject since we were young: What actually is the proper role of government in our lives?
What Brandon Bradford says here is interesting, but very few Americans, even progressives, would agree with him.
Tagged with: The Government's Role in Our Lives
What Some Amazing People Have Done with Their Wealth
When one gets to arguing about the greatest baseball players of all time, or, in this case, the greatest rock guitarist, people’s blood gets to roiling. I’m willing to take that risk, and so here’s my assertion: it’s a three-way tie between Steve Howe of Yes, Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin, and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.
I’m sure all three became unfathomably rich, but perhaps Gilmour has the best, most heart-warming, story to tell.
(Gilmour) earned so much money that he called it “obscene.” He once said he would wake up in the morning and write cheques to charity — just to make sense of the fortune he had. But one day, he decided to go even further. After selling his London home for £4.5 million, Gilmour gave all the proceeds to Crisis, a charity that supports the homeless. “I don’t need the money and I just thought it would be a good thing to do,” he said humbly.
In his quiet wisdom, Gilmour reflected on the simplicity he longed for: “You collect Ferraris and then you’ve got to collect buildings to house the Ferraris, and then you need more people to look after the people who are looking after things. Life gets very complicated. And eventually, at least in my case, you think, ‘I don’t need this stuff.’ And suddenly life gets simpler.”
I’m sure there are many different reasons to support those least able to support themselves, but simplifying one’s life sounds good to me.
Undersea Cabling
Many of us boomers grew up in the 1960s and can remember to our astonishment that the reason we could pick up our phone and call someone in Paris was the transAtlantic cable. Speaking for myself, it blew my mind that the technology of the day enabled us to navigate a boat across an ocean and spool out 4000 miles of thick wire (with even thicker insulation around it) from the East Coast of the United States to the shores of Europe.
As if that weren’t enough, there are similar cables that went back to the age of telegraphy in the mid-19th Century. On July 13, 1866 the cable laying ship Great Eastern sailed out of Valentia Island, Ireland and on July 27 landed at Heart’s Content in Newfoundland, completing the first lasting connection across the Atlantic. It was active until 1965.
I considered myself cool when I strung two cans connected by a string from my bedroom to my best friend’s in our neighbor’s house in 1961 or ’62. See photo below. My room: house on the left, second floor.
This may be a long way of saying that the graphic at left is total bulls***. The distance is 2700 miles, and the idea of transmitting energy for no reason is stupid beyond words.
Tagged with: Undersea Cabling
Horrendous Attack on Free Seech
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes:
… a new presidential directive called NSPM-7 … may be the most sweeping attack on the First Amendment that I’ve seen in my 60 years in politics.
NSPM-7, which stands for the National Security Presidential Memorandum #7, defines a sweeping range of commonly held political beliefs as indicators of “domestic terrorism,” including “anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration, race, and gender,” and opposition to “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
Unless you’re completely indifferent to the Constitution of the United States, this concept of “domestic terrorism” should scare the living hell out of you.
Our Founding Fathers would be appalled.
Treating Human Beings with Dignity
Few Americans respect the memory of Che Guevara, and the further they are to the right, the more that’s true. Still, I believe (or at least hope) that most of us would agree with what he said at left.
It’s akin to what theologist Fulton Sheen said, circa 1925, “You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people.”
Sadly, our society is headed in the precise opposite direction.
Workers in companies owned by billionaires are being replaced by AI and other forms of IT/automation.
The various parts of the U.S. federal government that formerly provided help for those who need it are being dismantled, and the proceeds distributed to wealthy Republican donors.
Environmental deregulation is causing toxic pollution and climate change, the effects of which disproportionately are hitting the poor.
Would be great to see all this reverse course.
