There Is a Certain Irony in What Mitch McConnell Says Here
We wouldn’t have had Donald Trump in the first place if McConnell hadn’t treated Democrats with gross unfairness.
Humor in Atheism
Over the years, I’ve read the works of many of the top atheists in the English-speaking world: mainly Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. I’ve noticed that, to a person, they have a fairly well-sharpened wit.
The guy at left has taken this one step further, IMO.
Sam Harris makes a serious point about this, however, when he says, “We actually don’t need the word ‘atheist’ any more than we need a word for the collection of people who disbelieve that Zeus is the King of the Gods.”
Tagged with: Humor in Atheism
How Precisely Was RFK Jr. Chosen for the Job?
Childhood disease deaths have seen a substantial global and U.S. decline over the past century, with rates falling from over 1 in 3 children dying before age five in the early 1900s to roughly 1 in 27 by 2023 globally. This is largely a result of the development and implementation of vaccines that, over this period of time, have essentially eradicated deaths from diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and type b meningitis.
Was installing RFK Jr. as the secretary of health and human services and the resultant attack on vaccinations just a random, ill-conceived act, or was it a deliberate act of violence against our nation’s (especially our children’s) well-being?
There is widespread speculation that Trump wants a world that is as stressed out as he can possibly make it, so as to maximize his chances of remaining in power post 2028. I have no proof, but this makes sense to me.
We’re About to See What Happens When We Reject Medical Science
We’ve been discussing the problems that arise–not so much out of ignorance per se, but through ignorance when it’s empowered to make public policy.
If there is one common ingredient to American life under Trump’s second term, it’s the rejection of science. I guess we’re about to see how this works out for public health and safety.
Tagged with: We Reject Science
The Meaning of Life
At left is what Noam Chomsky said on this subject when he was a much younger man.
Note that this is the essence of what it means to be an existentialist. First, we exist. We make choices, and those choices define who we are.
There are people who believe they can get around this fundamental truth by saying, for example, “I’m a Christian, and I following the teachings of the bible.” Yes, but you chose to follow those teachings.
This is what existentialists mean when they say that we’re “condemned to be free.” There is no escaping our freedom.
To me, there is a certain beauty here.
Lessons from Our Ancestors
Virtually all Americans, and plenty of people elsewhere around the world, can recite vast passages from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.”
When the Scarecrow laments his condition, Dorothy responds that, if somehow a brain could be conferred on him, “With the thought’s you’d be thinkin’ you could be another Lincoln if you only had a brain.”
This should give us all pause.
In 1939, the United States was just about to enter the Second World War repel to fight European fascism. Take a moment to think how Donald Trump and his hateful, stupid blathering would have been regarded at the time, and what an utter fool and asshole he’d be correctly regarded as.
Yes, these were simpler times, but they were dominated by people who could actually think. There’s a lot to be said for that.
The Mass of News Reporting in the United States Is Pathetic
Whatever your political stripes, if you’re an American, I urge you occasionally to take in a few minutes of Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, or perhaps some other source of far-right-wing programming that I may have missed.
A couple of points you’ll notice immediately:
1) Joe Biden comes up in a huge percentage of all news stories. Yes, that’s the former president whose actual relevance in our world today ranks just under how we ought to keep our rain gutters free of fallen leaves.
2) Democrats are praying that Donald Trump is dead, hanging their hopes on the fact that he took a few days off.
In truth, many progressives actually do root for an untimely death of our 47th president, though most of us see Trump’s death, under any and all circumstances, as a missed opportunity for redemption. We can either succeed in repudiating an authoritarian dictator in the United States or we can’t.
It’s that simple. We’re either a greater, smarter country than Trumpism, or we aren’t. The premature death of Donald Trump won’t help us at all.
Does Trump “Hurt All of Us?”
The answer to the question here is no. There are two solid reasons that tens of millions of American voters still stand behind Trump:
1) A great number of rich people who were tragically born without a moral compass understand that they are consistently getting wealthier due to Trump’s policies of looting the treasury and gutting the federal government, so as to pass the lucre onto the top 0.1%, most of whom are Trump top donors.
2) Working class racists are getting something of perhaps even greater value–the joy of watching non-Whites suffer incredible pain in their already miserable lives. Their beliefs that all this is making America great again are re-enforced by the far-right “news” media.
If it weren’t for these two factors, Trump never would have gotten anywhere near the White House in 2016, and certainly not in 2024.
Tagged with: Does Trump "Hurt All of Us?"
Trump’s “MO”
When we look back on the opening of Trump’s second term as U.S. president and try to identify a pattern, something emerges that would have been unthinkable anytime earlier in American history.
Apparently without any real thought, and on any given day:
1) Trump does something outrageous. If you think you can guess what form this will take tomorrow, I’ll bet you $10 against a dime you’ll be wrong.
This can take any of a variety of forms: threatening military actions against one or more allies, using the justice system to harass/neutralize a political enemy, exonerate him for his crimes, invading large Democrat-run cities with federal troops, appointing crackpots to important cabinet posts, or, as in the case at left, doing something apparently benign, albeit idiotic in the extreme, trying to rename a large body of water that has been internationally recognized for its name for hundreds of years.
2) He either runs with it, or not. He’s clearly not embarrassed by anything, however stupid, he does or says. He favors whatever plays with the media at any given moment in time.
The “Gulf of America” story is a great example; it came into and went out of the news fairly quickly. Trump’s extreme tariffs on countries he doesn’t like have shifted in the breeze. What inane idea that’s gotten him in the news today may be around tomorrow. Or it may not.
To almost half of Americans, Trump’s behavior sounds like a solid and sane basis on which to run the world’s most powerful nation; I disagree.
Tagged with: democrat
Federal Emergency Management Agency
It’s unclear how/if the sign here is actually helping matters, but that’s not the point.
“Natural” disasters like massive floods are increasingly common and severe, and emergency management for events of this scale are impossible to implement effectively at the state level. This is why Trump’s plan to dismantle FEMA can only increase Americans’ level of suffering.
It’s almost as if Trump is deliberately making it tougher to live in the United States than it’s ever been before. It’s true that people who are miserable are desperate for a forcible solution. They’re increasingly likely to find ridiculous statements credible, like, “I alone can fix it.”
Could this be part of his plan?
Tagged with: Federal Emergency Management Agency
