The fact that West Virginia ranks last in education means exactly zero in terms of determining the criteria by which these people vote.
They don’t want a bunch of other things that people care about on the west coast and the northeast, e.g., honesty and the application of science to problem solving.
Give them white power and evangelical Christianity, and they elect you king.
Of all the decisions that Trump has made in his second term, the one that reveals most clearly how he thinks is his appointment of RFK, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
And remarkably, about 35% of Americans still cannot put two and two together.
Kennedy has precisely two relevant characteristics: a) he’s an anti-science crackpot, and b) he’s intensely loyal to Trump.
The rationale expressed at left is what most democracies use to guide their voting.
About half of Americans in our last election, however, use a completely different criterion. They elect the person who will punish everyone but white male Christians.
The world wants to know how the amount of corruption in the U.S. could have possibly risen to this insane level.
A friend writes:
I get called out by farmers for using the word “sustainability” because nature is dynamic and doesn’t hold to a level. The word they prefer is “regenerative” as it is closer to the complex system of nature and its energy exchanges. I don’t have an argument for or against it.
I don’t think I’ve ever run across enmity to the word “sustainability,” which is strange, because I’ve been at this for 17 years, and I’ve incurred the wrath of an uncountable number of people, especially climate deniers. I laughed out loud when a caller into a radio show on which I was being interviewed called me a “cockroach.”
I would say that “sustainable” and “regenerative,” while certainly not mutually exclusive, are actually two different things.
There are dozens of different ways to define “sustainability,” but the one I use is: “A society’s meeting its needs without making it impossible for future generations to meet theirs.” From the perspective of farming, normally this is called “sustainable agriculture,” but calling it “regenerative” works just fine for me, and adds more depth of understanding.
At left we see the rationale behind the statute of limitations in U.S. criminal law. You aren’t the same person you were seven years ago.
We also see the intersection of Western philosophy and Eastern religion. Our egos delude us into the misperception that we and the exterior world are permanent and unmoving.
For you prog rock fans of the late 60’s and early 70’s, the song that Jon Anderson of Yes wrote called “Close to the Edge” is about the Hermann Hesse novella “Siddhartha,” in which the protagonist finds enlightenment by beholding the constancy of change in the flowing river.
A side note, music that is “about” something is called “program music.” Anderson said this, for some reason, about his composition, “I hope folks like “Close to the Edge,” because it’s the first and last time I’m ever going to do this.”
Of course, the U.S. and the other authoritarian countries are run by criminals, but it’s completely wrong to make this generality about the majority of the other countries on Earth.
Do you think that the leaders of Western/Northern Europe, Iceland, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and the rest are criminals?
Jair Bolsonaro, who orchestrated a failed military coup in Brazil (remind you of anyone in the U.S.?) just began, earlier this month, a 27-year prison sentence. He’ll be released very close to his 97th birthday.
He is a criminal who met with justice. Maybe someone whose name we all know will meet the same fate here in America.
Once Trump is gone, what exactly will happen to the brutal ICE agents who violated people’s civil rights by, for instance, executing them by shooting them in the head? We know about the uncountable number of goons whom Trump called in to storm the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and beat and killed U.S. law enforcement personnel. They were immediately pardoned by a lawless president.
But what will become of the thugs who blew the brains out of innocent protesters in Minneapolis once Trump is replaced by a sane individual with respect for our constitution?
I’m expecting they’ll be charged and convicted for either voluntary manslaughter or second-degree murder and go away for at least 30 years.
Fine by me.
How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?
How may ventures in small, rooftop wind must fail before we learn that this entire concept is doomed?
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
Seriously, we’ve seen precisely zero of these essentially identical concepts succeed. Maybe there’s a reason? Or three?
1) Lower power generation due to the formula for the area of a circle? (Doubling the radius generates four times the energy.)
2) Lower power generation due to the formula for the power generated by the velocity of the wind? (Doubling the wind velocity produces eight times the energy.)
3) The maintenance cost of dealing with thousands of tiny turbines that are constantly falling apart, because they must be made incredibly cheaply, makes the whole idea asinine.
I struggle to think of someone for whom I have more respect for than astrophysics PhD and lead guitarist for the rock band Queen Brian May.
Yet, with what he says at left, I’m struggling to understand precisely what he means, and why he used the word “dangerous.”
As a person, he is no more personal danger than he would have been in any previous administration.
I surmise that he means that the United States poses a danger to anyone with dark skin, or who opposes the fascist regime that America has been stricken by.
