Sunday, April 30, 2017

For Them Who Will Defend a Lie

Once a wise man said "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." I think I've found meaning in that wisdom that applies to other things besides their notion of salvation.

I am a liberal, Atheist, democrat who's family is mostly Christian, conservative, Republicans. I know other people who are the same. They think I am wrong on every issue. The problem is, there are things in this world that are correct, and other things that are not. It isn't that I want to be right no matter what. It is just that I could no more deny the truth than I could deny the existence of the sun and the moon. I think some of them resent it, a lot. So what to do about it.

This is what I shall do, am doing, have already started doing. I will forsake houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for truth's sake. There is no other way for me. I will not live a lie, or be a hypocrite for any person's sake. Even in this forum the purge has started.

So, if you are one of them who will defend a lie. If you are one who would lift up the rich, and look down on your brother and sister human. If you deny the truth of science and defend myth, I will forsake you. I no longer have the time or energy to try to convenience a closed mind of what it true and real. So just unfriend me because I will unfriend and block you when you are exposed. I have already started, and some of them I so very much did not want to.

I am not trying to say believe like I do or else. I just have no more time for non-sense. The stakes are to high. Truth is to important. Besides, how could I look myself in the mirror, and and be alright with who I'm looking at if I did any other thing? Why should I try to give the truth of any matter to persons who will never accept it? Another wise man said "This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Trump's First 100 Days a Complete Failure

You know what deserves a failing grade? The trump trying to make out like the confirmation of Gorsuch for the SCOTUS is a giant accomplishment. It isn't! It is a big fat failure of our system is what it really is.

The GOP wouldn't even bring Obama's pick to a hearing because of partisan politics. They made a promise even before Obama took the oath of office that they would oppose any and everything Obama put forth as president. The rotten GOP kept that promise all the way to the point of a sequester and shutting down the government. They proved it with over 50 attempts to dismantle the ACA, which they are still trying to do to this very day!

Then in order to get Gorsuch confirmed, the buzzard McConnell made a motion to override a ruling by the Senate chair to disallow their move to confirm by a simple majority vote instead of 60. The motion to override was approved by a simple majority, then the move to confirm by a simple majority was approved by a simple majority. That is the brokenness of the system. If the Senate chair's ruling can be overridden in such a manner, it is a free for all in the Senate, and there may as well not even be a Senate Chairperson.

That is why the confirmation of Gorsuch is no accomplishment. It was the way in which it was done, and the unsavory partisan tactics that lead up to it. The people were robbed! Gorsuch got crammed down the people's throat. That's okay by the trump though. He is okay with anything, no matter how crooked, just as long as he gets what he wants.

If you add in the other promises he made to his duped supporters that he broke, I would say his first 100 days are a complete failure. His first 100 days are the absolute worst of any president in the history of this nation. That is the opposite of what the trump is telling people, of course. He is making out like his first 100 days were the greatest thing since the biggest piece of chocolate cake you ever seen.

So not only does all this make the GOP and trump crooks. It makes them failures too. Will they ever admit it? No. Will the trump supporters ever admit it? Maybe. It seems that there are trump supporters who are coming around to the fact that trump sold them a pig in a poke. Only the die hard supporters are still "giving him time". Time is running out!

Trump savages media as Washington roasts him from afar
Trump savages media as Washington roasts him from afar

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Tax Break for Billionaires and a Carrot for Middle Class

Anyone who knows me knows I do not trust trump. With all the information I've seen about him and his history, plus his performance thus far as president gives me no reason to trust him. So that's the position I work from when considering his tax proposal.

I would not be surprised if this is one of the things he had hoped for all along. How do we know he didn't say to himself or his confederates before the election, "If only I (trump) could get elected president. I could get taxes lowered on capitol gains, and other things, and make like a bandit for years to come."

I see this as helping Wall Street the most when it comes to capitol gains. I'm not an expert, but nether are the vast majority of American voters when it comes to things like this. Even so, I see Wall Street gaining all kinds of benefits and producing nothing in the way of jobs or manufactured goods. If they produce anything it will be some kind of weird financial instruments designed to screw over unsophisticated investors. Then a few years down the road when this tax break fueled Wall Street bubble bursts the American people will be left holding the bag. A bag perhaps containing a $40 trillion dollar deficit.

What do the big wigs care? The trump will be out of office by then sitting on his ill gotten gain, and all of his cronies will be smoking Cuban cigars and drinking Russian vodka. I can't help being a pessimist after all the things I've seen. So don't blame me. It wouldn't be the first time the trump sold a pig in a poke. He has been very good at making a rotten deal look ever so sweet. Then when the bills pile up telling his debtors to take him to court for the money. A lot of them have too! He might be working off the same formula. Before the public knows the magic umbrellas that are supposed to protect them are a sham, he is out of town with all the money.

I don't trust him. I smell a rat. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe everything will come up roses. I darn sure hope so, but I got a bad feeling about this, and anything the trump touches.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

My Earth Day Question: What Do You Want?

What do you want to do? This question is for all of the people everywhere. So how about it? What do you want? I'll tell you what I want. I want every person to have the means to get in out of the cold and rain, and to feed themselves and their families. To be able to get proper medical care, and education without regard for anything other than being human.


I want each person to have access to the means to fulfill their dreams. For every person to have happiness, comfort, satisfaction and security.

This Earth is like a well of resources we each dip from to sustain us. There is no real reason or logic, other than that invented or rationalized by Humans for the measuring cups to be unequal. They are unequal by design, and maintained by force of arms and threat of death. This travesty of unequal distribution of resources must come to an end in our nation, and throughout the world.

That is something I would like to see our people do. Take care of, and provide for everybody. How do we do it? First thing to do is to stop greedy people from trying to hog everything up. Everything doesn't belong to just a few people. I believe one of the best ways of giving back to the people what I call their property is to nationalize all natural resources, both material and energy. Abolish private mineral rights, and return those rights to the people. Give the people the absolute right to dictate when, where and what resources are to be extracted, and to derive the greatest benefit from those resources. No mass of citizens/humans (our brothers and sisters) should have to stand begging for food or shelter in the mists of plenty, while a few people eat the resources of a thousand. The resources that rightfully belong to the people in the first place!

How can I say all of the resources belong to all of the people? I say even the photons of sunshine from our star Sol belong to each and everyone of us. Look at it like this! Even an amoeba has the absolute right to derive sustenance from its surroundings in order to survive. A plant has an absolute right to draw nutrients from the soil and to derive energy from the sun to sustain its existence. So being living creatures thrust into existence on this world we Humans also have that absolute right to derive sustenance from our world.

That is why all of the natural resources belong to each and everyone of us. Each drop of oil and every ounce of metal, every watt of sunshine and even the air currents we breath are the collective property of all, and no one should be deprived of that birthright by greedy hogs.

Some people say that the world doesn't owe you a living. I say it owes every living creature the minerals and energy to sustain itself. After all, didn't we emerge from that very same minerals and energy?

I don't see the Democratic or Republican party trying effectively to remedy the inequality we have in our world or nation. It is like they only want to keep up the farce so that their primitive mind can find comfort in the illusion that wealth makes them important. Ten billion years from now, which will come in an instant, ask how important the Koch Brothers or Trump, or me or you were. You'll get a resounding silence in return for your question. The way humans are going I doubt they will be around to ask the question or to answer it. That's the real tragedy of it all. The only thing that should wipe out Humans is like a natural catastrophe or something. Not death by our own hand. Let not the Human race go in such a ridiculous way.

I guess maybe I got a little off track here. Nevertheless, that is what I want.

Friday, April 21, 2017

We Aren't Like the Stromatolites, or Are We?

The Earth as a whole is unthinking and just does what it does. If a lion killed a human who was evil people might say "he got what he deserved", but still the lion is just as much a part of the whole Earth as the volcano, and we don't blame the lion any more than the volcano. It is just doing what lions do.

Billions of years ago there was another organism that caused a world wide environmental catastrophe. It was the stromatolites. Before their appearance free oxygen in the atmosphere was almost nonexistent. Then along came the stromatolites releasing billions of tons of oxygen into the atmosphere and water, which was a deadly gas to most other organisms at the time. They too were just doing what they do and not giving any thought to it. 

Now humans have been burning and burning for 200,000 years. We humans were just doing what we do to try to stay alive. We never gave it any thought until recently.We humans didn't know any better. Because of that ignorance, I'm not going to blame our ancestors one little bit. I will blame the people who now do know better, but because of greed keep on doing it. We aren't like the stromatolites. We have a brain and intellect. We humans damn well better start using it too or we are going to be the victims of our own folly. 

We won't need volcano, earthquakes or lions to kill us. We'll do it ourselves because we aren't smart enough to keep from it. Just like the bacteria in a petri dish doomed to drown in their own waste. So what's it going to be?


Slave Labor is the Reason for Illegal Weed


During this clip from THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH, Jeff Sessions opposition to legal cannabis is brought up. Let me clue you in to why Mr. Sessions might be opposed. In a word, slavery.

THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH
That's right, slavery is alive and well in Alabama. Mr. Sessions was elected Attorney General of Alabama in 1996, being re-elected in 2002, 2008, and 2014. Alabama has a long history of prison slave labor. There was even a strike by prisoners to protest the practice. Council, one of the founders of the Free Alabama Movement, said "We will not work for free anymore. All the work in prisons, from cleaning to cutting grass to working in the kitchen, is done by inmate labor. Almost no prisoner in Alabama is paid. Without us the prisons, which are slave empires, cannot function. Prisons, at the same time, charge us a variety of fees, such as for our identification cards or wrist bracelets, and impose numerous fines, especially for possession of contraband. They charge us high phone and commissary prices. Prisons each year are taking larger and larger sums of money from the inmates and their families. The state gets from us millions of dollars in free labor and then imposes fees and fines. You have prisoners that work in kitchens 12 to 15 hours a day and have done this for years and have never been paid.”
http://www.truthdig.com/…/it…/americas_slave_empire_20150621

Alabama has private prisons too. So there is a corporate profit motive going on. So you get corporations making money off slaves and from running private prisons. There are corporations that exploit prison labor and finance the school-to-prison pipeline. McDonald’s is reported to use prisoners to process beef for patties and package bread, milk, chicken products. Mr. Sessions history of being from Alabama and his job as Attorney General points to him being neck deep in this problem of prison slave labor.

Which brings us back to the issue of legalized marijuana. Who better to have as slaves than nonviolent pot smokers? Everyone who knows the issues know that illegal weed has been used for decades as a reason to lock people up. The state has been profiting on marijuana by it being illegal, and that's the reason Jeff Sessions wants to keep it that way.

Indiana is also a private prison state. The Vice President is from Indiana.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

O'Really Shake Up at Fake News Makes Me Happy.

Any time there is a shakeup at Fake News I am glad. I think there is going to be some other people though who aren't going to be so glad. Those people are the smart mouthed people who rely on Bill O'Really for material. They already lost out earlier when they found out that Alex Jones was only doing "performance art" when they thought his rantings were the real deal.

Bill O'Really Fired!
O'Really, You're Fired!
They still have people like Rush Lamebrain to go to for smart mouthed fake news. The list grows shorter as time goes by. You can't be a public figure and keep your dirty deeds secret forever. They may think they can do anything they want because they are a star, but it catches up to them.

Wait a minute. Those words "do anything they want because they are a star" sound hauntingly familiar! Who said something like that and was caught on tape saying it? Oh yeah! It was none other than the biggest faker of them all, trump.

I bet this is a real blow to his fake news fueled policy pipeline. O'Really and trump were pals! Two peas in a pod were they. The trump even said O'Really was an okay guy. I guess two dirty birds of a feather are going to think they are in the company of okay guys if they think alike, (grab, grab, leer, leer).

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Old TV Shows and Lost Expectations

As I sit here watching this old TV show I wonder, what the hell happened to America? I'm watching The Time Tunnel. It was made in the 1960's, during one of the greatest technological, and exploration era of human kind. An era when we had a deep fascination, acceptance of technology, assurance of where we were going, and expectations of our future. Then it all failed.

The Time Tunnel

Now our civilization is stuck in a quagmire of fundamentalist dogma, and fear of technology. No longer does our nation have the confidence in our future we had then. No longer can we look for ever increasing advancement, but rather we are retrograde in our expectations. It seems like we're just waiting around for the end of us.

We need to recapture that vigor of the Apollo era. That expectation of off world colonies and exploration. Of ever increasing advancement. We must do it before we are no longer capable of it because of the decay of our civilizations base. Because of a greedy few who only want to grab every thing they can, without regard for humanities future.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Trump Has it Wrong About His Tax Returns

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
"Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!"

This comment by trump that "The election is over!" shows how much out of touch he is with the American psyche, and politics. He must believe that the only reason anyone mentioned it during the campaign running up to the election was an effort to hurt his chances. He must believe that the only reason the people still want to know is to hurt his presidency. WRONG!

His tax returns were mentioned because the American people want to make sure we don't have a crook, or much worse a traitor, in the White House. The contents of his tax returns were relevant then, and they are relevant now. The American people wanted to know what kind of people trump was dealing with then, and they really, REALLY still want to know that vital information.

This isn't about holding some kind of grudge. This isn't about election politics. This is about integrity. This is about honesty and trust. This is about the people having faith in our president. So Mr. trump shouldn't be poo-pooing the people's desire to know.

He should give in to the people's demands and release those tax returns. If he did, that would go a long way in repairing the damage he himself has done to his own reputation. He might EARN some trust.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Mars: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

This article I've posted a link to below is the kind of stuff that bugs me to no end. The penny pinching, shortsightedness of it all. The penny wise and pound foolishness. The lack of vision, and unwillingness to take a chance.

I'll bring it up again like I have so many times before. Remember the bubble that burst and $16 trillion it cost to repair the financial damages in 2008? Please consider the fact that $16 trillion is enough money to fund 91 Apollo missions all at the same time and from start to finish. But these guys are going to throw out a scary figure to crush hopes at $450 billion.

The Journey to Mars has a price tag, and it will give Congress sticker shock

Journey to Mars
At the lowest price, $450 billion, NASA would get only "austere" missions.
I wonder if 91 Apollo sized projects all combined into one would be enough effort to get Humans well on their way to moon colonization? There are plans for putting solar panels going around the equator of the moon so that we may beam solar energy from the moon to earth, thus solving our power needs and the fossil fuels caused greenhouse catastrophe. We might want to build a colony on the moon for just that purpose.

What about all them multi trillion dollar platinum asteroids floating around in space? While we're at it, why not go for broke and try for real riches! Do you think 91 Apollo missions going at the same time could do that? I kind of do! I think it would create jobs out the wazoo too! After all, you have to have skilled hands to build all that stuff. You have to have educated people to go there and work in space doing all that stuff. I think all them highly educated, high paid people would be buying all kinds of goods and services too! Jobs! Shall I say it again? JOBS!

The bail out was enough to fund 32+ Mars missions of the type they talk of in this downer of a killjoy article. I think if we went all out, and did the bold thing, colonizing the moon, building the lunar solar collecting grid and mining it and the asteroids, we would launch our civilization into a new era. A golden era like never seen in the history of humanity.

The thing is, you have to have guts to do it. You have to be willing to take a chance. You have to be willing to gamble it all, and have the confidence to see it through. I'm starting to think Humans don't have what it takes. All these alien movies with monsters and boogy man have scared them so much they poop in their diaper at the thought of really going to colonize another planet, much less the moon. All the big shots with their billions of dollars and all powerful attitude would quake in their silk lined shoes if they ever really took a gamble. They only want to bet on a sure winner, so they rig things here on Earth.

What a bunch of short sighted fools. The real winning bet is right outside our atmosphere. The payoff will take time to mature, but what a payoff. All the banks would have deposits like crazy! There would be a housing boom like no tomorrow. No wonder too! Space is unlimited, so that means unlimited space to colonize and have for humanity. People would be walking around with coins made of asteroid platinum in their pockets instead of the copper and nickel clad zinc debased junk we have now.

We would get better and better at it all the time too! Look at how many times SpaceX had to try, and failed, before they successfully landed a booster rocket standing on end on a barge at sea. I seen them blowing up, just like when our nation first started out building rockets. Now they land them suckers successfully all the time. They are getting better at it, just like we would with all of our endeavours in space.

The thing is, we have to go for it. Time is running out too! Time for the human race on this planet is getting short unless we do something bold. We are on a cosmic merrygoround, and the brass ring is within our grasp. We have to reach out and boldly grab it before the merrygoround stops. If we wait till it stops, we all are going to be dead, all of us. Every last man, woman and child on this planet will have a hard time getting along, then oblivion.

So let's not do that! Let us humans be bold and reach out for the stars. 91 Apollo missions style. The big gamble style. Really, "What the hell do you have to lose?"