Monday, December 07, 2015

Can't wait. My Christmas is already merry, between "Where to Invade Next" and the new Star Wars film. YES!


I got a good laugh out of Ted Cruz today. He said he disagreed with Donald Trump on policy when it comes to allowing Muslims into the USA. Ted Cruz says all immigrants and refugees are welcome as long as they are not coming from a country with Daesh.

There are a few flaws there.

1. There is probably a small population of "Internet Daesh" in every country in the world. 

2. Even if Ted Cruz decides to prevent immigrants and refugees from Daesh countries coming to the USA, that would not have prevented the problem in San Bernardino. The woman violent Islamist came from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Those countries are not suffering under civil war sponsored by Daesh. 

So, Ted likes to disguise his racism by putting 'special conditions' on his policies.

Seantor Bernie Sander's campaign is not a one issue compaign. He wants to win the Presidency and has policies to support that idea.

December 7, 2015
By Chris Cilliza

One day removed (click here) from the Paris terrorist attacks last month, the three Democratic candidates running for president gathered in Iowa for a debate. The first question was, predictably, about the attacks and what they meant for both the ongoing fight against ISIS and the broader battle against terrorism.
Bernie Sanders got the first crack at it. Here's what he said:

Together, leading the world, this country will rid our planet of this barbarous organization called ISIS.
I'm running for president, because as I go around this nation, I talk to a lot of people. And what I hear is people's concern that the economy we have is a rigged economy. People are working longer hours for lower wages, and almost all of the new income and wealth goes to the top one percent.
He devoted a grand total of one sentence(!) to the attacks. He then launched into a 123-word riff on the necessity to address climate change, economic inequality and campaign finance reform....

Now, anyone can say that Republicans have a one singular issue, but, that is not the policy of Democrats.

It is amazing to watch Republicans with their single trick pony skyrocket with every mass killing in the USA. They accuse the Democrats of suddenly talking about guns and the problem in our country to remove that danger from citizens. But, rarely if ever do I hear a Republican propose an answer to gun violence in the USA, EXCEPT, to encourage more gun ownership that will escalate more gun violence. It is a hell of strategy for profits to the gun industry. What do they care if people die while their profits skyrocket along with Republican talking points.

But, it is easy to vote for Republicans, they are all about money. They want the national debt reduced, which is a good thing, but at what cost to Americans in poverty. They want a flat tax, so low income Americans have to pay their share of funding the Federal government. What does any Republican care if a reduction in 10 or 15 percent FEDERAL tax comes out of their income. What difference matters if they can no longer pay the rent? The Republicans want to reduce the size of government and therefore eliminate entire departments that process government business everyday. But, when it comes to the military get rid of the Sequaester, but, not the sequester to domestic programs that put food in the bellies of children and their families.

The Republicans have a one trick pony. It is money and wealth and their narcissistic agenda to keep every dime and never pay taxes again. What is curious to me is why would Republicans want to change the US Treasury income at all. They already don't pay taxes, so what's the problem?

The Flat Tax idea is very naive. Close all loop holes and pay a percentage of income to the USA Treasury. Is there any doubt as to why that hasn't passes yet even with a majority Republican in the House and Senate. I am dead serious. The Republicans have a one trick pony for elections and it all revolves around tax cuts, the flat tax, downsizing government and the national debt. What else to do they care about except moralizing over a woman's uterus? Oh, war. Well, I don't know of a war the Republicans have enacted that was moral and executed well. But, the fear these days in the USA is complimented by any idea of war. 

When the American public becomes fearful, it reaches for the nearest gun dealer when they have the money to spend. So, it is important to make sure there are assault weapons in the gun shops so Americans can fight their local violent Islamists.

Senator Sanders is a long time government representative be it a mayor or a US Senator. He learned a few things about how to solve problems by keeping them in the spotlight of the American people. Senator Sanders also knows that fear and the Republican rhetoric machine will seek to drive all problems identified by Democrats out of the attention of the public.

So, I can count on Bernie to be the man we all need to keep the attention of Americans on important issues that need to receive that attention. The climate crisis is one of them. I didn't have to do a thing, except, listen for Bernie Sanders to bring his campaign back into the spotlight of the American voter.

That is a great relief to someone like me and many of my friends who work for a living in conservation to have someone who understands, believes in the morality and puts forward that morality as a piece of his agenda for policies. We can count on Bernie to keep important issues before the electorate. He never forgets income inequality, healthcare, wealth distribution, women's rights and the climate crisis. He has a clear understanding of what the problems are for the USA and he makes those issues important to his policies. He makes the lives of American Conservationists much easier so they can concentrate on their work and contributing real information about the effects of the climate crisis to peers in their journals.

Senator Bernie Sanders is relable and not hopping from one foot to the other to find the 'hot spot' in the USA media. I deeply appreciate it, otherwise, I have far more work to do.

The Supreme Court is not suppose to be ideological.

December 7, 2015
By Lawrence Hurley

The U.S. Supreme Court (click here) on Monday rejected a challenge by gun rights activists to a Chicago suburb's ordinance banning assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, handing a victory to gun control advocates amid a fierce debate over the nation's firearms laws.
The 2013 ordinance passed by the city of Highland Park, Illinois will remain in place. By opting not to hear an appeal of a lower-court ruling that upheld the measure, the justices declined to take up what would have been a high-profile gun rights case following a succession of mass shootings including the one last week in San Bernardino, California.
The Highland Park measure bans various semi-automatic weapons, including well-known guns such as the AR-15 and AK-47, in addition to magazines holding more than 10 rounds of bullets....

Thailand needs a human rights commission.

December 7, 2015
By Josephine Tovey

...A lawyer of almost 50 years experience, (click here) who had also previously been a Dean of Law at the University of Sydney, Professor Triggs believed the commission's detailed inquiry into children in detention was sound. This confidence was only reinforced by the personal nature of the attacks on her.
"It was very hard for them to attack the substance of what we were saying, so the next best thing was to allege that I was politically biased."
But Professor Triggs knew retaining her composure was critical to the work she was doing.
"I knew if I went too far and showed emotion, I could be very quickly dismissed as a sort of, emotional woman who didn't have a grasp of the political realities, and who could be easily pushed over."
It was this ability to continue in her role, to refuse to back down either on the issues or over her own position, in the face of extraordinary pressure, that saw eminent voices in the legal profession rally around her, and earned Professor Triggs the admiration of many in the Australian public, including the readers of Daily Life. Hundreds nominated her their Woman of the Year for 2015, and the judges agreed she was the worthy choice....

When most politicians are seeking to end the career of a standing authority it becomes obvious, her work struck something men believe is better off not said.
General Mills has a "Star Wars" cereal on the market. Depending the character portrait purchased there are different marshmallow icons. 

The marshmallow icons are similar to Lucky Charms.

They thought of everything so the release of the film will be saturated with Star Wars culture.

Another coup that lies to the people of Thailand.

I don't know what this number this coup is, but, it has to be a half of a dozen in the past two decades. The coups are carried out to end the corruption of the government. Hello? It's not working. 

But, who's counting?

December 7, 2015

Bangkok (AP) " Thailand's military government (click here) blocked an anti-corruption protest Monday, detaining about three dozen students and other activists who were headed to a park honoring past kings that was allegedly built with money from shady dealings involving several senior officers.
The military's efforts to quash the protest included detaching the railway car on which the protesters were traveling to Rajabhakti Park, near the seaside town of Hua Hin, before taking them into custody. Officials abruptly announced that the park, on army land, was closed for the day for renovations.
The case has become a major scandal in Thailand, largely because the junta that has run the country since staging a coup last year has vowed to reform the country's political system to stamp out corruption, which it blames on politicians....

NPR is counting.


May 22, 2014

Thailand has a beloved king. (click here) The country has had one of the more prosperous economies in Asia. It's a magnet for Western tourists. Its history is largely peaceful. By most measures, Thailand has been very successful.
So why has the country now had a dozen coups, plus many more attempted coups, since it ended its absolute monarchy and became a constitutional monarchy in 1932?
The country is so coup-prone that this week's military takeover marked the second time in eight years the armed forces have ousted a leader from the same family.
Deposed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra suffered the same fate as her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in 2006....

It would appear wealthy Americans want to end the wall at the southern border of the USA.

 December 8, 2015

San Diego (AP) " The U.S.-Mexico border (click here) is one of the world's most fortified international divides. Starting Wednesday, it will also be one of the only that has an airport straddling two countries.
An investor group that includes Chicago billionaire Sam Zell built a sleek terminal in San Diego with a bridge that crosses a razor-wire border fence to Tijuana's decades-old airport. Passengers pay $18 to walk a 390-feet (119-meter) overpass to Tijuana International Airport, a springboard about 30 Mexican destinations.
Target customers are the estimated 60 percent of Tijuana airport passengers who come to the United States, about 2.6 million last year. Now they drive about 15 minutes to a congested land crossing, where they wait up to several hours to enter San Diego by car or on foot. The airport bridge is a five-minute walk to a U.S. border inspector.
"It seems so much easier, so liberating," said Daniela Calderon, who flies from Tijuana four times a year to visit family in the central Mexican city of Morelia and has a friend drive her across the border from Riverside, California.
The only other cross-border airport known to industry experts is in the European Union " between Basel, Switzerland, and France's Upper Rhine region " but it carries none of the political freight of San Diego and Tijuana.

Who is going to defend Europe if the USA is fighting every terrorist group in Syria?

December 8, 2015

Berlin (AP) The number of people registered (click here) as asylum-seekers in Germany this year hit 965,000 by the end of November, well above a forecast for the whole year that was made less than four months ago, the country's interior minister said Monday.
Some 206,000 new arrivals were registered in November. That pushed the total for 2015 well above the 800,000 that Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere forecast for the full year in mid-August, a few weeks before the flow of people arriving via Turkey, Greece and the Balkans accelerated.
With few other European countries prepared to share the burden, the influx has stretched Germany's capacity to find housing for migrants and process asylum applications. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, which the government is beefing up amid mounting criticism of a backlog of paperwork, decided on 35,422 applications last month.
De Maiziere said that the pace of new arrivals has slowed over the past week or two, with some 2,000-3,000 now arriving daily rather than 8,000-10,000 as was often the case in recent months....

Rand Paul is the only candidate that has a long history of being correct regarding privacy standards and sending soldiers into random war.

Is there anything Richard Hass can say other than war?

That was the most fast talking bullshit I have ever heard.. There must be the perfume of a Bush in the air.

When are white men like Hass going to live the in the real world other than a world of violence? 

Let's hear the lies. The NSA never violates privacy rights. What is the next one?

Did Bush say President Obama is using the strong man argument or the straw man argument? 

Quick and Dirties 

Political ads and analysis (click here) are reaching a fever pitch, so it seems like a good time to talk about the phrase “straw man.” What does it mean when two people are debating and one accuses the other of putting forth a straw man argument?

What Is a Straw Man Argument?

I always think of the Straw Man from the Wizard of Oz, but that's not where the term comes from. In its simplest definition, it's the name of a logical fallacy, which means that if you carefully dissect the argument or statement, it doesn't make sense. Debaters invoke a straw man when they put forth an argument--usually something extreme or easy to argue against--that they know their opponent doesn't support. You put forth a straw man because you know it will be easy for you to knock down or discredit. It's a way of misrepresenting your opponent's position.
Political ads and analysis are reaching a fever pitch, so it seems like a good time to talk about the phrase “straw man.” What does it mean when two people are debating and one accuses the other of putting forth a straw man argument?

What Is a Straw Man Argument?

I always think of the Straw Man from the Wizard of Oz, but that's not where the term comes from. In its simplest definition, it's the name of a logical fallacy, which means that if you carefully dissect the argument or statement, it doesn't make sense. Debaters invoke a straw man when they put forth an argument--usually something extreme or easy to argue against--that they know their opponent doesn't support. You put forth a straw man because you know it will be easy for you to knock down or discredit. It's a way of misrepresenting your opponent's position.
- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/what-straw-man-argument?page=all#sthash.aA54RGJl.dpuf

Opps, "you know what" Bush stated Donald Trump, at times, talks like an adult and Bush will never insult any one except the intelligence of Americans. The next thing we know Bush will bring duct tape to hush others who say "hell" due to the First Amendment laws. Oh, yeah, I forgot the Patriot Act.

Bush has a limited vocabulary that tells Americans they are stupid and without knowledge of what he speaks. He said nothing. 

He followed Hass in a media attempt to put fear back in the gut of the American public. The media should have real questions like, "Do you believe there will ever be peace for the USA and how are you going to go accomplish it. You know, Peace Mission Accomplished. Perhaps when Bush actually knows his own policies he can say something other than, "Something like that."

There is a small arms treaty the United Nations have, how do you see that ending the violence globally? 

There a many schools of etiquette in the USA but I've heard of a school of the fast talker. They must let Americans know where they can go to learn the skill, maybe if Americans spoke Bush and Hass language they might actually hear us. 

June 1, 2015
Rand Paul

Congress (click here) will this week force the president to end his illegal collection of all American phone records. This is a victory for defenders of privacy.

The Fourth Amendment requires that government searches be individualized. Collecting all Americans' phone records all the time indiscriminately is what our Founders fought against when they objected to general warrants....

It is obvious Rand Paul THINKS and does just run at the mouth.

I really wish politicans would not lie. If nothing else it gets boring.

I was actually sleeping in when the television I left on started a rant of Richard Hass. God works in strange ways. My mother is right. 

In the spirit of openness and transparency, (click here) here is a partial list of current and planned future data collection targets:

  • internet searches
  • websites visited
  • emails sent and received
  • social media activity (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
  • blogging activity including posts read, written, and commented on 
  • videos watched and/or uploaded online
  • photos viewed and/or uploaded online
  • mobile phone GPS-location data
  • mobile phone apps downloaded
  • phone call records
  • text messages sent and received
  • Skype video calls
  • online purchases and auction transactions
  • credit card/ debit card transactions
  • financial information
  • legal documents
  • travel documents
  • health records
  • cable television shows watched and recorded
  • commuter toll records
  • electronic bus and subway passes / Smartpasses
  • facial recognition data from surveillance cameras
  • educational records
  • arrest records
  • driver license information

Political ads and analysis are reaching a fever pitch, so it seems like a good time to talk about the phrase “straw man.” What does it mean when two people are debating and one accuses the other of putting forth a straw man argument?

What Is a Straw Man Argument?

I always think of the Straw Man from the Wizard of Oz, but that's not where the term comes from. In its simplest definition, it's the name of a logical fallacy, which means that if you carefully dissect the argument or statement, it doesn't make sense. Debaters invoke a straw man when they put forth an argument--usually something extreme or easy to argue against--that they know their opponent doesn't support. You put forth a straw man because you know it will be easy for you to knock down or discredit. It's a way of misrepresenting your opponent's position.
- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/what-straw-man-argument?page=all#sthash.aA54RGJl.dpuf=
Political ads and analysis are reaching a fever pitch, so it seems like a good time to talk about the phrase “straw man.” What does it mean when two people are debating and one accuses the other of putting forth a straw man argument?

What Is a Straw Man Argument?

I always think of the Straw Man from the Wizard of Oz, but that's not where the term comes from. In its simplest definition, it's the name of a logical fallacy, which means that if you carefully dissect the argument or statement, it doesn't make sense. Debaters invoke a straw man when they put forth an argument--usually something extreme or easy to argue against--that they know their opponent doesn't support. You put forth a straw man because you know it will be easy for you to knock down or discredit. It's a way of misrepresenting your opponent's position.
- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/what-straw-man-argument?page=all#sthash.aA54RGJl.dpuf

"Good Night, Moon"

The waning crescent

25.6 day old moon

16.5 percent lit

December 4, 2015
By Geoff Gaherty

On Monday, December 7, (click here) the planet Venus will do a vanishing act behind the moon, but, you will have to have the right place on Earth to view it without interference with the sun...


I would like (click here) to mention four of these Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

This year marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the guardian of liberty, who labored tirelessly that "this nation, under God, [might] have a new birth of freedom". Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity....

I liked all of them. They were real. Not just in the physical sense, but, they understood life, it's value and it's tragedy.

They lived for the best outcomes of others. Each in their own way brought a message of tomorrow and promise. Regardless of their station in life they never saw themselves better off than anyone else in a way that would validate their egos. They were humble people.


Dorothy Day is the only woman in the group, but, she was incredible. She loved life, was honest to herself and commanded tomorrow to be better than yesterday. 

She always entertained worship. Even when she was estranged from the church  she still found solace in the pew of a Catholic church. 

Her father was anti-Catholic for awhile as a young man. Interestingly, the 'talk' about godlessness was open and easy in a social situation. It was not exclusively for meetings with friends or others that believed as one did. There was a clear understanding that being godless in a 'proper society' where politicians were anchored in open expressions of being faithful, was all part of it. Everyone was true to their ideas and why they believed what they discerned as the best path for them.

Pope Francis, in his speech to Congress, used the word dignity many times. Isn't all life suppose to have dignity? The dignity of life plagued those four Americans. They abhorred suffering and never saw justice in poverty. All the characteristics of greatness

Dorothy Day had a daughter and this was her obituary at the age of 82.

Tamar Teresa Batterham Hennessy, (click here) the only child of Catholic Worker co-foundress Dorothy Day, died subsequent to a stroke on Tuesday, 25 March 2008, in Lebanon, Hew Hampshire at the age of 82.

Born in Mahattan in 1926, she was baptized at Our Lady Help of Christians Roman Catholic Church in Tottenville later that same year. Tamar was witness to the inception of the Catholic Worker when she was eight years old and later conceded that this life can be difficult for any child"...


She was her mother's daughter. 

Dorothy Day's Eulogy on December 2, 1980 by Geoffrey B. Gneuhs, O.P. at Nativity Church, New York City. (click here)

In her book The Long Loneliness, Dorothy wrote, "All my life I have been haunted by God." And where did this haunting God lead her? To a life of simplicity and poverty with the poor, to solidarity with the outcasts—today in this city of New York there are more and more people homeless as mental hospitals close and social services are cut back, while at the same time this country spends $170 billion a year for armaments....


The Long Loneliness was published in 1952 and $170 billion a year for armaments. Does war for Americans ever get old? End Pre-emption.

Forster Batterham, the father of Dorothy Day's child.

November 15, 2010 Issue
Robert Ellsberg
 
Generally speaking,” Robert Ellsberg (click here) writes in the November 15 issue of America, “there is not much to say about the sex lives of saints.” So that is why Dorothy Day’s letters to her lover Forster Batterham are so surprising. They show the flesh-and-blood passion of a woman who many Catholics believe will someday be declared an exemplar of the faith....
 
 -Friday [March? 1928]

Dear Forster,--

I have been trying all week to write this letter and it is almost impossible for me to write it now. You make it much harder when you are kind to me. But we can’t go on in any but a friendly relation and I suppose you will say we can’t even have that... It is terribly hard to even mention my religious feelings to you because I am sure you do not think I am sincere. But it is not a sudden thing, but a thing which has been growing in me for years. I had impulses toward religion again and again and now when I try to order my life according to it in order to attain some sort of peace and happiness it is very hard but I must do it. Because even though it is hard, it gives me far more happiness to do it, even though it means my combating my physical feelings toward you....

Eugene O'Neill was involved in the New York social scene along with Dorothy Day.

I think it is important to understand the mood of the country in that there was a segment of descent. Dorothy Day was one of them along with Eugene O'Neill. Yet they follow different paths. Fierce friends, but, that touch of devotion to God delivered her differently in life.

America’s critics (click here) were obviously hard on Eugene O’Neill. His plays were innovative and successful, but they were godless. They depicted vivid acts of violence, murder, suicide, social evils and moments of dark despair. It was not until a 1946 review of O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” that a reviewer at least praised Eugene O’Neill for his fierce honesty, his almost quixotic intellectual integrity. Indeed, the Catholic world, while Eugene O’Neill was alive and productive, rejected O’Neill in much the same way that O’Neill had earlier rejected his Catholic faith.


Sixty years ago, on Nov. 27, 1953, Eugene O’Neill died on the fourth floor of the Hotel Shelton in Boston. Boston University acquired the building in 1954, and it remains in use today as a dormitory for upperclassmen. In 1951 O’Neill had moved to the hotel with his third wife, Carlotta Monterey, from a cottage on the north shore of Massachusetts. O’Neill needed to be closer to his doctors. After nearly 10 years of suffering from a degenerative disease that resembled Parkinson’s, O’Neill died of pneumonia. He had stipulated that no one attend his funeral—certainly no man of God.


In their biography, Arthur and Barbara Gelb quote O’Neill telling his wife, “Get me quietly and simply buried…and don’t bring a priest. If there is a God and I meet Him, we’ll talk things over personally, man to man.” Carlotta succeeded in keeping the burial a secret. Only Carlotta, O’Neill’s nurse and his doctor attended the burial at a secluded plot in Forest Hills Cemetery in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Nothing was said or sung. After a wreath was laid on the coffin, Carlotta turned and left the grave without shedding a tear. She would be buried next to her husband in 1970.... 

...Indeed, O’Neill was fiercely honest in his writing, and there is one play that resonated deeply with critics at America for its depiction of an honest search for God. It is a play that is rarely mentioned in academic criticism of O’Neill and is rarely reprinted.

“Days Without End” is a fascinating snapshot of O’Neill’s struggle with faith in the years 1932-34. Perhaps it fails to have the impact of his other plays because the ending—the main character’s return to faith after a terrible, decades-long crisis of faith—was ultimately disingenuous. The ending troubled O’Neill, and he later dismissed the play. It portrays the anguish of a young man who rejected his faith after his parents died. He spends his life searching for truth, embracing atheism, socialism and anarchism. Finally, he falls in love but fears his wife’s mortality....
The last ten years of Eugene O'Neill's life ended tragically to have lost his children to suicide, heroine addiction and a marriage he disapproved of when his daughter to Charlie Chaplin. O'Neill would have three wives with two divorces. He did not die alone, his third wife would inherit his estate at his death.