Democrats gone wild

 

Damn right.

Socialism is a slippery slope to communism!!!111!!

The things we have forgotten....

Friday Follies

Russian has actually had two nuclear disasters.

Love no matter what.

Apparently we need to start recording everything we do.

Republicans hate government so much that they are startled to learn they might want to show voters they can govern.

Paul Krugman takes apart libertarian economics and Ayn Rand fantasies.

The over-militarization of our police. Steve Bates discusses. Officer Friendly.

Singing opera may save your life.

Why funny people kill themselves.

Jeffrey Smith Challenge to Neil deGrasse Tyson on GMO food.

Pot luck

Delicious forgotten words... we need to start using them now!

The mystery of Skeleton Lake in India.

The graph that shows what the US owes to everybody.

SEE!!  I told you raccoons were clever!

Eating at home v eating out.

Thank god my family and I live in California.

Anna Holmes and Jezebel.

Nate Silver's predictions for the Republicans.  Waving the Confederate flag at the most inappropriate time.

How Christopher McCandless (Into the Wild) probably died.

Could Boehner be playing to win?

Malala asks Obama to end drone strikes.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson critiques the film Gravity.  And we've been SuperNova'ed!

Finally!  Another planet we could call home, just in time, too!  We've really wrecked up this one!

FDR's speech:

Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society." One sure way to determine the social conscience of a Government is to examine the way taxes are collected and how they are spent. And one sure way to determine the social conscience of an individual is to get his tax-reaction. Taxes, after all, are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society. As society becomes more civilized, Government—national, State and local government—is called on to assume more obligations to its citizens. The privileges of membership in a civilized society have vastly increased in modern times. But I am afraid we have many who still do not recognize their advantages and want to avoid paying their dues. It is only in the past two generations that most local communities have paved and lighted their streets, put in town sewers, provided town water supplies, organized fire departments, established high schools and public libraries, created parks and playgrounds—undertaken, in short, all kinds of necessary new activities which, perforce, had to be paid for out of local taxes.

One sentence news

It gets better.

Finding a lost church.

Making friends under the sea.

Rachel Carson didn't kill millions of Africans.

Does eating today's type of wheat poison you?

Dumping the 'junk DNA' theory.

The way governments begin to topple.

Republicans can't afford to give women equal pay.

Come back!!  You have my car keys!

Do Democrats really support the privatization of public schools?

Artist of the weird.

Ohio Secretary of State on the mat to explain obstruction to voting.

Sometimes being rude is good.

Koch brothers? Meet FDR

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Way to govern, you guys.

Some of the bills Republicans have blocked. Rand Paul adds to the list.

Morals, censorship, stupidity.

Explaining Wall Street ethics, cheating, intuition. Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code.

Censored Doonesbury about Palin not reading. And then there is the party of stupid. And Republicanism as religion. (Last one is scary.)

Surprise! (And thank god.) There are still intelligent people out there:

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked enforcement of a first-in-the-nation law that restricted what Florida physicians can say about guns to their patients, ruling the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech guarantees and does not trample gun rights.

Some reasons why we actually need a government. You know... the kind Republicans deny exists. A government that works for the people. Or as the Republicans would have it... only some of the people.

Oops. FBI Raids Home Of CBS Correspondent By Mistake

Wars over water are just over the horizon.

Just imagine all those plastic dinosaurs we played with were really just terribly bald. Dinosaurs had colorful feathers.

Just a reminder:

Pat Robertson wants you to know if you get Alzheimer's.... your spouse can dump you.

I was just wondering....

What will the Republicans have when they finally achieve all the things that they care about?

They don't want to create jobs. Obviously. That would make the government actually functional.

They want to make government so incompetent that people cease to look to the government for help. Even though government has been created by the very voters to help when citizens need assistance. Government is not a separate entity but interwoven into our society and is made to last, as Lincoln said: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." But the Republicans want to drown government in the bathtub. Government gets in the way of making money. People who count on the government for assistance will die. Republicans don't care. Drowning government will get them votes and money.

They want to remove a woman's control over her own body and reproduction, and remove abortion as an option of choice. Women will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to negate gays from society. Republicans apparently think gays should have no rights as human beings. Gays will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to allow virulent racism to be unleashed. It helps their voters to be afraid and rally around the Republican flag. People of color will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to remove Medicare and Social Security. This makes rich people happy. Older Americans and people with disabilities and children will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to let religious extremism into government, finally breaking the wall between church and state. This helps them get more votes. Wars about which religion is the right one have started in this way. People of other faiths (other than the one religion finally chosen as the right one) and atheists will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to erase the power unions have because it impedes the progress of corporations. The workers will have less rights and protections. Workers will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want corporations to ignore any regulation that hinders its ability to make money. This means poisoning the earth, the water, the food. The quality of the product corporations will produce will be as cheap as possible to make and as expensive as possible to buy. People will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

What on earth DO they care about? They worship the almighty dollar. But dollars won't keep your community happy, healthy, unafraid, and working unless money aimed at helping people and communities prosper. Corporations will lose money in the long run. Corporations will die because of this. No corporations, no money, no votes. Do Republicans care?

Why would you vote into government

Someone who hates government?

More like: Republicans won't.

Nice to be right

Always.

Republicans love America

And hate everything in it. Everything.

Quote to remember

Everyone is focused on Wisconsin, but I'd say that Florida is ground zero for Republican mismanagement. In 2012, I'm pretty sure that the Republican presidential candidate won't even want to be seen with most of the GOP governors that were elected in 2010.

When governments actually use science

And not hysteria to function:

Roads built to the same standards as the scorching south of France; fish moved from the overheated Lake District to cooler waters in Scotland; lighthouses threatened by rising seas.

From measures in use already to seemingly far-fetched scenarios for the future, these are some of the findings in the first batch of climate adaptation plans submitted to the environment ministry Defra.

Under the Climate Change Act, 91 major organisations responsible for key aspects of national infrastructure have to explain how they will cope if the climate alters as forecast.

The latest projections suggest the potential for major change - for example that it is "very likely" that southern England will on average be 2.2-6.8C warmer by the 2080s.

That range of possible warming reveals the huge uncertainties inherent in climate forecasting. Nevertheless the aim of the studies is to ensure that long-term planning takes account of the possible risks.

They even are planning ahead, isn't that novel?

I remember when... not too long ago...

Our government worked. Yes, yes, of course there have always been problems and disagreements (and riots and crimes and all the rest). But Democrats and Republicans actually worked together and delivered laws that made our lives better. We had no established religion in our nation so all religions thrived. We listened to our conscience and challenged hate speech and racism. We questioned the wars we had been in and ended one that was without end. We regulated banks and corporations. We respected education and the educated. People could send their children to school and expect the next generation would do better than the last. The American dream seemed to be working.

And then something broke.

Now we have people insisting that a shutdown of the government is a good thing. (To teach us not to rely on the government? The very thing we as a nation organized and paid for with our tax dollars to work FOR us?)

We have people insisting we are a Christian nation. (No. We are not. And I don't think you guys have thought it through. Exactly WHICH Christian religion are you going to establish as the one true religion? .... Check out Europe's history for the consequences.)

We have people who are feeding the flames of hatred of anyone who has brown skin, a 'different' name, an 'odd' religion. Often these are the same people who claim they are Christian. Hate is in. (Do you think Jesus would recognize these people as followers?)

We have people denying rapid global climate change as the permafrost melts and methane clouds fill the atmosphere, as floods get worse, snow gets deeper, deserts get larger... and people die. (But Al Gore is fat and he wears beige!)

We have people who mock the educated and education in general, yet have an embarrassing lack of knowledge about the history of our own country, about science and why the word 'theory' is used, about other cultures and countries about the world. (But they're keeping it real!)

We have people in government who lie, change their minds, lie about that, lie again. Even when their own words are played back to them, even when YouTube runs loops of their malfeasance, they will deny all and lie. Because there are people who will ignore all facts and all proof and decide they must be telling the truth. (And your side never lies to you, right?)

We have people who are actually corporations. Mega-monolithic-multi-billion dollar corporations who pollute and contaminate and poison and kill their customers with indifference and greed. And no one holds them accountable because of the money. (Money controls everything.)

And these people are now in power.

Dave

The movie that shows what a government could do if it really felt like governing:

Wingnuttery at its finest

Utah governor decides taking back federal lands is a good idea. (Has he conveniently forgotten the Indians own some of it?)

On Saturday, Gov. Gary Herbert signed two bills authorizing efforts to invoke eminent domain as a way to reclaim land from the U.S. government, which owns more than 60% of Utah. Lawmakers say the gambit could lead to a court ruling that permits Utah to take back valuable parcels, including a coal-rich plateau, from the feds. Proceeds from developing those lands would be used to bankroll the state's cash-strapped public schools. “This is the solution to being the lowest-funded education system in the nation,” Utah Rep. Ken Sumsion, a Republican, told the Salt Lake Tribune last month.

As the Wall Street Journal and the AP report, however, it's highly unlikely that judges would back a bid to seize federal lands:

The goal is to spark a U.S. Supreme Court battle that legislators' own attorneys acknowledge has little chance of success.

But Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and other Republicans say the case is still worth fighting, since the state could reap millions of dollars for state schools each year if it wins.

States' rights! States' rights! Bring back states' rights!!

Wikipedia:

States' rights as "code word"

The term "states' rights," some have argued,[11] was used as a code word by defenders of segregation.[citation needed] It was the official name of the "Dixiecrat" party led by white supremacist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond.[12][13] George Wallace, the Alabama governor—who famously declared in his inaugural address, "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!"—later remarked that he should have said, "States' rights now! States' rights tomorrow! States' rights forever!"[citation needed] Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states' rights; in that view, which some historians dispute, his replacement of segregation with states' rights would be more of a clarification than a euphemism.[14]