We Are So Fucked

A rosy outlook from BBC's Richard Black:

"The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.

"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.

"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."

It's not about "saving the planet".  The planet was just fine before we showed up, and it'll be just fine long after we're gone.  This is about self-preservation, and making our own living conditions as pleasant as possible.  It's about not making it any harder than it has to be to survive; and to thrive; and to enjoy our lives.

Same Shit, New Day

In a very real sense, everything the Watergate Burglars did in 1972 - hijinks that got them sent to jail, and which then led directly to Nixon's resignation (one step in front of Impeachment, Conviction and Removal) - can now be considered reasonably within the law.

NYT Editorial:

Instead of tightening the relaxed rules for F.B.I. investigations — not just of terrorism suspects but of pretty much anyone — that were put in place in the Bush years, President Obama’s Justice Department is getting ready to push the proper bounds of privacy even further.

This is not what I voted for in 2008.

Dilemma

It'll be hard for me to vote for Obama in 2012 because he's continuing a lot of the abuses of power I complained about under GWB (Illegal wars, Gitmo, etc)

And it'll be hard to vote for any of the current Repubs because of the usual reasons (God, Gays, Guns, Abortion, Tax Cuts and all-round dickishness).

Good politicians know all this.  Their advisers know how to slice and dice the polling results in order to tweak their candidate's positions so he picks up more votes than he loses on any given issue.

So it's become a lot easier for me to understand the complete non sequitur of so many people simply rejecting the only thing that has any chance of fixing whatever they think is wrong.  How do you justify participating in a system when you're convinced the system itself is broken?

But when the system is in such dire need of remedy, how do you justify withdrawing your support for it?

The Drought

Back in April, Gov Rick Perry called for Texans to pray because the drought was kinda bad.  Here's what it's been like since then:
Drought Map

Something else I wonder about: Perry has been playing the Labor Arbitrage game, and he's done a good bit of bragging about the influx of people because there're so many new jobs in Texas.  First, Texas leads the US in minimum-wage jobs. Second, the majority of new jobs in Texas are minimum wage or minimum plus 20% jobs.  Third, a big increase in population only puts a greater strain on things like infrastructure and resources like clean water.

Just sayin'.

Voter Fraud

Repubs make a big noise about how the Dems try to steal elections, but some how there's never any evidence of it at the end of loud and distracting investigations.

And then, there's this.

Voters in Maryland started getting mysterious phone calls on election day last year, that told them to "relax" and not bother going to the polls because President Barack Obama and Gov. Martin O'Malley "have been successful."

"Everything is fine. The only thing left is to watch on TV tonight," the robocalls said.

Some truth from The Brennan Center at NYU Law.

Today's Deep Thought

It's illegal in the US for any person to own another person - because people are people and  not property.

If a corporation is a person, then why is it legal for anybody to own it?

Service To Their Country

This young man is a great example of who we want serving in a professional military, and a perfect example of what we stand to lose when we make stupid decisions on what we want those pros to do.

John Kasich

...is a petty, vindictive prick.

Col Wilkerson

When I piss and moan about 'honor', this is part of what I have in mind.

Larry Wilkerson is no hero owing to the simple fact that he didn't say any of this when he was in a position to make it stick, and to make a difference by coming out with it. It's possible that he was just too close to the problem at the time; or that he was living the nightmare scenario for any military pro, where you start to get the feeling that the people in charge are leading you off the cliff, but your training and experience are telling you just to keep your head down and do the work. "Theirs not to reason why" and all that shit.

In the end, though, every soldier has to make a judgement call as to whether or not his orders are inside the legal and ethical boundaries. You don't ever stop being responsible for your own actions.



Watch the whole series here.

Ah Yes, I Get It Now

Today, Stan Collender is the smartest guy in the room.

Here's his lead-in to his blog post at Capital Gains and Games.

On the one hand, many Congressional Republicans are insisting that they don’t have to vote for an increase in the debt ceiling because the presumed dire consequences of not acting won’t be that bad. On the other hand, they’re also insisting that not raising the debt ceiling will indeed be harmful and, therefore, the White House had better agree to do what they want.

Spectacular.

Nice Try, Willard

Romney's new campaign ad takes a line from an Obama speech, and tries to do a turn-around. It fails badly, but I'm not sure anybody's gonna notice.

My question: In that one line - or anywhere in that whole speech - how exactly did Obama say unemployed people were bumps in the road?

This is typical Repub nonsense. They're so sure you have your head up your ass, they think that's how they need to talk to you. It's as if they're saying that there were so many people unemployed, it caused a recession.

If your premise is false, it's impossible for your conclusion to be true.

And Jesus Wept

Rick Santorum stakes his claim to the extreme. He says he wants criminal prosecution for a doctor who performs an abortion procedure, but he won't support penalties for a woman seeking the abortion. So there's the catch (and there's always a catch). These guys just want to look good for their wingnuts, and make it seem a little less than complete horseshit for the rest of us, while they push for laws that will turn out to be impossible to enforce, and overturned on the first challenge in any court.

I'm very glad the Dems are finally getting around to calling these dipwads out, even tho' the Press Poodles can't quite figure out how to ask these guys what exactly the law would require.

Scenario: You cross paths at the grocery store with a woman you're casually acquainted with. You chat, and she tells you she's pregnant for the 4th time, and you get the impression she's not too thrilled about it. You see her again 5 months later. She's obviously not pregnant now. She tells you she "lost the baby a few weeks ago", and she seems not only relieved, but kinda happy about it. Under Santorum's Law, are you obligated (as a good citizen) to report this to the local authorities so they can question her and decide whether or not there's been illegal activity?

The Wallow Fire

Still not contained, the fire has eaten over 400k acres since it started (May 30).

More great news; dry and windy weather should push it well over the current champion fire (from 2002) into first place by a fair margin.

See the progress of the beast here.

We hear practically nothing any more about AGW when these disasters pop up.  Have we finally begun to notice that when one of these huge things happens - lately anyway - we're no longer looking back to the 1800s or (usually) even the early 1900s to find the previous record-setting event?  So we've just kinda quietly accepted the whole thing now?

Typical Nonsense

Herman Cain doesn't like the term African-American because he doesn't like being "labeled".  So he labels himself "American. Black. Conservative."

Jeffrey Goldberg's post over at Bloomberg:

At a convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee in February, Cain told an enthusiastic audience: “They call me racist too, because I disagree with a president who happens to be black.” To cheers, he went on, “You will get called racist simply because you happen to disagree with a president who happens to be black. You are not racists! You are patriots because you are willing to stand up for what you believe in!”

That last bit is what I've come to see as a good example of a defining statement for "conservatives" in general.

I think what he's trying to say is about right - dissent is a patriotic thing.  But in their little heads, the rubes are going to decode that message as: "my political positions may mean I'm a racist, but as long as I stand up and declare them openly, then my racism makes me a patriot; and I know this because my black friend Herman told me so."

Along the same lines (and remembering their willingness to accept revised history), support for Cain also provides the Repubs additional cover.  "See?  We have a black guy too.  But our black is a good black guy.  He's not all superior and uppity like your black guy."

Quick Question

Gabby Giffords should be going home after almost 6 months of treatment which (so far) has included trauma surgery, many days in ICU, at least 2 high-level MedEvac style transports, reconstructive surgery, 150+ days inpatient time, etc.

I'm not bitchin' about it, but what exactly did all this cost us?

Second, what about the costs of caring for all the other victims of that one shooting incident?

I don't think it's a stretch to assume we're talking about multiple millions here.  So really what I'm asking is this:  On what plane of existence does it make sense for a society to spend that kinda money for the sake of a manufacturer, a wholesaler and a retailer to make $36 on a 30-shot magazine?

More Happy Prospects

Radioactive Iodine:

Prepare to evolve - or mutate if you prefer.

Janet Sherman, MD (at Counterpunch)

Lila York (at OEN)

Makes me wonder; maybe the Repubs are trying to stuff all the social programs because they believe we're all gonna be really sick as a result of de-regulation and poor enforcement, while the Dems aren't really worried about Entitlements because we'll all be dead before we qualify for them anyway.

Happy Prospects

We're looking forward to a nice economic boost because American companies have over a third of a trillion dollars in contracts pending for guns and bombs and shit.

From channelnewsasia.com, by way of The Agonist:

In all, over 13,000 contracts are currently underway with 165 countries for $327 billion, according to Landay.

Perpetual war, permanent crisis mode.  Every time we turn around, there's another outrageous attempt to strip away people's rights, or to roll back a bunch of the real social advances of the last 50 years or so; along with a juicy new scandal of some kind that distracts us from those outrages.

It's a circular process: threat of pain, application of pain, relief of pain.  We're willingly participating in our own mass torture.  But it's not a circle at all.  It's a spiral, and it's not going anywhere good.

They Don't Buy What You Do

Simon Sinek provides some of the best sales training I've ever heard. Also works for managers, job seekers, parents, and just plain humans.

Today's SIlliness

I can kinda see this, but I had to ask Irene - and she was happy to read it to me.  Maybe a little too happy.

 

Today's T-Shirts