Lungs are nuthin' short of amazing.
Saturday, April 09, 2016
Friday, April 08, 2016
GOP Ain't Shit
So I'm thinking there has to be something wrong with the GOP - no really, something way wronger than the usual junk we see every day. Something fundamental. There's a serious rot problem in the heartwood.
They're always telling us that the only polling that counts is the polling that happens on Election Day, and we hafta let the people decide. Well first, how come Repubs are working so hard to keep people from voting? And second, why are Repub leaders in Congress so sure the people didn't decide they wanted Obama to appoint a Justice to SCOTUS (eg) if need be? They say all these high-sounding things about democracy and then ignore the decisions people make when those decisions don't jive with GOP thinking? If that thinking is so obviously superior, why is it so often a direct contradiction of what so many people are telling them? Elitist much?
Here's the kicker - Repubs and "Conservatives" (and Neo-Liberals too) love to link themselves to Business; they preach at us every day that we have to run the joint like a business; "the free market" - that magical marketplace of ideas - provides all the truly great pronouncements about quality and truth and America-ness because we're "letting the market make the call".
But it's largely an upside down bullshit little game. People have been polling and voting in favor of (eg) Zero-Emmission Cars and Solar Energy and a Greener Planet for a coupla generations now, but the (mostly) Republicans have perverted that message and have been telling us that what we're really saying is that we want more Ford Pintos and Coal Mining Jobs and 8-Dollar Toasters.
Gotta remember that popular doesn't necessarily mean good and unpopular doesn't necessarily mean bad, but over a period of time, when millions of your "customers" are trying hard to send you the message that your product stinks because your company's been taken over by people who can't be trusted to run a high school car wash, ya gotta brighten the fuck up a little and make some changes.
That's the "Marketplace", guys - it's speaking in loud clear ways; has been for years. You can't take all that feedback and pretend forever that it doesn't say what it says. And you can't just throw some pixie glitter in the air and wish for a whole new set of customers.
You have to make some changes.
(And BTW: let's not hear any more about "conservatism hasn't failed us, we've failed to be conservative enough". Cut that shit out. The Soviets sounded stoopid when they were singing their version of it in the late 80s and you don't sound any smarter now. So just stop it.)
They're always telling us that the only polling that counts is the polling that happens on Election Day, and we hafta let the people decide. Well first, how come Repubs are working so hard to keep people from voting? And second, why are Repub leaders in Congress so sure the people didn't decide they wanted Obama to appoint a Justice to SCOTUS (eg) if need be? They say all these high-sounding things about democracy and then ignore the decisions people make when those decisions don't jive with GOP thinking? If that thinking is so obviously superior, why is it so often a direct contradiction of what so many people are telling them? Elitist much?
Here's the kicker - Repubs and "Conservatives" (and Neo-Liberals too) love to link themselves to Business; they preach at us every day that we have to run the joint like a business; "the free market" - that magical marketplace of ideas - provides all the truly great pronouncements about quality and truth and America-ness because we're "letting the market make the call".
But it's largely an upside down bullshit little game. People have been polling and voting in favor of (eg) Zero-Emmission Cars and Solar Energy and a Greener Planet for a coupla generations now, but the (mostly) Republicans have perverted that message and have been telling us that what we're really saying is that we want more Ford Pintos and Coal Mining Jobs and 8-Dollar Toasters.
Gotta remember that popular doesn't necessarily mean good and unpopular doesn't necessarily mean bad, but over a period of time, when millions of your "customers" are trying hard to send you the message that your product stinks because your company's been taken over by people who can't be trusted to run a high school car wash, ya gotta brighten the fuck up a little and make some changes.
That's the "Marketplace", guys - it's speaking in loud clear ways; has been for years. You can't take all that feedback and pretend forever that it doesn't say what it says. And you can't just throw some pixie glitter in the air and wish for a whole new set of customers.
You have to make some changes.
(And BTW: let's not hear any more about "conservatism hasn't failed us, we've failed to be conservative enough". Cut that shit out. The Soviets sounded stoopid when they were singing their version of it in the late 80s and you don't sound any smarter now. So just stop it.)
Thursday, April 07, 2016
Today's Cheap Shot
At the risk of showing my ignorance (and really, when has that ever stopped me?), please indulge me as I ask just one question:
Where the fuck has this guy been for 7 years?
Damn, Prez - this should've been an every-day thing from the beginning. And your staffers should've been hounding the Press Poodles for airtime to back it all up and hammer it all home. Every.Fucking.Day.
Honest, I'm really glad when you do this, Mr President, and yes, I'm aware that you've done it before. I just really really really wish you hadn't insisted on being so polite and humble and gee-whiz-maybe-if-I'm-courteous-they-won't-be-such-assholes-to-me-so-fucking-always.
Sorry.
Lotsa jobs is a good thing. 70+ months of expansion is a good thing. 60% reduction in the federal deficit is a good thing. Stock market up 65% is a good thing. Progress on equal rights is a good thing. Millions more with healthcare insurance. Winding down the wars. Lotsa good things.
But way too many people stuck in the poverty cycle is a bad thing. Hundreds of Banksters not in jail is a bad thing. 30,000 Americans killed every year with guns is a bad thing. 1000+ new laws restricting women's reproductive rights is a bad thing. Millions of 20-somethings living at or near the poverty level and needing their parents' help is a bad thing. Fucked up infrastructure is a bad thing. Voter suppression is a bad thing. Gitmo is a bad thing. Drones and extra-legal snuff lists are bad things. The complete crazy-fication of the GOP is a really bad thing. Lotsa and lotsa really bad things too.
Not that you're directly responsible for all that, I just think we needed you to be standing there every day telling us you're trying to do something about it, but somebody seems to be holding you back and getting in your way every time.
I think the pendulum isn't yet swinging the other way, but it's rightward motion has slowed enough to make it much more probable that it could be heading back to the left pretty soon. So maybe you get a lot of the credit for arresting that movement, and I should ease up a little. But I think you know as well as I do that if we don't constantly push for progress, very little gets done, and the natural tendency is to slip back into that Authoritarian Oligarchy thing, which happens to be what the current batch of Republicans always seem to be pushing for. And maybe you could articulate that little "elephant-in-the-room" thing too(?) Gotta push back.
And if we're looking at President Hillary Clinton, it's going to get real important real quick to push back hard against her Neo-Liberal bullshit.
Paraphrasing FDR - "I wanna do what you want me to do, but this is a democracy, so I need for you to make me do it."
So yay, Obama. But we gotta get off up our asses and make things happen if we want things to happen.
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
Today's Hero
There was a similar phenomenon when the whole TeaBagger thing erupted in 2010, but that was an astroturf operation that was fomented and nurtured and financed by guys like Chuckles Koch to make it look like some kinda populist uprising.
This woman didn't plan anything like showing up at a town hall meeting deliberately to disrupt the process - she saw her chance to make her voice heard and she took it. Good on her for that.
What she did seemed organic and spontaneous. And it was obviously not what Gov Scott was expecting or hoping for. But the best part is when she totally shuts down the staffers, and they all parade out of the joint looking very very glum, while Scott can't figure out how to react in any human way so he freezes that phony condescending Pageant Queen smile on his mug trying hard to pretend he was OK with it. He wasn't. That one stung pretty good, and it needs to happen a lot.
That young woman is a hero.
Tuesday, April 05, 2016
Panama & Meh
Between $21 trillion and $32 trillion are sheltered in tax havens according to the Tax Justice Network. pic.twitter.com/8H0ts59qx1— The Int'l Spectator (@intlspectator) April 5, 2016
OK so I'm wrong a lot, and I'm hoping I'm real wrong on this one. But I don't see much changing because of the outrage over what's being "revealed" in The Panama Papers about a really fucked up system.
Maybe we'll see a lot more about how bad and illegal all this shit is, and maybe we won't.
Maybe we'll get all het up over it and demand something be done, and maybe we'll just shrug it off.
We've been conditioned to accept a coupla things. First, if you're rich enough, then you're well-enough connected to political power, which means you can do just about anything you want and not have to worry about "the law". We see this shit every time (eg) when some Wall Streeters get caught dirty dealing and then negotiate their way out of it - "agreeing" to pay some skimpy little fine - which may sound enormous until you notice it amounts to about 1/80th of what they fucked us all over for - and which was factored into the cost of doing business from the start.
Second though is a perversion of the Zorro / Scarlet Pimpernel thing. The noble scamp plays at being loyal to the crown while doing everything he can to countervail what he sees as the evil-doings of a corrupted king.
We've accepted the conditioning that Da Gubmint is rotten and that spending Federal Revenue on anything but Defense and Relieving The Tax Burden of The Rent Collectors is nothing but theft, so everything you do that can plausibly be tied to "fighting back" is not only understandable, it's the right thing to do. Tax Evasion is the right thing that all the smart guys are doing. And all the smart guys are rich because they're smart because they're rich. And I wanna do what's right for them because I'll be rich and smart some day too, and I'm sure they'll be eager to return the favor.
I'm not advocating anything other than solidly passive and peaceful political resistance - please, nobody do anything stoopid - but I do have to wonder when we can expect to see the first wave of kidnappings and assassinations.
It goes on like this and it's all but guaranteed not to end well for anybody.
Monday, April 04, 2016
Sunday, April 03, 2016
Seems Like Good News
From Juan Cole:
Baby steps.
Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman announced Friday that Saudi Arabia would use its oil assets to back a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund. The move suggested to many observers that the kingdom is preparing for a likely end of the petroleum business and transitioning to being primarily an investor. While it is true that the money for the sovereign wealth fund is expected to come from petroleum sales, it also seems clear that the kingdom recognizes that it has a stranded asset that won’t be nearly as valuable in a decade or two as it is now. It could even end up, like coal, being regulated out of existence in many countries.
Here are 3 reasons Saudi Arabia is likely making this massive change in economic strategy:
1. Climate change denial, which the Saudis pushed and helped fund, has failed. A majority of Americans now accepts that humans burning fossil fuels is causing global warming. And that’s in anti-science, capitalist-ridden America. Everywhere else in the world it goes without saying. Since the impact of global warming will become increasingly apparent in the coming decades, likely pressure to abandon burning fossil fuels will grow. Already, most new investment in power plants is in renewables,not coal and gas.
2. Another fossil fuel, coal, is being quickly phased out and will likely be illegal in fifteen or twenty years. It is being phased out by the Environmental Protection Agency because it puts out pollutants, including CO2. The writing is on the wall for coal and petroleum.
3. More affordable, longer-range electric cars are now coming on the market, with the Chevy Bolt due next December and Tesla 3 the following year. Most petroleum is used for transportation, so electric vehicles are deadly to that market. The new generation of electric cars is less than $30,000 in the US after tax rebates. And it typically can go 200 miles on a charge. Tesla is putting fast recharging stations everywhere it can, and people have already gone across the country in a Tesla. Battery costs are falling and batteries are becoming more efficient, so the writing is on the wall for the combustion engine. Consumers are combining electric cars with solar panels on their houses, getting free fuel. Low gasoline prices won’t impede solar car sales because prices would have to fall another dollar US before EVs would not be worth it.
In as little as fifteen to twenty years, petroleum may be illegal in some places; and will be in retreat everywhere. Saudi oil is a stranded asset. So they are attempting to create a revenue stream from investments. As for fossil fuels, their business model is under severe pressure.
So, if I look past the part about The House of Saud becoming even more parasitic than they are now - at least they're making some attempt to move away from literally burning the place to the ground trying to milk every last dime outa the suckers, to a new and exciting career as straight-up Rent-Collecting Leeches. Which somehow seems bizarrely logical in that it means they're being more "honest" as to the total buggery of what they're all about(?)
Baby steps.
Opening Day
I don't much care about baseball, but there's something about Spring that's just not Spring until they're playin' ball.
Saturday, April 02, 2016
Be It Resolved
I've always had a tough time getting straight with some of the minutiae of Church-State Separation.
There's no doubt in my mind about making sure religious dogma is kept out of the law - that the law can only be about what's provably true, and so the magical mystery bunkum has to be put aside. I'm good on all that.
So, kinda cutting to the chase, my last item is taxation. I've been reluctant to advocate in favor of taxing churches because it seemed like an opening for Government to meddle where government doesn't belong. But I've come to view that thinking as more of a rationalization. It's politically expedient, but mostly commercially prudent for churches to try to "protect" themselves from "government meddling"; it's not really a question of Separation so much as it's a question of a business interest lobbying for exemptions.
A church is a business. We have a reasonable expectation for every person and every business to pay a share of the taxes necessary to maintain a functioning society. If you enjoy the benefits of police and fire protection, and roads and snow plows, and all the other goodies, then you need to throw a few bucks in the hat for it. Not to be too obvious, church guys, but it's not a lot different than somebody sitting thru the service and getting the "benefits" of your sermonizing, and then not kicking in when you pass the collection plate.
So why not churches? We require all the other Mumbo-Jumbo Peddlers to pay and to be appropriately regulated. The palm reader pays taxes. Crystal Gazers pay taxes. The Reiki Master pays taxes. Etc.
When we decide this "religious" organization is exempt from the law, but that one isn't - and we base the decision on the organization's "religious beliefs" - it just seems like we're doing exactly what the 1st amendment says we're not supposed to do.
We should stop doing that.
There's no doubt in my mind about making sure religious dogma is kept out of the law - that the law can only be about what's provably true, and so the magical mystery bunkum has to be put aside. I'm good on all that.
So, kinda cutting to the chase, my last item is taxation. I've been reluctant to advocate in favor of taxing churches because it seemed like an opening for Government to meddle where government doesn't belong. But I've come to view that thinking as more of a rationalization. It's politically expedient, but mostly commercially prudent for churches to try to "protect" themselves from "government meddling"; it's not really a question of Separation so much as it's a question of a business interest lobbying for exemptions.
A church is a business. We have a reasonable expectation for every person and every business to pay a share of the taxes necessary to maintain a functioning society. If you enjoy the benefits of police and fire protection, and roads and snow plows, and all the other goodies, then you need to throw a few bucks in the hat for it. Not to be too obvious, church guys, but it's not a lot different than somebody sitting thru the service and getting the "benefits" of your sermonizing, and then not kicking in when you pass the collection plate.
So why not churches? We require all the other Mumbo-Jumbo Peddlers to pay and to be appropriately regulated. The palm reader pays taxes. Crystal Gazers pay taxes. The Reiki Master pays taxes. Etc.
When we decide this "religious" organization is exempt from the law, but that one isn't - and we base the decision on the organization's "religious beliefs" - it just seems like we're doing exactly what the 1st amendment says we're not supposed to do.
We should stop doing that.
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