Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Is Your Anti-Drone Source of Information Really an Ayn Rand Follower?
Just a few days ago I pointed out to someone I follow on Twitter that a hyper anti drone guy whacking at Obama at The Atlantic lives in a pricey neighborhood out here in Cali --over a $1m for about 1100sq ft homes, and might not be very liberal. It turns out I didn't have to know his neighborhood (for some reason he had it right up there in his profile. I don't know which other authors list that on top of their writings). A short way down his list of articles is "Join My Atlas Shrugged Book Club". Other pieces show that he hates, not only Obama and other liberal leaders, but journalistic liberals too, because they aren't hyper Obama haters as he, so they are supposedly war mongers.
That is exactly how the Libertarians (whose ideals promote racist, ageist, and sexist goals) got the nation handed over to the Republicans in the 2000 election. Clinton had taken action to save Muslims in Serbia when they were being killed by Milosevic's forces first in Bosnia-Herzegovina and later in Kosovo. In fact he was able to save thousands of lives. For the Libertarians though, this was evil warmongering. We must eschew all war!!! War is evil!!! Here, vote for Ralph Nader who hates all war, liberals were told. I'm not accusing Nader of being Libertatian, only that he was used by the Republicans and the eat the poor Libertarians.
And their scheme worked. Enough people voted for Nader in Florida that the state was thrown to George W Bush who himself had declared "Aw won't take the country to war. Aw hate war!" Safe voting was anti Democrat voting many people claimed. And Bush won the election despite getting fewer votes from Americans over-all for president.
But that worked out spectacularly badly for peace lovers and everyone else. What some people forget is that after Bush-Cheney were elected there was virtually nothing that could be done to stop the inexorable march to war. Once basically Libertarian George W Bush was allowed to become president, his drug and alcohol damaged brain was no match for the committed war mongers led by Dick Cheney, and the journalists weren't going to risk their good paying jobs to make it clear what was happening (and they won't the next time either) as a matter of fact they'd caved to their billionaire backers, except for a few columnists who must then be balanced by right wing extremists to shift "the middle to the racist and sexist right."
The Libertarian types did the same to Jimmy Carter cutting him out of government and setting him loose to help the world get rid of some of its worst diseases in the third world at least. But we got Reagan who slashed fat cats' taxes in half claiming that that America needed to compete in the world and keep jobs at home, but he also started offering big tax breaks for businesses to take jobs overseas. No kidding! He was offering tax breaks for outsourcing because we needed more jobs at home (as even he acknowledged). (Reagan, like Bush 43 started with GOP majorities in Congress though the House flipped back in the next election. I know that after the 1994 election every news person with a venue claimed the Dems had held Congress for 40 years, but that was wrong. Journalism is a strange country in which journalists believe in their own popish infallibility a little too much Just the other day a couple of mainstream journalists claimed John Kerry would be the first male Secretary of State in 16 years, conveniently forgetting Colin Powell's 4 year tenure. You'd think that they would be just slightly humble and use a search engine or ask someone who gives a shit to do a Nexis-Lexus search, but no....).
Funny, but now the Libertarians are back to their old games, railing about military action that are very limited compared with a man they got installed into the White House just 12 years ago and again promoting themselves as peace lovers. Again, though follow them to their other beliefs and you'll see they don't care about you, only about their own future in journalism and politics and the big money is paid out to those who get strong right wing governments installed. The neocons will take care of the rest. Since our Democrat hating Libertarians, like other extreme rightists are serving, the desires of the ultra rich, they get paid well once they get into a position where their voices are heard by many, so they fit right in with the Republicans both monetarily and by nature.
What they don't fit in with are people who care about poor people, about racism and sexism, about young people who don't need to be drafted for war, or people in far lands who don't need us setting up major invasions into their nations to do regime change, and Americans who face trying to live through the winter without a home because they are poor, especially children.
Ayn Rand is widely known as a self serving individual who postured for the multi- millionaires and racists that promoted and protected her career because she promoted libertarian style politics, but took Medicare and Social Security the New Deal programs that "Libertarianism" emerged to fight when she got old. (Though Calvin Coolidge, and Hebert Hoover were of the Libertarian spirit as were most Republicans before them, the party with the name was created after the New Deal.
And your anti-drone fan may be taking advantage of war loving billionaires and multi-millionaires to promote their careers if not to simply collect cash on the sly to turn this nation back to the war mongering Republicans like the ones behind simple minded supposedly libertarian style George W Bush. We saw how that worked out, spectacularly badly. 3000 Americans killed in a terrorist attack, over 6000 Americans troops killed in retaliatory and opportunistic neo-con promoted war that did get access to Iraqi oil for the GOP's biggest backers and promised access to $1T worth of rare minerals in Afghanistan, and oh yeah plus financial meltdown that stole the life savings of millions, but protected the balance sheets of bankers who now rail about Social Security and Medicare users who we have proven have paid for their SS benefits. I will have to study and write about Medicare. I'm sure it is paid for, but again the right ignores the interest that saving is worth and their own hampering of Medicare to control it's cost. It also kept the US from charging the same Big Oil companies we went to war for for their extraction of the fuels they take free from our soil.
You don't know this because the same billionaires control our news system, both mainstream, right wing, and now most of the liberal sources through anti-drone fever. There really isn't time to go ballistic about drone strikes, which are not going to be done in the US. Drones were proposed to search for Christopher Dorner, not to kill him.
This is the real reason for the Libertarian party. To get us back to pre-depression era economics and to keep the American electorate misinformed. When poor children died while rich people selected tiaras with large diamonds. And yes, we are half way there, and no you won't be on the benefit side if you war not wealthy or in mainstream media now. There will come a time when they don't even need their Libertarian racist hangers on. And that might not be far off if we don't wake our friend up to how the billionaires are manipulating our minds through mainstream and social media.
Welcome to the new, old Libertarian nation:
Pictures used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr users Official US Navy Imagery (drone launch Pacific Ocean -- top) and Tony Fischer Photography (soup line memorial, DC -- bottom) neither of which have any connection to this blog or blogger.
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A good short URL for this article is http://x.co/uoZL
Friday, February 15, 2013
Why We Pay So Much For Internet Access And CellPhones And Get Bad Service When "We the People" Own the Internet
*The core of the problem is that our political and news system is run by the money of the billionaires and PACs very few of which are working for our good. If we all pressure together, though, we might get some action.
Contact your Congressional "leaders" via instructions at Thomas.gov (the official website of Congress --named after Thomas Jefferson). Tell them you want them to use our resources for us, not for the benefit of their billionaire and multi-millionaire backers and you won't take no for an answer. We don't need to be the third world of the Internet!
A shorter URL for this post is http://x.co/uOD8
Monday, February 11, 2013
Anwar "Al Alwaki's" Son Sought Martyrdom through Jihad
The Majestic Arabian Peninsula with it's Deep Emerald Persian Gulf by it's Side In A NASA Photo of A Massive Dust Storm.
According to a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Ramin, al Aulaqi who was the 16 year old son of Anwar al Aulaqi, told the emir of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in the hours before he met his death that he would seek to become a martyr and then he went and joined the traveling group of a known terrorist on the day he was killed.
It is also telling that the same thing was the intent of the powerful men in AQAP that Abdul follow in his father's footsteps as noted in the report linked above. What was the son going to do, run away and join a circus -- in Yemen -- seriously? Quit the family business and eke out a living by selling Khat (qat)? There is no other business that would make him a comfortable living (and I mean barely above subsistance comfortable, not the American millionaire meaning of the word) in Yemen since he did not come from a family that could control or profit from Yemeni oil. Follow the Money is just as potent an idea, if not more so, in Yemen as it is in America, since there are so few opportunities in their land to make more than subsistence living-- even if you call losing half your children before they are grown and your own life early actual "subsistence". (More explanation at * below. linking within a page does not seem to work on this blog, possibly because of security reasons.)
And the fact that young al Aulaqi then went and joined the camp of one of AQAP's most prominent terrorists, Ibrahim al-Banna, creates a scenario that is similar to a young American man saying he is going to become lawyer, and going to Harvard Law School, but people maintaining that the young man wasn't really interested in becoming a lawyer. (And, in fact, what really makes me mad is that the ultra-left talks like the US chose to attack young al Aulaqi when they wail about Obama's drones killing a "teenager". The drone tried to kill a proven murderous terrorist. To stop the terror attacks on us we have to stop the terrorists. It became a business to hire young impoverished youth to attack America. That's how we got 911 which led to the war in Afghanistan and the war on Iraq in which more that 6000 Americans died and over a million people from those nations. And the center of that Jihad business are Jihadist kingpins like al Banna and the senior al Aulaqi.)
Children grow up early in harsh circumstances and this young man was likely as adult as an 18 year old American, and could have left home earlier if his father's business was abhorrent to him. As it was he went on a journey from home to try to find his father and prove he wasn't dead when he heard the rumors and traveled straight to the emir of AQAP. This young man clearly wasn't a child. And what he said at the end of that journey was that he would continue to do what his father had done and he would apparently be proud of it. He pledged to go on helping to dole out deadly payback on non-Muslims for every imagined slight they thought they could get done until one of the plans led to his own death. Yes, I suppose the fact that the young man met that death before he had killed some of us, is tragic because it leaves us with less justification. If you want to volunteer to get killed by al Qaeda so one of them can be punished, there might be somewhere you can apply. Personally I don't think AQAP really cares who applies because they have been trying strike where they can, when they can. And why do they do it? Because their money backers will continue to dribble out the money for them to do so. Stopping the flow of that money has been one of the concerns of US Government, but it is constrained since much of it comes from oil on which we depend until we can change our ystem of fueling our automobiles.
Abdulramen's dad's gems were:
There were redacted papers released a few weeks ago that apparently show that the ekder al Aulaqi paid for plane tickets for three of the 911 hijackers in July and August of 2001 including the ring leader Mohammed Atta in the run up to the major attack. This blogger relates the details He is a conservative blogger, but liberals seem to be ignoring this new information which came from an FOI request, apparently because it hurts the case against drones strike that killed the terrorist leader. Two of the tickets were to Las Vegas and Miami, a couple of party towns, the kinds of places that are anathema to good Muslims.
If I remember correctly the Bipartisan 911 Report and/or journalists notes of the inquiry (which were much more extensive that the ridiculous report that emerged) said that others of the hijackers participated in carnal gratification in the weeks before the terror attack in a New Jersey town, too. Apparently, their enablers helped them party it up in ways that were against their religion, most likely (it seems reasonable to assume) to bind them to their pledge to go through with the deed to earn their redemption and avoid ostracism from their fellow believers who may also have provided the money that enabled them to live a decent life style for a while without the hardships of their earlier years (again it's follow the money). It's just such a package that often keeps people in a "faith group" or cult through their years of young adulthood might otherwise cause them to doubt and free themselves from the mind-control of religion. (And in fact, I'm convinced how destroying young people's ability to control their own bodies will lead to a Christian based oligarchy in the US if the GOP have their way.)
The senior al Aulaqi also preached to 3 of the 911 hijackers personally, and counseled Nidal Malik Hasan via e-mail before the Army major attacked fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009 according to Wikipedia. He is reported to have encouraged Umar Farouk Abdulmutallah (also noted in the link attached to NMH's name) in his quest for matrydom. This is what is reported in Wikipedia. (I believe that news reports also said that the senior al Aulaqi also actually provided the explosive device Mr. Abdulmutallah wore, but that is not in Wikipedia which doesn't do US news information very well-- or maybe that was disproven somewhere I didn't catch, but Wikipedia is prone to information manipulation because of it's ability to be edited by outside sources). So that's what was the al Aulaqi family way of doing Jihad.
The clearest path to self sufficiency, one that he said he would follow was to do what his father had been doing in the last years of his life, counseling violent Jihad and enabling violent Jihad.
I'm not saying that the drone or someone controlling it was prescient or knew this, but this young man was probably no more innocent of murderous intent, either in person or as a far off "adviser" like his father, and he was traveling in the company of someone who was a target for the kinds of reasons that Abdul (other places know as Abdulramen as one word) would have been in the future if he followed his father's path. It is tragic that people who are not trying to kill Americans and Europeans and anyone who won't submit to their murderous and rights destroying control, do get killed. Hopefully people can be convinced to work things out, so the killing will stop. I wonder what the same ultra left and ultra right would have said if young Mr. Abdulmutallah had been able to set off his bomb. I'm sure they would have folded their hands and said ah yes, that is the result of our demanding no reaction or retribution on people trying to kill us. (No they wouldn't. They'd be screaming about Obama letting this happen.)
My point here is that 2013 is beginning to look like 1997 and the start of a 4 year political jihad by right and ultra left to hand the nation to a Republican president in the next election, which many people hought and apparently still think will result in some ultra right or ultra left paradise at some time in the future.
Such a belief seems to defy sanity after how that worked out in the period after Ralph Nader's run basically handed the government to George W. Bush's wrecking crew that caused massive war and debt crises, and some pretty spectacular terror attacks.
Just insert Glenn Greenwald for Ralph Nader and you have it set up again, with many of the same enablers, and even more. In addition Greenwald is an admitted non liberal except in the case of his marriage rights, was in favor of the invasion of Iraq, and does conspiracy almost as well as Alex Jones, a recognized nut cake. At least Ralph Nader had been a real liberal, apparently.
Even worse, more mainstream liberal news sources feared being ostracized by powerful ultra-liberals if they didn't go full outrage mode over drone strikes like the ultra left did over Clinton's limited actions in Serbia and Kosovo in which no Americans died, and many Muslim lives were saved from racist extermination. In addition, a few years later, a new nation was born in which the people are free from attack by those who tried to eliminate their presence in a fertile land that the attackers coveted for their own.
Like Clinton, Obama does what he discerns most Americans want. It's our lookout to manage our reaction to the ultra left so we don't find our nation hijacked by neo-cons again. The lives that were destroyed by the George W Bush administration cry out for that kind of sanity.
Picture above sampled and used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr user NASA Goddard photo and video which has no connection to this blog or blogger.
A good short URL for this is http://x.co/uJfA
* In fact, "follow the money" has been a mantra for 50 years or more (since the Watergate scandal was broken open by Mark Felt the FBI #2 and Watergate's "Deep Throat" contact with Washington Post reporters), and the more I understand business, and politics, and other endeavors we often think of as more divinely or at least sincerely heartfelt, the more I realize that passion and concern only go so far. Most of our own political and news reporting systems follow the dictates of making money, and I don't mean the money you plop down for your paper, but from the big money backing papers like that from their billionaire and mufti-millioniare investors and big ad buyers. And bloggers are no better at defying the source of their money, from working to boost the numbers of their readers through conspiracy theories and trying to gain more affluent people who are more likely to click on their ads or react to the ones in their paper edition, and those who will spend more money, to their advertisers' direct threats of canceling their contracts. I know personally relatable stories of people living decades being falsely promised relief from a deteriorating condition and trying all the herbal remedies, finally trying the conventional medicine road, and finding relief that is almost worth the harsh pricing of the same. But the herbal websites and magazines are still out there promising everything from flee control by splashing around vinegar or putting it on your pet (its only a repellent and the problem continues to grow) to cancer "cures", trust in which could be deadly -- as Steve Jobs found out, and allowing advertising or outright selling the same herbs they claim will cure or at least greatly reduce the effects of a person's real or imagined diseases. If you understand politics and the news business you will see that most of them are following the money these days often to the detriment of our understanding of our world.
Friday, February 8, 2013
GOP Wants Austerity, Except for Tanks, Tanks, Tanks
No wonder Senator Hagel says that we would have to find 100,000 soldiers to do it. There are millions in the military, so I don't think that's what he was talking about. He meant we would have to find 100k more American to replace those that would die in our grand adventure to "free" Iran. (Thank goodness they've already prepared us for a Universal Draft).
Of course that sounds ridiculous now, but just put a Republican in the White House, and it will no longer be unthinkable, No wonder the GOP wants more tanks, especially when military equipment is often made by companies with a large contingent of GOP donors, and others of their donors would love to take advantage of a privatized oil structure. Iranian oil is said to produce more gallons of fuel per barrel. In our world that's enough for some people to start talking about regime change.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
At Least 5 Dead After Tsunami Hits Solomon Islands
Picture above of a Solomon Island town shows how some houses are built near the sea, to catch the cooler ocean breezes, but they face danger when large earthquakes erupt nearby.
Reports are of at least 5 fatalities after an 8.0 earthquake struck near the Santa Cruz Islands a southern cluster of the Solomon islands about 500 miles from Honoria and a Tsunami hit the shores of the closest ones. An older man who was fishing offshore in a dugout and a 10 year old boy are said to have died, but further islands including the main Solomons and Hawaii and Vanuatu had their warnings expire without major incident.
The Tsunami that hit Santa Cruz was only 1.5 meters, but the amount of force said to be like a raging river with the whole of the ocean behind it, which then recedes dragging with the same intensity and power, noted in other Tsunamis as dragging children out of mothers and fathers hands to take its prisoners far out to sea. Tsunamis can grow larger is funneled into bays and can raise surprisingly in estuaris, ports, marinas, and as they go up river beds or are otherwise funneled. The video of the Samoa tsunami was the most terrifying thing I'd seen until the ones after the Tohoku quake in March 2011. It was hard to believe that Northeast Japan was being swamped by that monster, and I felt like it would actually be welcome if Godzilla should appear any second and let us know it was all fake.
Though apparently most people started heading towards higher ground after today's quake according to early reports as soon as they felt the shaking, as it usually happens that some don't make it especially if the triggering quake is nearby.
In 2007 an earlier quake hit near the Solomons at Richter scale 9 or more. The WSJ reminds its readers that 57 people died in that instance. It seemed to signal a renewed attack on the South Pacific after the horrific Tsunami hit off Sumatra on Boxing Day in 2004 (and another one a weeks later)..
The Solomons string off the southeast end of Papua New Guinea and are about 1500 miles from Samoan Islands that suffered a devastating post quake wave a few years ago. The whole area like Japan, and South and North America are part of the Ring of Fire known for it's large quakes and Tsunami creation.
I found WSJ's Tsunami Destroys Villages in Solomons and CBS Deadly tsunami hits Solomon Islands in South Pacific to be helpful though I read many reports from other sources too.
Or check a news search (Google, Bing, Yahoo) for the latest.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Jennifer Hudson: America the Beautiful feat. The Sandy Hook Choir
Did I see tears in some of those Football players and coaches eyes?
I had to look this up because we have 1 TV in our house and someone had control of the remote didn't think the first 30 minutes of the Superbowl was important and he knows who he is.
Friday, February 1, 2013
False Arguments Are Used By Those Who Want to Protect Assault Weapons
In Agrigento, Sicily (Italy), Dorian Pillars Have Been Standing Their Ground Since the 5th Century BC. What were they protecting? They can't even say anymore.
At the Senate hearing on Assault weapons control this week a Gun Lobbyist Gayle Trotter used the case of Sarah McKinley an 18 year old woman with a 3 month old baby who defended herself and her child from an intruder with a large knife with a 12 gauge shotgun, which is not an assault weapon, or one of the weapons that Democrats are seeking to have banned. See more:
But, as O'Donnell noted, none of the cases of self protection mentioned by the speakers for the gun lobby, used assault weapons. And Senator Lindsay (Don' I look like a silver haired Reagan) Graham, if mama ran out of bullets after 6, couldn't she just grab another cartridge and stick it in? Yes, and she could go to the gun range all she wants and practice reloading until it's as easy as breathing.
Ms. McKinley even acknowledge herself she doesn't need an assault weapon. Her story is here.
Picture at top used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr user Chiara Marra who has no connection to this blog or blogger. BTW, the sub-title under the picture of the pillars was mostly used to give me an excuse to put the picture of those gorgeous structures at the top of this post.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Jon Stewart's The Daily Show on Republican Outreach to "You People"
Republicans try to craft plans to attract women and minorities. JW tells it straight.
There is Actually Proof That The Surge Didn't Work!
We are claiming "fair use" of excerpts of published findings as offered below because of willing ignorance of mainstream news media, Fox News, & NPR who just let Senator McCain define the conversation on the 2007 Surge in today's reports of Chuck Hagel's confirmation for the position of Secretary of Defense. If people take the time to actually read this and look at the light patterns portrayed above, they should be convinced that what happened in Baghdad due to the Surge, was not the healing of a city, but an emptying out of many areas in it as families fled the deadly sectarian cleansing being enacted upon their loved ones. Senator McCain's image is only propped up by too much BS from the news media which gets their money from the warmongering billionaires to whom he caters.
To Senator McCain: Dude we get it. Your wife is 14 years younger than you are, and has more money. Selling out your nation to blood thirsty Oligarchs isn't going to fix that. And Oh yeah, it is still selling out your fellow citizens. End of story. (BTW, you lost in 2008 for a reason and you showed people that reason today at the hearings.)
Summary of findings Agnew J, Gillespie T W, Gonzalez J, Min B, 2008, "Baghdad nights: evaluating the US military ‘surge’ using nighttime light signatures":
...
A shorter URL for this is http://x.co/tCyS
To Senator McCain: Dude we get it. Your wife is 14 years younger than you are, and has more money. Selling out your nation to blood thirsty Oligarchs isn't going to fix that. And Oh yeah, it is still selling out your fellow citizens. End of story. (BTW, you lost in 2008 for a reason and you showed people that reason today at the hearings.)
Summary of findings Agnew J, Gillespie T W, Gonzalez J, Min B, 2008, "Baghdad nights: evaluating the US military ‘surge’ using nighttime light signatures":
...
Far more than the surge, the battle for Baghdad has determined the political landscape of Iraq for the foreseeable future'' (Cockburn, 2008)....
In classic Clausewitzian terms, the surge was an extension of politics by other means.
It was never primarily about reducing US military casualties but about abetting a
political process in which while the US handled `security' that would see an improve-
ment in the quality of everyday life the various groups would come to a political
reconciliation that would in turn make it easier for the US government to withdraw
its troops from Iraq.
Our findings suggest that in these terms the surge has had no observable effect,
except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-
sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved but with a
tremendous decline in the extent of residential intermixing between groups and
a probable significant loss of population in some areas. That is the message we take
from the nighttime light data we have presented. Furthermore, the nighttime light
signature of Baghdad data when matched with ground data provided by the report to
the US Congress by Marine Corps General Jones and various other sources, makes it clear that the diminished level of violence in Iraq since the onset of the surge owes
much to a vicious process of interethnic cleansing. This might resume if US forces
withdraw. But as the case we have made strongly implies, the massive residential
segregation and population loss happened anyway even when US forces were present
in increased numbers. Perhaps they are not as central to events in Baghdad and Iraq
as US government and popular opinion seems to believe. They certainly have not been
over the past two years.
A shorter URL for this is http://x.co/tCyS
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Welcome to OK Corral Middle School. Our First Lesson Will Be On Dodging Bullets Fired by Ms Oakley Who May Be Experiencing Hallucinations While Trying To Stop a Killer in the School
Admonitions to Arm and Train Teachers and Other School Officials Ignores Problems Even Officers Have in Confronting Gun Threats
My first thought after reading a Swampland report on armed and trained officers and their experiences in confronting actual violence:
Yeah, lets not make teachers also do that job too, it will be dangerous for our children and for them. And BTW, teachers already have a job for which they need all their attention: TEACHING OUR CHILDREN!
Well trained and well armed police and other security professionals in specific careers in which they can expect some violence at any time, have trouble during encounters that should make voters think twice before supporting politicians who adopt a posture that teachers and other school officials can prevent gun violence at schools by taking a few hours of gun training and carrying or storing a loaded firearm on the job.
Time magazine's Swampland report with input from real security professionals shows how unrealistic the call from some to give teachers a gun and a few hours of training.
It's linked below. But if you think they can just take repeated courses or something, remember what a teachers job is supposed to be about, teaching children, not trying to watch out for killers or trying to decide if someone needs to be "taken down". Posturing Congress members or wannabes should be put on "Ignore".
If school security provided by armed guards is what people want they should be willing to pay more for the school districts to hire some. Lets those local taxes go up. Otherwise, teaching will become more about watching out for the next killer, rather than teaching impressionable young children that they can reach their potential and in that way reducing the number of those who might become killers out of despair, or outrage at lives that go nowhere.
We have enough of that second scenario in Chicago and other major cities where street violence is a massive problem that the gun lovers in Congress don't seem to care to help fix.
None of their white knights with guns have offered to patrol the ghettos where young black men are dying daily have they?
Better recording of who are the buyers and users of guns would help. If a private seller knows that a gun he sells is going to be tracked person by person until the finger comes back to him as the last legal possessor of the gun that killed some family's breadwinner or a teenager in the street, that is going to cut down on those selling guns to shadowy unlicensed individuals for quick money. If guns are stolen they should be reported as soon as the theft is discovered or the last legal owner should face at least a fine.
I checked out the other day and found that Jame Earl Ray's criminal history should have kept him from owning a gun legally-- at least in my state at this time, but since those providing his gun to him wouldn't be held accountable under even current law, no one needed to worry about that gun in his hands leading back to them.
The proposed gun law the Democrats want to pass would also have kept the gun out of the hands of Sirhan Sirhan who shot Robert Kennedy too, even if he hadn't had a record, since he was not a US citizen, or it would have leed to the last legal owner and at least fined him for letting the gun slip into anonymous hands.
Those of us who get caught and fined for minor driving infractions know that fines keep climbing to help pay for cops on the beat to catch such behavior. Maybe that's for the good, at least it gives some impetus for drivers to drive safely instead of endangering lives with every decision they make.
Amanda Ripley (in the Swampland article Your Brain in a Shootout: Guns, Fear and Flawed Instincts) puts together a lot of testimony from security professionals that show how difficult the job is. It is not a hobby for an amateur any more than teaching reading, writing, higher math and critical thinking, is a job for a retired cop without lots of training, and his or her complete attention on that task.
One excerpt for truly time pressed or those who won't just take 20 minutes to read it themselves.
In the New York City police department, for example, officers involved in gunfights typically hit their intended targets only 18% of the time, according to a Rand study. When they fired 16 times at an armed man outside the Empire State Building last summer, they hit nine bystanders and left 10 bullet holes in the suspect—a better-than-average hit ratio. In most cases, officers involved in shootings experience a kaleidoscope of sensory distortions including tunnel vision and a loss of hearing. Afterward, they are sometimes surprised to learn that they have fired their weapons at all.Imagine, then, what a person trained only to shoot at a target is going to experience in such a situation. Even if you play cops and robbers for a few days of training, it will be nothing like trying to actually stop a killer especially when there would be so many non shooters around, but you aren't sure who are and who aren't. Add to that the fear that you could be hit at any second and your body and brain goes seriously out to lunch. This is something I've been pondering ever since Wayne La Pierre made his infamous speech after the Newtown shooting, and indeed often thought about after mass shootings. What would a person who is not fully immersed in the human control careers really do when confronted with a determined mass killer like A
The article also briefly brings up something I keep trying to get people to think about who figure arming themselves will turn them in to heroes in the face of a mass shooting. When the real cops arrive, on edge and worried about keeping the most people and themselves alive, what do you figure they are going to think of you standing there with your firearm(s) with people laying around and bleeding. The actual bad guy is not going to be wearing a sign and probably has the presence of mind to kill himself, or hide, while you think your heroism will instantly be recognized, so you stand there with your trusty gun in a room with people laying on the floor.
Vegas wouldn't give you odds on getting out of that scenario unscathed, maybe even alive.
I believe that arming teachers is another way to get young, liberal, and less prejudiced women out of the profession, so children can be indoctrinated with beliefs that call for letting the poor and the old people die and lets have another war, as the billionaire backers of Republicans want them to be. Call that spade a spade. It's not about safety for your children, it's about their ideology.
And for that goal, your children's safety and well being can be flushed down the toilet (which, under Republican plans, your children can clean instead of a real professional who is trying to earn a living for his or her family).
Picture above appears to have been taken at the Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone Arizona and used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr user WordRidden who has no connection to this blog or blogger.
A good short URL for this post is http://x.co/smSo
Mind Boggling Hypocrisy Erupts in Benghazi Hearing
'From Politico:
I'm claiming Fair Use on the above because the mainstream news media won't point out any more of the Republicans' extremely phony sense of "scandal" in the GOP led questions and even direct allegations about the Benghazi consulate tragedy.
Another graphic (below) created by a less visible group captures more of the sanctimony being expressed by GOP Congress members (especially Senator Rand Paul) and the stage-managed "Shock and Awe" over the September attack. Since these incidences (and some Internet sources say there were more attacks that this during George W Bush's administration w/o televised hearings. And the smart GOP Congressionals actually stepped down from the stage after the November election was over and their case was lost on in the court of the American electorate. But these phonies think they can keep it going to get the votes of the stupid people in future elections. They obviously believe that most of their constituents are political imbeciles. Will the right finally get a sense of outrage over their leaders racists BS? Or do they want to be treated by Americans like the racist hate-mongers they will appear to be if they continue raising ridiculous outrage with the Obama administration over the kinds of incidents they recommended acceptance, mourning, and future vigilance during past Republican administrations. Yes, in reality they themselves said the practical equivalence of what Secretary Clinton said in the Benghazi hearings. At this point what difference does it make. The point is to figure out what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again in the future." (That's how I remember her words. Though I may have gotten some of them wrong, I believe I captured the spirit and meaning of them.)
- A good short URL for this post is: http://x.co/smN8
Thursday, January 24, 2013
VA State GOP Offers Up Rovian Arguments for Their Ugly Attack on Virginians' Voting Rights
**Breaking VA State Senator Introduces bill to change voting in VA from winner take all electoral college assignment to coincide with the Gerrymandered US House Districts for the state which I showed below disappears nearly half of Virginia's Democratic voters via Gerrymandering. A paragraph below will explain how that works. I'm having trouble with interior links with Google's blogger or I would link to it.
Will the Commonwealth be known from now on as a state with dirty politicians and an electorate with with too little honorable outrage to protect their electoral rights? Or will the people of Virginia take things into their own hands.
The Virginia GOP think they are too smart for their people. They reached into Karl Rove's nasty bag of tricks and are offering up smelly excuses for their Gerrymandering ploy.
But I've noticed that some political reporters and analysts have swallowed the Rove spittle about the precincts. I've decided that they aren't worth my time anymore whether they pose as liberals or not. Two are MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Steve Karnaki. Not splitting precincts means that liberals are bunched into high democratic districts while Republicans can stretch out their power by wining 53-60% over a greater number of districts. That has all the signs of one of Rove's scams with which he helped Cheney/Bush start two unfunded wars.
Again, a precinct hall is nothing but a place to put voting booths, Dummies! The people are the important part of the electorate, not lath and plaster
Want to see how "not splitting precincts" works in VA's US House districts I found a page (as I was adding up all the US House districts by myself) that has the totals for the votes for those same districts all added up for me.
Adding Green party votes to the Democrats for liberals, and Independent Green party votes to the Republicans (because research led to Wikipedia information that said the IG party had been with the Greens, but broke off because they were more interested in "The Debt" crisis so it seems they were and are using the "green" label as a scam to attract liberal voters for conservative candidates). In any case the IGs only grabbed .6% of the vote anyway, and therefore were extremely inconsequential. And to be honest they far out polled the Greens who were even more inconsequential. Write ins apparently not affiliated with the two mentioned 3rd parties above polled less than .4%, so I'm not finding any 3rd party numbers relevant to the discussion though I added them into the total of votes, and the Greens and Indie Greens to their respective sides of the political spectrum. In general 5% is minimum for relevancy in science and I think we can assume in politics as well. return to above
Out of 30720420 votes for US House seats 1898743 went to Republican or IG candidates so we credit conservatives with 51.0% of votes for US House seats, and Liberals with getting 48.6% of votes for US House seats.
But the sleazy Republicans of Virginia who got to redistrict the US House districts in their state used the creepy "Don't Divide the Districts" and other scams to create, instead 8 Republican seats and 3 Democratic House seats. That's 72.3% of those seats for the GOP, and 27.3% of them for the Democratic party. Over 20% of the Commonwealth's people have been disenfranchised in the US House of Representatives. 6 Seats for Republicans and 5 seats for Democrats would have been more equitable, and if we go through making states US House Seats equitable, the Democrats see Nancy Pelosi sitting in the Speakers chair because more people voted for Democratic House candidates than Republicans.
Virginians can change this though. You don't need your members of the state Senate nor those of the House of Delegates if you have a method of citizen government by which you can start petitions to call for a vote for a special panel to create new, more representative voting districts. That's what's happened in California (and to be honest I voted against it, but it passed and worked beautifully to better represent our state).
Don't let Rove's political buddies mess with your state anymore. The Structure of your US House contingent will be important to help protect your Social Security funds (which the record proves you saved by applying 15% of your income to it over your working years and should last for 40 years of retirement) (that's not an entitlement, it's a savings plan no matter how much wealthy Big Liars say it's a handout) and to keep our nation from prosecuting any more criminal wars in the Middle East or other places that big money interests want to rip off for immense gain which are going to cost tens of thousands of lives of our young adults. You've heard the call by Republicans for a Universal draft, right. The details are that they want to be able to scoop up any person from 18 to 34, male or female, without educational or any other deferments (except for extreme disability). But wait there will be some categories, like medicine and, or computer expertise that can get you drafted at any time of life.
I don't know about you, but avoiding another 5000 (or multiples thereof) Americans dying so some wealthy and powerful industry can grab another nation's natural resources cheaply is one goal I think we Americans need to achieve. And BTW, since Iran has a military at least 10 times as strong as Iraq's when we invaded it, including a real air force, and was never forced to destroy it's chemical and biological weapons, not invading Iran is a real cause to fight for if only to keep 50-100k American from being killed. But there is no way to fight if our US House is Gerrymandered and the state legislatures are Gerrymandered so nothing is done about it.. But to end Gerrymandering of the US House, the people of VA most likely have to get something passed on the state level now that their GOP politicians have Gerrymandered even their own state districts to disappear millions of Democratic votes.
From news reports:
Virginia GOP Accused Of "Plantation Politics"
Moderate Republican John Watkins was used as a foil to introduce new plan to VA Senate.
Picture at top, of Hong Kong building being attack by apparently post developing applied monsters, used via Creative Commons License Attribution (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr user Tommy the Pariah who has no connection to this blog or blogger
A great short URL for this is http://x.co/sX8h
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