'Reform' and 'reduce' didn't used to be synonyms.
Slow, Very Slow, And Not Too Steady: New unemployment claims dropped to 324,000 last week, after five years of studied indifference by the Fed, Congress and the White House.
Alternatively: Approximately 4,700 people, some of them actual terrorists, have been killed by US drone strikes – which are “an alternative to Guantanamo.” Which tells you how bad conditions at Guantanamo are.
Experimental Results: Kiera Wilmot, a 16 year old high school student, wondered what would happen if she mixed some household chemicals in a water bottle. What happened was that the cap popped off, then she got expelled from school, arrested and jailed. Terrorism charges are pending.
Operations in Iraqi Fiefdom: In April, 712 Iraqis were killed in political violence. Democracy, as Rumsfeld pointed out, is messy. Very messy.
Sweet Caroline: ALEC's Republican sock puppets in North Carolina have passed (sic) a bill repealing renewable energy subsidies by the simple process of not counting the votes. Next door in South Carolina, Republicans forced through a bill to “nullify” Obamacare. They empowered their AG to stop “any person who is believed to be causing harm with the implementation of the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” They also banned the non-profit health care exchanges contained in the Act. Lots of luck, folks.
Cup & Lip: Obama set a goal of cutting US CO2 emissions by 17% by 2020 and by 83% by 2050. I certainly hope the Great Recession doesn't last that long. As for getting anywhere near these goals – nothing's been done so far to make it happen and Congress isn’t likely to enact major climate-change legislation until it is far too late.
Performance Pay: Medicare is changing the way it pays hospitals: those that do a good job by not killing or injuring their patients and actually fixing what's wrong will get a bit more, those that insist on killing or injuring patients will get a bit less. Socialism.
Quoted: "If any other country were treating prisoners the way we are treating those in Guantanamo we would roundly and rightly criticize that country. We can never retake the legal and moral high ground when we claim the right to do unto others that which we would vehemently condemn if done to one of us." Morris Davis, former Chief Prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo.
Without A Prayer: Researchers claim that “belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change.”
Porn O'Graph: The Two Percent solution, interested?
The Parting Shot:
Obstacle Course.
8 comments:
Religious ideology as a reason to resist accepting and/or dealing with climate change reminds me of James Watt, Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, and his attitude toward conservation:
"Remember James Watt? In the early 1980s, as Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan administration, he stirred up enormous controversy by linking his faith and his environmental policies.
He wrote that he viewed the earth as "merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life...The earth was put here by the Lord for His people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on their way to the hereafter." There was no need for long-range management of oil reserves or forests because "we don't know how much time we have before Jesus returns."
Mr. Watt provided a remarkable convergence of an extreme theology, an influential political position, and a lack of judgement about when to speak up. But his statements express -- both then and now -- the beliefs of a substantial number of people, including many movers and shakers in government and business. "
http://www.eco-justice.org/E-020726.asp
the three abrahamic religions not only believe in apocalypse, but more to the point, welcome it
and more frighteningly than that, the most faithful are more than willing to do what eve they can to bring about end times which they think will occasion a "lifting of the veil", or "revelation of true knowledge" and the coming of the savior to do battle with evil
i would call those people who want to advance the destruction of the earth so that their religious myths can be fulfilled, .... saboteurs
mach turtle
"Porn O'Graph: The Two Percent solution, interested?"
since im a saver...i have found these policies "dis-intresting"
but certainly good for the country during the mother of all recessions
mt
Experiments. My personal Head of Science, The Lady, reminds me that if you mix vinegar with sodium bicarbonate you get much the same. Arrest all vinegar buyers now.
Quoted.
"We can never retake the legal and moral high ground when we claim the right to do unto others that which we would vehemently condemn if done to one of us."
It hasn't stopped the US before, I don't see why it will stop us in future. Hypocrisy and denial are America's greatest luxuries, and Americans really don't seem to possess a strong sense of irony.
Without a Prayer
As someone who survived (to this point, at least) growing up in a fundamentalist, apocalyptic Christian household, this news comes as no surprise. USAmerican foreign and environmental policies are largely determined by these terrifying beliefs. (Whenever my friends lament the fact that religious whackos in Pakistan have nukes, and that Iranians might get them, I have to keep from laughing in their faces, since our religious whackos have had them for 70 years. Nothing like access to the "football" to help facilitate Ragnarok.)
The continued presence of this mindset doesn't bode well for the continued existence of humanity or a viable planet.
Experimental Results
If it blows up, and it isn't a factory, it must be terrorism. That's what the boob tube says...
Thom - You are on a good roll today - I'm setting some aside to rework into intros...
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