"Our job is not to make up anybody’s mind, but to open minds, and to make the agony of decision-making so intense you can escape only by thinking."
- Fred W. Friendly (1915-1998)

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you mad."
- Aldous Huxley

"If you have ever injected truth into politics, then you have no politics."
- Will Rogers

Friday, May 31, 2013

Thanks "Free Press" !

With all the whooping about press rights and freedoms in the wake of the wrongheaded AP phone subpoenas...I can't help but think that I would be a lot more passionate about it if the press had shown any tendency in the past fifteen years to actually do the duty that the Constitution is supposed to guarantee that they have the ability to do. 

Instead, we have a press that panders...increasingly to ratings and the non-stories that drive them.  The worst president in US history (George II) got an essentially free pass as he and his minions dissected the Constitution for their own gain, destroyed American credibility abroad, and just for good measure destroyed the American economy as well.

The press has also ignored (not sexy enough I guess) the whole topic of the climate change that has been happening all around us.  

It's been awhile since we had a "bad climate news" Monday, so lets have one on Friday!  Happy thinking...


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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Congress vs. The American People

Lest you think that the US Congress is in any way "on your side" or working for the "common good".

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-usa-tax-checkthebox-insight-idUSBRE94T17K20130531 

Note that being a "war hero" does not guarantee that the person is particularly trustworthy or honorable (yes, I mean you John McCain).

Monday, May 27, 2013

Dear John, Please read the Constitution

Sen. John McCain is a war hero and all, but I think he seriously needs a refresher on the Constitution.  The conduct of foreign affairs is squarely in the domain of the Executive branch of our government, and to conduct a visit with a "side" in the Syrian civil war as a representative of the US Government (particularly a side with as shady and doubtful a makeup as the Syrian rebels) has been construed as treasonous in other times and circumstances. 

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Why Would Anyone Want to be President of the US?

As I reflect on the unbelievably incompetent, at times completely illiterate coverage of American politics in the "popular" media, one recurring thought comes to mind again and again.  Who in their right mind would want to be President of the US?  Sure you get a cool plane and the jail you have to live in is plusher than most, but what else are you going to do?

Look folks, our Founding Fathers feared two things above all else -- the establishment of an 'official' or state religion, and the establishment of an all-powerful 'kingship' under the guise of the Presidency.   As a result, the US presidency is not all that powerful...unless you take the George Bush II view that "Wow! I can play army anywhere I want now...and I will just direct my lawyers to say its OK if I ignore the Constitution".  In many ways George II was the scariest, and most anti-American and anti-Constitution presidents we have ever had.

Others though have had to deal with reality -- not only the "checks and balances" purposely inserted into the Constitution but the fact that Congress has to agree on just about everything a president wants to do.  They also used to have to deal with an independent, edited, professional inquiring press!  

The President has a limited amount of freedom in how to run the executive branch (which after all is "the government that gets work done") but any change in spending, revenue, or major policy changes including all cabinet heads and judges has to be approved or vetted by Congress. 

This is the same Congress that stopped answering to its constituents about 2000 or so, and of course they and the President are all members of political parties, which should tell you something right there about their capabilities.

But the ignorant media continues to pander shamelessly to the common falsehood that the Presidency is somehow this all powerful office that is responsible for everything from unemployment (thank you George II and your Wall Street buddies) to the weather, (and oh by the way he apparently wants to take all of your precious guns away so you all stop shooting each other).      

Thinkers need to be on guard...there are a great number of morons and idiots among us...probably at an all time high in our country's history and unfortunately they vote !!

Do you?

Saturday, May 18, 2013

The Real Path to Educational Excellence


Sir Ken Robinson is the individual whose first talk I used in my introduction for readers to TED Talks, a vital resource for all thinkers. Here is his second talk from 2010:  



He recently presented a third talk on his area of expertise.  It is full of his usual wit and wry observations, but this one hit particularly close to home. 

First, because I think "No Child Left Behind" is one of the stupidest, illogical, non-thinking, doomed-to-fail and just plain useless mandates to come out of Washington DC in some time.  It was a green light for educational bureaucrats and a red light for educational excellence and showed just how out of touch with the real world DC is.     

Also, it struck very close to home when in the middle of the talk he mentions some schools that do work --- and wondered aloud why we call them 'alternative schools'.......





This, like many TED talks is well worth watching -- please do if you care about the fact that the US schools have been in serious trouble since before the turn of the 21st century...and most are no more interested in doing something about it now than they were then, except for expensive little "feel good" tweaks like charter schools.  

What is needed is nothing short of a complete upheaval - tear down and rebuild the American public school system, and don't be so arrogant as to assume that we cannot learn anything from other countries whose graduates are whipping ours on the world market - particularly the STEM subjects that drive economies.

Drowning Our History

It is expected that with climate change trends (particularly the unprecedented upward rise in overall temperatures) that Jamestown, the birthplace of America will be underwater by the end of the century. 

That is posing some unprecedented quandaries for researchers and archaeologists.  One of them I just learned about reading and listening to this excellent NPR report on the subject - that it has been a common protocol for archaeologists to purposely leave artifacts buried at known sites, so that future archaeologists can use better technology to learn even more.  But if your site is going to disappear????

BTW, I think All Things Considered (where this report was aired) is one of the best, most comprehensive, balanced and informative programs on NPR.  I try and catch it whenever I can.

I DON'T think this is a subject you will ever hear about on Fox News!!!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Where Politicians Lies Are Encouraged

The Center for Public Integrity recently posted an article examining the states (the majority I am afraid) that encourage the profusion of false, deceptive, and outright deceptive campaign ads ("attack ads")  through their lax or non-existent laws.

Sadly, the land of the free and the home of the brave has also become the "land of liars".


Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The Best TV Rant Since The West Wing

I have really missed good, inspirational TV.  There hasn't been any since the Survivor/American Idol/Dancing With the Stars drivel took over.  But I recently saw this TV Rant which is only three minutes long but may just make me subscribe to HBO - or at least watch the series after on DVD,




Three Five minutes that pretty much encompasses most of the reasons I write this blog...and yes, The Newsroom is produced by Aaron Sorkin...creator of The West Wing - one of the best drama series ever produced on American TV.

Update:  I found a longer and more inclusive version of the video which gives a little more context to the rant.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Repubs are Bleeding From Within as Well

Any readers of this blog will well know my utter contempt for the un-American and un-democratic concept of political parties. But if we are to be stuck with this asinine system, it does take a minimum of two viable political parties to make it work in even an extremely crippled manner.

Not only is the Republican Party continuing to commit public suicide, watching its approval ratings and sycophant rates drop, but they lost another high-visibility individual who was hired specifically to help repair the damage that was so obvious in the 2012 election returns.   

(I don't think you will be seeing this on Fox News...and not just because it is factual which Fox always has a problem with....).

Friday, May 10, 2013

South Carolina Has A Spelling Deficiency

In case you haven't heard, South Carolina voters (who also went big-time last year for Newt Gingrich, so that tells you something) resurrected the political career of one of the more reprehensible blobs of vomit that pass as politicians these days, Mark Sanford.

Sanford not only got his 'indignity' up during the Monica Lewinsky affair and demanded that Clinton be impeached/resign, he did the same when demanding that Republican Speaker-designate Rob Livingston was not suited for the office because he "lied to his wife".

Of course, Sanford is the one who carried on a long-distance affair behind his wife's back, partly financed by state tax dollars....then had the grotesquely insensitive audacity to take his young son in front of a battery of television cameras at a press event and "introduce" him to his "new mother".   

Is it any wonder that many hope the Onion's satirical piece from yesterday might just have the ring of truth?

Oh... and can anyone in South Carolina spell "Serial Adultery"....or "Hypocrite"?   

....Didn't think so......

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Boston Bombing - Lots of Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Now that the amateur psychologists are out in force trying to psychoanalyze the motivation behind the Boston Marathon bombing, Tom Friedman has again written an interesting piece that cuts to the quick of the question.   

I particularly liked his comment about labeling modems (in the day) as "Judgment Not Included".  Personally I think that that should be expanded...when someone first touches the Internet every day they should get a nice, annoying popup that says "Judgment Not Included, Truth Highly Improbable, Intelligence Not Guaranteed". 

Of course if they go to Facebook or Twitter, it should read "No Intelligence Detected Here".

Monday, May 6, 2013

Here Is One For "The Book"

This is a news story that seems specially designed to cause apoplectic fits among the the Christian religious zealots (or the Republican Party if you prefer).   An openly gay black man in New York with AIDS and anemia who is finishing up a four-year project to manually transcribe the King James version of the Bible!  

And...as a tribute to how low American journalism has sunk...I had to locate this story on the BBC website..... 

Faith and Values Perverted Again

While the gun lobby tries to shroud themselves in the American flag and a cloak of "values" based on the second half of a Constitutional amendment that was written nearly three centuries ago, it is refreshing to know that there is a sizable majority (90% of the public at large, 88% of gun-owners) who are calling "bull____" on the extreme position of the NRA and its most fanatical acolytes that worship the perverted notion that only when all the criminally insane own firearms, will we be "safe".  

This article was published in the Religion and Values section by the Center for American Progress and outlines the backlash that it building against the ignorant, self-serving, and just plain non-thinking Senators that voted against the fairly mild, loophole-closing background check bill recently.

Also read the full article in  the New York Times by former Representative Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) who addressed the utter lack of humanity and cowardice of these Senators in her own "pull no punches" way.       

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The Citizens Fight Back

In case you haven't noticed, politicians in Congress have not been representing their constituents or doing what their constituents wanted for at least the last decade.  It kind of came to a head last week when Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte ran into a buzz saw at what was supposedly a carefully-scripted "town hall meeting" which was attended by a courageous and fiery woman named Erica Lafferty, the daughter of one of the adult Sandy Hook massacre victims (the adults in this tragedy have almost been forgotten)...who refused to follow the "rules" that the Republican Party handlers laid down.

To borrow a hockey analogy, she performed a clean open-ice body check on the Senator...and the Senator crumpled.

The simple fact is that the Senator, and all the other Republican Senators (plus a handful of Democratic Senators who wish they were Republicans) essentially voted the NRA line...to continue to make all firearms including automatic and semi-automatic weapons with any size magazine available at will to convicted felons, the drug-addled, and mentally insane individuals.  All it takes is to drag their knuckles to the nearest "gun show" or to find a compliant 'friend' or other private party to give, sell, barter the weapon to them.

Oh, and by the way this is something that up to 90% of the American public has indicated they want to control and clamp down on.  No hunter, sportsman, or just plain gun enthusiast loses their weapons or even has to register.  Simply keeping the wackos out of the equation as well as our open society is able.

The creators of these "rules" by the way for the meeting were none other than the handlers of George W. Bush....they knew they had a particularly stupid persona on their hands who could not be trusted to speak extemporaneously in public or respond to intelligent questions...so they came up with the whole "town meetings where only people that agree with us" thing was invented.

Maybe this will be a chink in the illogical, immoral, and overly-armed fortress of the "guns for the insane" lobby that returns us to what the Constitution and representational government SHOULD be about!

Happy thinking!