The Nature of Things

Hat tip to Daily Kos and Tom Tomorrow for the cartoon and to Donald Trump and company for the idea behind it.

I have lived in Texas for forty years, during which time I have given birth to two full-blooded Texans. And still, I have a hard time thinking of myself as a Texan.  In fact, I don't think of myself as a Texan. I think of myself as an American. My discomfort with being labeled a Texan has everything to do with the political image and leadership of this state where paranoia and a sense of superiority and privilege run deep. It has nothing at all to do with the ordinary people of Texas who are friendly, helpful, and good neighbors to have.  With that in mind, I have been somewhat bemused but not really surprised by the actions of those said politicians this week - the week of the Great Texas Flood of 2015. Keep in mind these are the same leaders who were last seen assigning the State Guard to keep an eye on a U.S. military training exercise called Jade Helm because it was seen as a potential move by that dastardly Obama to "take over" Texas. (Never mind the fact that ther...

Have you heard about this letter to the editor from a Canadian citizen in British Columbia? It's been making a bit of a stir on the internet this week. It might be a bit difficult to read in that format, so here is the text: "Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country's adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there's no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money. "America is leading the world once again and respected internation...

America seems to be scared out of its wits these days. At least, a significant and vocal section of the population seems to be. They are scared of undocumented brown-skinned children showing up at our borders and asking for asylum. They are scared of Muslims. Any Muslims, but particularly those who are part of ISIL/ISIS. Not that they really have any clue who they are and not that they seem to be capable of making the distinction between those who are and those who aren't. Again, brown-skin = scary. And, of course, their latest terror is Ebola , the deadly virus that has killed thousands in West Africa and which one unfortunate visitor from that area is currently battling in a hospital in Dallas. The affected man is in isolation. Those with whom he is known to have had close contact (which is the only way the disease can be spread) are quarantined, but to hear the fear mongers in the media tell it, the disease is likely to spread throughout the country and kill us all by next Tue...

One of my daughters tells a story about her friend who recently visited her doctor's office here in the Houston area. A prominent sign in the doctor's waiting room proclaimed, "WE DO NOT ACCEPT OBAMACARE!" Which just goes to prove that apparently you don't have to be very smart or well-informed to be a doctor. I'm not sure I would want to trust my life to that particular doctor. The thing about the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is that the insurance is provided by private insurance companies. Contrary to the lies told by its opponents, it is not government-provided insurance. The government mandates that the insurance policies must meet certain standards and must provide a minimum of services and, in the case of some low income people who qualify, it will provide subsidies to help pay the premiums. But the insurance policy itself comes from Blue Cross or Cigna or some other private insurance company and that is what the person's insurance card will s...

There has been a lot of comment about the letter from billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins that the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal thought was important enough to give space in their newspaper recently. Oh, you haven't heard about this? Well, in his letter, Perkins compared today's "progressive radicalism," by which he apparently means having the richest one-percent among us pay a fair share in taxes, to Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews.  Specifically, he made reference to the Nazis' attack on Jews and Jewish businesses known as Kristallnacht. The final paragraph of his letter seems to sum up his thought processes: This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?   Of all the comments that I have seen on this, I think it is best answered by Jen Sorensen in a cartoon in today's Daily Kos . (A cartoon does seem the m...

The polar vortex evidently is messing with some people's minds and making them even more stupid than usual. Maybe their brains are frozen. It seems that there is this idea abroad in the land about throwing boiling wate r into the cold air and watching it turn into snow. I'm not sure just how it got started. Probably has something to do with Twitter. Apparently a lot of people are trying it and not all of them are drunk at the the time. They toss the boiling water into the air and the utterly predictable happens. It falls on them and burns their heads or arms or whatever parts of their bodies happen to be in the way. Many people have been painfully burned. The lesson here is that the laws of physics are not repealed by the polar vortex. Boiling water is more likely to burn you than to turn into snow in the few feet that you are able to toss it into the air - regardless of how cold that air is. And if there is wind, as there usually is these days, you may just get the whole thin...

When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November's general election, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation - that he follow Hutchison's example in his conduct as a senator.     - Houston Chronicle's mea culpa editorial for endorsing Ted Cruz for senator. The Houston Chronicle is not known for its courageous and incisive editorials, but it may have set a new record for obtuseness yesterday with its whining about how their preferred candidate for the Senate from Texas, Ted Cruz, has not followed their advice and lived up to the example set by former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison . Of course, then they followed that up with a weasel statement about how, no, they were not unendorsing Ted Cruz!   Way to go, guys. Way to try to have it both ways. It was never a mystery what kind of senator Ted Cruz was going to be. The campaign he ran fully revealed him as a self-serving political nihilist only concerned with advancing the cause of Ted Cruz. ...

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act this week along with the government shutdown orchestrated by the tea party Republicans has surely brought out some of the most world class stupid reactions recently seen on our political stage. When you consider all the vast stupidity that has occurred in the political arena in recent years, you begin to get a true idea of just how insane this week's actors on the stage have shown themselves to be. I think the one who tops my own personal list - and, admittedly, he has lots of competition - is Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R. - Texas, of course!) berating a park ranger at the World War II Memorial and telling her that she should be ashamed of herself because the memorial was closed. As if she personally had made the decision to close the memorial when, in fact, it was Neugebauer and his fellow tea party posse members who locked those gates. Neugebauer and other tea partiers, like Michele Bachmann, who showed up to have their pictures taken wi...

The trifecta of so-called scandals currently being hyped by the inside the beltway press corps in Washington seem to have had the perverse effect of elevating President Obama's popularity with the great mass of Americans who live outside the beltway, outside the bubble. The results of the first polls  since the stories broke show that his approval ratings have actually increased. His approval now stands at 53 percent. I'm sure this has left Republicans scratching their heads, trying to understand why the American people are not responding to their faux outrage over Benghazi, the IRS, and the AP. The public, at first glance, seem to have sussed out just what that "outrage" is: A political attempt to damage and weaken a popular president. We've all been down this road before, not so many years ago. We remember the Clinton era and Gingrich et al's attempt at impeachment. Now Republicans are tossing around the word impeachment once again. It seems almost certain t...

One keeps thinking that the U.S. Senate cannot disgrace itself any further. Then it goes and defeats consideration of a very mild background check bill for people who are attempting to purchase guns. Even though a clear majority of senators voted for the bill, even though poll after poll show 90% of Americans want this to become law, a cowardly forty-five who are deep in the pockets of the National Rifle Association refused to let the bill proceed and so, under the arcane filibuster rules of the Senate, the bill was defeated. Since the massacre of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary on December 14, 2012, at least 3513 other Americans have died as a result of gun violence. Some 80 more will die today!  But those forty-five senators don't give a damn, as long as the NRA continues to fill their coffers. Here are the names of the disreputable forty-five, along with their Twitter handles, should you wish to send them a message regarding this vote. I certainly intend to. Sen. Lam...

From today's Daily Kos : Click on image to enlarge. Yes, everybody knows that any regulation of a dangerous instrument leads inevitably to its confiscation and outlawing. And by "everybody" I mean anybody who takes seriously the pronouncements of the National Rifle Association.

First it was Paul Ryan blaming the Republicans' loss on "urban" voters . Wonder who he could have been referring to? No doubt all those people who listen for "dog whistles" understood him very well. Of course, Ryan neglected to mention that his ticket  also lost predominately white and rural states like Iowa and New Hampshire, and underperformed in Midwestern states, but then the flimflam man has never lived in a reality-based state.  Speaking of the state where he does live, Wisconsin, he lost that, too, AND he lost his own home town !  Then along came Ryan's partner in losing, Mr. Romney. Speaking this week to donors to his campaign, he blamed the loss on President Obama giving "gifts" to various segments of voters . Here's just a snippet of his insulting remarks about "those people" who didn't vote for him; you know, that irresponsible 47 percent. Except it turned out to be 51 percent. With regards to the young people, for ins...

I was reading a story about Bill Nye, the Science Guy , a couple of days ago when I came across a sentence that literally made me groan out load. It said, "In June, a Gallup poll revealed that 46 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago." So much for science and the fossil record. So much for critical thinking. These people prefer to accept the Bible as their scientific and historical text and not worry their little heads about any more complicated explanations. Oh, well, I guess we should just be relieved that the percentage wasn't even higher. As the story pointed out, the United States stands alone among modern industrialized states in this Know-Nothingism. It's only in the most backward and theocratic places on earth that you would find such a high percentage of people who refuse to acknowledge evolution as settled science. The same disheartening assessment can be made regarding human-caused global warming. ...

Have you heard the latest scientific theory from the great mind of Rush Limbaugh ? It seems that men's penises are shrinking, according to an Italian study on sexuality, and Rush knows why! It's those darn "feminazis"! They strike again. But listen to the master speak: I have a story, it's from Philadelphia, CBS News, CBS Eyeball News. "If size matters, male private parts are shrinking, according to a new Italian study on sexuality. [...] The study’s leaders claim to have bona fide research that says the average size of a penis is roughly 10 percent smaller than it was 50 years ago." And the researchers say air pollution is why. Air pollution, global warming, has been shown to negatively impact penis size, say Italian researchers. I don't buy this. I think it's feminism. If it's tied to the last 50 years, the average size of a member is 10% smaller in 50 years, it has to be the feminazis. I mean, the chickification, everything else. Give ...

Mitt Romney may be an absolute whiz when it comes to making money by shutting down companies and outsourcing jobs, but when it comes to understanding the way the real world works, he's an idiot. That's the only explanation I can see for his behavior in response to recent events in the Middle East. Moreover, not only is he an idiot, he is a craven political opportunist willing to make "profit" from capitalizing on the deaths of devoted American public servants who put their lives on the line every day to protect and defend the interests of this country. In that sense, not only is he an idiot and an opportunist, he is unpatriotic. I can write that last paragraph because we have freedom of speech in this country. It is a concept that is sometimes hard for people in other parts of the world to fully understand. So when they see or hear of an offensive anti-Muslim film like the one that was used as an excuse to incite the riot in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of fo...

David Sirota of Salon.com has named yesterday's massacre in Colorado for what it is - terrorism. Our media would lead us to believe that terrorism is only the purview of dark-skinned Islamicists, but that is faulty thinking. The country is under siege and at the mercy of domestic terrorists like the Colorado murderer because we refuse to take responsibility for standing up to the NRA and passing and enforcing laws that will inhibit the gun traffic in this country. This will not change until we mature enough as a country to give up our adolescent obsession with guns and violence. Frankly, although it depresses me beyond measure to say it, I see no possibility of that happening. Meanwhile, predictably, a certain segment of our society rushes to the microphones to say that if only there had been someone else in the audience with a gun to take the shooter down, all of this could have been avoided. Never mind that the shooter was wearing full body armor and that the hero would have ha...

Geraldo Rivera said Friday he would “bet money” that Trayvon Martin wouldn’t have been fatally shot if the teenager hadn’t been wearing a hoodie.... “I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies,” Rivera said on “Fox & Friends.” “I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.” Wow. You think that you've seen and heard it all and then along comes Geraldo Rivera to blame an innocent teenager's murder on the hoodie he was wearing. I suppose if the young man had been a young woman and that young woman was wearing a short skirt, then Geraldo would expect that she would be raped and it would be all because of the skirt. Just another instance of totally clueless commentary by one of the most utterly clueless so-called pundits on television today. Now, I wear a hoodie when there is a chill in the air. It doesn't happen too often here in Southeast Texas, but whe...

The polling organization Public Policy Polling has been busy in Mississippi and Alabama ahead of this week's Republican primary there. What they have found is that there is a virtual tie among Gingrich, Santorum, and Romney . That's probably bad news for Gingrich since this should be his natural territory. The poll-takers have been asking questions besides candidate preference, as well, and some of their findings are really interesting, if not particularly shocking for those of us who lived a good portion of our lives there. On questions involving President Obama's religion and the respondent's belief about evolution, this is what they found. Alabama Republican Primary voters: Do you think Barack Obama is a Christian or a Muslim, or are you not sure? Christian:  14 Muslim:  45 Not sure:  41 Do you believe in evolution, or not? Believe in evolution:  26 Do not:  60 Not sure:  13 Mississippi Republican Primary voters: Do you think Barack Obama is a Christian ...