This is Saturday December 12, 2015 and in the news the Global Warming conference in Paris has been held this past week and apparently some far reaching regulations have been agreed upon to keep the global rise in temperatures below two degrees centigrade. I doubt whether this republican congress will of their own pass anything like that. One issue raised yesterday was whether the President could legalize hemp production on his own for things like paper and fabric and various oils that are more environmentally friendly than the petroleum alternatives. The concencus was the President does not have the power with the stroke of a pen to legalize in such a sweeping way anything which Congress had outlawed. And of course the same was true for immigration and the courts have agreed the President didn’t have the power to do that either. It’s the hundredth anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s birth- - which makes him quite a few years older than Dad was - - . Interestingly it means they both died at about the same age. I caught both the President’s morning address on KNX and also the Republican response. The president gave a good speech to touch all the bases of keeping Americans safe and stepping up the tombing of ISIS and taking out their oil delivery system and killing off their leaders. There was also the obligatory talk on tolerance to people of the Muslim faith. We have seen a number of Masque burnings lately. But the President’s basic problem, shared by other liberals such as Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartman- - is that they are hopeless optimists. They have these polls out that say that 36 percent of 28 percent of Americans want to bar all Muslims from admittance to this country. That’s the John Fugelsang way of citing the statistics. But I think those on the right are confident they could jack that figure up to over fifty percent, who want to bar Muslims and the way Shawn Hannity was talking yesterday- - “everybody” agrees we should bar Muslims. The Republicans passed that law in congress a few days ago that removes most favored nation status to Visas or something. Muslims can travel around the EU virtually uninfringed crossing border after border- - and just because they come from England or something we assume they don’t need an official Visa to stay in this country for three months. Even liberals agree that people like Milique weren’t properly “vetted”. I don’t think there is as much difference between Republicans and Democrats on this issue as Shawn Hannity would like to portray it. Anyhow- - this was the topic for the Republican response on KNX at 8:06.
In
the morning I had Thom Hartman on. They
were having “rectal arguments” on racial discrimination. Does anybody have tickets to get inside? There is a controversy with the University of
Texasistan involving the admitting of a Black student and they are invoking a
statute of limitations on affirmative action after 25 years. Norman Goldman keeps talking about a nuclear
bomb about to be set off. In Michigan
there is more bad news. They no longer
allow block voting there now. Apparently
it is democrats who most make use of straight party voting. Twenty years ago I would have sided with the
legislature on this one but now I’m not so sure. The truth is they wouldn’t be doing it if
they didn’t believe it would cut down on the number of democrats elected to all
levels of government, city, state, and county.
This
is Thursday December 10, 2015 and so far yesterday was a more productive day
than today is. Last night I re-posted
that blog on how the United States is really the Empire that everybody hates. Actually what I was thinking of doing is talk
about how history is written by the victors or “He who controls History
controls the World”. I was thinking of
this whole Judeo-Christian thing where modern day evangelists are trying to
make Christianity as ‘Jewish’ as possible. So they talk about the “sacrifice” or
“lamb of God” or Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem and all that
stuff. The watch-ward of these
evangelists is “Without the shedding of blood there can be no atonement for
sin”. Maybe that’s why they love war so
much. In terms of yesterday’s blog post-
- it’s written by a bit more of a peacenick than I myself am. It says “There are never any right
people to bomb” because it’s ninety percent collateral damage anyhow
and so many innocents are killed. I
looked up the history of the Syrian Christian church this morning and they
start off by talking about Acts and the Apostle Paul. Since I believe both Acts and the Apostle
Paul are fictional creations, I do not deem as trustworthy any history which
relies significantly on these two sources to buttress it’s otherwise sketchy
credibility. I believe there is an
“ancient Syrian church” but it dates to early in the 2nd century and
it isn’t Helenized Jews from Jerusalem or whatever the article says it is. I would only add as a postscript that ISIS wants to destroy ALL previous historic relics of previous civilizations and announce, akin to Chuck Smith and the Calvary Chapels that they just hatched perfectly formed out of an egg or something and have "everything they need" in the way of knowledge in their designated leaders.
Daniel and Shane have been in for Thom Hartman
all week. Scelia now says Black people
are naturally inferior and will ended up doing better in a lower grade
college. His exact words are “There are
those who contend that Blacks do better getting into a slower track college as
opposed to the University of Texas. This
is his solution to affirmative action.
Scelia had previously said that Voting Rights were an example of Black
privilege and therefore should be dropped.
I would like to address a topic raised in Ted Cruz's speech to the Heritage Foundation the other day on National Security. Ted Cruz raised two points. One was that we should not sacrifice certain constitutional protections in either the fourth or sixty or second amendments for the sake of "security". I am somewhat relieved to hear him say that. Ted Cruz is against this bulk data collection stuff. Rather than find a needle in a haystack, the first thing we need to do is to reduce the size of the haystack, and to go after the guilty and not the innocent, law abiding citizen. That makes sense. Bulk date collection from internet or phone traffic is horribly inefficient and wastes a lot of time that could be more efficiently used in other pursuits. I would only hope that the fifth and sixth amendment would be applied to those charged with terrorism but are instead left to languish in prisons like Guantanamo year after year- - - apparently waiting for sing sign from God what to do with them next. Now we come to the second amendment. There was even a Washington's blog post that said that "Liberals ought to protect people's gun rights". So if you're on the No Fly list- - maybe your name has no business being on that list. Rand Paul joins the chorus of people saying that we need solid reasons to deprive an American citizen of his basic civil liberties. I can't really mount an intellectual response to that. It just sounds so easy to say "Why should people be able to buy military assault rifles when they aren't allowed to fly a commercial airliner? But perhaps I'm neglecting to see the whole picture that people like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are painting. It would be an amazing thing if civil liberties once more became a hot political issue.
I have Chris Matthews
on right now after a break. Hillary
Clinton doesn’t think Trump’s candidicy is a laughing matter anymore. What
if the contest came down to a battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump? Now they're playing a secret Ted Cruz recording of Ted Cruz saying "Neither Trump or Carson is going to be the Nominee. We need "experiance and judgement", which these two apparently lack. Other times it's been alleged- - Cruz is deliberately being nice to Trump so he can get all his voters when Trump is forced out of the race. Who would the Republican establishment be
for? Now we hear from Judy and others
that Ben Carson will bolt the Republican party if he suspects that funny
business is going on with a brokered convention. This is a convention with multiple ballots we
haven’t had in over sixty years. Judy was
worried about this splitting the party and insuring a Hillary Clinton
victory. I think we on the left need to
be on the look-out for opportunities like this.
Black Rock is a
mysterious holding company that isn’t a bank, brokerage, or insurance
institution but they act like it controls the world. There were one of these no exit videos
without a time line indicator (to skip to the punch line, if they have one) and
there is some mystery fuel out there that isn’t mined or harvested like grain,
but will end the world’s energy crisis and people from Google to Amazon.com are
investing in it. Time will (or won’t)
tell. Another story that caught my eye
was the brief one about how Turkey is acting less and less like a NATO country
and more like an ally of ISIS. Of
course Turkey hates our most reliable allies against ISIS, the Kurds. Apparently Turkey is taking oil from the
Syrian government (Assad) and just giving it to ISIS for the hell of it. So why is it again the USA feels it needs to
trust Turkey?
I
felt so horrible [sick] virtually all day yesterday.
I did get out to buy cigarettes at the liquor store at dusk. But I spent most of the time inside. I got medication from Donnie last night with
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich around 6:15 and went outside to smoke. The temperatures right now aren’t that
different from what they are in Chicago.
Unfortunately we in California- - especially those of us with lingering
flu symptons like a sore back and chills- - aren’t used to the cold. The wind was blowing strongly and I had my
back to it but was still cold, and I don’t think I was even half way done with
the cigarette when the cold got to me. Last night I dozed off during ABC network
news and for Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune I drifted in and out of
awareness. Then it was “Last Man
Standing”, a comedy I’ve kind of started watching. Then it was the Hollywood Christmas
parade. I slept fairly well- - and got a
lot of sleep of one form or another. The
weather didn’t seem quite as cold in the morning. I got puzzling temperature readings from
KNX. It was 43 in Irvine and 42 in Yorba
Linda, both places in Orange County- - but places in LA county had temperatures
ten or more degrees higher, so what it is here in Stanton is a mystery. Glenda complains of the cold here but what is
she going to do when she spends nearly three weeks in the mountains? I went to the store at seven and it wasn’t
opened. I came back to the room and
departed again when the President’s speech had concluded at 7:11 (the time –
not the store) . I got a dollar and a
quarter cup of coffee and brought it into the dining room. We had oatmeal for breakfast followed by
scrambled eggs, toast, butter and jelly, and hashed browns. I declined Paul Evans’ hashed browns because
my appetite is still not back to normal.
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