Category: Politics

What has happened to this country…

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US Constitution – Links to document and audio book – Less than one hour of your time

ConstitutionThere a couple foundational documents that many Americans cite as absolute truisms.  One is the Bible, Old and New Testament.  The other is the Constitution of the United States.  Yet when you get to quizzing folks, the actual count of who has read either one of these documents in totality is not staggeringly impressive.

According to one survey, Americans Love the Bible but Don’t Read It Much , showed only 20 percent read the Bible regularly.

“Results of a nationwide survey released Thursday by the Center for the Constitution at James Madison’s Montpelier show 86 percent of respondents recognize the importance of the document, the 223-year-old framework for American government. Thirty-one percent say they think they understand the Constitution “a lot” and 48 percent say they understand “some” of it. But only 28 percent say they’ve read all of the document, and 14 percent say they’ve read most of it, according to a report by Sean O’Brien, executive director at the Orange, Va., center.”

I can understand the Bible to some extent.  It is long, dense and arcane.  I once had very “religious” person tell me that he did not need to read the Bible.  If there was something in there he needed to know his preacher would tell him. Okay.

The United States Constitution is not long, dense or arcane.  It is not any more  a perfect document than is the Bible.  If nothing else counting people of color as three fifths of a person for the purpose of congressional representation would toss the Constitution from that category. Continue reading “US Constitution – Links to document and audio book – Less than one hour of your time”

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Egypt – The Withering of the Arab Spring

egypt As an outsider looking in at the situation in Egypt it is very confusing.  I am going to explore my thoughts via this piece.  It would be appreciated if anyone who  had thoughts on this would comment.  It just seems like awful conflict with both sides wrong.

First allow me to admit that most of my news comes from NPR.  While many folks rant about NPR’s “Liberal” slant I find it one of the few news sources without a large bias.  So many of the news sources of our time are more opinion than news and/or have a definite bias. Since I almost never watch TV news, my other source of news is the Internet, so much of which must be taken with a grain of salt.  I do tend to browse the more liberal news/opinion sites.  To counterbalance this I do browse the BBC site almost daily to get a point of view from outside the United States.  On very rare occasions I will look at Al Jazeera site. Like most folks I am stuck in my bias silo, but I do attempt to make the occasional foray into other arenas of thought.

I have a love/hate relationship with my country.  Continue reading “Egypt – The Withering of the Arab Spring”

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Hey Ted Nugent…Guns are not toys.

Dead-Nugent-1219x1200I will admit to liking one or two Ted Nugent songs, but on the whole I am not a fan.  My musical tastes tend toward Americana, singer/songwriter, jazz and classical music.  However, Ted Nugent as a political activist I categorically do not like.  It is an actually aversion.  I am a big supporter of free speech, but part of me cannot help but thinking in a sane society this individual would be receiving heavy psychiatric counseling.

My aversion to Mr. Nugent stems from his attitude towards guns and his support of seeming absolutely no gun control.

To state the obvious, guns are designed to kill, period.  They have no other function.   They are meant to either kill humans or animals.  Of course, there are effects that stem from this function.

They have been and are used for agents of gathering meat.  This use has limited functionality now, as most folks who hunt for food in the United States will readily tell you that it is not cost efficient.  While I personally do not hunt, I can understand the desire.  It is not something I would wish to take away from people.  Continue reading “Hey Ted Nugent…Guns are not toys.”

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Let Them Eat Cake…said (more or less) Virginia Foxx

Virginia Foxx: Congress Doesn’t Need To Make College Affordable virginia-foxx

Talk about an elitist attitude…if it were not for Pell Grants (from the federal government) and a supportive wife I would never have made it through college. I would have spent my life working in warehouses and factories for not very much money.

And do not get me started on these for profit colleges like Phoenix. There have been multiple studies showing that they fail to prepare students for jobs and are exceeding expensive. If we are to spend tax dollars at these for profit schools, there should be some accountability.

And why I am at it, why have they privatized the student loan program?

Are For-Profit Colleges a Rip-off?

For-Profit Colleges Hemorrhaging Students

For-profit College Graduates Barely Earn More Than High School Graduates

In a different vein
Education Pays

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Ted Nugent is some scary sh**!

ted-nugent2Ted Nugent’s response to the Zimmerman case: http://rare.us/story/nugent-zimmerman-verdict-vindicates-citizen-patrols-self-defense/

This is some scary sh**! Ted Nugent is some scary sh**! Anyway you look at the Zimmerman/Martin encounter, it was a huge tragedy.

I really do not know anything about Travan Martin, but looking at his face he appears to be a really nice young man. I think of myself as pretty much non-violent and I do not recall ever starting a fight. A few times when I have been backed into a corner I have fought, and I was pretty much nuts and was determined to do great damage. That is probably where Travan was at, backed into a corner. It is a real shame there was a gun in the mix, otherwise it would have probably ended with two guys with a lot of bruises and scraps.  I really wonder if George Zimmerman would have had the “courage” to stalk this young man if he had not been carrying a concealed weapon.  I am guessing, no.

The thought of so many folks running around with concealed weapons chills my bones. I don’t own a gun, and I really cannot think of a reason why I should unless I suddenly get the need to hunt for food.

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The War on Drugs Has Unacceptable Costs

massincarceration_20110617_0
Click to see in larger size

This outrages me. If I was a person of color I would be beyond outrage. Then you add onto the statistics the fact that we are spending more on incarceration than we are spending on higher education while we are importing skilled labor because supposedly we do not have the skill sets in the U.S.A.

We have our priorities wrong on so many fronts.

The graphic is from the ACLU website

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Ann Wagner, Global Warming Denier…Be scared, very scared

Okay I know that Senators and Congress folks really do not read a sliver of the email they get, but this is pretty outrageous.  I went onto Congresswoman Ann Wagner’s site to ask that she not support the Keystone Pipeline project for causes-of-global-warmingenvironmental reasons.  They force you to choose a subject so I chose Climate Change.

This is the form letter I got back.  It is one of the scariest things I have read in a long time.  The only place that climate change is being debated is within Republican circles and only then because big money wants to continue to make big money at everyone else’s expense.  The percent of scientist that are in agreement on global warming being caused by humans is almost unanimous.  Either this woman is an idiot who cannot understand basic science, such an ideologue that she refuses to face hard evidence, or so enamored with her position as a  high and mighty Congresswoman that she is going to go along with the party line to remain so.  No matter what the reason she scares the living snot right out of my body.  The fact that we continue to elect idiots like this does not speak well for our country.

Just as an aside she never once addressed the main subject of my email, the Keystone Pipeline.  Now there is responsive public service.

I am including the whole text of her form letter response.  Read it with the lights on.   It is indeed a horror story of complete and utter stupidity.

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Dear Citizen Rush,Thank you for contacting me with your concerns regarding climate change. I appreciate your views on this issue and welcome the opportunity to respond. Continue reading “Ann Wagner, Global Warming Denier…Be scared, very scared”