Category: Red Flag

Head for the bunkers

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Checks and Balances, Nukes – A Radiolab Podcast

The best way to tease you to listen to this podcast is their tease:

“President Richard Nixon once boasted that at any moment he could pick up a telephone and – in 20 minutes – kill 60 million people.  Such is the power of the US President over the nation’s nuclear arsenal.  But what if you were the military officer on the receiving end of that phone call? Could you refuse the order?

This episode, we profile one Air Force Major who asked that question back in the 1970s and learn how the very act of asking it was so dangerous it derailed his career.”

The officer profiled in this story was going through the Air Force training to be a Continue reading “Checks and Balances, Nukes – A Radiolab Podcast”

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Why Police Shoot – Tampa Bay Times article

This is a very sad, and a very disturbing article.  There were two things in the story that really surprised me.  First, is that there are no real stats kept on police shootings!

“The Florida Department of Law Enforcement can say how many purse snatchings there were in any given year, but not how many times officers fired on citizens. The FBI’s statistics on police shootings aren’t much better. No one keeps accurate count.

“Embarrassing and ridiculous,” FBI director James B. Comey called the lack of data.

“Unacceptable,” former Attorney General Eric Holder called it.

For the past three years, shootings of unarmed black men caught on video have sparked outrage. But they are anecdotes. Without data, there’s no scope.

“How can we fix what we can’t measure?” asked Vanita Gupta, who headed the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division…”

The second thing that really surprised is the extent of police forfeiture and Continue reading “Why Police Shoot – Tampa Bay Times article”

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EPA website removes climate science site from public view after two decades

Apparently anything that gets in the way of immediate profit is to verboten , no matter the future consequences.  Almost every time I look at a news site my stomach does a flip-flop over some new piece of idiocy.   Trump and his administration’s world view is totally incomprehensible to me.  The best I can figure these people have absolute no social conscience and probably no conscience at all…sick, sick, sick.

EPA website removes climate science site from public view after two decades

Trump executive order aims to allow Arctic drilling

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Donald Trump has ‘dangerous mental illness’, say psychiatry experts at Yale conference

What a strange pass we have come to in this country. I’m just a lay person in this field, and it has looked to me for a while that being in touch with reality is not  one of effingham Trump’s traits.

From the article on http://www.independent.co.uk/us:

“Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is not fit to lead the US, a group of psychiatrists has warned during a conference at Yale University.

Mental health experts claimed the President was “paranoid and delusional”, and said it was their “ethical responsibility” to warn the American public about the “dangers” Mr Trump’s psychological state poses to the country.”

Here is the link to the article: Donald Trump has ‘dangerous mental illness’, say psychiatry experts at Yale conference

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BBC article – How Western Civilization Could Collapse

Here is an article I found worth my time to read.  An excerpt from the article is chilling.

“That economic stratification may lead to collapse on its own… Under this scenario, elites push society toward instability and eventual collapse by hoarding huge quantities of wealth and resources, and leaving little or none for commoners who vastly outnumber them yet support them with labour. Eventually, the working population crashes because the portion of wealth allocated to them is not enough, followed by collapse of the elites due to the absence of labour.”

Enjoy!  http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170418-how-western-civilisation-could-collapse

The sad part to me is that this is a story that has repeated itself multiples in our history, yet we are not smart enough to learn from it. Or perhaps we do not have the gumption to push against the greedy hoarders and those more interested in the current profit.

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Our Dishonest President – Link to LA Time Editorial

It is amazing that one of our major newspapers would be writing an article like this and calling for demonstrations.  What is even more amazing is that they are only speaking the truth.

“But if it is to do so, those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard. Protesters must raise their banners. Voters must turn out for elections. Members of Congress — including and especially Republicans — must find the political courage to stand up to Trump. Courts must safeguard the Constitution. State legislators must pass laws to protect their citizens and their policies from federal meddling. All of us who are in the business of holding leaders accountable must redouble our efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.”  from the editorial

I always hate saying this, but it is a short read.  And it is worth your time.

Link to article: Our Dishonest President

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The South Will Rise Again?

Last time I went backpacking in rural Missouri, the American flag was everywhere.  Unfortunately I have come to view the flying of our national flag more an expression of nationalism than of patriotism.  And that scares me.

Last weekend I went backpacking in very rural Arkansas.  I say rural.  In order to get to the trail-head, I went down several small, paved, county roads, and finally turned on a dirt county road which I followed for miles before turning onto a forest service road.  I was officially in the boonies.

I had not noticed driving there Continue reading “The South Will Rise Again?”

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How do we get Trump to IKEA?

We had a small gathering at our house the other night in celebration of Robin achieving another year around the sun.  As sometimes happens the conversation turned to politics.  At least in our circle, these conversations never last a long time as we are all in consensus in being appalled and distressed at the current state of the country and the country’s politics.

I made the comment that Trump had started me praying again, a funny thing for an agnostic to do.  I do pray sometime, but I look at it as a way of focusing on what is upmost on my worry prone brain.  I elaborated by explaining that I pray every day that  Donald Trump Continue reading “How do we get Trump to IKEA?”

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The State of Our Country

Make America Great Again…
DUMP TRUMP
This political cartoon sums it all up for me…

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Must read article from The Atlantic – How to Build an Autocracy

From the article in The Atlantic How to Build an Autocracy:

“Those citizens who fantasize about defying tyranny from within fortified compounds have never understood how liberty is actually threatened in a modern bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing process of corruption and deceit. And the way that liberty must be defended is not with amateur firearms, but with an unwearying insistence upon the honesty, integrity, and professionalism of American institutions and those who lead them. We are living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United States that anyone alive has encountered. What happens next is up to you and me. Don’t be afraid. This moment of danger can also be your finest hour as a citizen and an American.”

We should all be very concerned.  Part of me wants desperately to run and hide from this cluster fuck that is happening to us.  We need to heed David Frum’s advice.