Over the last couple of days, two very different Republicans have opened two completely different faults lines in conservative ideology. Video of Rand Paul lashing out at Iraq War profiteer Dick Cheney surfaced, and Jeb Bush made the case for viewing illegal immigrants as human beings. First Rand Paul: [Read more…]
The wingnut brigade has a big problem with public schools. Actually, their big money silent partners in crime have a problem: schools are generally supported in large part by property taxes and the 0.01% pay more, based on the value of their real estate holdings, than the typical middle-class homeowner pays on his or her tiny box or struggling single parents pay on their roach infested tenement. Ergo, any excuse to bash public ed and pick on teachers is eagerly taken up and, if it involves portraying teachers as cowards, so much the better. So, what to do about teachers who have saved little kids while crazy people prowl the halls with assault weapons blowing off tiny heads and snuffing out tiny lives?
RW Watch — On VCY America’s Crosstalk last week, Gun Owners of America executive director Larry Pratt agreed with a caller who said that unarmed teachers who protect students during school shootings aren’t heroes. “When you see these stories on the news about teachers, and they’re saying they’re heroes because they’re running and hiding and locking doors and everything, and that’s supposed to be a heroic act. I think it’s sheer terror,” the caller complained. “I’d rather they be a hero with a good shot,” Pratt agreed.
Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, just not the adults who sacrifice their lives to save them, huh? Let’s meet a few of these non heroes:
Maryrose Kristopik — music teacher, Newtown: Mrs Kristopik said: ‘I did take the children into the closet and talked with them to keep them quiet. I told them that I loved them. I said there was a bad person in the school. I didn’t want to tell them anything past that.’ Mrs Kristopik said she was standing in front of the other door and holding the handle to keep the children out of harm’s way.
Victoria Soto –, 1st grade, Newtown: When she became aware there was a gunman in the school, she hid her first-graders in closets and cabinets, then told the shooter they were in the gym. He turned the gun on Soto, killing her, but none of her students were harmed.
Antionette Tuff, accountant, Ronald McNair school: The bookkeeper, an eight-year veteran of the DeKalb County school district, talked suspect Michael Brandon Hill into surrendering after a brief standoff with police Tuesday afternoon. Faced with an armed 20-year-old who told her he was off his medication for a mental disorder, Tuff shared stories of heartbreak from her own life to help calm him down — a recent divorce, a son with multiple disabilities.
Larry Pratt may be a total, shameless, amoral sociopath or he may just a garden variety asshole. He’s sure not the guy any respectable org should want in the judges booth rating heroes. But when it comes to panic, I suspect Mr. Pratt may have some very real, first person insight into the mind of a coward.
The title for dumbest Texas politician is not an easy one to earn. Just for starters, we have Louis Gohmert and Joe Barton setting an impossibly high standard. But several Lone Star congress critters have come out in the wake of another senseless shooting at Fort Hood, this one killing four people including the gunman and injuring more than a dozen others, and are vying for that dubious title. The solution, they say, is more guns in more hands: [Read more…]
Here at the Zingularity, we wouldn’t normally come within three degrees of separation between this blog and a link to Ramesh, but this is a very special day: [Read more…]
Except sadly, Ryan isn’t joking. The esteemed steely-blue-eyed granny starver released his not-much anticipated budget today. It has lofty goals! Raise the standard of living for working class and poor families, increase economic growth, and reduce the deficit. Conservatives from all corners of the nation, many still cringing from the success of Obamacare, are bragging it does all this and more (So much more!) by … cutting taxes on zillionaires, slashing social safety net programs, taking health care away from about ten to twenty million people and robbing millions more of benefits, and deregulating everything from Wall Street to energy:
WaPo — Overall, Ryan would cut about $5.1 trillion from projected spending over the next decade, with nearly $3 trillion coming from repealing the health-care law and revamping Medicaid. Still, Ryan’s proposals fell short of balancing the budget, forcing him to resort to a vague promise of new revenue from “economic growth” to meet his goal of wiping out deficits by 2024.
Republican Jesus would be proud. That’ll do Paul, that’ll do.
As someone who has had to occasionally beg readers for money, perhaps I should keep my mouth shut about charity requests and incessant email from politicians I’ve bent over backwards to support who, especially over the last few months, are bugging me for more and more and more money. I guess emails aren’t so bad, we can delete them in private, but it struck me tonight that it now happens in Walmart or other grocery store or box retailor every single time I shop.
I actually stopped going to Whole Foods in part because I was tired of being hit up three or four times every trip, [Read more…]
OK, the economy must be getting better. Or maybe I’m just dealing with more organized and/or more ethical people. I thought I had a job lined up a week and a half ago, one I wanted, tablet network support for a Fortune 500 client. Definitely a useful skillset to acquire. But as luck would have it, they were trying to squeeze me in at the last moment, I was the last guy hired and the client downsized their needs at the last second, so I was out of luck.
It was disappointing. But the reason I found out what happened is the lady who recruited me actually followed up with a full explanation and an apology, sincerely in my opinion, .i.e., treated me like an actual person. Which hasn’t happened lately, for the last few years, if you didn’t get the job, you either hear nothing back at all or you get a form letter. And that’s not even the best part.
She kept track of me. Two days ago an even higher paying, better job [Read more…]
So after two weeks of intense job searching and no posting, thinking I had a job twice only to have both fall thru for reasons beyond my control or the prospective employer’s fault for that matter, I have absolutely nothing to show for the effort. Today’s incarnation is yet another job, third one, that seems or perhaps seemed like a pretty sure deal, but they did not send me training instruction on Friday like they said they would. So now I’m in limbo, again. It’s a little frustrating, but I’ve gotten used to it.
Life could be worse. Just ask Nate Phelps, Son of Fred: [Read more…]
I posted a more detailed article at Daily Kos yesterday, titled in the format used on The Big Bang Theory, The Vaccination Intervention. I was pleased to see the comment section, now 500 strong and climbing, didn’t degenerate into an all out flame war. But there were a few commenters whot were making claims that sounded like they’d been piped straight from an anti-vaxxar website or seminar. Per usual, these individuals appeared impervious to evidence and reason.
As the evidence mounted that the link to autism was a dead-end, anti-vaxxars did what most pseudoscientists do. They upped the ante with ever more elaborate conspiracies, and moved the goal posts by making claims that were less and testable. Too many too soon is a good example:
Respectful Insolence — As I’m so fond of saying, the vaccine-autism hypothesis is not “pinin’ for the fjords.” It is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If antivaccinationists hadn’t tried to nail it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! It IS AN EX-HYPOTHESIS!!
BTW, I keep waiting for my Big Pharma payoff to arrive, but so far, nada. Cheap bastards.
There’s some religious angles to this deal. Some vaccines were developed using fetal tissue, then there’s the general distrust of government, fanned by series like X-files and nurtured by the religious right whenever there’s a democrat in the WH. But by and large we’re lucky there’s not a ton of industry money or verses in the Bible fueling this particular anti-science racket. There’s a critical point in any population beyond which large scale epidemics of preventable disease can flourish. We may be pushing in that direction in some communities, but so far at least, we haven’t exceeded that line. Much to our benefit, whether you accept the science or buy into the nonsense.