Saturday, October 10, 2015

A Perfect Storm of Islamophobia Hitting This Weekend

                                      Good Day World!

I usually don’t pay attention to hate rallies – there’s too many these days – but I’m having a hard time ignoring one in my backyard!

My hometown of Medford, Oregon has joined 21 other cities across the USA (see map here) in protesting Muslims “Global Rally for Humanity.”

Self-described “Patriots” have brought weapons to protest outside Muslim worship centers today.

A perfect storm of Islamophobia is hitting the nation thanks to one so-called patriot from Arizona. 

According to the Center for New Community, the protests are the brainchild of Phoenix anti-Muslim activist Jon Ritzheimer, who made headlines in May by organizing an armed protest outside a Phoenix-area mosque.

Ritzheimer also has a history of issuing ugly threats, including his threat to arrest Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow for having voted in favor of President Obama’s arms deal with Iran. Even his fellow militiamen from Michigan disavowed that one.

Preparing for the worst

The Council for Islamic-American Relations issued an advisory urging mosque-goers to be careful and take safety precautions this weekend. 

These protests are a sad footnote in American history, and proof that this country does not guarantee religious freedom for everyone. Intolerance is the password for today’s protests.

Time for me to walk on down the road… 

 

 

Friday, October 9, 2015

Gowdy’s Vendetta Against Hillary Exposed, But Continues

                                        Good Day World!

There isn’t anything Trey Gowdy wouldn’t do to make sure Hillary Clinton is not elected president.

No big deal you say…there’s plenty of other conservatives that are making it a mission to derail Clinton’s campaign.

True. But none of them are so blatantly using taxpayer money to fund their vendetta against Hillary Clinton like Trey Gowdy is. He’s had the gall to waste millions of taxpayer dollars in pursuit of his political plans to discredit Hillary - instead of really trying to get to the bottom of what happen in the Benghazi incident where four Americans died.

Gowdy, as House Select Committee on Benghazi chairman, has unabashedly directed all efforts towards targeting Hillary.  Gowdy’s name, image, and position has been used to solicit political donations by Stop Hillary PAC, which describes itself as “created for one reason only—to ensure Hillary Clinton never becomes President of the United States.

Gowdy has not held any of the hearings on his schedule (he initially had an investigative plan that set out monthly hearings  with all the different agencies involved in preparing for and responding to the attacks in Benghazi, including the State Department, the Defense Department, and the Intelligence Community).

The only hearing actually scheduled thus far however, is with Hillary Clinton.

The Committee has never held even one public hearing with anyone from the Department of Defense. Why?

The Committee was given an unlimited, taxpayer-funded budget, and it has now spent more than $4.6 million in one of the longest and least productive investigations in congressional history—focused on Clinton.

The Committee is being used by Republican fundraisers to attack Clinton.The Committee’s attacks were described by the conservative PAC America Rising as a taxpayer-funded political activity. 

Gowdy’s approach has been criticized even by conservative commentators who fear that it will forever be plagued by allegations of unfairness, and politics if this investigation is dragged into 2016. (full article source)

They should be concerned because Gowdy isn’t going to end his vendetta until after the elections.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Don’t you just love it when…

Jaxon Taylor Injury: Toddler's Head Reattached After Internal Decapitation

Good Day World!

Don’t you just love it when… you read about medical miracles like this?

Don’t you just love it when… some people get their comeuppance?  Months after winning a national title, Harvard's debate team has fallen to a group of New York inmates.

Don’t you just love it when…you run across animal stories like this?

Bettina the Orphaned Bushtail Possum Finds Comfort in Toy Kangaroo

Don’t you just love it when…you can’t get a straight answer from authorities?

Feds Won't Say If Artificial Turf on Your Kid's Soccer Field Is Safe

Don’t you just love it when…you hear about a teenager doing something really special that could save lives?

Don’t you just love it when…a crime story is funny instead of depressing?

Time for me to walk on down the road….

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Birdie, birdie in the sky…

“Birdie birdie in the sky
Why do you do that in my eye
I will not laugh I will not cry
I’m just glad that cows don’t fly!”

-Camp Songs

(Photo/Archaeopteryx Live Science Staff)

Good Day World!

Are you a bird lover?

Even if you’re not, you may find the following brief history of birds entertaining.

And then there were birds…

The evolution of birds is thought to have begun in the Jurassic Period, with the earliest birds derived from a clade of theropoda dinosaurs named Paraves. Birds are categorized as a biological class, Aves.

The earliest known isArchaeopteryx lithographica, from the Late Jurassic period, though Archaeopteryx is not commonly considered to have been a true bird.

The raven-sized animal in the photo above lived about 150 million years ago and had feathers identical to that of modern flying birds. But Archaeopteryx also had sharp teeth, a long bony tail and clawed fingers.

At 7 feet long and 3 feet tall, Beipiaosaurus is one of the largest known feathered theropods the group of swift upright dinosaurs from birds are thought to be descended.

(Photo/Beipiaosaurus Live Science Staff)

Like Archaeopteryx, Microraptor was about the size of a crow and had teeth, claws and feathers on all four limbs that it may have used to glide between trees.

(Photo/Microraptor by Julius T. Csotonyi)

As of the mid-2000s, new fossil and molecular data provide an increasingly clear picture of the evolution of modern bird orders, and their relationships.

A 2008 study published in Science examined DNA sequences from 169 species of birds that represented all of the major extant groups. The findings may necessitate a wholesale restructuring of the avian phylogenetic tree.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Thank You Bill Maher and Supply Side Jesus!

Thank you Bill Maher!

Thank you “Supply Side Jesus” for loving conservatives!

Bill has a way with words as demonstrated here:

"Let's face it Republicans, this photo of Jesus

is not really the face that best reflects your party's values.

This is (photo right - Martin Shkreli).

In a recent show, Bill told the story of Shkreli jacking up the price of Daraprim, then played his rather callous analogy in which he discussed pricing life-saving drugs like pricing cars.

"The fact that this story played out last week during the papal visit exposed how little these so-called Christians of the far right believe in what Jesus actually said," Maher said.

"How could they? There is not a tent in the tent big enough to fit both Jesus and Ayn Rand. In order to be both Republican and Christian they had to create an entirely new Jesus [emphasis added].

We don't only have two Americas, we have two Jesus’s now. It's true. Liberals have the traditional Jesus who hated rich assholes and wouldn't shut up about how they should give away all of their money.

And conservatives made up a completely new Jesus. A small businessman from Galilee whose main gripe is big government and who wants to make Nazareth great again. I call him supply-side Jesus. He'd love to help the less fortunate but he's got investors to think about.

Like the time supply-side Jesus performed a miracle and created a bounty of loaves and fishes and then gave them all to the top one percent so they can trickle down to the takers. ..."

Time for me to walk on down the road….

House Freedom Caucus Prepared to Shut Government Down

                                     Good Day World!

A lot of people are going to miss John Boehner.

Now that a new subversive group in the House – the House Freedom Caucus – has ousted him, be prepared for a Tea Party darling replacement who won’t have any compunctions about shutting down the government.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R) of California and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) of Utah are vying for the soon-to-be vacated Speaker of the House position. Both are making grand promises to the House Freedom Caucus.

Both men make Boehner look like a true statesman. That’s bad news for the American public.

ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE?

Like any subversive group, the caucus has an invitation-only selection of 40 zealots, which meet regularly at a Capitol Hill restaurant called the Tortilla Coast. The fight starts with the GOP's election for the speakership and other GOP leadership offices, which will take place in a secret ballot on Thursday.

In the weeks ahead, the Freedom Caucus will have plentiful opportunities to push the fight further – from the speaker's race to a combustible mix of fiscal deadlines this fall.

Though members say they have not yet settled on a strategy, one thing is certain: They are not afraid of government shutdowns, fiscal cliffs, or any other hardline tactics that typically made Boehner wince.

STILL SOME SANITY IN GOP CONGRESS

In Congress, a backlash may be building against Freedom Caucus hardball tactics. Last month, a caucus member quit, saying tactics were harming, not helping, the GOP cause.

Over in the Senate, Republican colleagues shouted down Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas last week over his procedural move related to spending and Planned Parenthood.

But make no mistake…Americans need to be prepared for some angry Freedom Caucus members blackmailing the government and shutting it down if they don’t get their way.

You thought Congress was already inept? You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until the new Speaker of the House (at the end of this month) fires the first salvo in a war of ideologies where the American people will lose at every turn.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Monday, October 5, 2015

Note to Mainstream Media: Pick a Number and Stick With It!

Good Day World!

When I first started hearing the reports of a huge rainfall event descending upon the Carolina’s four days ago, some newspapers were saying it was going to be a once in every 200 years downpour.

Within days that prediction vaulted to:

East Coast Flooding: 'Once in 500 Years' Downpour Threatens South Carolina

The very next day it went Biblical:

'Stay in Your House': Officials Warn Residents During Unprecedented '1,000-Year' Floods

Within the space of four days the predictions went from a 200-year deluge to a 1,000 year calamity! I strongly suspect there was some hyperbole among those frenzied predictions from members of the mainstream media.

No question, it’s been bad, nine deaths have been attributed to the flooding. The downpours and "catastrophic" flooding are expected to persist. But can we take a deep breath here?

There’s no statistical data showing this was a 1,000 year flood. North Carolina governor Haley called it that, but she’s hardly an expert.

Besides North and South Carolina, part of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia felt the storms fury, but none of them vanished into the Atlantic Ocean the last time I looked.

I get it…dramatic headlines get attention, but when you go from 200 to 1,000 years in four days that’s just too much.

Note to mainstream media: Next time pick a number and stick with it. It’s more credible.

Time for me to walk on down the road…  

 

Jeb Bush’s ‘stuff happens’ philosophy reflects GOP’s stance of doing nothing about mass killings

Good Day World!

Maybe Jeb Bush is right…”stuff happens and there’s no need to change gun laws.”

At least that’s what most Republicans want us to think whenever a mass shooting takes place (an average of twice monthly).

The most recent data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2013 an average of 92 people died in the United States each day of firearm-related injuries.

The day that the mass shooting at a community college in Oregon (October 1st) took place these people were also killed by gunfire:

* A 5-month-old girl was shot to death while riding in a car with her mother in Cleveland.

* A man killed his wife and a good Samaritan, then turned his gun on himself in north Florida.

* A security guard was killed, allegedly by a co-worker in Atlanta.

* Teen-aged brothers were gunned down in broad daylight near a busy intersection in Fresno, California.

* A suspect in a Georgia shooting killed himself after a three-county car chase.

The list of the Oct. 1 dead goes on and on: murders, suicides, workplace violence, domestic violence, street shootings and drive-by gunfire.

But whatever happens, don’t change gun laws because the NRA and the Republican Party doesn’t want to admit that we have a gun problem. They always turn to the “mentally ill” shooters as an example that guns aren’t the problem. Nuts are.

Okay, so why doesn’t the Republican Party take on mental illness and come up with programs to combat it? The reason why they don’t is simple; they don’t like funding any health programs.

Where does that leave us? Watching helplessly as people die every 16 minutes from gunfire because of a murderous ideology that extols the merits of guns while blocking any legislation to make the public safer. 

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Sunday, October 4, 2015

A Tale of 3 Adopted Cats and a Dog

20130815_134402

Good Day World!

I’m going to start off today with the old adage… never say never!

Two years ago, my wife and I had one dog, Molly, a black pug (photo).

When someone asked me if I was going to get any more pets I said, “No way. Never going to happen.”

As a matter of fact that determination was tested several times. I stood by my guns each time, refusing to get another dog, or cat. But then something happeneATT_1426813815459_imaged.

To help out someone we love we adopted two cats. Oliver (Photo), a blind black Persian-mix, and his brother Tommy (photo). Molly meanwhile, gradually learned how to deal with our two new additions over a year’s span.

The animal pecking order became Oliver, Molly, and then Tommy. Because Oliver is blind he has a tendency to slash out when startled and ask questions later. This earned him a healthy respect from Molly who learned to keep a distance from him and to approach him slowly when necessary.

Tom is a l20151001_094548over, not a fighter. His sweet disposition gets him bullied by both Oliver and Molly. Just when things were firmly established in our increased household we found ourselves rescuing another cat.

We call him Bob (Photo being petted).

Bob has lived the first two years of his life hiding under beds and other places and only coming out briefly to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom. The person he lived with was able to approach him and love on him, but the minute someone else entered the room he was gone in a flash!

Bob lives in our walk-in closet right now. We love on him daily, but can’t get him to come out and hang with the rest of the family yet. Bob is pretty hardwired, but we hope that will change.20150722_081831

It didn’t stop there. We ended up rescuing a dog in our neighborhood when he was abandoned by his owners. His name is Butters and he’s half Italian Greyhound and Chihuahua.

He’s also one of the sweetest dogs you’ll ever meet. He fit right in with everyone (but Bob) from Day One. So that’s how we became a modern day Animal House and why I never use the word NEVER if I can help it!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Blog Break Until Presidential Election is Over

I finally hit the wall today. I can't think of what to say about all of the madness going on in this country right now. I'm a writer...