Jeb Bush Knows More than 97% of the world’s scientists on climate change

Who would of guessed?

Jeb Bush sounded a lot like bubba Dubya yesterday. Jeb said that those who insist that the science of climate change is completely definitive are exhibiting "intellectual arrogance."

Really? How about exhibiting no intelligence at all with that response!

Factoid: Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that human activity has led to climate change.

If that’s not definitive, then what is?

Jeb keeps telling people he’s his own man, but the more you listen to him the more he sounds like Dubya (stupider than a stone).

Bush #3 in 2016? I don’t think so. 

 

What makes you happy? Hint: Money Only Goes So Far

Good Day World!

In this highly stressful society finding happiness can be a real challenge. The pressure of daily life – just making a living – has a way of harshing many people’s attitudes.

There’s a lot of good reasons to seek happiness. Sometimes people think happiness can be bought like any other commodity.

If your rich enough you can buy anything and not have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. It’s easier than the alternative.

Most of us struggle to make ends meet. But does that mean we can’t be happy.

In short, the latest research suggests wealth alone doesn’t provide any guarantee of a good life. What matters a lot more than a big income is how people spend it.

For instance, giving money away makes people a lot happier than lavishing it on themselves. And when they do spend money on themselves, people are a lot happier when they use it for experiences like travel than for material goods.

Life experiences give us more lasting pleasure than material things, and yet people still often deny themselves experiences and prioritize buying material goods.

Extremely wealthy people have their own set of concerns: anxiety about their children, uncertainty over their relationships and fears of isolation, according to research by Robert Kenny, a developmental psychologist and senior advisor at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College.

His research shows the rest of the world, who often think that if they just made one more bonus or sold one more item or got one more promotion, then their world and their family's world would be so much better, that this isn't necessarily true.

There's another whole level of concerns that parents are going to have about their kids. One of those concerns is this feeling of isolation. That's actually a No. 1 concern for families with a high net worth — this sense of isolation — and the higher the wealth, the worse it gets.

Yes, it’s easier being rich than poor. No one can deny that. But money isn’t necessary if you can enjoy the simple things in life, like going for a walk, laughing at a friends joke, or writing a poem.

Happiness has many sources if we allow ourselves to seek them out. I’m speaking from the experiences of over six decades in the quest to be happy. Your greatest happiness can come from living in a close family, and having lots of friends.

It’s an almost unbeatable combination when you boil everything down to the basics. Watching your daughter take her first step, or your son say his first words, can be more precious than all of the money in Ft. Knox.

10 Reasons Why Lazy People Are Actually The Happiest

What makes you happy?

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

GOP relying on scare tactics rather than compelling arguments

Editor’s Note: Every now and then I like to run guest op-eds. Today’s candidate writes for the Cavalier Daily

Guest Post

by Ben Rudgley | Feb 20 2015 | 02/20/15 2:40am | Updated 02/19/15 11:21pm

As traditional arguments for voting Republican — like believing it will bring about limited, efficient and pragmatic government — have collapsed, the GOP has relied on a politics of fear to win elections amidst low turnout and an increasingly apathetic public.

In 2016, the politics of fear will fall short of the historic nature of Hillary Clinton’s inevitable candidacy. The potential for the first female president and her impeccable qualifications — Secretary of State, a senator and First Lady — mean that the eventual Republican candidate will have to adopt a more positive, moderate form of messaging.

In order to chart a compelling path for the GOP to the White House, it is first necessary, however, to deconstruct how the politics of fear manifests itself and how it fails.

Congressional Republicans have been desperately trying to prove they can govern as well as obstruct, though their recent actions have done little to change their perception.

Republicans’ rabid opposition to President Barack Obama’s recent executive action on immigration has led to their latest exercise in brinkmanship: failing to fund the Department of Homeland Security while at the same time bemoaning the national security threats of ISIL and terrorist plots in Europe.

This is an exemplar of how GOP politics are guided by fear and xenophobia. The aging, white conservative base, to which “executive amnesty” is anathema, reflexively oppose comprehensive immigration reform — in spite of its widely documented potential to grow the economy — because of their fear of those that are different from them.

In 2012, former Gov. Mitt Romney deposited into the bottomless bank of conservative fear by famously promising economic catastrophe if Obama won reelection.

Predictably his predictions of “crippling unemployment” and “another recession” have proved at best delusional or at worst knowingly demagogic as unemployment has plummeted to 5.6 percent, gas prices have fallen and home values have surged.

Furthermore, conservative opposition to Obamacare has also been predicated on fear-mongering rhetoric that claimed the market-based health care law wouldcause historic destruction to the economy. This is a claim that now looks as off the mark and anachronistic as conservative opposition to gay marriage.

Even attempts to define the GOP as the party of limited, fiscally responsible government seem in vain. The myth that Republicans will bring about lower taxes for all has pervaded for decades but cannot long defy political realities across the nation.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax cuts, which were heralded by conservatives everywhere, have resulted in fiscal turmoil and likely deep cuts to state education. Furthermore, a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities study showed “Most of the benefits went to high-income households” and “Kansas even raised taxes for low-income families to offset a portion of the revenue loss.”

This exposes how Republicans’ rhetoric of lower taxes for all actually translates to benefits for special interests, corporations and the wealthy but even greater tax burdens on the working and middle classes. (read the rest here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Scammed! 4 Cancer Charities Busted for Cheating Donors Out of Millions

Good Day World!

If there’s one thing I hate it’s con artists/scammers.

You hear about them all the time. There’s phone cons, identity-theft cons, and cons that target charities. The real scum bags go with the last one.

I lost a sister to breast cancer, and feel strongly about supporting the cause for a cure. There’s millions of other Americans that feel the same way.

The American Cancer Society’s estimates for breast cancer in women in the United States for 2015 are:

• About 231,840 new cases of invasive breast cancer
• About 62,290 new cases of carcinoma in situ (CIS) of the breast will be found (CIS is non-invasive and is the earliest form of breast cancer).
• About 40,290 deaths from breast cancer

As these figures suggest, the fight to end breast cancer continues.

But some low-lives take the money that people donate towards a cure, and use it for their own personal gain. The following article is a disturbing example of how charitable funds can be misused:

“A federal lawsuit alleges four cancer charities have scammed consumers out of more than $187 million.

The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in all 50 states and the District of Columbia announced Tuesday they have filed a lawsuit against the Cancer Fund of America, Children's Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services and the Breast Cancer Society alleging they violated federal and state regulations.

All four charities are run by members of the same family or their close business associates, as detailed in the 2013 "America's Worst Charities" joint report from theTampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The lawsuit serves as a reminder to consumers to vet nonprofits carefully before donating. Americans gave $335.17 billion to charity in 2013, according to the Giving USA 2014 report, put out by the Giving USA Foundation and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Health charities received $31.86 billion of that, up 4.5 percent from 2012.” (source)

I don’t want to discourage you from donating to the charity of your choice, but I am cautioning you to check the charity out before giving your hard-earned money to them.

Here’s a good site that rates ALL charities: Charity Watch. Better safe than sorry.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Waco, AKA ‘Wacko’ Texas Shootout Rekindles Past Chaos

Good Day World!

Waco Texas is where the wackos go to die. It should be the city’s motto.

I don’t know what it is about Waco that attracts the crazies and criminals, but it’s reputation is common knowledge.

Who can forget David Koresh that madman who seized control of a group of breakaway Seventh Day Adventist Church members and led them to their deaths?

He told his followers that God wanted him to procreate with the women in the group to establish a "House of David" of his "special people."

The Waco massacre in 1993 was the end result of a 50-day siege in which 76 men, women and children lost their lives after federal officials set fire to an isolated compound.

SHADES OF YESTERYEAR

On May 17, 2015, in Waco, Texas, a shootout erupted between as many as five rival outlaw motorcycle clubs, including the Bandidos, the Cossacks, Victoria's Angels, and the Scimitars.

The shootout occurred at the local Twin Peaks restaurant and left nine people dead, with eighteen others injured

MORE INFORMATION

Waco Shootout: Biker Brawl at Twin Peaks Leaves Nine Dead

Twin Peaks Revokes Waco Restaurant's Franchise After Shootout

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Are You Experienced? #Hashtag History and Use

Good Day World!

You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.

No more than you can judge a #hash tag by several words. Oh, wait a moment! Yes, you can. Let me explain.

If you’re a non-techie type and don’t know what a hash tag is, the following information will set you straight.

ORIGIN of HASHTAGS

The number sign was often used in information technology to highlight a special meaning. In 1970 for example, the number sign was used to denote immediate address mode in the assembly language of the PDP-11 when placed next to a symbol or a number.

In 1978, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie used # in the C programming language for special keywords that had to be processed first by the C preprocessor.

Since before the invention of the hash tag, the number sign has been called the "hash symbol" in some countries outside of North America.

The number sign then appeared and was used within IRC networks to label groups and topics. Channels or topics that are available across an entire IRC network are prefixed with a hash symbol # (as opposed to those local to a server, which use an ampersand '&').

The use of the number sign in IRC inspired Chris Messina to propose a similar system to be used on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the micro blogging network. He posted the first hash tag on Twitter:

how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?

—Chris Messina, ("factoryjoe"), August 23, 2007

Internationally, the hash tag became a practice of writing style for Twitter posts during the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests, as both English- and Persian-language hash tags became useful for Twitter users inside and outside Iran.

The first use of the term "hash tag" was in a blog post by Stowe Boyd, "Hash Tags = Twitter Groupings,"on 26 August 2007, according to lexicographer Ben Zimmer, chair of the American Dialect Society's New Words Committee.

Beginning July 2, 2009, Twitter began to hyperlink all hash tags in tweets to Twitter search results for the hash tagged word (and for the standard spelling of commonly misspelled words).

In 2010, Twitter introduced "Trending Topics" on the Twitter front page, displaying hash tags that are rapidly becoming popular. Twitter has an algorithm to tackle attempts to spam the trending list and ensure that hash tags trend naturally. (via Wikipedia)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

It’s okay to get angry…sometimes it makes things better!

Good Day World!

We all get angry at one time or another in our life. The negative outburst that usually follows can be good, or bad. Just depends. 

Have you ever heard about anger being a positive thing?

There are all sorts of good sensible, civilized reasons to avoid getting angry.

Not only does it make you feel bad, it makes you do stupid things without noticing the risks and it can be self-destructive.

As a result civilized people do their best to suppress, redirect and mask their anger. Most of us treat our anger as though it’s unreasonable, and unmentionable.

But like all emotions anger has its purposes, which can be used to good effect.

Here’s six upsides to getting angry.

Anger can reduce violence, benefit relationships, promote optimism and be a useful motivating force, but it can just as easily be destructive.

That’s the wonder of human emotions: happy isn’t always good and angry isn’t always bad (although it may feel that way).

An unhappy person is also more likely to spot mistakes and an angry person is highly motivated to act. We need reminding that even scary and dangerous emotions have their upsides, as long as they are used for the correct purpose.

Used right, anger can be a handy tool. But use with caution as people find anger the most difficult of all the emotions to control.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Report: ‘The American economy no longer works for most Americans…’

Good Day World!

How do you fix the laws and policies governing the American economy that are rigged to benefit the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations?

Good question. Read this report, “Rewriting The Rules Of The American Economy: An Agenda For Growth and Shared Prosperity.

You want details? These folks came up with 37 specific laws and policy changes to restore fairness and balance to the economy without undermining American capitalism.

“Skyrocketing incomes for the 1 percent and stagnating wages for everyone else are not independent phenomena, but rather two symptoms of an impaired economy that rewards gaming the system more than it does hard work and investment," according to the report.

The report concluded:

"The roots of this dysfunction lie deep in the rules and power dynamics that have prioritized corporate power and short-term gains at the expense of long-term innovation and growth. The outcomes shaped by these rules and power dynamics do not make the economy stronger; indeed, many make it weaker.”

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

 

Boehner ‘the Boob’ Denies Reality - Calls Reporter ‘Stupid’

Don’t bother House Speaker John Boehner with facts.

He’s liable to call you stupid.

If there’s one thing Boehner can’t stand it’s the truth. You can slap him in the face with it, and he’d just blink stupidly.

When he claimed that the fatal Amtrak crash wasn't caused by a lack of federal funds, and mocked a reporter for even asking about it, reality was tossed out the window.

FACT: the Republican-run House Appropriations Committee voted to cut Amtrak's budget for next year to $1.1 billion, a $251 million reduction.

FACT: the panel also voted down a Democratic effort to boost federal funds for the railroad by more than $1 billion, including extra money for the busy Northeast corridor, where the derailment occurred.

FACT: Insufficient funding had delayed installation of an advanced electronic system for keeping trains from speeding, called positive train control, on the track where the accident occurred.

FACT: The Amtrak tragedy could have been avoided if the advanced electronic system had been in effect.

When you’re a partisan boob like Boehner reality is a toy to play with and to manipulate. This latest example proves it.

Time for me to walk on down the road… ,

Note for Jeb Bush: Presidential Candidacy is a Hypothetical Exercise

  Good Day World!

Jeb Bush is his own man.

At least that’s what he’s been telling the press lately.

He’s also easily confused.

While the Republican Party is moving away from supporting the Iraq war, Jeb is wandering around in a daze on the subject.

When asked if he would have gone to war in Iraq – knowing what we know now – he just couldn’t make up his mind and finally declared he’s not into hypothetical questions.

Oh, really? 

That assertion is asinine and reflective of the chaos in his thought process. 

In three days, Jeb gave three different answers on Iraq:

• Monday (when the full Megyn Kelly interview aired): "I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got."
• Tuesday: After saying he misheard Kelly's question, Bush replied, "I don't know what that decision would have been [with 20/20 hindsight], that's a hypothetical. But the simple fact is that mistakes were made," he told Sean Hannity on his radio program.
• Wednesday: "If we're going to get back into hypotheticals, I think it does a disservice to a lot of people who sacrificed a lot," he said.

REALITY ALERT

“The ENTIRE premise behind a presidential candidacy is a hypothetical exercise -- it's imagining the candidate making policy decisions about past, present, and future matters.

It's an unacceptable answer for a candidate to say he/she won't engage in hypotheticals, because the whole game is a hypothetical. Any candidate that uses the word "hypothetical" to duck answering a question should be reminded of this.

The collective political class has somehow accepted the hypothetical excuse from candidates as standard practice. It should stop if we want to have any hope of finding out how these men and women would conduct themselves as president.” source

Enough said.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Skin Color Transformation Trends: When Brown, or White, is Not Right

Good Day World!

Westerners like tans.

They consider a tanned body sexy. That “brown look” is sought after by millions of Americans every year.

According to the Tanning Salons Market Research Report the Tanning Industry revenue will grow despite mounting cynicism toward UV tanning services. Tanning is a $3 billion dollar industry and growing – 3.2 percent per year.

In direct contrast, Asians have – in recent years – taken to lightening their skin to get that “white look.”

Asia’s skin-whitening industrial complex never stops innovating.

The latest product? A chemical goop for women (and men) unhappy with the color of their limbs. Simply slather it all over your arms and legs. Wait a week. Then peel back your skin to reveal the milky white you are hiding beneath all that pigment.

Asia’s supermarket shelves are filled with a dizzying variety of skin-whitening agents. Many in Asia are as obsessed with lightening their skin as westerners are about tanning it.

The product lines go far beyond lotions and pills. There are skin-whitening injections. Armpit-whitening deodorants sold at 7-Eleven outlets. A heavily advertised “whitening feminine wash” for female genitals.

This isn’t a fringe market. One research firm predicts that the “global skin lightener” industry — powered by transnational conglomerates such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble — will be worth $23 billion by 2020.

----------------------------------------------

Welcome to Indonesia's Michael Jackson Whitening house

-----------------------------------------------

As for goops that cause skin peeling?

Most don’t really work, according to Sumali Pongjibrasan, an expert with Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration, who was interviewed by a Thai TV channel when the fad emerged last year.

For a lengthy analysis of Asia’s skin-whitening obsession, written by a Thai female author, check out this article: “Thailand’s skin whitening craze: How far will it go?”

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Name 7 Items That You’d Pick to Tell Your Story in a Time Capsule

Good Day World!

If you were to leave a personal time capsule behind what would be in it?

Just for fun, name seven items you’d include so that future generations would know about your life. Your time. Your world. Your beliefs.

You can pick any size for your time capsule. I’ll take the lead - mine will be the size depicted in the photo above. My selections are:

The Life and Times of Dave Stancliff

1) My favorite photo of my wife, Shirley, and I. It’ll be dated and located.

2) My favorite photo of Shirley and our three sons, and I. It’ll be dated and located.

3) A photo of me in the Army at 19, standing next to a hooch in Vietnam. It’ll be dated and located.

4) A documentary video of the 1960’s – flower power, hippies, LSD, marijuana, and free love. It would include a brief introduction by myself about my teenage years, circa 1963 – 1969.

5) An audio chip crammed with all of my favorite music.

6) A big box filled with examples of all of my newspaper articles and columns, short stories, poems, and books.

7) A big box filled with my Los Angeles Laker’s memorabilia collection.

So there you have it. What would your seven picks be?

Time for me to walk on down the road… 

New Report: A Bad Milestone - Greenhouse Gas Level’s Increase

                                      Good Day World!

There are good milestones, and there’s bad ones.

The day you marry someone is a good milestone. Something to be remembered for the duration of a partnership.

Heightened greenhouse gas levels are a bad milestone. Each time the levels increase, our planet’s health decreases.

The latest milestone no one wants to celebrate is the monthly global average concentration of carbon dioxide breaking 400 parts per million for the first time since record-keeping of greenhouse gas levels began.

The milestone, reached last month, was announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently.

"It was only a matter of time that we would average 400 parts per million globally," said NOAA scientist Pieter Tans in a press release. "We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012. In 2013 the record at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold. Reaching 400 parts per million as a global average is a significant milestone."

Crossing the 400 ppm threshold is equal parts disheartening and alarming. Less than a decade ago scientists and environmental activists, including Bill McKibben, launched a campaign to convince policy makers that global CO2 concentrations needed to be reduced to 350 ppm in order to avoid massive impacts from global warming.

Mother Jones published this article recently (May 6th) about global warming and the impact this new milestone will have.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

I Don’t Get It: Why is Everyone Interested in Going to Mars?

When I watched the first man walk on the moon, the first question that came to my mind was, “Why?”

The years have sped by, and I’m still asking why, but in reference to Mars now.

What’s there that’s so valuable? I still haven’t read about a good reason for going to the moon yet.

Moon rocks are cool, but hardly worth billions of dollars in getting them. Moon walking hasn’t resulted in anything benefiting mankind (unless you count Michael Jackson’s cool dance step – the moonwalk).

So now it’s off to Mars, and more glory? 

Enter the Dutch-based Mars One venture. The idea behind Mars One is to jump-start Red Planet settlement, and fund the endeavor with billions of dollars' worth of sponsorships and media deals.

A colony on Mars? SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, is due to unveil his own long-term plan for Mars odysseys by the end of this year.

Last week's meeting of the NASA Advisory Council, space agency officials provided the outline of their "Evolvable Mars Campaign," a long-term effort to develop the technologies needed for human missions to Mars.

Colonies. Numerous missions. So what?

I don’t see any benefit to planet hopping and forming colonies on inhospitable planets. If we end up polluting the earth so badly it becomes inhabitable, we don’t deserve another opportunity – even a less than desirable one.

Some advisers are even talking about grabbing a rock from one of Mars' moons, Phobos or Deimos, and bringing it back for study. Let me ask you, what have we done with moon rocks thus far?

Collecting rocks from planets is not my idea of advancing the human race.

Instead of settling for planets that aren’t human friendly, perhaps more emphasis should be directed towards other universes and planets that might be compatible with human life.

I know. Silly me.

Even if we don’t find one, it’s still a better idea than collecting samples from uninhabitable planets that appear to offer little, or no, advantages to exploring them and especially living on them!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

 

 

There May Be Only 4 Banks in the Entire Country Someday

Good Day World!

Imagine this; there’s only four banks in America.

Community banks no longer exist. There’s no credit unions to join. Just four incredibly powerful banks. 

Does that sound crazy? Maybe not.

(Photo: Rainforest Action Network / John Duffy)

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo - have come to dominate the entire banking sector, each growing larger than all of the nation's community banks put together.

Here’s a 90-second video that describes the alarming growth of these four mega-banks; giant banks with more than $100 billion in assets (in 2010 dollars).

How has this happened so quickly? What has caused this disturbing trend?

Some scholars and bankers are giving the blame to the added costs of complying with the Dodd-Frank banking reform law, which created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and imposed new rules on banks' behavior. 

A more comprehensive and nuanced answer to the question of why community banks are vanishing in such numbers has been put forward by Arthur E. Wilmarth, a law professor at George Washington University.

In a lengthy paper, Wilmarth provides a damning look at the regulatory disadvantages faced by community banks, but without feeding the deregulation agenda of their big competitors.

For a complete understanding of the whole situation read this article, produced by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, as part of its Community-Scaled Economy Initiative.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Have You Ever Asked Yourself Why You’re Here?

Good Day World!

Why am I here?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself numerous times.

The answer unfolds with the passing of years. Experience has helped me expose my inner desires. Hard work and the ability to focus on learning - and sharing - has given meaning to my life.

Oscar Wilde once said,

“The aim of life is self-development, to realize one's nature perfectly.”

The writer of the following quote is unknown, but the message is clear,

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

I think Walter Hagen is on to something with this quote,

You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry, don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.

Need some help seeking your purpose in life?

Here’s a soul filled and inspiration approach to exploring why you are here and what you are meant to do with your life.

Soul Lessons and Soul Purpose: A Channeled Guide to Why You Are Here

Here’s a guided journal that will help you start exploring why you are here, and how to use those ideas to transform your life…

My Organic Soul: From Plato to Creflo, Emerson to MLK, Jesus to Jay-Z--A Journal to Help You Discover Yourself through Words of Wisdom from Visionaries Past and Present

My takeaway on life is there’s more than one reason why we’re here!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

About Politicians Who Rip Us Off

Good Day World!

I’m one of those people who believe Democrats and Republicans – for the most part – are corrupt.

After a 20 years career as a newspaper editor and publisher, I’ve written and ran hundreds of stories about corrupt politicians.

Despite all of these stories, and thousands more, nothing ever seems to change. It makes me wonder if it’s the voters fault for picking such sleazy representatives.

TWO LATEST EXAMPLES:

New York State Senate leader Dean Skelos and his son were recently arrested on federal corruption charges, about three months after NBC 4 New York first reported on the investigation into state government’s most powerful Republican.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, lined his pockets with nearly $4 million in bribes and kickbacks in a stunning abuse of power dating to at least 2000, federal authorities charged last week.

Every time one of these douches get caught the rest of the pols all scramble about and start spewing platitudes like “We are deadly serious about taking down corrupt officials.”

So what can be done about scum bags who work the system?

Nothing.

Corrupt pols go back to ancient civilizations. They’ve always infected governments like parasites, sucking out the people’s money and rights.

The only thing we can hope for is that one gets caught, and convicted, now and then.

I still think part of the problem lies with voters being uninformed, or slavishly following party brands despite their sleaze factor.

In addition, our high tech world of social media and the mainstream media lures voters with partisan sound bytes (because they don’t have the time to research anything).

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Will Residents Have To Re-Name Ferguson, ‘Webville?’

Good Day World!

Talk about smash and grab burglaries.

The citizens of Ferguson, Missouri are paying someone to loot their state treasury!

Brian Fletcher, a Ferguson council member elected in April, said the city faces a $2 million to $3 million budget deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30, and will likely face a similar deficit next year.

But that didn’t stop them from hiring a lawyer who is charging double Missouri's highest attorney billing rate last year.

Dan K. Webb (photo above) is getting $1,335 an hour to help the St. Louis suburb negotiate and possibly litigate reforms pressed by the Justice Department since Michael Brown's shooting death by a police officer there last summer, according to a newspaper report.

Web is a legal thief taking advantage of a city in distress.

Ferguson's city manager, police chief and municipal judge have resigned. The municipal court clerk was fired for racist emails. And the current city council apparently lacks any fiscal sense because their $2 to $3 million budget deficit doesn’t even account for Web’s pay!

For the record, while Web will be busy getting richer, he’s not the only one. That tab doesn't include the expenses and fees of any lawyers or paralegals in Webb's firm who may work on the case.

See what I mean? Stupid.

The city council is eventually going to find themselves sued over lack of payment to Mr. Web. Then what? Ferguson gets re-named Webville?

Time for me to walk on down the road….

Tom Brady is a cheat and a liar - but who really cares?

A few thoughts on cheating champions today.

Despite being caught for cheating, the New England Patriots will not have their AFC Conference Championship win nullified.

The win that set them up for the Super Bowl.

Ted Wells' investigation into the possibility that the New England Patriots were involved in deflating footballs for the AFC championship game has found that it's more likely than not some of the Patriots were guilty.

"Based on the evidence developed in connection with the investigation and summarized in this Report, we have concluded that it is more probable than not that New England Patriots personnel participated in violations of the NFL Playing Rules and were involved in a deliberate attempt to circumvent those rules," the report, released Wednesday, said.

For years the Patriots have had a culture of cheating. It’s been the most open secret in the NFL.

Quarterback Tom Brady is not only a cheater, he’s a liar.

After news of the possibly deflated footballs broke in January, Brady had a news conference in which he denied any wrongdoing and said about the game balls, "I don’t want anyone rubbing them, putting any air in them, taking any air out."

Busted! Read the report here. The report said it is more probable than not that Brady was "at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski."

Read: Report: NFL To Consider Disciplining Brady

Despite what penalty is handed out to Brady, he still got away with cheating. But that won’t bother Patriot fans whose memory over this little Deflate Gate blip will be short and sweet.

In today’s society, cheating is accepted, quickly forgiven, and sometimes admired. It’s all about winning at any cost…including integrity, and honesty.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Idealogy over Humanity: GOP Presidential Candidates Turn Clock Back on Science

Good Day World!

At one time the earth was considered flat, and to deny that absurdity meant imprisonment, or worse.

Here we are in the 21st century with presidential candidates who apparently can’t make up their minds about basics of modern science –

(Photo - Ben Carson)

that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, that humans evolved from earlier primates over millions of years, and that people are making the world dangerously warm. 

Somehow, in the twisted minds of some GOP presidential hopefuls, science is bogus. Instead of rational enlightenment, these wannabes pass off religious myths that are really more about values than reality.

Outdated values to be sure, that don’t reflect facts. And each one thinks he/she should lead the free world.

Wow.  

EXAMPLES:

You have a neurosurgeon who believes the human brain is too complex for anyone but God, an ophthalmologist who refuses to talk about the age of the Earth, and a Harvard-trained lawyer beloved by creationists.

Each one raises the prospect of an election without science. A leader who rejects known facts about the world we live in.

Retired doctor Ben Carson joined senators Rand Paul (the ophthalmologist) and Ted Cruz (the Harvard alum) on the campaign trail recently, vying for the Republican nomination against each other and other confirmed and likely candidates including Senator Marco Rubio, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.

How do these candidates get away with denying science?

The answer, I fear, is simply partisanship. If the brand stands for myths as opposed to facts, the candidates become slavish followers to get money from the national party.

Perhaps even more scary, they are the people who put ideology above humanity.

Time for me to walk on down the road…