Monday, June 30, 2014

States with the highest numbers of gun violence

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/29/states-gun-violence_n_5541292.html?ir=Business

Suicide is the leading cause of gun-related deaths across the nation in recent years. Of the 32,351 firearm deaths in 2011, nearly 20,000 were suicides. In all but one state with the most gun-related deaths, suicide accounted for the majority of fatalities. Six states — Alaska, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Montana, Arkansas, and New Mexico — reported more than 10.0 firearm-related suicides per 100,000 residents, versus the national rate of 6.2.

Taxes - We need to raise revenue but NO NEW TAXES? Why?

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/the-day-that-rewrote-republicans-on-taxes-290128451941

This is quite informative

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Friday, June 27, 2014

10 Big Fat LIES and the liars who told them.

http://billmoyers.com/content/10-big-fat-lies-and-the-liars-who-told-them/

Investigative journalist Chuck Lewis joins Bill this week to discuss his new book, 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity, that looks at the history of government officials and media pundits speaking and repeating (and repeating and repeating) untruths to shape public opinion and policy.
The title of the book refers to the number of times President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top administration officials made false statements in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the book has a far greater scope, looking at how lies have shaped American policy over several decades.
Here are 10 notable whoppers that affected hundreds, thousands, and in some cases, millions of lives.

Bill Clinton rips apart Dick Cheney over Iraq. This is wonderful.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/06/27/bill-clinton-tears-dick-cheney-blame-iraq-violence-obama.html

Clinton on Cheney: ‘If they hadn’t gone to war in Iraq none of this would be happening’

Lighning Strike just feet from the cameraman

https://news.yahoo.com/video-captures-footage-of-lightning-striking-ground-133520350.html

He was very close to being hit by lightning

Climate Deniers use FALSE EQUIVILENCY to PRETEND there is a scientific debate.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/25/1309539/-How-science-deniers-use-false-equivalency-to-pretend-there-s-a-debate?detail=facebook

A 3 scientist does 3 years of research and Joe Blow sits on a couch and bitches for 3 years but both are given equal time and sincerity.  Bullshit but true.

WarFare Queens - Jon Stewart goes after the War Mongers

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/27/1309948/-MUST-SEE-Jon-Stewart-goes-after-warfare-queens?detail=email

Remember that time we invaded Iraq to remove the threat of the world's most dangerous people using the world's most dangerous weapons, and it turned out that the threat wasn't there? Well, good news. The threat's there now! (audience laughter) In some measure, due to the destabilizing effect of our intervention. And you'll never guess what the people who hyped the original plan would like to do now.

5 ways to help prevent you from getting cancer

http://www.eyeopening.info/2014/06/27/5-ways-to-help-prevent-you-from-getting-cancer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=5-ways-to-help-prevent-you-from-getting-cancer&utm_source=Eye+Opening+Newsletter&utm_campaign=531c0efd74-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fecb8a55b-531c0efd74-180704649#.U62ayKiT5wk

Smoking and cooking at lower heat are two.

Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form - How to get $500 Thousand Dollars

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/moderate-syrian-rebel-application-form.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2890%29

If I were given a highly lethal automatic weapon by the United States, I would:
A) Only kill exactly the people that the United States wanted me to kill
B) Try to kill the right people, with the caveat that I have never used an automatic weapon before
C) Kill people only after submitting them to a rigorous vetting process
D) Immediately let the weapon fall into the wrong hands

Roasting Climate Change Deniers - President Obama Style. This is good.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/26/1309830/-President-Obama-roasts-congressional-climate-change-deniers?detail=facebook

They say, hey, I’m not a scientist, which really translates into, I accept that manmade climate change is real, but if I say so out loud, I will be run out of town by a bunch of fringe elements that thinks climate science is a liberal plot so I’m going to just pretend like, I don’t know, I can’t read.

Gun Nuts are terrorizing the US. A watershed moment you missed.

http://www.alternet.org/gun-nuts-are-terrorizing-america-watershed-moment-everyone-missed?akid=11961.294211.CA0MGv&rd=1&src=newsletter1007321&t=14

Here is a truth so fundamental that it should be self-evident: When legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger. And yet that is exactly what happened at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch this spring: An alleged criminal defeated the cops, because the forces of lawlessness came at them with guns — then Bureau of Land Management officials further surrendered by  removing the government markings from their vehicles to prevent violence against them.

From Cliven Bundy defeating the cops to "open carry" movement's menace, the left's timidity has spawned a nightmare.

5 States going for Scientific Illiteracy

http://www.alternet.org/education/5-states-gunning-make-their-kids-scientifically-illiterate-possible-teaching-creationist


 
The British government dealt a strong blow to creationists last week when they clarified and extended their laws banning creationism in the classroom to not only free schools, but to academies as well.
Academies, including free schools, are the UK’s version of the charter schools in the US, and there were concerns that, since academies are often run by religious organizations who taught and endorsed creationism in the classroom, kids who attend them were not being taught actual science.

In the US however, the battle to bring creationism and intelligent design into the classroom is alive and well. Ever since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in which the teaching of evolution was found to be a violation of Tennessee law, banning the teaching of human evolution in any publicly funded school.
The battle finally came to a head in 1987 when the Supreme Court heard Edwards v. Aguillard, in which Don Aguilard took the state of Louisiana to court over a law that required that creationism be taught in public schools.

Money causes weird reactions in people

http://www.alternet.org/economy/7-weird-things-money-does-your-brain?akid=11961.294211.CA0MGv&rd=1&src=newsletter1007321&t=2

Kills empathy,  Fewer ethics,


Thursday, June 26, 2014

Anti - vaxxer students can denied schooling - Public Safety comes first

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/anti-vaxxers-lose-new-york-court-battle

Plaintiffs argue that the vaccination program at issue denies their children the constitutional right to free exercise of religion, but not only has the Supreme Court strongly suggested that religious objectors are not constitutionally exempt from vaccinations, Jacobson v. Commonw. of Mass., 197 U.S. 11, 35-39 (1905), courts in this Eastern District have resolutely found there is no such constitutional exemption.
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/anti-vaxxers-lose-new-york-court-battle#qUvFjTLiKf6Hm5dr.99

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Koch funding of Climate Deniers exposed

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/25/3453053/koch-bjorn-lomborg-lousy-t-shirt/

So Bjorn Lomborg is funded by foundations that are part of the Kochtopus empire of influence. And Lomborg is a big-time pundit who argues for inaction on climate change, who pens pieces like “The Poor Need Cheap Fossil Fuels,” and who asserts “global warming has mostly been a net benefit so far” and will be for decades.

Bear crashes a birthday Party for a 1 year old.

http://juneauempire.com/local/2014-06-25/bear-sweet-tooth-crashes-kids-party#.U6uCGqiT5wk

A 1 year old's birthday party and a bear literally drops in to eat some sweets.

Ice Sheets are past the point of NO RETURN!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229752.600-ice-sheets-may-have-already-passed-point-of-no-return.html#.U6tyOqiT5wk

The finding, along with data from Antarctica, suggests both of Earth's big ice sheets may have already passed a crucial tipping point, condemning them to collapse – either melting, or sliding into the ocean. That will mean sea levels rising by as much as 13 metres, leading to massive coastal flooding. So how fast will the ice collapse, and can we stop it?

Republican Boehner to sue President Obama for accomplishing things without his permission.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/boehner-calls-obama-practice-of-accomplishing-things-unconstitutional.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2889%29

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said today that he plans to sue President Obama for violating the United States Constitution with what Boehner called “his outrageous practice of accomplishing things.”

Bundy's PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL says they don't have to listen to people in authority.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/25/private-attorney-general-tells-bundy-ranch-gathering-that-most-laws-dont-apply-to-them/

Laws don't apply to them.  Crazy idea.

“We gave our power to them – loaned it to them – to do their job, and most of them don’t do their job,” Ball argued. “So the next time they try to order them around, know that they’re just a corporation, they have no authority on you. You have the authority. Why? Because God and you is the original contract. Nobody can come in between that, period.”

Funniest Toilet Commercial I have ever seen.

http://www.eyeopening.info/2014/06/25/the-funniest-toilet-commercial/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-funniest-toilet-commercial&utm_source=Eye+Opening+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0c51016bb5-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fecb8a55b-0c51016bb5-180704649#.U6sBy6iT5wk

Will he call?

2010 Gun Deaths - 31,672 not the 606 the Gun Whack jobs are stating.

There is an email going around that says there were only 606 gun deaths in 2010.  They are manipuating the numbers. The 606 number numbers is being misrepresented. It only includes accidental deaths. Not intentional or otherwise. The actual number is 31,672 in 2010 according to the source this image used.

Unintentional 606


Suicide 19,392

Homicide 11,078

Undetermined 252

Legal intervention/war 344

According to the file the CDC provides.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm

Sun Burst in Alaska - Photo

After a week of clouds, it was so very good to see the sun.

Calif Senate Votes to repeal Citizens United. (Free Speech should not be how much money you can pay.)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/24/1309202/-California-Becomes-Second-State-to-Back-a-Constitutional-Amendment-Overturning-Citizens-United?detail=email

In a 23-11 vote on Monday, the California State Senate passed a resolution calling upon Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution and eliminate the notion that corporate money equals First-Amendment-protected speech.
The resolution, which explicitly calls upon Congress to convene a constitutional convention pursuant to Article V of the Constitution, makes California the second state, along with Vermont, to seek a legislative reversal of 'corporate personhood' enshrined in the Citizens United decision.
The California resolution argues for corporate rights to be narrowly defined, noting that companies cannot vote in elections, and that money should not be treated as a proxy for that right to vote:

Republicans are the Pro Death Party

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/gop-pro-death-party?akid=11954.294211.rv82t-&rd=1&src=newsletter1006456&t=17


Republicans say they're pro-life, but in reality, they're pro-death.
Earlier this month, while no one was watching, Republicans in the House voted to extend a bunch of corporate tax breaks and subsidies, adding up to nearly $75 billion in tax breaks over the next decade.

And, while they scream that the cost of food stamps or unemployment benefits must be "offset" by spending cuts elsewhere, they didn't ask for any offsets or increased taxes at all to pay for the billions to big corporations.

Marijuana helps with epilepsy? Time to find out.

https://mail.google.com/_/scs/mail-static/_/js/k=gmail.main.en.4BTWWbRIyKI.O/m=m_i,t,it/am=_Iw4nPx7f6E4w130SbX__vfukuJnfy_335sAhLATKP-b_T-A60F9UH5s/rt=h/d=1/z=zcms/rs=AItRSTNel9W8FCoPOurR-dEGJqVyJh6Bvw

Will Marijuana help with medical issues?  It is past time to find out.  We are taking medications which can cause serious harm but we have been denied trials for marijuana for helping with diseases.  I hope we can try Pot for medical reasons now.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Jon Stewart on Dick Cheney Iraq Hypocrisy.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/24/1309183/-Jon-Stewart-on-Dick-Cheney-s-hypocrisy?detail=facebook

JOHN HUDDY (6/23/2014): ISIS militants ... trying to take over a hydroelectric dam.
FOX NEWS (6/19/2014): Providing social services like fixing potholes, and investing in electricity.
CLARISSA WARD (6/23/2014): On the streets of Mosul, ISIS militants now direct traffic.

Solar Panels for the Gresham House.

I bought a house in Gresham, OR and was looking at Solar Power so Meals on Wheels could get $100.00.

The numbers worked out and I am getting it installed.  We were looking at 12 panels but they installer looked at it and said he could add 8 more.  We are now going to install 20 solar panels which will take care of about 60% of the energy used in the house.

With the present incentives in Oregon, I am able to do it.

I have been staying at this house, with my daughter and her family, when I am in Gresham.  The actual installation will be in August.

Monday, June 23, 2014

New Rule: Iraq - Bill Maher, so great.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/21/1308582/-Bill-Maher-on-how-we-cannot-change-Iraq?detail=facebook#

And finally, New Rule: Now that Iraq is falling apart again, someone needs to drill it into the American psyche that broken nations are a lot like broken people — you can't fix them.  Look at Afghanistan and the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan.  Look at Denise Richards and the lawless tribal areas of Charlie Sheen.  (audience laughter)
Lately, there's been so many calls for American intervention in Syria, Ukraine, north Africa, now Iraq again.  Maybe America is the one that needs an intervention.  Maybe America needs Dr. Phil to come by and ask us, "How's that nation building workin' for ya?"

US LAST IN HEALTH CARE of Developed Nations.

http://bluenationreview.com/us-last-healthcare-among-wealthy-countries-red-states-try-keep-way/

Red States are working hard to keep in last place in health care too.

When you hear conservative Congressmen shouting from high atop their golden soapboxes that the United States has, “The best health care delivery system in the world” …don’t believe it!
The U.S. has routinely been ranked embarrassingly low in health care performance when compared to to other wealthy nations, despite the fact that the U.S. has the most expensive system in the world. According to a new Mirror, Mirror report by The Commonwealth Fund the U.S.ranks LAST when compared to the 11 countries studied. Those countries were – Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The U.S. also ranked last in 2010, 2007, 2006, 2004.

Republicans are in trouble with MILLENIALS - This One Chart explains

http://bluenationreview.com/chart-of-the-day-the-death-of-the-republican-party-as-we-know-it/

New polling data based on surveys of Millennial Generation voters is out and this slide on the attitudes of specific policies that young people care about spells disaster for our very old friends on the right.  Attitudes by those who are democrats is on the left in the blue bars and attitudes by Republicans is on the right under the “Reps” section.
As you can see pretty much every single policy the Republicans stand for is opposed by young people in both parties. Bummer, guys. Tough break!
Millennial Generation political policies

2014: Gun Craziness is here -

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/nine-signs-dangerous-gun-nut-craziness-2014

1. Women, Not Students, Are The Target Of Most Mass Gun Murder. There have been 74 shootings at schools across the U.S. since the Sandy Hook massacre in December 2012, according to  Everytown For Gun Safety—which, astoundingly, the pro-gun side claims is an inflated figure. As headline-grabbing as school shootings are, the under-reported daily target and toll from gun violence involves women. More American women have been  murdered by their intimate partners using guns since 2001 (6,410) than U.S. troops have been killed in combat (5,315) in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Center for American Progress  reports. Guns are involved in at least 34 percent of all murders of women commited by their partners, an average of five a day, CAP found from crime statistics.
 2. States With The Laxest Gun Laws Have The Most Violence. America has so many guns that not a week goes by without something stupid or deadly occurring. It’s easy to smirk at the Virginia man who  shot his penis while strapping on a holster. It’s more serious as federal airport screeners  report that states with the fewest gun controls see the most people “forgetting” they’re carrying a gun as try to board planes. It gets deadly when a gun owner takes the law into his own hands and sets up an ambush in his home  killing the young intruder—as happened in Montana. Study after study  finds that states with the laxest gun laws have the most gun-related violence—including murder. 
 
9. Gun Control Groups Are Making Progress, But The Road Is Long. Before Sandy Hook, no one would have predicted that a handful of even blue states would pass laws closing the gun sale loophole, requiring lost and stolen guns be reported, and keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. Moreover, few would have predicted that women-centered gun control groups would emerge and forcefully challenge and in some instances break the NRA’s spell over state legislators. Nor would many people have predicted that millions of women would join an online campaign against misogyny and gun-related domestic violence. 

Cheney and Bush took us into Iraq FOR OIL! The truth is coming out.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/iraqi-nightmare-latest-symptom-our-deadly-oil-addiction?page=0%2C2&akid=11945.294211.wdEcyT&rd=1&src=newsletter1005647&t=17

"… had enthusiastically participated in a behind-the-scenes economic campaign inspired by western intelligence agencies against Iraqi interests. The Kuwaities even went so far as to dump oil for less than the agreed upon OPEC price... which undercut the oil revenues essential to cash hungry Baghdad. The evidence shows that President George Bush, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and other Arab leaders secretly cooperated on a number of occasions, beginning August 1988, to deny Saddam Hussein the economic help he demanded for the reconstruction of his nation."
These covert efforts to quietly weaken Iraq's regional clout ended up provoking Saddam into invading Kuwait, prompting the 1991 Gulf War to re-assert OPEC's oil hegemony under western tutelage.


Now Iraqis are paying the price yet again for our ill-conceived imperial hubris, and the US is desperately considering an alliance with arch-enemy Iran to stave off Isis, whose bloody rampage across Iraq threatens to disrupt Iraqi oil production. The conflict has already triggered price spikes that could worsen if Isis expands its hold of key cities.
A new intervention to keep the lid on oil prices is clearly tempting for the US and UK governments, except this would merely strike at the head of the hydra - the symptom - not the root cause. And so far, self-serving wars for oil are precisely what got us here. The rise of Isis – a movement so ruthless even their parent network al-Qaeda disowned them - is blowback from the same brand of oil addicted US-UK covert operations we have run for decades.
If we really wanted to shut down Isis and its ilk for good, we could start by dismantling and disentangling ourselves from the geopolitical and financial infrastructure of oil hegemony that incubates terror. In the current context, bombs promise nothing more than the road to escalation.
In Einstein's words: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."



Sunday, June 22, 2014

From the Ferry from Juneau to Bellingham

Bye Alaska

New Study Ranks 50 States for Gun Sense and Gun Deaths

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/20/1308465/-New-Study-Ranks-50-States-By-Gun-Sense-And-Gun-Violence-Deaths?detail=facebook

This is going to piss off the gun nuts.  Actually talking about Guns and Death and ranking will not go well with the Gun crazies.

States with the Five Highest Gun Death Rates 
(Rank State Household Gun Ownership Gun Death Rate Per 100,000)
1 Louisiana 45.6 percent 18.91
2 Mississippi 54.3 percent 17.80
3 Alaska 60.6 percent 17.41
4 Wyoming 62.8 percent 16.92
5 Montana 61.4 percent 16.74

States with the Five Lowest Gun Death Rates
(Rank State Household Gun Ownership Gun Death Rate Per 100,000)
50 Rhode Island 13.3 percent 3.14
49 Hawaii 9.7 percent 3.56
48 Massachusetts 12.8 percent 3.84
47 New York 18.1 percent 5.11
46 New Jersey 11.3 percent 5.46
For a list of gun death rates in all 50 states, Visit Here.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Stephen Hawking on the Afterlife.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/06/stephen-hawking-on-afterlife.html

I have recently been reading about Stephen Hawking and the more I read and know the more impressed I am.  His questions about religion are quite thought provoking. 

Have Conservatives abandoned Science altogether? Seems that way.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/06/have-conservatives-abandoned-science.html

The recent reboot of the show Cosmos on Fox further demonstrated how partisan the very idea of science and empiricism has become. The show, which features astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson taking over the host role from the original’s Carl Sagan, was aggressive in defending science, curiosity, and following the evidence from people who would rather rely on faith or authority, but it took no partisan positions. Nonetheless, it was immediately understood by Americans both left and right as a “liberal” show, merely for its strong insistence that facts should not be ignored in favor of wishful thinking. 

Even though the show was hosted on the Fox network channel, Fox News, the conservative cable channel, did not hold back in the slightest from attacking Tyson for perceived liberalism. In a shockingly racist segment, host Greg Gutfeld and guest Gavin McInnes dogged relentlessly on Tyson, insinuating that he can’t really be an astrophysicist and making fun of “white liberals” for being enthusiastic about Tyson and his work. It only grew uglier with McInnes claiming that Tyson deserved to be mistreated based on his race when he was young because he “fit the profile” by having “a huge afro.”

New Rules - Bill Maher on Iraq, Iraq is like a bad ex boyfriend

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/21/bill-maher-tells-america-like-bad-ex-boyfriend-iraq-is-never-going-to-change/

Maher is so very good.  He brings in Dr. Phil too.

Handcuffed - Suspect shoots at police with gun hidden in butt cheeks.

http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/06/19/suspect-fires-gun-hidden-in-rectal-area-at-police-while-handcuffed-video/

Very Creative.  This will soon be in a movie I am thinking.

Arizona can RUN OUT OF WATER in 6 years

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arizona-could-be-out-water-6-years-180951814/?no-ist

Global Warming is real.

Arizona is bone dry, desiccated by the worst drought ever seen in the state's 110-year long observational record. The Grand Canyon State has been in drought conditions for a decade, and researchers think the dry spell could hold out for another 20 to 30 years, says the City of Phoenix.


War Historian says: DO NOT GO BACK INTO IRAQ!!

http://www.alternet.org/world/combat-veteran-and-military-historian-tells-bill-moyers-no-way-do-we-go-back-iraq?page=0%2C1

"Invading and occupying countries in the Islamic world is a pretty dumb idea," says Andrew Bacevich. 

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I'd say rarely has a major American newspaper published an op-ed that was so thoroughly shameless. Again, what is the cause? What was the catalyst of the instability that racks Iraq today? The simple answer is the one that Cheney and his daughter don't want to mention: the unnecessary, misguided, and frankly immoral war launched by the United States in 2003. We destabilized Iraq. In many respects, we destabilized the larger region. And misfortune of Barack Obama is that he inherited this catastrophe, created by the previous administration.

Let's look at what US military intervention in Iraq has achieved, in Afghanistan has achieved, in Somalia has achieved, in Lebanon has achieved, in Libya has achieved. I mean, ask ourselves the very simple question: is the region becoming more stable? Is it becoming more democratic? Are we alleviating, reducing the prevalence of anti-Americanism? I mean, if the answer is yes, then let's keep trying. But if the answer to those questions is no, then maybe it's time for us to recognize that this larger military project is failing and is not going to succeed simply by trying harder.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, the events that are unfolding in Iraq at this very moment promote a debate within Washington revolving around the question, what should we do about Iraq? But there is a larger and more important question. And the larger and more important question has to do with the region as a whole. And the actual consequences of US military action over the past 30 years.

Our power is limited. What are the priorities? And there are domestic priorities that are achingly ignored. And yet are arguably far more amenable to solutions than anything in the greater Middle East. So where you want to spend your money? I think we'd be better off spending some of that money in Muncie, Indiana than in Baghdad. 

Friday, June 20, 2014

Bush/Cheney NEOCONS caused the Iraq mess! A smart commentary.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/created-instability-middle.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

It was all to be a kind of war-fighting miracle. The American invaders would be greeted as liberators, the mission quickly accomplished, and “major combat operations” ended in a flash — as George Bush so infamously announced on May 1, 2003, after his Top Gun landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.  No less miraculous was the fact that it would essentially be a freebie.  After all, as undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz pointed out at the time, Iraq “floats on a sea of oil,” which meant that a “liberated” country could cover all “reconstruction” costs without blinking.
The Busheviks entered Iraq with a powerful sense that they were building an American protectorate.  So why wouldn’t it be a snap to carry out their ambitious plans to privatize the Iraqi economy, dismantle the country’s vast public sector (throwing another army of employees out of work), and bring in crony corporations to help run the country and giant oil companies to rev up the energy economy, lagging from years of sanctions and ill-repair?  In the end, Washington’s Iraq would — so they believed — pump enough crude out of one of the greatest fossil fuel reserves on the planet to sink OPEC, leaving American power free to float to ever greater heights on that sea of oil.  As the occupying authority, with a hubris stunning to behold, they issued “orders” that read as if they had been written by officials from some nineteenth-century imperial power.
In short, this was one for the history books. And not a thing — nothing — worked out as planned.  You could almost say that whatever it was they dreamed, the opposite invariably occurred.

Elizabeth Warren on Creating Jobs for the Middle Class - WHAT WORKS? She has answers.

http://aattp.org/elizabeth-warren-on-creating-prosperity-this-isnt-magic-we-actually-know-how-to-do-this-video/

She then pinpoints when the American Dream went wrong, dating our current downward spiral to the Reagan years in the mid-1980′s.
“It changed in the 1980′s when the Republicans came up with a different vision. They said, ‘Eh, that’s not how you build an economy. The way you build an economy is you let those at the very top, the richest and the most powerful, keep more of their money and more of their power, and somehow it’s going to trickle down for everybody else.’”
Alas, as we all know now, that tinkling trickling down never happened.

An Iraqi perspective on the Horror now taking place in their country

http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/20/an-iraqi-perspective-how-americas-destruction-of-iraqi-society-led-to-todays-chaos/

The Bush/Cheney US invasion caused the Sectarian violence.

Sect wasn’t really a part of the national consciousness. I was born in Iraq and I’d never in my life been asked if I was a Sunni or a Shiite. And I didn’t know who among my relatives or neighbors or co-workers or colleagues at school were Sunnis or Shiites, because it wasn’t an issue. It’s not that people were tolerant toward each other — they weren’t aware of sectarian backgrounds. It’s similar to some areas in the US where you don’t necessarily know what Christian sect your friends belong to. You might know, or you might not know.
That was before the US intervention. The US destroyed that Iraqi national identity and replaced it with sectarian and ethnic identities after 2003. I don’t think this is something that many Iraqis argue about, because you can trace the beginning of this sectarian strife that is destroying the country, and it clearly began with the US invasion and occupation.

Dick Cheney should be rotting in jail, not badmouthing President Obama about Iraq.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/dick-cheney-should-be-rotting-prison-cell-not-opining-about-iraq?akid=11937.294211.bumanu&rd=1&src=newsletter1004817&t=22

just consider the fact that Dick Cheney of all people actually has the gall to call someone else out for "taking America down a notch" and "being so wrong about so much at the expense of so many."
You don't need a political science degree to know how ridiculous this is.
The Iraq War was the single biggest foreign policy disaster in recent - or maybe even all - of American history.
It cost the country around $4 trillion dollars, killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent civilians, left 4,500 Americans dead, and turned what was once one of the more developed countries in the Arab World into a slaughterhouse.
Make no mistake about it, Iraq would not be the violent place it is today if the Bush administration hadn't lied its way into a costly, unnecessary, and destructive war.

The Iraq War was the best Al Qaeda propaganda video ever, and whatever Cheney might say about the surge and how successful it was, the truth is that there were no terrorists in Iraq before we invaded.
But Cheney's hypocrisy on Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the reasons why he's probably the worst person ever to listen to for advice on, well, everything.

Gunfail: Shootings of the week: One man shot his penis

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1305406/-Even-Upworthy-Won-t-Believe-Where-This-Georgia-Gunslinger-Accidentally-Shot-Himself-GunFAIL-LXXIII?detail=facebook#

we saw 13 child victims of GunFAIL, ages 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 9, 9, 12, 14, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Eleven people accidentally shot themselves. There were four accidental shootings between pairs of siblings, including one set of 3-year-old twins (plus one between cousins). Three home invasion shootings, plus one judge's chambers

GOP denies Global Warming - even Republican Folks who know Global Warming is real are mocked.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/20/1308306/-Jon-Stewart-on-Senate-GOP-s-continued-denial-of-global-warming?detail=facebook

Jon Stewart skewers Republican Politician climate deniers.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Dad Shot by stray bullet. He was celebrating his new baby.

http://www.newsherald.com/news/crime-public-safety/fatal-shooting-may-have-been-accidental-1.334469?page=0

A new father is dead after what appeared to be a bizarre, accidental shooting Tuesday night.
Steven Justin Ayers, 33, and his wife had gathered family members to celebrate the homecoming of their 3-day-old baby — born on Father’s Day. But the celebration at 2502 Michigan Court ended shortly after 6 p.m. when a stray bullet entered the home from more than 200 feet away, struck Ayers in the back of the head and killed him instantly.

It was an accident.  The baby no longer has a daddy though.  Just another shooting.   NRA says we need more guns though.

Another 24 year old shot - Drinking and checking out a friends gun

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/19/pa-man-accidentally-shot-killed-by-guest-of-honor-at-surprise-birthday-party/

He got shot in the head while checking out a gun.  He died a few days later.  Of course, they were drinking.  Just another shooting.

Right Wingers are crazier and meaner than ever. 5 Issues to prove it

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/5-issues-where-right-wingers-are-crazier-and-meaner-ever?akid=11932.294211.Wu7s7l&rd=1&src=newsletter1004340&t=6

Here are five issues where conservatives have, in recent months and years, taken a giant step backwards from where they had been before.

Iraq is falling apart: Is the US invasion to blame? (DO NOT GO BACK IN!)

http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/18/iraq-is-coming-apart-at-the-seams-heres-our-essential-reader/

At The New Yorker, Dexter Filkins argues that the current wave of extremism in Iraq is “America’s legacy.” He writes: “When the Americans invaded they destroyed the Iraqi state—its military, its bureaucracy, its police force, and most everything else that might hold a country together.”
In 2004, The Atlantic’s James Fallows reported that “the Administration will be condemned for what it did with what was known. The problems the United States has encountered are precisely the ones its own expert agencies warned against.” Naomi Klein reported for Harper’s that the administration’s free-market ideology was the root cause of many of the problems that plagued US reconstruction efforts. In 2007, Nir Rosen wrote in The Washington Post that an “obsession with sects informed the U.S. approach to Iraq from day one of the occupation, but it was not how Iraqis saw themselves — at least, not until very recently. Iraqis were not primarily Sunnis or Shiites; they were Iraqis first, and their sectarian identities did not become politicized until the Americans occupied their country, treating Sunnis as the bad guys and Shiites as the good guys. ” That same year, Raed Jarrar and I said that US officials in Iraq had thwarted a number of plans for peace and reconciliation that had been put forth by parties that opposed the occupation.

Polls dating back to 2004 found that huge majorities of Iraqis saw US forces as “occupiers” rather than “liberators.”

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Republicans PISSED: They want Obama to settle the Centuries old conflict between Sunnis and Shiite NOW!! Not Tomorrow!

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/pressure-on-obama-to-quickly-resolve-centuries-old-sunni-shiite-conflict.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2885%29

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Congressional leaders left the White House on Wednesday “deeply frustrated” that President Obama had not found a swift resolution to the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites that began in the seventh century A.D.

Boy, The Republicans are pissed!  

Speaker Boehner said:  “This struggle between Sunnis and Shiites has been going on for almost fifteen hundred years,” he said. “That means President Obama has had ample time to fix it.”

Why are the Iraq War Baffoons still main speakers on SUNDAY TALK SHOWS?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1307881/-Rachel-Maddow-slams-media-use-of-John-McCain-warmongers?detail=facebook

John McCain and his idiot Right Wing friends were wrong on going into Iraq an they are now the lead voices on Iraq?  WHY - THEY ARE STILL WRONG!!! 
Rachel Maddow pulls up old video on some Right Wing wrong fellows and showing how they changed.

Mendenhall Glacier spring 2014


Glenn Beck nows says WE SHOULD NOT HAVE GONE IN TO IRAQ. The Liberals were right.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1307783/-Glenn-Beck-Admits-Liberals-You-Were-Right-On-Iraq?detail=facebook

Beck also says we SHOULD NOT send in anymore war machines or soldiers back into Iraq.  After making his millions on being pro-war, he is siding with liberals.  FINALLY - The Truth is coming to the surface.

Pat Robertson even said GW lied us into Iraq and it was a mistake. 

Jon Stewart: Texas Republicans and their PRAY THE GAY AWAY get Jon's attention.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/jon-stewart-texas-gop_n_5506218.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013&ir=Politics

Stewart is great as usual.  Poor Rick Perry.

Dick Cheney: 4489 American's died in Iraq because of his lies, BUT HE COMPLAINS ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S Decisions.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/18/1307814/-It-was-only-a-matter-of-time-Dick-Cheney-criticizes-Obama-on-Iraq?detail=facebook#

Dick Cheney:  Shut Up and Sit Down.  You were wrong before and got us into this mess, let our President work our way out of this fiasco you, GW and Rumsfeld created.

The war in Iraq cost 4,489 American servicemen their lives. More than 32,000 were wounded. More than 100,000 Iraqi citizens died. Remember those numbers.

New Info: Air Pollution may cause Autism and/or schizophrenia

http://www.alternet.org/environment/study-links-air-pollution-schizophrenia-and-autism?akid=11928.294211.oWJKC5&rd=1&src=newsletter1003923&t=7

A study recently  released by University of Rochester researchers indicates that air pollution exposure may have a negative impact on mental health and could possibly play a role in schizophrenia and autism. The university's study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The researchers found that air pollution causes inflammation in the brains of newly born mice, which damages the development of “white matter.”  The same parts of the brain are known to be affected in humans exhibiting autism and schizophrenia traits.  

My child almost drowned with me watching. Secondary Drowning is serious

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lindsay-kujawa/what-every-parent-needs-to-know-about-secondary-drowning_b_5500471.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Secondary drowning can be difficult to recognize since the victim appears to be OK right after a near-drowning event. Your child may breathe in a very small amount of water and seem like he or she has successfully expelled it through coughing. In secondary drowning, the water may fill up some of the oxygen-rich pores of the lungs, which reduces the ability to oxygenate blood as it passes through. The heart does not slow down significantly with this process, but rather very, very slowly, so your child will still be able to talk and walk. The only symptoms may be a sudden change in personality or level of awareness (just like Ronin experienced) as the blood oxygen level drops over time.
So if your child has experienced a near-drowning experience, watch for a sudden change of personality or energy level. You can save your child's life if you act quickly and get them medical treatment immediately.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Jon Stewart on Republicans and their pushing for war in Iraq

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/17/1307579/-Jon-Stewart-goes-after-Iraq-nbsp-War-nbsp-cheerleaders?detail=facebook

But let's start tonight with our continuing coverage of Mess O'Potamia.  As you know, we went into Iraq for one reason, and for one reason only.

JOHN BOEHNER (6/8/2006): That's what this fight is about in this part of the world, planting the seeds of democracy. CONDOLEEZZA RICE (12/21/2006): ... that seed of democracy in Iraq.
It wasn't about weapons of mass destruction or 9/11 — once those reasons were found to be unsupported by reality.  It was about America!  It was about what happens when one country loves another country very much.  And that country then deposits his democracy seed (audience laughter) — typically laser-guided (audience laughter) — into another country's, let's say, fertile crescent.  (audience laughter and applause) By the way, if you think the seeding of democracy metaphor is slightly more tortured than many of the people we brought that democracy to, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Benghazi Suspect Arrested: GOP Praise Obama!! No, Not even close.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/17/1307655/-With-suspect-under-arrest-GOP-finally-decides-to-praise-Obama-on-Benghazi-Ha-ha-just-kidding?detail=facebook

For two years they've been attacking Obama for not capturing anyone responsible for Benghazi, but now that Khatallah has been captured in a flawless operation, they've decided its time to launch a new attack. Their collective response should make it clear to anyone who had any doubts that the GOP's Benghazi attacks aren't really about Benghazi: They're about the GOP's opposition to Obama, no matter what he does.


Suspect in Benghazi Attack CAPTURED: FOX upset.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/06/suspect-in-benghazi-attack-captured-or.html

Suspect in Benghazi attack captured. Or as Fox News puts it, "Obama captures Benghazi suspect in order to distract from destabilization of Iraq, which was to distract from the VA crisis, which of course was meant to distract from Benghazi.

Open Carry is getting out of hand and scaring many.,

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/17/1307546/-Open-Carry-incidents-at-my-place-of-employment-The-cops-got-involved?detail=email

Wednesday, we had a guy come in, not quite one of our regulars, but more than an occasional guest. He had a 1911 strapped to his hip, and was informed we do not allow open carry on premises. He unloaded the weapon, locked the slide, and I checked it into our safe. I explained it was a courtesy, since he was riding a bicycle, and that, in the future, he would simply need to leave it at home. No problem. He had lunch, and a beer, and left.
He came back two hours later, and asked if I could check the gun again, because a friend was going to come pick him up, rather than having to ride the 26 miles home. Same deal, unloaded, slide locked, into the safe. Here's where things got stupid.

Dick Cheney: My Thoughts and Prayers are with the Iraq Oil Wells.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/dick-cheney-my-thoughts-and-prayers-are-with-the-iraqi-oil-wells.html?utm_source=tny&utm_campaign=generalsocial&utm_medium=twitter&mbid=social_twitter

JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING (The Borowitz Report)—Former Vice-President Dick Cheney broke his silence about the crisis in Iraq on Tuesday, telling reporters, “My thoughts and prayers are with the Iraqi oil wells.”

Monday, June 16, 2014

Glacier Photos: Before and After

http://www.snowaddiction.org/2014/06/photos-from-alaska-then-and-now-this-is-a-get-ready-to-be-shocked-when-you-see-what-it-looks-like-now.html

I have seen the Mendenhall Glacier crumble the last 5 years.  There are some shocking photos here.

ANTI War Musical Medley - Since we are talking about going back to IRAQ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oryAN_e9Lso

I have a young relative who has gone into the military as a person who takes apart bombs.  If we had a compelling reason for going into Iraq in the first place, it might have made a difference.

Go Back IN To Iraq? Read This. Why did we go in the first time? A MUST READ BEFORE WE GO BACK IN!

http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/06/absolutely-nothing.html

But hey, never mind that, Saddam Hussein was threatening us anyway, wasn’t he? Sure he was, in fact, that’s the first time you heard the phrase “Weapons of Mass Destruction” isn’t it? The bastard had nukes and germs and war gas and he was just itching to use them on America, wasn’t he?  Heck we even had pictures of “mobile weapons labs” to prove it, isn’t that what Colin Powell told the UN and the world? And by damn Saddam had been buying Yellow Cake uranium from Niger, right? Colin Powell wouldn’t lie to us, would he? He was a hero, a general, he wouldn’t send his comrades into war on a lie now would he?
Except all that turned out to be bullshit too,

Today, John McCain and Mitt Romney and the rest of the conservative war machine are railing against the President.
McCain stirred from the yellow fog of his bamboo cage and proclaimed in his best Old Man Yelling At Clouds voice, “We won Iraq! Obama lost it!”
Really Johnny Walnuts? Tell me, what did we win? And what have we lost? Please be specific, because I’d really like to know.
We no more “won” Iraq than McCain’s own father “won” Vietnam.
McCain claims he “predicted” the sectarian violence now tearing Iraq apart. Really? Where the hell was clairvoyant John McCain back in 2003 when he voted along with the rest of them to send us into war? And later, where was his great predictive ability when Iraq began tearing itself apart? I guess he was at a Dixie Chicks concert, he must have been out in the lobby ordering a plate of Freedom Fries when his pal George W. Bush let Iraq disintegrate into civil war.
And so here we are.
The same old motley cast of characters, the warhawks and the chickenhawks and the billionaires and the simple-minded saber-rattlers and the same old hate-filled pundits, they just can’t wait to jump back into Iraq.
Mitt Romney, John McCain, one who never served and one who damned well ought to know better, men who both wanted to be President of the United States and who both lost to Barack Obama, they just can’t wait to send other people’s kids back into the meat grinder.
Here’s my question.
Why?

What’s the goal? What’s the objective? Is it to end terrorism? Is it to enforce peace at the muzzle of a gun? Is it it to make defense contractors rich? Is it for jobs? Or is it for magic flying bunnies who shoot rainbows and cheap gasoline out of their little assholes to the sound of Yankee Doodle Dandy?
Or, or, is it just because you hate Barack Obama?
That’s it, isn’t it?
It is.
You sons of bitches one and all, you simpering capering madmen, this time at least have the courage to face the cameras, to look into America’s eyes, and tell them that their sons and daughters will be dying because you John McCain, because you Mitt Romney, because you Dick Cheney, because you Donald Rumsfeld, because you George W. Bush you lying bastard, because you conservatives hate Barack Obama and for no other reason. Go on, tell us, go on. Wave your little flags and beat your fleshy chests, roll out the marching bands and tell us just how many more American soldiers should die. Go on, put a number on it. Ten? A hundred? Fifty four thousand? How many of us have to die? How many more bodies will it take to satiate your mindless hunger for blood and revenge? How many more American lives are worth your insane hatred of the president? How many? How much further into debt should we drive our nation, another trillion dollars? Two? Ten? A hundred? Put a price on it you insane sons of bitches, go on, give me a number, write me a check. Tell me how much you’re willing to pay, show me the goddamned money. How many more years? How many? One? Five? Another decade? Fifty? What is it? Don’t wave your hands and make some vague prognostication, give me a number, how many lives, how much money, how many years? You look us in the eye and you fucking tell us.
Sure, let’s go back to Iraq.
Oh, yes, let us do that.
I’ll dig out my uniform and strap on my pistol and gird up my sword and ride into battle yet again.
Just so long as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and every single one of those powdered, Botoxed talking heads at Fox News are in the vanguard. That’s right, you cowards, you put on a uniform and you lead the charge this time around. The Koch brothers and Mitt Romney can pay for it, every goddamned penny, we’ll bleed them until they’re dry and then we’ll pull the gold fillings from their teeth to pay for it right along with the rest of their Wall Street cronies. You fuckers got rich off the last one, you can damned well pay for this one. And when you run out of money, we’ll take your blood, fair’s fair.

Shipping Container Homes

http://www.eyeopening.info/2014/06/15/shipping-container-costs-2000-15-people-beyond-epic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shipping-container-costs-2000-15-people-beyond-epic&utm_source=Eye+Opening+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dfa0c4ae5f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fecb8a55b-dfa0c4ae5f-180704649#.U57ESKiT5wk

Shipping containers made into homes.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

MONSANTO is going into Schools of 12 Year olds.

http://www.nationofchange.org/monsanto-visits-local-school-47-minute-propaganda-presentation-1402843006

As if the mis-education of our youth wasn’t already a huge issue, guess what your tax dollars are now paying for? Monsanto is visiting local schools to tell twelve year olds all about the ‘good’ they are doing in the world as an ‘agricultural leader.’

Jihadi Rifle Association (Kind of like the NRA)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/13/1306344/-Cartoon-Jihadi-Rifle-Association

This is great - think about it.

Jon Stewart on the Oregon School Shooting.

http://egbertowillies.com/2014/06/14/jon-stewart-traditional-media/

Jon Stewart in the clip above shows the lack of proportionality by a traditional media gone awry. They hyperventilated about the Eric Cantor loss as if it would mark some epic change in American life. Yet they shrugged off the shooting at the high school. While they covered it to some extent, the coverage was nowhere near the gravity of the situation.
School shootings and mass shootings in America are on the rise. The media treats each of these shootings as spectators to a rating boost. Jon Stewart shows a media out of step with reality in graphic terms.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

NRA Silent on OR HS Schooting and the Santa Barbara Shooting as well - WHY?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/school-shooter-portland-ore-ar-15-report-article-1.1825533

The NRA set the policy which got us to shootings at schools almost weekly - Why the silence now?
Wayne LaPierre should be proud of his success and millions he has made pushing more and more guns.

Mendenhall Glacier


Gun Lobby - Redefining School Shooting to Not Include a lot of dead students

http://www.alternet.org/gun-lobbys-new-tactic-redefining-school-shootings-so-they-dont-count?akid=11917.294211.itcYZ3&rd=1&src=newsletter1002736&t=21

Johnson takes it upon himself to debunk the claim, made by the gun reform group  Everytown for Gun Safety, backed by Michael Bloomberg, that  there have been 74 school shootings since Adam Lanza killed 20 children, six adults and himself at Sandy Hook elementary School 18 months ago. In fact, Johnson concludes,  there have only been seven. How does he manage this feat of mathematical magic? Simple: by narrowing the definition of “school shooting” so far that almost none of them count. 


Friday, June 13, 2014

McCain livid about Iraq falling apart WHEN THAT WAR SHOULD NEVER HAD BEEN STARTED and McCain voted for.

http://ringoffireradio.com/2014/06/john-mccain-livid-over-iraqi-turmoil-he-helped-create/

Following Sen. John McCain's tirade this Thursday, where he blamed the Obama administration for the deteriorating situation in Iraq, and demanded that Obama’s entire national security team resign, The Young Turks Cenk Uygur gave him the treatment he deserved.

Bill Maher on Eric Cantor losing his seat.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/14/bill-maher-eric-cantor-was-taken-down-by-voters-afraid-of-obama-and-his-negro-army/

Richard Clarke, who served as national coordinator for U.S. security, infrastructure protection, and counter-terrorism during Bill Clinton’s administration, compared Cantor’s upset loss to Tea Party activist Dave Brat to the story of Frankenstein’s monster.
“In the movie, Dr. Frankenstein creates the monster, and it kills him,” Clarke said. “Eric Cantor helped create the Tea Party. And it killed him.”

DEFECTIVE GUNS: The Government is NOT ALLOWED to RECALL Defective Guns!! Crazy but true.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/13/1306868/-Did-you-know-that-the-government-can-t-order-recall-of-guns?detail=facebook

Cars and most other unsafe products can be recalled but not guns.  THE NRA AT WORK.

According to Dallas attorney Jeffrey Hightower, who has tried several lawsuits against Remington related to the 700, guns hold a special place in American law.  That special place is critical to gun-rights advocates, who claim that giving the government power to recall guns would amount to an infringement on the Second Amendment.  

I don't know of any other major industry that is essentially allowed to set its own safety regulations.  We would never stand for, say, the automobile industry being allowed to police itself.  Why should guns be any different?  

5 Ways to stop Mass Shootings in the USA

http://www.nationofchange.org/five-ways-stop-mass-shootings-america-1402668914

Number 1 requires funding.  Schools have been cut back so much that they cannot provide the help needed for kids in need.

Will we prevent every mass shooting from happening in the future? No. Is it reasonable to knock on the doors of gun owners and demand they turn their weapons over to the government? Of course not. But with some simple reforms addressing our culture of violence, we can significantly reduce the occurrence of mass 


900% increase in pay for CEO's but 2% wage increase for workers: 8 REASONS for the inequality.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/8-reasons-some-ceos-make-331-times-much-their-employees?akid=11909.294211.Dzczto&rd=1&src=newsletter1002388&t=2

At this point, massive income inequality is not new, we all know about it. Yet there are still conservative myths floating around about why it is and what we can do. Conservatives say the poor are poor because of their own choices, but recent evidence shows that “social mobility” – the economic opportunity ladder – has largely disappeared. America’s rich only get richer and the poor don’t have much chance to do anything about it.

The truth is, there are so many ways the system is rigged against regular, working people. Here are just a few of the reasons the average CEO has a massive paycheck while many ordinary Americans languish economically. 

NRA appeased by CNN - CNN cuts the 74 shootings to 15. Kids being shot - not a big deal, evidentally.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/13/cnn-cuts-school-shootings-since-newtown-from-74-to-15-to-appease-gun-advocates/

The Power of the Gun Nuts is Showing.  Killing kids - explained away by CNN - So sad.

The news network CNN reportedly bowed to pressure from gun advocates when it redefined what constitutes a “school shooting” and lowered its estimate of the number of attacks since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut from 74 to 15.

The Science Of Global Warming Explained

http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/12/six-things-michael-mann-wants-you-to-know-about-the-science-of-global-warming/

Too often we allow the forces of anti-science, the forces of denialism, or contrarianism, to somehow frame their position as one of skepticism. But denying mainstream, well-established science based on arguments that don’t stand up scrutiny, that’s not skepticism. That’s pseudo-skepticism.
Real scientists embrace skepticism because that’s what moves science forward. That’s the self-correcting machinery, to use the language of Carl Sagan, which keeps science on this inexorable course toward a better understanding of the way the world works. If your ideas are wrong, if your theories are wrong, if they don’t hold up, if the data don’t support them, if other studies don’t come to the same conclusion, then science moves on, and it searches for a better answer. Scientists are always trying to find holes in each other’s proposed ideas, or in their own proposed ideas.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

A MOM TO CNN - My Son died by Guns on the way to school - You say it does not count. WRONG.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annette-holt/cnn-school-shooting-stats_b_5489805.html

This mom says her dead son mattered and should be factored into the killings happening at school because it was to or from school

Students Die daily from gun shots and this mom misses her dead son dearly.  He mattered.

2 Good Guys with Guns got mad and shot each other - Both Died

http://aattp.org/two-proud-gun-nuts-second-amendment-death-road-rage-incident/

Will we ever learn?  With the NRA in charge - probably not.

Why does the Right Wing embrace and encourage Stupidity?

http://www.alternet.org/belief/why-does-right-embrace-ignorance-virtue?akid=11907.294211.1gq1vG&rd=1&src=newsletter1001980&t=7

 
 Spouting off about stuff you know nothing about is traditionally considered unwise. But as the Republican war on science intensifies, ignorance has started to become not only less of a handicap, but a point of pride. In the face of expertise and facts, being belligerently ignorant—and offended that anyone dare suggest ignorance is less desirable than knowledge—has become the go-to position for many conservative politicians and pundits. Sadly, it’s a strategy that’s working

VA Scandal: Jon Stewart looks at the outdated scheduling system

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/11/1306084/-Jon-Stewart-looks-at-VA-s-outdated-nbsp-technology?detail=facebook

We know about the VA backlog, and how President Obama promised to fix it back there in whaddaya call it there, '08. And how before that, George Bush had promised to fix it, and before that, well, I guess it's been summed up by Harry S. Truman. Harry S. Truman, who said in 1945 — this is true — five weeks after he took over for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had died of a brain hemorrhage when he tried to wrap his mind around the VA. FDR. Polio? No problem. Depression? No problem. Hitler, Tojo?  No problem.  VA?  (brain explodes)

Dang: I FORGOT I was carrying an INSTANT DEATH Machine, GunFail

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/12/1303892/-Whoops-I-plum-forgot-I-was-carrying-a-hand-held-instant-death-machine-892-times-GunFAIL-LXXII?detail=facebook

LOTS more of our fellow travelers are packing for the airport, so to speak. So far this year (as of the end of last week), the Transportation Security Administration has found 892 guns in passengers’ carry-on bags at security checkpoints. That’s a 19 percent increase from the comparable period of last year, when the total was 750 guns.
The 2013 gun-tote tally was a record, at 1,813 firearms found, incidentally. As this year’s gun haul keeps rolling along, a one-day record was set just last Wednesday, when screeners found 18 guns, which beat the previous one-day record of 13 guns on May 20, 2013. About 80 percent of all guns found are loaded.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Good Guy with a Gun is NOT WORKING!

http://gawker.com/its-really-hard-to-be-a-good-guy-with-a-gun-1588660306

At a time when the nature of our mass-shooting problem urges more circumspection, more responsibility on the part of gun owners, the law has barreled in the other direction: Concealed carry is easier than ever, in more places than ever; open carry is supplanting it in many states. My worries about carrying in courthouses and arenas seems quaint as states expand carry laws to cover virtually every space, even schools. (As a university instructor, I could only imagine the reaction from my students were I to strain to erase a note on a whiteboard and let a glimpse of my .357 pop up beneath my shirt.)
Florida's required concealed-carry course can now be taken in minutes at a gun show, revolving-door style. I doubt they even bother with that black-man-with-the-tire-iron scenario nowadays, since stand your ground has effectively taken away a gun owner's duty to retreat, to seek any way out of a nasty situation before turning it into a shootout. A recent expansion of the law even makes it legal to brandish your gun or pinch off a warning shot, which would have been unthinkable in the now-halcyon days of concealed carry's infancy.

Alaska: Repeal the 2 Billion Dollar Oil Company Tax Break in August.

http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2014/06/02/repeal-sb-21-and-stand-up-for-alaska/

Shanon Moore has a great comment about repealing the tax give away which the Oil Companies (and Republicans) insist upon.  Repeal SB 21 in August.

HS Shooter was a YOU CAN'T TAKE MY GUN nut! His brother was a former soldier.

http://heavy.com/news/2014/06/jared-michael-padgett-reynolds-high-school-shooter-gunman-family-motive/

His Facebook Likes Include Gun & Body Armor Companies & an Anti-Obama Group

School Shooting - The day after. The information is coming out.

https://news.yahoo.com/police-shooter-oregon-school-had-assault-rifle-183042092.html

TROUTDALE, Ore. (AP) — A 15-year-old gunman who killed a student at an Oregon high school had an assault rifle, handgun and several magazines of ammunition hidden in a guitar case and duffel bag when he rode a school bus to the campus, police said Wednesday.
The attacker, Jared Michael Padgett, a freshman at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, entered a boys locker room on Tuesday at a gymnasium, where he "murdered a fellow student," police Chief Scott Anderson said.
He also wounded a teacher who managed to make his way to an office and alert officials,

TeaParty beats Cantor. Republicans: The honeymoon and cooperation with President Obama is over

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/morning-after-tea-party-win-house-gop-proposes-end-to-social-security-return-to-child-labor.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2881%29

When asked about future relations between House Republicans and President Obama, Boehner did not mince words. “If the President thinks he’s going to get the kind of cooperation and flexibility he’s gotten out of us for the past six years, he’s kidding himself,” he said. “The honeymoon is over.”

14 Year old Goofball freshman shot and killed yesterday at Reynold's High School: RIP

http://www.news.com.au/world/tributes-for-14yearold-student-emilio-hoffman-killed-in-reynolds-high-school-shooting/story-fndir2ev-1226951320074

victim was identified as freshman Hoffman, who was “loved by all,” said police Chief Scott Anderson. Hoffman was found in the boys’ locker room.
Savannah Venegas, 16, a former girlfriend of Hoffman’s described him as“a good kid” and“down-to-earth guy.”
“He was very caring, he loved to joke around,” said Ms Venegas.

Shot at school...Hoffman had no enemies and was a random victim, his former girlfriend said.

Thank you President Obama for these words:
"No developed nation on earth would put up with mass shootings that happen now once a week and disappear from the news within a day, Mr Obama said — no nation except America. " 


Koch Brothers: Everything You Wanted to Know - 2 new books expose their political machine

http://news.yahoo.com/koch-brothers-books-220502018.html

Beyond the confines of libertarian organizations, sailboat racing clubs, Manhattan socialite circles and the borders of Kansas, the words “Koch brothers” didn’t mean much to most Americans before 2010. That was when the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer revealed to a broad audience how two of the four brothers — Charles and David Koch — were building a multimillion-dollar shadow campaign against President Barack Obama’s new administration.
Mayer’s piece, and the subsequent tsunami of Koch coverage that followed, have thrust Charles and David Koch into the mainstream political spotlight, turning them from obscure, private businessmen into poster children for a new era of big money politics.
Through their series of closed-door seminars, in which an elite group of wealthy conservatives and libertarians have gathered twice a year since 2003 to raise money for right-wing causes, the Kochs have engineered a fundraising goliath that spent $400 million against Democrats in the 2012 election alone.

While Vogel does a fine job showcasing how both the left and the right have benefited from the new system, no one, it appears, has gamed it better than the Kochs and their network of donors.
“The Koch operation,” Vogel writes, “was far more sophisticated than the actual Republican Party. It was also more secretive, though, and tracing its ever-shifting contours was an ongoing challenge for me and my colleagues in the press corps.”

Bullet Proof Blankets for Schools: The newest answer to the shooting up of children in schools

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/06/oklahoma-company-is-now-offering.html

I wonder if the company donates money to the NRA.  They have a real money maker here, made possible by lots of guns in the hands of whichever pissed off person decides to go out killing.

The Ultimate Guide to Anti-Picketty Right Wing Noise Makers

http://www.alternet.org/economy/ultimate-guide-shutting-down-conservative-anti-piketty-hysteria?page=0%2C3&akid=11905.294211.kUj53W&rd=1&src=newsletter1001435&t=15


 
 
Thomas Piketty’s wildly popular new book, “ Capital in the 21st Century,” has been subject to more think pieces than the final episode of “Breaking Bad.” Progressives are celebrating the book — and its unexpected popularity — as an important turning point in the fight against global wealth inequality. This, of course, means that conservatives have gone completely ball

74 School Shootings Since Sandy Hook

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/06/10/tuesdays-shooting-oregon-74th-school-shooting-america-sandy-hook.html

Another day, another school shooting in America. On Tuesday morning, news hit that a gunman entered a school in Troutdale, OR, a suburb of Portland, and opened fire, killing one student. The gunman was also found dead, per Troutdale police. Information is still pending on the identity of the shooter and whether or not he was killed in a shootout with police. This incident marks the 74th school shooting that has occurred since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. On December 14th, 2012, Adam Lanza murdered 26 people at the school, after having killed his mother earlier, before taking his own life.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Latest Information on the Reynold's School Shooting. (Oregon)

http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-high-school-shooting-163529501.html

THIS IS SCHOOL SHOOTING NUMBER 44 SINCE SANDY HOOK!!!

More and More guns is making it WORSE AND WORSE!  Will we ever learn??

One teacher grazed, One Student killed, The Shooter Shot.  Someone said they heard 6 bullets fired.

I am 4 miles from the shooting and my grandkids go to elementary school 4 miles away.  This is scary folks.  Background Checks are the least we could do.

Reynold's High School shooting update, update 2

http://heavy.com/news/2014/06/reynolds-high-school-shooting-troutdale-oregon/

There are injuries.  At least: A teacher and two students were shot.  (Not a lot of info)

It was a semi-automatic weapon.

We need background checks whenever guns are sold or traded.

JUST GOT A TEXT:  Teachers shot, no students,  a family friend teaches there,  Life FLIGHT is at the scene, no info on how serious the injuries  3 Shooters possibly,

One Student dead and the shooter is dead.  Kids are being picked up by adults about 2 miles from the school.  Not a lot of information so far.

Active Shooter in Reynolds High School by Portland, OR

I am in Gresham, OR and just 4 miles away, there is an active shooting taking place.

The WE NEED MORE GUNS crap needs to stop.  Background checks for everyone - NOW!  Too many crazies have guns.  I was talking to a crazy on the ferry from Alaska.  He has lots of guns and he has a very short fuse. 

The shootings of innocents is only going to increase unless we do something now.

Why FOX NEWS is Total Garbage

http://www.forwardprogressives.com/why-fox-news-is-total-garbage/

But the main difference between MSNBC and Fox News isn’t their bias—like I said, they’re both biased.  The difference is where MSNBC panders news towards liberals, Fox News will simply make stuff up to create a story.  Not that MSNBC hasn’t pushed this line before as well, but this is almost a weekly occurrence on Fox.
A few studies have been done looking at the news channel people watch most, and the amount of factual information these individuals actually knew.   In these studies Fox News viewers are almost always deemed the “most misinformed” of the respondents polled.  Not only are they the most misinformed viewers, they were even more misinformed than those who responded that they don’t watch any news at all.
- See more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/why-fox-news-is-total-garbage/#sthash.QOopWpfT.dpuf
FOX just makes stuff up and the studies are showing that those who watch FOX are the most misinformed people of anyone who watches the news.  Interesting article.

But the main difference between MSNBC and Fox News isn’t their bias—like I said, they’re both biased.  The difference is where MSNBC panders news towards liberals, Fox News will simply make stuff up to create a story.  Not that MSNBC hasn’t pushed this line before as well, but this is almost a weekly occurrence on Fox.
A few studies have been done looking at the news channel people watch most, and the amount of factual information these individuals actually knew.   In these studies Fox News viewers are almost always deemed the “most misinformed” of the respondents polled.  Not only are they the most misinformed viewers, they were even more misinformed than those who responded that they don’t watch any news at all.
- See more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/why-fox-news-is-total-garbage/#sthash.QOopWpfT.dpufFOX


But the main difference between MSNBC and Fox News isn’t their bias—like I said, they’re both biased.  The difference is where MSNBC panders news towards liberals, Fox News will simply make stuff up to create a story.  Not that MSNBC hasn’t pushed this line before as well, but this is almost a weekly occurrence on Fox.
A few studies have been done looking at the news channel people watch most, and the amount of factual information these individuals actually knew.   In these studies Fox News viewers are almost always deemed the “most misinformed” of the respondents polled.  Not only are they the most misinformed viewers, they were even more misinformed than those who responded that they don’t watch any news at all.
- See more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/why-fox-news-is-total-garbage/#sthash.QOopWpfT.dpuf


But the main difference between MSNBC and Fox News isn’t their bias—like I said, they’re both biased.  The difference is where MSNBC panders news towards liberals, Fox News will simply make stuff up to create a story.  Not that MSNBC hasn’t pushed this line before as well, but this is almost a weekly occurrence on Fox.
A few studies have been done looking at the news channel people watch most, and the amount of factual information these individuals actually knew.   In these studies Fox News viewers are almost always deemed the “most misinformed” of the respondents polled.  Not only are they the most misinformed viewers, they were even more misinformed than those who responded that they don’t watch any news at all.
- See more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/why-fox-news-is-total-garbage/#sthash.QOopWpfT.dpuf