2025 To-Do List
Gotta like this guy’s style. Not only is he on the right side of the issues, but he hasn’t given up.
Tagged with: save democracy
Trump’s Supporters Don’t Care If He Lies
From a reader: (Below) is the type of crap (Trump) pulls and they actually believe him. We’ve learned that the person involved in the tragedy in New Orleans was a U.S citizen radicalized by ISIS.
Does this not infuriate you? Trump doesn’t give a damn about us, he’s intentionally misleading the country and using people’s pain for his own political gain.
Yes, it’s infuriating, but remember that a) he is a professional conman, and b) he has tens of millions of supporters who are desperate to believe whatever he says, who have exactly zero interest in fact-checking his statements.
Tagged with: Trump's Supporters Don't Care If He Lies
Love this bumper sticker.
Tagged with: Trump an embarrassment
Observation on Today’s America
The reader who sent the meme here nailed it.
The last half century, in particular the last decade, has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of Americans who live humanitarian lives of kindness, compassion, and intelligence.
A good example of this was the 2024 election, where the top issues were inflation (which was running at about 3%), the crime rate (which was falling), and crimes committed by illegal immigrants (which are far rarer per capita than those committed by U.S. citizens). Nowhere near the top was mitigating climate change, which actually is causing more severe storms, floods, wildfires, and droughts.
Tagged with: mitigating climate change
Happiness and Environmental Sustainability
This week’s “TED Radio Hour” on National Public Radio is called “Paradise Lost–and Found,” and, as the title suggests, it’s about the things in our lives that make us happy.
Below is a talk given by Ramón Méndez Galain who explains how his homeland, Uruguay, runs on 98% renewable energy. What makes this relevant to the theme is his discourse on how happy he is to be a part of a movement that is preventing the ruination of our planet’s capacity to support life. It’s truly touching.
Political Humor
Congrats to the author of the cartoon, for this clever adaptation of a scene from the film Forest Gump.
Most people don’t believe in the antichrist, but even progressive atheists acknowledge that Trump has done a great deal of damage to the world as a whole, and to the United States and its people in particular. So, if anyone’s going to be called the antichrist, it may as well be he.
Plato on Education
It appears that Plato would have taken a rather dim view of what we’re doing here in the United States.
There is no doubt that American education is in decline, but there is a lively debate as to why that is. Some social critics, e.g., the late George Carlin, say that it’s a deliberate attempt to make sure that the middle-class, while capable of working in our factories and grocery stores, are incapable of understanding how badly they’ve gotten screwed by the wealthy.
Another theory is that it all is simply the result of the neoliberalism that came along about 1980, where the entire public sector–any aspect of government that is designed to help the common American–is being methodically crushed to death.
Does the Republican Party Really Want to Rid Itself of “Contemptible Fools?”
Is this a good idea for Republicans? Insofar as they won the 2024 by a slim 1.5%, should they jettison the MAGA base (assuming that there is a practical way to accomplish that)?
Imagine a Republican party that had found a way to separate itself from evangelical Christians, white nationalists, the anti-woke, supporters of the insurrection, the uneducated, the supporters of assault weapons, anti-environmentalists, and so forth.
Whom does that leave? Only the amoral/immoral rich people, and sorry, that’s not going to get the job done.
Neil deGrasse Tyson on Jimmy Carter
From Neil deGrasse Tyson: Born a year after Edwin Hubble discovered that our Milky Way galaxy was just one of countless other galaxies that populate the universe. Smart, kind, and gentle. Not sure if they make ’em like that anymore. RIP Jimmy Carter (1924 – 2024).I would say that they do make ’em like that, but that they are completely unelectable as U.S. presidents.
Tagged with: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Jimmy Carter
The Future of Humanity
“Bifurcate” means to split into two branches, so “bifurcate in two directions” redundant.
Of course, that is a trivial criticism.
Here’s a more important one:
Musk wants us to believe that migrating the human race into space, with all its greed, hatred, and stupidity will somehow prevent extinction.
That’s ridiculous. Our Earth is a paradise of wonderful resources, with lots of room, fresh air and water, and millions of species of plants and animals.
If we can’t succeed here, is it plausible that we’ll do as well on some barren rock in space?
Tagged with: The Future of Humanity
