Saturday Open Thread [3.23.2013]
So how are your NCAA brackets doing? I was reminded by President Jed Bartlett via Twitter that there is no Federal Disaster assistance for your brackets. Oh well.
Sir Richard Branson asked President Obama for a splif at a White House Dinner this week. That’s a marijuana cigarette for those of you without the lingo. I’d love to have better detail of the President’s reaction to this joking request. But Branson makes this point at a forum later on:
“We [the Global Commission on Drug Policy] spent 18 months looking at the global war on drugs, and it was absolutely apparent to the commission that the war had failed. It cost countries gigantic amounts of money, it has imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people… people were executed for possession, and some countries, oppressive countries like Iran are using drugs as a way of executing their opponents.”
Word. End the madness.
Speaking of madness — the NRA has been robocalling and postcarding residents of Newton , CT. Completely classless and clueless behavior from these rat bastards:
“I received one of these,” Newtown resident Christopher Wenis wrote on Facebook Thursday afternoon. “I was insulted and offended.” Wenis told The Huffington Post in an interview Friday night that in the 36 hours since he first posted his response, he received two more robocalls from the NRA, one later on Thursday night and one Friday evening.
“I’ve got a 5-year-old son who went to preschool on the Sandy Hook Elementary School campus,” Wenis explained. “And this was a really hard week for me on a lot of levels. These calls were the very last thing I needed.”
And then there’s STILL this:
What interests you today?
We have had many readers from the US in general this week, and from Delaware in particular. Thank you for reading the blog, we are glad that you can hear us. We can hear you – at least we would like to.
We would be happy to welcome Delawareans with an interest in politics and society as guest bloggers. Your local perspective would be much appreciated by our Swedish readers.
http://delawarereferendum.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/but-we-can-hear-you/
GREEDY, LYING, BASTARDS
(Part 1 of 2)
Of course politicians are aware of the climate crisis. But they are not protecting the public. They are not enacting laws to adequately reduce CO2. That is immoral, unethical, neglect of duty.
Climate change will affect everything – lives, nature, goods, services, the economy, etc. The politicians don’t want to talk about ‘it,’ possibly because it is the politicians who are leading (by default) all the life on the planet, further into the climate crisis.
The public noted, that even during a presidential election, Romney mocked ‘it,’ Obama avoided ‘it.’ However, thanks to the science community coming forward to the public, many know about ‘it.’ Imagine what would happen if republicans in office ignored rising tides, sand covered bridge ramps, insurance coverage, extreme storms, emergency preparations, etc. (Well, actually, they are.) However, republicans/democrats with fossil fuel interests, because of ‘special interest’ profits and their own re election, still would rather not talk about ‘it.’ To ‘pretend’ not to know what causes climate change, cannot be an excuse for harming the public. Perhaps the public will end up suing the offenders and holding the negligent politicians responsible for inaction.
Since too many politicians have ignored the climate crisis for decades, one can no longer be guided by what ‘used to be;’ for instance where one could safely build homes, operate a business, operate their farm, have an economy, rely on infrastructure, live without air-conditioning, expect a shoreline, a riverfront or even expect hazardous waste stockpiles to remain in place.
Are some foolish enough to think the authorities won’t be telling them which roads they can’t drive down, what bridge they can’t cross, what area or businesses they can’t loot, where they can’t live, or what vital provisions they can’t steal, etc? Perhaps that is the breakdown of government, the preppers and the sheriff and his posse are thinking off.
Climate skeptics Infohe/Beck/Limbaugh/Bachmann/Ryan/etc -do as clowns have always done, keep the kiddies amused, confused and giggling, calling ‘global warming’ a naughty word. (Skeptics prefer to stick with the term global warming rather than more inclusive, climate change.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG6iMtjqFU8
‘Global warming,’ doesn’t adequately include droughts, floods, acidic oceans, melting ice, extreme storms, ruined homes, migrations, hundreds of thousands of climate deaths that are happening outside of normal climate boundaries. Homeland security, national security, as well as international security have been/are noticing and are getting involved, Greedy, lying, bastards continue to play their ‘we just don’t know’ game. As climates continue to change, slowly in some areas, persistently in others, and perhaps faster than ever imagined, abruptly in others, governments will be involved, whether it’s to regulate power distribution, distribute food, drinking water, provide shelters, regulate transportation, control migrations, benefit public health, oversee emergency efforts, public safety, issue communications. If those are not reasons enough to warrant that your lawmakers be involved in stopping the cause of climate change, consider that in 2012, nuclear plants had to be shut down, when cooling water temperatures rose too high.(Should the greedy, lying bastards be allow to ignore that also?) What persons would be foolish enough to think, the ‘people’ can handle those situations, without government oversight?
(continued)
GREEDY, LYING, BASTARDS
(Part 2 of 2)
Fossil fuel interests insist you stay fossil fuel dependent – and pay the price for climate change damages, losses as well. The upper limit of foolishness, is to imagine that your government will be or should be, clueless, powerless in it’s own country. Since when does homeland security or national security mean taking away your rights, rather than protecting citizens from dangerous entities. It’s dangerous, republican thinking, that can’t be ignored, when lies are represented as truth, wrong is right, fantasy is fact, fact is opinion, hot is cool and Rush/Inhofe/Ryan/Bachmann are thought of as normal, upstanding, intelligent persons instead of greedy, lying bastards.
Aren’t travelers complaining about a person having a 2.4″ pen knife on a plane, as a security threat, and yet – republicans would think a government should be rendered defenseless in it’s own country? In the climate crimes situation, the real threat are those who look out for their own ‘special interests,’ instead of regulating pollutants that are affecting livable climate conditions that are vital for survival. – It is the politicians who pretend to represent and protect the people they ‘serve’ – but don’t, who should be held accountable, now. Fake ‘leaders’ are the enemy of all people – as politicians know and they understand that anthropogenic CO2 is – the weapon of mass destruction when in excessive amounts in the atmosphere, in the oceans. It is not the right of any politician to protect a ‘right to pollute’ and change the only livable planet, threaten lives and properties and all futures. If there are a few among the political, who truly can’t ‘understand’ that there is a climate crisis – they are also ‘incapable’ of holding public office.
The results of politicians not taking action – are climate crimes against humanity, that are rapidly escalating, having already cost hundreds of billions of dollars, killing 1,000 children a day, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths a year, likely hundreds of millions in coming decades, and causing uncontrollable climate events such as the acidic oceans, burning forests, melting polar regions. The known facts are, CO2 lasts 200+ years as a greenhouse gas, that chances the global temperature. Released methane is 75 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas its’ first 12-20 years of release. The melting Arctic not-so-permafrost, bogs, tundra, lands, shallow seas – are now releasing methane – an unstoppable feedback system of a warmed atmosphere and warmed oceans, (as well as other feedback systems feeding, feedback systems.)
Studies from thousands of scientists from around the world, continuing from decades ago, were/are called a “hoax” by special interests. as politicians obligingly ignored all legitimate warnings from ‘legitimate’ climate scientists. Politicians do nearly nothing to reduce fossil fuel usage, develop alternative energy. Now current warnings become more dire. After decades of fossil fuel and political greed, lies, the bastards still have a total disregard for all life on the planet.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/02/tom_ridge_joins_group_calling.html
http://environment.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/climate_extremes_report_2012-12-04.pdf
Anyone else notice that both our “Democratic” senators voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline? This in spite of the fact that, without a pipeline, that oil is being shipped by train to Delaware City? So this makes no sense even from the standpoint of catering to local special interests.
Our politics is broken.