Sharia Law

Tags

protest, sharia, state

Happy to see that counter protesters outnumbered the bigots in nearly every city yesterday. Thankfully with little violence involved.

What I don’t get about the folks who are fearful of Sharia Law being implemented in the US is how ignorant they are. We have church/state separation. As long as we keep prayer out of schools and the 10 Commandments out of court houses and wacky religious monuments out of parks, then Sharia Law will not be able to gain access either.

It is the same people who attempt to force their Abrahamic religious creed on the rest of us who are fearful of Sharia. Hypocrite much?

With all of the protests taking place yesterday I can only assume that these people will stand strong in keeping the 10 Commandments out of our public spaces.

Coulter’s Speech is Not Being Suppressed

Tags

bill of rights, coulter, free speech

Ann Coulter was on all the networks last night complaining that she doesn’t have an outlet to speak freely. I am guessing that she has lived so long in her make believe stipulated reality that she lost the ability to detect irony. 

If all she wanted was the freedom to spew her hate speech she could have done so while the cameras were rolling. Coulter reglarly appears on tv and has published books spewing her thoughts, delusions, and ideas. To claim that she is being denied freedom of speech is laughable. 

It is not freedom of speech that she craves but the freedom to instigate violence and to burnish her image amongst the whacky right. Sorry, Ann, there is no Constitutional right to incite violence. Get over yourself, the rest of us already have. 

Presidential Election 2016

Tags

2016, election, president, rant

Last time I voted for president was 1992, Bill Clinton’s first term. If you recall that election, he was the man from Hope who was going to build a bridge to the 21st century. I had spent the previous few years protesting Bush the Elder’s war on Iraq. That war lasted about 3 months and was followed by an extended bombing campaign masquerading as a no-fly zone. I protested Bush and Quail’s local campaign stops and went and listened to Clinton’s hope filled message.  I voted for Bill Clinton without reservation.

Within 3 hours of Clinton’s inauguration, US war planes were dropping bombs on Iraq; a message to the world that while the US regime had changed, its foreign policy had not.

I have not voted for president since. On that day I realized that choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.

Since then I have heard many argue that if you don’t vote then you don’t have any right to complain. However, I think that argument has it backwards. If you vote and your candidate wins, you can’t complain as you are getting exactly what you asked for; and if you vote and your candidate loses, well you knew the rules of the game and you should not be a sore loser by complaining about it.

I almost voted for Obama his first term, that whole hope and change thing had me a little giddy, but I resisted, and I am thankful that I did. Obama turned out to be as evil as any other president in my adult life. Habeas corpus has not been restored, our foreign empire has grown and not shrunk, black prison sites still operate, indiscriminate bombings continued and even increased, etc ad nauseum. Obama’s first term might as well have been Bush the Lesser’s third term. Needless to say, I did not consider voting for Obama his second term and am happy that I sat out his first election.

This brings us to 2016–Clinton v Trump. Of course I would not consider voting for Trump, a billionaire “populist” running on racism and tax cuts for the one percent. And I find the thought of a Clinton presidency of little more consolation. Hillary is gaining the support of the neo-cons who led Bush to war and she sits well to the right of Obama on foreign policy. She has not brought up the idea of restoring habeas corpus and has not mentioned wanting to bring any troops home, she has even touted Kissinger (a noted war criminal) as someone to look up to.

Of course the Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian Gary Johnson will be on most ballots. Sure those are real choices, the first an anti-vaxxer with no political experience while the latter states that the solution to climate change is to colonize other planets; uh huh, real choices.

So after more than a year of hoopla, with election day just more than a month away, our choices are going to be a war monger, a space cadet, and a couple of wackadoos; I’ll leave it to the reader to determine which is which.

Form Over Function, Poor Curation of the Local Library

Tags

books, columbia, library

Today I visited our local public library, an imposing and vast edifice, a marvel of modern architecture. Since architecture is not my forte, here is a description of the building from Missouri Life:

Built in 2002, the Columbia Public Library is a noteworthy design by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. The 102,000-square-foot library is housed within a dynamic, dramatic cylindrical form. The design is a prime example of the architecture firm’s approach: collages of styles, colliding forms, and superimposing one plan idea onto another to yield geometric and dramatic interior spaces. Large skylights are “carved” from the curved, masonry cylinder to introduce abundant natural light. Shifted grids, diagonals, and a range of materials, colors, and textures result in a more informal and humanistic architecture. The corner site at Broadway and Garth Avenue is also arranged in a highly geometric plan, with the building’s crescent shaped plan and half-circle parking lot forming a complete circle. Paving patterns emanate outward from the building and its entry.

The building is as imposing and wonderful as the description makes it sound. There are computers, a massive video collection, a vast selection of music…I guess that with all of this pomp and excess that there just wasn’t any money left over for books.

This library has such a shoddy collection of books that it should be ashamed to even call itself a library. I did a keyword search for “epicureanism” it had not a single book available to checkout and take home. There were audio books and ebooks and just a couple of dead tree books that I could have gotten on a waiting list to check out. Surely this could not be. So I tried “Epicurean” to see if they just had a weak key word system, same result. Perhaps the curators are biased against Epicureans, I tried “Stoicism”, same result. “Stoic”, same result. WTF? Let’s broaden our terms, “Hellenistic Philosophy”, same result. OK, ancient philosophy is not this library’s strong suit, lets change subjects. “Kropotkin”, same result. “Emma Goldman”, same result. Really?

It is nice that the library system (Daniel Boone Regional Library) subscribes to a fairly large collection of digital books. Some of the ebooks are created from Project Gutenberg books which are public domain and created by volunteers. There are multiple problems with the way that these books are implemented for lending. First, why make one sign in to download a book that is in the public domain? Secondly, why check them out for a limited time, why not just let the user download a drm free ebook that they can keep? Thirdly, and most egregious, the library violates the Project Gutenberg license in multiple ways. In direct violation of the license the ebooks are stripped of the license, the library also utilizes Project Gutenberg’s trademarks without license compliance.

All in all the Columbia Public Library is a perfect example of putting form above function. Truly sad to have such a grand building and to have inept curators and administration.

This is Hillary’s Plan to Win Over Bernie Supporters?

Tags

2016, clinton, election, kain, president

All I can say is WTF?

Give a listen to Kain’s campaign ad from 2005. This is not ancient history.

Ted Cruz came in (a far distant) second in the Republican primaries, so Trump chose someone ideologically like Cruz to unify the party. Bernie came in a (close) second in the Democratic primaries, so Hillary chose someone who is his polar opposite. Is she trying to throw the election? Did she change her mind about wanting to be president? Or does she take the Democratic base for granted?

In her efforts to win over dis-affected Republicans, she is not even tossing a bone to Millennials, or to those who have already suffered through nearly 30 years of the Democratic Leadership Council’s brand of “Republican Lite”™.

Pro death penalty, pro TPP, anti gay marriage and anti abortion? WTF! Kain claims to have values to support his positions, is he now going to flip flop on every issue important to Democrats and claim he now believes just the opposite…will he still claim to have values?

Please excuse the swearing, but we are so Fucked.

 

Tragic, But Not a Big Surprise

Tags

police, race, racism, tragedy

I think we can agree, last night’s ambush of police in Dallas is a horrible thing. Kids are waking up today without fathers, mothers without sons, wives without husbands. Nothing good will come of it, only more oppression. It is unequivocally a terrible event. Can we agree on that before we move forward?

Agreeing that it is a terrible event, a tragedy even, can we still see and understand the direct causes? The events leading up to the Dallas Massacre are plain to see for anyone caring to look. Follow that link and it is clearly evident that police have been killing unarmed black men for years and years. After the spotlight was shined on the practice with the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, the police still killed 2 unarmed black (mostly) men a week for all of 2015. That is AFTER we identified the problem, and I can only assume it was worse before that.

From this site we get some statistics for 2015:

 

• Only 10 of the 102 cases in 2015 where an unarmed black person was killed by police resulted in officer(s) being charged with a crime, and only 2 of these deaths (Matthew Ajibade and Eric Harris) resulted in convictions of officers involved. Only 1 of 2 officers convicted for their involvement in Matthew Ajibade’s death received jail time. He was sentenced to 1 year in jail and allowed to serve this time exclusively on weekends. Deputy Bates, who killed Eric Harris, will be sentenced May 31.[Bates received 4 years for the charge of second degree manslaughter.]

 

Read that quote again. Less than 10% prosecution rate and only 20% of those are convicted. Put another way, police only have a 2% chance of being punished for killing an unarmed black person. These numbers seem fanciful, but they are correct. There is a war on, it is a war being fought against (mostly) young black (mostly) men. It is being financed by our tax dollars and is being waged by those who have sworn to protect and serve.

And then events unfold like those in Dallas. We all gape, we act surprised, we stare at the violence porn on CNN/Fox and; in the end, we do nothing.

Do you think we can make it a single week after Dallas without an unarmed black man being murdered under the color of authority?

The right likes to demand that all Muslims apologize for every act of terror. While I believe this is as asinine as asking every cop to apologize for the war on black men, can’t we at least expect these public servants to out the bad apples within their ranks?

While–rightfully so–the thin blue line will get a little thicker after Dallas, we also need to see that same thin blue line as a direct cause of Dallas.

What happened in Dallas is tragic, just as what happened in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis earlier this week are. Tragedy breeds tragedy, and I fear that it is going to get worse.

 

Clinton ♥ Kissinger: A Love Story

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2016, clinton, electon, kissinger, president

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Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly. –Hillary Clinton 2014

I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better — better than anybody had run it in a long time. –Hillary Clinton 2016

Well, Henry’s the expert on theory and doctrine. I’m someone who thinks that it could help provide a framework and direction and lessons from history. –Hillary Clinton 2009

I’ve known her [Clinton] for many years now, and I respect her intellect. –Henry Kissinger 2014

This post is a public service announcement to remind you, the American voter, that when you step into the booth in November and choose the lesser of two evils; you are, in fact, choosing evil.

Top 10 Kissinger Quotes

 The following were lifted verbatim from here.

1. Soviet Jews: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” (link)

2. Bombing Cambodia: “[Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything about it. It’s an order, to be done. Anything that flies or anything that moves.” (link)
3. Bombing Vietnam: “It’s wave after wave of planes. You see, they can’t see the B-52 and they dropped a million pounds of bombs … I bet you we will have had more planes over there in one day than Johnson had in a month … each plane can carry about 10 times the load of World War II plane could carry.”  (link)
4. Khmer Rouge: “How many people did (Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary) kill? Tens of thousands? You should tell the Cambodians (i.e., Khmer Rouge) that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in the way. We are prepared to improve relations with them. Tell them the latter part, but don’t tell them what I said before.” (Nov. 26, 1975 meeting with Thai foreign minister)
5. Dan Ellsberg: “Because that son-of-a-bitch—First of all, I would expect—I know him well—I am sure he has some more information—I would bet that he has more information that he’s saving for the trial.  Examples of American war crimes that triggered him into it…It’s the way he’d operate….Because he is a despicable bastard.” (Oval Office tape, July 27, 1971)
6. Robert McNamara: “Boohoo, boohoo … He’s still beating his breast, right? Still feeling guilty. ” (Pretending to cry, rubbing his eyes.)
7. Assassination:  “It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination.” (Statement at a National Security Council meeting, 1975)
8. Chile: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” (link)
9. Illegality-Unconstitutionality: “The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” (from March 10, 1975 meeting with Turkish foreign minister Melih Esenbel in Ankara, Turkey)
10. On His Own Character: “Americans like the cowboy … who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else … This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely because to be alone has always been part of my style or, if you like, my technique.” (November 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci)

Choosing the Lesser of 2 Evils is Still Choosing Evil

Tags

2016, clinton, election, evil, president

Unless something drastic changes between now and November it seems that we will have a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Much has been written about the perils of a Trump presidency, I am going to assume that the reader is familiar with this information and focus on something that has gotten a lot less attention, the perils of a Clinton presidency.

The last time that I voted for president was 1992, it was Bill Clinton’s first term and after 12 years of Reagan/Bush the Elder, I and the majority of the country was ready for a change. Clinton, the man from Hope, offered a positive vision with imagery of a bridge to the 21st century. So I cast my vote based on that vision. Three hours after being sworn in, Clinton bombed Iraq, a symbol to the world and the nation that nothing had changed. We had a new regime in Washington but, in the end, nothing had changed. Those continued bombings of Iraq (which Clinton continued for 8 years) along with economic and trade sanctions were responsible for the deaths of at least half a million Iraqi children. I had chosen the lesser of two evils, but through my actions I had allowed evil to continue and even to flourish.

I decided that day to never again vote for a candidate that I did not want to win.  Until recently I lived in California, the primaries were decided before we ever cast a vote, so I have not voted for a presidential candidate since then. This election cycle, I find myself living in a state with earlier primaries and I did cast a vote in them. I chose Martin O’Malley even though he had dropped out of the race a month earlier, none of the other candidates met my criteria.

Being a social liberal, I have many lefty friends who argue that not voting for Hillary is a vote for Trump. Trump has proven himself to be a racist misogynist who promotes violence, obviously choosing Trump would be choosing evil. (I am not here arguing that being a violent racist misogynist rises to the level of evil, one of my best friends fits these criteria and I don’t consider him evil. However, placing one with these views in the most powerful office on the planet does rise to the level of evil.)

To get back to our original topic, does voting for Hillary equate with choosing evil?

The best argument Hillary has is that she would offer 4 years similar to Obama’s presidency. It is common knowledge that on most domestic issues Hillary is slightly to the left of Obama, but on foreign policy she sits somewhere between the two Bushes.

We all know that Hillary voted for the Iraq war and defended that stance until fairly recently. She was a driving force for our involvement in Libya, when presented with the clusterfuck that Libya has descended into she laughingly said of Qaddafi, “We came, we saw, he died.” Probably the most damning thing against Hillary is her reliance upon and claimed friendship of the war criminal Kissinger, this alone should disqualify her from the presidency.

Here is a short list of other things that illustrate the type of president Hillary would make:

• She Supported welfare reform which sharply increased deep poverty in the US;
• She opposes the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall;
• She received millions of dollars in wall street donations (see previous point);
• She actively supported the 3 strikes legislation of her husband; and
• She operated the “Bimbo Eruption Squad” during her husband’s campaign and presidency, which attempted to shame women who had been preyed upon by her husband.

For these reasons, it is my belief that choosing Hillary Clinton is, in fact, choosing evil.

Party Before Country

Tags

2016, election, president, trump

I watched most of the Fox News Republican debate last night from Detroit. My take away is that these folks don’t care about our country and it is all about posturing to attain personal power.

Cruz and Rubio took turns using Trump as a punching bag. The insults were fast and furious…con man, charlatan, unhinged, pathological, liar, racist, blowhard, dangerous, fraudulent, phony, too old, Rubio even brought up Trump’s penis size (I am waiting to see politifact chasing Trump around with a ruler to fact check that one).

All of these insults may have a basis in fact (I don’t know and don’t want to know about the penis size), and should probably disqualify someone from being president. But when the debate was all said and done…both Cruz and Rubio announced that they would support Trump if he got the nomination. WTF? I can’t trust anyone to be president who would support a con man or a charlatan, or a dangerous fraudulent phony who is too old to be president to hold the highest office in the land. The debate last night only served to disqualify at least 3 of the candidates (I am unsure if Kasich should be disqualified, he didn’t leverage the insults against Trump and may not believe them to be true). But certainly, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are unfit to be president.

An Unpopular Post

Tags

bill of rights, civil rights, free speech, hate

This post is in response to the KKK rally and resultant riot in Anaheim today.

I would like to open by stating unequivocally that I oppose the Klan and its beliefs in all of their forms in the strongest manner possible. They and their adherents are despicable and their ideas can and must be challenged whenever and wherever they raise their head.

However, I also firmly believe that it is not the popular speech that needs protecting.

The LA Times has an article describing a large crowd of counter-protesters swarming the much smaller group of klansmen with weapons and fists and dragging at least one to the ground. Three people were stabbed at least one counter-protester was stabbed with a Klansman’s flag pole/spear. The spear wielding klansman and an unannounced number of counter-protesters were arrested. This is early and some of these “facts” are bound to change. The rest of this post is based upon these early reports and a change in the “facts” may change the sincerity of what I am about to say.

Two things strike me about this incident that may be unpopular to state. First, the spear wielding klansman should be promptly released from custody. You do not need the law to grant you the right to defend your person, it is an unalienable right. Secondly, and probably more controversially, any of the counter-protesters who took place in the attack should be charged with a hate crime. Allow me to expound on this second point below.

I oppose the very concept of hate crimes and believe they should be repealed. Hate crime legislation is thought crime legislation and has no place in a free society. If a group attacks and injures or kills a man leaving a bar, I am not particularly concerned with the “why” as I am with the “what”. It doesn’t matter to me what the thinking process that led to the attack was and I fail to understand why it is worse if the reason is that the attackers hated gays or blacks or whatever than if the reason is that the attackers just wanted to see what blood looks like seeping into the ground. There are already laws on the book making it illegal to attack/kill people, the judge has some leeway in sentencing in which to consider motive and relate it to length and severity of punishment; we do not need to add another crime making their thoughts illegal too.

However, if we are going to have laws on the books to protect certain classes, I can think of no group as hated as the klan nor one more in need of protection.

The first amendment needs protecting, even for these abhorrent people. This is not to say that their statements should go unchallenged. For example: a counter march across town, a picnic, a celebration that these cretins can only muster 5 people should be enjoyed by the masses. We should celebrate how far we have come and strategize on the ways to move further toward the ideal. I think it is only fair to assume that a celebration of 1000 or more will get more publicity than a sad pathetic group of 4 or 5 speaking to no one will.

The klan is a group based on hatred. But when I see pictures of the faces of the counter protesters as they surge for the attack, I feel like an animal at the end of Animal Farm peering through the window; I can not be sure who is the pig and who is the human.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments, don’t forget to include why.

TL/DR: Hatred should be opposed in all of its forms. We already have laws targeting specific actions, we do not need specific laws targeting thoughts.