Politics Plus

For different functions I have five different email accounts: one for this blog, one for my volunteer work, one for research, one for most business, and one for secure banking that has on other online presence at all.  I had to set up the last two on my notebook, because I have a new ISP.  But for the first three, my main computer has them configured as IMAP accounts, but on the notebook, they were still configured at POP3.  I have a king size mess on my hands, and most of my research material just went up in smoke.  AGuess what I’ll be doing most of today?  ARGH!!  Tomorrow, I’ll be gone most of the day getting my MRI, so expect a Personal Update at most.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:27 (average 6:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: While Wisconsin Governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker is a favorite among business leaders looking for favors and wealthy Americans keen on slashing government to the bone if they can shave a quarter-point off their effective tax rates, among the evangelical crowd he’s a bit of an also-ran. What’s he done for them lately?

So Walker is off to do some fence-mending and appropriate knee-bending.

Next week, the Wisconsin governor will travel to Capitol Hill to hold a private meeting with influential evangelical leaders, some of whom are expressing deep reservations about his track record on issues near and dear to them. Pointing to his past statements, and even his hire of a top campaign aide, they are openly questioning whether his views on abortion and gay marriage align with theirs and whether he’s willing to fight for their cause.

There may once have been a time when there was more to having religion than an obsessive policing of other people’s sex lives, perhaps there was a bit of caring for the sick or feeding the poor or loving thy neighbor in there, toward the back, but no more. Support all the wars you want, give your personal thumbs-up to the death penalty and to state-sanctioned torture, tell impoverished Americans or people without health insurance that you’re very sorry for their plight but you’ll be dead in the cold ground before your government does a damn thing for them—it’s all fine. But you’d better have the right opinion on abortion and keeping the gay people in line.

I have no doubt that the Fartfuhrer of Fitzwalkerstan will goose-step with the Republican Party’s most rabid Supply-side pseudo-Christian hate mongers.

From Common Dreams: Today’s verdict does not reflect the values of the majority of people in our Commonwealth. The ACLU of Massachusetts has been disappointed from the start that the federal government sought the death penalty in Massachusetts, which has rejected capital punishment. The last execution in the state of Massachusetts took place in 1947. Even in this case, Massachusetts opposition to the death penalty has been reflected in public opinion polls, in the pleas of religious leaders, and in statements by victims’ families and survivors. In a Boston Globe poll conducted this April, Massachusetts residents—by a four-to-one margin—overwhelmingly opposed the imposition of a death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Massachusetts religious leaders voiced their opposition to seeking his execution. Victims’ families and survivors in this case asked that federal prosecutors take the death penalty off the table and, instead, accept a sentence of life in exchange for no possibility of appeal or parole…

This statement came from the MA ACLU.  I agree.  I certainly will not argue that Dzhokhar is not a monstrous person, who "deserves" the death penalty. In this case, the death penalty is working exactly as it was designed to work under ideal circumstances. However, the most important objection still remains. Whether or not we strap this man down and kill him is not about who he is or what he did. It’s about who we are and what we are doing. By imposing the death penalty our federal government makes is all just like Dzhokhar.

From Think Progress: For thousands of years, religious people have gathered together in houses of worship to sing songs, celebrate sacred rituals, and lift up prayers to God(s) on high. And on July 1, a new religious group in Indiana intends to do just that — but with a lot more emphasis on the “high” part.

A little more than a month from now, the newly-formed First Church of Cannabis is scheduled to hold its first official gathering, where worshippers plan to test the limits of new religious freedom laws by “filling up” the sanctuary with marijuana smoke while observing a sacrament.

“It’s going to be a standard service,” Bill Levin, the group’s leader and self-proclaimed “Grand Poohba and Minister of Love,” told ThinkProgress. He explained the ceremony will last around 45 minutes, complete with music and teachings, but will conclude with an unusual benediction: “At the end of the service … we will enjoy cannabis, because it’s how we enjoy life.”

This is clearly a false religion. I have no problem with them getting high, but the source of all blessing is the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. May the Orb shine its holy light upon you! 😉

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Would you believe me if I told you that I’m still completely swamped with tasks?

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:06 (average 5:00).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: Have you ever heard of the West Virginia mine wars?

Maybe they were mentioned in your high school history class, or maybe they were skimmed over, or even left out entirely for one reason or another. Too often, these stories are deemed not "important" enough to warrant the time and attention they deserve.

But the West Virginia mine wars are critical to understanding the history of the labor movement in the U.S. — and soon a new museum will be open to tell the story.

The Battle of Blair Mountain, for example, was — and still is — the most violent labor confrontation in history, in which union-supporting coal miners fought against local government and a coal company-funded militia, eventually involving the U.S. Army.

Click through for the history of what happened. If Republicans gain complete control, it will happen again.

From Boston Globe: …A live video stream of the Garland event on the organizer’s website recorded the moment when the crowd was interrupted by a private security guard in military fatigues, who bounded onto the stage to announce that there had been a shooting outside. “Were the suspects Muslim?” a man shouted.

“I have no idea right now,” said the man in fatigues.

Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam leader in the Netherlands for the Party for Freedom, attended the event and delivered a speech. After the attack, he wrote “never surrender to terrorism!” in a Twitter post, and he posted a picture of himself with what he said were SWAT forces taken before the gunmen opened fire.

Pamela Geller, an organizer of the event who runs a website that attacks Islam, said the group decided to hold the event in the Curtis Culwell Center because members had heard that a Muslim group had a conference in the same room after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office.

Geller described Sunday’s event as pro-free speech, and said that Muslims had become a “special class” that Americans were no longer allowed to offend.

“The media is self-enforcing a Shariah,” she said, referring to Islamic law. “Under the Shariah you cannot criticize or offend Islam.”

Don’t you know that a hateful gathering of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians performing offensive insulting acts will draw equally hateful Replican Supply-side pseudo-Muslims? Authentic Christians and Authentic Muslims coexist together in peace.

From NY Times: G.O.P. Hopefuls Now Aiming to Woo the Middle Class

RepubliSpeak Dictionary
Woo: lie to, hoodwink, deceive, bury in BS

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