Month: February 2014

Domestic Cold War

By now even if you live under a rock you have heard all the stuff about the Repubs and their internal civil war….Party vs Tea Party, if you will……..we know, for instance that the TP is not happy with Boehner and the old guys for their kowtowing to Obama….at least if is as they see it…..what if anything can be done?

Glad you asked that all important question.

The so-called GOP civil war may be going from cold to hot. The conservative group ForAmerica tells CNN that it intends to spend six figures on a campaign it’s calling “Dump the Leadership,” aimed at deposing all the GOP’s leaders in both the House and Senate. “Time and again, year after year, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate has come to grassroots conservatives … pleading for our money, our volunteers, our time,” the group’s chairman says. “It’s been years. There is not a single conservative accomplishment this so-called ‘leadership’ can point to.” The group is vowing “significantly” more spending than the $200,000 it dropped to promote defunding ObamaCare, notes the Hill. The group says it’s got digital ads online now, but it’s unclear if those ads will attempt to convince voters to oust John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and Co., or attempt to convince other GOP lawmakers to depose them. It’s not the group’s first swipe at leadership, either; it has repeatedlyattacked McConnell for striking deals with Democrats, once dubbing him a “chicken” for not fighting hard enough to defund ObamaCare.

Now from my perspective……is this the best idea?  I know there are many that are unhappy with Boehner and his cohorts….but removing them may not be the best idea……why?  The agenda that is being pursued is not necessarily the agenda of what the people want to be done….I know people?  Who among them gives two craps in Hell what we want done by our elected government?

This, if successful, could give them a temporary win….but in the long run they will be thrown from office….the American people are very close to that now……the people do NOT see these toads doing their jobs….only massaging the genitals of high dollar donors…..what is it that Kenny Rogers sung about……you gotta know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em……..a better strategy needs to be found…a winning strategy….the course they are on now is NOT a winning one……

This is just plain silly…..they had rather beat their own leadership than a Democrat……explain the logic there please?

Wanna Beer After Work?

If you are not watching the Sochi Olympics (congrats of 2 Americans with Gold in Snowboarding and NO the “flying tomato” is not one of them) then you have either watched the mind numbing crap they call reality TV….or you watched the news…..and I use the term loosely….nothing I saw on the tube was interesting enough to keep my attention…..with that said…let’s talk about something that will be tossed around the web in the next month or so……MINIMUM WAGE!

I know that economics is NO one’s fave topic……most Americans have NO idea what the science is all about other than how much they have to spend on the essentials like food, shelter, utilities, etc……but I apologize if this bores you….but somethings needed to be talked about….and economics is one of those subjects.

There has been so much chatter about the minimum wage…..some want to see a rise in it and others spin it as a jobs killer and a small business killer……all that is just ducky….but if you are having to work for minimum then it is a different story…..those against it are millionaires or just plain STUPID!

From an purely economic perspective……a rise in the minimum will do well for the economy….but of course that is NOT good enough for it to happen….there will be an endless debate, especially by idiots that dash to the nearest camera, on the pros and cons……

I read a report a few days ago that stated that a minimum wage worker would have to work an hour to afford a couple of Starbucks……and that got me to thinking…..most of us working stiffs enjoy a cold one after work…..so after a little research I found a piece along those lines…….

For a minimum-wage worker in Bangladesh, grabbing a cold one after work amounts to a serious investment. To afford a beer, that employee must toil for 13.4 hours, according to an analysis by Quartz. The report compares the price of a half-liter of beer in a country’s bars with that country’s minimum wage. Among the results:

  • Beer-seekers will have the hardest time in Georgia, where it takes 15.1 hours of minimum-wage work to earn a drink.
  • Puerto Rico is at the opposite end of the spectrum: Work for 12 minutes on minimum wage, and you can pay for a beer.
  • US workers have to work for twice as long as those in Puerto Rico; at 24 minutes, the US rate matches those of Canada, Spain, Taiwan, Germany, and Japan, among others.
  • After Georgia and Bangladesh, the countries facing the most work per beer are Libya (7.5 hours) and Ethiopia (6.6 hours).
  • Luxembourg, Australia, and Cyprus are runners-up for the briefest periods of toil, at 18 minutes per beer.

There you have the break down.  NO wonder Aussie like their brew.

Anything to add?

2014 Babbling Buffoons Of Babylon #3

Time to post more of the babbling rants of morons that need to just shut up and do their job……the more they talk the more they show their ignorance….no….STUPIDITY!

1–Recently we lost a great actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, to a drug overdose….the police flew into action finding and arresting drug dealers across NYC……which is a good thing but there seems to be an idiot that has the answer to the cause of Hoffman’s drug abuse……

Rep. Steve Cohen  of Tennessee took that case to the feds. In a hearing on the Obama administration’s approach to marijuana policy, Cohen argued the federal government is clearly implicated in Hoffman’s death, calling the allocation of federal resources to marijuana arrests “a crime committed by our government.”

Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I under federal law, a substance defined as having “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment.” That puts it in the same class of drugs as heroin, the drug thought to be responsible for Hoffman’s death.

A typical moronic response…..”It’s Obama’s fault”……..that is becoming all too familiar and a convenient excuse for moronic rantings…..

2–Crazy is all around….Jesse “The Body” Ventura has gone by the way of the whack-a-doodle…….

Ventura spoke with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” from an “undisclosed location in Mexico” on Tuesday, prompting the hosts to ask him where he was and why he was there.

“I’m off the grid. I move about with my TV show so that the drones can’t find me and you won’t know exactly where I am,” Ventura said, talking over the host’s question as to whether it was a hoax.

The former third-party governor hosts a show called “Off the Grid” on Ora TV. Ventura said he could remain off the map “as long as we have solar power and we can reach the satellite.”

Now think about that for a moment…..(pause here for reflection)………as long as he has access to the satellite he will be okay……think about it…….does he really think that a satellite will not find him?  God, I love these people.

3–Need a good chuckle today?

“Dr. Chaps” Gordon Klingenschmitt dedicated a segment on today’s “Pray In Jesus Name” program to decrying the Employment Non-Discrimination Act as nothing more than a “bathroom bill” that would allow men to use the women’s restrooms and “violate your wives’ and daughters’ privacy in every public restaurant in America.”

I wish I had something clever to say…..But…..HAHAHA!

4–Do you own the “White Album”?  Did you know that it is satanic?

Religious Right talk show host Kevin Swanson is joiningotherconservativepunditsintrashingtheGrammy Awards for becoming, in his words, a “satanic pagan orgy.”

According to Swanson, The Beatles encouraged a “secular, demonic approach to things” in pop culture, and lashed out at the band members as apostates: “It takes apostates to destroy a culture and to undermine a civilization, that’s how you get from ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ to ‘Let’s Do It In The Road.’”

Can moronic cover these types?

5–I was wondering how long it would be before someone jumped on this tired old bandwagon…..

On his radio show yesterday, Bryan Fischer called for ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, as well as the elimination of the minimum wage … all in order to help the poor and those struggling to make ends meet, of course.

“You know, back in the day, in the colonial period,” Fischer said, “you had to be a landowner, a property owner to be eligible to vote and I don’t think that’s a bad idea. And the reason is very simple: if somebody owns property in a community, they’re invested in the community. If they’re renters, they’re going to be up and gone; they could leave the next day … [P]eople that are not property owners – it’s like people that pay no taxes, they have no skin in the game. They don’t care about the same things that somebody does who is rooted in the community”:

My fingers are tired!  Hard to keep up with stupid…..but I try….LOL

Biblical Is As Biblical Does

It is the weekend and continuing along the Biblical line of posting for the day…….Remember raiders Of The Lost Ark?  Everyone was in hot pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant, that special place for the storage of the 10 commandments…..and it was found in the desert sands of the Sahara…..well that was entertainment……some have said the the Ark is long gone and others say that it was a metaphor or something like that…..but it seems someone has found something that might be a God send (pun not intended)…….

A Hebrew text fully translated into English for the first time adds to the story of the Ark of the Covenant, but—we’ll spare you the suspense—it doesn’t say where it is. The closest the “Treatise of the Vessels” comes to disclosing the location of the chest said to contain the Ten Commandments is to say that the locale “shall not be revealed until the day of the coming of the Messiah son of David,” LiveScience reports. The treatise, which the Daily Mail notes dates to at least the 1400s, describes the treasures in Solomon’s Temple, which the Hebrew Bible says was burned in the sixth century BC. There were, for instance, “seventy-seven tables of gold, and their gold was from the walls of the Garden of Eden that was revealed to Solomon,” and “the number of stones was forty-six thousands and the number of pearls was the same.” The treatise asserts that some treasures “were hidden in various locations in the Land of Israel and in Babylonia, while others were delivered into the hands of the angels,” notes James Davila, the translator. But the piece shouldn’t be taken as factual, Davila says; instead, “I think the writer was approaching the story as a piece of entertaining fiction.” He adds to the Mail: “The text tells us no more about where the Ark and other treasures might be than if you watched the film” Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Just my thought on the whereabouts of the Ark……..the first temple of Solomon was destroyed when Babylon conquered the region….my thought is that it was a prized possession of the Hebrews and for that reason it was taken when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem…..it was taken back to Babylon along with all the Hebrews and that will be where we find it if ever it is uncovered….like I said….just my thoughts on the whereabouts…….

Do you have any?

Let’s Get Biblical

You heard it right…the old professor is going biblical……surprise!

I do not normally post much on religion and such…..I have on occasion broken my pledge of not doing so….just so you know…I do not write on religion because it is a personal choice…..I have my beliefs and I do not wish to share those and open myself open to debate and insults….religion is between the person and his/her god….and the rest of us need to just move on……

This one is about Solomon…the son of the great king David……first they say the Bible…but if I am not mistaken the Old Testament is basically the Torah……that would make it Jewish…..but I nitpick…..

An ancient pottery shard seems to support the Biblical story of King Solomon and shows he was running a pretty complex operation 3,000 years ago—at least according to one Israeli scholar. “We are dealing here with real kings, and the kingdom of David and Solomon was a real fact,” Gershon Galil tells Fox News. He bases this on the “Ophel inscription,” the oldest alphabetical writing ever found in Israel. Galil translates the 8 letters on a clay-jug fragment as yah-yin chah-lak, or “inferior wine.” This, he says, was the cheap stuff given to laborers who built the young city of Jerusalem. Galil says this indicates an advanced bureaucratic system that could label wine, note where it came from, store it, and so on, reports the Archaeology News Network. Galil dates the shard to the middle of the 10th century BCE, which places the Jews in Jerusalem earlier than scholars have believed, to a time when the Bible says King Solomon ruled. Galil takes this as proof that Solomon ordered the building of the First Temple. Others have said Judean King Hezekiah had it built in Solomon’s name, a notion Galil dismisses.

Now we can have a spirited debate on the Solomon thingy……

So is written so shall it be……

A set of bones—and not human ones, at that—is “challenging the Bible’s historicity,” say two Tel-Aviv University researchers. Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef and Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen have carbon-dated the oldest known domesticated camel bones found in the southern Levant, where Israel sits, and what they discovered is that the creatures were likely introduced to the region around the 9th century BC. And that doesn’t sync with the timing of the Bible, which features the pack animals as being present centuries earlier, in the Patriarch-era of Abraham, Joseph, and Jacob, which ran from roughly 2000 to 1500 BC. “This anachronism is direct proof that the text was compiled well after the events it describes,” per a press release on the study. And the dating is much more precise than what was previously calculated, explains Ben-Yosef: “By analyzing archaeological evidence from the copper production sites of the Aravah Valley, we were able to estimate the date of this event in terms of decades rather than centuries.” What they found was that copper sites active in the region in the 9th century BC contained camel bones, but none of the ones active earlier did; the earliest archaeological layer to contain them dated to the last third of the 10th century BC. The Times of Israel notes that domesticated camels didn’t originate in that region, however; that honor goes to the Arabian peninsula, which is believed to have used them as pack animals since 2000 BC. Egyptians probably introduced them to Israel.

Now that I have that piece of history outta the way…..go back to watching the Olympics….and I will be back tomorrow……

Could We See A 2nd Revolution?

“It is clear to me that the republic no longer functions  Hopefully someone can return it to sanity and compassion before it is too late.”  Who was that perceptive person that uttered these words?  (If you get that reference then you are a bigger geek than you think)…….

It seems that I find myself on the same page as a lot of the Righties out there.  They see the need for another revolution as do I….however we differ on the reasons we need that revolution but we both agree that this country is in dire need of change….the problem is that there can be NO change as long as we elect asswads that owe too much to so few…….with these people the best we could ever do is some incremental reform which in the long run accomplishes nothing.  We need to do some serious rethinking about this system and the lack of progress.

Recently a right wing whack-a-doodle called for a protest across the street from the White House……the guy was one Larry Klayman….he was basically calling for the impeachment of Obama, a new Continental Congress and in essence a 2nd American revolution…….

Larry Klayman predicted that his rally calling for the overthrow of President Obama would draw “millions to occupy Washington D.C.” and that those millions would “occupy parks, sidewalks, public areas” until the president leaves office. In the end, no more than a hundred people showed up for today’s big event.

Nevertheless, Klayman told Tea Party activists that he is still confident that the Reclaim American Now rally will force the president to resign and that grateful Americans will beseech Klayman and his allies to organize a new Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

His protest did not draw the million person that he had hoped for…..the problem was that this was a chance to improve or change our government through peaceful dissent but instead the morons appeared…..

Social issues that have NOTHING to do with the governing of the country is what protests have come to in this era of STUPID!  And you know what the say about stupid?  “Can’t Fix Stupid”!

We all romanticize the revolution for whatever reason….but just how successful was it?

(Newser) – Americans adore their revolution, but former historian Paul Pirie doesn’t think it was terribly successful—at least not if you judge it against countries like Canada (from whence Pirie hails) that kept their monarchies, or by its own stated goal of advancing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. “The new republic started advancing life and liberty by keeping a substantial part of its population enslaved,” he points out in the Washington Post; British-controlled Canada, by contrast, began abolishing slavery in the 18th century.

Things aren’t looking great today, either. On the liberty front, America has more people incarcerated per capita than any other nation. Pursuing happiness is tricky, too, when you work longer hours for fewer benefits than workers in most developed countries. And the government the Founders installed is now hopelessly deadlocked. “Perhaps it’s time for Americans to accept that their revolution was a failure and renounce it,” Pirie argues. “Alternatively, rather than being wedded to every practice or institution that arose from the revolution” they could “rekindle some of the boldness of the nation’s Founders and create a ‘more perfect’ and happier union.”

We can argue the validity of this persons observation….but the fact is Klayman is right.  It is time for Americans to consider a new revolution….one that will benefit ALL Americans….not just the elitist as the first one did….(this will lead to more post on the constitution….please watch them….I really would like input)…….we need to find a new way of dealing with inequality now running rampant in our society….Klayman was correct but not for the same reasons he cites……and yes we need a new Continental Congress and that will mean a up-grade of the Constitution to reflect 21st century thinking as opposed to 18th century thinking…..

Please understand that revolution does not necessarily mean a huge “bang, bang, shoot’em up”………there is revolutionary thought as well as action that does not contain a violent component……

It seems not much was learned from Klayman’s attempt at a sort of ‘coup’……..come May 2014 there will be another attempt this one attempted by one Harry Riley………

Harry Riley has a dream. On the morning of May 16, somewhere between 10 and 30 million (estimates vary) God-fearing patriots will assemble in Washington, DC, for what Riley, a retired Army colonel from the Florida panhandle, is calling “Operation American Spring.” They’ll protest outside the White House by day and set up in campgrounds and RV parks outside the city by night. They won’t leave until President Barack Obama, along with Attorney General Eric Holder and congressional leaders of both parties, resign and appear before a specially convened investigative tribunal for further disciplinary action—a polite version of a tea party coup.

According to Riley’s introductory note, which he posted on Facebook, about 1 million activists will stick around DC after the march in a nonviolent attempt to shut the city down. According to the the document, the real work will occur after the transfer of power: “Those with the principles of a West, Cruz, Lee, DeMint, Paul, Gov Walker, Sessions, Gowdy, Jordan, Issa, will comprise a tribunal and assume positions of authority to convene investigations, recommend appropriate charges against politicians and government employees to the new U.S. Attorney General appointed by the new President.”

From : http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/harry-riley-operation-american-spring-fox-news

Have you gotten your invite yet?

I want my readers to consider the possibility of another revolution……..I would like as many opinions as I can get……we need to answer many questions…..and that is after all……. WHY I AM HERE!

Is There a Revolution Coming? Americans Finally Realize Global Capitalism Is a Murderous Sham | Alternet

If one truly wants change, not reform, but serious changes in the way our government goes about doing business…..then the word …REVOLUTION has to be considered……(spoiler alert!)………and that will be the next post……..

Is There a Revolution Coming? Americans Finally Realize Global Capitalism Is a Murderous Sham | Alternet.