Author: oaguabonita

The milder expression desperation takes is duped support of Reality-Denying, “Other”-scapegoating loons like Trump or Cruz.

The more extreme expression is execution-style murder of 8 family members across multiple locations.

(Disclaimer: I know almost nothing of the details of this latest among now-seemingly-daily such occurrences. If this one doesn’t fit the description, though, you won’t have to look far [I heard news of another such multiple murder today] to find one that does, i.e., a desperate individual with easy access to gun[s] snapping.)

. . . We don’t hafta be mean. Cuz, remember: No matter where you go . . . there you are.”

Some comments here lately got me remembering this great scene from a great movie:

beginning every conversation with: “were you aware that

the global average temperature for [February 2016] was 2.18 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average[?]

Could that maybe even begin to make the needed difference?

And, if that evoked idiotic deflections about anomalies or some such, be prepared to follow it up with, e.g.,

According to the monthly summary from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, the December-February temperature was also the highest for the season and highest departure from average for any 3-month period on record.

The globally averaged land-surface temperature for February was 4.16 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, breaking the previous record set in 1998 and 2015 (tied) by 1.13 degrees Fahrenheit. The globally averaged sea-surface temperature was 1.46 degrees Fahrenheit above average, also the highest for any February on record.

Data from the Rutgers Global Snow Lab shows that the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during February was 800,000 square miles below the 1981-2010 average, making it the third-smallest February Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in the 50-year period of record and smallest since 2002. The North American snow cover extent was the 13th smallest on record while the Eurasian snow cover extent was fourth smallest.

Arctic sea ice extent also set a record low for the month, and Antarctic sea ice extent was the sixth-smallest in the satellite record, dating back 38 years.

If that all doesn’t scare the shit out of you and/or either plunge you into resolute action or hopeless despair, I have to wonder what it would take. (ISIS terrorism? Pfft. What small potatoes.)

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Harris-grand-jury-indicts-pair-behind-Planned-678286
5.php?cmpid=twitter-desktop

Not sure I really believe that bit about “the arc of history bends toward justice”, but if it’s true, this adds at least a bit of tension to that bend. I would positively savor the irony of this coming to fruition:

The second indictment for Daleiden suggests that the grand jury found that he went too far in trying to get Planned Parenthood to admit to selling tissue. The crime, a class A misdemeanor is committed if a person intentionally offers to buy or offers to sell a human organ, including fetal tissue. If convicted, the maximum punishment is a year in jail.

But wait, what? If there were ever a case for much longer mandatory minimums, this is it (i.e., James-O’Creep-imitating deliberate fraud).

Stay Up Nights . . . um . . . er . . . Xenogamously??? My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine . . . Xenoblasts???

scholarship” offer (campaign admits it!).

This being the same Ben Carson who

defended comparing President Barack Obama to a psychopath, [absurdly*] accusing him of lying about the unemployment rate

*(note: for referencing the unemployment rate officially reported by the relevant agency — BLS, I think? — calculated and reported according to the standard methodology by which it’s always calculated and reported; as is appropriate and necessary for assessing trends; switching to some alternative measure [which is exactly what Carson proposes/does here!] is what’s deceptive [aka “lying”])

What beyond that oxymoron could anyone possibly need to know about anyone who could utter that phrase (hint: Trump. Duh!).

What could possibly make it more evident that Trump, like Gee Dubya before him, ‘was born on third base and thinks he hit a home run’ (h/t the late, great Molly Ivins, I think).

Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible (mini-review: excellent; could not recommend too highly) and came across this paragraph, ripped from Current Events, this morning:

Well, why were they dumb enough to vote for Leah anyway, is what I asked Nelson. If they knew it was going to get Tata Kuvudundu so riled up? Nelson said some of them that voted for her were put out with Tata Ndu, and some were put out with Father, so everybody ended up getting what they didn’t want, and now had to go along with it. Nobody even cares that much one way or another about Leah, is what Nelson said. Oh, well, I told him. That is what we call Democracy.

Contest idea!

Substitute names of current public figures where you think they best fit in place of Kingsolver’s character names in that paragraph, to best capture the flavor of current House GOP caucus insanity. Treasurable prize tbd for winner, chosen by whatever undivulged and arbitrary criteria I feel like applying, including whim. Judge’s decision final.

(Thinking Inquisition, Crusades, “indulgences”, anti-semitism,  genocidal “missionaries”, coerced “conversions”, etc., etc., etc.)

Question prompted by this from digby, wherein she notes condemnation of the Charlie Hebdo massacre by both Hezbollah and Hamas. Can’t help wondering how many Americans will ever become aware of this fact – at odds as it is with the dominant meme (corporate media especially guilty here, but wingnuts, too? of course!).

*400 is just a rough guess (not doing research for this!), whose precision is not vital to the point, I declare.

right?

Exhibit A for what transparent hypocrisy this is:

Allen “Fucking” West!