Politics Plus

Is there a full moon today?  Sure seems possible!  I went to see my mother and enjoyed time with her.  As we were sitting around the nursing station, a resident, Margaret, came out in her underwear.  Because staff were very busy getting some ready for bed and giving medications to others, after getting a hospital gown on her, I walked Margaret back to her room.  That's when I found Shirley in Margaret's bed.  Seems Shirley had an accident in her room so Margaret's bed was fair game.  I got the two ladies into their respective rooms and then went for help.  I heard awhile later that Shirley took a swing at the care aid.  And strange things continued to happen.  On the other hand, I took Bunny Rabbit and Lambypie, 2 small stuffed animals, up for my mother.  When I said goodnight to mother, she had Bunny Rabbit clutched tightly in her hand as she dozed off to sleep.  It was quite an evening!  I suspect my week will be somewhat like that.

Short Takes

Huffington Post — U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz has announced he's suspending his election campaign to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Cruz, the main challenger to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, said he never thought he would move back to Canada — he was born in Alberta in 1970 — much less get involved in its politics. But he said recent events have made him feel “obligated” to do so.

“Look, I understand this might come as a shock to many Americans and Canadians,” Cruz told reporters Friday. “But the truth is, though I have always wanted to help make Canada great again, I have recently started feeling morally obligated, as a Canadian, to run for the Conservative party back home.

“I must save it from Kevin O’Leary.”

OMG!!!  Say it ain't true!  This is absolutely unacceptable!

Alternet — The 2016 legislative session has been a competition between red states to see who can pass the most hateful anti-LGBT bills under the guise of “religious freedom,” but Mississippi state Republicans look like they’re going to emerge the winner. Friday, the state house passed the final version of a bill meant to protect and encourage business owners in the state to discriminate against LGBT people, while simultaneously enshrining, in violation of the Constitution, the idea that conservative Christianity is the only legitimate religion.  …

This law not only protects discrimination against LGBT people, but against any person who has sex outside of marriage. It also makes it easier for employers and schools to strictly police the way you dress to make sure it’s masculine or feminine enough. If your boss thinks proper ladies wear makeup, he can cite “religious freedom” as a reason to force you to do so, and the law will protect him for it.

I am totally flummoxed that a state can get away with such blatant unconstitutional behaviour.  Mississippi has surpassed the insanity of North Carolina.  It seems that states are getting bolder with their unconstitutional laws now that SCOTUS is generally impotent in its diminished numbers.  What can people do if their state goes too far other than waiting for the next election?

Truth-out — Montana communities won a victory against one of the world's biggest coal companies earlier in March, when Arch Coal abandoned the Otter Creek mine — the largest proposed new coal strip mine in North America. The story of how the project imploded is one of people power triumphing over a company once thought to be nearly invincible.

To many observers, the Otter Creek project once seemed unstoppable. It certainly appeared that way in 2011, the year I moved to Missoula, Montana for graduate school. Then-Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer enthusiastically supported the mine, and coal more generally. Forrest Mars, Jr., the billionaire heir to the Mars candy fortune, had just joined Arch and BNSF Railways in backing a proposed railroad spur meant to service Otter Creek. Arch and politicians like Schweitzer predicted a boom in coal demand from economies in Asia.

But what they weren't counting on was a vocal and active region-wide opposition. The coming together of ordinary people — first in southeast Montana, then an ever-growing number of communities throughout the Northwest — to oppose the Otter Creek mine says much about how land defenders and climate activists are learning to fight back against the planet's biggest energy companies. The roots of this recent victory go back more than 30 years.

Good on them!  There are others who are trying to change things too.  In another article, Amid Price Plunge, North American Oil and Gas Workers Seek Transition to Renewable Sector​, some oil sands workers are changing things.

"…one top climate scientist has called "the biggest carbon bomb on the planet," Hildebrand came to realize that he was not the only oil worker in Alberta who felt "guilty about developing the infrastructure that is creating climate change."

… Hildebrand banded together with like-minded coworkers and began building an oil and gas worker-led nonprofit called "Iron & Earth," which officially launched this month during a press conference in Edmonton. Through the nonprofit, the oil sands workers hope to help others who have been laid off diversify their skill sets and facilitate the necessary training to transition them to the renewable energy sector. They also want to help incorporate renewable energy projects into oil sands workers' current scope of work."

My Universe — 

This is the look I get from my Annie everyday and she is 7.5 years old, no kitten!

Melts my heart!

As it turned out, Lucia was very sick yesterday so I did not have a teaching session with her.  It sounds like she has the same very bad cold that I had.  So I took some time to read my book, Labyrinth of Bones by James Rollins, and enjoy some sunshine.  Tomorrow, I am going to see my mother.  The cold is sufficiently gone that I won't infect others. This week is busy as I have to take my mother to a doctor's appointment on Tuesday in addition to physio and teaching sessions, and the commencement of a new course on Thursday evening.

Short Takes

Daily Kos (classic 25/09/2011) — Why would anyone vote Republican? Well, here are 10 reasons.

1. You are a bigot

It's true that not all Republicans are bigots. But if you ARE a bigot, the Republican party will be much more your group than the Democratic party. Remember that there are lots of ways to be a bigot: You could be a racist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, or lots of other things.

2. You like eating, drinking and breathing poison.

Many Republicans are calling for or voting for shrinking or eliminating agencies that protect us against poison. They seem to think that the corporations will do the right thing, without any pressure from the government. Uh huh. Read The Jungle.  Look at the way Monsanto is hiding facts about Round Up. Look at food safety and outbreaks of E. Coli. 

Corporations exist to make money. They will do so any way they can. The government needs to stop them from doing so in ways that hurt people.

Click through for the other 8.  Can you think of any more reasons?  The only other one that I can think of is that they all make my skin crawl!  These are all timeless.

Truthdig — As we struggle to come to terms with the latest terrorist attacks in Brussels, it is important that we understand the causes of such extremism. After all, Islamic extremism was virtually unknown fifty years ago and suicide bombings were inconceivable. And yet today it seems that we are confronted with both on a daily basis. So what happened to bring Islamic fundamentalism to the forefront of global politics? While there are many factors involved, undoubtedly one of the primary causes is Western imperialism. Western intervention in the Middle East over the past century to secure access to the region’s oil reserves established a perfect environment in which Islamic fundamentalists could exploit growing anti-Western sentiment throughout the Islamic world, with some establishing violent extremist groups. The most recent consequence of this process is the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, which emerged out of the chaos caused by the US invasion of Iraq.

ISIL fighters in Anbar province, Iraq

In order to understand the rise of the Islamic State we must first briefly review the history of Western intervention in not only the Middle East but throughout the world to reveal that Islamic extremism in not a unique phenomenon. For the past 500 years, peoples throughout the world have resorted to acts of violence that today would be classified as terrorism in efforts to resist Western imperialism. Indigenous peoples in the Americas often used violent tactics to defend themselves against the brutal European colonizers. There were also many violent slave revolts by Blacks who had been shipped from Africa to the Americas in the service of Western imperialism.

This is a long article, but from my view of history, very well thought out and true.  Only a comparatively few Muslims are terrorists.  But when will the West take responsibility for its part in the creation of Islamic terrorism?

Mother Jones — Boston and other coastal cities may want to batten down the hatches. A new study from climate scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Pennsylvania State University warns estimates of future sea level rise may be significantly underestimated. The real picture 100 to 500 years from now, they claim, will be ugly for US coastal cities from New York to Miami, which could be underwater or at risk of flooding. Boston, for example, could see about 5 feet of sea level rise in the next 100 years, according to the researchers.

The most recent prediction by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that the sea level will rise as much as 38 inches by the year 2100 because of melting glaciers and the fact that warming makes water expand. Researchers Robert DeConto and David Pollard argue that this estimate fails to take into account atmospheric warming in Antarctica that will melt major ice shelves and elevate sea levels another three feet over earlier estimates by 2100 to six feet total, and by more than 49 feet by the year 2500.

To say the least, the southern US will be the big North American loser if climate change goes unchecked and sea level rises.  The following picture from Think Progress shows south Florida in 2100 if little is done.  Check the interactive picture of Miami in 2100.  You can also read the report, Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise, for more information.  And remember, this is just south Florida.  What would happen in the Gulf states, especially Louisiana which already has issues.

South Florida and "Miami Island" in 2100 after 5 feet of sea level rise (via Climate Central). From Think  Progress

Alternet — Millions of Nigerians are urging the Nigerian government to reject Monsanto’s attempts to introduce genetically modified (GMO) cotton and maize into the country’s food and farming systems.  …

In a press release, the groups said they are particularly alarmed about the commercial release of Bt cotton into Nigeria, which is being phased out in Burkina Faso due to the “inferior lint quality” of the GMO cultivars.

“We are totally shocked that it should come so soon after peer-reviewed studies have showed that the technology has failed dismally in Burkina Faso,” Nnimmo Bassey, the director of theHealth of Mother Earth Foundation, one of the leading opposition groups, said in a statement. “It has brought nothing but economic misery to the cotton sector there and is being phased out in that country where compensation is being sought from Monsanto.”

This greedy corporate juggernaut has to be stopped!  The lives of many Nigerians were ruined by the oil spills of Royal Dutch Shell, among others, and now Monsanto wants to exact a pound of flesh from Nigeria.  And Nigeria is only one of many targets on Monsanto's radar globally.  Here are just a few of the petitions on the internet.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/bring-down-monsanto-monopoly/

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/stop-the-monsanto-rider

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/stop_the_monsanto_protection_act_seize_congress/

https://action.organicconsumers.org/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=18133

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/tell-obama-to-cease-fda

My Universe — 

Relaxing weekend!