America dumbs down

On May 27, 2014May 23, 2014 By Rick McIn firearms, government, things getting worseLeave a comment

Robert Sawyer linked to this article by Jonathon Gatehouse:

… That inarticulate legacy didn’t end with George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.

Barack Obama, the most cerebral and eloquent American leader in a generation, regularly plays the same card, droppin’ his Gs and dialling down his vocabulary to Hee Haw standards. His ability to convincingly play a hayseed was instrumental in his 2012 campaign against the patrician Mitt Romney; in one of their televised debates the President referenced “folks” 17 times. …

The U.S. is being overrun by a wave of anti-science, anti-intellectual thinking. Has the most powerful nation on Earth lost its mind?

America dumbs down

It’s over-stated, but the headline is correct. The USA is getting dumber, not smarter.

Hard to say where it’s all going to end.

less skeptical about Global Warming

On May 25, 2014May 21, 2014 By Rick McIn climate change, economics, government, things getting worseLeave a comment

Though the majority of scientists think the Earth is warming, most believing it being somehow caused by you and me, I’ve remained skeptical.

Until now.

I was a skeptic because the time frames cited were in the 10s or 100s of years. That’s NOTHING in geological terms.

But long term data like this via the Washington Post are more convincing.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

If that data is solid, “warming” looks real enough to me.

Key glaciers in West Antarctica are in an irreversible retreat, a study team led by the US space agency (Nasa) says.

It analysed 40 years of observations of six big ice streams draining into the Amundsen Bay and concluded that nothing now can stop them melting away. …
BBC

If those glaciers really do disappear, over the projected next couple of hundred years, they would add roughly 1.2m to global sea level rise.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the Earth is warming. … What do we do about it that would actually have any positive effect long term? And what would it cost? 😦

related – the NASA press release

17-year-old Tea Party candidate

On May 17, 2014May 17, 2014 By Rick McIn government, things getting worseLeave a comment

In some Republican districts, ANYONE who comes out MORE right wing gets elected. It’s a protest vote.

SairaBlairAd-405px

Does a 17yr-old have enough life experience to govern?

I don’t think so. The Tea Party is a valuable protest movement, like Occupy Wall Street, but it’s foolish to consider many of their candidates qualified to govern.

Less than a month before graduating from high school, a West Virginia teen has won her first election. 17-year-old Saira Blair ran in the Republican primary for state delegate and beat the incumbent state lawmaker Larry Krump …

The impressive west Virginia teen may have won the GOP primary, but what does that mean for her and what does it mean for the Republican party? …

In her own words, she is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-business, pro-jobs and pro-West Virginia. As a Republican platform, those stances are easy to unpack. She opposes abortion, She is against gun control. She is against gay marriage. She wants small government and few government regulations on business. She wants to cut taxes. …

Without taking away from the obviously impressing and interesting story that she has created in West Virginia by winning the GOP primary, her qualifications for being a political leader should definitely be in question. …

Opinion By Lydia Bradbury

Saira is getting some positive press, even from an organization her Tea Party boosters would like to ban, the NPR.

Wish her luck.
___

related – A couple of people reminded me of 19-year-old, Pierre-Luc Dusseault, the youngest person ever elected to Canadian Parliament. He gave up his summer job at the Golf Course to sit as an MP.

He was one of a “motley crew of political newcomers” to be elected in that bizarre protest vote against the Bloc Quebecois.

2014 Fort Hood shooting

On April 9, 2014May 7, 2014 By Rick McIn bad news, firearms, government, things getting worseLeave a comment

On April 2, 2014, a shooting spree occurred at several locations on the Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas. Four people, including the gunman, were killed, while sixteen additional people were injured.

The shooter was 34-year-old Ivan Lopez, an Iraq War veteran who was born in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico. He was married and had four children.

Lopez was allegedly distraught over the deaths of his mother and grandfather during a two-month period five months prior to the shooting, and was also undergoing psychiatric treatment for depression and anxiety. He tried to take a 24-hour leave of absence in order to attend his mother’s funeral, but it took five days for the leave to be approved, which allegedly upset him.

The Base was previously the scene of a mass shooting in 2009, in which 13 people were killed and more than 30 wounded.

President H.W. Bush enacted the current Military Base Gun Regulations in 1992. Not Clinton. Those regulations were not changed by Clinton, G.W. Bush nor Obama. And they are not likely to be changed after this incident.

The talking point of right wing media is that American military bases are “gun-free zones”. That’s wrong, obviously. There are restrictions on who can carry weapons.

It’s clear that Ivan Lopez did not target the Base because it was an easy target.

Fort Hood

The Victims of Fort Hood 😦

new – easier to BUY American politicians

On April 7, 2014 By Rick McIn economics, ethics, government, things getting worseLeave a comment

U.S. Supreme Court ruled to raise the limit for individual campaign contributions from $123,000 to $3.6 million dollars.

Billionaires and corporations can now buy politicians legitimately.

crook politiicans

The rich have far, far too much influence on American politics already. 😦

I’m hoping there’s more disclosure on who donated how much to whom, in future. But not optimistic.

“superbugs” – we are SCREWED

On January 4, 2014January 2, 2014 By Rick McIn health & fitness, things getting worseLeave a comment

It’s much worse than I had previously heard.

… PBS Frontline documentary “Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria” brings to light the reach and magnitude of antibiotic resistance.

Through first-hand accounts tracking personal brushes with so-called “superbugs” – bacteria resistant to most known forms of antimicrobial treatment – the documentary shows how the problem has catapulted the international medical community into crisis.

The entire documentary is now available to watch online.

A complete edited transcript of the interview can be found here. …

cddep.org

… “never get old”

On December 26, 2013December 26, 2013 By Rick McIn friends, health & fitness, things getting worse1 Comment

That’s the advice I’ve been getting from “Physical” Ed Vincent … for decades.

Ed is something like 100yrs old in chronological years — about age-50 to look at while he’s training gymnastics.

Seems old age is bad for your health. It’s Dave’s birthday today — look where he ended up. 🙂

The same week … Warren Long:

… I landed foolishly in the gym from a simple front tuck. I landed with one knee locked and did some damage. After hours in Emergency and XRays and a CT scan, it was found that I had fractured my tibia and probably damaged lots of other stuff.

This morning, after a rush MRI (very lucky to get in), I learned that I had done almost no other damage! No surgery required and no ACL repair needed. Just need to let the bone heal and not let anything else atrophy.

Same week I spent 7hrs in Emergency, arriving by ambulance.

After a dozen tests (EKG, CT scan, etc.) the Doc finally confirmed it was — as he originally suspected — vertigo …

… a subtype of dizziness in which a patient inappropriately experiences the perception of motion (usually a spinning motion) due to dysfunction of the vestibular system …

Dizziness and vertigo are common medical issues, affecting approximately 20%-30% of the general population. …

Best case scenario mine is “Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo“.

No medication. Normally treated by manipulating the head to move out debris in the semicircular canal.

NEVER get old.

NSA highly unlikely to read your email

On December 16, 2013December 15, 2013 By Rick McIn ethics, Google, government, internet, product complaints, things getting worseLeave a comment

A former employee of the National Security Agency, Loren Sands-Ramshaw, weighs the benefits / risks of the U.S.A. collecting all your online data:

Many are concerned about the NSA listening to their phone calls and reading their email messages. I believe that most should not be very concerned because most are not sending email to intelligence targets. Email that isn’t related to intelligence is rarely viewed, and it’s even less often viewed if it’s from a US citizen. …

I do believe that the safeguards against unauthorized data retrieval by Agency employees can and should be improved.

I do not believe that their information-gathering powers should be curtailed. Such restriction would not only hinder the Agency’s ability to gather intelligence, but also impede its ability to wage cyberwarfare.*

The NSA is our best hope in this war. In my mind, the Agency’s continued dominance of the Internet is absolutely worth the once-a-year one-in-three-hundred-million chance that your private data will be purposefully viewed by an NSA employee. …

read more …