Are Republicans Finally Waking Up to the Realities of the Sequester?

With so many insightful investigative report s and op-ed articles appearing online all the time, it's no wonder that so many of us are turning their backs on cable news sources. With so much out there,  scattered hither and thither, it's next to impossible to catch them all.
That's where I come in! Here's an op-ed article that I thought you might find interesting.

President of the United Steel Workers, Leo Gerard has written an excellent piece at In These Times called:

The GOP’s Big Yellow Taxi Syndrome

The same Republicans who thought Norquist's infamous comment about "shrinking government small enough to drown it in the bathtub" was witty and wise are now having second thoughts about the idea. Especially when it comes to cuts that affect their own districts.

Republicans bellyached for years that government must shrink. It had to be smaller. Cut the budget come hell or high water, they yammered. Well, darn if the sequester hasn’t brought hell and high water to Republican districts across America.....

Now that it’s here, now that it’s affecting their constituents, Republicans contend the $1 trillion in indiscriminate, across-the-board budget cuts they demanded should have been specifically targeted to eliminate only “waste, fraud and abuse.”

"Waste, fraud and abuse" is apparently a stock phrase that that been on the lips of the Republicans-especially the Tea Party radicals. And yet, when called upon to explain where they would have cut, (note the past tense) the GOP remained vague and tended to change the subject. It was a phrase that played well in sound-bites on Fox News and back home but, without any specifics, it was about as hollow as Satan's heart.

The Right Wing's Strange Love-Hate Relationship with Mr. Darwin

There’s always been a vexing paradox about the marriage of the Neo-conservatives with the Christian Right. Certain key principles endorsed by either group just do not seem to fit together. One of those mismatches involves the respective attitudes of these groups toward the ideas of Charles Darwin. 

From the moment, Darwin published his major works in the middle of the 19th century, it was clear that the strict adherents of the Biblical view would find much to despise. Any blurring of the line between Man as a divine creation of God, and Man as a creepy-crawly evolutionary product of thoughtless Nature was bound to cause a bit of a fuss. 

The argument between the strict believers in the unchallengeable word of God and the evolutionists committed to the peculiar notions of Mr. Darwin was, in many ways, part of the larger war between science and religion. 

All very interesting, you say, but what of it? 

The problem lies in one of the key principles of evolution, namely, the survival of the fittest. Unfortunately for the Christian Right, it just happens to form the basis of the neo-conservative social platform. It’s called Social Darwinism. 

Talking Goat Claims Sarah Palin is Actually the Anti-Christ

(reprinted from Nomadic View for the special April Fools post) HEILONGJIANG PROVINCE, CHINA- The news of Kah-Kah, a five-year-old Hailun breed of domesticated goat, has astounded scientists around the world in what seems to be the first true and verifiable case of intelligent animal speech. And apparently, the goat had an important announcement. Hao Wei Yuan, his owner, told reporters, "I was in the rice field and I heard somebody calling my name. There was nobody. Only Kah-Kah. Then I understood that it was goat's voice." After Wei Yuan brought the goat to his home, his wife and children refused to have any thing to with the animal. "They were frightened and told me to kill it. She say You go and kill it. Kill it.' But I could not do." And yet the strangest part was yet to come. US biology professor Emery Bohred from Stanford University heard of the strange phenomenon, while on a tour of farms in late 2008. Naturally he decided to make the long journey to the isolated region to see for himself. "I admit, I didn't believe it. I thought it was all a wild goat chase. I mean, seriously, a talking goat? At best, I thought it would be making random sounds that could possibly sound like words. I was not prepared for this." When Bohred arrived, what he discovered astounded him. "It was actually speaking English. Not merely sounds but full words strung together as sentences. That's something I hadn't heard before. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. " The goat would spend hours chatting with local villagers under the Yam-yam tree in a variety of dialects but even the owners were stunned to hear the goat address the American strangers in their own language. "Initially, the goat refused to answer any direct questions and kept changing the subject. For a Capra aegagrus hircus, it was quite obtuse." Even today, whenever Professor Bohred talks about Kah-Kah, his face still lights up with child-like wonder. "You can't imagine my reaction. Kah-Kah actually asked me questions about where I was from, if I was married and my age. The goat even translated Chinese jokes into English, but I didn't quite see the humor. " (Bohred attributes this to a cultural, rather than any inter-species, gap. ) After recovering from the shock, Bohred asked Wei Yuan for permission to examine the goat more intensively. In the following three months, Bohred conducted a wide variety of experiments to determine how Kah-Kah might have developed such a capacity. "I suspect it is genetic." speculated Bohred, "I am still uncertain." There was one thing that Kah-Kah kept repeating. At first, Bohred noted, it was only a name. "Sarah Palin. " (Oddly the goat's accent seemed to have an artificial Minnesota dialect.) "When I showed that I recognized the name, the goat clearly stated, 'Sarah Palin is the Anti-Christ.' For three days in March 2009, Kah-Kah continued to repeat that same sentence over and over. "From morning until night, like a broken record. I thought I would lose my mind. " "And then, suddenly without any explanation, the goat was silent." Bohred explained to reporters at a press conference. Wei Yuan, at his family insistence, finally slaughtered Kah-Kah in November 2010. Yuan told reporters: "My wife, she very angry with me. She say me ancient Chinese proverb. 'Just because an ass can speak. it doesn't mean you have to listen.' " There was, unfortunately, no record of the goat's last words. However, according to village sources, Kah-Kah was broiled with liberal amounts of ginger and garlic and made a splendid dinner for nine.

Talking Goat Claims #sarahpalin is actually the ANTI-CHRIST
https://t.co/X8UVkxVFYY pic.twitter.com/ZhjmcJE4cr

— Ed Goff- Nomad (@ANomadicView) February 19, 2016

Last Stand: Newspapers, Paywalls and George Orwell

Last year saw many in the beleaguered newspaper industry finally committing to restrict general online access to both their current editions to their archives behind so-called paywalls. 
 Even after years of declining revenues, there were plenty of concerns about the whole idea. From now on, if anybody wishes to read news content of these newspapers will have to become a subscriber. That includes not merely current news but the archives as well.

But can paywalls really save the print media or will it just squeeze the last drop of advertising dollar from another dying industry? Although the jury is still out on that, a more critical question might be: How will the paywall business model change journalism, or the freedom of information? What are the long term consequences for democracy when essential information is available only to people who can afford to view it?

Iraq Invasion: What it Feels like to be Ahead of Your Time

This is what it feels like to be a decade ahead of your time. 

Look at that crowd; all those smug looks, smirking at the loudmouth fat guy. Listen to all that booing. Wasn't Hollywood supposed to the bastion of bleeding heart liberals?

The real question is: how many of us could have stood there on that stage and said the same things at that time? Keep in mind, Michael Moore was receiving death threats for voicing his opinions on the war. Wouldn't it have been easier and safer to remain silent?