ROBIN WILLIAMS, July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014

Laura "A Bit Slow" Ingraham

Eleven years later, Conservative talk-radio host, Laura Ingraham, discovers Iraq is in worse shape since President George W. Bush invaded it.

It takes some time, but eventually these radio jockeys wander into reality.  

And that must be a bitch.



via Crooks and Liars:


"We're almost in an impossible situation. The America people really have no appetite for America to reengage. They don't want us to go into Syria." 

"If we do nothing here, then what? I mean, let's say Iraq does fall, which I think is a possibility. Iraq may fall. If, indeed, there are no boots are the ground, not going to happen, can't happen." 


"I don't know if there's a good solution right now, which is a horrible thing to say for the United States of America." 

Later in the segment, Ingraham pointed out that al Qaeda -- through its ISIS offshoot group -- was "becoming the Islamic state." "We tried to do all these things in Iraq, now Iraq is worse off!" she exclaimed. 

"I mean, I hate to say that, but Iraq is worse than before we went in to Iraq. Christians are gone, there's no sense of order at all." "Saddam Hussein is gone. That's a good thing, but what's left? A more embolden Islamic state."


 George W. Bush's legacy to the U.S.A. and Iraq:   FUBAR


Infidel753 analyzes the Iraq crisis HERE.

Super moonrise @Nauset Beach, Orleans, Cape Cod, Aug. 10, 2014

Sunday Science -- Supermoon?

The August supermoon will shine brightly in the night sky on Sunday and marks the second of three such full moons for the summer — but there is another reason to take note of the event. In terms of timing, August's full moon will occur within the hour the moon reaches perigee, or its closest point to Earth.


But is it a "supermoon?"













From Space.com:
"...it seems that every time a full moon coincides with perigee, it is referred to as a supermoon. Once a year the moon turns full within a few hours of perigee. After this Sunday, the next time this will happen will be on Sept. 28, 2015. But really, shouldn't we reserve such an honorific title only for those full moons that come exceptionally close to Earth (as in 2011)?

And now we are "watering down" the supermoon definition even more ... last month's full moon on July 13 as well as next month's full moon on Sept. 8 are also being branded as supermoons, seemingly because they fall within 90 percent of moon's closest approach to Earth, or to put it in other words, within the top 10 percent of the closest full moons. Even some NASA websites now endorse this definition. So now in most years we have not just one but three supermoons. 

But just how "super" is that? As Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of New York's Hayden Planetarium jokingly noted recently in a tweet: "The perennially hyped name 'Super Moon' insults the legacy of Superman, Super Volcanoes, Supernovae, and even Super Mario." So what should be the proper definition for a "super" moon? I have a suggestion which I'll get to later. But first, be advised that Sunday's full moon will occur at 2:09 p.m. EDT (1809 GMT), so Americans will not get to see the exact moment that the moon is full; when it comes above your local horizon on Sunday evening technically you’ll be looking not at a "full" moon, but a waning gibbous moon. 

Also, it's time to correct a couple of points that are being bandied about by the mainstream media: 

"The supermoon will appear 14 percent larger than normal." 


This statement is false. Assuming that "normal" refers to the moon’s mean distance from the Earth of 238,855 miles (384,400 km), Sunday's supermoon actually will appear 7.2 percent larger than normal, not 14 percent! 

THE REST IS HERE.



In other science news, here's a truly ignorant person's explanation for not "believing" in Evolution.

Richard Nixon's Resignation Speech

Forty years ago today* Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency in disgrace.

*Flying Junior reminded P.E. that Nixon actually resigned on August 9, 1974, not August 8.  

Thanks for the correction, F.J.


Here's his speech:

This Land is Mine: History of the Israel - Palestine Conflict in One Short Video

By Nina Paley

 

Great News!

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signs super PAC disclosure law




"With no fanfare on Friday, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a law increasing individual campaign contribution limits for state candidates and requiring additional disclosures for super political action committees. 

The bill passed the House and Senate by wide margins and was part of a raft of major legislation that the legislature sent to the governor's desk during the final days of the legislative session, which ended Thursday. Patrick has 10 days to consider the bills, which he can sign, veto or let become law without his signature. 

The campaign finance law will have an impact on the 2014 campaigns, which are heating up right now in advance of the Sept. 9 primary elections. Beginning immediately, it requires that all groups making independent expenditures disclose their donors within seven days, or within 24 hours if it is 10 days or less before an election. 

Currently, independent expenditure groups, often referred to as super PACs, only have to report their expenditures during that time frame. The law also requires that ads created by independent expenditure groups include the names of the group's top five donors in the ad, if the donors' contributions exceed $5,000.


Beginning in January, the law raises the amount an individual can contribute to a state candidate from $500 to $1,000. The law includes a number of other campaign finance provisions. It was supported by advocates of government transparency, who said it would make it easier for the public to know who is supporting statewide candidates."

Please Tell Me This Is Satire!

UPDATE:  ONE OF MY COMMENTERS CONFIRMED THAT ChrisTwire.org IS INDEED SATIRE!  THANK DARWIN!



But because so many on the extreme religious right have accused the president so often of ridiculous thing (he's not American, he's not a real Christian, he's gay, his wife is a tranny, etc. etc.), this website seemed to fit in with their fevered fantasies about Mr. Obama.


Yesterday, one of P.E.'s commenters, "Ducky's Here" mentioned this, but I thought he was kidding.

Then I found this on the intertubes:


Obama is Infecting Christians with Ebola To Destroy Jesus and Start A New Age of Liberal Darkness




I'd never heard of "ChrisTwire.org so I wasn't sure whether or not it is a real organization or a parody.

I hope it is a parody because if it's real and people truly buy into this sort of paranoid swill, we're a doomed nation.

The T-GOP Haz A Sad!

NO BENGHAZI SCANDAL!

The T-GOP blogsphere haz a sad!  

What we "libtards" have known all along has been acknowledged by a GOP House report:  

NO BENGHAZI SCANDAL!  



Here's the juicy non-scandal part that will be ignored by every conservative pundit, pol, and blogger:

After nearly two years of investigations, millions of dollars spent, tens of thousands of pages of documents handed over by the administration, a Republican-led committee is about to release a report stating that there is no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Obama White House.



No matter how the T-GOPers banged their ideological pots and pans, howled at the top of their vein-popping tonsils, and stamped their little hooves to create as much noise as they could, nothing ever came of it.  

Because there was no there there.

Two years of investigations turned up NO BENGHAZI SCANDAL!

Too bad, so sad.  





From The San Francisco Chronicle: 

 WASHINGTON -- The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee. 

The panel voted Thursday to declassify the report, the result of two years of investigation by the committee. U.S. intelligence agencies will have to approve making the report public. Thompson said the report "confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given."



So there's that. 



But don't expect our dear Tea Party friends to let go of their fantasies of an ugly, presidential career-ending Benghazi scandal. This will be very difficult for the poor scandal hounds to let go. They wanted it so badly and believed it so fervently.  If you read their blogs, you'll see them declare IN ALL CAPS that BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI!  STILL LIVES!!!111!

How to deal with it? If you love them, as we should always love our misbegotten neighbors, you will remove all sharp objects from their surroundings, "...prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, silence the pianos and with muffled drum bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.*






*WH Auden  

We Interrupt This Blogpost to Bring You Something Beautiful

Five years ago this past June, my older sister passed away.

Saturday, August 2, her first-born grandchild, Sasha, was married, and Sasha, bless her, chose my sister's birthday as her wedding day.

Here is a photo of the beautiful bride, Sasha, and her maid-of -honor sister, Talia, who was featured on this blog last year.  

There is so much beauty in this world.  We must always interrupt anything to share it. 

Here they are, my nieces, Talia and Sasha:

The bride and groom:

T-GOP: Deeply Conflicted, Confused and Hysterical

Oh, the poor dears.


Another example of the deeply conflicted, confused and hysterical T-GOPers as they deal with their fictional construct of a president whom they claim is a weak, ineffective tyrannical dictator.  

They need to find a self-help program, asap, that can bring them safely back from the pit of insanity they so happily wallow in:



"Boehner Encourages Obama To Take Executive Action, One Day After Voting To Sue Obama Over It 

(vis Think Progress) 

"Hours before Congress broke for the August recess, House Republicans claimed that the President could use executive action to fix the border situation with unaccompanied children fleeing violence in the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. In a press statement released Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other House Republican leaders indicated that President Obama could address the crisis “without the need for congressional action,” a statement tinged with some irony given that just the day before, House Republicans had slammed the President with a lawsuit claiming executive overreach. 

 'This situation shows the intense concern within our conference – and among the American people – about the need to ensure the security of our borders and the president’s refusal to faithfully execute our laws,' the House Republican leadership press release stated. 'There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries.' "

Here is a perfect comment on these poor besotted folks who have lost what was left of their minds after Mr. Obama was elected to the presidency for the second time:



"Mr. President, please take some executive action. We can't do anything in Congress because we're too busy suing you for taking some executive action. And we need you to take executive action so we have more we can sue you for." 

 The only people who don't see this as completely nuts are the people who are on board with the GOP agenda -- to discredit the President any way possible. American people be d*mned. Refugee children be d*mned. The world be d*mned. Nothing is more important than lowering the President's approval ratings and trashing his legacy."

On Vacation

Since Monday, I've been in serenely beautiful Vermont at the 

Green Mountain Writers' Conference.



One glorious week of writing and interacting with poets, novelists, short story writers, and memoirists, HERE.

Now off to the great state of Maine for a family wedding @Cape Neddick.

Birthday

UPDATE BELOW


My mother gave birth to me on this day, and this pop song by Joni Mitchell resonates:








But for incomparable beauty and affirmation of life, despite its tragedies, I always return to Mahler.




 




Poetry and classical music soothe one's heart and tell us more about ourselves and the world we struggle to make sense of than anything else I know.



Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver


You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- 
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.




Wow!  I was surprised with this:

Birthday dinner HERE tonight!  Can't wait!!!

What Have We Become?

This is what Americans once believed in:


“Give me your tired, your poor, 
 Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
 The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
 Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: 
 I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” ― Emma Lazarus



Now groups of Americans scream at refugee children, telling them to GO HOME!  WE DON'T WANT YOU HERE!


The nasty posts we've read on so many conservative blogs shows us, sadly, that we've learned nothing and we do not believe a word of what the plaque on Lady Liberty says.  We're now repeating what we've done in our recent past to other refugees.  After the Vietnamese conflict, many refugees who supported America in the war came to this country.  They were met with exactly the same sort of abuse and animosity that the refugee children from Central America are receiving.

Shame on us.  We brag about being the beacon of hope and freedom in the world, then when we're tested on how serious we are about those ideals, we tell the freedom seekers to GO BACK HOME!  WE DON'T WANT YOU!



Digby:


Unfortunately, this is as American as apple pie. The following is an excerpt from Rick Perlstein's forthcoming book called "The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan." It's about how we welcomed the Vietnamese refugees who were forced to leave their country after having allied themselves with the US during the war:

After the Vietnam War, the US accepted 531,310 Vietnamese political refugees and asylum seekers.

At the time, a majority of Americans objected to the immigration. Despite protests, the Congress passed several pieces of legislation allowing Vietnamese refugees to stay in the US and eventually become citizens. Over 85% of those refugees became American citizens.

"Some of the Vietnamese who made it to the United States were preliminarily resettled at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle -- in defiance of a hastily assembled petition got up by residents of the base's host city, which was called Niceville.  A radio poll that found 80 percent of Niceville's resident didn't want them.  The Associated Press reported, "Children in one school joked about shooting a few."  High school kids spoke in class of plans to organize a "Gook Klux Klan."  Student in a twelfth-grade psychology class told their teacher they were worried the refugees would try to convert them to Communism.

Disease, disease, disease , that's all I've heard," complained a congressman representing another relocation site, the San Diego County Marine base, Camp Pendleton of the phone calls he was getting.  "They  think of the Vietnamese as nothing but diseased job seekers."  In Arkansas at Fort Chaffee which admitted twenty-five thousand refugees, the compound was so well guarded that a radical journalist compared it to the "strategic hamlets" the U.S. m military used to build in South Vietnam.  A recently returned veteran told him, "I don't like the people personally.  I didn't see anything worth saving and I don't now."  

The protest placards read "GOOKS GO HOME."



Tea Party town hall erupts as Texas state Rep urges ‘compassion’ for migrant kids 


What have we become?

Massachusetts Tops US in Study of Children’s Well-Being

Well done, Massachusetts.  

But there's still lots of work to be done.  





Young people have a better chance to thrive in Massachusetts than in any other state, according to a national analysis of children’s overall well-being. 

 Nearly all children in the state, 99 percent, have health insurance. Reading and math proficiency rates exceed the national average. 

About 1 in 7 children live in poverty, compared with about 1 in 5 nationwide, according to the 25th annual Annie E. Casey Foundation “ Kids Count” report, released Tuesday. 

 [skip] 

Several other New England states fared well in the rankings. Vermont placed second, with New Hampshire and Connecticut also in the top 10. 

Mississippi placed last.

Rush to Derangement

Just when you think they can't get any crazier, mega-crazy Gee-Oh-Pee-ers pop up like mushrooms after a hard rain. But you never hear any sane Gooper tell them to STFU and go away, so the Gee-Oh-Pee-ers must admire these schlubs.




In a classic just asking the question column, WorldNetDaily pundit Erik Rush argues today that the Obama administration may have been behind the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, suggesting that the White House worked with the Ukrainian government in order to blame Russian-backed militia groups for the crash. 

 This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Rush also claimed that President Obama was behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. 




In saner times when the Republican Party was run by humans instead of jackasses,  a person like Erik Rush would have been laughed at then pitied for his pathetic attempts at political theater.  Instead more than a few conservatives will lap up his putrescent mind-droppings and belch them back into their blog posts and blast emails where their equally weak-brained readers will nod their heads, scratch their chins and say "damn right."  

Because "Obummer!" Their O.D.S. is such that more than a few will believe it. The crazier the theory, the more likely they'll embrace it.


Someone somewhere in wingnut land actually paid Erik Rush for that load of codswallop.

Ah, such is the result of the continuing decline of a once sane political party.

This is What the GOP is Attracting These Days

GOP candidate from Indiana, John Johnson

“For almost three generations people, in some cases, have been given handouts,” Johnston said during the discussion. “They have been ‘enabled’ so much that their paradigm in life is simply being given the stuff of life, however meager.” 

“What you see is a setting for a life of misery is life to them never-the-less,” he continued. “No one has the guts to just let them wither and die. No one who wants votes is willing to call a spade a spade. As long as the Dems can get their votes the enabling will continue. The Republicans need their votes and dare not cut the fiscal tether. It is really a political Catch-22.” 

 “The voters are the ones in charge,” Johnston said. “(H)owever when only 10-11 percent show up to vote, not much will change. People simply are not hurting enough, or simply happy enough that they will do nothing. consequently the dole continues.”






After this mouthful of slop got published in the local newspapers and on the "intertubes," John Johnson whines that he was taken out of context and he didn't really mean what he exactly said about letting poor people "wither and die."  And did you catch "...calling a spade a spade..." dog whistle?

The GOP attracts lots of these misanthropic jerks.  Can anyone guess why?

"...To See Ourselves As Others See Us"

O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us. 
 (O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.) 
--Robert Burns, Poem "To a Louse" - verse 8





HOW SOME BRITS SEE THE USA:

Yes, Governor Patrick!

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

Governor Deval Patrick stepped up to the plate and offered to give refuge to 1,000 Central American children fleeing from murder and mayhem.  He now has to face opposition from those in the legislature and other parts of the state who believe we should repeat the U.S.'s shameful history and turn these refugees away, just as we turned away hundred of Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany, and who were sent back to their certain deaths.

Governor Patrick:

“We have rescued Irish children from famine, Russian and Ukrainian children from religious persecution, Cambodian children from genocide, Haitian children from earthquakes, Sudanese children from civil war, and New Orleans children from Hurricane Katrina,” Patrick said. “Once, in 1939, we turned our backs on Jewish children fleeing the Nazis, and it remains a blight on our national reputation. The point is that this good Nation is great when we open our doors and our hearts to needy children, and diminished when we don’t.”

Patrick’s remark alluded to the refusal on the part of U.S. in 1939 to allow a ship carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees escaping the emerging Nazi regime in Germany to land on American shores. Belgium, France, Britain and the Netherlands subsequently took the refugees in.

 
CBS News reported in May that the U.S. also denied London stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winston’s request that same year to provide asylum for 669 Czechoslovakian children — many of them Jewish — who were also fleeing from the Nazis. A memo from the State Department to the American embassy in London instructed embassy staff to tell him that the U.S. “unable, in the absence of specific legislation, to permit immigration in excess of that provided for by existing immigration laws.” Those children were also taken in by Britain."

More here from Squatlo Rant.

"This Is How Progressives Should Deal With A Post-Hobby Lobby America"

Reason number eleventy-hundred why I like living in Massachusetts.  

Gordon College in Salem, Mass., wants the government to allow it to discriminate against people based solely on their sexual orientation.  The mayor of Salem says no, you can't discriminate based on sexual orientation.  

At one time people with "sincerely held religious beliefs" discriminated against interracial couples, and Jews, and Mormons, and Catholics, and anti-slavery groups. However, religious beliefs do not give people the right to deny other people their Constitutional rights.

Bravo to Mayor Driscoll and the city of Salem, Mass. (where my children were born).



"The mayor of the city of Salem, Massachusetts doesn’t regret her city’s decision to sever its ties to Gordon College, the Christian university that asked the federal government to grant it a religious exemption from workplace protections for LGBT employees.

In fact, in a letter she posted to the city’s Facebook page, Mayor Kimberly Driscoll pledged to donate five dollars to an LGBT youth charity for every angry phone call her office gets from conservatives bent on harassing city employees over the decision.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic decision in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, Gordon College President D. Michael Lindsay joined a group of other Christian leaders who sent a letter to President Barack Obama insisting that their “sincerely held religious beliefs” compel them to demand exemption from federal nondiscrimination laws.

Gordon College, Lindsay argued, is “an explicitly Christian institution,” and as such, should be allowed to fire or to refuse to hire individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Some students and faculty reacted angrily, saying that Lindsay was making their school sound bigoted and backward. 


The New England Association of Schools and Colleges announced earlier this week that it is considering pulling Gordon College’s academic accreditation over its insistence on adhering to discriminatory policies, regardless of their religious foundations. Then came the city of Salem’s decision to cut all contractual ties with the college until its rules match the federal government’s."

***********

I've read many an essay about people who wish to discriminate against the LGBT community based on their sincerely held religious beliefs and how we who do not share those beliefs should be more understanding and respectful of their feelings on this specific issue.  

I've also read that people with sincerely held religious beliefs love the sinner but hate the sin.  How is discrimination against the LGBT community, which forces people into second-class status through shaming and rejection and limits their employment opportunities,"loving the sinner?"  What some religious people see as loving the sinner and hating the sin other people see as bigotry.  And their sincerely held belief is as legitimate as anyone else's.



This Is How Progressives Should Deal With a Post-Hobby Lobby America