James and this relatively new guy were talking out on the patio tonight. And the new guy says "Forget about releasing criminals out of prison being in danger of being repeat offenders; the United States is the biggest repeat offender of all, regarding violations of human rights. We seem to forget that people of other nations don't like attrocities comitted against them. They didn't like it in Viet Nam when we burned whole villages sheerly out of spite, and they want to forget it's true in Afghanistan. Of course on Saturday in the dead of night I guess, going on Sunday morning this 38 year old Master Sergeant slips out of his base and walks several miles wearing night vision goggles carrying two weapons. And he goes to neighboring villages knocking on doors and killing whole families. They say he killed sixteen people in all and nine of them were children. How could children be members of the Talliban. They are going to release his name sometime. This individual was deployed in Iraq in the last decade and in 2008 managed to pass two psychological evaluations despite already showing symptums of mental instability and he was also "hit in the head". Now of course the town's people have turned against the United States and want to join the Talliban. The President today said that the United States would neither increase or decrease our pace of withdrawal of troops from that country and reassures the Republicans that "We aren't going to go running for the Exits". These "incidents' appear to be more frequent now. We had the incident of our troops urinating on Talliban bodies and photographing it. And then there was the recent incident of the Koran burning. The Republican response is that we should not apologise for any of it. Instead their whole line is for the United States to double down on war agression. Of course as Randy Rhodes pointed out today troops going on their fourth and fifth deployment and brainwashed to kill as they are are having all the humanity bled out of them. And like a boxer who tells the referee he can go another round, doesn't know when to quit. Republicans have amazingly short memories. For just a year ago the majority of Tea Party members in congress were saying that we should get out of foreign wars to cut expenditures. It was even postulated that the Republican candidate of 2012 may be "the peace candidate". But somehow a minority of views such as John Mc Cain's was allowed to prevail and now you hear nothing but debates on which War will we escalate first. Will it be in Iran or Syria, or in Afghanistan? It's as though for these Republicans the past ten years never happened, or that there doesn't come a point when the Citizenry of a country just gets war weary and has had enough. This whole idea of disproportionate vengeance is not new to this country. With the Indian tribes in the 1900's there were routinely cries for the mass slaughter of Indian tribes based on the most trival of offences. The idea is engrained in our consciousness that the US has the "entitlement' that we can get away with literally anything because after all "We are the United States"
We are continuing to hear about what a warm winter it is. Today's weather report indicates that it's in the seventies in New York's central park, and lovely weather- for a day in May. The cherry blossums are out already in Washington. Orkin has announced that insecticide sales are way up, along with hardware stores selling outdoor furniture. People's heating bills are 17% lower this winter. It's all explained because of some "polar ocelation" or something up north. But that doesn't stop people from saying - - 89% of the population of the United States says that gasoline prices are the number one issue and 55% believe President Obama is to blame. President Obama's economic support has now dropped a lot and is down to 38% No matter what the President says on the subject in the way of educating the public, it doesn't register on the American People. Some people are talking about tapping into US oil reserves and one caller this morning said that "There are refineries right nearby so getting that oil into the supply pipeline should be an easy thing". They forget that we had skyrocketing gasoline prices under both Nixon and Bush and nobody blamed the Republicans then. Somehow when a Republican was in power those on the right decided that they would place the blame where it lay, on foreign powers and the like. But not with President Obama.
We are hearing more stories about how eating red meat will kill you. Now they say that just one additional serving of meat will significally shorten your life, increase the danger of heart attack, and even give you Cancer. President Clinton has now given up meat and become a Veegan. Roommate Bill just told me that he has given up smoking. That's one less person to borrow from. George Carlin was saying nearly forty years ago that "two things that will kill you are alcohol and red meat". Isn't it funny that human civilization for these past five thousand years don't seem to have suffered all that much from either, untill now.
It doesn't matter at all really whether Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum wins Mississippi and Alabama. What the candidicy of Sarah Palin proved in the 2008 election was that being stupid was no bar to possibly becomming President. Things like experiance and statesmanship and altruism don't count any more. We are looking for a glamor icon and it doesn't even bother us if that's ALL a Presidential Candidate cares to be. Sarah quit her job as governor. But she hasn't devoted that time to any worthwhile charitable causes such as for instance helping out the causes of charities- - even ones involving helping children with disabilities. Sarah from first to last only was looking out for number one. Everything has to be about her. If she can't successfully string enough sentenses to get a passing grade on a first semester College English class, this is of no concern to people. I honestly don't know how it happened that we turned into an entire nation of uneducated Southern hicks, but we did. Of course now Thom Hartman is apparently off the air on our local station, and this is the loss at least in LA of one needed voice of intelligence. But I meant it when I said these people are not only MIS-informed, but they are DIS-informed by people like Rush Limbaugh and their local church pastor, who may or not know better but do it anyhow. They are primed and condition to NOT accept any new information or view on any subject because to admit there is something they don't already know, and know completely making no further information necessary. So this just makes the work for the rest of us, who aren't pod people, all that much harder. Whether we'll succeed is still in question.
If people DO venture into things they know little about they exercise amazingly little discipline. This guy talking with James was informing me about such concepts as "Time Folding" and "Time Filing". He says, once you are up to speed on these issues the concept is simple. I tried to bring him to the realization that Time travel is impossible because we can't change what's already happened for the simple reason of "It's already Happened" (Selah) Then he brought in the idea of happening in other dimensions. Well, we don't live in those dimensions and there is no scientific proof they even exist- - much like the "theory" of Creationism is just a theory. We don't know. It's a guess. An Idea. A postulate. It's not logical to assume as Fact the existance of something for which there absolutely no evidence. As to his bit about "Once you understand time folding it's am amazingly simple concept" I have this to say. How many dimensions is our time? I's one, isn't it. If you draw a line on a sheet of paper it has ONE dimension. the minute you curve that line it has two dimensions and not one. So we agree that ONE dimensional time cannot bend. I don't even believe Einstein says it can. Of course Christians love to speak of "alternate realities" and they are specially endowed with their Powers of the Spirit to perceive them. They will tell you "nothing is at it seems" and also "After you die, you will see the Truth of your life for what it really was, either for good or bad". I have a definite problem with the words "After you die". That's like saying "I'll pay you the Second Tuesday of Next Week". Again you are basing your oppinion input on something that is a non fact, and trying to pawn of a conclusion from said non facts as somehow "factual". Even they should be able to see that this is illogical thinking. Liberals love logic and conservatives have an abiding antagonism to logic. And therein lies the Problem.
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