| Black Beard Alt-Right does Washington, D.C. |
Majorities in Congress often overreach, but usually not on the very first day.(NY Times, emphasis added). Actually, they were simply practicing their alt-right religion (Doing The Right Thing - Mithraism, 2, 3).
House Republicans, on the verge of a Washington takeover as the new Congress convened Tuesday, couldn’t stop themselves from trying to dilute the power of a despised ethics watchdog as their first order of business. In the process, they created an unsightly spectacle that pretty much ruined an opening-day celebration of unified Republican government, undermined their own leadership and perhaps foretold the shape of things to come.
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“Mr. Trump campaigned that he was going to drain the swamp, and here we are on Day 1 trying to fill the swamp,” Representative Walter B. Jones, Republican of North Carolina, said after he and his colleagues hurriedly jettisoned a plan seen as a brazen attempt to weaken an independent ethics office that some felt had been unfair to lawmakers. “That is not a good way to start.”
How did the bushies remove the boogie man from under your bed, since that description sounds strangely like the banksters of recent "bailout" infamy?(Bush II Eradicated The Robber Barons - 4, emphasis added). No ethics law means no ethics violations in the U.S.eh?
How did they do that you may be asking? The answer is that they did it using what they think is the "Christian way".
The very Bible they profess to follow says: "... because law brings wrath. Where there is no law, there is no transgression of the law" (Romans 4:15). Now ask yourself, "what good robber baron wants 'wrath' for doing what comes naturally"?
So, when the bushies heard the preacher in church quoting Romans 4:15 their eyes twinkled so brightly folks in the pews around them thought that a meteorite was passing overhead.
It was like the conversion of the Apostle Paul, only in reverse. It was an epiphany of the sort that changes a nation from one age into another age.
They removed the law, which made taking money from the public trough in certain ways, robbery. Thus, no robbery law, no transgression of the law bringing wrath, and thus no more robber barons.
The U.S. then entered the age of the Plunder Barons, who after gorging themselves under Bush II and the republican controlled congress, are seeing if they can corrupt the new blood recently elected.
| "We Ain't Got Nuthin' Yet" |
"Lastly, I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilisation than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risks nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races [Chuck was a tad-bit racist eh?] will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world." - Charles Darwin (1881)(The Evolution of Anthropogenic Extinction by Catastrophe, quoting Human evolution: Darwinism, by Jan Anthony Sapp, emphasis added). Evidently, "there are many here among us," still, who are the eyes of Darwinian evolution.
Charles Darwin's theories, first published more than 150 years ago, still set the paradigm of how we understand the evolution of life-but scientific advances of recent decades have radically altered that understanding. In fact the currently accepted history of life on Earth is flawed and out of date. Now two pioneering scientists, one already an award-winning popular author, deliver an eye-opening narrative that synthesizes a generation's worth of insights from new research.
Writing with zest, humor, and clarity, Ward and Kirschvink show that many of our long-held beliefs about the history of life are wrong.
(Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 42). There is a video at the bottom of that quoted post where, among many other interesting things, the persecution of Lamarck by Darwin et. al. is discussed.
Some would say that genomics has been able to distil some humility into humankind. The finalised version of the human genome deprived us of the illusion that we are one of the most complex creatures on Earth — an illusion that was at the basis of some guesses that Homo sapiens was expected to have at least 100,000 genes. When we look at a table of genomes by species, and specifically at the number of genes that have been counted or estimated for each species, we notice that humans are surpassed by several plants and invertebrates.(The Human Microbiome Congress). Those who discovered the first "human" DNA bloviated a bit too much while we were not yet aware of our microbiome (The Human Microbiome Congress).
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... some 90 percent of the protein-encoding cells in our body are microbes ... 99 percent of the functional genes in the body are microbial ... exchanging messages with genes inside human cells ... microbes cohabitating our body outnumber human cells by a factor of 10, making us actually “superorganisms” that use our own genetic repertoire as well as those of our microbial symbionts ... We just happen to look human because our human cells are much larger than bacterial cells ... no matter how you look at it, it’s high time we acknowledge that part of being human is being microbial ...
More problematic is the reality that the human genome is still a vast catalogue of the unknown and scarcely known. The Human Genome Project’s most startling finding was that human genes, as currently defined, make up less than 2 percent of all the DNA on the genome, and that the total number of genes is relatively small. Scientists had predicted there might be 80,000 to 140,000 human genes, but the current tally is fewer than 25,000 — as one scientific paper put it, somewhere between that of a chicken and a grape. The remaining 98 percent of our DNA, once dismissed as “junk DNA,” is now taken more seriously. Researchers have focused on introns, in the gaps between the coding segments of genes, which may play a crucial role in regulating gene expression, by switching them on and off in response to environmental stimuli.(One Man's Junk Gene Is Another Man's Treasure Gene?). That really pisses off those who spent countless hours in college studying how human genes determine everything.
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If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born.
In 2000, a team of Boston scientists discovered a peculiar gene in the human genome. It encoded a protein made only by cells in the placenta. They called it syncytin.
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What made syncytin peculiar was that it was not a human gene. It bore all the hallmarks of a gene from a virus.
Viruses have insinuated themselves into the genome of our ancestors for hundreds of millions of years.
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It turned out that syncytin was not unique to humans. Chimpanzees had the same virus gene at the same spot in their genome. So did gorillas. So did monkeys. What’s more, the gene was strikingly similar from one species to the next.
"Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it," he wrote in the draft. "Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases…given off above all because of human activity."(Mother Jones). Pope Francis goes on the offensive against deniers in his church and those not in his church.
The pope will also single out those obstructing solutions. In an apparent reference to climate-change deniers, the draft states: "The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions."
The Church, too, had her place in the feudal system. She too was granted territorial fiefs, became a vassal, possessed immunities. It was the result of her calm, wide sympathy, turning to the new nations, away from the Roman Empire, to which many Christians thought she was irrevocably bound. By the baptism of Clovis she showed the baptism of Constantine had not tied her to the political system. So she created a new world out of chaos, created the paradox of barbarian civilization. In gratitude kings and emperors endowed her with property; and ecclesiastical property has not infrequently brought evils in its train. The result was disputed elections; younger sons of nobles were intruded into bishoprics, at times even into the papacy. Secular princes claimed lay investiture of spiritual offices. The cause of this was feudalism, for a system that had its basis on land tenure was bound at last to enslave a Church that possessed great landed possessions.(American Feudalism - 2). Next comes the decision phase of individuals faced with choosing between the American Oil Religion of Oil-Qaeda (Oilah Akbar! Oilah Akbar!) and the Pope's version (Catholicism).
| POGO at the garbage patch |
What can be said when a young naive boy burns his nuts off on an airplane while playing a video game in his head?(The Keystone Complex To The Rescue, cf. Bart Simpson ... Security). They are all lathered up over things that, by comparison, are less dangerous than:
Especially when it causes the whole commercial aviation system, together with the infamous homeland security gang (disorganized into a strange meme-complex) to go nuts too?
The Keystone Kops meme-complex comes to mind.
(Terrorism We Can Believe In? - 3). And yet, like Don Quixote, we spend trillions of dollars worrying about things that are not, by comparison, dangerous to us:
- You are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist
- You are 33,842 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist
- obesity is 5,882 to 23,528 times more likely to kill you than a terrorist
- you are 5,882 times more likely to die from medical error than terrorism
- you’re 4,706 times more likely to drink yourself to death than die from terrorism
- you are 1,904 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist
- your meds are thousands of times more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda
- you’re 2,059 times more likely to kill yourself than die at the hand of a terrorist
- you’re 452 times more likely to die from risky sexual behavior than terrorism
- you’re 353 times more likely to fall to your death ... than die in a terrorist attack
- you are 271 times more likely to die from a workplace accident than terrorism
- you are 187 times more likely to starve to death in America than be killed by terrorism
- you’re about 22 times more likely to die from a brain-eating zombie parasite than a terrorist
- you were more than 9 times more likely to be killed by a law enforcement officer than by a terrorist
- [being] “crushed to death by ... [TV] or furniture” [as likely as] being killed by terrorist
- Americans are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than terrorism
- you are more likely to be killed by a toddler than a terrorist
- you [are] four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist
(Homeland Security Happy Daze - 2). When those neoCons took it to the hoop and started spying on all Americans, the courts held that such activity by the military NSA is illegal (ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller - 13).The Washington Post has begun a block buster series following a couple of years of research.(The Keystone Complex To The Rescue). That story reveals a shocking anti-American development on its own, but the story is all the more egregious in the context of the republicans wanting to cut education, health care, social security, etc., but not those senseless republican behemoths.
They expose some of MOMCOM's excesses in the field of spying ("intelligence"), showing that American spying, like the military, is out of control:
The investigation's other findings include:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.
* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
(Washington Post). That only scratches the surface, the story is also that no one knows all about it or how much it costs, hence, it is out of control.
Changes in the area and volume of the two polar ice sheets in Antarctica ... and Greenland are intricately linked to changes in global climate, and could result in sea-level changes that could severely affect the densely populated coastal regions on Earth. Melting of the West Antarctica part of the Antarctic ice sheet alone could cause a sea-level rise of approximately 6 meters (m). The potential sea-level rise after melting of the entire Antarctic ice sheet is estimated to be about 73 m. In spite of its importance, the mass balance (the net volumetric gain or loss) of the Antarctic ice sheet is poorly known; it is not known whether the ice sheet is growing or shrinking. As a result, measurement of changes in the Antarctic ice sheet has been given a very high priority in recommendations by the Polar Research Board of the National Research Council, by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs.(The Agnotology of Sea Level Rise Via Ice Melt). The invader is poorly known because our leaders in government and business are all too often psychopaths.
"One thing is for sure on the subject of global warming induced climate change: if there was ever a time to err on the safe side, it was long ago." - Dredd
| Chesapeake Bay: Largest estuary in the U.S.A. |
"With its expansive coastline, low-lying topography, and growing coastal population, the Chesapeake Bay region is among the places in the nation most vulnerable to sea-level rise."(Chesapeake Bay and Global Warming, 2007-08, emphasis added). If you think that description reads like the description of the vulnerable coast of New England, at Hudson River Bay, it is because it is under the exact same threats from SLR:
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"Average sea levels in the Chesapeake Bay have been rising. Many places along the bay have seen a one-foot increase in relative sea-level rise over the 20th century, six inches due to global warming and another six inches due to naturally subsiding coastal lands--a factor that places the Chesapeake Bay region at particular risk."
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"Already, at least 13 islands in the bay have disappeared entirely, and many more are at risk of being lost soon."
The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized. The Government’s own objective assessment of the relevant science and a strong consensus among qualified experts indicate that global warming threatens, inter alia, a precipitate rise in sea levels, severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems, a significant reduction in winter snowpack with direct and important economic consequences, and increases in the spread of disease and the ferocity of weather events. [quoting U.S. Supreme Court](Will This Float Your Boat - 8). For those who don't get it yet (the threat to national security, national economy, and American stability), see the satire @ Will This Float Your Boat - 9, and the information about the great difficulty involved with official processes dealing with solving port problems (The Agnotology of Sea Level Rise Via Ice Melt).
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"By volume, more than 95 percent of U.S. international trade moves through the nation's ports and harbors, with about 50 percent of these goods being hazardous materials." [quoting NOAA 'Ports']
(World Ports: Virginia, Maryland). These ports that impact multiple millions of Americans (e.g. international commerce) are under the same threats as the New York and New England ports (danger of Greenland Ice Sheet melt-collapse generated SLR).Virginia:
Port of Alexandria
Port of Norfolk
Port Cape Charles
Port of Chesapeake
Port of Hopewell
Port of Newport News
Port of Piney Point
Port of Portsmouth
Port of Richmond
Port of Yorktown
Maryland:
Port Annapolis
Port of Baltimore
Port of Cambridge
Somers Cove Marina
City Yacht Basin
Naval Air Station Patuxent River
Solomons Island Harbor
However, several barriers to climate adaptation have been recognised (Becker 2011, IAPH 2011, UKCIP 2007), including inconsistency between organisational planning timeframes (5 – 15 years) compared with climate projections of 30 – 90 years; as well as the uncertainty of local climate projections leading to decision-makers delaying action until there is perceived to be more certainty. To help address these concerns, this report proposes a hybrid “risk / vulnerability” approach to understanding and adapting to climate change. That is, consideration of current day vulnerabilities to extreme weather events, integrated with an assessment of future climate risks." (Climate Resilient Ports, emphasis added).(The Agnotology of Sea Level Rise Via Ice Melt). Even when states seriously consider the danger to their coastal ports, cold molasses moves faster.
"First proposed more than 20 years ago, the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project has been studied and delayed more times over the past two decades than anyone can count. So it’s no surprise that the big news at the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) this year has been the approval of the massive project to deepen the Savannah River and harbor to expand the Port of Savannah’s capacity.
The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP) finally got the go-ahead in October – 15 years after it first received a congressional OK in 1999 – when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Georgia Department of Transportation and the GPA signed a Project Partnership Agreement (PPA). After years of studies, delays and lawsuits that both stalled the project and pushed projected costs sky high, construction was scheduled to begin by the end of 2014 on what has been called the most critical infrastructure development project in Georgia in decades." (Georgia Trend, emphasis added).
| The comfort zones of The Comfort Zone |
"Why are we so bad at knowing ... Eric Schwitzgebel, in “Perplexities of Consciousness,” contends that our minds, rather than being open-access, are largely hidden territory. Despite what we believe about our powers of introspection, the reality is that we know awfully little about what our conscious experience amounts to. Even when reporting current experience, we make divergent, confused and even contradictory claims about what it’s like to be on the inside [of our own cognition]."(Know Thyself: Easier Said Than Done, emphasis added). The cognitive scientist Dr. G. Lakoff wrote:
Probably 98 percent of your reasoning is unconscious - what your brain is doing behind the scenes. Reason is inherently emotional. You can't even choose a goal, much less form a plan and carry it out, without a sense that it will satisfy you, not disgust you. Fear and anxiety will affect your plans and your actions. You act differently, and plan differently, out of hope and joy than out of fear and anxiety.(What Orwell Didn't Know, pp. 68-9). In other words: "What do you see when you turn out the light? ... I can't tell you, but I know it's mine ... I get by with a little help from my friends" (Beatles).
Thought is physical. Learning requires a physical brain change: Receptors for neurotransmitters change at the synapses, which changes neural circuitry. Since thinking is the activation of such circuitry, somewhat different thinking requires a somewhat different brain. Brains change as you use them-even unconsciously. It's as if your car changed as you drove it, say from a stick shift gradually to an automatic.
In this paper, I introduce the emerging theory of judgment aggregation as a framework for studying institutional design in social epistemology. When a group or collective organization is given an epistemic task, its performance may depend on its ‘aggregation procedure’, i.e. its mechanism for aggregating the group members' individual beliefs or judgments into corresponding collective beliefs or judgments endorsed by the group as a whole. I argue that a group's aggregation procedure plays an important role in determining whether the group can meet two challenges: the ‘rationality challenge’ and the ‘knowledge challenge’. The rationality challenge arises when a group is required to endorse consistent beliefs or judgments; the knowledge challenge arises when the group's beliefs or judgments are required to track certain truths. My discussion seeks to identify those properties of an aggregation procedure that affect a group's success at meeting each of the two challenges.(Journal Episteme, Judgment Aggregation, PDF here). In terms of SLR, this applies to all the climate change groups, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
| Sea level rise brings job diversity to America |
| Downtown Tomorrow |
New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York metropolitan area, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. A global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.(New York City). That is only the half of it (121 threatened cities and towns, home to 9,142,669).
Considered one of the largest natural harbors in the world, the port is by(Port of New York and New Jersey). It won't take Chris "Speedy" Christie and his port buddies (yes, they drink a bit of wine) to move all the things, down there on the Hudson, out of there (look at how fast they
tonnage the third largest in the United States and the busiest on the East Coast.
Buy stock in moving companies
The port is the nation's top gateway for international flights and its busiest center for overall passenger and air freight flights. There are two foreign-trade zones (FTZ) within the port: FTZ 1, the first in the nation, established in 1937, on the New York side of the port; and FTZ 49, on the New Jersey side.
In 2010, 4,811 ships entered the harbor carrying over 32.2 million metric tons of cargo valued at over $175 billion. The port handled $208 billion in shipping cargo in 2011. In 2014, the port handled 3,342,286 containers and 393,931 automobiles.
| Groundhog Day Foundation |
| The Hypothetical Epistle |
Science and religion both tell us of future catastrophe and a way out.(Message of Science & Religion - Western, 2009). The advent of the murder suicide pact of current civilization (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) is way, way ahead of the very long term solar catastrophe written about in that quote.
They both tell us to learn to live together to avoid the catastrophe, and they both tell us we must go into "heaven" or suffer "hell" for it. Yes they do.
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Science says our star the sun will destroy the earth in the future, but there is a way out.
We must go into the heavens and find another home planet to live upon.
We must learn to live together here and now, and be decent to this planet in the interim.
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If we do not travel into the heavens our fate will be determined when the sun eventually turns the inner four planets of this solar system into the fires of hell.
Religion talks of potential Armageddon but those who are good will be spared, those who are good will go into heaven to a better home.
It generally teaches us that the golden rule is to be good to each other treating one another as we would be treated. If we do not there will be a hell instead of a heaven.
That is essentially the same story told by two factions, but the how it is done is where the two stories drift far apart.
Science teaches us we must physically do it ourselves, but religion in a general sense teaches us that we are to be saved by metaphysical intervention.
The Vatican is hosting a climate change summit that will focus on the need for decisive action to combat global warming as a moral imperative and Christian duty, especially given its impact on poor people.(Vatican Climate Change Summit, emphasis added). Both religious and scientific disciplines have members who realize that destroying the life support system of the Earth is the mindset of those who are not here (You Are Here).
The Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity meeting in Rome on Tuesday is a precursor to the release of Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, which is due out in June or July and is expected to centre on the duty of the faithful to address climate change, whatever its causes.
Pope Francis is not scheduled to speak at the summit but was due to have a private meeting with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who will be delivering the keynote address. The planned remarks by Cardinal Peter Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will also be closely followed because of his role drafting the encyclical.
The summit – which will include speakers and representatives from all major religions – has brought about a rare meeting of minds between scientists and religious officials on climate change, even if they frame their arguments in different ways.
"Humanity has entered a new era. Our technological prowess has brought humanity to a crossroads. We are the inheritors of two centuries of remarkable waves of technological change: steam power, railroads, the telegraph, electrification, automotive transport, aviation, industrial chemistry, modern medicine, computing, and now the digital revolution, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies. These advances have reshaped the world economy into one that is increasingly urban and globally connected, but also more and more unequal.(Statement of the Joint PAS/PASS Workshop on Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility).
However, just as humanity confronted “Revolutionary Change” (Rerum Novarum) in the Age of Industrialization in the 19th century, today we have changed our natural environment to such an extent that scientists are redefining the current period as the Age of the Anthropocene, that is to say an age when human action, through the use of fossil fuels, is having a decisive impact on the planet. If current trends continue, this century will witness unprecedented climate changes and ecosystem destruction that will severely impact us all."
| Mithra kills the bull while wearing a mini-skirt |
"... here’s where Dr. Beckum got himself into some serious problems: he wasn’t speaking about listening to rock and roll or wearing skirts that weren’t knee high– he was talking about the golden calf of American Christianity. He went on to say,(Formerly Fundie, emphasis added). That religious worship of war (as this Dredd Blog series, and some others mentioned above, point out) is Mithraism posing as Christianity and/or Islam as it has for thousands of years.
“Anyone who has made a decision to follow Jesus realizes that the goal of a being a Christian is to become Christ-like.”Sounds good so far, but starting to get edgy with this Jesus-likeness stuff. But here’s where he went completely off the rails:
“I am extremely troubled. I have been for a long time and I have hesitated to address this subject publicly, but I cannot keep silent about it any longer … I don’t think it is an under-statement to say that our culture is addicted to violence, guns, war, revenge and retaliation. Unfortunately, so are a lot of Christians… So, what does Jesus have to say about it. Again, if you are not a follower of Jesus you can relax. This doesn’t concern you. But Christians have to do something with this. I have to do something with the words of Jesus and his actions… We have to be very careful about equating patriotism with Christianity. We never say God and … anything. God is above all, everything else is underneath … We have put “our way of life”/ freedom on the top rung. If you mess with it I’ll blow your head off. For a Christian what is on the top rung? Love for all."Dr. Beckum ended his sermon by reminding the students that not only did Jesus teach radical enemy love, but that we should serve them, and forgive them as well.
In many Christian circles you can talk about the Bible all you want, a you can speak as much Christianese as possible, but as Dr. Beckum has now learned, you cannot talk about what Jesus taught regarding enemy love. That is off-limits and heresy.
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The best way to understand the cultural scenario is to realize ... that thereare two different types of Christianity. One is a movement of people who want to live and be like Jesus. The other (and far more common, far more powerful) is a civil and political religion that is simply named Christianity. The civil political religion named Christianity is addicted to both political power and violence, and thus finds the message of Jesus offensive. When they encounter the other kind of Christian- the kind that actually believes in following Jesus- they have an immediate need to persecute them in some for or another, as we see in the case of Dr. Beckum, who actually did lose his job because of speaking the name of Jesus."
Mithra shoots the shit out of stuff