Mike Pence's Brother

 

Dear Mike,

‘Sorry, I know those patriotic tourists wanted to hang you but I had to vote against the Constitution and reality. I voted ‘No’ on setting up the January 6^th Commission.’

‘As Drumpf’s previous lap-dog, I hope you’ll understand that I couldn’t possibly put my fledgling career in national politics in jeopardy by publicly supporting democracy and bucking the Lard of Mar-Lardo and his psychotic refusal to accept losing the 2020 election by more than 7,000,000 votes.’

No way.

‘I mean, what would I do if I lost the best phony-baloney job I’ll ever get? Go back to the bank? Ha! You understand, right? For 4 years, you stood transfixed behind him as if deeply in love.

(Speaking of which, I’ve never seen you look at Karen that way; where did get your motivation? Did those drama lessons with Scott Baio pay off, after all?)’ 

‘Anyway, I knew that bill was going to pass the House. 35 Republicans voted in favor of the bill; House Whip, Scalise, told us beforehand. My vote was to show all the MAGA folks in my district that I wasn’t Pelosi’s bitch; that I was the Former Guy’s bitch, instead.’

There’s even a scuttlebutt that some of us might get an invitation to Mar-A-Largo and press the flesh with His Orange Lardship. I’m sure there’ll be a photo-op; you know how he loves to get his picture taken! Imagine what that’ll do for me come 2022 – to be seen on a campaign poster with the Man himself! Those MAGA-folks will fall all over themselves to fill my war chest.

By the way, here’s a brotherly heads-up; I’m going to have to keep my distance from you until after the next election cycle. Gee whillikers! They wanted to hang you, Bro’!

Best to Karen!

Greg

 

Citizenship - such a chore...

 

Here's what citizenship is all about.

We know how the MAGA-loonies and QAnon ninnies respond to the slightest imposition on their delusions by the realities demanded by citizenship. They not only balk but shake their heads and stalk around befuddled by the suggested imposition.

’Mah freedom!’, they belch on cue.

‘Wearing a mask (or fill the blank) is a violation of my Rah-ahts.’

As if their rights weren’t under girded and founded upon obligations.

Want to be a citizen? Act like one. 

Don’t grouse when you’re called for jury duty. You want a fair judicial system? That’s the price; your involvement.

Want free and fair elections? Register to vote and beat the bushes to get others registered.

Want to be COVID free and back to doing whatever you were doing pre-pandemic?

Wear a damn mask!

And get the jab! As many as are prescribed. 

This is the requirement of citizenship.

Duty. Responsibility. Obligation.

I don’t want to sound like a Marine Corp recruiter but these are the fundamentals which many of the MAGA/GQP crew seemed to have failed to pick up on.

It’s not about skin color or place of origin or nation costume or native language. It’s about acting like a citizen and shouldering the load when it’s your turn.

Noam Chomsky once pointed out that the most joyous day of a citizen’s year should be Tax Day. (whoa!) He reasoned that paying one’s taxes was an expression of one’s commitment to the system of government and the down-payment on the benefits of that government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Where does that leave the fabulously wealthy who tuck their bundle in a post box in the Caymans? Or any of us who grumble about taxes, for that matter.

 

Science and Belief

 

It’s time to make the plea again; the plea to tighten up and formalize and limit the use of the words ‘believe’ and ‘belief’. I’ve mentioned it before and seen eyes glaze over and roll back. It’s the same look I get when confronted with an insurance salesman on the make.

Which leads me to revealing why I’ve taken up the task yet again to address the problem when discussing science with ‘believers’. That confusion – at least in part – stems from the casual use of the words cited in inverted commas above. 

Kent Hovind. If you don’t know who Kent Hovind is, count yourself lucky. Think: ‘Ken Ham’, the schmuck who built the Ark theme park for ‘True Believers’. That’ll bring you into the ball park. 

Mr Hovind is a Creationist and a Bible literalist. He’s a promulgator of ‘Intelligent Design’. (Now, there’s an oxymoron worth its salt.)

Mr Hovind has been on a very extended quest to debate Aron Ra on the verisimilitude of the Theory of Evolution. During one episode (on YouTube, if you must know), Kent decided to build his straw man out of the words of non-scientists found in a Google search. Kent chose some quotes in which the word ‘believe’ was used informally. (e.g. ‘Science believes that the universe started from a singularity.’)

From there, he set the straw man on fire with the errant declaration that ‘science is a belief; science is a religion’. This is one of his primary assertions; science is faith-based because – get this! – since the concepts of black holes, the Big Bang, cosmogony, evolution, etc are not completely understood, then they are accepted as articles of faith and are ‘believed’ by scientists. That is; these theories are accepted as matters of faith and therefore are indicative of religion. ‘Science is a religion!’, he proclaims.

Q.E.D. 

Balderdash.

Science is NOT a belief system. Science is the exact opposite of a believe system as science is based on evidence. Are there dogmas in science? NO, there aren’t. There are theories which are accepted. There are hypotheses and proposals which are considered, examined and challenged.

That’s the difference between science and religion; the theories and hypotheses of science are meant to be challenged but the tenets of Faith are not to be challenged except under penalty of eternal damnation. Challenging articles of faith is forbidden and anathematized.

Think ‘the Spanish Inquisition’.

Try challenging the dogma of ‘Virgin Birth’ or the ‘Resurrection’, for example and watch heads explode amongst the ‘Faithful’.

Contrarily, challenge ‘The Big Bang’ and prepare to be engaged in weighty conversation. Is that discussion passionate? Of course, it is, but the debate is not considered blasphemous or heretical as it would be if one were to challenge virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus.

Why?

Science is not faith-based. Nothing proposed by scientific method is ‘sacred’. Even the most establish, accepted theories are subject to change as verifiable evidence is presented supporting that change.

Consider the Theory of Gravity. Just recently, evidence of ‘gravity waves’ were observed and verified. The theory was amended.

Dogmas are not amended. The amendations are branded as heresy. They are stamped out. 

Speaking of gravity; try believing you can fly, then launching yourself from the roof of a building. 

Splat! 

‘I believe I can fly’ makes for a wonderfully up-lifting song lyric but it’s shite as a rational appreciation of gravity. 

It might seem that this discourse has strayed too far afield but it has not. The point made at the beginning, citing the lax, casual use of the terms ‘believe’ and belief’ is a sound one. When, in discussion of science versus religion, that wayward use of those terms become the sticking point, as Mr Hovid demonstrated when he cited the use of those terms to set up his straw-man argument equating science with religion.

That misuse, that acyrologia, is a stumbling block to sensible discussions of every-day matters. In a conversation with a friend about this rather pedantic misuse of the terms of faith, he asserted that in order to sit on a chair one must have faith that the chair would support one’s weight. The simple, ordinary act of taking a seat was an act of faith, therefore. 

The counter-argument was that while one may assume (or hypothesize) that a chair could support one’s weight, that assumption could be nullified by evidence that the chair was too feeble or ill-made. If, as one sat, the chair wobbled or creaked or gave some other sign that it was structurally unsound, then one would take another chair.

Hypothesis: the chair can hold my weight.

Evidence: the chair is unsound structurally. It wobbles.

Revised hypothesis: the chair can’t hold my weight.

Conclusion: choose a different chair. 

An even more banal example; ’I believe it’s going to rain’, may sound sophisticated in its phasing but it is erroneous at its base. It’s not expressing a belief. One senses the moisture in the air, sees low, heavy clouds, feels the cooling breeze and concludes from that evidence that there will be precipitation.

Better to say 'I think'…
Or 'I surmise'...
Or 'I contend'…

Deduce. Guess. Conjecture. Conclude. Suspect. Speculate. Presume.

The intention, here, is not to belabor a pedagogic point. It is to reveal a common malapropism as a stumbling block to intelligent discourse about science, religion and matters of everyday life.

Especially with a 'True Believer'.

 

GOP Death Knell?

 

Liz Cheney has lost her leadership position and will probably lose her Congressional seat after she’s ‘primaried’ by some hot-shot GQP/MAGA dope.

Mitt Romney was booed vociferously at the Republican Convention in Utah. His Senate seat may be at risk for the very same reason Liz is being unseated.

Save your sympathy for those more deserving than these two stalwarts of the sociopathic Republican agenda. Now is not the time to go soft on the GOP. As the new MAGA-bullied GQP devours its own, Dems and Independents must step up and take the reins of history and follow Joe Biden’s lead.

Enough of the obstructionism by the GOP, Moscow Mitch and the rest. Biden is not allowing the GOP to obstruct his plans to deal with the pandemic or his expanded definition of infrastructure. Neither should the rank and file of the Democratic Party be swayed or deferred from meeting the needs of the American people.

One way to meet those desperate needs is to supplant all the GOP members of Congress and the Senate. Of course, such a goal cannot be achieved in a single election. The Dems must be active and aggressive in all districts in every state. The brightest red should be treated as the bluest purple.

A recent poll reveals that only 26% of respondents claim to be Republicans. This should be seen as a sea-change and taken advantage of fully. If conservative voters are sitting on the political fence because of January 6^th, the double impeachment of Drumpf or the deaf, dumb and blind sycophancy to the Man from Mar-A-Lago displayed by the GQP, it’s time to give then a nudge to the Democratic side.

It’s long past time to remove the GOP’s road-blocks to social justice, economic equality and systemic racism.

Sympathy for the Cheney

 

What is with all this nonsensical sympathy for Liz Cheney coming from the Left? 

She's still Liz Cheney, is she not? The daughter of the monster who served as VP under W? A staunch Republican? An obstructionist? An anti-social, anti-liberal sea-anchor to progress? The same promulgator of a despicable ethos and myopic vision of society? One who claims that empathy is a weakness to be over-come with draconian legislation? That one? That Liz Cheney? The Republican from Wyoming who represents the state’s ‘at-large’ Congressional district? That one? 

Why the sympathy for her? Why sympathize with such a lurid opponent to all things liberal and progressive? Because she’s standing up to the MAGA-morons and the cancerous Trumpian madness?

Sure, offer her some moral support for her opposition to the devolution of the ‘Grand Old Party’. But, please, spare us the crocodile tears for her removal from GQP leadership. There should not be a tear shed for her. Neither should there be a beating of breasts for her scornful treatment by Kevin (the Douche) McCarthy, handmaiden to the Orange Dope. 

Personally, witnessing the self-destruction of the GQP is a great and treasured pleasure. It’s like watching agitated scorpions in a bucket sting and attack each other. Let them all perish from self-inflicted wounds. It’s indeed gruesome but it is fitting. Witnessing them end themselves with their own toxin makes for a very poetic and Shakespearean moment in history.

Save your sympathy for Liz. Save it for the countless children who have suffered from GOP legislation. Save your sympathy for the families of the victims of police violence. Save your energy for the enduring fight for justice and equality.  

Liz is acting the part of the Lone Wolf whose pack has gone rabid. How commendable.

Never forget that she, herself, is a wolf.

 

Edward Bernays

 

If you don’t know the name of Edward Bernays, then you should. Edward L. Bernays  was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and is generally considered to be the inventor of public relations; the spin industry. Before you dismiss this rather banal claim, Eddie B. was instrumental in the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954 and the establishment of a military junta to satisfy the post-colonial greed of the United Fruit Company.

He is more famous (infamous) for convincing the public that women smoking cigarettes was socially acceptable thus increasing the sale of cigarettes and bloating the profits of the tobacco industry. Not bad for an immigrant from Austria. 

Edward Bernays should be known to you so that you might more fully understand the dire and pernicious influence of Fox News (sic), NewsMax, AAN and the Sinclair Network upon the consciousness of the general public. 

We talk about ‘spin’ as if it’s as natural as rain. ‘Spin’ is another word for ‘deception’. What Mr Bernay taught the world was a more crafty, more deceptive way of spreading untruth. Just as the health of all the women adversely effected by cigarette smoking was not a concern for Mr Bernay, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes have no concern for the truth. They spread untruths in a more palatable and profitable way. They  learned that from Edward Bernay. 

Every time you hear another left-field claim about Biden canceling hamburgers or canceling the Fourth of July and turning everyone into vegan-yoga slaves or hear a reiteration of the Big Lie, think about Edward Bernay. 

Or Goebbels. Either one.

 

Are You Serious?

 

The cover article of the most recent ‘Economist’ is entitled ‘Taiwan; the Most Dangerous Place on Earth’. Long-time expats here in Taiwan are beside themselves; either laughing raucously or scoffing with stern reproach at the alarmist nature of article.

Pish-posh. Piffle! 

sniff...

As easy as it would be to provide stat after stat proving the exact opposite of the Economist’s premise (Google ‘Taiwan and COVID-19’, for example, or violent crime), the focus here will be to put such alarmism into context; a context which should undermine the Economist’s thesis. 

First, Beijing considers Taiwan to be a province in revolt and to be a permanent and inviolable part of the Motherland, China. Beijing holds steadfast to this erroneous creed despite the fact that the Republic of China (ROC) has its own military forces, its own banking and postal systems, its own monetary system and most importantly its own government, independent of the Chinese Communist Party. 

That must be understood as an indisputable fact; the ROC (Taiwan) is a sovereign nation and is not a part, or a vassal or an adjunct to the PRC. Until Richard M. Nixon stuck his twisted schnozz into the matter, Taiwan was the only ‘China’ recognized by the USA and the United Nations.

The Economist’s alarmist premise is based principally on Beijing’s recent military aggression towards The Republic of China (aka Taiwan) in light of the Biden administration taking the side of Taiwan against Beijing in a more overt manner than any US administration since Tricky Dickie’s treachery.

It must be admitted that the recent military maneuvering by the PRC is unsettling. However, that maneuvering must be seen as the same pro forma saber-rattling which Taiwan has been subject to for more than 70 years.

The ROC is a thorn in Beijing’s hide. Hear the Dragon whinge. 

Biden will do the right thing and see through this nonsense.