Mass shootings are for white Christians only

Looks like the old American tradition of racism is finally going beginning to crack the gun regime. It's taken a couple of brown Muslims doing mass murder for conservatives to see it jus' ain't right that anybody can buy a gun, almost no questions asked. Since racism created the NRA to begin with, that's what Abraham Lincoln would call fitting and proper.

Personally, I was surprised that a couple of Muslims were able to put together such an arsenal and not draw more attention, if not from law enforcement, just from neighbors. It goes to show me that the Right to Keep and Bear (if not open carry) is a lot more colorblind than I thought. It's apparent that the two San Bernadino terrorists thought they get away with it. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms means that Middle East terrorists don't necessarily have to commit suicide nor fool with huge amounts of explosives. Much safer to just buy assault rifles.

I'm still waiting for one of these shootings to be thwarted. The problem with that is a matter of response time. It will take ten seconds for the would be hero to come out shock and begin to respond. By the time he pulls his gun, there's maybe fifteen to twenty seconds. A guy with a semi-automatic can empty his clip and be reloaded before then. By that time, five people are down, and he's aiming at our hero.

You could see from this that it's far better the killer doesn't have such a capable weapon in the first place.

Rights of fathers and the biology of fatherhood

The contribution of the mother and father to a baby at birth, seen to scale

Sadly, any woman saying anything bold and controversial on the Internet is like flypaper for misogynists and MRAs, who are usually the same people. If the woman happens to be good-looking, the boys take out the heavy artillery.

I was bored, so I watched Laci Green's sex-positive video about condom use. I'm far out of that demographic, but I like watching Laci Green no matter what she's saying. 

Only an ex-Mormon can have a smile bigger than those glasses.

 From there, the subject was sidetracked to tangent issues. One of those were the issues of fathers' rights. One guy wrote this:

"Women don't create life, they carry it like an incubator.
Men make the life,sperm is the cell that carries all the information."


--A. I. Natsumi

This was either an extreme case of ignorance or a troll. But it gave me an opportunity to write my thoughts on fathers' rights.

Most men aren't this ignorant, but most also presume the child is biologically fifty percent theirs because they provided fifty percent of the genetic material. This is what they were taught in high school biology. This is also simplistic to the point of being incorrect.

While it's true that males provide half the nuclear DNA, the nucleus is not the only DNA in a human cell. All the mitochondrial DNA is the mother's. And that's the great majority of the DNA in the cell. The mother also provides all of the cellular machinery, all of those organelles that make a cell function.

Also, all the bacteria that is vital to the baby surviving comes from the mother. It's been determined that there are many more symbiotic bacterial cells in and on a person then there are human cells. (Bacterial cells, however, are much smaller.)

So, if you look at design and material provided, the male is a minority partner in creating the child.

I'm not saying we should take our cues from nature in this matter, because nature is terribly immoral and unethical.  I'm saying that fathers can't justify their custody rights based on nature either. At birth, the father's contribution compared to the mother's is not half-and-half. 

Of course the father is essential in starting the pregnancy. IMHO, this matters if the parents started the pregnancy deliberately, but wouldn't be a factor in an unplanned birth.  

With MRA's and misogynists, there's never been a truer statement than "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics."



BTW, visit Laci Green's Youtube channel sometime:

Conspiracy theories

The Oregon tragedy seems to have died without making any changes. Nothing about guns is going to be reformed until the gun industry is investigated and its propaganda-marketing apparatus exposed and/or prosecuted.

Some may wonder why guns have this kind power. Remember, that industry has a foot in the military-industrial-intelligence complex. This means the industry has undue political pull over Congress from several different sources. The National Riflery Association is now part of the gun industry's marketing arm. Most of its funding comes from the gun industry.  Yes, it has citizen membership, but it's an example of a grass roots organization captured by an industry. The grass roots have been removed and it's all astroturf now.

I'm not a conspiracy buff. There are conspiracies that absolutely can't happen, there are conspiracies that are unlikely, but there are ones that both can and do happen. There are certain ways of separating out the unlikely (or can't-happen) conspiracies from those that could be happening. Leonard Mlodonov's book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. He talks about conspiracy theories and gives some hints about likely and unlikely ones. 


Any conspiracy with size and reach runs on money. The reason why the CIA was able to grow into the menace it became was because in its early days, it got its funding by skimming off the Marshall Plan.

The gun industry has plenty of money. It has guerrilla marketers to spread rumors of conspiracies to take away guns. These are bloggers, writers, editors for gun publications.

It is creepy, though, how consistently corporations behave in the same way. The tobacco industry had similar riches and used it to buy politicians, suppress data about the harm of tobacco, and put out its own propaganda and marketing. It convinced people that smoking was part of their freedom. The gun industry is pretty much doing the same thing. But many industries pit themselves against the interests of their clients, and the interests of the public at large, so they can continue to enjoy profits.

Look at the fossil fuel industry and Global Warming. Or not, because it's so depressing. Whatever we conjure up when we form for-profit corporations, it doesn't act like a human being with a conscience, never mind what the Supreme Court said.

PS. I've taken a large dose of Melotonin. I'm not sure if this entry came out right at all. I'll have to check it when I have time.




  

The Unabridged Second Amendment

I'm not joking when I say that there is an unabridged version of the Second Amendment, that no gun nut cites because not only does it make it all too clear what the 2A is for, but the similar wording leaves no doubt that the 2A was hacked out of it.   

The on-air shooting in Virginia has more outrage over our country's lax and getting-laxer gun laws. Again, there are going to be calls to limit guns in some ways, and again, the gun industry is going to marshal its goons . First there's the paranoid division, for spotting evidence that entire shooting was staged by Obama. Because as we all know, no gun nut would ever commit such an atrocity. They're such humanitarians.

Then you'll have Cold-Dead-Handers, who will swear who will get their surgically implanted in their hands to make sure the government can never take them. Never mind that the government has never come close to doing that. In my home city, the state legislature has forbidden police from getting guns off the streets. As a result the number of murders have spiked horribly even though overall crime is down.

They're also forgetting the government has drones and nuclear weapons, and soldiers with body armor. The weapons people are arming themselves with are handguns and rifles that are too light and obsolete for any serious war. 

Then you'll have the Rambo Revolutionaries. These are the ones who swear the whole purpose the Founders had in mind for the Second Amendment was written to keep people prepared rebel against the inevitable tyranny that's predicted in the Bible, somewhere. A tyranny would be any government that does away with the Second Amendment. They're not too concerned about the other Amendments though. Like the Oaf Kreepers weren't too concerned with police launching chemical weapons into a crowd practicing the First Amendment. They also seem rather doubtful on Amendments 13-15.

So, what is the Second Amendment for, and why does it guarantee us an armed population? You would think it would tell you that. Unfortunately, this is what it says. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#sthash.ULMHQaRU.dpuf

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

One thing that strikes you from reading it with the rest of the Bill of Rights is it's the only Amendment that tries to explain what it's for. The rest are pretty self-explanatory. "Congress shall make no law . . ." "No soldier shall . . ." The rights of the people . . . shall not be infringed."


Except it's not too good an explanation. Write a sentence like that in English class, and your teacher would probably gouge your eye out. Passive voice with the noun at the end? Is that Latin or Germanic syntax? How is the militia to be regulated, especially if it's a militia to overthrow the tyranny? Does the tyranny do the regulating? If not, who does? In what capacity is an armed populace necessary to security of a "free state?" Nations like Libya or Somalia, where everybody is armed, don't look particularly free on the surface. Other states that have overthrown their governments with the help of arms don't seem to end up better or free. Ukraine, with its Nazi problem, being the prime example.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#sthash.ULMHQaRU.dpuf

So, what are its garbled phrases really about?

It just so happens we have the unabridged version, and it survives in the laws of one of the original states. Before the what became the US even won the Revolution, the Constitution of the Common Wealth Virginia was enacted at the same time as the Declaration of Independence. One of the two principle writers of the document was James Madison, who was also later the principal writer of the US Constitution.

Section 13 concerns what we call gun rights, or the right to keep and bear arms. I've put in bold the parts that are word-for-word in the Second Amendment. Here's what it says: 

"That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
 
Therefore, the purpose of the Second Amendment was to provide for state or national defense without having a standing army. Any questions?

We've already stomped over and spit on the Second Amendment by having the biggest standing army in history!!

It's insane to think a government would give, in its own founding document, a means of the people to destroy it once it goes bad. The Founders were trying to form a "more perfect union," remember? 

Therefore, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with individuals owning guns, whatsoever. They're not patriots, nothing about owning a gun makes you more patriotic. They're just consumers. If it's not a "well-regulated militia" the Second Amendment doesn't apply.

However, by having a huge, standing military, we've completely destroyed any context in which the Second Amendment can be applied. We've evolved into a nation where the need for the right to keep and bear arms is dead.

Oddly enough, the size of the military doesn't seem to worry gun nuts very much. Nor does the militarization of police.

Again, gun advocates aren't patriots, they're a niche market that's been shaped by the merchants selling to it.   

The Oaf Kreepers Bluff

The Oath Keepers Oaf Kreepers are miffed that the Chief of Police told them to play Rambo in some other movie, but not in Ferguson's Burning. Now the Oaf Kreepers are saying they're going to arm fifty protesters and surround them with an impenetrable shield of Whites so police don't shoot them.


And that would prove what? That under Whites' protection, Blacks can also open-carry? That misses the point. Blacks don't generally have White guys on call for when police decide to shoot. And police have a 24 hour cycle. They could always delay retaliation for when the OK's go back home, as they eventually have to. I would think most the protesters see Second Amendment Rights as not being their problem.    

Oaf Kreepers have fifty AR-15's lying around? They brought this arsenal with them into Missouri? AR-15's cost $600-$900 each, not counting the ammunition. (I'm supposing having them unloaded would defeat the whole purpose of making cops trigger-happy and making people feel safer.) Second, have they run this plan by any protesters? You know, the people who have no reason to like, trust or even respect the Oaf Kreepers? The people who the Oaf Kreepers showed up to enact freelance martial law against? Or did the Kreeper leader just pull this plan out of his ass and expect if a White massa has a plan, it would be a snap to get fifty Blacks to follow it? I guess the OK leader assumes Blacks just love rifles.

If the OK's have fifty AR-15's they can just loan out, or give away, there's somebody wealthy financing them. Yet, even if that's the case, if I were the Chief of Police Jon Belmar, I would just laugh in their faces about this. Even if it's not a bluff, it's a stupid idea. The protesters know it's a stupid idea, and I believe they wouldn't appreciate being used as pawns, or the suggestion it would be that easy. 

Of all that's happened since Michael Brown was murdered, this has to be the most bizarre episode yet. But things are going to get even stranger as this war drags out.

And yes, it is a war.

About Christianity and Slavery

This comes from FB in a thread about ISIS taking sex slaves. The question came up as to why the Muslims, if they really object, haven't been stopping ISIS. Here's my answer.

Why didn't Christians stop slavery in the Americas for 370 years? Or the genocide of the American Indian? If you ask me, Christians were slow and/or complicit and non-responsive in both atrocities. Does it say anything about the Christian religion? Not really. Though it might say something about the effectiveness of morality based on monotheistic scriptures in general.

 ISIS is not Islam. It's a militant political movement marketed (yes marketed) to people raised in the Sunni Muslim culture. It's similar to the way White Supremacy is aimed at people raised in a Christian culture, where some even identifying themselves as churches, the Christian Identity movement.

ISIS calling themselves Islamic is really most meant as a recruiting tool. It has nothing to do with getting Muslim souls to heaven. Neither did slavery for Christian Southerners, BTW.

Why aren't Muslims stopping it? One question is who wants to step into that crumbling ruin of a clusterfuck we left in Iraq? The only nations with the power to do anything substantial are three that hate and/or distrust each other: Israel, Turkey and Iran. All of them would look at unilateral action by one another with suspicion. Syria would be happy just to push ISIS out of Syria. Muslims do denounce Islamic radicals quite regularly if you Google it you'll see that. Murder is the most egregious sin in Islam. https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10153557663793675?comment_id=10153558469288675"

Then somebody said slavery was eradicated in Europe after Christianity.

No it wasn't. The Europeans took slaves, such as in the crusades, all the time. If it's not mentioned in history books, it was because if was considered no big thing. I challenge you to find any historical evidence of any emancipation by Christians before the 19th century.

When the Spanish took South and Central American Indians into slavery there was no outcry the rest of Europe because it was considered standard operating procedure. And for one plain reason: there is no call in the Bible to free slaves. If anything, the Bible gives regulations for keeping slaves, such as it says a man should be punished if he kills his slave (but not if the slave dies of his injuries after a certain time). But the Old and New Testaments have no renounciation of slavery. None. Zilch.

The closest thing the Abolitionists in the Bible could find to a call to end slavery was the story of Exodus. But the issue there wasn't owning slaves, it was having the Chosen People as slaves. In the Bible thereafter, the Hebrews owned slaves, both of their own people (who were treated differently) and others. There's also plenty of passages where God himself tells His people to take residents of conquered cities as slaves, especially the women. In other words, God in the Bible approves of sex slavery.

Therefore, when the Southerners argued that there was nothing in the Bible against slavery they had a solid argument. The only way the Abolitionists could find anything was by reading the scriptures with rose colored glasses. They cited the humanitarian violations slavery presented as a matter of course.

In Europe slavery of Christians was also institutionalized. They were called serfs. The Lord of the land by the way, could take any of the women of his hold as a sex slave. This is a matter of historical fact. The institution was handled differently, than the Americanized one, but it was there all the time.

The fact is, historians are still trying to figure out why slavery was considered right and commonly practiced for all of human history and suddenly was considered morally wrong in the 19th century. It definitely wasn't Christianity that did it.

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10153557663793675?comment_id=10153558469288675"

I know I should cite sources, but this is what I've been able to glean in various reading, mostly Norman Davies' thick book: Europe. 

The Decline of Science

In so many ways capitalism isn't working out the way it should on paper. One way is in the way science is now being corrupted and killed off. It's one case where the government should, and must step in. But it won't. Money making industries, including publishing, want science corrupted and dysfunctional.

http://www.cracked.com/article_22712_6-ways-modern-science-has-turned-into-giant-scam.html



Okay, I know I'm linking to a comedy website for information, but the blog right now is just off-the-cuff commentary. The problems cited there are mostly things I already noticed about the trend.  When I do some disciplined research on a topic, I'll say it.

However, I this system can't continue. Problem is what can possibly replace it? Socialism in the form of Bolshevism crashed and burned already. The Left would be politically much more active, but the brutality and eventual fall of the Soviet Union destroyed the Left's confidence. 

So capitalism continues to fester while it's adherents pretend its problems are features, or don't matter in light of the money to be made.

The End of the US

I've never given any credence to doomsday predictions, but even before Al Gore began to speak, I knew Global Warming was going to be a crisis. I used to argue with Conservatives on discussion boards about it. I wrote to one of them, "In five years you're going to agree with me."

I thought the US was going to be especially hard hit. Simply because we were the most productive agricultural country in the world. That meant that any shift in precipitation patterns would likely be unfavorable, and potable water was already precious west of the Mississippi. 

Unfortunately, it turns out I've been right, and if anything I've been too cautious. Anybody following the news knows that the whole state of California is a serious drought. It has year's worth of water left. Experts are telling us that this will now be normal for the state. This means that agriculture is basically finished in the state.

However, if this drought doesn't abate, California is suddenly not going to be able to support its population, which is now close to 40 million. Those people will have to move.

So, imagine them becoming environmental refugees. Imagine the US having to resettle half that number of people. Considering its agriculture will already a loss, imagine doing that when food is so expensive that there's famine. It's going to be the reverse of The Grapes of Wrath, with "Calis" settling in Oklahoma, perhaps once more knocking the Indians off their land. This is a catastrophe that's about to happen, for the nation and for the world.

It's not going to be the only problem. Florida, another major densely populated state has problems with sea water level rising and salinating its aquifer. Governor Rick Scott, is taking the conservative ostrich approach to problem-solving and forbidding state workers from mentioning the words Global Warming, Climate Change or sustainability.

So, the writing is on the wall that we're going to have to relocate much of Florida's population as well. That's about 28 million people.

Therefore, in the short term, we could expect much of both California and Florida's populations to become environmental refugees. I estimate that to be probably to be 25-30 million people.  Socially, we're talking an unprecedented disaster for the country. The loss of agricultural production will be terrible enough. We'll see rising food prices and famine.

Politically, it's going to create an internal power-shift as California and Florida hemorrhage population. Internationally, the US will be finished as a super-power and will fighting to keep itself from being considered a "developing" country.

The crisis that's coming would be difficult with the best of preparations. Our government, however, is not prepared in the least. What has created the problem and what will continue to exacerbate it is that we put self-centered, greedy, superstitious morons in charge of our country at every level. The most frustrating thing for me since 1980 has been standing by helpless and watching our system put the worst people in charge. That is in charge of companies, in charge of industries, and in charge of our government at all levels.

If there's one thing in my life I wish this country could do over, it would be the election of Ronald Reagan. I remember at the time I was very hopeful about it, and if he didn't turn out well, I thought we could always turn him and the rest of the conservatives out at the next election. I never thought that decision would be so indefeasible. I never thought Reagan would spawn an entire propaganda industry. I never pictured that people raised within the propaganda wall would be so badly mis-educated and spoiled. But I began to see that as early as 1985. I had two stints in college in two different decades, and my classmates were very different in each. The ones I saw in the eighties were much more fascinated with power, much more materialistic and much more anti-union. The most striking thing was they would talk about guns. I never had discussions with anyone about guns in the '70s. Nobody thought the Second Amendment was under attack.

Nothing had really changed, in fact we had a more conservative government by that time. What did change, though, is the the media environment. Conservative propaganda, and I mean on the John Birch level, was gaining a credibility it never had and didn't deserve. Meanwhile, the news industry was being gobbled up by new conglomerates.

I believe if our country hadn't elected Reagan, it wouldn't be looking doom in the face while grinning stupidly, much the way Reagan did.  Carter would have been ready to tackle, and not ignore Global Warming. The Conservatives who rose to power with Reagan would only deny and ignore the problem, because it went contrary to their religion and/or ideology.

There's more to it than that, though. Voters did not have to believe these guys. They might have just laughed off conservative propaganda. But instead, they not only elected Reagan, but they let him make them dumber. 

For that, both the US and the Conservatives are going to be treated very badly by history-- if there is any. Because with Global Warming, the extinction of humankind is a possibility.

  

Prosecuting 47 Senators?

The GOP-teaparty's latest ploy in political folly is the “open letter” to the Iranian government, warning that any treaty would only be an executive agreement between the government of Iran and the president, and Congress might alter or not abide by anything President Obama agrees to. The Senators also boast that Obama will have to leave office, whereas the senators can count on being there for decades. 

Oh, the presumptuousness! When you're supposed to stand for elections every six years, even if the public has turned out few Congressional incumbents, you shouldn't boast about your job security. Oh, their opponents for elections are going to have a field day with that hubris.

An Unsexy Gunshot to the Eye

Just wait 'til you see that mugger's face when you blow your boob off!

Woman fatally shoots herself while adjusting her bra holster.

Without a doubt, this is the worst wardrobe malfunction since Janet Jackson invented them. In fact, it sets a record.

Lost in the Vaccination Controversy

Jenny McCarthy, Playboy Model and archvillain: I'm a poser, not a doctor.

Jenny McCarthy's irrational and irresponsible dissent against vaccinations is yielding a measles epidemic. The central vector of it being Disneyland. It's in seven states already, which pretty much means it's out of control and will get much worse before it burns out.

I'm supposing Disney is not happy about this. They're probably thinking of some PSA's and probably having some lawyers look at lawsuits. Probably there will be one attempted sometime against Jenny McCarthy or others leading the anti-vaccine movement. If so, it's probably going to be groundbreaking. It'll be the first suit against someone who provided irresponsibly false information to the public. If the defendants are found liable, that will change public discourse.

Meanwhile, the anti-vaccine people are standing firm, like Gary Monahan quoted in the Los Angeles Times:

"How do I say this without sounding crazy?" he said. "I don't want anyone to get measles … but you have to make it easier for the parents through the health system to do it the right way. Pounding three live viruses into somebody at 1 year old is devastating."

Be careful any time you're tempted to begin a statement, "How do I say this without sounding crazy."

The most important issue has been buried in this debate: what's causing the upsurge in autisms? It used to be rarity, just as lung cancer used to be rare disease until cigarette smoking became ubiquitous. Now, almost everybody knows two three parents who have a diagnosed autistic child, or one with Asperger's Syndrome. I know two or three, and I'm practically a shut-in. A look at the growing prevalence is shocking:

That's a 45-fold increase in autism diagnoses in 35 years. Similar to lung cancer diagnoses after cigarettes were introduced.

Yes, some of this might be due to just having the condition better defined, but I think if autism were so common in the 1930s or 1950s, it would have been much better known, and my generation would have grown up with common knowledge about it. We'd have a colloquial name for it, just as the "the mumps" or "the chicken pox," rather then autism. Those are just indications that autism symptoms couldn't have been that common. When I grew up, I didn't know any family that had an autistic child. Children growing up now all either have an autistic sibling or know a family with it.   

In the face of this, and without any answers being offered, little apparent concern shown by the government, of course parents are becoming hysterical. Parents as group have hair-triggers when it comes to panic over their children's safety. There's all kinds of hysterias that are proof of that. So, of course they're looking for culprits. This is made worse when it's demonstrated that if one in 110 people were coming down with measles, there would be a lot of public health effort to identifying the source and containing the problem. By comparison, autism is much more devastating and costly, and the government does almost nothing. This is a public health crisis, but there's no public health effort to find the reason and remedy it.

Why isn't the government at any level giving a concerted effort to finding out what is causing this huge upsurge in autism?

This is just my guess: our generation is exposed to more exotic chemicals than any other. It's on food, in our cosmetics, in our beds, in our homes. They range from pesticides to flame-retardants, to food additives. Few of them have been studied or tested. Those that are frequently have neurotoxic or neuroactive effects. Many are known to be hormone disrupters.

It might not be any one chemical, but being exposed to the whole cocktail together must have some effect on us, and effect that's seen in the long-term, such as an upsurge in autism. Class comes into it. The wealthy class does not want to know and doesn't people to find out that products that making them  richer could be harmful. This could badly effect their bottom lines, and their goal of getting richer. It's similar to how spreading climate change denial keeps cash flow healthy and prevents a public backlash. 

I'm receptive to the idea in that I have a brother who has Angelman Syndrome, a totally tragic, crippling condition caused by a damaged maternal gene. My parents grew up within a few blocks of each other in extremely polluted St Louis City. For example, my father used to play baseball all summer on a cinder lot. This is where people dumped coal ash from their furnaces. So, he played baseball all summer long on a toxic waste dump, stirring up and inhaling ash that was loaded with lead, cadmium and arsenic. They used to chew tar off the streets, chew lead paint chips, oblivious to the fact that they were damaging themselves. I don't know exactly what my mother was exposed to, but I know St. Louis City, like all urban areas in the 1930s-1960s was in a haze of smoke and airborne industrial waste similar to what Chinese cities are experiencing. 

Even if I'm wrong on my conjecture, the question remains: why isn't the government having concerted studies into the causes of autism?