I'm back! Right on time . . .

Yes, I'm back finally, blogging again. I'm happy to see Missouri has shed itself of Eric Greitens. If we can get rid of Greitens, how much harder can it be to get rid of Trump? My nickname for Trump, BTW, is Smugly the Clown. He pissed me off when he said the Nazis at Charlottesville were good people. That's when I began to call him Smugly (I think it was then).

Really, I've never liked Trump. Going back to the 80s, my feelings were that he hand no redeeming qualities. So, you can imagine how depressed I was when the Electoral College selected him. I consider that people who didn't like Obama inflicted that misery on themselves. Obama's domestic policies were really nothing too different from any liberal Democrat. Except then there was the racism that always made it tolerable to lie about him.

I might call Trump names (or one name), but I won't lie about him.

Facebook bot-suppressed my post about global warming.

I didn't expect this: last night I ramble-wrote a post to my Facebook Timeline about global warming. I didn't research it, I just went off the facts or thoughts at the top of my mind about global warming. I hit the post button and a message immediately came up saying my post had been removed for being Spam and for violating community standards. By immediately, I mean, I didn't even see it go up. This was far too fast for a human to do. A bot false-flagged me. 

I had a chance, of sorts, to dispute it. I got to check a little box telling them it wasn't spam. Then I was told they would "try to" determine whether it "violated community standards." I frankly couldn't see how it could have done that, but I wouldn't have minded waiting several days or a week for them to determine that.

Only today, when I checked, there was a notice on it that said "Closed." Yep, they tried all right. Apparently, this was adjudicated by another bot.

What worries me about this was the subject: it was about global warming. Did it get flagged by a bot because of that? Even worse, was it a Facebook bot that did the flagging?

Yes, I know FB is a private company, and they have no obligation toward free speech, at the same time, they whole country (and perhaps the whole world) is in trouble if we can't discuss a topic like global warming on an influential board like FB. Also, if there are bots on FB that false flag the topic wherever it is found, that's important news, whether FB or somebody else is running the bots. 

Now you decide for yourself whether the post I'm quoting in full below was too strident. Please tell me what's offensive, or what you would edit out. Don't mine it for nasty words. There aren't any.

My censored post on my Facebook Timeline, 10/6/17, 9:29 p.m.:

It was a muggy day with the high temperature in the mid-eighties. Highs in the mid-eighties are also in the forecast for the next nine days. [Note: but it only got up to 72 today!]

I'm not ungrateful; I'm enjoying it, yet it gives me an uneasy, portentous feeling. This isn't autumn. Global warming has abducted autumn and replaced it with an imposter. What do we call this new season? Exxumn? (After Exxon.) El Bebe? (Since El Nino is taken). Shadow summer?

There were sixteen consecutive record high [temperature-average] months [worldwide] by September last year, [the month the streak ended] which was the hottest year on record, the third year in a row with that distinction. In that streak of warmest months ever, most of them not only beat the record, but beat the record for the amount by which the previous records were beaten.

Let's compare that to sports statistics [for reasons I will make clear]: have you ever heard of an athlete or team that breaks a record, then breaks its own record sixteen [fifteen] consecutive times? No, because it doesn't happen. Babe Ruth did something like it with home runs, but he was able to do that due to a rule change that dispensed with the "dead ball."

In statistics, there's something called "regression to the mean," which says if you do something record-breaking, it's likely you can't repeat it consecutively. This applies [both] to weather and athletes, because. Statistical laws hold for the whole universe, from the quantum to the galactic level.

Where weather is also like sports is that it shouldn't be able to set a record sixteen times. In fact, the three consecutive years of record high global temperatures that we're in right now also are [so] extremely unlikely they shouldn't happen.

Unless the rules of our planet have been changed. 

Let's accept no more denials, no more hedging about its cause. Global warming is real, and humankind did it. We're seeing an epic scientific event unfold. It dwarfs the eclipse that brought such elation earlier this year. It's better to enjoy the thrill of it before the catastrophe takes hold, because there's no stopping it now.

Afternotes: I made small changes, in brackets or with strikethroughs, for clarity or to correct facts. I did look up what I already knew to be true. No, I didn't just imagine us having sixteen consecutive hottest months worldwide on record. The Climate Central website verifies it.  It also gives other records I forgot about: 

• We haven't had a coldest month on record since February 1929.

• Also, there hasn't been a cooler than normal month worldwide in 32 years (381 months).

I know that globally, record highs have been outpacing record lows by 4-1, with the ratio increasing.

I'm no expert. For science, I'm, at most, a hobbyist. Yet, I don't have to be an astronomer to look up at the obvious. These records portend a huge changes coming to our climate and our way of life. I can't say whether it will be over the next five years or the next twenty, but it's not going to be much longer. Already our hurricane season has been one for the books, and there will be no recovery for Houston or Florida if storms like this keep coming.

About that election

I stayed off social media since Black Tuesday. Trump's election really hit me hard. I had to rethink things.

Trump: Government raider

I've never had a good impression of Trump, not from the first time I read about the guy, sometime in Eighties. I'm stunned that enough people voted for him to put him into the White House. Even considering his opponent was Clinton. I won't say he really lost because he trails in the popular vote. To cite an analogy, she got more hits, but he got more runs.

How do the votes really break down between Red and Blue? Have a look. 

Blue Islands in the Red Sea

You can see on the election map that there's a serious divide in this country between the cities and the countryside. Cities everywhere, including the South vote Blue. Meanwhile, the countrysides have been neglected by Democrats, and they've been hit hardest by all the changes in the last forty years: outsourcing, downsizing. Often there was only one manufacturer in town, and Walmart came in and wiped out Mom 'n' Pop retail. Most rural areas and small towns are impoverished. They've been hit worst by trade agreements and outsourcing. Almost all government services go to the cities, which do have 5/6th of the population, but the surrounding areas might have worse problems. There's a huge level of poverty, aggravated by drug addiction.

I remember taking a vacation and going to a lodge in rural Missouri. It was a place Dad took me to 45 years ago. The river lodge was wonderful. But the town around it was just horrendously squalid. I went to the same gas station I saw as a boy, and it survived. Yet, to my amazement, the gas pumps were same ones from the early '70s. I could tell because they were mechanical, with the "slot machine" read out. They weren't kept like antiques, either. These things were almost rusted out. The surrounding town looked just as bad. Many boarded up businesses.

So, I could understand the desperation. There's nothing that racism or sexism would do to cure that. Building the border wall is not going to enhance anybody's economy. Unless it's infrastructure like a road, or a building, like the St. Louis Arsenal (built by the WPA), it doesn't get used, it gets maintained only. There's nothing deporting Hispanics will do to bring us jobs. When the median age of the White population (who voted for Trump) is forty-two-years old, it's not like a lot of those heavy manual labor jobs are going to be given to Caucasians. If you follow Trump's proposal and give rural farm jobs to urban Blacks, who might or might not want them, it sounds something like slavery. Registering Muslims and maintaining those records is going to be expensive, but since that's all computerized now, it's not going to create more than a few temporary jobs.

Trump's foreign policy is a different matter, and I need to do more research before I comment on it. Except for a few parts of it, such as Trump's denial of Global Warming. If he goes ahead and gets rid of the EPA, cancels the Paris Accord, and unleashes fossil fuel industry on the World, it probably means human extinction. My belief about that is that we have neither the time nor the statistical space on the charts to goof around with somebody like Trump.

Yes, I know I was wrong about the election and I could be wrong about all this. Rationally, I know the universe is intrinsically unpredictable. It's possible I can be right about the information available, right about my reasoning, and still be utterly wrong about what really happens. Still I can't help feeling a continuous sinking feeling about Trump. He's, at the very least, a very risky decision.

Then there's Trump's vindictiveness, already legendary, and his casual attitude toward nuclear weapons, which I find scary. Unless he does something to show any redeeming quality, I'm going to be living in fear for four years, at least. The majority of Americans certainly do have a different idea of what constitutes a leader than I do. It seems to be something closer to a bully with no ability to solve problems.

For myself, I'm going to try to be much more information-oriented with this blog. I'll write about information that I find, not just my so-witty commentary. However, I'm at the point with my work where I can't blog as much as I want. My entries are going to be scarce until my main project is finished.

(Not much of) An insurrection coming

I've always found Trump to be a revolting human being. So, despite the fact that we have a majority Republican Congress and most states now have both a GOP governor and legislature, if Trump loses the election is fixed. So, Trump calls on his Trumpies to rebel if Clinton wins. Not if cheating is demonstrated, but if Clinton wins, even if she's ahead in the polls. 

If Clinton is elected, it would be a miracle if Trumpies staged anything but the meekest armed rebellion. and the main reason why is actually sad.

Read interviews at any Trump rally. The ages you'll see are 36, 50, 62 and 65. As I pointed out in a prior post, the median age of the white, non-Hispanic population is 42, and white non-Hispanics are somewhere around 99.7% of Trump followers. They have a dearth of young, fit people. Same problem American businesses have, coincidentally. They can’t find enough native citizens to do heavy labor. Maybe Trumpies will have to recruit Hispanics (median age, 26) to rebel for them. That would be ironic.

There are secondary reasons: logistical problems due to Trump supporters live mostly scattered in vast rural areas. Organizing that into an effective insurrection is going to be nearly impossible. Then again, they can make a lot of trouble in the countryside. Not to the point of toppling the government or even forcing it to negotiate, only to the point of being bigger assholes. 

 Now, say they create an insurrection despite those hurdles. They’ll try to rebel without damaging any private property. Remember how the Oregon Boys at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge pointed out that they weren’t damaging or burning anybody’s property, unlike those black protesters? Remember how the Oath Keepers showed up, armed and uninvited to Ferguson, MO, to help protect private property from an insurrection? More than private property, Trumpies think they’re better than “those people.” Rioting and burning would be a step down on status. For that same reason, they won’t block highways either.

They could march or drive down those highways and take over their state capitals, (without destroying property) but states’ rights are also sacrosanct to them, and they don't see their states as part of the problem, except about eminent domain. Besides, those legislatures are largely Republican already.

Then they all have jobs, farms or ranches. They pride themselves on hard work. Remember they used to tell BLM protesters to “get a job.” For an rebellion, they'd have to abandon their jobs, take a risk of being fired or miss a year's harvest.

So, even if they find enough people, their values place terrible limit their options. They could march on Washington, but everybody’s going to know they’re coming. Once they get there, un-supplied, they’ll face a professional army.

The only other things they can do is occupy Federal land in a strategically negligible location and wait until the feds come and take them out. I’ll call that the Bundy Plan. Or, they can go the tantrum/terrorist route. “I want it my way or some random immigrants are going to die.”

Guess what they’ll likely do? That’s right. I'd call it tantrum terrorism, except people will actually die. Yes, it is what right wing reactionaries have already been doing.

That and harass people at the voting booths. It looks like they'll do just that. They can spot an illegal immigrant on sight, and they can tell how many times an African-American has voted, I guess by the numbers stamped on their foreheads.
 

TMI! TMI!

This entry still needs some work, but I'm putting it up like this because I'm out of time. This was a comment I was going to put up on FB, but I decided it belonged here. I'll continue to do edits on it until it's not so Facebooky.


People are terrible with processing and communicating information. Evolution didn't mold our minds to be truthful. To varying, but to always significant degrees, we all make mistakes, we all lie, and we deceive ourselves. That includes every religion, every faction, every family, every nation, every group humans can form. I won't go into why this is, only to say it's inherent to our evolution and to the way our minds operate.

These aren't so significant in a tribal society. But imagine information roiling through millions of people, all of it filtered and altered, and you should see that there's a problem. There's no way the information stays accurate. Even solid evidence is subject to distorted and false interpretations, added to other false information to create or support a narrative. And since people lie, and in building cohesion of a group, they're subject to lying or distorting information that would compel others to join their faction. That's not even opposed or mischievous people who manufacture evidence.

Without taking these into account, people overestimate their ability to get accurate information and draw conclusions. Once they have solid opinions, there's confirmation bias. Discovering something that supports your opinion feels good. Reconsidering and retracting is painful, an instinctive shame because if you were in a tribe, you just lost status.

Don't think you or anybody you trust isn't subject to any of this. If you evolved as a human, you are. Whenever I see or hear any news, I always ask is it mistaken? Is distorted by self-deception? Is it a lie? Or is it two or three of the above. More than likely the answer to one of those questions is: unknown. 

Not just immoral, but ineffective.

Trump's website detailed his policy proposal for immigrants. Like any racist plan, it's not just wrong, but it's a failure at addressing the problem it's purported to solve.

It would seem so direct: if we don't have higher paying jobs in our economy, all we have to do is get rid of all the immigrants who are taking them. Trump's website adds a fascist twist: after "humane" ethnic cleansing of Hispanics, relocate all the black youth in the inner to do their agricultural work. One thing I immediately find wrong with that is has Trump asked any Blacks about this? How would they like to be shipped out of their homes to do farm work, probably for very low wages? Farm work is some of the heaviest, most dangerous work in our economy.

However, this brutal plan could still succeed if not for a different issue, one which is the real reason why Hispanics are flooding in to the US to begin with. Have a look at this chart of US demographics by ethnic group.

 That chart above shows: with a median age in the forties, the white population of the US is not very fit to do heavy, physical labor. People in that group are also not as inclined to look for such work, thinking that they've basically outgrown it. The Black population is better, with a median age in the low thirties. But really, the best one is the US born Hispanic population, with a median age of 19.

When employers say that they can't fill their positions without hiring Hispanics (citizens or immigrants) they are being factual. The White non-Hispanic population is not only declining in terms of numbers relative to the rest of the US population, but it's older, and is getting older.

I believe that an economy only grows from the vitality and energy of its people, as long as the infrastructure is present. If I'm right, the US needs immigrants, of any status, for the economy to grow.

Therefore, shutting off the borders, or trying to, is simply going to leave many jobs unfilled. Most of the White population isn't fit for heavy manual labor. The Black population is somewhat better, but probably not good enough, and not so willing to leave urban centers to do agricultural work.

Donald Trump, and his followers, do not understand the demographic issue. The problem is not immigrants taking jobs, the problem is not enough native-born people to fill them.

Debate beatdown and my sigh of relief

With the most important election for a century coming soon, I know I've been silent about it in this blog. I don't have a good excuse for it, other than I haven't had a lot to say that hasn't been said. To me there's no hard decision. Clinton is the only candidate, and if you've decided to vote for Trump, there's not anything I can say to sway you.

I approach an election by imagining I'm going to hire the candidate to do a job. What does any employer read first before an interview? The resume. I don't listen so much to what candidates say, I look at what they've done. Consider the campaign to be one long job interview, a hiring process where the applicants have a right to one-up and back-stab each other.

For a series of cutthroat job interviews, where undercutting the other applicants is completely fair, I need to use judgment. Hillary Clinton is someone who has been falsely smeared for close to twenty-five years. Remember Vince Foster and his suicide, or am I that old?  Republicans started out accusing her of murder, and then got nasty.

If the attacks on President Obama have been severe, it's because the Republican lie machine practiced up on Bill, then Hillary Clinton. Bill was caught philandering, (after Republicans investigated him on Whitewater for years, finding nothing.) The remarkable thing about Hillary is none of the attacks have proved out. Her "scandals" have been investigated multiple times. She hasn't escaped them because she's a criminal mastermind, she's escaped them because she's innocent. FBI Chief ______ told Congressmen this 349872 times, and they still brought him into another hearing to tell them that 934072 more times.

As the always found nothing, they then laid on a big layer of conspiracy theories to confuse things and inflamed suspicions. It really surprised and discouraged me when Sanders supporters promulgated them. BTW, I did vote for Sanders in the primary, but now I'm totally behind Hillary Clinton.

I've never been so relieved about anything political than I was on Monday night when President-Elect Clinton trounced the flim-flam pretender, wanna-be Generalissimo Donald Trump through the mat. Afterward, neither Trump nor his supporters seem to understand that she dismembered their leader like a werewolf shredding a deer. Neither did The Young Turks who seemed to think she lost the first half-hour.

No Cenk. She shut him out. She put him in a headlock, ruined his comb-over and smeared his orange greasepaint. The only reason why you think he won the first half-hour is because you didn't begin to notice how one-sided it had been until the second.

How did TYT's miss Trump's Nixon-esque scowl as the debate began? If he looked tense, paranoid, and mean, she looked composed, rational, and humane. I had a feeling right then that she would win big.


Since then, Trump is now a gaffe a day, a scandal a week, a lie-every-three-minutes candidate. I'm so relieved that he's heading toward prison and the ash-heap of history. I look forward to the long-awaited Hillary Clinton presidency. If the Democrats can also get the Senate, that would really help.

However, important as all this now seems, it's all a dream, and none of it is going to matter in ten years. That's when the country will be fighting for its life as Global Warming takes hold. I'm off subject there, but I'd rather go through the worst crisis in history with Clinton as president rather than Trump, or anybody the Republicans will line up for the job.

And really, the party of climate change deniers deserves to die along with Trump's presidential aspirations. Their names should be read in anger for the remainder of human history.