KNOWING ALARMING FACTS DOES NOT NECESSARILY OFFER SOLUTIONS

Arkansas is trying to prevent abortions and wants to adopt the ultrasound wands into the vagina.  We learn that  the Senator in the State was bank-rolled by corporations which included Verizon, and also a large grant by the Koch Brothers, among others.

One commentator admitted that, while Hillary Clinton was laughed at when she spoke of a big right wing conspiracy against her husband, she is finally vindicated as having spoken the truth.

The Teaparty speaks of wanting to 'take back our government'. Do they realize they are speaking treason?  Not accepting the duly elected government and threatening action to abolish it is, I believe, a treasonous threat  the militias are well armed and ready to proceed.  Why is it we elect candidates who we believe are best qualified to do their job then try to tell them how to do it?  Why do people think that their opinions, though permitted to be expressed freely, should be followed?

It is my belief that the Koch brothers are not interested in the good of the country and have been plotting to get their own way though an idiot could see that their way would bankrupt the country and lead to a total chaos.  Imagine that a mensch like Ed Koch has a name with the same spelling (though they pronounce it differently) and the two evil brothers.

Even though we are supposed to keep religion out of our politics, religious institutions are violating this.  I would like to see all religious institutions that try to control laws and demand that they are not obeyed ( as with abortion), be turned into corporations subject to all the costs of any corporation.if they refuse to allowing their congregations their own right to choose how much they wish to follow the demands of their religion. All this nonsense is taking place despite the overwhelming majority of the country wanting Roe v Wade to continue to be the law of the land, for example..

tHE rEPUBLICANS PUT hAGEL ON TRIAL, NOT A HEARING.

The New York Times headlines on the Hagel hearing were: Hagel Has Rough Outing Before Ex-Colleagues

BBC ran an article calling it a 'testy' hearing.  The whole world must be laughing at the inappropriate handling by his 'fellow' Republicans.  Obviously, the chairperson had not done his homework or tried to find anything out about Chuck Hagel. They further said he had been 'grilled; at the senate hearing.  " Senator Jim Inhofe, the top Republican on the panel, who said shortly after the hearing began: "Senator Hagel's record is deeply troubling and out of the mainstream.""  Inhofe asked he had been wounded in Viet Nam.  This was a surprising question which suggested to me that he had not done his homework.  If Inhofe had asked one of his aides to check Wikipedia, he would have known that Mr. Hagel has two purple hears.

It is shameful also to see how little the committee could stay on relevant issues.  It is clear they do not know there job.  Senator McLain shows how small a man he has become.  Those of us who did not vote for him to be president can only feel confirmed in their decision. 

ON GUN CONTROL

Wayne La Pierre is a lobbyist for the gun manufacturers.  He does not seem to understand the difference between 'elimination' and 'lowering the likelihood'.  Every life saved is important.  It is clear that not all lives can ever be saved just as we have no control of Nature and weather; as long as handguns are protected by the 2nd amendment it will be so.  Handguns are less likely to do the kind of damage that we are currently seeing.  However, that is only a place to start.  Other factors influence the use of guns.  Our economy ,with the huge pressure on young people without jobs as well as family bread earners without them, is another factor.  Mental health where there are delusions and psychosis are also the cause of perhaps the most heinous of the massacres.

We can also examine the current culture of violence. How many children in the United States have not known us to be always in a war. The history channel has repeated WWII so many times.  Their games are violent.  Movies have shown little but violence to those who wish to see it. We see unfairness in our media.  We see many of our politicians as advocating war far too quickly.  I will never be convinced that Cheney sent us to Iraq for Haliburton's contracts which were just handed out.  We know that the military has, for many generations, been an income producer for many.  We also know that it has cost many lives for which we should, as a country. to be ashamed.

Gun control will not eliminate all gun deaths or suicides.  However, it should make it more difficult for those who are apt to use them for other than self-protection to irresponsibly kill others.   Australia might be a good example for us to study.  Click here. The best country I have read about is Ja[an.  It is against the law to own a gun and subject to imprisonment if you fire one.  Click here

Our manufacturers are running out of wars and countries in which to sell their violence-intended product.  If the gun manufacturers can run their factories like Campbell Soup did many years ago and start to diversify their products to non-violent items, they might not lose their all.. 

WE CAN ALWAYS LEARN NEW THINGS FROM OLD

There are several formats to digital stills.  GIFs are one that was retiring cane has come out of its retirement because a couple of photographers came up with a bit of out-of-the-box thinking.  Even Cheeseburger has joined the fun.

Each day there is more in our life that moves and more that dies.  In many cases life is an endless loop.
It used to be a thought that if we were to come back to earth, alive, a hundred years from now we might feel totally alien.  My conjecture at this point is that number should be reduced to 20 years.

Check this site.

WHAT WILL BECOME OF SARAH PALIN?

Sarah Palin has apparently been let go from the only remaining podium she has, Fox Cable News.  When you see and hear the vitriol and lies she has spewed over the years about President Obama, .  She has called President Obama a Socialist and much worse. 

Sarah Palin says she left Fox News so she can reach a 'larger audience' before trashing Mitt Romney's campaign  In a column by David Knowles in the New York News it reads: "Saying she was tired of preaching ‘to the choir,’ Sarah Palin told Brietbart.com that she wants to ‘shake up the GOP machine,’ but declines to give specifics on her long-term plans. ‘Conservatism didn’t lose,’ Palin said of the 2012 election. ‘A moderate Republican candidate lost after he was perceived to alienate working class Reagan Democrat and Independent voters who didn’t turn out for him as much as they did for the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008.’"

A staff writer on Decode Wire asks :Is Sarah Palin's political career really over?  "Lest anyone forget, Sarah Palin has a PAC with almost $1.2 million cash on hand. She may be out at Fox News, but she's got a lot of money to invest in GOP candidates or, if she opts to run for office again, herself."

RESPONSIBILITY DOES NOT EQUAL GUILT; LOSING DOES NOT CALL FOR REVENGE TO THE WINNER

Republican naivety is astonishing.  When Rand Paul determined that, since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assumed responsibility for the tragedy in Benghazi, that it was then proof that she was guilty for failure.  We have courts and stringent testing to determine guilt or innocence.  Just as suing a doctor is not possible when a bad medical outcome assume the physician is guilty  because a patient didn't get well or may have died. Proof of guilt must come from a determination that the doctor either didn't use approved treatment, or was incapacitated in some way (possible having used drugs or alcohol, for example).  It is the process, not the end result, that determines guilt or innocence in most cases..

Too many people assume if you find the guilty party, you have solved the problem.  Secretary Clinton made this point clear when mildly chastised Representative Johnson asking 'What does it matter?"  Johnson, a Republican, not surprisingly, misinterpreted her meaning and tried to make political hay by saying she doesn't care if four people died.  Nonsense,of course. She was saying it was more important to understand how to prevent such a thing happening in the future.  Neither Senator Paul or Representative Johnson had any idea the massive task of her job and the layers of structure to the top, as witnessed by Paul's leap to say he would have fired her for not reading all the million emails that came through her office.

Similarly, our media loves to make fights where there are none.  It was assumed that because Hillary lost the campaign to Barack Obama in 2008, she must be resentful and dislike him.  It is not understood that campaign are a process of using strategy. but that in the end, we back whoever is elected our president.  Both Bill and Hillary Clinton then joined together to help elect Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. Many of the media personnel are rather small minded people.  They project their own responses onto others so that we do not get facts, we too often get their subjective opinions.  If they did their job and found more facts rather than guesses, we would all be better informed,  Listen to Rachel Maddow if you want to hear  a complete story based on fact.  There are many others on media channels who are pretty good and then there is FOX News! Their audience is rarely exposed to truth or fact. 

What is clear from the interview on 60 minutes interview(1-27-13) of both the President and our Secretary of State together, was a lesson in professionalism in politics where the ultimate goals is to work together for the good of the country.  What a novel thought that has yet to become a part of the actions of the current Congress. 

IS GUN OWNERSHIP CHRISTIAN?

Lisa Miller

This question 'Is gun ownership Christian?' was answered by a reporter on the Washington Post. She is Lisa Miller.   She writes: "According to the startling results of a survey released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute, 57 percent of white evangelicals live in homes where someone owns a gun (compared, for example, with 31 percent of Catholics.) And more startling, even after 20 first-graders were slaughtered in Connecticut at the hands of a madman with an assault rifle, 59 percent of white evangelicals continue to oppose tighter restrictions on gun laws. "'

The article in the Washington Post answers some questions by what it shows and writes.  However, it also leaves the reader with many questions  about when the statistics were taken and how frequently do those statistics change.  Do they change when gun assaults are made in different religious house of varying denominations?

Recently listening to  pro-lifer talk about caring about all lives and naming the very large number of abortions supposedly taking place in "America.  The Pro-Lifers see they can do more good preventing those deaths than they can through saving lives, for example, by reducing the number of lives lost by gun violence.

Somehow that logic fails me as lack of sincerity.  It seems more as though they are saying It is easier to save the unborn than it is to change the gun laws.  If this figure is quoted from statistics, they are short sighted.  The reason for abortion having been made legal was the number of illegal abortions not only killing the fetus but also the mother, too often.  It is as though once born, a life loses value as quickly as a new car purchased and driven off the lot.

When people of religion start championing more guns and banning abortions, I rage at the hypocrisy shown.