US Politics – Page 5 – Scripturient

Oh, Ann, You Do Make Me Laugh

2016-01-15 2016-01-15 Critical Thinking / US PoliticsLeave a comment

Ann Coulter, that spewing harridan of hatred, bigotry, malevolence and xenophobia makes most thoughtful people cringe. Hell, she makes even rabid, right-wing frothers cringe. She makes the Westboro Baptist morons cringe. She makes the Duck Dynasty wingnuts cringe. She out-froths them all. Coulter represents the worst of human behaviour and thought in so many areas, blackening the eyes of even the most fervent right wing, which she alleges to defend. But you have to admit this thick-as-a-brick viper is sometimes good for a laugh. Coulter recently endorsed Donald Trump as the Republican presidential candidate. Which isn’t surprising: they are siblings in vehement hate speech. But I ……… click below for more ↓

The Republican Conspiracy

CNBC GOP Debate: The Sh*tshow Version Last night’s debate was a total sh*tshow. Posted by The Huffington Post on Thursday, October 29, 2015 I realized only after watching this edited video that the activity of the so-called Republican candidates’ debate was not simply the circus it seemed from the outset; it was actually a conspiracy. A cunning, well-laid conspiracy. And it is so Machiavellian that I actually smiled in appreciation of its deviousness. My first reaction on watching the debate (online) was that no one in their right minds could ever select any of these clowns for president. Come on – Donald Trump as ……… click below for more ↓

Apps are making us criminals

2015-10-16 2015-10-16 Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / International politics / Municipal Politics / Planning & Policies / Politics / Provincial Politics / US Politics / User fees and costsLeave a comment

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og3PjvcR1Pc] Almost every week you read in the news about another taxi driver protest against Uber and its drivers. Taxi drivers go on strike, some rage against Uber and attack the drivers or damage their cars. Similar protests – albeit not yet as violent or large – have been made against Airbnb for its effects on local property values and changing social conditions like the loss of rental properties. These are just two of the apps whose effect on our society and culture are challenging laws and policies. There are others now that attempt to clone the success of their ……… click below for more ↓

The Continued Rise of Anti-Intellectualism

2015-07-02 2015-07-02 Critical Thinking / Education & Learning / Politics / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics8 Comments

I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true. Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter* Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America, says the headline in this recent Psychology Today story. The subtitle reads: Social dysfunction can be traced to the abandonment of reason. I wrote about anti-intellectualism as the new elitism back in late 2013. Since then, it seem the trend has not only increased dramatically, but the backlash against it has grown. However, the opposition trying to restore reason is neither organized nor has the same sort of shiny baubles to attract adherents ……… click below for more ↓

Jade Helm 15 and the Madness of America

2015-05-19 2015-05-19 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Politics / US PoliticsLeave a comment

For a guy who gets great entertainment from reading the wild and wacky conspiracy theories that sprout like mushrooms online, I was surprised that I missed the rapid growth of the Jade Helm 15 conspiracy. I only noticed it as a surface ripple until this past weekend, when I realized it had blossomed into a full-blown madness. Jade Helm 15 goes beyond the usual tinfoil-hat conspiracies: it’s full tinfoil body armour stuff. And it’s been raised to the level of a hundred voices in an audience all screaming ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre – that being, of course, the internet. ……… click below for more ↓

Written by God?

2015-04-26 2018-03-20 Christianity / Critical Thinking / Faith / International politics / US PoliticsLeave a comment

I don’t pay as much attention to American politics as I suppose I should, in part because despite the entertaining craziness of some of their politicians, the internal politics seldom affect Canadians, and also in part because the craziness not only baffles me – it scares me. But this week I paid attention when I read year-old statements made by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is quoted on Rawstory as saying, “I think we got off the track when we allowed our government to become a secular government. When we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that ……… click below for more ↓

Pseudo-patriotic madness

2014-04-26 2014-04-26 Critical Thinking / Media Issues / Politics / US PoliticsOne Comment

This is news, right from the CBC, not April Fool or The Onion: The Massachusetts House of Representatives has finally granted initial approval to a Bill naming the Fluffernutter the official state sandwich. The bill was filed in 2006 by then Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein, in response to a motion by State Senator Jarrett Barrios limiting school Fluff servings to once a week. She thought that motion was, ‘nuts’. The Fluffernutter is a peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff combination and has been a staple in Massachusetts diets for generations. Okay, for anyone with any shred of common sense left, that isn’t ……… click below for more ↓

To err is human. And bureaucratic.

2014-01-09 2014-01-09 Arts / Books & Reviews / Municipal Politics / Politics / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsLeave a comment

Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum, et tertium non datur. To err is human; to persevere in error is diabolical; there is no third option. Bit of a tough love phrase, that one. Most of us know this as the later paraphrase of Alexander Pope: to err is humane, to forgive divine. Yes, he wrote “humane” because that’s how they wrote “human” in the early 18th century. And he was making a statement about critics, not about religion. But you get the drift.* Pope’s phrase is a staple in politics. To err is human, and governments are composed of people. In ……… click below for more ↓

Burning Books, Burning Bibles

2013-10-30 2018-05-28 Atheism & Spirituality / Balderdash & Hoaxes / Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Religion / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Pastor Marc Grizzard, of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, NC is back in the news this week, but I’m not really sure if it’s because of something he did or something that was dredged up online from a few years back and has just been regurgitated. This week, a story in The Telegraph about Grizzard resurfaced on Facebook. But it’s from 2009, not dated 2013. I’m unable to find a contemporary reference that doesn’t refer back to the 2009 story. Mayhap it’s a hoax. But it’s fun and informative to revisit, anyway. Back then, the Telegraph reported that Grizzard intended to ……… click below for more ↓

Hijack the Starship

2013-10-13 2013-11-11 Books & Reviews / Personal Reminiscences / Science & Technology / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsLeave a comment

Nineteen seventy. A great year for music, and a sad year, too. The death of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin.* Many of the great acts were kicked off their record labels and would struggle to find new publishers.** The great psychedelic band, Jefferson Airplane was breaking up, but before it did, Paul Kantner and Grace Slick put together a new band, named Paul Kantner and the Jefferson Starship (which would change its lineup before finalizing as the Jefferson Starship a few years later). They released a science fiction-counterculture concept album called Blows Against the Empire in 1970. It would go on ……… click below for more ↓

Internet Surveys: Bad Data, Bad Science and Big Bias

2013-10-06 2013-10-06 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / Politics / Provincial Politics / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Science & Technology / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics5 Comments

Back in 2012, I wrote a blog piece about internet polls and surveys, asking whether internet polls and surveys could be – or should be – considered valid or scientific. I concluded, after researching the question, that, since the vast majority lack any scientific basis and are created by amateurs – often with a goal to direct rather than measure public opinion – that, Most internet polls are merely for entertainment purposes. They harmlessly allow us to believe we are being engaged and are participating in the process, and they make pollsters happy to receive the attention. They are, however, ……… click below for more ↓

I Didn’t Know That…

2013-10-02 2013-10-02 Books & Reviews / Education & Learning / History & Biography / Personal Reminiscences / US PoliticsOne Comment

One of the great delights of learning is to be able to read or hear something new, something unknown, something that challenges the mind or your previously formed ideas and opinions. Something that fascinates and delights you. That “ah ha!” moment. Last week I stumbled across a website called History of England and I felt like that when I started to read through it. Better yet, I spent an hour downloading the 104 free podcasts of his history (plus the eight or so supplementary ones) to listen to while I walk my dogs.* The site is a blog created by ……… click below for more ↓

Teddy’s Words of Wisdom

2013-07-20 2013-07-20 Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Quotes & Mis-quotes / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsLeave a comment

I’m not a great student of American history – my tastes run to other places and people: Napoleon, Casanova, Elizabeth I, the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the French Revolution, China…. but I do read about it. Most recently Rick Perlstein’s history of the American Sixties, Nixonland. And in that book I came across a powerful, moving quotation from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt that I wanted to share because it still resonates today: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The ……… click below for more ↓

Racism and the US Civil Rights movement retold

2013-07-07 2016-06-12 Conspiracy Theories / Media Issues / Personal Reminiscences / US Politics3 Comments

As I read through Rick Perlstein’s book, Nixonland, about American politics and life in the 1950s and 60s, the Civil Rights movement and the reaction to it by white Americans, the narrative astounds me. Such anger, such violence. Such sadness. It seems like such an alien place, dystopian, almost fictional, like an Orwellian novel. I was, it seems from my reading, not really aware, not fully cognizant of just how bad it was. But then, it looks eerily familiar – some of the photos look just like those taken during the Occupy Wall Street protests. Am I merely juxtaposing my ……… click below for more ↓