Imagine There’s No Heaven…

MAGA cultists / Politics / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / Theocracy / US Politics3 Comments

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The title above is how Imagine, the iconic 1971 song by John Lennon, begins. It is still being played and sung, more than 50 years later. Wikipedia tells us it is “one of the 100 most performed songs of the 20th century.” The song was re-released as a single in 1980 following Lennon’s murder, reaching number one on the UK charts. It was re-released in 1988 and again in 1999. For some listeners, myself included, that first verse was an opening to an atheist anthem … click below for more ↓

How Did Democracy Come To This Sorry State?

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / MAGA cultists / Musings / US Politics5 Comments

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My wife and I are members of the Boomer generation. That means our parents, their families, and their friends, their neighbours and their communities were impacted by World War II. In our family, our parents  — British and Canadian — fought against the Nazis, fought against fascism, fought to keep the world safe for democracy. They endured six years of hell and deprivation so Susan and I could live a normal life. Many millions who fought for our freedoms died, often in horrible, lonely, and … click below for more ↓

Meta Doesn’t Like Me

MAGA cultists / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US PoliticsLeave a comment

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The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,/  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit/ Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,/ Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. That’s how Edward Fitzgerald translated the 51st quatrain of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in his first edition of his book (1859). Fitzgerald might have done that translation differently had he known of our modern social media. Social media firms can “wash out” not just words, but posts, threads, and even … click below for more ↓

Jurassic Park: Some Thoughts About the Franchise Part 2

Culture / Evolution & Paleontology / Film & Reviews / MusingsLeave a comment

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Charles Darwin knew the score. In Chapter 11 of his famous and brilliant book, The Origin of Species, published in 1859, he wrote, “We can clearly understand why a species once lost should never reappear, even if the very same conditions of life, organic and inorganic, should recur.” But despite Darwin’s warning, the evil, greedy corporations of the Jurassic Park films kept bringing species of dinosaurs and other extinct lizards back to life. In many of the films, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) plays the … click below for more ↓

Jurassic Park: Some Thoughts About the Franchise Part 1

Culture / Evolution & Paleontology / Film & Reviews / MusingsOne Comment

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There’s one particular scene in the first Jurassic Park movie, about twenty minutes in, when Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler see the dinosaurs walking wild in the open for the first time on Isla Nublar; that still chokes me up, every time almost bringing me to tears. Even on my fourth or fifth viewing of the film last week, that scene still moves me. The kid in me is still agog with wonder when I see that brachiosaurus… even though my knees tell … click below for more ↓

Trump: America’s Mussolini

MAGA cultists / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics3 Comments

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While Trump’s racist, misogynist running mate, JD “Shady” Vance, in 2016 called Donald Trump, “America’s Hitler,” (before he became a Trump sycophant) it was really a dictator too far. Trump, the racist felon and serial liar candidate for the US presidency, is far more like Benito Mussolini than Hitler in many ways. Of course, I realize their political careers are not parallel and that Trump has not yet managed to be the dictator he so clearly plans to be if re-elected (a dictator only on … click below for more ↓

A Time for Political Optimism at Last

MAGA cultists / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics5 Comments

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After many dreary months of the relentless, pounding negativity, insults, accusations, lies, deflections, racism, and rage-farming of a convicted felon, tax cheat, and serial liar Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, we now have a significant counterbalance to give us — including those of us outside the USA — hope for America’s political and social future: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Wow. What a change. Instead of the vituperative MAGA firehose of lies, insults, slurred and mispronounced words, cognitive slips, more lies, racist and misogynist insults, sleazy … click below for more ↓

Trump and the Trojans

MAGA cultists / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics2 Comments

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Donald Trump — aging, obese convicted felon with more criminal trials pending, serial liar, serial adulterer, business fraud, con man, tax cheat, rapist who boasted about his sexual assaults, misogynist who boasted about it and continually insults women, racist, bankrupted casino and hotel owner, scam artist, spray-painted sneaker and printed-in-China bible salesman, thief of classified documents, grifter who stole from a children’s cancer charity to line his own pockets, indicted four times, con artist who scammed students at his fake university, wannabe dictator in serious … click below for more ↓

No Dog in That Fight, But I Still Care About the Results

Canadian Politics / MAGA cultists / Politics / US Politics2 Comments

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As a Canadian, I can only watch US politics from afar, albeit with unease. My comments on events and issues there are those from an armchair observer who has no dog in the ongoing, and increasingly bitter partisan fights. Like a lot of voices on social media, mine is that of an outsider. But… like any citizen of this planet who is concerned about our collective future, I have an interest in the outcome of the upcoming US election, just as I have one in … click below for more ↓

Trump, Ozymandias, and the Hubris of Ambition

MAGA cultists / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US Politics5 Comments

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Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley in his 1817 poem, Ozymandias, the ancient king who called himself in the poem, the ” king of kings.” I was thinking about that poem as I watched the news that an AR-15-wielding, fellow MAGA Repugnican had shot at the convicted felon and wannabe-dictator Donald Trump at one of his hate rallies. Do you know the name of the person the shooter actually killed? Or the two people seriously wounded? Of course not, … click below for more ↓

Council Screws Collingwood Residents. Again.

Collingwood / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Wacky WTF ideas5 Comments

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Like many other residents in council chamber yesterday, I was deeply disappointed but not surprised by our council’s decision to continue with staff’s anti-resident/anti-environment plan to deforest Sixth Street to make it a better speedway for cars passing through town. The council chamber was full to capacity with people upset with the plan, hoping council would recognize their anger and distress, hoping council would listen, would prefer 21st-century pro-resident, green-street planning, and reconsider the previous pro-vehicle/anti-tree plan. But they didn’t. The majority of council sided … click below for more ↓

Review: The Design of Books

Books & Reviews / Books about books / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Like with so many other technologies in our lives — computers, cars, bread machines, flushing toilets, DVD players, convection ovens — most consumers don’t know or appreciate how books are made, or why they are made in such familiar shapes and structure. In more than four millennia since humans invented writing, the way that writing has been recorded and shared has evolved from clay tablets to the modern paperback and hardcover. Because we are so used to seeing and reading books, few of us stop … click below for more ↓

Christofascists Make Their Move in Oklahoma

MAGA cultists / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / US PoliticsOne Comment

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The MAGA pseudo-Christians in the USA have recently been making bold moves toward implementing their oppressive theocracy and making Gilead a reality in their states. Louisiana required one of the two biblical Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom (albeit without identifying which of the two even though they have significant differences). Now Oklahoma has decreed that “all schools must incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in curriculums.” No one is surprised that when ranking education in the 50 states, these are always … click below for more ↓

The Litter That’s Killing Everything and Everyone

Collingwood / Environment / Ineptitude and bungling / Manners & Civility / Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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Four and a half trillion. That’s how many cigarette butts are estimated to be littered every year on our streets, sidewalks, parks, downtowns, parking lots, lawns, and everywhere else smokers feel entitled to leave them. That’s 4,500,000,000,000 pieces of toxic, non-biodegradable, chemical-soaked plastic waste that smokers — and smokers alone — pollute the earth with every year. That’s litter deliberately left to poison the water, kill plants and wildlife, and remain in the environment for more than a decade, doing their damage. An estimated 1.69 … click below for more ↓

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