We all know he will appeal, and the far right will stand up for him.  Of course, that hasn’t stopped Snow from issuing an injunction to stop Sheriff Joe’s racist policies.

“…The ruling concluded a class-action civil suit brought against Arpaio and his office by the American Civil Liberties Unionn (ACLU) that grew to represent every Latino driver pulled over in Maricopa County since 2007. Instead of seeking monetary damages, though, the plaintiffs called for those practices to be legally curtailed.

The plaintiffs’ case hinged on a combination of statistical data pointing to a higher likelihood for Latino drivers to be stopped by the department, as well as past statements by both Arpaio and his constituents regarding undocumented immigrants.

According to the ACLU, one witness for the plaintiffs, Temple University researcher Ralph Taylor, found that officers were 46 to 53 percent more likely to stop Latinos during “crime suppression sweeps” ordered by Arpaio compared to regular operations. Traffic stops involving Latinos were also 21 to 25 percent longer than regular stops.

“Facts are facts, statistics are statistics, and they can be interpreted,” Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox told KPHO-TV. “But I thought they were very telling.”…”

The Pink Flamingo’s favorite liberal blogger, the Feathered Bastard is enjoying every minute of this.  Like The Pink Flamingo, there is a crowing I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!  I don’t think it is going to be enough to help the recall effort, though.

“…..In this case, I love saying that I told you so.

Both before and after the civil trial in Melendres last summer, I noted that Arpaio was “guilty as sin.”

And so he is. Whether or not there is an appeal.

The only thing better than this ruling would be the folks at Respect Arizona scoring the signatures needed by this May 30 to recall our racial-profilin’ sheriff from office.

Who knows, this may be the last-minute miracle they need.

In case Snow wasn’t clear enough for you slavish, nativist, redneck supporters of Joe, and for his deputies, below are the details of Snow’s order.

Worthy of note, the prohibition that the MCSO is barred from, “Detaining, arresting or holding persons based on a reasonable suspicion that they are conspiring with their employer to violate the Arizona Employer Sanctions Act.”

Whether or not Arpaio tries to get around that and continue his Hispanic-hunting raids on local businesses remains to be seen….”

AZ Central

In the wacky anti-Hispanic bigotry world, Tom Tancredo is running for Governor of Colorado.  The Pink Flamingo welcomes his entry into the race.  It will be fun to have him to kick around, again!  Let’s be rooting for an epic fail here, but not before we have a little fun and games with abject bigotry.

Image 2050

It’s a little like Steve King, who says that Ronald Reagan’s (evil) 1986 Amnesty Act caused Barack Obama to be elected.  Go figure?  The Pink Flamingo is trying to do just that.  It’s nice to be able to hate people because of their culture and nation of origin.  I sure wish I could do it, but I guess I’m just not much of a good Republican these days.

Racism hasn’t stopped SC Governor Nikki Haley from putting Roan Garcia-Quintana, a known racist, bigot, and member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (the front group of the white supremacist and neo-Nazi leaning Stormfront) on her re-election steering committee. Garcia-Quintana is one of the original founders of the tea parties – nationwide!

Politicus USA

I just love it when anti-Hispanic bigots get busted!

“..The case began when Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist who was in the United States legally, was stopped outside a church in Cave Creek where day laborers were known to gather. Melendres, the passenger in a car driven by a White driver, claims that deputies detained him for nine hours and that the detention was unlawful.

Eventually, the case grew to include complaints from two Hispanic siblings from Chicago who felt they were profiled by sheriff’s deputies, and from an assistant to former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon whose Hispanic husband claims he was detained and cited while nearby White motorists were treated differently.

The lawsuit did not seek monetary damages. Instead, the plaintiffs asked for the kind of injunctive relief that the Sheriff’s Office has resisted in the past — a declaration that spells out what deputies may or may not do when stopping potential suspects, and a court-appointed monitor to make sure the agency lives by those rules.

Snow gave each side 20 hours to present their case in a tightly controlled trial that took place in late July and early August in the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs took a three-pronged approach, using Arpaio’s own statements about undocumented immigrants along with racially insensitive requests from constituents for immigration enforcement to show the sheriff’s callous attitude toward the rights of Latinos and his the agency’s intention to discriminate. Data showing that Latino drivers were more likely to be stopped during the sheriff’s immigration sweeps, and that those stops were likely to last longer, was designed to show the outcome of that intent. And statements from residents who claimed they were victims of profiling was intended to illustrate the impact of the sheriff’s policies.

Arpaio’s attorneys used their allotted time taking apart the statistical data and relying heavily on the testimony of sheriff’s deputies, commanders and administrators who testified repeatedly that the agency does not tolerate racial profiling, despite the lack of a policy expressly prohibiting the practice….”

New American Media

The Immigration Prof Blog has more of the details on the Arpaio decision.

“…“The evidence fully supports the finding of an equal protection clause violation,” said Stan Young, a partner with Covington & Burling. “We proved a discriminatory intent, through the sheriff’s own internal correspondence and public statements, as well as admissions that the MCSO uses Hispanic ethnicity as a reason to pursue immigration inquiries. We also proved a harmful effect, in the form of higher stop rates and longer stop times for Hispanics. Even apart from racial discrimination, we also proved that the MCSO improperly detains motorists and passengers without having an adequate basis. All of these violations will now need to stop.”

MCSO’s rampant racial profiling had created a culture of fear in Maricopa County. Latinos and others who look or sound “foreign” have worried that a trip to the grocery store or to work will end with interrogation by armed officers or incarceration at the county jail.

“The voices of Sheriff Arpaio’s racial profiling targets have been heard,” said Nancy Ramirez, Western Regional Counsel, MALDEF. “Today’s decision vindicates Maricopa County community members who have long suffered from the Sheriff’s discriminatory and illegal practices. We look forward to seeing much needed reforms implemented at the MCSO.”

Today’s decision is a major step in putting an end to the culture of fear that was created under Sheriff Arpaio’s leadership of MCSO. With this victory, plaintiffs’ attorneys will make a detailed submission to the district court, outlining steps that should be taken to put an end to the MCSO’s illegal practices….”

The entire decision is 142 pages long!

The Pink Flamingo has no doubt Sheriff Joe is going to keep on keeping on with his own special brand of adorable racism and anti-Hispanic hate.  He ‘s never let a little thing like laws and ethics stop him before, so a tacky and allegedly liberal ruling is just going to make him even nastier.

If you are a liberal, climate change is your new religion. If you are a conservative, debunking climate change is your new cause. So, what’s wrong with this picture?

Wikipedia

They call it Volcanic Winter: The Pink Flamingo is more of an advocate of that – for climate change, than any other excuse. Until 1880 or so, there was no real tracking of global temperatures. The first real test of modern instruments began, then. If you will notice, there is a major dip in temperature in the years from about 1883 – about 1900. There is a very good reason for this.

“…The effects of volcanic eruptions on recent winters are modest in scale, but historically have been significant.

Most recently, the 1991 explosion of Mount Pinatubo, a stratovolcano in the Philippines, cooled global temperatures for about 2–3 years.

In 1883, the explosion of Krakatoa (Krakatau) created volcanic winter-like conditions. The four years following the explosion were unusually cold, and the winter of 1887 to 1888 included powerful blizzards. Record snowfalls were recorded worldwide.

The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, a stratovolcano in Indonesia, occasioned mid-summer frosts in New York State and June snowfalls in New England and Newfoundland and Labrador in what came to be known as the “Year Without a Summer” of 1816.

A paper written by Benjamin Franklin in 1783 blamed the unusually cool summer of 1783 on volcanic dust coming from Iceland, where the eruption of Laki volcano had released enormous amounts of sulfur dioxide, resulting in the death of much of the island’s livestock and a catastrophic famine which killed a quarter of the Icelandic population. Northern hemisphere temperatures dropped by about 1 °C in the year following the Laki eruption.

In 1600, the Huaynaputina in Peru erupted. Tree ring studies show that 1601 was cold. Russia had its worst famine in 1601 to 1603. From 1600 to 1602, Switzerland, Latvia and Estonia had exceptionally cold winters. The wine harvest was late in 1601 in France, and in Peru and Germany, wine production collapsed. Peach trees bloomed late in China, and Lake Suwa in Japan froze early.

In 1452 or 1453, a cataclysmic eruption of the submarine volcano Kuwae caused worldwide disruptions.

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 in Europe may have been precipitated by a volcanic event, perhaps that of Mount Tarawera, New Zealand, lasting about five years.

The extreme weather events of 535–536 are most likely linked to a volcanic eruption.

One proposed volcanic winter happened around 71,000–73,000 years ago following the supereruption of Lake Toba on Sumatra island in Indonesia. In the following 6 years there was the highest amount of volcanic sulphur deposited in the last 110,000 years, possibly causing significant deforestation in Southeast Asia and the cooling of global temperatures by 1 °C.

Some scientists hypothesize the eruption caused an immediate return to a glacial climate regime by accelerating an ongoing continental glaciation, causing massive population reduction among animals and human beings on Earth. Others argue that the climatic effects of the eruption were too weak and brief to impact early human populations to the degree proposed.

This, combined with the fact that most human differentiations abruptly occurred at that same period, is a probable case of bottleneck linked to volcanic winters (see Toba catastrophe theory). On average, super-eruptions with total eruptive masses of at least 1015 kg (Toba eruptive mass = 6.9 × 1015 kg) occur every 1 million years….”

There is also a reason why the world is warmer now than it has been since recorded (1880) temperatures began. This chart says it all.

Wikipedia

It is quite simple, and explains why we are now warmer than we have been in ages – if you subscribe to the volcanic theory of temperature change, the way The Pink Flamingo does.

“…We can study the details of the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate by using information from tree-rings over the last several centuries. It turns out that the density of wood is a good indicator of summer warmth: high density = warm temperatures, and vice versa. A recent article by Briffa et al. (1998) summarized the occurrence of volcanic eruptions and data from average tree-ring density around the northern hemisphere.

This compilation revealed that the timing of lowest tree-ring densities closely follows major eruptions in almost all cases. It appears from the compilation of Briffa et al. (1998) that volcanic activity was an important factor in the cold spells of the Little Ice Age (1350 A.D. to 1850 A.D.).

Presumably such spells were the most severe, since they were superimposed on the background of a generally cooler climate.

The largest of the eruptions, in Peru in 1601, is thought to have caused such severe economic damage in Peru and its neighbors that it took 150 years to recover (according to Silva and Zielinski, 1998).

The second largest eruption, Tambora in 1815, is known to have emitted enormous amounts of particles into the stratosphere (according to Lamb, 1972), including sulfurous aerosol which is the most effective at blocking radiation. Severe winters, late frost, and cool summers tend to follow such eruptions, with the consequences of poor harvests stimulated emigration.

For example, the Tambora eruptions in the early 19th century resulted in much economic stress, with the French historian Ladurie claiming that all of Europe spent the summer around the fireplace in 1816, with frost in July, followed by famine….”

There is a direct corolation between tree-ring data and volcanic explosions. If you truly want to know why the world is warmer today that it was 150 years ago, and warmer than it was for the past 500 years, this is the simplest explanation available.

Earthguide

This is the usual spew about climate change. Simple examination of the volcanic recorder renders this absolutely useless. What is fascinating, the charts that The Pink Flamingo, has presented, about volcanic climate change come from this study, but it is being ignored.

“…The chief benefit of climate history is the expansion of our horizons even beyond imagination. Without the historical perspective we are trapped within the limited wisdom provided by physics and the experience of individual observers. It is perhaps surprising that the various expert opinions in the climate-related sciences regarding the problem of man-made global warming can diverge as much as they do. But it will also surely come as a shock to realize that many of these opinions are not especially relevant to the question of how much of the warming experienced over the last several decades can be ascribed to human impact.

Geology SDSU

The reason for this is actually quite simple. Physics can tell us a lot about how the climate machine works. We are in great need of that knowledge, and we should vigorously pursue such studies. However, only climate history, that is, long-term experience, can tell us whether we are witnessing highly unusual conditions or not. In some ways, only the scientists studying long time series of climate change have anything worthwhile to say about whether the Earth is warming or not. Their data show that the Earth is warming, and it is doing so at a highly unusual rate and toward highly unusual conditions. Concerning the future, the balance between physics and history is a bit more difficult to assess. We definitely need to generate mathematical simulations of the climate machine using computer programs, and ask how these artificial climate systems would react if we were to change the trace-gas content in the atmosphere, or the amount of aerosol, or the number of hurricanes, or any number of other conditions. (After all, we cannot do these experiments any other way.)…”

Let’s try another chart:

Earthguide

There is an entire course based on the ‘riddle of the little ice age’ – once again, ignoring salient facts.

Climate Change
Earthguide

There is only one logical explanation to the dribble above. It is not the answer climate change enthusiasts want. The real answer to climate change is via geology. You can’t base changing the way we live on a ‘science’ that is so new, and so iffy, it could be considered pseudo science. The Pink Flamingo did not feel this way when I began this post. I was leaning toward some other sources for climate change. I am now more positive than ever that we’re dealing with volcanism, plain and simple. Sunspots don’t cut it. By carefully examining the volcanic record, you find a simple and logical explanation for what has happened for the past 2000 years in climate on this planet.

“...In The Science Delusion, Sheldrake reminds us that scientists are, above all else, human, with all the short-comings and foibles of other mere mortals: “They compete for funding and prestige, constrained by peer-group pressures and hemmed in by prejudices and taboos.” This image runs directly counter to that actively promoted by scientists in recent history – one of a totally impartial, dispassionate elite, who can be uniquely relied upon to reveal the exact truth. Sheldrake quotes Ricky Gervais, who naïvely claims that: “Science is humble… It doesn’t get offended when new facts come along.” This popular view of science is aired regularly in the media by other high-profile celebrities. Stephen Fry (“The stupid person’s clever person”) is an enthusiastic devotee of Richard Dawkins, whose supporters, incidentally, include a surprising number of comedians.

Since the Enlightenment of the 18th century, the world of science has professed to operate in “an open-minded spirit of enquiry” but this is rarely true in practice; any modern research programme is under a good deal of pressure to not produce unexpected or unwanted results. Making waves by questioning accepted dogma is simply not on. Rupert Sheldrake may well be correct in his assertion that something fundamental has been ignored by science – it could even be something as important as gravity. But unless science comes to practise the open-mindedness that it preaches, we may never know. As Sheldrake writes:

“In the Enlightenment ideal, science was a path to knowledge that would transform humanity for the better. Science and reason were the vanguard. These were, and still are, wonderful ideals, and they have inspired scientists for generations. They inspire me. I am all in favour of science and reason if they are scient-ific and reasonable. But I am against granting scientists and the materialist worldview an exemption from critical thinking and sceptical investigation. We need an enlightenment of the Enlightenment.”…

The far left has made fools of themselves endorsing what is little more than a pathetic attempt at science. The far right has rendered themselves utterly stupid for ignoring science and embracing propaganda. Both have rendered themselves abject fools. The far left is so determined to prove that climate change is destroying the planet with global warming that they are incapable of comprehending the fact that we are living in a period of geological time where there has been no major volcanic eruption since the mid 1880s. We are coming out of a 500 year period of major volcanic eruption.

During that time period, modern written records were born. We know what went on, the weather, crops, and exploration. To base a science on what has happened during those past 500 years is foolish. It is abjectly dangerous. The far right is so positive that climate change does not exist that they are blind to the very real problem that is going on in the world. Their billionaire handlers are using the excuse of climate change to hide their real agenda of polluting on a scale that will almost render the entire planet poison.

If the far left were to truly face climate reality they could begin to engage the far right on the real problem here. But, we can’t. The right, thanks to their propaganda is at the throat of the left, which, thanks to their propaganda is at the throat of the right. Neither side truly gives a damn about doing something constructive. In order to do something constructive they must both admit that they are wrong and that the other side is partially correct. Neither side is going to do that. Those of us who are interested in sensible solutions that will preserve our planet (reasonably) are left without real recourse. To worship the planet is abjectly – stupid.

To ignore the fact that man can destroy it is equally stupid. I believe the old term is a pox on both their houses!

“…Following the devastating eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991 there has been a resurgence of interest in the global effects of volcanism. Mt. Pinatubo was the second largest eruption of this century and produced approxmately 10 cubic kilometers of rock and ash (called tephra by volcanologists).

This is enough to bury the District of Columbia to a depth of 128 feet, according to a recent Washington Post article. As well as tephra, the eruption also injected a twenty million ton sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas cloud into the stratosphere. This gas cloud was chemically converted into a sulfuric acid aerosol, which was predicted to cause a 0.5¡C global temperature decrease.

Although the temperature decrease is hard to identify due to natural climate variability, the aerosols caused a measurable stratospheric temperature rise and a drop in the direct solar beam at the Earth’s surface. Some have blamed both the recent Midwest floods and the increased size of the Antarctic ozone hole on Mt. Pinatubo aerosols.

Volcanologists attempt to estimate the magnitude of volcanic eruptions by looking at criteria such as tephra amount and crater size. A variety of researchers have then compared such data from historical eruptions to climate records, and also to temperature data derived from tree rings and ice cores. Result show that some large historic eruptions were followed by temperature decreases. However, not all large historic eruptions were followed temperature decreases, and not all historic temperature decreases were preceded by large eruptions.

A variety of other factors, such as volcano latitude and season of eruption, will need to be taken into account before the volcanism-climate relationship can be fully understood.In order to establish which factors are important we can take advantage of the remote sensing and ground based instruments available today and understand the effects of eruptions for which we have detailed data sets.

If relationships between volcano-type and explosivity can be found, then it may be possible to calibrate the historic record of volcanism , using the recent remotely-sensed volcanic data. Current work at the Goddard Space Flight Center under the supervision of A. Krueger (Code 916) and L. Walter (Code 900) involves relating SO2 to explosivity, as well as analysing in detail data from important eruptions such as El Chichon and Mt. Pinatubo. SO2 is important because in the atmosphere it chemically reacts to form a sulfuric acid aerosol.

If the amount of SO2 is known then the amount of aerosol produced can be calculated.Data from Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instruments is used to measure and track SO2 gas clouds from explosive volcanic eruptions. The TOMS measures reflected ultraviolet (UV) radiation and can measure both ozone and sulfur dioxide. The ability of TOMS to detect SO2 gas was first noticed after the eruption of El Chichon, Mexico in April 1982.

Abnormally high ozone values were found across Mexico at the same time as the eruption. These false high-ozone values were due to SO2 gas from the volcano. SO2, like ozone, absorbs UV light and the SO2 was being incorrectly interpreted as extra ozone.Only the most powerful volcanic eruptions can produce stratospheric eruption clouds.

Well-known volcanoes such as Mauna Loa in Hawaii and Mount Etna in Sicily, erupt at relatively constant rates but with little explosive force. Gas clouds from these volcanoes remain in the troposphere, and only rarely are stratospheric clouds produced. In the troposphere the gas and aerosols are rapidly removed by rain. Volcanoes like these are called non-arc volcanoes and lie at regions of tectonic plate spreading and over “hot spots”.

Large explosive eruptions such as Mt. Pinatubo and El Chichon, produce stratospheric clouds and the aerosols produced can remain in the stratosphere for several years. The majority of such explosive volcanoes are classed as arc volcanoes, and lie close to subduction zones at tectonic plate boundaries. The Pacific rim is surrounded by such volcanoes from Chile to Alaska, and from Indonesia to Kamchatka.We can consider El Chichon and Mt. Pinatubo as typical arc volcanoes. These are characterized by long dormant periods punctuated by intense explosive eruptions of variable intensity and duration.

In this case both volcanoes were dormant for almost 600 years before their most recent eruptive activity began. During the month before the largest eruptions, there were a sequence of much smaller eruptions, some of which produced small SO2 clouds detected by TOMS.

The ground-based monitoring of these precursor eruptions allows volcanologists to predict explosive volcanic eruptions, as was done successfully by the US Geological Survey and Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology at Mt. Pinatubo.El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo are the two largest eruption clouds measured by TOMS, but over 100 other eruption clouds have also been measured.

The final explosive eruptions from El Chichon and Mt. Pinatubo produced approximately seven and twenty million tons of SO2 respectively, as measured by TOMS. The clouds from each eruption were tracked for over a month and gradually faded from TOMS’ view, as the SO2 was converted to sulfate aerosols.

Other measurements made at the same time indicate the rapid formation of an aerosol layer which persisted for several years. Stratospheric aerosols have only recently returned to pre-Pinatubo levels.The Volcanic Explosivity Index, or VEI, is the volcanologists version of the Richter scale, and rates eruptions by explosivity, from 0 (low explosivity, eg Mauna Loa) to 8 (very high explosivity; at least 100 times bigger than Pinatubo; none recorded in last 10,000 years).

For example, El Chichon rates as VEI 5, whilst Mt. Pinatubo rates as VEI 6. TOMS data can be combined with VEI data to try to relate SO2 output with explosivity or volcano type. Analysis of TOMS data for the Nimbus-7 period (1978 – 1993) show a large variation of SO2 output (and hence aerosols) with explosivity. This means it is very hard to predict the SO2 output of an eruption, even if the explosivity is known. For example, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 (VEI 5), produced only a tenth as much SO2 as El Chichon (also VEI 5).

The lack of correlation between explosivity and SO2 output complicates the work of those trying to look at the historical effects of volcanism upon climate.Volcanic aerosol particles scatter and absorb a fraction of incoming solar radiation, as well as absorbing a fraction of outgoing terrestrial radiation. The change in global temperatures caused by the aerosols from El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo is estimated to be 0.2¡C and 0.5¡C. However both these values lie within the natural variability of temperature .

The estimations are based upon Global Circulation Model (GCM) results and temperature analyses that attempt to remove other sources of climate variability, such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO’s are quasi-periodic changes in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific and cause an increase in global surface temperatures for a few years.

The co-incidence of an ENSO with an eruption can possibly mask the effects of the eruption. For example, an ENSO after El Chichon meant that no distinct temperature decrease was observed. Feedbacks in the climate system mean that we cannot expect the climate effects of an ENSO and an eruption to add in a linear fashion. It has even been proposed that volcanic stratospheric aerosols can trigger an ENSO to occur earlier than it would otherwise, although this is treated with great scepticism by most researchers. If this is true then the recent Midwest floods can be attributed to the eruption of Mt Pinatubo.

Volcanic aerosols have also been implicated in ozone depletion. A year after an eruption, stratospheric aerosols even from equatorial volcanoes can be distributed to polar latitudes and studies show volcanic aerosols can catalyze ozone-destroying chemical reactions.

The largest ever ozone hole was measured by TOMS at the end of 1993, and the hole was larger than predicted. If this unexpectedly large increase in the size of ozone hole is due to Mt. Pinatubo aerosols, we may possibly see a return to predicted ozone hole size changes in the next few years, as the Mt. Pinatubo aerosols fall out of the stratosphere.

Recognition and measurement of the volcanic climate signal is vital to understanding global climate change. Before we can quantify any climate change due to human activity we must quantify natural sources of short-term climate variability. The primary source of such variability is from explosive volcanism. TOMS data can both quantify recent volcanic activity and illuminate historic volcanic activity in terms of SO2 output….“

Scientific American

The series continues tomorrow.

“...If Republicans and their creationist voting bloc want their children to enter adulthood with an understanding of the world that rivals stone age cave-dwellers, that is their prerogative and more power to them. However, their assault on real science is an existential threat to every American including those who believe tyrannosaurus ate plants with man on the 6th creation day, and adamantly believe their tenure on this Earth is approaching its end because they will be spirited away when Jesus returns in five years. However, for Americans and the rest of humanity, the prospect of a world ravaged by droughts, water and food shortages, and air saturated with poisonous fossil fuel emissions is a clear and present danger that cannot be ignored if they are to survive…”

There can be no doubt that corporate greed is encouraging the far right to ‘hate’ science. It is in their best interest to damn science and create their own version of science. It is a good thing that science is fighting back. Climate change is very real. To deny it is to deny the historical record. Let’s be brutally honest here. It’s all about the Koch Machine.

Prairie Weather

“…Petroleum coke is a byproduct of the refinery process of the tar sands oil, which leaves refineries with a huge amount of the coke after it sends the oil onward. The coke usually just piles up (Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled), because it’s a dirty, and mostly inefficient energy source. But the industrialist/harbingers of the apocalypse Koch Brothers had a better idea: why not sell this high-sulfur, high-carbon waste to countries that don’t care about the environment?

And that’s exactly what they did. “It comes down to emission controls,” D. Mark Routt, an energy consultant, told the Times. “Other people don’t seem to have a problem, which is why it is going to Mexico, which is why it is going to China.”…”

The Pink Flamingo is a student of history, and a geology buff. I know enough about geology and volcanology to know that what man can do is petty compared to nature. To ignore the effects of sun spots on climate change is foolish. To ignore the possibility of a meteor strike is foolish. To ignore unchecked pollution is criminal.

Io9

Yes, tar sands are a disaster. Are they going to contribute to ‘global climate change’? We just don’t know. What we do know is that the process if filthy. It contributes to pollution. Natural Gas is much cleaner. But – far right corporate billionaires don’t give a damn about any of that – only the bottom line. The far right, billionaire protecting his turf is going to pay for rally bad science to prove he is right. The liberal (who doesn’t have near the money) is going to do the same thing. One of the real problems here is the fact that the far right and the far left are basically the same, only with different names, labels, and goals. The tactics are the same – cruel and vicious. Climate change science and those who worship it, refuse to acknowledge that science often gets things wrong. It’s the nature of the beast. Science is NOT religion. Religion is NOT science. We have a very real problem when those dealing with science turn it into something as dogmatic as the worst aspects of organized religion, forgetting that the true nature of science is theoretical, with the unexplained as the true beauty of science. Let’s deal a little with climate change. Neither side is ‘pure’. The left likes to refer to a site called Skeptic Science. The problem with this is the fact that it is maintained by John Cook, who is out of Queensland. His pro-climate change stand is as a classic debunker. The Pink Flamingo has serious problems with debunkers. They are as much true believers as are the nut-cases, only in their determination to disprove anything with which they do not believe. When you find someone who debunks the debunker, the first question to ask is who is paying them. This is what Cook allegedly ignores.

American Institute of Physics

For more information on this, and the problems Cook is ignoring: There is a bottom line. Climate change ‘experts’ are picking and choosing what they want to believe, and what they want others to believe.

Physics Today

So, you try finding something that might debunk the debunkers and it is industry owned. A Koch backed anti-debunking organization came out with an interesting paper on CO2 levels and the medieval warming period. The problem is that it is sponsored by Koch, and the paper completely ignores the role of volcanism. What fascinates The Pink Flamingo is that the skepticism NOT being displayed toward John Cook is interesting when compared to the peer-reviewed work Melba Ketchum did on Bigfoot DNA. The uproar was huge. Cook’s work is NOT peer-reviewed and it isn’t good science, but because he is preaching to the choir on the religion of climate change, his work is hailed as gospel truth. Just read the comments.

The series continues tomorrow.

You can read more about Paul Gleason here and here

This Post Was Suggested By Kathi

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.
Those Who Say That We’re In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don’t Know Where To Look

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

This isn’t rocket science, people:

UK Guardian

You also might want to look at the list of actual historic records for temperatures. We’re dealing with about 6000 years of actual recorded human history. Our actual real weather records go back maybe 150 years, if that far. There are other ways to access records and determine climate, but this too is just not all that ‘scientific’.

“…The temperature record shows the fluctuations of the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans through various spans of time. The most detailed information exists since 1850, when methodical thermometer-based records began. There are numerous estimates of temperatures since the end of the Pleistocene glaciation, particularly during the current Holocene epoch. Older time periods are studied by paleoclimatology…”

The Galileo Project

A recent UN report on climate change has been released by a conservative operative. It is fascinating. The UN is back-tracking on their work, very quickly. The far right is embracing the paper, which tells me something isn’t quite kosher. New Science has a review of the alleged disaster. If the leak is accurate, climate change science is going to fall like a house of cards.

I don’t think the man-made cause for climate change is as convincing as we are being led to believe. My basis for stating this is my life-long study of history. I love science, especially archaeology, geology, volcanology,and paleontology. From that alone, I happen to think that global climate change is very real, but is not about being man made. I also, am on the record as stating that the historical record, of advancing civilization is through a climate where the world-wide temperature is a good couple of degrees warmer than it is now.

“...In 1784, Benjamin Franklin made what may have been the first connection between volcanoes and global climate while stationed in Paris as the first diplomatic representative of the United States of America. He observed that during the summer of 1783, the climate was abnormally cold, both in Europe and back in the U.S. The ground froze early, the first snow stayed on the ground without melting, the winter was more severe than usual, and there seemed to be “a constant fog over all Europe, and [a] great part of North America.”

What Benjamin Franklin observed was indeed the result of volcanic activity. An enormous eruption of the Laki fissure system (a chain of volcanoes in which the lava erupts through a crack in the ground instead of from a single point) in Iceland caused the disruptions. The Laki eruptions produced about 14 cubic kilometers of basalt (thin, black, fluid lava) during more than eight months of activity. More importantly in terms of global climate, however, the Laki event also produced an ash cloud that may have reached up into the stratosphere. This cloud caused a dense haze across Europe that dimmed the sun, perhaps as far west as Siberia. In addition to ash, the eruptive cloud consisted primarily of vast quantities of sulfur dioxide (SO2), hydrogen chloride (HCl), and hydrogen fluoride gases (HF). The gases combined with water in the atmosphere to produce acid rain, destroying crops and killing livestock. The effects, of course, were most severe in Iceland; ultimately, more than 75 percent of Iceland¿s livestock and 25 percent of its human population died from famine or the toxic impact of the Laki eruption clouds. Consequences were also felt far beyond Iceland. Temperature data from the U.S. indicate that record lows occurred during the winter of 1783-1784. In fact, the temperature decreased about one degree Celsius in the Northern Hemisphere overall. That may not sound like much, but it had enormous effects in terms of food supplies and the survival of people across the Northern Hemisphere. For comparison, the global temperature of the most recent Ice Age was only about five degrees C below the current average….”

Any student of history, especially ancient history, knows that the Roman world, the “ancient” classical world was several degrees warmer than it is now. Let’s throw in a little history – my favorite historical subject The Matter of Britain. If you don’t know what it is, look it up!

“…”The sun was dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months; each day it shone for about four hours; and still this light was only a feeble shadow; the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes.” As this Michael the Syrian quote regarding the weather of 536 A.D. demonstrates, a climate catastrophe that blots out the sun can really spoil your day. Procopius of Caesarea remarked: “During this year [536 A.D.] a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness. and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.”

Many documents from 535 – 536 A.D.–the time of King Arthur in Britain–speak of the terrible “dry fog” or cloud of dust that obscured the sun, causing widespread crop failures in Europe, and summer frosts, drought, and famine in China. Tree ring studies in Europe confirm several years of very poor growth around that time, and ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica show highly elevated levels of atmospheric sulfuric acid dust existed….”

Something catastrophic happened around A. D. 535 or so, that truly set up the change into the ‘dark ages’, and the ‘fall’ of Rome. It caused the eventual rise of the modern world. In fact, Ken Wohletz, of Los Alamos did a study on the effects of what he thinks was an volcanic eruption.

“...Modern history has its origins in the tumultuous 6th and 7th centuries.

During this period agricultural failures and the emergence of the plague contributed to:

(1) the demise of ancient super cities, old Persia, Indonesian civilizations, the Nasca culture of South America, and southern Arabian civilizations;

(2) the schism of the Roman Empire with the conception of many nation states and the re-birth of a united China; and

(3) the origin and spread of Islam while Arian Christianity disappeared. In his book, Catastrophe An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World, author David Keys explores history and archaeology to link all of these human upheavals to climate destabilization brought on by a natural catastrophe, with strong evidence from tree-ring and ice-core data that it occurred in 535 AD.

With no supporting evidence for an impact-related event, I worked with Keys to narrow down the possibilities for a volcanic eruption that could affect both hemispheres and bring about several decades of disrupted climate patterns, most notably colder and drier weather in Europe and Asia, where descriptions of months with diminished sun light, persistent cold, and anomalous summer snow falls are recorded in 6th-century written accounts.

Writings from China and Indonesia describe rare atmospheric phenomena that possibly point to a volcano in the Indonesian arc. Although radiocarbon dating of eruptions in that part of the world are spotty, there is strong bathymetric and volcanic evidence that Krakatau might have experienced a huge caldera eruption.

Accordingly, I encouraged a scientific expedition to be led by Haraldur Sigurdsson to the area. The expedition found a thick pyroclastic deposit, bracketed by appropriate radiometric dates, that suggests such a caldera collapse of a �Proto-Krakatau� did occur perhaps in the 6th century. Bathymetry indicates a caldera some 40 to 60 km in diameter that, with collapse below sea level, could have formed the Sunda Straits, separating Java from Sumatra, as suggested by ancient Javanese historical writings.

Such a caldera collapse likely involved eruption of several hundred cubic kilometers of pyroclastic debris, several times larger than the 1815 eruption of Tambora. This hypothetical eruption likely involved magma-seawater interaction, as past eruptions of Krakatau document, but on a tremendous scale. Computer simulations of the eruption indicate that the interaction could have produced a plume from 25 to >50 km high, carrying from 50 to 100 km3 of vaporized seawater into the atmosphere.

Although most of the vapor condenses and falls out from low altitudes, still large quantities are lofted into the stratosphere, forming ice clouds with super fine (<10 micrometer) hydrovolcanic ash. Discussions with global climate modelers at Los Alamos National Laboratory led me to preliminary calculations that such a plume of ash and ice crystals could form a significant cloud layer over much of the northern and southern hemispheres.

Orders of magnitude larger than previously studied volcanic plumes, its dissipation and impact upon global albedo, the tropopause height, and stratospheric ozone are unknown but certainly within possibilities for climate destabilization lasting years or perhaps several decades.

If this volcanic hypothesis is correct, the global, domino-like effects upon epidemics, agriculture, politics, economics, and religion are far-reaching, elevating the potential role of volcanism as a major climate control, and demonstrating the intimate link between human affairs and nature….”

This is why I think the global ‘warming’ folks are all wet:

“...It has been conjectured that these changes were due to ashes or dust thrown into the air after the impact of a comet or meteorite, or after the eruption of a volcano (a phenomenon known as “volcanic winter”).

The evidence of sulfate deposits in ice cores strongly supports the volcano hypothesis; the sulfate spike is even more intense than that which accompanied the lesser episode of climatic aberration in 1816, popularly known as the “Year Without a Summer”, which has been connected to the explosion of the volcano Mount Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia.

In 1984, R. B. Stothers postulated that this event might have been caused by the volcano Rabaul in what is now Papua New Guinea.

In 1999, David Keys in his book Catastrophe: A Quest for the Origins of the Modern World (supported by work of the American volcanologist Ken Wohletz), suggested that the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded at the time and caused the changes. It is suggested that an eruption of Krakatoa attributed to the year 416 by the Javanese Book of Kings actually took place at this time–there is no other evidence of such an eruption in 416.

In 2009, Dallas Abbott of Columbia University’s Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory in New York published evidence from Greenland ice cores that multiple comet impacts caused the haze. The spherules found in the ice may originate from terrestrial debris ejected into the atmosphere by an impact event.

In 2010, Robert Dull, John Southon and colleagues presented evidence suggesting a link between the Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ) eruption of the Ilopango caldera in central El Salvador and the AD 536 event.

Although earlier published radiocarbon evidence suggested a two-sigma age range of AD 408–536, which is consistent with the global climate downturn, the connection between AD 536 and Ilopango was not explicitly made until research on Central American Pacific margin marine sediment cores by Steffen Kutterolf and colleagues showed that the phreatoplinian TBJ eruption was much larger than previously thought.

The radioactive carbon-14 in successive growth increments of a single tree that had been killed by a TBJ pyroclastic flow was measured in detail using Accelerator mass spectrometry; the results supported the date of AD 535 as the year in which the tree died.

A conservative bulk tephra volume for the TBJ event of ~84 km3 was calculated, indicating a large Volcanic Explosivity Index 6+ event and a magnitude of 6.9. The results suggest that the Ilopango TBJ eruption size, latitude and age are consistent with the ice core sulphate records of Larsen et al. 2008….”

I’m not all that impressed with a meteorological based study of climate change and ‘global warming’ because those involved have a tendency to ignore the actual historical record. I disagree with this on so many different historical and archaeological records.

Politicus USA

This is my problem. When climate change scientists make their catastrophic warnings, they are completely ignoring the historical record. In many ways, they are as Luddite against this historical record as the far right is against their work.

The series continues tomorrow.

One of the reasons we are told that we are to seek Christ is to live forever, for immortality.  That’s a catch 22, for many cultural reasons.  I suspect, that hard-wired into our consciousness, from the most primitive levels is this desire for immortality, to have a part of us live, forever.  That’s a nice sentiment, but is it Biblical, or anthropological?

As I grow older, I think about my legacy.  Will my writing live beyond me?  As far as immortality is concerned, genetically, I have none.  Having no children, genetically, I’m doomed.  I’m dead.  There is no immortality.  I’m a dead branch on the family tree.  Dead branches on family trees have a tendency to be forgotten, and pruned.  I’m a genealogist, I know that I am doomed to extinction.  My sister, with her three children and an adorable granddaughter is blessed with genetic immortality.  Unless my writing lives beyond me, I’m not much better than dust, dirt, nothing.

That’s the cynical view of things.  But, because I am a follower of Christ, I know I will be with Him forever.  I don’t give a rip about so-called immortality.  I have chosen to spend my time with Christ.  As for Heaven, I’m an original Trekkie.  My view of Heaven is warping through the stars, on an endless trek across the galaxy.  I want to be able to explore the cosmos.  I happen to see that as Heaven.

Heaven is also not being separated from the Lord, from Christ.  Hell, on the other hand, is being separated from the Lord, being separated from Christ.

Now – that is pure hell.

If I truly believe John 3:16, then anyone who doesn’t believe in Christ, who hasn’t confessed their sins, is doomed to spend forever, eternity on the outside, without Christ, without the Lord.

That – is pure hell.

One of the big problems we have in this country, is the fact that we are currently living under the misconception that this is a “Christian Nation” founded by “God Fearing” men (no women).  The country was founded on the requirement of freedom from religion, not freedom of religion.  There’s a big difference.  It is all about not having religion, no matter what it is, forced upon any individual.

Currently there is what I’ll kindly call an urban legend going around about the military not allowing evangelism and ‘praying’ in the name of Christ.

Wrong….

The US military does not allow evangelism outside of the chaplains.  One of the so-called ‘Christian’ leaders who was caught in this trap was a LTC who ordered – O – R – D – E – R – E -D those of a lessor rank, to attend a Christian evangelical meeting.  Wrong.  That is a violation of the Constitution.  He legally cannot do that.  Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, the man should be court-martialed.

Have you ever had religion forced on you, and have you been persecuted for what you believe?  I have.  No, it wasn’t much, but when you are in the sixth grade, and your teacher threatens to have you whipped because you don’t believe in her version of religion.  I was raised Presbyterian.  She was Southern Baptist.  My family believes in infant baptism.  She thought you should be dunked, and proceeded to tell me that not only was I going to hell, but so was my entire family.

It left me with a terrible taste in my mouth, to put it mildly.  As far as I am concerned, there should be no religion at all in public schools.  You want a so-called ‘Christian’ education for you children, the put them in a private religious school.  Kids who don’t happen to come from the same religious background as others in a school deserve not to be harassed the way several of the Catholic kids were in my class.

I guess you can tell I’m not big into public evangelism.  I find it distasteful.  I find going up to someone and ‘witnessing’ to them is also distasteful.  If my life doesn’t reflect Christ, then there’s something wrong with my life and my relationship with Christ.  If someone can’t tell I’m a Christian by my love, then I’m in deep shit, not them.  (I find someone who approaches me, demanding to know if I have been ‘saved’ to be insulting.  It’s  a matter of taste).

No, our Founding Fathers weren’t all that religious. Of these, only John Jay can be considered an orthodox Christian. As Congress’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he argued (unsuccessfully) for a prohibition forbidding Catholics from holding office.

On October 12, 1816, Jay wrote, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

It is John Jay that the modern Christians have in mind when they talk about the Founding Fathers? Luckily for the rest of us, and all freedom-loving Americans, he was not in the majority.

As far as this so-called ‘Christian’ nation thing, let’s examine this little canard more closely.  Of our leading funding fathers only John Jay was an ‘orthodox Christian’.

Ben Franklin was a member of the Hellfire Club.  If you are up on your Regency history, you know the Hellfire Club was basically an S&M club with possible over-tones of the occult, and maybe even the beginnings of modern Satanism.  Modern Satanism grew out of the legacy of the Hellfire Club.  Don’t even consider Franklin a Christian.  He was not.

He wrote: “…As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion…has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble.” He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.[1]

“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved– the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

John Adams was a Unitarian.  He was not a born-again Christian.  In a letter to Thomas Jefferson he wrote:  “The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.  Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”

“Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?”[2]

Thomas Jefferson was a Deist.  He was so arrogant that he rewrote the Bible to suit his womanizing and bigoted life-style.  He also was a brutal and cruel slave owner.  Don’t make the mistake of calling him a Christian.  Jefferson wrote:  “…The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained.”[3]

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” Thomas Paine was an atheist.

James Madison wrote: “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”[4]

Ethan Allen was a Deist. “That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words.” In the same book, Allen noted that he was generally “denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.” When Allen married Fanny Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the judge asked him if he promised “to live with Fanny Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God.” Allen refused to answer until the judge agreed that the God referred to was the God of Nature, and the laws those “written in the great book of nature.” [5]

George Washington was something of a Deist, also. The father of this country was very private about his beliefs, but it is widely considered that he was a Deist like his colleagues.

Historian Barry Schwartz writes: “George Washington’s practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian…  He repeatedly declined the church’s sacraments.  Never did he take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary…  Even on his deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and expressed no wish to be attended by His representative.” [6]

“…Clearly, then, one cannot assume from Washington’s presence at church services and his membership in the Truro parish vestry that he was a Christian believer. Is there any other evidence to suggest that he was a Christian? The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, preached a sermon in October 1831 in which he stated that “among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism” (Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, pp. 14-15). He went on to describe Washington as a “great and good man” but “not a professor of religion.” Wilson said that he was “really a typical eighteenth century Deist, not a Christian, in his religious outlook” (Ibid.). Wilson wasn’t just speaking about matters that he had not researched, because he had carefully investigated his subject before he preached this sermon. Among others, Wilson had inquired of the Reverend Abercrombie [identified earlier as the rector of the church Washington had attended] concerning Washing ton’s religious views. Abercrombie’s response was brief and to the point “Sir, Washington was a Deist” (Remsberg, p. 110). Those, then, who were best positioned to know Washington’s private religious beliefs did not consider him a Christian, and the Reverend Abercrombie, who knew him personally and pastored the church he attended with his wife flatly said that Washington was a Deist….”[7]

In February 1800, after Washington’s death, Thomas Jefferson wrote this statement in his personal journal. “…Dr. Rush told me (he had it from Asa Green) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice….”

Why are people so shallow and so afraid of what they believe, that they must inflate and lie about our founding?

“…The most damning evidence of a non-Christian past is a humiliating 1797 treaty with the Barbary Pirates. President Adams sought to stem unremitting Muslim raids against Mediterranean shipping and protect American sailors from African slavery. This obscure treaty submitted, “The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”…”[8]

It’s quite sad.

Evidently Christians, in this country, today, are so shallow, they must bend and twist the founders into creating this great Christian nation.  We are not.  We are a nation built on the freedom from being harassed about a state religion.  If that means that there are no Christmas trees in a public school fine.  It’s better than dealing with a dozen other religions. Once upon a time, when we had a nation where there were two religions:  Protestant and Catholic, then a Christmas tree in a school was fine.  Today it is not.

This canard about our nation being a ‘Christian’ nation is leading certain batsh*t crazy politicians and TV pundits to beg that God destroy our country because we aren’t doing what THEY think the Lord wants us to do.  When you filter out the crap, and realize they are either rankly ignorant or lying about what they believe, what a mess.

They are an embarrassment.

I don’t know about you, but my belief is not shallow.  I don’t need to hang on the words of a pathetic little football player to makes this big deal about praying in the end-zone after doing something great, on the field.  I don’t need to make up false history of this country.  By liberating myself from the fake history of this nation, I get to have more time to love people the religious purists don’t want loved.  You know the ones – the kind of people Christ hung out with, social outcasts, the ones who really aren’t welcome in many churches today.

Newt Gingrich

One reason The Pink Flamingo keeps harping on the GOP and the problems is because, once upon a time, I expected better of them.  I guess my real problem is that I still do, and am constantly disappointed by their behavior.  During the Clinton years, I will confess that no one was as bad as was I, in the outrage business.  When GWB went into office, the Far Left was even worse about Bush, than we were about Clinton.  They were literally unhinged.

Then came Barack Obama.

No, The Pink Flamingo did not want him elected, the first time. I will admit to being as consummate in the outrage department as anyone could possible be.  I was just repeating the hate I’d heard from FOX, Rush, Medved, and the far right. I said terrible things about Michelle. In fact, The Pink Flamingo was the first one to call her Michelle Antoinette, and compare her to at ill fated Queen of France. I fell for every piece of crap that was spoon fed to my washed brain.

Then, one day, I realized that Michelle Obama’s wardrobe problem was not her own doing.  To my own credit, when they were running the first time, I went back and found photos of her, and mentioned that she had excellent wardrobe instincts, that someone was sandbagging her.  I truly think someone was.  Once she gained the confidence she needed, there in the White House, her wardrobe began changing.  The real Michelle Obama started showing, and she was starting to become an iconic First Lady.

That’s when I realized I was being a total jerk and was tired of it. I turned off Rush.  I turned off Hannity, and then turned off FOX.  I began to realize that what they were spoon feeding good, decent Republicans was pure, unadulterated crap.

Let me go back a little – my distrust of FOX began when they began pushing the anti-immigration agenda and then when they began backing the Tea Parties, I knew something was wrong. I love being right.  Something is wrong, and it isn’t moi.  It isn’t the left – it’s the brainwashing of the Republican voter by the usual suspects.

We’ve been dealing with this now for about six years.  The outrage machine has become outrageous that it is coming unglued.  So is the right.  So is the GOP.  Suddenly, we can see that there is a very real agenda at work here – and it is not good for the country.

First of all – the IRS is an equal opportunity harasser. They go after everyone, not just far right noons.  You want harassment?  Try being a small business and having your accountant going to prison for keeping your with-holdings.  Just see what happens there.   Even if you are innocent they put a lien on your house, threaten your bank accounts and your business.  This was FAR from political.

• Fox Guest compares IRS mess to Nazi Germany?  Be sure to note that his was one of the organizations investigated.  Tom Zawistowski was harassed.  Maybe he needs to be less dishonest about the way he launders campaign money for the Koch Machine.

• “…This week, a report by a Treasury Department inspector general revealed that IRS staffers singled out tea partiers and other conservative groups which had applied for tax-exempt status for special scrutiny. Now, Republicans and Democrats are howling with outrage and demanding that heads roll. One result of this debacle, ex-IRS director Marcus Owens told me, is that the IRS will certainly shy away from cracking down on those nonprofits that do abuse the tax code…”

• Even though she, herself, is being investigated for ethics violations, batsh*t crazy Michele Bachmann wants Obama impeached.  She is so dishonest (allegedly), in Ohio a special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate her Presidential Campaign.

• In 863 Days House GOP Has Offered 0 Jobs Plans While Voting to Repeal Obamacare 34 Times
• The far right can be irate over IRS investigations into what rightfully should be investigated, but want something done about the AARP’s homosexual agenda.
  

  •   “…AFA executive vice president Buddy Smith added: “Be very careful that you know what your fees are going for because the AARP is not on your side. If you are a Christian and believe in biblical values, you can pretty much count on the fact that everything that you are in favor of, the AARP is opposing….”

• It’s about a way for the billionaires on the far right to control the conversation and attempt to stage their own version of a coupe, to control the country, to push their agenda.  They’re doing a good job at it.

• So what is dark money? How does it wind up in our elections? Say you’re a billionaire and you want to give $1 million to anonymously influence an election. You’re in luck: you can give that money, as many donors have, to a nonprofit organized under the 501(c)(4) section of the tax code. That nonprofit, in turn, can spend your money on election-related TV ads or mailers or online videos. But there’s a catch: unlike super PACs, the majority of a 501(c)(4) nonprofit’s work can’t be political. Note, though, that where the IRS draws the line on how much politicking is too much, and even what the taxman defines as political, is very murky.And until Congress and the IRS straighten all of that out, donors wanting to influence elections have a mostly scrutiny-free way to unload their money.This type of nonprofit has a long history in U.S. politics. The Sierra Club, for instance, has a 501(c)(4) affiliate, as does the National Rifle Association. But in recent years, political operatives and wealthy donors have seized on this breed of nonprofit as a new way to shovel secret money into campaigns. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of applications for 501(c)(4) status spiked from 1,500 to 3,400, according to IRS official Lois Lerner.During the 2010 campaign, politically active nonprofits — “super secret spooky PACs,” as Stephen Colbert calls them — outspent super PACs by a three to two margin, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis. Take the American Action Network (AAN), run by former Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. The group purports to be an “issue-based” nonprofit that only dabbles in politics, but its tax records suggest otherwise. From July 2009 through June 2011, as Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington noted, 60% of AAN’s money went toward politics. (An AAN spokesman called the complaint “baseless.”)Because they’re so lacking in transparency, some nonprofits have been emboldened to bend — if not break — the tax law. One of the more egregious examples was benignly named the Commission on Hope, Growth, and Opportunity (CHGO). Created in the summer of 2010, it informed the IRS that it wouldn’t spend a penny on politics. During the 2010 elections, however, it put $2.3 million into ads attacking 11 Democratic congressional candidates. Then, sometime in 2011, CHGO simply closed up shop and disappeared — a classic case of political hit-and-run. And it wouldn’t have happened without a secretive wealthy bankroller: of the $4.8 million raised by CHGO, tax records show that $4 million came from a single donor (though we don’t know his or her name)….”

• 

  Alternet

•  Mark Steyn says that he and his racist little bunch of bigoted jerk friends will destroy the country if they can’t have their own way.

• If Jennifer Rubin is trying to make something of the AP leakgate, then there’s nothing to it.  She was a shill for Romney, and is probably still shilling for him.

• Peggy Noonan has lost it.

• They’re making things worse, looking like idiots trying to embarrass Obama.

• Glenn Beck went off the deep end with even more insanity than usual. Evidently Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington would be ashamed of the NAACP today!

What we have here is a mess. We have far right shills of the Koch Machine who will do anything and say anything to hurt Barack Obama. It really doesn’t matter what they do or say, as long as they hurt him. They aren’t capable of even dealing with the fact that we have a disaster when it comes campaign finance reform.  That’s what all of this is about – refusing to acknowledge that we need campaign finance reform.  They can’t do that.  The GOP House and Senate can’t do that.  Their billionaire pimps might cut off their money.

The GOP is out of control.  They have become so dishonest they will do just about everything to destroy Obama.  If this is true, that Republican sources were doctoring emails about Benghazi, then this takes on whole new meaning.

LGF

Now what?

Maybe we should start asking about Darrell Issa‘s criminal background.  We have Republicans who sent out bogus email, to make Obama look bad.

Where does it end?

Let’s see:

• House Republicans want the IRS to audit the AARP.
• FOX is pushing the idiocy that the IRS will kill conservatives with Obamacare.

We know that Benghazi is already starting to backfire on the GOP after it was discovered that they altered the documents that went to ABC News.   What’s going to happen is they’re going to keep this up until the elephant dies.  It really won’t matter.  They will take their little enablers like Glenn Beck, and then destroy what ever political party arises from the ashes of the cremated elephant.  This bunch of tea partying Koch Machine whores are incapable of learning from their mistakes.  Don’t expect anything but more of the same, as they turn the entire country, including The Pink Flamingo, against the once mighty Elephant.

Let’s face it, the far right has reached the point where they are a total joke.  Yes, we now must deal with umbrella gate.  Evidently the moronic far right haters don’t quite realize that, as Commander and Chief, Barack Obama can order the Marines to hold an umbrella over his head.

LGF

Deal with it.

It’s here.
Today is the day.
I’m going to try to get to the first showing. If I do 3D, I can get in at 1PM. If I do 2D, which I prefer, I can do it at 3:50. Let’s be honest here, we all know what time I’ll be there, even though I truly dislike 3D.  Even if it isn’t William Shatner, I’m such a James T. Kirk junkie!  It looks like I’ll be able to get to a late showing.  It’s parents’ day tomorrow.

Critics don’t appear to much like this one.  That’s okay.  I’m not in it for critical gushing.  It’s a science fiction for gosh sakes, not Shakespeare, even though, good science fiction should border on Shakespeare.  Since I’ve not seen it, I can only mention that Gene Roddenberry, the Great Bird of the Galaxy thought that great science fiction should be first conceptualized as a western.  If the story plays out as Wagon Train in the Stars, then it works.

There’s a reason for this.  Great science fiction should be always be plot and character driven and NOT special effects, blasters, space ships, and cool tech.  It is basically classic theater, told in outer space.  It’s like the line in Star Trek, the Voyage Home, where Kirk is told that he had to be from  outer space.  His reply: “No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space.”

The other reason Star Trek succeeds is because of Gene Roddenberry’s vision.  He saw humanity as something hopeful. During the darker hours of the cold war he saw humanity as surviving our insanity, living long and prospering.   So far, we haven’t blown ourselves up.  Maybe he was right.

There are numerous discussions about which is better, Star Wars or Star Trek.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Star Wars fan, but I am first and foremost a Trekkie.  I guess I should admit that I’m an original Trekkie.  So, which is best?

Star Trek, of course!  Which Star Trek is best?  There is no other logical answer but Classic Trek!  We need to pay attention to one salient and logical fact:

“...George Lucas has said that he was writing “Star Wars” during the heyday of “Star Trek’s” syndication. He watched the show and even attended “Trek” conventions. “ ‘Star Trek’ expanded your mind in terms of what was possible,” he said. “The story is what makes it work.”

Simply, without “Star Trek,” you wouldn’t have “Star Wars.” “Star Trek’s” foundation and philosophy has and continues to give us “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” It inspired the science fiction and fantasy that has come after its pioneering days on television in the 1960s, boldly going where no one had ever thought possible and paving the way for future stories….”

Sure, there are mistakes, but so what?  So far, the reviews are not all that kind.  Please show me a good science fiction movie that was well reviewed.  My sister, who is not a Trekkie loved the movie.

This is also about the Koch Machine using fake outrage to demand the IRS be defunded.

Don’t political operatives on both sides of the aisle get tired of waxing irate all the time?  Currently, they are enjoying the best of times.  The far right is irate over the IRS targeting of the tea parties and the left is irate over the fact that an AP reporter has been subjected to – oh the pain – accountability – for outing a CIA undercover agent in a life and death situation.  The press has the right to do anything, with impunity, right?  It really doesn’t matter if our national security is compromised.  The ‘public’ has a right to know.  It is the very best of all worlds.  The liberal press is pissed.  The conservative pressed is pissed, John Boehner wants the IRS agents to allegedly went ‘rogue’ to go to prison.  They want Obama impeached for Benghazi.  And – the usual far right jerks get to lie about liberals not being targeted by the IRS.  Only their precious tea party darlings were harassed.

It’s all about fake outrage.

“..Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill and campaign finance watchdog groups are pressing to expand congressional hearings to encompass everything the IRS is doing concerning nonprofits, including whether such groups should be allowed to spend money on political efforts at all.

Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, which is conducting its own IRS investigation, has introduced legislation with Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski to require all groups spending money on politics to disclose their donors.

“These problems will continue as long as there is an absence of clear and enforceable rules,” Wyden told reporters yesterday. “In the absence of clear and enforceable rules the bureaucracy pretty much makes it up as they go along.”

Political spending by nonprofits incorporated under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code has increased since the U.S. Supreme Court (1000L) in 2010 removed limits on independent corporate and union spending and other court rulings paved the way for wealthy individuals to spend unlimited sums in elections.
$1 Billion

Outside groups — including nonprofit social-welfare groups that don’t disclose their donors — spent $1 billion in the 2012 elections, three times as much as they did four years earlier, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, based in Washington.

“The real problem is that phony 501(c)(4) groups are exploiting the tax laws to protect donors who don’t want to be held accountable for vicious, deceitful political ads,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

In early 2011, the IRS denied the tax-exempt status of an affiliate of the San Francisco-based Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. The agency said it was disqualified because the group’s activities were “conducted primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole.”…”

Political Carnival

There’s just one little problem with the targeting of ONLY those pure, wonderful, precious, adorable little tea partiers who are basically laundering illegal campaign cash into extremist tea party candidates for the Koch Machine.  How do you explain this one?

“…In 2012, The Chicago Tribune reported on the IRS denying tax exempt status to a liberal political group, The IRS announced in May and June that it took the actions against two groups defined as tax-exempt under the 501(c)(4) section of the tax code. The IRS on Thursday declined comment on its tax-exempt final rulings. Tax-exempt groups raising money for both major political parties ahead of the Nov. 6 election walk a fine line between promoting “social welfare” for tax-exempt purposes and purely political interests.

A 501(c)(4) group denied tax-exempt status by the IRS would run afoul of Federal Election Commission rules and could be required to disclose its donors. Emerge America, a group which helps Democratic women seeking elected office, said it lost it tax-exempt status last October. The IRS invoked the “private benefit doctrine” barring 501(c)(4) status for any group promoting a candidate or political party. The IRS announced its final decision in May.

In June the IRS said it denied 501(c)(4) tax-exemption for an unnamed political group also under the private benefit doctrine. The IRS is barred by law from disclosing the group’s name and the group has not publicly identified itself. The group had one objective: to serve the political goals of its founder, the IRS said. A 501(c)(4) group can spend some funds on political advocacy, but electioneering cannot be its sole reason for existence or comprise a majority of its spending…”

We all know this is about the tea parties illegally dumping money from Charles & David Koch into their tea party candidates.

Never mind that, in the spring of 2012 something like 31 Republicans demanded that Eric Holder investigate the AP leak.  They seem to forget that elephants allegedly never forget.  These conservative fake elephants who reek of rancid tea forced upon them by the Koch Machine can’t remember a damn thing, right?

“…“The numerous national-security leaks reportedly originating out of the executive branch in recent months have been stunning,” they (Republicans) wrote to Holder. “If true, they reveal details of some of our nation’s most highly classified and sensitive military and intelligence matters, thereby risking our national security, as well as the lives of American citizens and our allies. If there were ever a case requiring an outside special counsel with bipartisan acceptance and widespread public trust, this is it,” they wrote….”

They were for investigating the leaks before they were against them.  You can’t have it both ways – can you?  Is it possible all of this is to hide the fact that Obama has presided over the most rapid deficit reduction since World War II?  Is it possible that big spender Obama isn’t such a big spender at all, and the little tea party owned whores in the House and Senate are the real big spenders?  This can’t possibly be fun:

“...Here’s a real bitter irony for the GOP. At the same time as their ideology took an ugly beating in the reality department, the man they are determined to destroy has a better record at deficit reduction than any of their recent Presidents. In fact, government spending under President Obama has grown at a slower rate than it did under any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to Bloomberg (that’s over 50 years ago, if you’re counting). Ironically, this fact is due in part to their own obstructionism and President Obama’s endless compromises with them….”

It’s all about repeating the lies about Barack Obama.  If they can’t destroy him one way, they’ll try something else.

Politicus USA

The Pink Flamingo never thought I would be in a position where I would be defending the IRS.  Just how much of the GOP Benghazi witch hunt costing?  Yep, I’m defending the IRS.  It isn’t about far right ire, but about destroying the IRS.  It’s about destroying the IRS to protect the Koch Machine.

It’s nothing more and nothing less.

Oh, it’s also about seeing how stupid the GOP in the House and Senate can possibly be.

It’s also about watching the far left wax poetic in their ire against the evil Obama Administration going after the poor little AP reporter who betrayed a CIA agent.

Evidently false ire is an equal opportunity emotion, for both the far right and the far left.

Beam me up Scotty, there’s no intelligent life here on this planet!

“...The goal has always been, Charles says, “true democracy,” where people “can run their own lives and choose what they want to buy, choose how to spend their money.” (“Now in our democracy you elect somebody every two to four years and they tell you how to run your life,” he says.)…”

There is nothing wrong with having wealth. The Pink Flamingo aspired to it on a daily basis. I was once ‘well off’ but no longer am. My lack of financial where-with-all is due, as is much of the nation, to the economy, the real estate crash, and unbridled greed. A single individual cannot effect the economy. Real estate crashes have been happening on a somewhat cyclical basis for most of this nation’s history. That’s life. What isn’t acceptable though, is having one’s future and financial security stripped, through no fault of their own, other than the fact that the older generation was far too trusting in their choice of financial planners, institutions, and brokers.

What is wrong is when wealth becomes so concentrated, and so much of a means to an end that those who have it will literally do anything, to keep it, regardless of who they destroy in the process.  If it were just The Pink Flamingo’s parents who were caught in this trap, I would say, that’s the name of the game.  You snooze you lose.  But, I learning, in what is almost a weekly basis, that good men and women, decent people who have worked hard their entire lives have been cleaned, some of them by brokers they trusted most in this world – godchildren, even.

The frequency of hearing more and more about honorable, honest people who have worked hard, their entire lives, have saved, played the game the by the rules, put up a considerable nest-egg, and then being subjected to the indignities of having that nest egg stripped by pure greed is becoming alarmingly frequent.  The ones who are hurting the most are the real “Makers” the men and women who built business, made a small fortune, and trusted that fortune to see them through the rest of their lives, and to see that their children got a little something.  Most don’t have a pension.  Most of them put a bare minimum into social security.  They were so busy being taxed at upward of 40-50% that they couldn’t afford it.  They would stash and build a nest egg.  Once they retired, that nest egg was put out at interest, used to purchase land, or handed over to a broker to invest.

People who had a cash flow and income of at least $150K a year, are now barely making due on $15,000 social security.  They are being forced to liquidate, with the vultures who scammed them out of their hard-earned savings stepping in to pick at what is left.  They are being harassed on an hourly basis by credit card companies, over a bill that is two days late, and maybe a hundred bucks.  The problem is, when you don’t have enough money to pay for food, you need that hundred bucks.  There is no end to the merciless vulture culture that has been created in this country.

Economist View

In many ways, it is reaching the point where it is almost evil.  Greed is a vice.  Greed is not good, it is evil.  It is the basis of much of the heartache and trauma of the world.  Greed destroys.  It kills.  It ruins lives, and those are just the lives of the greedy.  What it does to those who are stepped upon in order to enable the greedy is even worse.

Paul Krugman once wrote:

NYTimes

The Unites States of America, once that shining city on a hill, is no longer that shining city.  It has become a fortress of gold-pressed latinum, where only those who are part of this new power structure are allowed to enter.  It is a power structure where the ultra wealthy, thanks to Citizen’s United, are allowed to spread their wealth in a most alarming manner, completely undermining the basic tenets of our Republic.  When individuals of great wealth are allowed to spend more than the rest of us, to purchase political favors and candidates, it is the end of our world as we know it.

Mother Jones

It is about the Rise of the Oligarchs.

“…Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning “few”, and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning “to rule or to command”) is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass their influence from one generation to the next.[citation needed] In his 2011 book Oligarchy, Jeffrey A. Winters defines oligarchy as “the politics of wealth defense by materially endowed actors.” In Winters’ definition, massive wealth is the key factor in identifying oligarchs.

Throughout history, oligarchies have been tyrannical (relying on public obedience and/or oppression to exist) or relatively benign. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy, but oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group, and do not have to be connected by bloodlines as in a monarchy….”

CNBC

What do they want?

“...From this confluence of campaign finance, personal connections, and ideology there flowed, in just the past decade, a river of deregulatory policies that is, in hindsight, astonishing:

• insistence on free movement of capital across borders;

• the repeal of Depression-era regulations separating commercial and investment banking;

• a congressional ban on the regulation of credit-default swaps;

• major increases in the amount of leverage allowed to investment banks;

• a light (dare I say invisible?) hand at the Securities and Exchange Commission in its regulatory enforcement;

• an international agreement to allow banks to measure their own riskiness;

• and an intentional failure to update regulations so as to keep up with the tremendous pace of financial innovation….”

This is so wrong:

Forbes

 ”...And yes, I am going to call “conservatives” fascists in this post, because the people who cheer the death of their fellow citizens aren’t good Americans. They aren’t good Christians either. If you hate the poor and wish death upon the sick, you aren’t a Christian, you’re a Roman. If you believe in torture and the death sentence I don’t understand how you reconcile the torture and death penalty imposed upon Jesus, but more importantly to my point, if you believe in small democracy and a limited democracy that subservient to the wealthy and business interests alone, you don’t believe in democracy, you believe in Oligarchy.

The idea of “Free Markets” is a direct assault on the central idea behind Democracy. The idea that Democracy via Government has no place in Governing the commerce conducted within the state is a method of thwarting democracy. If one wealthy Oligarch can have his will over the combined will of millions of his fellow citizens than he is not their peer, he is their King.We have an Oligarchy in America, that can not be disputed.

There are billionaires who control multi-billion dollar industries who exert enormous wealth and power, and they are the bribe makers, they are the men who bribe our law makers and law enforcers to subvert our democracy to their interests, and not only have they succeeded, but they have declared a silent, coded all out war on the heart of American Democracy itself.

Coded language such “economic freedom” means the freedom of the rich to do as they please and the freedom for the victims of their robbery to die in the streets. “Social Justice” can only become the enemy of economic freedom when the basis of that economic freedom is fraudulent, that is why the bribe taking lawmakers hate “Social Justice”, because social justice means an end to the “Economic Freedom” to commit their fraud and do as they please.

What conservative fascists call “Socialism” is anything that stands in the way of their undemocratic “Free Markets”. Duckspeak was the word used by George Orwell in 1984 to describe the dumbing down of language into a incomprehensible system of relaying talking points to the brain that fitted perfectly within party approved discussion. When I hear conservative fascists speak the same talking points ad verbatim in a mishmosh of disconnected lunacy, Duckspeak is what I am hearing….”

Right now, The Pink Flamingo is having a very difficult time writing this post.  Thanks to the wonderful greed of the brave new world, much of what remained of my world has come crashing down on me, this evening.  The good news, or the bad news is that I’m not the only person having my life pulled out from under me.  It appears to be the name of the tame today.  If you’re not part of the 0.1% in this world, you are fodder to be trod under their feet.

No, I did not feel like this, once upon  a time.  I thought I was part of the upper 5%.  At one time, I was.  But, the way the game is rigged, today, even what remains is so easily taken from you by greed and selfishness, by cruelty, lies, and cheating.

The worst problem with the new American Oligarchs is the fact that they are sad, pathetic selfish little people who are willing to destroy our country, just to have their own way.  They are richer than anyone in history.  That didn’t work out for King Solomon.  It didn’t work out for Midas.  It didn’t work out for Caligula or Nero.  It’s not going to work out for them.

Oh, they may be spared the humbling, gift of problems, that turn us into real, feeling individuals.  They may not need to worry about not being able to pay their bills, have their lights cut off, or not be able to afford their medications.  They might not need to worry about their parents and their loss of financial stability.  After all, they are part of the problem.

They don’t need to worry about much of anything in their strange and convoluted version of Randian socialism.  They are removed from all the problems of life to the point where they have no real grasp of reality.  They’re spoiled, selfish, and terribly childish.  One of these days, some of these men are going to go off the deep end and start making Caligula type demands on the American people.  I wonder if anyone will say anything?

It’s not like the far right really cares.  People like Rush Limbaugh, Sean  Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, and the usual punditry suspects really aren’t all that in to worshiping money.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is that they are worshiping the wealthy.

That’s a sad state of affairs that allow the oligarchs to grow increasingly more powerful as they continue to purchase great chunks of our society.  The own the Republicans in the House, Senate, and throughout the states.  They basically control the Supreme Court.  They can do anything they want.

That’s what an Oligarch is.

Unlimited power that has corrupted, in unlimited ways.

from Sierra Madre, Ca.
May 3, 1922 – April 18, 2013

After nearly a month of heavy fighting U.S forces were able to capture the island of Iwo Jima. A flag was raised to seal the victory. When asked is anyone had a larger flag it was Lt. Wood who was able to provide one and a picture that has come to symbolize the sacrifice and heart of the military was taken. On April 18, Alan Wood passed away at the age of 90.

You can read more about Lt. Alan Wood here
his Post Was Suggested By Katie

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.
Those Who Say That We’re In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don’t Know Where To Look

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

The Pink Flamingo is beginning to wonder if the GOP has lost all reason? The IRS Commissioner who has allegedly targeted tea party groups is a Republican. Do they even comprehend how stupid they are when prevented with the salient facts?

Nicole Belle at Crooks & Liars has the best summary of what is going on, that The Pink Flamingo has seen, to date.

The Pink Flamingo is trying to go back and remember the process. I was trying to put my non-profit together during the Reagan years. As a “good” Republican, I had found favor with everyone in DC, to put my group together. Both US Senators from South Carolina were helping me. I had several other Republican senators helping me. Newt Gingrich’s office was helping me. The newly formed Congressional Space Caucus was helping me. My local Congressman was helping. The Congressman in the next district was helping me. The White House Science Office was helping me. I had far more approved assistance out of DC than any of the so-called targeted Tea Party groups had, and I gave up after a year. Add the fact that my accountant was a former IRS official, and maybe you can begin to see how near the entire process is – unless you have a tremendous amount of money behind you.

If you have political money behind you, trying to form a non-profit, and dealing with the IRS, that alone sets off alarm bells with the process.

I’m trying to detail the process, for me, in order. It may have changed a little, but this will show how difficult it was.

1. Set up organization, with workable name
2. Establish board of directors who pass IRS scrutiny
3. Approach celebrity advisers (I had a whole slew for this)
4. Set up checking account
5. Get letterhead with board of directors
6. Establish by-laws that are IRS approved
7. Detail where funds will go if the group is dissolved
8. Apply for SC corporate status
9. Wait to see if the name is approved
10. If name is approved, pay on the dotted line
11. Apply for SC tax status
12. Start IRS paperwork
13. If – at any time, you take money you can’t account for, anything you do must be labeled “For Profit”
14. Just don’t bother taking donations – it further screws up the process

This was at least a year.

I finally gave up. It wasn’t worth it.

Everyone knew I wasn’t crooked. The publicity I received, and it was quite a bit, was fawning. I was publishing a small news magazine that had readership of about 10,000 people, that went to the highest levels of NASA, the aerospace industry, Congress, and the White House. My reputation was so good, I could easily score any interview I wanted, and did I ever get the big interviews: Carl Sagan, Deke Slayton, Jack Schmitt, Newt Gingrich, Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy, Gerald P. Carr, James Doohan, and numerous NASA officials.

The bottom line here is that, if I had a difficult time dealing with IRS paperwork, then I can only imagine what organizations like the Tea Parties, where there are constant rumors of corruption, and actual evidence of corruption, would go through. For the GOP to start becoming postal over this is just plain protesting far too much. To even discuss impeaching Barack Obama is stupid.

FDL

One reason the IRS is not targeting liberal and Democrat organizations like they are targeting the right is quite simple. The Dems don’t have near the grass roots organizations like the tea parties. They don’t have big Koch money behind them. There is something unspoken, that needs to be said. The Koch Machine is directly responsible for the tea parties. It’s not about citizen involvement but two obscenely rich men who are so corrupt and so evil they are trying to bring down the United States as we know it, so they can get even richer by having no regulations. They founded the tea parties.

“…In an article in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine, author Jane Mayer links the billionaire brothers David Koch and Charles Koch, owners of Koch Industries to tea party movement funding. Mayer writes,
The anti-government fervor infusing the 2010 elections represents a political triumph for the Kochs. By giving money to “educate,” fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and a historian, who once worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank that the Kochs fund, said, “The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it’s been all chiefs and no Indians. There haven’t been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement.” With the emergence of the Tea Party, he said, “everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are Indians out there—people who can provide real ideological power.” The Kochs, he said, are “trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.

Reports indicate that the Tea Party Movement benefits from millions of dollars from conservative foundations that are derived from wealthy U.S. families and their business interests. It appears that money to organize and implement the Movement flows primarily through two conservative groups: Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.

In an April 9, 2009 article on ThinkProgress.org, Lee Fang reports that the principal organizers of Tea Party events are Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, two “lobbyist-run think tanks” that are “well funded” and that provide the logistics and organizing for the Tea Party movement from coast to coast. Media Matters reported that David Koch of Koch Industries was a co-founder of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), the predecessor of FreedomWorks. David Koch was chairman of the board of directors of CSE.

CSE received substantial funding from David Koch of Koch Industries, which is the largest privately-held energy company in the country, and the conservative Koch Family Foundations, which make substantial annual donations to conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, etc. Media Matters reported that the Koch family has given more than $12 million to CSE (predecessor of FreedomWorks) between 1985 and 2002.

Koch Industries has denied specifically funding Freedomworks or tea parties directly, however. The company’s director of communications wrote “”Koch companies value free speech and believe it is good to have more Americans engaged in key policy issues. That said, Koch companies, the Koch foundations, Charles Koch and David Koch have no ties to and have never given money to FreedomWorks. In addition, no funding has been provided by Koch companies, the Koch foundations, Charles Koch or David Koch specifically to support the tea parties.” Koch’s director of communications did affirm, however, that the company funds Americans for Prosperity (AFP). TPM’s Lee Fang reports that “AFP was founded in part by the company’s Executive Vice President, David Koch. He is currently the chairman of the board of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.”

Media Matters also lists the Sarah Scaife Foundation as having given a total of $2.96 million in funding to FreedomWorks. The Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation is financed by the Mellon industrial, oil, and banking fortune.

The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, also controlled by the Koch family, has donated more than $3 million to Americans for Prosperity. …”

The bottom line here is that the tea parties were formed so that Charles and David Koch could dump money into organizations in order to game the system.

“...There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.

Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might.

All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president….”

It’s time for abject honesty here.  This is NOT about political targeting of the poor, pathetic, sacred, adorable little tea parties.  This is about a very dishonest and corrupt group of organizations, created by extremely dishonest and corrupt obscenely wealthy men to game the system.  This isn’t about IRS abuse.  It’s about IRS incompetence, but not abuse.  Abuse is what the Koch Brothers are doing to the system.  It is about a pair of very wealthy men who have morphed into some sort of James Bond type villains, determined to mold the United States into what they want, in order to become even wealthier and more powerful.

The tea parties are NOT about liberty, patriots, or the Constitution.  They are about warped and twisted men (mostly men) who are determined to destroy what is good and decent about this country.  They are using the John Birch Society, NRA, FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the network of tea party “patriots”, over one-third of whom are of a specific religious ideology, to almost take over this nation.

The want to do away with all environmental rules and regulations, minimum wage, worker’s rights, the IRS, and basic freedom for those of us who appose them.  When one considers the fact that they want to do away with the IRS, all of this makes a heck of a lot of sense.  Way too much sense.

In this country now, when you smell a rat, look for Charles & David Koch.

The Pink Flamingo is beginning to wonder if the GOP has lost all reason?  The IRS Commissioner who has allegedly targeted tea party groups is a Republican.  Do they even comprehend how stupid they are when prevented with the salient facts?

• When is alleged abuse of power really not abuse of power?
• When is hand-wringing about abuse of power political grandstanding?
• When is the right going to get a life?
• What if alleged abuse of power were simply incompetence?
• What if the alleged abuse of power was based on conservative stupidity?

According to Kevin Drum:

“...The problem is that the explosion of 501(c)4 groups is a genuine problem: they really have grown like kudzu, lots of them really are used primarily as electioneering vehicles, and the IRS has been either unwilling or unable to regulate them properly. So the fact that some of the folks responsible for processing these applications were looking for a way to flag potentially dubious groups is sort of understandable.

But understandable or not, they bungled it horribly, leaving themselves open to equally understandable charges of politicizing the IRS. Conservative groups are as outraged as liberals would be if the Bush-era IRS were flagging groups with “environment” or “progressive” in their names. So even if, as seems likely, this whole thing turns out to have been mostly a misguided scheme cooked up by some too-clever IRS drones, it doesn’t matter. Conservatives are right to be outraged and right to demand a full investigation. They suspect there might be more to it, and so would I if the shoe were on the other foot. We need to find out for sure whether this episode was just moronic, or if it had some kind of partisan motivation.

What’s really unfortunate about all this is that it will probably put an end to any scrutiny of 501(c)4 groups, and that’s a shame. The IRS should be scrutinizing them, and it should be doing it on an ongoing basis. More than likely, though, Congress will step in to neuter them completely on this score, and the current Wild West character of 501(c)4 fundraising will continue unabated….”

What if this is all about Glenn Beck being targeted by the IRS for practices that, according to a Pink Flamingo source, were not quite kosher.  So was Sarah Palin. Sean Hannity was ripping off his non-profit that went to go to vet’s children for college.  Palin used the money from her group to support herself.  Beck was taking money in various location and not accounting for it.  The Pink Flamingo knows for a fact that Beck was collecting money, not giving receipts, and selling his book for far more than it cost on Amazon.  Everyone who goes near Glenn Beck knows he’s crooked.

There are rumors that the GOP, tea parties, and far right in the 2012 election were dirty as hell.  The FEC is terribly understaffed.  Simply investigating Mitt Romney’s campaign and the dirty contributions there should provide job security for an IRS agent.  When you add the money that came in from the Koch Machine, Sheldon Adelson, and the possibility that there was a conduit to funnel money from Saudi Arabia into Romney’s campaign that anyone who gets near it needs a shower it’s so dirty. We are looking at the most crooked, dirtiest, most illegal campaign season in history.  When you consider how tacky the Clinton campaign was, and then go back to Nixon, this is pure unadulterated filth.  It’s the political donation version of hard core S&M snuff porn.  It’s that obscenely dirty.  It is so dirty even a XXX rating isn’t enough.  It is pure, unadulterated filth, hard-core abject political pornographic filth.

And…Karl Rove is even worse.
So are….

• Charles Koch
• David Koch
• Glenn Beck
• Mitt Romney
• Sheldon Adelson
• Pete Peterson
• Bradley Foundation
• Americans for Prosperty
• ALEC
• Freedom Works
• Tea Party Express
• Tea Party Nation
• Tea Party Patriots
• Michele Bachmann
• Allen West
• Jim DeMint
• Crossroads GPS
• American Crossroads
• Misc. “religious” organizations
• NRA

These people deserve to be targeted!

MSNBC

Maybe if these organizations and groups like Z Street would play by the rules, maybe this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.  But – they don’t play by the rules.

Once again, we are dealing with the fact that the far right doesn’t quite live in the real world.  Have you ever considered applying for non-profit status with the IRS?  Years ago, The Pink Flamingo did, with a lobby organization I had created. Trust me, it isn’t worth it.  It was a pain in the tush. I finally gave up, after numerous meetings with an attorney and an accountant.

Anyone who has ever tried to do a tax-exempt non-profit knows how miserable the process is.  The process is so expensive and so miserable, The Pink Flamingo wonders why each and every little tea party group wanted their own non-profit status.  I finally gave up on the process.  It just wasn’t worth it.  None of this matters to the minions of the far right.  All they can see is abuse of power, because Obama is in office.  They are so determined that Barack Obama is the root of all evil that they can’t see the fact that the tea parties are dirtier than anything else the Democrats and the left are doing – currently.

From the Washington Post:

“…Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Sunday called the Internal Revenue Service’s singling out of conservative groups for extra scrutiny “absolutely chilling” and called on President Obama to condemn the effort. “This is truly outrageous and it contributes to the profound distrust that the American people have in government,” Collins, a moderate Republican, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It is absolutely chilling that the IRS was singling out conservative groups for extra review, and I think it’s very disappointing that the president hasn’t personally condemned this and spoken out.”

The IRS apologized Friday for flagging groups seeking tax-exempt status with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names for extra attention. The official who oversees tax-exempt groups at the agency said the effort was not motivated by partisanship. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Obama was “concerned” about the reported behavior “of a small number” of IRS employees….”

A reasoned approach as suggested by Doug Mataconis.

Outside the Beltway

Okay…

“...“Mistakes were made,” the agency said in a statement. IRS official Lois Lerner explained that staffers used a “shortcut” to sort through a large number of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status, highlighting organizations with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. The IRS insisted emphatically that partisanship had nothing to do with it. However, it seems that groups with “progressive” in their titles did not receive the same scrutiny.If it was not partisanship, was it incompetence? Stupidity, on a breathtaking scale? At this point, the IRS has lost any standing to determine and report on what exactly happened. Certainly Congress will investigate, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised. Mr. Obama also should guarantee an unimpeachably independent inquiry.One line of questioning should focus on how the IRS’s procedures failed to catch this “shortcut” before its employees began using it. Another should center on how this misguided practice came to light, and on what the IRS planned and plans to do about it. Ms. Lerner was responding to a question when the news first came out; it’s not clear whether the government intended otherwise to disclose what had happened. Nor have officials been clear whether disciplinary measures have been taken….”

Joe Klein has basically figured it out.

The Swampland

The right is forgetting about going after ACORN.  We all know that Karl Rove’s American Crossroads is dirty. The process of filing for IRS non profit political status is egregious.  You do get stuck answering absolutely absurd political questions.  I’ve been there and done that.  The American political memory is little more than walking amnesia.  We forget that dozens of these organizations sprang up, almost over-night.  Why would so darn many of these fly by night groups think they should be non-profit?   They should not have non profit status – they are political organizations.

Raw Story

When I was working on my non-profit political, lobby, education status, I was approved in South Carolina for a 501-C3 – if I could get my corporate status.  In order to do the corporate status, I had to work with established groups to set up my organization with by-laws that would be approved.

Part II of Tea for Two & the IRS will conclude tomorrow with an expose of the roots of the tea party movement.  Anyone who thinks this is simply about innocent politics is out of their minds.  The Pink Flamingo figures someone near the Koch Machine is assuming they are in hot water with the IRS.  Their tactics are to divide, conquer, then destroy.

The Pink Flamingo smells a Koch Rat in all of this.

If you haven’t noticed, The Pink Flamingo is an opera freak.  More accurate would be the statement that I am a confessed, highly addicted Baritone Barihunk Junkie.  I love the male voice, having a very low tolerance for tenors, mezzos and most sopranos.  When I go to an opera, I want to hear the men, not the other voices.  As a confessed Barihunk Junkie, I like my male voices well (or perhaps not so well) costumed.  I like my opera, like I like my history, accurate, well staged, and don’t want my intelligence insulted.

I love opera.  I want to be able to go to an opera and take my mother or a niece of nephew.  I can’t do that when we’re dealing with what can only be described as an x-rated performance where the principle characters prance around naked, on stage.  There was a recent staging of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail that had an overture which could only be described as a pornographic S&M fantasy.  Sorry, but that’s gone way too far.  Granted, Mozart and De Sade were contemporaries, and society at the time was far less prudish than it is today (seriously, folks) but still, enough is enough.

NO MAS!

I guess that’s why I have a tendency, now not to go see opera on stage.  It’s insulting, for the most part.  It’s deplorable, reprehensible, sometimes pornographic, and quite frequently an insult to the game. (I have a tendency to wax into baseball terms when describing opera.  There’s not much difference between the two sports).  And yes, I consider opera to be a sport.  One only needs to look as far as Barihunks to understand that a well trained baritone must be as well trained as baseball player.

Barihunks

Opera is a wonderful medium that combines the very best of everything:  music, theater, acting, special effects, costuming, and baritones.  It should be a visual feast for the eyes, an audio orgy for the ears, and a near spiritual experience for the soul.  One should leave a well-staged opera nearly stoned, the way The Pink Flamingo did one infamous night back in the 1980s after hearing Sherrill Milnes (the greatest baritone ever) do Simone Boccanegra.

(It is at this point The Pink Flamingo must mention that Milnes, in the prologue was one of the greatest visual feasts a woman could ever want to experience….sigh).  It is also at this point where The Pink Flamingo to admit to being such a Milnes fanatic that it was embarrassing.  My gosh the man could do a wild Giovanni!)

I was staying at the Plaza, and ended up, alone, on an elevator with one of the greatest hunk, heart-throb movie stars of my generation.  I was so stoned on the after-effects of Milnes’ Boccanegra that I did not even realize who I was visiting with – very nice man, wonderful manners – until I was off the elevator.  He’d been to the same performance, on the other side of the Met from The Pink Flamingo.  I did discover we had the same subscription seats as his best bud and his wife did on a different night.  Let’s just say the pair starred in a now iconic western from the 1970s, that was also a visual feast to the female eye.  My mother always appreciated our seats, more, when she learned just who was occupying them the night before we would!

I digress….

Opera, as theater, should be celebrated, dramatic, and exciting.  Currently, the Metropolitan Opera is suffering from floundering ticket sales.  If you don’t know why, just start looking at their current and past performances of current leadership.  To put it succinctly – THEY SUCK.

Opera is fantasy.  It should be staged as such.  It is also important to be stages as the composer wished it to be staged.  There are currently times when what is put on stage, production wise, is disgusting.  Case in point is the current staging of David McVicar’s Giulio Cesare.  I don’t give a rip if it is well criticized.  It’s disgusting.  It also reflects the very real problem facing opera and the world today.  Giulio Cesare is about Gaius Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.  It is NOT about some fantastical staging about the British Empire.  It is about very real men and women who lived and died at a given point in history.  Now, granted, in Handel’s day staging would probably have reflected his Baroque era, but, if we bow to tradition, then staging today should be quite modern.  Frankly, The Pink Flamingo would rather see staging that would be out of the HBO Mini-series Rome.  Let’s face it, you keep this up and someone’s going to set Aida as a step child to Gone With The Wind before it’s over.  (Actually, the wouldn’t.  That would take a knowledge about costume and fashion, and today’s opera reflects none of that).

The Pink Flamingo is a costume freak.  I am currently doing early edits and revisions on a book that contains nearly 2200 unpublished photos reflecting American fashion from 1860-1910.  I know my fashion and my costume.  Before his Alzheimer’s set in, my father could look at a car and tell you the year.  I can look at a women’s dress and tell you the year.

Once in awhile you can get away with a different staging.  The Pink Flamingo happens to think that Don Giovanni is one of those operas that can be an anything goes with staging.  If reflects the life of Don Juan of Austria, the illigimate son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (Verdi’s Ernani), who is currently being reassessed by historians.  A womanizer, he was also responsible for beating back the Muslim forces at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.  If he has not died of typhoid, and had not been held in check by his half-brother, Phillip II, the outcome of the Spanish Armada would have been entirely different.

Don Giovanni was first staged in 1787.  Because Mozart was probably the first modern rock star with the life-style to prove it, I think you do anything to it, and that’s what is happening.  Once upon a time, The Pink Flamingo was involved in a correspondence with the late, great Boris Goldovsky about the Don Juan Legend.  Goldvosky felt the legend was eternal.  The Pink Flamingo has spent thirty years researching it.  It basically does not appear before the late 16th Century, almost contemporary with Don Juan of Austria.

Because of Don Juan’s nature, staging can be fun.  The Pink Flamingo would love to see a Regency version of the opera, complete with Don Juan as Mr. Darcy.  Modern versions of the character are part of our contemporary every day culture:  James Bond and Captain James. T. Kirk. Both settings would make a wonderful staging of the opera.  Frankly, the Trekkie in me would love to stage Don Giovanni as Star Trek with Don Giovanni as Captain Kirk (old uniforms, please).  FYI, The Pink Flamingo prefers Simon Keenlyside’s Giovanni. He is quite elegant in the role.

You can have fun with opera.  The other night I was reading an opera post about recent stagings that basically border on the pornographic.  Burkhard C. Kosminski, who did the production, is pushing the envelope way to far, in my humble estimation. I suspect what brings this post on, now, is a current staging of Tannhauser that is an obscenity.  There is no other way to describe it.  The Pink Flamingo doesn’t care that there are those who say the production should not have been canceled.  It should never have been allowed in the first place.  During the overture (my personal most favorite piece of music in the whole world – aside from Live and Let Die) a group of naked Jews are executed, by the Nazis.  I’m sorry, but that’s going way too far. With a little bit of luck, this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and brings some sense and beauty back into the staging of opera.  One should not require a NC-18 rating on an opera production.

This is one of those operas where we have a very real date of when it should take place.  Wolfram von Eschenbach, a principle character in the story – and one of the greatest baritone arias ever – lived from c. 1170 – c. 1220.  It is high Medieval, with all the beauty of the period.  Don’t make it anything else.  The Pink Flamingo did see a clip from a version where they turned it into a Gauguin moral play.  It might work in that era, but I can’t see putting it anywhere else.

One recent exception is Willy Decker’s recent staging of Verdi’s La Traviata.  While Traviata might have been Wyatt Earp’s favorite opera, it is not mine.  In fact, until I saw the Decker staging, I never cared for the opera. I suffered through it one time at the Met, simply because Sherrill Milnes was doing Germont.  Decker’s staging transformed the opera.  I don’t like modern renditions, but putting it in the era of AIDS, makes a heck of a lot of sense.  I don’t mind adding that I prefer Dmitri Hvorostovsky to Sherrill Milnes as Germont.

The problem is the fact that we’re dealing with such cultural illiteracy and such historical ignorance that the fortunate few who end up scoring the big productions are making fools of themselves, and the opera going public by exposing their ignorance like the cheap dirty flashers they are.  They have no grasp of history, of costume and the role of history in stage-craft. Instead of turning out something quite remarkable, they turn operatic productions into perversions of what the composer originally wanted.  As a writer, and as someone who has written a couple plays, I have written directions on exactly how I want them performed and staged.  If the production can’t follow my requirements, then don’t do the play.  It’s insulting.  I know exactly how I want my one man Doc Holiday performance staged.  I know exactly how another of my plays should be staged.  I have even written explicit instructions for costuming.  It is about respecting the material.  If you can’t respect it, don’t perform it.

Eschenbach wrote Parzifal. (And yes, The Pink Flamingo has read it).  That’s another opera that is suffering from the modern obscenities of staging.  Parsifal is an Arthurian tale. It is about Sir Percival and the Holy Grail.  As someone who has studied the Matter of Britain almost as much as Tombstone and the Wild West, the subject should be sacred.  It should be performed in an almost sacred manner, and once was.  Now, though, it is one of those operas that is subjected to what can only be described as x-rated insanity.

When dealing with operas like Tannhauser, Parsifal, and the Ring (don’t even get started on the Met’s latest insanity there) it should be a Tolkin fantasy come to life.  With all the advances in modern staging and the current trends in fantasy, these operas should be such a lush, fantastical feast for the eyes, that people would be standing in line to see them, not avoiding them like the plague.  Yes, it is a Pink Flamingo fantasy to one day stage The Ring.  If I were doing it, Tannhauser, and Parsifal, it would be like Camelot meets Lord of the Rings with a little bit of Star Wars tossed in for good measure. One could even make an argument that the Ring could be staged as a version of Star Wars, and get away with it.

The argument is that the modern audience is so stupid and brain dead they can’t comprehend traditional staging, beautiful costumes, see an opera as it was intended, and not understand what is going on without turning it into something so pornographic it rivals an x-rated film they would show after midnight on Cinemax.  Where is the art and beauty?

It’s like the recent Met production of Un Ballo in Maschera.  Don’t get me wrong, Dmitri Hvorostovsky in a Fedora puts Indiana Jones to shame, but still, the staging defies logic.  The story is about the 1792 assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden.  When he ran into trouble with the censors (as usual) Verdi put the staging in colonial America.  If you follow Verdi’s example then you do what the Met did back in the 1980s and did just that, staged it in colonial America.  I saw the production with Sherrill Milnes, and the great Luciano Pavarotti.

The new production defies imagination.  If you know anything about history, then you know that there are very few times in history when the storyline could take place would be from that 1792 about 1816 at the latest.  It was the era of revolution.  If it was the era of revolution, why not place it in that time?  If so, then you do early Regency costumes.  The production would be incredible. Could you imagine Dmitri costumed like Mr. Darcy?  Could we even stand it?  Let’s face it, there’s NOTHING anywhere like Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy.  They even refer to it as Jane Austen pornography!

I suspect this is what defies imagination.  If the various and sundry renditions of Jane Austen movies had not done so well at the box office, or miscellaneous fantasy and super hero movies did not do so well (look at the Lord of the Rings or Titanic) maybe the culturally depraved individuals who think that young audiences don’t want anything with costumes and special effects might have a point.  They don’t.  They are so completely out of touch with the realities of our culture, that they are ruining opera.  Reality is is something so lush and so romantic that people salivate over it.  You don’t even get decent box office takes for the modern or for logic depraved versions of S&M that are explicit they require an NC-17 rating.  It doesn’t work.  If people don’t go to see those movies, why would you think they would waste their money on an opera with the same sort of staging.

They don’t.

Now, The Pink Flamingo has a difficult time dealing with alleged Christians who are constantly demanding God’s Judgment upon this nation, just because they aren’t getting their way.  They remind me spoiled five year old little brats who are going to hold their breath until they get their own nasty way, or pass out in the process.

From what The Pink Flamingo can ascertain, Rush Limbaugh is trying to find a way to blame the captivity of those poor women in Barack Obama.  Never mind the fact that they were abducted when GWB was in office.  We don’t need no stinkin’ logic when it comes to hating Obama. Evidently, because Ariel Castro is a registered Democrat, all Democrats are evil?  Is that their way of thinking?   Jim Hoft blames it on the Democrats. He gets his information from some stupid American Thinker article by Oleg Atbashian.  Of course Jim Treacher would repeat the blather.  So does Weasel Zappers.

In other words, these abject jerks, don’t give a damn about there women who have been horrible abused, molested, raped, and tortured.  All that matters to them is that the monsters who did this were Democrats.

Memeorandum

FYI:  Ted Bundy was a Republican.  In fact, it appears that something like 80% of serial killers are Republican.  Gary Ridgeway, Dennis Rader, David Berkowitz supported Ross Perot.  Jeffrey Dahmer was a Republican.

The Other McCain

You, know all of this makes perfect sense, when one considers that Rush Limbaugh has become nothing but a far right welfare queen.  What is fascinating is that Rush is defending racist and bigoted Jason Richwine, but damning Obama by pointing out that a very bad man was a Democrat.    Of course Rush is defending him.  Rush is now nothing but a two million dollar whore for the Heritage Foundation.  In other words, considering that the Koch Machine basically controls Heritage, Rush is a Koch Whore.

When does this insanity stop?

I don’t know which is worse, the fact that Rush Limbaugh tried to pin a horrific and brutal abduction, assault, and rape of innocent young women on Barack Obama or the fact that he saw a need to trivialize the incident.  Then again, he may have morphed into nothing but an attention whore.

It’s time to get out that scorecard. Once again we have been treated to the extreme right’s racist view of Hispanics.  In 1994 Charles Murray, who now works for the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a book called The Bell Curve.  The most recent Heritage Foundation study on immigration was authored by Jason Richwine, who wrote a dissertation based on Murray’s work.  Even more interesting is the fact that Richwine was a research fellow for the AEI.

“…Richwine’s dissertation asserts that there are deep-set differentials in intelligence between races. While it’s clear he thinks it is partly due to genetics — ‘the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ’ — he argues the most important thing is that the differences in group IQs are persistent, for whatever reason. He writes, ‘No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.‘…”

Is this racist?  It sure reads racist to The Pink Flamingo.

Maddow Blog

Once again, it all goes back to John Tanton.  Doesn’t it always?

“...Richwine’s anti-immigrant language is reminiscent of that used by the Pioneer Fund, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designates as a hate group that “funds studies of race and intelligence, as well as eugenics, the ‘science’ of breeding superior human beings that was discredited by various Nazi atrocities.” The Pioneer Fund supports the notoriously anti-immigrant and fellow SPLC hate-group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), founded by nativist John Tanton who publishes The Social Contract Press. Richwine spoke at a 2010 event for The Social Contract Press on the “myth of immigrant crime,” and, according to the group, argued that “immigrant and illegal alien crime is higher than crime committed by other demographic groups.” After joining the Heritage Foundation’s Domestic Policy Studies Department in January 2012, Richwine spoke at a Social Contract writing workshop last September about the “connection between culture and immigration” as part of a weekend event hosted by anti-immigrant and white nationalist organizations….”

There’s another very serious problem here, one that The Pink Flamingo has only now noticed.  The American Enterprise, which is home to Charles Murray of The Bell Curve, where Richwine was a research fellow, is a very important libertarian conservative institution.

Right Wing Watch

The Pink Flamingo, over the years, has been accustomed to finding Tanton’s racists in fringe organizations.  I never even thought about those which are mainstream.

Right Wing Watch

“...He then goes on to prove each point. On the question of IQ, he relies on a broad variety of research, from the American Psychological Association—to underscore the extent to which established measurements have found racial differences in intelligence—to the work of the late J. Philippe Rushton who argued that these differences were genetic in origin. He cites one article that deals with the differences of the “negroid brain.”

In trying to explain the IQ differential between races, Richwine borrows from Rushton, arguing that “the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ.” He tries to hedge against accusations of racism by noting that you can’t blame “obvious biases in test construction and administration” for the differential. And he gives an example of what he means when he says one racial group is less intelligent than another. These differentials, he writes “places the average black at roughly the 16th percentile of the white IQ distribution.”

There are a host of problems with “IQ” as a measurement, including the degree to which it corresponds with what we understand as “intelligence” and the extent to which IQ measurements reflect long-term systemic bias. Let’s set those aside. The more obvious problem is with trying to measure “racial” differentials in the first place.

Remember, racial groups are imagined communities; there’s nothing biological or genetic that makes someone “black” or “white.” These are social distinctions. What does it mean to measure “Hispanic” intelligence, when Hispanics come from a huge variety of socio-cultural backgrounds and environments? Hispanic isn’t a “population” as much as it is an umbrella term for populations, namely, people with heritage in the Spanish-dominant countries of the Americas….”

They have him on video.

Little Green Footballs

One would expect, anti-Hispanic bigot Michelle Malkin to stick up for Richwine.  After all, she writes for VDare which is one of the most infamous White Supremacist, racist, and bigoted sites online.  They are associated with Stormfront, American Renaissance, and the entire Tanton Network.

Let’s be honest here, it’s the racism, stupid.

The Pink Flamingo is only touching on things that have come up in the past day or two.  I could do more, but let’s just stick to the basics.

Let’s start with the NRA.  Their ‘youth’ based magazine is suggesting that kids build a firing range inside, and shoot BBs.  I’m not quite sure just what sort of a person would even allow their child to have a magazine from the NRA, but let’s put it even more succinctly.  It doesn’t matter if you are anti-BB guns or not.  Any fool knows that you put a child and a BB gun lose in a house, and you have a recipe for disaster.  My sister and I have been there and done that, shot out a few windows – from inside the house, the wall, and each other.  This isn’t even about NRA indoctrination camps, which they have, but just plain common sense.

NRA Insights

I think, if a kid lives in an area where there is hunting and an outdoor culture, yes, they should learn gun safety.  It is a part of their lives. Living where I do in New Mexico, I can think of any number of reasons someone living on a ranch or down one of the many dirt and gravel roads that lead, almost to nowhere, need to learn how to use a gun. Honestly, if I had a kid, and I lived where my parents did, they would be taught gun safety.  No, it’s not for protection from humans, but from wildlife.

Here in New Mexico, as in many places in the southwest, things are a little strange.  Due to the many fires and lack of rain and snow, the predators are moving out of the wilds and approaching civilization.  In the Hondo Valley, mountain lions have reached such a proportion that they are almost epidemic.  In the past two years, my parents’ neighbor has shot three of them, on our property line.  There is one that has marked my parents courtyard and patio area, claiming it as its own.

When this happens, even if you aren’t elderly you don’t go out at night without making a heck of a lot of noise.  It isn’t safe.  On some canyon  property we own, bobcats are so numerous a person is not safe on the property. Where I lived in South Carolina, thirteen years ago, coyotes packs were so large, one did not go out in certain portions of my parents’ yard if you heard them.  You didn’t go out at night.  It wasn’t safe.

We have rattlesnakes.  We have bears, which Game and Fish handle.  That’s not the point.  If something happens and you need to defend yourself, you need a gun. Ergo – if you have kids, who are responsible and over a certain age, yes you do have them properly trained in fire-arm safety.  I have a friend who told me, not long after moving here, to make sure that anyone who comes visiting, from back east, comprehends the fact that you do not go anywhere around here, on a hike, or even just for a long walk, without being armed with a pistol and a shot gun.  It’s that simple.

There is nothing wrong with a gun and knowing how to shoot.  There is something inherently wrong with suggesting that kids shoot a BB gun in the house.  Forget the injuries and ‘death’ from BBs.  The death will come from kids being killed by their mothers after taking out the china cabinet.  I know this, because my sister shot a BB in the house, that just missed one of my mother’s curio cabinets by about two inches.  She shot out the patio door, from inside the living room.  She missed a very expensive lamp by a couple feet.

Then, there is Rush Limbaugh.

Rush Limbaugh has completely lost it.

“...Limbaugh said, “Three women missing nine plus years, found alive, all were teenagers when they disappeared. Does anybody know yet why? Has the story advanced yet? Three brothers..their brothers, Three brothers, but not related to the three women have been arrested in Cleveland, which voted Obama. Not that that has anything to do with anything. One of who has a baby. Double welfare benefits if one of the women has a baby. No, I don’t know. Fascinating that the same thing happened on Hawaii 5-0, and I guarantee you people watch it. It happened on TV. It is for real.”…”

Here’s more.

Addicting Info

The Pink Flamingo is a Hawaii 5-O fan.  I watched Monday’s episode.  From what I can remember, the murdered 18 year old had also been subjected to sexual assault.  There’s nothing wrong with detesting Barack Obama.  It’s a free country.  I detest the likes of Mitt Romney and the tea parties enough to have vote for Obama.  That’s freedom.  There comes a point though, when one’s hatred and editorial stand become so completely outlandish and devoid of reality that it’s just plain disgusting.

I wonder if Rush even watched that specific episode of 5-O?  Something tells me he didn’t.  If so, he would have known that there was a bottom line of sexual assault, and sexual slavery and pedophilia that went almost unsaid.  There was something horrific and chilling about the episode, one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in a long time.

Now, let’s use some reality here.  There was a little child by rape.  She was born in the home, and hidden.  There was no birth certificate.  She was hidden.  How the heck was the freak going to get her registered for benefits?  How the (I want to use some bad language here, but I’m not) heck was the abductor going to get welfare benefits for three kidnapped women who were held captive all those years?

I’m not getting this one.  The only thing I’m getting is the hatred the man has for anything Democrat.

While we’re at it, the other day Rush went off demonizing young female college grads as liberals who purchase all the advertising slots, ergo, they don’t like him, ergo he’s losing his advertisers.    There’s something at play here, and it’s becoming more and more obvious.  Rush Limbaugh has a problem with young female college graduates.  He doesn’t like young professional women. He treats them like dirt, demonizing them.  His acolytes pick up on this and do the same thing.

Maybe the real problem is that Rush Limbaugh is a charter member of the He Man Woman Haters Club.

I truly wish I had more vices. I rarely drink, don’t smoke, and avoid anything fried, like the plague.  I rarely consume any form of meat, don’t eat desserts, and am allergic to eggs.  My primary vice in life is Sonic Iced Tea – plain, NO sugar.  I can’t stand sugar in tea.  It’s nasty.  It’s disgusting, vile, and perverted.  Unfortunately, a goodly portion of the 2.2 billion gallons of tea consumed in this country, not only is iced, but much of it is sweetened in one way or another.  It may be that 60% of all tea consumed is in the South.

The real irony is that it is viewed as a purely American drink, but, from the recipes I’ve been able to trace, it began during the Regency period, in England.  I know this is going to come as a total shock, shattering some nerves, but Jane Austen may have drank a version of sweet iced tea called Regent’s Punch.

Lord Have Mercy!

In fact, Jane Austen may have sampled the ‘sweet’ tea, chilled, before anyone across the pond ever did.

The oldest known recipe for sweet iced tea is found in a 1879 cookbook called Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Cabell Tyree, who was born in Texas.  True Southern Sweet Tea contains up to 22 Brix of sugar.  That means that 22% of the liquid is pure dissolved sugar solids – twice the amount of sugar you would get in a Coke. What truly fascinates The Pink Flamingo is the fact that in England, by 1811 a Prince Regent’s Punch, that was basically iced tea, with sugar, and about a million parts of other beverages, was quite common.

What’s Cooking America

A Route 44 Sweet Tea has 400 calories and 100g of sugar!  The same size Coke has 101g of sugar, and only 370 calories!  A plain unsweet Route 44 Iced Tea has NO calories, and no grams of sugar. You can get a diet green with 10 calories.  At Starbucks, a Trenta Iced Tea – sweetened, has 140 calories and 36 grams of sugar. Un has none.  One packet of Sugar in the Raw (which I have a tendency to use with Starbuck’s tea) has 20 calories and 5 grams of sugar.  There are 122 calories in a 12 oz can of soda. With fountain drinks, 32 ozs of classic Coke have 310 calories and 86 grams of sugar.

There’s another reason not to drink sweet tea.  Ever spilled iced tea into your laptop?  The Pink Flamingo has.  It was a disaster.  I ended up with a new computer.  One reason I now drink iced tea in a Sonic container is because it makes it more difficult for the cat to knock it over into the keyboard.  That’s only one of the dangers.

There are tales of kidney stones.  There are some Luddites who are determined that drinking iced tea with a meal isn’t good for you.  I’ve been doing it all my life.  Do I really care that drinking cold tea isn’t good for you?  Give me a break. Soda isn’t good for you.  Booze isn’t good for you.  Drinking the wrong kind of water isn’t good for you.  FYI, now we are to cut back on chocolate, nuts and spinach to prevent kidney stones.

What the H – E – Double Toothpick are we to eat and drink?

You can’t smoke.
Can’t eat sugar.
Can’t have gluten.
Can’t have fat.
Can’t have a lot of red meat.
Not to have a lot of good cheese.
Need to leave off the mayo.
Stay away from soda.
Lay off the ice cream.
Orange Juice is now evil.
Grapefruit juice interacts with medications.
Pasta has carbs.
Potatoes are evil.
Butter is something criminal.

I give up….

I’ll have a burger, meat well done, slice of raw union, mayo, ketchup, mustard, pickles, maybe lattice, fries, and onion rings, topped off with a half gallon of UNSWEET tea.

Or…

I could just have a chili dog.

They talk about all the things that soda does to a person, but what about sweet tea?  What about that obesity epidemic?  When you’re drinking a beverage that is 22% pure sugar, don’t talk to me about healthy, diabetes, or anything else healthy and swizzle that pure sugar.  Every time a person drinks one of those tea based drinks, if they aren’t ‘diet’, they’re loaded with sugar.

Sweet tea anyone?

Maybe people should start drinking their iced tea plain, the way it was originally intended to be consumed!

480th Tactical Fighter Squadron
April 13, 1942 – January 22, 1968

On 9 November 1967, while on a flight over North Vietnam, Captain Sijan ejected from his disabled aircraft and successfully evaded capture for more than six weeks.

During this time, he was seriously injured and suffered from shock and extreme weight loss due to lack of food.

After being captured by North Vietnamese soldiers, Captain Sijan was taken to a holding point for subsequent transfer to a prisoner of war camp.

In his emaciated and crippled condition, he overpowered one of his guards and crawled into the jungle, only to be recaptured after several hours.

He was then transferred to another prison camp where he was kept in solitary confinement and interrogated at length.

During interrogation, he was severely tortured; however, he did not divulge any information to his captors.

Captain Sijan lapsed into delirium and was placed in the care of another prisoner.

During his intermittent periods of consciousness until his death, he never complained of his physical condition and, on several occasions, spoke of future escape attempts.

Captain Sijan’s extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty at the cost of his life are in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Air Force and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Armed Forces.

You can read more about Capt. Sijan here

This Post Was Suggested By Michael

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.
Those Who Say That We’re In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don’t Know Where To Look

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