When ideology trumps facts

You get nonsensical illogic like this.

Shep Smith compilation

Of accurate news reporting on Pox Views over the last year. He's one of the very few on that State TV propaganda channel that sticks to factual reporting.

Todd: No more time for climate chaos deniers on Meet the Press

It's about time Chuck. At least his show has decided that it's idiotic to give time to both sides of this story when there is only one scientific, factual side. He announced this on the show last Sunday and then had a panel on the topic, another first for a corporate TV network.

The actual wall Benedict Donald is building

He divides us against each other so we won't notice it's the likes of him and the oligarchs that are the root of the problem.

Warren announces she's running for President

Alleluia. Our first woman President. And one who will protect us from the fascists and oligarchs while empowering us to be all that we can be by giving us the resources and opportunities to do it ourselves. A new age is dawning in America.

"Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat and a sharp critic of big banks and unregulated capitalism, entered the 2020 race for president on Monday."

Update: Here's her video. Passionate, inspiring and genuine speech on our American values.

Benedict Donald is a failure

A complete and total failure. He is not a successful businessman. He failed at that time and again. When no US bank would lend him money anymore due to those failures he ended up going to Russian oligarchs and their illicit banks for money. He is compromised by that devil's bargain to the point of treason against the US. Don't fall for the fake image; he is the biggest failure in the history of mankind.

STEs are good for you

Continuing this post, I finished the paper. It's a scientific exploration of self-transcendent experiences (STEs), not an instruction 'how to' manual. Overall STEs can be positive given the set and setting. And they can be entirely secular. They tend to reduce egoism and increase social interaction, as well as a host of other positive benefits. There is also a section on selective evolutionary advantages incurred from STEs. Going back to my earlier post on the humanist group, STEs can indeed form strong social bonds with atheists if they can get past inbred, negative and false associations with them.

The People's agenda v. the corporate agenda

Refuse corporate spin: Our agenda is mainstream as supported by accurate polls.

The myth of corporate self regulation

Talk about letting the fox in the henhouse. It's more like inviting the vampire into our homes. It's why we need government protections from these blood suckers.

Unfinished progressive business

Continuing the last post, we still have work to do not only fighting Repugs but implementing the people's agenda.

What we want in 2020

Is the same thing we got in 2018: progressive Democrats. Establishment Dems either get on board or we will primary you out of office. We the people know what we want and it's candidates that represent us, not corporates and the rich.

Jones KOs Gustafsson, Nunes KOs Cyborg

I expected Jones to win but not the way he did it. He kept back peddling and circling, engaging only for a few strikes at a time. He had numerous failed takedown attempts. But he was getting in more strikes and more effective. It wasn't as exciting as their first fight when he stood toe to toe and slugged it out. But it was a decisive win and he's back on top.

I did not expect the heavy underdog Nunes to beat the shit out of Cyborg and knock her out cold in the first minute. At least it was exciting. That breaks Cyborg's dominant 20 fight win streak. I guess even the best fall sooner or later.

Who is ruining your life?

Lay blame at the right source.

Rituals are good for your health

Continuing this post, an excerpt from this article.

"Cristine Legare, a researcher and psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, says, 'Rituals signify transition points in the individual life span and provide psychologically meaningful ways to participate in the beliefs and practices of the community.' They have been instrumental in building community, promoting cooperation, and marking transition points in a community member’s life. And as strange as rituals might be from a logical perspective, they have evolved as distinct features of human culture."

"Additionally, rituals benefit our physical well-being and immune system. According to Andrew Newberg, the associate director of research at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health, rituals lower cortisol, which in turn lowers heart rate and blood pressure and increases immune system function."

The real welfare queens

Focus your anger and action on the root of the problem, not its victims.

Speaking of self-transcendent experience

Continuing this post, the Dalai Lama has a few words on the topic.

Beware of fake Christians

Especially when aligned with government.

What Repugnantans mean by 'smaller government'

In a word, oligopoly. That's us they're trying to down. But we will fight back and we will win.

Varieties of Self-Transcendent Experience

In my local humanist group we recently discussed how we atheists and agnostics can bond in community. We explored what bonds people strongly, like in religious communities, that seems lacking in atheist gatherings. I suggested that part of what bonds people is shared experiences, typically of the self-transcendent variety where we experience something larger that ourselves. That doesn't have to be God; it can be secular experience that is also described as self-transcendent.

In that light I offer this paper by psychologists and medical scientists on the topic. If you're not already a member of Research Gate it might ask you to join but it's free and easy. The abstract:

"Various forms of self-loss have been described as aspects of mental illness (e.g., depersonalization disorder), but might self-loss also be related to mental health? In this integrative review and proposed organizational framework, we focus on self-transcendent experiences (STEs)—transient mental states marked by decreased self-salience and increased feelings of connectedness. We first identify common psychological constructs that contain a self-transcendent aspect, including mindfulness, flow, peak experiences, mystical-type experiences, and certain positive emotions (e.g., love, awe). We then propose psychological and neurobiological mechanisms that may mediate the effects of STEs based on a review of the extant literature from social psychology, clinical psychology, and affective neuroscience. We conclude with future directions for further empirical research on these experiences."

Former Mosssad Chief: Russia picked #BenedictDonald

According to this Newsweek story. Russia picked the "presidential candidate who would be most advantageous to Moscow, and used online tactics to win him the presidency" according to former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo. We also know Russia wanted #BenedictDonald from this recent story. All that remains is Mueller's evidence that the Presidunce and his team aided and abetted this effort in a time of cyberwar and treason follows shortly thereafter.

Alexander Jean - Waiting For You

With Mark Ballas.

O'Rourke's voting record

O'Rourke is the 2nd highest recipient of fossil fuel money in all of Congress. Third Way and New Democrats love him because he votes with the corporatists. This video examines his voting record. If you want a progressive candidate then look elsewhere.

Ocasio-Cortez scares the establishment

In both Parties because she  is a true champion of we the people. She is one of us. Let's continue to give her our support because it comes right back to us. We need to also support more like her in the '20 election if we want our country back in the hands of the people.

It's slavery, not freelancing: Slavery

Funny how slavery is being billed as a choice now when there is no choice in the matter.

Cummings: Men have 3 types of orgasms

Insightful comedy.

Benedict Donald threatens to shut down the US/Mexico border

Yes, the idiot Tweeted this as a possibility if the Dems don't agreed to fund his wall. The Traitor has longed ago jumped the shark but he just keeps getting worse. Will the Repugs ever stand up to this madness?

RBG snaps Dump

Let's hope it's true.

What the designer of the Confederate flag said about it

Plain and simple, it's racist. Fact check it here.

The new House's first Bill

Sound good to you?

The science of interstitium

Continuing this post, here is a link to papers presented at the 2018 International Fascia Research Congress. The 2nd article is on recent findings of a "previously unappreciated fluid-filled interstitial space, draining to lymph nodes and supported by a complex network of thick collagen bundles." In the discussion section it notes that "the spaces we describe, supported and organized by a collagen lattice, are compressible and distensible and may thus serve as shock absorbers." 

When this lattice is consciously interconnected by whole body movement training like martial arts it can take an incoming force and absorb it while also redirecting and compressing it into the ground. Then it can bounce that force off the ground like a ball and distend it back through the fascial network, redirecting it to the opponent. It's still science and bio-physics. Bio-physics in that our bodies are not just inanimate objects bouncing off each other in space. F = MA still applies but it is filtered though living tissues and bio-mechanics like the above.

What should be obvious to everyone now

If it wasn't already. If it still isn't please seek a psychiatric referral.

UU responsive readings

Someone pokes fun at Unitarian Universalist responsive readings, as UU is well know for this type of dogmatic church service scripts.

Abramson: No question Dump was colluding

There is simply no question left—*none whatsoever*—that the Trump campaign was secretly negotiating future U.S. foreign policy throughout the 2016 campaign in order to win covert (and illegal) financial and other support from Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Hungary, Israel, and Egypt.

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 25, 2018

Dump is destroying democracy and how to resist

From this Business Insider article. We can fight back with "a new language that both inspires and energizes people to think otherwise in order to act otherwise." That is, passionate framing per Lakoff.

"His call to 'Make America Great Again' reveals his nostalgia for a white Christian past. Allan Nairn, the award-winning investigative journalist, gets it right in arguing that Trump and the Republican Party want 'to abolish democracy…because that's the only way they can perpetuate their power' and create a form of 'domestic fascism.'"

"Trump's hateful rhetoric also proves that education is central to politics, because it's through language and diverse forms of communication that power materializes to shape consciousness, desire, identity and values. It's crucial therefore in the age of Trump to use the language of resistance, one that's rooted in compassion for others, expands the reach of justice and encourages us to confront the forces of tyranny. Language is the precondition for education, and education is central to politics itself. We need a new language that both inspires and energizes people to think otherwise in order to act otherwise."

Known Dumpster contacts with Russians

Yes, collusion. More accurately, conspiracy to commit treason. Please hurry up Mueller so we can prosecute and punish, then move on from this horrific period in our history.

Segall on Keller's work

In this post Segall reviews some of Keller's book The Cloud of the Impossible. This quote is relevant to recent IPS threads and posts on the inter rather than the meta, the relation between self/other, inside/outside, one/many: Plurisingularity.

"It turns out that the idea of separability itself was only ever a convenient fiction, whether we are talking about the level of protons or persons. The very notion of a isolated 'thing' (a classical particle or body-bound observer) has been undone by Barad’s 'agential realism,' wherein the final realities are 'intra-active' agencies rather than isolable entities. These agencies or creatures (to use Whitehead’s favored term) are not dissolved into their relational intra-actions, 'rather, the creature emerges within the creative field that it differentiates [such that] the attributes that make one creature different from another [are] acts of differentiation [and not] inherent properties of a discrete substance.' Acts or performances of differentiation are what individuate us moment by moment; our identities are always established through intra-active relationship."

What do Dumpsters do for a living?

I know, it's a logical chain and they don't think that way, let alone think.

SNL women: All I want for Christmas is Mueller

That's all I want too. Well, it's Christmas and we don't have it yet. Hopefully soon in the new year.

WOMEN OF SNL XMAS SONG TO MUELLER. from Ken Schreiber on Vimeo.

Salubrious solstice

That's my holiday greeting. May you have a healthful return of the light.

Why conservatives act like victims

When they are coming from such privilege. Insightful psychology lesson here.

Melville: Well fed don't know WTF they're talking about

Well if they're conservatives, that is. Well-fed liberals want to help the poor, not demean them.

Clarifying Christmas confusion

JP helps us out with this.

Mnuchin calls bank CEOs, DOW plummets

Just another of those unqualified 'best people' Dump hired with obvious consequences.

Christmas: The fantasy and the reality

May it be better in your memory than how it actually went down.

Madame Secretary takes on caging children

A TV show is tackling this inhumane policy. Granted the circumstances are fictional yet it does reflect the real, current issue. Bravo for a TV show taking this on. Part 2 is next Sunday evening.

Bohemian Rhapsody parody

Opinion Rhapsody, poking fun at social media.

Dump's Christmas presents to you

The living Ebenezer Scrooge.

Slavery: Same story, different day

Eisenhower and responsible economics

This gave big business incentive to invest in America instead of just lining their own pockets.

The Third Way of evolutionary biology

Interesting website on this innovative exploration of the field. From the link:

"The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation. Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process."

Ayn Rand ended up on social security and Medicare

Continuing this post, this Wikipedia article notes that it's true, and confirmed by this Snopes fact check. She became everything she despised because she smoked herself into lung cancer and her medical bills were eating away her savings. It doesn't seem she changed her mind though.

Beto O'Rourke's voting record with Repugnantans

That's right. He voted with Repugnantans and against his own Party 167 times in his 6-year tenure in Congress. This guy is not progressive and must be primaried, not lionized. And if he decides to run for President in '20 we must most certainly give our votes to a true progressive, not this poser.

"O’Rourke has voted for GOP bills that his fellow Democratic lawmakers said reinforced Republicans’ anti-tax ideology, chipped away at the Affordable Care Act (ACA), weakened Wall Street regulations, boosted the fossil fuel industry and bolstered Donald Trump’s immigration policy."

Sanders on the government shutdown

And it's totally unnecessary. Not a very Merry Christmas for these workers. And for what? A paranoid, infantile narcissist with no experience in actual national security who doesn't listen to the experts but gets his marching orders from Pox Views, Rush Bimbaugh and Ann Dolter.

The origins of Christmas

Definitely not the story you'll get from Christians. Something tells me they're not going to like this history lesson.

Tim Ryan rips Repugnantans a new one

Over the border wall. Just the sort of passion backed by fact we need to get the remaining assholes out of Congress in the next election.

Libertarian joke

Hey, they chose this of their own free will.

Congress exempts itself from govt. shutdown

Ocasio-Cortez has something to say about that.

Reich: 10 steps to save American democracy

See the video below for the details:

1. Automatic voter registration
2. A new Voting Rights Act
3. Public financing
4. Disclose political donations
5. End the revolving door
6. Ban Congress from owning stock
7. Politicians must release tax returns
8. Eliminate gerrymandering
9. Eliminate the Electoral College
10. Reverse Citizens United

Colbert: Dump unleashed

Mulvaney, the new Chief of Staff, said he won't try to control Dump at all. We thought Dump was bad before, just wait.

Widening the bridges: Beyond consent and autonomy

Excellent article exemplifying syntegrity. A brief excerpt follows but the entire article is well worth 15 minutes.

"The first represents the kind of static view of individuals and their connections most often employed in terms like ‘community’. This sees the individual as a complete node unto itself with connections represented as static and uniform. This view is also expanded to create unstable fictions in which every so-called “citizen” is considered to be connected uniformly through nationality or every “woman” is connected through womanhood. But more simply, this is also just when you are planning a get-together and thinking in your head about who is friends with who in a broad overview kind of way.

"The second image represents the self as slightly more complex and networked but with connections between individuals still essentially uniform. The second model is just a complex self with a static view of its connections with others. This second model can be seen in something like the Dialogical Self theory in psychology, where the networked self is described through the ways in which composite aspects of our psyche dialog internally with each other to create coherence. This theory looks at the voices of all those people and things that influence and comprise us and the ways they live in a micro-society in our minds. This vision recognizes a network of internal nodes (such as these different voices in our heads) forming a dynamic and open-system of information sharing and connectivity seeking to build bridges outside and within itself.

Monkey mind

Just STFU already!

Journalism 101

Unfortunately corporate media is not about truth anymore but all about making money.

Mexico won't pay for the wall but they will pay for this

Borowitz does it again.

MEXICO CITY (The Borowitz Report)—Hoping to resolve the seemingly intractable conflict over immigration, Mexico surprised the world on Thursday by agreeing to pay for Donald J. Trump’s psychiatric care.

Speaking to reporters, the Mexican President, Enrique Peña Nieto, said that he had authorized funding for the psychiatry and proclaimed, “Work on Donald Trump could begin tomorrow.”

Peña Nieto displayed several photographs showing prototypes of therapists, including a bearded Freudian analyst who he said came highly recommended.

While some Mexican taxpayers argued that a full course of psychiatric treatment could prove more costly than a border wall, Peña Nieto warned against skimping on such a necessary expense.

“When the safety and security of the world is at stake, eight hundred dollars an hour is a bargain,” he said, but added that Mexico would try to find a therapist who takes insurance.

Ocasio-Cortez on priorities

Dump and Repugnantans want $5 billion for a wall but complain we don't have enough money for public programs or caring for our children. We have the money all right. It's just a matter of where they spend it, like the $2 trillion tax scam for the rich and corporations.

Supreme Corp denies Dump's request to reinstate asylum ban

The lower courts have ruled to block enforcement of the ban and the Supreme Corp denied Dump's emergency appeal to reinstate it. The ban would deny asylum claims by immigrants who cross the border illegally. The ban contravenes Congressional law, which says immigrants seeking asylum are eligible no matter how they enter the country. Roberts sided with the 4 liberal Justices.

Miley Cyrus updates Santa Baby

Good for her, changing a song about poor, helpless women that need men to buy them shit into an anthem about strong women that can take of themselves.

A very Special Counsel Christmas

Dump fires Santa so Mueller comes to the rescue. If only this could be true in real life for Christmas.

Colbert spoofs Carlson's insistence that they're gingerbread MEN

Of all the irrelevant things Carlson puts out to distract from the real issues of the day, like Carlson being boycotted for racist comments. But even this distraction shows his regressive, misogynistic bent. Colbert has fun playing with this State TV tool.

Corporate Dems block the Green New Deal

This really is no surprise to anyone not deluded by the obvious. Oh yeah, that indeed describes corporate Dems. The latter revived an ineffective House panel on climate change and eliminated Ocasio-Cortez suggestion for a select committee for the Green New Deal. Castor will head the bogus panel while refusing to require members to shun fossil fuel money.

Castor also said the Green New Deal was not the panel's focus. This despite 81% of those polled favor the GND, including 64% of Republicans. Again, no surprise, since the corporate Dems have proven time and again that they do not represent we the people. To believe that progressives can work with these corporate shills, that they are somehow a necessary part of the Party, is naïve at best. They have to go. Primary them with progressives and vote them out!

Christmas carpool karaoke

Corden with Migos, Cardi B, Paul McCartney, Shawn Mendes, Ariana Grande, Barbra Streisand, Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera.

Sanders, Feinstein oppose criminalizing BDS

Yes, Congress is adding a rider to the spending Bill that would make it illegal to support the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement. It is called the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. Sanders and Feinstein, while not supporting BDS (why not?)  do say this Act is a violation of free speech. What's behind the Act? What else, the money the Israel lobby gives to legislators. They are literally selling out free speech. Also see this prior post for more of the motivation.

Petition to support the Green New Deal

Please consider signing this, thanks. The blurb:

DFA-endorsed Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is at it again, this time leading the fight for a Green New Deal: a transformative plan to put our country on the path towards a clean energy future by investing in renewable energy, a national smart grid, public works projects, and tens of millions of green jobs.

It’s a win-win for our environment and economy, and it’s our greatest opportunity to avert the worst impacts of climate change. That’s why 35 members of Congress and more than 300 local officials from 40 states have stepped up to support it. Will you?

Add your name right now to join DFA and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in supporting a Green New Deal today.

Dump Foundation needs help

Colbert parody on those ads to help poor children overseas.

Colbert on Dump's fake charity

It was a front to funnel charity money into Dump's pocket, nothing more. Just another of the many criminal activities from the Mob Boss in Chief.

Chomsky minimalizes Russian interference in US election

What the US did or did not do is irrelevant to the fact that not only did Russia interfere in our election but the Dumpsters conspired with them and that's treason. That needs to be addressed, not minimized. Chomsky is wrong on this one and just provides misdirection in this video.

Beware of going meta

Zak Stein's new essay on the matter.  "I am arguing here that 'going meta' is actually potentially dangerous and should be done with great caution and care." Amen brother. Let's get post meta.  Nice except for his going meta on a straw postmodernism. "You know you are actually doing metaphysics is that you can no longer 'go meta' anymore; instead you must go 'intra' or 'inter'or 'inner.'” Nice: hier(an)archical synplexity.

Merry American Christmas

Something went very wrong somewhere.

22 musicals in 12 minutes with Corden

And guests Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda. I'm not a big musicals fan but I enjoy Corden playing around with the genre like this. I didn't know Blunt could sing this well.

15,000 immigrant children in detention

That's what the count is up to now. The good news is that there's been an HHS rule change that only a sponsoring adult must undergo a criminal background check. It used to be that everyone in the household would need this check, which was holding up a lot of kids from being placed with sponsors. However HHS is also turning over the results of the checks to ICE, so that is scaring off some otherwise possibly good sponsors.

Colbert interviews Schiff

Schiff is the incoming Chair of the Intelligence Committee. He lambasted the Repugnantans in Congress for doing nothing to address Dump's collusion with Russian interference and said "that stops now." He said the Committee will now "follow the money," meaning Dump's Russian business dealings, which is not coincidental to Dump's policy favoring Russia.

Colbert on Flynn's treason

He jokes about Flynn's sentencing hearing, where the judge frothed about Flynn's possible treason. Bystanders outside the trial ironically shouted "lock him up!" as Flynn entered and exited the court.

MIT economist: US regresses to 3rd world nation

So much for the American Dream. This economist said: “80% of Americans live in a hollowed out version of America, with limited access to upward mobility. This didn't happen by accident. This was an intentional policy set in motion around forty years ago.” You don't have to tell us 80%, as we live it every day. But you do have to tell those of us who vote for Repugnantans who really created this mess: Repugnantans and their corporate Dem facilitators. They need to know the real cause of their woe so we can vote in reps that are of, for and by we the people. 

10 Circuit Court dismisses Kavanagh complaints

Yes, they dismissed all 83 ethics complaints against Kavanaugh because they lack jurisdiction to rule on a Supreme Corp Justice. They cited the 1980 Judicial Conduct and Disability Act that "exempts Supreme Court Justices from the judiciary's disciplinary laws." So then there is no legal check on such InJustices?

Dump signed letter of intent to build Moscow tower

On the Sunday shows Giuliani claimed that no one signed this letter of intent. A couple of days later a copy of that letter was produced and Dump indeed had signed it. Some assistant attorney generals have noted this "may suggest a criminal conspiracy." Yes Guiliani and Dump suggest that even if Dump signed it "nothing is wrong." They are definitely wrong about that.

Copy and paste

Cute computer metaphor on human reproduction.

Sanders for President tops straw poll

Conducted by Democracy For America. Granted this demo is progressive Dems, so it's not surprising that Sanders got 36% to Biden's 15% and O'Rourke's 12%. Warren got 8%. It is indicative though because repeated polls show that the progressive agenda is the majority of the people's agenda.

Who are the law and order Presidents?

For all the Repugnantan claims to law and order the facts tell the real story.

Hartmann: Political framing requires emotional connection

Hartmann discusses this with Roger Wolfson, who said: "Unless you have an emotional reaction to what you're talking about then people listening can't really connect to you. […] Without the emotional connection, without the heart being involved, then [you] just start sounding like a talking head."