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Is the government modifying the weather to punish Republican areas and prevent them from voting?
Most interesting is that this is an example where ignorance is no excuse. We have resolved the inexplicable. It really was "stupid" all along. (In a democracy, willful ignorance is the definition of stupid.)
"This, after the far-right fossil fools have spent years arguing there's no way humans could affect weather or climate."
Well yeah, but they don't regard anyone other than their enlightened selves to be truly "human". Just ask Trump... it's some kind of gene thing, surely you know? He's been busy explaining all of that for the past few days. Of course those murdering immigrants come over the border to generate hurricanes when they're not busy eating people's pets. What on earth is it going to take to convince you folks?
@Old_Joe: Ha! Cue the miscegenation memes of the Old South.
Recently watched some clips of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, with its hilarious takes on all that. This one (5m) is the best I could find: Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Would love to hear Walter Cronkite read this story -
“U.S. Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia today alleged that the U.S. government may be controlling the weather and sending devastating hurricanes to Republican leaning states in an attempt to influence the November election. There has of yet been no official response from the Biden Administration. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is said to be looking into the matter …”
"Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!"Oh my! I do like that.
That movie is outstanding. Assuming you've never seen it, it's a retelling of the Odyssey, with a Depression-era grifter as Ulysses. So clever, and the music is top notch.
I suppose what's most disturbing to me about the LYING campaign is that there are people who believe that nonsense. Getting to be a country of ignoramuses.
No more in-depth broadcast Radio or TV news departments other than PBS - many people now get the "news" from each other via questionable internet sources.
Broadcast and cable radio / TV sources which deliberately propagate slanted, dishonest non-factual propaganda labelled as "news".
I think that it's questionable as to whether people are actually getting stupider- it's just that they have abandoned so-called main-stream news sources, largely because of deliberate and malicious commentary by right-wing sources such as Trump and associates who have discredited those sources.
It’s a good question. I think some of each. Public school curriculums, I think, have been dumbed down. But, what do you expect in an environment of ”live-fire drills” and high pressure conservative led campaigns to add religion to classes or ban classics from literature classes? The high cost of post secondary education and diminishing public funding has priced out many who might have pursued post secondary studies.
But the media is also responsible. With multiple “news” outlets, we sheep tend to flock to the ones that confirm our own beliefs. It becomes (aside from PBS) a money game with the more outrageously biased outlets (left & right) pulling in viewers and profits. The wisdom of ”Know thy enemy …” might induce us to view both sides - but reluctantly, few do.
Off topic - But I see more and more egregiously altered / edited / faked Trump ads portraying Harris’s as a proponent of public funding for sex change procedures in illegal aliens. They use edited clips of her speaking to create a false narrative. Some of the visual / vocal might even be AI generated. The messaging is clever. Hits three fears of the public (1) uncontrolled government spending, (2) bias against gay / transgenders and (3) fear of immigrants. Wish there was an effective way to combat this. One would think a lawsuit for slander might be in order. (But he’s slippery.)
Over the 20th century we were afraid that, as we distanced ourselves from the WWII advantage, we would lose ground to Japan, then China, then the European Union. But we thought it was because we needed to compete better, adapting first one then the other management and manufacturing strategies. It never occurred to us that smart and hard work had nothing to do with it. Our downfall would come from wilfull a dumbing down, reliance on yesterday, denial of immigration heritage and ambition, and all kinds of things that we could program into our country to tear it down and leave it incapable of competing much less clawing its way back. Mark my word.
Why go to school or work harder when it's always so much easier to blame someone else for your misfortune(s)? I keep doing the same stuff my daddy's daddy did and the price of a six-pack keeps going up & up.
So @Mark, are you saying that inflation on beer is your daddy's daddy's fault? If so, that means inflation on whiskey is my daddy's daddy's fault. Oh the legacy of the daddy's daddys!
I did not miss your sarcasm, @Mark. ...And I know teachers who are REQUIRED never to flunk a student. The policy comes down from on high. Curricula are all dumbed-down, for sure. I took my first formal course in Logic as the entry-course in my chosen Major: Philosophy. Should have had it earlier, as a Junior or Senior in high school. And civics? How do you get out of H.S. and not know about the infernal Electoral College? But there are such people. They live among us.
An anecdote: my wife passed her 10-question citizenship test. Maybe there ought to be more to it than THAT??? Anyhow, after answering the first 6 questions correctly, the Tester did not bother with the final four. A symptom of what's wrong?
"Gimme that old time religion." God and guns and beer. They cling to their fundamentalism and other related flavors of religion, which is truly a perversion of genuine religion. It's not a recipe. It's a journey. A pilgrimage through life. Live, learn, love, serve, self-sacrifice. In secular terms, Psychology would have a mature, healthy person pursue all of that, too. But they're afraid of it. Deliberate, willful blindness. Ignorance is the altar where they "pray."
And Yesterday was Yom Kippur. I was reminded of the book I'm in the middle of, by deceased Rabbi Abraham Heschel. "The Prophets." That work is maybe THE best tool for obtaining a sharp focus as to what genuine religion is about.
@Crash- "An anecdote: my wife passed her 10-question citizenship test."
I highly suspect that over 50% (a very conservative estimate on my part) of current born& raised US citizens could not pass that test. People just generally don't care to learn what they are convinced they already know.
@Crash- "An anecdote: my wife passed her 10-question citizenship test."
I highly suspect that over 50% (a very conservative estimate on my part) of current born& raised US citizens could not pass that test. People just generally don't care to learn what they are convinced they already know.
The school where I taught sent a “committee” over to Japan to study their secondary education in the early 90s when Japan seemed to be beating our pants off technologically, economically and every other which way. The group reported back somewhat soberly that the students there seemed less attentive and otherwise distracted during lessons than what they’d observed in our country. They were therefore mystified by some “missing ingredient” that was leading Japan to excell in so many areas. However, in a matter of a few years Japan had fallen from financial greatness and entered a severe prolonged financial downturn.
Comments
I certainly hope so. Turnabout is fair play.
Well yeah, but they don't regard anyone other than their enlightened selves to be truly "human". Just ask Trump... it's some kind of gene thing, surely you know? He's been busy explaining all of that for the past few days. Of course those murdering immigrants come over the border to generate hurricanes when they're not busy eating people's pets. What on earth is it going to take to convince you folks?
Recently watched some clips of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, with its hilarious takes on all that. This one (5m) is the best I could find: Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
“U.S. Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia today alleged that the U.S. government may be controlling the weather and sending devastating hurricanes to Republican leaning states in an attempt to influence the November election. There has of yet been no official response from the Biden Administration. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is said to be looking into the matter …”
Oh my! I do like that.
https://npr.org/2024/10/07/nx-s1-5144159/fema-funding-migrants-disaster-relief-fund
https://vox.com/today-explained-podcast/377464/hurricanes-milton-helene-misinformation-fema
Yes, and a number of factors there:
No more in-depth broadcast Radio or TV news departments other than PBS - many people now get the "news" from each other via questionable internet sources.
Broadcast and cable radio / TV sources which deliberately propagate slanted, dishonest non-factual propaganda labelled as "news".
I think that it's questionable as to whether people are actually getting stupider- it's just that they have abandoned so-called main-stream news sources, largely because of deliberate and malicious commentary by right-wing sources such as Trump and associates who have discredited those sources.
But the media is also responsible. With multiple “news” outlets, we sheep tend to flock to the ones that confirm our own beliefs. It becomes (aside from PBS) a money game with the more outrageously biased outlets (left & right) pulling in viewers and profits. The wisdom of ”Know thy enemy …” might induce us to view both sides - but reluctantly, few do.
Off topic - But I see more and more egregiously altered / edited / faked Trump ads portraying Harris’s as a proponent of public funding for sex change procedures in illegal aliens. They use edited clips of her speaking to create a false narrative. Some of the visual / vocal might even be AI generated. The messaging is clever. Hits three fears of the public (1) uncontrolled government spending, (2) bias against gay / transgenders and (3) fear of immigrants. Wish there was an effective way to combat this. One would think a lawsuit for slander might be in order. (But he’s slippery.)
An anecdote: my wife passed her 10-question citizenship test. Maybe there ought to be more to it than THAT??? Anyhow, after answering the first 6 questions correctly, the Tester did not bother with the final four. A symptom of what's wrong?
"Gimme that old time religion." God and guns and beer. They cling to their fundamentalism and other related flavors of religion, which is truly a perversion of genuine religion. It's not a recipe. It's a journey. A pilgrimage through life. Live, learn, love, serve, self-sacrifice. In secular terms, Psychology would have a mature, healthy person pursue all of that, too. But they're afraid of it. Deliberate, willful blindness. Ignorance is the altar where they "pray."
And Yesterday was Yom Kippur. I was reminded of the book I'm in the middle of, by deceased Rabbi Abraham Heschel. "The Prophets." That work is maybe THE best tool for obtaining a sharp focus as to what genuine religion is about.
I highly suspect that over 50% (a very conservative estimate on my part) of current born& raised US citizens could not pass that test. People just generally don't care to learn what they are convinced they already know.
Motto of story - “You never can tell.”