Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Yay, money!

Money is a battery for storing the energies produced by human work. Or a transformer, changing human work into stuff. It is the potter trading pottery for the farmer's grain, equalizing difference in need and quantity-value. Money can be very useful stuff. Accumulation of lots of money allows for acquisition of very high-energy (expensive) stuff, like roads and market-places and the other infrastructure that helps the potter and the farmer get their goods out so they can generate the money to... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Splintered Parties and the Math of Voting

FormerStudentIntern brought up an interesting point in his comment to the previous post, suggesting that the two major Parties might splinter, hereafter. I'm not sure what splintering would look like. Would the Tea Partyists go make their own party, now they have invaded and pretty much destroyed the GOP? Could the GOP recover its credibility as the conservative yet rational Party? And would the Democratic Party ever escape the accusations and evidences of corruption that have come upon it in... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, August 12, 2016

Today on Facebook...

So much is said about voter turn-out and voter preparedness and voter ignorance... And not just voters. I wrote this about that: In the US, it has always been the right of all citizens to vote. (Except, it hasn't always been all citizens, or certain members of our society were not considered citizens until that citizenship and enfranchisement was fought for and eventually, won.) And maybe because citizenship is all that is required, this right is so undervalued that many people don't bother to... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Humanity

I am torn between my determined faith in the essential goodness and common sense of most people, and my other certainty that there are a whole lot more stupid people out there than I can fathom. Greyhound racing is being banned in Australia, People save mongooses (mongeese?) from dying of thirst, chimpanzees and other animals are being recognized as having the right not to be laboratory experiments, more and more elephants are beingretired from 'show business' to refuges like The Elephant... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Ripped from the headlines... of Facebook...

I agree with Mr. Buffett, this sounds like a reasonable plan though it may be unreasonable to believe that even with a lot of pressure, Congress will vote away its perks. Still... worth a try in an election year, to remind them of who works for whom. Warren Buffett, "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. The 26th amendment (granting... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Incompetence

So, Trump complained about at UCCS about the Fire Marshal not allowing all 10,000 ticket-holders into the 1500 capacity auditorium. Trump's people sold the tickets and gave UCCS all of 2 days' notice that they were coming. He called UCCS and the Fire Marshal "incompetent." Hmm... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

A couple of my comments from the political chatter

The biggest bullies attract swarms of followers who haven't got the sense or insight to ask questions like, Why? or Really? They follow for the opportunity for mayhem, and they think the bully will protect them from their enemies. They think their loyalty will be repaid with the bully's loyalty and caring. They don't get it until it's way too late that the bully gives not a single damn for them and thinks of them as cannon fodder. I await a new Party with some version of Independent Progressive... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, July 25, 2016

Why Putin is interfering with our politics

I don't think Putin likes or respects or admires Trump. What Putin sees in Trump is where his nation (he, really) gets to mock and sneer and cheer at the downfall of the American experiment in democracy, just as we did when the USSR fell. Payback, karma, whatever you call it, I believe that's the motive behind the evident tampering in American politics by Russia's current Grand Prince. Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, July 22, 2016

The Magic of Conflict and the Beauty of Compromise.

Some years ago, Thomas Crum, an aikido expert, reframed the very idea of 'conflict' from a negative to a positive, pointing out the beauty inherent in the conflict of ocean and land, for instance, on a rugged, sea-pounded coastline. His work suggests that acknowledgement of conflict is the key to resolving conflict: acknowledge it, accept its existence, work with the reality that is, rather than frantically trying to replace it, unconsidered, with what you want to be the reality. What you want... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Election Fraud and Voter Suppression

The biggest threat to the election of relatively sane, progressive (as opposed to obstructive) government in November is voter suppression. We have seen how it works, how well it works, throughout the primaries/caucuses, when the Parties abandon the American people in favor of their own Party interests and intentions. The DNC worked it to make sure Hillary couldn't lose the nomination. The Republicans will work it just as hard as they can, to elect Trump and a continuing Rep ublican Congress.... Sign in to see full entry.

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