A Teapublican's Paradise

This came across my feed this morning, and when something like this comes up, it's always worth a look-see. It posits itself as a response to God's Own Party, and with it, the Randian fantasies and Teabagging Rhetoric that seems to be tying together the Big White Tent of "boys-only" bootstraps and bigotry.

It even starts off with an awesome pitch, too:


Imagine, if you will, a country where there is:

No Obamacare
No Obama
The Fair Tax is the law of the land
The Income Tax code is simple and the forms are easy to fill out
The IRS is as toothless as a plate of Jello
There is a complete Laissez Faire free market
No Labor Unions
No Government involvement in Business, Health Care, Labor matters or pretty much anything else except national security.

So where is this mythical Tea-paradise?

Going Gandalf

I read an interesting article today Times. Apparently, there's so muttering of the wealthy and rich planning to go on strike (yes, yes. Bear with me. It is every bit as ridiculous and stupid as it sounds). In certain communities, it's called "Going Galt," after the designated hero in Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Now, I have my own opinions on Rand's work - being a socialist and all - that put me on the diametric opposite end of the scale. I've even taken a look at Rand's work before and dissected it, taking it apart, figuring out what made it tick (nothing) and then putting it back together again in a way that made much more sense.

So naturally, I felt the need to comment on this article as well.

Two Types of Consent

I've been all over this for the last few months since I started the blog, but as I look back, I realized that never once have I managed to make a coherent, solid argument for uplifting other than, "it's our moral imperative." While to some people, that's enough, but to others, it's not. Unlike a lot of other "debates" - climate change, evolution, a woman's right to control her own body - this is an actual debate, and one that deserves to be handled with respect for all sides involved. While uplifting isn't on the table yet, as our science advances, we'll see an increasing potential for humanity to make it so that we're not the only sapient species in the solar system anymore. I'm all for this. Let me lay out why, and then answer to the issues against it.

Ignatius Reilly Issues Notpology

I've been watching this unfold for the last few days, but I haven't had much time to comment on it. So now that I have some time, I'm definitely going to say something.

For those who aren't caught up, the last couple of weeks have been nothing short of an all-out attack on the rights of women to be human beings in the United States. The Right-Wing is bringing it hard and fast; one assault after another. You almost get the sense they know they're gonna get their shit trashed this coming election, so they're doing everything they can to leave a mark and failing. This panic has lead to some strange, circus-like situations over the last few years. The strangest of them all, perhaps, is the fact that Ignatius Reilly could somehow become respected among the Republican Party as one of the most speakers for the regressive, backwards, wrongheaded movement.

Well, the Democrats managed to get a young law school student named Sandra Fluke to testify before congress. While the Republicans, in typical form, tried to silence her, she still managed to get some important things said. This, together with a general empathy towards human begins and a belief that a woman should control her own body as opposed to the government controlling it, pretty much shoots down the clown posse that Issa had testify before congress on the BC issue (for the record; all of these clowns were men. Speaking about women's biology and bodies. And the Republicans gave it their best shot to block an expert, so to speak - that is, someone who knows what women go through by virtue of being one). So, naturally, Ignatius Reilly wasn't pleased and he made some typical remarks expressing his disgust and thereby making everyone sick:

Practical Nanotech

The other day, while surfing the internet at work (I was actually helping a student find sources; when doing so, I type in the first word that comes to my mind - or the second, if the first isn't appropriate. This just happened to be the first word, and is often my go-to example), I found this really neat web-page. It's called Nano & Me, and takes a look at the every day applications for nanotechnology. It's really cool. I've talked at length about nanotechnology before, but I've never broken it down into practical applications - which is what some people need in order to appreciate the full scale (pardon the pun) of nanotech. This website does a good job of doing just that; taking a look at the practical applications of nanotechnology in every day life. Below the fold are a few things that stand out to me from the website.

Human Black Box: Follow the Money (Part 3)

In the previous two installments, Anjali was given an assignment by ANTARES to hunt down information on a guy named "K-Wave." Along the way, she ran into an old friend, and found herself unraveling the interesting history of a man who vanished 5 years after the fall.

Today, Anjali comes a little closer to finding the truth - but still has a long way to go from understanding it.

Because Being Poor wasn't Humiliating Enough

The United States must have some kind of envy towards poor people. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but there's just something about being poor that means you become the envy of the middle class. Everyone goes out of their way to talk about multitude of different ways that they want to make your life miserable, and this fellow from The Daily Caller is no exception.

I'm not all that familiar with the Daily Caller, but because they let a publication like this on their webpage, I'm going to assume that they have a mild right-wing bias. Lately, it seems like we're seeing a furious attempt to reinstate the power of masculine authority - putting the father in the Fatherland, as it were. Attacks on POCs, attacks on trans and gays, attacks on women's rights, xenophobia, a strong nationalistic bend with a worship of men who were nothing like the people being worshiped, the merging of corporate interests and "heroic capitalism" with the "grassroots" movement... why, if I didn't know any better, I'd suggest that these folks were fascist. But they're not, clearly, because they say they're not. And that's all that matters, because you'll be damned before you can convince them that they're wrong about the historical truth about the positions that they hold.

I digress. This guy from the Daily Caller is a piece of work. He believes that poor people who have to survive on government assistance - who don't have it hard enough as is - should be punished even more. They should have a scarlet "P" stamped on their forehead. It's their fault for being Black Latino poor (don't you dare tell me that's what I'm thinking when I say "poor", you racist liberal). The Right has turned out a parade of monstrous, sociopathic clowns over the last 10 or so years - so much so that the Joker would feel right at home, if he hadn't made it clear that he was an "American villain" when he refused to join forces with the Red Skull. Brion McClanahan is little different, with the exception of the fact that he'd readily jump at a deal to work with the Red Skull.