Many, if not most, of you have probably heard about the Wisconsin tyrant that wants to end any collective bargaining in his state. He has admitted to wanting to change the course of history by destroying unions and their abilities to protect wages and jobs. But have you heard about a far worse man? One who wants to increase the deficit by taking money from seniors and giving it to corporations?


Gov. Snyder of Michigan is a very bad human being. He is an even worse American. He had his fingers crossed when he took the governors pledge to protect his citizens and uphold national and state laws.


Step one in his "budget" bill is to end tax breaks and benefits for low income and elderly people. He feels this could save approximately 1.7 billion dollars. He then intends to place this money directly into the tax breaks for businesses and corporations that will cost the state 1.8 billion dollars. Yes, you read that right. He is planning to increase the deficit in his state by forcing elderly and low income people to go hungry and lose what little they have to live on so that he can give unnecessary tax breaks to businesses. http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x1992210546/Gov-Snyder-asking-this-morning-for-1-2-billion-in-spending-cuts


Step two is to cut funding for schools. No real surprise there, republicans have come to despise schooling because it seems to make people less likely to be willing slaves to the two things they care about: religion and blind obedience.


Step three is to cut public employees, cut union membership and function, and to remove most businesses from even paying taxes.


The worst action, and the most unamerican, is a bill that passed allowing the governor or his staff to declare emergency management powers over cities and regions. What does it take to be considered in need of an emergency manager? Anything that the governor decides of course. I imagine that any township, city, or district that doesn't give full support to Snyder and his cronies will find themselves "managed."


What does this management consist of? Summarily dismissing or dissolving any contract or obligation of the area managed, dissolving school districts and/or incorporating them with others, and dissolving local governments and firing any elected official they choose and appointing someone to replace them. The state is expected to have quite a few issues with local insolvency, more so because he intends to cut taxes to those who need it least while increasing taxes on those who need money most. Now all of those pesky democrats and independents across the state can lose their jobs and positions and be replaced by good, loyal, republicans.http://www.freep.com/article/20110309/NEWS15/110309030/0/SPORTS05/Senate-votes-give-emergency-financial-managers-more-power?odyssey=nav|head




http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/
Watch the second segment from march 8, clip title Gop strategy: disaster capitalism.

All too often in this nation, when the terms Supreme Court and DNA come together, the story is about testing someones DNA against their will. DNA has become property of the state in many places, prosecutors being allowed to use it when and where they want while defendants are often blocked from using it in their own defense. This is incredibly bad for both liberty and justice. The prosecuting attorney should be fighting to place GUILTY people behind bars at all costs, not just someone convenient per crime.

Are most people that the law goes after guilty? Yes they generally are. Does this mean that we can assume a general burden of proof lies with the defense or that the state should receive special treatment? No we can't. At any point in a serious, especially death penalty, case, the prosecution should be vigourously pursuing ALL available resources to not only "seal the deal" on a defendant but to make damn sure that the defendant is the actual perpetrator. 

In this case, Henry skinner was on death row and was within an hour of death when the Supreme court stepped in to hear the case. I have very little doubt as to his guilt, as do most of the people that worked hard to solve the crime. Yet he was almost executed without the prosecution ever doing a DNA test on the evidence. Whether or not this man killed someone, how can the state not want to put this to rest?

Granted, it is in Texas and very little can get in the way of that states love affair with murdering inmates, but this is a serious issue of misconduct. Any prosecuting team or state legal department should have a first priority of fully processing evidence and ensuring that every available avenue of investigation has been explored. For a state to refuse to examine evidence, note that this isn't about "re-examining" because they never bothered even once, is tantamount to murder in capital cases. At the very least, I think that any prosecutor or states attorney that blocks a review of evidence or refuses to conduct methods of investigation like DNA should be brought up on charges of willful indifference to death should the person be executed. Perhaps then they might be a little more stringent during the course of their work and, most especially, when a persons life is on the line.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/07/us.scotus.death.penalty/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

Anti Smoking Laws

Responding to someone undeserving of responses

On Souls...

I'm not a fan of many revisits on the concept of soul. Too often people are working on their own preconceived or previously taught concept.

Each of us is unique, this is fact. Even identical twins, raised with the same family and pets and car wrecks, are different. This individuality cannot be questioned; too many variables exist in daily life, much less a monthly or yearly scale, to allow too much similarity.

Our brains configure and use such experiences to form the person that we become. The "branching tree" concept comes into play here. Take the twins for an example. Let us pretend that they are truly identical, in thought and form, and witness a person fall, one out of the corner of his eye and the other directly. There is now a branching of experience creating different perceptions that lead to different interpretations. Thus the individuality of people is easily demonstrated.

Too often the argument is that it isn't possible to have so many random variations; that some grand something must be somewhere doing some action or placing some object within us that controls some aspect of something else. Another common (in America at least) is that we cannot explain our affinity for music so there must be a soul that is designed to respond to this particular stimulus (also art, math, etc.). Bullshit.

Why say this in regards to a soul? Because these learned behaviours and differing perceptions create routes in the brain. These electrical routes determine the memory and type of memory. Without memory we are as nothing in a personal context. If a soul exists outside of these memories and connections, why would Alzheimers be possible? How could brain damage cause a lack of memory of self or change a person?

I remember years ago reading a study on a man in New York that was in a terrible accident. He was the most disgusting, foul, "evil" person you could imagine. I put that in quotation marks because evil is an entirely different subject. During this accident he suffered, rather severe, damage to his brain. When consciousness resumed he was an entirely different person. He lived the rest of his life as a caring, loving person who would be missed, prior to the accident no person would have missed him and most would have been relieved that knew him. To believe in the soul a person must ask themselves whether or not the soul was the person before or the person after the accident. Either his soul was a terrible vile thing or it was a caring and beautiful thing.

The simple and seemingly obvious fact is that our brain and it's "wiring" are the sole determinative concept in regards to self. This is it. There is no programming code (soul) that can override the loss of integral parts or reroute our personality around missing units. In a computer, you can take out ram chips and processors and simply reload the [previous "thing/personality/programming" of a computer. Humans are not like this. If you remove or damage the pieces that contain our memory, you remove us.

Spousal Abuse

So now there is woman and her four kids that will be occupying what little space exists in my small three bedroom apartment currently occupied by myself, my fiancée, and our two kids...

My friend entered into a relationship two years ago. Everyone was happy at first, but that soon changed. He cared very little for her three girls and enjoyed drugs and drinking far too much. Being that she had little self esteem and he is a good looking guy who payed attention to her, she made the mistake that far too many people do... namely she thought that he would change.

He did begin to change. He became controlling and lightly abusive. Soon he changed a little more an became more abusive. Then he convinced her that it was all her fault and that she needed to try "sharing" the things he enjoyed. Fortunately she didn't do drugs for long before realising that the situation was quickly becoming untenable.

At this point he did what most abusive and controlling people do when control is waning. He apologised and promised to change. Everything will be different, he promised.One night he moved her belongings out of her apartment and into a trailer on his parents property. He began convincing her, through his family members, that her friends were the ones causing trouble. We lost contact for a while.

Recently we began speaking again and the situation has deteriorated further. We had still had contact with her sporadically. When he tossed her against the trailer wall, she called. When he hit her, she called. When she tried to leave and get help from social services and abuse organisations, she called. Each of these times we tried to help, and each time he emotionally blackmailed her back. His parents also did this, by threatening to throw away every thing she owned and promising to make sure she was painted as the person at fault.

Each time the cops were called they did nothing along the lines of investigation, though they once asked the parents if the allegation were true. Each time the abusive twat got away with not so much as a warning. One cop intimated that she was hurting the child that she had with him by making these complaints.

Last night he, his foster sister, her boyfriend, and others were at a party in another town. His tires were slashed on his car, which he had left in this town. He immediately called the cops when he found out, which was around noon after the booze and drugs wore off and he came home. He immediately called the cops and reported that she had done it and he had witnesses. The witnesses are his foster sister and her boyfriend, both of whom were drunk and stoned with him all night.

Now the real kicker:
The cops decided that the allegation of slashed tires, witnessed by people who were in a different town, constituted FELONY spousal abuse. Yes she was charged with a felony.

So now I have a family of five living with my family of four in a three bedroom apartment. All because the cops here think that hitting a woman, and verbally and physically abusing kids, is not worth investigating but a woman that is accused of slashing a tire is a criminal worth throwing the book at.

Trolls

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
--In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or --off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, --chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a --desired emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic --discussion.
--A concern troll is a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of --view is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold. The concern troll posts --in web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the --group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with --professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the --group.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll
--1b. Noun
--A person who, on a message forum of some type, attacks and flames other members --of the forum for any of a number of reasons such as rank, previous disagreements, --sex, status, ect.
--A troll usually flames threads without staying on topic, unlike a "Flamer" who --flames a thread because he/she disagrees with the content of the thread.

Other troll activities are frequent erasing of posts, "offence" trolling (claiming offence for others or topics for no reason other than causing disruption), and claiming to be the aggrieved party when in fact they were the very cause of their own being considered a troll.
Offence trolls often make their grand displays of being offended on behalf of other people or groups, generally ignoring any behaviour exhibited by those people or groups that is as bad or worse than those whom they take offence to. Quite often, they then turn around and claim to be misunderstood or "only" trying to rectify some wrong.
Very often, a user will set up a troll acct in order to have someone to be offended on behalf of. This person makes off-topic, rude, demeaning, and nonsense posts as a form of catharsis or simply to "let their hair down." This generally leads to the troll acct being insulted or people calling for others to not feed the troll which allows the other acct to step in and protest the terrible actions of others. I tend to agree with some that the troll acct shows signs of mental illness, but whether or not it has one is not something that is able to be diagnosed and people shouldn't have to post on eggshells "just in case."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twat
--Although sometimes used as a reference to the female genitalia, the word twat is --more often used in various other ways:
-- * As a derogatory insult, a pejorative meaning a fool, synonymous with the word --twit - 'You are a real twat and a half' (often used in the UK)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twat
--1) A derogatory term for a person whose behaviour is considered to be extremely --or intolerably ignorant, obnoxious, offensive or moronic.
--1.A vagina
--2.A cretinous person
--3.To strike someone(this definition is almost certainly of Northern English --origin)

I like the word twat when dealing with misogynists. It works well because it not only means "fool" or "moron," but comparing a misogynist to any aspect of a woman is generally a good way to make them shut up and/or provide further evidence of their bigotry.
Just because YOU only use a word for it's most negative aspect, does not mean that everyone else does. Getting your own mind out of the gutter is a good place to start learning how to use language effectively and to recognise that your own base word usage is quite likely not what others intended.


I say this all because it is germane elsewhere at the moment. Two days ago I called someone a troll and a twat for some very demeaning and misogynistic statements, statements in a VERY long line of them I might add. This called another troll onto me and I've been undergoing constant trolling at the website since.
The frustrating part really comes about when others come in late to an argument or instance of trolling, after 20+ of the troll posts have been deleted by the troll, and then suggest that I have no right to defend myself or even blame me. This particular troll has done this for months.
Not long ago this trolls trick was swearing at someone, deleting the post, and then quoting the post as if I were the one that did the swearing. Everyone remembers seeing the notification and the words, but since it was deleted everyone simply assumes that the lying troll wasn't lying about who said it.
Then there was the ploy where he would post, delete the post, and then scream that I had deleted his posts.
Then there was the time that he was so vulgar and out of line that the site moderators felt the need to send him a warning message. The blame is still put on to others of course, even to the point of claiming that I had also been warned when I hadn't.

The best advice against trolls is ALWAYS to ignore them, but at times that means every post or reply you make will be followed by the troll and it is just easier to quit altogether. For this I suggest taking a break from the site in question. Sadly, most will take this as a sign that the troll was correct, but in the long run it won't matter.

It is always VERY nice to see that at least one person recognises what is going on AND says so.