Obama

O for Obama whom we'd like to have back.
He was never a laughing stock.

The Children Will Pay

You can think of the photo as a metaphor.

So far, in talking about Trump I have focused on the overt racism (and sexism!) his campaign and presidency represent. This is like a piece of cheese covered in mold, and I mean covered. Something that looks like a chunk of green and white fuzz rather, and you only know that there was cheese there because of the packaging. It's disgusting and vile and you probably don't want to smell it, much less take a bite of it. However, it's possible that you could be tempted to want to try to cut the mold off to get down to the good cheese, and, based on the number of people who voted for Trump, a lot of you out there think the overt racism (and sexism!) is just some surface thing that can be cut away.

What I'm saying is that the surface mold was more than reason enough to throw away that (previously) orange piece of cheese. But, you know, since we didn't do that, let's look at what's under that horrible growth of mold.

Actually, wait a minute, let's stop and look at that mold again for just a moment:

Because it's not us, the adults, who will pay for the fungal racist bloom growing in America right now. It will be our children and our children's children. They will be the ones who will have to spend decades repairing the damage to race relations after a Trump presidency.

But that, at least, will be repairable. As bad as that could be, it will be repairable.

There are other things that are not repairable that we may be consigning our children and their children and their children to live with forever. And let's just skip the potential for nuclear war that's wrapped up in Trump's tiny little tyrannosaurus hands (along with his tiny little dinosaur brain).

As bad as everything else will be with Trump as President (and you're living with your head up your ass if you don't believe it will be bad) -- it's going to be a disaster, worst deal ever -- the absolute worst thing is going to be what Trump does to the environment.

And I get that a lot of you out there don't believe the science, don't believe the world isn't flat, but what the data shows is beyond scary. 2016 is the hottest year on record in something like 130 years of record keeping, and that's following nine other hottest years on record in the last 15 or 20 years. The science says we're at a tipping point, and Trump and his new buddy Scott Pruitt are going to do everything they can to push us over the edge. Or, to put it more directly, they are going to do everything they can to keep the people holding us back from a whole Earth climate disaster from being able to do that anymore.

This is what is reprehensible:
Trump, and others like him, have no vision and no long term plan. Their only concern is how much money they can make NOW, and the way to do that is to rape the Earth. Destroying the environment for profit has been the way of man for a long time, now, but we are at the end of what we can destroy and still retain the world as it is. Men like Trump and Pruitt DO NOT CARE. They don't care if what they leave behind is a desiccated husk as long as they get what they want.

And, sure, maybe Trump really just doesn't believe in climate change; maybe, he really does believe it's a Chinese hoax, but that just makes him a special kind of stupid, and we shouldn't have someone like that running the country.

Honestly, I don't care what you think about anything else about Trump: If you can't see and understand this threat that Trump represents then you, also, only care about your own immediate self-gratification without regard for the damage that you're doing (listening to Trump voters, I think this represents the vast majority of them) or you, also, are a dumbass who doesn't believe in science and should go back to living in a cave and hunting your food with a pointy stick. Or you could be some combination of the two.

Seriously, there are SO MANY individual reasons that should have been enough for people to avoid Trump like the moldy cheeseball that he is, but this, what he will allow to be done to the environment, is the greatest. This is the one that we won't be able to come back from. Trump voters, you've all just driven us off the edge of a cliff. I hope you're satisfied with yourselves.

What's the Point of the Electoral College?

There's been a lot on about the Electoral College, lately. What is it even for, right? I mean, why don't we just elect our President directly? One vote is one vote and all of that. People usually default into thinking that it's about State representation because it uses the same kind of system as the House of Representatives, but that's not it.

The conflict was over whether there should be a popular vote at all. Some wanted the President to be chosen by popular vote of the masses while others wanted the choice for President to be handled by Congress. The obvious issue with the President being chosen by Congress is that it could lead to the President just being a puppet for Congress, negating the whole checks and balances of the Executive branch from the system all together.

So what was the problem with the President being chosen by a general election of the people? Well, the possibility of a Trump being elected was the problem.

Basically, many of the Founding Fathers didn't trust the general population to make the best decisions; after all, the vast majority of them were uneducated to the point of not being able to read and write. They were concerned that the "people" could be taken in by someone with the "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity," someone who was ultimately unqualified for the job but, for whatever reason, popular with the people. The Electoral College was created as a buffer between the "will of the people" and Congress.

The general election, then, was done to produce a pool of candidates for the Electoral College to look at, and the task of the Electoral College was to independently choose the best person for President from the pool of candidates. Basically. The main thing, though, was that the Electoral College was there to make sure that someone qualified got the job, not just someone who was popular.

To state it plainly:
The purpose of the Electoral College, as the Founding Fathers saw it, was to prevent people like Trump from becoming President. Period.

Of course, then parties developed, which complicated everything, and, because each State was given the power to choose its electors, etc, we have ended up where we are now, a system which undermines the purpose of the Electoral College. A system which, because the electors are no longer allowed to deliberate and choose the candidate they feel best suited for the job, has, ironically, given us the one thing the Electoral College was designed to prevent: a Trump.

So... do I think the Electoral College should "rebel" and not support Trump for President? Well, yes, if we are going to have an Electoral College, I feel that they should do exactly that. They should fulfill their function and act as a buffer between the "will of the people" and the most powerful office in the United States. They should look at the potential candidates (that used to be the top five vote getters; I'm assuming it still is, but that may not be true anymore) and choose the person most qualified to assume the role of President of the United States.

If they are not going to do that, if they are not going to serve the purpose for which they were created, we should abolish the Electoral College, because they have no point and, in this instance, have wrecked the country by both ignoring the will of the people and delivering to us the most unqualified person in history as the President. Yes, I'm saying "in history," and you can take that however you will, but I'll stand by it. You will be hard pressed to find someone more unqualified. My cat is more qualified, and he's a certified asshole.

I'm sure some of you are wondering if I understand the ramifications of what I'm saying here. Yes, I do. Yes, I realize that if the Electoral College was to actually not confirm Trump as President that it could lead to violence. However, I also believe that any violence that would take place because of that will be far less than what results from a Trump presidency.

And, sometimes, you just have to stand up for what's right. Actually, that should be always, but there are moments when it is especially called for, and this is one of them.
(And it shouldn't go to Pence, either, because he's possibly worse than Trump.)

The Problem of Non-concession

I grew up not thinking much of George Washington. Of the founding fathers, I felt like he was by far the most overrated. Sure, he was the leader of the revolutionary army, but he was bad at it. It seemed to me that what he was best at, the place he really excelled, was losing battles. Of course, that's from the perspective of a teenager who evaluates everything based on whom is winning or losing. And, sure, Washington "won" the war, but that was hardly his doing considering the long list of defeats he suffered. Winning by luck isn't really winning; it's just not losing.

Needless to say, my younger view of Washington was overly simplistic at best, and I have since come to appreciate the man. For one thing, Washington knew his own limitations and, because of that, surrounded himself with people who were, basically, smarter than him and on whom he could rely to make decisions. And I think he must have been one of the most charismatic men to ever walk the planet based upon what he was able to inspire men to do.

But none of that is important. All of the important things about Washington boil down to two things:
1. He freed his slaves. Yes, he waited until his death to do it, but, still, he did it. Of the founding fathers who owned slaves, the ones everyone knows about, at any rate, he was the only one to make that gesture. He didn't like slavery; he just couldn't figure out a way to deal with the issue during the founding of the nation.
2. He stepped down as President after two terms.
If for nothing else, Washington is one of the most important men in modern history (or all of history) for that one simple thing: He stepped down!

Let me make something clear, here: This stepping down that Washington did; it had never been done before. Ever. There was no precedent. Period. Men with power did not give it up, not voluntarily. And, yet, Washington, being invested in the viability of the nation he had helped to create, and wanting to set an example of a peaceful transfer of power, chose to not run for a third term as President of the United States.

Sure, you can say that it was because he never wanted to be President anyway, because he didn't, but President was better than King, which is what everyone wanted to make him. They also wanted to call him things like "your majesty," but he worked it down to "Mr. President." In truth, the reasons don't matter. All that matters is that he DID. He did this one thing that changed the world.

Because it did change the world.

It created the precedent that in the United States we could, and we would, have a peaceful transference of power and abide by the will of the people in regards to whom is elected.There has not ever been a President who did not step down if he lost the election.

By extension, we have never had a candidate who did not concede if he lost the election.

Some people seem to be wondering why it matters that Trump won't say that he will concede if he doesn't win. They don't think it matters, evidently. But... And this is a huge BUT!
Do you think that if he's not willing to concede the election if he loses that, if he were to win, that he would willingly step out of power when his term is over? His particular brand of powermongering is dangerous, and it goes against everything, everything, that the United States has been built around.

Even if I agreed with Trump and his ideas, this one thing would be enough to stop me from voting for him. He's too much like watching Palpatine take control of the Senate in the prequels and, well, I'm not into the idea of an Emperor Trump. Or an Emperor anyone.

Flat Earther for President

We have this common misconception that before Columbus everyone believed the Earth is flat. It makes perfect sense that we believe this false thing since it's generally presented that way in school. Hey, it makes for a good story!

"The intrepid explorer, Christopher Columbus, despite warnings that the world was flat, set out in his ships to prove everyone wrong by going around the Earth to establish new trade routes! He faced constant threat of mutiny as all of his crew feared they were going to go over the edge of the world! But he persevered and finally landed in a brand, new world!"

Something like that, anyway.

The truth is, though, that educated people didn't believe that. The Greeks figured out that the world was round well over 1500 years before Columbus stepped foot on a ship. It had been accepted knowledge for a long, long time before the Middle Ages began. Accepted by the educated, that is. The "common" people were a different story.

There were exceptions. Every so often, someone (educated) would come along, usually on religious grounds of some sort, and declare that the Earth was flat. Anyone could look around and see that that was true. Plus, you know, "The Bible!" No one should listen to "science"!

It made sense to the uneducated masses. Sure, look around, because anyone can clearly see that the Earth is flat and all this "science" talk of a spherical planet is part of some rigged system trying to take advantage us!

The truth was that the common people, being uneducated, couldn't understand the science. It took explorers going out and sailing around the world, all the way around the world, before the idea of a flat Earth became a thing of the past.

Mostly a thing of the past, since there is still a Flat Earth Society with people in it who cling to this idea that the science is a fraud and the Earth is actually flat. Or that the science is just wrong, or the scientists just aren't smart enough to decipher the information correctly. Obviously, the Earth is still as flat today as it ever was.

The rest of us, though, don't give these people much credence. It's an idea that doesn't deserve much more than an eye roll and a "Oh, you're one of those people" responses. Because, you know, there's more than just science to back up the fact that the Earth is a sphere. People have been up there and out there and seen it.

Can you imagine if a Flat Earther ran for President?

I can, because we have that going on right now.

We have the science that shows that man-induced climate change is happening. Educated people who understand the science virtually all agree that this is what is happening. The problem we're having with that is people looking around, much as the uneducated masses did during the Middle Ages, and not seeing the curve of the Earth. Or the larger picture. Whatever.

They're seeing things like what I saw posted on Facebook recently, "What climate change? It's 51 here in [place withheld]!" They're seeing the arctic vortexes and, well, whatever it is they're seeing is not the pattern. They're still grasping onto "global warming" and allowing harsh winters to mask "climate change."

And, then, we have someone like Donald Trump come along and say things like, "There is no drought in California." He's the religious nut (not that he's religious) from the Middle Ages coming along and saying, "The Earth is flat!" He doesn't know or understand the science, and he doesn't want to. It wouldn't actually surprise me if the next "wacky" thing to come out of his mouth was actually, "The world is flat!" It would fit right in with his statements that climate change is a hoax and that the science is bullshit.

The sad part is that I'm not sure if he did come out and say that the Earth is flat if that would dissuade his supporters.

Growing Up In the Race Divide (part 8)

One thing I've come to know is that you can't say you're from the South without automatically being linked to racism. It's a thing I hate, and it's, unfortunately, a thing that is almost completely legitimate. And it's not just racism, it's like all the "-ism"s. Or "-ist"s. And I don't want to switch this topic to sexual orientation, but I just want to point out that virtually all of the places that are acting like petulant children in regards to marriage equality are in the South.

Before I get to the issue of the Confederate flag, let's talk about why we're even talking about the Confederate flag: Dylann Roof.

Generally, I would not be one to talk about someone who has not been convicted of a crime as if he is guilty of the crime, but I think it's pretty safe to say that Roof is guilty of the nine murders at the church in Charleston, South Carolina. Actually, it's not even Roof I want to talk about. Roof stated quite plainly that he wanted to kill some black people, that he felt like it was up to him to do something about "it," whatever "it" was, and he went and did that. Even if they were so nice and welcoming to him that he almost changed his mind.

That Roof is a white supremacist and racist isn't in question.

What is in question is the racist tendencies of many people (Republican Presidential candidates) who responded to the attack by trying to call it something than what it actually was (a racially motivated mass shooting). So let's look at that:

Rick Perry, former governor of Texas and a Republican, called the shootings an "accident" and blamed the incident on drugs.

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and a Republican, basically blamed the victims and said the incident could have been prevented if only they had been armed. Because, yes, the answer is always more guns.

Rick Santorum, another Republican presidential hopeful, called the attack an attack against freedom of religion and Christianity and not motivated by anything to do with race. He's not the only conservative to espouse this view and to call for more pastors to arm themselves for the coming war against religious freedom.

Rand Paul, another Republican hoping to become President, also blames religion, but he blames it on a lack of religion. If only we, as a nation, weren't so heathen and doing things like having children out of wedlock, then poor Roof wouldn't have done what he did. He fails to mention racial issues at all and conveniently overlooks that it's in religion and church that we retain the greatest segregation in America. In other words, churches are the greatest breeding places of racial hatred in the US.

Lindsey Graham, another Republican presidential hopeful (does this sound familiar yet?), seemed to echo Santorum's theory by saying that Roof was just out to kill Christians. It was just coincidence that he happened to kill black ones. [BULLSHIT]

I could go on but, really, what's the point? It's all more of the same and all Republicans trying to divert the issue.
Why?
That's actually a good question that boils down to only one real answer: They are okay with the status quo.

Now, there could be any number of reasons they're okay with the status quo. For instance, maybe they think racism is too big of an issue, too hard to deal with, and, so, they would rather pretend that everything is okay than to look at the issue. Looking at the issue means you have to do something about it. Or, maybe, they're okay with it for no better reason than that they are okay with it. As in, nothing needs to be better because there shouldn't be racial equality to begin with.

I don't know these guys personally, so I'm not going to try to guess. However, when someone is running a white supremacist website, professes a dislike for black people, and states his intent to kill some, then, when he does that, it's almost certainly (you know, like 99.99%) a racially motivated crime. Occam's Razor and all of that. To try and change the dialogue afterward is, at best, irresponsible.

All of which brings us to the issue of the Confederate flag.

Look, I am all for the 1st Amendment. Seriously. I will defend your right to be a racist asshole and spew racist assholery as quickly as I will defend my right to call you a racist asshole for saying racist assholery, that includes your right to have your own Confederate flag on your own property. However, I cannot be behind a state government being allowed to fly a symbol of racist assholery over a state capitol building. There is no "heritage" that excuses the government for making any kind of statement that supports racial hatred, and, I'm sorry, but the Confederate flag is a symbol of racial hatred. Just ask the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, who use the Confederate flag as their symbol because Nazi symbology is illegal.

Somewhere in my schooling, I picked up that the Confederate flag is a bad thing. Being schooled in the South, I'm not quite sure where I picked that up. It certainly wasn't a thing they tried to teach us. If it was, the Confederate flag wouldn't be so prevalent. And, yes, I did grow up watching The Dukes of Hazard, but that's as close as I got to any ties to that flag (and I'm sorry John Schneider -- I know it cuts into your income stream -- but I agree with the pulling of your show from TV).

One of my cousins (on my dad's side) and I, during high school, had frequent arguments about the Civil War. He hated Lincoln and the "war of Northern aggression." That's what he always called it and tried to make it about "states' rights," but the only "right" that was in question was the "right" to have slaves. Point being? We went to school in the same city and we both came through it with radically divergent views.

It's time to move past the Confederate flag. Or, to put it another way, it's time to lay the Confederate flag to rest. It's time for the government, including each individual state government, to get behind "all men are created equal." We can never expect the citizens to start believing in that while the leaders are still claiming racial hatred, through flying the Confederate flag, as a "heritage."

A Failure in Irony

I've been getting these phone calls, lately, from "Geek Support Live." On the one hand, I want to applaud these people for their innovation, but the other hand wants to slap them. See, these are scam phone calls from India. I think it's an actual company. They call and tell you your computer has a security issue and if you will just follow their instructions, they will fix it for you. Of course, "Geek Support" is close enough to "Geek Squad" to make people consider what they're saying, but they also imply that they're from Microsoft.

I treat the calls like I often do with telemarketing calls, meaning I engage with them. Well, not always, but often enough. I find it amusing. Yes, I know I'm obnoxious, but getting telemarketing calls at 8:00 and 9:00pm is also obnoxious. So... anyway...

The first couple of times I got these calls from Geek Support Live, I asked all kinds of questions the guy couldn't answer but would always respond with, "It doesn't matter." Questions like
"What version of Windows am I running?"
"What kind of security issue am I having?"
"Who is it you're trying to call?"
Now, this third question was interesting, because, the first time I asked it, the guy responded with that "it doesn't matter" response. Basically, "you could be anyone with a computer." heh
Now, the second time I got one of those calls, the answer was disturbing, because they actually gave me a name; it was one of the wrong number names we frequently get to our phone number, but it showed more of a targeted call rather than random phone numbers.

Some other time, I told the caller that I didn't have a PC but a Mac; he immediately switched scripts and started telling me he could help me anyway.

I hadn't actually had anymore calls from them in a while until just the past couple of weeks. Frequently, I joke to my wife about the stupid calls like that that we get so, when I got the first new call, I mentioned it to her. She said, "It would be funny if the next time they call you tell them that you are from Geek Support Live and their computer is having an issue." I agreed. That would be terribly funny.

And it was terribly funny.

When I got the call today, as soon as the guy told me he was from Geek Support Live and that my computer was having a security issue, I said, "No, I'm from Geek Support Live, and your computer is having a security issue." At first, he didn't understand and tried to correct me, "No, I'm from Geek Support Live...," to which I replied, "No, I'm from Geek Support. My computer is telling me that your computer has a virus."
"No, my computer is okay."
"That's not what my computer is telling me."
"You're computer says my computer has a virus?"
"Yes, that what it says."
Of course, the actual conversation was quite a bit longer than that, but, somewhere in there, the Indian guy from Geek Support started laughing. He kept trying to cover it up, but I could hear him. I managed to keep a straight face, so to speak, throughout the call.

A little while later, they called back. It sounded like the same guy, but it may have just been the accent. We had a very similar start to the conversation until the guy said to me, "You must have a super computer."
I just went with it, "I do. I do have a super computer."
"You must, because you'd have to have a super computer to be able to tell you that my computer has a virus."
And that's where I almost laughed, because he failed to get the irony in what he was saying. I was supposed to believe that he, with his normal computer, could tell that my computer was infected, but I would need a super computer to tell the same thing of his. It was quite amusing.
Then he asked me if I was with Obama, because I would have to be with Obama (like be standing right there next to the President) to have access to a computer like that. But I still managed to keep a straight face.

The whole thing was very satisfying. And, no, I have no analogy or anything for this. It's just a page out of my life. You should have seen the looks my kids gave me every time I was having one of those conversations.

Oh, later, another guy from Geek Support called; it was definitely a different guy. He got offended when I told him that I was from Geek Support, too, then tried to tell me that the other two calls I had earlier in the day had not, in fact, been from Geek Support. Those guys were impostors. He even very helpfully offered to connect me to the Better Business Bureau so that I could confirm with them that he and only he was really from Geek Support Live.

I'm kind of looking forward to the next time they call.
Is that bad?