clair070

I agree 100% with Booman: So, on the one hand, the distrust of standing armies and of an overarching federal power led to the adoption of the Second Amendment, and state militias would be remain under state control as much as possible during a federal muster. On the other hand, to make this practicable, the Congress soon concluded that every man must own a firearm. The Second Amendment only restricted what the federal legislature could prohibit, but the Militia Acts applied to the states and their citizens. Now, consider that we have had a National Guard since 1903 and a standing army for much longer than that. I’ve never met anyone who wouldn’t move from one state to another because they didn’t want to live under a foreign religion. We haven’t had a draft since the 1970’s, and the idea that the federal government could compel you to buy a firearm seems tyrannical to every American citizen. If the government does compel us to serve, we expect them to pay for our equipment....

I've looked a little bit into the "flat earth" theory. It's incredibly stupid-- it's the worst sort of conspiracy theorizing that makes conspiracy theories look bad. It's way more stupid than the 9/11 vicsims stuff. I find nothing compelling at all about the flat earth theory. It takes an incredibly misinformed idea to start with and builds and an incredibly elaborate scenario around it that doesn't make any sense at all. There's no explanatory power at all to the theory. This conspiracy theory may be fun to consider, but ultimately it raises more questions than it answers. Any decent theory should explain an unsolved question in a logical manner, and not invent a massive scenario that completely alters our known reality. The more you can stay within logic and science, the more likely your theory will be correct and be taken seriously. I grant that to some extent this is in the eye of the beholder and one could say this about some of the ideas I'v...

the terrible damage they are doing to the planet's climate by not taking the threat seriously. A study recently published in the journal Nature brings grim news: anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) has officially ended the era of stable climate that has made possible the development of modern civilization. The world we live in today, based on industrial-scale agriculture capable of feeding billions of people and sustaining these vast numbers of humans, is only possible within a stable climate paradigm. The recent study, "Reconciling divergent trends and millennial variations in Holocene temperatures," underscores this by showing that temperatures across North America and Europe have reached levels that are unprecedented over the last 11,000 years. (snip) The study also found that if the planet had not already been in the midst of a natural cooling phase when humans began warming it with our emissions, Earth's atmosphere would be nearly an additional 1°F warmer now ...

Still just so depressing this guy is our president: Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation? Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions! It's hard to know what is more prominent here-- Trump's stupidity or his dishonesty. Does he know the answer and is just lying? Or he just has no clue? Does Donald actually know that he’s president and has whole agencies that investigate these things and can give him answers??? But to address Trump's questions: 1) Obama did enact sanctions against Russia for meddling in the election, while he was still president 2) Obama wanted to make a public statement about the meddling and met with GOP leaders-- Mitch McConnell refused to present it to the public and said he would make it a partisan issue if Obama went public 3) Russia responded to Obama's san...

"From the point of view of U.S. power, (Trump) is harming it, but from the point of view of U.S. elites, he's giving them everything they want," Chomsky said, describing the current administration as a "two-level wrecking ball." The political activist and cognitive scientist went on to describe the incumbent U.S. president as a "con man." "Everyday there's one insane thing after the other... and while this show is going on in public, in the background, the wrecking crew is working. "What they're doing is systematically dismantling every aspect of government that works for the benefit of the population. This goes from workers' rights to pollution of the environment, rules for protecting consumers, anything you can think of is being dismantled."* Chomsky reasoned that the ultra-wealthy, Wall Street and the constituents of those in power couldn't be more pleased with efforts made to increase their fortunes. "That's...

Or not... but this is a nice review of what exactly socialism is:

Syria was already hell, and now it is even worse. Tensions across northern Syria are escalating sharply amid a series of clashes between external and internal powers, including Israel, Iran, Turkey, Russia and the Syrian government. On Saturday, Israel shot down what it says was an Iranian drone that had entered Israel’s airspace after being launched in Syria. Israel then mounted an attack on an Iranian command center in Syria, from where the drone was launched. One of the Israeli F-16 military jets was then downed by a Syrian government anti-aircraft missile. Meanwhile, also in northern Syria on Saturday, a Turkish Army helicopter was shot down by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters near the Syrian Kurdish city of Afrin, where Turkey has launched a bombing and ground offensive. All this comes as the United Nations is warning of soaring levels of civilian casualties in Syria. And the US has at least 2,000 troops in Syria as well. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to sta...

Eugene Robinson lays out the big Trump lie: The Trump administration is an aberration, an outrage, a threat to the nation’s very soul. But most of all, it’s a great big fraud. Voters who thought President Trump would at least try to fulfill his populist, America-first campaign promises were cynically and cruelly deceived. Trump placates these supporters with rhetoric, distracts them with cultural warfare and encourages them to seek refuge in cultural chauvinism. What he doesn’t do for them is deliver. (snip) Remember how the president promised a $1 trillion program to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges, airports and railroads? Well, he claims to be doing even more — $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending over the next decade. But the promise comes with little or no new federal money, which means it barely qualifies as an idle wish. Trump says he wants to spend just $200 billion over 10 years on infrastructure, with cities and states providing the rest. But mayors and governors don’...

I watched this movie that I mentioned in my previous post . It was actually really good--- very well done and the overwhelming feeling I got is that Huggins would not be painting these paintings unless something very real happened to him. The paintings as a whole, are incredible, and just speak to something very real, even if they are the most wild thing imaginable. Here are some screenshots from the movie, showing more of his paintings.

Awesome story here. There's also a recent movie made about him. It might be just laughed off if not for his hundreds of detailed paintings depicting alien sexual coupling and hybrid babies and other wild stuff. A lot more of the paintings can be seen on google.

Second Trump-Russia dossier being assessed by FBI: memo written by former journalist Cody Shearer independently finds some of the allegations made by ex-spy Christopher Steele in his dossier. Is Carter Page a double agent for the US and Russia? A fairly compelling argument made in this twitter thread. Would explain why he was being surveilled and his odd behavior... and he may have some "interesting" info from being on the Trump campaign.

Trump’s ‘marching orders’ to the Pentagon:  Plan a grand military parade   So fucking pathetic-- how small is his dick, anyway?