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Voltaire2
Voltaire2's Journal
Voltaire2's Journal
December 6, 2018
The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends.
No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this.
The God Letter. 1954.
Einstein's last words on gods.
The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends.
No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this.
The God Letter. 1954.
November 27, 2018
The technical legal term for Mannafort's situation
is “totally and irrevocably fucked”.
November 23, 2018
Specifically, during the first 100 days, Congress must pass a legislative agenda that includes:
Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing it to median wage growth thereafter.
A path toward Medicare-for-all. The Medicare-for-all bill widely supported in the Senate has a four-year phase-in period on the way to guaranteeing health care for every man, woman and child. Over the first year, it would lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55, cover dental, hearing and vision care for seniors, provide health care to every young person in the United States and lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Bold action to combat climate change.
Fixing our broken criminal-justice system.
Comprehensive immigration reform
Progressive tax reform
A $1 trillion infrastructure plan
Lowering the price of prescription drugs.
Making public colleges and universities tuition-free and substantially reducing student debt.
Expanding Social Security.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-need-a-bold-agenda-heres-what-they-should-do-in-the-first-100-days-of-congress/2018/11/21/dc80ddd6-ed07-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html
Democrats need a bold agenda. Here's what they should do in the first 100 days of Congress.
Specifically, during the first 100 days, Congress must pass a legislative agenda that includes:
Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing it to median wage growth thereafter.
A path toward Medicare-for-all. The Medicare-for-all bill widely supported in the Senate has a four-year phase-in period on the way to guaranteeing health care for every man, woman and child. Over the first year, it would lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55, cover dental, hearing and vision care for seniors, provide health care to every young person in the United States and lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Bold action to combat climate change.
Fixing our broken criminal-justice system.
Comprehensive immigration reform
Progressive tax reform
A $1 trillion infrastructure plan
Lowering the price of prescription drugs.
Making public colleges and universities tuition-free and substantially reducing student debt.
Expanding Social Security.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-need-a-bold-agenda-heres-what-they-should-do-in-the-first-100-days-of-congress/2018/11/21/dc80ddd6-ed07-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html
November 13, 2018
Do zombies have free will?
The literature for the philosophy of the mind is full of thought experiments involving zombies. These are not Walking Dead zombies, they are instead just like you and me with the one exception that they have no conscious experiences. In all other respects they are fully human.
Note that their unconscious or subconscious mind is fully functional and they are just as intelligent as we are.
There just isn’t a chattering monkeybrain in there “experiencing” existence.
They make choices. They go to Starbucks and order chai lattes.
Do they have free will?
November 11, 2018
President Dipshit.
What sort of person can’t bother to attend the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI because it was drizzling?
A fucking dipshit.
That’s our president.
November 10, 2018
Over the last four years, Republicans ruled Maine through control of its state Senate and governor, Paul LePage, who has described his style as “Trump before there was Trump.” Conflicts with the Democrat-controlled House and attorney general led to lawsuits flying nearly every month and, eventually, a government shutdown when there was no budget — all amid LePage’s stream of provocative name-calling that garnered national headlines.
But on Tuesday, in the greatest shift in partisan makeup of a state government in the United States this year, voters chose Democrat Janet Mills to replace a term-limited LePage and gave her party control of both chambers.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/09/after-years-lepage-maine-went-very-blue-tuesday/5QhkH7mUFE2pcMoYKQocIN/story.html
No blue wave?
After years of LePage, Maine went very blue Tuesday
Over the last four years, Republicans ruled Maine through control of its state Senate and governor, Paul LePage, who has described his style as “Trump before there was Trump.” Conflicts with the Democrat-controlled House and attorney general led to lawsuits flying nearly every month and, eventually, a government shutdown when there was no budget — all amid LePage’s stream of provocative name-calling that garnered national headlines.
But on Tuesday, in the greatest shift in partisan makeup of a state government in the United States this year, voters chose Democrat Janet Mills to replace a term-limited LePage and gave her party control of both chambers.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/09/after-years-lepage-maine-went-very-blue-tuesday/5QhkH7mUFE2pcMoYKQocIN/story.html
No blue wave?
October 20, 2018
A contest over the future of Christianity in Ukraine goes to the heart of Moscow's ambitions.
CHRISTOPHER STROOP SEPTEMBER 10, 2018
On Aug. 27, one of the strangest targets yet of Russian hacking was revealed, when The Associated Press broke the news that Fancy Bear—the group infamously entangled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election hacks—had also targeted the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Bearded clerics might seem like an odd choice for a group that usually goes after liberal politicians or Russian dissidents. Unknown to most Westerners, though, a global struggle is playing out within the politics of Eastern Orthodoxy, which commands about 300 million believers worldwide. That struggle pits the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church against Constantinople and its apparent support for an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
With its claim to 150 million members, the Russian Orthodox Church is by far the largest of the 14 mutually recognized Orthodox churches, and its leadership is highly conscious of the church’s imperial past and the fact that it is the only Orthodox church backed by considerable state power today.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/10/putin-wants-god-or-at-least-the-church-on-his-side/
Putin Wants God (or at Least the Church) on His Side
A contest over the future of Christianity in Ukraine goes to the heart of Moscow's ambitions.
CHRISTOPHER STROOP SEPTEMBER 10, 2018
On Aug. 27, one of the strangest targets yet of Russian hacking was revealed, when The Associated Press broke the news that Fancy Bear—the group infamously entangled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election hacks—had also targeted the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Bearded clerics might seem like an odd choice for a group that usually goes after liberal politicians or Russian dissidents. Unknown to most Westerners, though, a global struggle is playing out within the politics of Eastern Orthodoxy, which commands about 300 million believers worldwide. That struggle pits the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church against Constantinople and its apparent support for an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
With its claim to 150 million members, the Russian Orthodox Church is by far the largest of the 14 mutually recognized Orthodox churches, and its leadership is highly conscious of the church’s imperial past and the fact that it is the only Orthodox church backed by considerable state power today.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/10/putin-wants-god-or-at-least-the-church-on-his-side/
October 9, 2018
Thinking back to my radical late 60s - 70s youth.
My wildest theories about the vile agenda of the ruling elites were way off base.
I could not imagine, back then, the capacity for evil, the callous indifference to the future of our country, the fate of all of humanity. Truly I was young and foolish.
September 27, 2018
Poll: 48% of white evangelicals would support Kavanaugh even if the allegations against him were true
A Marist poll illustrates how white evangelical culture minimizes the seriousness of assault.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17910016/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-white-evangelicals-poll-support
I’m surprised it isn’t higher.
48% of white evangelicals would support Kavanaugh
Poll: 48% of white evangelicals would support Kavanaugh even if the allegations against him were true
A Marist poll illustrates how white evangelical culture minimizes the seriousness of assault.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17910016/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-white-evangelicals-poll-support
I’m surprised it isn’t higher.
September 24, 2018
Al Franken.
I liked Al. I was truly sorry he had to resign. But he had to resign. If our party had given him a pass we would have no moral authority in the Kavanaugh scandal.
We threw Al under the bus, but we did so for good reason.
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