Month: January 2018

Atheism

I am an atheist.  I can honestly say I have never believed in God.  I’m not trying to convert you but, to me, this is what you have to accept in order to become an atheist:

There are things you can’t explain but you don’t need to know all of the answers.

I don’t know how the universe started but if you say God made it, to me, that sounds like you don’t know either.   I am fine with knowing there are things I don’t understand because they don’t affect my daily life.  If there was a National Geographic special on television tonight that explained how the universe was created, I would watch it but it wouldn’t change what I would do tomorrow.

I went to the Reason Rally in Washington, DC on June 4,2016.  It was enjoyable to be around thousands of other non-believers.

I have experienced this. I have to explain I still believe in right and wrong.

Virginia and gerrymandering

Republicans won the drawing today for the House of Delegate slot where votes resulted in a tie.  They have A 51-49 majority.

However, Democrats won the popular vote total 1,306,384 (53.17%) to 1,075,206 (43.76%) for the Republicans.

Why don’t Democrats have the majority of the seats?  Gerrymandering .  Both parties are guilty of gerrymandering but the Republicans have done it much more because they control many more state legislatures.  Sad!

The world has a lower opinion of the US because of Trump

  • In a poll of 37 countries, 22% have confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs.  The rating for Obama was 64% in the last year he was in office.
  • The favorable rating for the US slid from 64% to 49%.  The unfavorable rating increased from 26% to 39%.  Trump supporters may say this is fine since it shows Trump is putting America first.  I say we need to get along with other countries to ensure world peace and increase prosperity.
  • Russia likes Trump more than Bush or Obama – no surprise there.
  • The complete article is here.
  • Trump has lower global ratings than Putin, Xi or Merkel.  Sad!

Marijuana

Republicans are big on states’ rights….except when it comes to marijuana.  Attorney General Sessions will rescind an Obama-era policy which had let states set marijuana policies even though pot was not legal under federal law.  Now, Sessions will leave it up to federal prosecutors to decide whether to enforce the federal law in states where marijuana is legal.

This is in conflict with the opinions of the American public.

“Seventy-one percent oppose the federal government’s efforts to stop marijuana sales and its use in states that have legalized it, including opposition from most Republicans, Democrats, and independents. “ according to a CBS poll.

Support for legal marijuana is at a record high – 64%.  Even 51% of Republicans favor legalization.   This could hurt Republicans in the 2018 elections.

Republican Senator Gardner from Colorado is not happy. Millenials may also disapprove of this decision.

This is also an issue of criminal justice reform.

Just another bad decision by the Trump administration.  Sad!

 

Trump makes everything partisan

If Trump really wants bipartisanship, he shouldn’t act like this.  Trump invited the two Jewish Republican members of Congress to the White House Hannukah party but didn’t invite any of the 29 Jewish Democratic members.  This has normally been a bipartisan celebration but Trump turns everything into “for Trump” or “Against Trump” – us vs. them.  He’s going to have to do a lot better than this if he wants cooperation from Democrats.

Here’s the New York Times article about the party.

In the past, Trump criticized Obama for holding the party before the holiday but he did the same thing in 2017.

Sad!

Lies, lies, lies

I despise Trump for many reasons but the top two are that he is a liar and a bigot.  He will have made 2,000 false statements in his first year in office.  The Washington Post’s discussion is here.  They call them false or misleading statements.  I think most of them are lies, especially when Trump repeats statements that have been proven to be untrue.

I think he has a strategy here.  The media either has to ignore the false statement (or lie as I call it) or say it’s wrong.  Since he lies all the time, he can make his followers think the media is against him simply because they challenge things he says which are not true.

Chris Cillizza of CNN discussed the Post article here.  He wrote “Whatever else Trump does in the next three (or seven) years, that disregard for facts will be his most lasting legacy. ”

FactCheck.org reviewed Trump’s statements here.

Politifact’s analysis is here.  They said his statement that Russia election meddling is a made-up story was the lie of the year.

Time magazine noted: A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 62% of voters don’t think Trump is honest, while only 34% believe he is.

Sad!

Four reasons why beer is better than drugs

The legalization of pot in California seems like the right time to post this which is based on my personal experience.

Four reasons why beer is better than drugs

  1. Beer is cheaper
  2. Beer is legal (everywhere)
  3. You don’t have to buy beer from sleazeballs
  4. Beer has quality control

#4 is clearly the most important reason.  I took stuff without knowing what was in it just because I trusted the person who I got it from.  I know that Miller Lite has quality control.

How drunk were you?

This seems appropriate for the day after New Year’s Eve:

You can tell how drunk you were the night before by where your clothes wind up.  If your keys, wallet, etc. are where you normally keep them, you were not that drunk last night.  If your clothes are still on or are they on the floor, well maybe you had too much.