If oil were bio-degradable, you wouldn’t be able to find it in our environment.  The very essence of oil that is pumped – is in itself – what never degraded over millions of years into anything else.

Think of it like household paint – with the exception that paint actually dries up and reduces down to a hardened state.  Oil doesn’t do that – because it doesn’t evaporate or disappear.  It doesn’t breakdown or change forms.  It can be burned off – i.e. forced into become reduced through extreme temperatures intoo a gaseous state, which is actually very toxic – but it certainly can’t happen on its own.

I wish people in the mainstream media had been more attentive during their science classes.

My husband and I were visiting some friends in Bella Vista, Arkansas, where they had just bought a home.

During this trip, we decided to visit a popular local cave and mill.

During the tour of the cave, the leader of tour – our humble guide, decided to tell some stories to entertain us all, while we were waiting to start a particular part of the tour.  There were some stragglers, and he was waiting for them to catch up.  He seemed like a likeable person who loved to talk about what a bad job Texas was doing educating its kids.  One example he gave was how, for a long time, it was not a requirement to take U.S. history in order to graduate high school, but you needed to take Texas state history instead in order to fulfill the requirement of being versed in “U.S.” History.  The stories were funny, but it was at that point when things got weird…

When the rest of the group caught up with us, we all gathered to hear more about the cave.  We were directed by the group leader to look up at the ceiling of the cave (which was only a foot or so above our heads) as he described what we were looking at.  We could see clearly fossil imprints of shells, exotic underwater aquatics and plants.  (Very cool, I thought to myself) Then he said, “by looking at these imprints, we can guage exactly how old this cave is”.  Can anyone here give me their own estimate as to how old this cave might be?”

Right away, some girls in front of us  enthusiastically answered,  “I know, I know! This cave was created during the time of the Great Flood!”.

I was FLOORED by how stupid and uneducated these people were around me.

I couldn’t believe my ears, as I was about the say that it had happened many millions of years ago.

The leader of the group responded to these girls with an enthusiastic “Correct!  You are correct!  It happened during the Great Flood of Noah’s Ark!  Ladies and Gentlemen, this cave has been dated to be as old as 3,000 years!”

Not less than five minutes ago, we were all joking about how screwed up the education system is in Texas.  And now these same folks are nodding in agreement about using a *biblical* age in dating a cave with fossils in it!

Yes, indeed, our kids is learnin’!

Democrats want equality for everyone.  That’s what our country is all about.

That’s not socialism.  It’s nothing more than being humanitarian.

Dems want fairness – not handouts.  Dems want those who work hard to be rewarded – not abused and kicked to the curb by taking away benefits, job protections and denial of health care benefits.

It’s not rocket science.  It’s common sense.

Here are some hard facts:

Republicans don’t want everyone to have:

• regulations, rules, laws that protect consumers
• health care for all
• advanced education for all
• fair, living wages with union protections and benefits for all
• clean air and water for all
• safe products for all
• human rights for all
• free speech for all
• fire and police protection for all
• everything else required to live a clean, healthy life for all
• equal rights for all
• gay rights for all
• proportionally fair taxes – the more you make, the more you pay

The only thing they want everyone to have access to is guns and ammunition. The very same things that take away life instead of preserving it.  Guns DO kill people – and so do the knuckle dragging idiots carrying them.

They love to play the “blame the victim” game, by insisting that the victims wouldn’t have gotten killed or hurt if they had used a gun, too.

They believe in letting people who can’t work die off so those of us who can work can take their jobs.

They don’t believe in competition between workers – They believe in creating competition between fellow workers to drive down wages and benefits.  This is where our country is at RIGHT NOW.

It’s a “kill or be killed” mentality.

And I think this country has had more than enough of it in the past decade.

Wow.

I used to make a couple of grand per paycheck. Now it’s 200 a week. Oooooh, ya got me there….I’m sooo livin’ it up on my big fat weekly check!!

I can always…ALWAYS…count on Republicans to come up with the biggest doozies to offend the thinking-class in this country.

Another favorite past talking point was “if you help the homeless and the poor, you’re helping to keep pan handlers, drug dealers and scam artists in business – they’ll never learn how to make a living on their own”. As if being homeless and poor wasn’t bad enough – you have to worry about being labeled a “scam artist” when you ask for help.

And, I especially love hearing them say “I don’t want my tax dollars going toward some bum who is gonna buy drugs with my money”.

So they’re totally fine with paying for wars based on lies and massive fraud and abuse by military contractors.  But helping the poor?  That just makes their blood boil with rage.

I really hate saying this, but…Republicans have ice water running in their veins. That’s all there is to it.  How can these people be so g-damned mean and evil when they are asked to help others? And then they are so blissfully happy when they are told about people across the globe dying from our bombs and military strikes?  Especially when it was all based on lies?  Why on earth is that sooo okay with them??

They talk about post-9/11 moments as if they were golden and beautiful. The only thing honestly beautiful that I can remember about it, which only lasted a month or so, was how everyone was united as a nation and as a global entity. Color and gender, nationality and language, race, stature, class, etc – none of that mattered. Everyone had their flags flying.

However, during that time – and ever since then – it’s been nothing but a paranoid freaky fear festival among Republicans — and we have all suffered ever since. It’s all about keeping people divided – and making sure no one trusts “the other” among us.

Republicans don’t love “unity” when it comes down to who we are as a nation or global force — they only love it when people are united against “the other”. When people are pitted against eachother, treated as if they must view eachother with suspicion and fear, it brings out the worst in all of us.

Republicans don’t want us united – they want us divided. Their motto really is “divide and conquer” – not “united we fall”.

So, going back to my original point…

Instead of helping eachother out, it’s all about fearing the poor, the foreigner, the unfamiliar cultures and lifestyles.

Being unemployed sucks. But I guess that’s not what they want to believe or try to understand. They want to view 10-20% of the country as “the other” – and still call themselves “compassionate conservatives” at the same time.

Oh, and one more thing…

If you’re wondering about why conservatives are all for giving tons of money to foreign countries. They’re not doing it out of love or compassion. They are doing for the exact same reasons a loan shark would do it: to kick you down when you can’t pay it back. Republicans and crisis are like insurance agents turned ambulance chasers. They want you to call them the hero – but you realize they are the bad guy when they demand 30% interest on that 90-day million dollar loan. Read “Confessions of an Econonmic Hitman” if you don’t believe this.  If you’d like to read excerpts of the book, read it here.  Here’s a Wikipedia summary on it.

Oh, and one more thing.  The most frightening thing to a Republican is an educated public.  This is why they’re rather have a bunch of uneducated goons filled with hate fighting their battles, instead of a civilized and educated public that will more than likely vote for a Democrat instead of a Republican.  If you haven’t heard yet, Kansas City just voted to shut down half their schools due to budget issues.  Instead of trying to cut corners on waste, they shut the schools down instead.  That should help them create more impoverished, uneducated goons to fight their battles.

Ugh…

But now, it’s just plain ol’ hilarious to see rightwingers getting punked on this issue. They thought they had captured disgruntled lefty insider who would spill all the juicy stories on their time. But instead, they got nothing but stories about tickle-fests and gropings. Heeelarrious!!!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Oh, but wait, they’re “keeping America safe” – so I shouldn’t be so critical of them, should I?

Never mind the fact that no one has been fired for the lousy job they’ve been doing at keeping airlines safe, terrorists out, or allowing sleaze-ball fame-hungry reality-show-wannabe’s from getting into the White House.

It’s insane.

Republicans love tax cuts and spending freezes because they simply have no idea how to run a government. It’s like running a business but hating customers, hating employees, hating bills, and hating hard work. But gosh darn it, ya just love handling cold, hard cash. So you continue to run a business, even when you’re bad at it. That’s what Republicans are. Greedy, corrupt business men who hate playing by the rules, but love it when they’ve got a scam that gets them rich fast and keeps them from getting caught.

And – to top it all off – they have complete ownership of 99% of all media outlets – which means that they can fire anyone who tries to report on their corruption. And, they can trash talk Democrats who try to investigate them – and praise weak Dems who collapse like a wet suit when bad ideas can be spun into good-sounding ones (Lieberman comes to mind right away).

Obama, please don’t manage the government like a Republican when you promised to change the way Washington would be run. You promised accountability and transparency. But instead of going after illegal behavior or incompetence, you think it’s simply enough if you simply say, “I made a mistake” or “I take full responsibility”. This isn’t accountability – this is protection for those who didn’t do their job. You’re supposed to fire people – not lie for them. If it were me who failed to do my job at work, I certainly wouldn’t expect someone else to cover me. I’d expect to be talked to about it – and I certainly wouldn’t want my boss to say he is holding himself accountable when he didn’t even hold me accountable to begin with.

The case was about a man who was walking on the beach one day and happened to spot a man who happened to be drowning, and would’ve certainly lost his life if the man who witnessed his calls for help had gone unheard.  Other people in the area who saw the drowning man stood by feeling helpless about how to help him.

In his testimony, he explained that his reasons for going in were done not to save his life – but to collect a reward from the drowning man for saving his life.  He made sure that after he had jumped in to save him, he paraded himself – in front of the media and to anyone passing by – as the **hero** to everyone who was present, so that there would be absolutely no mistake whatsoever that **he** was the one who did the heroic deed.

Soon after the tragedy had passed, the “hero” contacted the saved drowning victim to claim his reward.  Aghast, the victim was horrified and offended to find that the man who had saved his life was not at all happy about the fact that he could claim himself a hero.  He wanted financial compensation and demanded that he receive a financial reward for it.

The “hero” soon saw that his claims for reward were not going to be rewarded and decided to sue the victim, claiming that he was entitled to financial compensation for his good deeds.

Needless to say, I was deeply sickened by the greed and insensitivity of the man who sought his “reward”.

I think of that story often when I see what our health insurance companies are doing to families and victims of, as Glenn Beck puts it, the “world’s greatest healthcare system”.  How laughable, if it weren’t so painful to watch.

People are being pulled off of respirators, kicked out off hospital beds, and being forced to put up and shut up if they cannot meet their extremely high deductible rates.  God forbid you have a pre-existing condition, like hemorroids or acne, to disqualify you for receiving life-saving cancer surgery.

It’s simply ridiculous and outright offensive.

Every industrialized (and third-world) country on this planet has a healthcare system that is designed to make sure you don’t get treated like a liability or sack of you-know-what before you see a doctor.

If you break your leg while visiting in England, Canada, Germany or France, you are rushed to a hospital, seen immediately by a doctor, cared for like a human being worthy of respect and healthcare, and NEVER given a bill for the care you received.

In our country, that would be labeled as “free healthcare for illegal immigrants”.

Ugh…

Oh, and that guy in the story – the “hero” – he lost his case.  The court was so offended by his demands for a reward that they threw the case out.

We need to do the same to our current profit-before-people healtcare system.

Why aren’t they happy that these guys will finally be put on trial for their crimes??

They keep saying that it will be the United States that will be the real “victim” – that it will be put on trial – that Bush & Cheney – and his administration – will be the real culprits that will be put on trial.

Let me see – if you’re not guilty of a crime, then you shouldn’t be worried, right? Just like the rationale for spying on millions of Americans – You shouldn’t really care if you’re not talking to Al Quaeda, right? Privacy-Shmivacy, you’re supposed to care more about catching terrorists, blah blah blah.

Personally, I honestly don’t think Obama will allow anything that the U.S. did wrong to be put “on trial”. If Obama really, REALLY cared about the rule of law, Bush and Cheney – and his whole g-d administration of cronies, would have been thrown in jail a VERY LONG TIME AGO.

Obama is really probably doing this to re-build our standing among the world’s nations of law-abiders. He is trying to prove that:

- We don’t torture prisoners
- We put people on trial before we lock them away in a prison
- We follow the rule of law
- We value human rights

That’s all. He’s not interested in what we bleeding-heart liberals want. He’s apparently much more interested in what the rest of world wants.

It’s not that that’s a bad thing. It’s just that it’s not enough.

The last decade under Republicans has been nothing less than a g-d living nightmare for me.

It wasn’t enough that every racist, facist idiot had their right to OPENLY HATE with full-blown protection of the pResident and his cronies. It wasn’t enough that they made sure that every law protecting minorities and the oppressed was over-turned, annulled or repealed (not to mention the Magna Carta, the protection for those with disabilities, your miranda rights, etc etc). It was the very fact that the last administration pushed to make it “cool” to be a scary, hateful, vindictive, violent, sexist, law-breaking, intolerant buffoon – who could also wrap himself in a flag and call himself “a patriot”.

That’s what it has been like for the past decade – and it still isn’t changing.

By ignoring the real criminals from the prior administration, you are looking the other way, while trying instead to make yourself look like a champion of “fighting terrorists” by going forward with a much-needed public trial for the 9/11 crimes against us.

I sincerely doubt there will be any way we will see the real victims of 9/11 allowed to speak out about how the crimes against them were politicized to go to war with two nations and to shred our nation’s sacred Constitutional rights by passing the Patriot Act.

We need to make sure that we don’t just push for a real trial for 9/ll terrorists – but that we put the REAL terrorists behind bars, too.