Showing posts with label Wisdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wisdom. Show all posts
Thursday, November 23, 2017
The Thought For Today
Monday, October 30, 2017
The Thought For Today
"There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God." - Bill Cosby
Friday, October 27, 2017
The Thought For Today
"You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it." - Bill Cosby
Friday, September 29, 2017
The Thought For Today
"Religion:
A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable." - The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable." - The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
You Are Very Cold, and This Feels Like an Adventure
From The Slate Book Review: 'Think back to the worst relationship you were ever in. The one full of shouting matches and long separations; the one where you were taken advantage of over and over; the one you both clung to for far too long. Remember how it felt as though your fate had been taken completely out of your hands? That whatever decision you made, your story was hurtling unstoppably in one direction—toward disaster?" Been there, done that. Read the review, and the book.
Tuesday, July 04, 2017
The Thought For Today
"The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them." - Thomas Jeferson
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
The Thought For Today
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” ― Hélder Câmara
Monday, April 10, 2017
The Thought For Today
"I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays." - Henny Youngman
Thursday, March 02, 2017
The Thought For Today
"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master." - Hunter S. Thompson
Monday, December 26, 2016
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Friday, November 11, 2016
The Thought For Today
"There is no such thing as a good war and there is no such thing as a bad peace." - Benjamin Franklin
Thursday, October 06, 2016
Friday, September 16, 2016
The Though For Today
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. They think there need be but little restraint upon themselves. The love of power may sink too deep in their own hearts." - Daniel Webster
Friday, July 22, 2016
The Thought For Today
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves, from all let this be heard. Some does it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss the brave man with the sword." - Oscar Wilde
Monday, July 11, 2016
Petridish
From IO9: "With government spending for the sciences on the decline, entrepreneur Matt Salzberg saw an opportunity. He'd create a crowdfunding site for scientists, where researchers could get funding directly from the public. Last week, he and his team launched Petridish.org, and they've already got reputable researchers whose projects are almost funded after just a few days. Could this be the future of publicly funded science?
If you visit Petridish right now, you'll see a handful of projects — all from reputable scientists associated with institutions like NASA, the California Academy of Sciences, and Stanford University — that request fairly modest sums to do incredibly important work. It's all basic research, and ranges from searching for exomoons (moons in other solar systems), to tracking endangered sea turtles, recording the sounds of undersea ecosystems (how cool is that?), to discovering new species of ants in uncharted regions of Madagascar. The videos of the scientists requesting funds are geeky and lo-fi, but still incredibly exciting. Imagine helping somebody discover weird new life forms in the ocean!"
If you visit Petridish right now, you'll see a handful of projects — all from reputable scientists associated with institutions like NASA, the California Academy of Sciences, and Stanford University — that request fairly modest sums to do incredibly important work. It's all basic research, and ranges from searching for exomoons (moons in other solar systems), to tracking endangered sea turtles, recording the sounds of undersea ecosystems (how cool is that?), to discovering new species of ants in uncharted regions of Madagascar. The videos of the scientists requesting funds are geeky and lo-fi, but still incredibly exciting. Imagine helping somebody discover weird new life forms in the ocean!"
Monday, May 30, 2016
Friday, April 22, 2016
The Thought For Today
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other." - John Adams
Monday, April 11, 2016
The Hard Truth From Orlando
You know what bothered me about that article on the four social workers facing criminal charges over the death of a child whose safety they were responsible for monitoring? That the two supervisors were written up as being big in their churches. It's been my very bad experience that the very religious, church-types turn a blind eye to behaviors that tell you something bad is happening because they believe that God made families, families need to be together, blah-blah-blah. It's the same kind of blind idiocy that lets them allow and even defend child molesters and killers in their own organizations, but insists that every pregnancy be carried to term while you punish the mother for getting pregnant.
The other thing that bothers me, is this social worker organization a contracted private organization or is it really a state organization, manned by state employees? The difference is, we have so many church or faith-based private organizations vying for government dollars -- promoted by former President G.W. Bush as being "more economical" than government-run agencies. So minimal standards are set and the money is paid with little government oversight. These private companies have their own agenda and it's not necessarily about protecting the children or families; it's about getting as many cases as they can so they can pull in the money and submit the paperwork that meets the minimum criteria.
We've had some truly hideous cases come through our court here. The eight-year-old who was removed from his insanely abusive mother and siblings, placed (per state-legislated criteria that you have to look for placement within a dysfunctional family rather than finding someone sane first) with another relative, who then promptly stuck the kid back with the mother he'd been removed from because the relative couldn't be bothered to find a babysitter while she worked. The 13-year-old abusive sibling strangled the eight-year-old over an old cupcake the kid ate because he was hungry. The 13-year-old killed his younger half-brother because the cupcake was his mom's "treat" to herself and she'd beat the 13-year-old if it was gone. Yep. Right here in Orlando. And the relative was NEVER charged. The 13-year-old was, but not the mom and not the relative who violated the protection order by putting the child back in harm's way.
And that's just one instance of the craziness. I'm still a strong proponent of the government handing out all available contraceptive means, providing free abortions and totally chopping out welfare payments after two years to non-working parents and repossessing any children for adoption by non-relatives if the parent can't get it together. When every child is planned, it will be a wanted and provided for child. We won't see children used as two-legged paychecks for freaks who breed and pass the kids around like a coupon for free government money. A box of condoms or a $300 to $500 abortion is a damned sight more economical to society and our government than 18 years of counseling, welfare, food stamps, subsidized housing, legal assistance, foster care, Medicaid or independent living expenses if the kids age out of foster care.
If our government leaders were serious about reducing crime, poverty, government spending, child abuse, they'd hand over the medical provisions and acknowledge that being a parent is either totally the individual's choice and therefore an individual's responsibility and will automatically result in criminal charges against parents who expose their offspring to abuse, or they'd say being a parent is not a choice and the government is picking up the tab for all the unwanted, unprovided for children the current paternalistic legislation promotes. Instead, we have these half-measures. On the one hand, access to contraceptives and abortion are being made inaccessible to the neediest people among us. But on the other hand, the government is handing out money hand-over-fist for children with little hope of ever being productive, contributing, taxpaying citizens.
I say, pick one. Either end the mindless production of children for a social work and prison industry, or admit and accept it's okay that the taxpayer foots the bill for religious-based irrational policies and pays for it with the blood of unplanned, unwelcome children.
Florida Cracker
The other thing that bothers me, is this social worker organization a contracted private organization or is it really a state organization, manned by state employees? The difference is, we have so many church or faith-based private organizations vying for government dollars -- promoted by former President G.W. Bush as being "more economical" than government-run agencies. So minimal standards are set and the money is paid with little government oversight. These private companies have their own agenda and it's not necessarily about protecting the children or families; it's about getting as many cases as they can so they can pull in the money and submit the paperwork that meets the minimum criteria.
We've had some truly hideous cases come through our court here. The eight-year-old who was removed from his insanely abusive mother and siblings, placed (per state-legislated criteria that you have to look for placement within a dysfunctional family rather than finding someone sane first) with another relative, who then promptly stuck the kid back with the mother he'd been removed from because the relative couldn't be bothered to find a babysitter while she worked. The 13-year-old abusive sibling strangled the eight-year-old over an old cupcake the kid ate because he was hungry. The 13-year-old killed his younger half-brother because the cupcake was his mom's "treat" to herself and she'd beat the 13-year-old if it was gone. Yep. Right here in Orlando. And the relative was NEVER charged. The 13-year-old was, but not the mom and not the relative who violated the protection order by putting the child back in harm's way.
And that's just one instance of the craziness. I'm still a strong proponent of the government handing out all available contraceptive means, providing free abortions and totally chopping out welfare payments after two years to non-working parents and repossessing any children for adoption by non-relatives if the parent can't get it together. When every child is planned, it will be a wanted and provided for child. We won't see children used as two-legged paychecks for freaks who breed and pass the kids around like a coupon for free government money. A box of condoms or a $300 to $500 abortion is a damned sight more economical to society and our government than 18 years of counseling, welfare, food stamps, subsidized housing, legal assistance, foster care, Medicaid or independent living expenses if the kids age out of foster care.
If our government leaders were serious about reducing crime, poverty, government spending, child abuse, they'd hand over the medical provisions and acknowledge that being a parent is either totally the individual's choice and therefore an individual's responsibility and will automatically result in criminal charges against parents who expose their offspring to abuse, or they'd say being a parent is not a choice and the government is picking up the tab for all the unwanted, unprovided for children the current paternalistic legislation promotes. Instead, we have these half-measures. On the one hand, access to contraceptives and abortion are being made inaccessible to the neediest people among us. But on the other hand, the government is handing out money hand-over-fist for children with little hope of ever being productive, contributing, taxpaying citizens.
I say, pick one. Either end the mindless production of children for a social work and prison industry, or admit and accept it's okay that the taxpayer foots the bill for religious-based irrational policies and pays for it with the blood of unplanned, unwelcome children.
Florida Cracker
Monday, February 15, 2016
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Republican. When exactly did that become synonymous with dumbass? I know it's been a while.
And I'd point out that the "Mexico City" policy that cut funding for abortion and contraception in Latin countries came from President Reagan, the ignorant bastard. And guess why we have then had a nearly 30-year glut of illegal immigrants flooding from South American countries that cannot support all these unplanned for, unprovided for children? I love how these men who sell themselves like prostitutes to lobbyists and religious organizations are so incredibly generous when it's not them that has to foot the bill or spend their lives taking care of children who have no hope of normalcy or availability of basic medical care.
Said it before, any woman who is forced to bear a child she did not want and could not support should be allowed to put her state representative's name on the birth certificate and sue their representative for child support. We'd see how fast these jerkweeds support contraception and abortion when it comes out of THEIR hides. I mean, the taxpayers aren't going to be out any money. We pay for the unwanted children anyway. I just think we should make it come out of the representative's taxpayer-based salary instead of him collecting a paycheck from us while we still have to pony up a lifetime of separate fees for the two-legged legacies of his moral stance.
Florida Cracker
The story: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/02/11/republicans_in_congress_urge_women_with_zika_to_accept_microcephaly_not.html
And I'd point out that the "Mexico City" policy that cut funding for abortion and contraception in Latin countries came from President Reagan, the ignorant bastard. And guess why we have then had a nearly 30-year glut of illegal immigrants flooding from South American countries that cannot support all these unplanned for, unprovided for children? I love how these men who sell themselves like prostitutes to lobbyists and religious organizations are so incredibly generous when it's not them that has to foot the bill or spend their lives taking care of children who have no hope of normalcy or availability of basic medical care.
Said it before, any woman who is forced to bear a child she did not want and could not support should be allowed to put her state representative's name on the birth certificate and sue their representative for child support. We'd see how fast these jerkweeds support contraception and abortion when it comes out of THEIR hides. I mean, the taxpayers aren't going to be out any money. We pay for the unwanted children anyway. I just think we should make it come out of the representative's taxpayer-based salary instead of him collecting a paycheck from us while we still have to pony up a lifetime of separate fees for the two-legged legacies of his moral stance.
Florida Cracker
The story: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/02/11/republicans_in_congress_urge_women_with_zika_to_accept_microcephaly_not.html
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