In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “(Extra)ordinary.”
A bike ride to an unknown place took me to this bench. Changed my life forever.
Monthly Archives: October 2015
Sunday Weekly Roundup: Things you won’t see on the TV
Steve Crisafulli says it’s amazing “anything” gets passed in GOP-led Legislature
“The intense divide between the Florida House and Senate this year was so intense that House Speaker Steve Crisafulli led his members out of the chambers three days prematurely this past April, leading for the first of a series of special sessions in 2015.
His other top issue is tackling water policy, where he invoked the drought in California as a reason why the Legislature must act this year. When the House broke early from session in April, they failed to pass a water bill, though the Senate companion was approved on a 39-1 vote.”
Amazing how hindsight is BS and this guy has no problem spending money on special sessions while people have no food.
I think for everyone special session we have a portion of the money spent should be donated to our local food banks. An idea so horrid if it really did happen the GOP would make sure they agreed rather than make sure there was food.
http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2015/10/15/103-names-exempted-bear-permit-rosters/73942734/
Humane Society Florida director Kate McFall called the name exemptions “fishy,” but said it makes sense considering the widespread opposition.
“One hundred and three is a lot. It sounds strange,” McFall said. “(The hunt) is being painted as a small group of trophy hunters, so it makes sense for them to not want their names out there. It has hit a nerve with a lot of people.”
At least take credit for it! Interesting.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201506/anti-intellectualism-is-killing-america
Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America
“And even though it may seem counter-intuitive, anti-intellectualism has little to do with intelligence. We know little about the raw intellectual abilities of Dylann Roof, but we do know that he is an ignorant racist who willfully allowed irrational hatred of an entire demographic to dictate his actions. Whatever his IQ, to some extent he is a product of a culture driven by fear and emotion, not rational thinking, and his actions reflect the paranoid mentality of one who fails to grasp basic notions of what it means to be human.
What Americans rarely acknowledge is that many of their social problems are rooted in the rejection of critical thinking or, conversely, the glorification of the emotional and irrational. What else could explain the hyper-patriotism ) that has many accepting an outlandish notion that America is far superior to the rest of the world? Love of one’s country is fine, but many Americans seem to honestly believe that their country both invented and perfected the idea of freedom, that the quality of life here far surpasses everywhere else in the world.”
So if your frustrated just understand YOU have better critical thinking skills.
and speaking of critical thinking skills
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-thinking/201510/what-can-we-learn-ben-carsons-brain
What Can We Learn from Ben Carson’s Brain?
One can hardly imagine a better case of inconsistent thinking and misapplied brain power in the public arena today. Carson, a successful brain surgeon and Yale graduate, is obviously intelligent and well educated. Yet he continually says things that any clear-thinking high school kid would cringe at.
He mocks the Big Bang Theory as absurd. (Like all theories, the Big Bang Theory is a work in progress, of course, but it is based on solid scientific evidence.)
From our friends at Eye on Miami.
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2015/10/can-everglades-restoration-catch-break.html
A state of Florida website laconically refers to the project known as “Mod Waters” this way: “The Modified Water Deliveries Project project is a federal ecological restoration project in south Florida designed to improve water delivery to Everglades National Park. The completion of Mod Waters is required before the implementation of portions of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Mod Waters is being implemented by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
Book Review: The Hunting of the President (with documentary video!)
Years ago I read this book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons. This all still stands today. SSDD
Hillary haters you have been brainwashed. Every single day news outlets mention her emails and tell you why should not trust her. Some of you tell me this. “I hate Hillary. Because of ….pick one. Benghazzi, emails what ever.”
This is nothing new and it is planned and plotted. Sad but true.
I may not like the GOP candidates but the “Hate” is special. It should be. There have been millions of dollars invested so you can hate Hillary Clinton.
I started writing this yesterday and I ended up looking up ” What causes hate.” I really believe there is more to it and there is something that goes on in people brains when they “Hate” and this case “hunt.”
No matter what Hilliary does she is hated and she is hunted and the very people who you allow in your living room that calls themselves news are complicit. No matter what she does it’s twisted and turned inside out and outside in.
Not just Fox, but NBC’s today Matt an Savannah have a daily ’email segment.” On meet the press every Sunday it’s a topic. I’m sure more but I don’t watch much more tv. It makes me ill.
In the situation of the server I would probably would have done the same thing. When I needed a server my son set it up and I just told him to tell me what to do. I have all my emails go to one account except for one job where I have to go to a special encrypted site. But the only reason I know that is because they told me. The encrypted site is new to me. Setting it up and getting there is a nightmare.
Just like Bengazi I have no earthly idea what happened because I was not there.
I wrote this the other day about Meet the Press and their sponsors.
Enough of me lets talk about this book.
So who is Joe Conason & Gene Lyons?
is an American journalist, author and liberal political commentator. He writes a column for Salon.com and has written a number of books, including Big Lies (2003), which addresses what he says are myths spread about liberals by conservatives.
From 1978 to 1990, he worked as a columnist and staff writer at The Village Voice.
In 1992, he became a columnist for the New York Observer, a position he still holds.
In 2000, he co-authored the book The Hunting of the President: The 10 Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton with Gene Lyons; the book was turned into a documentary in 2004, which Conason co-produced. The Raw Deal, his book on the Bush Administration‘s efforts to “end Social Security as we know it”, appeared in 2005. In 2007, Conason published It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush
A winner of the 1980 National Magazine Award for Public Service for the Texas Monthly article “Why Teachers Can’t Teach”, he was an Associate Editor at Texas Monthly in 1981, and General Editor at Newsweek from 1982 to 1986. He has written hundreds of articles, essays and reviews for such magazines as Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Washington Monthly, The Nation, Esquire, Slate, and Salon. His other books include The Higher Illiteracy (University of Arkansas, 1988) and Widow’s Web (Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Lyons writes a column for the Arkansas Times that is syndicated nationally by Universal Uclick.
“In vivid prose, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, two award-winning veteran journalists, identify the antagonists, reveal their tactics, trace the millions of dollars that subsidized them, and examine how and why mainstream news organizations aided those who were determined to bring down Bill Clinton, The Hunting of the President may very well be the All the President’s Men of this political regime.”
Available on Amazon.
There was also a documentary.
Here is the Trailer
“Mr Star just did what he was hired to do.” A great history lesson by Bill Clinton of how the right wing plots and plans.
Documentary is available on Netflix.
I hope you will take the time to read the book or watch the documentary. I’m not telling you who to vote for. I am telling you to do your research and don’t let anyone on the news give you important information.
What causes hate? The Hate circuit.
There is a lot of Hate out there but what causes it?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-hatred/
“If love is said to come from the heart, what about hate? Along with music, religion, irony and a host of other complex concepts, researchers are on the hunt for the neurological underpinnings of hatred. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has begun to reveal how the strong emotion starts to emerge in the brain.”
A neurobiologist named Semi Zeki of University College London’s Laboratory of Neurobiology led a study last year that scanned 17 adult brains as they gazed at the images of a person they claimed to hate. Across the board, areas in the medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, premotor cortex and medial insula activated. Parts of this so-called “hate circuit,”he researchers noted, are also involved in initiating aggressive behavior, but feelings of aggression itself—as well as anger, danger and fear—show different patterns in the brain than hatred does.
Hatred activates in the frontal cortex.
There is a lot more research that has to be done
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081028205658.htm
“The study, by Professor Semir Zeki and John Romaya of the Wellcome Laboratory of Neurobiology at UCL, examined the brain areas that correlate with the sentiment of hate and shows that the ‘hate circuit’ is distinct from those related to emotions such as fear, threat and danger – although it shares a part of the brain associated with aggression. The circuit is also quite distinct from that associated with romantic love, though it shares at least two common structures with it.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111004113751.htm
“A new study using MRI scans, led by Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick’s Department of Computer Science, has found that depression frequently seems to uncouple the brain’s ‘hate circuit.’
The study is published Oct. 4 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
The researchers used MRI scanners to scan the brain activity in 39 depressed people (23 female 16 male) and 37 control subjects who were not depressed (14 female 23 male). The researchers found the fMRI scans revealed significant differences in the brain circuitry of the two groups. The greatest difference observed in the depressed patients was the uncoupling of the so-called “hate circuit” involving the superior frontal gyrus, insula and putamen. Other major changes occurred in circuits related to risk and action responses, reward and emotion, attention and memory processing.
The new University of Warwick led research found that in significant numbers of the depressed test subjects they examined by fMRI that this hate circuit had become decoupled. Those depressed people also seemed to have experienced other significant disruptions to brain circuits associated with; risk and action, reward and emotion, and attention and memory processing. The researchers found that in the depressed subjects:
- The Hate circuits were 92% per cent likely to be decoupled
- The Risk/Action circuit was 92% likely to be decoupled
- The Emotion/Reward circuit was 82% likely to be decoupled
Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick’s Department of Computer studies said that:
“The results are clear but at first sight are puzzling as we know that depression is often characterized by intense self loathing and there is no obvious indication that depressives are less prone to hate others. One possibility is that the uncoupling of this hate circuit could be associated with impaired ability to control and learn from social or other situations which provoke feelings of hate towards self or others. This in turn could lead to an inability to deal appropriately with feelings of hate and an increased likelihood of both uncontrolled self-loathing and withdrawal from social interactions. It may be that this is a neurological indication that is more normal to have occasion to hate others rather than hate ourselves.”
All very interesting. The brain is a fascinating place.
This is why I love Science. There is hope for people who hate.
Meet the Sponsors of Meet the Press! Koch’s new “clean water” commercial.
Meet the Press! Meet the Sponsors! Koch’s new “clean water” commercial.
Here is a list of last Sundays sponsors for “Meet the Press.”
Koch
Boeing
IBM
Xerox
OLey
Ameriprise Financial
BDO Accountants and Consultants
Morgan Stanley
HP
Microsoft
People
Head and Shoulders
GE
Wednesday morning quarterback: Dem Debate
#demdebate
Wednesday morning quarterback: Dem Debate
The mainstream media is so freaked by Bernie Sander’s success last night they all of sudden love Hillary.
Yesterday I debated all day if I should go to a local debate party or stay home in the moose jammies and twitter. I wanted to go out but I’m on the 9th day of a 12 day in a row and I needed to get up for work this morning. I’m glad I stayed home. Me, my moose jammies, Mark Ruffalo, Donald Trump, Paula Dockery, Michael Moore and all kinds of unknown people all having a discussion in real time about the debate. It was actually fun. I did not want to miss a moment.
I had to turn the pre game off because it was damm obnoxious. CNN you should go review what people said. It was like a pre execution newscast.
At the end I felt like there were many really important issues that were actually discussed that didn’t have to with baby brains based on a fake video.
Florida Black Bear Update: Ammoland! Safari Club! Wildlife conservation is really hunting. GOGETUM!
From the you can’t make this stuff up file.
http://www.ammoland.com/
“Tucson, AZ -(AmmoLand.com)- Safari Club International was pleased to be the only hunting group to assist the State of Florida in protecting the state’s black bear season against a challenge from anti-hunters.
On Thursday, October 1, 2015, after a five hour hearing, a Florida state court denied a request filed by Florida group, Speak Up Wekiva, to shut down Florida’s first black bear hunt in decades. As a result of the ruling, the hunt is set to commence as planned on October 24th.
Deserving most of the credit for the victory are Florida’s state attorneys and biologists, who aggressively defended the hunt in court. SCI assisted in defending the hunt by submitting a powerful amicus brief that explained to the court how stopping the hunt would harm SCI members and the general Florida hunting community.”
Let me repeat this: SCI assisted in defending the hunt by submitting a powerful amicus brief that explained to the court how stopping the hunt would harm SCI members and the general Florida hunting community.
SCI’s brief also provided concrete data from SCI’s past involvement with black bear litigation in New Jersey. The data refuted the Plaintiffs’ claims that the hunt would harm Florida’s black bear population. An SCI attorney appeared at the hearing to offer assistance as needed. SCI’s local counsel in Florida, attorney Ethan Way – a member of SCI’s Tallahassee Chapter – assisted SCI’s in-house litigation attorneys in filing our brief and appearing in court.
SCI is proud to be a part of this latest victory. SCI has a long history of conserving Florida black bears through sustainable use. Almost ten years ago, SCI helped the federal government defend a lawsuit seeking to force a listing of the Florida black bear under the Endangered Species Act, which would have prevented Florida’s current hunt.
If anti-hunting groups decide to continue to try to stop the hunt, SCI will continue to help Florida defend against any challenge.
About Safari Club International:
Safari Club International – First For Hunters is the leader in protecting the freedom to hunt and in promoting wildlife conservation worldwide. SCI’s approximately 200 Chapters represent all 50 of the United States as well as 106 other countries. SCI’s proactive leadership in a host of cooperative wildlife conservation, outdoor education and humanitarian programs, with the SCI Foundation and other conservation groups, research institutions and government agencies, empowers sportsmen to be contributing community members and participants in sound wildlife management and conservation.”
This hunt is not about dealing with the issues. This is the kinda crap we have to deal with the water. Big business coming in and taking away our Florida.
Where we’re at at this point and some history. I’m pretty sure this is from Chuck O’Neal
This might be a good time to review where we are in the legal process. In June of 2015, the FWC Commissioners passed a rule authorizing a bear hunt to begin Oct 24th. Legally, their rule could not be challenged until it be effective on July 29th. Two days later we filed our complaint (lawsuit) challenging the constitutionality of the FWC’s bear hunt rule on the basis that it was in contravention to the intent of the voters and intent of the framers of the 1998 constitutional amendment that created the FWC.
The Florida Supreme Court has consistently ruled from 1960 (Gray vs Bryant) forward that: “The fundamental object to be sought in construing a constitutional provision is to ascertain the intent of the framers and the provision must be construed or interpreted in such manner as to fulfill the intent of the people, never to defeat it. Such a provision must never be construed in such manner as to make it possible for the will of the people to be frustrated or denied.”
The FWC filed their answer to our complaint on September 30. Now that they have filed their answer we move into the discovery phase where we can depose potential witnesses under oath. Just like any other investigation, we must start at the bottom and work our way up the ladder. We have a statement under oath that the commissioners made the decision for the hunt to proceed this year. This statement was a completely new revelation because prior to this, the commissioners indicated they were acting upon the advice of Dr Eason. Now Dr Eason has said it was the commissioners who directed the hunt to proceed this year, not him.
Since the FWC took its time on answering the complaint and it was clear that the trial would not be held before the Oct 24 start of the proposed hunt, we filed an emergency motion for a temporary injunction to place a stay on the hunt until the case could be resolved. That motion for a temporary injunction was heard on October 1st. You can watch the replay on the Florida Channel link below.
There is a very high legal bar that must be cleared in order for the injunction to be granted. We felt we had a good chance to clear that bar because we argued that the unlimited two day beginning to the hunt did not protect their quota rule of 320.
During the hearing on Oct 1, long after their response to our motion, the FWC lawyers came up with an obscure rule about the power of their executive director during an emergency (like a natural catastrophe) that they did not even know about at the September FWC meeting. That was when Com Spottswood proposed the executive director be given the power to call the hunt after the first day. Com Priddy shot down that idea and won the vote 3-2.
Judge Reynolds had many concerns about the way the hunt was designed but ruled against our motion for a temporary injunction. In essence, he gave them a D but they still passed the course.
However, that ruling was just on our motion for a temporary injunction. That is an entirely different thing that the actual case which we filed on 7/31. The lawsuit proceeds and the investigation now begins with the ability to depose witnesses under oath.
We are committed to pursue justice for the bears by uncovering the truth behind this hunt. Was it a political decision or one based on sound science? The voters in 1998 created a commission that is independent of politics, one that makes decisions based on sound science. Are there other non-lethal ways to achieve the same goals as a hunt? Are these non-lethal means more representative of the intent of the voters? We intend to prove the answer to all three questions is yes.
Its important to remember that the bear hunt rule is for an annual hunt, meaning if we give up now, we will be fighting this fight every year until we win this lawsuit. So it is not just about the proposed hunt for Oct 24, its about keeping a species from being driven into extinction.
This motion was very expensive to pursue. It will cost even more to hold depositions of witnesses to get to the bottom of how this hunt came to be. We have been blessed to have the financial support of people and organizations from around the world. Please continue to do so, knowing that Oct 1 was just the first battle, not the war.
We are convinced that the Florida Supreme Court will in the end find that this hunt is contrary to the intent of the voters and contrary to the intent of the framers, but we have a long road ahead of us. Let’s stick together and arrive on that day as the name of this page implies, Floridians united to save our bears.
Click here to support the lawsuit.
https://www.gofundme.com/6y6k5vm8
Speaking of Guns, SNL did this hysterical skit on guns and it was just perfect. Because what else can you do? There is no talking, no discussion. What can you do but make something so absurd we all can laugh at the absurdity of it all. Who better to star in it than Amy Schumer.
On the Snout : Lost Dogs of South Carolina
Lost Dogs of South Carolina: Here we go again
I was very happily typing away about microchips and what to do if you find a lost dog and then this happened.
I saw a newscast about Tri County going to Georgia and picking dogs that were misplaced in the storm and I thought how could that be? We fixed this.
“Tri-County workers couldn’t make their way into South Carolina because of all the flooding, so they met with other rescue teams halfway, in Georgia. They picked up 26 large-breed dogs that had been in shelters in the Charleston and Columbia areas.
“They went through a lot,” said Kim Spencer, who led the humane society’s rescue. “I can’t even tell you what they were really through. I can’t even imagine. I don’t even want to know, to be honest, because it’s very upsetting.”
Some of the dogs were brought back with red paws and missing fur due to rash from the standing water.
“with all the flooding and getting shifted from here to there and being misplaced in the first place, they’re very, very sad,” Spencer said.
The dogs are currently being treated for their wounds and will be ready for adoption by Tuesday.
Meanwhile, with so many new dogs brought in, there’s hardly any room in the shelter. Dogs that were already there are now in pins in the lobby and cages out back, just to make space.
“We need to clear out our shelter,” Spencer said. “We need get our new arrivals out and into new homes as quickly as possible.”
Widening our Circle of Friends: Time to spread those River Warrior Wings
Last night we had our first “River Warrior” meeting. It’s been a long hot summer in the girlcave. It’s time to get back to work.
This is the most committed group of people I’ve ever met in my life. Everyone has their thing that they do. We evolved to that. There is not a day that goes by that we are not communicating in one form or another.
This morning I was reading an article on the Miami Herald and it felt like no one even had a clue how hard people are working out there. The other thing is people outside of our circle of friends and perhaps some people like you guys on my blog really have no idea what is going on here. We have a great newspaper. There are stories in other newspapers but not like the stories that are written here by our incredible journalists.
We have to be able to reach out and the best way is to be able to share articles on our Facebook pages and twitter.
I’m not blaming out TC Palm. It’s not an easy world out there for newspapers. I’m suggesting there maybe there is a way to sponsor the lagoon articles by the some of local businesses. Or something like that. How much would it cost to sponsor one or two articles a week so we can widen our circle of friends.
WordPress Weekly Photo Challange: My Happy Place
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Happy Place.”
Sebago Lake, Standish, Maine
cyndi lenz 