My Recent Comments

• Selective history is a lot like selective memory. If you ever wish to come down to earth, go to Oregon where hundreds of thousands of acres of forests logged in the 1930s were clear-cut at the height of buck-saws, about four feet off the ground and left. Those stumps are still the only thing there. Look at mountain streams that run through nothing but rock sixty feet wide where gold dredges destroyed everything as far up-stream as they could go, looking for gold and left nothing but destruction. Next go to Texas and parts of California that still stink of depleted oil fields too polluted to support agriculture and the Northwest and central plains where refuse from railroad construction still litters miles of land. While you’re at it try to remember WWI and WWII, the exploitation of Native Americans, and how the common laborer was exploited by those who built the rail, oil, steel and finance industries during the industrial revolution. Don’t forget that B of A, originally the Bank of Italy, foreclosed on properties under the name of California Land Bank, both because of the depression and to grab lush properties owned by Japanese Americans who were forced into foreclosure when they were moved to internment camps. Nothing is free, but not everyone ends up paying the bill.
  4 weeks ago
• trolleon… If you came out of your closet once in a while you would know that “ MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS FROM MEXICO, HONDURAS, EL-SALVADOR AND GUATEMALA” are not the target of local charities. When I volunteer at local shelters I see that the people standing in line are not the people who stand each morning looking for work. There are a lot of people who have chosen homelessness and hand-outs as a way of life but you are wrong if you think those you have targeted in your hate message are looking for freebies. They’re actually the only ones who seem to be willing to work for what they get. And your connection to the false claim about the Chinese Army owning the U.S. deficit is also erroneous. Most of the U.S. debt is in treasury bills and notes held privately by individuals, including U.S. citizens, around the world. Anyone can buy them. They have nothing to do with charities. Your effort to tie the two together is just a typical leon-the-troll ploy to get another hate message in print.
  4 weeks ago
• Mike… There is more than one issue here; what the police can do, what you can do and how the results of those actions may be used. Obviously, if what you imply is true, you set yourself up as a target. We do tend to get what we ask for. If you go around trying to make a point, just like looking for a fight, you will probably find some takers. The police can ask you anything they want. If they haven’t respected your rights, the justice system is limited in what they can do with information you give them. They may be able to use information you provide, if you haven’t been “Morandized,” to help them in other ways although they couldn't use it against you in a trial. Feeling they have more than enough incriminating evidence against Tsarnaev without using additional voluntary information he gives before his rights are read to him, the police may pursue questioning. That information just can’t be used against him. It can be used to help police determine if additional threats exist or to protect or locate others involved. In your personal case, however, I’m sad to see that you choose to waste the time of those we pay to protect us from the Tsarnaevs in the crowd just for your own amusement.
  4 weeks ago
• Maybe those 32% of people don't die of heart attacks because they die of malnutrition or food boredom or foot in mouth disease. Pass the prime rib, please.
  4 weeks ago
• “both God and afterlife are facts in both science and reason” Rich… I guess you bring your own facts to support your opinion. And ‘Aquinas?’ Now there’s a fellow that had some skin in the game. His arguments were always to support, just as were his studies. He would be burned at the stake for both heresy and blasphemy if he had come to any truly logical conclusions. If No devils’ advocate there. As for Averroes and Maimonides… sources for more Abrahamic indoctrinations. One doesn't have to deny or acknowledge anything because someone else is an advocate or to evaluate their worth.
  4 weeks ago
• Okay, Rich, if that’s where you have to be. I read you as perceiving the laws of motion and related physics as God and the eternal existence of mass and energy (which are interchangeable) as afterlife. To me such euphemisms are an escape mechanism that tries to hang on to a spiritual part of our nature while not entirely giving up on reason or vice versa. It’s all just so many words that have no real depth or meaning but instead replace logic with conjecture. I see you relate to government, education and civil organizations in the same fashion. Perhaps, to you, words are God. To me, God, as implied by the author and other commenters is either a creator or omnipotent supreme being that has something to do with human activities. Otherwise this letter would be of moot consequence. An afterlife implies that something other than molecular substance remains to represent the creature of which it one once a part and that it may even have a sentient component. For me, neither makes sense. Simple as that. Not a lot of conjecture required. I do, however, recommend that those who seek such comforts and answers as such beliefs provide, should find one that’s right for them and use it.
  4 weeks ago
• Rich… what a lot of rot! If your addiction requires God or an afterlife, go for it. Trying to justify it is like any other addiction. If you gotta have it, you’re going to get it anyway you can and no amount of logic or reason will sway you. Sophistic verse and quoting other addicts has no effect on those who aren't hooked. And, of course, addicts flock together to protect the pusher and for mutual enablement.
  4 weeks ago
• Accuracy... so what? It's all pantomime and show. All the shamans and medicine men got together for community ritual and everything was just like before? I didn't think so. Did they stick pins into little terrorist dolls and chant arcane verses? Did they smear paint on their faces to look mean and scare away the boogie men? Did they think their chants, vows and oaths would change the universe, abolish evil and save souls. Did they end their prayers with "Amen" (so be it). I though so. Such hubris!
  4 weeks ago
• There is a distinction missing here. The difference between sportsman and hunter. I define sport as something where each side has equal chance and enters into the game voluntarily. Hunting is the tracking and killing of a living being. Without judging or placing a moral value on either activity, there is still a distinction between the two. If people want to go bear hunting with paint balls that might even be considered sport but not for the bear. People intruding on the bear’s environment go home and brag after the encounter. When bears intrude into the human environment they are often destroyed, especially if they cause harm. Where’s the sport there? Implying that consumption of the meat justifies a kill is ridiculous as it’s not a matter of survival. The hunter could just donate the money spent on gear to a homeless shelter if that were the case. As for the environmental preservation of species, you’re right. We’re crowding out and driving other species into extinction. It has nothing to do with sportsmanship. It relates to keeping enough living targets for next year’s kill. A man buys $3000 worth of high powered rifle with sighting scope and laser, throws it in his $40,000 pickup truck along with another $5000 of camping gear and goes out and kills a deer that is confined to a known acreage. He returns with a few pounds of low grade venison that was poorly butchered and because someone eventually eats the meat, he justifies the slaughter. He could have purchased an equal amount of better meat for $200 at the local butcher. This is not a comment on the ethics or morality of hunting. It a comment on truth. We need to admit that we are human and humans are born to kill. We've been doing it since we discovered the rock was a weapon. Don’t confuse an innate human desire to kill with sportsmanship. It’s the same reason we still have war, and how has that worked out for us for the last 20,000 or so years? If both sides of a war have equal chance and enter voluntarily, isn't that sport?
  1 month ago
• trolleon.... don't worry, you're still the 1st in this column. 1st in Michelle's closet, 1st to check everyone's equipment, 1st place in the stupid contest, 1st to circle the block eyeing those evil teenagers with all the tats, 1st to lie about being a real person. A DIVA TROLL... LOL, LOL,
  1 month ago