When Science and Civility Are Gone
If it's the Kennedy Memorial Center, don't you have to be dead to put your name on it?
"If I owned both Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas." - General Phil Sheridan
I have spent most of my life being proud to have grown up in Texas. The colorful history and characters make it pretty unique among the 50 states. For example, Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto, was forced to resign as Governor when he wouldn't approve secession from the union. At that time, and with the prevailing political winds driving America toward civil war, that was the kind of courage Houston was noted for.
Now, our leadership bends to whatever the prevailing MAGA winds dictate. For example...
Yep. These Texas Department of Public Safety troopers are now bathroom monitors. Senate Bill 8, also known as the Texas Women’s Privacy Act, restricts what public restrooms, locker rooms and other similar facilities transgender people can use in public buildings by determining access based on sex assigned at birth.
OK, but how big a problem was this anyway? How does one prove gender, well other than, you know? And could these guys look any more embarrassed?
I've been trying to think of what might go into thought balloons with this photo. "Yeah, I'm bored and hate myself a little right now, but at least we made the state safe from Caitlin Jenner."
And, our Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-dumber presided over a legislative session that saluted the White House smartly and re-re-districted the state without waiting for the next census in 2030. Why? Hey, why not? In fact, let's just do it every year. No one will know what district to run in. It will be political whack-a-mole. Sort of an electoral grab bag of fun and shenanigans.
And of course, since science is too damned sciency, they gave in to the Luddite faction of MAGA and made Ivermectin for humans available without a prescription. Why? Hell, I don't know. Because some guy on the internet said years ago it cured Covid.
Which you're certainly free to say because the internet is available to even the feeble minded, but doctors will universally tell you that it doesn't. It can't. It is for use on parasites and Covid is a virus. These are two very different things. But because even stupid people deserve representation, too, our fearless legislators made it even more available.
Needless to say, the Texas Medical Association took a dim view of this, but supporters of the law, including its co-author Representative Cody Harris, highlight "medical freedom" as a primary motivation. Now, in his earlier life, Cody was, and probably still is, a real estate company owner. And, I don't know about you, but when I'm feeling sick, I call up my local RE/MAX guy.
But science is now apparently not only pliable but optional. This is the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), regarded as one of the world’s preeminent research institutions in the field of Earth science.
Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, the federally funded center has driven multiple scientific breakthroughs since its founding in 1960, including pioneering advancements in weather data collection, atmospheric modeling and lidar technology. But now, it will be dismantled. And I know you're wondering why.
The cover story is, all that darned climate research. You know the kind that scientists all over the world are working on? The kind that not only helps model where we are going with climate change, but helps farmers and ranchers make essential decisions, along with the US military who need the best weather and climate data possible to do their jobs.
Well, that is just "climate alarmism" according to renowned non-climatologist Russel Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget. So, we literally throw the baby out with the bathwater because climate change is some sort of Democratic Party scam.
Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which oversees NCAR, quickly denounced Vought’s decision, writing in a statement, “Any plans to dismantle NSF NCAR would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters.”
And as for it being some kind of liberal hoax, even within the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, the move drew criticism. Roger Pielke Jr., a senior fellow, told USA Today that he considers NCAR “a crown jewel of the U.S. scientific enterprise that should be strengthened, not dismantled.”
But, this isn't really about all that. This is about this woman...
This is Tina Peters, the former County Clerk of Mesa County, Colorado. Peters was accused of helping an unauthorized person make copies of sensitive voting machine hard drives and attend an annual software update. Information from the machines and photos of their passwords were later shared with election conspiracy theorists online.
In other words, she was part of President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. She was found guilty and is cooling her heels in prison in Colorado. The Prez wants her out and even tried to pardon her, but he can't pardon someone convicted in a state case. So, destroying one of the most valuable facilities for scientific climate and weather research is the next best thing he can do to say "screw you" to Governor Jared Polis.
But if you're talking science and this administration, the conversation always comes back to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Now, I've written about Bobby before when he was a long shot, and looney candidate for President.
Roger T. Gray
Let me quote from that piece...
And let me be fair here. To lose your father in the way he did, when you're only 14, is traumatic. You can hardly blame a guy for having some confused and wild years. In his case though, he's had 69 of them and left a lot of collateral damage along the way. Drugs and other women, and a lot of both, have been his particular predilections. They led to long stints in rehab, his mother Ethel Kennedy throwing him essentially out of the family, his first wife to dump him, and the second to hang herself in their garage. And now he's married to an actress who works with Larry David, so Cheryl Hines, we wish you well.
He, of course, made his name in the last few years, trying to generate doubt about proven vaccines and the life-saving job they have done. I was one of those first kids to get the Salk vaccine as a shot in the 50's, and my parents were two of millions grateful that the scourge of polio was essentially over.
I also got a case of rubella or the German Measles when I was 6 that had to be handled with kid gloves because they can kill or at least cause permanent damage. Here's one I didn't know about.
SSPE (Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis) is a rare, progressive, and fatal brain disorder caused by a persistent measles virus infection, usually developing years after childhood measles, leading to personality changes, cognitive decline, seizures, and ultimately death. There's no cure, but treatments focus on managing symptoms with anticonvulsants, with measles vaccination being the only effective prevention.
And yet, Bobby, or his brain worm, is now casting doubt on this vaccine, along with whooping cough and Hepatitis B vaccines as well. He will recommend a grand overhaul of the recommended vaccine regimen for kids after the new year.
Make no mistake. Kids will die. They already have. Why does any parent who loves their children listen to this dangerous and uninformed jackass? And as big a dunderhead as he is, why would you support a guy who nominated him to oversee the country's health?
It's like making Timothy Leary a Walgreens manager.
Look, I'm appalled with the overall nature of this Chernobyl of an administration, the random cruelty, childish insults, shameful puffery of adding your name to the Kennedy Center, the ignorant tariff policies, the ginning up of a "war" with Venezuela of all places, and the whole Epstein cover-up. And it is, of course, a cover-up.
Throw in the execrable response to Rob Reiner's murder and the new US foreign policy that writer Anne Applebaum described as the longest suicide note in American history, the shouted, almost completely fictional White House address, and most of us are sustaining concussions from slapping our foreheads.
Appointing RFK though, will have real and deadly consequences. But, hey, as long as you own the libs, right?
Now, he is part of the Texas Outlaw Writers, and if this doesn't pan out, the outlaw part will still work as he will indeed resort to robbing banks.