Showing posts with label trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trump. Show all posts

Thursday, November 10, 2016

WTF just happened 'Merica?

I think there are a lot of us who are left thinking, what the fuck just happened?  How did that lying, misogynistic, racist, money loving, narcissistic failed tycoon end up in charge of the country.

I don't have an answer.  I do know that I am so sad about our country.  I worry for all of us, the hate and the derision that brought us to this point.  How are we such a country divided?  Where did we go wrong?

Shortsightedness is Dude's excuse.  That, and the electoral collage once again failing to represent the popular sentiment of the American people.  We need to move past this.  We need to eliminate the electoral collage so our vote counts again.

Some of the things our new pres elect has promised in the first 100 days:
Things I think are bad:

  • -De-fund climate change research and reallocate that money into water and infrastructure 
    • Initially I want to say 'because climate change is bullshit, as all republicans know' which is kinda unfair.  but, it's not so simple.  Really, this one is tricky.  So, water and infrastructure are incredibly CRITICAL.  But not at the expense of not being prepared for climate change (losing florida into the sea, the sinking of NYC, loss of costal shorelines and millions upon millions of people impacted by droughts, hurricanes, floods and other severe weather events).  Don't shortchange climate change because of water.  Find help for water and bridges elsewhere (perhaps where you are spending all that money trying to get the keystone pipeline active again...)
  • Spend a ton of money revitalizing coal, gas and oil, including overturning the Keystone pipeline 'roadblocks'  
    • because, you know, fuck the environment and renewable energy
  • Freeze federal hiring to reduce government by attrition 
    • because you know, those people aren't actively doing jobs for the American public.  one day...shit's gonna fall apart even worse than it is already
  • Build a wall around Mexico and bill the Mexican Govt.  
    • Because, you know, they will totally pay for it.  As a land manager, I know how much fencing costs.  This is NOT financially responsible first and foremost, without even taking in the other fifty reasons it is a bad idea. Just an idea, for a quarter of a mile of green fencing with barbed wire topping...cost us $75,000.  
  • Imposing 2 year mandatory minimum sentences for illegal immigrants for entering after deportation. 
    • Because, you know, let's kick them out the first time but give them room and board I have to pay for the second time.  Ehhhhhh.....I don't think this one was thought through.  Are we going to charge the Mexican govt for this, too? 
  • Requirement that for every new federal regulation two existing regulations must be eliminated. 
    • How is that going to work?  Water treatment is federally regulated.  So, if we decide to regulate the algal toxin Microcystin, do we get to get rid of regulations on arsenic and selenium?  Seems like we are going to have a problem here really quickly. 
So, stuff I kinda am waiting to see how it works out: 
  • Repealing obamacare
    • So...if this is done well, and we get a health savings program instead, this might work.  There's solid proof elsewhere in the world that it does work.  But...i just can't see Trump making it work. 
  • Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act.  
    • in theory it sounds great.  Since we aren't hiring more federal employees...who's going to run this shiny new program?
  • School Choice and Educational Opportunity Act
    • Let's see how this goes, too.  Lots of ways for it to be another 'no child left behind' program
  • End Offshoring Act
    • Again...it seems like a really cool program.  Who's gonna run it when the employees are all gone and how are you going to enforce and keep it from fraud? 
  • Lifetime ban on white house officials being foreign lobbyists, ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections, and White House officials having to wait 5 years to be lobbyists in America
    • This all makes sense to me. 

So....efff...I have no idea.  Also, i feel like I'm a minority now, buried under a country of crazy, horrible, selfish human beings.  Not a proud moment.  Hang tough, friends.  It's only four  years.  

-

Thursday, June 2, 2016

She asked me how we got here, I told her I don't know,

And if you keep on asking I'll just keep saying so, this isn't what I wanted, it isn't what I mean, just let them keep on talking, don't you pay them any mind.

That's the full title of this blog.
Back to work.  I got to go canoeing yesterday, and I will get to go again tomorrow.  So far, so good on algae, too.

I should be writing, you know, real stuff like the novels I will never release, not a blog post.  I am about 2/3 done with my second one, and have plans for a third already because too much stuff happened in the second one to try to wrap up in a rush.  It's not like I'm gonna do anything with these anyway, so who cares, right?  I understand how these turn into crazy several part novels now.  It's weird, I'll thinking about what I want to write, and then when i sit down to write it, somehow the characters are like, 'nah, we don't like that idea, how about we do this instead, and you need to figure out how to get us out of this later, k? thanks!'.  Sometimes I feel like I plan events and then they go all askew without my permission.  I'm not even sure what that's all about but it happens a lot.

Anyway, life is kind of back to normal, which is nice.  Somehow there is never enough time in the day and that's nothing new to anyone ever anywhere.

This whole thing with the gorilla in Cincinnati, well, I met that gorilla kinda sorta a few weeks ago during the May major water circuit.  We were on an environmental sustainability tour of Cincy Zoo and he was super aggressive at the time.  We stayed too long by his enclosure and he started running back and forth, then splashed water at us across the moat.   The whole thing saddens me, and I'm really really tired of all of the shame-blame culture that we have around events like this.  You know, sometimes shit happens.  Sometimes people do dumb things.  Sometimes kids slip away in a blink of an eye and then bad things happen.  And sometimes people are just lucky it wasn't them, you know?

Also, as much as I like taking my kids to the zoo, zoos are horrible places.

So much distraction from real issues, from things that matter.  We should all prepare for our new American CEO, Mr. Trump.

We will see how the Republican National Convention goes next month.  I wanted to go see Ministry and Helmet but it's during the RNC and I worry that the city will be impossible to traverse.  They are having an anarchist national convention, you know, because.