Featured Editorials

Hellraisers Journals: The New York Times Reports on Wedding of Grace Gifford & Joseph Plunkett

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
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Monday May 8, 1916
Report from Dublin on the Wedding of a Martyred Irish Rebel

Irish Rebels of 1916, Grace Gifford, Joseph Plunkett.png

Ed Rendell: Bernie supporters "have to behave and not cause trouble" when he loses.

Link: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/dem-primaries/279136-democratic-nati...

As if you're not disgusted enough with the Democratic Party, the weasel Ed Rendell just doubled-down on pissing off half of their voting base:

Thoughts about installing solar power

Lately I've been looking into installing solar panels.

My house faces east, with the peak of the roof running east-west so I have a pretty good stretch of roof that is south-facing. However my neighbour to the south has a pretty tall maple tree -- at least as tall as my house -- so I'm not sure whether that would affect efficiency. A similar tree on the neighbour's property behind me might block any southwest-facing panels.

How Donald Trump Successfully Trolled America

Google is arguably the first tool that most people use to inform themselves about presidential candidates and election issues. People often use Google Search to ask political questions, while Google tries to guess the question and complete it while the user is still typing. The AI (artificially intelligent) algorithm Google employs for this feature is keyed to many environmental variables, but the most influential are terms and topics that are trending.

Thus, we come to Donald Trump. These days, people are searching his name often, and one of the most frequent questions they ask appears to be:

Is donald trump a republican or democrat?

The American people just aren't certain.

And the Hate Goes on...

During last evening's diary, someone posted the following question:

Are there any studies as to why some people react as they do? There has to be something about brainwashing or extremely, rigid hierarchical systems and the reinforcement loop.

That's a very good question. My partner teaches people how to do psychological research and has access to a very good library, so we found a paper on anti-transgender prejudice from 2012. It will take me a couple of days to translate the research method used and statistics into actual readable English, but I'll do it and get back to you.

Meanwhile, we can all revel in the American Family Association's Sandy Rios, who first denied that AFA is "testing" Target's policy of allowing transgender people to use public facilities in their stores (you know, like normal people) by sending men into women's facilities, before getting to the point of her hatred.

Alberta Wildfires Out of Control. Blame Climate Change, with a little help from Hillary Clinton

Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse in the eyes of some here, but when I see a headline like this - Fort McMurray: Fire could double in size, Canadian official says - from CNN, I find it more than a little disturbing.

Dry, windy conditions are fueling the blaze, which has already raged over 1,010 square kilometers (389 square miles). By Saturday, it might be twice as big.

Faith - it's corrosive influence on our planet and our politics

This will be a several part essay, which will hope to explain just how we got ourselves into the mess we now face.

Faith. Everyone seems to recognize it, but what is it really? What is truly meant by the word Faith? And what role has it played in politics, especially in the race for the presidency.

Big Ag

Perhaps you think Big Agriculture's influence over Congress and the Executive is limited to Monsanto and other Monopolist Mega-Corporations? Well companies like that have their own lobbying budget, but many Agri-Businesses are also members of mandatory marketing, public relations, and yes, lobbying groups.

In the sense that these ever had a purpose it was to promote family farmers, a breed that barely exists anymore, in the same way that a union in a closed shop does- since all the workers benefit from union representation all must pay dues.

In Big Ag this is called the 'Checkoff System'.

FBI interviewed Huma Abedin, will interview Hillary Clinton within weeks

The FBI has interviewed Huma Abedin, and will interview Hillary Clinton within weeks, as part of the FBI email probe, according to CNN.

Here is the initial report:

First on CNN: FBI interviews Clinton aides including Huma Abedin as part of email probe

Some of Hillary Clinton's closest aides, including her longtime adviser Huma Abedin, have provided interviews to federal investigators, as the FBI probe into the security of her private email server nears completion, U.S. officials briefed on the investigation tell CNN. The investigation is still ongoing, but so far investigators haven't found evidence to prove that Clinton willfully violated the law the U.S. officials say.

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