The pitter patter of little Rhino hooves...

A ray of sunshine: A megachurch preacher repents.

I fear we're heading toward massive population reduction rather than complete extinction...

to the point were we self-limit and live a far more simple existence with far fewer people.

My gut say we're heading toward multiple global conflicts as mass migration boils over, primarily caused by climate change and by increasing nationalism resulting in hard border controls and protectionism. Many millions will die in the process, if not already dying.

We're already seeing fresh water supplies dwindling, more sea life, plant and animal species disappearing, global warming and the associated sea level rises and drifting from traditional climate patterns. Scarcity of quality foods is increasing.

The human race is short-sighted and in denial. We continue to burn fossil fuels at an increasing rate and elect greedy psychopathic assholes to lead us.

Why am I so pessimistic? It's because humanity is currently doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing to slow or stop this process, thereby providing a positive feedback system that worsens the problem. That is a result of worsening economic inequality, a slow decline in foundational moral values and education of the general public and rampant greed in the high-wealth class.

There's also a mass drift toward individualism and away from charity, humility and willingness to change our path.

Whew, rant done.....

Ex-pharma chief charged with flooding Appalachian towns with opioids

Source: The Guardian

Federal prosecutors have charged a former president of a major pharmaceutical distributor with flooding parts of Appalachia with millions of opioid pills while ignoring evidence they were driving addiction and death. The arrest of Anthony Rattini, the ex-head of Miami-Luken, on criminal charges marks a significant shift in legal action to hold the drug industry to account for the US opioid epidemic as hundreds of civil actions against manufacturers and distributors head to court.

Rattini is accused of distributing powerful narcotic painkillers for other than medical reasons to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee.
----
The company has previously acknowledged delivering 5.7m opioid pills between 2005 and 2011 to the small town of Kermit, West Virginia, with a population of just 380 people. In 2008 alone, it shipped 5,264 pills for every man, woman and child in Kermit.

Miami-Luken went out of business in January as federal prosecutors closed in. Its former chair, Joseph Mastandrea, was alone among drug distributor executives who appeared before Congress in 2018 in conceding that his firm had played a role in the spread of an epidemic estimated to have claimed more than 400,000 lives over the past two decades.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/19/opioids-crisis-appalachia-painkillers-drugs

Interesting points. I'm going to chew on those for a while...

as an amateur that loves to study evolution and what we inherit from our genetics. I'm relating what you said to a bunch of folks I've known through the years and it's starting to make sense.

However, applying it to that vast majority of so-called "conservatives" who are not born into privilege, I'm seeing an authoritarian environment originating either in a.) religion, b.) parents with hard-core business-oriented beliefs, or c.) one or both parents being psychopathic to some degree and therefore control freaks. In many cases, it's a combination of those environments.

Next, sprinkle that with a sense of entitlement caused by our culture of rampant consumerism, along with a "what me worry?" attitude toward our planet's resources and environment.

Experts say an ingrained dependency on an authoritarian structure is typical of the conservative mindset. That certainly relates to your idea of "become stuck in a pre-adolescent state" because authoritarian structures can block one from that good transition you describe. Best to toe-the-line or else you'll be rejected from the clan (so typical of Republicans).

Being one raised by parents who went through the Great Depression in extremely hard times and World War II on rationing, it was an easy transition in the 60s to that "hero duty" and it lives in me to this day.

His Twitter minions are doing some heavy drugs tonight....

or someone left the WH liquor closet unlocked......

I'm convinced he has a group of them locked in the WH basement with direct lines to Stephen Miller, InfoWars and Hannity. They write the tweets and he just hits "send".

Good activity for the 4th: Refresher on the Declaration of Independence

Always healthy to read a refresher on any of the foundational documents of our Nation!

United States Declaration of Independence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

(snip)

These atrocities must remain an albatross hung around the neck of...

every single person identifying themselves as Republican for the rest of time.

It's highly symbolic of the right-wing mindset peppered with selfishness, greed, cold-heartedness and xenophobia we've seen in the GOP for all our lives (for me, since Nixon) and they must be shamed at every opportunity, including the "churches" that support them.

The psychopathy that drives these waves of right-wing atrocity will never disappear but we must eventually place them where they belong: in mental health treatment rather than in public office.

Forgiveness in the heart must be an individual decision, but those who have committed crimes against refugees and immigrants must face justice.

We must work hard to see that new laws and regulations are in place to prevent these actions ever happening again.

KY........

Symptomatic of a much more widespread problem of human denial and cruelty.

On and off for several years, I worked with men in jails and prisons as part of my early program of addiction recovery. What I learned from those guys through letters, visits and phone calls was appalling, especially for one poor fellow who had Crohn's disease. I would have never learned it otherwise because I'm one of the fortunate few of America's heavy drinkers that never served a day in jail.

What I suddenly came to realize is that America and most nations around the globe simply toss anyone not conforming to society's idea of a perfect money-making morally-conforming human into a place behind walls and fences so they can be forgotten, regardless of society's role in them being there and regardless of the fairness of justice that placed them there. And, rehabilitation in the United States if mostly a complete joke. For most, once imprisoned their lives are thereafter in a trash bin.

Once they are disappeared into a detention system, their entire existence is subject to whims of prison officials and guards that often are mentally ill from that environment themselves and whims of state and federal legislators anxious to cut budgets to bare bones. And, almost 100% of it is out of sight and out of mind of our general public.

Cutting health care and food costs, facilities improvement costs and rehabilitation costs is an easy and non-transparent way to achieve reduced spending, especially in red states that are adverse to any and all taxes. Politicians and prison officials get away with it because almost all of our detainees are poor and neither them or their families have any voice.

It's sort of a warped component of our primitive territorial self where we build fences around anything unpleasant, from an annoying next door neighbor to entire nations. You might say that the wall around your nearest city or county jail or state prison is no different morally from our southern border. At least the southern border is now televised.

Rest in peace, Seth ....

KY Rant Done.......

How Lincoln's disdain for demagogues pricks Trump's Fourth of July pomposity

Great article to guide our perspective on the 4th....

How Lincoln's disdain for demagogues pricks Trump's Fourth of July pomposity
If nothing else, the president’s speech on the Mall on Thursday will show how far we have fallen since Lincoln
Sidney Blumenthal
Sun 30 Jun 2019 06.00 BST

Read here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/30/trump-lincoln-sidney-blumenthal

(snips)