Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly

Diversity is Out, Racism is In

Posted on Wednesday 12 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Military veterans say the trans ban is logistical nonsense; How Musk and Vance stood up for a self-avowed racist; How Trump and his administration are intentionally on the wrong side of history, favoring “competent white men”; How philosopher Richard Rorty … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Decline, Human Nature, Politics | Comments Off on Diversity is Out, Racism is In

Not-a-Surprises

Posted on Tuesday 11 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

I see TV commercials about health insurance that complain about “bills” and “not-a-bills”. I get plenty of both too. Not-a-surprise: Trump and Musk are really after tax cuts for the wealthy. Trump doesn’t grasp the point of foreign aid; Conservatives … Continue reading →

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The Roots of All This is an Unchanging Human Nature in a Changing World

Posted on Monday 10 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Heather Cox Richardson explains why the right to vote, not the Second Amendment, is the key to maintaining our rights; Robert Reich wonders where the lawlessness of the Trump regime will end; Paul Krugman sees the end of Pax Americana; … Continue reading →

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Nothing mattered, in the end

Posted on Sunday 9 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

NY Times’ timeline of Trump 2.0; NRA graphic from Facebook; A Canadian perspective on Trump; DEI graphic from Facebook; How Trump (and Musk) target agencies investigating *them*; The cost of scrapping the social cost of carbon; David French on the … Continue reading →

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Flooding the Zone with Shock and Awe

Posted on Saturday 8 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How to deal with it; I’m trying to put things into a broader perspective of their deep motivations, which are always about basic, tribalist, human nature; Trump is taking over Kennedy Center because he objects to drag; Plastic straws, racist … Continue reading →

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Elizabeth Kolbert, H IS FOR HOPE

Posted on Saturday 8 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “Climate Change from A to Z” Illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook (Ten Speed Press, 159pp, c2023, published March 2024) <Amazon> This is a book I bought on the basis of the author’s name (I quite admired her book of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Science | Comments Off on Elizabeth Kolbert, H IS FOR HOPE

DEI and NASA

Posted on Friday 7 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

David Wallace-Wells on the sabotage of the American government; Paul Krugman on “autogolpe” and the Musk/Trump chaos; Heather Cox Richardson on how Republicans have, ever since Reagan, convinced voters that there’s an enemy “deep state” out to destroy their country; … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Cosmology, Lunacy, Politics | Comments Off on DEI and NASA

A Nation vs. a Collection of States

Posted on Thursday 6 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Quite a number of interesting items stacked up. Let’s just start working them. How sending education “back to the states” is problematical for the same reason you don’t run a nation like a business; How Trump creates problems he then … Continue reading →

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Shades of Morality

Posted on Wednesday 5 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s crazy Gaza redevelopment plan; How conservatives use “corruption” (without evidence) as an excuse to undermine institutions they don’t like; And they would go after Wikipedia, if they could; Then a long sequence about JD Vance on Christian love, various … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Morality, Philosophy, Religion | Comments Off on Shades of Morality

Living in History

Posted on Tuesday 4 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Still rainy, still with cold, sleeping half the day it seems, reading a bit. I roused myself about two hours ago and here’s what I came up with. Heather Cox Richardson on the obvious: that Republicans are letting an un-elected … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Human Nature, Politics | Comments Off on Living in History