The world became very dark

I’m working on some program to try to see which files I want to keep and which I can ditch, so this post will be short.

There is so much bad news in the world.

Afghanistan Tragedy

The news coming out of there is just so distressing. People who rely on very stridently on religious edicts are very cruel and inhumane. Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIS are examples of religious (or maybe fake religious) groups that mete out inhumane and murderous treatments. Sometimes I wonder if the evangelicals are moving in this direction because they often seem to be thinking that to solve problems, one must involve violence.

Is the situation Biden’s fault? I’m inclined to say no because there were probably no good time in the past for getting out of Afghanistan – he just happened to inherit the problem and decided to continue to pull out as set by the agreement by Trump’s administration and Taliban. He is honoring the agreement, probably realizing that the pull out was going to be a mess.

I’m no expert. I just remember that we got into Afghanistan because we were chasing Osama bin Laden after 9/11 and we learned that he was holed up in the mountains of Afghanistan. Why we stayed there though, especially after Obama had located him and assassinated him, is something I’m not clear on. I tried ready the history on Wikipedia but it wasn’t clear on why we stayed on in Afghanistan after the assassination. The only impression I got was that we stayed on to help Afghanistan keep out the Taliban insurgency (which was being supported by Pakistan and maybe Saudi Arabia).

I suspect every President knew getting out of Afghanistan without it falling was problematic; Biden was the only one to go through and that probably was because Trump made a “deal” with the Taliban. In other words, Biden didn’t make the deal; he is just honoring it.

It’s sad and distressing and we have to be careful that we don’t fall into the same kind of dynamic here.

Climate Change

We’ve a hurricane brewing just outside of the Gulf. Sigh…I hate this time of the year. This storm is supposed to be a major hurricane: BOO!!!!

So from now until end of November, I have to worry about any development forming in the Atlantic and Gulf. The Weather people that this season will be higher than normal, but maybe not as high as last year.

As for climate change in general, this year feels terrible: the fires started early in the Northwest, beginning with the heat dome pressing down, creating record temperatures in the Northwest and Canada and sparking fires. Scientists said that those extreme temperatures were not possible without climate change. Fires and evacuations have begun early in the season and we have a long way to go.

Europe (specifically Germany and Belgium and maybe Netherlands) suffered disastrous flooding in a region not known for flooding. Germany has been lucky until this summer to have wonderful weather, so they were not prepared for the disastrous flooding.

Greece is suffering from fires too. The pictures are like visions of hell.

Haiti suffered an earthquake which is really not part of climate change but then was to undergo heavy rain and flooding from one of the tropical storms cropping up in the Atlantic.

The Midwest and the Southeast have been suffering from flooding. Just last week Tennessee had a major, major flooding that swept away houses.

And this weekend states along the Gulf will face the first hurricane of the season and it looks like it will be a major storm.

I’m just praying it doesn’t hit here.

The world is burning and drowning at the same time.

(For a recap of what has transpired thus far, here’s a good article on extreme weather for summer of 2021.)

Corona Insanity

It’s hard to imagine the insanity here. People with the same kind of education ending up with two diametrically opposing views. We can’t agree on the public safety versus freedom.

I kind of understand those who question the safety of the vaccine, although millions of people have already taken the vaccine without mishaps, but I get it. There are others who have been misinformed about the safety and maybe fear being poisoned, so okay, I get that. I have a harder time with those misinformed and believe in the wilder stories (you become magnetized, they are injecting chips to track you, it’s fake, etc.) I have a harder time with them: why won’t they listen to their doctor? They trust their doctor on everything else but the vaccine? They’ll inject strange treatment – like that hydroxychloroquine (the malaria drug) or horse dewormer – but they won’t listen to their doctor?

But the ones I absolutely do not get are those who are protesting because getting the vaccine interferes with their freedom. I don’t get those people. Their freedom is more important than public health, more important than trying to get everybody safely on the other side of the pandemic.

Now we have protests that verge on violent, if not actually violent. There has been some soft assault, like pulling off masks, some actual scuffles, and some threats such as “we know who you are”. Yes, they are getting closer to out and out violence because they want their way.

The question is: how many of them are violent prone? My last post has stated a polling result that showed 56% of Republicans against mask mandates and 44% for mask mandates, so a slight majority are against wearing masks. That 56% against/ 44% for on Republican side and 8% against/ 92% for on Democrat side translate into roughly 69% for masks mandates and 31% against for US as a whole.

Now, I’m equating being against mask mandates as also being against vaccines, which may not be true, but that is all of the data I have. My question is: what percentage of these Republicans are just questioning the safety of the vaccine versus claiming freedom as more important than public health? Are all of the 56% of anti-mask/vaccine Republicans rabid freedom lovers or are the majority amenable to being convinced? If 56% are rabid freedom lovers, then we have a problem: we are being ruled by the minority of 31%.

And these people are getting more violent as time goes on.