"Federal funding cuts, and the insidious damage caused just since March by federal budget sequestration, have forced nearly one in five U.S. scientists to consider moving overseas to continue their research.
"While that immediate threat of a brain drain is alarming enough, it’s the long-term effects of sagging federal research funding that pose the greatest threat to our very survival. The cause-and-effect is simple: If Congress continues to refuse to fund the future, the decline of America’s much-touted “innovation economy” will accelerate fatally." 1
***
“This is a new kind of storm associated with climate change,” Tom LaPorte, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Water Management, told Medill Reports on day two of the April flood. Extreme flooding is part of a pattern that has emerged in the last two decades, according to Illinois State climatologist Jim Angel.
"Now a major insurance company is suing Chicago-area municipal governments saying they knew of the risks posed by climate change and should have been better prepared. The class-action lawsuits raise the question of who is liable for the costs of global warming.
"Filed by Farmers Insurance Co. on behalf of itself, other insurance companies and customers whose property was damaged by the surge of storm water and sewage overflow, the lawsuits allege the governments of Chicago-area municipalities knew their drainage systems were inadequate and failed to take reasonable action to prevent flooding of insured properties." 2
***
"South Carolina’s state beverage is milk. Its insect is the praying mantis. There’s a designated dance—the shag—as well a sanctioned tartan, game bird, dog, flower, gem and snack food (boiled peanuts). But what Olivia McConnell noticed was missing from among her home’s 50 official symbols was a fossil. So last year, the eight-year-old science enthusiast wrote to the governor and her representatives to nominate the Columbian mammoth. “Fossils tell us about our past,” the Grade 2 student wrote.
"And, as it turns out, the present, too. The bill that Olivia inspired has become the subject of considerable angst at the legislature in the state capital of Columbia. First, an objecting state senator attached three verses from Genesis to the act, outlining God’s creation of all living creatures. Then, after other lawmakers spiked the amendment as out of order for its introduction of the divinity, he took another crack, specifying that the Columbian mammoth “was created on the sixth day with the other beasts of the field."If ignorance is contagious, it’s high time to put the United States in quarantine." 3
I repeat: the republic - a "political system with elected representatives: a political system or form of government in which people elect representatives to exercise power for them" - is dying.
From the Citizen's United [4] ruling to government-by-reality-TV, we're cashing in on our limited, self-delusional mythologies, "shining city on a hill" we tell ourselves. Intelligent Design rammed down the throats of school districts will turn us into the laughing stock of the globe if not the universe, if ET bothers to pay attention. Our legislators chase chimera Sharia Laws, while in Orwellian doublespeak attempt to enact them. The Exodus will be first the scientists, then engineers will follow industries as they spring up on other nations' shores. Those "good-paying-jobs" will most likely, not come back.
Suddenly, people will start seeing it: frequent disastrous storms pooh-poohed by the numb skull Neanderthals in front of talk radio microphones with all opinion and no degree; the crumbling infrastructure of our cities and bridges reported on a weekly basis; our academic standing K-12 and post secondary sliding into the abyss of non-competitiveness; the newest technological discoveries coming at staccato pace from Europe and Asia; an American Nobel Laureate oxymoron and decades in our past; food-born pathogens prevalent as they will no longer be regulated; smog climbing as killer in the US (similar to conditions now in China); already public and school shootings are becoming the new, sadistic "normal," and the so-called patriots, pointing their numerous weapons at the dark, evil government-black helicopters-Illuminati will realize their prejudices and stoked xenophobic fears were used against them by manipulative demagogues with no skills other than shouting fire in crowded buildings - out to make a fast buck, and careerist politicians striving to do as little legislative duties as possible. They will realize they were being played by provocateurs that never had the public good in mind. They were instead (especially those in government) enriching themselves, giving themselves annual raises and denying it to the population; representing more special interests and fundraising corporations and individual billionaires, thus "corporations are [the only] people" other than the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and a network of dark money organizations they're interested in caring about: the rest of the carbon-based life forms they herd with speeches, slogans, sermons, Jingoism and talking points. Until, as the Sanskrit, the air breathers become Bodhi - "awakened," and heaven help us all when their arsenals are brought to bear.
I say "us," the regulars, the people that played by the rules, never wanted to be super-rich, just comfortable; wanted to at least pay for college for our kids without both of us going to debtors prison; wanted life to be better than what we lived through. The Charlatans tend to live in exclusive, well-guarded enclaves, secured and well-armed from those they've deceived, the rest of "us" will be canon fodder for the rage that's coming.
The Charlatans that will have caused this pending disaster [5] of Dystopian proportions will have the will - as psychopaths are above all, self-preserving - and the means to leave this approaching ruin of their own making: from shining city to dung heap.
That I observe, also tends to be the self-preserving natural habits and modus operandi...of locusts.
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