Let's end our day with a spoonful of Joe Biden, just to make us all feel a little better.

In emotional moment on @TheView, Joe Biden consoles Meghan McCain, whose father was diagnosed with same cancer Biden's late son Beau had. "There is hope. And if anybody can make it, your dad [can]." pic.twitter.com/tQUy11X5sV

— ABC News (@ABC) December 13, 2017

I am by no means a big fan of Meghan McCain, but she is a human being, and she is suffering.

Joe Biden demonstrates such abundant humanity in how he interacts with her, and his ability to even make her laugh while she is falling apart on national televisions speaks highly of the kind of heart our former Vice President possesses.

When Joe and Barack ran our country we were in many ways the best we have ever been.

They embodied the type of decency that we are sorely lacking these days. 

I miss them both, and know that whenever I share a story about what either one of them is up to these days that it will be both uplifting and hopeful.

Six year old boy writes to President Obama to ask if his family can adopt the Syrian boy from a photo that went viral.

Courtesy of TPM:

A 6-year-old boy from New York is inspiring a lot happy tears this week after he wrote a heartwarming letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to bring a Syrian boy to his house so that boy could become a part of his family. 

The letter writer, Alex, was referring specifically about Omran Daqneesh, the Syrian boy whose image went viral last month after he was pulled out from rubble in the city of Aleppo following an air strike.

Here is the boy's letter:

Dear President Obama, 

Remember the boy who was picked up by the ambulance in Syria? Can you please go get him and bring him to [my home]? Park in the driveway or on the street and we will be waiting for you guys with flags, flowers, and balloons. We will give him a family and he will be our brother. Catherine, my little sister, will be collecting butterflies and fireflies for him. In my school, I have a friend from Syria, Omar, and I will introduce him to Omar. We can all play together. We can invite him to birthday parties and he will teach us another language. We can teach him English too, just like my friend Aoto from Japan. 

Please tell him that his brother will be Alex who is a very kind boy, just like him. Since he won't bring toys and doesn't have toys Catherine will share her big blue stripy white bunny. And I will share my bike and I will teach him how to ride it. I will teach him additions and subtractions in math. And he [can] smell Catherine's lip gloss penguin which is green. She doesn't let anyone touch it. 

Thank you very much! I can't wait for you to come! Alex 6 years old

Yeah I am going to have to go remove something from my eye. Damn thing won't stop watering.

Sarah Palin brags that Donald Trump demonstrated a human emotion. Barely.

The woman sharing her terrible story with Trump is former Miss Wisconsin Melissa Consin, and the "charitable organization" that she is talking about is a fundraising page muhc like "GoFundMe." called "FundAnything" that allows people to ask strangers for money.

FundAnything also takes 9% of what is raised if you fail to reach your goal, and 5% if you meet your goal, so it is really more of a money making venture than purely a charitable one.

However even though it did not appear that Trump demonstrated a great deal of emotion, despite the inspiring music played along with the clip, it was enough for Sarah Palin to go "Aha! I told you he was a human!

Here is more from the easily impressed Mat-Su moron's Facebook page: 

Donald Trump's touch of humanity shines without the media filters that would portray him as disconnected from the people. See this candid interaction in Wisconsin yesterday. 

The beauty of Trump's frontrunner campaign, besides exposing politicians' undeniable allegiance to special interest donors instead of voters, is the rise of the worthy "outsider" candidate who genuinely cares... never has to fake it... never needs to contort persona ("Contort persona?") or responses according to the audience... refreshingly speaks and acts as the antithesis between We the People and today's typical politician... and is running for the most selfless reasons. (Since when if ego considered selfless?)

Trump's undervalued interpersonal touch is appreciated by we who understand the status quo political establishment that thrives in their beltway bubble will continue to disappoint Americans. We'll continue to be ignored when we demand a balanced budget, a prioritized military, secure borders, trade that creates U.S. jobs, and an end to crony capitalism in OUR government. We've provided today's politicians EVERY OPPORTUNITY to tackle each of those issues, and even wielding all the power in the majority, they've blown it. It's time for something different - and better - in order to enjoy a different - and better - result. 

America, it's time for something better - in order to survive.

 - Sarah Palin

Pretty sure that Palin typed this one out all by her lonesome.  Or else had very little help with it.

I am still amazed that anybody who knows anything about Donald Trump could believe that he is doing ANYTHING for anybody but himself.

I think I may have a new hero.

Do I love that quote or what?

Yes if we worked harder at helping each other rather than killing each other, there is no end to the amount of good we could do in this world.

To learn more about R. Buckminster Fuller just click here.

The difference.

I think this is fairly accurate, don't you?

Some very nutritional food for thought this morning.

Swedish cops on vacation show American cops how to do it.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Four vacationing Swedish police officers helped out after two homeless men began fighting on a New York City subway – and showed it’s possible to subdue violent suspects without hurting them. 

The officers — Samuel Kvarzell, Markus Asberg, Eric Jansberger and Erik Naslund — were riding an uptown No. 6 train Wednesday on their way to see “Les Miserables” when they responded to the subway driver’s call for help, reported the New York Post. 

The video shows one of the brawlers sitting calmly on the floor, flanked by two of the Swedish police officers, while two others kneel on the other man – who is more unruly – to hold him face-down on the floor. 

“How do you feel?” one of the officers asks the seated man, who says he feels fine. 

The other man struggles, but the pair of officers calmly keep him pinned to the floor. 

“I can’t breathe,” he screams, as he rises occasionally from the floor but is unable to escape. 

“Take it easy,” one officer repeatedly tells him. 

“Sir, calm down, OK? Everything is going to be OK.” 

The man eventually calms down, and he admits to the officers that he’s not injured after they ask.

When this video got around on social media it immediately earned the hashtag #swedishcops on Twitter as people began comparing their actions to what Americans have seen from their own police lately.

Police in the US should be trained by these cops. #swedishcops https://t.co/i1Fw5gFOP0
— Heather Matarazzo (@HeatherMatarazz) April 24, 2015

Yes you can break up a fight without using guns and racial slurs. #swedishcops
— Bano Yousif (@BanoAbdulla) April 24, 2015

Those #swedishcops asked the men they detained if they're alright, if they're injured. Simple questions that show how humanity works. #NYC
— Kay Eves (@KayEves) April 24, 2015

Treating suspects like human beings? How un-American.

Just being exposed to Buddhism makes you a better person.

The return of Bathroom Buddha

Courtesy of PsyPost:  

Researchers from Belgium and Taiwan have found that being exposed to Buddhist concepts can lead to increased prosocial behavioral intentions and undermine prejudice towards others. 

Buddhism contains a variety of teachings and practices – such as meditation – intended to help individuals develop a more open-minded and compassionate personality. Unlike the three dominant monotheistic religions, it does not draw a sharp line between believers and unbelievers. 

In three separate experiments of 355 individuals, the researchers found that being exposed to words related to Buddhism could “automatically activate prosociality and tolerance, in particular among people with socio-cognitive open-mindedness.” 

The study adds to a growing body of research about priming, a phenomenon in which merely being exposed to certain words or concepts changes the way people think or behave. It was published in the April issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

The article goes on to suggest that Westerners simply exposed to words associated with Buddhism like "Dharma" or "Nirvana" resulted in a less negative attitude towards others.

Then there's this:

Westerners with a Christian background also scored higher on measures of prosociality after being exposed to Buddhist concepts. Surprisingly, participants did not score higher on measures of prosociality after being exposed to Christian concepts.

I can't say I find this particularly surprising. 

I was exposed to Buddhist concepts as a young boy, and they had a dramatic impact on how I saw the world. Ultimately I think it had a hand in making me a better person.

It kind of makes one wonder how different the world might be if Buddhism and Taoism were the two most prominent religions.

The "morality" of the Tea Party, and why the Left will never understand it.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

"For the first time in our history," says Haidt, a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, "the parties are not agglomerations of financial or material interest groups, they're agglomerations of personality styles and lifestyles. And this is really dangerous. Because if it's just that you have different interests, that doesn't mean I'm going to hate you. It just means that we've got to negotiate, I want to win, but we can negotiate. If it's now that 'You people on the other side, you're really different from me, you live in a different way, you pray in a different way, you eat different foods than I do,' it's much easier to hate those people. And that's where we are." 

Haidt is best known for his "moral foundations" theory, an evolutionary account of the deep-seated emotions that that guide how we feel (not think) about what is right and wrong, in life and also in politics. Haidt likens these moral foundations to "taste buds," and that's where the problem begins: While we all have the same foundations, they are experienced to different degrees on the left and the right. And because the foundations refer to visceral feelings that precede and guide our subsequent thoughts, this has a huge consequence for polarization and political dysfunction. "It's just hard for you to understand the moral motives of your enemy," Haidt says. "And it's so much easier to listen to your favorite talk radio station, which gives you all the moral ammunition you need to damn them to hell." 

Here's an illustration of the seven moral foundations identified by Haidt, and how they differ among liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, from a recent paper by Haidt and his colleagues.

To unpack a bit more what this means, consider "harm." This moral foundation, which involves having compassion and feeling empathy for the suffering of others, is measured by asking people how much considerations of "whether someone cared for someone weak and vulnerable" and "whether or not someone suffered emotionally" factor into their decisions about what is right and wrong. As you can see, liberals score considerably higher on such questions. But now consider another foundation, "purity," which is measured by asking people how much their moral judgments involve "whether or not someone did something disgusting" and "whether or not someone violated standards of purity or decency." Conservatives score dramatically higher on this foundation. 

How does this play into politics? Very directly: Research by one of Haidt's colleagues has shown, for instance, that Republicans whose districts were "particularly low on the Care/Harm foundation" were most likely to support shutting down the government over Obamacare. Why? 

Simply put, if you feel a great deal of compassion for those who lack health care, passing and enacting a law that provides it to them will be an overriding moral concern to you. But if you don't feel this so strongly, different moral concerns can easily become paramount. "On the right, it's not that they don't have compassion," says Haidt, "but their morality is not based on compassion. Their morality is based much more on a sense of who's cheating, who's slacking.” 

"My analysis is that the Tea Party really wants [the] Indian law of Karma, which says that if you do something bad, something bad will happen to you, if you do something good, something good will happen to you," says Haidt. "And if the government interferes and breaks that link, it is evil. That I think is much of the passion of the Tea Party.” 

In other words, while you may think your political opponents are immoral—and while they probably think the same of you—Haidt's analysis shows that the problem instead is that they are too moral, albeit in a visceral rather than an intellectual sense.

This may be one of the most stunning, and unsettling arguments that I have ever read. made more so by the fact that what Professor Haidt says feel very true.

I have often found myself wondering just HOW some of these people can fight so hard against something that I personally consider the morally correct way of treating my fellow man.

I think that as a society we are all connected, and that what is good for one segment of our population is ultimately good for all of us.

Sure I want to find and punish those who take advantage of social programs, but I also believe they are a small segment of our communities and that punishing everybody for the sins of the few is morally abhorrent.

And the funny thing, the thing that always bewilders me, is that I'M the Atheist. And yet it seems that my views on caring for others, and putting their needs before my own, seems much more in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ than those embraced by the groups who claim ownership of Christianity and use it to belittle and oppress the rest of us.

California police are taking injured cats and dogs out to the shooting range and using them for target practice. Refer to it as "humane."

Courtesy of CBS Sacramento:  

The penal code has been on the books for decades. Some officers say it’s the most humane thing you can do, while others call it barbaric. 

Officers use deadly force to save the lives of others, but what about shooting severely injured dogs or cats found on the street? 

According to a California penal code, it’s an officer’s discretion, saying in part: 

“…any officer… may, with the approval of his or her immediate superior, humanely destroy any abandoned animal in the field in any case where the animal is too severely injured to move or where a veterinarian is not available and it would be more humane to dispose of the animal.” 

 “No one wants to see an animal lose its life, but if death is inevitable, and it’s just being prolonged,” said Sacramento County Sgt. Jason Ramos. 

That is one thing, and I think we can all see where that might be the best choice. However...

.....Merced Bee reports Merced Police take injured animals to the range and kill them there. 

“That sounds so archaic to me,” said veterinarian Dr. Jyl Rubin. “What a crazy way of thinking, especially with all these rescue organizations.” 

She believes law enforcement agencies that still shoot injured animals should consider creating an alliance with rescue groups. 

“All those organizations need to really come together. There needs to be something finite that way if an animal is injured you don’t take it out on a range and shoot it.”

You know I once responded to a moose hit on the highway. In that case the animal's legs had been shattered and there was NO hope of its survival. The responding officer DID shoot it with his revolver twice to put it out of its misery, but that is substantially different then loading up somebody's bleeding pet and taking them out to the gun range to use as target practice.

There is NOTHING humane about that.

Anybody who has seen an animal, or person, that has been shot, realizes that it is NOT necessarily a humane way to die.  Bullets rip through flesh, and if they do not hit a vital organ the suffering and bleeding will only be increased.

Not only that but try to imagine how a house pet might feel. Laying on the road suffering immensely only to be picked up by a trusted human and carried away. I am sure that they imagine they will be taken care of by the creatures they have come to trust and rely on.

Instead they are taken out into a field and tossed on the ground only to have their "saviors" riddle them with bullets? That does not fall under the heading of "humane" in my book.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I hate everything about this story.

Just a thought to start the day.

I know it must seem sometimes like I am beating a dead horse here, but if I accomplish nothing else I want to help prove that being a non-theist does not mean that somebody is morally inferior to those who embrace faith. If I could prove the opposite, then all the better.

I may be no more ethical or moral than the next guy, but then again I have never claimed to be.

I have made a lot of mistakes, and plan to make more in the future, but I have hard and fast rules about how I interact with others, how I live my life, and what I am willing to do for money.

Simply put I don't lie, I don't cheat, and I don't take what does not belong to me.

And none of that is the result of my fear of eternal punishment, nor my desire for an eternal life.

I conduct myself like a civilized human being because I AM a civilized human being. A civilized human being by the way who has a deep and abiding distrust for those who claim that without their fear of God there would be nothing to hold them back from acting on their baser instincts.

What to expect once the Republicans finish rewriting the bible.

There will also be NO healing without comprehensive private insurance, no feeding of the parasitic multitudes, and none of that driving out the money changers. (Instead they would get tax breaks and laws written specifically to protect them.)

Final photo of the day.

Oh to have been around to witness this meeting.

I bet their discussion was filled with kindness, humility, and mutual respect.

This, this should be the bedtime story that we all read to our children every night.

How empowering would it be to realize, as a small child, the enormity of your heritage?

To know that the elements that make up their body were delivered from the heavens, and that they once made up titans of space and traveled through the galaxy at enormous speed just to bring them to life?

You can keep your Bible, your Qaran, and other books of fairy tales, because the reality of who we are, and where we came from, is SO much more impressive than the limp colorless stories trapped within their pages.

Final image of the day, because the world needs a little more of this.

A final word to ponder as we see 2012 come to a close.

(Source)

I think Sunday is a good day to bring this up.

You know I have been saying some version of this for years.

Moments from this year that restore our faith in humanity.

Parents turn their child's wheelchair in Halloween costume.

Buzzfeed has put together 26 moments that restored their faith in humanity.

Here are a few:

New York City cop buys boots for barefoot homeless man.

Man supports best friend as he relieves arthritis pain in lake.

Doctor provides free medical care after Hurricane Sandy

There are many more, and if you want to see them pleawse visit the link at the top.

I think after the last few days we can ALL benefit from a reminder of just how many good people there are in the world.

A timeless message for us all from the year 1940.

The speaker is of course Charlie Chaplin, a man born decades before his time, and this speech is from the movie "The Great Dictator."

Here are the words for who who cannot play the video, though I do encourage you to hear them straight from the great man's mouth:

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite! Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up Hannah! The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality. Look up, Hannah! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow! Into the light of hope, into the future! The glorious future, that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up! 

These words could have been written, and then spoken, many times throughout history, and they would ALWAYS have been appropriate and necessary.

Yet one has to wonder if they would ever have been more appropriate and necessary than they are today.

Actor's heartfelt plea to his Facebook friends who are supporting the Romney/Ryan ticket.

Courtesy of Ma Vie:

 Hey ( ), 

Listen, I know you didn’t mean any harm commenting on this post and I like you, we had some great times growing up. But Romney and Ryan believe that I am less than you. They believe I am a second class citizen and don’t deserve the same rights that you had the privilege of being born into simply by being straight. They want to add a constitutional amendment that will ban gay marriage forever. It will set us back decades and ensure that I never legally have the opportunity to have a family or a partner in my lifetime. 

They also believe that being at your partner’s side when he/she is dying is a benefit, not a civil right. They could keep me from my partner dying in a hospital. Could you even imagine something like that in your own life? Being separated from your wife on her death bed? Could you imagine your marriage never being recognized and being told that your family is not a family and you do not deserve any federal rights that comes with marriage. Over 1100 rights. Did you know that? 1100. 

Ryan doesn’t believe in the hate crimes act fought unwaveringly for by Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, murdered for being gay in Wyoming. Murdered for being gay. Could you imagine if I was murdered for being gay? Could you really look my mom in the eye and say ‘oh well, we can not prosecute this crime as a hate crime’? 

I know there are important issues involved in this campaign. I know people are suffering and the economy has not improved at a rate we all wish it would. Yes, people are suffering but the gay and lesbian community has been suffering for hundreds of years and I am so tired of it. So tired of feeling that I am less than. So tired of knowing I have friends on here who will vote for someone who will keep me a second class citizen for my entire lifetime. I have already spent half a lifetime hiding, half a lifetime conforming. It is exhausting, demeaning and I am worn out. I want to love myself full out. I want a president who can look me in the eye and say ‘You are equal!’ ‘You are equal to everyone else in this country and I will fight for your rights. The time is now and it is long overdue.’ Romney and Ryan could not look me in the eye and say that and I feel sorry for every gay and questioning child who might have to listen to a president who believes that he/she is not equal. Children will take their lives. It is the WORST form of trickle down bullying and it absolutely splits my heart in half. When the president says you are less than, it gives permission to every authority figure, every politician, every teacher, every bully on the playground to push you around and bully you and treat you less than. It is dangerous and lives will be lost. 

If this is not important to you, please remove me from your friends list. I need people in my life who love me and consider me 100% equal. 

Max

Sometimes we forget, when we look at people in demographic terms, that they are REAL people, with REAL fears, and REAL pain, that need REAL love and validation in their lives.

And as fellow human beings, who are we to deny them the same rights and access to dignity that most of us simply take for granted?