Ken Padgett

All "heroic" public statues are a form of idolatry that America can definitely do without. We should view our founding fathers and all other heroes honestly, by recognizing that they were complex people, with strengths and weaknesses. We can't do that when we put them up on a pedestal and worship them like gods, instead of learning the truth about them. Washington DC is full of magnificent monuments to presidents and other notables, drawing on the royal and religious imagery of the ancient world.   Statue of George Washington modeled after the Greek god Zeus originally placed in the Rotunda of the Capitol in 1841 Americans constantly proclaim their disdain for politicians, yet the American landscape is littered with monuments to them. We live amid an endless inventory of political idolatry, all reinforcing the idea that the public sector is the ultimate expression of American glory. M emorial statues are potent symbols. Public memorials are ric...

Mandatory a rbitration clauses are undermining consumer protections, civil rights, and employment laws that level the playing field between big businesses and individuals. http://jensorensen.com/   It's time to end mandatory binding arbitration. Companies force consumers to give up their right to use the legal system to resolve disputes by embedding language in contracts that say in the event of any dispute, both parties have to go to an arbitration firm.  Here’s an example of a standard arbitration clause in use at Amazon: any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court. Arbitration clauses are usually outlined in tiny print, buried in lengthy documents and written in legalese that is incomprehensible to most people. Moreover, these clauses are mandatory, meaning that people ar...

  Despite insisting it is not a media company and is not in the business of making editorial judgments, Facebook is all too happy to censor user-generated content. Facebook censors operate under a cloak of anonymity, with no accountability to users. Facebook Auto Censorship H ave you ever tried to post a comment and got a message saying, " U nable to post comment - try again?"  Or  "An error occurred . Please Try again in a few minutes"? And no matter how long you wait, you keep getting the same error?   H ave you ever had a Facebook post rejected becau se of an "unsafe link"? The link could be a web page or an image that Facebook decides is "unsafe."   H ave you ever had a Facebook post rejected becau se Facebook decided your comment "seems irrelevant or inappropriate"? T he primary way Facebook flags and takes down content is via automated algorithms. As with any automat ed system examining content , ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/31/its-our-central-hub-for-clean-energy-science-trump-wants-to-cut-it-massively/?utm_term=.434a45acb93c Sounds bad, but I'm not sure these cuts are all that terrible. And despite the headline, the proof that they "helped make solar power affordable" is non-existent. American-made solar panels generally cost from 80¢ to $1 per watt (W) – about 10-30¢ more per watt than imported panels. And where do most of the panels installed in the US come from? China, of course. So, the prices on installed systems have come down because of innovations in manufacturing made by China and result ing competition from China. We are already way behind. Beyond that, any innovations that might arise from US government-sponsored research will go directly to US manufacturers. Will they ever pass the savings on to consumers without the competition from China forcing them to do so? Not likely. So, what have we be...

President Trump paid tribute to Ryan Owens, the SEAL killed during a mission in Yemen in his first address to a joint session of Congress, singling out Owens’s widow, Carryn. Pointing to the grieving widow, Trump repeated the lie that, "Ryan was a part of a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemies." Then Trump gave two more applause lines resulting in three standing ovations for the widow. It was so very sad to watch her face as she was used as a prop for such an unseemly display. Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the operation "a failure" because the terrorists were allegedly tipped off in advance. “When you lose a $75 million airplane and, more importantly, American lives are lost and wounded, I don’t believe that you can call it a success,” In addition to the death of Ryan Owens, six other U.S...