Alaska (traditionally red), Iowa (leans red), Maine (Closer to purple), Michigan (Purple), New Hampshire (Purple), Ohio (Red since 2016), and Texas (Red). North Carolina is leaning blue and Kansas is leaning red. These are the states that will decide if the Democrats gain control of the Senate, assuming a fair election. Democrats need to turn four seats to take control of the Senate.

That’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. Texas has a Democrat leading the race. The Republican was once impeached by his own party and he brags about his close relationship with the Pedophile President. You know, the one who has done so much damage to the United States in such little time. But the pedo-supporting, scandal-ridden Republican is still in the race. It’s close, in fact.

In Michigan, the Democrat has a slight lead but he also has a foreign sounding name that scares cons and he’s been endorsed by Bernie Sanders. The Republican may or may not live in Michigan, which is a problem. Worse, he’s MAGA and people (except MAGA, of course) have kind of seen what MAGA has to offer: high prices, war, and unnecessary struggles every day. This, despite promises. Michigan tends to send Democrats to the Senate but again, the Democrat has a scary name.

The race in Iowa is too close to call at this point, but even that is a hopeful sign for the Dems. Iowa has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008 and has been leaning right for a while, so the close race could suggest a shift as people feel the pain so generously dished out by Donny and the GOP. Most voters in Iowa are rural. Farmers. And farmers have been feeling the pain of trump policies more than most.

Susan Collins (R) of Maine is currently trailing in her race. Word is, she consistently “overperforms.” Overperforms is a euphemism meaning the candidate did better than expected according to metrics. I suspect “overperforms” means “cheats,” but that’s just a personal hunch. It’s not like I check every day to see what Collins is up to, but what I know of her tells me she’s a loyal Republican who votes with trump far too often but lies about it on a regular basis. She’s in disguise. Wears sheep’s clothing one might say.

It’s tough for some of us to imagine that anybody would vote Republican today. Well, anybody in the working class, which is most of us. But it’s important to remember, they have alternative stories for every single disaster this country is suffering. To hear them tell it, the failures are never the Drumpfster’s fault, most especially when they clearly are. The blame, as far as they know, always falls to a Democrat. That’s their rule. Sure, it’s a stupid rule, but they live by it. Garbage in, garbage out, right? It matters not that they are being deceived. They are, and they’ll vote according to what they believe, not what’s real…

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I oppose the death penalty. I question the wisdom and morality of allowing a state to claim the right to kill it’s own citizens and I question the value of the killings. They’re not deterrent to anyone who thinks they’ll get away with their murder – which is everyone committing murder. The ONE thing they accomplish is people don’t have to pay to maintain the prisoner any more, but I think that’s just one of those burdens of society we have to shoulder.

But the US does kill it’s own citizens, or tries to. We’ve mostly shifted from hanging, shooting, electrocutions, and poison gas once so common to the process to the more “civilized” lethal injections. For reasons I don’t understand, the lethal injections are not always lethal. I don’t understand that because we have people who don’t want to die, dying every single day from overdoses of fentanyl. Couldn’t a state intentionally overdose someone to death?

No, they use some “humane” combination of drugs. Well, they did. The company that made their favorite killing drug has denied the use of their drug for the purpose. States that kill have scrambled to find alternatives. They don’t always work. The most recent failure was this woman in Tennessee, who now survives on a ventilator because they couldn’t mange to kill her – twice. That’s not so much an eye for an eye as “we’ll teach YOU a lesson you won’t soon forget!” I’m not sure what good a “lesson” is to a dead person…

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There’s a vaguely boat-shaped rock formation in Turkey. Christians have focused on the formation as the “likely” remains of the fictional Noah’s Ark. Now that they’ve decided it’s probably the Ark, all they need is to find the evidence that supports their wish. True, they’ll also have to discard any evidence that conflicts with their preference, but Christians are very good at that.

For as long as I can remember, Christians have been looking for physical proof of events in their special storybook, the Bible. Noah’s Ark is a favorite. Other researchers have already found “remains of the Ark” in other places. One time, a piece of wood was found high up on a mountain. Since that tree didn’t grow on that mountain, it must be the Ark, right? How else could a piece of wood end up on a mountain?

If you need that piece of wood to be part of the Ark, you simply dismiss the idea that someone may have taken wood up there at some point for some other reason. These researchers will find what they’re looking for, too. It’s all they want to see. They won’t just decide it was once a boat. It WILL BE the Ark. The question in my mind is, how did you determine it was the actual Ark? I mean, even if it was a boat, what evidence is there that it’s Noah’s actual Ark?

Did you find captain’s logs? Did you find a sign? Did Noah take the time to christen his ship, ‘The Ark?’ Did you find Unicorn bones under Ostrich feathers? So far, they’re hanging their hats on “high organic matter content.” That’s it. No, not the bodies of the animals. That would suck, wouldn’t it? God gets you to build a huge Ark and stuff it with two of each animal, only to get to where you’re going and have all the animals die at the end?

No, the “organic material” is from the Ark, itself. As the boat decayed, the wood crumbled into the spot and became the increased organic material that, in their minds, must be the proof that every word in the Bible is absolutely valid. That’s the end goal. Prove the Bible is true by proving something – anything – from the book. They STILL manage to avoid the bits they don’t like, though.

Do you suppose Christians will adhere more closely to the teachings of Jesus (or Joshua, as the case may be) if someone could find Noah’s Ark? I ask because I watch how Christians behave, today, and truthfully, I seriously doubt it. I’m not sure anything could get these people to follow Jesus’ teachings…