Einstein on good and evil

John Oliver brillant MURDERSLAY of Donald Trump de Drumpf

John Oliver has a refreshing, hilarious reality check for those of us who are sick, I mean really fucking sick of Trump's bullshit.

Trump Unbound

"Trump found the flaw in the American Death Star. It doesn't know how to turn the cameras off, even when it's filming its own demise." — Matt Taibbi


Matt Taibbi's article Trump Unbound in this month's Rolling Stone is longish but you won't want it to end. It's very entertaining. And insightful. Really. It's a must read. Go! Now! Read it — though surely, it's already too late.

How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable.

This Land is MY Land, quoeth the Cliven

Many thanks to William Valenti for writing this song and making the video. Plus, as I live in the Great State of Nevada, seems only fitting to repost it here.




And, to celebrate the arrest of Cliven Bundy last night at Portland's PDX, here's a link to a snippet from the "rebel radio broadcast of the remaining last four psycho idiots "holed up" at the Malheur Refuge. As these bone heads love "holing up" so much, they are going to LOVE jail.

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Since this morning these last four "freedom" fighters at Malheur have surrendered. Now begins the long clean-up.

Booklice and giants

I read in the Guardian this morning that entomologists studying “clean and normal” homes in Raleigh, North Carolina found more than 100 species living there and this was without opening drawers or ripping carpets up. Their list included spiders (that do and don't make webs), lice, centipedes, flies, beetles, ants, telephone pole beetles, miniature crickets and booklice.

Booklice. I had to look that one up. The image of books infested with their own special variety of lice is disturbing. And yes — according to the Wikipedia article — books do have lice. But books, or more specifically the paste holding books together, is a newly acquired taste for booklice. These guys have been around for 295–248 million years. But if you're a reader, don't worry. The article is quite clear that booklice don't eat humans, even if your book is an ebook.

Researchers also observed creatures never before seen in the wild including the world's smallest wasp. Of course, findings would vary probably in other locations. Maybe here in Nevada we have microscopic desert lizards on our walls.

The idea of our homes being teeming microcosms doesn't bother or surprise me. After all, there's more than the eye can see and we humans used to live in caves and, before that, trees so no big deal. Now we live in a microscopic jungle. That means we get to be the giants.

#extremecivilisation

Life or art? Who imitates who?
Art installation at Tate Modern
August 20, 2015

George Monbiot, author and blogger at the UK Guardian, recently launched the hashtag #extremecivilisation and invited suggestions. Here, for your reading pleasure, is an excerpt from his blog at the Guardian listing some of the modern breakthroughs by today's geniuses which are sure to make our lives better and easier on planet Earth.

There may be flowing water on Mars. But is there intelligent life on Earth?
~George Monbiot

A couple of weeks ago I launched the hashtag #extremecivilisation, and invited suggestions. They have flooded in. Here are just a few of the products my correspondents have found. All of them, as far as I can tell, are real.

An egg tray for your fridge that syncs with your phone to let you know how many eggs are left. A gadget for scrambling them – inside the shell. Wigs for babies, to allow “baby girls with little or no hair at all the opportunity to have a beautifully realistic hair style”.The iPotty, which permits toddlers to keep playing on their iPads while toilet training. A £2,000 spider-proof shed. A snow sauna, on sale in the United Arab Emirates, in which you can create a winter wonderland with the flick of a switch. A refrigerated watermelon case on wheels: indispensable for picnics – or perhaps not, as it weighs more than the melon. Anal bleaching cream, for… to be honest, I don’t want to know. An “automatic watch rotator” that saves you the bother of winding your luxury wrist-candy. A smartphone for dogs, with which they can take pictures of themselves. Pre-peeled bananas, in polystyrene trays covered in clingfilm; Just peel back the packaging.

#extremecivilisation

Je suis Charlie

Nous sommes Charlie

Graphic by: by Lucille Clerc


Here are a couple of thoughtful articles reflecting on some of the more obscure, but extremely important issues, related to the horrific massacre at Charlie Hebdo last week. They are right on and well worth a read.

Why the Charlie Hebdo attack goes far beyond free speech and religion by Andrew O'Hehir

Unmournable Bodies by Teju Cole

Oh oh

In the snootiest voice imaginable, my granddaughter just told me, "I may look young, but I am five-years-old".

The Ballad of Cliven Bundy

Cliven Bundy. This guy is an embarrassment to the great state of Nevada. I live in Nevada and, contrary to what FOX News would you believe, we are not all racist idiot squatter hicks like Cliven.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video Archive

We've spent a lot of time in the Nevada interior where guys like Bundy "run" their cattle. Trust me. It's animal abuse to abandon them to the desert. In their effort to survive in this harsh environment, the poor cows chew vital, shade-giving willows to the ground turning our precious few rivers into stinking fields of shit and muck. Boneheads like Bundy joke about how this threatens already endangered species. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner Bundy and his dim-wit brethren die off, the better.

Heartbleed Hit List

What is Heartbleed bug?

Hey! If the site has already done it's security fix and you haven't then changed your passwords on these sites, do it now!

Man

I haven't seen this one before, or maybe I have but managed to repress it but, oh man, this little beauty by Steve Cutts is IT and totally depressing. Fuck. In real life, the best hope planet earth has is if the aliens come before that final scene.




PS. I found this at Blogorahmah. Thanks a lot, Roy.

Checking in

Still in Medford. If I'd known we were going to be here so long I'd.....I don't know. At least the weather's been good. We've been biking a lot. That goes a way toward preserving sanity. Otherwise, haven't been doing much. Playing Dominion. I'm in limbo. It's my own fault. That isn't exactly good or bad but...it's bad. It's a lack of imagination.

Limbo by follower of Hieronymus Bosch via Wikipedia

When I was a kid in Catholic school, the nuns taught us that limbo was where babies went who died before they were baptized. Unlike everyone else in limbo, they didn't get tortured. They just didn't ever, for all "eternity", get to see god. For the grown-ups, limbo, or purgatory as the nuns called it, was the same as hell except that it lasted one second less than forever. Kids are expected to believe grownups, especially ones in long black robes but come on! One second less than forever? WTF?!

I just looked up limbo at Wikipedia. The "official" definition is more of the same patriarchal, hair-splitting, legalese bullshit. My gods religion sucks. It's fantasy at it's very worst. Yuck.

This is how we do it

Winds of Change....

CORRECTION: It has been called to my attention that, according to Snopes, Warren Buffet did not write this Act though he did inspire it. Sorry. I should have checked myself. You know what they say about something being "too good to be true". Anyway, it's still a good idea. Of course, getting Congress to pass it would be...well...you know, impossible.


*Congressional Reform Act of 2013*

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/31/13. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. 

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time?


But what the hell? Pass it on.

Police fury

Congratulations to the DOJ for their recent decision to allow the states to create a regime that would regulate and implement the ballot initiatives that legalized the use of marijuana for adults. Predictably, police organizations are up in arms. Guess what boys. Prohibition doesn't work. Never has. Never will. We know it and so do you.

I, for one, don't want the police state this "war" has created. The United States has less than 5 % of the world's population but has almost 25% of the world's prisoners and keeps them incarcerated longer than than other nations.  

Just as the unlimited cold hard cash  from alcohol prohibition gave rise to the mafia, the richer-than-God profits generated by this cash cow "drug war" gave rise to the cartels and funds the quasi-military police state that is developing in the country. The UN estimates that the drug market in America alone is worth 60 billion dollars. At this point police have grown very fond of the gobs of dirty money they keep for themselves. Time to gut the profit all around. Money, power and prestige corrupts everything it touches on both sides of the law.

Source: Police Groups Furiously Protest Eric Holder's Marijuana Policy Announcement

Future histories tonight and as the century wears on

If you haven't read Jeff Goodell's article in Rolling Stone do. Goodbye, Miami is a must read. And it's not just about Miami or coastal cities. In the overall, it's a peek at the future history of human life on earth.

As for what's going on tonight here on Alligator Creek, lots of ambient sound though traffic on the nearby through street is beginning to settle down at last as is the white noise whoosh of the Tamiami Trail and, just as different sections of an orchestra rise then give way others, the occasional sound of an AC unit snapping on in this, or one of the other two inhabited houses on our dead end street, punctuates the air or the sound of voices or a dog barking in the distance drifts across the water and the squawks and chirps and rhythmic buzzing in the mangroves rise and fall and night settles down around the Gulf and turtles begin crawling up out of the sea to dig their nests and lay their eggs, I notice the sound of palm fronds stirring in the breeze. Eventually I'll hear the gurgles, slaps and splashes of the creek talking to itself and aquatic beings moving through its water.

Madness in Holley, New York

"The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest." 
- Henry David Thoreau

This is madness!

The fire department in Holley, New York is sponsoring the seventh annual "Squirrel Slam," an annual event organized for the mass killing of squirrels, with prizes given to the individuals who kill the largest and heaviest of the animals, often the pregnant females. This year, the squirrel killing contest even has a "youth" category for children 14 years and under interested in trying their hand at killing. I'm sure Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would approve. Before opening fire at Columbine High School they bragged about cruelty to cats.

Therefore I say madness. And, because of this murderfest, how many wounded squirrels will crawl away to suffer and die slowly? And how many females will die and leave their young alone in the nest to starve to death?

If this isn't obscene enough, the Holley Fire Department will raffle off firearms including an AR/22 Semi, all part of their killfest frenzy. And I always thought firefighters were the "good guys".

Please add your voice to the protest:

Sign the petition

And/or better yet, give 'em a call:

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo: 518-474-8390
Mayor John Kenney, Jr.: 585-638-6367
Orleans County of Tourism: 1-800-724-0314

Members of the Board of Trustees:
Ross Gaylord: 585-638-6367
David Dill: 585-638-6367
Lewis Passarell: 585-638-6367
Donald Penna: 585-638-6367

INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

Bret Lockett, Hero for the New B'ak'tun

Happy New Year, b'ak'tun or however you mark time moving future to past. We're back from Christmas in Oregon (photos soon), the paper floor still looks great (updates coming) and I am finally beginning to feel like we're home for awhile.

I am currently following the dreadful, heartbreaking events in New Delhi and in America's own pathetic, prima donna football brat worshiping small town of Steubenville, Ohio. Michael Nodianos, words cannot convey how disgusting you and your buddies are. In contrast to these shit-for-brains psycho morons, NFL player Bret Lockett is a beacon of sanity, light, hope and fresh air and it doesn't hurt that he has the body of a god. Thanks Bret and PETA! We are much in need of real men to step up and do it right.  

My new year's resolution: practice listening with my heart.

Blue state-red state divorce? I'm all for it!

Hey Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and the rest of the Confederacy!

Ya'll want to secede from the US? I'm all for it! 'N' ya'll lucky Abe Lincoln ain't 'round ta kick ya in yer wide white confederate ass. Jus' sayin'.

Paul VanDevelder lays out terms for the divorce in this recent article posted at the LA Times. Check it out. He's not only spot on, he's hilarious.

Paul VanDevelder is a journalist, screenwriter and the author, most recently, of "Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America's Road to Empire through Indian Territory."

Charles River and Reno Vegans

An Infinite Number Of Monkeys

After all the Shakespeare, the book

of poems they type is the saddest

in history.

But before they can finish it,

they have to wait for that Someone

who is always

looking to look away. Only then

can they strike the million

keys that spell

humiliation and grief, which are

the great subjects of Monkey

Literature

and not, as some people still

believe, the banana

and the tire.

~Ronald Koertge

Photos from the protest yesterday organized by Reno Vegans at Charles River, the world's largest supplier of animals for experiments or, as they say on their website, "essential research products". Charles River carefully conceals information about dogs and monkeys but their use and cruelty is documented and ongoing.

Charles River Lab on Longley Lane in Reno, Nevada.

Are those chimneys from a crematorium? Any animal who manages to survive an in-house experiment at a Charles River lab is killed shortly afterwards. Photographs obtained from the USDA through the Freedom of Information Act in 2008 revealed cramped and barren conditions at this facility "with the potential to cause madness".

At this point, most of the group is out doing a walkabout.

Seems Charles River sent one of their goons to intimidate us. Unknowingly, I parked right next to him as he sat across the street doing a video of the whole event from the cab of his black truck.

He immediately turned his camera on me so I took out my camera and took several photos of the bastard. No surprise he was there. Billion dollar corporations like Charles River employ countless goons, including platoons of lawyers, to guard their gates.

The turnout was small, as these things generally are. There were two main elements, a group of young people in black wearing black bandanas over their faces and about an equal number of older people dressed in regular clothes.  But, whatever our difference, we all feel strongly about animal rights and are glad to protest multinational merchants of death like Charles River, aka the "General Motors of the laboratory animal industry".

"There are dogs in there too.
You do care, don't you?" ~ Martha

It's GLOBAL WARMING, stupid!

via Huffingtonpost