Senator Cruz
Betcha thought I actually had a plan!
Policy! To damned hell with policy! We have no plan nor policy! In fact, we don't need plans. I don't have to show you any stinking plans, you damned cabrón !!
--
Friday, October 11, 2013
Gotcha! Senator Cruz Punks The Nation
Congress Syndrome
Definition: The inability to function without a cliff-hanger crisis. Even in a crisis, the functioning is seriously impaired.
http://www.dailyyonder.com/lapsed-farm-bill-leaves-sd-limbo/2013/10/10/6850
10/10/2013 at 12:19pm
While Senator Cruz and his Tea Party cronies grandstand, nothing gets done and the people suffer.
Where is Senator Cruz, by the way? He seems to have disappeared. Perhaps he shut himself down.
--
http://www.dailyyonder.com/lapsed-farm-bill-leaves-sd-limbo/2013/10/10/6850
10/10/2013 at 12:19pm
Lapsed Farm Bill Leaves S.D. in Limbo
The failure to pass a farm bill means South Dakota ranchers who lost tens of thousands of cattle in last week’s blizzard can expect no help from the Department of Agriculture.
By Tim Marema
KELO-TVA South Dakota rancher works cattle that survived last weekend's blizzard, in this screen grab from a South Dakota TV station news report.South Dakota cattle ranchers who lost tens of thousands of head of cattle in last week’s blizzard are ineligible for federal assistance because the program that previously protected livestock owners expired with the farm bill two years ago.
A new bill, which would have reauthorized the livestock disaster protection program and covered ranchers retroactively for losses in the last fiscal year, is stuck in Congress.
That means South Dakota ranchers – and any other American livestock owners who suffer losses – are on their own.
Estimates of the number of cattle lost in the South Dakota blizzard this weekend go as high as 5% of the state’s herd, or about 180,000 head.
“The only thing more appalling than the deaths of thousands of cattle is the inaction of our Congress, the House of Representatives in particular,” wrote John K. Hansen in an email. Hansen is president of the Nebraska Farmers Union.
“For the past two years, thanks to the inaction of Congress, the authority for or the funding of the livestock indemnity program has expired,” Hansen wrote. “This is one more good reason why we need to pass the new farm bill rather than extend the old one. This is a national disgrace. “
While Senator Cruz and his Tea Party cronies grandstand, nothing gets done and the people suffer.
Where is Senator Cruz, by the way? He seems to have disappeared. Perhaps he shut himself down.
--
Our "Friends" And Crimes Against Humanity
It has been determined that the Syrian rebels have mostly likely committed crimes against humanity, and that this was done in August past, when the clamor for supporting these same war criminals with US bombings of the Syrian government was nearing its peak.
These are Crimes Against Humanity of the "really real type", not like the Weapons Of Mass Destruction of the nonce, notional, dream-state, maybe-yes/maybe-no type.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24486627
11 October 2013 Last updated at 06:14 ET
Syria rebels executed civilians, says Human Rights Watch
Rebel forces in Syria killed as many as 190 civilians and seized more than 200 hostages during a military offensive in August, Human Rights Watch says.A report by the US-based group says the deaths occurred in villages inhabited predominantly by members of President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite sect near the coastal city of Latakia.
It said the findings "strongly suggest" crimes against humanity were committed...
The group has previously documented atrocities by pro-government forces.
In essence, an incredible number of our leaders demanded that the US Air Force become Air Al Qaeda.
President Obama resisted this lynch mob mentality, and accomplished what I consider to be one of the few tru;ly important events in recent times: resisting the military-industrial-surveillance AND foreign-government-lobbyist complexes and to, thus, maintain a peaceful area of diplomacy while others madly fight.
He also resisted the impulse to double down on a silly and ambiguous statement about red lines earlier on.
It is immensely important that peace be given a chance.... no matter how many foreign interests have bought and paid for our leaders and Congress.
--
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Ivan ZemstovWednesday, October 09, 2013
Emergence Of The Ego
I am brief in this note. Current events upset me so greatly that I find it hard to concentrate at times.
My morning nausea at being in this place at this time has passed, however.
It is like living a curse: may you live in interesting times!
(This is more notes for me rather than an essay for you...)
Anyway, there has been some research on languages dealing with those that have the structure S-V-O, or subject, verb, object, such as English: Paul kicked the ball, and those with the structure S-O-V, or subject, object, verb, such as Japanese: Paul the ball kicked.
Languages such as Japanese often have some way of marking the object, in order to clearly distinguish it from the subject which immediately precedes it.
Fair enough.
What interests me is situations where the subject is not needed to be expressed.
For example, if there were a situation where there was a herd of communicators (not necessarily human beings... other animals communicate) eating and there was a distinct possibility of predators being present, the alarm could be sounded and could be construed as "(I spot) cougar! Flee!"
There could different expressions to flight for differing predators, depending on their method of attack.
So we have verb and object: (I) spot threat-of-some-type!
The "I" or the "we" if there are many sentries is not expressed in lower animals.
When the "I" or "we" begins to be distinguish from "you" or "he/she/it/they", then the ego and self consciousness arises. The emergence of other egos forces the "I" and "we" to be expressed: I have spotted a cougar! Flee!
If there is an award for cougar-spotting, even more reason that the subject must be clearly differentiated from the rest of the possible communicators.
My morning nausea at being in this place at this time has passed, however.
It is like living a curse: may you live in interesting times!
(This is more notes for me rather than an essay for you...)
Anyway, there has been some research on languages dealing with those that have the structure S-V-O, or subject, verb, object, such as English: Paul kicked the ball, and those with the structure S-O-V, or subject, object, verb, such as Japanese: Paul the ball kicked.
Languages such as Japanese often have some way of marking the object, in order to clearly distinguish it from the subject which immediately precedes it.
Fair enough.
What interests me is situations where the subject is not needed to be expressed.
For example, if there were a situation where there was a herd of communicators (not necessarily human beings... other animals communicate) eating and there was a distinct possibility of predators being present, the alarm could be sounded and could be construed as "(I spot) cougar! Flee!"
There could different expressions to flight for differing predators, depending on their method of attack.
So we have verb and object: (I) spot threat-of-some-type!
The "I" or the "we" if there are many sentries is not expressed in lower animals.
When the "I" or "we" begins to be distinguish from "you" or "he/she/it/they", then the ego and self consciousness arises. The emergence of other egos forces the "I" and "we" to be expressed: I have spotted a cougar! Flee!
If there is an award for cougar-spotting, even more reason that the subject must be clearly differentiated from the rest of the possible communicators.
The Painted Men
A Man Painted Tan
There are some things I do not write much about, the "painted men" being one of them, as they are like Bradbury's Illustrated Man, and to me they are suits and ties that cover the whiff of nothingness that begins to permeate everywhere these days.
I am imprisoned in Dickinson's Hours of Lead; I tread out a meager existence between catastrophe and disaster, wars and alarums, robust IRA and depleted IRA.
The daily news has become a gulag mess hall........
Painted men are symbols, and this is mainly because they are embodied despair...
... and I am a just a poor man they seek to destroy.
----
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Chocolat !
http://alyonkamailartproject.blogspot.com/
Creative people from around the world are invited to make artworks with the image of Alyonka, a well-known Russian chocolate brand.
Works are collected by Ivan Zemtsov (P.O. BOX 28 YOSHKAR-OLA 424037 RUSSIA) and posted there.
The first "Alyonka" show was presented to public in Yoshkar-Ola Museum of Fine Arts in October 2006 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk9ruvAzT5M).
But the project is still ongoing! Download Alyonka's image at http://denis.charmot.free.fr/ivan_zemtsov.htm
--
Les Maudits And A Ship Of Fools
I am watching Les Maudits (literally The Cursed, but shown in the US as The Damned) from 1947 France.
The setting is a few days before the fall of Berlin; a number of Nazis and collaborators are escaping to refuge to somewhere in South America by means of a U-Boat leaving the submarine docks in Norway. The crew and these escapees make for very tight quarters.
Inadvertently, the brains behind the scheme neglected to allow for a medical officer to sail with them, so when a lady suffers a concussion, they hatch a plan to land in a town in occupied France accessible to the sea, and to kidnap a doctor there.
In a scene where everyone is crowded around a dining table in the mess, there is a discussion of final victory: even though this war is lost, final victory is not necessarily to be denied their cause. South America will serve as a refuge for them to get their act together, and begin the long haul to a final victory.
At this point, it would help to have a bit more History than "Nazi" and "Hitler". Some background of Mussolini and Italy would be nice, as well as some background of Spain and the Spanish Civil War. This would serve to get a taste of the widespread Conservative philosophy of Monarchism and Fascism which was the forcing garden where National Socialism grew in Europe.
(And French and British Fascism should be added to the mix.)
There is one character, Garosi, who is Italian. It appears that in the Fascist world he is very well known, for his father had been one of the original supporters of Mussolini. Garosi appears to be one of those educated types that would nowadays be known as a "strategist", such as the "Democratic strategists" and "Republican strategists" that are smeared all over cable TV news shows, talking confidently about... strategy, I guess, although it seems more to be "opinion" or "editorial" to me, but I come from a different time, place, and planet.
In his speech to others, Garosi remains firm in his belief in final victory, until the news arrives by radio that Hitler is dead.
There is some discussion as to whether this could be a ruse, perpetrated either by the Allies, or by Goebbels, Goering, and Himmler.
Garosi, whose wife has been having an affair with the Wehrmacht general who is running the operation, crumbles at last, and admits that all is lost. It seems that he questions his entire life, and finds it terribly wanting. He kills himself by jumping from the deck and drowning soon after.
Yet.... yet, just before this, he had been asked by the Nazi thug leader Forster whether he still believed...
As if being packed like a bunch of rats in an old U-Boat and running away to South America, far, far away from the locale of the Thousand Year Reich did not mean anything at all! Do you still believe?!
The Nazi movement was a monster that spawned in the discontent of the Modern and Anti-Modernism.
The Conservatism exemplified by the Monarchists in Spain and the Fascists in Italy and the Right Wings in England, France, and other countries of Europe was in response to the incredible change of the Modern world, and the new found philosophy of Liberalism, the threat of Anarchism, and the promises and dreams of Socialism.
The conflicts were not resolved in any rational nor saintly manner, and the result was the monster spawn of Nazism.
The conflicts are still not resolved. Here in Michigan we have this year seen a bizarre throw-back to the 20th century when Governor Snyder and the Republicans passed a right-to-work law as part of their attack against working people organizing.... the same things General Francisco Franco fought against in 1936!
It is not enough to believe.
Not by a long shot.
--
notes
Ship of Fools motif
German Woodcut of a Narrenschiff, or Ship Of Fools
Wikipedia
The ship of fools is an allegory that has long been a fixture in Western literature and art. The allegory depicts a vessel populated by human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous, or oblivious passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, and seemingly ignorant of their own direction. This concept makes up the framework of the 15th century book Ship of Fools (1494) by Sebastian Brant, which served as the inspiration for Bosch's famous painting, Ship of Fools: a ship—an entire fleet at first—sets off from Basel to the paradise of fools. In literary and artistic compositions of the 15th and 16th centuries, the cultural motif of the ship of fools also served to parody the 'ark of salvation' as the Catholic Church was styled.
--
A Government That Can Only Infringe On Privacy
BBC News
8 October 2013 Last updated at 06:19 ET
--
8 October 2013 Last updated at 06:19 ET
Power surges 'cripple NSA data centre'
We are adrift in a ship of fools.The NSA's data gathering plans have come under scrutiny thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden.Electrical supply problems at a National Security Agency data centre have delayed its opening by a year, reports the Wall Street Journal. Power surges at the giant Utah centre had ruined equipment costing almost a million dollars, it said. The technical problems had also led to lengthy investigations that had meant its opening date had been pushed back.
The Utah plant is one of three the NSA is building to boost its data gathering and surveillance capabilities.
Over the past 13 months, 10 separate electrical surges have occurred at the data centre in Bluffdale, Utah, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which is reported to have cost $1.4bn (£872m) to build.
--
Mr Information
Why was the USA referred to as the Sick Man of the 21st Century ?
In: World History, United States [Edit categories]
• American Art Find Your Style at Art Van Huge Selection - Great Prices
Answer:
The United States or the American Empire, prior to its demise in the 22nd century,
(1) had vast wealth inequality - constuting essentially two separate nations: one percent being the rich USA of lore and the other 99% being a conglomeration of "bantustans" in urban areas,
(2) was notoriously badly managed,
(3) impoverished,
(4) backward in modern science, equal time in schools given to various obscure doxologies of pseudo-scientific belief.
(5) It was prone to dysfunctional government punctuated with periods of frenzied activity.
Some or all of these traits linger in some countries which were formerly part of the AmericanEmpire. I should also mention that although the American Empire was predominantly North American, it did extend into the Caribbean and across the globe in the form of more than 500 military bases.
Today the old American Empire wishes to join the World Union and Federation of Planets, although its chances do not look good.
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In: World History, United States [Edit categories]
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Answer:
The United States or the American Empire, prior to its demise in the 22nd century,
(1) had vast wealth inequality - constuting essentially two separate nations: one percent being the rich USA of lore and the other 99% being a conglomeration of "bantustans" in urban areas,
(2) was notoriously badly managed,
(3) impoverished,
(4) backward in modern science, equal time in schools given to various obscure doxologies of pseudo-scientific belief.
(5) It was prone to dysfunctional government punctuated with periods of frenzied activity.
Some or all of these traits linger in some countries which were formerly part of the AmericanEmpire. I should also mention that although the American Empire was predominantly North American, it did extend into the Caribbean and across the globe in the form of more than 500 military bases.
Today the old American Empire wishes to join the World Union and Federation of Planets, although its chances do not look good.
Did we answer your question?
Yes
No
Partially
Improve this Answer... ? Improve
First answer by Dudel6023 .
Answer History ------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>
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Miley Cyrus Is Going To Regret Her Latest Tattoo
Celebs With Better Looking Siblings
Harrison Ford Flips Out After 'Star Wars' Questions
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Top Articles
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5 Things You Need to Know About Halo 5
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Most Touching Celeb Reactions to Cory Monteith's Death
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Those Boys, Those Boys, Are Much Too Much...
When my nephews were visiting, they mentioned that it was admirable that my "blog" was still up and running... "sticking it out" was the expression they used, and they made it sound like some unfortunate species on the verge of extinction which yet survived... somewhere far away in blind caves and cenote pools.
They said that they had been quite sure that I would have reached "PP" well before this... Peak Pomposity.
I grumbled that there were "deep horizons" yet to be fractioned!
--
They said that they had been quite sure that I would have reached "PP" well before this... Peak Pomposity.
I grumbled that there were "deep horizons" yet to be fractioned!
--
Monday, October 07, 2013
What Is The Nature Of The Present Apocalypse?
People often talk of end-of-times or Apocalypse in the present time, and they present a myriad of reasons and assertions to back up their claims.
The most astute among them do not assign a precise date for the Apocalypse, because it has been amply shown that the perfection of prophetic intuitions fails to take the random nature of the universe into effect; in essence, most prophets are not only without respect in their own country, but they downright miss the mark.
(There is a good study on how failed prophets cope: When Prophecy Fails, Festinger et alii.)
Now, what is the Nature of the Present Day Apocalypse we are facing?
What is the nature of that Apocalypse, which some describe in terms of politics, some as return to a united Jerusalem, some as the economic disaster which finally gets its act together - the disaster having merely tried a few steps in 2008, and which is now ready to go on American Idol and dance like Baron Samedi - some as the coming of the Mahdi, some as a world war Z when a good deal of the populace turns into mindless zombies?
Apocalypses - those things which are hidden to our view - come in pairs.
There is always a complementarity in such great changes, essentially a "good cop" and a "bad cop".
Niels Bohr, the father of Quantum Mechanics, left us with the notion of such complementarity, which we promptly have forgotten, to our dismay.
I believe that every cloud does have a silver lining, and we chose which part of the cloud to view. This choice implies, of course, that we also choose the weather and climate patterns associated with our favorite cloud part: red skies at morning, sailors' take warning, etc.
The cloud and the accompanying storm or calm is a package deal.
Now, what is the momentous alternate to the "bad cop" Apocalypse that even the Reverend Billy Graham is talking about? What is the silver lining? It's hard to say, since no one is talking about it, but we know it is there, skulking around the perimeter of our lynch mob that is carrying pitchforks and torches for the Apocalypse.
Perhaps you have read the recent study of the mathematical analysis of human history:
Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130923155538.htm
Math Explains History: Simulation Accurately Captures the Evolution of Ancient Complex Societies
Sep. 23, 2013 — The question of how human societies evolve from small groups to the huge, anonymous and complex societies of today has been answered mathematically, accurately matching the historical record on the emergence of complex states in the ancient world.
Intense warfare is the evolutionary driver of large complex societies, according to new research from a trans-disciplinary team at the University of Connecticut, the University of Exeter in England, and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis
(NIMBioS). The study appears this week as an open-access article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...
... The study focuses on the interaction of ecology and geography as well as the spread of military innovations and predicts that selection for ultra-social institutions that allow for cooperation in huge groups of genetically unrelated individuals and large-scale complex states, is greater where warfare is more intense...
This study represents the paradigm of our social knowledge of our behavior: a dismal science of acquisitiveness and unbridled desire and political vendettas. It seems that Brotherhood has evolved from the ancient Machiavellian fossil maxim of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
There is a missing link which would turn enmity into brotherhood, but it will probably be found to be due to the same alchemy that transforms plowshares into swords.
The Complement of the Apocalypse, the "good cop" to the Apocalypse "bad cop" is the spiritual step which turns away from warfare and violence as the nursery of human change.
More than any destruction, more than any disaster, we fear the demands that the Holy makes upon us!
We fear to discover our beliefs are tinsel.
We fear to find our prayers are vain.
We fear the burdens that Saintliness demands of us!
So we turn to the easier Bad Cop of Apocalyptic Destruction.
At least we may sleep again.
--
It has been pointed out to me that there is one and one only Apocalypse, and that is when God wraps up the world.
I'm not so sure of that little bit of belief.
I have told the story of those people who have mistaken their own coming pain or their own future deaths for the Apocalypse. It is an easy mistake for the tender-hearted.
Many people and many endings suggest many points of view, many universes corresponding to those points of view, and many endings... some of which could could conceivably be rewritten.
Edgar Guest once wrote:
Of all the things absolutes do - such as absolute endings to our story - is they save us from having to do too much of that heap o' livin' in a world t' make it home....It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roamAfore ye really ’preciate the things ye lef’ behind,An’ hunger fer ’em somehow, with ’em allus on yer mind.
Sometimes we "have t' roam."
--
Sunday, October 06, 2013
A Label For Your Thoughts 2
A Fine Example Of A Robust Label
If you would share your thoughts with me, then I shall apply a label, or stereotype, if you prefer, to you as well as your thoughts.
This label will let us ignore you.
There is infinite detail in the Universe. In fact, if we wished to make it clear what we meant by the universe, we might say it is infinite detail. Herein, "infinite" means without logical limit.
There is a practical limit: we can only handle so much information. We can only do so much. So we cut it short, apply a label, and end that particular segment of processing.
If we wished to make it clear what we mean by the Divine, we might say it is that which has the potential to process infinite detail...or infinite steps... We may play with the old paradox and ask: Does God have the ability to create a program which cannot be finished in eternity? Now, although God may possibly process a program with no limit, other than the time available in the universe, God is really not under any compulsion to do so.
We feel the obsession to compel God with our nonsense of "God knows all things." So we force God to keep running infinite programs that are random, so He might see how it all works out. We live in a mysterious Universe which will never be understood. There will never be a Grand Unified Theory of Everything in Science. This would be tantamount to slapping a label on all creation.
Absolute Certainty is nothing more than a habit of people with tidy and circumspect thoughts. You will never find your scientific theory of everything. You will never find your Moral Absolute. Not having a theory of everything does not entail that nothing is. Not having an absolute moral standard does not entail that morality is not...it only implies that your method of judging morality, i.e., using a "standard" to measure, is a faulty concept.
If and as you measure...so will it be measured to you. Therefore, do not measure.
Do not label.
Treat everything and everyone as a new mystery, for such they actually are.
Love God and your neighbor... if you dare!
Once that horse gets out of the barn, there's no telling what might happen.
--
reprint
Death Of The Farm Bill
The Government is beginning to remind me of an older woman who has had too much work done, but still fancies herself to be beautiful. She is one of those old timey stars that are featured in slide shows of photos celebrities who went under the knife once, twice, or more times too often.
I mean, there's not much to inspire here anymore, other than a lumbering military machine looking around the planet for a back alley in which to pick a fight with some local toughs, preferably of the bearded persuasion.
For example, in all the hoopla over the shut down, did anyone notice that the Farm Bill expired?
Daily Yonder
http://www.dailyyonder.com/wednesday-roundup-farm-bill-fail/2013/10/02/6839
...“The big programs that lack funding – or, in plain English, that will die on October 1 – are mostly in the export area: Market Access Program, Dairy Export Incentive Program, etc. These are programs whose funding is directly tied to farm bill annual funding. As such, no farm bill means no dollars.and in tribal news:
“Most other programs – Rural Development, commodity titles, crop insurance, for example – are funded through end of fiscal 2014 because of a two-year deal done in the middle of the budget chaos last year. Most conservation programs like Conservation Reserve Program, the Wetlands Reserve and Grassland Reserve are funded but will not have any new enrollments that require payments after or until a Farm Bill is completed.
“As such, don't look for any swift movement on any farm bill … Mostly likely [a bill] can – if the inmates so desire – be worked it out in October, but only after a specific series of parliamentary dance steps.
“Start the music? We'll see.”
While the USDA programs that expired September 30 were a small part of the department’s overall responsibilities, that doesn’t mean they weren’t important to some constituencies. Midwestern Energy News reports on one program that is lapsing – the Rural Energy for America Program. This initiative supports alternative energy development, like solar, for farmers and ranchers...
The National Congress of American Indians has released a statement on the government shutdown reminding us that even if Congress comes up with at 2014 budget resolution, the current drafts of that resolution continue the budget cuts that were enacted as part of the 2013 federal sequestration. Those cuts were especially tough in Indian Country, the NCAI release says:
Even if the shutdown is resolved soon, a greater crisis remains – both the House and Senate versions of the Continuing Resolution sustained the devastating FY 2013 sequestration cuts. The sequester has deeply affected tribal programs: the Indian Health Service, Indian education funding streams, law enforcement, infrastructure programs such as housing and road maintenance, Head Start, and others. These funding commitments serve some of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens and are part of the federal government’s trust responsibility to tribal nations.
As Washington faces the threefold crisis of the shutdown, sequester, and debt limit, we call on the Congress to reach a long-term budget deal that meets the nation’s obligations to tribal nations and Native peoples. It is time to address the ongoing fiscal crisis caused by the sequester. The trust responsibility to tribal nations is not a line item and tribal programs must be exempt from budget cuts in any budget deal.
What are the chances that this Congress are any Congress similarly constituted will do anything meaningful in the present and in the near future?
Not very good.
We are living is a dream of our past glories.
There is nothing coming from our country that inspires the rest of the world: the government does not work, the economy is still hobbled and dependent upon the Federal Reserve.....
It is time we ask where Hope will come from.
Ask it, and try to answer it. See what happens.
Our political battles will keep match step with our national decline into economic stagnation and an insipid sense of acute nostalgia for the past.
All the flag pins in the world will not patch our lapels; all the red, white, and blue suspenders with stars on the equalizers will not keep our pants from falling down.
--
Bees
In the course of painting the front porch of my mother's cottage last week, I was stung twice.
I assume it was bees who were the culprits.
I had moved the motley of chairs from the porch when I started, and now was moving them around the perimeter - it being too early to put them back on the porch - preparatory to scramming, take my mother home, then drive the 60 miles back to my own place.
None of the chairs resembled each other. One was an Adirondack, or Muskoka, one was a rattan arm chair, one was a cloth fold up sportable-portable that I guess one dragged around to soccer matches and Little League games back in some unspecified day; it had a cloth pocket sewn into a piece on one arm that sort of hung down like a wombat's pouch - and here I am supposing a wombat is a marsupial - or maybe a kangaroo's pouch, and which was designed to hold cans of beverages.
A great deal of time and effort has been put into can holders in the USA. I had a car once that was very much like a puzzle sketch in which one was to try and count all the cup or can holders hidden in the picture. I mean, I do not think we ever came to a final count. There were can holders on the backs of the seats, which were totally not functional unless the seat back were pushed all the way forward, so either no one was sitting in front, or those in front faced backwards when they wanted to have a pull on the old soda can.... all of which sounds just as least as dangerous as texting, but back in the day, not a word was uttered about it.
(I recall that when the lease expired, I was spiffing the pile of bolts up with a wash and vacuuming, and, having taken some of the rear compartments mats out, discovered a "coupla cup cotes" in the neighborhood of the spare tire and the stash of the nonce tools to be used for the Life-Saver-Candy-sized spare.)
So I was moving the porch furniture, and I must have irritated and enraged some bees, while failing to discourage them or to make them lose heart, for they attacked.
Usually I am impervious to insects and their allies, toxic plants, but I had the distinct impression of being bitten by a horsefly... only the pain of the bite kept on getting more acute.
Very soon, the horsefly bite threshhold of pain was crossed, and we entered new territory, which caused me to swat and run for the back of the cottage.
I was sore beset. When you find yourself in such predicaments, even the optical "flies" that flit about the corneas become imaginary threats. Mine began to buzz, causing a type of synasthesia new to medical science, where my eyes could hear frequencies within the "malign buzzing" range.
I had received 2 stings, and they hurt.
I had not been stung in at least 60 years.
My mother was on the back porch, and I informed her of the state of affairs.
"Hmm. I didn't know you were stung before."
I goggled.
"Well, it was the time we were at the Schueler's at the corner of the River Road and Schnickenberger Road..."
Those many years ago, Mr. Schnickenberger was still alive, and was - we were informed - the possessor of a horn on his head. My brother and I would skulk about the 3 points intersection of roads to catch a glimpse of Mr. Schnickenberger.
She said she remembered Schueler's, but not my stings.
"I was stung at least 10 times!" I said. "How could you forget?"
She smiled.
"You're not allergic to bee stings, are you?" she asked.
I answered that I was not, at least I had not been 60 years ago, but she would not know that.
"FOX news had a piece on how bees get crazy this time of year..."
I looked at her. "Of all the things you talk about, why did you not mention that bit of timely information?"
I was being facetious, but it would have been helpful.
She had been furrowing the aged brow a bit while thinking over these matters, and now she brightened up a bit. "I was bitten by a bee."
"Recently?" I asked, hopefully.
"No. About 15 years ago. We were sitting in the car waiting for the ferry to come across, and I had the window down. A bee flew in and stung me."
She seemed to smile a bit, not because she recalled that bee venom was all that pleasurable, but no doubt because she had come up with a scenario in which she was the central figure, and her pain from 15 years ago took precedence over mine right now.
I know I sound childish and temperamental, but I do not very often seek the solace of others, and I thought I should be center stage.
Then she sounded solicitous. "What did I do to take care of your stings back at Schueler's? Did I put on baking soda, ice, calamine?"
"I think you pushed me down the back steps and said to run it off." I said.
She did not exactly laugh, because there was a small chance she had employed such a bee sting regimen.
"Oh, surely not!" she said.
"Maybe you were at the Latin Quarter, dining and dancing and having champagne drunk from your slipper, and my brother and I were spending the summer with a maid."
"Nonsense," she said. "It was too long after the end of the war. Back in '48, '49', maybe we would have sent the two of you off with the maid..."
I went back to painting.
--
A Google Earth Moment
The C & O Canal National Park
30th Street NW
Georgetown, Maryland
I suppose when I go to visit Maryland, the upper portions of the Canal Park will be closed.
--
Let It Snow
Charles Luck Perspectives
http://perspectives.charlesluck.com/inspiration/winter-canvas/
Chuck Luck is an interesting place to spend some time.
--
Saturday, October 05, 2013
Science And The Humanities
Read Cross Check by John Horgan
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/08/14/should-the-humanities-embrace-scientism-my-postmodern-response-to-pinkers-patronizing-plea/
And his point is of tremendous importance, for in a world of experts, we tend to forget that some experts are luminaries and some are dimwitted buffoons.
Even Nobel prize winner Philip Lenard administered the Nazi science establishment: one feather-in-his-cap and one huge black eye on his resume.
--
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/08/14/should-the-humanities-embrace-scientism-my-postmodern-response-to-pinkers-patronizing-plea/
By all means engage with science, but engage with it critically, because science—contrary to what Pinker suggests–badly needs tough, informed criticism. As I said in a recent column, “it is precisely because science is so powerful that we need the humanities now more than ever.”
And his point is of tremendous importance, for in a world of experts, we tend to forget that some experts are luminaries and some are dimwitted buffoons.
Even Nobel prize winner Philip Lenard administered the Nazi science establishment: one feather-in-his-cap and one huge black eye on his resume.
--
The Weather Code
The National Weather Service and Hurricane Center forecasters are presently working without pay. Just how long that will continue, and the unpleasant effects if and when they are forced to seek other employment will be discovered in time.
Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal
http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2013/10/04/nws-hurricane-center-forecasters-also-working-with-no-pay/
finds appeals within codes within enigmas:
--
Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal
http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2013/10/04/nws-hurricane-center-forecasters-also-working-with-no-pay/
finds appeals within codes within enigmas:
--
The Dream Factory: Floods
Sans Souci Bar, Sans Souci, Michigan
This past Thursday night I had a dream of flooding. I was jarred into memory of it by watching some early morning documentary on Hurricane Sandy.
It was a beautiful sunny day, and the sky was rich, deep blue. I and a friend were walking in some town on the water, maybe Sans Souci, but it resembled Sans Souci not a bit. It looked more like a combination of Venice and nice summer places on boardwalks and the standard movie-set-of-my-mind of Port Huron and a Dark City in the bright sunlight.
Large swells and waves came in and flooded through the streets. The water was warm and it did not seem to seriously impede us. If we were knocked down, we got right back up, wet but not injured. I looked at how high the water level was on the buildings, thinking of the water damage.
I cannot describe how refreshing yet intimidating was the water! It rolled in the sun under the vibrant blue, breaking white crests, then carpeting the shores with roiled conches of light, light green and white-clear sheets of water, curved like liquid flakes from a flint from the world's genesis...
We were inconvenienced, yet felt good.
If, we thought, we could only live in harmony with the waters and the waves, all the floods and aquifers of the world.
There was another dream about this riverside or seaside place. It had to do with my father's passing. Fortunately, this time we, the people of the dream, were not anticipating our own imminent demises, such as we did in that other one from the beginning of 2013.
I just remembered that other dream right now, just as I was starting the previous paragraph.
I have a whole dream history of water side villages, in high water and low, dry roads and flooded, reeds and marshes through which high water flows and floods the game room, causing the Monopoly games to float from the cabinets and go into the parlor.......
I remember the old rotary telephone upon a doily on a phone stand before the summer sun spilling in like buttermilk fire, and reeds and winds... there are reeds blowing in the wind where actually I know - I know for sure! - there is nothing but lake scum and trash...
How wonderful are dreams!
--
Patrick Henry On The Shutdown
We paraphrase Patrick Henry:
""Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, France's Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, had their Revolution, and the Republican House Majority...
— [at this point, "Treason!" cried the Speaker of the House] —
... may profit by their example.
If this be treason, make the most of it."
Russia and Libya
Russian Embassy, Libya
I always read a number of Russian News services.
I mean, you have to.
I was surprised to read that Russia's embassy in Libya was attacked October 2. Libya apologized, and the UN sent its regards.
It is revenge for Moscow’s support of Bashar al-Assad that was the reason of the attack, expert of the Center for Arab Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies Boris Dolgov believes.
"If we are to speak about those, who stand behind the attack on the Russian Embassy, and about their motives, there are no exact data here yet. But it is easy to assume that it is revenge of radical Islamists for Russia's strict position on the Syrian crisis. It is known that many militants from Libya were sent and are sent to Syria to fight against the Assad regime and the government troops in Syria. In addition, there are camps in Libya, where militants are being trained for anti-Assad groupings."
And this strikes me as a reasonable explanation of events.
However, local Libyan media has a different slant.
...According to the local media, the reason for the attack was revenge for a crime committed by a Russian woman. She is accused of murdering an officer of the Libyan Air Force Muhammad al-Souci. The motives of the killer are still unknown.
According to one version, al- Souci paid with his life for blackmailing the Russian’s husband. Another version says that the killer was a supporter of Muammar Gaddafi, and she killed the officer because of his involvement in the overthrow of the leader of the Jamahiriya. According to the third version, al-Souci was the husband of the Russian and died as a result of a family quarrel. The situation is commented by expert of the Institute of the Middle East Sergei Seregichev.
"Most likely, it is close to the truth. Indeed, a household quarrel could be the reason, but in conditions of complete chaos in the country countrymen of the deceased decided to take revenge by capturing the Russian citizen in order to execute her. This looks like the truth most of all, and not the “al Qaeda” schemes or something like that."I do not know what to think about embassy attacks being caused by domestic quarrels. Every country best check their security and their nationals.
I wonder if Senator John McCain has taken such explanations into account about our own embassy attack in Benghazi?
(Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_04/Libya-apologizes-to-Russia-for-Tripoli-embassy-attack-2164/)
--
Friday, October 04, 2013
Misery's Comin' Around
Bad things hang like bunches of bananas.
Once you get past the entire mound of them, there's a big, bad spider been hiding inside 'em.
I think it odd the way people were carrying on about bombing Syria: if we do not bomb, nobody will respect us!
Our government is shut down. I wonder if those people respect us?
We are on a one way street.
I was on Harsens Island yesterday, and I looked up from painting the porch and saw the Canadian Steamship Lines vessel Rt. Honorable Paul H. Martin going by and heading upstream.
I looked at the wake she threw.
It was the new kind of wake, not the swells I had seen for over sixty years, but the new kind of breaking waves that ships throw in the lower water levels of the St. Claire River.
It used to be that swells from freighters would come in and break on the shore at an angle of about 10 degrees or so. If the ship was heading north, the waves broke at a slight 10 degree angle east of north.
Now they begin to break out in the shipping channel, and most surprisingly, the first set of swells is immediately followed by a surge that moves almost at right angles to the shore and sweeps upstream.
Now that is something rare until now.
It has caused an unusual amount of erosion. There is more erosion now during low water than there was when the water was higher.
Anyway, the wake of the Rt. Honorable made me think of the river of the future: a deep shipping channel like a continuous enormous tub surrounded by sand bars and pools of water. Something a bit less ominous than the sea floor at the end of the film Take Shelter, but equally jarring to my sensibilities.
It just made me realize that bad things come in bunches... and they are not a lovely bunch, like coconuts. They are unfortunate and malign, like governments which take delight in their lack of functionality.
The waters in the river reminded me of a post from 4 years ago, which I include below
It is a dark future of a film noir on the Great Lakes...............
(all the noir of the world comes crashing in)
--
2009
It was 101 degrees by the lake. That was the cool spot. The cooling north wind came on like the air from a blast furnace, and it jenn-aired the surface of what was left of the St. Clair River.
The rains had stopped, and the people who still owned houses were foreclosed by fire and arson.I exaggerate, as everyone who knows me is aware.I was going to teach EngLit. Now I'm a private eye, and I look for rich guy's kids. No exaggeration. Straight dope. My name is Mark Justinian, and I have two partners, Joey Catalina and Bobby Kikero.
We work out of South Park. There's good money in finding rich people's kids. There's a lot better money in kidnapping them in the first place. We run down the kidnappers, rescue kids, and get paid like 1/40th of the ransom demand. Agrippina, my squeeze, bitches I should go bad, and make some long green. I swore to my grandfather in the nursing home - the dive where they pushed all those Boomers who had lost their stash back in 2008 - that I'd stay legal. Boomers mess up everything.
Port Huron is on the border with Canada. So when things got tight for the rich guys and their offspring that screwed up the banks and the rest of the economy, they wanted to run for it. They didn't want to go south, to Mexico, because it was too hot. No one wanted hot. No tans. No UV rays. White, white skin was the emerald of the rich folks desire: go to Canada where it is still sunny and 70 by Hudson's Bay.
But even if you're rich, there are only so many visas. So the rich guys and their families parked it here - like a clutch of snakes - until they could go north. That's why it's good harvest for kidnappers. I'm good. We're good. We worked for the kids of the Merril Lynch guys, and the Lehmann Brothers mob. They say the sins of the fathers aren't visited on their sons, but you couldn't tell from their haunted eyes. Ask the CitiGroup Gang... Sometimes the kids don't make it. Everything goes hurrycane katrina, and death stalks the border. I wish I hadn't promised that old man nothing. It's a living, and I have to pretend that I make a difference. The clock on the Clarence Thomas Federal Bank building said 1300 hours.
All the banks were government, and I'd owe them tax for checking the time. Exaggerating. A little. They sucked us all drier than the wind. This is my place, the Domus Aurea; Gold House. I get to have a house, since the time travellers say it's cursed - or, they say it will be cursed: it'll come to a bad end. But they're not clear when. And anyway, it coulda already "come to a bad end"; it could be the past they seeing. It could be Nero's house, or Domitian's. It coulda been a catacomb...in the past.
I spend my time off the job in my garden, tending my collection of succulents, or cacti. Agrippina says I spend too much time loving those plants:
Agrippina has something to say about everything. She doesn't understand why they're called succulents. She says you can't suck them. Me, I don't say nothing. I like the desert. I like desert plants. They're survivors. Today I was taking the sun, as we say. I drove to the Temple of Fortune and parked in a handicapped spot, flipped the official a Jackson - not worth much these days - and walked on.
As I was walking by the Club of 36 Parrots,Dicky Tiberius, the 2nd in command to Georgie Caligula ("little boots"), grabbed my lapel and pulled me through an architrave. "I've been waiting for you," he said. That's too bad. Dicky's waiting for you; Death in all his dreadful panoply is waiting for you; take your pick. I waited for Dicky to spill his guts...not mine.
Then he got all quiet and relaxed. He stamped that sneer on his puss that passed for feel-good, but only made kids run to the other side of the street when they saw him coming...........
--
Once you get past the entire mound of them, there's a big, bad spider been hiding inside 'em.
I think it odd the way people were carrying on about bombing Syria: if we do not bomb, nobody will respect us!
Our government is shut down. I wonder if those people respect us?
We are on a one way street.
I was on Harsens Island yesterday, and I looked up from painting the porch and saw the Canadian Steamship Lines vessel Rt. Honorable Paul H. Martin going by and heading upstream.
I looked at the wake she threw.
It was the new kind of wake, not the swells I had seen for over sixty years, but the new kind of breaking waves that ships throw in the lower water levels of the St. Claire River.
It used to be that swells from freighters would come in and break on the shore at an angle of about 10 degrees or so. If the ship was heading north, the waves broke at a slight 10 degree angle east of north.
Now they begin to break out in the shipping channel, and most surprisingly, the first set of swells is immediately followed by a surge that moves almost at right angles to the shore and sweeps upstream.
Now that is something rare until now.
It has caused an unusual amount of erosion. There is more erosion now during low water than there was when the water was higher.
Anyway, the wake of the Rt. Honorable made me think of the river of the future: a deep shipping channel like a continuous enormous tub surrounded by sand bars and pools of water. Something a bit less ominous than the sea floor at the end of the film Take Shelter, but equally jarring to my sensibilities.
It just made me realize that bad things come in bunches... and they are not a lovely bunch, like coconuts. They are unfortunate and malign, like governments which take delight in their lack of functionality.
The waters in the river reminded me of a post from 4 years ago, which I include below
It is a dark future of a film noir on the Great Lakes...............
(all the noir of the world comes crashing in)
--
2009
It was 101 degrees by the lake. That was the cool spot. The cooling north wind came on like the air from a blast furnace, and it jenn-aired the surface of what was left of the St. Clair River.
The rains had stopped, and the people who still owned houses were foreclosed by fire and arson.I exaggerate, as everyone who knows me is aware.I was going to teach EngLit. Now I'm a private eye, and I look for rich guy's kids. No exaggeration. Straight dope. My name is Mark Justinian, and I have two partners, Joey Catalina and Bobby Kikero.
We work out of South Park. There's good money in finding rich people's kids. There's a lot better money in kidnapping them in the first place. We run down the kidnappers, rescue kids, and get paid like 1/40th of the ransom demand. Agrippina, my squeeze, bitches I should go bad, and make some long green. I swore to my grandfather in the nursing home - the dive where they pushed all those Boomers who had lost their stash back in 2008 - that I'd stay legal. Boomers mess up everything.
Port Huron is on the border with Canada. So when things got tight for the rich guys and their offspring that screwed up the banks and the rest of the economy, they wanted to run for it. They didn't want to go south, to Mexico, because it was too hot. No one wanted hot. No tans. No UV rays. White, white skin was the emerald of the rich folks desire: go to Canada where it is still sunny and 70 by Hudson's Bay.
But even if you're rich, there are only so many visas. So the rich guys and their families parked it here - like a clutch of snakes - until they could go north. That's why it's good harvest for kidnappers. I'm good. We're good. We worked for the kids of the Merril Lynch guys, and the Lehmann Brothers mob. They say the sins of the fathers aren't visited on their sons, but you couldn't tell from their haunted eyes. Ask the CitiGroup Gang... Sometimes the kids don't make it. Everything goes hurrycane katrina, and death stalks the border. I wish I hadn't promised that old man nothing. It's a living, and I have to pretend that I make a difference. The clock on the Clarence Thomas Federal Bank building said 1300 hours.
All the banks were government, and I'd owe them tax for checking the time. Exaggerating. A little. They sucked us all drier than the wind. This is my place, the Domus Aurea; Gold House. I get to have a house, since the time travellers say it's cursed - or, they say it will be cursed: it'll come to a bad end. But they're not clear when. And anyway, it coulda already "come to a bad end"; it could be the past they seeing. It could be Nero's house, or Domitian's. It coulda been a catacomb...in the past.
I spend my time off the job in my garden, tending my collection of succulents, or cacti. Agrippina says I spend too much time loving those plants:
Agrippina has something to say about everything. She doesn't understand why they're called succulents. She says you can't suck them. Me, I don't say nothing. I like the desert. I like desert plants. They're survivors. Today I was taking the sun, as we say. I drove to the Temple of Fortune and parked in a handicapped spot, flipped the official a Jackson - not worth much these days - and walked on.
As I was walking by the Club of 36 Parrots,Dicky Tiberius, the 2nd in command to Georgie Caligula ("little boots"), grabbed my lapel and pulled me through an architrave. "I've been waiting for you," he said. That's too bad. Dicky's waiting for you; Death in all his dreadful panoply is waiting for you; take your pick. I waited for Dicky to spill his guts...not mine.
Then he got all quiet and relaxed. He stamped that sneer on his puss that passed for feel-good, but only made kids run to the other side of the street when they saw him coming...........
--
Travels With McDonalds
(Sorry. Original site for this photo was hacked and sacked........ I removed the URL)
My mother and I stopped for McDonalds yesterday in Port Huron, Michigan. They were awful. I cannot believe that I used to like such things. The meat was tired and wan, the pickles were faded and pale... and there were only two very thin slices.
The onion seems to have been an afterthought. The ketchup was miserly dispensed.
These quarter-pounders were served in styrofoam clamshell containers, whose lids after opening seemed to whisper, "Sorry, sorry, sorry...."
Does everything suck anymore?
--
The Day The Earth Stalled
...so Muhammad (which actually happens to be the name of my mechanic...no lampooning of holy figures here.) gets the Old Blue Terra Cruiser down from the hoist, and walks towards me, wiping the oil off his hands, drying the ocean spray on his hair, and getting the Saharan sand off his Mr. Goodwrench shirt. He is shaking his head in a manner that I have come to associate with bad news.
Well, I got some good news and some bad news. Which do ya wanna hear first?
Masha'allah, I said, rolling my eyes.
What model do you got? The 2 billion year old one, or the one that's got just over 6,000 years on her?
Man ya'rif? I said, shrugging. Who knows?
Ya know, some people bought into the younger model, the Bishop Ussher model, the T four-oh-oh-four. Some got the older model.
I said I thought it was the older model. It had certainly been acting as if it were. (Bishop Ussher was the bloke who said the Earth was created in 4004 B.C.)
Then there's the designer: was your designer the Big Guy or that Intellygent Designer that's all the rage these days?
Well, I got some good news and some bad news. Which do ya wanna hear first?
Masha'allah, I said, rolling my eyes.
What model do you got? The 2 billion year old one, or the one that's got just over 6,000 years on her?
Man ya'rif? I said, shrugging. Who knows?
Ya know, some people bought into the younger model, the Bishop Ussher model, the T four-oh-oh-four. Some got the older model.
I said I thought it was the older model. It had certainly been acting as if it were. (Bishop Ussher was the bloke who said the Earth was created in 4004 B.C.)
Then there's the designer: was your designer the Big Guy or that Intellygent Designer that's all the rage these days?
While he said this, he did "majnoun" motions; i.e., finger points to temple and implies that some of us were not too tightly wrapped..." mad as hatters" nicely sums it up.
I said I thought it was the Big Lebowski...I don't know why. I mean, there isn't much holy about Jeff Bridges as The Big Lebowski. Or is there? Anyway, long story short, it was going to be flush the system for the next 1,000 years at some phenomenal figure per flush, or...get a new model.
So I'm getting the system flush. It gives me the shivers, sounding way too much like eternal colon cleansing, but she'll be running like new in no time.
--
reprint
The 99.95 Years War 2
Rainbow Bridge to ValhallaSo many guns are being sold, there is not enough ammo for a proper Hundred Years War anymore.
Last night, I dreamt about it. I saw in a dream our history as an opera. It seemed Wagnerian. It was taking place in a Bayreuth theater imagined by Leni Reifenstahl. "2008" - strangely and eerily similar to the name "2001" , which itself was an iconic bit of music - was merely the overture to a Gotterdammerung, or Twilight of the Gods, where the end of time has come and even the gods in Valhalla go down to destruction.
A good deal of sound and fury and wonderful music. I sing quite well in my dreams. I don't recall at what point I had left the audience and joined the cast onstage, but there it was.
Last night was the first opera: Gaia or Ge, the mother Earth, rejected us at last for the slings we lashed her with. The peaceful God lamented our hoard of weapons of destruction, saying not even Alberich nor Mime ( the dwarf ) with all his gelt ( his gold ) had such a destructive pile of goodies. ( I think one of Alberich's gold pieces was the ring of the Nibelungs. Exactly how it wrought destruction may be imagined from "The Lord of the Rings")
Disgusted by mankind's murderous greed, the gods abandon the Earth for Valhalla. At the end, there were a wretched few humans remaining alive. They raised their assault guns into a spire like a crucifix. The spirits of their ancestors - milling about the wings like a Greek chorus the entire opera - wept and abandoned them to the world they had created, thereby removing the last spiritual vestige which had connected man to the rest on the universe. It was all rather sad.
As I was exiting, I heard a large matron say to her companion, "Well, I can see why the living will envy the dead! All very Biblical." Her companion, an elderly gent, smiled a smile of the elderly - a benign symbol obscuring the fact that he had not heard what she had said at all. We bumped into each other and excused ourselves, allowing for each other to take precedence in exiting, and smiles all round.
We remembered the words of Winston Churchill:
"When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite."
--
reprint
reprint
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
Tamarrud! Rebel Against The Tea Bag Brotherhood!
Let's learn from Egypt. Let's take to the streets and overthrow the Tea Bag Brotherhood.
--
notes
tamarrud comes from the verb marada.
It is a modified form of the verb, marrada, that has a doubled middle consonant, r, and the verbal noun is tamarrud.
It is pronounced " ta - MAR - rud " approximately.
No Nullification !
The McClean House at Appomatox Court House, Virginia
Reading Andrew Sullivan Tuesday:
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/01/the-nullification-party/
..How does one party that has lost two presidential elections and a Supreme Court case – as well as two Senate elections - think it has the right to shut down the entire government and destroy the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury to get its way on universal healthcare now? I see no quid pro quo even. Just pure blackmail, resting on understandable and predictable public concern whenever a major reform is enacted. But what has to be resisted is any idea that this is government or politics as usual. It is an attack on the governance and the constitutional order of the United States.It is our time to get radical.
When ideologies become as calcified, as cocooned and as extremist as those galvanizing the GOP, the American system of government cannot work. But I fear this nullification of the last two elections is a deliberate attempt to ensure that the American system of government as we have known it cannot work. It cannot, must not work, in the mindset of these radicals, because they simply do not accept the legitimacy of a President and Congress of the opposing party. The GOP does not regard the president as merely wrong – but as illegitimate. Not misguided – illegitimate. This is not about ending Obamacare as such (although that is a preliminary scalp); it is about nullifying this presidency, the way the GOP attempted to nullify the last Democratic presidency by impeachment...
No to Nullification!
Unconditional Surrender! Resist, and do not stop until Appomatox Court House.
--
.
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
Who's At Fault?
President Obama won the election, which was certainly a vote of approval from a majority of the voters for his Affordable Care Act.
The Supreme Court said it was constitutional.
The Congress does not get to ignore the constitutional law of the land by letting a handful of radicals refuse to fund the government, but the Republican establishment in the House is doing so.
May they get what they so richly deserve.
--
The Supreme Court said it was constitutional.
The Congress does not get to ignore the constitutional law of the land by letting a handful of radicals refuse to fund the government, but the Republican establishment in the House is doing so.
May they get what they so richly deserve.
--
Depart
Do a proper shutdown; go away and leave us alone.
We know you're keeping your pay coming. That's OK.
--
We know you're keeping your pay coming. That's OK.
DEPART, I SAY, AND LET US HAVE DONE WITH YOU.
IN THE NAME OF GOD, GO!."Oliver Cromwell
--
What About Israel?
Israeli soldiers scuffle with Palestinians near a truck loaded with items European diplomats wanted to deliver to locals in the West Bank herding community of Khirbet al-Makhul, in the Jordan Valley, Sept. 20.
Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters
The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0929/Israel-increases-rate-of-home-demolitions-as-peace-talks-chug-along
Israel increases rate of home demolitions as peace talks chug along
Human rights activists say home demolitions show that protection for Palestinian human rights is missing from the peace process.
By Ben Lynfield, Correspondent / September 29, 2013
Burhan Bisharat lost his home last week to an Israeli army bulldozer, but he retains the Palestinian ethos of hospitality, pressing his interviewer to drink more tea as he recounts how he has slept amid the ruins of the dwellings of this tiny village in the occupied West Bank.If we are not going to bomb Syria because Netanyahu ordered us to, what happens to Israel and its special existence as our foremost ally? I mean, will it be able to continue to ignore its international obligations regarding nuclear weaponry? Will it be able to continue its Drang nach Osten on the West Bank?
''Living on the ground with no cover is hard,'' says the father of eight who, like a dozen other men from Makhul, has been sleeping out in the open because the army blocked them from receiving humanitarian relief tents after the demolition. On a scorching summer day, Makhul's men crowded under the only tree in sight for shade, while a group of Israeli soldiers stood guard nearby to ensure they did not attempt to rebuild shelter.
Israeli Defense Ministry officials say the demolition of Makhul was a necessary law enforcement measure against unlicensed construction and they stress that the Israeli Supreme Court last month rejected a petition against the order...
Who knows?
Maybe Jerusalem will be united, but in Peace, not in discord among nations. That would throw a Apocalypse-sized monkey wrench into the end-of-times works of a lot of Christian Dominionists.
Some people deserve a monkey wrench.
--
Pittsburgh
Immaculate Heart of Mary Church
Polish Hill
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
http://steeltownanthem.com/2013/07/19/weekly-recollections/
--
Government Shutdown: Koyaanisqatsi
According to Hopi Dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni, the Hopi word Koyaanisqatsi
(Hopi pronunciation: [kojɑːnisˈkɑtsi])
is defined as "life of moral corruption and turmoil" or "life out of balance".
The prefix koyaanis– means "corrupted" or "chaotic", and the word qatsi means "life" or "existence", literally translating koyaanisqatsi as "chaotic life". The film also defines the word as "crazy life", "life in turmoil", "life disintegrating", and "a state of life that calls for another way of living".
--
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