Obama, Texas Strangler

Well certainly it's reasonable to assert that Obama is behind the very, very suspicious death of a 79 year old fat man well past the life expectancy of his generation.  After all people who weren't there assure us it's suspicious that his pillow was covering his head.  Anyone having smothered him and having covered up all traces of his presence would have been sure to leave it there and the ability of Obama to transform himself into a bat and fly into and out of locked rooms is well known. Case closed.  We can't discount the suspicion because after all, people are asking questions: people like Alex Jones and that foul Fascist piece of human garbage Allen West.

Is it a sign of  some kind of progress in our society that people who once would have been in a straitjacket  and locked in a cell now run for political office and have radio shows and have followings of millions?  There are times when large numbers of people go insane; when whole countries go insane and the result is often genocide, war and the collapse of law and order.  Is this one of those times? How would we even know, when madness is everywhere we look for guidance? The internet, the radio and TV give us propaganda, lies and the ravings of lunatics and get respect for it.  In a world of blind men, the one eyed man gets ripped to pieces.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

Which old witch?  The Wicked Witch!

R.I.P. Tony.  Good timing buddy-boy.

Surfing the Universe

Well, it seems that we have experimental confirmation that cataclysmic changes in gravity ripple across space at the speed of light, just as Einstein predicted. This will cause many to feel elated but to most, it's meaningless, their universes being more circumscribed than the one cosmologists and physicists live in. Everyman's concerns for the way science can confirm or deny opinion and common sense don't run deep..

Our four  dimensions  are expanded or shrunk a very tiny bit as a gravitational wave passes through.  A very tiny bit, a fraction of the width of a proton, which is far too small for the average person to get involved it, or to attach any importance to.  But it's just one small step away from the kind of consciousness Americans want to retreat into, and I'm not only talking only about the Evangelicals with their young and small universe run by miracle and designed by a consciousness.  Americans are searching for, longing for a world without harsh and rigorous scrutiny -- a world trending back to "nature" and away from technology which is somehow safer and healthier, and where  things have meaning on a human scale.

The parts of our brain that run on superstition, snap judgement and frighteningly huge oversimplifications really are in charge and nearly all the time.  Like "outer space"  the views of reality put together piece by piece by scientific method is far away, and abstract and a little silly to most people.  If the LIGO experimental confirmation of the spreading ripples in space-time from a collision between black holes billions of light years away and billions of years ago ever makes it into the public consciousness it will be to sell us gravitational wave receivers, tuned to natural frequencies which will improve your sex life and help you shed unwanted pounds.  People will claim to be getting signals from the universe through gravitational waves and will help you do the same for a fee.

It's certainly been several lifetimes since we proved that Tetanus is not caused by rust and rhinoviruses not caused by drafts of air. It's been enough time for the proof that milk doesn't promote phlegm or that gluten has no negative effects on 95% of the population or that Dr. Oz's weekly miracle discoveries are worthless.  But we know our inherited weaknesses never completely go away. Prayers and curses, personal rituals and lucky socks still matter to us. We still talk of mysterious toxins and desire to have our intestines flushed and something or other done with our Chi or our Chakras. Hardly one in a million will bother to question that the culture of marketing and entertainment is anything but an exploitation, using lies and deception and distraction.

So gravity is associated with a particle and particles have a wavelength and propagate at a finite speed across an infinite void and so we don't care, except possibly to cause us to ask the universe to help us with our love life and to choose a more ritually pure, vegan, paleo, gluten free diet free of "chemicals.".  Science doesn't really mean shit to us and as the men who wrote Ecclesiastes told us, our entire culture and view of ourselves and the universe are just vanity.

Cunning Linguistics (Michigan Style)

Michigan Senate Passes Bill Making Sodomy a Felony Punishable by 15 Years in Prison:

"Some states' sodomy laws specifically target gay relations, but Michigan's is among those that make oral and anal sex crimes illegal regardless of whether they're same-sex or different-sex. Michigan is also one of several states with a sodomy ban that's intertwined with a prohibition on bestiality – effectively equating the two. The law makes it a felony for anyone to commit "the abominable and detestable crime against nature with mankind or with any animal." If the person is already a sex offender, violations are punishable by life in prison."

Since we have turned the focus of attention away from the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, here is a special diversion for you ... unabridged, uncensored insect pornography.  This pair of lurid lubbers making love is an example of beastiality at its best.

Dirty pictures versus dirty water is the latest iteration of an old GOP tactic: Change the the subject and turn the focus of attention. Waste time on utterly stupid legislation to distract you from the REALLY BIG ISSUE.  Like criminalizing insect pornography so we don’t have to think about poisoned children in a dying city.  Nothing like a water crisis to sneak a peek into your bedroom and do something kinky with handcuffs!

Here is a rhetorical question: Which of the two is more obscene!

Postscript:  

Cunning linguistics -- cephalopod style.

It's Always High Noon in Tallahassee

The Florida House has now passed a bill allowing Floridians with concealed carry permits to openly carry firearms, even on college campuses.  Good guys with guns, doncha know. It's what made Deadwood such a peaceful place in the 1870's and Gene Autry rich in the 1950's.  Hey come on, didn't you dream about being a Wild West cowboy when you were a kid?

Many people will of course react in horror and fear and panic and they, like most Americans, don't know that 45 states already allow it and many without any kind of permit needed. 13 states at least require some sort of license and at least Floridians who want to flaunt firearms would  need to be fingerprinted and investigated and to have passed a course of instruction.  Even Hoppalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger didn't have to do that back when America was great, but  I can't wait for Governor Scott to sign this one.  Hi Ho Silver!

Is it going to cause a bloodbath?  I certainly doubt it, and in my 70 odd years I have only seen anyone carry openly while hunting or walking about their farms or in very remote areas -- except for cops, of course. That still makes me nervous.  It feels a bit odd, I admit, but those who do carry concealed weapons legally can stop worrying that if the wind blows their shirt open and reveals a gun or knife they won't go to jail as the law now provides. It's not all bad.

It certainly provides a further degree of polarization however and reduces the likelihood of the vociferous phobics ever agreeing on anything, and that's not a good thing, but what after all is getting better in our culture of fear and outrage? I'm to the point where I really accept the madness and embrace the horror - or the humor - as an outside observer.

Any mention of the American Gun Problem simply accelerates gun sales. Every rampage shooting lengthens lines at the gun store and every proposal or suggestion or casual mention that something might be done does the same thing. I might do well to sell guns and buy Stock in Smith and Wesson.

No, I don't think much will actually change, except perhaps in the Florida Legislature where another bill passed will allow Florida's Senators and Representatives to bring their guns to work.  As long as we can watch it on TV, I'm all for it.   Legislative showdown?  You ain't seen nothin' yet!

Moon over Iowa

Rafael "Ted" Cruz wins in Iowa.  China releases startlingly clear pictures from their moon rover and Facebook erupts with comments like "where are the stars" and "why do we see tracks where there's no air or water" and "what if China pushes the moon out of it's orbit and it kills us all."  We're reminded that our moon landings were all faked. And then of course comes the prizewinner:  "How come they can do this and not us?"

People are stupid.  People are barely more informed than chimpanzees and the United States Economy and  Leadership thrive on making these people unaware of the magnitude of their ignorance and cognitive disability. These are the people who choose our leaders and legislators. These are the people who demand to force their demented, mean and superstitious beliefs on all of us.  These are the people who wield a huge influence on the most powerful military the Earth has ever known.

The medium that lets you read these words serves more to place the ideas of idiots, madmen and  deceivers in the same shop window as enlightened and informed truth than it does to educate us.  I spent my formative years with the idea that nuclear and military technology was going to kill us all.  Now I'm not so sure that we even need it as we find a way to destroy civilization  and make Mankind great again - as we were when we spent our days wandering the rift valley, eating carrion and picking lice.

We were never great.  We've always been a mean, cruel,larcenous and murderous lot of apes and our greatest ability is to ignore our idiocy while it's killing us.

The Caucasus ...

Do I really give a rat's ass about the caucuses in Iowa, or the regional boundary between Europe and Asia?  Hell, no!  Instead, I'll entertain you with this poem:

Rembrandt, the tenebrous

In the etching's third state

Light slanting down

Is taken for granted.

At the foot of the cross

Soldiers on horseback jostle

A party of burghers

Along with the faithful

(As the Good Book affirms).

In the fourth state,

Figures on the left

Have been smudged

Or burnished out.

Darkness is pulled in

Like a curtain of sacking.

The bad thief is lost.

A wholly different lot soldiers 

Hoards the remainder of light.

The Sagebrush Rebellion

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but YHWH pondereth the hearts.

Proverbs 21:2


It seems a bit pretentious to call it a rebellion or to call the participants patriots for participating in an armed sit-in as we used to call it back in the day.  "Highfalutin' " you might call it: rhapsodizing about sleeping under the stars and saddlin' up your horse, since one is still quite welcome to do that. Indeed I've done that myself although the horse was iron and didn't need saddling. The event that precipitated the Malheur occupation had more to do with arson of Federal Property than a camping trip or the right to enjoy the great outdoors.  It has more to do with the perceived right to exploit common resources for individual profit.

LaVoy Finicum, said by his family to be a gentle and kind man was killed yesterday in an armed confrontation with FBI agents. Although I don't know the details, I'm rather certain he died in vain, defending a nostalgic idea of freedom drawn from romantic fiction but also drawn from a relic of the days of anti-Communist hysteria. Strutting around with firearms on Federal property is more like something extracted from a Zane Fray novel that a political statement. Fiction, romance, free-range nostalgia and maybe a bit of the Bible thrown it to remind us of a time before government and "every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

You might see it as paranoia, the assertion that our government must by nature abridge our freedom continuously if not wantonly, and that there is no process for addressing grievances except in the old way, the frontier way, the fantasy way of the gun and by pretending that the legitimacy of government is an individual choice and not that of  the voting population.  The sovereign citizen is not part of our law and never was.  The idea of continuous revolution that "speaks from the muzzle of a gun"  is an argument found in the little red books the Red Guard used to carry,  not in our Constitution, but I'm used to seeing the words of Marx and Mao supported by people who think they're opposing Communism and seeing it everywhere.

But attaching noble purpose to the banal and even to the ridiculous is the stuff  of religion and politics, from terrorists "protecting' their almighty God to the claim of immunity to the law conveyed by "belief."  That noble purpose behind the Oregon occupation seems to be supported by a strange edition of the US constitution annotated by one W. Cleon Skousen, an anti-Communist crusader supported it seems by Glenn Beck which makes all kinds of  claims about whom the law pertains to and what the constitution allows and doesn't. You may be old enough to remember that Cleon was one of those loonies claiming Dwight Eisenhower was a Communist agent.  It's a book that's been distributed through Mormon sources and printed by the millions. It's a book carried by Cliven Bundy and others of his ilk

This madness lives on, lures people into a Quixotic epic including heroes with tin-pot helmets making suicidal attacks on the entire concept of Government.  That the United states was never intended to be for anyone but Christians who live as they please and do no more than what is right in his own eyes is at the heart of this "rebellion" and I would sooner call it a fugue, a fantasy and a fraud.  At heart though it's also religion and supported by a religion with separatism as it's legacy and hostility toward "gentiles" as it's heritage. 

Perhaps YHWH will weigh some hearts here, perhaps not, but the law will certainly weigh actions

(O)CT(O)PUS Spotted in Mid-Atlantic Area Following Winter Storm Jonas

Sarah's Choice

Responding to a domestic violence report last week, police officers arrested a 26-year old suspect for punching his girlfriend in the face and brandishing a firearm while intoxicated. Is this your typical crime blotter from Any Town USA? Not this time! The alleged offender was Track Palin, oldest son of Sarah Palin.

Whether Son of Sarah ends up in lockup, or receives a slap on his affluenza, is beside the point. Where was Mamma Pit Bull with Lipstick one day later? Was she arranging bail to spring her son from jail? Retaining legal counsel or family counsel?

On Tuesday, the former half-term governor of Alaska had flown to Ames, Iowa, to stump for Trump. Her signature voice screeching of chalk on blackboard, the family values mom betrayed no hint of the family mess back home.

Not until Wednesday, during a campaign stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, did she finally speak of the elephant in the room:

“That starts from the top. It’s a shame that our military personnel even have to wonder, if they have to question, if they’re respected anymore. It starts from the top,” she insisted.

Indeed! Accountability starts from the top, but was the POTUS deserving her spite? Did PTSD derail her hapless Track, or perhaps some other pre-existing condition long ignored?  Let’s take a Tripp (no pun intended) down Memory Lane:

December 6, 2005 — Four teens stopped at a liquor store and stole a bottle of vodka before vandalizing 44 school buses. Although courts do not release the names of juvenile offenders, one of the four teens is believed to be Track Palin. 

September 11, 2007 — Son of Sarah enlists in the U.S. Army (presumably to ‘straighten up and fly right’). In the year Track Palin deployed to Iraq, his CIC was President George W. Bush.

September 2, 2008 — On the same day John McCain named Sarah Palin as his VP running mate, tabloids broke this news: Teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant.

September 6, 2014 — Let us recall the infamous Palin Family Brawl starring Papa Todd, Mama Grizzly, bristling Bristol, and punch-drunk Track.

June 27, 2015 — After earning $262,500 as teen pregnancy ambassador for the Candie Foundation (an abstinence awareness charity), Bristol announced her second pregnancy — again out of wedlock.

No doubt, tabloid journalism opens windows on the private lives of famous people but rarely delves into more meaningful clues. Are Palin family values behind closed doors the same as they appear in public?

Ask any mental health professional. Patterns of underage drinking, teen pregnancy, and trouble with the law are signs and symptoms of disconsolate teens — and of absentee parents who are inattentive to their needs. Here is the portrait of a distressed family repeatedly mired in controversy and drama.

Of course, Mamma Grizzly does what grizzlies do best: Shift blame. Accuse. Denounce. Ridicule. Play the victim card. And avoid mirrors. Blame the POTUS for the elephant in the room, but never admit responsibility. Perhaps the public scold has revealed the caustic side of her parenting style.

If Sarah Palin has achieved anything in life, she has raised denial and self-affirming victimhood to a fine art, and her firebrand populism appeals to millions of like-minded followers. At least there is this point of agreement between lawyers and mental health professionals: Negligent parents are good for business.