So Many Enemies He Needs Some Executive Time to Relax a Little

So the president repeatedly says the American press is America's enemy - but not one word about Russia threatening a nuclear attack on America ... 

Former FBI director says he fears the president is a Russian asset .... but the press is the enemy (oh, and the entire FBI).

Saudi Arabia murders a journalist, the president's staff has secretly sold nuclear weapon secrets to them ... because the press is the enemy?

The president calls for retribution against media comedies for jokes about his great self, and a coast guard officer is thankfully arrested for planning mass murder based on a hit list spreadsheet of media targets ....because the press is the enemy.

Except the press is not the enemy at our southern border. It's all the non-white people. Such a horrific enemy the president says America has a national emergency. 

Odd ...The press, non-whites, treaties with our allies, our military alliances, our trade with other nations, these are the enemies of America in the eyes and mind and actions of the president and his followers. Oh, and all the ex members of his administration. They are all bad people too. And his lawyers. And former friends. 

So many enemies. Gonna have to grab some Executive Time.

What I Learned Watching The Presidential Debate

Let's see here ... the United States should

= Invade North Korea

= Or at least support a Chinese invasion of  North Korea

= Stop US business expansion into overseas market

= Abandon NATO

= Support the collapse of the US housing market because "that's called business".

OK, what else do we have here? It strikes me how much Trump talks like a character in a David Mamet con man play ... like this one about his own income:

"The report that said $650 (million) — which, by the way, a lot of friends of mine that know my business say, boy, that’s really not a lot of money. It’s not a lot of money relative to what I had.

The buildings that were in question, they said in the same report, which was — actually, it wasn’t even a bad story, to be honest with you, but the buildings are worth $3.9 billion. And the $650 isn’t even on that. But it’s not $650. It’s much less than that.

But I could give you a list of banks, I would — if that would help you, I would give you a list of banks. These are very fine institutions, very fine banks. I could do that very quickly."

I did like this quote from Clinton, which was pretty much overlooked, but really cuts to the heart of what Trump himself considers his ultimate expertise, cutting business deals:

"Well, sometimes there’s not a direct transfer of skills from business to government, but sometimes what happened in business would be really bad for government."

There's the blatantly obvious racism from Trump, however I am sure he sees his comments differently, such as he calls anyone he thinks is a bum whatever slur comes to mind. 

Overall, I learned that I remain perplexed at how some thoughtful and experienced people I know are ardent supporters for someone who is playing a dangerous game he has zero qualifications for.

Welcome to the Christmas Toilet

Someone seems to have some creepy and conflicting attachments to Christmas and Santa. (via Chattanooga radio station WUSY's Facebook page)

There are 3,000-plus search engine results for items like this. So make that a whole lot of "someones". Also weird, folks who drape "gift wrapping" themes on a toilet. Guess you could call that some kind of friendly optimism.

Religion In America 2009

NOTE: Cathy notes in the comments that Aunt B.'s post today on America and religion is decidedly more crazy-dangerous than weird.

Wombat Spaceships and Michael Savage

Just as with many other online writers, I've often noticed that some readers land on this humble and lovable page by entering some utterly curious and odd phrases and questions into the ol' Google Machine.

For instance, there seem to be a notable collection of people in East Tennessee who are seeking naked images of Knoxville TV news anchor Robin Wilhoit (shame, shame on you), there are searches for Cats that look like Hitler or Stalin (and one for Cats that look like Jimmy Carter), and far more odd thoughts than you can imagine.

Today however a search question grabbed my attention: it read "Are Wombats Spaceships?"

Such a question conjured images of some dude somewhere whose jar of home-made brain debilitation had hit a low point as he gazed into they sky one starry evening while slumped on his porch and pondered to himself -- "maybe .. could it be ... that wombats are really spaceships?"

And oddly enough, such a question did indeed lead him directly to my post dated Aug. 1, 2007 entitled "Wombats Fly Spaceships".

Said post was actually addressing the incessant lunacy of radio talk show goon Michael Savage, and a theory he offered that nefarious Democrats had somehow made Supreme Court Justice John Roberts have a seizure which required some medical attention. So I offered this prediction for Savage's upcoming talking point:

"I am going to predict the next Big Scandal from Savage -- he will claim that Wombats Fly Spaceships. And not just yer ordinary everyday Wombat, either. These will be Liberal Democrat Wombats who seek to become the Dark Overlords of Time and Space."

Note that I wrote that he might claim that wombats fly spaceships, not that wombats are spaceships.

Savage, just by coincidence (or is it??), has been raising a stink because the government of Great Britain has banned Savage from entering their country:

" ... who was described by the Home Office as “seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.”

Also banned was the rage-inducing prophet of madness known as Fred Phelps. Phelps stand on wombats is not on record that I am aware of.

Maybe the Spaceships helmed by and/or constructed solely by wombats are smarter than we ever dared imagine. Though really, truth is that even a wombat would eye the rantings of Savage as potentially dangerous. Or maybe, just maybe, wombats are indeed galactic overlords cruising he galaxies with unimagined technology. Let's ask the ol' Google Machine if they have any images of these murky aliens whose wisdom is beyond the ken of mortal man -- here's the top results:

1 . A crime novel called The Wombat Strategy by Claire McNab, which Amazon describes as "Don't miss this intro to the most unconventional, laugh-out-loud private eye in lesbian crime fiction."

2. And for some years a videogame called Space Wombat has also been for sale for some time, wherein the adventures begin when "Space Wombat is heading home to planet Ucliptus with a valuable shipment of Power Gumnuts when he receives a distress call from a nearby planet".

Maybe the real question to ask -- is Michael Savage a Wombat Who Flies Spaceships???

Monday's Apocalyptic News

It isn't a science fiction story, it just sounds like one. Scientists will fire up a massive particle accelerator on Wednesday aiming to discover the hypothetical 'God particle', aka Higgs Boson. A worldwide network of some 60,000 computers are to be tasked to sift through results of the test to find the elusive particle.

The collision of particles, which will occur at near light-speed, is meant to create conditions which existed in the universe just after the "Big Bang". However, some fear the event will create a wee tiny micro-black hole which will devour the planet and maybe the solar system.

Maybe you should say the things you've always meant to say, do the things you've meant to do, since we may all explode soon. (A live webcast of the test firing will be shown here.)

Other Signs The End Is Near:

Micro-Zombies

Doug showed me the story today about wee tiny amoeba which eat your brains.

I imagine there would be places where such critters would starve to death.

Living On Venezeula Time; or Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?

Time itself is being altered in the South American country of Venezeula, or as it's president, Hugo Chavez has renamed the nation, Bolivarian Republic of Venezeula. Or it will be altered, probably in January, since a plan to re-set the clocks there by half an hour this past Monday was a bust.

"Even Chavez had seemed unprepared. When he first made the announcement, he told Venezuelans to move their clocks forward, when really the measure requires them to be turned back.

In delaying the shift, Chavez said on Sunday that Venezuela still had to complete the necessary bureaucratic steps with international organizations.

Chavez has dismissed criticism that moving the time only a half hour was quirky, questioning why the world had to follow a scheme of hourly divisions that he said was dictated by the imperial United States."

Other nations have also decided on their own to alter time settings, which I suppose is simply a minor deal in most minds. Although I thought the hourly division of time was a world-wide norm, and learned it is not, as Tibet is on a 15-minute time difference from GMT.

But GMT - Greenwich Mean Time - is really not the standard time-keeper it used to be. Since 1961, the standard is really based on UTC, which stands for Coordinated Universal Time, and which some debate occured as to whether we should call it UTC, CUT, or TUC, which is French for Temps Universel Coordone. At least, that is the history of our changing time according to WikiPedia, which may have a Liberal bias according to ConservaPedia.

And even the creation of GMT was a formalization of time made in 1884 since the vast majority of navigation maps used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian in 1884. UTC is based on atomic time standards and the apparent rotation of the planet.

Which means that time, really, is whatever we decide it is, depending on the beliefs and/or needs of earthly inhabitants at any particular moment. Which means I am never ever going to accept blame again about not being on time, as I can claim atomic alterations in leap seconds. At least, I think I can claim that. Or perhaps I can claim an adherence to GMT is not as accurate as UTC, or as they write on that nefarious WikiPedia:

"Noon Greenwich Mean Time is not necessarily the moment when the Sun crosses the Greenwich meridian (and reaches its highest point in the sky in Greenwich) because of Earth's uneven speed in its elliptic orbit and its axial tilt. This event may be up to 16 minutes away from noon GMT (this discrepancy is known as the equation of time). The fictitious mean sun is the annual average of this nonuniform motion of the true Sun, necessitating the inclusion of mean in Greenwich Mean Time.

Historically the term GMT has been used with two different conventions for numbering hours. The old astronomical convention (before 1925) was to refer to noon as zero hours, whereas the civil convention during the same period was to refer to midnight as zero hours. The latter is modern astronomical and civil convention. The more specific terms UT and UTC do not share this ambiguity, always referring to midnight as zero hours."

The headache which I induced by trying to puzzle out just what time it might be at any particular point has lasted, though I am reluctant to say it, for some time.

Some say time is a dimension all unto itself outside the observable three dimensions (thanks, Einstein), and some say time is simply an imaginary construct.. And isn't The Fifth Dimension a band from the Sixties???

And all of the above brought another thought to my admittedly confused mind: If humans scattered across the earth cannot agree to what time is might be, will we ever agree on anything at all?

And if somehow a planet-wide single acceptance of what time truly is takes place, will all other debatable topics be rendered into uniform acceptance too? Judging by human history, I say no. We seem prone to debate on any topic imaginable. More likely, all my ponderings are mere indicators that I scored poorly in math and geometry classes and scored better in philosophy classes.

And now my headache is worse and I should just go be quiet for a time.

Or should I say if you have read this far, I am sorry I took up your time??

If You Can't Cope With The Game of Tag ...

A northern Colorado elementary school system has decided to ban the playing of Tag during recess.

Causes violence, say administrators, who have created a "Trouble-Free Playground" program.

At the risk of being callous and cruel, I can only offer this advice: if an elementary school game of tag is too tough and hard for a kid, then adolescence and adulthood will be shockingly unbearable to you.

Stay at home, pack yourself in cotton-wadding and bubble-wrap and disconnect the TV and the phone.

NOTE: While I did not like the advice at the time, when a football coach told me to "walk it off", the advice was fairly good. Get over it or do not play. (I opted not to play, became an 'athletic assistant' and got to ride on the bus with the cheerleaders and the band, which was waaaaaay more fun.)

Fear

Is it case of nerves so frazzled by fear and fearful warnings? Or perhaps a case of over-stimulated, over-funded police departments? The bottom line is that two members of a running club face felony charges for outlining a running trail with flour:

"Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns."
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"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," [Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga] said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."

hat-tip to Russ McBee

The Return of Ted Haggard & Other News

Poor troubled quasi-evangelist Ted Haggard says he is so poor that he need you to give him money each month for the next two years, and then he'll be financially fine.

Despite receiving a settlement salary this year of $138,000 and owning a house worth $715,000, he says he needs your checks and cash for the next two years - which he says will bring you rewards in Heaven - as he goes to school to learn to be a counselor for a facility which has a dubious reputation.

"[The families With A Mission in] Colorado Springs mailing address is the same one to which Haggard is asking people to send donations. However, Secretary of State records show that Families With a Mission was administratively dissolved earlier this year, on Feb. 23. And the man who is listed as the president of Families With a Mission, Paul Gerard Huberty, appears to be the same Paul Huberty who was convicted in 1996 of having sex with a 17-year old girl while he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force stationed in Germany, and who later registered as a sex offender in Hawaii. The organization Family Watchdog, which tracks sex offenders, currently lists Huberty at the same Monument address that was the principal address of Families With a Mission."

The report from Colorado Confidential is here.

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Even though some strippers at Nashville's Deja Vu club were faking their erotic interests (with some possibly fake body enhancements) for a customer, it turns out he was faking them out too - with home-made $100 bills.

Smyrna resident Damon Armagost found out the Secret Service will investigate fake bills. Erotic fakery is no crime, however. It may be an art form.

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Forget changing with the times -- Time itself is being changed in Venezuela, which is also no longer the actual name of the nation, it's now the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. And now they are moving their clocks forward by half an hour by command of Hugo Chavez.

He has also announced a plan to build a group of artificial island-cities to claim sections of the Caribbean as his own.

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Tired of waiting for new episodes of the intermittent TV show appropriately called "Lost"??

Thanks to Todd McFarlane and his company of creators, a new series of "action figures" (NOT dolls, dammit) is on the way to a store near you. You can force them to act out your vision of the TV show.

Also available - The Hatch Play-Set. You get to decide what they do now! Make them build a raft and just go home!!

Boy Suspended For Sketch That Kinda Looks Like Gun

Imaginary doodle or sign of insane violence? Maybe it's a teacher and principal who are already far too stressed out to remain in the public school system.

"An East Valley eighth-grader was suspended this week after he turned in homework with a sketch that school officials said resembled a gun and posed a threat to his classmates.

"Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the school is not allowed to discuss students’ discipline records. However, he said the sketch was “absolutely considered a threat,” and threatening words or pictures are punished.

"The school did not contact police about the threat and did not provide counseling or an evaluation to the boy to determine if he intended the drawing as a threat.

"The sketch was one of several drawings scratched in the margins of a science assignment that was turned in on Friday. The boy said he never meant for the picture to be seen as a threat. He said he was just drawing because he finished an assignment early."

Full story here.

Wombats Fly Spaceships

Once or twice (maybe even three times) I have tuned in to a bizarre talk radio show hosted by one Michael Savage. He seemed to always be really angry, not just cranky "you kids get offa my lawn" angst, but somehow deeply and emotionally devoted to some goofy ideas.

But on Monday, according to this transcript, he said that the Democrat party gave Supreme Court Justice Roberts the seizure Roberts suffered this week.

"Am I to believe that there's no connection between [Senator] Charles Schumer on Friday saying that he would never appoint, or never, excuse me, approve another Bush appointment to the court, to any court? And then the chief justice suffers a so-called seizure two days later? You're telling me there's no possibility of a conspiracy by the Democrats to have caused this seizure in some manner? Tell me that it's not possible. Tell me that the stakes are not so high that the liberals -- who've finally lost the court after 50 years -- that they would stop short of anything like this. Tell me it's not possible, and I'll tell you you're a liar."

Savage's ratings are pretty high - tallied at 8 million listeners per week. So Savage's rant was heard (and likely believed) by millions of people.

I know hyperbole and media go together like peanut butter and jelly. So I am going to predict the next Big Scandal from Savage -- he will claim that Wombats Fly Spaceships. And not just yer ordinary everyday Wombat, either. These will be Liberal Democrat Wombats who seek to become the Dark Overlords of Time and Space.

Smokin', Fishin' and of course, Zombies

Even though the smoking ban in public places in Tennessee does not go into full effect until October 1st, a woman who lit up a cigarette in an East Tennessee eatery found herself threatened with arrest. Though as best as I could discern, the law states an offending smoker is to be fined only.

WATE-TV filed a report on the story out of Newport. Two officers needed to arrest her? Perhaps she should be happy they didn't call out a SWAT team.

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On a competing Knox TV station, WBIR, the story they felt compelled to tell was about a group of gals who fish for catfish with their bare hands. Thre's even a DVD for it, called "Girls Gone Grabblin'". You have to admire (well, I do anyway) the ad copy, which says: "Be one of the first to watch & be amazed as 35 Southern Women bring you the thrill of catching catfish weighing up to 44lbs. with their hands and wrestling them to the bank."

Everyone say Yee-haw! A person would have to wrestle me to the ground if they ever expected me to eat catfish, no matter who catches it. Well, maybe Scarlett Johansson could, as long as she's willing to wrestle me to the ground first

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Speaking of news and women (and fishin'), it was the mighty newswoman, known as Newscoma, who clued me in last week to a zombie movie I had no knowledge of, a Lucio Fulci movie which boasts a scene of a zombie attacking a shark. Bets are the shark fired his agent shortly after this was made.



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Meanwhile, from up north, Ms. McGee points out that a manical shambling half-body zombie is available for purchase. There is a video on the website.

Sunday Web Walking - Extended Edition!

Buckle up for a brief yet intense whirlwind tour of the internet and the bloggers and more.

The WKRN-TV blog Nashville Is Talking may soon be Not Talking So Much, though comments from their GM Gwen Kinsey are not easy to decipher. Suffice to say the future of NIT is where it has been for the last month: Unknown. But the Web is an always-evolving place, so it is no surprise that many mid-state and beyond blog-makers decided their best option was to create their own collective and hold their own conversations, which they call Music City Bloggers. I wish them much luck and thank them for linking to this humble (but lovable) page.

Another page I've been meaning to link to is heretofore presented with some fanfare: Russ McBee. And yes, he is right that this post on the "Amazonian Bigfoot" got my attention. I will confess a curious interest in cryptozoology. Why, just the other day, I discovered that scientists have known about the Vampire Squid for over 100 years. Anytime you write Vampire _________ as the name of a creature, I take note. Please take note of Russ McBee who writes about much more than the odd things which might perplex me.

Perplexed describes my reaction to this report from Grainger Today newspaper -- for some reason, a SWAT team raided a news publisher's home for some kind of suspect wanted for something. Details are scarce, and yet sooooo tantalizing.

First District Congressman David Davis was lauded by local officials for opening an office in Morristown on Friday, at Walters State Community College, in a branch of offices related to Homeland Security and much more. Rep. Davis had promised to open such an office -- staffed by some familiar GOP names from past office-holders. Also this week, a Tri-Cities TV station which had endorsed Davis gives him a failing grade some six months into his first year in office. They say his actions show him more interested in serving the GOP than serving his district. I would be greatly surprised if more than 20% of voters in the First District could even name their own congressman.

A regular feature via Jack Lail and the KNS on Sunday is an overview of what East Tennessee bloggers are talking about -- always a good way to peek into what people are writing and saying on a wide range of issues and topics.

It's kinda funny to write something like "East Tennessee bloggers" as the phrase really did not exist a few years back. I am happy it does exist. For the first time in my lifetime, I have scores and scores of local resources for news and information, all freely provided and independently created. What is provided on this humble (but lovable) page barely scratches the surface of info on the area and the state which is available.

If you have a suggestion for another place to seek info, to learn and to read, please add it in the comments!

IN OTHER NEWS: I haven't had the chance yet to write of the recent passing of composer Will Schaefer, so I will make time to do so now. His music is well-known by many, whether they are aware of it or not. His musical themes and songs are well known to you if you ever watched "The Flintstones," "Scooby-Doo", "Hogan's Heroes", "I Dream of Jeanie", "The Super Friends" or Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, countless commercials throughout the 1960s and 1970s and he is the man who re-crafted a popular song into a theme for one of the most well-known of Disney's theme park rides: "It's A Small World."

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I'm ready to train the dog to do this.

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The European Union provided a commercial about how the government spends money and the result was Sex, Sex, Sex!!!

The Vampire Candidate and The Catfish Resolution

Some stories are so bizarre they defy description. Just about every sentence of this story is so weird you'd think it was made up by the staff writers at Weekly World News. But nooooooo. The British paper reports that America's (so far) only vampire candidate, Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey for president is being investigated for threatening to impale current President Bush --

"But a legal expert is unsure if a case could be made against The Impaler. 'Under the First Amendment, what it boils down to here is whether or not he's a vampire who wants to impale the president,' law professor Neil Richards of Washington University in St. Louis told the Chronicle.

'I guess the question is, if he's a vampire, why is he the one staking people? Shouldn't he want to bite the president and feed on him?' added Richards, describing these questions as 'perhaps further evidence that this is not a true threat."

The whole story (every sentence will make your jaw drop) is here. The vampire is 42 years old and his wife, Spree, is 19. Just ... wow. All it needs is a reference to Bigfoot and a UFO.

In a related bit of strangeness, another story, this one with a much happier ending. I mentioned a few days back that a woman was being sought for attacking a waitress with a catfish dinner. They found the woman, but the waitress and the restaraunt decided not to file charges against her:

"We've had so much publicity over this stuff, they've called us from everywhere," Jenkins told the Times-News Thursday afternoon. "Louisiana, California, ‘The "Jerry Springer Show' - and Channel 5 sat up here for eight hours the other day. It's all over the Internet everywhere.

"We just told them (the sheriff's office) to tell her she wasn't welcome anymore. It's all you can eat, not all you can carry."

I know it's only Tuesday, but surely there won't be any stranger stories this week .... or at least I hope that's true.