Summer 2018 - They Live ... Again

Let's knock the dust of this page.

A reason for the long time between posts - I wanted it to be ignored for a while, forgotten even, so I had fewer concerns about who might read it. Job done!

On to business -

As a lifelong political observer, it has been a most fascinating time, though a sad one for the old U.S. of A. After surviving so many challenges of the most dire sort, it seems the worst folks imaginable are in charge supported by a very vocal minority of citizens who are demented by hatred and racism and self-aggrandizement. I can't say the prognosis is good - I'm afraid the old U.S. of A. is probably going to to get sicker before it gets better. 

An encore rally of the white-supremacist neo-nazis from Charlottesville have booked their next appearance - the national mall in front of the White House in August. Guest speakers to include........

Meanwhile, I've noted some true Weirdness worth noting - such as

 - - The use of foreskins from Korean babies as the base of a high-dollar facial treatment for rich white ladies (aka The Penis Facial). I hear The Idiot in Chief is a big fan.

- - America currently has the largest stockpile of cheese in over a century. Too much milk which is a part of the Idiot in Chief's Trade War stratagems. 

- - Finally! Robosuits are here!! (and remember, Robos can't unionize!!)

-- So for nearly 18 years now, every big-budget Hollywood box office hit feature agonizingly long and detailed scenes of giant skyscrapers collapsing into enormous billowing clouds of dust but no one is talking about the nation's recurring daydream of what happened at the World trade Center. Y'all are creeping me out.

- - Speaking of movies, check out the Daily Itinerary of the Killer in a Slasher Movie.

The Armaggedon Roundup

Some observations -

- If you run a gun shop called Armageddon Supplies, isn't it inevitable one day some dude will send a 200 page manifesto of discontents to the White House, and steal dozens of guns and tons of ammo and armor from your store? Yer store, see, is called Armageddon Supplies, so that's like ... stupid.

- The witless prom girl video blogger is suing her insane boss for wrongful termination. Smart money says the two agreed to file suits against each other in order to generate some publicity, aka desperate pleas for attention. So, no.

- We've all seen some Dick moves in our time. For the president - any president - to gut billions from national parks and then donate $76,000 to them -- Grade A Dick move. It's the kind of asshole thing the asshole character in a bad movie does. Dick.

- The actual facts, the plain narrative of the president's financial connections to the Russian mob is right here to read. No special investigation revealed this - and any new investigation into this swamp means one thing which I predict right here - the current administration is defunct and within 2 years, the U.S. is going to be placing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan into the presidency. It's fairly inescapable.

- Here In Tennessee, those poor folks in the internet provider business just got $45 million in tax dollars to encourage them to actually provide internet in places they have refused to go. Oh and to let utilities to run internet wherever they can, because two businesses that just can't seem to make a profit are utilities and internet providers? 

TN Rep. Holt Fights Feds, Backs Militia Takeover

I don't know that I ever heard of Tennessee State Rep. Andy Holt prior to his being fined for a.) operating without a permit while b.) illegally dumping nearly a million gallons of pig poop into public waterways from his pig farm operations. Fined $177,000 by the EPA which he refuses to pay a few months later, now Rep. Holt is taking his fight against the federal government into high gear.

On Monday, he tweeted a question to the armed militants who have taken control of a federal bird sanctuary in Oregon "#bundymilitia Where can I send support to your effort?"

And today he sent a letter to President Obama, saying "take your gun control and shove it" and concluding with another hashtag  "#MolonLabe" which is Latin for "come and take it", apparently he feels the President wants to send Federal agents to take away any guns he might have.

It wasn't long after reading about the above events, I recalled I had heard of Rep. Holt before - back when somehow he convinced the state legislature of pass a resolution inviting Right Wing talk show firebrand Sean Hannity to come to Tennessee to live. I found among my bookmarked pages this gem from the Nashville Scene from last February:

"And last month, when throngs of women chanted in the Capitol hallways over women's reproductive rights, the adamant anti-abortion Republican scribbled and carried around a sign that read, "I love women ... and their babies."

Science Shows Why Stupid Folks Praise Stupid Folks

Pamela Geller

I'm somewhat happy to report there appears to be a theory to explain why deeply uninformed folks suffer from "illusory superiority".

Such a theory helps explain the idiocy of, for instance, folks in Texas who firmly believe the U.S. Military is prepping an attack on Texas and even why rabid hate-speakers like Pamela Geller considers herself a defender of Free Speech. This theory likely explains why some consider FOX News a source of "fair and balanced" journalism.

The theory is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.

A 1999 study at Cornell University by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Krueger concluded that this effect is:

"... a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude.

Pretend News on FOX

"The study was inspired by the case of McArthur Wheeler, a man who robbed two banks after covering his face with lemon juice in the mistaken belief that, because lemon juice is usable as invisible ink, it would prevent his face from being recorded on surveillance cameras."

Hoo boy, does that explain a lot of wacky thinking and talking from certain people and groups.

The summation here also notes such people:

fail to recognize their own lack of skill
fail to recognize genuine skill in others
fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy

recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill

There is a very real threat and danger to the rest of us from the folks who suffer from their delusions of wisdom -- incompetence grows quickly and, when voiced by someone in a position of authority their madness gets legitimized as having some value or truth.

Tennessee: God, Guns, Booze

The State's Official Gun (almost)

State legislators aimed this year to define Tennessee via the designation of "Official State _________ " resolutions and came up with some true weirdness.

What did they select to identify Tennessee?

The Bible.
The Sniper Rifle.
Moonshine.

How did Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey describe this legislative session? 

"I have said it before and I will say it again: it matters who governs."

Congressional Folks Sway and Sort of Sing

With Congressional approval ratings hitting a low of 16%, the moment yesterday when House and Senate leaders held hands, swayed and sort of sang along to "We Shall Overcome" is quite bizarre.

The moment occurred during a ceremony commemorating the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Given the years of hostile refusals to work together, the song perhaps which might have been more akin to Congressional action is "We Shall Not Be Moved".

The Rise of Donkey Milk

Things I learned from the Internet today: the most expensive cheese in the world is Donkey Cheese, made, of course, from the milk of a donkey..

The world's top-rated male tennis player, the Serbian-born Novak Djokovic, has apparently just  bought the world's supply of Donkey Cheese for a chain of restaurants he is opening. The year's supply is made on one farm in Zasavica, and costs anywhere from $500 to $2900 a pound.

Legends say that Cleopatra bathed in donkey milk, thinking is had youthful restorative properties, and aside from the donkey cheese, donkey soap is another much sought after product.

Dangerous Interest at Boring 2012 Conference

The annual Boring conference was of little interest, but even that might negate it's purpose:

"I regretfully agreed that all this did sound extremely boring and proceeded to the large neo-Georgian auditorium, where an audience of about 500 mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings were listening with careful amusement as a dapper young man talked about toast. There was a large screen behind him on the stage, and he was clicking through a series of photographs of toast slices, ranging from the entirely burnt to the effectively untoasted, in order to demonstrate what he called “the confusing, non-regulated series of toaster settings on the market.”

Butting In or Butting Out?

As a public service, let me offer a very simple and basic rule from the Guide to Living a Good Life - Rule Number 25: Never, ever place yourself in a situation where you have to deny you participated in something called "butt-chugging" or "alcohol enema".

This press conference by the UT student, his attorney and an army of silent frat brothers, is a grim comedy of horrors.

The press release here notes the events of this case are similar to those in "The Wizard of Oz" but never says just how it is similar. I personally do not recall any consumption of booze via any orifice in that story, though the character who laments "if I only had a brain" does seem most appropriate.

Valentine's Day Sewage Plant Tours

All the romance offered by a sewage treatment plant can be yours!

"Brooklyn, New York’s Newtown Creek sewage plant will be the center of romance this Valentine’s Day. Plant superintendent Jim Pynn will take loving couples and others on morning or afternoon tours of the facility this coming Tuesday, Feb. 14.

“New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection is bringing two things together,” Pynn told Govpro.com. “We are going to give tour attendees a lot of information on our infrastructure, and we will give them an opportunity to express their love for each other—pretty neat, huh?”

Yeah. Neato.

"One impressive part of the plant is its eight futuristic, stainless steel-clad digester eggs. Processing as much as 1.5 million gallons of sludge every day, and working like a digestion system, the eggs break down the aromatic waste into non-toxic sludge and gas. 

“Just imagine going home and saying, ‘Where did he take me on Valentine’s Day? I went to see the digester eggs in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.’”

Yes, just imagine.

The Afghan War & Party Balloons

From the Who Knew Files:

Massive helium-filled spy balloons are in demand in Afghanistan, but getting the helium is getting much harder:

"Demand for helium in Afghanistan has shot up, from 49,000 cubic meters to fiscal year 2009 to an estimated 531,000 cubic meters this year.

"Getting mega-blimps to landlocked Afghanistan is no cakewalk. Once filled, these spy blimps can’t be deflated at the risk of messing up their flight control surfaces. This means that helium either needs to be flown to a base where the blimps have to be filled up, or they have to be inflated in the U.S. and then shipped over to Afghanistan in a giant container."

Here at home, party stores are pondering the day when the planet has no more helium for balloons or all the other industries that need it:

"Like oil and coal, helium is a limited natural resource, and as the supply dwindles, cost rises. "It's been like a 20 percent increase in helium but like gas prices as well, everything else has to go up," Berardi said.

"Did you know that MRI scanners use helium to cool magnetic imaging? Nuclear reactors and liquid-fuel rockets also use helium. And this natural gas detects leaks in vacuum systems."

Who knew?

Exploding Watermelons and other Dangerous Food

Watermelons turning into explosive shrapnel is the kind of story that grabs your attention.

"The report said the farmers sprayed the fruit too late in the season and during wet conditions, which caused the melons to explode like "landmines". After losing three hectares (eight acres), Liu said he was unable to sleep because he could not shake the image of the fruit bursting. "On 7 May, I came out and counted 80 [burst watermelons] but by the afternoon it was 100," he said. "Two days later I didn't bother to count any more." About 20 farmers and 45 hectares around Danyang were affected. The fruit could not be sold and was instead fed to fish and pigs."

Worse, far worse, is this section of the report on China's food production in the story:

"It follows discoveries of the heavy metal cadmium in rice, toxic melamine in milk, arsenic in soy sauce, bleach in mushrooms, and the detergent borax in pork, added to make it resemble beef."

Inhalable Food and Disappearing Dogs

Winter's cold hands have been far too familiar this first month of 2011.

Attempts on my part to find something more light-hearted or at least less dire to share have been floundering against obstacles real and imagined.

But perhaps surreal information can lighten the load or at least distract us from the cold.

For instance - breathable food. Efforts to create a "food inhaler" for breathable chocolate have been underway for the last few years. While I had always thought "inhaling your food" to be a negative assessment of consumption habits, as usual, I was wrong.

"Le Whif traversed the entire idea funnel. It started as a catalyst of education, soon became a catalyst of cultural exploration, and went on to be a catalyst of commercial sales revenue that helped keep our labs running. It also inspired new culinary art and science experiments, from whiffed coffee, which launched in the spring of 2010, to whiffed vitamins, scheduled to launch later within the year. And on the horizon was yet another design, Le Whaf, which I conceived with the French designer Marc Bretillot as a new way to "drink by breathing." This was a new form of food--a standing cloud of flavor that falls between a liquid and a gas, just as whiffed food fell somewhere between a solid and a gas."

What, no Bacon Whiffing?

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Taking a picture of your black dog can be quite problematic. As evidence:


The image is one of a series of photos which is also part of a series of books on repeated photos of the same subject. I liked this one best, which chronicles a series of photos of a Dutch lady over the years (from age 16 to age 88!!) as she shoots targets in a fairground shooting gallery.

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The quiz show Jeopardy is prepping for a giant IBM computer to compete against the show's human champions in February. IBM says their computer, dubbed Watson, operates at 80 teraflops. (If I knew what that meant, I could be impressed.)

Crocodile Causes Plane Crash

Panic from seeing a crocodile (unknown size) scampering through a small airplane apparently cause the plane to crash and (at least) 19 people died.

Does this prove panicking people are more dangerous than a crocodile? I say yes.

Moronic Inferno

A word of advice for the TN pastor wants some of that book- burning publicity, to go along with the media frenzy for one alleged pastor Terry Jones.

"Those who don't build must burn." -- Ray Bradbury

Cat-Trashing Lady Brings Internet Rage

A woman in England needed police protection once the Internet fired up it's guns over a video purportedly showing the woman placing her neighbor's cat inside a trash bin. The cat's owner had CCTV installed outside his home and took the video footage of the woman hiding the cat and posted it on YouTube. That's when the fur began to fly.



What's truly strange to me is how she pets the cat, looks around and then chunks the kitty into the trash.

A Facebook page calling for her death has been removed, the US press has been following the tale as reported by British tabloids.

Internet watchers via 4chan really are the ones who stoked anger worldwide.

The woman has apologized - but ...

"I cannot explain why I did this, it is completely out of character and I certainly did not intend to cause any distress to Lola or her owners. It was a split second of misjudgment that has got completely out of control.”

Earlier in the day, the British-based Sun newspaper reported that Bale put the cat in the can as “a joke” and didn’t understand what the big deal was. “It’s only a cat,” Bale said, adding that she thought the cat would be able to wiggle its way out.

Too bad the dog killers Newscoma reported about in West TN were not captured on video.

Abbey Faces Criminal Charges For Making Wooden Coffins

Even though St. Joseph's Abbey in Louisiana has been making and selling wooden caskets, by hand, for over 100 years to earn income, the state of Louisiana (at the urging a state board) says they are criminals and are demanding the group must now:

" ... apprentice at a licensed funeral home, learn unnecessary skills and take a funeral industry test. They would also have to convert their monastery into a "funeral establishment" by, among other things, installing equipment for embalming human remains."



Keep in mind, all these monks do is make the caskets and sell them to individuals.

And this LA claim seems to fly against Federal Law:

Before making a trip to a funeral home or casket showroom, you should be aware of the Federal Trade Commissions Funeral Rule. Central to the Funeral Rule is the General Price List (GPL). Directors of funeral homes are required - by this law - to provide a copy of the GPL to anyone who makes a request in person for information about goods and/or services of the establishment. This information is not merely shown to the individual in a bound folder in the office of the funeral home but a GPL copy must be given to the consumer to take home.

Additionally, the funeral home may not refuse to use a casket purchased elsewhere. Nor are they allowed to add a “handling fee” if you order a casket on your own. By Federal Law, you have the right to purchase your casket anywhere you choose. However, it is possible that you will meet with resentment at the funeral home since they will be losing a large percentage of profit on this transaction.

More background here at Institute for Justice.

Pop-Tart Sushi?

I did not ask for it. Did anyone ask for Pop Tart sushi?

Why not just grab a 5-pound bag o' sugar and chomp into it?

The 'Crazed Sex Poodle' Roundup

Things I never expected anyone to say -- "Al Gore is a 'crazed sex poodle'.

It does not help the accuser's case that she bowed out of police interviews several times, and now four years later, attempted to sell the story for $1 million to the National Enquirer.

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A flying car (or is it a plane that folds up?) that runs on unleaded gas will be on the market next year.

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Now you can have your cheese tessellated on a Subway sammich.

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Tennessee will soon be home to the world's first bass pyramid.

If Chickens Were Money: A GOP Health Care Reform Idea

Sue Lowden, former chair of the Republican Party in Nevada, and seeking to replace Sen. Harry Reid if she wins her primary, has been getting grilled and ridiculed for comments she has made that a barter system is the way to cut down costs for medical care -- notoriously quoted as saying that in "olden times our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house, they would do... that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with their doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system."

Wow, our economy must really be tanking beyond the levels of the Depression from the 1930s if trading livestock or labor for medical care is seen as a viable and desirable plan.

The jokes are flying fast and furious, and there's a Facebook page wanting to provide Lowden with "one million virtual chickens". Or I suppose one could donate chickens rather than cash contributions to her campaign and she can convert those cluckers to dollars.

If you want to calculate your chicken-to-dollars abilities, a nifty calculator has been created.

Still, such weighty thinkers as those at the Wall Street Journal thinks she has a great idea which should not be dismissed:

"No less an authority than the American Medical Association’s own newspaper, American Medical News, wrote about it just last year, calling it a “creative way to collect from patients during difficult economic times.”

Kaiser Health News also tipped a hat to bartering last year, reporting that “health care is surpassing auto repair and advertising as the service in most demand, say people who run local barter exchanges.” One doctor in Vermont “swapped Viagra samples for maple syrup.”

Even Lowden’s reference to livestock may not be so far off the mark. As American Medical News reported, an office manager for an orthopedics practice in Wisconsin said one doc bartered surgery for “a full cow’s worth of beef.”

All of which leads me to ask ...
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: To avoid being used to cover a pre-existing condition.