The Confusion Machine is Being Cranked up again:

The following comment is one I left here:

http://www.ginandtacos.com/2018/06/29/broken/#comments

-------------------------------------------------------

Bernard:

"admit Clinton Fucked up royally or that Bernie would have easily beaten Trump. by a landslide."

You're a lying sack of shit and a troll, do fuck off.

Also, too: Трахни свою мать.*

AllayouotherBernGarJillbroz:

"Now the GOP owns the Supreme Court. Because they get results and are willing to fight dirty to get them. Compared to the Moral Victories that Democratic leaders have been doling out for 25 years, I think most of us would prefer to have the Supreme Court."

But you either voted AGAINST that or just stayed home.

Don't fucking lecture people who WERE paying attention and knew that anything but Hillary winning was going to be a far worse shit show than whatever the fuck you were afraid of.

Show of hands, how many of YOU went out and banged on doors or stood on street corners holding signs in shitty weather or on your day off to help get your progressive candidates on a ballot for November.

Those who didn't participate and still want to bitch? Fuck you.

* Is being VladBroz greeting to their fellow sleeper cell agentz

______________________________________

I'm already seeing long, detailed posts about the perfidy of the DNC (they ARE assholes who would sell their mother's LIVING body for profit) and the uselessness of voting "D" in the upcoming general election.

If you know nothing else about politics in the U.S. you MUST know, by now, that skullfuckery is what the RNC together with whatever group of malefactors (NRA, FSB, PRNK, PRC intel and cash) (White supremacists, outright nazis and fundamentalist KKKristians--to name some, not all of their allies) they are currently using/being used by to get what they want in the short term and try to turn the U.S. in a Theistic Oligarchy in the long run is a goal. 

Pissing and moaning while doing something, great. Pissing and moaning while sitting on your asses, GTFO.

Poor Buddy the Wonderdog and his ongoing seizure problem.

UPDATE


Buddy is still with us. He is making a lot less noise although he is still doing some howling. He seems to be "present" and his appetite and grooming are both intact.

The Vet, as I suspected they would, gave me some pushback on ending Bud's life, they would like to do some tests...

End.



My hairy little roommate is in day 7 of the process of having seizures for some period of time (for 2-4 days,never know for sure when it will stop--or IF it will stop) and then almost constant pacing and fretting, He doesn't want to be held. He has NO sense of boundaries physical or social. He is effectively blind and deaf and he either whimpers, whines or howls pretty much 24/7. I recognize that it is very hard for him and I also recognize that it makes me nearly homicidal when I can't sleep and I know EXACTLY how to solve that problem. Piss, shit, hair, drool and the constant Roomba sort of apparently aimless wandering that makes him a serious tripping hazard. I've already stepped on him once, today (he was under the barstool and my foot). It is the constant high-frequency sound, interspersed or supplanted with the whines, whimpers and howls that make it almost impossible to get anything done. I have put off even calling the vet to discuss end-of-life procedures because I keep hoping that he will come back to himself. He seems to have no idea who I am for the last 5 days and that is, afaia, the longest this sort of thing has gone on. The neighbors have all heard me shouting at him--with only one window at the back of the house open about 4" (yes, I'm VERY loud, when I'm upset) and some of them think I'm even more an asshole than they already knew me to be. This cannot go on a lot longer, without one of us having to leave and I can't live in the street. If anyone has any genuine ideas about how to resolve the problem--I just yelled at him to stop howling. He was standing a foot and a half from my barstool, gazing up at me with absolutely no recognition of me in his manner or his eyes--without granting Bud a permanent release, I would welcome it. As well-intentioned as they might be any suggestions which involve money I don't have any of or patience, which I've never had any of, don't offer them and neither of us will feel bad. I am not looking for a way to weaselwalk out of responsibility, I'm trying to find out if there is something that I have not yet found on the toobz or elsewhere that is empirically based. Thanks.

So, Ol'Roy went down--at least as of the current results--who knows what perfidy the Alabama Elections Commission might get up to. One holds on to hope.

I would like to say in the spirit of conciliation...

Thank you, to the good people of Alabama who stood up to the shitstorm of GOP soft money, Trumpliguturdlican spokesslugs and the Pussygrabber-in-Chief.

Fuck the rest of you benighted, indignorant, racist, xenophobic, woman-hating, religidiots.

1 down, several hundred to go--at least!

Carry on.
**************************

The bit below is reposted from a comment I left on Gin and Tacos--about 5 minutes ago.

@jcdenton:

Socialist wing of the democratic party? I'm not hearing about  a group of dems wanting to STEER the DNC back to the course that they're supposed to be on. I'm hearing--not from you, but others here--, "Fuck the DNC and their rank and file stooges! Move over and let US run things!". That strategy, I assure you, will not be winning any major races 11 month from now*.

Getting wimpy, soft-on-oligarch dems back in charge is a STEP toward sanity.

Voting progressives into lower office and having them work their way up while building genuine structural elements and establishing funding apparatus that do not depend on massive "gray market" donations from corporate entities is a STEP.

Fielding candidates who don't court ANY single bloc of voters while ignoring/demonizing others is a STEP.

There are other STEPS that should/must be taken to wrest the power of governance from the hands of those who seek to use it ONLY for their own selfish and hateful agendas.

In order to take any of those steps, though, YOU--again, not meaning the "jcdenton 'YOU' "--must first put on your fucking shoes and then wear them out. YOU have to go to boring fucking meetings where self-importan shitheads drone on for long periods about the urgency of cutting taxes for the country club set while raising the price of an overtime parking ticket to $50 'cuz budgetary shortfalls--etc. YOU have to knock on doors and smile while trying to patiently explain to angry people why voting against their interestst got them into the fix that they are now in. YOU have to support, vocally, visibly and locally--YOUR candidate or the candidate that won who is, if not the best, at least better than the other candidate.

NO magic. Fucktons of hard, hard work. It's all NUMBERS. Neither YOU, nor I, nor anyone else wins anything with platitudes--ever.

As I said at the beginning of this screed, it's not directed at the jcdenton "YOU". You may, of course, take any bits that work for you and apply them. I will continue to do what I do which is work on the youngs I meet off of the intertoobz to see if I can get them to understand that informed participation and voting are not just rights but duties of citizenship.*

Thus endeth the rant.




*  democommie hears stirring drum roll, realizes it's only an old fart's fart and lights a candle!




*  I'll be fucking THRILLED to be wrong.

No such thing as a "harmless fool".

On the blog I'm no longer allowed to comment on (well, the most recent such, anyway) there is a tendency to allow commenters to present "arguments" that have been thorougly debunked sometimes in the very thread that they've just popped up in by other commenters with varying levels of probity, head-shaking bemusement, sarcasm and levity.


There is a concern for "civil discourse" which outweighs the concern for actually requiring that commenters who are making the same "argument"--with no basis in fact and an obvious lack of concern for the truth--not deliberately obfuscate, equivocate or simply tell lies.

My well known antipathy for liars and their enablers is not the issue, here. The issue is; What can be done to stop liars from dominating conversations, derailing threads, sowing discord  and otherwise turning the process of commenting into a shitstorm of "Fuck you, you fucking fucker!" jabs and counter punches?

I don't propose banning people for saying things I don't like, or for using a lot of profanity and intemperate remarks. What I do propose, for those who are serious about the blogs being places for discussion instead of name calling and shouting, is that they pay at least as much attention to the comments that are "civil" and, simultaneously, completely (and often deliberately) untrue.

If the truth is less important than civility, we are truly and deeply fucked.

I have moderated my comments here for quite some time. It's not because I actually give a damn what some troll thinks of me. It's also not because of their bluster and threats. It's because I prefer not to have to check my blog on a frequent basis to see what some hate-filled idiot has decided is required of him to post--so he can salve his wounded ego.

I saw the news about the moronazi in VA who decided that running his car into a crowd of Anti-fa demonstrators was the best way to make his point that he's a better person, 'cuz WHITE and PatriotiKKK.

Shortly afterwards, I went to a blog and saw this:

"If he's a domestic terrorist so is BLM and Antifa. They've each caused more death and destruction than this guy."

posted by Ghetto Tarzan.

I am virtually certain that the guy is completely full of shit, but I did ask for citations. And, now, rereading his comment I have to go back and edit MY comment to reflect that I will still need citations to check his math.

The level of politesse, here or anywhere else is of little concern to me if the truth is the first casualty of such policies.

So, I was about to turn off Kimmel and then he says, "We'll be right back, with Diana Krall.".

Class.

Ms. Krall is, for me at least, a wonderful blend of musicianship and magic.

That's really all I wanted to say.

So, not that anybody actually gives a shit about what I'm up to most of the time...

I am not polite to people who don't deserve me--or anyone else--being polite to them. Those persons include but are certainly not limited to trollz on the various blogs I visit.

I am exceedingly impolite to those who insist on being douchenozzles after being told, repeatedly, that they are douchenozzles (and that telling being done in polite terms by other bloggers with more restraint, better breeding or a higher tolerance--possibly due to family dynamics I do NOT want to even imagine).

With that background I decided to post the comment that follows, because it seems to me that a few people might want to read it and it got scrubbed, twice, in a pretty quick hurry.

I have no problem with being banned from a blog. It's happened before, in all likelihood it will happen again. When you say vile, profane things to people it will tend to upset them and, if they have the ability to NOT have to see it, they will do whatever they can to NOT see it. Unless of course you're the current embarassment in the Oval Office. That's a whole different thing.

Here it is:

I see that David Brayton has removed a lot of comments which he finds objectionable--including this one.

"In reply to this from David Brayton:

"DemoCommie--I'm tired of your petulant behavior. Your insults are not welcome. Any more of this behavior and you will be banned."

You gonna ban the trolls, too?

You don't like me, I get that. You don't like the way I talk, I get that too. You tolerate liars and trolls who infest the threads; I don't get that. Can you tell us why?

If you think my insults are inappropriate, I would suggest that you consider why they are going out and to whom they are directed.

Ban me if you like. I'm tired of your threats to ban me for my language on the comments threads or for being something less than your "ideal" of a commenter, while taking no apparent action to eliminate the trolls who have been polluting the threads here for several months, at least. They don't come here to argue or discuss, they come here to stir shit and disrupt the threads--I find it impossible to believe that you don't know that. So, why you tolerate their behaviour and not mine is a question that I would love to hear your answer to.

Do whatever it is that you need to do. I'm tired of being threatened while a far worse thing than my language-- that thing being the absolute dishonesty of the trolls--seems to be perfectly okay with you.

And if you ban me, expect some "Thank you's" from the people whose only purpose in coming here is hijack threads and complain to you about their mistreatment while they're busy taking a dump in the punchbowl.

And I see that it seems you've already started removing my comments, well--so I guess we'll just have to wait and see if you remove this one which doesn't really seem to have any terribly inappropriate language in it.

It appears that lying is okay--as long as we're civil about it."

It's always of course his privilege to do what he likes. Apparently he likes liars and dislikes profanity.

Thanks to those of you who have supported Ed and his blog and provided a lot of information and analysis.

It will be interesting to see if this gets scrubbed off, again. When someone decides to selectively edit what is on a thread--not for reasons of truth and accuracy but to maintain order, well, that's their privilege, as I said. Otoh, removing those other comments that are found objectionable would give most the impression that the persons making them had been the ones who derailed the conversation.

Since this comment will probably be removed--like the one I made last night-- I’ll just have to struggle along with the terrible burden of spending my time somewhere else--which, no doubt, will make Mr. Brayton and at least a few trolls VERY happy.

--------

THIS, is somewhere else. I can say what I like here, knowing that few if any other people will take note of it.

Commenting here is complicated by the fact that a number of genuine scumbagz have the habit of using this place for a toilet. For that reason ALL comments are moderated. That might change when I have a better idea who somebody is, but life is about compromises, I guess> {;>)

Third parties, third rails.

I’m still getting the “Hilz is a terrible person; the Clinton’s are EXACTLY like, I don’t know, HITLER; Trumpligulamygdala is bad, but Hilz is WAY WORSE!” shit from people who get their political education from the blogs instead of fucking HISTORY.

Democrat, Republican,Whig,Federalist are all labels that mean nothing except when you’re in the little black curtained booth.

Basically, for the last 40 or so years, when it’s time to vote; I weigh the options, consider the candidates and their “platforms” (platforms which ARE shape-shifing aliens–or appear to be once the election is over), assess the candidates and their promises and contrast those promises with the candidates past voting record and then vote for anyone with a “D” after their name (unless I know they’re phonies–like BernGarJill) or, if there are no dems running–the closest thing to a dem that is an independent.

The DNC is composed of professional fund-raisers and people who ONLY tell lies when it’s important, which is ALWAYS. They are venal, horrible, untrustworthy, cowardly, tone-deaf, thieving, fucking scum. And yet–they are NEVER as bad as the person who is running against them with an (R) after their name or as a “Conservative, Liberty, Freedom” or other jingobullshit label.

I cannot make people do anything, but I sure as hell can make sure that I don’t agree with them when they have nothing but wishes and dreams to counter cold, hard electoral facts.

Another in a series of self-plaigarized rants from comments I made on another blog.

From Gin&Tacos blog, the comment thread under OP, "Oh for two". 


"You all forgot to add that the Democratic Party is for gun control. Out here they got that one loud and clear."

They may have heard it loud and clear but what they heard was:

"They're gonna take my gunz away and leave me helpless to resist the meximuslicominvaderz and blackthugz and oppressive gummint stormtrooperz who are gonna come and take my gunz, my wimmen and my proppity!".

Is that an oversimplification? Hell, yes, it is. Is it EXACTLY what I hear from people who oppose ANY sort of rational firearms legislation at the national level? Hell, yes, it is.

As of yesterday, Donald FUCKING Trump tweeted:

"Hillary Clinton colluded with the Democratic Party in order to beat Crazy Bernie Sanders. Is she allowed to so collude? Unfair to Bernie,"

This was out there for everyone to read. People of course read it and a LOT of them, not just the Trumpliguturdlicans, saw it and said:

"Well, Donald Trump is a lying sack of shit, a venal scumbag and a pocket Mussolini but, hey–when a guy's right, he's right, right?"

So, a man who anyone with the critical thinking skills of a tomato KNOWS is just an evil, petulant, lying fuck, gains the tiniest sliver of grudging respect or whatever for actually saying what they were THINKING.

IF you have a non-democrat in mind to boost for a seat in Congress, one who is not hopelessly anonymous to the voters* and who isn't incapable of working with people he is ideologically opposed to, then by all means, get out there in the hustings and do so. If you don't–and I'm not seeing a lot of that going on where I live–WHAT are you going to do? Will you stay home like so many millions of voters did in 2016? Will you vote for a candidate who has, statistically, no chance of winning, just to feel good about your choice?

What are you going to do?

When people say there's NO difference between the two major parties they betray their ignorance. There are substantive differences between policy positions and, more importantly, in the perceptions of what a governments at any level is supposed to do.

For the dems, government exists to collect taxes, manage societal programs and ensure the safety of the citizens and the republic.

For the reps, government exists to ensure the safety of the elites and their property, to make it easier for the various oligarchs to plunder the commonweal and to make certain that they have a military establishment and armaments sufficient to take what they want from those who don't want to do business on their terms.

So, yeah, they are not the same.

I'm pretty sure that this will be my new method of posting. I just don't seem to get organized enough to sit down, arrange all of my pens, pencils, post-it-notes and steno pads and then get down to wri--oh, fuck, that's not the proper way to bone tilapia; why the hell would anyone eat that shit, anyway?--where was I?

So, here's another comment/screed from the "Like Shooting Fish in a McMansion" thread over at Gin And Tacos.

Enjoy--or lose your shit, your choice!

_______________________________

In reply to a comment by commenter Srsly:

"I think my reality is a lot fucking harder than yours. Here, in my reality, Donald Trump is the president and the Republicans have dominated the Congress and state houses since 1994, with a two-year break in 2008 brought on by the total collapse of finance, an unpopular war, and a miracle candidate. My "view," and maybe it's just my "personal situation," is that the Democratic Party sucks at elections, and should probably do more to rectify that than blame the imaginary behavior of thousands and thousands of activists who spent a lot of time and money volunteering to campaign for a candidate in their primary."

Really, you think that's somehow DIFFERENT from what I live in. WTF did you do AFTER the primaries were over? Did you stop caring who won?

It sounds like you're really pissed that Hilz got the nod–I get that. I'm still REALLLLLLLY pissed that a lot of U.S. voters preferred the sweet, sweet lies of Nixon, Reagan, B41&B43 and Trumpligula. I remember hoping that the lies would be debunked by the media–before the elections–and that people would come to their fucking senses.I really liked George McGovern; I kinda liked John Anderson, knowing that he had no shot at winning; I despised Mondale and Humphrey; I wasn't fond of Carter, Kerry, Gore OR Barack Obama (who, despite being hobbled by a recalcitrant group of BlueDick dems and a totally obstructionist Congress STILL got some shit done); I liked Bill Clinton's intellect and could never understand why he didn't just keep his dick in his pants–it cost us all, a lot. In sum, I've NEVER voted for a democrat for president that I was on fire for. I've never felt that I really had a choice of "Good, better, best"–it was always, "Meh, WTF? Oh, hell, FUCKING NO!".

The reason that politics are so fucked up is that it takes a special person to be in politics–one who will subsume his principals and pander to his constituents. NOBODY gets elected to any office unless they do that. Now, in some areas–Metro NYC or the middle of Louisiibumfuck, pols, especially incumbents CAN pretty much ignore a fair number of their constituents (up to 49%) and STILL get elected/re-elected. That's simply not the case most places. My City Councilman (turncoat motherfucker), my county rep and my state and U.S. reps and senators ALL try to walk a tightrope and not say the WRONG thing to the WRONG group.

You sound like you want purity in politics–it does not exist.

So, since you are, obviously, a BernJillGarbro, gimme a solution that's workable.

"I'm angry, yes. I have to live in the future imposed upon me by a disgusting minority of Americans.

What did YOU do to prevent the outcome of last year's election being a plebiscite on racism and Hilzhate? What?

What are YOU doing, today, to change the political landscape. Not what are groups you hear about, read about, whatever, doing. What are YOU doing?

Bernie could have won?

WHOA, bro, I don't need a citation for that–there isn't one, btw–you need to figure out why people like me think that people like you are ungrateful for what the dems gave you and your parents since 1932. Don't bother thanking me, I don't need your approval.

BTW, did you talk everyone you know into going to the polls and voting for BernJillGar or was that somebody else's job?

When I was your age, clueless assholes who didn't know shit told me how I should think. I'm not clueless and I don't care how you think, but I can tell you that being resentful that your guy didn't get the nod–and thinking that you're going to change the political landscape of the U.S. from the top down–is navel gazing and counter-productive.

So,. after reading this, what's the opposite of 10KFireemojis?

Well, I guess we just can't HAVE nice health care (or nice anything that includes gummint)!

Dear Reader and morontrollz:

It's been a while since I've posted anything and there seems to have been some changes made. The part below the comment policy caveat is from a comment I made over at Gin and Tacos blog on the "New Math" thread.

Comments are moderated, due to asshat infestations. I will try to get back to check the in-box as often as possible.
___________________________________________

My problem with people like Srsly and some others is that they think that their personal situation and their "views" are reality.

Reality is a fuck of a lot harder than that.

I know people who voted for Trumpligula–few of any of them will admit it. Many of them have children and grand-children who are, at the very least, going to feel the bite of the idiotic policies of the larcenous P-in-C*. I doubt that they've really thought about it yet. When it finally penetrates their thick skulls, they WILL blame dems/Obama/OTHER–anyone but themselves–for the outcome of their childish petulance and its disastrous results. Fuck'em. I feel for their kids but them? Fuck'em.

I have been listening to underinformed, deliberately ignorant and maliciously dishonest people who WANT to make sure that others can't HAVE what they do, 'cuz REASONS–for as long as I've been able to understand them. Sixty years+ of mouth-breathing, pissed-off, willingly conned rubes. Fuck'em

I'm gonna die in the next whatever number of years having never been wealthy or even close to it–in the terms of people who count property and leisure activity as those things of great value–and yet I will have lived a far better, more secure and less precarious life, by far, than literally MILLIONS of people who haved worked just as hard.

Why might that be you? BECAUSE I'm white. Yes, there are other factors but BEING white is the single marker that separates me from approximately 30% of the people who live in this country. Being white gives me an automatic boost in the line. Being a male, another boost. Nominally Christian, now we're talkin'! I'm ahead of about 75-80% of USAians–at the start. Now, I'm old, slow, lazy, pissed-off (but relatively aware of all of those things) so the fact that people without all of my privilege and advantage stream past me should NOT be as surprise. For me, it is NOT a surprise but, obviously, for a lot of men–white, christian men–it IS. This situation is not the fault of the people who are darker, femaler, harder working, better educated, etc.,. It is a simple, fucking FACT.

It has become the ONLY strategy in GOP electioneering to OTHER everyone except the candidate of their party and that candidate's vocal, ardent, visible supporters. Vilification of the OTHER is cheaper, easier and, in terms of "winning", far more effective than any other strategy. That the loyal cadre are viewed by the party apparatchiks as simply useful idiots never seems to penetrate their conciousness and diminish their reflexive, tribal loyalty.

The democratic party is viewed by many as having "sold out" to Wall Street and the other BIGS. That this view is often held by people who received educations; gummint sponsored/guaranteed loans for homes, educations and business start-ups/expansions; union representation and workplace protection; safe food, water and air–largely through the efforts of democratic legislators and despite the obstruction of republicans seems to never occur to them. Fuck'em.

They're stupid, exclusionary, racist, misogynistic tribal assholes. Fuck'em.


* Plundercrat-in-chief

Wow.  I guess I don't spend enough time clearing out my cache.

I just came across a couple of comments that were posted to my last post, about nine months after I put it up on the blog.

They were signed, "anonymous". I thint that I actually know who wrote them, but they seem, despite their professed courage (due, in large measure, to their having lots of gunz) to want to remain in the shadows.

Too bad, so sad.  You'll just have to stay home and jerk off on your Trump poster.

Be humane, or be a dick, you can't be both.

I am currently on a bus, returning to Oswego, NY from my old nothome place in MassachuHampshire (there's a lot of 'bleed-over').

While waiting for a bus at Boston's South Station--one of the few, like, actually pleasant buswait envioronments--I engaged the following folks in conversation

1.)  A couple from Ghana, going to Syracuse to see their family who lives there.

2.)  A young, recent immigrant from Haiti who plays soccer for a Boston university and is going to Syracuse to see some of his family who live there.

3.)  Another young man who is studying sociology at a Syracuse area school.

4.)  An anthropologist who teaches at a SUNY campus.


4 of the 5 folks I spoke to were African or African-ish American.

The couple from Ghana; lovely, older people who seemed sweet, educated and happy to be visiting kin.

The young Soccer player; busy, as young people tend to be, with various digital accoutrement but friendly. He asked me to watch his bag, while he got a quick bite from McD's in the concourse and, after a cursory look inside, I said sure.

The sociology student, likewise, asked me to keep an eye on his huge piece of aluminum luggage. Again, I complied.

All of us had a chat, short enough to remain uncreepy, long enough to establish that we are all good with one another.

The anthro guy was not a bad person, but he was either a liberpublican or jerking my chain.

He don't like him some NPR getting money from the man. He's convinced that people who can't read and drink/drug/beat their kids or spouse, etc., would be all good if they could be made to stop drinking*. I'm running into a lot of this sort of person, lately, the person who can't understand why other people can't just get their shit together and be successful, like them, I guess.

The fact that he self-reports as an adjunct at a SUNY campus might indicate to some that his "success" is not, um, notable.

OTOH, he says that teaching people who drink, do drugs or otherwise live a less than probitive life should not have resources, such as literacy programs wasted on them, as they have chosen to be the way they are. I told him that I was on welfare (SS and VA Healthcare), I did not, however show him my EBT (good for 16$/month of sweet, sweet gummint sugar) or my Bamaphone.

He kept accusing me of changing the subject (I admit to touching on numerous, interconnected points of debate about how "welfare" can mean LOTSA different things) and asked if I just argued until people got tired of it and they gave up. I think that those of you who know me (and, in some cases, revile me) know me better than that. If I want you to stop arguing, I tell you to go fuck yourself--hey, it usually works.

It's really not so much that I want people to stop arguing. What I want is for them to stop offering up canned points that they are getting from so called, "conservative" commentators and pols.

Here's a hint: if you're telling me something that can be traced back to Rush or any of the dozens of talkingshitheads on ReiKKKwing Radio and television, well, go fuck yourself.






* FWIW making people "stop drinking" is an exercise with almost zero long term deterrent effect.

Just a thought...

I was listening to the news and heard that Hulk Hogan was bounced from the WWE because he used "bad language" and racist slurs when speaking about a young man who was dating his daughter.

Aside from the irony, it's all very sadfunny.

One of the local radio personalities was whining about how it was a private conversation and the Huckster had an expectation of privacy, yada-yada-yada...

Well, fuck Mr. Hogan and really, Really, REALLY fuck the people who think that it's okay to use offensive slurs against people who are, as a condition of  birth, gay, black, female, whatev.

Here's something for allathem, "I'm just so tired of being oppressed by the PCPolice!" folks.

Whatever that word or phrase that you like to use in private might be? Try using it in a situation where the people you're offending can kick your ass, or worse.

Otherwise, STFU.

Going off the reservation

I have finally had enough of TimeWarner's bullshit. I called them this morning and cancelled my service. It will be interesting to see what they do re: billing.


I will be restricted to checking my e-mails and limiting my rants to a few minutes a day for the time being. I'm sure that will make a number of clueless assholes quite happy.--c'est la vie.


Cheers and be well.


As Rocky Racoon said, "I'll be better, doc, as soon as I am able."

I'm not a very nice person, V 2Brazillion

I was commenting on another blog the other day (here: http://southernbeale.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/gmooooooops/) being my usual, not terribly polite, self and had, as sometimes happens, a disagreement with another commenter.

Barbs were flung or gauntlets thrown by myself and Mr. McCarthy and after a couple of sallies he left the field (not that I felt as if I had "won" anything) saying:

"I could give example after example of scientists who have committed even obvious fraud using their credentials and standings as scientists who have not been defrocked, as it were. Some retaining major academic positions and renown within the community of scientists, Fritz Haber was given the Nobel in Chemistry in 1918 when he should have been on trial for war crimes using his science, for example. But I won’t abuse the hospitality of Southern Beale to do so. Only, apropos of her post, when it comes to biological creations that could reproduce, uncontrolled and to horrific results, there is no reason to trust scientists to police themselves and good reason to not allow them to."

I made additional comments to him and other folks. The comment thread went dormant and it's now closed. That's all good.

What's not so good is that Mr. McCarthy then went back to his blog and wrote a post about the exchange, an exchange in which he was the victor, I guess. I became aware of this when I found an e-mail which I had missed when it was sent last week. I went to his blog:  (here: http://zthoughtcriminal.blogspot.com/2014/07/you-can-always-tell-atheist-but-you.html).

It's not that I don't expect people to take away that I'm a prick after an exchange like the one we had--or that I actually give a fuck if they do. But, it tends to annoy me when someone does something like he did.

I went to that thread and typed a long comment which for one reason or another would not post properly. It's below this paragraph. Let me be fair, or as fair as I get, in saying that Mr. McCarthy might be a really swell person, I don't know him. I doubt that we'll be buds, but that's not terribly important.

________________________________________________

Most of us are grown up enough to consider the source on a blog when the other person is a frequent commenter. Apparently, you're not.

 

Your first post was an accusation. You said:

 

"His faith in the benevolence and omniscience of scientists who are just as corruptible as anyone else is willful blindness."

 

That's an accusation of all scientists as being corruptible; but wait, there's more.

 

This:

 

"Science, as a profession, isn’t notably good at following its own rules, as the frequent retraction of papers, at times due to fraud, quite often due to the review process being either faulty or fraudulent, itself."

 

is your reply to my comment that scientists, as a class, are no more or less dishonest than other people.

 

Did you miss the bit in my second comment where I said:

 

"Right. That shit happens in every profession except politics and religion."

 

BEFORE saying:

 

"I don’t believe in omniscience, being atheist I expeshly don’t believe in GODLY omniscience." ?

 

It was you who first brought up omniscience which, though you may be unaware, is a faculty that is demonstrably unavailable to humans.

 

FWIW, I don't accept as "settled" the issue of the safety, efficacy or economic fairy dust of GMO's, NuKiller power, U.S. foreign policy or any of a large number of other products and enterprises that public and private corporations or the gummint engage in.

 

You never answered this question:

 

"So, who brought the fraud to the attention of the scientific journal? It had to be someone with at least a modicum of scientific training, yes?"

 

So, who was it that broke the story and what is the level of their scientific  expertise? For that matter how do MOST of these stories wind up being told? It's not like anyone who has no understanding of science is going to be able to refute it. It's a classic slippery slope argument.

 

You seem to have a hard-on for science; why do you even use sciency stuff like the internet?

Home of the Free, Land of the Mutt

N.B.:

If you're coming here from FTB, welcome. Unless you're one of the several trollishfuckbags that have infested the blog of late. If that's the case, Fuck OFF!

Comments are moderated because some of my lurkers are very sweet people who do NOT want to read comments by people who use words such as, "Fuck", "Fucker", "Asshole", "Douchebag" and other profane or obscene terms*.

"We were not a nation of immigrants in 1789.”

Thus speweth Pat PuKKKecannon, here:

http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/america-no-longer-1-nation-1-people/

He's right that they weren't REAL immigrants, expeshly if you think of MurKKKa being more like Sudetenland in 1938 or Silesia at around the same time. Not immigrants, except in the same sense as the Scots-Irish in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland were in the period ca. 1600--1750. After 1715 a lot of the Scots-Irish came to the colonies and did much the same as they done in Ireland, supplanting the original inhabitants (and in both cases helping the Crown to rid itself of "troublesome" individuals, tribes and nations.

and that's only ONE of the numerous, assholishly obnoxious and completely fucking WRONG memes that Pat is pushing in his latest Op-Fucked-in-the-head columns @ WND. How anyone can consider people like PuKKKecannon, Scalia and other ReiKKKwingers to have EVER been intelligent is way the hell beyond me.

This:

http://www.charliekeenan.com/product/homeland-security-t-shirt/#

is one of my favorite t-shirts, since the first time I ever saw it. I'd buy one if I did that sort of thing.

Needless to say but the current FUKKAK** at the U.S./Mexico border is sorta pickin' up where Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and some other places since 1945 left off in the area of killing totally innocent people for being fucking alive and hurting our fee-fees.

This:

http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/video-former-mandarin-major-now-builds-us-china-relations-banjo

is how I prefer to have our international relationships fostered.

*      Unless they're my comments or the comments of people I like.

**    First Unholy KKKristian KKKrusade Against Kids

The KKKristian War on teh GAY!!

That above? That is your brain.


This below? That is your brain on teh GAY!




It appears that the largely KKKristianist ReiKKKwing of the GOP* has decided that flogging one dead horse, The War on Drugs, is not enough.

Now they want to show the same level of the Burnin' Stoopit indignorance and bigotry on another front--the War Against teh GAY!

I don't got no crystal ball but I can see a line clear to the horizon, starting with the Chik-Fil-Aholes who will now want to restate their "religious convictions" that require them to be complete dicks. Not that they need to tell us twice that they're complete dicks.







*   The 99+% that give the rest a bad name.

Hitler took away our gunz, no, wait it was Putin, no wait, we had gunz but decided not to fire them at Russian Spetnatz and fucking tanks, 'kay? thxbye.

Tell me that I'm just a bit behind the curve and other people have been trumpeting this loudly from the rooftops.

Crimea had LOTZAGUNZ when they got annexed by Putin.

This:

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/cp/Ukraine

says that Ukraine (of which Crimea WAS a part) had something like 6+ gunz per person. And we're not talkin' bout single shot, bolt action .22 cal. "plinkerz*"; nosireebob, we're talkin' bout AK-47's and other military weppins--a fuckton or so of them.

I gotta do some more googlin' and Buddy the Wonderdog sez I need a walk** and so there's that. This might get more treatment later.







*    According to at least one FBI source the round used most frequently for killin' people. The source is several years (or more) old so it may have changed, still....


**  I have not, to date, had to kill anyone or even carry a Colt 1911 in my Kimber 4000183 CC holster. And Buddy never says "HooooooooooooooooooooAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!", neither.

Memorial Day is not Veterans' Day, homz.

I was over at Penigma's blog, just a few minutes ago. There is a post on there, thanking U.S. military veterans on this Memorial Day.

I can only speak for this veteran.

First; Thank you.

I am a veteran but I'm still alive. I appreciate that people want to thank U.S. soldiers, sailors, wingnuts* and marines. Please do it on Veteran's Day.  Memorial Day is for the fallen, either in battle as a result of wounds from battle or after their live is otherwise over. That's just my take, ymmv.

Second; I don't need praise or thanks for something that I did almost 50 years ago.

I enlisted in the AF (prolly one of the handful of genuinely thought out decisions I made in my life) and was lucky/smart enough to know that the AF sent far fewer troops into combat zones than the Army or Marines. I don't do large steel boats, very well.

I'm not a fighter (nor much of a lover--kvetching, though, I'm good at that, DAMNED GOOD!) so a non-killing job was good for me and my country. I don't need to be thanked for that, although I would not insult a person doing so--unless of course they are some political stuffed-shit** or a wingnut v 2.0 who is using the occasion to make political hay*** EXPESHLY if they're chicken hawks.

What I DO require from my country is that they honor the commitments made to me and other veterans in return for our service. Nothing more, nothing less.

It appears that the GOP is going to use the Phoenix VA scandal to push for privatization of the VA medical centers. If you want to do me and every veteran who uses or might use those services (just about everybody who has worn a uniform for the required time is potentially a client) make sure that your congress critters are aware of this AND opposed to it. And send that fucking asshole John Boehner a personal "Go FUCK Yourelf". Boehner did serve, sorta, eight weeks in he got an honorable discharge for a bad back. He looks remarkably good (although it appears that he could have been the original "Agent Orange" if he had gone into, say, the CIA). So, don't diss him. Thank him for his eight weeks of service--THEN tell him to go fuck himself.

Thank you, dear reader**** for taking the time to come and visit my blog.

Resume the parade of stuffed-shits (not a politician) with their faux patrioligiousness on Main St. USA! USA!! USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




*   That term was used back in the early 70's by folks who disparaged USAF as "non-soldiers". I'm sorry it was stolen by people to use as a descriptor for the unhinged loonz that populate the ReiKKKwing of MurKKKan politics. Oh, btw, you guys that didn't like me and thought I was NOT a "REAL soldier"? Fuck you, very much.

**    NOT a typo.

***    Digressing for a moment from my current rambling incoherency. GOPinheadz like building strawmen and throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks. I'm not sure if they're aware that bricks can be made using straw and dung (Source: http://inhabitat.com/one-brick-two-bricks-lets-use-poo-bricks/). Indeed, I like to think of the modern GOPeabaggist Party of being built like a shitbrick house.

****   And yes, "reader", I know that I have "grate blog with much good idea for my think about." and I'm rushing out, first thing tomorrow to open a bank account so's I can send you some routing numbers and passwords to allow you to give me millions of dollaz so's I can buy Viagra at a HUGE discount that will only be small when viewed next to my enormous jo--, well, you know what I'm saying.

Today is Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day.

Today is the day we honor and acknowledge those who died in military service on behalf of this country.

Today is the day we honor and acknowledge that sacrifice in defense of our nation, our form of government, our Constitution.

The core premise of our government, what is established by our Constitution, what was so beautifully articulated by Abraham Lincoln, president during the Civil War which inspired this holiday, is "government of the people, by the people, and for the people". 

That is what those men and women, all of them back to the American revolution died to protect and defend and to ensure continues.

That government of the people, by the people, takes place through the function of one man (or woman), and one vote.

That is NOT one vote ONLY for a few, special, privileged people who have the 'right' color, ethnicity or origins, the 'right' religion, or the 'right' economic status, or the 'right'  political ideology.

That is the opposite of one person/one vote.  That is the opposite of legitimate representative government - the form of government that defines our nation. 

That was what those wars where those people died we honor today were fought to oppose - to prevent control of government by the few, to prevent human beings from treatment as second class citizens.

I think about that every time I see an effort by conservatives to suppress or limit or restrict or in some way impair or make more difficult the right of people - American citizens - legally to exercise their right to vote.

The National Report recently ran this headline, reflecting an ugly moment of honesty and candor:

Secret McConnell Recording: Tea Party Lost Primaries Because It “hasn’t learned to conceal its racism”

“They have their strong base, their core. But, they don’t have success courting the middle. You know why? It’s their overt racism. The Tea Party hasn’t learned to conceal its racism. That’s where they fail. The Republican party knows better. Want to keep minority voters from the polls? Fine, set up hindrances to “prevent voter fraud”. Want to cut social services? Fine, but do it for “fiscal conservatism”. These Tea Party idiots and their supporters are out hollering the N word, calling Obama an ape, suggest Michelle is a transvestite. That alienates the middle. That’s what costs them. You want to think those things? Think them to yourselves. You want to legislate against that them? Come up with an excuse. The Tea Party will remain an also ran unless they work on their poker face a bit more”.

It should be obvious to Mitch McConnell and to all conservatives that keeping minority voters from the polls, or keeping anyone from voting as easily as others vote that he is dishonoring what those veterans fought and died to protect by voter suppression.

By voter suppression I mean

•  creating long lines by reducing polling places or making them inaccessible, 
• reducing early voter days, 
• not providing bathrooms to people who come to a location to vote, 
• purging legitimate voters from voting rolls, 
• voter ID when there is not a problem with voter fraud that would be solved by that solution-in-search-of-a-problem, 
• laws which disenfranchise criminals who have paid their debt to society so as to disproportionately disenfranchise minority ethnicities
• laws which make it more difficult or expensive for people to register to vote
• laws which privatize voting, and which require voting machines that result in 'hanging chads' or dubious electronic results vulnerable to tampering

Think of that today. Think about what people died to preserve, think about the ideal, think about Lincoln's words (a liberal), think about Jefferson's words (another liberal) in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

All men (and women) are created equal, have equal rights, all men - and women - are NOT second class citizens.  Men and women have bled and died for that.