Ffolkes,
“It’s getting harder and harder to act weird.”
~~ Zippy the Pinhead ~~
International Space Station 2, orbiting Mars ~~ Artist: Ville Ericsson
Image from Space.com
Good morning…. Coming up with a justifiable reason might be problematic, but, evidence doesn’t lie; that means, sadly, no further dallying will be tolerated. It’s a shame, too, as we’re really, really good at dallying. Furthermore, the fabrication of reasons, of all categories and strengths, is sort of an avocation with us, (Luigi has his certificate already; who knew?), which means we could have come up with the correct one almost in our sleep, had we had any….
No, wait, that’s a lie. Don’t want y’all to think we’re falling into the habits displayed so frequently by our Beloved Ruling Class, now, would we? Nope. But, no worries, we didn’t do it; the lie was merely for the purposes of distraction; I actually did sleep, oddly enough, for the unheard of period of six FULL hours. Perhaps that’s why we’re so flippant thus far today; it matters little, since it’s gotten us two paragraphs deep into the intro, without breaking a sweat…..
That cover, officially pulled now, we will fold neatly, and, place right over here for later. Now, where was I? Oh, right. Okay, so, I’ve got a Pearl here for ya, but, it was put together yesterday, mostly, while I was battling some pretty fierce arthritic pain, to go along with the oppressive weather (got up to about 96ºF, & no A/C….), so, I can’t be entirely sure of the quality of any of it…. It looks okay, though, so, we’ll go with it, and trust to the process, which has proven itself to be up to the task many times…. sort of.
All that aside, where it belongs, it’s time to quit fooling about; we have no boats anyway, so, we are unable to fulfill Mr. Toad’s most excellent advice. (20 pt. bonus for knowing the reference) It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, as we don’t have time to spend on such frivolity now. We have oysters to harvest! Luigi, fire that puppy up, and get us outta here; I can hear the sirens coming up the drive….
Shall we Pearl?….
A thousand cups of wine do not suffice when true friends meet, but half a sentence is too much when there is no meeting of minds.” — Chinese proverb
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Star Trek: Renegades ~ Scene from official movie
Screenshot Image via Space.com
An independent group of young filmmakers has created an entire movie based on the Star Trek Universe. It isn’t an official movie, made in Hollywood, but, an independent effort. I’ve watched the first few minutes; it’s excellently done. (Gotta love Admiral Checkov as a major character) I’m saving the rest to watch on my upcoming long flight, and really looking forward to it…. I managed to grab a copy, which will hopefully still be up on You Tube by the time you try to watch it…. It’s free to watch, so, enjoy!….
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Since I was up so early (0300…) I’d intended to see if I had a rant on tap in my head…. It doesn’t seem to be happening, so, we’ll go with a pretty decent politirant from last year. It is, of course, all still completely relevant, as our Beloved Ruling Class has no intentions to make any changes on its own. But, that’s a rant for another day; for now, let’s consider this:
From 5/21/2014:
Today’s rant comes to you courtesy of a couple of news articles, to which you will find links below…. It helps me if y’all read the article(s) first; then, my comments make more sense…. I also feel compelled to comment here; I find it very disturbing, though not particularly surprising, that many of the articles about the chicanery, and, illegal, immoral activities in which our government and police forces are engaged, are to be found only in foreign news sites… The sites in this country seem to ignore/pass over much of what is obvious to other countries, tending to softball any criticism about the people in power here…. I’m assuming that is because they are afraid of retribution; why else keep silent? It certainly is not to their advantage to do so, in the ultimate sense….
Any who, please go ahead & read them, after which, I’ll show some excerpts, upon which I’ll comment, as to the key points to be found…. Hopefully, my comments will make themselves obvious, but, to be clear, the excerpts will be in quotation marks; comments are not….
“On Monday, Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan was sentenced to three months in jail and five years of probation, after she faced down a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for her conviction of assaulting a police officer. Her supporters, unsurprisingly, feel the sentencing is excessive – especially given her testimony that the officer in question first grabbed her breast – but it’s also clearer than ever that McMillan’s conviction will have a chilling effect on the future of serious activism.”
“The most famous example of this is probably NYPD deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, who pepper-sprayed peaceful female protesters during an OWS march. In 2013, the district attorney’s office announced that it would not prosecute Bologna – and the NYPD docked him just ten vacation days and reassigned him to Staten Island.”
A large number of people are surprised when they see articles such as this; I can only figure it’s because they are really, really stupid, (sorry, I calls ’em as I sees ’em….). I make that assessment due to their implicit trust in the police forces in this country, for the simple reason they assume, in complete error, those entities are to be dedicated professionals, with integrity, honor, and compassion for others; they actually believe that bullshit. They have a hard time when an article like this comes out; if they paid attention to anything outside their own narrow world, they would see such event happen, pretty much, every fucking day, in every state in this country.
Yep, every damn day, I go through the news, and there is ALWAYS at least one, often more, article reporting (often with video evidence) another cop gone rogue, or some piece of corruption exposed, or another forcible rape by a sheriff deputy, or some other example of one of the BRC’s faceless myrmidons abusing the power of authority that comes with their job…. EVERY DAY ffolkes, and that is NOT an exaggeration; look at it yourself…. If I can find at least one article about a corrupt cop every day, how many do you think there actually ARE? A LOT, wouldn’t you guess? I would….
Except, it’s not a guess… My estimate is that at least half, & most likely more than half, of the assholes wearing a badge in this country are totally unqualified to carry a gun to enforce the law, because they are they type of person who will abuse that power…. Way, way more than half is my actual gut feeling, but, we’ll be conservative, & keep the estimate there at 50%…. Believe me, when it comes to corrupt cops, half of them is MORE than enough…. Especially when the other half generally refuse to acknowledge that fact….
My question is: how can any intelligent citizen think that these people could be trusted to use their weapons ONLY in defense of the law, if they were the only ones allowed to carry them? Do you think that most police would show integrity, or would they abuse their position, using their weapons to control and intimidate citizens, rather than protecting them? I’m sorry, but, I just don’t think they are any more trustworthy than the average citizen; in fact, I would wager serious money on them being far less honest, and far less honorable than the average joe on the street, and that is a fact….. Hell, they can’t even bring themselves to use their turn signals…. what makes people think they’ll not pull the trigger?….
“Christie, who says he is still considering running for president and will decide his political future later, recently said the lane closings would be “a footnote” by 2016. But his prediction last week came the same day his former campaign manager contradicted Christie’s timeline of the bridge scandal…..Political operative Bill Stepien said Christie misspoke Dec. 13 when he told reporters he had received assurances that no one close to him knew about the lane closings.”
Misspoke? Misspoke? What the fuck does that mean, if not “he lied”? As far as I can see, it can’t mean anything but that, but, this guy, Stepien, remember, is a “political operative”, and, as such, has been extensively trained to use the English language in ways no other sane person would think to do…. He is obviously pissed off at Christie for making him fall on his sword, but manages to still try to minimize the key fact of the matter, to wit: Christie was involved…. his governing style encouraged that sort of thing; it’s clear that he knew about it, and he lied about it….
This particular brouhaha, in fact, is one of the easiest issues to understand, as history has shown us that we can, for sure and for certain, count on one characteristic of politicians to be a fact…. WHATEVER a major politician says. especially regarding their own guilt or innocence, about ANYTHING, is going be an outright lie…. It’s knee jerk for them; they have no other behavioral response to fall back on, so, in such instances, when they are accused of ANY wrongdoing, they deny, deny, deny…. If pushed to the wall, they will say that the person they scapegoated, fired, had lied to them, which, as we know, is a crock of shit….. If they hadn’t trusted the idiots, they wouldn’t have been where they were….
Two things bother me about issues of this nature…. One, the lies that are told by the perpetrators of such acts are reported as if they have validity; the media doesn’t even TRY to point out any discrepancy in fact, or suggest any alternatives to accepting it as truth…. when, in truth, they KNOW it all to be a crock…. Second, people in the public read this crap, and believe it…. They have no clue, and are unwilling to believe, that they are being lied to at every turn…. If they do that, they would have to first admit their own FUCKING STUPIDITY….
Sorry, I get a bit worked up when I think of how gullible the average American is; it makes me ashamed of what the forefathers foresaw for this country, to see that the corporate assholes have won…. They’ve taken over all three branches of the government, and the majority of people in this country have no clue they are nothing more than slaves….
The average American is no longer an educated, honorable citizen of a democracy, who watches the government with cautious regard…. Mostly they are grossly overweight couch potatoes, carrying fifty extra pounds from eating all the crap the corporations want them to eat, locked into their own brand of indulgence, stupidly believing everything a talking head on their TV tells them, making them extremely easy to lead around by the nose, as they give up their legacy of rights to unprincipled, immoral, INSANE assholes with more money than common sense, or compassion, ignoring and/or denying as much of what goes on around them as they can…. It’s a wonder we aren’t all wearing collars….
Just wait, though, that day will come, if the monied elite have their way…. They sure as hell haven’t shown any inclination to share any of what they’ve usurped stolen from everyone else, nor do they exhibit any willingness to change their nature from being predatory, so, I’d wager they’ll just keep on doing what they’ve been doing, and continue to do, which is lie, cheat, and steal to and from everyone else, always seeking to maintain and extend their control over the rest of the world…. while the sociopathic assholes they have trained as their puppets and myrmidons, whom we call politicians, preachers, and policemen, continue to run roughshod over the rest of society….
So be it.
gigoid has spoken….
“Jesus died too soon.
If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.”
~~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche ~~
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It’s been quite a while since I used anyone else’s work, aside from a couple of bloggers whose work impresses me. So, here is a classic poem, from the man I consider the best American poet. Period…. Enjoy, please; it’s pretty hard not to like this man’s work…. It’s a long poem; to save some time, I only posted the first verses, the beginning stanzas only. I’ve included a link at the end to Poetryfoundation.com, where you can read the rest….
Song of Myself
I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil,
this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never
forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
~~ Walt Whitman ~~
You can read the entire poem, in the version published in 1892, here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174745
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This is a strange pearl; it doesn’t, at first, seem as if it’s going anywhere specific, but, manages somehow to create a lesson worth some attention…. I hope you enjoy it; it’s a pretty good one….
The modest front of this small floor,
Believe me, reader, can say more
Than many a braver marble can,–
“Here lies a truly honest man!”
~~ Richard Crashaw ~~
~~ Epitaph upon Mr. Ashton ~~
—————–
“If water derives lucidity from stillness,
how much more the faculties of the mind!
The mind of the sage, being in repose,
becomes the mirror of the universe,
the speculum of all creation.”
~~ Chuang Tzu ~~
—————–
“Any idiot can face a crisis.
It’s this day-to-day living that wears you out.”
~~ Anton Checkov ~~
—————–
“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.”
~~ James Stephens ~~
—————–
“It is the ability to choose which makes us human.”
~~ Madeleine L’Engle (Walking on Water) ~~
—————–
“When you come right down to it, all you have is your self.
Your self is a sun with a thousand rays in your belly.
The rest is nothing.”
~~ Pablo Picasso ~~
—————–
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~~
—————–
“No one can see their reflection in running water.
It is only in still water that we can see.”
~~- Taoist Proverb ~~
—————–
“The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine.
The magician wheeled a large black box into the master’s office while the master waited in silence.
“This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation,” began the magician,
“ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system,
sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces.
It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing?”
The master raised his eyebrows slightly. “It is indeed amazing,” he said.
“Corporate Headquarters has commanded,” continued the magician,
“that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs.
Do you agree to this?”
“Certainly,” replied the master,
“I will have it transported to the data center immediately!”
And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased.
Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said,
“I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?”
“Yes,” replied the master, “the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center.”
— Geoffrey James, “The Tao of Programming” ~~
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Contrary to all precepts of scientific endeavor, we’ve finished. Not only finished, but, done. And, just in time, I might add. The myrmidons seem to be somewhat persistent today; I can hear the sirens coming right here to the oyster beds…. How convenient we will be gone when they arrive; funny how that worked out, isn’t it? Ah well, we’ll worry about all that later; once y’all have exited the premises, we can break out the heavier artillery. Of course, we’re not allowed to tell you what it is, but, trust me; you’re safe…..See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes. Count on it….
Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.
gigoid, the dubious
The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.
PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.
“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch
À bientôt, mon cherí….
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