Ffolkes,
Don’t tell the monitors, but I think we’re going to have to cut back on the number of virgins we are sacrificing to the gods so they’ll smile upon this blog…. It’s not for any other reason than the fact we are beginning to run into the old Roman firewood conundrum, from back in the days when wood, wind, and water were the only energy sources we had as humans….
Rome, that ancient city, in time grew so large that it became problematic for the Romans to find firewood in the hills above and around the city. After several centuries of population growth, trees became scarce near the city, and the men who worked to gather it, who were called ‘carbonara’, eventually had to make week-long, or longer, forays into the mountains, and further into the countryside, in order to find a source of wood sizable enough to suit their needs.
During these trips, the men would take with them the food and supplies they needed to live for the time they were gone…. As Italians, their foods ran to the simple, but savory, with pasta, bread, and wine as the staples…. all of which travels well, meaning they could take the ingredients with them to use while on the trip…. Dried pasta, dried vegetables (peas, mushrooms, etc.), onions, garlic, pancetta, bread, wine, and cream, for example, in the form of a cow that they herded along the road with them as they went to look for their wood….
Any chefs in the audience may have noted that ingredients listed are those needed to produce the classic Italian dish, Pasta Carbonara, named after the men who kept the fireplaces of ancient Rome supplied with wood during the winter…. I can testify as to its deliciousness, and, in fact, it is my favorite of all the Italian dishes I make, save perhaps Pasta Vongolé, which is made with fresh clams, garlic, white wine, and cream, if desired…. I do both dishes superbly, if I do say so myself….
How does this silly but interesting history relate to this pearl? Well, I’ll tell ya, if you’ll hang on a moment…. Remember what I said about cutting back on our virginal sacrifices? Well, we’re having the same issue finding virgins as the Romans had with their firewood…. It’s taking longer and longer to FIND one that is willing to be sacrificed; last week I had to go all the way to hills above Bakersfield, to harvest one from a junior high school up near Yosemite, which is a good four or five hour drive…. This meant I had to listen to the babble of a 13 year old virgin all the way home, unless I felt like being mean, & sedating him….
Now, I’ll bet y’all are wondering what we do with our virgins after we use them…. which is something you’ll just have to wonder about for a long time, because I have neither the time, the inclination, nor the legal requirement to tell you….. Suffice it to say they are NOT killed, but are placed into an environment where their virginity will not cause them any further harm, and allowed to live out their lives in ignorance of the service they perform for society…. It would only confuse them, and make them less valuable as a trained consumer for the corporate masters..
Okay, I’m done now…. That was quite a mouthful for a relatively poor joke…. If it was a scam, we’d have to call it a long-con, and wait up to a year for the punchline to hit home….. But, since this is a daily blog, we can just call it what it is, which is, of course, nonsense and drivel, fresh from my fevered brain, all for the purpose of filling up space in this section, solely designed to bring us to the point where I can say, without any fear of retribution or heckling beyond the norm….
Shall we Pearl?….
“There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman whilst she is making sausages.” — Laurence Sterne
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Today’s first section will be a Newsy Pearl, with articles ripped from the world’s news, and comments on those articles by gigoid the dubious at his angst-filled sarcastic best (hopefully…)…. Abondanza!….
First, a public service announcement…. A Swedish cyber-security group has found a flaw in the secure internet protocol that two-thirds of the servers on the Internet use, a flaw which provides a route for hackers to exploit, enabling them to obtain data and information from many different commercial and non-commercial sources on the web…. They also found that this flaw has been present, unknown to any but a few, for over two years, and MAY already have been exploited by hackers to steal millions upon millions of passwords and information about people…. It’s called Heartbleed, and, apparently, there is no way to tell how much data has already been compromised….
The authorities have decided to finally let the public know about this, and suggest that ALL users who use the internet change ALL their passwords, advising all those users to also take other steps to further protect and secure their data…. Nice of them to let us know, eh?…. Any who, pass it on, because we ALL need to pay attention to this one…. They’ve been to the barn, but left the door open…. you may want to close it, as best you can….
http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Online-security-flaw-exposes-millions-of-passwords-5386933.php
Now we’ll go on to the “Cuban Twitter” issue, that brilliantly programed distraction from Barry’s house, wherein the administration is working like mad to keep us from paying too close attention to what they are NOT doing to reform the NDAA and the NSA’s rabid, out-of-control spying…. While all the hullabaloo about this latest piece of stupidity plays itself out on the public stage, discussing the ins and outs of A PROGRAM THAT NOT ONLY FAILED BUT IS NO LONGER IN PLACE, the NSA quietly continues to mine the metadata on phones and computers all over the world, including right here in the USA…..
Yep, this issue, along with the loud, idiotic feud currently being played out between the Senate and the CIA, is the perfect subject to pull attention away from the NSA, as it gives the media, and their dupes, the general public, something on which to focus their ire, instead of having it focused solely on the Department of Cybersecurity, or whatever it’s called….
You know, that well-known organization that coordinates all of our spying with the NSA, (Homeland Security now includes the NSA, CIA, FBI, and whatever clandestine organizations in other departments, such as the branches of the military, all sharing information to keep their paranoia fresh), in their avowed search for terrorists, which includes their continuing joint abuse of the American people’s personal meta data….
Go ahead, read the following, and I’ll see you on the other side…. The initial comments you will see were written yesterday, prior to writing this, and may repeat certain portions, for effect….. sort of a reverse time warp, you see…..
“Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?” — Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Angry-exchange-on-Capitol-Hill-over-Cuban-Twitter-5387870.php
http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/US-penned-political-satire-in-secret-Cuban-Twitter-5387849.php
Here’s the latest on the Cuban Twitter smoke screen… which is obscuring the other smoke screen, the Saga of DiFi and the CIA, both of which are distracting the public’s attention from what is actually happening NOW…. which is the same old shit/stuff these stories are blathering over, to wit: the out-of-control spying and lying that is going on in Washington, and all over the world, all of which gives me the distinct impression the BRC seems to be is waging a war of attrition against its own citizens.
The techniques of information manipulation, to misdirect the attention of the enemy to where it cannot see the actual events that transpire behind the scenes; the lies told bare-faced, claiming innocence with bloody hands…. Well, you get the picture…. The people who are in charge of our nation, ffolkes, are NOT very nice people, and are waging a war against YOU, ME, and everyone who doesn’t fall in line with their insane view of the world….
If you think I’m judging them harshly, well, you may be correct…. But, guess what? They are supposed to be MY public servants, not the other way around, and I’m not going to act as if they have any right to do any of what they are up to, not as long as that is true….. I don’t buy into the sense of entitlement they assume, and happen to believe that they are not only NOT the best of us, rising to the top like cream in milk, but, in fact, I see them as more like the scum that rises to the top of any polluted stream…. It fits them much better, in terms of both visual aspect, as well as their, shall we say, less than flowery odor….
This whole issue, making a big fuss over something that is over and done, and was a mistake to begin with, is just another way to distract the public, keeping them from thinking about the stuff that Edward Snowden revealed, all of which IS STILL GOING ON.
That is what they don’t want us to know, ffolkes, and they’ll do anything to keep us focused somewhere else, even if that means giving up some poor bureaucrats who were only doing what they were told, serving them up as scapegoats to hide their own actions, allowing the press and public to judge these poor fools, to let Congress crucify THEM for having stupidly done a poor job, at what was never anything but a stupid idea…. If it keeps us from looking at what the NSA is doing, all the better, in their view….
I said above that I see our own government perpetrating what I see as acts of war against the American people; I consider that to be gospel truth…. The Beloved Ruling Class, at least, the one I’VE been watching, has been using Sun Tzu’s Art of War to carry on a campaign of disinformation and manipulation of attitudes for many years now….. If you’ve ever read it, it is very clear how the government’s actions and statements are designed to use the principles outlined therein to confuse and misdirect the public’s minds….
With this latest administration, that campaign has reached new levels of intrusion into people’s lives, stealing from them not only their money, with outrageous tax structures and an economic system designed to steal even more of what they earn, but, has also made serious inroads into eliminating the Bill of Rights, taking away liberty after liberty, all in the name of “Homeland Security”, an oxymoron if I ever heard one… Now, they aren’t even waiting for us to spend the money, but are using our own computers and phones to increase their level of control over our fates….
Bah, humbug…. I’m pissed again, and it’s still early…. I’m going to stop now, and go on to the next section, where I hope the poem I’ll choose will have a calming effect on me…. I am not looking forward to carrying this around all day….. and, I’m sure y’all are as tired of hearing about all this, as I am about having to write about it…. Believe me, I wish there wasn’t so damn much wrong in today’s world…. Maybe if there was a bit less, I’d feel as if I could afford to turn my head toward a subject somewhat less critical, but much more amiable to my spirit….
SIGH…. Such is life, and we have to take it the way it comes…. In doing so, however, it would be wise to remember….. despite any desires or wishes YOU may have, you are at war, ffolkes….. and the enemy lives very close at hand….
I’m gonna go Pearl now….
“Most essential qualification for a politician: The ability to foretell what will happen tomorrow, next month, and next year- and to explain afterward why it did not happen.” — Sir Winston Churchill
“Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.” — Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout (1866-1975)
“He whose pride oppresses the humble may, perhaps, be humbled, but will never be humble.” — Lavater
“Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it … You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.” — Will Rogers
“Firmness in politics is called obstinacy anywhere else.” — Smart Bee
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.” — Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.” — Spinoza (1632-1677)
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Maybe it’s just me, but I think this poem is beautiful…. so much so it is one of the best ever written, in my somewhat less than humble opinion….
Part of its charm, for me, comes from the sheer symmetry of the rhyming pattern Wordsworth used… Four lines with alternating ending rhymes, followed by a couplet that also rhymed perfectly…. Twenty-four lines, four stanzas, and a visual aspect as sharp as a photograph, in describing the flowers, and in the way it appears on screen, or paper…. Just look at it…. centered, balanced, complete within itself….
Carrying the pattern through to the ending verse, for me, creates a visual aspect that matches the sheer beauty of the experience he is sharing with the reader…. It assumes an almost mathematically precise symmetry for me, displaying the sheer beauty of nature in all its undisciplined magnificence….. One of my all-time favorite poems, for sure…. and always guaranteed to soothe the spirit…. I defy ANYONE to say they don’t feel better after reading this…..
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
~~ William Wordsworth ~~
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Having completed the obligatory ranting for the day…. (hell, given what I wrote yesterday, I could consider myself done for the week….) I don’t feel compelled to do so any further, and in fact, plan to finish up as quickly as I can, & go take a nap….. As a retired dilettante, I have that right, and I exercise it frequently, to keep it supple…. Moreover, I like it, so, there…..
I think, given the apparent direction my mood is taking, on the evidence of that last sentence, it intends to go somewhere none of us particularly want to go, so, I’m going to go pearling again, with no particular parameters to guide my hand, only a vague sense of nonsense…. whatever THAT might be….
Pluralitas non ponenda est sine necessitate. (Multiplicity is not to be asserted when it is unnecessary.) — William of Occam [Occam’s Razor]
“There is a time for thinking and a time for NOT thinking. And THIS isn’t one of them.” — Paul the Samurai
“A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of).” — Smart Bee
“Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves.” — Joseph P. Thompson
“I put aside my copy of “BOWLING WORLD” and think about GUN CONTROL legislation..” — Zippy the Pinhead
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” — Albert Einstein
“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger.” — Chinese proverb
Hmm…. an eclectic little group, eh? In looking at the whole pearl, I think I would suggest shuffling them around a bit, to see if a different configuration will shake it down to a point where it’s a bit more transparent, or at least organized into a sequential thought pattern…. Or, not….
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Having dutifully proofed, edited, and polished, I consider this done…. Moreover, after carefully performing the appropriate calculations, I am convinced there really isn’t any more damage I can do…. That means it would be a good idea to end this now, and get on with the rest of the day….
Oh…. Okay, that means me…. Very well…. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, provided the BRC hasn’t found me yet….
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
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
gigoid 