Obligatory Friday Sex Post

"Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love!"

And, apparently, so do bats.

For many years now it's been known that fellatio is practiced by humans (no kidding, right?) as well as by juvenile male bonobo monkeys. Well a team of researchers have discovered that the short-nosed fruit bat also engages in such behavior.

The study showed that the practice affected the amount of time the bats were mating; the males who received a bit of oral magic from the mates stayed longer.

Naturally, more research needs to be done to continue stretching the boundaries of naughtiness.

Have you ever been "Rick-Rolled"?

I never have been. I didn't even know what it meant until yesterday. I was over at cracked.com just surfing around during the wee hours (insomnia is back). I can't read anymore of the "top news stories" out there. It's making me crazy, so I go hang out at 'cracked'.

Anyway, they have a photoshop contest going on over there --

It's the not-to-distant future. They've turned off the Internet. After the riots have settled down and the withdrawal symptoms have faded, how would you cope? We asked you to Photoshop what life would be like in an Internet-addicted society learning to cope without it, and offered $50 to the winner. That winner is below:

I had just spent 15 minutes looking through all the entries leading up to the winner above. WTF??? I don't get it. All the other ones were, for the most part, self-explanatory and pretty funny --

Like this one -


and this one -



So, I started searching the comments to see if anyone else out there was as confused as I was over the winner.


"To be tricked, through any method, into clicking a link that takes you to the Rick Astley video "Never Gonna Give You Up".

"Rick rolling is the internet equivalent of a doorbell ditch. Instead of getting the video they thought they would, they get "Never let you down" or whatever that song is called. Just like when you doorbell ditch they get nothing instead of the visitor they thought they would get. Like nearly everything on the internet, it is massive waste of time."


OK, now I'm really curious. Let's head over to my other favorite reference site - Urban Dictionary - for some more insight:

*Originally, to trick someone into watching the extremely catchy "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video by the genius Rick Astley with a fake link (usually with the promise of an exclusive video).

Now used in a more general sense, for any sort of deception or trick.
"I asked for the newest Halo trailer and all I got was the Rickroll video."

"I really hope that J.K. Rowling hasn't rick rolled us with all this Dumbledore business. I would be so disappointed."

"I just rick rolled that guy into singing Evanescence at the top of his lungs in the middle of a Walmart by promising him a reward of $20,000."

Who the hell is Rick Astley?? OMG I love this tune -- I had no idea -- I always thought some big, handsome black dude sang this song.


Here's the "Rick-Rolled" video Embedding disabled by request (doh!)


Kudos to the photoshop winner! OUTSTANDING!!! (now that I get it)

The Graveyard of Empires

I will read foreign news websites as a matter of course in order to build up a more comprehensive view of the news than the pablum offered up by the American cable news networks. I ran across a speech given back on October 24th by Paul McGeough, a senior reporter for Australia's Sydney Morning Herald.

In the speech, Mr. McGeough has some unkind but prophetic things to say about our war in Afghanistan, and the title of the article gives the basic thrust of his argument - that the Afghan insurgency has come back, more virile and more vicious than ever, and is more widespread now.

And all thanks to us and our allies.

McGeough cites a report submitted by a Colonel K. Tsagalov dated August 17, 1987, only 18 months before the commanding general of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan was the last Russian to leave that country. He points out the eerie similarity between ColonelTsagalov's report and the declassified situation report given by our commander there, General McChrystal.

McChrystal points out that the Taliban have once again become a dominant force in the country and the Kabul government's writ runs thin in spots. We went in promising big things - prosperity, freedom, democracy - and we haven't delivered.

I'll repeat that.

We went in promising big things - prosperity, freedom, democracy - and we haven't delivered.

I can think of two reasons why we have failed to deliver on our promises - and I will be repeating myself from posts I have thrown out here in the past.

One, we failed to learn from the experience of others. Alexander of Macedon tried to subdue the tribes, and failed. In the 1800s the British and Russians, in the course of the Great Game, tried and failed (the British tried about three times, as I recall). In 1979 the Soviet Union tried it, and admitted defeat in 1989. Not for nothing is Afghanistan sometimes called "the graveyard of empires."

Two, we took our eyes off the ball. We had the Taliban leadership and Osama bin Laden trapped in the Tora Bora Mountains near the Pakistani border, and we allowed them to escape into friendly territory. Why? Because the Bush Administration listened to Vice President Cheney and the neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and decided that we needed to invade Iraq - on the flimsiest of pretexts, may I remind you, gentle reader.

General McChrystal's recommendations for thousands more troops and billions more dollars in aid might have worked - back in 2002 or 2003, as Mr. McGeough points out. One anecdote cited comes from a supposed Taliban prisoner who purportedly said, "The trouble with you Americans is you have watches – we have time.”

We gave them that time, through the previous Administration's criminal negligence and outright fraud, perpetrated upon an American nation too distracted by Bright Shiny Things to care that our money and our people were being fed into a hopeless sausage grinder of a war. All the Taliban have to do is wait us out, because the longer we stay, the more we are seen as an occupier and oppressor. More and more Afghans will consider oppression at the hands of locals to be preferable to oppression at the hands of foreigners.

I'm now going to bring up a rather ugly story.

If you're of a Certain Age, like I am, you'll get this story right off.

It's the story of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. And YES, I know it's rather hideously racist - bear with me.

The point that was made in the story is that the more the Rabbit fought the Tar Baby, the more hopelessly trapped he became. He was only saved by tricking his enemies into hurling him into the briar patch, because only then could he extricate himself.

The choice being given to the Obama Adminstration is a simple one - the Tar Baby, or the Briar Patch. Because one way or another we have to extricate ourselves from this mess. The current death toll of US and Allied troops in Afghanistan is 1,469; we must grasp the nettle (another briar patch metaphor) and extricate ourselves. Our economy cannot sustain the continued effort, and a growing segment of the American people are no longer willing to stand for it.

Now, the consequences.

President Obama will take a massive hit to his popularity, but he doesn't seem to care much about that anyway so it's a non-issue. We will likely retain a covert presence along the Afghan-Pakistan border for years to come in hopes that Mullah Omar and Osama come out of hiding so we can kill them. President Karzai and the Afghan National Government will likely fall amid a rash of executions and at least one pogrom. The 2010 bi-election and the 2012 Presidential election might go against the Democrats unless the economy improves.

But we will have extricated ourselves from Afghanistan.

Placing Blame

I’ve never been one to subscribe to the notion that bad shit happens for a reason. There’s no moral, no silver lining, no lesson to be learned from the death of a child – especially when that death is at some monsters hands. I’ve noticed pundits and newscasters no longer even try to classify something like this. They just report that it happened – then go for the money shots photographing and profiling the child’s devastated family. Some, like carrion crawler Nancy Grace, cast themselves as crusading angels – making sure to report every sad and salacious detail; a kind of verbal autopsy: how many cuts, how many broken bones (with emphasis and breathless discussion of any perceived sexual deviance). No rules, no license - the more horrific and graphic the material the better. CSI on a stick.

What no one ever does is look into the happenstance of it all – the under the skin, emotional assassination of the left-behinds. Much more has been slaughtered than a single child. Every member of that family has, in some indefinable way, died. These are the true zombies; parts inside rotted away; some through neglect, others the result of further and continuing abuse. It’s the blaming, you see – the assigning of ‘responsibility’. Somebody (or a whole passel of ‘somebody’s’) has to shoulder responsibility for the child’s death. The killer alone is no longer enough – not for today’s constantly on the lookout for the next shocking thing punditocracy. Modern media demands a full-on Roman orgy; gladiators, tigers, vomitorium (and you’d better not forget the popcorn). That usually masticates and digests the entire family – no matter if their involvement was merely peripheral. And god help those caught in the blast zone. Demon press excoriates and filets to the bone.

Which brings me ‘round to my point. Something struck me the other day....a throw-away report of a little girl lost and found dead. Lost in Florida, thrown away in a Georgia landfill. Her name isn’t as important as the ‘before’s’ – those ‘Seconds from Disaster’ moments. Perhaps I should say the incidents long term effects. It’s all in the ‘how’ she disappeared, you see; the ticks and tocks of what led up to the taking. Evidently she’d been walking home from school with her brother, her older sister and some other school friends. There was an argument – one news outlet reported she was being teased by her brother, another said she was arguing with a school friend prompting her sister to yell at her – I’m not exactly sure of the details (nor were they – but hey, who cares?). Still – such speculation was reported as verified fact all the same. Whatever really happened – the situation ended with the little girl in tears, running ahead of the other children, never to be seen alive again.

Do you see? Do you get what I mean....what’s happened here?

It’s the other children - her siblings in particular. I’m concerned about their mental and emotional state. They will blame themselves for her death. It’s inevitable. Especially if their parents blame them as well. I know a little something about how that kind of thing works, unfortunately. My sister committed suicide when I was 7. She was 27 – old enough to be my mother. Of course – I never knew about it, was never told the truth. I only knew she’d suddenly, inexplicably, disappeared. It was my mother who filled in the blanks – and used the lies she concocted to control me. You see – just before my sister died, she’d stopped by to visit and brought along her dog, a Chihuahua. Now – I was afraid of Chihuahuas as a child. A neighbor had one she’d turn loose on all the local kids – especially while walking home from school. I’d been bitten numerous times by the nasty beast – so I was terrified.

Thankfully he never chased past his own territory. Oh – he’d chase you down in the street (seriously – the little monster knocked me off my bike once) – but never past his own house. You had to run awfully fast, though. I was a tad clumsy – so more often than not I got nipped by those needle teeth – and yes, my mother knew all about it. As far I know, she never once approached the woman to call off her dog. But that was the nature of my family’s dysfunction. It’s why I was considering (and attempting) suicide by age 10. Anyway – despite my saying I was afraid – into my arms goes the dog. The creature was keyed up from the drive (squirming like mad), my mother and my sister were fighting - my brother (sensing my unease), used it to torment me (he was 22 at the time and a real piece of work). End result? I got bitten and accidently dropped the dog. The poor thing broke its leg - had to be rushed to the vet. Needless to say I was horrified, I felt terrible – and I was blamed. Not by my sister (she understood) – but by my mother (who said I did it on purpose), and by my asshole brother who used the incident to taunt me. The whole thing was so traumatizing, I used to hear the awful sounds of that little dogs pain in my nightmares.

Then poof - my sister up and disappears; and when I asked why she didn’t come visit me any more – my mother had her answer ready: My sister didn’t come around any more because she blamed me for injuring her dog. Sobbing, I begged my mother to just let me speak to my sister – to apologize again, make reparations – anything. I was only 7. Loss is especially hard at that age - and I loved my sister dearly. She was my only anchor in a terrible and terrifying world. No, my mother said. She hates you. She never wants to see you again. She wishes you were dead. Then she added the coup de gras: she told me the little dog had died – that I’d killed it - that I was a horrible killer of dogs – and my sister could no longer stand the sight of me.

Well. I believed her. I believed her for years. No one gainsaid the bitch, by the way – not my father, not my asshole brother, not my next oldest, stick up her ass sister (18 years my senior – I was the youngest by an entire generation). Everyone just let the lies stand. And they shattered me – absolutely shattered me. I was 12 before I sussed out the truth; and when I did – the overweening hatred I felt for my family knew no bounds. To make a child feel responsible for a sibling’s death.... I’ve never forgiven them – even after all these years. Oh – there are worse things I suffered at my family’s hands....but this stands out in my mind as especially heinous. The mental images of dropping that dog remain as fresh and clear as if they had all happened yesterday.

How does this relate to the murder of that poor child? In how her siblings feel. See – I know. I know how they blame themselves right now. How they believe they were responsible. If only they hadn’t teased her, if only there wasn’t an argument.... The ‘if only’s’ can be killer. Add in news agency after news agency repeating and re-treading constructed versions of the abduction narrative (child runs from disagreement with siblings and is slaughtered)....and how on earth are they to feel any different? I only hope the adults in their lives aren’t reinforcing all this. Oh - I can understand how there might be anger. That’s natural. Anger/fear after something as traumatic as this is an instinctual trigger. What parent wouldn’t lash out, perhaps scold without thinking? It’s what happens after that counts. The dysfunctional response is a need to place blame. Those surviving kids will eat themselves alive if they’re allowed to go through life blaming themselves for their little sister’s death. It isn’t their fault. I don’t know how many ways or times I can say it: It Wasn’t Their Fault.

But this kind of in depth analysis isn’t what you’re likely to hear on what passes for the news. No one’s even going to think about the survivors; well, not beyond the tears and the screaming; unless, of course, it’s about blood or sex or hysterical crying. That will be graded on whether or not it’s believable, by the way. Nancy Grace thinks she’s an expert on discerning capital ‘T’ Truth. But the left behinds? The kids? Their friends? Nada. Oh – some enterprising young ‘reporter’ might sidle up and ask how it feels to be responsible, blah, blah, blah....but to follow the healing process through to its conclusion? Why bother? It only leads if it bleeds.

Republicans for Rape

Jamie Leigh Jones was raped by several men at a KBR (then a subsidiary of halliburton) camp in the supposedly safe Green Zone in Iraq. When she complained, she was put in a shipping container. The US government and Halliburton have been covering up the incident (even though we discussed it here at the blog when it was first reported) and the DOJ hasn't investigated it.

From Raw Story:

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) introduced an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would prevent the federal government from funding contractors whose employee contracts prevent workers from pursuing allegations of rape against co-workers.

The measure passed the Senate by a vote of 68 to 30, with all 30 'no' votes being cast by Republicans. Notably, 10 Senate Republicans voted for the measure, including all four female Republican senators.

Rachel Maddow listed the names of the 30 Republican Senators who voted against the amendment and invited them to come on her show and explain why they voted against it. So far, no one has offered to explain.


Check out Republicans For Rape for more information on who the lame duck senators are.

This is not from the Onion

Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012


Hahahahahha Go for it, dude

Obligatory Friday Sex Post

Yes, the election of Barack Obama last November signaled the possibility of change in this great land of ours. And nowhere was that more apparent than in the fecundity and amativity (or, 'horniness') of Republican men.

As reported by ABC News, a study showed that testosterone levels in men who voted for John McCain or Robert Barr dropped about 40 minutes after Obama's election was announced, while the levels of those men who voted for the Democratic candidate stayed about the same.

This is possibly significant, says the study, since testosterone levels tend to fluctuate throughout the day.

What is significant is the possibility that true, red-blooded, virile American men know what's good for them - and they stand tall and proud to see Obama in the White House, rather than a short and somewhat flaccid older man.

Midweek Naughtiness Post

A horse is a horse
Of course, of course
And no one can have sexual intercourse
With a horse
Of course ...

That's because it's against the law, as a man named James Tait discovered in Columbia, Tennessee recently. He was caught and arrested having sex with stud horses, ponies and dogs on a farm there, and it's not the first time, either.

I shall wait for the collective "Eww!" to die down.

I mean, honestly, aren't there enough hookers in the world that a guy has to trespass beyond his own species to get some kicks?

Just remember this, zoophiles:

Neigh Means Neigh!

Time for Miracles

Time For Miracles

Adam Lambert | MySpace Video

Hot off the presses, my friends (and I do mean hot!). The film is 2012. The song is called “Time for Miracles”. So tell me…..how exactly do you spell superstar? Why Adam Lambert, of course. This kids gonna be huge – as in Elvis, Madonna huge. Enjoy.

Not in my name. I'm getting really tired of this shit

How nice to read that US drones bombing the shit out of Pakistan have been killing a large number of innocent civilians. NOT

Remember this story from August 2008? The drones are being operated from California by guys who just bomb the hell out of people far, far away via a computer screen and then get to go home to their wives and children. Nice job, eh?

From M2C News

Short news rant.

US Executions- We can't even do those right

From Agence France-Presse comes this horrifying story about the US' practice of executing prisoners: Screams of pain, burned flesh, long delays hallmark US executions In many cases prisoners end up being brutally tortured to death because of complications with lethal injections and faulty electric chairs. Supposedly our executions should be more or less "painless" but they aren't at all. There are stories about prisoners catching fire while being electrocuted.... and it seems that lethal injection isn't as easy at it would seem. I don't condone state sponsored murder at all and it's just ridiculous how incompetent our executioners are. Maybe we should send our executioners to third world dictatorships in order to observe how to do them correctly?

But for Bennie Demps, who spent 33 minutes of agony as execution technicians tried to find a back-up vein that could support an alternate intravenous drip in case the first one failed, the pain was excruciating.

"They butchered me back there. I was in a lot of pain. They cut me in the groin, they cut me in the leg. I was bleeding profusely. This is not an execution, it is murder," he said in his final statement.

In Angel Diaz's case, in Florida in 2006, a single dose of the lethal cocktails that anesthetize, paralyze and then stop the recipient's heart was not enough. The first injection went through his vein and out the other side, dispersing the chemicals into his muscles, forcing a second dose to be given.

At times, the scenes have been gruesome enough to physically affect observers. In 1989, in Texas, which holds the record for the most US executions, a male witness fainted after watching Stephen McCoy's violent writhing.

Some of the most recent horror stories come from Ohio, where Broom's execution was halted.

"It don't work! It don't work," yelled a sobbing Joseph Clark in May 2006, as the vein that executioners had worked 22 minutes to find collapsed while the chemicals were being administered.

A year later, Ohio authorities took two hours to successfully find veins and administer Christopher Newton the lethal injection. The process took so long, he was authorized to take a bathroom break.

Obviously the people who sign up to be executioners aren't medical practitioners which of course makes sense, because when you are trained to save lives you certainly won't want to take them in the name of the state. I can't imagine what types of people are in charge of executing criminals. Imagine applying for that job? Or do you just fall into it?

Most embarrassing/horrifying is that the US still executes people and puts our name on the execution order. The second most embarrassing thing is that executions are frequently botched... I mean if we're gonna be executioners, we ought to do it right and employ competent executioners who know what they're doing. Why not bring back the guillotine? Oh I know... get a bunch of Bible thumpers together for a good old fashioned stoning and put their names on the death warrant.

Do we care about Lush Bimbo's NFL nonsense?

So what do you make of all this hoo hah about Rush Limbaugh wanting to buy an NFL team? Makes you wonder if he deliberately wanted to be maligned by the NFL so that he could make an issue about it and turn his millions of listeners against the NFL. Or maybe not. But then again, he is a very rich, conservative white male and has the GOP in his pocket or vice versa or both and may be able to bully his way into ownership of the St Louis Rams. Interesting that the commissioner of the NFL said that Limbaugh's divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about... he didn't make mention that Limbaugh is also a drug addict and was caught coming back from one of those pedophile Caribbean islands with a jug of unmarked viagra.

Whatever.

Meanwhile Obama is escalating the war on Afghanistan and the drones are bombing Pakistan and our boys are still in Iraq and Wall St runs our country, China is manufacturing all the cheap, dangerous crap we have to buy (or not) and we are totally fucked. The middle class is on its way out and the rich don't give a hoot.

Do you ever wonder if there is a gun pointed at Obama's head or Michelle's and the daughters? Or is he just full of crap like every other politician and lied about ending wars and putting the middle class back to work?

My heroine in Michael Moore's movie, "Capitalism: A Love Affair" is Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Congress had no choice about voting for the bailouts.

Michael Moore: We're here to get the money back for the American people. Do you think it's too harsh to call what has happened here a coup d'etat? A financial coup d'etat?

Marcy Kaptur: That's, no. Because I think that's what's happened. Um, a financial coup d'etat?

MM: Yeah.

MK: I could agree with that. I could agree with that. Because the people here really aren't in charge. Wall Street is in charge.

Bill Moyers interviewed Rep. Marcy Kaptur and it's worth your perusal. Everything you imagined is indeed very true. She has no reason to lie.

Reconsider Columbus Day

Then get a load of this Bugs Bunny Cartoon from 1951

Good news for 'end of world' nuts

World Won't End in 2012, Mayans Insist

Faith, not Belief

This sounds like an interesting book. The Case For God

Karen Armstrong says in a Wapo article, The Case for 'Faith', not 'Belief', this morning:

Like a myth, a religious doctrine is essentially a program of action. It makes no sense unless it is translated into practical action that helps you to dethrone egotism, selfishness and greed by practicing compassion to all living beings. In the book, I try to show how doctrines like the Incarnation or Trinity were originally a summons to selflessness and compassion and that we only discover their truth by making these qualities a reality in our own lives.

Finally, in the pre-modern world people knew that it was very difficult to speak about God, because God could not fit neatly into a human system of thought. People like Aquinas, Maimonides or Avicenna would find much of our modern certainty about God frankly idolatrous. They knew that we could not prove 'his' existence, that even revelation did not provide us with privileged information about the divine but simply made us aware of what we did not know, and that all our God-talk - even the language of scripture - could only be symbolic, pointing beyond itself to transcendence, because when we speak about God we are at the end of.what words or thoughts can do.

And this only sounds amorphous and vague if you are not a dedicated practitioner. If you don't 'do' religion - you don't 'get' it!

Good point indeed and should "christians" for instance, actually act like Christians, the atheists probably wouldn't have to rag on them so much... there might even be a lot of agreement from both sides. I'm interested in what else she has to say. There might be some good topics for discussion.

A Team Effort

With all the flap that has gone on accompanying the news of President Obama winning the Nobel Prize for Peace, something important is sometimes overlooked.

(And for the record I thought that the Norwegians were premature in their award. But, c'est la vie.)

President Obama was given this award - and make no mistake, it is an honor for America, not just him - for signaling a sea change in US foreign policy after eight years of unilateralist cowboy diplomacy that only served to make the USA and the world less safe. It's an ongoing process, with a long way to go.

And it's a team effort. Not just for the State Department and its professional diplomats, but for nations that share our values and aspirations and wish to be peacemakers.

Case in point, the treaty that was signed in Zurich today.

Didn't know about that?

Allow me to explain.

The Republics of Turkey and Armenia have been at loggerheads for nearly a century over the genocidal policy of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War that killed about a million Armenians, and the government in Yerevan is still honked off about Ankara's treatment of its Armenian minority. That being said, the two sides have struggled to come to some understanding that would open diplomatic relations.

Enter The Team.

The agreement signed today in Zurich was the product of diplomacy by experts from Russia, France, the European Union, Switzerland and the United States, and culminated in a brisk round of shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. While the agreement isn't perfect (there are still sticking points, such as Armenian troops in the Nagorno-Karabakh region), the treaty represents a milestone in relations between Turkey and Armenia.

Not everyone is happy about it, of course, particularly among those descendants of the people who got out of Turkish Armenia over 90 years ago.

But congratulations all around anyway, for taking this important first step. It was a team effort, and is what the Norwegian Nobel Committee had in mind when they gave their award to Obama.

(Photo by Mrs. Abby Bennethum. Her daughter Paige didn't want to let go of her father's hand as he was being deployed overseas.)

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

How long, O Lord? How long?

Nobel Peace Prize

President Obama? Excuse me? For what?

US drones are still dropping bombs in Pakistan, he wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan, we're still at war in Iraq.... Gitmo is still operating, who the hell knows what's going to happen with Iran... excuse me?

Americans in our country who peacefully protest US policy are teargassed, arrested and/or beaten by police.

Peace. It is to laugh.


Har

I just KNEW something wasn't right in the blogosphere these past 2 weeks

Our Peter of Lone Tree (and my co-conspirator in crime) has hit a snag on this wild ride we call life.....


Get Well, Peter of Lone Tree
by: Dark Wraith


UPDATE: Tuesday, October 7, 2009 at 7:15 p.m. EDT: I spoke with Peter of Lone Tree this morning. He said he was recovering well, and he was in good spirits. Aside from only the slightest, brief speech difficulty, he seemed to be getting better just like he said.

He is delighted to hear of the comments made to this post, and I want to thank all of those who have wished him well, whether it is here, by phone, or by get-well card. I also want to extend special thanks to Missouri Mule, who called him to read him this post. I am hopeful that he will get to hear additional comments as they are posted.

Thank you all. I think Peter's going to live to see another day.

May you remain forever in fear, Bilderbergers; Trilateralists; Zionists; Council on Foreign Relations denizens; CIA operatives; Men in Black; NSA creeps; communists; black helicopter pilots and crew; soldiers of Joel's Army; and, yes, you aliens who live among us. You will be exposed. Peter of Lone Tree, Father Tyme, and the Dark Wraith, himself, live!

♦ ♦ ♦


Big Brass Blog contributing writer Peter of Lone Tree suffered a minor stoke last week.

He called me the morning it occurred to him that he was having difficulty thinking. Eventually, he went to a hospital, but he left after he wearied of being tube-tied in one of the warehouses that constitutes a modern healthcare facility.

He is now recuperating at the home of his son and daughter-in-law.

He called me this morning as I was preparing to go to a class, so I did not have much time to get into all the details, but he did grant me permission to let all of you know of his condition. From our conversation, it seemed to me that he was doing pretty well. Aside from a very slight confusion at one point, he was lucid, clear, and still in command of all his faculties. I cannot, however, comment on his appetite or libido, but I'll try to get him to disclose those things in our next conversation. As far as I can tell, he is still not a Republican, he remains a conspiracy theorist of the first order, and he thinks the girls here at Big Brass Blog are all hot.

What he doesn't know is that I am a double-agent, masquerading as a Freemason while working for both Mossad and certain, shall we say, "other interests," and that Father Tyme is a contract spy for the Trilateral Commission tasked to seducing Sarah Palin so she will become President and unknowingly carry out the full agenda of the Bilderberg Group. Father Tyme has been promised the regency of a small island in the South Pacific populated by nude Polynesians of questionable yet undeniably interesting culinary preferences, but he has declined even greater rewards that would be his if he would agree to set Peter of Lone Tree up in a compromising rendezvous with Michele Bachmann and several Eskimos known to Todd Palin as Bertha and Mabel, but known on the Internet as "Snowy, Twinkles, & Their Friend, Mr. Moose."

Peter, you need to get well as soon as possible. It's not the same without you.

Big Brass Blog needs its writers. All of them. We need to show the world a united front of intellectual depth, maturity, abstinence, sobriety, and everything else that makes this diner on the edge of Empire's twilight live up to its description: The Lair of the Poisonous Scribblers!

bloggers · friends · health
06 Oct '09 - 21:54 | Dark Wraith | Personal | 9 comments | Permalink


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

This kind of goes against the idea of less government intervention in people's lives.

So do you think that this program will reduce the number of abortions in Oklahoma? I don't know... I can think of other ways to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies rather than scaring women.

New Oklahoma law will publicy post details of women’s abortions online.
On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will “cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year.” Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:

• 1. Date of abortion
• 2. County in which abortion performed
• 3. Age of mother
• 4. Marital status of mother
• (married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
• 5. Race of mother
• 6. Years of education of mother
• (specify highest year completed)
• 7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
• 8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
• Live Births
• Miscarriages
• Induced Abortions

Although the questionnaire does not ask for name, address, or “any information specifically identifying the patient,” as Feminists for Choice points out, these eight questions could easily be used to identify a woman in a small community. “They’re really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions,” Keri Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, said. The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law, arguing that “it violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it ‘covers more than one subject’ — a challenge that previously worked to strike down an abortion ultrasound law.”

But you already figured this out....

Intel regarding Iranian nuke program is shaky.

The Goddesses are ANGRY today.....

The wind here on the east coast just blanketed my yard with millions of dead pine needles and the first round of leaves are starting to hit the windows. A spectacular blue sky - with dark grey clouds and picturesque white white white puffy ones - and when the sun peaks out -- what a divine feeling -- a perfect fall day.

Rogue?

Hat tip to Brooke

The New Conservative Bible

I thought it was a joke at first. When Earl Bockenfeld wrote about The Conservative Bible in the comments on the blog, I laughed because I thought he was being funny( Then I saw more stories about it and then more..... oh my god. It's real! But hey it's a free internet and you can do whatever you want.

Funny thing is that most conservative "christians" I know take the bible "literally". (but they really don't, they just think they do) The only thing is that they never quote from the Gospels or anything that sounds too much like looking out for each other or helping the poor. They pick and choose what to believe in and what suits their agenda... it looks like now they want to rewrite the parts that have been previously unusable. Jesus must be rolling his eyeballs. It seems ironic that the very people who supposedly believe that the bible is the exact word of god want to rewrite it and expose the dreaded liberals!

The page at conservapedia reeks of social injustice, selfishness, greed and conceit. I'm one of the over-educated students of theology who studied the greatest scholars and the ancient scholars as well. Perhaps I was a bit conservative when I started my studies and according to my mom, I graduated an "atheist commie" as she put it... but hey, if you take the time to understand what was going on at the time of Jesus both socially and politically and then put the New Testament into context, you can't be anything but a stinking liberal after you study it for real. And furthermore, if you read the 4 Gospels carefully, you will realize that the women were the strongest characters in the narratives, women stuck around while Jesus was crucified and buried and that Jesus Christ himself was a feminist and a socialist. These nutjobs are going to have to erase the Gospels and start over. They should just abandon Christianity and start their own religion of mean spirited cheapskates. Seriously.

From the conservative bible project at conservapedia:

Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning:

1. lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts introduced by Christ
2. lack of precision in modern language
3. translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.
4. Of these three sources of errors, the last introduces the largest error, and the biggest component of that error is liberal bias. Large reductions in this error can be attained simply by retranslating the KJV into modern English.[1]

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

and this reference is my favorite for [1]

↑ The committee in charge of updating the bestselling version, the NIV, is dominated by professors and higher-educated participants who can be expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook. As a result, the revision and replacement of the NIV will be influenced more by political correctness and other liberal distortions than by genuine examination of the oldest manuscripts. As a result of these political influences, it becomes desirable to develop a conservative translation that can serve, at a minimum, as a bulwark against the liberal manipulation of meaning in future versions.

Animal Antics

A 74-year old woman was attacked at her home in Lakeland, Florida yesterday.

Not by a street gang, or some rapist, or even by a common thug.

Nope.

She was attacked by raccoons.

Presumably it was a mother and her four kits, and they attacked either because the woman (who is in the hospital in stable condition) surprised them or she got between them and their dinner.

So animal control's looking for Ma Barker and her kids, under the assumption that the whole group was rabid.

At least they didn't come up to her doing this:

Would Jesus Belong To a Hedge Fund?

For Those of You on Your Way to Church This Morning ...a note from Michael Moore


Michael Moore October 4 at 7:47am

Friends,

I'd like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bill Maherists, etc. can read along, too, as much of what I have to say, I'm sure, can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).

In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one's religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we've heard enough yammerin' in the past three decades about how one should "behave," and I have to say I'm pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.

I'm also against any proselytizing; I certainly don't want you to join anything I belong to. Also, as a Catholic, I have much to say about the Church as an institution, but I'll leave that for another day (or movie).

Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in "Capitalism: A Love Story," I pose a simple question in the movie: "Is capitalism a sin?" I go on to ask, "Would Jesus be a capitalist?" Would he belong to a hedge fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest 1% to have more financial wealth than the 95% under them combined?

I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what's left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother's and sister's keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you'd have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.

I guess that's bad news for us Americans. Here's how we define "Blessed Are the Poor": We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There's a foreclosure filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.

At the same time, Wall Street bankers ("Blessed Are the Wealthy"?) are amassing more and more loot -- and they do their best to pay little or no income tax (last year Goldman Sachs' tax rate was a mere 1%!). Would Jesus approve of this? If not, why do we let such an evil system continue? It doesn't seem you can call yourself a Capitalist AND a Christian -- because you cannot love your money AND love your neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you can have a better bottom line. That's called "immoral" -- and you are committing a sin when you benefit at the expense of others.

When you are in church this morning, please think about this. I am asking you to allow your "better angels" to come forward. And if you are among the millions of Americans who are struggling to make it from week to week, please know that I promise to do what I can to stop this evil -- and I hope you'll join me in not giving up until everyone has a seat at the table.

Thanks for listening. I'm off to Mass in a few hours. I'll be sure to ask the priest if he thinks J.C. deals in derivatives or credit default swaps. I mean, after all, he must've been good at math. How else did he divide up two loaves of bread and five pieces of fish equally amongst 5,000 people? Either he was the first socialist or his disciples were really bad at packing lunch. Or both.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

We ARE Israel's Bitch......

and Uncle Schlemiel Wants You!





This is appalling


From The Raw Story GOP senators: US, not Israel, should attack Iran ‘if necessary’

Two senior Republican senators say the United States, and not Israel, should attack Iran if military action becomes "necessary."

They also say a simple strike at the country's nuclear capability wouldn't be enough -- the US would have to launch an "all-or-nothing" war against Iran with the aim of crippling the country's military capabilities.

"I think an Israeli attack on Iran is a nightmare for the world, because it will rally the Arab world around Iran and they're not aligned now. It's too much pressure to put on Israel," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News' Chris Wallace.

He continued: "If the sanctions fail, and Iran's going down the road to get a nuclear weapon, any Sunni Arab state that could, would want a nuclear weapon. Israel will be more imperiled. The world will change dramatically for the worst. Military action should be the last resort anyone looks at, and I would rather our allies and us take military action if it's necessary."

But Graham doesn't think an attack should be limited to airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. "If we use military action against Iran, we should not only go after their nuclear facilities. We should destroy their ability to make conventional war. They should have no planes that can fly and no ships that can float," said Graham
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, agrees.

"The problem with military action also is that you're probably not going to be able to stop the production of uranium by just a simple airstrike," Chambliss said on Fox News Sunday. "Lindsey's right. It's an all or nothing deal. And is it worth that at this point in time, when we know they have the capability? We can slow them down, but a full-out military strike is what it would take," said Chambliss.

This video is from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast Oct. 4, 2009.

(You can watch the video at the link)

United Nations Development Program releases the annual Human Development Index -- NORWAY WINS!!

ABOUT THE REPORT:

Each year since 1990 the Human Development Report has published the human development index (HDI) which looks beyond GDP to a broader definition of well-being. The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as gender or income inequality nor more difficult to measure concepts like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being.


THE TOP TEN IN ORDER:

Norway
Australia
Iceland
Canada
Ireland
Netherlands
Sweden
France
Switzerland
Japan


Here's the link to the statistics




Weather in Norway: Temperatures, Weather & Climate



I could deal with those temps.








I hear home prices are sky high though




Maybe in my next life....

This is pretty good

I can't stand hearing this shit excuse for music when it comes on the radio -- you know -- the over-processed sounds that "artists" are using in today's "music"......AUTO-TUNE

I was a pretty big Frampton fan back in the day though. And, I did like Cher's "Believe". They had a song in there though -- not just sound.

I never heard of this guy T-Pane before. I was catching up on Jimmy Kimmel and found this video. It's pretty good.





Can't help but wonder if I would like this guy T-Pane's "music" if I were a teen today....

Spider Silk Tapestry

I’ve never seen the like. Talk about gossamer wings. What I wouldn’t give for a dress made of spiders dreams!

The Truth About Jobs

Most of the readers here have figured this out already...


Shorter Robert Reich: The only way to get Americans back to work is for the government to invest in Americans and create jobs. With so many people out of work or afraid of losing their jobs, there isn't a whole lot of shopping by people or investing by companies. It will take a long time for this situation to improve without the government investing in public works projects. The debt once incurred by WPA was paid off in the 1950's when American's were working and the economy was good. I wonder how the debt for 2 long lasting illegal wars will ever be paid off with so many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and with the super rich paying very few taxes.

The politics will get even uglier if the government invests in its citizens... but what else is new?


When I talk to most people who are out of work, they are not collecting unemployment insurance. Those people are not counted in the unemployment figures so it is estimated that out of work American's are at about 20%!


Read The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants To Tell You

I guess they had nothing better to do

The geography department at Kansas State University created US Maps depicting the 7 Deadly Sins geographically. They are really stretching it with their definitions. I would think that there would be more interesting maps to be charted of the US based on actual facts rather than opinions of what constitutes a sin.

It's easier to read at this link. The green is "Saintly" and the Red is "Devilish."

Hat tip Talk2Action.org

And in evolution news.... so much for the "missing link"

Oldest "Human" Skeleton Found--Disproves "Missing Link"

Jamie Shreeve
National Geographic magazine
October 1, 2009
Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago (interactive time line: how the new discovery changes human evolutionary theory).


The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas. Continued.

Well this should make some people very happy.