Have you ever gone down to your city's drainage? Into its sewers? It's dumps? We did. As boys do. When you follow the terrain down, down, down, you usually encounter water. The air gets heavier, the plants change to the type that like having their roots kept wet, insects increase, small reptiles increase, and the ground softens to mud such it can pull off your shoe. That's what it's like reading New York Times journalists.
Come with me. Let's go to the smoldering dump.
Maureen Dowd writes about the upcoming Helsinki summit as an absurd little girl. To her politics is all personality and looks, left swipe, left swipe, left swipe, and hard realities of geopolitics don't even exist. Her mind and emotion is with the British balloon floaters. That's the only thing she bothers to see. She sees only skin. Only surface.
Minacious.
With a word she attempts to establish she's smarter than you so you should probably give her some credibility. Nobody uses this word in conversation because they've learned it's self-isolating. Everyone knows that. Except Maureen Dowd imagines by using superior vocabulary she can establish the gravitah of her authoritah. Fail. It means menacing, as you most likely know. And it means Dowd is a dope.
"I had dinner with Putin once."
So what. Her paper sends her around. She got a glimpse a the real KGB agent behind the diplomat mask and it shook her so badly she couldn't eat. And that's why she doesn't mention what was served. She doesn't remember. The cold visage showed her the killer. And somehow she knows Donald Trump's father taught Donald to admire killers.
No mention Putin is head of state, like it or not, the U.S. president deals with the heads of state that he's given, not the ones he'd prefer to speak with. Just as her fellatee did. Just as Bill Clinton did. Just as Jimmy Carter did. Just as Hillary Clinton did with her ridiculously girlish reset button with peregruzka printed on it instead of perezagruzka, the dopes. But those are the people Dowd supports unwaveringly while she sees nothing but poison in Trump.
Good.
Dowd and her NYT getting their asses kicked to the mud is mere side-benefit to having Trump. She, and they, are incidental to the bigger picture.
Trump hugging Putin as Putin stabs at our democracy is an incomprehensible mystery, but only to Dowd. She's seeing them hugging already, they haven't even met. She left out kissing. Hugging and kissing, that is the imagery Dowd is trying to convey. In Dowd's conceptualization Trump must avoid contact with Putin or else Trump is just like Putin. Twins.
Republicans are not flummoxed and craven and scrambling to go along as Dowd says, rather, they're dealing with the profound civics lesson delivered them by the American voters who've conveyed quite clearly through elections in series that lead to Trump that they've had enough of their bullshit. Just as we've had quite enough Dowd bullshit.
"Berating our European allies, NATO, the N.F.L., the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. and canoodling with the mendacious and scheming Russians."
Here Dowd, have a drink of water. You're overheating. Dowd thinks our allies can do no wrong with respect to America, our lopsided trade agreements and our shrinking middle class mean nothing to girls like Dowd. It doesnt' matter to Dowd that NATO countries shirk their defense responsibilities and leave the massive burden to the U.S. Disrespect the American symbol within American institutions means nothing to Dowd and neither does the N.F.L mean anything to Dowd, beyond using it for striking polemic points, and she knows full well, or should know, the extent of FBI perfidy. She left out DOJ. She has nothing to say about Fusion or Crowdstrike or DNC indirect collusion with Russia for the fake-ass dossier at the core of the FISA warrants that gave breath to the fake-ass investigation still going on. No mention of Russia being an 80's fixation as Obama responded during debate, and no mention of Obama ignoring the intelligence brought to his attention. All of that is lost to Dowd's girlish screed. And this is why those institutions are no longer trusted and neither is NYT, and neither is Dowd. Flounce, little sister.
In Dowd's world Trump meeting Putin is a "pas de deux" a ballet dance for two, and to Dowd, Trump is kowtowing to Putin not delivering the smackdown as he's done with everyone else. Because that is what Dowd knows by experience. She had dinner with Putin, she tells us, and after observing Obama in action that's all she can see happening. Projection, dear Dowd, it's not just another river in Egypt.
"Maybe he is the Manchurian candidate, in need of a hypnotic tuneup." Full stop. Where were you, little sister, when Obama said clearly on hot mic he'll have more room to move after the election? No, dear, if any president was Manchurian candidate that would apply to your idol of worship, the boy wonder.
"Perhaps it's an Oepidal thing ... " And perhaps it's not. Perhaps it's two heads of state meeting on important matters conveying to each other where they stand on certain issues. Nord Stream 2 pipeline is not mentioned in Dowd's jejune screeching diatribe the real center of Russia's interference with the United States and European security, and our discussions with our precious allies, chiefly Germany. Dowd cannot mention that because Trump happens to be right, and Trump's interest is protecting America and its future and those are not Dowd's concerns, she only sees faces, hugging and dancing and personalities, and allies, and smooth sailing. She is shaken and her being rattled is showing.
Good.
I'm glad Dowd is rattled because when Dowd isn't rattled then things are much worse.
"Or maybe it is, as it so often is with Trump, the most puerile answer: He is affronted by the suggestion that he won his election illegitimately. This is, after all, a man who is still obsessing on the size of his inauguration crowd and how he won Wisconsin's electoral votes and Ronald Reagan didn't. (Except that Reagan did.)"
Or maybe Dowd has lost her mind. Maybe that's Dowd's most puerile answer, as it so often is when discussing anything Republican, the party in place to keep crackpots like Dowd rattled and out of influence. Away from reporting real things and instead reporting her own underdeveloped isolated bubble-wrapped precious New York City emotions, her weirdly neurotic interpretations so remote from actual events. No, Dowd, it is you who are obsessing over Trump's crowd size and how he won Wisconsin's electoral votes because your sick ailing unsteady candidate was so certain the state was in the bag for her, the state so loaded with like-minded crackpots, the system so thoroughly corrupted, that she didn't even bother to campaign there. Does Dowd penetrate anything beyond liberal and surface Democrat perceptions?
"So rather than accept the reality, laid out in detail by his own Justice Department, that we are in a dangerous cyberwar with Russia, the president did what he does best ..."
For Christ's sake, woman, we're always in dangerous cyberwar with Russia! Everybody knows that. And the detail laid out by Justice is extremely damaging to DNC who refused to turn over their servers. It lays bare the activities of outside contractors given access because it would have been impossible for F.B.I. to reach the conclusions it did since DNC refused to give them their servers. Is that too deep for your comprehension, little sister? Your DNC is corrupted and so is your FBI. All this is amazingly clear to everyone who doesn't live in NYC-Washington or Los Angeles-San Francisco. But not to Dowd.
From here Dowd sinks even lower relying on the ad homonyms of other like-mided rattled dopes incapable of political comprehension "Apricot Toddler" as dubbed in Britain. He was not dubbed in Britain, a few childish liberals much like Dowd except more imaginative who also have no comprehension of what's happening to them, their supercilious ideologies rejected, called him names and those are things that resonate in little girl's minds.
"Pounds the high chair, makes messes, pushes buttons, stage-manages cliffhangers and filigrees his 'labyrinth of lies,' as Jaron Lanier call it.
This is Dowd pounding her highchair, making a mess, pushing her NYT reader's buttons. And who the hell is Jaron Lanier? Are we supposed to know him? Just another person who calls Trump a liar and that resonates with little girl Dowd. She's using somebody else's words again. She likes the sound of her echoes.
"Rod Rosenstein ..." Full stop. Whatever Dowd says is too stupid to read. Congress is taking steps to impeach Rod Rosenstein for being unreliable, unfaithful, as Dowd writes this nonsense. But Dowd needs Rosenstein's unreliability to make whatever idiotic point that she has about guessing about Trump being mad about being upstaged by Rosenstein press conference.
"It was as though they were sending a message to Trump before his Putin meeting Monday that 'We've got our eye on you.' " Precisely reversed. We've all got our eye on Rosenstein, with a mind toward complete restructuring of FBI over the abuses of offices and direct interference in American elections, the exact thing Dowd and her tribe keep attributing to Russia without confronting their own corruption.
Now Dowd writes about Rosenstein indictment of 12 Russian agents and connects them to Putin, the indictment safely tucked away in a safe unavailable for pubic examination on people who will never see court and details that will never be known to judges or jury, all to keep this bogus Russian nonsense alive through midterms to satisfy the likes of low-information voters like Dowd and give her stinking failing party a chance.
Dowd sees only the GIGANTIC balloon that SOARED over London and dominated the city and the puny political minds such as Dowd's. A balloon for a girl. Yes, British satirists know exactly what works on dopes like Dowd. All it takes is a few thousand pounds and a little balloon smaller than Macy Thanksgiving Day toys. All it takes is an undersized floating bouncy castle.
Dowd wraps it up by calling Trump a baby. Criticizing him for not being nice. For speaking his mind about trade and about Brexit. She calls him an ugly American. She says that it's up for debate whether Trump is a sad aberration in American history, a mere blip.
Ha ha ha haha. What a f'k'n dope. OMG. She has it exactly reversed. Trump's presidency is already far more consequential than Obama presidency, the guy Dowd was blowing for eight years.
There you have it. Our little trip to the drainage ground has ended. We pulled out sticks, and overturned rocks, we found bicycle parts, license plates, unique filthy bottles, discarded toys, worn out tires, old books, tattered memes, shredded ideologies. We grabbed snakes and lizards and salamanders. We saw rats and a badger and carrion birds We return sweaty and soaked, smelling of fermented bacteria and in need of a bath. We must hose down our clothing and our shoes before taking them off to launder, and then head straight for the shower.
Dowd, you disdainful sanctimonious foppish dopy little girl, we so look forward to crushing your battered rattled head again.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Whose bwoad stwipes and bwite stars through the pewawus fight
O'er the wampawts we watched were so gawentwee stweaming.
Fox, three-year-old boy sings national anthem at baseball game.
Drake Grillo.
Auburn, minor league game. Auburn Doubledays and Lowell Spinners.
Fox, three-year-old boy sings national anthem at baseball game.
Drake Grillo.
Auburn, minor league game. Auburn Doubledays and Lowell Spinners.
Making lager great again
A small Helsinki brewery is paying an amusing tribute to the upcoming Helsinki summit by issuing a limited edition lager showing President Trump and President Putin on its label with text, "Let's Settle This Like Adults."
Oh? It's not a tribute. It's advertising. Don't you know anything about business?
The beer is in high demand and they've sold out the full 10,000 bottle run ahead of Monday's summit. Samples have been delivered to U.S. and Russian embassies in Helsinki.
Cute. Well done. Should have made more. Underestimated demand.
That takes a bit of planning. Beer ferments for two weeks. George's and Paul's beer was insufficiently carbonated after two weeks so the place added sugar before bottling for the yeast to consume, just as it's done with Champaign. That added another week. And they do things very scientifically downstairs so that shows us there are variables difficult to account for. Paul reports he thinks the alcohol content is higher due to that because he drank one beer and it made him feel loopy.
He always feels loopy, so a bit more loopy than normal.
Washington Examiner. Who failed to show a photo of the label.
What's wrong with them? Don't you think that's essential?
I went to a BBQ at Paul's house and my beer label making rep preceded me. Everyone there had already seen the trial labels that I showed you here. They were more impressed than you were. They were tickled someone would just zip out over a dozen little pictures. They talked about and voted for the ones they liked best. The little sketches were just toss-off ideas, all rough drafts to get a sense of what Paul might go for, but his guests got a real kick out of them. So now I'm focused on beer labels and Washington Examiner doesn't even think that it's relevant enough to show it.
GAWL!
I'm amazed at what people do with these things. There are so many very fine talented artists out there. You have one chance to create an image for your beer that will be attractive to consumers. It's advertising in a small square. It's such a strange packaging thing, so incidental to the product, yet so important to sales. Beer bottle labels are crucial. They become iconic, as this one will. Something that people save as memento for the event. Something that goes into scrapbooks, or even possibly framed and displayed, if this event was important in their life. And 10,000 is not such a terribly small run. Ten gallons made four cases. That's only 96 bottles. Let's say 100. That makes the run, 1,000 gallons of beer. 960 bottles of beer. Yeah, I guess that is kind of small.
I like their label a lot. This is fantastic.
Oh? It's not a tribute. It's advertising. Don't you know anything about business?
The beer is in high demand and they've sold out the full 10,000 bottle run ahead of Monday's summit. Samples have been delivered to U.S. and Russian embassies in Helsinki.
Cute. Well done. Should have made more. Underestimated demand.
That takes a bit of planning. Beer ferments for two weeks. George's and Paul's beer was insufficiently carbonated after two weeks so the place added sugar before bottling for the yeast to consume, just as it's done with Champaign. That added another week. And they do things very scientifically downstairs so that shows us there are variables difficult to account for. Paul reports he thinks the alcohol content is higher due to that because he drank one beer and it made him feel loopy.
He always feels loopy, so a bit more loopy than normal.
Washington Examiner. Who failed to show a photo of the label.
What's wrong with them? Don't you think that's essential?
I went to a BBQ at Paul's house and my beer label making rep preceded me. Everyone there had already seen the trial labels that I showed you here. They were more impressed than you were. They were tickled someone would just zip out over a dozen little pictures. They talked about and voted for the ones they liked best. The little sketches were just toss-off ideas, all rough drafts to get a sense of what Paul might go for, but his guests got a real kick out of them. So now I'm focused on beer labels and Washington Examiner doesn't even think that it's relevant enough to show it.
GAWL!
I'm amazed at what people do with these things. There are so many very fine talented artists out there. You have one chance to create an image for your beer that will be attractive to consumers. It's advertising in a small square. It's such a strange packaging thing, so incidental to the product, yet so important to sales. Beer bottle labels are crucial. They become iconic, as this one will. Something that people save as memento for the event. Something that goes into scrapbooks, or even possibly framed and displayed, if this event was important in their life. And 10,000 is not such a terribly small run. Ten gallons made four cases. That's only 96 bottles. Let's say 100. That makes the run, 1,000 gallons of beer. 960 bottles of beer. Yeah, I guess that is kind of small.
I like their label a lot. This is fantastic.
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Buried lead: Women spend billions in makeup?
"Fans are donating their own money to Kylie Jenner so she can become a billionaire"
Kylie Jenner graces the cover of Forbes Magazine's August issue, which highlights America's female billionaires.Via my tweeter feed...
The financial magazine says Jenner is "conservatively worth" $900 million.
Jenner began selling her makeup line, Kylie Cosmetics in 2016. Since the company's launch, she has sold more than $630 million worth of makeup. In 2017 alone, the company made $330 million.
But that's not enough for some of Jenner's fans. A GoFundMe page has been created by Josh Ostrovsky, known as the "FatJew" on Instagram to help Jenner reach billionaire status.
The GoFundMe page reads this is "EXTREMELY IMPORTANT," and that it's "heartbreaking" Jenner only has a net worth of $900 million.
Didn’t she do a magazine layout where she exposed her coffers?— Richard Vincent (@BigRMV) July 14, 2018
Judicial Watch obtains IRS documents revealing Joh McCain's subcommittee staff director urged IRS to engage in "financially ruinous targeting.
The guy's name is Henry Kerner and he was appointed by President Trump as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.
What? Is that like Special Janitor for the United States Office of Special Janitor?
Creepy, isn't it? It's like slime paths all over the place. The guy wrecks havoc and mayhem in one place then slimes over to the new place.
Citizens United again. The gift that keeps giving. Lerner and other IRS officials met with a select group of of top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a maration meeting to discuss concerns raised by Carl Levin and John McCain that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. McCain had a bug up his butt about Citizens United overturning portions of his McCain-Feingold Act, characterizing it as one fo the worst decisions he had ever seen.
Henry Kerner urged IRS top officials, including Lerner, to audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.
And it worked!
And that created a discrepancy, an imbalance, that could not go unnoticed. The actions were taken against groups with the word "freedom" and "patriot" and the like in them, so that the incipient Tea Part was effectively squashed, leaving those isolated but activated voters nowhere to coalesce, nowhere to go, so guess what, they didn't go anywhere. They delivered a profound civics lesson on representation that is still being digested and with a very long way to go, but this is exactly how IRS, McCain and Kerner and the rest of the country, the world in fact, were all given Trump. Take a bow, you arrogant asshole. For your trouble you are delivered our glorious bastard.
Curious to see what what the man famous for saying "You're fired" does about this now that Judicial Watch uncovered Kerner's actions that had so much to do with him becoming president in reaction to just such malevolent deep state maneuvering.
More details at Judicial Watch.
Via Small Dead Animals. where commenters are reliably amusing.
What? Is that like Special Janitor for the United States Office of Special Janitor?
Creepy, isn't it? It's like slime paths all over the place. The guy wrecks havoc and mayhem in one place then slimes over to the new place.
Citizens United again. The gift that keeps giving. Lerner and other IRS officials met with a select group of of top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a maration meeting to discuss concerns raised by Carl Levin and John McCain that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. McCain had a bug up his butt about Citizens United overturning portions of his McCain-Feingold Act, characterizing it as one fo the worst decisions he had ever seen.
Henry Kerner urged IRS top officials, including Lerner, to audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.
And it worked!
And that created a discrepancy, an imbalance, that could not go unnoticed. The actions were taken against groups with the word "freedom" and "patriot" and the like in them, so that the incipient Tea Part was effectively squashed, leaving those isolated but activated voters nowhere to coalesce, nowhere to go, so guess what, they didn't go anywhere. They delivered a profound civics lesson on representation that is still being digested and with a very long way to go, but this is exactly how IRS, McCain and Kerner and the rest of the country, the world in fact, were all given Trump. Take a bow, you arrogant asshole. For your trouble you are delivered our glorious bastard.
Curious to see what what the man famous for saying "You're fired" does about this now that Judicial Watch uncovered Kerner's actions that had so much to do with him becoming president in reaction to just such malevolent deep state maneuvering.
More details at Judicial Watch.
Via Small Dead Animals. where commenters are reliably amusing.
Trump reveals giant baby blimp makes him feel unwelcome
Reporting by Goofballs.
I meant to say, Daily Mail.
There are a few points the Daily Mail would like for us to know.
* Sadiq Khan permitted the balloon to be dragged around.
* Donald Trump remarked it made him feel unwelcome hours after he landed for a four-day tour of U.K.
[Success! Immediate success. That is the whole point, to make Trump feel unwelcome. And that can only work in U.K.'s best interest. Don't you think? It gives the appearance of a few people speaking for the majority, while it's actually a few people speaking for themselves. It gives the appearance of yelling while it's actually peep-squeak. And Trump is known to hold grudges.]
* The "giant inflated blimp" made headlines.
* Trump said he has no reason to return to London because of the blimp.
* The blimp will follow Trump around on his tour.
[The blimp has agency]
Lots of photos and videos of the protestors handling the balloon.
Another view. By someone who isn't absurd. Power Line.
Here it is "towering" over the London skyline. The yellow dot, bottom right corner.
I meant to say, Daily Mail.
There are a few points the Daily Mail would like for us to know.
* Sadiq Khan permitted the balloon to be dragged around.
* Donald Trump remarked it made him feel unwelcome hours after he landed for a four-day tour of U.K.
[Success! Immediate success. That is the whole point, to make Trump feel unwelcome. And that can only work in U.K.'s best interest. Don't you think? It gives the appearance of a few people speaking for the majority, while it's actually a few people speaking for themselves. It gives the appearance of yelling while it's actually peep-squeak. And Trump is known to hold grudges.]
* The "giant inflated blimp" made headlines.
* Trump said he has no reason to return to London because of the blimp.
* The blimp will follow Trump around on his tour.
[The blimp has agency]
Lots of photos and videos of the protestors handling the balloon.
Another view. By someone who isn't absurd. Power Line.
Pretty much every American news outlet is gleeful about the “giant Trump baby balloon,” as it is conventionally described, that supposedly is dominating the London landscape while Trump is in England. London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, gave activists permission to fly the blimp (as it is also referred to), which apparently was needed because it is so “giant.”The balloon is actually rather small. The sort of thing you buy your nephews for fun. Smaller than a bouncy castle. Smaller than a Macey's Thanksgiving Day parade blimp. It's cute.
Here it is "towering" over the London skyline. The yellow dot, bottom right corner.
I wouldn't know what every American news outlet is gleeful about without Hinderaker saying. I'll have to believe him.
I was interested in this ballon because its conceptual artist popped up in b3ta links page breathlessly describing his activism, his brilliance, and begging donations for the project no more than three weeks ago. So this was brought off fairly fast. Credit for alacrity. They're all perfect idiots at b3ta so his post was received enthusiastically and contributions to his project flowed immediately. They're all remainers, and they never give up. They like the idea of government bossing them around. For them it's like electing the most perfect mommy and daddy possible, even when government is foreign and even when it's not elected and even as it alters their national identity -- to something better. Something bigger. You can see by the photos in both places they're all young, fiercely political, and solidly thick-headed.
Then the balloon. Artistically, it's very good. Click over to enjoy it as art. The balloon says desperately, "Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me." As topics with immediate consequence to their lives are discussed and there is nothing they can do about it except barely lift up a cute little balloon.
Man pulled over, driving a car sitting on a bucket and steering with pliers
Don't worry, this is in England.
See the blue pliers?
The rest of the article is mostly jokes and quips and more photos of the car.
Trump's Brexit Blast
Reporting at New York Sun. They say, in French and British vocabulary, that it's hard to think of a diplomatic maneuver like the blast President Trump delivered about Brexit. In an interview with the London Daily Sun, Trump criticized Theresa May for inflicting a soft-exit plan saying that's not what the voters wanted.
News of Trump's statement was broadcast the moment he was having dinner with May at Blenheim Palace.
Then the Sun gets into a lot of distracting unrelated things.
Here's Nigel Farage, the man of many amusing faces, drawing a clearer picture.
News of Trump's statement was broadcast the moment he was having dinner with May at Blenheim Palace.
Then the Sun gets into a lot of distracting unrelated things.
Here's Nigel Farage, the man of many amusing faces, drawing a clearer picture.
Melania impresses at Blemheim.
Melania! What did you do with that fabulously elaborately ornate acanthus ornamentation?
"I baroque it."
Can you imaging growing up at Blenheim?
"Don't touch the lamp, don't touch the clock, don't touch the candelabra, don't touch any statues, don't touch the photograph of the Duke, don't touch the ancient Roman sarcophagus, don't touch the Louis Laguerre paintings, don’t touch the Belgian tapestries, don't touch the books, don't touch the gold tea set, don't touch the silver tea set either, don't touch the silver fruit bowl, don't touch the silver spittoons, don't touch the knight's armor. don't touch the stained glass, don't touch the mirrors, don't touch things on the mantle, don't touch anything on or in the desks, don't touch the rugs, don't touch the portraits, don't touch the vases, don't touch the historic wardrobe items, don't touch any fabrics, don't touch anything on any side table, don't touch the furniture. Just go outside and play with your little lamb on the Capability Brown lawn.
Friday, July 13, 2018
Speaking of executing ideas...
Deborah mentioned that she has ideas but doesn't execute them. I had an idea this week and executed it - is that a good thing or a bad thing? If I sell it and get money then it is a good thing. To wit, the Robox:
White oak, ash, ambrosia maple and metal hardware.
"You're a good liar, Mr. Strzok."
"How many times did you look into your wife's eyes and lie to her about Lisa Page?"
That's what Louie Gohmert asked.
Story at Daily Mail.
Also at Don Surber but interestingly, Surber notes how liberal press headlines the Strzok hearings.
NYT: "FBI agent at center of Russia probe turns tables on G.O.P."
Politico "FBI agent Strzok defiant in face of Republican interrogation."
AP: "FBI agent: My work has never been tainted by political bias."
Surber says the headlines are all that matters. The Washington media exists only to keep the socialist base of the Democratic Party engaged.
But Melissa Quinn of the Washington Examiner tweeted the highlight of the day. The Gohmert question that brings the whole thing down to one's sex life and relationships with women, girlfriends and wives.
Like headlines that's deep as people go. Surber says, "And that, dear reader, is how you do it. The Republican congressman from Texas just impeached Strzok. In the court of public opinion, the jury no loner has to believe a word that the witness said."
I'm going to be ill.
I must allow these people to live in their own hell. I must control my own thoughts. Direct my emotions productively.
Allow me to talk about something else entirely.
Change of subject.
My world has shrunken considerably. But that doesn't mean it's not interesting. Just putzing around today I got a quite a few projects advanced. I just now realized that.
I had plants still in their nursery containers. I didn't know where to put them. I've been watering them separately. Today I got all thirteen of them planted. And now, officially, there is not 1 sq. in. of visible dirt in any of he pots. They're all completely crammed.
And I mean crammed.
And seeing results of my cramming I get ideas for next year. I visualize this as a flower arranger does.
One time I dropped into a local bar for happy hour.
They were celebrating an anniversary of being open for business.
There were small flower arrangements on each table, the tall tables without chairs.
I struck it up with a fellow standing there at a table.
"This is a rather impressive little bit of design here. A good deal of thought went into this miniature arrangement. See, something tall and spiky next to something short and fuzzy, something dark next to something light, Something solid color next to something variegated, lanceolate leaf shape next to obovate leaf shape, something thick next to something light, and all this contained inside a classical triangular shape."
The guy just looked at me.
"What?"
"I didn't know plants could be talked about like that."
So that's happening now. As the plants are growing in their individual pots, I assess where I went wrong, how can their designs be improved. Ideally, they'll have something or things tall, things that shoot upward, possibly outward, and things that bush out around them and things that spill over and pour out. But each container cannot have that same design idea. There have to be breaks. A few monocultures, here and there providing relief.
Same thing with the aquarium. A black moss that I've not seen before covered the new plants grown from plant-tissue. They grew very well, then boom, covered in moss nearly overnight. Too much light, I suppose. This was an experiment for snail-free heavily planted aquarium. Now all the leaves are black. So I bought more clones to replace them, and today I planted those. But I also learned I can uproot the clones that grew very nicely and clean off the moss by hand with a scritchy-scratchy scrub sponge.
One leaf at a time.
I can also take the plants loaded with small leaves but coated with black moss, just pull them out, and bring some soft-gravel with them, and using both hands, rub the leaves with the gravel so it acts as abrasive. It's a very effective method. I'm halfway done, and the buffed up plants look brilliant. Plus I have the new replacements. The tank is looking great.
I baked hamburger buns using wheat grain purchased downstairs at the brewing company. I milled the grain to flour. Whole wheat buns. The wheat grain had been toasted for malting. If you've toured a brewery then you'll know about that. Extract from that process is the stuff that makes chocolate malts taste great. It does the same thing with bread. Toasted wheat works for bread.
I made the most fantastic whole wheat sourdough pullman loaf in the whole world. I just now ate a piece with butter and I feel a bit guilty hogging this amazing bread to myself. I have to spread this bread around there is too much for me to eat. I have to spread the joy and amazement. I'll do that today. I'll take a few slices in a sandwich bag down to the brewery and say, "Hey! Here's some bread made from your beer wheat." And other ladies around here always like food. This is going to blow their minds.
I'm well into the second story in the 8-story book on Egyptian literature. My way of learning involves Jsesh hieroglyphic program and photoshop. I learned that Photoshop can produce an mp4 video more easily than iMovie, for this purpose. The video today was episode 9 but it was really three separate lessons. A long video. So far, I've uploaded about 20 videos to YouTube.
So far I've looked up thousand and thousands of hieroglyphs just to transcribe them. I'm getting really good at entering the code. The code can be either the official international code for each specific hieroglyph, or it can be the phonetic transliteration, but that doesn't always work, it's a code of a code of code so a lot is left out and there are hundreds of doubles, sounds that mean multiple things, so the wrong glyph appears when its code for its sound is entered. So those cannot be used. That means you have to know how to pronounce the word. So for every single glyph I don't recognize, then I look in another text for answers to what the sign means, what it's trying to show, and how to pronounce it, and by doing that I've learned tons of new words in ancient Egyptian and it's helped immeasurably entering the code and speeding the transcriptions.
I'm getting really good at this. I can often enter entire lines without looking up anything, then hit enter, boink, a whole line of hieroglyphics appears in an instant like magic, and it's all perfect, and I keep thinking, man, if I had to draw that guy kneeling 200 times I'd go out of my mind.
That's what Louie Gohmert asked.
Story at Daily Mail.
Also at Don Surber but interestingly, Surber notes how liberal press headlines the Strzok hearings.
NYT: "FBI agent at center of Russia probe turns tables on G.O.P."
Politico "FBI agent Strzok defiant in face of Republican interrogation."
AP: "FBI agent: My work has never been tainted by political bias."
Surber says the headlines are all that matters. The Washington media exists only to keep the socialist base of the Democratic Party engaged.
But Melissa Quinn of the Washington Examiner tweeted the highlight of the day. The Gohmert question that brings the whole thing down to one's sex life and relationships with women, girlfriends and wives.
Like headlines that's deep as people go. Surber says, "And that, dear reader, is how you do it. The Republican congressman from Texas just impeached Strzok. In the court of public opinion, the jury no loner has to believe a word that the witness said."
I'm going to be ill.
I must allow these people to live in their own hell. I must control my own thoughts. Direct my emotions productively.
Allow me to talk about something else entirely.
Change of subject.
My world has shrunken considerably. But that doesn't mean it's not interesting. Just putzing around today I got a quite a few projects advanced. I just now realized that.
I had plants still in their nursery containers. I didn't know where to put them. I've been watering them separately. Today I got all thirteen of them planted. And now, officially, there is not 1 sq. in. of visible dirt in any of he pots. They're all completely crammed.
And I mean crammed.
And seeing results of my cramming I get ideas for next year. I visualize this as a flower arranger does.
One time I dropped into a local bar for happy hour.
They were celebrating an anniversary of being open for business.
There were small flower arrangements on each table, the tall tables without chairs.
I struck it up with a fellow standing there at a table.
"This is a rather impressive little bit of design here. A good deal of thought went into this miniature arrangement. See, something tall and spiky next to something short and fuzzy, something dark next to something light, Something solid color next to something variegated, lanceolate leaf shape next to obovate leaf shape, something thick next to something light, and all this contained inside a classical triangular shape."
The guy just looked at me.
"What?"
"I didn't know plants could be talked about like that."
So that's happening now. As the plants are growing in their individual pots, I assess where I went wrong, how can their designs be improved. Ideally, they'll have something or things tall, things that shoot upward, possibly outward, and things that bush out around them and things that spill over and pour out. But each container cannot have that same design idea. There have to be breaks. A few monocultures, here and there providing relief.
Same thing with the aquarium. A black moss that I've not seen before covered the new plants grown from plant-tissue. They grew very well, then boom, covered in moss nearly overnight. Too much light, I suppose. This was an experiment for snail-free heavily planted aquarium. Now all the leaves are black. So I bought more clones to replace them, and today I planted those. But I also learned I can uproot the clones that grew very nicely and clean off the moss by hand with a scritchy-scratchy scrub sponge.
One leaf at a time.
I can also take the plants loaded with small leaves but coated with black moss, just pull them out, and bring some soft-gravel with them, and using both hands, rub the leaves with the gravel so it acts as abrasive. It's a very effective method. I'm halfway done, and the buffed up plants look brilliant. Plus I have the new replacements. The tank is looking great.
I baked hamburger buns using wheat grain purchased downstairs at the brewing company. I milled the grain to flour. Whole wheat buns. The wheat grain had been toasted for malting. If you've toured a brewery then you'll know about that. Extract from that process is the stuff that makes chocolate malts taste great. It does the same thing with bread. Toasted wheat works for bread.
I made the most fantastic whole wheat sourdough pullman loaf in the whole world. I just now ate a piece with butter and I feel a bit guilty hogging this amazing bread to myself. I have to spread this bread around there is too much for me to eat. I have to spread the joy and amazement. I'll do that today. I'll take a few slices in a sandwich bag down to the brewery and say, "Hey! Here's some bread made from your beer wheat." And other ladies around here always like food. This is going to blow their minds.
I'm well into the second story in the 8-story book on Egyptian literature. My way of learning involves Jsesh hieroglyphic program and photoshop. I learned that Photoshop can produce an mp4 video more easily than iMovie, for this purpose. The video today was episode 9 but it was really three separate lessons. A long video. So far, I've uploaded about 20 videos to YouTube.
So far I've looked up thousand and thousands of hieroglyphs just to transcribe them. I'm getting really good at entering the code. The code can be either the official international code for each specific hieroglyph, or it can be the phonetic transliteration, but that doesn't always work, it's a code of a code of code so a lot is left out and there are hundreds of doubles, sounds that mean multiple things, so the wrong glyph appears when its code for its sound is entered. So those cannot be used. That means you have to know how to pronounce the word. So for every single glyph I don't recognize, then I look in another text for answers to what the sign means, what it's trying to show, and how to pronounce it, and by doing that I've learned tons of new words in ancient Egyptian and it's helped immeasurably entering the code and speeding the transcriptions.
I'm getting really good at this. I can often enter entire lines without looking up anything, then hit enter, boink, a whole line of hieroglyphics appears in an instant like magic, and it's all perfect, and I keep thinking, man, if I had to draw that guy kneeling 200 times I'd go out of my mind.
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Peter Strzok testifies before Congress
Pulled in like a dog on a chain. Or perhaps more like a serpent in a box. Unrepentant. After all that he's caused he hasn't learned a g.d. thing. After his emails are released for the whole world to see, and yes, to judge, he says this in his opening statement before his testimony before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.
And his pals are still doing it.
This reporting is by the Washington Examiner.
At Hot Air there is more about Gowdy asking Strzok why he would text "F Trump" before interviewing a single witness.
Fox News GOP representatives fume at Strzok and threaten contempt.
Townhall, Goodlatte says that Strzok will be be recalled later today and voted in contempt for refusing to answer Gowdy's question.
New York Post, Strzok said the committee in which he is testifying is another notch in Putin's belt.
Gateway Pundit, Strzok rolls his eyes and smirks as Trey Gowdy tears apart his opening statement.
This is another show. It's not a real thing, it does not affect the real world, and nothing can come of it. It gives Republicans a chance to say how angry this perversion makes them and it gives Democrats a chance to spit and fume and flounce and splash and interrupt and disrupt, and it gives Strzok a chance to convey his hatred for Trump is actually, honestly, truthfully, concern about Russian interference that only he at the top knows the full extent of, so at least half of the audience watching this shit-show are satisfied their deeply held biases are confirmed while real justice, that would have this man and the woman he was protecting both sitting in federal prison at this very moment, is hung a coat hook.
Let me be clear, unequivocally and under oath: not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took.
In the summer of 2016, I was one of a handful of people who knew the details of Russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the Trump campaign. This information had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.
But the honest truth is that Russian interference in our elections constitutes a grave attack on our democracy. Most disturbingly, it has been wildly successful — sowing discord in our nation and shaking faith in our institutions.No, Asshole. In the last few of his 26 years in service his personal opinion did in fact deeply affect all of his official actions he took all of his activities, including protecting Hillary Clinton through distortion of justice and by attacking candidate Trump through distortion of FBI activity. All of us are aware of Russian interference in U.S. elections, they do it all year long, we read them everyday. Their trolling is obvious and so are their activities through the Clinton Foundation. And the honest truth is Russian interference doesn't harm our democracy so much as Strzok has himself, nothing comes close to sowing discord and shaking faith in our institutions as Strzok has himself. One man, Strzok, has done more damage than all Russian interference put together. There he is testifying. Like a snake.
And his pals are still doing it.
This reporting is by the Washington Examiner.
At Hot Air there is more about Gowdy asking Strzok why he would text "F Trump" before interviewing a single witness.
Fox News GOP representatives fume at Strzok and threaten contempt.
Townhall, Goodlatte says that Strzok will be be recalled later today and voted in contempt for refusing to answer Gowdy's question.
New York Post, Strzok said the committee in which he is testifying is another notch in Putin's belt.
Gateway Pundit, Strzok rolls his eyes and smirks as Trey Gowdy tears apart his opening statement.
This is another show. It's not a real thing, it does not affect the real world, and nothing can come of it. It gives Republicans a chance to say how angry this perversion makes them and it gives Democrats a chance to spit and fume and flounce and splash and interrupt and disrupt, and it gives Strzok a chance to convey his hatred for Trump is actually, honestly, truthfully, concern about Russian interference that only he at the top knows the full extent of, so at least half of the audience watching this shit-show are satisfied their deeply held biases are confirmed while real justice, that would have this man and the woman he was protecting both sitting in federal prison at this very moment, is hung a coat hook.
Sourdough starter
It's 3:25 a.m. and I just had the most delightful surprise.
I had sourdough starter in my refrigerator languishing for months on end. I am not a very good sourdough keeper. It takes too much time, too much flour, and you have to keep making too much bread to keep it going properly at full blast. People keep it in a small container and feed it a few tablespoons of flour a few times each week when they're not actively baking, but I cannot even do that.
This culture is the awesome Denver culture collected a few years ago over a period of two weeks. That wasn't necessary. You can have a fine culture and ready to go in just a few days with nothing more than the flour from the store. Organisms, yeast and bacteria, adhere to the grain as it grows in the field. The grain does the collecting out there in the wind and the rain and the tornados. That is not cleaned up in processing. It's all still on the grain, still in the milled flour. You can bring that to life and to full cultivation in three days.
But I collected this culture over weeks because I wanted it to rain in it, and that's how long it took for a good rain. During that time the wind blew organisms directly into the small bowl of slurry, over and over, I kept having to add water everyday to keep it wet. It dried out a couple of times. I simply chipped the flakes into the fresh water.
But when it was cultivated, KABLAM-O it took off like wildfire.
The fastest, strongest, most potent sourdough culture I've ever worked with. It's fast. Twice faster than San Francisco sourdough. And it's strong.
And it smells very nice.
I had it in a bowl covered by a plate with Napa cabbage on top. Like five different Napa cabbages over time. And it's taking up too much valuable refrigerator real estate. It could be dead. It looked bad. Real bad. Real real bad. The sort of thing you throw out.
I scrapped off the top and threw it away. That left less than one half. I doubled the amount of liquid and mixed it in for a thin slurry and that was about double the amount I wanted to start rejuvenating so I dumped out half of that. Now there is about 1 cup, from one quart.
I added whole wheat flour that I milled myself, the stuff the starter is trained on.
After eight hours it didn't do anything. Just a couple of bubbles appeared on the top.
The next day, today, I dumped out half of that and approximated double the amount of water directly from the tap and added a few tablespoons more fresh flour. It's about 1 cup thick slurry. It bubbled more but only barely about 4x as many tiny bubbles on top. Promising. Because it's not dead. At early evening today I dumped out half of that and replaced with fresh water and more fresh flour doubling it again to one cup. I'm keeping it at one cup because I don't want to feed it too much of my precious whole wheat flour. It's like I have an attachment, a responsibility owed to every single kernel.
We baker types are weird sometimes.
In two days I have one cup of promising starter but I'm not expecting that much activity overnight. Once it foams up like regular yeast then I can use it to make bread. And boy, will this bread be good. OMG, there is nothing like it out there. This is unique.
And I mean it.
The thing is, bread made from only whole wheat lacks the gluten development. Microscopically, the husk particles slice the gluten strands as they form. So the dough feels like Play Doh, a bit like wet sand. It cannot form a skin. The loaf cannot be like a balloon. The dough cannot stretch. Bakers use 25% whole wheat. But with bread flour I can get that to 80% whole wheat, and the baked wheat itself has tremendous attractive flavor apart from sourdough culture. Whole wheat bread is ace, you should try it, but helped chemically as you do with banana nut bread, and it will have a similar crumb.
But with a little bit of bread flour (4% protein vs 3% protein of all purpose flour) then you can get the whole wheat to behave more like regular bread.
Then combine that with sourdough a-a-a-n-n-n-d-d-d additional 3-day fermentation, and you've got a kick ass award-winning caliber bread that simply cannot be topped. Full stop. Boom. I win.
You probably won't like it. There's always a fuss bucket. *little girl whiney voice* "It's too strong, It's too acidic. It's all I can taste. The taste stays in my mouth. It covers my gums. I can't even taste the bologna. I have to brush my teeth now. I don't l-i-i-i-k-e it."
Oh man, I just now heard my old girlfriend. *shivers*
I put the one cup rejuvenating levain into plastic jar with its rubber top that comes with the emersion blender so that I can measure its activity. I'm expecting improvement but not much. The starter is coming back to life from near death. It has received no help, no heat lamp, no proofing box. Just room temperature. And BAM! It doubled in size within four hours. I put a rubber band around the jar to show the level it started so I could check in the morning. I checked four hours early.
I had sourdough starter in my refrigerator languishing for months on end. I am not a very good sourdough keeper. It takes too much time, too much flour, and you have to keep making too much bread to keep it going properly at full blast. People keep it in a small container and feed it a few tablespoons of flour a few times each week when they're not actively baking, but I cannot even do that.
This culture is the awesome Denver culture collected a few years ago over a period of two weeks. That wasn't necessary. You can have a fine culture and ready to go in just a few days with nothing more than the flour from the store. Organisms, yeast and bacteria, adhere to the grain as it grows in the field. The grain does the collecting out there in the wind and the rain and the tornados. That is not cleaned up in processing. It's all still on the grain, still in the milled flour. You can bring that to life and to full cultivation in three days.
But I collected this culture over weeks because I wanted it to rain in it, and that's how long it took for a good rain. During that time the wind blew organisms directly into the small bowl of slurry, over and over, I kept having to add water everyday to keep it wet. It dried out a couple of times. I simply chipped the flakes into the fresh water.
But when it was cultivated, KABLAM-O it took off like wildfire.
The fastest, strongest, most potent sourdough culture I've ever worked with. It's fast. Twice faster than San Francisco sourdough. And it's strong.
And it smells very nice.
I had it in a bowl covered by a plate with Napa cabbage on top. Like five different Napa cabbages over time. And it's taking up too much valuable refrigerator real estate. It could be dead. It looked bad. Real bad. Real real bad. The sort of thing you throw out.
I scrapped off the top and threw it away. That left less than one half. I doubled the amount of liquid and mixed it in for a thin slurry and that was about double the amount I wanted to start rejuvenating so I dumped out half of that. Now there is about 1 cup, from one quart.
I added whole wheat flour that I milled myself, the stuff the starter is trained on.
After eight hours it didn't do anything. Just a couple of bubbles appeared on the top.
The next day, today, I dumped out half of that and approximated double the amount of water directly from the tap and added a few tablespoons more fresh flour. It's about 1 cup thick slurry. It bubbled more but only barely about 4x as many tiny bubbles on top. Promising. Because it's not dead. At early evening today I dumped out half of that and replaced with fresh water and more fresh flour doubling it again to one cup. I'm keeping it at one cup because I don't want to feed it too much of my precious whole wheat flour. It's like I have an attachment, a responsibility owed to every single kernel.
We baker types are weird sometimes.
In two days I have one cup of promising starter but I'm not expecting that much activity overnight. Once it foams up like regular yeast then I can use it to make bread. And boy, will this bread be good. OMG, there is nothing like it out there. This is unique.
And I mean it.
The thing is, bread made from only whole wheat lacks the gluten development. Microscopically, the husk particles slice the gluten strands as they form. So the dough feels like Play Doh, a bit like wet sand. It cannot form a skin. The loaf cannot be like a balloon. The dough cannot stretch. Bakers use 25% whole wheat. But with bread flour I can get that to 80% whole wheat, and the baked wheat itself has tremendous attractive flavor apart from sourdough culture. Whole wheat bread is ace, you should try it, but helped chemically as you do with banana nut bread, and it will have a similar crumb.
But with a little bit of bread flour (4% protein vs 3% protein of all purpose flour) then you can get the whole wheat to behave more like regular bread.
Then combine that with sourdough a-a-a-n-n-n-d-d-d additional 3-day fermentation, and you've got a kick ass award-winning caliber bread that simply cannot be topped. Full stop. Boom. I win.
You probably won't like it. There's always a fuss bucket. *little girl whiney voice* "It's too strong, It's too acidic. It's all I can taste. The taste stays in my mouth. It covers my gums. I can't even taste the bologna. I have to brush my teeth now. I don't l-i-i-i-k-e it."
Oh man, I just now heard my old girlfriend. *shivers*
I put the one cup rejuvenating levain into plastic jar with its rubber top that comes with the emersion blender so that I can measure its activity. I'm expecting improvement but not much. The starter is coming back to life from near death. It has received no help, no heat lamp, no proofing box. Just room temperature. And BAM! It doubled in size within four hours. I put a rubber band around the jar to show the level it started so I could check in the morning. I checked four hours early.
It rose and fell back. That means it peaked within four hours. More than double the volume. I've never had a sourdough starter work fast as commercial yeast, but this does. I can use this to inoculate a full batch of dough.
Then back to retirement. Back to neglect. Back to languishing in the refrigerator. Or dry it outright since this starts back up so quickly.
Know why commercial sourdough bread is always so disappointing? They use starter like this to flavor regular bread dough.
They treat this as flavoring. That's all. They don't use it as leaven. They don't ferment it properly. All that takes time, and time is money, and they don't have time for that. So we buy sourdough improperly done. But there are bakers who do this the right way. The old-world way. They're the ones who write books.
And blog posts.
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