KLEM FM

This song is the third most played one in my iTunes. It came out when I was in college and a couple years after I had seen them. It sort of revived my flagging interest in them.

The song deals with profound loss -- of what we don't know. Here are the usual "theories" link

I gave Fleetwood Mac another listen after seeing Dave Grohl's "Sound City"; he interviewed Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks about how that studio brought that band together then.

Shane's Hobby Lobby

Shane, of Wal-Mart fame, goes to work for Hobby Lobby, and immediately get's into trouble ;-)

.@JessicaValenti What I most enjoy about your Twitter feed is the sophistication and nuance.
— jon gabriel (@exjon) June 30, 2014

ht/ChipA

Stuart Hammeroff and quantum consciousness

I've keyed this video to begin in the middle, where Hammeroff speaks of the microtubules within neurons that are at the heart of his theory that consciousness arises at the quantum level...where the fate of Schrodinger's Cat is determined. Or not determined? 

Here is a good interview that further explores his ideas.


from The Large Idea Collider blog by Michel Trottier-McDonald:

"Another way of looking at the problem between quantum field theory and general relativity comes from basic knowledge of both theories. If you know something about general relativity, it is that matter and energy bend space-time. If you know something about quantum mechanics, it is that you can’t know velocity and position of a system as accurately as you want simultaneously. This fact about quantum mechanics implies that in quantum field theory, you will have arbitrary amounts of matter and energy fluctuating in and out of existence, and the smaller the scales you probe, the larger these fluctuations will become. I know this is far from a straightforward conclusion, but I’d rather be incomplete than inaccurate in my explanation. For now bear with me. Putting these two facts from both theories together, you get that at small enough scales, there will be enough matter-energy fluctuating to distort space-time, transforming space-time into some kind of fractal foam."

Supreme Court: Unions Can’t Charge Fees to Certain Non-Members

"In a case that threatened the future of public employee unions, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled so-called agency fees charged to certain non-union members violate those members' First Amendment rights."

The high court stopped short of barring all public employee unions from charging agency fees to non-members. The employees in the case before the court-Illinois homecare workers-were not “full-fledged” public employees, the court said. 

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented. (read more)

The Supremes also ruled in favor of Hooby Looby.

News Report: Boeing 737's emergency evacuation chute accidentally opened en route to California

"A United Airlines flight en route from Chicago to California with 101 passengers aboard made an unscheduled stop late Sunday in Wichita, Kansas, after the Boeing 737's emergency evacuation chute accidentally opened."

Public safety personnel at Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport said the slide deployed in the cabin of Flight 1463, KAKE-TV reports. The plane, which was flying from Chicago's O'Hare airport to the John Wayne Airport near Los Angeles, landed at Wichita airport around 10:30 p.m.

Evacuation slide deploys during United Airlines flight http://t.co/0vJTrn9WCs #LiveOnNews4SA pic.twitter.com/0aTLWdDT9v
— News 4 San Antonio (@News4SA) June 30, 2014

A statement from the airlines said there were no injuries and the plane flight landed safely, ABC News reports.

Daily Beast: ‘Degree Mills’ Are Exploiting Veterans and Making Millions Off the GI Bill

"The GI Bill, designed to help veterans live the American dream, is being gobbled up by for-profit colleges that spend lavishly on marketing but can leave veterans with worthless degrees."

Nowhere is this a bigger problem than in California, where nearly 2 out of every 3 GI Bill dollars go to for-profit companies—institutions created to make money.

In fact, The Center for Investigative Reporting found that since a generous new GI Bill for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans went into effect in 2009, more than $600 million has gone to California schools so substandard that they have fail to qualify for state financial aid.

There is little oversight to ensure the effectiveness of the program.

On a Friday morning in early May, a team of inspectors from the California VA pulled into the parking lot and headed to a conference room, where the college’s staff had laid out piles of student veterans’ transcripts and financial records.

The audit’s purpose is to ensure that GI Bill money is properly spent, but auditors don’t sit in on classes or review the qualifications of instructors. “That’s not a part of the visit at all,” said Latanaya Johnson, one of the agency’s senior inspectors.

Auditors look exclusively at paperwork, she said, to make sure schools aren’t billing the government for students who don’t exist. No one from the state or federal government is checking to see if the education taxpayers are paying for is helping veterans find jobs. (read more)

Back it up! Roll, Baby, roll, Baby, roll, Baby, roll.

Mesmerizin' innit. 

KLEM FM

An old gem for all The Who fans out there:

A YouTube commenter writes that this is "[w]hat happens when your bassist, drummer and guitarist all play lead at the same time."

Keith Moon's drums were miked exceptionally well for that show, which is great because it was one of his best live performances at the band's peak. Moon had a leg up on many drummers of his era in that he used all four limbs in an active way. Most right-handed drummers have a lazy left foot and use it to control the high hat cymbal (the one that opens and closes). Many drummers will keep time with it, and it's audible on many studio recordings, making a little zit-zit-zit sound. Not Moon. He played a double bass drum kit, and pedaled out bass drum rolls and triplets with both feet, actually doing some of the work of his hands. In this song, you can hear how he keeps a cymbal crashing or riding the entire time, which required frequent attention of his right hand. This left only his left hand to patter and batter around the snare and the tom-tom drums. You can really hear this beginning around 2 min, 40 sec. Amazing to this day, IMO.

"I, a feminist father of the Pill, foresee no male Pill"

That's Carl Djerassi, in a not-so-new "Wired Magazine" article which I missed last fall:

Scientifically, we know how to create a male Pill. Yet despite much clinical research, the top 20 pharmaceutical companies have shown zero interest in taking such a product to market. Aside from big pharma's focus on older people (a resounding "yes" on treatment for erectile function, an equally resounding "no" for contraception), the biggest problem is the fact that a young man's reproductive span is two to three times longer than a 20-year-old woman's. 

A young woman will not ask whether continued use of her Pill would affect her fertility at 45 or 50, whereas many 20-year-old men would require a guaranteed answer. To provide an epidemiologically valid answer to a young man would be expensive, time-consuming (thus cannibalising most of the potential patent life) and open to lawsuits, since men may blame their Pill for age-related erectile dysfunction and prostate-gland problems. Link

Djerassi is an interesting man in his own right. I wrote a bit about him back here, Djerassic Perk, in which I incorrectly predicted that he would win the Chemistry Nobel Prize. Every year, I still wonder why not. He's over 90 years old now and won't be around forever.

Djerassi has his share of detractors, but the Pill has certainly had important social consequences. Then there apparently is an Austrian newspaper interview in which he regrets some of the subsequent demographic changes his co-invention wrought. You can read about that here. I'll bet the original article is in German and I'd like to get my hands on it.

Shane, knock it off

Or you're fired!

Whiteboard notes from Walmart management to a goofing employee. A dozen messages.

twentytwowords.com
http://twentytwowords.com/whiteboard-notes-from-walmart-management-scolding-a-hilariously-dumb-employee/

Example:

Real? Eh, who knows? More pretend Shane in comments.

You mean someone, other than the Mainstream Media, manipulates news?

"Aside from being the world’s largest social network, Facebook is also a sociologist’s dream. With 1.28 billion worldwide active users, the social network has created the most formidable data set ever seen for studying human behavior."

Not one to let your data go to waste, the company employs a team of data scientists to conduct experiments with user data and behavior, as it did in a recent study, first reported by NewScientist.

According to the study, Facebook manipulated the News Feeds of 689,003 users to study whether online emotions can be contagious. For a week, some users were shown posts in News Feed containing a higher number of positive words, others were shown posts with more negative sentiments.

Whatever you think about this, as to whether or not Facebook went too far, do you believe people fully realized the implications of what they were signing up for?
I'm not so sure that if people were aware at sign up time, they would have agreed to a terms of service that includes this type of manipulation.

Videos: Potato Peeling and High Ball Stepper

As a suggestion, play both videos simultaneously and experience what you may get out of it.

Boston Globe: "Thad Cochran’s victory shows voting rights well protected"

"Tea Party insurgent Chris McDaniel came tantalizingly close to knocking off Senator Thad Cochran in Mississippi’s Republican primary runoff last week, but a surge in black voter turnout saved the six-term incumbent’s bacon. Cochran’s election to a seventh term in November now seems a foregone conclusion, and boy, are a lot of conservatives mad."

“There is something a bit unusual about a Republican primary that’s decided by liberal Democrats,” McDaniel fumed on election night, slamming Cochran and the GOP establishment for “once again reaching across the aisle [and] abandoning the conservative movement.”

But whatever else the election outcome meant, Cochran’s “reaching across the aisle” made his victory a noteworthy instance of something that supposedly doesn’t and can’t happen in Mississippi even today: A white GOP politician sought support among Democrats, and particularly black Democrats. And far from being politically powerless, they tipped the election. (read more)

Paper Art

So Chip has inspired me.   I've been collecting seeds from my garden as various flowers get done and realized that I could make paper packets pretty easy.  I scanned a sketch of the flower and made four to a page with Word.  The hard part was remembering were the "turn text sideways" button was.  And then I colored each individually with colored pencils.   I think they turned out pretty well and will make nice additions to Christmas presents this winter.  (Which is why I can't show them off to family!)

The pictures are pretty bad, but I think it shows what I did.

Braveheart -- extra final scene

If you choose to view comments you will see people of the English speaking lands simply cannot take a joke. That is, take the jokes of each other. Every single jape and jab falls flat.

One commenter says, "You got your accurate history in my shitty movie! I'm personally offended, even though I've never been to Scotchland." 

Clearly a joke. A joke! Along the lines of "Merkinland." I find it quite funny, actually. But then another commenter misses the humor, or humour, and pedantically corrects the usage. While it is common understanding Americans are stupid and they're not entirely wrong but not for the reasons they assume. This is stupidly chalked up to stupidity. Nyaaaah, what a bunch of nincompoops, what ul-ta-ruh maroons.

That would undoubtedly be chalked up to being stupid and possibly corrected, missing the connection to Bugs Bunny entirely. 

Not your cup of tea? Er, coffee? Coca cola? 

How about this instead?

What if DVD Fever were archaeologists?
http://dvd-fever.co.uk

It'd be a bit like Mystery Science Theater 3000

I like this a lot.

This is twice tonight I've seen the arrow shot from the inside of the bow (The first was Pawn Stars). That is, right handed, the arrow held on the left side of the bow. It doesn't seem right. I've always shot from the outside of the bow. Have I been doing it wrong all along? It could happen. You're (I'm) holding the bow in a fist and the arrow mounts over your (my) thumb, with the third feather away from the bow. I can triangulate with my eyeballs better that way for a more accurate shot.

Incidentally, the ASL sign for Greek refers to the nose guard that is missing on the helmet the guy in the video refers to. It is an awkward sign to make because you must twist your wrist uncomfortably to form the word properly. You see a lot of improperly formed words.

But I see other countries use our word for "salt," "flick a bug off your shirt," "can't + person," "warning," "ancient helmet nose guard (done differently two ways),"  "headband," "man + climb + marching along + person," "clean + can't +person," and "yell." While the U.S. does not contribute for the word Greek although they do contribute for "Greece."  And this is why I never do understand these people. It's like when them ferners are talking, it's all Greek to me. 

http://www.spreadthesign.com// (The word must be entered into their search. Then the flag for the country tapped.  I cannot link directly)

Elite Daily: "The Latest Trend For Bridesmaids Is To Pull Up Their Dresses And Show Off Their Butts"

"Sure, after seeing one photo, you might think it was just one wedding gone wrong. But after seeing a plethora of the same kind of photo, it’s evident this is supposed to be happening."

New wedding trend

Via Instapundit

Boy of Faiyum pop-up card

This card was prompted by the portrait I showed earlier. The portrait of the Roman boy living in Egypt at the artificial lake got me thinking, what would a Roman boy do for fun? The coffin portrait shows a gold laurel crown suggesting the boy was involved in sports. Beside that, what would a boy do who lived in a place like, say, Florida. A lot of things came to mind having to do with the delta and with water. This card is what arose from thinking about that. I have not spoken to the person since I mailed this card. I have no idea how the card was received.

A frog in the hand is worth two in the thicket.

Men who cook for their women

Isn't that grand?

I know older guys usually have the old lady cooking for them, and that is so sweet. But people like my sister have their husbands cooking dinner all the time. Like his dad did before him. What the hell? How can I get in on this sweet deal? I need nurturing, and I'm not being glib.

Rick's Bench

Rick owns forty acres of wilderness located about fifty miles north of nowhere.  Rick's wife is my wife's best friend, and we were invited to spend a few days with them in the home they rented for their summer vacation on the shore of Lake Superior.

The girls went off to art galleries and such one morning, and Rick took me to his land.  I hadn't been there before.  He bought his forty from the elderly grandson of an original settler some 25 years ago. It's hunting land.  There isn't a cabin or electricity, or even a driveway.  He just drives up a neighbor's drive, then onto his land as far as he can go until the land becomes swampy.

Then it's a long hike through thickets, poplar stands, oak and maple, and huge conifers.  If you don't know the land, you'd be lost in one turn.  Rick has been hunting and fishing here as long as he has owned the land.  He knows it very well.  I just followed him, and we both stopped every few minutes to pick the ticks off of our clothes and bodies.

Years ago Rick dragged some slab lumber, nails, a hammer and a saw to a high point on the land and built a bench.  It rests in a small clearing above the Iron River

I sat on the bench for an hour while Rick walked the stream, casting for trout.  Silence.  The only sounds were the sound of the river cascading over small rocks, and a few birds.  Silence, blessed silence.

I sat for an hour, clearing mind and heart.  I can't describe what happened in that hour because I'm not sure I understand it, but I know this: I was a different person at the end of the hour than I was at the start.  And the change is still with me.

More beneath the fold.

RCP: 15 Most Annoying Expressions in Politics

"Irritating phrases and words are not confined to political circles, or solely to Washington, although here in the nation’s capital they burrow in and proliferate like obsolete, but entrenched, government programs. This is a call to arms to fight them—but only metaphorically."

4. “DENIER” This slur is used to shame or silence global-warming skeptics and other heretics who question conventional wisdom. It has an ugly provenance, too, coming from “Holocaust denier,” a description applied to those best described as neo-Nazis or lunatics (or both). But skepticism is not a sin. The famed Chicago City News Bureau popularized a journalistic bromide: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” It means get a second source, be careful, and don’t just repeat what you hear. Words to live by. (By the way, my Twain reference comes from “Life on the Mississippi,” Chapter 6.)

Link to all 15

Maybe you thought of one that is not listed?

"Get a New iPhone for $29"

"Wal-Mart is making a big push to sell more Apple iPhones. Starting Friday, the iPhone 5S will be available for $99 and the 5C will cost $29."

"To get the deal, customers are asked to activate a two-year plan with AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. The phones each have 16 GB of memory."

 

After I did the post I realized our Amazon portal is in competition with Wal-Mart. There is too much crap I have to keep track of, just to do just one of these. 

LA Times: "Marijuana food truck set to roll into Washington state this weekend"

"Customers should expect to fork over more money if they dine at the Samich food truck."

“This will be a high-end meal either way, but our infused entrees will cost around $10 more than a typical entree,” Angel told the Cannabist. “If you go to a restaurant where something would normally cost $15, you could expect to pay $25 at our place." 

After debuting in Denver on the unofficial weed holiday 4/20, the Samich food truck is to roll into the MMJ Universe Farmers Market in Black Diamond, Wash., this Saturday and Sunday. Magical Butter will also be selling its MB2 machine, which retails for about $170.

And in case you were wondering, Samich stands for Savory Accessible Marijuana Infused Culinary Happiness.

Sweet Emma

Soul Legend Bobby Womack Dies

 

"Bobby Womack, the legendary soul singer whose career spanned seven decades, died Friday at age 70. A representative for Womack's label XL Recordings confirmed the singer's death to Rolling Stone, but said the cause of death was currently unknown."

Sir Archy, the ghost of a gentleman, weighs in on Immigration

Sir:

As the Ghost of a Gentleman, dead these 265 Years, I have always at my spectral Heart the Publick Good, so I am ever contriving Schemes to promote it; and I think I may without Vanity pretend to have contrived some as wise as any Castle-builder. I may tell you, Sir, my ghostly Head hath lately been full of draining Fens and Marshes, when I suddenly left off such Notions and struck upon an entirely different Scheme for the Encrease of your Nation.

’Tis often said that the Poor of a Country (which in this Modern Age, I account as nearly Three Fifths of the People) pay little or none by way of Taxes; yet, when the Matter is examined closely, ’twill be seen that such Persons are not exempt from such Excises and Customs as are attendant upon Consumption of the ordinary Necessities of Life, additional to such Luxuries as are often grudg’d them by Persons of Property. The Poor frequently are maintain’d at Publick Charge; yet, this Money partly is return’d to the Sovereign’s Coffers by way of said Excises & Customs. The Poor may work only as much as necessary to support a miserable Existence; but, I reckon that, taken as a Whole, the Country gains with every one of its new Inhabitants, as there should be innumerable Taxes paid to the Publick from even such small Employments as commonly occupy the Poor.

When I was got into this Way of thinking, I presently grew conceited of the Argument, and was just preparing to write a Letter of Advice (in my Ghostly Way) to a Member of your Congress, for opening the Freedom of your Towns and Trades, for taking away all manner of Distinctions between the Natives and Foreigners, for repealing all Laws of Settlement, and removing every other Obstacle to the Increase of the People. But as soon as I had recollected with what inimitable Eloquence my Fellow-Labourers had exaggerated the Mischiefs of selling the Birth-right of Americans for a Dollar, of spoiling American Blood with Foreign Mixtures, of introducing a Confusion of Languages and Religions, and of letting in Strangers to eat the Bread out of the Mouths of your own People, I became so humble as to let my Project fall to the Ground, and leave your Country to encrease by the ordinary Way of Generation.

With every Well-Wish for the Encrease of this, your Pubick Meeting-Room (as I call it),

I am, Sir,

Your Humble & Obt. Servant,

Sir Archy

If not for the U.S. invasion,

None of what is happening in Iraq right now would be happening

Boston Globe Mag: "The complicated sex life of baby boomers"

"MADELEINE AND HER TWO FRIENDS had barely pulled up to the bar when one of them began chatting with a cute guy — “in his 30s,” Madeleine remembers. They were on a girls’ weekend at the beach and looking forward to some sun and fun. A few hours and some drinks later, the girls piled into the guy’s car and headed back to their condo. “We are going skinny-dipping!” one of them yelled."

The next morning, there were no regrets. “We had a blast,” Madeleine says. Sure, maybe it wasn’t the smartest move to get into a stranger’s car, “but there were three of us, and, I mean, we had our cellphones.”

Madeleine and her friends may sound like teenagers on spring break, and indeed that’s what they often feel like. But they met decades ago — they were “ice-skating moms” to daughters on the competitive circuit — and are now in their late 50s, divorced mothers of grown children and having, in many ways, the time of their lives. “You’ll be out at a bar and see some guys you think are cute,” says Madeleine. “Until you realize they’re in their 20s. But you forget! You forget how old you are!” (Madeleine, like other singles in this story, didn’t want to include her full name when talking about her sex life.) (read more)

Drudge: Immigration USA Tale of the Tape

Obama working with 'Homeland Security' for executive action on immigration...
'Not bluffing'...
REVERSES POLICY: 'Don't Send Your Children Unaccompanied'...
Zuckerberg launches 'day of action' for amnesty...
SWINE FLU FEAR SWEEPS CENTER IN SAN ANTONIO...
Feds Look to Ship Influx to NY Facility...
Abandoned WALMART?
Backlog of 360,000 cases...
MOTHER: GET ACROSS, YOU STAY...
'Your Children Can go to School'...
'Cheat Sheet' Found...
NYC sets up 'public defender' office to fight deportations...
90% of illegals skip court appearances...
Senators demand Obama 'personally' push back...
Dems block measure to stop illegals from getting jobs, benefits in USA...
UPDATE: NY to Issue ID Cards...
GOP Chairman Blames Obama's Lack of Enforcement for Killing Reform...
Border agents' new jobs: Food prep, laundry service...
Group Calls On Americans To Mail 'Gently Used Underwear' To Obama, Boehner...
 

Craigslist Nanny from Hell

"An exasperated California family is in the extraordinary position of being unable to evict their live-in nanny who is refusing to work and refusing to leave their home."

"Marcella Bracamonte, 31, claims that nanny, Diane Stretton, 64, is threatening to sue her family for wrongful dismissal and abuse of the elderly and incredibly, has told them she wants them out of their own house daily between 8am and 8pm." (read more)

Oh, Canada

Saw this on Small Dead Animals and like it real well. My favorite part is )))buzz((( . 

Instapundit: SO TWO WATERGATE-ERA HEROES DIED TODAY.

"Howard Baker, who famously asked “what did the President know and when did he know it?” and Johnnie Walters, the IRS Commissioner who refused to go along with Nixon’s efforts to target his enemies. Both were Republicans who stood up for the rule of law."

Where are the Democrats willing to stand up for it under this Administration?

Louie Gohmert photobombs James Langford

"NASA finds mysterious signal... "

"We know that the dark matter explanation is a long shot, but the pay-off would be huge if we're right," Esra Bulbul, leader of the study and a fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told NASA. "We're going to keep testing this interpretation and see where it takes us."

Mysterious X-ray signal intrigues astronomers. Could it be dark matter? http://t.co/l3cDZI1XBi @chandraxray pic.twitter.com/7tNrKkoI0l

— NASA (@NASA) June 24, 2014

Reddit Trending Photos

Moss Man

 

choir kids flipping pancakes

Elderly man poses while his wife trapped in the car.

Which photo do you favor over the other two and why?

(Photo Captions links to larger version)

The Problem With All That Craft Beer We're Drinking

Oh?

This is an article in Popular Mechanics about craft beers accounting for 7% of beer sales in the United States but gobbling up 52% of domestic hops production. That sounds impossible on the surface, but if true then that right there should tell you industrial production is seriously holding back on flavor. The author assumes you know the acronym IPA stands for India Pale Ale and that the term has almost nothing to do with India and not necessarily pale, and definitions for the term that you'll find assume that makes perfect sense.

Popular Mechanics. 
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/skills/auto-home-improvement-diy/the-future-of-hops-futures-16561697?click=main_sr

The article discusses hops futures.

Turns out, hops are easy to grow. There are several varieties. Hops are grown all over the United States. Presently mostly in Pacific Northwest. There is no good solid reason for shortage. You can grow it yourself. The plant begins as a rhizome and sends up several fingers forming a bush. When cut back a vine results from one of the fingers that twines clockwise, always clockwise, around a chord and can reach twenty feet tall. The tight flowers form papery cones that are harvested at just the right time, dried and used to flavor beer. I watched some twenty or so videos. They all have their faults. This is the best one I've seen. It is 29 minutes long but you can skip through without missing too much. A few regular blokes discussing their home production.

I was interested in Colorado hops. All of those videos are geared more toward larger farms and industry, farmers working in conjunction with local beer brewers. We see long rows of exceedingly tall vines, and these vines gathered in various ways, and the cones removed by various means, including a small girl plucking them into her play bucket. There are videos for almost any state that you enter, I saw Washington, Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, and Colorado, and Australia, but the accents drove me off.

This man admits in a later video that these rhizomes he is planting here failed. He is just showing us what to expect and how it can be done. He is too late in the season and his heart is not really into it. Besides, he has his older plants that are already producing. Thank you, Guy, for showing us the beginning.

Lowly Informed Voters

Long time Althouse commenter Bruce Hayden left a great comment at Althouse. I'm cutting and pasting it here in full so that you don't have to go there, but you probably will if you want the full context (my comments after the jump).

It is hard to fathom how the bulk of the Dem voters could be anything but "low information". If they weren't low information voters, they wouldn't vote for progressive solutions for essentially anything. Esp. not fixing the economy, esp. mired in the longest downturn/lack of recovery in most of our lifetimes. We are in the 6th year of Obamanomics, and 1Q GDP just got adjusted into negative territory. Last election, we were already 4 years into the Obama Recession, and yet, more people ignored that and voted for 4 more years of the same, or worse, than voted for sane economics. 

You also have to be pretty low information to believe these days that the government, and, esp. the federal government can solve any real problems facing this country. You have to ignore all the government failures, including shipping guns to the Mexican cartels, throwing millions out of their health insurance (who liked their plans and doctors, and lost both), VA administrators getting millions in bonuses for essentially killing thousands of veterans, Benghazi, trading our top 5 terrorists at Gitmo for a guy who walked off his post, and is likely a deserter, an out of control, above the law, IRS, etc. The government is run for the benefit of the government employees, politicians, and for the fat cats who can get either sweetheart deals, or can get protection from competition. The last people the government looks out for are the taxpayers (esp. with illegals apparently getting better health care than our veterans). 

Please explain to me how a high to moderate information voter could vote for any of that.
6/25/14, 8:55 PM

I tried, but I just cannot care about money

I meant to say public money. That stuff is endless.

Roll Call: Boehner Planning House Lawsuit Against Obama Executive Actions

"The lawsuit could set up a significant test of constitutional checks and balances, with the legislative branch suing the executive branch for ignoring its mandates, and the judiciary branch deciding the outcome."

I thought the only option available to the congress against a president was impeachment.

Baby in the mirror... Man In The Translucent Material

The wonder of discovery...

***

Forbes: For someone who passed away half a decade ago, Michael Jackson seems very much alive. This year alone has seen the King of Pop continue a permanent show in Las Vegas (One, a collaboration between the singer’s estate and Cirque du Soleil), tour the world (via Immortal, another joint venture) and release a new album (Xscape).

Then, last month at the Billboard Music Awards, Jackson came to life in the form of a hologram-like illusion—and performed the song “Slave To The Rhythm” from his latest posthumous album as millions watched from home. The spectacle is still making waves due to continued discussion by viewers (as well as news of dueling multimillion-dollar lawsuits by rival illusion-making outfits over ownership of the technology employed to bring back Jackson).

Viral Video: Sassiest Flight Attendant

For those of you traveling with your children... why?

Reuters: "Federal judge rules U.S. no-fly list violates Constitution"

"The U.S. government's no-fly list banning people accused of links to terrorism from commercial flights violates their constitutional rights because it gives them no meaningful way to contest that decision, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday."

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown... ordered the government to come up with new procedures that allow people on the no-fly list to challenge that designation.

"The court concludes international travel is not a mere convenience or luxury in this modern world. Indeed, for many international travel is a necessary aspect of liberties sacred to members of a free society," Brown wrote.

The no-fly list, established in 2003 in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bars those on it from flying within the United States or to and from the country...  

"Is nothing sacred"

Russian naval exercise

World Cup Soccer: Suarez Reality Bites

"Uruguay striker Luis Suarez has attempted to play down his apparent bite of Italy defender Giorgio Chellini, saying "there are things that happen" during a game."

Now, where have I heard something incredulously similar recently?

I must say, this guy is in the wrong line of work... look at those chops!

Finally, here is Suarez in an earlier incarnation.

Queen Elizabeth visits Game of Thrones set

Love this RT @ninagarcia RT @WSJ: Queen Elizabeth visited the #GameofThrones set... http://t.co/KeBeZJbvnI pic.twitter.com/DyNimhTHfd
— Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) June 24, 2014

KLEM FM

Overheard:  "Everybody is right and nobody is wrong ;)"

FWIW:

Weekly Standard: Feminism and Its Discontents

"The hook-up culture denounced by conservatives is the very same rape culture denounced by feminists. Who wants it? Most college women do not; they ignore hookups and lament the loss of dating. Many men will not turn down the offer of an available woman, but what they really want is a girlfriend. The predatory males are a small minority among men who are the main beneficiaries of the feminist norm. It’s not the fault of men that women want to join them in excess rather than calm them down, for men too are victims of the rape culture. Nor is it the fault of women. Women are so far from wanting hook-ups that they must drink themselves into drunken consent—in order to overcome their natural modesty, one might suggest. Not having a sociable drink but getting blind drunk is today’s preliminary to sex. Beautifully romantic, isn’t it? The anonymous Harvard woman by getting drunk was unfortunately helping to pressure herself into consenting to a very bad experience. But she is right that the pressure comes with the encouragement of the culture. And the culture comes from the dogmas of feminism that made this mess for women and men too." (read the whole thing)

College "rape culture" is a big topic of internet 'conversation' these days.

I didn't go to college, and I don't say that with pride or anything even resembling that. I'm saying I didn't go college, concomitant this post, to say I don't have a hard and fast opinion, one way or the other.

I say both sides have an equally valid and fair agenda. Everybody is right and nobody is wrong ;)


Please click to view larger.

forest camouflage

WND: 'Two years of Lerner’s communications disappeared just 10 days (or fewer) after Congress had made its first inquiry into the IRS targeting...'

WND: IRS chief scorched as 'liar'

Macy Gray "Do Something"

Red face embarrassing rescues from around the globe

Germany: American student rescued from giant stone vagina

It took 22 firefighters to save the stuck student.

Scotland: Tourist rescued from Aonach Mor mountain in Scotland after attempting hike in thongs


“Well he had never seen snow before
so why not give it a go in yer bare feet and sandals!!!”

Blog Claim: "NOAA/NASA Dramatically Altered US Temperatures After The Year 2000"

"Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data. In several posts headed “Data tampering at USHCN/GISS”, Goddard compares the currently published temperature graphs with those based only on temperatures measured at the time. These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on “fabricated” data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century."

"Right after the year 2000, NASA and NOAA dramatically altered US climate history, making the past much colder and the present much warmer. The animation below shows how NASA cooled 1934 and warmed 1998, to make 1998 the hottest year in US history instead of 1934. This alteration turned a long term cooling trend since 1930 into a warming trend."




"George Orwell explained how this worked."

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

Mark Udall tiptoes through Keystone tulips

With election approaching, so says Jazz Shaw at Hot Air.

Awake in the Night Land

I heard a rumor this collection of novellas by John C. Wright was going to be FREE tomorrow...

It looks like something my husband would probably like.  Me? Maybe not so much.

"AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND is an epic collection of four of John C. Wright's brilliant forays into the dark fantasy world of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land. Part novel, part anthology, the book consists of four related novellas, "Awake in the Night", "The Cry of the Night-Hound", "Silence of the Night", and "The Last of All Suns", which collectively tell the haunting tale of the Last Redoubt of Man and the end of the human race."


UPDATE:  That information is wrong... the FREE book is only the first novella in that collection.

Egyptian crocodile pop-up card

This is a four-page pop up card for my brother's birthday. It was sent priority mail with tracking to his post office box but he reports not receiving it. And I wouldn't even know that if he hadn't asked me. His wife received her card a few months later and that provided James the opportunity to inquire. It's rather a difficult thing to ask, don't you think, "Hey, did you send me a birthday card?" Now these pages that describe the card in greater detail are all that he has. What a bummer.

The first page depicts a scene such as found on Egyptian tomb walls that depict everyday activity of the type confirming ancient Egyptian's love for life. They are showing what they hope to encounter in the afterlife forever. An idealized hunting scene packed with an overabundance of wildlife of the Nile delta. It is a family affair. It is a wall painting in 3-D

This shot is showing elements glued onto a series of parallel V-mechanisms that lift up and close flatly carrying content with them, arranged in a chevron pattern built standing up with the point following the central fold. It is a very common mechanism used in various ways. Pretty much the whole world of pop-uppery relies on this basic mechanism elaborated in variously.

A detail.

The second page is a crocodile eating a man.

The crocodile's body is drawn with some detail, you can see behind the crocodile my patience runs short for elaborate detail. The trees are all rapidly scribbled. 

The threat cannot stand, it must be neutralized so a separate hunting party sets out to kill the crocodile and take retribution. 

The last page is a fashion show featuring crocodile accessories with models arranged around a carousel. 

I'm hilarious. There is no such thing as these ridiculous fashion items.

The word for crocodile in ancient Egyptian is "sobek," at least that is the name of their crocodile god. When you see the word sobek you think "crocodile" or a crocodile-headed figure. I honestly did not know how to write the word properly so I made it up based on its sounds without checking first. What the heck. Who's to know? I made the cover page anyway without getting up and checking uncertain if I was actually right. It's how I roll. When I looked it up later after I was finished it turns out I was right. This really is how you write "Sobek" in hieroglyphics. Rather confident and bold, wouldn't you say? I do make mistakes all the time. It is the consonants s-b-k. 

Somebody at the P.O. in Concord California got themselves a nice little card that belongs to my brother. I have the tracking that shows the card made it that far. It was never sorted into his box and he didn't receive a ticket to ask for it. 

25 large detailed photos here.