"'Showers' placed at Auschwitz entrance"

"Israelis who visited the Auschwitz concentration camp museum in Poland on Sunday were shocked to discover that the museums' management had placed mist showers near the facilities entrance, in an effort to beat the heat. Anyone who saw the showers could not help get past the gas chamber connotation."

"As soon as I got off the bus I walked into the shower contraption," said Meyer Bolka, an Israeli visiting the museum. "I was in shock. It was a punch to the gut. I walked up to the reception and asked the worker there about the showers, she said it was a hot day. I told her: 'With all due respect it reminds me of the gas chambers,' she told me she is very sorry."

mist showers

Read more

Flash Flood yesterday over Southern Utah

Link to video

"Lessons on Love"

"From a Rabbi Who Knows Hate and Forgiveness"

In 1991, he [rabbi Michael Weisser] was living in Lincoln, Neb., with his wife at the time, Julie Michael, and three of their five children. He was then the cantor and spiritual leader of the South Street Temple, the oldest Jewish congregation in Lincoln. One Sunday morning, a few days after they had moved into their new house, the phone rang.

The man on the other end of the line called Rabbi Weisser “Jew boy” and told him he would be sorry he had moved in. Two days later, a thick package of anti-black, anti-Semitic pamphlets arrived in the mail, including an unsigned card that read, “The KKK is watching you, scum.”

The messages, it turned out, were from Larry Trapp, the Grand Dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, who kept loaded weapons, pro-Hitler material and his Klan robe in his cramped Lincoln apartment. Then 42, Mr. Trapp was nearly blind and used a wheelchair to get around; both of his legs had been amputated because of diabetes.

In a 1992 interview with Time magazine, Mr. Trapp said he had wanted to scare Rabbi Weisser into moving out of Lincoln. “As the state leader, the Grand Dragon, I did more than my share of work because I wanted to build up the state of Nebraska into a state as hateful as North Carolina and Florida,” he said. “I spent a lot of money and went out of my way to instill fear.”

Rabbi Weisser, who suspected the person threatening him was Mr. Trapp, got his telephone number and started leaving messages on the answering machine. “I would say things like: ‘Larry, there’s a lot of love out there. You’re not getting any of it. Don’t you want some?’ And hang up,” he said. “And, ‘Larry, why do you love the Nazis so much? They’d have killed you first because you’re disabled.’ And hang up. I did it once a week.”

One day, Mr. Trapp answered. Ms. Michael, the rabbi’s wife, had told him to say something nice if he ever got Mr. Trapp on the line, and he followed her advice. “I said: ‘I heard you’re disabled. I thought you might need a ride to the grocery,’ ” Rabbi Weisser said.

Then, one night, Rabbi Weisser’s phone rang again. It was Mr. Trapp. “He said, quote-unquote — I’ll never forget it, it was like a chilling moment, in a good way — he said, ‘I want to get out of what I’m doing and I don’t know how,’ ” Rabbi Weisser said.

He and Ms. Michael drove to Mr. Trapp’s apartment that night. The three talked for hours, and a close friendship formed. The couple’s home became a kind of hospice for Mr. Trapp, who moved into one of their bedrooms as his health worsened, and Ms. Michael became Mr. Trapp’s caretaker and confidante.

Mr. Trapp eventually renounced the Klan, apologized to many of those he had threatened and converted to Judaism in Rabbi Weisser’s synagogue.

The relationship later inspired a 1995 book by Kathryn Watterson, “Not by the Sword: How the Love of a Cantor and His Family Transformed a Klansman.”

Via Reddit...

Mainstream Media

Link to Image

"The train tracks turned into a stream!"

Going with the flow

"Obama administration renames Mount McKinley to Denali"

The order was signed Friday, but the White House asked that it be announced Monday as part of Obama's trip to Alaska to highlight the effects of climate change in the Arctic. The White House said the name change "recognizes the sacred status of Denali to generations of Alaska Natives."

1. Out: Mount McKinley; in: Mount Denali 2. Out: Animas River; in: Obama River pic.twitter.com/BxWZHSke92

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 31, 2015

"Maker of ‘Just Mayo’ spread warned by FDA that mayonnaise needs eggs"

"The Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the maker of the mayonnaise alternative earlier this month, noting that the product’s name and label could be misleading. The FDA notes that mayonnaise must contain eggs, according to its standard of identity — and that Just Mayo does not."

“The term ‘mayo’ has long been used and understood as shorthand or slang for mayonnaise,” the agency said in the letter to Hampton Creek, the maker of Just Mayo. The San Francisco-based company has positioned the spread as a healthier and more environmentally friendly alternative to mayonnaise.

Tetrick (Hampton Creek CEO) said he doesn’t think the company will end up having to change its name.

“We feel good about where we are from a regulatory perspective, from a legal perspective,” Tetrick said.

Seniors use Tinder for the first time

Watch this video on The Scene.

From Vanity Fair story - Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

"Dark complexioned couple shamefully beats up victim... for being in the "wrong hood"

This report is delivered by Fox6:

A confrontation outside a Milwaukee gas station turns violent and the disturbing video has surfaced online. The incident happened last week outside of a north side gas station. One community activist says it is important to see the reality in some parts of Milwaukee and make sure there is change. 

Near Locust and Teutonia, a woman is punched and kicked by two people while others stand around filming the whole thing. The incident happened last Tuesday, August 18th [2015]. The victim has not come forward and the attackers have not been identified. 

Milwaukee police say they are aware of the video but no official reports have been made. It is unclear the condition of the woman but the video shows she was able to get up after the beating.

Warning - disturbing video after the jump

morning glories

It's a funny name. In Britain it means waking up with an erection. Don't blame me, it does. Because of that curious reality my balcony railing is covered with colorful morning boners to the delight of neighbors who are drawn to their balconies to see them. They tell me. They see them more than I, the flowers face outward like trumpets. The vines are considered something of a nuisance when they appear sometimes by surprise out of nowhere apparently and take over but these were somewhat difficult to get started on account of me not knowing anything, starting too early, non-drainage during flood, planting in wrong places for them, planting with others that overshadow them early, organic dirt with bugs. About six or eight packages of seeds were planted, germinated, grew and failed in series. Mostly red for hummingbirds, but also blue striped. They're supposed to be blue. They're growing where they shouldn't be attempted. Their place is all wrong, too windy, insufficient sunlight hours, too harsh when it shines directly on them, otherwise too shadowed throughout the day. Their blooming pattern is altered because of that. They may drop seeds that fall into places and take hold and not show up for one or two years, then boom, quickly reseed there and take over within a few years they can have a whole fence or wall of a neglected corner.

The red ones are disappointingly tiny. The vines are still filling out and loading up with these delicate buds. A few vines haven't bloomed yet.

They're glorious beyond morning due to their morning-protected, afternoon-abused situation of sunlight deprivation/harshness and wind.

The only thing they've got going for them is a loyal Babylonian water slave. He gives them a teaspoon of food with every five gallons and starts each day with a full five gallons carried back and forth in a cart and refills it for waiting often using the second, or a half, which starts the next day with a half that is refilled and used with the extra kept right there waiting. The first sign of water or heat stress and boom the whole lot is watered.

Now is probably the time to harvest these things.

Colorful caladium foliage and morning glories grow fully and begin blooming taking over when and where regular annuals petunias and the rest begin fading. The whole thing is transforming, dying, disappearing while still shooting up and blooming and not just growing.

I don't know yet, it probably all ends abruptly with one single storm.

"Women should dress modestly or expect to ‘entice a rapist’ – claims singer Chrissie Hynde"

"Her comments came in an interview with The Sunday Times, which published extracts from her autobiography entitled “Reckless”."

The book details an incident when she was 21 when she was picked up by a motorcycle gang who promised to take her to a party but instead took her to an empty house and sexually assaulted her.

But she said: “If I'm walking around in my underwear and I'm drunk? Who else's fault can it be? – Er, the guy who attacks you?

“Oh, come on! That's just silly.

“If I'm walking around and I'm very modestly dressed and I'm keeping to myself and someone attacks me, then I'd say that's his fault.

“But if I'm being very lairy and putting it about and being provocative, then you are enticing someone who's already unhinged — don't do that.”

She added: “You know, if you don't want to entice a rapist, don't wear high heels so you can't run from him. If you're wearing something that says 'Come and ---- me', you'd better be good on your feet… I don't think I'm saying anything controversial am I?"

Totally politically incorrect.

"Pendulum Factor"

Could land Trump in the White House, the title of of an article by Michael Goodwin at New York Post. I react immediately to the headline in my gut and not my head nor my heart. This has got to be stupid. Let's look.

Photo of Trump. Good. It means Goodwin acknowledges the gravitational body that suddenly appeared in the vicinity of the pendulum. If Goodwin places this gravitational body in the Republican area then he does not understand pendulums, gravitational bodies or voters.

The text by paragraph: blah blah, points, blah blah, survey blah blah, magic, blah, blah blah, pollsters, blah, legacy presidents leaves behind blah blah, favorable legacy blah blah, pendulum swung Obama followed Bush blah blah, poll numbers blah, telling example of chasm, blah, Citizen of the world, blah blah, 200,000 gathered blah blah, seven years later things happened, blah blah, Western democracies rattles, blah blah,

Trump is perceived antidote blah blah, new nationalism, blah blah, building wall, blah, getting tough with China, blah,

This guy, Michael Goodwin just barfed everything we already digested bit by agonizing bit, repeatedly, burped farted and pooped weeks ago. Like dogs do. It's the grossest thing they do besides rolling around in other dog's smeary poo, barf and eat it again. Good grief.

I wrote this before looking to see how wrong my gut would be, cutting in as it did before heart and brain.

This vaunted pendulum would rightfully have swung predictably into Republican area for them to do with as they wish but instead swung wildly outwardly away from the whole clock, if this pendulum is inside a grandfathers clock, by new gravitational and magnetic force both repelling and attracting and overtaking predictable momentum. The presence of a dense gravitational field threw off the predictable force on the pendulum, shifted its equilibrium position and altered the direction of swing of its kinetic energy. The farther the pull then the faster the swing and this pendulum is cranked beyond its load bearing capacity, beyond the walls of its clock box, so its return swing is faster more powerful and curved outward from its natural path.

It's your analogy.

You must account for all forces, chief among them Washington Republican neglect and abuse of its base. I did not notice that mentioned in the blah blahs. The rising palpable observable anger of its base that acted quickly and dramatically even while being thwarted by its own government and not protected in Washington by its own leadership and still produced convincing results but is ignored when it's not being fought in hand-to-hand combat with Washington Republican leadership. Republican leadership in Washington ignored and fought with its base and prevailed in some cases by shifting resources to unwanted candidates. They resurrect the slain candidates to ensure continuing vexation. The classic mistake of telling their base how things will be done instead of following the orders from their base, the mistake a thing makes of switching its reflection, switching metaphors now from pendulum to mirror, the mistake Washington Republicans made repeatedly is that of a flat reflection, the two-dimensional representation in a mirror regarding itself as the real thing and demanding itself be reflected out there in three-dimensional world that animates it. Shame too that it's come to this, Republicans have an excellent bench, too bad it assembles this late, they insisted on blowing off wild successes given them, seeing for themselves entire regions shift red and racking up those successes as natural forces at work on passively pre-activated  "pendulum factor."

"Man jailed for suspected crystal meth possession released after police confirm it was just salt"

"The man from Maryborough, Queensland in Australia... was detained for four months while police carried out forensic tests. The man’s lawyer, Travis George said the length of time was likely due his client’s previous criminal convictions."

A Maryborough magistrate, John Smith said: “For the last 14 years nothing has been done (about the delays)… once again the government needs to have a look at what they are doing in relation to this”.

Breaking Bad.

RIP Sweet Melody

Oliver Sacks is dead

"Dr. Sacks announced in February, in an Op-Ed essay in The New York Times, that an earlier melanoma in his eye had spread to his liver and that he was in the late stages of terminal cancer."

“I am very tenacious, for better or worse,” he wrote in “A Leg to Stand On.” “If my attention is engaged, I cannot disengage it. This may be a great strength, or weakness. It makes me an investigator. It makes me an obsessional.”

“I love to discover potential in people who aren’t thought to have any,” hetold People magazine in 1986.

He was also a man of contradictions: candid and guarded, gregarious and solitary, clinical and compassionate, scientific and poetic, British and almost American. “In 1961, I declared my intention to become a United States citizen, which may have been a genuine intention, but I never got round to it,” he told The Guardian in 2005.

For years, Dr. Sacks lived on City Island in the Bronx, where he liked to take long swims around it. More recently, he lived in Greenwich Village. But he remained ambivalent about being called a New Yorker.

“I rather like the words ‘resident alien,’ ” he told The Guardian. “It’s how I feel. I’m a sympathetic, resident, sort of visiting alien.”

Sacks’s last piece in the Times, which appeared just two weeks ago, ended like this:

“And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.”

Watch Oliver Sacks on writing, after the break...

Biden's window

This is a meme running for months with seeming endless possibilities, the more ridiculous the better. Something coming down the road, something happening in the distance, something resented, musings on some current event from a uniquely Biden point of view, the frustrated hopes of a political operative, any thought a writer would have Biden think is added as text to this photo. I just now read another one a moment ago, they're usually not this self-referential, usually nothing about the picture itself or the window or room, but this time it is, the entry is text on picture "This would be a glass ceiling if the building were sideways."

Moderat - Bad Kingdom

Link to video

SuperMexican explains Baltimore in one sentence.

SuperMexican says on his site to share this and he offers several buttons to do that and when the mouse rolls over the picture on his site a "pin it" button appears so I'm guessing from all that it's okay to show the whole thing. This is his entire post.

Baltimore explained by SuperMexican, El Super.

Goodness. Do you have to look at it through the prism of race? That one single angle? 

The 50+ comments draw a picture of his readers over there, they're all in agreement.

Not so with El Super's twitter line where he picks up a commenter named Cody who the rest guess is a sixteen year old rich New Jersey white kid who insists on "institutional racism." His education he points out supersedes any and all new information that he can observe for himself and process for himself even when the point of the post is institutional racism but in the other direction than usually discussed and now where things have reversed institutionally, but still described as un-institutionalized pre-reversed racism. Cody insists the others catch up. To what? To reality. His received construction.

Cody the commenter raises an argumentum ad authoritah as their wont, why, you simply must read _____ to be properly informed such as he. Student then. We must read his teacher to understand his position, he being unable to elaborate effectively and cogently himself. No, Cody, you need to read us as teachers rather than we read your teacher.  

Everything including sex and race are actually mental constructions, it is insisted ad nauseam and on several channels at once, on all media simultaneously. Now, you are to be denounced for not accepting Cody's constructed reality. Cody the commenter refers to his version of institutional racism and rejects outright SuperMexican's observations as arranged. The interpretation the rest of us use. The commenters have fun batting around Cody, ill prepared to handle opposing positions formed with additional and with different information.

Bolt together

This phrase is a delightfully clever crossword clue for a five letter word.

The clued word is famous for having so many such clever clues devoted to it. It is a word that somehow and for unique reasons focuses the minds of constructors and steers them toward humor. Whenever a new clue is devised either by constructor or by their editor such as Will Shortz then the clue will be discussed the day of publishing at length in forums, posts, and all through their comments. People actually discuss the path they take to get at the word, which letters were missing, which other clues were needed and so forth.

These all clue the same word, lousy with puns, often a question mark indicates the clue is a trick.

Opt for the window instead of the aisle. (this clue was a big hit recently, now risks being overused already, just that fast, everyone loves the misdirection. It's spotted a million miles away.)
Split to be tied
Form a secret union
Use a ladder, stereotypically
Emulate running mates
Get a hand on the road
Fly away, in a way
Get right to the honeymoon, say
Make a running start at marriage
Alter altar plans, maybe
Expedite some union business
Run together
Form a clandestine union
Not do the rite thing
Run for one's wife
Waive one's rites
Not stand on ceremony
Skip town, in a way
Take the honey and run
Get an out of state license
Split to be spliced
Wedding bells sans wedding bills
Hie to the hitching post
Run off to say "I do"
leap like some lovers
Go with the beau
Marry modestly
Decamp for romance
Emulate Romeo and Juliet
Cut wedding costs
Slip away
Skip town with a lover
Skip off in the night
Get up and go
Fly by night
Run away, in a way
Leave by ladder
Sneak off to a J.P.
Emulate Jessica and Lorenzo
Absquatulate
Head for Gretna Green
Emulate Anna Karenina
Do the Gretna Green bit
What some lovers do
Make a romantic move
What Othello and Desdemona did

And many more too on the nose to bother with listing, the kind of clue that gives the answer away with no thinking, and that's no fun at all.

Any clue will be rejected that is devised around an any current event that might remotely disturb an easily-rattled solver with trigger finger emotional responses, any unhappy event that is not comfortably tucked into historical time, and that judgement is subjective. Someone is always offended. For example, a popular fill answer is "ADEN" but any clue having to do with U.S. naval ship being attacked there or mention of naval losses is verboten. For awhile. Too touchy. Then finally historical, no longer touchy no longer emotional and so then acceptable for clueing. On subject, we will not see any clue having to do with this unhappy event any time soon.

The link goes to American Thinker site discussing the event.

The two girls who must bear the punishment, twenty-three and fifteen years of age, fled the village. The logic in this alternate judicial universe is the two girls must atone for their brother's crime.

There's NYT crossword-worthy cluing right there. But no. Not now. And this whole time I thought the British imposed their British judicial system. We are told twenty times at least of the incident involving Charles James Napier's response in addressing this issue.

The article says the practice is illegal but still done anyway in remote areas. The villagers ransacked the home, the family is afraid to return due to threats, the married daughter also in trouble for marrying below her caste and for being pregnant, the whole thing messed up the village arrangements. Your life in not your own to live in those little villages.

Daytime sleepless in Seattle

Urban Hardwoods / Seattle's Largest Hardwood Tree from Ron Hansen on Vimeo.

Ht AllenS:

Don't know how much they pay the guy on the saw, but it isn't enough !!!

"Texas deputy killed 'execution-style' while fueling patrol car"

"Authorities have a man in custody who is "believed to be the alleged gunman" in the killing of a uniformed sheriff's deputy, Sgt. William Kennard of the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN."

Link to video

Ted Cruz definitive list of 76 “lawless” Obama administration actions and abuses of power

“Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat,” Cruz stated in the report’s introductory remarks.

“President Obama has openly defied [rule of law] by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act,” Cruz wrote. “In the more than two centuries of our nation’s history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same.”

I embedded the list here because the website Daily Caller (linked to above) is a mess.

"It was an early Sunday morning in April 2008 when I received a text message from my friend Ryan. “So sorry about what happened,” it read."

“What are you talking about?” was my response.

“Just Google Spike’s real name,” was all Ryan would say.

So I booted up my computer and typed in the name of my boyfriend of three years. I froze as I read the chilling words — it said he was “being held for the murder of his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.”

It didn’t make any sense. I was Spike’s girlfriend. I didn’t even have any ex-boyfriends. The reporter must have made a mistake.

But it turned out that the news story was correct. Spike had allegedly killed his girlfriend’s former lover. Except the girlfriend wasn’t me. Of all the ways to find out that your boyfriend is cheating on you, this one took the cake. (read more)

Don't you just hate when that happens.

western fires sunset

Another odd sunset. I was unpacking the backpack, looked up and saw a large orange circle illuminating the whole sky orange like nothing I've seen before. The sun was quickly tucking behind a building, had I noticed earlier it'd be even more splendid and strange. The sun was orange, straight on, not yellow.

And I saw grasshopper just sitting there not a frog hopping by, other than that it looked exactly like this. Like a scene from another planet.

KLEM FM

Link in case the video doesn't load

Dig that harpsichord.
_____________________

Here is the latest plastic reality:

It's just a plain glass of ice water. Deceptively simple you might think, but the challenge was to "float" the ice.  I can easily give the piece a light frosty coating, but I'm going to try to make this have "sweat" on the outside like a real glass of ice water would have.

Eric Cantor endorses Jeb Bush

Who? The discussions I've seen remark on Bush being out of touch but this is Cantor making this announcement, not Bush. I wonder who sees this as helping.

I had the Whigs all wrong, and I had them wrong from reading American history. It was not made clear the revolutionary Whigs are separate from the political Whigs that came later and used the earlier name for their fighting the power and not for wearing powdered wigs themselves. The wig on Jeb! is bogus they didn't wear those. They were only around for some twenty-five years. I thought they were concurrent with Democrats from the start. Until the Whigs a one-party system had been operating. The Whig party was a reaction to Jacksonian politics. No wonder they yearn for a one-party system, it's how they started, a catch basin was needed to collect all fiercely minded political crackpots bent on using government for their purposes, and has been needed for the same reason steadily throughout. The Whig party fell apart on its own, split, couldn't handle the issue of slavery expansion into territories. 

[cantor endorses bush]

"Petition urges retailer to pull 'Lion-Killer Dentist' costumes"

"A petition currently circulating the web is calling for an online retailer to remove a costume that critics say mocks and profits from the July 1 killing of Zimbabwe’s beloved Cecil the Lion."

Minnesota Dentist Walter Palmer has admitted to killing the 13-year-old lion, saying he regrets killing such an important animal but notes he paid Zimbabwe guides to secure all the permits and help him track the lion, which led him to believe the hunt was legal.

"I was sick to my stomach when I saw the costume," Harley said in a news release. "The costume is in bad taste and makes light of what was a tragic and inhumane killing.”

A Caitlyn Jenner Halloween costume has also become controversial this year.

This is why Trump is doing so well.

"Owen Labrie Found Not Guilty of Felony Sexual Assault in Prep School Trial"

"The girl's family had arms around her as she cried softly."

The girl's family said in a statement: "Today, a measure of justice has been served for victims of sexual violence. While he was not convicted on all charges, Owen Labrie was held accountable in some way by a jury of his peers for crimes he committed against our daughter. This conviction requires him to take ownership for his actions and gives him the opportunity to reflect upon the harm he has caused." 

The family added, "While we stood together as a family through this process, it was our young daughter who took the stand to speak the truth and request justice. We admire her bravery in coming forward and speaking out in the face of great adversity. It is truly her courage that has made this measure of justice possible today."

Owen Labrie was found guilty of lesser charges related to sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a minor. He may end up as a registered sex offender for life. (read the whole thing) (video at the link)

The Biden touch

lit like bic

Song by Rae Sremmurd, cannot be played here. Too bad. It fits the rave. The music high flying drug addled rave. The thing I love about this photo of Hillary is her gibbon like swinging good time, her movement through space, her excellent balance with well weighted hips. She looks like a blast, a blasted cackling blast. Lit like a lighthouse.

That tossed and tumbled carefree look takes hours of drinking to achieve.

I wish they didn't add those yellow words. Imagine being her guard. Imagine being her and having state guards imposed. They don't like each other, she a carefree spirit as we see and they all work and serious focus so we're told. Respect for each other doesn't exist.

Federal Judge issues temporary injunction halting EPA move on water.

Characterized as Obama Administration water rule, the new regulations reinterprets Clean Water Act giving more regulatory power to EPA and to Army Corps of Engineers. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday.

They're going after every little stream that could be a tributary, every temporary runoff stream, every temporary mostly dry arroyo, every tiny pond, anything having to do with water that could possibly affect any other water, namely all water, every pond a farmer might dig, every pool, every koi pond, mountains of new paperwork left for states to complete.

North Dakota filed the injunction in the name of thirteen states on behalf of all fifty states, so says N.D. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem who filed the injunction. But EPA is not having that generous a reading, they demand another smackdown directly preventing action in any state not mentioned otherwise it's business as usual and they plan to enforce the new rules in the remaining thirty-seven states.

It's like training a dog. Poop here, not here. Then, you didn't say don't poop here, you didn't say don't poop here, you didn't say don't poop here, you didn't say don't poop here. Eh, bad example. Dogs are a lot easier. Most times they cooperate and its not always such a power trip.

More at WAFF

[federal judge blocks obama water rule]

sheep and fence card

The GIF is showing a fence bent in half to form a V shape, provided with glue tabs. A parallel sheep also with glue tabs, and a connecting paper bar (also with glue tabs) that forces the sheep to do what the fence does, and another twin sheep attached to the first sheep the same way. Suggesting more similar sheep attached similarly, and sheep on the other side of the V fence, sheep attached in front of the fence instead of behind it, and more sections of fence and a whole flock of sheep if you have the time and interest to extrapolate outward.

Does this drawing make sense?

If you would make this for your honey they will love you even more.

Vox and NRA

There is a site called Vox that gets a lot of attention because it is bankrolled by network television company and because it purports to explain things. Sensible people never go there. A sensible person will have no idea what the place looks like. A Google search says its mission is simple: to explain the news. Important because the network that sank two hundred million (!) dollars into this site will be hosting Republican debates.

I read about this site every day of the week. Every hour of the day. The only reason that is so is because otherwise sensible people keep track of their nonsense and bring it to our attention regularly. They're honestly too idiotic to discuss but here they are being discussed and this happens as I say every day.

They will reliably use every incident to further their position on gun control, they will whine and whinge about the subject being closed, meaning they keep attacking along the same lines and keep losing. They don't know the first thing about guns and imagine themselves experts all they know for certain is they hate guns with a passion and to their core leaving them open to say ridiculous things and say them fiercely without ever backing down, apologizing, acknowledging counter positions, or recognizing their own mistakes. Today we get "Sorry for the confusion" meaning their confusion, nobody else paying attention was slightly confused, only Vox themselves and projecting that confusion onto others for they are the self-proclaimed explainers.

It is a liberal symbol. Gear, electricity. See any guns or bullets in there? CCC, WPA, ring a bell? You have to be a grown up adult liberal most likely quite old to know such things, and Vox is not a site for adults. And you have to be not educated in liberal American public school system run largely by Democrats to be familiar with historical liberal government acronyms, among their most famous and successful programs the new generation mixes up with despised firearms advocate group that they persistently mistake for an industry lobby.

Open Thread

Sometime yesterday afternoon.

Talk about whatever is on your mind.

two journalists shot and killed during a live interview.

A reporter and her photographer were killed Wednesday morning during a live television report at Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta, Virginia. The interview they were doing was about tourism.

They were out there doing their jobs and somehow became targets. Authorities are still looking for the shooter. The video is hosted on Facebook that shows the whole thing happening, a snuff film I guess, with the camera dropping as photographer is shot too. Link for the vide at myfox8.com, all news outlets all pretty much running the same story.

anchor babies

For a minute there I thought before correcting myself, "Hey, your own grandparents are anchor babies. Trump would have their U.S. citizenship not recognized."

That's kind of funny.

But no. They were more like grappling hook adults. Both grandparents on one side, and I don't know about the other. The other grandparents spoke German at home, they undoubtedly did the same thing. The English that these grandparents spoke is accented so heavily it is incomprehensible to American children.

The dispute with Ramos about anchor babies being a derogatory term is nonsense, what ridiculous misdirection that doesn't even apply to the Latino situation that parallels my own family's experience. The term applies to coming here during late term pregnancy specifically to drop a baby in an American hospital for the purpose of it being granted automatic citizenship then returning to wherever and with no real intention of pursuing citizenship the regular way by assimilation, no actual acknowledging U.S. laws or submitting to its jurisprudence save for that one clever trick, and to be used however U.S. citizenship can be advantaged in the future in a rapidly changing world. You never know. Latinos don't do much of that. Ramos burst into opposition caucus with his fury over nothing that applies to him nor to his program of destroying America through abuse and neglect and misreading of its constitution and its laws. One last thing, how typically liberal to instruct us which terms are forbidden for us to use. Burst into opposition caucus and attempt to control its language. Language instruction rejected.

Tweets tonight are pointing out comically how Trump is demonstrating how it really is possible to have people escorted outside and then permitted back in the right way politely and with gratitude.

Who Is Jorge Ramos....

...and why is he so important?

I watched the Trump presser clip and that Ramos dude clearly jumped the queue. What's up with that? Is it symbolic of something larger?

KLEM FM

I've loved this song since it came out.

A friend once remarked how he liked it because he could really hear the other band members. That was intentional, I think. The whole point of "Quadrophenia" was to play on the one-in-four, four-in-one theme. If you listen closely, you can hear how Pete Townshend slowly factors his guitar out of the song to "reveal" the others. In the first verse (not the chorus) he plays clipped chords; in the second verse, his chords are even more clipped; by the the third verse, he's gone completely, leaving us to wonder just who is leading the band!

It must have been like herding cats to lead The Who. There probably never was a better collection of accomplished rock musicians together on one stage. And this was Keith Moon's best drumming! Three years later in 1976, he already looked and sounded exhausted to me. He was dead a few short years after that.

Townshend really lets them shine in this song, but he herds them together around the 4 min 25 sec mark before they all splinter off again. Still amazing.

"Digital surveillance 'worse than Orwell', says new UN privacy chief"

“Some people were complaining because they couldn’t find me on Facebook. They couldn’t find me on Twitter. But since I believe in privacy, I’ve never felt the need for it,” Cannataci, a professor of technology law at University of Groningen in the Netherlands and head of the department of Information Policy & Governance at the University of Malta, said.

Appointed after concern about surveillance and privacy following the Edward Snowden revelations, Cannataci agreed that his notion of a new universal law on surveillance could embarrass those who may not sign up to it. “Some people may not want to buy into it,” he acknowledged. “But you know, if one takes the attitude that some countries will not play ball, then, for example, the chemical weapons agreement would never have come about.” (read the whole thing)

This could be a good thing.

You shall not pass!

Link to video

"The Progressive Case For Trump"

Link to video

"Obama feeling 'feisty,' ready to take on the 'crazies'"

"Obama said that as he'd ridden to the fundraiser with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, they'd done some reminiscing and spent some time "figuring out how we are going to deal with the crazies in terms of managing some problems.""

He didn't identify exactly who the two of them had defined as "crazies."

But Obama spoke at length about his differences with the GOP Congress. And he lamented that "too often, our political debates are not about what's best for the country but what's best for the next election."

Mrs. Brown you have a lovely daughter.

Fires in western states affect sunsets and sunrises weirdly

He sang beneath your whisper like a storm.

Oh Man, did I ever catch these guys in a good one. They're totally wrong and I'm right. They have three writers for azlyrics with questionable hearing. I don't know. I think the song Suzanne is a cover by Roberta Flack. Sounds like a poem because it has irrational poem-y things in it and a misunderstanding of Jesus. Otherwise pretty good. And I can see what this song says when I listen, and have for decades. It's locked in. Physically. The actions of how to say this poem-song are locked in and just now I noticed azlyrics has "He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone."

Big difference.

"Twitter shuts down 30 sites..."

"... dedicated to saving politicians' deleted tweets"

"Imagine how nerve-racking — terrifying, even — tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable?" Twitter reportedly told the OSF. "No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user’s voice."

The US arm of Politwoops was shut down in June this year, but this new decision affects countries all over the world including Canada, Egypt, India, Ireland, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, Norway, and the UK. The Diplotwoops site, dedicated to archiving deleted tweets from diplomats, was also shut down, with the OSF noting that all the accounts had been "extensively used and cited by journalists around the world." The organization's director, Arjan El Fassed, commented: "What politicians say in public should be available to anyone. This is not about typos, but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice."

The cozy relationship between governments and big communication businesses is stronger than ever.

"The headrest didn't come with instructions"

Biden is in and Hillary is out?

BREAKING: White House spokesman says Obama's choice of Biden as VP indicates president's view of Biden's capability for presidency.

— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) August 24, 2015

"'Suicides' over Ashley Madison hack"

"Two individuals associated with the leak of Ashley Madison customer details are reported to have taken their lives, according to police in Canada."

The police revealed the news at a press conference in Toronto but gave no further information about the deaths.

Ashley Madison's Canadian parent company Avid Life Media is offering a C$500,000 (£240,000) reward for information about the hackers, they added.

He also explained that the hack had already led to a series of "spin-offs of crimes and further victimisation".

"Criminals have already engaged in online scams by claiming to provide access to the leaked websites," he said.

"The public needs to be aware that by clicking on these links you are exposing your computers to malware, spyware, adware and viruses."

The unfolding of the hack was also detailed at the conference - from the moment on 12 July when several Avid Life Media employees logged in to their computers and were confronted by a message from the hackers.

This message was accompanied by music - AC/DC's "Thunderstruck", said Mr Evans.

The Australian Stock Market dropped 2.5% in the first 20 minutes

"The Chinese Stock Market dropped 7% just an hour after opening, and the ripple effects are starting to be seen worldwide as markets open"

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 and the All Ordinaries indices fell more than 2.4 per cent within the first 20 minutes of trade today.

CommSec chief economist Craig James said that despite the uncertainty on global markets, the US and Australian economies remained in good shape.

He also believed worries about Greece and China were over-rated.

"At present, we would view the global sharemarket correction as a correction we had to have - a situation that will be beneficial in injecting more value into markets," Mr James said.

Via Reddit

"Guy annoys girlfriend with puns at Ikea"

Link to video

I Dream of Jeanie!

In all her many aspects!

Hillary has a new spokesperson!

She needs someone to deal with the press now that they are a actually asking serious questions. Because the bitch she sent out today just ain't cutting it.

Happy Birthday Barbara Eden.

We still Dream of Jeanie.

Often. In color.

Happy Birthday Babe!

Plane Breakup*

This guy on the plane just broke up w his girlfriend and she's SOBBING pic.twitter.com/IW9QVYxXdB

— Kelly Keegs (@keegs141) August 23, 2015

*UPDATE - #PlaneBreakup was Not real.

@JonFrat @TheNJMick HAHAH this is not real

— Kelly Keegs (@keegs141) August 24, 2015

Ashley Madison Hack Blues

"Islamic preacher Hamza Tzortzis 'found' on leaked list"

Link to video

"He hurt people he was trying to help"

“I am ready to leave the love and kindness and goodness and patience that I mix with everything else that I am and become a cold blooded killer,” Christopher Duntsch wrote.

To authorities, the chilling Dec. 11, 2011, email points to Duntsch’s mind-set in the months before he “intentionally, knowingly and recklessly” botched spinal surgeries, severely injuring four people and killing one woman, Floella Brown, who died in July 2012.

The email was among new evidence Dallas County prosecutors presented against Duntsch at a hearing Friday in which Criminal District Judge Carter Thompson refused to reduce Duntsch’s $600,000 bail...

Duntsch “knowingly takes actions that place the patients’ lives at risk,” police said, such as causing extreme blood loss by cutting a major vein and then not taking proper steps to correct it. In one case, Duntsch left a surgical sponge inside a man's body. During that same surgery, another doctor forced him to stop operating because of his “unacceptable surgical technique,” the affidavit said.

Yikes.

"Netanyahu pressed for Iran attacks, but was denied: ex-defense chief"

"Israel's political leaders pushed to attack Iran at least three times in the past few years but had to back down on the advice of the military and due to concerns about its ally the United States, former defense minister Ehud Barak said."

In interviews to his biographers aired late on Friday by Israel's Channel Two, Barak said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had wanted military operations against Iranian nuclear facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

In 2010, the Israeli leadership wanted an attack but the military said it did not have "operational capability,"

If Iran builds the bomb, and, the evidence says they are very interested in doing so, Israel will come to regret not doing something about it when they could have.

“A little girl is dead” – Frustrated mom’s #BlackLivesMatter Facebook rant goes viral

"An African-American mother in St. Louis posted an epic rant on Facebook over more protesting in the city after a young black man was shot and killed Wednesday when he pointed a stolen gun at police."

Noting the death of a 9-year-old girl who was killed by an unknown assailant the day before while doing homework on her mother’s bed, Peggy Hubbard expressed her frustration over #BlackLivesMatter protesters standing up for “the thug” while ignoring innocent victims.

“Last night, who do you think they protested for?” Hubbard asked. “The thug, the criminal, because they’re howling ‘police brutality.’ Are you kidding me? Police brutality? How about black brutality?”

Link to video

KLEM FM

link in case the video doesn't load

h/t: Sissy Willis

Did you ever get the feeling?

That these politicians are taking us for a ride.....and the Kennedy's are driving?

Did you ever get the feeling?

That famous Russian Authors wrote very bad porno?

Marilyn's Diary

My Uncle Herman was really hip. I mean he was just groovy. He loved to do all the things that young college kids loved to do in the 1960's.

He played guitar. Smoked pot. Grew out his hair. Especially the hair in his ears. And most of all he loved to dance.

If you didn't know that he was a seven foot tall green skinned monster you would think he was a Negro. He could do the Twist. The Stroll. The Mashed Potato. The Watusi.

Every night I would set up my victrola and we would play records and dance and dance and dance.

But there was one dance that I loved to do with my Uncle Herman.

The Horizontal Mambo.

Wild, Wild Life!

Marlon Perkins had become obsessed. He was a full time zoophiliac. Of course he dabbled in many species but he kept coming back to the apes. He had a long time live in relationship with a young chimpanzee named Bubbles. He lived with Bubbles and his wife for many years.

Finally he decided he had to be true to himself. Marlin divorced his wife in Mexico and arranged to marry Bubbles. Unfortunately Bubbles was male and gay marriage was not yet legal. So he had to settle for common law status.

Marlin's actions lead to the cancellation of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Marlin tried to market a series based on his life with Bubbles called "I Married  a Monkey" but it was too far ahead of it's time.

It was later produced as "Good Times" starring Esther Rolle.

( Don Meier, Talk into this with the Animals...The E True Hollywood Story of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom)

"Waiter... there's a hare in my pancakes!"

"As someone who is somewhat gullible and extremely bad at spotting Photoshop manipulations...
This is a really bad Photoshop."

"3 American friends tackle and hogtie gunman aboard European train"

"French President François Hollande plans to meet three Americans who foiled a suspected terrorist attack on a packed high-speed train running from Amsterdam to Paris."

Friday’s dramatic incident — in which a heavily armed man emerged from a train bathroom with an automatic rifle and started shooting — was being investigated by French counterterrorism authorities. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel described the incident as a terrorist attack.

The three men were friends from middle school and two of them were members of the armed services, according to their family members.

Hillary Clinton can't keep up with Deez Nuts

Search interest in #DeezNuts has surpassed @HillaryClinton on Google pic.twitter.com/jFtXFH1oFR

— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) August 21, 2015

8th Planned Parenthood sting video released.

The video is brief, just two minutes, it shows StemExpress CEO admitting Planned Parenthood sells fully intact aborted babies. It is a teaser video, a preview to a longer one intended for immediate release.

This site, Life News has a good recap of events, a good read this morning that includes names so I could take my time and have a window open and see who they are talking about, what they look like. Surely they are monsters, with horns and discoloration, warts, and serious psoriasis I expect, but no, they're all normal women, most we've seen, most actually attractive. They're intelligent too. They're doctors. The sort of women you'd like to talk to otherwise.

I'm fascinated with them looking so normal.

I linger with the photographs, project into them briefly and become part of the scene and feel what it's like.

I ask them sincerely as if they're my lab partner, looking right them "How can you do all this?" And I feel ill. Being that close.

I'm punking myself again.

Just thinking it, just imagining being so near as engagement with someone so far from grace makes me physically ill. As if speaking with evil refined. I'm this fainting couch pussy while they've become MDs in carnage leaving a wake of destruction complete as the Crystalline Entity, and politically fierce besides with their grubby mitts on tax funding as part of their circular support system that keeps everyone, baby-messing doctors, democrat politicians, media stair climbers all fat and happy with money and with mutual recognition for admirably good work rewarded with something so banal as applause and a plaque with both party's names on it, another trophy for participating in their circular profitable enterprise.

Why be ill about it though?

Well, ill because they're discussing their business as students in junior science class opening a live frog and doing that same thing as we did as students. Nearly did. Equating fetus to frog is ill-inducing.

There were girls doing that too back then, friends, so still, why?

I thought back following that thread of dread so real you can feel it about dissecting frogs in open livid vivisection splayed and pinned in a tray of wax with its organs still functioning, that was the point, the fascination of seeing things working. The new school I was at let us off easy, a student could abjure on grounds of being a pussy about cutting open frogs so I missed some important lessons. I guess.

Thinking further I'm half as young as that and placed in a field on another continent that is next to a cluster of small houses packed together, the only open area around, the opposite direction from the base. It's hot and dirty and nothing but weeds and a packed dirt bicycle path, a tower on the side near the houses with their individual walled yards and on the far side a copse of bamboo that had my intense interest. I'm with my older brother and somehow he discovered the joy of firecrackers. To his excitement, not mine, they're legal at this new place. Barry had a variety of fireworks to experiment. I have no idea how he got his hands on them, where he got them, on base or off base, how much they cost, what kind of money he used, who hooked him up, who translated, how he knew about them, how the transaction went, nothing. It's one of the things that made him completely mysterious to me and so full of surprises. He kept pulling that sort of thing. I could not have thought of such a thing as fireworks on my own. So instead of exploring the bamboo that afternoon is devoted to learning about fireworks. Apparently they'll play a big part in our new life in this new place.  I have no interest in them. There is only one kind that I like. Little colorful exploding spit wads that fired on impact. You threw them on something hard and they exploded. Tiny papier mâché squibs. That's all. 100 to a package. Later, they got me in trouble in connection with a slingshot so those were given up too.

This afternoon was devoted to regular exploding fireworks. It was Barry's idea to stuff one inside the mouth of a frog and light it. He lit the firecracker. It exploded. Killed the frog to bits. Both of us felt like shit. Immediately. Like a bucket challenge of ice cold guilt drenched both of us immediately. Both of us knew immediately NEVER do that again. Most profoundly. Most immediately. Neither of us spoke of the incident. I suppose, before that moment we didn't care about frogs or think of them any differently from anything else that grows automatically like weeds, but after we killed that frog that way for no reason except curiosity the feeling of remorse was too crushing to bear we hadn't words even to talk about it. Not ever. And he's an upright eagle scout type guy, I'm not. Since I feel this way I can imagine how he feels. He's supposed to be my role model. And we're turning out to be little shits blowing up creatures in other peoples' country.

Who would have thought that absurd boyhood lesson would become cellularly encoded?

I understand now. The female doctors on these Center for Medical Progress sting videos never had much of a boyish interest in firecrackers nor any nefarious boyish interest in blowing up frogs. Missed that whole thing. Boys are so terrible, always blowing things up and killing harmless innocent creatures. Good thing these doctors weren't boys.

All that from staring at photos of abortion doctors that look like regular people.

The article at Life News lists the states that have taken action already up to this point. It lists states that cut off funding, states that initiated investigations, and conversely, states that legislated immediate support for Planned Parenthood. All those states listed and Colorado is not among them.

They saved it for last. Doug Lamborn a Colorado representative introduced legislation to  halt funding for abortions. Guess his party.

The exchange is interesting. Lamborn wants direct state funding to stop immediately but also wants state money for state research to stop. He wants the State universities to formulate policy stating they will not use any human fetal material in research.

The president of the university replied they will do their best and they will try to limit using human fetal cells as much as possible.

Readers see two obvious wiggle-room outs. Total wishy-washy meaningless jibberjabber filler-words. Bluster. Readers see in the response no intention of doing anything at all.

Lamborn replied that isn't good enough.

CSU responded and said that they can limit the university’s use of fetal tissue. Additionally, Franks said that they will “seek alternatives to aborted fetal tissue sources” and ask vendors for “all available information regarding the source of fetal tissue.” He said, “With this information, our institution and researchers can continue to assure that when research is conducted, we do so meeting our ethical standards.” 

However, Rep. Lamborn argues that CSU’s response isn’t sufficient.

KLEM FM

Classical Surf:

Link in case the video doesn't load

So, I'm having a private showing of some plastic reality beverages tomorrow and hopefully I will sell enough to buy some new plastics and to carry on experiments.

A website is coming soon.