Wednesday, September 30, 2015

"Swarming Honeybees Trap Deputy on Oklahoma Interstate"


Link to video and story via NBC News

Emails show they knew the danger of using private networks

.

Honor killing by Muslim family in Brooklyn!

New York Post September 30 , 2015

A thirteen year old marsupial was murdered by her father today for going to school wearing sexy stockings. Claiming that his family was dishonored by the red and white stripped leggings Mohamed bar Mohamed cut off his daughters head at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues at the front door of the new Barclay's Center.

Shouting "Allah Aardvark" the rigidly religious devout Muslim cut off his daughters head and delayed the Billy Joel Concert for several minutes. They had to start close to on time because Billy Joel is not getting any younger and they didn't want to issue refunds if he had a stroke before the show.

"I thought I would not have a problem as I had her clitoris clipped but she turned into an infidel whore." Currently in police custody the irate father will be released with a desk appearance ticket before the day is over.

When reached for comment Mayor Bill De Blasio said "Although this concerned father might have overreacted we must remember that the real problem is Country Clerks who refuse to issue marriage licenses. They must be incarcerated until they follow the law."

"To Stop Climate Change, We Must Genetically Engineer Humans"

"A lot of researchers are thinking about how to genetically engineer crops and food animals to help them withstand post-climate change heat and parched conditions. But what about genetically engineering humans to slow our constant carbon contributions?"
The first proposal we cover is night vision — the idea that we could genetically engineer humans to have more rods so we could better see at night, and thus reduce our dependence on electric lights. The problem here is that there are only so many spots for rods and cones in our eyeballs, and our particular balance of the two is a tradeoff. Humans are day creatures, so they have more cone cells. Animals like cats are night creatures, so they have more rods. So during the day, humans can actually see motion about 10 to 12 times better than a cat. And many experts think that cats don’t see the same number of colors we do, although they’re divided over whether cats see in mostly blues and grays, or whether they see more like dogs where everything is less saturated. So if we want night vision, we might have to compromise some of our day vision to get it.
Another modification that Liao proposed was an induced allergy to meat, to help people reduce their consumption of animals. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States 14.5% of all greenhouse gas pollution comes from livestock. So the idea here is to make people allergic to eating meat. The problem is that there’s no real way to control the severity of the allergy, and the two proteins that Liao talks about targeting (BSA and alpha-gal) are both found in all kinds of places like milk, eggs, dogs, cats and pork. People allergic to alpha-gal seem to be able to eat poultry and fish, but if they were to eat pork or lamb or beef the allergic reaction includes everything from hives to gastrointestinal upset, to anaphylactic shock. Not something most people would want to sign up for.
Next we talk about breeding people to be shorter, something Liao says could reduce our carbon footprint. Smaller people require less energy and use fewer resources, Liao argues. But selecting for height genetically would be a nightmare, according to the most recent paper that Maxmen found there are 697 genes involved in height. Since there’s not a good way to select for height genetically, another method Liao talks about in his paper is using treatments that cause babies to be born light — to have a low “birth weight.” But that comes with a set of very real dangers to the baby, and few mothers would opt to take that risk. Not to mention set their kid up for society’s bias against people (particularly men) who are shorter.
Via Rush Limbaugh radio show

Alexis de Tocqueville


Watch 8 years of selfies

Link to video

"Russia demands US to remove warplanes from Syria’s airspace"

"Russian warplanes have begun bombarding Syrian opposition targets in the war-torn nation's north, working on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to a senior military official."
The official said airstrikes targeted fighters in the vicinity of Homs, located roughly 60 miles east of a Russian naval facility in Tartus, and were carried out by a "couple" of Russian bombers. The strikes hit targets in Homs and Hama, but there are no presence of ISIS in those areas, a senior U.S. defense official said. These planes are hitting areas where Free Syrian Army and other anti-Assad groups are located, the official said.
The development came after Pentagon officials brushed aside an official request from Russia to clear air space over northern Syria, where Moscow intends to conduct airstrikes against ISIS on behalf of Assad, according to sources who spoke to Fox News.
"It's me or it's him."

Link to video

"Meet the American Vigilantes Who Are Fighting ISIS"

"A ragtag group of fighters from America and Europe have joined the fight against extremists in Syria."
[Clay] Lawton arrived in Syria, was given an M-16 and in just over two weeks was participating in the offensive at Tel Hamis. ‘‘Fighting ISIS wasn’t high-profile yet,’’ he said. ‘‘Wasn’t a big deal. Easy ride to the front.’’
His nom de guerre was Heval Sharvan, but the freedom fighters called him Captain America. ‘‘I think, after this, I might want to relax and go back to work,’’ he said. ‘‘Maybe New York or maybe Miami. Well, Miami might be too chill.’’
Lawton told me about the day he killed an ISIS militant. A Kurd gave him a sniper rifle to attack an ISIS-controlled village. Lawton took a position on the roof of a building and saw an ISIS fighter with a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher running below. Lawton shot him.
‘‘The guy just exploded,’’ Lawton said. ‘‘He was just gone.’’ Lawton still had the rifle at his side, close to his body like a purse.
‘‘That was my first kill,’’ he said. ‘‘Kinda weird, but I had a nightmare that night.’’
‘‘About the militant?’’ I asked.
‘‘It’s hard to explain,’’ he said. ‘‘You know these guys are animals, but even with that knowledge … ’’ He trailed off. ‘‘You know you have to let the brain figure it out on its own,’’ he said. ‘‘He pointed the R.P.G. at me. He would have taken me and my friend. It was hard for me. Killing people, you know you are here to do it. But then, when it happens, and you see it. It’s different. He just exploded.’’ (read the whole thing)

The Pope Secretly met with Kim Davis


There is that word again. Secretly.

According to Breibart News of course. It must have just been a mistake by the person writing the blog post.  You know it was a private meeting that they didn't want anyone to know at the time it happened. They were just confused because the Pope publicized his support for the embattled Kentucky Court Clerk. He did mention his support of "people of conscience" in a press conference but didn't see fit to mention that he met with Davis and prayed with her.

The full story is told in an obscure website called "Inside the Vatican." Sort of like Sports Center for religious types.

A quote from the story:

Kim Davis gave me this account of the meeting shortly after it took place.
“The Pope spoke in English,” she told me. “There was no interpreter. ‘Thank you for your courage,’ Pope Francis said to me. I said, ‘Thank you, Holy Father.’ I had asked a monsignor earlier what was the proper way to greet the Pope, and whether it would be appropriate for me to embrace him, and I had been told it would be okay to hug him. So I hugged him, and he hugged me back. It was an extraordinary moment. ‘Stay strong,’ he said to me. Then he gave me a rosary as a gift, and he gave one also to my husband, Joe. I broke into tears. I was deeply moved.
“Then he said to me, ‘Please pray for me.’ And I said to him, ‘Please pray for me also, Holy Father.’ And he assured me that he would pray for me.”
Joe told Kim that he would give his rosary to her mother, who is a Catholic. And Kim then said that she would give her rosary to her father, who is also a Catholic.
Vatican sources have confirmed to me that this meeting did occur; the occurrence of this meeting is not in doubt.
Those who have seen the images of the film of the Pope answering the questions of the journalists on the airplane, on the matter of individual conscience, his determination and passion, are persuaded that he had in mind not a theoretical issue of conscience, but a specific person, someone he had met and embraced — someone whose burden, as a loving pastor, he had taken on his own shoulders.
He was thinking of this person when he answered those questions.''
My question is why did this have to be a "secret." Why is it that Pope Francis is happy to be seen with Barack Obama, Fidel Castro and Mo Rocca. But the Little Sisters of the Poor and Kim Davis have to be kept in the "closet." That meeting with them have to be secret and leaked out to the press like they are something to be ashamed of or something. 
It is passing strange to say the least.

The books are moving



I started out selling some of my books on Amazon. I have about 3000 of them and it has been very tough to get them all on Amazon. So far I have put up about 400 of them. Also various other stuff I had to get rid of when I moved. Like a pasta machine that sold in a day. So far I have sold about 40 books in a month or so which is pretty good.

If you want to check them out just go to Amazon and look up "Joe Torre The Yankee Years" in hardcover. Check out the New ones for sale. If you click on to that you will see one offered by "Brooklyn Reads." Which is the name I am selling under. Just click on "Brooklyn Reads" and you will get a list of all of the titles I put up so far.

Oh and please use Lem's Amazon Portal. I don't make a lot of money off of this. I just want my books to go to a good home. I am using the money to get some of them on Kindle. It is the wave of the future.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Something fun to ligthten the mood.


"Video Fiorina Spoke Of In Debate Released"

"The video that Carly Fiorina graphically described at the last Republican presidential debate, depicting a moving fetus on a table following an apparent abortion, was released online in its entirety Tuesday morning, according to Gregg Cunningham, the founder of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, who collected the footage."

"During the debate on Sept. 16, Fiorina denounced the images on videos that had been produced by a separate group, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). “As regards [to] Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes,” she said. “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”"

Graphic Video after the jump

Who wants to manage a conscious decline?

"The Pentagon’s top official overseeing military relations with Russia and Ukraine [Evelyn Farkas] is resigning amid the ongoing debate within the Obama administration over how respond to Russian moves in Ukraine and Syria."
“She has advised three secretaries of defense on Russia policy, providing steady counsel on how the U.S. should respond to Russia's aggressive actions and has been deeply involved in securing $244 million in support for Ukraine,” the official said. “In addition, Evelyn has brought fresh thinking to Southeast Europe policies — supporting Montenegro's interest in joining NATO, expanding defense cooperation with Georgia, and increasing multilateral cooperation with the three Caucasus nations.” 
In testimony last year before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Farkas took a hard line on Russia, saying the country’s actions “stand as an affront to the international order that we and our allies have worked to build since the end of the Cold War.” 
"Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, followed by blatant and unconcealed efforts to destabilize eastern and southern Ukraine, signifies a paradigm shift for our relations with Russia,” she said in prepared testimony. “As the crisis deepens, our European allies and partners will look to the United States to demonstrate resolve and to reinforce solidarity across the continent.”
Putin is taking over.

My Matt Damon for your glass of water: The art of the deal

"What are the red flags that people shoud look out for in order to avoid an incompetent or "bad" doctor?"

Doctors of Reddit, Up voted comments...
Unfortunately I don't think there's a simple way for people without a medical background to evaluate the competence of their doctor. We get credited with cures unrelated to treatment and blamed for misfortunes that could not have been reasonably avoided. Patient satisfaction has far more to do with a doctor's interpersonal skills than their clinical acumen.
"Patient satisfaction has far more to do with a doctor's interpersonal skills than their clinical acumen."
My wife works for a surgeon's group and we've talked about how malpractice claims track with bedside manner, and not the skill of the clinician.
As a layman, I believe this and it scares me shitless. Especially when I think of the incompetent people in my profession, who people have no idea are incompetent, and apply that thought to medicine.
I have to say that patient satisfaction isn't what a doctor should look out for first and foremost. My mother is a midwife (i.e. not a doctor, but still in a medical profession) and through her I've seen and heard of the 'rankings' their patients give. The top 10 best midwife practices in the country are always the ones that give in to demands.
"But I want my baby to be born at home!" "k" "You're the best in the country11!!1!" is a common situation, despite the fact that in many cases the decision a good midwife should have made is to have the kid be born in the hospital. I regularly heard about patients who were outraged and angry when my mother firmly said that they couldn't have the kid be born at home because it would be dangerous, and I've heard of a few cases where these women go to the competitor with an overlapping service area, get what they want and then rate these competitors as being the better practice, despite the fact that they did something that is medically inexcusable. Incompetence has many forms, but low patient satisfaction isn't always it.

ABC: Fiorina "the other woman"

"As the only woman GOP presidential candidate in the race -- and now a serious contender for the nomination with rising poll numbers following strong performances in the two Republican debates -- Fiorina occupies a unique space with the 2016 contest."
"[Whether] or not you're ready to ... support me, in your heart of hearts every single one of you know you would love to see me debate Hillary Clinton," Fiorina has told audiences from the stump.
And while Fiorina is quick to tell voters she is not asking for their support on the basis of her gender but her qualifications, her gender identity serves as a contrast with the only other woman in the race.
Fiorina regularly lodges scathing attacks in Clinton’s direction, accusing the Democratic frontrunner of having “blood on her hands” over the attack in Benghazi and calling her a liar.
“Mrs. Clinton’s record is very clear, she has lied about Benghazi ... she’s lied about her emails, she’s lied about her server, and she does not have a track record of accomplishment,” Fiorina told reporters during a campaign stop in South Carolina. “Those are the facts, and I’m going to run this campaign on the facts.”
Her female identity doesn’t only draw contrasts with Clinton but the entire Democratic Party, allowing her to hit on hot-button, wedge issues in a way that no other GOP candidate can. She refers to the term “war on women” with disdain and has made her opposition to abortion a centerpiece of her campaign.
Fiorina's gender appears problematic for Hillary.

"Keurig unveils its new home-brew soda machine"

"The all-white, $369.99 machine stands apart from previous carbonated and cold brew machines like Soda Stream, Keurig Green Mountain CEO Brain Kelley told me, because the device produces a carbonated drink without the need of a CO2 canister. Kold Pods, which will cost between $4.49 and $4.99 for a four-pack, actually include CO2 beads. It also delivers a cold beverage. "Other machines [drinks] don't come out cold," said Kelley. It's also starting out with some big name partners: Keurig Kold will be able to make Coca Cola and Dr. Pepper drinks..."


"Keurig gave the press an opportunity to brew our own cold and carbonated drinks... I hit the blue button and then waited as the device cooled the water to 44 degrees Fahrenheit. That was followed by a hissing sound and then a rush of carbonated water into the 8-ounce cup I'd placed below the dispenser. That was followed quickly by what looked like the flavor syrup. This all took about a minute and then my drink was ready. It tasted like fresh-from-the-bottle Coca-Cola. I was impressed."

h/t Sandy 

Study: Intelligent people's brains wired differently to those with fewer intellectual abilities

"Scientists claim to have found a correlation between how well wired-up some individuals were to their cognitive abilities and general success in life."
“We’ve tried to see how we can relate what we see in the brain to the behavioural skills we can measure in different people. In doing this, we hope to able to understand what goes on ‘under the bonnet’ of the brain,” said Professor Stephen Smith of Oxford University, who led the study published in Nature Neuroscience.
“You can think of it as a population-average map of 200 regions across the brain that are functionally distinct from one another. Then we looked at how much all of those regions communicated with each other, in every participant,” Professor Smith said.
“It may be that with hundreds of different brain circuits, the tests that are used to measure cognitive ability actually make use of different sets of overlapping circuits,” Professor Smith said.
“We hope that by looking at brain-imaging data we’ll be able to relate connections in the brain to the specific measures, and work out what these kinds of test actually require the brain to do,” he said.
It may also be possible to use the research to work out how to train people to improve their brain connectivity and therefore push than up the scale so that they achieve more than they otherwise would, he added.
“It’s a question of whether it’s possible to move people up the axis of connectivity. We know from other research that it is possible to improve cognitive performance with training, but what we don’t know yet is whether this is true of connectivity,” he explained.
These guys are distinguished scientists... you can tell.

"One of the perks of being a woman..."

"... is that no one can ever surprise you with a kid years later and tell you you're the mom."

Shower thought top voted comments...
This reminds me of something with which I like to tease my wife. We have a daughter that looks nothing like her and acts nothing like her. I like to tell her "Babe, I have something to tell you. I cheated on you and she isn't your baby."
First episode of "once upon a time" says otherwise
Except when you were in a Indian bollywood flick...
No, you can just be the one who ends up raising a kid on your own because the dad/sperm donor skipped town/was abusive/denied responsibility/disappeared, etc.
What a perk!

The point is parking...

Link to video

Monday, September 28, 2015

WKRLEM says you should relax


track

Do you have a dog? This is random, apologies, the thing is, tracking was one of the most fun most excellent trained things we did with our dogs. Not all at once but one at a time. Oddly this idea came about by the phone reminding me of my Belgians. Their alacrity. It's an impressive tool but tricky. It takes a knack to handle and once the knack is attained then the combination of user with tool is satisfying and fun.

Same thing with the dogs. All three Belgian sheepdogs and the German shepherd especially was the best of all at tracking, while the eagerness of the phone to do all things at once reminds me of Belgians so eager to please they score poorly in trials at first for crowding, for anticipating, for handler overcorrecting for the dog doing too much, making a game of their serious and unnaturally rigid obedience. To score high you have to train the fun and spontaneity out of them. Who wants that? Better for structured games that are fun not rigid not score oriented. I love it when my dogs really goof around. It's the whole point of having them.

Here's how to get them to use their nose for a game.

Surprisingly they don't automatically use their nose. Their best way of finding things. They have to be shown. Except hound dogs. Hounds track automatically. The other breeds almost do it automatically because their nose is their main sensory organ.

Throughout this game the dog will sniff the air to catch a trace of scent. When the dog stops sniffing the air and starts sniffing the ground, that's when the dog is tracking.

Start off very stupidly. The dog sees you the whole time. Have the dog calm and sitting and stay. Pull out a toy. Get your hands all over the toy. Rub it all over. Under your shirt. Get your scent all over the toy. Let the dog see, hype him up a little about the toy. Sniff, sniff, sniff.  Have him stay while you hide the toy in plain sight. Go straight forward, no turns, and put the toy down in plain sight. Return to dog and playfully have them "go find the toy."

Oh boy, that phrase is going to turn out to be fun.

Success. Do it again if you like. Call it a day for that simple straightforward activity.

Next day. Same thing now with one 90° turn. Maybe go behind a tree, or if inside behind a chair. The dog sees the toy being hidden.

Over sessions, keep making it more difficult. Adding turns and concealing. The trail is the one you leave by walking with the toy radiant with scent like a long comet tail that takes a sharp turn disappears and glows with scent under leaves or a pillow. Now it's a set-up thing the dog knows the game. The next step of difficulty, the thing that keeps this interesting for all parties, the dog comes onto the scene cold. You show the toy, concentrating on its scent, play a bit with the toy in the dogs face, let them have it, take it back, rub your scent, "here, smell." you leave a trail of the toy on a freshly vacuumed floor or a freshly rained on yard or an area of field not trampled. This is where my brother and I took the dog out to some park or some field near where we lived, with other dog trainers a few times, mostly on our own. The dogs had a great time being out and doing something apparently important where they get to be the hero of the whole deal.

On the field trip type training the goal was the dog would find me. It was insanely important the dog find me. I'm lost and helpless behind a rock. What joy when the dog frenetically sniffs the air for my scent and decides the best way is put nose to the ground and sniffs the ground, finds a turn then another and follows my stink to me! Can't you imagine how impossibly joyous that is? The reunion is exquisite.

In the back yard I would roll the toy on the ground in a straight line, make a a 90° turn in my trail then another 90° turn in my trail and hide the toy, rolled up the fence and placed on top of fence post, rolled to the house and dropped inside a window well, rolled up the trunk of a cottonwood tree and placed in the first crook, up the side of a shed and placed on the roof, at the base of tree, a trail rolled on the ground up to the trash bins, up the side of a trash bin and hidden inside. Having sniffed that toy and now being separated from it, the toy becomes the most important thing on Earth and the dog will use all its facilities to get it.

You see the agility trails on t.v. and they look like the dogs are having a great time. And there are the judges and spectators alike knocking off points whenever the dog does something imperfectly. The moderator points out errors. The result of that training no matter how fun no matter how excellent is robot dogs with their spontaneity trained out by point reduction. Any activity like that, like frisbee catching becomes so organized the fun is squeezed out of it. I don't want that. This tracking game derived from such an organized activity, except no points with our game, just the fun part, errors allowed, is one of the best things we did both inside and out.

The inventor has another invention

Link to video

Via Ace

Hillary Quotes That Should Scare Away Votes..

Selected from a list of ten Hillary quotes published here.. Link

“I’m not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the President.” – Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries (p. 368), James B. Stewart, December 1993
First, Hillary Clinton reveals her reluctance to share documents related to the Whitewater scandal (sound familiar?). Clearly, secrecy and shady dealings are quite normal for the Clintons. Then, commenting on subpoenaed documents, Hillary asserts that she is just as much the president as her husband. In that case, aren’t her two terms already up? I sure hope so.

“Heavens, no! It could get subpoenaed. I can’t write anything.”
Although joking here when asked whether she kept a diary, Hillary clearly didn’t heed her own warning. Now all of her emails are out there for the world to see.

“I wonder if it’s possible to be a Republican and a Christian at the same time.” – C-SPAN broadcast, 21 June 2004.
Clearly, the demographics of the Republican party answer this question. The real question is, are there any Bible-belters who aren’t Republican?

“We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” --Speech at a DNC fundraiser in San Francisco, 29 June 2004.
Hillary Clinton very poorly phrased why she was opposed to President Bush’s tax cuts. While a comment like this may fly in North Korea, it definitely possesses strong communist undertones which will only serve to frighten the American public.
“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base…. There was no greeting ceremony and we were basically told to run to our cars. That is what happened.” – March 17, 2008, regarding her 1996 trip to Bosnia
This story was intended to show her audience her experience under pressure and in dangerous situations. A CBS news report featuring Sheryl Attkisson has video evidence that none of these events ever transpired. Hillary Clinton later said, referring to her previous comments, “. . . On a couple of occasions in the last weeks I just said some things that weren’t in keeping with what I knew to be the case and what I had written about in my book,” Pennsylvania Democratic Presidential Debate in Philadelphia, 16 April 2008. Another classic example of Clinton dishonesty – exactly what we need more of in our politicians!
“Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.” – Democratic Gubernatorial Rally in Boston, 24 October 2014, featured on Breitbart TV.
Okay Hillary, who does?

“[President George W. Bush] looked in the soul of Putin, and I could have told him, he was a KGB agent. By definition he doesn’t have a soul.” – Speech in Hampton,VA, 06 January 2008.
Considering our tenuous relationship with Russia, it’s nice to know that our next potential president has a good rapport with Putin.

Blood Moon over DC



Water on Mars

Defining Deviancy Down....below 5-0



You can't watch regular episodic TV anymore. I turn on Hawaii Five O to watch scenes of the scenery and the many hotels that I have stayed at on my visits to that paradise. Hoping to see a little good natured crime stories when the villains get caught at the end of the hour. I know the villains will always be old white guys but that is just a Hollywood convention like the girl who only has to take off her glasses to find out she is beautiful.

The episode started off in a very friendly manner with the marriage ceremony of one of the main characters. Kono gets married to her long time love interest who is a scion of the Japanese crime syndicate the Yakuza who is going straight so he can marry a cop. So far so good right? Ten minutes later she is tied to a chair and being tortured. Some dude is ripping her teeth out with a pair of pliers and throwing the bloody tooth on the floor. Casual brutality. In a subplot. Among shootouts and various mayhem. She frees herself by grabbing a scalpel and gutting her torturer. Then runs off and gets her finance gut shot. All in a couple of minutes.

Things have just become worse and worse. When you watch old school dramas you realize how talented those people were. Just because you can show it doesn't mean you have  to show it. Leave a little to the imagination. Leave the gratuitous gore to HBO and Showtime. Deviancy and filth are the go to level of entertainment nowadays. It is just ridiculous. I have to put this show on the list with Blue Bloods and Chicago PD and all the Law and Orders that I have not watched in years.

Luckily I DVRed a bunch of Hallmark Movies to watch.

I won't be going back to Hawaii any time soon.

"Distinguished scientists call for RICO prosecution of climate deniers"

"The scientists point out that RICO threats were critical to ending big tobacco's program of denying the link between cancer and smoking."
We appreciate that you are making aggressive and imaginative use of the limited tools available to you in the face of a recalcitrant Congress. One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change. The actions of these organizations have been extensively documented in peerreviewed academic research (Brulle, 2013) and in recent books including: Doubt is their Product (Michaels, 2008), Climate Cover-Up (Hoggan & Littlemore, 2009), Merchants of Doubt (Oreskes & Conway, 2010), The Climate War (Pooley, 2010), and in The Climate Deception Dossiers (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2015). We strongly endorse Senator Whitehouse’s call for a RICO investigation.
The methods of these organizations are quite similar to those used earlier by the tobacco industry. A RICO investigation (1999 to 2006) played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking. If corporations in the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds that have been documented in books and journal articles, it is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible so that America and the world can get on with the critically important business of finding effective ways to restabilize the Earth’s climate, before even more lasting damage is done.
"I started a joke which started the whole world crying"... Don't be surprise when it comes to pass.

"The Hard Untruths of Ta-Nehisi Coates"

"A bestselling polemic riven with hatred thrills the liberal elite"
Coates’s great stylistic innovation is to render his inner turmoil thrillingly visceral by repeatedly, even obsessively, referring to America’s alleged determination to attack and cage “my body” or “the black body” in general, even when the topic is such abstract calculations as how mortgage lenders figure credit ratings. “How do I live free in this black body?” Coates asks. A better question would be, why does he imprison himself with fear? In a country the size of ours, a one-in-a-million event can be expected to happen 320 times. Coates behaves as if such headline-making events are the norm. A routine traffic stop that ends without incident (a cop pulled over Coates, checked his license, and sent him on his way) becomes memoir-worthy solely because of what’s going on in his head. “I sat there in terror. . . . I had read reports of these officers choking mechanics, shooting construction workers, slamming suspects through the glass doors of shopping malls.” Coates is, of course, like the rest of us, far more likely to die in a motor-vehicle accident than at the hands of police, but an all-consuming fear of cars is not going to get you anointed America’s deepest thinker...
Ordinary journalistic standards don’t apply to Coates. His aggrandizement is the predictable outcome when a self-flagellating elite class, having spent 30 years propagating notions of group rights and group guilt while dismissing individual agency, concludes that victim classes should be encouraged to bear witness to “my truth,” the better to advance an extreme vision. New York magazine detected no irony in titling its recent cover story “The Hard Truths of Ta-Nehisi Coates.” Coates is both an effect and a cause of the cultural leadership’s resistance to the precise and the rigorous, the rational and the logical. The book won’t be questioned by the cultural mandarins—can’t be questioned, can’t be treated as anything less authoritative than holy writ—because they share Coates’s feelings, and that is the only reality that matters. (read the whole thing)

"Karl Marx is 'back in fashion'"

"The hard-left finance spokesman for Britain's opposition Labour Party said on Monday that Karl Marx, co-author of "The Communist Manifesto", is back in fashion because his ideas offer a definitive way to analyse the capitalist foundations of the modern Western economy."
"If you look at most of the institutions that are teaching economics today, Marx has come back in to fashion because people have gone back to his analysis of just the basics of how the system works," McDonnell told BBC radio.
"If you look at our capitalist system, one of the definitive analysts of how it works - not whether it is condemned, or whether it is right or wrong, just the mechanics of how it works, when it was first formed and how it would be developed - actually was Marx," he said.
If we don't prop up what we have, American exceptionalism, we are going to gravitate towards that crap.

Boehner resignation bad for Bush

Let's just go ahead and indulge a pretend argument. It's mental. But helps sorting.

The subject is CNN Politics, two authors, John Boehner's resignation spells trouble for Jeb Bush a pleasing headline that attracts clicks.

The article begins acknowledging grassroots insurrection infuriated with failure of system of checks and balances. This election cycle, insiders are out, outsiders are in, and the split in the party created by hotheads will make any party standard bearer like Bush a difficult win.

The next few paragraphs describe events as we know them. Nothing to argue with here. Although Mickey Kaus takes issue with the assertion that Boehner's departure might be bigger than Cantor's loss.

Doug Heye, a Cantor aide is still confused. He refers to an amusing Yogi Bera phrasing that does not make sense applied to Republican situation. Heye says Republicans have come to a fork in the road and the question is if they will take it. Heye adds, "There are a lot of people who wanted to fight, all we could do is fight Obama, the Democrats nonstop, or do we have a strategy of not just throwing punches but landing punches.

The answer is yes, yes, and yes. What's the problem with fighting nonstop landing punches or not? Conservatives saw their representatives holding punches while the crazy in Democrats produces roundhouses nonstop. He is admitting he is not up to the task by confusing strategy with throwing and landing punches and with cute Yogi Bera phrasings about forks and roads.

A sensible rephrasing is, we have come to a parting of the ways. And one way or another there is a parting. A split. Perhaps a visual representation would be helpful ... here.

nice and orderly as ever  vs hit 'em in the face with a board


The analysis is GOP loses the general by advancing Bush and GOP is incredibly slow on the uptake. The writers mention that even with outsiders taking elections throughout recent cycles establishment GOP still advances names like Romney and McCain. This is not happening for Bush.

All that is fine.

Peter King (R NY) speaks up. He does not care for the turn of events within his party. Boehner's resignation is: "throwing raw meat" (to senseless animals) to a "small but loud faction" He still has not looked behind him. He's riding the crest of the wave without any sense of the storm surge tidal forces that gave him majority, he still thinks all that is pendulum-swinging natural with some small but loud faction of crazy interrupting his smooth sailing the ship of state.

It's important to know what the dope looks like. When you see him you'll know he's too thick to perceive the what whys and wherefores disrupting party for failure of representation, dereliction of duty. King moans, "This has never happened before in our country. Where a person doing a job, the Speaker of the House, was removed from office, by a small faction because they want these unreasonable demands that if you don't agree with them they shut the government down. This is insanity.


Spoken like a true Democrat, Asshole.

Still stuck on the small faction. Buddy, you haven't been out.

He has the bit about who shuts down government reversed. This is what conservatives are talking about. It is Obama who shut down the government by his inability to cooperate, the tiny insignificant faction he keeps referring to is the conservative majority and King is flat not having it sink in. 

Start packing, King, you're not cut out for the task at hand immediate or otherwise. A quick history lesson about this not happening before. 

Let's have a timeline thing.

In the beginning there was nothing. No political parties. George Washington delivered a warning about the formation of political parties, the damage they do while recognizing their probable unfortunate inevitability. The core ideas in the speech are Washington's. The speech is written mostly by Madison. Hamilton was hired to edit an intermediate draft penned by Washington and rid it of the bitterness that Washington wrote.

So we have the nice version. 

Washington's anguish: National union forms the bedrock of collective and individual happiness. Political parties reinforce division with local factors the source of petty differences. Parties were one of two threats Washington perceived, internal and external. Washington warned of the baneful effects of the spirit of party. Parties allow a small but artful and enterprising minority to put in place the will of the party in place of the delegated will of the nation.

But power of government is too attractive to avoid the formation of parties of interest. Influence is bought and sold  immediately. Schemes plotted, kickbacks, mutual support, bribery and graft, favors, gifts, the lot. The Democratic party formed on its own as nebulous intermingling of interests and without a name coalescing around Jefferson's and Madison's Democratic-Republicans in the 1790's, formed in opposition to centralizing policies of the new Federalist party. At that time the newly forming Federalists run by Hamilton who wanted more central federal control while the early Democrat party wanted less. Founded in 1828, the Democrat party is oldest in the world. 

We look at this in terms of crackpots who desperately want government to do something for them, to fashion government into their monster. At first it was Federalists, the Pro- Administration party, a coalition of businessmen and bankers, organizing for more government control and Democrats invented to check them. 

This term, Democrat-Republican is cause for confusion. The term "Old Republican" refers to these and not to an earlier form of modern Republican Party. The interests were split then over Federalist principles applied to the purchase of Louisiana territory, over the results of the war of 1812, over measures taken against the strict construction of the U.S. Constitution, tariffs to protect factories, chartering the Second National Bank, promoting strong Navy and Army and internal improvements. All counter to U.S. Constitution, the basis of Republican thinking. The split in support for these essentials caused the party to lose influence and elements recombined and reform to a new party in mid 1800's, the Whigs. These Whigs operated for twenty years supporting the supremacy of Congress over the presidency, they put up four presidents themselves. They disintegrated over the issue of expansion of slavery into the territories. They were sent to check the crazy and they did very well until they were split themselves and could no longer do it. 

This "Speaker of the House" not being put out before ever in U.S. history, not by a small "faction of crazies." Maybe not just so, Mr. King, but entire political parties disintegrated because they simply are not up to the task. The same as your party today.

Mr King, The Speaker of the House was not put out. He resigned. He saw the split caused by party ineffectiveness inviting "the crazies"  and acted on his own. You, Mr. King, were sent to check the Democrat crazy and failed. That's the crazy of the opposing party, not the crazy you perceive coming behind you in your own party to chew you up. 

So that's King, seeing his party go the way of the Federalists, the way of the Democrat-Republicans, the way of the Whigs while one thing stays constant, reliable and ever present, the catch basin for American crazy, the oldest political party on Earth. As far as brakes on ambition of crazies go, Mr. King, you and your cohorts suck. Be disappointed. The feeling is mutual.

Kasich believes Boehner's resignation reflects the general dysfunction in Washington. Look how Kasich describes dysfunction in Washington. Would it be representatives failing to represent? Would it be executive branch overreach? Would it be SCOUS blending with Executive branch instead of twisting off their unconstitutional heads and dropkicking them across the marble courtroom floor? Could it be the dysfunction of Failure Theater™Republican helpless spinning of wheels and cute Parliamentarian maneuvers in the night. No. It's the dysfunction of not giving the servant sufficient respect. 
"Where people cannot even honor somebody who has dedicated their life to public service... He built the largest Republican majority in modern time... I guess no good deed goes undone or unpunished because some of the most savage attacks on him come from Republicans."
We honored his sartorial choices, his ties. What more do you want? He was there to check the crazy and he failed. Spare us your personality cult. Knock it off with "dedicated his life to public service." He was sent to check the crazy not join a class of elitist managers, not dedicate his life to public service. There is no such thing. Stop saying that, please. It will not be honored.

He did no such building. He presided over the majority given to him by the hard work of others. He did not build it. You're another one, Kasich. It's not about him and it's not about you and your "pubic service."  His unwillingness to represent went punished. The attacks came from exactly where they should have come from, voters disgusted with not being represented. You have the honor thing reversed, Kasich. You honor the voter, not they honor you. There will be no honoring of the politician. Democrats do that. You'll want to join them.

We know what the dope looks like.

Geoff Garin, Democratic pollster, (that would be crazy partisan pollster unable to ask the right questions and incapable of analyzing results), president of Hart research, so doubly, triply crazy, recently polled for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, questions whether Republican party can survive as coherent and functioning political entity.

I'd say, if Republicans cannot halt tax support for one abortion service provider and do that immediately with all the help they've been given, then the answer is resounding, "No." Not presently.
"The brinksmanship over shutting down the government in a futile effort to defund Planned Parenthood has not done the Republican Party any favors.
Too many adjectives. Brinkmanship is too delicate. GOP base has HAD it their continuing appropriations resolutions. And ALL talk of shutdown by government experts is 100% bogus. They have always HELPED GOP not hurt them. All his talk of perceptions are Democrat perceptions they're Washington insider perceptions they are wrong and they are in no way reflective of conservative base perceptions. That he is a pollster and that he bases his opinions on them means he is too mal-informed to heed. Just shut up. His political opinions are not informed, he just thinks so.

This is what the dope looks like:


You just worry about your own party's problems and the conservatives will sort their own house. Your opinions about Republicans, value: nil set. 

For Kasich: Depeche Mode, Master and Servant.

Sunday, September 27, 2015

KLEM FM

More plus sized musicians:


Leslie West -- good to see him still out there kicking ass even if he only has one leg!

WKRLEM: The Scooter knew what he was talking about!


Wait a minute lets have a Heart to Heart!



Frank Cannon: I want to ask you about the freight shipments that have gone missing. But I have another question.
Renee Stubber: What's that Mr. Cannon.
Frank Cannon: Who does your hair, Gumby?
Renee Stubber: Hey if you like the drapes you should see the carpet. You would really dig it.
Frank Cannon: Yeah well, I would like to see my pisce-a-deale but that ain't gonna happen any time soon.
(The Rip-off, Directors Cut, Cannon, 1972)

What do all these idiots have in common?


Super-moon Lunar Eclipse

"To the guy who called me fat while I was jogging..."

"I dont feel discouraged by this asshat but I did feel a great amount of frustration."
I like how you pulled into a drive way and turned around to make sure I heard you. Yes I heard you both times. I didn't respond because you're not worth my time or energy (I needed all the energy I can get for my jog).
"How does anyone get that fat?!" I got this fat because of people like you chipping away at my already low self esteem... I hope you never get so depressed that you go on a slow and painful binge eating suicide mission, I wouldn't wish that on anyone so you go ahead and laugh with your friends and call me a whale.
"Why not lose some weight fatty?!" ... seriously? its pouring down rain and I am out jogging... do you think I find this fun or enjoyable? why take a shower inside my warm house when I could do it in the freezing rain!? I have been working my ass off (quite literally) to lose this weight and to in general be a healthier person. It's been a very long very exhausting struggle and I know I still have a long way to go. I've spent the last 2.5 years getting myself mentally healthy now I've started to make my body healthy. Oh and btw I've lost over 100lbs already...
I'm sorry that my body in someway offends you or upsets you but I have a very quick very easy solution for you... don't look at me...

"Women who have never been in a relationship paying £5,000 to get pregnant"

"Doctors say women often don't want to wait for their ideal man"
Some are using the £5,000 fertility treatment to bypass the need to involve a man, and others so that they can save themselves for a ‘special relationship’.
Doctors said last night at least 25 straight women had given birth in the past five years despite being virgins. But campaigners for the traditional family said the ‘distorted’ move turned babies into little more than ‘teddy bears’ to be ‘picked off the shelf’.
Religious groups said it undermined the importance of bringing up children in a stable marriage, while a leading psychotherapist warned that having a mother who had never been in a relationship could harm a child’s development.
Couldn't the child be given a "leg up", an advantage by choosing the male contribution from a sperm bank of "supersmart people"? There was for a time such a sperm bank, but it closed in 1999.
Women who applied for Graham's genius sperm only had to come up a $50 application fee and $10 a month for storage and shipping costs, according to a 1984 New York Times article on the sperm bank. They had to be married (although there was an exception made for at least one single mother), but the mothers did not have to take an IQ test or go through any genetic screening.

Boehner's unhappy friends.

Chistina Marcos writes for the Hill about the ungenerous things that allies of John Boehner are saying.

Dropped it at the sentences with  "jackass" and "carpenter" with a head spinning with rebuttal of things I don't care about.

But then I came right back to it because that was the very beginning and I'm afraid of missing something juicy.

Then dropped again at "super-ultra-minority" because I don't have patience for this anymore, losers on their way out. I'm left twining four lines of attack to the contrary having to do with the super ultra minority™ that has them in office in the first place, the super ultra minority™ that expects these representatives to go to Washington, represent them and behave as counter to the crazy and then get out, the super ultra minority™  that through tremendous effort handed  them both House and Senate and the super ultra minority ™ that is mad as hornets for not being represented.

But I came back again because I've got a streak of masochism, I suppose. 

Then dropped again at "shutdown caucus."  Although pleased as Punch seeing Federal government grind to a 3% standstill proving Congress' worthlessness in representing and having all the attention of the most visible public services affected while the rest of government sails along uninterrupted, it is not the super ultra minority™ doing the shutting, rather the recalcitrant childlike president who does not play well with others. And refuses to take a hint.

And here we drop you for good. It was near the end anyway.  The Hill, Furious Boehner allies lash out

I'm not even in their club and I'm glad you're angry. Your disappointment = good. 

Dropped for good. And I mean it. Because I thought of something else a lot more interesting. To me. I'm dropping Boehner's disappointed hostile chums and remembering something else a lot more fun. My own chums. It was the "take a hint" that made the switch. 

That was one of the funniest things about John that comes to mind in recalling him, and I have been recalling him a lot lately. John just recently died. I did not know him well but I did know him for a long time. An afternoon crowded in his backyard garden a group was collected around a bar-height table eating cake. This was the day the person sitting next to me found an eggshell in his piece of cake and the look on the guy's face was sour, it made all forkfuls suspect. John's twelve year old daughter made the cake. I said, "Dude, the little girl over there made the cake" thinking that would excuse everything and he'd be charmed, instead he snapped annoyed, "Well she should know better." Odd. I'll never forget that. 

Right then the legs of my chair began clattering and banging, somebody next to me fussing with their chair banging against mine. I ignore it. It continues banging and carrying on, expecting the clatter to cease, it's ridiculous, it goes on and on and on, I turn to look WTF, and lo, a beautiful bird. 

Is she trying to get my attention or what? 

Come on! Who does that much clattering except someone drawing attention to themselves? 

Eagerly, I moved my chair closer to the eggshell guy to make room, they're all high bar-type chairs, and she wedged in the other side. 

She wants to me near me. Surely. 

Why else would she clang and clatter and bang on my chair like that for so long and cause me make space? She put the legs of her chair between the legs of my chair to make that much clang and clatter.

I turn my attention to her. We engage in earnest conversation the whole rest of the time. 

I get up to refreshen my Coca Cola. Various buds rush me and urge me to bust a move. They observed the whole chair thing and earnest conversation. So it's not just me imagining this. 

I did bust a move and she very sweetly declined.

Undaunted later by phone I tried again and she very kindly and sweetly declined. 

Given her original enthusiasm later I tried again and she so very sweetly declined. 

Confusing. It happens. 

I related all this to John, he patiently listened knowing already where the whole thing goes. After three fails I told John, assuming the voice of know-it-all, arm akimbo, nose up, you know you don't have to drop a house on me, I can take a hint. Funny because I was so slow to take a hint. So that dumb look, a solid stance, plus "you don't have to drop a house on me" became catchphrase thereafter for every untaken hint and John would curl laughing at every chance to use it. It means someone, oneself, is unperceptive. 

Untaken hints such as rising conservative revolt in series against their representation.  Hint-incapable, They need the entire House drop on them. 

Saturday, September 26, 2015

WKRLEM: Even you Spinelli


You know why Hillary can't dance?



Whose that girl?

She is a nurse that they would never turn out of her flat to give it to a dirty Muslim refugee. Plus they wouldn't want to live there since they would have to bathe in a water tank.

Wait a minute. What am I talking about? They don't bathe.

Oh well.....whose that girl?

Wisconsin man beheaded mom with sword after family breakfast

New York Daily News, September 26, 2015
Police say a Wisconsin man beheaded his mother with a four-foot blade before confessing to the killing but saying, "she's not my real mother."
Matthew Skalitzky, 60, had just finished breakfast with his parents late Friday morning when his roommate reported hearing screaming coming from his bedroom, according to a search warrant obtained by Madison Newspapers.
When he rushed up the stairs and to his room, he told Sun Prairie police he saw 88-year-old Jane Skalitzky's body lying separately from her head.
The mother and son had only just arrived after an overnight stay at his parents,' he said.
Jane, who offered to drive her son home, was described by Matthew's roommate as "being friendly and greeting him" while Matthew seemed "distant and unemotional."
Moments after they went upstairs, his roommate said he heard stomping noises followed by Jane screaming "no, no, no."

When police arrived they found the bloody sword on the porch and Matthew coming down the stairs inside.After making the grisly discovery, he said he led Matthew downstairs and to a couch, "like a child," and then went outside to call 911.
When he was asked if his mother was dead, he allegedly replied: "Yes, but she's not my real mother. She voted for Walker. She couldn't be my mother."
Matthew's father said his son recently stopped taking his medication after reading "negative comments" about the drugs on-line. He reportedly spent most of his time on-line posting comments at websites under the name Garage Mahal where spouts liberal rhetoric supplied by the Democratic National Committee. He started back on the drug just two days before the attack.
His son was arrested without incident and taken to a mental health facility.

"German nurse shocked after being forced out of flat to make way for refugees"

I was completely shocked and I can’t even begin to find the words to describe how the city has treated me,”Halbey told the German publication. “I have had to go through a lot of difficulties recently, and then I get this notice. It was like a kick in the teeth.”
The mayor of Nieheim, Rainer Vidal, which has a population of just over 6,000, defended the decision to send the nurse packing, saying converting the building would be “the cheapest option.”
“A new residential unit for 30 refugees in Nieheim would cost €30,000 ($33,600). This solution will cost me nothing,” he told Die Welt.
The new normal.

How John Boehner sees things......

"John this is so unfair. You didn't do anything wrong. How could they drum you out of the party?"
"I guess life is unfair. I will have to go out into the wilderness. Wandering the West. Helping the less fortunate. Trying to redeem myself. I could just cry."
"How could they doe this to you, After you have been such a great leader. What a disgrace."
"I know. I know. Boooo hoooo, booo hoooo......"

church