Thursday, February 28, 2019

I'm Not in Love, by 10cc

Long version. The other version is only 3 minutes. 



A segment on the television show "The Medium" started with the instrumentation of this song, and I'm all, "Oh, oh, I know that song."

I am amazed how the generations that followed me love this old song. Their comments on YouTube are touching. They know the music of their generation doesn't hold a candle to all that came before them. It's reaffirming seeing them acknowledge that.

One said, "I used to see my mother singing this song in the kitchen, and crying, and now I know why." Is that sweet, or what? 

The song has been covered a couple of times. A few times very well. But not by Tori Amos.


Trump in Hanoi with N. Korea

Don't you just love watching masters at work? I didn't expect this, yet it's not the least surprising. And watching with only my own eyes and not allowing the interference of corrupted American legacy media that has nothing to contribute that's useful. From choosing Hanoi for venue with the photographs of throngs crowding the hotel like a MAGA rally, that cannot be shown here and discussed honestly, to Trump's stated negotiation tenet of never entering a negotiation that he's unwilling to drop.

Obviously Kim wants the sanctions removed immediately and he wants to keep elements of his nuclear program secret.

You might think it odd that two new friends can break it off so dramatically. And with so much at stake that Trump is not even a little bit more accommodating as all previous US presidents have been -- so they could come home waving around a treaty that proved their earnest wish for success.

While Trump negotiates like a NY real estate developer making certain his foundation is sound. This is showing there is much more unseen than denuclearization of the peninsula. It shows that Trump is not negotiating simply with N. Korea. He's actually negotiating with China. Trump is attempting to outmaneuver China and actually wrest N. Korea from China's grasp. If Kim holds forth and doesn't flake out, Trump can promise N. Korea a new life free from China. Trump has stated repeatedly that N.Korea holds more economic promise than any other country in the area, and Trump has stated repeatedly the reasons why that is so.

They've had negotiations in S. Korea and now in Hanoi. Kim already knows what prospering  countries look like. And now he's negotiated with Trump in two such countries in his own immediate area.

It was China that did this. Having extended their stay in Washington to continue forging their own deal with Trump, and Trump having granted an extension of the date that round 2 of tariffs kick in, China felt they could push unhelpful issues. This is China's way of dealing with Trump and this is Trump's way of responding to China. It is Xi Jinping and Trump shoving each other, with Kim in the middle. Expect both Trump and Xi to put on their pleasant Panda masks and reaffirm how much respect they have for each other and how great their friendship has grown.

At first we were like:

And then we were like:

That's okay. They'll be back again with an even stronger deal. 

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Cohen testimony

While Trump is in Hanoi doing something stupendous, history making in fact, something only he can do, and past presidents have proven this repeatedly by use of their limited means, that is the means of the entire United States government, and even more limited imaginations, the Left now barely in power by the House and by their pervasive presence in damaged State departments, uses all the coordinated malevolent dishonest means at their disposal which is considerable, and their even more limited imaginations to damage Trump to the fullest possible extent. Because they simply cannot have his success. They are cowards. Bully cowards, and they show that every hour each day.

In prayerful pose of meditative state that is beta brainwaves brought on by relaxing the body and deep steady breaths, something that never happened before happened now, a vision appeared in my room and actualized to near-solid form; of Jesus as hippy then speaking to me as adult to a child he said, right straight into my ears, "Bobby, don't listen those poopy-heads."

     "Is that all?"

"Yeah."

     "What should I actually do?"

"Nothing. About that. But not for me to say. Do anything. Anything you like. Tend to your garden. Watch NCSI on Netflix instead."

     "I saw all those already."

"Don't argue with me, Bobby. Watch them again. They'll hold up. Skip the episodes with Robert Wagner. Those are for old women, not you, and they add nothing to the series. Do anything that you want to do. For you see, Bobby, you cannot go wrong. And you and I must keep your soul childlike and tender."

     "What? Okay."

"Go on. Take a few pictures."

Then he disappeared before I could take a picture of him and the whole place became profoundly empty. The whole city. Not a sound. Like everyone, everything, paused. No racing the lights on Speer Blvd in the distance as usual. No car horns on Broadway. Nobody talking. I looked outside. No people walking the sidewalks as usual, nobody in the parking lot, not a single automobile moved. Nothing. Except vapor clouds out of pipes in the exterior walls showing how cold it is outside.

Best listen to Jesus when he bothers.

Plants from seeds.

Celery with pink stalks.

peas, beans, zucchini, melons, and such.

Blood-red carrots. 

Coleus.

Sunflowers, I think.


Beans with outrageous stripes.

Trump gravity


Tuesday, February 26, 2019

I need your help (update 3)

Link to original post.

Below is a phone screen capture of my PayPal account detailing the help I've received since I asked for your help since my last update 2.


Trump to Hanoi

AF1 leaves the US from wherever, Washington D.C., Florida, I don't know, then refuels at RAF base Mildenhall northeast of London and then to Hanoi.

W-h-a-a-a-a-a-t?

Voop.

I'm transported again backward through time to another place. Man, these flashbacks happen a lot. And I never even did acid. More than three times. Maybe I'm just remembering. But the visualizations are so real.

At the tiny AFB, a radar site at tippy top of a mountain in Pennsylvania and without an airstrip, there were only fourteen ranch-style houses without basements. I'm in the blue shared bedroom with my older brother. We had both a large Mercator map on the wall and small rudimentary globe.

I put my finger on Pennsylvania on the map and drew it eastward across the Atlantic, across Europe, Across Turkey and Asia to Japan. After all, we were going to the far east. I said to Barry, "We sure are going to fly over an awful lot of countries."

He said, "No. We're driving to California and flying westward across the Pacific. That's a lot shorter."

I thought, "Wow. My brother sure is smart. About everything."

And now Trump is flying the long way. Going north instead of south. Going east instead of west to eastern Asia.

So it appears. So people in comments elsewhere are certain. Why England? That's northward, the wrong direction by a long way. Hardly seems worth it.

But as exercise, consider London to nearby Arctic Ocean to the Bearing Sea to the Pacific Ocean to the China Sea to Hanoi. That would avoid flying over all those European countries, and Middle East, India, and Asia. Or sticking to oceans, over Europe to the Mediterranean, to the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, over India, Myanmar, Laos, to Vietnam.

I wonder which way they go. Where is Barry when I need him? He is smarter than me.

The route probably has to do with jet streams and certainly with flyover arrangements.

And maybe they're faking us out.

Nadia G's Bitchin Kitchen

It took me forever to find her. (7 minutes)

Her program on late night Food Network was short lived. She came on each episode in various outrageous female characters under a variety of fairly hard voices, quite an impressive impressionist. Looking for Food Network female impressionist gives drag queen results. I found her shows tremendously interesting. I wish Food Network had kept her. But they are too staid. They could not contain her.

She demonstrated elementary cooking in realistic but exaggerated costumes and hardened characters.



Oscars by AnOmaly

The Oscars happened and I didn't even know it. That's how successfully I've tuned out all the places that would have brought awareness to me.

Oh, I knew they were coming but I didn't know exactly when. So I missed them. And I was delighted about that.

Still, they come through. I saw this deep within comments to another blog from another inhabited planet in some other remote solar system in our own galaxy.

You probably won't like it on account of hippies. And for its redundancy. And for its pounding didactic delivery. But other people do like it very much and they say so in comments here and there.

Let's give it a go.

AnOmaly has a YouTube channel but this video ↑ is not on it, so far. I have no idea where the Twitter person  got it.


Monday, February 25, 2019

In mind: No Time Like the Present

While reading Jack Kornfield for his Buddhist take on life in No Time Like the Present, Finding Freedom, Love and Joy Right Where You Are, I found myself moving far afield from views presented years ago during high school World Religions class. What I didn't know then or have any way of knowing in the early years of my life continues to intrigue and amaze me; and I now believe I am who I am and where I am, in much the same way that wood from a tree became part of the HMS Resolute, sailed the seas and turned up in a desk at which the President of the US now sits in the Oval Office.

In Kornfield's book, I came on a poem I liked by Jack Gilbert, entitled, "A Brief for the Defense" which I decided to post here last week. Before doing so however, I also decided I needed to know more about Jack Gilbert. What I found took me further afield to the point where the poem I originally intended to post took second seat to one which stole my attention with the question, "What do we have that gets it right even that much?" Oddly enough, an answer shows up at the end of the first poem I'd noted (posted 2nd below). Both were written by Jack Gilbert, 1925 to 2012, whose book, Collected Poems was a 2013 finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

The Lost Hotels Of Paris
The Lord gives everything and charges
by taking it back. What a bargain.
Like being young for a while. We are
allowed to visit hearts of women,
to go into their bodies so we feel
no longer alone. We are permitted
romantic love with its bounty and half-life
of two years. It is right to mourn
for the small hotels of Paris that used to be
when we used to be. My mansard looking
down on Notre Dame every morning is gone,
and me listening to the bell at night.
Venice is no more. The best Greek islands
have drowned in acceleration. But it’s the having
not the keeping that is the treasure.
Ginsberg came to my house one afternoon
and said he was giving up poetry
because it told lies, that language distorts.
I agreed, but asked what we have
that gets it right even that much.
We look up at the stars and they are
not there. We see the memory
of when they were, once upon a time.
And that too is more than enough.
---------------------------------------------
A Brief For The Defense
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick...
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything


Resolute desk

Q: Was the W.H. desk made of planks of wood from a British ship used to come over here and kick our butts either in the American Revolution or War of 1812 in which those batards burned down our capitol?

A: No. The Resolute was an arctic exploration ship. The ship became trapped in ice and was abandoned. Recovered by an American whaler who found it floating around among ice, purchased by U.S. congress, fixed up and returned to England as a gift. Previously a merchant sailing ship named Ptarmigan, one of six merchant ships England bought to outfit for arctic exploration to search for the earlier expedition of John Franklin whose fate was unknown. The second expedition in search of the first expedition was a total cockup. The members of the first expedition all died.

Much more at Wikipedia.

The desk is a 19th century partners desk. Partners desks were designed for banking partners who liked to work together facing each other. It's based on the idea of a double pedestal desk. That is two pedestals with drawers connected by another slim drawer. So a partners desk would be two of those facing each other.

Except the Resolute desk is designed for one person, not two people facing each other so it doesn't have drawers front and back. And President Roosevelt had a panel with the presidential seal installed where a second partner's legs would go, to hid his leg braces.

Lies! All lies and subterfuge. Roosevelt didn't want anyone to see his handicap, his weakness, his shame.

Since Hayes many presidents have used the desk at various spots in the White House.

Lyndon Johnson had the desk removed after the Kennedy assassination allowing it to go on a traveling exhibition with the Kennedy Library. Then it was put into the Smithsonian Institution.

Now, there's a clear-thinking American statesman. No need to have the lingering memory of Kennedy ghosting him and no need for British antiques seen centrally in every photograph of every important American executive action. (Thanks for the desk, now put this old thing in America's attic.)

Carter brought it back to the Oval Office.

George Bush I used the C&O desk in the Oval Office but kept the Resolute desk in the White House.

The C&O desk was built for the owners of Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.

The C&O desk is an actual partners desk with drawers in the pedestals left and right, front and back.


And perhaps a panel halfway down the center between drawer-pedestals to keep the partners from kicking each other, or scuffing each other's shoes.

Old pictures make me sad and somewhat disgusted at the same time. It always happens. Knowing where we went from then. That being a point on a timeline to where we are now. There's always something a bit gut-wrenching about them. There is more to this picture I cropped out and every detail is sad including plants and carpet color choice and model boat and art, even the weather seen through the windows. Even the windows. And curtains. Only to mention the people. And the desk. Who's even going to use those outward drawers on your stupid desk?

Why do we keep a British desk in our American Oval Office? Keep your stupid ship planks to yourselves. Do they keep an American desk in their Prime Minister's office? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

Although they might keep an American footstool. As the Ayatollahs might keep and American rug to wipe their feet on.

This tells us, Trump keeps the desk because he sees no point in making an unnecessary fuss. He might even like it. Go on, carve in your initials.

The way I see things, the desk was bigger than Obama. Something to put his shoes on like a rap gansta video.

And to Bush II, it was just another of those old things one sees around the house.

Salute to America


That's nice. Take pictures. But that is Washington, and Washington is a swamp. I'll be in Denver with no mosquitos immersed in our own celebration a few blocks away at Civic Park. I'm right here in the middle of it. See, people come to my place, not I go to your place. Thank you for the invitation. It's very nice of you. Cheers. Kindred spirits and all that. We'll be doing the same things.


His political party of which he fancies himself some sort of unofficial leader has been delivered a simple civics lesson regarding representing its constituency that he is highly resistant to learning. He is a dull student, and that is all. He is an unhappy baby splashing the bathwater.

Voop

Oh man, I'm transported again. This is soooo mental. 

I don't know my own age. I must be two. Possibly three. I'm naked. In the actual bathtub. In shallow  warm water. Splashing the water kicking and screaming loud as I can. I make a LOT of noise and fling water everywhere. 

"What's wrong with you? Why are you crying?" She's cross with me. And I'm cross with her.

     "You're going to put soap in my eyes and it hurts." 

I'm predicting it will hurt. My dad is nowhere around. Mother is bathing me. She's alone with us two boys and frustrated. I'm making this unpleasant and difficult. I've been through this before and when she does this it hurts.

"No I won't. I can do this so that doesn't happen."

     "You can?"

"Let me show you. Relax."

I stopped making noise. I stopped flouncing. She put baby shampoo on my head and tilted my head back. Leaned me all the way back.  Lathered my head carefully to keep the soap off my forehead. I trusted my head to her hands. Trusted water won't go into my eyes. She rinsed off the soap without any water going into my eyes. She let me hold a small towel to my face. I'm all, "Wow. She's really smart about things." 

Thereafter baths weren't so bad. 

We reached an understanding about baths and about soap going into eyes. Life became more pleasant for both of us.

Bill Kristol can't lean anything new. He's still flouncing. Still being ridiculous.

Sunday, February 24, 2019

Five Eyes

FVEY

An anglophone intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

That means English speaking, if you can call what those guys use for speech English. And it excludes other English speaking nations like South Africa because we're all racist.

More at Wikipedia. FVEY has a troublesome history, like spying on each other's citizens and sharing the information to bypass troublesome restrictive domestic regulations on surveillance of citizens.

There's not much on Fox and too much aggravation worth keeping cable but Fox News does have a few good interviewers that come to attention by other means. Maria Bartiromo is one such. Plus it's fun typing her name.

This comes at the end. It's big, and deserves more attention than it is given:

[Trump is saying about Huawei] If you’re thinking about going on the Chinese 5-G network we believe this is a spying platform.

We will not be able to share information with you that we would have otherwise because you’d be giving it to China.

And the technology that you’re buying from China will crowd you out of the American market.

You’ll wind up losing access to American information in systems. Make wise decisions.


Toast

A Flickr member favorited these photos for some unknown reason this morning. The subject is utterly mundane. The photos are locked in the old servers before Flickr moved. Hardly anyone marks "favorite" the photographs since the move. I don't even know how people find these. They're archived.

The thing about eating toast is, you want the preserves to cover the toast edge to edge so each bite gets the same amount of preserves.

But the thing about photographing toast is you want the butter to show, melted, being melted, so the heat of the toast come through the photograph.

And better yet, show a bite taken out of the toast, as if you're right there eating it, your toast, or your family member's toast that you're seeing right there at the table.

See, we food stylist types keep doing the wrong off-the-wall things to make food appear more sensual.

And that's how you make inanimate objects more sexy.



Another site search [toast]



Saturday, February 23, 2019

Urban Arson: Jussie Smollett hoaxed hate crime rehearsals

Their redneck accents are killing me.

Somewhat satisfying observing Feinstein handle her crackpots

The teacher is the worked up crackpot poisoning the minds and emotions of America's precious youth with her worked up crackpot anxiety. She's teaching them first to have anxiety and second how to turn neurotic anxiety into activism.

I'd like to say to the teacher, "And when the world fails to collapse in twelve years as you insist will you come crawling to me in profound remorse for being so wrong and for spreading your wrongness from a position of trust? As Gore's dire predictions that were shoved into the heads of schoolchildren nationwide and repeatedly all failed to materialize." Of course not. She'll double down.

"The cost of the government programs is nothing compared to the cost of avoiding them." Not so. She doesn't comprehend anything about the cost of the proposed programs nor does she know anything about the cost of ignoring them. She doesn't know what she is blabbing about.

"We are the generation who will have to live with the disasters of not addressing these issues." And what are we, chopped liver? Do you imagine us all dead in twelve years? We do and don't do for ourselves as well as for you. You're special, precious precocious cupcake. But not that special.


Wrong, Stupid. This is how you approached Senator Feinstein, with smugness and disrespect. It is not a fight for survival, rather it's a fight for political power. Your bizarre claims show your desperate need for psychological help, and our desperate need to keep you away from children so they can have a childhood, one free of your irrational neurosis. 

Trump meets with U.S. - China trade negotiation teams in the Oval Office

You know how communists are. Totalitarian. Secretive. Duplicitous.

You know how Chinese are. Yin Yang dynamic with no middle ground. Back and forth panda face, tiger face. War or peace coexisting with one pushing into the other and nothing between them. All or nothing. Win or lose.

So considering all that has come before this for decades, all to the contrary, all along predictable lines, this night is truly a marvel to behold. Nothing like this has happened before and nothing like this will happen again. Trump is unique among American presidents. Everyone else is lifted up and carried forward by Party. Trump is alone. It actually is Trump against the whole world. And it is a spectacle to behold in awe and wonder.

In the midst of extreme negotiations with trillions of dollars at stake Trump has the Vice Premier sat in front of him while Trump takes a question from media seemingly intended to embarrass about Chinese technology and cyber-security and with Liu He right there in front of him Trump answers that he wants open and fair tech competition but if China becomes a security threat then all bets are off.

Open and fair.

Both antithetic to Chinese style of governance.

At the same time talking up their tremendous friendship unknown until now. Trump matches their own panda/tiger masks. And everything that we hear and read about Trump fails to appreciate his singular grasp that is utterly unique in Washington among standard politicians.

Lighthzer says they are making great progress toward a six-step Memorandum of Understanding and Trump says he wants a contractual binding agreement. Nothing else. He is telling them to knock it off with endless talk about plans and to get a detailed binding deal that he can review. Amazing because the Chinese delegation has been working toward the duplicitous Memorandum of Understanding for months and Trump gutted it with a single sentence making them appear small and ineffective.

They also announced by Mnuchin that they're working toward a summit between Chairman Xi and President Trump in March, most likely at Mar-a-Lago.

They wouldn't do that without a certainty of success.

I love the way Trump introduces his principals saying how hard they are working and what great work they are doing but all that means nothing at all if they fail to get a result.

When have you heard a president put his people to the fire like that? Like a businessman does; demanding results from his subordinates as they are knocking their heads in trying to accomplish something against a team with contrary instructions.

Trump situated behind his desk as executive with Vice Premier Liu He sitting with Trump's subordinates arrayed in front of him subjected to the same treatment. Robert Lighthizer, Steven Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, Sonny Perdue, Larry Kudlow, Terry Brandstad, Peter Navarro, all getting the subordinate treatment. All those powerful outstanding people unique in their own right treated as ordinary employees. I have not seen anything like this.

"This doesn't happen in China."

Friday, February 22, 2019

This is Dolphins Country!

"Patriots owner Robert Kraft solicited prostitute, police say"
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is being charged with misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution after he was twice videotaped paying for a sex act at an illicit massage parlor, police in Florida said Friday.

Jupiter police told reporters Friday that the 77-year-old Kraft hasn’t been arrested. A warrant will be issued and his attorneys will be notified. Kraft has denied wrongdoing.

Jupiter Police Chief Daniel Kerr said he was shocked to learn Kraft, who is worth $6 billion, was paying for sex inside a strip-mall massage parlor, the Orchids of Asia Day Spa.

“We are as equally stunned as everyone else,” Kerr said.
In Bob Kraft's defense, things started going hairy for him since he started eating salads with a comb.

Dream

Dear Psychiatrist Person, tell me what this means.

I'm in an upscale restaurant in New York. I'm not hungry. I'm there because the people are there and I want to be with them. I scan the menu and it's all weird crap. I order the red Japanese berries without knowing what I will get. Sweet, sour, tart, whatever.

It is a large party spanning all ages. We are all given the menus at the same time but we're served right side first. A long time elapses before my side is served. By that time the first side is already finishing.

The restaurant and the people first served are finished and ready to settle up and break up. But I'm only getting started on my berries.


Damn, these things are delicious. Why aren't they famous? I am really enjoying these berries. But the right side of our table is already standing, pushing in their chairs and putting on their jackets. The bill is paid and the staff is already clearing their side of the table.

For a high class place, this is really no class. I'm well within my rights to make this an issue. I want to spend more time with these people but I'm being rushed out.

I resent being rushed. I refuse to scarf my berries. They're too good to shove in my mouth. I go, "Look, just because that guy has three auditions and his schedule is packed doesn't mean I have to rush through my meal." I give them a hard time about pushing me out. 

The young man was the center of attention over there on that side of the table. He was rushed for other reasons, he packed this into his schedule, and he had to leave immediately. But not before talking to another group in the restaurant who were interested in him for some reason.

My dad was in the first group. He appeared at my side. He told me go along with the program, to not make a fuss. Like it or not the dinner is over. He said, "Here take these."

He had ordered the same berries. They were his dessert but he didn't want them.

His mass of berry branches doubled the amount of berries I must eat on the go.


"Dad, these berries are the best! Don't you want some?" 

"Nah. I'm full. I've had enough of these berries from before. I know what they are." 

Standing up as the wait staff cleared the table and our party took their long goodbyes, I popped the berries into my mouth amazed about how delicious they are and thinking, man, these Japanese people sure do have a lot of hidden treasures. They are worth whatever whoever paid for these things. I loved them.

My party is dispersed and I'm walking out with my Dad. On the way out I said to one of the staff, "Here's your sticks."


"What do I want those for?"

"You can probably use them in one of your ikebana arrangements." 

The guy shrugs and goes, "Thanks." 

They don't have any ikebana arrangements. They're not a Japanese restaurant. 

Six sharp raps like a marble dropped onto a concrete floor woke me up.

Poke bowl

But the place is called Poki.

Have you seen those little packages of individual servings of tuna and salmon at your grocery store?

I find those irresistible. Trader Joe's has packages of seven such tuna. Not sushi grade but they still look very good.

Regular King Soopers had packages of those and frozen salmon steaks that I couldn't walk by.

Both of those would be perfect for this.

The video shows you can do anything that you like. Any protein, any sauce, any additional vegetables or topping. It's a salad. There are no rules. This is where micro greens look beautiful.

She says, "pescado crudo."

The appalling plastic bowl and plastic fork and then going to the automobile emphasize the Hawaiian take on stiff traditional and codified Japanese cuisine is casual as hot dogs and hamburgers. Here is a video of two dudes running through twenty versions and going way out of bounds through the whole exercise. (They neglect mentioning the octopus is briefly cooked, like just showing the octopus boiling water.)

Thursday, February 21, 2019

U.S.-China trade talks, Washington, Feb 21, 2019

Trade delegations met again today for a nine-hour talk with one week remaining before the second phase of U.S. tariffs hits Chinese imports. The meeting today opened with a photo opportunity and the tension between the two sides is palpable.


WKRLEM: To Die for!



Here is the whole episode.

Famous last words

"I really enjoyed having you on the show Julie."
"Well you would enjoy having me in real life even more Peter."
"Hamana-hamana-hamanaaaaa-gulp."
"Why are you turning so red?"
"Eh I don't know Julie.. I just know one thing."
"What's that baby?"
"These tits are to die for."
"Well lets hope not for a long long time."

OK Go with friends

Peshwa warrior Trump

Nigeria's youngest professional artist

The guy said, "arguably the youngest" and I'm not up to arguing.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Winter is coming...





They built a wall in Westeros. It didn't work. The illegal immigrants got in none the less.



The final season will drop soon. This is the last scene of last season. The CGI is very impressive.



Enjoy.

Yeah I know but it is a good show





I hate the French. I bet you do too. But the wife loves the idea of Paris and wants to go to see the Mona Lisa. The best thing I can do for her is to binge watch this show.



It is in French with English subtitles. It is about a group of movie agents who seem to represent most of the stars of French cinema. Of course they are mainly older actors since those are the ones that are recognizable to an international audience.



The tone is fun and soap operaish and it is quite enjoyable. The best part is the scenery and the decor. The hotels and clubs. The gardens and the streets of Paris. Now you don't see the yellow jacket protesters or the Muslim terrorists or the problems they have over there. Just the good parts. Its a love letter to France.



It is as close as I am ever going to get to visiting Paris. Still and all it is fun. Recommended.

disturbing sign threatens dogs defecating on neighborhood lawn


The original post disappeared.

The comments still exist in their own place. I can restore them when I get back. 

(My new doctor called and told me to come back in. They want to do some more tests. I love taking pop quizzes. I bet know all the answers.)


Fine soccer ball bouncing.

The president of the United States re-tweeted this with the single word: Amazing.


And I'm thinking, talent is evenly distributed?

No. Talent and opportunity are unevenly distributed. She is talented at bouncing a soccer ball and I am not. 

Then down thread other commenters insist on the macro level talent certainly is distributed evenly. There will be such talent across nations. 

Imagine. It's similar to the discussion about slavery and what the teacher put up on her door about stolen talent.

Some people can do similar things more practical than this to actually winning soccer games and earn the attention of clubs in cities and win contracts for a level of fortune and fame.

While others are awesome at balancing and catch the attention of their town and the president of the United States.

While still others do similar things and audition for Cirque du Soleil.

And others become buskers on city streets in the summer. 

Each with varying degrees of excellence. 

See, "evenly distributed" is debatable.

But if you must have the woman appear relatively downtrodden we can ask why that is so.

We can ask, look, what we know about evolution, your people appeared first on this earth. So explain what happened through history that put other cultures so ahead technologically, socially, and economically. And what are you going for yourselves to do to close the apparent gap?  

It's an honest question since you bring up uneven opportunity. 

Oil diffuser.

I'm following Larry's instructions to kill fruit flies. His idea of cider ale and soap bubbling by an aquarium air pump and air diffuser really works. Mine made so many bubbles they instantly poured out and filled the bowl so I switched to a larger bowl to catch the overflow, then switched again to my largest bowl, then stood there and scooped bubbles into the sink and filled the whole sink. And turned it off in 1 minute.

I have never used an oil diffuser. I've never even seen one. All I want to know is, if  I should add water to the bowl. This video is short but it drove me insane. So now I want you to be insane too.

I got my answer like this: skip, skip, skip, answer end. 3 seconds.

Lie.

It really went like this: ANSWER THE QUESTION ! skip ANSWER THE QUESTION ! skip ANSWER THE QUESTION !  End. 3 seconds.


Inductive, deductive

V. D. Hanson writes for the Hoover Institution, The New Nihilism,
For about a half century, universities have eroded inductive and empirical education. Instead, deduction and advocacy took its place—and to such a degree that to question man-made global warming, the dogma of racial separatism and chauvinism, radical abortion, or gay marriage became taboo and proof of near criminality.
And there is that inductive vs deductive thing again. Let's see, one of them means you take a few things and formulate a generality about everything. And the other one means you take a few clues and pinpoint something specific. I think.

What in the world is he even talking about?

Now I have to look up these two things all over again. Just to understand what he means.

He's saying inductive reasoning was good college education in the past and now deductive thinking is not a good replacement.

I thought Sherlock Holmes did a lot of deduction, so why would that be bad?

Hanson is confusing sometimes.

Maybe the font of concurred, approved, curated wisdom can help, Wikipedia.
Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying some evidence for the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument may be probable, based upon the evidence given.
What?
Unlike deductive arguments, inductive reasoning allows for the possibility that the conclusion is false, even if all of the premises are true. Instead of being valid or invalid, inductive arguments are either strong or weak, which describes how probable it is that the conclusion is true.
Okay.
Another crucial difference is that deductive certainty is impossible in non-axiomatic systems, such as reality, leaving inductive reasoning as the primary route to (probabilistic) knowledge of such systems. 
Deductive certainty is impossible in reality?

Reality is non-axiomatic.

If I waved my hand and asked about this in class, the professor would say, Sherlock Holmes is fiction.

Then I'd go, "Oh, right."

I still don't see why being deductive is so bad.

Hanson says a lot more erudite stuff at the link, you should read it.

It's all about Democrats not having a good response to Trump. Presently they are without reasonable alternatives to Trump doctrine. So far, everything they come out with is insane.

Sandmann, Covington teen sues the Washington Post for $250 million

The complaint seems to have a lot of extra irrelevant stuff in it, like the Post inventing the term McCarthyism, Nicholas being white, Nicholas' weight and height, this country being dedicated to the protection of children, and so on throughout.

It's essence is in point #19.
In order to fully compensate Nicholas for his damages and to punish, deter, and teach the Post a lesson it will never forget, this action seeks money damages in excess of Two Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars ($250,000,000.00)–the amount Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, paid in cash for the Postwhen his company, Nash Holdings, purchased the newspaper in 2013.
Explain something to me; the shot / chaser thing they do on Instapundit.

As I understand it, a shot of alcohol is followed by something mild to wash it down. Like rinsing the throat. I've never done a shot. Not once. And I've never done a chaser. The whole idea seems a bit harsh and bizarre. The sort of thing people do to purposively get drunk. And that's ridiculous.

Because who knows what people will do to you if you pass out. They could take down your pants and draw a mustache on your penis and then take a picture of you being vulnerable.

Instapundit does this format all the time and I cannot make heads or tails of it.

How does "shot," and "chaser" fit the model of alcohol followed by something mild, with a link to Daily Beast about this followed by a second link to Slate about Clarence Thomas joining Trump in opening up libel laws?

Is the Covington law suit intense and harsh, and the Thomas joining Trump mild and palate cleansing?  Help a brother out, this has confused me for over a decade.





Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Trump at Florida International University

Scott Johnson at Powerline: The Twilight of Socialism.
Yesterday President Trump went to Florida International University in Miami to give a speech on Venezuela before a friendly and raucous audience  
… 
It is a gloriously Reaganite speech; it is a great speech. In it Trump stands for freedom against the forces of socialism, tyranny and immiseration.
You had me at "raucous."

Before this Melania introduces him sweetly.

Once Upon a Time, Karl Lagerfeld.

Clack clack clack clack clack clack clack clack clack ding a ling a ling clack clack clack clack clack. Where all the women are models, and there is only one car on the street.

Read the comments on YouTube to see what people see in this.

I saw Lagerfeld in a white shirt and black tie. The tie is around his neck on the outside of the collar so you see the whole thing like they did in early 20th century and I thought, oh man, I want to do that. It's totally anachronistic.

Journalist queries Magic 8 Ball


Monday, February 18, 2019

On the Table: The Hidden Life of Trees

On Saturday afternoon Amazon delivered a box containing The Hidden Life of Trees, The Illustrated Edition by Peter Wohlleben.  I'd ordered it two days prior after reading of another's appreciation of it on another blog; and I opened the book to this passage after reading a comment made by another earlier that day on this blog regarding their appreciation of beeches:

"Friendships
One day I stumbled across a patch of strange looking mossy stones in a preserve of old beech trees.  Casting my mind back, I realized I had passed by them many times before without paying them any heed.  But that day, I stopped and bent down to take a good look.  The stones were an unusual shape:  they were gently curved with hollowed out areas.  Carefully, I lifted the moss on one of the stones.  What I found underneath was tree bark.  So these were not stones, after all, but old wood.  I was surprised by how hard the "stone" was, because it usually takes only a few years for the beechwood lying on damp ground to decompose.  But what surprised me most was that I couldn't lift the wood.  It was obviously attached to the ground in some way. 

I took out my pocketknife and carefully scraped away some of the bark until I got down to a greenish layer.  Green?  This color is found only in chlorophyll, which makes new leaves green; reserves of chlorophyll are also stored in the trunks of living trees.   This could mean only one thing:  this piece of wood was alive!

I suddenly noticed that the remaining "stones" formed a distinct pattern:  they were arranged in a circle with a diameter of about 5 feet.  What I had stumbled upon were the gnarled remains of an enormous ancient tree stump.  All that was left were the vestiges of the outermost edge.  The interior had completely rotted into humus long ago--a clear indication that the tree must have been felled at least four or five hundred years earlier.  But how could the remains have clung on to life for so long?  It was clear that something must have been going on.  This stump was getting assistance from neighboring trees that were helping keep it alive.  

If you look at roadside embankments, you might be able to see how trees connect with each other through their root systems.  On these slopes rain often washes away the soil, leaving the underground networks exposed.  Scientist in the Harz mountains of Germany have discovered that this really is a case of interdependence, and most individual trees of the same species growing in the same stand are connected to each other through their root systems.  It appears that exchanging nutrients and helping neighbors in times of need is the rule, and this leads to the conclusion that forests are superorganisms with interconnections much like ant colonies."

Below is a picture of one of the Ghost Apples that formed in West Michigan during the Ice Storm in early Feb.
ghost apple 3 Andrew Seitsema 020719