Archives for April 2021

Wednesday April 28, 2021

I got to thinking about the supposed recount effort in Arizona. Some guy or group calling themself “The Cyber Ninja” is going to reveal The Truth! In Arizona by recounting the ballots in Maricopa County because in his/their opinion something must be wrong because, well, Satan – I mean Trump – did not win, and that can not be. So the Trumpy Republicans in the legislature gave this guy $165,000 to recount the ballots. Forget the fact that they have no experience doing a recount. Forget the fact that they were given instructions as to what to do to safeguard the ballots and didn’t follow any of it. Forget the fact that they are doing most of it in secret so no one really knows what they are doing. Except, except for one reporter who pointed out to their head honcho that his people had blue pens. That’s a real no-no in a recount because someone could use their blue pen to change a ballot. Huh? He didn’t know that. So to be clear what ever happens now DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE THE CYBER NINJA AND THEIR TEAM HAVE RUINED THE BALLOTS. We don’t know if the marks on the ballots were put there by voters or by Cyber Ninja team members in an attempt to overturn the election results.

This morning I was doing my morning meditation, which typically involves unloading the dishwasher. Today I added preparing strawberries for freezing. I take out the top and then cut the berry in half and place it on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet which I put in the freezer before vacuum sealing. I’ve gotten into artfully arranging the half berries on the sheet. This allowed me time to think about the strawberries and the Cyber Ninja. What can he do now? He’s said there was a massive fraud in Arizona and he was going to find out the truth. The problem for him is the truth is – there was no fraud. The ballots have been counted and audited and I forget what else. 

He is doing whatever he is doing in secret as much as possible. The right wing news channel OAN, which has also been screaming about how Satan won and Biden didn’t has been allowed to put a camera on the operation, which is taking place in an arena. You can watch people wandering around. Except for the backroom where the team is looking at the voting machines.

Let’s be clear, whatever these folks are doing it’s not a recount. I think they are faced with the problem of “What are they doing?” and this leads to what are we going to do? 

Do you remember playing Trivial Pursuit and some question came up and one team member yells “I know the answer!” and they do it with such authority that everyone defers to them? They yell out their answer and it’s wrong. 

Like: “Rubies!” “Wrong! Diamonds!” 

Then there’s that quizzical talking to themselves moment as the game continues – “Diamonds? How can it be diamonds? It’s rubies.” Then they either give up on the answer or they talk to themself some more and come to the conclusion that they didn’t understand or completely understand the question. “Well, if the question had said … then the answer would have been rubies…”

Yeah, well see this is the painted corner the old Cyber Ninja finds himself in. I guess he was hoping to either find something terribly amiss or he was hoping to use the blue pens to change enough ballots to claim fraud. Or the other possibility was he didn’t have any idea what he would do and now he’s hoping to quietly let it all go away and he can keep the money and move on to the next thing. Maybe, he can inspect the meat Joe Biden didn’t say he didn’t like? I dunno.

So what does this have to do with strawberries? You asked. I’ll tell you.

You can read the future by looking at the pattern of the strawberries. This is so obvious, and everyone know it, that I won’t explain it to you. That would be insulting to your intelligence. (Obviously, I think you are either very wise, or very stupid. You be the judge.)

I can tell you this. As I was meditating on the strawberries I thought of the song, “What did the Fox Say?” 

Who give a sh*t what he said?

If you look closely at the sheet you will see that every strawberry is cut in half but one. Only a genius can find that one.

Do not let the chain go unbroken send this to five of your friends and two of your enemies.

Don’t let the curse be upon you.

I gotta go.

Tuesday April 27, 2021

Someone asked me, “What can we do?” That is to stop the attempts to end the democracy as we have known it. The first step in stopping the destruction of our democracy is awareness. Be aware of what is happening. The second step is to make others aware. The next step is to act, act to stop it. The best way to stop it is to vote and to educate. It’s a long and a medium and yes a short term strategy: educate, vote, and awareness.

Let us not be fooled by patriotic sounding words or attempts at trying to convince you of logical thinking both those ships sailed loaded with hypocrites and fools. We are in an all out power struggle. Let’s review the game film – just in case anyone has any illusions as to what is going on. By the way, much, if not all, of this is outlined plainly in Democracy in Chains. That book shows their game plan, and it hasn’t changed – ever. 

Who wants to end our democracy? Russia and every authoritarian state, the rich, most companies, the Christian right, the right, the white supremacists, the neo-nazis, the militias, the conservatives, and I’ve probably missed a few. I know, someone’s also going to say, “Oh no, I’m one of those you named and I’m not for ending our democracy…” Okay little Susie lemme put it to you this way Are you for everyone getting to vote? Are you for counting everyone in this country in the Census the way the Constitution says? That means everyone: legal, illegal, black, brown, white, red, tan, green… Are you for freedom? I mean would you let an arab dressed in full regalia live next door to you? What about a person whom you can’t figure out if they are man, woman or something in between? Yeah. Thought so.

So let’s go back to the game film. Let’s go back to 2000. Florida. W. Bush did not win Florida. It was awarded to him. There was enough evidence to suggest that something was deeply wrong in that election. There were the butterfly ballots that confused a lot of people. There were the pre-punched ballots that once run through the counting machines produced hanging chads. There were just enough of these things that W won by 357 votes. Now that was strange that he won heavily Democratic areas. Areas that every pollster said, “No Way.” Then what did he do. He started two wars. One of which was under false pretenses. Wrecked the economy, which he could have saved and saved Social Security, but he didn’t. He also appoint Supreme Court Justices, which continued the line of Scalia conservatism, which is not where the country is at. Remember his VP was Dick Cheney who kept everything in big safes. What was in those safes? Are we ever going to see the contents? Nevermind.

Then came Obama and he was stymied by McConnell and this notion that the Republicans wanted to negotiate and do something good for the country. After what they did on health care and on holding up his Supreme Court nominee there can be little doubt that any of that is true. In the 2010 mid-term the Republicans found a way to flip a lot of state legislatures to their column. This allowed them to then gerrymander the hell out of those states to keep them in their control.

Then came Trump, incompetence, greed, and stupidity is the best way to characterize that time. However, he managed to bungle and undercount the 2020 Census so that we really don’t know what our population is, and based on that screwed up Census, it looks like they have managed to throw more control their way.

But now, oh boy, a new tactic. Lying. I know, you’re thinking, “What’s new about that?” Well, they used to gaslight. By that I mean they used to pretend to do one thing while really doing another or to say one thing and do another, but now? Why bother? Now they just make stuff up. There is no attempt to cover it up. Once again, why bother? Reagan got rid of the fairness doctrine in media and he also allowed media companies to get bigger and bigger, taking over whole media markets. Now most of the country’s media is controlled by a few conservative media giants. They have integrated news, opinion, and entertainment so that it is hard to tell one from the other. They have slipped corporate opinion into newscasters mouths so that you think you are hearing news when really you aren’t. This has been going on for some time but now? We’ve got a new angle. Lying. Outright, no attempt at anything else but outright lying. 

The Republicans and their media buddies are pushing a narrative that Biden doesn’t like meat. 

That would be interesting to figure out where that came from. I mean, like, “how did they misconstrue what Biden said?” However, in this case Biden never said anything. The Republicans made it up, and they are pushing it. There is nothing to the story. No evidence, no “honest mistake.” Nothing. 

In other bizarreness the Republicans in Arizona are doing a recount of the votes in Maricopa County. Who is doing it? A Quanon group. Yep. And what will the results be? Some say it won’t make any difference. I disagree. I think they might announce a significant number of more votes for Trump. Why? Because that’s what they want. Also, they are hiding what they are doing, and they have people in there with blue ballpoint pens. That is absolutely forbidden in an election recount. Black and blue pens are what people mark their ballots with. If you are going to do a recount, and you want the results to be legit, then you don’t want people in their supposedly counting ballots with an instrument that could be used to change a ballot. But that’s what they’ve got. Regardless of what they claim it can’t be legitimate because they have tarnished the process. Not only that but not the ballots have been spoiled. What does the head of the recount say? Oh gosh, he didn’t know. He thought only black pens could be used on ballots, not blue. Or is it the other way around? Who knows? Who cares? The ballots have been ruined. So, at a minimum a Q’anon group has been given a bunch of money by the Arizona Republicans. Is there a difference? I mean are the Arizona Republicans and the folks in Arizona that are Q’anon believers are they the same? In the great two circle Venn diagram of this I guess there are some that aren’t.

Monday April 26, 2021

One of the abilities I have is to find similarities and patterns in disparate events. Hawkins had that too. Einstein did “thought experiments.” Seymour Cray kept inventing new computers that built off of what he had done before, but he would change some fundamental thing while keeping the others constant. 

I have noticed that we, as a nation, are up against some seemingly intractable problems: guns and health care. The underlying problem is that people don’t like change. Change suggests risk or getting out of your comfort zone. Folks don’t like that. They’d rather stick to the devil they know. It takes a lot to get someone to change. However, if you can get someone to do something the new something can become the thing they become comfortable with and then they don’t want to go back because that would involve change. Hence, the reason the salesman says take the car home, if you don’t like it bring it back.

But how do you do that with guns or health care? One of the problems is recognizing that any situation, any proposal, any idea will, most likely, not be perfect. It won’t solve every situation. Therein lies the impossible mountain. Can you get enough people to take a test drive, take it home, and let that become the new normal?

It can happen. It happened with the Thompson submachine gun after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. It’s happened with Obamacare.

The question becomes can we move to further improve our lives in these areas or will inertia continue to hold us back?

There are powerful forces both seen and unrecognized by many that work against this. The most basic one is change. Another is structural. Another is there are folks who actively are working to make sure those changes don’t happen.

Let’s deal with change. People don’t like to change. Getting them to change is hard. It requires they understand and are willing to put thoughts into action. The best remedy is education.

The second one is structural and this is what could lead to the destruction of the country as we know it. The majority of the people elected to the Senate are elected by a minority of the population. This means that the ideas of a few can rule us all unless some fundamental change is made. I don’t see it changing. I therefore see that at some point in time the government we have will fail to work and something will replace it, and whatever it is won’t be pretty.

There are coalitions of people dedicated to getting an unfair advantage and/or of holding on to power at all costs. 

History has shown that when the rich take power they make sure they don’t have to pay their fair share. We have seen this not only in our country but around the world. Elizabeth Warren, when she was running for President, proposed taxing the rich at 2% of their assets. The rich were horrified. However, that is the percentage they pay every year to the financial consultants and planners they have who are investing their money. Okay, if you are really rich you pay less, but the average sh much rich person pays 2% on assets every year.

What is called “the conservatives” is a coalition of people, companies, and other entities that don’t have the principles that our country and culture were supposedly founded on in mind. 

To understand what they want, read Democracy in Chains. At least the manipulator that are conscious that they are manipulating are following the principles and plans laid out int hat book. There is some obfuscation and subtlety in what they are doing, but not much. Since the Trump administration there has been even less. In other words, if you are paying attention it’s pretty f*ing obvious. 

Because this is a loose coalition of varied interests I can’t say it’s all one thing or another. However, what one can say is – there is nothing new here. It’s the same play book that they have used forever throughout history. We know how this ends.

The question becomes, “Can we the people force a different outcome?”

Therein lies the big question.

We can begin by chipping away at little things.

Like can someone ask Jim Jordan what he has accomplished since being elected to Congress? Devin Nunes? Same thing. We can make a longer list but for now let’s keep it short.

Have a Great Day! Remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life! 

Did you know the Romans had a room called The Vomitorium? Do you think all new construction should have such a room?

PS I meant to take that shot. With the left foot, with the right…

Thursday April 22, 2021

With my last post I mentioned Ted had Covid. Some were disappointed to hear it was Nugent and not Cruz. 

Reading what Ted Nugent has said about Covid got me to thinking about what he says now that he can barely get out of bed. When faced with the reality of what one has denied what do they do?

It varies. Remember waterboarding? Sean Hannity said it wasn’t torture. Someone offered him a chance to experience it and he could never find the time to try it. A well known DJ in Chicago took up the challenge. He lasted three seconds before screaming for them to stop and declaring it as torture.

Then there were the patients in the ICU in Michigan that came in sick with Covid and wouldn’t accept the fact. It had to be something else. They were yelling at their nurses. When did they stop yelling? Stop denying? Answer: When a tube was shoved down their throat they stopped yelling. As soon as it was taken out they were back to denying.

What about the people who go to the Death Camps and deny the Holocaust?

Now we have a new threat. It’s people who are seeped in denial and believers in the most nonsensical of theories that are getting elected to political positions who are making laws and regulations based on their nonsense. 

It seems we may be washed away by a flood. A rising ocean and a burning land. Maybe then. No, forget it.

I have travelled the world and I have seen the structures that people have built to live in the next world, in the afterlife. So far, everyone I have seen will, at best, have the remains sitting undisturbed since they were put there long ago. 

I keep thinking someone would have said, “Now, hold on. How long have we been doing this? Doesn’t seem to be working.”

But that is not the nature of our collective cultures. It seems that each group gets an idea in their collective head as to what to do with the dead. An idea grows about an afterlife or a next world and preparing for it. This idea takes hold grows and preparations are carried out and then what?

Then nothing. There seems to be no heaven, no hell, and no afterlife. We may have to accept the reality that this is it.

Whatever you accomplish or don’t accomplish in this life, that is it. There ain’t nothing else. Now, maybe you don’t want to believe that, but really? Is there evidence of anything to the contrary? (Answer: NO. Despite all the chest beating, praying, foretelling, believing, coincidences.)

So now we get to today’s times and I have to ask myself, “Is there anything new here?” And yes there is, I think. Perhaps, it is something old in a new guise. Quanon. What is it? Not in particular, but as a phenomenon. It seems to be the mashing together of several strains of belief and technology in our society. Is it any different than the Shamans/conmen of old? 

The danger we now face is that there are enough of these people that they are now infiltrating our governments at all levels and infecting them with their nutty beliefs.

The danger we face is from terrorists, idiots, and authoritarians. Oh yes, and climate change, and global pandemics. 

PS Q u – is not the wine of Quanon is it? Is it? OMG! Could I be infected?

Wednesday April 21, 2021

Ted Nugent has Covid.

It can’t be true.

Covid doesn’t exist said Ted.

He’s so sick he can hardly get out of bed to pee.

Aw too bad.

Ted called it names.

Covid doesn’t care.

Ted blamed other nationalities.

Covid didn’t care.

Ted said it was a fraud.

Covid didn’t care.

It struck him down just like anyone else.

Maybe Ted should have listened.

Maybe Ted should have faced reality.

It’s hard for me to not say mean awful things and call Ted names, like the names he has called other people, other nationalities, and things he doesn’t understand and makes no attempt to understand. It’s weird isn’t it Ted (and Donald and Mike and Bolsonaro) that you can’t cover up facts like a virus pandemic with a PR campaign? Who Knew?

George Floyd’s killer got convicted. 

Two days ago, before the conviction was handed down, Maxine Waters said we should stay in the streets until the judgement is handed down and that we should be more confrontational, and get this – the right lost their collective minds! Where were they when rep Mo Brooks or Matt Gaetz were inciting a mob? Or when Rudy G was? Or Sean Hannity? I didn’t hear them say a peep.

Yet Maxine says stays what she says and all of a sudden they are concerned about violence?

PS Blooming Rosemary