Troops -

Will diet for food.

Anyone?  Is this mic on?

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Nun of the Above

“The creeds of the major religions are mutually contradictory, so that the one thing we know for certain about religion is that if any religion is true then most religions are false.”  - Anthony Kenny, in DEFENSE of religion!

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/anthony_kenny_on_atheist_delusions_20100514/

This is a REALLY well-written and entertaining article.

Still, as Sam Harris has noted, even believers are atheists about all but one god.  Atheism just closes the circle.  Hobbyhorse alert!

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Win-win for Mom

“Kids, if you rake the yard, I’ll get pizza for dinner.” Continue Reading

Troops -

IMVHO (and you know how Humble I can be when it suits my purposes), Aesop needs some correcting.  He didn’t get it quite right.

For example, in “The Tortoise and the Hare,” the hare’s downfall was that he took a silly, overconfident nap, mid-race.  It SHOULD have been that he made wrong turns all over the place, flying off at high speed and not checking the map to make sure he was on course.  Right?  THAT’S how we screw up working too fast.  Know whum sane?  A much more useful lesson.

And in “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” the grasshopper spent his summer fiddling and having fun while the diligent ants worked to gather food for the winter.  BUT, when the grasshopper showed up on the doorstep of the ants to beg for food and shelter, they took him in!  So the grasshopper was the big winner!

I say, slam the door and let that damned freeloading grasshopper freeze!!  It’s our duty as compassionate conservatives.

Continue Reading

Troops -

Change vs. Chump Change

Much as we might like to Believe in Change we can Believe in, so far our government is turning out to be less than user friendly; more like usurer friendly — did you feel Wachovia walk overya?

(OK, I know.  Obama has a steep hill of History, and Money, to climb.)

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War vs. Peace

The U.S. spends more for war annually than all U.S. state governments combined spend for the health, education, welfare, and safety of 308 million Americans.

Full story here.

War is winning this one.

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Dogs vs. Gods

I like dogs.  Most dogs.  Good, nice dogs.  Vicious dogs, or yippy snappy tiny dogs not so much, but to each his own.  I like good dogs because of their attitude, which is usually positive and, in a word, GLAD.  When dog owners come home after being away for 8 hours, their dogs are really glad to see them!  They wag their tails and jump around and perform a small dance of joy.  (OK, also at mealtime.)

I like the people closest to me just fine, and I probably love almost all of them.  And I am happy to see them when I see them again.  But I can’t think of anyone I am THAT glad to see.  As a rule, I give my loved ones a half-assed hug and a smile.  I do not do a dance of joy.  This may be a fault in me, and I accept it.  (In my defense, I do not get dances of joy at my own arrival, but that too might be my fault, and I accept it.)

On the other hand, I do not (as a rule) like gods.  They (as a rule) make too many rules, and a lot of those rules are pretty bad. (OK, the Greek gods didn’t seem to make rules, but they were subject to fits of temper that did not bode well for us humans.) Continue Reading

Troops -

Here’s a strong article about Nader.  Longish – 2.5 pages – but good ClickHere

excerpt:

Nader’s status as a pariah corresponded with an unchecked assault by corporations on the working class. The long-term unemployment rate, which in reality is close to 20 percent, the millions of foreclosures, the crippling personal debts that plague households, the personal bankruptcies, Wall Street’s looting of the U.S. Treasury, the evaporation of savings and retirement accounts and the crumbling of the country’s vital infrastructure are taking place as billions in taxpayer subsidies, obscene profits, bonuses and compensation are enjoyed by the corporate overlords…. Continue Reading

Troops -

Item from News of the Weird:  Death Row Living

In Orange County, CA, Billy Joe Johnson, who had just been convinced of murder as a hit man for a white supremacist gang, begged the judge and jury, in all sincerity, to sentence him to death.  Johnson knew that those on California’s death row get individual cells and better telephone access, nicer contact-visit arrangements, and more personal-property privileges than ordinary inmates. The Los Angeles Times reported that the state’s spending per death-row inmate is almost three times that for other inmates.  The current death-row census totals 685, but because of legal issues, only 13 have been executed since 1977 (compared to 71 death-row fatalities from other causes).  In fact, Johnson was so eager to be put on death row that he tried to confess to two murders that no one yet knew about.

(I now have a Plan B for my retirement.)

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Jon: It’s good to be alive.
Garfield:  I agree – not great. “Good.”

(Garfield is the most widely syndicated comic strip in the country.  Sales of Garfield merchandise is between $750 million and one billion dollars ANNUALLY.)

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From a good, thoughtful essay by Julia Baird in a recent Newsweek, a citation of Mahatma Gandhi’s list of mankind’s seven social sins: commerce without morality, politics without principle, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, education without character, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

The full essay is here, and repays a read. Continue Reading

Troops:

Uh oh:? ?I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. – Thomas Jefferson

Did you notice a recent Supreme Court decision?? ?Actually, this points to the tragedy of the Tea Partiers. They have misdiagnosed the problem and misdirected their rage.  They think gubmint is the problem [the gospel of Saint Reagan]. ? ?The real problem is that “our” government is, at least by now, almost entirely owned by the corporations, via legal bribery: campaign financing, a problem made worse by the recent, hideous Supreme Court decision.? ?The Congress is to blame too, of course, by being willing to be bought off, right in front of God and everybody.  Totally shameless.  [And there ARE a few decent public servants in amongst them.] ??But the motive for the crimes being committed by government, against us, we the people, comes from Big Business. In the form of BIG MUNNAY.  ? ?In case you hadn’t noticed.

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Gubmint is the Problem

This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy.  I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.  After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

Continue Reading

Troops:

I know how much you enjoy being privy to my every passing thought.
["Privy" might not be the best choice of words.]

However, this will be a video heavy Bulletin.

Let’s start with this bit of craziness

As you listen to the German, “der Turm” means “the tower”, and “einen kopfstand” is “a headstand”….

Just watch.  You have to admire the commitment to conceive, and BUILD, and then actually execute this stunt.

This is very German – trust in engineering!  The announcer stands below the stunt the whole time.

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Darwin Was Wrong

I think Rickie Gervais pretty much destroys Evolutionary Theory in parts One and Two of this dissertation.  It’s Friday, so we have time.

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Phil 101

OK, seriously, this is my wheelhouse – Philosophy 101. [Call me butter, 'cause I'm on a roll.]

This series, via Harvard, is Excellent:  It’s a full-on, pointy-headed course about ethics and justice and moral reasoning.

If you watch nothing else, watch the first 30 minutes of Episode 1.  We first entertain a few hypothetical moral dilemmas regarding runaway trolleys and cannibalism, and then the prof delivers a Wonderful Warning about the Dangers of philosophy.  He is quite right.  God love him.

Episode 1. part 1, not to be missed

The entire course is here, and I’m totally loving it.  But it’s not everyone’s cuppa.

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There IS hope for the endangered species of the world, if only we humans will do our part.  Give until it hurts.

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Pottery

Now a wee smite o’ reading.

Remember poetry?

Ever been moved by it?

Here’s a poem from Hillary Anne Farley, age 5:

THIS IS A POEM
This is a poem about God looks after things:
He looks after lions, mooses and reindeer and tigers,
Anything that dies
And mans and little girls when they get to be old,
And mothers he can look after,
And God can look after many old things
That’s why I do this.

Here’s one from Debora Ensign, age 7

MIRROR!  MIRROR!
As I look into the mirror I see my face.
Then I play like I am in jail.
I pretend that I am bad.
I pretend sometimes that I am on a stage.
I sing to myself.  I introduce people.

From Ngaire Noffke, age 12

I shook his hand
I touched him
How proud I felt
He said, “Hello” softly
I lost my voice,
But in my mind I said everything.

Now comes one of my favorite poems of all time.  Read it and mull it over before you read my wee note that follows on it.

“Corbies” are ravens or crows ["cormorant" = "cor," crow, plus "mare," the Latin for sea [maritime, mariner] cor + mare = sea crow].  “Twa” is, of course, two, and a “hause-bane” is a breast bone.

THE TWA CORBIES  [by Anon]

As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies making a mane;
The tane unto the t’other say,
“Where sall we gang and dine today?”

“In behint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new-slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

“His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady’s ta’en another mate,
So we may make our dinner sweet.

“Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I’ll pick out his bonny blue een;
Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair
We’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.

“Mony a one for him makes mane,
But none sall ken where he is gane;
O’er his white banes when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.”

Now THAT, brethren and sistren, is some serious pottery!  [If you want a real treat, like dark chocolate, read it aloud, wi' yer best Scots accent.]

Nicely unsettling, and a fine, cold meditation on death.

But there’s more.

Here’s a wee note about what’s unspoken:

Naebody knows that our gowden-haired knight lies dead, hidden behind a dyke, except “his hound, his hawk, and lady fair.”  Well, if the knight went out hawking, his hawk and hound would be with him.  That’s how they’d know where he lies dead.  But his lady fair?  Who has ta’en another mate already, while the corpse of our “new-slain” knight is still fresh?  How would his lady know she was a widow, fit to marry again?

God be praised, ain’t poetry grand?
Nothing’s new ‘neath our good sun.
gh

Troops:
There’s an expression, “stay put.”
Who was ever “put” in the first place?  I don’t remember ever being put..  And what kind of word is “put” anyway?  It’s silly.  As silly as “pudding.”

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Time Saver

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
- Christopher Hitchens

I later learned this was an old Latin adage: “Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.”  Don’t you feel better knowing the original Latin?  I know I do.
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Fortune Cookie Wisdom
Crack open your fortune cookies and, savor each of these:

• Bastards need to suffer.  It helps them stand themselves.
• The guilt of the quick raises monuments to the dead.
• The idea of sacrifice disguises the hope of saving one’s own skin.
• Morals are the distillate of security operations.
• Humor is a luxury to happiness, a necessary to despair.
• He that is without sadness among you, let him cast the first stone.
• Security is the reciprocal to change.
• Animals should work; the duty of man is pleasure.  Sacrifice is for saints.
• Don’t cry for help.  There is no help.  But give a signal.

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There are no passengers on spaceship earth.  We are all crew. – Marshall McLuhan
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Bumpersticker
Militant Agnostic On Board
I Don’t Know And Neither Do You!
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Dirty Jobs
This clip is about 20 minutes, and it’s worth it.  It’s about the value and valor of manual labor, among other things, including:  maybe you should NOT follow your passion!
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Anon Strikes Again
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.  A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.  A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.  A man marries a woman hoping she will never change, but she does.  A woman has to have the last word in any argument.  Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
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Religious Significance
I know three Buddhism jokes, and I worry about spending the best one here when I could rock the house in person.  But I love you all too much to withhold it.  Remember me in your prayers.

When the guru and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery was such a nuisance that it distracted them.

So the guru ordered that the cat be put in a closet during the evening practice.

When the guru died, the cat continued to be put in a closet during meditation.

And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and put in a closet.

Centuries later, learned scholars wrote treatises about the religious significance of putting a cat in a closet for meditation practice.
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Parting Shot
A beautiful thing is never perfect. – Egyptian proverb

This is a Big Idea – worthy of some no-cat meditation.  If everyone were perfect…how boring would that be?  It’s the differences among us that make people interesting, conversations worth having…all that.  So don’t complain about other people – unless you absolutely HAVE to.

Which brings to mind this notorious counterpoint:

If you can’t say something nice about someone, sit right here by me. – Alice Roosevelt Longworth

So now where are we?

Don’t worry, because…. um, just don’t.
gh

Troops:

Jon Oliver, in a Daily Show segment about the right wing’s lament that we’re “losing our country,” came up with an insight that rocked me to my socks, partly because it’s so damned obvious – once you see it.

We used to live in a simpler time.  Right?

Almost everyone [not just right wingers] laments: “When I was growing up, it used to be like…FILL IN THE BLANK.  But nowadays….”  We all do this.

But the right wing is escalating this commonplace nostalgia to a toxic attack, in which Obama is, according to Hannity [et al], “literally ripping apart the foundation of the America that we knew and grew up in.” [Actual quote.]

This is making a pathology of nostalgia.

Why were the old days, seemingly in every generation, better?

This is a riddle that has puzzled the best of us – why has it seemed to every generation that we’re sliding down hill to hell?

Famously, Socrates: “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders, and love chatter in places of exercise.  They no longer rise when elders enter the room.  They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

Please do yourself a favor and watch this brilliant clip BEFORE you read my spoiler [below the link], as Oliver examines the “good old days”. [Glen Beck is priceless!]  [5:46]  Daily Show

The spoiler:  The key phrase [as Oliver points out] is “when I was growing up.”  We were CHILDREN, for God’s sake!  Of COURSE the world was simpler and golden and uncomplicated in the “old days.”  We were children, with no care in the world [relative to adulthood].  Wow – or should I say, Duh.

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Obama, Personally

Conservatives have real policy disagreements with libs [taxes, unions, states' rights], or delusional issues [FEMA is building concentration camps], or actual outright fabrications [Obama was born in Nigeria, he's a Muslim, he proposed death panels, health care will cover illegals... ]  [Though it should!!  If you or I fell sick in Europe, we'd be cared for... a discussion for another day.]

But let’s narrow the focus to the absurd things for which the conservatives have mocked or criticized Obama as a person.

- his “celebrity,” his “elitism,” his “cosmopolitan” style [during the campaign]  [he had the effrontery to be educated. he was at the top of his class, while McCain was at the bottom.  uppity.]

- they actually mocked his background as a community organizer

- unpatriotic: doesn’t wear a flag pin

- he spoke on a stage with columns = it’s the “temple of Obama”

- unpatriotic:  he didn’t visit the wounded troops in Iraq;  oh wait, he did?  then he’s using the troops as a backdrop for PR purposes

- he uses a teleprompter  [this is the one that fries me]

- speaking to schoolchildren about studying and doing well in school [same thing as communist indoctrination, as in North Korea.]

- “dithering” for 3 weeks on Afghanistan strategy [the Bush admin dithered a mere 7 years]

- “censoring” Fox News

- proposing to try the Nigerian suspect in a U.S. court [as Bush successfully did with shoe-bomber Richard Reid.]

[OK, some of these were not strictly personal, but REALLY!]

If I’ve missed any, send them along.

======================

On the Flight

This is a first-hand account of what it was like to be on the flight with the Nigerian underpants bomber.  It is long, but good. Huffington Post

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The UK Desk

There is a critically acclaimed sitcom, The Office, and, try as I might, I’ve never been able to get on board with it.  Just can’t get its rhythms or viewpoint or whatever.  I find it downright annoying.  But I knew it was a US adaptation of a British original, written/directed by, and starring Rickie Gervais [Paul et al - he's my Eddie Izzard], so I thought I’d give the original a shot, and I LOVED it.  Gervais makes himself the butt of most of the jokes [he said in an interview with Jon, "before someone else does."]  He’s a master of wincing, uncomfortable humor.  If you have Instant View in Netflix, here is Series 1:  The Office

Not everyone’s cuppa, I’m sure, but he suits me to a tea.

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An idea I’ve been seeing in the blogosphere that may have merit:  move your money.  Break up the banks

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From Harper’s Index

Percentage change since President Obama’s inauguration in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq:  -16

Percentage change in the number of armed private contractors working for the United States there:  +52

Ratio of journalists to delegates among registered attendees at this fall’s G20 meeting in Pittsburgh:  5:1

Ratio of Katie Couric’s salary to the total operating expenses of NPR’s 17 foreign bureaus:  3:2

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Is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s? – Nietzsche

Oh, and look who goes to jail:  the guy who exposes a massive tax fraud:  Whistle blower

Ta ta, y’all

gh