Grumbles, Growls, and Guffaws 20190529-2

One problem with having lived for over 60 years is when I see something advertised as a bargain, I remember when it was much, much cheaper.

Nothing is too petty for the 45 administration: Crooks and Liars: Red Painter:

'The White House was so worried about upsetting Donald Trump during his trip to Japan that they placed a TARP over the name of the USS McCain, the ship was "relocated" to obscure it from sight and the ship's sailors were given the day off.'

A step forward is a step forward:

• Daily Kos: Laura Clawson: New Hampshire abolishes death penalty, as state Senate overrides Gov. Sununu's veto. 
• Daily Kos: Gabe Ortiz: Maine has become the latest state to ban harmful, so-called “conversion therapy” for LBGTQ minors. “By signing this bill into law today,” said Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, “we send an unequivocal message to young LGBTQ people in Maine and across the country: We stand with you, we support you, and we will always defend your right to be who you are.”

So now the latest Rambo film is our action hero defending his home and ranch against THE OTHER, said villain looking to be some faceless corporate perhaps doing a land grab, or else the "deep state" trying to silence him. Alt-right much?

Grumbles, Growls, and Guffaws 20190529-1

I had to turn on the heat pump last night. [Marshals crane backing up while hoisting Summer] "Okay, back a little more ... little more.... Right there! Okay, set 'er down easy--" BATHUMP. "Awesome; there's Summer right it belongs, just after Spring."

Thank the gods: can we now kindly drive a wooden stake through the heart of Game of Thrones as an act of mercy? Why do we keep thinking bad fiction makes for good media? Think GoT is good fiction? Read Mark Twain's Seventeen Rules for Writing.

Made biscuits today since I'm not paying $$$ for a loaf of bread.

I like how Trump is multi-tasking all the different levels of Dante's Inferno Trump will occupy after he dies. Satan will need to install a light rail system just to shuttle Trump around to meet his just punishments. At least Trump will improve Hell's infrastructure....

Mock Paper Scissors: Little Kremlin-on-the-Potomac: tengrain: 'And then Fox News had a nutty, when analyst Andrew Napolitano said Robert Mueller “basically” said in a public statement that his office would have indicted President Trump had he not been president. Pravda on the Potomac, Fox News, by the way, did not have a single Mueller story up yesterday. The Memory Hole is in working order.'

driftglass on Thomas B. Hofeller: 'Republicans find their courage in one of two ways:  once they leave office and go shopping for a cable news gig, or once they drop dead and leave behind a pissed off family member and an uncleared hard drive.'

The Smirking Chimp: Alex Henderson: Here Are 4 Key Moments from Mueller’s Stunning Statement on the Russia Investigation [Editing and formatting mine]:

1. 'Mueller can not say with “confidence” that Donald Trump “clearly did not commit a crime.”
2. Mueller was bound to honor policy against indicting a sitting president.
3. Mueller indicated that he will not testify before Congress.
4. Mueller stressed that Russian interference in 2016 was aggressive and brazen.'

Migrating to here

I've had it with Facebook. Invasive monitoring, nurturing neo-fascist hate speech to increase their revenue, selling our personal data to obviously Russian think tanks, who then put Trump into the Oval Office--I'm done with Facebook. Yes, Google has its problems as well, but seems a better choice to me for now. Let's see how this works out....

Smartly Stupid

We somehow seem to expect our children in school to be smart and stupid at the same time. Smart enough to pass all the merit-based testing, yet stupid enough not to notice our dead-end economy.

What are our students learning? They are learning that for every problem, there is an ineffective solution. These ineffective solutions are based on the (ancient) idea that less money will solve everything.

How do you motivate students to learn? Give them a future. Our students are not stupid. They can look ahead and see what our economic injustice--all of our money flowing upwards and never coming back down--will do to them.

And yet the solution seems to be learning cursive writing? Seriously?

This Solves Nothing 001

Conservatives complain about "anti-business government"--so how is taking away all our civil rights going to fix that?

Those Who Oppose

Do people oppose immigration into the USA because deep down they realize our economy has been trashed--thoroughly and completely--and most of our jobs have disappeared into the all-consuming bottom lines of soulless corporations who have transported the work stations to be filled by low-paid wage slaves in another land ... but those who oppose immigration are conservative, and conservatives never-ever-ever cross-hearts-hope-to-die admit their mistakes?