Going Out West

The Devil Made him do it... again.

Weird World

" In 2017, three men were caught growing weed in an abandoned nuclear bunker in Wiltshire."

secret underground lab

Loyal Love

This pulls my heart apart from so many directions:

sheepdog-spain-slaughterhouse-flock

Tidy Music, Elegant Women

Erik Satie Pieces Froid

(cold pieces)
I. Tunes to Make You Run Away 00:00

In a very unusual manner 03:39

Simply 05:28 Invitingly 

II. Crooked Dances 09:03

Give it a good look 10:44

Go on 12:09 Again

Bonus Ravel:

Maurice Ravel String Quartet

Shrinking Shares

https://www.rt.com/business/470837-putin-investment-saudi-opec/

No wonder we're sending troops over there. Once Russia sets up its own oil complex and fortifies it with superior Russian weapons/defense systems, USA becomes an isolated, shrinking continent in the northern hemisphere.

Also:

rosatom-opens-a-branch-in-saudi-arabia/

A World of Paradox

God, they say, is the best thing Man ever invented. They are right.

Life, which includes Man, is the best thing God ever invented, they say. They are right.

( "The power of Christ compels thee... it's not wor-keeng!?!" )

( "Shoulda done a barrel roll..." )

Maximum Bonus Joke:

Sadly, for recent generations beginning with the Boomers, the old Gods have been deposed. Oh, they'll come back, gods do that, it's what makes them gods, after all.

But for now, our culture really has only Obie Wan the Father, Luke Skywalker His Son, and the Force, the Holy Spirit within us all although many purists 
hold to older creeds like Star Trek, the first TV Space Western on LSD.

Gods coming back into vogue more and more are the Great Brown Earth 
Gods, the gods who answer to prayers chanted with drums into the ground to the center of Mother Earth. It's rhythmic, it's proto-sexual, urgent, real, not 
ethereal or wistful like cathedral choirs, voices filtered through stained-glass eardrums... it's got a good beat that's easy to dance to:

Water Spirit Music

So. Who's Next?

There are times when pert near global anthems of prophetic freedom, so over-used to sell cars or whatnot that they've become hopelessly cliche' except as oldies'r'us, re-enflame with the truth they sang then now come about fully to pass:

Baba O'Reilly




We Got Fooled Again

( Insert caption here )

...and again, and again, and again... with a good beat that's easy to dance to.

( That's not a caption. )

"We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
The men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song"

Man in the Wilderness

Me in the Pend O'Reille County Mountains circa October '16. I lived there, some kind of homelessness, for about 3 months, smelled like about 700 years. Hot baths are the shiznits, y'all.

( "Yew ain't fum around here, are yew?" )

A Few Words on Trump

( "Your brain. It's what's for dinner." )

For all of Trump's mental health issues, there is this that should be considered: yes, the man has fucked up. A LOT. His business failures are legendary. Nonetheless, he rose through the media stream to become a TV star and now, President of the USA (increasingly identical professions).

He has learned from at least some of his mistakes.

Most of his opposers haven't.  They've been successful where Trump hasn't, and tend to think they're bulletproof. They lack the kind of hard-earned wisdom that comes from fucking up as badly and brazenly as Trump has (and boy, has he fucked up!).

These wealthy senators and CEOs think their asses are covered. They have their millions and billions. They have their fortified compounds. They forget that should those fortified compounds become necessary, the chains of command and influence that allowed them to build those compounds and hire minion security forces, will disintegrate. The guys with the guns hired to protect them will turn on their masters when cashing a paycheck is not what's most important, but who has the most food/water/fuel/guns will rule the day. Who needs the fat man with all that (now worthless) money?

Trump, having lied, cheated, swindled, and stolen so often from so many, knows something about this. Trump, having been virtually reared by psychopathic evil geniuses like Roy Cohn (look him up; he makes Jeffrey Epstein sound kinda nice), doesn't trust anyone and no one trusts him except a select few -- and for only so long. He knows this. He knows he survives by being a moving target. This is part of why he contradicts himself so much. Some of it is runaway NPD ( Narcissistic_personality_disorder ), but some of it is hard-learned wisdom, evil but accurate wisdom.

Trump knows this: if he triggers a nuclear war, having an underground bunker 330 feet below will do him little good.

1) They suck. They smell funny. They're creepy. Ick. They are de facto survival prisons, and who wants to live in a prison?

2) Playing golf sucks on Astroturf 300 feet underground with at most a 50' ceiling. (see image below)

("This is SO not a good place for a golf course. Wrong. All wrong. HUUUUUUgely bad.")

3) Once underground, his power is useless. He's no longer commander-in-chief, he's Old Bloated Asshole in the Way. He uses valuable resources, drinkable water, food, K-Y Jelly, that his younger, stronger, militarily trained minions want for themselves.

This notion that Trump is some madman liable to trigger Armageddon and must therefore be impeached, is madness. Trump is a madman, yes. He is morally despicable, yes.

But he is not so stupid as, say, Joe Biden or Lindsey Graham or Nancy Pelosi or Nikki Haley. He's fucked up SO much, and hung around with so many sleazy purveyors of blackmail and violence, he knows that he and his global golf resorts want peace not nuclear war. He fucked up so badly in America and Europe he had to go to seriously severe Kazakhstani gangsters and Putin inner circle heavies to continue sleazing his way through his own increasingly not-so-inept folly, folly now proving incredibly powerful in its understanding of the human capacity for, well, folly. And behold, a TV star becomes our president. His discussions of, uh, "terms" with said Russo-Central Asian gangstergarchs/oligangsters/oil kings introduced him, surely, to the Knowledge of What Baseball Bats Can Do to You. He wouldn't last a minute on Harlem streets, but he has incredible street savvy on the gilded pathways his money and now office let him walk. He knows he can get his ass kicked in the Hilton as easy as in Dogtown. Trump, we can be assured, has been humiliated by people who know how to humiliate those who seek what they have.

One learns from such humiliation.

Hence him being virtually the only politician/talking head in Washington, D.C., who makes nicey-nice with Putin, possessor of the world's most formidable nuclear arsenal and globally superior weapons delivery/defense systems. He is the King of Russia, and Trump, crazy and deceitful as Trump is, is not going to cross him.

We need not fear Trump. We need only fear ourselves. To do that, we have to look in the mirror and probe within our selves, our minds, our souls, our hearts.

Yeah, right. Hey, what's on Netflix?

I AM the Slime! I AM!!!!

I am gross and perverted

I'm obsessed 'n deranged 

I have existed for years 

But very little has changed 

I am the tool of the Government 

And industry too 

For I am destined to rule 

And regulate you 

I may be vile and pernicious 

But you can't look away 

I make you think 

I'm delicious 

With the stuff that I say 

I am the best you can get 

Have you guessed me yet? 

I am the slime oozin' out 

From your TV set 

You will obey me while I lead you 

And eat the garbage that I feed you 

Until the day that we don't need you 

Don't go for help...no one will heed you 

Your mind is totally controlled 

It has been stuffed into my mold 

And you will do as you are told 

Until the rights to you are sold 

That's right, folks.. 

Don't touch that dial 

Well, I am the slime from your video 

Oozin' along on your livin'room floor 

I am the slime from your video 

Can't stop the slime, people, look at me go

The Internet? Facebook? Twitter? That's just TV you can talk to, avoiding the need to talk to other people in person.

Whew. I feel dirty. I need a warm shower. Maestro, please turn on the bubble machine. Anna one anna two anna  Evwee Bodee Ah Wuv Woo

Know you got to run,
Know you got to hide
Still there is a great life
Lingerin' deep within your eyes.

Open up, open up, baby let me in.

You expect for me to love you
When you hate yourself, my friend.

Everybody, I love you
Everybody, I do
Though your heart is in anger
I need your love to get through
When I tell you I love you
You can believe that it's true

Everybody, I love you
Everybody, I do.

zerohedge.com

a simple piece of Kalecki analysis that is NOT taught in economics classes, and hence NOT used in central banks or think-tanks, and thus NOT recognised in most market research:

Banks create debt (and hence broad money-supply) via lending. If that lending goes to productive investment the stock of money and goods are matched and there is no inflation and there is no long-term increase in debt to GDP. If the productivity growth from the new enterprise is fairly split between profits (for further investment) and wages (for consumption) then the growth cycle continues without a long-term increase in debt to GDP.

However, if businesses push down wages for profit–via globalisation–then consumption growth can only be sustained by borrowing, and debt to GDP trends up: when it hits a peak, growth permanently slows. At that point, businesses have no need to borrow – or if they do it is to speculate on financial assets and not invest in productive business. Growth slows further, and the cycle breaks down structurally. Governments have to then invest more and/or force wages higher. [YOU ARE HERE].

Central banks lowering rates merely sees housing and/or equity bubbles running on fumes. Each hiking cycle is replaced by an easing where we see lower highs and lower lows until we go negative – which is de facto debt default. And/or we do QE, which the Bank for International Settlement recently agreed does not flow to the real economy, but pours more liquidity into asset markets, making the rich richer. Unless QE allows governments more room for fiscal spending – which is de facto debt default. [YOU ARE HERE]

‘We went to war under false, now disproven premise’: Trump calls US wars in ME ‘worst decision’ ever

Trump says contradictory things so frequently it's chronic, but he has spoken this basic notion consistently since way back.

And why not? Everyone knows it was a sham deal and a bad idea, even those who still support it. (People can say one thing, do another, and believe a third with amazing ease.)

"War on Terror (aka Middle East) Bad", say Trump.

I kin haz cheetos now?

Curious to see what kind of legs this brings.

One thing reliable about Trump is that, given no way out (he's stuck in the Oval Orifice), he will aim for the most glory he can without personally suffering. While the milindustrial complex attacks him through both the Democratic and Republican parties, the people are totally on board.

Trump, having spent many years in the White House, surely knows that, in every war game scenario the Pentagon has projected between the USA military and the heavily-armed USA populace, the military loses.

It's not just that we have an awful lot of guns, but that we have way more people than military... and they have nowhere to go.

They'll fight, discover what a paper tiger our military is, and there you are.

I don't think he's wanting to foment revolution, but he wants the assholes pushing him around to know that he holds the (please forgive me) Trump card. He's every bit the asshole they are, and crazy in just the right way to understand the ridiculously self-absorbed/self-indulgent narcissistic, practically sociopathic political mindset of most Americans.

We'll probably blow up a shit-ton of Saudi Arabia after trying and failing to successfully occupy it, while Russia probably sits back and lets us so long as we confine it to Saudi military and oil targets and don't create too vast a refugee issue, in which case Russia might use some of their latest weaponry and fully humiliate us before the world.

Which would be good so long as the loony Dominionists in the Pentagon don't try to start Armageddon, something they would do with or without Trump's permission if it were done during the thick fog of war, making it very hard for Trump to say it wasn't his fault or that he didn't authorize it.

Space X

Stalled in Space

"With NASA’s contract with Russia about to run out without a replacement spaceship ready, the US space agency is leaning on SpaceX to hurry up and deliver. CEO Elon Musk says everything is on schedule – but is it?

"Since the Space Shuttle program was scrapped in 2011, NASA has had no crewed spaceship capability, having to pay Roscosmos $80 million a seat to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX and Boeing were both contracted to develop a domestic alternative, but both the Crew Dragon and the Starliner have yet to get beyond the testing stage."

("What do you mean, electric cars aren't the way of the future?)

Anyone who reads this blog (I suppose it happens once a month or so;) ) must wonder why I mostly post news from RT. They probably are inclined to think I'm a Russian troll or something.

I think the above illustrates why.

For comparison, 50-100 years ago, all the intelligentsia around the world read major USA newspapers because it was obvious that USA was the up-and-coming power to deal with, and what happened here was important.

That's no longer true. That, to grossly oversimplify, is why I mostly turn to RT for daily news. Although I do read mainstream USA news every day, it is so blatantly false at worst and crudely misleading at best that it's like, well, it's like reading Sputnik or Pravda back in the 50s when the Soviets ran all the news.

USA, the new Soviet Russia. Russia, the new USA. FLip-flop... but nonetheless, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Now that Russia has achieved, in the eyes of the other nations, global dominance relative to the USA, RT is starting to flex its more overt propaganda muscles and loading more BS than before.

Still, the truth mostly favors Russia, which is why RT isn't afraid to tell the truth, which is why I trust it far more than any major USA news source.

Walking on the Moon

Word

Pompeo & Biden BOTH have it wrong: ‘Green light’ for Turkey’s Syria invasion wasn’t for the US to give

Line of Least Resistance

Isn't That So?

Didn't He know what He was doin
Putting eyes into my head?
If He didn't want me watching women
He'd a-left my eyeballs dead
Isn't that so?
Isn't that so?
You've got to go where your heart says go
Isn't that so?
Didn't He know what He was doin
When He made the magic vine
His own Son got a reputation
Turning water into wine
Isn't that so?
Isn't that so?
You've got to go where your heart says go
Isn't that so?
Line of least resistance lead me on, lead me on
Line of least resistance lead me on
Didn't He know what He was doin
When He divided high and low
You got to bury the seed in the dirt my friend
If you want the thing to grow
Isn't that so?
Isn't that so?
You've got to go where your heart says go
Isn't that so?

Point-CounterPoint-MetaPoint

A real dialog by virtual persons at The Automatic Earth , purveyor of composite global news and vintage Renaissance<>Modern Art

a) “If the US leaves the Kurds alone to be cannon fodder for Erdogan, it will deeply regret it. No-one counting on US support will ever trust it again.”

***

b) “Nonsense. The Anglos have betrayed and double-crossed everybody they ever met on every treaty they ever signed.”

***

c) "But, until recently, USA could make offers other polities “couldn’t refuse”. It was a form of trust. Reliable blackmail, so to speak. Like the relationship that used to exist between USA and Saudi Arabia. Now, USA can’t even make offers that can’t be refused. In fact, it’s getting to the point where it can’t even make offers that are taken seriously."

(something with a good beat that's easy to dance to, pls) 

Some People Ain't No Damn Good

Good Question

"It poses a question: do the American authorities have no wish to normalize the dialogue, contrary to their statements, or are they unable to control the actions of national security services?"

Is US national security going rogue? Moscow outraged after FBI detains Russian lawmaker at New York airport

Biopic

Close enough to my life story to pass ID check at a bar:

Little Know It All  (iz click-to-play, jah?)

I'm the kid that no one knows
I live a life I never chose
But these thoughts in my mind
Are my own, my own

I'm face to face with the unknown
My scary movie will be shown
I've got one evil mind
Of my own, of my own

We take from one another
And never stop to wonder
How it feels from the other side
Well nothing lasts forever
When stupid turns to clever
Why are you surprised?

Little know it all
Ten bucks in my hand
Little know it all
Don't cry I understand

I'm a target of the smart
They've got ambition I've got heart
Analysed and tagged
Before I start

So tell me
Who can I respect
I feel a leash around my neck
I find out there's shame
In the game

We take from one another
And never stop to wonder
How it feels from the other side
Well nothing lasts forever
When stupid turns to clever
Why are you surprised?

And I feel like
I'm caught outside the box
And I feel like
I'm sleeping when I'm not

We take from one another
And never stop to wonder
How it feels from the other side
Well nothing lasts forever
When stupid turns to clever
Why are you surprised?

Little know it all
Ten bucks in my hand
Little know it all
Don't cry I understand
Little know it all
Ten bucks in my hand
Don't cry I understand

You'll never know it all

( Iggy Pop )

( as Bozo the Clown used to say on 60s Chicago TV: "Hey, that's me!")

Serious Bluebirds, Happy raindows

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Something That Appears To Be Working

ocean-cleanup-project-successfully-catches-plastic-in-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch.html


“After beginning this journey seven years ago, this first year of testing in the unforgivable environment of the high seas strongly indicates that our vision is attainable and that the beginning of our mission to rid the ocean of plastic garbage, which has accumulated for decades, is within our sights,” said Boyan Slat.

“Our team has remained steadfast in its determination to solve immense technical challenges to arrive at this point. Though we still have much more work to do, I am eternally grateful for the team’s commitment and dedication to the mission and look forward to continuing to the next phase of development.”

How It's Done

Big Bang Theory

(it would have been better if he had stuck to fiddling)

Hmmm... puts on his tinfoil conspiracy fedora... a false flag attributed to Saudi Arabia of sufficiently large and, shall we say, vulgar atrocity would "justify" a shock'n'awe against Saudi Arabia of enormous scale.

The one thing that USA military can still do is toss a zillion cruise missiles and such against adversaries not yet equipped with superior Russian defense weaponry.

The USA populace would probably buy it but the rest of the world, hardly. The atrocities involved would piss off the entire Middle East since most ME nations have significant numbers of their citizens working and living in Saudi Arabia, but that doesn't mean they'd retaliate, for while the USA military has become mostly a paper teddy bear, we are a nuclear armed-to-the-gills polity with a perilously corrupt tyrant class that smokes the Book of Revelations in a Jesus bong and seems to believe that Pyrrhic victory -- or defeat -- are what God wants in order to know when to come down and fix things.

Like they're Roman centurions working the signal tower that let's Caesar know the barbarians have breached the Wall.

So, crazy as it sounds, and oy, it sounds crazy, it's par for the course with the likes of Pence and people who make Jeffrey Epstein seem like a nice enough chaperone for your daughter.

As if running out of oil, topsoil, and drinkable water,  losing half the animal species of 100s of millions of years' evolutionary lineage, breeding a generation of superpowerful pathogens by turning miracle drugs into major money makers rather than let the actual doctors run the show and govern the use of antibiotics prudently.

Oh yeah, we're working hard to turn Antarctica into the only habitable place on the planet.

So, hey, let's have a big old war on top of it all.

You read it here first, folks, and even if you didn't, it's better than reading it here last.

And so we move Closer To The Truth.

On Begging

OK, I'll Steal Then... or Die

(let us sing) Hallelujah I'm a Bum!

El Forko Tostada

Russia Makes Euro default Oil Sales Currency

Well, that's about it. While momentum will carry the petrodollar quite a bit further (or so most people I know who understand this stuff tell me, and I like the logics they use), this puts a fork in it as the world's primary reserve currency, and that puts a fork in us.

All our trillions will come to buy only billions and then maybe even merely millions.

Gonna be bad when the wave truly crests. Could be soon, could be a few years out. I'd start buying and filling large gas containers.

Among many primary facets of global economics the USA has been blithely violating, is that when yours is the trusted global currency, you *don't* use it as a weapon. How would you like your credit union telling you that you can't shop at Safeway, only at Wal-Mart?

Casual Miles

Bitches Brew rehearsals

As usual, I find Miles' outtakes and rehearsals from this era much better than the offical albums. Never cared for Bitches Brew, love the rehearsals and unreleased material from that time.

For example:

Water on the Pond

Expendable Victims

vladimir-putin-condemns-saudi-oil-attacks-but-defends-iran

And there you go. Now that the USA is effectively reduced as a global state actor both on the battlefield and in the media stream, Putin now takes over as Top Dog Asshole: fuck those raghead Yemenis. They have no business trying to defend themselves, apparently.

Oh, I'm sure Putin's being hypocritical here: any increase in global oil prices is good for a fossil fuel powerhouse like Russia. He just has to say something sympathetic to appease Saudi Arabia, which is bigger and more important than poor little Yemen.

I admire Putin as a statesman mostly because he is one of the very few sane ones out there. He isn't an imperialist; he doesn't want wars of aggression; Russia is plenty big enough to satisfy itself and Vlad.

But Yemenis are, after all, dispensable in the scheme of things

Game Changer

three-saudi-brigades-annihilated-in-devastating-houthi-offensive-in-saudi-arabia/

Me sez we'll be occupying Saudi Arabia soon.

Rock the Casbah

Shhh...

It's a secret.

Because They So Great

The Hi-Los sing Autumn in New York

The King of Comedy

Dmitry Orlov explains Ukraine, Biden, Trump:

Look Who's Not Laughing

(click to play) Make Me Smile

She is kind, but emotions should not control this issue

Putin Speaks About Greta Thunberg

I am normally a major Putin fan. One of the very few, virtually the only, sane national leader currently in office. A pragmatic realist who works hard to prevent nuclear war as USA collapses into its own rhetoric.

But here he shows that Big Oil is Big Oil, and won't tolerate the truth being spoken. Russia is very much Big Oil.

Vlad, and the rest of you Big Boys: Greta speaks true: the kids won't forgive you, and you or your successors will find themselves dealing with vast angry mobs looking just to stay alive. It will be... difficult.

This is not to say that I think anything will be changed for the better regarding energy/climate issues. Greta can condemn, Putin can patronize, but the clock keeps on ticking. The time to have made the transition was when Carter was in office, and indeed, that was his main priority. Carter was a farmboy from Georgia and understood the basic connection to earth, water, and fuel that is the basis of survival and civilization. I read much of  Carter's The Global 2000 Report to the President in the early 1980s while Reagan tore down solar panels from the White House roof. He knew what was coming and wanted to fix things while we could. Kinda late now.

(cues the orchestra) Whatchya Gonna Do When the Well Runs Dry?

What you gonna do
When the sun don't shine no more
What you gonna do
When the moon don't climb no more
What you gonna do
When the tears won't fall no more
What you gonna do
When the sun don't shine no more
Head on down to the world again
Find your pride in the face of sin
What you gonna do
When the sun don't shine no more

Beautiful Losers

Snub-nosed monkey mourns dying mate

He who would lead must follow. For as soon as people realize you are leading, they will no longer follow, even if they say they are following you, anoint you as messiah, and ponder every word you say.

Before we ate the "altering apple" (thanx Joni Mitchell for that perfect trope) God led us without our knowing it. Afterward, we thought we knew Who God Is, and followed our delusions of divinity via our new found Knowledge of Good and Evil (as if). But we have to believe in something. It's how we're wired. Even I do. Passionately. With all my mind, heart, body, and soul, even though I am the closest thing to a true Diogenesian cynic that I can recall meeting other than, perhaps, the Mystery Man in the 1974 Shelby GT Ford Mustang convertible who saved my life around midnight in June of 1975 and drove us for 5 five hours at 140 mph nonstop, except for a gas stop, over eastern Colorado's and northern Kansas' rolling plains. (Yes, it's a true story: that's why it's so hard to believe.)

Listen to the losers among us. They follow us. Watchful, concerned, knowing they can't save us but still trying to rescue a few of us here and there from our ferocious follies, maybe even themselves:

 (music, maestro)   Love's Missing

She's thinking about something we all need
All need
Clock's ticking, not giving her room to breathe
To breathe
Love's screaming
Love's missing
Love's screaming, so quietly and in pain
Love's absent, it's failing her once again, again
Love's screaming
Love's screaming
Dark future, she just needs someone to say
To say
"I love you", before she gets pushed away
Love's absent
Love's absent
The center won't hold me in
Love's absent
And she cannot touch a friend
A friend
She's breathing, and that isn't gonna help
No help
Clock's ticking, it's bad when she's by herself
Herself
Love's breathing
Love's missing
Love's screaming
Screaming

( Iggy Pop )

I know a young woman who lost her husband yesterday to One of Those Things. Several children lost their father.

It happens every day.

Someone near you.

Who Are They?

Where are they? What can be done? Go find them and find out.

Follow.

Self- Explanatory

You Really Should

A legendary homodeity named Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth and it shall make you free:

So, word:

You Ought To Be Having Fun

Now, wasn't that liberating?

Not to mention:

Disinterring the Godfather

Eddie Harris

Eddie Harris, according to some jazz cognoscenti, was "serious as a bad x-ray", a phrase I hope to steal when no one's looking. But what he was serious about ultimately, was something that, whatever it was, makes ye have to dance and sing, even if only inside your head while you sit in your audience seat:

Listen Here

Internal Refugees is not just a good name for a punk band...

...it's a real thing. Increasingly, most of America looks like,  or is well on its way to looking like,  this:

Here in Portland, it's mostly all new and grand in our little Pacific Northwest prosperity zone. We don't have run-down buildings. We just have rundown homeless people everywhere.

Why here? Because:

a) many people can't afford to pay the rent, and once you hit the streets, it takes enormous lift to pull you off;

b) this being a prosperity zone, homelessness pays better than it does in, say, Baltimore or Detroit, so local homeless tend to stay while homeless from elsewhere tend to come here to enjoy the relatively good begging, and;

c) while it's wet around here, it doesn't get too cold nor too warm.

Homeless is as homeless does:

Homeless Portland 

"The Trump administration wants to cap the number of refugees admitted into the United States to the lowest number since the resettlement program was created in 1980. A State Department proposal released Thursday would put a cap on the number of refugees at 18,000 for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Of those refugee admissions spots, 5,000 would be set aside for persecuted religious minorities — an attempt to bolster President Donald Trump’s heightened focus on global religious freedom — and 1,500 would be set aside for nationals of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who are seeking asylum in the United States in far greater numbers."

There would be a wise, if cruel, logic to this in that refugees from where we create mayhem are likely to have a significantly higher proportion of souls angry at USA and willing to do mayhem within. And most refugees derive from our mayhem (including global warming, of which USA is the official avatar). Just sayin'. I ain't buying the logic, but that's cuz I'm a bleeding-heart liberal at the core.

But that logic doesn't apply to refugees from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, nations we have grievously scarred, nations known for producing criminal gangsters of exceptionally violent nature uncommonly adept at besting our oh-so-brave-and-brilliant constabulary as they play Home Soldiers in their used tanks and Operation Desert Storm (that was a recent war, wasn't it? or just a fashion tag?) bulletproof superhero costumes.

If one chooses to assume, however briefly, that there is method to this particular madness, then I suggest the rabid conspiracy notion that this is some kind of steroidal Operation Paperclip on krokodil.

But surely there's a positive logical rationale to this that someone can share with us?

Wadda Mellow Mien

Raised in Chicago but born in South Carolina ('56, y'all, first string of the second wave of Boomers, that generation of Boomers who was too young to remember live broadcasts of Howdy Doody, and know of him only through the few video remnants), I especially appreciate this telling of the One True Genuine Birth of Funk:

Hey! Watermelon Man!

Fiddle you Romans, fiddle!

On Being Human

Human

For further study, perhaps we should visit the zoo?

Zoo

Hot Mess Zoo

Uncle Macron

President Macron’s amazing admission

In which France's president Emmanuel Macron cries uncle and admits that the Western Era is over.

He wouldn't say this unless his benefactors/handlers told him to.

They wouldn't do this unless they were preparing to pull the plug on Euromerica. The shift to the East is now a closing door in full swing. Gonna be harsh when that thing slams.

Rough times ahead, y'all.

Something dirge-like yet uplifting maestro:

Death of Superman

Not that America nor its European cohorts were the superpowered polities they told themselves and each other they were, nor that they fought for truth and justice while enforcing the American way upon others, but the death of an illusion is hard medicine.

Bonus trivia tidbit:

Gastromancy and the Transformation of Internal Flatulence Into Divine Prophecy

We call it spin-doctoring.

Why pick Greta Thunberg?

Because however deranged or unbalanced one may think she is*, she is typical of something you'll be seeing more and more on lots of younguns' faces -- rage based on raw existential fear -- so the Powers That Prevail attempt to preempt this inevitable angry groundswell and place such angry expressions in the "conspiracy theory" lunatic ghetto.

* I don't; I think she's just overwhelmed by everything including now being in way over her head, with or without manuipulative handlers. She was chosen to be allowed to make the noise she has because she was passionately angry in the first place. That is obviously genuine. She's not unique. I personally know a 15-year old girl who is also terrified and angry over climate issues as well as other eco/logic-nomic issues. Orphan girl from Russia adopted by a good friend. Her people experienced some serious cold and other survival challenges during the Russian Reconstruction (caps mine).

The fact that the motivation produced by this hysteria will be used by billionaire interests to make more money selling their eco-scams is secondary, for they use ANY mention of climate troubles to either dismiss the concept, make promises to fix the problem they don't intend to keep, or sell snake oil off the political momentum. Actually fixing the problem would require ceding control of the global oil business to sane survival concerns, and ruling sociopaths simply don't do that without a sharp stick up their colon.

None of this says anything about the physics involved. Meanwhile, yes the world is growing hotter, and yes, it's most likely because we all think we need to live in comfort as The Privileged Species, which would be nice if it were true but it ain't: we're just mutant monkeys who discovered fire. (But God loves us anyway. wll, He has to. We're His brats, after all.)

Human history in a sentence: humanity discovers fire, humanity burns planet to a crisp.

Back to my opener: why pick Greta Thunberg? Why pick on Greta Thunberg? Because she will appease one sector of the political opinion divide (the 'do-it-all-for-us' eco-activist side) while giving the other side some punk kid to make fun of and pick on. Sort of the Anti-Poster Child Syndrome. APCS.

We're NOT rational beings. We're beings who rationalize after the fact.

P.S. Comparisons to Joan of Arc serve both ends: glorifying Greta as chosen child crusader while also labeling her as a deranged lunatic who should be burnt as a witch.

Burn, Babies, Burn!

Sounds Like Church, Sings Like Breakfast

Local folks singing together, the wonder of harmonious voices:

Fortunate Ones

Tomorrow's World

Resuming our normal abnormal broadcast:

Who remembers tomorrow's world?

Tomorrow's World

Born in 1956, I grew up in a culture that went from rocket fins and hula hoops to Earth Shoes and Pet Rocks.

But wait! There's more!

Cute'n'fluffy

Tomorrow: on the care and feeding of smartphones.

Sammy Wants You

nothing changes

It Is Sunday...

... and the Easter bunny has returned to his burrow, without seeing the groundhog shadow, to lay chocolate Easter eggs to hatch next April.

Now it is next Sunday, and I will go to a church of my wife's choosing and give what I have to offer because I am something close enough to call Xtian. I'll offer a smile, a silent tongue, and a contrite heart bent on forgiving myself and others for being so tragically human.

Regarding Jesus and all that, here's a song for Him and whatever He was about. Love ya, J.C.:

Tobacco Road


I was born in a bunk
Mama died and my daddy got drunk
Left me here to die or grow
In the middle of Tobacco Road

Grew up in a rusty shack
All I had was hangin' on my back
Only you know how I loathe
This place called Tobacco Road

But it's home, the only life I ever known
Only you know how I loathe
Tobacco Road

Gonna leave, get a job
With the help and the grace from above
Save some money, get rich and old
Bring it back to Tobacco Road

Bring dynamite and a crane
Blow it up, start all over again
Build me a town, be proud to show
Give it the name Tobacco Road

But it's home, the only life I ever known
I despise you 'cause yer filthy
But I love you 'cause yer home

Songwriter: John D. Loudermilk
Tobacco Road lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

(painting is Christ in the Desert by Ivan Kramskoi

P.S. Turn Me On

Giant

Bet-tay!

On Demonizing Well-Known Miscreants for Crimes They Didn't Commit...

...and similar inanities:

https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/04/fake-news-after-mueller/

Today's Singing Frog...

...sings Le Carillon de Vendome

But you probably know it by this:

Orleans

which sounds even better live a few decades later despite being recorded by someone's cellcam:

Orleans live

But originally, it was for the bells alone:

Le Carillon

Who Is Diogenes?

Why, my favorite hero. Why do you ask?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes

We Has Met Ze Enemy und It Iz Uss

Monsters of the Id by Mose Allison

Monsters of the id
No longer stayin' hid
And terrors of the night
Are out in broad daylight
No need to knock on wood
Don't stop to say a prayer
It won't do any good
They're multiplyin' in the air
Creatures of the deep
Are going without sleep
And phantoms of the dark
Have their own place to park
No need to lock the door
They're sprouting through the cracks
They're making room for more
They're deputizing maniacs
Prehistoric ghouls
Are making their own rules
And resurrected huns
Are passin' out the guns
No need to cause a fuss
Don't go and make a scene
They know what's best for us
They're fightin' fire with gasoline
The creatures from the swamp
Rewrite their own Mein Kampf
Neanderthals amuck
Just tryin' to make a buck
And goblins and their hags
Are out there wavin' flags
Oh, when will we be rid
Of monsters of the id
Monsters of the id

"Up Your Noses with Rubber Hoses"

And the roasting begins...

"ATLANTA, GA—Fooling thousands of readers in a prank that the cable news organization said was "just for fun," CNN published a real news story for April Fools' Day this year.

"The story simply contained a list of facts, with no embellishment, editorializing, or invented details. The story also didn't cite shaky "anonymous sources" and only quoted firsthand witnesses to the event. It was completely factual without any errors whatsoever.

"Baffled CNN fans immediately knew something was up."

When you've out FOXed FOXNews, you've outFOXed everyone, including yourself. Now you're really FOXed.

No nose, no hose, no glory.

Cannibal Tours and the City of the Dead

Cannibal Tours to cargo cult: On the aftermath of tourism in the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea

"In 2010, many Eastern Iatmul reported dreaming about the place of the dead—a place that resembles a vibrant city, full of cars, packaged food, technology, commodities, and money. “Now we think the dead live in America,” said one man in the men’s house to much agreement. When Avawundumbu returns, my friends continued, she will remove the broken canoe, thus opening the “road,” so villagers can finally visit the dead and obtain the goods and cash they so desperately seek. I had never heard anything like this before."

Also, the search for intelligent life continues:

Johnny Jupiter

Dumber and Dumbest

US Nuclear War Policy

We are now officially the dumbest nation on the planet:

"US says it won't rule out nuclear first strike, because allies wouldn't trust it otherwise"