With Sloopy on a bender this week and unable to even see the keyboard, much less type, it has fallen to the rest of us to fill in. Since Brett has been doing double duty, I’m stepping into this steaming pile in his stead. Herewith, the scrapings from the bottom of my shoe:
My last conversation with my favorite communist folk singer, he assured me, no question, no doubts whatsoever, that by the summer, we were going to be in a nuclear war with North Korea because of Twitter. “You’ll be sorry that you thought there really wasn’t any difference between Trump and a true statesman like Hillary so threw your vote away on a third party.” How’s that workin’ out?
On Thursday, Harris was taking audience questions when a man stepped to the mic and zeroed in on her fundraising methods. “If a corporation or a corporate lobbyist wants to give you money for a campaign,” he asked, “will you tell them, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’?”
“Well, it depends,” Harris replied. “It depends.”
The questioner, his arms crossed at the waist, declared this the “wrong answer.”
Riddle: what happens when a Minnesota Woman becomes a Florida Woman? Answer: This. While we’re on the subject, the Matriarchy seems to have its own shitlords. Not Florida, but as close as you can get without actually being in Florida.
What this country needs is a good swift kick in the @#$
I have noticed that word caused considerable grammar Nazis and Aspies to change it to “normality”. I have looked for “normality” in my dictionary and I do not find it there. “Normalcy”, however, I did find, and it is a good word.
We are returning to normal here at Glibs. Well, at least for this morning. No cryptids running about, all the tech is working, and I will be off morning link duty starting tomorrow…as I submerge myself in the work my beloved Swiss overseers have allowed me to do. *wipes chin*
So…in the words of the great American Philosopher, Tone Lōc, Let’s Do It.
Birthdays – J.P. Morgan (1837 – tip your top hats, please) William Holden (1918) Olivia Hussey (1951) Maynard Keenan (1964) Liz Phair (1967) Jennifer Garner (1972) Victoria Beckham-Spice (1974)
Sports – All my teams are out of the playoffs or have started their season and suck, hard….so there is nothing to say other than the NBA and NHL (allegedly) are playing off. Euro soccer angers some, delights others. MLB is lying under a curtain of snow and ice.
Links –
Whatever Cuba was doing to US diplomats, they appear to be doing to Canada now. PM Zoolander hardest hit? I cannot imagine what the Cubans are thinking, especially since Canada has been fairly stalwart in forging a path that is a bit more friendly than that of the US. Go figure.
Lay your bets as to allegations of poison gas use! Where? Here. Time to go long on missile futures.
Is there a doctor in the house? Well, one woman thinks at least one particular one is a good fellah. Here, she could run for Congress in certain districts.
You no steal phone! POW! Somebody buy that man a cigar.
“Goddamn, I just love bombing motherfuckers!” the hat crowed. “Who can we bomb next, huh? Who? Iran? Some cave complex in Afghanistan? Surely somewhere in Iraq needs the business.” He was upside down in Donald’s lap, full of McDonald’s french fries and hadn’t stopped giggling since Friday night.
The hair struggled to turn the last pages of A Higher Loyalty and only grunted a reply. Donald had fallen asleep watching the satellite reconnaissance footage of the missile strikes. The hat chortled as a white line streaked into a building on the grainy green footage and the screen overloaded white from the glare. The hat cheered the same strike he had already seen a dozen times.
“Well,” the hat said, closing the book, “looks like Comey doesn’t know even the half of it.”
“The tenth of it!” the hat shot back.
“He doesn’t know about the Viagra shipments, the lampreys we sent to Elizabeth, most of the Ukraine piss hooker visits…”
“Ah, piss hookers,” the hat interrupted.
“The Provo cottage,” the hair continued, “The Ivanka dolls, the black egg escorts, Cory taking a dump on Biden’s Trans Am, the time the Deep State operatives kidnapped you, the time you tried to give Priebus an icepick lobotomy, and nothing at all indicating he knows about you and me, or USA hat or that idiot windbreaker…”
“Goddammit, that windbreaker is an idiot,” the hat interrupted again.
“Or,” the hair continued, sighing heavily in irritation, “the nine, um, Chappaquiddicks we had to clean up for Junior and Eric.”
“Man, those wacky kids just love driving off bridges,” the hat said admiringly.
“Comey’s done, he’s toast, he can’t touch us,” the hair said.
“Did you see that next to the last one right before the Sunday news shows?” the hat asked. “Boom! Headshot! And I texted it upside-down, bro!”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“Don’t be such a Gloomy Gus. You want an french fry? They’re kind of cold, but you know… still OK.”
“Nah,” the hair said. “I always feel kind of funny when I, um, eat out of you.”
“Fine, whatever,” the hat said sullenly. “More for me.”
Joe Biden, who leads the Democratic 2020 presidential field in early polls, has all the markings of a front-runner. He possesses a sterling résumé, access to a donor base, name recognition and eight years of loyal service to a president who’s loved by the party base. There’s just one problem: He’s also a deeply flawed candidate who’s out of step with the mood of his party.
Biden hasn’t announced he’s running for president, of course, but he’s made clear he’s seriously thinking about it. On Sunday, he confirmed it again on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation. The decision, he said back in February, will be based on whether it’s “right for me to do.”
But that’s the wrong question. What Biden should be asking is whether the party wants him, and not just whether he should seize his last chance.
Oh, Joe. Please run. Please. You and Donald going at it in a debate would be a spectacle for the ages. 18 debates. Let’s have at least 18 debates. And one of them has to be townhall-style at Oberlin. And the Hell’s Angels can do security.
One of China’s largest social media sites, Sina Weibo, has reversed a ban on online content “related to homosexuality” after outcry from the country’s internet users.
On Friday, Sina Weibo said that for the next three months it would be removing comics and videos “with pornographic implications, promoting bloody violence, or related to homosexuality”. The internet company said the initiative was in an effort to “create a sunny and harmonious community environment” and comply with the country’s cybersecurity laws.
In response, Weibo users posted photos with their partners, comments, and rainbow emojis, accompanied by the hashtags #iamgay and #iamgaynotapervert.
Weibo is, I guess, Chinese Facebook? Or Chinese Tumblr? Either way, I’m sure the CEO will be accused of helping rig an election in the next few years. It is becoming very fashionable to blame social media for every social ill.
Artificial intelligence should be developed for the common good and benefit of humanity.
OK. Sounds nice, I guess. But who will immediately break this principle? Government.
Artificial intelligence should operate on principles of intelligibility and fairness.
Unlike laws, then? Or tax codes? Or the NHS?
Artificial intelligence should not be used to diminish the data rights or privacy of individuals, families or communities.
I’m not sure how they even managed to get this one out with a straight face. This is the first thing governments will do with AI. Hell, governments trying to invade data privacy and break civilian strong crypto is probably how AI will be developed in the first place.
All citizens have the right to be educated to enable them to flourish mentally, emotionally and economically alongside artificial intelligence.
Uh, OK. I’ll just assume that means pay raises for teachers or something.
The autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings should never be vested in artificial intelligence.
Governments want to reserve that power for themselves.
In this particular piece, Pie ponders people’s perceptions of pragmatism pertaining to politics, particularly partisanship. Is it just me or does this blog need more alliteration?
2 Major Parties
This is, as you know, the most important election of our lives. This is a time to be pragmatic; there is no place for philosophy or idealism. It is important to stop Insert Candidate Here and now. For every other country, add names of parties, rinse, repeated. This is something I am often faced with people when I try to discuss principle. A call to pragmatism is what I get. People do not have time to read and debate the fundamentals of economy, philosophy, and ethics. They are pragmatic. They care, mostly, that the party they oppose loses this time. Thistime is important, we will think of principle after. Unfortunately this time is every damn time. So is this truly pragmatic? Yes, my candidate has many flaws, but the other is worse and this is not the time nitpick a bit of theft and fraud here and there.
The question I would ask, as a libertarian, is when and how can we get to the point where the election is not that important and we can think principle? Also, if so many crucial elections were lost by the side The Great Pragmatists support, it is obvious The Wrong People will inevitably end up in power and the Most Important Election will be lost. So would it not be a good idea to reduce government power and make these often wrong elections less crucial? Of course not. This time, we cannot allow the wrong lizard to win. And when Our Side gets that elusive Permanent Majority, we will have the time to think upon the fundamentals.
This permanent pseudo-pragmatism is rather obviously, to me at least, engineered for a very clear purpose: a way to keep people alarmed by the next election. Create urgency so people do not think long term, or in perspective. Many blame politicians for thinking only about the next election, but regular voters do the same. And more importantly, vastly lowering the expectations placed on politicians. Some Romanians have been voting the lesser evil for going on 30 years now, and are constantly screwed. And the lesser evil gets worse and worse, as it is no longer expected of politicians not to steal, but to be the lesser thief in the election. And this led to exactly what they wanted. So how fucking pragmatic is it, in the end, to constantly vote for the lesser thief? Maybe it would be better to vote on some clear principles. Maybe the lesser evil might lose until it becomes not evil? Maybe … eh who am I kidding?
This so called pragmatism often leads to missing the forest from the trees, to miss the fundamentals of what a government should and should not do. In the end, to hardly notice that the parties are not all that different, and not in the positive aspects, if there are any. That certain people make bank whomever is in power. That lobbyists thrive, that laws are getting complicated mostly for the benefit of special interests. That year after year things are not improving nearly as much as they should.
Each election we try to fix the cracked window, but what about the rotting foundation of the house? Well I don’t have time to think of the foundation, I am, after all, a pragmatist. That crack in the window is crucial, so it needs fixing. Laws and regulations are constantly patched without thinking if they are so bad to need constant patching maybe, we should rethink them. But people are pragmatists and they patch and patch and one year later a new patch is needed. Not unlike software, a point comes where the code is too complicated and full of bugs; you need to outright rewrite it.
Beyond ideology of left and right, if people were actually intending to create a good society , some things would be a lot more bipartisan, like make things as clear as simple as possible, constantly analyze if things work and if not change, don’t patch. But they do not intend that. They want to push their little pet projects, protect their sacred cows and care not a jot about anything else.
I used this Douglas Adams quote before, but I will again, ’cause I like it:
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…” “You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?” “No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” “I did,” said Ford. “It is.” “So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?” “It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.” “You mean they actually vote for the lizards?” “Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.” “But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?” “Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?” “What?” “I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?” “I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.” Ford shrugged again. “Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”
SEA SMITH FIND SHIP CARRYING BEER. CALL FRIEND NINGEN OVER TO HELP SELF TO CARGO. SEA SMITH HELP SELF TO CREW, IF KNOW WHAT SEA SMITH MEAN. FRIEND NINGEN ONLY SAY “BLOOP”. BUT HE LOOK HAPPY, SO HE MUST LIKE PLAN.
SEA SMITH LEAVE YOU LINKS TO TALK ABOUT, WHILE HE AND NINGEN KNOCK OFF FOR NIGHT.
SEA SMITH SEE HOW MUCH GUITAR GO FOR. HE WISH HE HAVE GUITAR! BUT SEA WATER NOT HELPFUL… SO HE STICK WITH SINGING.
THIS NOT LOOK GOOD. SEA SMITH WONDER IF GET VIOLENT SOON. MAYBE HE SWIM OVER TO BALEARIC ISLANDS AND HANG OUT FOR WHILE. CHECK OUT TOURISTS ON BEACH. BY CHECK OUT, MEAN RAPE.
Last week I tried communicating the astral influences abstractly, allocating no alphabetic allegories to muddle the mystic meanings. I was accused of “phoning it in.” While I was initially angry at such Phillistinery, it occurs to me that perhaps not everyone is as connected to cosmic conditions as I am, otherwise you’d all be casting your charts yourselves. Perhaps music and gun reviews were too pointed of parables to perceived by the peanut gallery.
So I should say stuff simpler. I need a knack of knowing what to whisper into the inner ear of the lacking listener. What medium could there be that speaks so succinctly, that communicates so completely, so infinitely innately immediately understandable than interpretive dance?
With the moon in Aquarius, we have two powerful water/femininity confluences resulting in enhancement of tides, the color blue, and zaftig burlesque dancers.
I’ve warned previously about the meaning of Saturn and Mars in Capricorn, but with the two planets coming into conjunction, you really should pay attention.
And, while this video really was more apropos when Venus was in conjunction, it still works as long as the Sun and Mercury retrograde are doing their thing in Aries.
And in continuing good news for our phallophillic glibs, Venus remains in Taurus.
As I read through this morning’s news, I kept thinking, “This all has to be some elaborate prank. Right now, the editorial boards of all the major media outlets are all together at a bar laughing their asses off at us.” As I hear the ice storm raging outside, I’m visualizing the “science” editors busily composing stories on how this is a sign or global warming. Well, I’m inside, I’m warm, and I have grappa in my coffee, so… here’s some of the stories that caught my attention.
I shouldn’t be amazed at the lionization of the notoriously violent and corrupt Winnie Mandela by the Left, but somehow, I can’t help but be. This story was perfect.
Members of the governing party’s women’s league, wearing green and black, who attended Madikizela-Mandela’s memorial service this past week ululating in the stands of the stadium, added: “She didn’t die, she multiplied” to their tuneful chants.
This refrain has caught fire.
C’mon, are you going to tell me that the NPR folks aren’t in hysterics and high-fiving? In any case, if she is indeed multiplying, I strongly advise buying stock in Goodyear, Michelin, Hangkook, and Cooper.
Speaking of fire, here’s another one that got the editors in giggling fits. I could make the obvious lawyer jokes (“A good start!”) but good taste prevents me from doing so. Regarding a protest against fossil fuels that adds a load of CO2 to the atmosphere, I could say, “The irony, it burns!” but that would be needlessly cruel.
I have always assumed that after his shows, Art Bell would go off with his buddies who had just changed out of their space aliens costumes and have celebratory drinks. Well, Art has made the last call. You were always entertaining, and you inspired one of my favorite characters of all time, Happy Harry Cox (“They call me Happy because I am happy!”). Thanks for all the fun, Art!
OK, Old Guy Music time yet again. I’m not a big fan of soul/funk, but I always had a soft spot for Tower of Power. And when they step out of their genre and do the blues, well… Here’s a terrific cover of an Albert King classic, with some delightfully tasty guitar work.
Joe! Joe! Joe!
This week we have an alignment of the prime light (Sol) with TWO retrograde planets (Jupiter and Mercury) 
