Open Sesame 09/26/15

The world has ended so many times this millennium I am no longer sure I remember all the ends.

I do remember the ending that was supposed to occur just as the millennium dawned. That was the "Y2K" brain-plague. There then occurred a Fear—mostly among wingers, and Art Bell addicts—that as the clocks clicked over to January 1, 2000, all the computers would fail. Which would cause every possible calamity. From planes falling out of the sky, to the dialysis machines shutting off. Even the nukes would get confused, and thereby launch themselves, giving the whole world a light fry.

None of this happened. The computers were fine. So, fine, were all we rest.

Then came that Harold Camping person. An aged electronic preacher who had spent many years in his bible, where he got crazy behind numbers.

When white people get crazy behind numbers, no good comes of it. We know this from the true-life documentary film Apocalypse Now:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5JXrP8yv8o]

Camping determined that the world would end, in a 24-hour rolling way, at precisely 6 p.m., in each time zone, on May 21, 2011. During this ending, some 3% of the population would be plucked up by God into Hebbin. But everyone else would Suffer.

Camping had a really sad view of things. He posited that people are such loathsome and irredeemable creatures that, when the final curtain would fall, all memory of them would be forever erased from any and all cosmi, worlds without end, amen.

Camping really hated human beings. Hated them. In his reality, the rejection via crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth was a sin so toweringly vile and unforgivable that not even the slightest shred of memory of the planet upon which this crime was perpetrated would be permitted to survive. When the big bug-squash occurred, there would ripple through time and space a great shroud of forgetfulness, smothering every memory of everything that on Earth had ever been. There in Hebbin, Camping and the favored 3% would not even remember where they came from, what they had been about.

It didn't happen, of course. His predicted May 21, 2011 world's-end. And Camping couldn't understand it.

Like any true-believer, sacred or secular, he had been so sure.

How could they? he wondered. How could they convince themselves that in this whirling tidal pool of existence, providence was sending them a message? Seeing visions, hearing voices, their eyes awash in their own juice—living on their own and borrowed hallucinations, banners, songs, kiddie art posters, phantom worship. The lines of bayonets, the marching rhythms, incense or torches, chanting, flights of doves—it was hypnosis. And they were the vampires. The world paid in blood for their articulate delusions, but it was all right because for a while they felt better. And presently they could put their consciences on automatic. They were beyond good and evil in five easy steps—it had to be okay because it was them after all. It was good old us, Those Who Are, Those Who See, the gang. Inevitably they grew bored with being contradicted. Inevitably they discovered the fundamental act of communication, they discovered murder. Murder was salutary, it provided reinforcement when they felt impotent or unworthy. It was something real, it made them folks and the reference to death reminded everyone that time was short and there could be no crapping around. For the less forceful, the acceptance of murder was enough. Unhappy professors, hyperthyroid clerics and flower children could learn the Gauleiter's smirk. The acceptance showed that they were realists which showed that they were real.

Then Camping came out and said he'd sorta got a couple of the numbers wrong. For although an invisible "spiritual" judgement had indeed commenced on May 21, the actual, physical world-end would occur on October 21, 2011.

When that didn't happen either, Camping admitted he'd been a fuck-up, and averred maybe he should have paid attention to that bit in his bible where the Jewish mystic Jesus did say: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

The Camping prophecy mostly appealing to people in chastity belts, who cried themselves to sleep at night, envisioning the Kenyan, his filthy family and brood, soiling the white sheets, there in the White House.

The Kenyan. The black curtains. In the white room. At the station. Where the shadows run. From themselves.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkXjLA9Y48w]

With all we rest. Left out. Out of luck. Wearing the badge. Or no. Freer, then, than the Kenyan, he shall ever hope to be.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVvUQqDVWi4]

Shortly after Camping retreated forever into his end-times hole, came the 2012 world-end. This was the province of oo-ee-oo people. Who believed the Mayans had foretold it.

Problem was, there were no Mayans around to be foretelling anything. For they had long ago been genocided into near-nothingness. By the Spanish.

This was, instead, again, white people, getting crazy behind numbers. White people arrogating to themselves the ability to get into an ancient Mayan calendar, and therein pinpoint and pronounce Doom.

I liked that a couple years before the white-people-assigned Mayan Doom Day of December 21, 2012 rolled around, a different set of white people went into the numbers, and came out saying the December 21, 2012 date was 50 to 100 years off—and who knows which of either way?

The notion that the world had in fact already ended, according to the white-people Mayan reckoning, of course fits with the Potmekin Sun Reality I mentioned here a couple weeks ago. In that Reality, the sun went nova and fried the earth and everything on it during the Clinton I administration. But the "good" aliens have kindly constructed a Potemkin sun, and a concomitant Potemkin reality, in which we all go about all and every as if we're still "alive." Because we're this close to "taking the next step."

The information we're plugged into is the universe itself, and everybody knows that on a cellular level. It's built in. Just superficial stuff like what happened to you in your lifetime is nothing compared to the container which holds all your information. And there's a similarity in all our containers. We are all one organism, we are all the universe, we are all doing the same thing. That's the sort of thing that everybody knows, and I think that it's only weird little differences that are making it difficult. The thing is that we're all earthlings. The earthling consciousness is the one that's really trying to happen at this juncture and so far it's only a tiny little glint, but it's already over. The change has already happened, and it's a matter of swirling out. It has already happened. We’re living after the fact. It's a postrevolutionary age. The change is over. The rest of it is a cleanup action. Unfortunately it's very slow. Amazingly slow and amazingly difficult.

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And now the magic underpants people say the world will be ending commencing Monday.

Sept. 28 will see a full, red or "blood moon" and a major earthquake in or near Utah. Some anticipate an invasion by U.N. troops, technological disruptions and decline, chaos and hysteria.

There will be:

"cities of light," including scores of white tents where people will live in the mountains and sometimes be fed heavenly "manna." She saw a "bomb from Libya landing in Israel, but Iran will take credit."

Yeehaw.

Again, these are white people, getting crazy, behind numbers.

Maybe there should be a numbers monitor. Who takes them away. At least for a time. The numbers. When people's minds. They start to melt.

Of course, the truth of it is that the world is ending in every moment. For whenever any living, sentient creature dies—and every living creature is sentient, as even the Science Men are beginning to admit—the world dies with them. When you wink out, so does the world. You no longer exist, and so therefore neither does the world you have left behind. You are over, and so is it. The best one can hope for, then, is to have a real good last night, with and in the world.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02TUsZzF6es]

In every day.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhSfZplNbN0]

An advantage of being a dead person who is not known, is that when you are dead, they leave you alone.

You get buried, or burnt, and that's the end of it.

But if there is any sort of wealth or fame attached to you, jeebus knows when or where or how often your place of eternal rest, might be disturbed.

To wit: at present there are a bunch of bone-diggers in Florence, scrabbling through a convent, heaving 500-year-old body parts around, thinking maybe they found a femur, that belonged to "the real" Mona Lisa.

These people have severe brain damage, and they should be put in a Home.

The Mona Lisa is a fucking painting.

They can dig up every bone on the planet, and still they will get no closer to the "real" Mona Lisa. For the "real" Mona Lisa is in the art that made it so.

It doesn't matter if the unearthed femur belongs to Florentine Lisa Gherardini, and it doesn't matter if she was in fact "the model," it doesn't matter if the model was in fact Lucrezia Borgia, E Pluribus Unum, Angelina Jolie, or Moe of the Three Stooges.

Will next they go out into Saint-Remy and rip up some wheat, and rope them some crows, and then pronounce these the "real" Wheatfield With Crows?

What is wrong with these people? If they want to get next to the "real" Mona Lisa, why don't they write a poem about her? Like this person did.

Mona Lisa Imagines
by Karla Huston

The virgins on the rocks were never
unhappy, yet you painted them twice.
At least the twelve apostles could

gnaw meat off bones while they lingered
or leaned into a bit of gossip
or fingered silver coins. Today

you want my hands folded just this way.
Chiaroscuro, you call it,
a new way of seeing, but oh,

I am tired, wait like an unanswered
prayer or an angel condemned
to kneel forever, while you study

the slant of light and adjust shadows
with a thumb. Today it’s your hair
that has me worried, flying out from

your head, your beard a silver nest
for insects and stray bits of food.
And Leonardo, you have such nasty

habits: belching after every meal,
farting when you bend for a rag,
or scratching your balls and peeing

from the balcony into the lilies
below. Now you could use a bath
and those nails clipped, but once

you might have been handsome.
Maybe then you’d have painted me
younger, crowned with roses, my fingers

full of gold rings. Why not ask me
about the scar on my arm or my crooked
little finger? Will anyone remember

the smoky haze around my face,
the subtle shift of light and dark,
see how much it hurt to smile?

But no. This is, instead, a world where Fox News soberly destroys every brain within range by pronouncing that "Leonardo DiCaprio painted the Mona Lisa."

The horror. The horror.

A tube has told me that this day is National Pancake Day.

I have no idea why. That this day, is pancake day.

But here, below, in honor of that day, is a pancake. With the Mona Lisa upon it.

00 mona lis pancake.jpg

Apparently, I guess (because it's sometimes very hard, to read these humans), there is some continuing fascination, with the Mona Lisa painting, because a lot of people, can't figure out her smile.

That question was answered long, long ago. To anyone paying any sort of attention.

One of the more recent answers, was Mr. Zimmerman's.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VABARZBoQo]

When I hear, in the song embedded immediately above, the line "jewels and binoculars, hang from the head of the mule," in recent years I have always pictured Speaker of the House Orange Boner.

Because he just seems like the sort of goofy mule, who would have jewels and binoculars, hanging from his goofy head.

This week, Orange Boner, he announced, Friday, that he is resigning from Congress, at the end of October, in order "to spend more time with my whiskey."

The bibulous Boner also revealed he intends to "engage in sexual congress with Lindsay Lohan." But confessed that Ms. Lohan has informed him she will not accept his member until after he leaves the House, as she abjures serving politicians as "gross" and "weird."

Lohan, as is well-known, is the woman who, once she was sentenced to community service in a morgue, was thereby outed as an MK-ULTRA-like sex/drug slave embroiled in Call to Chaos rites by a Freemasonic conspiracy involving US intelligence agents who previously controlled Marilyn Monroe and directed "Manchurian Candidate" assassin Sirhan Sirhan.

Well. That's what it says in a tube. So it must be true.

000bonerlohan.jpg

Boner is hardly the first man to stumble into the Speakership clutching a jug in each hand.

Back in the 1970s, there was Carl Albert, whose blood-alcohol level never dipped below .17 during the entirety of his six years weaving around with the gavel. When, in 1973, it became apparent that both Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were going down in flames, Washington officialdom was seized with fear and trembling, for, if both men crashed and burned in rapid succession, Albert—the sot—would become the president. As the line of succession runs from president, to vice-president, to speaker of the house.

The designated line of succession can be more important than many people realize. For instance, it is why Clinton II was appointed Secretary of State, rather than selected as vice-president.

Once Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination, he knew that he had to keep Clinton II—forever an implacable enemy, convinced as she was that he had "stolen" "her" place—close. But not too close. He knew that if she were made vice president, no power on earth would stop her from getting into the Borgia books, and going to the posions. He basically would not be able to eat food, or drink liquids, for the whole of his presidency. Even then, he would not be safe. For the world is full of experienced, out-of-work poisoners; Clinton II might contract with, say, the Bulgarian umbrella people, who used to slightly poke somebody on the street with an umbrella tip, and then, a few days or weeks later, that person would be dead. Maybe Huma would accidentally bump into him, with her umbrella, in a crowded elevator; no one would pay it much mind, if they noticed it at all. And then, a while later, Clinton II, like Frank Underwood, would be there rapping her ring, on the big desk in the Oval Office.

No. No, he could not have that. But, if he made her Secretary of State, she would be effectively arrested from launching some revenge-of-the-harridan jihad challenge against him in 2012. And it would be hard, from State, to kill her way into his presidency. As she would not only have to take him out, but also the vice president, and the Speaker of the House, and the president pro tem of the senate. Before the line of succession would arrive at her. Having all those folks get dead, and one right after the other, well, that's the sort of thing people might notice. Even on Facebook or Twitter.

Anyway. The nation was saved from an alcoholic Albert presidency, because Agnew and Nixon took their leave in a more or less orderly manner. First Agnew picked up his bribes and stalked out, and Congress blessed Gerald Ford as the new vice president. Then Nixon flapped aboard the helicopter and winged off like a rabid bat; Ford assumed the presidency, and Congress quickly approved Nelson Rockefeller as vice-president. And so Albert could still sway through the halls of Congress, but he would not be appearing on live television from the Oval Office, his eyes glazed over, whiskey stains on his tie, slobbering such pleasantries as "yahoo yippity" and "I'll be go to hell" to a puzzled nation assembled.

Below is a recounting of a True Life story from Albert's early days, there in the Oklahoma hills, some years before he staggered up to Washington.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM-v3J9EfXA]

Gerald Ford was never much of a juicer. His problem was that he was of an ur-human species known as Sahelanthropus, which is just learning to walk upright. That is why he fell down all the time.

His wife, however, was such a voracious guzzler and gobbler of liquor and pills that, after she got straight, she wheeled her life in the fast lane into a whole new industry. The Betty Ford Center, and progeny, sprung up all over the nation, crash-pads where celebrity-type people can check in, for a time or two, between binges. Lindsay Lohan, for instance, Orange Boner's soulmate and soon-to-be-paramour, maintains a more or less permanent bed in one such facility.

00 orangeman.png

Neither is Boner the first Speaker in living memory to abruptly abandon his position.

In 1998, Newt Gingrich, a bedbug in a skin-suit, announced the day after the November congressional elections that he would step down as speaker. What had happened is that Larry Flynt, alternately amused and appalled at the endless Republican jihad against The Clenis, had sent his boys and girls out to see what they could see in re the wanderings of GOoPer genitalia. They reported back that Gingrich's probiscus had, over the years, probed as many caverns and clefts as had The Clenis. Confronted with this information, Gingrich was generously permitted by the Flynt people to come up with any old excuse for his resignation that he wished.

Then Bob Livingston giddily prepared to take the speaker's chair. Except the Flynt people had discovered that Livingston bought and beat prostitutes. This guy a beast who could barely control himself even in public: once he swaggered into a Congressional committee hearing bearing a Bouie knife, a machete, and a knife used to skin alligators, these to demonstrate how "serious" he was about budget-cutting. So, one day Livingston is nominated as speaker without opposition, the next he is tearfully resigning, due to "an extramarital affair," per his agreement with Flynt people.

Livingston's Louisiana House seat was assumed by David Vitter, now a United States Senator, who also frequents prostitutes, though, rather than beating them, he instead luxuriates in their ministrations while he is clad in a diaper.

The people of Louisiana repeatedly refuse to elevate to elective office anyone who is not engaged in multiple felonies, or clinically insane; sometimes, The Chosen are both.

The Speakership meanwhile devolved from Gingrich, to Livingston, to Dennis Hastert. Who we now know is a pederast who preyed on young boys while a high-school wrestling coach. Must have missed that one, the Flynt people.

Although Boner has supported actual Nazis for seats in Congress, he has long been regarded as insufficiently "conservative" by the mentally divergent teabaggers who today dominate the House Republican majority. Specifically, as one bag of tea explained Friday, "he would not allow us to castrate and kill the Kenyan."

Freed at last of Boner's unconscionably restraining hand, House Republicans are now considering as his replacement such worthies as Savonarola, Vlad The Impaler, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Timothy McVeigh.

00bedford.jpg

Kind of a dim-bulb piece this week in The Atlantic, getting the fear on about a war between the US and China. The authors, they did a Study, and thereby found a Pattern. To wit, that in 12 of 16 Studied instances over the past 500 years, when "a rising power rivals a ruling power," there is War.

But they seem not to notice their own chart. Which indicates that three of the four no-wars occurred the last three times such a power-shift occurred. I mean, guys, you know: sometimes Patterns, they change.

Headline that this week made me most need Medicine: "Hillary Clinton Would Like to See Lenny Kravitz's Penis."

The horror. The horror.

I had never heard of "man buns" until I clicked on this link, and then I discovered said buns make your hair fall out, until you are bald. Apparently this will happen even if you are a woman. Jeebus. Everything is a Danger.

When humans first arrived in Australia, the place was populated by lizards 20 feet long, and 27-foot-long crocodiles. Bet that made life exciting.

Meanwhile, a "cow-sized, plant-eating reptile with a knobby skull and bony armour down its back" may have been the first creature on the planet to decide to stand upright. Gravity continues to be against this, which is why your back hurts. Other parts, too.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmyyu0HFj90]

And now they say Pluto has snakeskin. But no one knows why.

In today's Good News, we have the tardigrade.

It will be real hard to get to an end of the world for this creature. For it lives through both absolute zero, and the boiling point of water. It accepts pressures six times greater than those found in the deepest Terran ocean trenches. You can bombard the thing with doses of radiation hundreds of times higher than those that would kill a human, and it don't care. It serenely survives in the vacuum of space.

It is everywhere all and every, all over the earth, wherever there is moss.

Some of the Science Men think its DNA may hold the key to how life got started here on this planet.

They're cute, and I talk to them.

In my younger days, I raised ducks. Which I called peeps, because that is the sound, when young, ducks make.

And I used to write: "the peeps shall inherit the earth."

But maybe, also, shall too these people.

00 tardigrades-1.gif

And then there's this woman. The world might end. But she, will not.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1bw-5rKv_A]

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The deployment of Russian troops in Syria could end up helping Islamic State as they have been sent to areas where they are most likely to fight other groups opposed to Isis, according to a new report....
The deployment, Sutyagin said, “underlines the contradictions of the Kremlin’s policy”, because the troops were in areas where Isis is not present.

“In this way, Russian troops are backing Assad in the fight against groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, which are themselves opposed to Isis. If Russian troops do eventually join combat, therefore, they would also – technically – be assisting Isis,” Sutyagin argued

I believe this is true. Why? Because I remember countless old news reports about how Assad spent the majority of his time attacking and bombing rebel units not named ISIS.

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mimi's picture

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hecate's picture

one? There's a rehab joint round here, with that name.

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mimi's picture

I will read it, when my brain allows me to.

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US-Commercial-Property-Index.png
Fitch rating

Weakening loan characteristics, declining underwriting quality, and concerns about originator, banker, and rating agency competition are not new items on investors’ minds. And there are reasons to believe that this time around will be different.
For instance, pro forma income is greatly discounted or ignored altogether and perhaps most importantly, credit enhancement levels are substantially higher. But market participants can ill afford to forget how quickly performance can change.
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hecate's picture

is theft.

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This time "it's different". Trust us.

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hecate's picture

is wrong and must be stopped. Also, any building over four stories is against the universe, and shall fall like Ozymandias.

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The bubble has burst

It’s every U.S. shale investor for himself as the worst oil rout in almost 30 years drags down its latest victims.
Investors in $158.2 million of Goodrich Petroleum Corp.’s debt agreed to take 47 cents on the dollar in exchange for stock warrants for some note holders and a lien on Goodrich’s oil acreage, according to a company statement today. That puts them second in line if the Houston-based company liquidates its assets in bankruptcy and pushes the remaining holders of $116.8 million in
original bonds to the back of the pack.
"In the industry it’s called ‘getting primed,’" said Spencer Cutter, a credit analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. "It’s every man for himself. They’re trying to get in and get exchanged, and if you can’t you’re getting left out in the cold."
Wildcatters attracted billions of dollars during the boom after years of near-zero interest rates sent investors hunting for returns in riskier corners of the market. U.S. high-yield debt has more than doubled since 2004 to $1.3 trillion while the amount issued to junk-rated energy companies has grown four-fold to $208 billion, according to Barclays Plc. Most of the companies spent money faster than they made it even when oil was $100 a barrel and are struggling to stay afloat with prices at $45.
...
Goodrich isn’t the only one. Earlier this month, Halcon paid about 65 cents on the dollar to investors in $1.57 billion of the company’s debt, in exchange for being third in line to get paid if the company fails. The Houston-based company is led by Floyd Wilson, who became a legend in the shale patch after selling his last company, Petrohawk Energy Corp., to BHP Billiton Ltd. for $15.1 billion four years ago.
Once again, the leftover unsecured bondholders lost value. The notes fell after the swap was announced Aug. 27, and are now trading at about 35 cents on the dollar from about 46 cents before the announcement.
"The bubble is bursting," Cutter said. "And if oil stays where it is, the worst is yet to come."
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Following a bruising fight this week to agree a new quotas regime sharing 120,000 refugees across Europe, EU policymakers say that by Christmas member states will be embroiled in much bigger battles over how to distribute up to a million newcomers.

The signals emerging from two days of summitry in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday and days of non-stop negotiations behind the scenes suggest that the EU’s biggest refugee crisis is but in its infancy, and that Europe’s agony has barely begun.
...
The breakthrough came on Tuesday when EU interior ministers employed the blunt instrument of a majority vote to impose refugee quotas against the will of four central European countries and despite the strong reservations of many others and widespread doubts over whether compulsory sharing will work.

“We don’t believe it will ever be implemented,” said a senior diplomat in Brussels.
...
Donald Tusk, the conservative Polish politician and European Council president who chaired the summit, did not convene the emergency session until he had visited the camps holding four million Syrians in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. He seems to have been shocked by what he found. Following the summit he said the “tide” of refugees coming to Europe would get much bigger. He seems certain that almost all of those in the camps are determined to head for the EU and that the refugees have convinced themselves they are welcome.

There is only one real solution for this: ending the civil war in Syria.

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gulfgal98's picture

for one week. Then they will be back next weekend. It has been raining for the last two days, but it has stopped for a little while.

I guess I need to spend the next couple of days catching up. As always, a very provocative Open Sesame, hecate. Nice ending with Nina Simone! Smile

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

hecate's picture

there any new Building going on at your place? ; )

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gulfgal98's picture

At least one week while my husband and some friends are riding the Mountains to Coast bike ride. Biggrin

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

hecate's picture

are ululating that the haj crush shows that the Saudis are criminals who should be put in the pokey.

"We will urge international courts and circles to start the trial of the Saudis for their crimes against haj pilgrims," Iran's Prosecutor General Ebrahim Raisi was quoted as saying by student news agency ISNA on Saturday.

"This is not incompetence, it's a crime," Raisi told state broadcaster IRIB.

Maybe the Iranians could build their own Mecca. They could call it Mecca II: The Sequel. I'm sure Disney would take on the project. Minnie and Goofy could greet the faithful, and pilgrims would circle the pebble aboard Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Those munchkins would sing ceaselessly "It's A Small World After All" while celebrants stream to Somali Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Haunted Mosque. There would be an animatronic Muhammad reciting greatest hits from the good book, and halal corn dogs and sno-cones. It would reap billions.

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enhydra lutris's picture

the king of the parrotheads.

As to the Maya - the famous end of the universe was for them but the turning of another page on the calendar, and we knew this and had their references to times far beyond it, but they were written on rock for the archaeologists to read, as opposed to the few scraps of bark based cloth preserved by Catholic priests to be read by superstitious scribes and scriveners. Naturally, the statements of the scientists were ignored because society really, really doesn't like science.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

hecate's picture

may commence once scientists no longer serve Thanatos.

I prefer the Buffet "Drunk." Like preferring Aretha's "Respect," to that of Otis. ; )

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The Supreme Court, in its Citizens United decision, ruled that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts in elections. Now politicians in Kentucky are claiming they have a Constitutional right to receive gifts from lobbyists.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Republican Kentucky state Sen. John Schickel, along with two Libertarian political candidates, are suing to overturn state ethics laws, claiming that the campaign contribution limit of $1,000 and a ban on gifts from lobbyists and their employers are a violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Kentucky’s ethics laws were passed in 1992 after an FBI investigation exposed a number of local politicians selling their votes.

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mimi's picture

‘Je Suis Charlie’: Charlie Hebdo Survivors Tell All

Eight Months On and Even With €30mn in the Bank Charlie Hebdo Struggles to Survive

Eight months after Islamic extremists in Paris massacred 12 staff members at Charlie Hebdo, survivors at the magazine are struggling to keep the paper together despite reader support, a healthy bank account and new editorial offices.
Eight months after Islamic extremists in Paris massacred 12 staff members at Charlie Hebdo, survivors at the magazine are struggling to keep the paper together despite reader support, a healthy bank account and new editorial offices.

There’s a very big difference in today’s world between, for example, a cartoon that is fundamentally racist and a cartoon that is experienced as being racist,” he said. “Of course the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are not racist, but that does not prevent them from being experienced as racist. There are people who think being offended is something that gives you the right to demand reparation, to demand condemnation.”
“Charlie Hebdo has, in a way, been carrying that load for all of us,” he continued. “Hopefully what happens is that people will realize that it’s not only them—they’re fighting for something that belongs to all of us. Of course we don’t want to target people, we don’t want to humiliate people, we don’t want to discriminate groups.”

16 MOST SHOCKING CHARLIE HEBDO COVERS (PHOTOS)

“But we need to have the right to debate, speak, be artists, and criticize those who are using big totems or venerated figures to kill others. That is the least creators and free thinkers should have the right to do in this world,” added Leconte.

The film takes pains to connect the dots between the Charlie Hebdo attack and the rise of anti-Semitism and racism, painting the shooting tragedy as part of a much larger problem in France.

“But it’s not just because [Charlie Hebdo] made a caricature that they were killed,” said Leconte. “They were killed because they were part of a set of values that we all attached to. During this terrorist attack, what has happened? They tried to kill Charlie, to attack a newspaper—an element of culture and intelligence, of the human mind.”

[video:https://youtu.be/IQmo5IRXOis]
I am just pointing to this because once upon a time I was shocked that various well known posters on the gos couldn't understand the cartoons and tried to call the cartoons racist.

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MarilynW's picture

who didn't understand the satire of Charlie Hebdo. They just passed over the fact that 12 people were killed for freedom of expression and telling the truth. It was the narrative of the day orchestrated by Denise.

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To thine own self be true.

mimi's picture

she later hesitatingly agreed that she might not have understood enough of the "political french context" to make a good judgement.

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link

Military officials reportedly are considering keeping thousands of American troops in Afghanistan beyond the end of next year, in what would be a departure from current plans to leave only a small force of a few hundred troops behind.
The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday that Army Gen. John Campbell, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has submitted five different recommendations for allied troop levels to the Pentagon and NATO officials in Brussels. The paper reported that the options include keeping the U.S. presence at or near 10,000 troops; reducing the number to 8,000; or continuing with the current drawdown plans.
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Donald Trump on Friday accused his GOP rivals of seeking to “start World War III over Syria” and suggested the U.S. let Russia take up the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

"They want to start World War III over Syria. Give me a break," Trump said at the State Fairgrounds in Oklahoma City.

"You know Russia wants to get ISIS right. We want to get ISIS. Russia’s in Syria. Maybe we should let them do it?," he continued. "Let them do it. What the hell are we crazy?"

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Nearly 30,000 foreign recruits have now poured into Syria, many to join the Islamic State, a doubling of volunteers in just the past 12 months and stark evidence that an international effort to tighten borders, share intelligence and enforce antiterrorism laws is not diminishing the ranks of new militant fighters.

Among those who have entered or tried to enter the conflict in Iraq or Syria are more than 250 Americans, up from about 100 a year ago, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.

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mimi's picture

apparently that was hard for foreigners with the usual press coverage. It was pretty clear to me. If people would read her bio, they would understand.

Unapologetic, Unequivocal: The Real Merkel Finally Stands up.

I always thought she was in the wrong party, as she is more social democrat than christian democrat. I like it that:

But she has now made it obvious that she won't be deviating from her basic course. She is sending a message against knee-jerk xenophobia. That the conservatism of Bavaria's lederhosen brigade and some of her own party colleagues has always remained a foreign concept to Angela Merkel has never been more apparent than it is now. Ten years in office have clearly changed Merkel. She now has the strength and independence to state her opinion more stridently, even if it earns her the opprobrium of her allies.

As a qualified physicist, she undoubtedly always took an interest in climate protection. She also stayed true to herself during the Greek crisis in the role of the Swabian housewife who steadfastly avoids overspending. It was a role that matched the frugality and modesty she favors in her private life.

"If we now have to start apologizing for showing a friendly face in response to emergency situations, then that's not my country," she said on Tuesday. ...It wasn't a political tactician speaking this time, but a compassionate pastor's daughter from the eastern state of Brandenburg -- a politician who remains acutely aware of the Christian element in her party's agenda.

It's the first time I actually liked somewhat a Christian Democratic Chancellor. She is very German (from the Northern part that is) and a qualified physicist ... heh, my kind of girl. Smile

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lotlizard's picture

http://taz.de/Willkommenskultur-und-Patriotismus/!5232927/

Was machen eine Million Flüchtlinge mit diesem Land, zumal ein nicht geringer Teil von ihnen antisemitisches, homophobes und antidemokratisches Gedankengut mit nach Deutschland bringt, von einem vorsintflutlichen Frauenbild gar nicht zu reden? Kann Deutschlands Sozialsystem neben sechs Millionen Hartz-IV-Empfängern und fast einer Millionen Menschen, die sogenannte Lohnersatzleistungen erhalten, die neuen Zuwanderer sinnvoll unterstützen? Auf wessen Kosten geht das? Reicht die Merkel-Doktrin „Wir schaffen das“ als politische Vorgabe? Darf der Bürger nicht mehr erwarten, als diese nebulöse Parole? Passt das Profil der Geflüchteten wirklich so gut zu den derzeit gemeldeten 596.500 offenen Stellen in Deutschland?

What will a million refugees do to this country, when more than a few are bringing with them anti-Semitic, homophobic, and anti-democratic ideas—not to mention an antediluvian mental image of women? Can Germany's social system, with six million on long-term unemployment ("Hartz IV") and almost a million on so-called "in lieu of wages" benefits, reasonably support the new immigrants? If sacrifices must be made, at whose expense? Does Merkel's dictum "We can do this" suffice as a political blueprint? Don't citizens have the right to expect more than just nebulous slogans? Are the refugees' background qualifications really all that good a fit for the officially registered 596,500 job openings in Germany?

Looks like as usual, the hard questions are being ignored. This plays into the hands of the extreme Right, which can present itself as the only part of the political spectrum honest enough to raise said questions.

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mimi's picture

... that's why Merkel will resign one day in the future, I believe. I like her and her stubbornness to hold the line of her opinion. But I don't believe the German people will be able to deal with large parts of the refugees because they are just not willing to accept other mores, other daily life customs and they have too much envy at them foreign refugees, who want to profit from German social services and get "the same benefits" without them deserving them. That for the more German poor, who are not really poor, but close to it, is just unfair. So they will fight them. But then those foreign refugees, dependent on who they are and where they comes from, are terrific for the German workforce, as always. There is no hope that anything changes.

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mimi's picture

Germany faces far-right radicalisation over refugees

This is kind of nice:
Refugee crisis: Voices from the streets of Germany

So, now what? The only thing that could contain the right-wing radicalization is that there are still too many people ashamed of our former past right-wing radicalization. But I think they will die and be gone, slowly but surely .

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lotlizard's picture

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Handicap-Hack--Hearing-Ai-by-Meryl-Ann-...

Lesser known phyla like tardigrades are fascinating.

Even our own phylum, Chordata, contains some weird distant cousins of vertebrate animals, for example tunicates.

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This time it's #62MillionGirls, 62 million
supposedly being the number of "girls"
(no age range given) in the world who
are not in school.

This whole thing is short on facts,
starting with who did the census, and
how, to come up with 62 million. And why
exclude boys? Also there's no mention
if that number includes American
children not in school, because they're
living between the streets and the too
few (limited time only!) spaces in
homeless shelters, etc.

Anyway, Tweeters are supposed to
"share" what they learned in school
when using the hashtag.

How about:

American h.s. coaches more interested
in bedding young girls than teaching
history. #62MillionGirls

Any other suggestions?

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/56075457e4b0af3706dc95d4

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Only connect. - E.M. Forster

hecate's picture

throughout much of history, and much of the world, educating women has been forbidden or restricted, I don't have a problem with the idea behind this. But I don't know that putting up 140 characters and a photo will accomplish much. Then again, I hail from the pre-twit age, and am myself afflicted with logorrhea. I went to the campaign's twit page and the "yearbook," and scrolled around, and nothing there rang my bell. But then I'm not a girl who's not in school. Clicking at the "yearbook" on "take action," indicates this is probably a Peace Corps thing. I don't know. Redirecting the entirety of the US military budget to Letting Girls Learn seems like something that might have a better effect.

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