@The Aspie Corner @The Aspie Corner wow, Edited: for excessive grouchiness.sheesh No excuse, I overdosed watching too much video yesterday, it's not your fault.

Whoever linked to A Good American, the documentary about Bill Binney, thanks a lot. It made me even madder.
shakes fist at sky

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-rRtMgsYnc]

@eyo Much like any Aristocracy, the young members like to pretend that they are part of the people and rail against social causes of the poor put upons...

Every couple years one of em splashed the thing with red paint or put up a sign that said "Murderer" on it. They'd get caught, do some community service and get it scrubbed as "Youthful Hijinks" on their record.

Sounds like they got ambitious this year.

I don't know what happened to it, but this is great:

Police are searching for vandals that decapitated a statue of Junipero Serra at the Monterey Presidio earlier this week, becoming the second in a string of incidents targeting structures memorializing the recently canonized — and controversial — religious figure.

On Thursday, one or more vandals cut the head off the granite sculpture overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which has been in the Presidio since 1891.

The head is still missing despite an expansive sweep of the park, according to Monterey Weekly.

LOL Simpson's episode meets real life: “I wish someone would cut his ugly old head off.” --Jimbo

Pointing to the genocide.
--- spectacular 108 on the deck yesterday
New wildfire erupts in Yolo County as week-old Lake County fire flares again

At the Cache Creek Casino on Highway 16 about 9 p.m., Skinner said he could see a “spectacular line of fire” in the hills to the west.

Winds eased considerably in the valley at night, but the aerial attack on the fire was grounded.

“We’re at the mercy of the weather at this point,” Skinner said.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said a red flag warning had been extended until 3 p.m. today for elevations above 1,000 feet in Napa County and far eastern Sonoma County. The warning means critical fire weather conditions are either present or will occur shortly.

When are we not "at the mercy of the weather"? never

Calls streamed into local fire stations and the Sonoma County emergency dispatch center from people worried that plumes visible from Santa Rosa to Sacramento marked a repeat of the devastating firestorms in October, the worst in California history.

The dispatch center summoned extra staff members as calls came in so rapidly “they couldn’t put the phone down without a couple more coming in,” a dispatcher said.

The call volume tailed off a bit after the Santa Rosa Police Department, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office and the Windsor and Rincon Valley Fire Districts issued Nixle notices from about 6 to 7 p.m. saying there was no threat to Sonoma County.

I don't feel traumatized by the firestorms last year, I do feel traumatized by the public/private response. "We're capitalists" means people suffer and die, at the hands of the privatized crony state. It happened before and it will happen again. Only four generations since my ancestors emigrated to California, and it is destroyed beyond all recognition, we are burning the world not saving it. sry about that

Better off Fred

@jbob thanks, what are you taking? Those are some groovy spreads, lobster a la candelabra. heh Awesome stage over there too. Have fun!

Happy Sunday

play this afternoon at Tanglewood in MA. She is the middle act on a triple bill show. Below see video of a performance she did in the EU this spring.

@Azazello @Azazello

I know that millions of people who attended the fourth grade in California hate Father Serra with a white-hot passion but if they hadn't sent him they would have sent someone else who would have done the same thing.

I'm not certain about that. Serra violated Queen Isabella's dictates regarding slavery in both letter and spirit. The Missions were supposed to instruct the Indians in the Catholic Christian Religion so they understood it properly, would convert to it on their own, and thus become full-fledged subjects of the Spanish Crown with all rights appertaining to that status. Instead, Serra had them lectured once, in Spanish, and enslaved any who did not convert instantly.

Another Spanish Catholic cleric, Bartolomé de las Casas, Peace be upon him, "did it right", treating all Indians as fully human beings with full human rights as Queen Isabella decreed a generation before his time. Result: he converted more, more honestly; and today Las Casas is a much beloved figure among all the Indians in the former New Spain, Christian or not.

I want to know where his canonization is!

EDIT: I should have read all of the Wikipedia article. From the same:

He is commemorated by the Church of England in the Calendar of Saints on July 20, The Episcopal Church (USA) on July 18, and at the Evangelical Lutheran Church on July 17. In the Catholic Church, the Dominicans introduced his cause for canonization in 1976.[105] In 2002 the Church began the process for his beatification.

source

I should have known that "God's dawgs" (Domini canes, i.e., Dominicans, Father de las Casas' own order) would be on the case!

I sense some resentment there, el. I know that millions of people who attended the fourth grade in California hate Father Serra with a white-hot passion but if they hadn't sent him they would have sent someone else who would have done the same thing. Russia and Spain are playing this morning in the World Cup but back then the two countries were playing for the west coast of North America. The Russians were creeping down the coast from the north and the King of Spain had to establish some sort of presence in Alta California in order to defend his "claim" to that territory. Hence the hated Missions.

@detroitmechworks I love it! I'm going to have to listen to more of their stuff. Thank you!

Going up here in Portland and sighing. Cookie Cutter Corporate Architecture everywhere. No effort made to fit in to the setting, the area or anything. Hell, even the Wartime housing I live in at least fits with the feel of a working class neighborhood. Now, it's just the generic McMansions with attached Garage that makes me want to hurl.

I still love this place, but I'm seeing it change before my eyes, and I fear what is to come. I went to a hairdresser with my significant other in a extremely Orthodox Russian area, and felt more welcome than in any of the supposed progressive spaces, save the ones I help create. People remember the little things more than the propaganda. Yes, you can tell me that the reason is that I'm a white cis Hetero-privileged male, and their society teaches that I must be respected... but it doesn't change the fact that they treated me like a human, and progressives and liberals often treat me like a collection of prefixes.

Sorry, got maudlin there, here's some nice tunes.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5u9glfqDsc]