friday road cat blogging

Our recently shorn cat paid a short visit to her old haunt, Catip Gardens, recently and went a little crazy -- in a good way of course. 

  Today we're on the road in St George UT (La Verkin actually, 4 those of U that know the area). Sam took a day 2 get over jittering from the road, and has been mostly asleep the past day or so.

этикетки и коробки, свобода и власть

(Imagine eavesdropping late on a conversation)

*******************

A: So, what explanation can our right wing conservative colleagues give for Russia?
**********************

B: Civil society was completely destroyed by the Progressives.

Putin is not a Progressive.  Lenin and Stalin were 
the Progressives who destroyed Russian Civil Society and suppressed the Orthodox Church.  

Putin is just a thug.  But thugs are the only ones who can rule after the 
shambles created by 80 years of Progress.
\+++++++++++++++++

A: Personally, I'm trying 2 figure out why you feel a need to put everything in a box...

In this case progressives (= socialists =  communists) belong in the box labeled "command economies." 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The problem is there are a myriad of variables at work in any living society. The first thing I notced in this debate is that the role of democracy in all this social assessment is never mentioned. Lenin & Joe Stalin were anti-democratic, and ran not just a command economy, but a command society in which all authority emanates from the top and rains down on those below. Their "communism" wasn't communism at all, but its opposite -- authoritarianism. In this regard they differ from modern day Republicabrones only in their economic convictions.

Progessivism is by necessity democratic, and if  it isn't, it ain't progressive, it's something else.

Communism is perfect democracy (hence impossible), and anything that isn't 100% democratic in implementation & constitution isn't communism, but another veshch.

Putting stuff in boxes in a debate is analogous to getting in a prize fight wearing handcuffs, of typing with 

boxing gloves on.

One last thing Mr. S -- Do you believe in "All Power to the Soviets?" Mr. Stalin didn't like the idea either.

rear burner -- updated

Usually I'm not interested in finding the origins of rightwing memes, but this one was special. With a lot of help, I tracked down the two sites that appeared 2 B the origin of the "Obama wants to ban the Gadsden Flag' story.

I checked the web sites, and found the  Washington Weekly News still has the story up on theirs.

However, Fellowship of the Minds has no such page, and is running this disclaimer instead:

While Washington Weekly News, by all indications, is a legitimate news site, that article carried a dateline of “Washington (ONN).” ONN is the satirical Onion News Network that publishes entirely made-up pseudo news that are believable precisely because they are plausible. In this case, given the anti-Confederate flag hysteria whipped up by the media and the Left, it seemed entirely plausible that Obama would propose that both the Confederate flag as well as the Gadsden flag be banned. But it is not true.

UH Huh -- wingnuts admitting they were punked by the Onion -- Again.

Yukon King, this case is closed! Bark Arf!!

rear burner

  

For the past 7 years Republicans have been pulling stuff out of their butts & trying 2 smear Obama with it. He's not my favorite president (2 say the least), but this is a truly stupid tactic, bcause it avoids the truth.

  

A simple visit to Snopes.com (unprofound I know) should convince every body. "Does Brock O'Bama wanna 
BAN our founda-related glorious Gadsden gonfalon,?" is the wrong question, & "Yeah, he do" the absurdly wrong answer.

The question is, "Does Bronco Bama wanna prohibit our Seals from wearing a Navy Jack patch on their unis.?" & the rite answer is "No, he dont."

The Navy Jack is not the flag people think of when they hear z slovos DON'T TREAD ON ME! They both of em do have a picture of a snattle rake w/ foys 'n' pangs, but one snake is coiled & ready 2 strike & the other is stretched out. Also 2, 1 is yellow and the other has red & white horizontal stripes (the flags, not the snakes). 

No link. I'm certain U'll find it.

I mention in passing that I used 2 own a Gadsden, bcause I like the design AND the sentiment. I gave that cheap copy away in 2008, during the height of the wigged-nut craze, when it was forced into T party service, along with 3-corner hats & knee britcheys.

monday cat blogging

(Orginal title: Friday cat blogging)

  

I had this post ready to go on Friday, but for reasons too complex & tedious to recount, I've been frozen out of the internet since last Thursday evening. Oh well...

As you can see, sammy had a haircut, her 2nd of the summer. Only her coat came off, but she remains fully furred on her head, legs & feet (below the knees), & the tip of her tail.

I'm always amazed  at how skinny she is.

хорошая жизнь, or the horrorshow jeezny

What is the good life? I think I'd know it if I saw it.

And there was a time I thought I was leading it, during the administration of our  most popular recent preznit;

 I'd be popular too if I'd been president of at a time when the illusions of permanent prosperity and effortless American domination of the world were riding high. Life was real easy then, and there was no reason to assume it would ever end.

During the Clinton 90's it seemed that everybody was working, there were no wars except a kind of a low-grade ongoing rumble with Iraq, plus a little, short war in the Balkans, in which the U.S. sustained no casualties. Those were for Clinton, a draft dodger, to establish his war cred, essential for any American prez. But military spending was way down in those days, and we all benefitted from that.

The problems with Clinton were mostly domestic -- on his watch the Treasury Dept was boarded by pirates from Wall Street, who gutted regulations that had been a cornerstone of the New Deal. Chief among them was the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited banksters from taking the public's money to the casino.

Gas was cheap and it looked like the party would go on forever. We worked, shopped at the mall, acquired houses full of useless junk, made love, drank, and sang. We saw the peace and prosperity on the surface and didn't think about how thin and fragile those things were, or about the structural instability and insecurity they rested on. It was a time when we could enjoy our illusions.

The worst thing we had to worry about was a gob of spooey that happened to end up on a blue dress that belonged to a pudgy bim.

Then George W. Bush stole an election, and the world went to shit. That was the overture for the double zeros, and it set the tone for the decade from hell.

Now I'm 71, and have dealt with Parkinson's Disease for 8 years, so I think the somewhat mythical "good life" is not to be mine. But we're teetering on the precipice of a real revolution, not just in the US but all over the industrialized world. At times like this we're reminded of what really matters in life, namely, driving your defeated enemies before  your chariots, and grinding the bones of the fallen under your wheels.

red, blue, purple, vermilion

It 's Monday mornin, start of anudder week.

God's in his hebbin, Barack's in z White House, the Repubs R ony their way out as a national party.

They'll remain a strong & perhaps the predominant force in some regions. The Heartland. The Old Confederacy.

However, if you look at a map accurately portraying the political great divide in the US     
2day, it's tricky. The majority lives in the blue 
regions, which contain the coastal megacities.

The red areas are geographically dominant, but mostly sparsely populated & in some places such as Nebraskey, emptying out. 

Dark red states voted Republican in the four elections of this century, & dark blue states did the opposite.

Light-coloured states went 3-1 during the same time.                                       

Purple states gave 2 elections 2 each party, 2000-

2012. 

friday cat blogging

Life is a bore when it's hot & juicy outside 24/7.

the problem w/ barack

Brock O'Bama waltzed in2 the Ovular Office with the dumb idea that he was gonna make common cause with "our friends across the aisle," & obstinately refused 2 see that viper's brood of racists and lackeys of the .1% for who they truly R,

& that lasted 6 yrs. Eventually he woke up.

Another aspect of the problem was narcissism. He really believed he could get that "grand bargain," which is 2 say, he beleived in himself way 2 much.

When dealing with the huge forces of history, it don't mean nothing who we are or even who he is. 

The election of B Obama 2 that office was a huge, earth-shaking clusterschnazzle

-- I kind of knew that at the time.  I don't  know if he was aware of the full fury of the wild raspberries of rustics.

yowzer yowzer yowzer

That's the phrase I Identify as the wellspring of lame, old man humor, such as the joke "My friends said cheer up, things could be worse; so I cheered up, & sure ENUFF, things got worse" Har de har har.

You know, if the Republican Party truly wishes to degenerate into a clown's sideshow, more power 2 em, I Think they should pick the biggest, nastiest clown in the bunch.

They have oibliged us by doing so.

The headline at Yahoo this morning identifies Trump as the one who "Vaults to the top" of the Republican field.

Going down?

Meanwhile, the country as a whole moves off in a different direction, leaving Republicans 2 party at the Dew Drop Inn. Yowzer Yowzer Yowzer. I mean take my wife. PLEASE!

wuddit iz

At this point there are only 3 things certain:

1. The shadows get longer toward the end of day.

2. We came out of the earth, and the earth came out of the sun. 

3, We will go back into the earth, just as the earth, after uncountable aeons during which homo sapiens are long departed, will go back into ye sunne.

In addition to these 3 certainties, there is also a certainty behind those others, to wit:

-0-, if there is an intelligence, force, power, or other sort of "thing"'at large in this world and behind the creation of it, there's only one of her.

rollin rollin rollin

MOVIN' ON UP 

A new national poll shows Sanders @ 20% nationwide...

Bernie is the green line, of course, coming out of nowhere. What we hope 4 now is the "hockey stick" effect.

sen cruz has a sad

Sen Ted Cruz was hopin to show up on the NY Times Bestseller list this week, but was denied the honor Bcause most of his sales were in the form of "strategic bulk sales."

That means he was kiting his numbers by buying 1,000s of copies of his own book.
 

New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy told Politico, “We have uniform standards that we apply to our best seller list, which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold. This book didn’t meet that standard this week. Our goal is that the list reflect authentic best sellers, so we look at and analyze not just numbers, but patterns of sales for every book.”

Murphy later added more detail, “In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases.”

friday cat blogging

Friday Cat Blogging returns 2day w/  lovely Sammy striking a pose amidst a pile of electronic detritus.

why bernie sanders is the next president

I'm not just confident, I'm sure of it.

Here's why.

1. The Republican Party is a national zombie. They remain potent and dangerous enough to control Congress in most localities.

2. After the Democrats nominate Clinton, Sanders will run as a progressive Democrat. The split I've seen coming is happening now.

3. The election will be Clinton vs, Sanders.

Hillary, liike all Candidates in both parties except 1, has secured her financial backing first. Now she's running the usual gamut of focus groups, brainstorming sessions with platoons of advisors, desperately looking for a line or two she can use to sell herself to regular working people. 

Sanders has bypassed step one, and makes his appeals to regular working people DIRECTLY.

The Oligarchy is already doing everything it can 2 discredit him. It won't work.

Mike Taibbi has written an uncharacteristically short appreciation of Sen Sanders at 
www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/give-...

It's great. Go read it now. 

apolly logies

My apologies to readers here for the lack of posting lately.

After moving last week, I've a had a tuff time getting internet service restored.

My provider promises I'll B back on line by Wednesday, 7/8.