I am not so much upset about crimes of war in that they are inevitable, but I think the guys that commit them should be punished. This guy was turned in by his own men because they didn't like it. I agree with Old Dog those guys who wear that trident take a lot of pride in it, and it brings dishonor upon them to have an unpunished criminal keep his.
Old Dog is also correct in that our opinions don't mean much, well actually probably they don't mean anything at all. Thus far the nation has chosen not to heed the lead of The Institution, and I don't think any of us has ever convinced each other of anything. I personally think everybody should have an opinion on everything, just for good mental agility, to keep the mind a smoothly running machine, but I don't think I've ever convinced anybody else, so there you are. I still reserve the right to shoot my mouth off however.
Back in the day of our forefathers people got their information from newspapers, seems like there were more of them then there are craft brewers these days. Of course each reflected the views of the blowhard that was printing it. There were a lot of opinions tossed around in those days and that's how we got to tossing the tea into the harbor and later wrote the constitution.
I guess as newspapers began to be consolidated and they had to appeal to a wider population, they became more objective, They still had slants but objectivity was seen as a virtue, though now that the internet has taken on the role of purveying the news not so much.
I tried to read Old Dog's link on carnivorous deer, but the site didn't like my adblocker. They are cracking down on freeloaders like me and anymore I find that about half my sites are blocked. I guess I should just disable it and be a good citizen.
I got around it by googling do deer eat meat and came upon a nifty site called Outdoorhub, which has videos of a deer eating a little bitty bird and a squirrel although it looks like the squirrel was already dead, and you can watch it here: https://www.outdoorhub.com/stories/2013/09/09/the-meat-eating-habits-of-deer/
Friday, November 29, 2019
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Trump is Trump
I care about stuff in the news, I just don't care about it as much as Uncle Ken does. I probably wouldn't have even heard about the Gallagher case if Uncle Ken hadn't brought it up. Since he did bring it up, I looked into it so that I would know what he was talking about. Now that I know something about it, I still don't care about it as much as Uncle Ken does. There have been incidences like that in almost every war, and I suspect that many of them are never reported. That doesn't make it right, of course, but you could drive yourself nuts worrying about stuff like that since, as Old Dog says, there isn't much you can do about it anyway. I agree that Trump probably shouldn't have intervened but, let's face it, Trump does a lot of stuff that he probably shouldn't have. The only thing we can do about it is not vote for him. I didn't vote for him last time and I plan to vote against him in the primary. If he gets the nomination, I probably will vote Libertarian, unless the Democratic candidate is so much worse that I don't feel like I can afford to waste my vote like that again.
Our family's Thanksgiving has been postponed until Sunday because my grand daughter and her old man both had to work today. The weather forecast for Sunday is not good. My truck can certainly handle the snow, it's the blowing that has us worried. It's about an 65 mile drive to Charlevoix, but it will seem much longer if the visibility is bad.
Our family's Thanksgiving has been postponed until Sunday because my grand daughter and her old man both had to work today. The weather forecast for Sunday is not good. My truck can certainly handle the snow, it's the blowing that has us worried. It's about an 65 mile drive to Charlevoix, but it will seem much longer if the visibility is bad.
Gobble gobble
Happy Turkey Day, guys, or in my case Happy Pork Day since ham is on the menu at my sister's place. My brother-in-law is in the hospital for a few days, some kind of pneumonia but not serious, so we will have a "Thanksgiving Lite."
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Trump is like King Midas in reverse; everything he touches turns to shit. He should have let the Navy deal with that SEAL issue, but no, he had to interfere with their established procedures and now it's another tempest in a chamberpot. The Navy yanks the Trident pins of nearly twenty SEALS a year, for all kinds of causes. Their standards are very high and if you can't get with the program you are out on your ass, which is the way it should be. In my opinion, of course.
But I think it's fine to not have an opinion on some issues because in most cases the opinions don't really matter, I think, unless they lead to action of some kind. Our Forefathers may have had an informed public in mind but where did that public get their information? From the Forefathers themselves, I bet, but American history has some very dark corners and we may have been told some lies.
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Deer aren't quite the strict herbivores I thought they were; once in a while they get a taste for meat. Makes you rethink Santa and his reindeer, doesn't it?
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Trump is like King Midas in reverse; everything he touches turns to shit. He should have let the Navy deal with that SEAL issue, but no, he had to interfere with their established procedures and now it's another tempest in a chamberpot. The Navy yanks the Trident pins of nearly twenty SEALS a year, for all kinds of causes. Their standards are very high and if you can't get with the program you are out on your ass, which is the way it should be. In my opinion, of course.
But I think it's fine to not have an opinion on some issues because in most cases the opinions don't really matter, I think, unless they lead to action of some kind. Our Forefathers may have had an informed public in mind but where did that public get their information? From the Forefathers themselves, I bet, but American history has some very dark corners and we may have been told some lies.
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Deer aren't quite the strict herbivores I thought they were; once in a while they get a taste for meat. Makes you rethink Santa and his reindeer, doesn't it?
keeping it short
A lot of the stuff in the news is like that. If you dig a little deeper, you discover that there is more to it than meets the eye. If a guy wanted to, he could make a full time career out of looking stuff up and trying to decide what he thinks really happened. I'm interested, but not that interested.
And yet Beagles does not seem to have come to any conclusion after his research or even have an opinion on the issue.
Trump wanted Trump wanted Spencer fired so he had Esper do it, the whole thing about Spencer going above Esper's head is just a little dosey doe. Am I right, of course I am right. There.
It doesn't take your whole life, to do a little research on what is going on. Our forefathers had an informed public in mind to steer our democracy,.
Okay Gentlemen happy Thanksgiving.
And yet Beagles does not seem to have come to any conclusion after his research or even have an opinion on the issue.
Trump wanted Trump wanted Spencer fired so he had Esper do it, the whole thing about Spencer going above Esper's head is just a little dosey doe. Am I right, of course I am right. There.
It doesn't take your whole life, to do a little research on what is going on. Our forefathers had an informed public in mind to steer our democracy,.
Okay Gentlemen happy Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Politics, Politics, All is Politics
"And I'm pretty sure that Beagles is still against gay marriage so he wouldn't even consider that progress. People don't agree on what is moral and what isn't, so it depends on who you are listening to as to whether we are going forwards or backwards in that regard." - Uncle Ken
You got that right!
Like I said, I was not very familiar with the Gallagher case, so I looked it up on Wiki. According to that, Trump did not fire Spencer, Esper fired Spencer.
Then there's Spencer's version of the story:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBXrcAS?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
You got that right!
Like I said, I was not very familiar with the Gallagher case, so I looked it up on Wiki. According to that, Trump did not fire Spencer, Esper fired Spencer.
Interventions by President Trump
The clemency decision ended up moot: In November 2019, Trump declared that Gallagher's demotion would be reversed.[33] The move also included several other military members accused of misconduct: in addition to Gallagher, Lieutenant Clint Lorance was ordered freed; and the prosecution of Matthew Golsteyn was ordered to be ended.[33]
The Navy ordered an administrative investigation by the Trident Review Board to determine whether Gallagher should be stripped of his Trident Pin, a symbol of membership in the SEALs. On November 21 Trump tweeted, "The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!" Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer responded that terminating this probe could only be done via an official written order from the White House. Associates said Spencer will resign if such an order is issued, believing it undercuts his authority and that of Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of the SEALs.[34] On November 24, 2019, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he had learned that Spencer made a private offer to the White House that if the White House did not interfere, he would guarantee that Gallagher would keep his Trident pin. This offer contradicted Spencer's public position and was kept secret from Esper.[35][36] Esper immediately fired Spencer for going outside the chain of command.[37] The next day Esper said that Trump had ordered him to allow Gallagher to keep his Trident Pin, so that Gallagher remains a SEAL until his retirement at the end of November.[38] Gallagher's case was scheduled for a hearing by the Navy SEAL review board on December 2, 2019.[39]
Then there's Spencer's version of the story:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBXrcAS?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
A lot of the stuff in the news is like that. If you dig a little deeper, you discover that there is more to it than meets the eye. If a guy wanted to, he could make a full time career out of looking stuff up and trying to decide what he thinks really happened. I'm interested, but not that interested.
every day in every way we are not getting better and better
I'm guilty of playing fast and loose with the idea of sin. What I meant by the original original sin was when the first protozoan killed its neighbor in order to eat it. From that point on it had to kill to live. Even after we went on land and developed our gargantuan brains that enabled us to ponder morality and to decide that killing was wrong we had to continue doing so in order to live, or as Robert Penn Warren wrote in All the King's Men: Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud.
Well we could be vegetarians, but that means killing plants which is how the original original sin began.
I'm sure we've discussed this before but I do not think we are advancing morally. Actually this is a recent development which began of course in 2016. Up to that time I had believed that The Liberal Agenda was slowly but surely advancing. We had eliminated slavery, gotten universal suffrage, allowed gays equal rights to the point where they could get married. Knowledge was advancing, education was advancing, people were traveling around the world learning things and spreading ideas We were becoming wiser and more tolerant. I don't see that happening anymore and in retrospect it probably was never really happening in the past.
And I'm pretty sure that Beagles is still against gay marriage so he wouldn't even consider that progress. People don't agree on what is moral and what isn't, so it depends on who you are listening to as to whether we are going forwards or backwards in that regard.
And as the proud bearer of a degree in psychology from the prestigious University of Illinois I have to say that we don't know much more about mental illness than we did when we believed in evil spirits. We give them pills like magic potions and cross our fingers that something will work, because we don't know what is going on in there.
The thing about that Gallagher guy is he did not kill in the fog of war, this was a prisoner already captured. I thought Beagles would have some army pride in punishing people for doing that, and maybe that it would not be so compliant with the prez's tweet.
A recent ABC/Ipsos poll says that 70 percent of Americans think that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine for political reasons. That's a little heartening, though you wonder why anybody could believe otherwise in light of the information which has been flooding down on us. But I think it's only half the people who believe he should be impeached, but still, a good sign.
Well we could be vegetarians, but that means killing plants which is how the original original sin began.
I'm sure we've discussed this before but I do not think we are advancing morally. Actually this is a recent development which began of course in 2016. Up to that time I had believed that The Liberal Agenda was slowly but surely advancing. We had eliminated slavery, gotten universal suffrage, allowed gays equal rights to the point where they could get married. Knowledge was advancing, education was advancing, people were traveling around the world learning things and spreading ideas We were becoming wiser and more tolerant. I don't see that happening anymore and in retrospect it probably was never really happening in the past.
And I'm pretty sure that Beagles is still against gay marriage so he wouldn't even consider that progress. People don't agree on what is moral and what isn't, so it depends on who you are listening to as to whether we are going forwards or backwards in that regard.
And as the proud bearer of a degree in psychology from the prestigious University of Illinois I have to say that we don't know much more about mental illness than we did when we believed in evil spirits. We give them pills like magic potions and cross our fingers that something will work, because we don't know what is going on in there.
The thing about that Gallagher guy is he did not kill in the fog of war, this was a prisoner already captured. I thought Beagles would have some army pride in punishing people for doing that, and maybe that it would not be so compliant with the prez's tweet.
A recent ABC/Ipsos poll says that 70 percent of Americans think that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine for political reasons. That's a little heartening, though you wonder why anybody could believe otherwise in light of the information which has been flooding down on us. But I think it's only half the people who believe he should be impeached, but still, a good sign.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Explanation and Elaboration
"I didn't mean to say that there was anything wrong with our ascent from scum pond to the magnificent naked ape that has overrun the globe. The last couple hundred years we have been fucking up the earth and don't seem to worry too much about the rack and ruin, but hey that's big apes with gargantuan brains for you." - Uncle Ken
Then why did you call it "the original original sin"? I know that we have not exactly agreed on the definition of "sin", but I think we both consider it to be a bad thing. Lots of people have been worried about the "rack and ruin" in the last couple hundred years. Before that, not so much, which is further evidence that humans keep getting better and better. Of course all humans are not advancing at the same rate of speed, and it's the ones who are lagging behind the curve that I referred to as "bad guys". Perhaps that was an oversimplification on my part. There are a number of reasons why people do bad things. Some of them don't know any better, some of them are driven to desperation by the conditions under which they live, and some of them are just nuts. Okay, that's another oversimplification. We know a lot more about mental illness today than our ancestors who believed it was caused by evil spirits inhabiting the body, and yet we still don't have a miracle cure for it.
Actually, I did make up that thing about a "post enlightenment", and I was unaware that somebody else had already coined the phrase. Some people believe that human virtue has already peaked and now we are on a downhill slide. If that is indeed the case, then the evildoers represent the wave of the future rather than throwbacks to the past. I personally believe the opposite, but that could possibly be just wishful thinking on my part. I like to think the reason humans appear to be getting worse is that bad conduct gets more publicity nowadays, and the fact that people are so upset about it is further evidence that we are generally getting better. In an earlier time in history, Trump wouldn't have just fired that guy, he would have ordered his head chopped off as well, and most people would have just shrugged it off as executive privilege.
Speaking of Trump, he has probably fired more of his people than any president in history, and I confess that I have become desensitized to it. I am not familiar enough with this particular case to pass judgement on anybody, but I do know that shit happens in a war.
Then why did you call it "the original original sin"? I know that we have not exactly agreed on the definition of "sin", but I think we both consider it to be a bad thing. Lots of people have been worried about the "rack and ruin" in the last couple hundred years. Before that, not so much, which is further evidence that humans keep getting better and better. Of course all humans are not advancing at the same rate of speed, and it's the ones who are lagging behind the curve that I referred to as "bad guys". Perhaps that was an oversimplification on my part. There are a number of reasons why people do bad things. Some of them don't know any better, some of them are driven to desperation by the conditions under which they live, and some of them are just nuts. Okay, that's another oversimplification. We know a lot more about mental illness today than our ancestors who believed it was caused by evil spirits inhabiting the body, and yet we still don't have a miracle cure for it.
Actually, I did make up that thing about a "post enlightenment", and I was unaware that somebody else had already coined the phrase. Some people believe that human virtue has already peaked and now we are on a downhill slide. If that is indeed the case, then the evildoers represent the wave of the future rather than throwbacks to the past. I personally believe the opposite, but that could possibly be just wishful thinking on my part. I like to think the reason humans appear to be getting worse is that bad conduct gets more publicity nowadays, and the fact that people are so upset about it is further evidence that we are generally getting better. In an earlier time in history, Trump wouldn't have just fired that guy, he would have ordered his head chopped off as well, and most people would have just shrugged it off as executive privilege.
Speaking of Trump, he has probably fired more of his people than any president in history, and I confess that I have become desensitized to it. I am not familiar enough with this particular case to pass judgement on anybody, but I do know that shit happens in a war.
"I still don't quite get the point of spreading something the spirits don't want in order to thank them or something, but it doesn't matter, if it feels good, do it, as we used to say back in the day. I was wondering why it applied only to hunting. Isn't a package of hamburger equally a gift from the spirit or god? But then don't some people always say grace before a meal? Isn't it all the same thing?" - Uncle Ken
It applies to fishing and gathering as well as hunting. I suppose it would have applied to collecting your paycheck and spending it at the supermarket if the Indians had ever heard of such a thing. I think that they might have originally believed that the spirits wanted the tobacco, but by now they realize that they are doing it for their own benefit. It is just to make you feel good, kind of, if you count being thankful and respectful as part of feeling good. And yes, it's a lot like people saying Grace before a meal.
onward
I didn't mean to say that there was anything wrong with our ascent from scum pond to the magnificent naked ape that has overrun the globe. The last couple hundred years we have been fucking up the earth and don't seem to worry too much about the rack and ruin, but hey that's big apes with gargantuan brains for you.
Nothing wrong with man creating God in his own image, I don't think I said that, about the image, but that's ok. I think it was a great thing when we added the golden rule to His accomplishments.
Bad guys? I think this is a thing Beagles gets from watching too many of those Lone Ranger tv shows where every week some of the guys on it are good guys and some of them are bad guys, and in the end the good guys beat the bad guys. I think this is not that realistic. There are good deeds and bad deeds and sometimes people do good things and sometimes they do bad things, maybe some do more good deeds and some do more bad deeds, but you can't draw a line neatly between the two. People have been that way in the past and they will be that way in the future.
Post enlightenment? I thought Beagles was making this up, but google has a lot of pages on the subject. I don't have time to read them right now. It seems to have something to do with religion, so maybe our religious scholar can enlighten us.
I still don't quite get the point of spreading something the spirits don't want in order to thank them or something, but it doesn't matter, if it feels good, do it, as we used to say back in the day. I was wondering why it applied only to hunting. Isn't a package of hamburger equally a gift from the spirit or god? But then don't seem people always say grace before a meal? Isn't it all the same thing?
I know Beagles if he didn't come out that way, certainly went into the army gung ho and I was wondering why he didn't have an opinion on the Trump pardon. Isn't one of the things that makes our army great that we don't kill prisoners? And if somebody does he gets punished for it? Well this guy didn't get convicted for that although he sounded pretty guilty to me. As a sop they convicted him of posing with the guy he killed which seems like pretty small potatoes, and even that wasn't good enough for Private Bone Spurs. Well maybe he was just showing off his pardoning powers in case Rudy was watching.
Nothing wrong with man creating God in his own image, I don't think I said that, about the image, but that's ok. I think it was a great thing when we added the golden rule to His accomplishments.
Bad guys? I think this is a thing Beagles gets from watching too many of those Lone Ranger tv shows where every week some of the guys on it are good guys and some of them are bad guys, and in the end the good guys beat the bad guys. I think this is not that realistic. There are good deeds and bad deeds and sometimes people do good things and sometimes they do bad things, maybe some do more good deeds and some do more bad deeds, but you can't draw a line neatly between the two. People have been that way in the past and they will be that way in the future.
Post enlightenment? I thought Beagles was making this up, but google has a lot of pages on the subject. I don't have time to read them right now. It seems to have something to do with religion, so maybe our religious scholar can enlighten us.
I still don't quite get the point of spreading something the spirits don't want in order to thank them or something, but it doesn't matter, if it feels good, do it, as we used to say back in the day. I was wondering why it applied only to hunting. Isn't a package of hamburger equally a gift from the spirit or god? But then don't seem people always say grace before a meal? Isn't it all the same thing?
I know Beagles if he didn't come out that way, certainly went into the army gung ho and I was wondering why he didn't have an opinion on the Trump pardon. Isn't one of the things that makes our army great that we don't kill prisoners? And if somebody does he gets punished for it? Well this guy didn't get convicted for that although he sounded pretty guilty to me. As a sop they convicted him of posing with the guy he killed which seems like pretty small potatoes, and even that wasn't good enough for Private Bone Spurs. Well maybe he was just showing off his pardoning powers in case Rudy was watching.
Monday, November 25, 2019
Onward and Upward
Uncle Ken seems to be saying that our evolution from scum sucking protozoans to efficient predators who feel a little sorry for our prey was a bad thing, a sin even. I don't think so. I think that each step in the process was an advancement for our species. Of course that's a value judgement, but so is the idea that the world would be a better place if our scum sucking ancestors had remained in their original condition, as if that were even possible.
Even if we accept, for the purposes of this discussion, that Man created God in his image instead of the other way around, is that a bad thing? That God Himself could evolve from being capricious to being vengeful to being merciful says something about the people who have believed in Him over the course of human history.
Again I ask, what about the bad guys? Are they throwbacks to the bad old days, or are they the precursors of the post enlightenment that is yet to come?
The way it was explained to me is that the Native American tobacco ritual is more for our benefit than it is for the spirits'. Tobacco was a valuable commodity to the Indians, but the spirits had no need of it. By giving back a small token of appreciation, it reminds us to be grateful and respectful of the resources that are available for our use. Whether or not you believe they are gifts from the spirits, you have to admit that, without them, we would still be sucking scum with the other protozoans.
Even if we accept, for the purposes of this discussion, that Man created God in his image instead of the other way around, is that a bad thing? That God Himself could evolve from being capricious to being vengeful to being merciful says something about the people who have believed in Him over the course of human history.
Again I ask, what about the bad guys? Are they throwbacks to the bad old days, or are they the precursors of the post enlightenment that is yet to come?
The way it was explained to me is that the Native American tobacco ritual is more for our benefit than it is for the spirits'. Tobacco was a valuable commodity to the Indians, but the spirits had no need of it. By giving back a small token of appreciation, it reminds us to be grateful and respectful of the resources that are available for our use. Whether or not you believe they are gifts from the spirits, you have to admit that, without them, we would still be sucking scum with the other protozoans.
thou shall not kill, er, murder.
Later I discovered that lions will indeed scavenge a fresh body. It goes against all our ideas of nobility but to the lion it is probably just like, oh look, an open bag of Fritos.
What I said was that at first I thought that lions didn't scavenge, but later learned that they did, and notice that the Fritos are not in the fridge. Many of the smartest people in the world would say that that is a perfect.sentence.
So my little world has come a long way since the Edenic days of those protozoa basking in the sun on the surface of warm seas. Mother Nature had been quite busy inventing lungs and hooves and claws, and maybe at some point she decided that those little apes are pretty cute especially when they walk on two legs, and how well they seem to manipulate things with those cool new opposable thumbs, what if she made them smart too?
Well that went gangbusters, and here he is making tools oh and now he has language. And right about then God enters the scene. At first He is just in charge of receiving sacrifices and making harvests go well, but folks get to talking about Him and have different ideas of His nature, At first He is just doing favors for folks who know what spells to cast. But then, and I think the Jews are the first with this, not only does He do favors, He wants us to be nice, to be good to each other,
See I think we got this whole being nice thing from the fact that we are social animals and beyond that it takes a long time for us to raise our younguns at great cost to the parents and we have to have the right genes to keep the family together, so we have this idea of good, so why not impute that to God? There, it sits well on Him. And maybe getting a little full of Himself, He decides to put the rules down in black and white, ten of them. And the sixth of them (depending on who is doing the numbering), is Thou shalt not kill.
Well not exactly it is more of the form Thou shalt not murder, and murder, you know, that is kind of fungible. Actually quite a bit of interesting stuff on the wiki Ten Commandments page, but I fear it is off the subject for the nonce.
The part of this whole discussion that interests Beagles, and I am happy that anything I say interests anybody, is why does the Indian put down tobacco as sort of a sacrifice to the Great Spirit after killing an animal? One imagines that maybe ten thousand years previously the Indian's counterparts on the other side of the globe were doing something similar, but we don't know that much anymore about our pagan days because the Christians went to great effort to wipe that out,.
Speaking of killing what about firing the Secretary of the Navy because he didn't want to excuse Gallagher the way Trump wanted him to? Isn't this wrong in so many ways?
What I said was that at first I thought that lions didn't scavenge, but later learned that they did, and notice that the Fritos are not in the fridge. Many of the smartest people in the world would say that that is a perfect.sentence.
So my little world has come a long way since the Edenic days of those protozoa basking in the sun on the surface of warm seas. Mother Nature had been quite busy inventing lungs and hooves and claws, and maybe at some point she decided that those little apes are pretty cute especially when they walk on two legs, and how well they seem to manipulate things with those cool new opposable thumbs, what if she made them smart too?
Well that went gangbusters, and here he is making tools oh and now he has language. And right about then God enters the scene. At first He is just in charge of receiving sacrifices and making harvests go well, but folks get to talking about Him and have different ideas of His nature, At first He is just doing favors for folks who know what spells to cast. But then, and I think the Jews are the first with this, not only does He do favors, He wants us to be nice, to be good to each other,
See I think we got this whole being nice thing from the fact that we are social animals and beyond that it takes a long time for us to raise our younguns at great cost to the parents and we have to have the right genes to keep the family together, so we have this idea of good, so why not impute that to God? There, it sits well on Him. And maybe getting a little full of Himself, He decides to put the rules down in black and white, ten of them. And the sixth of them (depending on who is doing the numbering), is Thou shalt not kill.
Well not exactly it is more of the form Thou shalt not murder, and murder, you know, that is kind of fungible. Actually quite a bit of interesting stuff on the wiki Ten Commandments page, but I fear it is off the subject for the nonce.
The part of this whole discussion that interests Beagles, and I am happy that anything I say interests anybody, is why does the Indian put down tobacco as sort of a sacrifice to the Great Spirit after killing an animal? One imagines that maybe ten thousand years previously the Indian's counterparts on the other side of the globe were doing something similar, but we don't know that much anymore about our pagan days because the Christians went to great effort to wipe that out,.
Speaking of killing what about firing the Secretary of the Navy because he didn't want to excuse Gallagher the way Trump wanted him to? Isn't this wrong in so many ways?
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Lions Do So Scavenge
Lions scavenge on carrion when the opportunity arises; they scavenge animals dead from natural causes such as disease or those that were killed by other predators. Scavenging lions keep a constant lookout for circling vultures, which indicate the death or distress of an animal.[123] Most carrion on which both hyenas and lions feed upon are killed by hyenas rather than lions.[58] Carrion is thought to provide a large part of lion diet.[124]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion#Hunting_and_diet
Although I have disputed some of Uncle Ken's talking points, I am in agreement with his main premise, that Man is the only predatory creature who displays any kind of remorse when he makes a kill. Well, some of us do and some of us don't, and I don't know why that is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion#Hunting_and_diet
Although I have disputed some of Uncle Ken's talking points, I am in agreement with his main premise, that Man is the only predatory creature who displays any kind of remorse when he makes a kill. Well, some of us do and some of us don't, and I don't know why that is.
Friday, November 22, 2019
Natural Born Killers
I think that most predators will turn scavenger if the opportunity presents itself. I seem to remember Uncle Ken saying that lions don't, I'll have to look that up one of these days. I'm not sure about cats, but canines and other carnivores do eat plant material from time to time, and some herbivores are known to eat meat on occasion. There are also a few carnivorous plants, like the Venus fly trap and the pitcher plant.
I suppose anything is possible, but I doubt that one of our protozoan ancestors ever made a conscious decision to turn predator. It is commonly believed that creatures at that level are incapable of making a conscious decision to do anything.
Other than that, and the "sin" part, I think that Uncle Ken is on to something with this theory. Although humans are natural born killers, some of us do feel a little guilty when we kill something. On the other hand, some of us don't. What's up with that?
I suppose anything is possible, but I doubt that one of our protozoan ancestors ever made a conscious decision to turn predator. It is commonly believed that creatures at that level are incapable of making a conscious decision to do anything.
Other than that, and the "sin" part, I think that Uncle Ken is on to something with this theory. Although humans are natural born killers, some of us do feel a little guilty when we kill something. On the other hand, some of us don't. What's up with that?
herbivores and carnivores
Another good day of hearings yesterday, the noose tightened up on his fat neck, the chair placed just so that it will easily topple with a quick kick. But really did anybody think that he didn't hold up the delivery of those weapons to the Ukrainians for an investigation of his political enemies? Maybe not in the legal sense of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt but in the less stringent, more practical sense of if you had to bet where would you put your money? I think most of the reps would gladly just go with yeah he did it, and it was wrong, but not all that wrong and it doesn't deserve impeachment, but the prez won't let them because that would deny that everything he does is perfect so they are just basically making a very unconvincing case and mostly just talking about other stuff. At this point I am a little worried about our charge into the valley of death.
I got distracted in my original sin discussion by the thought of scavengers vs animals of prey, It seems likely to me that they go back and forth, that animals of prey have scavengers in their family tree and scavengers have animals of prey, maybe an interesting topic of another day.
Meanwhile on the surface of that sunny sea the first animals of prey are feasting on their fellows, well not their fellows anymore since they have become animals and that leaves their more peaceful fellows to be plants. Eating plants is no big deal. But in becoming animals they have changed their body chemistry, once they digest those plants they have to convert their proteins into animal proteins and that is a bit of work, but say that fellow next to them eating the plant cells, why he is just chock full of the right chemicals, why not eat him? Why not indeed, and maybe here is the original sin, when an animal eats another animal, because as I said eating plants is never a big deal.
Mother Nature, sometimes called The Great Spirit, is just a slip of a girl at this point, giving some animals faster cilia so that they can escape the predators, but when the enhanced cilia animal turns around she is giving the predator more powerful mouth parts to grab him with.
It's kind of strange the way some animals are carnivores and herbivores, oh there is some cross over but mostly animals are one or the other. As I said earlier we are the only apes that eat meat (chimps nibble a bit, but it's not a mainstay of their diet) and we became the big brained folk we are today by eating meat, and those big brains enabled us to think well maybe it is wrong to kill, and at this point God enters the stage and more about that later.
Meanwhile in the present day, I don't feel much kinship with artists of yore, I don't imagine Michelangelo painting that ceiling when I am painting, well I am painting alleys now. A closer analogy would be tending my garden, but I have to say that this does not remind me of Og and Grog poking holes in the earth to drop seeds into. I don't feel much of an urge to be at one with my ancestors. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just not something I do.
I got distracted in my original sin discussion by the thought of scavengers vs animals of prey, It seems likely to me that they go back and forth, that animals of prey have scavengers in their family tree and scavengers have animals of prey, maybe an interesting topic of another day.
Meanwhile on the surface of that sunny sea the first animals of prey are feasting on their fellows, well not their fellows anymore since they have become animals and that leaves their more peaceful fellows to be plants. Eating plants is no big deal. But in becoming animals they have changed their body chemistry, once they digest those plants they have to convert their proteins into animal proteins and that is a bit of work, but say that fellow next to them eating the plant cells, why he is just chock full of the right chemicals, why not eat him? Why not indeed, and maybe here is the original sin, when an animal eats another animal, because as I said eating plants is never a big deal.
Mother Nature, sometimes called The Great Spirit, is just a slip of a girl at this point, giving some animals faster cilia so that they can escape the predators, but when the enhanced cilia animal turns around she is giving the predator more powerful mouth parts to grab him with.
It's kind of strange the way some animals are carnivores and herbivores, oh there is some cross over but mostly animals are one or the other. As I said earlier we are the only apes that eat meat (chimps nibble a bit, but it's not a mainstay of their diet) and we became the big brained folk we are today by eating meat, and those big brains enabled us to think well maybe it is wrong to kill, and at this point God enters the stage and more about that later.
Meanwhile in the present day, I don't feel much kinship with artists of yore, I don't imagine Michelangelo painting that ceiling when I am painting, well I am painting alleys now. A closer analogy would be tending my garden, but I have to say that this does not remind me of Og and Grog poking holes in the earth to drop seeds into. I don't feel much of an urge to be at one with my ancestors. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just not something I do.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
I Think I Get It Now
And I tend to agree with most of it. The only issue I have is that non-human animals don't think and feel about it as we do, at least we don't believe that they do. Although studies have been done which revealed that some animals are smarter than was previously believed, that doesn't mean they are as cognizant as we are. That alone would not justify killing them, but it might mean we are better off killing them than killing our own kind. Of course nobody has to do their own killing today if they don't want to, but our ancestors earned this luxury for us, which they wouldn't have been able to do if they hadn't eaten and enslaved animals. Part of the attraction hunting has for me is that it makes me feel like I am in some small way connected to those ancestors. Perhaps it's kind of like Uncle Ken painting pictures in his high rise condo feels connected to those starving artists shivering in their unheated lofts in days of yore.
I have said before that I am interested in the impeachment show, but not nearly as interested as my esteemed colleagues. I heard on the TV news this evening that the investigation phase might be wrapped up by the time they adjourn for the holidays. Of course they still have to write the articles of impeachment, but at least it holds out the hope that they might be finally getting off the pot.
I have said before that I am interested in the impeachment show, but not nearly as interested as my esteemed colleagues. I heard on the TV news this evening that the investigation phase might be wrapped up by the time they adjourn for the holidays. Of course they still have to write the articles of impeachment, but at least it holds out the hope that they might be finally getting off the pot.
more original sin
Fritos in the fridge, no, I don't put them in there either. Well they are never around that much longer once the bag is opened. I suppose I was thinking something like larder and fridge popped into mind since it is somewhat like a larder and the alliteration was so strong that I just went with it without giving it much thought. When you are putting out product five days a week there will be missteps.
Beagles is correct that I am not speaking of Augustine's original sin, it is my own concept, well actually I think it dwells in the hearts of all men and did so before Augustine decided to give it such an awkward representation.
I don't want to be all snowflakey about the photo of the dead deer, it's not like it ruined my day or anything, just gave me something to talk about. I thought the dawgs would be interested in the current event, but I find no interest at all, and I do have to write about something, to maintain my level of output.
I am thinking if some big old bear happens to eat me I am not going to feel better about it if he leaves a little bit of tobacco on the scene of my demise. Notice how the animals are doing all the giving and Man is doing all the taking. Not too surprising considering it is Man who is making the whole thing up. Maybe this makes the hunter feel better about the whole affair, but it doesn't mean a thing to anybody else.
And this whole thing about poor pitiable man without horns and claws is a lot of human hooey. Animal-wise we are huge, we have those opposable thumbs, those gargantuan brains. Look how we dominate the world. Those animals that we prey on must feel pretty foolish about giving themselves up to us in the olden days and god knows why they would feel that way in the current day.
Why do we go to such lengths to make up these myths? I assert that it is guilt. Because of our gargantuan brains we think about things. I maintain that being very social animals morality of the altruistic kind is baked into our brains, and being thoughty we have extended that into a whole sort of philosophy on a basic level, and we just feel bad about killing things.
But of course we have to kill things, we couldn't survive if we didn't. Our forebears were almost all vegetarian, but in order to feed the gargantuan brains we were developing we needed the protein we could only get from meat, and once we had those big brains we could think about good and evil which knowledge led us to think there is something wrong about killing things.
This is all kind of gimcracky, and I have left some holes in my thinking, but I am going to leave it here for the day.
Beagles is correct that I am not speaking of Augustine's original sin, it is my own concept, well actually I think it dwells in the hearts of all men and did so before Augustine decided to give it such an awkward representation.
I don't want to be all snowflakey about the photo of the dead deer, it's not like it ruined my day or anything, just gave me something to talk about. I thought the dawgs would be interested in the current event, but I find no interest at all, and I do have to write about something, to maintain my level of output.
I am thinking if some big old bear happens to eat me I am not going to feel better about it if he leaves a little bit of tobacco on the scene of my demise. Notice how the animals are doing all the giving and Man is doing all the taking. Not too surprising considering it is Man who is making the whole thing up. Maybe this makes the hunter feel better about the whole affair, but it doesn't mean a thing to anybody else.
And this whole thing about poor pitiable man without horns and claws is a lot of human hooey. Animal-wise we are huge, we have those opposable thumbs, those gargantuan brains. Look how we dominate the world. Those animals that we prey on must feel pretty foolish about giving themselves up to us in the olden days and god knows why they would feel that way in the current day.
Why do we go to such lengths to make up these myths? I assert that it is guilt. Because of our gargantuan brains we think about things. I maintain that being very social animals morality of the altruistic kind is baked into our brains, and being thoughty we have extended that into a whole sort of philosophy on a basic level, and we just feel bad about killing things.
But of course we have to kill things, we couldn't survive if we didn't. Our forebears were almost all vegetarian, but in order to feed the gargantuan brains we were developing we needed the protein we could only get from meat, and once we had those big brains we could think about good and evil which knowledge led us to think there is something wrong about killing things.
This is all kind of gimcracky, and I have left some holes in my thinking, but I am going to leave it here for the day.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
The Book of Uncle Ken
Old Dog, I'm pretty sure that Uncle Ken is not talking about the Biblical story of original sin. He seems to be writing his own version of it, or maybe he is speaking about it in a metaphorical sense. I believe his inspiration came from the dead deer picture that I posted the other day, for which I have already apologized. Our local newspaper printed such pictures for decades, but then somebody complained and they stopped doing it. I understand that pictures like that can be disturbing to some people and, within reason, we should respect their sensibilities.
There has been lots of discussion about the predator-prey relationship over the years by scientists, theologians, philosophers, and storytellers. Probably my favorite comes from the Native American tradition: When the Great Spirit created the animals, he gave them all tools to help them survive, but Man seemed to have been shortchanged in that respect. He was not as swift as some of the others, his teeth and claws were not efficient weapons, and he didn't have enough hair to keep him warm in the winter. The other creatures took pity on Man and promised to provide him with gifts that would help him survive. When a hunter kills a deer, for example, the Deer Spirit is giving up a part of himself to help the hunter and his family survive. All the Deer Spirit asks in return is the gratitude and respect of the hunter and his people, which some of us express by sprinkling a small offering of tobacco on the ground even unto this day.
I am allowed to take two more deer this season, but I think I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. Perhaps out of deference to my advanced age, the Deer Spirit kindly allowed me to drop this deer in the middle of the clearing instead of having to drag it out of the swamp to a place where I could pick it up with my tractor. Even so, I was totally exhausted by the time I got it hung up in the barn and skinned. I started processing the meat today and, the way I work, it will be three more days before I get it all cut up and in the freezer. I have taken two deer in one season twice in the past, but I was a lot younger in those days. "You know when you're old when work is not as much fun as it used to be, fun is a lot more work than it used to be, and it takes you longer to rest up than it took you to get tired." - source forgotten
There has been lots of discussion about the predator-prey relationship over the years by scientists, theologians, philosophers, and storytellers. Probably my favorite comes from the Native American tradition: When the Great Spirit created the animals, he gave them all tools to help them survive, but Man seemed to have been shortchanged in that respect. He was not as swift as some of the others, his teeth and claws were not efficient weapons, and he didn't have enough hair to keep him warm in the winter. The other creatures took pity on Man and promised to provide him with gifts that would help him survive. When a hunter kills a deer, for example, the Deer Spirit is giving up a part of himself to help the hunter and his family survive. All the Deer Spirit asks in return is the gratitude and respect of the hunter and his people, which some of us express by sprinkling a small offering of tobacco on the ground even unto this day.
I am allowed to take two more deer this season, but I think I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. Perhaps out of deference to my advanced age, the Deer Spirit kindly allowed me to drop this deer in the middle of the clearing instead of having to drag it out of the swamp to a place where I could pick it up with my tractor. Even so, I was totally exhausted by the time I got it hung up in the barn and skinned. I started processing the meat today and, the way I work, it will be three more days before I get it all cut up and in the freezer. I have taken two deer in one season twice in the past, but I was a lot younger in those days. "You know when you're old when work is not as much fun as it used to be, fun is a lot more work than it used to be, and it takes you longer to rest up than it took you to get tired." - source forgotten
Checking in
Well done, Mr.Beagles, for your success in putting meat on the table. Venison tenderloins make for some fine dining, I must say. Have you bagged your limit for the season or can you take another shot at some meat on the hoof?
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I keep getting text messages from the Trump campaign, the latest a minute ago. For a donation of $7 or more I will receive some free (!) Trump wrapping paper. Wrapping paper? Jeez Louise!
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Eating is not the original sin, killing your neighbor is the original sin.
WTF, Uncle Ken, no it's not. Look it up, and do Fritos belong in the refrigerator?
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For more insight on the impeachment process this is worth a read. The Founding Fathers, especially Hamilton, knew what they were doing. It's almost as if they could peer into the future.
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I keep getting text messages from the Trump campaign, the latest a minute ago. For a donation of $7 or more I will receive some free (!) Trump wrapping paper. Wrapping paper? Jeez Louise!
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Eating is not the original sin, killing your neighbor is the original sin.
WTF, Uncle Ken, no it's not. Look it up, and do Fritos belong in the refrigerator?
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For more insight on the impeachment process this is worth a read. The Founding Fathers, especially Hamilton, knew what they were doing. It's almost as if they could peer into the future.
the noble scavanger
There are maybe four current talking points for the reps defending the prez and in that interview Chris Wallace demolished every one and had some time to debunk a few of those side conspiracy theories. So in twelve minutes you more or less got the gist of a couple days of hearings. Without the minutia, which, I'll be frank, is getting, well a little boring, my mind wanders often, and sometimes I look forward to some republican chair throwing. I wonder if my man Schiff is holding too tight a rein. We want those suburban voters to be watching this and how long will they be watching without a little color?
regardless of how the impeachment thing turns out, if indeed it ever turns out.
The train is sitting in the station. The conductors are leaning out the doors clearing their throats before issuing their ringing, All Aboard, and Beagles is standing on the platform muttering "I don't think this train will ever get here."
Eating is not the original sin, killing your neighbor is the original sin. The garden of Eden was those original chlorophyll guys floating luxuriously on the surface of a warm sea, basking in the life-giving rays of the sun. I was going to say they were living in harmony with nature, but actually they were nature. Mother Nature was a toddler dragging a sprinkling can behind her. I posited originally that life was so abundant that life juices were slurping out of the cells available for the taking, but it is more reasonable to assume that there were scavengers. Easy as it is to keep that chlorophyll engine going, it was probably even easier to just reach into some dead guy's fridge and grab a bag of Fritos.
And then at some point one of the scavengers was eyeing that bag of Fritos in his dying neighbor's fridge, and here the music swells, and just got a little impatient and thought well why don't I give him a nudge, and here the cymbals clang.
Having a cat at home when I was a kid I used to like to read books about lions and in their homeland there is always a bit of bad blood between the hyenas and the lions. The lion with his mane waving in the breeze is noble, while the hyena with its skulking ways and unnerving laugh is the bad guy.
And not only that, the hyena is a scavenger. Ugh, The lion, as the books seemed to say to me, only ate what it killed, which was somehow better. I don't know why but it just sounded better. Later I discovered that lions will indeed scavenge a fresh body. It goes against all our ideas of nobility but to the lion it is probably just like, oh look, an open bag of Fritos.
regardless of how the impeachment thing turns out, if indeed it ever turns out.
The train is sitting in the station. The conductors are leaning out the doors clearing their throats before issuing their ringing, All Aboard, and Beagles is standing on the platform muttering "I don't think this train will ever get here."
Eating is not the original sin, killing your neighbor is the original sin. The garden of Eden was those original chlorophyll guys floating luxuriously on the surface of a warm sea, basking in the life-giving rays of the sun. I was going to say they were living in harmony with nature, but actually they were nature. Mother Nature was a toddler dragging a sprinkling can behind her. I posited originally that life was so abundant that life juices were slurping out of the cells available for the taking, but it is more reasonable to assume that there were scavengers. Easy as it is to keep that chlorophyll engine going, it was probably even easier to just reach into some dead guy's fridge and grab a bag of Fritos.
And then at some point one of the scavengers was eyeing that bag of Fritos in his dying neighbor's fridge, and here the music swells, and just got a little impatient and thought well why don't I give him a nudge, and here the cymbals clang.
Having a cat at home when I was a kid I used to like to read books about lions and in their homeland there is always a bit of bad blood between the hyenas and the lions. The lion with his mane waving in the breeze is noble, while the hyena with its skulking ways and unnerving laugh is the bad guy.
And not only that, the hyena is a scavenger. Ugh, The lion, as the books seemed to say to me, only ate what it killed, which was somehow better. I don't know why but it just sounded better. Later I discovered that lions will indeed scavenge a fresh body. It goes against all our ideas of nobility but to the lion it is probably just like, oh look, an open bag of Fritos.
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Eat Thy Neighbor
I used to know a guy who came from Brazil. He said that he was of mixed ancestry, mostly native Amazonian Indians and Black African slaves. He confided this to me one day: "If a vegetarian eats mostly vegetables, and a fruitarian eats mostly fruit, and a lactarian eats mostly dairy products, then my ancestors were great human-itarians."
Uncle Ken seems to be saying that eating was the original sin. But how can that be when every living thing has to eat something to stay alive? Even plants draw nutrition from the decomposed bodies of other plants and animals that have returned to the soil from whence they came. Okay, I suppose those mysterious creatures that live around undersea geothermal vents subsist on minerals or something. Is Uncle Ken saying that we should all be like that when we grow up? Doesn't sound like fun to me.
Speaking of things that are not fun, I watched that 12 minute interview. I thought it was the same old jibber jabber that we see on TV all the time. Interviewer asks question. Interviewee does not want to answer question, so he talks about something else. So what else is new?
"You know I'm a nag but if you don't pay close attention to something yourself you become dependent on what other people have to say about it, and then your decision rests on your perceived credibility of the various people who are explaining it to you, and of course your friends are going to have more credibility than some strangers and you will tend to agree with whatever your friends say rather than what the merits of the case would indicate." - Uncle Ken
The thing is, I don't have to make a decision about the impeachment show. I didn't vote for Trump last time, and I probably won't vote for him this time, regardless of how the impeachment thing turns out, if indeed it ever turns out.
Uncle Ken seems to be saying that eating was the original sin. But how can that be when every living thing has to eat something to stay alive? Even plants draw nutrition from the decomposed bodies of other plants and animals that have returned to the soil from whence they came. Okay, I suppose those mysterious creatures that live around undersea geothermal vents subsist on minerals or something. Is Uncle Ken saying that we should all be like that when we grow up? Doesn't sound like fun to me.
Speaking of things that are not fun, I watched that 12 minute interview. I thought it was the same old jibber jabber that we see on TV all the time. Interviewer asks question. Interviewee does not want to answer question, so he talks about something else. So what else is new?
"You know I'm a nag but if you don't pay close attention to something yourself you become dependent on what other people have to say about it, and then your decision rests on your perceived credibility of the various people who are explaining it to you, and of course your friends are going to have more credibility than some strangers and you will tend to agree with whatever your friends say rather than what the merits of the case would indicate." - Uncle Ken
The thing is, I don't have to make a decision about the impeachment show. I didn't vote for Trump last time, and I probably won't vote for him this time, regardless of how the impeachment thing turns out, if indeed it ever turns out.
the original original sin
I think I was entrusted by one of the dawgs to report on Ukraine Gate (how has this gone on so long and not been assigned a Gate at the end? Oh, the google machine tells me that it already has but in the form of a single word: Ukraingate). You know I'm a nag but if you don't pay close attention to something yourself you become dependent on what other people have to say about it, and then your decision rests on your perceived credibility of the various people who are explaining it to you, and of course your friends are going to have more credibility than some strangers and you will tend to agree with whatever your friends say rather than what the merits of the case would indicate. This is probably a major factor in tribalism where people tend to believe whatever the people around them believe. Did anybody at least spend twelve minutes listening to that Chris Wallace interview?.
If this was oh, twenty thousand years ago and Beagles and I were members of the same tribe in oh, I don't know, the tippy tip of what was to become Michigan, and he showed me that dead deer I reckon I would have been very happy. Good eating tonight. I may have dashed off some hurried little phrase to the Great Spirit (rub a dub dub, here comes the grub, something like that), but I would be mainly thinking about filling my stomach. And why shouldn't I be? If I didn't eat I wouldn't live,
Oh I suppose I could have gotten by on roots and berries. But roots and berries you know they are alive too, or were until you ate them, Oh I am talking about original sin again. Latest word from the white-coated guys is that we began in those underwater vents, There is certainly a lot going on down there, but not much room for growth, all around you is cold empty water. But some of us managed to squirm our way to the top where the sun meets the sea.and the brightest of us figured out that if we just take some of that carbon dioxide and added a little packet of energy from the sun, why we could split the carbon from the oxygen and in the process get a big smack dap of energy to service whatever needed to be done to keep the junk between the cell walls humming, and life was good.
We lived long and prospered and had a lot of kids in the process and at some point it got crowded. We were cheek to jowl before we even had cheeks or jowls, and this is pure speculation but I reckon that the good juice was seeping and floating around available for the slurping so we didn't have to work our chlorophyll so hard, and then a bright but bad boy among us decided why not just eat my neighbor?
And of course that leads straight to the deer in the snow.
I could go on and I probably will, but not his morning with a newspaper to read and an alley to paint and hearings beginning at eight.
If this was oh, twenty thousand years ago and Beagles and I were members of the same tribe in oh, I don't know, the tippy tip of what was to become Michigan, and he showed me that dead deer I reckon I would have been very happy. Good eating tonight. I may have dashed off some hurried little phrase to the Great Spirit (rub a dub dub, here comes the grub, something like that), but I would be mainly thinking about filling my stomach. And why shouldn't I be? If I didn't eat I wouldn't live,
Oh I suppose I could have gotten by on roots and berries. But roots and berries you know they are alive too, or were until you ate them, Oh I am talking about original sin again. Latest word from the white-coated guys is that we began in those underwater vents, There is certainly a lot going on down there, but not much room for growth, all around you is cold empty water. But some of us managed to squirm our way to the top where the sun meets the sea.and the brightest of us figured out that if we just take some of that carbon dioxide and added a little packet of energy from the sun, why we could split the carbon from the oxygen and in the process get a big smack dap of energy to service whatever needed to be done to keep the junk between the cell walls humming, and life was good.
We lived long and prospered and had a lot of kids in the process and at some point it got crowded. We were cheek to jowl before we even had cheeks or jowls, and this is pure speculation but I reckon that the good juice was seeping and floating around available for the slurping so we didn't have to work our chlorophyll so hard, and then a bright but bad boy among us decided why not just eat my neighbor?
And of course that leads straight to the deer in the snow.
I could go on and I probably will, but not his morning with a newspaper to read and an alley to paint and hearings beginning at eight.
Monday, November 18, 2019
Sorry
Sorry that the photo of the dead deer made Uncle Ken feel bad. Hunting is not for everybody, and I promise not to post any more dead animal pictures on this site. I felt a little sad myself seeing that beautiful creature laying dead in the snow. It's kind of complicated, but I think a lot of hunters feel a mixture of joy and sadness when they make a kill.
I'm interested in the impeachment proceedings, but not nearly as interested as my esteemed colleagues. I do try to catch the highlights most days, but I don't have the patience to sit and watch the whole thing.
the bull in the china shop
I had an Italian beef sandwich for lunch yesterday and I ate it with gusto, but I hated to see that fellow lying in the snow. I don't want to outlaw hunting or take Old Betsy out of Beagles's hands, but I feel bad looking at that guy.
The radio just said that there will be more hearings this week and I am stoked. Actually they have become a little boring. The testimony of the witnesses is ahem, unimpeachable, they are dignified and knowledgeable with no reason to lie. They stand in stark contrast to the craven slavering reps. Schiff gives a little recap, the dems lawyer gives a longer recap, In between reps raise points of order which are pointless and Adam swats them away like those clouds of gnats you sometimes walk into when you are walking along a river on a late summer day. Then Nunes rattles on about odd conspiracy theories, then the rep's lawyer acts like he is roundaboutly working the witness into a trap, but then there is no trap. I wonder what they are paying these guy. Then there is the dem/rep rant/rave. The dems praise the witnesses to the high heavens, the reps go on about Biden, the whistleblower, second hand sources, and secret meeting in bunkers that only the people who belong to the committee can go to.
You know I am a big fan of the Sunday Talk shows, Fox included. Tuned into it just as Chris Wallace (no liberal icon) was interviewing Scalise. Guys like Scalise they have these four or five talking points that they routinely use to buck up the prez and Chris Wallace demolished each and one of them leaving Scalise squirming. Here it is. It's only twelve minutes in case the dawgs are pressed for time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXiWxXKobUc
Trump's attack on Yovanovitch broke up the mild tedium of the hearings. There has been some talk of including a charge of intimidating the witness to the impeachment, but I don't know, I think it might blunt the sharp shiv of the Ukraine phone call. But it does reveal one more thorn in the side of the reps as they try to support the prez, and that is the prez himself.
I've been reading a bit about the senate preparing itself for the trial. Originally McConnell was thinking of using some parliamentary procedure to just dump the whole thing, but it's too late for that, and now, fearing that suburban vote, they want to make it a quiet little affair, but guys like Rand Paul and Coatless Jim Jordan want it to be a circus, and you know who else wants to make it a circus? The prez. Does anybody think he is not going to have his stubby fingers all over the event?
One of the things mot mentioned when the dems were going over the pros and cons of impeachment is that it will let loose the bull in the china shop/
The radio just said that there will be more hearings this week and I am stoked. Actually they have become a little boring. The testimony of the witnesses is ahem, unimpeachable, they are dignified and knowledgeable with no reason to lie. They stand in stark contrast to the craven slavering reps. Schiff gives a little recap, the dems lawyer gives a longer recap, In between reps raise points of order which are pointless and Adam swats them away like those clouds of gnats you sometimes walk into when you are walking along a river on a late summer day. Then Nunes rattles on about odd conspiracy theories, then the rep's lawyer acts like he is roundaboutly working the witness into a trap, but then there is no trap. I wonder what they are paying these guy. Then there is the dem/rep rant/rave. The dems praise the witnesses to the high heavens, the reps go on about Biden, the whistleblower, second hand sources, and secret meeting in bunkers that only the people who belong to the committee can go to.
You know I am a big fan of the Sunday Talk shows, Fox included. Tuned into it just as Chris Wallace (no liberal icon) was interviewing Scalise. Guys like Scalise they have these four or five talking points that they routinely use to buck up the prez and Chris Wallace demolished each and one of them leaving Scalise squirming. Here it is. It's only twelve minutes in case the dawgs are pressed for time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXiWxXKobUc
Trump's attack on Yovanovitch broke up the mild tedium of the hearings. There has been some talk of including a charge of intimidating the witness to the impeachment, but I don't know, I think it might blunt the sharp shiv of the Ukraine phone call. But it does reveal one more thorn in the side of the reps as they try to support the prez, and that is the prez himself.
I've been reading a bit about the senate preparing itself for the trial. Originally McConnell was thinking of using some parliamentary procedure to just dump the whole thing, but it's too late for that, and now, fearing that suburban vote, they want to make it a quiet little affair, but guys like Rand Paul and Coatless Jim Jordan want it to be a circus, and you know who else wants to make it a circus? The prez. Does anybody think he is not going to have his stubby fingers all over the event?
One of the things mot mentioned when the dems were going over the pros and cons of impeachment is that it will let loose the bull in the china shop/
Sunday, November 17, 2019
The One That Didn't Get Away
At 9:30 this morning, I saw this guy coming straight towards me at 100 yards. When he got to 50 yards I dropped him in his tracks, right in the middle of the clearing. I walked home and came back with the tractor, which I was able to drive right up to him. Life is good.
Friday, November 15, 2019
The One That Got Away
I set my trailcam up on Tuesday, three days before the opener, and this is the only good picture it took. It looks like this doe was spooked by something, probably me as I was walking towards my blind this morning. I always approach the blind from the rear, slowly and cautiously, and I did not see this deer, so it was probably long gone by the time I got there. Judging from the tracks I saw on my way home at noon, there were two other deer in the area last night or early this morning, and one of them might have been a buck.
I didn't go online last night because I was not feeling good, and I wanted to get some sleep before Opening Day. I am feeling better today, but I think I'll take tomorrow off. When you spook a deer like that, it's a good idea to give the spot a rest for a day or two. I'll let Uncle Ken cover the impeachment hearings for me since he seems to be doing a good job of it.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
recap of Wednesday
I am going to hazard a guess that neither of the Dawgs watched the first day of hearings, so I will give a recap. Of course I am biased but I think they went rather well for the dems. First of all they were orderly. Right at the beginning the reps were raising meaningless points of order, but calm and composed Adam Schiff batted them away without fanfare and the proceedings proceeded.
Adam Schiff made a little speech, kind of like the lawyer does at the beginning of the trial, we will show this and that, all neat and proper, and then Nunes came on and he spoke debunked conspiracy theories and how the whistleblower should be unmasked, basic republican obfuscation and distraction tactics. Then the two witnesses, Taylor and Kent came on and gave little speeches, well Kent did, but Taylor, who was obviously the top dog of the two tended to go on for a bit.
And then the interrogators came on, the dems had kind of a smooth guy, Trump (who didn't watch a stitch of the hearings because he was too busy doing oh, important presidential stuff) has described him as a television lawyer and in this rare case I would tend to agree. The republican's guy was also a tv lawyer type, but a 50's lawyer type, he had his elbow on the table and his fist on his jawbone and talked out of the side of his mouth. You could almost see him adjusting the lightbulb so that it pointed directly into the perp's eyes as he reached back for the rubber hose.
The dem's guy basically just repeated what the guys said and talked about how swell the guys were. Well they were swell, Taylor especially was like 5th in his class at West Point and had been in combat in the mideast. They didn't seem political at all, just guys who really believed in the Ukranian cause and couldn't believe that aid was being withheld. I'm not sure what the point of the rep's guy was, he muttered the usual obfuscation and distraction boilerplate, but then just faded out. If he was Muhammad Ali his slogan would have been float like a butterfly, sting like a butterfly.
Then they went to the five minute rep/dem rant/rave thing, only it was more complicated, people kept ceding minutes to their teammates. This was the time for Coatless Jim Jordan, the ringer, to shine. Well he was dazzling in his resplendent pastel shirt and tie, elbows on the table, hunched forward, big mouth full of tiny teeth flashing, jabberjabberjabberjabberjabber and then a slight pause that makes you think the question is about to be asked, but no, he is merely taking a breath, and then he is on again, jabberjabberjabberjabberjabber, and after a few of these divebombing maneuvers he drops the question, and what the hell is he asking? His questions were easily answered, but he put a smirk on his face anyway like he had made a telling point.
It's not going to turn the heads of the rep sens, but nothing will do that, The important question is the suburban voter. Watching tv is easier than reading a book, and the dem's case was clearly presented and well, I think it went well.
The Trib and the Sun-Times are on the table beside me, and now I will go to the reviews.
Adam Schiff made a little speech, kind of like the lawyer does at the beginning of the trial, we will show this and that, all neat and proper, and then Nunes came on and he spoke debunked conspiracy theories and how the whistleblower should be unmasked, basic republican obfuscation and distraction tactics. Then the two witnesses, Taylor and Kent came on and gave little speeches, well Kent did, but Taylor, who was obviously the top dog of the two tended to go on for a bit.
And then the interrogators came on, the dems had kind of a smooth guy, Trump (who didn't watch a stitch of the hearings because he was too busy doing oh, important presidential stuff) has described him as a television lawyer and in this rare case I would tend to agree. The republican's guy was also a tv lawyer type, but a 50's lawyer type, he had his elbow on the table and his fist on his jawbone and talked out of the side of his mouth. You could almost see him adjusting the lightbulb so that it pointed directly into the perp's eyes as he reached back for the rubber hose.
The dem's guy basically just repeated what the guys said and talked about how swell the guys were. Well they were swell, Taylor especially was like 5th in his class at West Point and had been in combat in the mideast. They didn't seem political at all, just guys who really believed in the Ukranian cause and couldn't believe that aid was being withheld. I'm not sure what the point of the rep's guy was, he muttered the usual obfuscation and distraction boilerplate, but then just faded out. If he was Muhammad Ali his slogan would have been float like a butterfly, sting like a butterfly.
Then they went to the five minute rep/dem rant/rave thing, only it was more complicated, people kept ceding minutes to their teammates. This was the time for Coatless Jim Jordan, the ringer, to shine. Well he was dazzling in his resplendent pastel shirt and tie, elbows on the table, hunched forward, big mouth full of tiny teeth flashing, jabberjabberjabberjabberjabber and then a slight pause that makes you think the question is about to be asked, but no, he is merely taking a breath, and then he is on again, jabberjabberjabberjabberjabber, and after a few of these divebombing maneuvers he drops the question, and what the hell is he asking? His questions were easily answered, but he put a smirk on his face anyway like he had made a telling point.
It's not going to turn the heads of the rep sens, but nothing will do that, The important question is the suburban voter. Watching tv is easier than reading a book, and the dem's case was clearly presented and well, I think it went well.
The Trib and the Sun-Times are on the table beside me, and now I will go to the reviews.
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Raising the curtain
I could read about Bill's impeachment on wiki but I want something more. I don't know about this Bleyer guy, I think I want something more objective with a lot of background on the guys who wrote it and what they thought and what they thought that.
So I guess all this preceding chatter has been kind of like the murmuring and the passing of boxes of popcorn before the curtain rises, and now we can sit back and watch the show. I see where they have improved the hearings, it's not going to be five minutes dem, five minutes reps, repeat until the flying chairs make you dizzy, I think both sides will have their own questioner and that guy will spend like 45 minutes interrogating the witnesses, This may tend to be a little boring but I do expect the republicans to disrupt the hearings from time to time, because they are like the guy who never puts his jacket on, they just can't sit still.
I don't know what legal loopholes Old Dog is referring to. And the reason the senate will not vote to indict the president is not because of some legal niceties, it is because Trump has 90 percent approval among republican voters. If it was a dem charged with the same things their thumbs would be down in a heart beat.
Here's one way to look at it. the dems want the public to think that this is a simple matter, and the reps want the public to think that it is a complicated matter.
It occurs to me that while the senate is the jury that will be handing down the verdict, the real jury will be the voters, or more specifically the independents, the undecided, the great wishy washy. Lately I have noticed that they are calling them the suburban vote which seems fair enough, the cities are bright blue and the rural areas are bright red, and the purple is in the edges between them, the burbs.
Almost surely the prez will not be tossed from office, but if there is a significant blueward tilt in the purple areas it will be a victory for the dems, if it weakens a few rep sens so that they fall and the dems take the senate there will be dancing in the street in the bluetown. Also they are hoping to blue the purple states that will give them the presidency.
The reps will appeal to the tribe, look they are trying to get rid of our president, they are a bunch of shits and traitors. They will be hoping to redden the purple areas so that maybe they can take the house and also assure a second term for Trump.
So gentlemen the true jury will be the purples and the true verdict will be the 2020's election. Let the games begin.
So I guess all this preceding chatter has been kind of like the murmuring and the passing of boxes of popcorn before the curtain rises, and now we can sit back and watch the show. I see where they have improved the hearings, it's not going to be five minutes dem, five minutes reps, repeat until the flying chairs make you dizzy, I think both sides will have their own questioner and that guy will spend like 45 minutes interrogating the witnesses, This may tend to be a little boring but I do expect the republicans to disrupt the hearings from time to time, because they are like the guy who never puts his jacket on, they just can't sit still.
I don't know what legal loopholes Old Dog is referring to. And the reason the senate will not vote to indict the president is not because of some legal niceties, it is because Trump has 90 percent approval among republican voters. If it was a dem charged with the same things their thumbs would be down in a heart beat.
Here's one way to look at it. the dems want the public to think that this is a simple matter, and the reps want the public to think that it is a complicated matter.
It occurs to me that while the senate is the jury that will be handing down the verdict, the real jury will be the voters, or more specifically the independents, the undecided, the great wishy washy. Lately I have noticed that they are calling them the suburban vote which seems fair enough, the cities are bright blue and the rural areas are bright red, and the purple is in the edges between them, the burbs.
Almost surely the prez will not be tossed from office, but if there is a significant blueward tilt in the purple areas it will be a victory for the dems, if it weakens a few rep sens so that they fall and the dems take the senate there will be dancing in the street in the bluetown. Also they are hoping to blue the purple states that will give them the presidency.
The reps will appeal to the tribe, look they are trying to get rid of our president, they are a bunch of shits and traitors. They will be hoping to redden the purple areas so that maybe they can take the house and also assure a second term for Trump.
So gentlemen the true jury will be the purples and the true verdict will be the 2020's election. Let the games begin.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
A Tale of Two Impeachments
Uncle Ken: If you want to know how the Clinton impeachment compares to the Trump impeachment, here's an article about it from my news app:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBWFcAU?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
If you want to know about the shenanigans of the framers of our constitution, you really should read the book I recommended. It's sarcastic and irreverent, but I think there's a lot of truth in it.
Thanks for setting me straight about Adam Clayton Powell, and for explaining about all the debunking that's been going on.
I took my stuff out to the deer blind today in preparation for the November 15 opener. It was easy going for the tractor, with no significant snow accumulation and the swamp solidly frozen. That's what happens when we get cold temperatures before we get a lot of snow. It would be nice if it stayed that way all winter, but I don't expect it to. After this Arctic Blast, it's supposed to warm up and rain for awhile.
https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBWFcAU?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
If you want to know about the shenanigans of the framers of our constitution, you really should read the book I recommended. It's sarcastic and irreverent, but I think there's a lot of truth in it.
Thanks for setting me straight about Adam Clayton Powell, and for explaining about all the debunking that's been going on.
I took my stuff out to the deer blind today in preparation for the November 15 opener. It was easy going for the tractor, with no significant snow accumulation and the swamp solidly frozen. That's what happens when we get cold temperatures before we get a lot of snow. It would be nice if it stayed that way all winter, but I don't expect it to. After this Arctic Blast, it's supposed to warm up and rain for awhile.
Short
Still here, but nothing meaningful to add. You guys are doing a fine job of covering the details of impeachment and I am content to sit on the sidelines and watch the story unfold, I think it's a done deal that Trump will be impeached by the House but I don't think the Senate will toss him out of office. There is too much that is open to interpretation and legal loopholes abound.
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A belated Happy Veterans Day to all, but it's disheartening to hear our Commander in Chief express his wooden sentiments. History books should describe his term of office as the "Years of Shame."
That's all I have for now. Thinking about current political matters is ruining my appetite and I couldn't find any good squirrel news lately. I'll think of something.
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A belated Happy Veterans Day to all, but it's disheartening to hear our Commander in Chief express his wooden sentiments. History books should describe his term of office as the "Years of Shame."
That's all I have for now. Thinking about current political matters is ruining my appetite and I couldn't find any good squirrel news lately. I'll think of something.
debunked
When I went to Barnes and Noble I had a hard time finding a book on the constitution or the impeachment of Slick Willie. There are like five bookshelves of American History but it is not separated into Colonial, Pre Civil War, Twentieth Century and like that. The whole thing is just ordered by Author. I mean WTF.
So without reading each and every spine I could not find what I was looking for.and then a book by the author of that article on impeachment, Jill Lapore, These Truths, caught my eye. It's a brick of a book telling the story of the US from 1492 to Donald Trump. So far the colonists from England are just beginning to drop anchor. A lot of the history of the US especially the early years is the white man fucking over the unwhite man. I know this, I think most people know this, and yet writers, especially of my ilk make a point of pointing this out with alarm, like this is the first time anybody was made aware of this. It gets tiresome. Maybe I'll have to skip ahead to get to the story of the constitution and Bill's impeachment.
Adam Clayton Powell was from New York. He got back in by being reelected. I don't know if Trump could run again if he is convicted by the senate, and for that to happen his popularity would have to be so low that he could never be reelected anyway.
Debunked is not a technical or legal term. It should probably just be bunked, but I guess it's one of those words like inflammable. It roughly means verified to be false. For instance one of Trump's thing is the Crowdstrike computer which his conspiracy theory says is in the Ukraine, but everybody knows it is in the US, you can look it up and find it out. It is a theory that has been debunked. Another is that Biden's son was involved in some kind of nefarious business in Ukraine. When you ask the purveyors of this nonsense what the nefarious business is they have no answer. It is just something dreamed up out of whole cloth by some conspiracist on a slow day and passed around among them because they like the sound of it, but again there is no proof for it of any kind. It has been debunked..
In pre-Trump days once something was debunked its purveyors dropped it because who wants to be seen to be a liar. These days there is no shame in telling lies so they just keep on saying it, and people have to call out that it has been debunked, and that's why you hear the word so often lately.
So without reading each and every spine I could not find what I was looking for.and then a book by the author of that article on impeachment, Jill Lapore, These Truths, caught my eye. It's a brick of a book telling the story of the US from 1492 to Donald Trump. So far the colonists from England are just beginning to drop anchor. A lot of the history of the US especially the early years is the white man fucking over the unwhite man. I know this, I think most people know this, and yet writers, especially of my ilk make a point of pointing this out with alarm, like this is the first time anybody was made aware of this. It gets tiresome. Maybe I'll have to skip ahead to get to the story of the constitution and Bill's impeachment.
Adam Clayton Powell was from New York. He got back in by being reelected. I don't know if Trump could run again if he is convicted by the senate, and for that to happen his popularity would have to be so low that he could never be reelected anyway.
Debunked is not a technical or legal term. It should probably just be bunked, but I guess it's one of those words like inflammable. It roughly means verified to be false. For instance one of Trump's thing is the Crowdstrike computer which his conspiracy theory says is in the Ukraine, but everybody knows it is in the US, you can look it up and find it out. It is a theory that has been debunked. Another is that Biden's son was involved in some kind of nefarious business in Ukraine. When you ask the purveyors of this nonsense what the nefarious business is they have no answer. It is just something dreamed up out of whole cloth by some conspiracist on a slow day and passed around among them because they like the sound of it, but again there is no proof for it of any kind. It has been debunked..
In pre-Trump days once something was debunked its purveyors dropped it because who wants to be seen to be a liar. These days there is no shame in telling lies so they just keep on saying it, and people have to call out that it has been debunked, and that's why you hear the word so often lately.
Monday, November 11, 2019
Read This One Uncle Ken
I seem to remember mentioning this book before. It's been a few years since I read it, but I thought at the time that Uncle Ken would like it:
"Me the People - One Man's Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America" by Kevin Bleyer
Okay, one more time: The House will act as prosecutor, the Senate will act as jury, and Trump will act as Trump. Speaking of Trump, I have seen a few pro-Trump yard signs lately. I don't think they are about the impeachment, I think they are about the next election. At first I thought they had been recycled from the last election, but I saw two flags flying from my neighbor's flagpole today that said "Trump 2020". One of our U.S. Senators is up for re-election next year, and I have already seen two TV ads about him, one for and one against, and I don't think that anybody has announced that they are running against him yet. The negative ad didn't mention another candidate, just that the incumbent is bad news because he endorses parts of the Green New Deal.
I seem to remember a congressman from Illinois named Adam Clayton Powell from the old days. His colleagues kicked him out of Congress for corruption or something. He claimed that it was because he was Black, although he looked White to me in the pictures I saw of him. He ran and won in the election that was held to fill his vacancy. There was a big uproar about it, but I think they had to let him back in. It has occurred to me that Trump could do something like that, and wonder if anybody else has thought of it.
I keep hearing about things being "debunked". Exactly how does something get debunked? Is there a formal debunking process, or does somebody unilaterally declare something to be debunked? Can anybody do that, or do you have to be a Democrat? It reminds me of the way they talk about a cougar or a UFO sighting being "unconfirmed". How many people have to report the same sighting before it gets confirmed? Maybe only one, if it's the correct person. That's what I want to be when I grow up, a professional debunker and confirmer.
I didn't know about that mission to fight the commies after World War I, I thought our government was on their side in those days. The reason it was reported in our local magazine was that many of those guys were from Michigan. The nickname of their regiment was "The Polar Bears", and the campaign was later referred to as "Operation Polar Bear". They were originally sent to fight the Germans in France but, by the time they arrived in England, the war was winding down, so they ended up being sent to Russia to keep those supplies from falling into the wrong hands, but it was too late for that. Some of them questioned why they were still there six months after the war for which they enlisted was over, and there were some rumors of mutiny that were subsequently debunked. They did write home about it, which was a good thing, because otherwise they might have disappeared into the mists of history and never been heard from again. It was not the first time or the last time that our government sent troops on an ill conceived and poorly planned mission that was doomed to fail. I would say that they do it on purpose, but that would just be paranoid. Happy Veterans Day!
"Me the People - One Man's Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America" by Kevin Bleyer
Okay, one more time: The House will act as prosecutor, the Senate will act as jury, and Trump will act as Trump. Speaking of Trump, I have seen a few pro-Trump yard signs lately. I don't think they are about the impeachment, I think they are about the next election. At first I thought they had been recycled from the last election, but I saw two flags flying from my neighbor's flagpole today that said "Trump 2020". One of our U.S. Senators is up for re-election next year, and I have already seen two TV ads about him, one for and one against, and I don't think that anybody has announced that they are running against him yet. The negative ad didn't mention another candidate, just that the incumbent is bad news because he endorses parts of the Green New Deal.
I seem to remember a congressman from Illinois named Adam Clayton Powell from the old days. His colleagues kicked him out of Congress for corruption or something. He claimed that it was because he was Black, although he looked White to me in the pictures I saw of him. He ran and won in the election that was held to fill his vacancy. There was a big uproar about it, but I think they had to let him back in. It has occurred to me that Trump could do something like that, and wonder if anybody else has thought of it.
I keep hearing about things being "debunked". Exactly how does something get debunked? Is there a formal debunking process, or does somebody unilaterally declare something to be debunked? Can anybody do that, or do you have to be a Democrat? It reminds me of the way they talk about a cougar or a UFO sighting being "unconfirmed". How many people have to report the same sighting before it gets confirmed? Maybe only one, if it's the correct person. That's what I want to be when I grow up, a professional debunker and confirmer.
I didn't know about that mission to fight the commies after World War I, I thought our government was on their side in those days. The reason it was reported in our local magazine was that many of those guys were from Michigan. The nickname of their regiment was "The Polar Bears", and the campaign was later referred to as "Operation Polar Bear". They were originally sent to fight the Germans in France but, by the time they arrived in England, the war was winding down, so they ended up being sent to Russia to keep those supplies from falling into the wrong hands, but it was too late for that. Some of them questioned why they were still there six months after the war for which they enlisted was over, and there were some rumors of mutiny that were subsequently debunked. They did write home about it, which was a good thing, because otherwise they might have disappeared into the mists of history and never been heard from again. It was not the first time or the last time that our government sent troops on an ill conceived and poorly planned mission that was doomed to fail. I would say that they do it on purpose, but that would just be paranoid. Happy Veterans Day!
interesting times
Actually the article was written by a woman, Jill Lapore. It's snowing this morning and I have to get out of here for the cleaning lady, so instead of gadding about downtown I'll sneak into Barnes and Nobles and read an assortment of books while I sip my Starbucks frappocini (or whatever) from its cool glass bottle. I think I'll see if they have a good book on the writing of the constitution. It seems I've read about it before, but there is something about the Founding Fathers where they are always presented as noble and wise and far-seeing and always against a background of red white and blue. But in reality they surely slopped some of their porridge onto those lacy collars in the morning, and had several tankards of ale in the evening. I mean they were just like us, and we are, well, pretty sloppy. There has to be an interesting book on the subject.
I should probably read a book on Bill Clinton's impeachment also. It wasn't all that long ago and I remember myself as paying close attention, but now I can't remember the details. So I guess the democrats will send a team of prosecutors to the house and Trump will be defended by his own team of lawyers, possibly including his favorite gnome? Interesting because he is a lawyer's worst client. He will be constantly contradicting his own lawyers and likely hiring and firing them on a daily basis. I would hope he did this to the extent that some of his base will desert, but not likely I reckon, but possibly, still looking for some light to shine into the valley of death the dems are charging into.
Moscow Mitch will be trying to shut the whole thing down on some procedural vote with that solid wall of solid reps, but right now it seems like a Herculean task, will he even have the prez's support? The man loves to get into the arena. We certainly live in interesting times.
These current open investigations are follow ups to the closed investigations. They were always going to happen and are not an attempt to build public support. They will be like all those recent open hearings: five minutes of a democrat raving followed by five minutes of a republican ranting, Interesting at first like the first time you tune in the Jerry Springer show, but after fifteen minutes throwing chairs gets boring.
The dems want to keep it focused like a laser beam on the quid pro quo, The republicans want to obfuscate. Right now they are concentrating on the procedural part, namely that the dem's procedure is wrong, and then they don't even have to discuss the quid pro quo, they can yammer about closed investigations, open investigations, unmasking the whistle blower, exotic debunked conspiracy theories and so on and so on.
But Trump does not like this right now, he wants it to be on the quid pro quo, on his Perfect phone call, and now some reps are going to the fall back, that well, it was ahem, tacky, but not grounds for impeachment, but that is not good enough for His Trumpness who bristles at any action of his being called tacky. Everything He does is Perfect, to deny it is like denying The Trinity. Interesting times.
I am aware of the US army after WW I going after the commies in Russia. They weren't specifically there to aid the Czech Legion who were also there for some nefarious reason. Without going to the wiki what I recall was that they could no longer make it back traveling west through Europe so they hijacked a train and rode it clear to the the Pacific Ocean raiding for provisions along the way, and the reds were too preoccupied with the current crisis to do anything about it, but since they were leaving didn't make too much of a fuss about it.
There is another story about the Czechs at the end of WW II. Armies were roving the land and Prague was ripe for plundering and there was this regiment of Nazi soldiers composed of Russkies who had defected to the Germans with nowhere to go. They made a deal with Prague where they would protect the city in exchange for letting them camp there. It worked out pretty good for the Czechs, not so good for the Nazi Russkies who were later slaughtered by the reds, but that was always going to happen anyway.
I'm a little shaky on my facts here, and I should look it up, but right now I have to leave the house to see if I can find a book that has the straight skinny on the founding fathers.
I should probably read a book on Bill Clinton's impeachment also. It wasn't all that long ago and I remember myself as paying close attention, but now I can't remember the details. So I guess the democrats will send a team of prosecutors to the house and Trump will be defended by his own team of lawyers, possibly including his favorite gnome? Interesting because he is a lawyer's worst client. He will be constantly contradicting his own lawyers and likely hiring and firing them on a daily basis. I would hope he did this to the extent that some of his base will desert, but not likely I reckon, but possibly, still looking for some light to shine into the valley of death the dems are charging into.
Moscow Mitch will be trying to shut the whole thing down on some procedural vote with that solid wall of solid reps, but right now it seems like a Herculean task, will he even have the prez's support? The man loves to get into the arena. We certainly live in interesting times.
These current open investigations are follow ups to the closed investigations. They were always going to happen and are not an attempt to build public support. They will be like all those recent open hearings: five minutes of a democrat raving followed by five minutes of a republican ranting, Interesting at first like the first time you tune in the Jerry Springer show, but after fifteen minutes throwing chairs gets boring.
The dems want to keep it focused like a laser beam on the quid pro quo, The republicans want to obfuscate. Right now they are concentrating on the procedural part, namely that the dem's procedure is wrong, and then they don't even have to discuss the quid pro quo, they can yammer about closed investigations, open investigations, unmasking the whistle blower, exotic debunked conspiracy theories and so on and so on.
But Trump does not like this right now, he wants it to be on the quid pro quo, on his Perfect phone call, and now some reps are going to the fall back, that well, it was ahem, tacky, but not grounds for impeachment, but that is not good enough for His Trumpness who bristles at any action of his being called tacky. Everything He does is Perfect, to deny it is like denying The Trinity. Interesting times.
I am aware of the US army after WW I going after the commies in Russia. They weren't specifically there to aid the Czech Legion who were also there for some nefarious reason. Without going to the wiki what I recall was that they could no longer make it back traveling west through Europe so they hijacked a train and rode it clear to the the Pacific Ocean raiding for provisions along the way, and the reds were too preoccupied with the current crisis to do anything about it, but since they were leaving didn't make too much of a fuss about it.
There is another story about the Czechs at the end of WW II. Armies were roving the land and Prague was ripe for plundering and there was this regiment of Nazi soldiers composed of Russkies who had defected to the Germans with nowhere to go. They made a deal with Prague where they would protect the city in exchange for letting them camp there. It worked out pretty good for the Czechs, not so good for the Nazi Russkies who were later slaughtered by the reds, but that was always going to happen anyway.
I'm a little shaky on my facts here, and I should look it up, but right now I have to leave the house to see if I can find a book that has the straight skinny on the founding fathers.
Sunday, November 10, 2019
I Refuse to Bet
I was impressed by the article in Uncle Ken's link. Although it's mostly opinion, it's very well informed opinion. That guy certainly did his homework. As I understand it, somebody from the House will act as prosecutor. Trump will be the defendant and will be represented by a team of lawyers. They are not now in the prosecution phase, they are still in the investigation phase. Before prosecution can begin somebody has to draw up the articles of impeachment, and they will have to be approved by a majority of the House members. I agree that the investigation does not need to be open to the public at this time, but they have decided to make it so, probably in an attempt to drum up public support.
I don't know a lot about that Epstein case. Didn't he commit suicide before he could be brought to trial? If so, he is now beyond the reach of the law, although I heard that some of the alleged victims are planning to sue his estate. I suppose they can do that, but I'm not sure how it will work. I seem to remember that O.J. was acquitted of murder, but was convicted of "wrongful death" in a subsequent civil case. Although I understand that most people thought he was guilty, I never did form an opinion about O.J. I was not that interested in the case because I have no interest in sports.
I refuse to bet, even hypothetically, about the Trump-Ukraine case because all the evidence is not in yet. I probably won't have the patience to wade through it even after it is all in, and I don't have to. That's what the Senate is for, let them earn their money. As I understand it, the case will turn on whether or not there was an actual "quid pro quo". If there was, it would seem to constitute attempted bribery, which certainly is an impeachable offense. I don't know what the Republicans think about it.
The Whistleblower's identity was bound to be revealed sooner or later. I don't follow Fox News, but I have heard bad things about them. I seem to remember that the Dems said something about the Whistleblower's testimony being no longer needed, and I understand that it was all hear-say anyway. The function of the Whistleblower was to blow the whistle, which he did. Of course he should be protected from reprisal, and I expect that he will be.
New subject: Did you know that, at the end of World War I, a substantial Allied force was sent to Russia to guard certain supplies that had been shipped there before the Czar was overthrown and Russia dropped out of the war? By the time our guys got there, the supplies had already fallen into the wrong hands and there was nothing left to guard. Then the mission was somehow changed, first to rescue a bunch of Czechs who were stranded in Siberia, and then to help the White Russians fight against the Red Russians. I don't know what happened to the Czechs, but the Whites were getting their asses kicked, and our guys weren't having much luck bailing them out. They were eventually evacuated, some nine months after World War I had ended. They might have been there yet if their friends and relatives back in the States hadn't complained to their congressmen about it.
I learned this from an article in a small magazine that comes with our local paper, and I found this on Wiki to confirm the story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_North_Russia
I don't know a lot about that Epstein case. Didn't he commit suicide before he could be brought to trial? If so, he is now beyond the reach of the law, although I heard that some of the alleged victims are planning to sue his estate. I suppose they can do that, but I'm not sure how it will work. I seem to remember that O.J. was acquitted of murder, but was convicted of "wrongful death" in a subsequent civil case. Although I understand that most people thought he was guilty, I never did form an opinion about O.J. I was not that interested in the case because I have no interest in sports.
I refuse to bet, even hypothetically, about the Trump-Ukraine case because all the evidence is not in yet. I probably won't have the patience to wade through it even after it is all in, and I don't have to. That's what the Senate is for, let them earn their money. As I understand it, the case will turn on whether or not there was an actual "quid pro quo". If there was, it would seem to constitute attempted bribery, which certainly is an impeachable offense. I don't know what the Republicans think about it.
The Whistleblower's identity was bound to be revealed sooner or later. I don't follow Fox News, but I have heard bad things about them. I seem to remember that the Dems said something about the Whistleblower's testimony being no longer needed, and I understand that it was all hear-say anyway. The function of the Whistleblower was to blow the whistle, which he did. Of course he should be protected from reprisal, and I expect that he will be.
New subject: Did you know that, at the end of World War I, a substantial Allied force was sent to Russia to guard certain supplies that had been shipped there before the Czar was overthrown and Russia dropped out of the war? By the time our guys got there, the supplies had already fallen into the wrong hands and there was nothing left to guard. Then the mission was somehow changed, first to rescue a bunch of Czechs who were stranded in Siberia, and then to help the White Russians fight against the Red Russians. I don't know what happened to the Czechs, but the Whites were getting their asses kicked, and our guys weren't having much luck bailing them out. They were eventually evacuated, some nine months after World War I had ended. They might have been there yet if their friends and relatives back in the States hadn't complained to their congressmen about it.
I learned this from an article in a small magazine that comes with our local paper, and I found this on Wiki to confirm the story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_North_Russia
Friday, November 8, 2019
blowing up the whistle blower
I used to be a big fan of Law and Order back in its early days when the good guys didn't win every fucking time. One thing I liked about Perry Mason was when they went through the suspects some were nice guys and some weren't and sometimes it turned out that a nice guy was the culprit. Law and Order was like that at first but later when they went through the suspects one of them would be nasty to the cops or would be a racist or something and you knew straightaway that that was the guilty party/
Anyway Law and Order would open with some picnickers or hikers or office drones having a little scene and then BAM they came across the body, and then there was that clanging noise and then this Rod Serling voice would intone: In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
And this is approximately what is going on with the house being the cops and the senate being well not the district attorneys, but the jury. I am unsure of how it proceeds in the senate. If they are the jury than who prosecutes and who defends? Impeachment is kind of a strange thing imported from English law and stuck into the constitution. I read a very good article on the history of it in the New Yorker last week and here it is: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/the-invention-and-reinvention-of-impeachment
So the analogy of impeachment to a court of law is not exact, but anyway we are in the prosecution side of it now and when the cops are investigating you you are not allowed to take part in their proceedings, so all this jibber jabber about closed hearings is so much jibber jabber.
It sounds very high and noble to say a person is innocent until proven guilty, but does that make Epstein innocent, or O J? We can never be sure of anything in this vale of tears, but a more functional test is would you put money on it? If you had to bet the swamp on it, on whether Trump withheld aid for Ukraine to try to force them to open an investigation which way would you go?
Of course the next step for the reps is to say oh that's just like using your salad fork on your soup, tacky, but not impeachable, at which point I must ask what sort of monstrous crime would the reps consider impeachable?
How about this whistleblower thing? Although American citizens elect only the finest of men to run this country occasionally one of them may step into some doo doo, and wouldn't it be nice if somebody who observed that would report it? And don't we want to encourage that by not getting the whistleblower into trouble? Seems like a good idea no?
Apparently not to the reps with D Jr tweeting a link to the guy's name, Rand Paul threatening to release it, the prez demanding the press to release it, and last night there was an article on the FOX site that revealed it.
I have tuned into Trump rallies from time to time. Lately FOX airs each one in its entirety and the screaming mob is not a pretty thing to behold. If I were the whistleblower the fact that they are all Second Amendment believers would indeed make me regret my actions. And if I were one who had not yet blown the whistle it would give me second thoughts, and is that not what the Trumpists want to achieve?
Anyway Law and Order would open with some picnickers or hikers or office drones having a little scene and then BAM they came across the body, and then there was that clanging noise and then this Rod Serling voice would intone: In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
And this is approximately what is going on with the house being the cops and the senate being well not the district attorneys, but the jury. I am unsure of how it proceeds in the senate. If they are the jury than who prosecutes and who defends? Impeachment is kind of a strange thing imported from English law and stuck into the constitution. I read a very good article on the history of it in the New Yorker last week and here it is: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/the-invention-and-reinvention-of-impeachment
So the analogy of impeachment to a court of law is not exact, but anyway we are in the prosecution side of it now and when the cops are investigating you you are not allowed to take part in their proceedings, so all this jibber jabber about closed hearings is so much jibber jabber.
It sounds very high and noble to say a person is innocent until proven guilty, but does that make Epstein innocent, or O J? We can never be sure of anything in this vale of tears, but a more functional test is would you put money on it? If you had to bet the swamp on it, on whether Trump withheld aid for Ukraine to try to force them to open an investigation which way would you go?
Of course the next step for the reps is to say oh that's just like using your salad fork on your soup, tacky, but not impeachable, at which point I must ask what sort of monstrous crime would the reps consider impeachable?
How about this whistleblower thing? Although American citizens elect only the finest of men to run this country occasionally one of them may step into some doo doo, and wouldn't it be nice if somebody who observed that would report it? And don't we want to encourage that by not getting the whistleblower into trouble? Seems like a good idea no?
Apparently not to the reps with D Jr tweeting a link to the guy's name, Rand Paul threatening to release it, the prez demanding the press to release it, and last night there was an article on the FOX site that revealed it.
I have tuned into Trump rallies from time to time. Lately FOX airs each one in its entirety and the screaming mob is not a pretty thing to behold. If I were the whistleblower the fact that they are all Second Amendment believers would indeed make me regret my actions. And if I were one who had not yet blown the whistle it would give me second thoughts, and is that not what the Trumpists want to achieve?
Thursday, November 7, 2019
The Secret Part
"And this is the transcript that Trump says clears him. And this is not the word for word transcript of the event, this is a transcript that the the prez's people themselves composed, The actual document is locked up in some place where only the most secret of state secrets go, and there are no plans for it ever being released."
That's what I meant by "the secret part", the part of the transcript that has been "locked up someplace".
"Oh, and then there is the recently released testimony of the president's men who apparently fear prison more than the prez."
That's what I meant about the secret testimony behind closed doors that shows up in the news the next day. Okay, maybe not all the testimony, and maybe not the next day. But why has any of it been released while the closed door investigation is still going on? It is not unusual for the police or whoever to decline to comment on an ongoing investigation, but eventually the investigation is completed and he information becomes public at the trial. Also, I believe the defense counsel has to be given access to the evidence before the trial begins so that they can prepare their case. I suppose when the impeachment goes into the actual trial phase, if indeed it ever does, then all the evidence will be presented. I will reserve my judgement of Trump's guilt or innocence until that time. I still maintain that the part of the transcript that has been released doesn't prove or disprove anything, being subject to the reader's interpretation.
As I've said in the past, back in the Cold War days, I became convinced that the US government and the Russian government, along with many rich and powerful people in both countries, were all in it together. I came to doubt that over the years, but I still maintain that you shouldn't be conducting commercial activity with somebody who you believe to be your arch enemy. During a real war, that would be defined as treason, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It's like if that Mafia guy threatened to burn down my swamp and I offered to sell him some matches and a can of gasoline. Of course the Cold War wasn't a real war, and maybe Russia wasn't the arch enemy that our own leaders told us it was, but it's certainly no more of an arch enemy now than it was in those days, which was the point I was trying to make.
looks like bribery to me
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.
There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.
Meanwhile the Russkies are breaking down the door and the aid the Ukrainians were supposed to be getting was mysteriously being withheld. I don't know, I guess if a mafia guy dropped by Beaglesonia and commented that it was a swell swamp and it would be a shame if something happened to it, Beagles would be thinking what a nice man he is for complimenting the swamp and expressing sympathy if anything bad might ever happen to it.
What is the secret part of the transcript? Has Beagles been hobnobbing with Rudy and the gang?
Everything in the closed door hearings was not revealed to the press the following day. The reason for closed hearings is so that the following witnesses don't hear what the previous witnesses said and tailor their testimony accordingly. The present method is the method set in place by the republicans. Trey Gowdy, who I am no fan of, said that open hearings are a joke and I have to agree with him on that. Five minutes of a republican panning or praising the guy, then five minutes of the dems panning if the reps were praising and praising if the reps were panning, and all the time his eye is on the tv camera for sound bites for his next campaign.
Presumed innocence does not mean that you never investigate anybody.
The Mueller report was effectively blunted by Barr, much of it was redacted by the same guy, and it was long and complicated, and scarcely anybody read it, although more of it is being revealed now, it is a blunt tool. The dems are looking for a sharper tool, and they think they have found it in the attempted bribery of the Ukrainians. It has a simplicity that they think most Americans will understand, though neither of the dawgs seem to, and that is a bad sign. Still, all the evidence is not in yet, so there is still hope.
I remember when Romney in 2012 said the Russkies were our worst enemy and everybody laughed at him, me included. At the time Russia was down at its heels and seeming adrift. Anymore it has come roaring back and is being awfully aggressive. I think it's credible now to call it our archenemy though some other country might become our archenemy.
What does selling wheat have to do with anything? We had the wheat and wanted the money, they had the money and wanted the wheat. It was business, it didn't mean we were friends.
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