Having been sick with the flu for a few days, I watched the latest Bond film, Spectre, and the very first one, Dr. No. Spoilers follow. Continue reading “What the Boss Likes – Perfumes, movies, etc”
Month: January 2017
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – wannabee theocrats marching in DC today
Today there is a “march for life” in Washington, DC. There are a lot of women there, who insist that they are feminists. There may be some men who also would claim this, since being a feminist isn’t limited by sex. They all declare that they are “for life”, aka against abortion and birth control.
These people want to control others, and that is all they want to do. They want to tell women that they can’t. They can’t make their own decisions. They can’t believe what they want. They can’t be trusted to be intelligent enough to know what they want. They aren’t feminists, they are wolves in sheeps clothing. Feminism isn’t about telling a woman “no”. It’s about knowing that a woman can make her own decisions and that supporting women is important.
These wannabee theocrats demand that their opinion become law, that no one may choose to disagree with them. They want women to be punished for daring to make their own decisions and not obeying them. They claim that women need their help because of a myth with a talking snake. Most, if not all of them, want their particular version of one religion to be the law of the land, conservative Christianity. Of course, they can’t agree on which version of Christianity they want. They may insist that each other is doing to hell for accepting the Pope, for not accepting the Pope, for being baptized in one way or another, being divorced or not divorced, but they are harnessed in the same yoke for this one reason, in their pure hypocrisy.
They want to claim that they are for life, but they are against anything that would help the children that they wish forced on others to live. They are for punishment and obedience. They support the murder and terrorism of those who believe different than they do. They want no assistance be given to assure that these children have healthy food and a safe home. They want to keep families from having affordable health insurance. They want no assistance given to assure that these children have a good education, no matter if they are wealthy or poor . They want none but their religion taught to these children and they want only the families they approve of to take care of these children. They depend on lying to women to convince them to have children, intentionally misleading women by how they name their services. After the uterus is vacated, they are not interested.
Caring for another isn’t important at all, only forcing a woman to bear a child she cannot support, either financially or emotionally. They pretend that their churches will help these women but every shelter everywhere is desperate for money despite that there are pages upon pages of churches and other religious organizations in the phone book. They haven’t taken care of these families so far, so why should anyone believe that they will now?
These conservative Christians prate that this god would never give a woman more than she could handle, but they turn their heads when these women harm or kill themselves and their children because they could not handle those things, no matter how much they prayed and others prayed for them. They needed real help and that real help requires that people support them through real resources, resources payed by taxes and given to everyone, not just people who agree with the taxpayers or obey the rules of a religion that has no more evidence that it is true than any other religion.
These people want to take over the government, and force their religion on everyone. For all of their false claims of being unable to make their own choices, they do their best to remove the ability to choose from others. For all of their false claims of being pro-life, they do their best to ensure that those lives suffer as much as possible.
Hypocrisy personified, when this woman thinks she is being silenced and she’s walking down streets in the nation’s capital saying exactly what she wants.
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – And of course Flint, Michigan still has toxic water
From the helpforflint.com website
“Children and adults up to age 21 and pregnant women who were served by Flint’s water system within the past two years should be eligible for new Medicaid health coverage. Others in those groups already on Medicaid are able to apply for additional coverage.” Update: the lead levels have gone below the federal limit.
And how long do you think that’ll be true? Donate to them if you want. To others if you can. Just remember we all have to take are of each other now. And Donate blood always, Red Cross if that’s the one, Red Crescent, or to your local blood center. It’s easy, just a pinch, and if you tell them you are afraid, they will understand. I’m on my seventh gallon now. 
A friend and her daughter were at the march. She said that the Metro staff were great in getting so many people around. It’s too bad that Trump, Conway and Spicer chose to lie. What is it about politicians? They think that recording media suddenly stops working when they declare it so?
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – the resemblance is striking
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – “alternative facts” and that tie…
It is no surprise that Trump is having a tantrum over the fact that it was noted that the audience for his inauguration was quite a bit smaller than other inaugurations. He was so taken aback that the truth was told that he dishonored men and women who have died in service to this country when he gave a speech at the CIA by whining about this fact.
Then we get his mouthpiece, Kellyanne Conway, insisting on “alternative facts”. Sounds quite Orwellian, doesn’t it? The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, went in front of the cameras and claims that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period”. This is of course a bald faced lie and we have lovely photographic evidence to show this wasn’t the case at all.
When confronted with this lie, Ms. Conway said “”You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving — Sean Spicer, our press secretary — gave alternative facts,”. This amazingly pathetic response was given to Chuck Todd, the moderator on NBC’s Meet the Press. When asked again why she was trying to spread nonsense, she responded “”Your job is not to call things ridiculous that are said by our press secretary and our president. That’s not your job.”
AKA How dare you say that the Emperor has no clothes! Ms. Conway seems to think that Trump and his coterie have the right to lie to others and take away their ability to make informed choices. Calling the things she and Trump et al say ridiculous, lies, false, etc is exactly the job all of us have now, and if the press doesn’t lead the charge, we all do.
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. Hugo L. Black, associate justice US Supreme Court (New York Times Company v. United States, 1971).
To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement. –Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Green Mumford (18 June 1799).
And then there is the tie. The really really long red one that Trump wore the inauguration. The one that was held together by tape. Ties are generally made with a loop in the back where the narrow end is tucked to keep it in place. This always works if the tie is knotted correctly. And this isn’t a hard thing to do. Millions can do it (my spouse suggests bringing the wide end down to the crotch and then tying it because it will then be at the beltline after the knot is made). But evidently not Trump. Tie tacks and tie bars are also evidently beyond him.
It may seem petty to pick on the man’s tie but it reveals two possibilities, neither of which are reassuring: this man has no friends that will keep him from looking like a buffoon or that he has no one he will listen to. Not one of his family members, not one of his staff said “Don, let me take care of your tie for you.” or he was stupid enough to ignore them. I’ve had no problem telling my boss that she has snot hanging from her nose from a less than successful blow. If no one can do that for you, it’s just sad.
Stephen Colbert does a great monologue on the inauguration and that tie
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – the lying lips of a prince
We’re deep in it now. The sad little orange man has been inaugurated thanks to the ignorant and fearful and greedy who have sold their honor and responsibility for false promises. Update: The women’s march is doing quite well. Poor Donnie, he doesn’t react well to reality. What will TwitterFuhrer do?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/womens-march.htm ( I don’t know if you will be able to see it. I have a subscription)
and this interesting bit: http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/01/womens-march-canadian-protesters-denied-u-s-entry.html and here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/20/womens-march-canada-protesters-denied-entry-us
Donald J. Trump, still is trying to spread those lies and spread that fear. Fear and greed is what fascism and totalitarianism grows in. Willful ignorance is what fertilizes it. Trump’s inaugural speech was nothing but lies, intended to spread fear. He claims that the US is in shambles, that “carnage” reigns in our streets and that simply isn’t true. He need people to believe though, because he can’t get his way if people stand strong and say “no”.
The US does have its problems, like any other country. However, we’ve always gone forward and have shed the shackles of our ignorance and fear, albeit slower than I would wish. Now we have to stand up against men and women who would wish to return us to the bad old days. They intentionally lie to us, trying to take away our right to make informed decisions on our own. They want obedience and no one to speak against them. They want the truth hidden, so people will believe them without question.
They can’t stand the truth, so they try to punish those who speak it. A National Park Service employee retweeted true tweets that showed how small the crowd was for the inauguration and this was termed not sympathetic to the president. It was also noted that the new administration stripped the White House website of any LGBT, climate change and health care webpages (snopes has the lowdown here. And it again shows that the transition team for Trump is utterly incompetent since they had nothing to put up). This was also declared not sympathetic to the president. The account was shut down with claims of urgency.
It has been reopened with the understanding that everything depends on the confirmation of Trump’s nominee, Rep. Ryan Zinke, who is of course supports mining, oil, loggin, trophy hunting, etc on public lands, and wants to transfer public lands to states, so the federal laws concerning wildlife, clean water and clean air don’t apply: anything but what his supposed hero, Teddy Roosevelt would have approved of.
The truth doesn’t have to be sympathetic, it is what it is. And it is in everyone’s interest to constantly point out the false claims and lies told by anyone, but especially when its someone in power.
Trump and his team were wrong when they claimed that millions would attend his inauguration (and more shots of the emptiness, and a great timelapse video of the Mall being occupied – scroll down on that link). Trump and his team were wrong when they claimed that there were no more fancy dresses in DC. Trump and his team were wrong when they claimed that hotels were sold out. They lied that he won the popular vote and they lied when they said it was a landslide and that Trump has a “mandate”. This is only a few false claims about petty little things. It’s a problem when the lies keep coming about important things that will affect everyone.
“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. — Abraham Lincoln, October 15, 1858 Debate at Alton, Illinois
“7 Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince.” – Proverbs 17 (KJV)
One might think that some of those Christians who voted for Trump might consider one of the few admirable things about their bible.
And just because I like them:
Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – 960,000 tons of what?
I’ve been crossing swords with a particularly tenacious Christian, “scientific christian” (you already know where things are going with that screen name) and the discussion has gone far and wide, though mostly staying around the idea of having evidence supports one’s claims. My apologies for anyone who commented in that thread and has thus been caught in the post storm. WordPress really needs to work on allowing people to disengage from comment threads.
Thanks to SC, I’ve discovered some pretty amusing claims in the bible (and that some Christians are unrepentant liars but I already knew that). SC is quite sure that the “exodus” happened and there was an “empty tomb” amongst other things. He’s also just as sure that the bible is wrong when it claims that there was hundreds of thousands of Israelites coming out of Egypt after the supposed exodus. He’s a great example of a Christian cherry-picking things when reality shows that their claims aren’t true. Suddenly, the bible and its multitude of supposedly deity-inspired translators are wrong, and obscure websites are correct when they claim only a few thousands left, because, you see, there is no evidence for 600,000 men plus the women, children and animals.
But to the fun stuff!
In the story of the exodus related in Numbers, we have the following: Numbers 11 “Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. 32 All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. 33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.” (this story is also in Exodus 16. FYI, this is from the NASB bible)
So we have an area of approximately 706 square miles (15 miles is about what a person can walk in a day) covered 6 feet deep in quail. And per the bible, every man gathered a little shy of 2 tons of the quail. This would be, if my calculations are correct, 960,000 tons of quail.
And this isn’t the all the quail. That was just what was collected. As a cubic footage, we have approximately 1.180811 cubic feet of quail, or 118,080,000,000 cubic feet of quail. If one assumes the average quail as 9” x 5” x 5” this means that there are 15,350,400,000 individual quails and if each weighs about 6 oz (large for quail but we can afford to give a bit), we get about 2,878,200 tons of quail. Even if one assumes that the quails weren’t even, and assume 3 feet deep, we still get 1,439,100 tons of quail.
The middens would be full of quail bones and human poo, amongst other things.
Now on to the poo!
In Exodus, the Israelites are told to bury their feces because their god might notice in them, Deuteronomy 23: “12 “You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, 13 and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement. 14 Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.” Doesn’t speak very well for its omniscience, eh?
Humans poop about 125 grams a day. With 600,000 men, we get 37 tons of poo a day and that isn’t even counting the women, children and animals, grass eaters that poop a *lot*.
The “exodus” should have quite a bit of evidence for it, 40 years worth of garbage. It has none and Christians like SC, are reduced to claiming that just a few thousand left Egypt, while simultaneously stuck with the claims of the rest of the OT where Israel could field armies in the hundreds of thousands.
(admittedly, I suck at math. Feel free to check my calculations and correct me.)
Not Polite Dinner Conversation – “The Snow is Very Dirty”
This is the warning they have in Beijing, don’t touch the snow, it’s polluted. ““We suggest everybody stays indoors,” Beijing’s Meteorological Bureau said in an announcement obtained by TIME. “The snow is very dirty! The snow is very dirty! The snow is very dirty!” This was what the US was like pre Clean Air Act. I remember going to Pittsburgh PA when the sky was brown. I was being taken to an allergy doctor, which you can see as a bit ironic considering the air. I also remember being stuck in one of the tunnels for hours (Pittsburgh is ringed by hills and the tunnels were outdated even back in the 70s. And this is 30 years later).
Care for a glass of flaming water? Or a cup of tasty toxins? I grew up within about 30 miles of one of the worst Superfund sites, the “Bruin Lagoon” (now cleaned up. If I recall correctly, it was number 2, and only Hanford in Washington state, a nuke site, was worse)and we can’t forget Love Canal. I used to work in the hazardous waste clean up industry and did a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) for a list of Superfund sites back in the 90s. The computer print out I got (in the classic greenline track fed paper) was about 6 inches thick. It’s likely thinner now since things are being cleaned up, and there are laws against allowing such horrible destruction to happen.
But…
now we have the arrogant and the ignorant insisting that we don’t need the EPA any more. The deplorables deserve Trump and his coterie of idiots. Unfortunately, the rest of us will suffer too.
What the Boss Likes – so, do you know anyone who knows medieval German or Austrian?
I have a mystery and I’m asking your help. I have an image, and some calligraphy that may be either German or Austrian, of what looks to be either late Middle Ages or Renaissance. A cousin got this partial copy but he is, alas, not a researcher and didn’t get the goodies I need.
I can’t read it and would very much like to find someone who can translate and, if possible, tell me the source of this page. I’d be more than happy to work out some method of payment for someone who can get me the information. I once found someone who was able to translate a wedding document for my Hungarian/Transylvanian/whatever side of the family and we worked out a great way for me to buy him a book as payment.
My family name is a variant of Schwerdtfeger.
Club Schadenfreude 