May 20, 2013 · 9:00 pm

SHOCK! I Agree With Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul

That doesn’t mean I’d ever vote for either one of them, not in a million years.  But they are right on this issue, and may even garner a few votes from the hippie-left-but-not-really-paying-too-much-attention contingent.  If they do, it’s the Democrats own damned fault, for not  leading on an issue that most of their supporters are solidly in favor of.

The issue is the legalization of hemp.  It is a substance traditionally used in the making of rope and canvas, for sails and tents and stuff.  As a cloth, it’s kind of like a softer denim, or a sturdier cotton.  Very comfortable.  It has a lot of other uses too.

Hemp - It's Like Marijuana's More Respectable Older Brother

Hemp – It’s Like Marijuana’s More Respectable Older Brother

It is absolutely not a drug and does not get you high, no matter how much you smoke it.

I can vouch for that.  Once, when I was about 17 I think, me and a friend were out walking beans on his cousin’s farm, to get some spare spending cash, when we spied a row of plants along the roadside.  Well, the whole reason hemp is illegal is because it looks just like marijuana, so we were fooled.  Filled a couple of garbage bags full, and thought we were going to be the most popular kids in school.  Got it back to his basement and smoked about a dozen joints – big, fat ones – with a growing sense of frustration and dread, until eventually we had to admit it – it was worthless.

Let me just repeat one line out of the last paragraph: The whole reason  hemp is illegal is because it looks like marijuana.  It’s as if they made laundry detergent, or sugar, illegal because they  look so much like cocaine.  It’s as if they made aspirin illegal because it looks almost exactly like LSD.

It doesn’t even make any sense for marijuana to be illegal, so the prohibition against hemp is just piling stupid on top of stupid.  I’m sorry it took a couple of right wing nutjobs to get the ball rolling but – at least on this – they deserve support.

About these ads

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blogs' Archive

Tagged as ,

May 19, 2013 · 9:56 pm

Don’t Wear Sandals, You Can’t Afford the Scandals

It’s scandal time in Washington again.  There are a plethora of scandals, a veritable tsunami of scandals, so many scandals that it will be the end of the Obama administration at long last.

Except that the dial on his personal approval ratings-ometer hasn’t moved a single percentage point.  It keeps pointing to the same 53% as always, like it was stuck there or something.  That’s because the only people get outraged over these scandals are the same people who are enraged that Obama uses a teleprompter and who thought  he was born in Kenya or someplace.barry poppins

And also because all of the scandals together don’t  amount to diddly-squat.

We can scratch umbrellagate off the list of things that matter.  There was this photo of a Marine holding an umbrella for President Obama and the right-wing, write-stupid-comments-on-the-internet-and-send-them-to-your-equally-clueless-friends brigade flipped out.  A quick search, of course, revealed that every president since people have started taking photos of presidents has had his photo taken with a Marine holding an umbrella over his head, it’s just part of normal protocol and a presidential tradition that probably dates back to the president following William Henry Harrison,  the only U.S. president to receive a Darwin Award.

Then there’s Ben Ghazi.   Basically, the U.S. embassy in Libya was attacked and 4 Americans, including the ambassador, were killed.  The  Republicans are mad about Obama not saying “terrorism” more often in regard to this, even though he actually did.  Anyway, it happened, like, months ago.

Then there is the IRS scandal, in which the IRS investigated a lot of Tea Party Groups.  It makes sense to me.  A political group entirely made up of people who are passionate about not paying any taxes might tend to set off an alarm to the trained ear.  Anyway, Obama said he didn’t know anything about it

Then there’s the AP scandal, in with the Justice Department subpoenaed AP’s phone records.  Legally, you know, and I’m sure they had their reasons.  A big company like AP can take it.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blogs' Archive

Tagged as ,

May 18, 2013 · 10:26 pm

From Hogwarts to Pagford

I just finished reading “The Casual Vacancy,” J.K. Rowling’s first post-Potter novel, and I hope it’s not the last.

It didn’t grab me at first the way the Harry Potter books did, but that’s probably just down to the different genres – I’m a sucker for kid’s books.  Sure, shame about Barry Fairbrother dropping dead like that (and Rowling is a master of death in the 1st chapter – my favorite opening chapter in the Harry Potter series, I forget which book, Order of the Phoenix, maybe?-was the one where the old caretaker wanders in on a secret meeting of Voldemort and is killed by Nagini, the serpent), but at first I found the introductions of the cast of characters to be a bit tedious, and I didn’t really know where it was going.  In short, the Magic wasn’t there.

Pagford- everybody 'ere is effin' mental

Pagford- everybody ‘ere is effin’ mental

So, I was reading it when I was on the metro or the tram, but after I was halfway through it, the story had started to get interesting and this afternoon I  sat down and finished it, totally forgetting where I was and somewhat surprised and a bit empty when it suddenly ended.

Rowling is good at creating worlds.  Pagford is her next Hogwarts.

She is good at creating huge casts of characters and making them believable.  Even some of the truly despicable characters, like Howard and Shirley Mollison, or Terri Weedon, I wound up sympathizing with on some level. (Not Simon Price, though.  He was just a shit.)

So, in answer to the question “Will J.K. Rowling make the transition to writing books for adults” (I don’t want to say “adult books” because you might get the wrong idea), the answer is “Yes, yes she will.”

She’ll always be most famous for Harry Potter, but I look forward to seeing more books from her.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blogs' Archive

Tagged as

May 17, 2013 · 10:50 pm

Net Improvement

Looking forward to the weekend, and here’s a little bit I wrote the other day:

 

How often have we turned and walked away

Pondering the thing we meant to say

And looking back with retroactive dread

Upon the words we actually said

A Slight Improvement to the Web

A Slight Improvement to the Web

 

Things are different now in cyberspace

Because we are not meeting face to face

So we can think a bit before we write

We mostly don’t, but nonetheless, we might

 

While scrolling through the comments on the screen

So many are so ignorant and mean

False assumptions, hate and blatant lies

The trick is to compose a good reply

 

“Fuck you, retard!” sounds pretty good at first

But, out of all our options, it’s the worst

A lot of people complain about the  content on the internet, particularly on facebook, but, you know, we all do it.  GIGO,  wherever you go, you take yourself.  The internet is not some monolithic entity, it’s just a composite of all the people  on  it and hooooo boy, there are some weird ones.

Basically, I think everybody should up their game just a little bit – the way that in a face to face conversation, most people think for half a second before they open their mouths,  give it ten seconds before you type out your reply.  5 more to reread it quickly before you hit send.

The world, or at least the internet, will be a better place.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blogs' Archive

Tagged as

May 16, 2013 · 10:08 pm

The Lost City of Ciudad Blanca

It bothers me when I hear something or somebody referred to as a “legend” and I’ve never heard of them.  However, this situation occurs with enough frequency that, at least in some cases, I should probably consider that the fault may be  inside myself, that I’m just not up enough on all the legends.

Artist's Impression

Artist’s Impression

This is the story of the legendary city of Ciudad Blanca, which, you  may  have guessed, I had never  heard of before.  It’s a cool  legend, though, of a treasure filled city in the Guatemalan jungle, probably a relic of the ancient Mayan civilization, which  was already long gone by the  time Europeans arrived.

Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.  Maybe the writers of legends (and this could be  a good one – throw in an ancient curse, a tough guy, a villain who dies horribly thus showing the power of the curse, a backup villain and a couple of hot jungle babes and you’ve got yourself a blockbuster) are confusing Ciudad Blanca with El Dorado,  or maybe this is not Ciudad Blanca at all, but East Ciudad Blanca, or Nuevo Ciudad Blanca, or Qapiatu,  Ciudad Blanca’s cross jungle  rival.

That’s the thing with legends.  Once you’ve actually located them and put names on them, then they aren’t legends any more.  If Bigfoot were ever discovered, he would just be a sad, and endangered, animal.  If the Loch Ness monster is  found, scientists will be falling all over themselves to classify it and give it a proper Latin name, but it won’t be the mysterious Loch Ness monster any more.

So, now that this ancient city has been found, let the excavations begin and whatever the gravediggers find, it will be wonderful.  There is  still a big difference between these very real ruins and any legend.  These are real.  And real is better.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blogs' Archive

May 15, 2013 · 6:56 pm

Spies

Sometimes I read news stories and laugh out loud, despite the  personal tragedy that the tale recounts for its principal characters, because the situation is so  ridiculous.

For example, the guy in Iran who was arrested recently for robbing a bank.  It was a brilliant plan, actually.  How was he to know that the wizard he paid  5 million rials (about 340 euros, about 440 USD) to make him invisible was a fraud?  Now, he’s going to probably lose a hand, or be flogged in public, or spend a good, long time in the Tehran jail, which almost certainly would be an unpleasant experience, and he himself was a victim.  So, it’s tragic, but I laugh anyway.

Likewise, the case of Ryan Fogle, a 3rd secretary at the American Embassy in Moscow (how low is a 3rd secretary?  Does that mean he has fetch the coffee for the 2nd secretaries?)  Russian authorities are saying that he  is a spy, working for the CIA.  It’s a bummer getting busted, so perhaps we shouldn’t laugh at poor Ryan Fogle at this juncture, but at the time of his arrest, he was found to be in possession of a couple of wigs and a large number of sunglasses.

Ryan Fogle having a bad day in Moscow

Ryan Fogle having a bad day in Moscow

Really, dude?  Is that what they taught you in spy school?  Wigs and sunglasses?  It reminds me of the scene in “Take the Money and Run” or maybe it was “Bananas,” I’m not sure, where Woody Allen’s  parents were being interviewed on  TV but they were disguised and they had the bignose masks, with comically huge glasses and bushy mustache.  You’re CIA, you’re supposed to be James Bond, but this sounds more like a Scooby and Shaggy plan. Wigs and sunglasses.

Anyway, there’s a broader point I’d like to make.  Isn’t all this spying stuff a little bit outdated?  Everything you might need to know is online.  Want aerial reconnaissance photos?  Check Google Earth.  You want to know the opinions of the Russian people?  Talk to them.  Read their newspapers.  You want to know what’s happening inside their military?  Read their facebook pages.

It would be a lot more effective than whatever the hell you thought you were going to accomplish with sunglasses and a couple  of wigs.

(I expect that Fogle will just be  sent back to the states.  This will probably end his career as a spy, but he really wasn’t cut out for it anyway.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blogs' Archive

Tagged as

May 14, 2013 · 9:46 pm

Star Trek is Not Real

Well, I think this article is worth linking to and presenting for your perusal and commentary.  Firstly, as evidence that HuffingtonPost has totally become the National Enquirer.  Secondly, because anything associated with  space travel is cool, and the article dwells on Star Trek, which would be cool if it were about that, but if the article meant to talk about a real form of warp drive, they could have just put one or two Trek quotes in the opening paragraph and been done with it, but nooooooo…………………….., Third, or Fourth depending on how you’re counting, it doesn’t matter, the idea of faster than light travel is tempting, it is intoxicating, it’s exhilarating,  because it would  make space travel possible,  it would allow us to make contact with distant, alien races, millions of years more advanced than our own, it would allow us to find worlds currently going through their cretaceous period and colonize them, it would change the human experience beyond recognition.

Many generations of human beings will live and die on ships like this

Many generations of human beings will live and die on ships like this

If you don’t want to read the article, because it really is a poorly thought out piece of crap, the gist of it is, if you can’t move through space at faster than  the speed of light, the trick becomes to move space around you.  Meanwhile, your ship is contained in something called a “warp bubble.”

I didn’t quite understand how this warp bubble was to be created, how it was to be maintained, and whether you’d still be able to use your mobile phones.  I also didn’t understand how getting the universe to  move around you was supposed to be more energy efficient as traveling faster than the speed of light.

Personally, I think if we’re going to be sending humans into space on a serious scale, we’re going to have to go the ark ship route, a toroidal city in space, with  aeroponic gardens and artificial gravity in the spinning outer wing, where generations of humans could live relatively normal lives.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blogs' Archive

Tagged as