Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

The robocalls in Georgia are way out of line.  I don’t know that they’re directly related to the Kemp campaign, and I believe the Kemp campaign has even denied them, but that would be pro forma, because it’s probably the kind of thing they say in private, too, and probably the kind of thing they’re chuckling at, secretly glad some of their supporters are doing it.
The thing is, they were mocking Oprah Winfrey, saying she just wanted to get her ‘follow Negress’ elected Governor of Georgia.  Stuff like that.  I think it could very  well backfire on them.

Oprah’s been around for awhile.  It’s television aimed at women more than men.  And Oprah is popular with all women, including white women, including white women in Georgia.  They’ve been watching Oprah  far longer than they’ve even heard of Brian Kemp.
I don’t know, I  have overestimated the south before, but I think stunts like this are going to help Abrams.  You just don’t fuck with Oprah Winfrey.

I’m interested in history, both modern history, and ancient history, and super ancient history.  Right now I’m watching a thing about Atlantis, which is pretty clearly in the ancient category, and earlier today I was watching a thing about the giant insects of the carboniferous era, when the oxygen concentration in the air was too dense for humans to have survived and the very  air was flammable.
The episode on Atlantis this week is focused on Sardinia, but a previous episode  had me pretty well convinced that it was in Southern Spain, West of Gibraltar, and at one point I was convinced that it  was in the Caribbean.  The thing with Atlantis, though, is if  it was a thriving port, it was undoubtedly part of a civilization that spanned many island.  If people are traveling place to place by boat, ideas  are traveling with  them.  So, all suspected sites showing evidence of Atlantean culture could be AN Atlantean city.  Which both diminishes and heighten the legend, depending on  how you want to look at it.
The thing about the giant insects was amazing.  The thing is, Earth, which is this planet that is perfectly adapted for the human race, has gone through  several previous incarnations (and may yet go through a few more, which would not be a good thing for human beings).  It gives us an idea how strange things will be when we  get to other planets.  We may find the perfect one for us, just a few million years too early or a few million years too late.  It’s a big, constantly changing, and infinitely weird  universe out there.

The general public, of which I am a proud member, has often been accused of slackness on being up to date on current affairs, of forming their opinions based on  an insufficient amount of information, of only reading the headlines before going straight to the comments section, where the general public vents all over the damned place.

Well, that’s only natural, I think, in this fast paced world, because I’m a bit slack myself that way, and besides: headlines should be written to get across as much of the story as possible.
Which brings us to this item from MSNBC. com, which I did actually click on  intending to read the article, but it  was a video of Rachel Maddow.  So,  I read the blurb and listened to a couple of minutes, and I’m not actually disagreeing with Maddow, but…

It was the headline that threw me:  U.S. Military Assessment of Caravan Doesn’t Match Trump’s Panic.  Of course.  And it’s good of Maddow to point that out.  But, ‘Military Assessment?’  Really?  They did a military assessment?  I can give you a brief military assessment right off the top of my head:
Tanks: 0

Aircraft Carriers: 0

Armored Personnel Carriers: 0

Fighter Jets: 0
Bombers: 0

Nuclear Capacity:  most likely 0

Submarines:  Well, of course I’m guessing on this one since subs are under water and therefore invisible, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say 0

Helicopters: 0  News copters don’t count, they are not necessarily on  the caravan’s side.

Heavy Artillery, Bazookas and Rocket Launchers: 0
Trained Military Units: 0  It’s possible that some of them have military experience, but they are not in uniform, marching in formation, or any of that stuff.

Since there is no military presence, the very term ‘military assessment’ is absurd.  What are they going to invade with?   Their  strollers?

The universe is almost all dark, with little blazing bits here and there, glittering galaxies on the black, velvet emptiness.  The two do not exist in equal measure, but the two exist.  Life may last for a century, at the outside, but death is for eons.
nonetheless, light and life is where we find ourselves, it’s the side we’re on, and we have to fight for it.  At the moment, it’s not looking good.  Scientists tell us we’ve got 12 years to reverse the course of global warming, and the next thing you know a total crazy person who wants to cut down the Amazon, who would like to cut that 12 year window down to 6 or less, is elected president of Brazil.  And China, despite making great strides in high speed rail, suddenly decides it’s O.K. to hunt rhinos for their horns again, because superstitious old men in China think powdered rhino horn is something like viagra (it’s not).
So, it looks like we’re fucked.  Nonetheless, inventors keep improving energy collection devices, and batteries, and engineers and architects are designing more and more types of green homes and communities, and innovative people keep finding new ways to recycle old materials.
Just as most of the universe is dark and there are a few glimmers of light here and there, most of the human race is stupid and self-destructive, but there are rays of light here and there.  I hope there are enough of them.  Because the forces of darkness are determined as hell.

I posted a post two days ago (I’ve looked at the time, in fact it’s almost exactly 48 hours as I’m writing this) on what I think is the most important issue facing  us at this moment in history, which is that we’ve got 12 years to totally reverse course on pumping greenhouse gasses into the air before catastrophic global warming becomes irreversible, and we begin the death spiral which will end with planet Earth becoming uninhabitable, except in the post I wrote ‘inhabitable,’ which is not a bad thing at all.  We want the Earth to be inhabitable, because we inhabit it.
Well, the post drew a handful of likes and comments.  Perhaps not many, by some people’s standards, but a lot of the stuff I post gets no response at all, so I was satisfied.  Then, today, somebody finally noticed the error.

Today, I was watching a documentary about Christopher Wren.  Now, at some point a long time ago, I picked up a little nugget of history I thought was very interesting, which  is that nobody actually died in the Great Fire of London  in 1666.  Lots of property damage, of course, but you weren’t dealing with high rise buildings, the damage took place over a 4 day period, and everybody made it down to the river.  I’ve been repeating that for decades, whenever the subject of the Great Fire of London happens to  come up in conversation.  Turns out it’s not true.  The official death toll is 6, which is still not many, but it’s not zero, and it may have been higher by a bit, because back then they didn’t keep careful records, and a lot of the people  were poor and nobody gave a damn if they disappeared from the face of the Earth.
So, I was wrong about that one, but of all the people I’ve ever repeated it to, nobody’s ever called my bluff.
Unfortunately, it is very easy to just spout off with any old nonsense and get away with it.