Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I must say, for having lived in the country  for 18 years, my Czech  sucks.  Oh, I can make myself understood O.K.  in a one on one situation, I can give classroom instructions to my 4 year old students, but if  two Czech people are talking together at speed, I lose the thread rather quickly.  I don’t usually  make much effort  to watch  Czech TV movies or TV shows, either, because the effort is not justified  by  the reward – usually.
But I’m finding recently that I can handle films without much  challenging dialog – for instance, action adventures.  I’m watching  Terminator 3 right now.  Of course, it is not as good as the original, back when Arnold Schwarzenegger was the villain, as he should be.  But it’s better than #2.

Actually, the foreign language dialog filter may be working to my advantage.  The basic idea you  can get.  “Where is John Connor?”  “He’s inside, locked up in a cage,” is not too complicated.  And I don’t  focus too much on  the conversation and just enjoy watching stuff get blown up.

A couple of note on the election:  Bernie doesn’t need to hire anybody to write or  produce new ads.  Every one of his Senate speeches is a golden moment.  This example of his putting  Alan Greenspan in his place, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGt60lxpMvE

The voting has barely begun in Puerto Rico, and there is already  evidence of fraud.  I mean, above and beyond closing 2/3rds  of the polling stations.  They are stalling the certification  of  Sanders election  observers.  Hillary’s people, of course,  were certified  right away.  For those Hillary people who are going to say “You always say there’s fraud when he loses,” here, I am saying fraud right now, win or lose.  You may think you are getting away with it, but you are not.

I don’t think it’s got a lot  of news coverage but, then again, neither does Bernie Sanders.  That does not mean it is insignificant.

Cephalopods – Octopi,Squids  and Cuttlefish – are having a population explosion.  With the numbers of pretty much every  other species in the  ocean falling due to global warming, overfishing and who knows what  all, our tentacled friends are  thriving.

My guess is that there are fewer fish  to  feed on baby octopi and, since octopi lay about  100,000 eggs at  a time, this is a huge difference.

The possibility for a science  fiction  film is incredible.  Soon, there will be so  many that the oceans can’t hold them.  With eight legs they will have little trouble learning to walk on  land, smoke cigarettes and operate machinery.

The part about this  that  really scares me,  though, is something I learned on Discovery Channel the other day.  When life began on Earth a few billion years  ago, Earth did not  have an oxygen  atmosphere.  Basically, the overpopulation of tiny, little creatures absorbing whatever it was they had then and excreting oxygen led to their extinction and the rise of life as we know it.

Theoretically, people, who can walk on two legs, write books,  and theorize about the origins of the universe, should be better equipped to deal with climate change then  a bunch of mindless amoeba-algae creatures.  But, maybe not.

Maybe the  octopi will inherit the Earth.

This is the kind of thing that  once, not  so long ago, would have ended a political career.  Now, who the hell knows.  People seem to accept almost any  level of corruption.

The story is that Bill Clinton took $500,000 from Algeria while his wife was Secretary of State, shortly before she approved selling a whole bunch of weapons to them, including some chemical weapons, i.e. weapons of mass destruction.

As is often the case with Bill Clinton, his explanation is hysterical.  He didn’t deny that he got $500,000, and he didn’t deny the Algerians were trying to negotiate a weapons deal at the time.  What he said was “Those two facts are accurate but if you put them back-to-back they are incredibly misleading. Here’s why: I never considered that the Algerians gave me the money.”

What does that mean?  That he  never considered it, because he’s just so used to people giving him half a million dollars?  Maybe he’s saying he didn’t know they were Algerian.  “Hey, I thought they were Greek.  Honest mistake.”

To be fair, he  goes on to explain that the money was to be turned over to the Clinton foundation and used for rebuilding Haiti, but there are a few things that make that hard to believe as well.  A.  If everybody who says they donated money to Haiti had actually donated money to Haiti, Haiti would be doing real well by now.  Haiti is  not.  B.  If the Clinton’s truly wanted to help Haiti,  why did Hillary fight so hard to keep their minimum wage down to under  50 cents an hour? C. If the Saudis were being  great philanthropists (not usually the way we think of them), they could have just sent money to Haiti themselves.

I doubt Bill Clinton will actually do time for this, he’s an ex-president, after all, but I sure would be happy if it wrecks his wife’s chances at the presidency.  Because they are a family of crooks.

I just watched the last bit of some survival show on TV, it might  have  been Naked and Afraid.  They were  both wearing enough clothes to cover their naughty bits but, like I said,  I tuned in a bit late.

Seriously. This guy. Walking around that damned, snake infested jungle barefoot.

I like these shows  a lot.  My favorite is the one  with  the  Hippie dude who goes everywhere  barefoot, which is a little bit  insane, but very impressive,  too.

Of course, you have to keep in  mind the  difference between  reality TV and actual reality.  You see these people  talking about how they could starve if they don’t find food, or how they could be eaten by animals if they sleep in the  wrong spot, or how, oh, how are they going  to make their  way down this solid  rock face to the beach, but you know the camera crew has some sandwiches in the van, probably a high powered rifle in case the bear actually gets too close, and no matter how  steep that cliff face, they’ve got to climb down it right behind the stars, so they can get that shot.

That’s not to take away from the survivalists.  I   admire what they’re doing, as they eat bugs, make fire and build shelters.  I enjoy the beautiful  scenery, but I don’t have to go hungry.  I watch them lance blisters on their swollen feet, but I  don’t feel the pain.
I guess what  I’m saying is that I enjoy these shows not because I’m a particularly adventurous type – I’m not – but because I can sit back on my couch, after a big meal, light  up a big, fat joint and be glad I’m NOT there.

One phrase that annoys me is “Let’s agree to disagree.”  It’s a bit unnecessary, isn’t it?  After all, we weren’t arguing about whether or not we agree with each other.  If we didn’t disagree, we wouldn’t be having an argument, now, would we?

There are other complications which  could  arrive.  What if  you think we disagree and I think  we agree, like it’s just a matter of semantics but really, deep  down, we think alike but you’re too stubborn  to admit you’re wrong.  In that case, we’d disagree about whether or not  we agree, but that would be a rare case.

Most of the time, when you disagree, it becomes pretty obvious pretty quick.

The thing that really ticks me off about the  phrase,though, is it’s shorthand for “I’ve run out of argument, and I’m sick of your facts and logic and  memes and links and stuff, so I’m going to quit now.”  It’s like we’re talking to a wall.

Hillary supporters do it all the  time.  “I don’t want to talk about it,”  “I’m not looking for negative  comments,” and so on.

Problem is, a conversation is like a running stream, not so easily  dammed.  Even more so on the internet.