saturday matinee

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of labels

So, occassionally I used to regret that I hadnt tagged my posts with lables on this blog very much, and that doing so would make finding things, if only for me, a whole lot easier. But I've been labeling the posts on Some Have Said, and as it becomes ever more unwieldy the more I post, perhaps I'll just stop regretting.

saturday matinee

I dont care if it is all being done just to sell more over-sugared, over-priced soft-drinks that arent good for you, it's still a lovely thing.

for father's day

No, really, I love my kids.

But I understand.

for father's day

saturday matinee

While this is by a Brit, it applies just as well here.

science friday!

because science is important!

quote for the day

I look at Dubya and just see...a grotesquely under-qualified-for-practically-anything daddy’s boy who’s had to be greased into every squalid position he’s ever held in his miserable existence who might finally be starting to wake up to the idea that if the most powerful nation on Earth — like, ever, dude — can put somebody like him in power, all may not be well with the world.

Iain Banks, taken from Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram (2003).

read more about Iain Banks here.

this is perfect

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geography lesson

This is a map showing relative levels of hate-tweets directed at homosexuals. Isnt it amazing how much this map looks a lot like other maps of the nation that also use a red blue axis? No? I suppose not.

More detail here.

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quote for the day

"...keep in mind that the Republicans' most serious charge revolves around the creation of misleading talking points. Stop and think about that for a moment. Not intentionally breaking laws passed by Congress as in Iran-Contra, not obstruction of justice as in Watergate, not perjury as in the Lewinsky affair. The creation of misleading talking points.

In other words, the most damaging charge for which there is even the wispiest scintilla of evidence is that after the Benghazi attack, some people in the Obama administration were worried the whole thing might make the administration look bad. And that's probably true. But it's not a crime."

Paul Waldman, Scandal Makers

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Man, while it might seem that it would be lovely if the Republican Party were to disappear within the next decade, dont fool yourself; they will never disappear. This does not mean that the party wont fall completely apart, and become a clusterfuck of recriminations, backstabbing, and the eating of its own young (and rightly so). But eventually, it will return, and someday be in charge of the government again.

At least, I hope so. Because as bad as they are right now, can you imagine what the nation would be like if we had only one strong choice at election time, regardless of which party it was?

saturday matinee

Man, I remember loving this song in high school, and thinking it was awesome and people who I knew who played guitar were all, like, "Eddie Van Halen is the greatest guitar player in the world, man". Now here's some teenage girl absolutely kicking that song's ass and she's not even grimacing. I feel old now, for some reason.

quote for the day

"Most of the world’s people are decent, honest and kind. Most of those who dominate us are inveterate bastards. This is the conclusion I’ve reached after many years of journalism. Writing on Black Monday, as the British government’s full-spectrum attack on the lives of the poor commences, the thought keeps returning to me.

“With a most inhuman cruelty, they who have put out the people’s eyes reproach them of their blindness.” This government, whose mismanagement of the economy has forced so many into the arms of the state, blames the sick, the unemployed, the underpaid for a crisis caused by the feral elite – and punishes them accordingly. Most of those affected by the bedroom tax, introduced today, are disabled. Thousands will be driven from their homes, and many more pushed towards destitution. Relief for the poor from council tax will be clipped; legal aid for civil cases cut off. Yet at the end of this week those making more than £150,000 a year will have their income tax cut.

Two days later, benefit payments for the poorest will be cut in real terms. A week after that, thousands of families who live in towns and boroughs where property prices are high will be forced out of their homes by the total benefits cap. What we are witnessing is raw economic warfare by the rich against the poor."

George Monbiot

I realize this is about England, but it might as well be about America. Hell, it's about any place in the world where the economic schemes of the rich lead to the suffering of the rest of us, and their answer to any crisis is to make the rest of us all pay for their mistakes, while telling us it's for our own good.

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weather, man!

For all you weather junkies out there, a map of tornado activity in the U.S. over the last fifty-plus years.

Read the article now, okay?

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quote for the day

"The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."

Thomas Jefferson

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Okay, seriously, this is lovely, but I cannot help but wonder if it is real. I mean, it's just so convenient. Though it might go a long way towards explaining why the educational destructors in Texas dont seem to fond of poor old Tom. I'd research it, but I'm too lazy, especially when I can just tack on a simple disclaimer.

This is a job for sbh.

Addendum: Yay! I was right, it was a job for sbh, and he has come through with his usual* talent (taken from the comments):

Fortunately the researchers at Monticello have already covered this one (see http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/end-democracyquotation). They refer it to Noam Chomsky's 1994 book Keeping the Rabble in Line:

"This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It may be a mistaken amalgamation of the author's comments in the above 1994 reference with a real Jefferson quotation. Jefferson wrote in 1825 to William Branch Giles of 'a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and monied incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.' Chomsky's 1994 book quotes Jefferson's 1825 letter to Giles and then comments that '[Jefferson] warned that that would be the end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution.'"

For me the phrase "end of democracy" is a red flag; I haven't seen it in Foundation Era documents. It's more of a twentieth century concern.

I dunno if it was the phrase "end of democracy" that made me suspicious (probably not), but I'm glad to see that my caution was not misplaced.


* or perhaps unusual, since this sort of thing seems to fool a lot of people.

odd

So at dinner tonight there was a mirror on the other side of the table, and it was really weirding me out to keep looking up and see myself.

Seriously.

saturday matinee

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lyrics:

Hey There, how, how's it going?
Long time no see.
I know I haven't been around much lately
But,it didn't seem like you wanted me to be
The last time I sent down a message you nailed it to the cross
So I figured I'd just leave you to it, let you be your own boss

But I've been keeping an eye on you, I have,
and it's amazing how you've grown.
With your technological advances and the problems you've overthrown,
And all the beautiful art you've created with such grace and such finesse,
But I admit there are a few things I'm afraid have impressed me less.

So I'm writing to apologize for all the horrors committed in my name,
Although that was never what I intended,
I feel I should take my share of the blame.
All the good I tried to do was corrupted
when organised religion got into full swing,
What I thought were quite clear messages were taken to unusual extremes.
My teachings taken out of context to meet the agendas of others,
Interpretations taken to many different ways and hidden meanings discovered

Religion became a tool, for the weak to control the strong
With all these new morals and ethics, survival of the fittest was gone
No longer could the biggest man simply take whatever he needed
'cause damnation was the price if certain rules were not heeded
Some of the deeds committed in my name
just made me wonder were I went wrong.
Back at the start when I created this, the foundation seemed so strong.
See all the elements were already here, long before I began,
I just kind of put it all together
I didn't really think out a long-term plan.

I made the sun an appropriate distance and laid the stars across the sky
So you could navigate the globe or simply watch the sun rise
I covered the earth with plants and fruits,
Some for sustenance and some for beauty
I made the sun shine and the clouds rain
so their maintenance wasn't your duty
I tried to give each creature its own attributes
without making them enveloped
I gave you all you all your own space to
grow and in your own way space to develop

I didn't know such development would cause rifts and jealousy
Cause you to war against each other and leave marks on this planet indelibly
You see, I wasn't really the creater, I was just the curator of nature
I want to get something straight with homosexuals right now: I don't hate ya
I was a simple being that happened to be the first to wield such powers
I just laid the ground, it was You that built the towers

It was You that invented bombs, and the fear that comes with them
And it was You that invented money, and the corrupt economic systems
You invented terms like just-war and terms like friendly fire
And it was You that didn't know
when to stop digging deeper, when to stop building higher
It was You that exhausted the resources I carefully laid out on this earth,
And it was You that even saw these
problems coming but accredited them little worth
It was You that used my teachings for your own personal gain
And it was You that committed such tragedies,
even though they were in my name

So I apologize for any mistakes I made, and when my words misconstrued
But this apology's to mother nature, cause I created you