Wednesday, November 30, 2016

What's Hot on the Blog 11/30

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Bernie Sanders - standing and sounding Presidential amid a cacophony from all around and the other is Tulsi Gabbard who is the Young Light of the Party

Our Revolution - the lasting thing from Election 2016 and Bernie's campaign which is now a united voice for true liberalism which is almost never status quo

Police Surveillance - Cadillac Man had been surprised by what they do but this has been a favorite topic for quite some time due to the severe abuse of the Fourth Amendment

What's Hot

How to Avoid - this sounds like another Internet how-to but this isn't a recipe so much as an observation

Barcelona - Gipsy gives it away and they do it so well together

Oddments - a variety of topics from Science Daily and all links are provided to pursue them as you will

Pussy Riot - a favorite for years at the Rockhouse because of a huge crush on Nadya and huge respect for Pussy Riot's total contempt for conventions

Nope, I Wasn't - explaining the situation with tardy posting of comments because of a lag waiting for me to moderate them.  I need the moderation because Ithaka still gets spammed.

How Cops - an earlier article about quasi-legal surveillance by police

Back from the Eastern Front at VA

There's no political loading to the Eastern Front since just about everything is East from here.

Ms Kersa can't do much about the busted foot but she doesn't think it's gout because it didn't hurt even close to enough and she doesn't think the swelling was caused by a clot since DVT usually comes from clots in the calf where there was no evidence of a problem.  She's ordered a scan but there's not much else to be done.

Note:  DVT is Deep Vein (Vascular?) Thrombosis and you may have heard of that one croaking people on airlines after long periods of sitting as I've heard multiple mentions of that in various places.  There's no immediate significance to it but the knowledge is generally important for anyone in underscoring the need for exercise.

A clot was a big consideration since why the hell does it only affect one foot.  She did not think that was likely so right now she doesn't know what did it.


I agreed to another scan of my chest.  There is no argument with her on declining the biopsy but we do talk about the matter and it makes sense to get another scan to determine how much it's grown.  We can talk about it further after those results are returned.  I doubt my position will change but I do listen to her and there's no contest.

Ms Kersa said she may not even disagree with the decision because quality of life is a huge consideration and she said she has another patient who made the same decision and for the same reason.  With her other patient, he knows for sure it's cancer and Ms Kersa is sure I have it as well but it's still not definite without a biopsy.

Regardless of whether it's emphysema or cancer, I'm still croaked but emphysema is less dramatic about it since that's more like rust than a fire.


There's been a substantial loss of strength and energy over the last year and there's been active combat to prevent it since I've been the hunter-gatherer because I've always been clear anything is better than sitting in a chair.  There's nothing defensive in that, the only purpose is information as I've never been as sedentary as it may have seemed.  Now I'm almost nothing but sedentary but that's new and it's not voluntary.


If you're reading this as a complaint, you may not be the Primary Reader since it's information which leaves nothing in the shadows and that will be more useful to some than to others.  For me it's not much more than reviewing baseball cards although I confess I have never actually had a baseball card.


The situation remains the same that it's pointless to review what's lost and the only thing that matters is what can you do now.  Cadillac Man and I talk about that sometimes since he's about the same age and has taken his whacks but the focus isn't on whatever got whacked but rather he wants to get out to visit more soda fountains.

The biggest focus here is on shooting another video but I've decided it needs the eight-dollar purple fedora plus the eight-dollar purple boa to really be happening with the second-hand Chairman Mao tux.  Cat doesn't like it when I wear funny hats but, well, I like wearing funny hats.

The RayBans will be the most expensive part of the outfit (larfs).


There won't be any recording tonight as I got a flu shot in one arm and a pneumonia shot in the other so I've got some swell charley horses from those.  Yes, that was a complaint.  Hardy ha.

Note:  I do believe I would have been boxed by now if not for the original pneumonia shot.  I was having one hell of a time since symptoms were vicious and I was getting it a lot but it hasn't happened since.  Pneumonia croaks a lot of old geezers.  Do what you will but it helped me hugely.

Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra - Lulle Lulle

The song starts out with a melancholy tone but don't start thinking you have figured it out.



They play Western instruments but come up with an altogether different and beautiful sound.

Oddments of Science in a Variety of Unusual Studies

Ethology is the study of behavior of creatures in the animal kingdom and sometimes that means ants. (Science Daily:  Ants communicate by mouth-to-mouth fluid exchange)

What do you know.  Ants do that too.


Sometimes creationists say speciation in which one species becomes two has never been observed but that's not true.  Researchers have shown it's possible to see it in a month or less.  (Science Daily: Biologists watch speciation in a laboratory flask)


Researchers came up with tiny crystals which glow in the presence of heavy metal contaminants such as lead, etc.  (Science Daily:  Glowing crystals can detect, cleanse contaminated drinking water)

The article is not clear on what removes these crystals from the water after they have absorbed the lead or other contaminant but check out the article and you may see it.


Researching life without oxygen is mostly toward understanding how creatures can survive on other planets but a surprising amount of that research can take place on Earth.  (Science Daily:  Ancient rocks hold evidence for life before oxygen)

The view of Earth without oxygen won't excite creationists either but that was the case in the early evolution.  The study is of bacteria which lived at that time and how they did it.


Here's an example of learning important things from the most primitive people.  (Science Daily:  Modern hunter-gatherers show value of exercise)

There are few tribes of hunter-gatherers remaining in the world but they enjoy exceptional health.


Here's how to raise your IQ by 23%.  (Menu.inc:  Want to Raise Your IQ by 23 Percent? Neuroscience Says Take Up This Simple Habit)

However, before you upgrade your computer to exploit your new mental powers, maybe take a deeper look. (WIKI:  Neurofeedback)

Did you see anything about raising IQ in the WIKI?

Right.  Neither did I.

Pussy Riot - Make America Great Again

Nadya Tolokonnikova and Pussy Riot have been a huge hit at the Rockhouse and this a high production exercise in which they did a fantastic job of it.


She did almost two years in a Russian jail for her protest so her activist dues are paid for life but she doesn't stop and the video kicks.

Ed:  Pussy Riot was busted for desecrating a church!

I don't recall them doing any actual harm to the church and their crime was their 'blasphemous' actions.  At most there's a bust for bad taste but she went down for two years from it.

Police Surveillance and the Disappearing Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment is fundamental and the fact it was only the fourth added should go some distance to show that.  Cadillac Man knows the history in detail and there was contentious dialog between federalists for the strong central government and the hotheads for dispersed power.

The driver for the amendment was the wish to prevent the Brit way of doing things in which they would go into someone's house any time they felt like it.  The Fourth Amendment was to prevent that kind of government.

That the amendment is being violated routinely by multiple police forces in the country was, I thought, common knowledge but it was relatively new to Cadillac Man so it's likely new to others as well.  There was an article earlier this evening to go into the extreme surveillance measures police are taking and some idea of the level of it is shown by the number of the devices available.  (Ithaka:  How Cops and Politicians Destroyed America's Integrity)



Vermin Supreme, candidate for President who promises a free pony for all Americans.  Yes, that is a boot on his head.  He got more votes than Rick Santorum or Bobby Jindal.

Welcome to New Hampshire.


The brief history is we were satisfied the Fourth Amendment was being respected by cop work when they needed an order from a judge before they could tap phones, etc.  That confidence lasted until Reagan when he threw out a citizen's Miranda rights along with general Fourth Amendment protections and Cadillac Man wanted to make a point of how much Earl Warren had been a part of rulings which originally conferred the rights of the modern age of the Fourth Amendment ... and which have been steadily eroding ever since Reagan.

The escalation in electronic surveillance has been primarily in the last twenty years in which more and more police units saw it as a fundamental part of police work to surveil everything all the time.  We see that with the Stingray electronic fishing expeditions which harvest all cell phone traffic in a given area with minimal or no judicial permission required but the larger problem is the NSA class of cops are surveilling all that traffic anyway.


The escalations in police intrusions at local and global levels was, I thought, something which has been clearly publicized but that isn't taking into account Facebook and filtered news.  Part of the problem is people don't know and the other part is they don't want to know.  The reason is unknown but likely it's too scary for them to face ... but that's how it got out of control in the first place.


The mystery is a long-time mutual friend of Cadillac Man and I is a DNS Master (i.e. Deep Network Skullduggery) and he's engaged in some way with the cat and mouse interplay of Internet white hats and black hats.  He's an extremely intelligent fellow with a hotshot PhD in RHS (i.e. Really Hard Stuff) and he's highly ethical yet he's inside the machine.  It's not like the movies with some whacko hacker kid in a basement as he's my age and he's been hammering on software and networks since the eighties.  His engagement is legal on the side of the white hats.

He's been distant for some time so there's concern the machine has eaten him.  As post-9/11 security increased, his world seemingly got drawn into it.  Hearing how it all balances for him would be most interesting but it's almost certainly classified.


Out here in the Rockhouse, the difference between the white hats and the black hats isn't much when it comes to violating the Fourth Amendment so it's a great puzzle why anyone would support that.  There's no answer when there's too little information so that winds up as Hmm, That's Strange.

Bernie Sanders is One of Two Who Look Presidential

Hillary Clinton's reaction to the election was predictable with a rage, an extended sulk, and now she's back to being the Hundred-Million Dollar Victim.  Boo hoo.

She must smell money or she would not be back.  She's over nevertheless.


Donald Trump has also been predictable in going Full Bureaucrat and there's no-one on his cabinet who remembers having their own teeth.  The difference now is instead of Bill Clinton nailing the White House interns, it will be that disgraced chump, General Petreaus.

As reviewed earlier with Mystery Lady, there's the certain confidence in both of us that ignoring Hillary Clinton was the 'least radioactive' action either of us could take.  Her analysis of the situation is astute and the fact she never uses social networks has got to be a factor.  Both of us came independently to the same review that Clinton is a severely-damaged and extremely dangerous woman.

Both of us were mystified at how Clinton was able to gull so many people with a false aura of feminism when 'we came, we saw, he died' is not a tenet of any aspect of feminism I ever heard.

To all appearance she's devoid of an iota of empathy and it was good to hear Mystery Lady's estimation was the same since she has those witchy powers, you know.


Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has not rolled over on anything.  He's been calling out Trump straight-up on any kind of racial transgressions but notes he and Trump agree on demolishing the trade pacts so they have some common ground on which to work.

He gives fair warning, don't fuck with me on any racial or social matters.


Sanders started Our Revolution and that's the one enduring feature of the election when an elevator fart lasts regrettably longer than a campaign promise and has about the same redemptive value.  (Ithaka:  Our Revolution, the One Substantive Result of the Election)

That voice of this resistance continues while everything else plays itself out in pointless rage.


The face coming more and more to the resistance is Tulsi Gabbard.


She's smart, young, and highly-motivated.  She's going out to Standing Rock now to help defeat the Dakota Pipeline goons and to defend the American Indians.  She's had a true voice throughout the election and we see at Standing Rock she backs it.

Tulsi Gabbard has the backbone we want to see and which is so much lacking in others.  She's also a veteran and she loves to surf.  We need the sharks to leave her alone since she could be President one day.

Gabbard didn't play the election as a political gambit and she did not waver after Clinton got the nomination.  She knows the principles and she doesn't wobble so the Rockhouse will eagerly support her any time.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Our Revolution, the One Substantive Result of the Election

Our Revolution

Alan -

When we launched Our Revolution less than 100 days ago, we set out to transform American politics, making our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families.

We have been working tirelessly to achieve this goal, a goal that does not change no matter who is in the White House.

In fact, it is now more important than ever that we continue our fight to achieve economic, social, racial and environmental justice. We must keep up the pressure to pass a $15 minimum wage, protect our environment against climate change, and get big money out of politics so billionaires cannot buy our elections.

Our political revolution continues in states and communities across the country. If this election taught us anything, it's that the American people are fed up with the status quo. They want change.

If we are going to continue transforming American politics and reclaiming our democracy, we must stay engaged in the political process. The election may be over, but our work is just getting started.

Together, we are going to continue fighting for the progressive values we share. Together, we will show the political establishment that we are in it for the long haul.

Thank you for everything you've done, and will do, to help create a government that works for all of us.

In solidarity,

Shannon Jackson
Executive Director
Our Revolution

How to Avoid Depression from Facebook

If your first thought on avoiding Facebook depression is 'don't use Facebook' then it means your mind still functions and they haven't managed the reprogramming to turn you into an online meatbot.  However, for those meatbots, there is helpful advice from the psychologists at the University of Lancaster.  (Science Daily:  How to avoid feeling depressed on Facebook)

Here are certain 'risk factors' the researchers identified for Facebook:

Facebook users were more at risk of depression when they:

· Felt envy triggered by observing others

· Accepted former partners as Facebook friends

· Made negative social comparisons

· Made frequent negative status updates

- Science Daily


Note:  if you're not laughing yet, you may not be quite getting the point of this article.

Ed:  you don't need Facebook for any of those things

Right you are, Cap'n.

The researchers were not reviewing Facebook but rather the level of malcontent in the country and obviously it's enormous or people wouldn't use Facebook in the first place to hide from anything they find disturbing (i.e. just about everything, most particularly themselves).


When Mystery Lady and I talked earlier, she asked 'what's the deal with all the selfies they shoot?'

Keep in mind these are the offspring of the soccer moms and dads who controlled every breathing moment of their lives.  It doesn't take Psychology Today to see a bunch of young people desperately trying to define themselves as something which is not their parents.  That they keep doing it only shows this way does not work.

Ed:  your father did that to you!

He did that to all of us and at least some of the sibs are still competing with him but the unanimous reaction was to outwork him rather than throwing me, me, me graffiti all over the place.

Note:  the competition is resolved when you realize you are him and have been all along.




Here's a non-selfie:


Relax, paedos, as she's out of your league.  This picture was from long enough ago that she's a young woman now, much too old for you.  She probably has some swain's heart all aflutter now and maybe makes babies of her own.

She does not represent a violation of the family's No Babies mandate.  I wasn't sure who she is but Yevette estimated the picture was from 2003.  She definitely ain't a baby no mo'.  She's not in my family but the No Babies mandate still applied because, well, she is one ... or was a long time ago.

As to the photograph, I love the composition but the exposure is estimable.

What's Hot on the Blog 11/29

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It's Not Christmas - when Krampus arrives and children are terrified then you know it's Christmas

Nope - after Blogger's recent change, it's difficult to keep track of new comments

Kids at the Opera - Mystery Lady, this is the photograph I mentioned ... wonderful piece of work

How Cops - about how Obama and the far right demolished the protections of the Fourth Amendment

When the Queen - an unusual queen ... and unusual troops

The Aetherius - there's a message in Comments from Oscar, the guy with the ponytail in the video, but chose not to send him an email address

What's Hot

Jill Stein

Best Christmas - it's a house in the west of France

The End - it's odd to see I only did that a year ago