The Fruits Of My Labor Are Close At Hand

A couple of the tomatoes on the Celebrity are turning color. I am suprised at how quickly this has happened. Up until 4 days ago there was no clue this would happen and now a couple of them are mostly orange. If things continue at this pace they may be ripe in a few days.

I got tired of fighting the worms and sprinkled the plants lightly with Sevin Dust, recommended to me by one of you, about a week ago. I had lost several tomatoes to the beasts. Haven't had a single tomato bitten into since. It's like a miracle from God.

So be it, me and any number of insidious carcinogens are old friends. A person can't have too many friends.

Please Don't Taze My Granny!

This is an interesting story. You might think that I'm anti police by bringing it up for discussion. That's not true.

I would love to know the back story here. It happened in El Reno Oklahoma, county seat of Canadian County on old Route 66. It's a town small enough that everyone knows everyone else but big enough to have its share of characters. This is sure to be especially true of its police force.

When this 86 year old lady's grandson called 911 for his medically distressed granny, ten armed police officers responded in cruiser cars, not an ambulance. They entered the house, cut off her oxygen supply by stepping on the hose from the concentrator and once she got woozy, hit her twice with Taser guns set to high power, slapped on the cuffs, ripping the flesh of her arms in the process and hauled her straight to the local psycho ward for a six day stay. They reported as justification for application of the Taser that she suddenly took a more aggressive posture in her bed. Amazing anecdotal narrative phrasing. I doubt these guys were being brutal, I think they were afraid for their lives. What other justification could there be, with ten armed policemen versus one bedridden 86 year old woman.

If they had printed the whole story, I'm sure we'd find that this old gal has a history being armed, dangerous, mean as a snake and frequently of murderous intent.

There's nothing else on the interwebs about her but this story. We'll probably never know the whole saga.

I bet Lona Varner is quite a gal.

Big Sex Scandal

The Republicans are peddling a big Al Gore sex scandal this week.

So, let's see. A guy who ran for President ten years ago and has been out of electoral politics since then, who we now know has been in a long time unhappy and probably sexless marriage, got a room service massage at a hotel a few years ago and asked the lady giving it if she would finish him off with a hand job, according to her. She declined and he didn't carry the request any farther. He apparently paid for the massage in full and probably even gave her a nice tip, judging from the fact that she's kept quiet about it this long.

I gotta tell ya, every massage I've ever heard of, comes with various kinds of sex, if you pay a little more. I have a funny story about that, involving an old Navy buddy of mine, Ernie Bob Palladino, at a sleazy, San Francisco, second story walk up, massage parlor in 1977. It didn't even occur to him he should have to pay more. After a few minutes of desultory ass rubbing and no negotiation for additional payment, he turned over to show the massager his 19 year old hard on. The 40 year old,  scantily clad whore gave him a bottle of baby oil, a towel and walked out of the room. Ernie Bob, not wanting the situation to be a total loss, took care of the situation himself. He was really embarrassed later to learn she would have whacked him off for another $10 bucks, especially since everyone else there got at least that. This is especially true of massage parlor trade and hotel outcalls. I think everyone understands this.  If it had been me paying that kind of money, I would have at least thrown down a little more cash and tried for head. In for a penny, in for a pound. I wonder how much mileage the Republicans will get out of this? Maybe not so much. It's not like he was wearing a diaper, like  David Vitter, trolling for homo love in a Minneapolis airport toilet with Larry Craig, or winging down to Buenos Aires, imagining some mythical great love of his life, like Governor Sanford, just a failed attempt to get an anonymous hand job at a convention center hotel. Even the best of us can have an episode like this on a sad, desperate night, far from home. Just ask Ernie Bob, a loyal shipmate and a hell of a nice guy, he'll tell ya.

I think it actually humanizes Al's public image a bit, although in retrospect it seems a bit stuffy of him to have begrudged his buddy Bill those oval office blow job and cigar banging sessions with Monica. Monica seemed to be even more interested in the action than Bill and talk about enduring your long time sexless marriages, pul-eese.

Roll On, Oil River

I haven't said much about the continuing Gulf oil spill.

The Exxon Valdez spill was a big disaster because it was close in to a pristine Alaskan estuarine system. The fact is though, that the Valdez spill was always limited in scope to the amount of crude in the hull of the ship, as large as that was. The oil in question was easily accessible on the surface, in a sheltered bay and was not escaping under high pressure along with huge amounts of natural gas or mixed with millions of gallons of equally toxic chemical dispersant, a mile beneath the surface.

The current BP Gulf spill continues unabated after months. The potential for further leakage is unlimited. The ability of BP to do anything about it is questionable. Even their access to the leaking wellhead is limited due to the extreme depth, currents and weather conditions. Now, hurricane season is fast approaching.

It's mostly Republican government down there. They're apologizing to BP for being roughed up by the Feds, cautioning against penalizing the company unduly and even saying the spill isn't really much of a problem. Some have  claimed that the spill is a "natural occurrence" that could have happened without drilling.

If that's the way they feel down there, fine. If there is damage or blame to be placed for it, it is with the Obama administration for allowing the deregulation and lax oversight of offshore, deep water drilling to continue after the oilman's bacchanalia that was the Bush 43 administration ended, right? The obvious answer is to vote the Republicans back into power next November and dump Barry in 2012. Makes sense to me.

Who are the guys in the Black Turbans?

I have a problem with the Supreme Court ruling on aid to terrorist organizations. The problem is with letting the government arbitrarily decide what a terrorist organization is.

Bush declared a War on Terrorism. Then he decided who we were going to fight. Iraq never supported any terrorism against us. There may have been terrorists training among the old Mujaheddin groups that the CIA used to support in Afghanistan but by and large the religious extremist Taliban is entirely domestic in its scope of operations. Saudi Arabia and the other Wahhabi Gulf States are and have always been the ideological and fund raising leaders for World terrorism. Places like Syria, Egypt, Sudan and Libya are home to most of the active terrorist organizations. If we were going to fight somebody, it should have been them. Bush started wars in the wrong places that killed the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Obama continues to fight these wars apparently following the Colin Powell, you break it, you fix it doctrine. It's totally fucked up.

I don't know why anybody would want to support the Afghan Taliban or the Sunnis in Iraq but they don't commit terrorist acts against the US. If I wanted to give money or aid or support to them, I should be able to.

Guys like Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas on the Supreme Court bend the Constitution to their own purposes worse than any Liberal justices ever did. One thing you at least have to say for them is that unlike their Republican legislative counterparts, they aren't afraid to support the fascist arguments they are so fond of, even if they come from the Obama administration's own Eric Holder.

Cook Out

We had a steak dinner, tonite.  NY strips about 2" thick, a pound apiece, grilled real slow over a low fire to medium rare all the way through, big baked potato with butter, endive heads and thick sliced onion, lightly caramelized in a mixture of olive oil and butter, sliced garlic, with a little sugar added, then braised in the pan juices for twenty minutes while the steaks grilled. Baguette not two hours old, from a Little Saigon bakery, to sop up the juices. Very Butch. Looked good. Tasted good. It was real simple to do and a lot better than you could get at say Morton's, where two plates like that and a bottle of red, house plonk will run you probably $300, maybe more once you throw down the tip. I can't afford to eat out at places like that any more and cheap steak dinners are a constant reminder that you have been a failure in life and can't even afford decent food. I can still afford it at home.

Anyway, it was good. Couldn't get near finishing it, this kind of food is crap as left overs but it's especially satisfying anyway to have too much of it.

Jesus Loves The Little Brainless Children.

In Brazil, a woman pregnant with an anecephalic fetus is denied an abortion, thanks to laws kept in place by the country's powerful Catholic lobby groups.

Reminding Everyone That Barack Is Still A Commie Plant

Michelle Bachmann believes that the 20 billion dollars that Barack Obama wants BP to pay to clean up the oil spill and provide aid to its victims is a Commie, redistribute the wealth, plot. First, Obama will steal most of the money to use for political purposes, probably to get re elected so he can steal even more money, then use the rest to pay for endless unemployment benefits to the lazy slackers pretending to have been put out of work by the spill, which is another way of saying buy their votes. If any of it is ever used to clean up the Gulf, it will be a miracle.

You gotta love that Michelle. This will really boost Republican support with the working folks in the Gulf region.

I Was Framed I tell Ya', Framed!

The disintegration of the Roman Catholic Church, already well advanced, is accelerating apace. Now the elderly, pseudo celibate psychopaths that run it are turning on each other. The Pope's best friend, who lost his bishop job a few weeks ago, says he was railroaded and won't leave his palace in Augsburg, Germany in disgrace, like he is supposed to. He claims he was never a homosexual predator, he just beat children of both sexes, in an orphanage forty years ago, which of course was perfectly acceptable, even laudatory, in those days. It sounds reasonable to me. I've always recognized that the violent chastisement of orphans is a primary responsibility of the Church.

I have always felt that the decline of organized religion would be a gradual process, playing out over successive generations. I may have been wrong. It may be so rotten at its core that it collapses suddenly into a pile of stinking, sodden punk. Sounds good but even if I'm wrong, this little episode should be fun to watch. The best part is that it doesn't involve actual sodomy. I'm so tired of hearing about priests and sodomy all the time. Simple child battery is so much more light and refreshing, like a palate cleansing sherbet between heavier courses. Yum.

Heroine

There has been a lot of bad press for the Catholic Church over the last several weeks concerning a young mother of four, admitted 11 weeks pregnant, to a Catholic Hospital in Arizona, with a diagnosis of life threatening pulmonary hypertension. This woman, in agreement with her doctors, chose to save her own life by having an abortion. The hospital administrator who allowed the procedure to be performed, an elderly Catholic nun, was confirmed publicly afterward, to be excommunicated from the Church, by the local Catholic Bishop.

This story has not been flattering to the image of the Catholic Church. Many news organs run by Catholic non profit organizations and religious orders have editorialized against the decision to excommunicate the old nun for agreeing to let the hospital perform the abortion on the sick young woman. Public support for the excommunicating bishop is almost non existent and universal for the excommunicated nun. The woman who had the abortion and her doctor are not directly involved in this dust up, since neither one is unfortunate enough to be Catholic.

Now, the Catholic Church has come out with their own heroic young mother to counter all this bad PR. Here's the story. Maybe it will go some ways to restoring the image of the Catholic Church. I'm not sure that it will because the heroine of the story having given her all for motherhood is, of course, dead.

What do you think?

Waiting for a Lesser Emperor

It seems to me that the biggest problem facing the advancement of the Wingnut political agenda is going to be top leadership. In order to transcend regional strength, the Wingnut coalition nationally must field leader/statesmen who can take on a mantle of populism that can rally more groups than just the base.

John McCain attempted this feat. Guys like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are eager to try. Where they run into trouble is that as soon as they try to move a little bit toward the center, the base starts to criticize and if they stand firm on issues dear to the base, abortion, homophobia, abolishing public education and health care, independent voters of normal intelligence shy away.

It doesn't help that likely candidates for national Republican leadership, do not personally believe the right way on at least some of the major social issues that bind the Republican coalition together. Many are secretly non homophobes, themselves gay or even worse, heterosexuals who are enthusiastic fornicators , inclined toward big spending, not particularly religious, uninterested in preserving preborn life, secret tree huggers or guilty of any one of a hundred sins that militant Wingnuttery loathes.

I can't think of a single person that could run for President on the Republican ticket in 2012 that would be both acceptable to the base and capable of bringing enough independents on board to gain the needed support to win.

Hybrid Vigor

I saw Christina Aguillera on one of the network morning shows today. I was never a big fan. I think I'm too old.

At least it's clear she hasn't turned into a drug addled, degenerate slattern like her fellow Disney kiddie star alumnus, Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears.

Christina's multi cultural family are recent immigrants to our shores. I guess she is an example of hybrid vigour. Her and Barry O.

It's good to see at least some of the young folks are working regular, staying off the drugs and making something of themselves.

Rock The Vote

I almost didn't vote in the California primary last Tuesday, not because of apathy or because I don't have strong political feelings, mostly because the choices offered were almost all bad ones.

In the end I voted. Even democracy done badly deserves the support of a cast ballot.

Tomato Growth

My two plants are both big now and continue to add foliage.  Small insects are feasting and there are a lot of small holes in the leaves. It doesn't seem to be a big problem. I've picked off and squashed a few small green caterpillars. I'm sure this will become a bigger problem as the warm season progresses but seems controllable.

The Better Boy has just started setting fruit in numbers, maybe 12-15 small green fruit so far.

The Celebrity is another story. It has about 25 fruit between 1- 4 inches in diameter that are developing rapidly and maybe that many more smaller fruit. It is still actively blooming. I have no idea how much longer it will be before the first fruits are ripe but it seems like it will be awhile. This plant will have a lot of fruit on it before any are ready to eat. I wonder how many fruit a plant like this can sustain at one time? It doesn't seem to be a problem now, they all seem to be getting bigger daily.

If it seems like problem later I may pick some of the larger green fruit off for a gallon jar of refrigerator pickles. I love green tomato pickles.

So far, all I've done is water them. Pretty good deal, unless I experience some unforeseen tomato catastrophe soon.

I Don't Pray With The Dickheads

Every country has Wingnuts. They are people who believe in the superiority of their own beliefs, to the point where they seek to suppress the expression of belief by others that are not he same as theirs. Often the beliefs of the Wingnuts are enshrined in the local majority religion or whatever passes for religion among them.

Not content with suppressing unorthodox beliefs of those among them, Wingnuts also spend a good deal of time attacking the enshrined beliefs of the majorities in other areas of the World. They then insist that all inhabitants of their part of the World join them in hatred of foreigners and their beliefs, calling those who refuse unpatriotic or even traitorous. The Wingnuts in other parts of the World of course, are busy calling us names and singling out their own unpatriotic traitors.

I resist Wingnuttery on both counts. I do not believe in the ridiculous Christian mythology that passes for divine wisdom in my little corner of the World. I suppose that I might agree with the Christer degenerates, that their religion is less virulently violent and evil than some other religions and that might even be correct but why should I give even tacit approval to a bunch of made up crap like Christianity, just because it is, pragmatically, less evil, less violent, less misogynistic, less xenophobic than other belief systems in other places? That Christianity differs in the degree of it's evil doesn't mean that it isn't, at it's heart, one and the same with other competing belief systems.

All Wingnuts are Dickheads. All religions are the made up rationalizations that Dickheads use to perpetrate their evil on everyone else, wherever they are.

I'm always perfectly willing to let any Dickhead that wants to believe anything they please, as long as they don't try to force their Dickhead beliefs and lifestyle on me. The problem with that is though, that the whole point of Dickhead religion, whatever kind it is and wherever it's practiced, is to turn everybody, everywhere, into a Dickhead. As it is now and ever shall be. Amen. Amen.

Who's Been Packing The Court.

The Wingnuts are all hysterical about Barry O packing the Supreme Court. It's bullshit. Republican Presidents have appointed six of the current nine justices. Before David Souter resigned last year, it was seven of the last nine.

I don't know when the last time a Chief Justice, who sets the court's agenda, was appointed by a Democrat but it was before my memory. Earl Warren was the justice most hated by the Right in modern times, at least that I remember. He was also the Chief Justice and appointed by Dwight Eisenhower. "Whizzer" White, one of the most reliably conservative justices on the Court for decades, was appointed by a Democratic President.

Either the Republicans don't really want a conservative court or they are total retards. I don't think they're retards, maybe only about 30% are. Somebody has to get the back end of the bell curve.

Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for the state of the Supreme court. That's always been the case. It probably will be for a long time.

Tea Party in Charge

One in five Americans now identify as supporters of the Tea Party. Do any of these people represent new support for the Conservative cause? I don't think so. Most Tea Party supporters have come out of the Republican party or from the ranks of Republican leaning independents.

What this means is that while the Tea Party doesn't bring anybody new to the Republican table, they will be able to exert substantial and maybe in some localities, decisive influence on political candidates and platforms.

What does this mean? What are the defining issues of the Tea Party? As far as I can tell, the most over riding Tea Party ideals have to do with fiscal responsibility, transparency and a desire for honesty in government. These are areas in which neither the Republicans or Democrats excel. If the Tea Party can actually translate these ideals into reality, they may garner a great deal of support from Democrats as well as Republicans. I think they underestimate how difficult it will be. From what I've seen of the Tea Party in action, at least in initial stages, with leaders like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Glen Beck at the forefront, they have a long way to go.

I wish them luck. Fiscal responsibility, transparency and honesty would be a real nice addition to American politics.

I Wonder Did He Sing,"Michelle Ma Belle"

Paul McCartney sang at the White House this week after getting a Library of Congress award from Barry O.

I'm not that big of a Paul McCartney fan myself, more of a John Lennon guy.

The Wingnuts have had little good to say about McCartney since he bad mouthed W earlier in the week, inferring that he don't read good, when everyone knows he plows through at least a book a week. It's a pity, they love that elevator music Sir Paul churns out.

What's He Talking About?

The Pope made a public statement today that the murder of a Catholic Bishop, on a public street in Turkey, would not affect Catholic/Islamic relations in that country.

Why would he even make such a statement? The guy was stabbed to death, in front of his house, by his own long time servant, probably a lover's quarrel. The killer was also a Catholic.

Mutually Assured Destruction

I have read that Burma is working to develop nuclear weapons. Should I care about this? Who would they nuke? Bangladesh? Laos?

I invented a contest!

This contest is called "Are You Better Looking Than Jan Michael Vincent?"

The right answer is, "I Am Today!"

I gotta admit though.  Jan Michael is one tough MoFo. There is no way he should be alive. If I had lived his life, I'd a been in the ground long ago.

Happy Daze Is Here Again

Ted Haggard, the founder, pastor and proprietor of one of the most successful fundamentalist, evangelical, Christian mega churches in America, until it was revealed in 2006, that he had for years been procuring sex and methamphetamine from a Gay prostitute, held a press conference in his old stomping ground, Colorado Springs, today. He announced he is starting a new church there, which he plans will be pretty much like his old one.

Normally, you wouldn't expect this to be the smartest business plan for someone like him to come forward with but you have to take into consideration that we're talking about fundamentalist Christians here. In that type of community, pretty much anything goes.

Even if he's not as wildly successful with the concept as he was the first time around, he may find enough donating followers to keep him in butt sluts and crank. They may not even mind his transgressions much, as long as he shares the gory details with them come Sunday mornings, is suitably repentful and similarly tolerant of their own minor dalliances with the Prince of Lies.

I'm more of a Unitarian, myself. We're not hypocritical about that kind of stuff. We bake the meth right into the communion wafers and after we pass that around and wash it down with LSD laced Kool-aid, we have the Gay sex right there on the alter.

Serial Sex Killer

You remember Joran Van Der Sloot and Natalie Holloway. I never had any doubt that he was a total scum bag or that he was the primary person involved in the American girl's disappearance and presumed death. It was never totally clear that it was murder, I supposed it could have been some kind of death by misadventure and then covered up by Joran, maybe with the help of his friends.

It turns out now he's probably killed another young woman, this time in Lima, Peru, while he was there for a poker tournament, last weekend. She was found stabbed to death in his hotel room there, wrapped in a bloody blanket. The police there speculate he has fled, or has attempted to flee the country, probably to Chile.

Turns out this kid is a serial killer. I never would have guessed that.

Interpol is after him. They'll probably get him pretty soon and extradite him back to Peru to stand trial. Chile and Peru aren't that friendly and may not have an extradition treaty but a guy like that can't stay in Chile forever and I can't believe anybody there is going to be sympathetic to him.

They probably don't have the death penalty in Peru, most Latin American countries don't but life in a Peruvian prison isn't going to be that good a deal for a 22 year old Dutch Aruban kid with a privileged background.

Take of My Body

I knew this Gay priest once, at least he said he was a priest. I'm not sure what kind. We both had a lot of free time and drank at the same little strip mall bar, mornings.  He was a smart guy, very funny, absolutely believed in God and wicked as a loan shark.

He told me he could convince young boys that his semen turned into Christ's tears in their rectum and that was why they might feel sad for a little while, after he fucked them.

I always thought that was the most original take on transubstantiation I ever heard and it makes a lot more sense than that bread and wine thing.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to him.

Break up

Al and Tipper have broken up after 40 years of marriage. I believe they have been together even longer than that.

Most couples their age, who have been together that long, facing the inevitable Winter, don't get divorced. Usually they mutually decide that they can face the future better together than alone, even if any spark of whatever love they had for each other is gone. Often, after decades together they have become friends, confidants and comfortable with each other, depending on the support of their partner in a way that they can from no one else in their life. Apparently that's not the case with Al and Tipper.

I have no idea why this is so.  They're really rich, so that will help. Tipper has always been more traditional and religious than Al. Maybe that has something to do with it.  I'm sure Al is looking forward to some young nookie and a few last adventures before age catches up to him. In his position, what man wouldn't?

Hey, I wish them both luck. I wouldn't do it but I'm not them.

A Shot Across The Bow

Google has changed their policy on computers used internally within the company, away from Microsoft products. Employees will now use PCs with Linux or Apples with OS X.

This has got to be bad news for Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. They claim their products are as innovative and attractive to consumers as ever. The free market will tell the story eventually.

Just last week, Apple stock outstanding exceeded the value of Microsoft's but Apple is a different kind of company.  Apple makes it's money on hardware. They sell a wide range of hardware all across the market spectrum, with their own branded content. Their hardware and content may be superior, as they like to claim but that's debatable and it is more expensive than competitors. Their proprietary software applications are the big draw,  perceived to be superior, more secure and they almost give it away.

Google is yet a third type of company. They provide access and make their money on advertising. The common wisdom is that they will take the consumer into the age of cloud computing. How they will do that, what it will mean to the consumer and how Google will turn that into profit is any body's guess.

I tell you what, though. If Google keeps its focus on providing a media experience with an advertising profit base and the expense to the consumer is minimized, they will dominate. People are always willing to  sacrifice quality and put up with advertising, even if it is intrusive and obnoxious, if the cost to them is minimal.