This week, I will be doing a promised report on my recent screening of my alltime favorite film:
This past Monday night was a night I'd been looking forward to for quite awhile, since my all-time favorite film was playing at a movie theatre here in the Bay State. I had, in fact, emailed the people who worked at this particular movie theatre, the Strand Theatre out in a town called Clinton, MA, which is out in the northwestern central part of the state. Clinton, MA is a cute little town, but I certainly wouldn't want to live out there, since it's way too far out on the frontier for my liking, particularly in the winter. The film West Side Story comes to the Bay State at least twice a year, or so it seems. I'd be happy to see it come a little more often than that, but, hey...I guess those are the breaks sometimes. Anyway, here comes the crux of this Thursday's Open Thoughts Thread:
I have an idea. Ok. Its kinda fucked up. I've been thinking about contacting my first ex-wife and apologizing sincerely for breaking up with her when our daughter was so jung. I still envision that dreadful day that can never be taken back...my daughter's crying, her pleading two year old baby face savaging me in that awfulest moment when I stepped out of Maria's VW for the final time, my little grrl wailing in the rain as her mother sped off angrily and left me to my own desserts.
I saw Maria again, first time in decades, at our daughter's wedding awhile back...she's remarried, serious, middle aged, matronly, together. Married to an old skkkool Southern gentleman as far from me as La. is from LA.
I was nervous about the meeting but Frau Tale took to her immediately, liked her right away. I stood off to the side with Maria's husband, awkwardly sharing an Italian beer or two mostly in silence, while our two wives kibbitzed happily.
="Pete never changed".
Frau Tale reported Maria's candid assessment later in the hotel room with the commanding view of the massive apartment complex they built atop Ebbetts Field on the day Amerikkka died.
=She feels very, very sorry for you. How everythings turned out.
I'm here to say that what happens to this country is going to happen, and all the voting, marching, protesting, letter-writing, and emailing or telephoning Congressmen/women, State Reps and state governors, etc. in the world will not change that, imho.
Dear readers, many of you have probably read Max Brooks' novel World War Z. (Personally, I've read it a dozen times, mostly because I giggle gleefully at the thought of zombies munching their way through half of America.) Brooks wrote one particular line that stuck with me, even more so during our super retarded immigration debate: "Americans expect a fair deal."
Upon further consideration, I agree. Americans are a people who get riled up when Walmart won't provide a refund when the $200 gadget capable of deep-frying vegetables ends up being defective. We enthusiastically worship oil and willfully ignore the firm, hairy-knuckled grasp of Big Oil as it clenches its fist over our collective scrotum, but hey, when BP messed up, we expected them to foot the bill. Basically, when someone fucks us over we expect to be compensated.
And despite our country's brutish nature, we do sometimes play the role of gentle giant. Well okay, the gentle retarded giant; we had a baby bird named Iraq and broke its neck whilst petting it. After we nuked Japan into rubble, for better or worse, we hung around so that country could rise like a phoenix from the ashes. A terrifying, Pokemon-loving, sex robot-building phoenix who constantly jacks off to tentacle porn, but a phoenix nevertheless.
America also has a nasty habit of jovially subjugating various peoples within our borders. Or, in regards to Native Americans, peoples whose borders we decided weren't Christian enough. Yes,America's treatment of Indians, Africans, and Asians was sickening, and perhaps the retribution America provided was largely a slap in the face. However, our retarded gentle giant at least attempted some sort of retribution, whether it be casinos, Affirmative Action, or a check and an apology for internment. While we sane and humble folks can agree those aforementioned consolation prizes are a laughable pittance, they are, at least superficially, something in return for all the goofy slavery, internment, and, ya know, genocide 'n stuff.
Then we have our southern neighbors, with their awful dress habits, inconsistent hygiene, and proclivity for putting too many of their own citizens to death. Yes, I'm talking about Texas and Arizona. These two states have stoked irrational fear and hatred of the Central and South Americans who've hopped the border into the US. After Governor Jan Brewer signed the happily draconian immigrant law, vast chunks of our populace rose up and applauded. Opposing the underlying logic of the Arizona law is, for some, difficult. After all, those illegal immigrants are here illegally so they have to leave. How can ya argue with the logic?
Quite easily, actually. You see dear readers, the American government has been fingerbanging Central and South America ever since 1823's Monroe Doctrine, with which we pretty much told European imperialists to go fuck themselves and stay away from our hot Latina girlfriend. Since then, our government has treated Central and South America like a bastard state of the union, the less desirable one we keep in the basement. We only feed it one bucket of fishheads a week, we don't tell our neighbors about it, and, from time to time, we murder their democratically-elected leaders - who are usually left wing reformers - because they go against our economic interests.
In short, and this is by no means a comprehensive list, the American government has: Supported the brutal hereditary dictatorship of the Somoza family in Nicaragua for 40 fucking years then acted all surprised when the Sandanistas popped up; Texans say "Illegal immigrants from Mexico shouldn't be here!", all the while forgetting that America stole Texas from Mexico then, in a truly cruel act, filled it with Texans; we paid Panama dictator-slash-drug lord Manuel Noriega to keep communists out of his country, mostly by murdering as many Panamanians as possible (because hell, a few must have been commies, right?); Ike Eisenhower famously toppled the left wing reformist government of Guatemala and thus brought on instability, poverty, and a ridiculous nationwide murder rate all because American businessmen were super protective of their banana profits (literally).
Now dear readers, the aforementioned cases of America's Fingerbang of Imperialistic Doom are often the direct causes for folks from these fingerbanged nations jumping over our borders. Simply, they are poor in large part due to American involvement. Put yourself in their shoes: If the CIA showed up to your town, killed your mayor, shot your puppy, and stole your fucking bananas, wouldn't you expect an apology and, God willing, some retribution?
Yes, you would. Because we're Americans. For all our faults, we are a people who expect something resembling a fair deal.
Among the two or three ideas which the recent American movie "Inception" ponderously expounds is what you might call the increasing speed of consciousness of dreams within dreams.
While only a minute passes in reality, the dreamer experiences hours in a dream, and maybe months in the dream within that dream, and so on until the most embedded dream extends forever, in one heartbeat of the sleeping body which hosts the dreams.
This is exactly the opposite order of so many nightmares within nightmares which compose the American occupation of Afghanistan.
A village which somehow endured for a thousand years is destroyed in one second by American bombers, and at the next level of reality in some miserable refugee camp, opium-addicted mothers pass their addiction along to their children, and at the next level of reality those same children appear in an even more miserable orphanage, "with no doors or windows, and no food," and at the next level...
Then, just as winter was coming, the government closed the orphanage. By the spring, only 160 kids returned. "They started working as laborers and slaves and couldn't come back," said Farid. "This winter the government wanted to send them back to the community, that means nowhere, then they don't have food or somewhere to stay." One boy was discovered in the market. He was covered in scabies, sleeping under the stalls, raped repeatedly.
And while those children descended month after month and year after year through so many levels of the infinite misery of ordinary reality in Afghanistan...
Meanwhile the American public snoozed peacefully in its idiotic delusions about the Global War on Terror, and President Obama has recently re-authorized the abject Patriot Act, as if nothing had happened and as if no time had passed since September 11, 2001.
I do like living with other people. I think there has to be some space, though. I think I'd like a village where there was a central group of buildings for community things (like cooking, working with processing agricultural products, hosting guests, parties, art venues, hospitals)
(cross-posted from Daily Kos, where they still haven't banned me)
Assange described his organization to The New Yorker as "scientific journalism," comparing it to biology researchers publishing their data sets along with their papers. In recapping a talk by Assange at London's Center for Investigative Journalism earlier this month, a reporter for the British newspaper The Guardian cheekily pointed out that "if Assange was producing this article, he would post the rambling hour-and-a-half talk he delivers" instead of quoting from it.
"Journalism should be more like science," Assange told The Guardian. "As far as possible, facts should be verifiable."
They call him Nuge. Deadly Tedley. Motor City Madman. He ran around the stage in leopard-skin pants and, although the pants weren't really made from a leopard, Nuge certainly slaughtered several lesser animals then painted their remains to look like one. He considers everyone on welfare to be a dreg of society. Nuking Iraq is his preeminent suggestion for foreign policy. And, right now, he's doubtlessly firing an automatic weapon at a bunny rabbit. Or possibly a kitten. After all, it's his Constitutionally-protected right to do so.
We're talking about Ted Nugent, of course. Now if there was ever a rocker who displayed the virtues of a blue collar conservative while still retaining the personality of a right wing war monger, it's Nugent. He is, without a doubt, the true embodiment of the modern American right wing.
Terrifyingly, editors and publishers see fit to allow Nugent to write stuff. And when reading Nugent's various queef bubbles I can almost smell the blood, probably because Nugent believes pen ink is for commies, preferring to carve his first drafts into a deer carcass with a bowie knife (just how George Washington would have done it). How this transfers onto a WordPress blog is beyond me, although Nugent's USB drive must be a sight of unimaginable gore littered with puppy skull fragments.
One of Nugent's recent turd danglers appeared on Human Events, a ridiculous conservative website full of ridiculous things, not the least of which is Nugent himself. Anyway, Nugent explains how America has totally been hijacked by left wing communist principles because, ya know, everybody in the White House is a Maoist. Literally.
Nuge says, "At least from my own research, I still can't find anyone on the President's closest team who has actually started a successful business. I can, however, find Che and Mao fans."
Well, dear friends, I'd like to see what Nugent thinks 'research' is. I envision him turning on his computer, leaning toward the monitor and saying, "Okay Mr. Internet, how many communists are in the White House?" With the monitor unresponsive, Nuge patriotically peppers the hard drive with hollow-points, resigning himself to the ominous fact that the Maoists have indoctrinated his PC.
Like your average Tea Bagger, Nugent has a penchant for swallowing conservative talking points with little or no questions. Of course Nuge knows Reaganomics works; all that icky "destruction of the unions and a crack-addicted underclass" business? Blame welfare cheese and big government. You have to be hard on crime; all the evidence of rehabilitation being more effective than solitary confinement for 17-year-old with a possession charge is just the rabble of faggoty college liberals. Nugent can enlighten us about the Recession, which wasn't caused by the corporatism of the Bush years as much as it was caused by, ya know, poor people...poor people who want your tax money!
Nuge proclaims, "Capitalism is the strongest man-made force on the planet." Given this statement, I guess he thinks Adam Smith spent all his time at a work bench, ya know, making capitalism.
But to challenge his positions will only lead Nugent to condemn you as a dirty commie rat. Clearly, collectivist scum like us want to forget about those golden semi-libertarian years of yore...back when our meat had rat poo on it and janitors in textile factories had to sweep up the severed digits of child laborers after each shift.
Or perhaps Nugent, like the average Tea Bagger, is incapable of thinking critically about our past. Mind you, there hasn't been a time since the unregulated industrial cesspools of the early twentieth century when the Baggers' imaginary libertarian wonderland actually existed. The most prosperous years for American workers came in the 50s. Yeah, free market worked wonders...after WW2 left our industrial rivals in ruin and the implementation of the welfare state. (I guess FDR, Truman, and Ike were Maoists too.)
Nugent also has good reason to admire the Bushes and Cheneys of America. Because Nuge has a hard-on for guns, bombs, and war, but conveniently weaseled his way out of the Vietnam draft. Nuge has gone on record about how he's made up for his draft dodginess by playing USO shows. Because that's totally the same thing.
Instead of wrapping up this post neatly, I prefer to leave you with this: Nugent has often voiced a desire to run for public office.
Three blistering fires are blazing through Wyoming's scenic Powder River Basin, but firefighters aren't paying any attention. Other than a faint hint of acrid odors and a single ribbon of smoke rising from a tiny crack beyond the nearby Tongue River, a long look across the region's serene grassland shows no sign of trouble.
That's what makes the three infernos, and the toxins they spew, so sinister. Their flames are concealed deep underground, in coal seams and oxygen-rich fissures, which makes containment near impossible. Shielded from fire hoses and aerial assaults, the flames are chewing through coal seams 20 feet thick, spanning 22 acres. They're also belching greenhouse gases and contaminants, contributing to an out-of-sight, out-of-mind environmental hazard that extends far beyond Wyoming's borders. "Every coal basin in the world has fires sending up organic compounds that are not good for you," says Mark Engle, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who studies the Powder River Basin, "but unless you live close to them you probably never see them."
A surprising number of us live close to them. According to a review by the Department of Interior's Office of Surface Mining Enforcement and Reclamation, more than 100 fires are burning beneath nine states, most of them in Colorado, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia. But geologists say many fires go unreported, driving the actual number of them closer to 200 across 21 states. Most have burned for years, if not decades. Pennsylvania's three dozen underground fires include America's most notorious subterranean blaze, a 48-year-old fire in Centralia, whose noxious emissions sickened residents and eventually prompted the federal government in the late 1980s and early '90s to evict homeowners and pay them a collective $40 million for what is now a virtual ghost town.
[....]
The U.S has already spent more than $1 billion battling underground coal fires, according to the Office of Surface Mining.
[The rest of the article is most interesting to read.]
We simply cannot put all these rampaging subterranean coal fires out. So why not simply install very shallow, thus very cheap, geothermal power plants above them? We could use air cooling fins to extract the power. In fact, by using this energy we would actually cool the fires down and limit their spread.
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