Perfect, not Flawless; Buy the ticket, take the ride, but not in an airplane - or helicopter; Reduced IQ?

Well, a tip of the blogger hat to Bob L. who correctly predicted that once I was off the road and not hanging around in airports wearing a set of noise-cancelling headphones the size of Pluto...

What Did you Say????

...my blogging would taper off.
That and feeling foolish for blathering on about complete shit.
Anyway, the blathering continues, below...


I've long thought the Universe is Perfect, but not flawless. One more data point:
Squirrels plant new trees, just by forgetting where they put their nuts acorns.
This is a very interesting idea. Maybe even a philosophy. It certainly helped a friend recently get through some tough stuff, and she now texts me with little emoji squirrels.

Not drawn to scale

 It could even be a Zen Koan.

Warning: Vicious Tangent ahead:

I've long thought that Zen Koans were invented by guys who mostly wanted to be left alone. They made some sort of "progress" or at least manifest - or said they manifested - traits that others found desirable.
Desirelessness is popular. How does one go about desiring desirelessness?
Or destruction of ego. How does one destroy one's ego? Who's manifesting the intention? The thing that is going to be destroyed in the process?

Anyway, so these guys have some thing others want and as people are wont to do, they come around bugging these guys who mostly just want to be left the F**k alone.
So, they invented Koans as a way to give the would-be disciples something to keep them busy.

Zen Master 1: Oh! I have a new one - how about this: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
Zen Master 2: Oh that's rich! Much better than last week's: "What was your face before you were born."

Anyway, I thought the squirrel bit a nice illustration of how it all works together perfectly.
Kinda like this:

I've never had much use for dogs, being a cat person, though this may change that. 

French beer company Kronenbourg 1664 is set to open a pop-up bar staffed entirely by German Shepherds in London on Friday. The dogs will deliver the company's beer for free in custom lightweight barrels to guests who reserve two-hour sessions

Amazing Animation and illustration of best intentions and good deeds
http://www.housespecial.com/films/ -

Pilots falling asleep on the job is far more common than you might expect. In one British Airline Pilots Association’s survey of 500 commercial pilots, 56 percent admitted to having fallen asleep on the flight deck. Twenty-nine percent had woken up to find the other pilot asleep. 

Apparently, there's more to helicopters than I thought:

Hmm, This may be an intelligence test...

Definitely.

helicopter (NSFW)
When you swing your penis around in a circle and make the noise of a helicopter.

I recently saw Hunter S. Thompson's daily cocaine diet regimen:

Well, There's your problem. All that fried food.

Care for S'more?

Just because you're a criminal, doesn't mean you have to settle for second best!

Current Favorite Blog observation, from a comedic site discussing why the band Hole (and its leader Courtney Love) is so underrated, the blogger states:

A friend of mine once saw her [Courtney Love] in concert, and one of the audience members yelled out for her to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Love told him to go fuck himself, and I've respected her ever since.

/This

//Nice Guitar

One of my favorite cartoonists Mr. Fish, has some new ones.

I like time travel stories and theory and such and may write more about it here in the future. I'm currently (stalled) writing a story-screenplay on time travel. 
TheOatmeal, per usual, nails it.

I wouldn't be surprised to find there is a correlation between wearing a baseball cap backwards and lower IQ. I think the metal tab presses on a critical section of the forehead and lowers blood flow to the brain:

Now, off to San Marcos County Recorder's office.

They have marriage licenses there...

Last line of the form states: 

No refunds are given for marriage licenses purchased in error.

We could only speculate as to what problem that is intended to resolve.

Still, all went well and we left with our new marriage license!

Have a good weekend, drive safe, and take care.

Aloha from tourist-trap-central; Online Monsters; He's with Me; She's Not; Yoga for Chickens; No Manufacturing for you! Bad Drivers Explained

Last week spent a few days in Waikiki as videographer for friends. 
I have a love-hate relationship with the place. On the one hand it's over-developed, dirty, crowded and a monument to all the things wrong with tourism and the complicated issues surrounding the spoiling of Hawaii's natural beauty, culture and self-rule.

On the other hand, it's familiar and the beach is nice and I enjoy the amenities when it's not too crowded. But it's a weird place on the strip after dark, for sure.

Our hosts and friends and all were lovely and very nice and I enjoyed being videographer.

When I used to teach an online course for a local SF college I was treated to significant disrespect in comments posted by my students online, many posted publicly. I think none of them would have said those types of things to me in person. It is one reason I stopped teaching in that forum.
Which is why I found this blog post, from one of my fav tech-bloggers, all the more meaningful.




They Have To Be Monsters

There is deep truth in the old idea that people are able to say these things because they are looking at a screen full of words, not directly at the face of the person they're about to say a terrible thing to. That one level of abstraction the Internet allows, typing, which is so immensely powerful in so many other contexts …As an exercise in empathy, try to imagine saying some of the terrible things people typed to each other online to a real person sitting directly in front of you. Or don't imagine, and just watch this video.

The weight of seeing through the fear and beyond the monster to simply discover yourself is often too terrible for many people to bear. In a world of hard things, it's the hardest there is.

That's the end of my comments this week. the Rest are some - hopefully - interesting reads.
Take care and Happy Mom's Day.

What the media will never understand about Trump supporters

Donald Trump is successfully running a “He’s with me” campaign. All of the other candidates are running an “I’m with her” campaign. The difference between these two campaigns is what will make the 2016 election. The vague promises to make America great again … I will make you feel good … I express your anger … I am your vehicle .. are all Donald-isms for “He’s with me”. “He’s with me” will beat “I’m with her” every time.

Will Clinton Attempt to Bring Sanders Supporters into the Democratic Fold?

Something to keep your eye on in the lead-up to post-East Coast voting, and something that could well affect the voting after that. Will Clinton move toward Sanders’ positions, as an appeal for his supporters, or will she, as I’ve said elsewhere, insist the mountain (of his voters) come to Mohammad?

Seems the latter.

This from Josh Abramson, in a Huff Post piece called “5 Things We’ve Learned About Hillary Clinton Since She Won the New York Primary“.  here’s the fifth point (my occasional emphasis):

5. There will be no attempt whatsoever to bring Sanders supporters back into the Democratic fold.

Sanders supporters knew Clinton was angry at them for voting for Bernie — they could tell by her comment saying that she “feels sorry for” young voters too misinformed to vote for her; or by Bill Clinton saying that Sanders voters are so unsophisticated that they just want to “shoot every third banker on Wall Street”; or by David Plouffe (a Clinton ally) saying that every person who donates money to Sanders is being taken in by an obvious “fraud”; or by the unnamed Clinton staffer so certain she or he was speaking in a tone and manner consistent with the view of the Clinton campaign that she or he told Politico that the Clinton campaign “kicked Bernie’s ass” in New York and that Sanders can “go fuck himself.”

       Senator Pat Roberts Thinks Chicken Welfare is “Absolutely Ridiculous”

Here is a quote from Pat Roberts (R-KS) speaking to the North American Agricultural Journalists on Tuesday, who is, again, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee:

“What is chicken enrichment anyway? It could be yoga, that might be difficult. Video games? They do that for various animals. Sports? A gourmet meal? I think probably music is the best thing we can do to entice the chickens to come out and be happier, you know free range, roaming around. I think probably Ray Price would be the best person. Certainly not Prince. At any rate, something soothing.” 

Roberts, over the past five years, has taken more than $850,000 in donations from agribusiness.  

The Mirage of a Return to Manufacturing Greatness 

In America’s factories, jobs are inevitably disappearing, too. But despite the political rhetoric, the problem is not mainly globalization. Manufacturing jobs are on the decline in factories around the world.“The likelihood that we will get a manufacturing recovery is close to nil,” Professor Stiglitz said. “We are more likely to have a smaller share of a shrinking pie.”

Bad drivers are a good indicator of a corrupt government 

The one factor that unarguably connects corruption and driving is income. Rates of motor vehicle deaths have an inverted-U relationship with income. Poor countries have few fatalities. As they become wealthier, fatalities increase until income reaches some critical level, after which fatalities begin to decline again. One study puts that turnaround point between $10,000 and $11,000 per capita (paywall). As a result of this common connection to income, traffic deaths and corruption will always be somewhat correlated.
The authors identify several ways that corruption might influence the risk of accidents, such as by undermining infrastructure development, limiting opportunities for economic advancement, or discouraging legal enforcement. It is the last that O’Malley identifies. There are countries where police are powerless or unwilling to enforce the laws, and as a result drivers tend to ignore them.