Slouching Towards Oblivion

Monday, December 31, 2012

We Just Don't Know

Except we kinda do know - or at least we're getting to where we have to be starting to think there has to be something to it. There's always whatever small probability that it could be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but c'mon - at what point do we just have to say those damned hippies were right all along?
From The Rocky Mountain Arsenal:

Deep well injection for liquid waste has been safely used for many years at sites throughout the United States without documented damage to human health or the environment. After an extensive study of deep injection wells across the country by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it was concluded that this procedure is effective and protective of the environment.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal deep injection well was constructed in 1961, and was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet. The well was cased and sealed to a depth of 11,975 feet, with the remaining 70 feet left as an open hole for the injection of Basin F liquids. For testing purposes, the well was injected with approximately 568,000 gallons of city water prior to injecting any waste. However, when the Basin F liquids were actually introduced, the process required more time than anticipated to complete because of the impermeability of the rock. The end result was approximately 165 million gallons of Basin F liquid waste being injected into the well during the period from 1962 through 1966.
The waste fluid chemistry is not known precisely. However, the Army estimates that the waste was a more dilute version of the Basin F liquid which is now being incinerated. Current Basin F liquid consists of very salty water that includes some metals, chlorides, wastewater and toxic organics. From 1962 -- 1963, the fluids were pumped from Basin F into the well. From 1964 -- 1966, waste was removed from an isolated section of Basin F and was combined with waste from a pre-treatment plant, located near Basin F, and then pumped into the well. The waste from the pre-treatment plant was generally a solution containing 13,000 parts per million sodium chloride (salt), with a pH ranging from 3.5 to 11.5. The organic content of the solution was high but is largely unknown.
The injected fluids had very little potential for reaching the surface or useable groundwater supply since the injection point had 11,900 feet of rock above it and was sealed at the opening. The Army discontinued use of the well in Feb. 1966 because of the possibility that the fluid injection was triggering earthquakes in the area. The well remained unused for nearly 20 years.
In 1985 the Army permanently sealed the disposal well in stages. First, the well casing was tested to evaluate its integrity. Any detected voids behind the casing were cemented to prevent possible contamination of other formations. Next, the injection zone at the bottom 70 feet of the well was closed by plugging with cement. Additional cement barriers were placed inside the casing across zones that could access water-bearing formations (aquifers). The final step was adding Bentonite, a heavy clay mud that later solidified, to close the rest of the hole up to the ground surface.
I was 14, living in Arvada Colorado in August 1967, and I remember very clearly at the time that nobody wasn't convinced the earthquakes were being caused by the US Army pumping tons of toxic waste into those wells.  The Army didn't deny it although they were pretty cagey about what they were willing to say about it in public.

Historic Earthquakes

Denver, Colorado
1967 08 09 13:25
Magnitude 5.3

The main damage occurred in Northglenn, a northern suburb of Denver, but minor damage occurred in many area towns. At Northglenn, concrete pillars were damaged at a church; foundations, concrete floors, and walls cracked; windows broke; and tile fell at a school. At one residence, a piano shifted about 15 cm and a television set overturned. Some bricks fell from a chimney in downtown Denver, damaging a car. This was the largest of a series of earthquakes in the northeast Denver area that were believed to be induced by pumping of waste fluids into a deep disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. The Colorado School of Mines recorded more than 300 earthquakes from this zone during 1967. Felt north to Laramie, Wyoming, south to Pueblo, west to Vail, and east to Sterling.
Cracks in highway overpass pillar in the Denver, Colorado, area caused by the August 9, 1967, earthquake. (Photograph by the Denver Post.)

And then this, from Up With Chris Hayes:
Indeed, energy independence–and the economic opportunities that come with it–may be an admirable goal. But then there’s this: fracking is causing earthquakes. Federal scientists presented a new study this week to the American Geophysical Union that suggests natural gas drilling is the likely culprit behind a skyrocketing number of earthquakes in the Raton Basin in Colorado and New Mexico. From 1970 to 2001, there were just five earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater in that region. Then, companies began injecting what’s called “wastewater fluid” from natural gas drilling into the Earth. After that, from 2001 to 2011, there were a total of 95 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater–an increase of 1,900%. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey concluded in their report that “the majority, if not all of the earthquakes since August 2001 have been triggered by the deep injection of wastewater related to the production of natural gas from the coal-bed methane field.”
This has to stop.

The Pendulum Swings

Even Obama has taken up the chorus now.  He did an interview on MTP yesterday where he said kinda straight out that the Repubs are the problem.

"...they have trouble saying yes..."

etc

It'll take some doing, but you'll have to try extra hard to ignore what a dip wad David Gregory is - especially when he gets to the question: "what is it about you, Mr President that you think is so hard to say yes to?".

Maybe it finally starts to stick (ie: the GOP is the main problem), and maybe it finally starts to make the "politically fashionable middle-grounders" feel more comfortable about  thinking so; and then actually saying so in their normal daily discourse.

Re-alignment happens when the big squishy middle starts to move.

Read what Charlie Pierce has to say about it:
Now, after carefully nurturing for 40 years the notion that government is bad, the Republican party has developed within it a legislative core that believes that, if government is bad, then governing is worse, that holds as an article of faith that the only legitimate function of government is to do nothing — loudly, if possible.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

The Krugman Speaks

Evan Soltas of Wonkblog and Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider both make the same point, in more detail, that I tried to make in my series on ONE TRILLION DOLLARS: the current budget deficit is overwhelmingly the result of the depressed economy, and it’s not clear that we have a structural budget problem at all, let alone the fundamental mismatch between what we want and what we’re willing to pay for that people like to claim exists. Here’s another chart, showing the primary federal balance — that is, not counting interest payments — since 1972 (data from CBO):
We don't get to talk about the real thing because the Dems need an honest-to-god partner in order to make shit work, and the Repubs are one tent short of a freak show.

I gets pretty obvious pretty fast that what Boehner & Co (and to a very much lesser extent, Obama) are doing is playing their little games.  And it's not even Boehner and Obama who pose the real problem.  I'm not one for simple 10-word solutions to big ugly complicated trouble, but the real problem is that there're just way too many big Corporations and big Trade Groups and big Lobbies, and big Unions and Power Factions inside Government (DoD eg), where everybody has their hands out expecting whatever favors and special treatment they believe they've got coming because of the money they raised for a candidate or the voters they turned out in the election or the vital role they play blah blah blah.  And it doesn't just boil down to the usual pap about "special interest groups" - in a democracy everybody's a special interest group for fuck's sake.  I think it comes down to a weird blend of Obama's semi-conservative centrism and The Repubs getting more and more crazy as we go.  And there's poor ol' Boehner trying pretty hard to get his numbskull caucus to stop being complete dicks about everything while not actually saying straight out (not in public anyway) that they're all a bunch of complete dicks.

Conventional wisdom is saying Boehner's likely to lose his speakership next month.  I'm not sure one way or the other, but I think it probably won't matter.  It could be a huge story that'll keep the Operatives and the Squawkers busy for months, but in the end, if Boehner stays or goes we'll still have a Republican Party that can't manage a High School Car Wash much less help govern an empire - while the rest of us can only sit around waiting for something good to happen.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Professional Left Podcast

If you do nothing else to stay current on political shit goin' on 'round this joint, listen to the podcast these guys put up every week (they record on Wednesday, and usually have it up by about noon on Friday).

They don't have a convenient way for me to embed the player, so here's the link:

http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/


Be aware - this is nothing if not "very liberal", but for a conservative like me it's pure tonic to hear somebody speaking what sounds like real truth.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Mr Madison Speaks

Lifted from Charles Pierce at Esquire:
And may I not be allowed to add to this gratifying spectacle that I shall read in the character of the American people, in their devotion to true liberty and to the Constitution which is its palladium, sure presages that the destined career of my country will exhibit a Government pursuing the public good as its sole object, and regulating its means by the great principles consecrated in its charger and by those moral principles to which they are so well allied; a Government which watches over the purity of elections, the freedom of speech and of the press, the trial by jury, and the equal interdict against encroachments and compacts between religion and the state; which maintains inviolably the maxims of public faith, the security of persons and property, and encourages in every authorized mode the general diffusion of knowledge which guarantees to public liberty its permanency and to those who possess the blessing the true enjoyment of it; a Government which avoids intrusions on the internal repose of other nations, and repels them from its own; which does justice to all nations with a readiness equal to the firmness with which it requires justice from them...
-- James Madison, Eighth Annual Message, December 3, 1816.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Wayne "The Brain" LaPierre

..is a complete dick.

from Addicting Info:
In April of 1999 13 people were killed by two gunmen; students at the school. Could they have been saved by that one guard that the NRA wants us to believe is the solution? Well, there was an armed guard; a 15 year veteran of the Sheriff’s department. He responded, and he returned fire. He called the Sheriff’s office for backup. Yet, with both an armed security guard on site and backup coming in by the minute the two shooters, who started their rampage at 11:19 a.m. and continued until THEY ended it at 12:08 p.m with their own suicides. They left 13 dead and 21 injured in the wake of that 49 minute attack.

In March of 2005 a 16 year old shooter killed his grandfather, a deputy sheriff, took his guns including two handguns and a shotgun and vest and went to Red Lake High School in his grandfather’s police vehicle. The first person he killed was one of the school’s two security guards at the door. He went on to kill five students and a teacher at the school, wounding at least a dozen more before ending his own life.
The NRA solution 100% in place with 100% failure.
In the immortal words of St George (of Carlin): "What're ya, fuckin' stupid?"

With Love And Charity In My Heart

...go fuck yourself, Wayne.  Seriously - take your little 9mm metal dick - or your great big 12 gauge dick - crawl back under the porch and fuck yourself.

Christmas Askew











Saturday, December 22, 2012

Moloch Lives Here

Wayne LaPierre is the Lord High Priest, and he demands sacrifice - because no god survives being ignored and forgotten.

from Garry Wills:
First Moloch, horrid king, besmear’d with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,
Though for the noise of Drums and Timbrels loud
Their children’s cries unheard, that pass’d through fire
To his grim idol. (Paradise Lost 1.392-96)
Read again those lines, with recent images seared into our brains—“besmeared with blood” and “parents’ tears.” They give the real meaning of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday morning. That horror cannot be blamed just on one unhinged person. It was the sacrifice we as a culture made, and continually make, to our demonic god. We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied him. We have to make that offering, out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. The gun is our Moloch. We sacrifice children to him daily—sometimes, as at Sandy Hook, by directly throwing them into the fire-hose of bullets from our protected private killing machines, sometimes by blighting our children’s lives by the death of a parent, a schoolmate, a teacher, a protector. Sometimes this is done by mass killings (eight this year), sometimes by private offerings to the god (thousands this year).
(hat tips = Daily KOS, Professional Left Podcast)

Today's Carnage

Just a sampling:
 
3 Shot And Killed In Mich... 

(hat tip = HuffPo)

The Toll

via HuffPo:
In 2011, guns were used to murder 8,583 people living in the U.S., according to the most recent FBI data available. Among those murdered by guns, there were 565 young people under the age of 18, and 119 children ages 12 or younger -- the latter number nearly equivalent to six Newtown mass shootings. And these figures include only homicides.
8,583 gun-murdered Americans in a year = 9/11 every 3 months.

119 gun-murdered kids under the age of 12 = Sandy Hook every 2 months.

Friday, December 21, 2012

About Sandy Hook








Swan Song(?)

From Charlie Pierce at Esquire:

There was one thing that I regret not hitting as hard as I should have hit it during the presidential campaign recently concluded. And when I say I didn't hit it hard enough, I mean I didn't hit it like I was swinging Mjollnir at a bass drum the size of Lake Huron. The point was a simple one. There is no possible definition by which the Republicans can be considered an actual political party any more. They can be defined as a loose universe of inchoate hatreds, or a sprawling confederation of collected resentments, or an unwieldy conglomeration of self-negating orthodoxies, or an atonal choir of rabid complaint, or a cargo cult of quasi-religious politics and quasi-political religion, or simply the deafening abandoned YAWP of our bitter national Id. But they are not a political party because they have rendered themselves incapable of politics.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The View From Out There

When the whole whole world says you're bug-fuckin' stoopid, one thing you have to stop and consider is that maybe you're bug-fuckin' stoopid.

The Week:
Coverage of the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, was splashed across newspaper front pages around the world, a testament to the universal horror of a tragedy in which 20 children, all of them ages 6 and 7, were killed in their classrooms by a lone gunman. There was an outpouring of sympathy from the international community, which was inevitably followed by utter bewilderment at America's continued obsession with lethal weapons. The U.S. is home to 270 million privately held guns, which equates to an average of nine guns per 10 people. (In second place, with roughly 1 gun for every two people, is Yemen, "a conflict-torn Arab nation still dealing with poverty, political unrest, a separatist Shia insurgency, an al Qaeda branch, and the aftereffects of a 1994 civil war," notes Max Fisher at The Washington Post.) It is no coincidence that the U.S. also boasts the highest rate of gun-related deaths among developed countries — an American is 20 times more likely to die at the hands of a gun then another member of the developed world. Here, some reactions from around the world:

Canada's The Globe and Mail:
There is something inexorable about the phenomenon of mass shootings in the United States. We have been forced to write about it with tragic regularity for years. We have exhausted adjectives to describe our horror and revulsion. We have stated and restated the problem…
The time for platitudes is past, Mr. President. It’s time the U.S. cured its gun sickness.
And there're 10 more links and excerpts.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Today's Toon

I'd like to think we'll figure something out, but I'm not very hopeful.  We can't even decide we should do something - much less decide what we'll do.

Dear Obama Haters

I'm not saying you're all the same as this bunch of spit-cup deep-fried slop-faced apes, but I think you should know about your fellow travelers.


Monday, December 17, 2012

Todays' Tweets



Better Gun Laws Now

A gunman puts a bullet in the brain of a Democratic congressman, Gabrielle Giffords, and nothing changes. A madman murders young people in a crowded theater in Aurora, Colorado, and nothing changes. Sikh worshippers in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and Christmas shoppers in Portland, Oregon become casualties and nothing happens. Our children are now being slaughtered as a result of a political calculation.
Tim Dickenson at Rolling Stone

Mike Bloomberg at Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Today's Toon




And when weaponized anthrax is outlawed, only outlaws will have weaponized anthrax. --John Fugelsang

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Godly(ish) Tunes







Of course, the inevitable crap immediately showed up on Facebook about how assholes shoot kids at school because the schools have told God to get out.  Here's the thing:  if your all-powerful god can be kept out of anywhere just because some minor functionary on some random local board says so, then that is one weak shit god ya got there, Sparky.

And if your all-loving and all-merciful god turns his back as innocent people are being slaughtered - and while you shrug and rationalize it all as "god's will" -  then you and your god can both go fuck yourselves.

The Shooting(s)

We have a gun problem.  And since the problem is all about guns, the solution has to be all about guns as well.  So here's the logical approach to solving it.

I'm calling on all you gun owners to carry your guns wherever you go, and when you see someone who has a gun, I want you to shoot him.  Shoot anybody you see who has a gun.

There's bound to be some collateral damage, but once the gun freaks are all busy shooting each other, maybe they'll leave everybody else the fuck alone.

And while we're at it, the Sate Department should add the NRA to its list of Terrorist Organizations.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Ol' Doc Maddow

We're losing something important.


Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


And here's the background info:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Krugman Speaks


Bleeding Europe

Europe has surprised me with its political resilience — the willingness of debtor nations to endure seemingly endless pain, the ability of the ECB to do just enough, at the very last minute, to calm markets when the financial situation seems ready to explode. But the economics of austerity have played out exactly according to script — the Keynesian script, that is, not the austerian script. Again and again, “responsible” technocrats induce their nations to accept the bitter austerity medicine; again and again, they fail to deliver results. The latest case in point is Italy, where Mario Monti — a good guy, deeply sincere — is leaving early, ultimately because his policies are delivering Italy into depression. (And yes, for the record, this means that Italy won’t get the full Monti.)
So what’s the answer? Stay the course, say the Eurocrats. It will work any day now — the confidence fairy is coming!
Kevin O’Rourke has it right: Europe has become the continent where good times are always just around the corner.
It really is like medieval medicine, where you bled patients to treat their ailments, and when the bleeding made them sicker, you bled them even more.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Scammin' The Rubes

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Another Day, Another Shooting


via LA Times:
A masked gunman stormed into a crowded Portland, Ore.-area mall Tuesday, shouting, "I am the shooter!" and opened fire, killing two people and seriously injuring a third before killing himself, authorities and a witness said.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

John Fugelsang

Pulling Back

You may have noticed I haven't been terribly prolific on this thing lately, and I think it's because I'm feeling a little burned out.  So I'm gonna take a coupla steps back and just chill a bit.

I'll still put up some pictures and whatever weird shit that floats by - hoping to recharge and get back to it after Christmas.

In the meantime, don't stop putting pressure on the bozos in Washington to stop fuckin' around and start doing some right things for us.

See y'all around.

Today's Christmas Pic


Saturday, December 08, 2012

All I Want For Christmas

Suicide By Freedom

Charlie Pierce is turning into a regular go-to guy:
I once again call on all those "millions of responsible gun owners" out there that I keep hearing about every time there's a gun atrocity in the news, and we are told that, in response, we are not supposed to even, maybe, consider, possibly, talking a little about, hypothetically, adjusting both our laws and our attitudes toward firearms in order to make the populace more murderous, lest we find ourselves slandering these "millions of responsible gun owners."
Here's my request. Rid yourself of Wayne LaPierre as a national spokesman.
Gun owners are always reacting to calls for Gun Regulation by saying they have the right to protect themselves, but what about the rest of us?  As a society though, do we not have the right to protect ourselves from them?

Just Wonderin'

The Fiscal Cliff is supposed to be this terrible horrible thing that threatens everything from the lives of our grandparents and/or our grandchildren, and our neighbors and all of our house pets, and basically the very fiber of our all-American being.  It's the worst thing that could ever happen ever.

And the reason it's so awful is that is cuts way back on both revenues and on spending, which somehow coincides almost perfectly with the opposing viewpoints of Dems vs Repubs. I guess that in itself isn't particularly hard to see, but what exactly is it that "going over The Fiscal Cliff" actually means?  What overarching policy does it represent?

Can you say "austerity"?  I knew you could.

So we have one party screaming (as usual) about the need to rein in the gubmint, and impose some real limits on spending - a little austerity, if you will - at the same time it's warning us that we better make a deal that favors their ideology cuz we really don't wanna fuck up the economy with all that austerity stuff.

When do we get some real leaders who aren't constantly taking hostages and trying to terrorize us into doing things that ultimately fuck us over?

Friday, December 07, 2012

Just Keep Pluggin' Away

Repubs lost big last month, but you wouldn't know it by their behavior lately.  Right now, they're concentrating on The Fiscal "Cliff" - which I'm sure you already know is really more of a gentle incline, but hey, we need something to angst about so let's pump up the high school fuck-around drama to maintain some level of interest.  If We The People aren't tuned in on the issues, then the politicians have to admit the thing's a bit of a scam.  But if we "really know what's going on", then we'd be able to see for ourselves what a scam it is, and that's even worse.  So Politicians and Press Poodles come up with ways of framing the issues and reporting the proceedings that keep voters lined up in support of one side or the other.  Red Pols need to point at their numbers to make their claims of "the American people are with us..." and the Blue Pols do basically the same from their side.  The big difference here is that the Red Pol Supporters are almost always on board with bullshit - Climate Change is a hoax; Eric Holder is confiscating guns; tax cut equals tax revenue increase; democracy is threatened because too many people are voting; etc.  Repubs haven't stopped promoting all that crap because The Big Lie works, and we're seeing it in action.

I guess we should expect more of the same as the fight for party control in the GOP continues.

The problem, of course is that we'll be presented various choices from the menu of "very serious GOP intellectuals" who have to carry several tons of Tea Party baggage (which they won't be allowed to offload any time soon), and who'll have to pretend all that dead weight is actually a good thing because it represents good old American Values blah blah blah - which means they'll either never get out of The Bubble, or by the time they're allowed to talk about what they really wanna do, we'll know they don't really know what the fuck they're talking about anyway.  Reality can really harsh your mellow.

Enjoy a little Krugman right now:
As Jonathan Chait points out, Bobby Jindal — who is supposed to be one of the intellectual leaders of his party — has just published an op-ed on the cliff that sure looks as if he has no idea whatsoever what the cliff is about. There’s nothing in that piece even hinting that the looming problem is spending cuts and tax increases that will shrink the deficit too soon; and his big policy ideas would actually make the lurch to austerity worse. It’s not just the idea of a balanced budget amendment, which would force harsh austerity every time the economy goes into recession; putting a cap on spending as share of GDP would do the same, because you’d have to cut spending whenever GDP went down.

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Denis Leary




Yeesh

Just how stoopid do these guys think the rubes are?



Pretty fuckin' stoopid.

Exxon Hates Your Kids

Today's Pix







Maybe Good - Maybe Not

Here's the headline:  "Physicists Bummed That Physics Is Pretty Much What They Expected" (The Atlantic)
The Large Hadron Collider discovered the Higgs boson. Hooray! Success for the big machine!

But not really.

The discovery of the Higgs means that an entire era of physics -- in which the so-called Standard Model of particles was theorized and then proven -- has come to an end. And the LHC is not creating any new mysteries to investigate. Physics is following the predictions too closely.
I think I realize that a lot of people were anticipating some surprises when they cranked up the LHC, and I think I understand the disappointment when "all you get" is confirmation of things you expected to happen all along.  Not to mention the difficulties you'll have now that the very large piles of money spent on the very large project might disappear if you can't come up with some new shit to theorize about.

I'm just really hoping the reaction to the results coming out of Lucerne isn't something like, "Well, we know it all now.  It's not possible for us to learn anything else because there's nothing more to learn."  No matter what, guys, ya gotta keep working at it.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Prof Parenti

Here's something that isn't new.




And here's why it isn't new:
(John Kenneth Galbraith's series from the 70s)

Mr Madison Speaks


hat tip = Charles Pierce
Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between [government] & Religion, neither can be duly supported. Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded [against].  -- James Madison to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822.
While you're at it, read Charlie's bit on Simpson-Bowles:
So, comes the end of the day, and just when you least expect it, Eric Cantor lets John Boehner out of the leg irons long enough to present a "reply" to the president's plan to avoid sliding us all down the Gentle Fiscal Incline. Whether it is lighter on specifics, or on political reality is a question best left to philosophers at this point, but it is in no sense a "plan" any more than is the average food riot. Among its happy provisions, it seeks to raise the age for Medicare eligibility and cut Social Security benefits. If this seems familiar to you, it should, because it's pretty much what Erskine Bowles suggested a year ago, when the president's prospects were not very bright and neither, it should be said, was Bowles. Anyway, I'm sure Boehner accounts himself clever for throwing Bowles's discreet granny-starving back at the president. Cantor may let him have a whole cookie tonight.
Quick tho't:  let's not burn up any more mental ergs than we have to trying to understand and/or explain why the Repubs don't seem to groc that they lost the election and they should be making nice with Harry and The Prez.  The guys running this show don't fucking care what anybody thinks because they know they can make some of us think almost anything. They're playing the long game (with some very long green) and they'll just keep pushing their shit until they drop.

But remember that even dictators have to have some popular support (that's why they spend so much time and money on advertising).  The one thing we can do is to make sure our Congress Critters hear a message that's a little contrary to what they're dishing out to us.

So call 'em - every day or every week, or whatever - it has to become a habit.  If he's "on your side", then he needs to hear you're with him.  If she's not, she needs to know there's a bunch of people out here who don't think she's doing the people's business by just going along with the crowd.

Happy Zappadan, Everybody

Today is Bummer Nacht (aka: the last day Frank Zappa refused to die), and marks the beginning of Zappadan, the festival celebrating the life and works of one of the best (and sometimes weirdest) people in all of artdom.


Expect miracles.



(hat tip = BlueGal)