Today's Really Scary Shit

Some fun new terminology:

1. "Massive Predictive Crisis" (not sure I wanna know - sounds pretty bad)
2. "Large Charismatic Animals" (ya mean like The Rock and Rob Gronkowski?)
3. "Mass Extinction Event" (aka: Cross Check and the 2018 mid-terms)

So anyway:

"It's the little things that run the world."

Today's Pix

Color Me Skeptical

Reuters (Houston):

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency are working with Texas state regulators to clean up oil and chemicals spilled from a dozen industrial facilities after flooding from Hurricane Harvey, authorities said.

The spills came from oil refineries, fuel terminals and other businesses, but EPA spokeswoman Terri White said it was not possible to provide an estimate for the amounts spilled.

"Initial reports were based on observation," White said. "Some spills were already being cleaned up by the time EPA or other officials arrived to assess them and others had already migrated offsite."

(Gotta love that passive voice bullshit - inviting the inference that a spill is no longer a problem because it's "migrated offsite")

Refineries owned by Valero Energy Corp in Houston, Motiva Inc in Port Arthur, and Exxon Mobile Corp in Baytown, were among the facilities that had reported spills, according to White. Representatives for those companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The piece kinda rambles on with plenty of Company SpokesPimps telling us everything's peachy, but it mostly translates to: "We've made billions at the expense of everything and everybody, and now that the storm's gone, we need to notify the tax payers to get this shit cleaned up so we can get back to making more billions and externalizing more of the costs".

BTW - the humanitarian crises that are coming into focus in places like USVI and the Florida keys could get turned into some very effective cover: "We really can't worry about the feel-good niceties of protecting Snail Darters and Spotted Owls when real Americans are suffering blah blah blah".

Also: We should be hearing about a whole suite of Mystery-Maladies for years. Some folks will make the obvious connection with all that Ethyl-Methyl-Death that "escaped" into the water, and then "migrated offsite", but the American Chemistry Council will have their dis-information campaign in place very soon, and the Plausible Deniability is likely to be thick enough to choke a fuckin' hippo.

This shit doesn't stop until we put a stop to it.

Go get 'em, Press Poodles.

Trump's Kattrina only worse: Houston’s Floodwaters Are Tainted With Toxins, Testing Shows https://t.co/WhL2edOUdF

— Maurice Ross (@MauriceMichael) September 12, 2017

Today's STFU

This one from BET:

Dear Famous Liberals Who Refused To Vote For Hillary Clinton,

It’s time to call bullshit on your so-called social-political revolution — one that only a person of extreme privilege has the luxury to champion. Susan Sarandon, let’s start with you. I know you were “so excited and encouraged by the idea that maybe if everything is falling apart so obviously,” we would come together as a people. But spare me your sympathies now that Judgment Day has come.

But here’s what your privilege didn’t allow you to see: we had already come together. You were just too consumed with your own righteousness to see it.

Where, pray tell, was your hashtag outrage when we were screaming at the top of our lungs that we needed your vote to secure our rights and protect our lives? Oh wait, you were screaming over us that they — Hillary and Trump — were one in the same.

So, in case you're still complaining about the "evil duopoly", and how the parties are exactly the same etc, keep this in mind: pimping the fracas internal to the Dems goes a long way to making all that true.

"Take our party back" - now why does that sound so familiar?

That Cruz Thing

Yes, the senator's twitter wrangler hit 'like' on a porn site's tweet.

And yes, Cruz is unlikely to know much about his social media operation.

And yes, it looks like he kinda Anthony-Weiner-ed his own bad self.

But please please please - stop tweeting and posting about Ted Cruz's "staff" - I'm easily nauseated these days.

the internet is fucking blessed pic.twitter.com/QRuh6hOC6j

— anime you ok? (@gokunaruto67) September 12, 2017

the woman from teds video and his wife Heidi haha pic.twitter.com/qB9n2b5Z4B

— mr. understood (@EMlNEMOBAMA) September 12, 2017

It's always fun trying to rub their noses in it, but this has been going on for decades, and none of it has moved most "conservatives" off their positions - so, as usual...

Today's Today

So, no, I'm not laughing at the tragedy. I'm laughing at the sometimes absurd reactions to the tragedy.

Reactions like the inevitable commercialization of every-fucking-thing no matter what, here in USAmerica Inc.

There's also the point that it seems like we feel a need to sanctify certain events. And I think that leads us to concentrate on aspects of the event that we can relate to (3,000 dead on 9/11), at the expense of other - arguably greater - lessons that get pushed into the background; lessons that would make the next 9/11 less likely.

Clowns And Jokers

We've got real trouble when the White House staffer who's in charge of Social Media can't quite figure out how to Fact Check something before he retweets it.

scavino deleted the tweet, but i filmed it pic.twitter.com/MTXsc0dlKA

— David Mack (@davidmackau) September 10, 2017

Whenever anybody with WH Credentials picks up a phone, everybody everywhere takes the call. Should be really easy to find out if the story is valid or not. That shit made it out to millions of people whose lives could depend on their government getting good information to them.

So, a question: Is the guy just a standard-issue deliberately-ignorant fuckwad, or are we seeing further evidence that Cult45 isn't really running the show?

It's a wonderment.

Today's Tweet

Changing seasons

I love autumn; when the air starts to cool & the leaves start to change & my summertime sadness starts to transform into pumpkin spice ennui

— Frankie (@phranqueigh) September 10, 2017

Fake Lord Save Us

And then hurricane Irma was turned away and it spun harmlessly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Just kidding, because - well, you know:

• Nothing fails like prayer, or...
• ...these knuckleheads were doing it wrong, or...
• ...your god is just as much a dick as a fast-growing majority of us have suspected for quite a while

Today's Tweet

Guts.  And BTW, it can't have escaped our notice that the (slim) majority of the Veterans serving in elected office lately are Democrats.

Things change.

Just broke my leg rowing — I blame my hardcore pace. Luckily, it no longer hurts to break a leg! pic.twitter.com/slTWGx6sMD

— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) September 7, 2017

Another Tweet

Seems to be a bit breezy today

He jumps out of the car and measures Hurricane Irma's wind. His conclusion: It's windy. #Irma #Irma2017 pic.twitter.com/XdmCUvhf4u

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) September 10, 2017

How Great I Art

Yay Mikey!

And guys (as of this writing), I had a great spike in visitor traffic for a coupla days*. I'm just amazed by your generosity, and of course, altogether impressed with your excellent taste where blog-reading is concerned. Thanks.

*update: it's not nearly so heavy now. But hey - nice while it lasted.

Two Weird Ones

Some very odd shit goin' on

Eastern Bahamas:

Impressive slow moving landslide due to permafrost melting spotted in Tibet on September 7, 2017 https://t.co/PsU9BDl667 pic.twitter.com/OUWH39PFC9

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 9, 2017

Learn Something

Michael Shermer, The Skeptic

Go here ☞ The oatmeal:

☟and read this ☟

Just Do It

Bill Maher - one thing leads to the next, and that can take you to a very good place.