Friday, February 28, 2014
Thursday, February 27, 2014
SECEDE Kilgore
Another clown in the Repug circus in Texas. Is it something in the water? Maybe it's all the petrochemicals in the air.
SECEDE Kilgore is on the 2014 GOP ballot for Texas Governor! Kilgore's middle name was officially changed to SECEDE Dec 10th 2012. Kilgore received 50,000 votes in 2006 and 225,000 votes in 2008 running as a secessionist.
SECEDE Kilgore’s vision to end DC rule of Texas: After winning the 2014 GOP primary, SECEDE will ask the current Governor to call a special session for a secession referendum to be placed on the ballot. If he refuses, then SECEDE will do it when he gets in office. Secession will occur within 100 day after inauguration or SECEDE will resign. SECEDE will not accept a leadership position in the nation of Texas, until at least one year after secession.
Some folks may want a constitution with a centralized government similar to the current US constitution; others may prefer local government similar to the US constitution of 1792. SECEDE plans to stay out of the constitutional battles so as not to hinder the progress of the coalition.
SECEDE looks forward to working with the US to negotiate a fair separation of assets and liabilities. Texas may end up more oppressive than the US or we may be a bastion of freedom. SECEDE promises neither.
469-964-1374
Christians rock!
Christian rock is a joke. Christian metal is even more of a farce.
Rock and roll is not about faith or conformity or going to church. It's about rebellion and doing your own thing.
Tim Lambesis (aw, how cute, he even has the "lamb" in his name) the frontman for "metalcore" band As I Lay Dying (haha!) just pleaded guilty of trying to hire a hit man to kill his wife. Say what? Hey, here's a good Christian for ya!!
Obviously, carrying around a "Christian" moniker is no guarantee of upstanding behavior or morality. That has been amply demonstrated throughout history. In many ways, carrying around the Christian banner suggests that you are an active hypocrite. Most, not all. At the least, it says flat out that you are misinformed and not all that bright.
And Tim is certainly a case in point. Hey, at least he pled guilty and didn't try to lie his way out of it. And at least he didn't blame the devil for his actions. It was steroids fault!! A real Christian! haha.
As I Lay Dying Frontman Pleads Guilty in Murder for Hire Plot
Tim Lambesis faces up to nine years in jail and $10,000 fine
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Il Silenzio
This was recorded in 2008, but it's the first time I've heard it. Kids today!!!
13-year-old (in 2008) Melissa Venema plays the trumpet so beautifully and effortlessly. It’s in a tribute to how the Dutch have continued to honor our dead for helping their country during the war.
About six miles from Maastricht, in the Netherlands, lie buried 8,301 American soldiers who died in "Operation Market Garden" in the battles to liberate Holland in the fall and winter of 1944-5. Every one of the men buried in the cemetery, as well as those in the Canadian and British military cemeteries, has been adopted by a Dutch family who mind the grave, decorate it, and keep alive the memory of the soldier they have adopted.
It is even the custom to keep a portrait of "their" Allied soldier in a place of honor in their home. Annually, on "Liberation Day," memorial services are held for "the men who died to liberate Holland." The day concludes with a concert. The final piece is always "Il Silenzio," a memorial piece commissioned by the Dutch and first played in 1965 on the 20th anniversary of Holland's liberation. It has been the concluding piece of the memorial concert ever since.
The soloist was a Dutch girl, Melissa Venema, backed by André Rieu and his orchestra (the Royal Orchestra of the Netherlands). This beautiful concert piece is based upon the original version of taps and was composed by Italian composer Nino Rossi.
Watch at this site and go full screen, if you can. It's very beautiful and moving.
The soloist was a Dutch girl, Melissa Venema, backed by André Rieu and his orchestra (the Royal Orchestra of the Netherlands). This beautiful concert piece is based upon the original version of taps and was composed by Italian composer Nino Rossi.
Watch at this site and go full screen, if you can. It's very beautiful and moving.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
just too busy
Lately work and home life has been just too hectic to devote much time to the blog.
At work, we have moved our offices from one floor to another, and they stuffed all of us, even the managers, into 6' x 6' cubes and no one has a door anymore. We are changing our system of storing documents, so everyone has to learn the new system, and it's my job to train them on it; they took away our desk phones and now all phone calls are via VOIP on the computer; we used to have a large room full of office supplies, now we have a few drawers full; the overhead, florescent lights are so bright several people are complaining of headaches, even migraines, but they won't do anything about it, because we are within the "Guidelines."
At home, we are getting ready to put our home on the market to sell. We have depersonalized and decluttered the place; patched up all the holes from pictures hanging on the walls and repainted many walls; caulking up any little cracks; replaced one window on the 3rd floor entirely (with a guy on top of a 50' ladder!); repaired and painted the stucco on the front of the house; re-landscaped the front, side and back yards to make it more attractive.
(sigh)
I look forward to the time when weekends are meant for relaxing instead of packing, painting, staging, etc etc etc.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
clever things
Here is a collection of some of the recent things I have encountered on the internet. There are a lot of very clever people in this world, and when they find out how to post things on the net, watch out!
(Reminder: you may need to click each pic to view it properly.)
This one makes my brain light up.
Lots of disagreement here, on both issues.
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Texas has not cornered the market when it comes to idiots, but I'll bet you our state has the highest percentage of idiots elected to Congress.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is this a thing? Are religious bigots seriously threatening to boycott companies that support marriage equality? Bigotry knows know bounds.
????????????????????????????????????
I'm not sure of this one.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I sure miss George Carlin. Can't think of anyone else on the scene these days that comes close.
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Texas Goobernatorial candidate Greg Abbott actually has been campaigning with Ted Nugent. If there was any doubt that Abbott was a fucking idiot and a bigot, doubt no more.
________________________
If only...
()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
Ricky Gervais consistently hits the mark. Isn't it funny that the most creative and successful entertainers are almost all liberals? Ever wonder why?
<><><><><>
Conservatives are like clouds.
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This was me too, without the dress. (BTW, that's a picture of God. Some say it's just a person that pretends to be God, but this God is a whole lot more compassionate than the God of the Bible.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yet another idiot Congressperson from Texas.
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Your brain keeps working after you find religion, but it too often turns malignant.
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Do you remember Jesus saying this? No? But you surely will hear a lot of modern-day, self-proclaimed Christian Republicans claiming this.
===================
Yes, I am an athiest.
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You go, Joe! Someday we can put Cheney in jail where he belongs.
:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(
I wish we'd hear more like this from Obama, and while you're at it, re-schedule marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug and save this country billions of dollars in one stroke.
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I'm sure Rand Paul considers himself to be a Christian. An ignorant hypocrite, but a Christian.
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Isn't it absurd that Republicans want government off our backs and out of our lives, but want to legislate the most private, personal decisions that women can make with their own lives and bodies?
?????????????????
Unfortunately, so many seem immune to reason. They have their Bibles, and that's all they know and all they think they need to know. To try to get answers to questions of modern civilization by referring to a book of unknown authorship written thousands of years ago is nothing short of insane. But that's religion, mental illness writ large.
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This guy fills up a 20,000 seat stadium every fucking Sunday.
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I'd never heard of WinCo until I found this on the net. Too bad there isn't a store in the Houston area. The employee-owned model is one that makes a lot of corporations shit themselves, and could be the answer to a lot of this society's ills.
Unless, you a zombie!
remembering Kate
Spend a few moments with Katherine Hepburn, one of my all-time favorites, and a good atheist to boot!
Friday, February 21, 2014
Kiev protests
Update: Saturday, 22 Feb.
I thought the Cold War was over. WTF is up with Vladimir Putin? He and the Prime Minister Medvedev has been urging the Ukraine government to not "become a doormat" and presumably crush the dissent even more forcefully. WTF?
I thought the Cold War was over. WTF is up with Vladimir Putin? He and the Prime Minister Medvedev has been urging the Ukraine government to not "become a doormat" and presumably crush the dissent even more forcefully. WTF?
Ukraine: Opposition Agrees to Deal With President
from ABC News
Ukraine's president gave in to pressure from European diplomats and offered concessions Friday to defuse a crisis that has divided his country and left scores dead. Shots rang out near Kiev's protest camp and protesters fought among themselves about what to do next.
The capital remained tense after President Viktor Yanukovych announced early presidential elections and promised to bring opposition members into the government — but didn't say when.
German and Polish officials and an opposition spokeswoman said the Maidan protest movement had agreed to a deal with the president. But it is unclear whether the president's belated concessions will be enough to satisfy protesters who have occupied a piece of Kiev and government buildings around the country in a nationwide battle over the identity of their country.
European foreign ministers had stayed up all night in Kiev trying to negotiate an end to the standoff, prompted when the president aborted a pact with the European Union in November in favor of close ties with Russia instead.
Germany's Foreign Ministry tweeted Friday afternoon that the Maidan council, which has been leading the protest movement, "has decided that opposition leaders can sign the agreement." A spokeswoman for opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, Oksana Zinovyeva, told The Associated Press that opposition figures were heading to the president's office and had agreed to a deal.
An EU official in Brussels said that if an agreement is signed, Russia and the EU would act as observers to ensure that it is implemented. Russia's government did not immediately comment.
The U.S., Russia and European Union are deeply concerned about the future of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million that has divided loyalties between Russia and the West. Shots were heard again Friday near the protesters' camp in Kiev, a day after the deadliest violence in Ukraine's post-Soviet history. It is unclear who was targeted and whether anyone was hurt or injured in Friday's incident.
Small groups of protesters advanced toward the president's office, torching one truck and seizing two others. Scuffles broke out between a few dozen radicals who wanted to attack the building and more moderate protesters.
Police who had been guarding the Ukrainian parliament building left Friday afternoon, taking their trucks and water cannon with them but leaving behind mattresses and hard hats. They were heading away from the protest camp, but it was unclear why they abandoned their positions.
"As the president of Ukraine and the guarantor of the Constitution, today I am fulfilling my duty before the people, before Ukraine and before God in the name of saving the nation, in the name of preserving people's lives, in the name of peace and calm of our land," the president said in a statement on his website.
Yanukovych also promised constitutional reforms trimming presidential powers, a key demand of protesters.
The opposition rejected similar invitations to join the government in the past, saying that constitutional reform giving parliament greater powers has to be passed first.
On the early elections, a Yanukovych ally said that they would be held in December instead of March — not soon enough for many protesters enraged by police violence.
Lawmaker Inna Bogoslovskaya, allied with the opposition, told The AP that December is too late for elections. "After 77 corpses yesterday ... that changes the stakes," she said. "The Maidan (protest movement) demands immediate resignation of the president instead of early elections."
Protesters will not abandon occupied buildings until after the constitution is changed, she added.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Dale Hansen
If an old, fat, white guy from Texas can go there, I think we can all get there.
and then Ellen Degeneres flew Dale and his wife up to New York.
There is hope for Texas.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
BushToll
BushToll?
No, not the Bush Toll Road, which I hope does not exist, although I feel like we may be paying the "Bush Toll" until the day we fucking die. That ass.
No, BushToll is a website that reminds us of the immensity of the disaster that was the two pathetic terms of Gee-Duhhhhb. Pathetic unless you were one of the 1% during that time, of course. It's a filthy, sometimes dangerous and thankless task and it's rancid enough to poison your soul, but somebody had to do it.
About BushToll
At BushToll we present the facts and figures of the George W. Bush legacy. We acknowledge that these facts paint an unflattering portrait of the 43rd U.S. President. Unfortunately, Bush loyalists and their media allies are working overtime to rewrite the Bush record.
The Bush Stock Market Collapse
Here’s a BushToll nugget that pretty much speaks for itself. When George W. Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001, the S&P 500 stock market index stood at $1,342.54. The day he left office, it was $805.22, a drop of 40 percent
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fared a bit better. It dropped only 25 percent. Sadly, the tech-heavy NASDAQ shed 48 percent of its value on President Bush’s watch.
As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words (might need to click to view the pics):
Source Data: Yahoo Finance, Historical Quotes
| 1/19/2001 | 1/20/2009 | Decline | |
| S&P 500 | $1,342.54 | $805.22 | -40% |
| Dow Jones Industrial | $10,587.59 | $7,949.09 | -25% |
| NASDAQ | $2770.38 | $1440.86 |
-48%
|
Just for contrast, here is a snapshot of the stock market from Jan. 20, 2009 to present (Dec. 23, 2013):
On an historical note, in Sept. of 2012, Bloomberg News reported on the fact that the stock market, corporate earnings, and GDP do better under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents:
(hopefully they won't stick another John Cornyn ad in there)
This is just one of the many, many articles you will find on BushToll. So go here and be reminded of the greed and ignorance that we all barely survived.
Remember what George Santayana once said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Please, no. Another two terms like Gee Duhbya might just destroy the country for good.
Monday, February 17, 2014
the Cannabist
Track the ins and outs, the highs and lows of legal marijuana in Colorado in The Cannabist. Sign up for their newsletter. Try not to get too green with envy.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
God takes Coots
Yet another example of ignorance in action.
It's bizarre to think that a lot of people literally shape their entire lives on an ancient book of unverified authorship that is mostly myth and ignorance. Damn tragic.
I think Jamie Coots just made the next Darwin Awards list, in a big way. And I also think the members of his church, the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, KY, will go right on with their habits. After all, it was obviously God's will that Jamie died.
Jamie Coots, a well-known snake-handling preacher from Murfreesboro, TN, dies from snakebite.
bestep@herald-leader.com
A well-known snake-handling preacher in Middlesboro, KY died after being bitten during a church service Saturday evening, according to police.
Jamie Coots was bitten on his right hand by a snake, according to a news release.
An ambulance crew and firefighters tried to talk Coots into going to the hospital, but he refused treatment, police said.
That is common among members of snake-handling churches, who believe in faith healing.
Coots, a third-generation snake handler, pastored a small church in Middlesboro.
He had been prominent among the small, close-knit circle of snake-handling churches in Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, East Tennessee and Alabama for years, but he gained wider notice last year though a television program called “Snake Salvation” on the National Geographic Channel, which profiled Coots and his beliefs.
Paramedics were called to Coots’ church about 8:30 p.m. Saturday to check on a report someone had been bitten by a snake.
By the time they arrived, Coots had gone to his home nearby. The ambulance crew and firefighters went to his home, according to a news release from Middlesboro police.
The emergency responders told Coots about the danger of not going to the hospital, but he refused to go, police said.
The emergency crews left the house at 9:10 p.m. Authorities received a call less than an hour later indicating Coots had died, according to police. Coots was pronounced dead at his home.
Coots had suffered serious bites before. He told the Herald-Leader that he nearly died in the early 1990s when a large rattlesnake bit him on the left arm, and in 1998, a rattlesnake he was handling suddenly struck the middle finger of his right hand.
Coots refused treatment for the excruciating bites in both cases.
"It's a victory to God's people that the Lord seen fit to bring me through it,” he said the day after the bite in 1998.
His right arm swelled to the shoulder, turned purple-red and was puckered with blisters. The end of his middle finger eventually died and fell off.
Coots’ church was the site of a previous fatal snake bite in August 1995. Melinda Brown, 28, of Parrotsville, Tenn., died after she was bitten on the arm by a large rattlesnake.
After her death, police considered charging Coots with violating Kentucky's law against handling snakes in church, but a judge said Coots should not be prosecuted for practicing his faith.
Brown's husband, John Wayne "Punkin" Brown, 34, later died after being bitten by a rattlesnake in church in Alabama.
Kentucky outlawed handing poisonous snakes in religious services in 1940, but serious attempts to enforce the law ended decades ago because of reluctance by authorities to prosecute people for their religious beliefs.
Snake handlers, who follow a literal interpretation of the King James Bible, base their belief on Mark 16: 17-18, which reads: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Snake handlers believe they are following a Biblical command in picking up snakes.
Most mainstream Protestant churches take a different view. Snake-handling churches are in a tiny minority.
Many members of snake-handling churches do not handle the snakes, and the ritual does not occur at every service.
Church members say outsiders place too much emphasis on snake handling, pointing out that the other signs mentioned in the Bible, such as laying hands on the sick, are just as important.
''We're just normal people living day to day like everybody else, most of us living hand to mouth, but what we believe, we believe, and we practice it,’ Coots said in 1998.
take it to the bank
This is a necessary step to integrate the fledgling legal marijuana business into the mainstream. It's huge.
Feds To Let Pot Shops Use Banks
Reprieve for marijuana businesses seeking access to financial system
Read more: Marijuana Legalization: Feds Let Pot Businesses Use Banks | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/2014/02/14/marijuana-legalization-banking-pot-colorado-washington/#ixzz2tSSzBU9b
The federal government took a significant step Friday toward addressing the marijuana’s industry’s banking problems, issuing guidance designed to help pot shops gain access to the financial system.
Joint memos from the Department of the Justice and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network gave individual banks the discretion to transact with legal marijuana companies, which have been denied access to basic services like checking accounts and credit cards because of federal money-laundering statutes.
The documents outline the steps financial institutions must take if they wish to transact with legal cannabis companies, while reaffirming their obligations to report illicit activity. Taken together, they offer a long-sought roadmap for both the banking and marijuana industries, which have been trying to resolve the problems created by forcing pot shops to hoard huge sums of cash.
The lack of access to basic banking has been the biggest early obstacle for the marijuana industry since Colorado and Washington state legalized marijuana for recreational uses. Managing stockpiles of cash is a complex task that makes it harder for the state to track and tax legal marijuana purchases, and presents serious safety hazards for employees of legal businesses.
[MAGAZINE: Pot's money problem]
The guidance “clarifies how financial institutions can provide services to marijuana-related businesses,” the Treasury Department wrote. “In general, the decision to open, close or refuse any particular account or relationship should be made by each financial institution.”
Justice Department spokeswoman Allison Price told TIME that the department “shares the concerns of public officials and law enforcement about the public safety risks associated with businesses that handle significant amounts of cash. These guidelines, together with the Treasury Department’s guidance to financial institutions, are intended to increase the availability of financial services for marijuana businesses—that are licensed and regulated—while at the same time preserving and enhancing important law enforcement tools.”
Cannabis groups hailed the documents as a major milestone for the industry. “This is a huge victory for our members, our communities, and the banks that take this opportunity to serve a thriving new market,” said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.
Despite the government’s attempt to help the market operate, it is not clear that the memos are a long-term solution to the cash dilemma. The banking lobby has said repeatedly that financial institutions will require greater certainty than the yellow light the government gave Friday to transact freely with cannabis companies. Robert Rowe, a lawyer for the American Bankers Association, told TIME last month that “it would take an act of Congress” for banks to assume the risk. “Put simply: banks need the permanence of law versus changeable guidance,” Colorado Bankers Association CEO Don Childears wrote in an op-ed in the Denver Post last week.
The banking industry reacted cautiously on Friday.
“While we appreciate the efforts by the Department of Justice and FinCEN, guidance or regulation doesn’t alter the underlying challenge for banks,” Frank Keating, CEO of the American Bankers Association, said in a statement. “As it stands, possession or distribution of marijuana violates federal law, and banks that provide support for those activities face the risk of prosecution and assorted sanctions.”
The memos make clear that prosecutors retain the right to pursue banks who fail to uphold federal law. They are “intended solely as a guide to the exercise of investigative and prosecutorial discretion,” wrote Deputy Attorney General James Cole, and do “not alter in any way the Department’s authority to enforce federal law, including federal laws relating to marijuana, regardless of state law.”
The guidance had been anticipated. Attorney General Eric Holder said during a visit to the University of Virginia last month that the department recognized the hazards inherent in forcing cannabis companies to skulk around carrying fat stacks of cash. “It’s an attempt to deal with reality that exists in these states,” Holder said on Jan. 23. “There’s a public safety component to this. Huge amounts of cash, substantial amounts of the cash, just kind of lying around with no place for it to appropriately deposited is something that would worry me from just a law enforcement perspective.”
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers has crafted legislation designed to ease banking access for pot companies operating in the 21 states, plus the District of Columbia, where either medical or recreational marijuana use is permitted. “We need to address the public safety, crime and lost tax revenue associated when legal and regulated businesses are operating in a cash-only system,” Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat, wrote recently. Perlmutter has a bill pending that would give full legal clearance for pot shops to receive banking services. But that measure is likely to languish in a divided Congress.
Until a similar measure passes, the banking issue will remain a looming threat to the growing marijuana industry, which is projected by the market research firm ArcView to add $2.5 billion to the U.S. economy in 2014.
“While we believe today’s guidance should provide banks some of the assurances they need to begin doing business with the marijuana industry, it doesn’t solve all the problems,” said Mike Elliott, executive director of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group. “It is imperative that Congress not view today’s guidance as the ultimate solution to this public safety crisis. Congress must act quickly to solve the problem before we witness a tragedy.”
Original.Saturday, February 15, 2014
Question
What do:
Stephen Colbert
and I all have in common?
Brian Cranston
Goldie Hawn
Sir Ian McKellan
Conan O'Brien
Joan Rivers
Sharon Stone
and I all have in common?
Give up?
We are all ordained ministers in the Universal Life Church (aka ULC).
You too can be ordained by going here.
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