"In men this blunder still you find..."

           this was my screen saver for a long time...need to visit the desert quick...humanity is depressing me

was listening to the radio about the LGBTect crowd are getting firearms to protect themselves...which is one option but my concern is that they just went into the woods and found a spot to target practice...and for those of us who frequent the woods...or the desert...or the swamps...people just showing to soot the place up is a serious bummer...i think that the rules of gun ownership need to change to include a place to shoot which is designated for that purpose and SILENCERS!...OH NO!..yep silencers would add a whole new dimension to the shooting sports...now for reasons which are quite vague possession of a silencer is a felony unless you have a hard to get permit...and of course if a person wants to own a "combat" weapon then they should be required to belong to a 'WELL REGULATED MILITIA" as is stated in the constitution...

well an 11 year old girl in Cambodia has died of the bird flu...medical authorities are not sure whether this disease common in birds can be transmitted from humans to humans...but i bet it will evolve into a virus which can...it has also been detected in other species  such as foxes (see picture above)...

Swiss neutrality may become a thing of the past...it started in 1815 after some sorry war and has continued until today...but the swiss think russia may pose a threat and needs to be dealt with...they do supply the Vatican with some very ridiculous looking guards dress in the same outfits as they had way back when...

i read about a guy named Cyrano de Bergerac who lived from 1619-1655 and who got into more than a thousand duels due to his having a very large nose...i thought Edmund Rostrand (1868-1918) was just making up this character...the Movie of the same name is quite good and stars Jose Ferrer who is also in the movie i watched a few nights ago called "The Caine Mutiny" staring Humphrey Bogart and others...it was a very good movie and since i spent some time working on ships i sort of was interested in how the mutiny charge would be handled...it was a superb performance by Bogart...

"In men this blunder still you find, all think their little set mankind." Hannah More

 

"It's the woman in you..."

                                       leonard cohen poem "Steer your way"

so i was wondering just how few people could be inhabitants on planet earth and the species survive...there is a theory called the 'TOBA CATASTROPHE HYPOTHESIS" which states that a really big volcano named Toba erupted  and the planet cooled off a lot and there was a drastic reduction of the population of quite a few species such as cheetahs and gorillas and orang-utans and humans and this theory says that the humans got down to a few thousand (some say just a few dozen) but they survived until the climate got warmer and here you are now...humans as thick as bristles on a hogs back...i had heard some years ago that cheetahs are so closely related that you can do an organ transplant with cheetahs and the tissues are not rejected...thats what i read anyhow...this DVD collection i picked up is about wonderful or maybe wondrous places on planet earth...and the lecturer explains how much sulfur is released into the air during some volcanic eruptions and how much it blocks the heating effects of the suns rays...he said it is thought that one pound of this stuff could stop the effects of maybe hundreds of pounds of carbon...so some people think that sulfur could be released way in up the stratosphere and reduce warming...and that is what is called "GEO-ENGINEERING"...of course there is a lot fear that it could have very negative effects too...

i listened to a BBC interview with a Dr. John Mearsheimer who is a Distinguished? professor at the university of chicago...this guy says that russia is justified in their actions because the so called western countries were trying to surround russian with nasty old free democratic countries...what a crock of poop...he should be made to go teach this tripe in wonderful russia..

i also heard where the head of the Wagner Group of thugs for hire used to run a hotdog stand and then got backing from putin and then became a caterer to the big wigs and then as luck would have it turned into a mad-dog killer...maybe it's that cooking syndrome that promotes violence...who knows

Governor Hobbit of Arizona has fired entire Arizona/Mexico commission board of directors...great thing to topple the icons and get fresh ideas...

one of neil youngs best songs..."cowgirl in the sand"

Hello cowgirl in the sand
Is this place at your command
Can I stay here for a while
Can I see your sweet sweet smile
Old enough now to change your name
When so many love you is it the same?
It's the woman in you that makes you want to play this game

Hello ruby in the dust
Has your band begun to rust
After all the sin we've had
I was hopin' that we turn back
Old enough now to change your name
When so many love you is it the same
It's the woman in you that makes you want to play this game

Hello woman of my dreams
Is this not the way it seems?
Purple words on a grey background
To be a woman and to be turned down
Old enough now to change your name
When so many love you is it the same
It's the woman in you that makes you want to play this game

"Fear must arise..."

                                  reality check on stopping oil production...i don't think so

i was listening to a recording of  ms greta when she was about 14 years old and first speaking to an international group of so called powerful people about the dire situation which has arisen due to atmospheric alterations due to...WHAT!...she is one of the only people who has given the climate change the sense of urgency that it deserves...however she keeps talking about THE SUFFERING OF THE PEOPLE...there are too many people on planet earth for the lifestyles that humans have adopted...if the population of humans would be reduced to a sustainable number (and save as much genetic material as possible because a large gene pool is better) and the people who are living are treated as assets instead of just another mouth to feed (and butt to clean up after and head to keep out of the rain etc etc etc) and as a long time zoo-keeper i must object to ms greta not giving the other earthlings the kind of consideration she feels humans deserve...i do not think humans have or are capable of changing their ways quickly enough to stop the earth heating up and the ice melting and the oceans rising and more people being forced onto less dry land...and well the situation getting PRETTY DAMN UGLY...anyhow less clothing and less food waste and better recycling and BETTER REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY...that is to say less reproduction...well enough of that and on to something else...i get up in time to listen to BBC news most mornings and i like to read the big book of biographies as there have been some interesting folks come and go...for instance i read about this lovely lady this morning...ELIZABETH BATHORI-murdered 650 young women to bath in their blood as she felt it would keep her looking young (1610)...whoa buddy what some women won't do to keep that youthful look...her accomplices were executed but she was confined to her estate...don't seem fair to me...for those of you who don't know about the ancient Spartans they kept slaves who were called Helots...and they were pretty damned mean to them...well one day Epaminondas decided enough was enough and did battle with the Spartans and freed those helots (369BCE)...around that time Alcibiades was tried for vandalizing a statue of some local Athenian god and putting bad ideas into the heads of the local youth and they condemned him to death and he said thanks but no thanks and headed out to the Spartans who were fighting the Athenians...and he said (this is a great thing to say) "I will make them feel that i am alive"...and he helped the Spartans fight the Athenians...that is until they tired of him and they ran him off...then he went to somebody else and hung out there and being the handsomest man in Athens he  was always chatting up the babes...but he chatted up (and probably a lot more) the wrong babe and it was either the young daughter or the wife (or maybe both!) of the head honcho and he took it very poorly an had Alcibiades whacked...oh well it was fun while it lasted...well i heard about Ortega in Nicaragua acting the fool  and taking away citizenship and the property of his enemies and generally being an ass...his wife is right in there with him...so where is GRAVILO PRINCIP when you can really use him?...well i predict some vanilla ice cream in my near future and must move along...i would however like to recommend a good western movie i found the other day..."No Name on The Bullet" (1959) color 77 minutes long with Audie Murphy playing a professional assassin...there is a scene where all the men in the town go to where Audie is standing on the porch and they tell him they are going to kill him if he does not leave town...now since this man in real life has stood and faced death he gives a great performance...he tells the assembled crowd that he thinks he can kill that man and that man and that man and probably that one too before they can kill him...they think about that and walk away...i don't want to give away a good ending except to say that Audie is dis-armed in a very unique way in the end...

ON INTIMIDATION-"Fear must arise from the willful conduct of the accused rather than from some temperamental timidity of the victim" (i have recently been accused of being intimidating)   
 

"I fear ..."

                                     speak up for the birds...while there are still some left...

balunatics abound in the news...the lofty watchers is sniffing around for...WHAT!...i read a very good article about the business of bringing people into the USA from abroad without proper documentation...this article focused on the extremely common activity of smuggling chinese people into this country to work in chinese restaurants...these people work for the restaurants to pay off the thousands of dollars they owe to the smugglers...it was pointed out that there are more chinese eateries in this country than mac donalds, wendys and jackinthebox combined...in other words a hell of a lot!...so i suppose if the chinese wanted to know about something here they could get one of the thousands of dedicated un-legal chinese to just go and look...all you hear about is the mexicans who come here un-legally and how they need to be stopped...the fact of the matter is that the mexicans come here because there is a network of businesses who will hire them...one of the ways that these companies avoid being charged with hiring un-legal people is that they use "payroll" companies and say..."WHO KNEW!" and then trade out that bunch for another bunch who are in the network of able and willing workers...obviously once these workers have been here for a while they see that some of the things available to them in this country are better than the country they came from...like government for instance...and they want to stay here...only makes sense...now i imagine the same is true of the chinese people..i met some people from Yap once...they may be called the Yappenese i dont know..better than being called Yappers... these people were chewing something and i asked what is was and they said it was betel nuts...i asked for some and they gave me some and i saw that it had a bit of a kick like coffee...they told me what store had it and i bought some but only succeeded in burning a hole on my gums with the lye stuff needed to release the drugs...so much for that addiction...morning noon and night we are bombarded with information from an almost  endless supply of sources...i have been told by two people recently that the core of the planet earth is changing the direction that it revolves...but nothing in the news about that...however today i heard a scientist say that the core of the sun is changing the direction it is revolving as it does every  22 or 11 years i forget...this will change the polarity of the sun...now i can not figure out how people are so willing to believe things that have only one source...i talked to a man the other day...trump hat, marine tattoos who said that " the government has burned to the ground 1100 food processing plants in the last year to make the price of food go up"...he said this with a straight face!...i told him that the government has burned zero food processing plants and that he might want to check his sources...he let this rebuttal sink in and he assumed i was calling him a liar...not at all just incredibly stupid...anyhow i avoided him after that...some people assume that there is some mystic aspect to the marine corps but in fact the marines are just as fallible as anybody...there were 16 marines who were caught smuggling mexicans into this country in southern california, more recently two marines were charged with felony vandalism when they rocked they gondola until the who system shut down and it was hours before the people could be rescued at the san diego zoo, and there were three marines who worked for intelligence who were indicted for storing the capitol on january 6th...also jim lehrer  was a marine and proud of it...he was a very reputable guy...well just goes to show one size does not fit all...  

"I fear that we are such gods or demigods  only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to the beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that to some extent, our very life is our disgrace." Thoreau

"It is indeed at home..."

 moon in the desert.....pronghorn in the forest...this female pronghorn liked to visit this meadow

i often wonder about the difference between the way someone who has been in the same place for a long time thinks compared to someone who is a nomad...the millions who are "displaced" on the planet earth are seeking a "place" but do they become more resilient to the stress of moving... when i hear about the syrian and turkish earthquake victims i wonder about the great Lisbon earthquake which destroyed that city and all the evidence of cities which were destroyed in the past...one of the theories which has been proposed about the many cities that seem to have been wiped out about 1100 BCE is that a volcano erupted a few years before and the sky was made too dark and the temperatures dropped and food crops could not grow and the starving populations decided to take the rich peoples food and the term "POLITICIDE" was used to describe the starving masses killing off the leaders and the upper-class who were eating but never did much work...and then these starving people got on boats and went to other cities and burned them to the ground until all the ancient cities were pretty much destroyed and the boat people came to be known as the "SEA-PEOPLE"...just a theory though...anyhow all through the recorded history of mankind cities came and cities went and civilizations became un-civil and people had to start from scratch...in one of the archeology magazines i read said that at one time there were large homes which seemed to eventually came to be divided in smaller apartments to accommodate more people and less wealthy people...i can see the benefit of sub-dividing some of the larger homes to make more room for people...or have less people...before politicide becomes the norm... "It is indeed at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue of felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor and fictitious benevolence." Samuel Johnson

"We who are liberal...

 dragonflies in the desert?

much concern about balloons  in  the sky over the sacred skies of america...well maybe they were dropping germs on this country probably chicken germs so more chickens die and the price of eggs is higher than the price of pickled pigs lips and the country is thrown into a turmoil and huge crowds gather to protest the price of eggs and pickled pigs lips and anarchy reigns supreme in what was once a peaceful egg eating pig lip kissing nation...or not...anyhow i am more worried about agricultural sabotage than nuclear bombs or heathen hordes marching into this country from over the steppes or from the bowels of latin america...

remember this BLEVE...which stands for BOILING LIQUID EXPANDING VOLUME EXPLOSION...the recommended evacuation distance is 2 miles from the vessel which is burning...one mile at the minimum...

i have been reading in my thick book of biographies...it lists a lot of people whom i have never heard of but who rate an inclusion into this book...such as Thais...330BCE famous courtesan of Alexander the Great who (allegedly) induced Alexander to torch the city of Persepolis...and Aspasia...5th century BCE who was mistress to Pericles and a vivacious intellectual and held in high regard by Socrates (she didn't ask Pericles to torch anything...and i am not sure of the difference between a courtesan and a mistress)...and Ildeco who was the beautiful wife of Attila the Hun...and he died soon after his marriage  to her...

which makes me consider how i have changed with the testosterone killing chemicals injected into my body...whoa buddy! ...might be a good idea to make this drug available if not mandatory to a whole lot of people...i was watching a 6 part documentary about GOD with morgan freeman and in disk 2 episode 2 they discuss EVIL...or their conception of evil...and a neurologist is interviewed and he says that the brain is different in different people and maybe this difference is and indicator of a person who might do bad things...OK so i was wondering how much testosterone has influenced my thinking and i have concluded QUITE A LOT! and i highly recommend that more men get a shot in the arm of this drug and see for themselves how their thinking changes...i dont think testosterone makes a man evil but it certainly can dominate a persons thinking...and that makes me wonder what other chemicals might be available to alter ones thinking...because humans need to change the way they think...

"We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us."  Lionel Trilling