The ubiquitous evil thread.

[BO]

Or should I say, evil has become ubiquitous thread.

Some say it's during times like these that we will witness the true character of men.

Well, here's a little snippet from today's news that shows that sometimes when the going gets tough, and the tough are getting going, some of the morally and financially bankrupt assholes that helped jump start the depression think they deserve a Mediterranean cruise. On taxpayer's money no less. Twas then I realized we're going to be seeing a lot more of this. The darker side of human nature...

For insensitivity, Wachovia refuses to be outdone
"While waiting to see if the government will relieve it of bad loans, the bank prepares to send 75 employees on a Mediterranean cruise."

Stick that up your ass, Pelosi and Franks.

[waldopaper]

I had to re-orient myself about flash mobs... being an old fart who can't really relate to cell phones or social media.  I wasn't familiar with Totnes either.  But they are aware of their own Transition Culture. 

It's happening all over the world... like a flash mob.  I believe there is an ethical component to it as well that has more to do with the ancient text(s) than anything the stupid-heads pull out of their butt to justify what they have already decided to do anyway. 

Like their whack-ass fantasies about "the constitution," the stupids strain out the gnat and swallow the camel (as usual).  The folk here in krakkkerland natter on and on and on about the "bible" and the "constitution" until it becomes apparent that either they haven't read them at all... or if they did, they were simply fishing for something to resist Transition. 

They have little clue that they won't have a choice.  They mistrust "science" because they don't like what it tells them... but will freak when their cars won't run or the air-conditioning doesn't work.  And speaking of fishing, Herself is out of town... so she charged the kids with feeding the old man.  I always got a bag of trail mix squirreled away- just in case.  But the kids went out and cotched a mess o fish, sliced some spuds, and whipped up a righteous batch of fish n chips to feed the old man and however many people we got now down in the kid pit. 

They borrow me bicycle (without telling me) a lot more than i wish they would... but i don't get out much anyway- and am ready now to put the pvc rings around the wigwam... which they find fascinating.  All in all, it's great to have young folk around.  I get shit from other old people about pushing them into "college" or "jobs," which i consider to be as worthless as they do.  To see the way the boy cleans fish would do me grandpa proud. 

I'm sure he could be doin it better... but that's one of the skills that was lost in the last transition.  His Deutschsprache is passable, which is the only transition I have been able to make so far back to my grandparents' generation.  i still can't use tools worth a shit.  i guess if i can impart some stealth and slipcraft, they'll pick up the tool shit on their own. 

Stealth and slipcraft is what got the old folks here to begin with. 

 

[BO]

Social media killed the design goose for me. Had a nice run of 15 years worth of web design business that's now, pretty much dead, due to the shift to viral advertising. And I'm not interested in it all. Doesn't match my sensibilities. So, I've been wondering where to shift my focus, lately. If I had the dough, I'd just start traveling, and do that until I kick. Coming up on 60. Figure I'm 3/4 done. Gotta buy a gun. Imagine getting stuck in a nursing home with no escape.

Got to get back to the farm in North Dakota. Seems they've found oil and want to drill. May just save our bacon seeing as the dollar is about to crash and what money we have saved is about to vaporize.

Post some pictures, chief waldo.

[waldopaper]

There's nobody else to blame. (Way oh!)

Many thoughtful (oxymoron) book-smackers hold that without the Invisible Princess, we'd all be buggering each other with fire hydrants.   

I think Lobaczewski was more accurate with the 7-8% sick-fuck hypothesis.  Only a well-aimed garden fork will keep these smuggers under control... certainly no text will. 

But Charlotte never forgets a place. 

 

. 

 

 

 

[waldopaper]

This is ALL our fault, you know:  the Reality Based Community.  So don't snark at Misspell Buttfukk.  The more you laugh at it, the bigger it gets: 

And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

Yep.  "They" hate "us."  Gotta admit... don't like them either.  But it does not go that far.  Kinda like you don't like a flat tire or a really nasty skin rash.  But it's awfully hard to be "against" what a tire or a rash is "for."  Fucking "sports fans."  How can anybody be "against sports?"  It's like being "against" Parcheesi or polka music... or sweetbreads,  Don't care for it, but how can one be "against" a plate of breaded innards?   It is what it is. 

Not so for the sports fans.  If you don't like something... like AIDS, for example, make up a bunch of dumass bullshit about how "god" hates "fags."  Then you can be "for" AIDS cuz da librulz is ginst it.  Like their weak-ass crap about the "constitution" or the "bible."  They just make shit up and say it's "in there."  Well it is with contortionist "interpretation" to reinforce what has already been decided anyway.  and now they got a burr up their butt about not compromising. 

They would rather be King Shit of Turd Mountain than a dishwasher in Paradise.  They have to "win," and even if there is no contest, they will make one up.  It took 10,000 years for peeps to get this fokkin stoopid.  . 

[waldopaper]

Edit: Chris Hedges says it better in Fundamentalism Kills. 

...and if you think John Boehner is a dripping dork... well... it's because HE IS.  Brings to mind all the dill-hole incompetent "senior executives" one has ever known... fake tan, white golf shoes and all.  For years one could find refuge among the crowd of folk who could actually DO something.  Not important now.  We can get the Nogs or the Wogs or the dogs to do whatever-it-is CHEAPER.  Go way now... it's tee-time. 

and me... simply cannot stand to look down the patriotactionnetwork dot.comm outhouse-hole any more.  was beginning to think those people were not real... until i encountered an ol hometown-girl who hangs about the place... yeah- she's a teeper... like so many of the dominionist krakkkers round here.  Don't know why I even pay attention to this shit any more.  It's like watching somebody do something so fekkin stoopid- YOU get embarrassed. 

Quacking about "entitlement reform" and saying "hands off Social Security" just pops me brain like a little zit.  Gonna go futz with the wigwam now...

 

[Cal]

Hoo boy - 'interesting times' in the belly of the beast that pays me at the moment.  Something has been brewing and stewing & vaporising poisonous fumes for about a year now and finally boilt over as suddenly as milk does when you're not watching it.  Heaven alone knows whether I'll find myself still safely in the pan or frazzled on the hot plate when it's all died down.  Extermal audit on my department ... talk about straining the gnat & swallowing the camel.  Planning department - timber volume predictions & sustainable harvest scheduling.  Ever earned a living taking a little seedling and 'scientifically' stating how many logs will come off it in 8 years time, how much they will weigh & what size they'll be?  That's my job.  Beats playing tac-man.  We are sitting ducks for anyone who has enough technical jargon to befuddle untrained senior executive minds and easily persuaded that my figures are as 'believable as the fairies at the bottom of my garden'.  So now we are being investigated ... from top to toe.  It's been too stressful to even begin to describe ... but so interesting to watch the people around me from senior executive to junior colleagues.  Each getting their own drift of things and seizing the moment to roll out their own agendas, knife their bosses ... the whole uncut/ uncensored works.  So incredibly transparent I thought I was halluncinating.  Got sent off to have supper with the auditor.  He asked questions.  I answered - directly & frankly - and then some more for 2 1/2 hours.  Summonsed to HQ with my boss (who I have discovered is one of the 'good guys') for Monday morning .... I'm a little shaky and clammy with gastric distress this weekend.  Doing battle with evil can do that to you.  And evil = very very stupid.  Will it endure ... or do the 'good guys' actually stand a chance of winning a mighty (albeit momentary) victory ... if you never hear from me again assume the worst.

 

By the way Bo ... guns are a little on the messy & noisy side.  There's a small bottle in my meds cabinet which should suffice for me & about 100 of my closest friends should the need arise.

 

[Mouse]

Tea

 

and biscuits

 

with Goya.

[BO]

Thanks for the offer, Cal. 

My sympathies regarding the audit. And yeah, I remember those from my corporate daze as well. Delloitte and Touche--whose sole purpose for existing was to screw employees. Roving hit men with MBA's, who did more to fuck up corporate america than any other entity I can think of. 

Speaking of roving hit men, you should see the movie "Up in the Air." George Clooney plays a guy who travels the US laying people off -- and falls in the love along the way. I know that doesn't sound like a very joyful premise for a movie, but it's actually one of the funniest and more charming movies I've seen in recent years. It might cheer you up.

If instead, you should decide to take a pill...don't take one without me. Besides, someone here needs to know where you are.

Try not take it too seriously. yep. Easier said...I know.

 

[littleoldme]

Fingers crossed for you Cal, and by the way Mouse, I still love that beautiful bowl!( the goodies look pretty yum too)

[pan]

Just got back from a car-camping trip to the Big Horn Mountains.   Decided to swing through Yellowstone on the way back.  Was enjoying a home brew sitting in a broken one of those cheapass folding chairs with the sling over your shoulder carrying bag and I heard an explosive crack - looked across the river to see a tree falling.

 

The devastation of the bark beetle has left more dead wood than living in many western forests.  There are now warning signs in the forests about not camping near dead trees and making sure to bring a chain saw with you if you drive up Forest Service roads lest you get trapped by a fallen tree across the road.  Very depressing to see once vibrant forests reduced to skeletal tinder.

 

The next day we ventured into Yellowstone (BO - fully understand why you were being affected by the altitude last year)  and were extremely heartened by the the new, green, healthy forest that have come up in the site of the  1988, and more recent, burns.

 

Trying to do a whole "cup half full" thing and make this be some sort of metaphor for our current economic crisis and/or the ecological havoc wreaked since the dawn of the industrial age but, when we got home, Medusa opened her email from the Chair who stated that - since one of her classes wasn't filling the Ass. Dean is going to cut it and the only option is to take a class from me (which is clearly bullshit).  I continue to have a target on my back because we are married and we aren't Mormons who run around stirring up shit to protect their jobs instead of concentrating upon doing a good job at their job.

[Cal]

Hang in there Pan!  Last two days showed me my future in corporate land = zero.  I said all the wrong things to exactly the wrong snake in a suit last week - & the snake showed up hissing at this week's meeting.  Heaven's alive ... I actually like snakes ... I should not belittle them with that metaphor.  As I look back over the last year I see quite clearly several attempts have been made to set me up/ bait me into doing something ever so slightly unethical in ever so friendly a manner ... fortunately I never took the bait.  But, wow, if they've been trying that hard to get of me while relocating me here in a way where they are able to point out how much 'tried to help' & look how I me how I bit them in the bum - then my days are numbered.  My boss too is busy letting his family know the axe is sharpened & will almost certainly be falling.

 

[BO]

"BO - fully understand why you were being affected by the altitude last year"

Do tell, Pan. It's somewhat of a relief to know that it wasn't just because I'm old and feeble. Curious to know what effects you experienced.