Bee And Butterfly

 

Oh What's The Use

 I'm listening to a segment of Hidden Brain devoted to the fact that sea level rise is a fait accompli; globally warmed seas are rising and have already gotten ahead of us, they are just taking their time.

That means that by 2100 the world's coastlines are going to be under up to ten feet of water.

Check your local elevation to see how that works for you.

So I guess Big Oil is correct: we might as well stop worrying and let it rip.

Big Oil: Three Questions

 What planet are you guys moving to?

How do you reach carbon neutrality by 2050 - your stated goal - when continued use of your products continues the exponential tightening of the spring driving the apparatus of global warming?

You say you are investing heavily in non fossil produced petroleum; the measure of success would seem to be producing a product identical to the fossil variety from vast pools of algae or massive tanks of used cooking oil; how does use of that product not produce continued spring tightening?

Deux Chevaux?

 Walking around 75006 is always interesting.

Selling Human Infrastructure

 Maybe I have a filter on what I hear.

I keep hearing the the President is off on another trip out into America to sell his vision for America's future.

Maybe I just heard that once or twice and thought that I had heard that he was going more times than that.

But if he is really going out more frequently I have a suggestion.

I would bet money he would have more influence on America's attitude toward human infrastructure if he took his message farther from Washington than Scranton or Wilmington.

I would suggest a whistle stop campaign on Airforce One with stops across the country: how about, for instance, Jefferson City, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Trinidad, Lubbock, Amarillo, El Paso, Brownsville, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Harlingen, Clovis, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Omaha, Lewiston, Boise, Asotin, Spokane, Seattle and Portland; maybe even add a few cities in California?

I know - you can't to any of those from DC.

The Final Swoop: Looking Beyond Catch 22

It's so easy to forget and move on.  

That may be America's most enduring characteristic.  

On balance it has probably been good: Our Destiny Has Been Manifest and the Course of Our Empire Westward; we haven't spent too much time arguing; we have mostly spent time doing; we have been taught to believe that that has been a good thing; so we have always believed that to be true.

However, when I posted the Catch 22 Post I was documenting forgetting's ugly, and fatal downside.

If You Ever Read Catch 22

If we forget that we were quite recently lied to on a massive level about the vital underpinnings of what we think we are supposed to think about Executive Treason and Executive Lawlessness, that they are just perks of the Executive Office, we are in obvious trouble.

And many of us now so believe: Barr's redactions and exoneration letter was all that was needed to send many of us back about our trivial, forgetful lives.

In that one fell swoop we devolved from the world's most free and transparent democracy into a tin pot dictatorship.

The Mueller Report Obfuscation and Destruction was only the beginning.

Now we are in the second and final phase.

The Six January Erasure is underway.

By 2024 Americans will say the same thing that the Chinese say about Tiananmen Square in the infrequent moment when someone in China tries to talk some history.

"What are you talking about?" 

 

Images For Late October 2021

 I think this was in Sienns, but I am only guessing.

Robins, like dandelions, are vastly under-rated.

Love locks on Pont des Artes in the Fall

The victim's victim

My neighborhood

Accidental, unplanned, but not bad

Accidental, unplanned, but not bad

Life on the Seine

Life on the Seine

Life on the Seine in the snow

Just about as good as it gets

I couldn't have described it: I'm glad I shot it.

This is in a little place where rue Mazarin and rue de Seine come to confluence.

This is a giant magnet for lifting Franprix conexes onto barges for shipment up-stream.

In the Aquarium Tropical

Nuts are everywhere, even in rational France.

A picture from my trip to Mars

Nuthatches are beautiful; but so are all birds.

I had never seen a kelp crab

One of our local eagles

Languedoc grapes, maybe for Corbières

An Interesting Constitutional Question: Pramila Jayapal?

 Pramila Jayapal is a Congressperson from Washington State.

That's where I live.

From my point of view Pramila is a perfect representative of the people.

She speaks cogent but understandable English sentences, frequently free of D.C. Spin.

She loves America, not for what it is, but for what it could be, and therefore, what it should be.

"Should" is the banner under which she marches.

And she DOES march.

She has probably single-handedly kept the Biden Human Infrastructure Bill alive and progressing.  She and a hundred Congresspeople of  similar human beliefs - the Progressive Caucus - have kept two senators from being able to sweep off the table the most important social legislation since the New Deal; it has shrunk, but it is still chugging toward passage; and two trillion, its current funding target over ten years,  while compared to the money that Manchin and Sinema  think should be spent on useless things like eighteen billion dollar aircraft carriers and F35 aircraft that nobody wants (The current unit price of an F-35A is now $89.2 million) all amounting up over ten years to seven trillion and counting is trivial, compared to nothing, which is what we spend on our human infrastructure now, is measurable. 

I assume Sister Justitia is screaming from her grave that one of her protégés could have written such a clunky sentence.

But scan the punctuation; it all works.

However:

If that sentence sounds angry, it is.

Violently angry.

(Sister Justitia would have given me an "F" for this post because of the fragments. Because of her I abhor fragments, but when I read Patrick O'Brian or Hilary Mantel I see hoards of fragments used like literary scimitars slashing through boredom and exposing the raw pulse of reality; so I have adopted a cautious policy of fragment usage.) 

But I am a politician and this post is about politics, so, now that I have gotten my anger out of me, let's talk politics - and the Constitution.

Why, one might ask would Pramila Jayapal decide to become second in line - to be seeming to hinder the most important legislation in seventy years - to two last class senators?

Why would she want to diminish the funds and slow the progress toward the vote?

Maybe because she saw that there was no way to get all that should be legislated to be legislated, so, maybe two thirds is better than nothing.

That's a risky call.

But it's probably the correct call; it's probably an astute call.

A lot of people- like me - are tired of waiting for America to meet its three and a half trillion, or six trillion, or whatever trillion obligations (we bail out the banks every time they screw us but we won't take care of our people) and I think we may like Pramila's call on this,

But what's in it for her?

I guess one might conclude that she wants to be  Senator herself, so getting press is good.

But, for her to become Senator, she would need to unseat one or the other of the two best Senators in in US Senate.

That would be very difficult - maybe nigh on impossible - and, even if she were to succeed, it would leave her very important seat exposed to trump nut onslaught and deny the seat she would recently occupy the power and wisdom of its recently defeated occupant.

So I don't think that's what she is doing.

I don't think she wants Maria Cantwell's seat or Patty Murray's seat.

But I think she wants something: she is smart, talented, capable of assuming and managing power, and young enough to be around for quite a long time.

I suppose, therefore, that Speaker of the House is what she wants.

But the Speaker of the House is third in line for the Presidency.

Pramila was not born in the United States.

How does that work out?

Jack And Me

 I wrote a lot about my friend Jack in Screen Saver, and, by derivation, in Saigon 1967.

Among his many recommending talents was taking pictures - photography.

He was the unofficial photographer of Central Catholic High School when we were in attendance there.

He adopted a color Polaroid  camera early and took amazing pictures with it.

We used to take it on our hunting trips.

Somewhere there is a perfect picture of a just shot mallard duck.

It was good then; I cringe now.

How sad; but that was how it was then.

Here are a few of his pictures.

Actually, I took this one; that's Jack waving; we were on Owyhee reservoir in eastern Oregon. 

 We caught quite a large number of Croppies, for which Owyhee is famous.

Notice that it looks a lot like Mars.

 This was taken of me by Jack with a black and white Polaroid in Nha Bey Vietnam where Jack flew round the clock Huey missions; I was on a day off from HQ War in Vietnam Saigon; Jack wanted me to see what the war was like in reality and how stupid all of it was; I was allowed to participate in "The Passing of Out" a ceremony Jack and his cubicle mate had invented; I have never ceased being glad that I had had that opportunity to celebrate a stupid war.

After the war we both left the military and returned to the Pacific Northwest.  I have some fairly good hunting stories from those days in Saigon 1967 and Screen Saver. Of especial interest might be the final chapter of Saigon; it sums up a lot of things, among them the number of missions jack flew that were so many that there was no way to honor them on the medal that honored them.

Here are a couple pictures of a couple of our expeditions.  Jack took these pictures, probably with my Pentax Spotmatic,  I bought that when I was in the war effort; it was the only good thing that came out of that debacle.

Coming Apart At The Seams

 America is.

Although the most obvious seams are the weakest and least a part of anything that could be called America.

The police chief in Chicago is calling on his officers to defy a legal order from the mayor.

Have the police in your areas been acting that way?

Have any of them been found to have been among the insurrection crowd of January 6?

How many unarmed black people have your forces killed recently?

Do you really feel safer because the police are armed with war level weaponry?

Who are they ready to fight?

I guess a good place to start would be to ask the Chicago Chief Fascist.

When you can't vote the last shred of a possible decent life is gone.

Do you see them - your hopes for a decent life - going over that hill out there?

Probably not, because they have done gone already, over that hill, out there.

Synopsis In Front Of Nicolas

 I wander over quite a large part of Paris when I am there wandering around Paris.

I always have a camera - long ago I endorsed the belief that walking in Paris without a camera is an exceptionally bad idea - so I take a lot of pictures.

They get stored on my computer.

I have Screen Saver pointed at my picture file.

So, over time, I get to see a lot of pictures that I have forgotten ever taking.

This is one of those.

There are so many things in this picture to recommend it that I can't believe that I took it.

Maybe I didn't.

Colin Powell

 When the Great Book of Role Models is opened - as it always is opened after the passing of a hero - there will be a new entry: Colin Powell will forevermore be listed as "The Role Model's Role Model".

Godspeed, General Powell.

We were really lucky to have known you.

An Email From Uganda

 I found this in my junk mail this morning.

In length and format it violates every personal rule of blogging that I have adopted over the last ten years, but it is just too good not to post.

So if you are up to some pretty dense typography, prepare to be entertained.

I guess I ought to worry how they DID get my email, however; so my merriment may be premature.

Apparently I am on a (bogus) list of trump voters - that's the only way I could imagine that they would think I would fall for this.

The English is creative, though.

****************************************************

FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE CENTER (FIC)

UGANDA

Attn: Dear Fund Beneficiary,

COMPENSATION FUNDS PAYMENT ORDER VIA ATM CARD

This is to inform you that, We have been working towards the eradication of fraudsters and scam Artists in Africa with the help of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and FBI. We have been able to track down so many of this scam artist in various parts of African countries which includes (Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Ghana, Cameroon and Senegal) and they are all in Government custody now, they will appear at International Criminal Court (ICC) Hague (Netherlands) soon for Criminal/Fraud Justice. During the course of our investigation, we have been able to recover so much money from these scam artists. The United Nations Anti-Crime Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have ordered the money recovered from the Scammers to be shared among 100 Lucky people around the World for compensation. This Email/Letter is been directed to you because your email address was found in one of the Scam Artists file and computer hard-disk during our investigation, maybe you have been scammed or not, you are therefore being compensated with the sum of $,1.500,000.00USD(One Million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars).

We have also arrested some of those who claim that they are barristers, bank officials, Lottery Agents who has been sending you SMS on your phone that you have won a lottery which does not exist. Since your email address appeared among the lucky beneficiaries who will receive a compensation funds, we have arranged your payment to be paid to you through ATM VISA CARD. An ATM Visa Card will be issued in your name and your $1,500,000.00 USD will be loaded into it, and deliver it to your postal address with the Pin Number, as to enable you withdrawal your funds from any Bank ATM Machine worldwide.

To issue the ATM Visa Card, you are therefore advised to contact the Accountant in Charge of your payment, this is because the United Nations Anti-Crime Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Government has chosen them to payout all the compensation funds to the 100 Lucky beneficiaries, because the ATM Visa Card is a global payments technology that enables consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments to use digital currency instead of cash and checks. Kindly contact the ATM Card Issuance Department now with the below contact details:

ATM CARD DEPARTMENT

CONTACT PERSON: DR. FRANCISCO ADROA

UGANDA

Email: atmcardpayingcenter@gmail.com

Tel: +256 706055410

Contact him now for the delivery of your ATM Card. As soon as you establish a contact with him, an ATM card will be issued to you immediately which you can use to withdraw your funds in any Bank ATM Machine, but the maximum daily limit is $15,000.00 per day because the Card has been upgrade. So if you like to receive your funds through this means you're advised to contact (DR. FRANCISCO ADROA) with the following information as stated below:

1. Your Full Name:

2. Address Were You Want the your ATM Card to be delivered to or (P.O.Box)

3. Your Age:

4. Occupation:

5. Cell/Mobile Number:

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) has also concluded every legal cost from all the various financial offices to enable a successful delivery of your ATM card without any hitch or delay based on the agreement made, every beneficiary is mandated to bear the fixed cost of delivery $50 of their ATM card to their designated address through UPS or FedEx delivery and based on the fact that your ATM Card has already been activated for instant use, you have only three working days to send this $50 US dollars for the delivering of your card, if we don't hear from you with the payment information; the Provincial Government will cancel the card for security purpose and your payment will be withdrawn.

Please Be Warned, as The United Nations Anti-Crime Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) does not instruct any other Bank or agent in this payment except (DR. FRANCISCO ADROA), whom we can only give attention to, and from now, we advice you to stop all the communications you are having with any other Agent or bank officials in Europe, Asia and Africa regarding your payment.

Thanks for your understanding as you follow instructions.

YOURS IN SERVICES.

MRS. AMANDA LINCOLN

PUBLIC INFORMATION

OFFICER.(FIC) UGANDA

Faira Rose Faucet

 It's been a slow few days for me in blogland.

I haven't lashed out in anger once.

So I guess I have to do another fun one.

The last two fun ones have been about our cats; so also is this one.

This is about Rose, Alfie and Cinq's sister.

First, I said last time that I would explain the "Faucet" part of Rosie's name.

Here is a picture explaining it.

She was really little.

Here are some more, some when she was little, some now that she is bigger.

She often lapses into reveries.

The phone cord attacked her and made her spill kibble around.

What's around this corner?

Pardon me?

She likes pinot blanc.

Rose and Cinq in the sink

Alfie trying to figure how to get into the bed with his sister.

That's a long way down.

So I Guess The Muslim World Needs To Pony Up

 I keep hearing new reports complete with various "speakers for all of us" demanding that the world help Afghanistan.

Everything there has collapsed.

Its government doesn't seem to be able to fix the problem.

I sympathize with the Afghan people, but I can't see how or why the rest of the World would ameliorate the conditions wrought by the Taliban, a terrorist muslim sect - kinda the muslim version of the Ku Klux Klan.

It seems to me that if the problems there are to be fixed the Muslim World needs to step up and help their terrorist brothers.

I mean, how stupid, really, are the rest of us?

Why would we help our sworn blood - they swore, we didn't - enemies?

If things are to be fixed, the talibs need to get help from the International Muslim Food Bank, and the International Muslim Clearing and Lending Bank, and the International Muslim Trucking Association, and the International Muslim Peacekeepers Militia, and the International Muslim Monetary Fund and all those other high profile Muslim organizations of which MuslimLand is so proud.

I'd volunteer the US, French and British Air Forces in a minute to get all Afghans out of Afghanistan to the free world, but that's as far as I could imagine going to use world based assets to help in Afghanistan; and that help wouldn't be being offered to help a 6th Century muslin terrorist organization with the mess they have created; it would be being offered to let a hapless and decent people get out of the 6th Century and into a place where they could use their god given talents, and multiply, and prosper, and be our brothers and sisters.

Their homeland apparently is not suitable for human habitation anymore.

This Time It's Alfie

 A while back I posted a piece about Cinq, the fifth of the foundlings, three of which have become our children.

There are two others that stayed with us.

Cinq was one of two boys and three girls.

We kept two of the boys and one of the girls.

The girl is named Faira Rose Faucet.

We will talk about her next time.

And the Faucet part of her name.

This post is about Alfie.

My wife found Cinq under the deck where he was nearly dead and became his mother by carrying him around in a sling hung sideways around her; she carried him with her all day; I guess it's no surprise that Cinq thinks she's his mother.

So Cinq was for sure part of the family.

My wife thought Rose was so beautiful that she wanted to keep her, so she did.

But she took the other two girls and Alfie to the local animal shelter.

After thinking about leaving Alfie to the caprice of being adopted she was not comfortable.

She thought Alfie was too dumb to survive on his own so she went back and got him and brought him home and named him Alfie: "What's it all about?" ... etc.

Alfie is as deep as Cinq is weird; and he is most definitely not dumb.

Golden Eye