Blasey Ford/Kavanaugh Testimony Exposes Deep Misogyny and Political Divides

"[Kavanaugh's] supporting torture; undermining Congress and the rule of law; contempt for habeas corpus; giving the president the powers of a king--Any of these are more than enough reason to oppose him, but Democrats ignored or barely mentioned them during judiciary committee hearings.  There were no rants, floor speeches. Liberal groups did not air ads about it.

"Give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt: Maybe they determined that the sexual allegations would have longer legs, would make more headway, than Kavanaugh's judicial extremism. Marketing money is limited.  Better to focus on what works."

                                                                                  ---Ted Rall, Counterpunch

And so, once again, the ladies, all of a fairly mindless but determined flutter, are saving our collective asses--just as they did with gay rights and "gay marriage."  Kavanaugh couldn't be confirmed now as a Supreme Court justice, if he single-handedly came up with a cure for cancer. There is still hope that somebody who opposes torture will gain the seat on the Bench that he's lost.

Savouring my morning, Second Flush Ruby Darjeeling Tea,

Nothing, I think, has given me greater pleasure than my end-of-life (I turned 76 three days ago) indulgence in Indian tea, in great immoderate (3-cup) mugfuls, once or twice a day--Unless it were to have shared it, as I have done, by having my tea purveyors in Bengal double my last order of this exquisite Ruby Darjeeling, and send half to me, and half to my old friend Margo in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.  She told me, when she called about a month ago, that a sentence of breast cancer had been passed upon her; I, of course, told her straightaway about the cancer-curing properties of THC, but we had not much time then to talk, and I sensed (and sense) the pursed-lip interference of traditionalist, Red State children and husband.  So I waited a week (lest I seem maniacally eager) before I had the tea sent her, and when she called yesterday to thank me for it, I said, of course, "Il n'y a pas de quoi, but remember that the virtue of  good tea is both to keep us in good health and to cure our ills." And, after an almost imperceptible pause, she said she would remember it.

What did the original colonists sound like? - Big Questions - (Ep. 36)

The odious, modern British, so-called Received "Posh" Pronunciation is the deliberate contrivance (affectation) of the odious, newly affluent British Lower Classes in the early 19th century, grown fat during the Industrial Revolution, in order further to set themselves apart from others of the Lower Classes who hadn't prospered and who, remaining poor, were unable to afford the fashionable, erroneous, non-rhotic elocution lessons of jumped-up, fraudulent Irish pedants. The word for such deliberate contrivance (or affectation) is phony, heartless, hypocritical, hateful, ridiculously pretentious, and appallingly vulgar snobbery.

Come to think of it: Though we might have been (charitably) hard-pressed at the time of the Great Separation to give explicit reasons for the general revulsion we felt from the character and the apparent philosophy, and the affected, non-rhotic speech, of our "fellow" Englishmen--our patriotic dislike of the very notion of "class" was even more divisive, of us from them, than our resentment at their taxing us (and thinking they had a right to).  It's going on two and a half centuries, and the issue still rankles.  I just can't bring myself not to loathe Benny Hill and Hyacinth Bucket (while the Queen, I hear, still thinks they're funny).

Yesterday Trump said, "The FBI is a cancer on our country"--I, with my own eyes and ears, witnessed him saying it.

Today CNN says he didn't say it.  Or didn't mean it.  And, considering the enormity of the statement, and the fact that, whether he said it or not, it's true--there is almost nothing in the official presstitute news about it: Suddenly, almost as shocking, falls eerie silence after the blast of explosion.  And in the distance, the unaccountable third building, brought down by controlled demolition, crumbles in gravity free fall. At what point dares the Sultan say, "Evil I am, and evil I do.  Such is my nature, and my boundless power.  So fucking what?"

Well, will Trump--or anybody else--say that the CIA and the NSA are cancers? Or the DEA?  Or NATO?  Or the TSA?  Or the Homeland Security or the Patriot Acts?  How about the Military? Cancers certainly they are--What does it take to get Trump to say so?

But let me just make it clear, if I haven't already, that, in my opinion, Rape, as slobbering, hysterical feminists--or just as silly-ass women in general these days--are wont to work themselves into such a lather over, is, after all, NOT that big a deal...

Unless, I'll allow, it actually hurts, or does physical harm.  And no, even in the case of very soft, delicate and effeminate ladies, I don't think that imaginary "psychological hurt" is (at all) so serious a matter as real, physical harm (or hurt). And yes, I do think that the gravity of the crime of rape ought to be determined by the amount of physical hurt and injury sustained by the victim--and by when it happened: i.e., I do think that statutes of limitations should apply.  So yes, even if Christine Blasey Ford is not lying (and I think she is), I think it does not matter that some sort of carnal knowledge may have been had of her 36 years ago when she was but a slip of a mindless chit (or mere girl)--and, that unless she has some real, evidentiary proof (psychiatrist's notes don't count) of having been "raped," her wrongfully accused "rapist" ought now, in all fairness, to sue her lying ass for defamation of his character. And I say all this with the authority of one who has, in mine own person, upon a time, endured the indignity of forcible rape (and, as it happens, much enjoyed it). ¿Claro? And fuck you, if you don't, or won't, understand me.

This has nothing to do with the fact that I consider Brett Kavanaugh, on his own merits, or the lack thereof, a woefully inadequate candidate for the Supreme Court.

Merchants of Death: How the Military-Industrial Complex Profits from End...

Why Buddhism Is True

Sweet fellow, but you'll notice he doesn't say how his precious Mindfulness could help him feel better, or "less stressed out" about the military of his own government butchering and starving children in the Yemen.  Or bombing densely populated towns in Syria with white phosphorous.  Or NATO helicopter gunships sportively hunting down parties of boys gathering firewood in Afghanistan and killing them one by one.  I think maybe his problem is, after all, that he's chinless--and just can't face the fact that the Flesh-eating Lizards from Outer Space, who are in the saddle and riding high, don't give a rusty fuck  (or tinker's damn) whether he's Mindful or not.

The picture is of the white phosphorous bombing, a couple of weeks ago, by two U.S. F-15 jets, of the Syrian town of Hajin (population 37,935)

As is, of course, and with good reason, forbidden by the Geneva convention.  God damn us.  God fucking damn us to hell.

In Tune with Time - Watchmaker Masahiro Kikuno [1080p]

Chief among the marvels of the Edo period of Japanese civilization that have allured and haunted me has been the Myriad Year Clock of Hisashige Tanaka: For fairly obvious reasons when you look at the thing and contemplate both its utter ingenuity and its compelling assertion of the validity of living one's life in harmony with the seasons.  Which is so powerfully restated (as to constitute a single statement) in the life and work of Zenji Masahiro Kikuno.  I have nothing to add.  I shut my mouth. And worship.

#plaidshirtguy talks about viral fame stemming from President Trump's rally

Somehow I'm reminded of one of my favourite passages of Paradise Lost:

     So spake the Cherub, and his grave Rebuke
     Severe in youthful Beauty added grace
     Invincible.  Abasht the Devil stood
     And saw how awful Goodness is, Virtue 
     In her Shape how fair, saw and pin'd his Loss.

Except that young Mr. Linfesty didn't say anything (outloud), and that Trump never turned round to  see how awful and fair Goodness and Virtue are, and never came close to realizing, much less pining, his Loss. He is such a fool.

Hallelujah, the long, long Raj is over!

Today, finally, the Supreme Court of India rescinded the 157 year old criminalization of male and female homosexual acts--as well as "non-monogamous heterosexual acts."  Very interesting 4-part majority decision.  I wonder if the insane, intestine, internecine, racist rivalry, which created Pakistan, might not now be cooled, placated and abated by this wise Hindoo letting-go of the irrational hatreds of a totally alien moralism (which scarcely deserves even to be called an ideology)--and if perhaps the ancient, Tantric, erotic male pairing of Bengali Saint and Pashto Warrior might yet again be restored to honor. One can but dream.

It WAS, of course, interesting, to say the least, to have been twentysomething young and gay during the absolute savage worst (the bloody débâcle of the "War" in Vietnam) of the end of the "Cold War" and the maniacal viciousness of the Nixonian "War on Drugs"--

And now, in my old age, it is good to see all those brutal, thick-fingered hands--once the torment and the death-grip on so many, innocent young throats--withering and palsying into insignificance (Is Kissinger dead yet?). Oh, they continue their vile, bloody work in Iraq, and Libya, and Afghanistan, and Yemen, and Palestine, torturing and murdering the innocent--but their grasp is faltering, their obscenity is hollow, callow, inspiring no gales of Partisan demoniacal enthusiasm in their Orc-like followers: The "War on Terrorism" is a palpable DumbFuck/Texan expedient that never really got off the ground, ideologically-speaking, much less ever flew. And it will soon (I'd say a dozen years or so) be over, for want of accessible innocents to kill--Africa, you'll notice, is one sticky-ass tar-baby: Sure, there are lot of people, and other critters, there to kill--but can you get at 'em, even with drones? And, of course, the "War on Drugs"--even the shouting and the posturing--as of 2018, is over. So then what?

Well, moribund as I am already, I should be dead by then, though it gives me some joy now to foresee the defeat of our feminized imperial mercenary armies, by (let's hope) a massive surge of popular resistance, which will usher in a period of salutary retribution--for those whom we  have trodden down and oppressed--with large-scale, bloody, recriminatory massacres of U.S. and NATO occupational forces. A consummation devoutly (per la santissima Charlotte Corday) to be wished.

As an American and a Constitutionalist, I hope that, for the motherland, this will result in the secession of Colorado, New England and the Pacific States, which will then re-constitute themselves as Real America, or as provinces of Canada, whichever, as they see fit.  For the rest, the bottomlessly ignorant inhabitants of DumbFuckistan--I wonder sometimes if it does not hurt their feelings to know how incredibly, hopelessly stupid they are, or if that is among the many matters of fact and general knowledge that they can't/don't allow themselves to realize, and so aren't really touched by.  This is, after all, the half-funny/half-hideous dichotomy that we (Sam. Adams, and Thom. Jefferson, and James Madison, and poor, weak-minded George Washington) set ourselves up for, by not, from the first, abolishing slavery as a pre-condition for nationhood.  It's not that the Truth matters so much, as that it will always out.