*promote my vaccinated attitude. Feeling vaxed bitches!
Won't be long till we're all fuckin' on the street.

I was riding the bus in Paris, and all the streets in Paris were designed for anorexic horses in the 17th century and fuck you for trying to fit your fat-ass 21st century car down them -- much less a huge city bus. So we're squeezing down this street and we come across a moving truck blocking the road. I, as an America, am awaiting horns, swearing and automatic weapon fire. Instead, the driver stops the bus, turns it off, hops off and goes and has a smoke. The people in the bus were being totally French about it: not a murmur of complaint.

Two years later, I was in Canada and some dude cut off a taxi at a light. Out hops the taxi driver to confront the driver of the other car. I start scanning for my exit once pop-pop-pop / muthafuckas drop gets underway. Instead of a spray of bullets, or at least an amusing fist fight, the taxi driver shakes his finger at the guy and gets back in his cab.

I live in mortal fear of getting shot on the road in America over some stupid bullshit (this actually happened to me once: some asshole in Cupertino cranked off three rounds at my car when I accidentally cut him off). It's so amazing to visit civilized countries and see people acting decent and calm to each other.

Bob, as much as this'll surprise you, I totally agree with what you're saying. The distribution of the stimulus money to couples making up to $150,000 is friggen ridiculous -- and I'm in that category. I will do what I did with the last two checks: give to local charities helping the homeless and communities of color (as much as I hate that term).

The worst part of this is that it sets up a liquidity trap. The Fed can't reduce buying crap debt (that BBB dogshit is at 4% should terrify anyone who understands how debt and the rating agencies work), nor can they allow rates to rise (thus totally screwing responsible savers). This is the cusp of a financial disaster that blew past 1929 on 9/17/19 and is now approaching the cataclysm of the South Seas Company collapsing. As far as I can see, this is a total melt-up in the markets because there's no stable returns and everyone is now in speculation mode.

Were it my call, I would scale the money along income (or non-income) lines: $10k for the lowest incomes, sliding scale from there. I'd also set up government-backed savings accounts that pay 10% for those people and only those people. I'd also pay off/down student debt along the same income scales.

I do not begrudge the wealthy for their wealth. But capitalism can't be a winner-take-all system. We live in a society, and society will always have winners and losers. The least we can do is ease the burden for those at the bottom by taking some from the top. I'm tired of the homeless camps and mentally-ill people wandering the streets of Seattle. They are the least of us and thus should be the ones who get the most help.

I had this experience up in Burlington, VT once - a bunch of home hobbyist astronomers had set up their telescopes on the street and were inviting people to take a look at astronomical bodies (moon included). The feeling of being able to see that level of detail with your own eyes is indescribable and it definitely reignited a sense of awe and wonder at space. Loads of towns around the world have similar groups that do public viewings - highly recommend it if you ever have a chance.

I gotta squirrel story.
So when I lived in Mountain View, for Christ only knows what reason, the idiots in charge of power put this big-ass transformer thing on the corner of my property. The thing hummed with menace and I knew that shit wasn't right. But I didn't worry none because there was a big green metal cover over it that provided the same protection against horrendous death that a box of Kleenex would have provided the World Trade Center on 9/11.
One day, I'm standing on my balcony and drinking a beer. I mighta been stoned, too, only there's no 'mighta' that day. I'm watching the whorehouse across the street (really) and generally buzzing when I see a squirrel on the lawn. I hate squirrels. A motherfucking squirrel ate my bar fridge and fucked me outta the $50 I was selling it for on Craigslist (really).
Anyway, I got this longneck of Bud in hand and I'm working out whether I can brain the goddamn rodent with it when the neighbor's cat come rippin' ass from under the balcony and goes after Skippy.
Well here's some amusement!
The squirrel is running for it's pointless life and the cat is banking like a F-16 chasing an Iraqi MIG and I've already got $10 down on the kitty with a $3 over/under. I already know how this was gonna end and I was rootin' for it every step of the way.
Only it didn't.
The goddamn squirrel found the ONE way to get under that green metal cover I mentioned previously. The cat stops in amazement and I'm all pissed because I've been gypped outta Wild Kingdom's money shot.
A second later there's a flash like Ivy Mike going off from under the cover and an a concussive BOOM!! The fucking cover blasts off like a Space-X project gone horribly wrong -- or, in this case, delightfully right.
The cat jumps like 5 feet in the air and an arc of turds flies outta its butt, the cover returns to earth as a traffic hazard in the middle of Latham St., and the squirrel is basically vaporized. And now I'm the happiest motherfucker in Mountain View because dude, that shit was AWESOME!
I call out, "Babe! You won't believe what just happened!" 'cause you gotta totally share shit like that.
Then I realized everything is TOTALLY silent, like Little House on the Fucking Prairie silent.
"The power's out," my wife responds.
And it STAYED out for like two goddamn days while the putzes from the power company had to rewire pretty much everything that blew up.
Honey Badger didn't give a shit because Honey Badger'd copped an oz right before this shit happened. And as Fat Freddy taught us, "Dope will get you through times of no power better than power will get you through times of no dope." Or some shit like that. I dunno, I'm totally fucking baked right now.

Not sure where this belongs, so I'm just putting it here....

A letter from Donald to the SAG union sent after they started the process of revoking his membership. This is not a parody, it's an actual letter from the desk of the ex president, signed in black sharpie.

Ms. Carteris: I write to you today regarding the so-called disciplinary committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares? Well, I'm not familiar with your work. I'm very proud of my work on movies, such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and television shows including the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Saturday Night Live and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, the Apprentice, to name just a few. I've also greatly helped the cable news television business, said to be a dying platform with not much time left until I got involved in politics, and created thousands of jobs at networks, such as MSDNC and fake news CNN among many others.

Which brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as a union. Your organization has done little for its members and nothing for me, because that's always what it's about. Besides collecting dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas as evident by your massive unemployment rates and lawsuits from celebrated actors who even recorded a video asking, why isn't the union fighting for me? These however are policy failures. Your disciplinary failures are even more egregious. I no longer wish to be associated with your union. As such, this letter is to inform you of my immediate resignation from SAG-AFTRA. You have done nothing for me. You've done nothing for me.

Donald J Trump


🤦‍♂️

I can't quite tell what he put on there... is it supposed to be a "mexican street corn" pizza perhaps?

Tom Morello about when RATM caused the shutdown of Wall Street
http://rockandrollgarage.com/tom-morello-about-when-ratm-caused-the-shutdown-of-wall-street/

Guess mom didn't teach these kids not to play in the street.

Google Earth has Street View right to the top.

There's a Snowy Owl in my neighborhood that hangs out on the roof of the house down the street. When it's out, half of fucking Seattle shows up to look at it. The street -- which is a car-width wide -- clogs and cars back onto the main thoroughfare, then people who live here get all pissed and start yelling at the people looking at the owl and the owl-watchers yell back at them; cars honk and run into each other.

Meanwhile, the owl just sits there with the troll face on and enjoys the show.

On her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (1964), for the first time she addressed racial inequality in the United States in the song "Mississippi Goddam". This was her response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young black girls and partly blinded a fifth. She said that the song was "like throwing ten bullets back at them", becoming one of many other protest songs written by Simone. The song was released as a single, and it was boycotted in some[vague] southern states.[31][32] Promotional copies were smashed by a Carolina radio station and returned to Philips.[33] She later recalled how "Mississippi Goddam" was her "first civil rights song" and that the song came to her "in a rush of fury, hatred and determination". The song challenged the belief that race relations could change gradually and called for more immediate developments: "me and my people are just about due". It was a key moment in her path to Civil Rights activism.[34] "Old Jim Crow", on the same album, addressed the Jim Crow laws. After "Mississippi Goddam", a civil rights message was the norm in Simone's recordings and became part of her concerts.

Why bother quoting when your reply doesn’t address any points from the quote? To make it LOOK like a discussion instead of just a nut shouting random gripes on the street corner?

"Mostly peaceful" protests usually happen in a park or a street or a university campus, you know, a public place. And then special forces arrive and beat people up and shoot some.

So this was strange for sure. The police seemed mighty reluctant to fight. The mob looked really crazy, attacked the police, but more verbally than physically, and if physically more just pushing them around than throwing things or hitting cops with them. Not even a good hockey fight. But still they stormed the building. Something aint right.

Republicans rioting in the streets now, shooting, stabbing, attacking police, vandalizing churches, lighting fires, armed and trying to forcefully take over capitol buildings and disrupt / attack congress, not peacefully protesting.
Funny how fast your side went from “blue lives matter” to “fuck the police”, don’t you think....and police aren’t even killing unarmed (or even armed) proud boys daily. Anti American snowflake crybaby losers. All the derision you heaped on BLM now applies to you and Trumpicans. Only the law and order party when it suits you, never when it doesn’t.
Enjoy this clip from yesterday, tame compared to today’s attacks on the capitol.

Edit: now, at Trump’s direction, armed Trumpsters have forced their way into the capitol building and procedures have been halted. For some reason, the capitol police never fired a shot in defense of congress. Bomb threats are prolific. Every person identified as part of this attack should get the firing squad as treasonous traitors and terrorists. Violently perpetrating an armed takeover of congress cannot be accurately described in any other way.