Month: July 2024

Why Orange?

The Sunday of Summer.

Another lazy Summer Sunday and I need to find something interesting to post about or I will lose my reputation of posting mindless crap.

What is life without a little whimsy?

In the past I have such probing posts as “the Origin of the ‘F’ Word, the history of the cockroach” and many others….so keeping with those types of probing questions I found one for this Sunday.

I recently had to go by pick-up my meds at the drug store and after getting home I noticed that they were in orange bottles and my mind immediately went to…. ‘why orange’?

To keep my aging mind active I went about researching this old question…..and here is what I found….

No matter where you get your prescriptions filled, chances are they come in an orange bottle with a child-proof white cap. But where did this ubiquitous design come from, and why does it look like that?

The orange color of modern prescription bottles is actually designed to protect the pills inside from harmful ultraviolet rays. UV light from the sun and other sources can alter and degrade the chemicals in many medications, making them less effective or causing unwanted side effects. The color orange, meanwhile, is particularly good at blocking these rays as well as letting enough visible light through for the contents of the bottle to be seen through the plastic.

Some medications require even more protection. Pills like Truvada and Descovy (prescribed for HIV treatment and prevention) as well as any orally-dissolving tablets are especially sensitive to moisture; even exposure to the moisture in the air during the transfer process can make them less effective. So if you’re prescribed one of these, you’ll likely be given a bottle straight from the manufacturer. 

As for the cap, we can thank Dr. Henri Breault for that life-saving invention. As chief of pediatrics at the poison center of a Canadian hospital in the 1950s, Breault was dismayed at the sheer number of poisonings happening when children got into prescriptions and other pills such as aspirin. His dedication to solving this problem culminated in 1967 with the familiar “Palm N’ Turn” cap, requiring adult dexterity to push down and turn. In 1970, the United States signed the Poison Prevention Packaging Act into law to make these caps mandatory, ultimately decreasing deaths in children 5 and younger by 1.4 per million.

There’s also a logistical reason why the orange bottles have become standard: Different people need different amounts of the same medication. Since pharmacies typically purchase medications in bulk, their bottles aren’t well-suited for single prescriptions. It then makes the most sense for pharmacists to count out the number of pills needed for each person’s unique prescription and package them individually.

When you’re finished with your prescription, you don’t have to throw the orange bottle in the trash. Unfortunately, most municipalities don’t accept No. 5 plastic—the plastic pill bottles are made from—for recycling, but the bottles can often be donated to those in need. Matthew 25: Ministries, for example, has a pill bottle donation project that sends bottles to developing countries to improve their access to quality medical supplies. Some animal shelters also accept donations for pets that need medications—just don’t forget to remove any identifying information from your containers before handing them off. Here are more uses for your old orange pill bottles.

(mentalfloss.com)

This is not something that most people would ever think about….but then I am NOT most people….now am I?

Now I know and I now have passed it on to you.

Another probing question answered.

These things that keep the mind active and alert…..at least it keeps my mind busy and that is what I need at my age.

Sue tells me my brain stays too busy that it needs rest….maybe she is right.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

IST Saturday News Dump–20Jul24

Another sweltery weekend begins in the Deep South….been an interesting week….the RNC convention, the news of the Trump shooter, the deaths of Simmons, Newhart, Dr. Ruth, et al….but all that and the world still turns and so shall IST….turn from hard news to interesting news.

Locally….Temps still hovering around the triple digits….my garden is still struggling from the extreme heat….sadly the figs are done…..

Enough chit-chat…..onto the weekend ‘Dump”….

Let me begin with something for anyone dealing with diabetes…..

People living with diabetes might have a new hope. Scientists have tested a new drug therapy in diabetic mice, and found that it boosted insulin-producing cells by 700% over three months, effectively reversing their disease.

Beta cells in the pancreas have the important job of producing insulin in response to blood sugar levels, but a hallmark of diabetes is that these cells are either destroyed or can’t produce enough insulin. The most common treatment is regular injections of insulin to manage blood sugar levels.

But a recent avenue of research has involved restoring the function of these beta cells. In some cases that’s started with stem cells being coaxed into new beta cells, which are then transplanted into patients with diabetes. Researchers behind this kind of work have described it as a “functional diabetes cure.”

https://newatlas.com/medical/diabetes-reversing-drug-boosts-insulin-producing-cells/

We know that Americans have a ‘lawsuit lotto’ mentality…we will sue for a drop of a hat….I found one by a stripper in Florida….

As of Monday, adult entertainment businesses in Florida are not allowed to employ anyone under the age of 21, thanks to a law intended to fight human trafficking signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May. As a result, nude dancers like Serenity Michelle Bushey, who is 19, lost their jobs. Bushey is now suing, arguing the law infringes on her constitutional right to free speech, NBC News reports. Strip clubs and a lingerie store also joined her lawsuit, USA Today reports; the lingerie store argues it’s unfair for it to be subjected to the new law despite not offering any live entertainment or nudity.

Bushey says the law violates her right to perform her art as well as earn a living, and the plaintiffs say there is no link between their establishments and human trafficking. They also say it’s unfair to bar legal adults who are not yet 21 from any and all jobs at adult establishments, even those that do not involve nudity. The new law also does not include any sort of “grandfather clause” for those who were already employed at adult venues. “Plaintiffs maintain that the human body is a thing of beauty which, when combined with music and rhythmic motion in the form of dance, conveys an important message of eroticism,” the suit says.

I am on her side in this case….states are trying to legislate morality…which is pure fascism.

Move over it is about to get a bit more crowded….

The world population will grow from the current 8.2 billion to 10.8 billion by the 2080s—but no further, according to a new UN report. Though it notes population growth is being fueled by urbanization, large-scale migration, and more people living to reproductive age, it also explains more than half of countries have fallen below the replacement level fertility rate of 2.1 live births per average woman—”the level required for a population to maintain a constant size over the long term without migration,” according to a press release. Almost a fifth of all countries—China, South Korea, Italy, and Spain among them—have “ultra-low” fertility with fewer than 1.4 live births per woman.

“In some countries, the birth rate is now even lower than previously anticipated, and we are also seeing slightly faster declines in some high-fertility regions,” says Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. Given these factors, the global population is projected to drop from 10.8 million in 2080 to 10.2 billion by 2100. That 2100 figure is now 6% lower than anticipated a decade ago. For Junhua, it’s “a hopeful sign” that “could mean reduced environmental pressures from human impacts due to lower aggregate consumption.”

For 63 countries—including China, Germany, Russia, and Japan—peak population has already occurred. About 25% of people live in one of those countries, per USA Today. Another 48 countries—including Iran, Turkey, Brazil, and Vietnam—are projected to reach peak population between 2025 and 2054, according to the report. The US is among a group of 126 countries whose populations are “expected to increase through 2054 and, potentially, to peak in the second half of the century or later,” per the release. In this group, nine countries—including Niger, Somalia, and Angola—are expected to see very rapid growth, with populations doubling between 2024 and 2054

That should put a strain on resources around the world.  Gladly I shall be gone and not have to deal with the side effects of this increase.

Food always a food post of some sort…..

When cooking I use a lot of butter…..that is butter the real thing not some fake crap with little to no taste…..

What would cuisines the world over be without butter? This isn’t just a hypothetical — or a paean to the creamy fat. The outsized environmental impact of dairy (and cattle) farming means that we need to be seriously considering the place our favorite foods will have in a more climate-conscious future.

And to that dilemma, a US-based startup called Savor says it has a tantalizing solution that almost sounds too good to be true: a butter-like product that’s made from the very CO2 that’s heating our planet.

“There is no biology involved in our specific process,” Savor chief technology officer Kathleen Alexander told New Scientist.

There’s no shortage of butter substitutes out there, but few of them can claim to fight climate change. Savor says it uses a petrochemical process called Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to eventually turn stuff like carbon dioxide, methane, and coal into hydrocarbons.

Those hydrocarbons, in turn, can be infused with oxygen to make fatty acids and then fat. From there, Alexander explained to New Scientist, you add it to water, an emulsifier, and some rosemary oil to give the blend a “grassy” taste.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/startup-makes-butter-from-carbon

Sorry dudes but I will stick with the cow’s version.

There is more dairy news…..one of my favorite foods….cheese….

The Musée du Fromage sounds like a stately old French establishment that’s been around for at least a century or two. That’s not the case. Not only is it brand-new—opened just last month in Paris—but, according to Smithsonian Magazine, it’s France’s first museum devoted to cheese.

The building itself is old: a 17th-century stone edifice not far from Notre-Dame Cathedral. Inside, you’ll find everything a quality food-centric museum should have. There’s an exhibit centered on cheese and cheesemaking, an actual working dairy where you can watch the cheesemaking magic happen, a taste-testing station that needs no explanation, and a gift shop teeming with dairy products. Entry is free for farmers and agricultural students, €20 (roughly $22) for adults, and €13 (roughly $14) for kids.

The whole endeavor was founded on the passion of Pierre Brisson, whose winemaker parents endeared him to dairy at an early age. “My father would take me to the cheesemonger every Sunday after Mass,” he told the Guardian. “I was at the height of the display and would look at all the marvelous cheeses in front of my eyes. I became fascinated by where they came from and how they were made.”

https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/france-cheese-museum

They had me with the tasting station part!

In case no one has figured it out….I am a ‘night owl’…..pain keeps me awake most nights so I do what I do best….write and analyze….now I am told that I have superior cognitive function….

New research suggests that people who stay up and do their best work at night have higher cognitive function than early birds, who are — let’s face it — often seen in a far more positive light.

An international team of scientists led by Imperial College London came to this intriguing conclusion in a new study published in the journal BMJ Public Health, where they also found that getting seven to nine hours of sleep is best for optimum brain function.

For the study, the scientists looked at the large-scale UK Biobank, which comprises of biomedical data and other information from half a million Brits, analyzing 26,000 participants who had undergone cognitive tests and answered whether they were early birds or night owls.

After crunching the numbers, the researchers found that one group of night owls had significantly higher cognitive function than another group of morning folks, surpassing them with 13.5 percent higher scores. In another sampling, night owls still came up on top with 7.5 percent higher scores.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/night-owls-superior-cognitive-function

I Knew It!

Finally….we old farts watch and talk about the weather almost tirelessly….and if the Trump gets in office we may be forced to pay for weather reports….

Howdy, fellow Americans. Do you enjoy having free access to weather forecasts and crucial extreme weather alerts? Well, here’s a rude reminder that you’ve been taking that government amenity for granted, which could very soon be ensnared by the tentacles of privatization.

As The Atlantic reports, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which gathers the overwhelming majority of all the data used by the National Weather Service and even commercial services like AccuWeather, is the target of being defunded into the ground by allies of former President and once-again presidential candidate Donald Trump.

That would have massive consequences for meteorology and climate science in the US — but its most immediate to the average American is that they would no longer get free, government-provided weather forecasts. Instead, by kneecapping the agency, Trump-hopefuls aim to free up room for a commercial market — thus paving the way for a future where accessing even basic weather reports is locked behind something resembling the tiers of a Netflix subscription.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/trumps-allies-no-free-weather-reports

Geez….what will us old farts talk about then?

That is all the time or patience I have for the ‘Dump’…..I hope everyone enjoyed the ‘Dump’ and all will have a wonderful Summer Saturday….as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will The Real JD Vance Stand Up?

We have the GOP VP nominee and running mate for Trump….and during his acceptance speech we heard all about his life as a poor boy from Ohio or was it Kentucky…..but was it a story told to fools or was he all that?

It is a Friday and what better time for an FYI feature I found an article by someone from the region and his story and what he thinks of the tale spun by Vance.

I was raised in Coal City, West Virginia and when Monday’s big news about Trump’s vice presidential selection was announced, I felt instant rage. I wrote to my friends:

“J.D. Vance was named Trump’s running mate, which means people are talking about his stupid fucking book again, in which a venture capitalist from suburban Ohio who spent a couple of summers in Kentucky praises himself for pulling himself up by his bootstraps and blames the continued poverty of his ‘fellow’ hillbillies on their poor choices.

“Instead, read literally anything else. Read Appalachian Reckoning which responds to J.D. Vance’s stupid fucking book. Read Demon Copperhead. Read Another Appalachia. Dump a can of alphabet soup onto the floor and read whatever comes out of that. I guarantee it will be better than J.D. Vance’s stupid fucking book.”

Vance fills me with rage, in part, because I’m a lot like him.

When viewed from a distance, the arc of my life looks remarkably similar to his. Unlike Vance, my story actually starts in Appalachia. I was born in 1997, one town over from Coal City which doesn’t have luxuries like hospitals. My parents were white but that was basically their only advantage. My father is chronically ill and disabled. After getting a hysterectomy, and on the advice of her doctors, my mother started taking OxyContin. This prescription turned into an addiction that would carry her to an early grave.

Like Vance, I was raised primarily by my hillbilly grandparents, especially my mamaw. Papaw had died years earlier from stomach cancer that was left untreated when he refused to go to the doctor because he couldn’t afford to miss a shift in the mines. Papaw left mamaw with a meager pension and a roof over her head.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-grew-up-in-appalachia-too-jd-vance-is-a-hillbilly-phony-caleb-miller-writes

Maybe he is not the ideal person that he wants the world to believe…..all politicians fudge their life story a bit no matter the party.

But you decide whether this is the guy you want to be a secondary voice of your desires.

This is the end of my reporting week and now it is time for all of us to go out and enjoy the weekend wherever you live.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

It’s Official! Let The Fun Begin!

Finally and mercifully the RNC convention came to an end…..this Majesty ended this thing with a speech of acceptance….OMG!~ the length…..92 agonizing minutes in total.

At first it was and acceptable speech and even thought there was truth in the desire for unity….and that was what I get for thinking things would change after the ear piercing.

Before we got the honor of his majesty we had to site through the boring speeches by the slithering throngs of Trumpites…..Hulk Hogan, the octogenarian wrestler, entertained the crowd of low intelligent morons by ripping his classic shirt off…I should go on….but why the speeches were a bunch of canned crap about the border and Biden and Dems and….well use your imagination.

Let’s move on to his majesty’s acceptance speech…..like I said a rambling mess of accusations with no proof of statement.

Here we go….hang on to your ‘nads.

Donald Trump accepted his party’s presidential nomination for the third time on Thursday and gave a speech written in the days after the attempt on his life. His was the longest televised presidential acceptance speech ever, at one hour and 33 minutes, ending at 11:05pm CT. The previous record belonged to Trump; he set it in 2016 with a 75-minute speech. With his ear still bandaged, Trump was joined on stage by the firefighter’s uniform that belonged to Corey Comperatore, who was killed at the Saturday rally. Trump touched on topics ranging from COVID and his classified-documents case to inflation and the border and went off-script repeatedly. Standout lines:

  • “Four months from now we will have an incredible victory and we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country. … I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
  • already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life. So many people have asked me what happened, tell us what happened, please, and therefore, I’ll tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell.”
  • “I heard a whizzing sound and felt something hit me really really hard on my right ear. … I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack. … Bullets were continuing to fly and brave Secret Service agents rushed to the stage … and pounced on top of me so I would be protected. I felt very safe because I had God on my side. The amazing thing is that prior to the shot if I had not moved my head at that very last instant … I would not be here tonight.”
  • “Nobody [in the crowd] ran and by not stampeding many lives were saved. They knew I was in very serious trouble and thought actually most did that I was dead. They knew it was a shot to the head and they saw the blood. … The ears are the bloodiest part, they bleed more than any other part of the body, the doctors told me. … This beautiful crowd they didn’t want to leave me and you can see that love written all over their faces. … Bullets were flying over us yet I felt serene.”
  • “I will end our illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and building our wall. … We have to stop the invasion into our country that is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year. I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created,” specifying Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza.
  • “If you took the 10 worst presidents of the United States and added it up they would not have done the damage that Biden has done.”
  • “I will bring back the American dream. You don’t even hear about the American dream anymore. With great humility I am asking you to be excited about our future, be excited.”
  • Trump said he was the first president in modern times to start no new wars. “There was peace in Europe and the Middle East. Under President Bush, Russia invaded Georgia. Under President Obama, Russia took Crimea. Under the current administration, Russia is after all of Ukraine. Under President Trump, Russia took nothing. We defeated 100% of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, something that was going to take five years, and I did it in two months. I stopped the missile launches from North Korea.”
  • “With our victory in November, our years of war and chaos would be over. … I could stop wars with just a telephone call.”
  • “America is on the cusp of a new Golden Age, but we must have the courage to seize it … we have to produce massive amounts of energy if we’re going to produce the new … AI needs tremendous, literally twice the energy that’s available now in our country, can you imagine?”
  • “Just a few short days ago, my journey with you nearly ended. And yet here we are tonight, all gathered together, talking about the future, promise, and a total renewal of a thing we love very much, it’s called America. We live in a world of miracles. None of us knows God’s plan, or where life’s adventure will take us.”
  • “But if the events of last Saturday make anything clear, it is that every single moment we have on Earth is a gift from God. We have to make the most of every day for the people and for the country that we love.”
  • “For too long our nation settled for too little … You have been told to lower your expectations and to accept less for your families. I am here tonight with the opposite message. Your expectations are not big enough. It is time to start expecting and demanding the best leadership in the world. Leadership that is bold … as long as our energies are spent fighting each other our destiny will remain out of reach and that’s not acceptable.”

What can I say?

Nothing has changed his rhetoric is the same as his 2 previous nominations….the call of unity flew down the political toilet.

I am still searching for the stats on his claim of hundreds of thousands killed by illegal immigrants…..so far nothing to confirm that POS.

He got as much mileage out of the assassination attempt as he could….he milked it for the all it was worth.

Finally I heard lots words but nothing I could point to as policy….promises that mean literally nothing but crowd fodder.

That was 92 minutes of pure crap but a junkie like me listened to it all and then had to visit the porcelain library….

Now I await the Dems moment in the sun….what will it be…Joe or his replacement?

Stay tuned

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Vance Off And Running

So far the RNC convention has been a collection of Trumpites babbling their way through their allotted time and then came the highlight of the night….the VP candidate speech…..OMG! Such bullshit spread with a pinch of chest thumping.

YAWN!  Ah–choo….sorry I am allergic to bullshit!

He rambled and I thought I would have to rip my ears off to get him to shut up….he had lots to say and none of it was anything a thinking person would agree with on any level.

Introducing himself to the nation after being tapped as Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance used his Wednesday night address to the Republican National Convention to share the story of his hardscrabble upbringing and make the case that his party best understands the challenges facing struggling Americans. In his first prime-time address since Trump made his pick, the 39-year-old Ohio senator cast himself as fighter for a forgotten working class, making a direct appeal to the Rust Belt voters who helped drive Trump’s surprise 2016 victory and voicing their anger and frustration. Standout lines from the AP:

  • The first millennial on a major-party ticket, Vance spent much of his speech talking up Trump and going after Biden, using his relative youth to draw a contrast with the 81-year-old president. “Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington as long as I’ve been alive. For half a century he’s been a champion of every single policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer.”
  • “Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I’d be standing here tonight,” Vance said. He shared his story of growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent. He later joined the Marines, graduated from Yale Law School, and went on to the highest levels of US politics—an embodiment of an American dream he said is in now in short supply.
  • The Hill reports the personal details he shared included references to “Mamaw,” the grandmother who helped raise him, and his mother, who has been sober for the last decade and was greeted with cheers of “JD’s mom!” as she was seated.
  • The Wall Street Journal reports he ended his speech by sharing the story of proposing to his wife, the daughter of South Asian immigrants. “We were in law school, and I said, ‘Honey, I come with $120,000 worth of law school debt and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in eastern Kentucky.'”
  • He spoke more about his Appalachian background, and said, “In small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or in Michigan, in states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war. To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”

He paints a great picture as the poor kid from down the street….manure all was manure!

Let me look at a couple of his positions that need addressing…..why?  Because they are fucking insane.  First housing crisis….his cure is to deport 20 million people.

Now, he even cites Trump’s campaign promise to deport between 15 and 20 million people as a way to address the nation’s housing affordability crisis.

In a tweet responding to the allegation that conservatives have few plans to address rising housing costs, Vance argued that cracking down on immigration would go a long way.

read more….

https://www.businessinsider.com/jd-vance-deport-20-million-immigrants-reduce-home-prices-rents-2024-7

You think that is crazy how about his voting rights position?

This Yutz believes that childfree people should not have the same voting rights as people with children…..that’s right with this d/bag your voting rights would be in jeopardy if you have decided not to have children.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/jd-vance-childless-left-voting-power-parents

Nothing about this man stands out other than he is a massive POS.

But wait!  The Big Cheese speaks tonight (oh the joy of the Big Cheese)

If you vote for this ticket then you should have a lobotomy for the good of the nation.

For god’s sake the future of this country is at stake please reconsider your support for this person and his running mate….old ‘whats his name’.

Learn the candidate’s positions….they will not change after the election.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Rambling Babbling Sort Of Night

As a political junkie I have been watching the RNC convention not out of interest but rather out of concern….and my concern is well founded.

The one thing after 3 days is a lot of chest thumping from low IQ pronates with nothing substantial other than platitudes and all that gets drooling applause and chants from the adoring crowd.

But I have noticed that the party has tweaked its positions somewhat…..

The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week is not just a celebration or a crowning of the party’s presidential ticket. It’s a realignment. Republican positions are no longer standard conservative down the line; the party is turning toward economic populism, for instance, Politico reports. And longstanding relationships with business and unions are changing. The remodeling is driven partly by societal and demographic changes and an attempt at building a broader coalition. The result is a party that its leaders from the 1970s wouldn’t recognize, Stuart Rothenberg writes in an opinion piece in Roll Call. “I think what we’re witnessing now is a full on frontal assault on conservatism,” said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan puts the change another way, saying: “I think President Trump has made our party what it always should have been, which is a populist party rooted in conservative principles.” Examples of the sometimes-awkward shift include:

  • Abortion: Organizations working against abortion access objected to the more cryptic plank in the party’s platform, which mostly reiterates Donald Trump’s most recent stance of letting states decide the issue. Those organizations, and delegates, dropped their opposition to the revised wording. “This platform is a platform that is responsive and supportive of where America is actually at,” said one delegate.
  • Unions: The convention heard from a Teamster for the first time ever. Union President Sean O’Brien’s speech was a shock to the GOP system, ripping Right to Work laws and corporations as “the biggest recipients of welfare in this country.” He referred to the Chamber of Commerce as “unions for big business.” Party leaders are reaching out to unions, though polls show little support for that in the party at large, per a Washington Post analysis. “I was starting to squirm a little bit on some of that stuff, but I also know how you blend that, and that’s what makes up my support,” said Indiana Sen. Mike Braun. “And that doesn’t mean you take the most outrageous stuff that he might have said, but you don’t dismiss some of the rest of it, and you find a new coalition.”
  • Ukraine: The speakers Wednesday night “went a step further,” Short said, giving the example of those who essentially said “NATO was at fault for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” That follows the lead of Vance, who once said, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” There’s no mention of Ukraine in the platform, though polls show Republicans have no objection to the amount of aid provided by the US.
  • Marriage: There’s no mention in the platform anymore about marriage being between one man and one woman, either. It does express support for “a culture that values the sanctity of marriage” and “the foundational role of families.” That appears to be a loss for one segment of the party.

So far my biggest WTF? was the Teamsters boss speech…..not something you would expect to hear at a GOP function.

So far all in all it is a collection of rambling and babbling nonsense.

Sorry anyone that votes for these clowns has a crack problem or they are just plain stupid.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Assassination Attempt Of An Ex-President

Last Saturday a gunman attempted to shoot and kill an ex-president of the United States….but I have given that all the ink it will get for now.

Trump is something special….an ex-president running for the lost office once again, right?

Come on guys!  You knew I could not let this incident go by without a little history lesson involved, right?

Not hardly!

Trump is not the only or the first ex-president to be targeted by an assassin’s bullet…..as much as he would love to be unique.

The year is 1912 in Milwaukee (sound familiar?) and the ex-president is Teddy Roosevelt….

Theodore Roosevelt’s opening line was hardly remarkable for a presidential campaign speech: “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible.” His second line, however, was a bombshell.

“I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.”

Clearly, Roosevelt had buried the lede. The horrified audience in the Milwaukee Auditorium on October 14, 1912, gasped as the former president unbuttoned his vest to reveal his bloodstained shirt. “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” the wounded candidate assured them. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bullet-riddled, 50-page speech.

Holding up his prepared remarks, which had two big holes blown through each page, Roosevelt continued. “Fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”

Only two days before, the editor-in-chief of The Outlook characterized Roosevelt as “an electric battery of inexhaustible energy,” and for the next 90 minutes, the 53-year-old former president proved it. “I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap,” he claimed.

Few could doubt him. Although his voice weakened and his breath shortened, Roosevelt glared at his nervous aides whenever they begged him to stop speaking or positioned themselves around the podium to catch him if he collapsed. Only with the speech completed did he agree to visit the hospital.

The shooting had occurred just after 8 p.m. as Roosevelt entered his car outside the Gilpatrick Hotel. As he stood up in the open-air automobile and waved his hat with his right hand to the crowd, a flash from a Colt revolver 5 feet away lit up the night. The candidate’s stenographer quickly put the would-be assassin in a half-nelson and grabbed the assailant’s right wrist to prevent him from firing a second shot.

https://www.history.com/news/shot-in-the-chest-100-years-ago-teddy-roosevelt-kept-on-talking

You see Trump is not the first ex-president running for office again to have been shot while campaigning to regain the White House.

Personally I liked the message that Teddy had with his Bull Moose Party we could use some of those progressive ideas today.

Know your history.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Hack Of Heritage

First the mundane…..my visit with the doctors went well….everything okay just had to take on some new meds….Sue’s chemo dragged her out today but than that she is responding well the doctor tells us….a slow day on IST….I guess not many care what the day held for me and Sue.

It is midnight and it is 90 degrees…oh the joys of Summer in the South.

While I was surfing waiting for my doctor to call me into the inner sanctum I found a story that made me smile….

By now most people interested in the direction of this country have been exposed to the far Right crap flowing out of the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025……

Most of us that have read the ‘plan’ see it for what it is an authoritarian garb for the government and democracy….

As we say in the Souths “bless their hearts”…..I am talking about the hackers that busted into the Heritage website and lifted a bunch of info.

It looks like hacktivists have joined the fight to shine a light on Project 2025, the far-right blueprint for reshaping the government to achieve ultraconservative goals if Donald Trump is elected president in November. 

Google searches for “Project 2025” have skyrocketed in recent weeks, likely due in part to celebrities, including Taraji P. Henson at the BET Awards last month, drawing attention to the extremist plan. A group of hackers has joined the effort to pull back the curtain on Project 2025.

On Tuesday, the cybersecurity news outlet CyberScoop reported that a collective comprised of self-described “gay furry hackers” that calls itself SiegedSec gained access to Heritage Foundation data. Specifically, the collective said it gained access to a website hosting content produced by members of the Heritage Foundation, the organization that assembled Project 2025 with the help of several members of Trump’s former administration. 

Per CyberScoop:

Self-described “gay furry hackers,” SiegedSec said it released the data in response to Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a set of proposals that aim to give Donald Trump a set of ready-made policies to implement if he wins this fall’s election. Its authors describe it as an initiative “to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right.” The data, reviewed by CyberScoop, includes Heritage Foundation blogs and material related to The Daily Signal, a right-wing media site affiliated with Heritage. The data was created between 2007 and November 2022. The group says it gained access to the data on July 2 and released it to provide “transparency to the public regarding who exactly is supporting heritage (sic),” a spokesperson for the group who goes by the online handle “vio” told CyberScoop in an online chat Tuesday.

A SiegedSec spokesperson who goes by “vio” told CyberScoop that the data the group accessed includes “full names, email addresses, passwords, and usernames” of people associated with Heritage. But a Heritage spokesperson denied that the organization was “hacked,” telling CyberScoop that “an organized group stumbled upon a two-year-old archive of The Daily Signal website that was available on a public-facing website owned by a contractor.”

Nonetheless, Heritage folks don’t sound happy about this data dump. The Daily Dot shared excerpts of angry text messages sent from Mike Howell — a former Trump administration official and the executive director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project — to vio. Howell confirmed the authenticity of the texts to The Daily Dot via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

(msnbc)

There are even reports that Project 2025 had help from China…..let me repeat that…..Heritage had help from China on the workings of Project 2025….plus rumblings that they may be fudging with the IRS…..we will see.

I am sure more info will drop and soon but for now the Dems have been handed some ammo against the Right and their ‘plan’ to destroy our national government…..so I will be watching and waiting for the rest of the story.

I say kudos to those that did this….2 thumbs up.

Stay tuned….more to come….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

16Jul24–Medical Pause

First of all Trump has named his VP, Sen. JD Vance….an anti-green, climate denier, Trumpite wind bag….he looks good on TV and that was the main point that got him the job.

****Today is a full day of doctors for both Sue and I….she has chemo and a oncologist appointment and I have my 6 month medical tune-up from my doctors….so we will be a bit busy ….I do not want for you to go lacking so I am posting one from my other other blog, Daily Agitator…..

What The Hell Is “Militainment”?

I shall return tomorrow with the usual stuff and I hope to see one and all….

I shall leave you with one of my favorite albums, Canned Heat….this will help the pain of my abbreviated posting schedule for the day.

I wish to thank all my regulars for their constant support you are much appreciated.

I shall return.

Be well and Be Safe….

The Grand Unified Theory

There are several different Grand Unified Theories but this specific one is on why things keep getting worse in our society.

An academic looks at society and the shaky ground it rests on…..

The Russian-American academic Peter Turchin doesn’t think this outlook is just a vibe. Turchin, who helped develop an area of study known as “cliodynamics,” which attempts to scientifically quantify how history moves forward, predicted in 2010 the US would see a significant uptick in political violence by 2020. Today Turchin’s cliodynamic models remain pessimistic. In his 2023 book End Times, Turchin says political violence and societal instability have already increased, a condition that is here to stay for another five to 10 years, even if we started trying to fix things.

Turchin posits that the operation of what he terms a “wealth pump” has disproportionately benefited the top sliver at the direct expense of every other socioeconomic band. With too many people aspiring to join the top echelons and not enough slots—as Turchin argues in End Times, citing an array of historical examples—the structures holding society together start to get a bit shaky.

People get more radical in the name of political ends: They do things like storm capitol buildings, threaten federal judges, and take part in ominous convoys. And if the conditions that are generating surges in violence are left unresolved, he warns they start to get substantially worse. Turchin and I spoke last month about this cycle of wealth capture and resentment that he sees at play not only across history, but in my generation.

An Academic’s Grand Unified Theory on Why Things Are Getting Worse

Is the fate of democracy and freedom in America in jeopardy? Is the decline and demise of America inevitable?

These questions contain words, or dangers, few are willing to acknowledge. They are ominous words or thoughts in their rhetoric; they are more so in their possible reality.

We must address and resolve or many social problems or all is lost.

We must awaken to a collapsing border policy, polarizing politics, convulsing economy, soaring inflation, vacillating stock market, staggering crime, pacifying statesmanship, accelerating drug abuse, trafficking humans, faltering education systems, declining civility, overwhelming debt, and other issues challenging America.

But our most serious deficiency is the lack of competent and responsible leaders. Our best recourse to overcome this is the dedication and commitment of the American people. “We The People” must act to restore what is good, decent, and honorable in America.

Today, however, we seem more intent on increasing the rancor instead of decreasing the hostility. Whether conservative or liberal, rich or poor, white or Black, city or rural, we tend to demonize those who disagree with us or who are dissimilar to us.

The Left too often characterizes rural or middle Americans as White Nationalists with White Rural Rage. The Right too often characterizes metropolitans as elitists with secretive WOKE agendas.

What’s astounding is these various tendencies have created the conditions, maybe encouraged, perhaps forced, those with opposing perceptions and beliefs to become even more extreme. We become more intolerant. We create greater divisions.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/03/28/unity_or_division_1021445.html

I short most thinking people agree….we need to do something and soon if we are to save our beloved nation….inaction is not an option.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”