Mr. Deity and the Goody-Two-Shoes

Question: Is NOT being able to kill with your thoughts a bug or an app?

("Sell EVERYTHING, quickly....")

The Day The Dollar Died

Jolly Holidays -- Let's BURN Sumpin!

What's the difference between a "luminaria" and a "farolito"?


Burning things is a big part of the solstice festivities in lotsa places. If you happen to live in or near south Louisiana, take a tour up (or down) the River Road Xmas Eve and watch the bonfires on the levee.

Every year over one hundred 30 foot plus tall bonfire structures are built of wood, firecrackers, and occasionally bamboo along the Mississippi River levee near the town of Lutcher, Louisiana. These bonfires are laced with kerosene or lighter fluid, then all are ignited simultaneously at 7 p.m. US Central Standard Time to welcome the arrival of Papa Noel on Christmas Eve.

The bonfires have been explained as long ago before the Levee's were built, to help friends of the family find the inlets or slips coming off the river to the homes of those they wanted to visit on Christmas Eve. But more likely a good way to encourage the children to help keep the inlet clear of the continuous build-up of washed up debris and driftwood.

Today, each family or street of families comes together and starts building usually the Thanksgiving break from school. They have limits now as to size and construction due to mishaps in the past. But Christmas Eve if its not a “Cajun Snowstorm” is enjoyed with a bonfire, pot of gumbo, fireworks, and a lawn-chair. All are welcome to join the merriment, now even special sternwheelers, paddleboats, or riverboats offer bonfire cruises down the Mississippi River.

It is a Christmas Eve tradition, unless it rains, then it is promptly changed to a New Year's Eve tradition. You will always see the displayed pirogue with Papa Noel being pulled by his special alligators, lead by Alphonse.

Who's Up For A Movie? "Inside Job" Is Downtown

Showtimes

Century 14 Downtown Albuquerque
100 Central Avenue, Albuquerque, NM
10:40am 1:50 4:50 7:40pm

Inside Job is the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.

Lonely? Try TSA!

"Your Home Town?"

It's 1984 and The Boss has out a KILLER new album: "Born In The USA." It goes platinum, plus. One of the charts is called "My Home Town." In it there's a lyric I want you to ponder, seeing as how it was written in 1984, over 25 years ago: "The foreman says these jobs are going, boys, and they ain't coming back." Not to your home town...

Why not? How did he know?

Fast forward to 2010, and pundit/critics like Thom Hartmann are touting a new orthodoxy to reclaim "our country" from the plutocrats, oligarchs, aristos, and their minions in the political and business classes. The key is to somehow 'return manufacturing/jobs' to the economy. Hartmann and others have a variety of schemes to accomplish this, but it seems to me that these pretty uniformly overlook, or simply ASSUME to have solved, a principle dilemma of the "we'll just rebuild" argument.

It is this: You're gonna need A LOT of MONEY to build and re-build the infrastructure which has gone to rust and ruin over the past 30 years. There is nothing left of the previous structures; they've been stripped to the walls. You'd have to start over again from scratch. You'd have to bring it up to speed, too: high-speed rail, super-diesels, mass trans, energy efficiency, everything ...But that is gonna cost a shit-pot of shekels; it's a beeeg investment.

And we already know the Gummint cannot do it; it's hamstrung by corporate interests which are still busily extracting every possible cent from the existing chaos, and so doesn't want to; so Gummint CANNOT invest the necessary resources.

And the corpoRats don't wanna rebuild ANYTHING. It wouldn't be a good investment. We're a "down-market" anymore. We have been hollowed out, and no it's on to the next apparatus for the corpoRat otherfuckers. They need "us" less and less as a market; they're just about done with "us."

TSA Gangstas -- "TSA Gangstas"

The TSA ground "security" and gate personnel are the reason I'll not soon likely take any flights. I think the "inspectors" are selected from Mickey D's rejects, for stupidity, arrogance, tactlessness, and belligerence. They seem actively to despise the travelers, and to enjoy the harassments they visit upon us. They have, to an individual, NEVER been further from home than the transportation terminae they infest.

12-Year Old Inventor Makes Homeless Shelter From Trash

This is pretty great, but not his first success.

12-year-old Max Wallack stole the show at Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure contest with his “Home Dome.” The contest asked kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions.

The dome provides shelter for the homeless and is made from plastic, wire, packing peanuts, and flargstin. Pretty much, trash.

The trash-plex looks like a Mongolian yurt, and let Max walk away with $10,000 and a Dell laptop. He also got a trip to Boston out of it. But Max had this to say, “I don’t really care about the money. I care about helping people.”

There's more at the link above.

Chevron Cares!

Via Terraalert:

The Yes Men are at it again! And this team they have teamed up with Rain Forest Action Network (RAN) and Amazon Watch to go head to head with Corporate Giant, Chevron.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Yes Men, they are a duo of activists who use pranks and humor to draw attention to the atrocities done by large corporations against those who, too often, can't fight back.

They are infamous for taking on Exxon Mobile, BP and Dow Chemical, and now they have set their sights on Chevron, who recently spend a great deal in order to finance an expensive PR campaign entitled "We Agree."

The We Agree Campaign can best be surmised as a means with which to con consumers into believing that Chevron has the publics' best interest in mind. But Slogans like "Oil Companies should support the communities they're a part of" stand in stark contrast to the fact that have yet to address their role in refusing to clean up the toxic pollution it left in the Ecuadorean Amazon. RAN reports that " the 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste polluting Ecuador’s rainforest could lead to as many as 10,000 Ecuadoreans dying of cancer by 2080."

The Yes Men, RAN and Amazon Watch have responded to Chevron's underhanded attempt at green washing with a hilarious satirical website and fake press release in an attempt to shed light on the dubiousness of the original ad campaign.

Recently, they also released a brand new site: ChevronThinksWeAreStupid.org . This new site endeavors to enlist your help in making Chevron accountable for their actions. Just click on the link, and submit your own Chevron spoof ad, just like the one featured in this article, made by Funny or Die , of a real Chevron commercial.

The Morning After*

*After Murkins reveal themselves to be too fucking stupid for self-gummint (and the electorate once again demonstrates why I fear the "plebiscite."