Quoting Goethe

Beautiful protestor with powerful placard? What's not to love. Protesting power is hot in general.

Art is pretty, always (in its specific way), but subverting myth is especially pretty in my book. In which is written: Once women take over society, the world can truly progress.

When we dreamt of a better future

Back in the days of American yore, we dreamt of landing men on the Moon, and sending ships to space on a regular schedule - like a space train. The Space Shuttle - conceived of in the 60's, designed and built in the 70's, and surely killed by Reagan in the 80's. Like most of America.

These are pics from the Shuttle launch facility at Vandenburg AFB in California. It was never used for an actual launch, since when the Shuttles were ready for flight, St. Ronnie was President and the strangulation of America had begun in earnest. It takes a big Government to build and operate something so ambitious, so forward looking, and as we all know now, Government is the problem.

Let us lament what could have been, if not for "Conservatives". A future of hope and progress, of equality and science, of fairness and justice for all. A future we here in America will not get another chance at, not in our lifetimes.

But we'll have a few wicked rich folks! Bank on that.

Live Long and Prosper 2: Happiness

Posted before, but I'm posting again, due to the awesomeness.

Happiness must be a factor in considering whether a life is successful. For, what is freedom, what is peace, without happiness?

Get Happy:

Don't chew pencils!

Lead free.

Even the Romneys can't resist President Obama.

All the kids.

And all the windows, and all the doors flung wide open.

Progress.

For want of charisma

Big Brother is but a name for a charismatic enough leader, with enough power, who shapes the State to his will.  With today's insane Republican party, a charismatic leader could do pretty much anything if given the power to do so. But I don't think there's a charismatic enough GOP leader alive today.

Oh for the days of St. Ronaldus Magnus Reaganus! The greatest bestest leader America's ever had - it's true. Ask a Republican. But thankfully, today's Republican party has eaten its own product (Propaganda) for too long, and is now batshit stupid insane. I look upon the GOP horizon and see nothing but crackpots and hypocritical assholes. Old people gone completely bitter and deluded by the grifters and liars of the GOP.

Reagan has become unto a God to these Teabaggin' morans. For real - it's weird and creepy. Fun fact you could tell them and they'd never believe it: Reagan signed 11 tax increases during his two terms.

Cuz facts don't matter anymore to the so called "Conservative" party. They are 100% in with pure Ideology, whatever it is that given day in opposition to Liberals - because that's the gist of it: Whatever you're for, they're against.

If they get full power of the Government again anytime soon, we're in big trouble. If FSM be praised we can have a Democratic Administration and Congress from 2014 - 2024, we could do some serious work of undoing the damage they've done to this country and the world over the past 35 years.

It's up to us to decide - literally, the weight of the world is on our shoulders, upon our choices.

Sky's not the Limit

Click for big - Asteroid mining as a maybe real thing by some rich dudes who've started a company. If you're super rich, why not? And if the crazy idea actually works, well, then you might become the richest men who've ever walked this precious metal barren planet. Richer than Crassus.

For you see, Earth differentiated - meaning, it melted. And most of the heavy stuff sank down deep into the planet. Far from our machines. And so we simply scrape around the surface - all the gold, silver, tin, iron, etc ever dug up but a pittance of what actually exists on Earth. But we'll never be able to get to it.

And so, space. Most of the time asteroids did not differentiate, and thus the precious metals are sitting in discrete chunks close to the surface. Some asteroids are almost entirely iron. More metal than mankind has ever know sits in just one or two 500M asteroid. Read this if you can:

I'll summarize the entire idea (which will eventually happen if we continue to advance as a technological species): 1. Find some good target asteroids. There are two general classes - water rich, and metal rich. 2. Get to them, and drag them to a Lagrange point. 3. There, mine them of water and metals. 4. Send some of the metal back to Earth for a very large price. Use the rest to build your space mining infrastructure to you can mine ever more asteroids.

Soon enough with this scheme and we'll have entered some post-scarcity wonder world of flying cars and giant space stations.

Also too: Underground cities in case some mad Gazillionaire decides to rain asteroids down upon the planet.

Imagine if you will

The Democratic President's Club! In Heaven? Wingnuts will say Hell, of course, because they're stupid wa-wa babies. Also, you can tell Andrew Jackson is the real card of this club - check out them duds. Jackson!

Funny, sweet, kinda lame, yet kinda cool, all wrapped up in kitsch. Perfect. Now, imagine this far less jovial alternate reality:

Team Incompetent actually had this page posted on their public website prior to the election concluding. Perfect example of a picture being worth a thousand - or a few hundred million - words. Soak it in and imagine the horror that COULD have been.

Do you? Bro?

And now consider the "Republican Bench". It only gets shallower. 2016 might well feature Dead Ron Paul (as in "Weekend at Bernies") and Orly Taitz.

As bad as these Wingnuts have been, don't fool yourself: They can always get worse.

Beyond the Pale Blue Dot

Click for big if you can't read the text. Wise words, and it puts things in perspective. A True perspective, but then you'll find that the objective, absolute Truth often does not matter, but instead what does is our subjective truths. Or even our lies.

Send your mind out into space - past Neptune, past Pluto, past Sirius, past Orion, past Andromeda, keep going out billions of light years, and there are more stars, more galaxies, more planets, but keep going, it never ends - space stretching out to infinity in all directions, and here we are, simultaneously at the center of everything and just another speck in the cosmic infinities. This is all Truth, and in this Truth the value of a single life is insignificant. In fact, the value of our planet, our solar system, our star, is utterly insignificant in comparison to the scale of our Universe, and perhaps even the Multiverse. But then there's this:

Caroline Previdi, age 6 when she died yesterday at the hands of a truly sick individual with guns. And you think of the terror and the horror she must have experienced in her last moments, and all the ensuing horror for her parents, her family, her friends, and all the other people affected by the events in Newtown, CT yesterday. And it's all very significant, isn't it?

Will this horror change anything here on planet Earth, in the country of America? I sure hope so. Today it seems like it might. But I've grown cynical enough over the past... 20 years... that I'm pessimistic.

I spend a lot of time (too much) in the "trenches", so to speak, of Right Wing thought. Let me summarize them for you: No matter how bad you think they are, they're worse then you know, maybe even worse then you can imagine. After being shocked then thinking I cannot be shocked any more, I was once again shocked yesterday reading their reactions to this tragedy. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that in our subjective little insignificant reality, there's real people, real issues, and real evil out there who don't give a fuck. And you can't use mental illness as an excuse for these people. For the leadership of the NRA, for example. For the Republican party, for example. These people are actually evil - in our subjective state - and unfortunately we often live, and die, at their whims. In their quest for nothing more than money.

A sad day, a sad world. And yet one we can make better. If we try. Will we?

Librarian Laughs

Poor Uranus. It's a lovely planet - an Ice Giant with more water than all the water on Earth times 1000 or even more. And yet, forever a joke, because of its name. Do you think this joke will ever pass? Doesn't seem likely does it. As such, I propose we change Uranus's name to something cooler. How about Caelus?

Another sign that our times are progressive and getting better. Within my lifetime there were once banned books in America, land of Freedom. Ulysses, all of Henry Miller's work, Catch-22, The Grapes of Wrath, Naked Lunch, and let us not forget The Canterbury Tales. Yes, banned in America in the 1870's due to the awesome Comstock Law. But today, as far as I know, there are no banned books. We're free to read all the crap we want. But don't, because, really, who the hell reads anymore?

Lords of Lies

Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter living the high life in very liberal NYC. O'Reilly remains about as popular as he ever has, whereas Coulter's career has dipped over the past 4 years. Though she's still out there, spewing poison. As all Right Wingers must - they deal in lies. It's the entirety of Right Wing existence at this point - lies for us, lies for themselves.

What a pic! Not sure the context, but these folks all represent various forms of the Right Wing Id. From left to right: Andrew Brietbart, foaming mad propagandist. Also dead. Jonathan Krohn, Wingnut boy wonder who in 2009 was lauded as the second coming of Reagan. Now an Obama supporter. Oh hi, James O'Keefe. Almost didn't recognize you behind that awesome disguise. Slayer of Acorn, O'Keefe's "brand" of journalism led him to plead guilty to trespassing in a Democratic Senator's office and is currently on probation. How he avoided jail is beyond me. And last and least, "Bush's Brain", "Turdblossom", "Maker of Realities" Karl Rove. Once feared and feted, it should be clear after his election night performance, he's now an utter joke. Won't stop him from continuing to lie and grift billionaires out of their money.

Oh Tucker. You still haven't recovered from the lashing given to you by John Stewart so many years ago. Tossed from your lofty perch at the "balanced" CNN, you ditched the bow tie and sank lower and lower, looking for anyone to pay attention to you. Sad. Now a recurring guest of the odious Sean Hannity, and still laughed at.

I could throw in a pic of the Big Daddy of this sleazy tribe, Rush, but I'll spare you, my dear readers, the suffering. Suffice it to say even Rush is not doing so well these days. Take all these trends together, and grow heartened. These liars, these radicals, these hatemongers and con artists and demagogues are losing power, losing influence, losing appeal. America appears to be waking up from the 30 years long Republican nightmare, and we can thank Barack Obama for this great blessing. Thanks Bo!

Keep Moving

Citizens! Follow these guidelines so that the next time you can punch that dastardly Jap rather than the friendly Chinese public servant!

Um, yeah, lady? By the wording of the sign, maybe you should be leaving the neighborhood as well? Being a woman and all. But committed to your distrust of Japs!

You see here three very positive trends: 1. This kind of outright racism is no longer tolerated in most places. Sure, it still exists, but pushed down and frowned upon, which is but a step towards elimination. 2. Former enemies can become great friends! Or, at least, geo-politics makes for strange bedfellows. 3. Peace can be made and grown over generations. Arguably, Japan (and Germany) had fairly aggressive and war like societies prior to World War 2. Since, they've been two of the most peaceful countries in the world, and their societies have become much more tolerant and less martial.

We are making huge strides as a species for the most part. An important fact to remember when reading the latest Rightwing slobberings. It's never a settled matter, however. Peace and Justice must be fought for on a daily basis.

To Kill An Elephant

True story. Folks down in Kingsport, Tennessee got all enraged after Mary here killed a circus worker rather cruelly. Some reports indicate this worker was prodding Mary with a hook, and she snapped. Check it here.

Barbaric, is it not? And proof that despite how crazy times may seem, we're making progress in every regard. Hanging an elephant in front of an entire town (lots of kids) would never be considered today.

Right?

Crash of the Shenandoah

There was an era in our history - the 20's, essentially - when dirigibles were all the modern rage. And why the heck not? They're awesome. But back then, not so safe.

And so with some high publicity crashes, the world gave up on dirigibles, which were relegated to circling football stadiums. Alas.

So is the way of many things - a few bad events and everyone turns course, heading in as far from a direction as possible, whichever way. Cultural evolutionary leaps - Big Events which wash away thousands of days of gentle accumulation. Sometimes for the good, sometimes not. Oftentimes not?

Lessons in Luxury

Check it: Mankind - you and me, or more specifically, our ancestors - has only been around for about 200,000 years. For most of that time - 199,800 years to be approximate - we lived hand to mouth, survival a day to day occupation. Our species has been defined, like every other species on Earth that is or has ever been, by survival.

But we, the Lucky Ones, live in an age of plenty, of miracle. You can eat all you want and suffer few consequences in so doing. And thus, Pancake Man above. At no other time in human history could he exist in this form, unless he was elite. Indeed, fatness was once the mark of the richest of our monkey mammal line - who else could get fat but someone wealthy? Royalty. Then. Now, anyone can - head down to Mickey D's for a crash course, if you're so inclined.

On the flip side, the same circumstance - the Age of Plenty - allows for progress. Vegetarianism, for example - in no other time in human history would it make any sense. But now, when there's so many options? Why not? If it can be done, now's the time to do it. While we can.

But don't get too used to it. Luxury is always a temporary condition, as the reality of our existence is harsh. So, in lieu, here:

Only in, and from, luxury.

Would have been a Viking

But now just a nerd, and FSM bless him. An able example of how culture shapes us - 600 years or so ago this giant happy Norwegian nerd would no doubt have been a pillaging Viking, hell bent on burning and raping and some of that old time destruction, like his Fathers before him.

Progress, you see? We're slowly becoming a more peaceful species. But there's gonna be some bumps in the road along the way.