Topics

"There's a difference between anti-fascism and the "VIOLENT ANTIFA GANG. They're not the same thing!!!"

Cool. Patriotism and "Patriots" aren't the same thing. One is a sense of pride and fellowship in one's country and the other is membership in a terrorist org that listens to trashy paranoia talk radio shows, nitpicks the president's speeches and combs 4chan/8chan for super-secret bat-signal clues they call BREADCRUMBS.

Funny thing about these hyper-militarized, "Patriot" rapists and thugs is that they operate in cells and sleeper-cells. They spread their message of war and total control far and wide and use dogwhistle language from their book of lies to communicate and try to convert the weak and impressionable to their evil ways. You cut the head off one group and six others sprout in their place.

They're trying to change our peaceful way of life and convert everyone to the fucked up series of lies and laws to which they swear their allegiance. They infiltrate the government, our military, our schools and businesess. They're trying to codify their fannatical beliefs and zealotry into our system of governance. Every time I see one of them in their ridiculous attire, it makes me sick to see what this country is going to. We should deport every last one of them.

If you want to live in this country, you need to behave as such. Come here, get your vaccinations, pay your taxes and support the worker/your fellow countrymen. This nation was founded on strong unions and a deeply held reverence for the morals and tenets of ethical secularism. You fly OUR flag, OUR colors here.

If you don't like it, take your fascist Confederate flag, turn in your passport, book a flight to Russia and GTFO. REAL Americans don't want you here destroying everything we built and have pride in.

Every so often (like once every year or so), I have a dream about having a romance with someone who, during waking hours, I have little interest in above platonic. I don't really know him *well.* He's someone involved in a lot of the art and music culture in this town but most of my past dealings with him were either strained or downright contentious.

We buried some ridiculous (barely tangible) hatchet years ago and I have a genuine regard for him and his work in this city. We've both "grown up" in the nine years I've been here, that's for certain but we really don't even socialize in the same circles. I have my New Orleans peeps (who are a lot warmer, dirtier, unabashedly flawed and more approachable), and he has his art world people (who are brilliant, nice as all get-out but also a bit snobbish because of their work and NOT approachable).

The situation is LITERALLY impossible. Not improbable, impossible. We're like oil and water. Also, I have a near-anxiety-attack just exchanging pleasantries with him at the few social functions at which we've both been present because we're so oddly UNfamiliar now, my social anxiety kicks in as though I'm talking to a stranger. But every so often, I do try to pop into one of his shows or things just to show support because he works so hard to elevate the status of this city.

Anyone else have one of these?

AWESOME.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Westboro-Baptist-Church/400347320041300

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-2012-13-pigasus-awards-are-announced

I <3 you, James Randi. 

Because TGRR and I shouldn't have all the MIND NUMBING FUN to ourselves now, should we?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120604213544AAj4gXT

Because we feel the need to compete with Roger, here.

http://www2.wkrg.com/news/2013/mar/13/no-general-election-al-senate-seat-ar-5790860/

MOBILE, Alabama --

Bill Hightower won't have to vote for himself again this year and neither will anyone else.  A general election was supposed to happen in a couple of weeks but the secretary of state says a winner can now be certified due to a rarely used constitutional amendment.



"It only applies to legislative positions, no other positions that are elected," says probate judge Don Davis.  That puts Hightower in Montgomery with most of the legislative session over--but on the bright side--



"It saves money if we go through all these elections, these special elections we're spending more and more of the people's money and I'm eager to get to Montgomery," says Bill Hightower.



The county won't have to spend $76,000 for another election.  I went to the secretary of state's website to look at the campaign spending numbers for Hightower and opponent State Rep Jim Barton.  Barton bought a lot of airtime and spent more than half a million dollars on the campaign compared to Hightower's $118,000.  Jim Barton outspent Bill Hightower by more than four times and still lost.

BECAUSE LIBERTY IS ALL ABOUT FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY.  Ain't that swell of 'em? Didn't they do right by us? They even saved us the trouble of having to pat them on the back and did it themselves. MAYBE THEY DESERVE A RAISE.

Note: both "candidates" spent the entire year announcing each was "more conservative" than the other. No third OR second party, just a whole lotta knuckleheads arguing with each other about whose horse at the OTB races could "out-conservative" the other...because, you know, neocons are all about LIBERTY. Now do you want ketchup on your steak, Ma'am? Or ketchup? Wouldn't matter anyway--a democrat would offer us catsup.

http://theadvocate.com/news/5076476-123/police-images-on-computer-show

Among numerous images of child pornography are two that show Robert Eugene Swan, 50, engaging in alleged felony sex acts with children who appear to be under the age of 10, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards said.

One of them could be under a year old, he said.

Say hello to:
Robert Eugene Swan (50)
(address redacted)

This.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8menIEXynk

We are backsliding into garbage, that's what.

What the fuck do people think it means when they have all the resources, have the right to break your shit if you don't use it the way they tell you to and have the right to prevent others from making shit that works the way you want it to?

Instead of technological advance leading to better products for cheaper ---> better quality of life, the gates have been all but slammed shut and now it's about making shit you have to keep paying to use, and legislation robbing you of your last, remaining power: the power to purchase whatever the fuck you want and NOT buy shit that fucks with you.

I'm talking about Cinavia. I'm talking about the fact that it's now a felony punishable with 5 years imprisonment if I root my goddamned phone again.

Am I seriously whining about not being allowed to watch a goddamned movie someone ripped for my kid? Am I pissing tears out my asshole about some privileged bullshit like being forced to keep bloatware on my pretty, little smartphone?

YOU'RE GODDAMNED RIGHT, I AM.

By why? It's their shit, right? If I don't like it, just don't buy it, right?

FUCK THAT.

What they are robbing now is a concept. This is really difficult for others to wrap their minds around on a day-to-day basis but what they've summarily deleted from the marketplace is a concept whose existence is an amalgamation of pride in ingenuity, quality, fairness, competition, excellence and work-ethic.

There's a reason nobody buys French cars. French-made automobiles are the cheapest shit, poorly-designed and rife with mechanical problems and dangerous design issues. We are being forced to buy French-made cars...and then being forced to spend an additional $10/month on a new key to run the thing. We're being sold single-ply toilet paper and told we'll have to pay $5 to get the other ply. We're shelling out $10 for crappy fast-food and being made to pay $20 to shit it back out because until it hits the sewer, they still own it and you need their fucking permission to let it pass through your fucking asshole.

And we fucking pay.

You thought the increasing wage-disparity was the endgame? That ain't the endgame. Eventually, even THAT reaches its saturation point. The endgame is this: once they own all the shit they possibly can, they start collecting rent on your shit. They start collecting a usage-fee on the very manacles they put on you in the first fucking place. If you don't like it, go move to Russia, you privileged cunt.

It's time to start breaking things. Oh please, oh please, when do we start breaking things?

http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=14591&MediaType=1&Category=26

Stuzman insisted she is not anti-gay: "We hire gay people. I have friends that are gay, that wasn't the issue. The issue is that I just didn't want to participate in the marriage."

I wonder how many abusive marriages she's supported by sending apology flowers to the battered spouse. No matter. As long as they're straight, sanctity of marriage an all that. God totally wants the happy gay ones to live in sin and the miserable straight ones to stay together.

Or, as my friend Cedric in New Orleans put it: "This is pants-on-head stupid."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/argument-against-gay-marriage-california-hinges-accidental-pregnancies-095158941--election.html

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court last week, the Obama administration slammed the unusual legal argument now key in the movement against gay marriage: that gay couples cannot become accidentally pregnant and thus do not need access to marriage.

I want to be one of the Good Guys.

I don't WANT to believe it's hopeless yet.

When you see me roll up in my crisp, navy-blue uniform, purple steth slung round my neck, dragging a stretcher and a Zoll, I want you to go "Oh good, she's HERE. She's gonna get us fixed up. It's gonna be okay now."

Something's got to give...I mean, it has to. It can't go on like this indefinitely...can it? Can they keep doing this and keep doing this? Milking us at the cusp of revolt?

I struggle with ambivalence: torn between chastising myself for living in relative comfort and peace, yet bitching about injustice and all that we don't "get." That's how they getcha though: it's intentionally set up not for ambiguity, but to literally be both at the same time. If you whine, you are a lazy, selfish pussy. Fucking cry me a river because you have to make that iPhone 4S last another year, you materialistic cunt.

If you tell the whiners to shut up, show some gratitude and get a fucking job....If you say "You think this is bad, go try living in Russia," you're a heartless, naive, corporate apologist/protectionist wingnut who doesn't have the good sense to realize he's getting fucked.

And then it occurs to me: You know what this is? It's a fucking huge Mardi Gras parade. They ride by on floats and throw shit off: beads, Moon-pies, small toys, flashlights, beer koozies...and we: arms outstretched, hoping to catch something, writhing and muscling our way around for a better view, and tucked safely behind the barricades with Officer Dingo standing by to make sure we stay there--that no one crosses the line to get a better reach or approach the floats or hold up the parade.

Those of us near the front--the ones who got there first either because we got off work early enough or live close to the route--we're vying for the "good stuff." We don't want just beads, we want first crack at the stuffed animals and those little blinky toys for our young'uns. We want the Doubloons; those shiny, aluminum commemorative coins with the Society's theme and date stamped on. We want the cups and frisbees and roses. The BIG beads. The special stuff...and we usually get it, too.

The less fortunate, the ones who got to the party late (and by "late," I mean, they started filling up the space only 20 minutes before the parade instead of an hour or more), they're relegated to catching what flies past the front ranks. Sometimes, if someone back there gets really cutthroat and has a natural catch, they can snake stuff away from those of us with our bags clipped to the barricade...grab stuff out of hands, push small children out of the way for a stuffed frog with a heart sewn on its ass. In fact, some do really well that way; by being heartless. Ramming an elbow into your four-year-old's face by "accident" and when the child falls back to cry and have mommy kiss the boo-boo, you find you've lost your spot. They've now jammed themselves into your child's place and you know challenging them will start a race-war.

It was never fair to begin.

So you stay silent. And you resort to covert, passive-aggressive tactics to push them back out...back where they belong. The others up near the front, realizing you belong there, close ranks around you and your child--either consciously or subconsciously--and the offending party is expelled again: bubbled back to the rear. No matter how hard they try, the odds are stacked against them. They know what you're doing and what's but they can't prove it and Officer Dingo ain't gonna help.

It was never fair to begin.

The old, the infirm make up the last row. Usually in hover-rounds and camper-chairs, they settle in and stand fast with plastic shopping bags: content to pick up the scraps: the stray beads, a doubloon nobody saw, cups that bounced off someone's hat. All told, they do pretty well...take home bags and bags and bags of the stuff nobody saw, nobody wanted or that the rest of us were too busy fighting over a rainbow, LED wizard's staff to make a grab for.

The float-riders are all masked, of course. Decked out in satin and sequin, drunk and jovial: they've been drinking since before noon, drunk before it was even time to get in costume. Drunk when loading the floats the night before, even. Final fittings, last minute instructions, drunk. Drunk. Pleasantly and willfully oblivious. They throw the best stuff to their buddies in the crowd, their favorites, pretty woman, small white children...If you holler "Roll tide!" or have on their team's jersey, they'll throw you a Society football. Some of us just get picked. Some of us just know people. Some of us, you know, just root for the same team.

Roll tide, roll.

The maskers roll too. They roll on to the Civic Center where they'll have their bal masque: first the tableaux, then, costume de rigueur: tails and white tie and waistcoat. No one gets in without an engraved invitation and a floor-length gown but once you're inside...they hand you an embossed cup at the door. Revelry. Who cares what's going on outside?

And just like that, show's over. Outside, police and workers blow whistles: "Get back! Get off the barricade! Get back, go home!" Dark-skinned workers in hardhats and hi-vis vests pick up whole sections of barricade and move them onto the sidewalk, out of the street, making way for the sweepers. You get your bag, grasp your child's hand and run; politics forgotten, fellow revelers erased. You run back to the car and begin the battle through traffic.

It isn't until you're halfway home, driving down Dauphin Street, stopping for fuel on S. Ann that you realize: the net value of the shit in your bag has got to be seven bucks. Ten, tops. You just spent twice that in gas and incidentals to get there.

Roll tide, roll.





I want to be one of the Good Guys...but I don't want to lose my spot.

Or: "The type of shit that brings navkat back to PD.com"

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Dramatic-911-tape-reveals-dispatcher-s-fight-to/g2pqsOnJJUGDHFDtxoK04Q.cspx

Bayless was a resident at Glenwood Gardens' independent living facility, an area adjacent to, but separate from, Glenwood's skilled nursing facility and assisted living facility.

She collapsed in the facility's dining room at about 11:07 a.m. Tuesday.

Someone called 9-1-1, and Bakersfield Fire Dispatcher Tracey Halvorson got the call. Glenwood Gardens personnel handed the phone to a nurse who identified herself as Colleen.

During a 7-minute, 16-second call, Halvorson reasoned, cajoled and at times begged the nurse to start CPR in an attempt to save the woman.

The nurse said Glenwood Gardens policy prohibited her attempting CPR. The dispatcher assured the nurse Glenwood couldn't be sued if anything went wrong with CPR. The lcoal emegency medical system "Takes the liability for this call," the dispatcher said.

"I understand if your boss is telling you you can't do it," the dispatcher said. "But ... as a human being ... you know ... is there anybody that's willing to help this lady and not let her die?"

"Not at this time," the nurse answered.

I'm having a difficult time discerning Real Life (tm) from one of Roger's stories.

We're storing up stupid in case Florida accidentally a drought.

Taken from a conversation (rant) I had with someone in chat:

Mobile was the first capital of Louisiana. It's a shame this city doesn't embrace that.

The history is soooo similar and there's a lot of beauty and potential here but the NIMBYs fuck it all up.

When you hit downtown, you see it in the architecture.

People here would rather wave the rebel flag and TALK about how "diverse" we are.

The shame of it is, Mobile is probably one of the last (if not THE last) fertile, open coastal/port cities with potential for upwardly-mobile growth but the uber-republican, pro-corporate regime here would rather sell and give all the opportunities to private interests than do some real urban planning for the people.

So we're just getting raped. The opportunities are eroding with every giant conglomerate to come in and buy up port access and coastal reserve.

In Mobile, every bit of anything worth a good goddamn is already slated to go to some defense contractor, oil interest or chemical plant before we even hear about it.

Our Senator, Governor and Mayor all pushed to build this goddamned Carnival cruise terminal, for instance, with absolutely ZERO contract with Carnival to actually USE the thing. They just hired the contractors and built the thing with the promise to Mobile that it would bring tourism dollars.

Carnival hemmed and hawed about USING it so there it sat, over $40mil worth of concrete and channel. The city actually BORROWED $20million to finish the project.

Just as the natives were getting restless about a huge, piece-of-shit, corporate parking-lot on the coast, lo and behold! Katrina blows through! And guess what? New Orleans couldn't get their shit together long enough to remove the fucking power cables obstructing their terminal. WHOOPEE.

So Carnival parked their shit here for two years at a discount with still NO CONTRACT with the city for long-term use.

Meantime, what did Mobile do to encourage Carnival to stay? Did enhance tourism? Attract good cuisine? Fix the 15-mile-away airport problem? Gentrify neighborhoods, fix up the sights or get rid of some of the ugly fucking Dollar Trees and Payday Loan places in favor of mid and hi-range hotels?

NO! They enacted curfews downtown, prohibited drinking after 2AM or on Sundays without a private club license and outlawed sex toys statewide!

The largest-scale of raids on tourism-related nightlife interests went on while Carnival was in town.

The Old Guard resisted "establishments of intemperance" like a CRUSADE.

All of the gay clubs along the "fruit loop" were SHUT DOWN except for ONE...and that one's owned by Old Money.

People lost their liquor licences and got hit with irrecoverable fines that put them out of business.

Carnival didn't leave, they were THROWN out of here...and the Old Guard fucked the horse they rode in on up the ass.

And now, the taxpayers OWE $2.2million a YEAR on the empty cruise terminal. Do you know how much the city made off that disabled ship that's there now for the hospitality? $73K.

And the city just raised our sales taxed to 10%. We pay more than MANHATTAN. We have NO mass transit, NO social services and a piss-poor Parks & Rec department.

maybe a pention?

or 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZnm4X2ebs

You patrician, self-righteous CUNT. Tell ME to "do some research?" School ME in SCIENCE using the BIBLE and your FEEEEEEELINGS as a mother as a textbook?

YOU STILL HAVEN'T ANSWERED: WHAT IS AUTOMATICITY AND WHY DOES CARDIAC MUSCLE DIFFER FROM ANY OTHER MUSCLE IN THE BODY?

WHAT DICTATES PAIN AND THE PERCEPTION OF THE SAME? WHAT PARTS MUST NECESSARILY BE PRESENT TO DETECT PAIN OR PLEASURE?

SHOW ME ONE PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE, STUDY OR PAPER THAT PROVES THAT A FETUS HAS FEELINGS OR THAT A HEARTBEAT IS PROOF OF SENTIENT LIFE BEFORE 20 WEEKS.

Okay, then I suggest you NOT try to "out science" me and tell me to "do some research." If you want to take the position that "God told me so," FINE. Then SAY THAT and KNOW that it is strictly based on your FEEEEEEELINGS, not on UNDERSTAAAAANDING of how these things actually WORK.

I AM ONLY RAGING BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE YOUR VIEWS ARE BASED IN FACT AND ARGUE WITH ME ON THOSE GROUNDS.

IIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

It's like the non-encumbent's party is always an expectant, birthing mother: no matter HOW ugly or misshapen the thing is they wrap in a pink or blue blanket and present her, you know she's just going to beam with pride and unconditional adoration.

No, srsly, I'm in NOLA. If y'a know him, I'd like to meat up. My phone number is 230-1370 in you-know-which area code. The one  I like. Ask Phoxy-lady.

THIS MEANS YUO, EB&G LURKERS. I HAVE NO BEEF WITH YUO.

[it's a form of mind-control.]

Look, I know most agents of the law don't intend to be total fuckwads but there are a few things wrong with trusting them to be lawful.

The first is the Stanford experiment factor. Regardless if cruelty was the intent or not, there is (and this is proven) a certain amount of groupthink-level immunity from consequences and dissociation from empathy and responsibility that happens when you hand someone a badge, a gun and grant an identically-clothed group of them a "writ de Marquis" over other human beings.

The second is, you are not requiring these men and women to hold a certificate of comprehension and a binding agreement to be educated on what the law actually is and what is or isn't constitutional, what is or isn't a lawful order and requiring them to uphold respect for a citizen's intrinsic liberties and civil entitlements outside of their initial oath to "uphold the law and follow orders with duty and honor."

Last, you're placing these men and women in a situation where they're somewhat disconnected from process of ensuring the actions they take are lawful to begin with. They're given top-down orders to "detain/arrest/confiscate/destroy/interrogate anyone/anything that's illegal/connected/suspicious." They receive some General Orders describing how to properly handle/arrest/interrogate and a list of DO NOTs (Do not undress a female, do not touch someone's privates, etc). Then they get their specific orders of the day, mission-related orders and a constant stream of briefings regarding field risks and intel. Agents, cops and servicemembers have a whoooole lot of scuttlebutt spreading around about what someone thinks is illegal activity as well. At no time is anyone on the mid-to-lower tier level ever encouraged to research or challenge the lawfulness,. Nor are they given the means to challenge if they should find themselves knowledgeable or unsure about a directive's erroneous status. This is why you have people being detained at the border or in airports for stupid shit like a tin of personal goods and letters in a suitcase ("You're not allowed to travel with things in a metal container, sir. You're going to have to throw it away before we can let you board." Yes, this happened!) and every other TSA agent will back them up on it. Why? Because they heard a rumor somewhere...or because its sounds legit. Or because some upper-e dumbass sent out a self-important email to everyone that morning stating so and no one looked it up.

The fact is, a lot of agents don't really know the law, nor are they expected to care.

What's that? Exception to the rule, you say? Due process to correct the iniquities, you say? Sure! Let's suppose best case scenario after an injustice happens. The tin my ex was carrying for me in his suitcase got thrown away. Let's say it had a personal significance to me and let's say I hired a lawyer and sued and the federal court awarded me a cash sum. Let's even say the expense and inconvenience of the suit was really no trouble to me and things went smoothly. Let's say a permanent policy went out as a result, educating agents about the lawfulness of tins (and other items) in suitcases That still does nothing to abate the long-term damage to the societal mechanism of fair dissent imposed in the form of intimidation and a feeling of powerlessness. You can not outcry. You may not argue. You must do as you are told first, even if you know it to be unlawful for fear of imprisonment and other consequences. It's like a societal PTSD: flinching and backing down despite innocence and it's a form of mind-control.

And this baseline-level of an "intimidation constant" actually acts as a further psychological feedback-loop with the "authorities" themselves and will travel allll the way up to the legislative branch. Some friends of mine had a contact who is a biochemist/pharmacology researcher who was able to synthesize a chemical called MXE which is a dissociative that people use relationally, is safer than Ketamine and is not yet illegal, even under the Analogue Act. He was sending it into the country, packed plainly but otherwise undisguised. Soon, banks stopped allowing their customers to make transfers to this person. From what I understand, some bit of pressure somewhere was placed on him and he stopped transporting the substance altogether Why? It's not illegal, right? Shouldn't he feel righteous in openly distributing a substance which is not yet illegal? And what's your knee-jerk response to this? Is it something like: "He was shipping it in for sale? HERE?  Well THAT was stupid!" WHY?

There is an undeniable current of "If you THINK you're doing something arrestable, that's because you probably are and if you aren't, it either should be or it will be soon." This attitude is infectious and is the reason why your banking institution will gladly violate the terms of their agreement with you and refuse a legal transaction. And if the banks know it's "wrong," well it must be wrong. And since the banks think it's wrong, they have a duty (Title II of the patriot act) to report it. And since it's reported, Border Agent in-charge Jones goes ahead and puts an email out to all the inspectors in his unit that packets from X address are reported to contain an illicit substance and that all such packets must be held for further investigation and all information (addressee data) must be noted in their reports. At least that. Next day, there will likely be a briefing and a change to the protocols to include a "lookout" for the aforementioned...and you can see how this could travel up the chain, right?

We're just far too comfortable with a system that does make these grave mistakes, is given the levity to variate both interpretation/perception and execution of the law and serves only to further the perception-becomes-reality mechanism of moving locus of control further and further away from the individual and more and more towards representation of the collective.

Fucked if I know what to do about it though. Bring a cath-bag and a Brita-bottle everywhere I go?

Or kill me.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/calif-student-who-drug-agents-accidentally-left-in-cell-for-5-days-says-he-drank-own-urine/2012/05/02/gIQA2xtcvT_story.html

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego college student who federal drug agents forgot and left in a holding cell for five days without food, water or access to a toilet said Tuesday that he drank his own urine to survive.

Daniel Chong also said that he bit into his glasses to break them and tried to use a shard to scratch "Sorry Mom" into his arm, according to U-T San Diego (http://bit.ly/JRlSr8).

The 24-year-old University of California, San Diego, engineering student was swept up as one of nine suspects in an April 21 drug raid that netted 18,000 ecstasy pills, other drugs and weapons.

Chong said federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents told him he would be let go. One agent even promised to drive him home from the DEA field office in Kearny Mesa, he said.

Instead, he was returned to a holding cell to await release. DEA spokeswoman Amy Roderick said he was accidentally left there.

Lovely:

he could hear the muffled voices of agents outside his five-by-10-foot windowless cell and the door of the next cell being opened and closed. He kicked and screamed as loud as he could, but apparently, his cries for help went unheard....

..."When they opened the door, one of them said 'Here's the water you've been asking for," Chong said. "But I was pretty out of it at the time."

Here's the part I love the best:

Chong also ingested a white powder DEA agents said was left in the cell accidentally and later identified as methamphetamine.

They're so fucking cavalier about it. "We accidentally left him there...and we accidentally left some meth in the cell too." Yeah, and the accidentally didn't hear him screaming "WATER!" and "HELP!" for five days but someone walked in and said "Here's the water you've been asking for?" Were they aware he was in there or not?

It's a year old and forgive me if it's C&R but I can't stop laughing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/klu-klux-klan-protests-westboro-baptist-church-video/2011/05/31/AGgoiPFH_blog.html?tid=pm_world_pop

WBC member Abigail Phelps said the KKK "have no moral authority on anything."

"The Bible doesn't say anywhere that it's an abomination to be born of a certain gender or race," she said.

Somebody slap me. I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING.

I did not want to muck up the other thread with this since it so obviously hinges on some psychoactive elements and it has been clearly expressed elsewhere that the body politic doesnot wish to be subjected to people's "trip reports" against their will. Out of respect for your wshes, I started a separate thread. It is no less relevant to the "insanity" point in the other thread but this way, people are given the liberty to read and comment or NOT without it being an intrigal part of a discussion which they were previously enjoying.

True story:
Raving^TM unfucked my head in a lot of ways. Abridged version: Daddy beat the shit out of me, Mommy told me to my face I was imagining it. I had what I now see clearly as serious deficiencies being able to connect to and empathize with other people, including my own son. I went through the motions of what an excellent mother is expected to do: nurse as long as possible, baby-wearing, label-reading, developmental toy-buying, letter-to-the-manufacturer writing...I even grit my teeth and went to the local Methodist church and tried to force faith on myself for his sake because aside from shit I'd read in books and observations of seemingly happy families, I really had no clue about what a good mother actually does and feels.

Dumping a fuckton of serotonin onto my axons thereby, giving me an 8-hour reprieve from my intense, stick-in-the-ass anxiety/dissociation/anxiety/dissociation cycle was like a short-circuit to the broken record. Long ago I had slammed some lid closed on how I defined everything from "success" to "doing the right thing" to even my perception of my own perception process. In spite of my intelligence (or perhaps because of it) I might never have been able to process a thing like discordia without that reboot. It made be a more connected mom and a better person. I have a closeness now with my son that isn't based on personal reward that I might never have achieved otherwise. It did not wash me of all my flaws or erroneous thinking, but rather, it showed me proof in the most positive, objective light possble that mistakes were occurring.

I have also been in the grips of sickness...both in pre-use/abstinence from the stuff and horribly, while on it. Overuse has the frightening effect of revealing exactly what the beginning stages of your own age-related mental breakdown will really look like while you are still sharp enough to snap out of it when the effects wear off and examine how you thought and felt critically afterwards.

I am pretty certain I will have dementia when I am old. Aside from a wealth of predisposing factors (dopamine imbalance, fucking my head up with chemicals, hereditary madness on my father's side, memory loss on my mother's), I have seen firsthand the effects of chemically removing too much of my higher-order critical thinking skills from my central nervous system functioning. One day, I fully realize that my brain will shit the bed and I will be bathing in the resulting excrement unless I manage to convince another human being to love and commit to me long enough to respect and honor my wishes for an appointment with the offices of 2BR02B before I reach the point where I am pissing on the floor, flying into paranoid rages and curling up in the corner, checking my own head for nits for hours. This is just a fact.

The concept of "beautiful madness" never really appealed to me much because of my own dysfunctional youth, who my father is and the things with which this cursed family name are associated but now, the word "insane" has taken on a far more sinister shape...a ticking clock, perhaps? I can't let myself poison today with worry about 30 years from now but every time I experience muscle fasciclations...every time I suffer a bout of short-term memory loss or become a bit disoriented...or even have momentary deja vú, I wonder: "Is this the outer edge of the descent am I feeling the corner of the ledge here?" Presenting myself as "crazy" is possibly the furthest thing from my motives and I have worked hard to distinguish my irreparable-but-harmless "quirks" from the connotations of "psycho."

I'm not offended by anyone's use of anything, but I'd like to request that if you decide to label yourself as mad, please distinguish yourself as either thoroughly so or else admit that it's really a joke and you are joking (I do this myself. We all do, as in "you have to be nuts to be an EMT, lol!). Please do not try to twist or expand the true definition to subjctive limits which make foggy the line betwen the sick and the well. This is not the same as the "define normal" argument. This has specific consequences for adulterating the concept...like broadening the definition of "terrorism" to include 15 year old american boys, stealing episodes of "Cowboy BeBop."

Thank you.
>^..^<

We're not even worth the trip for poor Mexicans anymore. So much for THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/

The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries.

The standstill appears to be the result of many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, the long-term decline in Mexico's birth rates and changing economic conditions in Mexico.

Hrm...
1. Cash in chips in US, invest in Mexico
2. Chill out and wait 10 years.
3. 
4. PROFIT.

 

I'm going to quote something I told someone else privately because it sums things up succinctly and it's come to my attention that some people still completely understand what the fuck went on.

WretchedChan was created by me as a troll account/ridiculous alter-ego to express a lot of the unrest I have about the stupid things we as women do to ourselves. She was intended to be a very extreme reflection of those parts of ourselves that are kind of pathetic and ugly and wretched. It was a fun thought-experiment in that I was taking the very worst-case-scenario of the pathetic female stereotype and creating sort of a container to hold all that baggage so I can laugh at it and say "I'm glad that ain't me."

"Oh, WretchedChan! *facepalm* When will you ever learn, girl?"

In what? October? My ex broke into my laptop by running linux through a flashdrive, got alllllll the passwords to allllll my online accounts and broke into all of them. We'd been unhappy and on our way into the divorce court for a long time but, not wanting to create more drama with him (because he's crazy, duh), I kept my private life to myself and bid my time until I could completely remove myself from the residence. He was looking to poke around in my private life by violating me yet some more and when he found some shit on a poly forum that I wrote under a different name, he had his justification for all that he had done to me, was doing and was planning on doing. "I'm going to burn you to the fucking ground" were his precise words.

He had my phone (we shared an account) turned off and had my number transferred to another device. He loaded up all my contacts from my google accounts (I had an android phone so that was easy) and proceeded to phone and text every single one of my friends, family and contacts to impersonate me for info then smear my name in shit. He phoned my son's father to tell him I was neglecting my child and that he'd be willing to attest to the same in a custody battle. When people who'd been encouraging me and offering to help me escape for a long time (part of my safety plan) answered back some of his more cryptic (information-gathering) texts to ask if I needed help, he milked them for as much information as he could, then threatened their jobs and their families if they tried to assist me. There went my safety plan. He threatened to have my car reported stolen (they arrest first and ask questions later and with a pending felony charge, you can't complete clinical rotations and therefore, can not pass EMT school) and did every possible thing to cause me to lose any hope for a life without him. He told me plainly that he would ensure that I'd have nothing and that no one would ever fuck me or hire me again when he was through with me. He told anyone he couldn't bleed for information that I had STDs and wasn't disclosing them, he told me he called people he knows in the NOPD and Acadian Ambulance to tell them I was a thief and of bad character and not to hire me. I have no idea if he really did this but the point was to terrorize me.

One of his favorite tactics was to log into my various accounts and air out all my dirty laundry...and some laundry that wasn't even accurately mine. That's what happened with WC. I became, for all intents and purposes, persona non grata. I was instantly alienated from everything and everyone I cared about. Too scared to go back home, no one who wanted to deal with me or get involved because of the scary, ferocity of the situation and a good portion of the friend and acquaintance base I had built for myself telling me bluntly not to contact them anymore. I think a portion of them wanted to stay the fuck away from the drama, another segment maybe believed the things he was saying and a third portion were truly offended at getting text messages on their phones (some of them with wives and husbands) saying "I have and STD.....you better get checked!" and whatever else he sent them.

I couldn't go back to the house. He'd trashed a bunch of my shit and changed the locks anyway but I was fucking terrified of him. I changed as many passwords as I could manage in the short amount of time I had using a friend's computer in New Orleans, hit up ECH and Rog on FB to ask them to suspend my accts here and ended up in a DomVi shelter for a week.

I don't know if you know anything about this sort of thing but down here, a DomVi shelter is the absolute worst place to protect yourself from this sort of abuse. You are technically safe from being beaten for a while but when you get out, your problems that gave the abuser power in the first place are far, far worse. You're not allowed to go to the bank, contact legal before you've been there a week, file for a PFA, log into or change the passwords to any of your accounts that your perp knows you have, you can't make and receive phonecalls without permission, you can't arrange to have someone take care of your affairs because if they know where you are, your perp can torture them to find out where you are. You can leave for work and school after 48 hours but there's a curfew. You can't feed pets. You can't get your children away from the perp if he's their parent. In the meantime, your perp is wreaking HAVOC on your life: selling or trashing your shit, selling marital property (and with the 1-week wait period on being allowed to get legal help or file anything, if he sells the house, you have to take it up the ass), cleaning out accounts, taking you off the medical plan, contacting your family before you've been allowed to call them yourself, etc etc etc.

I have seen women lose their houses, lose their children due to charges by him of legal abandonment and emergency ex parte orders, sit helplessly while they know their pets are dying with no food or water, and basically find themselves in the exact position the abuser wants: "You are nothing without me, you HAVE nothing without me. You'd better come back if you want this to stop."

It was a nightmare that just went on and on and on. He had plenty of time to just drunkenly rage for two weeks. He had a mutual "friend" help him take my car off the school lot when I was in class right in front of security. He stole my schoolbooks and I watched my #1 class-ranking drop, drop, drop while for three weeks, I had to take a zero on assignments that made 15% of my grade.

The WHORE thread was a product of this mess. It was a fantastic state of affairs that he chose WretchedChan for that and it felt like some sort of poetic irony so I left it. It's become sort of a badge to me now...a battle scar of sorts.

In my head, I'm still kind of fucked. I don't trust anyone and I feel like I can't show my face anywhere. I'm still dealing with the backlash from his circus of crazy...I still occasionally hear from people who ask me "So that text you sent me a while ago, what the fuck was THAT about? That was very not cool, man/leave me out of your bullshit."

It fucked with my sense of "I can beat this" in a huuuge way. I'm shaken. I feel weak and sick and frightened of everything.

But I found a niche here. This was the one and only place where he didn't sell his shit. It didn't sell. Not a drop. The only place. You people saw through the bullshit with almost zero contact or explanation from me while I was incommunicado. On the contrary: people who had never met me IRL actually showed concern. I made the decision at that point to stop being a flouncy-lurker and become a regular.

So that's it. That's the whole shebang, more or less. There's more drama but not a whole lot more. It's ongoing but the worst is over for now.

Fuck you, Department of the V-fucking-A. You're utterly useless for anything but throwing more drugs at a problem you have utterly failed to accurately diagnose treat, or give a horse's hooty-tootie about. I'll do it myself...NO DON'T BOTHER GETTING OFF YOUR ASS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. THANKS BUT NO THANKS, I GOT THIS.

So now, due to being horrifyingly paper-fucked and violated by you, the US Navy, my ex BF who was a Navy Corpsman and who raped my medical records but suffered ZERO as far as accountability is concerned, you have robbed me of:
1. 2 clearly service-connected disabilities and Tx for the same
2. A proper rating of 20% or greater, leaving me for TEN YEARS with a rating that inadequately addresses or acknowledges the REAL level shit I have to put up with as a result of the shit you broke.
3. My GI Bill benefits (THAT one REALLY stung: getting the shaft when it comes to fixing shit that's broken is bad enough but having you BREAK what I already paid for MYSELF simply because "time ran out" while I was too busy managing the aforementioned disability is fucking sadistic).
4. Now, you are trying to exclude me from the one option I have left through a game of "Delay her paperwork and keep kicking it back until the disqualification date."

Fuck you.

FUCK YOU, BUREAUCRATIC JUDICIAL SYSTEM.

I have put up with unimaginable amounts of shit and watched my entire life fall apart in front of me to FIGHT my way through enough school to CLAW my way out of this sewage hole IN SPITE OF every obstacle imaginable. I have been separated from my son since June 2011. I have been beaten down, physically, socially and psychologically by every motherfucker to encounter me in my weakened state. There is no shortage of contemptuous KICKS on behalf of the weak, bitter and insecure. I have been victim to fraud, abuse, violence, theft, waste and utter incompetence. Been surrounded by sickness and alcoholism. CRIED OUT for help, using every available resource only to be mocked and ignored by a system whose attention seemingly goes only to those willing to act like total fucking PSYCHOPATHS to get what they want and need.

I am exhausted.

I don't want to try anymore. I can't live a life of being a total fucking asshole: it is a strategy I have neither the lack of conscience or aptitude to employ but it's almost certain at this point that I am nearly completely FUCKED.

I need HELP. I need a fucking BREAK.

I have come close to making "the final cut" but I know that I will never actually do this. My little kid is entitled to my utter devotion to being an endless source of strength and unconditional love for him. If no one else in this entire fucking miserable WORLD, at least he has me. At LEAST that. That's far more than I ever had and I wish little more than to be sufficient at providing THAT.

We are falling through the cracks, though. Too smart and resourceful to be taken seriously as one in need of any help and too weak and lacking in skill and resources to pull us to safety...like a flood survivor, clinging uselessly to a sinking piece of flotsam: the fact that I have not yet let go the only criteria for my being ignored while wild apes loot my home and empty my bank account and I uselessly and powerlessly look on, screaming "STOP! THIEVES!"

I'm so angry, it's all I can do to bite back the tears and swallow the lump in my throat. To be faced with the fact that my hard-won education has been utterly POINTLESS. That I am of no more value here with it than before the investment and struggle is a slap in the face.

So what will I do? We both KNOW what I'll do. I will wipe your phlegm off my cheek, buck up like a good girl and keep fighting. Quietly. I will stand up and scan the room for another exit, will assess the resources available and feel the gears turn in my head while I try to fashion a battering-ram out of found objects in a room full of splintered wood and broken things while the hateful continue to frustrate my efforts with butane and salt rubbed in my wounds.

You will need:
2 oz. Rye whiskey
0.2 oz. French style absinthe or Herbsaint
1 tbsp REGULAR simple syrup (2:1 syrup, not bartender's simple syrup which is 1:1)
4 drops Peychaud's bitters
1 drop Angostura bitters (optional)
2 drops Fee Brothers Orange bitters (optional)
1 substantial piece of orange peel
1 pre-chilled rocks glass



Pour the Absinthe or Herbsaint into your prechilled rocks glass and swirl around the glass until the entire inside is coated. Rim the glass with orange oil by rubbing the orange peel around it.

In a separate shotglass, mix the simple syrup, Peychaud's bitters and the Angostura and Orange bitters (if desired)

Put your 2 oz. Rye into the glass, toss your bitters mixture on top and stir.

A New Orleans purist would say here to garnish the glass with the orange (or lemon) peel and let the orange oil drip down the glass into the drink. I say, shove that puppy into the empty glass and pour the rye on top.

This is a fragrant drink, intended to be savored. Shown here with some big, mufuggin crawfish and the PD.com ubiquitous book. Enjoy!

LET US PRAISE HIM.

Some of you may remember the last time Mobile got internet famous. It was St Patrick's day in like 2007 and a Leprechaun was discovered in a tree in Creighton. Despite several attempts by locals to dig up the roots of the tree, no gold was ever recovered and the enigma remains unsolved but life goes on.

The latest is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm0qvdzWrbo&

Literally 7 minutes from where I'm currently living.

Hypothetically, if someone was say, an EMT or something and say, this person were to back up a bunch of important digital copies of stuff from her old computer onto a jump drive, and let's say th old computer might've like, died or whatever, right?

So hypothetically, let's say, one day, before this person transferred the stuff onto the NEW COMPUTER, this person was really really tired and decided to do a load of laundry and go to bed. And SUPPOSE she woke up the next day and found a jump drive in the washer that says "EMS Docs" on it? What sort of advice would you have for a chucklehead like this? I mean, would there be a way for this clown to salvage the drive? Would it be okay in like a few days drying out in a bowl of rice?

Just curious.

...you can buy your Hijab at Wal Mart.

Now you!

Part I

It was almost over. This madness was coming to a close. The R.U.D.E Act of 2014 was coming to its end and it had not been renewed. "Thank you, Jesus," she scoffed.

Kaetlun Rayne leaned back and took a last drag off her cigarette then flicked it into the parking lot. "I've really got to quit these," she thought. "These things'll get me killed," the irony of the thought not lost on her.  Pulling a body spray from her purse, she spritzed herself to cover the smoke smell, popped a breath mint into her mouth then looked up at the camera and pushed the buzzer.

The fact of the matter was that she was looking forward to this; no one she knew had been tapped...at least not yet, anyway. She thought about her vantage point as an insider. This was going to be fun.

This was her second year working for Senator Mellon and she'd really gotten into the groove here.  Despite her upbringing by a single, Baptist, teenage mom in Princess Anne, despite her enrollment in the Pure Heritage Academy, despite her unfortunate name, she'd found her place—had escaped the clutches of PHA and in spite of the heckling, the threats of violence for betraying her own kind, she'd worked her way up from the second-rate Poli-Sci program at UMES, taken an internship she could hardly afford and worked at the old Bay Crab Dip as a server to get by.  Now she was the Senator's "S" Admin and well on her way up.

She was off the Heritage registry—Senator Mellon had made sure of this. Her application for expeditious integration signed and stamped in blue-black ink, she had made a color copy the day he signed before hurriedly sliding it into a manila envelope for the courier to hand-deliver back to Annapolis. Her name expunged from the ranks of thousands of racist, white rednecks, forever, she would never again be identified as a Skirter.

She was free.

It had been a failed experiment. Board Leader Obama—then known as President Obama—had meant well. The Reaching Unity through Diversified Education Act (or R.U.D.E., as it was colloquially known) was a social experiment with the loftiest intentions but 15 years of indulging the worst kind of madness from the very dredges of society had left the nation in a state of near (forgive the phrase) mental retardation. Granting vouchers to let the Skirters (a shorthand slang for "outskirters,"  or those who insisted on forming Schools whose tenets included backwards and unhealthy resistance to integration) to raise and educate their children however they wished (so long as they followed the approved Incorporated States of the Americas academic curriculum, of course) was a big mistake. Instead of unity, all it had served to achieve was division. And while it was true that the crime rate was lower—part of the bill included an expedited processing clause for Schools whose crime stats were too high—it did nothing in the way of shaping progress. The TRAIL (or Total Resolve to Achieve Integrational Liberty) Amendment would change all that.

She couldn't wait for the processing to begin.

What the fuck is WRONG with you, Arizona?
http://gizmodo.com/5898585/itll-soon-be-illegal-to-troll-in-arizona

Trolling Could Get You 25 Years in Jail in Arizona

One of the Internet's basic tenets—the right to be as much of a myopic, infantile asshat as humanly possible—is currently under attack in Arizona. A sweeping update to the state's telecommunications harrasment bill could make naughty, angry words a Class 1 misdemeanor. Or worse.

It's a dangerous precedent, yet another bill written and supported by legislators who fundamentally don't understand the nature of the internet. And I'm not just being a, well, you know.

Arizona House Bill 2549 passed both legislative houses last Thursday and is now awaiting approval from Arizona's governor Brewer. The statute states that:

    "It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use a ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person."

Emphasis added. If the electronic devices and means are employed to stalk a victim, the penalty bumps up to a Class 3 felony.

For those not intimately familiar with Arizona penal law, a Class 1 misdemeanor is punishable by a $250,000 fine and up to six months in jail (it's the most aggressive misdemeanor charge the state can bring). A Class 3 felony, meanwhile, carries a minimum sentence of 2.5 years for non-dangerous offenders with no prior record. And a max of 25 years in jail.

Not sure if this is C&R but...yeah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP5ixUslcMA

The NDRP vigorously makes the NDAA look like a simple law to stop jaywalking in comparison. Under the NDRP, the President now has the authority to seize any resource he deems "necessary" to uphold national security in wartime & peacetime.

This includes, but is not limited to the following. All farms (meaning all food), transportation systems, clean water, and oil/fuel. The NDRP even goes so far to say that people with skills the government could use may be called upon and forced to work for the government against their will.

Be careful where you step.

Derrived from this thread: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31878.0.html which started to go off-course into a discussion about manipulation which got me thinking about some stuff not directly related to the concepts of labeling and chunking so I felt it deserved its own thread instead of jacking that one off in a different direction.

So, to pick up: manipulation is such a subjective word and concept, right? I mean what you define as "coercive" may not be to others.

I dated a guy who accused a lot of people of trying to "manipulate" him and actually once told me he considers himself a veritable expert on the subject of deducing people's intent since he'd been to years worth of therapy that trained him to be acutely aware of people's coercive tactics. Yet, he's an admitted proponent of the Seduction Society/Pickup Artist techniques which he sees as "self-marketing," a harmless way of maximizing the efficiency of your influence with people to increase your probability of desirable outcomes with them. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right?

Okay, I once saw him send this link to a friend: http://www.attractology.com/articles/inner-game/cat-string-theory/

Here's more off that site: http://www.attractology.com/2010/03/engagedisengagereengage-edr-technique/
and: http://www.attractology.com/2010/03/call/

This, in particular, bothers me:

5) Whatever story you go into, try somehow incorporating her into it, disqualifying her (if possible) during the story and later try to make her qualify herself to you. Not as much as you would do in person but just a small little disqualification could be thrown in there

And how different is that from The Rules of the late 90s?
Parodied on SNL ("Get the ring!"): http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/the-rules-show/1354349

So what say you? Isn't this the very definition of being manipulative (as we've come to understand the negative connotation)? Or is this stuff (as my ex understands it) a harmless/necessary part of being effective socially?

I have a "project" in mind wherein I buy a ton of...I don't know what yet...for a penny and bombard my 8 year old child with boxes and boxes and boxes of just weird stuff but I think this is a neat idea and useful if you want to buy a LOT of stuff for a penny and...uh...use it...somehow.

I've tried doing specific searches and then sorting by price but I'm not really getting what I'm after. The point is to overwhelm the child with a continuous stream of packages containing stuff like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004DAFQIE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A7VLNS1F38PM4
or this: http://www.amazon.com/Net-Jet-Booster-Key-SpongeBobs/dp/B000M6B2F4/ref=sr_1_13?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1330510808&sr=1-13

I wanna really abuse the hell out of my amazon prime account and delight and amuse my mischievous child in the process.

I thought y'all would find this interesting. Not many people know this little fact and even my NOLA peeps give me puzzled expressions when I explain that "Yes, I am going to Mardi Gras parades this weekend" and "No, I won't be at Endymion or Bacchus because I'm staying in Mobile until I'm ready to move." A lot of them *still* don't know that Mobile was the first capital of LA (Louisiana Purchase included much of Alabama) and I remember being fascinated with this stuff when I first moved to 'Bama.

Mardi Gras was actually started by a bunch of rich, white young southern boys who didn't want to stop drinking and go the fuck to bed one night so they picked up rakes and cowbells and pots and pans and ran around town, hootin' and hollerin like a bunch of nuts, waking up the entire city. They were the original Discordians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras_in_Mobile

Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama[pronounce] is the oldest annual Carnival celebration in America, having begun in 1703,[1][2][3] over 15 years before New Orleans was founded (1718).[3] From Mobile being the first capital of French Louisiana (1702), the festival began as a French Catholic tradition, celebrating until the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday, until midnight on Mardi Gras day (French for "Fat Tuesday" or Shrove Tuesday). However, Mardi Gras in Mobile now has evolved into a mainstream multi-week celebration across the spectrum of cultures in Mobile, becoming school holidays[

One of my favourite historical stories about Mobile Mardi Gras is the Joe Cain "Legend."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Cain

Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr. (Joe Cain) (October 10, 1832 – April 17, 1904)[1] [2] is largely credited with the rebirth of Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, Alabama, stopped due to the Civil War.[1] [3] In 1867, following the American Civil War and while Mobile was still under Union occupation, Joe Cain paraded through the streets of Mobile, dressed in improvised costume depicting a fictional Chickasaw chief named Slacabamorinico.[1][3] The choice was a backhanded insult to the Union forces in that the Chickasaw tribe had never been defeated in war. Joe was joined by six other Confederate veterans, parading in a decorated coal wagon, playing drums and horns, and the group became the "L. C. Minstrel Band", now commonly referred to as the "Lost Cause Minstrels" of Mobile.

In order to understand that part, you also kinda have to get into the history of how--despite racism, slavery, ignorance and all the other shit that the American South has a mixed-truth notoriety for--much of Gulf Coastal cities really just were nice, oblivious, working and middle class people who genuinely didn't want to be forced into the Union...much the same way the settlers no longer wanted to be forced to remain part of England. There actually are really good people in this city...even some of the older families. While there were some definite dirty dealings (Foster and Meaher families, I'm looking at you) that people try to (*ahem*) whitewash, A lot of the "rebellion" aspect genuinely was born of a desire to not have a tyrannical and hypocritical northern aristocrats force the South to pay for a government that didn't represent them. There are still families here today who insist that slavery is evil and was right to be abolished...even punished and are still adamant about the right of secession.

However, there is a dark side to Mardi Gras. I highly, highly recommend the documentary movie "Order Of Myths." It was done by a member of one of the oldest families in Mobile and while it's definitely slanted through the eyes of a well-heeled, rebellious "Old Springhill" rich girl, anxious to toss off her birthright and advantages in the name of trying to be just like "one of the little people" (when we damned well know, she's going to hit about 25, marry well, choose her ball theme, colors and train design and that will be the end of THAT), it does a fair job of exposing both the ugly side as well as the "Rome wasn't built in a day but at least they're trying" aspect of progress down here. It's streaming on Netflix right now but if you don't have a Netflix, I'm sure you can snag it somewhere.

I want to say this: there are a lot of fine, goodhearted, charitable people in these societies today. Many of them just plain old, upper-middle class people who spend a lot of the year holding fundraisers for their floats and events and for charity. I know these people. They're good folks who insist on doing good works in the community as a requisite to membership much the same way the Masons do. There are also a lot of exclusive, well-off puritans who would never, ever let a nouveaux riche or a Yankee in their little clubs. Either way, these parades are something everyone looks forward to (from the profoundly poor to the very well-heeled), all year long. It is a part of their heritage now--white and black.

Regardless of how you feel about these people, it's interesting and since people still seem to be enjoying Nigel's "race" thread, I thought this would be enjoyed and add some wonderful substance to the conversation here.

Enjoy.

I think the stress is finally making me crack. I wrote some bizarre shit all over my ex boyfriend's new girlfriend's wall last night and have zero memory of having done so. It was only after seeing an entry on my own timeline that I realized what I did.

The worst part about it was that I spilled (mostly inhoherently) bits and pieces of some deep fears I usually keep pretty locked up. I mean, she's a sweet person but this was not only inappropriate for the dynamic, it was downright bizarre even if you remove all that.

I was simply not present for having written all that and that's frightening. I must have intended on posting some polite comment and then went into six-paragraph, automatic writing mode. Just vented stuff I didn't even know existed in there...or rather I must have known but I had no idea it needed saying. I'm terribly embarassed and I *know* it must've gotten back to my ex by now.

I'm trying to do too much at once. The stress is literally eating parts of my prefrontal cortex. I can't wait until this last test is over and I've got a clearer sense of plan vs timing and a better feeling of control over stuff in my world...or at least a clearer awareness and predictive reasoning.

WHAT kind of punch?!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaBDA9Gj-C8

P.L.U.R, motherfuckers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofwq2rhTBwE

Teh navkat loves you

For clarification, when navkat talks about "Crustwave," this is what she means:
http://hipsterrunoff.com/tag/crust-kids

Fun fact: My friend Donovan "Rekanize" Fannon did the photos in that piece. They were actually used w/o permission from a memorial service in New Orleans for some crusties who died IAF in an abandoned building a couple of winters ago.

I was deeply saddened by the loss of such awesome slang into the bowels of the american vernacular and would like to revive it.

http://www.slashfood.com/2010/03/12/baked-eggs-and-mushrooms-in-ham-crisps-feast-your-eyes/

Oh holy fuckcrap. Improvement: bowls made of  ?

Okay, I feel the need to make this clear: there are packs of feral retards in this country, going around, calling themselves "Libertarians," or even worse: "Constitutionalists." It's become a real epidemic and I must say: I'm *this close* to buying some of that self-expanding insulation foam, adding glitter and purple food dye and jamming a fistful of that goo into the holes that make the bad sounds come out for every one of these imposters I encounter.

I am a libertarian...lowercase "l." This means I don't want anyone telling me (or anyone else, for that matter) what to do and what not to do unless it becomes absolutely necessary. This means I value the individual's right to choose over someone else making his choices...even if he's stupid...so long as stupid doesn't fuck with anyone else's shit.

I do not believe corporations are persons entitled to individual "liberties."
I do not support any form of enslavement. Period.
I believe inadequate free and public education is a form of enslavement.
I believe the free exchange of ideas-large and small-is a necessary component of adequate education.
I believe any religion whose beliefs, dogmas or practices include making any of its beliefs, dogmas or practices compulsory or imposed is also a form of intended enslavement.
I do not support any entity--whether public or private--who holds the power, tools or potential to usurp that of The People.
I believe large quantities of money, land, oil or other necessary resources is power. To ignore this is beyond naive, it is willfully ignorant.
I believe willful ignorance is a form of sociopathic behaviour.
I believe reasonable access to basic medical and dental services is on-par with education and resources. This is not the dark ages, penicillin is cheap. Let's demystify this, shall we?
I think it's fucked up that I grew up in an age where a 5MB hardrive was once a luxury and in 15 years, we've advanced to the point where I can buy an 8GB flash drive for under 15 bucks but penicillin (which has been out for almost 100 years) and an albuterol treatment for a person who waited so long to see a doctor, he ended up with pneumonia in the hospital will cost him roughly a quarter-year's pay for a 6-hour visit, 4 of which were likely spent in a waiting room. There's some enslavement going on inside that hot mess as well.

Look around you. Look at the people at your job, in your daily life, the people who hand you your receipt. These are The People. The Free and Naturally Ordained People. Each of them, and you, Kings...of nothing more than your own lives. You get to govern yourself...you also need to take responsibility if you turn out to be a poor governor.

Now, look at stuff: Starbuck's is not a People. The guys who control the flow of oil, bandwidth, information, numbers or little scraps of green paper are not The People. And they are certainly not oppressed. They do not need your help. They are not in need of defense. They operate under the sole, expressed, unabashed purpose of keeping you stupid and jacking your shit...of making you work more and get less. Of enslaving you.

Please, stop calling yourself a "libertarian" if you are in any way rooting for your captors, overseers, dealers, traders or owners.
Please, don't associate yourself with my code if you think your beliefs about private matters (ie: marriage, birth control, anything one puts into or removes from his own body, or religion) should have any bit of legislation making them compulsory in any direction.
Please don't hijack my nomenclature if you think healthcare, education, due process, decency, science, accuracy in reporting, truth or proactive enablement for the free exchange of ideas are luxuries and control and profiteering over agriculture or scientific discovery are protected entitlements.

Please don't.

There are a shitton of O:MF ideas we've collected over the years that have the defacto effect of drawing noobs to the site. "WTF IS THIS SHIT?" I imagine them saying. "Principia Discordia? I'm gonna look them up."

Then, they get here and we anihilate them with pettiness, in-fighting, exclusivity and one-upmanship. We think we can't use 'em because they aren't Mensa members or they don't Get It^tm.

Listen: do you know what one has to score on the ASVAB to get into the US Army?

37.

Notable: Banksy, Stephen Fairey. These people have like, money and followers n shit. André the Giant has a career. It used to be called "stupid punks shitting up the street with garbage" and now it's called art. If you can get people to part with money with your self-indulgent bullshit, you can certainly get them to respond with righteous, self-indulgent bulshit of their own. Come on; people are still getting off on Flash Mobs for coca cola and sprite and then taking the train to #OWS sit-ins with nary a thought to irony. We should be making triple six-fig salaries in marketing...if we weren't so fucking socially inept.

My ideas:
1. let's recycle, re-examine, reuse all the ideas-old and new-with a new emphasis on getting motherfuckers here.
2. Branding, people. Logos. HIMEOBS did this fantastically. Let's make a fuckton of Brands that all lad back to the same place: here. The Government does this. The banks do this. Whether you are For^tm or Against^tm, you are ultimately a customer of the same company.
3. Teasers. Make this shit look all shadowy and mysterious. Create the illusion of exclusivity and be inclusive instead of the other way 'round. We've had it ass-backward, spaggots.
Remember how you felt when The Matrix came out? "A SECRET, UNDERGROUND WORLD OF ILLUMINATED MEMBERS?!?" Remember when Trent Reznor started with all that Year Zero bullshit and we thought it was gonna be something awesome? Remember how you felt when you found the "hidden tracks" at the end of the Broken EP and the Tool albums? Hell, half the appeal of the Rave Scene^tm was the covert nature and map points.

Look at this: http://www.symbiosispresents.com/

Dude, it's a fucking party, man. Just a fucking party...with a countdown and a mailing list. And good branding. Pepsi will probably be there. Hell, I'd blow Michelle Bachman if I thought drinking her spooge would take me on a secret journey through Wondernew.

Do that shit up right and they'll be lining up to cram fistsful of red pills into their faceholes before you can utter the words "anal leakage."

4. This forum is massive and a lot to read and has an emphasis on "you are a retard and no one wants you here" messages. Being massive is great when it's all labyrinthine and shit. Maybe multiple levels of read permissons? Some more welcoming noob threads that are like "Congratulations, you are now one of the Awakened" instead of "It's just the internet, motherfucker?" They think there's a secret forum? MAKE TEN SECRET FORUMS and elude to each one of them with the last. The Truth is: "it's just the internet, motherfucker," but by the time they actually figure that out, we'll have filtered out the bored, amused ourselves with the dumb and already plunged our diseased claws deep into the minds of th creative remainder. Maybe we'll actually become the club we're presenting. Hey, you believe your own bullshit for long enough, it might actually become reality.

Let's bust out a new coat of paint and some drapes for those Black Iron Prison cells, comrades! I wanna see some "pop!"

Or kill Roger.

I don't do em. Anything worth being resolute is worth the same resolve, regardless of date and regardless of date, you should resolve to achieve that which is worthy.

If one wants to achieve self-actualization, one must realize that we create our own tipping-off points in life, not the other way 'round and that in truth, such points only increase the possibility for delay and discouragement if progress isn't on-par with the prescription.

This isn't about goal checkpoints, this is about not having to wait for a birthday or other holiday or even a whole other year to do that for which you set out.

If one wants to say, read more classics or stop sucking so much dick, one should simply assess one's needs to make achievement most probable, acquire the tools for the job and make a gameplan...such as buying a Kindle and assigning time to read or buying straws and a blender, then making an appointment with your dentist to have your jaw wired shut.

Kudos to you if you can find ways to derive pleasure from the actions necessary to acquire the new habit--I personally plan to take a little "me time" to meditate over new smoothie flavours to the comforting hum of the blender...makes for a more rewarding success, in my opine.

In the long run, you will have a far greater level of respect for your own willpower and level of enlightenment if you are able to cease talk and simply achieve.

Happy twenty-twelve, spaggots!
<3

Decided against posting it and pasted it to my notepad instead. I'm glad I'm through THAT particular clownshow. OP after the break.

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Someone help me stop the screaming.

I'm trying to get through 10 more days of school and then I'm signing myself into a psych facility at the VA. I don't care if they take my shoelaces. I don't care if my noodle art makes me feel the pain of being a disappointment to my father who treated my mom like a bovine and wanted a boy.

I just want the pain of knowing for absolute certain that I am not genuinely, loyally, minimal-conditionally loved by a single adult human being to go away before I have to bleed or drug it out of me.

Better them do it.

I'm not fishing here. Everyone has their people. I was b with parents who are psychotic and who hve no feelings for their daughters. My sister learned to compensate by becoming self righteous and a little evil/psycho herself. *I* never learned to compensate, just cope. I spent up until my mid 20s believing if I was kinder, sweeter, smarter, more sacrificing, I would get it right and they would have no choice but to acknowlege my goodness.

I now relate to people in a way that makes it easy and even temptng for them to hurt me: hypervigillant about being "good," being the first to "prove" my love and not imposing, guilty conscience even when innocent, easily convinced other people's bad behavior is my fault.

I am a magnet for sociopaths and narcissists who need to be accepted as naturally superior since I operate under the ingrained assumption that I am inferior and powerless: all arguments with these people can be easily settled by both of us calming down and deciding rationally what I need to do to be better next time...if I'm lucky enough to get a "next time."

I exert control through self-containment. I decompress through neurotic, exhibitionist rantings.

Okay, so I've been basically homeless. I had to come to a friendly agreement with my ex. I stay in the old marital residence when he's on the boat and stay everywhere from couches to sleeping in my car when he's in town. I've had no choice, my so-called "room mate" got a call from an old friend who wanted to move back to Mobile and needed a place to stay. I went to Texas two days before Thanksgiving and returned two days after to find my shit moved into a different room and this fat, stinky friend, named only "Star," in my bed. *gag*

I nearly offed myself that week. I had some medical issues crop up that leave me in pain but I am unable to take my pain meds and function so I mainly live with it. The worst though: this man I love with all my heart, the person I thought was going to be my kindred spirit, best friend and intellectual twin for life just dumped me and cut off all contact with me in a moment of overwhelming stress and frustration. He'd been going balls-to-the-wall worrying about me and devoting every bit of spare time trying to help and encourage me for months. After a brief disagreement over another intensely stressful matter between us, he just snapped. He said some cruel things I know he doesn't mean and accused me of some things I know he doesn't believe. However, he's a self-proclaimed stubborn prick who can't ever back down and apologize so it's probably going to stay that way. I was handling my stress really well up until that point. Losing him pitched me headlong into a depression that has me wracked with tears nightly. I've spent every day since 20 November with a lump in my throat that never goes away. I spend nearly every night that I am able to sleep, literally writhing in heartbreak and biting my pillow in frustration. I don't think I've ever, ever felt this bad over anyone before.

The problem is that this person isn't just a guy, he played a lot of roles in my life. Lover, friend, hero, rescuer, shrink, teacher, cohort... There are parts of myself I've shown him that I don't feel safe showing others because it's already bad enough that I come off like a turd in the punchbowl to some people. This was the person with whom I felt just a little less alone. I felt at times like we were in each others' heads. We both felt at one time or another that regardless of how or with whom we spend the next 20 years, we're eventually going to end up together somehow. His words: "We're probably going to end up married when we're 50."

The loss is gripping and relentless. It does not soften. It does not let go. I have no closure and no peace. He just cut me off and threw up a wall. No discussion, no rebuttal. The end. I found myself breaking down in the middle of tests at school and needing to take breaks at the hospital during clinical rotations. I feel so fragile...I used to be able to laugh at everything, even when things got really scary.

I've loved a lot of people. I get along and have good friendships with most of my exes. I still love my insane ex (Jay) even in spite of all this nonsense: it wasn't always crazy like this and we had some good times and were good friends once...but this...this is a killer. I don't know if any of you have ever encountered someone who felt that much like they were at times, inside your head but it'd have been better never to have met him at all. Now that I understand what that feels like; what it is to have someone really inside, to be completely loved and at the same time, completely free...to feel like no matter who else either of us loved or how far away, we were always touching somehow...I really can't settle for anything less ever again.

Nothing feels right without him "out there" for me. I'm actually having a very difficult time accepting that he isn't, actually. Even before we became sort of "serious" about each other, there was always a warm sort of "meeting of great minds" feeling from day 1. Even when things were mainly platonic, even after periods of not speaking for a while, I always sort of felt like "eventually, we know where this is gonna end up." There have been times during this awful silence when I've been in the middle of something: cooking, studying, whatever, and all of the sudden, I just feel like he's thinking about me.

I don't believe in magic and I don't believe in soul mates. I believe people are all different shapes. I believe often you can find shapes that fit well together. Rarer, you can find shapes that fit astoundingly well together. When that happens, people usually end up married.

The way we fit during those moments when things were right went beyond astoundingly well. "Tailored" is the closest I can come. How do I find someone tailored again? Is that even possible?

We started this year together on the 1st of January with a kiss. The thought of starting the new year without him...torn completely out of my life...it just feels wrong. I can hardly bear it. It makes me physically ill a little bit.

My ruthless, dishonest, cheating cockroach of an instructor spent the last six weeks literally bullying me. There's a post on my facebook to this effect that gives a few details in the proceeding comments. Suffice it to say: he was sour grapes about the fact that I'm smarter than he is. At some point during the semester, he stopped fielding any of my questions or allowing me to participate in class and lab discussions...would actually get frustrated and angry with me for asking questions that were "too deep," preferring instead to put out only the simplest material necessary to get people to pass tests. Since October, he'd begun to hold "review" sessions wherein he read the actual test questions written by the Program Director to the class and made us write down the questions and the answers. Integrity and mentoring had nothing to do with his teaching style to say the least.

Frequently, I would catch him making dire instructional errors that if uncaught, could really hurt a patient. We had what I thought was a friendly, sporting "debate" once about the appropriate time to use an airway suctioning device in a patient assessment. My answer was "immediately, as needed." He asked "Yeah but what would you do first? Put the patient on O2? Or suction the airway?"

I said "Suction the airway...if needed."

He said "Well, that's not what's on your patient assessment sheet. On here, it says to give O2 at 15 Litres first. You're wrong, Jennifer."

I said "Yes, but it also says to ensure airway patency. Just because we're not being made to suction before administering oxygen during a typical Practicals scenario, doesn't mean we're being taught or should be taught to manage Oxygenation of a patient before managing airway pa..."

"You're wrong, Jennifer. If a patient has gurgling respirations, you mean to tell me you'd withhold oxygen?" (Laughing at me and looking at the rest of the class now) "You withhold O2 from a non-breathin' patient, you gonna be writin' up a lot of paperwork, then you gonna be writin' up your resume."

"No, sir. I'm not saying I'd withhold 02. I'm saying I'd manage the airway first. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? In the field, I mean? ABCs, right? Airway, Breathing, Circulation, in that ord..."

"Well we ain't talkin' 'bout "out in the field," Jennifuh. We talkin' 'bout gettin' y'all through Practicals and followin' the sheet."

(No he WASN'T. He just used me losing a JOB as an argument for his last point. I HATE when people debate using apples and oranges interchangeably at will and then call YOU crazy. ARRRRGH!)

"Okay, sir, but if we're talking about the Practicals sheet, I'd still suction a patient in a scenario with gurgling respirations because the FIRST thing on there after BSI and Scene Safety is General Impression and managing Immediate Life Threats. Not taking in any Oxygen, whether it be 21% room air or 90% O2 at Fifteen Litres per minute is, to me, an "immediate life threat."

"Wanna bet?"

"Sure, I'll take your bet, sir."

"Jessica, go ask Gene." ("Gene" refers to Michael "Gene" Rader, the EMT Program Director for Bishop State and one hell of a medic who knows his shit cold. Rader is the one who taught me as a Basic.)

Jessica invariably comes back and tells the instructor "He said Jennifer is right."

I go "HAH!" and instead of Hi-fiving me and saying "Well done! You got me!" my instructor opted instead to spend the rest of the semester in a perpetual state of sour grapes, dressing me down in front of the class for being a "smartass who don't know shit" and a "know-it-all."

He made inappropriate jokes about everything from my learning disability to my clothes to my divorce. He publicly criticized me in front of the class every chance he got. He shut me up whenever I tried to participate in class discussions. He rolled his eyes at me whenever I asked a question and went on without answering. He made fun of me behind my back to other students. If he had a huddle with the other students about scheduling lab times or asking what skills we wanted to practice and I dared put in my two cents, he'd immediately retort "I don't remember asking you, Jennifuh. Did anybody ask you?"

This semester became about the challenge of trying to learn in spite of him, not because of him. It was about trying to get my money's worth out of school in spite of every fucking possible obstacle...including at times, not having a safe, sane, non-public place to sit down and do homework or study.

Enough of the bad shit.

So I managed to pass Practicals and Finals yesterday. I almost decided not to show up for Practicals...I was ready to give up. I woke up at 0600 that morning and said to myself: "you can always kill yourself tomorrow if need be" and got dressed.

I nailed them.

By the time I drove home after Practicals, I had a little attitude in me. I decided to show up for finals in pink glitter sunglasses, a Hello Kitty KandE necklace, Kikwears (raver pants), a purple-and-day-glo-green Adidas shirt and a tiara. Fuck 'em.

Fuck 'em. Let them laugh. I'm here to amuse myself and get shit done. Fuck 'em. This whimsical raver girl you see isn't just a troll. She isn't a fool making airs on the internet. This is my coping mechanism. This is how I get myself by: "This is absurd. They're absurd. I'm absurd." 

I have Nationals coming up on 29DEC. I have to stay fresh. After that, I get my NREMT AEMT certification, then, I have to apply for my Alabama State license so that I can take that over to Louisiana and apply to the State and then to Orleans Parish for reciprocity.

If people are still willing to help me with friends and contacts and places to stay in NOLA, I'd appreciate it. Most of my friends there are party-party or just have no room. They're great people but not reliable. I need to have a safe place to crash while I look for work and then pull myself up onto my feet after Nationals on the 29th.

I want to thank Phox and Kai. Dawn, you literally pulled me back from a very dark place the other day...just pulled me to the surface long enough to take in a lungful of air before my head went under again but that's how we survive, right? One lungful at a time. It was a good breath...a deep breath.

I love you motherfuckers. You've been more decent to me than a lot of people I know IRL, you bunch of raging, bloody shrews. If you're ever in the back of my ambulance, I would totally suction the vom out of your mushy face-holes before shoving your bloody maw into an oxygen mask. 

<3 <3 <3