Meditation on the Flaw, 12th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): It's Halloween and still 12°F colder than usual for the day. Last year, the high temperature was 80° on Halloween and the average is 70. Today, the high was only 57. Forget global warming, it's a new ice age we need to worry about now.

JUST KIDDING! Climate change and anthropogenic global warming is real, even if it's a few degrees cooler here today than it was on this date a year ago.

But not everyone is convinced. The Stable Genius confirmed that he will not send any high-level representatives to COP30, the upcoming UN climate talks in Brazil next month. The Stable Genius has called the climate crisis a “hoax” and a “con job,” and has said that the US will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, which calls for countries to limit carbon emissions to slow the dangerous rise in global temperatures.

Friendly reminder that last month the Stable Genius told other countries to shift away from renewable energy at a speech before the UN. “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,” he said. “You need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you are going to be great again.” 

World leaders did not fall into immediate compliance.

 

Day of the Hummingbird Night, 11th of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): Looking back now, construction of Cop City, that "training facility" for police to hone their skills not at conflict resolution, de-escalation techniques, and identifying mental health crises but in urban warfare, crowd suppression, and use of large ordinance, was but the first step toward the Stable Genius' call for formation of state militias to combat protesters and probably to suppress voter turnout. 

It's little wonder, then, that protests were dealt with so brutally, up to and including murder, and vilified so viciously in the press. It's no wonder that petitions were ignored and no public referendum was allowed. The State was building its war machine to be used against the people and if you were opposed to militarization of the police, you were considered part of "the enemy within" and persecuted, prosecuted, and indicted. And in the case of one unfortunate person, murdered (RIP,  Tortuguita. Impermanence is swift.

I'm not voting for Dickens' reelection because, as Mayor, Dickens never once stood up for the people. 

Unfortunately, there seems to be no strong contenders running against Dickens. He faces a former police officer, Kalema Jackson, a Republican, Helmut "Love" Domagalski, and a self-described progressive, Eddie Meredith. I'm not voting for a cop or a Republican, so Meredith gets my vote, even though he's been pretty vague about his platform or stances on specific issues. A community activist and pastor, Meredith has said, "The measure of leadership is not in handouts, but it's in hands up" (whatever that means).  "Not in managing poverty but in dismantling systems that create it. If we invest in people, then we’ll all rise.” 

He's doesn't stand a chance in this election, but I'm voting for Mededith because there's no way I'm voting for Dickens and I'd probably misspell "Tortuguita" if I tried to name him as a write-in candidate.          

 

Acts of the Counter World, 19th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor):  According to reporting by The Guardian, an internal Pentagon directive has ordered the national guards of all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and US territories to form quick reaction forces trained in riot control, including use of batons, body shields, Tasers, and pepper spray.

The memo, signed on October 8 by the director of operations for the Pentagon’s national guard bureau, sets thresholds for the size of the quick reaction force to be trained in each state, with most states required to train 500 national guard members, for a total of 23,500 troops nationwide.

The Stable Genius' executive order that sent the guard to Washington DC required the Secretary of Defense to create “a standing National Guard quick reaction force . . . available for rapid nationwide deployment” to quell civil disturbances. The directive cites that order as its justification and authority.

What's the Stable Genius planning that he thinks he needs 23,.500 storm troopers to suppress dissent? The directive could be used to send troops to states led by Democratic governors without their permission and to suppress voter turnout and disrupt fair elections. In a worst-case scenario, the Stable Genius could declare a state of emergency and say that elections are rigged and use its own allegations of voter fraud to seize the ballots of secure voting centers.

Last month, the Stable Genius recalled hundreds of US military leaders from around the world to tell them he wants to use American cities as "training grounds" for the military. He described civil disturbances as the "enemy from within" and told the commanders the situation "won't get out of control once you're involved."

We're nearing Election Day 2025. It's an off-cycle year with few consequential contests, but here in Atlanta, Mayor Andre Dickens is up for reelection. I had high hopes for him, but during his term he disappointed me with his endorsement and support of "Cop City," a "training center" for a militarized police force to practice home invasion, street-sweeping maneuvers, and use of large-caliber ordinance. The nearby residents understandably didn't want the noise and disruption in their neighborhood, the project cost approximately $117 million with taxpayers providing over $67 million, and won't contribute in any meaningful way to fighting crime. Worse, the Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers have dealt with the protests in the most brutal ways imaginable, killing one unarmed protestors inside a tent while he had his hands up, and the state attorney general declared the protesters to be "terrorists" and even went so far as to bring RICO indictments against organizations offering legal aid to incarcerated protesters. 

Dickens didn't do shit to protect the neighborhood, to support or defend the protesters, or to curtail the brutal persecution of those who stood in the project's way. His administration rubber-stamped the whole project, even green-lighting construction while there was still ongoing litigation, and ignored a petition with the required number of signatures to force a referendum on the project, all while basking in the warm glow and approval of the "tough on crime" MAGA crowd. 

Dickens is going to win re-election, but he sure as shit isn't getting my vote. That guy sucks.

Day of Arcane Light, 9th of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Hurricane Melissa, the "Storm of the Century," the strongest hurricane to hit Jamaica since 1851 or the strongest hurricane to ever hit Jamaica, depending on which news story you read, has made landfall with 185-mph winds. 

Holy shit.

Climate change, global warming, or what ever you want to call it, didn't cause Melissa. Melissa is weather - i.e., current events - and change of any kind, climate or otherwise, is about the difference in events over time. It's the slope, not the value. Climate change doesn't cause any storm, but the increase in the strength and intensity of storms over time as the oceans and mean atmospheric temperatures rise due to increased CO₂ and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is called "climate change."      

The high temperature in Atlanta yesterday was 54°F, seventeen degrees below normal. Skeptics and climate deniers cherry pick data like that and ask, "If the world's getting hotter, than why is Atlanta 17 degrees cooler than normal today?" Those people typically can't be convinced otherwise, and in my experience, no amount of explanation will ever change their minds. 

But the Earth's global climate is a complex and dynamic system, with many, many things going on simultaneously, and while it might be cooler right here right now than usual, on the average, as a whole, the mean global temperature is increasing. Summers are getting hotter, winters are getting milder, and even though it might be cooler where you live right now, there's overwhelming statistical data to show that the average temperature around the world over the past several years is indisputably increasing. And 185-mph hurricanes are smashing into Jamaica.    

BTW, we had 2.07 inches of rain in Atlanta yesterday, which was 85.5% of all rain that's fallen here since September 1. The cloud cover deflected away much of the sun's warmth, which combined with a cold front passing through that brought the rain is the reason it was cooler yesterday, not because climate change is some Chinese hoax.

 

The Long Sleep, 8th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E (Aldebaran): Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe wonders if you've noticed that you aren't sleeping as well.  A Match 2025 study based on 25 million records of nearly a quarter million participants in China indicated that for each 10 °C increase in ambient temperature, the odds of sleep insufficiency increased by 20.1%, while sleep duration decreased by 9.67 minutes. In other words, the warmer it is, the less sleep we get. By the end of the century, climate change could cause sleep insufficiency to rise by 10.5%, with an annual loss of 33 hours of sleep per person, especially for women, the elderly, and the obese. 

Yes, we are literally losing sleep over climate change. 

Perhaps you've noticed that plane turbulence is getting worse, Hayhoe asks. That jellyfish are on the rise at your favorite beach. That your favorite wine and beer taste a bit off. Perhaps you've wondered why poison ivy is itchier. That there's more lightning these days. That your seasonal allergies are worse. Is the cost of your home insurance skyrocketing? Is someone you know suddenly allergic to red meat? If you're really observant, you may have noticed that mountain goats are getting smaller, some bird's bill sizes are increasing, and even that frog calls are getting higher pitched.

It's all due to climate change. 

This morning, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Hurricane Melissa to a category 5 storm with winds of up to 160 mph. The hurricane is moving towards Jamaica, where it will cause catastrophic flooding and landslides, before crossing Cuba and the Bahamas by Wednesday. 

The extraordinary intensification of Melissa is a symptom of the rapid heating of the world’s oceans. Melissa was merely a tropical storm on Saturday, before exploding in strength to a category 4 hurricane on Sunday. The storm’s winds escalated from 70 to 140 mph in just a day, one of the fastest intensifications on record in the Atlantic Ocean. 

With climate change fueling stronger storms with higher rainfall totals, Melissa is a grim example to other countries as to what's in store for us. But the Stable Genius has long dismissed concerns about climate change, as well as the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions and global warming, calling it all a "Chinese hoax."  As part of his broader attempt to undermine international efforts to tackle climate change, he is even pressuring European nations to weaken or completely roll back their regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

 

Eleventh Ocean, 7th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): It's the 300th day of the year (if we include leap year's day), the 25th dozen. The Universal Solar Calendar commemorates this auspicious occasion  by naming today an Ocean Day, the eleventh of the year. 

Today is also Hilary Clinton's birthday. Just imagine . . . 

But let's talk about eggs some more (with reference to yesterday's post). Many, many years ago, long before I was a consultant advising attorneys on environmental matters in lawsuits, I worked for the State of Georgia evaluating the hydrogeologic suitability of proposed landfill sites. 

There was a county up in North Georgia that had submitted a permit application for a proposed landfill, and I drove up there with a couple of environmental engineers to inspect the property and assess its suitability as a waste disposal site. Just before going on site, we stopped at a local gas station/convenience store for some coffee and snacks, and in quite the surprise, the cashier in the store was quite honestly one of the most beautiful women I've ever met. 

No idea what a young woman that strikingly beautiful was doing up in a small North Georgia mountain town, much less working the register. I know that sounds chauvinistic on several levels - why can't a beautiful woman work a register, and did I think that that beautiful women only lived in big cities like Atlanta and not small mountain towns? But it wasn't like that. It was just so unexpected and she was that striking. 

The thing was, she wasn't all made up or wearing anything fancy, she wasn't trying to be a "hottie" or a glamour queen, She just radiated a natural kind of sincere beauty. I paid for my coffee, went back to our pickup truck to find that the engineers had noticed her too (she was hard to miss) and were all talking about her. I found some excuse or another to go back into the store to talk to her again.

"What are guys from the DNR doing up here today?," she asked as she rang up my bag of chips. As thrilled as I was that she had taken some modicum of interest in me, after I told her we were there to look at a proposed landfill site, my excitement turned to disappointment as her mood instantly soured. It turns out there was a strong level of grass-roots opposition to the landfill, and she was ready and able to immediately launch into all the reasons they didn't want it. 

There were the usual NIMBY issues like noise, odor, traffic, and so on, but she also indicated that there was some sort of scandal involved. She claimed the property for the landfill was "donated" by a county commissioner in a suspected quid pro quo deal with Fieldale Farms. The landfill on the poultry giant's property was nearing capacity, and the proposed landfill would be a convenient disposal site operated by the county, with all the benefits going to Fieldale and the burden of the impacts suffered by the public. She got quite animated as she went on about the corruption, the nuisance, and what she suspected was the state's, and by extension my, collusion with the deal. 

I tried to assure her that the landfill would be permitted for residential waste only, not industrial or agricultural waste from Fieldale or others, and that there would be provisions in their permit to control dust, odor, pests, etc., but she wasn't buying any of that. She didn't like the landfill, she didn't like the deal, she didn't like me, and told me she'd be happiest if we all just left her store, right now. Crestfallen, I left. 

My job wasn't to approve or disapprove the landfill permit, just to advise the people who do the approval if there were any hydrogeologic problems with the proposed site. To be honest, there weren't. There were no adjacent streams, the depth to groundwater was sufficiently deep, the soil was an impermeable silty clay, and so on. 

While we were on site, the sheriff pulled onto the property in his car. He told us there were a bunch of people back at the courthouse who were getting all worked up about the landfill and our being there to inspect it. That beautiful young woman had apparently talked to her neighbors about us. As the sheriff put it in his North Georgia drawl, he couldn't be responsible for our safety much longer. He recommended we get out of the county and right now. We complied and didn't need to be told twice.  

I didn't want to see the landfill built if there was that strong an opposition, I didn't want to be part of enabling the corruption if what I heard was true, and I didn't want to disappoint that beautiful young woman in the convenience store. But I wasn't going to lie - there might have been political or other reasons to deny the solid waste permit, but there were no hydrogeologic reasons for denial, and my report said so.

The permit was approved and the landfill got built. 

Some months later, I was told to go back to the site and look at the completed landfill. A representative for that part of Georgia wanted someone from the state to come up and see what we had done, and even though my office wasn't the one that issued the permit, I was the one assigned to go look (and to take the heat).

Yes, I stopped at the convenience store again, and no, the beautiful woman wasn't there. 

I was shocked by what I saw at the landfill. It was professionally built and the construction appeared to be up to the standards of the time, but while I was there, a Fieldale tanker truck backed up to an open trench and emptied a load of liquid chicken rendering waste into it. The smell was revolting - one of the vilest smells I've ever encountered. I retched and very nearly puked up my breakfast. Georgia laws don't allow disposal of liquid waste into solid waste landfills, but as I noted yesterday, "solid" waste can be pretty watery, although I had no idea that waste at the site would be something that could be pumped through a hose. 

Next, a dump truck backed up the landfill trench. Even though Fieldale was a poultry farm and not an egg producer, if you have chickens, eggs happen, and the truck dumped a load of broken eggs - shells, yolks, and all. Most disturbing, though, was as the eggs were dumped in the trench and right before a waiting dozer covered them up with dirt, I could hear the chirping of live chicks. Some of the eggs had hatched, and the chicks were being buried alive in the landfill. The horror.

I was pretty sobered by what I saw, and felt terrible for the residents as I drove back home. Should I have lied about the site's hydrologic properties to discourage the permit? Should I have been more vocal about the local protests I heard? Had I been a dupe used as part of some larger land-use scheme?

This story and yesterday's about the truckload of inedible egg product are tied together in my mind, even though they occurred about 30 years apart. Industrial-scale poultry production can be a real horror show, and the wastes, although organic, can be as noxious as chemical wastes. Nest time you eat your Chicken McNugget or Chick-Fil-A sandwich, try to imagine that sound that still haunts me now, that chirping of baby chicks being buried alive in a malodorous landfill trench.

 

Call of the Swan, 6th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): Are greenhouse gases pollutants? Back in 2009, the Supreme Court said that yes, they were, but now EPA is poised to rule that pollutant or not, they pose no danger. The previous endangerment finding will be struck down, freeing power companies to emit as much greenhouse gas as they want and car makers to eliminate emission controls on their vehicles.

The Stable Genius' EPA and his MAGA admin don't understand how carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring compound and a major component of the Earth's atmosphere, can be considered a "pollutant." Don't plants require CO₂ to live? Humans exhale CO₂ - will we be regulating breath next? 

The question of whether natural substances can be pollutants came up in a court case in which I participated back in my working days. 

Grocery stores and supermarkets return to their supplier those eggs that have broken or spoiled, rather than dispose of the smelly waste in their dumpsters. The suppliers have no shortage of broken or otherwise unsellable eggs of their own, and have means and methods to properly dispose of the waste that are unavailable to the retailers. 

One day, a big tanker truck filled with the waste and clearly marked "Inedible Egg Product," was traveling from a supplier in north Georgia to a proper waste-disposal facility. Unfortunately, the truck ran off the road, overturned, and spilled many gallons of the inedible egg product into a creek. No one was hurt, fortunately, but the egg waste in the water resulted in a fish kill. In addition to their cost for the cleanup, towing and repairing the truck, etc., the supplier and the hauler were fined by the state for environmental damages to the creek. 

Fortunately, both the supplier and the hauler were insured, but the insurance company declined to pay for the cleanup costs or the fine. Both companies had environmental policies, which per the wording covered the cost for "accidental releases of pollutants to the environment."  However, eggs, the insurance company decided, even inedible egg waste, aren't a pollutant identified in any state or federal regulations and therefore don't qualify for coverage under the policy. Lawsuits ensued.

I was hired by the attorneys for the supplier as an expert on environmental regulation. My argument was the inedible egg product, as it had no further use, was heading for disposal. As such, it was a waste that met the regulatory definition of "solid waste." If you're new to environmental law, don't get hung up on the word "solid" - even wastewater is a "solid waste." It's "solid" as in "material" or "tangible," not a state as opposed to liquid or gas. The disposal of solid waste into a creek, I argued, was forbidden by law and was a form of pollution, and therefore qualified for coverage under the policy.

I got a condescending pat on the head from the attorneys for that one, as if they hadn't already thought of that. Unfortunately, "pollutant" was defined in the policy as those substances specifically identified in the applicable laws and statutes. Everything from arsenic to zinc, from acetone to the pesticide ziram,  were listed, but nope, there was no listing under E for "eggs," there were no discharge standards for eggs or egg waste, and there were on maximum allowable concentrations for eggs or egg waste in water bodies. What else you got, kid?

That was frustrating. The egg waste killed the fish and egg waste isn't a natural component of freshwater streams, but I couldn't prove that the egg waste in the creek met the policy definition of a pollutant. But then it dawned on me: the eggs themselves didn't kill the fish, the fish suffocated after the bacteria breaking down the waste consumed all the available oxygen dissolved in the stream. There are no standards for egg waste in the regulations, but there are standards for biological oxygen demand, and BOD levels are monitored and strictly controlled by EPA and the states. BOD is a pollutant.

A simple lab test can assign a numerical BOD value to any organic substance, and one gallon of egg waste has an equivalent value of x mg/L of BOD. Instead of thinking of the tanker as holding some number of gallons of egg waste, from a regulatory viewpoint it should be considered as having a number of pounds of BOD. Using some hypothetical values, 2,000 gallons of eggs with a BOD of 0.08 pounds per gallon is 160 pounds of BOD. And since BOD is a regulated pollutant, an unpermitted release of 160 pounds of BOD into a water body qualified for coverage under the insurance policy.

That gave the attorneys pause. It was a valid argument they had to agree, but from a trial POV, it might be too complex or abstract for a judge and jury to understand. But as happens so often in these lawsuits, both sides agreed to a compromise settlement and the case, and my BOD argument, never saw the inside of a courtroom.

All of which is a longwinded way of explaining that even though it is naturally occurring, in large enough quantities, greenhouse gasses like CO₂ have heat-trapping and insulating properties just like the egg waste has a biological oxygen demand. The release of industrial quantities of CO₂ poses an endangerment to the climate and hence to human health and the environment. 

Even the imbeciles on the corrupt Supreme Court understood that, but apparently not the Stable Genius or his grossly unqualified EPA administrator.      

 

Of the Lunging Outer Space, 5th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): Listen to the Stable Genius: “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK?  We’re going to kill them, you know they’re going to be, like, dead.” 

I have no love for fentanyl  entering the country. Marijuana? Sure, bring as much in as you can. But fentanyl? Not so much. For years, the U.S. has been intercepting ships in the Caribbean and elsewhere suspected of smuggling drugs, searching the ships and questioning the crew, and if drugs are found, seizing the contraband, arresting those on board, and (this is the important part) using the evidence to identify the source of those drugs. 

Now, if a ship is suspected of smuggling drugs, the Stable Genius and his black-out drunk Secretary of Defense just blow it up, killing those on board, and destroying any evidence. No evidence of the crew's guilt, and just as if not more importantly, no evidence of the Navy's guilt either. Were they drug smugglers? We'll never know. The Stable Genius says so and it not like he's ever lied, amiright? Do we have any solid evidence to help us find and root out the source? Nope, but that just means we can blow up more boats and allow our black-out drunk DoD secretary to feel like a man by playing more of his little war games. 

But let's go back to that quote. The Stable Genius is saying, in effect, yeah, if I want people dead, I'm gonna have them killed, regardless of any due process, guilt or innocence, drugs or not. The Supreme Court said the President has the authority to order anyone he wants killed, and he probably would have done what he's doing anyway with or without Supreme Court permission, but now he's got judicial cover. Fascist, much?

The United States of America is now a fascist nation with a fascist government and a fascist President. "It can't happen here," until it did. By the way, former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the International Criminal Court for "crimes against humanity" related to his war on drugs, including killing suspected drug dealers without any due process. How is what Duterte did any different that what the Stable Genius is doing now?  Where's the ICC when you need them?

Listen to the Stable Genius: "I will just say, Adam Schiff is one of the lowest forms of scum I’ve ever dealt with in politics. He’s a horrible human being, a very dishonest person. I have no idea what’s going on . . . he’s a very, he’s a very bad, I think he’s actually a sick person." What kind of way is that for the American President to talk about a U.S. Senator? What kind of way is that for a President to talk about an American? What kind of way is that to talk?

I was obviously asking rhetorically, but I'll answer my own question. What kind of way is that to talk? That a fascist way to talk. That's how fascists talk. It's fascists who use a government's Justice Department to persecute and intimidate their political opponents. Ladies and gentlemen, your fascist POTUS. Your POS POTUS who posts cartoons of himself literally shitting on Americans from a plane and who demands the Treasury pay him $230M he feels that he's somehow owed (entitled much?) and who tears down the East Wing of the White House the week after seven million Americans take to the streets in protest against him.

Orange man bad!

 

Day of the Bruise, 4th of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): After Day of the Fall, we have Day of the Bruise. And to think some people feel the Universal Solar Calendar has no sense of humor. 

It was a sitting day today. Topics that came to mind include time and memory, and the intersection of time and memory, which we'll call mental models. 

What is time? Are we travelling through time or is time travelling through us? Why does it sometimes seem to go faster and other times slower, and when it seems to change speed, is it just our perception that's different, or does time itself actually slow down and speed up? Nothing can go faster than the speed of light, but if you were to travel in a spaceship faster that the speed of light like some science fiction posits and you turned on your headlights, would you see anything ahead or would your spaceship warp-speed ahead of the photons? If you turned around and looked backwards, would all you see is black, as light couldn't catch up to your spaceship? 

If you send two beams of light in opposite directions, is the speed that the photons travel away from each other twice the speed of light? If nothing can exceed the constant, c, the speed of light, does the space-time continuum curve so that the beams are travelling away from each other at c, not 2c? 

Is time even really a thing? It's always the eternal present, it's always "now," so can it be argued that the past is just memory and the future only imagination? Is time, the progression from one instantaneous now to the next, merely a construct of the mind to link our memories to our present experience, and our present experience to our future expectations? If the only way to measure time, be it stopwatch, clock, sundial, or whatever, requires the passage of time and we're always in the eternal now, is there really any measurement at all?

When Marty McFly goes "back in time," it's always "now" to Marty - he's experiencing everything in his real time. "Now" he's getting in a DeLorean in the year 1985, "now" he's stepping out of the car in the 50s, and "now" he's back in 1985 again. It doesn't make sense to me that it can always be "now" to Marty, but "not now" to the rest of the universe.

Other questions came up about memory but I don't remember them now.

Day of the Fall, 3rd of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): The Stable Genius is literally tearing down the East Wing of the White House, an architectural national monument (its image is on our currency), to build a gigantic ballroom that will dwarf the existing White House. 

Why? Who needs a ballroom and who is it for? This nation somehow managed to get by for nearly 250 years without a White House ballroom, but not only is the Stable Genius building it on the site of the now former East Wing, but it will be in the gaudy, nouveau-riche style of his Mar-y-Lago golf hotel in Florida, that vulgar monument to bad taste. Expect an overabundance of chandeliers, numerous Versailles-style fountains, and the same kind of gold-plated chintz that he's used to vulgarize the Oval Office.

The decision was apparently unilateral - he wanted it, he had it built. No indication of review, input, or consultation with historic preservation boards, certainly no zoning, probably no building permits. No national conversation with the American people on changes to one of their definitional heritage sites. If you want a more-than-symbolic visualization of the way the Stable Genius is destroying the American presidency, then look no further than what thar short-fingered vulgarian is doing right now to the actual White House.  

The Stable Genius is also asserting that the Justice Department owes him $230 Million for the past investigations and criminal indictments that had been filed against him. Never mind that some of them were filed not by the federal DoJ, but by the State of New York and, I'm proud to say, the State of Georgia. The problem is that while any idiot can shoot off his mouth and claim without basis that the government owes them any amount of money, in this case, the President of the United States may use his broad claims to limitless Executive power to just have the Justice Department cut him a check, no questions asked. 

Who's to stop him? His allies now occupy the key positions in the Justice Department, the attorney general is a blindly loyal toadie, the deputy A.G. is his personal attorney who served as lead defense counsel in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, and the associate A.G. is the lawyer who represented his co-defendant. So now we have a situation where the Stable Genius just decides that he's entitled to nearly a quarter billion of taxpayer dollars, and the yes-men and sycophants he put in office will just cut him the check without any judicial review or a jury to determine damages, if any. 

Mind you, all this is happening while the government is shut down due to a refusal by Republicans to renew subsidies for health-care insurance. No money's available for Medicare recipients, but there's $230M laying around for the Stable Genius, Argentina was just handed $40B, and new jets were provided for the canine-killing ICE Queen at $175M.   

Tearing down the White House, openly extorting money from the U.S Treasury, exorbitant payments to cronies and political allies while the poor are left to fend for themselves - these are the kind of acts we've historically seen just before a coup or a popular revolution. "Let them eat cake." 

 The Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus would advise us to ask ourselves what we could do about it all. I can't stop the demolition, I can't thwart the extortion. I can rise consciousness and awareness of these actions by posting about them here, but that's about it. Epictetus would say, "Fine then, you did what you could and did what you must. Now you need to find the strength to live by that which you can't control anyway." We can't control external events, but we can control our reactions.

The Buddha would look at it similarly, albeit a little deeper. Suffering is caused by attachments, including clinging to a desire for things to be different than they actually are. If we want to stop our suffering, stop wishing the world to be different than it is. That's not a laisse-faire acceptance of corruption and exploitation - wanting to end our own personal suffering at the expense of allowing the suffering of others is not the bodhisattva way. "Beings are numberless, I vow to free them." But recognize that you, not the Stable Genius, is responsible for your own degree of personal suffering as we go about liberating others.

I think Epictetus would agree with that.

 

The Frosted Cathedrals, Second Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): When you teach a man to hate and to fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies that he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and to be mastered. 

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions, the false distinctions among men, and learn to find our own advancement in search for the advancement of all. We must admit to ourselves that our children’s future cannot be built on the misfortune of another’s. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or by revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short, the work to be done is too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in this land of ours. (Robert F. Kennedy, Remarks at the Cleveland City Club, April 5, 1968)

 

Mysteries of the Sandman, 1st Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): With the passing of the five Days of the Hammer, the Universal Solar Calendar enters into Hagwinter, the second of the year's two winter seasons. Hagwinter will continue until the end of the year, and then we'll enter Childwinter, the other winter season, of the year 526 of the Modern Era.

Regarding the change of season, Zen Master Dogen taught that winter does not become spring, just as Autumn doesn't become Hagwinter. Autumn is always Autumn; Hagwinter is always Hagwinter. It's always the present moment, and there are present moments in Autumn and there are present moments in Hagwinter. It's the mind that moves.  

The deepest transformations in our loves come down to something very simple: We learn to respond, not react, to what is going on inside us." - Tara Branch, Radical Compassion 

I find it ironic how evangelical Christians caught up in the MAGA movement accept the persecution and deportation of immigrants and the excessive cruelties of ICE as compatible with their faith. They think immigrants getting eaten by alligators is funny, and share memes of the Stable Genius in a jet defecating onto crowds of Americans below. Just like Jesus would have. 

No, Jesus would not have - I'm just messing with you. Jesus said the first commandment is to love God (i.e., not the Stable Genius) with all your heart, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. "There is no other commandment greater than these," he said (Mark 12:30-31). Side note: was Jesus saying the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament were obsolete, they we should only focus on loving God and loving our neighbors? If so, could it be argued that posting the Ten Commandments, say, in schools, courthouses, and public spaces, is un-Christian?    

"True love for our neighbor will be translated into courage and strength," the Dalai Lama promised. "The more we develop love for others, the more confidence we will have in ourselves." 

Even Jim Morrison of the Doors noted that one of the four way to get untangled, presumably from the grasping clutches of greed, hatred, and delusion, is to love your neighbor, at least "until his wife gets home." Jim was a complicated dude.

After missing my alternating-day walk on last weekend's No Kings day, I made up for it today with a 9.3-mile Harrison.

 

Fifth Day of the Hammer, 74th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Electra): First of all, fuck the New York Times. Yesterday, seven million Americans marched in the nationwide No Kings protest. Seven million. With a population of 340 million, that's two percent of all citizens, 2.7% of the adults. One out of every 50 Americans participated (not me, but that was yesterday's post). But today, despite the staggering numbers, the largest mass protest in American history and one of the largest in the world, the No Kings event didn't even make the front page of the New York Times. 

The top headline in today's on-line edition of the Times is on the collapse of the Gaza peace treaty and, fair enough, that could arguably take precedent over the national protests (but even that's arguable). However, for reference and comparison purposes, 24 hours after the event, No Kings is still the third headline on The Guardian, after the Gaza story and an in-house investigative piece about MAGA vs. MAHA, but the Times couldn't be bothered to mention the protest at all. 

But you know what else the Times has on that front page that couldn't find room for No Kings? "Epoch Times Reporter Resigns After Publication Signs Pentagon Rules." Great, a one-person protest took precedent over a 7M-person protest. "How Wendell Pierce Spends His Day Exploring New York City." Sports news (norts spews). Recipes. "50(ish) Apparel and Accessory Picks for Fall and Winter." 

Way down at the bottom of the page, the third headline in the second category (US News) of the surmmary, is the only story that even mentions the protests, and that story is about a meme the Stable Genius posted about the protest. We'll get to that meme in a minute, but it's tempting to say that the New York Times seems to now want us to know the protests happened, or maybe doesn't want to be the one to tell us about it.

FFS, if 2 to 2.7 percent of the population did something, anything, else, it would be an above the fold headline. "Seven Million Tune in to Last Episode of Seinfeld." "Seven Million Women Wear Button-Down Blouses to Work." They won't run the headline, but soon it will be reported that "Seven Million Cancel Their Subscription to the New York Times."

Yesterday, while the protesters were marching, 100,000 of them through Times Square right outside of the Times' offices, their only story about it sniffed that the Times won't report on crowd estimates. "Content, not numbers" with regard to protests is what the Times deemed noteworthy. But when that number is 2% of the population, isn't that something of a story right there in and of itself? What's next, "we don't report the number of votes candidates receive, just the policies they endorse"?  FFS, NYT, the numbers ARE the story, goddamnit!  

So about that meme. The President of the United States of America, the most powerful office in the world, posted an AI video of himself wearing a crown (naturally) and flying over No Kings protesters in a jet that literally shits all over the crowds. Before you say, yes, but South Park has shown far worse, think for a minute if you really want to compare the dignity of presidential behavior to the juvenilia of South Park. Remember when Republicans lost their shit for nearly a week because Obama dared to wear a tan suit? 

To put it another way, how would they react if  Kamala Harris posted a video of herself in a jet shitting all over the Charlie Kirk funeral?

Winter is coming. Today, Fifth Day of the Hammer, is the last day of Autumn. Govern yourself accordingly. 

 

Fourth Day of the Hammer, 73rd of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Deneb): "Publicly confess your misdeeds, and keep your good deeds private."  Okay, here I go again, publicly confessing a misdeed: despite all my posturing and pontificating, I didn't go to a No Kings protest today.

What happened? I'm wondering that myself. I wasn't intimidated (not scared, bro). I certainly didn't have a change of heart politically, or otherwise second guess the importance of these protests. So what was it?

As best I can determine, I failed to plan. I woke up this morning without a game plan, other than a general notion that today was No Kings Day and that I needed to march or rally or picket or whatever it is we do at these things. But I hadn't decided the day before which of the many events in the Atlanta region I would attend, or what time I should leave, or how I'd get there, or where I'd park.

Last June, there was an event on 17th Street near Atlantic Station, an easy walk from my house, and it was in mid-afternoon, perfectly timed for my alternating-day walk. This year, the nearest even was about 7½ miles away - a bit too far to walk there and back (although not undoable). 

I got up a bit late, as per my usual custom, and was slow all morning, as per my usual. Coffee, the Times crossword, and eventually an English muffin. The final part of my brain to awaken probably didn't come on line until sometime around noon.

That's when, at my leisurely morning pace, I noticed that the closest events had already started and that some had started as early as 10:00 am and were scheduled for only another hour or so. By the time I showered, changed, drove, and parked, the event would have been long since over. Other events started later, but those events were further away and in other counties. Not that I couldn't cross a county line to protest, but that just added a little more logistical planning vis a vis, finding the location, choosing a route, searching for a parking space, etc. 

I started noodling around on line to figure out when and where I needed to be and of course got easily distracted. Then I needed to make some lunch, then I realized that I still hadn't showered, then I realized that I still hadn't even considered the weather, and then it dawned on me I wasn't going anywhere. Also, the Georgia Bulldogs football game was starting.

Damn it! I didn't even get my alternating-day walk in today, much less a protest event!

Maybe I was deliberately procrastinating on some subconscious level. Maybe it just wasn't meant to happen. Maybe I'm a lazy piece of shit who couldn't bother to make a modicum of effort to try and save his country. Maybe all of the above and maybe none.

Whatever. No Kings, man. No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA! Antifa forever!                   

Third Day of the Hammer, 72nd of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): Right-wing media, the Republican Party, the Stable Genius and his administration, and the chatbots on social media really, really, really don't like the idea of tomorrow's No Kings protests. Which of course means that the protests are now more important than ever.

The strategy for rolling this country over to a fascist dictatorship revolves around the fantasy that the Stable Genius is some sort of beloved, broadly popular figure, and that the only ones who don't feel that way are sick, America-hating weirdos. But when millions and millions of people take to the streets and march in opposition to fascism and autocratic rule, all over the country in states red and blue, the old and young alike, it shatters that convenient illusion.

Every Fakebook and Instagram post I've seen about the protests is littered with comments trying to discourage people from going. The most popular comments are variations on "We already have a No Kings holiday - it's called the Fourth of July," and "If we had kings, you wouldn't be allowed to protest." They must find those remarks hilarious, because user after user keeps repeating them or riffing on variations thereof. 

More ominously, some have even threatened violence. One commenter on Fakebook said he plans to be out driving that day, and if any protesters are blocking the roads he's on, slowing his progress down, or otherwise inconveniencing him, well, he's just going to keep on driving right through them as he feels is his alleged right. In other words, if he sees people who upset him tomorrow, he's going to kill them. Nice.

The Stable Genius' cabinet members and the House Republicans are all over the news, trying to rebrand the protest as "some sort of Hate America" rally. But I've got news for them: the "Hate America" rally already happened - January 6, 2021, when MAGA-crazed fascists stormed the Capital, killed police officers, smeared shit on the walls, and threatened to kill the vice president.    

But don't be afraid, nation. Last June's event was a nonviolent and joyous celebration by the really, actual, true patriots who love this nation and that for which it stands, or once stood. Freedom. Liberty. Equal justice for all. Anti-fascism. 

Antifa now. Antifa tomorrow. Antifa forever.

Second Day of the Hammer, 71st of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): A report compiled by an international group of scientists has found that wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of anthropogenic climate change. The report was based on modelling and observations of significant wildfires around the world between March 2024 and February 2025 and found that in addition to being caused by climate change, the increase in  wildfires is also contributing to the problem of climate change. 

Last year alone, carbon emissions from wildfires increased by 9% to reach the sixth highest level on record, mostly due to extreme wildfire seasons in South America and Canada, where forest fires were producing yet more CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere and accelerating the pace of global warming.

In South America, wildfires consumed huge areas of rainforests, dry forests, and wetlands. Wildfires in the Amazon destroyed 44.2M acres in 2024, a 66% increase in land lost to fire compared to 2023. On the border of Bolivia and Brazil, the Pantanal wetlands and the dry forest of Chiquitano suffered extreme fire events causing huge carbon emissions. Carbon emissions were four times above average in Bolivia and 50% above average in Brazil and Venezuela. 

Africa also experienced extreme wildfires, but the continent has received little international attention, despite driving record forest losses. The severe fires in particular struck Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 6% and 2.5% of their total land area was burnt in one week. Across the continent, about 54 acres burned in one week.

The wildfires also caused multiple deaths globally. The fires in Nepal killed 100 people. In Los Angeles, last spring's wildfires killed 31. In addition to deaths, fine particulate matter from the wildfires caused air pollution which exceeded WHO guidelines by up to 60 times.

Climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of drought and fire-favorable weather conditions, lowers vegetation moisture, and preconditions landscapes to burn more regularly, intensely, and severely. At the same time, human land use and land-use change increase the risk of large, fast-moving, and intense fires. As a result, the area that burned in the Los Angeles wildfires was 25 times greater than it would have been otherwise, the report claimed. 

According to the report, the biggest wildfire catastrophes of 2024-25 were two to three times more likely to occur due to climate change caused by humans, and that the frequency of wildfire events is set to rise in the future unless decisive action is taken to rapidly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

That doesn't look likely. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly last month, the Stable Genius called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion.” In his long, rambling, often incoherent speech, he added, "All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.” 

EPA's FY2026 budget calls for the elimination of funding for climate change research and partnership programs, and a 48% reduction in the Office of Research and Development budget. 

We're doomed. The world's on fire, often literally, and our leaders are calling the alarms a hoax.

Day of the Hammer, 70th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): Fifty five years ago, the Doors released the Morrison Hotel LP, which among many other verses, included the lines,  

Blood in the streets, it's up to my ankles

Blood in the streets, it's up to my knees

Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago

Blood on the rise, it's following me.

Prophetic words. Today, armed Texas National Guard troops are patrolling the streets of Chicago, over the protests of the Chicago mayor and the Governor of Illinois. Other troops are in Portland and Memphis. Probably coming soon to a city near you. 

Does anyone think this is going to end well? For anybody? The troops appear to be deliberately provoking a confrontation, as if they're hoping for violent resistance so that the Stable Genius has an excuse to unleash a crackdown using the full military power of the Armed Forces against the American people. The Stable Genius hates the American people. The Stable Genius hates America. Just listen to what he says about us.

That Doors song is titled Peace Frog, which seems particularly prophetic when one sees news footage of protestors in Portland trying to not take the bait and initiate a full-blown law-and-order police riot. They're dressing up in inflatable frog costumes and peacefully dancing in front of lines of troops in a surrealist protest reminiscent of the infamous Tiananmen Square confrontation of a tank and one brave protester.

No, I'm not looking forward to it nor am I calling for violence, but I fear this is all going to lead to bloodshed. The Stable Genius is intent on proving his military might and on taking this country into fascism. We're too polarized and there's too much irreconcilable hatred between the opposing poles of the political spectrum. The left is incompatible with the right, and the right with the left.  And there's way too many guns in America. What's the point of having all these guns if you're not going to pop a cap in the ass of a commie? Or a Nazi?

Tenth Ocean, 69th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Helios): Today, the 69th Day of Autumn, is the 288th day of the year, or the 24th dozen. Two dozen dozens. Since Ocean days fall on significant dozenths in the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar, today is known as Tenth Ocean.

I missed my alternating day sitting yesterday, the first missed date since May 16. I also missed my alternating day walking the day before yesterday, first missed walk since September 6. "Publicly confess your misdeeds, and keep your good deeds private." 

Today, Tenth Ocean, I did get in my walk, an 8.4-mile van Buren. So far this year, I've walked 975 miles. or the distance from here (Atlanta) to Matamoras along the Mexican border. Or to Merida in the Yucatan. In all of last year, I walked only 909 miles, so I'm already 66 miles ahead of my previous total with 78 days still left to go. At this rate, I should be able to get in 1,240 miles this year, roughly the distance to the southern tip of Hudson Bay (or the northwest corner of the Dominican Republic).. 

     

The Endlock Series, 68th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Electra): We're looking at it wrong. In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two, the Arawak people discovered Europeans.    

Cristoforo Colombo, aka Cristóbal Colón, Christopher Columbus, etc., an Italian, led an expedition on behalf of Isabella I and Ferdinand II of Spain. Emerging from the Dark Ages, Spain found itself in competition with Portugal, France, and England for resources, wealth, and trade routes. While Henry the Navigator and his successors were working to establish a route to India and China around the African continent for Portugal, Spain's sponsorship of  Columbus' expedition was a Hail Mary bid to reach Asia first.

In school, I had been taught that at the time, Europeans thought the Earth was flat, and that sailing west across the Atlantic would result in falling off the edge. That's ridiculous. The ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round, and while some uneducated 15th Century sailors might have been Flat Earthers, the nobility and educated people knew the truth. The reason no one tried the voyage before Columbus was due to uncertainties as to how far the trip would be, and the daunting logistics of making such a long, perilous trip at sea.     

Here's another story I heard and not quite sure if I believe, although it is telling about human perception and our mental models. After Columbus arrived in the Bahamas, the native Arawak could not see his three ships in the harbor. The sun was shining and the boats were clearly visible, but they had never seen anything like that before in their lives, or ever heard any tales of anything like those ships, or even imagined such large man-made objects could exist in the water. When their eyes "saw" the ships, their minds, not knowing what to do with the information their eyes were transmitting, chose to ignore the visual data and just ignored the fleet.

It wasn't until an elder was looking at the water and noticed that the waves were breaking in a funny kind of way where the ships were that his mind began to process first the bows of the ships, then the rest of the hulls, and then finally the ships in their entirety. And once he was able to process what his eyes were seeing, he told the other Arawak natives, and then they, too, could finally see what had been right there in front of their eyes. So we could say that in 1492, the Arawak discovered Columbus.

Whether that story's true or not, I don't know, but it does bring up the question of what we're missing today with our own cognitive blind spots. What evidence is right in front of us that we're not seeing because we don't know what to make of it? I should note that the modern blind spot may not be visual and more likely is conceptual. Five hundred years from now, what will people (assuming there are survivors) wonder, "How could they not have seen that coming?" Candidate blind spots might be climate change, or pervasive microplastics, or nuclear arms, or something I still can't even guess.

Anyway, in 1492, the Arawak found Columbus and his men sitting off the coast and it didn't go well for the Arawak after that. Columbus' first impression of them was "they would make fine servants . . .  With fifty men we could subdue them all and make them do whatever we want." What he wanted was to know where he could find the gold Spain needed to compete with its European neighbors. Convinced the Arawak were hiding vast reserves of gold from him, he took some of them on board his ship as prisoners to make them reveal the source. He sailed them to Cuba and to Hispaniola in his search for gold, taking on more prisoners as he went. He eventually returned to Spain, taking his prisoners with him, many of whom died on the voyage as the weather turned colder.

On his second voyage, Columbus captured 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children, and brought back 500 of the "finest specimens" to Spain to be sold as slaves; two hundred died enroute. On his subsequent voyages, the search for gold and acquisition of slaves led to imprisonment, bounties, forced mining, and indiscriminate cruelty and killing of the native population. Bartolome de las Casas, a young priest who accompanied these voyages, reported that the natives were so overworked and exhausted by the demands placed on them that "from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it."  

Always one to engage in the most loathsome activity, the Stable Genius issued an official proclamation declaring today to be “Columbus Day,” i.e., not "Indigenous Peoples Day." The proclamation says that today “our Nation honors the legendary Christopher Columbus—the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth.  This Columbus Day, we honor his life with reverence and gratitude, and we pledge to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory.”

Historian Heather Cox Richardson points out that we are not setting fire to historical legacies when sordid parts of our past are uncovered. "If we are going to get an accurate picture of how a society works," she wrote, "historians must examine it honestly, seeing the bad as well as the good. With luck, seeing those patterns will help us make better decisions about our own lives, our communities, and our nation in the present."

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day, fellow arsonists!  

 

The Final Knowledge, 67th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Deneb): On this 67th day of Autumn, I finally set the thermostat to "heat" for the first time this year. Also, I blew off my alternating day walk, not because of the temperature (it's actually quite a pleasant day for walking outside), but because I didn't feel like it. 

"Memento mori" and "impermanence is swift" describes one of the places where stoicism and Zen intersect. The final knowledge is that eventually, at some time as of yet unspecified, we will die. 

Impermanence is truly the reality right in front of our eyes. We need not wait for some teaching from others or proof from some passage of scripture. Born in the morning, dead in the evening, a person we saw yesterday is no longer here today. These are the facts we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. This is what we see and hear about others. Applying this to our own bodies and thinking of the reality of all things, though we expect to live for 70 or 80 years, we die when we must die.

Everybody has a certain amount of food and clothing granted from birth. It does not come about by worrying over it, nor will it cease to come by not seeking it. Similarly, we have a natural share of life we were allotted when we were born. I'm not suggesting some divine gift or predestination, but each of us has a number, unknown to us, of days on this earth, of breaths we will take. Set your own metric - there's an amount of money each of us will earn, a number of times we will enjoy the company of a lover, a number of meals that we will enjoy. Each time we leave the house may be our last, or we may step out a thousand times more. 

With impermanence being certain, but the time of your death being unknown, how will you live your day today?

 

Under the Rose, 66th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): All the news is appalling, and the latest appalling news is that the Stable Genius is strongly considering invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act to federalize the National Guard and even utilize the national army to suppress protest and dissent. NBC reports that while the decision to invoke the act is not expected to be imminent, the administration is deeply exploring how and when the act might be invoked.

I doubt invoking the Insurrection Act was ever debated. It feels like is was the plan all along, that mobilizing federalized troops was always the endgame. Provoke and outrage the masses with deliberately cruel ICE arrests, rile up urban communities and then send in the national guard to upset them even more, claim protesters to be "terrorists" and declare antifa the equivalent of Hamas and ISIS, and then finally invoke the Insurrection Act in the name of "law and order." It's the classic authoritarian playbook.

The system is now so broken that the federal government has been shutdown for almost two weeks with no end in sight, and today the Stable Genius and OMB have laid off more than 4,000 of the idle government workers. The SG claims he has some sort of right during a shutdown to lay off workers without a possibility of return, but I'm old enough to have lived through several shutdowns and never heard a chief executive, Democrat or Republican, make this claim before. It's only fiscally responsible, they claim, we have to make adjustments since no revenue is coming in. What? No revenue? I don't have to pay taxes during a shutdown? That's a new one on me and I've never heard that one before, but I'll take it. And what about tariffs? No one's collecting tariffs during the shutdown? Great, can't wait to see prices start dropping at the supermarket . . .  

The Stable Genius is openly bragging that the layoffs are intended to hurt "Democrat programs," as he mobilizes federal troops from red states into blue ones and weaponizes the Justice Department to persecute (not prosecute) Democratic AGs and others who have brought charges against him for his previous crimes. The SG clearly has no interest in even pretending to represent half of the nation he was elected to serve, is clearly violating his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, and is actively and vigorously sowing dissent and unrest so he can make a power move against the American people via the military.

I told you the news is appalling.     

 

The Lines Displayed, 65th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Atlanta is the most surveilled city in the United States. We not only lead the country, we have more than twice as many cameras per capita as second-ranked Washington, DC and more than four times as many as third-ranked Philadelphia. Worldwide, only cities in China have more cameras per capita.

It's been reported that Atlanta has 124.14 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people, including 50 CCTV camera per 1,000. More than 60,000 public and private cameras, including those on public transportation, in schools and on officers, are linked to the police. The Connect Atlanta program even grants the police access to business and residential private security footage and Ring cameras.

We may not be occupied by the Stable Genius' federal military - yet - or by some other states' National Guard, but Atlanta's Big Brother surveillance system is already a form of oppression. When I take my alternating day walks along sidewalks through various neighborhoods (I got a 9.1-mile Harrison in today), how many CCTV cameras, plate readers, private home security cameras, and passing vehicles are capturing my coming and going and passing by and sending it to some police database?  What if I had the bad luck of passing an apartment building as a crime was occurring there? "Mr. Shokai, why did you choose to walk along Peachtree on that particular day?" "At the stop sign, why did you turn left instead of right like you do on most days?" "You don't live in that neighborhood, what business did you have going there?"

I read today that the EPA may or may not be working on technology to detect the abortion drug mifepristone in waste water. Twenty-five Republican (of course) members of Congress signed a letter to the agency asking about the potential. Detecting traces of the drug in waste water would indicate that a chemical abortion occurred in the area served by the sewer, and the location could quickly be narrowed down to an individual apartment building or school or public building. The piss police. 

Big Brother on telephone poles, traffic lights, and doorbells. The piss police in the sewers. Remember, amerika, you voted for this.    

 

Day of the Blood Sun, 64th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): In a classic example of delusional thinking, canine killer and serial botox abuser Kristi Noem claimed yesterday that, "One of the individuals we arrested recently in Portland was the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa." She added, "as we go after her and prosecute her, we'll get more and more information about the network and how we can root them out and eliminate them from the existence of American society." Sad.

What does she mean "was" the girlfriend of one of the founders? Is she no longer the girlfriend? Should she be considered a vindictive ex-girlfriend, whose testimony, such as it is and assuming she even exists, be dismissed as malicious slander? 

Also, to be clear, "go after her and prosecute her" means "persecute her," threaten and intimidate her, subject her to psychological manipulation, break her down with Orwellian psy-ops techniques.

This isn't going to end well for anyone. There is no "antifa" organization, there is no "founder," and that person who doesn't exist certainly doesn't have a "girlfriend." Antifa is an ideological position, opposition to fascism, and not some nefarious cabal of terrorists. You might as well imagine a "white Christian nationalist" organization with leaders, founders, and girlfriends (other than Turning Point USA), or a chartered, organized MAGA movement. "I met a man who wasn't there," etc. 

Clinging to delusion is a source of suffering, the Buddha tells us, but since no one in the Stable Genius' administration is allowed to doubt or question any proclamation of the Dear Leader, the Justice Department, the FBI, and Homeland Security will be pursuing that which is like a star at dawn, a bubble floating in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

However, the suffering will be felt by all of us. Since antifa doesn't actually exist, the administration will be free to manufacture anything out of thin air and claim individuals they don't like are "leaders," "founders," and "girlfriends of founders." Political opponents will be "aiding" the nonexistent organization, and beautiful blue cities will be cited as "hotbeds of antifa" that need military occupation. They will lie and innocent victims of their lies will be arrested and punished. Some will probably be killed.

What better tool to use for a propaganda campaign than a group that doesn't exist to disprove whatever it is you say about them?                

Theft of the Stages, 63rd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Helios): During a White House roundtable discussion today, Kristi Noem, the canine killing secretary of Homeland Security, compared antifa to MS-13, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State, calling the loosely affiliated network of antifascist street activists “just as dangerous” as designated terrorist organizations.

“They are just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA (Tren de Aragua), as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them, they are just as dangerous,” Noem said. “They have an agenda to destroy us, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for many, many years.”

A couple observations. First, it sounds like they're really scared. We're getting to them, comrades!

Second, she's not entirely incorrect. We do want to destroy them, "them" being the fascist elements in government installed by the Stable Genius and his MAGA movement. We stand in support, for the most part, of the United States as it existed from 1776 to 2020, the country that rejected kings and fought fascism in Europe and the Pacific. We oppose and seek an end to the current Trump-Vance fascist regime.  

On this subject, we do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! We are in earnest, we will not equivocate, we will not excuse, and we will not retreat a single inch, AND WE WILL BE HEARD!