Day of the Timekeeper, 14th of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Aldebaran): As frequently and exhaustively (and exhaustingly) discussed here before, there is an ongoing fascist takeover of the United States. Where we are exactly in the spectrum between a free and functioning democracy (if we were even ever there to begin with) and complete totalitarianism is open to debate, and our position changes day to day, moving ever right.

Both Zen and stoicism tell me there's nothing I can do about external conditions, but I can control my reactions and response to events. The difference between the two is in the means of regulating ourselves - Zen offers the physical and spiritual practice of meditation to observe the mind and know our true selves, while stoicism provides an intellectual and philosophical system of inquiry to identify the wisest course of action. For this person, me, the one writing now, I will need both practices to get through this last decade or so of my life.

I've been looking, reading about, and thinking of other countries that have suffered fascism. Germany is, or I should say was, the poster child for fascist governance. It was horrific, it was painful, and it was deadly, even genocidal, but it also ended. Germany is now a modern, progressive, functioning democracy not without its problems but long past the ones imposed by the Third Reich. Brazil and Argentina and other Latin American countries have experienced military juntas, authoritarian rule, and despots, and yet life goes on, sometimes joyously, sometimes tenuously, but never without potential for improvement.

There are two things I've noticed in my review. First, fascist regimes are never permanent. The charismatic leader eventually dies, or the people rise up and revolt, or another nation intervenes. Something always happens. Impermanence is swift, nothing lasts forever, Ozymandias, and all that. The U.S. will become fascist and will be fascist until we no longer are. 

My second observation is more cautionary. Namely, once a nation "goes fascist," it is at much higher risk of going fascist again. I have to go to Wikipedia to tell me if some Asian and Latin American countries are under a dictatorship right now or not, and my results might be different this time next year. A fascist regime in the U.S. from, say, 2026 until 2032 will make us far more likely to suffer another totalitarian regime sometime later in the 21st Century and beyond.

But these modern times are also more perilous than earlier times. First, there's nukes. The Stable Genius wants to resume nuclear testing. We abandoned the practice in 1992, along with most of the rest of the world other than North Korea (and its been a few years even for them), but the Stable Genius believes, without any evidence, that "other countries are doing it" and so he will authorize commensurate testing. There's no one any longer in his orbit to tell him, no, other nations aren't doing it, and in his delusion and dementia, he's at the point of believing as fact anything he imagines. Resuming nuclear testing makes the world a more dangerous place, not just because of the increase in radioactive fallout, but the exponentially greater likelihood of nuclear war.

Another modern peril is climate change. The Stable Genius believes anthropogenic global warming is a "scam" and a "hoax," and those around him just repeat back to him whatever he says. Scientists tell us we're approaching numerous tipping points beyond which the world will be far less habitable, and we've already passed others. "Less habitable" doesn't mean "human extinction," but it does mean that life will be far harder and less pleasant for the survivors, and we'll go thorough decades or even centuries of flooding, drought, famine, mass migration, disease, resource scarcity, and inevitably war before some sort of equilibrium is again achieved. 

The USA may be a fascist nation with authoritarian rulers for a few years or a decade or even longer. But things will eventually return to "normal" or at least "near normal" and even in the meantime, there will be art and music, there will be poetry, people will fall in love, and children will delight their parents. But the damage to the environment and the climate, and the possibility of catastrophic nuclear war, may be far worse that the loss of freedoms through a dark period of our national history.

 

Day of the Last Across, 13th of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): It's still cooler than normal for this time of year, although now it's the daily lows that are below average - today's low of 42°F was 7° lower than the normal low temperature for this day of 49. Despite the chill, I got my steps in today, 19,787 of them to be precise, mostly on my 8.3-mile van Buren this afternoon. 

So obviously, it's a walking day today but it's also a sports day. I'm not playing anything, of course, but it's one of those rare days when almost all major sports are in action. It's a walking day but also a sitting-around-watching-games, Sports-Desk kind of day. 

The Red Sox season is over and the Dodgers and the Blue Jays are in the World Series. I'm not a fan of either team, but when it's Game 7 of the World Series and Shohei Ohtani, probably the most singular player of this century, is pitching, I'm going to be paying attention.

But that attention is highly distracted, because while Game 7 is being played, the Boston Celtics are hosting Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets in the Garden; the Rockets are up by 18 points at the half. 

Today is primarily a hockey day. The Boston Bruins beat the Carolina Hurricanes earlier today. Late this afternoon, the Boston University women's hockey team lost to Northeastern University at home, and the men's team is currently up in Orono losing to Maine.

The Georgia Bulldogs football team played their annual rivalry game today against the hated Florida Gators. The game started just as I got back to the house after my van Buren, and the Bulldogs won in an ugly performance that won't win them many votes in this week's AP Poll. 

So, it's a day of football (college), hockey (pro and collegiate), basketball (NBA), and the baseball World Series. The New England Patriots of the NFL play tomorrow. As I write this, the Blue Jays lead the Dodgers, 3-1, the second half of the Celtics-Rockets game is just starting, and Maine leads BU, 6-4, after two periods. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't have time to write much more here right now, so enjoy your evening, whatever it is you're doing, don't forget to turn your clocks back tonight, and let's catch back up tomorrow, okay?

 

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.