Overactive Guilt Gland, Underactive Drive

foolsguinea @ 2020-06-21T05:04:00

2020-06-21T10:07:42Z

I am, for the record, alive.

Not sure how many of my accounts got hacked. This one worries me. Not the LJ, which had a password update more recently, but the Dreamwidth and the Hotmail address.

OK, also the LJ.

Wait, who is this person again?

2019-04-27T08:06:41Z

So, it's been years since I was on either this LJ or this Dreamwidth.

Maybe I'll try using them some more.

foolsguinea @ 2016-05-10T23:26:00

2016-05-11T04:26:16Z

The cat may be made of iron, or really good at ducking an oncoming car. Panicky enough to run out in front of a car, though. This has been a weird day.

foolsguinea @ 2016-03-16T00:44:00

2016-03-16T05:44:17Z

I voted. I think I voted for Bernie Sanders, but my stupid brain says I am not entirely certain I filled in the correct little ellipse. I remember sort of looking at the paper for a long time before feeding it in the scanner, but I don’t remember if my eyes were focused.

It’s probably OK.

Why Bernie, with three days to go in my home state

2016-03-12T20:17:47Z

I thought I might write more pro-Bernie pieces the last week or two, and I haven't. At this point, I don't expect to change many minds before Tuesday.

I think Bernie Sanders is what Democrats pretend to be when they want voters to turn out. Not in every election, even, just the ones they've decided they want to win for once, which is much less than half of them.

I get a strong sense that the Democratic Party isn't really a conservationist party; it just got stuck with the environmentalists when the GOP kept putting fossil fuel industry flacks (as in the Bush family) in charge.

A few Democrats even seem to be against the New Deal/Great Society sort of governing style, and want to remind us that they are "free-market capitalists." As someone who spent his teen years deep in a right-wing Reaganite mindset, I think that sounds like futile me-too-ism. Americans want a choice, not an echo. Those who want radical marketism already have the Republicans and Libertarians singing the siren song; surely Democrats would do better electorally to run as social democrats.

When they run on anti-war sentiment, a living wage, or universal healthcare, and then don't deliver to the voters who got them into office, they lose credibility. It doesn't do any good to pretend to be of the people and then do almost nothing for those who lost their careers and their homes after the 2008 crash. The Democrats have lost credibility and with it their base.

Bernie as president can't really solve America's problems on his own. I think he should be actively recruiting candidates to run on his kind of employment and entitlement policies. But at least he's mostly advocating for what Democrats supposedly are supposed to advocate for.

It seems like Democrats lost a lot of their base with NAFTA. Nominating Hillary Clinton may get a Democrat in the White House. But if it keeps a big chunk working-class voters alienated from the Democratic Party, the victory will be minor and partial.

Now, I know people who object to some of Bernie's votes on guns, or his strong opposition to nuclear power. Lately I've even seen a little frothing at the mouth from...libertarians, I guess...because he wants GMO foods to be labeled.

I'm not going to attack Bernie for his moderation on guns, when that's reflective of public opinion. He made that deal with Vermont's farmers long ago, that he wouldn't take a hard anti-gun line. He's still somewhat in a pro-gun-control position, even compared to some Democrats in Vermont.

People who object to GMO labeling are creepy, whether they realize it or not.

But you know what? As a Green, I can respect the position that a President who refuses to renew nuclear power plant licenses is unacceptable in the present climate. If that's someone's reason for voting against him, I respect that.

But I counter that he is anti-fracking, and Hillary is so pro-fracking that she advocated for it internationally. (This is the first link I saw on Google: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron ) I think this in particular probably helps explain his majorities in the Kansas and Oklahoma primaries. He's the only major anti-fracking candidate, apparently.

I hope he will be more moderate on nuclear power, which is at least largely containable pollution. If he's not, well, after Fukushima, I understand. But I want a President who is anti-fracking. I do.

And I want a President who wants a living wage. And a President who proposes an FTT. We can compromise on some things. I just want him to be on the side that wants a better life, less pollution, and less destruction.

I would like you to consider voting for Bernie Sanders.

Taibbi on Sanders and on campaign reporting

2016-03-07T20:17:11Z

The Case for Bernie Sanders
His critics say he’s not realistic – but they have it backwards
Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone

Anyone who's survived without felony conviction a few terms as a senator, governor or congressperson, has an expensive enough haircut, and has never once said anything interesting will likely be judged a potentially "serious" candidate.

If you're wondering why no Mozarts or Einsteins ever end up running for president in America, but an endless succession of blockheads like Rick Perry are sold to us on the cover of Time magazine as contenders, it's because of this absurd prerequisite.

[snip]

When you stop believing in the electoral process, then the only questions left to interest a professional observer are who wins, and how many laughs there will be along the way. We've gotten good at thinking about these things. Cassidy's bit about Sanders harmlessly occupying the left flank and blocking more "plausible" candidates from threatening Hillary is exactly the kind of sounds-smart observation we've been trained to believe passes for political journalism today.

Conversely, we've been trained not to care about which old ladies are freezing to death this week because some utility somewhere is turning the heat off, or who's having their furniture put on the street by a sheriff executing a foreclosure order, or who's losing a leg to diabetes because they didn't have the money for a simple checkup two years ago, etc.

None of those characters make it into campaign reporting. As good as we are at the horse-race idiocy, we suck that much at writing about these other things.

[snip]

Sanders is a clear outlier in a generation that has forgotten what it means to be a public servant. The Times remarks upon his "grumpy demeanor." But Bernie is grumpy because he's thinking about vets who need surgeries, guest workers who've had their wages ripped off, kids without access to dentists or some other godforsaken problem that most of us normal people can care about for maybe a few minutes on a good day, but Bernie worries about more or less all the time.

I first met Bernie Sanders ten years ago, and I don't believe there's anything else he really thinks about. There's no other endgame for him. He's not looking for a book deal or a membership in a Martha's Vineyard golf club or a cameo in a Guy Ritchie movie. This election isn't a game to him; it's not the awesomely repulsive dark joke it is to me and many others.

And the only reason this attention-averse, sometimes socially uncomfortable person is subjecting himself to this asinine process is because he genuinely believes the system is not beyond repair.

Not all of us can say that. But that doesn't make us right, and him "unrealistic." More than any other politician in recent memory, Bernie Sanders is focused on reality. It's the rest of us who are lost.

Jimmy, Barack, Hillary, Bernie, & foreign policy

2016-03-01T00:32:48Z

Jimmy Carter was the first US President I remember. I still like & respect Jimmy Carter, even though in hindsight he didn't really continue the successful economic policies of previous Democrats, and he didn't stop the imperialist activities of the USA in Latin America.

I can like someone while recognizing that they have glaring flaws among their good points. I bring this up because it's relevant to how we look at Barack Obama. Obama is likeable, and he's cool, and his presidency is important to a lot of people--and his foreign policy team is crap. Total crap.

War in Libya with the opposition of Congress--are we playing at being Dick Nixon & Henry Kissinger now?
Trying to depose Assad via the ragtag Free Syrian Army, and probably contributing to the Syrian refugee crisis--instead of offering food aid when Syria was in a five-year drought and a killer famine, possibly thawing relations with Assad, and averting the refugee crisis.
And both of the above empowered "Islamic State." Lovely.
Assassinating Muslim preacher Anwar al-Awlaki. Then assassinating his teenage son. Obama flak-catcher then saying, "Should've had a better dad!" Class act. e_e
The "double tap" drone policy which attacks first responders after an assassination strike, not to mention that our foreign policy relies on assassination strikes at all.
America apparently completely blowing the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009? I don't know as much about this one.

All of this happened when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. I'm not giving John Kerry a free pass. I'm just saying, if she wants to run on this record, I'm not seeing enough positives to outweigh negatives. It's not really a great record on the merits.

Then she stood in front of a bunch of Democratic primary voters and invoked Henry Kissinger as someone who approved of her state department. Um, OK, you can take a compliment from a predecessor, but trumpeting that is odd. Do you even know where you are, lady? Republicans might accept that endorsement; I grew up Republican, and I think we sort of knew Kissinger was a supervillain, but he was our supervillain. In front of a bunch of liberal US Democrats? Uhhh, no.

Bernie isn't perfect. Drone attacks will probably continue under him in some form. But I think I'd rather take a chance on his foreign policy than on hers. Of course, that's easy to say, given that I tend to agree with him on other issues.

Tulsi Gabbard's endorsement of Bernie yesterday makes me think I'm onto something. Hillary Clinton was a bad Secretary of State who backed foolish policies that caused problems for other countries, including our European allies. And to no advantage to our country.

She has not earned the respect her resumé would imply. And at least Bernie isn't looking to Kissinger as a mentor and role model.

Just one of the reasons I am asking you to vote for Bernie Sanders in your state's Democratic primary.

foolsguinea @ 2016-02-28T11:18:00

2016-02-28T17:18:58Z

I let my feet get messed up. They have painful cracks in the soles. I'm not sure what's going on, but this is a new level of bad. So it's hard to walk very, very much, although I do still walk when I have to run errands.

And I've been blowing off the Bernie campaign when they text me, because I'm now used to sitting around and not going places. But I think I need to do something.

foolsguinea @ 2015-07-06T15:45:00

2015-07-06T20:45:53Z

Oh, yeah, I got the power fixed a week ago. A circuit breaker had corroded, and wasn't getting power to the whole house.

foolsguinea @ 2015-06-27T12:57:00

2015-06-27T17:57:28Z

Something's wrong with the wiring in my house, and I don't really know what happened.

I have working lights in a couple of rooms, and the power company say things are normal on their end, but--despite checking all the fuses--power to the upstairs lights and most of the outlets is off.

it has Sprung

2015-03-20T22:05:27Z

As someone born in late June (what is traditionally called "Midsummer" in perhaps now archaic English), I've always rolled my eyes at the tendency to claim that the equinoctes and solstices are the "beginnings" of the four seasons.

I was walking yesterday and saw a few trees not only budding but in bloom. Spring has sprung.

But today, outside just briefly, I could smell it for the first time. (Maybe because it was colder here yesterday.) I thought I could smell blooming clover, but I didn't see any. It may have been some other ground cover, something with blue flowers, but I didn't bend down to investigate. (I may later.)

So, yeah, "First Day of Spring" and it smells like it.

foolsguinea @ 2014-11-30T18:05:00

2014-12-01T00:05:21Z

Thanks to my relatives for putting up with my antisocial behavior this Thanksgiving. I was falling into obsessing on video games more than usual, I think.

And yes, I did try to run around with the little bit, but I really do have a swollen blood blister on my foot that made that hard. I hope I can dig out that knot in the next few days.

foolsguinea @ 2014-11-21T04:57:00

2014-11-21T10:57:24Z

Wow, has it been that long since I came on LJ?

I'm fine. I really didn't have "injuries" so much as scrapes and a scare.

I bought a bigger space heater, and I have used it at the empty house some, but I hope the electric bill isn't too outrageous.

It seems like I'm between one house with working plumbing and a bad furnace, and one with a probably working furnace and terribly bad plumbing, and neither has the gas on, and I ended up spending the money I planned to use to fix one or the other--on stupid stuff (and also on the cat, but mostly on other stuff; like a second computer that I apparently immediately messed up somehow).

Oh, well.

foolsguinea @ 2014-10-20T22:46:00

2014-10-21T03:46:34Z

So, the last time it rained enough to leak through the roof, I went into the attic and found a (the?) main leaky point was not where I'd placed the bucket before. I was able to reach up and touch it. A little bit of damaged wood shingle broke off. I moved some boards to be able to set the bucket under that spot, and then I stuffed a couple of HDPE grocery bags in the gap, and that seemed to slow it down a lot. I don't think as much water got down into the front room after that.

Just now I went up to attic (in sock feet, which may have been a good thing) to see if the bucket had much water in it, which I had neglected to do until now. Well, it had some. So I guess some water still got through. I stepped in the wrong place going to look (maybe I'd moved a board from there?) and my left foot went down and got caught in ceiling laths. I kind of hurt my right foot and scraped my inner thighs falling. I did extricate my foot, now I suppose I should clean the plaster up downstairs. And the bucket's not half full, so I'll empty it later when I feel more sure-footed.

Edit: Not bleeding, but this mark on one fingertip seems a little like a cut. I'm going to go home and get some Neosporin on it. But I didn't actually break that toe I was worried about at first. I'm fine. I'll be a little sore tomorrow.

Sorry about the (square foot or so? of) new plaster damage.

foolsguinea @ 2014-10-02T23:55:00

2014-10-03T04:55:45Z

I put a bucket in the attic to catch the leak up there, and got less water that way than I expected.

Icelandic Goats threatened

2014-09-06T01:03:45Z

http://modernfarmer.com/2014/08/saving-icelandic-goat/

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-the-icelandic-goat-from-extinction

foolsguinea @ 2014-09-05T19:23:00

2014-09-06T00:23:57Z

I haven't been doing a great deal of yardwork lately. It's been humid and sticky. I try to deal with some things, but I think one of my never-properly-planted apple trees in pots died these last few weeks.

Over the last year or so, I lost all of Grandma's hen-and-chickens, froze the Norfolk Island pine to death, and ... probably something else.

I have planted some little trees (or shrubs) where a tree died and was removed from Aunt Judy's parking. They had been in the pot with the apple tree, and took the scarce water from it. I'm not sure what they are, but I don't think they'll drop lots of stinky fruit in the street.

Just now a front came through. It's drizzling, and actually cooler outside than inside. I expect it'll be sticky tomorrow though.

recent links about Kurdistan and Turkey

2014-08-17T07:35:43Z

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/turkey-voting-out-founding-ideo-201481682423243421.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/iraq-turkey-refugees-asylum-201481484952900386.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/iraq-turkey-kurds-fight-islamic-state-201481581133776796.html

I haven't suddenly been hacked, really!

What tools should we use against firms that sabotage environmental law?

2014-05-26T01:20:40Z

There are times when, instead of "defending your interests," you should just concede you were wrong and desist from doing further harm. For manufacturers of neonicotinoids, this is one of those times. Because, while your lawyers may feel ethically bound to defend your corporate rights, can you imagine if they won?

Well, of course the lads at Bayer and Syngenta aren't doing that.

http://off-grid.info/blog/urgent-save-the-bees/

I signed a petition. I think there should also be more immediate repercussions felt directly by these companies. Shouldn't there? I'm not sure a boycott would do much, but it's a start.

There's a larger issue here: What tools should we use, as citizens and as states, against firms that sabotage environmental legislation for short-sighted reasons of "protecting corporate interests"?

Is it justifiable for private citizens to strike at them directly, whether through vandalism or violence? I think...yes, yes it is, in theory. The harm done by these corporations is greater and more lasting than the harm done by however much arson and terrorism it would take to dissuade them. It's an ugly, problematic answer, but it's not exactly false.

But there has to be a lawful way to make it clear that sabotaging all future agriculture is such a very bad thing that it doesn't matter what ethical corporate obligation you feel to protect your intellectual property. You need to stop.

Bayer needs to stop.

crossposted here, at least until it gets taken down for theoretically inciting violence: http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1865727.html

I'm not dead

2014-04-21T23:20:42Z

It was a rough winter.

Plumbing again

2014-01-10T20:53:34Z

Yesterday it was starting to thaw here, but mainly it was so overcast and humid that it was staying between 32° and 40° day and night. Yeah. I tried turning on the water at Judy's, but it seemed like the ground was still frozen, so I waited another day.

Today it was over 40°. I was apprehensive, as I still haven't fixed that leak at my own house, there's a good chance for leaks under Judy's, and one nightmare at a time, right? But I decided to look.

Oh, boy. In some ways, once I got past all the running around not finding the leak at my house, I think I got off easy. My leak is just above a floor, and while getting the broken piece off will be a bear, I can see where it is.

Judy's house has a bigger leak in a perhaps less accessible place. Best case scenario might be standing on a ladder after clearing out a bunch of stuff downstairs? I don't know yet. I haven't pinpointed the broken piece yet, but I've heard it spray very forcefully with the water on full (yeah, maybe shouldn't have started that way) and seen a stream with the water just barely on, so I know roughly where it is, but not what kind of leak it is, nor how accessible it is, yet.

It looks like it might even be the main intake to the upstairs bathroom? It's right near the outside east wall of the house, not far from the water heater and the bathtub, above the ground floor ceiling.

Getting back to the place I heard it (or remembered hearing it, once I turned the water off) involved moving a display case sort of thing, and when I moved it out of the way, I tipped it back to be able to walk past it, and apparently that was too much, or I wasn't quite gentle enough, and a great big curved piece of glass just shattered. So that was shocking.

So I have broken glass in the display case, and water on the floor, and after turning the water back on low and looking for the leak that way (because I was looking at the wrong pipes first time, and there are several there), and finding its general location, I just turned off the water and left. I have lots of towels sitting in the washer there, waiting to be washed after trying to mop up things at my house. I just kind of ran out of mopping will. Sorry.

Well, so much for washing my giant load of mopping-up towels there. Now what?

Plumbing

2014-01-10T00:30:08Z

Thawing after a hard freeze is so much fun! I had multiple leaks spring in my house, and water dripping through the walls and floor onto downstairs (where the heat wasn't) for I don't really know how long, but hours, even forming icicles at one point.

OK, I seem to have found the nightmare leak. It's not somewhere I have to stand on a ladder or fit in a crawlspace. It is between two other pipes, and I'm worried I'm not going to get it apart cleanly. So, for tonight, I could try putting an epoxy on it I don't really expect to hold, or I can just leave the water off again and see if I can get the broken piece off tomorrow.

Last night I thought I might get it off today...

Oh, well, at least it's only this bad.

I don't know yet if any pipes froze at Judy's house. I hope not.

foolsguinea @ 2014-01-06T16:22:00

2014-01-06T22:22:01Z

I am not dead. A little too much ice in the house's plumbing for comfort, knowing a thaw is a night away.

foolsguinea @ 2013-12-30T19:15:00

2013-12-31T01:17:42Z

My last entry (about "media bias") was just kind of crabby. I'm leaving it up, but seriously, skip that one. Yes, you.

The one about waking up and seeing colors, that was a good entry.

media bias from one crank's eyes

2013-12-31T01:04:36Z

A LiveJournal community was talking about "liberal media bias" on US television news. See, I think that reputation is overblown by a few cultural conservatives and pro-lifers. Here's a comment I left. I'm slanting it a little, sure, maybe a little hyperbole, but point out where you think I'm wrong:

http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1807490.html#t144167554

I have watched a lot of commercial television "news" in my life, and I think the sort who think it "liberal" are the sort who use "liberal" to mean, "of the sort of ostensibly law-abiding, apparently normal person who is nonetheless going to hell because he's not a member of my church and in perfect agreement with my rather strict and exclusionary religious biases." Ahem.

From a moderately leftish or centrist point of view, the talking heads on CBS can be pretty scarily authoritarian--Bob Schieffer is practically calling for Edward Snowden's head, which makes me wonder what he thought of Woodward and Bernstein--and "conservative" in a small-c way. And some of ABC's regulars are practically GOP partisans; ever watch "This Week"?

This is just my perception from actually watching them. One possible explanation is that, "everybody knows" that liberal bias is endemic, so each channel must massively "overcorrect" to keep from offending the ostensible majority of Americans who are "right-thinking conservatives." But the effect is massive bias toward white conservatives on most issues. This is despite the clear embrace of affirmative action in their own hiring, and their recent embrace of gay rights.

Statism? They're authoritarian, and seem to think the Rosenbergs got what they deserved, and Snowden deserves the same.
Culture? They encourage an idea of Santa Claus invented by Macy's or something. Ronald McDonald taught them how to eat.
Foreign policy? Iran is seen as always evil and untrustworthy, Cuba is apparently not being oppressed by the blockade (or is but deserves it), China stories must be treated with kid gloves to avoid offending either corporations that manufacture there or anti-Communists, and we "belong" in Afghanistan.
US political history? Reagan was the father of the country. Harry Truman, LBJ, FDR, heck, the entire labor movement and liberal consensus--may as well have never existed.
Politics? All horse races, and they hope "the right kind of people" win.
Social ills? The news guys don't say it, but the Hollywood fiction factory they pimp for will: The inner city is thought to be full of dumb poor niggers in hoodies who live lives of crime in gangs.

Liberal? Conservative? Try "establishment Americanist" with a side order of "loving Big Brother because it is impossible not to," and one notable cleavage in that some of them still want a white Anglo society and some are more accepting of latinos, some blacks, and south Asians. So small-c conservative, but too progressive for a fringe of religious and cultural extremists.