Only a click away from the “Big Picture”

Sadly, one of the best in the world of journalism, Mr. Bob Herbert, has gone off to do some other things. The link below will take you to his “goodbye” column from Friday’s edition of the New York Times, this is highly recommended reading no matter what your political affiliation may be.

CLICK THIS

I’ve heard the phrase “read it and weep” a lot over the years, and I’m certain that reading this will take you on a short tour of what that really means to people in the U.S.A. capable of thinking.

We as a country are screwed that absolutely any one can see it.

Typical visual consultant?

And now that true level of just how screwed we are is coming into clear view as one layer at a time is peeled away onion style, and the rancid smelling inner view gets worse by the minute.

The Layer and the Layee?

The latest layer? Do a little research on the employment history of Mr. Jeffrey Immelt, that smiling CEO shown above who is the leader of a company that paid no taxes last year, and  that’s on over five billion dollars of profits in the U. S. alone. Also note that in fact this company claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion dollars. Do you still have any doubt that the fix is in for those with a good lobbyist and a close connection to the political world?

And his corporation? If you said GEE WHIZ, you’ve gone a few letters past it.

All Hail The New Boss, Barack W. Obama!

Come meet the new boss, same as the old boss…..

Welcome to Obama’s third act now taking place in a deja-vu like Libya, a place that may soon be available for rent as a glow in the dark parking lot. This is the action where Mo-Mo-Mo Gadaffi discovers, as did Saddam Hussain, that having a vast accumulation of oil under your feet can be a double edged sword, perhaps a sharp one that’s held by that famous French lover guy, Nicolas Sarkozy, and it seems it’s now swinging in the opposite direction. Maybe there was an error in the translation from the original French, and they meant to say Sarkozy was “Well Swung”?

“MoMo, you’re my older brother… and I love you…

And as for that sculpture like thing in the background? One might use the word prophetic… or simply call it a mid-eastern style tribute to fisting?

More to follow as the headlines come in, stay tuned for updates during the day……

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of my own) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as always, success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan.

Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below this advisory, I don’t get to choose them and even more sadly, I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff…..  

P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. I AM MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN MY EFFORT TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. I BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A ‘FAIR USE’ OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML.  IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND ‘FAIR USE’, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.  

 

Is It A Crime To Kill A Corporation Yet?

In the distant future, what do you suppose will be remembered as being the ultimate “slippery slope” moment of our time? In my humble opinion that would likely be the day that the federal supreme court stepped into what should have been the state’s decision in Florida, and elected (or more correctly, appointed) George W. Bush to become the president of the United States of America. Oh to have been a fly on the bedroom wall when Bush was woken up from his alcohol and/or drug induced sleep with that news, “What! Are you shitting me? Looks like our old Poppin’ Fresh pig boy Rove was spot on the money, and now we’re in the money, big time”.

Some may state more correctly that he was to become the worst_president_ever of the United States of America, but that’s fodder for another posting, and off point for what our real problem is.

Now we find that with the humorously titled “Citizens United” decision the more or less same supreme court has somehow agreed to give corporations the rights of personhood, one has to wonder if that in the future it will be considered a federal crime to kill off a corporation, in cold blood or otherwise? And since corporations are made up of money and not flesh and blood, would this type of crime be tried as a Capital offense, or a Capitol offense?

The shot heard around the bank…..

Which begs the question, will lobbyists that pander on behalf of those (unbirthed but now) human victims be able to be called on to serve as expert witnesses for the prosecution? I’m sure that if the supreme court can give a corporation the right to be considered a human, can the gift of that same right for lobbyists, the slime who are at best usually considered to be sub-human, be far behind? At first glance they appear to be nearly regular humans, and their inner reptile will only show up when they feel they’re in danger.

More Human Than Most Lobbyists?

Actually, the usage of that word “somehow” a few paragraphs above is purely rhetorical, because as it always ends up, you only have to pursue the age-old “follow the money” method to find the answer to any of those who / why / where / when question.

One of the more obvious money trails will lead you directly to that pair of suspects who have funded the, and please note that I’m being generous here, morons who have chosen to be called the Tea Party, when consider where the funding for it comes, the term Koch Sucker Party would be a more accurate assessment.

That brings to mind a line from Wm. Shakespeare who perhaps addressed this very question when he said “First we kill all the lobbyists”, or at least it was something like that. O.k., maybe that was about lawyers, similar to but not the same as lobbyists in that you can track the activity of some lawyers by a scan of their laugh inducing “billable hours”.

So, the question to probe into today is, would this event be legally known as Manslaughter, or in an ironic turn on words, Corpse-slaughter?

Oh yeah, I heard a short but really funny joke today, here it is:

The only way that a woman will be able to keep the right to have an abortion is if she was to have her uterus legally become incorporated, since at that point because it was a corporation, the government couldn’t try to interfere with what she did with it as long as she was named the C.E.O.

Are you laughing yet?

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of mine) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as everyone knows, success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan.

Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below, I don’t get to choose them and (sadly) I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff…..  

P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. I AM MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN MY EFFORT TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. I BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A ‘FAIR USE’ OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML.  IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND ‘FAIR USE’, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.  

Watching a 21st Century “China Syndrome”

It’s often been said that real estate values are based on just three things, and they are location, location, and (you guessed it), location.

Given that, which way do you suppose the property value will go on the coast of Uruguay?

After doing a simple Google search for a method to find which place is on the opposite side of the earth from any given point, I found the Map Tunneling Tool. You can get it at the link given below, but please note that I have no connection, financial or otherwise, with this site and not responsible for your usage. So far it seems benign, with no spam or cookies even.

Link

For a test run to try out the cross hair style aiming mechanism, let’s say we take a look at a location that according to news stories may well soon be a glow in the dark hole in the ground. As of today, this location serves as the home of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor, but things change. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but for now it’s still in North Eastern Japan, and here’s what I found on the other side of the world from it:

Let the Boehner cross hairs be your guide!

By using this Boehner , which is what I’ve taken to call any simple tool, we can find that if the meltdown were to continue at its present pace inside those reactors in Japan, the well known “China Syndrome” might take place and end up near Uruguay. This is a theory that says that such an event could burn a hole clean through the globe, and if that happens, this one should take place a bit to the right of South America, several hundred miles off of the coast. Practical logic suggests that it would only go half way through until it hit the molten core of our planet, but that doesn’t leave as much room to base this supposition on.

Unlike Fox News, I’m allowed to talk about the ‘Nuke industry and its inherent safety problems, this is a topic that the Koch Controlled news droids are not allowed to speak of aloud by their power company owning corporate overlords. Because of this, if you plan to have friends over to watch it all go down (or up) on t.v. and you decide that you’ll all take a drink every time a news reader puppet on Faux News says the words reactor or meltdown, I’m guessing you won’t need a designated driver.

Ladas And Triumphs And Bricklins Oh My!

In the weeks following its inception, I was happy to find that this little blog of mine was often getting as many as 20 to 30 hits a day. Over the next few years I watched in amazement as it gradually rose to well over 150 views a day (and 1,126 hits on Wednesday October 8, because of one extremely politically driven column), on occasion gathering up to over 6,000 unique individual hits a month.

I was sure that this growing following I had was due to the brilliance I was showing as a writer, a mistake that lasted until I was suddenly bitch-slapped back to reality with the discovery of a WordPress page that showed my “Site Stats”. This page lists the search words people had used to find BoskoLives, and also which websites referred readers to the site from my signature link I had posted on other blogs or web pages, and even how individuals using tags found photos I’ve included to track their way back to here, etc…

And the dual winners of bringing the most viewers of my blog? Photos and many well earned subsequent jokes that I had posted about a car, an obscure shit-box of a car that was made in Eastern Europe and then brought to this country by a Mr. Malcolm Bricklin, creator of the Bricklin SV-1 Gull Wing Coupe (more about that a few paragraphs later). This hard top lawn mower was called the “Yugo”, and truth be told it was also often referred to as a Fiat made in the Slavic region and as a Lada made and sold in many of the  former USSR satellites, so it’s basically a Soviet made Fiat 850 clone.

Here’s a link to another Yugo related blog, of sorts.

Faster than your average Yugo

The Yugo shared the credit for the largest percentage of clicks on my site with another car that was brought in to the U.S., about 9,000 of them were imported from Northern Ireland by the former GM exec John Z. DeLorean. You might know it as the car that was used in the  “Back To The Future” films to enable Marty McFly to go, eh, back to the future, it’s the one that shares his name. And by his name, I mean the DeLorean part, although I suppose if he had called the car a “John” it may have been more appropriate once you consider how many people who bought one considered it to be related to taking a dump.

John Z. astride his DeLorean

There’s an odd connection to all this. It turns out that Malcolm Bricklin had years earlier imported a car from Canada called (in an ego driven naming method later to be emulated by DeLorean) the Bricklin, which also featured a Gull-Wing design that was thought by some to later be the basis for the design of of the DeLorean car. Malcolm Bricklin was the (a.) builder, (b.) exporter to the U.S., (c.) only importer in the U.S., and (d.) end seller of the cars, so long story short he sold the cars to himself and somehow it took the government of Canada almost three years to figure out that none of the moneys generated by those sales were coming back to Canada before they shut his operation down.

Bricklin, fully engorged!

When in truth, both were mere derivatives of the stunning Mercedes 300 SL of the 1950’s.

Strangely, it was not so loved in France, keep reading

A non-gull wing version of that car competed at Le Mans, and was used to great effect by Pierre Eugène Alfred Bouillin in a strong effort to thin the race car fan herd. Msr. Bouillin was a French race car driver who changed his name to Pierre LeVegh shortly before he careened the factory roadster version of the SL into the crowds at Le Mans in 1955, killing (some say) 83 fans. This was a fact of minor importance since many of them were French. The lucky ones in the crowd were killed quickly, the less fortunate were slowly sauteed or deep fried (possible origination of the term “French Fry”?) as the result of the close proximity of high octane fuel and magnesium in the Merc, which can (and did) produce a huge fireball, this was seldom a good emergency situation combination as was earlier found by pilots of the World War II Mitsubishi Zero aircraft (Yep, the same company that now import their cars, televisions, and various electronics to the U.S.). To add to the dilemma of those “Devine Wind” pilots, the canopy was bolted shut from the outside to deter them from having 2nd thoughts. Adding insult to injury, the wheels fell off upon take off, leaving the bottom of the aircraft separated from potential ground contact by the externally attached bomb load, so unless a pilot was highly adept in making a skid landing upside down……

Ah, but I digress……

The final finish line for “Lucky Pierre” and the #19 car

Full disclosure? Before it was lost in my 1st divorce, I once was the proud owner of a Bricklin gull wing coupe. I recall that it was #132  of the first 142, with an AMC 360 c.i. V-8 Matador engine, the subsequent few thousand made after mine were powered by a Ford 351 c.i. (Windsor or Cleveland?) V8.

California Bricklin Owners Club T-Shirt, my last tangible connection to the car

And even on those occasional (I didn’t live in Arizona) rainy days when it always doused me with water when I opened the doors, I still miss it.

And a fan-boy’s wet dream, updated for the 21st Century

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of mine) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but because success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan, blame will not be so attributed. 

Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below, I don’t choose them and (sadly) I don’t make a penny off any of them.

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. I AM MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN MY EFFORT TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. I BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A ‘FAIR USE’ OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML.  IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND ‘FAIR USE’, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. 

Can anyone name the exact moment?

Just curious, can any of my readers (yeah, either of you) name the exact moment that Obama rolled over, sold out, caved in, whatever term that you want to use. Or was it simply attrition, the slow downward spiral that starts with grand plans and ends with the tape marked body image seen on the floor in those countless cop t.v. shows that we have now?

Or was he really ever the guy that I and so many others thought he was and had voted for? You know, the guy that managed to get past my very well developed military grade bullshit detector.

Yesterday, I read in the L.A. Times that a key British official, one Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, had decided that he was “inclined” (gotta love those Brit’s and their choice of words) to accept News Corp.’s plan to become the Engulf & Devour of the Empires “British Sky Broadcasting” (Google BskyB).  I suppose that is going to be the “Beeb” of the future, so that prince among men, Rupert the aging Murdoch seems to have scored again on his drive for world dominance as a king maker.

So there’s their defining moment exemplified as clear as possible for the world to see. Do you think that someone will ever manage to get Jeremy Hunt to say what the final offer was that tipped his vote? Was it one of really big money and / or a position of power in the coming empire, after all, News Corp had 12.7 Billion U.S. dollars invested already, what’s few more million Euros or so? Or more likely, did they Godfather style finally make him an offer he couldn’t refuse?

Going back to our own Barry Hussain here in the U.S., what was his price? Did they have something on him more than that stupid bogus citizenship crap, something that would end his happy family life and have Michelle push him out the door and under a bus? Before he was blowing dust farts, J. Edgar Hoover was famous for using his FBI resources to get stuff on people, and then have them bow to him or kiss the hem of his skirt. Don’t get that reference? Do some Google on that original dancing queen and the term “cross dressing” when you get a chance.

Well, it sure seemed that Barack had it going on and was going to fix that which needed fixing without giving away the farm. Now the chickens will have to find somewhere else to roost.

I’m just asking, perhaps someone can answer?

Lenny Bruce Nailed It First, Years Ago….

Lenny Bruce (google him) had a quote that was something like “In the halls of justice, the only  justice is in the halls”. I have to say “believe” as I’m going straight from what’s left of my memory. Yesterday, I had my day in court and managed to get released from being part of a jury of 12 people that weren’t smart enough to get out of it, and now I’m free to continue my search for paying work in a film industry that’s rapidly circulating the bowl on its way to the sewer.

Here’s another Lenny Bruce quote worthy of your consideration:

“Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.”

But I digress, back to the “Halls of Justice”. I had wanted to pull off an idea that I had, where my answer to the question “Can you be impartial, non-prejudiced by your past experiences” that I expected was going to be asked of me by the judge, the prosecutor, or the attorney representing the defendant was going to be “Is the defendant white?”.

As it turned out, I (prospective juror #6) didn’t have to drop down to that level, I was given an elective dismissal by the prosecutor who I have to assume, because I asked a lot of pointed questions, may have felt that I wasn’t going to be an easy sell on the guilt of his prime target, one smarmy looking bastard, a.k.a., “the defendant”.

As it turns out, the prosecutor was wrong, I would have sent this shit for brains off to be the wife of some lucky prisoner for the next 20 to 30 years, but in the words of Paul Simon, “who am I to spit against the wind?”. So I packed up my tent and quickly got my fat white ass out of the building in possession of a pass that will give me at least a year before I have to deal with this again.

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of my own) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as always, success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan.

Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below this advisory, I don’t get to choose them and even more sadly, I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff…..  

P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. I AM MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN MY EFFORT TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. I BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A ‘FAIR USE’ OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML.  IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND ‘FAIR USE’, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.