Dwain Northey (Gen X)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/naacp-travel-advisory-florida-says-state-hostile-to-black-americans/

Remember the good old days when there were only travel advisories and or ban for, what some would call, third word countries? Well now because of the vile vitriol of one Governor Ron DeSantis the state of Florida, a vacation destination, has received a travel advisory by the NAACP.

The wannabe future President has made the climate so venomous in Florida the anyone who is a part of any minority group does not feel safe in the state. Black, Brown, LGTBQ+, these are all groups that are under attack in the Sunshine State. The majority Republican legislature and their fearful leader has passed laws that make almost everything a jailable offence and the fact that the state has very loose gun laws and a stand your ground law makes it more dangerous than being a blonde female in central America.

Florida residents are able to carry concealed guns without a permit under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, means that anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida can carry a concealed gun in public without any training or background check. This with their ridiculous stand your ground law, ‘Florida’s “Stand-Your-Ground” law was passed in 2005. The law allows those who feel a reasonable threat of death or bodily injury to “meet force with force” rather than retreat. Similar “Castle Doctrine” laws assert that a person does not need to retreat if their home is attacked.’ Makes it really sketchy to go there.

This in top of the don’t say gay rule and the new trans ruling that just passed.

“Florida lawmakers have no shame. This discriminatory bill is extraordinarily desperate and extreme in a year full of extreme, discriminatory legislation. It is a cruel effort to stigmatize, marginalize and erase the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender youth. Let me be clear: gender-affirming care saves lives. Every mainstream American medical and mental health organization – representing millions of providers in the United States – call for age-appropriate, gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people.

“These politicians have no place inserting themselves in conversations between doctors, parents, and transgender youth about gender-affirming care. And at the same time that Florida lawmakers crow about protecting parental rights they make an extra-constitutional attempt to strip parents of – you guessed it! – their parental rights. The Human Rights Campaign strongly condemns this bill and will continue to fight for LGBTQ+ youth and their families who deserve better from their elected leaders.”

This law makes it possible for anyone to just accuse someone of gender affirming care to have their child taken from them this would include someone traveling from out of state. This alone justifies a travel ban to the Magic Kingdom for families.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned DeSantis holy war with Disney, the largest employer in the state. I really hope the Mouse eats this ass holes lunch.

Well that’s enough bitching, thanks again for suffering though my rant.

  • Random Shit

    Calvin and Hobbes Were Named After Historical Figures

    Calvin and Hobbes were both named afterheavyweight historical figures. Calvin was named after John Calvin, the 16th-century theologian and Protestant reformer who was a principal proponent of the idea of predestination. Hobbes, meanwhile, got his name from Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century philosopher who didn’t have the highest regard for human beings — he famously describedhuman life without governance as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Watterson was very deliberate in naming his two protagonists, with both monikers reflecting the more complex and philosophical side of Calvin and Hobbes. 

  • Why is this allowed?

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    An issue that really needs attention is the situation of having people put in place ahead of the election that are there to stop the certification of the results. This is simply having two or three people on the panel of electors to refuse to accept the results so that nothing can move forward. If there is truly a problem then it makes sense, like in a very close race to ask for a recount. However, when the results are huge and overwhelming in favor of one over the other this interference is there just to keep the count from being sent forward.
    This should be dealt with in a very expeditious way. If you have a greater than say 12% margin then no denier should be able to block the result without facing charges of obstruction. The people that are on these panels should be vetted so that any bias is removed before they are seated. Nice idea but maybe impossible to accomplish. Ideally people will be on that panel that will honorably fulfill the duties of the position. The fact that one man’s fragile ego gets in the way is just too damned bad. He should not be elected in the first place.
    Another issue that goes with this very type of confused disservice is the way people are sworn in for giving testimony or being sworn in for service jobs such as the President. If we are going to separate church and state why do we use a bible and swear with our hand on the bible and before god. It should be an oath to the Constitution and holding a copy of the Constitution or a copy of the Bill of Rights.
    This nation was not founded on any particular religious faith and claiming that we should all practice one faith or another is sheer lunacy. The founders were concerned that men believed in something bigger than themselves, as they were all Masons, but they did not say christian or jewish or any other faith.
    One of the indications for a christian faith belief is the fact that a bible is used to swear in for office or to testify in court and swear to God. Now if we had developed the habit of swearing to the Constitution while holding a copy of the Bill of Rights it might be different. That idea makes so much more sense as it really does convey the commitment to the union not to a deity. The white christian nationalist are working hard to make the country dance to the tune they want to play and if you do not then you face your fate.
    When it comes to this idea that somehow the color of one’s skin is a determination of hierarchy is easily disproved. The fact that one of the tactics of war is to rape and the power to own a slave is the power to rape, and the rights of a husband over his wife is to have sex, all of these actions can produce the ultimate result, another life. So we say one act was through LOVE and the others through LUST, either way an erection was necessary and all were achieved in the same manner. A stiff penis has no brain and yet more men are led by the actions of their penis than by their brains, and the penis works best in the dark and does not care what color is on the outside of the target, or victim

  • Presidential History


    Zachary Taylor never voted until his own presidential election.

    U.S. HISTORY

    In the 1848 U.S. presidential election, Major General Zachary Taylor — a political newcomer representing the Whig Party — faced off against Democratic Senator Lewis Cass. Taylor was so new to the world of politics that he had never even voted before his own presidential election. A lifelong military man and hero of the Mexican-American War, he was unexpectedly drafted as the Whig Party candidate in 1848 — a move that came as a surprise even to Taylor himself. He wasn’t present at the Whig National Convention, and didn’t find out about his nomination until weeks later, as he initially refused to pay postage on a letter sent his way alerting him of the news. After accepting the nomination, Taylor refused to actively campaign in the race, so supporters hit the trail on his behalf instead. 

    On Election Day, Taylor defeated Cass as well as former president and third-party candidate Martin Van Buren, earning the votes of 1,360,099 Americans en route to the presidency. Taylor’s time in office was brief, however; he served only 16 months before his untimely death in July 1850. His presidency was largely unmemorable, though he was a vocal supporter of California statehood, which became a reality two months after his death. Despite this minimal impact on the world of politics, Taylor holds the distinction of being the last person elected to the presidency who was unaffiliated with either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. His successor, Millard Fillmore, was also a member of the Whig Party, but Fillmore never actually won a presidential election.

  • Pooh’s Strange Day

    Honey made from rhododendrons can be hallucinogenic.

    The U.S. has more than 300 types of honey, but there’s one you won’t find among store shelves: mad honey. Upon visual inspection, mad honey offers up a clue that it’s a bit different. Created when bees feast almost exclusively on nectar and pollen from flowering rhododendron bushes, the natural sweetener often has a reddish hue. It also has a slightly bitter taste, though another unusual characteristic that appears shortly after consumption is what gives mad honey its name: It causes hallucinations. 

    Mad honey is a rarity, found mostly among high-altitude honeycombs in the mountains of Turkey and Nepal. Harvesting it can be dangerous — Himalayan giant honeybees tend to create hives among cliffs and rugged outcrops — and consumption can be, too. Pollen and nectar from several species of rhododendrons in these areas contain grayanotoxins, a poison that helps the plants ward off hungry herbivores. While small doses of grayanotoxins can cause euphoria and lightheadedness in humans, larger doses can cause hallucinations, vomiting, temporary paralysis, and even death.  

    Those sometimes-disastrous reactions haven’t stopped humans from seeking out the sticky substance, though. Some practitioners of folk medicine have long believed that small doses of the toxin-laced honey can be beneficial for human healing. Microdoses of mad honey have been used to treat high blood pressure, diabetes, and arthritis — don’t try this at home — but researchers are unsure how beneficial the stuff is for anyone other than its original creators (bees).

  • Are they really that Dumb?

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID! That is the real problem with some of the elected officials in this country. The Governor of Florida is near the top of the list. Refuses federal aid because there is a Democrat in the White House, and we can’t accept anything from them. The Speaker of the House refused to bring people back to appropriate funds to help with disaster relief. Members of Congress voting against funding of FEMA for ???????.
    YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!!!
    For those living in the affected areas of hurricane damage it is hoped that hopes and prayers
    are enough to fix your problems, just like that is the answer for when a school gets shot up. Oh well, the Republican Party and it’s leader are just too busy and too important to worry about your little problems. Time to grab those boot straps and start pulling, hopefully you will be lifted.
    This is another example of using others misfortune to support our position. In almost every case the party denying or blocking help is telling everyone it is someone else’s fault. The last 10 years have been a field day for blaming the democrats while the republicans continue to block positive actions with filibusters and any other thing they can do to delay or deny assistance.
    The Oregon voters put in a referendum that has now been put into law and 10 of the representatives in the state house can no longer be reelected. It is time to put that as a national standard. Don’t do your job or don’t show up when you are required to and you lose your right to reelection. This should also include any golden parachute that you thought you had. If that were the case just look at the number of people that would be going home with their tail between their legs. Somehow we must find a way to make the government work for us not just the rich or ultra entitled stupid.
    One of the issues that is so contentious is immigration. The immigrant that is sticking his nose in and petitioning to get laws changed is not a person of color, he is just a person with an ego to match DJT’s and a belief that he is somehow privileged because of money. Maybe we should send him home and let them put up with his crap.
    As stated before another of the problem people is running media platforms. He has been sued for lying about voting machines and yet he is still lying and keeps on making money. The effort to stop this person did not go far enough. Everything he has should have been the amount that was sought. We keep hearing where is the media, when it is time to report facts, and they are all trying to hold on to their jobs so there are no more Walter Cronkites to be had.

    

  • American Consolidation

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

     Monopolies are not good things to have. When one company or person has control of a number of similar businesses, such as newspapers, or farms or meat packing houses, or cell phone companies, it usually means that we, the public and the consumers, are getting screwed. 

         In the newspaper and media businesses there is one man or family that basically calls the shots on what kind of information is put forward, not only in the US but in England and Australia. The man behind this business octopus has attempted to take over the world without waging a war, at least not one he is involved in personally. Being rich means that he feels quite vindicated in telling the rest of us what he feels we should know, and guiding us, as we are all weak minded, down the path that he wants us to follow. 

         His major outlet for bull shit in the US is called Fox News. It is an entertainment channel not a news channel. They have told lies upon lies to further the organization’s aims.  It matters not what kind of crap they put out as long as it keeps the boss happy and the money rolling in. One of his favorite people is an easily led puppet politician named Trump. 

         That is another of the things that really creates confusion with many people, and that is when someone uses someone else and acts like they are truly a friend when in actual fact they can not tolerate the stupid bastard. This is seen time and time again, Trump is a classic bore, Clarence Thomas is greedy and stupid, Ted Cruz is an idiot like MTG, and yet the people that have the least use for these people profess to be their friends.

         The aforementioned gaggle of idiots run around doing nothing constructive and as much as possible to screw up our democracy. It is as if they have a monopoly on stupid and they are quite proud of it. Since these and other mental knockoffs that live in our government have been screwing things up since 2016 it makes a point of what have the rest of us been doing? Time to shut this disaster bound railroad down.

         It is time to reclaim the true America. This nation has had diversity since the very beginning and will continue to do so for as long as it exists. For those that have an unjustified feeling of superiority they will have to get over it or accept that it is a flaw in their caricature not a flaw in our nation. Everyone has flaws and everyone has good points, our collective society needs to accept or overlook the flaws and cultivate the good, that way we all benefit from our collective better and not suffer from our collective other.

        One of the things we can do to make things fair is to do away with big collective enterprises. They may be able to do things more grandly than smaller organizations, but they are also killing the competition and that is what produces innovation, and that is good for all of us.

  • He is an Inspiration

    Hang in there Jimmy
  • Gimme Gimme Gimme

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

       Tis the season of the donation. Every cause you can think of has a hand out asking for money. There are causes and causes but most of us do not have pockets that are so full that we can give it all away without it biting us in the ass. 

        One major issue is the damage done by the hurricane from Florida to North Carolina. So what is being done to help? The lies about help or no help based on political issues is as ridiculous as the idiot making the comments. Both candidates have visited the states that are in shambles and has it helped? 

        If they want to assist the victims why are they not putting their money into helping? The donation of one day’s take would make a big difference. If Elon can give 45 million to Trump why can he not give that much to help? Sounds like silly questions, but the simple fact is that actions speak louder than words. 

         At such times the way someone votes is far from a consideration of whether they get help or not. The storm, created in nature as all such storms are, doesn’t give a damn about your politics, the color of your skin or anything  else, it just kicks ass and lets it go at that.

         As to what happens next in regards to storms it is possible that another is going to happen, that would be normal. The response by the candidates, future leaders of the nation, should be that all that need the help get it. That help has to be dispensed equally based on need. Past performance tells us that one candidate is not capable of doing that as he withheld help from areas with major fires because they were not of his party. 

        Childish, vindictive behavior is not what is needed to become the leader of the United States. If nothing else can change your view of Donald J Trump his attitude and remarks about this devastation should. He may be very supportive of these states as they primarily vote republican but he is looking to get sent to prison for crimes in Georgia, so that state may not get a positive resolution. 

  • Photos by Michelle

  • Want to be happier?

    Crying can make you happier.

    Although crying to make yourself happier seems counterintuitive, shedding some tears can be one of the best ways to restore your emotional equilibrium. A 2014 study found that emotional crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates the body’s “rest and digest” actions. Crying also elevates levels of endorphins and oxytocin, which helps dull both emotional and physical pain. And the physical act of crying — taking in big gulps of air — cools the brain and helps regulate your mood. All in all, “having a good cry” can actually be good for you.

    Of course, whether crying makes you feel better can also be dependent on the situation. Tears are known to inspire interpersonal benefits by signaling to others that you’re in need of support. Unsurprisingly, studies have shown that people who receive support after crying are more likely to feel happier than if they’re shamed for crying. So while the physical act of crying can help our bodies return to an emotional homeostasis, it’s the support of friends and loved ones that makes those good feelings stick.