Friday, October 31, 2014

HAXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES

Normally this time of year someone has posted the original movie on witchcraft and devil worship.  

So, for those of you that have missed it: hear presented is HAXAN - originally published in 1922.
(the first thirteen minutes are narrated pictures and then the movie begins.)



The shadows on the moon tonight
will bring with it a ghostly fright;
For witches fly upon their brooms
and dance the night to demon's tunes;
But dawn will bring a newborn light
Provided you survive this night. 

Happy Halloween
the Ol'Buzzard

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

MAGIC





I have been as busy as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest this summer.  I won’t bore your with my to-do list, which included painting our house, relining our driveway with stone, putting away three cord of wood – plumbing – carpentry – rebuilding my snow blower etc.; but keeping physically busy has keep my computer usage (and blogging) to a minimum.  

This begs the question: do we blog because we have nothing better to do, or because we have something to say?   

I have an appointment this morning so I don’t have time to consider this.

But

A time for witches, a time for dancing, a time for nature, a time to celebrate the unknown and magical is upon us.  

So Mote It Be!


The Ol’Buzzard

Thursday, October 23, 2014

FORTY DAYS AND NIGHTS OF RAIN




So far we have had three days of torrential rain here in western Maine, but there are still thirty-seven more to go to match the Biblical downpour.   It makes me wonder if Pentecostals are beginning to sing and dance and talk in unknown tongues, and lining up for the Rapture.  

Did you ever really consider what cataclysmic event would be required to drown the entire earth in forty days and nights of rain?  

We have mountains here in western Maine just shy of four thousand feet in elevation, and that is small for many ranges.   It would have to rain one hundred feet a day during the forty days and nights in order to cover these mountains and drown the people of Rangeley, Maine.  That amounts to approximately four feet an hour.   At four feet am hour rainfall the atmosphere would be so heavy with water you would drown just by breathing.   In other words, God probably wasted thirty-nine days and twenty-three hours of rainfall during his rage against mankind. 



But, fundamentalist people continue to believe verbatim the story of Noah and all the other fables of the Bible.   These people are as dirt ignorant as they are enthusiastic for their religion.



However, they are also enthusiastic voters. 

the Ol'Buzzard

Tuesday, October 21, 2014




GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION IN MAINE

 


In two weeks Maine residents will go to the poles to vote for a governor to represent the state.  

 

Maine, like the rest of the country, has a loud Tea Party contingent that represents about thirty percent of the voting population.   

 


During the last gubernatorial election the Democratic vote was split between the Democrat and Independent candidates; resulting in the election of the Tea Party Republican Paul (Pepe’) LePage.  


 

Thus, Paul LePage squeaked by and Maine ended up with a moron (perfectly acceptable in the Republican Party) as governor.

 

This year the same scenario exist with the possibility of the same outcome.  
 
the Ol'Buzzard

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

WORKING PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN


THE POLICY OF A PARTY






THE PARTY'S MINIONS 



THE WORKING POOR



WHY?


I'm just asking.
I don't understand it.
the Ol'Buzzard


Sunday, October 12, 2014

ASSASSIN KITTENS - BEWARE







Too cute!
the Ol'Buzzard

PANDEMIC





I believe the public is being given false assurances about the danger of the spread of Ebola in Dallas

The Dallas hospital, the judge, the mayor, the Texas governor and the CDC all tell us that there is no need to worry about Ebola spreading to the general population.   

Of course, the hospital doesn't want multiple law suits, the judge and mayor don’t wish to see their city in panic, Governor Perry doesn't have a clue and the CDC would like to keep a cap on all information.  

In another life I worked as an EMT for two years at Alert Ambulance in Lewiston, Maine.   Because the local hospital was shorthanded, and to get experience, our EMTs often volunteered at the emergency room.  

Lewiston is a relatively small city compared to Dallas.   Our emergency room normally had from twenty to fifty people waiting treatment.   Kids with runny noses; vagrants wishing just to get off the street; people with cuts, broken bones and those actually sick sat in hardback chairs in the waiting room waiting their turn for triage and treatment. 

I am sure that the emergency room at the Dallas hospital serves a much larger population than the emergency room in Lewiston.   (Because Governor Perry turning down the Medicaid reimbursement money from the federal government many Texans still must seek treatment from hospital emergency rooms.

Now, let’s consider a series of questions concerning Mr. Duncan’s public exposure after developing contagious Ebola. 

·       What family members were exposed to Mr. Duncan after he developed a fever?
·       Family members did not have a car, so was Mr. Duncan first trip to the hospital via public transportation or taxi?  Did he exchange money?
·       At the emergency room Mr. Duncan had to sign in and fill out a medical history which is usually attached to a clip board with a communal pen.   How many other patients handled that clipboard and pen? 
·       Mr. Duncan sat in a chair in the waiting room and possibly drank from a water fountain.  Who sat next to him and who occupied the chair after Mr. Duncan was being seen?
·       The triage nurse took Mr. Duncan’s temperature and blood pressure before he was seen by a doctor or physician’s assistant.   Did he or she check Mr. Duncan’s throat using a wooden paddle; and did he/she wear gloves?   How many people were later seen by that triage nurse and doctor, and checked with the same equipment?
·       How did Mr. Duncan return home?
·       While infectious, did Mr. Duncan eat at restaurants or fast food eateries?   If so, did money exchange hands and was silverware or drinking cups involved?
·       While at home did Mr. Duncan kiss or have sex with his fiancé; share food with his family or hold the children?
·       Did Mr. Duncan interact with any of the neighbors?
·       When the ambulance crew came did they perform a stick (insert an IV – often a normal procedure?)   What other interactions did the EMTs have with Mr. Duncan?   How many other people were served by that ambulance and that crew on that day?
·       At the hospital admission – before he had been diagnosed with Ebola – how many nurses, patients and doctors had contact with Mr. Duncan?  
·       When blood and urine was drawn was the hospital lab alerted that they were dealing with possible infectious Ebola fluids?
 
How many hundreds of people may have had contact with this infectious Ebola victim, and returned to their families and work environment, or traveled to other communities, unknowingly carrying the deadly time bomb of Ebola?   Only time will tell us.

I believe these are answer the public has a right to know.  Being told not to worry because protocols were, and are being followed is an attempt, for whatever reason, to dumb down the actual danger posed by the outbreak of this disease. 

the Ol’Buzzard



Wednesday, October 8, 2014

DNA – YOUR ROOTS – DARWANIAN EVOLUTION





One of the newest and popular programs on PBS follows the genealogy of celebrities – recently Stephen King.

Not long ago my cousin applied to a commercial DNA service to determine her family roots – her countries of origin.    To me (especially since I have no idea of my paternal line,) the idea of following my ‘roots’ means virtually nothing. 

I have always considered the whole process of genealogy research an exercise in vanity.  Our blood lines, are in fact, counted exponentially – doubling with each prior generation; so the idea of following only one line back to a patriarch/matriarch is like picking one number at bingo.  

It is nice to know that my great-great grandfather from Kentucky served in the Union Army and died at Shiloh.  But the fact is, there were eight great-great grandfathers four generations back and I have no idea who, or what the other seven were doing. 

Going back ten generations would produce 1,024 grandparents equally sharing my DNA – 512 tenth generation grandfathers and 512 grandmothers.  

Twenty generations back my and your predecessors numbered 1,046,016 (one million, forty-six thousand and sixteen.)   We share equal DNA from our blood line in that generation – no one outranks another.  It makes you wonder what the world population was twenty generations ago, and to what percentage of that world we would show a direct linage?

And then there is the DNA test.    I had a blood transfusion after a car accident.   I wonder how that effects my DNA – another whole set of unknown line?

At what point are we all kin?


the Ol’Buzzard

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

A TIME FOR WITCHES

My wife, who I am sure is a witch, decorates for Halloween.

(sorry I have a new computer with Windows 8.1 and I don't know how to resize the pics - so they may take longer to download)


















BOO!

the Ol'Buzzard

WE LOVE THE FALL AND MY AND THE SEASON OF WITCHES - HALLOWEEN

  Fall is a beautiful time in western Maine.

The road to our house


Our house

Maine Color


The view from our back yard



Our winter wood supply


WE CAN’T AFFORD UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!




Determining how to allocate our federal budget is a difficult dilemma that Congress must wrestle with each year.   How to fund all the necessary request for expenditures, I am sure, keep our elected representatives up at night.   They must balance the need to cut taxes on the job creators, pay farmers not to grow crops, supplement oil companies, send millions to foreign governments and then split what is left over between improvements on homeland infrastructure and as handouts to people who don’t want to work.  

Of course that is all after funding our military with an amount larger than the next ten militarized countries combined.  

But we can be properly proud of our newest military weapon - the F-35 Money Pit, also known as the F-35 Stealth Warplane. 



 The research and development of the F-35 has so far cost $400,000,000,000 (four hundred billion dollars – more than double the initial cost estimate,)  The aircraft are turning out at a price of $100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars) each; and it is estimate that by 2035 (according to Popular Mechanics) there will be at least 3000 flying worldwide.

It is something else to be proud of that the US pays Lockheed Martin for the research and development of an aircraft that Lockheed Martin can then sale to other foreign governments – spreading the technology around the world. 

Of course we must justify this expenditure in order to be able to carry out stealth air wars across the world.   We obviously need this aircraft to protect our homeland – because if we don’t attack them over there we will have to fight them over here; or mushroom clouds or some such… that is if some deranged nation decided to attack the country that has stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire world.    

It makes you feel sorry for Canada, doesn’t it?

the Ol’Buzzard