THE GULLIBILITY OF THE HUMAN RACE

We can declare ourselves an intelligent species only because there is no other species to dispute us.

 Exceptional savants produce art and music and architecture that we consider evidence of higher-level thinking skills.   Our scientists have taken us into new frontiers, and we are living in a world of advanced technology, as compared to only fifty tears ago.

   

But then we can tune into a Trump rally, or see white supremacist marching with tiki-torches, or the glazed look of people attending televangelist mega-churches and we must conclude that, on the whole, we are a pretty mediocre species and prone to the highest level of gullibility.

Without any proof or logical analyses, people choose to believe in gods and angles and devils and heaven and hell and ghost and vampires and werewolves and fairies and sprites and witches and shapeshifters and alien abductions  ….

There are those who have historically taken advantage of our gullibility.    P.T. Barnum said ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’   He also said, you can never make a mistake by underestimating the intelligence of the human race.

The human race is not special.  We are here only by the dice-roll of evolution.   What we believe doesn’t matter, because we don’t matter.  Had our mother gotten up to pee and delayed our father’s ejaculation by a few minutes, a different sperm would have fertilized her egg and someone else would be here – or if she had finished with a blow job…

So, enjoy yourself.  Believe what you want to believe.   But the intelligence of the human race can be summed up in one simple statement:

Here - Hold my beer.

the Ol’Buzzard

MAN OF THE PRESENT

I don’t have a past.   That person of forty years ago, or fifty years ago is not me.  There is not one single molecule in my body that existed in my avatar.  I don’t think the same, I don’t have the same values, I don’t desire the same things; I see and interact with the world totally different as an eighty-year-old man.  

I am me – today – that is who I am.

Who was that guy?   He’s not me!

the Ol’Buzzard

"One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag Archipelago 

NOT ANOTHER CHICKEN JOKE.... RECIPE

Back during the late 50’s and early 60’s adding Campbell mushroom soup to a recipe was every housewife’s idea of gourmet cooking.

 Then it fell out of style

Here is my excellent recipe for slow cooked chicken thighs and white gravy

1.    Add two cans of mushroom soup to the slow cooker

2.    One cup of chopped celery

3.    One cup of sliced fresh mushrooms

4.    One garlic clove sliced thin and distributed

5.    Lightly salt and pepper boneless and skinless chicken thighs

6.    Liberally cote top side of thighs with Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Magic

7.    Set slow cooker on low for eight hours, but kick it to high for the last hour before you eat. 

(We usually put this together about noon time- to eat around seven. 

I serve this with the boxed Bell dressing and rice.   The gravy is delicious.

the Ol’Buzzard

THE LATEST CONSPIRACY THEORY

Nut case Republican Christopher Smith of New Jersey has demanded to know, in an amendment to a defense bill, if government agencies created lime disease as a bio-weapon, and if the Department of Defense released lime disease ticks outside of their laboratories in the U.S. 

And it is not just Republican politicians.

1.4 million people have signed up via Facebook to storm Area 51 in Nevada, and get the truth on alien space craft and little green men.  The event’s motto is:

 Let’s see them aliens.

I think the motto says it all

Why is it always little green men?

the Ol’Buzzard

HEATING WITH FIREWOOD

I use about three cord of firewood a year as alternative heating for our house.

One cord delivered cut and split.   A couple of dozen pieces too large and I had to further split them.

 It is cheaper that heating oil, but labor intensive.  I can’t have my wood dumped beside my woodshed because the truck would have to cross my septic drain field; so, the wood is dumped beside my house and I have to move it in wheelbarrow loads to the wood shed where I cross stack it. 

The wood shed probably twenty-five yards away.

The wood has to be stacked carefully so as not to collapse.   The stack is not actually narrower at the top.  It is just the perspective of the camera.

 Come winter and I haul sled loads of wood from my woodshed to my wood storage by my back door. 

Back door wood storage.   The tarp on top will be dropped to keep the wood dry during winter.

Then, as needed, I carry the wood from there into back porch wood box; and finally, I feed the wood stove from the wood box every couple of hours to keep a nice fire going.

I know there will come a time when I will have to give this up; but heating with wood makes me feel independent of society and the grid, and somehow more attached to nature and the earth.

the Ol'Buzzard

KAMALA CAN BEAT TRUMP

The only one running, in my estimation, that can stand toe to toe with Trump and have him whimpering, is Kamala Harris.   Forget all the policy bullshit – if we want to beat Trump, we need a cage fighter, and Harris is that. 

Warren would be a good President, but she doesn’t have that attack attitude that is needed to cower the Orangutan. 

 

Kamala is black, she is a woman, and she is definitely smarter than Trump and every bit as aggressive: everything he is afraid of. 

And she would not hesitate to neuter him.

Fuck policies.  Beat Trump should be our focus.

the Ol’Buzzard

JOE HAS GOT TO GO!

In an interview with Mika Brzezinski, Joe Biden was asked what he would do if Donald Trump attacked him as being too old. 

His answer was:  I’d tell him to come on, come on, let’s do push-ups.

  

What kind of fucking answer was that?

No one is impressed by a seventy-plus-year-old man challenging another seventy-plus old man to a push up contest.

Joe froze on the stage when confronted by Kamala Harris – and this is his plan for answering an attack by Trump during a debate?   Let's do push-ups.

Joe and Bernie both need to hang it up.  I am an octogenarian, and I’m telling you, you start to lose it when you hit seventy.   I am physically viable for my age, but I am not at the top of my game as I was twenty or more years ago – and neither are they.

 

I will support who ever ends up as the Democrat nominee; but our focus should be nominating someone who can eviscerate Trump during a debate.  Joe Biden is not up to it.

the Ol’Buzzard  

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE ?

Most empires last about two hundred and fifty years, and we are at our sell-by date.

We were an innovative country during the twentieth-century; but we have become stagnated.    Capitalism served us well for a hundred years as industries were created and wealth was distributed.  A company, a job and work were the center of most family’s lives.

But now Capitalism has stagnated.   Oil and Coal companies, having powerful influence with politicians, are blocking the research and development of clean and renewable energy into the future.   Movement into high speed rail is discouraged by trucking interest and truck manufacturers.  Even though we have a high-tech brain trust here in the U.S, all our techno-gadgets are being produced and assembled in China in order to increase profit margins, which in effect is transferring the technology to the Chinese.    Our power grids are primitive and vulnerable, our roads and infrastructure are underfunded, as we divert our resources into military spending, which enriches the military industrial complex. 

 

Billionaires don’t want to see changes to the things that have traditionally made them rich, so they attempt to anchor us into an economy of the past.

 

The working middle class had been left behind because the majority of wealth has been diverted to the billionaires at the top of the capitalist food chain.   This is capitalism gone amok.

Meanwhile China is building roads across Africa.  They are leaders in the production of solar energy; they are leaders in the development of Artificial Intelligence; they are leaders in the research on drones; and let’s not forget they hold the lien on the majority the U.S. debt.

China is not a role model, but it is impossible to not recognize that they are moving ahead; while we are a country still trying to exist in the twentieth century.

Perhaps I am wrong.  

the Ol’Buzzard

SLOW COOKING PORK CHOPS

If you go on YouTube there are a thousand ways to cook pork chops.  Here is an easy way:  Liberally sprinkle Paul Prudhomme’s Meat Magic on one side of four pork chops.  Pour about one inch of applesauce into the bottom of the slow cooker.   Place in the Pork chops and put a large dollop of applesauce on each chop.

  

I set my slow cooker on low for eight hours, as I was going to be away from the house.  After I returned home early, I increased the setting to high for the last three hours.

The chops were absolutely delicious.  I plated the chops with Bell Seasoning dressing, a broccoli salad and sliced tomatoes.

  

I don’t like to cook vegetables with meat in the slow cooker because everything comes out tasting the same.   If I am having vegetables with slow cooked meat, I usually steam them separately.

 

I really like the Paul Prudhomme spices.   That is pretty much all I use on meat, fish or poultry.   I don’t advertise anything; but I share things I find I like.

The broccoli salad is simply broccoli florets, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts and a dressing made of equal scoops of mayonnaise and sour cream (about two tablespoons each) and a small amount of apple cider vinegar (just enough to make the salad dressing slightly tangy – I don’t measure – I just do it to taste.   Careful though, it is easy to over-do the vinegar.)

Mix and serve.

 

Just thought I would share

the Ol’Buzzard

A TRIP ON THE BENNIE ALICE

If you ever come to Maine, there is a trip worth taking.  It is a boat trip out to Cabbage Island on the Bennie Alice.  

My wife and I and another couple took the trip Wednesday.  We shopped at all the tourist shops in Boothbay Harbor before boarding the Bennie Alice at 12:00 (Noon.) 

The trip out took one hour, viewing the numerous islands and three light houses.  

Once on the Island we were treated to a great Lobster shore dinner.

Fresh lobsters and clams being steamed in seaweed

You walk down to the cooking area to pick up your plate.  there are picnic tables outdoors and indoors seating.

We spent about an hour after eating, exploring the small Island, before boarding the boat for the trip back to Boothbay Harbor.   

Two Maine Coon Cats on the Island.  Doing what Maine Coon Cats do best.   
A big boy, about twenty pounds.

The trip back only took thirty minutes. 

The weather was great: low eighties and overcast with a cool sea breeze.  

The Ol'Buzzard

WE ARE HEADED TOWARD ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

BUT REMEMBER, THIS IS WHERE WE CAME FROM

These are the people we vote for!

This is the reflection of our values?

This is who we are?

Doesn't that make you feel good?

the Ol'Buzzard 

FLY YOUR FLAGS AT HALF-MAST

 

 FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND BARRELS OF BOURBON WHISKEY  BURNED UP IN A JIM BEAM WAREHOUSE FIRE IN KENTUCKY

I grew up on Kentucky Bourbon. 

the Ol'Buzzard