THE INMATES ARE IN CHARGE OF THE ASYLUM

 

 

 

A QAnon father killed his two children because they had ‘serpent DNA.’

 

Two years into a virus pandemic people are packing cruise ships, defying mask mandates and refusing vaccinations.

 

School shootings, mass murders and killings by Police are considered a normal everyday occurrence.

 

The Republican Party has become an extension of QAnon, and Marjorie Taylor Green is in charge.

 

People are camping in Dallas Texas waiting for the return of JFK from the dead, to become Trump’s running mate in 2024.

 

One out of every four people believe that Trump won the 2020 election.

 

Right wing media claim that Antifa, the FBI and Democrat sympathizers stormed the Capital on January 6.

 

This all started when Barack Obama ran for President and the Koch brothers organized and funded a march on Washington, calling it The Tea Party.  The Tea Party was made up the most ignorant, poorly educated and easily influenced base of the Republican Party.

 These people had never had a voice before to espouse their ignorance.  But, once this group found they had a voice, as crazy and conspiratorial as it was, the Republicans found they couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle.   Over the period of twelve years this group has metastasized into militia groups, white supremacist and QAnon, and have taken over the Republican Party.   Trump was not the cause of the breakdown of American democracy that resulted in the anarchy of an attack on the American Capital, he just exploited the rabble to become their titular Leader.   

 

So here we are; living next door to an asylum run by the inmates. 

 

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 

 

WISHING YOU PEACE IN THE COMING YEAR

 

the Ol'Buzzard

YELLIOWDOG GRANNY WHERE ARE YOUR?

 ?

The Ol'Buzzard

RUSSIA AND UKRAINE; A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE OR A CAPICULATION.

 

When you want to know what is actually happening in a country, it is good to have input from people who live there.   It puts a face to the abstraction.  

I highly recommend following the Blog Fodder's blog.   He is a Canadian living in Ukraine.   

Here is the link: The Blog Fodder

I am afraid that because of war fatigue from our twenty-years in the Middle East, and because  of the insurrection of January 6 including the the threat Trump Republicans pose to our own democracy, and also dealing with the new virus strains, that the Biden White House may not be willing to confront Russia militarily if they invade Ukraine.  Ukraine is a democracy under threat of invasion from a rogue state.   

We should have never been in the Middle East; but this, Ukraine, is worth defending - militarily if necessary. 

the Ol'Buzzard

READ EUGENE ROBISON'S POST ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

 

About as definitive as anything I have found to portend that the climate is changing.

CLIMATE CHANGE

the Ol'Buzzard

DICKS IN SPACE

 

Little dick men compensate for their inequity by showing off with assault weapons.

But when you are the wealthiest man on earth with a little dick you do a dick pix into space. 

the Ol'Buzzard

PUTIN'S POSSIBLE ASSAULT ON UKRAIN FROM SOMEONE LIVING IN UKRAIN

 

If Putin invades Ukraine it will place the whole world in danger.

If you want to know what danger Putin poses to Ukraine, who better to listen to than a Canadian living in Ukraine 

Check out the Blog Fodder post.  This is one I recommend you should follow.

the Ol'Buzzard

THE MAINE GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO THE CORONAVIRUS

 

THE NEW NORM

 

The population of Franklin County Maine is 30,000.  We are a rural county in the western mountains.   Sixty-one percent of our population has been vaccinated.   One out of every ten people in our county have contracted the coronavirus and one out of every thousand have died.

 

The thirty-nine percent of people in the county that aren’t vaccinated are not going to get vaccinated – almost all Trump supporters.  That is just the realization of the who we are. 

 

Our governor has tried everything from giving away lottery tickets to vaccine mandates; but you can’t fix stupid.  

Vaccine mandate protest

Maine is still making vaccines readily available for anyone that wants them; but I think the attitude now is to open up the state and let the people who aren’t vaccinated, and aren’t going to get vaccinated, contract the damn virus and hopefully develop some degree of immunity as a result – and deal with it the best we can, by supporting the hospitals.

 

When you look at the New York Times Chart of cased for Franklin County Maine, you can see the dramatic increase of cased beginning in late August.  This corresponds with the opening of all schools for in-person learning.

Add to that Thanksgiving, now Christmas and New Years and this contraction level with hospitalization and deaths is going to be the new norm for a while. 

 

For my wife and I, it is stay home and stay isolated by choice – which is actually not a hardship for us; though we do miss eating at restaurants, which was our major vice. 

the Ol'Buzzard

 

The Build Back Better Bill and the Deficit

 Republicans and Joe Manchin are freaking out about the 1.4 trillion dollar cost of the Build Back Better Bill, but not blinking an eye at the 3/4 trillion dollar Military Budget.   

Spending on citizenry is not the problem.  It is cutting the government revenue by lowering taxes - and what we choose to spend on. 

The United States has a larger military budget than the next five major nations - combined!   

the Ol'Buzzard

REMINISCENT ABOUT THE GOOD OLD DAYS

 The Good-Ol-Days were only good old days for some people: white middle and upper class.   But there were some good old things about the Good-Ol-Days that eclipse today's society.

This blog piece from All The Good Names Were Taken is a must read - a reminiscent of a better time before the present insanity - a time before social media. 

the Ol'Buzzard

A ZOMBIE ATTACK ON THE CAPITAL KILLS DEMOCRAT LAWMAKERS.

 

 

One Democrat lawmaker survived today when a hoard of zombies attacked the U. S. Capitol.

 

The lawmakers had been debating whether the report of dead people voting was a real concern, or just a conspiracy theory being circulated by ex-President Donald Trump, Breitbart and Fox news.

 

Members of the Progressive Caucus died first, as they were in the back of the chamber drinking pumpkin lattes and organizing their resistance, claiming that the word zombie was a pejorative slur against Haitian Americans.   

 

Most of the chamber was discussing whether zombies, if they do exist, are protected as a religious exemption under the Constitution.  They were quickly overrun after ignoring the screams of their more liberal members in the rear.  

 

Centrist Democrats were the last to be eaten.  They were in committee investigating the need for an investigation to investigate the zombie claims.   They had planned to write a document of their findings that would declare definitively what everybody else already knew.  They were quickly overrun as most were too old and feeble to flee or offer resistance.

 

No Republicans were injured as they had departed the Capital an hour before the attack.

 

The only Democrat lawmaker to survive was Joe Manchin who departed earlier with the Republicans.

 

There are concerns in the Whitehouse that some members of the Republican Party may have had prior knowledge of the attack, or may have been involved in the planning of the zombie insurgency.

 

President Joe Biden released a statement saying that he feels assured that members of a bipartisan committee, consisting of Republican-friends-from-across-the-aisle and the only remaining Democrat, Joe Manchin, will resolve this issue in a bipartisan way.

 

There is no action expected from the Justice Department, as Merrick Garland seems to be afraid that a decision to investigate and prosecute dead people might be seen as partisan.  

 

This is up-to-the-minute news from the desk of the Ol’Buzzard.   We will attempt to keep you informed as events develop.

 

O’B

 

LIVING WITH DOGS AND CATS

 

 

Almost all my life, as far back as I can remember, I had dogs.  As a kid I had two hounds that would hunt rabbits.  As an adult I had German Shepherds.  A shepherd makes a great companion for an outdoors man. Mine would ride in the truck with me, ride in the boat with me, accompany me camping and walking in the woods.  Each, in their turn, was protective of home and family.

 

Living with dogs is like living with a very young child that adores you.  Dogs, are like people; some are smarter than others.  Shepherds are especially smart.  They are easily taught to sit, to stay and they are naturally protective of the family.   Shepherds make good police dogs, war dogs and cadaver dogs because of their wish to please their humans and they have basic intelligence.   Dogs are trainable, but they don’t problem solve.

 

We adopted our first cat when I was fifty-three years old.  It was a three-year-old Maine Coon Cat.  We were in Alaska teaching school and had to move into an old one room log cabin that had been vacant for a couple of decades.  The cabin was full of vermin, so on our next trip into Fairbanks we decided to get a cat.   Being a dog person, the cat had to train me.

 

Cats don’t love you like a dog.   Cats will live with you and they will tolerate you, and if you are good to them they may even like being with you - when they feel like it.   My first cat, Hobby, loved being with me, but on his terms.  There was a constant interaction as to who was alpha.  You don’t tell a can NO; because he will find that a challenge. If you try to correct a cat, he will turn his butt to you as if to say, ‘Fuck you.  Now go fill my food bowl and empty my potty.’   If you are a controlling person, you shouldn’t have a cat – the cat will be miserable and you won’t like the cat - get a dog.

 

Dogs are trainable; but cats are their own people. Cats can problem solve.  When we moved into our new house last year, we got new food bowls and water bowls for each of our cats.  We kept finding food nuggets floating in the younger, five-year-old, cat’s water bowl.  After watching her for a while I realized, that because of the color of the bowl, she couldn’t see the surface of the water when she wanted to drink, so she would push her food bowl over by her water bowl, pick up a piece or two of food with her paw, drop it in the water where it would float, and then she would drink.    This is problem solving.  Something dogs can’t do.    If you watch a cat that has its own autonomy, they constantly problem solve.

  

If you are willing to live with a cat and not try to control the cat, they will make a good companion.  But if you are not willing to respect a cat – you should get a dog.

Our old girl - ten years old

 

The problem solver - What do you mean I shouldn't be on the table?

I can fit in this bowl.

What's the big deal?   The bowl was empty.

Don't pay any attention to her.   She's a brat.

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

THE BEST FRYING PAN

 

 

I enjoy cooking.

 

I have gone through a number of frying pans during my life.  I find the quality stainless pans without a nonstick coating a pain in the ass to clean and foods like eggs more often than not will stick.

 

The nonstick pans I have used have performed ok for a while, then the nonstick starts to deteriorate – and there is the question of what chemicals are infusing into the food I cook.  These pans are usually some minimal gauge of aluminum and feel cheap.

 

One year ago I bought a Ballarini Cortina Granitum skillet at the local kitchen shop.    This pan feels substantial.  It has a rubber handle, the coating is ceramic and there is a green heat indicator dot that turns red when the skillet is at cooking temperature.   The skillet holds an even heat and is truly nonstick.    This is absolutely the best skillet I have ever owned. 

They say you can use metal utensils with the pan, but I don’t.  The pan is advertised to be able to cook dry, without any oils or butter; but I still lightly grease the pan before using.   Clean up is just a matter of wiping with a paper towel and rinsing with soapy water. 

 

It is a pleasure to cook with this pan and I find no shortcomings.

 

I sponsor no one on this blog; but share my review when I find something I like.

 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

COLDER THAN A WITCH’S TIT

 

OK, PERHAPS I SHOULD HAVE SAID - COLDER THAN A NAKED MAN IN A BRASS JOCK-STRAP.

  

The fact is It’s fucking cold outside. 

 

We had an inch of snow, followed by rain that froze the world here in western Maine.   My steps, the driveway and the road are all glazed ice.   The temps aren’t that bad, only about twenty-eight degrees; but there is a steady 35-40 mile-per-hour wind blowing from the north, keeping the flag next door straight out.

 

So how cold is it. 

 

 

 

Here is a Wind Chill Chart printed by NOAA.  

If you live anywhere in the north-country you will find it interesting.   However, if you live in the north-country it won’t make any difference: we deal with it.

 

The Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

A BUZZARD EGG OMELET

 

 

THOUGHTS FOR TODAY DECEMBER 1^st 2021

 

A Darwin Award is given to anyone whose actions are so stupid that they remove themselves from the gene pool. 

 

I hereby nominate everyone who was unvaccinated and died from the Coronavirus for a Darwin Award. 

 

Sometime in the not-so-distant future people will be able to send encoded messages by writing in cursive.

 

You know you are in a rut when the best thing that has happened to you this week is the good crap you had this morning.

 

A priest, a rabbi and a prostitute walked into a bar.

They all caught the corona virus from the unvaccinated bar tender.

 

I would like to have a Viking like funeral and be torched in the parking lot of a biker bar during a week-end of wild drunken orgy.

But I will probably have to settle for cremation.

 

the Ol’Buzzard

MEDITATING ON RIGHT ANGLES

 

This morning at 6 a.m. I knocked off fifteen-minutes on my Total Gym and then meditated for about five minutes to bring down my respiration rate and heart rate.    Sitting on the incline plane of the gym while meditating I was staring at the white closet door – at the white panels with edges that are perfect right angles.  

 

Right angles are special in nature, like the Fibonacci numbers.   Plants attempt to grow at right angles to the sky - plants growing upright look right.   There is a stability with right angles that doesn’t exist with things askew; the walls of buildings, the windows, picture frames…   Look around your house: everything is right angles – because they feel right. 

 

the Ol’Buzzard

FOR LOST IN THE BOZONE

Crum your last post Paradise Revisited brought back memories.  I spent my young years in western Kentucky.   The proud coal miners, and the destruction to both men and land by money grubbing coal executives is a real memory.   But it wasn't just then - it still goes on and is still recorded in the music of today.

COAL BARON JOE MANCHIN

OWNS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN COAL STOCK

 the Ol'Buzzard

SCIENCE AND RELIGION ARE INCOMPATABLE

 

Religion has brought us nothing new in two-thousand years.  Just the same old story and a demand of obedience.  The human race is where it is today, because of science.    Religion drove us into the Dark Ages and science brought us out.

 

Religions have caused more suffering among the human race than any other factor.

 

Science has brought more comforts and better health, while moving us into a technological future.

 

Scientist and mathematicians are special people.  They live in a world of logic, while most of us live in a world of emotion.   To most of us, emotion dictates what is true.

 

In the scientific world theories are rigorously tested by peer review until a theory is held highly likely statistically.   Even then, one failed attempt at reproducing accepted results will invalidate the whole theory, and send it back to critical review.

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson says that science is true whether or not you believe it. 

 

Science is neither good or bad.   It all depends on how the human race chooses to apply it.  

 

In August of 1945 two-hundred-thousand babies, children, women, men and old people were annihilated when nuclear bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities.

 

Yet today we have nuclear medicine that treats and cures hundreds of thousands of people suffering with cancer and other diseases. 

 

Sometimes the problem with science is that when something is found possible, even if ethically questionable, some scientist will eventually experiment with it. 

 

We stand on that precipice now with CRISPEN – the new gene-splicing technique.     In a very short time we will have the ability to design animals, including children… a master race?  Should we consider splicing human genes into our nearest relatives – chimpanzees; perhaps language?  At some point it will be done, and in the name of science discovery. 

 

Science is our savior, but because we are human it can also be our destruction. 

 

Science is neither good nor bad.  People are good or bad. 

Religion in irrelevant.

the Ol'Buzzard

 

FOR SHE WHO SEEKS

 

Debra this one is for you

21st CENTURY VIKING 

Farley Mowat wrote three books on Vikings in North America.

The Ol'Buzzard

MAKING SOUP

 

 

This week we had our first snow here in the western Maine mountains.   Winter time is the time for soup. 

 If you are new to soup making, the one, and best book to guide you making wonderful soups is the old 1985 Sunset, supermarket sold, Homemade Soups.  This book is available used for under $5.00 on the internet.    If I had only one soup book this would be the one I would choose.

 

Another book that is interesting is Twelve Months of Monastery Soups by Brother Victor-Antoine d’ Avila-Latourrette.     If this book does anything, it teaches you that just about anything you can throw together in a broth can be called soup.

 

 

Let me cover the basis of soup making.   Most soups start with the Trinity: diced onions, sliced celery and thinly sliced carrots sautéed in olive oil.   I always start with the Trinity-plus-One: a clove of minced garlic added the last two minutes of sauté.

 

Just before adding the broth, I add either a tablespoon of dried thyme or marjoram or parsley to the sauté.

 

Nest comes the broth.   I always us McKays instant beef or chicken stock and seasoning. 

 

 

Finally I add any left overs in the refrigerator, and if I choose, either pasta, potatoes or can beans; and usually a large can of diced tomatoes.

 

That’s soup.

 

The one I made last week was:

Trinity-plus-One (two stalks of celery, two carrots and one diced onion)

Leftover Kentucky sliced smoked ham diced

1 tbsp. thyme

4 cups chicken stock

1 large can of diced tomatoes

1 can of garbanzo beans (rinsed.)

 

Brought it up to temperature for ten minutes and it was delicious. 

 

If you like more liquid add more stock or tomatoes.  If you add potatoes or pasta you will have to heat it until they are tender.  I often use canned beans in place of pasta or potatoes to cut down the cooking time and the starch.

 

Another favorite is Mushroom Soup

Sauté onions and mushrooms until tender  

Add a tablespoon of dried parsley.  

Add 4 cups of chicken stock

Bring to a boil for a few minutes 

Add one cup of sour cream and process with a hand-blender until smooth.

 

 

My wife makes a cauliflower soup

Cauliflower buds cut in half

4 cups of chicken stock

1 block of firm tofu cubed

A sprinkle of red pepper flakes

Blend with a hand blender until smooth.

 

Any time can be soup time.   Quick to make and great with hardy bread.

 

The Ol’Buzzard

 

 

BAT SHIT CRAZY

 There is nothing I can say that can explain the crazy - you just have to watch it.

And remember, these people are Republicans; and members of this insane group serve as Republican members of Congress.

The Ol'Buzzard

ENCHANTMENT IS DEAD

 

 

It is like finding out that fairies don’t exist.

 

I understand a gender homogenous society; but there is a trade-off, and I guess this is it.

THE MYSTIQUE IS GONE 

 

the Ol’Buzzard

and twenty-four to seventy-to hours?   What about soap and water?

O’B

THE NEWS GODS SUCK

I read the Washington Post on-line this morning, and then the Portland Press Herald (Maine paper) and there is no good news.

What kind of times do we live in, that we must constantly walk around in a depressing world that seems to have gone mad?

Even cat memes are depressing.

I'm fucking sick or it.  What ever happened to uplifting, positive news that makes you feel good? 

Don't you give me no more bad news

Politics is dysfunctional, climate change is real, Trump will run again and could win, we are moving toward 800,000 deaths from corona virus, inflation is rising...

I like not this news.

Bring me good news!

Even the good news is just less bad.

the Ol'Buzzard

I DON’T CELEBRATE VETERANS DAY

 

 

I hate being told, ‘Thank you for your service.

58,479 Americans died in the Vietnam war - and that is the official count.   It doesn’t include the brothers that later died from Agent Orange exposure, suicide, related injuries – not to mention the maimed and mentally injured.

One 18-year-old young man I knew took five rounds in his stomach.  He was engaged to be married to a young girl before deployment, but in the hospital he was told he would have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.  He cried constantly.  I don’t know what happened to him.

 

Another friend I use to ride with in Florida we called Choo-Choo.  He had been shot when his group was overrun by VC.  He played dead while they searched him.  The next day he was recovered and placed on the skirt of a tank to be taken back to base area.   He fell off the tank and it was another day before he was discovered and taken to the field hospital.   Sometimes when we were out drinking together Choo-Choo’s eyes would roll up in his head, he would fall on the floor drooling and make a noise: choo choo choo…   I always believed he was hearing the tank treads in his head. 

 

What did we accomplish in Vietnam?  We left North Vietnam the most advanced armed country with American military weapons in South East Asia…. and we built a wall in Washington D.C.

 

Fuck war

Fuck celebrating war

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOLS

 

CONSERVATIVES ENVOLVEMENT IN EDUCATION ARE PUSHING US BACKWARDS IN TIME

 

I was substituting for a Physics teacher on three months maternity leave in a small town in Kentucky when a female parent stormed into my classroom in front of my students, got in my face saying I was not grading properly, that her daughter got straight A’s from the regular teacher.

 

I explained to her that her daughter was disruptive, impertinent and not meeting my standard for an A.

 

The woman belligerently said; I’m a parent so don’t tell me what my daughter is capable of.

 

My answer back was: I have a Bachelor of Science and a Masters degree and have had to pass extensive state test and standards in order to certify as a teacher, the only qualification for being a parent is the ability to breed, so get out of my face.

  

She stormed out to the principal.

  

Being retired, I did not need to substitute.  I was likely the only available substitute capable of teaching Physics.  The principal suggested I be more diplomatic with parents, and I suggested he keep irate parents out of my classroom.

 

The problem with education is that it is overseen and controlled by non-educators: parents, school board members and politicians who are held to no standard of education, have passed no test for competency, and have never spent one hour in a classroom other that as a student.

 

Two conservative school board members in Virginia just demanded that books they deemed inappropriate not only be removed from the school library but be burned.   Rabih Abuismail said that allowing one particular book to remain on the shelves even briefly meant the school, “would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Crist.” and “I think we should throw those books in a fire.”   Kirk Twigg said he wanted to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradication this bad stuff.”

 

If we are going to have non-educators determining what is taught in the classrooms and how it is taught, then they should have to meet the same educational requirements as the teachers, including passing the state teachers examination.  

 

Educational standards and curriculum should be determined by people trained in education.  

 

We wouldn’t want Joe Blow the truck driver or Dear Jane the bank teller determining diagnostic procedures of your family doctor and what he/she is able to prescribe, or what procedures will be used in the Operating Room of your hospital; but it is all right for them to determine what is taught in school and how it is taught. 

 

 

 

 And it is not just about science.  We should teach history, literature, science, math and social studies in a way that challenges the student to think - to reason - to expand.  Not to limit a child's education in order to raise political or religious acceptable clones.   

the Ol'Buzzard