BASIL BREATH

I recently potted up a new basil plant for the kitchen window.  I used last years potting soil.  There were some sunflower seeds that mice had placed in the soil pack over the winter.   I removed them before adding to the basil pot, but evidently I overlooked one.   Now the basil plant has a sunflower growing from its pot.   I intend to leave it and see what happens.   

Our youngest cat likes to get up in the kitchen window and munch out on the basil leaves.   

Basal Breath

We have numerous names for both of our cats, and probably none are correct.  






I wonder what our cats have named us?
the Ol'Buzzard

THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS

About four-thirty in the morning there is a robin named Larry Bird that sits outside of my window each day, just as the eastern sky begins to lighten, and screeches his sunrise song.

It wakes the cats up and it wakes me up; but I don’t mind. 

 Our bedroom is comfortable, with an overhead fan.  My beautiful wife sleeps comfortingly next to me, and I lie there and think.   I don’t think about getting up and feeding the cats, or making tea, or the problems of the day; I just allow myself, in the stillness of the early morning, to think.   I think about books I have read, about projects I am working on, about blogs I might write, about science, the universe, life, the human animal, earth’s environment; and today about banks. 

I never thought about it before, but how the hell do banks work?

 

I just had an electronic transfer from PayPal for a few bucks from selling on e-bay.  Where is the actual money?

Say a man in Florida electronically transfers one-million dollars from his Florida bank to a bank in Minnesota.   He instantly gets a notice that the transfer is completed and he now has a million dollars in his account in Minnesota – but does he?

   

Where is the actual money?   Does the bank in Florida load up ten-thousand one-hundred-dollar-bills in a Wells Fargo truck and have it driven to the bank in Minnesota?   Does the bank in Minnesota actually receive the cash?  

The federal government just distributed $1,200 as a stimulus to all Americans.   Let’s say that our bank received 5000 electronic transfers of $1,200 from the U.S. Treasury.   Now the bank has to credit $6,000,000 to their member's accounts.   Does the Fed actually load up $6,000,000 in a suitcase with Donald Trump’s name on it and UPS it to your local bank?   Where is the money?

I know that banks give out loans and charge interest; but they almost always issue a check.   Where is the cash?  How is it distributed?

This is nothing that will keep me awake tonight; but I am just wondering.

How many people nowadays actually take the time, not while driving, not while eating lunch, not while working on your motorcycle…; but a quiet time where they can just think – let the mind wander and think.

Einstein called it ‘thought experiments’.  He could not actually see the micro-miniature world of quantum mechanics, but he thought about it.  Today there is an entire field of science called theoretical physics that operates on thought experiments.  They think about it!

I make no analogy between Einstein and myself; but thinking - having time to think – is an activity rarely practiced in todays society.   I have the feeling that instead of thinking and reflection, people today just grab their cell phones when a few minutes of quiet time presents itself. 

 

You can think while you are getting stoned,

But the problem is,

you can’t remember your conclusion

the Ol’Buzzard

A NEW BLOGGER INTERFACE IN JUNE!

This is going to suck

the Ol'Buzzard

HERD IMMUNITY

There is so much cross information, misinformation and bad information floating around on the internet and the news networks, that I wonder why people just can’t slow down and think – logically.

The newest insanity is ‘herd immunity.’

Let’s back up a bit.    A pandemic use to be called a plague; but plagues sounds scary, so the people that manipulate us prefer to call them ‘pandemics.’

Over the centuries the human population has been hit by numerous plagues; so, how did herd immunity work out in the past?

The Black Death killed and estimated 2/3^rd. the population of Europe; Small Pox, Yellow Fever, Spanish Flue, Polio and Aids all all been responsible for millions of deaths in world-wide populations.  These would still be decimating our populations today except of vaccines.

Remember; pandemics are natures way of culling the herd: over population in animal species.   And, herd immunity means you let the pestilence run rampant, killing off the old, the weak, the infirm and the stupid; resulting in huge percentages of populations dying off. 

Responsible pandemic control, in the time of science and medicine, means you isolate the sick so they do not contaminate the healthy, and you seek a vaccine to produce a manufactured immunity. 

Only an idiot would tout ‘Herd Immunity’ as a response to a new pandemic. 

the Ol'Buzzard

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND PAINT SALESMEN

It looks different in the can, but when the paint dries it will darken and be the color you wanted.  


No it won't
the Ol'Buzzard

TV CENSORSHIP - AN OL'BUZZARD'S RANT

Remember George Carlin and the seven words you can’t say on TV?

There is now only one word you definitely can’t say on TV. 

 

I was watching the movie The Heat a couple of days ago.  At the beginning of the movie there was a warning: language, adult content and violence – may not be appropriate for all viewers. 

 

During the movie the characters said vagina, dick, cock, god damn, shit, ass, tits, blow job, asshole and son-of-a-bitch - and there was an ending with two people fucking - but the word fuck was voiced over to frig and frigging.  

You can’t say fuck in an adult movie?  What the fuck

I am god damn tired of phony Christian censorship determining what I am allowed see and hear on television in adult programming, and because parents do not take responsibility for what their children are viewing.

  The fear is always that little Johnny, who is secretly watching blow jobs on PornHub in his room on his computer, will run out and hear the word FUCK and be ruined for the rest of his life. 

I have witnessed in my lifetime Christians censoring books, burning books, burning music tapes, censoring school libraries and censoring television programs. 

It is about time we tell the religious minority of family values to go fuck themselves.

the Ol’Buzzard 

IT IS NOT ONLY TOILET PAPER

My wife and I have been making bread with bread machines since 1985.   Our present machine is over ten years old and the paddle  in the bread pan is starting to squeak.  It  seems our model is no longer in production and so parts, including a new pan, is not available.  

So, perhaps it is time to buy a new machine.   


The two makes I would consider are Breadman and Quisnart.   Checking with Walmart.com - out of stock, not available.  Target, out of stock not available. Both factories: out of stock not available.  A $148 Quisinart is selling used on Amazon for $280.   William Sonoma will take your order for expected delivery in August.   

It is not a bad thing that people are becoming more food independent by going back to making bread; but the rush to buy new bread machines speaks to the initial panic of food insecurity in the age of pandemic.  

I found the same scarcity for NutriChef vacuum food savers: sold out, not available. 

I wonder if more people will now consider container gardens this summer.   I can remember Victory Gardens during the second world war.  Unfortunately, the trend of home gardening did not continue for long after the war.  

Just an observation.
the Ol'Buzzard