Is it art, or is it vandalism?
From this morning’s walk. By request.
Art.
Art. A very hazy Longs Peak in the background.
Vandalism. I blame my parents.
Art (except in Kansas).
Art. Written in chalk.
Art. The old Great Western Sugar plant (I can see the other side of the building from my back yard). I have this thing for derelict abandoned buildings.
Art. Irrigation ditch diversion. I also have this thing for derelict old fixtures.
Vandalism. It’s high school graduation at the end of this coming week. The grafitti probably won’t still be up after Monday. Longmont is excellent at clearing it up quickly.
Art. A detour on the Left Hand Greenway while a new bridge is being built. Ultimately the trail will go under the bridge. Interestingly, construction workers have been instructed to yield to pedestrians and bicycles on the trail.
Back at my car after 7.83 miles walking. Month-to-date: 214.33 miles. Year-to-date: 1127.09 miles. 3752.8 miles since I started keeping track on September 4, 2014. I use an app on my phone called MapMyWalk.
Click on any of the photos to embiggen.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MAY 21- JERRY LEWIS AND HIS LITTLE BRIDE
This Day In History: May 21, 1958
“They were looking for a place to stick the knife into rock & roll. And Jerry gave it to them—well, I did, I opened my mouth.” – Myra Lewis Williams
As 1958 dawned, Jerry Lee Lewis was riding high. He’d recently had two huge hits with “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls Of Fire.” He exuded an untamed wildness onstage that few before him had dared unleash. Lewis, or “The Killer”, as he would come to be known, was a deeply religious former Southwest Bible Institute student who was now playing the “devil’s music” and would come to embody the true unbridled and uninhibited spirit of rock and roll.
In May of 1958, the British welcomed Lewis at London’s Heathrow airport with open arms. Everything was going swimmingly until a reporter from the Daily Mail named Paul Tanfield asked a lovely young lady in Jerry’s group who she was.
“I’m Myra, Jerry’s wife,” replied Myra Gail Lewis. …
Some in Oklahoma statehouse urge Obama impeachment over bathroom rule
Republican state lawmakers in Oklahoma have introduced a resolution urging the state’s congressional delegation to start an effort to impeach President Barack Obama over a White House recommendation that schools accommodate transgender students.
The Obama administration told U.S. public schools last week that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice. The recommendation upset Republicans and raised the likelihood of fights over federal funding and legal authority.
The Oklahoma resolution, introduced on Thursday night, calls on the state’s members of the U.S. House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against Obama, the U.S. attorney general, the U.S. secretary of education and others over the policy. A vote has not yet been scheduled on the resolution. …
The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah points out the total absurdity of anti-transgender hysteria
America has been caught for months in a frenzy over where transgender people can pee. So on Thursday, The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah set aside eight minutes of his show for a lengthy monologue offering a point-by-point rebuttal to the anti-trans hysteria.
All throughout the debates, opponents of trans rights have repeated the same talking point: If places let trans people to use the bathroom or locker room that matches their gender identity, men will take advantage of the policies and disguise themselves as women to sneak into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms and sexually assault or harass women.
Noah blew up the absurdity of this argument — that would-be sex offenders are just waiting for a legal change to carry out their acts.
“That’s what perverts have been waiting for: loopholes,” Noah said. “This argument falls flat every single time. Just think about it: We have labeled these people as perverts, as sex offenders. And you think they’re waiting for the laws to change? That’s what you’re thinking? Like guys out there going, ‘Man, I want to flash people in the bathroom so badly. When are they going to change the laws? When are they going to change the laws to accommodate me?'” …
10 Terrifying Ways The Future Is Plotting To Kill Us All
Are you sitting down? I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news. There’s a very good chance that you’re going to die. Not in bed at age 100 after the best sex of your life but in a mind-numbing vortex of screaming horror.
See, the future is out to get you. For reasons we can’t even begin to fathom, it wants all of us dead. And conveniently, it’s chosen 10 possible ways to do this. Think you’re safe? The following could kill us all before the decade is out.
10. Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs
Imagine a world where a single cut to your finger could kill you. A world where breaking a bone or giving birth could be a death sentence. No, this isn’t our pitch for Hemophilia: The Movie. This is the world that we’ll all be living in by 2050.
Ever since Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin, the ability of microbes to kill us has declined drastically. Unfortunately, this has coincided with a steep rise in quack doctors prescribing antibiotics for every malady and farmers shooting their animals full of the stuff.
This long-term exposure to all classes of antibiotics has allowed bugs to evolve a resistance to these drugs. The worry is that soon every bug on Earth will follow suit. At that point, we’ll reach Armageddon. …
The Democratic Wingman of the Democratic Party
Howard Dean was once the revolutionary progressive from Vermont. Now, his own PAC is supporting Bernie Sanders despite Dean’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton. For Dean and Sanders, it’s complicated.
It would be difficult to find a more dynamic and well-rounded Democratic political creature than Howard Dean. One year after the infamous Dean Scream, the beloved longtime Vermonter and former medical doctor stepped up as chair of the Democratic Party, a position he would hold from 2005 to 2009. In 2005, Dean also founded Democracy for America, a progressive PAC and advocacy group that is thriving in the 2016 cycle. This is all in addition to his many years in the Vermont legislature, his six consecutive terms as governor of the Green Mountain State, and his service as head of the National Governors Association.
And now that America is on the precipice of what will inevitably one of the most polarized and unpredictable general elections in recent history, Dean has become a sought-after political pundit, appearing frequently on cable news and quoted often in print media. In the present political climate, Dean has a unique perspective on his fellow Vermonter, Bernie Sanders; on Hillary Clinton, whom Dean has endorsed; and on the shape of the Democratic electorate itself. In fact, if there were an emperor of progressive Democrats, Dean would be the man—except of course his fellow Vermonter, Sanders, is now that man. Unsurprisingly, Dean’s feelings about Sanders are… complicated. …
Ron Paul: I feel ‘kinship’ with Sanders
Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said he feels a “kinship” with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, noting that the two occasionally agree on some policies and oppose favors to the corporate world.
“We’re both against corporatism. We’re both against the special benefits to big business,” Paul said in an interview on Politicking with Larry King.
“His answer to that wouldn’t always be the same. Mine would always drift to the free markets. His would drift to ‘well we need more government to redistribute wealth,’ but we could both attack subsidies to business or the military industrial complex,” he continued. “In that sense, there is a kinship.”
Paul, a Libertarian who ran for president in 2008 and 2012, also touted the relationship between Libertarians and progressives. …
10 Truly Creepy Demonic Hauntings
Most paranormal investigators will tell you that there are several different types of hauntings. Residual hauntings tend to be benign because the ghosts in question reenact their memories from life without interacting with the world around them. Intelligent hauntings and poltergeist activity are scarier because the entities recognize and interact with the humans around them. Few of these interactions are positive.
But when it comes to hauntings, the most threatening and negative are demonic hauntings. In these cases, houses and people are tormented by nonhuman entities that seek to possess the living. Demonic hauntings tend to be mentally and spiritually draining. They also tend to last a long time because demons, which were never humans, can only be expelled through certain religious rituals.
Of course, if you’re skeptical about all of this, demonic hauntings can sometimes come across as examples of mental illness. Furthermore, for demonic hauntings to even exist, one must believe in the reality of demons. Still, the following 10 cases are disturbing examples of people who believe that they were tormented by purely evil entities.
10. The Demon House
According to his own book, Bob Cranmer, a former Allegheny County Commissioner in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, claims that he and his family lived in a house haunted by a demon for 18 years. An exorcism drove the demon out in 2006.
Mr. Cranmer claims that he watched helplessly over the years as blood dripped from the walls of his home and invisible hands pushed and struck his loved ones. When these attacks reached their boiling point in 2005–2006, Cranmer finally contacted the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, which sent a priest to perform an exorcism on the house.
As the story goes, Cranmer’s home in the Pittsburgh suburb of Brentwood was built upon rotten soil. In the 1700s, Native Americans viciously murdered European settlers in the area. Later, during the house’s construction, one of the workers cursed the land.
However, true evil did not come into existence until Dr. James C. Mahan Sr. arrived. Cranmer believes that Dr. Mahan, a former tenant in the home, was an alcoholic abortionist who performed hundreds of illegal operations. These activities supposedly brought forth a demon into the world—a demon that mostly manifested as a “black, foggy cloud.” …
‘Not crazy’ Kansas anti-abortion group demands lawmakers oppose mythical ‘human-animal hybrids’
An anti-abortion political action group in Kansas is demanding to know where the state’s lawmakers stand on human-animal hybrids, the Kansas City Star reports.
Kansans for Life has given candidates questionnaires asking where they stand on human cloning and on the creation of human-animal hybrids.
“Am I aware of it happening [in Kansas]? At this moment, no,” Kathy Ostrowski, the group’s legislative director told the Star. “But does that mean it’s not happening somewhere? I can’t tell you that.” …
Nigeria, You Win! Your Development Plan May Be The ‘Best In History’
In 2011, Lariat Alhassan had a business in Abuja, Nigeria. Larclux Paint was the name. She sold house paint. And industrial paint. Textured paint. Paint that fills in cracks in your walls. It was a paint company. But a really small one.
“The employee I had was just me. I was the production manager. I was the marketer. I was delivery person. I was everything,” says Alhassan, laughing. “Except the security.”
That was the company. A woman in her late 20s and a security guard watching over a factory space she rented to make the paint.
Customers liked her paint. They would try it out, and say “This seems great. I’d like to place a big order. We’ll come to your office to sign the papers,” she recalls. And that is when things would get awkward.
“I kept telling them, no, no, no. You call me and whenever you want, I’ll be there. I will just be there,” she says.
She didn’t have an office. Just her car. At this point the clients would often just back out. She couldn’t afford an office without more clients. She couldn’t get more clients without an office. She felt trapped. Stuck. …
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MAY 21ST- THE LONG ISLAND LOLITA
This Day In History: May 21, 1992
On May 21, 1992, 17-year-old Amy Fisher was arrested two days after shooting her lover’s wife on the porch of their home in Long Island, New York. The victim, though gravely injured, survived the attack and eventually forgave her assailant. When the sordid details of her affair with her much older, very married, boyfriend became public, Amy was dubbed the Long Island Lolita by the national media.
The infamous affair between Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco began in May of 1991. They met at his auto shop when her father was getting a car repaired. Amy was 16 and Joey was 35. After many trysts, including a nine-day marathon in the local Freeport Motel during July of 1991, Amy decided she wanted more from the relationship than just sex. …
The False Promise of DNA Testing
The forensic technique is becoming ever more common—and ever less reliable.
One evening in November of 2002, Carol Batie was sitting on her living-room couch in Houston, flipping through channels on the television, when she happened to catch a teaser for an upcoming news segment on KHOU 11, the local CBS affiliate. She leapt to her feet. “I scared the kids, I was screaming so loud,” Batie told me recently. “I said, ‘Thank you, God!’ I knew that all these years later, my prayers had been answered.”
The subject of the segment was the Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory, among the largest public forensic centers in Texas. By one estimate, the lab handled DNA evidence from at least 500 cases a year—mostly rapes and murders, but occasionally burglaries and armed robberies. Acting on a tip from a whistle-blower, KHOU 11 had obtained dozens of DNA profiles processed by the lab and sent them to independent experts for analysis. The results, William Thompson, an attorney and a criminology professor at the University of California at Irvine, told a KHOU 11 reporter, were terrifying: It appeared that Houston police technicians were routinely misinterpreting even the most basic samples.
“If this is incompetence, it’s gross incompetence … and repeated gross incompetence,” Thompson said. “You have to wonder if [the techs] could really be that stupid.” …
Sheriff Joe Arpaio fights bestiality with Craigslist stings: ‘This is my crusade’
Controversial sheriff has released a video boasting of using fake Craigslist ads to catch perpetrators, and says crackdown stems from his passion for animal rights
Sometimes, while James Allen Darland delivered packages for his postal company, he would also have sex with dogs.
Stray dogs, or the dogs of people he delivered to. He also had sex with sheep, horses, and other dogs, whose owners he contacted over Craigslist. In exchange, he often let the owners of the animals have sex with his own dog, Wiley.
Darland lived in Seattle, Washington, but was tempted down to Phoenix, Arizona, by one particular online ad.
That’s where he ran into Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Arpaio – Donald Trump’s favorite sheriff, who is mentioned in almost all of the Republican candidate’s speeches, and was one of the first elected officials to endorse Trump in his bid for President – is running a sophisticated sting operation which aims to entrap people like Darland who want to engage in sexual acts with animals.
The operation posts fake ads on Craigslist or responds to them and then arresting the alleged perpetrators when they turn up. …
The face of American fascism? Decoding sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-bestiality video
His address is like a parody of Donald Trump, revealing the absurd and fictional nature of the demons they pursue and the emergencies they promise to resolve
10th arrest for bestiality in Maricopa County Arizona.I will continue to crack down on bestiality in Maricopa County Arizona.
Posted by Joe Arpaio on Friday, May 6, 2016
Is this the face of American fascism? Whiter than white – his hands skeletally pale – and showing all his 83 years, Joe Arpaio, the minority-persecuting sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, warns the public against yet another enemy in its midst. First it was Barack Obama, who Arpaio insists is not a true-born American. Then it was anyone who looks to his officers like they may potentially be an illegal immigrant. In February he was rebuked by a US district court for ignoring orders to cease his policy of arresting people simply on suspicion of illegal immigration.
Here he denounces America’s latest nightmare – not migrants, not even Muslims, but zoophiles. Arpaio is leading a campaign against bestiality, dedicating resources to rounding up people who abuse animals. In this video he presents it with the grimmest severity as a national crisis that he alone has the courage to face. He seems gripped by Jesuitical fury. This is a campaign for the national soul. Arpaio wrings his white hands repeatedly, kneads and unkneads his fingers, as he denounces dog abusers with all the dramatic intensity of senator Joe McCarthy going after communists. …
A Theory That Will Change How You See The Simpsons Forever
Aah, The Simpsons. Like food, it’s been around forever, some people obsess over it while others take it for granted, and you often find yourself gorging on it while drunk at 3 a.m.
And also like your food, there’s a lot of weird shit in The Simpsons that you might not want to think about. For instance, the innocent residents of Springfield may just be living a horrific multidimensional existence caused by the cast of The Simpsons‘ sister show, Futurama. No, really; consider this …
#6. Real People And Fictional Characters Overlap In Springfield
Straight off the bat, The Simpsons has a weird grip on what’s real and what’s not. For starters, Springfield is visited by more real-life celebrities than a Hollywood rehab center. George Bush Senior moves in across the street, Mel Gibson becomes Homer’s bestie, and Andre Agassi once showed up literally just to say, “I’m Andre Agassi.” In 2016, The Simpsons mainly serves as a residual-generator. Every famous person in the known universe, no matter how poorly their career is going, can count on that sweet, sweet $3 Simpsons check each month.
But they somehow also exist alongside fictional characters. Over the years, we’ve seen them interact with characters from The Flintstones, Rick And Morty, King Of The Hill, The Muppets, 24, The X-Files, Cheers, American Dad, South Park, The Critic, Bob’s Burgers, The Cleveland Show, and Family Guy.
“KEEP YOUR ANIMATORS AWAY FROM MY WIFE!”
…
Why Google’s fancy new AI assistant is just called ‘Google’
The future of search is more than a text box
On Wednesday Google kicked off its I/O developer conference by unveiling a series of new artificial intelligence-powered products, including a messaging app with a virtual assistant and and a home speaker with a voice interface. Given what we’ve seen in the explosion of AI assistants and software bots from other companies, you’d expect Google to brand these products’ connective tissue with a personality and a name — Apple has Siri, Amazon has Alexa, and Microsoft has Cortana.
Instead, Google’s new AI assistant is just called… Google Assistant. What used to be known as Google Now, the predictive assistant inside Android, has been broadened into a bigger initiative to bring those capabilities further into the real world, bolstered by years spent building out its extensive Knowledge Graph and honing its ability to parse human language. It’s an indication of Google’s ambitions for the product that it wants us to simply call it Google. …
AI will create ‘useless class’ of human, predicts bestselling historian
Smarter artificial intelligence is one of 21st century’s most dire threats, writes Yuval Noah Harari in follow-up to Sapiens
It is hard to miss the warnings. In the race to make computers more intelligent than us, humanity will summon a demon, bring forth the end of days, and code itself into oblivion. Instead of silicon assistants we’ll build silicon assassins.
The doomsday story of an evil AI has been told a thousand times. But our fate at the hand of clever cloggs robots may in fact be worse – to summon a class of eternally useless human beings.
At least that is the future predicted by Yuval Noah Harari, a lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, whose new book says more of us will be pushed out of employment by intelligent robots and on to the economic scrap heap.
Harari rose to prominence when his 2014 book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, became an international bestseller. Two years on, the book is still being talked about. Bill Gates asked Melinda to read it on holiday. It would spark great conversations around the dinner table, he told her. We know because he said so on his blog this week. …
Top 10 Loneliest Things In The World
Are you sitting alone scrolling through online lists over and over again for entertainment? Spare a thought for the Curiosity rover that has to sing “Happy Birthday” to itself or for poor Lonesome George that spent his golden years surrounded by scientists and lady tortoises that he clearly had no interest in. Here are the loneliest things in the world—from endlings waiting for the end of their species to animals that just can’t communicate with their kin.
10. The Tenere Tree
The Tenere Tree in the Sahara was the only tree for 400 kilometers (250 mi)—a pretty useful landmark in a desert. It stood alone for 300 years and probably sprouted when the desert wasn’t actually a desert at all. But the tree became the lone survivor from its childhood after a well dug in 1938 gave it a steady source of water and nourishment.
Unfortunately, its proud stand against time and loneliness came to an abrupt end when a drunk driver managed to crash into the only obstacle for hundreds of miles. Despite the annoyance, most people are at least a bit impressed by the fact that he managed it. The trunk now lives in the Niger National Museum, with a metal sculpture taking its place in the desert. Hopefully, the next drunk driver will at least avoid the metal tree. …
How Do You Lift A Million Pounds Of Stainless Steel? Very Carefully
Inside a lab near Washington, D.C., there is a stack of stainless steel that weighs a million pounds.
It’s part of a unique machine that was built in 1965 and just refurbished for the first time. And in the world of metrology, the science of measurement, this giant is a source of national pride.
“It’s famous in its own right because it is the largest such machine in the world,” says Rick Seifarth of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. The one next biggest in size, in Germany, is only half as powerful, Seifarth notes. “That’s one of the main reasons the thing was restored and refurbished.”
Why would anyone need a million pounds of stainless steel?
“Fair question,” says Seifarth. …
Frog and Toad and the Self
Arnold Lobel’s beloved books taught children to understand and appreciate their individuality.
Millennials are so frequently hyped as the first digital generation that people tend to forget that we were raised first and foremost with books. TV and the Internet may have shaped our identities, but so did old-fashioned, printed stories. And looking back now, it’s hard to think of a children’s author who better prepared young readers for growing up than Arnold Lobel.
Lobel’s Frog and Toad series, published in four volumes containing five stories each during the 1970s, remains his most popular and enduring work. Frog and Toad, two very different characters, make something of an odd couple. Their friendship demonstrates the many ups and downs of human attachment, touching on deep truths about life, philosophy, and human nature in the process. But it isn’t all about relationships with others: In the series, and in his lesser-known 1975 book Owl at Home, Lobel offers a conception of the self that still resonates decades later. Throughout his books, he reminds readers that they are individuals, and that they shouldn’t be afraid of being themselves.
Although Frog and Toad’s world is perhaps more pastoral than that of their average reader, most can recognize and relate to the situations the duo find themselves in. Their various struggles might involve deciding whether to stay in or go out, the difficulty of restraint when it comes to cookies, and the challenge of adhering to a daily to-do-list. Frog represents the practical and sensible part of the self, while Toad is emotional and tempestuous. But they’re both deeply realized characters who sometimes defy expectations. In the marvelous story “Shivers,” Frog reveals himself to be a horror fan, and tells Toad about a childhood encounter with the terrifying “Old Dark Frog” that may or may not be true. In “A Swim,” Toad decides to respond to mocking comments about his bathing suit by calmly and defiantly walking past the laughing crowd. …
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MAY 21ST- FINALLY!
This Day In History: May 21, 1999
On May 21, 1999, Susan Lucci, who’d been portraying “All My Children’s” legendary femme fatale Erica Kane for just shy of three decades, finally won an Emmy Award after being nominated an astounding 19 times. Having been nominated so many times to no avail, Lucci hadn’t even bothered to prepare an acceptance speech. Isn’t that always the way?
Susan Lucci was born on December 23, 1946 in Scarsdale, New York. She always aspired to be a performer, and participated in both voice and dance classes throughout her teen years. Susan was active in school and community theater before being accepted to Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, a college renowned for its performing arts program. …
Video Goodnesses
(and not-so-goodnesses)
(and not-so-goodnesses)
URK…….