Let Us Embrace National Decline

The failure of democracy and speedy national decline of the American republic is a useful and perhaps necessary counter to the astonishing hubris and self congratulatory nature of our various elites.  It could not have happened without the arrogance and stupidity of so many people here from the rather blatant self-interest and treason of the Republicans to the weakness of the Democrats and their unwillingness to stand on principle to the obvious corruption of the judiciary (looking at you Justice Cannon, Alito & Roberts).

On the bright side, we should applaud the tremendous and world historical rate of decline of a formerly great country now destroyed.  Lets embrace our failure and look forward to the day when we can benefit from the tourists coming to witness the ruins.  Americans will rise to this challenge and be sure to greet these onlookers with souvenirs made in China.

One People, one Country, one Leader!

A work in progress based very loosely on the famous posters of Adolf Hitler.  The slogan in German of course sounds better.  One Volks, One Reich, One Fuhrer! 

A Pig Will Always be a Pig

I dont care what he does, he will always be a pig to me.  Instead of honoring Jimmy Carter for whom the flags were half mast, this dickless wonder has to have the flags raised.  He could have made the respect given Carter a part of his speech and been all the better for it.  But that would show class, and this asshole has none.  

Nothing has changed, he is still an asshole, but all the more dangerous for what he has learned over the last eight years.

If the people who had voted for Joe Biden in 2020 had voted for the Democrat in 2024, even if they were not all that sure about Kamala Harris, this would not be happening.   He could be the best president in the history of the world, and he won't be, and I will still think he is a pig, because he is.

People get the government they deserve, I have heard.  

Image by Midjourney

Thank Goodness 2024 is Over

Wow, what a horrible year.  Just thinking about it makes me want to puke. The wars, the riots, the elections, the betrayals, the incompetence but most of all, the hypocrisy.  

The end of the American Republic.   

But lets look on the bright side of things.  The democrats are history, whatever comes in their place could not be as stupid, at least I hope not.  The Republicans had their brains eaten by Trump and his MAGA idiots, serves them right.   Now we get to all watch and see where the parts land.

Lets recall that when the corrupt Supreme Court installed W. Bush in the White House over the rightful winner of the election in 2000, it resulted in a war in Iraq at a tremendous cost of human misery and treasure.  And that is when Alito & Roberts were elevated to the Supreme Court.  Its "the fuck that keeps on fucking".  The past isnt over, it isnt even past yet.

The elected pig has already threatened Canada, Europe (Denmark/Greenland), Mexico and Panama with war.  

At least on Valerio street we are protected from the elements even if we are surrounded by Republicans.  

Image by Midjourney

2024 Election Postmortem

Since the Republicans won all three houses of the government, and have staffed the judiciary with their operatives, Democrats have engaged in a discussion of why they did so poorly.  Its taken a while for things to become clear, but there is enough evidence to move forward with provisional conclusions.

As an aside, the NY Times revealed today, five weeks after the election, that the Biden administration oversaw the greatest immigration surge in American history.  A little late in the day for a major tool of corporate America to come clean on this issue, dont you think?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/briefing/the-largest-immigration-surge-in-us-history.html

Why did they wait until now to say so?  Why did the Democrats not have a policy on both legal and illegal immigration beyond saying "Hey, we dont want to talk about it?"  Or "the Republicans are freaking out about something that is not a real issue".  But the reality turns out to be that immigration is objectively a very real, historical issue and yet I dont even know what Harris' position on immigration is.  The Republican strategy of blocking the bipartisan bill on this topic was clearly a winning move and the Democrats are, as always, too weak to do anything and the American electorate is not interested in the "We tried" excuse.

The Republicans also ran on the economy.  Here, again, the Democrats seem to have been in some weird reality of their own.  They kept saying "The economy is fine, dont worry" but everyone I know who isnt in the top 20% think that prices have exploded in the last few years.  Which makes the incumbent responsible for the economy no matter whose fault it is.

A third issue is the area of competence, or which party seems to listen and then get things done. It is extremely clear that the Republicans have acted with diligence and obstinacy to achieve their goals, from corrupting the judiciary, defunding the government to supporting any authoritarian dictatorship.  The Democrats, not so much.

There are several other explanations that have been proposed for this election result.  It is said that Biden abdicated too late in the cycle for voters to get to know Harris.  It is said that by the very structure of the situation that Harris was essentially the incumbent and that the electorate was in an anti-incumbent mood.  Both of these seem plausible to me although it is hard for me to gauge how important they were.  Beyond that, however, the democrats were clearly the party of identity politics even when that meant active discrimination against white candidates. So why was there any surprise when white people voted against democrats?    The democrats were the party of hard core transexual rights, even for minors without parental approval.  That seems like a really weird policy to me if you want to get people who are parents to vote for you.

The democrats were the party of abortion rights.  Now I keep reading that this is an important issue, and I think it is but clearly it did not win elections.  In fact between two women's issues: abortion and a woman candidate for president, it does not seem as though women turned out overwhelmingly for democrats.  Maybe I wont have to hear too much about the "women's vote" in the future?  No  I think I will be hearing about this for the rest of my life no matter what the data says.

The American people did not seem to object to a leader who is a pig, a rapist, a convicted felon and so forth. A traitor and a pig.  All that stuff from Republicans about "character" has been BS all along.  This is not a surprise to me, and I hope it is not a surprise to you either.   Nixon seems like a fine, outstanding scholar compared to Trump.

So maybe the Republican positions are egregious and offensive.  Maybe they are pandering to the worst segments of the American people.  Maybe so, but they seem to win elections and while there are lots of flaws in the American Republic, and voter suppression, and weirdnesses in the way red states organize and vote in order to keep the people from being able to affect their government, nevertheless they seem to have won, in the aggregate, this last election.

Like all good proto-fascist societies, America seems to be in that phase where only power matters.  That is what the Republicans have proven time and time again since November 2000 and the Democrats never seem to learn.  The democrats will not listen to Bernie Sanders, or to AOC, nor will they fight Trump and all his works.  The Democrats had a chance to make judicial term limits a reality but they could not be bothered.  They do not have the courage of their convictions.

So why bother to elect a democrat?  Whats the point?  They want to rule in some sort of fantasy past where America was semi-bi-partisan, a world very different from today.  So electing a democrat seems to me to have no raison d'etre.

Image courtesy of Midjourney

Grave Pictures for Nancy St John

Nancy has passed away and nobody I know is willing to talk to me about it.  

We go to the grave alone, I guess.  

In honor of Nancy, here are some pictures I did about the grave.

I recall the eulogy from The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

They told me, Francis Hinsley, they told me you were hung

With red protruding eye-balls and black protruding tongue;

I wept as I remembered how often you and I

Had laughed about Los Angeles and now ’tis here you’ll lie;

Here pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a whore,

Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost nor gone before.

One Republican Strategy for Containing Kamala and Defeating Democracy

Since Kamala Harris is doing well against her opponent, the convicted felon and known abuser of women, Republicans have been working on strategies in case Trump loses the election and can not steal it, as they are certainly planning to do.

My summary of at least one of their strategies is as follows:

First win a majority in the Senate.  With the resignation of Senator Manchin they believe they have a good chance of either winning a 50-50 position or even a 51-49 position.  If they do the latter, they can tie up any legislation and control senate investigations.  According to a survey prediction by thehill.com, the Republicans are favored to win the Senate.

Second, win a majority in the House.  Again, they are favored to win the House of Representatives.

Third, they overwhelmingly control the Supreme Court which has demonstrate a willingness to violate any standard of law or precedence to support extreme Republican positions.

With these three things, or even two of them, the Republicans are confident they can "contain" Kamala Harris and defeat any attempt to improve the country or act in the nation's interest.  Then they can use this to go for the presidency in 2028.

Therefore, although defeating Trump is obviously the highest priority, winning the House and the Senate are essential if we are to do more than just prevent Trump from destroying the country.  We need both houses in order to move the country forward.  And even then, the nation must deal with the right wing and lawless former Supreme Court, something the Democrats, at least, have proven unwilling to do so far.

Republican zombie horde attempting to climb the Statue of Liberty

The Angel's Celebrate the Arrival of Jill's Album

The vinyl for Jill's new double album, Earthly Pleasures, arrived at the house today.  The album is about the secular use of sacred music, among other things.  

The angels celebrate in heaven!

The images were created with Midjourney.

Final Warning

I have tried to avoid writing about either Ukraine or the Israel/Hamas war.  But if I read one more stupid editorial about either, I will be forced to take action.  You have been warned.

Pictures for Siggraph

 How can you go to Siggraph without bringing pictures?  Well you can't.  Here are a few rendered pictures and maybe I will do a few Midjourney pictures as well.  Csn you get which one is which?

100th Anniversary of the Planetarium

 This week is the 100th Anniversary of the Planetarium.  The International Planetarium Society is meeting in Berlin.

Picture courtesy of Midjourney

As a friend points out, in two years in Japan.

https://www.ips-planetarium.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1874313&group=

Anarchy, Oligarchy and Tyranny c/o The Financial Times

The Financial Times has a good article on the failure of the American Republic using analogies to the Greek political science terms of anarchy vs oligarchy vs tyranny.  You can read the entire article here (although it may be behind a paywall).

https://www.ft.com/content/a7eea0af-bf9f-4635-812b-271c30620e72

Here are two paragraphs that I thought were entertaining:

The anarchy can seem fun, at least for a while. With some luck, chaos can bring political fruit. At a convention, where one spectacle soon displaces the next, these different guises of democratic collapse can give one another cover. The strongman act of Trump and Vance distracts from their blatant dependence on the wealthy. Their threat to deport migrants shrouds the reality that none of the relevant oligarchs was born in the US, that Trump married two migrants and that Vance married the daughter of migrants.

In practice, though, the Republicans’ anti-republic is contradictory. The different variants of repression can be equally celebrated so long as they are all directed against an imagined enemy. But the plan to fire tens of thousands of civil servants (anarchy) would get in the way of deporting millions of people (tyranny). As the billionaires claim power ever more openly (oligarchy), they put pressure on the aspiring authoritarians who are supposed to be the strongmen (tyranny). The people who want a strongman don’t want him to be a puppet. Signs of strain were certainly evident at the convention. 

Image courtesy of MidJourney

Cost of Housing Notes 7/21/2024

As I was moving from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, the issue of housing costs and options came up.  There are a number of reasons for this but it all comes down to money and how you want to live your life.  And I think there was a lot of wishful thinking going on about what kind of housing assistance exists, who is eligible for it, and so forth.  So, since I need to know this stuff here are my notes so far on this topic.  All useful information is in the next paragraph.

The executive summary is as follows.  Santa Barbara is expensive perhaps, but the quality of life is very high.  California overall is very expensive and SB rents are not worse than other parts of California on the coast.  One way to get housing costs down in these areas is to do something like rent a three bedroom house and have two roommates with all the inconvenience that implies.  The Housing Authority in SB is a resource to the community but demand far exceeds supply, the process is opaque, and it is not at all clear when or if housing will be provided.  It is not a viable solution to anyone who is on a deadline.  Finally, my research says that there is acceptable single room occupancy housing in other cities in places like Providence, RI or Pittsburgh, PA or parts of Western MA in the range of $1,500 / month or about 1/2 to 1/3 of what you have to pay in California.

The rest of this post is just details.

I was looking for a single bedroom, arguably a studio with kitchen and bath. It is completely possible for this to be a shared space where each person has their own bedroom but the kitchen and bath is shared.  For me, it is better to be in a place where I can work all hours of the day and not bother other people.  It is better to be in a place where I am not constantly subjected to environmental insults (smog, car fumes, etc) and where crime is under control.  I hate to move, so some sort of stability is good.  It does not have to be a particularly big city, but it is useful to be within mass transit distance or driving distance of a fairly big city due to the need to work with specialist doctors.  

There is some belief that there are housing programs for "the poor".  My experience from Santa Barbara says that theoretically such housing exists, but in practice it does not. The SB housing authority does a terrible job of presenting a rational and responsive front to people in need, but the hard facts are that there is more demand for housing than there is supply. The housing that is available is preferentially given to certain demographics that I do not qualify for, such as being a single mother or a veteran.  The process is opaque.    There should be zero surprise that the SB Housing Authority efforts did not work out.   In fact, they would not even return my calls.  It is possible that if we had filed when I first arrived in SB that there would have been a different outcome but I am not sure.

Images courtesy of Midjourney

There is a belief that SB housing is unusually expensive.  My research says that this is not exactly true.  SB is expensive, but so is all of coastal California.  LA is very expensive and much less desirable than SB.   San Luis Obispo and San Clemente and Santa Cruz are also very expensive.  Santa Cruz may be more expensive than SB.  There are places in CA that are less expensive than SB but they are still not cheap and of course the quality of life goes down, often dramatically.  

I am surprised at how much I miss SB.  I would much rather live in SB and drive to LA to make use of its cultural resources, international airport and medical facilities.

There are cities where the rent is less than half of what it is in California.  So, one can probably rent a place for $1,300 to $1,500 in places like Providence, RI.  Multiply that out, your recommended net salary comes to $60K/year.

So what is the conclusion?  I would not expect to spend less than about $1,500 per month if you are a single person but only if you are not in California.  California is roughly 2 - 3x more expensive.  In SB, a small 1 bedroom starts at about $3,000 a month and goes up from there.  And it is not entirely clear who they will rent to if you do not have, and prove you have, a good job and excellent credit rating.  There are exceptions to this and I have benefitted from special deals more than just about anyone.  But when those special deals come to an end, and they always do, then you have to pay market rates.

Thats just the way it is.

Another image from Midjourney

Trump and Judge Cannon Celebrate Courtesy of MidJourney and AI

 
Trump & Judge Cannon celebrate their great victory over justice and the hoax they have played on the American Public.    So much of the detail here seems to be "out of nowhere". 

The prompt was probably something like: "A room of corrupt politicians and a woman judge celebrate their victory over justice at a dinner party where a pig has been slaughtered and roasted with an apple in its mouth.  The politicians are dressed as clowns.  --ar 16:9"

Alternates:

Is the NY Times is a Right Wing Front Organization?

The NY Times is running a partisan campaign to attack Joe Biden and destroy the Democrats by creating the fiction that Joe Biden is too old to run.  Aside from being ageist, who gave the NY Times the right to decide who the Democrats will nominate to run for election?  They run their front page articles every damn day, an editorial masquerading as a news article.   

They run this same article, with small variations, every day.  

And of course the NY Times could not care less about reporting on Trump's 34 felony convictions, about how he is unqualified and dangerous as president, about how he will murder Ukraine, about how he has always been corrupt all these years in NY, about his racism, his sexism, his abuse of women.  No.  None of these things matter to the NY Times.  Nor does the NY Times care to report on the illegitimacy of the legal system which is failing to try Donald Trump for his crimes during the January 6 attack on our government.  Nor does the NY Times care one bit about the delays of the case in Florida.  Nor does the NY Times care about women bleeding out from miscarriages that the doctors and hospitals will not treat in a Red State.

I remember when SCOTUS threw the 2000 election to their right wing nut, W. Bush, which caused a trillion dollar war in Iraq and put Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court.   Not one word of protest from this right-wing rag.  From the day the SCOTUS pissed on the constitution in public, not one word was said about the illegitimacy of the W. Bush administration, its wars, or its judiciary.

There are several mysteries here.  Why do people continue to think and to say that the NY Times is in some way a bastion of progressive thought, the primary outlet for the so called "liberal media"?  That is as obviously false as saying that the Jews control the media, a joke if I ever heard one.  The second mystery is why are they doing this?  Who is telling them to do this?  Well one obvious suspect is that it is the elites of Wall Street and possibly just the elites who run our government, or think they do.  I have heard that Wall Street is all in support of Trump, just like Silicon Valley hates Biden for daring to talk about regulating AI.  

I dont think I know why the NY Times wants to destroy Biden.  I am certainly cancelling my subscription and I am sure the NY Times will not care that I do so, not even a little bit.

A Midjourney impression of unused newspaper printing machinery

Possible Solution to Supreme Court Ruling to Destroy the Homeless

Since the Supreme Court believes that we should destroy the homeless by denying them anywhere to go, but the Court also believes that it is unconstitutional to do anything to regulate firearms, why not put the two policies together and give AR-15s to the homeless and allow them to defend themselves?

Image by MidJourney

Fan Art for "Earthly Pleasures"

 
Jill Fraser's new album, Earthly Pleasures, is loosely based on the music of 19th century hymns.  As a fan, I contribute the following fan art, based on the idea of an angel and worshippers.  The angel is wearing a silver bathing suit and carries a whip.

There are some very entertaining things that were mostly unintentional in some of these pictures.  Notice how the groveling worshippers seem to be in pain.  Is that because I said the angel was carrying a whip?

On Valerio Street, They Wait for a Customer

 
God forbid, LA or Van Nuys would do anything to help the women who hook for a living on a cold night.  Maybe a coffee shop where they can wait in warmth and have their customers vetted for VD and other issues.  No, not in LA, LA doesn't give a fuck.

Pictures courtesy of MidJourney

Knight's Templar and my Friend Speer

 Not everyone who is a right wing Trump supporter is a nut, but Steve Speer sure is.  Stay away from him is my advice.

This is an image of the Knight's Templar courtesy of Midjourney.  That was our topic of discussion.

Drone and Child in Graveyard

 
I tried to get Midjourney to create a picture of a drone using facial recognition on a statue of a child in a graveyard.  I spent very little time on it and I did not get what I wanted.  Still for the amount of time I spent it is not too bad, I think.